From: rip@sequent.com (Paul T Taylor)
Subject: Re: Chivalry, Honor, Loss of Life...
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 04:24:50 GMT

In article <robg.726110074@citr.uq.oz.au> robg@citr.uq.oz.au (Rob Geraghty) writes:

**bunch deleted**

>>Alas, Richard, I must disagree with you... Not strictly with what you say, but
>>with what you don't say...
>
>I would also have to disagree with Richard in that, for the most part,
>wars in the past were entirely fought between professional soldiers on
>set battlegrounds.  This changed utterly in the second world war.

And why do you think this happened?  Man went from using clubs to
swords to muskets and then in WWI and II, planes and missles.  War
was not personal anymore.  You didn't have to look your enemy in the
face as you ran him through, spilling his blood on your boots.  The
battlefield couldn't physically be all that big, and it had to be in
a place you could maneuver in.


>Suddenly the targets were the other side's factories and homes, not
>merely the people holding the guns/spears/triggers.  Who could say that
>the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden or London had anything to do with
>codes of conduct?  More people died in the fires in Tokyo than died in
>*both* Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

I may get flamed to hell and back for this but...  I really think that
the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved alot of lives.  To
understand this, you have to know what was going on some of the other
islands that the Marines where 'hopping' in the Pacific.  When it
became apparent that the Japanese forces where going to be overrun,
many of the Japanese soldiers and the civilians who were on the island
would kill themselves.  I have seen footage of bodies floating in the
surf, old men, women, children.  This happened again and again.  So,
given that pattern, what would happen of the US forces landed on the
beaches of Japan and proceeded to sweep the Island like that?  There
was a good possibility that the Emperor would ordered everyone to kill
themselves, and I am sure most would have.  So, all in all, my
*personal* opinion is that it saved more lives than it caused.

And yes, I have been to Hiroshima and been to Peace Park and seen the
shadows of people burned into the walls of the building standing in
the middle of the Park, and a tear came to my eye.

>In the past, serfs were valuable property - today they are "collateral
>damage".
>
>I know there's huge holes in these generalisations.  Let's face it -
>*war* is wrong.  regardless of *why* or *how* it's fought.  There have
>got to be better ways of sorting out the world's problems than by
>killing each other.

Well, untill we can find them, we are kind of stuck in a rut aren't
we?

>Do you think the people of Sarajevo would agree that war is honourable?
>What do you suppose the starving people in africa think of the "honour" of
>the civil wars that have brought famine to them?

No, I am sure the victims of war have *never* felt that what was
happening to them is either just, or honorable.

>How many people in the world would be starving if the money the US and
>Soviets spent on arms was spent feeding the people?

Oh, I don't know that we would spend all that money on trying to feed
the world.  We would think of some other, more 'profitable'
endeavors...  Besides, we can't even feed the people here in our own
country, much less the rest of the world...

>Lets stop trying to justify guns and start justifying peace!
>
><OK, OK - I'll get off the soapbox now...>

Hey, everyone has a right to get on a soapbox now and again!  That's
what our forefather fought and died for....

rip
-- 
Grab reality by the balls, and squeeze...
                                        Tempus
Organization: Masters student, Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA