Gems from Gitmo

[BlackShanglan]

Extremists tend to make up fairly small proportions of most populations, because most people are aware that in the long run they cost more than they bring. Most Israelis are quite moderate, as are most Americans. Unfortunately, and particularly since 9-11, the extremists have controlled the debate, playing off each other to gain power. This is true in the US, Israel, and Muslim nations.

The only way to counter this effectively is to provide an alternate, moderate voice within each of these three religious traditions. Muslims need to challenge al-Qaeda on Islamic grounds, just as Christians need to challenge Jerry Falwell on Christian grounds. The problem religion has, and which leads it to do horrible things, is the lack of dialogue within each tradition. Promoting that sort of internal debate is in everyone's interest.

Yes, I like that approach myself. There have been good movements toward an inter-Chrisitianity dialog between various groups in the United States recently, and I'm all for that. There is so much more in common than seperating those groups, and there is so much good that they could achieve together. I thought it telling, as well, that several of the more hard-core fundamentalist groups refused to participate. Well, good. The organization has already served one useful purpose: helping us to identify intractable zealots who can't play nicely with others.

 

[Huckleman2000]

I've read this thread through, and I'd like to try to sort out a couple of different arguments that seem to be conflated.

First, the issue of torture of prisoners at Gitmo has devolved into a somewhat legalistic dispute over their true status, either as POWs, a new class invented by the Bush administration as non-POW "enemy combatants", or criminals apprehended on US soil. These legalities are being sorted out through the courts; so far, the BushCo contention that Gitmo is a limbo where no laws apply has been slapped down by the Supremes.

Regardless, the issue of torture remains. Whether "legal" or not, the systematic de-humanization of prisoners is, at some level, a moral issue, not a legal one. Are our interests furthered by making detainees bark like dogs or listen to loud music 24/7 or spraying them with menstrual blood? If not, what purpose do these practices serve? Vengeance? Surely, getting into an escalating contest of vengeance with medieval-class opponents isn't something that a 'civilized' society will condone for very long. Torturing detainees while their cases wend their way to the Supreme Court while insurgents wantonly behead anyone that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with impunity, seems to be a pretty half-assed way of conducting policy. I mean, we're never going to be able to 'out-do' these people with increasingly obscene torture acts. All we risk is making more of them angry and able to justify suicide acts against our authority.

Using a sort of cost-benefit analysis to justify Allied firebombings of civilians and nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while rejecting the same sort of analysis towards Gitmo prisoners is not intellectually consistent. What, exactly, do we gain by the systematic torture of these people, however it is justified?

The death toll of troops fighting the 'War On Terror' is swiftly approaching the death toll of anti-American terrorist acts. Certainly, the number maimed in the combat is far higher already. Are we safer? Do we live with less fear?

The question boils down to this: Do we treat people who fight against us for political/religious reasons differently from people who simply break the law for the old-fashioned reasons - greed, vengeance, passion, individual gain?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Using a sort of cost-benefit analysis to justify Allied firebombings of civilians and nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while rejecting the same sort of analysis towards Gitmo prisoners is not intellectually consistent. What, exactly, do we gain by the systematic torture of these people, however it is justified?

Just a quick note, as I'm the one who posted the cost/ben query on bombing Japan. I wanted to clarify that:

(1) I'm curious to hear what people say about that argument, which is one I have heard often, but I am not married to the theory myself. I just haven't come up with a good answer to it.

(2) Personally, I find the reports of torture and abuse at Guantanamo repulsive, morally indefensible, and potentially extremely dangerous - if true. If we are in fact tormenting Islamic men using all-female interrogation teams and smearing or pretending to smear them with menstrual blood, then we are inviting atrocities of the most appalling sort should any of our female soldiers be captured by the enemy. If we make their gender a means of torture, that will certainly be visited upon them in return.

Shanglan

 

[Huckleman2000]

Just a quick note, as I'm the one who posted the cost/ben query on bombing Japan. I wanted to clarify that:

(1) I'm curious to hear what people say about that argument, which is one I have heard often, but I am not married to the theory myself. I just haven't come up with a good answer to it.

I think it's a defensible position, certainly. The argument is that, given the choice between two gruesome alternatives, we chose the one that seemed to be less gruesome. The weakness in that argument is that the alternative is really just speculation, however informed. It could also be that there is a false choice, ie, that there was a third way that involved neither the atomic bombings nor the horrific invasion of Japan that would lead to an equivalency in casualties. I don't know what that third way might be, but that would be one way to counter the argument.

(2) Personally, I find the reports of torture and abuse at Guantanamo repulsive, morally indefensible, and potentially extremely dangerous - if true. If we are in fact tormenting Islamic men using all-female interrogation teams and smearing or pretending to smear them with menstrual blood, then we are inviting atrocities of the most appalling sort should any of our female soldiers be captured by the enemy. If we make their gender a means of torture, that will certainly be visited upon them in return.

Shanglan

That's what I mean about getting into an 'I can be more gross than you' fight about treatment of prisoners/detainees/hostages/POWs. I just don't see the point in escalating mistreatment. Why pour gasoline on a fire? If we just want to keep them off the streets as long as possible to prevent them from carrying out further terrorist acts, dehumanizing them while we detain them under dubious legal jurisdiction seems counter-productive.

 

[Pure]

Note to Black S and some other points

Hi Black, note to Colly

You gave a common calculus to justify the American A bombs, although you say you're not married to the argument. But you haven't heard it answered

The issues are complicated, as are all 'what if...?' questions:

Here are a couple points from Wikipedia, which address your arguments, including specifically the 'authoritative' 500,000 number



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic..._Nagasaki#Japanese_realization_of_the_bombing


The Americans anticipated losing many soldiers in the invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate and depends on the persistence and reliability of Japanese resistance and whether the Americans would have invaded only Kyushu in November 1945 or if a follow up landing near Tokyo, projected for March of 1946, would have been needed. Years after the war, Secretary of State James Byrnes claimed that 500,000 American lives would have been lost - and that number has since been repeated "authoritatively", but in the summer of 1945 US military planners projected 20,000-110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945 invasion, with about three to four times that number wounded.

-------

Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. General Dwight D. Eisenhower so advised the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, in July of 1945. [11] (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm) The highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater, General Douglas MacArthur, was not consulted beforehand, but said afterward that there was no military justification for the bombings.
The same opinion was expressed by Fleet Admiral William Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials) (all also from [12] (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm)); Major General Curtis LeMay ([13] (http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog23/feature/)); and Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (both from [14] (http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm)).

-----
But were I to go halfway with you and admit a justification for Hiroshima, how exactly do you justify Nagasaki just three days after. That's at least another 100,000.

=====
Note to Huckleman and others.
It is not necessary to get into the morality of torture or the sorts of humiliation (re sex). Where is the evidence of the efficacy of torture?

There was a recent NY Times article on one of the most successful interrogators of the past: He attributes his successes to understanding the other's culture and essentially 'befriending' the prisoner, i.e., being kind and polite.

There was another article on an Israeli Supreme Ct decision ruling out some of the nastier methods, like placing the person on a special chair whose seat is tilted downward at the front. The hands are cuffed behind the back of the chair, so that the body weight is effective on the shoulders. The point of the decision being that there is no evidence that the nastier methods work, or work better than milder ones.

Further, as Black S has pointed out, there is an argument around retaliation: do we want our soldiers 'waterboarded', forced to bumfuck each other, etc.
---
Colly, it sounds like we're in agreement re Padilla who may indeed be thug, though not such a one as Gonzales. As to the military procedure you described, I can't tell, but wouldn't you agree it worked and is workable. There was simply no need to invent this second 'military tribunal' system for terrorist suspects. The kinks of its initial form were apparent to military officers who declined to get involved in it or called for changes; there is some opposition *within* the military to this new set up--as being inordinately one sided. (Sorry I don't have a citation handy, it's in several NYTImes articles.)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hmmm. I've read that the allied generals predicted the loss of between 500,00 and a million soldiers in taking Japan by conventional means - and the loss of at least comparable numbers of Japanese. How does that play in? No one who experienced Hiroshima or Nagasaki could possibly think them a mercy, but were those bombs numerically speaking the least destructive option for the Japanese as well as the allies?

The bombs saved lives, both American and Japanese. If the defense of Saipan and Okinowa are any indicators, the Japanese propagandists had done their job well. Hundreds, if not thousands of Japanese civilians commited suicide, rather than be captured.

On an Island as small as Iwo Jima, we lost over 4000 killed, the Japanese lost most of a garrison of over 20,000. Had the home islands become the next targt, the Japanese would, in all liklyhood have recalled as much of the army in China as they could. That was about five million men. Considering their shipping situation, allied control of the air and new Mine detecting sonar, perhaps as much as 75% of the transports would have been sunk. Even so, the military peronelle in japan alone constituted a huge number and Civilians were throughly prepared to kill themselves.

Revisionist historians love to say Japan was trying to surrender. They base this on Japan's peace faction working desperately to use rusian good offices with the allies. this ignores the fact that they weren't using the Russians to try and surrender, they wanted to work out a peace settlement where they kept some of their imperial gains. The allies were not going to accept less than the unconditional surrender laid down in the Potsdam Declaration. the pace faction was in no position to force those terms on the militarists.

to show the impossibility of it, consider that even when the emperor himself said they had to surrender, a Military Coup was attempted. the milatarists were preapered to commit national suicide to save face. Complete contol of the air, starvation by strangulation, complete control of the sea, the ability to strike at will, with virtually no retaliation possible. None of these realities shook the Milatarists. Even the A-boms didn't convince them. They did, however, convince Hirihito and that made all the difference.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Something else that should be considered when talking about the decision to use the A-bombs was that very few people actually knew what a quantum jump in destructive power atomic energy represented. Truman only knew we had a bigger bomb. Fallout, radiatioactive contamination, all that stuff was probably not even considered by them.

I was reading some memoire by one of the guys who negotiated the SALT treaty, and he talked about how much seeing an actual H-bomb test changed his entire attitude. Before the test he knew all about megatons and fallout and all, but it wasn't until he was on that ship in the pacific and saw the flash of light and felt that blast of heat on his face from 7 miles away that he realized what they were dealing with. It shook him to the core, and he went back determined to make that treaty work.

Truman and his strategists never had that experience. They might have had the notes on projected damage, but without the direct experience it was just a better brand of TNT to them. Why not give it a try?

 

[rgraham666]

"Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds" - What Robert Oppenheimer thought when the first A-bomb went off.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hi Black, note to Colly

You gave a common calculus to justify the American A bombs, although you say you're not married to the argument. But you haven't heard it answered

The issues are complicated, as are all 'what if...?' questions:

Here are a couple points from Wikipedia, which address your arguments, including specifically the 'authoritative' 500,000 number



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic..._Nagasaki#Japanese_realization_of_the_bombing


The Americans anticipated losing many soldiers in the invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate and depends on the persistence and reliability of Japanese resistance and whether the Americans would have invaded only Kyushu in November 1945 or if a follow up landing near Tokyo, projected for March of 1946, would have been needed. Years after the war, Secretary of State James Byrnes claimed that 500,000 American lives would have been lost - and that number has since been repeated "authoritatively", but in the summer of 1945 US military planners projected 20,000-110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945 invasion, with about three to four times that number wounded.

-------

Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. General Dwight D. Eisenhower so advised the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, in July of 1945. [11] (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm) The highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater, General Douglas MacArthur, was not consulted beforehand, but said afterward that there was no military justification for the bombings.
The same opinion was expressed by Fleet Admiral William Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials) (all also from [12] (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm)); Major General Curtis LeMay ([13] (http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog23/feature/)); and Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (both from [14] (http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm)).

-----
But were I to go halfway with you and admit a justification for Hiroshima, how exactly do you justify Nagasaki just three days after. That's at least another 100,000.

=====
Note to Huckleman and others.
It is not necessary to get into the morality of torture or the sorts of humiliation (re sex). Where is the evidence of the efficacy of torture?

There was a recent NY Times article on one of the most successful interrogators of the past: He attributes his successes to understanding the other's culture and essentially 'befriending' the prisoner, i.e., being kind and polite.

There was another article on an Israeli Supreme Ct decision ruling out some of the nastier methods, like placing the person on a special chair whose seat is tilted downward at the front. The hands are cuffed behind the back of the chair, so that the body weight is effective on the shoulders. The point of the decision being that there is no evidence that the nastier methods work, or work better than milder ones.

Further, as Black S has pointed out, there is an argument around retaliation: do we want our soldiers 'waterboarded', forced to bumfuck each other, etc.
---
Colly, it sounds like we're in agreement re Padilla who may indeed be thug, though not such a one as Gonzales. As to the military procedure you described, I can't tell, but wouldn't you agree it worked and is workable. There was simply no need to invent this second 'military tribunal' system for terrorist suspects. The kinks of its initial form were apparent to military officers who declined to get involved in it or called for changes; there is some opposition *within* the military to this new set up--as being inordinately one sided. (Sorry I don't have a citation handy, it's in several NYTImes articles.)

I'll start with MacAurther. the man was a meglomaniac. He claimed repeatedly the New guinia Campaign had been accomplished with little material loss and few casualties, in fact it was one of the bloodiest of the war. He saw no need for the bomb, because it deprived him of the Glory of leading the invasion. A glory he had been fighting for through the Joint Chiefs since he left Corrigador.

William Leahy was a staff officer, not a operational commander and is quoted in my sources as expecting casualties of around 250,000.

Eisenhower hadn't fought the Japanese. He was used to Italians and Germans who surrendered when the situation was hopeless.

I will show a little later how badly off U.S. intelligence was in their estimation of Japanese capability.

Admiral King hated the Japanese only slightly less than Admiral Halsey. I'd like to see a quote from him and in what context.

Nimitz, was as gracious in victory as he was effective in combat. He worked extensively to heal the rift between Japan and the US. I don't think you can take him saying something diplomatic out of context.

Le May was a proponent of Strategic bombing. The dropping of the atomic bomb robbed him of the chance to prove his theiry that strategic bombing alone could win the war.

Whenlooking at quotes from these andother esteemed men, a revisionist can almost always find something in their personal papers and interviews which they can say showed disapproval. These men are human and anyone who didn't express somemisgivings wouldn't be.



In answer to the rest, lets do a tad bit of math.

Iwo Jima:
Garrison: 20,000
Survived: 250 (All wounded)

Invasion force:
Wounded: over 25,000
Dead: Over 6000
Casualty rate: 1 to 1.25 (the worst in the History of the Corps)

Okinowa:
Garrison: 100,000
Killed: 107,000 (this number includes okinawan conscripts. This also includes the 23,000 burried alive in caves)
Captured: 10,755
Civilian Dead:Estimated at 42,000 to 100,000. that's one forth to one tenth of the island population as a whole and does not include conscripts. Nor does it include the estimated 42,000 to 138,000 wounded.)

Invasion force: 154,00
Wounded: 38,000
Dead: over 12,000 (this includes navy deaths due to the Kamikaze, actual deaths of Marines & soldiers is around half this figure)


Now:

20,000-110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945 invasion,

20,000 huh?

Lets see, on Okinawa (the last battle fought before the planned invasion) the Defenders inflicted 12,000 combat deaths on the invasion force with a defense force of approximately 100,000 of which only about 70,000 were verteran, trained, combat troops. At a minimum, there were 1million combat veterans on Honshu. So lets assume total strangulation prevents any reenforcement.

I'm going to give the Opfor (opposing force) a ten times force multiplier. Then I am going to predict less than double the combat fatalities and less than three times the overall casualties? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How bout if I provide the opfor with a ten times force multiplier and I predict a ten times number of casualties & fatalities? Hmm. Well, Honsu alone, would have Generated 120,000 combat deaths and something on the order of 380,000 wounded. That kinda conviently comes out to be half a million casualties overall dosen't it?

We aren't even talking about the fact that Kyushu would have to have been invaded first and boasted a similar number of troops, but with the added advantage ofprobable reenfocement.

The invasion plan, incidentally, called for use of the entire marine corps, over 22 army division, and all of the US airforces, including the 8th, brought over from Europe. About 40% of the men the US had under arms.


Admiral William Leahy estimated that there would be more than 250,000 Americans killed or wounded on Kyushu alone. General Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence for General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific, estimated American casualties would be one million men by the fall of 1946. Willoughby's own intelligence staff considered this to be a conservative estimate.

In addition, the military planners who are cited severely underestimated the defense. The 14 division going in on Kyoushu would not be enjoying the 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 numerical advantage they had had in most campaigns, but in actuality would have faced a 3 to 2 margin in favor of the Japanese. Where they estimated no more than 2500 planes left for suicide attacks, the Japanese had over 12,000. With shorter flying times and more targets (the entire US pacific fleet was slated for the invasion) it is not wild to conjecture you could have seen significantly more than the 300 plus ships damaged off okinawa. Okinawa alone resuleted inmore US navy death's than all previous engagements combined.

A simple fact of life is that when you are trying to be a revisionist historian, it's a lot smarter quoting the ever optimistic calculations of the Joint chiefs in Washington than it is to quote reality. Let's not forget, these are the same planners who assumed it would take 48 to 72 hours to capture Iwo and less than a week to capture Okinawa. The first took weeks, the second over 73 days.

Based on what the Japanese really had on hand, far from being a situation where you might incure twice the casualties, the invasion itself had less than a 50-50 chance of success, given the miserable underestimations that would have been sending an inferior force to invade a defended beach. I note here an advantage of 2 to 1 is still considered the minimum for sucessful amphibious invasion.

The Japanese population was in around 28 million. If combat operations on Okinawa took between one tenth and one quarter, we can extrapolate civilian deaths in an invasion of Japan at somewhere between 2.8 and 7 million. With approximately three times that injured.

These figures come from Costello's the Pacific war, Prange's At Dawn we Slept, and the U.S. Naval Academy's History of the U.S. Navy, supplamented by web sites like the U.S.S. Harry Lee, and Global Security,org. Thus I am unable to provide links to the specific information, in case anyone was wondering.

The supplamental links are:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa-battle.htm
http://www.waszak.com/japanww2.htm


The second bomb, was all we had in our inventory. Had we had another ten I suspect they would have kept falling until the japanese surrendered or until we had reduced every target on the islands to rubble.

Onemore note, to those who claim the japanese were ready to surrender. They had been afforded a chance to work out terms with Allan Dulles, working through a swiss intermediary. The premier at the time, was afraid if he took the opportunity, he would be assassinated. Taking a look at the civilan government's willingness to call it quits is highly suspect. the military still controlled Japan and there is no indication, not even a slight indication, that they were ready to call it quits. Not before the first bomb fell, Not after wards, nor even after the second bomb fell.

 

[Pure]

Hi Colly,

That's an impressive posting, well researched and informative, but it has flaws at the core. Also you did not answer my question, why Nagasaki three days after? IOW, give the Japs a chance to see what occurred.

One flaw at the core is that you rest your case on an analogy to Okinawa, i,e. a very bloody battle of 'die hard' mentality in the defenders. It's easy to have a nighmare scenario where you postulate every Japanese over ten years old is armed and will fight to the death, Masada style. But what's the evidence for this?

A second flaw is to ignore the effects of strangulation of the islands. As the Wikipedia article points out, one of the pro bomb folks arguments has to do with the thousands who would have died by starvation. But this kind of effect may also go to an argument for a slower approach.

A third flaw, from a moral point of view is evident in this quote:

The second bomb, was all we had in our inventory. Had we had another ten I suspect they would have kept falling until the japanese surrendered or until we had reduced every target on the islands to rubble.

As i said, you ignored the question over the use of the second bomb. It's not absolutely clear, but it seems that, in the hypothetical case you envision--having ten bombs, you have no problem dropping one every day and possibly 'reducing every target on the islands to rubble'--ie. killing most of the people.

While I do not wish to see excess losses of US soldiers in a 'just war', in moral terms it just won't do the paint such a nightmare picture of 'absolute resistance' and in effect a demonic picture of the enemy --or its militarists. And then say, "Well, whatever it takes."

As a general --or was it a senator--said in the Vietnam war. "We can destroy N. Vietnam, pave it over and make it into a parking lot." Even apart from morality, this approach ignores conventions and treaties which the US found it in its interest to sign (e.g., the atomic option, with its radioactive clouds is arguably equivalent to a 'poison gas' attack --after the initial explosions-- and that was against the conventions of the time.) In short, yours is an argument for unmeasured and unbridled lethal ferocity. Even were such an event to 'save lives,' (ftsoa) the US was and is a party to civilized conventions against such acts.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Hi Colly,
That's an impressive posting, well researched and informative, but it has flaws at the core. Also you did not answer my question, why Nagasaki three days after? IOW, give the Japs a chance to see what occurred.

(...)

A third flaw, from a moral point of view is evident in this quote:

The second bomb, was all we had in our inventory. Had we had another ten I suspect they would have kept falling until the japanese surrendered or until we had reduced every target on the islands to rubble.

As i said, you ignored the question over the use of the second bomb.

Colly clearly knows a great deal more about this than me, but I was always told that this essentially was the reason for the second bomb - the fact that the Japanese did not surrender after the first.

I'll take that a step further. I would argue that the failure to surrender after the first bomb suggests that Colly is likely to be correct about the entrenchment of the militarist party in Japan and the severity of likely resistance to an invasion. If one chooses not to surrender when an entire city is levelled by a hither-to unimaginable explosive force, with the deaths of tens of thousands and destruction unlike any ever seen on the earth until that point, what are the odds of them surrendering with 20,000 deaths in an invasion of the main island?

I noticed too, Pure, that the Wikipedia figure of 20-110,000 was only for the "initial" invasion. It's not clear where they're drawing the limits on that, but it's quite imaginable that a campaign in which 110,000 troops died in the initial stage would reach 500,000 casualities by completion, especially when fighting a famously intransigent enemy on their home territory.

 

[BlackShanglan]

One flaw at the core is that you rest your case on an analogy to Okinawa, i,e. a very bloody battle of 'die hard' mentality in the defenders. It's easy to have a nighmare scenario where you postulate every Japanese over ten years old is armed and will fight to the death, Masada style. But what's the evidence for this?

The examples that Colly has already given strike me as decent evidence of this. Where is the evidence that weighs against hers?

A second flaw is to ignore the effects of strangulation of the islands. As the Wikipedia article points out, one of the pro bomb folks arguments has to do with the thousands who would have died by starvation. But this kind of effect may also go to an argument for a slower approach.

I'm not sure that you can have this both ways. That is, if we strangle their resources, people die of starvation; if we don't, we meet a stronger, better equipped, and more resistive enemy. Surely either way there are going to be many casualities.

While I do not wish to see excess losses of US soldiers in a 'just war', in moral terms it just won't do the paint such a nightmare picture of 'absolute resistance' and in effect a demonic picture of the enemy --or its militarists. And then say, "Well, whatever it takes."

I understand your qualms, Pure, but I think Colly has supplied some good evidence supporting the theory that the resistance in Japan would have been very determined. I think that the decision not to surrender after the first atomic bomb further supports that evidence. I don't see anything so far that contradicts that point of view.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hi Colly,

That's an impressive posting, well researched and informative, but it has flaws at the core. Also you did not answer my question, why Nagasaki three days after? IOW, give the Japs a chance to see what occurred.

One flaw at the core is that you rest your case on an analogy to Okinawa, i,e. a very bloody battle of 'die hard' mentality in the defenders. It's easy to have a nighmare scenario where you postulate every Japanese over ten years old is armed and will fight to the death, Masada style. But what's the evidence for this?

A second flaw is to ignore the effects of strangulation of the islands. As the Wikipedia article points out, one of the pro bomb folks arguments has to do with the thousands who would have died by starvation. But this kind of effect may also go to an argument for a slower approach.

A third flaw, from a moral point of view is evident in this quote:

The second bomb, was all we had in our inventory. Had we had another ten I suspect they would have kept falling until the japanese surrendered or until we had reduced every target on the islands to rubble.

As i said, you ignored the question over the use of the second bomb. It's not absolutely clear, but it seems that, in the hypothetical case you envision--having ten bombs, you have no problem dropping one every day and possibly 'reducing every target on the islands to rubble'--ie. killing most of the people.

While I do not wish to see excess losses of US soldiers in a 'just war', in moral terms it just won't do the paint such a nightmare picture of 'absolute resistance' and in effect a demonic picture of the enemy --or its militarists. And then say, "Well, whatever it takes."

As a general --or was it a senator--said in the Vietnam war. "We can destroy N. Vietnam, pave it over and make it into a parking lot." Even apart from morality, this approach ignores conventions and treaties which the US found it in its interest to sign (e.g., the atomic option, with its radioactive clouds is arguably equivalent to a 'poison gas' attack --after the initial explosions-- and that was against the conventions of the time.) In short, yours is an argument for unmeasured and unbridled lethal ferocity. Even were such an event to 'save lives,' (ftsoa) the US was and is a party to civilized conventions against such acts.

I'm sorry, I thought I did answer your question. I said we had two, we used both. Had we had ten, we probably would have used all ten of them. If you have read Truman's papers, he states emphatically he had no qualms about using them. I believe the quote ran to the effect he lost no sleep over it.

No pure, I did not postulate the civilain populace fighting to the death, although the evidence is good many would have. I based my postualtion on the Casualties inflicted at Okinawa by trained troops and extrapolated to what 1 million trained troops could inflict. I intentionally avoided the national Hari-Kari scenario, since it cannot be supported by facts since it didn't happen. There were 14 divisions on Kyushu, plus a tank brigade, an artillery corps and over 100,000 naval personelle, inclusing special naval landing parties (their equivilent of our Marine Corps). No one, has provided the slighest bit of evidence their moral wasn't high or that they wouldn't fight as fanatically as their brethern on Okinawa, Pelilu and Iwo Jima had. If anything, I am being generous by using Okinawa rather than Pelililu or Iwo Jima. Japan, especially kyushu, more closely resembled the latter with miles of under gound fortifications connected by tunnels, with command posts, food reserves, amunition even hospital and Command & control bunkers, all safely out of reach of Naval bombardment and impervious to all but the largest of aerial bombs.

I am something of an expert on the strangulation of the Japanese Islands, since my father was stationed on a sub tender and had many books on Submarine operations. I can, for example, name most of the 52 ships that didn't return and can provide some of the circumstances. I've also studied the decline of the merchant marine in depth and can give a pretty good acounting of myself in that area as well. Starvation would have become a reality, but post war documentation shows the Army was well provisioned and supplied. In addition, Japan produced about 80% of the rice needed to feed her population. Continued fire bombing would have continued to reduce the mouths needing to be fed, without seriously disloacting the growing and harvesting. Even, if you COULD prove starvation was coming, my response is, so what? The japanese were starving at Bruna and still inflicted hideous casualties. They were starving and dying of Malaria on Guadalcanal and still inflicted brutal casualties. This is an army composed of men fully indoctrinated in the code of Bushido and pretty much prepared for any privation. And, incidentally, suggesting to any of them they would have given up for any reason would have been a grave insult to them. A japanese who surrendred was worse than dead. His name was struck fromthe records of his home village and it was as if he never existed. The last hold out on Guam surrendered in 1972. i don't see any evidence, anywhere, in our records or post war Japanese accounts that would lead me to believe the Army was any less determined that was defending the home Islands.

Frankly Pure, I don't see any moral implication. You say, using ten bombs to reduce them to rubble as if it is something horrible beynd belief. The tokyo fire bombings produced heats in excess of 1800 degres F. People spontaneously combusted. Other were boiled alive as they tried to take shelter in any water avialable. Had we had no atomic bombs, we still would have reduced every city to ashes. Not because we are evil, but because that is how strategic bombing works. Burned out cities produce no war material, they provide incalcuable problems with trafic and movement, they also provide graphic evidence that the Empire's defenders are helpless to stop you, which hurts morale. The same Curtis Le May who supposedly said the bomb was unnessesary was merrily fire bombing anything combustible in Japan. He invented the tactic of low level incindiary raids for god's sake. No one understood the hazards of Nuclear weapons at the time, to the military and politicians, it was just one hell of a big blast for the risk.

 

[Pure]

Hi Colly,

I appreciate the depth of your knowledge of the Pacific war (and others), though it might be mentioned that memoirs of the makers of a war (and leaders on the battlefield) are going to tend to be self justifying. It is certainly true that tens of thousands of Americans would have lost their lives taking Japan, although all numbers are speculative. It MIGHT be true that this last battle would be as ferocious as any before. It might not. If you take the example of the capture of Berlin--the citadel--, I'm not sure that required the sacrifices that some other locations had. IOW by the time you reach the citadel, the enemy may be in pretty bad shape. But let's move to your more controversial claims:


You said in part,

Frankly Pure, I don't see any moral implication. You say, using ten bombs to reduce them to rubble as if it is something horrible beynd belief. The tokyo fire bombings produced heats in excess of 1800 degres F. People spontaneously combusted. Other were boiled alive as they tried to take shelter in any water avialable. Had we had no atomic bombs, we still would have reduced every city to ashes. Not because we are evil, but because that is how strategic bombing works. Burned out cities produce no war material, they provide incalcuable problems with trafic and movement, they also provide graphic evidence that the Empire's defenders are helpless to stop you, which hurts morale. The same Curtis Le May who supposedly said the bomb was unnessesary was merrily fire bombing anything combustible in Japan. He invented the tactic of low level incindiary raids for god's sake. No one understood the hazards of Nuclear weapons at the time, to the military and politicians, it was just one hell of a big blast for the risk.

I agree the firebombings are vaguely in the same area of terrifying measures, though they lack the followup of deaths by radiation poisoning.

As I stated, and as you have shown, you have essentially an argument for unmeasured and unlimited lethal ferocity. That is always a tendency of war.
Attempts to civilize it a tiny bit always are delicate threads, as the current US treatment of battlefield apprehensions shows.

Each A bomb killed about 100,000 in an instant, and let's say, vaporized 5000 babies. For years after babies would be still born or with defects, driving up figures. A poisoning effect.

The incendiary bombing of cities, or their vaporization, not to say poisoning the earth and water probably contravened the conventions the US had signed, but no one 'tries' the victors; the victors try the losers.

{Added: I have read somewhere that there is now an international convention banning use of certain conventional weapons, e.g., phosphorus (fire) bombs. The US has refused to sign. Imperial privilege, I suppose; Notice to Malefactors "We may have to incinerate your kids."}


Again, I don't think the Japanese comprehended the damage in just a couple days. So the dropping of another, in three days, may well have been unnecessary. {Added: So likely it lacked both military and moral justification.}

Assuming one had the means, I guess you're saying 'vaporize a city a day till they surrender or there's nothing left.' Nowadays it could be done more neatly with say, a nerve gas attack on every major city. Or a short lived plague of germs.

The US crossed a line back in 1945, both with incendiary bombing and nuclear bombing. This opens the door to similar efforts of all nations. Civilians become legitimate targets. It's then a little hypocritical to complain that al queda vaporized a bunch of stock brokers and cafeteria workers in the twin towers.
(I realize this isn't a 'first' and that, in ancient times, total destruction was sometimes carried out, e.g., at Carthage, and, according to the Bible, at Ai.)

Returning to the original thread topic, for a moment; if unlimited ferocity is justified, so is unlimited torture; if for the sake of argument we really do have a bunch of al queada detainees**, to prevent further loss of American lives, and end this war [i.e., the kind of arguments you're making], we should pull out their fingernails, burn them slowly on grills, whatever it takes. 'Waterboarding' them is just milquetoasty. After all, they're wanting to incinerate another bunch of office workers in some other famous building, asap.

{Added: I believe Chomsky, among others, has pointed out that the whole 'game' of labelling those 'subhuman' and vicious persons as 'terrorists' always ignores the terrorism of states. Somehow that never 'counts.' Roadside bomb count as inhuman, but not 'daisy cutter' and 1000 lb bombs, Agent Orange, etc.}


----
**It occurs to me that the requirement of being a likely al qaeda person is not necessary. Assuming terror and intimidation and 'breaking the will to resist'( in others, besides those affected directly) are goals, torture and slow death for any of the family members, children etc of anyone remotely connected, or suspect of it, would be, perhaps, only a little less justified.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hi Colly,

I appreciate the depth of your knowledge of the Pacific war (and others), though it might be mentioned that memoirs of the makers of a war (and leaders on the battlefield) are going to tend to be self justifying. It is certainly true that tens of thousands of Americans would have lost their lives taking Japan, although all numbers are speculative. It MIGHT be true that this last battle would be as ferocious as any before. It might not. If you take the example of the capture of Berlin--the citadel--, I'm not sure that required the sacrifices that some other locations had. IOW by the time you reach the citadel, the enemy may be in pretty bad shape. But let's move to your more controversial claims:.

Berlin, is not a fair example Pure. In part, it isn't fair, because Germans surrender when it's hopeless, even to the soviets, Japanese don't in any meaningful numbers. In the second part, Berlin was defended by a rag tag assortment of the Volkstrum and minor military units. In the case of japan you are taling about a million strong organized and prepared army with tanks, artillery, limited naval support and Kamimaze planes.

You said in part,

Frankly Pure, I don't see any moral implication. You say, using ten bombs to reduce them to rubble as if it is something horrible beynd belief. The tokyo fire bombings produced heats in excess of 1800 degres F. People spontaneously combusted. Other were boiled alive as they tried to take shelter in any water avialable. Had we had no atomic bombs, we still would have reduced every city to ashes. Not because we are evil, but because that is how strategic bombing works. Burned out cities produce no war material, they provide incalcuable problems with trafic and movement, they also provide graphic evidence that the Empire's defenders are helpless to stop you, which hurts morale. The same Curtis Le May who supposedly said the bomb was unnessesary was merrily fire bombing anything combustible in Japan. He invented the tactic of low level incindiary raids for god's sake. No one understood the hazards of Nuclear weapons at the time, to the military and politicians, it was just one hell of a big blast for the risk.

I agree the firebombings are vaguely in the same area of terrifying measures, though they lack the followup of deaths by radiation poisoning.

As I stated, and as you have shown, you have essentially an argument for unmeasured and unlimited lethal ferocity. That is always a tendency of war.
Attempts to civilize it a tiny bit always are delicate threads, as the current US treatment of battlefield apprehensions shows.

Each A bomb killed about 100,000 in an instant, and let's say, vaporized 5000 babies. For years after babies would be still born or with defects, driving up figures. A poisoning effect.

The incendiary bombing of cities, or their vaporization, not to say poisoning the earth and water probably contravened the conventions the US had signed, but no one 'tries' the victors; the victors try the losers.

Again, I don't think the Japanese comprehended the damage in just a couple days. So the dropping of another, in three days, may well have been unnecessary.

You are making the classic error, when arguing history. You are applying what is common knowledge now, to people who didn't have the benefit of that knowledge. No one knew what the effects of radiation were. No one even guessed at the long term health efects, or that it would posion the land and water. What the japanese percieved, is exactly what the US percieved, a bigger bomb than they could ever have imagined. They comprehended it fine, you are assuming that over time they would have recognized the longterm effects of radiation posioning, radiation burns and genetic mutation. They probably would have, BUT, the people who dropped the bomb didn't comprehend those things yet either. You are suggesting they should have waited for an effect they had no idea was coming, to be the determining factor in a surrender.

In their estimation, if one city getting obliterated didn't make them see it was hopeless, perhaps two would, If not, it was no huge deal, as they would have fire bombed Nagasaki into rubble before the invasion anyhow.

Assuming one had the means, I guess you're saying 'vaporize a city a day till they surrender or there's nothing left.' Nowadays it could be done more neatly with say, a nerve gas attack on every major city. Or a short lived plague of germs.

The US crossed a line back in 1945, both with incendiary bombing and nuclear bombing. This opens the door to similar efforts of all nations. Civilians become legitimate targets. It's then a little hypocritical to complain that al queda vaporized a bunch of stock brokers and cafeteria workers in the twin towers.
(I realize this isn't a 'first' and that, in ancient times, total destruction was sometimes carried out, e.g., at Carthage, and, according to the Bible, at Ai.)

The Us crossed a line? What line Pure? WWI had been the death knell of "civilized" warfare. It ushered in the age of total war. Germany, I believe, was the first to mount large scale destruction of cities and civilians. the Brits, I believe, were the first to use fire bombing on civilian centers.

What we can do today, what we know today, is inconsequential to the argument. We used a bigger bomb. We wiped out civilians. we were playing by the rules being written by the world at the time. You can say we opened Pandora's box, but you can't say the longterm effects were even guesed at.

I am going to ignore the AQ comment. You know me well enough to know that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull and would end civilized debate, should I respond.

Returning to the original thread topic, for a moment; if unlimited ferocity is justified, so is unlimited torture; if for the sake of argument we really do have a bunch of al queada detainees**, to prevent further loss of American lives, and end this war [i.e., the kind of arguments you're making], we should pull out their fingernails, burn them slowly on grills, whatever it takes. 'Waterboarding' them is just milquetoasty. After all, they're wanting to incinerate another bunch of office workers in some other famous building, asap.

----
**It occurs to me that the requirement of being a likely al qaeda person is not necesary. Assuming terror and intimidation and 'breaking the will to resist'( in others, besides those affected directly) are goals, torture and slow death for any of the family members, children etc of anyone remotely connected, or suspect of it, would be, perhaps, only a little less justified.

I'm not debating AQ wth you at the moment. I'm debating the neccessity of droping the A-bomb.

You try and apply today's knowledge of what the A-bombs really did, ignoring the percived knowledge of the times.

I'd make a wager with youJ, but since I'm not there and you aren't here it will have to be something you try on your own. Take a closeup of Hiroshima, say a five mile limit from the epicenter of the blast. Do the same with nagasaki. then take similar photos of the heart of Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya. I' be willing to bet just about anything, that if you mixed them up you coulodn't pick out Nagasaki and hirosima more times then the statistical norm for any set of such photos. they look exactly the same, barren burned out astelands with the occasional surviving building skeleton here of there.

In all you have said, you haven't addressed the sailient feature of why it was neccessary. The Japanese did not surrender. You have provided not one bit of evidence that they would. No example of their discipline, morale or fanatisim being compromised. I have shown that up until the final battle fought to the time, they hadn't. I have even shown that some of them carried on far after the war was over, they were so devoted. I have presented that they had, not only the will to fight, but a determined, organized and highly motivated army in the field, waiting to repel an invasion. I have shown that, far from the planners assertion they had few aircraft, they were actually quite capable of mounting large scale Kamikaze raids on the invading force.

There is nothing in the historical record that says the invasion would have been easy. Not one bit of evidence you can hang you hat on that would make estimations of half a million casualties absurd. No reason you can point to that people of the time should have hesitated to use a second bomb, when the first failed to convince the japanese goernment to surrender.

The did have the means to resist. they did have the will to resist. Their units were not broken, command and control was not compromised, they had plenty of Kamikaze volunteers and the planes to make them a serious threat. their government was not ready to accept the Potsdam Proclimation, and that was the only way to end the war. Peace felers pu tout by the civilain government still were looking for terms whereby they kept their military, some of their imperial possesssons and were not occupied. Even if the allies had been inclined to give some terms, themilatarists still controlled the government and they weren't going to surrender period.

The facts, in this case are pretty inisputeable. Revisionist historians would like you to ignore many of them and accept their estimation that the Japanese had had it. That position shows an apalling lack of understanding of the Japanese at the time, their education, indoctrination, religion and resolve. And in support of that position they cannot present even one case, of a significant surrender by a japanese force. Not in World War II. Not in the Russo Japanes war. Nor in the Sino Japanese war. Not one. 200 odd out of 20,000 were captured at Iwo Jima Pure. And almost all of them were wounded and incapable of further resistance.

Where, anywhere, is there an indication the Japanses were about to become French and surrender in droves? They fought to the death On Tarawa, On Guadalcanal, On Bouganville, On Pelilu, On Kwagelian, on Luzon, On Mindino, On siapan, On tinian, On Guam, On New guinia, On iwo Jima, On Okinawa. But when the home islands are invaded they are just gonna give up? I don't see it. Don't see any indication of it in previous batles. Don't see any indication of it in the rnks of the Army or Navy. So where does that idea come from?

Perhaps, just perhaps, it comes from revisionists, sitting comfortably in their homes and looking at the hopeless situation then applying their own opinion it was obviously hopeless and therefore, surrender was the obvious solution. Ignoring the fact that in every other battl they fough, it was hopeless and that only served to stiffen their already considerable resolve to die for the emperor.

 

[Pure]

Correction:

I am unable to verify one of my statements in the above posting of mine. The CCW convention regarding certain conventional weapons, e.g., fire bombs, blinding lasers, undetectable fragments, landmines that last for decades, has apparently been approved in part at least, by the US.

I've consulted these sites and that is my impression. I also seem to remember that the US has opposed outright ban on landmines.

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/CCW.asp

http://usinfo.org/usia/usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/arms/stories/01040301.htm

[US proposals]

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ccw/

http://www.ccwtreaty.com/statements.html

 

[Pure]

HI Colly,
Thanks for your patience,

On one of your points,

I'd make a wager with youJ, but since I'm not there and you aren't here it will have to be something you try on your own. Take a closeup of Hiroshima, say a five mile limit from the epicenter of the blast. Do the same with nagasaki. then take similar photos of the heart of Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya. I' be willing to bet just about anything, that if you mixed them up you coulodn't pick out Nagasaki and hirosima more times then the statistical norm for any set of such photos. they look exactly the same, barren burned out astelands with the occasional surviving building skeleton here of there.

That point was agreed in my last posting, indeed it's part of my general point that the US--and Britain, according to you-- 'crossed a line' in WWII. (the line being qualms about totally incinerating cities)

I also agree that in WWI, e.g., with poison gas, the Germans crossed another line.

Let me ask you again Colly, do you see any point [military or moral] to agreed limitations on conventional weapons? Apparently some persons close to the US gov (in particular, the Navy) do at least in part.

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/si/mar03/wmd.asp

That is a point you haven't yet addressed in any of your postings. In the CCW debate it's called a principle of proportionality, and probably you know it. The idea is that is you can knock out the enemy soldiers, by means X, then you don't use means Y, which *additionally* (for example) blinds them for life, or which additionally--because of left over ordnance--blows peoples legs off ten or twenty years later.


Let me address one of your main points, since fair is fair:

In all you have said, you haven't addressed the sailient feature of why it was neccessary. The Japanese did not surrender. You have provided not one bit of evidence that they would. No example of their discipline, morale or fanatisim being compromised. I have shown that up until the final battle fought to the time, they hadn't. I have even shown that some of them carried on far after the war was over, they were so devoted. I have presented that they had, not only the will to fight, but a determined, organized and highly motivated army in the field, waiting to repel an invasion. I have shown that, far from the planners assertion they had few aircraft, they were actually quite capable of mounting large scale Kamikaze raids on the invading force.

Essentially you're saying the fire or atomic bombing was 'necessary' to induce surrender. Well, it DID induce surrender. The German case, I think you'll agree, is less obvious: Was Dresden necessary? How would one ever know that? No doubt it did help demoralize the Germans--or maybe it made the fighting mad.

You seem to want to make the Japanese a special case: in many historical cases, countries have been induced to surrender without incinerating their cities. You want to make the Japanese different, even, from the Nazis. I'm not convinced that's the case: they had their 'never say die; never surrender' persons as did the Germans. At some point, the majority who suffers begins to have an impact, as witness the (truce) efforts of some German and Japanese military persons late in these conflicts.

Underlying your 'necessary' argument, is, imo, essentially the point that it's expedient. It works. It saves soldiers' lives. And my counterargument to that is that your position recognizes no limits (as many nations, including the US, have, in the CCW convention). IOW, your argument applies(can be mounted for) as well to phosporus bombs, blinding lasers, undetectable fragments, whatever. Indeed it can be advanced, say by a German battlefield commander, for the use of poison gas.

I admire the realism of your positions, Colly, and your wealth of knowledge. And I prefer realism to liberal dreams of 'changing hearts and minds'. But what you have to do, IMO, is develop some element of *limitation* in what you're justifying by 'realistic' arguments.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Hey Pure. I know I'm not an expert here and I'm not introducing anything new, but it seems to me that some of what you've queried has actually already been addressed by Colly.

Let me ask you again Colly, do you see any point [military or moral] to agreed limitations on conventional weapons? Apparently the US gov (Navy) does at least in part. That is a point you haven't yet addressed in any of your postings. In the CCW debate it's called a principle of proportionality, and probably you know it. The idea is that is you can knock out the enemy soldiers, by means X, then you don't use means Y, which *additionally* (for example) blinds them for life, or which additionally--because of left over ordnance--blows peoples legs off ten or twenty years later.

As I understood Colly's posts, she's saying that there was no weapon the allies knew of that was better in terms of proportionality. As she pointed out above, we didn't know any more than the Japanese did about lingering radiation, genetic mutations, or other aftermath. We just knew that it was a really big bomb, and therefore no more disproportional than pretty much anything else we had in our arsenal. The fact that it took not one but two strikes seems to suggest that it was not overkill; the first one did not actually end the war.

You seem to want to make the Japanese a special case: in many historical cases, countries have been induced to surrender without incinerating their cities. You want to make the Japanese different, even, from the Nazis.

This is a tougher one, but I would say that Colly has supplied some support for this claim. The powerful - one might go so far as to say fanatical - defense of the islands, the use of Kamikaze pilots, and the suicide of some of the militarist party when faced with surrender all seem to point to people who really were intensely devoted to their cause and deeply scornful of the idea of surrender.

Underlying your 'necessary' argument, is, imo, essentially the point that it's expedient. It works. It saves soldiers' lives. And my counterargument to that is that your position recognizes no limits (as many nations, including the US, have, in the CCW convention). IOW, your argument applies(can be mounted for) as well to phosporus bombs, blinding lasers, undetectable fragments, whatever. Indeed it can be advanced, say by a German battlefield commander, for the use of poison gas.

I agree that Colly's argument generally seems to recognize no boundaries. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, if you've got to have the insanity of war, it's probably best to get it over with as swiftly as possible and with as few casualties on your own side as possible. On the other hand, most of those limited weapons arrangements are about not wanting to face those weapons ourselves, either. I think it comes down to a devil's bargain: what's more hideously inhumane, killing a smaller number of people very horribly or a larger number of people slightly less horribly? I'm not convinced that there is a good answer other than the "how about we find a better way of sorting out disagreements?" That is not, however, always possible when faced with an armed enemy.

I'm not saying that limited or unlimited is inherently more moral. To be honest, I don't know. I'm only saying that the answer doesn't appear to be black-and-white to me.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

HI Colly,
Thanks for your patience,

On one of your points,

I'd make a wager with youJ, but since I'm not there and you aren't here it will have to be something you try on your own. Take a closeup of Hiroshima, say a five mile limit from the epicenter of the blast. Do the same with nagasaki. then take similar photos of the heart of Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya. I' be willing to bet just about anything, that if you mixed them up you coulodn't pick out Nagasaki and hirosima more times then the statistical norm for any set of such photos. they look exactly the same, barren burned out astelands with the occasional surviving building skeleton here of there.

That point was agreed in my last posting, indeed it's part of my general point that the US--and Britain, according to you-- 'crossed a line' in WWII. (the line being qualms about totally incinerating cities)

I also agree that in WWI, e.g., with poison gas, the Germans crossed another line.

Let me ask you again Colly, do you see any point [military or moral] to agreed limitations on conventional weapons? Apparently the US gov (Navy) does at least in part. That is a point you haven't yet addressed in any of your postings. In the CCW debate it's called a principle of proportionality, and probably you know it. The idea is that is you can knock out the enemy soldiers, by means X, then you don't use means Y, which *additionally* (for example) blinds them for life, or which additionally--because of left over ordnance--blows peoples legs off ten or twenty years later.


Let me address one of your main points, since fair is fair:

In all you have said, you haven't addressed the sailient feature of why it was neccessary. The Japanese did not surrender. You have provided not one bit of evidence that they would. No example of their discipline, morale or fanatisim being compromised. I have shown that up until the final battle fought to the time, they hadn't. I have even shown that some of them carried on far after the war was over, they were so devoted. I have presented that they had, not only the will to fight, but a determined, organized and highly motivated army in the field, waiting to repel an invasion. I have shown that, far from the planners assertion they had few aircraft, they were actually quite capable of mounting large scale Kamikaze raids on the invading force.

Essentially you're saying the fire or atomic bombing was 'necessary' to induce surrender. Well, it DID induce surrender. The German case, I think you'll agree, is less obvious: Was Dresden necessary? How would one ever know that? No doubt it did help demoralize the Germans--or maybe it made the fighting mad.

You seem to want to make the Japanese a special case: in many historical cases, countries have been induced to surrender without incinerating their cities. You want to make the Japanese different, even, from the Nazis.

Underlying your 'necessary' argument, is, imo, essentially the point that it's expedient. It works. It saves soldiers' lives. And my counterargument to that is that your position recognizes no limits (as many nations, including the US, have, in the CCW convention). IOW, your argument applies(can be mounted for) as well to phosporus bombs, blinding lasers, undetectable fragments, whatever. Indeed it can be advanced, say by a German battlefield commander, for the use of poison gas.

I admire the realism of your positions, Colly, and your wealth of knowledge. And I prefer realism to liberal dreams of 'changing hearts and minds'. But what you have to do, IMO, is develop some element of *limitation* in what you're justifying by 'realistic' arguments.

Conventional arms limitations are something of an enigma to me Pure. Posion gas , chemical weapons, bio weapons, these things are somewhat to highly effective, but are banned by almost all. I think that's a good thing.

But when you continue to widen the scope and scale of banned weapons, you are essential producing more bloody and deadly conflicts. If you agree landmines are out, then you have, essentialy, given the attacking force the advantage when they approach a static position. More people, on both sides, are going to die. You are also likely to have hand to hand combat, which is about as bloody and brutal as war gets. Assuming the defense holds, the same number of attackers will die, but where as a minefield before your barbed wire would have killed many and spared you casualties, the lack of one guarentees you take more.

You are, in a sense, degrading everyone's troops to parity. And in doing so, you are inviting the kind of static, bloody, trench warfare of World War I. The argument could and has been made, that if everyone were equal on the battlefield, no one would launch a war. That isn't the way it works. Governments will still wage war, you are just making it more costly and prolonged than it would be if one side or other held technological military advantage. Conversely, I can see where one side holding such advantage might make them predisposed to settling on the military option.

I guess Pure, I ask myself what is gained by banning Napalm. It seems to me, what you gain is a longer, more bloody, more deadly conflict. To pay that off, a bunch of moralists can sit back and be comforted no one is being burned. But even that's a lie. White Phosphorous burns every bit as nastily as Napalm. So do Improvised incindiareis like jerry cans of gasoline and a granade. Or a man with a flame thrower. You just loose a lot more lives getting close enough to use them. The people inside the positions are going to be just as dead, but you will have a field hospital full of attackers who are also dead and maimed.

I'm a practical person and a pragmatist. Wars are going to happen. The least bloody war, is the one that last the shortest time. There is less destruction of infrastructure, fewer displaced and wounded civilians and less over all carnage in a conflict that lasts a week than in one that lasts three months. Banning the most efective weapons in your inventory, Napalm, DU, Landmines, Cluster bombs, guarentees a longer fight. Not a more humane one, just a longer one. You are, effectively, re writing tactical doctrine backwards, and placing more relaince on the combat rifleman to fight and die to take objectives.

In your opinion J, does prolonging a conflict and incuring more casualties due to bullets make war more humane? Do you see a way around the connundrum that I don't?


There was no excuse for fire bombing Dresden. It was, as much as anything done in the war, a reprisal for Coventry, London and other British cities the Germans demolished. But I think, I can make a pretty good case for Japan being diffrent. In their most desperate hour, did you see Germans climbing into their planes to crash them into soviet panes? Did they mount suicidal charges on a regular basis? Japan, elevated suicide to a military tactic, and in that, they are, to my knowledge, unique among WWII combatant armies. I can only think of one Particiapnt in the war, that NEVER had a command surrender, nor even a significant number of troops defect and give up.

I don't think, given their record, that holding Japan up as a unique situation is at all out of line.

Your limits argument falls apart in relation to the using of the atomic bomb, in a historical context. Had Truman known and understood the implications of radioactivity, contamination, etc. you could say he shouldn't have dropped it, even if it mean sacrificing a good proportion of his own country men. I wouldn't agree, but that argument would have legs. I'll note that one of the sources you sighted as saying the bombing wasn't neccessary, advocted creating a radiation zone along the Yalu river to keep Chinese reinforcements from ruining his Korea triumph. I'll note to, the man who refused was the same man who decided to drop the bomb on Japan. It seems, armed with the knowledge you would like to equip him with in 1945, he recognized the dangers and long term effects.

As you appreiate my position, I appreicate yours too. There is probably a rational position between those idealists who want to keep banning weapons until there are no wars because there are none and those who take might is right to the extremes. I really would like to believe my position, as well as being realistic, is pretty moderate. your position also seems to be less extreme than a lot of folks here. If you, or anyone else, has a way around the dilemma I see in banning conventional weapons, I'm more than willing to listen. As usual with me, I have done some hard assessemnt of my own positions when a debate like this takes place. I still don't see a way around it.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Hmmm. Interesting Colly. But I'm curious about your support for the ban of chemical, poison, and biological weapons. Surely if they accomplish the same objectives as firebombs, nuclear bombs, and napalm - that is, clearing enemy positions without loss of your own soldiers' lives - then they have the same moral and ethical weight as well as the same pragmatic value?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hmmm. Interesting Colly. But I'm curious about your support for the ban of chemical, poison, and biological weapons. Surely if they accomplish the same objectives as firebombs, nuclear bombs, and napalm - that is, clearing enemy positions without loss of your own soldiers' lives - then they have the same moral and ethical weight as well as the same pragmatic value?

Posion, Chemical and biological weapons fit loosely into a category called AOE. Area of Effect. Drop a gas cloud, and you might kill the enemy, a change of wind and you might wipe out the hamlet full of innocents who just happen to be down wind, or you might wipe out your own troops. Neither highly effective, nor highly pragmatic. More a powerful weapon, but something of a Dijnn bottle.

Use chemical weapons and you run the same risks, it just takes one freak wind change and you go from attacking the enemy to wiping out a civilian center. Then too, you may damage the spoil, the water supply, etc. Again, it might be highly effective, or it might be a catastrophe.

Bioloical weapons are the most scary. You don't even know what you are playing with. In the right conditions you might create the next biblical style plague. It's hideously dangerous and not overly effective in most cases. And you are playing God. That is never wise, imho.

When you drop a canister of Napalm, you are going to kill the people in the blast radius, perhaps more if you have used it on an upright structure wehre it can also kill those in lower levels. You could still screw up and kill civilians, if you drop it in the wrong place. You could still kill your own men. But those mistakes you can control to some extent. No one controls the winds.

The potential for massive, unintended, damage from NBC make them simply too dangerous and unpredictable to use. And to be honest, their effectiveness has been eclipsed by other,less unpredicatble ordinance. For example, Mustard gas was designed to kill men in heavily fortified positions, where artillery couldn't get to them. It isn't as effective as Napalm for the same task and is much less predictable.

NBC weapons aren't practical or pragmatic. They should be banned. That is irrespective of the moral arguments against their use.

As a note, I use the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) tag intentionally. Tac nukes are just as potentially dangerous and unpredictable and should be banned, IMHO.

 

[Pure]

some docs

just so it's clear what conventional weapons many nations have agreed not to use, because they are unnecessarily cruel.

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/CCW.asp

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) At a Glance

July 2004
Press Contact: Wade Boese, Research Director; (202) 463-8270 x104


Seeking to restrict or outlaw specific types of weapons used in armed conflict, 51 states negotiated the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)[1] in 1980. The convention aims to protect military troops from inhumane injuries and prevent noncombatants from accidentally being wounded or killed by certain types of arms. When it entered into force in December 1983, the treaty applied to incendiary weapons, mines and booby-traps, and weapons designed to injure through very small fragments. Since then, treaty states-parties—now numbering 94 total—have added provisions to ban blinding laser weapons and address lingering dangers posed by unexploded munitions leftover after combat ends.

The Convention

The operative provisions of the CCW are contained in several protocols annexed to the convention.[2] Currently, there are four protocols in force (see below) and a fifth that has been negotiated and adopted, but has not yet entered into force. All states-parties must agree to the addition of a new protocol. After being adopted by consensus, the new protocol must be ratified by 20 states-parties before it enters into force. Each protocol is only binding on those states-parties that ratify it.

Initially, the scope of the convention covered only international armed conflicts. However, states-parties amended a single protocol in 1996 to apply to intrastate conflicts and in 2001 elected to extend that modification to the entire convention. Still, the change only applies to those states-parties ratifying the amendment, and it does not automatically extend to new protocols. Henceforth, states-parties must specify whether new protocols they ratify cover intrastate conflicts in addition to interstate wars.

The convention lacks verification and enforcement mechanisms and spells out no formal process for resolving compliance concerns.

A state-party can refute its commitment to the convention or any of the protocols, but it will remain legally bound until one year after notifying the treaty depositary, the UN Secretary-General, of its intent to be free of its obligations.

Protocols to the Convention

Protocol I: Non-detectable Fragments

Protocol I prohibits the use of any weapon designed to wound or kill with small fragments that cannot be detected by x-rays. Conventional x-ray imaging cannot locate small pieces of glass, plastic, or wood lodged in human tissue. This makes it prohibitively difficult for doctors to remove the fragments, effectively preventing victims from receiving necessary treatment.

Amended Protocol II: Landmines, Booby-Traps, and Other Devices

Protocol II, which was amended in May 1996, regulates but does not ban the use of landmines and booby-traps. Anti-personnel landmines (APLs) must be kept in clearly marked and protected minefields or be equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms that disarm and render the mine unusable after a certain period of time. Mines dropped from aircraft or delivered by artillery or missiles must be outfitted with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms. All APLs must further be detectable using common mine detection equipment to enable them to be located and safely removed after a conflict ends. The responsibility for clearing any mines is on the government controlling the territory where the mines are located.

Amended Protocol II entered into force in 1998. The 76 countries bound by the protocol include most of the world’s major current or past landmine producers—China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States—which have refused to join the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines.

Protocol III: Incendiary Weapons

Protocol III regulates the use of weapons designed to set fire to or burn their target. The protocol proscribes targeting civilians with incendiary weapons and restricts the use of air-delivered incendiary weapons against military targets in close proximity to concentrations of noncombatants. It also prohibits parties from targeting forests or other plant cover unless the vegetation is being used to conceal military forces. The protocol only covers weapons created intentionally to set fire or burn, such as flamethrowers. Weapons that ignite fires or burn as a side effect are not subject to the protocol.

Protocol IV: Blinding Lasers

Added in 1996, this protocol prohibits the use of lasers specifically designed to cause permanent blindness. It further obliges states-parties to make every effort to avoid causing permanent blindness through the use of other lasers. While prohibiting the use of blinding lasers, the convention does not rule out their development or stockpiling. However, it does outlaw any trade in such arms.

Protocol V: Explosive Remnants of War

In November 2003, states-parties approved a new protocol to deal with unexploded and abandoned ordnance left over after fighting ends—so-called explosive remnants of war (ERW). The protocol covers munitions, such as artillery shells, grenades, and gravity bombs, that fail to explode as intended, and any unused explosives left behind and uncontrolled by armed forces. Such weapons pose severe threats to civilians because they could explode without cause or accidentally be triggered to detonate. Like the landmines protocol, the government controlling an area with explosive remnants of war is responsible for clearing such munitions. However, that government may ask for technical or financial assistance from others, including any party responsible for putting the munitions in place originally, to complete the task. No state-party is obligated to render assistance.

Other Issues

CCW states-parties are currently debating and exploring negotiations on several other matters, including adding a compliance mechanism to better ensure that states-parties live up to their commitments and a provision to ban small-caliber bullets because they can cause major internal injuries by ricocheting or tumbling around inside a body. The issue receiving the greatest amount of attention at this time is a U.S.-Danish proposal to limit the use of anti-vehicle mines and require that they be equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms. Some countries, such as China, object that the proposal replicates existing obligations in amended protocol II and would be too expensive to implement.

—Researched by Gabrielle Kohlmeier

 

[Colleen Thomas]

just so it's clear what conventional weapons many nations have agreed not to use, because they are unnecessarily cruel.

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/CCW.asp

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) At a Glance

July 2004
Press Contact: Wade Boese, Research Director; (202) 463-8270 x104


Seeking to restrict or outlaw specific types of weapons used in armed conflict, 51 states negotiated the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)[1] in 1980. The convention aims to protect military troops from inhumane injuries and prevent noncombatants from accidentally being wounded or killed by certain types of arms. When it entered into force in December 1983, the treaty applied to incendiary weapons, mines and booby-traps, and weapons designed to injure through very small fragments. Since then, treaty states-parties—now numbering 94 total—have added provisions to ban blinding laser weapons and address lingering dangers posed by unexploded munitions leftover after combat ends.

The Convention

The operative provisions of the CCW are contained in several protocols annexed to the convention.[2] Currently, there are four protocols in force (see below) and a fifth that has been negotiated and adopted, but has not yet entered into force. All states-parties must agree to the addition of a new protocol. After being adopted by consensus, the new protocol must be ratified by 20 states-parties before it enters into force. Each protocol is only binding on those states-parties that ratify it.

Initially, the scope of the convention covered only international armed conflicts. However, states-parties amended a single protocol in 1996 to apply to intrastate conflicts and in 2001 elected to extend that modification to the entire convention. Still, the change only applies to those states-parties ratifying the amendment, and it does not automatically extend to new protocols. Henceforth, states-parties must specify whether new protocols they ratify cover intrastate conflicts in addition to interstate wars.

The convention lacks verification and enforcement mechanisms and spells out no formal process for resolving compliance concerns.

A state-party can refute its commitment to the convention or any of the protocols, but it will remain legally bound until one year after notifying the treaty depositary, the UN Secretary-General, of its intent to be free of its obligations.

Protocols to the Convention

Protocol I: Non-detectable Fragments

Protocol I prohibits the use of any weapon designed to wound or kill with small fragments that cannot be detected by x-rays. Conventional x-ray imaging cannot locate small pieces of glass, plastic, or wood lodged in human tissue. This makes it prohibitively difficult for doctors to remove the fragments, effectively preventing victims from receiving necessary treatment.

Amended Protocol II: Landmines, Booby-Traps, and Other Devices

Protocol II, which was amended in May 1996, regulates but does not ban the use of landmines and booby-traps. Anti-personnel landmines (APLs) must be kept in clearly marked and protected minefields or be equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms that disarm and render the mine unusable after a certain period of time. Mines dropped from aircraft or delivered by artillery or missiles must be outfitted with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms. All APLs must further be detectable using common mine detection equipment to enable them to be located and safely removed after a conflict ends. The responsibility for clearing any mines is on the government controlling the territory where the mines are located.

Amended Protocol II entered into force in 1998. The 76 countries bound by the protocol include most of the world’s major current or past landmine producers—China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States—which have refused to join the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines.

Protocol III: Incendiary Weapons

Protocol III regulates the use of weapons designed to set fire to or burn their target. The protocol proscribes targeting civilians with incendiary weapons and restricts the use of air-delivered incendiary weapons against military targets in close proximity to concentrations of noncombatants. It also prohibits parties from targeting forests or other plant cover unless the vegetation is being used to conceal military forces. The protocol only covers weapons created intentionally to set fire or burn, such as flamethrowers. Weapons that ignite fires or burn as a side effect are not subject to the protocol.

Protocol IV: Blinding Lasers

Added in 1996, this protocol prohibits the use of lasers specifically designed to cause permanent blindness. It further obliges states-parties to make every effort to avoid causing permanent blindness through the use of other lasers. While prohibiting the use of blinding lasers, the convention does not rule out their development or stockpiling. However, it does outlaw any trade in such arms.

Protocol V: Explosive Remnants of War

In November 2003, states-parties approved a new protocol to deal with unexploded and abandoned ordnance left over after fighting ends—so-called explosive remnants of war (ERW). The protocol covers munitions, such as artillery shells, grenades, and gravity bombs, that fail to explode as intended, and any unused explosives left behind and uncontrolled by armed forces. Such weapons pose severe threats to civilians because they could explode without cause or accidentally be triggered to detonate. Like the landmines protocol, the government controlling an area with explosive remnants of war is responsible for clearing such munitions. However, that government may ask for technical or financial assistance from others, including any party responsible for putting the munitions in place originally, to complete the task. No state-party is obligated to render assistance.

Other Issues

CCW states-parties are currently debating and exploring negotiations on several other matters, including adding a compliance mechanism to better ensure that states-parties live up to their commitments and a provision to ban small-caliber bullets because they can cause major internal injuries by ricocheting or tumbling around inside a body. The issue receiving the greatest amount of attention at this time is a U.S.-Danish proposal to limit the use of anti-vehicle mines and require that they be equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms. Some countries, such as China, object that the proposal replicates existing obligations in amended protocol II and would be too expensive to implement.

—Researched by Gabrielle Kohlmeier

Might be worthy of noting that the M-16 uses a small caliber round. It's primary selling point was that it was unstable and tended to richocet around in the body of an enemy.

 

[Pure]

Reply

Hi Colly,

If I may address your central argument

But when you continue to widen the scope and scale of banned [conventional] weapons, you are essential producing more bloody and deadly conflicts. If you agree landmines are out, then you have, essentialy, given the attacking force the advantage when they approach a static position. More people, on both sides, are going to die. You are also likely to have hand to hand combat, which is about as bloody and brutal as war gets. Assuming the defense holds, the same number of attackers will die, but where as a minefield before your barbed wire would have killed many and spared you casualties, the lack of one guarentees you take more.

You are, in a sense, degrading everyone's troops to parity. And in doing so, you are inviting the kind of static, bloody, trench warfare of World War I. The argument could and has been made, that if everyone were equal on the battlefield, no one would launch a war. That isn't the way it works. Governments will still wage war, you are just making it more costly and prolonged than it would be if one side or other held technological military advantage. Conversely, I can see where one side holding such advantage might make them predisposed to settling on the military option.

I guess Pure, I ask myself what is gained by banning Napalm. It seems to me, what you gain is a longer, more bloody, more deadly conflict. To pay that off, a bunch of moralists can sit back and be comforted no one is being burned. But even that's a lie. White Phosphorous burns every bit as nastily as Napalm. So do Improvised incindiareis like jerry cans of gasoline and a granade. Or a man with a flame thrower. You just loose a lot more lives getting close enough to use them. The people inside the positions are going to be just as dead, but you will have a field hospital full of attackers who are also dead and maimed.

I'm a practical person and a pragmatist. Wars are going to happen. The least bloody war, is the one that last the shortest time. There is less destruction of infrastructure, fewer displaced and wounded civilians and less over all carnage in a conflict that lasts a week than in one that lasts three months. Banning the most efective weapons in your inventory, Napalm, DU, Landmines, Cluster bombs, guarentees a longer fight. Not a more humane one, just a longer one. You are, effectively, re writing tactical doctrine backwards, and placing more relaince on the combat rifleman to fight and die to take objectives.

The most obvious flaw is the line [you are] "degrading everyone's troops to parity." This does not seem to be case, quite often, e.g., now in Iraq. The US avoids the CCW listed items, invisible fragments, blinding lasers, etc., and (according to the Pentagon) the use of incendiary bombs against civilians.
Yet our troups have not become more equal; or, more exactly, the inequality has perhaps been reduced an infinitesimal amount that is of no relevance.

Your argument might apply against the most advanced nations at war with each other: The Soviets/Russians, it's said, were working on or using this laser.

Even here, though, you argument has problems, e.g., why not get the neutron bombs going? Aren't the US and Soviets agreed not to go up that route. All this means--if the US signs-- is that US believes it can build some other kind of nastier bomb, maybe just a super hydrogen bomb that will level a hundred square miles.

Your argument also ignores the 'arms race' amplification that occurs when some of these supernasty weapons are developed. Yes, the US gets ahead, eliminates the parity you dislike. But the next day the Soviets will work for an even nastier weapon.

I agree there, hypothetically might be some trade off, i.e. shorter and nastier, or longer and not quite so nasty. I agree that hypothetically it's going to be hard to choose between the outcome, sort of like asking if you, after our fight, would rather have lost an arm, or five toes(rt) and one foot(lf).

I think some of the answer was alluded to by liar, el sol, and others. We want to be 'the good guys', to have to moral high ground. If you were a police chief, would you issue poison(cyanide) bullets (assuming no legal probs).

Why would a battlefield commander NOT want grenades that spray glass and plastic, instead of just steel shards? I suppose it has to do with the human community, and what's considered unspeakably vile, versus merely incredibly nasty. Also it has to do, maybe with aftermaths: do we want at least some of 'our boys and girls' to come home with glass and plastic shards? Will it be satisfying to know that 10 iraquis are (if alive) walking around with such shards for every American?

So the answer to your question is, yes, if all one talks [=all that matters] is nastiness [cruelty and gruesomeness] and length of conflict, SOMETIMES and in SOME CASES the conflict might be prolonged because of a 'parity tendency.' OTOH, there are other issues besides nastiness and length of conflict. And there is some merit in humans trying--by just a tiny bit--to be less 'inhumanly' (ha!) violent--on the 'what goes around, comes around' principle.

PS This reply goes, as well to the folks in this thread or the other (napalm) that talk of beheadings: so one might ask, "why don't we do it, it's certainly terrifying? " (See above)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hi Colly,

If I may address your central argument

But when you continue to widen the scope and scale of banned [conventional] weapons, you are essential producing more bloody and deadly conflicts. If you agree landmines are out, then you have, essentialy, given the attacking force the advantage when they approach a static position. More people, on both sides, are going to die. You are also likely to have hand to hand combat, which is about as bloody and brutal as war gets. Assuming the defense holds, the same number of attackers will die, but where as a minefield before your barbed wire would have killed many and spared you casualties, the lack of one guarentees you take more.

You are, in a sense, degrading everyone's troops to parity. And in doing so, you are inviting the kind of static, bloody, trench warfare of World War I. The argument could and has been made, that if everyone were equal on the battlefield, no one would launch a war. That isn't the way it works. Governments will still wage war, you are just making it more costly and prolonged than it would be if one side or other held technological military advantage. Conversely, I can see where one side holding such advantage might make them predisposed to settling on the military option.

I guess Pure, I ask myself what is gained by banning Napalm. It seems to me, what you gain is a longer, more bloody, more deadly conflict. To pay that off, a bunch of moralists can sit back and be comforted no one is being burned. But even that's a lie. White Phosphorous burns every bit as nastily as Napalm. So do Improvised incindiareis like jerry cans of gasoline and a granade. Or a man with a flame thrower. You just loose a lot more lives getting close enough to use them. The people inside the positions are going to be just as dead, but you will have a field hospital full of attackers who are also dead and maimed.

I'm a practical person and a pragmatist. Wars are going to happen. The least bloody war, is the one that last the shortest time. There is less destruction of infrastructure, fewer displaced and wounded civilians and less over all carnage in a conflict that lasts a week than in one that lasts three months. Banning the most efective weapons in your inventory, Napalm, DU, Landmines, Cluster bombs, guarentees a longer fight. Not a more humane one, just a longer one. You are, effectively, re writing tactical doctrine backwards, and placing more relaince on the combat rifleman to fight and die to take objectives.

The most obvious flaw is the line [you are] "degrading everyone's troops to parity." This does not seem to be case, quite often, e.g., now in Iraq. The US avoids the CCW listed items, invisible fragments, blinding lasers, etc., and (according to the Pentagon) the use of incendiary bombs against civilians.
Yet our troups have not become more equal; or, more exactly, the inequality has perhaps been reduced an infinitesimal amount that is of no relevance.

Your argument might apply against the most advanced nations at war with each other: The Soviets/Russians, it's said, were working on or using this laser.

Even here, though, you argument has problems, e.g., why not get the neutron bombs going? Aren't the US and Soviets agreed not to go up that route. All this means--if the US signs-- is that US believes it can build some other kind of nastier bomb, maybe just a super hydrogen bomb that will level a hundred square miles.

Your argument also ignores the 'arms race' amplification that occurs when some of these supernasty weapons are developed. Yes, the US gets ahead, eliminates the parity you dislike. But the next day the Soviets will work for an even nastier weapon.

I agree there, hypothetically might be some trade off, i.e. shorter and nastier, or longer and not quite so nasty. I agree that hypothetically it's going to be hard to choose between the outcome, sort of like asking if you, after our fight, would rather have lost an arm, or five toes(rt) and one foot(lf).

I think some of the answer was alluded to by liar, el sol, and others. We want to be 'the good guys', to have to moral high ground. If you were a police chief, would you issue poison(cyanide) bullets (assuming no legal probs).

Why would a battlefield commander NOT want grenades that spray glass and plastic, instead of just steel shards? I suppose it has to do with the human community, and what's considered unspeakably vile, versus merely incredibly nasty. Also it has to do, maybe with aftermaths: do we want at least some of 'our boys and girls' to come home with glass and plastic shards? Will it be satisfying to know that 10 iraquis are (if alive) walking around with such shards for every American?

So the answer to your question is, yes, if all you talk is nastiness and length of conflict, SOMETIMES and in SOME CASES the conflict might be prolonged because of a 'parity tendency.' OTOH, there are other issues besides nastiness and length of conflict. And there is some merit in humans trying--by just a tiny bit--to being less 'inhumanly' (ha!) violent--on the 'what goes around, comes around' principle.

What exactly, would you like to consider, if nastiness and length of a conflict aren't material?

Just how, in your opinion, does banning Napalm make war more humane?

You are going to have marines with Grenades, Molotove cocktails and rifles blasing, burning and blowing up the occupants of strong points while they, with similar arms, are going to be merrily blasting, hacking, buring and blowing up said Marines. And at the end? You are going to have a batch of dead defenders and a batch of dead marines and the strongpoint will be neutralized. The same result could have been accomplished by dropping Napalm on the strongpoint, minus the batch of dead Marines.

I don't see the humaneness in running up the body count.