posted by
durham_knits at 12:23pm on 28/01/2005
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Well, not woes, really. I'm in the library.... updating... gotta go to work in about 10 minutes. I spent the last hour and a half reading about civilians in war, and how civilian status was really created by the formation of chivalry codes in the 900's, and how no one's really paid much attention to it until the wars of the 20th century... and even then, it was ignored most of the time.
There was a bit in one of the readings about how the U.S. firebombed German and Japanese cities near the end of WWII, just before Hiroshima. The author (Hugo Slim) noted that about as many people died in the firebombings as in the atomic blast. Now, as many of you know, my dad's a big fan of the History channel (Or, the Hitler Channel, as Prof Woods prefers). I've seen most of the documentaries, read most of the books... how don't I know about this? How could knowledge of such atrocities have totally passed me by? It must've been mentioned somewhere, right...? But now, all I want to know is how Americans can get away with being high and mighty about keeping civilians out of conflicts when the firebombings killed thousands and thousands of civilians who were holed up in their cellars to avoid the fighting.
Civilian protection is a nice thought. I just wish it worked. I wish people would be as idealistic as I was. I think Prof Feldmann is trying to turn everyone as cynical as Grinnell has made me.
There was a bit in one of the readings about how the U.S. firebombed German and Japanese cities near the end of WWII, just before Hiroshima. The author (Hugo Slim) noted that about as many people died in the firebombings as in the atomic blast. Now, as many of you know, my dad's a big fan of the History channel (Or, the Hitler Channel, as Prof Woods prefers). I've seen most of the documentaries, read most of the books... how don't I know about this? How could knowledge of such atrocities have totally passed me by? It must've been mentioned somewhere, right...? But now, all I want to know is how Americans can get away with being high and mighty about keeping civilians out of conflicts when the firebombings killed thousands and thousands of civilians who were holed up in their cellars to avoid the fighting.
Civilian protection is a nice thought. I just wish it worked. I wish people would be as idealistic as I was. I think Prof Feldmann is trying to turn everyone as cynical as Grinnell has made me.
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