~Corsair#01~
Deity
Boleslav said:
That's just ridiculous- bombing was VERY inaccurate back then, and usually simply resulted in murdered vast numbers of civilians with no real damage to enemy industry.
Dresden- Justified or Not?
- Thread starter General Brown
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That's just ridiculous- bombing was VERY inaccurate back then, and usually simply resulted in murdered vast numbers of civilians with no real damage to enemy industry.
Zardnaar
Deity
The best comparison I can make with bombing a specific factory in WW2is put a coke can at the bottom of a large cliff and see if you can hit it throwing stones at it. You'll miss alot. In total war there is no right or wrong only opinion and enemy civilians were a legitimate target in 1940's morality.
Dragonlord said:I can understand people arguing this way about WWII, but about war generally..
So, it's still OK today? Is that what you're saying?
By that reasoning, any massacres of civilians would be excusable - Bosnians by Serbs, Tutsies by Hutus, 9/11... all excusable, because they're 'the enemy', right?
Aggressive warfare is not oK. The US invading Iraq is not ok, and every person we kill over there is a "war crime" because the war is unjustified. IN other words, I believe the kidnappings, beheadings, car bombings etc. are justified.
Response to attack, however, should be as swift, as deadly, and as punishing as possible.
But I did not know this thread was about whether the United States entering WW II was just.... I thought it was about the bombing of Dresden. It is my opinion that if the war is just.... ALL TACTICS are just.
Every single American that died in WW II should not have had to... worse, they were all soldiers, who marched towards the fear and death, and a hero in their own right. Same with every Frenchman, Russian, Brit, Ethiopian etc....
millions of them were murdered by war worshiping empires. These evil empire's back had to be broken, by any means necessary.
War is total. It is not a game, it is not a trial, it is a life and death struggle. In war, one must live and one must die. And when attacked, I don't see how anyone can question the response.
Say a guy named holds a knife to your throat. Do you kick him in the testicles or not? Of course it is low, but rules be damned, he held a knife to your throat. Say you are walking down the street, and someone punches you upside the head. You may be unwise, and try to hit back. Me? I look for a large rock and cave his cranium, so he cannot get up. Why fight fair when they are the aggressor? They are the ones who brought unneeded violence to the conflict.
rilnator
Emperor
Boleslav said:
The website agrees with you does it? Don't you mean you agree with the website?
The above quote sounds like B grade propaganda from some 1940s newsreel to me. Does the site define what the 'target' was? Coz if it was the city of Dresden in general it wouldn't be to hard to acheive accuracy.
Adler17
Prussian Feldmarschall
While US bombers for the most time of the war tried to bomb only industrial targets and the civilians were in no way a primary target, the British bombed to terrorize the population. Industrial targets were only secondary ones. So the lack of precision was in that way not so important. They bombed simply the whole town/ city. The British wanted to destroy Dresden. And that´s a crime.
Adler
Adler
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
Neomega said:
This is where we disagree. I'll just quote my own post on the Holocaust Denial thread just now, which fits here as well:
'It all comes down to whether you believe in personal or collective responsibility.
If collective responsibility,then of course every German was to blame for any other Germans actions and deserved all they got.. Of course, this line of reasoning is right on the path to racism and extremism. Bin Laden no doubt justifies his actions against the US in exactly this manner.
Personally, I believe any person should be judged solely by his/her own actions, not those of others of his own nationality, race or religion'
To use your analogy: if a guy holds a knife to your throat, kick him in the balls by all means! I'd do the same...
If, on the other hand, he isn't using a knife but throwing rocks at you and is hiding in a crowd of civilians, you are not justified in using a flamethrower to wipe them all out just to get at him.
The question of Dresden all boils down IMO to whether the Allies were trying to hit military and industrial targets and the civilians were 'collateral damage', as in some other bombings, or whether killing as many civilians as possible to terrorize the survivors was the object, and destroying military/industrial resources was secondary.
If the first, it's justifieable, if the second, no way!
Edit: Also, I don't care for the argument that in a 'just' war all tactics are just. Every side in a war always believes it's own side 'just'. This kind of argument leads directly to war crimes.
Mega Tsunami
Emperor
Dragonlord said:
By rocks you mean bombs of course.
And he had, for no good reason, just killed your brother, mother etc.
And he was one of the most evil people the world has ever seen.
And after years of trying to kill him he refused to give in.
And the crowd he was hiding in was helping to make his bombs and feed him.
And by killing some of this crowd possibly saved many other lives by helping to bring the fight to an earlier end. etc etc
Is that justified?
This is a complete nonsense.
You declare the bombing of civilians for justified by declaring them helpers of Hitler or whatever.
Then again this argument, it possibly saved many other lives... rubbish. The bombing of Dresden had never ever the chance to save some lives anywhere.
The price you want to pay to shorten a war *possibly* - and it is and proved to be not to be possible at all with creating firestorms to kill whole cities! - is outrageous.
I consider killing all people thinking in this/your way, it is for the sake of humanity and ... only justifiable on the same way you are argumenting.
I also want to agree with Dragonlord:
"Also, I don't care for the argument that in a 'just' war all tactics are just. Every side in a war always believes it's own side 'just'. This kind of argument leads directly to war crimes."
"It all comes down to whether you believe in personal or collective responsibility.
If collective responsibility,then of course every German was to blame for any other Germans actions and deserved all they got.. Of course, this line of reasoning is right on the path to racism and extremism. Bin Laden no doubt justifies his actions against the US in exactly this manner."
I also read a bit about some persons that were rather keen to support the bombing of Dresden in this thread. Some lost relatives to nazi terror, this makes their motives more understandable.
But there are worse, their views what is justifiable in a war and their "reasons" are so condemnable that I did not reply anymore to this thread up to now.
You declare the bombing of civilians for justified by declaring them helpers of Hitler or whatever.
Then again this argument, it possibly saved many other lives... rubbish. The bombing of Dresden had never ever the chance to save some lives anywhere.
The price you want to pay to shorten a war *possibly* - and it is and proved to be not to be possible at all with creating firestorms to kill whole cities! - is outrageous.
I consider killing all people thinking in this/your way, it is for the sake of humanity and ... only justifiable on the same way you are argumenting.
I also want to agree with Dragonlord:
"Also, I don't care for the argument that in a 'just' war all tactics are just. Every side in a war always believes it's own side 'just'. This kind of argument leads directly to war crimes."
"It all comes down to whether you believe in personal or collective responsibility.
If collective responsibility,then of course every German was to blame for any other Germans actions and deserved all they got.. Of course, this line of reasoning is right on the path to racism and extremism. Bin Laden no doubt justifies his actions against the US in exactly this manner."
I also read a bit about some persons that were rather keen to support the bombing of Dresden in this thread. Some lost relatives to nazi terror, this makes their motives more understandable.
But there are worse, their views what is justifiable in a war and their "reasons" are so condemnable that I did not reply anymore to this thread up to now.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
Mega Tsunami said:
This is just the point where we differ - I don't believe in killing people indiscriminately just on the off chance it may help your war cause!
If you selectively destroy the war industry and this includes the civilians working in those factories - OK, I can understand that.
But you want to kill the baker because he's making bread that possibly may be eaten by a soldier? And the baker's wife because she makes his meals? And his little children for... I can't even think of a farfetched reason for this!
Obviously the analogy with the rock-thrower was flawed, I was just attempting to use his analogy.
As I pointed out, the question is whether or not the German war industry was the main objective or not - that would qualify as shortening the war. Killing just anybody on the off chance... no, sorry! No way!
Mega Tsunami
Emperor
Dragonlord said:
You have some good points. Please remember, we didnt even want to kill the man with the bombs/rocks, never mind about the people he is hiding behind! All we wanted was for the man with the bombs to stop fighting so we could all go home! Please understand that if nothing else.
We kept fighting and fighting hoping the Nazis would give in but they wouldnt. So we sent some bombers to make sure cities could not function as war-machine-making-cities. At Dresden far more bombers got through than the norm. Far more bombs hit their targets than the norm. And so the damage and death was far more than expected. This is deeply regrettable but we did not set out to kill that many civilians (although some were bound to die of course). Most of them should have been in their (admittedly non-existent) bunkers. If they had, the death toll would have been far, far less.
Dresden was a truly awful thing, a bombing raid that went far too well and if somehow, I could change history that the raid never happened, I would do it. But in the thick of all out war. I believe it was a fair military target and a reasonable thing to set out to do. (if only it hadnt gone so well)
Boleslav
... the cruel
rilnator said:
The website agrees with me because the context of the sentence in question is the debate over my claim that the Dresden bombing was highly accurate.
I agree that the RAF Bomber Command review of Dresden sounds like a 1940s newsreel. Nonetheless, it is from the UK Ministry of Defense website! No clear target is defined, they claim the purpose of the attack was to create 'confusion'. It certainly seems to have created confusion on this thread...
Incidentally, the USAF Historical Report on Dresden (which I wrote about earlier on this thread) concurrs with the RAF report on the 'success' and accuracy of the Dresden bombings. So anyone on this thread who believes that the civilian and architectural damage to Dresden was a result of poor targetting is in disagreement with the historical records kept by the US and UK air forces.
Dragonlord said:To use your analogy: if a guy holds a knife to your throat, kick him in the balls by all means! I'd do the same...
If, on the other hand, he isn't using a knife but throwing rocks at you and is hiding in a crowd of civilians, you are not justified in using a flamethrower to wipe them all out just to get at him.
Strawman: You abused the analogy. To carry the analogy further, I would be bombing other countries to get to the knife weilder/ rock thrower, since the two people represented two nations.
If the crowd is giving him the rocks, then yes, the flame thrower will be used. I am not going to let myself be stoned to death simply because I don't want to hurt the crowd. Better yet, the first person who screams and rolls on the floor in agony as they release pungent smells of burning hair and flesh will help the others understand that giving this man rocks will not be tolerated.
So you can be a judge of what war crimes are, but you cannot be a judge of what a just war is?
I have already stated that:
I choose to judge whether the war is just, before I start judging whether the tactics used in acheiving victory were just. If the war was injust, (as Hitlers invasion of France, Russia, etc.... ) then any tactics of response are completely just. And look at Germany at the time, they looked like the United States today... even worse. They thought they were going to rule the world. The civilians had a hand in this too.
You know, really convinced people are rarely of the opinion that they are evil and their wars are not just... but people who consider themselves in the right should not take any crimes of the other party as a free ticket to do even worse!
Some Arabs probably consider the war in Iraq as an INJUST invasion,
" If the war was injust, (as Hitlers invasion of France, Russia, etc.... ) then any tactics of response are completely just"
they would it consider their right to bomb civilians in Europe and the US! They even do! We should throw atomic bombs at any nations with populations that sympathize with such terrorism! Evil things allow us to do even worse!
Well... I say NO to such terrible ways of thinking.
Draconic measures against baddies, believing in the own moral high standard what is right and what is wrong has a sore taste.
One nation must not try to surpass the cruelties of the baddies to possibly "restore justice".
Some Arabs probably consider the war in Iraq as an INJUST invasion,
" If the war was injust, (as Hitlers invasion of France, Russia, etc.... ) then any tactics of response are completely just"
they would it consider their right to bomb civilians in Europe and the US! They even do! We should throw atomic bombs at any nations with populations that sympathize with such terrorism! Evil things allow us to do even worse!
Well... I say NO to such terrible ways of thinking.
Draconic measures against baddies, believing in the own moral high standard what is right and what is wrong has a sore taste.
One nation must not try to surpass the cruelties of the baddies to possibly "restore justice".
Oh yes. They liberated Europe, including Germany.
Is this the perfect and ultimate justification for "minor" warcrimes, like trying to justify the bombing cities? Was this really necessary? The same applies to the Hiroshima-thread.
If you think it was, please stop discussing with me. I do not agree.
What do you want to point out?
Is this the perfect and ultimate justification for "minor" warcrimes, like trying to justify the bombing cities? Was this really necessary? The same applies to the Hiroshima-thread.
If you think it was, please stop discussing with me. I do not agree.
What do you want to point out?
Longasc said:
If it was just, then why are the soldiers who died valiently, and bravely, who sacrificed their lives defending the world from the tyranny and oppression of war, worth less than the civilians of the country that instigated the war?
Why is it perfectly ok to blow soldiers arms off, to burn them with napalm, and to tear their faces off with shrpanel? Because they are more brave than civilians? Perhaps it is because they are men, and women are more valuable. Perhaps it is because they are not "innocent" children... even though, if the war was just, they were certainly innocent victims.
Why are soldiers worth even one cent less than civilians? Why does no-one ask if shooting an American soldier was a war crime? Some of them were only 18 years old. They had their whole life ahead of them, yet the German people decided that American, British and French people must die, for the sake of Empire.
WW II was a war crime. We did what we had to do to stop it. If it meant killing every single German in the world, so be it. The first American soldier to die was an innocent civilian before Germany delclared war.
Why would we play nice? Is there any reason to play nice? Would playing nice lead to victory any faster?
Zardnaar
Deity
Back to the original topic I think the bombing of Germany was justified. Dresden would have been justified if it happened in February 44 instead of 45. By then it was blatantly obvious Germany had lost the war and I doubt the bombing helped end the war a day earlier. I would hesitate to call it a war crime though- a mistake, bad judgement or a decision made for the wrong reasons yes.
Wars tragic. There were tit for tat raids etc in the war. WW2 was the 3rd "total" war (WW1 and the USA Civil war being the other 2) which involved the entire resources of each nation involved. Resources that rightly or wrongly included civilians. The Germans paid for Hitlers decisions but so did the Poles, Russians, Jew etc. Glad I wasn't there.
Wars tragic. There were tit for tat raids etc in the war. WW2 was the 3rd "total" war (WW1 and the USA Civil war being the other 2) which involved the entire resources of each nation involved. Resources that rightly or wrongly included civilians. The Germans paid for Hitlers decisions but so did the Poles, Russians, Jew etc. Glad I wasn't there.
Adler17
Prussian Feldmarschall
I think we all agree not to live in that time under that regime. Nevertheless even in total wars there are rules to be kept. One of these rules is to prevent the killing of innocent people if possible. Only targets of military value are allowed to attack. If civilians die as collateral damage it is excused. But not as main targets. This is forbidden at leasts since the conventions of The Hague.
To see them as a factor in the life of the enemy state and attack them is very near to the way such people like Bin Laden and Hitler and Stalin think/thought. These guys left the civilized world.They´re the worst scum of humanity. But this NEVER justifise nor excuses the death of civilians. To see them as military targets is already a war crime.
Zardnaar, even if a target is of military value and there is no reason to attack it not but the big population which are in danger of the attack, an attack must be stopped or canceled, if the destruction of the target does not justify the danger.
To the Dresden attack: There were three waves in order to attack, when after the first wave the defense was regrouping and so out of order for that time. The US tried that already in Schweinfurt, but they didn´t succeed, but the British in Dresden. It WAS planned to have so many planes over the city.
Adler
To see them as a factor in the life of the enemy state and attack them is very near to the way such people like Bin Laden and Hitler and Stalin think/thought. These guys left the civilized world.They´re the worst scum of humanity. But this NEVER justifise nor excuses the death of civilians. To see them as military targets is already a war crime.
Zardnaar, even if a target is of military value and there is no reason to attack it not but the big population which are in danger of the attack, an attack must be stopped or canceled, if the destruction of the target does not justify the danger.
To the Dresden attack: There were three waves in order to attack, when after the first wave the defense was regrouping and so out of order for that time. The US tried that already in Schweinfurt, but they didn´t succeed, but the British in Dresden. It WAS planned to have so many planes over the city.
Adler
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