A depressing thread

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I'm open to the idea that you, Churchill, and Felch are right. I'm open to the idea that tens of thousands of extra lives could have been spared, here or there, through better decisions by the Allied air command. But nobody should be put into that position in the first place, where any decision they make is a death sentence for tens of thousands of people.

Maybe the world would be a better place if we had slightly prolonged the collapse of Nazi Germany to try to avoid harming innocents contained within its borders. But... a narrow focus on 25,000 slain in a war that took 50 million lives seems arbitrary. None of those people needed to die. Why focus on those people? Why the 25,000?

Because this death of thousands of people was unnecessary and easily preventable by a simple decision, like "let's not firebomb Dresden", when the outcome of war was pretty much guaranteed whether this was done or not. That's why the focus on those particular unnecessary deaths which some of you view as "collaborators".

[Jaguar]

All of them were unnecessary.

China had 10 million civilian deaths because Japan wanted to invade them. Tack on another 1 million for the Filipinos. 6 million Jews were killed in death camps, along with 275,000 disabled people.

I asked you "why these 25,000, out of the tens of millions?" And you said "because they were unnecessary."

That could only imply that the Holocaust was necessary, which you obviously don't believe.

So try again. Why so much attention to these 25,000 people, out of the tens of millions of unnecessary deaths?

[Kuciwalker]

And you want to be an officer? **** no.

At least regex hasn't flunked out of OCS yet.

[regexcellent]

The rebels were training and supplying in Yemen you tool.

You're the tool; Yemen is fighting them and is anything but a safe haven, and Yemen isn't turning down help from other countries (SUCH AS US) which are helping them eradicate the terrorists there. We make drone strikes all the time in Yemen.

Oh gee, I wonder who it was that overthrew the Khmer Rouge? Oh gee, that would have been those nasty Vietnamese.

If Vietnam hadn't become Communist it's doubtful Cambodia and Laos would have either; also, the Vietnamese Communists themselves slaughtered more than a hundred thousand people in "re-education camps."

In Laos what happened would today probably be termed ethnic cleansing.

The same Joint Chiefs of Staff who had told Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis that a full invasion of Cuba was the only solution?

No, actually. Not the same Joint Chiefs.

That 'line across the sand' is a national border you idiot! Say some radical militia decided to stray south of the border and shoot up some Mexicans, does that give Mexico the right to start bombing Austin? Worse, you're talking about poor ass countries covered with jungle who didn't have the resources to detect let alone stop cross-border incursions. That did not give America the right to start dropping bombs and killing innocent neutral civilians. If any other country had done it, you'd have been screaming your heads off about war crimes.

Yes, a national border is a line in the sand. Nothing more. Per your Mexico example, I suggest you read up on the Pancho Villa Expedition. When we had problems with Mexicans crossing the border and attacking our citizens, we actually did invade Mexico, and nobody felt bad about it.

EDIT: I see now on rereading you're talking about a reversal of roles. If Mexico were suffering serious problems with radical American militia attacking them in Mexico, the first thing it would do is enlist our help in stopping them, which we would give. If we refused or were unable to do so through lack of rule of law then Mexico would be justified in attacking targets in the United States.

Oh so we're equating America to the Taliban now? As long as you kill a few less innocent children, then you win? Every child you kill over there CREATES more support for the Taliban you ****ing idiot!

Somehow you managed to misread my writing as supporting the idea of killing babies or something. Obviously it's something we should minimize, but not at the expense of passing up valuable targets in external strikes. And I am quite explicitly not equating us with the Taliban; I am saying we are not equivalent with the Taliban because they do things that are far worse than we do, such as kill lots more innocent people. Killing fewer innocent people than the Taliban is indeed a good start, although it's not all that hard because the Taliban deliberately target them.

Incidentally, when innocent people are killed in Pakistan, the people in Afghanistan, who are already very tribal amongst themselves, probably don't care all too much and more than likely won't even hear about it.

Please do not construe this as me saying it's open season on civilians in Pakistan.

I think you would be shocked at how few people would shoot back if they thought there was a chance of that baby getting hit. It's called human empathy, and maybe one day it'll make sense to you.

I was using a real example; this actually happened in the Battle of Mogadishu and our troops did shoot back.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Unnecessary, as in avoidable by a simple decision by allegedly "altruistic" Allies which was not fighting to erase Germans off the face of the earth, without impact on the outcome of the war.

You were just equating Japan which wanted to conquer and rule China, SE Asia and Nazi ideology about exterminating Jews with allied liberators?!? I do not think that the Allied motivation in invading Germany was the same and any of the above. If anyone in the chain of command thought of stopping it, they could, 25k civilians dead less, no impact otherwise, the end, unless you are saying that Allies were just a bunch of bloodthirsy psychopaths like Nazi leadership so they wanted some blood for the sake of it?

For me noone thought of that on time, showing the lack of interest, or worse on the allied side, which had the capacity to limit the unnecessary attrocities at that stage, thus the focus.

[Jaguar]

OK, so the relevant distinction about these particular unnecessary deaths are that they were caused by the Allies. We're giving up Germany and Japan as moral lost causes for now, so we can focus in on a potential marginal improvement in the Allied moral calculus.

That's fine. I can get on board with that. Even in the worst of times, we still should try to be our best.

But there's a lot of reason to be concerned by the way you are talking about it.

If anyone in the chain of command thought of stopping it, they could, 25k civilians dead less, no impact otherwise

"No impact?" Really? Germany's 7th largest city, and it wasn't doing anything to help the war effort?

Why did you choose those words? Why choose the words "no impact?"

[regexcellent]

The difference between you and the terrorists is - you have the means to kill remotely in a "nice" manner, and they do not. You have the propaganda machine behind you, and they do not.

This isn't entirely true. The media worldwide can be very anti-American, even here in the US. This was especially true in Vietnam.

In an example I described earlier, South Africa's Border War, South Africa faced a very hostile media environment and did not have propaganda on its side. Many legitimate attacks on SWAPO and MPLA targets were reported by the media to be pointless massacres of civilians when they were obviously not so, because the other side had the media's ear. After the war it was "discovered" by the international community that the "massacres" so reported were bald-faced lies.

Someone out there is going to construe this as a defense of Apartheid so I'd like to pre-emptively say that no, I don't support apartheid or South Africa's domestic race policies pre-1994 at all.

The point I'm making with this is that having the propaganda on your side isn't necessary, though it is nice.

Effects are the same though except for every civilian they kill in the west, US kills one thousand civilians in Middle East. Nether side kill many of the "real" perpetrators, as in terrorists have less than 1% hit rate on some US government officials and anyone in Army chain of command, and you also have less than 1% hit rate of the confirmed "terrorist" leaders and such.

Those numbers seem like wild-ass guesses at best. Also, Al Qaeda targets civilians; it's not really that interested in our personnel so much.

Sum total, people getting killed for nothing, terrorist numbers increasing and coffers of US defense contractors bloating at US taxpayers expense. Investors in defence industry and terrorist leaders in some caves win, everyone else loses, some greatly, like limbs, kids and family members, some less like having to repay incredible amounts of money via taxes into defence investors pockets, but sum total - you all lose, unless some of you are the actual investors here.

The military-industrial complex conspiracy theory is fascinating but probably not true. Defense spending is something that happens in excess of what it should regardless of whether we have an actual war to fight. The big ticket items we buy for the military it turns out aren't really very useful in Afghanistan. We continue to build more M1A2 tanks even though the Army keeps saying it doesn't need any, and we have almost none in theater in Afghanistan because they have to be flown in and even the largest airplane we have can only carry two of them. The reason is that Congress wants to keep the factory open, ostensibly to allow for a massive buildup of forces in an emergency. Horse****, it's a pork jobs program.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't remember that, sadly. You're old, Imran.

Also, beating the British in the 1770s & 1780s

[Guynemer]

Piffle.

Scipio v. Hannibal, *****es.

[Jaguar]

Sowing salt in the earth was clearly unnecessary.

[Elok]

I'll allow that there are a lot of morally grey areas in war. The problem is, this particular war is stupid. We've spent ten years trying to force a pair of fairly traditional Muslim countries to act like modern (post-)Christian ones, and failing miserably. And as for killing terrorists--we kill how many of their civilians as "collateral damage," lose how many of our own troops, spend how much money we don't have, neglect how many other, better tasks, all in the name of whacking some disorganized thugs who might, theoretically, launch a piddly attack that would likely fail to kill even a dozen people? 9/11 took years of planning, relied on a stunningly ill-prepared U.S. security apparatus, and still was only three-quarters successful. Take a tenth of the funds we're now dedicating to quixotic wars and dedicate them to security and intel instead; see how many terrorists get through.

[Jaguar]

Essentially the only way that the war in Afghanistan will have been worth it is if, by some magical string of events we can't comprehend, it stopped a nuclear bomb from being detonated in a populous area.

I think that's extremely unlikely.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

OK, so the relevant distinction about these particular unnecessary deaths are that they were caused by the Allies. We're giving up Germany and Japan as moral lost causes for now, so we can focus in on a potential marginal improvement in the Allied moral calculus.

That's fine. I can get on board with that. Even in the worst of times, we still should try to be our best.

But there's a lot of reason to be concerned by the way you are talking about it.

If anyone in the chain of command thought of stopping it, they could, 25k civilians dead less, no impact otherwise

"No impact?" Really? Germany's 7th largest city, and it wasn't doing anything to help the war effort?

Why did you choose those words? Why choose the words "no impact?"

My view of "no impact" - due to the situation on the ground, both Allies from West and East were closing in, they were about to cross the Rhein on the west and Russians were overruning Prussia and Pomerania (historically German up to that point), Germany was militarily defeated, this was after Yalta, and it was just a matter of time to close the war out. Historically, war in Europe was finished two monts after.

The difference is between the cause for war on either side, one was going to conquer, subjugate and destroy, while the other was liberating everyone, first self and than Germans as a nation too. Due to the intent of the Allies, they were not after genocide while conquering Germany. That makes them clearly a better choice than the opposition. I believe even east Germans were better off with Stasi et all under commies, comparing to some form of crumbling Nazi leadership in case Allies did not take them out. Such perceptions matter during the war itself, and even more so after the war, in order to establish peace and a normal functioning society afterwards.

Following this intent comes the conduct during the conflict and in the subsequent occupation... and in principle Allies did great, specifically the "west" lead by UK and US did the best ever historically, except few issues such as this firebombing.

In that light firebombing a city full of refugees did not aid the war effort specifically, but the method comes accross as purposeful murder, in line with German conduct when bombing Britain indiscriminately focused largely on killing the civilian population - you can ask the British what they thought of it. That is the focus in this particular action and the general idea of holding Allies to the higher standard than the Nazis or Japanese.

[Jaguar]

it was just a matter of time to close the war out.

But how much time? There were people being moved from concentration camp to concentration camp as the German battle lines receded. Matters of time were very significant to them!

You stand by "no impact." That the 7th-biggest city in Germany was doing nothing whatsoever to help the German war effort. I find this implausible, and so did a lot of people. Maybe Dresden wasn't doing enough to help the war effort to be worth bombing - in which case the Allies made a mistake - but it looks to me like you want to find a mistake. Like you're trying to interpret the facts as uncharitably as possible towards the Allied command so that you can have your one clear-cut example.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

This isn't entirely true. The media worldwide can be very anti-American, even here in the US. This was especially true in Vietnam.

In an example I described earlier, South Africa's Border War, South Africa faced a very hostile media environment and did not have propaganda on its side. Many legitimate attacks on SWAPO and MPLA targets were reported by the media to be pointless massacres of civilians when they were obviously not so, because the other side had the media's ear. After the war it was "discovered" by the international community that the "massacres" so reported were bald-faced lies.

Someone out there is going to construe this as a defense of Apartheid so I'd like to pre-emptively say that no, I don't support apartheid or South Africa's domestic race policies pre-1994 at all.

The point I'm making with this is that having the propaganda on your side isn't necessary, though it is nice.

No problem on SA - they had propaganda against them, which is just a fact, but in this particular case it was on the "good" side so to speak. Media worldwide is actually very "pro-american" no matter how much it may not seem that way, and there are great many good reasons for that historically. The views on media may differ, but what you may see as propaganda in Vietnam vs US, I see as free media reporting what was going on in the war. At that stage US propaganda machine was in its infancy, and "reality" of war was coming out a lot more than the political and military leadership would have liked.

Today - this is not the case at all, the media in US is wrapped around the political/military interests and thus serves as very good propaganda. On this very board many posters would not be so pro-murder if this was not the case, but to be a "victim" of propaganda is easy, after all we all form our opinions from the available information and "propaganda" tactics work very well to form those.

As an example, even though that Bush government never explicitly said, in an official manner that Saddam was responsible for 9-11 (I think Cheney did on a few occasions in "unofficial" capacity), more than 50% if Americans believed that to be true on the eve of the war, despite of this never been substantiated in the least, he was infact an enemy of Al Qaeda which was very clear to anyone who bothered to check. This is called propaganda machine doing a very successful job. Today, 10 years later, it is just better, which is unfortunate for average US citizen, but it is the society you guys live in.

Elsewhere in the world there is also bias, but not so much pressure as I guess not so much hinges on the "public popularity" as in the US - Europe, Japan, Aus, Canada, NZ etc, are not heavily invested in war or similar activities which require high level propaganda to ensure popular support. UK has recently owned up to a level of it (recently shown by Hillsborough disaster cover up, and media coverage at the time), but it is far from the sophistication level that you have in the US.

Those numbers seem like wild-ass guesses at best. Also, Al Qaeda targets civilians; it's not really that interested in our personnel so much.

Yes the numbers are a wild guess, with some information as in direct victims of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and total estimates on "terrorist" numbers, plus the other way around - civilian deaths from terrorism vs military/government officials.

As for the terrorists themselves, "Al Qaeda" is a child of propaganda, not the organization itself, but the manner that we talk about them. US is not fighting them in Iraq or Afghanistan, it is fighting the people who want the US out of those countries, and also to try to do the policing job to stop internal infighting, leading to a dirty, confusing war with no goals and mostly civilian targets.

There are leaders who organize this fighting against US in Iraq and Nato in Afghanistan, and their motivation is who knows what, except that you can be certain that they thrive in the war society. They win. If the war stops, they will likely be the losers, as the power will consolidate and in one way or another there will be only "one" winner, be it Taliban again in Afghanistan, some new Saddam or whomever ends up being the most powerful force after this devastation. Sum total - if anyone, war is only good for warlords, that is on terrorist side. On US side, it is only good for investors.

The military-industrial complex conspiracy theory is fascinating but probably not true. Defense spending is something that happens in excess of what it should regardless of whether we have an actual war to fight. The big ticket items we buy for the military it turns out aren't really very useful in Afghanistan. We continue to build more M1A2 tanks even though the Army keeps saying it doesn't need any, and we have almost none in theater in Afghanistan because they have to be flown in and even the largest airplane we have can only carry two of them. The reason is that Congress wants to keep the factory open, ostensibly to allow for a massive buildup of forces in an emergency. Horse****, it's a pork jobs program.

Look before the war on terror, US defence budget was cut 20% by Clinton, if I remember correctly - there was no big conflict in sight, and under Bush it shot up 75%. Say what you will, but that is an awful lot of money from taxpayers to someone who provides those goods and services.

I would also say, absent any conspiraces or otherwise, it is in the industry's best interest to have a big budget as it is the single biggest entity which entirely depends on tax "charity", ie from citizens pockets into their pockets through the state. Whether they helped initiate the war or not is irrelevant, they are the only big winners behind, after the war runs its course.