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What 'Masters of the Air' teaches about Israel's war
If you watch the nine-part series "Masters of the Air" on Apple+ you may not notice that it does not spend much time on the civilian casualties brought about by the unrelenting air war waged by the Allies against the Axis in World War II.
The series was produced by Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, and Steven Spielberg and you will be satisfied at the conclusion of the episodes which are based on the bestseller of the same name by Donald L. Miller. The first few episodes are not for the faint of heart, but neither were any Army Air Corps bombing missions over Europe in World War II.
There are some moments in the course of the series when the viewer glimpses the utter devastation of the bombing of first France and then Germany. The Wehrmacht troops and German civilians are seen repeatedly referring to downed American airmen as "terror bombers" and no doubt the German civilians of 1943-1945 thought of the Army Air Corps and the Royal Air Force in just those terms because precision munitions had not been invented and the dumping of "dumb bombs" was effective only in part, even with technology advances in our bombers sights.
The people of the United States, though, did not worry about hardships visited upon "innocent Germans." Had Joseph Goebbels put out newsreels featuring Herman Goering complaining about the devastation of civilian neighborhoods in Berlin brought about by Allied bombers, such propaganda would have elicited first enormous scorn and then calls for doubling down on the tonnage of bombs dropped. Millions of Germans were killed or injured because of the war begun by Hitler, and the same is true of Japanese civilians killed by the Allied bombings of the Japanese home islands: the rulers of Imperial Japan brought that upon themselves.
When the United States joined in the international effort to destroy ISIS which culminated in the battle of Mosul which took nine months, from October of 2016 through July of 2017, thousands of innocent Iraqis were killed in that battle which included American air strikes. Again, that terror group had to be destroyed. The inevitable byproduct of war in any urban setting is the death and wounding of civilians. And as with the German, Italian and Japanese aggressors of World War II, ISIS began the war which ended in the destruction of much of Mosul.
Now that the battlefield is the Gaza Strip and specifically the city of Rafah, however, intense pressure is being brought to bear on the Israel Defense Forces ("IDF") to limit or even vault their offensive as a result of "reports" of casualties in Gaza put out by Hamas. Neither Israel nor any third party has anything like an exact figure of civilians killed or wounded in the war in Gaza. We cannot believe the Hamas numbers. What we do know is that Israel has no choice but to prosecute the war in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed, it’s senior leadership dead or fled, and a semblance of security returned to the people of Israel.
The mask came off Hamas on 10/7. For 17 years, Israel pursued a policy of co-existence with the terror organization that controlled everything in the Gaza Strip, with Israeli government after government counting on the evolution of Hamas into a governing authoritarian regime but not one devoted to massacring Jews. Now we know that Hamas, whatever else it says or does, is a death cult.....
...The war in Gaza must, however, be won by Israel and the only reason there is a war at all is because of Hamas. Only the end of Hamas in Gaza —which means a ground operation in Rafah—will bring peace to that devastated region. What President Biden and Senator Schumer should be doing is standing resolutely behind our ally. Every day, all day. IDF does not welcome civilian casualties in Gaza anymore than American pilots and crews wanted their bombs to hit other than the intended targets. Certainly Israel is not approving anything approaching the Tokyo firebombing of March 1945 where 100,000 civilians are believed to have perished.
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Israel lost 1200 Israelis on October 7th. That is the equivalent of the United States losing 50,000 people. We fought a World War over Japan killing 2.400 sailors. We killed 100s of thousands of Japanese and German civilians but we did not stop until the job was finished. We should not expect Israel to stop until the job is finished. Israel did not start this war but they should finish it.
BTW: Master's of the Air was an excellent mini series . Pretty true to history.
If you watch the nine-part series "Masters of the Air" on Apple+ you may not notice that it does not spend much time on the civilian casualties brought about by the unrelenting air war waged by the Allies against the Axis in World War II.
The series was produced by Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, and Steven Spielberg and you will be satisfied at the conclusion of the episodes which are based on the bestseller of the same name by Donald L. Miller. The first few episodes are not for the faint of heart, but neither were any Army Air Corps bombing missions over Europe in World War II.
There are some moments in the course of the series when the viewer glimpses the utter devastation of the bombing of first France and then Germany. The Wehrmacht troops and German civilians are seen repeatedly referring to downed American airmen as "terror bombers" and no doubt the German civilians of 1943-1945 thought of the Army Air Corps and the Royal Air Force in just those terms because precision munitions had not been invented and the dumping of "dumb bombs" was effective only in part, even with technology advances in our bombers sights.
The people of the United States, though, did not worry about hardships visited upon "innocent Germans." Had Joseph Goebbels put out newsreels featuring Herman Goering complaining about the devastation of civilian neighborhoods in Berlin brought about by Allied bombers, such propaganda would have elicited first enormous scorn and then calls for doubling down on the tonnage of bombs dropped. Millions of Germans were killed or injured because of the war begun by Hitler, and the same is true of Japanese civilians killed by the Allied bombings of the Japanese home islands: the rulers of Imperial Japan brought that upon themselves.
When the United States joined in the international effort to destroy ISIS which culminated in the battle of Mosul which took nine months, from October of 2016 through July of 2017, thousands of innocent Iraqis were killed in that battle which included American air strikes. Again, that terror group had to be destroyed. The inevitable byproduct of war in any urban setting is the death and wounding of civilians. And as with the German, Italian and Japanese aggressors of World War II, ISIS began the war which ended in the destruction of much of Mosul.
Now that the battlefield is the Gaza Strip and specifically the city of Rafah, however, intense pressure is being brought to bear on the Israel Defense Forces ("IDF") to limit or even vault their offensive as a result of "reports" of casualties in Gaza put out by Hamas. Neither Israel nor any third party has anything like an exact figure of civilians killed or wounded in the war in Gaza. We cannot believe the Hamas numbers. What we do know is that Israel has no choice but to prosecute the war in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed, it’s senior leadership dead or fled, and a semblance of security returned to the people of Israel.
The mask came off Hamas on 10/7. For 17 years, Israel pursued a policy of co-existence with the terror organization that controlled everything in the Gaza Strip, with Israeli government after government counting on the evolution of Hamas into a governing authoritarian regime but not one devoted to massacring Jews. Now we know that Hamas, whatever else it says or does, is a death cult.....
...The war in Gaza must, however, be won by Israel and the only reason there is a war at all is because of Hamas. Only the end of Hamas in Gaza —which means a ground operation in Rafah—will bring peace to that devastated region. What President Biden and Senator Schumer should be doing is standing resolutely behind our ally. Every day, all day. IDF does not welcome civilian casualties in Gaza anymore than American pilots and crews wanted their bombs to hit other than the intended targets. Certainly Israel is not approving anything approaching the Tokyo firebombing of March 1945 where 100,000 civilians are believed to have perished.
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Israel lost 1200 Israelis on October 7th. That is the equivalent of the United States losing 50,000 people. We fought a World War over Japan killing 2.400 sailors. We killed 100s of thousands of Japanese and German civilians but we did not stop until the job was finished. We should not expect Israel to stop until the job is finished. Israel did not start this war but they should finish it.
BTW: Master's of the Air was an excellent mini series . Pretty true to history.