>Did the Nazis deserve Dresden? Did the individuals who died in Dresden (many of whom were supporters of the Nazis) deserve it? (I would say no, but I think many people would disagree.)
Yes, they deserved it. More generally, Germans collectively deserved it. Though the case is less clear than the current case against the US, since Germans had quite a lot less say in who their government was at the time. But one has to say that the population could have collectively frustrated the Nazi death machine if they had a will.
I understand that this was certainly the attitude of the occupying powers in Germany after the war. The Americans, particularly, were having none of the implausible protestations that Germans didn't know what was being done in their name. And rightly so.
There has to be collective guilt for crimes that are committed in the name of a people. You can't just walk away from it and pretend you don't know. Or deliberately avoid knowing.
There has been some stuff on this list about Americans quickly returning to an "apathy" about world affairs. I put it to you that they aren't just uninterested, it is more sinister than that. They don't *want* to know.
This is a wilful, calculated ignorance, it is not innocence. They support their government's crimes, but don't have the guts to face up to what the crimes are.
Like I say, I don't support the death penalty and I don't support terrorism. The terrorist acts of September 11 were, in some ways, even worse than the terrorist bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because they were so inevitably futile and counter-productive. Besides the immediate suffering, they led to predictable retaliation and increased suffering, but without even any hope that the end could conceivably justify the means.
As kj khoo pointed out though, just because Americans undoubtedly had it coming to them collectively on September 11, doesn't mean that any of the individual victims all deserved it. Which is another reason, amongst many, that such random acts of violence must be condemned.
You might be able to conclude that there is collective guilt, but collective punishment is not something us mere mortals are entitled to inflict.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas