World War Two
Published 5 Jun 2022

Despair in Germany, more death in the Jewish ghettos, and Dr. Mengele tales command in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
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IWM [MOI] FLM 1796, FRE 8467, C 4713, CH 9818, CH 9720, B 9562, 10AO9
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From the comments:

World War Two
12 hours ago

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In the conclusion to the video, I use Jozef Mengele, and Arthur Harris as examples of individuals who made decisions in this war that deliberately and consciously killed innocent people. That is not to say that they were the same.

Mengele was a special kind of monster, who took great pleasure in personally torturing, maiming, and killing children. Arthur Harris was “just a military decision maker” who sat behind a desk and created policy that was specifically engineered to create immense suffering and cost innocent lives. While that makes them vastly different in method, and on the scale of personal monstrosity, they are similar in their justification.

While Harris might be a lesser evil, in 2022 the world is outraged and disgusted when the Russian military applies the same methods against Ukraine that RAF Bomber command did in WW2. Perhaps we think that’s not the same because after all, the Ukrainians are innocent … but can children and infants be guilty of anything, even if their parents are Nazis?

My point is, and my point remains; if you do not fight wars by the ethical standards of just war, you have stepped out on a slippery slope that ends in the terrible valley where Dr. Mengele resides.

You might then ask yourself what could the United Nations Alliance have done differently than bomb Germany and Japan to smithereens? It’s a complicated question. The war winning effect of the campaigns is debatable, but more importantly if we’re going to learn anything from it for the future we have to look at the morals and ethics of conflict.

The idea of “just war” – I.e. a war waged within an ethical framework that makes it morally justifiable has been around across civilizations for as long as we have records of conflict. With the advent of The Hague conferences in 1897 and 1907, but especially after WW2 we have started progressing towards a common international understanding of what “just war” means. Within that ethical framework a very restrictive view on casualty ratios is emerging.

Basically (oversimplified) the idea is as follows; you’re only justified to wage war as a defensive action in order to save lives. When doing do you need to err on the side of caution, so that the lethal casualties you inflict are many times fewer than the lives you save. In modern understanding even includes enemy military casualties. There is of course no exact ratio, but this idea is today taught at military academies in most countries of the free world.

If you look at the War in Ukraine, you can see this played out in real time, both negatively and positively. The Russian military is blatantly disregarding these guidelines, while the Ukrainian military is doing their best to adhere to them (by for instance not counter striking into Russia and Belarus in such ways that they risk civilian casualties). Most significantly, the idea of limiting potential casualties is a red thread throughout the response to the conflict.

Not only are the countries providing support to Ukraine trying to avoid direct escalation with Russia, they are also selecting arms systems, providing intelligence, and holding Ukraine accountable in such a way that casualties are focused on the Russian military. There’s no guarantee that it will stay that way of course, but so far Ukraines defense response to aggression is a textbook case for bellum iustum (the formal term for “just war”).

Spartacus