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When in War, Why Bomb the Innocent?
Historians argue that bombing civilians is a tragic and virtually ineffective strategy
How one feels about what one is reading can differ depending on where and when. Reading these essays while boarding a flight from Tokyo, transiting Hanoi and then arriving in Laos - all places that have been subjected to extensive U.S. bombing - is to feel the long arm of history tug at one's conscience.
Some monks I met in Luang Prabang (Laos) recounted a recent journey to the Plain of Jars, a World Heritage sight. They said there are carefully marked paths with signs warning not to wander off because of unexploded ordnance in the area - cluster bombs dropped by the United States on a neutral country in a secret war that never happened. Estimates suggest that this insidious legacy of the bombings, which ended in the 1970s, has resulted in more than 20,000 Laotian casualties including many maimed children.
Rather than accusing, seeking vengeance or accountability, the monks calmly praised the very limited mine clearing efforts of U.S. veterans. They said they don't feel anger; it was all a long time ago and would be of little importance if not for the continuing dangers.
This unsought absolution stirs a sense of incredulity about why the U.S. government has done so little to help a desperately poor country that it dragged into the maelstrom of the Vietnam War. This malign neglect also extends to Vietnam, where people continue to suffer from the dioxin residue left behind by extensive spraying of Agent Orange during the war.
Mark Selden argues that the U.S. has much to answer for in the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Japan. We learn that Japan crossed that bridge itself in 1932 with the bombing of Shanghai, and Tetsuo Maeda details Japan's bombing campaign against Congquing's civilians from 1938.
Selden and colleagues are not out to exonerate the Japanese or privilege their suffering over what they inflicted on others. He is reminding us, though, that the U.S. systematically firebombed and gutted 66 Japanese cities in 1945 under flimsy excuses that these were primarily military targets.
The intention, however, was not solely a matter of zapping Japan's factories and infrastructure. This aerial terror amounted to vengeance, payback for Pearl Harbor and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and was intended to inflict as much suffering on the civilian populace as possible.
However much this campaign of "terror bombing" disrupted life and demoralized the people, Japan's military leaders were undaunted as they persisted in gambling on a decisive battle. For this, there was a price to be paid and, as in most modern conflicts, civilians paid the highest price. The firebombing of Tokyo alone killed an estimated 100,000 people. The total firebombing tally is roughly 300,000 plus 400,000 wounded (these figures exclude Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Selden reminds us that the comforting dominant narrative of the Good War (aka World War II) averts our eyes from the grim realities of these crimes against humanity and the ongoing evasion of accountability.
Selden believes the failure to hold the victors accountable for crimes is crucial to understanding why "Mass murder of civilians has been central to all subsequent U.S. wars." He concludes that "the pre-eminence of strategic bombing as quintessential to the American way of war" persists even though it has not been effective.
Marilyn Young's essay explores the fallacy that bombing of civilians is effective, a mistaken assumption that has led to horrific humanitarian consequences for little strategic gain.
Yuki Tanaka traces the early history of aerial bombing of civilians from World War I. In the aftermath, the battered British found such bombing an economical way to maintain imperial interests. The first campaign was against Afghanistan in 1919 followed by Somaliland and then far more extensively in Iraq during the 1920s and 1930s.
In Iraq, civilian casualties were high and intentional as part of a campaign to demoralize the population. The British, and subsequently the Italians in Ethiopia, were explicitly racist in justifying indiscriminate bombing of those they viewed as "uncivilized," while this is implicit among contemporary avatars. The efficacy of this strategy remained unquestioned even though the results were decidedly mixed.
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa asks whether the atomic bombings were justified and were the key to Japan's surrender; he gives an unequivocal no on both counts. He argues that Truman used the atomic bomb in an effort to secure Japan's surrender before Stalin could enter the war and impose a joint occupation.
In his view, the decision to surrender was not due mainly to the atomic bombings, but rather to the Soviet entry into the war as well as concerns about preservation of the monarchy.
This rich collection of essays makes a cogent case for reassessing the effectiveness of air campaigns and how power influences accountability. How can the international community hold any country accountable if the worst perpetrators get immunity?
52 Comments so far
Show All"Mark Selden argues that the U.S. has much to answer for in the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Japan."
Here speaks a man with no money in the game. Though he warrants by this statement that he is an idiot.
"Tsuyoshi Hasegawa"
Revisionist historians give their profession a bad name. Anyone that would argue that the US should have invaded Japan instead of bombing them is a fool.
Speak to the boys on the bottom of Pearl Harbor or the civilians from Singapore. The Japanese have no room to speak about anyone else.
"In his view, the decision to surrender was not due mainly to the atomic bombings, but rather to the Soviet entry into the war as well as concerns about preservation of the monarchy."
This sort of resoning is a joke. Like Russia was a threat to the Japanese? Simple lie.
Reality better start to become a priority before people think everyone is like these nuts.
No, it's not that "Russia was a threat to the Japanese". It's that Truman knew the USSR was the main post-war rival to the U.S., so it was "necessary" (according to the supposed experts) to "send a message" to Stalin to keep Soviet Far East influence checked. It was the "first shot" of the Cold War.
Invading Japan was not the only other choice to nuclear weapons, which are omnicidal by nature.
Japan's navy and air force were nonexistent by August, 1945. As an island nation, Japan was isolated and cut off. Blockade would have eventually brought surrender with minimal loss of lives, especially U.S. lives. And Japan's leadership was torn between holding out and surrendering.
We now know, due to historical research, that the Japanese were conducting third-party diplomatic efforts to arrange surrender terms acceptable to them, including keeping their emperor. In the end, the U.S. allowed their emperor to stay even after the U.S. terror-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Read Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan by J. Samuel Walker, Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb by Ronald Takaki,
and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb by Gar Alperovitz.
Ed,
Excellent post
ED: '"necessary" (according to the supposed experts) to "send a message" to Stalin to keep Soviet Far East influence checked. It was the "first shot" of the Cold War.'
Good point that few realize, thanks for the references. The official US account of WWII is treated as holy not to be questioned. Howard Zinn also wrote about this years ago.
We gave our nuclear technology to the Soviets so we could have a worthy enemy.
Sioux Rose
PENELOPE: Excellent posts.
Thank you!
The U.S. military had just created the nuclear weapon and desperately wanted to use it. How convenient that the war with Japan offered a perfect excuse.
Aside from the small Trinity nuclear test in the SW desert a month earlier, no one really knew the destructive capabilites of the devices. They needed to find out. So, bombed Nagasaki (uranium trigger) and Hiroshima (plutonium trigger), which are both listed in official government documents as nuclear "tests".
We've been treating other countries' citizens (and our own) as human guinea pigs ever since. Drones with bombs? Try them out on Pakistani wedding parties!!
Torture? Let's use Middle Eastern "terrorists" and put waterboarding to the test. And so on.
No weapon is too bizarre or too expensive to use on people somewhere in the world.
The cruelty and inhumanity of the U.S. knows no bounds.
Recent headline: "Bored Predator drone pumps a few rounds into mountain goat." The Onion.
The Governmnet of the United States of America actually deliberately exposed its soldiers to "Nuclear radation" because it believed it would harden them for a future Nuclear war.
duplicate deleted
I feel bad for people like you whose knowledge and ideas are so limited. There are always shades of grey and alternatives. To think that the US could not have been more humane and reached an acceptable surrender from Japan without committing troops to the ground in that nation is a flight of fancy from a revenge-minded creature.
Love ya Henry but.......
Ed has it right.. The nuclear attacks on Japan in 1945 were atrocities beyond anyone's imagination....As Ed pointed out..absolutely unnecessary.... The war was all but over...We have been killing somebody, somewhere in the world ever since....
"The Japanese have no room to speak about anyone else."
Exactly what the world says about us today.
The so called victors don't get to write the history books anymore.
Good to hear from you Henry
Thomas Gilbert
>>Revisionist historians give their profession a bad name. Anyone that would argue that the US should have invaded Japan instead of bombing them is a fool.
No . The fool is the person who presents FALSE CHOICES such as you are doing here.
Japan did not have to be invaded. It did not have to be bombed.
You are saying "The life of an American SOLDIER (whose purpose is WAR) is worth more then the lives of Civilians, be they men women or children whether or not those Civilians pose a threat or not.
If an American soldier is told "You must take that hill but to ensure you take it without a risk to yourself then we MUST kill 20 children" allows for the choice of the American soldier saying "No I will NOT take that hill. My life is not worth that of 20 Children"
Yet those that argue that Japanese cities had to be firebombed and Nuked claim there no choice but bombing them.
So henry8 is it your contention that in order to seize territories that do not need to be seized and to preserve the life of an American soldier, the killing of women and children is warranted?
If so what is your reasoning from both a practical and a moral perspective?
Does your reasoning apply to everyone or just people you judge to be "the Good Guys" ?
In other words if a member of a terror group claimed "We wish to take back territories that are ours and to ensure OUR members or not hurt we must do so with car bombs, ieds and the like planted on buses and in restaurants even if these actions KILL children and Civilians" would you support his reasoning?
>>This sort of resoning is a joke. Like Russia was a threat to the Japanese? Simple lie.
please detail why it a lie. The Russians seized over 600,000 Japanese PRISONERS at the loss of a few thousand when Russia attacked Manchuria. The Japanese troops surrendered in droves.
The Russians seized the Sakahlin Islands with little losses of their own from Japanese forces. The Russians already had detailed plans and resources in place to Invade the Japanese Home Islands with the intent of doing so months away.
Given the overwhelming victory of Russian forces over the Japanese and given this the single most one side battle in Japanese History and their greatest loss of forces in the war , why was Russia "No Threat" ?
-- Anyone that would argue that the US should have invaded Japan instead of bombing them is a fool. --
And anyone who would argue that those were the only 2 choices has blinded himself to all other possibilities.
Japan was suing for peace (with the stipulation that they could keep their emperor). Hiroshima and Nagasaki were quite unnecessary, but we did need to show the Soviets a thing or two.
And it's called state terrorism. We like that kind of terrorism, the more genocidal, the better.
Hey Henry8 - would you consider DD Eisenhower or Admiral Leahy or Einstein to be traitorous? They all opposed the use of the bomb to end the war - PLEASE NOTE THE FIRST TWO NAMES!
Japan had been seeking a way to surrender for months; the militarists were finally in decline; a third option would have been a naval blockade of the islands while negotiatiions took place.
And yes - the USSR was a prime consideration in Truman's decision to drop the bomb, a position Churchill both supported and attested to until his death.
Revisionist history - I wonder who is really revising?
So we commit mass terrorism (for some of you, it's OK because it was to show up Russia), and somehow that seems OK for an unusually large number of assoles.
So answer me this - under any scenario, why didn't we just nuke a relatively unpopulated island to show our power? And why did we nuke the second time in relatively rapid succession before the first attack could be assimilated?
Oh, yeah -- I forgot. State genocidal terrorism is OK. But if someone had actually tied themselves to the nuclear bomb - well, that would have made all the moral difference in the world.
"Speak to the boys on the bottom of Pearl Harbor or the civilians from Singapore. The Japanese have no room to speak about anyone else."
So, Japan has no room to speak about anyone else, because they committed many atrocities, but Americans, who also committed atrocities, get to lecture everyone else?
"This sort of resoning is a joke. Like Russia was a threat to the Japanese? Simple lie."
Actually, Russia was a threat. If the war had persisted, Russia definitely would have invaded. In fact, Russia did try and was starting an invasion. To this day, Japan and Russia have territorial disputes over islands Russia seized in the last days of the war.
History better start becoming a priority to you.
This is exactly why modern warfare, since at least 1919, is terrorism, plain and simple, regardless of who commits it.
A true "war on terror" would, therefore, be a war against war. But since there is so much $$$ to be made by war profiteers and their Corporate Tools in Congress, morality and humanitarian concerns are ignored, in spite of pious, hypocritical rhetoric to the contrary.
I agree, but not to split hairs, one could argue that war has been terrorism since long before 1919; the thirty years war ending in 1648 was also terrorism. Wars in other parts of the world can be seen as such as well, wherever large numbers of civilians were victimized.
So they'll fight the war for you on the ground.
Tis a handy thing that Empires can turn foreigners into sub-humans whenever power and control, revenge, or monetary gain dictate.
It is interesting that the author of this piece, Kingston, mentions vengeance regarding the U.S. bombing of Japan. It fits the definition of terrorism, in that the U.S. uses it to try to force the civilian population to surrender. In other words, it is violence used to make people afraid for political aims.
It's effectiveness is morally irrelevant, it would not be justified even if it worked. This is obvious regarding Al Qaeda terrorism, it should be just as obvious regarding the U.S.
ED mentioned having a "war against war," which is quite ironic (although I'm sure that wasn't intended). I always thought a "war on terror" was absurd, because it was like declaring war on war. I then realized that a president had in fact done this more explicitly. Woodrow Wilson actually declared a "war to end all wars."
Good points fellow socialist,
A small point of context (forgive me if it is obvious); "Al-Quaeda" is wildly exaggerated and does not consist of worldwide "sleeper cells" as we have been told, in fact the facts on Al Quaeda are sketchy at best.
The Adam Curtis documentary "The Power of Nightmares" (BBC2 2004/5) details this at length. (unfortunately not shown in the USA) The entire threat of terrorism is wildly exaggerated as a new form of the Politics of Fear; taking the place of the Reds under your bed. Over 40,000 people are killed on the road every year in the USA and over 15,000 people are murdered by fellow American citizens every year, the vast majority with firearms; and a majority of those with handguns. Just a quick rational assessment of probability. I won't even touch the official myth of 9/11.
The fact that 'terrorism' has been saturated into the public discourse in the last 8 plus years, is quite the double standard as the US is the largest sponsor and perpetrator of state terrorism.
Americans can probably download THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES at
www.onebigtorrent.com
bardamu: thanks for the link, I have personally requested PBS air Adam Curtis documentaries; I aint holding my breath.
S O C I A L I S T,
Well said, although I go further about your comment :
___ " I won't even touch the official myth of 9/11. " ___
I believe that 9 _ ! _ ! _ is a carefully constructed multilevel and multifunctional PYSOPS form of warmongering pretext, erosion of our Constitutional protections limiting greed, criminality, AND an elemental pseudo-kryptonite, with one purpose being to kill off political debate and silence progressive issues -- to anyone "demented" enough to touch it ( and think that they'll live through it ).
Actually, to me the touching of the hot flame of "our" ( really, corporation's ) govt's terrorism's new birthday -- is cathartic and transformative.
N
Actually, the irony was intended, considering our ill-fated "wars" on poverty and drugs. Also, I liked the repetition and alliteration.
But an all-out effort not only to abolish nuclear weapons but also to abolish war, including war-profiteering and its whores in Congress, should be one of our main struggles of this new century (along with social/economic justice/equality and environmental sustainability).
I believe the first settlers in "america," my forefathers among them in Connecticut in 1634 regularly killed Amerind women and children.
I know the Sand Creek Massacre doesn't add much luster to U.S. exceptionalism.
Nice piece, and this sounds like a valuable book, but the title of the article is peculiar. Isn't this like asking "When at lunch, why eat?"
Wartime American governments should be criticized for indescriminately killing civilians (like the Germans, Spanish, Italians, British, and Japanese before them), but perhaps Japan is not the one to criticize. They, after all, killed 17 million people, mostly civilians, in Asia before and during the war.
It is likely (from Cabinet diaries) that Atomic bombs were used to demonstrate our power to the Russians and were probably unnecessary to defeat Japan. As has been said, Japan wanted to surrender but wouldn't unless assured that the emperor would remain. Truman said 'no conditional surrender', though that's exactly what happened when they did surrender - after the bombs were dropped. Two trigger mechanisms (gun and implosion), two bombings. Coincidence?
Racism probably had a lot to do with it. America was/is a pretty racist country. Prior to WWII Curtis LeMay said America didn't have to worry about any Japanese attack. He said with their slanty eyes they wouldn't be able to aim properly. Then Pearl Harbor happened.
For all kinds of domestic reasons, the current American war doctrine is to attack only those countries that can't defend themselves - Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, etc. and only threaten those that can or raise the cost of attack: North Korea, Iran, China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, etc..
Japan certainly committed many brutal atrocities during World War 2.
There are 2 differences, I believe, which the article does not make clear enough.
Japan, today, is a vastly different society from the Japan that started WW2. Japan today, is not bombing civilians, is not using high tech drones, high tech bombers against civilian villagers. Japan today, while it certainly has its flaws, is a very pacifistic society.
Also, while Japan has never formally apologised to its atrocities in Asia in WW2, it has sought a kind of absolution before pumping in huge amounts of money, of aid, into many of the East Asian countries it brutalised.
Meanwhile, the US is still going around bombing civilian villagers.
Japan certainly committed many brutal atrocities during World War 2.
There are 2 differences, I believe, which the article does not make clear enough.
Japan, today, is a vastly different society from the Japan that started WW2. Japan today, is not bombing civilians, is not using high tech drones, high tech bombers against civilian villagers. Japan today, while it certainly has its flaws, is a very pacifistic society.
Also, while Japan has never formally apologised to its atrocities in Asia in WW2, it has sought a kind of absolution by pumping in huge amounts of money, of aid, into many of the East Asian countries it brutalised.
Meanwhile, the US is still going around bombing civilian villagers.
Sioux Rose
RFLOH: Excellent point/post.
It would seem that bombing civilians would strengthen the resolve of an enemy and augment its numbers. That an invading army's military tacticians don't realize that can only mean that its country is bombing civilians deliberately, drumming up enemies and engaged in a profiteering war of choice. No amount of jingoism and religious brainwashing of our troops will change that fact.
You bomb the innocent because it perpetuates WAR.
SEE BELOW:
The American Way Of War
By Fred Reed
6-27-9
Being a military thinker of the profoundest sort, I offer the following manual of martial affairs for nations yearning to copy the American way of war. Read it carefully. Great clarity will result. The steps limned below will facilitate disaster without imposing the burden of reinventing it. The Pentagon may print copies for distribution.
(1) Underestimate the enemy. Fortunately this is easy when a technologically advanced power prepares to attack an underdeveloped nation. Its enemy's citizens will readily be seen as gadgetless, primitive, probably genetically stupid, and hardly worth the attention of a real military.
(2) Avoid learning anything about the enemy his culture, religion, language, history, or response to past invasions. These things don't matter since the enemy is gadgetless, primitive, and probably genetically stupid. Anyway, knowledge would only make the enlisted ranks restive, and confuse the officer corps.
Blank ignorance of the language is especially desirable (as well as virtually guaranteed). For one thing, it will allow your troops to be seen as brutal invaders having nothing in common with the population; this helps in winning hearts and minds. For another, it will allow English-speaking officials of the puppet government to vet such information about the country as they permit you to have.
(3) Explain the invasion to the American public in simple moral terms suitable for middle-school children at an evangelical summer camp: We are bombing cities to bring the gift of democracy and American values, or to defeat some vague but frightening evil, perhaps lurking under the bed, or to get rid of a bad dictator no longer of service to us, or to bring freedom and prosperity to any survivors. (This doesn't work in Europe, which is honestly imperialistic.) The public can then feel a sense of unappreciated virtue when the primitives resist. Sententious moralism should always trump reason.
(4) A misunderstanding of military reality helps. Besides, comprehension would only lead to depression. As Napoleon said, or may have, in war the moral is to the material as three is to one, which implies that unpleasant facts should be played down in favor of cultivating a cheerful attitude. Most especially, it should not be noted that a few tens of thousands of determined, probably genetically-stupid primitives with small arms can tie down a cheerful force however gaudily armed.
Pay no attention to tactics, which are boring. It should never enter your mind that in this sort of war, if you don't win, you lose; if the enemy doesn't lose, he wins. Think about something else. Above all, do not understand that the enemy's target is not you, but public opinion at home. You don't need to remember this, as the enemy will remember it for you.
(5) Do not forget that a military's reason for existence is to close with the enemy and destroy him. An army is not in the social-services business. Do not let the mission be impeded by touchy-feely considerations. If you have to kill seventeen children to get a sniper, so be it. The enemy must realize that you mean business. Ignore cultural traits, which are of concern only to idealistic civilians. Grope the enemy's women. High-profile rapes are a good idea as they teach respect. It is better to be feared than loved. Be sure the embassy has a helipad.
Whether it's a "virtually ineffective strategy" depends on exactly what the geopolitical strategy is and, to some extent, on the observer's perspective. Terrorism against civilians can sometimes produce quite startling results -- as in the case of the World Trade Center, for example.
In any case, every empire thinks that its dominance (military and economic supremacy, etc.) will last forever and will protect its own populace from retalliation by the "barbarian hordes." History, on the other hand, suggests otherwise and the U.S. imperium is a relatively young one.
The American Way Of War CONTINUED
By Fred Reed
6-27-9
Be sure the embassy has a helipad.
(6) Intellectual insularity should be a primary goal, as it avoids distraction. This salubrious condition can be achieved by having officers read Tom Clancy instead of history. In military discourse it also helps to encourage the use of phrases like "force multiplier" and "multi-dimensional warfare," as these increase confidence without meaning anything.
Remember that doctrine and optimism should always outweigh history and common sense. Discourage colonels and above from reading about similar campaigns fought by other armies, as this might lead to nagging doubts, conceivably even to thought. Encourage the belief that other countries have lost wars by being inferior to the United States. "The French lost in Viet Nam? What else would you expect from the French? Never happen to us."
Some military philosophers favor actually removing from military libraries books on what happened to the French in Viet Nam, the Americans in Viet Nam, the Russians in Afghanistan, the Americans in Afghanistan (a work in progress), the French in Algeria, the Americans in Iraq (also in progress), the Israelis in Lebanon the first time, the Israelis in Lebanon the last time, the Americans in Lebanon 1983, the Americans in Somalia the first time, and so on. However, the best thinkers hold that it doesn't matter what books are in military libraries, as only those on stirring victories will be checked out.
(7) Keep up to date with the latest nostrums and silver bullets. Organize your military as a lean, mean, high-tech force characterized by lightning mobility, enormous firepower, and extraordinary unsuitability for the kind of wars it will actually have to fight. Flacks from the PR department of Lockheed will help in this. Recognize that an advanced fighter plane costing two hundred million dollars, invisible to radar, employing dazzling electronic countermeasures, and able to cruise at supersonic speed, is exactly the thing for fighting a rifleman in a basement in Baghdad. Such aircraft are crucial force multipliers in multi-dimensional warfare. Anyway, Al Quaeda might field an advanced air force at any moment. It pays to be ready.
(8) It is a good idea to bracket your exposure. Be ready for wars past and future, but not present. The Pentagon does this well. Note that the current military, an advanced version of the WWII force, is ready should the Imperial Japanese Navy return. It also has phenomenally advanced weaponry in the pipeline to take on a space-age enemy, perhaps from Mars, should one appear. It is only the present for which the US is not prepared.
(9) View things in a large context. People who have little comprehension of the military tend to focus exclusively on winning wars, missing the greater importance of the Pentagon as an economic flywheel. Jobs are more important than wars fought in bush-world countries. An American military ought to think of Americans first. This is simple patriotism. It is essential to spend as much money as possible on advanced weapons that have no current use, and none in sight, but produce jobs in congressional districts. Good examples are the F-22 fighter, the F-35, the Airborne Laser, the V-22, and the ABM.
(10) Insist that the US military never loses wars. Instead, it is betrayed, stabbed in the back, and brought low by treason. For example, argue furiously that the US didn't lose in Viet Nam, but won gloriously; the withdrawal was due to the treachery of Democrats, Jews, hippies, the press, most of the military, and a majority of the general population, all of whom were traitors. This avoids the unpleasantness of learning anything from defeat. Further, it facilitates a focus on controlling the press, who are the real enemy, along with the Democrats and the general population.
(11) Avoid institutional memory. Not having lost of course means that there is nothing to remember. Instead, read stirring novels and cultivate a cheerful, can-do attitude unintimidated by primitives in sand-lot countries, who are probably genetically stupid.
(12) Do it all again next time.
Sioux Rose
AGG: This is a terrific post. Thank you for sharing it. #7 made me laugh out loud. Can you imagine if someone smuggled a copy of this into a barracks in Iraq or Afghanistan and displayed it in the men's bathroom or some place most frequent?
Bardamu raises a good point.
In fact, as grave and ponderous a subject as this may be, the title of this piece brings to mind a scene from a vintage "Simpsons" episode:
Lisa, ever the socially-conscious progressive, is visiting local bully Nelson's home for the first time.
She notices a poster on the wall with the slogan "NUKE THE WHALES".
"Nuke the WHALES?" Lisa murmurs in horror.
"Gotta nuke SOMETHIN'!" Nelson explains offhandedly.
_________________________________
The article, and the philosophy of warmongery itself, ought properly to be entitled "Gotta Nuke SOMETHIN'!"
· Yr Obd't Servant
This begs far too many questions. Who are the innocent and the guilty in wars? Assignment of guilt and innocence according to partisan interpretations of the situation is surely misleading, hypocritical and complicit. "Our" efforts to excuse the killing of other human beings must always ring hollow as long as we claim to humane motivations. The only way to reconcile our values with our actions is to actually act according to those values - and do no harm.
well yeah. but to begin with we do not need to get in wars. of course it would be nice if countries, "when in wars" would stop bombing civilians. But they won't. war itself is the problem. What we desperately need now is to stop making bombs, and stop dropping them- on anybody.
also as a reminder, we are not presently engaged in anything like a "war". we are bombing the innocent because those are the only people living under the bombs. There is no "enemy", no nation with a military force to resist us.
I do not know the real reason behind the promotion of bombing as the central tool of war. But whether it advances the publicized objectives does not appear to be the issue. I believe the reason is internal rather than external: that is to say, bombing is “clean”, rarely those who are doing the bombing are killed, and kill ratio is high. This is especially the case when the populations that are subjected to such bombings do not have or lost anti-aircrafts defense capacities. It is also the case when drones are used rather than manned bombers. Ravage of war is not experienced by the perpetrators of this terror. As a result, it is easier for the country that is doing the bombing to be indifferent about it; hence it is easier for them to continue war.
This is a thought provoking book. But in the age of humanitarian intervention and war on terror which is essentially an imperial war, in my view, only way this practice will be made accountable is by making all form of war crime against humanity. I do not think this will happen anytime soon.
It was the Italian theorist Douhet who formulated the romance of winning a war by bombing the enemy's civilian population so much that they will demand to surrender. Already in the first military phase of the Germano-Anglic War, Germany had tried dropping bombs on London from airships, but gave up because it yielded no results. The British military establishment, on the other hand, were quite impressed, judging from their subsequent enthusiasm for bombing. The English carry on about Coventry and the Blitz, and prefer not to mention Dresden (roughly 250,000 dead) and Forzheim (a third of the population dead) -- to name only the absolute and relative extremes.
Mass bombing of civilians is called "stragegic bombing" because the theory is that it is more efficient to prevent the arming, supplying, and movement of the enemy's soldiers than to fight them in the battlefield afterward. In fact, as the Germans observed at the time, the target of "strategic bombing" was the civilian population itself. In the case of the slow-motion genocide of the Palestinians, the Jews* have given strategic bombing a new twist: they dispense with the bombers. The deception in the justification remains the same. They claim that they are tormenting the Palestinians into leaving, but they betray their true intent when they torment the Gazans and prevent them from leaving.
Similarly, at the time that NATO was bombing Yugoslavia for the US, the explanation I heard on the radio was: "We are destroying his capacity to wage war." What they were really destroying was Yugoslavia's capacity to wage sovereignty (see Michael Parenti, "The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia", http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html).
"Strategic bombing" in historical perspective is a recent manifestation of the Anglo-Saxon habit of war, which consists of self-righteous total war. The Pequots, Wounded Knee, Dresden, Operation Phoenix, Abu Ghraib -- from a distance they all blur together. This tendency was expressed in the code name for the firebombing of Hamburg (50,000 dead): "Operation Gomorrah".
*I do not say "the Israelis", because this is a policy blindly supported by the great majority of Jews within and outside Israel and not supported by the non-Jewish Israelis.
I voted for Clinton for president because he and his wife were protesters of the Vietnam war and Clinton said he was going to retool America.( I thought he meant to turn swords into plowshares) We lovers of peace were betrayed. America has an economy that relies on producing hi-tech weapons that do not discriminate. They kill every thing and everybody within range. The more hi-tech the weapon the more civilians are killed at the time they are dropped and for years after from the residue of toxins or cluster or land mine bombs.The U.S. sells these weapons to dictators and then uses the excuse that the dictators used them, to invade the country, to show off the weapons and increase their sales and gain oil contracts for the profiteers. We need a president who has the courage to retool America and make our economy rely on building not destroying, on healing not injuring or killing,on cleaning not polluting the environment.Lots of jobs for peace will result.
Good Luck!!
Let me know when you find someone.
My daddy in the late '40s used to talk about how Nuremburg would come to haunt the US. He cited all of the acts that would have caused all our leaders to have been executed had we lost.
Dresden, Forzheim, Nagasaki, Tokyo firebombings, ......and on ......and on.
But I could be wrong !
Sir Thomas More was beheaded on the orders of King Henry the Eighth.