In the history of warfare there have always been civilian casualties. It was really only in the last century with the Geneva Conventions that nations agreed not to purposely go out and destroy civilian targets but rather try and focus on the military side of things. But civilian deaths in war are unavoidable, and it's unrealistic to think of it any other way. There are some terrorists that use civilian buildings as HQ's just so that if that building is hit they can claim that the attacker is targetting civilian facilities/homes and thus increase their support among the populace.

The Israelis come across this stuff all the time. Some terrorist group will hide in an apartment building or mosque and the IDF is faced with a decision; take out the 10 terrorists there and incur some civilian casualties or ignore it and let the problem grow worse. See the problem? There are other times though where it's unecessary. Take the bombing of Dresden in WW2 by US bombers. The Soviets talked us into it even though the city didn't have much military infrastructure left, and there were more civilian deaths than can be accurately counted (I want to say it was in the hundreds of thousands). The fires burned so hot that from what I've read there were places in the city where the oxygen was literally sucked away leaving people to suffocate. We should not have listened to Stalin on that one. I think I also read that author Kurt Vonnegut was a POW at the time and was made to help clean up the corpses by the Germans. Horrific stuff. The Japanese did horrible things in the Chinese city of Nanking, stuff that cannot be repeated here. Touchy subject.

Touchy subject.

Exactly, and I hope I didn't come across as somehow advocating things of the last two instances you mentioned, human life is sacred, and that is what makes war such hellish business.
The people at the top had to make some very hard decisions, and of course they made mistakes being human.

Thankfully that before the Geneva convention, at least for the few hundred years previous to it, while civilians often were killed, the battles themselves were between armies and governments, and not entire peoples.
I personally think, where you can, civilian life needs to be treated carefully, even if they are 'not innocent' as I talked about in my last post, but as you said Shadowlander, sometimes things come up, and I at least would prefer our boys to come home safe than the low down scum of an enemy who use civilians as shields.
As a friend of mine put it, "War is war, and peace is peace, and unfortunately to mix them is to lose sight of the awful reality of it."

He also mentioned that on Okinawa alone, 122,513 combatants and over 100,000 civilians lost their lives, and that in three months! If we do some quick math, without going in too deep, say a year for the entirety of Japan, at the same rate, over four times the amount killed by the nuclear bombs are lost, and that is a low estimate! At that rate, it would be 400,000 civilians, but seeing as it might not be such a concentrated battle, you would still likely run into the same numbers as we killed with the bombs.

Right now in social studies we are studying evolution and the five early hominids. It is kinda interesting and we had a huge test on it today. I PASSED!! So yeah, even though I don't believe in evolution (I believe in Creation) it can be interesting. What I don't understand though is why they let them teach evolution, while they don't let them teach religion...

Right now in social studies we are studying evolution and the five early hominids. It is kinda interesting and we had a huge test on it today. I PASSED!! So yeah, even though I don't believe in evolution (I believe in Creation) it can be interesting. What I don't understand though is why they let them teach evolution, while they don't let them teach religion...

Their argument is that evolution is irrefutable science, or something like that, when they fail to realise it comes down to presuppositions. Evolution is hardly a scientific fact, it cannot be duplicated, and it was not eyewitnessed, so what the real amazing thing, to me, is that they fail to apply their own rules, especially when it is convenient!

So as it is not undoubtedly fact, they must take it by faith, and so it is their presupposition, that the world started in that manner. My presupposition is that the Bible is the inerrant word of God - I cannot prove it, but it is my presupposition.
I quite frankly find my presupposition much more plausible, but the problem is that they don't even see theirs as a presupposition.

What did you have to do to pass your test?

Yahoo! A topic on my favorite website about one of my favorite subjects ever!!

OK, now that I am calmer, I guess I should mention a few of my History Nerd qualifications.
For one thing, all my siblings consider me weird for liking history as much as I do. Probably 80% of what I read is historical fiction. Of course, I read historical nonfiction too.
My favorite eras would {currently} be: Ancient Egypt, the Celts, and WWII.

BEEEP!
Watch out for straying of history and into sience...
Ok here's a question that will get us back on target:

What is the british point of veiw about the revolutionary war?

Since I know what Yankee veiw of it was I shall show you in a simple way...

We Americans were happy little children growing fat cause our mamma the British were feeding us food. Then mamma had to protect us from wild animals and we were thankful afterthat however when mamma became afriad of losing us she tightend her control. But it was to late we had already grown into an a teen and we wanted control for ourselfs...

Simple enough???

There is really three main opinions on the war.

1.) By far the most common, from what I gather, attitude by Briton's in this day and age is apathy. Considering they do not even care about the much larger empire we built, its hardly any wonder. This is not necessarily a good thing, but that is the way it is.
2.) A very common view during the war was that our American brethren were fighting for their standard rights as Englishmen. This view certainly has merit, and not a small amount of truth. It didn't help that the monarchy was still very much foreign, having not left their German roots.
3.) The final way people might look at it is with a certain level of disgust that our colonist brothers would reject the Monarchy for any reason, having only a century before bitter experiences of what that could lead to. (Read, Cromwell, which turned out not all that good.)

I personally am partway between 2 and 3, perhaps a bit closer to 3. I understand there was reasons, and it could have been handled better by Parliament and King George, there was many ways it could have been handled better on the part of the colonists too. It was just one unfortunate, and avoidable, war.

This is how at the moment I am thinking. Civilians, in total war, are just as much a part of the war effort as any branch of the military, and while there is certain codes of conduct towards civilians that must be kept to avoid genocide, when they are actively working to subvert your country, and it's God-given values, they are not entirely innocent, and some blame must lay upon them. It is somewhat like the war between God and the Devil, there is no middle ground, you are on one side or the other.

I think you're over simplifying. The military accept the responsibility of war. It's their job. Civilians on the other hand, are doing what they have to do to survive. What do you expect a population to do when its country is at war? I would also be wary of assuming it's your country that is 'on God's side'. I imagine that is what the other side also think.

narnianerd - I can't say there is much of an opinion, I definitely didn't touch upon it much at school. The fall of colonialism was a long process and the more recent issues, such as the independence of India and the general collapse of the British Empire are more focused on than the break with the US. I think the effects of the revolution were felt more in places that were already unstable, such as France and the South Americas.

Yes, Gmatt, I think 'apathy' is spot on

I think you're over simplifying. The military accept the responsibility of war. It's their job. Civilians on the other hand, are doing what they have to do to survive. What do you expect a population to do when its country is at war? I would also be wary of assuming it's your country that is 'on God's side'. I imagine that is what the other side also think.

I could be oversimplifying it, yes, but in total war, a lot changes.
And in regards to God, its not so much Him being on our side as us on His, and regardless, He was certainly fighting for us in 1939-1945, no doubt about it. Of course we didn't win them all, that is not His way, but He certainly wasn't going to be helping Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini.

In the long term though, if my country is on God's side (I am not so sure it is anymore though, nor most of the countries dearest to my heart, but I won't go into that as we would never be done), I don't have to worry about what the other countries think.
Regardless, the task now is more to pray for my country, and do anything else He calls me to, and hope it is in God's will to have my country, and Western Civilization for that matter, come back to Him.

Edit: I apologise for perhaps being a bit short when answering your original point about civilians last night.
As I have said before, it is a very hard issue to deal with, but in answer to your question. 'what could they do', plenty. While the regimes may have not looked as evil to them as they did to us, or indeed turned out to be in the end, going with the crowd, when the crowd is wrong, is no excuse at all.

Um Britain wanted the colonies as a way to tax and get money from them not because "mama was afraid of losing her children". lol nice comparison though

I think, with regards to the Revolution, it was more along the lines of a bunch of Americans getting higher taxes and saying something to the effect of, "why are you taxing us and we have no say so?". I don't even know if the taxes were really that steep, it was more or less the principle of the thing. From there it sort of developed into a mindset that Britain was an ocean away and we could handle things better on our own without the oversight. At any given time it wasn't as if the Colonies were in total cahoots with each other to rebel. I've read it was split fairly equally among Tories (loyalists), Colonial rebels, and neutral folks. I think as the war dragged on more folks rallied to the Rebel side. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I believe you are quite right, Shadowlander. I personally do not think Parliament was trying to be malicious, it was mostly a misunderstanding of the colonial view, and a misjudgment as to the seriousness of the problem. This was really their first experience with the issue, and they certainly learned the lesson, judging from the changed policies towards the remaining colonies and future ones.

This is how at the moment I am thinking. Civilians, in total war, are just as much a part of the war effort as any branch of the military, and while there is certain codes of conduct towards civilians that must be kept to avoid genocide, when they are actively working to subvert your country, and it's God-given values, they are not entirely innocent, and some blame must lay upon them. It is somewhat like the war between God and the Devil, there is no middle ground, you are on one side or the other.

I think you're over simplifying. The military accept the responsibility of war. It's their job. Civilians on the other hand, are doing what they have to do to survive. What do you expect a population to do when its country is at war? I would also be wary of assuming it's your country that is 'on God's side'. I imagine that is what the other side also think.

Sorry I wasn't able to post a response to you Gmatt, but it seems as if Shantih tooks the words right off of my finger tips.

On one hand I can see where you are coming from Gmatt, but on the other I do believe that your statement is too general.

I do believe there were some civillans that were completely on Japan's side and would have done anything for their country, but it has been my experience in study that a great majority of the civillans were just trying to survive.

I think that when looking at something like this in history one has to look at it through their (the people being discussed) eyes. We cannot look at it through our own, especially if it is the American lense because for the most part (I'm not saying everytime, but a good 8 or 9 out of 10 times) we have always been behind our troops.

I do not necessarily disagree with you, it is again a very grey area, somewhere I do not like to venture too much as it is not a defensible position, to a large extent.

Thankfully we have not had another total war where difficult decisions of this sort have had to be made, but the one thing to remember is that, looking through the eyes of German, Italian and Japanese civilians in that war, mainly the first and the last, they were very much in support of the war, albeit because of a large system of lies.
Regardless, it really comes down to specific situations, as for example, I would never condone bombing an area with no strategic targets in the general run of things, albeit sometimes situations come up where it might be needed.

It is really requires the judgment of the boots on the ground and the guys at the top, and that is very much why we need to pray for our government and soldiers that God would lead them in making the appropriate choices for each situation.

I love reading up on WWII! I'm especially interested in the Kindertransport, French Resistance, all the espionage...

You ought to check out the Polish 'Resistance' (Home Army). They were the most successful of the home resistance movements. They (along with the Czechs) successfully targeted many high Nazi officials for assassination, driving the SS crazy.

and the Warsaw Rising of '44.

I was quite aghast when I learned that Stalin not only held his chaps back from helping but even forbid us Anglo-Americans from basing aircraft on his based to airdrop supplies to the gallant Poles in Warsaw.

Even worse, the Soviets actually shot down Allied planes on multiple occasions. I also learned that there is a big difference between Russia and the Soviet Union that I had never really considered. Very interesting subject - I'll have to address it at a later date.

Do you think it was nessisary for the US to drop A bombs on Japan or not? Was there a way around it? and what would have happened if we hadn't dropped it?

It was a necessary evil, but it had to be done to prevent the death of not only millions of military personnel, but also millions of innocent civilians.

So much is owed to the RAF in the Battle of Britain...they really held the wolf at bay and allowed time to divert the course of the war, which at that point was going very much Germany's way.

Ironically, the British owed their victory in the Battle of Britain to the Poles. The Polish element in the RAF greatly over-performed the rest of the RAF. They had a much lower casualty rate, and more kills in less time. One of the British generals (can't remember his name) basically said that without the Polish pilots, the battle would have had a different result.