Is violence against civilians sometimes justified?

[Berkut]

Which is why it is a really, really dumb question. The metric of "What would a parent do to ensure the safety of their own children" is a pretty terrible metric when it comes to deciding what societies should and should not do...

I totally get what you are saying Berkut and I completely agree. But I am not talking about what societies should and shouldn't do at all. I am saying that was the situation the Allied nations were facing. It was not theoretical but very concrete.

Of course - but again, putting the question in the context of what would a parent do to protect their child basically removes any and all restrictions on actions.

The question is "what would/should the Allies, as a society, contemplate when it comes to fighting the Axis". And even at that, the answer is different for the different Allies - the Soviets were facing a very different kind of threat than the Brits, who were facing a very different threat than the Americans. And we saw that in the savagery of the response.

Hell, even the Americans had radically different environments between the war against Germany and the war against Japan, and with radically different standards for how we fought them in detail. We routinely did things fighting the Japanese that would be considered over the line in Western Europe. But that is, admittedly, simply a difference in scale and degree.

In all cases, both sides were fighting a savage total war. I hope we never have to do so again. However, I would not be surprised that if we saw US troops engaged in significant ground combat against ISIS, you would see a level of brutality come back into play we probably don't much care to contemplate.

[alfred russel]

The primary fighting vehicle of ISIS is the Toyota Tundra. I really doubt that a fight against ISIS is going to be Verdun 2.0.

[Valmy]

Of course - but again, putting the question in the context of what would a parent do to protect their child basically removes any and all restrictions on actions.

Naturally. But that is the rub isn't it? When everybody in the society is putting everything on the line what wouldn't they do?

The question is "what would/should the Allies, as a society, contemplate when it comes to fighting the Axis". And even at that, the answer is different for the different Allies - the Soviets were facing a very different kind of threat than the Brits, who were facing a very different threat than the Americans. And we saw that in the savagery of the response.

Hell, even the Americans had radically different environments between the war against Germany and the war against Japan, and with radically different standards for how we fought them in detail. We routinely did things fighting the Japanese that would be considered over the line in Western Europe. But that is, admittedly, simply a difference in scale and degree.

In all cases, both sides were fighting a savage total war. I hope we never have to do so again. However, I would not be surprised that if we saw US troops engaged in significant ground combat against ISIS, you would see a level of brutality come back into play we probably don't much care to contemplate.

Yep.

[lustindarkness]

The primary fighting vehicle of ISIS is the Toyota Tundra. I really doubt that a fight against ISIS is going to be Verdun 2.0.

The Hilux is their primary vehicle, but they do use any and all Toyota 4x4 it seems.

[Berkut]

The primary fighting vehicle of ISIS is the Toyota Tundra. I really doubt that a fight against ISIS is going to be Verdun 2.0.

I am pretty sure nothing I said suggested it would have any resemblance to Verdun.

[Habbaku]

The primary fighting vehicle of ISIS is the Toyota Tundra. I really doubt that a fight against ISIS is going to be Verdun 2.0.

What does that have to do with the brutality of possible fighting?

[DGuller]

Hey, I'm not raising a debate about the morality of measures taken during a total war imposed by ruthless aggressors. Just making a quip about the post facto justification of its techniques. 

Same here.  I've said at the beginning of the thread that if we're ever in total war again, we will again do "immoral things".  When it comes down to it, survival is the highest priority.  That's also why I really dislike it when people say "everyone was crazy during WWII", as if that conduct was irrational.

[Valmy]

Hey, I'm not raising a debate about the morality of measures taken during a total war imposed by ruthless aggressors. Just making a quip about the post facto justification of its techniques. 

Same here.  I've said at the beginning of the thread that if we're ever in total war again, we will again do "immoral things".  When it comes down to it, survival is the highest priority.  That's also why I really dislike it when people say "everyone was crazy during WWII", as if that conduct was irrational.

Do people say that often? My apologies for being one of those 'people' you dislike. I suck.

But it sounds like we agree completely. I am just trying to get people to understand the dynamics involved when I say things like that.

[Berkut]

Hey, I'm not raising a debate about the morality of measures taken during a total war imposed by ruthless aggressors. Just making a quip about the post facto justification of its techniques. 

Same here.  I've said at the beginning of the thread that if we're ever in total war again, we will again do "immoral things".  When it comes down to it, survival is the highest priority.  That's also why I really dislike it when people say "everyone was crazy during WWII", as if that conduct was irrational.

Indeed - I think you can even be more generally nuanced though.

The imposition of violence is in itself inherently "immoral". We tolerate varying level of increasingly outside the norms of morality in response to threats to those norms.

If I walked up to you and threw you to the ground, breaking your face, and put you in cuffs, that would be considered a pretty terrible thing for me to do. If I do that because I am a police officer, and you just shot someone, it would be perfectly ok.

Everything is just a scaling of that basic principle, right up to the most horrific things we do in a total war. That does NOT mean that anything goes - each step much be a reasonable (and ideally minimal) level of violence necessary to prevent further violence from an aggressor. This is a very difficult path to walk though.

[Valmy]

Everything is just a scaling of that basic principle, right up to the most horrific things we do in a total war. That does NOT mean that anything goes - each step much be a reasonable (and ideally minimal) level of violence necessary to prevent further violence from an aggressor. This is a very difficult path to walk though.

Indeed, as the last fifteen years have shown. You wonder what another 9/11 type attack could mean.

[DGuller]

Everything is just a scaling of that basic principle, right up to the most horrific things we do in a total war. That does NOT mean that anything goes - each step much be a reasonable (and ideally minimal) level of violence necessary to prevent further violence from an aggressor. This is a very difficult path to walk though.

Yes, at its most basic, tit-for-tat is the only concept that reliably works when the shit hits the fan, as dangerous to morality as it can potentially be.  An eye-for-an-eye sometimes ensures that the world keeps both eyes.

[Berkut]

Everything is just a scaling of that basic principle, right up to the most horrific things we do in a total war. That does NOT mean that anything goes - each step much be a reasonable (and ideally minimal) level of violence necessary to prevent further violence from an aggressor. This is a very difficult path to walk though.

Indeed, as the last fifteen years have shown. You wonder what another 9/11 type attack could mean.

I have no doubt that we are going to find out eventually.

[grumbler]

We weren't killing people, we were ruining their clothing to destroy their morale. If people happen to be inside those clothes, that was just collateral damage. 

Some people understand the concept of collateral damage, and some think it a mockery.  Either position is tenable, but neither is an argument in and of itself.

A thought experiment will clarify the issue for you:  a bomb is falling out of a british bomber, and Winston Churchill is given, miraculously, the power to direct that bomb to one of two positions, at his discretion.  Position one will destroy an apartment building but kill no one.  The second will kill one little old lady on a bicycle but harm no other person nor any building.

Which position does Churchill direct the bomb to?  If you believe that he was trying to "kill civilians for the sake of it," then you believe that he will target the woman, not the building.  If you believe that he would target the building, then you acknowledge that he is not (in that case) targeting civilians.

[alfred russel]

The primary fighting vehicle of ISIS is the Toyota Tundra. I really doubt that a fight against ISIS is going to be Verdun 2.0.

What does that have to do with the brutality of possible fighting?

Everything.

I mean, in GW1 we bulldozed trenches to bury the guys alive, and killed a large part of the army as it retreated in the last days of the war. From their point of view it was really brutal. But that brutality didn't incline us to nuke Baghdad because we weren't on the receiving end of it.

ISIS doesn't have the means to push us into fighting a total war against them.

[DGuller]

A thought experiment will clarify the issue for you:  a bomb is falling out of a british bomber, and Winston Churchill is given, miraculously, the power to direct that bomb to one of two positions, at his discretion.  Position one will destroy an apartment building but kill no one.  The second will kill one little old lady on a bicycle but harm no other person nor any building.

Which position does Churchill direct the bomb to?  If you believe that he was trying to "kill civilians for the sake of it," then you believe that he will target the woman, not the building.  If you believe that he would target the building, then you acknowledge that he is not (in that case) targeting civilians.

The problem with this thought experiment is that when you get down to it, the only people that ever kill civilians for the sake of it are those engaging in genocide, or serial killers.  In every other situation, you can make an argument that death of civilians is just a cost incurred along the way to achieving an objective.  Even terrorists are not be killing people for the sake of it, that's just the means to an end.