Operation Gomorrah: Thoughts?

[Winner]

That was actually an incredibly ignorant analogy in all respects. The reason that such tactics were used in the World Wars was that the objective was to force the other side to surrender through beating seven bells out of them until they agreed to do so. In Afghanistan it's not about that, it's about bringing stability and government control to those parts of the country that the Taliban still hold, and that means we need to win over the people living there. All the firepower in the world won't count for anything if the people don't think that the government are the good guys and better than the Taliban. Against Germany and Japan, who cared what the people thought? Bomb 'em!

It's fundamentally the same thing in Afghanistan. Taleban relies on the support of Afghan civilians which is either voluntary or enforced. Ergo, if you were a sadistic bastard like those war criminals who were behind the terror bombing campaigns in WW2, you could very well argue that you can defeat Taleban by scaring the Afghan villagers into cooperation with NATO. To that end, you'd declare that you'll napalm bomb any village suspected of supporting Taleban.

But if you long for another comparison, you have Vietnam - you bombed the North just as brutally as you bombed Germany in WW2, and still they somehow didn't give up (and won, actually). Crazy isn't it?

 

[Flying Pig]

It's fundamentally the same thing in Afghanistan. Taleban relies on the support of Afghan civilians which is either voluntary or enforced. Ergo, if you were a sadistic bastard like those war criminals who were behind the terror bombing campaigns in WW2, you could very well argue that you can defeat Taleban by scaring the Afghan villagers into cooperation with NATO. To that end, you'd declare that you'll napalm bomb any village suspected of supporting Taleban.

Yes, and then the government would be in charge of a grand total of nothing, and there would be thousands of Taliban queueing up to kill infidels, so the mission would have just taken a running jump backwards. Remember - what the hell are we in Afghanistan for at all? We're fixing the mess that the Taliban left in government and we added to during the invasion, on behalf of the people of Afghanistan. It's not the same thing at all - with the greatest of respect - try learning something about what you're talking about before you open your mouth so boldly.

But if you long for another comparison, you have Vietnam - you bombed the North just as brutally as you bombed Germany in WW2, and still they somehow didn't give up (and won, actually). Crazy isn't it?

I'm British, chap. But that's exactly the point; the issue in Vietnam was winning over the people so that the Viet Cong couldn't function. The Americans hadn't learned how to fight a war like that yet - they hadn't been in one - and so treated it like a conventional war where killing your enemy is enough to win on any scale: in a counter-insurgency, that's not. It was a US Marine officer who thought up the idea of the 'three block war'; that his marines could be in a city with responsibility for three blocks, and in one they could be fighting and killing the enemy to capture the block from him, in the second they could be acting as security guards and policemen to make sure the enemy didn't come back, and in the third they could be required to give out humanitarian aid and help with community work in order to consolidate their control over the area and make it a better place than they found it. That's how wars like Afghanistan work.

 

[aelf]

Dunno, I don't see why the premise of total war makes it somehow more palatable to slaughter innocent people. I guess people in the military have to somehow reconcile themselves to that 'fact', should the situation arise.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I tried to be polite and kind, but it is not possible with people who are ignorant.

I don't see any relation and logic in your post. I don't see how my point of view which can be generlised as "The allied strategic bombing of Hamburg and other German cities was a war crime, and the people responsible fot it should have got centances, but didn't because they were the winnig side" is a nonsense. And if you want to answer such nonsense do it by just saying : "No, i think the allied bombings were not a war creim beacase..." But instead you focus on the word Bltz(whcih i already explained) and other irrevelant to the maiin topic things which don't change anything at all. Don't try to sell your cheap sophism here.

And you just misunderstood another word, creating even more goddamn confusion. Sophism.

You are failing to address Masada's underlying concern, while talking absolute gibberish about other points. I recall you doing the same to me in another recent thread, though I don't remember which one. It has nothing to do with linguistic concerns, and everything to do with you flat-out not knowing what you're talking about and using piss-poor methodology.

Moderator Action: Please refrain from the attacks and incivility.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Theige]

It's fundamentally the same thing in Afghanistan. Taleban relies on the support of Afghan civilians which is either voluntary or enforced. Ergo, if you were a sadistic bastard like those war criminals who were behind the terror bombing campaigns in WW2, you could very well argue that you can defeat Taleban by scaring the Afghan villagers into cooperation with NATO. To that end, you'd declare that you'll napalm bomb any village suspected of supporting Taleban.

But if you long for another comparison, you have Vietnam - you bombed the North just as brutally as you bombed Germany in WW2, and still they somehow didn't give up (and won, actually). Crazy isn't it?

I just have to laugh every time i read one of your posts

 

[Flying Pig]

Dunno, I don't see why the premise of total war makes it somehow more palatable to slaughter innocent people. I guess people in the military have to somehow reconcile themselves to that 'fact', should the situation arise.

Not exactly murdering grannies; attacks on cities are aimed at areas which produce goods vital to the war effort. It's certainly a grey area as to whether you can be considered entirely as a civilian while producing ammunition for the army.

 

[aelf]

Not exactly murdering grannies; attacks on cities are aimed at areas which produce goods vital to the war effort. It's certainly a grey area as to whether you can be considered entirely as a civilian while producing ammunition for the army.

Bombing cities is understood as bombing munitions factories now? Or are entire cities munitions factories?

 

[xchen08]

Bombing cities is understood as bombing munitions factories now? Or are entire cities munitions factories?

They were in Japan...

 

[say1988]

Bombing cities is understood as bombing munitions factories now? Or are entire cities munitions factories?

The original argument was that nobody involved in military industry or support tasks, directly or indirectly, is a civilian, In WWII essentially every able bodied adult was such a part of the war effort. You work at a factory that produces guns. Or a restaurant that feeds those workers and soldiers. Or farmers produce the food eaten by the army. Etc.

 

[Flying Pig]

Bombing cities is understood as bombing munitions factories now? Or are entire cities munitions factories?

Munitions factories are in cities, dear boy. So too are the people who work at the munitions factories. As Say1988 pointed out, during the world wars everyone worked for the war effort and you couldn't really claim to be an 'innocent civilian' in any respect, since your work directly helped your country's troops overseas. Hence why we don't generally condemn either side for operations against civilians where the aim was to destroy the enemy's industry and ability to fight.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Please refrain from the attacks and incivility.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I just have to laugh every time i read one of your posts

Moderator Action: Is there something you don't understand about civility and actually contributing to the discussion?
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[aelf]

The original argument was that nobody involved in military industry or support tasks, directly or indirectly, is a civilian, In WWII essentially every able bodied adult was such a part of the war effort. You work at a factory that produces guns. Or a restaurant that feeds those workers and soldiers. Or farmers produce the food eaten by the army. Etc.

Munitions factories are in cities, dear boy. So too are the people who work at the munitions factories. As Say1988 pointed out, during the world wars everyone worked for the war effort and you couldn't really claim to be an 'innocent civilian' in any respect, since your work directly helped your country's troops overseas. Hence why we don't generally condemn either side for operations against civilians where the aim was to destroy the enemy's industry and ability to fight.

I dunno, isn't bombing campaigns against cities during WW2 generally seen as quite reprehensible these days? Or is that still too progressive? There's certainly a big difference between bombing the places where munitions production actually took place and bombing the people who made the munitions.

 

[say1988]

I am not saying it is right or not. But that was one of the ideas used to justify attacks on civilian targets (even supporters of terror bombing claim that the targets were legitimate because they were not truly civilians).
The things is that people were a vulnerable component of industry in many cases, and fireboming allowed for teh destruction of it along with the factories the mselves. They were just one important aspect ont eh production line (along with all the machines and equipment).

 

[Theige]

I dunno, isn't bombing campaigns against cities during WW2 generally seen as quite reprehensible these days? Or is that still too progressive? There's certainly a big difference between bombing the places where munitions production actually took place and bombing the people who made the munitions.

It's seen as reprehensible these days because we have precision munitions, and we "civilized" nations no longer engage in "total war."

If the USA and the USSR had ever engaged in total war, would they not have eventually targeted cities directly with nuclear weapons?

 

[Smellincoffee]

Firebombings were somewhat more justifiable in the Pacific given Japan's decentralized industrial structure. The assaults on Hamburg and Dresden seem more a gross exercise in power and revenge than anything else. Outside the context of a war of good and evil, those attacks might have never been condoned: it just goes to show you how the prolonged use of violence deforms human values. The US's daylight bombing raids were more effective at crippling Germany's industries, not to mention destroying the Luftwaffe.

 

[Flying Pig]

It's seen as reprehensible these days because we have precision munitions

That's worth pointing out. A modern jet fighter can drop a bomb accurate to within five feet. Back in the forties it was literally a case of dropping the thing from high altitude and hoping for the best. Not to mention the fact that very few people alive today have ever been in a war where they faced a very real threat of having their country invaded and being enslaved if the fighting went badly.

 

[aelf]

I am not saying it is right or not. But that was one of the ideas used to justify attacks on civilian targets (even supporters of terror bombing claim that the targets were legitimate because they were not truly civilians).
The things is that people were a vulnerable component of industry in many cases, and fireboming allowed for teh destruction of it along with the factories the mselves. They were just one important aspect ont eh production line (along with all the machines and equipment).

It's seen as reprehensible these days because we have precision munitions, and we "civilized" nations no longer engage in "total war."

If the USA and the USSR had ever engaged in total war, would they not have eventually targeted cities directly with nuclear weapons?

I understand what you're saying about how they had little qualms about those at that time. But my thoughts are precisely that, in retrospect, those are pretty reprehensible things, especially since the OP asks about our thoughts, not those of the people at that time. My initial response was directed at a post that seems to contain generalities about how wartime decisions are justifiable and not in the context of WW2 or earlier wars specifically.

 

[Tycho]

If the USA and the USSR had ever engaged in total war, would they not have eventually targeted cities directly with nuclear weapons?

As far as I know, there are not many cities in the US that have nuclear arsenals contained in them. If the US and USSR went to war, cities would be destroyed to break the back of the opposite country and destroy as much infrastructure as possible so they could not launch a counterattack.

It's seen as reprehensible these days because we have precision munitions, and we "civilized" nations no longer engage in "total war."

I think that if any civilized nation was sufficiently angered or wrathful, total war and large amounts of high explosive bombs would be used, without any second thoughts to the matter.

 

[say1988]

If the USA and the USSR had ever engaged in total war, would they not have eventually targeted cities directly with nuclear weapons?

First strikes would be directed against military targets (including command and control), may of whiceh are in or near enough to cities to make no difference (Washington for the White House and Pentagon, San Francisco for its Navy port, New York Harbour as a staging area for transports to Europe, etc). Followed by strategic targets such as power plants and industrial centres (i.e. Detroit). By the time it gets to nuking cities to kill people, most major cities will have been nuked or at least badly irradiated already, bt if the war continues they almost certainly would have. This is also the route that strategic bombing took in WWII, but collateral damage will be far greater with nukes.

Early on, when relying on bombers, cities would probably near the top of the list due to innaccuracy of gravity bombs and the vulnerability of bombers. As ICBMs rose to the fore and gained accuracy it moved down.

 

[Theige]

I understand what you're saying about how they had little qualms about those at that time. But my thoughts are precisely that, in retrospect, those are pretty reprehensible things, especially since the OP asks about our thoughts, not those of the people at that time. My initial response was directed at a post that seems to contain generalities about how wartime decisions are justifiable and not in the context of WW2 or earlier wars specifically.

Oh I think they had major qualms at the time, some more than others obviously. But I also think they did not anticipate the level of devastation they wrought upon certain cities, and there is the accuracy issue, especially at night. The Brits counted it a "hit" if they came within several miles of their targets, did they not?

I think that if any civilized nation was sufficiently angered or wrathful, total war and large amounts of high explosive bombs would be used, without any second thoughts to the matter.

Precisely my point!