Foolish questioning regarding Allied bombing against Axis targets would not even be a question if the enemy had won the war.
- Aleksander Aronowich Pechersky
leader of the Sobibor revolt, seconds before the outbreak
Grayling is a mendacious creep.
Several alert posters already mentioned Nanking, Coventry, and other atrocities by Axis nations who happened pile one war crime onto another.
I'm willing to wager that Grayling doesn't mention that many civilians were TARGETED during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor.
From Wiki, Anthony Clifford Grayling has also written on the topics of ...the legalisation of drugs, euthanasia, secularism, and human rights.
Anyone surprised?
.
I guess it's time to have war without killing anyone. It would be called "pattycake".
I always have a hard time with people who want to judge the behavior of those of another era according to their own, contemporary mores.
I find them self-righteous and chauvinistic, and when they threathen their descendants with punishment, it's downright frightening.
SUN TZU ON THE ART OF WAR
http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html#02
War is hell, and it ain't pretty. This kind of 'Monday morning quarterbacking' is a waste of time.
btt
It was total annihilation that broke the will of the enemy to continue the war, surrender, adopt democracy and join the free nations of the world. Unfortunately, that is not the way wars are fought today and look at what you get -- unending insurgencies.
This played out in Europe, where the RAF did night area bombing, and the USAAF primarily bombed industry in daylight raids.
Obviously, LeMay's approach in the Pacific was more in line with Trenchard's theories.
The key to analyzing all of this is the the concept of proportionality, which dictates that the loss of life and property incidental to a military attack must not be excessive in relation to the military advantages expected to be gained.
I would say the RAF's area bombing had little military value. LeMay's firebombing was the most effective way to target Japanese targets given the wooden construction of their buildings, but the collateral damage was very high in proportion. Plus LeMay's intentions were more in line with Trenchard.
The A-Bombs clearly gained a huge military advantage compared to the loss of life. Plus, the fact Japan failed to surrender after Hiroshima suggests their resistance was very high.
We cannot compare wars of the past with the capabilities of today. If it took 1,000 B-17s and 10,000 dead civilians to destroy an enemy target in 1944, that is the standard. Not the fact that today a single airplane can take out the same target and only risk those civilians who are actually within the confines of the target.
We also cannot compare reality (the Japanese did surrender and end the war as a result of the A-Bomb) with theory (if only we had really asked nicely they would have given up).
And let's not forget some advocated bombing the concentration camps to put them out of commission, knowing it would result in a large number of civilian deaths.
Let me provide this analysis:
We were the good guys. They were the bad guys.
No. That's why we'll be justified when we ultimately have to bomb muslim cities. The precedent's been set. And not just in WWII.
Here is my opinion regarding rules in warfare...
Rules are enforced when there is some objective authority with sufficient retaliatory powers to coerce the parties into compliance. There is no such entity in any war that involves major powers. The pretend otherwise is stupid.
I lost two Soldiers in Iraq. If I could bring them back by slitting the throat of every man, woman, and child living in Iraq then I would do it. I would do it and then eat a hamburger and go to sleep and wake up refreshed 8 hours later.
Labeling civilians as non-combatants is stupid. They are not without sin. The German people elected Hitler and gave him the power to terrorize Europe. If their houses got burned and their children slaughtered in order to prevent more of our young men from getting killed as the US un-screwed what Germany screwed up, then so be it. That's war. Deal with it. If you don't like then don't elect sociopaths, psychos, or tyrants.
Same goes for Iraq and Afghanistan. There are over 20 million people in Iraq who let themselves be terrorized by Saddam Hussein (read "Saddam's Delusions" in the latest Foreign Affairs - even his right-hand men were terrorized). Don't expect me to shed a tear because we accidentally kill a couple of them in the process of hunting down terrorists that have attempted to fill the void created when we booted Hussein from power. They made the mess and refused to clean it up. Now people want to sharpshoot us for doing what Haji refused to do.
AC Grayling can F off and eat the next turd that lands in my toilet. I am so sick of subhuman parasites in academia who know nothing other than what their philosophy textbooks and dry reading of the Geneva conventions teach them. I would like to give this moron a rifle and drop him into the middle of some F-ed up city in Iraq and tell him walk to the nearest US Base 5 miles away - and don't shoot anyone unless they're wearing a military uniform. Then we'll see which lasts longer - his theories about the Law of Land Warfare or his basic survival instincts.
Hitler and Goebbels asked for "Total War" and they got it!!!
The German and Japaneses are self evident ...just flat out deliberate slaughter... the Italians not as much but still in pre ww2 Ethiopia... the Russian well they were teams with both side went they went in to Poland with the Germans in 39 and in the battles it 44/45 in to Germans civilian were fair game... The Chinese were alway fighting on home soil...
However none of the above had any strategic bombing force... only the Brit and American did... of the two the Brits did night time area bombing of city's... it did take a toll on civilian.... However the American went with daylight "precision" bombing it took a higher toll on aircrew and less on civilian but the aim was to take out the factory more the the cities would be more effect in the long run...high altitude daylight "precision" bombing was alway in question during that war not because of civilian death but the opposite in that many felt it was to much effort and risk going it daylight to "precision" bombing the factory...just better to go at night and carpet bomb the lot
The American also started the strategic bombing campaign of Japan also as high altitude daylight "precision" bombing but that was one extra problem over Japan...very strong high altitude winds...(it was over Japan in 44/45 that the so call "Jet Stream" first became well known) be cause of this high altitude daylight "precision" bombing over Japan was proving to be a bust... so it was switch to the Brit style night time area bombing or just call it quits (and that wasn't going to happen)
But like I stated the American probably did the most of any of major combatant of WW2 to avoid killing civilian....not that it was driven by any major degree of concerns for civilian ... it was more that the American doctrine worked on the assumption that destroying the factory's was more efficient that just killing civilian
And even if it was a "War Crime," consider the Marshall Plan, and the Berlin Airlift, payment in full, and then some.
Foolish questioning regarding Allied bombing against Axis targets would not even be a question if the enemy had won the war.
Mass bombings are not over - does anyone except Senator Patty Murray believe that bin Laden wouldn't use a nuclear weapon
on the West if he got his hands on one?
It is amazing to me that anything but KILL THE ENEMY and destroy his war making capacity, before the HE does it to you, is even considered!!
Mark
No one can even begin to discuss this issue intelligently without first taking account of the following facts: all the cities (Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Conventry and so many others) that Germany and Japan bombed first, the fact that every day the war went on the Axis powers were slaughtering vast numbers of people, the facts of the Holocaust (which was killing thousands of Jews and other targeted peoples every day the war went on), the total "scorched earth" of the Eastern Front in which the Germans annihilated countless cities, towns, and villages, etc. etc.
The Allied Powers were trying to bring the earliest possible end to an aggressive war launched by the Axis powers which was killing TENS OF MILLIONS (final tally was probably 40+ million). Sure, one can argue that bombing of cities is never justified, but if it's EVER justified it certainly was in WWII as the best attempt to defeat the Axis.
btw, there's no certainty at all that the USSR would have stayed in the war without the US and UK attacking Germany all-out from the air, since before June 1944 that was the ONLY serious way they had to reduce the German military power on the Eastern Front. If Stalin had judged that the US and UK were unwilling to do all in their power to defeat Germany then he might well have made a negotiated peace and Nazi rule would have continued all over Europe, the Holocaust would have been carried out to its "final solution" etc.