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2014-08-09 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-08-09 03:57|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ] Top

#1 They set the rules with their actions, Respond in kind.

As William Tecumseh Sherman said to the people of Atlanta, You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-08-09 06:40|| 2014-08-09 06:40|| Front Page Top

#2 Both horse lovers, I believe General Sherman entered Savannah with a personal stable of some 70 horses. General Lee surrendered with Traveler and one other.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-08-09 08:57|| 2014-08-09 08:57|| Front Page Top

#3 Even he greatly distorts the historical record in making his case about WWII. There was a gigantic gulf of difference in every single aspect of the way the war was prosectued between the Allies and the Axis (the Soviet/German unpleasantness was full-on savagery from both sides, sort of a separate topic).

Dresden was a major rail nexus of importance to the eastern front, and center of high-end military production (optics, what today we would call electronics). Hitting it was as rational and militarily justified as any attack of the war. German bombing of Allied cities never once even bothered to pretend to be linked to military targets or operations. Japan's cultural capital was placed off-limits to bombing, and promptly saw (naturally) significant industrial capacity moved there as sanctuary.

Ground operations of course saw a near perfect inversion of behavior. German and Japanese forces, almost without exception, behaved with unprovoked and illegal cruelty and even barbarism towards civilians in (lawlessly conquered) areas. Massive murder, torture, and rape, looting, wanton destruction, forced labor.

Allied forces by contrast were Boy Scouts - cases of misbehavior were criminally prosecuted (this continued into occupied Germany, where the US at one point had to borrow the British hangman to carry out capital sentences from courts martial of rapist and murderer GIs). We friggin set up special units, which in some cases actually affected combat decisions, to protect, recover, and restore precious art and cultural treasures in Europe. We invented the modern concept of humanitarian aid and used it to help our former enemies and their victims.

Even granting the glib and erroneous assumptions of those who try to get preachy about WWII, the inarguable result of doing it without all the icky Allied behavior would have been ..... the same outcome, but with a much, much, much larger death toll among the Axis populations, their victims, and Allied military personnel.

Posted by Verlaine 2014-08-09 12:18|| 2014-08-09 12:18|| Front Page Top

#4 "Until recently, those were considered good reasons for killing civilians."

Still are, by any serious person.

Libtards, not so much.

Posted by Barbara 2014-08-09 13:44|| 2014-08-09 13:44|| Front Page Top

#5 In the end soldiers clean up the messes created by politicians. It is not cleaned up until one side wins decisively. Unfortunately, the price of winning often has terrible cost. Unless, people want to live under the boot of tyranny, the cost of war must to be paid. We have screwed around with these a$$holes (Islamics) for far too long. We have been far too patient. They no longer have any respect or fear of us.

Posted by JohnQC 2014-08-09 15:39|| 2014-08-09 15:39|| Front Page Top

#6 Hitler's shifting of the focus of German strategic bombing away from RAF facilities and towards population centers ensured that Germany lost the crucial "Battle of Britain." Morality aside, it was a dumb move (fortunately).

But the most important point is one the article makes succinctly: "Mutuality makes morality and immorality in war self-regulating.... Terrorists are excused from the laws of war, while everyone else has to abide by them. This only incentivizes terrorism and makes fighting terrorists a grim and impossible business."

Posted by Odysseus 2014-08-09 18:13|| 2014-08-09 18:13|| Front Page Top

#7 Hitler's shifting of the focus of German strategic bombing away from RAF facilities and towards population centers ensured that Germany lost the crucial "Battle of Britain."

And yet the allies bombed Germany around the clock and it crushed and dispirited them. Dresden, an art center and largely a city of little strategic importance, was fire-bombed which resulted in nearly as many deaths as the bombing of Hiroshima. We bombed the Japanese around the clock towards the end of the war and they still resisted until we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That brought about unconditional surrender. At some point the pain of war brings about surrender or complete destruction. Nation-building can come later (or not).

Posted by JohnQC 2014-08-09 19:03|| 2014-08-09 19:03|| Front Page Top

#8 ...note that after we bombed the hell out of both countries and sat on them for a couple of generations, the Prussian* and Japanese militaristic cultural streak of a couple hundred years seems to be seriously abated.

* Germany wasn't so much unified as annexed by Prussia. The Kaiser rejected an offer in 1848 for an arrangement similar to England's king and parliament. Instead Bismark proceeded with his pan-Germanic union subordinate to the Kaiser.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-08-09 19:50|| 2014-08-09 19:50|| Front Page Top

23:41 trailing wife
22:08 dk70 the scantily clad
21:33 Zorba Fleresh4606
21:22 Beavis
21:14 SteveS
20:48 Besoeker
20:35 phil_b
20:16 49 Pan
20:02 SteveS
20:00 swksvolFF
19:50 Procopius2k
19:26 JohnQC
19:24 JohnQC
19:15 JohnQC
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18:46 JohnQC
18:32 Odysseus
18:28 Chantry
18:13 Odysseus
18:03 swksvolFF
17:36 Thing From Snowy Mountain
17:35 Thing From Snowy Mountain
17:33 Thing From Snowy Mountain
17:31 Frank G on the road