The Imitation Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra

I would recommend it (of course it was an indep. film), and it was a new angle on the WWII unsung hero story (how nerds/misfits helped win the war in a big way, and struggled with skeptics/haters and big moral decisions).

Reflecting on WWI-WWII, I think it was one of the greatest tragedies in modern history that the Western powers allowed GER to fall into extremism and aggression. Like Russia's revolutions and purges were of course a terrible waste of human capital, but Russia was pretty much a 3rd world country until recently.

For GER, they were world leaders in various scientific and cultural disciplines, and of course had a robust military and industries. Sure they did some bad things during WWI, but they weren't clear "villains", and the punishment imposed on them was unjust - I guess fueled by victor's hubris and other irrationality.

As far as UK-FRA were concerned, they wanted to kick GER down a few notches so they wouldn't ever again be a rival for preeminence in W Eur? But I suppose no one ever considered trying to make GER an ally in order to gain strength and plan for a potential face off with Russia/Bolshevism. Well, WWI and postwar leaders in UK-FRA were not exactly impressive.

Clearly the EU learned that lesson the hard way, but I wonder what history would have been like if the Allies approached post-WWI GER with a Marshall-plan/NATO mentality rather than the typical European to-the-victor-go-the-spoils approach. I know we can't expect those leaders to have implemented ideas ahead of their time, but I'm fairly sure there were some intellectuals who were proposing similar things but getting dismissed. Heck they idealistically made the League of Nations, even though it was terribly flawed.

So you wonder how much better the world would be today if Western powers harnessed GER's potential to advance humanity and modern values, vs. all the resources allocated for WWII activities (and WWII just led to another wasteful military buildup that fortunately didn't escalate). Maybe the same can be said about post-Napoleonic France, but that was still the monarchic period, and leaders were understandably scared of Fr. Revolutionary thinking.   

But all that shows how even advanced nations can so quickly devolve into xenophobia, ultra-nationalism, and barbaric aggression with the proper external/internal pressures and extremist messages from leaders. Trump and white-working-class anger are milder manifestations, and I don't think the US is at risk in the forseable future, but it is a shame any time a world power with so much potential for good strays off the higher path and instead becomes a negative force in the world.

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And re: Alan Turing and Project Ultra, it's very sad but typical that the gov't he worked hard to preserved ended up screwing him and literally killing him (he was outed as gay, and the backward laws/medicine at the time prescribed hormonal therapy with bad side effects - he committed suicide a year after treatment began). And if you're gay and smart, of course you're a commie spy, so life must not have been pleasant for him during the postwar years (esp. since he couldn't tell the world his wartime actions, so no one knew he was a hero).

Imagine all the other great contributions he could have made to society had he not been persecuted to an early death. And in the context of WWII, the conflict is depicted as good vs evil, and tyranny vs freedom. But if you were a woman, black, gay, Jew, or another minority, neither the Axis nor Allies treated you very well. of course the Axis treated those groups worse, but if you were a member of one of those groups, you had to wonder WTF you were fighting for. I guess it's like US blacks during the Civil War too - it's not like they had it so great if the Union won, and Abe Lincoln was probably the most pro-equality president (it took him a while, but he really became a champion) until LBJ and Obama. But they were in a tough position to support the least evil side (but not nec. a good side for them, which unfortunately did not exist).

So a woman who was brilliant at maths but couldn't get a professional job in the UK because of her gender, and a math genius who had to hide his sexuality in the UK, significantly contributed to the Allies defeating the Nazis faster, with potentially millions of lives saved on both sides. That should be a big lesson about what social values we should fight and die to protect, and what harm we cause when we marginalize, exclude, and block our neighbors from reaching their potential (yes I'm looking at you, 2016 GOP).

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Lastly, we know of the WWII folks as the Greatest Generation, and despite their prejudices and ignorance, I really do think they were great in terms of prudence and discipline. As depicted in The Imitation Game, the UK gov't first had to identify a path to victory (partly by cracking the Enigma settings puzzle), then recruit, fund, and trust a team who could deliver in time (a group of "rejects" with unorthodox methods). They had to let them do it their way, and not stifle their creativity with bureaucracy/meddling. Then once the puzzle was solved, they had to keep it a secret and strategically select interventions that had the highest statistical probability to (a) win the war fastest, and (b) not tip off the Nazis that Enigma was cracked. The same can be said of the Manhattan Project, but Ultra was more complicated from a game theory perspective, because there was the element of the German's actions/reactions that they couldn't control but had to predict.

I really don't think Western leaders and armed forces of today could have executed a project so well, and made the tough but correct decisions. You see how our "best and brightest" messed up the War on Terror and the War on Drugs - and that is when we enjoy huge resource advantages. But maybe that is the problem, advantage leads to overconfidence. We drank our own Kool Aid too much re: American exceptionalism. For the UK (and WWII Allies overall), the prospect of losing was very real (and they were losing until 1942), and it forced them to rise to the occasion.

Today, the sad truth is our best and brightest do not go into gov't and public leadership. Both the gov't and the individuals are at fault for this, but the gov't more so (reasons? just watch a session of Congress or a GOP debate). Obama and Bill Clinton are exceptions, but the majority of politicians these days do not have the "right stuff" to even make it as a mediocre middle manager or professional in the private sector. They are seriously worthy of ridicule, not admiration.

I would hope that if/when the next WWII-scale crisis arises, our best minds and leaders will participate (and be allowed to participate in the right roles). But the problem is that many of our modern problems are not acute, but slow bleeds, like climate change, injustice, and terrorism. There isn't a sense of urgency for the Zuckerbergs and Musks of the world to enter public service (not that those guys are natural leaders with great moral compasses, but they are very smart/capable, even if their EQs were borderline autistic in their earlier years as CEO). Or they cling to the unproven libertarian belief that the private sector corporate model is in the best position to solve humanity's biggest problems. I disagree; Zuck couldn't even get India to accept his free internet, so there are obvious limits as to how much good one firm (and its army of lawyers, PR, and marketers) can do.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-criticized-in-india-over-free-limited-internet-1453398493

"What ISIS really wants"

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201502251000

This Yale prof and Atlantic editor, Grame Woods, studied comms from ISIS and interviewed experts to try to understand the group better in order to recommend the best strategy to defeat them.

As before with the communists and the Axis of Evil, the US gov't and mainstream media (mostly FNC) have totally mischaracterized what ISIS is (and the actual threat they pose), which has led to some calls for stupid escalations. Fortunately we haven't gone off the deep end like with the 2003 Iraq invasion, but who knows what the future will hold?

I am not knowledgeable enough to really vet the author's conclusions, but from his interview he came off as extremely cogent and fair-minded on the issue. Basically, for Obama and some Muslim groups to dismiss ISIS as "un-Islamic" is a disservice to the cause of defeating them. In fact they are fanatically Islamic, and their playbook almost perfectly follows some Koranic verses about the end of times (or course they practice extremely militant/strict interpretations of Islam that most Muslims have eschewed). It's like if a fundamentalist Christian cult took over some land in Israel to try to bring about the events in Revelations. By trying to be PC and un-bigoted, these voices are ignoring a strategic opportunity that we can use against ISIS: if we know what they want and how they propose to get it according to their dogma, we can better deprive them of it.

It's also wrong to dismiss ISIS as just a bunch of murder and torture junkies who believe in nothing more than that. Yes they engage in those crimes, but that is not what motivates them (they are means to an end). Those atrocities are part of their larger vision for how to deal with the enemies of Islam (including "bad Muslims") and bring about the Apocalypse and afterlife rewards. Purge the Middle East, topple Rome, and bring about the end of days when the Crusaders fight back (and I guess Allah intervenes, vanquishes them, and rewards his loyal jihadists).

ISIS is not really a state (they don't care about land and political power), but more like a prolonged jihad (similar to the early days of Islam, historically). In fact they govern horribly (like most regimes in that region), and have promised recruits/residents a righteous welfare state that they can't possibly hope to deliver. The Taliban govern much better than them. They succeed through propaganda and battlefield exploits. As long as they are advancing, scaring the heretics, and struggling heroically, they look good. In fact the author compares them most similarly to the Nazis of the 1930s (the righteous chosen people are suffering due to the treachery of evil inferior oppressors, so they must rise up and settle the score). Western societies dangle the promise of freedom and a good life (but in order for some to have that life, many other poorer people in the world must suffer). Reactionary groups like the Nazis and ISIS sell the righteous struggle instead. They romanticize the hard life because it is worth it to fight the Crusaders/Zionists/apostates, and your reward for your sacrifice will be eternal glory. For marginalized, frustrated, and impoverished people in the Middle East (and some in the West), they are more likely to embrace that goal versus the democratic capitalist ideal that seems more foreign and unattainable to them than Star Trek.

So how do you beat them? Let their hollow and fragile marketing pitch blow up in their faces, and eventually their subjects and recruits will see through them and shun them. Take away their true strength, which is their propaganda built on their blitzkrieg victories and "mein kampf" narrative of righteous struggle against evil. "Contain, degrade, and wait it out" may be the best we can do. Halt their expansion, cut off their funding, and diminish their war capacity, similar to Obama's initial military response. It's even better if we help local moderate Muslim forces defeat them (well, if you can call the Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi regimes moderate). The worst thing we can do is fight conventionally, as that plays into their narrative of resistance against Crusader oppression. They can't wait to die fighting against Americans and Jews, as that could be used as glorious recruiting material.

America is not that good at waiting patiently, and unfortunately many innocents could die within ISIS lands while we wait for them to fail. But it is the least bad option of the ones we have in front of us. Or does anyone have a better idea? Clearly we could bomb their forces to the Stone Age if we wanted, but then what? We'd leave a vacuum in 2 nations facing civil war and lack of governance. The traces of ISIS would just return later, even more motivated because of our violent campaign against their predecessors. Remember that ISIS more or less emerged out of the ashes of the Ba'athists and Al-Qaeda in Iraq. They waited years for their chance, and they took it. We can't afford to give them another.

Crazy stuff that went down at Area 51

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/136356848/area-51-uncensored-was-it-ufos-or-the-ussr

An LA Times journalist recently published a history of Area 51, the US government's secret nuclear and air force facility in Nevada. She starts her Fresh Air interview describing all the bone-headed nuclear experiments we did after the end of WWII. As we already know, our gov't detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons above ground (and so did other nations), spreading radiation all over (and in some cases deliberately exposing soldiers to the danger to observe the effects), until leaders finally woke up and agreed to various versions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (that W Bush in all his wisdom pulled the US out of, but Obama is trying to restore despite GOP Congressional resistance). Pretty much all US nuclear testing was executed or planned by personnel at Area 51.

Just to "see what happens", the US gov't detonated nukes in the upper atmosphere above the South Pacific to see how the ozone layer would respond. There was also another defensive objective to see if a nuclear explosion up there (and ensuing EMP) would disrupt the guidance systems of incoming Soviet ICBMs (it didn't). The NYT got wind of this and threatened to expose the gov't, but the Truman administration somehow convinced them to keep quite for "national security" until the 1980s. But still it's unclear whether the test actually damaged the ozone layer and put people at risk. Scientists on the project were aware of this risk at the time, but reassured the team that the atmospheric turbulence following the detonation would "fill" any hole created by the blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion#List_of_high-altitude_nuclear_explosions

Even worse for human health, the US gov't had almost around-the-clock nuclear-armed bombers in the air over the North Atlantic as quick responders in the event of a Soviet attack. But as we know, planes crash sometimes. On at least 2 occasions, nuclear bombers crashed in Europe and dropped their payloads. In one accident over Spain, there was a midair refueling gaffe and the plane ejected its warheads while crashing, but their parachutes failed and the bombs spread plutonium all over. A US hazmat team was sent in to clean it up, but they weren't told what they were cleaning, so they had zero radiation protection. I'm sure they're all dead by now. In Greenland, a B-52 crashed on the ice after another refueling goof, and the ensuring fire melted a hole. The plane debris and its 4 nuclear warheads sunk into the ocean, and it's still unclear whether they have all been recovered. That accident was where the term "broken arrow" was coined. How this relates to Area 51 is that the gov't decided to test what would happen if such a plane crash took place on the US mainland. They deliberately exploded a plutonium dirty bomb in the desert to simulate a crash, and tried to figure out ways to clean it up. It was a total disaster, and the site was still being worked on into the 1980s (making Fukushima look like spilled milk). Plutonium's half-life is many thousands of years by the way, and it's pretty much the most toxic inhaled substance known to man. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash

And now for the creme-de-la-creme, the UFO question. We know of stories of a UFO crashing in Roswell, NM in the 1950s, and the gov't trying to cover it up by moving all the evidence to deep inside Area 51. The author interviewed an anonymous source, a veteran of the US Atomic Energy Agency/Manhattan Project who was an insider at Area 51. When "War of the Worlds" aired on the radio in the 1930s, the US went into a panic with many believing it was a real alien invasion. Hitler and Stalin (and Washington) took note of this, and found it to be a legit security concern. Creating the illusion of an alien invasion could cause enough chaos and distraction among US armed forces and the public to make a foreign attack easier. The USSR and Western powers snatched up many of the mad Nazi scientists at the end of WWII. It's possible that Stalin took over some of the work of the Horten brothers who created a "flying wing" craft for Germany. While not a flying saucer, it was some sort of triangular craft that definitely didn't resemble a typical airplane. Some thought the Hortens achieved the ability for the craft to hover. And then there was Auschwitz's Dr. Mengele, who conducted all sorts of unethical human experimentation. Supposedly Stalin cut a deal with him as well, to create genetically or surgically altered people who resembled the child-like, big-headed alien creatures of sci-fi. So the "UFO crash" at Roswell could have been a test run of this Soviet project in order to create American panic over an imaginary alien invasion. Apparently the craft pilots (who looked like aliens) were captured alive, and then interrogated by the US about all this.

Yeah, right, you're probably thinking. Why wouldn't Truman just expose all this to the media to show how depraved and desperate the USSR was? Maybe he was partly worried that the Soviet goal would be achieved, that no one would believe this hoax was actually man-made, and fear an alien attack. Or as the author's source said, we kept it quiet because we wanted to replicate the Soviet project (either to shove it back in Moscow's face, or at least learn the science of how they did it). So supposedly the US tried to alter people to look like aliens as well, which was the last obscene straw to make the author's secret source want to spill the beans. And the US gov't has kept all this and Area 51 quiet so as to not expose the evidence of our horrible experimentation and other crimes to the public.

Well, considering all the wacky research during the Cold War, and all the disturbingly creative strategies the 2 superpowers devised to destroy each other, I guess this isn't so far fetched. But you would think that the author would try to corroborate her source's story. Why hasn't anyone in Russia come forward? Thousands of Americans must have worked on these horrific projects as well. And if the Soviets created a flying saucer, why wouldn't they use that technology in more traditional ways to gain an advantage over us? I suppose it's possible that they just had a stealthy spy plane transport the saucer high over US airspace, and then drop it off with a parachute. But if the Soviets' goal was to trigger an alien panic, why not drop dozens of saucers and "aliens" over populated US metro areas, so the US gov't could never squelch it? Lastly, it's not a new thing that the US has engaged in criminal human experimentation (LSD, Tuskegee, etc.). What's the big deal about keeping this one so secret? I guess we may never know, but it sure is an interesting take on an old story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_brothers
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/experiment.htm

Obama's silence on Gaza

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/31obama-silence-on-gaza-angers-arabs.htm

"Obama silence on Gaza angers Arabs"

Maybe all that aloha over Xmas made him forget who he is. Obama can try to hide behind the excuse of "one president at a time" all he wants, but we all know the world is looking to him for real leadership when Bush is obviously one foot out the door (and a staunch Israel partisan anyway). What Obama says may carry more weight than the Pope or UN Sec. Gen. right now. One president at a time? You don't have to be president to speak out against an injustice. You don't have to be president to do the right thing. He spoke out against the Iraq War when he was a lowly state senator, didn't he? And it helped get him to Washington! He spoke out against Rev. Wright's extreme comments, but only when he needed to. He and Biden had a 3-page pdf document on their campaign website professing their strong support for Israel. I don't think anyone will challenge that stance (especially with Hillary as his SoS nominee) if he dares to call a spade a spade on Gaza. Or is he still wary of being mislabeled as an Arab-Muslim? Well I don't care what faith you practice or where your parents came from, but you can't run from the obvious. Women and kids who pose no threat to Israel and never committed a crime in their lives are being maimed and killed by Israeli weapons, just because they have the horrible misfortune of living where they live. It's true that he's not the POTUS. He's not in a position to conjure up and implement a magical solution that has eluded the last 8 presidents. He doesn't even have to denounce Israeli aggression, but at least show some concern for the dead - on both sides. We've heard Obama's inspiring speeches for months now, though unfortunately his silence this week is speaking even larger volumes to Muslims who had the audacity to be hopeful.

Obama's November victory gave the US an ounce of goodwill in the angry Muslim World, and it would be a shame if it's squandered due to his Gaza indifference. Or maybe he doesn't care that civilians die in the name of an ally's "self defense", like all the other presidents before him. In the words of Bill Clinton's SoS Madelaine Albright regarding the thousands of Iraqi children who died as a result of US-imposed trade sanctions, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it" (60 Minutes, 1996). Maybe I'm being premature here and Obama's people will broker a breakthrough settlement in 2009, but I doubt it. Only a full-fledged occupation has a chance of stopping the rockets (but at what political cost, and do they even have the manpower?), so in that case maybe Israel should have never pulled out of Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians won't just forgive the murder of 400+ of their people. Even the pro-Fatah people in the West Bank are enraged and clashing with Israeli police.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98931442&ft=1&f=1001

So the IDF is now bombing residences and mosques just because they are supposedly storing "weapons". But where does it end? What if a building contains 5 rockets and 50 school kids? Is it still a valid target? What about 50 rockets and Gilad Shalit (the kidnapped Israeli soldier)? He took an oath and is prepared to give up his life for his country. Would they sacrifice him to stop those rockets from potentially harming other Israelis? Where do you draw the line? Why not bomb Palestinian maternity wards too, since some of those infants might grow up to fight for Hamas? I'm not sure that they thought this all through when they decided to proceed down this treacherous path.

How much collective punishment is acceptable for self defense? The one major Jewish uprising against the Nazis during WWII took place in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. They got a hold of some small arms and put up a valiant month-long resistance against the Nazis, who were planning on shipping all the ghetto residents to Treblinka. So in response to this "security threat", German troops fought their way in and even gave the starving, outgunned, and outnumbered Jews a chance to surrender. They bravely declined, so the Germans razed the ghetto, killing over 10,000 (either from direct combat or the conflagration that ensued). The survivors were sent to the camps.

Armed resistance against foreign aggression/occupation is permissible in the rules of modern warfare. Whether you call it resistance or terrorism is purely political semantics. So if we honor the Warsaw Jews who dared to resist their Nazi oppressors, then it's only fair that Israelis accept some resistance due to their oppressive policies. And if the violent Nazi crackdown on the Jewish rebellion was morally and legally unacceptable, then the wanton bombing in Gaza (even in the name of security) is also reprehensible. Yes, we can argue 'till the cows come home about how Hamas is a terror group and not legitimate resistance, namely because they call for the destruction of Israel. But didn't the Jewish resistance also want the destruction of the Third Reich? Though debating all that nationalistic rhetoric about an enemy's destruction probably won't get us anywhere. Yes it's true that the Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews (or at least deport them from Europe), but if the Israelis have cut off most food, fuel, and medical shipments to Gaza for a year (the poorest place on Earth outside of Africa and Afghanistan), isn't that genocidal too?

By no means am I equating the two regimes, but instead merely showing some similarities in the rationale behind their security practices. Bottom line: a lot of Israel's victim rhetoric falls flat, because they have chosen to enact some controversial policies that surrender the moral high ground (if they ever had it in the first place). And it's scary that the President of the US can't even wrap his head around that or publicly admit it.

Israeli collective punishment on the families of "terrorists"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92398760

"If we have to destroy houses then we must do so, and if we have to stop their social benefits, we must do so." - Ehud Olmert

Earlier this year, a gunman opened fire at a religious school in Israel, killing several. He was an Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent. Recently, a Palestinian Israeli drug addict and construction worker rammed his bulldozer into other vehicles, killing 3 and wounding 30. His mental state and motives were unclear, though of course PM Olmert immediately declared the tragedy a terrorist act. This has prompted calls in the Israeli Parliament for new laws to punish the families of Israeli citizens who commit violent acts of terrorism, by destroying their residence, cancelling benefits like health care and unemployment insurance, etc. They hope it will deter terrorists from striking, if they know that their families will suffer because of their actions. Critics say that this proposal is racist, because they wonder if the punishments will also apply to Jewish Israelis who go on rampages against Arab Israelis or other Jews (and it has happened plenty of times in the Occupied Territories, as well as the Rabin assassination). But that is basically the equivalent of Japanese internment by the US Government during WWII. Collective punishment and guilt by association shouldn't be practiced by civilized societies. Moral arguments aside, this "deterrent" may not even be effective, since Hamas or other organizations would probably compensate the families for their losses at the hands of the Israeli Government, in order to score propaganda points.

Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have major travel restrictions on them, so they have very little ability to harm Israelis, apart from firing pop gun rockets over the security barrier. But when Israel annexed the predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem after the 1967 War (a move deemed illegimitate by the UN, and most everyone else but the US), they granted Israeli legal status to the people there (not sure if they are full citizens). Although they can't vote, those Palestinians can travel freely in Israel and enjoy state benefits as Jewish Israelis do. A fifth of Israel's population is non Jewish Palestinian-Arab, and they are growing at a faster rate than their Jewish compatriots. But now Tel Aviv is wondering whether the "enemy from within" is a security threat to them, especially after the last two highly-publicized attacks (even though the majority of Arab Israelis are law-abiding and some even serve in government). So apart from imprisoning or killing terrorists involved in attacks on Jews, they also seek to punish the terrorist's family.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0721-31.htm

Similar to my previous emails on the issue, is this really about defense, or is it humiliation and revenge? Sadly, this "family punishment" proposal in Israel is eerily similar to NAZI tactics during WWII. Many conquered European nations resisted Nazi occupation, from France to Ukraine. The Nazis knew that the resistance/partisans/terrorists/whatever-you-want-to-call-them were happy to give their lives in battle. But maybe they would think twice if their families would suffer and ancestral villages were razed in retaliation. Maybe the occupied peoples would discourage resistance among their ranks, because they feared Nazi reprisals. But in practice, punishment as counterterrorism failed miserably. Nazi atrocities against locals as payback for resistance only served to outrage previously neutral parties and galvanize resistance. In fact it increased subsequent attacks on Germans, which prompted even more outrageous retaliation, and the cycle of violence continued. In fact, some in the Nazi High Command warned Hitler that this would happen and discouraged the use of collective punishment for resistance, but they were overruled.

Most of us would agree that collective punishment is wrong (don't tell that to Bush, McCain, and even Obama who are calling for more sanctions on Iran and Zimbabwe). Even the "wrathful God" of the Old Testament said he would spare a sinful city if there was but one just person living there. A family can exert only so much control over one of their own, so why should all of them have to pay for the crimes one person committed? Many Palestinians in East Jerusalem kept to themselves and weren't political, but after 1967 they suddenly found themselves living "inside Israel". They never asked for Israeli citizenship, yet never advocated or participated in Israel's destruction either. I am sure that many Arab Israelis disagree with some of the decisions of their government, just as many Americans disagree with Washington. This is what happens (and should happen) in a democracy and free society, and doesn't mean that those people are security threats. Unfortunately, some citizens do abuse their freedoms and lash out in violent ways against their perceived enemies. But why involve the rest of the family? That is petty and barbaric actually. Even the Mafia and other criminals show enough honor to heed the basic rule of gang violence: the families shouldn't be harmed. Did the US destroy Tim McVeigh's home and revoke citizenship/benefits for all his relatives?

As commander of a Nazi einsatzgruppen death squad in occupied Poland, Dr. Werner Best came to believe that the most effective response to terrorism was collective punishment. After the fall of France he went on to draft the Third Reich's counterterrorism policy for countries occupied by Germany. Towns where acts of "passive" resistance such as the cutting of telegraph cables had taken place were placed under curfews, fined and slapped with travel restrictions. "Active" resistance--the killing of a German soldier--would be met by reprisal killings of local civilians... Convinced that collective punishment was failing because it wasn't severe enough, the führer issued a September 1941 order to use "the harshest measures" against civilians in areas where the Resistance was active. Arguing that "only the [collective] death penalty can be a real means of deterrence," Hitler ordered that 50 civilians be executed for each German soldier killed.

- Ted Rall, CommonDreams.org

The 4th Geneva Conventions of 1949: Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

"A War Worth Fighting"

http://www.newsweek.com/id/141501?tid=relatedcl

Dear Newsweek,

In the recent article "A War Worth Fighting," I was bothered by Christopher Hitchens' side comment that after the Allies discovered the horrors of the Final Solution, it somehow retroactively justified their carpet-bombing of German cities. I for one still believe in "The Good German", and do question the wisdom and morality of such a policy, where innocent Germans who may have even been opposed to Hitler's wartime leadership were indiscriminately made to suffer, even though they played no active role in the Holocaust apart from voting the Nazis to power in 1933. The Nazis won but only gained 49% of that vote, so clearly there were plenty of Germans who disagreed with Hitler. So in no way could that result be construed as a nationwide endorsement of the secretive Final Solution that was to come a decade later. It is possible that many German civilians were cruel to Jews and other persecuted peoples, but the punishment for bigotry is not murder.

I suppose some Allies felt that the Germans deserved to see their cities burn after the Blitzing of England and atrocities on the Eastern Front. But American journalist Oswald Garrison Villard said, "What was criminal in Coventry, Rotterdam, Warsaw, and London has now become heroic first in Dresden and now in Tokyo." So not only was the hypocritical bombing of German civilians excessive and irrelevant as punishment for the Holocaust, it also made the targeting of population centers during wartime more "acceptable", especially for the US against Imperial Japan (at least 500,000 dead). Horrible barbarism by the Axis and Allies during WWII probably opened the door for future wartime atrocities against civilians during the Cold War, and more recently, in the Balkans and Iraq.

http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2414

Also I thought this Newsweek article on Churchill, Chamberlain, and the political myths of appeasement/confrontation was interesting:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/141502