Comments Elsewhere

M. Simon:

America didn’t just kill Indians. For the most part we were in a continuous state of war with them. The fact that the Indians liked to kill civilians (which was reciprocated to some extent) ought to enter into the calculation. Treaty breaking and various stupidites were done by both sides.

This is absolute nonsense on several fronts.

“America” was not a “side” in any war; it is a pair of continents. Nor were “Indians” a “side” in any war; the word describes several different independent nations of people spread out across those two continents, who have and had a bewildering variety of cultures, religions, economic systems, languages, technological levels, political constitutions, etc. etc. etc. over the course of tens of thousands of years’ worth of history, including nations that fought with white people and nations that allied with white people and nations that never met white people at all and nations that fought with or allied with each other. Talking about relations between “America” and its relations with “Indians” is precisely as historically enlightening as talking about relations between “Eurasia” and “Europeans.” Which is to say, not at all. If you want to talk about something specific (like the ethnic cleansing-cum-genocide committed against the Cherokee in Georgia, or the wars fought against the Creek or Seminole, or the wars against the Plains Indians in the late 19th century), then we can do so. I think you’ll find that each of these are quite different cases, and that some of them involved atrocities on both sides and others were little more than unilateral slaughter.

But the problem is that not only is this absolute nonsense, but also that the more specific cases you seem to want to refer to are one and all irrelevant to the point. There certainly were some wars with Indian nations in which atrocities were committed against white people by members of those nations. So what? The fact that atrocities are committed by both sides doesn’t make atrocities by either side justifiable. This is part of the ethical point being made throughout this thread: wrong is wrong no matter who, or how many, are doing it.

M. Simon, again:

And yes. Hitler loved cowboys and Indians. He patterned his camps after the camps for Indians.

That’s part of the reason why it’s not an apples-and-oranges comparison.

M. Simon, again:

So perhaps the calculation in WW2 (right or wrong) was to avoid repeating that mistake. We got to dictate the Japanese Constitution and their type of government. Something not possible without complete defeat.

…

The question in 1945 was not was Japan a current threat. It was – will they be one in the future without complete defeat. Once you pay the price for a hot war it is good to finish the job. if you can.

So do you believe that it’s OK to incinerate half a million innocent civilians, in a country that no longer poses any military threat to you, if you can make improvements to their constitution by doing so?

Can’t you think of any way of averting future wars that doesn’t involve the use of terror-bombing to kill hundreds of thousands of non-combatants?