From your quote (presumably from)Inside the Third Reich:
Moreover British airplane attacks began to have so serious an effect on production, that even they forced me to the period to forget about Borrman, Zaukele and control of centralized planning.
In other words, British bombing became the biggest single impediment to increasing production - and wasn’t before the offensive took off under Harris.
Yes , his work “Inside the Third Reich” certainly, paragraf 20:AIRPLANE ATTACKS.
In other words, British bombing became the biggest single impediment to increasing production - and wasn’t before the offensive took off under Harris.
Yes , it was the impediment. And Speer determinated in numeric loss as 9%.
Is it not strange for you that Britain spended half of its war budget to make the impediment of 9% for the Germany(which was easy reconstructed and overstimated )? Not too much pay for 9%?
Oh, another brilliant and biased post from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So, what you are saying is that using incendiaries that deoxigenation the air as a tactic to reach hard to hit targets in deep caves is only “chemical warfare” when the US uses it as a tactic in say Japanese island-hopping campaign circa 1944, but it is not the case when the Russian air forces does this in Chechnya today to seal off caves and kill Chechen guerrillas circa 2005?
BTW Chev, when did I pronounce any moral judgements on the “evil” (your word, not mine) Russian and force for using thermite bombs against Chechen “freedom fighters” (according to Gwertty, I mean if Filipino guerrillas were freedom fighters circa 1899-1903, who could deny the same about the Chechen “insurgents?”) When did I say this was ‘illegal,’ and against the Geneva or Hague conventions? It is merely a contemporary example consistent with Gwertty’s logic.
… it’s just prove that US used the simular methods like Nazi and Japane did (but sometimes US did it much worst).
Your tupical logic is like that-" if the Japane had the a-bomb they compulsorily it used against LA or New York , so we’re good boys that did it first".
This is nazi’s logic
So, read this “source” yourself.
I never mentioned Japan having the “A-bomb,” I only said “strategic bombing.” And it is a fact, is it not? Germany nor Japan had any four-engine bombers with similar capabilities, did they? But they did engage in both terror and firebombing within their capabilities, and attempted to set forest fires in North America using ‘balloon bombs.’ They also bombed civilian areas of Honolulu AFTER Pearl Harbor with sea-planes in a little known small scale air raid.
BTW, is the Soviet “fire-bombing” and indiscriminate night raids on Berlin and Koenig also war crimes? Since the only difference from RAF Bomber Command operations was scale and death, not in tactics nor intent.
And being accused of using “Nazi-logic” by one that is an admitted Holocaust denier bent on accusing the world media of being “Jewish controlled” is just rich! What can I say?!
I wonder what Gwertty would think of that?
What about the impediment to Germany’s fuel and lubricant supplies? Was not strategic bombing successful in that?
And BTW, there was a second front in North Africa, and later Italy. There were also Allied “feints” that effectively tied down large numbers of German occupation troops in Western European countries, Greece, and the Balkans. And construction of the Atlantic Wall was itself an enormous drain on Reich resources. And the US was engaged in what was effectively a two-front war as it was fighting Japan, with enormous resources going to the Pacific as well, so it was not as simply as easy as you make it sound to create an invasion fleet for American armored and infantry forces that simply did not yet exist. The US Army by January 1942 numbered just over 1,000,000 men, and then only because conscription was introduced (very controversially) in 1940, in which case the US Army had been under 200,000 men at the beginning of 1940!
And your arguments against Allied strategic bombing also fail to take into account the enormous resources that the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht had to use in defending against them, in air, radar, fighter production, AAA guns, etc. Was not the Luftwaffe almost totally outnumbered on the Eastern Front by the Soviet Red Air Forces even though the ME109 was the largest produced fighter ever? Perhaps you can explain how this was? Allied strategic bombing, while I agree was a bit of a waste of resources, was as much a war of attrition as it was a direct attack on Germany’s manufacturing base…
Nope. The UK was producing at full tilt on everything, and hence what it spent was controlled by it’s industrial base. The industrial base was setup to produce a high fraction of large aircraft, and as a practical matter to retool and retrain it would have taken several years.
This leaves the UK with the option of either fighting with what it’s got (i.e. Bomber Command and the RN) or not fighting at all for the rest of the war, as it wasn’t until late 1943 or so that it became apparent that Douhet’s theories weren’t going to work. Furthermore, given the size of the German war economy and how close a thing WW2 was, it is arguable that the efforts of Bomber Command tipped the balance enabling a conventional end to WW2.
Honorable gentlemen,
Excuse me for my impertinence, but it seems to me that evident lack of trustworthy factographic databases has caused a quantity of pretty unnecessary conflicts as well as consequential deficiency of rationally evaluated and logically supported conclusions. Therefore I took the liberty of conveying some reliable, till now undisputed resources.
The first one is The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, established by the US Secretary of War on November 3, 1944, pursuant to a directive from the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was established for the purpose of conducting an impartial and expert study of the effects of our aerial attack on Germany, to be used in connection with air attacks on Japan and to establish a basis for evaluating air power as an instrument of military strategy, for planning the future development of the United States armed forces, and for determining future economic policies with respect to the national defense.
A summary report and some 200 supporting reports containing the findings of the Survey in Germany have been published. On 15 August 1945, President Truman requested the Survey to conduct a similar study of the effects of all types of air attack in the war against Japan.
Aforementioned document is located here:
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
And here:
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm
Here is, for example, one very interesting passage:
[i]The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged.
Commencing in the autumn of 1944, the tonnage dropped on city areas, plus spill-overs from attacks on transportation and other specific targets, mounted greatly. In the course of these raids, Germany’s steel industry was knocked out, its electric power industry was substantially impaired and industry generally in the areas attacked was disorganized. There were so many forces making for the collapse of production during this period, however, that it is not possible separately to assess the effect of these later area raids on war production. There is no doubt, however, that they were significant.[/i]
This colossal and utterly important piece of intellectual effort proffers sufficiently veracious answers to some already allotted questions.
However, we are facing here some much more important questions, honorable ladies and gentlemen, perhaps the most decisive question at all – the problem of human suffering during the war. And I think that honorable Mr. Chevan definitely has the point:
War without the rules - this slogan of Nazi’s total war ( and they were realy did it in Eastern front).
Indeed, with every armed conflict – no matter what kind of it - a tribal conflict, a royal battle between two provinces or just a simple demand of a powerful leader to become more powerful, some rules of engagements were always established not just to protect life but also to show a certain respect towards the enemy. During the European medieval times, for example, the knighthood contained within it several basic rules, which covered the protection of their own lives as well as the lives of others. This is why we still refer to the so-called “principle of chivalry”.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau emphasized in his work, The Social Contract, that a war is not an occurrence between individuals, but between states, and one’s status as an enemy is based just on a coincidence. The goal of these humanitarian rules of engagement was and still is the reduction of human suffering in an armed conflict. Rousseau’s perspective provides the fundamental basis of today’s international humanitarian law, that the physical destruction of an enemy may never be the goal of a military action. International humanitarian law and the Convention on certain conventional weapons has to be understood against the backdrop of these basic, intrinsically humanistic principles.
The original turn within international law was initiated by Henry Dunant, who observed the effects of munitions on soldiers at the Battle of Solferino in 1859. Until then Europe’s aristocracy had seen war as glorious. Dunant’s documentation of the reality in A Memory of Solferino changed this perception. In 1863 he and four other Geneva dignitaries created the International Committee of the Red Cross and drew up the First Geneva Convention, which protects sick and wounded soldiers and those caring for them from further attack. The past 100 years have seen many turns of this continuous humanistic cycle, as well as some magnificent, but – alas - almost forgotten codifications of this benevolent will. Regrettably, insignificant, mainly academic personalities were interested for those scholastic contraptions.
You don’t belive this? No problem. Tell me, gentlemen, who on earth knows, for example, for Declaration of Saint Petersburg – the very first and still effective formal agreement prohibiting the use of certain weapons in war?
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/130-60001?OpenDocument
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/130?OpenDocument
It had its origin in the invention, in 1863, by Russian military authorities of a bullet which exploded on contact with hard substance and whose primary object was to blow up ammunition wagons. In 1867 the projectile was so modified as to explode on contact with a soft substance. As such the bullet would have been an inhuman instrument of war Russian Government, unwilling to use the bullet itself or to allow another country to take advantage of it, suggested that the use of the bullet should be prohibited by international agreement. The Declaration to that effect adopted in 1868, which has the force of law, confirms the customary rule according to which the use of arms, projectiles and material of a nature to cause unnecessary suffering is prohibited. This rule was later on laid down in Article 23 (e) of the Hague Regulations on land warfare of 1899 and 1907. And still, gentlemen, who knows for that? Even better – who cares for some forgotten, ancient balderdashings of old academic fools? What? Unnecessary suffering? :shock: To hell with that – forget the rules or you will die!
Death by flames in WW II - horrific example of unnecesarry suffering
Yes, honorable gentlemen - generally, history is - alas - nothing else but a junk-yard of glorious humanistic ideals. Have you ever heard for International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War, proposed in Brussels, on August 27th 1874? No? Well, I am not surprised. Just imagine, in that idiotic legal suggestion there was a chapter about Sieges and bombardments, with some really odd suggestions. Please, just look at that stupidity:
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/135?OpenDocument
Just a few examples:
Art. 15. Fortified places are alone liable to be besieged. Open towns, agglomerations of dwellings, or villages which are not defended can neither be attacked nor bombarded.
Art. 16. But if a town or fortress, agglomeration of dwellings, or village, is defended, the officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.
Art. 17. In such cases all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to art, science, or charitable purposes, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings by distinctive and visible signs to be communicated to the enemy beforehand.
Art. 18. A town taken by assault ought not to be given over to pillage by the victorious troops.
Sweet Jesus! Egg-headed academic idiots! They were never engaged in a real combat! How can we make a war successful with such a foolhardy regulations. Damned civilians! They are completely unproductive – they have produced nothing really usable, just a pile of true senselessness. And, above all, honest tax-paying citizens have financed that with their hard cash! My Lord…:eek:
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO?OpenView
Of course, all previous statements are just embroidered examples of popular triviality regarding international regulations. Tragedy and a hope of contemporary world is concentrated in a verity that no country is exempt from the risks and costs of doing things without regulations. Arming ourselves with the historical facts perhaps we will be able to avoid more then 200 years old malediction and a warning diagnostic pronounced by a Voltaire:
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. 
The section on bombardment went straight into the Hague convention, which was in force during WW2, although ISTR that the bit in article 15 about “fortified” was changed to “defended” as the importance of fortifications changed (by that time, trenches were an effective form of fortification).
From a moral standpoint, there is also the question of when it becomes moral to use the devil’s tools to fight the devil as happened during WW2.
Exactly. My father, from my grandfather, actually has a pre-War book on air power that I recall reading years ago. In that book, airpower or specifically strategic bombing, is written of as something cataclysmic, almost akin to nuclear war. The capabilities were known, and the technology of aeronautics had made leaps and bounds by the 1930s. Although the capabilities of strategic bombing had been exaggerated as a “city-killer,” the high cost was either known by the high commands and political leadership of both Germany and Japan, or they damn well should have been aware of it! They started a brutal war, or a series of wars, out of sheer hubris and inhumanity. I have criticized both Curtis LeMay (who should have been forced to retire after WWII, and who was nearly strangled by JFK for his insolence and war mongering during the Cuban Missile Crisis) and ‘Bomber’ Harris as “bastards,” but to solely blame them and their nations and to condemn them to war criminal status is clearly a bizarre thought-experiment into surreality. I think to paraphrase a line from “Apocalypse Now” that to speculate as such is akin to, “charging somebody with murder in this place is like giving out speeding tickets at the Indy500.” What both LeMay and Harris did were in the context of battle and conflict, not occupation and domination. Japan and Germany “sowed the wind, and (they) reaped the whirlwind.”
So, instead of obsessing over particular incidents engaging in revisionist semantics and mindless, droning, selective, and hypocritical nation-bashing, perhaps we should acknowledge that Tecumseh Sherman was correct when he stated “War is hell!” Such horrors should be used to better understand why wars should never be waged offensively, and why people should never follow despots and believe revisionist conspiracy theories that enable tyrants (i.e. anti-semitism, racism, hubris, etc.) and follow the lawless ideals of the totalitarian. Because some here clearly haven’t learned these lessons.
Yeah, if you want to pick anyone out for villification it should be the Italians and Douhet in particular. By the time WW2 kicked off it was too late to do anything about it.
Librarian your pic is labeled Dead soviet pilot…assuming this person died in a plane crash. Were you just trying to show the horror’s of being burned to death??? … because would have assumed it would be a japanese person given the topic.
Yes, when fighting a war you forget the rules, if you want to win, especially if you have been attacked. there is nothing wrong with that and every victorious nation of WWII were forced to fight in a way that was barbarous, inhuman, against the grain of basic human decency. They were forced to fight this way because of nations determined to kill and enslave people who they believed were inferior to their warped view of the world.
And I thank everyone who fought for our freedom.
As far as the truth goes, some sources are less reliable than others and I would not dare to quote any author for lying or distorting the truth. There are liable laws against that.
More than anything else the truth is mainly distorted by inaccuracies, lack of information, sources or even the era a published article is written. No author is perfect and they can only go with the information at hand. Thankfully since the 1980’s there has been a flood of information from official and private sources which has filled in many gaps of WWII history.
One classic example of this is Galland’s post war memoir ‘The First and The Last.’ This is a great book, but suffers from some ‘thin’ treatment of subjects, especially the late war period. Compare that to JV44 The Galland Circus which is far more comprehensive.
Lastly when looking at history in any shape or form it all boils down to interpretation. It’s human nature, individual people will have individual views of the same set of facts.
And that is why debating subjects such as this are so fascinating and I applaud the contribution of anyone, no matter how heated the debate becomes.
Regards to all,
Digger.
From a moral standpoint, there is also the question of when it becomes moral to use the devil's tools to fight the devil as happened during WW2.
Touché, honorable Mr. Pdf27 – yes, you have the point here. However, the main problem with this stance is the verity that aforesaid posture of yours actually represents a descriptive one – it suggests explanation how things are ore they were, whereas normative or prescriptive theory of ethics tells us how things ought to be (for example: people ought to be honest). Ethics and its conclusive social construct – law – is always about what ought to be, not what actually is or was.
Consequently, from the standpoint of normative ethics, as well as from the standpoint of legal normativity, it never becomes ethical or lawful to use the devils tools to fight the devil, because the single act of usage makes you devilish too. After all, the whole wonderful building of International Humanitarian Law is raised upon this fundamental cornerstone.
They started a brutal war, or a series of wars, out of sheer hubris and inhumanity…
Absolutely true, my dear Mr. Nickdresh. Only problem is the fact that previous statement has nothing to do with the principles of International Humanitarian Law, which has the universal character: the regulations of International Law hold for everyone, regardless of time, place, color of uniform, social status, race, sex or other social or individual determinants of people involved. The rights secured by regulations of International Law or Institutions of Justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. They are impartial. This principle forbids us from treating one person different than another. What to hell I am blabbering about? Well, allow me, please one unreservedly known example. Yes, I know – I am leaving the direct theme of our thread, but – alas – I don’t know how to otherwise explain this indeed knotty, and - basically - strict and stringent legal problematic.
I’m sure you know for the terrible occurrence known as Malmédy massacre, which happened during the Western Campaign in 1944 – for the unashamed murder of American POWs at Malmédy. There is no controversy over what happened. A number of American prisoners had been assembled at the Baugnez crossroads, near aforementioned Malmédy, as spearhead units of I SS Panzer Corps streamed past. They were guarded by two PzKpfw 4 tanks and their crews. German sources claim that only some 20 POWs were involved, Belgian witnesses say around 35, and the American claim over 120. Whatever the numbers involved, undeniable fact is that a crewman in tank number 731, a Romanian Volskdeutsche named Georg Fleps, fired his submachine gun into the mass of prisoners. As they scattered the other German soldiers opened fire and prisoners were killed.
Malmédy masacre
You see, my dear Mr. Nickdfresh, from the standpoint of International Law this was clarly a crime for which the perpetrators would have to be brought to justice. Unconditionally. For the International Law it is completely insignificant whether Fleps was angry, feared, sexually frustrated, deprived because his sisters were killed in American bombing-raid, or perhaps rancorous because some American GI told him in a good, ole rebellious Texan way “Up to y….s, you bovine-looking Kraut” – all previously mentioned is completely unimportant – the only really important thing is the fact that he has pulled the trigger an blatantly murdered unarmed soldiers after they had surrendered, and that aforesaid verity was direct and undisputable violation of regulations submitted by Art. 23 (c). of the CONVENTION RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LAND, namely this rows:
To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;
Briefly, my der Mr. Nikdfresh, he was a brazen killer and he deserved his penallty. The case is clear. Period.
However, supposing that every rational human being is able to regard herself or himself as a subject of International Law, and that everyone who is sufficiently mentally cogent will legislate exactly the same, bold, intrinsically humanistic universal principles, I am forced to admit that the very same regulations, the corresponding punishment, as well as all societal repercussions are completely applicable to misdeeds of this personality, this time one in the uniform of US Army, namely to the 1st Lt. Jack Bushyhead, Executive Officer of a I Company, 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, of the U.S. 45th (Thunderbird) Division, who had illegitimately and dishonestly massacred with his Browning model 1919A4 machine gun 346 german prisoners of war on April 29, 1945.
1st Lt. Jack Bushyhead – US war criminal
Veracity that aforesaid personality has committed already mentioned atrocity is beyond reasonable doubt. All relevant factographic material concerning this question is located here:
http://www.humanitas-international.org/archive/dachau-liberation/
I think that clear-cut lawful, and if nothing else, my personal stance about actual question of this thread is now completely clarified.
Don’t worry my dear Mr. Nikdfresh - no one on this planet could possibly seek to condone or justify the actions of the Einsatzgruppen, the Gestapo, blatant murders of innocent civilians, Japanese decapitators, ferocious rapists, etc. etc. Those monstrous personalities, no matter in what kind of a uniform, as well as those aforesaid organizations or institutions must go down to the sink of civilization as examples of monstrous aberrations of human civilization. Their claim that they were simply soldiers, national representatives, political leaders or whatever, must be rejected – absolutely and undeniably.
But in the very same time, it has to be said that perhaps, in the fullness of time, when all of the official documents relating to the WW II have been opened, and the full facts are known about the actions of both sides, then perhaps we will be able to improve our legal systems of protection to the most extent toward every single human being on this planet. If nothing else than because of the verity that those ancient, forgotten, coursed, often humiliated, and spotted words like “Truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” as well as those ones repeatedly treated with ridicule like “liberty and justice for all” are not only empty slogans. They are deeply embedded constituents of every single common human being on this planet!
Whatever may be our personal wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they will be unable to alter the state of facts and evidence. No social ambition has a right to stand in the way of performing simple act of justice. Truth, no matter how distressful, at least in the history of the Western civilization, was always welcomed as a benevolent, inspiring quality, and no mans or societal ambition has a right to stand in away of performing a simple act of justice!
Therefore, Gentlemen – I am for those burned and for those incinerated, for the butchered and poisoned, slaughtered and ravished ones, regardless on their race, sex, color, nationality or social status: and I shall apologize for it only by the immortal words of late John Adams: “If I can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessings and tears shall be sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of mankind!”
perhaps we should acknowledge that Tecumseh Sherman was correct when he stated “War is hell!” Such horrors should be used to better understand why wars should never be waged offensively…
Absolutely agreed, Sir! Indeed, honorable ladies and gentlemen, it almost curious that in our photo depository, as well as in different places on our Forum we do have a plethora of different factographic material concerning technical means, tactical ideas, colors and markings, uniforms, etc. etc but one part of the war is significantly absent – the horrors, misery, pain and evil of it. Perhaps we can start a special, somehow congested thread for factographic data considering this item. Because without that part whole this stuff we are accumulating here is somehow incomplete…
Librarian your pic is labeled Dead soviet pilot…assuming this person died in a plane crash. Were you just trying to show the horror’s of being burned to death???
Exactly, Sir. That was the best WW 2 color photography of a burned man available. It was taken by Dr. Alfred Ott during the German advance toward Moscow, and accordingly to his notes that ill-fated human being actually survived the crash. He has tried to escape from the burning wreck, but – alas – that was beyond his might. And the other side was unwilling to help. His struggle for life, as well as his chances for survival, were - obviously - unpromising.
Another potentially usable color snapshot that handles the very same problematic was the following one:
However, it actually presents a citizen of Hiroshima, with a badly burnings caused by thermal effects of nuclear explosion, and not by inflammable hydrocarbons.
every victorious nation of WWII were forced to fight in a way that was barbarous, inhuman, against the grain of basic human decency
No, my dear Mr. Digger - nobody was forced to fight in that way – freedom of choice always exists.
Life of this man, this brave, modest, humane, compassionate and honest American Flyer – Lt Col. Beirne Lay, my personal example of an American B 17 Hero, makes clear that humanism requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity, my dear Mr. Digger, that sooner or later is presented to us all. War furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of humanism, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow man – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of pas humanism can define that ingredient – they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply humanism itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
And if you are interesting what has he done, or how he has behaved just google his name. You will be able to see one truly exceptional biography.
BTW: I really do appreciate your candidness. It is a sign of a heartfelt character.
There is something fundamentally un-ethical about that code of ethics however. It ignores the net effects of an action, concentrating on the immediate effects.
To use a rather contrived example, shooting a random guy runnning down the street with a rifle would be un-ethical by that standard (people ought to be free to run down the street in safety). However, if said guy was about to run straight into a school and shoot everyone then the net effects would be better for having shot him - and yet by your standards it would be unethical to do so. It’s totally contrived and a bad example, but the same point holds true in war. If you artificially handicap the only side with moral scruples, it is less likely to win and an at best amoral side will win. The postwar effects will then be worse than the net wartime effects of using “immoral” levels of force.
Fundamentally, I think most of “international law” is @~#* personally, with some exceptions (Geneva and Hague conventions mainly) and fails to take into account reality.
Yes, Librarian I know the story of Lt. Col. Beirne Lay quite well as his works on aerial warfare are required reading and viewing for anyone interested in the subject. He was a remarkable man, of that there is no doubt.
As were others. Unfortunately many who fought in war, did not go down the same path as Mr. Lay, whether by circumstance or choice.
Simply not everyone had a freedom of choice when confronted with life or death conditions and obviously some people made a choice to follow a darker path as evidence in your own posts.
War is a great destroyer of innocence and noble principles and few escape wars touch uneffected. Unfortunately to win a war, one must fight a war in all it’s barbarism.
And thankyou Librarian for your excellent posts.
Regards to all,
Digger.
There is something fundamentally un-ethical about that code of ethics however. It ignores the net effects of an action, concentrating on the immediate effects.
No, my dear Mr. Pdf27 – fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I have scrupulously examined numerous codes of ethics some 20 years ago, when we were regularly and carefully briefed by a couple of guys from some odd places located back there in States. What was the name of that place? Cambridge… yes, near Boston, if I remembered that well… Well, never mind - back then I was told that the normative ethics actually is the basis of every single legal system on this planet, and particularly the basis – the very essence of US Legal System.
The Law, my dear Mr. Pdf27, however, is a many paradoxes. The law must be known, though most of us are ignorant of it. The law must be certain, though it is usually written with convenient vagueness. The law must be uniform, but it classifies dissimilar things for different treatment. Law is the prerequisite of liberty, but laws promote liberty by the exercise of authority. Law is necessary to keep the peace, but the law is upheld by force. Law is all the rules of government which determine our conduct in society. It forbids us to do this – it requires us to do that. The power of the law is a policeman in uniform. The majesty of the law is a judge in black robe.
The principal purpose of law is to control relations among human beings. Law exists to settle disputes and to maintain order, and because of that verity it always has a normative character - we simply would not need to consider what we ought to do if we always did it as a substance of everyday path of activity.
Most people are, as we all know, naturally social and as a matter of habit abide by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them to unto you”. However, people have very different interests, and when these interests come into serious conflict, the self-interest of the strongest or the smartest is likely to prevail. This is Jungle Law. Civilization, however, is designed to establish justice in which the community secures the rights of individuals and promises each man his due under law.
In a democracy, the laws presumably reflect what the majority of the people believe is right, or good for the greatest number. But the very core of it is always based upon normativity – defined by Justice Benjamin Cardozo as “some principles of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience as to be ranked as fundamental”. Justice Felix Frankfurter holds that law is “deeply rooted in reason that cannot be arbitrary, capricious or whimsical.” What “shocks the conscience” or runs counter to the “decencies of civilized conduct” cannot be upheld as due process of law.
American legal system insists upon quality that laws do have validity only if they are intrinsically just, only if they accord with the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” as pronounced by the Framing Fathers. American legal tradition always compound justice with ethicality – what is good, and what is right, for man to do one to other. Legal relativism, obviously favored by you, rejects these principles as outworned concepts which no longer fit the factual need of the world, preferring a well known pragmatistic posture “more important that a case be settled than it be settled right”. Only problem with that stance, my dear Mr. Pdf 27 is the fact that the very same concept actually was implemented within the III Reich. You don’t belive this? No problem. I shall explain that too.
You see, The American Declaration of Indipendence holds that all man are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Hapiness.
The US Constitution idealistically declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty and property “without due process of law” and further provides that no state shell deprive any person within its jurisdiction of the “equal protection of the laws”. Yes, I know – it’s really strange - but those fools have took for granted the idealistic stance that every individual possesses basic rights and liberties simply because he is a human being entitled to decent respect from his fellows!:shock:
On the other hand we do have some more pragmatistic views. For example this one: “…we are nowadays facing a mixture of races, whose very names are unprounceable, and whose physique is such that one can shoot them down without pity and compassion, because these animals, that torture and ill-treat every prisoner from our side, every wounded man that they come across and do not threat them the way decent people would, you will see for yourself. These people, have been welded by Jews into one religion, one ideology that is called Bolshevism, with the task: Now we have Russia, half of Asia, a part of Europe, now we will overwhelm Germany and the whole world. But no gentlemen, you are wrong! We know who you are and we are prepared for you!” – as clearly stated by Heinrich Himmler in july of 1941.
And here you have, my dear Mr. Pdf27, dreadful and clear net-effect of unlimited ethical pragmatism, pragmatism that was amply prepared by clothing absurd pragmatical needs in the forms of preposterous administrative procedure. It has completely discredited the whole idea of justice in Europe.
Pripyat, 1941 – USSR - Robert Hunt Picture Library
Therefore please - look into the final net-effect expression of the stance “without pity and compassion”! Just look into the fruits of a simple, utterly unscrupulous “pacification operation” in the Pripet Marshes during the course of which some 259 Soviet soldiers were killed and 6504 civilians executed. Is it sufficiently pragmatic for you, if I may ask?
On the other hand I am assuring you that shall remain upon establishment instituted “to secure those unalienable rights” that are idealistically placed beyond the reach of the any existing majority. When God gave Adam reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing. And my option is this - the old, crepuscular, unpopular but still vivid and utterly humanistic symbol of old-fashioned normativistic idealism. With some strange letters engraved in a speechless, but irradiating marble:
And yes - don’t be afraid – the doctrines of unalienable rights were not meant to imply license of absolute liberty, with every man free to do whatever pleases him personally. Human rights were and are conceived into a ethical context. The individual not only has a legal right but also a ethical responsibility to seek the truth and to act in accordance with the right reason. Moreover, every individual is always constrained by the society in which he lives. He has a moral commitment as well as a legal obligation to respect the rights and liberties of his neighbor!
No man is an island, entire in itself – no one of us can live alone. And no individual has an absolute claim to a right if it is in a conflict with a neighbor’s claim – every personal liberty is restricted to certain ends and limits fixed by society. As justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theathre and causing a panic.” Therefore don’t worry – those kids in the school always will be protected somehow. Perhaps with a normal, clipped matter-of-fact intonation deplored in classical Reasonable neighbor proclamation: “What to hell think you are doing with that gun?”
The right to full and free discussion is tempered by the ethical maxim that reasonable men may reasonable disagree – but they must stay within bounds of reason.
May God bless you and keep you all.
Librarian,
I applaud your last post. Excellent.
You are correct, many of us do not understand our rights under law, nor the sometimes inconsistent application of those laws.
Once again thankyou for thoughtful input.
Regards to all, Digger.
Who are you surprising Mr. Librarian ?
Professional historian of philosopher?
I’t unpossible not agree with you in all your posts.
And why you wrote you from Serbia - it’s obviously you know the American law’s much better than some of our forum americans.
Cheers.
Librarian, I appreciate your command of English!
Salute!
And it’s not possible to argue with You… Salute again,
Kindest regards,
Lancer44
I think you’ve got the wrong idea from my point. The one I was trying to make is that applying law to all aspects of warfare leads to a situation where the legality and morality of an individual act alone are considered. From a moral standpoint, it is imperative that the effects of an action (or of not taking an action) are considered, rather than the action itself. Legal examination of merely the action leads to consideration of the immediate effects (both geographically and chronologically) and so usually misses the most important ones. The result is that I think you’re better off considering the great moral thinkers like Thomas Aquinas or Augustine of Hippo than legal minds like Holmes or Cicero.
Incidentally, where did you learn your English? It’s been years since I’ve seen the word “scrupulously” in normal usage. I like :D.