Isn't the deliberate killing of civilians a war crime anyway? And as such you wouldn't be ordered to bomb the town regardless?
Poll: Civilians or Soldiers?
- Thread starter Xealeon
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No_Remainders said:
The problem is that this isnt just to save a few soldiers, you cant be weak and loose it all, the faster the war is over the better. You cant risk loosing a war to save a few innocents.
I'd rather let the soldiers die.
While I sincerely do not care about the children(they lack the mental capacity to comprehend anything even remotely complex, and therefore I don't consider them sentient beings, and I find them unlikeable, so I have no empathy towards 'em), I can see the point of view of an average civilian who wants no part in the war, and therefore did not sign up to be in the army.
Soldiers on the other hand DID join the army(assuming they didn't get drafted, in which case, I feel sorry for them too, no fate worse than being drafted into military against your will, and then being sent to war in order to die, to top the initial loss of freedom off).
In any case, I wouldn't condone killing or letting people die either way, but if it did come down to a choice, I'd let the soldiers die, as people have pointed out previously, soldiers can atleast fight back, while civilians cannot.
In fact I find wars essentially the culmination of human stupidity and lack of ability to see the big picture, so to speak.
While I sincerely do not care about the children(they lack the mental capacity to comprehend anything even remotely complex, and therefore I don't consider them sentient beings, and I find them unlikeable, so I have no empathy towards 'em), I can see the point of view of an average civilian who wants no part in the war, and therefore did not sign up to be in the army.
Soldiers on the other hand DID join the army(assuming they didn't get drafted, in which case, I feel sorry for them too, no fate worse than being drafted into military against your will, and then being sent to war in order to die, to top the initial loss of freedom off).
In any case, I wouldn't condone killing or letting people die either way, but if it did come down to a choice, I'd let the soldiers die, as people have pointed out previously, soldiers can atleast fight back, while civilians cannot.
In fact I find wars essentially the culmination of human stupidity and lack of ability to see the big picture, so to speak.
Are the soldiers critical to ending the war?
Would the soldiers surrender and become prisoners of war?
I can't make a good decision without these three facts, but if I had to, I would let the soldiers die, because the civilians are less ready for death than the soldiers, and the atrocity of slaughtering a helpless village would be more than I could stomach.
Would the soldiers surrender and become prisoners of war?
I can't make a good decision without these three facts, but if I had to, I would let the soldiers die, because the civilians are less ready for death than the soldiers, and the atrocity of slaughtering a helpless village would be more than I could stomach.
By your logic, we should screw obeying the law. If you want something, steal it. After all, eeeeveryone else obeys the law.somonels said:
On topic, I tend to lean in favor of the civilians, because they had no choice about putting their lives at risk. As people have pointed out, conscripts would be different, but then I see conscription to active service as a war crime in its own right except in the most desperate circumstances (ie not 'we need more men to throw at Vietnam').
That said, you can't really answer without knowing the whole situation. Are the soldiers just on patrol, or are they performing a task incredibly important to the war that could save more lives?
Would you mind burning to death alongside your loved ones, screaming all the way, while following that ideology? There are no civilians, after all, so it would be wrong for you to have any hard feelings over it.mad825 said:
I have a problem with most of the posts on this topic. I keep seeing people say "Well they knew what they signed up for". If you paid attention you would know that this took place during World War II where almost every single American man of fighting age was drafted "for the duration". Sure enough it didn't say the were American but you should all keep in mind that not all soldiers are soldiers by choice.
Secondly how is this even an issue? If this airwing has enough firepower to destroy an entire village than why wouldn't they use it to destroy the enemy? Think about it this way: the only thing this villages rubble would block would be vehicles not infantry ho could just keep marching. So we know that we're dealing with an enemy force consisting heavily of vehicles, well FFS there you go when the enemy drive past the village bomb them into oblivion, their own charred tanks and trucks will create a roadblock and the day is saved.
I know plenty of you will reply to me saying "that's not the point of the question" but it is to me. That's the problem with these little moral dilemmas. Unless your dealing with fucking jigsaw here there's almost no way to make one of these situations work.
I'll play ball this time though if I absolutely had to make a decision I would bomb the village. First of all in WWII targeting civilian targets wasn't that big of a deal. Secondly as the one in command of this bomber squadron I would have an obligation both to protect my own men and to follow my orders. The way I see it all life is sacred and saying that a soldier is worth less than a civilian just won't cut it to me.
Secondly how is this even an issue? If this airwing has enough firepower to destroy an entire village than why wouldn't they use it to destroy the enemy? Think about it this way: the only thing this villages rubble would block would be vehicles not infantry ho could just keep marching. So we know that we're dealing with an enemy force consisting heavily of vehicles, well FFS there you go when the enemy drive past the village bomb them into oblivion, their own charred tanks and trucks will create a roadblock and the day is saved.
I know plenty of you will reply to me saying "that's not the point of the question" but it is to me. That's the problem with these little moral dilemmas. Unless your dealing with fucking jigsaw here there's almost no way to make one of these situations work.
I'll play ball this time though if I absolutely had to make a decision I would bomb the village. First of all in WWII targeting civilian targets wasn't that big of a deal. Secondly as the one in command of this bomber squadron I would have an obligation both to protect my own men and to follow my orders. The way I see it all life is sacred and saying that a soldier is worth less than a civilian just won't cut it to me.
Oooooohhhhhhhh why didn't you just say that in the first place.Xealeon said:
Assuming that the soldiers aren't ending the war, and they have little to no chance of surrendering successfully, and our country wasn't in dire straights because of so few soldiers, I really don't know. I think I would kill the civilians, but I would live with guilt over it for the rest of my life.
In order of priority for me its
Allied civilians > Allied soldiers > Enemy civilians > Enemy soldiers
And for those that think soldiers signed up "to die", they didn't, that's called suicide, they signed up to fight and defend their people's interests, or were forced into war via conscription or coercion, and can be just as much a victim of war as a civilian. I think its sad that some people think of soldiers as heartless machines that are somehow below other humans when they are in the thick of the messes that many times they didn't even start. I'm more of the opinion that a soldier's job is to defend its people, even at the cost of their own lives. While I'm not saying soldiers should go out of their way to kill or harm enemy civilians, I am saying you shouldn't worry about them more then your own, that's the enemy soldier's job.
Allied civilians > Allied soldiers > Enemy civilians > Enemy soldiers
And for those that think soldiers signed up "to die", they didn't, that's called suicide, they signed up to fight and defend their people's interests, or were forced into war via conscription or coercion, and can be just as much a victim of war as a civilian. I think its sad that some people think of soldiers as heartless machines that are somehow below other humans when they are in the thick of the messes that many times they didn't even start. I'm more of the opinion that a soldier's job is to defend its people, even at the cost of their own lives. While I'm not saying soldiers should go out of their way to kill or harm enemy civilians, I am saying you shouldn't worry about them more then your own, that's the enemy soldier's job.
I'm ex military and "collateral damage" happens.
But given the choice between wiping out a village or friends who's lives are depending on me then the village goes.
Heartless? Maybe.
I don't know how "black and white" some of you think a warzone is but none of it is as simple as people make it out to be.
No, civilians shouldn't be fired upon but sometimes we don't have a choice.
I'll apologise to any Irish here for using this example but it's just to highlight a point.
British patrols in Northern Ireland used to come under fire from blocks of flats. In those flats were IRA (or UVF depending) and they used civilians quite literally as human shields.
And right there we have our bad publicity. British soldiers were not willing to die so they fired back.
Later orders were sent down that under no circumstances were we to engage if this happened so we took to patrols with tanks to give us moving cover to get to the blocks and gut them out.
Another tactic they used was to hide in groups of civilians and start shooting.
You have a choice, fire back or die.
In the situation above you have a choice. You take out the village and stop enemy reinforcements or you leave them and die.
It's quite easy to make a judgement in your home safe and sound but it's quite another to be in the field.
But given the choice between wiping out a village or friends who's lives are depending on me then the village goes.
Heartless? Maybe.
I don't know how "black and white" some of you think a warzone is but none of it is as simple as people make it out to be.
No, civilians shouldn't be fired upon but sometimes we don't have a choice.
I'll apologise to any Irish here for using this example but it's just to highlight a point.
British patrols in Northern Ireland used to come under fire from blocks of flats. In those flats were IRA (or UVF depending) and they used civilians quite literally as human shields.
And right there we have our bad publicity. British soldiers were not willing to die so they fired back.
Later orders were sent down that under no circumstances were we to engage if this happened so we took to patrols with tanks to give us moving cover to get to the blocks and gut them out.
Another tactic they used was to hide in groups of civilians and start shooting.
You have a choice, fire back or die.
In the situation above you have a choice. You take out the village and stop enemy reinforcements or you leave them and die.
It's quite easy to make a judgement in your home safe and sound but it's quite another to be in the field.
As other's have said, bomb the enemies civvies. This is WWII after all, and it's not like we didn't burn half of Japan with napalm before we even used the nuke. But yeah, I'm pretty sure they know when trouble is coming their way (ground forces) and they would probably have some sort of surveillance and sirens to denote when a raid is going on/about to happen. Not 100% fool-proof, but the easiest way to win a war is to break the enemies morale.
I really can't add much to that priority list, other than to agree to it.BlazeRaider said:
This isn't set in stone, of course. I wouldn't support mass executions of enemy civilians in order to reduce allied soldier casualties or other such war crimes but, in a wartime situation, I'm GENERALLY going to place a higher priority on everybody on my sad over anybody on the enemy side.
As a civvie from a heavily militarized family, I have to ask.Rawne1980 said:
Wasn't the last example - the Terrs in the Civilian groups - the very reason Flashbangs and concussion grenades were invented?
Not having a go, literally just asking, was it the reason for them?
OT:
As stated above, civvie from a military family (both sides of the tree) I have heard the stories about the shit that has gone down in some theaters of war and circumstantially none of it can be slapped with a "good" or "evil" tag.
Sometimes civilians are in the way and in order to save the many the few must die. Its called triage and while its not a popular idea it has always been the militaries 1st port of call. They blame it on triage.
I have to agree that if thousands will die if you don't sacrifice a handful then kill the few.
In the scenario given, I'm going to assume this is during and post D-Day, it would make sense to bomb the village and pray you're forgiven for it, as opposed to lose possibly a large unit of troops who are on their way to liberate a country and could be pivotal in that happening.
However, if there is no reason for them to die and they are outside the warzone while ignoring both armies in equal measure (if they can) then no, live and let live.
Judging by the amount of detail you put into the first paragraph regarding the civilians, I can guess which side you're on.
But, that being said, I would not bomb the village. Bombing that village is just the easy way out. What's to say I can't find a more creative means of delaying the invaders?
But, that being said, I would not bomb the village. Bombing that village is just the easy way out. What's to say I can't find a more creative means of delaying the invaders?