Are military attacks on civilians sometimes justified?

[gerryh]

Soooo Britain declaring war on Germany wasn't justified, both times?
The US declaring war on Japan wasn't justified?


The answer to whether war and/or civilian casualties are justified is still, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.
Examples of what isn't would be, manufacturing excuses to attack/invade another country, or getting involved in someone else's civil war, unless they ask and even then you might not want to rush a decision because sometimes both sides in a civil war are a$$holes and the only ones who will truly suffer will be the civilians. Another example would be greed for someone else's resources.


Unfortunately life isn't black and white, it has an awful lot of grey area. A mobilized workforce manufacturing war materiel is actually a warfront, hence the term "Home Front". When that home front is a vital part of the war machine that declared war on your country, at some point it becomes a valid strategic target, like it or not.


Today however, huge armies marching to war with the women and the unlisted left behind to work the factories just doesn't happen, for now. The US spent billions and billions of dollars developing more accurate conventional/smart munitions to put an end to the practice of sending hundreds of bombers over a target and plastering it hoping to get a 5% drop accuracy rate.
I can tell you with pretty solid assurance that no Western military's SOP today includes the indiscriminate killing of civilians. There might be individual a$$holes or small units of a$$holes that don't have a problem killing Brown people, civilians or not, but one would hope there's a mechanism in place to deal with that kind of crap.

Of course Britain and the U.S. were totally justified in declaring war, otherwise some of us might not be here today. Poor old Ger, as good intentioned as he is, sometimes lets emotions inundate reasoning and good sense!

anybody can "justify" anything. Doesn't mean it is right, and doesn't mean it is justifiable in someone elses eyes. As far as I am concerned, the killing of another human being can not be justified. There is no reason, under the sun, for a sane person to want to kill another. It can not be justified.

 

[MHz]

lets emotions inundate reasoning and good sense!

How can you have either without having a wide range of emotions??

 

[Cliffy]

Of course Britain and the U.S. were totally justified in declaring war, otherwise some of us might not be here today. Poor old Ger, as good intentioned as he is, sometimes lets emotions inundate reasoning and good sense!

War is a racket. It is, has been and always will be waged for the profit of a few at the expense of the many. It is never justified, it is always started by creating an enemy and demonizing them so that knuckle draggers like Agnst will jump up a scream "unleash the dogs of war".

The propaganda machine has been demonizing Muslims for decades but more intensely since the Berlin Wall fell. The problems of the Middle East started with the Brits, the Yanks and the French a hundred years ago, peeked when the stuck Israel in the middle of the hornets nest they created and is now a full blown war. The success of the propaganda campaign can be measured by the hugh and cry over Syrian refugees. War is 100% BS.