Is it right to drop bombs in a 'heavily populated' area where thousands of civilians will perish?

Question

"Is it morally right to drop bombs and missiles in a 'heavily populated' area where hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians will perish?

Answer 1

For no good reason, no, if the president just said hey lets nuke this country because we can (although i think bush would consider it). But in certain situations yeah it is. Example go back to WWII, if we didnt bomb Japan, the rest of the world would have not been so scared of us that it wouldnt have ended the war right there and then. If we didnt, we would have to keep sending thousands of our troops to go and die over there, and thousands more lives would have been lost. So if your the president you can end a world war by dropping two bombs that will yeah kill thousands of people, or carry out the war and millions more lives will be killed. Which sounds better  

Answer 2

What has that got to do with winning a war?  

Answer 3

Under the laws and customs of war - it is the responsibility of the defender to keep military areas far enough away from civilian areas so they will be protected from the effects of war.

When you post uninformed criticisms like this all you are doing is encouraging amoral enemies to use their civilians as shields to protect military targets.

Answer 4

No, this why we don't do this on purpose (like all sides of WW2) and use guided muntions nowadys in our military. I can't speak for what other non-NATO memebrs would do after what I have seen with suicide bombers. Thousands dead are just as bad as 50 dead when you see it up close like did in Iraq by Al Qadea or villagers massacered because we gave them medical aid and taught the kids school lessons the week before like I saw in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

I don't do the numbers thing....plus you can kill 8000 men in Bosnia with just bullets like I saw in Serbencia when we uncovered the bodies in Jan '96 after the Serbs had their fun with the the Bosnia Muslims. Ever see a rape camp? It's something I will never forget and they are things they that have kept me in the military for 20 years.

Answer 5

all depends on the circumstances. if you put your military in amongst the civilians their fair game sorry to say.

i guess you missed the part about placing your military in populated areas. it is not John McCain's fault those civilians were killed it is the fault of the Government of North Vietnam. quit trying to bring your politics into play it won't work, we're not all as gullible as you.

Answer 6

It's morally wrong for enemy combatants to hide among the civilian population.

In previous wars both sides sent the women and children to live in "safe towns" (we eventually bombed them anyway ie. Dresden) or attempted  to conduct military operations away from civilian populations.



I agree with Darell, fair game.

Answer 7

When they are precision bombs, or laser guided bombs attacking military targets, it doesn't matter who is around, they hit the target.  We even have the capability to change its course if a civilian gets in the way.  This isn't WWII. There is no carpet bombing, we don't bomb neighborhoods or schools or whatever it is you read on left wing websites.  

Answer 8

It was a necessary evil during WW2 in Japan.  No one said war was easy

Answer 9

HEY, the j**s brought that **** on themselves.

Answer 10

No it isn't right...lol...but if you are thinking about it happening again in the U.S be assured that it takes an airplane to carry bombs xD and missles shoot down airplanes over t3h ocean...But yeah its not right and i don't know how anybody could stand to order that...

Answer 11

OK, WWII is not the same type of war as Vietnam.  In WWII we dropped the Atom Bomb on Japan as opposed to invading the country with a million troops. I believe the idea was to get them to surrender. If you're asking in general, is it OK to bomb populated areas....the answer is no.  We have precision bombs that can destroy targets with less chance of killing civilians.  But if 500 people are living near an army base, then they might get hit.

When I was in US Army Europe in the 80's, I worked on the GDP ( General Defense Plan).  In that plan, we targeted German towns for artillery attacks. We didn't do it to kill innocent people, we did it to slow down a possible enemy advance.  Lucky for us, the plan was never used.

Answer 12

every one who answer this question thinks like osama bin ladin because he drop plan in twin tower same thing thousands of civilians were killed!

you American and osama have same aproch so what make anyone a good person?

think!  but don't think like osama because if you do you can not say he is terrorist then Americans are bigger terrorist then osama!

Answer 13

it really makes me mad when u liberals try to discredit someone else's service, something u would never do for ur country. the factories were for supplying weapons to the NVA, bridges for strategic advancement, and power plants for energy supplying their country which we were at war with. bombs back then were not guided by heat, GPS, or lasers so civilian casualties were something that was gonna happen. we didnt deliberately attack them it was a mistake and why do u guys **** ur pants when stuff like this happens? its happening right now and u dont care, only when it involves us. why do u hate ur own country so much?