Comments by "Ralph Bernhard" (@ralphbernhard1757) on "DW News"
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If any individual starts off by saying that "Hamas/Palestinians have no rights to..." then what such individuals are actually saying is that "Nelson Mandela/non-white majority (ANC/1960s thru 1980s/Cold War) had no rights to...", and then going a bit further back, saying that "Irgun, Lehi, the Stern Gang, or the Haganah had no rights to create Israel using terrorism in the first place...", per implication (and that Israel "had no rights to choose terrorist like Ben Gurion as leaders and founding fathers"). Further back as standpoint, that the "Revolutionary USA had no "rights" to stand up to imperialism, and choose a bunch of terrorists who killed hundreds of thousands, as founding fathers (British perspective of things about the local "terrorists/revolutionaries" going against their British laws, and British sense of justice, trying to take something away from them). Whose "side" are you on, in each of these historical cases? Now, as one wise man once said :-) just "search your feelings" and you will know that your "support" depends on your own inner "feelings" or your emotions, which is exactly how IMPERIALISM works.
The circle is, again, complete.
If your standpoint is simply a dogmatic "oppose terrorists/freedom fighters" today, then you would never have supported the founding of Israel, called out by a bunch of revolutionaries in 1948, nor would you have supported the independence of the USA called out by a bunch of revolutionaries in 1776, had you lived in that epoch.
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@Sk_max-k3m To add to the above:
The decision to "area bomb" entire cities was not only immoral, but also counterproductive.
The "price tag" for London came after the war...
Logically, also fatally flawed:
Was your grandfather or or father killed by Wittmann in his Tiger tank, on that day in Normandie in 1944?
Was he killed or wounded in the Hochwald Gap, or anywhere else in Northern Europe?
Was he shot down by a Messerschmidt, or by one of the famous 88-mm guns?
If not, how about cut to ribbons by an MG-42 machine gun?
Was he shot or badly wounded by the standard German infantry rifle at the time, the Kar-98k?
At the time of the Dresden attack, the Mauser Works in Oberndorf in in the south of Germany, barely an hours flying time from the front lines at the time, was still fully functional.
It was one of the major German small arms manufactures, including the the feared MG-42, and the old-fashioned but reliable Kar-98k.
Instead of frying 25,000 or 30,000 women and kids in Dresden in February 1945, maybe the RAF should have targeted the Mauser Works.
At this point in the war, the complete destruction or serious damage to the factory would have meant thousands of machine guns and rifles would have been either directly destroyed, or indirectly lost to production. Thousands of German soldiers, still viciously defending Germany, would have been left without adequate means to do so.
At this late stage of the war, with the front lines only a few hundred miles away, there would have hardly been an incentive for the Germans to try and repair the plant, especially not if the factory had been hit successively in a fully coordinated USAAF (daylight) and RAF (nighttime) attack.
Mauser was one of the world's most famous arms manufactures of the world, yet strangley anough, it was simply forgotten.
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@kekistanimememan170 Sorry Mr Mememan, but after WW2 the British Empire imploded rather rapidly, with "a little help from a friend".
Because during WW2, British leaders had bombed the British Empire into ruin.
Apparently "flattening Germany" was a too expensive burden for a failing empire to shoulder...
"At the end of the war, Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under..."third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
Such a "special relationship" :-)
US historians are far more candid about how "Empire" got screwed over.
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So Winston "expire the Empire" Churchill...
...teamed up with....
Bomber "burnt the Pound Stirling in a whirlwind" Harris...
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah, you lose your "empire".
One nation's leaders chose to answer with "more than the measure", and as a result bombed themselves into financial and economic ruin...
Too bad they didn't read their Bibles, where it says "an eye for an eye"...
Quote: "The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing. The conclusion reached is the damage inflicted upon Germany by the strategic air offensive imposed a very heavy financial burden on Britain that she could not afford and this burden was a major contributor to Britain's post-war impoverishment."
[Google "GB 1939-45: the financial costs of strategic bombing"]
Note: an average house in London cost around 3,000 Pounds in 1944]
Imagine that.
A house in London, for every "Oma Schickelgruber" killed in Germany.
Lose your Empire, and then some...
Aw well.
Too bad.
Should've read their Bibles...
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
It doesn't say "more than the measure".
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At Coventry the LW used X- and Y-precision bombing aiming devices, and aimed for specific industrial zones.
From wiki:
" The raid that began on the evening of 14 November 1940 was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war. It was carried out by 515 German bombers, from Luftflotte 3 and from the pathfinders of Kampfgruppe 100. The attack, code-named Operation Mondscheinsonate of the city, including monuments and residential areas, would be considerable. The initial wave of 13 specially modified Heinkel He 111 aircraft of Kampfgruppe 100, which were equipped with X-Gerät navigational devices, accurately dropped marker flares at 19:20.[a]The British and the Germans were fighting the Battle of the Beams and on this night the British failed to disrupt the X-Gerät signals."
Later on the British side, these "beams" were bent, or interfered with, meaning that accuracy was greatly inhibited.
At Coventry, there was no attempt at "area bombing" civilians.
Again, these were "collateral damage".
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