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Kokopelli
Lv 7
Kokopelli asked in Politics & GovernmentMilitary · 1 decade ago

In 1945, did this work better?

It became a stated objective in World War 2 to deliberately bomb civilians. British Bomber Command made a deliberate effort to target German civilian population centers, bombing them out of their homes, bombing them out of their jobs, bombing them to kill them and demoralize them. The idea was that if the lives of the civilian population could be made horrific enough, if the civilians were to lose their homes, their jobs, their loved ones, and end up with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no place to live, they would rise up against the war and demand that the government stop the fighting. Some cities, like Dresden, were totally reduced to smoking rubble; nothing was spared. In the intervening years the horror of all this was determined to be excessive and the targeting of civilians in time of war was deemed a crime of war.

Update:

Given the lackluster results the US has achieved in Iraq, should the US abandon its policy of not targeting civilians and instead go for all-out bombing and destruction of the cities? Should the effort be made to destroy the civilian population and bring it to its knees? Should all the infrastructure of the country be destroyed? Surely all this would help to end the war. it did in 1945.

Update 2:

Note to blindogben: I have read the history. Once Hitler began sending the V-1 flying bombs against London the British made the decision to react against German population centers. The reason is almost secondary. The fact wast that the decision was made to purposely go after civilians, and it was merciless. The question is would this tactic of destroying everything and everybody be more effective in Iraq than trying to wage a war causing minimal damage to civilians and infrastructure?

5 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    to bad we don't have leadership like that today

  • JohnRingold
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    Mohamed is almost correct.

    Britain did suffer terrific loses due to German bombings. Times now are different. News reporting now is instantaneous. Live satelitte feeds are the norm. Back then... Mail was very slow and heavily censored.

    To try and bomb the Iraq population into submission would condemn the US in the worlds eyes and hurt what the US has gained in Iraq. Not all of Iraq sees the US intervention as a bad thing. A very small percentage of the population wishes for the US to leave Iraq at this point.

    As for Britain having to buy its goods from the US at an exhorbit price ??? Didn't happen. The US at first gave Britain equipment, food, etc... instead of troops. The US did not want to enter WWII. It was viewed as an European war. After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, the US became involved in Europe as well as the Pacific. The US military was severly short of critical war supplies due to all of the equipment being shipped to Europe in the Lend Lease Act.

    Mohammed please do not allow you hatred and bigotry distort the truth. Read about it. It is fact not fiction.

    Salaam insh Allah

  • blindogben
    1 decade ago

    If you read your history books, you will see that this decision was made long after the Germans shot missiles at random all over Britain. They had no way to aim them at a specific target. Many civilians and non-military were destroyed.

  • mohamed jihad dirka dirka
    1 decade ago

    you have to keep it in context , the UK was bombed and lost much of it infrastructure and tens of thousands of civilan casulties, when the bombing was at its worse the USA refused to declare war on NAZIs and pasted a law forbidding american citizens from figfhting the NAZIs

    the UKs looses were huge from both the first and the second war and was being impoverished by the huge cost of buying equipment off the USA.

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  • Bawney
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago

    Worked pretty good for Israel this year. With the Hezbos hiding their rockets behind civilians, how were the Israelis supposed to fight otherwise?

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