Dresden

[kimiko]

In the movies, maybe.

No, in real life too. We saved Kyoto.

 

[Elind]

No, in real life too. We saved Kyoto.

I meant save your romantisism for the movies.

Try making your glorious argument to the people in the other cities and explain that they died for art, if you ever run into them.

They died because of war and because they were considered better targets for a number of reasons. Nothing romantic at all.

 

[kimiko]

I meant save your romantisism for the movies.

Try making your glorious argument to the people in the other cities and explain that they died for art, if you ever run into them.

They died because of war and because they were considered better targets for a number of reasons. Nothing romantic at all.

Then apparently you didn't get the point of my post. We can needn't be animals in war.

Do you agree or disagree with my comparison of Dresden and Kyoto?

 

[Elind]

Then apparently you didn't get the point of my post. We can needn't be animals in war.

Do you agree or disagree with my comparison of Dresden and Kyoto?

Regrettably it is hard to win a war against a matched opponent without reverting to animal basics. You will never lead and army or win a war.

I don't agree or disagree in the way you want. Armies make targeting decisions on many criteria. If a target is avoided because it has less military or economic value than another, it doesn't follow that the former was spared for altruistic reasons, they just happen to coincide with the military ones. However it is an opportunity for people to retain their faith in basic human goodness if they need such arguments to do so.

 

[CapelDodger]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dresden

With respect, in the previous post you are rambling off course, which was supposed to be justifying that Germany could be destroyed (industry wise) without excessively damaging cities (and the civilians who worked in the industries).

Guilty to rambling (serially), but I've been trying to address Dresden within the context of strategic bombing. The Ruhr must have been a hellish place to live when the campaign really got going, but it was target-rich, as they say, and I take no particular issue with that. Dresden, I think, was different.

In this post you seem to get to your (IMO) point however, which is that the allies were basically immoral or utterly brutalized. Since you come from that stock you are entitled to your opinion, but I've spent a lot of time there too and I'm a bit older, and I never got that impression.

Oh well...

"From that stock" is like fingernails down a blackboard to me. These were my formative years, when the war was only a decade or so over and the marks were part of my normal environment. It's my experience, rather than my "stock". And I'm aware that it's a real difference between me and most Americans, for whom war has always happened elsewhere (between the Civil War and 9/11, at least). It's history now, of course - but don't get my mother started about the Japanese ...

I do take issue with a morality that dismisses human lives as utterly inconsequential when a political point is being made. Charitably, it's a lack of empathy, but this kind of "realpolitik" is what gives the world most of its great disasters. People like Bismarck and Kissinger almost revel in their amorality, while ordinary people pay the price. I'm agin it.

 

[Elind]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dresden

Guilty to rambling (serially), but I've been trying to address Dresden within the context of strategic bombing. The Ruhr must have been a hellish place to live when the campaign really got going, but it was target-rich, as they say, and I take no particular issue with that. Dresden, I think, was different.

Perhaps it was. There were people who argued for a "demonstration" nuke before Hiroshima too, but they only had two of them to demonstrate... Perhaps the best lesson from all of them is that the concept of "civilian" has become better defined than it was then, but that too is partly because of technological advances. Perhaps if we gave smart weapons to the terrorists they wouldn't target civlians anymore (is there a smilie for tongue in cheek?)?


"From that stock" is like fingernails down a blackboard to me.


Sorry, no offense meant.


I do take issue with a morality that dismisses human lives as utterly inconsequential when a political point is being made.

So do I, but I think your Russian demonstration issue, if true, would have been a side consideration and is a weak point regarding Dresden. If anything the Russians would have been pretty immune, by that point, regarding threats of dire consequences given what they had already gone through, and were gearing up to do to themselves.

 

[CapelDodger]

from Elind:

So do I, but I think your Russian demonstration issue, if true, would have been a side consideration and is a weak point regarding Dresden.

On this we will continue to differ. I find the military justifications unconvincing, and sometimes clearly post hoc. The discussions leading up to the bombing - and the morality was questioned at the time, naturally - put the effect on Russia centre-stage.

Before I sign off on this one, I'd like to point out that the bomber-crews themselves were always told that their targets were industrial or military, and that they were doing a great job. No blame attaches to them.

 

[Elind]

from Elind:

On this we will continue to differ. I find the military justifications unconvincing, and sometimes clearly post hoc. The discussions leading up to the bombing - and the morality was questioned at the time, naturally - put the effect on Russia centre-stage.

Before I sign off on this one, I'd like to point out that the bomber-crews themselves were always told that their targets were industrial or military, and that they were doing a great job. No blame attaches to them.

We can agree it was something we should not let ourselves do again.

 

[Beerina]

Re: Re: Dresden

I think it was completely disgusting. Utterly appalling and disgusting to mass murder innocent people. That's my judgement.

Oh, it was absolutely disgusting.

That does not mean it was wrong to do so in a military sense.

An innocent being forced to point a gun at you is still an innocent. And you still have the right to blow them away in self defence.

It's sad, but their death is not on your head but rather the head of the person forcing them to work against you.

A free people may decide to take limited actions should they so desire, but there is no ethical requirement to do so. They could opt instead to completely minimize the casualties on their own side, even if it increases the casualties on the other side.