Posted on 05/09/2005 8:24:48 AM PDT by metesky
Yes it did. The USAAC bombed during the day because nighttime bombing killed to many civilians due to the inaccurate weapons of the day.
The adjective "deliberate" makes a difference. If it's done as a means or as an end, OR if it's done in an indiscriminate way, it's deliberate.
As for the firebombings of Japanese civilians:
(1) Those who commanded it, said it was a means to an end. A way to psychologically stun the Japanese leadership so badly that they would surrender.
(2) The death of the civilians was part of the US intention. That is, if our bombing approach had, by some fluke or miracle, destroyed all the military targets in the city but left every single civilian unharmed, it would have been considered a disappointment and significant failure.
(3) I think some people saw it as a matter of proportionality (they would say the catastrophic loss of civilians lives was neither intended nor indiscriminate, but was just a collateral loss because the A-bomb was the only or the best way to take out the military targets) --- but I am convinced that this is incorrect.
A more discriminating method of bombing was already available. The purpose was not just hitting those military targets: it was to create such unthinkably massive civilian trauma as to cause psychological collapse and the abandonment of the war effort.
That's not the same as collateral damage.
"That's not the same as collateral damage."
To the victims, it's no different. They're still innocent and dead.
I agree with you on your basic point. The only perfect man was murdered on a cross. But our imperfections cannot become a self imposed impotence when obvious injustices are carried out in the light of day.
Everyone has broken SOME law in their life. Not everyone belongs in prison.
(3) Implies joy over the victory of our Communist "Allies" and approval of the anti-civilian tactics of the Anglo-American forces.
Can I choose: (5) there was no completely good side in this war; it is a shame that Western Civilization chose for a second time in 25 years to attempt to kill itself, this time successfully.
Why are you discounting that there may have been no good guys? There certainly was not a good outcome for the US culture and society in terms of the fruits that flowed from the war.
The industry was on the outskirts of the cities, while we targeted the Cathedral steeples to center the firestorm. Using a firestorm to destroy industrial capacity is a bit akin to using a bazooka as a flyswatter. Lastly, the bombing campaign had no effect on German industrial production. German war materials production was never higher than in late 1944 right before the actual invasion of Germany proper. The Allied bombing campaign destroyed countless millions of people and a treasury of the human spirit in irrelaceable architecture, art, and craftsmanship.
The Jews weren't exactly making B-24's in the ghettos.
Actually, that is exactly what they were doing. Why do you think the Germans had them locked up in them? To starve to death?
And don't you know that the big concentration camps, like Auschwitz-Birkenau provided the staffing of major war materials industrial works, int he case of Auschwitz, many inmates worked at the adjacent Buna Synthetic Rubber plant.
But you are missing the point. What is the moral difference between the Germans gassing Jewish civilians and the Allies burning up German civilians in firestorms?
Do you actually expect any fair-minded person to believe that tripe? Stop deluding yourself with Nazi apologist propaganda. It's true that the allies killed more German civilians in bombing raids than the other way around, but it's proposterous to claim that the Luftwaffe's unprecidented mass bombing of allied civilians was purely the result of "confused orders". Hitler used massive bombing compaigns with the express intent of terrorizing the allied nations, Britain in particular. That doesn't mean he only attacked civilian areas, but breaking Britain's national spirit with heavy civilian casualties was a tactic of psychological warfare that Hitler made no attempt to hide.
Much of the allied bombing of Dresden and even of Berlin can be seen today in our comfortable position looking back on history as outrageous overkill. However, in the throes of battle it is not always so easy to determine the exact amount of military action needs to be taken, especially when the uncertainty of a horrific war looms over your psyche. Did a desire for vengeance have anything to do with the decision to bomb Dresden? It's likely, but what can you expect from a nation that had itself first been bombed continually by the Luftwaffe? Nobody knows the true number of civilians killed in the Dresden firebombing, and as such many people (including Nazi apologists and anti-American leftists) have inflated the number to astronomical highs and have gotten away with it. I agree that looking in hindsight it may not have been justified, but I don't know that I could have said the same were I in charge of making strategic decisions at that point in the war. Either way, your casting Churchill as a demon-teutophobe seeking only bloody revenge, and Britain's and America's roles in WW2 as morally equivalent to Germany's genocide is intellectually dishonest.
The Jews weren't working for the allies. The Germans were working for the Axis.
It isn't actually Nazi sympathy that's primarily at play here, it's the desire to further along the "Hate America First" movement, with the attempt to undermine the war on terrorism being one of the main goals at the present time.
http://www.holland.com/oorlogssporen/gb/index.html?page=http://www.holland.com/oorlogssporen/gb/operations/1940.htmlDe officiële site van Nederlands Bureau voor Toerisme & Congressen
BOMBING OF ROTTERDAM
Hitler had envisioned needing only one day to beat the Dutch army. The operation was now stretching into five days. On May 14, 1940 General Schmidt (German Commander of the 39th Army Corps) issued an ultimatum to Colonel Scharroo, the Dutch Commander of Rotterdam. Rotterdam was to be destroyed if the troops did not surrender. General Winkelman, Commander-in-Chief of the Dutch armed forces, wanted to play for time. He asked Scharroo to request a second ultimatum. Schmidt ordered the bombardment postponed due to the further surrender negotiations. He had a new ultimatum drawn up at 1:20 p.m. and allowed Scharroo three hours to surrender. However, German bombers appeared within mere minutes. Panicking, Schmidt ordered red flares to be let off to indicate surrender. It was too late. One squadron could abort its attack in time, but the planes approaching from the east dropped their bombs on the City. The bombing lasted for fifteen minutes and the resulting disruption was beyond belief. Houses were on fire and the power failed. The whole city was in a state of chaos. Rotterdam mourned some 800 dead, while 78,000 people were homeless. Half an hour before the second ultimatum expired, Scharroo signed the surrender of Rotterdam.
Life is too short to have historical discussions with people who don't even know history.
Hitler used massive bombing compaigns with the express intent of terrorizing the allied nations, Britain in particular.
No, you've got it all backwards. This was the British and American policy - terror bombing of civilians, including not just Germany and Japan but also Italy and occupied France (why do you think the French hate Americans so?). I doubt you could even name a German air-raid where mroe than 1000 people died.
The Cato Institute (Nazi Apologists????) has an article on the subject here:
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0995d.asp
However, in the throes of battle it is not always so easy to determine the exact amount of military action needs to be taken, especially when the uncertainty of a horrific war looms over your psyche.
Are you familiar with the harmless medieval town of Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber? In the "throes of battle" on Easter Sunday in 1945, a bomber group decided that having run out of other targets, now would be a good time to flatten Rothenburg, so they did. I think its fairly easy to question such decisions as they are happening.
Don't get hyper-focused on Dresden. What was done to Dresden was what was done to nearly every city and town from Normandy to Lithuania.
Britain's and America's roles in WW2 as morally equivalent to Germany's genocide is intellectually dishonest.
Killing innocent civilians is killing innocent civilians. Period. There is total moral equivalence.
Had the Anglo-American forces lost, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Burueau would have strung up "Bomber" Harris and Gen. Eisenhower just as quickly as we hung Gen. Keitel and Air Marshall Goering. And with just as much justice I might add.
I am not arguing in favor of a pacifist position. I think that just, strictly limited acts of war can be used to defend or rescue civilian lives and values. This can be not only permissible, but under certain circumstances, obligatory for those who have the duty to defend their people.
I am arguing that unrestrained slaughter is murder. Incinerating civilians is not what a good soldier does. It is not what a just warrior does. A person or nation who does this (and does not repent) is going over to the Dark Side.
Mother Teresa said that "the fruit of abortion is nuclear war." I fear she's right about that. But what I see is that it works both ways. A policy of city = target in war convinced the once Judeo-Christian West that killing the innocent was a useful, permissible thing, if you have a good enough reason. From that to megabortion in the USA (50,000,000 American children killed since 1973) was a short bloody slide indeed.
Is the loss of 50,000,000 American children our punishment for the firebombings of WWII? It could be its spiritual fruit.
In 1939 and 1940, the RAF tried daylight bombing using scrupulous military targets only rules of engagement.
The RAF Bomber Command nearly went out of business due to tremendous losses from overwhelming German fighter and antiaircraft artillery defences. RAF bombers didnot have the heavily armed bomber aircraft or the evolved close formation tactics that the Americans later used. The switch to night bombing operations was essentially a measure to preserve the RAF bomber force while still continuing to inflict some casualties on the enemy.
Germans were obliged to do the same thing during the Blitz when the Spitfires and Hurricanes ripped the Junkers, Heinkels, and Dorniers to pieces over southeastern England.
You mean the Marines killed all five of them?
Who is this idiot who conveniently forgets how the Japanese fought to the last man and then committed suicide?
In his attempt to "explode myths" he creates a myth that that such "myths" ever existed to begin with. Even a cursory read of a basic book on WW2 points out all the events in the war that he uses to engage in myopic postmodern nitpicking, for example, implying the only reason England went to war with Hitler was their concern with Poland, as if they thought Hitler would never threaten them too. (Well, Chamberlain thought it would end with Czechoslovakia, but he got canned over that, remember Mr. Wheatcroft?)
He then points out that it was Germany that declared war on America (Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious), his point being that America would otherwise not have entered the war in Europe. Never mind that Roosevelt was itching to get involved via Lend Lease/Arsenal of Democracy and the cat and mouse games between American destroyers in convoys to England and U-boats long before Pearl Harbor, including the torpedoing of the USS Reuben James on Halloween 1941.
And of course, no self-respecting deconstructionist discourse on WW2 would be complete without then Clintonizing the idea of a "good war", i.e., depends on what the meaning of "good war" is.
His only moment of sanity is when he closes by saying the war was "necessary", which he doesn't seem to understand single-handedly invalidates pretty much everything he wrote up to that point.
Not if it prevents far more murders. In such a case, refusing to pull the trigger is murder.
Excuse me while I roll my eyes.
It was never the American policy to terrorize Germany into surrender via indiscriminate bombing of civilians. Note that the 99.99% of the American strategic raids took place during the day, which would make for more accurate bombing, but which placed the American crews at far, FAR greater risk -- a risk not necessary when you're bombing something as large as a major population center which can be easily hit even at night. Their targets were never cities in general but ball-bearing plants, rail yards, aircraft factories, etc. The bombing proved not to be as accurate as hoped but it was NEVER thought by the Americans that they could terrorize Germany into surrender via terror bombings. They had just seen this very strategy fail against England for one thing. And even before that, they thought bombs were wasted on civilians -- instead they should be aimed at bonafide strategic military targets to have any effect at all on the enemy's ability or will to wage war.
True, the first German raid on British civilians was a navigation error, but not from that moment on. When England bombed Berlin a few days later, Hitler specifically ordered the terror bombings, aka The Blitz, which only stopped when he needed the planes for Barbarossa.
That the Germans never matched the number of civilians killed in air raids had nothing to do with a lack of desire to do so on their part. It had to do with the fact that -- despite all this talk of German technological superiority -- they never built a strategic bomber even remotely comparable to American B-17's and B-24's, and British Lancasters. (It cost them the war in the East because their tactical twin-engine bombers didn't have the range to reach Russian factories East of Moscow.)
Oh, and the French hate Americans because they are jealous girly-men. It's a development from France becoming the center of postmodern wuss-dom after the war. But it was hard to find a French citizen who hated Americans when they liberated Paris. Except for the collaborators, of course...
Not if it prevents far more murders. In such a case, refusing to pull the trigger is murder.
No, refusing to kill an innocent person is not murder. If you are a man of faith, I tell you God has forbidden it. If you are a man who feels responsible for the future, I tell you this is not just the top of a slippery slope: it is the entrance ramp to a logical 4-lane superhighway of slaughter.
This kind of consequentialism can't be supported: because once you say "I may, without moral blame, deliberately kill an innocent person if I have a sufficiently good reason," then you have no moral argument against any deliberate shedding of innocent blood; all you have is a calculus about consequences which neither of you can control.
The calculus of consequences is impossible. Can I murder 3 to save three? Can I kill a homely twin to give his kidneys to his handsome brother? How about if I murder 4 to save three, if the 4 were relatively worthless? How about if I kill a bunch of Spanish people on commuter trains on the gamble that it might or might not get Spanish troops out of Iraq and save an equal or greater number?
Maybe -- a jihadist who agrees with you might say ---once the whole world submits to Islam, there will be no more war, no more crime; and thus any number of 9/11's is justified if it brings the West into submission.
Virtually all killing, private and public, legal and criminal, piecemeal and mass-murder variety, is done by somebody who thought he had a sufficiently good reason.
This isn't a moral code. It's moral chaos. At the end of all calculations, I think it would cost the human race more grief than we can possibly imagine.
Any particular reason I was pinged on this?
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself whether Hitler didn't have such bombers built because he fundementally did not believe in prosecuting that sort of war (a total war against civilians?). The British spent 1/3 of their war effort on bombing, the Americans around 1/8.
Oh, and the French hate Americans because they are jealous girly-men.
My WWII Battle Atlas notes the following regarding British bombing just for 1940 and 1941:
8/40 - "Enemy targets in France", 3, 4, 5/41 - raids on port of Brest, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10/41 - sweeps over N. France, 7/41 - raids on Brest, Cherbourg, Lorient, and La Pallice, 8/41 - Raids on Cherbourg, 9/41 - raids on Brest and St. Nazaire, 10/41 - raids on Brest, St. Nazaire, Lorient, 11/41 - night raids on Brest, Lorient, daylight offensive against northern France for 15 days
Here's a few months of 1943 by the Americans and British:
7/43 - night raid on Montbelliard, day raids on Le Mans, La Pallice, Nantes, and Villacoublay, 9/43 - night raids on Boulogne, Mont Lucon, and Modane; Fortresses and Liberators drop 5400 tons on Paris, Nantes, and La Pallice, 11/43 - moderate night raids on Modane and Cannes, daylight raids on Toulon, 12/43 attacks on Pas de Calais and Paris in major heavy bomber operations
Which countries bombed Paris in WWII? Only the US and Britain.
But it was hard to find a French citizen who hated Americans when they liberated Paris.
No one ever hates the soldiers who are currently running around your neighborhood with large loaded weaponry shooting anything that looks disagreeable. The Parisans fell all over the Germans in 1940 too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.