Dennis Breslin wrote:
> Isn't Max's question relevant? What about all those who served in
> the military during the cold war, especially those in FBM submarines,
> missile silos, B-52s all working toward a nuclear apocalypse.
>
I would focus on the commissioned officers aboard B-52s. They
were war criminals.
>
> There was a conspiracy to obliterate life as we know it and the
> effort was unparalled as was the complicity. Am I a war criminal
> because I served on one of the boats that were little more than
> a floating missile platform?
>
No missiles were fired, correct?
And even in the case of the pilot of the Enola Gray (correct?), his real crime is less that he flew the plane than that decades later he still defended the action. What is essential is not that anyone in particular be punished but that we should achieve a clear grasp of the horror and unacceptability of the acts as such.
I want all the pilots of the B-52s over Vietnam recognized as criminals -- but I have no desire to *do* anything to them. There can be no real doubt that the B-52 was strictly a terrorist weapon. Why should we make a fuss, or allow a fuss to be made, over Black September acts of terror and forgive the B-52 commissioned officers?
Carrol