how come no one gives a shit about the firebombing of tokyo?

This is why you lost your twin towers, anon.

>he doesn't know about Chongqing

Haha so much seethe generated from this based post. Nips were bombing civilians in China just to spite allies.

Anon, do you think we didn't drop incendiary bombs on Europe?

Also, look up what happened to the German and Japanese architects of terror bombing campaigns. The Japanese killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians in attacks that actually were indiscriminate and unconnected with military objectives, unlike the American campaign.

The reality is that area bombing was the only form of strategic bombing that was actually viable with WW2 technology. The US spent billions of dollars on precision bombing equipment in an effort to target industrial chokepoints, and it simply didn't work.

You can argue that it was immoral, but the simple fact is that it was legal under international law, and that it was the most effective way to win the war. Fortunately, the kinds of people who throw massive crybaby hissy fits when their side wins are generally not the people who actually run countries.

I'm really fascinated that you have discovered some kind of functioning international body that was defining the laws of war before world war 2. It's the entire cornerstone of your argument, which otherwise sounds like a fat kid saying that whatever teacher says is the rules. Can you tell me more of this mysterious international legal agency from 1943?

Okay. So all we have to do to nail down whether or not you're full of shit is to examine the Geneva Convention and see whether or not it can be argued that any of its rules were violated by intentional bombing of civilian areas, right?
Or are you a fat kid?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_bombardment_and_international_law#International_law_up_to_1945

In terms of statutory law, people point to the Hague Convention of 1907, which prohibited the bombing of people in undefended places.

Most people agree that this isn't applicable, given that Japanese cities were defended, and contained legitimate military targets.

That leaves the argument that it was contrary to informal international law, which is also questionable given that every major power in WW2 engaged in indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.

So if you're arguing that during WW2 there was no statutory or informal international law around strategic bombing, you would

A: Be wrong
B: Be a moron because that would further support the argument that strategic bombing was legal

Well, I'm hearing a lot of seething but no argument.

Allied courts actually did consider the question of whether US strategic bombing was illegal; it was a central question that the court at Nuremburg was considering when we were deciding whether to try Germans for the Blitz.

The end conclusion was that there was no formal, statutory international law banning strategic bombing in pursuit of a military objective (being that the Hague Convention only prohibited bombardment of unprotected cities) and there was no informal norm in international law (the laws and customs of war) because all major military powers during WW2 used strategic bombing.

Of course, you don't know about any of this legal or historical background because you're a butthurt pseud who didn't do any research at all.

That's cool but it's not an argument.

In order for something to be a war crime, it needs to violate the laws and customs of war. There either needs to be a specific international law banning it, or a strong informal tradition that a court can refer to.

US bombing didn't violate the laws of war, because none of the conventions that the US was a party to had any prohibition on aerial bombing of military targets. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 imposed proportionality requirements, but those didn't exist during WW2.

It didn't violate the customs of war, because the Germans, Japanese, British, and Soviets did the same thing. Every power with the resources to conduct indiscriminate aerial bombing did so. Thus, the customs of war did not prohibit it.

You can keep throwing insults, but it doesn't change the part where you're factually wrong.

I admire your tenacity in trying to hold to a factually incorrect position, but you have no hope of success.

At the time of WW2, there was an established body of international law governing conduct during war. There were three separate Geneva Conventions and two Hague Conventions, agreements that were and are considered part of international law. These were the legal regimes that every combatant in WW2 operated under, including the US.

Nothing in any of these agreements prohibited a combatant from bombing a city filled with military targets, simply because it contained civilians. The Hague Convention of 1907 had a provision on aerial bombing, but it only protected undefended cities.

The Geneva Convention of 1949, adopted after the war, imposed proportionality requirements for aerial bombing, but these didn't exist, for any power, during WW2.

War crimes are generally committed because they're convenient, expedient or provide some sort of advantage. "But I had to win that war" is never an acceptable excuse.

That's a whole different matter from the argument in my post or the post I was replying to.
Also "but the Japs also committed war crimes" is not an excuse either.

>but the Japs also committed war crimes" is not an excuse either.
It actually kind of is
it'd be like comparing premeditated murder to a crime of passion. there's a reason why nobody cares about the german civilians who were raped and killed by the soviets. the soviets had a right to be furious after what germany did to them. imagine if your family members/friends died from the cowardly japanese sneak attack on pearl harbor, or during a death march, I bet you'd be pissed at japs for starting an unnecessary pointless war.

Nah, the US lost Vietnam because during the first phase of the war, it was fighting a peasant insurgency that strategic bombing had no effect on, and during the second phase of the war, it didn't have the political capital to fight a full scale conventional war.

t. knower

I think it was closer than most people realize. There were legitimate currents of anti-communist thought in South Vietnam, similar to South Korea, and US efforts succeeded in creating a state dominated by anti-communists.

The basic problem was that the tools the US chose to fight the war (unconditional troop commitments and a war of attrition against the Viet Cong) were insanely costly relative to the military objectives that the US was trying to achieve.

Even so, the war had turned into a conventional conflict by 1970, and there's a real chance that North Vietnam's conventional war machine could have collapsed if the US had invaded Laos and severed the Ho Chi Minh trail, or if the US had been a bit faster in pairing strategic bombing with international pressure for other countries to stop supporting Hanoi.

Tet aside, the war moved closer to being conventional precisely because the US was pulling out and everyone knew that the ARVN would not be sufficient to stop the communists. Conventional warfare to seize and hold urban centers is one of the last stages of a successful classical guerilla campaign.
That aside, North Vietnam consistently controlled the level of fighting, and could dial it up or down at will. meaning that even if Johnson hadn't yielded, they could maintain a tempo that was sustainable for them, while still politically and fiscally draining for the US.
> if the US had invaded Laos
Given the weeks to months long travel time needed to take the trail into the South, months would go by before any effect was seen in the "traditional" fighting areas, assuming the US could completely sever an amorphous series of dirt trails through dense jungle. The question of where the soldiers for yet another occupation and pacification operation would come from is unknown. Sending yet more soldiers to complement the half a million already in-theater was a non-starter, and denuding South Vietnam of US forces would only worsen the security situation there.
> pairing strategic bombing with international pressure for other countries to stop supporting Hanoi
China was moving towards rapprochement with the US, but made it clear that closer relations did not mean severing ties with North Vietnam. US had no leverage with the USSR, which did otherwise want peace. Morale bombing was, is, and will be a meme.

>Not really
PAVN soldiers moving down the trail fought unconventionally in the South. "The War of the Flags" from 1973 - 1975 also demonstrates the continued existence of the PRG as a political force, even if its military wing had greatly atrophied.
>, not the kind of fighting that was going on in the 70s.
Which happened in the context of a US withdrawal that had begun in 1968, encouraging Le Duan to once more think big. Massive US recommitment at that point was not feasible. Any althis change to US actions then has to happen in or pior to 1968 to really change the overall outcome.
> not the kind of fighting that was going on in the 70s
And as 1972 showed, extensive US air strikes were able to halt PAVN offensives, but did not enable the complete retaking of the lost territory. US power was still no substitute for a capable ARVN.
>The Ho Chi Minh trail was a four lane asphalt highway
As they'd been given a reprieve by a bombing moratorium and used it to reequip and develop their forces.
>allies
Still won't move on any timescale that that benefits the US, if only because US involvement is what made it a global issue in the first place.
> bombing enemy logistics, like we did in Linebacker, is decidedly not.
On both the tactical and strategic levels, the PAVN/NLF was flexible enough that that could never prove crippling. After all, they were not obliged by anything to maintain a given optempo; existing as going concerns sufficed for their political purposes.