Come bitch about US bombing raids, not limited to: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden,Tokyo

[Liberal]

*Originally posted by Reeder *
**So you are saying there were no civillians killed in Bagdad? That every bomb landed excactly where it was supposed to? No collateral damage? **

Why do people do that shit — twist somebody’s words into an unrecognizable pretzel of what they said, and then come back with, “So you are saying that…”? Dude, if you can’t debate honestly, just shut up, okay?

Otherwise, it’s fair game for you, too.

Monty…I suggest you go read about the firebombing of Tokyo. About how they used fire bombs because the houses were made of wood. They intended to set the town on fire civilians be damned. They weren’t targetting military targets in downtown Tokyo. They were terrorizing the civilian populace. Terrorize them enough and perhaps they will bring the government down. You can go bury your head in the sand and pretend we didn’t do it. But the fact is we did.

So you are saying that what we should do is use fire bombs in Iraq? That the best way to deal with Bagdad is the same way we dealt with Tokyo?

How do you like it when it’s turned around on you?

[Beagle]

U.S. air war strategists believed that fire bombing might be particularly effective against Japan because "[t]housands of small households or ‘shadow’ industries were jammed into the metropolitan sectors. Thirty percent of the nation’s total labor force worked in factories employing 30 persons or less. Most of these home factories were engaged in war production, were so widely scattered and lightly built as to be unsatisfactory pinpoint bombing targets-and were highly vulnerable to attack by fire. Precision bombing could still serve a limited purpose against isolated key war plants and against major fire-resistant plants in the urban areas; but for real results, intensive use of incendiary bombs would be the answer." (17)[bolding mine]

It had a perverse, compelling, rationale. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the present situation in Iraq.

[CuriousCanuck]

One quick note back to the OP.

I AM Canadian, I dislike the US policy on Iraq, I marched for peace this past weekend, and I loathe the actions of your government in general (but not the people. Most of you Joes are OK ). However, that all being said…

Space Cadet, FUCK OFF. YOU are the one seriously misinformed; YOU are the one spreading hate, maliciousness, and general ignorance. GET A FUCKING LIFE, and please do us Hozers a favour and keep your mouth shut. Thank you.

You may now go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Scruloose]

*Originally posted by CuriousCanuck *
**One quick note back to the OP.

I AM Canadian, I dislike the US policy on Iraq, I marched for peace this past weekend, and I loathe the actions of your government in general (but not the people. Most of you Joes are OK ). However, that all being said…

Space Cadet, FUCK OFF. YOU are the one seriously misinformed; YOU are the one spreading hate, maliciousness, and general ignorance. GET A FUCKING LIFE, and please do us Hozers a favour and keep your mouth shut. Thank you.

You may now go back to your regularly scheduled programming. **

Um… are you sure you didn’t want the Americans suck at math thread?

[CuriousCanuck]

Oooops

Sorry all…
Hmmm… I’ll cut n paste that over and if anyone has the need to erase it from here… who am I to judge?

[Jackmannii]

*Originally posted by Beagle *
**Ferchrisakes, we don’t even declare war any more. That stopped after WWII also. **

This particular change in policy (signifying the shying away of Congress from exercising its war powers, instead largely deferring to the President) is not a good thing.

[wring]

*Originally posted by Beagle *
**It had a perverse, compelling, rationale. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the present situation in Iraq. **

IIRC, the reason these bombings were brought up was 'cuz some one said “we (Americans) don’t target civilians”, and it was brought up to refute that point. then it was, of course off to the races.

[Abe_Babe]

I know, we’ll build a giant wooden Presidential Palace, and leave it just outside the Kuwait/Iraq border. When Saddam brings it into his country, the 101st Airborne jumps out and opens all the border crossings, so our forces can stream in and take Bagdad without firing a single shot.

And then we bomb the crap out of them.

[Beagle]

I like it Abe. We’ll call it “Operation House of Horrors” just to keep the Iraqi people at ease and to assuage the peace movement. The bombing we’ll call “Operation Righteous Divine Retribution,” for all the same reasons.

What ever happened to “Overlord,” “Cobra,” “Barbarossa,” “Linebacker”? those were war names, dammit. You don’t call military operations things like “Shock and Awe.” Jesus, what’s next, “Shell Shock and Temporary Deafness”? “Operation Persistent Rectal Discomfort”?

Jackmanni, Can’t let a few checks and balances get in the way of a perfectly good war, can you? :dubious:

[Measure_for_Measure]

Come bitch about US bombing raids, not limited to: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden,Tokyo
Ok. But only because you asked. :dubious: , of the arched eyebrow.

Beagle, on WWII:
---------You cannot examine an air raid in a total war in a historical vacuum. Four years of war changes the way people think.

Bullshit. If that is the case, why did we carpet-bomb in Vietnam? Why did we drop napalm on Vietnamese villages? Show me the bright line between US military concern for civilians in 1945 vs the early 1970s. *

-------flyboy88: THE U.S. MILITARY DOES NOT TARGET CIVILIANS. Have we in the past? Yes. This is because warfare was a different beast decades ago.

I don’t think Vietnam was that long ago. The only reason why the US has not targeted civilians since then is that the conflicts we’ve been in have been relatively short. I find it probable that if the US finds itself in another quagmire, that “collateral damage” will acquire an increasingly broad definition.

• (Disclaimer: I know precious little about military history. The preceding involved an exposition of conventional wisdom. It fights ignorance by providing a convenient target. Possibly. Of course I may be correct. Maybe. Or not.)

[Beagle]

:dubious:

I’m not sure how it does as a stand alone smilie. Fair questions, except the “Why did we drop napalm on Vietnamese villages?” I can only answer a charge like that if there are specifics. Generally speaking, that is not permissible in war unless a unit is taking heavy fire from the village or some other such thing. “The killing of innocent people is wrong.” — Michael Durant

Carpet bombing in Vietnam

Operation Linebacker: one target, an airfield.

This has a number of good little historical notes on the bombing in Vietnam.
Operation Linebacker

A massive offensive launched by North Vietnam on March 30, 1972 using regular North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops, artillery and tanks.rolled into South Vietnam. South Vietnamese divisions backed up by firepower from U.S. planes including B-52 bombers slowed down then halted the offensive. It was a huge miscalculation by the North and it cost them dearly with NVA casualties eventually exceeding 100,000 with at least half of their large caliber artillery and tanks lost as well.

Rolling Thunder, in 1965

After a Viet Cong attack in February 1965 on U.S. Army barracks in Pleiku, the United States commenced Operation Rolling Thunder, a restricted but massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam. Protection of air bases then provided the rationale for introduction of 50,000 U.S. ground combat forces, which were soon increased.

On March 2, 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder commenced, a sustained bombing campaign intended to place increasing pressure on the North Vietnamese leadership to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the war. The idea was to strike targets just above the DMZ ( Demilitarized Zone ) and then progressively hit targets further north ( closer to Hanoi ) as the campaign went on.

How politicians bomb.

[Apos]

There were some questionable targets in Kosovo: Serbian journalists who were, no doubt, propagandists for the regime, but certainly who had no military significance as targets. A lot of the bombing was probably ill thought out: it destroyed too much infastructure and missed military targets. Kosovo is an example of where a zen for bombing was probably a poor match for the job that needed to be done.

But the real question is: if you think that the U.S. really targets unambiguous civilians… why do you think they would do so? What concievable advantage would that give us? It seems like we would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. So… what the motive for the crime? I don’t see it.

[Reeder]

*Originally posted by Apos *
**But the real question is: if you think that the U.S. really targets unambiguous civilians… why do you think they would do so? What concievable advantage would that give us? It seems like we would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. So… what the motive for the crime? I don’t see it. **

To pressure the civilian populace to topple their government.

[Beagle]

From the danshistory link in my last post.

During the Linebacker II raids, strict rules of engagement were enforced to lessen the risk of hitting civilian areas, as well as to avoid striking areas where POWs were known to be housed. In addition, B-52s were prohibited from maneuvering to evade SAMs or fighters once they had passed the initial point and were approaching the bomb release point. Initially, losses were heavy, with three B-52s being lost on the first night, and no less than 6 on the second night. Several hundred SAMs were fired at B-52s during the 11 days of Linebacker II. Onboard ECM equipment provided some protection, but it was far from infallible. In the latter stages of Linebacker II, more attention was paid to SAM sites and suspected missile storage areas, and the loss rate began to decline.

Linebacker II ended on December 29, 1972, when North Vietnam returned to the conference table. By this time, the North Vietnamese were clearly at the mercy of the B-52s. Had the bombing continued, there would have been little further danger from SAMs. During Linebacker II, a total of 729 B-52 sorties were flown, 34 targets were hit, 15,287 tons of bombs were dropped, 1,600 military structures had been damaged or destroyed, 3 million gallons of petroleum had been torched, and about 80 percent of North Vietnam’s electrical generating capacity had been knocked out.

[Beagle]

Kosovo, targeting by committee.

…Flash-forward to 1999, to the Kosovo war, and the process is automated. When I did some reportage for The New Yorker in the summer, I was astonished to discover by a call to one of the people who ends up in this film, Tony Montgomery, that they had put the entire 1949 Geneva Conventions plus the protocols on the computer. That was the first step.

Second step, they take all the lawyers who are actually sitting in a basement in, I think, Darmstadt, Germany, and hook them up to the computerised target acquisition process that Wes Clark was using to select his targets for the air war. As Michael Caine says, not a lot of people know this, that selection was a three-step process. First, targets were identified by intelligence, then they were narrowed down by the weaponeers, who choose what weapon to use. They were then narrowed down further by the politicians, in terms of what you can and cannot strike. At every point, there was a lawyer saying, “Do these fit the Geneva Convention rules on proportionality, civilian damage, mixed-use targets? Is this a military target, or is it a civilian target?” Etc.,etc.

Five hundred targets were hit during that war, and all of them were reviewed by this computerised process. Tony Montgomery, who is in the film, spent the whole air war sitting there with this data stream going past his window, his computer window. He sat there saying, “No, don’t hit this bridge, don’t hit that bridge. Hit this power grid, but you can only hit it that way.” So we’ve got a highly legalised process of waging war. The question for a citizen is: If you make something legal, do you make it moral?..

[Measure_for_Measure]

Beagle: Nice links. You’ve shown some decent evidence of military restraint for humanitarian/public relations purposes (I’ll let the reader choose.)

Your Vietnam links also report that the military was not too happy about the tactical constraints imposed by the civilian leadership, indicating that we cannot yet conclude that Generals thought differently about war in 1945 than they did in 1970.

http://www.danshistory.com/vietnam.shtml :
“An incident never widely publicized reveals the bitter frustration that many in the Air Force were feeling toward a war that wasn’t being fought to win. Returning aircrews from the raid staged a protest at their base at Guam over the serious losses and predictable tactics. The Air Force leadership quietly ordered a Christmas Day stand down. The Vietnamese immediately boasted that their air defenses had killed nine bombers and that the Americans couldn’t endure the losses.”

Kosovo is arguably a special case: wars motivated on humanitarian grounds might be more likely to have stricter rules of engagement.

A history of military rules of engagement might be interesting. (An overview of military strategy and tactics would also be interesting for this poster, but that’s neither here nor there.)

On Napalm: I quote from the June 5, 1965 New York Times:

“As the Communists withdrew from Quangngai last Monday, United Stare jet bombers pounded the hills into which they were headed. Many Vietnamese -one estimate is as high as 500- were killed by the strikes. The American contention is that they were Vietcong soldiers. But three our of four patients seeking treatment in a Vietnamese hospital afterward for burns from napalm, or jellied gasoline, were village women.”

Pretty horrific. Sorry, I don’t know where this thread is headed either.

[Apos]

—To pressure the civilian populace to topple their government.—

And how is that supposed to work in Iraq, or in Afghanistan? We kill you… until you, the unarmed populace, join us in attacking your leader?

[Beagle]

All you ever wanted to know about targeting in the Gulf War. More actually.

Sometimes you find something funny.

Aim towards Enemy - Instruction printed on Drazi Rocket Launcher.
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
Friendly fire - isn’t.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Interesting targeting article.

Apparently, officers with training in the law play an active role during target planning. Furthermore, they appear to have distilled the law of armed conflict into four pages or so of guidelines for pilots, etc.

This practice followed from the certain post-Vietnam reforms.

Whether existing guidelines make any given war an ethical one remains an open question. (I don’t see how it could be otherwise.)

Anyway, my “special case” Kosovo point is retracted, mostly.

I liked footnote 4 "4. DOD Directive 5100.77, DOD Law of War Program (GC), 10 July 1979, was first promulgated in 1974. It requires each military service to design a program to ensure that the law of war is observed and to prevent violations of that law. Military personnel are to receive training in the law of armed conflict commensurate with their duties and responsibilities. For example, the Air Force’s compliance with this directive is implemented by Air Force Regulation (AFR) 110-32, Training and Reporting to Insure Compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict, 2 August 1976. "

There are a number of responses to this.

1. You mean they didn’t have a program before 1974?
2. The fact that the Directive was repeatedly updated along with reports on military practices during GW-I and Kosovo indicates that the above is not wholly pro forma.

---

Thanks for the links.

[Tuckerfan]

*Originally posted by Reeder *
**Monty…I suggest you go read about the firebombing of Tokyo. About how they used fire bombs because the houses were made of wood. They intended to set the town on fire civilians be damned. They weren’t targetting military targets in downtown Tokyo. They were terrorizing the civilian populace. Terrorize them enough and perhaps they will bring the government down. You can go bury your head in the sand and pretend we didn’t do it. But the fact is we did. **

You forgot to mention that many of the incendary charges had time delayed explosive charges in them so that the Japanese firefighters would be “discouraged” (or outright killed) if they tried to put out the fires. Of course, you also forgot to mention things like the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking, or a host of other nasty things that the Japanese did during the war.

No matter how you slice it, war is evil, but sadly, some wars have to be fought. There simply was no other way to stop Hitler, than to go to war with him. Passive resistance would have only made things easier for Hitler. (I mean, he was planning on killing everyone who wasn’t German, so folks having “sit-ins” would have just been easy pickings for the Nazis. None of this messy running around or getting shot at for the Nazis. Wouldn’t even have to line their victims up, either!) That being said, I wish that some of the anti-war activists would come up with a reasonable plan to oust Saddam from power and install a democracy, rather than just screaming, “No War!”