Allied Morality Questioned in Bombing of German Cities

[Ned]

SD. Dresden occurred a month before the first firebombing in Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo took place on March 9 killed 83,000 Japanese. Obviously, the leaflet campaign was not effective in preventing civilian casualties. Yet the firebombing campaign was effective in destroying Japanese military capability.

Had the atom bombs been dropped without the prior firebombing bombing they may not have resulted in plate a Japanese surrender.

Regardless, the leaflet the campaign demonstrated that United States did have some scruples about deliberately targeting civilian population. The primary objective of the U.S. bombing campaign in Japan was to destroy the Japanese military-industrial complex.

In researching a response to this note, I was even amazed to find that we had dropped leaflets on Hiroshima prior to dropping the bomb. The Japanese could have avoided significant casualties had they evacuated the city.

[Dr Strangelove]

IIRC Germany actually began bombing cities back in WWI. In fact they targetted English port cities for naval shelling even before they had Zepplin bombers. After WWI military theorists prophsized that future wars would be won by air power. It seems that the general consensus was that bombing of cities would be a natural use of air power. While the world's nations sat down to attend conventions about limiting sea power and making rules for the conduct of warfare very little effort was made to limit the use of air power on civilians. They even made movies predicting that in future wars "the good guys" would win the day through the use of aerial gas bombs and masses of paratroopers. The Germans started bombing Polish cities within the first few days of the opening of WWII. The Japanese had already been bombing Chinese cities for years. It is apparent then that no "taboo" against civilian bombing really existed until after August 1945 when the world awoke to an entirely different future.

[Ned]

Then let us mark Dresden as the beginning of the end the doctrine that civilians are legitimate targets in war. We in the West, at least, seem to have a consensus on this. Leaders like Milosovic, Osama bin Laden,

This is why we find so appalling the barbarities of the Serbs in the recent breakup of Yugoslavia, and the terrorist acts of Muslim extremists including the Chechens, and Osama bin Laden and Arafat.

[GeneralTacticus]

Then let us mark Dresden as the beginning of the end the doctrine that civilians are legitimate targets in war. We in the West, at least, seem to have a consensus on this.

Then why the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Why the bombing of Pyongyang during the Korean War? Why Operation Arc Light in Vietnam? Why the US support for atrocities against civilians in Indonesia, Latin America, East Timor, et al? Even if the generally accepted view for us is that civilians aren't valid targets, this view seems to have little credence for our leaders - except when our own citizens are the targets.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Ned
Then let us mark Dresden as the beginning of the end the doctrine that civilians are legitimate targets in war. We in the West, at least, seem to have a consensus on this. Leaders like Milosovic, Osama bin Laden,

This is why we find so appalling the barbarities of the Serbs in the recent breakup of Yugoslavia, and the terrorist acts of Muslim extremists including the Chechens, and Osama bin Laden and Arafat.

I think the beginning was a small town in Basque Spain.

[GePap]

It is apparent then that no "taboo" against civilian bombing really existed until after August 1945 when the world awoke to an entirely different future.

In many ways, it was an emerging taboo. After all, you can't really have a taboo for someting before the fact, can you? Read the press of the time, after Guernica, the bombing of Nanking, of Rotterdam and so forth: as the war developed, more an more oppostion grew to indiscriminate bombing of civilians. "Bomber" Harris got a lot of flack for his night raid against German cities from the political forces within th allied states as the war went on. The Taboo against the nuclear bomb is an aftermath of their use, it did note xist rior, as few (if any) could unerstand its full effects.

The people at the very time of Dresden could see that it was wrong: they did not need the nuclear bomb to make this clear. That there was not as much opposition to the bombing of japanese cities at this very same time probalby has more to do with anti-japanese feelings (those dirty, sub-hman Japs!) than approval for the methods involved in general.

[Ned]

And yet, every country that adopts nuclear weapons implicity threatens to use them against civilian targets.