Total War? You Can't Handle Total War

I'd have a couple of nits to pick about Sandlin's analysis, but won't. They would be nits, after all.

I will add one thing, though: Britain, and especially it chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, were soundly criticized after the war for thinking that bombing German cities would wreck the morale of the German population. After all, Germany's bombing of Britain in 1939-1940 did not weaken British resolve.

However, the Hamburg firestorm changed things. British bombers did not set out to create the firestorm, that was an accident mainly of weather. But the firestorm was devastating. Survivors reported finding bodies of all ages without a mark on them who had not suffocated or fallen victim to carbon monoxide. They had simply been baked to death.

According to high officials of the Nazi party after the war, especially its chief of production Albert Speer, in the aftermath of the bombing, Hamburg was ruined as a war-production center. Speer said that the survivors' were completely shattered, utterly broken of spirit and will to continue. Most wanted to move away from Hamburg as soon as possible.

Speer said, and other Reich officials agreed, that only six more such raids on German cities would have ended the war. But the British never assessed that and in any case did not have the capability for such a sustained campaign.

I strongly urge reading Among The Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan by A. C. Grayling.

Posted by Donald Sensing at February 23, 2017 1:16 PM

I would also invite reading my essay, War and the reshaping of societies.

Posted by Donald Sensing at February 23, 2017 3:21 PM

Yes. This is what the West does to its own, when it has a disagreement. Without the use of nuclear energy, at least until the very end.

The enemy (and we all know who that is) knows not their peril. We do this to ourselves over a disagreement; what will we do when the very essence of Western civilisation is at peril?

I think that any conference with Islamic murderers (and all of them are murderers, or at least sympathisers) ought to use wall-sized murals as a backdrop. Of Coventry, Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin and some of the better pictures of the London Blitz - maybe the famous picture of St. Paul's silhouetted against the flames. And of Tokyo, and finally the big two.

Remind the enemy of the truth. When Muslims riot, buildings burn. When Westerners riot, cities burn.

Cookie for the reference:

In my rear view mirror the sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road
And I think of all the good things
That we have left undone
And I suffer premonitions
Confirm suspicions
Of the holocaust to come.

The wire that holds the cork
That keeps the anger in
Gives way
And suddenly it's day again.
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done.
Two suns in the sunset
Hmm
Could be the human race is run.

Like the moment when the brakes lock
And you slide towards the big truck
"Oh no!"
"Daddy, Daddy!"
You stretch the frozen moments with your fear.
And you'll never hear their voices
And you'll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore.

And as the windshield melts
My tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend.
Finally I understand the feelings of the few.
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at February 23, 2017 4:16 PM

9/8 time

Posted by ghostsniper at February 23, 2017 6:17 PM

What the blm crowd needs to remember: When blacks riot, cities burn. When whites riot, continents burn.

Posted by Bradoplata at February 23, 2017 7:45 PM

Yes, the effects of war IS devastating upon all.
Yes, it would be of rational thought to believe
the muslum hoard would respond to the graphic pictures which you would post...
but here's the rub:
Those folks are NOT rational...Period.
Your desired affect would work on anyone else...
for the most part. But I seriously doubt it would
even raise an eyebrow of their people, other than
inspire them into believing that they could bring about the pictured results ... upon us.
Their culture only bows when they're completely
subjugated...or better yet, destroyed.

Posted by Paraclete at February 24, 2017 3:59 AM

"A Desert Called Glass"

An engaging little story from:

http://newrebeluniv.wordpress.com/


They were all gathered in one place. The Hajj was the perfect time to have a strategy and coordination meeting. The blessings of Allah and his prophet were on them all. They had just sat down to a meal of traditional rice and lamb and were going to save the business talk for later. They had time. Their sources told them that their enemies were on the run and had unilaterally given up and gone home. The hated Americans had no stomach for a fight and abandoned Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the Islamic world. Even the filthy Jews seemed to have pulled back their spies and allies to their own territory. This was the perfect time to go on the offensive. The entire Western world would learn submission.

***

On the border between India and Pakistan, a different conversation is taking place. A junior captain in the Indian Strategic Rocket forces has an uncontrollable smile on his face. “REALLY? You would not be shitting on me like this?” His commander confirms, “it is an order, from the top. We will be eliminating our nuclear stockpile as part of our new treaty with America and the Russians. A Global peace initiative.” The Indian captain smiles broadly. Good cheer spreads to the other officers in the room and he sat at his control console and began to enter the instructions.

***
35,000 feet over the Islamic Republic of Iran, an obsolete Russian Airplane was lumbering along on a direct path to Tehran International Airport. The pilot was hand chosen. He had lost his only son when Islamic terrorists stormed the child’s school years earlier. He didn’t really care about the orders he had. Something about global peace initiative to reduce nuclear stockpiles. But he was really happy to be delivering this particular cargo.

***
Mecca – Coffee was being served and greasy hands were being cleaned on shirt fronts. Servants were carrying away the remains of the feast.

Then it all changed in a blink.

The people inside did not even have time for their minds to register confusion about what was happening to them.

And then they were gone.

***

35,000 feet over Mecca. A US B-2 bomber turned gently onto a new heading. LTC Brown muttered into the coms, “one down, three to go”. He noticed large bright flares in the distant horizon at two other points.  He calmly mutters, “Get Some” and looks back at his checklist.

***
India — The captain hit the launch button, firing his entire battery of nuclear tipped missiles into Pakistan. He remembered the faces of his cousins who had been butchered in a market bombing a few years earlier. He muttered, “Burn in Hell” as he watched the rockets leave their launchers.

***
Not all the bombs hit at the same time. Some Islamic nations had more time than others to contemplate what was befalling them. But it didn’t matter. The results were the same. The 1000 largest Islamic population centers in the world had all just been obliterated. Other targets had been destroyed using conventional weapons when they bordered on “friendly” areas.  60 percent of the Islamic population of the world had been instantly incinerated.  Half of the survivors would die in the following days due to exposure, disease, fallout, and starvation.  No international organizations were organizing humanitarian relief efforts to come save them.   The effect was dramatic and permanent. Most of the world had expended most of their nuclear arsenals and their stockpiles of evil cluster bombs and determined to live in peace with each other henceforth. The world lived happily ever after.

Posted by Fuel Filter at February 24, 2017 4:43 AM

Very interesting scenario,Fuel Filter. The Ayatollahs in Tehran envision such a fate for all of Christendom,now that they are flush with cash from our former POTUS. On a somewhat related note,the World Wide Witches have declared they will cast a group hex on President Trump,beginning tonite,and continuing every Friday of a waning moon,until he's driven from office. Batshittery is truly Global.

Posted by Nori at February 24, 2017 6:30 AM

Put more simply, the Axis started it, we finished it.

Posted by J Cass at February 24, 2017 6:40 AM

And the muslims started it, hopefully we'll turn them to glass.

Posted by tim at February 24, 2017 10:12 AM

I'm looking forward to the second Crusade. Perhaps it will start in Salem and expand from there. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Posted by Smarty Jones at February 24, 2017 11:13 AM

If the Americans had used the same techniques for one week at the start of the war in Vietnam, the war in Vietnam would have been over in a week. Don't fight if you don't have to, but fight to win if you do.

Posted by Pops at February 24, 2017 11:26 AM

I come for peace but Hell rides on my shoulder. For your sake do not release the Dogs of War.

Posted by Mississippi Rebel at February 24, 2017 7:31 PM