• You’re right the US/UN aren’t saints, but to even equate them to Saddam is like FDR to Hitler.


  • Well…… TG, pardon my harsh words, but this is BS.

    “unfortunate civilians” … do you mean: 600,000 civilians of 161 cities and 800 villages, 75,000 unfortunate children and 78,000 unfortunate slave-workers.
    And do you think you would call amied strikes at factories then an “area saturation doctrine” ?? With incendiary attacks from 28/03/42 (Luebeck … has a baltic port) over the 1000-bomber-raid on Cologne on the 31/05/42, Essen (a valid target though, with a big steel producing industry) three days later …

    Huh, I heard the civilian deaths were larger then the ones you gave. But the point still stands, the great majority of bombing attacks were aimed at war producing factories or logistical stations. I dare you to say otherwise.

    But … Dresden? Swinemuende (a refugee port!) ? Two new “single target” bomb record in march 45 (with 4.660 tons on the 11th onto Essen, and 4.800 tons on the 12th in Dortmund), Bombing the ruins of Hamburg again on the 21/03/45, attacking Hildesheim two days later (anyone of you knows where Hildesheim is, and what kind of military or strategical importance it could have??) More than 1000 bombers attacking Berlin on the 10/04/45 ?

    We been over this point before, you know that. You could say these attacks were intended to bottle up the movement of Axis forces (both attacks on the army and logistical wise - at least for Dresden). Also, the 1000 bomber attack on Berlin had purpose, it was to clear the way for the advancing Russian Army (and I’m sure military targets were involved, unless you can prove me otherwise), and as for the Battle of Berlin, it was probably the second bloodiest battle since Stalingrad (if not more so).

    having dropped more than 100,000 tons by late may 1943, being proud of “wiping off the map” half of a city (Wuppertal, 29/05/43, btw what is now a suburb of Wuppertal was hit not month after that).
    And then such things as “Operation Gomorrah” being called “the probably the most complete blotting out of a city that ever happened” by UK Air Ministry.
    And these are the understandable attacks, as the war was still raging high at that point.

    What has the no-fly-zone to do with the UN? That was a totally illegal thing set up by the US. So… they defended themselves there against illegal intruders.

    Not at all. THe no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel was made to monitor Iraqi compliance with UN Security Council resolutions 678, 687, and 688. The northern no-fly zone is not an aggression against Iraq or a violation of its sovereignty, it is a necessary and legitimate measure to limit Iraq’s aggressive air activities.

    For the mentioning of WWI, and the notion of “cleaning up the mess they created” … it would have been nice, if the US had defended their peace proposal much more, and not withdrawn and given in some demand sof the French and British after WWI. Could have saved the world from a lot of later trouble.

    Perhaps, though I don’t US was guilty anywhere near as France, UK, or Italy. Besides, US was more of a non-factor. What could we say? We were barely in the war for less than a year before it ended. We didn’t experience anywhere near the horrors of France (in particular - it was their country that was devestated) and UK, and had already lost millions of guys. Who were we to dictate the terms of the peace treaty.


  • I think it’s entirely relevant to counter F_alk’s rhetoric with this bit of uplifting news: http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20030924-080344-5035r.htm


  • @TG:

    Huh, I heard the civilian deaths were larger then the ones you gave. But the point still stands, the great majority of bombing attacks were aimed at war producing factories or logistical stations. I dare you to say otherwise.

    Yes, early attacks where aimed at industry and infrastructure. But later attacks were totally unneeded. How can you explain the attack on Hamburg in 1945? By no means there was much left that would have been worth bombing.
    So, i don’t go against your point in the way you say it here, but you did not relativate it before with the term “majority”, before that it sounded like all, and that is simply not true. The civilian deaths and the civil destruction were not only taken into account, but more or less embraced (with P-49s (AFAIR) strafing the ground of Dresden to “increase the chaos” in the late phase of the attacks).

    We been over this point before, you know that. You could say these attacks were intended to bottle up the movement of Axis forces (both attacks on the army and logistical wise - at least for Dresden).

    Why don’t you not just admit that your nation has commited war crimes, instead of fleeing from one weak excuse to the other?
    (As Swinemuende can by no means explained by the above)

    Not at all. THe no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel was made to monitor Iraqi compliance with UN Security Council resolutions 678, 687, and 688. The northern no-fly zone is not an aggression against Iraq or a violation of its sovereignty, it is a necessary and legitimate measure to limit Iraq’s aggressive air activities.

    You probably have read something from eucom.mil.
    If you instead looked directly at the three mentioned resolutions, you will find:

    in 678 (Nov 1990):
    2. Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the foregoing resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area;

    with “all necessary means” meaning the war for liberation.

    In 687 (Apr 1991):

    Affirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Kuwait and Iraq, and noting the intention expressed by the Member States cooperating with Kuwait under paragraph 2 of resolution 678 (1990) to bring their military presence in Iraq to an end as soon as possible consistent with paragraph 8 of resolution 686 ….

    I 33. Declares that, upon official notification by Iraq to the Secretary-General and to the Security Council of its acceptance of the provisions above, a formal cease-fire is effective between Iraq and Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait in accordance with resolution 678 (1990);

    THIS is something that says No no-fly-zone.

    688 (April 1991) states:
    Gravely concerned by the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq, including most recently in Kurdish populated areas, …
    Deeply disturbed by the magnitude of the human suffering involved …

    but you will not see anything that you could be used to limit the sovereignity of the Iraq state somewhere.

    So, TG, you fell to someones propaganda, and did not read the original sources.

    For WWI:

    Perhaps, though I don’t US was guilty anywhere near as France, UK, or Italy. Besides, US was more of a non-factor. …Who were we to dictate the terms of the peace treaty.

    The US had set up a plan for an armistice/peace “without victors and victims”. That was the basis for the Germans to enter the negotiations. I don’t say you are as guilty as France or the UK, but you consistently try to play down the negative aspects of the role of the US played.

  • Moderator

    @TG:

    You’re right the US/UN aren’t saints, but to even equate them to Saddam is like FDR to Hitler.

    the same could be said about relating Saddam to Hitler :wink:


  • F’alk- Are you seriously comparing Allied Bombing raids to
    Nazi War Crimes? Please. Very simple:
    The Germans started WW2. If they did not want to be bombed
    they should have killed Hitler and ended the war.

    There is absolutely no moral equivalence.

  • Moderator

    @sherman28:

    F’alk- Are you seriously comparing Allied Bombing raids to
    Nazi War Crimes? Please. Very simple:
    The Germans started WW2. If they did not want to be bombed
    they should have killed Hitler and ended the war.

    There is absolutely no moral equivalence.

    the Germans were antagonized by the brutal WW1 Versaille Treaty which stripped Germany of evrything Rescource-wise and blamed the whole War on them(which, if you just go back 25 years in history, you will find out otherwise…) it also cased them to go into extreme poverty and the depression hit them the hardest… as far as Nazi war crimes, it might had not compared with war crimes… but why oes our “crimes” not get shown… then why does the battle of britian get more attention then the hundreds of thousands of German Families killed in deliberate Bombing raids?


  • GG- I am quite familiar with WW1 history and its aftermath and The Versailles Treaty. I don’t see what that has to do with ww2 War Crimes.
    I don’t think you want anyone to interpret your statement to mean
    “The Germans were treated badly after ww1 so anything that happened
    in WW2 is justified”. Since you brought up the Versailles Treaty:
    America did not sign it, because of the "War Guilt " part of the treaty.
    So I don’t think you can draw a clear path from Versailles to US war Crimes. Speaking of terror bombing of London- What was up with V- weapons raining down on London? What does the “V” stand for?
    Who Fired the V weapons?

  • Moderator

    @sherman28:

    GG- I am quite familiar with WW1 history and its aftermath and The Versailles Treaty. I don’t see what that has to do with ww2 War Crimes.
    I don’t think you want anyone to interpret your statement to mean
    “The Germans were treated badly after ww1 so anything that happened
    in WW2 is justified”. Since you brought up the Versailles Treaty:
    America did not sign it, because of the "War Guilt " part of the treaty.
    So I don’t think you can draw a clear path from Versailles to US war Crimes. Speaking of terror bombing of London- What was up with V- weapons raining down on London? What does the “V” stand for?
    Who Fired the V weapons?

    true I don’t want to say what happened in WW2 is justified, which it isn’t, but I think the crime of supporting Stalin the most evil man in history was a crime in and of itself…. WW1 Treaty made the German people look to Hitler who promised to make Germany great again… most people don’t look at the fact that they were swept away by Hitler because the had been demoralized, not wrong thinking… What did the “V” stand for? I personally don’t know but I know what Grafiti written on thousands of Bombs dropped on Germans say, preserved in neumorous RAF and US Army Corps photos… This topic is about Iraq and hw it connects to WW2 (sorta… :wink: ) that was my point in posts… that ww2 and Hitler cannot be compared with Iraq and Saddam just written very choppy (but hey, I come up with great War Movies in my head!!!)… TG Moses got me going off topic or I should say my brain off topic but it wasn’t his fault… :P


  • GG- Definitely agree with you on Stalin, Alas- the enemy of my enemy is my friend! Remeber that the alliance With uncle Joe was one of
    convenience. The V stood for Vengeance. The point I was trying to make was the Germans fired them indiscriminately at London, during all times of the day to get revenge on the British. There was no military justification for it. To say that German cities were bombed for no reason
    since the Germans were on the verge of surrender is a false argument.
    Dresden was bombed n February (13-14) 1945. The War ended on 8th May. In the long run it seems the the stategy was wrong because it
    tended to stiffen morale as opposed to weakening it. I know way off topic!


  • Back on topic… A recent poll indicates a majority of Iraqi’s feel life is much better after Saddam than before. And- I’d like to point out to the cynics that the 2 biggest messes the US cleaned up are Germany and Japan. In both cases it was years before either had a democratic government.

    The question SHOULD be why is Europe wanting to RUSH this along?
    What is their interest in Iraq having it’s own government in 6 months?
    Why are they making Iraqi soverignty a priority BEFORE they will help?


  • Falk, Ive said it before, and I will say it again.

    1. Dont make arguments using rhetorical questions, it makes people think you do not know what you are talking about, and understand the weakness of your argument (whether or not this is true of you, I cannot say, but thats the impression it gives)
    2. you are getting majorly sidetracked, as you have on many occasions. youve taken examples from people arguments, and gone off on them, rather than focus on the main argument (not that nobody else does this, myself included. but you seem to do it the most, and the most severly, and i just plain dont like you, so im more inclined to criticize you, and call you on things.)

  • @sherman28:

    Back on topic… A recent poll indicates a majority of Iraqi’s feel life is much better after Saddam than before. And- I’d like to point out to the cynics that the 2 biggest messes the US cleaned up are Germany and Japan. In both cases it was years before either had a democratic government.

    The question SHOULD be why is Europe wanting to RUSH this along?
    What is their interest in Iraq having it’s own government in 6 months?
    Why are they making Iraqi soverignty a priority BEFORE they will help?

    I think that given the fact that most of the world appears lied to about the reasons for the attack on Iraq (links to 9/11, wmd that the CIA still can’t dig up) gives us the impression that Bush and America is not to be trusted with regards to oil-rich Iraq. Why should we dump a ton of resources into Iraq when America stnads to benefit from it, and when they caused these problems in the first place.


  • Yes, early attacks where aimed at industry and infrastructure. But later attacks were totally unneeded. How can you explain the attack on Hamburg in 1945? By no means there was much left that would have been worth bombing.

    What exactly do you mean by “later” attacks? The war was very much still in effect by even early 1945. As for Hamburg, perhaps civilians were the target, I don’t know. You may be right. Perhaps the Allies wanted revenge for what happened to Britain during the Blitz, and in your opinion, they were wrong for doing so. However, an arguement can be made that these bombings broke the German peoples’ morale and spirit - shortening the war and bringing the war to the homefront (as was proven in Hamburg 1943).

    In February of 1945, with the Russian army threatening the heart of Saxony, I was called upon to attack Dresden; this was considered a target of the first importance for the offensive on the Eastern front. Dresden had by this time become the main centre of communications for the defence of Germany on the southern half of the Eastern front and it was considered that a heavy air attack would disorganise these communications and also make Dresden useless as a controlling centre for the defence. It was also by far the largest city in Germany-the pre-war population was 630,000-which had been left intact; it had never before been bombed. As a large centre of war industry it was also of the highest importance.

    So, i don’t go against your point in the way you say it here, but you did not relativate it before with the term “majority”, before that it sounded like all, and that is simply not true.

    How many bombing missions did the USAF conduct during the war? Hundreds? Thousands? Probably even more. So a few missions turned sour, I would have expected that to happen, given the law of probability. However, for the most part, the bombers were sent against military targets.

    The civilian deaths and the civil destruction were not only taken into account, but more or less embraced (with P-49s (AFAIR) strafing the ground of Dresden to “increase the chaos” in the late phase of the attacks).

    I never read of P-49’s given orders to strafe the ground for the purpose “increasing chaos” so I will have to see more then you AFAIR on this. As for Dresden, consider what Air Marshall Arthur Harris had to say on this:

    "In February of 1945, with the Russian army threatening the heart of Saxony, I was called upon to attack Dresden; this was considered a target of the first importance for the offensive on the Eastern front. Dresden had by this time become the main centre of communications for the defence of Germany on the southern half of the Eastern front and it was considered that a heavy air attack would disorganise these communications and also make Dresden useless as a controlling centre for the defence. It was also by far the largest city in Germany-the pre-war population was 630,000-which had been left intact; it had never before been bombed. As a large centre of war industry it was also of the highest importance. "

    Why don’t you not just admit that your nation has commited war crimes, instead of fleeing from one weak excuse to the other?
    (As Swinemuende can by no means explained by the above)

    F_alk, could you just shut up for once? I’m serious, enough with the rhetoric. I never said my nation didn’t “commit war crimes” - not once anywhere in all my postings. Therefore, if you interpreted my postings as “weak excuses” it’s because THEY ARE - it was never my intent to say American never commited war crimes - it was never my goal in the first place. Jezzzz…


  • @TG:

    However, an arguement can be made that these bombings broke the German peoples’ morale and spirit - shortening the war and bringing the war to the homefront (as was proven in Hamburg 1943).

    True.

    I never read of P-49’s given orders to strafe the ground for the purpose “increasing chaos” so I will have to see more then you AFAIR on this.

    A simple search on google would have brought you:
    http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/raids/dresden.html

    read the last paragraph.
    Another site i faound said it was P-51 that did the strafing. My AFAIR was aimed at the type of planes.

    F_alk, could you just shut up for once? I’m serious, enough with the rhetoric. I never said my nation didn’t “commit war crimes” - not once anywhere in all my postings….

    I never said you didn’t deny it.
    See the difference? The difference between admitting one thing and not denying it. It may not look big, but (exp. for lawyers and people directly affected) it is huge.
    No, you never denied it, but also, you never admitted it. You tried to explain/excuse that.

    Anyway. Let us rest this part.

    @Janus1:

    Falk, …i just plain dont like you, so im more inclined to criticize you, and call you on things.)

    Finish your school! And visit one or two discussion courses. And have a look how many postings had been OT before i stepped in.
    Or in one sentence:
    Try to make qualified postings on the matter.

    @sherman28:

    …What was up with V- weapons raining down on London? What does the “V” stand for?..

    V actually stands for Vergeltung, which by chance can be translated into an english word which also starts with V.


  • i had figured Dresden to be a revenge for the evil rained on Coventry. I had also considered that appropriate enough. Interesting point there Moses.

  • Moderator

    @cystic:

    i had figured Dresden to be a revenge for the evil rained on Coventry. I had also considered that appropriate enough. Interesting point there Moses.

    um… why is Dresden ok but Coventry not???


  • @Guerrilla:

    @cystic:

    i had figured Dresden to be a revenge for the evil rained on Coventry. I had also considered that appropriate enough. Interesting point there Moses.

    um… why is Dresden ok but Coventry not???

    Coventry was the unprovoked, militarily insignificant home of hundreds of thousands of Brittains that was virtually demolished out of sheer hubristic evilness.
    Dresden i had taken to be the “punishment” or revenge for Coventry, however it apparently was of strategic significance to punsh them.
    (although i do not support bombing of civi’s, i can kind of see why . . . )


  • read the last paragraph.
    Another site i faound said it was P-51 that did the strafing. My AFAIR was aimed at the type of planes.

    THen you are right and the Allies went overboard in their bombing, though perhaps the strafing was done to blockade the city-streets and make it impossible for the Germans to move reinforcements into the city.

    I never said you didn’t deny it.
    See the difference? The difference between admitting one thing and not denying it. It may not look big, but (exp. for lawyers and people directly affected) it is huge.

    Really?
    “Why don’t you not just admit that your nation has commited war crimes, instead of fleeing from one weak excuse to the other?”

    Huh? Last time I heard, these words were meant awfully close to codemning for not “admiting war crimes.” But the point still stands, it was you who brought up these “war crimes.” Read how the post started. It began with Guerrilla Guy saying that America was wrong was dropping the A-Bombs, which I argued it was right for doing so. I then commented (trying to bring to light the matter) that countless civilians died in Germany also (not just Japan). Then you swoop in blatantly bringing up Dresden, Hamburg, ect and when I respond, you say I am a apologist for defending US War Crimes, to which no previous examples of the above were made. Once again, you have jumped to conclusions and equated that US was wrong for it’s strat bombing campaign - punishable by war crimes. Nice Job.

    No, you never denied it, but also, you never admitted it. You tried to explain/excuse that.

    Anyway. Let us rest this part.

  • Moderator

    TG…I’m sorry for starting this Wayward-thread…I’ll pull out of it… before Yanny kills me 8) …

    Cheers,
    GG

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