Let's not pick out the RAF air campaign from the other casualties of war, they bore the brunt of the UK effort until D-Day because they were the only weapon able to do so. The Luftwaffe didn't have a heavy bomber force but the German ground troops more than made up for their lack.

Ask Poland, Ukraine and Russia about their feelings concerning the Germans.

And let's not forget the millions of civilians who died in the concentration camps.

The attempts to make out that the majority of the Germany population where as much victims as every one else is one of the more despicable pieces of revisionism of the last 60 years.

Anyway, if people want to revisit the air war in WWII they can open a new thread, it's not the subject of this one and shouldn't be used to hijack it.

revionism eh?

My mother was attacked by a Thunderbolt (P-47) whilst herding goats... she was 7 years old when that happened.

Now, explain exactly how she was a offender rather than a victim?

BTW, this question does not mean in any way that I would belittle or play down what the Luftwaffe did to the UK or the Nazis to the Jews or other victims of their gruel and terror ruling...

History - 'knowledge from inquiry'

Those who are quick to label people as revisionists or apologists should give that some consideration next time they read something that differs from the official party line.

Noone is making apologies for the Nazis. What they did was horrific. But that doesn't make it ok to wage terror campaigns against people who had nothing to do with those atrocities.

As i said earlier, there is never a good reason to target civilians, regardless of whatever 'side' they happen to be on.

I don't think anybody is arguing the capability of the RAF? But yes, correct on all counts. The allied bombing capability far exceeded that of the axis powers, and that is exactly why they were able to inflict such heavy losses on their civilian targets (which if i'm not mistaken, was the original argument anyway).

Slightly off-topic question - but are any of you boys in the forces?

Yes, the painting of the German civilian population as much as victims as others is revisionism.

According to some guy's blog. Legit as.

Jagdfalke

So your comments are more legitimate?

I'm reminded of the comments my father made about meeting surerndered Germans in their houses. First thing they all start shouting "Ich nein Nazi" or something like that.....then when the troops search the house and find a hidden black uniform belonging to father/son/husband it all goes quiet....

wow...what arguments.

how easy it is to say using nukes was wrong...the men who made the decision in 1945 to drop the nukes are all gone and can't speak for themselves. but I support their decision without hesitation.

terrorism has a definition. it is the adroit manipulation of fear. the 911 attack was to strike fear, not to disrupt supply chains of ball bearings.

if al qaeda's fighting men had uniforms with funny helmets and funny markings, the US and her allies could simply find them and shoot them.

but when the fighting men of al qaeda wear skirts like women and hide among women...sadly, innocents will die too.


burning tokyo from the air with thousands of fire bombs shortened the war. at some point, either your enemy realizes the futility and sues for peace, or as Gen. Curtiss Lemay said: you keep killing them till they can't fight anymore.

THE US has spent a fortune trying not to kill innocents. How simple (and cost effective) it would have been to say: afghanistan, we don't want to send our troops, so we will just kill you all.

but we didn't.

I notice the new zealander whose view is so different from others. I can't even believe New Zealand has no air force (fighters) . Issolation...works wonders.

Essentially the question posed by these events is:

Are you a moral relativist?

If you are, then you probably agree withe the bombing campaigns, on a "it may have been bad but that doesn't make it wrong" basis

And if you aren't, then the morals of the society become relevant. Most people in Britain and the US at the time supported what was done = it was moral at the time.
We now live in different times.

My personal view is that losing is the bigger immorality to "winning ugly", especially when the other side has a hegemony and/or race extermination policy.

Plus, of course, historical actions need to be judged in context.

What various Ceasars, Alexander the Great, Richard the Lionheart etc did may not meet todays sensitivities, but right or wrong can only by judged by comparisions with the prevailing morals, not todays.

Let see you park your nuclear armed ships on someones doorstep and demand they do as you say...............is that not a threat ?

As for regimes deliberately placing military installations in civilian areas !!!!
Well I see lots of TA bases surrounded by houses..................is that not the same ?

His Dudeness please don't think I mean to trivialise your Mothers experience-I don't.

But she must have had exceptional aircraft recognition skills for a 7 year old.

Given that my assertions are supported by facts and not opinions, yes, they certainly are more legitimate. University 101.

Interestingly, there is no absolutely accepted definition of terrorism. Despite that, here is how the following parties define it-

US Department of State
“Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine state agents, usually to influence an audience.

FBI
“Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Encyclopaedia Britannica
“The systematic use of terror (such as bombings, killings, and kidnappings) as a means of forcing some political objective. When used by a government, it may signal efforts to stifle dissent; used by insurrectionists or guerrillas*, it many be part of an overall effort to effect desired political change.”


What can we deduce from that? Acts of terrorism all have 3 common components-

1. Motive
2. Violence
3. Message/Communication/Influence

Simply, terrorism is a method of communication.


Now tell me, what do you think the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were aimed at? Before you go looking for military targets, i suggest you do some research on the 'Potsdam Proclamation' to find out exactly what the US was promising Japan. How different is that from what Al Qaeda demands of the West?

This thread has drfited about as far as the Jetstream which has caused our delightful Summer. The topic of this thread was...?

Jagdfalke, in your attempt to revise history, it fails completely as you have seemed to have forgotten about the treatment (slaughter) of Russian (USSR) common citizens by the Germans and such incidents as the Rape of Nanking by the Japaneses forces.

The Germans and the Japaneses were well established in the art of needlessly killing unarmed citizens that they were at war with, well before the first Allied bomb was ever dropped on Germany or Japan.

From another planet...
 

I was amused to hear about how it's immoral to use 'disproportionate force' when conducting combat operations. That from a fellow liberal arts student. So that is us told, I guess.

Sorry to hear about Mum's goats and all. I bet she had pretty good aircraft recognition skills, given the number of low-level attack missions the German population had to endure late in the war. It's easy to believe in some fighter jock flying around shooting at anything that moved, even a flock of presumed-to-be-Nazi goats and their child goat-herdess. Hitler did ask for 'total war,' did he not? Of course something like 5% of total German cement production went into bunkers for der Führer, while folks like Mum just had to take their chances. War can be like that.

Here in Germany we had a distant family member who died in one of those camps... got drunk at the guards' Christmas party and fell out of a machine-gun tower.... Everyone has some sad story to tell from that period.

The crazy thing seems to be that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are really up for this ass-kicking contest, speedboats against the US Navy. They are going to lose, one assumes, but they shall go out in a blaze of glory! What are they smoking, and, what are the odds that cooler heads shall prevail? Perhaps we shall see Ahmedhinejad go and then see tensions subside a bit, but if not.... This could be interesting, seeing a swarm of speedboats making a simultaneous attack, when only one or two have to get through.

That argument must exist solely in your own head, because i haven't seen anyone here debating that at all.

No, it doesn't, because there is no debate. The "facts", as you so like to proclaim, in this case at least, speak for themselves.

Which facts do you have a problem with? You are more than welcome to dispute them (if they are not facts, then you shouldn't have a problem proving so, right?). Failing that you could always start peddling the 'revisionist' line...

General Sherman said that war is hell, which about sums it up, I think. Much later, someone said that opening up a can of whoop-ass is great, but you have to be careful not to get any on you. That's simply rephrasing Sherman, I think.

The people at the top play geopolitics and the people at the bottom pay the price, even some child herding goats, for instance. The question there seems to be, 'What is a seven year-old child guilty of? Is growing up in Nazi Germany enough to legitimize being attacked?' If you are a 'revisionist' then the answer seems to be 'No,' but if you are some sort of absolutist then the answer must be, 'Yes, of course, because of what the SS was doing to the Jews, Russians, Gipsies, etc, etcetera.' I guess that must make me a revisionist, then, because only one answer makes much sense.

Here and now, if we go to war with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, can anyone promise that no goats or children shall be harmed in the process? Not that the IRG seems to care very much about that, should we? Asking that stupid question should not pose any impediment to an outbreak of hostilities between ourselves and some gang of tooled-up fanatics driving speedboats; if they want a fight then I am sure we will be happy to have one, unless we suddenly decide to power our way of life on a combination of sunbeams, wind, and vegetable oil and turn into relativists.

"The question there seems to be, 'What is a seven year-old child guilty of? Is growing up in Nazi Germany enough to legitimize being attacked?'"

Growing up in England and walking along a street in Croydon was enough for my Grand mother and Aunt to be shot up by a Stuka. That's fact.

Aunt would have been aged about 6 - 9 at the time.