Agree. It seems strange to me, though, when same reasonable argument is not applied to Soviet troops in 1944-45 advancement, and instead I hear hypocritical cries of “Soviet rape of Europe”.

If you deem American and British bombing of non-strategic German targets as justifiable due to Nazi aggression and destruction they cause to Britain by air raids, the same logic should be applied to Soviet Army who seek retribution, and on a much bigger scale – because Soviet Union sustained much heavier destruction on its territory, and not just by mere air raids.

Somehow hatred of Stalinism (which I share) extends here to the hatred of Soviet people and its army in Great Patriotic War. “Collective responsibility” is a perfectly Stalinist concept.

The allies bombed many cities too, but let us not forget who started the war, who invaded who, who the aggressor was, if the allies mistakenly bombed suburbs and killed german civilians, and they did it in great numbers too, all actions from the allies were in self defense.

Now, once again, we have hordes of so called “history revisionists” (translation to English: Anti-americans, anti-israeli and holocaust deniers), and they have now seized the bombing of Dresden as an argument against the allies, specially of course the british and american war efforts.

Dresden could have been spared had the germans themselves restrained the madness of their leaders and ceased the war. Iraq would have never been invaded by the americans and their allies had Hussein come to his senses and let all international nuclear agency inspect all his facilities, had he not made all the mistakes he incurred in and which eventually caused his fall.

But these “history revisionists” are out to ignore facts and history lessons. They have an ideological agenda.

Neville Chamberlain had a free hand to use love, compassion, reason and trust to bring Germany back into company of law-abiding nationns. He apologized to the Germans for the evil treaty that ended WWI. Almost every nation in the world passed a law outlawing war. In the US it was called the Kellogg-Briand Act and I suppose President Obama is currently violating it. It was never repealed.

Kenny Rogers sings:
“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.”

The choice is not between walking away and running away. Sometimes you can’t run fast enough or far enough. Sometimes you have to stand and fight. Some fight when they are too tired to run away, or when they are cornered and they only choice is to fight or die. Some kill themselves. Some pray that a miracle will happen and they will be saved. They pray for a “reset button”.

That is American foreign policy today. It is centered on the “reset button”.

Dresden was burned by people who preferred running over fighting, people who were forced to fight or die, people who were determined that they would not fight this particular bad guy again. Dresden was not the only German city fire bombed. There was Hamburg, Essen… many, mant more. Today Germans are pacifists and I doubt they will ever invade France or England again.

It is very true that if the WWI allies had chosen to fight in 1932 instead of walking away, the NAZI horrors would never have happened, WWII would never have been fought against Germany and the fire bombings would not have happened in Germany. These things only happened because our ancestors chose to turn the other cheek rather than fight the NSDAP in 1932.

Those who prefer diplomacy over conflict always risk catastrophe.

You cannot sit smugly 50 years afterward and make judgments based on hindsight. You simply can’t – you have to put yourself in the place of the people who were there, and what they knew at that time.