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To: epow; Clemenza

"No state or nation has the right to kill innocent human beings, or the right to grant that authority either to an individual, a group, or a class of it's people."

So America sending the bombers over Germany in WWII knowing that some innocent human beings would die, was that morally illicit?


803 posted on 01/17/2006 3:58:56 PM PST by LibertarianInExile (Freedom isn't free--no, there's a hefty f'in fee--and if ya don't throw in your buck-o-5, who will?)
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To: LibertarianInExile
So America sending the bombers over Germany in WWII knowing that some innocent human beings would die, was that morally illicit?

That's a difficult question and I'm not certain of the answer, but I have a strong tendency to believe it was morally permissible. Nations, like men, are given the right to defend themselves against an enemy. If it was necessary to kill innocent German civilians in order to weaken Germany's ability to continue the war and thereby prevent our own nation, or other nations which were attacked without provocation, being destroyed by German aggression, then IMHO it was not immoral.

OTOH, if we killed innocent Germans simply out of revenge for Germany's atrocities against humanity or out of hatred for all things German and not solely as a means of ending the war, as the case of bombing Dresden at the war's very end appears to have been, then I think it was immoral and inexcusable.

816 posted on 01/17/2006 4:26:40 PM PST by epow (Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, II Cor 3:17)
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To: LibertarianInExile
Self defense is justified. In fact, the second-amendment recognizes that each and every one of us has a right of self-defense.

It was the responsibility of the "innocent" Germans on the other end of the line to rise up against their tyrants and help us.

821 posted on 01/17/2006 4:36:02 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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