Russia Likens U.S. Coalition Bombing of Raqa to WWII Dresden

[TomSea]

Russia Likens U.S. Coalition Bombing of Raqa to WWII Dresden
by Naharnet Newsdesk 13 hours ago

Russia on Sunday accused the U.S.-led coalition in Syria of having flattened Raqa with a Dresden-like bombing campaign and masking the destruction with a rush of humanitarian aid.

In a statement, the defense ministry said that Raqa -- the capital of the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed caliphate -- "inherited the fate of Dresden in 1945, razed to the ground by Anglo-American bombings."

U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces last week recaptured Raqa, the capital of IS' self-proclaimed caliphate and its last major stronghold in Syria.

Read more at: http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/237107-russia-likens-u-s-coalition-bombing-of-raqa-to-wwii-dresden

[stephen50right]

Let them think that. Let them fear Donald Trump and our military. That's a good thing.

Trump said many times during the 2016 presidential campaign that he was going to knock the hell out of ISIS. President Trump keeps yet another campaign promise.

[Suppressed]

Yeah, we kinda had to destroy the ancient city in order to save it.

[KingsX]

Yeah, we kinda had to destroy the ancient city in order to save it.

Dresden, a German cultural city filled to at least twice its size with war refugees [mostly  elderly, women and children fleeing the horrific Soviet Red Army advancing from the east],  was thought to be a safe zone.  It was firebombed by British and Americans towards the end of the war in Europe for no good reason.






http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11410633/Dresden-was-a-civilian-town-with-no-military-significance.-Why-did-we-burn-its-people.html

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[KingsX]

.

Ironically,  when Putin was a KGB agent in Soviet East Germany,  he and his family lived in Dresden.

Both Putin and Merkel lived in East Germany when the Berlin Wall 'mysteriously' fell on a very symbolic anniversary.

[stephen50right]

Dresden, a German cultural city filled to at least twice its size with war refugees [mostly  elderly, women and children fleeing the horrific Soviet Red Army advancing from the east],  was thought to be a safe zone.  It was firebombed by British and Americans towards the end of the war in Europe for no good reason.








http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11410633/Dresden-was-a-civilian-town-with-no-military-significance.-Why-did-we-burn-its-people.html

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<<< no good reason >>>

It was done to help to win the war.

Breaking the will of the Germans to fight is a good enough reason.

When Hitler was firebombing London, I doubt if there were any protests in Dresden or anywhere else in Germany over it.

[truth_seeker]

Bombing of German cities, followed bombing of British civilian area, such as London.

Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin (and other cities, too) were bombed for "good reason;" winning the war the Germans started.

I served during the Cold War in one of the medium sized industrial cities, which was bombed several times. Leveled. They made and transported military goods during WWII.

(Now they build high end aluminium Audis there).

It is easy after the fact of war, for leftists, crybabies, do-gooders, to bemoan how a war could have been conducted more humanely.   

[GtHawk]

<<< no good reason >>>

It was done to help to win the war.

Breaking the will of the Germans to fight is a good enough reason.

When Hitler was firebombing London, I doubt if there were any protests in Dresden or anywhere else in Germany over it.

Yes it was done to win the war, many heinous acts are committed in war, but you do a disservice to the average German at that time treating it as if they had a voice in what their government did. Unlike most times in America, like the Civil War and WWII Americans didn't face serious repercussions if they spoke out about their governments war actions, in Germany it would have gotten it's citizens imprisoned in the same facilities as the Jews or outright killed. It is interesting, though not surprising that the Russians  would make such a comparison as if their hands were clean of acts during as well as after the war was over.

[DemolitionMan]

<<< no good reason >>>

It was done to help to win the war.

Breaking the will of the Germans to fight is a good enough reason.

When Hitler was firebombing London, I doubt if there were any protests in Dresden or anywhere else in Germany over it.

Remember there were many cities that were firebombed. A good example, when the Japanese invaded China. They hit all the major population centers. In Malaysia, they could not find the switches to the flood lights and electricity. Stalingrad was razed into the ground. Warsaw was razed into the ground twice.

[KingsX]

<<< no good reason >>>

It was done to help to win the war.

No.  The war in Europe was already won by February 1945. 

 There was no good reason to bomb Dresden.  It was not a military target.  Dresden was a place of sanctuary for war refugees and American POWs. One famous American POW, Kurt Vonnegut, survived to write about the horrible firebombing inferno.

The beginning of the end of the war began with the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. 

My theory is... Hitler was assassinated and it was kept secret.

[DemolitionMan]

No,  The war in Europe was already won by February 1945. 

 There was no good reason to bomb Dresden.  It was not a military target.  Dresden was a place of sanctuary for war refugees and American POWs. One famous American POW survived to write about the horrible firebombing inferno.

The beginning of the end of the war began with the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. 

My theory is... Hitler was assassinated and it was kept secret.

The USAF report also states that two of Dresden's traffic routes were of military importance: north-south from Germany to Czechoslovakia, and east-west along the central European uplands.[39] The city was at the junction of the Berlin-Prague-Vienna railway line, as well as the Munich-Breslau, and Hamburg-Leipzig lines.[39] Colonel Harold E. Cook, a US POW held in the Friedrichstadt marshaling yard the night before the attacks, later said that "I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
http://thecontroversialbombingofdresden.weebly.com/military-significance-of-dresden.html

[stephen50right]

Yes it was done to win the war, many heinous acts are committed in war, but you do a disservice to the average German at that time treating it as if they had a voice in what their government did. Unlike most times in America, like the Civil War and WWII Americans didn't face serious repercussions if they spoke out about their governments war actions, in Germany it would have gotten it's citizens imprisoned in the same facilities as the Jews or outright killed. It is interesting, though not surprising that the Russians  would make such a comparison as if their hands were clean of acts during as well as after the war was over.

Your points are valid.

But if I could add, in hindsight, perhaps Dresden didn't need to be bombed to win the war. However at the time let's think about the facts...the Allies couldn't possibly have fully known what could have been in that city, IE manufacturing facilities, stored munitions, etc, that needed to be destroyed.

And let's be honest, if there was just one German in the city who died in the bombing, who could have joined the German army, and possibly killed just one Allied soldier, then it was worth the bombing. War is hell as we all know.

[DemolitionMan]

Your points are valid.

But if I could add, in hindsight, perhaps Dresden didn't need to be bombed to win the war. However at the time let's think about the facts...the Allies couldn't possibly have fully known what could have been in that city, IE manufacturing facilities, stored munitions, etc, that needed to be destroyed.

And let's be honest, if there was just one German in the city who died in the bombing, who could have joined the German army, and possibly killed just one Allied soldier, then it was worth the bombing. War is hell as we all know.

Good point.

[KingsX]

You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr  [famous American POW in Dresden at the time of the firebombing.]

[DemolitionMan]

You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame.

More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr  [famous American POW in Dresden at the time of the firebombing.]

You are forgetting Tokyo.Historian Richard Rhodes put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million.

Rhodes, Richard. "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". p 599. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks (1984) ISBN 0-684-81378-5.

[stephen50right]

No.  The war in Europe was already won by February 1945. 

 There was no good reason to bomb Dresden.  It was not a military target.  Dresden was a place of sanctuary for war refugees and American POWs. One famous American POW, Kurt Vonnegut, survived to write about the horrible firebombing inferno.

The beginning of the end of the war began with the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. 

My theory is... Hitler was assassinated and it was kept secret.

<<< The war in Europe was already won by February 1945. >>>

The war against Germany didn't end until May 1945.

Last time i checked, war is fought until the other side surrenders, especially this one which was the most horrific war of all time.

<<< My theory is... Hitler was assassinated and it was kept secret. >>>

You can have all the theories you want. The fact is Hitler committed suicide in his bunker around a week before the war ended.

[stephen50right]

You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr  [famous American POW in Dresden at the time of the firebombing.]

<<< More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. >>>

Hitler as you likely know had developed rockets, and would have loved to have had nuclear weapons, and there is no doubt whatsoever he would have used them. Perhaps the design and prototypes for these weapons could have been taking place in Dresden?

Dresden had to be taken out, there was no other choice.

[KingsX]

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To understand why such barbaric targeting of civilians is never justified under any circumstances, it is necessary to understand what exactly a fire raid entails.  Consider the use of precision saturation (incendiary) bombing in Dresden.

 At 10:09 AM, the first bombs were dropped unleashing a massive firestorm.  Gigantic masses of air were then sucked in by the expanding inferno creating something similar to a tornado.  People caught in this wind were mercilessly tossed into the flame, while those seeking protection underground suffocated as the fire gasped for more oxygen.  The least fortunate were those who died from a blast of white heat which has temperatures so high it literally melts human skin.  And as if this were not enough, less than three hours later, twice as many bombers would return to incinerate those fortunate enough to survive the first attack.

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/firebombing/moral-questions.htm

[stephen50right]

.


To understand why such barbaric targeting of civilians is never justified under any circumstances, it is necessary to understand what exactly a fire raid entails.  Consider the use of precision saturation (incendiary) bombing in Dresden.

 At 10:09 AM, the first bombs were dropped unleashing a massive firestorm.  Gigantic masses of air were then sucked in by the expanding inferno creating something similar to a tornado.  People caught in this wind were mercilessly tossed into the flame, while those seeking protection underground suffocated as the fire gasped for more oxygen.  The least fortunate were those who died from a blast of white heat which has temperatures so high it literally melts human skin.  And as if this were not enough, less than three hours later, twice as many bombers would return to incinerate those fortunate enough to survive the first attack.

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/firebombing/moral-questions.htm

I wish Hitler would have gotten your message before he murdered 6 million Jews, and millions of other civilians.

[truth_seeker]

Kurt Vonnegut notorious lefty, anti-American.

Our new member's type in a nutshell.

Vonnegut (wiki)

"Vonnegut disregarded more mainstream political ideologies in favor of socialism, which he thought could provide a valuable substitute for what he saw as social Darwinism and a spirit of "survival of the fittest" in American society,[106] believing that "socialism would be a good for the common man".[107] Vonnegut would often return to a quote by socialist and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs: "As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."[108][109] Vonnegut expressed disappointment that communism and socialism seemed to be unsavory topics to the average American, and believed that they may offer beneficial substitutes to contemporary social and economic systems.[110]

[KingsX]

We all know [or should know] that the victors of a war write the history from their viewpoint.

But what I find interesting on this forum is how comments on this topic dovetail with comments on another favorite topic of mine.  I won't bore you with the details... but it's been quite an enlightening education.

[KingsX]

Kurt Vonnegut notorious lefty, anti-American.

Our new member's type in a nutshell.

Vonnegut (wiki)

"Vonnegut disregarded more mainstream political ideologies in favor of socialism, which he thought could provide a valuable substitute for what he saw as social Darwinism and a spirit of "survival of the fittest" in American society,[106] believing that "socialism would be a good for the common man".[107] Vonnegut would often return to a quote by socialist and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs: "As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."[108][109] Vonnegut expressed disappointment that communism and socialism seemed to be unsavory topics to the average American, and believed that they may offer beneficial substitutes to contemporary social and economic systems.[110]

George Orwell was also a socialist.

Does that mean no one here should quote Orwell ?

[stephen50right]

We all know [or should know] that the victors of a war write the history from their viewpoint.

But what I find interesting on this forum is how comments on this topic dovetail with comments on another favorite topic of mine.  I won't bore you with the details... but it's been quite an enlightening education.

Your points have been clearly understood.

The bottom line is learning from history and not repeating the same mistakes. And that is not to allow a dictator with bad intentions to take over your country because his so-called good intentions will sooner or later turn bad as well. Hitler promised his people the Master Race, the German people were jubilant for a while, but as we know he wound up getting millions of German people killed.

Sadly, too many countries out there today still do not understand this lesson of history.

[truth_seeker]

George Orwell was also a socialist.

Does that mean no one here should quote Orwell ?

So it emerges, your heroes are mostly all socialists?

I have personally spoken at length with veterans of the war in both the Pacific and in Europe.

They had no sympathy for those nations and their people, who sneak attacked us at Pearl Harbor, who annihilated millions by holocaust.

No sympathy as in would bomb them all over again, more and harder. Men that wore scars and disabilities the remainder of their lives.

[DB]

What did Putin do to Chechnya?