opinion of this quote?

[© tweed]

Is there any parallel between Dresden and Auschwitz? To my mind both teach one lesson: that the real crime of war and peace is not Genocide—with its implicit requirement that posterity reserve its sympathy for one race—but Innocenticide. It was not the Jewishness of the victims that made Auschwitz a crime, but their innocence.

[bedstuy]

That's insane and it's essentially holocaust revisionism in spirit.

A critical element of the horror of the holocaust was that one group of people was targeted for complete annihilation for its own sake.  Reducing that down to, some innocent people died for some reason, it's just rewriting the history.  Nothing the allies did, even the most horrendous bombing was anything akin to the holocaust.  The holocaust was not just another bad thing that happened, it was evil on an unprecedented scale and motivated by the senseless hatred.  Fundamentally, that's a huge difference, killing people for valid motives, like trying to win a just war, and killing people for unquestionably evil motives, like the holocaust.

[© tweed]

the point that he argues in the book is that the three bombings of Dresden were in no way necessary to win the War.  this is not a position outside of the mainstream of WWII scholarship.  it was mass slaughter for the sake of mass slaughter.

the question at hand is -- is it inherently worse to conduct a mass slaughter of innocents because they share a certain racial/ethnic background?  you seem to answer in the affirmative.

[bedstuy]

US bombing was still nothing like the holocaust on a moral level.  Saying so is outside the mainstream because it's incredibly stupid.  So, I reject the framing of your question, because it's idiotic, deceptive, anti-Semitic in its assumptions.

Just stop.

[© tweed]

no, I'm not going to "just stop" on your command. 

estimates are hard to come by, but between 60 and 85 million deaths can be directly attributed to WW2. tens of millions died in "legitimate combat.  over 20 million were civilians and over ten million due to what are generally accepted as "war crimes", incl. but not limited to the Holocaust.

Dresden itself can be argued to death: IMO, the second and third bombings were nothing short of war crimes.  regardless, and at minimum, you hold the position that racial/ethic motivated massacre constitutes a greater crime than other forms of civilian massacre?

[bedstuy]

Stop embarrassing yourself.

[Foucaulf]

In the interests of full disclosure (highlight to read):

This is a quote from David Irving, noted Holocaust denier. It's from his first book on the Bombing of Dresden, written in 1963; he wasn't a denier then, though.

[© tweed]

Stop embarrassing yourself.

I do not feel embarrassed in the least.  I posed a very simple question:

Dresden itself can be argued to death: IMO, the second and third bombings were nothing short of war crimes.  regardless, and at minimum, you hold the position that racial/ethic motivated massacre constitutes a greater crime than other forms of civilian massacre?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Auschwitz and Dresden share this killing of innocent life, and so stand in that similarity as great crimes. A slaughter of the innocents must not be defended or minimized by pointing out it does not meet the definition of a genocide.  But even if Auschwitz had been full of combatants or the guilty in time of war, it would have been a great crime - this methodical abuse and killing of those under their control, which does not exist in the same way as a bombing campaign with a strategic objective. There is something also deeply evil, separately, in the attempt to exterminate a people, to treat them as a virus upon the earth, with the attempt to obliterate the lives of a people along with their culture.  The fact that it is a genocide as opposed to another mass slaughter of people is not the central fact of what makes it a crime, but does add to that crime another aspect of evil. 

In short Auschwitz and Dresden share crucial morally significant similarities, but important distinctions as well. So I vote "other" with a mix of positive and negative reaction. 

[Horus]

Auschwitz and Dresden share this killing of innocent life, and so stand in that similarity as great crimes. A slaughter of the innocents must not be defended or minimized by pointing out it does not meet the definition of a genocide.  But even if Auschwitz had been full of combatants or the guilty in time of war, it would have been a great crime - this methodical abuse and killing of those under their control, which does not exist in the same way as a bombing campaign with a strategic objective. There is something also deeply evil, separately, in the attempt to exterminate a people, to treat them as a virus upon the earth, with the attempt to obliterate the lives of a people along with their culture.  The fact that it is a genocide as opposed to another mass slaughter of people is not the central fact of what makes it a crime, but does add to that crime another aspect of evil. 

In short Auschwitz and Dresden share crucial morally significant similarities, but important distinctions as well. So I vote "other" with a mix of positive and negative reaction. 

Only sensible post in this thread.