[Jabberwalker]

Xort Xort:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

"Facts" out of context ... thus is the nature of propaganda.

Does the context of bomber command having 50% casualties make taking vengeance on a civilian population any different?

If you want to be believed, I suggest you don't throw around wild statistics like "50%".

[Regina]

$1:

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4% death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations including tactical support for ground operations and mining of sea lanes.

A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I; more people were killed serving in Bomber Command than in the Blitz, or the bombings of Hamburg or Dresden.[23] By comparison, the US Eighth Air Force, which flew daylight raids over Europe, had 350,000 aircrew during the war and suffered 26,000 killed and 23,000 POWs.[23] Of the RAF Bomber Command personnel killed during the war, 72% were British, 18% were Canadian, 7% were Australian and 3% were New Zealanders.[24]

Taking an example of 100 airmen:

55 killed on operations or died as result of wounds
three injured (in varying levels of severity) on operations or active service
12 taken prisoner of war (some injured)
two shot down and evaded capture
27 survived a tour of operations[25]
In total 364,514 operational sorties were flown, 1,030,500 tons of bombs were dropped and 8,325 aircraft lost in action.

[Xort]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

If you want to be believed, I suggest you don't throw around wild statistics like "50%".

Yeah I'll look into that.

[Jabberwalker]

I still don't think much of your stance.

[Xort]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

I still don't think much of your stance.

My stance is that so long as the BBC wasn't lying about the facts then they are within their mandate.

The BBC is propaganda but then so is any media company I can think of.

I could write a few thousand words going into depth and detail on the morals and ethics of war, the history of the conflict and so on. But I'm not going to.

My stance on the attack rather than the BBC's show is simple; Live with what you do.

[andyt]

I don't get the argument about the 50%. Because 50% of the aircrew were killed by the enemy, that justifies going after civilians? Seems like a red herring.

[Xort]

andyt andyt:

I don't get the argument about the 50%. Because 50% of the aircrew were killed by the enemy, that justifies going after civilians? Seems like a red herring.

I'm not sure either but the Daily Mail seemed to think it was important enough to state.

The quoted objections by the DM to what the BBC aired are all rather poor moral logic, what would be soundly rejected by any mother of small children the world over.

But again, all media companies seem to be propaganda so I'm not sure why I'd expect anything different.

[Jabberwalker]

Xort Xort:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

I still don't think much of your stance.

My stance is that so long as the BBC wasn't lying about the facts then they are within their mandate.

The BBC is propaganda but then so is any media company I can think of.

I could write a few thousand words going into depth and detail on the morals and ethics of war, the history of the conflict and so on. But I'm not going to.

My stance on the attack rather than the BBC's show is simple; Live with what you do.

They needn't live up to what spoiled little wankers, (who were never in any danger of anything), passing judgement four generations later . You were not there. The BBC types who did the piece weren't either. How dare you or they impose your morality on those events after removing them totally from their context of a national emergency. You are a nothing but a busybody alien from the future for Harris and his command.

I don't ever second guess the actions of my ancestors. They did what they had to do and it is impossible for me to walk in their shoes.

[andyt]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Xort Xort:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

I still don't think much of your stance.

My stance is that so long as the BBC wasn't lying about the facts then they are within their mandate.

The BBC is propaganda but then so is any media company I can think of.

I could write a few thousand words going into depth and detail on the morals and ethics of war, the history of the conflict and so on. But I'm not going to.

My stance on the attack rather than the BBC's show is simple; Live with what you do.

They needn't live up to what spoiled little wankers, (who were never in any danger of anything), passing judgement four generations later . You were not there. The BBC types who did the piece weren't either. How dare you or they impose your morality on those events after removing them totally from their context of a national emergency. You are a nothing but a busybody alien from the future for Harris and his command.

Does that mean we can't judge the Nazis because we weren't there and they arose out of a national emergency for Germany?

You want two faced logic, I think.

It's always the same crap. Our side were all angels, the enemy were all devils. Don't understand the need for it. The justification for war was clear. That should give is enough guts to also look at things our side did that were morally questionable.

I support the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima because it really did save lives and greatly hastened the end of the war. I've not seen clear arguments that the same can be said for Dresden. I don't think the Germans were as determined to not surrender at any cost, they weren't ensconced on an archpelago, and they were caught in two front war. There had already been attempts by the military to dispose Hitler. Dresden seems like revenge to me. If it was, there were certainly lots of incidents to take revenge for, but then at least admit that, instead of trying to make it sound noble. It sounds like Hamburg was worse as far as killing civilians goes, but there was good reason to go after it.

[Jabberwalker]

It's always the same crap. Our side were all angels, the enemy were all devils. Don't understand the need for it. The justification for war was clear. That should give is enough guts to also look at things our side did that were morally questionable.

You don't know enough to make that judgement either way. You never can, either.
Maybe. it's always the same old crap because you can't get beyond that idea that there is some sort of ultimate morality. It is all relative.

There are circumstances that human groups may have faced in our past (and perhaps in our future) that you would consider to be "evil", such as to put newborn babies on ice flows to die. Far from being immoral, those are the most deadly earnest and adult decisions that most humans will ever have to make. Moral relativism ... is real and necessary.

[Gunnair]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

It's always the same crap. Our side were all angels, the enemy were all devils. Don't understand the need for it. The justification for war was clear. That should give is enough guts to also look at things our side did that were morally questionable.

You don't know enough to make that judgement either way. You never can, either.
Maybe. it's always the same old crap because you can't get beyond that idea that there is some sort of ultimate morality. It is all relative.

There are circumstances that human groups may have faced in our past (and perhaps in our future) that you would consider to be "evil", such as to put newborn babies on ice flows to die. Far from being immoral, those are the most deadly earnest and adult decisions that most humans will ever have to make. Moral relativism ... is real and necessary.

Interesting. I studied history in university and spent a lot of time reading about two of my favourite topics - the Crimean War and the US Indian Wars. It's interesting the levels of criticism that have come out against the British and the Americans on how they did they business by people who were not there.

So when do we get to criticize how the business was done by 'our' side?

[MeganC]

IMHO the only thing worse than winning a war poorly is losing one well. The thing in Dresden was bad but the Nazis would have done the same thing to everyone else if they could have so too bad so sad for them.

[Jabberwalker]

So when do we get to criticize how the business was done by 'our' side?

Is there a point to even doing so?

I suppose that we learn things like how inappropriate it is to round up populations of extra-nationals and put them in camps. There is no guarantee that it won't happen again in Canada. If an existential threat comes along that is sufficiently urgent and dangerous, our descendants may very well round up group "X" for internment. Will they be wrong to do so? Maybe yes ... maybe no. You can't possibly isolate events like that from their complex surroundings and pass judgement on them ... most certainly not generations later.

[andyt]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

So when do we get to criticize how the business was done by 'our' side?

Is there a point to even doing so?

I suppose that we learn things like how inappropriate it is to round up populations of extra-nationals and put them in camps. There is no guarantee that it won't happen again in Canada. If an existential threat comes along that is sufficiently urgent and dangerous, our descendants may very well round up group "X" for internment. Will they be wrong to do so? Maybe yes ... maybe no. You can't possibly isolate events like that from their complex surroundings and pass judgement on them ... most certainly not generations later.

From a guy who was there:

$1:

"You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war — like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs."
So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade."
She was my friend after that.

[Jabberwalker]

Vonnegut also went more than a little nuts.

They would call it PTSD today, I expect.