Arrrgggghhh...was going to let this slide and end my involvement with the thread and I am as compassionate for fellow humans as the next girl...BUT...
My father flew B29s in WWII....15 mission life span for the crews on average...he somehow manged to get thru 25 alive...HIS take and I concur is regardless of the atrocities committed by the bombing raids, it did a lot to shorten the war and saved the lives of thousands of Allies, US, UK, Canadian, and Aussie boys that otherwise would have had to gone into each German city and fight hand to hand...he had 7 brothers, all of whom served and they were infantry...they DID land in Normandy and fight hand to hand in Bastogne and various Rhine crossings and then building by building inside Germany...most of them made it home alive too...two didn't.
Britain did not start the war and in fact, it was Germany who began THEIR indiscriminate raids on the UK..the US was trying to avoid involvement at all costs, but as time went on, it became impossible to look the other way like so many European nations did while Hitler was gearing up in the 30s.
So my point is this...and I do not care a bit what others think,, you fight fire with fire and you have every right, morally or otherwise, to defend yourself when provoked or threatened.
The German leadership totally f*cked their people over, not once, but twice in the same generation. Now, hundreds of thousands of innocent German citizens lost their lives in these raids and it is a sad thing to note...that said, it also brought about a realization that the party was over...same held true for Japan. Without the nukes, Japan would have defended to the death their homeland...might have cost a million + lives! you tell me now if the awful deeds done by the allies were not justified? Tell that to my late grandmother who might have lost another 2 or 3 or more sons in a conflict we did choose to be a part of!
War crimes??? My arse!!!
So, if one chooses to look the other way and believe that mankind is going to mellow out and be a better place if we all just get along, I want a pound of whatever it is you're smoking...those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it...so unfortunately, if we let our guard down, there will be no shortage of psychos willing to take us down. Sad, but true...if you want to place post-war spin out here that the Allies were cruel and out of control, you've been duped by the media and liberal idiots who have the gall to rewrite history lessons. Auschwitz didn't exist? Armenian genocide never happened? Stalin didn't purge 30 million dissenters?
Get real people....
Traci xxxxx
<p>Traci</p>