Potus ???

[tree-fancier123]

Dresden could have been another Hiroshima, but for a few months.

If the film Oppenheimer is close to the facts they more or dropped the two bombs immediately after the first succesfull test, those bombs could have saved millions of lives, by killing a few hundred thousand Germans, if only we could have had the nukes ready by 1942.

President Trump knows China are getting near nuclear parity and so my guess is Trump may not make the 'mistake' (Chinese term for supporting Taiwan)

Will they take Taiwan during Trumps presidency?

[Doug Tait]

9 minutes ago, GarethM said:

Because they know they can't argue with a wet lettuce when you offer no alternative except oh how bad it was

 

Or they actually know who I am and what I believe in. And we don't argue, we just discuss

 

Interesting you made radios in Afghan, you can probably claim to have helped them convey the message of hearts and minds to the troops 👍.

 

I'd best get on with something tree related, have a good one.

[Johnsond]

15 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

The thing is that very few in bomber command knew the totality of the plan that was carried out on Hamburg and Dresden. The flight crews were intentionally kept in the dark about the nature of their targets and the type of bombs that they were carrying. I am not blaming them for one minute. 

 

But Bomber Command knew exactly what they were doing, and what they were doing was intentionally massacring tens of thousands of people in the most brutal fashion imaginable. 

 

Look, Nazi Germany needed to be stopped, I fully understand and support that. It was a dark chapter in human history, but I do think that it's crucial to be cognizant of all actions on both sides, rather than sugar coating aspects of history that don't suit our agenda.

 

You now have a situation where Musk, his cronies and the European far right are seeking to rewrite much of the history relating to the Nazis, which is frankly terrifying. Those who choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it. 

 

I will fully agree with you that humans are mostly awful, or at the very least, capable of being utterly awful. We think we're civilised but we really aren't.

Our views on Bomber command and you referring to raids as war crimes are never gonna align, to compare those lads actions in the same context ie war criminals as the SS and Wermacht killing squads is utterly ridiculous. 
Bomber crews knew the target and the make up of the bomb load on every flight J. I suspect they just wanted the Germans to quit even it was obviously a lost cause, sadly they didn’t. 

[Steven P]

History books are of course written by the winners.

 

Leap forward nearly 100 years, if say Putin, the aggressor (the 'Bad Guys') in this case, carpet bombed Kyiv (the 'good guys'), killed 150,000 civilians, would that be acceptable or would it be a war crime?

 

If The Ukraine ('The good guys' who were invaded) went out and did the same action, killing a similar number of Russian civilians ('The Bad Guys', or the aggressors) would that be a problem.

 

Or would both be acceptable civilian casualties?

 

Suspect one action would be a terrible thing, and the other would be acceptable. Leap back to WW2 and ask the same question.

 

 

 

 

"You forget to mention Russian or Japanese genocide by the way. Or even most recently Hamas slaughtering Christian’s".. . Which is a piss poor defence of anything "Look they did bad stuff but they did even badder stuff, so the first bad stuff is OK"

 

 

 

 

* Edity.

Language dumbed down for the hard of understanding.

 

 

Edited February 17 by Steven P

[GarethM]

Well seeing as Dresden was a manufacturing hub for the Reich, that's one of the reasons it was chosen.

 

Same reasoning behind the dam busters raids, same reason they targeted railway and other infrastructure.

 

Ukraine is a bit different, other than a few drones all the weapons and armour is delivered ready for use and they do target those centres.

 

So yes bombing a city would be a war crime, as it's not the 1940s.

 

We can drop a bomb with almost mm precision, in the 40s they quickly realised high altitude bombing didn't work particularly due to cloud and flak.

[Steven P]

It is more the intent I am talking about. The intent in WW2 was civilian casualties, my hypothetical above was civilian casualties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(hypothetical: for the hard of understanding means story)

[Johnsond]

2 minutes ago, Steven P said:

It is more the intent I am talking about. The intent in WW2 was civilian casualties, my hypothetical above was civilian casualties.

 

Are you genuinely stupid ?? 

[GarethM]

So let's use your hypothetical for say Afghan/Iraq/Hamas.

 

How am I supposed to target a gorilla force that refuses to wear a identifiable uniform?.

 

The general default was anyone with a gun who wasn't you, the police or their army were effectively classed as hostile. 

[Mick Dempsey]

6 minutes ago, GarethM said:

So let's use your hypothetical for say Afghan/Iraq/Hamas.

 

How am I supposed to target a gorilla force that refuses to wear a identifiable uniform?.

 

The general default was anyone with a gun who wasn't you, the police or their army were effectively classed as hostile. 

Did you think guerilla was gorilla? That is so cute!
I used to think that when I was really little listening to the news.

Mental pictures of Gorilla armies. 

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, Johnsond said:

Our views on Bomber command and you referring to raids as war crimes are never gonna align, to compare those lads actions in the same context ie war criminals as the SS and Wermacht killing squads is utterly ridiculous. 
Bomber crews knew the target and the make up of the bomb load on every flight J. I suspect they just wanted the Germans to quit even it was obviously a lost cause, sadly they didn’t. 

Also didn't they ( the Luftwaffe ) drop one or two tenpenny ones on Coventry and London . Just saying ..