Re: "I am talking general principles, you are talking specific instances."
>>> Perhaps we are more in agreement than not when it comes to general principles....
Re: "I am not interested in arguing the specific merits of each action, some of which may, indeed, have been mistaken. I have discovered that is a fruitless enterprise, and besides, it is irrelevant. I think the fire bombing of Dresden was wrong, but that does not invalidate World War II, nor does it mean I cannot understand the desperation and hostility that caused it to be ordered."
>>> History is, indeed, written by the victors.
>>> I was somewhat surprised to read in a history of Curtis Lemay ("carpet-bomb Lemay", "bomb 'em into the Stone Age Lemay") - naively thinking that he wouldn't have been so... relativistic - a quote from him relating to his role in planning the firebombing raid on Tokyo.
>>> He said that if Japan had won the war, he would have stood trial and been hung as a "war criminal".
>>> For a parallel view about the fire bombing of Dresden, one could read Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five', or 'Mother Night', which had sections describing his experiences there during and after the firebombing, as an allied POW. |
