7/14/2007

Death By The Numbers...


"The advocates of nuclear disarmament seem to believe that, if they could achieve their aim, war would become tolerable and decent. They would do well to read this book and ponder the fate of Dresden, where 135,000 people died as the result of an air attack with conventional weapons. On the night of March 9th, 1945, as air attack on Tokyo by American heavy bombers, using incendiary and high explosive bombs, caused the death of 83,793 people. The atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 71,379 people."

British Air Marshall Sir Robert Saundly
from the introduction to the book
"The Destruction of Dresden" by David Irving

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, lets not forget about the Japanese invasion of China in late 1937, and specifically the occupation of Nanking (a six week period known as "The Rape of Nanking") where an estimated 150,000 - 300,000 Chinese civilians were brutalized and murdered.
Orientals have always been more prolific mass murderers than occidentals.

Anonymous said...

JPN,
I’m always taken aback when self-loathing Americans like you lash out at considered opinion with terms like “bigot” or “racist.” Is it written in the left-wing playbook somewhere that when confronted with an issue, viciously insult your opponent (and do not address his/her argument)?

The fact is, oriental peoples have murdered far more human beings than their occidental counterparts. Sure, the white man was brutal and murderous with Native Americans, but most of the millions of native peoples that died were victims of disease, not homicide. Yes, the Europeans brought those diseases – domesticated-animal derived -- but incidentally, not intentionally. Europeans had developed immunities to these diseases (e.g. measles, chickenpox, smallpox) as a result of their ravages on the European continent in centuries past.
In the Americas, these infections raced ahead of the white settlers, decimating the native populations through no purposeful or vengeful intent of the white settlers. Yes, there are stories of smallpox-infected blankets being given to Indians, but the fact is that 16th and 17th century Europeans had no idea how diseases were transmitted (the prevalent theory at the time was “bad air:” it was only in the 18th century that the germ theory was developed.) Yes, there were terrible instances of massacre of Indians, which are shameful and inexcusable, but the numbers of those intentionally killed by Europeans were only a fraction of the millions killed by impersonal disease, and are dwarfed by the numbers of those Orientals purposefully and directly killed by their governments and others.

Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and “Cultural Revolution” killed an estimated 30 Million, many by famine but between 5 and 7 millions my active democide. The Japanese conquests in their “Greater East Asia Co-Properity Sphere” resulted in between 10 and 15 million dead, all due to purposeful effort on the part of the Japanese. More recently, Pol Pot in Cambodia – of “Killing Fields” infamy, is blamed for the deaths of 2 -3 million Cambodians. This is a lot of mass murder, and dwarfs anything seen in the West short of disease or battlefield deaths – with the notable exception of the Soviet Union, which is estimated to have killed, though famine and political terror, upwards of 40 million of its own citizens.

So please don’t start throwing around the “R” word just because you are unable to posit a thoughtful response to my comment.

By the way, you may need to do a little more research before cutting and pasting Anglo-bashing nonsense into your blog. David Irving, who you quote regarding the Dresden bombings, is an “historian” who has been widely discredited as a result of controversy arising from his Holocaust denial and misrepresentation of historical evidence. During an unsuccessful libel case that Irving brought against American historian Deborah Lipstadt (and Penguin Books) in 1998, an English court found that he (Irving) is "an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism." The judge also ruled that Irving had "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence."

I don't think that you, of all people, want to be quoting "Right-wing Extremists and Neo-Nazi's" to make your points.

JPN said...

Anon:

Actually, I was quoting British Air Marshall Sir Robert Saundly not David Irving.

It's good that you point out Irving's Neo-Nazism and his Holocaust denying. That's why we have comments on these blogs.

Let's not for get the White Russians who killed millions of White Russians.

Bigot, racist, or whatever, what does it matter if you killed 25 million or 30 million people? It's becomes just large, faceless numbers after awhile. No skin color is innocent is the wholesale slaughter of their fellow man.

I found the quote by Sir Robert Saundly in Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughter House Five that I recently read. It's been 30 years since I read that book and it still holds its value. I am certain that Vonnegut would not be included in any list of Holocaust deniers.

I also reread he books Mother Night and Good Bless You Mr. Rosewater. To your Neo-Nazi point, Mother Night provides an interesting look into that subject.

Mr. Rosewater fits well with its look into power and money and today's selfish attack on progressive values from the Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand worshippers.

JPN said...

Anon:

Another point here...

The quote in this post doesn't have anything to do with race or skin color. It's got to do with technology, i.e., more people died in Dresen from conventional bombs that Hiroshima from nuclear bombs.

I find your comments about my use of the term "racist" interesting. In fact you brought race into the discussion. Your point was to put one race above the other. That to me is racist. You "bigot" charge comes from some interpretation that you got out of this post and the subsequent comments.

Anonymous said...

JPN,

“Roger that” on the author of the posted quote; it was by Sir Saundly, not Irving. My concern was that in was part of a book by Irving, which contains nothing but Nazi apologia.

Regarding Vonnegut, I too am familiar with “Slaughterhouse Five;” I first read it, like you, some 30 years ago and agree that it is impactful. The bombings of Dresden were not discussed much in high school history classes of the 1960’s and 1970’s, and it awakened me to the fact that the US was capable of some pretty nasty warfare. I am not familiar with “Mother Night” or “God Bless you Mr. Rosewater,” but hope to find occasion to read them soon.

I must take issue with your last post, however. My observations regarding the greater prevalence of mass murder among Orientals than Occidentals is historically and empirically accurate; citing facts should not subject one to suggestions that he is a racist, such as is contained in your first response to my comment.

I guess my main beef is that I felt the message your original post was sending – with a quote that included references to the Dresden, Tokyo and Hiroshima, together with pictures of the victims of Dresden and Hiroshima – was somehow suggesting that the US was singularly brutal in its disregard for human life. My comment that we should not forget Nanking (or the Great Leap Forward, or Cambodia) was made merely to add perspective and context to what I do agree were horrendous acts on our part (Except for Hiroshima, which I feel did in fact hasten the end of the Pacific War and was in all probability the only way to save hundreds of thousands of additional Japanese and American lives). My point was merely that US-caused carnage, while regretful and excessively brutal when viewed in retrospect, is dwarfed by far greater instances of mass murder by others, particularly those driven by extreme ideologies such as Fascism and Communism. Thankfully we prevailed in those life and death struggles, and rid the world those evils.

Maybe next time you can throw in a few pictures of the burning/collapsing WTC towers, or the Spanish trains, or the buses of Israel, or the marketplaces of Baghdad, and remind your readers of the murderous extremists with whom we are currently struggling.

JPN said...

Anon:

I'm confused. What "murderous extremists" are blowing up buses in Israle? Would those be friends, neighbors and relatives of the people being bombed in Paleistine and having their homes bulldozed? What extremists are blowing up buses in Baghdad? Are those Iraqis or foreigners? If they are foreigners, they weren't in Barhdad till Bush started his crusade to install democracy in the Middle East.

I'm with on the extremists who took down the WTC and blew up the train in Spain. But I confused as to why our Prsdient has decided not to go after these extremists and has instead wasted American lives and treasure on imploding Iraq with sectarian chaos that will smoulder for generations to come.

I've always been in favor of going after the extremists that are targeting Americans. But it's also important to understand why the extremists are targeting America. The US is no innocent sheep haplessly wandering into the clutches to a cunning wolf. We long had foreign policies that have invited a roosting place for the not-so-chicken extremists. Occasionally the chickens come home to roost and unfortunately it's not pretty.

Anonymous said...

What do trains blowing up in Spain have to do with the United States?