Total War.?

Question

What happened to the days where when someone messed w/ America or her allies, the US would hit back harder? In WW2, we went and leveled city after city not worrying about civillian casualties and there wasnt even an attack towards our civillians (you could say Pearl Harbor, but that wasnt directed at civillians).

Like Iraq, the mission going in was to take care of the Saddam threat; after the US accomplished that, the mission turned to helping the Iraqis? What is that about? Now the government realizes that Al Qeuda is in Iraq (dont argue about it, even if its not on a large scale; they are there) along w/ other enemies of the US.

So why not go through and bomb everything (everything outside the green zones) back to the Stone Age? Are civillians of some rag tag country worth the lives of US Troops? Im all for the US protecting the US or allies of the US, but why the Hell put American lives at risk to save people in a country weve invaded twice in the past 20 years?

Jon- I understand where your coming from and can agree to some point in what your saying. Im not saying kill everybody in the World, or even all of the people in Iraq, as long as we dont loose anymore Troops. And I didnt mean that they are worthless and that Im any better than them, your right they had no choice in where they are or anything; but what I meant was that 15% of the Iraqis are either Insurgents or supporting the Insurgency in some way, shape, or form. But to get those 15%, if the other 85% wont step up and point them out...Then all 100% will have to suffer the consiquences.

And BTW, its not well known; but we fire bombed Tokyo and Im guessing you know what that means but just incase...Japan had alot of straw/easily burnable kind of hoems and buildings, so they would drop bombs that startted fires in the citys they were dropped; if thats not directed at civillians Im not sure what is.

Answer 1

I agree with total war, it has been proved over the centuries that limited military conflicts only delay the onset of greater and deadlier wars later.

Politics rule the actions in today's world. The fear of nukes I believe have cowed even the strongest hawks on the political front. Sadly, we in the Military (Army is my branch) KNOW what we CAN do if we were allowed to. We don't need nukes to bring our enemies under control, but the politicians will never allow us to take the brutal means that our foes would if they could!

Answer 2

Unfortunately (or fortunately to some), the indiscriminate attack against civilians goes against the Geneva Convention. During the 'total war' in WWII, the attacks against civilians was not a crime against humanity.

An opinion was rendered in international courts to wit:

"in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the Conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war"

At the time, "total war" meant the civilians on both sides faced indiscriminate aerial bombing, including incendiary attacks, nuclear attacks, and assaults on centers of culture/churches/schools, etc.

A change in the Geneva Conventions, beginning in 1949 were the results from the uproar of the fire bombing of Dresden, nuclear attacks on Japan, and other indiscriminate carpet bombing during WW II.

Therefore, in answer to your question, there were no specific treaties or conventions broken AT THE TIME of the bombings and therefore it was not a war crime, these prohibitions all came after the war.

Now, we're bound by international law from doing what you propose, not saying i'm for or against it, just answering your question.

Of course, in a full-scale nuclear exchange, the international laws are meaningless.

Answer 3

I hate liberals myself but see here is where you went wrong, you said arent US lives more important than civilians of some rag tag country, this is by far very narrow thinking and could be considered racist. EVERYONE is a human, and the civilians have done nothing to garner their own destruction and on top of this I pose this question to you, how in the world if we did that would we be any better than Saddam? They had nothing to do with the invasion of Kuwait, so by your thinking because they were simply born Iraqi they dont have the right to exist? Simply because their country is rag tag?? Hmm I wonder how many of us would be here today if some foreign country had that same feeling when we had our depression?? I know I wouldnt exist because both my parents families lived through the depression and if they were just disposed of because we were rag tag at the time then you nor I wouldnt be here.

Also you might want to check your sources about how we didnt care about bombing civilians in WWII, in the ETO we tried to avoid non military targets,(this was not the case for the Brits who fired bombed cities in retaliation for the raids on Londons civilian parts.) And in the PTO we didnt bomb civilians on Jap soil till the atomic bombs.

Answer 4

Dude, even in WW2 we bombed factories, not cities. The only two times that cities were targeted was with the atom bombs we dropped on Japan and that was because the kill radius made civilian damage assessments irrelevant.

Complete destruction was never our intent. Warfare is always about defeating the enemy strategy. As the world changes, so do the methods for warfighting.

Answer 5

Because the gutless traitors running the country won't allow it. If the military were allowed to fight a proper war instead of a politically correct one, the insurgency would be wiped out and most of the troops would have been home long ago.

Answer 6

I say bomb them and I don't care about their children their grandmas or anything. After what they did to us, then I say just bomb Iraq and get it over with quit bs's around. Thats my opinion. That way my kids don't have to worry about their lives. They can play happy and worry free when they are older.

Answer 7

I love waycar111s answer. I think there's a lot of reasons for it, though, but that's a great one. Sometimes, I daydream about the kind of revenge we enacted after we were sucker-punched at Pearl Harbor. I guess that's why I'm not in charge, though - I'd annihilate people. :-)

Answer 8

One slight problem you might run into. You would create about 1.3 Billion new Muslims terrorists who would be very angry with the US (minus the 30 Million Iraqis). Not to mention that Saudi Arabia and every other oil county in the Mideast would stop selling oil to the US causing the worst econmic disaster in US History.

Answer 9

If you had someone like Patton or MacArthur in charge they would have bombed the problem areas into submission. In Congress and the Senate today you have men without chests

Answer 10

The problem is that the USA handicaps itself by trying to fight a war according to international laws, while the terrorists do not.