Well, isn't this deeply disturbing?

[kandrathe]

Dresden while more intense, was no more immoral than the blitz on London. If we are recounting American atrocities, I think the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were pretty horrific acts of war, as well as the relentless conventional fire bombing of Tokyo. I'm just surprised it worked to make Japan capitulate. My take on it was that the Japanese military perspective was one of the image of a noble Samarai and a rallied fanatic population defending the shores of Japan to the last. The US, by demonstrating the willingness to continue to drop nuclear weapons on Japan until it was naught but a radioactive cinder, not only broke their will, but presented the true ignobility and the monstrosity of modern warfare. If you consider Hiroshima alone, one plane, and one bomb killed about 66,000 people and caused mostly catastrophic radiation and flash burn injuries in about 69,000 more. How do you treat 69,000 burn victims? How do you cope with 120,000 people instantly made homeless?

It was not noble, it was not fair, and for the US then, and even up to right now in history our use of military power has been entirely one sided. This video and many others I've seen clearly demonstrate our ruthless total dominance of the modern battlefield. I don't think many of us could imagine what it might be like to weather a modern B52 strike, let alone what Baghdad has been through.

Oh, and as for the video. As Pete said, before I'd judge it I would want to know more details about the context. In military jargon this video would be called close air support, or taking out most of the "bad guys" from the air to make way for the infantry. I'd like to see a world where no one needs to be unfortunate enough to be facing down an Apache, or being ferreted out of a cave complex with a fuel air MOAB.