Stuck home today, car is in the shop. I could rent a car. I could borrow Jen's. However, there is lots to do here. So this morning while I cleaned, I listened to some interesting stuff. It's a tiny house, so I can hear the TV everywhere. There is tons to clean because the boys are such slobs. So I started off with "Fox News Sunday". I wonder, does Dick Durbin have a staff member completely devoted to coming up with one incredibly stupid remark after another? Because Durbin is a goofy looking guy with a really goofy smile, so delivery of these lines is no problem. But someone's got to be supplying them. Today's was that we (America) can not possibly even consider building a wall on our southern border with *consulting* with Mexico. What a mutton.
Liz Walker interviewed Ted Kennedy on local TV. He spoke candidly about his religious convictions and his deep faith. **Snort**
Next was The McLaughlin Group......it was just OK.
The most interesting was a two hour debate on Book TV on CSpan. A. C. Grayling has written a book about the Allied targeting of civilians during WWII. "Among the Dead Cities" sounds like a very interesting book. But there is one glaring flaw. Mr. Grayling asserts that if you find 9/11 morally repugnent, and you should then you must feel the same way about Dresden. He strings together Allied bombings of Germany with the IRA, ETA, and Al Qaeda.......Christopher Hitchens ripped him on it. Hitchens states that it's wrong to even string these things together in the same paragraph and I agree. Hitchens discussed the same historical time period and had many interesting insights. I really like listening to him. I wonder if he will visit Boston. But the whole discussion was very interesting.
Grayling kinda-sorta-maybe has a point Maggs. NOt about Dresden, as it was a road nexus, phone nexus, and had troops in it. Therefor a legal target for bombing.
ReplyDeleteBut, the USSBS(US Strategic Bombing Survey: http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/243.html) shows that civilians were specifically targeted. This flowed from theories of an Italian airforce general who thought that terrorizing the populace with heavy bombers and gas weapons would end a war over night. It's evil and wrong.
There's no question that the firebombing of Tokyo and other towns killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the raids were designed to kill civilians from the very beginning. It was wrong. It was evil. It was also war and 60 years ago. The rules have changed since then.
We live in OUR era with our eras rules. You can't justify everything and anything by saying, 'But you once did it.'. Some elements of the Allied bombing campaign during ww2 were little more than terror campaigns. They re-wrote the Geneva conventions because of that in 1947. Those are the rules we live by NOW.
All hail Princess Crabby, may she not be off with our heads.
ry