Remembering Bomber Command

Few British People Know What We Actually Did To Germany.
To this day, few British people know what we actually did to Germany.
We know of and are rightly angered by the Luftwaffe attack on Coventry and by the London Blitz.
But these wretched events were tiny compared with the ruin we inflicted on Germany.
And if we find Coventry and the Blitz outrageous, as we should, how can that justify doing the same thing to German civilians?
The victims included women and small children and were concentrated in working-class areas where most people had never voted for Hitler, so it’s hard to say ‘they asked for it’.
It is very difficult to bear descriptions of what happened to civilians – not just in Hamburg and Dresden but in dozens of lesser cities.
Do not read them unless you have a strong stomach.
I don’t call this a ‘war crime’ because the phrase is more or less meaningless.
As those who have actually fought in wars know, all war is crime, mixed with hell.
The question is whether it can possibly be justified.
Nor do I (as some liars will immediately claim) in any way compare it with the crimes of the Germans against the Jews.
The two are not remotely equivalent and anyone who says so is a fool.
But nobody has ever found a way to make two wrongs make a right.
And after long thought and much study, I have come to the unhappy conclusion that the bombing policy was wrong.
One day, when the last of those who risked their lives in the 1939-45 war are no longer with us, this country may begin to have a grown-up discussion about that war.
Actually, I suspect that most of the veterans are far less sentimental than my blessed generation, who never saw war face to face.
I find it hard to see what we got out of our victory.
Do we rule the waves?
Are we a great power ?
Do we control our borders, or our destiny?
Is this tatty multicultural theme park a land in any way fit for the brave men who saved it?
( Peter Hitchens )

Bombs Dropped On Germany.
Between 19:54 and 20:10 on the 23rd February 1945, 13 RAF Mosquitos and 367 Lancaster’s dropped 1,825 tons of bombs on Pforzheim, a small German town with a population of 79,000.
The bombing caused a firestorm in which 21,000 were killed on the ground, according to RAF estimates, and 83% of the town was destroyed.

RAF 617 Squadron.
On the night of May 16, 1943, nineteen Lancaster bombers from RAF’s 617 Squadron, each equipped with a 9,000lb ‘bouncing bomb’, took off from an airfield in Lincolnshire to destroy three dams in the heart of Nazi Germany.
The dams were crucial to the German war effort, as they provided hydroelectric power for the vast factories along the Ruhr.
Regarded by some as a suicide mission, the aircraft had to fly low and fast over a territory bristling with anti-aircraft guns.
Despite being planned in just ten weeks, the raid, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, was a spectacular success.
Two of the dams were breached, and the third suffered enough damage to warrant it being emptied.
Whole valleys were flooded, and many factories, towns – and indeed people – were swept to their doom.
Of the 19 aircraft on the mission, eight either crashed or were shot down, but it was considered a price worth paying.
In addition to the dams, seven railway bridges, 18 road bridges, four water-turbine power stations and three steam-turbine power stations were destroyed, while in the Ruhr Valley alone, 11 factories were obliterated and a further 114 damaged, many severely.
The destruction of the dams struck a huge psychological blow against the Germans.
These were structures that were venerated as triumphs of the country’s might and technical knowhow.
The raid was indeed a catastrophe for Nazi Germany, and a Triumph for the British.

Remembering Bomber Command.
The Allied bombing of German cities was in retaliation for the decision by Hitler to blitz Rotterdam on May 14, 1940.
The losses of Bomber Command were greater than those of any other service – accounting for 10% of all British fatalities.
The average age of the crews was just 22 and the youngest were only 18.
Three out of every five airmen became casualties, with 55,573 men killed, 8,403 wounded and 9,838 captured as prisoners of war.
About half of those who died have no known grave.

Israeli Military Accused Of Verbally And Physically Abusing Palestinian Children.
Defence for Children International (DCI) has highlighted a pattern of violations suffered by Palestinian minors who had been arrested, interrogated and detained by the Israeli military.
Most of the arrests occur during violent raids, which are regularly carried out by Israeli soldiers at night.
In the majority of cases, children and parents are not informed of the reasons for the arrest.
Throughout arrest and interrogation children’s hands are tied behind their backs, and in many cases they are blindfolded.
Furthermore, children are exposed to verbal and physical abuse at the moment of the arrest, during the transfer to the interrogation facility or police station, and during the interrogation itself.
While held in interrogation facilities or police stations, children are not provided with proper clothing, are often exposed to extreme temperatures and deprived of food and/or water.
During the interrogation, minors are not assisted by a lawyer or tutor, and are verbally and physically assaulted.
According to the specific circumstances of each case, these abuses may amount to torture and ill-treatment.
( Al Haq, 13.12.2012 )  ..  alhaq.org

Research Into Creating A Super Soldier.
The U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a $2billion yearly budget for research into creating a super solider as well as developing a synthetic police force.
Working with the human genome, DARPA hopes to manipulate certain gene expressions.
In experimentation, DARPA and the military industrial pharmaceutical complex are using natural abilities that are enhanced through genetic engineering.
Some of the medical feats DARPA would like to enhance are the ability of military soldiers to regrow limbs destroyed in battle.
By eliminating empathy, the Department of Defence hopes to “enhance” a soldier’s ability to “kill without care or remorse, shows no fear, can fight battle after battle without fatigue and generally behave more like a machine than a man”.
Scientists are researching the construction of soldiers that feel no pain, terror and do not suffer from fatigue as tests on the wiring of the human brain are furthered by Jonathan Moreno, professor of bioethics at Pennsylvania State University.
Moreno is working with the Department of Defence in understanding neuroscience.
The Pentagon allocated $400million to this research.
( Occupy Corporation, 25.09.2012 )

One Billion People Have No Access To Sustainable Energy.
More than one billion people – one in five human beings on the planet – don’t have access to sustainable energy.
They are working and studying in the dark.
They are cooking and heating their homes using dung or kerosene, breathing in toxic smoke that causes lung disease and kills nearly two million people a year.
Most of them are women and children.
In Uganda, where access to power is limited, doctors have to deliver babies in the dark, performing C-sections by candlelight.
( Mike Shinoda, August 2012 )