A Story, A Hypothetical, And A Question:

[Kaj]

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Well at least one prominent member of this forum said he'd rather kill every single Japanese man, woman, and child than accept a conditional surrender by the Japanese.

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Even that extreme statement does not imply that he thinks all Japanese people are "guilty", but rather that unconditional surrender is a very important goal.

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Fine. So is your position that it is justified to kill millions of innocents for our government to save face?

(By the way, did you know that the final surrender conditions were essentially quite the same as what many leaders felt were possible before the bombs? It wasn't totally unconditional in the end anyway.)

[nietzreznor]

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Does the pro-war side have some guilt when it comes to supporting the war? Without the support of millions of flag-waving Americans, we wouldn't still be there. So is an attack on these people any more or less justified than an attack on an Iraqi neighborhood which doesn't oppose the local militia? Food for thought.

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Good question. My intitial reaction would be that pro-war people share in some of the guilt, but certainly not at the level that people in government share, and not at a level that could justify killing a hundred or so people at random (even if it was known that they were all pro-war). As to whether such an attack would be more or less justified than attacking an Iraqi neighborhood, I would think they're pretty much equally horrible.

[W brad]

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Well at least one prominent member of this forum said he'd rather kill every single Japanese man, woman, and child than accept a conditional surrender by the Japanese.

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Even that extreme statement does not imply that he thinks all Japanese people are "guilty", but rather that unconditional surrender is a very important goal.

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(By the way, did you know that the final surrender conditions were essentially quite the same as what many leaders felt were possible before the bombs? It wasn't totally unconditional in the end anyway.)

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You are dealing in 20/20 hindsight here. When you are in the middle of things you have to do the best with the information you have.

As a poker player, I am sure you have made bad river calls and berated yourself when you realized how bad they were. But that won't stop you from doing it again when you are in the middle of things next time.

Its foolish to expect perfection of our military leaders and government leaders. But there are obviously a lot of foolish people in this country who expect just that.

[nietzreznor]

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If you don't accept that, then don't join the military or run the government. Leave that to the people who can deal with messy situations and can deal with the sometimes necessary death of innocent people.

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...and our government is currently run by dishonest, manipulative sociopaths. I don't think its a coincidence that these are precisely the type of people that supposedly can handle such "messy" (but necessary!) situations.

[W brad]

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If you don't accept that, then don't join the military or run the government. Leave that to the people who can deal with messy situations and can deal with the sometimes necessary death of innocent people.

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...and our government is currently run by dishonest, manipulative sociopaths. I don't think its a coincidence that these are precisely the type of people that supposedly can handle such "messy" (but necessary!) situations.

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It is just as dishonest to believe that love and nonintervention will work as a foreign policy goal.

Jimmy Carter tried that, and failed miserably.

[Copernicus]

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He choose to kill innocents instead of those that droped the bombs, but in a way, a large way, we're all guilty, so he wasn't so far from targeting the right killers.

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How are we 'all' guilty? Nobody I know personally has killed any Iraquis, nobody I know (or, almost nobody) supports the war in Iraq, supports Bush, voted for Bush, etc etc etc. How could people who are ooposed to war and who didn't participate in the actual killings (or in the ordering of said killings) of innocent people be 'guilty'?

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By the same logic used to say the people in Hiroshima were guilty of Japan's deeds and the people of Dresden were guilty of Hitler's deeds and the people of Tripoli were guilty of Qaddafi's deeds. I'm not saying we're guilty. But those who justify the deaths of foreign civilians must use the same logic when applied to Americans.

Edit: You brought up anti-war folks. Lets put them aside. Does the pro-war side have some guilt when it comes to supporting the war? Without the support of millions of flag-waving Americans, we wouldn't still be there. So is an attack on these people any more or less justified than an attack on an Iraqi neighborhood which doesn't oppose the local militia? Food for thought.

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moral equivalency raises its ugly head again

[Kaj]

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He choose to kill innocents instead of those that droped the bombs, but in a way, a large way, we're all guilty, so he wasn't so far from targeting the right killers.

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How are we 'all' guilty? Nobody I know personally has killed any Iraquis, nobody I know (or, almost nobody) supports the war in Iraq, supports Bush, voted for Bush, etc etc etc. How could people who are ooposed to war and who didn't participate in the actual killings (or in the ordering of said killings) of innocent people be 'guilty'?

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By the same logic used to say the people in Hiroshima were guilty of Japan's deeds and the people of Dresden were guilty of Hitler's deeds and the people of Tripoli were guilty of Qaddafi's deeds. I'm not saying we're guilty. But those who justify the deaths of foreign civilians must use the same logic when applied to Americans.

Edit: You brought up anti-war folks. Lets put them aside. Does the pro-war side have some guilt when it comes to supporting the war? Without the support of millions of flag-waving Americans, we wouldn't still be there. So is an attack on these people any more or less justified than an attack on an Iraqi neighborhood which doesn't oppose the local militia? Food for thought.

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moral equivalency raises its ugly head again

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"Moral equivalency" is your catch phrase to condemn anyone who thinks the American govt is accountable for its actions.

[TomVeil]

Very interesting responses, thank you everybody who responded [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] How long do you think that we would be in Iraq if this happened say.....twice a month? 200 civilians a month dead IN THE US. How fast would support of this war drop? Or would it shoot back up? (In this you have to assume that there's no denying that the Bobbys of the world are ONLY retalating because of our actions in Iraq) A lot of people like to wave their flags and say "We're at war!", but it seems to me that thinking would break down pretty quickly if we were actually sustaining casualties here. Suddenly I think that war would be a lot less glamorous to the people who are still supporting it.

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These people wouldn't be dying if soldiers weren't over there starting a war; so when innocent civilians die because of this, we can't just write off the deaths as a 'tragic' part of war when there was no cause for the war itself.

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That pretty much sums it up. Losses on the OTHER side are tragic, but unavoidable in war. Losses on OUR side would be treated much, much differently. I guess because they are half-way around the world, we can just write them off because they're out of our monkeysphere. However, lose a friend who was just going to the mall to get some jeans, and suddenly The War is real. I bet it would make a lot of people think about what we're actually doing over there.

[boracay]

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If you don't accept that, then don't join the military or run the government. Leave that to the people who can deal with messy situations and can deal with the sometimes necessary death of innocent people.

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...and our government is currently run by dishonest, manipulative sociopaths. I don't think its a coincidence that these are precisely the type of people that supposedly can handle such "messy" (but necessary!) situations.

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It is just as dishonest to believe that love and nonintervention will work as a foreign policy goal.

Jimmy Carter tried that, and failed miserably.

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it's not about love, but it is about dialog, cooperation, finding solutions in peaceful manner, it's about accepting differences, not about rejecting. it's about freedom for all human and about freedom and sovereignty of all countries and not about terrorizing the world under your rules. basicly it's about refusing double standards and that's probably not too hard to understand. there has been rulers in the past who believed they are superficial to the others or chosen or who have right to make the world under their command and history is not indulgent to them or to their views.

you say it's dishonest to believe nonintervention will work as a foreign policy goal. actually this exactly is working perfectly in all so called western democracies (or by words of some in civilized world), why would you think it can't work in the USA?

[Taso]

Is this all under the assumption that the United States military killed his family? Or should we assume that it was an Iraqi that killed his family during the war? This is usually the case; Iraqis blow up a bomb and kill 50 Iraqi civilians, and 1 US soldier. So it'd be better to assume an Iraqi killed his family, not an American. So, really, he should have gone and killed all the Iraqis he could find.

So not only are his actions not "understandable" they are also completely unjustified, and in no way similar to an Iraqi being the casuality of war. Americans don't intentionally target Iraqi civilians in Iraq, they target combatants, sometimes civilians are killed, and its tragic. Iraqis intentionally target civilians in Iraq, sometimes US soldiers are killed or, if you prefer, Iraqis intentionally target US soldiers, sometimes civilians are killed, and its tragic.