General Curtis LeMay: “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals”

“The Fog of War is a film about the life and times of Robert S. McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The piece is a mix between historical footage and an interview with Robert McNamara by the director, Errol Morris. While allowing McNamara to tell the story from his perspective, Morris also divides the film into eleven lessons that can be taken away from McNamara’s life. What results is an inside look at one of the most important and controversial figures of 20th century American government. The film is also a candid look at the human side of the decision makers that run the United States and how their personalities can affect policy.”

Here is an excerpt which I found to be the most important:

Lesson #5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war.

EM: The choice of incendiary bombs, where did that come from?

McNamara: I think the issue is not so much incendiary bombs. I think the issue is: in order to win a war should you kill 100,000 people in one night, by firebombing or any other way? LeMay’s answer would be clearly “Yes.”

“McNamara, do you mean to say that instead of killing 100,000, burning to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in that one night, we should have burned to death a lesser number or none? And then had our soldiers cross the beaches in Tokyo and been slaughtered in the tens of thousands? Is that what you’re proposing? Is that moral? Is that wise?”

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay’s command.

Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

I don’t fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.—Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history. Kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable! What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time … and today … has not really grappled with what are, I’ll call it, “the rules of war.” Was there a rule then that said you shouldn’t bomb, shouldn’t kill, shouldn’t burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night?

LeMay said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” And I think he’s right. He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

***

General Curtis LeMay, US Airforce

“There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

“Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier. ”

“We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure? ”

“As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it’s done instantaneously, maybe that’s more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don’t, particularly, so to me there wasn’t much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn’t make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that’s the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible. ”

Source:  http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay

Apparently, for the U.S. as also for the U.K. (as witnessed with the firebombing of defenceless Dresden, and many other cities before it), war is not fought between warring armies, and as standard policy of these nations, there is no regard for civilians, who are considered legitimate targets from the “git-go”, and with no regard for International Law and conventions. Might makes right! International Law is for losers. Overwhelming military power and a policy of total war against any and all targets, where anything goes to wins wars, and the winners then justify themselves, while the losers are condemned as war criminals and summarily tried and executed. Then change the rules after the fact to justify your actions. There are no morals, there is no code of ethics, and no honour amongst them. Kill civilians to save soldiers and force a total capitulation (we own you). That is “ruthlessness”. That is “immoral”. That is “criminal”.  Save our boys by slaughtering their civilians? That is “racist” and “supremacist” and speaks to a policy of “world domination”.  Deliberately targeting and bombing civilians, especially with incendiaries, as a matter course, is evidence of a policy of “annihilation”, of “extermination”, indeed, of “Holocaust”!

These are the very things Hitler and National Socialist Germany were accused of.  But those were never Hitler’s policies nor his methods of operations. If they were, and if he truly had wanted to “take over the world” as he is accused, then Germany would surely have won the war and rather quickly, even in spite of being vastly outnumbered by the Allied forces. But Germany was a signatory to all international conventions for warfare and held to them to a far higher degree than the ALL LIES. The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau also saw to it that violators were punished swiftly and harshly.

Hitler had made clear his desire for peace from the outset, and sought to bring about global disarmament. He also sought to make the targeting of civilians with aerial bombings illegal in International Law. Britain, France and the USA would not go along with that. Hitler had no desire for another European war, much less another World War and said so on numerous occasions. He regarded the English people very highly and sought with all diplomatic means to avoid war. He sought to meet all of his political and social objectives relating to the German people through peaceful, democratic and diplomatic means, while those who claimed to be “democrats” and dedicated to “peace” and to “equality” opposed him.

It was the British, French and American governments, at the behest of their financial masters, however, who did all in their power to provoke a war with the intent of utterly destroying Germany and of slaughtering as many millions of Germans as possible. They could not be deterred.  Even after Hitler’s victory over French and British forces in 1940, Hitler again offered generous peace terms, and then said that he regretted the large loss of life that would come on both sides if reason did not prevail, and if the war were to continue. These peace offers were ignored and kept from the public.

If McNamara and Lemay were war criminals by their own admission, and only unpunished by virtue of their ultimate victory, what does that say about Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, and of the likes of Bomber Harris, Eisenhower, or Ilya Ehrenburg? What about Einstein, Oppenheimer and all those involved with the Manhattan Project?

I am left to ask, where did YOUR governments and military leaders learn and adopt such criminal and diabolical attitudes and policies? From whom, and for whose benefit? Might it not have been from that same tribe which prints your currency, controls your banking system, controls your politicians and media, and thereby, also controls your country? Indeed, controls you? And which would call you “anti-Semitic” when you realize it and dare say something about it? The same tribe, by the way, whose power and influence had brought Germany to its knees after WWI, and whose power and influence in Germany the National Socialist revolution was seeking to overthrow. And who, by the way, calling themselves “Judea”, also declared war on Germany in 1933, just as Hitler came to power and began to re-assert Christian German control over Germany; politically, socially, culturally, ethically, morally and financially. The same tribe, by the way, which called all those who stood in their way “the anti-Semitic states”. And who, by the way, are really glad that you believe they are “Jews” and “Semites” when they are in fact not. They are liars deceivers.

They are of their father the Devil! The Father of ALL LIES!

The ultimate hater of mankind and of all things righteous before God from the beginning. Who else do you suppose would attempt to corrupt mankind and then to bring hell upon earth against those who resisted, and burn to death untold countless innocent souls as a matter of policy to achieve victory and vain glory? Who else would want to brand such revelation as “hate speech”? Who else would call evil “good” and call good “evil”.  Or would consider it all “relative” in terms of achieving their military objectives?

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” John 8:44

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” 2 Corinthians 11:14

“What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” ~ General Curtis Lemay

Indeed. You are convicted by your own deeds and your own words. You cared not for humanity, not even your own.  It was only about winning, power, prestige, fame, glory, and saving your own skin. You could justify it in the end to your countrymen and those who rule over you, and so you received your reward upon Earth. But you sold your soul to the devil to obtain it.

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and ALL LIARS, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8

“Proportionality should be a guideline in war?”Really?

How about “telling the truth should be a guideline of war”? How about “honour and integrity before all else”?  And being able to stand before God with a clear conscience?

Burn in Hell, the whole lot of you!

PS.  There was no “fog of war” for Hitler and Germany. It was bitter reality, and the roots of which were very clear to all of them. Do all you can to avoid war, do all possible to make it a short war if forced, and offer peace again, and when rejected, defend to the end what is rightfully yours before God.