
The destruction of Alderaan was completely justified - Amorymeltzer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/
======
dkbrk
Alderaan was demilitarised, but more importantly, it was a member of the
Empire, represented in the Imperial Senate by Princess Leia until that
institution was dissolved shortly into Episode IV. The destruction of Alderaan
would not be at all analagous to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the dozens of major
cities ravaged by strategic bombing during WWII; it would be like the US
wiping Texas off the map with nuclear weapons because the Federal Government
was unpopular there, except in this case Texas would have virtually no
military of its own.

To be clear, while Bail Organa was deeply involved in the foundation of the
Alliance to Restore the Republic, it was a separate entity and Alderaan was
not in a declared state of war with the Empire. Furthermore, Alderaan was an
important Core World with a large population and significant economic output.

This article amounts to little more than historical revisionism and I suspect
its author is pushing this agenda at the behest of the more conservative Moffs
of the Imperial Remnant.

~~~
Ironchefpython
> it would be like the US wiping Texas off the map with nuclear weapons
> because the Federal Government was unpopular there

No, it would be more like attacking Richmond Virginia prior prior to secession
in an attempt to prevent the massive deaths of the American Civil War.

> To be clear, while Bail Organa was deeply involved in the foundation of the
> Alliance to Restore the Republic, it was a separate entity and Alderaan was
> not in a declared state of war with the Empire. Furthermore, Alderaan was an
> important Core World with a large population and significant economic
> output.

You still haven't addressed the core utilitarian argument; did the destruction
of Alderaan save more lives than it cost? While it might have appeared to be
destroyed simply to punish Leia, it's extraordinarily unlikely to have
happened for any reason other than the express directive of the Emperor, a
master manipulator and politician whose sole goal was maintaining power over
the entire galaxy, who clearly felt the destruction of Alderaan was the best
way to achieve that goal.

I would say the only reason the destruction of Alderaan cannot be justified is
because ultimately it did not prevent the ensuing civil war. Blowing up a
planet would have been a tremendous deterrent, however the Empire quickly lost
that ability due to an asymmetrical suicide attack by jihadists. (akin to the
US Cole bombing)

Had the Death Star remained a credible deterrent, the Rebel Alliance would
have withered, unable to obtain the backing of the planetary systems necessary
to build and maintain a credible space navy.

You comment amounts to little more than a weak justification for the pervasive
poverty and lack of economic opportunity which followed the destruction of the
only source of stability in the galaxy.

#palpatine2016 #vaderdidnothingwrong #deathstarwasaninsidejob
#protontorpedoscantmeltquadaniumbeams

------
hackuser
This really is about rhetoric:

The article is an excellent example of a popular rhetorical trend, especially
on the right[1]: Say something outrageous, provocative, and aggressive to take
the initiative, to force the other side onto defense. (EDIT: And to frame the
discussion; that is, to define the debate in terms of issues in your favor and
omit issues that don't suit you; people will sheepishly follow whatever terms
are set.)

Think of the things that GOP presidential candidates and other politicians
say, day after day, that meet those criteria.

Putting someone on the defensive and forcing them to articulate and make
explicit something that is intuitively obvious, but which they haven't had to
put in words before - it's a fun game but ultimately is a waste of time. It's
much cheaper to make spurious attacks than to defend against them, and as a
defender you can spend your whole life jumping through those hoops and never
get anywhere - which is one of the attacker's goals.

\-----

[1] I'm not taking a political position, but it would be untrue if I said that
in 2015 it was done nearly as much on the left as on the right.

~~~
rayiner
Provocative maybe, but I don't see what's outrageous about it. You have to
look no further than the Arab Spring to see that rebellion destroys order and
disorder is worse for ordinary people than a politically repressive
government. It's the history of the world: the overthrow of the French
monarchy by radicals ushered in untold chaos and violence before the
establishment of democracy.

The article poses the legitimate question of whether it's acceptable to
sacrifice a planet to preserve galactic order. Let's reframe that: was it
acceptable to burn Atlanta to the ground to preserve the union? Is that such
an outrageous idea?

~~~
Retric
Which is why the U.S. should have stuck with the British empire like good
little drones.

~~~
rayiner
If we'd stayed with the British maybe we'd have universal healthcare already.

~~~
tptacek
We also would have ended slavery earlier. That could have been worth it.

------
n0us
I've often found parallels between the death star and the atomic bomb. Both
are weapons of incredible destructive power that would be difficult to use
without deliberately killing untold numbers of non-military citizens.

The justification for the use of the bomb in WWII can be debated but one
interesting point I have heard is that for Truman to not authorize it's use
would have amounted to political suicide. After pouring so much money and
research into the project it would have been difficult if not impossible to
then change course and say "well, we have this absurdly powerful weapon the
likes of which the world has never seen before, and we know it could end the
war in the pacific theater with near immediacy as well as likely establish The
United States as the predominate world hegemon for years to come. We also
spent years and billions of dollars developing it, but now we're just going to
put it on a shelf and end the war another way." People would have been
outraged. It's easy to look in hindsight and judge the morality of an act of
war but often these judgements ignore the political motivations of those
actions and only take into account the strategic benefit with respect to the
cost of civilian lives.

With the death star there may have been a similar situation where the momentum
behind the project was simply too great to build it then not use it, even if
only to prove its power.

(For the record I have strong moral objections to the use of the bombs over
Japan and don't mean to condone their use in the above comment, only to
provide a short summary of a popular theory as to _why_ they were used)

~~~
transfire
Few people know that the USSR was invading Japan from the north at the time.
If we had just pressed on a bit longer, the Allies would have won anyway.
However, we would have had to split the spoils with the USSR. So dropping the
bomb served two purposes 1) it ended the war a bit earlier so the Soviets were
not needed, and 2) it sent a message to the world that we would do whatever it
took (in this way it is just like the fictitious Star Wars event). Wonder why
we bombed civilian targets? B/c we only had two bombs. If they didn't do the
job it would have been too late (per point #1).

~~~
n0us
We also bombed civilian targets because the destructive power of the bomb was
still relatively unknown and Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not yet been bombed as
they were non military targets. If we had bombed an area that had already been
attacked it would have been more difficult to assess the damage that the bomb
was capable of and those two cities were "clean slates" so to speak. I can
search for citations on this if you like but it's been quite a while since I
read up on this so it might require some digging through my notes.

------
smegel
> is more analogous to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Japan was a Great Power in WW2, very nearly a match for the US. It was also
aggressively building an expire of it's own - whose own actions, particularly
against rebels in China, were far closer to the actions of the Galactic Empire
than the US.

There is an intrinsic difference between attacking a mortal enemy that is your
near equal during a period of Total War than suppressing dissent and rebellion
against ragtag rebels by killing millions of civilians, which Japan most
certainly did.

In WW2, America was the great friend the rebels in Star Wars never had.

~~~
cmdkeen
Here's the rub with that argument though, Japan was not a great power in 1945.
Indeed there were few enough targets left to drop the bomb on which had not
already been devastated by conventional bombing.

What Japan still had was a warrior / religious culture that would have no
problem fighting to the end, as had been demonstrated on island after island.
Even had Japan been persuaded to surrender without a total victory Germany
post 1918 and the "stab in the back" theory that arose served as a reminder
that militaristic cultures can rise again.

The dropping of the bombs fundamentally challenged that mindset. It ushered in
a weapon that no force of arms, no military culture, no level self-sacrifice
or ultimate effort could stop. It enabled the occupation and subjugation of
Japan without having to stage an invasion.

Atomic weapons then and now are things which are essentially impossible to fit
into a legal / moral framework - other than to view them as the ultimate
insurance policy against humanity's darkest nature. They keep us as a species
in check. Organised religion didn't stop war, so humanity created it's own
biblical flood, and fortunately has never had to unleash it.

~~~
darkerside
> What Japan still had was a warrior / religious culture that would have no
> problem fighting to the end

I really don't buy that. It smacks of dehumanization and propaganda. I can't
answer whether waging conventional war on Japan to the end would have been too
costly a decision, but let's not excuse ourselves and say it's because the
extreme nature of their cultural values makes it necessary.

~~~
cmdkeen
It is absolutely about extreme cultural values. Some times extreme cultural
values are good things, sometimes not. Some cultures fight to the death,
others do not. The overwhelming evidence was that the body count, on both
sides, of an invasion of Japan would have far surpassed that of the dropping
of the bombs.

To be fair to you I am not singling out Japanese culture in this scenario. The
World Wars, and history in general, are replete with cultural significance,
from cultures that abandon a sense of self in attack or defence, or both, to
those which view themselves as culturally superior such that occupation is
preferable to annihilation. None is better or worse than the other, but the
idea that different cultures manifest different responses to the same stimuli
cannot be controversial, and that therefore how different cultures are treated
by others is necessary.

~~~
darkerside
You're making a values judgement on how hard a nation and people should fight
to defend themselves. And whatever Japan's stance at the start of the war,
they were certainly defending their homeland at the end of it. I'm not saying
that the calculation of lives was incorrect. All I'm saying is that the "evil
culture" reasoning is designed to rationalize to the masses, and it's a
distortion of reality. I don't disagree that cultural values can be
problematic. I just think it was a bullshit excuse in this particular case.

------
nicklaf
In the movie Clerks, there is a discussion about how the rebels took the lives
of any independent contractors who happened to be working on the second Death
Star at the time of its destruction.

However, George Lucas later addressed this issue by saying that these
independent contractors were in fact merely "large termites" (Geonosians). (I
am not making this up.)

------
hackuser
For those seriously interested in the topic of 'justified' military action,
there is a clear, very well-established and followed (including by the U.S.)
international Law of War. The fundemental considerations are: [1]

* Necessity: Does it provide significant military benefit?

* Distinction: Distinguishing between military targets and civilians

* Proportionality: One shot from a mortar does not justify flattening a town.

* Humanity: I'm not sure of the definition, but think of it in context of "crimes against humanity".

For an example of a serious analysis of a real issue, here's a great writeup
of the question of bombing civilian trucks in Syria:

[https://www.justsecurity.org/28064/targeting-tankers-law-
war...](https://www.justsecurity.org/28064/targeting-tankers-law-war-part-1/)

[EDIT: Added definitions to the terms]

\----

[1] I'm certainly not an expert in this field, so my presentation of it might
be not quite right in one way or another.

------
beloch
"So, Alderaan was a legitimate military target. Was the level of force used
against it justified? It’s a tricky question, but it seems the least bad of
all the alternatives. Consider another option the Empire could have taken:
invading Alderaan, removing its leaders and installing a pro-Empire regime.
However, putting boots on the ground in this manner would likely have
destabilized not only the planet but also the entire region, creating a
breeding ground for religious terrorists and draining blood and treasure for
decades. It’s not hard to imagine a Jedi State of the Alderaan System (JSAS,
for short, though they’d likely prefer the simpler Jedi State (JS)) arising
from the ashes of some ill-conceived invasion and occupation."

This guy is arguing that it would have been better to nuke all of Iraq into a
glassy plain (civilians, historical sites, and all) rather than provide a
potential breeding ground for ISIS. This completely ignores the fact that the
occupation of Iraq was not conducted with, shall we say, anything resembling
basic competence. The occupation was also cut short early out of political
expedience. Palpatine would not have had to worry about approval ratings if
his occupation of Alderaan had dragged on! Finally, it's worth noting that, as
reprehensible as daesh's actions may be, they amount to nothing even close to
the atrocity of nuking a city.

So, based on this argument, the destruction of Alderaan was _not_ justified.

~~~
lsc
If you are trying to give the linked article a fair shake, perhaps you should
be comparing it to Afghanistan, not Iraq? My impression was that we (the US)
had some evidence that the government of Afghanistan was actually involved in
attacking us, whereas the justification for the second war against Iraq was
largely "They kind of look like the guys who did it" \- there was noise about
"weapons of mass destruction" that was later proven to be a lie, but the
impression I got from my more right-ish friends before it was debunked was
that this was largely a ploy to get the weapon-hating left to go along with
it.

~~~
beloch
His allusion to a JSAS arising from the ashes is a pretty clear reference to
ISIS. The Taliban, by comparison, predate the U.S. invasion by decades. Hell,
the U.S. supported them against Russia when Russia was trying to occupy
Afghanistan. For a real mind-trip, go watch Rambo 2 again sometime. It's
surreal watching Sylvester Stallone play rugged, manly, ball-games with his
heroic comrades: the Taliban (Yes, the film really does refer to them
_specifically_ as Taliban)!

~~~
lsc
Eh, but my point was that I don't think there's a rational argument justifying
the second war on Iraq, while there were rational arguments justifying the war
on Afghanistan, thus if you are trying to justify another act of violence by
comparing it to the war, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to compare your
act to the Iraq war.

My impression is that you are right that wiping out Iraq did a lot more to
destabilize the area than the adventure in Afghanistan, though, mostly because
Iraq had a much more functional government before hand.

The timing of Rambo 3 was unintentionally hilarious, not only now, but at the
time it came out, as it came out right as relations were warming; Time named
Gorbachev "man of the year" in the same year that Rambo 3 hit theaters.

But yes, he does go on and on about how hard it is to conquer the people of
Afghanistan in ways that seem downright un-American if you are watching it in
a post-9/11 era, as I did.

Really, I think that the whole Rambo series is better if you remember that
Trautman shoots John at the end of "first blood" in a scene reminiscent of "Of
Mice and Men" \- Rambo 2 and 3 have got to be... fever dreams? an afterlife?
an acid flashback? as John dies.

~~~
beloch
Interesting idea. I may have to dust off the Rambo DVD's and watch them with
your theory in mind.

~~~
lsc
Also note, first blood part 2 was "Rambo goes back to Vietnam" \- essentially,
the movie tries to explain why John Rambo was so screwed up and angry in the
first place. "I'm coming for yoooou" \- really, even rambo 2 wasn't a "go USA"
film the way that Rambo 3 seemed to be.

Rambo 3 is what you want if you want to watch the horse game with a dead goat.
I personally can't come up with a theme tying rambo 3 back to the original
Vietnam theme, other than the Taliban fucked up the Russians very much like
the Vietcong fucked up the Americans. Maybe that was the point? a kind of
redemption for Rambo, this time he gets to defend the people who just want to
be left alone? Or maybe it was just "hey, we've got an action movie franchise,
let's make an action movie!" \- and it certainly can be enjoyed on that level,
even though it lacks any future governors.

(As another tangent, I think it's interesting to compare the minimalist "drop
me into the jungle with nothing but a knife" vs. "all the gear" views of
masculinity that are in constant conflict throughout the series. I... man,
sometimes I wish I was in college and I could spent a week on an essay about
80's action movies and what they say about our shifting ideas of manhood.)

------
rayiner
As someone who doesn't know anything about the Star Wars universe: What
happens after the fall of the galactic empire? I like to imagine a centuries
long dark ages ruled by chaos and anarchy.

~~~
jakobdabo
@lprubin reminded us about Asimov's Foundation series, so here is a quote from
Wikipedia which is related to your question:

 _" With the Galactic Empire in fatal decline, Hari Seldon, inventor of the
science of psychohistory, predicted a 30,000 year interregnum of barbaric Dark
Ages until the rise of a New Empire. So Seldon created a plan to shorten this
interregnum from 30,000 years to 1,000 years."_

~~~
adrianN
Asimov's Empire is in no way related to the Star Wars empire, so it's not
really relevant to the question at all.

------
everyone
Ironic or not? Without knowing anything about the author or publication, poes
law is in effect for me.

~~~
bunderbunder
I'm not sure it matters what the author is thinking. The point remains that
under an ethical doctrine that a great many people - perhaps most, I'm not
sure - tend to espouse, one does have to concede that the Empire really isn't
so bad.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare the Rebellion to ISIL for various reasons.
But it's true that the Rebellion and the Old Republic had a strong theocratic
undercurrent going on, and that's something to think about.

If anything, I think the article's compelling because it asks us to have the
courage of our convictions. Regardless of whether you (or the author) side
with the Rebellion or the Empire, a realistic analysis of the story is much
more complex. And that's valuable, because the real world is complex, and yet
it's very common for us to try to cast current events in terms of the
simplistic moral narratives we learn in stories.

~~~
peejaybee
That's the lovely thing about this piece. Often times when I read these
thinkpieces, I know a bit about the author and his or her biases, and have to
exercise some discipline to not let that color my opinion of the article too
much.

I've never heard of Sonny Bunch, so in this case it is pretty easy.

------
coldtea
> _The destruction of Alderaan, then, is more analogous to the atomic bombing
> of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than it is to a “genocide.”_ Yes, it was horrible,
> and yes, it would be nice if it didn’t happen. But it was an attack on a
> legitimate military target and defensible under Just War Theory, an attack
> intended to save lives by deterring other major powers from beginning
> conflicts of their own.*

It always amazes me that people think that (enabled by specially crafted and
promoted nationalist histories of course -- especially the kind taught at
school).

First, the war was ending and Japan was surrendering, they just had a few
save-face conditions instead of total surrender.

Second, those two cities were not military targets -- cities full of men,
women and children, civilians.

Third, the main issue was not Japan, but to do a live demonstration of the new
assets, and instill fear on any post-war (that is, cold war) enemy.

------
puppetmaster3
Old story:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II)

------
hackuser
I suppose these people would have supported the British Empire against the
Americans, the Soviets as they oppressed their client states, Saddam Hussein's
oppression of the Kurds, the Serbs oppression of the Bosnians ... and every
other act of imperial, government oppression. All in the name of order!

~~~
nostrademons
I thought that was the point of the piece - that most Americans _do_ support
the U.S. over ISIL, the U.S. over Iraq, the U.S. over Panama, the U.S. over
Vietnam. In all those cases, we are the hegemon deploying vastly superior
weaponry over a small band of rebels.

I viewed the article as an awareness-raising satire, making people think about
how they may root for the underdog in Star Wars, but in their daily lives,
they're just glad to be on the winning side.

~~~
hackuser
I agree that military superiority is not what fundamentally defines right and
wrong military action in people's minds, including mine. But there are other
differences between, for example, Saddam Hussein suppressing the Kurds and the
American Revolution.

------
ilurk
And that is how you make pro-warfare propaganda as to justify military
incursions and any collateral damage.

The End.

------
moron4hire
Whether or not something is a legitimate military target does not change
whether or not the rules of war apply. Destroying Alderaan was genocide. There
is no splitting hairs about it. It was a war crime.

Just because genocide saves more of your guy's lives than a protracted ground
war doesn't make genocide any more just. The danger to yourself of an invasion
is supposed to be a deterrent. You're supposed to weigh whether or not your
cause is worth having a lot of your own people die before you commit to using
violent power.

I also wouldn't call the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "not genocide" and
I certainly wouldn't say it was justified, regardless of whether or not it
gains any future, official designation as genocide. It was mass-scale,
indiscriminate killing. Is "genocide" the only unacceptable form of mass,
indiscriminate killing? The implication was that it would continue until the
Japanese surrendered or were wiped out.

His understanding of genocide seems to be limited only to race, but the real
definition extends to culture and national units. Alderaan is certainly a
nation--it has its own monarchy. While theoretically that doesn't guarantee
they are a distinct culture from other planets, practically speaking it is a
guarantee. Alderaan being a planet--therefore comparable to our own planet--
probably has several distinct cultures wholly contained within it.

Even by his own false, limited definition, there's no reason to definitively
state Alderaanians are not any less a distinct race of people than the
Serbians are from Bosnians, or Hutus are from Tutsis. Interstellar travel is
portrayed more akin to sailing between continents than flying between major
international hubs, and even that level of mobility is still unable to prevent
Earthlings from stratifying into distinct races.

Since the author is doing his own work to draw parallels to the Middle East
and Daesh, the US didn't just nuke Iraq in 2002 when the Minister of
Information Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf kept lying about their capabilities. And
we would not be justified in nuking Syria or Saudi Arabia today. There is no
conceivable justification for wiping out an entire people.

What Mr. Bunch has really discovered is the Myth of the Supervillain. Every
villain sees themselves as the hero. No villain identifies as evil. They all
have a post-hoc rationalization for why their terrible, terrible actions were
justified, because we can always rationalize anything by appropriately cherry-
picking who we consider human and what laws do and do not apply to non-humans.

------
pilatesfordogs
Does anyone ever feel like star wars became mainstream all of a sudden? I mean
a few years back mist of my friends would've laughed at me when I brought it
up. Now everyone can't wait to see it! What happened??

~~~
oldmanjay
Lucas made the prequels to wow starry-eyed kids, and kids grow up to be
nostalgic adults. That move, more than any other, is why Disney laid out 4
billion dollars for the franchise. They plan to sell to those kids, and their
kids, and so on until there's not a dime left to be made.

I think Lucas got ripped off, frankly. Disney is going to make their money
back on the movies alone.

------
make3
Pro democracy rebels vs a war mongering despotic regime that came into power
by a coup over a democratic republic. The choice is also pretty obvious to me,
though not the same one, obviously.

------
lprubin
If you enjoy thinking about and exploring these types of questions, I highly
recommend Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

------
eveningcoffee
Leaking of coming Star Wars movie advertisements into HN is strong with this
one.

------
gohrt
It's incredibly tacky publish a comic piece that draws these analogies between
a weakly-plotted space opera and an actual current war where thousands of
people are dying, and passes it off as meaningful analysis.

~~~
chippy
it's also marketing for a new star wars film

------
danharaj
If your social order requires the destruction of entire planets in order to
persist, I think your social order is probably shit.

------
guard-of-terra
Nope. You can't justify killing large number of civians. You just can't.

Hiroshima is morally unrepeatable. Dresden bombing is a crime.

Of course, your propaganda can always tries to persuade that it is acceptable.
It's not! You should always seek ways around mass killings.

------
geofft
> The Imperial Grand Moff Tarkin is no worse than Democratic President Harry
> S. Truman — and no one worth listening to considers Truman to be a monster.

OK. So how do we start considering Truman to be a monster? He slaughtered
129,000 people, mostly civilians, in cold blood.

The author makes a perfectly sound argument that the Empire was _no worse
than_ America, and then somehow drives that to the conclusion that the Empire
was good by refusing to budge on the cultural dogma that America can only
possibly be good. There's a much simpler answer here, it seems to me.

------
UhUhUhUh
Marxist Wookie interpretation. It is true that the Force and its Dark Side are
not Good and Evil. They are the two dialectical poles around which life
evolves. Like Eros and Thanatos or Yin and Yang. That's from a universal
perspective. However, from a living being perspective, there is a sweet zone
around the point of equilibrium where life grows from the contradiction
between the two poles. Outside of these bounds, life dies. Life breeding its
own destruction is fundamentally unjustifiable. So the destruction of Alderaan
is unjustified.

