2008-11-19, 21:23 | Link #63 | ||||||||||
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
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Look, I'm not even pro-American, I'm the type the patriots hate and think I think far too much and argue far too much; and yet I think you're rabidly out of sorts with your opinion of the USA. I really really hate it when I see the stereotype of the rabidly anti-American European acted out, because more often than not I'm more than prepared to agree with many Europeans on the utter foolishness -- criminal, even -- of certain US foreign policies. ...and then I'm forced to the defend the USA from this kind of, well, bigotry. Quote:
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If you answer Japan, then did you not, through your own argument of retaliation being morally understandable, gave the USA a carte blanche to do whatever it takes to defeat Japan in the war, considering they were attacked first? The concept of the atomic bomb as a last-resort weapon did not exist at the leadership level of anybody at the time -- although scientists, being smarter than everybody else, especially politicians, thoroughly recognized it -- it was merely a military and political tool for the US leadership to use. Drastic, risky, and destructive, definitely, and the pesky pacifistic scientists gave their usual warnings; but it'd just cause roughly the same results as firebombing campaigns or vicious street-to-street urban fighting; better yet, same casualties for the Japan, may be more, but less for "us," and we'd gain a lot of geopolitical power. That was their mindset, a superweapon, a war-winning tool, justified because the Japanese attacked first and attacked "unprovoked" (culture shock here too). Until it sank in, holy shit, this is not just a bomb, this is Death, the Destroyer of Worlds. We just changed everything. Are they to blame for causing it? Hell yes. Would it have been worse than a full-scale assault on a very densely populated island chain with the intention to fight to the death? Or starving them to death, longer, more painful even? Grave of the Fireflies, 10 million people style? I don't know. Do you know? Does that question mean all that much? I don't think so. People died. People were killed. So it was all for politics. So it goes. Nobody's right here, but few of them are alive to take blame today, if not none whatsoever. All we can do is learn the lesson. Unless you think my immigration to the United States imply me sharing the blame for the traumatic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? If you answer the USA, then you would be arguing that such diplomatic measures are considered valid casus belli for a military response, essentially arguing that, say, the Germans were quite perfectly justified in pushing for the return of Danzig against "Western and Polish provocations*," which, of course, is full of it. Now, there are cases like the German invasion of Poland mentioned above that the aggressor seems clear -- but never without arguments for the other side -- but your assertion displays a surprising level of confidence in the nature of human conflicts that I happen to strongly, very strongly, disagree. *I'm not talking about the Propaganda Ministry's little blatant deception with "Polish attacks on German soil" either; the history of Polish-German relations dated back deep into history and was quite thoroughly ugly on both sides, although many are inclined to forgive the Polish because of their oppression by the German conquerors. Between WW1 and 2, even Weimar Germany was thoroughly hostile towards Poland, and vice versa -- the Corridor was the kind of issue that made nationalists rabid and moderates nationalist, and the treatment of minorities on both sides were atrocious. All sorts of nasty sanctions, all sorts of treaties, all sorts of justifications for armed response from either side. None of that means shit when people died for things they could not possibly care less. Nazi Germany's crimes against the Polish people are without a doubt incredible and immense, and thoroughly tragic in scope; but the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Germans from their ancestral homes in modern Poland post WW2 was something not quite recognized by most. Though I suppose you would considering you're -- I assume -- German. I, well, I don't have much to say. It happened, may be for the better, most likely not, may be for the worse; the key thing is to prevent such things from happening again, and these descendants of past enemies are doing a great job of reconciliation, necessary remorse and diplomatic overtures like formal apologies. Not finger-pointing and throwing around blame and negative epithets. Oh, right, and I forgot to mention: nobody knows for sure who fired the first shot, or cut the first cut, in this long and sad history that has since turned for the better. Some ambitious Medieval Polish King? Henry the Lion? A fanatical Teutonic Knight? Friedrich-Stanislaw the Unlucky Peasant? Quote:
What I'm expressing isn't apathy. Quite the opposite. I'm saying here: it's all bullshit, your blame, my blame, our country 'tis of thee. None of it matters. None of this nationalist crap, or anti-X nation crap: people died, they were killed. That's the thing. What you want to do, after to figure out what was going on, is to try and stop it from happening again, not pointing the finger: look, the USA doesn't even know it did this. What a horrible country. Guess what? It did. The USA isn't homogeneous, the USA is a place where when half the country's youth was drafted to Vietnam for no decent reason whatsoever, the other half were singing protest songs in San Francisco. And interestingly enough, probably more than half who came back from the Southeast Asian country became thoroughly disillusioned at war. So many American kids don't know head to toe in their history classes; how about Germany? Do German kids come out of their history classes aware of the intricacies of history? I'd bet on no. And no, the classes aren't celebrations of American greatness: if anything, I remember from a few years ago a very clear lesson from my AP US history class was that the European immigrants who came over fucked over the natives really, really bad. Over and over again. And they fucked over the black slaves really, really bad. Over and over again. And they attacked Mexico on flimsy pretexts, Spain on flimsy pretexts. And we were taught that. Nobody happens to pay attention to history class, that is all. Are Americans the bullheaded big blondies who are too stupid to realize what's going on like they show on anime? Of course not. Quote:
As an OT: what academic field are you in? It's quite interesting you'd do a lot of precise mathematical arguments. Quote:
The USA is -not- a monolithic, static entity. People change, leaders change; there are much better reasons to argue that the US nuclear policy during the Bush years are hypocritical than Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reasons like, oh, the USA continues to fund nuclear expansion programs despite its diplomatic stance overseas. Now that's real crap, and guess what, if you said so, I'd agree. But the WW2 blame game has to stop. It has nothing to do with this. And to answer your question below (the last one) right here: if this is not what you were trying to say, then what is your argument trying to achieve? That the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was complex, and it wasn't necessarily a heroic, pure decision? Nobody here I see disputes that, not me at least. Or is it to say that US conduct places it on the same level as Japan's in WW2? Lathdrinor gladly disputes that too. And as for me, it really depends on the point of the argument being made. I would not excuse the USA's actions as saintly in the war, but quite frankly, I would not use that to start arguing that it, in your own words, made the US's "current policy look very, very bad." I don't buy that. Quote:
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Premises like the number game. Quote:
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2008-11-19, 21:31 | Link #64 | |||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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it is popular in (especially educational - read: textbook) history to refer to different contexts etc when avoiding comparisons. it makes it look more complicated and cool, and avoids legal problems. reality is though that human morals and human behavior overall have changed little in the last couple thousand years. the main difference is in technology. but when we look at the basic reasons, they're largely the same. so, even as textbooks may not do it for political correctness reasons, sure it is possible to compare tyrants and oppressive regimes of various ages. Quote:
how much do you understand from that? Quote:
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2008-11-19, 21:37 | Link #65 | ||
Gregory House
IT Support
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Irenicus, I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying--but allow me to say that the US' case is kind of... peculiar. It hasn't had a very good track record throughout the whole of the 20th century in terms of international relationships--and I can see clearly how this can form "grudges" against them, or at least mistrust.
I mean, you can screw up once, but that many times... Quote:
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Anyways, that's not something I read from a book. That's a conclusion I got to after reading lots of books. Lots of complicated books written by people who studied a lot to write them. Grow up. History is complex. Studying a society is complex. Studying the hundreds of different societies that were born and died during the whole history of mankind is even more complex. People actually study to become historians, you know.
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Last edited by WanderingKnight; 2008-11-19 at 21:52. |
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2008-11-19, 22:28 | Link #66 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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what if the crazy rabid anti-American Europeans are actually right to a significant extent? what if the US "patriots" are in fact, insane pro-American nationalists, and the people called "unpatriotic" in the US are, in fact, US patriots who are not nationalistic ENOUGH? funny thing is, this is not new in history either. it was much the same in Nazi Germany in the mid-30s. Quote:
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assume that the US would not have any trouble doing the same again, given sufficient propaganda effort. and THIS is really scary, since it may ultimately simply lead to a total nuclear war and the demise of modern civilization. Quote:
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US foreign policy is fucked up and might with a good chance lead to a WWIII, with hundreds of millions dead. also, the perception of the world and world history that the majority of US population has, is fucked up (courtesy to decades of brainwash). that clear enough? Quote:
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"Noncombatants [...] shall in all circumstances be treated humanely". Quote:
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2008-11-19, 22:33 | Link #67 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2006
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For example, if you don't even acknowledge that Eisenhower was better than Hitler, but instead go for the cop-out answer that "they were both products of their times" (which is true), then how does that inform your present-day decisions? If the Nazis were up for vote again, would you vote for them? How would you even distinguish between which ideology or economic system works, without first making a judgment about history? If Mao's reign was the moral equivalent of Clinton's, then what would be the difference between choosing either man? Making a list of the "top ten evil bastards in history" might seem meaningless, but it is a useful way of prioritizing your understanding of history. Looking at what the "top ten evil bastards" did helps you realize what kind of circumstances and worldviews produce and sustain evil, and also informs your personal views of right and wrong. But to make this list in the first place, you need to make a judgment - a moral judgment - about the leaders of history. If your list tops out with George W. Bush, that implies a very different view than if your list tops out with Hitler. So while it may indeed be pointless to blame people today for what their countries did in the past, it is not at all meaningless to make judgments about the past - that's how we make progress. When historians state that an event must be put into context, they don't mean that you should stop making judgments about history, but that you should judge history fairly. Screaming "why do people look up to Gandhi? He's racist against black people and the Hippies were just as non-violent!" is judging history out of context. By contrast, saying "Gandhi was a great man because he fought for pacifism and freedom during a time when the prevailing ideology was one of war and imperial exploitation" is a better evaluation. Evaluating history is inevitably a part of learning from it. It's not about (or at least, should not be about) self-righteousness and national pride. It's more about recognizing that something was wrong, understanding the factors that led to it, and erecting safeguards against such factors in the modern world. That's how we improve, that's how we keep ourselves from repeating history. Last edited by Lathdrinor; 2008-11-19 at 22:56. |
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2008-11-19, 22:48 | Link #68 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: PMB Headquarters
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2008-11-19, 23:28 | Link #69 |
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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@Mumitroll
I'm hoping to dispel an illusion you seem to have about the education of history in this country. You seem to think that Americans are all indoctrinated by the same viewpoints and misrepresentations of events that you accuse us of. This is clearly not the case, and at least in my AP US history class we never approached history from the type of standpoint you think we have. What we covered were the motives and reasons, not the morals of such stories. My teacher never went off and said the "Germans were evil" or that the "Japanese deserved this," or anything of such a matter. He also did not go on talking about things like Iraq and Iran. If certain facts were unclear, he would tell us about them. Please do not put sweeping generalizations on not just the US, but anyone. And talk about history always repeating itself... Whoever is on the high stage in history always seems to receive all the wonderful scrutiny of the world. Who is next? China and India? It seems we just cannot seem to learn from history properly.
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2008-11-20, 06:11 | Link #70 |
I've been Kawarolled
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mumitroll, by definition bombing cities and military targets through military means is a military act, rounding up jews, slavs, and gypsies and killing them systemically is NOT THE SAME THING. By your pathetic definition, every military act is an act of genocide, put down the crack pipe. Civilians who die through military acts are victims of collateral damage whereas in the holocaust or similar genocides, it is the civilians themselves who are the target. The nuking of japan was to act as a detente and shock to japanese militarism which it itself declared it would fight to the death anyways. Last time i checked, the Nazi's killing slavs, jews, gypsies, etc was not to act as a detent or deterrent, but rather was just out of cold hearted eugenisism
looks like we didn't do a good enough job with germany 60 years ago...missed a few that slipped through the cracks |
2008-11-20, 06:25 | Link #71 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Is this a argument for telling appart millitary act and genocide? or A personnal attack? Somehow, I hope it the first .
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2008-11-20, 06:30 | Link #72 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Land of the rising sun
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Collateral damage? Pre-emptive strike? Watering? What else? |
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2008-11-20, 07:03 | Link #73 | |
I've been Kawarolled
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its a gray line, but at somepoint genocide and what would be considered civilian collateral damage are differentiated |
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2008-11-20, 07:39 | Link #75 | |||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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@Lathdrinor: good post, I agree with most of that.
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1) The largest WWII battle with US/UK participation - Ardennes - barely makes the top 10 of the largest battles of WWII. All the larger ones were at the Eastern front, and all of them except Berlin and Vistula were earlier. 2) The US bombing in Vietnam was primarily directed against South Vietnam. 3) The US has deliberately started to provide Afghan islamic fundamentalists - commonly called terrorists nowadays - with weapons and military training 6 months before the USSR invaded Afghanistan, with the outspoken goal of luring the USSR into "a Vietnam war of its own" (quote Zbigniew Brzezinski). Quote:
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it wasnt me who wrote the Geneva conventions. if you think those people were on crack when they were doing it.. well.. not much I can say to that. Quote:
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Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-21 at 21:10. |
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2008-11-20, 08:54 | Link #76 | |||
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: PMB Headquarters
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2008-11-20, 09:05 | Link #77 | ||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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I do actually mean South Vietnam. the so-called "democratic" state. perhaps if you read up on the extent of bombing that the US has done to it, you would question yourself just how "democratic" it actually was... as a hint: Quote:
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objective outside observers obviously consider it terrorism. but that's not something you'll typically hear in Western mass media because it "won't do" to say it - even although its true. its very similar for Israel. try to say that Israel is, basically, engaging in terrorist activities and violating many UN resolutions - and you'll be most probably quickly decried as antisemitic (it has happened a few times here). Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-20 at 09:35. |
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2008-11-20, 13:28 | Link #78 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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In a very small bright light to American Foreign Mis-policy ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/us/21guantanamo.html ... showing that at least *some* parts of our government still understand rule-of-law. The fascinating thing is that the judge is a conservative and a Bush appointee.
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2008-11-21, 17:49 | Link #79 | ||
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
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On the original subject of a nuclear war sometime in the near future, this is highly unlikely since none of the current nuclear powers are prone to starting one. The only foreseeable conflict of this nature that I find even slightly likely is if Iran gets nuclear weapons, and even in that case, it'd be Israel striking the first blow. Despite its rhetoric, Iran has no real motive for destroying Israel (or even attacking it directly, for that matter).
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Still, the invasion of the Japanese home islands - Downfall - would have cost both the Americans and the Japanese a lot of lives, and it's in the interest of all parties that it was avoided. The Americans had expected a vast amount of casualties (500,000 Purple Heart medals were made in accordance to the estimates), and they had actually underestimated the ability of the Japanese to resist an invasion, so there would have been higher loses than they predicted.
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2008-11-21, 19:17 | Link #80 | |||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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1) the situation in Pakistan and Kashmir/vs. India is not stable. nobody can exclude with certainty that an a hardline islamic Pakistani government would not use tactical nuclear missiles in the Kashmir conflict. 2) if the US continues its current extremely anti-Islamic and anti-Russian foreign policy, it is not all that unlikely that terrorist circles (Al Qaeda or similar) will obtain a tactical nuclear warhead and explode it in a US city. 3) while the probability for this is much lower than for either of the above scenarios, it is not excluded that the current anti-Russian US policy would result in a cruise missile strike on Russian territory at some point, with whatever pretext. which might provoke a nuclear counterattack and a global all-out nuclear war. Quote:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm it takes a lot of naivete to think that Japan would have been able to oppose that kind of force even on their home islands. Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-21 at 21:57. |
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