by ericmay | 2026-01-09 22:08:10+00:00
> Yeah, maybe take some moral and ethics classes, look into why there's pushback over actions in Gaza, etc.

Gaza (what a bizarre thing to bring up anyway) has nothing to do with actions taken by any nation during World War II. It's not even a war between nations. Unless you count Iran since they're the ones causing so much pain for everyone by inciting terrorist organizations in the region and ensure there can be no peace.

> During wartime justifications for carpet bombing do matter .. see Geneva Conventions et al.

Not all wars are created equal, and not all actions taking during one war can be justified during another. For example, the United States using an atomic bomb on Iraq (regardless if the invasion was justified or not, but for the sake of argument here we can assume it's justified) would be morally wrong in any context.

Why is that the case?

Because the United States unofficially (if memory serves) declared war on Iraq, invaded Iraq, and did so with overwhelming military, economic, and political superiority. Iraq posed no existential threat to the United States. Just because it's a war doesn't mean you get to use everything in your arsenal.

When you compare that with the war against Japan, you find a very different picture.

World War II as a whole, including the war against Japan was an existential war requiring the full participation of all of society, civilian or otherwise. This was the same case on the eastern front of the war. The Nazis were exterminating people. The Soviets (and anyone else for that matter) were justified in bombing Nazi population centers, including carpet bombing, or even dropping their own atomic bomb on Berlin if that brought an end to the war.

Concepts and ideas around things like the Geneva conventions fail in these existential total war scenarios for two reasons:

1. They are arbitrary, and applied and justified post-hoc. Specifically the Geneva conventions weren't agreed upon prior to 1949 IIRC and so applying their moral and legal justification to actions prior to that as though one group broke a treaty or acted immorally doesn't make a lot of sense except of course as a way to criticize western powers. If you want to argue about how some countries violated what were later the Geneva conventions by their military activities, the only thing you're really telling me here is that all countries were very bad because the Japanese sure as hell violated the Geneva Conventions, and you know very well the Soviets did too, as did the Nazis. So if you want to criticize the US for dropping the atomic bomb, I criticize the other countries involved in the war equally, and I'd also criticize countries who stayed neutral during the war and did not fight to liberate Europe and Asia.

2. They don't map correctly to wars where one or more of the participants is intent on committing genocide or otherwise exterminating the actual population of the other. And in total war scenarios the civilian population is building and funding the war efforts and thus become legitimate targets. Otherwise it would be illegal and immoral to bomb a tank factory because you kill civilians. It's not. You know that, and I know that.

> Not that these things are enforced, of course, see bombings throughout SE Asia during Vietnam and the international punishment dealt out to Kissinger.

See bombings by the Soviets and mass starvation of civilians by them and the Chinese. See any number of things done by other countries not named the United States. Let's talk about those as examples going forward instead. We're well aware of all the criticisms of the United States but I don't care about those, I'm interested only in criticisms of the actions of non-western countries and how they have acted in morally bankrupt ways with the usage of their weapons.