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Pat Tillman and Mohammad Atta: Ethical Equals?
- Thread starter Rearden Metal
- Start date
With respect to Hiroshima/Nagasaki, I don't think it's as clear cut as either of the two extreme positions on it try to make it.
An interesting question is would there be any doubt about which light we'd view Nazi Germany's (or Japan's) use of an atomic bomb against an American target in? Wouldn't we almost certainly have comdemned such an action as a 'war crime'?
Perhaps a difference is that in this example the weapon was employed by those who started the war, whereas we sought to end it.
Also, the defence of using the atomic bomb by those who defend it is usually made with the understanding that it is defended as a necessary action, whereas if it wasn't a necessary action then, yes, it would be a 'war crime', or just immoral. Similarly, Holocaust deniers understand that if the Holocaust did occur (my apologies in advance here) it would have been a grave crime; they simply deny that such a crime took place. This stands in stark contrast to the those who support 9.11 and suicide bombing as America/Israel "getting what it deserves".
An interesting question is would there be any doubt about which light we'd view Nazi Germany's (or Japan's) use of an atomic bomb against an American target in? Wouldn't we almost certainly have comdemned such an action as a 'war crime'?
Perhaps a difference is that in this example the weapon was employed by those who started the war, whereas we sought to end it.
Also, the defence of using the atomic bomb by those who defend it is usually made with the understanding that it is defended as a necessary action, whereas if it wasn't a necessary action then, yes, it would be a 'war crime', or just immoral. Similarly, Holocaust deniers understand that if the Holocaust did occur (my apologies in advance here) it would have been a grave crime; they simply deny that such a crime took place. This stands in stark contrast to the those who support 9.11 and suicide bombing as America/Israel "getting what it deserves".
Quote from spect8or:
I guess I'm just imagining something called the 'Geneva Convention' and the trials taking place in the Hague for those who controvened it during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
right. and guess which "civilized state" has exempted itself and its citizens from being tried by that very tribunal. hint: it's the same "civilized state" that refuses to sign the landmines treaty because it says it needs them. another hint: it's also the same nation that put together a coalition of other "civilized states" to exempt its own citizens from war crimes prosecutorial power added to the World Court arsenal (the hague tribunal is not technically a universal global court). yet another hint: same nation that is still refusing to acknowledge it holds POWs as a way of "legally" exempting itself from the geneva conventions.
rules of "civilized war" are fictions that powerful states attempt to impose on less powerful states, they are not rules anybody actually pays attention to if it's their own back against the wall.
Quote from spect8or:
Wouldn't we almost certainly have comdemned such an action as a 'war crime'?
i don't think so, i think we would have just lobbed a few back. different times, and a different intensity of war. but i freely admit i could be wrong...
kinda OT: i can see how somebody could be ignorant enough to come to believe the holocaust never happened, but i don't understand how someone can be an Aryan Nation type and believe the holocaust never happened. i mean, if hitler didn't wipe out six million jews, then WhyTF is their hero??? anyway...
Quote from damir00:
kinda OT: i can see how somebody could be ignorant enough to come to believe the holocaust never happened, but i don't understand how someone can be an Aryan Nation type and believe the holocaust never happened. i mean, if hitler didn't wipe out six million jews, then WhyTF is their hero??? anyway...
Doublethink.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/30/tillman/index.html
Read about his last few minutes and how he lived them, according to his platoon.
This guy was an incredible person. He was a giant among dwarves. Literally and figuratively. What debilitates the majority, fear (of failure, of death, of ....) did not stand in his way.
You have to be really warped to believe that he is ethically equal to a sadistic killer motivated by a promise of 72 virgins.
Read about his last few minutes and how he lived them, according to his platoon.
This guy was an incredible person. He was a giant among dwarves. Literally and figuratively. What debilitates the majority, fear (of failure, of death, of ....) did not stand in his way.
You have to be really warped to believe that he is ethically equal to a sadistic killer motivated by a promise of 72 virgins.