Re: Happy Hiroshima Day!
Posted: 06 Aug 2015, 8:47am
Silent Majority wrote:Medulla take your hippy "not nuking women and children" bullshit outta here.
Silent Majority wrote:Medulla take your hippy "not nuking women and children" bullshit outta here.
It's pretty well covered in the earlier pages of this thread. As well as the article I just posted.biopunk wrote:So how would you have ended the war, oh great source of wisdom and moral superiority?
I can see neither Neil's or James' position for their morally superior, hypothetical, non-nuclear outcome to WW2 in this thread.matedog wrote:It's pretty well covered in the earlier pages of this thread. As well as the article I just posted.biopunk wrote:So how would you have ended the war, oh great source of wisdom and moral superiority?
You don't sound terribly open to opinions that differ from your own, but I'll play along:biopunk wrote:I can see neither Neil's or James' position for their morally superior, hypothetical, non-nuclear outcome to WW2 in this thread.matedog wrote:It's pretty well covered in the earlier pages of this thread. As well as the article I just posted.biopunk wrote:So how would you have ended the war, oh great source of wisdom and moral superiority?
Care to quote those out, matedog?
etc.In fact, six of the seven five-star generals and admirals of that time believed that there was no reason to use them, that the Japanese were already defeated, knew it, and were likely to surrender before any American invasion could be launched.
Actually, leaving my pacifism aside and going devil's advocate, that's in the realm of what I find the more persuasive defence (persuasive being a very relative measure). That is, in the 20th century, the expansion of capitalism and the state has been so great, so penetrating, that everyone is now a resource, interchangeable and deployable, for the state's war-making power and therefore a legitimate target for a wartime enemy. Like it or not, we all play a function for the modern state on multiple levels, including its capacity to conduct war. Killing civilians can directly hinder a nation's ability to make war because every death is one less resource to be used to supply the military. But if you go down that route, you can't be outraged by enemy attacks on our own civilians. You accept that you're a legitimate target. And you open the door to the legitimacy of the Holocaust—the state has the right to eliminate all perceived enemies, regardless of whether they are overtly militarized.Silent Majority wrote:It might have even come up in the original thread, but if you feel like non-combatants should be eviscerated because of the actions of their governments, then you've got a lot in common with the people behind 9/11.
But then it's so much harder for the West to go on calling themselves the good guys with straight faces.Dr. Medulla wrote:Actually, leaving my pacifism aside and going devil's advocate, that's in the realm of what I find the more persuasive defence (persuasive being a very relative measure). That is, in the 20th century, the expansion of capitalism and the state has been so great, so penetrating, that everyone is now a resource, interchangeable and deployable, for the state's war-making power and therefore a legitimate target for a wartime enemy. Like it or not, we all play a function for the modern state on multiple levels, including its capacity to conduct war. Killing civilians can directly hinder a nation's ability to make war because every death is one less resource to be used to supply the military. But if you go down that route, you can't be outraged by enemy attacks on our own civilians. You accept that you're a legitimate target. And you open the door to the legitimacy of the Holocaust—the state has the right to eliminate all perceived enemies, regardless of whether they are overtly militarized.Silent Majority wrote:It might have even come up in the original thread, but if you feel like non-combatants should be eviscerated because of the actions of their governments, then you've got a lot in common with the people behind 9/11.
Bingo. It's an admission that there should be no such thing as war crimes because any act that contributes to victory must be just.Silent Majority wrote:But then it's so much harder for the West to go on calling themselves the good guys with straight faces.Dr. Medulla wrote:Actually, leaving my pacifism aside and going devil's advocate, that's in the realm of what I find the more persuasive defence (persuasive being a very relative measure). That is, in the 20th century, the expansion of capitalism and the state has been so great, so penetrating, that everyone is now a resource, interchangeable and deployable, for the state's war-making power and therefore a legitimate target for a wartime enemy. Like it or not, we all play a function for the modern state on multiple levels, including its capacity to conduct war. Killing civilians can directly hinder a nation's ability to make war because every death is one less resource to be used to supply the military. But if you go down that route, you can't be outraged by enemy attacks on our own civilians. You accept that you're a legitimate target. And you open the door to the legitimacy of the Holocaust—the state has the right to eliminate all perceived enemies, regardless of whether they are overtly militarized.Silent Majority wrote:It might have even come up in the original thread, but if you feel like non-combatants should be eviscerated because of the actions of their governments, then you've got a lot in common with the people behind 9/11.
But not really, though. It was more of a science fiction unthinkable fiery madhouse.101Walterton wrote:that was how wars were fought at that time.
Just a bigger bomb. The only difference today is that they can guide the bombs to targets (sometimes accurately) instead of dropping 100 and hoping 1 hits the target.Silent Majority wrote:But not really, though. It was more of a science fiction unthinkable fiery madhouse.101Walterton wrote:that was how wars were fought at that time.
Hypothetical but not entirely far-fetched because we know the Nazis were also seeking to build a nuclear weapon: Would your grandmother have believed the Germans nuking London to end the war would have been justified?101Walterton wrote:I'm sure if you asked my Nan, who spent night after night in a bomb shelter in the back with her 2 children not knowing if they would be blown to pieces, she would say it was justified.
Yes I know my time lines ,my point being Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened in Germany and England every night, just on smaller scale. And no that doesn't make it OK either but that was how wars were fought at that time.
I agree. I only used my Nan to emphasise that what the allies and Germans had been doing in Europe was no different. If Germany or Japan had had dropped the bomb I wouldn't consider it any more or less evil.Dr. Medulla wrote:Hypothetical but not entirely far-fetched because we know the Nazis were also seeking to build a nuclear weapon: Would your grandmother have believed the Germans nuking London to end the war would have been justified?101Walterton wrote:I'm sure if you asked my Nan, who spent night after night in a bomb shelter in the back with her 2 children not knowing if they would be blown to pieces, she would say it was justified.
Yes I know my time lines ,my point being Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened in Germany and England every night, just on smaller scale. And no that doesn't make it OK either but that was how wars were fought at that time.
You're not wrong at all about how World War II was fought—in terms of carnage, the raids on Dresden and Tokyo were even worse—but the larger point that is being made here is that our historical memory of World War II makes key moral distinctions between what the Axis powers did and what the Allies did. But when judging the morality of an act, knowing the identities of the actors shouldn't matter. We're concerned with the action. If it was moral for the Americans to end the war by using nuclear weapons, then it would be moral for the Germans to do the same, no? If that conclusion is problematic, then it suggests that one's position is based more on tribalism—what my team does is good and what that team does is bad. Plenty of people subscribe to that position, but it's entirely unstable, subject to the whims of those in power.