Brandon9000 wrote:No, I am still correct. Here is my logic:
A gross abuse of the word logic is about to follow.
Quote:Theorem: A war in which civilians are blown to bits can be just.
Proof:
1. The invasion of Nazi Germany in WW2 was justifiable, and would have been whether they had declared war on us first or we on them first. Stopping Hitler was inherently justifiable.
2. Civilians were blown to bits in the WW2 allied invasion of Germany.
QED
No, that which was to have been demonstrated has not been demonstrated. Your assertion falters because of the
causus belli. It is nowhere proven that an invasion of Germany were inherently justifiable, nor can it be shown that we invaded Germany (late 1944 and early 1945) for any other reason than that they declared war on us.
In fact, given the reaction of the American people to the attack on the Pacific Fleet, had Hitler been smart enough
not to have declared war on the United States, and had been careful not to allow submarine warfare to significantly affect U.S. merchant shipping, it is a highly dubious proposition that Roosevelt could have lead the United States into a European war with the Imperial Japanese enemy still standing in the Pacific. The entire thesis that we fought a noble war for freedom has been cobbled together after the fact as the World War II generation aged and indulged in ever more remotely applicable self-congratulation.
The government found it necessary to go to great lengths to convince the nation that a world-wide crusade was necessary. Notable efforts came out of Hollywood (enabling such "heroes" as John Wayne and Ronald Reagan to avoid actually going in harm's way), such as Kapra's
Why We Fight. Humphrey Bogart got in the act with incredibly bad pot boiler
Murmansk Run. Great efforts were made to paint the Soviet Union in an heroic light. If mere morality were the motivating factor, we would never have allied ourselves with Joe Stalin, who was killing people faster and in greater numbers than Hitler ever managed.
You have absolutely no basis, other than your bald assertion, to contend that you have demonstrated your thesis. On any truly
logical basis, we, eventually, invaded Germany in response to a declaration of war on the United States by Germany.
As a matter of historical fact, German civilians were blown to bits long before the United States became involved. They were most commonly blown to bits in night-time area bombing raids which Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris justified on the basis that factory workers who get no sleep are ineffective at work the next day. The evidence for this is to be found in Winston Spencer Churchill's four volume
The Second World War, in which he explains the principle. Basically, though, the English hadn't the resources to sustain the casualties which would have resulted from daylight raids. It was the Americans who later carried out daylight raids, and despite their own gloomy assessments, they did quite a remarkable job of putting a respectable percentage of the bomb load on target or within one thousand yards of the aiming point. Civilians were, of course, killed in either type of raid--just as were thousands of Normans in France when bomb crews, lacking any remaining German targets, took to bombing willy-nilly any crossroads they saw in Normandy.
The fire-bombing of Dresden and the atomic attacks on Japan continue to be hotly debated as war crimes despite the claim of a noble cause. The United States, along with the majority of the nations in the world, has long adhered to a priniciple that there are rules to govern conduct in war--and we have violated those rules in many wars. One rule paramount among all others is the very justification for war, as is to be seen in the second article of the first chapter of the Charter of the United Nations, an organization created by the United States for its own ends during the Second World War:
Article 2 The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.
On the basis of the charter, the current administration canard to the effect that the invasion was justified to remove a murderous dictator is invalid, because it constitutes an intervention in matters which were essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of Iraq,
and no enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the Charter were authorized by the Security Council.
Quote:Now, having proven the theorem as a true statement, I may apply it to whatever I wish. Therefore, the mere fact that civilians have been blown to bits in the war in Iraq, no matter how regrettable, does not in and of itself prove that the invasion was unjustified.
No, you did not prove your thesis to be true, you simply asserted an opinion, and an opinion which runs counter to the historical evidence. The justification for the war fails because it violates the principles of the United Nations Charter, to which we were the first signatory. Just because you can type QED, don't make it so . . .
