Allied Morality Questioned in Bombing of German Cities

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Ned


Yes, but we can blame Japan on America's inherent racism, can't we?

Could you explain what you mean. That seems like either a huge double standard or bigotry - I hope I have misunderstood.

SD, our respective air forces, the UK and the US, should have refrained from sinking to the level of the Nazi's. When we, the US, bombed Japanese cities, except for the A-Bomb, we dropped leaflets warning that we were going to bomb a particular city. The Japanese then evacuated that city.

So, I still maintain, there is a major difference in conduct between the UK and the US. We joined our ally Britain and the USSR on their request for a raid against a German city. But we did not lead the effort to destroy German cities. That honor goes to Bomber Harris and the British government.

The US was a willing accomplice and executor in the deaths of millions. Dress that up any way you want, but your claim is that the US do not owe an apology. That is bull****.

Are you going to change your stance on that position?

[TheStinger]

I do feel this owing apologies to people is bollocks.

It all happened 60 years ago.

As for the US being shocked by the inhumanity of it all, and only going along because the UK asked them too that is rubbish, the US was loath to accept British requests during the war( this worked both ways).

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by David Floyd
loinburger,

This isn't relevant - if you want to boil everything down to hard numbers, you are simply talking about egalitarianism, ie, a system where it is acceptable to kill 50 innocents to save 100 other innocents. I just cannot comprehend how one can defend that system.

I don't see how you can defend the flip side where allowing the ongoing death of 100 to save 50 is acceptable.

[Dauphin]

Everyday our inaction lets people die. We let millions die in 3rd world countries because we don't want to pay (just money not lives) to help them.

What difference that one is war, the other peace?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
However, if I attempt to stop a murder - no, let's make it a mass murder, or a genocide, even - by spraying machine gun fire into a crowd in the hopes of either turning the crowd against the murderer or killing the murderer, but in the process slaughtering dozens of innocents, EVEN IF the murder/genocide is prevented, I have committed murder.

Fine, change the scenario a bit. Joey the Terrorist has a nuke with him on the top floor of an office building, and he has ten hostages. If the nuke goes off then there will be approximately 10,000,000 casualties. It will, however, take him ten minutes to prepare the nuke for detonation. Your advisors have thoroughly examined the situation, and have determined that the only effective means of ending this stand-off is to raze the top of the office building, thereby killing all of the innocent hostages but also ending the threat to the 10,000,000 innocents who would be killed in the nuke -- they explain that Joey the Terrorist has barricaded himself in, and that an extraction team would take at least a half hour to do its job.

Is it a bad thing to kill the ten innocent hostages? You bet your ass, killing innocents is always wrong. However, killing ten innocents is better than allowing the destruction of 10,000,000 innocents whose destruction you can prevent. That's my opinion, anyway. Anybody who argued that doing nothing and thereby allowing Joey to detonate the nuke "because then their hands would be clean" would strike me as being about the most selfish person alive -- essentially, they'd be telling me that their supposed moral well-being is more important to them than saving the lives of ten million innocents, i.e. "I don't care what happens to y'all so long as my ticket into heaven is secured."

Where would you like to draw the line?

Depends on the specifics of a situation. Bombing German and Japanese industrial production (knowing that innocents would almost certainly die in the process) was a necessary evil in order to put a speedy end to the war and prevent additional innocent casualties. Ramo disagrees that lives were saved in the bombing raids, and that's fine, I'm willing to listen to what he has to say about the casualties inflicted and the casualties supposedly prevented. Your high-and-mighty "These people are clearly evil for disagreeing with me, Ramo, so don't bother trying to convince them of anything" post just happened to punch my buttons, that's all.

This isn't relevant - if you want to boil everything down to hard numbers, you are simply talking about egalitarianism, ie, a system where it is acceptable to kill 50 innocents to save 100 other innocents. I just cannot comprehend how one can defend that system.

I think that you mean utilitarianism, not egalitarianism. (If you mean egalitarianism, then I am thoroughly confused by your post.) Utilitarianism is one of the few ways to differentiate between shades of gray, i.e. between two acts that are not absolutely "good," and as such it is extremely helpful since such dilemmas are all too common. (Of course, another way to differentiate between two acts that are not absolutely "good" is to convince yourself that one of those acts is absolutely "good," but self-delusion just doesn't sit well with me.)

Obviously, "Is it wrong to kill innocents?" IS the question this thread is dealing with, and asking that question is not irresponsible at all. It is an attempt to tie people down to a position. If killing innocents is wrong, then bombing civilians is wrong, but if killing innocents is OK, or "dependent upon circumstances", then the Holocaust can be justified.

The question that you've again ignored is "Is it wrong to allow somebody else to kill innocents?" You've already responded that, yes, it is wrong to allow somebody else to kill innocents. What confuses me, then, is how you can see a situation in which a malefactor (say, Hitler) is killing and attempting to kill many innocents (a "bad thing") and somebody else (say, the Allies) is attempting to end the malfeasance but is killing innocents in the process (also a "bad thing") and see this as a black-and-white dilemma. If allowing the malefactor to continue in his/her misdeeds is a "bad thing," then in what way is it clearly more moral to "do nothing" (and allow the "bad things" to continue) in this and similar circumstances?

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov How on earth is it immature for me to think it wrong to target civilians in war and not believe that civilians deserve to be killed because of what their government does? I think you're getting a little confused over what maturity means...

No, your confused on what war means, each and every
time the first time the "rules" become inconventant they
are tossed. Civilains are'nt the only ones murdered in
war by both sides, soldiers are too (Normandy).

You talk about morally and war? You can't have war
and morally too, hard enough to have morality during
peacetime. (Landmine banning)

David Floyd,

"How many people in the world today do you imagine fit that framework? Hint: A lot."

Good point, Too bad it is sooo true.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ozz
No, your confused on what war means, each and every
time the first time the "rules" become inconventant they
are tossed. Civilains are'nt the only ones murdered in
war by both sides, soldiers are too (Normandy).

I know full well what war means. But again, how does this justify anything? Murdering surrendered soldiers is as bad as murdering civilians, certainly. Yes, it happens all the time. That does not make it ok, nor does it somehow mean that the victims deserve it. Sadly, the vast majority of people who died in WW2, like any war, didn't deserve it. That goes for Americans, Germans, British, French, Russians, Poles, Japanese, Chinese, Italians, etc.

You talk about morally and war? You can't have war
and morally too, hard enough to have morality during
peacetime. (Landmine banning)

I'd certainly agree that war is immoral. But it is a necessary evil at times to wage war. That does not mean morality should be tossed aside in waging the war. We like to be nostalgic about WW2 as a great moral crusade against Nazism. Well, that's fine (if somewhat inaccurate), but if we're going to bring morality into the cause, we have to discuss it in the actions. You can't wage a war by immoral means and claim to be upholding a moral cause. The U.S. and U.K. need to acknowledge that Dresden was wrong so we can be assured it won't be repeated. I don't think it will lessen the moral rightness of defeating Nazism to admit that we did something wrong in our quest to do so.

Likewise, Japan needs to be hoenst about Nanjing. Their continued denials over it are appalling.

But again, nothing here validates targeting innocents in war. If everyone is guilty of a crime, it's still a crime.

[Ozz]

Dresden wasn't wrong, it was shades of things to come.

Dresden was the first case of what "bombing" was supposed to be. Munich happened cause the British/
French though Dresden would happen to London/Paris.

After Dresden, I'm surprised the allies didn't go all out
and fry each and every german city off the map.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ozz
Dresden wasn't wrong, it was shades of things to come.

As incongruous a statement as I can think of. The morality of Dresden has nothing to do with it being a "shade of things to come." And it wasn't a shade of anything to come, as the war in Europe ended a month and a half later. At the time it happened, Germany was already beaten and on its last legs.

Dresden was the first case of what "bombing" was supposed to be. Munich happened cause the British/
French though Dresden would happen to London/Paris.

After Dresden, I'm surprised the allies didn't go all out
and fry each and every german city off the map.

Ok, again, you seem not to know history. Dresden was firebombed in February 1945. There was not even a possibility of German retaliation at this point, the Allies knew this. Germany had no air power left.

What this has to do with Munich I can't imagine, since Munich was bombed in July 1944. Munich was also a key industrial and strategic target, unlike Dresden.

After Dresden...well, remember Germany surrendered in April, a little over a month later. And bombing Dresden had no affect on the German surrender--it only fostered resentment.

And why didn't the Allies fry every city off the map? Because the populations of those countries expressed revulsion and outrage at the bombing. Even Churchill said it was wrong.

Dresden was wrong. You can't morally justify it as a strategic target or as something that contributed to victory. The only thing Dresden accomplished was incinerating 200,000 innocent people.

[Darius871]

You can't morally justify it as a strategic target or as something that contributed to victory.

That's easy to say in retrospect. The point of firebombing civilian targets was to either make Hitler surrender (not likely) or to push those around Hitler to assasinate him (more likely) and subsequently surrender. This was on the minds of Allied strategists, but unfortunately no surrender happened so the immoral act served no purpose. But there was a chance that it would in their minds.

To put it into perspective:

Imagine that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not brought about a surrender. The civilian slaughter would have been fruitless, and the bombings would have been impossible to justify to someone in 2002. You'd be sitting here saying to me 'You can't morally justify it as a strategic target or as something that contributed to victory.'

Conversely, imagine that in late February of 1945, officials close to Hitler witness the destruction of their beloved fatherland at Dresden and decide that they must kill the madman that is the root cause of this horror. They kill him, offer a surrender, and then thousands of Allied and German soldiers (along with thousands of potential last-minute holocaust victims) would be saved. The bombing would then be somewhat justifiable, just like the atomic bombings in Japan are today.

You have to think about people's intentions before actions like Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki, when there seemed to be a real possibility that these immoral acts would bring about a positive result.

I personally believe that firebombing Dresden was immoral and that we shouldn't have done it. However, I will not go so far as to say it 'served no purpose' because that naively ignores the fact that it was meant to.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov Ok, again, you seem not to know history. Dresden was firebombed in February 1945. There was not even a possibility of German retaliation at this point, the Allies knew this. Germany had no air power left.

What this has to do with Munich I can't imagine, since Munich was bombed in July 1944. Munich was also a key industrial and strategic target, unlike Dresden.

And why didn't the Allies fry every city off the map? Because the populations of those countries expressed revulsion and outrage at the bombing. Even Churchill said it was wrong.

No retaliation, true, No resistance false. Wars don't
slow down cause the enemy is down,

Munich 1938, appleasement.

Wrong, Churchill didn't want to have to quarter his
occupation forces in a wasteland and it was getting
to be a waste of effort "to bomb piles of brick". it
was time to go to Japan.

[Drake Tungsten]

Likewise, Japan needs to be hoenst about Nanjing. Their continued denials over it are appalling.

Why does everyone seem to think that the Japanese deny the Nanjing Massacre? The Japanese fully admit that the massacre happened; only far-right nut jobs say otherwise.

The controversy is not over Japanese denial of Nanjing, as no such denial exists. The controversy is over the Japanese practice of whitewashing the descriptions of the Nanjing Massacre in textbooks. Japanese school kids learn that the massacre happened, but don't learn many of the details.

It's a pretty interesting issue, actually.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin


Could you explain what you mean. That seems like either a huge double standard or bigotry - I hope I have misunderstood.



The US was a willing accomplice and executor in the deaths of millions. Dress that up any way you want, but your claim is that the US do not owe an apology. That is bull****.

Are you going to change your stance on that position?

SD, Yes, the US should apologize for its role. But, as I said, there are some here who think the US is primarily if not solely responsible for Cologne, Hamburg and Dresden. The record on Allied bombing of civilians should be made clear. I don't want to see massive anti-US protests in Germany on this issue with the UK and Russia getting a free ride.

As to Japan, our efforts to drop leaflets should be noted.

As to the A-bomb - well, we have to take full responsibility for that one. It was Truman's decision. Because of it, I am probably alive today because my Dad would have been one of those Americans landing in Japan.

[Sprayber]

You people really are funny. Wars should be as brutal as possible as a reminder to those that think it should be taken lightly. The reason wars such as WWII are started is that someone gets it in their head that the other nations will not want to risk war and those that do will be defeated easily. Sometimes it actually works out that way. If you miscalculate and you get what happened in WWII.

My suggestion is to stop looking for morality in war, cause you won't find it. A nation will reach back far in history if it needs some morality(like we were cheated at versilles). You can sit here and say the Allies were brutal all you want. But that is exactly the point of war, to be as brutal as you can be. Some countries had no limiations placed on them, and some countries tried to place limitations on themselves and found out that those limitations had to be put aside from time to time. Dirty business it was and I'm glad they did it. In a way, they did the dirty work so people such as yourselves could come on this insigificant board and play moralizer about a situation that morality had no part of except as an instrament to back up the folks back home on both sides of the conflict. This is a stupid argument for the simple reason that morality is put away in the closet during war. Sure it is allowed out when it serves the war goals but immediatly put back in when an opportunity presents itself.

They do not say war is hell for no reason.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Darius871
That's easy to say in retrospect. The point of firebombing civilian targets was to either make Hitler surrender (not likely) or to push those around Hitler to assasinate him (more likely) and subsequently surrender. This was on the minds of Allied strategists, but unfortunately no surrender happened so the immoral act served no purpose. But there was a chance that it would in their minds.

Actually, Churchill's strategy was more likely to impress upon the Soviets the destructive power the Allies could muster and would be willing to use. But certainly not a moral reason.

I see little reason the Allies would have had to assume, given the state of Germany in Feb. 1945, that the bombing would have accomplished anything strategic against the Germans.

Imagine that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not brought about a surrender. The civilian slaughter would have been fruitless, and the bombings would have been impossible to justify to someone posting on OT forums in 2002.

Well, I am consistent in this light, as I also think the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaky were morally wrong. The fact that Japan surrendered shortly afterward doesn't morally justify them, IMO. Nor do I accept the argument that it changed the outcome of the war or saved lives. But that involves more speculation than Dresden, true.