Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 8

message: Overall, the purpose of the article is apparently to make the point that the bombing of Dresden was certainly a war crime. Other points of view are either buried in long passages or simply deleted out of hand. This makes for an unbalanced article. 
#It should be made clear that Churchill originally approved the bombing - with or without misgivings. And that he only AFTERWARD started to call it bad. (Unless of course he didn't actually approve it at first - in which case this should be documented.)
#The section originally entitled "Was it ... a crime?" (later, it became "Controversy") should INCLUDE one or two statements from moralists or others asserting that the bombing was not a war crime. When a question is used to introduce a section, all relevant answers should be given, not merely the SINGLE POV which a particular group of advocates is pushing.
I think I've been pretty patient so far. But I'm considering going to the next step in conflict resolution: creating an RFS. I'd rather discuss the issue here, but I'm not getting much of a response. You're leaving me little choice, Philip. Consider this my last attempt. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:04, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)
:Uncle Ed I like you wording but along with the Taylor comment in the opening section I would like to go back to the original wording in the initial paragraph as was agreed in a straw poll 2 months ago. Because exactly what happend before that is happening again the first section is getting bloated with POV. I would like to move both additions into the Controversy section. If you look through the archive you will see that it was throughtly debated at the time Philip Baird Shearer 20:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Things missing from the article

message: I have once again removed Philip's opinion about the implications of what Grass and Jenkins said. They called Dresden a "war crime." I do not know what the implications of that are, as I am not an expert on military law. Even if I were, I would still have to quote someone else if I wanted to discuss the implications. Philip will not do this. He just keeps inserting his own views. I am therefore bringing this section to the Talk page and I am requesting a reference, and I will keep on removing it until a reference is supplied:
 This implies that those allied commanders who ordered the action and the airmen who carried it out should have been tried as war criminals. As no Axis personnel were tried at the post-war Nuremberg Trials for participating in the decisions on, or execution of, assault by aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory, there is no legal precedent available to indicate that these actions constituted a war crime.
Philip might like to note that his opinion piece contradicts itself. Just as there is no legal precedent to indicate whether Dresden constituted a war crime, there is similarly no legal precedent to indicate that calling it such necessarily implies that the pilots, navigators, and bombers be tried. SlimVirgin 21:41, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Also, I'd like to note this: if Philip's claim is as obviously correct as saying "the Thames flows through London" (which he argues above), then it will be easy to find an authoritative source for it, which is all I'm asking for. SlimVirgin 22:26, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
:I agree, it looks like original research to me. Jayjg (talk) 22:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Personal essay removed for sixth time

message: Ed, you asked my views on the above. My understanding is that Churchill had qualms about area bombing both before and after Dresden, but he did support it, yes, or else it wouldn't have happened, as he was prime minister. What I dispute about Philip's edits is the wording, and the claim that Churchill changed his mind about Dresden in response to public pressure. But I have no problem whatsoever with that claim if a credible published source is cited.  That is the position with all my objections here. I don't mind if we say Churchill believed the moon was made of cheese, so long as that belief is relevant to the article and we cite a credible published source. SlimVirgin 21:50, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
:For some reason, Philip redirected this page to the archive, made some changes, then deleted the redirect. I'd appreciate knowing why he did that. SlimVirgin 23:14, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
I have archived the talk page. Nothing is lost the text and the edit history are in archive 7 (which along with the other archives are listed at the top of this page). It was necessary because this page had grown to 96K, 3 times the recomneded size. Initally I was going to copy back "Request for references" on down but that put the size of the new page over 32K before any new edits were added so I have put in links for those two headings for ease of access Philip Baird Shearer 23:52, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Did Churchill approve or distance himself from the bombing