RZehr wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 10:28 amLet’s turn that around. Are you saying that the Nuremberg trials prove that the US is not morally compromised and was justified in dropping the atomic bombs?Szdfan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 6:21 am So do you think that because the US military is hypocritical and morally compromised and dropped the atomic bomb, that the Nuremberg Trials shouldn't have happened? By your logic, since ancient militaries killed civilians and all armies care more about winning than civilian deaths, why shouldn't Nazi Germany be able to systemically murder 6 million Jews? How could the US and its allies prosecute Nazi leadership after the war because of Hiroshima and Dresden?
No.
Of course the Germans were developing nuclear weapons at the same time the US was and did employ V1 and V2 missiles to attack cities. They didn't have the range to reach the US.I think that that what Germany did was quite wicked. But I’m saying that if Germany won, there wouldn’t have been trials, much like later Russias Stalin has never been on trial and just like the US wasn’t. If Germany and Japan had won, the US soldiers would have paid accordingly for their deeds. Germany and Japan would have argued that they would never do such a thing as destroying American cities.
I'm not sure it's possible to prove that. However, there have been moments where American soldiers who have committed atrocities have been held accountable -- Abu Grahib and Mai Lai, for example.And I’d like to see some evidence that rules of war, have actual reduced killing instead of any reduction in killing being attributed more accurately to economics or other factors.
It gets murky. I can imagine a military command center calling off an air strike because of 10 civilians. That’s a plus. But then if the military target was valuable enough, I can see the same military command being willing to strike in spite of the 10 civilians.
But since the world is so far outside of will of God, shouldn't we support efforts by the world to mitigate some of its worst impulses?Such is the dilemma we find ourselves in once we venture away from Gods will. Once we are so far outside of Gods will that we think it is okay to kill people because of a magic combination of (a) someone in fancy clothes told me to, and (b) I am wearing matching fancy clothes as him, this gives me license to kill other people as long as they are wearing different fancy clothes.
But if we all take off our fancy clothes and wear normal clothes, it would make this same killing murder, and I may be killed myself by people wearing certain special clothing.
I still reject the notion that somehow we can't criticize anything or that nobody can hold any other country accountable for horrific behavior.Each culture probably has slightly different takes on what sort of behavior is bad in war. Islamic militants included, tribal people, cannibals too. And Christians have a completely different take, which I think, should not give quarter to the argument that having rules of engagement and war, makes our version of war making more justified and civilized. We call a cannibal tribe barbaric for eating their enemy. They may call the US barbaric for bombing entire cities.