Stanley Baldwin Quotes
It is well for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people tell him, the bomber will always get through.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley
Stanley Baldwin, 1867-1947, British Prime Minister (Conservative), Speech, House of Commons, November 10, 1932
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The description was of the battle field at Bull Run. The Times even then was very candid. The public was shocked and some thought it unpatriotic to print this.
In WWII the Germans bombed London causing many civilian casualties. In retaliation, the allies bombed German cities such as Hamburg and others. The resolution’s effect was very short lived. There are similar restrictions in the Geneva Conventions but again, if one side breaks the conventions, most other sides will retaliate. Note that in the 3rd condition, the one that is most contentious in the 21st century “negligence” is the operative word. An error or mistake is not necessarily or even usually negligence. Many people believe that international law prohibits the bombing of civilians from reading 3) and similar statements from treaties. However, an honest error, mistake or equipment malfunction which kills
The threat was if Pakistan did not cooperate with the United States after the September 11 attack. Pakistan was full of Islamic fundamentalists with strong ties to the Taliban and other terroristsw. Pakistan did cooperate as a government but the Musharraf government itself was under attack by the Islamic Fundamentalists who tried to assassinate Musharraf a number of times. Armitage has denied that he said such a thing, but he does admit a conversation where he told them that “they were with us or against us.”
The bipartisan Presidential Commission had unanimously made 41 recommendations to prevent future terrorist attacks. While the Bush Administration and Congress implemented a few many of the more critical ones were left unaddressed. The commission on its final day issued a report card giving failing grades to both the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress.
60,000 English men, women, and children had been killed by German terror bombing of London and other English cities. The policy had been to retaliate and bomb German population centers. Over 4 million British homes had been destroyed by the blitz and Churchill was becoming concerned that when the Allies would occupy Germany shortly, there would be no German housing left for the civilian population much less for the Allied occupying forces. Churchill’s Air Attaché persuaded him NOT to send the memorandum with it’s references to the terror bombing in retaliation. The memorandum was rewritten with the references to “terror” removed. The bombing of cities did stop as a result.
As in modern times the Navy encouraged the media and leading writers to promote their latest weaponry. Hawthorne however shortly after the Monitor and the Merrimac battle saw the future in terms even more dramatic than most of the military.
The culture of Iraq and the Desert tribes made raiding and looting of other villages or travelers or caravans a way of life. The British occupiers were determined to put an end to it and Harris, a young officer, developed the retaliation of bombing the village of the raiders and their warlords. This appears to be the beginning of destroying of houses in the Middle East as a method of retaliation and punishment which would be adopted so well by the Israelis as a humane method and they often quoted Harris saying: “we put them to the maximum amount of inconvenience, without physical hurt, and they soon stopped their raiding and looting.”
At Potsdam the Allies had called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese and reiterated what had been allied policy that the surrender must be unconditional. Even after the Hiroshima bombing, the Japanese military cabinet voted not to surrender. After the second atomic bomb, the Emperor decided to surrender, but even then there was an attempted military coup to prevent that. Fortunately, the coup failed. We did not have any more atomic bombs immediately ready and it would have taken months to construct more.
This appears to be the first public call for Anti-Ballistic Missile Weapons & Systems. To many it is surprising that in 1946, there would be concern about missile defense, however during WWII, the Germans, violating the laws of war, struck London and other English cities with V2 rocket—the first ballistic missiles. England had suffered many civilian casualties and missile defense was a high priority for them.
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC, PC (Can), JP, FRS was a British Conservative statesman who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as Prime Minister on three occasions.
