`   I _never_ thought of that. I believe that then, as today, technology makes it impossible for a population to overthrow any 1st world entrenched government. Phones, rail, roads and fast transport give any half-way effective ruling entity coordination that would make it impossible for any 1st world population to overthrow anything. Even a 2nd world population failed, i.e.: Iraq when 1st Bush said ``overthrow Saddam`` and 250,000 people and some few army units acted were in the end reacted to, crushed, and then rounded up and shot into mass graves. It was central command combined with troop radio's, phones, and trucks that took them out. Less than a brigade of loyal Iraq troops were used (~5,000) OR EVEN NEEDED.   That opinion written, there is truth in SOME of what User:82.131.210.162|82.131.210.162 wrote: Speer wrote later, that area bombing actually confounded him and Hitler. Sure, he said ``six more and the war will be over`` but that was when the war was lost in his opinion, so please remember nothing can be interpreted without context OR temporal assessment. About Dresden, he wrote, that the labor shortage in U-boat and munitions factories ended as thousands swarmed for employment because all the cafe's, stores, and other civilian industries and businesses were blown up and since he could still offer rations to them, they swarmed to those WAR industries.   And haven't we learned by now, the more you hurt/bomb anyone, not targets, the more you goad them? Hanoi never really tettered, in spite of the tonnage dropped on it. It wasn't the fact USA utterly did destroy the infrastructure, they did. Only now you have the most incredible, powerful and creative creatures on earth, humans that is, willing, wanting and supporting anyone or anything that is against that which hurt them. They got quite good at rebuilding, adjusting and modifying how they did things- in the end bombing was no longer worth it in aircraft losses and was a factor...that bombing was halted... that and other reasons of course.   In the end, Speer wrote it was the American precision bombing that broke them if anything (as well as many other factors). Also, remember chaos rules in human wars, in this case the Allies at best were bumbling as often competent (Italy, Arnhem, I could go on), poorly coordinated with split objectives, their leaders very territorial and jealous of each other, the interfering Hitler and overwhelming numbers and capacity that defeated the Nazi forces as well as other reasons we would be hard pressed to believe as well. ``Butcher`` Harris? Can't really say for sure, my opinion of him was he was a one trick egocentric personality who had a viable plan in the right time and place but should of evolved, thank goodness that we did use area bombing of MILITARY TARGETS that closed the Normandy battle!  katyzone@yahoo.com -`