Date: 15 Sep 2001 00:18:13 +0200 From: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> To: "Stephen Hurd" <deuce@lordlegacy.org> Cc: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <xzpelp9s9ga.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> In-Reply-To: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAMEFMCDAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org> References: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAMEFMCDAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org>
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"Stephen Hurd" <deuce@lordlegacy.org> writes: > The closest understanding I can reach with this is that they > attempted to do the same thing as Hiroshima/Nagasaki... ie: Kill a > bunch of civilians to save years of war and MANY soldiers lives. > That anaology breaks down in a couple of places (but not as many as > you think at first), but I can at least to some degree understand it > in that context. The only problem with this analogy is that Japan had already lost the war, its leaders had already acknowledged that fact to themselves, and all the Bomb achieved was horrify and terrify the world and serve anti-western propagandist as an example of American brutality and ruthlessness. Likewise, I was in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, and you have no idea how hard it was - as a descendant of the "winners" - to stand in the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Ged=E4chtniskirche knowing that the carpet bombing of Hamburg, Berlin and other major German cities from 1943 and onwards, in which the church was destroyed, served no military purpose other than maybe boost British morale and allow Allied Bomber Command to pat eachother's backs and congratulate eachother about their cleverness. What's even harder to swallow (and quite humbling) is the sense that many younger Germans (most I've had a chance to talk to, in fact) still harbor deep feelings of guilt about World War II. Americans, however, don't seem to think much of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the carpet bombings; history is obviously written by the winners. DES --=20 Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@ofug.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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