Nuclear attacks in Japan justified - Agree or Disagree?
- Thread starter wet_suit_one
- Start date
There were certainly legitimate targets in the area, however those things were not targetted. The communications, transportation, and industrial infrastructure in Dresden were primarily in a different area than the area that was explicitly targeted. The area that was explicitly targeted was primarily the civilian populated city center, as opposed to the industrialized/militarized suburbs.
An allied commander at the time also said that the Dresden bombing was meant to destroy "what is left of German morale", implying that the civilians themselves were explicitly targeted, along with military infrastructure. I think it's undeniable that in Dresden, in Hamburg, and in other strategic bombing activities that civilians were explicitly targeted by the British.
I think the Americans also committed similar war crimes in their strategic bombing campaigns during the Vietnam war.
I think the Americans also committed similar war crimes in their strategic bombing campaigns during the Vietnam war.
Another non-denial denial. Your view appears to be that it's OK to commit war crimes so long as you win the war and can get away with it. Do you also think that shoplifting is fine and dandy, so long as you aren't caught?
Personally I think that if something is wrong, it is wrong whether or not you get away with it.
Not true.
Second atom bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945
Sovient launches invasion of Machuria on August 9, same day the bomb was dropped. There was still over a million Kwantung army in Manchuria alone, not counting in the rest of China, Taiwan, and indochina.
Japan surrenders to MacArthur on August 15
Japanese troops did not surrender in China until September 9, not until after MacArthur ordered Japan to do so.
As long as we agree that your term wartime propaganda applies to everything said post 9/11 and discount it, I'll happily consider what differentiates terrorism from so-called legitimate acts of war, and vice-versa.
I think however that bombing of civilians is reasonably clearly and concisely defined as is, and needs no further parsing and logic-chopping except to exculpate the bombers. So we could start our definitions there if you think that's OK war-fighting and not terrorism. How was the fire-bombig of Dresden, Tokyo and other cities anything but terror-tactics? Not to excuse our enemies from the same charge, but their evil doesn't make ours any less.
And Osama would have made a similar subjective claim about his attacks on innocent civilians. And if anyone cared about the semantic, it would be 'military' we'd be arguing about. A mere claim of legitimacy is meaningless, and the deliberate wholesale slaughter of civilians no more excusable because you can point to a few factories among them as your 'real' target.
Dresden was carpet-bombed with incendiaries that fell indiscriminately on residential and industrial areas. At night, when there was no possibility of more accurate aiming, because the Allies didn't want to face the daytime fighter cover, and coldly calculated there'd be no comeback for bombing enemy civilians and a positive benefit to demoralizing and terrifying them.
And, like Osama, they were wrong.
Of course it always helps when you occupy the city (and together with your pupet government) do so for 45 years during which time you carefully teach that you had nothing to do with all this it was the evil RAF, RCAF, RAAF, & RNZAF. However, the evidence to the contrary (that in fact the U.K. was correct when they said that this was a direct request from the Soviets) was plain to see during those few brief years when the former Soviet archives were open to researchers in Russia.
Osama's attack was conducted outside the structure of a declared or defacto war and was against an undefended target.
I don't think Dresden was carpet bombed (which has a specific meaning) and the mix of incedentries was about 40% which was typical for British missions in poor visibility).
About a quarter of the city's industry was destroyed and the streets and transport clogged with rubble stopping the effective retreat and redeployment of German forces engaged in the fight against the russians.
Your characterization of the events seems to be off the mark.
And yet the allied forces did not even bother to target the bridges in Dresden that would have been critical for that retreat--too far from the dense population area. In fact, the criteria for selecting targets seems to have been whether the targets were in densely populated areas or not, a view confirmed by the Allied commander in charge of it outright stating that one of the goals was to destroy "German morale".
Moreover Dresden is just the most famous example it is not even the biggest example. Allies routinely targeted German civilian populations, apparently an act motivated by revenge for the Nazis having done the same to British cities.
You try hitting a bridge with a high level bomber at night.
Nice revenge thesis. Almost no evidence.
Even with the famous Norden Bombsight under perfect conditions only 50 percent of bombs dropped by the USAAF in Europe in 1943-1944 fell within a quarter of a mile of the target.
Do you comprehend the word target? The plans did not call on anyone to aim at the bridges. The actual targets appear to have been selected based on proximity to civilians rather than military value. This is from the allied plan. High value targets in the outskirts were ignored while marginal targets in high density areas were selected.
Fuji in politics:
The Soviets keep making angry noises about how the Western Allies are not doing enough to assist their war effort (remember they feel and have vociferously said that the Western Allies have deliberately delayed the Invasion of France) they send word that the most important thing the Western Allies can do is bomb cities like Berlin and Dresden to destroy both rear area infrastructure and German morale. The Atomic Bomb has not been successfully tested, and for all that is known may not work, and the Soviets have a huge army.
So Fuji says - lets really piss of the Soviets we can't possibly bomb Dresden.
Not the way he tells it, not the Islamophobes. And that "…or a de facto war" is as big a loophole as any I've ever seen. GeorgeII Returns!
OK. Semantics and SOP are supposed to make dropping firebombs from one side of Dresden to the other without attempting to spare residential areas just peachy with all concerned. Do 'splain then what was so bad about the Hun doing it?
So quite OK to bomb civilians and destroy/damage the roads to prevent fire and ambulance getting through, as long as it also prevents a few military bvehicles from doing so? Again, I'd bet Osama would be right there with you on that. Aren't we supposed to be the not-terrorists?
As does yours. Define terrorist then, without the subjective stuff that varies depending which side you're on, in such a way as to include Osama and exclude atrocities like Dresden. And don't let's forget your definition wants to shelter the heroic men and women of 'our' resistance movements—ununiformed as they set bombs on railway lines, and sank ferries—while excluding guys like Khadr building his bombs.
Nothing wrong with being partisan, buty dn't let the self-righteousness blind you to facts. As another terrorist onec said, "War is Hell"
Let's not mince words. WW II was a street fight and no holds barred. If the Nazis and Japan had won, you would be dead meat now. The only people with clean hands were the Jews and that is because they had no resources to fight back and look what happened to them.
