"Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"

[Mike Yared]

Cluster bombs called 'war crime'
Britain's use of cluster bombs in Iraq, similar to the ones used by the
United States military, is a "war crime" and should be referred to the
International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution, academics, lawyers and
human rights activists in London said earlier this week.
at http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040123-083737-4342r.htm

Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet leaders
for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
terms?

[Rats]

> Mike Yared" > wrote in message
...
> Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
leaders
> for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
> Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
> Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
> terms?

Sure, let's put them all on trial. Let's also include the US President
responsible for dropping the atomic bombs, the US President responsible for
carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam. US hypocrisy never
ceases to amaze me.

[cypher745]

Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would have
resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
alternative?

[David Bromage]

cypher745 wrote:
> Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would have
> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
> alternative?

Not to mention how many would have come home alive but with severe
injuries. There was a batch of around 500,000 Purple Hearts made in 1945
in anticipation of the invasion of Japan. This batch lasted through
Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and everything else along the way. AIUI, no
new ones were manufactured until 2000.

Cheers
David

[cypher745]

To be honest, I was refering to the Japanese casaulties that would have
numbered in the millions. But your point is well taken.

[tscottme]

cypher745 > wrote in message
m...
> Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would
have
> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
> alternative?
>

You think Rats considers vast American casualties a downside to any
decision? That's icing on the cake for his type.

--

Scott
--------
The French, God bless them, are finally joining the war against Islamic
extremism. Their targets, which will now confront the full force of
l'état, are schoolgirls who wear Muslim head scarves in French public
schools.
Wall Street Journal

[IBM]

"Mike Yared" > wrote in
:

[snip]

> Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
> leaders for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968
> Invasion of Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will
> the late Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals
> in historical terms?

Because they ( the lawyers ) are looney leftists.
A cluster bomb is no more illegal than a rifle bullet.
The use to which these instruments are put might constitute
a crime under certain conditions however.

IBM

__________________________________________________ _____________________________
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[Ragnar]

"Mike Yared" > wrote in message
...

> Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
leaders
> for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
> Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
> Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
> terms?

The lefties involved in these cases don't sue guys like Stalin because they
know what he would do to them. Its easier and more profitable to whine
about the USA because they know they can get away with it.

[Rats]

"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
> Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would have
> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
> alternative?

Umm, what the **** are you going on about? This is about cluster bombs being
used indiscriminately and killing civilians. Those accountable should be
punished for their actions. The original poster said that Saddam and co
should be sued as well. To this I agreed and also added the US presidents
he'd conveniently left out.

[ArtKramr]

>Subject: Re: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
>From: "cypher745"
>Date: 1/24/04 10:04 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: >
>
>To be honest, I was refering to the Japanese casaulties that would have
>numbered in the millions. But your point is well taken.
>

If the never attacked Pearl Harbor, there would have been no casualities.




Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

[ArtKramr]

>Subject: Re: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
>From: "Rats"
>Date: 1/25/04 2:05 AM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: >
>
>"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
>> Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would have
>> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
>> alternative?
>
>Umm, what the **** are you going on about? This is about cluster bombs being
>used indiscriminately and killing civilians. Those accountable should be
>punished for their actions. The original poster said that Saddam and co
>should be sued as well. To this I agreed and also added the US presidents
>he'd conveniently left out.
>
>

Hey Rats, ever been to war?


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

[ArtKramr]

>ubject: Re: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
>From: IBM
>Date: 1/24/04 11:25 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: <Xns947AEE42DF19Bibmsvpalorg

>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
>> leaders for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968
>> Invasion of Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will
>> the late Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals
>> in historical terms?
>
> Because they ( the lawyers ) are looney leftists.
> A cluster bomb is no more illegal than a rifle bullet.
> The use to which these instruments are put might constitute
> a crime under certain conditions however.
>
> IBM
>

Lawyers as a voting block are 95% conservative.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

[John Mullen]

Ragnar wrote:

> "Mike Yared" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>
>>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
>
> leaders
>
>>for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
>>Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
>>Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
>>terms?
>
>
> The lefties involved in these cases don't sue guys like Stalin because they
> know what he would do to them. Its easier and more profitable to whine
> about the USA because they know they can get away with it.


Stalin is dead.

John

[BUFDRVR]

>This is about cluster bombs being
>used indiscriminately and killing civilians.

If its about the indiscriminate use of CBUs, no problem since neither the UK
nor the US employed *any* weapon indiscriminately.

If the issue is UXO from CBU employment, this is another matter and one I
believe both the UK and US have done there best to deal with. On averag there's
going to be an approximate 10% dud rate for CBU submunitions (BLUs). In both
Afghanistan and Iraq, leaflets were dropped warning people to stay away from
the unexploded BLUs. Because of the high illiteracy rate in Afghanistan, the
leaflets were in picture form. Because of the remote areas where CBUs were used
in Afghanistan, civilian contact with UXO is minimal. Iraq is a different
story, however a successful one. Submunition dispenser use was pretty heavy in
Iraq and included everything from air delivered to Army ATACMS. Use was
confined, as much as operationally practicable, to use away from major
population areas. With all the use of CBUs in Iraq, and they are still a very
important weapon, the low civilian incident rate (by comparison of quantity
dropped) speaks well for allied air and ground forces.

>Those accountable should be punished for their actions.

Current CBUs meet all international requirements for a legal weapon, thus no
punishment is warrented.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[The Enlightenment]

"Mike Yared" > wrote in message
...
> Cluster bombs called 'war crime'

Don't gas bag on.

Being called a war criminal is only has major consequences if you
loose a war or possibly are captured. If you're an American,
Russian, British and possibly Israeli that virtually guarantees that
it's irrelevant.

Loose and all that hype, propaganda and fabrications against you will
turn into victors justice.

[Emmanuel.Gustin]

Mike Yared > wrote:

: Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet leaders
: for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
: Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
: Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
: terms?

(1) That leaders of state run the risk of having to justify themselves
in court is the consequence of the well-functioning of democracy
and the rule of law. To argue that it should not happen because
dictators do not have to justify themselves, amounts to a plea in
favour of totalitarianism -- the only form of government which is
compatible with unaccountable government.

(2) I have no doubt that in historical terms, Brezhnev and Andropov
will be judged harshly. But if the unpunished crimes of some could
serve as a sufficient excuse for the misdemeanours of others, the
courts of justice would be doomed to almost complete inactivity.

Emmanuel Gustin

[cypher745]

Rats,

In response to your eloquent rebuttal.

" Umm, what the **** are you going on about? "

It was you who stated the following "Sure, let's put them all on trial.
Let's also include the US President
responsible for dropping the atomic bombs, the US President responsible for
carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam. US hypocrisy never
ceases to amaze me."

Your statement makes it seem like you think that the use of the atomic bombs
by the US should be considered war crimes. As such, my original question is
valid. Do you think that the greater loss of life on both sides, that would
have
resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
alternative?

I eagerly await your reply.

[Peter Kemp]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 23:05:58 +1300, "Rats" > wrote:

>"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
>> Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would have
>> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
>> alternative?
>
>Umm, what the **** are you going on about? This is about cluster bombs being
>used indiscriminately and killing civilians.

Err. you're the one who changed the subject from cluster bombs to the
bombings in WWII, specifically carpet bombing and the nuclear bombing
neither of which had cluster bombs included.
So getting ****y because someone else challenges you on it is more
than a little immature.

[Tex Houston]

"Peter Kemp" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 23:05:58 +1300, "Rats" > wrote:
>
> >"cypher745" > wrote in message
> m...
> >> Rats, may ask if you think that the greater loss of life that would
have
> >> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
> >> alternative?
> >
> >Umm, what the **** are you going on about? This is about cluster bombs
being
> >used indiscriminately and killing civilians.
>
> Err. you're the one who changed the subject from cluster bombs to the
> bombings in WWII, specifically carpet bombing and the nuclear bombing
> neither of which had cluster bombs included.
> So getting ****y because someone else challenges you on it is more
> than a little immature.

While war itself may very well be a crime whether political, economic or
other, Rats loses sight of the big picture. Bombs are merely tools, no more
no less. Use of a Mk81 at 250 pounds or a T12 at 42,000 pounds, CBUs,
incendiaries, yes even nuclear are just means to accomplish the mission.
Dead is dead. Condemn warfare, not the methods.

Peter, he deserves to be called on his inconsistencies.

Now if we could change this to a subject such as what parameters should you
use to deliver one or more of these bombs from a military aircraft instead
of wallowing in general warfare subjects (for which forums already exist) we
would separate the wheat (of which there has been damn little lately) from
the chaff. Some (I won't say contributors) in this forum seem inordinately
fond of submarines, tanks, NASA and politics. If we stuck to military
aviation we'd be the better for it plus I would not have to maintain a
'Block Sender' list which Rats is assuredly on.

Don't even get me started on Tarver and the fish he hauls in using civilian
bait of little quality.

Regards,

Tex Houston

[Matt Wiser]

"Mike Yared" > wrote:
>Cluster bombs called 'war crime'
>Britain's use of cluster bombs in Iraq, similar
>to the ones used by the
>United States military, is a "war crime" and
>should be referred to the
>International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution,
>academics, lawyers and
>human rights activists in London said earlier
>this week.
>at http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040123-083737-4342r.htm
>
>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first?
>Or the late Soviet leaders
>for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of
>Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
>Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan?
>Will the late Yuri
>Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war
>criminals in historical
>terms?
>
>
The problem with academics and many of those complaining about CBUs is
that they are often coming from left-of-center. Sound familiar? Ramsey Clark
and his fronts for the WWP: "International Action Center and ANSWER" come
to mind. Kind of hard to understand the positions of such people when they
wave signs saying "Socialist Worker". Where were these folks when Saddam
was busy killing Kurds, Shiites, Kuwaitis, and Iranians? Saddam started two
wars and lost them. Anyone notice that
those complaining about CBUs were prewar apologists for Saddam?
He provoked a third, and lost his regime, power, and freedom. I'll take use
of CBUs to take out SAM sites, AAA and other artillery batteries, truck parks,
fuel and ammo dumps, radar stations, armor, and other military targets.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[Ed Rasimus]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:59:49 GMT, "cypher745"
> wrote:

>Rats,
>
>In response to your eloquent rebuttal.
>
>" Umm, what the **** are you going on about? "
>
>It was you who stated the following "Sure, let's put them all on trial.
>Let's also include the US President
>responsible for dropping the atomic bombs, the US President responsible for
>carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam. US hypocrisy never
>ceases to amaze me."

Where did the US "carpet bomb" in Vietnam? Tactical strikes in the
South were always FAC control. Tactical targets in the North were
strictly briefed. Did you ever read about the controversy regarding
bombing of dikes? Notice that POW camps in the center of Hanoi weren't
hit? I can give you a statement from a POW who was moved to a cell
with a window looking out on the Hanoi power plant. Wasn't hit.

More "carpet bombing" damage occurred in the North from falling AAA
shrapnel and missile debris than errant bombs.

What's wrong with napalm? Consider this, you're sitting in your living
room and I drop a mk-82 500 pound GP bomb in your front yard, fifteen
feet outside your front door. Your house is destroyed and you are
dead. Now, if it were a BLU-1B napalm can, you would hear a loud
swoosh, the bright flames would probably sear the house wall, and you
would get up from your easy chair and evacuate out the other end of
the house. Napalm any worse than a bomb? Emotionalism, that's all.

Agent Orange? You ever use weed killer in your back yard? I've seen
guys bathe in it. Emotionalism, that's all.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[tscottme]

Rats > wrote in message
...

>
> Umm, what the **** are you going on about? This is about cluster bombs
being
> used indiscriminately and killing civilians. Those accountable should
be
> punished for their actions. The original poster said that Saddam and
co
> should be sued as well. To this I agreed and also added the US
presidents
> he'd conveniently left out.
>

Who said anything about indiscriminate use of cluster bombs? You
liberals think the only bombing ever done is either carpet bombing or
randomly dropped.

--

Scott
--------
The French, God bless them, are finally joining the war against Islamic
extremism. Their targets, which will now confront the full force of
l'état, are schoolgirls who wear Muslim head scarves in French public
schools.
Wall Street Journal

[Rats]

"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
> Your statement makes it seem like you think that the use of the atomic
bombs
> by the US should be considered war crimes. As such, my original question
is
> valid. Do you think that the greater loss of life on both sides, that
would
> have
> resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
> alternative?
>
> I eagerly await your reply.

How many soldiers did you kill with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki? I also notice that you have conveniently left the part out
about carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam.

Yes, the use of nuclear weapons is a war crime.

[BUFDRVR]

>Where did the US "carpet bomb" in Vietnam? Tactical strikes in the
>South were always FAC control.

Hmm, I don't know Ed. A BUFF with a 2.5 mile long bomb train pretty much sounds
like "carpet bombing" to me, particularly if you consider there were 3 or 4 of
them.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[BUFDRVR]

>Yes, the use of nuclear weapons is a war crime.
>

No its not.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[John R Weiss]

"BUFDRVR" > wrote...
>
> Hmm, I don't know Ed. A BUFF with a 2.5 mile long bomb train pretty much
sounds
> like "carpet bombing" to me, particularly if you consider there were 3 or 4 of
> them.

I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never seen or
heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?

[BUFDRVR]

>I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never seen
>or
>heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?
>

I generally dislike the term since it's often applied to the BUFF and seems to
mean to most in the world media; "dropping 6 or more bombs at once". The
definition to most of the present and former aviators I know appears to be
"bombing a target *area* rather than a target itself".


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[cypher745]

>
> How many soldiers did you kill with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
> and Nagasaki? I also notice that you have conveniently left the part out
> about carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam.

> Yes, the use of nuclear weapons is a war crime.


Hmmm. When you consider that I was not born till nearly 20 years after the
fact. And that at the time my family had still not immigrated to the US, I
would have to say that "I" did not kill anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

I just wanted to know if you opposed to the taking of human life, the use of
nuclear weapons or both. It would seem that the sanctity of human life means
nothing to you. That it is just the use of nuclear weapons that you object
to.

Or maybe.... Just maybe. You are against any weapon that would secure a
victory for the US, no matter how many lives it saves.

If I am out of line with that statement I apologize. But I don't think I am.

Could I ask where you are from and why it is that you hate the US?

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
"Rats" > wrote:

> "cypher745" > wrote in message
> m...
> > Your statement makes it seem like you think that the use of the atomic
> bombs
> > by the US should be considered war crimes. As such, my original question
> is
> > valid. Do you think that the greater loss of life on both sides, that
> would
> > have
> > resulted from a direct invasion of Japan would have a been a better
> > alternative?
> >
> > I eagerly await your reply.
>
> How many soldiers did you kill with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
> and Nagasaki?

Does one of the last major IJ Naval bases, and an army division with
headquarters count?

> I also notice that you have conveniently left the part out
> about carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam.

Note Ed Rasimus' post elsewhere in this thread. (If you don't care to,
the digest answer is, you have no argument.)

> Yes, the use of nuclear weapons is a war crime.

It wasn't at the time, which is what counts. Ex post facto, and all that.

Again, you dodged the question: Do you *really* think that the planned
direct invasion of the Japanese home islands, with attendant *far*
greater loss of Japanese, American, British and other Commonwealth
lives, is preferable to what actually happened?

Meanwhile, the Japanese Army was still active in China, with roughly
10,000 Chinese deaths daily, until the Emperor told them to stand down...

One hopes you don't respond with either evasion nor knee-jerk "anything
is better than nuclear", because it is an unsupportable position.

[Ed Rasimus]

On 25 Jan 2004 22:59:14 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

>>I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never seen
>>or
>>heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?
>>
>
>I generally dislike the term since it's often applied to the BUFF and seems to
>mean to most in the world media; "dropping 6 or more bombs at once". The
>definition to most of the present and former aviators I know appears to be
>"bombing a target *area* rather than a target itself".
>

I agree--the key is area rather than specific target and the
implication is usually municipal rather than rural as well as
indiscriminate rather than specific military.

By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.
As BUFDRVR notes, a B-52 bomb string covers some ground, but Arc Light
missions were specific targets and virtually always jungle areas, not
cities or villages. Linebacker II BUFF drops were quite remarkable in
accuracy, with recce runs that confirmed almost every crater location
in the Route Pack.

In numerous areas the BDA photos showed bomb strings precisely on
military targets and clearly bypassing civilian or cultural
infrastructure.

Carpet bombing generally recalls the mass formations of WW II bombers
dropping en masse on European cities. Nothing like that ever happened
in SEA. Maybe if it had, we'd have finished it up in less than eight
years.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[S. Sampson]

"Ed Rasimus" > wrote
>
> By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.

If you limit it to iron. The most common carpet bombing in Vietnam
was the defoliant chemicals.

Maybe there's a more correct term, as "bombing" seems to signify
explosives, rather than biological weapons.

[Keith Willshaw]

"Rats" > wrote in message
...
> "cypher745" > wrote in message

>
> How many soldiers did you kill with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
> and Nagasaki? I also notice that you have conveniently left the part out
> about carpet bombing, napalm and agent orange in Vietnam.
>

Considerable numbers as it happens, the aiming point at Hiroshima
was the HW of the Japanese army tasked with defence against
invasion


> Yes, the use of nuclear weapons is a war crime.
>

In your opinion perhaps but no international treaty backs
that position.

Keith

[Rats]

"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
> Hmmm. When you consider that I was not born till nearly 20 years after the
> fact. And that at the time my family had still not immigrated to the US, I
> would have to say that "I" did not kill anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
>
> I just wanted to know if you opposed to the taking of human life, the use
of
> nuclear weapons or both. It would seem that the sanctity of human life
means
> nothing to you. That it is just the use of nuclear weapons that you object
> to.

Rubbish. Soldiers have a duty to "die for their country". Innocent civilians
don't. As a soldier myself I was ready to kill the enemy soldier and to die
at his hands if I failed. Dropping nukes on a civilian population is a war
crime.

> Or maybe.... Just maybe. You are against any weapon that would secure a
> victory for the US, no matter how many lives it saves.

Do you hear any complaints from me regarding precision guided missiles?

> If I am out of line with that statement I apologize. But I don't think I
am.

You are.

> Could I ask where you are from and why it is that you hate the US?

I am from NZ and I do not hate the US as much as I pity the fools who think
that the US is above and beyond all international law. For you idiots the US
is all good and can do no wrong. You very quickly forget or choose to ignore
the attrocities that the US has committed in the many wars that it has
waged. By no means am I saying that the enemy that the US was fighting was
without fault but to believe that the US fights fair and just wars is a
joke.

[Rats]

"Steve Hix" > wrote in message
...
> Does one of the last major IJ Naval bases, and an army division with
> headquarters count?

http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa072700a.htm

Read this you American ignoramus.

> Note Ed Rasimus' post elsewhere in this thread. (If you don't care to,
> the digest answer is, you have no argument.)

Read the above link and then come back and argue. I suspect you will have no
arguments.

> Again, you dodged the question: Do you *really* think that the planned
> direct invasion of the Japanese home islands, with attendant *far*
> greater loss of Japanese, American, British and other Commonwealth
> lives, is preferable to what actually happened?

Soldiers have a duty to die. That is what they are there for. Civilians do
not ask to be bombed.

> One hopes you don't respond with either evasion nor knee-jerk "anything
> is better than nuclear", because it is an unsupportable position.

I didn't say anything is better than nuclear. I said that bombing a civilian
target with a nuke and killing thousands of civilians is a war crime. Do you
understand now?

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

Rats wrote:
> Soldiers have a duty to die. That is what they are there for. Civilians do
> not ask to be bombed.


What utter bull****. Soldiers have a duty to protect their country. They do
that best by killing the other guy, not dying themselves.

You have a loser attitude. It must suck to be you.




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN


http://www.mortimerschnerd.com

[B2431]

>From: "Rats"
>
>
>"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
>> Hmmm. When you consider that I was not born till nearly 20 years after the
>> fact. And that at the time my family had still not immigrated to the US, I
>> would have to say that "I" did not kill anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
>>
>> I just wanted to know if you opposed to the taking of human life, the use
>of
>> nuclear weapons or both. It would seem that the sanctity of human life
>means
>> nothing to you. That it is just the use of nuclear weapons that you object
>> to.
>
>Rubbish. Soldiers have a duty to "die for their country".

I sure hope you don't believe that. I any event, you never had combat duty, I
have, and I never felt it was my duty to die for my country.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[Rats]

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" > wrote in message
. com...
> What utter bull****. Soldiers have a duty to protect their country. They
do
> that best by killing the other guy, not dying themselves.
>
> You have a loser attitude. It must suck to be you.

OOOH! What a big man you are! OOOH! ****ING ****! **** OFF AND SUCK BUSH'S
COCK!

[B2431]

>From: "Rats"
>Date: 1/25/2004 6:16 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: >
>
>"Steve Hix" > wrote in message
...
>> Does one of the last major IJ Naval bases, and an army division with
>> headquarters count?
>
>http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa072700a.htm
>
>Read this you American ignoramus.
>
>> Note Ed Rasimus' post elsewhere in this thread. (If you don't care to,
>> the digest answer is, you have no argument.)
>
>Read the above link and then come back and argue. I suspect you will have no
>arguments.
>
>> Again, you dodged the question: Do you *really* think that the planned
>> direct invasion of the Japanese home islands, with attendant *far*
>> greater loss of Japanese, American, British and other Commonwealth
>> lives, is preferable to what actually happened?
>
>Soldiers have a duty to die. That is what they are there for. Civilians do
>not ask to be bombed.
>
>> One hopes you don't respond with either evasion nor knee-jerk "anything
>> is better than nuclear", because it is an unsupportable position.
>
>I didn't say anything is better than nuclear. I said that bombing a civilian
>target with a nuke and killing thousands of civilians is a war crime. Do you
>understand now?
>
So bombing them repeatedly with conventional bombs and killing just as many
wouldn't be a war crime?
That's what it would have taken to take out the same targets.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[George Z. Bush]

Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
> Rats wrote:
>> Soldiers have a duty to die. That is what they are there for. Civilians do
>> not ask to be bombed.
>
>
> What utter bull****. Soldiers have a duty to protect their country. They do
> that best by killing the other guy, not dying themselves.
>
> You have a loser attitude. It must suck to be you.

I concur. To paraphrase the late Gen. George S. Patton, "it's not my duty to
die for my country, it's my duty to make the other son of a bitch die for his"!

[David Bromage]

ArtKramr wrote:
> If the never attacked Pearl Harbor, there would have been no casualities.

If the "advisors" had never been sent to Vietnam there would have been
no casualties. But they did and there were, in both cases. You can't
change history, you can only learn from it. At least smart people learn
from it.

Cheers
David

[cypher745]

"Rats" > wrote in message
...
> "cypher745" > wrote in message
> m...
> > Hmmm. When you consider that I was not born till nearly 20 years after
the
> > fact. And that at the time my family had still not immigrated to the US,
I
> > would have to say that "I" did not kill anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
> >
> > I just wanted to know if you opposed to the taking of human life, the
use
> of
> > nuclear weapons or both. It would seem that the sanctity of human life
> means
> > nothing to you. That it is just the use of nuclear weapons that you
object
> > to.
>
> Rubbish. Soldiers have a duty to "die for their country".


Innocent civilians
> don't.

I can't agree. A soldier has a duty to fight. Not to die.

The point is as horrible as it was killing hundreds of thousands of
civilians in those two attacks, the alternative would have been worse.

I think that what you need to understand is that the US knew this. They knew
that they were going to kill 100,000 to a 150,000 Japanese men, women and
children with those bombs. But they also knew that a direct assault on the
island would result in the deaths of millions of Japanese men, women and
children from suicides alone. Hell, even with the dropping of both bombs,
there was an attempted coup d'etat by a faction of the Japanese army when
they found out the Emporer was going to surrender.

>You very quickly forget or choose to ignore
> the attrocities that the US has committed in the many wars that it has
> waged. By no means am I saying that the enemy that the US was fighting was
> without fault

No we don't.

We know perfectly well that at times some of soldiers have done things that
we as country would not be proud of. But we also know, that our soldiers
have never done this.

December 14, 1944

Puerto Princesa Prison Camp, Palawan, Philippines All about them, their work
lay in ruins. Their raison d'etre, the task their commandant had said would
take them three months but had taken nearly three years. A thousand naked
days of clearing, lifting, leveling, wheelbarrowing, hacking. Thirty-odd
months in close heavy heat smashing rocks into smaller rocks, and smaller
rocks into pebbles, hammering sad hunks of brain coral into bone-white flour
with which to make concrete. Ripping out the black humus floor of the
jungle, felling the gnarled beasts of mahogany or narra or kamagong that
happened to be in the way.

Above the bay, in a malarial forest skittering with monkeys and monitor
lizards, they had built an airstrip where none should be, and now they were
happy to see it in ruins, cratered by bombs. One hundred and fifty slaves
stood on a tarmac 2,200 meters long and 210 meters wide, straining with
shovels and pickaxes and rakes. Ever since the air raids started two months
earlier, Lieutenant Sato, the one they called "the Buzzard," had ordered
them out each morning to fill the bomb pits, to make the runway usable
again. This morning had been no different. The men had risen at dawn and
eaten a breakfast of weevily rice, then climbed aboard the trucks for the
short ride to the airstrip. As usual, hey worked all morning and took a
break for lunch around noon. But now the Buzzard said no lunch would be
served on the strip, that instead the food would be prepared back at the
barracks.

The men were puzzled, because they'd never eaten lunch at their barracks
before, not on a workday. It didn't make sense to drive back now, for they
still had considerable repair work to do. Sato offered no explanation. The
prisoners crawled into their trucks again and took the bumpy serpentine road
back to the prison. In the meager shade of spindly coconut palms, they ate
their lunches squatting beside their quarters in an open-air stockade that
was secured with two barbed-wire fences. The entire compound was built at
the edge of a cliff that dropped fifty ragged feet to a coral beach splashed
by the warm blue waters of Puerto Princesa Bay. Around 1 p.m. the air-raid
alarm sounded. It was nothing more than a soldier pounding on an old
Catholic church bell splotched with verdigris. The men looked up and saw two
American fighters, P-38s, streaking across the sky, but the planes were
moving away from the island and were too high to pose a danger. Having
become discriminating appraisers of aerial threat, the prisoners ignored the
signal and resumed their lunches.

A few minutes later a second air-raid alarm sounded. The men consulted the
skies and this time saw an American bomber flying far in the distance. They
didn't take the alarm seriously and kept on eating. Presently a third
air-raid alarm sounded, and this time Sato and a few of his men marched into
the compound with sabers drawn and rifles fixed with bayonets. Sato insisted
that everyone heed the signal and descend into the air-raid hovels. "They're
coming!" he shrieked. "Planes-hundreds of planes!" Again the men were
puzzled, and this time suspicious. When planes had come before, Sato had
never registered any particular concern for their safety. Many times they'd
been working on the landing strip when American planes had menaced the site.
The Japanese would leap into their slit trenches, but often made the
prisoners work until the last possible minute. The Americans had to fend for
themselves, out in the open, as aircraft piloted by their own countrymen
dropped out of the sky to bomb and strafe the airstrip. Several weeks
earlier an American from Kentucky named James Stidham had taken a piece of
shrapnel from one of the American bombers, a B-24 Liberator, and was now
paralyzed.

During the lunch hour he lay on a stretcher in the compound, silent and
listless, with a fellow prisoner spoon-feeding him his ration. "Hundreds of
planes!" Sato shouted again, with even more urgency. "Hurry." The slaves
moved toward the air-raid shelters. They were primitive, nothing more than
narrow slits dug four feet deep and roofed with logs covered over with a few
feet of dirt. There were three main trenches, each about a hundred feet
long. On both ends, the structures had tiny crawl-space entrances that
admitted one man at a time. Approximately fifty men could fit inside each
one, but they had to pack themselves in with their knees tucked under their
chins. The prisoners had constructed these crude shelters for their own
safety after the American air raids started in October, to avoid more
casualties like Stidham. With Sato's reluctant approval, they'd also painted
"POW" on the galvanized-metal roof of their barracks. Sato was behaving
strangely today, the prisoners thought, but perhaps he knew something,
perhaps a massive air attack was indeed close at hand. All the signs pointed
to the imminent arrival of the American forces. The tide of the war was
turning fast*#8212;everyone knew it.

That very morning a Japanese seaplane had spotted a convoy of American
destroyers and battleships churning through the Sulu Sea en route to
Mindoro, the next large island north of Palawan. If not today, then someday
soon Sato and his company of airfield engineers would have to reckon with
the arrival of U.S. ground troops, and their work on Palawan would be
finished. Reluctantly, the American prisoners did as they were told, all 150
of them, crawling single file into the dark, poorly ventilated pits.
Everyone but Stidham, whose stretcher was conveniently placed beside one of
the trench entrances. If the planes came, his buddies would gather his limp
form and tuck him into the shelter with everyone else. They waited and
waited but heard not a single American plane, let alone a hundred. They
huddled in the stifling dankness of their collective body heat, sweat
coursing down their bare chests. The air-raid bell continued to peal. A Navy
signalman named C. C. Smith refused to go into his pit. Suddenly the Buzzard
set upon him.

He raised his saber high so that it gleamed in the midday sun, and with all
his strength he brought it blade side down. Smith's head was cleaved in two,
the sword finally stopping midway down the neck. Then, peeking out the ends
of the trenches, the men saw several soldiers bursting into the compound.
They were carrying five-gallon buckets filled with a liquid. The buckets
sloshed messily as the soldiers walked. With a quick jerk of the hands, they
flung the contents into the openings of the trenches. By the smell of it on
their skin, the Americans instantly recognized what it was-high-octane
aviation fuel from the airstrip. Before they could apprehend the full
significance of it, other soldiers tossed in lighted bamboo torches. Within
seconds, the trenches exploded in flames. The men squirmed over each other
and clawed at the dirt as they tried desperately to shrink from the intense
heat. They choked back the smoke and the fumes, their nostrils assailed by
the smell of singed hair and roasting flesh. They were trapped like termites
in their own sealed nest. Only a few managed to free themselves. Dr. Carl
Mango, from Pennsylvania, sprang from his hole, his clothes smoldering. His
arms were outstretched as he pleaded-"Show some reason, please God show
reason"-but a machine gunner mowed him down. Another prisoner crawled from
his trench, wrested a rifle from the hands of a soldier, and shot him before
receiving a mortal stab in the back. A number of men dashed toward the fence
and tried to press through it but were quickly riddled with lead, leaving a
row of corpses hung from the barbed strands like drying cuttlefish. A few
men managed to slip through the razor ribbon and leap from the high cliff,
but more soldiers were waiting on the beach to finish them off. Recognizing
the futility of escape but wanting to wreak a parting vengeance, one burning
prisoner emerged from his trench, wrapped his arms tightly around the first
soldier he saw, and didn't let go-a death embrace that succeeded in setting
the surprised executioner on fire.

All the while, Lieutenant Sato scurried from trench to trench with saber
drawn, loudly exhorting his men and occasionally punctuating his commands
with a high, nervous laugh. At his order, another wave of troops approached
the air-raid shelters, throwing grenades into the flaming entrances and
raking them with gunfire. Some of the troops poked their rifle barrels
through the entrances of the trenches and fired point-blank at the huddled
forms within. James Stidham, the paralytic who had been watching all of this
from his stretcher, quietly moaned in terror. A soldier stepped over to him
and with a perfunctory glance fired two slugs into his face. When Lieutenant
Sato was satisfied that all 150 prisoners were dead, he ordered his men to
heave the stray bodies back into the smoky pits. The soldiers splattered
additional gasoline inside and reignited the trenches. They tossed in more
grenades as well as sticks of dynamite to make it appear as though the
victims had perished in an air raid after all, with the shelters receiving
several "direct hits" from American bombs. The immense pall of smoke curling
from the three subterranean pyres was noted by observers five miles distant,
across Puerto Princesa Bay. Entries from Japanese diaries later found at the
camp spoke hauntingly of December 14. "Although they were prisoners of war,"
one entry stated, "they truly died a pitiful death. From today on I will not
hear the familiar greeting 'Good morning, Sergeant Major.'" Another
mentioned that on the beach below the camp, the "executed prisoners [are]
floating and rolling among the breakwaters." Said another: "Today the shop
is a lonely place.

There are numerous corpses...and the smell is unbearable." On January 7,
1945, an officer from the Army's intelligence branch, known as G-2, sat down
with a man named Eugene Nielsen, who had a remarkable story to tell. Their
conversation was not casual; it was an official interrogation, and the
intelligence officer, a Captain Ickes, was taking notes. At the time of the
debriefing, Nielsen and Ickes happened to be on the tropical island of
Morotai, a tiny speck in the Spice Islands of the Dutch East Indies that had
become a crucial stepping-stone in General MacArthur's drive toward Japan.
Eugene Nielsen was an Army Private First Class who had been with the 59th
Coast Artillery on the besieged island of Corregidor-directly across from
Bataan-when he was captured by the Japanese in May 1942. Born and raised in
a small town in the mountains of Utah, Nielsen was twenty-eight years old,
and three of those years he had spent languishing in a prison camp near the
Palawan capital of Puerto Princesa. There he had done backbreaking work on
an airfield detail, crushing rock and coral and mixing concrete by hand.
Nielsen had been evacuated to Morotai along with five other ex-POWs. He was
convalescing while awaiting shipment home to the United States. Although he
was racked with the residual effects of the various diseases he'd contracted
while starving in the tropics, he had recovered much of his strength since
his escape from prison. He had two bullet wounds which were still on the
mend. The officer from G-2 sat horrified in his chair as Nielsen told his
story, which concerned an incident on Palawan several weeks earlier, the
full details of which no official from U.S. Army intelligence had apparently
heard before.

The trench smelled very strongly of gas. There was an explosion and flames
shot through the place. Some of the guys were moaning. I realized this was
it<either I had to break for it or die. Luckily I was in the trench that was
closest to the fence. So I jumped up and dove through the barbed wire. I
fell over the cliff and somehow grabbed on to a small tree, which broke my
fall and kept me from getting injured. There were Japanese soldiers posted
down on the beach. I buried myself in a pile of garbage and coconut husks. I
kept working my way under until I got fairly well covered up. Lying there, I
could feel the little worms and bugs eating holes in the rubbish, and then I
felt them eating holes into the skin of my back. When he looked around,
Nielsen realized that a surprising number of Americans had made it down to
the beach-perhaps twenty or thirty. Some, like Nielsen, had torn bare-handed
through the barbed wire, but the largest group had made it down by virtue of
a subterranean accident: a natural escape hatch that led from one of the
trenches out to a shallow ledge in the eroded cliff wall.

Several weeks earlier, while digging the air-raid pits, some of the
Americans had serendipitously discovered this small fissure, and they'd had
the forethought to conceal it by plugging the opening with sandbags and a
veneer of dirt so the Japanese would never see it. They had thought, in a
not very specific way, that this tunnel might come in handy someday, and
they were right. One by one, they escaped the incinerating heat of their
shelter by crawling through the hole and burrowing out to the rock landing.
From there they jumped down to the beach, where they hid among the various
crevices and rock outcroppings. By doing so they gained only a temporary
reprieve, however, trading one form of butchery for another. Eugene Nielsen,
still lying in the refuse heap, heard gunfire sputtering up and down the
beach. Systematically, the soldiers were searching the rocks and hunting
down fugitives. It was obvious that they intended to exterminate every last
one. The prisoners camouflaged themselves with slathered mud and cringed in
the rocky clefts and folds, lacerating their legs and feet on the coarse
coral as they tried to squeeze into ever tighter recesses. Other prisoners
took refuge in a sewage pipe that was half filled with stagnant water, while
still others concealed themselves in thick mattresses of jungle weeds higher
along the banks. The seaside massacre went on for three or four hours. The
Japanese would pluck the prisoners from their hiding places and slay them on
the spot, either by gunshot or by bayonet. Squads of soldiers combed the
weeds in tight formation, plunging their bayonets every foot or so until
they harpooned their quarry. One American who'd been caught was tortured at
some length by six soldiers, one of whom carried a container of gasoline.
Seeing the jerry can, the American understood his fate and begged to be
shot. The soldiers doused one of his feet with gasoline and set it alight,
then did the same with the other.

When he collapsed, they poured the rest of the gasoline over his body and
ignited it, leaving him writhing in flames on the beach. Not far away, a
prisoner from South Dakota named Erving Evans, realizing he'd been seen and
hoping to avoid the same fate, leaped up from a trash pile where he'd been
hiding and blurted, "All right, you *******s*#8212;here I am, and don't
miss." They didn't. They were bayoneting guys down low and making them
suffer. They shot or stabbed twelve Americans and then dug a shallow grave
in the sand and threw them in. Some of these men were still groaning while
they were covered with sand. Then the Japs started to cover the grave with
rubbish from the pile where I was hiding. They scraped some of the coconut
husks off, and found me lying there. Then they uncovered me from the
shoulders on down. They thought I was dead, and seemed to think I had been
buried by my friends. I lay there for about fifteen minutes while they stood
around talking Japanese. It was getting to be late in the afternoon. One of
the guys hollered it was time to eat dinner, and every one of the Japs there
went off somewhere to eat. I got up and ran down along the beach and hid in
a little pocket in a coral reef there.

Down among the coral, Nielsen encountered seven other survivors. One of them
was very badly burned. His hair was singed and "his hide was rubbing off
when he brushed against anything." They were all crouched among the rocks,
hiding from a barge that was methodically trolling the coves and foreshores.
Having exhausted their hunt by land, the Japanese were now searching by
water. Aboard the barge were three or four soldiers armed with rifles as
well as a tripod machine gun. Nielsen peeked around the corner and saw the
barge coming. He decided he was insufficiently hidden, so he broke off from
the group and crouched behind a bush close by. From where he was secreted,
he could watch the barge approaching. The Japanese were whispering among
themselves and excitedly pointing out crannies that looked promising. One of
the seven Americans, a marine from Mississippi named J. O. Warren, wasn't
leaning back quite far enough. The Japanese saw his foot protruding from a
rock and immediately shot it. Warren dropped in agony from his wound.

In what seemed to be a sacrificial act intended to help his comrades, Warren
hurled himself out in the open so as not to tip off the whereabouts of the
other six. He was immediately shot and killed. The barge passed on. I left
that area and started down the beach. About fifty yards ahead I ran into
more Japanese. Suddenly I realized I was surrounded. They were up above me
and also coming in from both sides. I was trapped. So I jumped in the sea. I
swam underwater as far as I could. When I came up there were twenty Japanese
firing at me, both from the cliff and from the beach. Shots were hitting all
around me. One shot hit me in the armpit and grazed my ribs. Another hit me
in the left thigh, then another one hit me right along the right side of my
head, grazing my temple. I think it knocked me out temporarily. For a short
period I was numb in the water, and I nearly drowned. Then I found a large
coconut husk bobbing around in the bay and used it to shield my head as I
swam. They kept shooting at Nielsen from the beach. He decided to swim back
toward the shore so they'd think he'd given up and was coming in. He hoped
they'd momentarily let up on their fire, and they did. Nielsen then angled
slightly and swam parallel to the coastline for about a hundred yards.

The Japanese followed him down the beach, patiently tracking alongside him,
step for stroke. Occasionally they pinged a shot or two in his direction,
but mostly they just kept a close eye on him. I came down to a place along
the shore where there were a lot of trees and bushes in the water. I knew
they were following me, so I went toward shore and splashed to make a little
noise. I wanted them to think I was finally coming in. Then I abruptly
turned around and went out just as quiet as possible and started swimming
across the bay. They never shot at me again. Probably it was too dark for
them to see me. I swam most of the night. I couldn't see the other side of
the bay but I knew it was about five miles. About halfway out I ran into a
strong current. It seemed like I was there for a couple hours making no
headway. Finally I reached the opposite shore and crawled on my hands and
knees up on the rocks. I was in a mangrove swamp. I was too weak to stand
up. It was about 4 a.m. I'd been swimming for nearly nine hours. Washed up
on the far shores of Puerto Princesa Bay, Nielsen was a pitiful sight-naked,
nursing two bullet wounds, his skin crosshatched with lacerations. He rested
for a few hours and then stumbled half delirious through the swamp until he
encountered a Filipino who was walking along a path, wielding a bolo knife.
In his current state, Nielsen was suspicious of anyone carrying a knife. The
Filipino seemed wary of Nielsen's hideous castaway appearance but was not
especially frightened. "I couldn't imagine how he could be so cool," Nielsen
said. At first Nielsen worried that the man was a Japanese sympathizer, but
then the Filipino offered him water. Nielsen asked the man to take down a
letter. "I think I am the only one alive from the Palawan prison camp," he
said. "I want you to write to the War Department to tell them about the
Japanese massacre of the Americans at Puerto Princesa." Without uttering a
word in reaction, the Filipino began to walk away from Nielsen. Then he
abruptly turned around and said cryptically, "You have friends here."
Perplexed, Nielsen followed his new acquaintance down a path through dense
jungle to a hideout where Filipino guerrillas were stationed. There, to his
amazement, Nielsen encountered two more American survivors from the camp,
Albert Pacheco and Edwin Petry. "I didn't believe it at first," said
Nielsen. "I thought I was seeing things."



but to believe that the US fights fair and just wars is a
> joke.

What was the last unjust war that the US was in? And when and how do we not
fight fair?

[cypher745]

"David Bromage" > wrote in message
.. .
> ArtKramr wrote:
> > If the never attacked Pearl Harbor, there would have been no
casualities.
>
> If the "advisors" had never been sent to Vietnam there would have been
> no casualties. But they did and there were, in both cases. You can't
> change history, you can only learn from it. At least smart people learn
> from it.
>
> Cheers
> David
>

There would have been less. Not "none".

[S. Sampson]

"Rats" > wrote
> "cypher745" > wrote
> >
> > What was the last unjust war that the US was in?
>
> Korea, Vietnam and now the current war in IRAQ!

See! There is someone who thinks communism and a
murderous dictatorship is a good thing.

Thank God they die like flies when we come after them.

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
"Rats" > wrote:

> "Steve Hix" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Does one of the last major IJ Naval bases, and an army division with
> > headquarters count?
>
> http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa072700a.htm
> Read this you American ignoramus.
>
So you deny that the Imperial Japanese Navy had one of its last major
bases at Hiroshima, and that the headquarters of the Japanese Army's
defense of the island was also based in Hiroshima?

Kewl.

> > Note Ed Rasimus' post elsewhere in this thread. (If you don't care to,
> > the digest answer is, you have no argument.)
>
> Read the above link and then come back and argue. I suspect you will have no
> arguments.

It will have to wait a bit, since the site doesn't seem to be
responding. history1900s.about.com isn't talking.

> > Again, you dodged the question: Do you *really* think that the planned
> > direct invasion of the Japanese home islands, with attendant *far*
> > greater loss of Japanese, American, British and other Commonwealth
> > lives, is preferable to what actually happened?
>
> Soldiers have a duty to die. That is what they are there for. Civilians do
> not ask to be bombed.

Evasion noted. Apparently, you would prefer that far more Japanese and
Chinese civilians had died.

> > One hopes you don't respond with either evasion nor knee-jerk "anything
> > is better than nuclear", because it is an unsupportable position.
>
> I didn't say anything is better than nuclear. I said that bombing a civilian
> target with a nuke and killing thousands of civilians is a war crime. Do you
> understand now?

I understand that you're totally wrapped around the axle of your
misconception about the definition of "war crime".

As long a no atom bomb is dropped, you're cool with hundreds of
thousands of more dead japanese and chinese civilians.

You've also made it quite clear that you don't care one whit for the
deaths of many more thousands of Japanese, American, British and
Commonwealth troops. After all, "it's the duty of soldiers to die for
their country". Wrong again...and what's sad is that you will likely
never understand why, or just how wrong, either.

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
"Rats" > wrote:

> "Mortimer Schnerd, RN" > wrote in message
> . com...
> > What utter bull****. Soldiers have a duty to protect their country. They
> do
> > that best by killing the other guy, not dying themselves.
> >
> > You have a loser attitude. It must suck to be you.
>
> OOOH! What a big man you are! OOOH! ****ING ****! **** OFF AND SUCK BUSH'S
> COCK!

Come back when you get to junior high, or develop some modicum of civil
behavior, child.

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
"Rats" > wrote:

> > What was the last unjust war that the US was in? And when and how do we
> > not fight fair?
>
> Korea, Vietnam and now the current war in IRAQ!

Ahh...so you're a supporter of ol' Kim Il Sung.

That explains a lot.

[Keith Willshaw]

"Rats" > wrote in message
...

>
> Rubbish. Soldiers have a duty to "die for their country". Innocent
civilians
> don't. As a soldier myself I was ready to kill the enemy soldier and to
die
> at his hands if I failed. Dropping nukes on a civilian population is a war
> crime.
>

To paraphrase George Patton

You dont win wars by dying for your country
You win by making the other poor dumb SOB die for his

Throwing away 1/2 million Allied and several million Japanese lives
away by invading Japan instead of using the bomb would
have been the true war crime.

Keith

[cypher745]

"Rats" > wrote in message
...
> "cypher745" > wrote in message
> m...
> > I can't agree. A soldier has a duty to fight. Not to die.
>
> True but his duty is to kill other soldiers and not civilians.
>
> > No we don't.
> >
> > We know perfectly well that at times some of soldiers have done things
> that
> > we as country would not be proud of. But we also know, that our soldiers
> > have never done this.
>
> Well, you might but others don't.
>
> > December 14, 1944
> > <snipped an account of Japanese brutality>
>
> Read this: http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/usa_massacre_in_korea.htm

Rats, your example is truly horrific.

If an order was issued for this attack, then those that issueed the order
should be held accountable.

If as the Army contends, that these soldiers were in full rtreat and
frightend, and acted without thinking during the fog of war, then we need to
redouble are efforts in order to ensure that this never happens again.

But, I think that you are missing why this is a scandal, because it happens
so rarely. charges of abuse are rarely brought against US soldiers (In
proportion to their numbers).
>
> > What was the last unjust war that the US was in? And when and how do we
> not
> > fight fair?
>
> Korea, Vietnam and now the current war in IRAQ!

Are you saying that we did not fight fair, or that these wars were unjust?
>
>

[cypher745]

Rat
"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
>
> "Rats" > wrote in message
> ...
> > "cypher745" > wrote in message
> > m...
> > > I can't agree. A soldier has a duty to fight. Not to die.
> >
> > True but his duty is to kill other soldiers and not civilians.
> >
> > > No we don't.
> > >
> > > We know perfectly well that at times some of soldiers have done things
> > that
> > > we as country would not be proud of. But we also know, that our
soldiers
> > > have never done this.
> >
> > Well, you might but others don't.
> >
> > > December 14, 1944
> > > <snipped an account of Japanese brutality>
> >
> > Read this: http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/usa_massacre_in_korea.htm
>
> Rats, your example is truly horrific.
>
> If an order was issued for this attack, then those that issueed the order
> should be held accountable.
>
> If as the Army contends, that these soldiers were in full rtreat and
> frightend, and acted without thinking during the fog of war, then we need
to
> redouble are efforts in order to ensure that this never happens again.
>
> But, I think that you are missing why this is a scandal, because it
happens
> so rarely. charges of abuse are rarely brought against US soldiers (In
> proportion to their numbers).
> >
> > > What was the last unjust war that the US was in? And when and how do
we
> > not
> > > fight fair?
> >
> > Korea, Vietnam and now the current war in IRAQ!
>
> Are you saying that we did not fight fair, or that these wars were unjust?
> >
> >
>
>

[cypher745]

Rats,


It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a communist.
Is it true?

I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.

Thank you.

[Charles Gray]

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:59:31 -0500, "Mike Yared" >
wrote:

>Cluster bombs called 'war crime'
>Britain's use of cluster bombs in Iraq, similar to the ones used by the
>United States military, is a "war crime" and should be referred to the
>International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution, academics, lawyers and
>human rights activists in London said earlier this week.
>at http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040123-083737-4342r.htm
>
>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet leaders
>for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
>Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
>Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
>terms?


Well, you should check out the full article-- this is a group of
people, who seem to have little credibility-- even Human Rights watch
isn't in their corner.

Honestly, with a very few exceptonis (Chemical and Biological, and
strategic nukes), as I understand it, the manner of hte use of the
weapon is what defines whether or not it is a warcrime.
Using a cluster bomb on a infantry column is fine. Using one one a
group of peacefully demonstrating civilians is a crime.
They also rather miss the point that while yes, a Cluster bomb will
kill over a larger area, in some cases it can actually be less
dangerous to civilians than an ordinary bomb-- if you have a group of
people in a building that is in the AOE of a cluster bomb most damage
will be restricted to the facade and outer doors-- if you accidently
or on purpose drop a 500/1000lb bomb next to it, damage is likely to
reach...considerably further inside.
>

[Ragnar]

"John Mullen" > wrote in message
...
> Ragnar wrote:
>
> > "Mike Yared" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >
> >
> >>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
> >
> > leaders
> >
> >>for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion
of
> >>Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
> >>Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
> >>terms?
> >
> >
> > The lefties involved in these cases don't sue guys like Stalin because
they
> > know what he would do to them. Its easier and more profitable to whine
> > about the USA because they know they can get away with it.
>
>
> Stalin is dead.

Thank you Captain Obvious. I'm sure other readers caught the point without
being an ass.

[Cub Driver]

>Where did the US "carpet bomb" in Vietnam? Tactical strikes in the
>South were always FAC control.

Likely he's referring to Arc Light.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Cub Driver]

>
>I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never seen or
>heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?

I think of it as area bombing. The ultimate example would be the March
10, 1945, fire bombing of Tokyo. Though that was incendiary rather
than high explosive, it was planned to cover whole square miles of a
city.

Bombing the rain forest, as the B-52s did in Vietnam, is a bit of a
stretch but would probably qualify since the intention wasn't to hit
any specific thing on the ground, but to make areas of the ground
uninhabitable.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Cub Driver]

>How many soldiers did you kill with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
>and Nagasaki?

I didn't kill any, being but a slip of a boy at the time, but the
likelihood at Hiroshima is that 20,000 soldiers and Korean forced
laborers were killed. At a guess, then, nearly a division's worth was
destroyed, not a bad day's work, especially considering that Hiroshima
was the headquarters of Second General Army (the equivalent of a
"command" in today's U.S. military).

Soldiers and Koreans were the two categories of people not on the rice
ration, so it is not easy to account for them, and the first estimates
of deaths simply omitted them.

See www.warbirdforum.com/hirodead.htm



all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Cub Driver]

>Rubbish. Soldiers have a duty to "die for their country". Innocent civilians
>don't.

Somehow I doubt that anyone who could write these words ever served in
the military, in war or peace. When I carried a rifle for the U.S.
Army, I was an innocent as any civilian--more innocent than many.

What I hear speaking is someone who knows that he never was and never
will be sent in harm's way.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[BUFDRVR]

>By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.

Using your definition I'd agre as well. My definition didn't address
discriminate versus indiscriminate since I don't believe the USAF or its
predecessor the USAAF ever bombed indiscriminately. "Saturation bombing" was
necessary to achieve the desired .pd on the designated target due to the poor
bombing accuracy. No USAAF crew was ever sent out during WW II and told to;
"just drop your weapons where ever".

>a B-52 bomb string covers some ground, but Arc Light
>missions were specific targets and virtually always jungle areas, not
>cities or villages.

However, they were striking general areas. The target may have been specific,
but it was specific in regards to general area.

Does that make sense? Did I type that correctly?


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[BUFDRVR]

>> Yes, the use of nuclear weapons is a war crime.
>
>It wasn't at the time, which is what counts. Ex post facto, and all that.
>

Nuclear weapons, now (26 JAN 04) *are not* out lawed by Geneva or any other
Laws of Armed Conflict. Unlike their more abundant counterparts like Chemical
Weapons and Biological Weapons, Nuclear weapons *are* legal.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[Cub Driver]

>Does one of the last major IJ Naval bases, and an army division with
>headquarters count?

The role of Second General Army at Hiroshima is often misunderstood.
It was created when the likelihood of invasion loomed.

First General Army was responsible for most of Honshu (the large
island, including Tokyo and the Kanto Plain) and the northern islands.
Second General Army was responsible for southern Honshu (thus its
location at Hiroshima) and the southern islands, notably Kyushu, where
the Americans planned and the Japanese expected the invasion to land.

This was not merely a division headquarters, nor even the hq of an
area army or a corps. It was responsible for millions of men,
including the upwards of 600,000 who would meet the Americans on the
beaches of Kyushu.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Cub Driver]

>I didn't say anything is better than nuclear. I said that bombing a civilian
>target with a nuke and killing thousands of civilians is a war crime. Do you
>understand now?

I don't, no. Is killing thousands of civilians with incendiaries or
high explosives not a war crime?

What about killing thousands of civilians with the bayonet and
machine-gun?

What about killing thousands of civilians by starving them to death?

55 million people died in World War II. By your definition, the only
deaths not accountable as war crimes was the soldiers (poor bloody
soldiers) and those who died in retail numbers (i.e. in batches of
less than multi-thousands).



all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[BUFDRVR]

>I said that bombing a civilian
>target with a nuke and killing thousands of civilians is a war crime.

Only if the military significance of striking said target is outweighed by the
civilian casulties. Who decides this? The victors, so if you strike a
predominantly civilian target (with conventional or nuclear weapons) and you
lose, you better hope you've got some good "data" to back up your call.

>Do you understand now?

Uhh, you're the one who appears entirely clueless on this subject.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

[George Z. Bush]

cypher745 wrote:
> Rats,
>
>
> It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a communist.
> Is it true?
>
> I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.

C'mon.....you're better than that. Please don't sink to his level; it's really
not necessary.

George Z.

[Rob van Riel]

"cypher745" > wrote in message >...
> Rats,
> It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a communist.
> Is it true?
> I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.

Now you've gotten me curious: Just what do his political convictions
have to do with his opinion about a means of waging war, or his
apparent hatred of the US? It is quite possible to not take political
beliefs to the point where they become automatic grounds for a holy
war against all those of opposing views.

I'm also forced to note that the way in which you refer to socialism
and communism implies that these views of the world are somehow
shameful. Am I reading too much into it, or is this true?

Rob

[Tex Houston]

"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
> Rats,
>
>
> It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a
communist.
> Is it true?
>
> I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.
>
> Thank you.


Sure you didn't mean to use alluded? Otherwise your comment makes no sense.

Tex

[cypher745]

I most certainly did intend use alluded. Serves me right for staying up till
3 am. I apologize for the confusion.



"Tex Houston" > wrote in message
...
>
> "cypher745" > wrote in message
> m...
> > Rats,
> >
> >
> > It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a
> communist.
> > Is it true?
> >
> > I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.
> >
> > Thank you.
>
>
> Sure you didn't mean to use alluded? Otherwise your comment makes no
sense.
>
> Tex
>
>
>

[cypher745]

My statement,that I was just trying to understand his point of view, meant
just that.

I believe I have been nothing but respectful of my Kiwi friend. I was not
being judgmental. I was trying to understand his contention that the wars in
Korea, Viet Nam and to a lesser extent Iraq were unjust.


"cypher745" > wrote in message
m...
> Rats,
>
>
> It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a
communist.
> Is it true?
>
> I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.
>
> Thank you.
>
>

[Ed Rasimus]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:00:49 -0600, "S. Sampson" >
wrote:

>"Ed Rasimus" > wrote
>>
>> By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.
>
>If you limit it to iron. The most common carpet bombing in Vietnam
>was the defoliant chemicals.
>
>Maybe there's a more correct term, as "bombing" seems to signify
>explosives, rather than biological weapons.
>
It is a giant leap of language to translate defoliants into
"biological weapons"--In fact a slightly (but only slightly) lesser
assault on language would be to label defoliants as "chemical
weapons".

But, the essential assault is the implication that an herbicide is
somehow homicidal. When you kill the dandelions in your lawn with a
broadcast herbicide, are you somehow guilty of a version of genocide.

I certainly don't want to get into the debate about long term health
impacts of excessive exposure to Agent Orange, but I think we can all
agree that immediate physiological impact on humans (or even
livestock) from Agent Orange exposure was non-existant.

And, I don't think application of a "weapon" that doesn't have an
effect on the enemy for more than twenty years is tactically sound.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[Ed Rasimus]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 06:34:32 -0500, Cub Driver
> wrote:

>
>Bombing the rain forest, as the B-52s did in Vietnam, is a bit of a
>stretch but would probably qualify since the intention wasn't to hit
>any specific thing on the ground, but to make areas of the ground
>uninhabitable.

I'll disagee with that conclusion. Arc Light strikes were designed
against specific concentrations of enemy troops or supplies. Selection
of a target for an Arc Light strike was done by field commanders who
either had contact with enemy forces or intel to identify location of
enemy forces.

Had there been an intent "to make areas uninhabitable" the pattern of
Arc Light strikes would have been a lot more apparent.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[Ed Rasimus]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:16:11 +1300, "Rats" > wrote:

>"Steve Hix" > wrote in message
...
>> Does one of the last major IJ Naval bases, and an army division with
>> headquarters count?
>
>http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa072700a.htm
>
>Read this you American ignoramus.

I read it. It is an historical recounting of the two attacks. (Let me
note that your personal characterizations of posters to the thread
lend very little to your argument. Try to stay with unemotional facts,
and listen occasionally rather than rant.)
>
>> Note Ed Rasimus' post elsewhere in this thread. (If you don't care to,
>> the digest answer is, you have no argument.)
>
>Read the above link and then come back and argue. I suspect you will have no
>arguments.

I found nothing in the article to indicate a war crime or an intent to
do anything other than end the war without further incredible loss of
lives. A bit of study might disclose to you that the two bombs
resulted in fewer casualties than several other conventional
campaigns.
>
>Soldiers have a duty to die. That is what they are there for. Civilians do
>not ask to be bombed.

So, you are implying that I failed in my duty?

While civilian casualties and collateral damage are to be avoided,
they also are inevitable. That's one superiority of democracies over
other governments--the civilians get to have an input in the decision
on whether or not to engage in a war.

Once engaged, however, the obligation is to end the war conclusively
as quickly as possible.

>
>I didn't say anything is better than nuclear. I said that bombing a civilian
>target with a nuke and killing thousands of civilians is a war crime. Do you
>understand now?
>
Bombing military targets and civilian operated industrial centers is a
necessary part of war. Failing to win the war is a crime.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[Greg Hennessy]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:10:06 +1300, "Rats" > wrote:


>Rubbish. Soldiers have a duty to "die for their country". Innocent civilians
>don't. As a soldier myself


RU ********. If you were what you claimed, then you'd be wholly aware of
article 28 of the 4th convention

"The presence of a protected person [a civilian] may not be used to render
certain points or areas immune from military operations."


>I was ready to kill the enemy soldier and to die
>at his hands if I failed. Dropping nukes on a civilian population is a war
>crime.

Oh really ? Care to quote the audience the chapter and verse on that.

>
>Do you hear any complaints from me regarding precision guided missiles?
>

Of course you will detail the stocks of precision guided missiles to hand
in 1945.

>> If I am out of line with that statement I apologize. But I don't think I
>am.
>
>You are.
>
>> Could I ask where you are from and why it is that you hate the US?
>
>I am from NZ and I do not hate the US as much as I pity the fools

Ohh, it does 'Mr T' impressions also.


greg

--
You do a lot less thundering in the pulpit against the Harlot
after she marches right down the aisle and kicks you in the nuts.

[Matt Wiser]

(BUFDRVR) wrote:
>>This is about cluster bombs being
>>used indiscriminately and killing civilians.
>
>If its about the indiscriminate use of CBUs,
>no problem since neither the UK
>nor the US employed *any* weapon indiscriminately.
>
>If the issue is UXO from CBU employment, this
>is another matter and one I
>believe both the UK and US have done there best
>to deal with. On averag there's
>going to be an approximate 10% dud rate for
>CBU submunitions (BLUs). In both
>Afghanistan and Iraq, leaflets were dropped
>warning people to stay away from
>the unexploded BLUs. Because of the high illiteracy
>rate in Afghanistan, the
>leaflets were in picture form. Because of the
>remote areas where CBUs were used
>in Afghanistan, civilian contact with UXO is
>minimal. Iraq is a different
>story, however a successful one. Submunition
>dispenser use was pretty heavy in
>Iraq and included everything from air delivered
>to Army ATACMS. Use was
>confined, as much as operationally practicable,
>to use away from major
>population areas. With all the use of CBUs in
>Iraq, and they are still a very
>important weapon, the low civilian incident
>rate (by comparison of quantity
>dropped) speaks well for allied air and ground
>forces.
>
>>Those accountable should be punished for their
>actions.
>
>Current CBUs meet all international requirements
>for a legal weapon, thus no
>punishment is warrented.
>
>
>BUFDRVR
>
>"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those
>bomb doors open if it harelips
>everyone on Bear Creek"
I'll agree with that. The problem is not the weapon, it's the enemy putting
his military assets in civilian areas to try and make them immune to attack.
Didn't work, though.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[Matt Wiser]

Liberals and loony leftists have never heard of LGBs, JDAM or JSOW. To them,
one civilian killed by a off-target bomb is equal to Auschwitz. They also
overlook the actions of the enemy that put legitimate military targets such
as tanks, APCs, SAM and artillery batteries, radars, C3 vehicles, etc. in
civilian neighborhoods. The onus for the civilian casualties that result
from attacks is not on the attacker, it's the defender's fault for putting
said civilians at risk.
And if CBUs are available and the type of target calls for them, I would
use them. Period. War is not a game, and there are no referees.
And there's no Marquis of Quesenbery rules of war. Fair fights mean I bring
my people home alive, and screw the enemy.








"tscottme" > wrote:
>
>Rats > wrote in message
...
>
>>
>> Umm, what the **** are you going on about?
>This is about cluster bombs
>being
>> used indiscriminately and killing civilians.
>Those accountable should
>be
>> punished for their actions. The original poster
>said that Saddam and
>co
>> should be sued as well. To this I agreed and
>also added the US
>presidents
>> he'd conveniently left out.
>>
>
>Who said anything about indiscriminate use of
>cluster bombs? You
>liberals think the only bombing ever done is
>either carpet bombing or
>randomly dropped.
>
>--
>
>Scott
>--------
>The French, God bless them, are finally joining
>the war against Islamic
>extremism. Their targets, which will now confront
>the full force of
>l'état, are schoolgirls who wear Muslim head
>scarves in French public
>schools.
> Wall Street Journal
>
>


Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[Matt Wiser]

Charles Gray > wrote:
>On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:59:31 -0500, "Mike Yared"
>
>wrote:
>
>>Cluster bombs called 'war crime'
>>Britain's use of cluster bombs in Iraq, similar
>to the ones used by the
>>United States military, is a "war crime" and
>should be referred to the
>>International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution,
>academics, lawyers and
>>human rights activists in London said earlier
>this week.
>>at http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040123-083737-4342r.htm
>>
>>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein
>first? Or the late Soviet leaders
>>for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of
>Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
>>Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan?
>Will the late Yuri
>>Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as
>war criminals in historical
>>terms?
>
>
> Well, you should check out the full article--
>this is a group of
>people, who seem to have little credibility--
>even Human Rights watch
>isn't in their corner.
>
> Honestly, with a very few exceptonis (Chemical
>and Biological, and
>strategic nukes), as I understand it, the manner
>of hte use of the
>weapon is what defines whether or not it is
>a warcrime.
> Using a cluster bomb on a infantry column
>is fine. Using one one a
>group of peacefully demonstrating civilians
>is a crime.
> They also rather miss the point that while
>yes, a Cluster bomb will
>kill over a larger area, in some cases it can
>actually be less
>dangerous to civilians than an ordinary bomb--
>if you have a group of
>people in a building that is in the AOE of a
>cluster bomb most damage
>will be restricted to the facade and outer doors--
>if you accidently
>or on purpose drop a 500/1000lb bomb next to
>it, damage is likely to
>reach...considerably further inside.
>>
>
HRW I don't mind. It's the loony left like the Socialist Worker's Party
(frequently visiting my old college and very disappointed in the lack of
support they get), Ramsey Clark and his WWP fronts like ANSWER and the "International
Action Center", and so forth. A lot of those making the CBU claim are prewar
apologists for Saddam's regime.I'd show these folks the mass graves, torture
and rape rooms, and execution chambers that Saddam's goons were running 24/7
and ask them if they still supported the now jailed Butcher of Baghdad.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[Krztalizer]

>>
>>I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never
>seen or
>>heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?
>

Personally, I think its a direct translation from the wartime German phrase. I
have the postwar interviews carried out at Schleswig and back in the UK, where
defense industry and military brass were questioned concerning the
effectiveness of Allied bombing. My specific interest is in the Allied
destruction of airfields, so that's what I am referring to here - in those
attacks, the Germans (all the way up to Goering), agreed that (paraphrasing,
but very similar wording in many cases) "unless a bomb carpet was used, damage
to the runways and aprons would not be sufficient to make the airfield unusable
for more than a few hours or a day/two at the most." The Germans had become
masters of the war between "shovel and bomb" and proved quite capable of
standing things back up after a short time. This could be done if the bombs
fell scattered, by aircraft releasing at different moments or different
altitudes, but not if the "bomb carpet" technique was used. Evaluating the
attacks that these Germans were discussing shows that they meant heavy bombers
('viermots') in tight formations, all dropping their bombs in a string, as
opposed to dumping all of them in a tight bundle. At Burg-bei-Magdeburg and
other jet airfields struck on 10 April 45, the bomb craters stitched their way
across the facility, leaving no usable tracks for air operations. It was the
last time the airfield was used during the war.

>I think of it as area bombing. The ultimate example would be the March
>10, 1945, fire bombing of Tokyo. Though that was incendiary rather
>than high explosive, it was planned to cover whole square miles of a
>city.

The Germans appear to have never used the term "bomb carpet" in any other cases
than the one I discribed above. "Area bombing" has nothing to do with
precision bombing of a specific industrial target and I don't think the term
should be used or confused with "carpet bombing", which was used against
factories, airfields, marshalling yards, and occasionally troop/supply
concentrations.

Just my opinion of course.

v/r
Gordon
<====(A+C====>
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

[Krztalizer]

>
>>I am from NZ and I do not hate the US as much as I pity the fools
>
>Ohh, it does 'Mr T' impressions also.

Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
-warning prior to making such statements?

Thank you.

v/r
Gordon

[Greg Hennessy]

On 26 Jan 2004 19:06:22 GMT, (Krztalizer) wrote:

>>
>>>I am from NZ and I do not hate the US as much as I pity the fools
>>
>>Ohh, it does 'Mr T' impressions also.
>
>Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
>-warning prior to making such statements?
>

;-)


greg




--
You do a lot less thundering in the pulpit against the Harlot
after she marches right down the aisle and kicks you in the nuts.

[Yeff]

On 26 Jan 2004 19:06:22 GMT, Krztalizer wrote:

> Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
> -warning prior to making such statements?

There's just something fundamentally *wrong* about a Squid drinking milk.
Maybe you need to spend a year or two back on the boat to regain some
perspective?

-Jeff B. (Zoomie, drinking Kool-Aid from a dirty glass)
yeff at erols dot com

[Krztalizer]

>> Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
>> -warning prior to making such statements?
>
>There's just something fundamentally *wrong* about a Squid drinking milk.

Geez, can't a guy eat breakfast? :))

>Maybe you need to spend a year or two back on the boat to regain some
>perspective?

That'd do it... I am currently catching daily increased hell for the amount
of time I spend "accidentally" driving past the Midway at its pier... Waiting
for the day when I can stand on the pointy end once more, remembering the stink
of the cats and feeling the roar of the wind over the bow.

>-Jeff B. (Zoomie, drinking Kool-Aid from a dirty glass)
>yeff at erols dot com

I can somewhat relate - three beers and one shot last weekend put me to sleep
at 7pm. >please< dont tell the aircrew boys!

v/r
Squidly

[Ragnar]

"ArtKramr" > wrote in message
...
> >ubject: Re: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
> >From: IBM
> >Date: 1/24/04 11:25 PM Pacific Standard Time
> >Message-id: <Xns947AEE42DF19Bibmsvpalorg
>
> >Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
> >> leaders for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968
> >> Invasion of Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will
> >> the late Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals
> >> in historical terms?
> >
> > Because they ( the lawyers ) are looney leftists.
> > A cluster bomb is no more illegal than a rifle bullet.
> > The use to which these instruments are put might constitute
> > a crime under certain conditions however.
> >
> > IBM
> >
>
> Lawyers as a voting block are 95% conservative.

Cite?

[Alan Minyard]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:00:49 -0600, "S. Sampson" > wrote:

>"Ed Rasimus" > wrote
>>
>> By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.
>
>If you limit it to iron. The most common carpet bombing in Vietnam
>was the defoliant chemicals.
>
>Maybe there's a more correct term, as "bombing" seems to signify
>explosives, rather than biological weapons.
>
The US did not use any biological weapons in SEA.

Al Minyard

[Alan Minyard]

On 26 Jan 2004 05:15:05 -0800, (Rob van Riel) wrote:

>"cypher745" > wrote in message >...
>> Rats,
>> It has been eluded to on this board that you are a socialist or a communist.
>> Is it true?
>> I only ask, because I am trying to understand your point of view.
>
>Now you've gotten me curious: Just what do his political convictions
>have to do with his opinion about a means of waging war, or his
>apparent hatred of the US? It is quite possible to not take political
>beliefs to the point where they become automatic grounds for a holy
>war against all those of opposing views.
>
>I'm also forced to note that the way in which you refer to socialism
>and communism implies that these views of the world are somehow
>shameful. Am I reading too much into it, or is this true?
>
>Rob

Socialism and communism are, and have repeatedly been shown to be,
immoral. They inevitably lead to dictatorship. They are very shameful,
and any intelligent person sees them as such.

Al Minyard

[S. Sampson]

"Alan Minyard" > wrote
> "S. Sampson" > wrote:
> >"Ed Rasimus" > wrote
> >>
> >> By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.
> >
> >If you limit it to iron. The most common carpet bombing in Vietnam
> >was the defoliant chemicals.
> >
> >Maybe there's a more correct term, as "bombing" seems to signify
> >explosives, rather than biological weapons.
> >
> The US did not use any biological weapons in SEA.

Poor choice of words, so I guess plants aren't really biological...

[Yeff]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:57:43 -0600, S. Sampson wrote:

> Poor choice of words, so I guess plants aren't really biological...

Which biological weapons were used in SEA?

-Jeff B.
yeff at erols dot com

[S. Sampson]

"Yeff" > wrote
> S. Sampson wrote:
>
> > Poor choice of words, so I guess plants aren't really biological...
>
> Which biological weapons were used in SEA?

M-14 and M-16 were used against the "carbon based units."

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
"Ragnar" > wrote:

> "ArtKramr" > wrote in message
> ...
> > >ubject: Re: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
> > >From: IBM
> > >Date: 1/24/04 11:25 PM Pacific Standard Time
> > >Message-id: <Xns947AEE42DF19Bibmsvpalorg
> >
> > >Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
> > >> leaders for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968
> > >> Invasion of Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will
> > >> the late Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals
> > >> in historical terms?
> > >
> > > Because they ( the lawyers ) are looney leftists.
> > > A cluster bomb is no more illegal than a rifle bullet.
> > > The use to which these instruments are put might constitute
> > > a crime under certain conditions however.
> >
> > Lawyers as a voting block are 95% conservative.
>
> Cite?

This I gotta see.

[Ragnar]

"Steve Hix" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "Ragnar" > wrote:
>
> > "ArtKramr" > wrote in message
> > ...
> > > >ubject: Re: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
> > > >From: IBM
> > > >Date: 1/24/04 11:25 PM Pacific Standard Time
> > > >Message-id: <Xns947AEE42DF19Bibmsvpalorg
> > >
> > > >Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
> > > >> leaders for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the
1968
> > > >> Invasion of Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan?
Will
> > > >> the late Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war
criminals
> > > >> in historical terms?
> > > >
> > > > Because they ( the lawyers ) are looney leftists.
> > > > A cluster bomb is no more illegal than a rifle bullet.
> > > > The use to which these instruments are put might constitute
> > > > a crime under certain conditions however.
> > >
> > > Lawyers as a voting block are 95% conservative.
> >
> > Cite?
>
> This I gotta see.

You won't. Art assiduously avoids all attempts to keep him honest.

[Rob van Riel]

Alan Minyard > wrote in message >...
> Socialism and communism are, and have repeatedly been shown to be,
> immoral.

Care to supply an example? A real example, mind you, not one that
roughly reads "such-and-such really nasty person did really nasty
things in the name of communism", as such examples can be found for
any religion or conviction, and are moreover mostly based on leaders
who went directly against the ideals they claimed to represent.

> They inevitably lead to dictatorship.

Not true. They have been used repeatedly by power hungry individuals
to incite a revolution against thouroughly rotten regimes. Said power
hungry individuals then proceeded to replace the previous rotten
regime with yet another rotten dictatorship, which had nothing even
remotely in common with either socialism or communism. I should point
out that the replaced regimes were usually every bit as bad, and
didn't even call themselved socialist or communist.

I don't think either doctrine has ever been implemented anywhere.
Perversions based on communism have, and much harm was done by those,
but they were perversions.

I'll grant you one thing though. Communism requires an ideal humanity
to work, and it is very naive to believe such a thing is available.
Attemting to implement it with less than ideal humans gives ruthless
individuals way too many opportunities to seize power and corrupt the
whole system.


> They are very shameful, and any intelligent person sees them as such.

Such lovely reasoning. I'm right, and any who disagree with me are
utterly stupid. Gotta love that style.


Rob

[Jack]

On 1/27/04 3:08 AM, in article
, "Rob van Riel"
> wrote:


> I don't think either [socialism or communism] has ever been implemented
> anywhere.

> Communism requires an ideal humanity to work....
> Attempting to implement it with less than ideal humans gives ruthless
> individuals way too many opportunities to seize power and corrupt the
> whole system.

Socialism and communism would require perfect god-like LEADERS. Perfect
CITIZENS do not need leaders at all.

Since we will only ever have imperfect citizens and leaders, communism is
the worst sort of philosophy. Democracy may not be the ideal form of
government, but it is better than any other mankind has devised.

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word:
equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks
equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint
and servitude."- Alexis de Tocqueville

"Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election
by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
- George Bernard Shaw

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything."
- Josef Stalin


The refinement of democracy that is our Republic gives to us imperfect
humans our very best chance at freedom. Socialism and communism never really
speak in terms of freedom, but only in terms of equality. Enforced equality
is slavery and you may have all of that you like.



-------
Jack
-------

[John Mullen]

Ragnar wrote:
> "John Mullen" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Ragnar wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Mike Yared" > wrote in message
...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
>>>
>>>leaders
>>>
>>>
>>>>for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968 Invasion
>
> of
>
>>>>Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will the late Yuri
>>>>Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals in historical
>>>>terms?
>>>
>>>
>>>The lefties involved in these cases don't sue guys like Stalin because
>
> they
>
>>>know what he would do to them. Its easier and more profitable to whine
>>>about the USA because they know they can get away with it.
>>
>>
>>Stalin is dead.
>
>
> Thank you Captain Obvious. I'm sure other readers caught the point without
> being an ass.
>
>
Ok. As I didn't, obviously, as you say, because of being an ass, would
you care to explain it to me without referring to legal proceedings
against long-dead individuals?

Or were you just breaking wind?

John

[Rob van Riel]

Jack > wrote in message >...
> On 1/27/04 3:08 AM, in article
> , "Rob van Riel"
> > wrote:
>
> > Communism requires an ideal humanity to work....
> > Attempting to implement it with less than ideal humans gives ruthless
> > individuals way too many opportunities to seize power and corrupt the
> > whole system.
>
> Socialism and communism would require perfect god-like LEADERS. Perfect
> CITIZENS do not need leaders at all.

Depends on your definition of perfection. If you mean this to include
omniscience, you are right. Otherwise, perfect citizens still require
leadership.


> Since we will only ever have imperfect citizens and leaders, communism is
> the worst sort of philosophy. Democracy may not be the ideal form of
> government, but it is better than any other mankind has devised.

You say this as though democracy and communism are incompatible. I
don't think communism places any restrictions on how leadership is
selected.


> "Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word:
> equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks
> equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint
> and servitude."- Alexis de Tocqueville

With all due respect, this person has no idea what he's talking about.
There are many forms of democracy, and the majority offer not a trace
of equality, and although socialism, like just about any philosophy,
requires some restraint by the populace, it has nothing to do with
servitude, in fact, both it and communism practically demand that it
be abolished. Also, democracy is a means by which leadership is
selected, and has nothing to do with the policies said leadership
implements, which is the domain in which socialism (and many others)
fall.


> "Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election
> by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
> - George Bernard Shaw

Quite right, thus the law can indeed be bought and sold, and often it
is. I hope you don't consider this a good thing.


> "Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
> Those who count the votes decide everything."
> - Josef Stalin

A lesson well learned and applied, it seems, by the current US
administration.


> The refinement of democracy that is our Republic gives to us imperfect
> humans our very best chance at freedom.

Actually, US society seems to give the ruthless and strong a carte
blanche to trample those weaker or more decent. Might makes right only
gives you the right to opress or be opressed.
Unrestricted freedom, which you appear to desire, has a different
name: anarchy.


> Socialism and communism never really
> speak in terms of freedom, but only in terms of equality.

An equal measure of freedom for all doesn't seem so bad to me. Some
restraints are necessary in any society, and I'd rather see the same
restrictions applied to everyone.


> Enforced equality is slavery and you may have all of that you like.

Utter nonsense. In a slavery situation there are masters and slaves.
Since these are by definition unequal, equality, whether enforced or
not, precludes slavery.

Rob

[Eunometic]

Stephen Harding > wrote in message >...
> Emmanuel Gustin wrote:
> > "sddso" > wrote in message
> >
> >>Point 1 has it completely backwards. As George Orwell pointed out circa
> >>1944, the objective result from war protesters is that the totalitarian,
> >>non-civilized powers (aka enemies of the United States and Allied
> >>nations) are given aid and comfort;
> >
> > By your reasoning, democratic powers should be at a disadvantage
> > in warfare. This runs contrary to the historical evidence. States with
> > democratic, law-abiding governments have a better record in war
> > than dictatorships: They are both less likely to start unwinnable
> > conflicts and more efficient in fighting the war they get involved in.
> > Allowing criticism makes government more efficient, not less.
> > An answerable government can call on the loyalty of the soldiers
> > and citizens, and unaccountable government can expect support
> > only as when it has victories to boast of.
>
> Not so certain this is entirely true Emmanuel.
>
> I believe you're correct that democratic governments are less
> likely to get involved in a war to begin with, but once involved,
> the democratic process can be quite undermining to a war effort.

Well it seems to me that democratic governments you refer to are
merely the english speaking island nations and being an island or
independant continent may have as much to do with it than democracy.
Really and empirical analysis is in order here.

The theorems of von Clauswitz state that a population must be ready
pschologically and poltically for war. I believe the aftermatch of
Vietnam brought new credibily to the 19th century Prussian
theoretician in US Military and other circles.

von Clausiwitz was analysing a Prussian Defeat by the French (who so
often fought wars to prevent a rival through the various German states
unifying) and asserted that the Prussians were not ready to fight in
anyway.

Since Gulf war one US populations have been extensively "briefed up"
and the press extensively managed. A number of factors seem to have
influenced the Western population and US senators into the Gulf War 1
and marginialised the opposition. These include the baby incubator
scam in Gulf war one. They Weapons of Mass Destruction "Beleive us
they're there somewhere" shows that western public opinon migh be
manipulated as well if not better than a dictatorship.

Personally I have no problem with invading Iraq for the oil should it
be necessary for my interests. Its kind of like those western range
wars over cattlement upstream cutting of the water supply to guy
downstream. (Only without the romance between the cattlemens son and
daughter)

Unfortunately hyped atrocities are also a characteristic of western
democracies making war. They seem to be every way as bad as the ones
circulating in the dictatorships.

>
> Enemies of democracies have an added tool in undermining the war
> effort of their adversaries. They can manipulate public opinion to
> some degree.
>
> Lincoln was saved from defeat by timely victories over Confederates
> in the fall of 1864, when it seemed to the general public a bloody
> stalemate had largely been achieved.

Pity really.

> We all know the antiwar
> movement of the Vietnam period paralyzed the American government
> politically during the early 70's, to the point funding for it
> was about to be stopped.

Oil, Israel, infleuntial Jewish Population in USA, attidudes against
marxism all played a part.

Irak may well turn into a Vietnam if the Population can not be won
over.


If the Baathist insurgents doing their
> thing in Iraq right now have any political savvy, they should
> be very energetic about inflicting casualties on American forces
> in country around fall of this year. They may have a shot at
> snuffing out the war effort, and replacing a president with their
> efforts.


VietCong commited many atrocities on their own people. They still
won.

I suppose there won't be any muslim prostitues with razor blades in
the vagina to demoralised drug ****ed conscripts.


>
> Meanwhile, Stalin and Hitler kept their countries fighting via
> raw brutality. Difficult to see a democracy standing up to that
> sort of punishment without an exceptionally skilled leader keeping
> public opinion "properly" directed.

The German populations had plenty of reasons to fight; though ther
were very trepidatious.



>
> > Everyone who is foolish enough to beleive in 'efficient dictatorship'
> > should study the history of WWII more closely. The waste and
> > stupidity of which dictatorial regimes are capable are almost
> > beyond belief.
>
> True enough. Probably in a democracy, the incompetents would be
> weeded out more quickly.

There are no democracies in the west apart from switzerland at the
local government. They are all 'republics' or commonwelaths' in which
officials are elected to represent the peoples interests.

Because to the Labyrithn rules, the extreme expense and the need to
raised money and borker deals and the development of elites the people
will is not democractically enforced.

> However, there's nothing to prevent a
> train of incompetents getting important, war effort jobs. Look
> at the people Lincoln was saddled with in his own administration.
> The Secretary of War was an outright bandito but due to political
> reasons, kept his job for a while.
>
> Political pressures make democratic leaders do dumb things too!
>
>
> SMH

[Keith Willshaw]

"Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message
...
> "Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message
> ...
>
> > The totalitarian nations started those conflicts at the time of their
> > choosing with their large conscript armies fully mobilised trained,
> > equipped and battle ready while those of the allies were either
> > very small (like the Americans and British) or underfunded,
> > demoralised and ill led like the French and South Koreans.
>
> I think that is a too superficial analysis.
>
> It is easy to condemn the French Army of 1940 as "underfunded,
> demoralised, and ill led", because it quickly lost the battle. But
> that ignores that France had a smaller population than Germany,
> that the age group fit for military service had been reduced by the
> slaughter of WWI, and that France in the years before the war had
> only 1/3 of the industrial strength of Germany -- a production of
> 20 million tons of steel, for example, as opposed to Germany's 65.

Well by 1939 relatively few of those who had been fit for service
in 1918 were still young enough to still be of military age and
German losses in WW1 were pretty heavy too so that excuse
wont wash.

As for steel production France had more tanks available for
front line service than Germany and although they had some
deficiencies so did the Panzer units which had a far higher
proportion of PkW 1 and 2's than was desirable.


> Under these conditions one should not be amazed that the French
> forces were weaker than the German forces; on the contrary the
> real amazing fact is that they were almost a match.

Numerically they may well have been superior, the problem was
that were too static and wedded to the doctrines of defensive
warfare. The potential danger of a properly led and motivated
French army was shown by the counterattack of DeGaulle's
4th Armored Division on the Meuse bridgehead but it was
too little too late.

> The 'weak'
> French democracy actually achieved a level of effort that Nazi
> Germany would probably not match until late in the war. The
> military mobilisation ratio was 1 in 8. Nor were French politicians
> inclined to micro-managing the war effort in the style of Hitler;
> in fact it could be argued that they left too much to the generals.
>

The problem is the doctrine adopted by the generals was
for the most part seriously flawed and they found themselves
unable to cope with a war of manoeveur

> Evidently much of the effort was wasted -- too much was spent
> on the Maginot line and on one of the world's most modern and
> powerful fleets, and too little on the air force. The policy of
> 'corporate welfare' towards arms manufacturers in the years
> between the two wars had the effect of discouraging innovation,
> and gave the military too much outdated equipment. The large
> number of reservists called on were too poorly trained and the
> officers corps failed to train them.
>

ie they were underfunded, demoralised and ill-led. The courage
of individual French soldiers is not an issue despite what some
of the more rabid posters claim, it was their leadership that
was at fault.Well led units like those of LeClerc would prove
just what Frenchmen could do.

> But Germany's level of preparedness should not be overestimated
> either. When Hitler plunged his country into war, the air force's
> supply of bombs was tought to be sufficient for only three weeks
> of war. The most numerous tanks in the army were PzKw.I and II
> 'tin cans' barely fit for combat. The army still had a large number
> of 77mm guns dating back to WW1. The fleet was 'under
> construction', even the U-boat force was barely capable of
> operating. Besides 43 first-line divisions, the Germans too had
> 51 newly mobilised second-line divisions. Enthusiasm for war
> among the people was almost non-existent.
>

Sure but its army was fully mobilised, well trained and led
for the most part by able Generals with sound modern doctrines
for waging war.

> Britain may have a small army -- traditionally -- but it had an air
> force that was a match for the Luftwaffe and was outpacing it, and
> of course a powerful fleet.

Absolutely but much of that fleet was made up of obsolete
or obsolescent warships and the army was still for the most
part equipped with the same weapons that had been used
in 1918. The RAF had (rightly IMHO) been allocated
the lions share of waht funds were available and so of course
were in the best situation at the outbreak of war.

> The USA had an extremely small army,
> but the effects of isolatationist and pacificist voices should not be
> overrated either: FDR's programs to expand the armed forces on
> a huge scale were approved by Congress, which certainly was
> sensitive to popular opinion.
>

And yet when war came to the US on Dec 7 1941 that nation
was fundamentally unprepared and the IJN ran rampant for 6 months
in the Pacific while German U-boats devastated US shipping within
sight of the US coastline.

When fully mobilised democracies may well have a better track
record but there's little doubt that in the opening phases
of the major wars of the 20th century they were unprepared
and consequently a great many men died unnecessarily.

Keith

[Keith Willshaw]

"Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message
...
> "Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message
> ...
>
> > Well by 1939 relatively few of those who had been fit for service
> > in 1918 were still young enough to still be of military age and
> > German losses in WW1 were pretty heavy too so that excuse
> > wont wash.
>
> The frontline soldiers of 1940, to be of age between 18 and
> 25, would have to be born between 1914 and 1921.
> The war had caused a major demographic dip. In March 1940
> the French army had 415,000 men less than in May 1917,
> despite a quite high level of mobilisation.
>
> Yes, the German population of course also had suffered, but
> Germany had twice the population of France, and therefore
> it did not have to mobilise to the same extent.
>
> > As for steel production France had more tanks available for
> > front line service than Germany and although they had some
> > deficiencies so did the Panzer units which had a far higher
> > proportion of PkW 1 and 2's than was desirable.
>
> Yes, but that is exactly my point. That the French had more
> and better tanks than the Germans, _despite_ having only
> a third of the industrial base, indicates that they had not
> neglected to prepare for war as much as it is often averred.
>

I dont believe that follows at all. There is MUCH more
to preparation than simply building more tanks. The
parlous state of the French Air Forces and the poor
state of training of the army speak volumes about
lack of preparedness,

> > Numerically they may well have been superior, the problem was
> > that were too static and wedded to the doctrines of defensive
> > warfare.
>
> Absolutely -- the French generalship was poor. But you can
> hardly blame French pacificists for the poor intellectual
> quality of French generals, most of whom were veterans
> of WWI.
>

I dont recall blaming French pacifists, rather I pointed to the
lack of vision and leadership of the French Generals and
their almost mystical belief in the value of fixed fortifications.

> > Sure but its army was fully mobilised, well trained and led
> > for the most part by able Generals with sound modern doctrines
> > for waging war.
>
> The German army had combat experience from Poland.
> German performance in the Polish campaign was not
> always great, and that in the bloodless occupations of
> Austria and the Rhineland was sometimes disastrous.
>

Sure but while the Wehrmacht was busy in Poland
the French had the opportunity to improve their
experience and training and didnt make very good
use of that time.

> > And yet when war came to the US on Dec 7 1941 that nation
> > was fundamentally unprepared and the IJN ran rampant for 6 months
> > in the Pacific while German U-boats devastated US shipping within
> > sight of the US coastline.
>
> But the US forces available in Dec 1941 were enough, over
> a longer period, to fight the Japanese to a standstill and shatter
> the backbone of their fleet. The flood of reinforcements only
> began to flow _after_ the tide had turned.
>
> As for the 'happy time' the U-boats were allowed to have,
> this was related more by fundamentally flawed thinking and
> carelessness of the authorities than by flaws in material
> preparation.
>

No sir, the lack of even the sort of extemporised escorts used
by the RN in 1939, trawlers with DC racks and an Oerlikon,
were classic signs of flaws in material preparation as was the
reverse lend lease in which Britain and Canada supplied
US with a number of corvettes.

Keith

[sddso]

Emmanuel Gustin wrote:
> "sddso" > wrote in message
>
>
>>Point 1 has it completely backwards. As George Orwell pointed out circa
>>1944, the objective result from war protesters is that the totalitarian,
>>non-civilized powers (aka enemies of the United States and Allied
>>nations) are given aid and comfort;
>
>
> By your reasoning, democratic powers should be at a disadvantage
> in warfare. This runs contrary to the historical evidence. States with
> democratic, law-abiding governments have a better record in war
> than dictatorships: They are both less likely to start unwinnable
> conflicts and more efficient in fighting the war they get involved in.

M. Gustin has neatly neglected to point out that success in armed
conflict is composed of two elements:

1. Build a force.

2. Employ it.

The Western Allies -- largely through US know-how (not quite the same as
deliberate efforts) -- have become talented at Element One's physical
logistics aspects, and tolerably proficient at Element Two when one
confines the analysis to the operational level and below.

At the national/grand strategy level, Western nations are
quintessentially unwarlike, willfully unengaged until ire is aroused.
Problems of national consensus building and retention have yet to be
fully described, let alone analyzed and solved in stable, repeatable
fashion. Nations need to have the will to fight in the first place, the
fortitude to keep it during the struggle, and the patience to slog
through reversals.

The very openness of Western governmental structures makes them fertile
ground for antiwar groups, who have propagandized themselves into the
belief that they are the foremost moral agents now existing. The
populace in general is guilty of ever-shortening attention spans, which
the antiwar elements exploit to great advantage. Flaccidity of purpose,
and self-indulgent infatuation with comforts are also evident.

> Allowing criticism makes government more efficient, not less.
> An answerable government can call on the loyalty of the soldiers
> and citizens, and unaccountable government can expect support
> only as when it has victories to boast of.
>
> Everyone who is foolish enough to beleive in 'efficient dictatorship'
> should study the history of WWII more closely. The waste and
> stupidity of which dictatorial regimes are capable are almost
> beyond belief.

Too true. This can engender a sense of inevitability quite contrary to
the correlation of forces at the time. Anybody believing that Allied
victory in WWII was somehow preordained in an abstract sense has little
familiarity with the facts.

First, the Red Army did most of the gruntwork of destroying Nazi
Germany's armed forces. It's no great chore to argue that if the USSR
had not become involved, the Third Reich might still be in existence.

Second, the Western Alliance (read: Britain, the US, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand, with gallant help from a collection of stalwart but
tiny contributors, and China absorbing horrific punishment in tying down
a great chunk of Imperial Japanese forces) more fully developed and
exploited radar, and worked to huge advantage in exploiting
cryptanalysis and COMINT breakthroughs. Hardly any doubt remains that
that atomic bombs ended the War, but radar won it.

It is submitted that all conflicts in which the US has engaged have been
less than efficient, uncertain of outcome, in some cases real squeakers
(WWI is a notable case). Significant segments of the citizenry were in
most cases strongly opposed to the war at hand. This kind of runs
counter to the sly assertion that the country has been dashing about the
landscape, committing depredations against helpless victims where and
when the whim struck.
>
>
>>Navel-gazers and perpetually indignant activists who concede that the
>>likes of Saddam Hussein are unsavory, yet leap to condemn the Western
>>powers because the stray mass murderer is punished, or full (read:
>>ever-mounting) funding rarely gets bestowed on their pie-in-the-sky
>>fantasies like free health care, bureaucratically micromanaged child
>>"development," or arts grants for trashy garbage, suffer from the
>>odious, willfully uninformed thickheadedness known as moral
>>equivalizing. At best, they should be ignored; that their existence
>>continues to be suffered at all is a tribute to the forbearance,
>>strength, and patience of the Allied nations.
>
>
> "I have heard a lot of old lunatics rave, but never one like
> this" -- Hannibal Barcas.
>

Argument by dismissal is the tactic of losers.

I invite the group to consider the truth of something David Hackworth
(COL, USA, ret) noted in public, about one month after the airliner
attacks over two years ago.

The terrorists, he said, are unable to go at it toe-to-toe with the
armed forces of their enemies, so they choose instead to perpetrate
terror attacks against civil populations. Such tactics are aimed
directly at morale, at the will to resist.

Any effort by antiwar groups in nations targeted by the terrorists are
also aimed at the morale of civil populations. Thus, no difference
exists between the terrorists and the antiwar groups, so it's quite
proper to consider the antiwar groups as treasonous. The absence of
action against antiwar groups is in no sense a comment on the
righteousness of their cause.

[Emmanuel.Gustin]

sddso > wrote:

: At the national/grand strategy level, Western nations are
: quintessentially unwarlike, willfully unengaged until ire
: is aroused.

So what is the problem with that? Warfare is inherently
extremely costly, uncertain in outcome, and destructive.
To be 'quintessentially unwarlike' until it becomes
unavoidable to defend you essential interests seems,
IMHO, a sound and rational policy. Even the great
empires of the past preferred to pick and choose
their expansive wars carefully.

: First, the Red Army did most of the gruntwork of destroying Nazi
: Germany's armed forces. It's no great chore to argue that if the USSR
: had not become involved, the Third Reich might still be in existence.

It is -- of course it was a serious error to attack the
USSR, but the Reich would have lost the war even without
it.

: a great chunk of Imperial Japanese forces) more fully developed and
: exploited radar, and worked to huge advantage in exploiting
: cryptanalysis and COMINT breakthroughs. Hardly any doubt remains that
: that atomic bombs ended the War, but radar won it.

And this, incidentally, illustrates a vital advantage
enjoyed by the Western democracies. Both in the USSR
and in Germany scientific and technological development
was greatly handicapped by stupid decisions and politically
inspired doctrines. And the prosecution of politically or
racially 'challenged' scientist and engineers. This lead
to such aberrations of the mind as 'Aryan Physics' and
the communist approval of the non-evolutionary biology
of what-was-his-name...

German neglect to develop centimetric radars, for example,
was in no small part caused by authoritarian
bone-headedness. It had been declared on good authority
that it would never work, so nobody dared to put out his
neck and try it. In sharp contrast to the style of British
laboratories, where productive chaos was happily tolerated.

: Argument by dismissal is the tactic of losers.

Life is too short to waste time on dissecting
convoluted semi-lunatic rants.

: Any effort by antiwar groups in nations targeted by the terrorists are
: also aimed at the morale of civil populations. Thus, no difference
: exists between the terrorists and the antiwar groups, so it's quite
: proper to consider the antiwar groups as treasonous.

Ridiculous. This reaches the intellectual level of
'to save democracy, we have to destroy it first.'

Emmanuel Gustin

[Matt Wiser]

"Emmanuel.Gustin" > wrote:
>sddso > wrote:
>
>: At the national/grand strategy level, Western
>nations are
>: quintessentially unwarlike, willfully unengaged
>until ire
>: is aroused.
>
>So what is the problem with that? Warfare is
>inherently
>extremely costly, uncertain in outcome, and
>destructive.
>To be 'quintessentially unwarlike' until it
>becomes
>unavoidable to defend you essential interests
>seems,
>IMHO, a sound and rational policy. Even the
>great
>empires of the past preferred to pick and choose
>
>their expansive wars carefully.
>
>: First, the Red Army did most of the gruntwork
>of destroying Nazi
>: Germany's armed forces. It's no great chore
>to argue that if the USSR
>: had not become involved, the Third Reich might
>still be in existence.
>
>It is -- of course it was a serious error to
>attack the
>USSR, but the Reich would have lost the war
>even without
>it.
>
>: a great chunk of Imperial Japanese forces)
>more fully developed and
>: exploited radar, and worked to huge advantage
>in exploiting
>: cryptanalysis and COMINT breakthroughs. Hardly
>any doubt remains that
>: that atomic bombs ended the War, but radar
>won it.
>
>And this, incidentally, illustrates a vital
>advantage
>enjoyed by the Western democracies. Both in
>the USSR
>and in Germany scientific and technological
>development
>was greatly handicapped by stupid decisions
>and politically
>inspired doctrines. And the prosecution of politically
>or
>racially 'challenged' scientist and engineers.
>This lead
>to such aberrations of the mind as 'Aryan Physics'
>and
>the communist approval of the non-evolutionary
>biology
>of what-was-his-name...
>
>German neglect to develop centimetric radars,
>for example,
>was in no small part caused by authoritarian
>
>bone-headedness. It had been declared on good
>authority
>that it would never work, so nobody dared to
>put out his
>neck and try it. In sharp contrast to the style
>of British
>laboratories, where productive chaos was happily
>tolerated.
>
>: Argument by dismissal is the tactic of losers.
>
>Life is too short to waste time on dissecting
>
>convoluted semi-lunatic rants.
>
>: Any effort by antiwar groups in nations targeted
>by the terrorists are
>: also aimed at the morale of civil populations.
> Thus, no difference
>: exists between the terrorists and the antiwar
>groups, so it's quite
>: proper to consider the antiwar groups as treasonous.
>
>
>Ridiculous. This reaches the intellectual level
>of
>'to save democracy, we have to destroy it first.'
>
>Emmanuel Gustin
>
The mainstream antiwar groups-i.e those opposed to war on religious or
moral grounds are one thing: those who are opposed for political reasons-Ramsey
Clark and his WWP crowd come to mind are something else. Clark has been an
apologist for some really nasty people-Saddam and Milosevic, Noriega, Khadafy,
the Mullahs in Iran, Kim-Il Sung and his wacky son, the Sandinistas, the
PRC for Tianamen, even the Taliban after ENDURING FREEDOM got started. Openly
supporting the enemy could be prosecuted for giving aid and comfort to the
enemy, at best, and at most, treason. I'd toss Clark and his crowd of unreconstructed
Stalinists into Federal Prison on multiple charges: giving aid and comfort
to the enemy, treason, obstructing the national defense, violating the embargoes
against Iraq, Libya, N. Korea, and Cuba, and that's for starters.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[IBM]

"Emmanuel.Gustin" > wrote in news:bvgshk$s5ein$1@ID-
52877.news.uni-berlin.de:

[snip]

> racially 'challenged' scientist and engineers. This lead
> to such aberrations of the mind as 'Aryan Physics' and
> the communist approval of the non-evolutionary biology
> of what-was-his-name...

V. Lysenko ( vice J-B Lamarcke )

IBM

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[Puppinator]

"BUFDRVR" > wrote in message
...
> >I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never
seen
> >or
> >heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?
> >
>
> I generally dislike the term since it's often applied to the BUFF and
seems to
> mean to most in the world media; "dropping 6 or more bombs at once". The
> definition to most of the present and former aviators I know appears to be
> "bombing a target *area* rather than a target itself".
>
>
Carpet bombing: Large amounts of munitions dropped over an area to dispense
of bad guys and tactical targets.........in other words, opening all the
bays at once to achieve maximum use of force...WTF is wrong with that as
long as mission accomplished?
--
Pup
USAF, Retired
Go #88 UPS Racing, Detroit Red Wings,
Ohio State Buckeyes
__________________