Dresden

[renrich]

Bill, I see your point. I really think that FDR must have thought that our steady movement toward the welfare state was inevitable and a natural progression. He did not have to push it and he may have been right. Taking casualties: The South during the War of Northern Aggression: Approx. one million draftable men- 250000died, The North; Approx. four million draftable men-350000 died. Sounds like the US could stand pretty high casualty rates, although times have changed. I believe that if the US is solidly behind a war aim, they are as willing as any country to accept high casualty rates. However, as in any country there are always the dissenters and in a country with a free press(we certainly have that) those dissenters get more than their share of ink.

 

[Nikademus]

Neillands made some very good comments about Dresden, and strategic bombing in general. I especially liked how he chose to analyse the process by which governments are moved to conduct such things vs. the more typical finger-waving "He did it first" type thought process. (I believe Guernica was already mentioned of holding that honor for the WWII era)

In the end though I agreed with his statements that all bombing campaigns had civilian morale as part of it's aims. (not counting distant bombing operations in remote regions of the world well away from civie centers of course) Any bomber, when deployed strategically is fundementally a "terror" weapon.

The rest is just nitpickings of interpretations by both participants and postwar historians. Anyone read Donald Miller's recent book on the USAAF air campaign? Some interesting revelations.