-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- attila sez: Dresden was probably the first highly visible of America's willingness to literally destroy civilian populations with the express intent of demoralizing a nation. however, history seems to indicate in was a Churchillian "revenge" for the Blitz carried out by both British and American bombers --however, the latter were capable of greated payloads at greater range. apparently the American bombers carried primarily heavy ordinance, the British lit it up --however, the functions were probably mixed. Hiroshima may have been later, but Dresden set the stage. Hiroshime undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of both US troops and Japanese civilians from further war --the Emporer stepped in and made the broadcast without the approval of the general staff --basically, "enough is enough." Dresden served virtually no purpose on the German front --the war was over. Churchill and Roosevelt approved Dresden for revenge; Truman just ended a war. Obliterating Iraq and continuing to grind the heel is just another round of power politics and US Middle East foreign policy. To the rest of the world, the US is a militaristic bully bent on economic advantage -- the old British lion reincarnated. government is its own end: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. hasn't changed yet in history. even the greats, Solomon, David, etc. fell prey to the siren song of power; why should far more inferior men like Bubba, who has absolutely nothing to his credit except deceit, be exempt? ________________________> on or about 970510:1312 dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) expostulated: +Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes: +> Innocents died in Dresden. No doubt compelling stories and images could be +> dug up of little Frieda slowly suffocating as the firestorms sucked the air +> out of her underground shelter, or of little Hans screaming for his mother +> as his hair bursts into flames. 300,000 died in that fire bomb raid, freely +> admitted to be a "public demonstration" of allied willingness to destroy +> civilians in what was primarily a "cultural" city, not a significant center +> of military production. +Why go so far back? How many civilians were murdered by the U.S. +gubmint in Korea, in Viet Nam, in Panama, in Iraq? ______________________________________________________________________ Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things I can; The weapons that make the difference; And the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they pissed me off. ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM4HYyb04kQrCC2kFAQHgcAQApNrDCMxnb2o2WGJlKI4zO2IfSbmo/ba2 Ik1unm3dbsGDy8wilx4qkbwaRtGl6+d4okod4w8dOgZH0mePxy8eFj9D3bsIgaix OYZkWNO1F3o0lmuXqT0kPbct/Hx1d9hsiJMJogTBEPYyjmlxYK3xFl5VYuJw6SOm /lx0H+5VNW4= =NleV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----