From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 02:06:16 MDT
Avatar P. writes
> It is inconceivable that bombing missions on civilian areas of Berlin, for
> example, could be anything other than bombing of civilians.
Weren't they (the Brits) bombing at night? How would they know?
Besides, is it always clear exactly where in a city the factories
are?
> The concept that bombing of defenseless civilians (i.e. civilians not
> holding arms) is in fact somehow 'Instilling terror' is 1984 doublespeak.
> Yes, war crimes 'instill terror'. War crimes also exact revenge. They also
> kill large numbers of the enemy nation. From memory the German dead (mostly
> civilians?) from Allied bombing were 200,000.
Sorry, I don't follow. We rightly call "terrorists" those who
instill terror, and it's very unfashionable to be a terrorist.
What are you getting at here? I thought that you would like
that. (Then you turn around and admit that war crimes "instill
terror". Why the scare quotes? Sorry. Just a semantic/termin-
ological point I need and want clarification of.)
> I really don't think you can say 'We tried to prevent a bigger genocide with
> our war crimes.' Unless you think the ends justify the means.
Sometimes the end justifies the means. Hurting people is bad.
But sometimes it's justified if it scares other people away
from hurting even more people, or it teaches someone a lesson.
Killing is wrong. But sometimes you kill to save lives. Bah,
I speak baby talk.
> Lee: "I agree that unnecessary killing is unnecessary, and therefore wrong.
> But I am also growing weary of those who appear to think that it's perfectly
> all right for seventeen year old boys to die by the thousands, because "they
> signed up for it" or some equally stupid reasoning. War is not a game that
> makes it okay for some people to die and not others. Every single death is a
> terrible tragedy, and the deaths of millions is a statistic (which shows you
> the true horror in statistics) and a wise but ruthless 20th century despot
> once pointed out."
>
> This is all true. As an immortalist I am working against non-consensual
> death, as Damien is and most of us. I agree all lives are equally valuable.
> It is sad that they were often short in the past. I think Frank Tipler has
> the right approach, which is "fix up what you can as best you can in
> context" and since this universe has an underlying physical substructure,
> fix it up physically if you can.
Good, we agree on all that. (And it's important to reiterate from
time to time.)
> As far as Churchill goes, the historical reality is that (unlike WWI) the vast
> majority of suffering was experienced by the Russian and Soviet people,
> first by Stalin (and in an ongoing fashion into the 1950s) and then by
> Hitler. In the German retreat through the Soviet Union they killed 18
> million people.
Yes, and I understand that it was mostly Goering's doing. But
what's the relevance? I'm saying that civilian bombing that
takes 10,000 lives is as bad as a battle where 10,000 soldiers
die. You appear to agree with that. Okay, then *if* it shortened
the war and *saved* lives, civilian bombing would be a good thing.
(I quickly remark that those are two big "ifs".) But since you
know what the word "if" means, wouldn't you agree?
> I disagree. Call me medieval but I think that troops are at risk in war and
> defenseless civilians should never be targets. For example, I would never
> destroy enemy cities in an atomic war simple to kill their civilians for
> whatever reason. I consider this a war crime. Shortening a war through a war
> crime is not acceptable to me. If blood must be shed for liberty, it must
> not be the blood of defenseless, unarmed civilians.
Above you agreed that all lives were equally valuable. So which
is it? Is the life of a seventeen year old German draft dodger
more valuable than the life of a seventeen year old draftee; is
it "okay" to kill the latter but not the former?
You should not consider the atomic bombing of cities or nations
to be a war crime until you have evaluated the costs of the
alternatives. I think that it was Mike Lorrey who pointed out
that in 20th century war, you probably had to kill a lot of
"innocents" (grrr... that still makes me mad... soldiers are
people too!) in order to win.
The gravest problem in your approach is that you cheapen the
concept of "war crime". By calling too many unfortunate
things "war crimes" you diminish the utility of the accusation.
(The same is true of the over-used term "genocide".) So not
only for linguistic accuracy, but also for future deterrence,
we shouldn't lump together too many things as "war crimes".
(Note that the concept didn't exist until the 20th century,
when NewSpeak became fashionably prevalent everywhere,
despite the absence of any restraint during war in most
previous centuries.)
Lee
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