Quote:quote:Originally posted by Dirty Dave Lincoln
let alone the wholesale destruction that happened in the 2nd world war (the monastary at Monte Casino etc)
Slightly meandering down a by-way, but...
Is this a fair moral equivalence? Monte Cassino was flattened by Bomber Command after many of the troops trying to take the hill claimed to have seen German paratroopers in the monastery - this turned out to be false, possibly caused by mis-sightings of German troops helping the monks evacuate artworks (straight to Goering's cellar, perhaps?). The Germans were not in the monastery, but they had fortified the hill itself, causing horrific casualties to US, Polish, Moroccan and Italian troops trying to take it. Ironically, the paratroops did subsequently move into the ruins. Does this not constitute a 'fog of war' screw-up prompted by a desire to stop an infantry massacre, during a massive 'total war' where the stakes were so much higher?
Bamyan, on the other hand, was a deliberate act of vandalism by religious nutjobs, while Mostar was a deliberate act of vandalism in a brutal civil war where eradication of neighbouring cultures seems to have been a specific war-aim. Interstingly, the Allies and the Nazis agreed to spare Rome and Paris as being far too culturally valuable - perhaps Hitler was a more cultured beast than Milosevic.
A better example for the destruction of cultural sites by regular military forces might be the Yanks in Iraq, although that seems to have been down to ignorance rather than intent.
I wonder if the Georgia/Russia scenario has more in common with the former Yugoslavia, with some deliberate targetting going on to erase cultural traces?:face-huh:
