It’s not wrong. It’s just lame.
[quote=“Brainspore, post:60, topic:15869”]
How many of the burned, irradiated women and children in either of those cities bore any responsibility for the rape of Nanking? [/quote]
Directly, none. Indirectly they are part of the culture that permitted and encouraged systematic atrocities. I also don’t give a free pass to the Germans who saw the smoke from death camps and thought they just liked baking a lot of bread.
Yeah, and Japan sucker punched us.
Two evils? LOL. They attacked us. So we should just take our lumps and turn the other cheek? Both cities had military targets. Traditional bombing missions were messy and inaccurate; civilian casualties are a given when you build stuff near civilians. So would a month long bombing campaign have been “less evil”? It’s ok to fight back, just don’t fight back too much?
The difference between 9/11 and the end of WWII, is one was terrorism aimed at attacking civilian targets, and one was part of war where civilians weren’t targeted directly, but were too close to military targets.
Spaghetti-o’s tasteless? Well, Francisco Franco is still dead.
It’s one thing to accept civilian deaths as the unavoidable collateral damage of a military action, but once you cross a line like “I have zero sympathy for innocent children who happen to have been born into my enemies’ culture” you’ve just embarked down a very dark path indeed.
4 Likes
I’m going to preface this by saying I’m stupid and an unapologetic drunk, so I may be missing something.
-
How likely was it that the the average Japanese citizen knew about any atrocities being committed by their soldiers in another country? I’m assuming the Japanese press wasn’t reporting that type of thing. Were they supposed to have some sort of “cultural” sixth sense?
-
Since WW2, how often have we declared war before attacking another country? We invaded Iraq under false pretenses after 911; isn’t that the same? We’ve taken action many times against other countries without a formal declaration of war because we felt it necessary.
-
If Iraq, post 911, had the ability to nuke/firebomb us and did so, would you feel it was justified?
Again my reasoning may be faulty because whiskey.
2 Likes
I guess I’m not heartless enough to say I have zero sympathy for dead kids etc. More like I find the actions justified and wouldn’t feel guilty over it, which requires a certain lack of empathy. There are times when I’m pessimistic and agree with George Carlin’s bit on “Sanctity of Life” (we made the whole thing up as self interest). I don’t have the attitude of “Good, I’m glad they are dead.”
War is hell. You have to lose some of your humanity to participate. So I don’t hold people’s actions in war in the same light I would you or I just walking around. I’m also not one to tear at my breast and gnash my my teeth over it. Some times “bad” things have to be done.
-
A fair question. Probably little to none, but the culture of conflict between Japan and China is a long one. They weren’t losing any sleep over dead Chinese in Japan and they treated each other like shit. I’m not “glad” or think the civilians “deserved” to be killed. I just find it a justifiable action.
-
Maybe you can count the Bay of Pigs as a surprise attack. We have had military actions without declarations of war, but I believe they were all voted on. Anyone with CNN could see that an attack was near. I could be wrong about that. But no, I don’t think invading Iraq on shitty intelligence is anywhere near the same thing. Saddam knew we were coming and had troops in defensive positions.
-
Some place like Ft Benning or a base in UAE, yes. Downtown Chicago would be fine too. Targeting a civilian target exclusively, no.
I’d also like to point out that in the last 20 years or so we have tried to avoid civilian casualties more than anyone else ever has. We spend tons on smart bombs so we can do a pin point strike and not destroy surrounding buildings. ROE is so conservative that we have some dead soldiers from people not getting air or artillery support when needed because of civilians in the area. By contrast, even with out the heavy fire power, the Taliban is liable for 80% of civilian casualties in the last year (or maybe that was 2012).
The fact I found most interesting about Pearl Harbor was that among the surviving ships was the USS Phoenix.
That ship wasn’t sank until 1982, by which time it had been renamed the ARA General Belgrano.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
