Piano World Home Page Forums Restricted and Archives The Coffee Room Are American civilians more important than Iraqi ones?

lucian,

The way it is done is certainly another valid issue. It, in fact, can be argued that if we went into Iraq with a much larger force, the number of innocents killed would have been dramatically less.

All I am driving at is that if the issues are not logically separated, no fruitful discussion can be had. Of course, a logically-framed discussion would kill all the fun here ... so please just ignore me.

P.S. besides Dresden, what about the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, or Hiroshima if one prefers, although I think the former is less defendable than the latter.

Dresden was as much fair game for Bomber Command as any other Nazi controlled urban centre. There are two reasons for all the ongoing gnashing of teeth over Dresden. 1) It was the first time Bomber Harris' RAF got the formations coordinated to create a firestorm (uncontolled ignition of atmospheric oxygen). 2) The Nazis maximized the propaganda value of what the American public believed to be true of Dresden's industry and population. It was certainly never an issue in the minds of the British and Canadian bomber crews that fateful night. Nor was it much of an issue outside of the US, until the East German G'ovt resurrected the story during the Cold War- for their own propaganda purposes!

renauda,

Interesting information.

By the way, just to clarify, what I was referring to by "former" and "latter" were Nagasaki and Hiroshima respectively

Okay, I thought you referring to the ever popular Dresden- Nazi propaganda later picked up by the Soviets, primarily to divert East German public opinion and attention away from how the Red Army flattened German cities.

I thought so. But it worked out well, because i learned something I didn't know from your post.

Beside propaganda,Dresden still remaines an example for an unusefull destruction.(It may be not the only one).
Had no sense (tactically,strategically,etc)