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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-19-2012 @ 2:54AM
vegemite said...
you can still be a force for good without committing atrocities.
And it is a disgraceful excuse for article writing to applaude the firebombing of a civilian target
Reply
1-19-2012 @ 5:00AM
Matthew Rossi said...
Noting that something happened is not the same thing as applauding it.
Atlanta was a civilian target. So was Savannah. Sherman was none too gentle with them, and I know I consider the North to be the 'good guys' of the Civil War. It's time the Alliance acting like people who when pushed to the wall, the same way Britain acted when Germany brought air war to them. When someone is attacked, they counterattack. Was the Luftwaffe somehow considerate of civilian targets?
"War is all hell." - Sherman
To paraphrase RE Lee, it's just as well war is so terrible or we might grow too fond of it. Our fiction can only benefit by understanding and portraying it.
1-19-2012 @ 5:23AM
vegemite said...
damn thing went in the wrong location... man this place needs a new comment system
You didnt just note that something happened , you advocating that the "alliance need to pull a dresden" which is exactly the same as applauding what was done in dresden as you obviously consider it to be a good thing.
The firebombing of Dresden bypassed most of the military targets ( the military base wasnt bombed and still exists and is still used, the autobahn network wasnt touched and they hit only one quarter of the factory output in the city). It is true that the germans and the crazy holocaust deniers inflate the casulty figures but Dresden was packed with civilians and refugees and in one night the approximately the same number of people died as died during the entire length of the London blitz. Comparing the scale of the bombing done in dresden to what the luftwaffe did in london is like comparing apples to oranges. Also a couple of weeks later twice that number died in the firebombing of hamburg. at this stage the war was essentially won and there are many historians that consider these to be war crimes
The Luftwaffe were not a bunch of medieval heroes by any stretch of the imagination but to say ( like you did on the wow insider show) that the allies actions during the war were entirely justified and none of them were war crimes is wrong. bombing cities full of civilians is a war crime unless there is sufficient military justification. In Dresden there were military targets to bomb but most of them weren't targeted instead phosphorous bombs were dropped on the city creating a firestorm that literally sucked the air out of peoples lungs. While the most henious actions during the war were carried out by the Germans, the noteriety of these actions was affected by who wrote the history, there were a number of Allied warcrimes. For example
Major-General Raymond Hufft (U.S. Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'"
The second world war was a war that needed to be done as hitler and co were totally mental but neither side came out of it clean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_dresden
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II
and to even it out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_and_Germany
tried to enter the oen for japan but it wouldnt let me
1-19-2012 @ 5:39AM
Matthew Rossi said...
"The second world war was a war that needed to be done as hitler and co were totally mental but neither side came out of it clean"
I was going to debate you, but then you did this. This makes my point for me. This is the true nature of war, and it needs to be in the story. Leaving aside every other point you make: as I know you know you're deliberately leaving out how the precision bombing of the American Army Air Force was completely ineffective and caused horrendous US casualties, I know you know you're leaving out how Germany was not surrendering but rather drafting children and the elderly to fight, and I know you know that not a single person was convicted of a war crime in relation to Dresden or Hamburg, the fact remains:
War is all hell.
People make horrific choices in war.
Arguing that the story should be sanitized of that aspect of personal nature is foolish. Even as you pretend to present Dresden and the air war objectively (you're not, you know: you're leaving out how the attempt to push into Europe via purely military bombing was a pure failure that extended the war by at least a year, and I can tell that you've read enough to know that - how many died in camps in that year's time? We both know the answer to that one is "too many") you make my point for me. Presented with acting with pure military honor and losing all of their air force, or sacrificing their ideals and actually winning the war, the Allies chose to sacrifice their ideals.
It's just like Operation Greif, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Germany knew it was losing. It didn't surrender, it just dressed up soliders in Allied uniforms and sent them to sabotage behind enemy lines in violation of the Geneva Convention. Every war has stories like this. Andersonville comes to mind.
As you said, neither side comes out clean. It's time to show that.
1-19-2012 @ 5:53AM
vegemite said...
Im leaving all that out as this is a comment board on a warcraft forum not a historical debating society, my point was confined to dresden as your commend was confined to dresden. not a single person was convicted for dresden or hamburg because the allies won the war not the germans. Victors write the history
my only point was that nobody should adovcate the bombing of civilian targets or " pull a dresden" as you so charming put it, accidents do happen in war but you should try to avoid them. The fact that you are saying this needs to be done in a game that people come here to enjoy and forget about all the nonsense that happens in real war is annoying. I like relaxing in warcraft, not wrestling with deep moral issues, i get enough of that outside the game.
and you dont debate you get the last word there is a difference
1-19-2012 @ 11:25PM
Zanathos said...
You'd be more compelling if you didn't come across as so whiny, vegemite. Suggesting a story element would add to the narrative isn't the same as advocating it, in any case. Deathwing firebombing random leveling zones is a nice way to get everyone involved in the expansion. Noting that isn't advocating setting people you meet on fire.