Thread by @cbkwgl

This image...is there a historic parallel? Sadly, there is. I may be fantasising but there is a parallel here. How many of you heard of Second World War's Bombing of Dresden - the bombing raid which destroyed Dresden and killed thoousands. Many questioned the need of it.

What did it achieve? Or is just a British ego massage as like what Arthur Bomber Harris puts it - I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier?

Look at another quote by him. There lies the answer. Operation Thunderclap. And Dresden was not a one off.

The aim of this operation is simple – bomb the hell out of German cities, people will be forced onto the roads, clogging the supply routes of German army fighting the Russians. The target was cities like Dresden, Chemnitz, Berlin and Liepzig, the population centres in the east.

Stalin, at Yalta demanded the Allies to stop redeployment of German troops from West to East and help Russians end the war for good. And this was the plan they came up with. Of these Dresden on 13 Feb 1945 was an extreme case.

If fact, America was to carry out the raid against Dresden but due to unfavourable weather, the British did that. Americans came the next day to destroy whatever is left standing. Dresden attacks alone caused at least 25000 accounted casualties and many more unaccounted –

some skeletons simply melted away and some vapourized in the heat. Nazi propaganda gave the count as 500000, may be the number who turned shelterless because of the attacks. Another such raid in Pforzheim killed 17600, with 83% of the city destroyed.

While Churchill who was actually the one who started bombing of cities in Second World War initially supported these raids, he backtracked after a month.

Churchill said, “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land.

The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.”
But, his Bomber Command head countered him on the same day.

I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. It therefore seems to me that there is one and only one valid argument on which a case for giving up strategic bombing could be based,

namely that it has already completed its task and that nothing now remains for the Armies to do except to occupy Germany against unorganized resistance.”
This table gives some of the main raids carried out. Berlin is not listed because such bombing was a daily affair there.

What's the parallel, between these two, then? To win a war, all you need to do is to stop effective deployment of the army. And blocking roads is one very effective way. Churchill achieved it by bombing the hell out of Dresden, someone else achieved it by an illegal sit-out.

Much resources are wasted and much lives are impacted. And yes. The movers won't be impacted. It's only the common people who are made instruments of war. This single image tells many stories. The wailing Jattni goes for vaccination but others should suffer because of her sitout?

Am I fantasising? I don't know. But, one thing is certain. Many groups want to hurt India's fight against COVID and all sorts of games are played from misinformation to rule-breaking to clogging major arteries. How much is insensitivity and how much is planned is to be seen.

Plan for the next nakabandi and blocking of access to hospitals. With deaths rising, may be, the government will succumb to pressure?