On Dresden: Time to Stop Apologizing

[Annie]

Same with Hiroshima/Nagasaki:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,341239,00.html

[...]
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Some critics have accused you of writing a justification of the bombing of the city of Dresden. Is this accusation misplaced?

Taylor: Yes it is. Some people mistake the attempt at rational analysis of a historical event for a celebration of it. My book attempts to be distanced and rational and where possible I try to separate the myths and legends from the realities. I personally find the attack on Dresden horrific. It was overdone, it was excessive and is to be regretted enormously. But there is no reason to pretend that it was completely irrational on the part of the Allies. Dresden had war industries and was a major transportation hub. As soon as you start explaining the reasons for the attack, though, people think you are justifying it.
[...]

 

[onedomino]

While no sane person desires the death of civilians in war, America was dealing with a Nazi state that started a war that lead to fifty million deaths. Germany also indiscriminately bombed civilians, as in the Blitz. The German regime in the 1930s and 40s was the first political organization to institute industrial scale mass murder. They had to be defeated with whatever intensity necessary. Germany is fortunate that it collapsed in May 1945. If it had lasted a few months longer, it would have been nuked.

 

[Comrade]

If 10,000 people were dying a day in the concentration camps by the end of the war, not to mention the casualities mounting on the front line, you have to ask yourself why, if the bombing helped end the war that much sooner, why do the German casualities inflicted even matter, when stacked against the deaths occuring while their will to fight persisted?

I say crush a murderous enemy without mercy, until he is willingly surrenders, if you wish to save lives. Otherwise, you're just going to prolong the war and the agony and death.