Re: Iraqi Village Disappears....Where did the People Go?
 

By talking about one's own government's shortcomings one is neither ignoring, absolving, nor rationalizing other group's actions. It's the same thing as when my kid tells me "everyone is doing it." I hold him to a higher standard.

There's no question, in my judgment, that the way we and our client state prosecuted the war in Vietnam played a major role--probably the major role--in losing the war. The Communists had a strategy for victory.

Re: Iraqi Village Disappears....Where did the People Go?
 

Hiroshima did contain a military base, used as a staging area for Southeast Asia. But the bomb was aimed at the center of the city, which had a civilian population of 350,000, not at the military base. The bomb was a continuation of the American policy of bombing civilian populations in Japan to undermine the morale of the enemy.

BTW, in Truman's announcwment of the bombing of Hiroshima, the phrase "Japanese Army base" was not included in any draft of the statement and was apparently inserted by General Groves into the speech at the last minute when he learned that the bomb had found its target.

General LeMay said, after the war, that "There are no innocent civilians. So it doesn't bother me so much to be kiilling the so-called innocent bystanders." The military base was not the reason the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; it provided part of the justification. There were very few cities left in the country that hadn't already been conventionally bombed.

Re: Iraqi Village Disappears....Where did the People Go?
 

"Those of you who are too young to know about Vietnam, the US strategy was to win the hearts-and-minds. The Viet Cong strategy was to terrorize the people into cooperating."

Holy [censored] are you indoctrinated.

Re: Iraqi Village Disappears....Where did the People Go?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military centers.

[/ QUOTE ]

I must wonder what defintion of "military center" you are using that would exclude any major city in the US, Japan, Russia, Great Britain, or most of Europe.

Terrorism is a tactic of war. Generally it is an attack on civilians used to accomplish a goal that is either militarily impossible or deemed to be too costly.

The fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rank as some of the greatest terrorist acts in modern times.