Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:54:17 EDT
From: John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Senate Interrogation
Distribution: can
 <schuck.721165680@sfu.ca> <LABACH.92Nov9083820@acs5.acs.ucalgary.ca>

Now the 11th day of the 11th month has come, we see two items of note:
the first, that the CBC ombudsman has condemned "The Valour and the
Horror" for sloppiness and lack of balance, and that the senators
involved have taken that as a vindication.

Whoever took their complaint to the ombudsman took their case to the
right place, and got the right result; the CBC will not show the series
again until and unless the producers correct their errors. The senators,
on the other hand, should not take this as any kind of vindication;
it merely shows that not only did they have no right to try to
dictate Canadian history, they had no reason to do so, either.

Senators have the least right of anyone to call hearings of this
sort: unelected but not experts, politicians but not accountable,
they should never be allowed to meddle in the way Canadians tell
their stories. To the feeble excuse that the NFB uses public money,
I reply that since governments control the source materials (military
records, etc.) for military history, they will always have control
over the way military historians write if we let them.

As it turned out, the ombudsman did a good job of holding the producers
of "The Valour and the Horror" to account; the senators should have
left the matter in the proper hands.

As someone whose uncles did not all "make it back", let me say something
on the deeper matter of whether Bomber Command's pursued an immoral
policy in the war. Not having been there, I can only repeat what I
have heard from those who were, and who studied the matter; that by
the night bombing offensive destroyed German civilian businesses.
By redirecting labour and resources from "inessential" businesses the
RAF destroyed, Albert Speer could actually boost armaments production.
Gwynne Dyer's comment (in "War") that the bombing offensive became
an "aerial equivalent of trench warfare".

I also recall more personal comments, from those who fought; the
author of "Terror in the Starboard Seat" that Sir Arthur Harris
did not care how many air crews he sacrificed, as long as the
Germans also suffered. I also remember a friend of mine who was in
the Dresden raid recounting how, after the war, he had listened
to Harris give a bellicose speech about how the RAF could destroy
Germany all over again. I remember well his reflection: "We knew
what we'd done".

It seems to me that we owe both the survivors and the dead an
honest effort to remember and learn the lessons of the war.
The CBC ombudsman now says "The Valour and the Horror" does not
qualify, because it lacks both accuracy and balance. But the
efforts by politicians in the Senate to meddle in the ways
Canadians remember our history ought to stop.

Your culture will adapt to service ours - Columbus to Natives, 1492
Your culture will adapt to service ours - Borg to Captain Picard, 24th C.

standard disclaimers apply ----------------------- John G. Spragge
Newsgroups: can.politics