The Modern Major General: The Ghost of Curtis LeMay and the Myth of Modern Air Power

Curtis Emerson LeMay  is, as architects don't like journalists to put it, "the principal architect," of one of the most pernicious memes in human history: The myth of strategic air power; the idea that the possession and use of technologically superior weaponry raining death from the air can win a war (and the peace) for a modern nation state.

From March through August 1945, American B-29 bombing raids on Japanese cities directed by Major General Curtis LeMay, including the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed as many as one million Japanese civilians--or more. Result: Japan surrenders; however, it is arguable that Japan would have surrendered anyway. It is arguable that the atom bombs were dropped not to intimidate the Japanese high command into surrender, but as a demonstration and a warning to our Russian allies.

This is the text of leaflets dropped by LeMay's B-29s during the spring and summer of 1945: "Unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives."

LeMay told Time Magazine in 1945, "There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders...if the war is shortened by a single day the attack will have served its purpose." LeMay also once remarked that had the U.S. lost the war, he fully expected to be tried for war crimes.

60 odd years later, our bombs do have eyes, and our bombs still kill civilians--the guilty and the innocent together. Whether we're dropping them, or the Israelis.

We have eyes, but we keep them "wide shut." Let's take a tally of some other WWII bombing raids and campaigns:

German Luftwaffe "Blitz" of London 1941. Result: In spite or perhaps because of the death and destruction caused by the raids, the resolve and unity of the British in their fight against the Nazis is strengthened; the weaknesses of the Luftwaffe are exposed, and its effectiveness as a 'bogeyman' diminished; made Hitler's planned invasion of England untenable.

Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by carrier-based fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers. Result: Several thousand American causalities, several US Navy warships, including the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma sunk, or significantly damaged. United States declares war on Japan and becomes England's principal ally against Germany. No US carriers happen to be in Pearl Harbor, and thus none are sunk. Said carriers are pivotal to US victory in the Pacific War.

Allied mass bombing raids on German cities and civilian targets 1943-1945. Result: At great cost, hundreds of thousands of civilians are killed; entire cities, their cultural treasures, and much of the infrastructure and industry of Germany is destroyed; in spite of this Germany has to be invaded, conquered, and occupied at great cost by armies on the ground; and the Germans resist almost to the last gasp.

In spite of the questionable effectiveness of strategic bombing, the American military in wake of its victory in WWII maintained an unreasonable belief in its effectiveness, and also were converts from faith in battleships to the new dogma of an aircraft carrier based navy. The precept of maintaining massive air superiority was truly a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention to the modern major general. Major General Curtis E. LeMay went on to organize and develop the Strategic Air Command, as the delivery system of nuclear apocalypse-on-command, and helped put God's Own Hammer in each and every POTUS' hand.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who pilots a warplane and bombs, strafes, or otherwise attacks people on the ground is a war criminal, and as much of a terrorist as the Al Qaeda hijackers on 9-11.

Anyone who participates in the design and manufacture of our ever more shiny, lethal, technically sophisticated/complicated, and expensive warplanes and their weapons systems is a war criminal.

Any legislator who votes to spend the People's money on producing and using these automated angels of death is a war criminal.

Anyone who plans and orders the execution of an attack from the air on people on the ground is as much of a terrorist as Osama Bin Laden, and as much of a war criminal as Luftwaffe Reichsmarshall Herman Goering--or Major General Curtis E. LeMay.

If you think the above statements to be unreasonable, try this one on: For all the billions and billions of dollars the United States has poured into producing the most powerful, the most deadly, and shiniest engines of destruction ever conceived by the mind of man, will avail us but little in the conflict in which we are now embroiled. We have been revealed as a paper tiger--a paper tiger with nuclear claws--but a paper tiger none the less. We have been seduced by the myth of our own power.

For instance, we may have the best-equipped and best-trained soldiers in the most powerful modern army on Earth, but such an army is now obsolete. We can defeat another army and conquer a country, but so what? Our enemies are not organized as conventional modern armies and do not fight by the rules of wars waged by armies. Our enemies have searched out our weaknesses, and adapt their tactics faster than any army can.

A ten cent bullet fired from AK-47 (47 as in 1947, it's 59 year old design) can kill a very expensive soldier, the cost of whose training, equipping, maintenance, and shipping back home in a box runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The men firing the AK-47s are a lot cheaper by the unit (hatred is free) and you get them wholesale just by being there and doing what an army occupying a country does, particularly when your soldiers don't speak the language. We've been using our soldiers, exquisitely and expensively trained to fight the wrong war, like blunt instruments. It's like taking your precision power tools and using them like sledgehammers, to kill roaches. It's not very effective, and there's a lot of collateral damage.

Our smart bombs may be the smartest damn bombs on Earth, but how smart are we when we've used them, in effect, to create tens of thousands of recruits for our enemies at our own very expensive expense. Oh, yah, sure we killed some that we were aiming at, and some extra ones as well, but you gotta break a few eggs to create a world-wide jihad, and to ensure that the "War on Terror" never ends.

If we attack Iran, there is a strong possibility that we will provide the world with the greatest example of hubris on the high seas since the Spanish Armada sailed to conquer England. Queen Elizabeth's rag tag navy of glorified pirates declined to be annihilated by the invincible galleons of Phillip, King of Spain, at that time owner of the largest empire and leader of the greatest `superpower' on Earth. Instead, Drake's corsairs bushwhacked the Spanish fleet and Phillip found his puissant puss sporting a catastrophic bloody nose.

So, you ask, how can Iran give us a collective bloody nose? Aren't our galleons, our modern armadas--aka aircraft carrier groups--invincible? It's like that 10 cent rifle bullet I mentioned. Some of you may be old enough to remember the Falkland Islands War, fought between Argentina and England back when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of old Britannia. The Argentines sank two British ships, if I recall correctly, each with a single French made Exocet cruise missile. Argentina only had five Exocets at the time; if they'd had 10 or 15 they might have won the war. A cruise missile costs a few million dollars apiece, give or take; what is the cash value of a modern ship of the line and all its sailors?

You see, back when our endless war was cold, the Soviet naval planners realized that they did not have the resources to match the US Navy ship for ship, carrier group for carrier group. Instead of building aircraft carriers Soviet engineers and designers spent a lot of time and effort to craft the perfect arrow for our Achilles' heel. It is called a "Moskit "--Mosquito. It is cruise missile that has a range of 180 miles--below the horizon, as military types put it. It travels just above the wave tops at Mach 2.5. That's faster than a rifle bullet. A US Navy ship's antimissile defense system will have 30 seconds to respond once the Moskit is detected. It is designed specifically to evade and penetrate that defense system. It is said to be so accurate that it can "hit a squirrel in the eye." It can carry a 250 kilogram conventional or a nuclear warhead. It can be launched from the ground, from a submarine or surface ship, or from the air.

Since the demise of the Soviet Union the Russians have been manufacturing these babies and selling them for fun and profit to countries like China, Indian, and Iran. Maybe the Russians would like to see us get a bloody nose. After all, they never got to use them on us themselves. China bought two missile destroyers armed with Moskits--might come in handy in a tussle over Taiwan.

Iran is known to have at least 300 Exocet cruise missiles, and is said to have a smaller but unknown number of Moskit missiles together with mobile launchers. Iran designs and produces its own range of missiles.

I hope it is fresh in everyone's memory that in spite of heavy bombardment of South Lebanon with American armaments  the Israeli Air Force was unable to stop the barrage of missiles the Hezbollah was launching into northern Israel. Lebanon is a small country and Hezbollah's fighting force was no more than a few thousand men. The Israeli Air Force was unable to defeat or deter a few thousand men, much less destroy them--which was the objective. The missiles the Hezbollah fired were short range and inaccurate. The Hezbollah is said to possess more accurate and longer range missiles that could reach, say, Tel Aviv, which they did not use--because it did not suit their objectives to use such missiles. In an earlier conflict, Hezbollah is said to have used a cruise missile to sink an Israeli destroyer. Where did they get such missiles? Iran. From whom, in large part, did they receive their training and learn their tactics? From the Iranians.

I hear that the POTUS is having a confab with his generals to consider new tactics--not the strategy, it is emphasized, just some new tactics, in hopes of bringing that ever more elusive final solution of the mission we've already accomplished--if not within grasp--within sight. Curtis LeMay won his war; can Bush win his?

No, of course he can't. Bush's war is already lost. The real question is how many more people have to die before he is forced to change his "strategy." Another question is how much of our democracy will be left before he's through.

If someone doesn't change his mind soon, I fear that the situation in Iraq may become so bad that it will collapse into a black hole into which our people on the ground will be sucked and annihilated. We'll be arguing about how many tens of thousands of Americans are dead as a result of this war, not just Iraqis. And only the Devil knows what Bush and his goons will do then.

•  Don't forget that Curtis LeMay ...

  ...argued in favor of the heavy bombing of North Vietnam. Writing in his 1968 autobiography, he said that the U.S. should not negotiate with Hanoi but  “bomb them back to the stone age” blasting infrastructure... “until we have destroyed every work of man in North Vietnam.”

  As the History News Network notes, LeMay had actually cribbed that "bomb them back to the stone age" expression from a column by Art Buchwald.

  As Michael Kelly wrote in The Atlantic:

  All told, American warplanes dropped nearly eight million tons of bombs on an area [of Vietnam] about a third the size of France—four times the amount dropped in World War II and seventeen times the amount dropped in the Korean War. In the campaign's peak year, 1967, American planes flew 108,000 sorties. The campaign succeeded in wreaking devastation. As noted in William S. Turley's history The Second Indochina War (1986), the Communists later said that bombing had destroyed almost all the industrial, transportation, and communication facilities built since 1954, had wrecked three major cities and twelve of twenty-nine provincial capitals, and had set any hope of economic progress back ten to fifteen years.

  Yet the campaign failed, utterly.

  by Meteor Blades on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 06:43:05 AM PDT

  •  LeMay was forced

    into retirement by the Johnson administration because he was too gung ho, even for them.

    by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 06:54:03 AM PDT

•  Wait a second....

  From March through August 1945, American B-29 bombing raids on Japanese cities directed by Major General Curtis LeMay, including the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed as many as one million Japanese civilians--or more.

  The bombing campaign began months earlier, and was directed by Hansell initially. The bombing raids shortened the war and saved countless allied lives, as well as preventing the development and expanded production of Japan's advanced latewar fighters. Even tossing in the A-Bombs, total casualties didn't cross 750,000, the 1,000,000 figure is inflated.

  Result: Japan surrenders; however, it is arguable that Japan would have surrendered anyway. It is arguable that the atom bombs were dropped not to intimidate the Japanese high command into surrender, but as a demonstration and a warning to our Russian allies.

  Yes, that is arguable, assuming you are unfamiliar with the facts. There can't be much argument, though, if you actually do some reading, especially of the Japanese side of the question. The revisionist side is able to make its case only by withholding facts and distorting information.

  Short: Japan was never about to surrender. No decision to surrender was ever made, no terms ever discussed. No surrender decision was possible. The Japanese government had attempted to get the Russians to mediate a truce that would allow them to keep their gains. Stalin was not interested, as the Japanese Ambassador in Russia knew.

  An excellent book on the topic is Frank's Downfall, a very effective reply to the Japanese Rightist position that the A-Bombs were dropped on Japan wrongly, now a shibboleth of the American left. Sad. Other useful works are Weintraub's The Last Great Victory, Toland's Decline and Fall, Ienaga's The Pacific War,....

  In spite of the questionable effectiveness of strategic bombing, the American military in wake of its victory in WWII maintained an unreasonable belief in its effectiveness,

  There is absolutely no question that strategic bombing had a decisive effect on Japanese war-making ability. No one argues otherwise. The only debate is the extent of the effect on Germany. The Germans cooked the production books, which complicated postwar assessments. There's nothing "questionable" in principle about strategic bombing.

  LeMay was not a war criminal until Korea and Vietnam. The bombing of Japan was a legitimate use of force that materially shortened the war.  You can't argue that Japan was about to surrender based on the strategic bombing campaign and then turn around and claim that strategic  bombing was of questionable value. Your position has severe problems.

  Anyone who plans and orders the execution of an attack from the air on people on the ground is as much of a terrorist as Osama Bin Laden, and as much of a war criminal as Luftwaffe Reichsmarshall Herman Goering--or Major General Curtis E. LeMay.

  Rank nonsense. Without strategic bombing of the Axis, WWII would have gone on a lot longer, and no civilian lives would have been saved, since greater numbers of civilians would have died anyway in other places (and did in the massive Asian famines after the war, which were partly ameliorated by the end of the war). Specific bombings might be war crimes -- Dresden, for example, and all Nazi and Japanese bombings of cities -- but the act of planning an attack on civilians in a city is not necessarily a war crime. It would have been a much greater crime to allow the Germans and Japanese to make weapons and supplies unmolested, resulting in far more deaths, and far more of them allied.

  Michael

  by Vorkosigan on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 06:58:00 AM PDT

  •  Gee, you seem to have all the answers...

    ... since you have decided that no arguments except yours have any validity. And that is bullshit.

    There can't be much argument, though, if you actually do some reading, especially of the Japanese side of the question. The revisionist side is able to make its case only by withholding facts and distorting information.

    No, there is a lot of room for argument. And there always will be, because we don't know what would have happened differently. But there were factions that were pulling in each direction, and it largely depended on who was able to persuade the emperor and then, once persuaded, get his announcement on the air. Even after Hirohito was persuaded and made his announcement, it was almost hijacked by militarists who did not want to surrender.

    There is also a good argument about "what would have happened if we'd demonstrated it first, instead of nuking Hiroshima, or if we had waited on Nagasaki?" The answer is -- we don't know. We do know that it would have been more of a gamble if we'd spent one of our two bombs (at the time) on a demonstration, but it might have tilted the field enough towards those who realized that Japan must end the war ... however -- and been enough to have the people come along. And we probably could have gotten a surrender without Nagasaki.

    The thing is, when you try to shut down valid arguments with "Rank nonsense." when, in fact, it is NOT -- rather a different opinion and interpretation of facts that are actually quite worthy of an argument, you make yourself not worth reading. We're not talking conspiracy theories, nor are these "long-debunked" arguments -- except by the people who prefer to think have all the right answers.

    One of my best friends, the father of the Japanese family that "adopted" me, was a 10-year-old boy in Tokyo at the end of the war. What he has told me over the years has allowed me to see a lot of things through his eyes, at least so at least I could understand his perspective and his experience.

    One of the most important things I could see through his perspective were the people who used to be "Japs" now are real people -- the parents and children and playmates of people I know!

    And I'm sorry, if Curtis LeMay had been on the other side, we would have tried, convicted, and hung him as a war criminal. But since he was on our side, it was "collateral damage" instead of mass murder of non-combatants.

    It would have been a much greater crime to allow the Germans and Japanese to make weapons and supplies unmolested, resulting in far more deaths, and far more of them allied.

    Ahh, a straw man!! A black-and-white choice! I recognize you -- you're one of those people who actually can't defend his own arguments except by making up straw men to knock down.

    Did we hear anyone other than you make this argument? I'll bet you were gung-ho to get Saddam, too, and anyone who didn't agree with wanted to coddle the terrorists? No?

    by Ducktape on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:33:52 AM PDT

    •  When?

      [quote]... since you have decided that no arguments except yours have any validity. And that is bullshit.[/quote]

      I didn't "decide" that. I did the exhaustive research. I find it incredible that the US Left has adopted the position of the Japanese Right on the A-Bomb. Originally I too held that position. Then I did the reading and the studying. Have you?

      No, there is a lot of room for argument. And there always will be, because we don't know what would have happened differently. But there were factions that were pulling in each direction, and it largely depended on who was able to persuade the emperor and then, once persuaded, get his announcement on the air. Even after Hirohito was persuaded and made his announcement, it was almost hijacked by militarists who did not want to surrender.

      You have this completely wrong. Hirohito was a supporter of the war who changed his mind because the A-bombs obviated his (and the military's) pet strategy of defending Kyushu and causing such grave losses that the US would have to come to the negotiating table. The A-bomb demonstrated that Japan could be destroyed from the air without an invasion and without significant US losses.

      There were no factions that could persuade Hirohito, because the Big Six were all pro-war save for Togo, the foreign minister. As Frank has shown, the "peace faction" is a construction of postwar history. No Japanese leader ever contemplated "peace" as the Allies saw it -- the withdrawal of Japanese troops from their illegal gains all over asia, including China. At most, the goal was to obtain a truce that would stop the war. But even then the Japanese could not agree on terms.

      There is also a good argument about "what would have happened if we'd demonstrated it first, instead of nuking Hiroshima, or if we had waited on Nagasaki?" The answer is -- we don't know.

      Actually, we do know. After Hiroshima officials claimed we only had one bomb. After Nagasaki, the government  still refused to surrender and Hirohito had to order it. A demonstration would not have worked, because Hiroshima didn't work.

      The other reason not to demonstrate was that had it failed, we would have wasted a bomb, and not spent it on an important military target to help the subsequent invasion if the A-bombs had not induced a surrender. Planners have to account for failure as well as success.

      That argument is not very good.

      We do know that it would have been more of a gamble if we'd spent one of our two bombs (at the time) on a demonstration, but it might have tilted the field enough towards those who realized that Japan must end the war ... however -- and been enough to have the people come along. And we probably could have gotten a surrender without Nagasaki.

      Yes, we might have gotten a surrender without Nagasaki, but when? How many Chinese, Filipino, American, Thai, Vietnamese and other lives are you willing to spend?  Not to mention the deaths of thousands of young Japanese men. It's not like the killing stopped elsewhere in Asia. The Emperor and the Army were wedded to resistance to the bitter end.

      On November 1, 1945, there were three days of rice left in Japan. Starvation was averted the following year only by mass imports of food from the US. Had the war gone on and Japan refused to surrender, many more millions would have died. Not just in Japan, but elsewhere after the war famines killed millions -- and even more would have died had the war not ended when it did.

      And I'm sorry, if Curtis LeMay had been on the other side, we would have tried, convicted, and hung him as a war criminal. But since he was on our side, it was "collateral damage" instead of mass murder of non-combatants.

      Yes, because if he had been on the other side, he would have been guilty of waging an illegal and criminal war. But on our side he was acting in concert with international law (which permitted the bombing of defended cities). The Allies have every right to resist with every means at their disposal.

      The thing is, when you try to shut down valid arguments with "Rank nonsense." when, in fact, it is NOT -- rather a different opinion and interpretation of facts that are actually quite worthy of an argument, you make yourself not worth reading.

      The author asserted that Lemay was a war criminal like Goering. That position is absurd. Please show where Lemay's bombing violated international laws and norms, especially by 1945.

      Ahh, a straw man!! A black-and-white choice! I recognize you -- you're one of those people who actually can't defend his own arguments except by making up straw men to knock down.

      Did we hear anyone other than you make this argument? I'll bet you were gung-ho to get Saddam, too, and anyone who didn't agree with wanted to coddle the terrorists? No?

      The indiscriminate bombing of cities was inevitable due to the technology of the day -- a city was about the smallest target that could be hit by strategic bombers operating from high altititudes. The US created a fig leaf for itself by "aiming" at factories, but everyone recognized that civilians were going to be killed on a mass scale. There was no way to avoid it.  That's the black and white choice you refer to.

      The OP offered no alternative to city bombing, probably because there wasn't one.

      I'm delighted you once had a Japanese friend who taught you that Japanese were people too. I am married to a Taiwanese and live in Asia and have traveled extensively here -- so basically, I am aware that WWII was more than a US vs Japan game.  I am rather more aware that our allies the Chinese were people too, dying at a rate of about 50-100,000 a month or so. How many of them are you willing to see killed to save the Japanese from being nuked?  

      One of the interesting things about the "progressive" position is its gendered and racist construction -- it prefers Japanese lives to all other lives -- again, I have to ask how much longer the war would have gone on, since there was never any plan or decision to surrender -- and it presents a feminized and passive Japan in opposition to a masculine and controlling US.  it's a construction that has very little to do with reality, and a construction that appears behind your remark.

      Vorkosigan

      by Vorkosigan on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 05:05:48 PM PDT

      •  Oh my, aren't you full of it?

        Boy, you sure are touchy with anyone who doesn't acknowledge you as the ultimate authority, including all your dismissing everyone else as "rank nonsense."

        I see -- you married a Taiwanese and therefore you know lots about WWII from the Asian perspective. Or from her perspective ... or something ...

        ... but since you can't stand an actual argument, and can only do your little putdowns about how "oh, you had a Japanese friend once..." without knowing the slightest bit who you're talking to or what kind of background ...

        ROFLMAO. Straw men, and put downs ... a dead giveaway to someone who is terrified that he ever, ever might be considered not to know everything about the subject that he's opened his mouth on. That sounds to me like you're an academic, and this is NOT your actual field, nor have you done any original research.

        I met a lot of "experts" like you in Japan, too -- gaijin over there teaching ESL who thought he knew everything about everything Japanese because he had a Japanese wife, and couldn't even read the language above junior high school level. Waste of time.

        by Ducktape on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:20:34 PM PDT

  •  It sounds like you possess

    a greater depth of information on this subject than I, my friend. I enjoy history, and have read a lot of history, ranging back and forth in time; but I am not a historian.

    My "knowledge" of WWII, for instance, is based on the fact that my Uncle (in the Air Force) was WWII buff, and passed on his books to me as he finished reading them. Consequently, I have read a lot of books on WWII. But I am probably not up to snuff for a scholar or enthusiast.

    I have to confess, furthermore, that for the purpose of writing this diary, I used the internet for my reference resource. The Wiki article on LeMay is where I got the 1,000,000,000 estimate for Japanese casualities, and the March to August 1945 timeframe. The article is rated "B" by the Wiki people who concern themselves with things military. I went back and read the comments on the article, and while there were significant criticisms, none questioned that number. Perhaps you should go and edit that Wikipedia article on LeMay if you think you have better information.

    As to the A-Bombs, I wasn't even counting the 200,000 or so people (feel free to correct me) that died miserable lingering deaths as a result of the use of nuclear bombs by 1950, in addition to the ones who were incinerated instantly, and the ones who died of their wounds or of radiation poisoning in the immediate aftermath.

    Say it was 750,000 casualities, and that LeMay was not responsible for all of them--is there some sort of thing like a speed limit on mass murder? 1,000,000 in six months is over the limit, and 750,000 in six months plus x months is OK?

    I haven't had a seance with Harry Truman, but I do think that sending a message to the Soviet Union was part of his decision to use the atom bombs. I'll have do some more research and write another diary on that.

    I have to check out the books you mention. Thanks for the tips.

    I don't think I said that I thought Japan was about to surrender because of strategic bombing.

    I know you probably did not intend it as a witticism, but I find your remark that LeMay did not become a war criminal until Korea and Vietnam very, very funny.

    by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:56:05 AM PDT

    •  TYPO!

      1,000,000 (one million) not 1,000,000,000 (one billion).

      by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 09:07:21 AM PDT

    •  But...

      Say it was 750,000 casualities, and that LeMay was not responsible for all of them--is there some sort of thing like a speed limit on mass murder? 1,000,000 in six months is over the limit, and 750,000 in six months plus x months is OK?

      We still got the same problem that the other replier had. There is no valid alternative scenario to the A-Bomb and no one has ever offered one. Japan had no plan to surrender, no surrender decision had ever been made, and no terms of surrender agreed on. That the strategic bombing of Japan was extremely effective is not in dispute among scholars. Coupled with the submarine blockade and the late-war mining of Japan's ports, it shortened the war considerably.

      750,000 dead is OK -- if the alternative is a longer war against a more powerful Japan. Japan was pursuing offensives in China until May of 1945, broken off because the troops were withdrawn to fight the US landing.  I always come back to this question because it shows what a racist construction A-bomb revisionism is: how many Chinese are you willing to have killed to save those Japanese lives?

      The Japanese in '45 were like my country now -- refusing to admit defeat in a war that they had comprehensively lost. We've been able to make some dents in Bush's insanity because the US is a democracy and there is dissent. But Japan was a totalitarian state with no political dissent. There was dissent among some of the officers, but the island's government was fundamentally unaware of what was really going on since information was compartmentalized. Many senior officials did not know until 1944 that Japan had lost 4 carriers at Midway, for example. And when it did find out -- it still refused to stop the war. At the meeting on Aug 9 after the nagasaki bomb various ministers presented incontrovertible information proving that Japan had lost, no resources, defeat on every front, etc. Yet still the military would not give up. Hirohito had to step in and stop everything.

      That was the fundamental problem facing the US in 1945. Japan had lost the war. How to get them to admit it? It's not a coincidence that both the Iraqi insurgents and the US  in 1945 opted for tactics involving terror and psychological dislocation. How else to bring the other side to its senses, when rational calculation is thrown to the wind ?

      I know you probably did not intend it as a witticism, but I find your remark that LeMay did not become a war criminal until Korea and Vietnam very, very funny.

      Korea and especially Vietnam were of dubious legality and the legal framework for attacking cities had changed.  But by the international norms of the 30s and 40s, there was nothing illegal with what Lemay and the Americans did in Japan and Germany in a defensive war. The position that Lemay and Goering are morally equivalent is not defensible.

      Vorkosigan

      by Vorkosigan on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 05:20:05 PM PDT

      •  Actually,

        The Japanese in '45 were like my country now -- refusing to admit defeat in a war that they had comprehensively lost.

        I think you have a point there. Your comparision is pertinant and interesting. We are indeed facing the problem of getting our putative leader and his tight little cadre to admit they've lost this war.

        However, as to Truman's motivation for dropping both atom bombs, I sent my diary to my personal military expert, and he replied, in part:

        Regarding Japan's willingness to surrender; it is now largely a settled matter. Truman's diaries have been made public; in the days immediately before ordering the attack on Hiroshima his diary notes (I think this is pretty close to verbatim) "the Jap ambassador wants to talk peace".

        750,000 dead is OK .

        I'm afraid I have to quote myself here, from an earlier diary:

        I once worked with a German baker who as a child somehow survived the fire-bombing of Hamburg in World War II. More than 200,000 people killed, I think. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Many more than were killed at Dresden, the fire-bombing of which was made famous by Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughter House Five; more than were incinerated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together; about the same death toll as the Tokyo fire-bombing. He didn't talk about it much. He was in the Hitler Youth; said it was like being in the Boy Scouts. One night he opened up a little bit. His description of coming up out of the shelter he thought was going to be his tomb, and seeing his home neighborhood that had once existed reduced to charred sticks, shattered and burnt masonry, and metal melted and twisted by the tremendous heat and force of the incendiary and high explosive bombs, is not something I'll ever forget. When he spoke of reaching down and picking up the blackened head of a neighbor, that was lying in the street like a football, it gave me the shivers. I understood then why he was often such a cold man..

        Mrs. Dr. Omed has already described how her father never got over his service in battle in World War II, as she says, the closest thing to a just war that we've fought in a century. All the bombings I've described in the previous paragraph occurred in that war and we, the Allies, the good guys, the saviors of democracy and civilization, planned and committed deliberate war on civilian populations, rained death from the air and sacrificed these hundreds of thousands of people who were then our enemies in true holocausts of fire to achieve the objective of defeating the Nazis and the Nips. That Hitler and Stalin killed millions more somehow doesn't make it all right that we did some of that killing for no good reason whatsoever. That some of the killing seemed necessary doesn't make it all right. That some of the killing was necessary doesn't make it all right.

        No, it's not OK.

        My scales of justice are not so finely and precisely tuned as the pair you evidently possess. But if you totted up all the casualties inflicted by the Luftwaffe under command of Goering, and all the casualties inflicted by the Allied bombing groups commanded by LeMay during the course of the war, I wonder who would have the biggest pile of corpses?

        by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 10:15:56 PM PDT

•  so it is

  immoral, AND it doesn't work.

  Great

  by whitewidow on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 07:01:07 AM PDT

•  The endless

  quest for the Magic Bullet.

  Nice post .

  by colorado bob 1 on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 07:04:55 AM PDT

•  Not sure what you are trying to say here

  I think of ALLIED FORCE, and see that air power has definitely the capacity to be decisive.  As well, Israel is no longer in Lebanon, and seems to have actually achieved most its objectives (unlike America in Iraq).  The blind firing of Katusha rockets has stopped.  They retrieved their soldiers.  The death and mayhem was extreme, but was finite in its application.
  There is always a larger media war that each side tries to master--the important thing is to look at the results.  Israel learned a lot about the capabilities of their enemies and they knocked back their enemies for a while.  Not sure Hezbollah was doing as well as they tried to muster on camera--a Rove-like smile in the face of disaster.

  The fact is, this all comes down to war-making when diplomacy was barely tried.  Treating lives frivolously.  But this happens on all sides in war--embedding rocket artillery in civilian enclaves is as much war crime as bombing a hospital.  A missile launcher in one's neighborhood is an eviction notice.

  Anyway, let's hope for some sanity in foreign policy--air weapons are devastating.  Unbelievably devastating.  They are also decisive--we just live in an age where nations accept pyrrhic victories as long as leadership survives.  I think air power is so decisive it makes assymetrical attacks--i.e. terrorism, more likely.  But a nation that has been crippled by modern air power doesn't "win" anything.
  Vietnam was a huge tragedy for America, but an unbelievable human disaster for Southeast Asia.  

  by sparko on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 07:14:37 AM PDT

  •  Oh, I get it!

    As well, Israel is no longer in Lebanon, and seems to have actually achieved most its objectives (unlike America in Iraq).  The blind firing of Katusha rockets has stopped.  They retrieved their soldiers.  The death and mayhem was extreme, but was finite in its application.

    This is snark!

    by curmudgiana on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:37:53 AM PDT

  •  HMM.

    I don't think our views of who came out on top in Israel VS. Hezbollah agree.

    The Hezbollah had a force of 3,000 men, plus reserves. Those reserves were never called up, because they were not needed, in the estimation of the Hezbollah commanders. They took some casualities, but inflicted an unexpected number of casualities on the IDF. Israel had to call up its reserves. The Hezbollah were taking out Israeli heavy tanks with vintage 1973 Soviet wire-guided missiles. The Israelis were having problems because the soldiers of this generation have never had to fight a trained, disciplined force. Lack of discipline on the Israeli side caused casualities on their side. The Israeli soldiers are used to fighting rock-throwing boys and guys who regard firing an AK-47 in the air a form a self-expression but don't know how to aim the damn thing.

    The military assessments that I have read indicate that Hezbollah used perhaps one third of their entire stock of missiles. The Israelis weren't even able to knock the Hezbollah TV station off air, in spite of bombing the crap out of Southside Beirut.

    Sheik Nasrullah gave a speech to a hundred thousand adoring fans in bombed out Beirut. I don't recall Israeli PM giving any victory speeches. Go read Haa'retz, and see how they thought the whole thing went.

    The Hezbollah may be terrorists but they are dedicated, disciplined, and very, very good at what they do.

    The media is often the most important part of the war. The Arab world sees Hezbollah as the victors. Israel has been knocked off its pedestal as the unbeatable military power in the region. Another paper tiger with nuclear claws.

    by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 09:38:53 AM PDT

•  James Carroll, In the book House of War,

  also says that LeMay and McNamara hated each other.  But the quote,"...Lemay(sic) was to the Pentagon what hoover was to the Justice Department" is just downright bone freezing.  

  by Pithy Cherub on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:09:06 AM PDT

•  In 1937, with the bombing of Guernica,

  the object of military force began to shift from the military forces of the enemy to the enemy's civilian population.  After the bombing of Hirsoshima and Nagasaki, this shift was completed.  War is no longer a matter of armies facing armies, navies facing navies.  It is a matter of threatening a nation's population with destruction from remote weapons.

  LeMay was indeed the father of warfare as we know it today.

  by curmudgiana on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:54:35 AM PDT

•  The World War II Strategic bombing survey....

  is a good idea of where the US military got their ideas about the effectiveness of Strategic Bombing.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/...

  Its a good read, if you're into Air Power theory.

  by davepc on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 08:57:54 PM PDT

•  "Demonstration" -- a known failure

  Because we did do a test in the Southwest US, and a fair number of military figures watched the test or got the tour afterwards.  The reaction, from a friend who gave the tours afterwards, included 'is this all?', 'this' being a very modest glass-lined hole in the ground.

  An important difference between the European and Japanese bombing campaigns, entirely by accident, was that the Japanese campaign put a far higher emphasis on incendiaries than on high explosives, relative to Europe.  It turns out that wrecking machine tools with high explosives is much harder than wrecking them by setting them on fire.  Thus, Japan took a far harder hit on their industry.

  Furthermore, the European campaign had another critical effect.  It forced the Germans to send up their aircraft to fight ours, and substantially wrecked the german air force in time for the Normandy invasion.  That was a core reason for retaining daylight bombing: We wanted to engage their day fighters as well as their night fighters.

  Strategic bombing substantially shut down the German military: they ran out of fuel.  Japanese military production came substantially to an end.

  by phillies on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 09:27:15 PM PDT

  •  No,

    I'm learning a lot.

    by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 05:37:50 AM PDT

•  war criminals

  Anyone who plans and orders the execution of an attack from the air on people on the ground is as much of a terrorist as Osama Bin Laden,

  I really don't see all that much difference between airpower and, say, artillery.  By this logic the artilleryman is a war criminal.

  Most of war is criminal.

  That said, I do appreciate the LeMay focus.  He was an honest neocon.

  by Simplify on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 09:56:18 PM PDT

•  As the proprietor

  of ProgressiveHistorians, a community site dedicated to the intersection of history and politics, I would be honored if you would cross-post this excellent diary there.

  by Nonpartisan on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 10:10:34 PM PDT

  •  trouble is

    there is some factual inaccuracies that need to be cleaned up.

    Here is one: the leaflet that the author of this diary describes is one that was given for LeMay to drop; he didn't like it and so wrote up another one to drop.

    The other one was more of the "Evacuate at once!  Your city has been picked for destruction by our powerful air force.  Watch how powerless your military is to defend you..."  (I can't remember the exact wording, but it comes from LeMay's book: Mission with LeMay).

    LeMay more or less executed the A-bombing; it wasn't his idea.  He thought that the A-bombs might not have been necessary.

    And yes, he indeed wrestled with himself over the killing of civilians (he came to a "them or us" conclusion) and he approved of taking Kyoto off of the target list.

    Would have Japan surrendered anyway?  Possibly, but what I've read indicates that they might have accepted the same deal that they ended up accepting, but that was in April, after the first Tokoyo raid (which killed 80,000-100,000 people).

    We might have been able to spare ourselves the bloody Okinawa invasion.

    The source for this conclusion is the book called Hiroshima in America.

    by onanyes on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 06:59:47 AM PDT

•  Two arguments here

    If I unravel this posting correctly, there are really two arguments being made here: 1) Air Power is a Myth, and 2) It's immoral to use it.
      Let's start with LeMay. It's necessary to put LeMay in context, ditto for Modern Air Power and 'myths'.
      LeMay was a veteran of a long struggle over the proper use of air power. Don't forget, his career started in the years when it was a sometimes unwanted and frequently misunderstood stepchild to the established ground and sea power military establishment. If he was an extreme partisan, he faced extreme opposition. Modesty is not a useful virtue in such situations.
       What can't be argued is that the development of air power changed the way wars are fought. Maybe by itself it can't win a war - but the side that has an advantage in any particular strategic or tactical ability is going to be that more likely to prevail - if all else is equal.
        No one anywhere plans a military campaign without taking air power into consideration: who has it, how can it be used, how can it be countered. It doesn't replace boots on the ground, but it can sure make the job easier for those boots.  
        Military superiority in any one facet of combat does not ensure victory - it just forces the opponent to employ strategies and tactics that don't confront that advantage. Hence asymmetric warfare and all the joys that entails.
          As for morality, well that's a seperate issue. Any military technology can be used or misused. Rule changes as capabilities change. In World War 1 for example, what was the greater crime? Using machine guns and artillery to slaughter attacking infantry wholesale OR sending those troops out again and again to be mowed down?
         The argument above seems to be that using Air Power is immoral because it can't win a war all by itself or keep wars from starting. So, is it just a question of effectiveness? Would it be moral to attack someone on the ground if it would end a war immediately? If it shortened it by a week? A month? A year?
        The problem of putting a blanket condemnation on anything as a war crime is linked to the paradox of war itself. Wars are fought to be won. What constitutes winning, and what can you live with to accomplish that? If you don't win, living may not be an option. Winning the wrong way or at too great a cost may prove worse than losing. No easy answers - but who said war should be easy?

  by xaxnar on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 10:56:59 PM PDT

  •  Gotta go to bed,

    Mrs. Dr. Omed is calling.

    But you have a good substantive comment here, and I would like to respond to it. But not right now. Tomorrow, then?

    by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 11:04:16 PM PDT

    •  Good Morning

      In World War 1 for example, what was the greater crime? Using machine guns and artillery to slaughter attacking infantry wholesale OR sending those troops out again and again to be mowed down?

      My immediate impulse response is the latter.

      The argument above seems to be that using Air Power is immoral because it can't win a war all by itself or keep wars from starting. So, is it just a question of effectiveness? Would it be moral to attack someone on the ground if it would end a war immediately? If it shortened it by a week? A month? A year?

      That is not my argument. I think in and of itself war, especially modern high tech war, is always a criminal enterprise. Does that mean we shouldn't prepared to defend ourselves against attack? No. I have had confrontations in my life that resulted in physical violence. When I am in such a situation I don't fight fair, I fight to win. There is no such thing as a just war, macro or micro. But resorting to violence is always a mistake, always a failure,even when you win. Resorting to violence tends to become a habit, and it's a bad habit, not an equally valid first choice among a range of possible ethical choices.

      Making war is immoral no matter how effective your strategy, tactics, and means are in attaining an objective, no matter how worthy or unworthy it is.

      Air power as practised and advocated by LeMay is an examplar of modern technological warfare that encapsulates the dogma, hubris, moral disregard, and the myth of invincibility that has brought us to our present pass.

      Well, damn, I'd like to go on, but real life is calling and I have to shut down for now. I've really enjoyed everyone's comments, and have some new tidbits of data to work with--or work over.

      Winning the wrong way or at too great a cost may prove worse than losing. No easy answers - but who said war should be easy?

      Indeed.

      by The Reverend and Doctor Omed on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 06:27:07 AM PDT

•  War as a war crime.

  Perhaps Gen. Wesley Clark (US Army, ret.) would have some interesting comments on the use of both strategic & tactical air power in a war.

  The mixture of statements in this diary generate too many lines of discussion to even deal with a part of them: nukes is one thing, nukes & bombers (not missiles) is another, strategic air power is a totally different subject than tactical air combat or troop support, etc.  Japanese history, revised & edited by moralists & politicoes is yet another idea.

  But, just one crushing point: Gen. Clark (a grunt) as the head of NATO & against the opinions of most military experts & all the right wingnutz radio hosts & all the politicians, etc., used air power to take out the genocidal combat operatives of Slobodan Milosovic.  No NATO grunts killed, except in motor vehicle accidents.

  But, then, Gen. Clark probably knew how to read & understand LeMay's strategies.  Clark was probably cashiered by a cabal of anti-Clinton generals in the Pentagon BECAUSE of this rather noticeable success in the use of air power.  Perhaps that group of generals didn't accept the "morality" of such air power?

  A different use of air power kept Saddam Hussein in his Iraqi "box" for several years.

  Finally, LeMay's view or opinion was very likely the starting point for the military triad idea that kept our USSR colleagues at bay during the era of Mutually Assured Destruction.  Again, a moral view may not approve of LeMay's concepts, but they were the methods used: strategic air power, intercontinental missiles & nuclear submarines.  All three parts of the triad used mixed targeting ideas for attacks on cities & infrastructure, military installations & industrial capabilities.

  Paraphrasing John Kennedy on Curtis LeMay: JFK said that he didn't even want Gen. LeMay in the room while making the decision about going to war, or not.  But if the decision was made to fight, then he wanted Gen. LeMay in the lead bomber.

  In my opinion, discussing air power & morality (i.e., war crimes) in the same context is like the executioner wiping an antiseptic swab on the injection site before inserting a lethal dose of drugs to kill the condemned person.  This diary is a hodge-podge of concepts that all need far more discussion in depth than the "air power is a war crime" & "LeMay is a bad guy" themes.

  by whl on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 04:19:29 AM PDT

•  Sun Tzu: Vacuity and Substance

  All power is ultimately an illusion. Air power has both a reality and a deception to it.

  The reality is that air power and strategic bombing is highly effective against centralized infrastructure and forces. Where they are gathered, they can be smote. The deception is the modern (post-Napoleonic) assumption that forces need to be concentrated so as to address a concentrated enemy, rather than used guerrilla fashion, assembling only to fight and scattering after the battle.

  In both Vietnam and in Iraq, we faced a dispersed enemy -- one with "no perceptible form". This allows them to concentrate where we are fragmented, and disperse from where we are concentrated. From a logistics standpoint, there's also no substantial military manufacturing capability in Iraq; we can't destroy their weapons factories by stategic bombing, because there are no factories. Add in the dream of achieving widespread popular support, and mass air power cannot be used to the same effect as in WWII.

  Air power could be effectively used as surveilance and support to close the borders, to cut off the supplies of new munitions. Unfortunately, there's probably enough weapons and ammo already present for a decade, not to mention the risk of repurposing Allied supplies via theft. This is not the sort of strategy that will rouse popular support here in the US, either.

  I suspect the problem is too many in the current US administration have only read the Bible, and not enough Clausewitz and Machiavelli-- not to mention Voltaire. They are trapped by their own illusions. The war is not inherently unwinnable; but at this point, I fear it would require a truly first-order military mind, the likes of which the world sees only once or twice per millenium. I'm also not sure that would be a good thing if it happened; they tend to be bad for democracy.

  by abb3w on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 05:48:14 PM PDT