Comments by "Geoff Lepper" (@geofflepper3207) on "Why is Russia bombing civilians?" video.

@lqr824 One can distinguish between the impact of bombing war factories, railroads, oil refineries, etc that may kill civilians but also disrupts the war effort and on the other hand bombing homes, schools, hospitals. Also, Germany didn't surrender until virtually all of its forces had been annihilated and the allies occupied virtually all of Germany including Berlin. Finally, a really important point: Germans in at least West Germany were living under a horrific, brutal dictatorship and had the possibility of surrendering to democracies such as the United States, Britain and Canada and when they did surrender to those countries although things were very hard at first for Germans in the long run they have done very well. Ukrainians on the other hand have been living in a democracy but if they surrender they will then face endless occupation by a brutal imperialist military representing a brutal, oppressive dictatorship and things likely would be very horrific for a very, very long time.
8
@rangda_prime You offer an interesting perspective which could be true - that the United States would have used nuclear weapons to destroy Japanese defensive forces on the Japanese coastline. Because I have read a very serious piece of journalism that said that there was a huge debate among American military and political leaders in the first half of 1945 regarding whether to try to invade Japan if the atomic bomb didn't work. The piece said that about June 1945 new analysis gave much higher estimates for the number of American soldiers who would die in an invasion of Japan and it was decided that after so many years of war the American public would not stand for more casualties on that scale so plans to invade were cancelled. Of course in July 1945 the Americans found out that the bomb would work. I've also read that the Soviets would have been prepared to invade Japan before the Americans and of course Stalin didn't mind huge casualty rates so it seems likely that if the bomb had not worked and Japan had refused to surrender it would have been the Soviet Union occupying Japan. Except that the Soviet declaration of war was likely what caused Japan to surrender before the Soviets could invade.
4
My friend spent WW2 in charge of a coastal battery that tried to shoot down German planes heading towards British cities. He said that he and his crew were not very popular with locals who saw planes carrying bombs that were heading to large British cities instead get shot down and crash in the area.
3
@brendanroberts4866 I believe that the German general in charge of Paris in the summer of 1944 tried to avoid fighting to defend the city because he didn't want to see its beautiful architecture destroyed. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of.
3
@pnwdrifter5680 I'm not sure that the Maginot Line failed. I think that the main problem was that Belgium didn't want to coordinate with France in building defensive fortifications against Germany even after what had happened in WW1 and also the French thought that Belgium would be offended if France built fortifications on its border with Belgium to defend against a possible German attack travelling around the Maginot line and through Belgium and then into France. Though I believe that with time France still planned to build fortifications on its border with Belgium.
3
@tinkertailor7385 I believe that the strategy of Ghenghis Khan and Julius Caesar was to let communities know that if they surrendered quickly then they would be peacefully occupied but that if they refused to surrender and tried to fight back not only would much of the community be destroyed but also everyone or almost everyone would be killed. So that goes beyond simply bombing a community. And of course those military leaders had the overwhelming power of vast unstoppable empires behind them whereas in WW2 the British did not have that and given the English Channel the Germans were definitely stopped and Putin's military is certainly not unstoppable.
3
@57thorns Hamas may have done horrific things but Hamas didn't start it. European Zionists started it in the late 1800s when they decided to invade and occupy Palestine and Palestinian civilians have been oppressed and locked in prison camps for decades and the Israeli police and soldiers have been happy to harass, humiliate, casually incarcerate and kill Palestinian civilians for decades. Remember the Palestinian journalist the Israelis killed about a year ago and how afterward the Israelis attacked her funeral procession? Remember the military raids on Muslim holy sites? And of course the Israeli settlers stealing yet more Palestinian land in the West Bank have been casually killing Palestinian civilians for a long time and often getting away with it. Let's be clear: Neither Hamas nor any other Palestinians "started it" by invading Europe and attacking white Jewish European Zionists and stealing their land - quite the opposite.
1
@gregoryadair3223 But the Japanese government didn't surrender after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It did surrender after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. It is true that the emperor told the Japanese people that the country should surrender because it could not hope to continue to fight when confronted with nuclear bombs but it is not clear if that was the real reason for the surrender or if it was the Soviet declaration of war and that saying that the reason was an incredibly destructive super weapon gave an honourable reason to surrender. It's hard to believe but some say that the destruction of Hiroshima was no worse than the destruction suffered by some other Japanese cities. I believe that the fire bombing of Tokyo killed over 100,000 people but that did not cause Japan to surrender. And of course some Japanese leaders still opposed surrendering even after Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war. I think that the emperor and some other Japanese leaders knew that to be invaded by the Soviet Union would not only be horrifically devastating and cause mass casualties but would also end any semblance of independence for Japan which would end up in Soviet control indefinitely. They chose well to surrender to the Americans, British, Canadians, Chinese, etc and not wait to be invaded and occupied by Soviet troops. In the end nobody can ever know for sure to what extent the atomic bombing, Soviet declaration of war and a really bad economic situation in Japan influenced various Japanese leaders to support a surrender. Finally, Putin is not going to be dropping a nuclear bomb unless he wants to be fighting all of NATO and really become a complete pariah virtually everywhere in the world.
1
@typxxilps Although the situations are complicated the Americans still seem fairly welcome in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Even in Vietnam very strangely the Vietnamese people don't seem to harbour any particular hate for Americans. I suspect that in the Philippines as well in general the Americans are not hated. Not sure how Mexicans feel about the United States that invaded and stole half of their country in an invasion that General Grant called the most unjustified war in history. I don't get the feeling that Mexicans hate Americans. Americans invaded Canada repeatedly but Canadians don't hate all Americans - just members of the MAGA cult and gun fanatics who generally are one and the same thing. I also doubt that people in Kuwait hate the Americans who invaded Kuwait to save it from Iraqi invaders. And no doubt there are many Afghans now suffering horrendously under the Taliban who wish that the Americans had left even as many other Afghans curse the Americans for the civilian casualties caused by American attacks. In the past the Americans invaded many Latin American countries and often propped up brutal dictators. Do most people in Latin America hate Americans and the United States now? I don't know.
1
@martstam2016 From what I've read the Dutch are resentful at the Danes for not resisting while their was a significant Dutch resistance effort. In the Danes' defence they did ensure that almost all Jewish people got safely out of the country to Sweden and away from the danger of the Nazis.
1