Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 19:06:31 -0500 From: Kelly Hendrix <kelly@compuage.com> To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> Cc: Stephen Hurd <deuce@lordlegacy.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <20010914190631.A551@www.kellyhendrix.com> In-Reply-To: <xzpelp9s9ga.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>; from des@ofug.org on Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 12:18:13AM %2B0200 References: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAMEFMCDAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org> <xzpelp9s9ga.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
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On Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 12:18:13AM +0200, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote: > Likewise, I was in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, and you have no idea > how hard it was - as a descendant of the "winners" - to stand in the > ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche knowing that the carpet > bombing of Hamburg, Berlin and other major German cities from 1943 and > onwards, in which the church was destroyed, served no military purpose > other than maybe boost British morale and allow Allied Bomber Command > to pat eachother's backs and congratulate eachother about their > cleverness. You can argue that both Berlin and Hamburg had strategic significance, but the one city that is rarely mentioned is Dresden. There were more lives lost at Dresden than in Hiroshima, Nagasaki combined. (200k plus if my memory serves me right) And what did they make which was of such strategic interest? Vitamin supplements. > What's even harder to swallow (and quite humbling) is the sense that > many younger Germans (most I've had a chance to talk to, in fact) > still harbor deep feelings of guilt about World War II. Americans, > however, don't seem to think much of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the > carpet bombings; history is obviously written by the winners. You have to remember one thing: After the defeat of both Germany and Japan, in which the allied forces essentially bombed them back into the stone age, we went into these countries and completely rebuilt them both economic and politically. That, I'm pretty sure, was unprecedented (if I'm wrong, please correct me) No, that does not give us the right to rewrite history in our favor. America did come out of WWII with dirty, bloody hands, but once the deed was done, we DID the right thing. That, I'm proud of. Kelly Hendrix > DES > -- > Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@ofug.org -- ______________________________________________________________________ | There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a | | miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. | | | | Albert Einstein (1879-1955) | |______________________________________________________________________| To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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