World War Mistakes

There is no doubt that over human history war has brought death, destruction, merciless slaughter and poverty in its wake as it sweeps a country or continent up like a tsunami. Almost two decades after the Great War, we humans are back at each other’s necks in the second world war. Have we not learned from our past mistakes? Was the first world war already a distant memory? It seems so as it is still the twentieth century and countries are invading others to see who can vie for dominance in a territory, maybe in the twenty-first century, we will evolve enough to change our ways. Although war leads to the worst calamities in history, we must realize that it is a part of human history, our inescapable evil. A glance at a history textbook of the …show more content…
Japan assuming that America would one day become an enemy shifted from a defence to an offensive stance. Much to their dismay giving America the six requirements to a ‘right to war’. The just cause stems from America’s cause to “[punish Japan] for a grievous wrongdoing” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 4). Japan being the aggressor to the war, “causes [Japan] to forfeit its own state rights” (4), thereby “permitting violent resistance” (4), in this case leading to a full frontal assault from the US war machine. Not only that but, “the protection of innocents from brutal, aggressive regimes” (4) such as, Japan which was invading China at the time. Who slaughtered millions in the country, the act of America waging war against Japan can as well be noted as a “humanitarian intervention, [as] armed aid” (5). Thus, the Japanese army would need to move a portion of its forces to the Pacific to battle it out with the US, allowing for fewer forces in China. Furthermore, the right intention, America may seem that it is going to war to avenge its fallen soldiers who fell at Pearl Harbour, but there is a bigger picture. Rather America desires to stop the brutality of the Japanese, especially stopping it from causing more raids on Americans. As a third rule, “a state may go to war only if the decision has been made by the appropriate authorities” (5) and “made public” (5) in both cases …show more content…
But the information they forget to mention is that in the second world war, civilians in the cities were part of the war effort since all sides mobilized all their resources to defeat the other side. Every bomb dropped, every bullet fired, every warplane made to fly over other countries for raids, every tank used to charge into the enemy lines, every uniform sewed together. All were made by the collective strength of the civilians of a country. Clearly the soldiers are not forging their own weapons and uniforms, they have to have come from somewhere and be used to kill enemy soldiers overseas. Therefore, they were a part of the army as a whole and aiding the army in putting up the resistance they had even while they were on the losing end. Besides if civilians were entitled to “absolute immunity that would outlaw all warfare” (13) In fact, a pacifistic ideal would never have solved the war, instead it would have blown the whole war way out of proportion say for example, if Winston Churchill was a pacifist and decided to talk with Hitler about the ‘Blitz.’ He would most likely have to hand over the country or England would have been taken over by force with its leader refusing to send out the RAF. “Effective non-violent resistance depends upon the scruples of those it is aimed against” (11) for example, Gandhi’s campaign for