A Beautiful Man with a Beautiful Dream
The day Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died, I wept. I honestly broke down in tears. I didn't cry when one of my grandma's died, when an uncle died, or when a cousin died. But Kurt Vonnegut? I wept. I've been rereading his corpus today because it always fills me with the joy that I'm a human being concerned with equality and peace, rather than "victory at any cost," and other such nonsense. Here's a quote from Vonnegut regarding the Allied air bombings near the end of World War II, Dresden in particular (look it up).
"There can be no doubt that the Allies fought on the side of right and the Germans and Japanese on the side of wrong. World War II was fought for near-Holy motives. But I stand convinced that the brand of justice in which we dealt, wholesale bombing of civilian populations, was blasphemous. That the enemy did it first has nothing to do with the moral problem. What I saw of our air war, as the European conflict neared an end, had the earmarks of being an irrational war for war's sake. Soft citizens of American democracy learned to kick a man below the belt and make the bastard scream.
The occupying Russians, when they discovered that we were Americans, embraced us and congratulated us on the complete desolation our planes had wrought. We accepted their congratulations with good grace and proper modesty, but I felt then as I feel now, that I would have given my life to save Dresden for the World's generations to come. That is how everyone should feel about every city on Earth."
Why don't we all feel that way?
"There can be no doubt that the Allies fought on the side of right and the Germans and Japanese on the side of wrong. World War II was fought for near-Holy motives. But I stand convinced that the brand of justice in which we dealt, wholesale bombing of civilian populations, was blasphemous. That the enemy did it first has nothing to do with the moral problem. What I saw of our air war, as the European conflict neared an end, had the earmarks of being an irrational war for war's sake. Soft citizens of American democracy learned to kick a man below the belt and make the bastard scream.
The occupying Russians, when they discovered that we were Americans, embraced us and congratulated us on the complete desolation our planes had wrought. We accepted their congratulations with good grace and proper modesty, but I felt then as I feel now, that I would have given my life to save Dresden for the World's generations to come. That is how everyone should feel about every city on Earth."
Why don't we all feel that way?
5 erotic poetry prompts:
It's a horrible thing that Kurt passed.
But in Brighter News: I started a blog that you can check out here Jeffrey : http://tinfoilhatsareus.blogspot.com/
Well much to the misfortune of war, there was a learning curve to what was ethical and effective. The idea in WWII was to break the hearts and minds of the enemy in order to destroy their will to fight. Is it truely ethical, perhaps not, but it did work. Nazi Germany was more than a formidable power and its people were most determined. It is hard to win purely on the battle field in such cases.
Fortunately to the ever changing and refining of tactics with the advancement in warfare technology, it has become possible to fight more ethically.
I totally agree with you philippi. The only problem is that Dresden was bombed at basically the end of the war of with Germany. It was done as an experiment to see how well the new firebombs would perform. It was admitted by all the people flying the missions.
In other words, it was a useless bombing of a town that had NO military infastructure.
But what you said is totally correct.
Not that I know anything about this but what I found.
"The tonnage of bombs dropped on Dresden was actually lower than in many other areas, but ideal weather conditions for a firestorm, the wooden-framed buildings, the "breakthroughs" linking the cellars of contiguous buildings, and the city's lack of preparation."
The city did not expect to be bombed so they did not have Firecrews prepared and ready as most other cities did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebombing
And it would seem as though the Germans perfected Firebombing, then the tables turned and it was used against them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm
And oh those firebombs worked well. if not for that experimentation, where would the world be?
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