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  3. World War Ⅱ initiated the concept of "total war"—war that involved all, civi

World War Ⅱ initiated the concept of "total war"—war that involved all, civi

游客2023-11-06  39
问题     World War Ⅱ initiated the concept of "total war"—war that involved all, civilians and military alike, in the war effort. This was not really new. Lazare Carnot had anticipated it during the French Revolution with his call for "a nation in arms". But never before World War II had nation been required to draw so heavily upon the total human resources available to them. In each country, there was a propaganda effort to portray every person in the state as personally involves in the struggle being waged. In the United States, "Rosie the Riveter" was as much a part of the picture as "G. I. Joe". The German "Rosies" were not as likely as their American counterparts to be working as riveters, but from 1942 on, they and their children were to face terrors of war as severe as those experienced by their front-line soldiers. Shivering from fear of being buried alive in the cellars that served as air-raid shelters, they had to emerge from those areas of modest security to extinguish the fare bombs that sizzled in the attics above before entire houses were incinerated. Each explosive bomb that fell could mean life or death for each person who heard it coming, depending on where it fell and how big it was.
    There is no rational way of rendering judgment on the moral aspects of the Allied bombing. It did, of course, kill Nazis and anti-Nazis alike; women and children as well as men; prisoners of war and foreign workers as well as Germans; professors, artists, musicians, and farmers, as well as workers in munitions factories. And the mode of death, as will be seen, was often shocking and gruesome. But it is faulty to assume that without the bombing all those who perished would have survived and would have met death more peacefully. Land invasion would have meant the ravaging of cities by heavy artillery, tanks, and flame throwers, the desperate flight of thousands of civilians (which indeed occurred on Germany’s eastern front), and the ultimate collapse of all forces of order, with internecine fighting, famine, and disease as likely accompaniments. Neither can one assume that more churches, famous monuments, paintings, library books, and so forth would have survived. That those who stopped the bombs had pangs of guilt in respect to the suffering they caused and the cultural wealth they destroyed is a credit to their humanitarian sensitivities. But sentiments of revulsion are more appropriately directed at war itself, which inevitably brutalizes those involved, destroys normal sensitivities, and opens the way to rape, pillage, and want of destruction. A "clean", "humane" war is an impossibility.  [br] The author concludes the passage by pointing out that
选项 A、there is no such a thing as humane war.
B、a total war is the cruelest thing in human history.
C、a war does no good either to the winner or to the loser.
D、it is impossible to wage a total war today.
答案 A
解析 细节题。选项A与原文第2段末句的内容相近，符合题意。
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