That seems rather dubious; Churchill never struck me as that stupid or grossly inefficient.
Um, Gallipoli? Norway? The "soft underbelly of Europe"? Good speaker, yes. Strategic genius? Not by a longshot.
When you're rationing everything you don't just bomb things at random for the hell of it. And missing a legitimate military target, even often, doesn't equal DELIBERATELY TARGETING civilians.
Except that is what they did. Churchill himself spoke about the policy of bombing for purposes of terror after Dresden, indicating that it WAS a reason. To cite Wikipedia: "On 14 February 1942, Directive No. 22 was issued to Bomber Command. Bombing was to be 'focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular of the industrial workers.' Factories were no longer targets."And taking action you know is highly ineffective and liable to kill large numbers of innocents because you can't aim properly is not much more moral than deliberately targeting innocents.
My dad told a very different tale of the Norden bombsight anyway. One wonders why something so ineffective was more important than the pilot, and (according to Wikipedia) remained in use until Vietnam.
Because there was nothing better! We don't bomb that way because it doesn't work. Lessons of the military take a long time to learn, especially when there are powerful people with a vested interest in pretending they work just fine. I'm not a huge fan of strategic bombing, understand; frankly, I think it helped LOSE Vietnam because flying whole squads of B-52s into flak traps designed to look like ammo dumps and railroad stations is costly in terms of men and material. But to say it had no effect in Axis controlled Europe,
Actually I believe I said it made them more determined to fight back, but whatever. that their military production only diminished when they lost control of Balkan and French territories, raises the question of why the war machine that managed to take control of those resources despite lacking them couldn't retain control when possessing the additional benefits they provided.
Well, they didn't need to TAKE the Romainian oil fields since Romania was their ally, and at the time they went after France they were getting many natural resource from the Soviet Union, and they attacked France using pre-war materiel anyway. They also did not so much conquer France as hit them some hard blows, inducing the French to surrender prematurely and the British to cut and run. I'm guessing the biggest reasons Allied commanders thought strategic bombing effective were 1) it proved VERY effective for the Germans who pioneered it,
It proved no such thing, insomuch as they did not use it in World War Two. The Luftwaffe was a tactical air force, and was infamous ineffective at their one ad hoc attempt at strategic bombing - the Blitz or the Battle for Britain. Aside from that disaster, German bombing was entirely tactical and they did not even bother to develop a long range or serious heavy bomber. In fact, most strategic bombing advocates cite this lack on Germany's part as a crucial factor in their military failure.as the Brits saw first hand
They saw first hand the actual inefficacy of the tactic. Aside from revenge or an arrogant assumption of their own superiority, their experiences should have argued against the strategic bombing campaign.and 2) the resource bare NAZI high command continued making great efforts to stop it despite a general disregard for their own populations welfare. I don't think morale was the primary consideration, but people STILL talk about the Dresden firebombing, so it's hard to dispute it had an impact.
They talk about it because of the horrific death tolls. As you say, not something to bother the Nazis. It was the inspiration for one of Kurt Vonnegut's books, though I can't recall which one (Slaughterhouse Seven? ). That proves nothing regarding the actual cause of defeat. There isn't much military glory in winning because you had access to superior resources, a larger population and your most significant actions taken towards the overall victory were all in the field of production. Wait, so the ALLIES caused the HOLOCAUST by forcing Germanys hand? I suggest you NOT try selling that to any native German unless you want to be punched.
The unpopularity of an idea does not invalidate it. Anyway, when was the Wannsee Conference held? 1942. After the whole world was basically piling on top of Germany. Do you really think we did all we could have for the Jews? At the risk of sounding like Llyod George and Clemencau, we didn't start the freakin' war either time so I fail to see how the Allies MOTIVATED any of it. I'm curious how bombs that couldn't hit munitions and machine factories despite their top secret bomb sights were supposed to accurately target enough workers to shut those factories down completely. You're asking me to believe the Allies weren't just evil, but staggeringly STUPID.
Ding, ding. These WERE the people who got outthought by Hitler for many years, after all. And yes with the evil. Their one mitigating factor is that the other guys were worse (I'm talking about the Western Allies, BTW; I concede zero moral high ground to the Soviet Union, whose sole grace was being less adept at treachery than Nazi Germany, and who, let us not forget, was ALLIED to Germany and an equal partner in the act that supposedly incited the war - the invasion of Poland). "Let's knowingly devote the output of dozens of factories, and thousands of hours of training for men of whom many won't come back, to marginally reduce the output of a few German factories by killing a tithe of their workers (and incidentally commit war crimes. "
Yeah, pretty appalling, when you think about it, isn't it? The best rebuttal to that is that anyone that stupid would've lost the war.
There is something to be said for being part of an alliance that includes all three global superpowers in the history of the world - such a team is VERY hard to beat, no matter how hard they try to throw the game. Don't forget, they were up against an enemy that devoted large numbers of troops and rolling stock and other materiel and resources to non-productive ends like death camps, especially camps aimed at eliminating a disproportionately well-educated and technically skilled group of citizens, who were not notably disloyal or political liabilities. I'm less concerned about Allied policies to "dehumanize" (I believe the official term was "denazify" ) German POWs by refusing to speak to them as they starved than about than Wild Bill Donovan ignoring Trumans explicit orders NOT to allow any war criminals to be shipped out of Germany to the States along with the thousands of others we snuck out in Operation Paperclip. Presumably picking their brains required speaking to and feeding them. Still, I see your point; poor abused slave labor using Werner von Braun; my heart bleeds for him....
Except we were not exactly doing anything evil. Our sins there were sins of omission in carrying out justice, and explained away by national security interests.Look, man, I like the Germans, too, but the Nazis were sick SOBs and while their behavior is easily comparable to the atrocities committed by Mao and Stalin (which the Germans, Nazi and non, fully expected, hence the mad dash to find a Brit or American to whom they could surrender) you don't have to look farther than the Berlin Airlift to see that's not how the Western Allies did things. Germans don't excuse the Nazis and accuse the Allies like this, so why are you doing so?
Screw the Germans, I care about us. I don't like the government of my country doing evil, and coasting on the juxtaposition of darker evils for camouflage. We say "Never again" regarding the Holocaust, but I am more worried about repeating the other things that people let slide because the Holocaust occupies all the moral indignation. Death camps in Europe seem rather unlikely. We repeated the errors of denazification in Iraq with the deBa'athization, that had the same practical results, which no doubt encouraged and abetted the insurgency. I guess Iran is not nearly as effective a stalking horse as the Soviet Union was in inducing the cooperation of captives. If we can repeat practical mistakes, we are plainly not immune to making the same moral mistakes. Most seem committed to excuses for collecting fat paychecks but ignoring real problems (unless you consider re-election a real problem, which in many cases it is, just not for them. )
If only Dubya had been so committed.
Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
All Terrorists are Muslims… except the 94% that aren’t.
01/02/2010 10:42:12 PM
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Lot of BS in there
01/02/2010 11:33:08 PM
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I'm afraid I have to agree with this.
01/02/2010 11:46:02 PM
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Well, no. Robbery accounts for a very small percentage of those attacks. Look at the chart.
01/02/2010 11:50:39 PM
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I found the so-called Islamophobic reply... allow me to quote it in its entirety.
01/02/2010 11:52:37 PM
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It's a valid complaint. *NM*
02/02/2010 01:49:08 AM
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I did note the rampant bias.
01/02/2010 11:48:55 PM
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Most of the Iraq violence isn't against the foreign occupier...
01/02/2010 11:54:44 PM
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Um, since when is all Mid-East terrorism against foreign occupiers?
02/02/2010 12:33:13 AM
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I would agree with this.
02/02/2010 02:33:47 AM
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It was bound to happen sooner or later.
02/02/2010 04:10:13 AM
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This is the only problem I have with "definitions"
02/02/2010 04:51:00 AM
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You're conflating two types of fighters who shouldn't be, I believe.
03/02/2010 06:16:21 AM
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I think you missed the point.
05/02/2010 05:15:40 AM
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One of us did.
05/02/2010 08:26:07 AM
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Churchill's justification of bombings cited civilians as the targets, IIRC
03/02/2010 12:46:16 AM
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I did say, "deliberately, " and for a reason.
03/02/2010 04:23:44 AM
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Re: I did say, "deliberately, " and for a reason.
05/02/2010 02:22:10 AM
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WTF? Are these people serious?
02/02/2010 02:19:05 AM
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Ah, good. I've driven you out of lurking. Now recommend me operas. *NM*
02/02/2010 02:41:30 AM
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So I presume the article meant to highlight that Muslim American citizens aren't all that violent?
03/02/2010 04:17:06 AM
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How many other attacks killed almost 3,000 people of over 90 different nations?
03/02/2010 06:26:23 AM
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