Posted on 02/21/2007 8:59:05 PM PST by dervish
The French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen provoked outrage among British veterans yesterday when he compared the September 11 attacks on the United States to RAF-led bombing raids during the Second World War.
The National Front leader said both were "terrorist acts as they expressly targeted civilians to force military leaders to capitulate". Mr Le Pen, 79, also dismissed the al-Qa'eda atrocities in 2001 as a mere "incident".
He told the Roman Catholic newspaper La Croix: "Three thousand dead — that is how many die in Iraq in a month and it's far less than the deaths in the Marseille or Dresden bombings at the end of the Second World War."
Praising those Muslims who condemned the attacks on New York and Washington, Mr Le Pen said: "The September 11 event, or one could say incident, prompted a certain number of people to distance themselves [from Islamic extremism] to avoid falling under the barrage of accusations that was unleashed."
'snip'
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Al Quada copied British and U.S. tactics from WWII with the twist of using the plane as the bomb. I do not approve of targeting terror attacks on civilians, but clearly the Allies destroyed Dresden as a terror attack, just as Al Quada destroyed the WTC as a terror attack. I disapprove of terror attacks on civilians, whether on Dresden or the World Trade Center.
Veale cites J.M. Spaight's book BOMBING VINDICATED to prove that the British started the deliberate bombing of German civilians on May 11, 1940 which Spaight called the "Splendid Decision."
Interesting. But another quote from Spaight's book goes like this...
JM Spaight's Bombing Vindicated."It could have harmed us morally only if it were equivalent to an admission that we were the first to bomb towns. It was nothing of the sort. The German airmen were the first to do that in the present war. (They had done it long before, too—at Durango and Guernica in 1937, nay, at London in 1915-18.) It was they, not the British airmen, who created a precedent for 'war against the civilian population'."
"As it was he [Hitler] chose to set a precedent for the bombing of centres of population in this war at its very outset and thereby prejudiced his position as the advocate of the mutual abandonment by the belligerents of the practice of strategic bombing. In short, it was he who really began the battles of the towns. He is probably very sorry now that he ever did so."
Britain was attacked and already well into a war with Germany. Where is the equivalent situation for Al Quada to attack us on 9/11 as you claim?
btt
Be fair. It was ALSO payback for Coventry, and well deserved.
Prime Minister Chamberlain had given an assurance that "the British Government would never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children and other civilians for the purpose of mere terrorism."
However, Churchill's policy was different, as Spaight put it, "Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly after the RAF had commenced bombing German civilian targets... It gave Coventry, Birmingham, Sheffield and Southampton the right to look Kiev, Kharkov, Stalingrad and Sebastopol in the face. Our Soviet allies would have been less critical of our inactivity if they had understood what we had done... Hitler would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely anxious to reach with Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to battle zones.'
The difference between the German Air Force and the RAF was that the Germans designed their air force bombers to aid the ground forces in attacks, while the RAF designed heavy bombers for area attacks. Veale discusses the difference between tactical bombing in support of the army vs. terror attacks. Ground attacks on cities supported by bombers (tactical bombing) as the Germans did is very different than targeting civilians for terror as happened in Dresden.
In a nutshell, Spaight admitted that thousands of British died because Churchill wanted Coventry . . . to look Kiev . . . in the face. As to Guernica, the Germans never admitted a policy of targeting civilians, unlike the British, and Guernica had armaments factories - check Wikipedia for info on Guernica, such as the shooting of a captured German pilot by the Communists prior to the bombing.
As Voltaire said, Beware of people who can make you believe absurdities, because they can make you commit atrocities. Even Churchill came to the realization that the RAF had committed an atrocity at Dresden.
The motto here, m'friend, is: ''Don't start no shjt, won't be no shjt.''
And the death cultists had better figure this out right quickly. Sadly, they don't seem to be a favourite to do so. Awwwww.
In a nutshell, Spaight admitted that thousands of British died because Churchill wanted Coventry . . . to look Kiev . . . in the face.
Again your Spaight quotes are quite selective.
JM Spaight's Bombing Vindicated."Today we can hold our heads high. Could we have done so if we had continued the policy which we adopted in September, 1939, and maintained until May, 1940? It was a selfish policy after all, an ungenerous one, an unworthy one. We were prepared to see our weaker neighbours' cities devastated by air attack—of the tactical order—to bear their misfortunes with equanimity, to do nothing to help them in the only way in which we could help at all. (We had no great army then to oppose to the German hosts, and the mills of sea power grind very slowly.) We were prepared, in fact, to leave them to their fate provided we could save our own skin. Our Great Decision As it was, we chose the better, because the harder, way. We refused to purchase immunity—immunity for a time at least—for our cities while those of our friends went up in flames. We offered London as a sacrifice in the cause of freedom and civilisation."
Britain began bombing Germany only after Germany had bombed Poland, and Norway, and Belgium, France and Holland. Even then Britain tried to bomb only precise military targets with small numbers of aircraft.
Spaight isn't saying what you want him to at all.
Britain was attacked and already well into a war with Germany. Where is the equivalent situation for Al Quada to attack us on 9/11 as you claim?
LePen has always been a self-serving totalitarian wannabee kookburger, rather like Lyndon LaRouche, but w/o the $2000 suits and the smooth demeanour.
#17---Don't confuse Monsieur Le Pen with the facts. European politicians have a very long tradition of pointed existential overstatement coupled with severe character flaws buttressed by a sense of History permanently in denial, when they make their "statements" to the world at large.
And, just how would the Allied Commanders know with any certainty that the war would end one month from the time they ordered the air raid? Was this action one of the reasons that the war ended as soon as it did? How many Allied soldier lives were saved by this action if the raid did shorten the war?
I am interested in the lives of U.S. service men and women and those of our allies. Not, in what happens to our enemies and those that support them or condone their actions. If the terrorist of today had the capabilities, and they may soon have, to inflict a hundred thousand deaths of American citizens do you think they would have any remorse after doing so? I don't believe they would and neither does another clear thinking person. We owe no apologies to our enemies for destroying them.
The fact is that Spaight never wrote the above. It was quoted as coming from Spaight's book by Kenneth McKilliam in an article called How World War II Came About.
McKilliam claims the quote comes from a book by Spaight called "The Splendid Decision", but Spaight never wrote a book called that. He does use the phrase "The Splendid Decision" in Bombing Vindicated.
The article was written for Spearhead magazine, published by John Tyndall. Spearhead was the official magazine of the National Front, then the British National Party, of which Tyndall was the leader.
The national front, and now the British National Party, are both far right fringe parties in the UK, and regarded by most people as fascists. Kenneth McKilliam was an election candidate for the national front.
Actually, Britain was not attacked. Poland was attacked by Germany and the Soviet Union. Britain then declared war on Germany (but not the Soviets). IMO, Britain would have been well served to have allowed the Germans and Soviets to fight it out and then finish off the loser. Unfortunately for the British, Churchill was not the sharpest knife in the kitchen - though I believe he was honest and had more moral principles than Stalin or FDR. (Read ICEBREAKER by Suvorov for details on Stalin's planned attack on Europe and England.)
Second, the most authoritative source is Churchill himself from his memo of March 28:
"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land… The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy.
The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive."
Churchill admitted that Dresden was essentially, a "mere act(s) of terror and wanton destruction." Spaight's book is a rationalization for terror attacks - "other pretexts", as Churchill puts it. I'm sure you and I can both agree that the WTC attack was also an act of terror and wanton destruction. Our difference is that I don't believe targeting civilians for terror attacks is OK. Is there a moral equivalence? The British started targeting civilians first for non-sensical reasons (Coventry to look Kiev in the face - WTF?) and Al Queda targeted U.S. civilians for ???. Absurd atrocities were committed at Dresden and the WTC, by people who believed in absurdities - as Voltaire said they would.
I think you are right that Spaight never wrote a book called the "Splendid Decision" - that was a phrase from his book, "Bombing Vindicated".
Here is Spaight's book online. You will notice the same paragraph you posted attributed to Spaight via McKilliam's article here on the index page. But if you go to Chapter III pg 74, as it says on the index page, you will not find that paragraph in Spaight's book.
Now, if we can dispense with your tendencies to quote neo-Nazi propaganda in defense of your terrorist apologetics perhaps you can answer a straight question about your own words.
Britain was attacked and already well into a war with Germany. Where is the equivalent situation for Al Quada to attack us on 9/11 as you claim?
Oh yeah sure, these women, kids and old people definitely deserved a firestorm to burn their sorry bodies! "Well deserved"? Well deserved my a$$!
Really? Nonsensical reasons? Spaight didn't think so and neither do I.
Spaight..."Even if Warsaw is left out of account on the ground - vide German propaganda - that the city was invested and had refused to surrender, it is still undeniable that the Germans bombed undefended towns in Norway before we ever dropped a bomb in Germany. 'Kristiansund, an open and absolutely defenceless town where there have never been any military establishments whatever, was bombed for three days; only one house remained. . 15,000 inhabitants were left without shelter. In the same way Molde was bombed, and Reknes, the great sanatorium for tuberculosis, was bombed and set on fire.' 'Where Elverum had been but a few hours before, only the church and the Red Cross hospital were left standing. . . . Hardly a house but had been razed to within four feet of the ground.'
That the Germans, having so set the pace in Norway, should protest in the name of humanity when we, having caught them up, stiffened the going for them in the Ruhr, is an indication of the amazing obtuseness of the Teutonic mentality. Have they then forgotten what happened in April, 1940? Those raids in Norway could not be explained away as reprisals. And why, given those raids, was it such a shock to the righteous Germans when we bombed the Ruhr? Why was it a 'Churchill crime'? Why should Essen or Duisburg or Dortmund be inviolate when Elverum and Kristiansund and Reknes were not?"
" The most densely built-up square mile of the city was devastated, 20,000 buildings destroyed, 78,000 people rendered homeless and nearly 1,000 inhabitants killed. The following morning, except in the Zeeland province, the Dutch forces were ordered to lay down their arms." The most densely built-up square mile of the city was devastated, 20,000 buildings destroyed, 78,000 people rendered homeless and nearly 1,000 inhabitants killed. The following morning, except in the Zeeland province, the Dutch forces were ordered to lay down their arms." The most densely built-up square mile of the city was devastated, 20,000 buildings destroyed, 78,000 people rendered homeless and nearly 1,000 inhabitants killed. The following morning, except in the Zeeland province, the Dutch forces were ordered to lay down their arms." The most densely built-up square mile of the city was devastated, 20,000 buildings destroyed, 78,000 people rendered homeless and nearly 1,000 inhabitants killed. The following morning, except in the Zeeland province, the Dutch forces were ordered to lay down their arms.
The destruction of Rotterdam settled not only the question of further resistance in Holland, but also the question of how far the German Air Force was respecting civilian life and property. When on 15th May the War Cabinet once more considered the propriety of attacking the Ruhr, its remaining doubts had vanished, and the Air Staff was at last given the signal to go ahead. Of the many benefits that this decision was expected to bring, the greatest would be the anticipated effect on the German Air Force; for German air superiority had so paralysed the French ground forces that some diversion of the enemy bombers from their present objectives was imperative. If the Royal Air Force raided the Ruhr, destroying oil plants with its more accurately placed bombs and urban property with those that went astray, the outcry for retaliation against Britain might prove too strong for the German generals to resist. Indeed, Hitler himself would probably head the clamour. The attack on the Ruhr, in other words, was an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London."
As for Hitler and Stalin fighting it out, World War II started as a Nazi Communist conspiracy to divide Europe.
Not only is the above "Spaight" quote a complete fabrication by Kenneth McKilliam it is incorrect in its stated facts.
Area bombing of Germany didn't start until the 15th December 1940, with a raid by 135 bombers on Mannheim. By then, the Luftwaffe had killed about 20,000 civilians in Britain, thousands in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, thousands in Norway and tens of thousands in Poland.
Indeed, tens of thousands of civilians had been killed by the Luftwaffe before the RAF dropped it's first bomb on Germany.
Some may be surprised to learn that the British, not the Germans, started terror bombing civilians deliberately. The RAF Air Secretary admitted it in his book.
Also not true. The first German bombs on London (in WW2) were dropped on Croydon on the 15th August, killing over 60 civilians. From mid August onwards the Luftwaffe began greatly increasing their night bombing of Britain, dropping bombs on all provincial cities and the outskirts of London.
The British were doing the same, bombing military targets in Germany. Like the Germans they rarely hit what they were aiming at. However, the low number of attacks, and orders to bring bombs back if the target couldn't be identified, meant the German civilian casualties were very low.
That pattern of low casualties changed for the British when the Germans greatly expanded their bombing from mid August, and leapt up when the Germans switched to area bombing from mid September. It changed for the Germans when the RAF began area bombing from mid December.
Your neo-Nazi propagada is old and tired. It has been researched and refuted into the ground on the web. You should be embarrassed to cut-n-paste it once again.
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