Military strategy is fascinating. I used to love it. In college my sorority sisters thought I was crazy, but sitting around talking battle plans with guys wasn't a bad way to get noticed.
In Japan at the end of WW2, we nearly flattened Tokyo, but for the most part stayed away from the Imperial Palace. Likewise we did not bomb the historical capital of Kyoto, with its ancient temples and gardens. The thinking was that after finally getting this far with the zealous Japanese warrior, if they bombed cultural icons it would make attacking the homeland even more of a risk for Allied forces. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are ports, but not historically important. When I lived in Kobe in the 60s and until the 70s you could still see some black paint on old schools and other buildings from the blackouts common during air raids. They were left as reminders, as is the arch outside the peace museum in Hiroshima at Little Boy's ground zero (Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki). I really wish that NYC would consider something along this order instead of reconstructing monuments to commerce as our symbolic response. Lest we forget: it's been 50 years since any world power used nuclear weapons during war. And we couldn't even let a Smithsonian Exhibit about the A bombs open because of protests by vets. Maybe we should now, especially as people learn that Israel intends to strike back if attacked by Hussein, and Israel, as reported today, has approximately 200 nuclear weapons. Karen Mike wrote: The Allies bombed the monastery to rubble. That was one reason why it was so hard to attack - the rubble sheltered the Germans. The Germans were appalled that we did this. They initially stayed out of the monastery itself, in order to save the monastery and its priceless manuscript library from destruction and only entered it when it was reduced to rubble. Strange people the Germans - they killed millions of civilians in Russia and millions of Jews and gypsies - but they protected ancient monuments. Mike
