Yup. Which every country did of course.

Which every country did of course. — Benkei

The US didnt have to obviously. Did the British do that on purpose?

It doesnt look like they did.

Are all other horrors of war so eclipsed by the Holocaust that we no longer have any usable scale by which we can condemn them? Can we condemn them as much as they ought (in my view) to be condemned without being falsely accused of equating them with the Holocaust? — Peter Hitchens

Is the motivation for defending Britain's deliberate bombing of civilians that giving even an inch to those who condemn it would be seen to moderate one's uncompromising opposition to everything the Nazis did and stood for? I don't understand it otherwise. And even this motivation is difficult to understand except as a thoughtless kneejerk reaction. It seems to me that your moral authority is only enhanced by facing up to the crimes perpetrated by your own side. After all, if anything you do can be justified by "but Nazis" then you don't have much of a morality at all.

As for the idea that condemning the bombings excuses or diminishes the atrocities of the Nazis, I just find it bizarre. Note that British historians right across the political spectrum condemn the actions. Not all would label it as a war crime, but none of them, as far as I know, think that the earth-shattering horror of the Holocaust makes everything the Allies did somehow all right.

Myself, I also hesitate to label it as a war crime, partly because I'm simply uncomfortable, unlike Benkei, with a legalistic framing of such things, even if I can admit that international law has its place, given that we do live in a war-torn world. But to me, the law here would seem to me just to normalize the war, and to simplify it, to isolate specific actions that have to be understood in context, etc. Anyway, that's beside the point. The point being that killing those people was an inexcusable evil.

To condemn the targeting of innocent people, who included children, the old, and the sick--to say it was evil, as I do, is not to say that the war effort was evil, that RAF personnel were evil, or even that Harris or Churchill were evil--and it is not to draw an equivalency between the bombing and the exterminations carried out by the Nazis.

Would any Allied action have been justified? Would it have been "yeah it was bad but we were fighting the Nazis" if the Allies had, after liberation, continued to use the concentration camps and death camps, this time to murder German people in exactly the same way as the Nazis used them? People who were not in any sense responsible for the Nazis? Would you simply shout "Payback" in that case too? (As it happens, the Soviets did continue to use the camps for a while, especially for political prisoners, though not to gas people)

Peter Hitchens is an extremely unfashionable conservative but he has a lot of good stuff to say about the issue:

I get into no end of trouble for my position on this. I am told that I am unpatriotic, even now, for discussing it or for being distressed by the extreme and horrible cruelties inflicted by our bombs on innocent women and children, who could not conceivably be held responsible for Hitler’s crimes. On the contrary, I believe it is the duty of a proper patriot to criticize his country where he believes it to have done wrong.

I am told I am defaming the memory of the bomber crews. I have never done so, and never will. They had little idea of what they were doing, died terrible deaths in terrible numbers thanks to the ruthless squandering of life by their commanders, and showed immense personal courage. It is those who, knowing what was being done, ordered them into battle that I blame.

I am told that I am equating our bombing of Germany with the German mass murder of the Jews, when I would not dream of making such a comparison, never have done so and never will. I am told that I am excusing the mass murder of the Jews, when nothing could ever excuse it and I should certainly never attempt to do so. Is it still necessary to say that two wrongs do not make a right, and that one horribly wrong thing may be worse than another horribly wrong thing, and yet they may both still be horribly wrong, examined by themselves as actions? — Peter Hitchens

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/02/the-bombing-files-arguments-against-the-raf-bombing-of-german-civilians-summed-up.html

Sure, as quid pro quo. But you wish to call them "criminals." For that you must have a reason or you're a "criminal" too. Either you find a moral imperative that governs an amoral setting - or you don't. And your actor is not an individual, but the state - in this case acting for its survival.

Don't think I'm making a case for you to attack - although there is always the possibility of education. But rather that I think you do not have one. And if I may - you can disqualify this if you like- this encompasses the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Both unspeakable. Both arguably justifiable. And both outside the bounds of ordinary moral discourse - although that does not stop the attempt. Nor does it prevent individuals from making their own moral choices - a different topic. But I find and hold, until better informed, that in this instance you're estopped from making the war-criminal charge stick, Because you cannot make the case. Because there is no case to make.

I prefer the expressions of artists like Vonnegut, who was in Dresden when it was bombed, or Kiefer, who grew up playing in the rubble. It's more raw, less like a condemnation from a distance, and more about entering all the emotions involved in coming to terms with what we're capable of.

You don't think Slaughterhouse-Five is a condemnation?

Not from a distance, as if it's somebody else's crime.

:up:

Sorry, misread it.

Incidentally, I know some Russians who make excuses for the rape of two million women in Germany by Soviet troops at the end of the war. To make excuses like this I think is a thoughtless instinct, and it's the same phenomenon in these two cases.

Churchill was a creature of 19th century British imperialism (and culture). As such he may have met the standard of being a "war criminal" even while sleeping. — tim wood

Have to say this, in the 19th Century those laws of war or basically civilized conduct was followed many times far more as during our more "civilized" times. It is especially after the slaughter of WW1, the extensive propaganda effort to dehumanize the enemy and the ideological charge to the war effort that changed the way we look at war. With WW2 it turned even worse. As I've said earlier, the only modern conflict where rules of war were followed by both sides was the conflict on remote islands in the Southern Atlantic between the UK and Argentina.

Yet we naturally emphasis brutal tactics that the Imperialist nations dealt with native populations and totally disregard that actually Victorian manners did also surface in the manners in the warfighting of the British. There are so many examples of how totally differently belligerents interacted back then that we would have difficulty to relate to a time when officers were likely aristocrats. Who would think today that if the British Army captured enemy officers that would be taken to the British Isles to be prisoners of war, these officers would be then let free to travel inside the country if they give their word of honor not to try to escape? That kind of reality isn't going to come back.

(The White flag in war isn't actually for surrender, but for negotiation, ceasefire or truce and it's use comes from Ancient Times as Tacitus mentions it. White flag signifies to all that an approaching negotiator is unarmed, with possibly an intent to surrender, but also a desire to communicate. Persons carrying or waving a white flag are not to be fired upon, nor are they allowed to open fire. Today we assume that these codes of conduct will not be followed and at best that the person wants just to surrender. Progress?)


Anyway, the attack on Churchill is basically done to get a response from the British public who have a positive view of the person. If we delve into commands given to the Bomber command or US Army Air Force and discuss how the given orders were in relation to then current rules of war, the discussion will interest just a few armchair military historians. So better to attack Churchill to get a media frenzy in the UK.

Is the motivation for defending Britain's deliberate bombing of civilians that giving even an inch to those who condemn it would be seen to moderate one's uncompromising opposition to everything the Nazis did and stood for? I don't understand it otherwise. And even this motivation is difficult to understand except as a thoughtless kneejerk reaction. It seems to me that your moral authority is only enhanced by facing up to the crimes perpetrated by your own side. After all, if anything you do can be justified by "but Nazis" then you don't have much of a morality at all. — jamalrob

There seems to be what I'll call a "combatant's exception," where we allow some degree of excuse (or at least we mitigate our evaluation of the severity of the infraction) when the person committing the act is in the heat of battle. It's for that reason that court martials are notoriously lenient. If a soldier fires off too many rounds after fighting for his life, we tend to allow for some degree of overkill (literally). You see the same with the current shootings by police, although those have been called into question because the concern is the overkill is not motivated by uncontrollable emotion, but by racism. This exception would also apply to those in the command center, not just on the ground, so it could apply to Churchill as well. This exception appears to be acknowledged by both you and @Benkei. You've stated that you're not willing to call the bombings of Berlin a war crime and Benkei specifically stated he did not see a moral equivalence between the Nazi crimes and the crimes of Churchill.

Whether this combatant's exception is an unethical and unjustified kneejerk response, I don't think it is. A Kantian analysis allows for retribution, and it ignores consequentialist concerns. As Benkei pointed out, targeting civilians does not damage morale and serves no military purpose, but that is irrelevant if one is conducting a Kantian ethical analysis and not a Utilitarian one. The question would be whether the attack of enemy, which includes civilian attacks, is a proportionate response to whatever preceded it. I tend to think the pain doled out on civilian populations by the Nazis leaves them in a difficult position to argue that they were being disproportionately punished by the bombings over Germany. The last place a Nazi would wish to find himself is in a court guided by the principles of retributivism. I'd also point out that this Kantian analysis is consistent with other Western ethical theories (see, for example, 1 Samuel 15:2-3).

All of this is to say that the acceptance of Churchill's behavior as ethical is not just a kneejerk reaction, but it does have a philosophically arguable basis and it is embedded in the historical moral conscience through culturally accepted sacred documents (to the extent that matters).

Additionally, I entirely disagree with Benkei's assessment that Churchill was not a hero even if I were to agree that the bombings of civilian German targets was entirely unjustified. I can easily divide Churchill's dogged refusal to submit to the Nazi onslaught and his unrelenting effort to protect his island and the greater Western world on the one hand from with his decision to bomb civilian targets on the other. That one saves humanity on Monday and engages in acts of depravity on Tuesday doesn't make me reassess their heroism on Monday. It simply means that I get a trophy when I'm the champion, and I get relegated when I go winless.

There seems to be what I'll call a "combatant's exception," where we allow some degree of excuse (or at least we mitigate our evaluation of the severity of the infraction) when the person committing the act is in the heat of battle. It's for that reason that court martials are notoriously lenient. If a soldier fires off too many rounds after fighting for his life, we tend to allow for some degree of overkill (literally). You see the same with the current shootings by police, although those have been called into question because the concern is the overkill is not motivated by uncontrollable emotion, but by racism. This exception would also apply to those in the command center, not just on the ground, so it could apply to Churchill as well. This exception appears to be acknowledged by both you and Benkei. You've stated that you're not willing to call the bombings of Berlin a war crime and Benkei specifically stated he did not see a moral equivalence between the Nazi crimes and the crimes of Churchill. — Hanover

Agreed.

I tend to think the pain doled out on civilian populations by the Nazis leaves them in a difficult position to argue that they were being disproportionately punished by the bombings over Germany. — Hanover

But in what sense was it the Nazis who were being punished? I think in no sense at all, but I suppose you have another view. I think I could accept your interpretation of Kantian retributive justice as it applies to war (which I think is controversial, but never mind) without accepting that incinerating innocent Germans amounted to retribution against the Nazis.

Additionally, I entirely disagree with an assessment that Churchill was not a hero even if I were to agree that the bombings of civilian German targets was entirely unjustified. I can easily divide Churchill's dogged refusal to submit to the Nazi onslaught and his unrelenting effort to protect his island and the greater Western world with his decision to bomb civilian targets. That one saves humanity on Monday and engages in acts of depravity on Tuesday doesn't make me reassess their heroism on Monday. It simply means that people are complex and nuanced and that real life superheroes don't exist are still human beings. — Hanover

I have a slightly different view of Churchill, but I'm happy to go along with this here, and I think I made it more or less explicit in my mention of Churchill. My post was not aiming towards a reassessment of Churchill as a leader, a person, a hero, or whatever. Rather, it was a plea for the acknowledgement of all acts of depravity.

I think the original point of Benkei's that you objected to was this: "The Blitz still targeted docks and war effort manufacturing. It was Churchill who went for the jugular." The thing is, in the context of Britain and Germany's bombing of each other, this is a fact. That you took Benkei to be implying a general equivalency is partly why I accused you of kneejerk reaction.

@Hanover Also, I'm just curious: was Stalin a hero as well?

My own position on this question is about the same for Stalin as for Churchill: the cause of fighting the Nazis was a good one, and we can be thankful that they were victorious, and they certainly had personal qualities that helped the Allies win, but to call them heroes doesn't seem right to me. Most Russians are proud of their victory against the Nazis, but they're mostly not very enamoured of Stalin himself.

Of course, it's fair to say that unlike Churchill, Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler and only joined the Allies because Hitler broke it. But I don't think Churchill's motivations were much more noble, old-fashioned imperialist that he was.

In case it's not obvious, I'm not saying Churchill's crimes were as bad as Stalin's.

But in what sense was it the Nazis who were being punished? I think in no sense at all, but I suppose you have another view. I think I could accept your interpretation of Kantian retributive justice as it applies to war (which I think is controversial, but never mind) without accepting that incinerating innocent Germans amounted to retribution against the Nazis. — jamalrob

But isn't it always a matter of degree of responsibility that the citizens have for their leader's actions as opposed to offering the citizens full absolution? It's not as if the citizens are nothing more than loyal fans cheering on their football team to victory without expectation of personal consequence should they win, or should they lose. It is a reasonable expectation that if my government rounds up millions of innocent people for the slaughter that there might be some horrible consequence to myself if the tides turn and comeuppance is sought. So, I do offer some degree of complicity to the average citizen, but certainly not as much as to those carrying out the commands and certainly much less than to those issuing the commands. As the bombs fell over Berlin, the curses from the ground should have been directed at Hitler first and foremost. The rest of their curses should have been directed at perhaps Churchill, but quite possibly themselves, depending upon their level of acquiescence to the actions of their government.

Demanding that each citizen answer for their silence, their acquiescence, and their complicity would make the ethical violations of their leaders more difficult to execute. I'm really having some amount of difficulty hearing the cries of the German citizens over the cries of those who were executed by their government. Maybe my sentiment is unrefined and illogical somewhere, but surely it's understandable and not entirely wrongheaded.

I think the original point of Benkei's that you objected to was this: "The Blitz still targeted docks and war effort manufacturing. It was Churchill who went for the jugular." The thing is, in the context of Britain and Germany's bombing of each other, this is a fact. That you took Benkei to be implying a general equivalency is partly why I accused you of kneejerk reaction. — jamalrob

My objection to @Benkei's comment is that it implies (at least to my ears) that at least Hitler kept his attacks within the purview of international law, but it was Churchill who rampantly killed without justification or basis. My comment that followed was that there was nothing at least about Hitler. To the extent he limited his bombings to military targets wasn't because he wanted to keep the war nice and clean and strategic. What he wanted to do was exact the most possible damage on the centralized forces as he could so that he could get his boots on the ground and purge the land of non-Aryans. Hitler was going for the jugular, trying to kill the whole organism. Churchill was at worst lashing about in revenge, but he never did as Hitler would have and tried to wipe out all Anglo blood from the German soil.

Don't think I'm making a case for you to attack - although there is always the possibility of education. But rather that I think you do not have one. And if I may - you can disqualify this if you like- this encompasses the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Both unspeakable. Both arguably justifiable. And both outside the bounds of ordinary moral discourse - although that does not stop the attempt. Nor does it prevent individuals from making their own moral choices - a different topic. But I find and hold, until better informed, that in this instance you're estopped from making the war-criminal charge stick, Because you cannot make the case. Because there is no case to make. — tim wood

This is confused on various levels. If war is amoral, what were the Nazis guilty of? An argument for convenience.

The 1907 The Hague Convention stipulates clearly civilian targets were off limits. The bombing of Dresden concerned a city the size of Manchester, that had no military value and was more or less undefended and crammed with refugees fleeing the Russians.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima is the same story but also includes the brutal consequences of radiation poisoning. Those were even worse.

The laws at the time were clear. The morality is even clearer.

And your actor is not an individual, but the state - in this case acting for its survival. — tim wood

Oh? So weird. Was Germany on trial in Nuremberg then?

that at least Hitler kept his attacks within the purview of international law, — Hanover

Specifically with respect to the Battle of Britain this was true. And this only concerns the way war was waged, Hitler was still the aggressor which means everything that followed was unjust.

In the end, I can't refer to someone like Churchill or Truman as heroes. They only have the moral high ground because "well, at least they weren't as bad as Hitler". That's like saying the murderer wasn't so bad because at least he didn't rape his victim.

Specifically with respect to the Battle of Britain this was true. And this only concerns the way war was waged, Hitler was still the aggressor which means everything that followed was unjust. — Benkei

Assuming international law is not an authority on morality and assuming retribution is a valid militaristic response to an unprovoked attacked, do you agree that Churchill was justified in bombing Dresden?

I'm just seeing if you agree with my logical conclusions if you assumed my foundational beliefs. If you do, then I've least deciphered the origin of our disagreement.

Also, I'm just curious: was Stalin a hero as well?

My own position on this question is about the same for Stalin as for Churchill: the cause of fighting the Nazis was a good one, and we can be thankful that they were victorious, and they certainly had personal qualities that helped the Allies win, but to call them heroes doesn't seem right to me. Most Russians are proud of their victory against the Nazis, but they're mostly not very enamoured of Stalin himself. — jamalrob

My view and the view in my country would be a bit different, of course.

If it wouldn't have been for Stalin, would a hopeless experiment like the Soviet Union persisted? No, and there are a multitude of similar examples that Marxism-Leninism needs strong dictators to survive.

Yet Russians love their country regardless of the moral righteousness that we at the present judge now the past. It's actually the Americans who see things from a viewpoint of moral rectitude, or at least want to. At least the British have (or had) this collective experience of actual war with German air raids. For the Russians the war is even more present. The modern Russian will admit Stalin was a dictator and the gulags existed, but that wouldn't tarnish their view of the Great Patriotic war. He and she does know that the system sucked, but still has a lot of pride in Juri Gagarin being the first man in space.

There actually is no problem in this view.

He and she does know that the system sucked, but still has a lot of pride in Juri Gagarin being the first man in space. There actually is no problem in this view. — ssu

I think there is a problem with people identifying as "Russian" or "American". It makes as much sense as "Northern Hemispheran". Being proud to be a northerner. I think a comprehensive response to 9/11 will involve getting people to think of themselves as individuals rather than as a member of some race/religion/sex/nationality or any other form of aggregation.

or any other form of aggregation. — Paul Edwards

Correction. Ideological groupings are appropriate. E.g. anti-rapists.

My view and the view in my country would be a bit different, of course. — ssu

Well, everything in your post is consistent with the post of mine that you replied to, and I agree with you.

But isn't it always a matter of degree of responsibility that the citizens have for their leader's actions as opposed to offering the citizens full absolution? — Hanover

Well, what does that scale look like in the case of these bombings? Does it go by age and ability, with infants and the mentally disabled being the least responsible, and capable adults being the most responsible? Maybe it's intersectional, such that we can use social class as well: the industrial working class were down at the bottom end of the scale (because they were overwhelmingly anti-Nazi), and Protestant small-businessmen and farmers were at the top (the Nazis' support base)? Even if this were a reasonable scheme for the apportioning of responsibility, the bombings made no such distinctions (although I'm pretty sure they didn't bomb many farmers).

The sense in which some civilians in a war might be regarded as to some degree responsible for the actions of their government is, I suppose, that some of them fully approve of its aims and actions. But, even aside from the presumption of civilian innocence enshrined in international law, in Germany, most of them did not. It was a totalitarian regime that had seized power through a combination of minority support, terrorizing the electorate, and destroying the massively popular anti-Nazi parties and their unions. After the seizure of power, the scope for resistance shrunk to nothing, if one discounts those actions that were suicidal.

I'm really having some amount of difficulty hearing the cries of the German citizens over the cries of those who were executed by their government. — Hanover

But you don't have to choose between them. They are not competing for your sympathy unless you see every civilian victim merely as a representative of the Nazis, on one side, or of the victims of Nazism on the other. To hear the cries of the Germans is not to sympathise with Nazis or belittle their victims. Quite the opposite.

So yes, I do think you're entirely wrongheaded.

Assuming international law is not an authority on morality and assuming retribution is a valid militaristic response to an unprovoked attacked, do you agree that Churchill was justified in bombing Dresden? — Hanover

Retribution on civilian populations, or to make it morally clear - innocent people - is never a valid response. So no. I don't think the bombing of Dresden das justified in any way, shape or form especially when you dive into the reasoning of Bomber Command (which wasn't retribution to begin with).

I think a comprehensive response to 9/11 will involve getting people to think of themselves as individuals rather than as a member of some race/religion/sex/nationality or any other form of aggregation. — Paul Edwards

Says the person with the NATO flag avatar.

This illustrates the fact that some kinds of aggregation can be in opposition to others. One of the most interesting examples is Islamism vs nation-states, which is one of the fundamental dimensions of what some call the Islamic civil war (the other main one is Sunni vs Shia).

"Says the person with the NATO flag avatar."

Yes, but I consider NATO to represent the *ideology* of secular capitalist liberal democracy (aka "free world") rather than being an arbitrary geographical area. That is why I fly the NATO flag even though Australia is not part of NATO. Getting Americans to see themselves as part of a wider community, and wave the NATO flag instead of the American flag, is to me part of the comprehensive response to 9/11.

The beauty of 9/11 was that it cut across nation-states forcing the US to respond to every hostile individual and every hostile idea instead of just dealing with governments.

Basically we now have ideas competing rather than nation-states competing. Well, the Cold War was also ideas competing and also cut across nation states. The heavy weaponry was held by nation-states which were sometimes taken over by the communist ideology.

Yes, we've seen the trouble with a world divided into nation-states, but none of the attempted replacements so far seem to work very well, and in some cases they're worse, e.g., internationalist Islamism vs nationalist Kurds. As for NATO and the "free world", I don't think I want to address that directly at the moment, even though it's more on-topic than all this stuff about bombing Germans.

but none of the attempted replacements so far seem to work very well

Well the subject of this thread is "liberal imperialism". Is that classified as an attempted replacement and do you think it works well?

What do you think of the US military putting down a coup attempt in the Philippines in 1989? It seems to me that this should be used as the basis for the world in the long term. All they needed to do was to buzz some air bases and the coup was defeated. One day it may be US air bases that are being buzzed by NATO forces operating from Canada.

Well the subject of this thread is "liberal imperialism". Is that classified as an attempted replacement and do you think it works well? — Paul Edwards

I'm not sure if it could be classed as a replacement. Traditional imperialism, with settler colonialism and all that, was still fundamentally tied to the nation-state, and perhaps it's the same now. In any case no, I don't think it works well. See my various posts in this discussion.

As for the Philippines, I'm confused as to what your point is. Its history doesn't seem to be a good advert for American interference.

As for the Philippines, I'm confused as to what your point is. Its history doesn't seem to be a good advert for American interference.

It's a ridiculously light touch required to have a democracy instead of a dictatorship in the Philippines. I think it's the best intervention ever. ECOWAS in Gambia was also very good. I think interventions like this are much better than letting some thug take over and calling it an "internal matter" that we shouldn't interfere with.

(although I'm pretty sure they didn't bomb many farmers). — jamalrob

At the end of the war USAAF was running out of targets, so they were also targeting individual houses. And I remember Chuck Yeager in his memoirs telling that they got orders designating a small patch of land in Germany to each fighter, where they should attack everything that moved. At least in his memoirs Yeager told that they thought the order to be so bonkers, that they just flew around and left the rare civilian driving his bicycle alone.