When can we expect a similar assessment of Allied bomber crews who went about their illegal orders obediently, murdering literal Millions of civilians in Dresden, Hiroshima, Cologne, etc?
What about US pilots who never flinched at dropping napalm on villagers, or carpet bombing civilians in Hanoi or Cambodia, or blowing up wedding parties in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, or over a hundred other nations?
One supposes these people may suddenly find they have a pair of balls when directed to attack Americans (or not, as drone strikes on US citizens are now a thing), but somehow that moral clarity doesn't extend to people in other nations.
Thanks Velociraver, I covered a Vietnam subject this week relating to the My Lai massacre. If you recommend a good author on those subjects, I'd be happy to interview them; however, they're not what Dr Taylor's book is about. My site is not exclusively about moral issues with air arm actions but if you can recommend a good author to approach, let me know. Best, HK
Equating Dresden, Hiroshima and Cologne shows a lack of understanding of the decisions that were taken without the luxury of insight provided by eighty years of comfortable liberal democracy. The people taking those decisions were motivated to bring to an end the most hellish war in human history to an end; to bring two brutal aggressor nations to unconditional surrender as quickly as possible. We can now see late war attacks on German cities were of limited value (indeed Churchill questioned their usefulness even then), but there’s no doubt that the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to an end with far, far less loss of life - military and civilian- than would the invasion of the Japanese home islands. We have the freedom to discuss this because we live in a democracy brought about in part by the men who risked their lives day and night over Germany and Japan. It should also be noted that Germany and Japan became strong, vibrant economies because of post war support from the US.
Western style democracy is far from perfect as history since 1945 has proven again and again, but we have the opportunity to indulge in whataboutery because we have freedoms not available in Vietnam, Libya, Somalia etc al. I’m not defending terrible wrongs like My Lai, but flawed as our system is, we get to hear about our dreadful failings because we are a liberal democracy.
"We"? I'm not American. And evidence points toward the Japanes only surrendering with the Soviet ground invasion. Apparently, it mattered not to the pragmatic Japanese whether the US used a hundred bombers with incindiaries or one bomber with an equivalent nuke. Civilians are still civilians. The same in regard the massive bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Cambodia..now bombing Iran in violation of every law and norm and "the Western rules-based order" the US is so fond of quoting..
I never suggested you are in the US- I assumed that like me, you are fortunate to live in a liberal democracy where these issues can be discussed openly. The bombing of Dresden was conducted by USAAF and the RAF. The firebombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than either atomic bomb, but didn’t bring Japan to surrender.
Your comments are informed with the benefits of hindsight that those taking these terrible decisions just did not have. We know when Japan surrendered, Truman and Churchill didn’t, until it came about. Okinawa demonstrated that an invasion of the home islands would be a bloodbath.
The end doesn’t always justify the means; indeed, the late war bombings of German towns would suggest that the means were used to justify their own existence, but again, we have the comfort of seeing this in hindsight. The men taking these decisions in 1944 1944 didn’t have that. They had lived through four years of total war, which is bound to colour their choices.
When can we expect a similar assessment of Allied bomber crews who went about their illegal orders obediently, murdering literal Millions of civilians in Dresden, Hiroshima, Cologne, etc?
What about US pilots who never flinched at dropping napalm on villagers, or carpet bombing civilians in Hanoi or Cambodia, or blowing up wedding parties in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, or over a hundred other nations?
One supposes these people may suddenly find they have a pair of balls when directed to attack Americans (or not, as drone strikes on US citizens are now a thing), but somehow that moral clarity doesn't extend to people in other nations.
Thanks Velociraver, I covered a Vietnam subject this week relating to the My Lai massacre. If you recommend a good author on those subjects, I'd be happy to interview them; however, they're not what Dr Taylor's book is about. My site is not exclusively about moral issues with air arm actions but if you can recommend a good author to approach, let me know. Best, HK
Equating Dresden, Hiroshima and Cologne shows a lack of understanding of the decisions that were taken without the luxury of insight provided by eighty years of comfortable liberal democracy. The people taking those decisions were motivated to bring to an end the most hellish war in human history to an end; to bring two brutal aggressor nations to unconditional surrender as quickly as possible. We can now see late war attacks on German cities were of limited value (indeed Churchill questioned their usefulness even then), but there’s no doubt that the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to an end with far, far less loss of life - military and civilian- than would the invasion of the Japanese home islands. We have the freedom to discuss this because we live in a democracy brought about in part by the men who risked their lives day and night over Germany and Japan. It should also be noted that Germany and Japan became strong, vibrant economies because of post war support from the US.
Western style democracy is far from perfect as history since 1945 has proven again and again, but we have the opportunity to indulge in whataboutery because we have freedoms not available in Vietnam, Libya, Somalia etc al. I’m not defending terrible wrongs like My Lai, but flawed as our system is, we get to hear about our dreadful failings because we are a liberal democracy.
"We"? I'm not American. And evidence points toward the Japanes only surrendering with the Soviet ground invasion. Apparently, it mattered not to the pragmatic Japanese whether the US used a hundred bombers with incindiaries or one bomber with an equivalent nuke. Civilians are still civilians. The same in regard the massive bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Cambodia..now bombing Iran in violation of every law and norm and "the Western rules-based order" the US is so fond of quoting..
I never suggested you are in the US- I assumed that like me, you are fortunate to live in a liberal democracy where these issues can be discussed openly. The bombing of Dresden was conducted by USAAF and the RAF. The firebombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than either atomic bomb, but didn’t bring Japan to surrender.
Your comments are informed with the benefits of hindsight that those taking these terrible decisions just did not have. We know when Japan surrendered, Truman and Churchill didn’t, until it came about. Okinawa demonstrated that an invasion of the home islands would be a bloodbath.
The end doesn’t always justify the means; indeed, the late war bombings of German towns would suggest that the means were used to justify their own existence, but again, we have the comfort of seeing this in hindsight. The men taking these decisions in 1944 1944 didn’t have that. They had lived through four years of total war, which is bound to colour their choices.