OT:splendid WWII movie you'll never see:(

[newbie123]

Let me just say that I'm not condoning the strategy at all. I despise anyone who attacks innocent people, on the massive scale and the personal scale. I'm just trying to make the argument that to say its not an effective strategy is not smart.

[primitive]

This is an old topic for us newb, debatet several times over the years. I don't think anybody has ever tried to debate that targeting civilians is not effective or smart strategy. What there is dissidesence over, is the necessity and usefulness of the bombing of Dresden and the second nuke over Nagasaki. Both actions without any military value or any sort of propaganda value (IMHO).

[PvK]

It will certainly have effects, and they might seem to be positive at first, but in the long run I think they tend to be very negative, even from the perspective of someone like Hitler. If the Nazis hadn't bombed civilians, I don't think German cities likely would have been bombed so terribly, for example.

If Al Qaeda hadn't launched 9/11, I don't think the US would have invaded Afghanistan and perhaps not Iraq again, etc.

PvK

[newbie123]

Originally posted by primitive:
This is an old topic for us newb, debatet several times over the years. I don't think anybody has ever tried to debate that targeting civilians is not effective or smart strategy. What there is dissidesence over, is the necessity and usefulness of the bombing of Dresden and the second nuke over Nagasaki. Both actions without any military value or any sort of propaganda value (IMHO).

ok sorry, that was the impression I got. I originally just wanted to show that Germany was developing nukes. I got sidetracked. The bombing of Nagasaki, I remember reading this, but can not get any sources as to its validity. Before the Hiroshima bomb, America asked for the unconditional surrender of Japan. They refused and we dropped the bomb. We asked again and they refused again so we dropped the bomb again. After that they surrendered. All I reme,ber about where I read it was it was in a book in the library of my grade school. Sorry to stir up the hornets nest. I'll drop it now, you won't hear from me anymore in this thread

[ March 22, 2004, 19:00: Message edited by: newbie123 ]

[Intimidator]

I've got 2 Wrongs here :

Error 1 - PvK, Great Brittain started the bombing campaign, it was a accident but they bombed Berlin first. After that the nazi's bombed Londen. And the the hell opened for all the european cities.....

Error 2 - Newbie 123, I don´t see the point why we should not hear from you anymore. It´s an discussion, and that´s what I like. To discus different opinions.

See ya,

[zen.]

I agree with PvK on the Patriot Act thing (shudder), but regarding newbie's post about the reaction of the President to 9/11, I think people place too much on one person. Presidents have a whole host of advisors and analysts to simply tell them what the best course of action would be, so regardless of who is in office, I think the response would have been appropriate (although in varying levels of intensity, to be sure).

As for the invasions (especially of Iraq), the current (Bush) administration has said that these plans were discussed back in the previous Clinton administration, and the Clinton folks said they inherited it from the first Bush administration as a contingency after the first Gulf war. I'd probably worry more about Congress, which has many members who have been there for decades and decades, and who also have the tenure and authority to pass what they want through...one of the reasons so much seems to be happening also is that both executive and legislative branches are heavily aligned, facilitating things for everyone.

And for anyone reading into that, no, I'm not praising or denouncing either of the precious parties. I -try- not to delve into politics... it's such a departure from my ideal of 'representation' nowadays it's not even funny.

In WWII news and movies, I don't know how historically accurate it was (I'm not the war mavens that you guys are), but I really liked Enemy at the Gates. Band of Brothers is on my list of things to see, so it'll be cool as I read someone here had mentioned it was dead-on historically accurate.

Probably my more shocking discoveries of WWII was what happened to Berlin -after- the Red Army hit it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1939174.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,38...102275,00.html

zen

[Unknown_Enemy]

Originally posted by zen.:
Band of Brothers is on my list of things to see, so it'll be cool as I read someone here had mentioned it was dead-on historically accurate.

Band of brother is indeed very acurate. There is only 1 error I was able to spot. Look after it....