As We Treat Them . . . .

Dresden bombing survivor to speak in St. Albans

http://www.thecountycourier.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1942&Itemid=>

Franklin County Courier - Enosburg,Vermont,USA

... At that moment my heart truly sank, for I could see a line of US
prisoners... ... Thousands of US prisoners were trudging into Germany.

......................................................

I still run into patriotic types who boast our brutal bombing of Dresden towards the end of WW2, not realizing that it put at risk captured American soldiers, including Kurt Vonnegut who based his novel, Slaughterhouse Five, on that horrendous experience.

For the record Dresden was a non-military target, a beautiful city of mainly wooden structures readily vulnerable to fire. As WW1 had pioneered poison gas attacks on trenches, we during WW2 similarly developed the art of splattering structures (and people) with phosphorus, which burns out of water (people so splattered could dunk, say, into a pond or river, only to be reignited when they stuck their heads up to breath -- as any student of chemistry has probably observed of this peculiar phenomenon with phosphorous). The attack on Dresden sent in waves of bombers with high concussion bombs that converted much of the city to kindling wood that was ignited by incendiary bombs thereafter, creating a fire storm that swept any and all things and people into the conflagration with winds of hundreds of miles per hour.

Each war tends to create its own horrors of which Dresden was only one example of retaliation for wrongs done.

The modern lesson here is that as one treats others, so they may treat you -- torture, bombing, whatever.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli in The Prince)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights

http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/

http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp