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Article: An immoral victory
- Article from:
- The Sunday Herald
- Article date:
- March 5, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 The Sunday Herald. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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AMONG THE DEAD CITIES
BY AC GRAYLING (BLOOMSBURY, pounds-20)
THE philosopher and historian AC Grayling lays it all out in his
subtitle to this book: Was The Allied Bombing Of Civilians In The
Second World War A Necessity Or A Crime? Did we have to kill quite so
many men, women and children in order to see off Hitler and Tojo?
Was the killing necessary or was it a grievous moral lapse?
His answer seems to be that it was both. Nowhere does Grayling
doubt the necessity of crushing Nazi Germany and the cruel
militarists of Japan. But he does doubt the morality and the wisdom
of the "saturation bombing" of German and Japanese cities by British
and American air forces, which killed around ...