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Author Topic:   War and Morality. Al Qaeda v USA
Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2520 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 102 of 175 (621855)
06-29-2011 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by frako
06-29-2011 6:58 AM


Re: Soft Targets vs Terrorism
Curious, would you build some sort of camp to "euthanise" prisoners of war, people running from their country, the people left in a city you captured.
Or would you just order the troops to shoot them on sight and leave their bodies to rot?
There are no prisoners of war, no people running, no people left.
Total war means they are fighting back.
Now, maybe the Japanese were wrong in their boasts about what the resistance would be like, maybe they weren't. We elected not to call their bluff.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by frako, posted 06-29-2011 6:58 AM frako has not replied

  
Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2520 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 108 of 175 (621897)
06-29-2011 1:33 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by onifre
06-29-2011 12:29 PM


Re: Soft Targets vs Terrorism
Oh trust me, I see your point of view. And it is the same one shared, I'm assuming, by those who ok'd the dropping of those two bombs.
But it means, when you say that everyone becomes a soldier, that you hold no regard for human rights or care about the civilian casualties. I get that you decided to label them something else, but that in and of itself is the point where you disregard them as civilians and disregard their individual human rights. Surely you see that, right?
Nope. You are trying to paint every conflict and every people with the same brush.
The situation in Imperial Japan was a very specific one. They were fighting for a God-King. They were resisting to the last man on each and every island we had to take.
Given their behavior, there's no reason to suddenly assume they were *** about what it would be like trying to take mainland Japan.
We dropped two bombs instead of thousands.
Had we had to go door to door, like the Japanese were TELLING US we would have to do, it would have been a far more brutal affair.
The goal of war is to break the spirit of your opponent so they will surrender.
Japan was losing the war - BIG TIME - and yet their spirit was unbroken. They were flying planes into ships. They didn't care at all if they lived or died, so long as they killed us in the process.
It's fun to sit and whine about how unfair it was for us to drop those bombs, but if you were on a boat chugging across the Pacific, ready to be the first wave of men onto Okinawa, knowing full well that you were likely to die simply because the enemy was too prideful to admit defeat, I suspect you would be singing a different tune.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by onifre, posted 06-29-2011 12:29 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by fearandloathing, posted 06-29-2011 1:53 PM Nuggin has not replied
 Message 110 by onifre, posted 06-29-2011 2:38 PM Nuggin has replied
 Message 119 by dronestar, posted 06-29-2011 4:47 PM Nuggin has replied
 Message 122 by frako, posted 06-29-2011 5:18 PM Nuggin has not replied

  
Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2520 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 112 of 175 (621912)
06-29-2011 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by onifre
06-29-2011 2:38 PM


Re: Soft Targets vs Terrorism
I'm pointing to the fact that a country that drops two bombs like that killing 200,000-250,000 civilians, cannot be considered a country that holds high regards for individual human rights and civilian casualties.
First off, who gives a crap if people think we're moral or not. The rest of the world bitches endlessly about America while accepting charity from us.
There's literally no action or inaction that America can take that will make the Arabs like us.
If we get involved in Libya, we're interfering.
If we don't get involved in Libya, we're turning a blind eye.
If we give Egypt a BILLION dollars in aid, it's not enough.
If we give Israel a BILLION dollars in aid, it's too much.
If we're going to be accused of evil despite spending hundreds of trillions of dollars on weapons designed to reduce civilian casualities, despite literally going in and upgrading a country's infrastructure while ours collapses, despite giving aid to virtually every country on the planet -- then I say "fuck it, let's take off the kid gloves and give them something to really bitch about".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by onifre, posted 06-29-2011 2:38 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by onifre, posted 06-29-2011 3:16 PM Nuggin has not replied

  
Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2520 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 120 of 175 (621943)
06-29-2011 5:05 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by dronestar
06-29-2011 4:47 PM


Re: Soft Targets vs Terrorism
America is mean
You're free to leave. There are boards both north and south

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by dronestar, posted 06-29-2011 4:47 PM dronestar has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 123 by jar, posted 06-29-2011 5:29 PM Nuggin has not replied

  
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