Stardate 20011007.2022 (On Screen): The United States and Britain on Sunday unleashed a firestorm of bombing and missile strikes on Afghanistan... I
really wish they hadn't used the word "firestorm". There really
have been true firestorms created by bombing, but what we did today in Afghanistan wasn't remotely like that. The most famous firestorm in history happened at Dresden, but the most devastating firestorm happened in Tokyo in March of 1945. Over 500 B-29 bombers flew in at low altitude and dropped incendiary bombs on the city. Tokyo was built of wood; it was a vast tinderbox waiting for a flame. The B-29's obliged with thousands of them, each of which was started with jellied gasoline. The fires grew, spread, and merged into one immense fire which burned out several square miles of the city, incinerating everything within and killing nearly a hundred thousand people. Some were cooked; some were suffocated, some were caught in the flames and destroyed by the heat. Some died of burns later. It was the single most lethal bombing attack in the history of the world.
That's a firestorm There hasn't been one in a city anywhere in the world since 1945. What we did today was to carefully bomb military targets. The Taliban claim that civilians were killed; that's very likely true. They were not deliberately targeted, but it is impossible to avoid killing at least some of them if we are to win this war. But if we actually do set off a "firestorm", you'll know it. (discuss)
