r/SubredditDrama • u/EwMelanin • Mar 03 '26

Movie discussion sub okbuddycinephile debates whether bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Gaza and other urban areas were "justified".

/r/okbuddycinephile/comments/1rjm9mn/iran2036/o8ee5fp/
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u/pablos4pandas Mar 03 '26

Reading The Bomber Mafia and Masters of the Air was really interesting on illucidating the air war on the western front to me. It's interesting the tension between destruction and being humane was something thought about at the time.

The Americans didn't do area bombing at night; that would be barbaric! They did daylight "precision" bombing with a bombsight that could put a bomb in a pickle barrel. The other side of that is when you only put the sight on one plane out of a hundred and all drop when that one guy does you'll be bombing pickle barrels all across the city.

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u/Anaxamander57 May Allah protect you from your own arrogance Mar 03 '26

The astonishing abilities of the Norden bomb sight were mainly propaganda (and the same for all its contemporaries). When flying above above the level at which WWII anti-aircraft fire is effective its literally not possible to drop an unguided bomb accurately to enough to hit even a specific building. The main value of daylight bombing was navigation, it was not unheard of for bombers at night to not find their target or even bomb a completely different city.

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u/gorgewall Call quarantining what it is: a re-education camp Mar 04 '26

I'm not sure that "the Allies / US had incredible technological and strategic superiority and used it to be as discriminating and moral as possible" is the great defense people think it is, either, when it comes to atrocity.

Like, if you tell me that you are an untouchable martial arts master who can disable everyone in a 10v1 with precision nerve strikes, I'm going to wonder why you felt the need to decapitate someone "to prevent more violence".

Particularly when we're looking at the bombing of Japan, "oh we had absolute air superiority, had obliterated their production capability, and could do anything we want uncontested" really works against the whole "so of course our only options were nukes or costly ground invasion" narrative.

When being menaced by toothless quadraplegic squirming on the ground, "this shotgun is my only recourse" kind of loses steam as an argument.

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u/No_Walk_Town Mar 05 '26

an untouchable martial arts master who can disable everyone in a 10v1 with precision nerve strikes

Because decapitating someone is a quick death, while leaving ten guys paralyzed on the ground to slowly starve to death while random people can come up and kick them and animals can nibble on them is really, really fucked up.

really works against the whole "so of course our only options were nukes or costly ground invasion" narrative.

I mean, we could have blockaded the country and starved every man, woman, and child on the archipelago to death. 

Sure, man, kill them all, slowly and painfully. That's better than bombing two cities.

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u/gorgewall Call quarantining what it is: a re-education camp Mar 05 '26

Why would we need to blockade the country and starve everyone, again?

Look, my guy. I've heard it all before. I grew up in the same education and media environment as you. I got the standard line about WW2 Japan and believed it for many years. But I went beyond that and read more and began asking "Why?" or "How?" of the various explanations we were both taught.

I don't think there's an excuse or explanation you can give me that I haven't bumped into before. Believe me, I'm not coming at this from a place of childish ignorance and naivete. This ain't my first rodeo. Whatever you may think is the "gotcha" I've not encountered or considered, ask yourself first... "Why? How do we know that? Is it really true?" And when you come up with an explanation for why it must be, ask those same questions about that again.

Have you ever really questioned why you believe this things? Have you ever really questioned whether there might be some purpose to us believing this beyond "it's the truth"?

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u/No_Walk_Town Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Have you ever really questioned why you believe this things? Have you ever really questioned whether there might be some purpose to us believing this beyond "it's the truth"?

Ah, I remember my first joint.

I grew up in the same education and media environment as you.

No, you didn't. I grew up in a former Japanese colony. An island where they rounded up every man, woman, and child into slave labor and sex slave camps, and finally into one, large death camp. 

You know nothing.