James Carroll touches on something deep in the American character in his column today in the Boston Globe. There is a deep-seated need to inflict revenge – even if the ensuing violence is totally irrational. The firebombing of Germany fits this pattern:
There is a connection between Iraq and the US firebombing of cities at the end of World War II. There is a connection with the Vietnam War, which ended 30 years ago last week. Despite all the talk about Sept. 11, 2001, as a moment of transcendent change, the events of that day, and what followed from them, were not transforming. Rather, they were revealing an epiphany laying bare currents of an American transformation set moving years before in massive acts of reprisal, beginning with the bombing of cities in Germany and Japan and continuing through the extremities of the US air war in Southeast Asia.
The bombing of cities in those wars, carried on even after studies had shown such bombing to be strategically futile, amounted to terrorism campaigns. That remains a harsh truth with which the American conscience has never reckoned. And after losing in Vietnam, the United States imposed a punitive 20-year embargo on that country for no other reason than the hurt we felt at having lost.
This is not how we see ourselves. Arlington National Cemetery is a garden again, a beautiful memorial to the many who died with only good intentions. But revenge remains its mortal secret, and America’s.
It will be interesting to follow the reaction later this summer when the English version of Jörg Friedrich’s book Der Brand is released.
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Firebombing cities has been seen as – in those days – legitimate way of eliminating or reducing a societies’ ability for the masses’ insolvent in active participation of war. As Hilter bombed Amsterdam, London and Coventry, the Sovjet Bolshevik did with Berlin, the west Allies did in Dredsen etc. – of course, there has been a revaluation in terms of humanity of means like this – especially led by UN initiatives – and in addition due to tactical considerations warfare activities like this in most cases turn against the actors and make the victims stand together. The traditional argumentation line of the European left is: The US did bomb and Hitler did bomb, but China did not and Russia (ex-Soviet) did only on a small scale, therefore we need to turn away from the US and ally with China and Russia – totally neglecting the atrocities of communist totalitarism.