Daniel Larison's critique of my post makes even less sense to me.
McArdle uses an unusually bad example to back up an unfortunate position. Of course, it is true when you opt to bomb civilian centers, especially in an indiscriminate, fire-bombing way, that you have at that time chosen to commit war crimes, and it is also true that people who have reconciled themselves to the mass slaughter of civilians have chosen to justify pretty much anything in the name of fighting the enemy. It does not follow that because you have gone to war against another state that you have therefore necessarily embarked on a course that requires you to engage in those war crimes. The choice to commit those crimes comes later, and that choice becomes inevitable only if those crimes are absolutely necessary to achieve victory. In fact, such crimes tend to stand out for just how utterly unnecessary and excessive they are. If you accept the inhuman calculations of total war and unconditional surrender, you might say that war crimes are inevitable, but if you really accept the logic of total war you don’t believe that there is anything done in war that violates morality or law, because total war is the practical negation of both. The category “war crime” presupposes a distinction between combatants and non-combatants that total war effaces, so one either repudiates total war as immoral and an invitation to the commission of war crimes as a matter of policy, which it is, or one should cease to speak of war crimes.Even so, the example is almost uniquely bad to make McArdle’s case. Dresden was not an effort to try to “save Allied soldiers,” the dubious justification that is also usually given for the vaporisation and incineration of hundreds of thousands of Japanese, but was very definitely and consciously an exercise in inflicting terror on the civilian population and was purely a punitive raid conducted under the catch-all of “strategic bombing.” No strategic goals were advanced in burning the people of Dresden alive (not that this would have made it less of a war crime had some such goal been advanced in some way), and we should never pretend that Dresden was anything other than a bombing carried out to satisfy a vendetta in the most horrifying way imaginable.
I am not arguing that what the Bush administration did was inevitable, only that at the point when you decide to commit atrocities, the nation is almost never thinking of how the war started, but of the suffering that has come since. We did not firebomb Germany because "they started it"; we firebombed them because they'd killed a lot of people since then.
As for the second half, while I agree with Mr Larison that a lot of the motivation behind Dresden was sheer revenge, my understanding is that in fact it was argued for on the basis of the idea that terrorizing the civilian population would help shorten the war. I'm pretty skeptical of the notion that it actually did so, and at any rate I don't think saving the lives of some of your soldiers is a terribly good reason to set fire to tens of thousands of women, children, and old men. But the war had gotten the high command, and much of the population of Britain, to the point where they cared so little about German civilian lives that this made moral sense to them. They could have chosen differently, and I wish they had. But I don't think that the character of the war's beginning--which, let's not forget, revolved around the invasion of a country that very few Britons cared about--had much to do with that decision.
He is saying that if one advocates total war, war crimes are by definition moot. If one doesn't advocate total war, war crimes are a choice and therefore not inevitable.
First you wrote:
Followed by:
Uh what?
Maybe the reason people constantly "misunderstand" you is that you don't make much sense.
I suppose what you'll now say you "really meant" is that war crimes are inevitable, but the Bush people were choosing from a menu and their specific picks were not inevitable...or something...
Clarity is not your strong suit. When nobody can figure out what the hell you are saying the problem might not be everyone else.
Check the progression of WWII. The Germans were the ones who pioneered areal bombardment of civilian targets. The German strategy peaked during the Blitz on London. The Brits, and then the Allies, picked up on the identical rationale for the strategy: To infuriate the citizenry so that the government would demand peace talks or capitulation.
The idea that "war crimes" are "inevitable" is juvenile. The US has consistently improved its record of reducing civilian casualties, conditions where war crimes can be committed, and losses amongst our own soldiers. We have done better in just about every war in contrast to our adversaries, and our capabilities have grown stronger and more precise from war to war.
He is saying that if one advocates total war, war crimes are by definition moot. If one doesn't advocate total war, war crimes are a choice and therefore not inevitable.
Perhaps, but as Megan pointed out in her original post, you'll have to give an example of one of these wars that didn't have war crimes. The US Civil War, WWI, WWII, almost all wars that lasted any long period of time resulted in both sides engaging in war crimes, including acts of the sort that were vehemently rejected at the beginning of the wars. They're not morally inevitable, but they do seem to present in every war of any length.
I just don't believe that they're using the same sense of inevitable. Daniel Larison seems to be claiming that theoretically, war crimes are not "inevitable" unless absolutely necessary to win the war, because they are acts of choice and, philosophically and theoretically, can be divorced from the decision to go to war (so long as one rejects total war and "going to war" does not entail acceptance of such). Megan replies that practically, however, all wars of any length have resulted in war crimes, so we can view war crimes in a practical sense as an inevitable result of war, in the sense that as the length (and brutality, and number of casualties) increase, the probability of committing war crimes approaches 1.
Furthermore, there seems to be a disagreement as to the significance of the original motivation or origin of a war and the likelihood of war crimes. It is reasonable to posit for certain types of war the probability of committing war crimes does not rise as fast with t. However, I believe I side with Megan that, regardless of the origin of the war, the probability of committing at least some war crimes rises to 1 fairly quickly with t and casualties, enough so that characterizing a war as defensive in nature rather than aggressive (and generally most modern wars have at least been cast in defensive terms) has little effect.
Uh what?
Margalis-- I'd argue that Megan is using the two different definitions of "inevitable" in the different quotes. Partially this is because most people believe in a sense of moral responsibility-- I can believe that it is inevitable that war crimes will happen in the sense that the probability approaches one, but not that they are inevitable in the sense that I will treat the actors involved as without the choice to do so, as they had a choice and I may still believe in their being punished and bearing moral weight.
This sort of distinction is always troublesome, as people want to connect probability and moral responsibility all the time. See for example the famous debate about warning young women that certain clothes/hanging out in certain areas may make it more likely to be raped, and that they should therefore avoid such behavior. It is difficult for many to hear that advice without feeling that behind it is the idea that by ignoring the advice the women bear some moral responsibility for being raped. (And certainly some who offer that advice do indeed mean it in that negative way.)
On a separate level, if one believes that war crimes are near-inevitable consequence of war, that might mean that one bears some moral responsibility for being a war supporter, and that one cannot hide behind "it's not my fault, it's their fault for committing the war crimes."
Why the need to give an example? What does that accomplish? If I come up with a war that didn't have war crimes, does that make the Bush administration any more guilty for ordering them? If I can't come up with an example, does that make the Bush administration any less guilty for ordering them?
It's a diversion. The elephant in the room is, the Bush administration apparently ordered or approved the commission of war crimes. That's what needs to be discussed. All of the rest of this is noise.
About Dresden: It is widely rumored that the British and American governments pounded Germany far harder than was necessary for military reasons to encourage the Germans to hesitate when they next got the urge to fire up the armor and head for Paris. Germany had, after all, lost WW I and then come back just a bit over 20 years later to start another and even worse war, so it was understandable if people thought that defeat alone might not do the trick. It seems to have worked; Germany is supposed to be participating in the war in Afghanistan but they won't allow their troops to be stationed in the South, where the action is.
"If you accept the inhuman calculations of total war and unconditional surrender, you might say that war crimes are inevitable..."
Without unconditional surrender, there can be no true justice because it leaves the malefactor in power. If we had pressed for unconditional surrender in Desert Storm, it may have saved lives (in the long run) and removed the cause for the current war in Iraq.
The downside to war is sometimes you have to resort to total war to win and the "war crimes" that go with it (especially if the enemy is likely to "hide" themselves or their weapons behind innocent civilians, as is the norm).
Conclusion: Don't invade another country without taking into account the true cost of "total war" both to the enemy and to your own country, unless winning isn't that important (and if that's the case, there probably isn't a reason to go at all).
Now every sees that you are incoherent, ahistorical, and preposterous. WE WIN WE WIN
Now everyone sees that you are incoherent, ahistorical, and preposterous. WE WIN WE WIN
Margalis-- I'd argue that Megan is using the two different definitions of "inevitable" in the different quotes.
And she wonders why people frequently "misunderstand" her?
Instead of producing a half-dozen poorly-written screeds on the same subject she'd be much better off writing a single precise one. But precise writing appears to be her mortal enemy.
She constantly plays this game where she writes something, then later claims that her "real point" was something only vaguely related. She's done it again here with her first point above.
I don't think she has any real idea what she's arguing or what her point is. Just as she was confused by her own views on torture, claiming she was against even the consideration of torture while in another post arguing that we should use torture sometimes. What "her point" is changes by the hour.
Well, then, liberalrob, people like Greenwald should just make their case, instead of sidetracking with irrelevant descriptive modifiers regarding how the war started.
Margalis,it is a shame that your brain functions in a manner which makes it so perplexing to grasp that the context of a sentence influences how a word should be interpreted.
All right, liberalrob, put up or shut up.
But in order to have a rational discussion, we need to get the definitions straight.
It is widely rumored that the British and American governments pounded Germany far harder than was necessary for military reasons to encourage the Germans to hesitate when they next got the urge to fire up the armor and head for Paris.
No, ridiculous. They pounded Germany as hard as they did because the Germans didn't quit, even after defeat was clearly inevitable. (Same logic applies to the Japanese.) As long as Germany keeps fighting, the bombers keep coming, it's that simple. Remember, the Germany Army inflicted several hundred thousand casualties on the Allies even after Dresden.
The Allies had no need to hit Germany "extra hard" to stop them from starting another war, since the planned occupation, partition, and demilitarization of the country was specifically intended to achieve the goal of preventing the Germans from starting any more wars. (A thoroughly planned, adequately resourced, and competently executed occupation - what the Bush administration calls, "Plan B".)
"It is widely rumored that the British and American governments pounded Germany far harder than was necessary for military reasons to encourage the Germans to hesitate when they next got the urge to fire up the armor and head for Paris.
No, ridiculous. They pounded Germany as hard as they did because the Germans didn't quit, even after defeat was clearly inevitable."
Not quitting was a reason for pounding the German army. Bombing Dresden did little to hasten the surrender--that's why "why Dresden?" is a serious question. I have no inside information, so I don't know if the rumors are true (another rumor is that we were trying to impress the Russians with our ability and willingness to bomb people). But it's far from being "ridiculous" (a word that typically indicates that no actual analysis is coming).
What this discussion is missing is an understanding of pre-WWII strategic bombing theory. The widely accepted belief was that bombing civilians in cities would create enough suffering that a govt would be forced to surrender. This is what Douhet had in mind. The men planning the raids that burned down Dresden, Tokyo, and Hiroshima had these ideas in mind. It wasn't simple bloodlust or desire for revenge. It was a plan to end the war that didn't work in Germany's case and arguably did work in Japan's.
The fire bombing of Dresden was horrific but Larison is dishonest when he says that there was no reason to bomb the city. A ten second search finds the following:
Not quitting was a reason for pounding the German army.
You couldn't pound the German army with the strategic bombers, since the bombers couldn't do that. The combined allied armies were pounding the German army, and while they were doing that, the strategic bombers couldn't just sit there and do nothing. So the bombers did what they could do, and what they had been doing for years, and what was at the time regarded as both effective and morally justified - they leveled cities.
Bombing Dresden did little to hasten the surrender--that's why "why Dresden?" is a serious question.
That it did little to hasten the surrender is only apparent in retrospect, with the luxury of hindsight and without large numbers of our people being killed by Germans every day. That is why it is NOT a serious question.
Nobody in February 1945 knew when the war was going to end. The Germans had kept it going far longer than anyone expected. To have suggested at the time that the Allies should "relax" and not use one of the most powerful tools at their disposal would have been met with ridicule and, most likely, a public outcry. Moreover, they would ask "how do you know this is NOT going to end the war faster?" - and there would have been no good answer to this question at the time.
The attack on Dresden was not irrational or pointless to those who ordered it and carried it out, and who could not read the future.
It is permissible to violate the laws of war to retaliate against an enemy who is violating the laws of war. And the notion works. Hitler would have used poison gas in WWII on enemy soldiers, but the Allies had superior bombing capacity and would have responded in kind.
There is a big difference between the Allied strategic bombing campaign and the Axis campaign against ethnic minorities.
The Allied bombing campaign had the intent and the effect of hampering the German war effort. It did help the Allied cause. It did help the Allies win the war.
The Axis, on the other hand, primarily killed civilians in areas they already controlled. This did not help them win the war; in fact, by depriving them of the labor of millions of people it probably hurt them.
The sheer number of civilians killed by the Axis also dwarfed the 600,000 Germans and an unknown number of other civilians killed by Allied bombing raids.
The two sides were not equivalent, even though they did both kill civilians.
I am glad that terror bombing of cities is no longer an acceptable strategy, but we shouldn't discount the military value of the strategic bombing campaign in winning the war. If there was a time to bomb cities, that was it.
I can easily imagine a scenario where the U.S. would find bombing cities an acceptable strategy.
The key point here is the definition of terrorism: the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. When a whole country is at war with another country, it is hard to argue that the civilians are "innocent."
I think one thing that gets overlooked in this sort of discussion is a kind of sleight of hand that goes on, and has gone one, ever since states came into existence.
That slight of hand consists of asserting a priviledge or a power for a state that did not exist for the individuals who comprise the state. For instance, if no individual possesses the right to respond to aggression by injuring innocent bystanders, it is difficult to figure out where a state right to do so comes from.
After all, under social contract theory, people assign some of their rights to the state in exchange for the benefits that accrue from civil society. It's never clear how the state comes to possess rights or powers that were never assigned to it by anyone who comprises the society (after all people cannot assign powers they do not possess).
So, it seems to me that the specific instance Ms. McArdle singles out is simply an instance that is part of a more fundamental class of problems. When it is assumed that a state has some priviledge or power that was not assigned to it by the individuals that comprise the state, then it probably is inevitable that abuses will derive from the exercise of such a power.
We can talk about whether these abuses are inevitable or not but until the more fundamental problem; i.e., can states have powers or priviledges that sprang from nowhere, is resolved nothing much will change and great misery will be the result.
Rex wrote: "The key point here is the definition of terrorism: the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. When a whole country is at war with another country, it is hard to argue that the civilians are "innocent."
So Rex, by your logic, all the citizens of Israel aren't innocent, and are fair game? You sound like the PLO.
swells:
I admit to being slightly puzzled by your line of reasoning. Maybe it's indicative of differing basic assumptions about life, but I've got no problems viewing a group as having different characteristics than the individuals it's made up of.
In this case, the United States as a collective may certainly do things that individual citizens cannot. In fact, it has to do so to preserve itself as a society. The US regularly does things that sacrifice individuals (e.g., military operations, mandatory immunizations) to advance the greater good of the overall collective.
The evolution of this entire disagreement has been interesting to watch. It started with Megan characterizing something Matt Y said, concerning the current administration's media manipulation, as "weirdly specific". Now it seems to be over the inevidibility of war crimes. I think Megan finally got to the point of what she was trying to argue in her response to Sullivan.
"I am arguing that it is dangerous to attribute war crimes to the type of war you are waging, because the implication is that when you fight a "good" war, you won't have war crimes. That tilts the calculus too heavily in favor of future wars."
Fine, that's all she had to say. I think she was mistaken in her original characterization of Matt Y's comments but I think we can all agree, war crimes are reprehensible no matter what type of war is being fought and it is the moral duty of citizenry to shed light onto them. Those that are guilty should be brought to justice. It seems this whole squabble has been people arguing past eachother.
There were no "civilians" in WWII. Entire societies were at war. Bombing cites such as Dresden was a fine tactic. German civilians were part of the war effort, supported the nazis and participated in the murder of millions of jewish, gypsy and other non-combatants. The germans were bombing British cities, they needed to be hit back in the same manner in order to win the war and discurage further bombing of allied cities. You don't win a war with your hands tied behind your back, something we need to remember these days in our current war.
BTW what is this assertion that the President is a war criminal. That is very nasty stuff. Very crude and not what would be expected in coversation amoung adults. Those kind of remarks belong on Kos' hate site of the huffington's deranged site.
xxx-
Um, Bush committed war crimes. Ergo, he is a war criminal. You see...
oh nevermind.
rickm,
The PLO is not a country. I don't think that Israel is at war with any other countries at the moment.
Bush was convicted of war crimes? Do you have a cite?
In the law of war, you are allowed to do something that would otherwise be a war crime if the other side has done it and you are using that as a warning. This is the only nonoutrageous interpretation of the saying 'All's fair in love and war.' In other words, the morality of permissible conduct is, in part, determined by the bahavior of the other side. Dresden was justified by the British as punishment for Coventry (and similar German acts).
Will:
He did make his case. The "irrelevant descriptive modifiers" help emphasize the illegality. I happen to disagree that it was an "aggressive war" as defined by the Nuremburg Principles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression
Be that as it may, focusing on Greenwald's "irrelevancies" is just an excuse to avoid dealing with the larger issue. And that's what Megan is doing by noodling around about whether war crimes are really war crimes depending on what kind of war they occur in. Of course they are not dependent on that; nobody asserts that they are. But by manufacturing this controversy about whether Greenwald is claiming that war crimes happened because this was an aggressive war, she attempts to deflect attention from the fact that regardless of whether that was the case, the war crimes happened.
Ryan W.:
Ugh. No, it really isn't permissible. Apparently your sense of ethics still has the old "regulations for thee but not for me" clause in it. It may be understandable, and maybe even forgivable; but it's definitely NOT permissible.
Rex:
I'm sure you could. And that bombing would be in violation of the laws of war and constitute a war crime, unless it was done by military necessity.
xxx:
I agree, it's very depressing to have to face the fact that our leaders may have ordered war crimes in our name. It's very crude stuff and our leaders are apparently very crude people. I would not have thought it possible that the United States would adopt the tactics of the Soviet Union. Yet it seems we have done so.
Rex,
Um, within the past two years Israel bombed the hell out of Lebanon. It was a war. Because there were instances where the IDF deliberately targeted civilians, would you, or anyone else here, say that Israel's citizens were not innocent? Of course not.
The same logic applies to brown people.
OK Ryan W., I did some more checking because I just couldn't believe this wasn't codified somewhere. It turns out that there is a concept in international law for allowing reprisals against nations that commit violations, but it is very limited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprisal
Additionally, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically prohibits all "collective penalties". So unless the citizens of Dresden had all been part of the armed forces and had all been aircrew for the bombing of Coventry, it seems to me that a collective reprisal against them would not be permissible. Yes, I know the Fourth Convention was not in force until 1949; the point is, it is in force now.
Rex, "were instances where the IDF deliberately targeted civilians."
Not so. As an example, the citizens of Beirut were so confident of this that in areas which wouldn't sensibly be targetd they went to night clubs etc. during the war. Asia Times gives some perspective on it though blogs at the time from Lebanon are also of interest.
Well, rob, I've said more thn once that I would have preferred the Bush Administration simply saying that that the Baathist regime was in violation of the 91 cease fire accords, therefore the firing was going to resume until the Baathist regime fell. I suspect this rationale would have held up pretty well, and in fact I think it would hold up now, because when it comes to those legal odd ducks known as war crimes, the victor accused sit on their own juries.