Donald Rumsfeld Quotes
There is no question but that when one is engaged militarily that there are going to be unintended loss of life.
United States, Department of Defense. "DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld." 24 Oct. 2001.
The speech was addressed to those American imperialist forces that were supporting the war in the Philippines.
This was a precursor of the total war views of William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War half a century later.
The British and American bombing of Germany had become so effective that most of the German industrial system was destroyed. However, early in the War, Germany had violated the Geneva Convention and was indiscriminately bombing London and other part of England. In addition the German Air Force had bombed Warsaw, and many other cities throughout Europe. The German’s had killed over 20 million Europeans. When the Allied bombing produced high collateral damage against civilians, some argued that even though German had deliberately used this tactic, the allies should stop the saturated bombing if there were to be high civilian collateral damage. Others argued that it was unfortunate but a military necessity. There were others like Brenen, who argued that killing German women and children was desirable and just.
Bombing had reached the point where conventional bombing raids on industrial cities like Tokyo and Hamburg produced even more civilian casualties than did the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Tibbets’ view, through the lens of hindsight, was developed by many of the Allied servicemen who had been forced into war by expansionist and militaristic nations like Japan and Germany both of which placed much of their war material manufacturing capability in the midst of their otherwise civilian cities. Both brutally violated the laws of war and committed atrocities many times over before the allies began retaliating. There are still some who believe that it was wrong to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Some even feel that the mass bombing of Japanese and German cities in retaliation and in furtherance of the war effort was morally wrong. But at the time, the millions of casualties anticipated in the invasion of the Japanese mainland, persuaded virtually every American soldier and civilian that there was nothing wrong with use of the Atomic bomb, and many saw it as an absolute Godsend to prevent all the American and Japanese causalities that would have come otherwise. Many scholars remark on how it was virtually impossible to find any significant number of misgivings before or just after Hiroshima. Tibbet’s view was typical.
This is true. There never has been any International law that made a belligerent responsible for civilian damages and deaths that were the result of collateral damage. However, the United States over the years, more so than any other country. Provided huge amount of aid to the citizens of the enemy nations although there was no legal obligation to do so.
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is a retired American politician. Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under Gerald Ford, and again from January 2001 to December 2006 under George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the second-oldest person to have served as Secretary of Defense. Additionally, Rumsfeld was a three-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1963–69), director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–70), counsellor to the president (1969–73), the United States Permanent Representative to NATO (1973–74), and White House Chief of Staff (1974–75). Between his terms as Secretary of Defense, he served as the CEO and chairman of several companies.
