The Nuking of Japan

[Reforged]

Our governments are in no way, shape or form moral. If we are to look at our collective histories and recent circumstance we can in no way fool ourselves into thinking they are.

... I don't think I was doing that? Was I?

I'm confused.

No no, I was agreeing with you in part. I was just stating why. I don't think a governments people are necessarily to blame. Most people have very little say in how their government is run. I would say it is more the government that makes the decision to war in the first place who is responsible for the bloodshed and thus the guilt should weigh most heavily upon them. Then again I suppose the decision to comply with that government makes us at least partially responsible.

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I find it hilarious how certain of us have such quaint ideas about war.

Don't be a prat. Knowing that certain acts of war are just plain horrendous does not make one's notions quaint.

War isn't quaint. It doesn't have your notions of honour or etiquette.

Actually, military personnel are quite often held to a higher standard of honor and etiquette. You should see the rules the army has for how soldiers are supposed to treat civilians, even state side.

There isn't a right way to kill someone and a human being doesn't stop being human just because it wears a uniform.

Funny. No one so much as hinted that there was. However, there are weapons that are too vast in their scope to be legitimately used in war. We learned that. If it was so fucking right, why haven't we used them again?

War will kill, maim, destroy with little regard for whoever is in its path. No-one is guilty and no-one is innocent because war doesn't presume to make such judgements. Murder, rape, torture.

That's a load of bullshit perpetuated by shitty war movies. If there are no guilty and no innocent, why are their war criminals? It is not somehow deep to look at the horror of war as unavoidable. It's actually dismissive and weak.

Travesties when performed by the other side but conventionally ignored when performed by our own. We will decorate those who we would call murderers in any other circumstance.

This is what the "quaint" people are pointing out, you little contradictory butthead.

War criminals tend to be far more present on the side that lost. When war crimes are perpetrated by our own side such embarrassments will be covered up and swept under the carpet all together. If not possible, formal tribunals suffice in putting peoples concerns that perhaps their side wasn't whiter than white to rest by putting "the bad guys" behind bars supposedly leaving only the people who killed in a way palatable to our tastes.
This "standard of honour" has been brought into question time after time. There was an incident over here where a gay solider was shot multiple times in the head. The verdict was suicide. Another where a sergeant tortured and abused his own troops and his superiors allowed it. After afew news reports the story went silent. Both incidents were not even during a time of war. The "standard of honour" only operates so far as the public eye can see and sometimes not even then. The public eye is not more blinded than during a time of intense warfare.
This is not to say this is the personality type of every single individual serving in the military. It is to say they are paid to kill. As long as actions considered morally abhorrent don't go public and it does not conflict with their interests the military could care less as long as they serve their purpose as weapons.
A statement doesn't have to be directed towards any one person to be valid. Killing is killing. Whether its a solider or a civilian, friend or enemy, through a shot to the head or less merciful means. One form cannot be held more moral than the other, all lead to the intolerable act of taking a human life. During the conflicts in the middle-east we have killed an unimaginable amount of innocent people through "shock and awe" tactics... yet we complain about the few body bags we have received. We consider the lives we have lost more than that of the countless innocents we have claimed. The death of a countryman is more personal than that of any amount of foreigners who we never saw, never met and never related to in anyway.
There is no real morality behind this view yet it is one many hold without even realizing it.
I think my main point is the only decision we can realistically apply any morallity to is the decision to wage war in the first place and the contributing factors to it. What happens afterwards is the resulting war which can in no way have morality applied to it. War is the same regardless of the original intent or reasoning behind it. It is the process of mass slaughter to improve ones own position, there is no morally right way to embark on that. The objective of each government will be to end it as quickly as possible, losing as little resources as possible with a conclusion favourable to enhancing their own rule. Those are the only real guidelines war follows and the bomb was an inevitable consequence of this.
I didn't think there was that much in my statement that was the subject of dispute but whatever.
Quite presumptuous to assume I had labelled you one of the quaint people.