Honor has no place in warfare

Welcome to the SDMB.

It must be nice to live in a world of such absolutes, where you get to use words like “always” and “never.” I won’t hijack this thread, but look around for any number of threads discussing the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of WWII for discussions of why it was necessary and proper to do what the US did. ( I suppose the attacks on Japan are the textbook examples of destroying a city)

Hmmm…too bad you weren’t around to explain ethics and morals to the Allied commanders in WWII. Bombing civilians was not only done it was routine. Further, bomber command came up with very specific plans that would maximize death and destruction. First a wave of bombers would drop standard explosive bombs to create a lot of rubble. Following that wave were bombers that dropped incendiary bombs that would set the rubble ablaze. Finally, a third wave would follow that would drop antipersonnel bombs (think shrapnel) to kill the firefighters. That was a standard firebombing routine and such tactics actually killed more people in Tokyo than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. Also note that these were not bombing raids specifically targeted at factories/transportation hubs. This was wholesale carpetbombing of cities.

I hope I didn’t come across as holier-than-thou, but I firmly believe that some things are wrong regardless of situation or circumstance. Deliberate and wholesale slaughter of civilians during war is one of those things.

If we start saying that such acts may be acceptable depending on the conditions, we open the door for our enemies to follow suit and therefore give legitimacy to those who would commit mass murder in the name of expediency, political gain, or religious intolerance.

There are some things that we as human beings cannot allow ourselves to descend to, and there are some lines which must be held firm. There have to be some moral absolutes to which we must adhere, even in war, otherwise there is nothing left to do but spiral ever downwards into a pit of death and insanity from which there is no escape.

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I agree that moral absolutes exist, but this is far from a given, as an examination of numerous threads on subjects like this will show. There are many intelligent people making intelligent arguments to the contrary.

If you are religious, there is no contradiction in asserting moral absolutes exist, rooted in personal God or elsewhere, but that in a fallen world there may indeed be situations with no “good” way out.

If you were on a battle field, about to be slaughtered by a thousand enemy soldiers who had honorably won the day, what would you do?

A) Let yourself die gloriously and honorably, never to see the light of day again

B) Use dishonorable tactics to save your own skin

Personally, I’d go with choice B.

Do you really think every civilian should be held responsible for everything their government does? I’m sorry, but that seems incredibly stupid to me. Not every citizen supports what the government does. Many oppose it. Yet they should be held responsible for something they don’t want happening?

Then how, exactly, can someone NOT responsible for someone else’s actions if that’s true?

The relationship between the individual and his government as we envision it in the west is very different from the way some others concieve that relationship. Guilt-by-association is standard practice for some peoples; just because you want to distance yourself from your government/nationality/religion doesn’t mean I have to accept that. Is this rational? No. Sane? Probably not. But sane and rational people doesn’t exactly describe who we’re fighting here, does it?

Which still doesn’t make it right. Slavery and female degradation have also been standard practice in some cultures. Does that make these practices right?

IMO, no. But the whole point is that you may find yourself in situautions where there is no “good” alternative. I may wish to keep women and children out of combat. But if I am faced with a foe that uses children as weapons (i.e. as decoys, human sheilds, suicide bombers, whatever) I must start looking at 10-year old civilians as threats, or else put myself in danger. Similarly, if you face a foe who does not discriminate between civilian and combatant, you need to account for that. If you do recognize that distinction, you are at a disadvantage. Currently, for the US, in the current conflict, that disadvantage is outwieghed by technology, etc.

On can easily imagine conflicts in which that disadvantage might be decisive.

Whether they should be held responsible in a war time setting is another strategic decision. I believe that they are responsible. (At least when we are talking about a democracy, if we are talking about Iraq it may be a different story) The United States government derives its power from the People. There is no other source of authority. Check out the US Constitution "We the people… etc…

It is true that there are many things that the government does that are unpopular with many people. That doesn’t excuse them from their responsibility for those actions. I might think that speed limits are low, that doesn’t absolve me of the responsibility to abide by them. A democratic State is an expression of the collective will of its people. Again, if the people are not responsible for the actions of their government, Who is?

I am not quite sure what you are asking, but I think the answer is that there is a fundamental difference between the relationship that exists between two people and the one that exists between a person and their State (again at least when we are talking about western nations).

I think Rhum Rummer was the only one to understand my (admittedly confused) point. I’m not saying that mass murder, regular obliteration of cities, and inhuman acts are or should be part of normal warfare. But at the same time, we must always strive for more and more efficient tactics. Using the best weapons for the job (keeping in mind those nasty repercussions of superweapons), using tactics that don’t alow the enemy to effectively fight back, and so forth are all what I consider a positive good.

In the same vein, I don’t support the mindless killing of civvies. Yet at the same tim, I would support kidnapping high officers or beurocrats, bombing of factories, and even the ouright destruction of populated areas. I wouldn’t like it. I would still do it.

While I am ambivelant about sneak attacks I would be well comfortable with decrying them when used against me and then doing the same to my enemies. I have no honor, after all. :slight_smile:

PS: when i said “Now then, the Age of Chivalry is dead” I meant that at one time, people could at least pretend that the other guy would act in a genuinely decent manner. The Civil War is actually a good example. Yet with modern times has come an increasingly serious and amoral mode of warfare. Often times, men cannot even see the enemy, so how can we hamstring ourselves by adhering to outmoded concepts that, while admirable, cripple ourselves.

I think Rhum Rummer was the only one to understand my (admittedly confused) point. I’m not saying that mass murder, regular obliteration of cities, and inhuman acts are or should be part of normal warfare. But at the same time, we must always strive for more and more efficient tactics. Using the best weapons for the job (keeping in mind those nasty repercussions of superweapons), using tactics that don’t alow the enemy to effectively fight back, and so forth are all what I consider a positive good.

In the same vein, I don’t support the mindless killing of civvies. Yet at the same tim, I would support kidnapping high officers or beurocrats, bombing of factories, and even the ouright destruction of populated areas. I wouldn’t like it. I would still do it.

While I am ambivelant about sneak attacks I would be well comfortable with decrying them when used against me and then doing the same to my enemies. I have no honor, after all. :slight_smile:

PS: when i said “Now then, the Age of Chivalry is dead” I meant that at one time, people could at least pretend that the other guy would act in a genuinely decent manner. The Civil War is actually a good example. Yet with modern times has come an increasingly serious and amoral mode of warfare. Often times, men cannot even see the enemy, so how can we hamstring ourselves by adhering to outmoded concepts that, while admirable, cripple ourselves?

Yea, that whole Andersonville thing was genuinely decent. Oh, you said “pretend”… Well, yea, we can pretend right now that American (and Israeli) military forces are doing what’s good and right all the time. Many people do.

I think your problem comes from stressing tactical expediency over moral considerations. At minimum, they should hold equal importance, one being overridden by the other as the situation demands. War is an ugly affair, but even then there must be some kind of restraint. Anything can be called an “outmoded concept”, including war itself.

Not every state is democratic. Even in those that are, not every single individual has a say. The people who create a certain policy, support it, and carry it out are the ones responsible. To extend responsibility beyond that is stretching the bounds of reason.

You could argue a citizen implicitly supports a given policy by not speaking out against it or rebelling, but that assumes that citizen first has access to information and second has the ability to do anything about it. Do you expect a poor farmer or city dweller to defeat an oppressive regime without support? To arbitrarily condemn him as responsible because he is doing his best to preserve his own life while you, the soldier, bomb him by the same reasoning is hypocritical.

mathematics is only in your head?

the first general purpose computer, the ENIAC, was built to do ballistic calculations for artillary for WWII. computers are without honor.

is the computer you are using only in your head? how much mathematics went into its design.

honor is about idiotic human motivational psychology. if noone cared what anyone else thought of them, the use of HONOR for social control would be meaningless. so honor is a mass delusion.

Dal Timgar

Do you mind if I ask you something, then? Why should we care what you think on this matter? Can we ignore your opinion, or would it be more proper to respectfully consider your words?

I think I said that the same standards that apply to democracies do not apply to others. (Didn’t I say that? See comments re Iraq above) As far as the only people *in a democracy * being responsible for their government’s actions being those who support a particular policy, I respectfully disagree with you. When the government acts it is acting in the name of the People, not just whatever particular faction of the people who happen to believe in that particular action on that particular day.

I think there are two separate discussions here, one about the ‘honor’ in attacking civilians during a war (as part of the larger discussion of ‘honor’ during war in general), and one about the culpability of a population for the actions of its government. I don’t think the two necessarily are related. That is, I don’t think it is necessary for a population to be responsible for its government’s actions in order to justify targeting the civilians for military reasons during a war. Thus, even when engaging a non-democratic country it is still perfectly acceptable to attack civilians.

Yet you still think targeting civilians in either case is justifiable. Maybe it is, but why do you even make a distinction between democratic and non-democratic nations if this is the case?

The government will always claim it is acting in the name of the people, but that doesn’t mean it is so. Is the U.S. a democracy by your estimation? If so, was the average Joe on the street responsible for the incursions into Cambodia during the Vietnam war or the sales of arms to Iran?

I agree it’s a side discussion from the general case, but that’s such a wide topic that you must look at specific examples for it to have any meaning. Most people today would say genocide is unacceptable while sinking a hostile battleship with a submarine is a legitimate act in time of war, even if there were civilians on board.

I don’t understand how you can not see the linkage between the honor of attacking a group of people and their level of responsibility for justifying said attack. If you shoot one of a gang of an intruders who tries to kill you, it’s called justifiable homicide. If you have the police go arrest the remaining assailants you’re clean. If you track them down vigilante style, you’re dirty; perhaps you could justify it to yourself, but it’s not pretty when it comes to the law. If you are unable to catch the rest of the gang and so resort to shooting their families, employers, and anyone who even remotely supports them in order to destroy their resolve, you are considered a psycho.

Countries work slightly differently, and war is a far more complex situation. If only for that reason do we need to look very closely at the goals and justifications for bombing every time we do it. Argument along the lines of “anything supporting the enemy’s war effort is a legitimate target” typically ignore or gloss over the reasons why the particular war in question is being fought in the first place. Sometimes this is because the war is touted as being one of self-defense, but rarely is a country’s existence dependent on the utter destruction of another country. More frequently the stated goal is to end the war sooner and/or reduce friendly casualties.

While it may be politically acceptable to save the life a friendly soldier at the expense of an innocent civilian, I think some of us jump too fast at accepting it (or, for that matter, condemning it) without consideration. The volunteer soldier has chosen to face the risk of death upon enlistment; the civilian usually has been given no such choice. The volunteer soldier is an active instrument of foreign policy; the civilian has likely had little or no significant influence on his country’s interaction with the rest of the world. Even these are simplifications, for the soldier could be a draftee or may have been forced at gunpoint to the frontlines. The civilian may have been able to leave the country or perhaps was at one time a supporter of the regime. However, since we are talking about bombing cities in particular, it is certain the culpable civilians and non-culpable civilians are mixed amongst children with no responsibility whatsoever; foes with burning hate and potential allies alike.

The American perspective is torn between Jefferson’s priniciple on one hand–that is it better that ten guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be unjustly punished–and the discomforting possibility that we might need to violate the principle in order to save it. It is my opinion, however, that we must flinch from the latter wherever possible, lest we risk destroying what we had intended to protect.