Remember the last “good war?” Everyone now knows that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War 2, that millions of Soviets were killed and more millions killed by the Japanese in China. An uncle of mine died in a Japanese prison camp. But how was the war fought by the good side?
Other than about 5 million military casualties inflicted on Germany and Japan (not counting the other Axis powers) we managed to kill a very large number of civilians. These include about 2 million Japanese civilians and 800,000 German civilians while the Soviets killed about 3.6 million more. And let no one pretend that these deaths were accidental. Civilians were targeted by both sides.
My father tells the story about being caught in the cross-fire between an Allied fighter and a German anti-aircraft gun hidden in some trees alongside a country road in Holland. Those casualty figures do not count civilians killed by “friendly fire” in German occupied Europe, and there were plenty of those as the Allied armies crossed Europe from the Atlantic until they got to the German border. One source puts the number of civilians killed by the Allies just in France at 67,078 men women and children with another 100,000 injured.
Of course these were negligible compared to the war waged against civilians by the Soviets. In Berlin alone they killed 1.2 million Germans and raped about 2 million women, most multiple times.
That was the good war. If anyone should think that this war was particularly brutal, that person is no student of history. Genghis Khan has come down to us in history for his leaving mounds of skulls to terrify his enemies and he only had bows, swords and spears to work with. The Romans, no barbarians they, knew no better way to conquer their enemies than to wipe them out. Julius Caesar conducted his Gallic wars by killing hundreds of thousands of the native tribes – including their women and children – and selling many of the rest into slavery.
On this continent, our wars were brutal and thorough. The Indians were nearly wiped out and their remains were settled into reservations. The South was so devastated during the Civil War that it took over a century of peace to recover.
Americans believe that going to war meant going to win; and that “war is hell.” But all that began to change during Viet Nam when the Left chose to use their opposition to the war by accusing the American of atrocities. So today in Liberal-land, war is “heck.” Our ruling class has decided that it had better not be hell and the destruction that once defined war can not occur. War is now waged as social reform by armed members of an expendable group whose real purpose us moral uplift. Men who are given medals for NOT firing their weapons. Our betters will attend the funerals of slain Americans as part of their media photo-ops. But woe to the unlucky pilot or soldier who harms the enemy civilian. There is no more sure way of getting the ruling class’ approval than finding an American serviceman who makes a mistake. The entire mainstream media is obsessed with finding military mishaps.
War always was and always will be a horror, where killing and destruction is the means to achieving the political objective. It should not be entered into lightly, but once begun, it should be pursued with the objective of winning as quickly and decisively as possible. To do otherwise is a crime against the people sent to fight. To pretend otherwise is immoral since it guarantees just enough bloodshed to fail.
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