QUOTE(Ryan_Liam @ Jul 23 2005, 03:48 PM)
And they can't even function properly and serve the state without a place to live and be secure.
Pity the point is to disable their war machine, not destroy the country utterly. The destruction of their war machine is better served by destroying factories, not homes.
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Forcing them to surrender by aerial bombardment. Hey it can work, it worked for Kosovo.
Did they intentionally firebomb Kosovo or was the general focus of the operation there military targets?
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No, I was being sarcastic.
I was well aware, I was making a point that actions can have negative outcomes, no matter your perspective.
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Surrender wasn't an option for most of the Japanese political and military establishment, and the best they could do was a deadlock. Bombs away, Hiroshima obliterated, then Nagasaki, surrender confirmed.
At the time of the first bomb blast, the Japanese were already making peace overtures through Russia.
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If a country will not surrender to you, you have to use any means necessary to get it to capitulate.
Any means? A fuel blockade would have been just as effective, maybe even moreso, and a lot lighter on for civilian casualties.
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Tell that to the Eastern Europeans. 90% of the Polish ruling class was liquidated and sent to concerntration camps. 20million Soviet civilians dead on Eastern front.
Not in WWI they weren't. Nice try at pouncing, but you're pouncing on shadows.
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Ok, another one. Bombs in those days were not cruise missiles, did not have the ability of pinpoint accuracy. Sometimes bombs could miss their targets by miles.
As they still can today. They can be fired at a military installation and hit a crowded marketplace full of civilians.
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As in Europe, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) tried
daylight precision bombing. However, it proved to be
impossible due to the weather around Japan, as bombs dropped from a great height were tossed about by high winds. General LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command, instead switched to mass firebombing night attacks from altitudes of around 7,000 feet (2,100 m) on the major conurbations of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Despite limited early success, LeMay was determined to use such bombing tactics against the vulnerable Japanese cities. Attacks on strategic targets also continued in lower-level daylight raids.
Unlike the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were at least partially intended to force Japan to capitulate immediately, fire-bombing, which killed more civilians in total, was carried out as a
long-term strategy to destroy Japan's ability to produce war materials as well as undermine the Japanese Government's will to continue the war.
So he continued to attempt the precision daylight raids, but at night firebombed cities. I like this passage especially:
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LeMay was determined to use such bombing tactics against the vulnerable Japanese cities. Attacks on strategic targets also continued in lower-level daylight raids.
It suggests the firebombing raids were not attacks on strategic targets but on the vulnerable cities, cities filled with civilians.