Casualties Of War
Dresden, it seems, is some sort of neo-Nazi posterchild cause celebre, at this the 50th anniversary of its fire-bombing by British and American air forces. What I don't understand is the attitude takens by the media that I have seen today. Dresden is of course a tragedy, and I will admit that possibly Bomber Harris is some sort of war criminal. Of course such a situation was regrettable, but the British and Americans did not start the war, did not prosecute it in the same way the Allies did fight, even if the Allies did things that, to modern minds, now seem regrettable. how does Bomber Harris compare to Goering, Himmler, Hitler, Heydrich, Goebbels, Tojo and the Emperor Hirohito and the rest of the Showa militarists?
Let's not forget our perspective; 20,000,000 Russians; 6,000,000 Jews; 10,000,000 Chinese died in that conflict, yes and 5,000,000 Germans, 2,000,000 Japanese; 500,000 British & Commonwealth, 300,000 Americans; 650,000 French; 5,000,000 Poles; 1,500,000 Yugoslavs. A vast carnage of human potential and actuality, never to return.
But this is not merely some quibble of numbers. Let us here remember that Germany attacked the rest of Europe, and Japan attacked the Asia-Pacific nations, and both countries caused all those under their occupation to suffer from brutal militaristic rule - enforced by brutalised people themselves trained to be sadists. The German state, aided and abetted by the majority of its citizens, enacted a horrific genocide upon many of its conquered peoples and even to its own people. The Japanese raped and pillaged China and SE Asia, they were not liberating it from Western colonial rule; only imposing their own brand of brutalising colonial rule.
I mourn the dead of all wars - but I do not regret the actions of our fathers and grandfathers in the course of prosecuting a war against a barbarity that far exceeded simple naked aggression. My father fought in the jungles for my life and liberty, and for that I am eternally grateful to his generation.
Lest We Forget