King's Indian

Hello, again, Vorkosigan.

Thank you for the kind words, although it probably only appears as you say because you've thought about this for longer.

As for your point about the Japanese government's refusal to accept its failures: put like that, I can see its force.

The political judgments of ruling elites, in my opinion, do have a moral component, but of very narrow scope. That is, it considers the good done, or the well-being, only of its own members. This, it seems to me, more often than not boils down to the maintenance, or extension of their power. The wider approach to morality is probably better left in the hands of chaps like us.
The Japanese Govt. may be a case in point. The decision to fight on to the point of futility will not benefit its opponents, certainly, and neither will it be to the good of the people fighting under its instruction, be they ever so willing; the outcome will not change, and the prospect of USG's success has some way to go before it can be considered worse than such brutalities as the Death Railway, or the forced employment of prostitutes, or even the Kamikaze, whatever its own moral failings. The decision not to capitulate only seems to benefit Japan's Govt. solely, and even then on very short-term considerations. I leave such thoughts as "It is better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees" to one side, being happy with the answer the old man gave Nateley in Catch-22.

Not sure I'm right, but it does seem a thinkable approach to the problem. As I'm more than happy with your answers, I'll leave it here. Besides, I'll be busy somewhat catching up on my Weintraubing. I'll look forward to sharing my thoughts with you again. 'Til then,
Take care,
KI.

PS First we run away with the 5-Nations, and I've still got the baseball to look forward to. Good. It will be a rest after the unpleasant facts we've been considering.

Arbogast

It would have been better if every single German were exterminated ruthlessly if the alternative was to allow Hitler to dominate Planet Earth.

Some things are Black and White, Simple and Clear Cut.

You ought to talk with some of Hitlers victims while they are still alive if you have any doubts.

The Germans would have had no right whatsoever to complain if America had dropped 100 atom bombs on their cities and towns.


The Japanese were no better, and also got exactly what they deserved.

What Curtis LeMay stood for after WW2 was reprehensible. But, he is one of the all time heroes of the 20th century, and even the people alive in Germany today owe him a debt of gratitude for freeing them from a living hell.

Vorkosigan

The Japanese were no better, and also got exactly what they deserved.

<whew> Arbo, war is too terrible and death too final to say that anyone "deserves" it.

Vorkosigan

phaedrus

hey vork,

nice and long post, and "nice" tone too i observe....tied up with work...will converse with you soon.

jp

Henry Stimson
P.M.S. Blackett
Thomas Schelling
Barton Bernstein

Arbogast

NO
Some social systems based on Dictatorships become so sick and twisted, such a threat to the human species, they need to be destroyed at any cost.

This world would be a living hell if Hitler and Hirohito had won.

We'll stick to the Germans. the Germans chose (as a group, some individuals didnt deserve it), to start a war killing tens of millions.

If Hitler would have won, a new and unprecedented Dark Age would have descended over the planet.

Jews would all be gone, probably so most of the Slavs, Middle Easterners, Africans. Hitlers Third Reich would have been horrible beyond comprehension.


The German people behaved with unprovoked savagery on all of mankind. They have no right to complain, when in self defense their enemies used the tactics the Nazis taught them, and reduced Germany to rubble and piles of corpses. The Nazis were human garbage, the German people are fine now, but when the German people suited up as Nazis, they were garbage and needed to be thrown in the trash.

Curtis Lemay http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/lemay_ce.html is a hero of mankind. There is no telling how much misery he stopped by butchering Germans.

Lets not forget another hero, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris.


Forget the tears for the Germans after what they did to people.

What the Germans did was ugly, there was no pretty or civilized way to stop the savagery.


It is perverted to even suggest that what America or Britain did had any moral equivalence to what the Germans did.


PS. While we are listing heros of the human race, lets not forget to thank Marshal Zhukov. http://www.cossackweb.com/ww2/zhukov.htm
Thankfully and mercifully, he butchered alot of Germans also.

Arbogast

As to the should they/ shouldnt they drop Atom Bombs on Japan.

The Japanese Government was an evil and treacherous threat to the human race. The rain of ruin needed to continue until the Japanese put down their weapons unconditionally, or until Japan was a smoking crater. If the Japanese wanted the bombing to stop, all they had to do was put the Emporer on the radio, and tell the Japanese Armed Forces to surrender. Not a real complex issue.

It is not always the case, but in WW2, the decent nations were more powerful, and right did prevail.

Enai

You forget one thing with your broad brush: Hitler's first victims were germans. The jewish people slaughtered first were german, like the gypsies, homosexuals and the political prisoners. No amount of shouting and bellowing by a certain guy with a moustache can ever change that.

And another thing you forget: What about the innocent? Yes, they did exist, though being a minority. I don't subscribe to beliefs of collective guilt. It only absolves the perpetrators and non-helping bystanders of their guilt while shifting blame onto the innocent. One must never be indiscriminate, lest one become like the very people you (and I) so abhor!

the_cave

Darn it! My original reply had a lengthy description of the undemocratic forces which a) put Hitler in power and b) forced the Enabling Act through the Reichstag...now it's somehow gone...been having problems posting to this board in the last week. Well, you'll just have to take my word for it, and I'll be hapy to try and duplicate my efforts for anyone who asks.

What I'm protesting is your equivalence between the German people and the Nazi state (and the Japanese people and the Hirohito regime, as well.) The Nazi state was totalitarian, and manifestly undemocratic. It certainly needed to be destroyed. But it was not the same thing as the German people.

Yes, absolutely. Thank god our side won.

But that's just it--they didn't choose as a group. The state chose for them.

Again, I agree.

Yes. I am very, very glad our side won the war. My question is merely one of methods--it's really simply a question of military ethics.

Again, agreed, so far as I can tell, the Nazis were the first to bomb civilian populations, and certainly suffered no more (and perhaps often far less) than the peoples they persecuted and murdered. But it wasn't the "German people" who suited up as Nazis. The Nazis were the ones suiting them up. They may have been complacent, fitfully anti-Semitic, deliberately naive, willfully blind, and obedient and cowardly sheep, but the conduct of the war wasn't their idea.

Again, it's the equivocation of "the Germans" with the actions of the Nazi regime that unnerves me. No doubt many, many, many Germans did in fact willingly comply with the regime, and thus became a part of it. But I just can't identify the people as a whole with the regime, for the simple reason that it was totalitarian.

Right on both counts.

I am not saying they are morally equivalent--I am saying that certain degrees of their actions may have had a moral equivalence (or not.) Surely atrocities can be committed in the name of justice from time to time?

It's funny--I actually find myself supporting the use of the A-bomb, but not, for example, the firebombing of Japan. I'll have to think about my peculiar reasons for this.

Amen-Moses

Can you possibly give me one example of a war for which this is not also true?

Amen-Moses

Giorgia

Dear Cave:

If I understand your OP correctly, you are trying to find out if the reasons for the current bombing of Baghdad are morally equivalent to the bombing of cities which went on in WWII?

I hope my comment isn't off topic: Will not the outside world, especially the Arab part, see the US bombing in Iraq as proof of the immorality of the US invasion, regardless of whether this war succeeds in toppling a vicious dictator?

And, given that terrorists already view themselves as being morally superior to Americans, Israelis, etc., is there not a possibility that bombing Iraq will eventually lead to greater loss of life, if one factors in the sure-to-follow increase in terrorist attacks?