richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt) (08/02/85)
[And may this humble sacrifice appease you, oh great and merciful line eater] [see, I told you it would wor~~~~ Within the past few weeks there have been a number of postings about the Atomic bomb. Several of these have been debating the morality of the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan. One basic flaw runs through them all, and many other bomb related articles on the net. Most people are not aware of the following simple fact: *** A bomb is not a military weapon. Rather, it is a political weapon. *** A bomb is not designed to take territory (the basic goal of all wars), but is intended to demoralize the population while *maybe* destroying installations useful to the enemy. The bombing of London during WWII was not aimed at destroying London. The Germans intended to demoralize the population to the point where England would surrender, a situation which would have given Germany the full advantages of the English shipping docks, ports, manufacturing facilities, and food production. The bombing of Hiroshima was not designed to end the war in Japan. It WAS intended to ensure that the Japanese would never even think of attacking the US again. Note that it failed in that respect, and they have been waging economic war against the world since MacArthur took over. Much of this is because MacArthur was, by his own admission, rebuilding Japan to become either a) an Eastern United States (please remember that they applied to congress to become a state and were denied admission to the Union, even as a territory); or b) to succeed the US as the most advanced and civilized nation in the world (MacArthur's statements, not mine). Back to the subject; More recent bombings also clearly show their political aims. Blowing up the US embassy and military base in Lebanon does not gain the Shi'ites anything militarily. There are always more Marines where those came from. Unfortunately, true diplomats are somewhat scarcer, but they are not useful in a war. Their job is preventing wars. We need every one we can get. What blowing up bases, embassies, and airports DOES do is scare the civilians and demoralize the Marines. This has always been, and will always be, the primary purpose of any bomb. But here's the catch. Reagan can't ask Congress and the American Pee-Pul to pay for his car bombs. He can ask them to pay for his new 'peacekeepers'. However, I don't think that the fault lies with him. I suspect that he is more a victim of his indoctrination than a perpetrator, although he is guilty of aiding and abetting the indoctrination. For most of this century, the local civilians have been told that a bomb is a military weapon. Most military theorists have already figured out that this is b**lsh*t. With a very few exceptions, every experienced commander or soldier also knows that bombs don't take territory. They may win wars, but only at extreme costs to the winning side. What we need to do is figure out how to put bombs and weapons of that nature back in their place, and out of the DoD budget. International relations would be far smoother if it were recognized that bombs are devices (I hate using that word, considering all of the bombs that have been termed 'nuclear device') of terrorism, and treated as such. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do it. Anybody out there got any bright ideas? orstcs!richardt "At last, I can see, where we all soon shall be" -- Judas Iscariot in 'Jesus Christ Superstar'
tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger) (08/08/85)
This article, "bombs are not weapons, because they don't take
territory, and are hence purely terrorism" involves a lot of
oversimplification.
One might just as well argue that the heavy artillery of the
army, which lays down barrages on the army's rear areas, e.g. road
intersections and other communications centers, is purely terrorism,
for it doesn't take territory either. Indeed no one but the rifleman
has the primary mission of taking territory as such.
On the other hand it's probably true that when Hitler bombed
Rotterdam and Coventry he was trying to terrorize the populations and
punish and frighten them into surrender.
Whe Allied bombers later bombed German cities, the missions were
primarily designed to disrupt the "homefront" in the sense that it was
passing the ammunition, keeping the war industries going, etc., but as
morale is considered part of that, it is perfectly true that "terror"
again became a dimension of that effort. Moreover it's also true that
the research of the Sic Bombing Survey showed much of the homefront
disruption effort to have been either ineffective or self-defeating...
the Germans living in piles of rubble, became less inclined to
surrender (the cornered rat effect) and had nothing left in their
lives but to trudge to what was left of that ammo plant and keep
producing a few more shells, or whatever.
The above, however, should suggest sufficiently that to kind of
neatly separate "bombing" from other forms of military firepower is a
meaningless exercise, just as it has become relatively meaningless to
try to keep an effective distinction between the "homefront" and the
fighting forces.
Then, the matter of the nuclear weapons or bombs becomes a
different story, however. The trouble with them, even if one
disregards the likelihood that "nuclear war" will wipe out virtually
everything, is that even "limited" use of them (if it were ever held
to that???) makes that nuked homefront a kind of territory which one
would hardly wish to "take" any more. But that's NUCLEAR bombing, not
simply all "bombing."
Tom Schlesinger
Plymouth State College
Plymouth, NH 03264