KaiBear said:

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Mothra said:

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KaiBear said:

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Mothra said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Dozens of civilians throughout the Middle East are killed by US air strikes almost every year.

Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were killed by US air strikes during Desert Storm.

Thousands of Korean civilians, both North and South, were killed by US airs strikes during the Korean War.

Tens of thousands of innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed by US air strikes during the Vietnam War.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were killed by US air strikes during World War II. Many burned alive or slowly eaten away by nuclear radiation.

Hundreds of thousands of German civilians were killed by US air strikes. Including a huge number of women and children.

From much of the worlds perspective, the US track record is little different from that of Putin..

---

The Japanese killed more civilians from 1937 to 1945 than the U.S. has in all of those conflicts combined. Germany needs no explanation and exceeds Japan. Are we holding them to this same "track record" perspective?

---

The Germans at least own their atrocities.

The Japanese do not . Which infuriates much of the rest of the Far East .

We just like to pretend all the countries we have bombed have no reason to dislike American policies . That somehow people throughout the world should be grateful for American generosity despite accidentally killing their people. Be it a few dozen or a few million.

---

Outside of perhaps North Korea and some of the Middle Eastern countries, if they dislike American policies, it has nothing to do with bombings during wars that ended 50-75 years ago. Since that encompasses about 95%+ of the civilian casualties from your list, I'm not sure that's the "perspective" driver you believe it to be. This sounds more like revisionist American guilt.

---

No guilt.

Just first hand observations.

Southerners still rehash the Civil War to a far greater degree than Yankees. Primarily because the South suffered far more local destruction of their homes, farms and businesses. And the flagrant hypocrisy and violence of Reconstruction caused at least as much bitterness especially with southern women ( southern men in many cases had seen enough bloodshed and somewhat accepted their defeat ).

Same applies to Germans for example. As the victors we are more than willing move on. As our cities were not utterly destroyed nor did we suffer from serious food shortages for 2-3 years after the wars end. Will never forget meeting a young couple from Dresden. The couple went out of their way to show me their family album. At least half of the pictures showed Dresden burned to the ground and bodies reduced tio ashes. Naturally the horrible deaths to their descendants makes a far bigger impression to them than to us.

BTW they said I was the ONLY American they had ever met who had even the slightest knowledge about the horrors of the Dresden firebombing. They were glad to be out of East Germany and working in the US ; but amazed at the International cluelessness of the American people.


And that is the only point I am trying to make.

The rest of the world does not look at the destructive actions of US foreign policy as benignly as we blissfully think they should.

And for very natural reasons.

---

That's salty coming from the folks who denied knowledge of concentration camps and the exterminations of jews and gypsies . . .

---

I have never known a single German who wasn't ashamed of the Nazi death camps or the horrors of the Final Solution.

Whereas I have never met a single American under the age of 60 who was aware of the US fire bombing of Tokyo when the US incinerated 100,000 Japanese civilians in a single night .

---

There are countless Germans who still say it was exaggerated and/or still make excuses.

Really, you know that many people who don't know we bombed Tokyo? That surprises me.

---

Have never met one of your 'countless' Germans .
Although I know some Americans who believe the death camps never existed .

Nope, have never met anyone under the age of 60 who was aware of the Tokyo fire bombing , or for that matter that Curtis LeMay was so pleased with the results he ordered several other Japanese cities to be likewise fire bombed .

Another basically hidden aspect of American WW2 atrocities was the estimated 50,000 Japanese girls and women reportedly raped by US occupation troops . In fairness those figures are from Japanese sources and are hotly disputed by the US government. Or the fact that the Japanese civilian population had to deal with near starvation food rationing for 2-3 years after the war ended.

As the Japanese merchant fleet had been completely sunk and as an island nation Japan did not have the resources to feed themselves . Apparently it eas a problem few American military or political planners had anticipated to any great degree.

---

Few in recent human history have committed the kinds of atrocities Imperial Japan did.

---

True to a point .

The Japanese Army employed low tech methods . Bayonets , decapitating prisoners , rape and summary executions.

The US used high tech methods ; atomic bombs , firebombs, and phosphorus artillery shells .

But the US won the war so we got to pick who were the war criminals .

---

So raping women and summarily executing prisoners is now the equivalent of targeted bombing of cities designed to end the war?

Wow. Incredible. I leave this thread for a few days and you've completely lost your ability to employ reason and logic. You've lost your mind.

---

My friend, we simply disagree.

There is no 'moral compass' in any war.

Least of all when thousands of women and children are incinerated or slowly rot away from nuclear radiation.

No, I have not ' lost my mind '.

But you are losing a bit of your grace.

Just a message board. Nothing posted here matters in the slightest.

---

Saying we simply disagree is a cop out. Your positions are illogical, indefensible and morally bankrupt. You have indeed lost both your mind and your moral compass.

Just calling it like I see it. I misjudged you.

---

I forgive you for your reckless insults and will not respond in kind .

If the past is any indication you will resume tolerating my character flaws when we agree on a future topic.

As we usually do.


Peace Be With You

---

Why don't you accuse him of having a homosexual relationship with your gardener like you did to me?

Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Quote:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

---

Quote:

---

BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

---

Quote:

---

THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

---

---

So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory.

Really? That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

---

1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

---

Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

---

You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

---

Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. Are you saying they're lying? If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. But ok.

---

Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

---

Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

---

You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

---

I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument.

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

---

Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

---

Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War.

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

ron.reagan said:

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KaiBear said:

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Mothra said:

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KaiBear said:

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Mothra said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Dozens of civilians throughout the Middle East are killed by US air strikes almost every year.

Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were killed by US air strikes during Desert Storm.

Thousands of Korean civilians, both North and South, were killed by US airs strikes during the Korean War.

Tens of thousands of innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed by US air strikes during the Vietnam War.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were killed by US air strikes during World War II. Many burned alive or slowly eaten away by nuclear radiation.

Hundreds of thousands of German civilians were killed by US air strikes. Including a huge number of women and children.

From much of the worlds perspective, the US track record is little different from that of Putin..

---

The Japanese killed more civilians from 1937 to 1945 than the U.S. has in all of those conflicts combined. Germany needs no explanation and exceeds Japan. Are we holding them to this same "track record" perspective?

---

The Germans at least own their atrocities.

The Japanese do not . Which infuriates much of the rest of the Far East .

We just like to pretend all the countries we have bombed have no reason to dislike American policies . That somehow people throughout the world should be grateful for American generosity despite accidentally killing their people. Be it a few dozen or a few million.

---

Outside of perhaps North Korea and some of the Middle Eastern countries, if they dislike American policies, it has nothing to do with bombings during wars that ended 50-75 years ago. Since that encompasses about 95%+ of the civilian casualties from your list, I'm not sure that's the "perspective" driver you believe it to be. This sounds more like revisionist American guilt.

---

No guilt.

Just first hand observations.

Southerners still rehash the Civil War to a far greater degree than Yankees. Primarily because the South suffered far more local destruction of their homes, farms and businesses. And the flagrant hypocrisy and violence of Reconstruction caused at least as much bitterness especially with southern women ( southern men in many cases had seen enough bloodshed and somewhat accepted their defeat ).

Same applies to Germans for example. As the victors we are more than willing move on. As our cities were not utterly destroyed nor did we suffer from serious food shortages for 2-3 years after the wars end. Will never forget meeting a young couple from Dresden. The couple went out of their way to show me their family album. At least half of the pictures showed Dresden burned to the ground and bodies reduced tio ashes. Naturally the horrible deaths to their descendants makes a far bigger impression to them than to us.

BTW they said I was the ONLY American they had ever met who had even the slightest knowledge about the horrors of the Dresden firebombing. They were glad to be out of East Germany and working in the US ; but amazed at the International cluelessness of the American people.


And that is the only point I am trying to make.

The rest of the world does not look at the destructive actions of US foreign policy as benignly as we blissfully think they should.

And for very natural reasons.

---

That's salty coming from the folks who denied knowledge of concentration camps and the exterminations of jews and gypsies . . .

---

I have never known a single German who wasn't ashamed of the Nazi death camps or the horrors of the Final Solution.

Whereas I have never met a single American under the age of 60 who was aware of the US fire bombing of Tokyo when the US incinerated 100,000 Japanese civilians in a single night .

---

There are countless Germans who still say it was exaggerated and/or still make excuses.

Really, you know that many people who don't know we bombed Tokyo? That surprises me.

---

Have never met one of your 'countless' Germans .
Although I know some Americans who believe the death camps never existed .

Nope, have never met anyone under the age of 60 who was aware of the Tokyo fire bombing , or for that matter that Curtis LeMay was so pleased with the results he ordered several other Japanese cities to be likewise fire bombed .

Another basically hidden aspect of American WW2 atrocities was the estimated 50,000 Japanese girls and women reportedly raped by US occupation troops . In fairness those figures are from Japanese sources and are hotly disputed by the US government. Or the fact that the Japanese civilian population had to deal with near starvation food rationing for 2-3 years after the war ended.

As the Japanese merchant fleet had been completely sunk and as an island nation Japan did not have the resources to feed themselves . Apparently it eas a problem few American military or political planners had anticipated to any great degree.

---

Few in recent human history have committed the kinds of atrocities Imperial Japan did.

---

True to a point .

The Japanese Army employed low tech methods . Bayonets , decapitating prisoners , rape and summary executions.

The US used high tech methods ; atomic bombs , firebombs, and phosphorus artillery shells .

But the US won the war so we got to pick who were the war criminals .

---

So raping women and summarily executing prisoners is now the equivalent of targeted bombing of cities designed to end the war?

Wow. Incredible. I leave this thread for a few days and you've completely lost your ability to employ reason and logic. You've lost your mind.

---

My friend, we simply disagree.

There is no 'moral compass' in any war.

Least of all when thousands of women and children are incinerated or slowly rot away from nuclear radiation.

No, I have not ' lost my mind '.

But you are losing a bit of your grace.

Just a message board. Nothing posted here matters in the slightest.

---

Saying we simply disagree is a cop out. Your positions are illogical, indefensible and morally bankrupt. You have indeed lost both your mind and your moral compass.

Just calling it like I see it. I misjudged you.

---

I forgive you for your reckless insults and will not respond in kind .

If the past is any indication you will resume tolerating my character flaws when we agree on a future topic.

As we usually do.


Peace Be With You

---

Why don't you accuse him of having a homosexual relationship with your gardener like you did to me?

---

A. Don't have a 'gardener'. Rather I employ senior and junior landscapers for reasons I have already explained .
B. Don't recall mentioning you having a homosexual relationship with Bob or Ryan. Both men would be unreceptive to such advances and would most likely beat the living **** out of anyone making the attempt.
D. I both like and respect Mothra. He has got his hands full and yet soldiers on.
E. Meanwhile you are merely an underachieving yuppie wannabe without the slightest understanding of 90% of the topics discussed on this forum.

I'm sure C was the compliment you forgot to write

ron.reagan said:

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I'm sure C was the compliment you forgot to write

---

Your best post ever.

Concise, brilliant and informative.

Proof your parents money is well spent .

Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Quote:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

---

Quote:

---

BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

---

Quote:

---

THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

---

---

So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory.

Really? That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

---

1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

---

Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

---

You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

---

Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. Are you saying they're lying? If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. But ok.

---

Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

---

Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

---

You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

---

I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument.

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

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Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

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Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War.

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

---

Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

KaiBear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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I'm sure C was the compliment you forgot to write

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Your best post ever.

Concise, brilliant and informative.

Proof your parents money is well spent .

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He is a top 5 bizarre poster on this site

Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

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Quote:

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BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

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Quote:

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THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

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So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory.

Really? That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

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1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

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Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

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You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

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Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. Are you saying they're lying? If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. But ok.

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Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

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Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

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You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

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I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument.

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

---

Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

---

Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War.

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

---

Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

---

Let's see if we can glean some answers from your post. Correct me if I am wrong:

1) You see all of the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers as essentially the same - war criminals - because of their decision to bomb cities.

2) You see no moral difference between the Holocaust and the US bombing Japan (and I guess, Germany, for that matter). Regardless of their motives, because both sides intentionally killed civilians, they're essentially the same.

3) Putin is not a war criminal in your book because despite the ample evidence of his forces killing thousands of civilians, you don't know if that's the Russian "policy".

4) Despite the deaths of thousands of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure, Putin is engaged in a Just War in Ukraine because de-nazification is at least one valid reason (for Russia, at least, not the US of course) to invade other sovereign countries.

I'll hang up and listen...

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I see all of them as war criminals because they were. They were also different in many ways. There were certainly evil motives behind the Holocaust. I don't think we had evil motives in the war generally, but there were some times when we did. For example when we decided to use nuclear weapons in part because we wanted to test their effect on human targets in the real world. I would argue that is similar to some of Hitler's atrocities, though on a somewhat smaller scale.

There is ample evidence of collateral damage in Ukraine, as there usually is in war. I'm not convinced that Putin is a war criminal because I haven't seen evidence that he targets civilians intentionally or wantonly. Saying it isn't policy is another way of saying it isn't intentional on his part. Infrastructure is a complicated question. It basically depends on whether the targets serve a military purpose that outweighs the harm to civilians.

I don't think I ever said de-nazification wasn't a valid reason to invade Germany. I may have said it wasn't the actual reason. It's not necessarily sufficient on its own, but it could be if the targeted regime were brutal enough. There too it would depend on whether the good outweighed the harm.

I think your fixation on who was "essentially" this or that is symptomatic of the flaw in your whole approach to the issue. Hitler was essentially an evil man, as you would put it. I don't think the same was true of the Allied leaders. The difference is that for me that's not the end of the discussion. You want to reduce everything to good guys vs. bad guys and adjust all of your conclusions accordingly. I try to keep in mind that all humans are flawed and even good men are capable of bad acts.

We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Quote:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

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Quote:

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BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

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Quote:

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THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

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So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory.

Really? That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

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1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

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Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

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You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

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Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. Are you saying they're lying? If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. But ok.

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Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

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Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

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You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

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I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument.

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

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Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

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Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War.

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

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Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

---

Let's see if we can glean some answers from your post. Correct me if I am wrong:

1) You see all of the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers as essentially the same - war criminals - because of their decision to bomb cities.

2) You see no moral difference between the Holocaust and the US bombing Japan (and I guess, Germany, for that matter). Regardless of their motives, because both sides intentionally killed civilians, they're essentially the same.

3) Putin is not a war criminal in your book because despite the ample evidence of his forces killing thousands of civilians, you don't know if that's the Russian "policy".

4) Despite the deaths of thousands of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure, Putin is engaged in a Just War in Ukraine because de-nazification is at least one valid reason (for Russia, at least, not the US of course) to invade other sovereign countries.

I'll hang up and listen...

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I see all of them as war criminals because they were. They were also different in many ways. There were certainly evil motives behind the Holocaust. I don't think we had evil motives in the war generally, but there were some times when we did. For example when we decided to use nuclear weapons in part because we wanted to test their effect on human targets in the real world. I would argue that is similar to some of Hitler's atrocities, though on a somewhat smaller scale.

There is ample evidence of collateral damage in Ukraine, as there usually is in war. I'm not convinced that Putin is a war criminal because I haven't seen evidence that he targets civilians intentionally or wantonly. Saying it isn't policy is another way of saying it isn't intentional on his part. Infrastructure is a complicated question. It basically depends on whether the targets serve a military purpose that outweighs the harm to civilians.

I don't think I ever said de-nazification wasn't a valid reason to invade Germany. I may have said it wasn't the actual reason. It's not necessarily sufficient on its own, but it could be if the targeted regime were brutal enough. There too it would depend on whether the good outweighed the harm.

I think your fixation on who was "essentially" this or that is symptomatic of the flaw in your whole approach to this issue. Hitler was essentially an evil man, as you would put it. I don't think the same was true of the Allied leaders. The difference is that for me that's not the end of the discussion. You want to reduce everything to good guys vs. bad guys and adjust all of your conclusions accordingly. I try to keep in mind that all humans are flawed and even good men are capable of bad acts.

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Thanks. So from your post, I conclude:

1) FDR, Truman, Churchill, and the other Allied leaders are war criminals in your book, tantamount to Hitler (though their motives weren't evil or at least as evil).

2) You would need to see evidence that Putin targets civilians intentionally and wantonly before concluding the massive civilian casualties and reports of Russian striking numerous civilian targets are evidence of criminal conduct.

What exactly would you need to see here, Sam, especially in this day and age when militaries can perform targeted strikes? Do you need to see some written policy come to light, or some secret recording of Putin? Do you have that when it comes to FDR, Truman and Churchill, or are you merely concluding the bombing of cities is evidence they wanted civilian dead. Is Russia bombing train stations, restaurants and civilian bomb shelters not some evidence of the criminality of the conduct?

How about Putin's targeted assassinations of political rivals? Is that some evidence of criminal conduct? Or are these people poisoning themselves and falling out windows because of accidents, in your mind?

3) On the Germany issue, I am going to need a little more explanation. Are you saying the US was (or would have been) justified in attacking Germany to defeat Nazism? Was the German regime "brutal enough" that our war with Germany was justified? Or do you still believe we were not justified in entering WWII after the Pearl Harbor bombing and Holocaust came to light? You have of course previously opined that was not a Just War from a US standpoint.

And in like manner, if de-nazification is not alone sufficient to justify Putin's war, what other reasons make Putin's war just in your book, unlike the US involvement in WWII? Is the Ukraine govt. "brutal enough" to justify such an invasion, whereas Germany and Japan were not? In short, what is it about Ukraine that makes it so much worse than 1940s Germany and Japan and justified Russia's invasion?

As for your last paragraph, unfortunately your analysis of "my" position seems to be a position of your own making - a classic straw man fallacy. At no point have I reduced our argument to who was good vs. who was bad. I recognize that the Allied leaders weren't saints, and responsible for conduct that wouldn't be kosher in this day and age. Instead, the interesting thing to me is the seeming dichotomy in your beliefs.

For example, prior to our discussion on this thread, I believed you to be a moral individual who possessed some semblance of common human decency. Despite our difference of opinion on many subjects, I actually believed you came by your beliefs honestly, and with consistency, as a result of a deeply-held set of values. I mean, anyone who could argue that not even our war against Nazism, the Holocaust, Japanese imperialism and aggression was just just could never believe the Russian invasion of a sovereign country that was not the aggressor could in any way be just, even if like me he didn't agree with our involvement in it.

And then incredibly, you proceeded to make the case for it, utilizing much of what is widely recognized as Russian propaganda. And then you justified the "collateral damage" - the killing of thousands of innocents in a war of aggression by our country's greatest enemy. It was quite remarkable then, and remains quite remarkable now, especially for a guy who has argued for years there's never been a just American war. And it made me wonder if your reasoning had less to do with deeply held beliefs, and more to do with disdain for America.

And it appears the answer to that question is becoming more obvious with each of your posts.

Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

---

Quote:

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BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

---

Quote:

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THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

---

---

So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) %A0A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory. %A0

Really? %A0That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

---

1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

---

Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? %A0Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. %A0What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? %A0Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. %A0Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. %A0You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. %A0You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. %A0You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

---

You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

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Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. %A0Are you saying they're lying? %A0If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. %A0But ok.

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Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

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Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

---

You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

---

I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. %A0I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument. %A0

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. %A0As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. %A0This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. %A0I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. %A0Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? %A0If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. %A0But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

---

Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

---

Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. %A0They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. %A0Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. %A0Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War. %A0

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. %A0I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

---

Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

---

Let's see if we can glean some answers from your post. %A0Correct me if I am wrong:

1) You see all of the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers as essentially the same - war criminals - because of their decision to bomb cities. %A0

2) You see no moral difference between the Holocaust and the US bombing Japan (and I guess, Germany, for that matter). Regardless of their motives, because both sides intentionally killed civilians, they're essentially the same.

3) Putin is not a war criminal in your book because despite the ample evidence of his forces killing thousands of civilians, you don't know if that's the Russian "policy". %A0

4) Despite the deaths of thousands of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure, Putin is engaged in a Just War in Ukraine because de-nazification is at least one valid reason (for Russia, at least, not the US of course) to invade other sovereign countries.

I'll hang up and listen...

---

I see all of them as war criminals because they were. They were also different in many ways. There were certainly evil motives behind the Holocaust. I don't think we had evil motives in the war generally, but there were some times when we did. For example when we decided to use nuclear weapons in part because we wanted to test their effect on human targets in the real world. I would argue that is similar to some of Hitler's atrocities, though on a somewhat smaller scale.

There is ample evidence of collateral damage in Ukraine, as there usually is in war. I'm not convinced that Putin is a war criminal because I haven't seen evidence that he targets civilians intentionally or wantonly. Saying it isn't policy is another way of saying it isn't intentional on his part. Infrastructure is a complicated question. It basically depends on whether the targets serve a military purpose that outweighs the harm to civilians.

I don't think I ever said de-nazification wasn't a valid reason to invade Germany. I may have said it wasn't the actual reason. It's not necessarily sufficient on its own, but it could be if the targeted regime were brutal enough. There too it would depend on whether the good outweighed the harm.

I think your fixation on who was "essentially" this or that is symptomatic of the flaw in your whole approach to this issue. Hitler was essentially an evil man, as you would put it. I don't think the same was true of the Allied leaders. The difference is that for me that's not the end of the discussion. You want to reduce everything to good guys vs. bad guys and adjust all of your conclusions accordingly. I try to keep in mind that all humans are flawed and even good men are capable of bad acts.

---

Thanks. %A0So from your post, I conclude:

1) FDR, Truman, Churchill, and the other Allied leaders are war criminals in your book, tantamount to Hitler (though their motives weren't evil or at least as evil).

2) You would need to see evidence that Putin targets civilians intentionally and wantonly before concluding the massive civilian casualties and reports of Russian striking numerous civilian targets are evidence of criminal conduct. %A0

What exactly would you need to see here, Sam, especially in this day and age when militaries can perform targeted strikes? %A0Do you need to see some written policy come to light, or some secret recording of Putin? %A0Do you have that when it comes to FDR, Truman and Churchill, or are you merely concluding the bombing of cities is evidence they wanted civilian dead. %A0Is Russia bombing train stations, restaurants and civilian bomb shelters not some evidence of the criminality of the conduct?

How about Putin's targeted assassinations of political rivals? %A0Is that some evidence of criminal conduct? %A0Or are these people poisoning themselves and falling out windows because of accidents, in your mind?

3) On the Germany issue, I am going to need a little more explanation. %A0Are you saying the US was (or would have been) justified in attacking Germany to defeat Nazism? %A0Was the German regime "brutal enough" that our war with Germany was justified? Or do you still believe we were not justified in entering WWII after the Pearl Harbor bombing and Holocaust came to light? %A0You have of course previously opined that was not a Just War from a US standpoint.

And in like manner, if de-nazification is not alone sufficient to justify Putin's war, what other reasons make Putin's war just in your book, unlike the US involvement in WWII? %A0Is the Ukraine govt. "brutal enough" to justify such an invasion, whereas Germany and Japan were not? %A0In short, what is it about Ukraine that makes it so much worse than 1940s Germany and Japan and justified Russia's invasion?

As for your last paragraph, unfortunately your analysis of "my" position seems to be a position of your own making - a classic straw man fallacy. %A0At no point have I reduced our argument to who was good vs. who was bad. %A0I recognize that the Allied leaders weren't saints, and responsible for conduct that wouldn't be kosher in this day and age. %A0Instead, the interesting thing to me is the seeming dichotomy in your beliefs.

For example, prior to our discussion on this thread, I believed you to be a moral individual who possessed some semblance of common human decency. %A0Despite our difference of opinion on many subjects, I actually believed you came by your beliefs honestly, and with consistency, as a result of a deeply-held set of values. I mean, anyone who could argue that not even our war against Nazism, the Holocaust, Japanese imperialism and aggression was just just could never believe the Russian invasion of a sovereign country that was not the aggressor could in any way be just, even if like me he didn't agree with our involvement in it. %A0

And then incredibly, you proceeded to make the case for it, utilizing much of what is widely recognized as Russian propaganda. And then you justified the "collateral damage" - the killing of thousands of innocents in a war of aggression by our country's greatest enemy. %A0It was quite remarkable then, and remains quite remarkable now, especially for a guy who has argued for years there's never been a just American war. %A0And it made me wonder if your reasoning had less to do with deeply held beliefs, and more to do with disdain for America.

And it appears the answer to that question is becoming more obvious with each of your posts.

---

Whether they were war criminals is pretty much an objective question. "Tantamount to Hitler" is your own interpretation and not one that I share.

Yes, I would need to see evidence of Putin's intent, either direct or circumstantial. Obviously there is such evidence in the case of the US and Japan. There is reason for suspicion in Russia's case, according to the UN. But see again my comments on the UN report. The numbers in themselves are neither remarkable nor particularly "massive."

Hitler's regime certainly qualified in terms of brutality. I said WWII wasn't a just war from our perspective only because it wasn't a last resort. That is one of the elements under the theory we were discussing. I never said that none of our wars qualified, though I believe the War of 1812 was the most recent one I could think of.

Again, what makes Ukraine special is the threat it poses to Russia. Not just because of the Nazi element, but because of NATO.

Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

---

Quote:

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BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

---

Quote:

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THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

---

---

So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) %A0A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory. %A0

Really? %A0That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

---

1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

---

Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? %A0Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. %A0What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? %A0Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. %A0Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. %A0You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. %A0You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. %A0You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

---

You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

---

Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. %A0Are you saying they're lying? %A0If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. %A0But ok.

---

Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

---

Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

---

You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

---

I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. %A0I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument. %A0

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. %A0As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. %A0This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. %A0I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. %A0Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? %A0If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. %A0But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

---

Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

---

Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. %A0They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. %A0Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. %A0Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War. %A0

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. %A0I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

---

Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

---

Let's see if we can glean some answers from your post. %A0Correct me if I am wrong:

1) You see all of the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers as essentially the same - war criminals - because of their decision to bomb cities. %A0

2) You see no moral difference between the Holocaust and the US bombing Japan (and I guess, Germany, for that matter). Regardless of their motives, because both sides intentionally killed civilians, they're essentially the same.

3) Putin is not a war criminal in your book because despite the ample evidence of his forces killing thousands of civilians, you don't know if that's the Russian "policy". %A0

4) Despite the deaths of thousands of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure, Putin is engaged in a Just War in Ukraine because de-nazification is at least one valid reason (for Russia, at least, not the US of course) to invade other sovereign countries.

I'll hang up and listen...

---

I see all of them as war criminals because they were. They were also different in many ways. There were certainly evil motives behind the Holocaust. I don't think we had evil motives in the war generally, but there were some times when we did. For example when we decided to use nuclear weapons in part because we wanted to test their effect on human targets in the real world. I would argue that is similar to some of Hitler's atrocities, though on a somewhat smaller scale.

There is ample evidence of collateral damage in Ukraine, as there usually is in war. I'm not convinced that Putin is a war criminal because I haven't seen evidence that he targets civilians intentionally or wantonly. Saying it isn't policy is another way of saying it isn't intentional on his part. Infrastructure is a complicated question. It basically depends on whether the targets serve a military purpose that outweighs the harm to civilians.

I don't think I ever said de-nazification wasn't a valid reason to invade Germany. I may have said it wasn't the actual reason. It's not necessarily sufficient on its own, but it could be if the targeted regime were brutal enough. There too it would depend on whether the good outweighed the harm.

I think your fixation on who was "essentially" this or that is symptomatic of the flaw in your whole approach to this issue. Hitler was essentially an evil man, as you would put it. I don't think the same was true of the Allied leaders. The difference is that for me that's not the end of the discussion. You want to reduce everything to good guys vs. bad guys and adjust all of your conclusions accordingly. I try to keep in mind that all humans are flawed and even good men are capable of bad acts.

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Thanks. %A0So from your post, I conclude:

1) FDR, Truman, Churchill, and the other Allied leaders are war criminals in your book, tantamount to Hitler (though their motives weren't evil or at least as evil).

2) You would need to see evidence that Putin targets civilians intentionally and wantonly before concluding the massive civilian casualties and reports of Russian striking numerous civilian targets are evidence of criminal conduct. %A0

What exactly would you need to see here, Sam, especially in this day and age when militaries can perform targeted strikes? %A0Do you need to see some written policy come to light, or some secret recording of Putin? %A0Do you have that when it comes to FDR, Truman and Churchill, or are you merely concluding the bombing of cities is evidence they wanted civilian dead. %A0Is Russia bombing train stations, restaurants and civilian bomb shelters not some evidence of the criminality of the conduct?

How about Putin's targeted assassinations of political rivals? %A0Is that some evidence of criminal conduct? %A0Or are these people poisoning themselves and falling out windows because of accidents, in your mind?

3) On the Germany issue, I am going to need a little more explanation. %A0Are you saying the US was (or would have been) justified in attacking Germany to defeat Nazism? %A0Was the German regime "brutal enough" that our war with Germany was justified? Or do you still believe we were not justified in entering WWII after the Pearl Harbor bombing and Holocaust came to light? %A0You have of course previously opined that was not a Just War from a US standpoint.

And in like manner, if de-nazification is not alone sufficient to justify Putin's war, what other reasons make Putin's war just in your book, unlike the US involvement in WWII? %A0Is the Ukraine govt. "brutal enough" to justify such an invasion, whereas Germany and Japan were not? %A0In short, what is it about Ukraine that makes it so much worse than 1940s Germany and Japan and justified Russia's invasion?

As for your last paragraph, unfortunately your analysis of "my" position seems to be a position of your own making - a classic straw man fallacy. %A0At no point have I reduced our argument to who was good vs. who was bad. %A0I recognize that the Allied leaders weren't saints, and responsible for conduct that wouldn't be kosher in this day and age. %A0Instead, the interesting thing to me is the seeming dichotomy in your beliefs.

For example, prior to our discussion on this thread, I believed you to be a moral individual who possessed some semblance of common human decency. %A0Despite our difference of opinion on many subjects, I actually believed you came by your beliefs honestly, and with consistency, as a result of a deeply-held set of values. I mean, anyone who could argue that not even our war against Nazism, the Holocaust, Japanese imperialism and aggression was just just could never believe the Russian invasion of a sovereign country that was not the aggressor could in any way be just, even if like me he didn't agree with our involvement in it. %A0

And then incredibly, you proceeded to make the case for it, utilizing much of what is widely recognized as Russian propaganda. And then you justified the "collateral damage" - the killing of thousands of innocents in a war of aggression by our country's greatest enemy. %A0It was quite remarkable then, and remains quite remarkable now, especially for a guy who has argued for years there's never been a just American war. %A0And it made me wonder if your reasoning had less to do with deeply held beliefs, and more to do with disdain for America.

And it appears the answer to that question is becoming more obvious with each of your posts.

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Whether they were war criminals is pretty much an objective question. "Tantamount to Hitler" is your own interpretation and not one that I share.

Yes, I would need to see evidence of Putin's intent, either direct or circumstantial. Obviously there is such evidence in the case of the US and Japan. There is reason for suspicion in Russia's case, according to the UN. But see again my comments on the UN report. The numbers in themselves are neither remarkable nor particularly "massive."

Hitler's regime certainly qualified in terms of brutality. I said WWII wasn't a just war from our perspective only because it wasn't a last resort. That is one of the elements under the theory we were discussing. I never said that none of our wars qualified, though I believe the War of 1812 was the most recent one I could think of.

Again, what makes Ukraine special is the threat it poses to Russia. Not just because of the Nazi element, but because of NATO.

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So, your position is despite the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. wasn't justified in declaring war on the Axis powers (guess we should have just taken that one on the chin?), but Russia had exhausted all non-violent remedies and had no other option whatsoever other than to attack Ukraine, despite it being well-known there was no immediate plan to admit Ukraine into NATO? Is that really your position - Russia had no other options than attacking Ukraine?

If so, it is telling that you view NATO membership as such an immediate threat to Russia. After all, a democracy that values freedom and human rights should have nothing to fear from NATO. It kind of tells you what a bad actor Russia is in the world today, that you would see NATO as such a threat.

Let me ask this: in reaching the conclusion that Russia was morally justified in attacking Ukraine and killing innocent civilians, did you take into account the fact that Russia is essentially nothing more than a dictatorship at this point - one that already attacked Ukraine in 2014? As I am sure you know, traditional Just War criteria holds that only a duly constituted public authority may wage war. In other words, a political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice is the only political authority that can wage a Just War under the Just War Theory. Despots and dictators typically violate this criteria. How does a country led by a man who has changed the Russian constitution to cement himself in power, who kills or imprisons political opponents, and has shown a repeated pattern of aggression toward Russia's neighbors, meet that criteria?

Or have you considered that another one of the criteria of the Just War Theory is the principle of last resort, which stipulates that all non-violent options must first have been exhausted before the use of force can be justified. Did Russia really try every reasonable non-violent option before it attacked?

Or have you considered the traditional Just War criteria that the reason for going to war needs to be just? Have you considered that innocent life must be in imminent danger and intervention must be to protect life. As your very own US Catholic Conference said in referencing this aspect of the Just War Theory: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations." Is it your position that Ukraine potentially joining NATO at some point in the future an imminent danger to innocent life that cannot be rectified without immediate intervention?

I'll hang up and listen.

ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

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That's an extremely warped perspective and ignorant of the factual history. Negotiating for peace? Even after Nagasaki and the planned surrender, there was an attempt by some Senior officers to stop it in a coup. I'm sorry the people had to suffer under the extreme militaristic and fanatical leadership of Imperial Japan, who literally had a belief in invincibility. But what you call terror and intimidation tactics saved millions of lives. Every citizen of Japan was prepped as a warrior, including women and children, so every target was a military one.

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The Japanese did not believe they were "invincible"

The leadership was terrified from the get go that the USSR would join the war against them and bent over backwards to try and prevent that from taking place.

They were even trying to get the Soviets to be their mediator on the war late into the end.

By the time Okinawa fell they knew the war was over for them….the only question was how and when it would end.

[The next step was subjugation of the Japanese home islands, a far bigger undertaking than Okinawa and with casualties on a higher scale. Japan had a military force of about 7 million remaining and was not ready to quit.

The Japanese knew they could not possibly win, but they might be able to delay the end of the war into the fall of 1946. If the Americans found the rising casualties intolerable, they might settle for terms less than unconditional surrender.]

Mothra said:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

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BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

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THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

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So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) %A0A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory. %A0

Really? %A0That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

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1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

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Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? %A0Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. %A0What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? %A0Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. %A0Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. %A0You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. %A0You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. %A0You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

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You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

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Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. %A0Are you saying they're lying? %A0If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. %A0But ok.

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Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

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Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

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You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

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I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. %A0I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument. %A0

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. %A0As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. %A0This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. %A0I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. %A0Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? %A0If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. %A0But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

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Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

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Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. %A0They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. %A0Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. %A0Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War. %A0

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. %A0I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

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Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

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Let's see if we can glean some answers from your post. %A0Correct me if I am wrong:

1) You see all of the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers as essentially the same - war criminals - because of their decision to bomb cities. %A0

2) You see no moral difference between the Holocaust and the US bombing Japan (and I guess, Germany, for that matter). Regardless of their motives, because both sides intentionally killed civilians, they're essentially the same.

3) Putin is not a war criminal in your book because despite the ample evidence of his forces killing thousands of civilians, you don't know if that's the Russian "policy". %A0

4) Despite the deaths of thousands of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure, Putin is engaged in a Just War in Ukraine because de-nazification is at least one valid reason (for Russia, at least, not the US of course) to invade other sovereign countries.

I'll hang up and listen...

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I see all of them as war criminals because they were. They were also different in many ways. There were certainly evil motives behind the Holocaust. I don't think we had evil motives in the war generally, but there were some times when we did. For example when we decided to use nuclear weapons in part because we wanted to test their effect on human targets in the real world. I would argue that is similar to some of Hitler's atrocities, though on a somewhat smaller scale.

There is ample evidence of collateral damage in Ukraine, as there usually is in war. I'm not convinced that Putin is a war criminal because I haven't seen evidence that he targets civilians intentionally or wantonly. Saying it isn't policy is another way of saying it isn't intentional on his part. Infrastructure is a complicated question. It basically depends on whether the targets serve a military purpose that outweighs the harm to civilians.

I don't think I ever said de-nazification wasn't a valid reason to invade Germany. I may have said it wasn't the actual reason. It's not necessarily sufficient on its own, but it could be if the targeted regime were brutal enough. There too it would depend on whether the good outweighed the harm.

I think your fixation on who was "essentially" this or that is symptomatic of the flaw in your whole approach to this issue. Hitler was essentially an evil man, as you would put it. I don't think the same was true of the Allied leaders. The difference is that for me that's not the end of the discussion. You want to reduce everything to good guys vs. bad guys and adjust all of your conclusions accordingly. I try to keep in mind that all humans are flawed and even good men are capable of bad acts.

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Thanks. %A0So from your post, I conclude:

1) FDR, Truman, Churchill, and the other Allied leaders are war criminals in your book, tantamount to Hitler (though their motives weren't evil or at least as evil).

2) You would need to see evidence that Putin targets civilians intentionally and wantonly before concluding the massive civilian casualties and reports of Russian striking numerous civilian targets are evidence of criminal conduct. %A0

What exactly would you need to see here, Sam, especially in this day and age when militaries can perform targeted strikes? %A0Do you need to see some written policy come to light, or some secret recording of Putin? %A0Do you have that when it comes to FDR, Truman and Churchill, or are you merely concluding the bombing of cities is evidence they wanted civilian dead. %A0Is Russia bombing train stations, restaurants and civilian bomb shelters not some evidence of the criminality of the conduct?

How about Putin's targeted assassinations of political rivals? %A0Is that some evidence of criminal conduct? %A0Or are these people poisoning themselves and falling out windows because of accidents, in your mind?

3) On the Germany issue, I am going to need a little more explanation. %A0Are you saying the US was (or would have been) justified in attacking Germany to defeat Nazism? %A0Was the German regime "brutal enough" that our war with Germany was justified? Or do you still believe we were not justified in entering WWII after the Pearl Harbor bombing and Holocaust came to light? %A0You have of course previously opined that was not a Just War from a US standpoint.

And in like manner, if de-nazification is not alone sufficient to justify Putin's war, what other reasons make Putin's war just in your book, unlike the US involvement in WWII? %A0Is the Ukraine govt. "brutal enough" to justify such an invasion, whereas Germany and Japan were not? %A0In short, what is it about Ukraine that makes it so much worse than 1940s Germany and Japan and justified Russia's invasion?

As for your last paragraph, unfortunately your analysis of "my" position seems to be a position of your own making - a classic straw man fallacy. %A0At no point have I reduced our argument to who was good vs. who was bad. %A0I recognize that the Allied leaders weren't saints, and responsible for conduct that wouldn't be kosher in this day and age. %A0Instead, the interesting thing to me is the seeming dichotomy in your beliefs.

For example, prior to our discussion on this thread, I believed you to be a moral individual who possessed some semblance of common human decency. %A0Despite our difference of opinion on many subjects, I actually believed you came by your beliefs honestly, and with consistency, as a result of a deeply-held set of values. I mean, anyone who could argue that not even our war against Nazism, the Holocaust, Japanese imperialism and aggression was just just could never believe the Russian invasion of a sovereign country that was not the aggressor could in any way be just, even if like me he didn't agree with our involvement in it. %A0

And then incredibly, you proceeded to make the case for it, utilizing much of what is widely recognized as Russian propaganda. And then you justified the "collateral damage" - the killing of thousands of innocents in a war of aggression by our country's greatest enemy. %A0It was quite remarkable then, and remains quite remarkable now, especially for a guy who has argued for years there's never been a just American war. %A0And it made me wonder if your reasoning had less to do with deeply held beliefs, and more to do with disdain for America.

And it appears the answer to that question is becoming more obvious with each of your posts.

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Whether they were war criminals is pretty much an objective question. "Tantamount to Hitler" is your own interpretation and not one that I share.

Yes, I would need to see evidence of Putin's intent, either direct or circumstantial. Obviously there is such evidence in the case of the US and Japan. There is reason for suspicion in Russia's case, according to the UN. But see again my comments on the UN report. The numbers in themselves are neither remarkable nor particularly "massive."

Hitler's regime certainly qualified in terms of brutality. I said WWII wasn't a just war from our perspective only because it wasn't a last resort. That is one of the elements under the theory we were discussing. I never said that none of our wars qualified, though I believe the War of 1812 was the most recent one I could think of.

Again, what makes Ukraine special is the threat it poses to Russia. Not just because of the Nazi element, but because of NATO.

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So, your position is despite the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. wasn't justified in declaring war on the Axis powers (guess we should have just taken that one on the chin?), but Russia had exhausted all non-violent remedies and had no other option whatsoever other than to attack Ukraine, despite it being well-known there was no immediate plan to admit Ukraine into NATO? Is that really your position - Russia had no other options than attacking Ukraine?

If so, it is telling that you view NATO membership as such an immediate threat to Russia. After all, a democracy that values freedom and human rights should have nothing to fear from NATO. It kind of tells you what a bad actor Russia is in the world today, that you would see NATO as such a threat.

Let me ask this: in reaching the conclusion that Russia was morally justified in attacking Ukraine and killing innocent civilians, did you take into account the fact that Russia is essentially nothing more than a dictatorship at this point - one that already attacked Ukraine in 2014? As I am sure you know, traditional Just War criteria holds that only a duly constituted public authority may wage war. In other words, a political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice is the only political authority that can wage a Just War under the Just War Theory. Despots and dictators typically violate this criteria. How does a country led by a man who has changed the Russian constitution to cement himself in power, who kills or imprisons political opponents, and has shown a repeated pattern of aggression toward Russia's neighbors, meet that criteria?

Or have you considered that another one of the criteria of the Just War Theory is the principle of last resort, which stipulates that all non-violent options must first have been exhausted before the use of force can be justified. Did Russia really try every reasonable non-violent option before it attacked?

Or have you considered the traditional Just War criteria that the reason for going to war needs to be just? Have you considered that innocent life must be in imminent danger and intervention must be to protect life. As your very own US Catholic Conference said in referencing this aspect of the Just War Theory: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations." Is it your position that Ukraine potentially joining NATO at some point in the future an imminent danger to innocent life that cannot be rectified without immediate intervention?

I'll hang up and listen.

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I can tell that today was the day you finally googled the principles of just war. I'll address your specific points later, but kudos for that.

ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

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That's an extremely warped perspective and ignorant of the factual history. Negotiating for peace? Even after Nagasaki and the planned surrender, there was an attempt by some Senior Japanese officers to stop it in a coup. I'm sorry the people had to suffer under the extreme militaristic and fanatical leadership of Imperial Japan, who literally had a belief in invincibility. But what you call terror and intimidation tactics saved millions of lives. Every citizen of Japan was prepped as a warrior, including women and children, so every target was a military one.

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So we used a nuclear bomb against women and children wielding bamboo spears...and we were doing them a favor.

Only in America, folks.

Sam Lowry said:

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MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion". Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/drone-attack-damaged-building-moscow-centre-2023-08-18/

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BELGOROD, Russia, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Seven people including a one-year-old girl were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Thursday on the southern Russian city of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Eighteen other people, including four children, were hospitalised with injuries, with six in serious condition, Gladkov said, adding that four people, including two children, had already been released for outpatient treatment. He said the dead child's name was Valentina.

"We are all grieving with the families and friends of the victims," Gladkov wrote on Telegram. "I want to express my sincere condolences, realising that there are no words that can comfort this grief."

Later Gladkov said that another four injured, including two children, would be treated in Moscow.

Belgorod is the nearest major Russian city to the border with Ukraine, and the city and surrounding region have come under frequent attack since February 2022, when Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation".

Russian authorities said 25 civilians were killed in the largest of these attacks at the end of December.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-killed-ukrainian-missile-strike-belgorod-russian-media-2024-02-15/

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Quote:

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THE OPERATION was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. "Caucasus", a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov's body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services.

Ukraine's leadership came under particular scrutiny in October, when the New York Times reported that the American government was blaming it for a car-bomb that killed Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalistic philosopher. That sharpened an already-lively internal debate within Ukrainian intelligence. It was unclear if Ms Dugina was meant to die; some reports suggest she had switched cars with her father.

But a subsequent string of operations targeting mid-level propagandists showed a trend that few of the insiders interviewed for this article were happy with. "These are marginal figures," says one source in SBU counter-intelligence. "It makes me uncomfortable." The former SBU fifth-directorate officer suggests the operations were designed to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/09/05/inside-ukraines-assassination-programme

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So, your evidence of these alleged civilian attacks is:

1) %A0A Ukrainian drone most likely headed for a military target is shot down by the Russians and smashes into a building, killing nobody;

2) A Ukrainian missile, whose destination is unknown, kills 7 in a border city; and

3) Ukrainians may be targeting traitors in clinical operations in Ukrainian occupied territory. %A0

Really? %A0That's all you have?

And you have no response to the numerous actual human rights atrocities I referenced above?

Why am I not surprised?

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1. There's no evidence that it was headed for a military target. To repeat with added emphasis this time: "Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

2. It most likely had no specific destination. More on that later.

3. Not surprised that you support extrajudicial killing of noncombatants by Ukraine. Like you said, I guess it all depends on the actor. It is disturbing that you consider "mid-level propaganda" and "nationalistic philosophy" to be forms of treason. But that's not even the most glaring flaw in your argument. Again with emphasis: "Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself." Alexander Dugin was Russian, not Ukrainian. So no matter what you think of his opinions, he was no traitor to Ukraine. Much less his daughter, who was murdered on her way to an art festival outside Moscow.

But that's all just fine with you.

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Who said I was fine with extrajudicial killings? %A0Undoubtedly, there are bad actors on both sides. %A0What's interesting to me, however, is both the disproportion and double standard, which you seem to be perfectly fine with. I mean, we literally have at a minimum 10,000 Ukrainian citizens killed, and I pointed out numerous instances of Russia targeting civilians, yet your response is, what about the targeted extra judicial killings of traitors? %A0Hell, you don't say a word when another Russian oligarch or political opponent is imprisoned, poisoned or falls from a tall window, but now all of the sudden the Ukrainians are the bad guys for killing traitors. %A0Yet, not a word from you when Putin does it?

The only person fine with the double standard is yourself. %A0You're ok with Russia invading and killing civilians. %A0You are ok with a disproportionate number of Ukrainian civilian deaths. %A0You won't say a word against Putin because of it.

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You can rant and rave about exaggerated Russian atrocities, but anyone trying to provide a little perspective is creating "disproportion." Sounds like the double standard is all on your side.

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Most of those figures I quoted come from the UN, the Red Cross, and Amnesty Int'l. %A0Are you saying they're lying? %A0If so, do you have proof?

The double standard is you're pointing to a few targeted killings of traitors and remaining silent about thousands of Ukrainian civilian deaths, including women and children. %A0But ok.

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Read what I actually said about the UN numbers and let's go from there.

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Not reading all of your posts again. If you feel I missed something, feel free to point it out, and let's go from there.

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You and ATL are trotting out new excuses and double standards with almost every post now. Just in the few days I've been away, we've heard that America is different because:

- Executing POWs and civilians in captivity "rises to another level" (as opposed to incinerating them in their homes).

- Our intentional killing of innocents was tactical in nature.

- We mostly murdered people in their own territory, not in US- occupied territory.

- We stopped short of deliberate genocide.

- We were trying to end the war (as if Japan wasn't trying to do the same).

- Our fire-bombing campaign was "targeted" (this one is just plain funny).

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I appreciate the attempts at spinning our comments. %A0I suspect you're smart enough to understand nobody here has condoned the killing of civilians, and at this point are simply purposely mischaracterizing positions in an attempt to win your argument. %A0

If you don't see the difference between WWII bombing campaigns designed to end the war vs. raping civilians and summarily executing POWs, perhaps I've given you too much credit over the years. %A0As ATL pointed out, only one was designed to win the war. %A0This seems pretty elementary, and something reasonable people should be able to agree on (the key word being "reasonable").

As for the claim that bombing Japan was stopping just short of genocide, that is an interesting belief. %A0I am curious if you define "genocide" differently than how most define it. %A0Was the aim to destroy and eradicate the Japanese people or win a world war? %A0If it is the latter, that does not even come close to the line of genocide. Hopefully, we can agree that Hitler's extermination of the Jews wasn't an an attempt to win the war, but instead to eradicate the Jewish people. %A0But again, with you, I try not to make assumptions.

Hopefully, we can at least agree that killing prisoners of war is wrong, but again, with you, I never know, you're so morally bankrupt.

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Intentional killing of civilians is intentional killing of civilians. That is elementary under both Just War Theory and international law. I know it makes you feel good to pretend that Japan's crimes were completely gratuitous while ours were in the service of a noble cause. The problem is, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the analysis. A crime is still a crime.

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Just so everyone is clear on your positions (please correct me if I have mischaracterized), you believe as follows:

1) Bombing Japan in an effort to win the war is the moral equivalent of Japan raping, torturing, and murdering the peoples they have conquered, captured and subjugated, in your mind. %A0They are one in the same, regardless of the motives behind such acts. %A0Mens rea simply doesn't matter here, in your book.

2) There is no moral difference between the U.S. bombing Japan and Hitler exterminating the Jews. %A0Again, mens rea doesn't matter in your mind.

3) The US bombing Japan is a war crime. But Russia bombing Ukraine is perfectly fine and dandy, and in fact the war is actually a Just War. %A0

Again, correct me if I am wrong.

For the record, I never condoned the US bombing Japan or killing Japanese civilians. %A0I am simply reasonable enough to understand the two acts you describe are not morally equivalent.

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Mens rea consists in the intentional nature of the act. It's got nothing to do with motive.

Both Hitler and FDR intentionally killed civilians en masse. Their reasons differed, but there was no difference in the acts per se. If you're arguing that Hitler was a worse human being because he was a mass murderer and a bigot, of course I'd agree. It makes little difference to the victims, though.

I haven't seen evidence that Russia has a policy of intentionally killing civilians, as both Japan and the US have in the past. If they are then that is a crime. The justification of the war itself remains a separate issue.

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Let's see if we can glean some answers from your post. %A0Correct me if I am wrong:

1) You see all of the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers as essentially the same - war criminals - because of their decision to bomb cities. %A0

2) You see no moral difference between the Holocaust and the US bombing Japan (and I guess, Germany, for that matter). Regardless of their motives, because both sides intentionally killed civilians, they're essentially the same.

3) Putin is not a war criminal in your book because despite the ample evidence of his forces killing thousands of civilians, you don't know if that's the Russian "policy". %A0

4) Despite the deaths of thousands of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure, Putin is engaged in a Just War in Ukraine because de-nazification is at least one valid reason (for Russia, at least, not the US of course) to invade other sovereign countries.

I'll hang up and listen...

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I see all of them as war criminals because they were. They were also different in many ways. There were certainly evil motives behind the Holocaust. I don't think we had evil motives in the war generally, but there were some times when we did. For example when we decided to use nuclear weapons in part because we wanted to test their effect on human targets in the real world. I would argue that is similar to some of Hitler's atrocities, though on a somewhat smaller scale.

There is ample evidence of collateral damage in Ukraine, as there usually is in war. I'm not convinced that Putin is a war criminal because I haven't seen evidence that he targets civilians intentionally or wantonly. Saying it isn't policy is another way of saying it isn't intentional on his part. Infrastructure is a complicated question. It basically depends on whether the targets serve a military purpose that outweighs the harm to civilians.

I don't think I ever said de-nazification wasn't a valid reason to invade Germany. I may have said it wasn't the actual reason. It's not necessarily sufficient on its own, but it could be if the targeted regime were brutal enough. There too it would depend on whether the good outweighed the harm.

I think your fixation on who was "essentially" this or that is symptomatic of the flaw in your whole approach to this issue. Hitler was essentially an evil man, as you would put it. I don't think the same was true of the Allied leaders. The difference is that for me that's not the end of the discussion. You want to reduce everything to good guys vs. bad guys and adjust all of your conclusions accordingly. I try to keep in mind that all humans are flawed and even good men are capable of bad acts.

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Thanks. %A0So from your post, I conclude:

1) FDR, Truman, Churchill, and the other Allied leaders are war criminals in your book, tantamount to Hitler (though their motives weren't evil or at least as evil).

2) You would need to see evidence that Putin targets civilians intentionally and wantonly before concluding the massive civilian casualties and reports of Russian striking numerous civilian targets are evidence of criminal conduct. %A0

What exactly would you need to see here, Sam, especially in this day and age when militaries can perform targeted strikes? %A0Do you need to see some written policy come to light, or some secret recording of Putin? %A0Do you have that when it comes to FDR, Truman and Churchill, or are you merely concluding the bombing of cities is evidence they wanted civilian dead. %A0Is Russia bombing train stations, restaurants and civilian bomb shelters not some evidence of the criminality of the conduct?

How about Putin's targeted assassinations of political rivals? %A0Is that some evidence of criminal conduct? %A0Or are these people poisoning themselves and falling out windows because of accidents, in your mind?

3) On the Germany issue, I am going to need a little more explanation. %A0Are you saying the US was (or would have been) justified in attacking Germany to defeat Nazism? %A0Was the German regime "brutal enough" that our war with Germany was justified? Or do you still believe we were not justified in entering WWII after the Pearl Harbor bombing and Holocaust came to light? %A0You have of course previously opined that was not a Just War from a US standpoint.

And in like manner, if de-nazification is not alone sufficient to justify Putin's war, what other reasons make Putin's war just in your book, unlike the US involvement in WWII? %A0Is the Ukraine govt. "brutal enough" to justify such an invasion, whereas Germany and Japan were not? %A0In short, what is it about Ukraine that makes it so much worse than 1940s Germany and Japan and justified Russia's invasion?

As for your last paragraph, unfortunately your analysis of "my" position seems to be a position of your own making - a classic straw man fallacy. %A0At no point have I reduced our argument to who was good vs. who was bad. %A0I recognize that the Allied leaders weren't saints, and responsible for conduct that wouldn't be kosher in this day and age. %A0Instead, the interesting thing to me is the seeming dichotomy in your beliefs.

For example, prior to our discussion on this thread, I believed you to be a moral individual who possessed some semblance of common human decency. %A0Despite our difference of opinion on many subjects, I actually believed you came by your beliefs honestly, and with consistency, as a result of a deeply-held set of values. I mean, anyone who could argue that not even our war against Nazism, the Holocaust, Japanese imperialism and aggression was just just could never believe the Russian invasion of a sovereign country that was not the aggressor could in any way be just, even if like me he didn't agree with our involvement in it. %A0

And then incredibly, you proceeded to make the case for it, utilizing much of what is widely recognized as Russian propaganda. And then you justified the "collateral damage" - the killing of thousands of innocents in a war of aggression by our country's greatest enemy. %A0It was quite remarkable then, and remains quite remarkable now, especially for a guy who has argued for years there's never been a just American war. %A0And it made me wonder if your reasoning had less to do with deeply held beliefs, and more to do with disdain for America.

And it appears the answer to that question is becoming more obvious with each of your posts.

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Whether they were war criminals is pretty much an objective question. "Tantamount to Hitler" is your own interpretation and not one that I share.

Yes, I would need to see evidence of Putin's intent, either direct or circumstantial. Obviously there is such evidence in the case of the US and Japan. There is reason for suspicion in Russia's case, according to the UN. But see again my comments on the UN report. The numbers in themselves are neither remarkable nor particularly "massive."

Hitler's regime certainly qualified in terms of brutality. I said WWII wasn't a just war from our perspective only because it wasn't a last resort. That is one of the elements under the theory we were discussing. I never said that none of our wars qualified, though I believe the War of 1812 was the most recent one I could think of.

Again, what makes Ukraine special is the threat it poses to Russia. Not just because of the Nazi element, but because of NATO.

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So, your position is despite the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. wasn't justified in declaring war on the Axis powers (guess we should have just taken that one on the chin?), but Russia had exhausted all non-violent remedies and had no other option whatsoever other than to attack Ukraine, despite it being well-known there was no immediate plan to admit Ukraine into NATO? Is that really your position - Russia had no other options than attacking Ukraine?

If so, it is telling that you view NATO membership as such an immediate threat to Russia. After all, a democracy that values freedom and human rights should have nothing to fear from NATO. It kind of tells you what a bad actor Russia is in the world today, that you would see NATO as such a threat.

Let me ask this: in reaching the conclusion that Russia was morally justified in attacking Ukraine and killing innocent civilians, did you take into account the fact that Russia is essentially nothing more than a dictatorship at this point - one that already attacked Ukraine in 2014? As I am sure you know, traditional Just War criteria holds that only a duly constituted public authority may wage war. In other words, a political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice is the only political authority that can wage a Just War under the Just War Theory. Despots and dictators typically violate this criteria. How does a country led by a man who has changed the Russian constitution to cement himself in power, who kills or imprisons political opponents, and has shown a repeated pattern of aggression toward Russia's neighbors, meet that criteria?

Or have you considered that another one of the criteria of the Just War Theory is the principle of last resort, which stipulates that all non-violent options must first have been exhausted before the use of force can be justified. Did Russia really try every reasonable non-violent option before it attacked?

Or have you considered the traditional Just War criteria that the reason for going to war needs to be just? Have you considered that innocent life must be in imminent danger and intervention must be to protect life. As your very own US Catholic Conference said in referencing this aspect of the Just War Theory: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations." Is it your position that Ukraine potentially joining NATO at some point in the future an imminent danger to innocent life that cannot be rectified without immediate intervention?

I'll hang up and listen.

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I can tell that today was the day you finally googled the principles of just war. I'll address your specific points later, but kudos for that.

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Must have hit a nerve. I know how much you hate being "debunked."

Looking forward to the Russian spin.

Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

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That's an extremely warped perspective and ignorant of the factual history. Negotiating for peace? Even after Nagasaki and the planned surrender, there was an attempt by some Senior Japanese officers to stop it in a coup. I'm sorry the people had to suffer under the extreme militaristic and fanatical leadership of Imperial Japan, who literally had a belief in invincibility. But what you call terror and intimidation tactics saved millions of lives. Every citizen of Japan was prepped as a warrior, including women and children, so every target was a military one.

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So we used a nuclear bomb against women and children wielding bamboo spears...and we were doing them a favor.

Only in America, folks.

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As the grandson of a marine who was 1 of only 18 people in his unit of 140 to survive Iwo - a guy who almost bled out in a trench when he took shrapnel from a Japanese grenade - I can say that while the thought of dropping a nuclear bomb is horrific, it probably did indeed save hundreds of thousands of American lives.

War sucks but contrary to your assertions - the cause was morally just, unlike the little Russian Napoleon's land grab.

KaiBear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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KaiBear said:

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Mothra said:

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KaiBear said:

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Mothra said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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KaiBear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Dozens of civilians throughout the Middle East are killed by US air strikes almost every year.

Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were killed by US air strikes during Desert Storm.

Thousands of Korean civilians, both North and South, were killed by US airs strikes during the Korean War.

Tens of thousands of innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed by US air strikes during the Vietnam War.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were killed by US air strikes during World War II. Many burned alive or slowly eaten away by nuclear radiation.

Hundreds of thousands of German civilians were killed by US air strikes. Including a huge number of women and children.

From much of the worlds perspective, the US track record is little different from that of Putin..

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The Japanese killed more civilians from 1937 to 1945 than the U.S. has in all of those conflicts combined. Germany needs no explanation and exceeds Japan. Are we holding them to this same "track record" perspective?

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The Germans at least own their atrocities.

The Japanese do not . Which infuriates much of the rest of the Far East .

We just like to pretend all the countries we have bombed have no reason to dislike American policies . That somehow people throughout the world should be grateful for American generosity despite accidentally killing their people. Be it a few dozen or a few million.

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Outside of perhaps North Korea and some of the Middle Eastern countries, if they dislike American policies, it has nothing to do with bombings during wars that ended 50-75 years ago. Since that encompasses about 95%+ of the civilian casualties from your list, I'm not sure that's the "perspective" driver you believe it to be. This sounds more like revisionist American guilt.

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No guilt.

Just first hand observations.

Southerners still rehash the Civil War to a far greater degree than Yankees. Primarily because the South suffered far more local destruction of their homes, farms and businesses. And the flagrant hypocrisy and violence of Reconstruction caused at least as much bitterness especially with southern women ( southern men in many cases had seen enough bloodshed and somewhat accepted their defeat ).

Same applies to Germans for example. As the victors we are more than willing move on. As our cities were not utterly destroyed nor did we suffer from serious food shortages for 2-3 years after the wars end. Will never forget meeting a young couple from Dresden. The couple went out of their way to show me their family album. At least half of the pictures showed Dresden burned to the ground and bodies reduced tio ashes. Naturally the horrible deaths to their descendants makes a far bigger impression to them than to us.

BTW they said I was the ONLY American they had ever met who had even the slightest knowledge about the horrors of the Dresden firebombing. They were glad to be out of East Germany and working in the US ; but amazed at the International cluelessness of the American people.


And that is the only point I am trying to make.

The rest of the world does not look at the destructive actions of US foreign policy as benignly as we blissfully think they should.

And for very natural reasons.

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That's salty coming from the folks who denied knowledge of concentration camps and the exterminations of jews and gypsies . . .

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I have never known a single German who wasn't ashamed of the Nazi death camps or the horrors of the Final Solution.

Whereas I have never met a single American under the age of 60 who was aware of the US fire bombing of Tokyo when the US incinerated 100,000 Japanese civilians in a single night .

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There are countless Germans who still say it was exaggerated and/or still make excuses.

Really, you know that many people who don't know we bombed Tokyo? That surprises me.

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Have never met one of your 'countless' Germans .
Although I know some Americans who believe the death camps never existed .

Nope, have never met anyone under the age of 60 who was aware of the Tokyo fire bombing , or for that matter that Curtis LeMay was so pleased with the results he ordered several other Japanese cities to be likewise fire bombed .

Another basically hidden aspect of American WW2 atrocities was the estimated 50,000 Japanese girls and women reportedly raped by US occupation troops . In fairness those figures are from Japanese sources and are hotly disputed by the US government. Or the fact that the Japanese civilian population had to deal with near starvation food rationing for 2-3 years after the war ended.

As the Japanese merchant fleet had been completely sunk and as an island nation Japan did not have the resources to feed themselves . Apparently it eas a problem few American military or political planners had anticipated to any great degree.

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Few in recent human history have committed the kinds of atrocities Imperial Japan did.

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True to a point .

The Japanese Army employed low tech methods . Bayonets , decapitating prisoners , rape and summary executions.

The US used high tech methods ; atomic bombs , firebombs, and phosphorus artillery shells .

But the US won the war so we got to pick who were the war criminals .

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So raping women and summarily executing prisoners is now the equivalent of targeted bombing of cities designed to end the war?

Wow. Incredible. I leave this thread for a few days and you've completely lost your ability to employ reason and logic. You've lost your mind.

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My friend, we simply disagree.

There is no 'moral compass' in any war.

Least of all when thousands of women and children are incinerated or slowly rot away from nuclear radiation.

No, I have not ' lost my mind '.

But you are losing a bit of your grace.

Just a message board. Nothing posted here matters in the slightest.

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Saying we simply disagree is a cop out. Your positions are illogical, indefensible and morally bankrupt. You have indeed lost both your mind and your moral compass.

Just calling it like I see it. I misjudged you.

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I forgive you for your reckless insults and will not respond in kind .

If the past is any indication you will resume tolerating my character flaws when we agree on a future topic.

As we usually do.


Peace Be With You

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Why don't you accuse him of having a homosexual relationship with your gardener like you did to me?

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D. I both like and respect Mothra. He has got his hands full and yet soldiers on.

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Well to be fair, shooting down Russian propaganda is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, especially when your opponent's best argument in support of the Russian bloodlust is moral equivalency and "rooting out the Nazis."

Lol.

We nuked Japan because we were willing to accept Japanese deaths (both military and civilian) to prevent American military deaths. In the context of war, this is not an immoral calculation. Target selection likely was - nuking the Japanese cities with the largest concentration of Christian converts for instance - but the decision to use the bomb wasn't. Some people think that war is "the continuation of diplomacy by other methods." It's not. It's the suspension of diplomacy. It's when two nations get their hands around each others necks and squeeze until one falls to the floor. There are no rules. That's why war should be avoided until absolutely unavoidable...and when it is unavoidable (an existential threat to your nation and its culture), fight like the Mongol Hoarde.

Still shooting Nazi fish in a barrel while ignoring the NATO elephant in the room.

Yes, I have considered the principle of last resort. I just talked about it in the post you were responding to.

Nice try with the political authority argument, but Russia is a recognized state with an embassy in Washington and a seat on the UN Security Council. The fact you don't like their government doesn't mean it isn't a duly constituted authority.

If NATO had been allowed to establish itself in Ukraine, it would have pursued the same agenda in Russia -- ethnic division, corruption, civil war, regime change. They were under no obligation to tolerate it, and they would have been foolish to do so.

Sam Lowry said:

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Still shooting Nazi fish in a barrel while ignoring the NATO elephant in the room.

Yes, I have considered the principle of last resort. I just talked about it in the post you were responding to.

Nice try with the political authority argument, but Russia is a recognized state with an embassy in Washington and a seat on the UN Security Council. The fact you don't like their government doesn't mean it isn't a duly constituted authority.

If NATO had been allowed to establish itself in Ukraine, it would have pursued the same agenda in Russia -- ethnic division, corruption, civil war, regime change. They were under no obligation to tolerate it, and they would have been foolish to do so.

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Your position that Russia was justified in invading Ukraine because "the Nazis" will remain one of your all time unintentionally hilarious classics. And that is saying something, because you have had so many over the years. So you'll have to forgive me if I mention it a few more times on this thread.

If you will review my posts a little closer, you will see I have repeatedly referenced the "NATO elephant in the room," as you call it. We have agreed that Biden was moronic for ever suggesting Ukraine could become apart of NATO, and his refusal to give assurances might have prevented the war of Russian aggression. But we all know there was no imminent threat of Ukraine joining NATO, certainly in the short term and most likely in the long term as well.

And even if it was a threat, no reasonable, non-Russian shill could argue that it was the kind of imminent threat that morally justified an invasion under the Just War Theory. After all, there was no innocent life in imminent danger so as to justify the idea that only an invasion of Ukraine could prevent imminent Russian deaths. There was no "grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights" being committed by the Ukrainians that had to be prevented.

To the contrary, it is the Russians that have been consistently killing the Ukrainians since incorporating large swaths of its territory in 2014. It is Russia that has a 30-year history of broken promises, fake ceasefires, and aggression toward Ukraine and the former Soviet states. Whether it was Russia's broken promise to never attack Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons, its numerous broken peace treaties with Ukraine, Russia's invasion of Georgia that resulted in a so-called peace settlement that incorporated Georgian territory, Russia's fake "peacekeeping" mission that turned Moldova into an isolated country with no prospects, or the peace agreement promised by Moscow to Chechnya that ended with 50,000 to 80,000 people dead under brutal shelling - Russia has a long history of being a bad actor in the world, especially with its immediate neighbors. And of course, as you should know, one must take into account these numerous bad acts when deciding whether Russia was morally justified in attacking Ukraine under the Just War Theory you claim to adhere to. Russian's present conduct cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

That is why you failed to address any of the questions posed in my last post, outside of a half-hearted attempt to claim that because Russia is a "recognized state" with an embassy, it somehow meets the "political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice" criteria under the traditional Just War theory, when that of course is not the standard. Numerous dictatorships and countries run by despots are "recognized states." That does not make them political authorities within political systems that allow distinctions of justice.

In short, as I expected, you once again have nothing, which is why you haven't even attempted to address the questions posed. It is because you and I both know, there is no justification. In short, your bull **** Russian propaganda has been repeatedly "debunked."

Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Still shooting Nazi fish in a barrel while ignoring the NATO elephant in the room.

Yes, I have considered the principle of last resort. I just talked about it in the post you were responding to.

Nice try with the political authority argument, but Russia is a recognized state with an embassy in Washington and a seat on the UN Security Council. The fact you don't like their government doesn't mean it isn't a duly constituted authority.

If NATO had been allowed to establish itself in Ukraine, it would have pursued the same agenda in Russia -- ethnic division, corruption, civil war, regime change. They were under no obligation to tolerate it, and they would have been foolish to do so.

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Your position that Russia was justified in invading Ukraine because "the Nazis" will remain one of your all time unintentionally hilarious classics. And that is saying something, because you have had so many over the years. So you'll have to forgive me if I mention it a few more times on this thread.

If you will review my posts a little closer, you will see I have repeatedly referenced the "NATO elephant in the room," as you call it. We have agreed that Biden was moronic for ever suggesting Ukraine could become apart of NATO, and his refusal to give assurances might have prevented the war of Russian aggression. But we all know there was no imminent threat of Ukraine joining NATO, certainly in the short term and most likely in the long term as well.

And even if it was a threat, no reasonable, non-Russian shill could argue that it was the kind of imminent threat that morally justified an invasion under the Just War Theory. After all, there was no innocent life in imminent danger so as to justify the idea that only an invasion of Ukraine could prevent imminent Russian deaths. There was no "grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights" being committed by the Ukrainians that had to be prevented.

To the contrary, it is the Russians that have been consistently killing the Ukrainians since incorporating large swaths of its territory in 2014. It is Russia that has a 30-year history of broken promises, fake ceasefires, and aggression toward Ukraine and the former Soviet states. Whether it was Russia's broken promise to never attack Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons, its numerous broken peace treaties with Ukraine, Russia's invasion of Georgia that resulted in a so-called peace settlement that incorporated Georgian territory, Russia's fake "peacekeeping" mission that turned Moldova into an isolated country with no prospects, or the peace agreement promised by Moscow to Chechnya that ended with 50,000 to 80,000 people dead under brutal shelling - Russia has a long history of being a bad actor in the world, especially with its immediate neighbors. And of course, as you should know, one must take into account these numerous bad acts when deciding whether Russia was morally justified in attacking Ukraine under the Just War Theory you claim to adhere to. Russian's present conduct cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

That is why you failed to address any of the questions posed in my last post, outside of a half-hearted attempt to claim that because Russia is a "recognized state" with an embassy, it somehow meets the "political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice" criteria under the traditional Just War theory, when that of course is not the standard. Numerous dictatorships and countries run by despots are "recognized states." That does not make them political authorities within political systems that allow distinctions of justice.

In short, as I expected, you once again have nothing, which is why you haven't even attempted to address the questions posed. It is because you and I both know, there is no justification. In short, your bull **** Russian propaganda has been repeatedly "debunked."

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Aquinas' concept of proper authority was in opposition to war waged by private persons or unorganized groups, and that is its main significance. Democracy as we know it didn't exist, and the ruling powers of his time would be considered autocratic if not dictatorial by today's standards. One could argue that a government like Nazi Germany, with its nearly complete breakdown in the rule of law, had forfeited the right to wage war altogether. But Russia is far from such a regime, despite what Western propaganda would have you believe.

As to the rest, your post is replete with distortions of fact, some of which are almost shocking in their brazenness (e.g. "it is Russia that has a 30-year history of broken promises"). While it is tempting to debate them one by one, you've so mischaracterized my position at this point that my contributions hardly seem necessary. You might as well be arguing with yourself. It's a shame that most of our discussions end this way, but it wasn't hard to see coming. Feel free to carry on.

Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Still shooting Nazi fish in a barrel while ignoring the NATO elephant in the room.

Yes, I have considered the principle of last resort. I just talked about it in the post you were responding to.

Nice try with the political authority argument, but Russia is a recognized state with an embassy in Washington and a seat on the UN Security Council. The fact you don't like their government doesn't mean it isn't a duly constituted authority.

If NATO had been allowed to establish itself in Ukraine, it would have pursued the same agenda in Russia -- ethnic division, corruption, civil war, regime change. They were under no obligation to tolerate it, and they would have been foolish to do so.

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Your position that Russia was justified in invading Ukraine because "the Nazis" will remain one of your all time unintentionally hilarious classics. And that is saying something, because you have had so many over the years. So you'll have to forgive me if I mention it a few more times on this thread.

If you will review my posts a little closer, you will see I have repeatedly referenced the "NATO elephant in the room," as you call it. We have agreed that Biden was moronic for ever suggesting Ukraine could become apart of NATO, and his refusal to give assurances might have prevented the war of Russian aggression. But we all know there was no imminent threat of Ukraine joining NATO, certainly in the short term and most likely in the long term as well.

And even if it was a threat, no reasonable, non-Russian shill could argue that it was the kind of imminent threat that morally justified an invasion under the Just War Theory. After all, there was no innocent life in imminent danger so as to justify the idea that only an invasion of Ukraine could prevent imminent Russian deaths. There was no "grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights" being committed by the Ukrainians that had to be prevented.

To the contrary, it is the Russians that have been consistently killing the Ukrainians since incorporating large swaths of its territory in 2014. It is Russia that has a 30-year history of broken promises, fake ceasefires, and aggression toward Ukraine and the former Soviet states. Whether it was Russia's broken promise to never attack Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons, its numerous broken peace treaties with Ukraine, Russia's invasion of Georgia that resulted in a so-called peace settlement that incorporated Georgian territory, Russia's fake "peacekeeping" mission that turned Moldova into an isolated country with no prospects, or the peace agreement promised by Moscow to Chechnya that ended with 50,000 to 80,000 people dead under brutal shelling - Russia has a long history of being a bad actor in the world, especially with its immediate neighbors. And of course, as you should know, one must take into account these numerous bad acts when deciding whether Russia was morally justified in attacking Ukraine under the Just War Theory you claim to adhere to. Russian's present conduct cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

That is why you failed to address any of the questions posed in my last post, outside of a half-hearted attempt to claim that because Russia is a "recognized state" with an embassy, it somehow meets the "political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice" criteria under the traditional Just War theory, when that of course is not the standard. Numerous dictatorships and countries run by despots are "recognized states." That does not make them political authorities within political systems that allow distinctions of justice.

In short, as I expected, you once again have nothing, which is why you haven't even attempted to address the questions posed. It is because you and I both know, there is no justification. In short, your bull **** Russian propaganda has been repeatedly "debunked."

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Aquinas' concept of proper authority was in opposition to war waged by private persons or unorganized groups, and that is its main significance. Democracy as we know it didn't exist, and the ruling powers of his time would be considered autocratic if not dictatorial by today's standards. One could argue that a government like Nazi Germany, with its nearly complete breakdown in the rule of law, had forfeited the right to wage war altogether. But Russia is far from such a regime, despite what Western propaganda would have you believe.

As to the rest, your post is replete with distortions of fact, some of which are almost shocking in their brazenness (e.g. "it is Russia that has a 30-year history of broken promises"). While it is tempting to debate them one by one, you've so mischaracterized my position at this point that my contributions hardly seem necessary. You might as well be arguing with yourself. It's a shame that most of our discussions end this way, but it wasn't hard to see coming. Feel free to carry on.

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If you feel I've mischaracterized your positions, please feel free to clarify, and I will be happy to apologize and retract, if that is in fact the case. Otherwise, I will just assume the ad hominems are just your standard cop out when your positions have been made to look so ridiculous (as they so often are).

For the record, when I said Russia has a 30-year history of broken promises, that was my opinion. It is of course backed up by substantial evidence, but you seem to be treating that statement as a verifiable fact when it is in fact my opinion (kind of like your opinion that its verified fact that the Allied leaders are war criminals, despite the absence of any charges or convictions for same). That being the case, it's interesting that's what so torqued you up.

If you work up the courage to proffer an argument in support of your positions that the threat posed by Ukraine was an imminent threat to innocent lives, or that Russia has exhausted all other options, let us know. Until then...

I've made every effort to answer your questions patiently and in good faith. I've explained again and again that rooting out Nazis is generally not a sufficient reason in itself. If you'd paid attention to the interview which is the subject of this thread, you'd know that even Putin made no such claim. Unfortunately it's just not possible to move the discussion forward when I have to keep backtracking and correcting your misstatements every time I post. I don't know whether it's a deliberate tactic or something else, but it really is a serious impediment to any kind of debate with you. So I'm not trying to kick the football again, at least not today.

Sam Lowry said:

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I've made every effort to answer your questions patiently and in good faith. I've explained again and again that rooting out Nazis is generally not a sufficient reason in itself. If you'd paid attention to the interview which is the subject of this thread, you'd know that even Putin made no such claim. Unfortunately it's just not possible to move the discussion forward when I have to keep backtracking and correcting your misstatements every time I post. I don't know whether it's a deliberate tactic or something else, but it really is a serious impediment to any kind of debate with you. So I'm not trying to kick the football again, at least not today.

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I am not sure why you are rehashing positions I don't dispute, and citing them as the reasons you allegedly can't have a discussion. When we initially discussed the Just War Theory, the only reasoning you proffered in support of same was "de-Nazification," and you posted two articles in support of that position (which, ironically, suggested de-Nazification was mere pretext). Later in the discussion, you brought up the NATO issue as another reason you believe the Russian war of aggression is morally just, though you've wholly failed to make any cogent arguments in support of this position, despite repeated request.

What's funny is, since yesterday, I've asked you repeatedly to support your position (if it is your position) that the NATO issue was an imminent threat to innocent lives, or that Russia has exhausted all other options with respect to the NATO issue - two of the necessary elements of a Just War. I was hopeful you would be able to make cogent arguments in support of your position that would at least allow for a discussion, as you suggested you would in your snarky reply yesterday evening. And yet, today you've engaged in nothing more than ad hominems and subterfuge which appear to be designed to avoid answering the questions posed. But of course, in my many years of experience dealing with you, this is par for the course. You regularly avoid difficult questions. To be clear, I haven't asked you a single question about de-Nazification for the last two days.

Perhaps you feel you've made arguments supporting your positions. If so, perhaps you simply lack the ability to make convincing arguments in support of your position - a distinct possibility given how ridiculous your positions typically are. This one is no different. It's pretty indefensible.

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

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That's an extremely warped perspective and ignorant of the factual history. Negotiating for peace? Even after Nagasaki and the planned surrender, there was an attempt by some Senior officers to stop it in a coup. I'm sorry the people had to suffer under the extreme militaristic and fanatical leadership of Imperial Japan, who literally had a belief in invincibility. But what you call terror and intimidation tactics saved millions of lives. Every citizen of Japan was prepped as a warrior, including women and children, so every target was a military one.

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The Japanese did not believe they were "invincible"

The leadership was terrified from the get go that the USSR would join the war against them and bent over backwards to try and prevent that from taking place.

They were even trying to get the Soviets to be their mediator on the war late into the end.

By the time Okinawa fell they knew the war was over for them….the only question was how and when it would end.

[The next step was subjugation of the Japanese home islands, a far bigger undertaking than Okinawa and with casualties on a higher scale. Japan had a military force of about 7 million remaining and was not ready to quit.

The Japanese knew they could not possibly win, but they might be able to delay the end of the war into the fall of 1946. If the Americans found the rising casualties intolerable, they might settle for terms less than unconditional surrender.]

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The invincibility angle was and had been a cornerstone of Japanese cultural psyche. Based upon a history of never being invaded or conquered, this was a critical component of social indoctrination going back centuries. This was the ideology that brought Imperial Japan to where it was including how they fought in the field of battle. When I say invincible, I don't mean like a superpower that cheats death, but an undefeatable force in the Empire of Japan.

The War with America in about 1944 started to fracture the confidence. The Soviets had visions of expanding communism, which they did, but were late to the game. They were never going to negotiate or arbitrate terms. In fact their refusal to do so and enter the war along with our bombing (both nuclear and non nuclear) were the big swings for the unconditional surrender of Japan. The Japanese wanted a delay to see if our fortitude after large casualties would accept a conditional surrender.

Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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I've made every effort to answer your questions patiently and in good faith. I've explained again and again that rooting out Nazis is generally not a sufficient reason in itself. If you'd paid attention to the interview which is the subject of this thread, you'd know that even Putin made no such claim. Unfortunately it's just not possible to move the discussion forward when I have to keep backtracking and correcting your misstatements every time I post. I don't know whether it's a deliberate tactic or something else, but it really is a serious impediment to any kind of debate with you. So I'm not trying to kick the football again, at least not today.

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I am not sure why you are rehashing positions I don't dispute, and citing them as the reasons you allegedly can't have a discussion. When we initially discussed the Just War Theory, the only reasoning you proffered in support of same was "de-Nazification," and you posted two articles in support of that position (which, ironically, suggested de-Nazification was mere pretext).

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Again, no.

Sam Lowry said:

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Mothra said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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I've made every effort to answer your questions patiently and in good faith. I've explained again and again that rooting out Nazis is generally not a sufficient reason in itself. If you'd paid attention to the interview which is the subject of this thread, you'd know that even Putin made no such claim. Unfortunately it's just not possible to move the discussion forward when I have to keep backtracking and correcting your misstatements every time I post. I don't know whether it's a deliberate tactic or something else, but it really is a serious impediment to any kind of debate with you. So I'm not trying to kick the football again, at least not today.

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I am not sure why you are rehashing positions I don't dispute, and citing them as the reasons you allegedly can't have a discussion. When we initially discussed the Just War Theory, the only reasoning you proffered in support of same was "de-Nazification," and you posted two articles in support of that position (which, ironically, suggested de-Nazification was mere pretext).

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Again, no.

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Whatever you say.

Again, let me know if you work up the courage to respond to my questions. Have a good evening.

ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

---

That's an extremely warped perspective and ignorant of the factual history. Negotiating for peace? Even after Nagasaki and the planned surrender, there was an attempt by some Senior Japanese officers to stop it in a coup. I'm sorry the people had to suffer under the extreme militaristic and fanatical leadership of Imperial Japan, who literally had a belief in invincibility. But what you call terror and intimidation tactics saved millions of lives. Every citizen of Japan was prepped as a warrior, including women and children, so every target was a military one.

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So we used a nuclear bomb against women and children wielding bamboo spears...and we were doing them a favor.

Only in America, folks.

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Only in Sam's warped logic does it get framed that way.

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Your logic, not mine. All you're really saying is that Japan had a citizen militia. Horror of horrors, so did we. It brings to mind the quote about Japan invading America and finding a rifle behind every blade of grass. Apocryphal or not, there's truth to the observation. Plenty of Americans would fight to defend their homeland in the event of an invasion, and rightly so. Do you really think that makes us legitimate targets for a weapon of mass destruction? Take a step back and consider how warped that is.

All of the propaganda about Japanese fighting to the death overlooks one point. They were ordered, or at least believed it was their patriotic duty, to do so. When the emperor surrendered, so did they. Sure, there were a few holdouts and dead-enders hiding out in caves, isolated from news reports, living on bugs and rainwater, sharpening sticks and piling up pebbles, like Whiterock plotting the "liberation" of Crimea.

Everyone else acknowledged reality and got on with their lives. Our beef wasn't with them. It was with the emperor. We wanted him gone and didn't care how many men, women, or children we had to kill to make that happen.

Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We were preparing for an invasion because we were determined not to negotiate the peace. So if we "saved" the Japanese from anything, it was only from ourselves.

And fire-bombing is not a battle tactic any more than mass rape or any of the other atrocities committed by Japan. It's a terrorist tactic designed to demoralize and intimidate a population.

---

That's an extremely warped perspective and ignorant of the factual history. Negotiating for peace? Even after Nagasaki and the planned surrender, there was an attempt by some Senior Japanese officers to stop it in a coup. I'm sorry the people had to suffer under the extreme militaristic and fanatical leadership of Imperial Japan, who literally had a belief in invincibility. But what you call terror and intimidation tactics saved millions of lives. Every citizen of Japan was prepped as a warrior, including women and children, so every target was a military one.

---

So we used a nuclear bomb against women and children wielding bamboo spears...and we were doing them a favor.

Only in America, folks.

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Only in Sam's warped logic does it get framed that way.

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Your logic, not mine. All you're really saying is that Japan had a citizen militia. Horror of horrors, so did we. It brings to mind the quote about Japan invading America and finding a rifle behind every blade of grass. Apocryphal or not, there's a lot of truth to the observation. Plenty of Americans would fight to defend their homeland in the event of an invasion, and rightly so. Do you really think that makes us legitimate targets for a weapon of mass destruction? Take a step back and consider how warped that is.

All of the propaganda about Japanese fighting to the death overlooks one point. They were ordered, or at least believed it was their patriotic duty, to do so. When the emperor surrendered, so did they. Sure, there were a few holdouts and dead-enders hiding out in caves, isolated from news reports, living on bugs and rainwater, sharpening sticks and piling up pebbles sort of like Whiterock plotting the "liberation" of Crimea.

Everyone else acknowledged reality and got on with their lives. Our beef wasn't with them. It was with the emperor. We wanted him gone and didn't care how many people, including women and children, we had to kill to make that happen.

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Yes, it does make us all legitimate targets of an invader. Which is why if the roles were reversed the Japanese would have done similar or likely worse. Maybe you think something different, but that's the reality of war.

But there was a greater fanaticism in Japan than anything we had here, not to mention a complete lack of counter voices like we have in the U.S.