LewRockwell By Cherie Zaslawsky
The recent conflagration in Maui’s Lahaina Town shocked the nation. Some have called it an act of war—if so, one might argue that it has a predecessor.
Although the Allies in World War II clearly needed to stop Hitler and to aid Russia in its advance on Germany from the east, many have questioned whether the firebombing of Dresden, the “Florence on the Elbe,” was justified. It was certainly horrific. Historian Donald Miller paints a vivid picture of the cataclysmic scene:
that many were reduced to atoms before they had time to remove their shoes. The fire melted iron and steel, turned stone into powder, and caused trees to explode from the heat of their own resin.”
History may not exactly repeat, but it often rhymes. The above description sounds eerily similar to the effects of the inferno in Lahaina. Of course, Dresden was a major European cultural center in the midst of a world war, while Lahaina is a small town in Hawaii, so there the comparison ends…
