What is the most devastating single terrorist attack in history?

[wacki]

Shiro Ishii and Unit 731 - although I'm not exactly sure that you can call that direct terrorism

[sirio11]

Could you elaborate wacki? Not familiar with the event. Was it a single attack over the Chinese?

[andyfox]

The specific area of the city selected as the primary target zone was more than 84 percent residential. 334 B-29s dropped about 2,000 tons of bombs on a target area within a rectangle about three miles by four, containing a hundred thousand inhabitants per square mile, or roughly 1,250,000 people. Reconnaissance photographs disclosed that the firebombs had incinerated 1518 square miles of the city, consuming 250,000 buildings. Over one million people lost their housing.

The goal of the attack was to set the target zone completely on fire and it was accomplished. The temperature generated exceeded 1,800 degrees--hot enough to boil water in the canals that crisscrossed parts of the city. The wind created by the firestorm was "too strong for a man to stand up to" [U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey]. The B-29s themselves, due to the thermals that swept upward, were thrust upward in a few seconds from five thousand feet up to eight thousand feet.

Many people who sought refuge in the canals drowned and many others were boiled to death. So intense was the heat that people literally burst into flame, as superheated air burned their lungs and ignited their clothing. With many schoolchildren evacuated and younger males in military service, women and old people suffered a disproportionate share of the casualties, which were put at 87,793 by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. The removal of the dead took 25 days. U.S. General Thomas Power, who watched it from his observation plane called the Tokyo raid, "The greatest single disaster incurred by an enemy in military history. There were more casualties than in any other military action in the history of the world."

During the following months the B-29s came back to Tokyo, systematically destroying undamaged areas. During the last of these raids, the resulting firestorm burned the homes of about 570,000 people.

On September 1, 1939, the day Hitler invaded Poland, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an appeal to Great Britain, France, and Germany to abstain from using airplanes to attack cities and civilians:

"The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities . . . has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity. I urge every Government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities."

But on November 15, 1938, three years before Pearl Harbor, General Marshall told a gathering of press bureau chiefs and senior correspondents that "We are preparing an offensive war against Japan . . . we'll fight mercilessly. Flying fortresses will be dispatched immediately to set the paper cities of Japan on fire. There won't be any hesitation about bombing civilians--it will be all-out."

Indeed.

[elscorcho768]

If by terrorist attack, you mean any event in which a person, group, country, killed a group of people, regardless of whether or not they were civilians, then you could easily make the argument for Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But of course, you could easily argue that the bombings in Japan was not a terrorist attack. It all depends on how you define terrorism, obviously.

[Utah]

I have zero doubt that we would do it again without hesitation if we thought it meant our survival.

All the talk about targeting civilians as being immoral is complete b.s. We dont do it because we do not have to. However, it will always be a valid method of war.

[sirio11]

[ QUOTE ]
If by terrorist attack, you mean any event in which a person, group, country, killed a group of people, regardless of whether or not they were civilians , then you could easily make the argument for Hiroshima or Nagasaki,

[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure I understand your point, the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians.

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]
Undercard:

The sun was rising when Lot reached Zoar. Suddenly the Lord rained burning sulfur on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destoryed them and the whole valley, along with all the people there and everything that grew on the land. -Genesis chp. 19 v. 23-26 (Good News Bible)

Main Event:

The flood continued for forty days, and the water became deep enough for the boat to float. The water became deeper, and the boat drifited on the surface. It became so deep that it covered the highest mountians; it went on rising until it was about twenty-five feet above the tops of the mountains. Every living being on the earth died - every bird, every anamial, and every person. Everything on earth that breathed died. The Lord destroyed all living beings on the earth - human beings, animals, and birds. The only ones left were Noah and those who were with him in the boat. - Genesis Chp. 7, v. 17-24 (Good News Bible)


I rest my case.

-Zeno

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brilliant! nh

[Zeno]

I have a Good News Bible and a King James Version Bible on my bookshelf right behind me. I am very fond of this fraudulent and poetic text and consult it frequently for both edification and schooling in the art of lying.

-Zeno

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Could you elaborate wacki? Not familiar with the event. Was it a single attack over the Chinese?

[/ QUOTE ]

No it wasn't one attack. The Japanese took thousands of chinese people and infected them with biological weapons in laboratories. When they were about to die, they vivisected them (cut open from groin to throat) without anesthesia. They developed powerful biological weapons and then tested the weapons in Machuria and China. I don't know the stats as for how many people died in the field tests but almost 30 million civilians were slaughtered in China. Many of the leaders of Unit 731 "went on to become Governor of Tokyo, Presidents of universities, Deans of medical schools, Heads of public health agencies, Head of Japan Olympic Committee, key position in Japanese drug and medical companies, lawmakers and industrialists."

http://www.skycitygallery.com/japan/japan.html

Then there is stalin:

"All roads leading out of Ukraine were blocked by Red Army troops, nothing came in and nothing went out. The farms were then deprived of all seed stocks, grain and farm animals. In a short while the Ukrainian farmers began dying of hunger, cold and sickness. In an attempt to stay alive they ate their pets, leather boots, belts and bark from the trees. It is recorded that some parents even ate their youngest children. According to KGB archives at least seven million, a quarter of Ukraine's population, starved to death. The OGPU had made quota, shooting 10,000 victims weekly. Ukrainian party member Nikita Khrushchev helped supervise the executions. In other parts of the Soviet Union another six million peasant farmers were disposed of during collectivization. Many of the OGPU officers were Jews and during the Nazi occupation in World War 11, Jews became the target of revenge by Ukrainians, Balts and Poles. Stalin murdered four times more people than Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao or Pinochet."

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan...cres_east.html

The Jews of WWII had it easy.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
The Jews of WWII had it easy.

[/ QUOTE ]


NO! Not a wise thing to say Wacki.

-Zeno