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#81 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#82 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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#83 |
In the Peanut Gallery
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 43,018
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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#84 |
NWO Litter Technician
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Looks like Finland. Smells like Finland. Quacks like Finland. Where the hell am I?
Posts: 13,016
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When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord, in his wisdom, doesn't work that way. I just stole one and asked Him to forgive me. - Emo Philips
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#85 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#86 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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Perhaps the OPer is aware of the other events, but thinks that the bombing of D was particularly heinous for one reason or another. That would not be an utterly irrational viewpoint.
Anyway, nobody could say that the bombing of D was less reprehensible because other places were bombed as well. |
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#87 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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No, it's not a legitimate position in my estimation, as the Hamburg raid was objectively worse. See reply below. Cold, hard numbers. Fatalities as a result of the July 1943 raid on Hamburg: 42,000. Fatalities as a result of the Feb. 1945 raid on Dresden: 25,000. If one is going to cite a bombing raid on a German city, and the deaths caused as a result, as an example of Allied cruelty and evilness, then one should be citing Hamburg. That they don't, and even appear entirely ignorant of the Hamburg raid altogether, suggests a substantial lack of knowledge on the subject of the bombing offensive. And if one has exhibited a substantial lack of knowledge on a subject, then I see little reason to take their proclamations on said subject with much seriousness. (And that's not even touching upon the entirely unpredictable nature of firestorms, which could not be created on command. The night after the raid on Dresden, the city of Chemnitz was hit by an almost equally large RAF bombing force. But no one talks about that raid, because no firestorm occurred and thus casualties were vastly lower. In short, unusual events draw all the attention, and are mistakenly used as if they were representative. They were not.) |
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#88 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 31,691
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#89 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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@ Corsair and theprestige. As pointed out before, in another thread which I commend to your attention: I believe intentional bombing of civilians to be immoral. That is not to say that I think the Allies were in any way comparable with the Nazis. But this present thread was initiated by material which has nothing to do with such comparisons, and is simply pro-Nazi propaganda extolling Hitler.
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#90 |
Misanthrope of the Mountains
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 23,702
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Dresden was an important transportation hub being used by the Wehrmacht to assist in withdrawing before the Red Army. Bombing it was entirely logical.
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"Because WE ARE IGNORANT OF 911 FACTS, WE DEMAND PROOF" -- Douglas Herman on Rense.com
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#91 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 16,115
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My new blog: Recent Reads. 1960s Comic Book Nostalgia Visit the Screw Loose Change blog. |
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#92 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Adirondacks, NY - with Magrat!
Posts: 7,999
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#93 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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In that case, the following was not "logical". From Sir Arthur Harris.
the aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany.If the destruction of civilian life at Dresden was indeed an undesired but inevitable by-product of an imperative requirement to obstruct the German Army, then it would be logical. Very well. But that was not the general principle behind the bombing campaign, as already discussed, and as stated by Harris himself. ETA Harris's wiki bio has this to say about Dresden. Within the postwar British government there was some disquiet about the level of destruction that had been created by the area-bombing of German cities towards the end of the war. Harris retired on 15 September 1946 and wrote his story of Bomber Command's achievements in Bomber Offensive. In this book he wrote, concerning Dresden, "I know that the destruction of so large and splendid a city at this late stage of the war was considered unnecessary even by a good many people who admit that our earlier attacks were as fully justified as any other operation of war. Here I will only say that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself.Clearly the issue is controversial, but it boils down to whether the destruction was or was not a military necessity on grounds such as the ones you propose. Bombing cities for the purpose of killing their residents falls within a different moral category. The massacres at Lidice and Oradour are a different phenomenon, and crimes of this kind were not perpetrated by the western Allies. |
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#94 |
Mad Mod Poet God
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 3,141
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It's almost like we've been here before.
WE'VE ALL BEEN HERE BEFORE! The horror! |
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"You can find that book everywhere and the risk is that many people who read it believe that those fairy tales are real. I think I have the responsibility to clear things up to unmask the cheap lies contained in books like that." - Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone |
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#95 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2,958
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While it's true that conjuring up firestorms was tricky, the British went to extraordinary efforts to perfect the use of incendiary bombs during WWII.
Richard Overy, one of my colleagues and one of the leading authorities on strategic bombing during WWII, recently gave a paper on what he has called "incendiarism" in the bombing campaign, which showed that the use of incendaries was discussed in truly blood-curdling terms by scientists and air force officers. |
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Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. (biggest ever skeptical debunking of conspiracy theorists; PDF available) Everytime one asks you holocaust deniers for positive evidence you just put your finger in the ears, dance around and sing lalala - Kevin Silbstedt |
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#96 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 6,567
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Essentially the RAF/RCAF etc couldn't create a firestorm on demand, but we're trying to figure out how to.
Any chance of a look at the paper? As a gunner, that has some potential PD value. |
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Questions, comments, queries, bitches, complaints, rude gestures and/or remarks? |
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#97 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2,958
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Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. (biggest ever skeptical debunking of conspiracy theorists; PDF available) Everytime one asks you holocaust deniers for positive evidence you just put your finger in the ears, dance around and sing lalala - Kevin Silbstedt |
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#98 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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Well, of course. I don't see why that should be surprising to anyone. Pretty much every weapon had efforts to perfect it, or at least improve its effectiveness. I don't see why bombs, incendiary or otherwise, would be any different. I'm sure it sounds awful. But then, war is awful. I personally don't see much distinction between being killed by an incendiary bomb or high explosive bomb or artillery shell or rifle bullet or mortar, or any of a number of other ways, since the key commonality among all the methods is death. Dead is dead, and I'm not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry, seeing as they're dead regardless. |
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#99 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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As the raid on Hamburg showed, devastating a city via a firestorm was largely the equivalent of an atomic bomb in terms of the damage done, only without the radiation, and requiring a lot more aircraft and bombs. Only a truly suicidal regime would keep waging a war once such destructive power had been consistently demonstrated. |
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#100 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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__________________
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#101 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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#102 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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#103 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#104 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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__________________
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#105 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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Suffice it further to say this: I can not accept that you believe that deaths in war are morally equivalent because you're not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry. If you do think that indifference by dead people imparts moral equivalence to the various different acts that might have caused their deaths, then I fervently hope you never have cause to test that argument in a court of law.
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#106 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,252
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#107 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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I'm sure I'll need to explain this only once. Consider your argument already cited
I am honest.
By your criterion, if people don't care how they were killed, they equally don't care where they were killed. So the indifference of the dead is not a principle by which the morality of the acts that caused their deaths can be measured. Nor is it permissible to commit any act without restraint against noncombatant civilians under the rule of an enemy state, especially when that state is an undisguised tyranny. I simply don't accept that, however often you choose to affirm it, and however obvious it may seem to you. However, I have made clear my view that the massacres of Lidice and Oradour were phenomena different from the strategic bombing, and that the western Allies did not commit crimes of that kind. |
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#108 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,252
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#109 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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That's not my point. It's nothing like what I am discussing, I'm comparing killing a soldier in battle with intentionally killing masses of civilians while they are ruled by an enemy state.
And if "where" matters a lot, it doesn't matter to people once they are dead. It was the use of this absurd criterion by Corsair 115 that I was criticising. |
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#110 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#111 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,620
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Corsair & Giz.
This is not going to work, at least as an intimidatory tactic. It'll probably get the discourse relegated to AAH, which I suppose is your intent. |
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#112 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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This battle (pun intended) was waged in the other thread. There seems little reason to rehash the same ground here, especially as it was done in far more detail there. (I recall providing quite a bit in the way of evidence and citations.)
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#113 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 19,042
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I like Nazi apologists.
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#114 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Sacramento
Posts: 42,539
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BTW the film Hellstorm is based upon a equally disgusting book.
For a different kind of insanity there is "Human Smoke" a book by Nicholas Baker, which carries Moral Equivilency in World War 2 to it logical end:The Allies really were no better then the Axis.Baker is a sort of Pacifist Anarchist,and the whole book is an exercise in ideology triumphing over reality. He has a nasty habit of pointing out the personal flaws in the character of Churhill,Rosevelt and other Allied Leaders,and using that as evidence they were no better then Hitler and company.In fact, a few pacifists are the only people in the book who have any real ethics and morality whatsoever. It';s special pleading carried to the level of insanity. It is also one of the worst books of History I have ever read. And it a sad comment about certain "intellectuals" that this pile of crap had a huge success with certain critics and in certain intellectual circles. |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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#115 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 401
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Is it safe to say that the Nazis committed more war crimes than the Soviets? Stalin killed more people overall but the height of his terror was in the 1930s.
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#116 |
Knave of the Dudes
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 12,870
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"The president’s voracious sexual appetite is the elephant that the president rides around on each and every day while pretending that it doesn’t exist." - Bill O'Reilly et al., Killing Kennedy |
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#117 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 2,313
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The whole genocide thing is what really sets Nazi Germany apart from Stalinist Soviet Union. It was never the Soviets goal to cleanse the world of certain ethnic groups, or create lebenstraum by letting most of the population of a country starve to death.
ETA: the Great Purge seems to have killed far less people than the Holocaust. |
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#118 |
Knave of the Dudes
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 12,870
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"The president’s voracious sexual appetite is the elephant that the president rides around on each and every day while pretending that it doesn’t exist." - Bill O'Reilly et al., Killing Kennedy |
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#119 |
Knave of the Dudes
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 12,870
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"The president’s voracious sexual appetite is the elephant that the president rides around on each and every day while pretending that it doesn’t exist." - Bill O'Reilly et al., Killing Kennedy |
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#120 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 2,313
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True. I also like to point out, especially when someone says something like: "Look how much the Soviets sacrificed to defeat Hitler, the West barely did anything", that the Soviets were hardly innocent victims. They did agree to carve up Poland with Germany, annexed Bessarabia, and invaded Finland after all.
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