Military history: World War II B‑class

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From my talk page:

1. Hi, most of the reverts you made were fine; I hadn't spotted a couple of inline wikilinks, and I can live with the (ugly) notes section, but I do think a See also to Shock and awe would be useful for the reader, as terror bombing falls under Shock_and_awe#Historical_applications. A link from Shock and awe back to Terror bombing would also make sense, but you reverted that too. I recognise that my timing is bad due to the AN/I dispute (which made me look at the article) so you're on alert for POV edits, but I was just trying to link together some related articles. Fences and windows (talk) 00:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is you justification for assuming that a WWII propaganda term is in any way linked to Shock and awe#Historical applications? Do Ullman and Wade make the connection? --PBS (talk) 06:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:See also: "whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense... These may be useful for readers looking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question". See also links don't need to be directly connected, but I think the connection between two terms that refer to overwhelming aerial bombing is pretty clear.

And this connection isn't original research; journalists and academics have made the connection between WWII bombing and "shock and awe", so it isn't necessary for Ullman and Wade to do so. See for instance [1][2][3][4].

For explicit connections between the terms, see these searches:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?um=1&q=%22terror+bombing%22+%22shock+and+awe%22&btnG=Search+Books

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?um=1&q=%22terror%20bombing%22%20%22shock%20and%20awe%22&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ps

http://news.google.co.uk/archivesearch?um=1&ned=uk&hl=en&q=%22terror+bombing%22+%22shock+and+awe%22&cf=all

One example: "Other state practices which fall under the definition of terrorism include the ‘terror bombing’ of civilian areas during wartime to intimidate the population into submission or terrify them into putting pressure on their leaders, particularly when the city is chosen randomly (as a result of favourable weather conditions on the day, for example) and the bombing itself brings no discernible strategic advantage. Under this understanding, certain doctrines of strategic bombing, such as ‘shock and awe’, as well as certain contemporary practices such as the widespread targeting of civilian areas in Israel’s 2006 bombing of South Lebanon and NATO’s bombing of civilian targets in the 1999 Kosovo campaign, clearly fall within the definition of terrorism. These are all cases of frightening one group of people in order to produce a political change in another, which is the essence of the terrorism tactic." [5]. The author is a reader/lecturer in terrorism studies.[6]. Simon Jenkins of the Times is another to explictly make the connection several times. Neither are historical revisionists.

As well, "Shock and Awe" is also a propaganda term, so linking together two propaganda terms would make sense. Fences and windows (talk) 18:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sources you mention is are classic examples of how the term (like the use of terrorism) presents a bias that the author wishes to push as they carry strong negative connotations, in the way that the term demoralise does not. It is a rhetorical trick, because it frames the boundaries of the debate before it starts.

I am afraid I do not see the the connection you are trying to make any more than I would if you wanted to link Blitzkrieg to terrorism and terrorism to Blitzkrieg. --PBS (talk) 20:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're interpreting these sources according to your own point of view; whether they're classic examples of anything is irrelevant. You don't think that shock and awe and terror bombing should be linked, so you're disregarding sources that link the terms. The phrase may have originated as Nazi war propaganda, but subsequent non-Nazi sympathising authors have connected the terms. Remember that you don't own the article. I can understand your distate, as LaRouche has endorsed the connection:[7], but I'd never say that the terms should be linked if only such sources did so. I've provided reliable sources that explicitly connect the two; is your objection only that you don't like it? Linking the terms does not endorse an interpretation that the terms are equivalent, only that they are related and readers might find the link useful. I'm not discussing Blitzkrieg and terrorism, see WP:OTHER. Fences and windows (talk) 00:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of people make claims all the time about controversial issues. For example there are sources that claim that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist,and that Robert Mugabe is a tyrant. Does that mean that if the accusation is not made in the text of the article (in which case there is no need for it in the see also section) that links should be placed in the "see also" section to terrorist and tyrant? --PBS (talk) 11:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know I may be going over old ground, but... why does the page only really mention Allied bombing/Dresden as "terror bombing"? I know it was just "gutted", but plenty of sources refer to Guernica, for example, as "terror bombing". Considering that the term is subjective and full coverage of all the aerial bombings ever considered to be "terror bombing" by reliable sources would replicate much of Aerial bombing of cities, why not merge this article into that article? Fences and windows (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see the reduction of the article was because it was basically a POV fork of Aerial bombing of cities. A merger would definitely stop it bloating again. Fences and windows (talk) 19:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There term itself is encyclopaedic, for example did you realize that the first use of the term in English was in 1943? So basically it is a Nazi propaganda invention. The reason I mentioned Dresden is not because it was a terror bombing (the two POVs have very long entries in the bombing of Dresden article), but because it was coupled to the first accusation in the English language press that the Western Allies were using terror bombing tactics, and the follow up use in the British Parliament and Government. The fact that the Chiefs of Staff would not accept Churchill's first memo shows that the British high command were well aware of how powerful and dangerous the term was (targeting non-combatants as oppose to civilian infrastructure could even in 1945 have be see as a war crime).

This is very different from listing every raid in every war that someone has called a terror bombing. --PBS (talk) 19:50, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some scholars consider the deliberate bombardment of civilian populations a form of state terror,^{[1][2][3][4][5]} and, during the military conflicts leading up to World War II and the war itself, terror bombing of enemy civilian populations in order to break morale was first put into action.^[6][7] Beginning early in the 1930s and with greatest intensity between 1938 and 1943, the Japanese used incendiary bombs against Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan and Chonging.^[8][9] Lord Cranborne, the British Under-Secretary of State For Foreign Affairs, commented on a 1937 bombing: "The military objective, where it exists, seems to take a completely second place. The main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians..." ^[10] In Europe in 1937, the bombardment of Guernica (April 26, 1937), carried out by Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe, caused widespread destruction and civilian deaths in the Basque town. According to the BBC, the goal of General Francisco Franco, commander of the nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War, was "to terrorize the people in the Basque region. . ." In May 1940, during World War II itself, the Luftwaffe bombed Rotterdam in an effort to force Dutch capitulation,^[11] and the threat to bomb Utrecht in the same fashion forced Netherlands’ surrender.^{[12][13] [14]} In a bombing campaign against Britain called "the Blitz" (September, 1940, to May, 1941), Germany carried out intensive bombardment of British cities such as London and war industry centers such as Coventry. Britain, perhaps in response, adopted a bombing policy against German cities euphemistically called area bombardment whose objective was in part to ‘de-house’ and demoralize the German civilian population.^[15] The Dresden bombing (February 13-15, 1945) was an instance of area bombardment that left the city in ruins and claimed between 25,000 and 40,000 lives.^[16] Late in the war, in its air attacks on Japan, U.S. forces used a mix of incendiaries and high explosives to burn large sections of Japanese cities to the ground.^[17] A military aide to General Douglas MacArthur called an incendiary attack on Tokyo "one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of non-combatants in all history."^[18]