Good as always to have your military perspective of these issues. Regarding point #2, the inability of air power alone to win wars; the WWII terror bombing campaign, especially over Germany, was an explicit countervalue strategy designed to break German moral. It likely had the opposite effect of hardening German resolve to fight to the last. It also fed into Goebbels propaganda of claiming that the Allies were trying to destroy all of Germanic culture.
I have found that what is patently immoral rarely works well in practice.
If I recall correctly, Freeman Dyson, who worked at RAF Bomber Command during the war, wrote that not only was the campaign against German cities not worth the moral cost, it wasn’t even worth the material cost when weighed against military advantage gained.
Precision, when used with a high-explosive bomb or artillery shell, is an intentionally misleading term. If I recall correctly, the lethal range on a 500 pound bomb is over 150 feet. Does it really matter if the bomb "hits" the target and kills an innocent person half of a football field away? It's still murder of innocents.
JK Galbraith, economist, participated in the post WW II Strategic Bombing study, he was in the minority opinion that bombing in WW II was negative benefit to cost.
But today against the destitute there is no cost, therefore benefit can to limited to the suppliers.
I am shocked by Israel’s moral poverty, and US’ going along
The sooner Benjamin Netanyahu meets the same fate as Benito Mussolini, hanging by his neck from a lamp post until he is dead, the sooner the world will be free of the supremacist fascist Zionist regime in Israel!
I just posted the above comment on a Fox News video on YouTube®.
"The sooner Benjamin Netanyahu meets the same fate as Benito Mussolini, hanging by his neck from a lamp post until he is dead the sooner the world will be free of the supremacist fascist Zionist regime in Israel!
And the killing will stop.
This is not about religion."
Within 2-minutes by post was deleted.
Within 3-minutes I got a notification from Youtube® that I am banned from commenting.
There was once a cartoon depicting two soviet generals standing on the shore of the English Channel at Dunkirk. One was looking up in the air and said to the other, "I wonder who won the air war"?
...we anti-war campaigners have been pooping-out the same pleas for decades, but like the trees in the forests, no one is there to hear us. this phenom of non-listeners is hugely exacerbated by the pendulous international addiction by our plebeian multitudes to their electronic devices, thus making portable their addictions to gaming, social media, and selfies. the power-elite know this and capitalize on those 21st-century addictions. i have quondamly mentioned this personal narrative on astore's timely site, but it bears a repetend: when living and working in the hashemite kingdom of jordan [1988~'91], the obstetrician, who delivered our 7th and final bairn in amman's al-khalidi hospital when i was 48, agreed to a medical-exchange year in a baghdad hospital in 1990. soon after the US/UK "coalition of the willing" began bombing baghdad in late january of 1991, our gifted obstetrician was advised, in order to secure the safety of his wife and 5 children [adult males were proscribed from these bunkers due to lack of space], to settle them every night into an underground bunker. the nightly bombing raids over baghdad managed to zero-in on that very bunker, claiming it was saddam hussein's underground HQ. their putative 'smart bomb' incinerated every single member of his family... his wife and all 5 of his children. he never recovered from his catastrophic loss, the finality of which precluded his ever being sufficiently compos mentis to practice medicine again.
If anyone still thinks that international law, in particular international humanitarian law (the law that supposedly governs war-making), is of any concern to the US or its allies, in particular Israel, well, then, I guess it's possible that the tooth fairy and Santa Claus really exist. The mass slaughter currently being carried out by Israel is grotesque proof that once an adversary is dehumanized and turned into "human animals," their slaughter is all too easy to carry out without any hesitation. Many years ago the great William Blum wrote a book entitled "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" in which he demonstrated that the US National Security State and, by extension, its most fervent ally Israel, don't give a damn about international humanitarian law, except to accuse other countries of violating it. The US and its allies always get a free pass, no matter what. For example, the forever imprisonment of so-called enemy combatants at Guantanamo. The current butchery being perpetrated against the people of Gaza is nothing short of genocide. Instead of ovens there is endless aerial bombing of everything and anything. The result is the same---a slaughter of innocent men, women and children.
Good point, Ray, about the obvious hypocrisy of the EC and VDL... condemning Russia yet remaining silent on the many years of Israeli war crimes and perpetual violations of human rights. That alone shows that the Washington-centered Imperium and its European vassals lack any sincerity and integrity with respect to human rights, democracy, or justice. They are merely now all political beasts, posturing for political reasons that all owe to their fealty to the hegemon. Despicable creatures, all.
Good as always to have your military perspective of these issues. Regarding point #2, the inability of air power alone to win wars; the WWII terror bombing campaign, especially over Germany, was an explicit countervalue strategy designed to break German moral. It likely had the opposite effect of hardening German resolve to fight to the last. It also fed into Goebbels propaganda of claiming that the Allies were trying to destroy all of Germanic culture.
I have found that what is patently immoral rarely works well in practice.
If I recall correctly, Freeman Dyson, who worked at RAF Bomber Command during the war, wrote that not only was the campaign against German cities not worth the moral cost, it wasn’t even worth the material cost when weighed against military advantage gained.
Precision, when used with a high-explosive bomb or artillery shell, is an intentionally misleading term. If I recall correctly, the lethal range on a 500 pound bomb is over 150 feet. Does it really matter if the bomb "hits" the target and kills an innocent person half of a football field away? It's still murder of innocents.
JK Galbraith, economist, participated in the post WW II Strategic Bombing study, he was in the minority opinion that bombing in WW II was negative benefit to cost.
But today against the destitute there is no cost, therefore benefit can to limited to the suppliers.
I am shocked by Israel’s moral poverty, and US’ going along
The sooner Benjamin Netanyahu meets the same fate as Benito Mussolini, hanging by his neck from a lamp post until he is dead, the sooner the world will be free of the supremacist fascist Zionist regime in Israel!
And the killing will stop.
This is not about religion.
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/10/13/israel-the-myth-of-self-defence/
I just posted the above comment on a Fox News video on YouTube®.
"The sooner Benjamin Netanyahu meets the same fate as Benito Mussolini, hanging by his neck from a lamp post until he is dead the sooner the world will be free of the supremacist fascist Zionist regime in Israel!
And the killing will stop.
This is not about religion."
Within 2-minutes by post was deleted.
Within 3-minutes I got a notification from Youtube® that I am banned from commenting.
There was once a cartoon depicting two soviet generals standing on the shore of the English Channel at Dunkirk. One was looking up in the air and said to the other, "I wonder who won the air war"?
Also speaking of collateral damage, I'm sure that's what this will be called - Reuters journalist killed by Israeli fire ( https://www.rt.com/news/584861-reuters-journalist-killed-israel/ )
...we anti-war campaigners have been pooping-out the same pleas for decades, but like the trees in the forests, no one is there to hear us. this phenom of non-listeners is hugely exacerbated by the pendulous international addiction by our plebeian multitudes to their electronic devices, thus making portable their addictions to gaming, social media, and selfies. the power-elite know this and capitalize on those 21st-century addictions. i have quondamly mentioned this personal narrative on astore's timely site, but it bears a repetend: when living and working in the hashemite kingdom of jordan [1988~'91], the obstetrician, who delivered our 7th and final bairn in amman's al-khalidi hospital when i was 48, agreed to a medical-exchange year in a baghdad hospital in 1990. soon after the US/UK "coalition of the willing" began bombing baghdad in late january of 1991, our gifted obstetrician was advised, in order to secure the safety of his wife and 5 children [adult males were proscribed from these bunkers due to lack of space], to settle them every night into an underground bunker. the nightly bombing raids over baghdad managed to zero-in on that very bunker, claiming it was saddam hussein's underground HQ. their putative 'smart bomb' incinerated every single member of his family... his wife and all 5 of his children. he never recovered from his catastrophic loss, the finality of which precluded his ever being sufficiently compos mentis to practice medicine again.
Air power is just technologically advanced artillery. And further back from the front lines.
If anyone still thinks that international law, in particular international humanitarian law (the law that supposedly governs war-making), is of any concern to the US or its allies, in particular Israel, well, then, I guess it's possible that the tooth fairy and Santa Claus really exist. The mass slaughter currently being carried out by Israel is grotesque proof that once an adversary is dehumanized and turned into "human animals," their slaughter is all too easy to carry out without any hesitation. Many years ago the great William Blum wrote a book entitled "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" in which he demonstrated that the US National Security State and, by extension, its most fervent ally Israel, don't give a damn about international humanitarian law, except to accuse other countries of violating it. The US and its allies always get a free pass, no matter what. For example, the forever imprisonment of so-called enemy combatants at Guantanamo. The current butchery being perpetrated against the people of Gaza is nothing short of genocide. Instead of ovens there is endless aerial bombing of everything and anything. The result is the same---a slaughter of innocent men, women and children.
Good point, Ray, about the obvious hypocrisy of the EC and VDL... condemning Russia yet remaining silent on the many years of Israeli war crimes and perpetual violations of human rights. That alone shows that the Washington-centered Imperium and its European vassals lack any sincerity and integrity with respect to human rights, democracy, or justice. They are merely now all political beasts, posturing for political reasons that all owe to their fealty to the hegemon. Despicable creatures, all.
Perhaps the warmongers should be some of the so-called collateral damage. Linking again @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/