Date: 30 Oct 2001 14:55:51 -0800 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@highperformance.net> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Course of law (was: Islam (was: Religions (was Re: helping victims of terror))) Message-ID: <403d40g2ko.d40@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0110281056510.20586-100000@server.highperformance.net> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0110281056510.20586-100000@server.highperformance.net>
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"Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@highperformance.net> writes: > Moreover, when the US hit Japan with nuclear weapons, the US > indiscriminately killed many civilians without specifically targeting > industry. A justification I've read of the incendiary (including Napalm(TM)) bombing of Japan's mostly-wooden cities was that their industry (piecework and considerably larger) was widely distributed outside conventional factories. I suppose that both the conventianal and distributed industry and residences were more closely intermixed than in the cites of Europe and America because of less advanced transportation. The point is that I'm not sure that the US in WWII ever considered that their targeting, nuclear or conventional, was anything but industry- targeted, at least in their rationalizations. (The rationalizations had to be stretched much further in Europe.) (I don't know how much they bothered with these rationalizations, or if they relied more on the many other, more generic ones available.) Of course, it's hard to believe that they didn't consider to some degree the beneficial aspects of the terror that city-burning (whether over several days or in one flash) surely invokes. But it's also clear they didn't plan to depend on terror to achieve their goals. The story goes that Truman did not order that two bombs would be dropped so that they could expect a surrendor or be able to tell Japan to "surrendor or else". Truman just said "A-bombs away" (as fast as they could be produced -- which would be very slow at first). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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