Questions, Questions

Rosa de Pena comments on my comment. I entirely agree with her:

My comment: In all these discussions, an important distinction has been completely lost: that between traditional war, which is fought among armies, and total war, in which civilians are a legitimate target. The carpet bombing of German cities and the atom bombing of Japan were acts of total war, as was the World Trade Center disaster, which killed comparatively few people. So the basic question is Who started the war? Who is therefore responsible?

Rosa de Pena writes: Well, up to now, I would say that it was bin Laden who started this war. Though what actions came before that could be construed as "acts of war", I imagine that bin Laden could start citing others (when we bombed Tripoli under Reagan, that was an act of total war, as civilians got it then). Well, we need a historian to untangle this mess.

As for World War II, it is clear who started it, and also who began bombing civilian populations, in Warsaw and Rotterdam (which was in a neutral country). So, horrible as the Dresden bombing was, it was also a case of chickens coming home to roost. As for Hiroshima, yes, it was truly horrible, and the beginning of MAD. But I wish that the Japanese had wept one tenth the tears over the rape of Nankin as we do over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But I guess they would "lose face" if they did....

Ronald Hilton - 10/3/01