Dambusters redux

 One of the classic films about World War II is Dambusters: About the British raid on the Ruhr valley dams to destroy the industrial infrastructure that was supporting the Nazi war machines.

The classic film is on internet archives: LINK

but the dirty little secret is that, like the firebombing of Tokyo or the firebombing of Dresden, it killed a lot of civilians who lived there. Ditto for the use of atomic bombs. So was it a war crime?

Maybe: but because it was done from on high and you didn't see this damage, the dead civilians could be ignored. 

But the argument was that these things did shorten the war, meaning fewer deaths of civilians and allied soldiers in the long run. 

Compare and contrast these acts of war with the number of civilians killed in the holocaust, the many massacres of Chinese civilians, especially the rape of Nanking, or in the Battle of Manila, all of which took place close and personal by the perpetrators and had little to do with helping the war effort.

Fast forward to today's news: Someone destroyed a dam in the Ukraine, 

due to the fog of war, it is uncertain if this was done by the Ukrainians, the Russians, or just from water overtopping an overly full dam that had been damaged by previous shelling.

Sky news has links to articles here.

which will have a lot of implications not just for the civilians downstream, but for the water supply in the Crimea.,, and will this affect the supply of wheat that feeds the Middle East, causing famine and civil unrest there? And will this result in a huge influx of angry Muslim migrants/refugees into the European Union at a time when the locals are starting to get annoyed at these strangers?

 And will this indirectly cause a meltdown of a nuclear plant nearby (see Dr. C discussing the need for Iodine tablets that I posted about a few days ago.) I don't know if this might be a result because I am unfamiliar with the geography here.

Attacks on dams are not unknown in miltary history: in ancient Chinese history, one general did this to flood a beseiged city and killed a lot of his own men, but if you read Chinese history, the massacres and deaths in their civil wars dating back to the warring states history staggers the imagination.

Recent example: 1938 Yellow River flood when Nationalist Chinese caused flooding by destroying dikes and levees near Wuhan. 

And of course the dam strike by the US in Syria in 2017 that got left out of the news because luckily the bombs didn't work and then Turkey helped by cutting the flow of water from upstream. The article by LieberInstitute has a good background discussing not just the bomb technology but the international law about destroying dams that could affect nearby civilians.

I have to laugh about this discussion: 

It essentially blames Trump": not what he did, but what he might do. (the argument is: hey we need to win right now because if Trump gets in he might make peace)...but then the podcast discusses the real problem: it is that Europe sitting back and watching the slaughter going on (similar to what they did during the Yugoslavian civil war). And it ignores that Trump became very unpopular for telling Europe to get off their ass and start defending theirselves. I agree with Trump here because for 30 years I have watched Europe sitting back and letting the US police the world, and then criticizing the US for doing so.

On the other hand, if the US doesn't defend the Ukraine, it will send a message to China that taking over Taiwan, blocking the sea lanes/ internet and stealing the fishing/ petroleum resources in the West Philippine sea can be done without any worry of resistance.

and of course, first Taiwan, then isolate Japan and Korea, then take over Siberia (lots of Chinese immigrants in place there, and a Russia weakened by the Ukraininan war leaves a power vacuum there). And long term? Retake VietNam, which was once part of China, Invade Luzon, or make the Philippines a puppet state to exploit our natural resources, and then pressure Singapore, which is essentially run by Chinese ethnics, to let them block the sealanes that go by that city.

Chinese history shows that China thinks long term. The only good news: Their monolithic approach to running the place results in numerous and bloody civil wars in their history. 

and the dirty little secret is that Taiwan, if pushed, could destroy the Three Gorges dam, something that would make previous dam disasters look small in comparison.

Sigh.