TERRORISM IS JUST A MEANS:

Contemplating Death From Above: In World War I, it was the trenches that captured the imagination of poets. In World War II, it was aerial combat. (Robert Messenger, 8/27/10, WSJ)

Strategic bombing—aimed at civilian targets more than military ones—is a form of justified massacre. In June 1943, Winston Churchill was shown films of the five-month bombing campaign known as the Battle of the Ruhr, and, in his official biographer's words, he "suddenly sat bolt upright and said to his neighbour, 'Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?' "

It is a question that Mr. Swift asks repeatedly in "Bomber County." The U.S. and Britain dropped 1.6 million tons of bombs on Germany, causing civilian casualties of more than one million and rendering as many as 7.5 million people homeless. The seven-month B-29 firebombing campaign against Japan organized by Curtis LeMay is estimated to have killed a half-million people and to have left five million more homeless. It was so successful that the Air Force had trouble finding suitable targets for the atomic bombings at the end of the war.

Good thing we found a couple cities with no military value.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 27, 2010 2:15 PM