Replies

At airforcehistory.hq.af.mil you'll find that Dresden contained well over 100 significant military targets. Civilian losses were mostly due to the fires that spread, and we did not have "smart bombs" in those days.

The propaganda about Dresden being an intentional civilian target was disseminated from neo-Nazi sites about a decade ago, and that propaganda effort continues.

I found this. I believe what you are referring to is this passage:

"In addition to its geographical position and topography and its primary importance as a communications center, Dresden was, in February 1945, known to contain at least 110 factories and industrial enterprises that were legitimate military targets, and were reported to have employed 50,000 workers in arms plants alone. Among these were dispersed aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabric Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); the great Zeiss Ikon A.G., Germany’s most important optical goods manufactory; and, among others, factories engaged in the production of electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch and Sterzel A.G.), gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke), and electric gauges (Gebruder Bassler).

Specific military installations in Dresden in February 1945 included barracks and hutted camps and at least one munitions storage depot.

Dresden was protected by antiaircraft defenses , antiaircraft guns and searchlights, in anticipation of Allied air raids against the city. The Dresden air defenses were under the Combined Dresden (Corps Area IV) and Berlin (Corps Area III) Luftwaffe Administration Commands."

Are you going to imply that there were large cities during World War II that didn't have arms factories? The air defenses, of course, are a given, as was the munitions storage depot and the barracks. Please note that at the time, Dresden was a city of 300 sq. km. 110 large factories will fit more than comfortably. I don't understand your civilian losses comment either- do you think they didn't anticipate the fact that fires tend to spread, regardless of what's burning?

Well said, and exactly right.

Thanks for the *ping, BTW.

>At airforcehistory.hq.af.mil you'll find that Dresden >contained well over 100 significant military targets. >Civilian losses were mostly due to the fires that spread, >and we did not have "smart bombs" in those days.
>

This is garbage. Criminality depends upon intention, not on action. Dresden was a war crime because civilians were targeted via the Allied fire-storm policy. This is documented. Aiming at industrial targets or transportation hubs is intention to destroy industrial targets or transportations hubs. Not a war crime. Aiming at civilians is. The warload carried by the bombers bears this out. No-one aimed at the military targets in Dresden.

By your reasoning Ward-Churchill is correct. There -were- military assets, people in uniform, etc, in the WTC and therefore it was a military target and therefore all the civilians who died were merely collateral damage. And that's because of a two-men-and-dog CIA office and a couple of uniforms.

In fact, regardless of any evidense of stated intent found in paperwork, anyone crashing fully fueled airliners into the WTC knows what will happen as a result of their actions and therefore their intent is evident. Thus their criminality is established. It is the same for Bomber Harris and his supporters.

AQ will not be able to rely on a defense that their documentation stated their intent to destroy a military target within the WTC, within the USA, with which they were at declared (holy) war.

Ward-Churchill's further assertion, that they were "all little Eichmanns beavering away" and therefore targets, is just plain Marxist "the enemy of the proletariat must receive social-justice" and therefore we must kill Czarist-reactionarys and counter-revolutionary Imperialist sympathizers. Anyone involved in capitalism is therefore a lawful target ie he wants "Spanish Civil War Rules". I hope he gets what he wishes for.

If you are right, so is Ward-Churchill. If Ward-Churchill is wrong so are you.

>The propaganda about Dresden being an intentional civilian >target was disseminated from neo-Nazi sites about a decade >ago, and that propaganda effort continues.
>

More garbage. Many people pointed out that Dresden was a war-crime the day after it was bombed. Including Winston Churchill in his famous memo. The arguments raged and raged and both Harris and Bomber Command were ignored when it came to handing out honors. Just because you only heard about ten years ago does not mean it started ten years ago.

Thanks for the ping.