War Story

With the now old news that a third aircraft carrier group is heading towards the Middle East, the upcoming war with Iran appears to be a foregone conclusion.

If you recall the beginning of shock and awe, Bush was lifting troops into Kuwait and sounding like war was not an absolute.

The aircraft carriers are in place. If you think Iraq is bad, this next one will go off the chart.

Reading through Mark Kurlansky's book 'Nonviolence', there is a section devoted to World War II.

In 1940 the Germans bombed Coventry, England "from seven in the evening until past six the following morning. Six hundred residents (killed) and a fourteenth century cathedral were destroyed."

A few years later, British pilots were told to retaliate on German cities. They were ordered to bomb the center of the cities and to inflict death on the civilian population.

Long story, short - The people in England who lived in the affected bombed areas tended to not support the retaliatory strikes on Germany. The people that lived in areas of England that were not affected by bombing, tended to favor the retaliatory bombings. The retaliatory bombings did occur and in total about 300,000 German civilians were killed and 800,000 wounded in World War II.

This is very similar to how the people of New York City overwhelming voted against Bush and his regressive post 9-11 policies, but the red state people smelled blood and wanted it.

Kurlansky points out: "War is always more popular with those who don't experience it."