Photo of Damage -- the City was Literally Leveled -- to Nagaoka, Japan at the end of World War II

(The exhibit of war damage in Nagaoka, Japan is not longer on display on Nagaoka's main street but remains on display in a war-damage museum in the downtown area -- Nov. 30, 2009)

Places throughout the world saw massive death and damage in what became "total war." This is -- and will be -- the result of appeasing authoritarian states. The easy analysis is to point to the U.S. for bombing innocent civilians in the instance depicted here. A more sober appraisal will ask why we continue to appease dictatorships and authoritarian governments in the assumption that we are "preventing" things such as this from happening when in fact this is the natural result of letting thugs have their way with their own people and free societies around them.

(see August 2009 archive to continue this photo topic)