Things that make you go.......WTF?

[think positive]

Yeah I guess I read between the lines that the officers were party to it, guess we have to see if they keep their promise

[David]

While I'm happy to see barbarity punished, there does seem to be a strange double standard with these things. Kill enemy soldiers in a cruel and unnecessary way and you (rightly) get court martialed. Drop a bomb on an enemy target, taking a few civilians out as 'collateral damage', and that's just war.

Anyone who thinks the latter is less cruel, have you ever seen the aftermath of a bombing?

[stui magpie]

^

Comes down to intent. I think we've had this conversation before, several times. It's like a version of your trolley car fetish.

Run over people in the trolley because you're having a bad day or because they did something bad to you, ungood.

Run over 3 people in the trolley so 100 others can live, justified.

[David]

I think that's a fair distinction – strategy vs revenge – but it still seems a strange one in war. Besides, for all the propaganda, there are many cases of revenge killings by western military. Osama comes to mind.

[think positive]

Bin laden was never going to be taken alive. He would have seen Saddam death. Wasn't there reports he had a gun?

[David]

I think it's more correct to say that they had no intention of taking him alive. In any case, I think it came out eventually that he was unarmed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/former-soldier-claims-osama-bin-laden-was-unarmed-and-already-dead-or-dying-when-navy-seals-burst-8091766.html

[think positive]

Is there a difference between killing a criminal mastermind and his foot soldiers? I think there is. He wasn't tortured either, right between the eyes the first shot. Dead or dying? So shoot him in the chest to put him out of his misery. On a side note, I've been to ground zero, I'm glad he's dead.

The other story is different, they were already either captured or surrendered.

[Mugwump]

[stui magpie]

[David]

[think positive]

Not just the Allies, take a look at the crimes of the Japanese and Germans just for a start.

[Mugwump]

^ of course war is cruel and barbaric, David, but that is so obvious that I scarely see the point of saying it.

One of the great problems of war is that it is almost impossible, in advance, to know which wars were worth fighting, and on what terms. I am increasingly sceptical, for instance, that Britain was wise to fight in either the First or the Second World War, though these assertions are themselves unprovable. More controversially, I think the First World War probably presented a more reasonable casus belli for Britain than the Second. The commitment given to Poland was a massive strategic error.

Bin Laden was the killing of a murderous combatant, and in the uncertain context, a secure surrender was virtually inconceivable. If you call that an assassination, I think that term becomes far too elastic.

[think positive]

[David]

This seems like one of the inevitable consequences of war – no side is left untarnished.

That's not to assert any kind of equivalence between, say, Dresden and Manchuria, of course, but if we need to accompany any discussion of our side's atrocities with a reference to the greater sins of the other side then I suspect we're using the latter as a crutch to avoid uncomfortable truths. The most dangerous thing about that approach is that every side has its own kind of whataboutery – "yes, but what about what the Americans did?" – and that soon leads to apologism and endorsement of brutality.

[stui magpie]

The nazis did the Holocaust. Nuff said on them.

The japanese were only behind them on volume and selection process and possibly ahead on sheer cruelty (possibly)

They both set a fairly low bar, I'd like to think our actions, while some may have been poor at times, weren't able to crawl under that bar.