German V1 "Buzz Bomb" about to hit London.
Posted on 05/20/2006 8:33:39 PM PDT by tbird5
Deliberately targeting civilians is widely considered terrorism nowadays, but during World War II both the Britain’s Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Force deliberately targeted civilians.
The British philosopher A. C. Grayling, in his new book Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (Walker, $25.95), points out that the two air forces combined killed perhaps 600,000 German civilians and another 200,000 Japanese. He makes the case that at least by our current standards we were terrorists, and it logically follows that the attacks were war crimes. In an age of political terror, when it is urgent to come up with a persuasive distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence, it is hard to overstate the importance of the questions Grayling raises.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanheritage.com ...
No. You must "do it again" if it means life or death for your country.
Was Sherman's "March to the Sea" a war crime? It specifically targetted civilian infrastructure.
Like my buddy Rush says, in war the aggressor sets the rules. Japan and Germany set the rules, and Team America beat them.
I had to read a book this last semester by an idiot named Bruce Cumings. The whole thing was a rant about how evil the United States is, especially for the "war crimes" and "genocide" we perpetrated during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He believes that during World War II, the United States was on the same level as Nazi Germany.
He also spends almost the entire preface on a mindless Bush bash. “Bush stole the election.” “He was selected not elected.” “Bush is an idiot.” “He lost the popular vote so he really didn’t win.” (One would think Cumings, who is probably an intelligent person, would remember that the so called “popular vote” doesn’t mean anything in U.S. Presidential elections.) Even the tragic event involving the U.S.S. Greenville is used to lay blame at the feet of President Bush. Then he implies that the President is totally over blowing the threat of Islamic terrorists and using Sept. 11th as an excuse to continue a Cold War mentality. All of this of course means that the President is also responsible for the continuing problems with North Korea. According to Cumings, has the U.S. just continued the policies of Bill Clinton, everything would have been just fine on the Korean Peninsula.
Right on. The wars in the Middle East these past few years are small compared with the World Wars. It's not necessary to go to the lengths we went in World War II. Those countries were more powerful than Iraq and Afghanistan and we needed more to defeat them. For crying out loud, it took two atomic bombs before Japan surrendered. The only other option was to take the country town by town, city by city, slaughtering resistance and costing the lives of thousands of Americans. By the time the war was ending, the Japanese were training their women and children to fight against the American army.
If we get into a war where we and an enemy are at each other's necks like the allies and axis were in WWII, you better believe there is going to be bombing of civilians.
Was the asshole who wrote this even alive for WWII?
"Grayling acknowledges that American bombing attacks on German fuel stocks, transportation and aircraft factories actually had some significant effect on the outcome of the war, so he gives the U.S. Army Air Force a partial pass. The USAAF usually attempted precision bombing of industrial targets by day; the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command usually attempted area bombing by night, and aimed at whole cities. Grayling does not give the Bomber Command that partial pass."
That figure for Japanese is ludicrous. I view it as likely that a million Japanese might have been killed in the 4/10/45 raid on Tokyo alone, and Tokyo was but one of some 75 large cities which were basically burned down before LeMay ran out of incindiaries in July 45.
Give me a break! Things have to be judged according to the times. Just as crucifixion is now considered cruel and unusual, at the time of Christ's death it was the normal method of execution. Until fairly recently, public hanging was the accepted method of execution here in the U.S. and decapitation by guillotine continued until the 1940s in Europe.
If we are to allow some sort of johnny-come-lately re-assessment of wartime tactics we might as well condemn Italians for the destruction of Carthage by the Roman Legions. Give me a break!
German V1 "Buzz Bomb" about to hit London.
Oh geez.
Bad things happen in war.......because it's war. People die.
That is exactly what Muslims say to themselves when they fly passenger jets into buildings here in the U.S.
THANK YOU! Nothing irritates me more than high and mighty armchair intellects who believe they have the moral authority to apply today's standards to history.
Hubris at it's most appalling.
NO.
Next question?
"War is all hell." - Wm T. Sherman 1865
He did so with London. Case closed. A biased premise from the start.
both nuclear detonations should have been war crimes.
You serious? Those nuclear detonations that you say should have been war crimes ended WWII, the bloodiest war in human history. Had they not been dropped the war would have went on, and an all out invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been necessary. The American casualties of such an invasion would have made D-Day look like a minor skirmish. Something to remember the next time you think that this war a "war crime".
I disagree. It was using terror as a weapon to achieve political goals. Where people get lost today is when they know we bombed cililians but they do not understand much else about history. We were in a fight to save things like Democracy and Capitalism. One of every 10 civilians killed contributed to the war effort in some manner. This was about Denying Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with the means to wage war. There is a huge difference between the touchy-feely, don't piss off the left wars we have waged recently and total war, which is what WW2 was.
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