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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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Often times, people will describe World War 2, for example, as a good war, or a moral war.
My question is this. Can any war be described as good or moral, and in what circumstances?
I would say that the only war that could be considered good and moral is a war of absolute self defense, that does not include a draft (although I don't mean to turn this into a draft thread, but that is an important part of my answer).
What do you think? Can offensive/preventive wars ever be moral? Is it OK to fight in the defense of others?
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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A valid point. That's how the Dresden bombing, firebombings of Germany and Japan, and the atomic bombings are justified, anyway, and most people accept those justifications.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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The point is, explain what a "good cause" is, because other than self defense, I can't necessarily think of one.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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Objectively, perhaps so, but look at the methods used:
1)Conscription
2)Mass area bombing of civilians for the purpose of terror
3)Mass firebombing of civilians for the purpose of terror
4)In the case of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of cases of rape and murder of civilians (with much lower numbers of cases involving the Western Allies
And that's just for starters, but I think you can see my point - the particulars complicate the issue.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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Maybe, but if those methods had been off the table, do you think we still would have fought? Faced with the prospect of using an all-volunteer army, and absolutely no ability to intentionally terror bomb civilians, we would not willingly have gone to war. If we had, it would have been in response to an attack.
Now, Germany did declare war first - but let's face it, we were unofficially at war for months prior.
If we had simply declared war on Nazi Germany with no provocation, that would not have been moral. Even if doing so to stop the Holocaust would be an excuse (which I don't necessarily accept), bringing up that point is silly, because at the time no one knew about it, and if, 10 years later we had known about it, it would have been too late to stop it. Either way, if the existence of a Holocaust would be enough to trigger a moral crusade, then you can't use that as an argument for the morality of fighting the Germans, because we didn't know about it at the time nor did we have any way of finding out about it until we actually occupied the death camps, which couldn't happen until we were already at war.
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Lord Nuclear
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quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
Maybe, but if those methods had been off the table, do you think we still would have fought? Faced with the prospect of using an all-volunteer army, and absolutely no ability to intentionally terror bomb civilians, we would not willingly have gone to war. If we had, it would have been in response to an attack. |
Yes, I could see that starting a draft was necessary, but what result did the firebombing of Dresden have? I couldn't imagine that it actually resulted in something that changed the outcome of the war.
quote:
Now, Germany did declare war first - but let's face it, we were unofficially at war for months prior.
If we had simply declared war on Nazi Germany with no provocation, that would not have been moral. Even if doing so to stop the Holocaust would be an excuse (which I don't necessarily accept), bringing up that point is silly, because at the time no one knew about it, and if, 10 years later we had known about it, it would have been too late to stop it. Either way, if the existence of a Holocaust would be enough to trigger a moral crusade, then you can't use that as an argument for the morality of fighting the Germans, because we didn't know about it at the time nor did we have any way of finding out about it until we actually occupied the death camps, which couldn't happen until we were already at war. |
Well, we did know that the Axis were fascists, and that they were attacking our allies. I think that attacking the fascists that are trying to bring down your democratic allies, is far from immoral.
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MrFun
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of Iowa
Nov 2000
time: 23:34
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There really are three wars that without question, I believe to have been justified:
American Revolutionary War
American Civil War
World War II
EDIT: I suppose I will include the Korean War way at the bottom of this short list.
Last edited by MrFun on 10-06-2005 at 10:36
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DerSchwarzfalke
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War is a great contradiction. There are moral wars to be fought because there is immorality everywhere that spreads its immorality with violence. However, there is no such thing as a moral way to fight a war. Every war involves organized killing, all of it painful in millions of ways, much of it more atrocious than "accepted standards." All war is crime. Like crime, the best we can do is limit it, ameliorate its effects, allow some generations to live as much as possible a life free of war.
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DerSchwarzfalke
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And without Slaughterhouse Five, we would never have become morally indignant about the firebombing. It all becomes circular.
I love Slaughterhouse Five and Vonnegut, but I think even Vonnegut would agree that the world would be a better place without the events that formed the core of Slaughterhouse ever having had to occur.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:34
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quote:
Originally posted by DerSchwarzfalke
And without Slaughterhouse Five, we would never have become morally indignant about the firebombing. It all becomes circular.
I love Slaughterhouse Five and Vonnegut, but I think even Vonnegut would agree that the world would be a better place without the events that formed the core of Slaughterhouse ever having had to occur. |
Not necessarily true.
There were opponents of firebombing or mass area bombing in WWII on the Allied side, even in the British Parliament.
Having seen a recent interview with Kurt Vonnegut on BBC 2's 'The Culture Show' it was interesting to note that he referred to figures of casualties concocted by Goebbels and 'enhanced' by right-wing apologist David Irving.
I recommend that instead of relying on Vonnegut's memories of his personal experience for a reliable guide to how many were killed, people read :
'Telling Lies About Hitler' by Richard J Evans, which has a fascinating chapter on Irving's (and the Nazis' and later the East Germans') fabrication of the death toll figures.
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bull...A256C0E0017C1A6
This isn't denying the validity of Vonnegut's experience, but as we've seen so often in the past, personal trauma clouds or colours factual accounts. No-one would rely on the memoirs of a London Blitz survivor to get an accurate account of how many died.
The legality aspect:
" In examining these events [aerial area bombardment] in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the Conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_b...nal_law_in_1945
Dresden was also a legitimate military target:
" The second part is in reference to whether Dresden was an militarily significant industrial centre. An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich" and in 1944, the German Army High Command's Weapons Office listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops which supplied the army with materiel.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory, both of which, according to the Allies, were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights. The immediate suburbs contained factories building radar and electronics components, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters.
Because of this concentration of industry, made even more important by the relatively undamaged nature of Dresden at the time of the raids, the allied planners had reason to believe that Dresden was a crucial prop in the German effort to maintain supply for the defense of Germany itself. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Bombi... />
fAirWarfare
When faced with the prospect of combatting a regime which terrorized its own citizens and resorted without question to bombing of targets such as Rotterdam and Warsaw (and practiced for it at Guernica), the British did at first rely on leaflet drops.
However, when the question becomes ' will you bomb German cities or have your own islands reduced to rubble and your population killed ?', bombs will win over leaflets.
I'd also recommend this interview with Frederick Taylor from 'Der Spiegel' :
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/int...,341239,00.html
Taylor is author of:
'Dresden: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1945' publ. HarperCollins, 2004.
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10-06-2005 09:30
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