Don't be fooled by the title, today's entry is not going to be about personal hygiene (those of you who know me better know that there wouldn't be much for me to talk about). No, in fact I am (or was until a couple of days ago) in Cologne visiting my uncle and cousins for a few days before going on to visit my Dad in Czech.
I quite like Germany as it is generally very clean and well looked-after and the people are usually quite friendly, and Cologne in particular is a particularly pleasant city. I didn't really do anything touristy on this visit as I have already pretty much seen all there is to see of interest in Cologne, although I am always impressed by the Dom (cathedral), which you cannot miss, in the centre of town. It is a huge gothic cathedral and at one point used to be the tallest building in the world, and so you can get some fantastic views from the top (as well as a nice bit of exercise by having to climb all those stairs). Unfortunately, apart from the Dom and a few squares next to it, very little is left of old Cologne as it was mostly flattened during the second world war.
Which leads me nicely onto my first rant (because, honestly, what good is a blog without rants?), so if you're not particularly interested to hear me harp on about random issues then just move on to the next entry. Anyway, today's rant takes its inspiration from the cliched (but true) saying that "history is written by the winners (of wars)". You see, we're endlessly reminded in books, schools and TV documentaries (especially on channel 5) of the evil hun, the Blitz, the Holocaust, the Nuremberg trials, etc. and I do not in any way want to detract from that. What the Nazis did was abhorrent and it was right that they should pay for their war crimes. However there were also certain circumstances when the behaviour of the allies was far from angelic, and there are two cases in particular (although there are others as well): the fire bombing of Dresden and the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My problem is not with bombing during wartime per se, but the timing and targetting of the bombing raids. Both were carried out when it was obvious that the allies would win, and, more importantly, they were carried out on strategically unimportant targets i.e. the main objective was to kill the greatest number of civilians.
Oh sure, there are those who say that it was to break the morale of the Germans (in the case of Dresden), but that argument can easily be countered by showing that such bombing has exactly the opposite effect as was abundantly demonstrated by the Blitz. As for the atom bombs, the general argument for their use was that the Pacific war would have carried on for much longer if they hadn't been used and would therefore have cost more lives. OK, but surely it would have been possible to drop the first bomb in a sparsely populated area, to show the devastating power of the bomb with minimum casualties, and then deliver an ultimatum saying that if the Japanese didn't surrendur they would drop another one on a city. Instead they killed 140 000 civilians on the 2 days (they expressly didn't leave enough time between the 2 bombing runs for Japan to surrender) and nearly as many afterwards due to the effects of the radiation. Yet it was unthinkable that anybody should have to answer for these events.
I quite like Germany as it is generally very clean and well looked-after and the people are usually quite friendly, and Cologne in particular is a particularly pleasant city. I didn't really do anything touristy on this visit as I have already pretty much seen all there is to see of interest in Cologne, although I am always impressed by the Dom (cathedral), which you cannot miss, in the centre of town. It is a huge gothic cathedral and at one point used to be the tallest building in the world, and so you can get some fantastic views from the top (as well as a nice bit of exercise by having to climb all those stairs). Unfortunately, apart from the Dom and a few squares next to it, very little is left of old Cologne as it was mostly flattened during the second world war.
Which leads me nicely onto my first rant (because, honestly, what good is a blog without rants?), so if you're not particularly interested to hear me harp on about random issues then just move on to the next entry. Anyway, today's rant takes its inspiration from the cliched (but true) saying that "history is written by the winners (of wars)". You see, we're endlessly reminded in books, schools and TV documentaries (especially on channel 5) of the evil hun, the Blitz, the Holocaust, the Nuremberg trials, etc. and I do not in any way want to detract from that. What the Nazis did was abhorrent and it was right that they should pay for their war crimes. However there were also certain circumstances when the behaviour of the allies was far from angelic, and there are two cases in particular (although there are others as well): the fire bombing of Dresden and the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My problem is not with bombing during wartime per se, but the timing and targetting of the bombing raids. Both were carried out when it was obvious that the allies would win, and, more importantly, they were carried out on strategically unimportant targets i.e. the main objective was to kill the greatest number of civilians.
Oh sure, there are those who say that it was to break the morale of the Germans (in the case of Dresden), but that argument can easily be countered by showing that such bombing has exactly the opposite effect as was abundantly demonstrated by the Blitz. As for the atom bombs, the general argument for their use was that the Pacific war would have carried on for much longer if they hadn't been used and would therefore have cost more lives. OK, but surely it would have been possible to drop the first bomb in a sparsely populated area, to show the devastating power of the bomb with minimum casualties, and then deliver an ultimatum saying that if the Japanese didn't surrendur they would drop another one on a city. Instead they killed 140 000 civilians on the 2 days (they expressly didn't leave enough time between the 2 bombing runs for Japan to surrender) and nearly as many afterwards due to the effects of the radiation. Yet it was unthinkable that anybody should have to answer for these events.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with anything happening today? that's all in the past, isn't it? Well, the problem is that history has an annoying habit of repeating itself. Just last week both Bush and Blair were exonerated for their role in starting the war, which to all intents and purposes was initiated on a lie. That's absolutely ridiculous: you can't just go and invade a country, kill thousands upon thousands of civilians and get away scott free. It just makes me sick. Yes I know Saddam was a bad dictator who killed his own people, etc. etc. but doing this sets an extremely dangerous precedent, and I don't see Britain and America rushing to get rid of Mugabe, the military Junta in Myanmar, Kim Jong-Il or any other of the numerous despots that litter the globe (usually in Africa). It's just hypocrisy and we all know the reason for it.
But there's not only that, but now the whole world hates Britain and America (me included) it's going to be more difficult for me to go travelling as there will be an automatic animosity towards me on the basis of my nationality. Damn you Blair!
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