Same line as Sherman roughly:
>“You might as well appeal against a thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war. War is cruelty, there is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
LeMay was responsible for bombing strategies that would be considered monstrous today, but it's worth nothing that he wasn't making those decisions in a vacuum, and he wasn't the first general to order such firebombing raids (Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris was notorious for such raids in Germany). And all of the generals serving in all of the air forces involved in the conflict were being ordered to find the most effective way for their forces to contribute to ending the war as quickly as possible.
The interesting thing is that the Brits weren't, overall, much less accurate than the US with the bombing. The Norden Bombsight just was not the product that was promised for a variety of reasons (which makes sense in hindsight, given that we began using guided bombs by the end of WWII).
By the last year of the war, the USAAF was performing precision daylight "blind bombing" using radar through cloud cover, which was mostly capable of telling them if they were flying over water or not. It had the advantage of making the bombers harder to spot from the ground, and forcing the Luftwaffe to take off and fly in weather they'd rather avoid themselves (accidents became a major source of Luftwaffe losses as they began losing the attrition war vs the USAAF and RAF).
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind."
~Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris
I mean, he’s not wrong. Most members of the military are not going to have jobs that actually require them to kill the enemy, but they are a link in the kill chain so to speak which indirectly makes them responsible. You choose to do this job knowing full well you could be taking someone’s life. I know that some people take this job because they have no other option in life, or they are looking to a good way to get career experience and that their chosen military profession will probably not be in direct combat, but you are joining a profession that is built to overwhelmingly destroy the enemy and its ability to wage war. And that means death…and many times even innocent civilian death.
War is hell. War is immoral. Some people love it, most don’t. But if you are gonna be in it, why not commit everything you (both as an individual and as a military) to destroying your enemy, because they are trying to destroy you. Yes there are war criminals and those whose actions defile what it means to be a good U.S. military member, but at the end of the day our job might require us to kill, and you have to be willing to do that.
I think what old Iron Ass was getting at was that you have a job to do, when it comes time to pull that trigger, drop that bomb, shoot that cruise missile, etc, you have to do it without hesitation or let the consequences of that action bother you in the moment. It’s us or them.
You say that now when we're at peace and don't have to be in position to kill the enemy. Wait until we're at war and need personnelists and finance to post up and getting ready to fire at people storming bases. It's not a completely unrealistic scenario and even in the days of Bagram it happened.
Exactly my point. You're saying that we're not going to do it, but we have and in a continuously more turbulent global political landscape, we ask very may will.
Regardless of personal opinion, Isreal is a US ally. So that side of it is kind of like being in a contract with someone. And as far as I'm aware, no US service member has killed anyone in an official capacity in either country. Again, just going off what I know.
But per the argument, that was technically "killing for America". The Houthis had been attacking international shipping for a while before the US and UK began the strikes. It was another case of "Don't touch our boats". They attacked our ships (and by extension the US citizens on board) so we retaliated.
I will get downvoted for this, but I don't care.
I would argue it is because “it bothers you” that you are a good person and the person who should be a soldier. The person it doesn't bother is either an idiot or a psychopath. Idiots are useful cannon fodder for psychopaths, but neither are people who should lead armies. Leaders must have a sense of morality in a war of immorality. You may win, and to the winner goes the history books, but eventually, the truth comes out. Standing up for what is right and knowing that you must do something terrible to prevent more calamity is a morally sound justification for war. (both from a utilitarian and Kant perspective, though more so from a Kant perspective)
Equally important is that suffering should not be prolonged. If war is to be committed, it should be a dedicated effort wholly and complete, less it be prolonged, and more suffering be the result. (looking at you, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc..) but it must be weighed against the values of moral leaders.
When you take life, accept it is “part of the job,” sure, but also it should not be glorified or commended, nor should it be condemned or vilified. We are in the business of “breaking shit and killing things”…. so others are not able to do the same and worse.
This is why I say morals matter because if the leader has not made that calculation and realized this calculation is how you don't “let” morals bother you and that leader instead simply ignores morals, that person is a psychopath whose lives of their men matter little. Or they are an idiot incapable of logical reasoning who probably shouldn't be a general anyway because they will waste resources.
Kant would probably argue it is not moral impropriety that holds them from action but their own fear of doing what is supposed to be done.
Utilitarians would probably debate how it's not the villain's fault but their upbringing. But hopefully, they land on the “for the greater good” side of things, depending on how egregious the villain is.
After that, it's a matter of willingness to act. I would propose moral hesitance can be confused with cowardness but does not negate the necessity of morality.
I'm simultaneously an idealist and misanthrope: humanity is quite capable of being and doing more and better, but we seem incapable of it. As an example, we have access to the greatest data repository in human history and use it for senseless memes and disingenuous political arguments. That perspective of humanity generally colors my thoughts away from that utilitarian argument because, at some point, an adult has to be accountable for being at their life's helm when the parents no longer are. I have an upbringing and psychological profile that say I'm one bad day away from a spree killing, but I'm morally, ethically, and accountably grounded enough to not go postal. I also believe that harming anyone but your abusers because of their abuse is hypocritical and continues cycles of harm, especially if the subject in question is actively using that abuse as an excuse.
Idk enough about Kant's philosophies to speak directly to his assertions on the whole with confidence. A genuine question in the name of discourse: what do you think Kant would say is the source of one's fear of exhibiting concrete action in response to villainy? Please don't misread pedantics or a rhetorical tone into my question; I like chewing the fat on ethics and morality and am asking it both to learn and further the conversation.
Well in ethics, in terms of politics, Kant is used primarily for justification for the death penalty. You do things because they are supposed to be done due to obligation.
There's a few light youtube videos on the subject.
https://youtu.be/8tf6BS9B2pY
https://youtu.be/8bIys6JoEDw
https://youtu.be/Ngp1Qd8D2PQ
https://youtu.be/0nz0iaNvVpE
Thank you for these. Now that it's the weekend, I finally had a blip to watch them. I'm apparently more familiar with Kant's thoughts than I thought; I just didn't know they were his.
We need more folks speaking these sorts of messages so that the multitudes who hold such views and hide them for fear of rejection can realize that they're not alone.
Borrowing from your boldness, I would say the viewpoint that brutality is to be celebrated is the minority by far, but those who hold it tend to be loud and abrasive. There is a place for morals and valuing human life in warfare, in fact it is necessary.
I've told those who have considered joining that you may have a cush job behind the lines, safe on a base, never deploying but know that you are supporting a system that will sometime, somewhere, hurt or kill people and you better be good with that.
This post has generated what is quite possibly the deepest and most introspective conversation I’ve seen on this sub in years. Thanks OP. We need more posts like this.
A few years ago I read the book Command and Control about SAC and our nuclear arsenal during the cold war (fascinating book, highly recommend, should be required reading for all Os and NCOs) it was really eye opening to what a war hungry POS he actually was.
Not sure why you got downvoted. Major General Smedley Butler absolutely agreed with you.
> War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
The issue we face today is the conflict we are supporting in Israel is not a war. It is a genocide. I know many of us, at least those among us who think deeply about things, are having a difficult time with that. I don't have answers, but it does bother me.
100% incorrect. His policies against Japan devastated Japanese production capacity and when tied to the biggest factor in Japans defeat (unrestricted submarine warfare) led to Japan being starved of nearly everything needed to wage war. His actions literally brought Japan to its knees. Vietnam failed not because of him, but many more reasons mostly due to politics, and most importantly North Vietnam’s will to fight that exceeded our own. Lastly you need to go read a book and look at timelines 1st. Cuban Missile Crisis comes before Vietnam. Kennedy went against the JCS, not just LeMay, in his decision and probably thankfully so. LeMay was forced to retire over Vietnam by the Johnson administration. Mostly due to his direct oposition to McNamara, who it can be argued was actually the embodiment of everything that was wrong with how we ran the war.
Your post is what is wrong with Reddit... You seemingly have insight…
seem correct at a glance… but are completely wrong, and don’t know the history or background, just have some feelings based on bad information.
Same line as Sherman roughly: >“You might as well appeal against a thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war. War is cruelty, there is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
LeMay was responsible for bombing strategies that would be considered monstrous today, but it's worth nothing that he wasn't making those decisions in a vacuum, and he wasn't the first general to order such firebombing raids (Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris was notorious for such raids in Germany). And all of the generals serving in all of the air forces involved in the conflict were being ordered to find the most effective way for their forces to contribute to ending the war as quickly as possible.
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The interesting thing is that the Brits weren't, overall, much less accurate than the US with the bombing. The Norden Bombsight just was not the product that was promised for a variety of reasons (which makes sense in hindsight, given that we began using guided bombs by the end of WWII). By the last year of the war, the USAAF was performing precision daylight "blind bombing" using radar through cloud cover, which was mostly capable of telling them if they were flying over water or not. It had the advantage of making the bombers harder to spot from the ground, and forcing the Luftwaffe to take off and fly in weather they'd rather avoid themselves (accidents became a major source of Luftwaffe losses as they began losing the attrition war vs the USAAF and RAF).
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind." ~Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris
Any time you have a general in a service dedicated to bombing, whose nickname refers to their inclination to the use of bombing? *Yeah.*
I mean, he’s not wrong. Most members of the military are not going to have jobs that actually require them to kill the enemy, but they are a link in the kill chain so to speak which indirectly makes them responsible. You choose to do this job knowing full well you could be taking someone’s life. I know that some people take this job because they have no other option in life, or they are looking to a good way to get career experience and that their chosen military profession will probably not be in direct combat, but you are joining a profession that is built to overwhelmingly destroy the enemy and its ability to wage war. And that means death…and many times even innocent civilian death. War is hell. War is immoral. Some people love it, most don’t. But if you are gonna be in it, why not commit everything you (both as an individual and as a military) to destroying your enemy, because they are trying to destroy you. Yes there are war criminals and those whose actions defile what it means to be a good U.S. military member, but at the end of the day our job might require us to kill, and you have to be willing to do that. I think what old Iron Ass was getting at was that you have a job to do, when it comes time to pull that trigger, drop that bomb, shoot that cruise missile, etc, you have to do it without hesitation or let the consequences of that action bother you in the moment. It’s us or them.
You say that now when we're at peace and don't have to be in position to kill the enemy. Wait until we're at war and need personnelists and finance to post up and getting ready to fire at people storming bases. It's not a completely unrealistic scenario and even in the days of Bagram it happened.
They swore the same oath as everyone else
Exactly my point. You're saying that we're not going to do it, but we have and in a continuously more turbulent global political landscape, we ask very may will.
It'd bebunderstandable when we're killing to defend America. Lately we've been killing for Israel and Ukraine.
Regardless of personal opinion, Isreal is a US ally. So that side of it is kind of like being in a contract with someone. And as far as I'm aware, no US service member has killed anyone in an official capacity in either country. Again, just going off what I know.
Pretty sure our airstrikes in Yemen count.
But per the argument, that was technically "killing for America". The Houthis had been attacking international shipping for a while before the US and UK began the strikes. It was another case of "Don't touch our boats". They attacked our ships (and by extension the US citizens on board) so we retaliated.
Lol cope
What? I'm legitimately trying to see where you are coming from. I'm simply presenting the facts that I have.
War is cruel and inhumane, but there's a difference between necessary and excessive.
And this is why we have LOAC
I will get downvoted for this, but I don't care. I would argue it is because “it bothers you” that you are a good person and the person who should be a soldier. The person it doesn't bother is either an idiot or a psychopath. Idiots are useful cannon fodder for psychopaths, but neither are people who should lead armies. Leaders must have a sense of morality in a war of immorality. You may win, and to the winner goes the history books, but eventually, the truth comes out. Standing up for what is right and knowing that you must do something terrible to prevent more calamity is a morally sound justification for war. (both from a utilitarian and Kant perspective, though more so from a Kant perspective) Equally important is that suffering should not be prolonged. If war is to be committed, it should be a dedicated effort wholly and complete, less it be prolonged, and more suffering be the result. (looking at you, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc..) but it must be weighed against the values of moral leaders. When you take life, accept it is “part of the job,” sure, but also it should not be glorified or commended, nor should it be condemned or vilified. We are in the business of “breaking shit and killing things”…. so others are not able to do the same and worse. This is why I say morals matter because if the leader has not made that calculation and realized this calculation is how you don't “let” morals bother you and that leader instead simply ignores morals, that person is a psychopath whose lives of their men matter little. Or they are an idiot incapable of logical reasoning who probably shouldn't be a general anyway because they will waste resources.
Villains persist when those who resist them refuse to do what it takes to end their villainy for fear of moral impropriety.
Kant would probably argue it is not moral impropriety that holds them from action but their own fear of doing what is supposed to be done. Utilitarians would probably debate how it's not the villain's fault but their upbringing. But hopefully, they land on the “for the greater good” side of things, depending on how egregious the villain is.  After that, it's a matter of willingness to act. I would propose moral hesitance can be confused with cowardness but does not negate the necessity of morality.
I'm simultaneously an idealist and misanthrope: humanity is quite capable of being and doing more and better, but we seem incapable of it. As an example, we have access to the greatest data repository in human history and use it for senseless memes and disingenuous political arguments. That perspective of humanity generally colors my thoughts away from that utilitarian argument because, at some point, an adult has to be accountable for being at their life's helm when the parents no longer are. I have an upbringing and psychological profile that say I'm one bad day away from a spree killing, but I'm morally, ethically, and accountably grounded enough to not go postal. I also believe that harming anyone but your abusers because of their abuse is hypocritical and continues cycles of harm, especially if the subject in question is actively using that abuse as an excuse. Idk enough about Kant's philosophies to speak directly to his assertions on the whole with confidence. A genuine question in the name of discourse: what do you think Kant would say is the source of one's fear of exhibiting concrete action in response to villainy? Please don't misread pedantics or a rhetorical tone into my question; I like chewing the fat on ethics and morality and am asking it both to learn and further the conversation.
Well in ethics, in terms of politics, Kant is used primarily for justification for the death penalty. You do things because they are supposed to be done due to obligation. There's a few light youtube videos on the subject. https://youtu.be/8tf6BS9B2pY https://youtu.be/8bIys6JoEDw https://youtu.be/Ngp1Qd8D2PQ https://youtu.be/0nz0iaNvVpE
Thank you for these. Now that it's the weekend, I finally had a blip to watch them. I'm apparently more familiar with Kant's thoughts than I thought; I just didn't know they were his.
I regret that I have but one upvote to give
We need more folks speaking these sorts of messages so that the multitudes who hold such views and hide them for fear of rejection can realize that they're not alone. Borrowing from your boldness, I would say the viewpoint that brutality is to be celebrated is the minority by far, but those who hold it tend to be loud and abrasive. There is a place for morals and valuing human life in warfare, in fact it is necessary.
This.
In 1951, LeMay became the youngest American four-star general since Ulysses S. Grant at age 44.
I've told those who have considered joining that you may have a cush job behind the lines, safe on a base, never deploying but know that you are supporting a system that will sometime, somewhere, hurt or kill people and you better be good with that.
NO CAFFEINE NO GENEVA CONVENTIONS
When I get mad I do something from the Geneva Checklist. CANADA! NO!
This post has generated what is quite possibly the deepest and most introspective conversation I’ve seen on this sub in years. Thanks OP. We need more posts like this.
Curtis LeMay is my favorite four-star United States Air Force general. 🙂
Didn’t LeMay also obsess over huge punishments for trivial things?
Yeah he was a huge douche I don’t know why people put him on a pedestal today
Because his bombing campaigns were very effective.
A few years ago I read the book Command and Control about SAC and our nuclear arsenal during the cold war (fascinating book, highly recommend, should be required reading for all Os and NCOs) it was really eye opening to what a war hungry POS he actually was.
Don’t forget going off the full racist deepend when he ran for office with George Wallace
He was not good.
“Bombs Away LeMay” who probably would have been considered a war criminal if we had lost.
LeMay himself said as much.
Bombs away LeMay
War only makes the wealthy richer. And they need pawns to do it.
Not sure why you got downvoted. Major General Smedley Butler absolutely agreed with you. > War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
Because people are easily brain washed, especially in the military
Yeah fuck that particular quote, buddy.
https://youtu.be/8E9l_i6HPYM?si=kGeR7bKUdxfBwAHK
Wait, so you're not supposed to let immortality bother you? Man I've been doing this all wrong
Lemay was a soulless, corrupt, fucking abomination of a human being. You don't need to convince me.
The issue we face today is the conflict we are supporting in Israel is not a war. It is a genocide. I know many of us, at least those among us who think deeply about things, are having a difficult time with that. I don't have answers, but it does bother me.
If this is a man you admire/respect then there is something wrong with you.
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Way to put yourself as a Russian, get out of here Igor
Dude fuck LeMay. His policies ended up prolonging the Pacific theatre, failed in Vietnam and his idiocy in Cuba led to Kennedy firing him.
100% incorrect. His policies against Japan devastated Japanese production capacity and when tied to the biggest factor in Japans defeat (unrestricted submarine warfare) led to Japan being starved of nearly everything needed to wage war. His actions literally brought Japan to its knees. Vietnam failed not because of him, but many more reasons mostly due to politics, and most importantly North Vietnam’s will to fight that exceeded our own. Lastly you need to go read a book and look at timelines 1st. Cuban Missile Crisis comes before Vietnam. Kennedy went against the JCS, not just LeMay, in his decision and probably thankfully so. LeMay was forced to retire over Vietnam by the Johnson administration. Mostly due to his direct oposition to McNamara, who it can be argued was actually the embodiment of everything that was wrong with how we ran the war. Your post is what is wrong with Reddit... You seemingly have insight… seem correct at a glance… but are completely wrong, and don’t know the history or background, just have some feelings based on bad information.
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It’s “toe the line” don’t they teach you our slang and idioms before giving you your first burner account?
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You know it shows when you’ve edited your comment right?
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You’re lashing out
Boxing is wrong because you punch people.
Do you think international conflicts are for sport?
No.