How do you use poison gas on an enemy incursion by sea and air, without affecting a large portion of your own civilian population? You can't. Just have to write off the casualties as collateral damage - which puts — Vera Mont

My dad told me that nearly all of the people in England had gas masks, so I doubt there there would be too much collateral damage.
And the reason everyone had them was that there was amply evidence that the nazis had gas and were prepared to use it. After all all they really needed was the territory and a lot of the people would have been exterminated or used as slave labor until they died.

My dad told me that nearly all of the people in England had gas masks, so I doubt there there would be too much collateral damage. — Sir2u

Then how would it stop the enemy, who would presumably be more prepared for gas attack than the local peasants?

Then how would it stop the enemy, who would presumably be more prepared for gas attack than the local peasants? — Vera Mont

If, in this imaginary scenario, Churchill's intelligence agencies had told him that gas was the best weapon to use, on would presume that they did so because they knew that the nazi invaders were not prepared for its use.

Incredible! The thought-experiment gets less plausible by the minute.

Morality according to Churchill was doing the best he could for his country. — Sir2u

Which is clearly a nationalist sentiment, and Churchill was clearly a nationalist.

I'm not sure how that isn't obvious.

You seem to be unaware of the nature of the things you're arguing and now you're trying to compensate with snark.

But I clearly stated that it is the main condition under consideration. I made no statement at all about the possibility of there being other methods even though they might exist in other scenarios. — Sir2u

That's my main point: the idea that in some hypothetical situation usually should mean that this has something to do with reality.

Otherwise it would be like asking if "the only viable method" to continue the existence of humanity would be to rape women, is then forced sex then OK? It's quite a bizarre and loaded question itself which tells something about the person that would ask something like that, because having children and child rearing has been usually done in a consensual manner.

Because how would implementing war crimes be "the only viable method"? How is that the only viable way? War crimes and terror are usually done as method of control of the civilian populace: strike so much fear that they won't lift a finger up. Or at worst, having genocide and/or ethnic cleansing as the ultimate objective. And warcrimes typically happen when the fighting force has huge discipline problems, especially when the armed force is not an organized army, but simply an armed mob. Warcrimes are typical also to armies with soldiers that are treated as cannon fodder. A bit different is then states that have genocidal objectives (like the Third Reich). As I've said earlier, the effectiveness of the idea of making a desert and calling it peace has been understood from Antiquity, but also the rejection of this strategy comes from that time too. The question of justification has been clear since Antiquity: there is no moral justification for it.

The only possibilities that come to my mind of "the only viable method" are totally morally objectionable scenarios, typically dictatorships with little support of the populace clinging on to power. Hence no moral grounds for this. Or then you believe in the ideas like Lebensraum from one Austrian mister H.

And this strategy actually has nothing to do with actual warfare of killing the enemy combatants and destroying the enemy itself, which is the stuff the laws of war are basically about (even if they have been enlarged to consider other things too). The Chinese can indeed have a genocidal program against the Uighurs (arbitrary detention, forced sterilization and abortion etc.), but these are not warcrimes because the Chinese military isn't fighting Uighurs in armed combat.

If, in this imaginary scenario, Churchill's intelligence agencies had told him that gas was the best weapon to use, on would presume that they did so because they knew that the nazi invaders were not prepared for its use. — Sir2u

Churchill himself advised to use mustard gas on Iraq rebels, so you don't have to assume here that Churchill would have had to be encouraged to use them on a hypothetical German beach head landing zone in 1940, if Operation Sea Lion would have gone through. I think he would have wanted to use them in that kind of dire situation. Of course I also think that mr Hitler would had no difficulties in ordering the Luftwaffe then to bomb London with chemical weapons: once the Allies used them, no reason why not to use them yourself! After all, Douhet, the father of the terror bombing strategy, thought prior to WW2 that strategic bombing should be done with a mixture of conventional bombs and fire bombs and then followed on with a chemical attack to prevent first responders from doing their job. Hence the common thought prior to WW2 that bombings of cities would be done also by chemical weapons. Just look at any photos of pre-WW2 that handle preparations for the common people against aerial bombing.

Notice that this is a bit of different question. Because here the question is of weapons that have been deemed "unlawful". There's a multitude of these "banned" weapons: chemical weapons, biological weapons, antipersonnel mines etc. which countries can either participate in banning or not. Yes, there was the Geneva Protocol of 1925 forbidding the use of chemical weapons, but actually even before WW1 the UK had signed a ban on chemical weapons. But once the Germans used chemical weapons in WW1, the UK had no problems of using them itself.

The simple question here is the futility of such an attack: the German soldier carried all time during WW2 the gas mask, if you've seen photos of German troops from WW2. And btw Germany had the largest quantity of chemical weapons during WW2, the allies actually didn't have a similar stockpile. It's not a miracle weapon, which all sides knew.

German WW2 canisters for the gasmasks:



It might be handy when the enemy has no gas masks, like the Ethiopians didn't have when Mussolini attacked them.

(An Ethiopian with burns from chemical agents during the Italian-Abyssinian war in 1936)

Incredible! The thought-experiment gets less plausible by the minute. — Vera Mont

It started as an implausible situation and has continued throughout as one. What if questions usually have that characteristic.

Which is clearly a nationalist sentiment, and Churchill was clearly a nationalist.

I'm not sure how that isn't obvious.

You seem to be unaware of the nature of the things you're arguing and now you're trying to compensate with snark. — Tzeentch

So when a christian does what he considers the best he can do to protect his family and kills the people attacking them it is a religious sentiment. No it is animal survival instinct, look after the pack, herd, tribe.
Just because Churchill had a bigger family does not make it a nationalist sentiment, he did not make the decisions he made just because he was British but as the person responsible for the people he was in charge of.

It started as an implausible situation and has continued throughout as one. What if questions usually have that characteristic. — Sir2u

Okay. But some are more fantastical than others. The answer to this particular one: Yes, he'd probably use whatever means he considered effective; he would not be hampered by moral considerations. His biographers would justify it, regardless of collateral damage or harm to British citizens, and continue to hold him up as a hero. It was the nation and the empire he served; the common people were not 'his family'.

Nationalism doesn't exist, and we're just one big happy family?

You're starting to bend yourself at fascinating angles.

That's my main point: the idea that in some hypothetical situation usually should mean that this has something to do with reality. — ssu

Churchill never used gas as a weapon so that part is not about reality. We are discussing the possibility of him using it under certain specific conditions.
One of those conditions is the one I specified as its use being the ONLY possible method, in which I stated that I consider that he would be justified in using it.

There are many other possible scenarios, but here I am not making any statements about them.

War crimes and terror are usually done as method of control of the civilian populace: strike so much fear that they won't lift a finger up. Or at worst, having genocide and/or ethnic cleansing as the ultimate objective. — ssu

I think that this does not work in favor of your case, we were using gas as a defensive weapon.

Otherwise it would be like asking if "the only viable method" to continue the existence of humanity would be to rape women, is then forced sex then OK? It's quite a bizarre and loaded question itself which tells something about the person that would ask something like that, because having children and child rearing has been usually done in a consensual manner. — ssu

It is in no way a similar question to the justification of using gas as a weapon.

If it is actually the ONLY method, then there is no other option. Key word ONLY.
If the world, due to some natural disaster, reached a point where there were few people left and the only way to continue the human race was to force people to breed as much as possible even if they were against the idea. Should the human race be allowed to become extinct? Or would it be immoral to force women to have babies?
Please remember that morality is a social construct based on the needs of the society it serves.

it was the nation and the empire he served, not the people. — Vera Mont

EErr, and just who are the nation and the empire? Surely they are the people?

Nationalism doesn't exist, and we're just one big happy family? — Tzeentch

I never said that, I am just trying to make it clear what his motivation was.

You're starting to bend yourself in fascinating angles. — Tzeentch

[snark]I must be learning from you![/smark]

But one thing I will bet with you about. If Churchill had used gas to stop the Germans crossing the channel, the people would have loved him for it.

EErr, and just who are the nation and the empire? Surely they are the people? — Sir2u

No. The people, collectively, exist to serve the nation. As for the empire, the people who live there are of far less significance. Individually and in very large numbers, they can be sacrificed for the crown, the state and the empire. These are quite distinct entities in the world-view of a monarchist head of state.

No. The people, collectively, exist to serve the nation. — Vera Mont

Were do you live? The nation is the people that form it, as a political idea it is there to serve the people. That is why people get elected to be national leaders, so that the nation can serve the people.

I'll be advocating for that gas attack as well as virtually any method necessary to destroy them — BitconnectCarlos

Everything is allowed when it comes to self-defense, but bombing civilian targets because it improves the chances of winning a war is several jumps away from self-defense.

Here's a litmus test for any moral theory: does it say the Nazi's were evil? No? Then that moral theory is a philosophical piece of shit. — RogueAI

First it was Germans, then Nazis, when pressed further, you will change the script to the say the ideology is evil instead. But the comments defending the murder of German civilians will remain. Funny.

Political idea. Right.

The nation is the people that form it, as a political idea it is there to serve the people. — Sir2u

Spoken like a true nationalist. Except, of course, the nation is a specific power structure leveraging a national (often ethnic or cultural) identity to generate loyalty in accordance with that identity at the exclusion of other more universal principles, which principles are sacrificed on the altar of injustice.

Spoken like a true nationalist. — Benkei

Me, a nationalist. :rofl: :rofl:
I have not been near my country of birth in 50 years, and I am not even politically minded.

the nation is a specific power structure leveraging a national (often ethnic or cultural) identity to generate loyalty in accordance with that identity — Benkei

And while saying this you keep repeating that the nation is not the people? Who makes up the ethnic or cultural groups if it is not the people? Who are they going to be loyal to if not the people that make up the nation?

Who are they going to be loyal to if not the people that make up the nation? — Sir2u

The people are loyal to the monarch and aristocracy, the pope and high clergy, the populist demagogue, the warlord, the caliph, the ayatollah, the governor, the chieftain, the general, the company, the regiment... The rulers are loyal to their own power structure. They do the plotting and declaring; the people do the fighting and dying.

@RogueAI @Tzeentch @Sir2u @BitconnectCarlos @Vera Mont

I think the points raised in this article might help ground this debate in some more concrete ethical viewpoints during wartime. One might disagree with this author, I can see many points for debate, but I wanted to present it as a good starting place to help bring up important points about war.

Here is the article:
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2024/03/92928/

Well, if all the Palestinians have to die in order to stop one terrorist organization out of the sixty or so designated by the CIA, why should we question that moral choice? There are more terrorist enclaves in Turkey, Russia, India, Malaysia, South America, Africa.... I wonder who'll be left to benefit from all that lasting peace.
However, he collateral damage I referred to was British civilians and livestock and fish - "the people" who were being defended and their food sources. One assumption that the Germans, if they had the chance, would kill everybody anyway - something that didn't happen in the countries they occupied. That's a more difficult moral choice than sacrificing potential foreign enemies. But Churchill proved himself capable of making that choice, so there is no doubt of his resolve.

The moment-by-moment tactics are one ethical consideration. The long-term strategy is another. A third, which is a moot point in the heat of a military campaign, but nevertheless relevant for future consideration, is how the state of affairs came about that produced this particular crisis. We could ask that regarding Israel's unending hostilities, and the Middle East in general. We could even ask why there are so many terrorists and what conditions, besides killing lots and lots of people, could be altered to produce fewer instead of more.

Very interesting, I am in total agreement with him.

It's all in what I wrote. Maybe quote the whole thing and read it again? National identity is bullshit. It's not about the people at all. Just random lines on a map. Us vs. Them. Excuses for atrocities.

It conveniently ignores ius ad bellum and goes straight to ius in bello. He's also applying a doctrine developed for states to non-state actors. And it's obviously a piece written by someone written an agenda - justifying Israeli war crimes.

It's not that the West has forgotten about collateral damage being sometimes acceptable under ius in bello but that Israeli violence is disproportionate and that the ill intent and targeting of civilians is by now well documented.

Here's an actual analysis instead of this opinion piece:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/466473

Well, if all the Palestinians have to die in order to stop one terrorist organization out of the sixty or so designated by the CIA, why should we question that moral choice? — Vera Mont

As it says in the article, the Palestinians are the ones that have the responsibility to stop the terrorist that are supposedly acting on their behalf.
Is no one in Gaza telling them to stop being terrorists or is it that no one is listening to their pleas to stop?

Many of the countries that host terrorist groups have corrupt governments that are unwilling to stop them because of the financial gains involved.

After this brief survey of the Just War Tradition we can conclude the following six criteria regarding Ius ad Bellum:

1) right authority; meaning the supreme authority, which cannot turn to a higher authority
2) just cause; of which are identifiable, self-defence, defence of a friend or ally, wars of recovery both immediate and after some time, self-determination and finally humanitarian intervention; no punitive wars are allowed
3) right intention; an authority should have as its aim the common good of all involved although the particular good of its own community may outweigh such considerations; the intention to kill is lawful for a public authority
4) last resort; all other means to solve the conflict must have been tried and failed
5) reasonable chance of success; before waging a war an authority must surmise whether a war will be successful for otherwise he will waste the lives of its citizens
6) proportionality; the evils let loose by war should be proportionate to the evil avoided or the better peace attained — Benkei

Let us suppose the the objective of Israel is to rid the world of a terrorist group that defines itself as representatives of a country.
1. Who can get rid of Hamas? I have not heard of any other authority including the ones in the country they claim to represent offering to do the job.
2. I can think of a couple of things on that list that would cover the situation.
3. Getting rid of the terrorist group would be of benefit to even the people they claim to represent.
4. I am sure that they have tried other means of stopping people killing their people
5. Unless third parties actually intervene I see no reason why success is not a sure thing. And I do not see to many rushing to aid the terrorists.
6. If this method eliminates the terrorists and allows for peace then I am sure other groups will fear the same methods being used against them. The world could actually become a nice place.

Now lets apply it to the OP
1. Churchill was the highest authority, there was no one else he could have passed the decisions on to.
2. Again there are several options here.
3. Defeating the nazi war machine at any cost would benefit the whole world, except those that started the action.
4. No way out of the hole they were in. The bad guys did not want anything but war.
5. As stated in the OP, there was a good chance of success.
6. Again, ridding the world of the bad guys at that moment would halt further evil and make it easier to obtain peace.

I like this idea.

As it says in the article, the Palestinians are the ones that have the responsibility to stop the terrorist that are supposedly acting on their behalf. — Sir2u

And for that, they should die? I respectfully disagree.

Many of the countries that host terrorist groups have corrupt governments that are unwilling to stop them because of the financial gains involved. — Sir2u

Kill 'em all!
But for the sake of all that's unholy, do not, ever address the situations that give rise to terrorism.

Just random lines on a map. Us vs. Them. — Benkei

Well, let's look at one of those lines on a map. If North Korea invades South Korea and has killed hundreds of thousands of citizens in Seoul using gas weapons, and is poised to overrun South Korea, would the U.S. be justified in nuking North Korea to save South Korea?

Kill 'em all!
But for the sake of all that's unholy, do not, ever address the situations that give rise to terrorism. — Vera Mont

I would suppose that methods of doing this had already been tried, obviously without success.

Maybe you could enlighten us on what you think might be the causes of some of the terroristsy things that have happened recently and give us some advice about prevent them from happening in the future.

As one of the best know acts of terrorism, maybe you could start with 9/11.