December 7th, 1941: 65 years ago!

[Karl Heidenreich]

Probably one of the most important dates of XXth Century. Let´s remember the heroic sailors, soldiers, pilots and officers of the US Navy and US Army and US Air Corps at Oahu that fought against such an incredible enemy. And let´s remember those bold and courageous Japanese that gave such an example of dedication to their country.
For those who die, for those who survived to fight another day, on both sides.
This is also a date to reflect upon how things are being handled today and how were handled then. In 1941 the US was attacked and answered with incredible force, with Victory as the only aim, achieved thru the complete obliteration of the enemy. Not so long ago the US was attacked again, but it´s answer was far from being decisive and the outcome it´s not a complete victory, even now, five years from the agression. The reason is obvious: in 1941 the US had FDR as President and military leaders as McArthur, Nimitz, Spruance, Patton, Le May, Halsey, Doolitle, Ike, among hundreds of brilliant officers and soldiers; what the US have nowadays? Only the soldiers that risk their lives everyday. And they are not as many as needed.
Maybe this 65th anniversary could help to enlightned someone at the top.

Best regards.

[RF]

Today its a different war. No Tojo or Saddam Hussein, an enemy you can see and whose forces are in uniform and can be seen where they are.

Now it is a war against a concealed enemy who could be anywhere in the world, an enemy whose first weapon is propaganda and media manipulation, backed by spin, political correctness and for whom the Geneva and Hague conventions is for the good guys only.

[Karl Heidenreich]

RF:

Today its a different war. No Tojo or Saddam Hussein, an enemy you can see and whose forces are in uniform and can be seen where they are.

Now it is a war against a concealed enemy who could be anywhere in the world, an enemy whose first weapon is propaganda and media manipulation, backed by spin, political correctness and for whom the Geneva and Hague conventions is for the good guys only.

There are ways to deal with the vermin. I remember something Colonel Harry Summers wrote in his book "On Strategy. A critical analysis of the Gulf War". He was a member of the peace talks committee at Paris (or Geneva) with the Vietnamese just before the end of Viet Nam War and one commie officer came and told him: "This is what happens when you try to destroy an idea by force". And Summers answered something like: "That´s BS and you know it. In the the middle ages Genghis Khan did a pretty good job against the Jijad that the mulla´s declared against him from Persia, killing some 17 million enemies and scorching the earth so nothing can grow there forever"; or the French Bishop that when asked how can the hugonots can be identified he ordered: Kill them all, let´s God sort them out"

Another couple of examples of how to deal with that:

Cartage, Third Punic War.
Jerusalem and Masada, 72 A.D.

It´s only a matter of leadership and will. Today´s war is not a war between US and some terrorists hiding in the deserts... is a war between Western Judeo-Christian Civilization and a Medieval Anachronic Fear Induced Religion-Culture.
It´s a shame that italian reporter and thinker Oriana Fallaci died this year, she could explain what´s all this is about.


Best regards

[RF]

This looks like a recipe for Genocide.

[Karl Heidenreich]

RF:

This looks like a recipe for Genocide.

It wasn´t called that when the target was Dresden, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Tokio, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.
I call it "survival" of out western judeo-christian civilization. Don´t forget one thing: those people that use to crash airliners against civilian buildings and behead innocent kidnaped persons will blow London, Birmingham, Paris or New York while shouting: "Allah a´Kabbar" or whatever they belived is sacred. Aren´t they the ones studying how the Holocaust was an invention? What can you expect of such a vermin?
The logic is: destroy them before they knock at your door with a AK-47 and blow your brains out.
Survival, remember, survival.

[Bgile]

RF:

This looks like a recipe for Genocide.

It wasn´t called that when the target was Dresden, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Tokio, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.

Those aren't called Genocide because noone was trying to destroy an entire race or culture, as you are suggesting.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Bgile:

Those aren't called Genocide because noone was trying to destroy an entire race or culture, as you are suggesting.

As an anglo-american admirer I have and must admitt that your post is like an euphemism. The victors can call whatever they want what they did and what their enemy did and distort the truth in order of their own best interests. At some given moment the allied bombing strategy was pure slaughter. Curtis Le May, a great commander which I admire very much, once stated:
"I don´t doubt that if the enemy had won I would be called, be judged and condemned as a War Criminal because of what we did to their cities."Genocides does not owe it´s origin in the intention of the murderer but to what he did. The Nazis commited the Holocaust, the Japanese commited the rape of Nanking, the Death March, the murders at Manila... Bomber Harris did his and 8th Air Force did theirs in Germany.
I never hesitated to be in favour to the use of Little Boy and Fat Man against Japan: both were necesary military actions to end the war, but I´m not blind: both were mass murders because their result (and aim also) was to summit the enemy civilian population by terror.
Genocide is genocide whoever commit it, whatever the reasons and whichever the costs.
And in war there are no inocents, everybody had blood in their hands. Some people admitt it, like Le May or Patton, others didn´t like Robert McNamara.

[Bgile]

I feel that the indescriminate bombing of German cities was completely unjustified and was an absolutely horrible thing to do. It caused many more deaths than the atom bombs did.

The atom bombs were used to prevent huge numbers of unneccessary deaths of both US and Japanese people, given the Japanese determination to fight to the death. For that reason I consider them to be justified, unlike the bombing of German population centers.

[RF]

I feel that the indescriminate bombing of German cities was completely unjustified and was an absolutely horrible thing to do. It caused many more deaths than the atom bombs did.

I disagree on military grounds.

The large scale carpet bombing had one effect which many people overlook, namely the thousands of flak guns which had to be deployed to defend the cities. Without the bombing most of these guns would have been deployed on the Russian front and in the Italy/France front lines and would have lengthened the war considerably with even greater loss of life.

Further there was also the disruption to the German economy and damage to the transportation system, without which again the war would have been prolonged.

[Bgile]

I feel that the indescriminate bombing of German cities was completely unjustified and was an absolutely horrible thing to do. It caused many more deaths than the atom bombs did.

I disagree on military grounds.

The large scale carpet bombing had one effect which many people overlook, namely the thousands of flak guns which had to be deployed to defend the cities. Without the bombing most of these guns would have been deployed on the Russian front and in the Italy/France front lines and would have lengthened the war considerably with even greater loss of life.

Further there was also the disruption to the German economy and damage to the transportation system, without which again the war would have been prolonged.

I agree that there were military advantages. In fact, killing ALL the people in a city has military advantages. Many of them worked in the factories. I just consider it immoral. You are certainly allowed to have a different view.

The Flak would have been there in any case to protect against daylight bombing. There wouldn't have been any material difference in the ground combat.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Samuel P. Huntington has said that to approach the military activity by moral standards is impossible. Which reminds me about something Marlon Brando says in the movie "Apocalipse Now" at the end:
"Because is judgement what defeats us"
I believe that the only way to wage war effectively is to refuse the humanitarian side and the moral approach the way it is refused by our enemies. Because the nazis, the communists and now the islamists wage war without any contemplation of decency or mercy while the democratic nations torture themselves with these issues restraining themselves to such extent that victory is almost impossible to conquer.
As I said before, in war nobody has it´s hands clean. And to pretend to have them clean and seek victory at the same time is just impossible, because the search of victory overides the moral needs of we, westeners. In such case Le May´s words echoes as the only thruth: "I don´t care how many Japanese we killed. My only concern was to finish the war as fast as I can".
All sides commited genocides in WWII and in many wars before and after it. The will to do what´s necessary to achieve victory is what makes the difference between those who fight to win and those who fight without any purpose and whom will lose at the end.
But the hypocrecy to pretend that some fought in such a way that gave them a right to judge the others, specially from war crimes and the such, is ugly. If Doenitz or Yamashita were judged and sentenced for war crimes them Le May, Bomber Harris or McArthur could be liable to such the same treatment.

[Bgile]

LeMay wanted to start a war with the USSR and bomb them into the stone age before they were able to build very many nuclear weapons. We could have done it, and you are advocating it.

In my mind, that makes us no better than Hitler's Germany, and I wouldn't want to live in a society that condones that.

Totalitarian states are better at fighting wars than Democracies if they have intelligent leadership. You are advocating the the USA become a police state, and some think we are closer and closer. If the Taliban succeed in driving us there in self defense, they will have won.

I apologize for going this direction in this discussion - It has no place here, and I will stop.

[RF]

LeMay wanted to start a war with the USSR and bomb them into the stone age before they were able to build very many nuclear weapons. We could have done it, and you are advocating it.

This scenario could have happened - if Britain had declared war on the Soviet Union for her part in the invasion and partition of Poland in 1939 so that Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito were in a quadripartite pact, the Americans would have won in 1945 with numerous mushroom clouds but not total anihilation of Russia.

It could be argued that such a result would, by eliminating the Cold War and reducing the Mid-East conflict (the Arab states having no superpower backer) have made the world a much better place, without the problems we have now.

[RF]

LeMay wanted to start a war with the USSR and bomb them into the stone age before they were able to build very many nuclear weapons. We could have done it, and you are advocating it.

The quote from LeMay I believe is taken out of context. He was referring to the Vietcong, when he was the vice-presidential candidate in George Wallace's run for the US presidency in 1968.

Given that Nixon (who won that race in 1968) was once a McCarthyite, I think that a President Wallace would have stopped short of nuking North Vietnam and LeMay would have gone along with any ''Vodka-Cola'' arrangement that would have happened under Wallace. Pragmatism when you are in power always wins over rhetoric in opposition.

[Bgile]

LeMay wanted to start a war with the USSR and bomb them into the stone age before they were able to build very many nuclear weapons. We could have done it, and you are advocating it.

The quote from LeMay I believe is taken out of context. He was referring to the Vietcong, when he was the vice-presidential candidate in George Wallace's run for the US presidency in 1968.

Given that Nixon (who won that race in 1968) was once a McCarthyite, I think that a President Wallace would have stopped short of nuking North Vietnam and LeMay would have gone along with any ''Vodka-Cola'' arrangement that would have happened under Wallace. Pragmatism when you are in power always wins over rhetoric in opposition.

No, I was referring to a point, I think in the early 50s when we had B-47s, he advocated inciting an incident with the USSR and attacking them with an all-out nuclear weapons strike before they could achieve MAD.