War Violence Quotes
Ironically, one of the major objections to drone strikes is that they have caused civilian casualties.
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.
At Hamburg Harris organized a massive fire bombing of the German industrial city and the fire storm was so great that it sucked the oxygen out from huge sections of the city and thousands of people were roasted alive. Even with 100,000 Germans killed, Harris was convinced that it was a relatively humane way of waging a necessary war when compared to the classic artillery barrage followed by invading soldiers and street to street fighting.
Japanese military culture of the time was that a soldier who surrendered, even if wounded, was totally dishonorable and therefore could be abused and killed. The American marines then retaliated, and after that, the Americans also took no live prisoners contrary to American military regulations. This incident shows how difficult it is to maintain military professional standards and regulations if the other side does not. Similar situations existed in most American wars, but by the end of the 20th century, the all volunteer military had become much more professionalized and disciplined, and there were relatively few American atrocities despite many provocations.
