Hawk, following orders is no excuse for criminal behaviour. "Lawful" is also meaningless other than in "law of the jungle" in the examples you mentioned. With no international legal system, it's nothing more than Victor's Law, which is notoriously self-interested. Judges do not normally decide whether they themselves are guilty of something. They don't even judge associated people, as bias is notoriously present when people are not disinterested [which means something different from uninterested].
Also, the fact that some government passes laws doesn't make them ethical or worthy of obeying. Hitler had anti-Jew laws, which didn't make them laws to be obeyed. There were anti-negro laws in the USA, which ethical people should disobey.
The essential ingredient which goes missing in all these situations is self-determination, free will and leaving other people and their property alone. As soon as freedom is suppressed, by "following orders", or by conscription, or by slavery, or obeying the law, or majority rule, or other means, then the slippery slide to hell is in action. It's law of the jungle time, again.
<US targets were either "precision" oriented, with specific military targets in mind or, as in the case of our firebombing of Japan, aimed at the cottage manufacturing industry from which much of their war material was produced (people constructing war goods in their homes).>
That might have been the aim and the theory, but I think the theory ended as the bomb doors opened and random bombing was the result, whether intended or not. "Cottage manufacturing"? Come on. Making what? Bombs, bullets, bayonets, boots, and jackets in their houses? I doubt it. Not to any extent that mattered.
My father told me about Americans claiming they could drop a bomb in a barrel during WWII, but he said they didn't do that in practise. The B52s unloading over Vietnam weren't exactly dropping bombs in barrels either Hawk. It's a nice idea that the USA only got the bad guys, but that's not in the slightest true. Hiroshima included a lot more residential areas and children than the Twin Towers or Pentagon, so on that basis, Al Qaeda was a lot more civilized in their attacks than Americans.
Holier than thou is nice to claim, but an unbiased view sees the Weapons of Mass Destruction used on the Kurds a couple of decades ago were supplied by the USA, Britain and France. The USA is the only user of Weapons of Mass Destruction on the planet so far. The killing of Kurds by Saddam was done with many many weapons and they only killed a few thousand. Hardly weapons of mass destruction. Heck, a single Daisy Cutter could have done about as much.
Personally, I'm not against weapons of mass destruction including nukes. I'm with Norman Schwarzkopf who apparently said there's no nice way to kill people in a war. Whether it's a knife, burial in dirt, poison gas, bomb, mortar, gun, daisy cutter or nuke it's all the same.
If it's total war, then I don't see why a nuke shouldn't be used to cut one's own losses. I'd prefer to nuke Hiroshima than have had my fathers and uncles invade and be killed. It's them or us in such circumstances. The Japanese had demonstrated their attitude to enemy civilians [and anyone else]. It was very ugly. They set the rules, which were total war.
We are far from that situation at present. I hope.
Mqurice |
