Planetarion Forums - They can't be serious..

Super · 30 Oct 2004, 17:50

If those people weren't actively trying to take down Hitler, then it benefited the war effort. If bombing Dresden even took 1 hour off of the war, then it was worth it. Ends justify the means etc.

Stew · 30 Oct 2004, 17:55

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Originally Posted by Super

If bombing Dresden even took 1 hour off of the war, then it was worth it. Ends justify the means etc.

How exactly?
Only if less people died in Dresden than the last hour of the war, which I doubt was the case.

Dante Hicks · 30 Oct 2004, 18:02

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Originally Posted by Stew

How exactly?
Only if less people died in Dresden than the last hour of the war, which I doubt was the case.

I think he's imagining the people of Germany to be worth less than Allied forces lives in some sort of calculation.

While I of course object to collective punishments there is probably an argument that can be made, in certain cases, that it is justifiable to punish people who stood idily by and let horrors be carried out in their name.

It is said that for evil to triumph, good men must stay quiet. Perhaps good people who did stay quiet (or simply followed orders) need to face the consequences of their (in)action.

edit : Of course the actual reaosn for the heavy bombing late in the war was to assist the Soviets, without actually having to invade Europe (hoping the Russians would do most of the work gutting the German army for us I guess).

Nodrog · 30 Oct 2004, 18:14

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Originally Posted by Stew

How exactly?
Only if less people died in Dresden than the last hour of the war, which I doubt was the case.

The commanders of the defending (/non-initiating) army should primarilly be concerned with protecting both the soldiers under their command, and the civilians who pay their wages. Once an attacker has initiated war, the top priority of the defenders should be ending it was the minimal damage to their own side. Risking the lives of your troops and civilians in order to provide excessive charity towards the enemy should be grounds for the immediate dismissal of any high ranking officer. Following your logic, the atomic bombing of Japan wouldnt have been justified if the total number of casualities in a land war was a few thousand less than that inflicted by the bomb, even if a significant number of them happened to be incurred by America.

Nusselt · 30 Oct 2004, 22:01

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I've never really seen the value of "Sorry" unless you basically mean it was something you would never consider doing again for moral reasons.

In this case that doesn't (I don't think) apply. If Britain was involved in a war for national survival I have absolutley no doubt "we'd" be doing the same thing again in a flash.

We're on two completely different arguments then, the entire premis i presumed was that for moral reasons if everything was to happen again we wouldn't do it, what other reason is there to say sorry?

'they started it' is inherently limited in that it doesn't take into account the relative morality of each party. If you think that britain and germany were just two entities slugging it out for national survival, then fine, germany started it and shit happens. If on the other hand you believe that we were, objectively, 'better' then them morally it would indicate to me anyway an acceptance of a higher code of conduct.

To give a present day analogy we're fighting mr bin laden at the moment. Al queda isn't as poweful as the nazis were but in essence they want to see the destruction of the united states. Would it have been objectionable to use a nuke in afghanistan take him and others (innocents)out, he did start it.

I can understand people saying that all this happened 60years ago and we should live and let live, but i don't get the argument that we shouldn't say sorry because we'd do the same thing over again. If you believe we would i accept the reasoning of your argument but ill just accept it as being completely divergent to mine.

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Originally Posted by Nodrog

Once an attacker has initiated war, the top priority of the defenders should be ending it was the minimal damage to their own side. Risking the lives of your troops and civilians in order to provide excessive charity towards the enemy should be grounds for the immediate dismissal of any high ranking officer.

Article 35 of the geneva convention doesn't allow unlimited warfare, article 50 and 51protect civilians and civilian objects respectively in any conflct and disallow area bombardment and using the nuremberg defence isn't allowed.

wu_trax · 30 Oct 2004, 23:00

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I think he's imagining the people of Germany to be worth less than Allied forces lives in some sort of calculation.

While I of course object to collective punishments there is probably an argument that can be made, in certain cases, that it is justifiable to punish people who stood idily by and let horrors be carried out in their name.

It is said that for evil to triumph, good men must stay quiet. Perhaps good people who did stay quiet (or simply followed orders) need to face the consequences of their (in)action.

edit : Of course the actual reaosn for the heavy bombing late in the war was to assist the Soviets, without actually having to invade Europe (hoping the Russians would do most of the work gutting the German army for us I guess).

so you object collective punishment and at the same time say its ok?
and that 'shit happens'argument is somewhat poor, you can justffy everything with that.

queball · 31 Oct 2004, 00:02

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Originally Posted by wu_trax

so you object collective punishment and at the same time say its ok?
and that 'shit happens'argument is somewhat poor, you can justffy everything with that.

Not really. Could the nazis say they were just angry at the jews and shit happens? Not if you accept that the jews weren't the aggressors. You can only defend a fairly specific thing: causing unreasonable damage when you're angered because someone is being aggressive to you. If some drunk starts a fight with you, you might smack him in the face, causing damage to his sober life. One possible benefit of this is that it encourages people not to make each other angry, like unnecessary civilian causalties might encourage people to take more interest in their government's actions. Maybe legally you're only supposed to restrain attackers, but depending on the scale of the attack it's not really something you control. Shit does happen, and shit is not always an injustice.

Right and wrong seem really artificial in context, like any apology would be an exercise in formalised ethics.

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 00:35

'we only wanted to get out of that versaille-treaty, sorry that 40 million people died in the process, but shit happens'

or

'sorry that so many civilians in england died during the war, but we tried to win and shit happens'

i think its not so much about who was the agressor and who only defended, but more about who won and who lost, even then its a bit thin.

Dante Hicks · 31 Oct 2004, 04:47

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Originally Posted by wu_trax

so you object collective punishment and at the same time say its ok?
and that 'shit happens'argument is somewhat poor, you can justffy everything with that.

You misunderstand. A collective punishment in its purest form might apply where you're talking about punishing an entire group of people for what some of their number did - when the other members couldn't reasonably have stopped them.

To give an example, let's take Osama Bin Laden. It's unreasonably to assume that the average Arab could have stopped September 11th since it was planned and executed by a relatively small number of people in secret. Therefore, collective punishment against all Muslims / Arabs / Afghan's / Iraqis is unjust.

However, when it comes to the actions of governments, it's a different kettle of fish. If for instance, in response to 9/11 the US Government started a massively escalated series of attacks against Arab countries, killing Arabs in their own homeland, etc, etc. This, if it happened over a long enough period of time could be said to be the responsibility of all Americans since they could have voted against it, refused to pay taxes, gone on strike, demonstrated against their government, etc, etc.

The point is that collecitve punishments are generally wrong because they punish people for other people's actions. In this case (and others) I am saying it might be worth considering them as punishments for staying silent. Obviously if the people in Dresden were trying to overthrow the Hitler regime, or were on strike to stop war production, or something like that then it's additionally unjustified for reasons I've given.

These questions aren't black and white. I don't blame people for obeying a totalitarian regime. People who made a fuss stood a chance of being punished, and therefore I'm not surprised the majority of people obey (considering people obey even when not under duress). I just don't think "I was just following orders" get's you out of responsibility for your governments actions.

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 10:38

they were refugees, what could they have possibly done at that time?
plus i doubt that many people know about the holocaust and war crimes and stuff. my granny still belives the holocaust never happened.
anyway, what are we talking about now? the collective guilt of all germans or the uk bombing civilians?

Dante Hicks · 31 Oct 2004, 11:43

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Originally Posted by wu_trax

they were refugees, what could they have possibly done at that time?

At that exact moment? Very little, it was near the end of the war anyway. But aside from children I'd imagine prior to this any individuals involved could have done something to stop the agression. It's not clear they did.

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plus i doubt that many people know about the holocaust and war crimes and stuff. my granny still belives the holocaust never happened.

They knew about the invasion of other countries though, yeah? I'm uneasy to give ignorance as a defence anyway. Beliving government propaganda does not make you innocent.

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anyway, what are we talking about now? the collective guilt of all germans or the uk bombing civilians?

In this context, one relates to the other. You're saying it's wrong to kill innocent people. I agree with this, but other people are saying the German people were not innocent.

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 11:59

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

At that exact moment? Very little, it was near the end of the war anyway. But aside from children I'd imagine prior to this any individuals involved could have done something to stop the agression. It's not clear they did.

yes, and the iraqies could have overthrown saddam, so its ok to bomb them today.

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They knew about the invasion of other countries though, yeah? I'm uneasy to give ignorance as a defence anyway. Beliving government propaganda does not make you innocent.

but it 'made them feel better'

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In this context, one relates to the other. You're saying it's wrong to kill innocent people. I agree with this, but other people are saying the German people were not innocent.

so we are back at collective punishing the german people for what their leadership did?

Dante Hicks · 31 Oct 2004, 12:05

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Originally Posted by wu_trax

yes, and the iraqies could have overthrown saddam, so its ok to bomb them today.

Most of Saddam's crimes were against his own people so it's not exactly a comparable analogy is it? If Saddam had been elected into power, invaded pretty much all of the Middle East, bombed the United States with a tremendous brutality then yeah, I'd probably view US Military action against them differently.

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but it 'made them feel better'

Oh, that's OK then.

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so we are back at collective punishing the german people for what their leadership did?

More punishing them for what they failed to do, as I've already explained.

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 12:18

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Most of Saddam's crimes were against his own people so it's not exactly a comparable analogy is it? If Saddam had been elected into power, invaded pretty much all of the Middle East, bombed the United States with a tremendous brutality then yeah, I'd probably view US Military action against them differently.

so the jews / gays / socialists and handicaped werent 'our own people' then? they used to live here for 100s of years.
what you are basicly saying is its ok if people dont do anything as long as the crime is commited against themselfs, but as soon as someone else is involved its ok to kill them on your own?
how about iran then? saddam killed quite a few people there with chemical weapons.

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Oh, that's OK then.

you used the same argument a few posts above.

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More punishing them for what they failed to do, as I've already explained.

we dont get any further here.

Dante Hicks · 31 Oct 2004, 12:29

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Originally Posted by wu_trax

so the jews / gays / socialists and handicaped werent 'our own people' then? they used to live here for 100s of years.

Huh? No, of course they were "your people". However, if Germany's crimes were entirely against it's own people then it becomes a different argument. They weren't, so I don't know why you are making this point.

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what you are basicly saying is its ok if people dont do anything as long as the crime is commited against themselfs, but as soon as someone else is involved its ok to kill them on your own? how about iran then? saddam killed quite a few people there with chemical weapons.

Don't be ridiculous. Obviously it's not OK to kill your own people, but the point is that in terms of retaliation attacking other countries is entirely different in legal / military terms than killing your own people.

And yes, Iran had the "moral right" to attack Iraq. But since they have already had a long war against Iraq, this point has pretty much been settled. Besides, comparing wars of national survival with the current situation is somewhat fallacious. The United States have not been attacked by Iraq, their country has not been bombed, and so you can't compare their actions to Britain during WW2.

That's irrelevent anyway since the US and UK have been bombing Iraq for years anyway.

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you used the same argument a few posts above.

So attacking a country like Poland (or invading the Czech Republic) is equivalent to bombing a country which has already bombed your country?

Besides, I was explaining the Allied mindset, not saying it was OK. It wasn't.

Apothos · 31 Oct 2004, 12:38

Would Germany apologise if they had won? Doubt it.

Reason enough to apologise, imo.

And we dont have to mean it.

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 12:45

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

So attacking a country like Poland (or invading the Czech Republic) is equivalent to bombing a country which has already bombed your country?

from the 'it-made-them-feel-better'-perspective yes. it would have made the americans feel a lot better if bush had just nuked kabul after 9/11

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Besides, I was explaining the Allied mindset, not saying it was OK. It wasn't.

then what are we arguing about? i didnt say we didnt do bad things in ww2, but its one thing to hald people responsible for the actions of their goverment and quite another to kill them for it.

Nusselt · 31 Oct 2004, 12:47

wu-trax perhaps this quote from 'bomber harris' (the guy who orchastrated the bombing of germany) would help explain dante's posts

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a dozen other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

his contribution to the war is dealt with a sense of ambivalence in britain, the uk went through what he dealt out, and the bomber pilots never got the same level of affection as the fighter pilots. I think we've got to the point now nearly 2/3rds of a century later where we can live and let live. For what its worth from someone who wasn't born then, im sorry, i think that the allied forces as organs of a system that wasn't as evil as the nazis did things that were comparable to what they did. In over all orders of magnitude ofc they weren't as bad as the nazis but that doesn't mean the wrongs they did do should be papered over.

Vaio · 31 Oct 2004, 12:50

The german's need something to help them get over the fact they are now France's biatches in the EU

~Vaio~

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 19:14

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Originally Posted by Nusselt

wu-trax perhaps this quote from 'bomber harris' (the guy who orchastrated the bombing of germany) would help explain dante's posts

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a dozen other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

his contribution to the war is dealt with a sense of ambivalence in britain, the uk went through what he dealt out, and the bomber pilots never got the same level of affection as the fighter pilots. I think we've got to the point now nearly 2/3rds of a century later where we can live and let live. For what its worth from someone who wasn't born then, im sorry, i think that the allied forces as organs of a system that wasn't as evil as the nazis did things that were comparable to what they did. In over all orders of magnitude ofc they weren't as bad as the nazis but that doesn't mean the wrongs they did do should be papered over.

tbh, i dont really give a damn if the queen apologises or not, as you said that was 60 years ago, so what good would it do? and if you have to ask for an apology to get it its pretty much useless anyway
its just that attitude of 'how dare they ask for an apology?' that made me write all this crap i wrote in this thread.

Ste · 31 Oct 2004, 19:16

Interesting article:
The Queen cannot apologise for acts of war Britain was forced to use against Nazism

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How Josef Goebbels, the original spin doctor, must be chuckling in whichever inner circle of Hell he has been consigned to for the past 60 years. His clever manipulation of the truth about the Allied bombing of the city of Dresden still has life in it. The Nazi master of the big lie is still winning the propaganda game.

Seriously though, if the Queen were to apologise for this, where would the apologies stop? how far back in history can you go to seek an apology?
Wasn't England conquered once by Germans who raped and pillaged everything they saw?
It's just silly.

Vaio · 31 Oct 2004, 19:58

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Originally Posted by Ste

Wasn't England conquered once by Germans who raped and pillaged everything they saw? It's just silly.

No, that was those pesky Vikings. I don't think Norway said sorry although we do get a christmas tree every year as thanks for helping them during the war so pld to Norway.

~Vaio~

Ste · 31 Oct 2004, 20:09

What about the Angles and the Saxons?

Vaio · 31 Oct 2004, 20:16

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Originally Posted by Ste

What about the Angles and the Saxons?

The Saxons were from France and all they did was force the local population to wear silly hats and smell of garlic. The Angles kinda already lived here.

Did one of us sleep through history ?

~Vaio~

wu_trax · 31 Oct 2004, 20:30

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Originally Posted by Vaio

The Saxons were from France and all they did was force the local population to wear silly hats and smell of garlic. The Angles kinda already lived here.

Did one of us sleep through history ?

~Vaio~

no the angles and the saxons where from what today is denmark and northern germany. (thats why the area i live in today is called lower saxony. they went to britan in 4th or 5th century or something. the french conquered it somewhere around 1000 i think.

Ste · 31 Oct 2004, 20:35

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Originally Posted by Vaio

The Saxons were from France and all they did was force the local population to wear silly hats and smell of garlic. The Angles kinda already lived here.

Did one of us sleep through history ?

~Vaio~

one of us never studied it...

The Angles and Saxons were definately Germanic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles backs me up)

Nondescript Human · 31 Oct 2004, 20:46

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Originally Posted by Vaio

The Saxons were from France and all they did was force the local population to wear silly hats and smell of garlic. The Angles kinda already lived here.

Did one of us sleep through history ?

~Vaio~

I'm pretty sure the Angles weren't here already, and I'm certain that the Saxons were German. I believe they came from Saxony, to be precise!
You might be thinking of the Normans?
Oh, and the main Viking invasions were Danish, not Norwegian.

Edit: shit, beaten by a mile. That's what happens when you have too many windows open.

Vaio · 31 Oct 2004, 20:50

It must have been me who slept through history then

~Vaio~