Western civilization owes its existence to the idea that there is an objective Truth that surpasses our existence; if we reject that concept and approach life and death matters emotionally (and not with the rational mind that a firm belief in this Truth provides), we will find that we can justify pretty much anything, including the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents who happened to be at home when we dropped incendiary bombs on their neighborhood.
And because we would think about these subjects emotionally, we would lack the consistency even in our thoughts to acknowledge that we would be declaring as war criminals any enemy officers and aircrews who had done the same.
“...I think we’re talking past each other.
“Western civilization owes its existence to the idea that there is an objective Truth that surpasses our existence; if we reject that concept...we will find that we can justify pretty much anything...
“And because we would think about these subjects emotionally, we would lack the consistency even in our thoughts to acknowledge that we would be declaring as war criminals any enemy officers and aircrews who had done the same.” [Captain Walker, post 156]
Very astute. You picked up on aspects of the disagreement I wasn’t able to.
But I suspect your “Truth” is a matter of belief. If it wasn’t, you’d not have used a capital T.
The fact that you and a bundle of others believe it (whatever it is), and the fact that it’s been around long enough to have survived getting handed down from one generation to the next, conveys nothing about its validity in the real world. People have believed all sorts of things in the past and quite likely will continue doing so far into the future.
I can’t say if such belief is valid or not and don’t much care. Neither do I concern myself with tracing the belief back to its origins in history, nor deducing how much it has contributed to the success of Western Civ in the modern world.
When it comes to personal motivations and rationalizations, it has always been sufficient on my part to realize that Western Civ is ours, and it’s been under attack. Anything more elevated would be presumptuous.
I will assert that Western Civ was in peril during the period 1931-1945. If that did not satisfy your criteria for justifying armed response, what would?
If your goal is to convince us it’s wrong to attack enemy civilians, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are poor examples. Both nations led the way in conning and coercing every last citizen into serving the state. And because both nations were engaged in war against the Allies, that transformed every last citizen of theirs into a legitimate target.