Arquinsiel posted:

I recognise that a distinction exists and maybe in some D&D style post-death judgement where a deity adds up your moral points to determine which of the nine alignments you fit into and thus what afterlife you get that slim distinction matters. Really the thought process of both sides of unrestricted warfare boils down to "sure, maybe this ship is full of material and personnel irrelevant to the war... but what if it's not?" so may as well fire torpedoes and hope you never find out you sank the SS. Kitten Transporter.

Fangz posted:

This entire discussion is centered around this question of whether "the idea that unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan was okay, but unrestricted submarine warfare by the KM was evil" is justified or not. If you've raised the issue of 'evil or not', that sort of D&D style post-death moral points judgement is all this discussion adds up to. Frankly I don't agree that the only difference here is who won, but I'll admit the entirely subjective difference might seem small or non-existent. But because we've found ourselves on this terribly pointless relative-war-crimes discussion, that's the playing field.

My personal bias was that the Japanese were busy raping and murdering my grandparents, so gently caress yeah the stuff they stole from them shouldn't be allowed to get back to Japan and help sustain that raping and murdering. That's how I score the points.

Anyway I don't want to dwell on this.

Arquinsiel posted:

sank the SS. Kitten Transporter.

Fangz posted:

EDIT: VVV I'm just clarifying my position, which you still don't seem to understand.

bewbies posted:

The interesting thing to me about submarine warfare especially in the World War II Pacific, is that if it had been taken all the way to 11, millions (well, millions more) of people in Japan and elsewhere would have starved to death as a pretty direct result. that then to me is a kind of interesting moral question.... clearly when you bomb a city you are directly responsible for blowing up the people with the bomb you drop, but if you are a part of a starvation blockade we seem to treat it differently in our heads for whatever reason.

Waci posted:

Your position, which seems to be that British imperialism was good.

bewbies posted:

The interesting thing to me about submarine warfare especially in the World War II Pacific, is that if it had been taken all the way to 11, millions (well, millions more) of people in Japan and elsewhere would have starved to death as a pretty direct result. that then to me is a kind of interesting moral question.... clearly when you bomb a city you are directly responsible for blowing up the people with the bomb you drop, but if you are a part of a starvation blockade we seem to treat it differently in our heads for whatever reason.

bewbies posted:

The interesting thing to me about submarine warfare especially in the World War II Pacific, is that if it had been taken all the way to 11, millions (well, millions more) of people in Japan and elsewhere would have starved to death as a pretty direct result. that then to me is a kind of interesting moral question.... clearly when you bomb a city you are directly responsible for blowing up the people with the bomb you drop, but if you are a part of a starvation blockade we seem to treat it differently in our heads for whatever reason.

Fangz posted:

My position is that intercepting ships bringing the benefits of overseas colonies is an anti-colonial action, whereas intercepting other ships is not. In the same way that it was right and proper for the Indian mutineers to shoot as many of the occupying British as they could, but if they went on the rampage in a British city it would not be the same.

Have I made myself clear now?

Waci posted:

What you said earlier wasn't "unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan was ok because collateral damage is morally acceptable when you're trying to target colonial shipments" though, it was "unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan was ok because the Japanese were evil and the British were not". Have you read your posts?

quote:

The specific argument I'm making is NOT

that it's not a war crime because the British colonial powers were morally better than Japan,

BUT

that the situations are not comparable because the specific traffic that was being intercepted in the Atlantic was different from the traffic that was being intercepted in the Pacific.

Fangz posted:

In the same way that it was right and proper for the Indian mutineers to shoot as many of the occupying British as they could, but if they went on the rampage in a British city it would not be the same.

Fangz posted:

A lot of people think the sinking of the Lusitania was justifiable (the diplomatic outcry was understandable at the time, but I dunno if many Americans really remember it as a cowardly act of murder forever and ever). .

Fangz posted:

EDIT: VVV Whuh. Do people seriously think this?

Arquinsiel posted:

Same reason people view bombing a city as less bad than bayoneting civilians. Technological distance makes war seem cleaner to people viewing it. Same reason people don't seem to regard drone strikes in Pakistan as being an invasion.

Waci posted:

You said yourself that targeting the civilian population of an imperialist country is ok if there's even a chance that you might hinder or discourage the colonial effort in the process.

Fangz posted:

When did I say that.

Fangz posted:

My position is that intercepting ships bringing the benefits of overseas colonies is an anti-colonial action, whereas intercepting other ships is not. In the same way that it was right and proper for the Indian mutineers to shoot as many of the occupying British as they could, but if they went on the rampage in a British city it would not be the same.

Have I made myself clear now?

bewbies posted:

The interesting thing to me about submarine warfare especially in the World War II Pacific, is that if it had been taken all the way to 11, millions (well, millions more) of people in Japan and elsewhere would have starved to death as a pretty direct result. that then to me is a kind of interesting moral question.... clearly when you bomb a city you are directly responsible for blowing up the people with the bomb you drop, but if you are a part of a starvation blockade we seem to treat it differently in our heads for whatever reason.

Eela6 posted:

Could anyone talk about the military structure and/or technology of the Khazars? I never even knew they existed until recently, but they're a fascinating group*.

*(I don't know the term to use here. They're not a full state in the modern sense of the word, and they're multiethnic and syncretic religiously. Any suggestions?)

Hogge Wild posted:

Fangz posted:

I said the second thing - targetting civilian populations - is not the same. I said the *opposite* of what the guy is suggesting. I said that elements of the colonial power that are part of the structure of colonialism, part of the occupation, would be more legitimate targets than the other. In the same way that shooting a Nazi soldier is very different from firebombing a city even though both that perish are German! WTF you people.

Waci posted:

Click here.

darthbob88 posted:

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the actual reason nobody views drone strikes in Pakistan as an invasion is that there is no invading and occupying presence, it's not an invasion of Pakistan any more than the Blitz was an invasion of Britain. Of course that still leaves the question of why attacking Pakistani weddings with drone strikes is different from attacking Pakistani weddings with infantry.

Arquinsiel posted:

The Blitz was definitely an invasion, but people mentally separate invasions of airspace from ground invasions because <reasons>.

Fangz posted:

Unrestricted submarine warfare is not the same thing as unrestricted warfare! Supporting the doctrine of unrestricted submarine warfare as it was practiced in WWII is an entirely different thing to saying that no restrictions at all should exist in war.

Waci posted:

Please consider the difference between restricted submarine warfare targeting only military or colonial shipments and unrestricted submarine warfare, and how that difference might relate to the discussion during which you seem to have completely missed it.

Koramei posted:

I think it's the delay in the effect; that they still have (theoretically) the agency to surrender and therefore not die, whereas when you drop a bomb on their heads it's a little bit different.

Arquinsiel posted:

Same reason people view bombing a city as less bad than bayoneting civilians. Technological distance makes war seem cleaner to people viewing it. Same reason people don't seem to regard drone strikes in Pakistan as being an invasion.

Waci posted:

Click here.

Arquinsiel posted:

I recognise that a distinction exists and maybe in some D&D style post-death judgement where a deity adds up your moral points to determine which of the nine alignments you fit into and thus what afterlife you get that slim distinction matters. Really the thought process of both sides of unrestricted warfare boils down to "sure, maybe this ship is full of material and personnel irrelevant to the war... but what if it's not?" so may as well fire torpedoes and hope you never find out you sank the SS. Kitten Transporter.

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

Hi, don't use dictionaries to define individual words in a technical term in an attempt to discredit the use of said term in an actual argument.

OwlFancier posted:

Fairly... good reasons I would personally suggest.

Elyv posted:

I don't disagree with your other points, but to me invasion implies an attempt at occupation. I wouldn't consider the smaller scale Viking raids or small mounted nomadic raids historically as invasions either.

That doesn't make American drone strikes or bombing a city right, of course, but I think that's why they're not considered invasions.

Eela6 posted:

Could anyone talk about the military structure and/or technology of the Khazars? I never even knew they existed until recently, but they're a fascinating group*.

*(I don't know the term to use here. They're not a full state in the modern sense of the word, and they're multiethnic and syncretic religiously. Any suggestions?)

Hogge Wild posted:

What kind of size inflation has there been since WWI? Would a today's destroyer be the same size as a WWI cruiser?

david_a posted:

That got me curious - when was the last battleship design created? Not a physical ship, but a serious detailed design that could have been built?

Arquinsiel posted:

That same sense of distance as previously mentioned. It's not really a great reason, because as testimony from civilians in western Pakistan tells us the same fear of instant unexpected death is there in both cases. Not that this wasn't already known because of the Blitz or strategic bombing campaigns...

bewbies posted:

The interesting thing to me about submarine warfare especially in the World War II Pacific, is that if it had been taken all the way to 11, millions (well, millions more) of people in Japan and elsewhere would have starved to death as a pretty direct result. that then to me is a kind of interesting moral question.... clearly when you bomb a city you are directly responsible for blowing up the people with the bomb you drop, but if you are a part of a starvation blockade we seem to treat it differently in our heads for whatever reason.

Trin Tragula posted:

I would like to point out that the Lusitania was almost certainly carrying war materials as part of a deliberate policy of putting arms shipments in the hold of passenger liners to sneak them into the country. The British government is still sitting on any and all contemporary papers that might indicate what Whitehall knew about what was in the cargo hold of that ship. They would not be doing that if there wasn't some horrible detail that needed hiding.

Waci posted:

Your position, which seems to be that British imperialism was good, and that targeting Japanese civilians is morally better than targeting British civilians, because the Japanese military was otherwise less moral.