On: Bomb Sight – Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census

[mc32]

I agree with that when it comes to starting a war as an aggressor --but not as a defensive war. I mean, if someone is coming to get you and they have vilified you or for whatever reason have decided to wage war against your group, it would be utter folly to say, well, it's wrong to dehumanize and vilify the enemy, unless you propose getting rolled over is an acceptable alternative.

[shakna → mc32]

That sort of thinking leads to "the ends justify the means".

Because we're on the defense, then any captured POWs don't deserve human rights.

Because we're on the defense, we can deploy nerve gas against them.

If all you do is see the enemy as the villain... You become one.

[mc32 → shakna]

There is that possibility --and we saw that in WWii with German prisoners of war captured by Soviet forces. On the other side US forces were much kinder to German PoWs, but that's perhaps because it wasn't as personal a war to us.

Ethics and morality don't help win wars --but they are good PR post war, if you are the winner.

There is no clean answer to this problem because your enemy will by all means take advantage of your self-imposed constraints. Osama even admitted fighting the Soviets was very, very hard fought --and fighting the Americans would be a much easier task in his view. Here is one place I might agree with his assessment.