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| Cameron doesn't dwell on past in stumping up for Bomber Command | Cameron doesn't dwell on past in stumping up for Bomber Command |
| (5 days later) | |
| I'm glad that David Cameron stumped up on the taxpayers' behalf overnight to relieve some very elderly trustees at the Bomber Command memorial trust of the risk that they might be stuck with a nasty £550,000 bill. The payout will cover the unexpected costs of the memorial's opening ceremony on the edge of London's Hyde Park this summer. A bit like a teenage party on Facebook, the launch got a bit out of hand. | I'm glad that David Cameron stumped up on the taxpayers' behalf overnight to relieve some very elderly trustees at the Bomber Command memorial trust of the risk that they might be stuck with a nasty £550,000 bill. The payout will cover the unexpected costs of the memorial's opening ceremony on the edge of London's Hyde Park this summer. A bit like a teenage party on Facebook, the launch got a bit out of hand. |
| All right, I know what you may be thinking. There are better things to spend money on when times are hard than a memorial to people who shouldn't have been carpet-bombing German cities night after night in the way they did during the second world war. It is a controversy that pre-figures in a relatively low-tech way the one raging today about the Obama administration's use of drones to kill its enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. | All right, I know what you may be thinking. There are better things to spend money on when times are hard than a memorial to people who shouldn't have been carpet-bombing German cities night after night in the way they did during the second world war. It is a controversy that pre-figures in a relatively low-tech way the one raging today about the Obama administration's use of drones to kill its enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. |
| If you are, you may have a point about the efficacy of Bomber Command's record. But yesterday I happened to drive past an old wartime aerodrome in the East Midlands and saw a simple plaque in a hedgerow. Measuring about 3ft x 4ft, marked by the British and American flags, it memorialised the many thousands of bomb crews who never made it back. The casualty rate was nearly one in two. You cannot deny their courage. | If you are, you may have a point about the efficacy of Bomber Command's record. But yesterday I happened to drive past an old wartime aerodrome in the East Midlands and saw a simple plaque in a hedgerow. Measuring about 3ft x 4ft, marked by the British and American flags, it memorialised the many thousands of bomb crews who never made it back. The casualty rate was nearly one in two. You cannot deny their courage. |
| As for the money, well, in the big picture it's detail when set against, say, the cost of the west coast rail franchise fiasco or a spot of bankers' tax avoidance. Ahead of his party conference, Cameron is in enough trouble with his party and the tabloids not to want to quibble. Incidentally, a rail man at Labour's conference told me that Britain's rail network has still to recover from gross over-use and lack of repair in the two wars, then being starved of investment during the impoverished post-war decades. | As for the money, well, in the big picture it's detail when set against, say, the cost of the west coast rail franchise fiasco or a spot of bankers' tax avoidance. Ahead of his party conference, Cameron is in enough trouble with his party and the tabloids not to want to quibble. Incidentally, a rail man at Labour's conference told me that Britain's rail network has still to recover from gross over-use and lack of repair in the two wars, then being starved of investment during the impoverished post-war decades. |
| So old men, the memorial's trustees who simply did their duty 70 years ago at great personal risk, don't deserve to be forced to sell their homes by people demanding money for insurance or other unplanned expenditure. I can't help wondering if some demanding payment are what people in 1939-45 might have called spivs or war profiteers, making money from other people's troubles via the black market and other dodgy activity. The entrepreneurial spirit doesn't always whistle patriotic tunes. | So old men, the memorial's trustees who simply did their duty 70 years ago at great personal risk, don't deserve to be forced to sell their homes by people demanding money for insurance or other unplanned expenditure. I can't help wondering if some demanding payment are what people in 1939-45 might have called spivs or war profiteers, making money from other people's troubles via the black market and other dodgy activity. The entrepreneurial spirit doesn't always whistle patriotic tunes. |
| I'm still uneasy on several counts, not least of all the strange surge of memorialising so long after the event and the dubious uses put to it: jingoism is always a tabloid temptation. There's also the aesthetics of the current craze. I was quite shocked when I first saw the new Bomber Command memorial – it's at the Piccadilly end of the park – by how large and insensitive it is – not the bronze fliers at its centre, but the pompous neo-classical columns around it. | I'm still uneasy on several counts, not least of all the strange surge of memorialising so long after the event and the dubious uses put to it: jingoism is always a tabloid temptation. There's also the aesthetics of the current craze. I was quite shocked when I first saw the new Bomber Command memorial – it's at the Piccadilly end of the park – by how large and insensitive it is – not the bronze fliers at its centre, but the pompous neo-classical columns around it. |
| Hopelessly misjudged, I'd say. You'll know what I mean if you've ever seen the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall on the Mall in Washington DC, its eloquent, sorrowful subtlety – 57,000 (about the same number as Bomber Command lost) names all there on a polished black wall, set low in a dip in the ground. Not a good war, but a good memorial. | Hopelessly misjudged, I'd say. You'll know what I mean if you've ever seen the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall on the Mall in Washington DC, its eloquent, sorrowful subtlety – 57,000 (about the same number as Bomber Command lost) names all there on a polished black wall, set low in a dip in the ground. Not a good war, but a good memorial. |
| But returning to Bomber Command's role, was it justified? Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones makes a pretty efficient assault on the dodgy aesthetics of morally dodgy policies here, more confidently than I would. | But returning to Bomber Command's role, was it justified? Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones makes a pretty efficient assault on the dodgy aesthetics of morally dodgy policies here, more confidently than I would. |
| By 1945, Churchill himself, no faintheart, was troubled by what the RAF – later joined by the USAF - had done in carpet-bombing German cities, at a time (in the early years at least) when Britain was taking a pounding from bombers and U-boats and had no other way of hitting back than by bomber raids that disproved Hitler's boasts. | By 1945, Churchill himself, no faintheart, was troubled by what the RAF – later joined by the USAF - had done in carpet-bombing German cities, at a time (in the early years at least) when Britain was taking a pounding from bombers and U-boats and had no other way of hitting back than by bomber raids that disproved Hitler's boasts. |
| Historians have argued ever since about Dresden, Hamburg and other cities, Hiroshima too, of course. My qualms are usually settled by the sound of revisionist German historians – in Japan they don't need to revise a view which never included much contrition – arguing that the city bombings were war crimes. | Historians have argued ever since about Dresden, Hamburg and other cities, Hiroshima too, of course. My qualms are usually settled by the sound of revisionist German historians – in Japan they don't need to revise a view which never included much contrition – arguing that the city bombings were war crimes. |
| What I say is, let's not blame wars of European conquest entirely on Hitler or Kaiser Bill. Let's share it with Bismarck, a domestic tyrant and foreign aggressor, who doesn't get his share of the stick because of Germany's economic and cultural brilliance during his ascendancy. It all ended in tears, not all of which have yet been shed (have they, Mrs Merkel?). | What I say is, let's not blame wars of European conquest entirely on Hitler or Kaiser Bill. Let's share it with Bismarck, a domestic tyrant and foreign aggressor, who doesn't get his share of the stick because of Germany's economic and cultural brilliance during his ascendancy. It all ended in tears, not all of which have yet been shed (have they, Mrs Merkel?). |
| The more interesting question is, not "was it legal?" but was it wise? I heard an American professor on the radio today making that distinction about the drone raids which the Obama administration – not looking so durable after this week's debate with Mitt Romney – has used so widely. | The more interesting question is, not "was it legal?" but was it wise? I heard an American professor on the radio today making that distinction about the drone raids which the Obama administration – not looking so durable after this week's debate with Mitt Romney – has used so widely. |
| If the intelligence is good and the right target hit why risk American lives, goes the argument. Yes, but it isn't always good and civilians get killed, as they did in Hamburg, Berlin and the rest, as they did in London too, during the Blitz of 1940-41, which was arguably less discriminating than drones. Even when the war was as good as lost, London suffered the V1 and V2 raids of 1944-45, the frightening last flourish of German aerial aggression that had begun at Guernica and other towns in Republican Spain's civil war (1936-39). | If the intelligence is good and the right target hit why risk American lives, goes the argument. Yes, but it isn't always good and civilians get killed, as they did in Hamburg, Berlin and the rest, as they did in London too, during the Blitz of 1940-41, which was arguably less discriminating than drones. Even when the war was as good as lost, London suffered the V1 and V2 raids of 1944-45, the frightening last flourish of German aerial aggression that had begun at Guernica and other towns in Republican Spain's civil war (1936-39). |
| The American professor was confident that, in international law as well as US law, the drone attacks are justified, though others disagree. There is also a primitive sense of unfairness in drone attacks launched from Arizona, which – this is absurd, but heartfelt – did not apply in quite the same way to Bomber Command, which took its chances and suffered heavy losses of its own. | The American professor was confident that, in international law as well as US law, the drone attacks are justified, though others disagree. There is also a primitive sense of unfairness in drone attacks launched from Arizona, which – this is absurd, but heartfelt – did not apply in quite the same way to Bomber Command, which took its chances and suffered heavy losses of its own. |
| But is it/was it wise? Does it create more militants than it kills, as the professor put it? Did it weaken German industrial capacity or did they patch it up? Did it destroy civilian morale or did it stiffen citizen resolve? After Vietnam, Lebanon and other air-based failures, it's commonplace today to dismiss the case that bombing works. | But is it/was it wise? Does it create more militants than it kills, as the professor put it? Did it weaken German industrial capacity or did they patch it up? Did it destroy civilian morale or did it stiffen citizen resolve? After Vietnam, Lebanon and other air-based failures, it's commonplace today to dismiss the case that bombing works. |
| But I suspect that's a retro-fitted verdict. Such issues are rarely black or white. After years of war and deep suffering the desire for revenge was very powerful and very human. Few spoke against it. They may have been the wiser few, but it took time to heal the wounds. | But I suspect that's a retro-fitted verdict. Such issues are rarely black or white. After years of war and deep suffering the desire for revenge was very powerful and very human. Few spoke against it. They may have been the wiser few, but it took time to heal the wounds. |
| As the current tussle between Berlin and Athens – occasionally between London and Dublin too – reminds us, it sometimes takes even longer to forget than forgive. That's a more subtle debate and Cameron, squeezed by the tabloids ahead of his party conference, may be forgiven for not giving it much thought on Thursday. | As the current tussle between Berlin and Athens – occasionally between London and Dublin too – reminds us, it sometimes takes even longer to forget than forgive. That's a more subtle debate and Cameron, squeezed by the tabloids ahead of his party conference, may be forgiven for not giving it much thought on Thursday. |