So, there is no distinction to be made between Murder, Manslaughter and Criminal Negligence?
Lest We Forget: Aug 6 1945: Part II
Sun, 2010-08-15 15:44
#52
Cueball
Sun, 2010-08-15 16:17
#53
I am really just trying to figure out what you mean. Because I stray away from this idea that the anti-semitism thing was mere manipulation for the sake of acquiring power.
No. To be clear, I know they actually wanted them exterminated.
And as for the criminal distinctions you made, of course I know there is a difference. But I also don't think those translate directly to the real and far more complex situations we are discussing. I believe I understand your argument, but frankly we are at an impasse on parts of it, and there isn't anything more that I can say without repeating things I have written already. Sorry.
Sun, 2010-08-15 16:55
#54
There are plenty of other examples. I'm not trying to diminish the evil of the Nazi ideology, but virtually everything they did had been done before in some form or another.
Some even had catch-phrases, like Carthago delenda est.
Sun, 2010-08-15 17:44
#55
Some even had catch-phrases, like Carthago delenda est.
Yup. or "Nits make lice," and the even less discriminating "Kill them all; God will know his own."
Sun, 2010-08-15 20:33
#56
The myth that the Jews, Bolsheviks and the rich sabotaged Germany in the First World War was the first wedge they used, long before they ever achieved power.
So it wasn't the rich who sabotaged things for Germany and western world capitalism in general?
Sun, 2010-08-15 21:11
#57
@ Fidel
Well yeah, but not in the way that the Nazis told the tale. It was convenient for them to cook up a story of a shadowy Jewish and foreign interests which controlled all aspects of German business, sucked the life out of German workers and undermined German morality and culture. It would have been quite another thing for the Nazis to actually point fingers at Thyssen, Farben, Krupp, Siemens and other companies who they actually wanted financial support from.
Besides, the industrialists had actually financed the Freikorps, which put down the German Revolution of 1918, and which later morphed into the SA. So although industrialists considered the Nazis too left-wing to support in the days of the Munich Putsch, they had in fact created their cheerleading section.
Of course by the time the Nazis seemed destined for power on a campaign of heavy infrastructure and military growth and a highly controlled public, financiers saw them a little differently.
Sun, 2010-08-15 22:10
#58
Of course by the time the Nazis seemed destined for power on a campaign of heavy infrastructure and military growth and a highly controlled public, financiers saw them a little differently.
And not to mention massive reparations payments to western countries along with the French army occupying the industrial heartland, the Ruhr valley and preventing government collection of taxes from those activities. It would have been enough to cripple any country's economy. By the 1930's, the shadowy Swiss based Bank of International Settlements had become a financial wing of the Nazis. Charles Higham's book, Trading with the Enemy was corroborated in a BBC Timewatch film, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YauM5dHLn1s]Banking with Hitler[/url] 1998 It's interesting to note that Keynes wanted the BIS dismantling in 1946 because of their rightwing sympathies and having laundered money for the Nazis. They kind of faded into obscurity until the late 70's or so when Wall Street and High Street newsies began referring to the BIS as some sort of financial authority for central banking. Our stooges in Ottawa basically followed their advice right up to the late 1990s.
Mon, 2010-08-16 12:32
#59
The U.S.A. declared war on Germany WHEN GERMANY HAD NOT EVEN ATTACKED THE U.S.A.
Actually, the Germans declared war on the USA following Pearl Harbour, not the other way around.
What is this thread about?
Mon, 2010-08-16 12:54
#60
The U.S.A. declared war on Germany WHEN GERMANY HAD NOT EVEN ATTACKED THE U.S.A.
Actually, the Germans declared war on the USA following Pearl Harbour, not the other way around.
What is this thread about?
WW2 threads are kind of like babble's very own UFC. A bunch of dudes slugging it out...to what end? I do not know.
Mon, 2010-08-16 16:42
#61
Cueball
What you are arguing IS NOT a case of Poland defending Poland or France defending France or Britain defending Britain or the U.S.A. defending the U.S.A. in self -defense when attacked. Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 WHEN THEY WERE NOT ATTACKED AND BEFORE ANY NAZI ETHNIC CLEANSING OR THE HOLOCAUST HAD OCCURRED.
Again, you are sadly mistaken in the facts. The ethnic cleansing of Jews began in 1933, with Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. In 1935 the Nuremberg Racial Purity Laws were passed, also the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor (preventing interracial marriage) and less famously, but probably more importantly the Reich Citizenship Law, which stripped German Jews of any description of their citizenship and basic civil rights.
These measures forced German Jews out of their jobs, and forced many into exile, should they be accepted elsewhere, and set the framework down for their later deportation. I don't know about you, but my ethnic cleansing, includes outrageously prejudiced laws, punative state sanctioned economic measures and the removal of basic civil rights.
By 1938, new laws were implimented to segregate Jews from the rest of the German population, and state approved pogroms attacking Jews began to take place, such as Kristalnacht where 30,000 Jews were arrested and deported to the newly built concentration camps. In the same year, as a result of the Anschluss with Germany, Austrian Jews began to be persecuted, their property seized and those who could pay "offered" exile by Central Office for Jewish Emigration under the direction of Adolph Eichman.
So, as we can see your assessment: "Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939... BEFORE ANY NAZI ETHNIC CLEANSING..." is offensively ignorant.
I have an idea! Why don't you do some research or something before coming up with your grand theories about the political motivations of the great powers of the second world war, or better yet keep right on posting so that I can pick random paragraphs from any of them, and illustrate how little you know over and over and over again.
If you are up for any actual research about the Holocaust, as opposed to mouthing off endlessly on internet chat forums, a good place to start would be "I will Bear Witness". by Victor Klemperer, a German Jew whose account of the whole issue is revealed in his almost daily journal entires. You will be interested to know that as the husband of a gentile, he managed to survive in Germany outside of a concentration camp. albiet in a ghetto, until he was bombed out of his home by the RAF firebombing of Dresden, something you seem to have particular interest in. He is therefore unique in being both a survivor of the Nazi ethnic cleansing and British massacre at Dresden.
And, as for the British and French declaration of war, I am under know illusion that it had anything to do with the ethnic cleansing of Jews being perpetrated by the NSDAP in Germany, as far as I know, it would seem even many high ranking British officials covertly approved. But that said, I personally think the declaration on Poland's behalf was quite timely. If you think that the Allies should have abided by Ribbentrop's assessment and not declared war soon after the invasion of Poland, I can't see that any intelligent discussion with you about politics of morality is worthwhile. I means seriously, you think that Germany was not going to launch a war against France and Britain, once he had secured the east with the invasion of Poland and with Russian safely contained by the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact?
You believe perhaps, Poland was the limit of Hitler's ambitions?
Believing that would be stupidity on a grand scale.
The point is to show that nazi Germany's atrocities against the Slavs was not unique and had their parallel in fascist Japan's atrocities against the Chinese and other Asian peoples in their occupied territories.ke any logically and morally consistent argument about this when they themselves were guilty of committing atrocities?
Wrong. But despite my pointing out the myriad errors in fact that you base this opinion on, I highly doubt that you can be convinced otherwise. Japanese attrocities, for example, use of gas, and germ warfare, punative attacks against the civilian population were aimed at achieving military outcomes. Germany, likewise used many devasting weapons upon civilian population to achieve military effect, but they also engaged in highly co-ordinated and coherent campaigns, authorized at the highest levels of government, aimed solely at the object of ethnic cleansing.
Mon, 2010-08-16 17:13
#62
The U.S.A. declared war on Germany WHEN GERMANY HAD NOT EVEN ATTACKED THE U.S.A.
Actually, the Germans declared war on the USA following Pearl Harbour, not the other way around.
And previously of the view that said Pearl Harbour was an unprovoked attack, [url=http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v11/v11p431_Lutton.html]Pullitzer Prize winning author, John Toland[/url] switched to the reviisionist side that says the US Government had advance warning of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour. Now why would a buncg of politicians and Daddy Warbucks funding their election campaigns desire to go to war? It's a total mystery for some people. And apparently it was a good excuse for the fascist feds to do ethnic profiling in the US and Canada here and all.
And the notorious "surprise attack" still occurs from time to time under suspicious circumstances in this century.
Mon, 2010-08-16 21:44
#63
My point has been, and remains, that Japanese mode of imperial conquest followed this second patern, not the first.
There's where your wrong. The Rape of Nanking and the activities of Unit 731, and those Imperial Japanese Army units that used biological and chemical warfare (something not even the nazis did) against Chinese civilians and using Asian civilians as mass slave labor to construct the China-Burma-Thailand railroad where a person died for every tie laid, makes fascist Japan follow the "first pattern" of nazi subjugation rather than the "second pattern" of European colonial rule.
1) The case is put forward by the Allied powers that the Japanese 'surprise' attack upon European colonial possessions constituted and egregious and amoral act, justifying their reassertion of their dominance in Asia. Indeed, in the first case, there is no clear moral case for the USA, France, Britain and the Netherlands to claim the possessions Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines; Indochina; India, Singapore and Hong Kong; and Indonesia. In the final analysis we can see the brutal repression of independence movements throughout Asia that were spawned in the wake of the Japanese surrender (in particular the attempted suppression of the Indonesians and the Vietnamese) as a continuation of the previous colonial policy, backed by the United States the primary mover on the Allied side during the Pacific war.
And your point is what? That the Japanese fascists didn't brutally suppress attempts at independece during their rule? This is demonstrably false.
There is, in a word, no real moral difference between any of these forces in play. Therefore, any appeal to the morality of the Allied war effort that justifies the firebombing of Tokyo or the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, on moral ground because they were "attacked" is completely void. There imperial possession, which they held illegally were attacked.
Here you're striking at a strawman argument. Concerning the firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities, neither of us holds that this was morally justified.
My argument was, the "they" who were attacked were not the U.S.A., Britain, France, the Netherlands etc. The "they" who were attacked were the Chinese, Philippinos, Indonesians, Malayans, Burmese, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Thai, Indians, etc.,
2) That the German attack upon its European enemies was an entirely different kind of event, in that it was an attack on the homelands of the French, the British, the Dutch, the Poles, the Czechs, the Russians, and in such the Allies were completely morally justified in defending themselves from this attack on the basis of "self-defense",...
You either did not read or you failed to understand my argument on this issue. What you are arguing IS NOT a case of Poland defending Poland or France defending France or Britain defending Britain or the U.S.A. defending the U.S.A. in self -defense when attacked. Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 WHEN THEY WERE NOT ATTACKED AND BEFORE ANY NAZI ETHNIC CLEANSING OR THE HOLOCAUST HAD OCCURRED. The U.S.A. declared war on Germany WHEN GERMANY HAD NOT EVEN ATTACKED THE U.S.A. The U.S.A. and Britain later explained that they were fighting the war to defend France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, etc. This is COLLECTIVE DEFENSE - fighting to defend other countries and peoples. Britain wanted Germany to be defeated because Britain wanted hegemony in Europe. The situation was the same as during World War I. Britain wanted to be the dominant power.
China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, etc., were attacked by Japan. If you accept the notion of collective defense, as it appears you do, then IF it was right for the U.S.A. and Britain to wage a war of aggression to defend Poland, France, the Netherlands, the U.S.S.R. et al against nazi Germany, THEN it was also right for the U.S.A. and Britain to wage a war of aggression to defend China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam et al against fascist Japan. If it was NOT RIGHT for the U.S.A. to wage a war of aggression for China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam et al, then it was NOT RIGHT for the U.S.A. and Britain to wage a war of aggression for Poland, France, the Netherlands, the U.S.S.R. et al.
To argue that it was morally justified for the U.S.A. and Britain to wage a war of aggression to defend Poland, France, the Netherlands, the U.S.S.R. et al but that it was not morally justified for the U.S.A. and Britain to wage a war of aggression to defend China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam et al, is both inconsistent and insupportable.
... and in particular the criminal nature of the attack upon the people of Eastern Europe aimed at acquiring the vast resources there was compounded by the fact that the object of the German attack was to be achieved by wholesale extermination of the people of Eastern Europe. In other words, the moral case for the war with Japan is very doubtful, while the moral rightness of the Allied defense in Europe is clear, despite any war crimes that were committed in successfully defending themselves.
The many "war crimes" that were committed by the Allies remain "war crimes" and are clearly a-moral, and can be condemned in their own right, but this does not colour the moral superiority of their cause in relationship to the German cause. There is no similar moral case that can be made in terms of the Allied conduct of the war in the Pacific.
Here's where we part company.
First, the way fascist Japanese treated their subjugated peoples was not any different from the way the nazi Germans treated the Slavs.
Second, the reason why the Western Allies were waging a war of aggression was not to stop the atrocities against the Jewish, Slavic and Asian peoples.
Third, the atrocities committed by the nazi Germans DO NOT justify or excuse the atrocities the Allies committed. The same is true for the prosecution of the Pacific Theater of war by all sides.
Is that so? Cool, because I never said any such thing. In fact, I said: "The many 'war crimes' that were committed by the Allies remain "war crimes" and are clearly a-moral, and can be condemned in their own right...." I guess that means the lecture on morality that follows the above quote is moot.
You contradict what you just said above.
Further reading of your missive also shows that you missed the point entirely. The point is that whatever one might say about the Rape of Nanking or the "Three Alls Policy", the fact is that the US war against Japan had absolutely nothing to do with liberating anyone, or self-defense, as can be seen by the post war agenda pursued by the Allies in Asia, after they had reasserted European hegemony by defeating the Japanese attempt to replace European hegemony with Japanese hegemony, I don't know if the slaughter of over 4 million Vietnamese by the French and Americans, or the brutal attempt to suppress Indonesian independence by the Dutch after WWII, or the British led counter-insurgency Burma "rate" in your books with the Nanking massacre, which you seem desperate to inform me of, but perhaps you even you can at least appreciate something of the hypocrisy of the Allied position here.
Absolutely. Fascist Japan did not wage a war of aggression against Asian and Pacific island countries and peoples to "liberate" them. Neither did the U.S.A. and Britain wage a war of aggression to "defend" or "liberate" European, Asian and Pacific island countries and peoples. If you agree with me on this, then we are in complete agreement.
I have no idea why you are are so insistent in highlighting Japanese atrocit[ies]
The point is to show that nazi Germany's atrocities against the Slavs was not unique and had their parallel in fascist Japan's atrocities against the Chinese and other Asian peoples in their occupied territories.
This poses no problem for me as opposed to you. Unlike you, I make no claim that the Western Allies were waging a war of aggression in the European theater for either self-defense or to end nazi atrocities.
Again, if it was to end nazi atrocities, then how could the U.S.A. and Britain make any logically and morally consistent argument about this when they themselves were guilty of committing atrocities?
Mon, 2010-08-16 22:41
#64
The U.S.A. declared war on Germany WHEN GERMANY HAD NOT EVEN ATTACKED THE U.S.A.
Actually, the Germans declared war on the USA following Pearl Harbour, not the other way around.
On post # 36, I wrote:
The U.S.A. entered the [European - I should have specified this] war because Hitler declared war on the U.S.A. ...
In the same way, the U.S.A. entered a war of aggression against Germany even though Germany had not militarily attacked the U.S.A. So Germany declared war against the U.S.A.? Fine, let Germany attack or invade the U.S.A. Judging by Germany's failure to pull off an invasion of Britain, it's a pretty safe bet that an attempt to launch a serious attack or invasion of the U.S.A. was doomed to failure.
Cueball's argument is that because Hawaii in 1941 was a "protectorate" (colonial possession) of the U.S.A., Japan did not attack the U.S.A. Therefore, by waging a war of aggression against Japan, the U.S.A., nor any of the other European colonial powers, was engaging in self-defense.
I accept this argument. If Cueball also seriously believes this argument, then I have shown how the war on the Western Front was also not a case of "self-defense" and therefore, the argument that the war of aggression on the Western Front was a just war from the grounds of "self-defense" are logically and morally inconsistent and insupportable.
What is this thread about?
What's happened is we're debating the justness of Western Allied participation in World War II.
Cueball is attempting to make the case that the Western Allied cause for participation in the Pacific Theater of war was not morally justified because it was not a case of self-defense.
The Western Allied cause for participation in the European Theater of war was morally justified because it was a case of self-defense. Further, Cueball argues from the grounds of amorality: The nazis were worse than the Allies because of the holocaust and their treatment of Slavic people on the Eastern Front. Even though the Western Allies (the U.S.A. and Britain) committed atrocities themselves on the Western Front, one can ignore or accept this because they were waging a war of aggression in "self-defense", nazi atrocities were "worse" and (presumably) therefore, the nazis needed to be stopped.
I have argued against this by showing the internal logical and moral inconsistencies with such a position.
Mon, 2010-08-16 22:51
#65
Cueball
Cueball's argument is that because Hawaii in 1941 was a "protectorate" (colonial possession) of the U.S.A., Japan did not attack the U.S.A. Therefore, by waging a war of aggression against Japan, the U.S.A., nor any of the other European colonial powers, was engaging in self-defense.
I never wrote anything at all like that. What I said is that all of the European states, including the United States acted, not to defeat imperialism, but to defend their own. I did not even say they were engaging in a war of aggression. I said Japan was merely playing the European empire game in Asia just like anyone else.
Hawaii being a possession is an example of this, but it is no different that the UK claiming Hong Kong.
In my view, who attacked who is a moot point, since no one was engaging in a war of self defense, and all were engaging in aggressive imperial wars, against the people they attacked and occupied, and against each other. I didn't say any of it was justified. I said, all players were morally equivalent, as in equal.
Mon, 2010-08-16 22:51
#66
The Japanese were war criminals too. They slaughtered innocent civilians. They deliberately starved millions to death in VietNam and Indonesia. Their doctors performed horrible experiments on human beings.
Mon, 2010-08-16 22:59
#67
Cueball
It's total crap that they deliberately starved people to death in Vietnam and Indonesia. Everyone says this, but it is utter bullshit. After they lost the Solomon Island campaign, the Japanese navy was completely unable to deal with the US submarine threat, and the entire Japanese merchant marine was being hacked to pieces, and simply not able to supply the Japanese army overseas, and they rolled back the supply train that was left for Truk Island, Phillipines, and the interior defensive perimeter; The Japanese army was starving to death. As can be expected a starving army will look after itself by eating the civilian supply.
It was not an intentional genocide of any kind.
Tue, 2010-08-17 00:03
#68
An Invasion Not Found in the History Books
Deep in the recesses of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., hidden for nearly four decades lie thousands of pages of yellowing and dusty documents stamped "Top Secret". These documents, now declassified, are the plans for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan during World War II. Only a few Americans in 1945 were aware of the elaborate plans that had been prepared for the Allied Invasion of the Japanese home islands. Even fewer today are aware of the defenses the Japanese had prepared to counter the invasion had it been launched. Operation Downfall was finalized during the spring and summer of 1945. It called for two massive military undertakings to be carried out in succession and aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire.
In the first invasion-code named Operation Olympic-American combat troops would land on Japan by amphibious assault during the early morning hours of November 1, 1945-50 years ago. Fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after an unprecedented naval and aerial bombardment.
The second invasion on March 1, 1946-code named Operation Coronet-would send at least 22 divisions against 1 million Japanese defenders on the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain. It's goal: the unconditional surrender of Japan. With the exception of a part of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation. It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the 7th Army Air Force, the 8th Air Force (recently redeployed from Europe), 10th Air Force and the American Far Eastern Air Force. More than 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support or more than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 - would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults. Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy.
Tue, 2010-08-17 00:05
#69
Yes, it was selfish of two million or so Vietnamese to even think about feeding themselves while all those needy soldiers of the Japanese imperialist army were subsisting on whatever they could pillage and thieve on their travels. I wonder if they were even offered cups of tea to go with with their stolen rice?
Tue, 2010-08-17 00:17
#70
What you are arguing IS NOT a case of Poland defending Poland or France defending France or Britain defending Britain or the U.S.A. defending the U.S.A. in self -defense when attacked. Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 WHEN THEY WERE NOT ATTACKED AND BEFORE ANY NAZI ETHNIC CLEANSING OR THE HOLOCAUST HAD OCCURRED.
Again, you are sadly mistaken in the facts. The ethnic cleansing of Jews began in 1933, with Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. In 1935 the Nuremberg Racial Purity Laws were passed, also the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor (preventing interracial marriage) and less famously, but probably more importantly the Reich Citizenship Law, which stripped German Jews of any description of their citizenship and basic civil rights.
These measures forced German Jews out of their jobs, and forced many into exile, should they be accepted elsewhere, and set the framework down for their later deportation. I don't know about you, but my ethnic cleansing, includes outrageously prejudiced laws, punative state sanctioned economic measures and the removal of basic civil rights.
By 1938, new laws were implimented to segregate Jews from the rest of the German population, and state approved pogroms attacking Jews began to take place, such as Kristalnacht where 30,000 Jews were arrested and deported to the newly built concentration camps. In the same year, as a result of the Anschluss with Germany, Austrian Jews began to be persecuted, their property seized and those who could pay "offered" exile by Central Office for Jewish Emigration under the direction of Adolph Eichman.
So, as we can see your assessment: "Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939... BEFORE ANY NAZI ETHNIC CLEANSING..." is offensively ignorant.
I have an idea! Why don't you do some research or something before coming up with your grand theories about the political motivations of the great powers of the second world war, or better yet keep right on posting so that I can pick random paragraphs from any of them, and illustrate how little you know over and over and over again.
If you are up for any actual research about the Holocaust, as opposed to mouthing off endlessly on internet chat forums, a good place to start would be "I will Bear Witness". by Victor Klemperer, a German Jew whose account of the whole issue is revealed in his almost daily journal entires. You will be interested to know that as the husband of a gentile, he managed to survive in Germany outside of a concentration camp. albiet in a ghetto, until he was bombed out of his home by the RAF firebombing of Dresden, something you seem to have particular interest in. He is therefore unique in being both a survivor of the Nazi ethnic cleansing and British massacre at Dresden.
Oh, so that constitutes ethnic cleansing? Well in that case, I guess all the "Jim crow" laws and social treatment of blacks by whites in the U.S.A. from the 1890s to the 1950s constitutes "ethnic cleansing". I guess all the apartheid laws and social treatment of black Africans by white Africans constitutes "ethnic cleansing".
I have a narrow definition of ethnic cleansing. It is discrimination. NOT genocide or the Holocaust.
You have a broad definition of ethnic cleansing. For you, it is the same as genocide or the Holocaust.
This is a strawman argument over semantics that can be easily resolved by my accepting your definition of "ethnic cleansing" and ceasing to use it with the definition I had in mind.
And, as for the British and French declaration of war, I am under know illusion that it had anything to do with the ethnic cleansing of Jews being perpetrated by the NSDAP in Germany, as far as I know, it would seem even many high ranking British officials covertly approved.
This contradicts the arguments you just made above. In your opinion, do the changes in the laws concerning Jewish people in German society and crimes German citizens perpetrated upon Jewish persons and their property prior to 1942, constitute discrimination or genocide/Holocaust?
But that said, I personally think the declaration on Poland's behalf was quite timely. If you think that the Allies should have abided by Ribbentrop's assessment and not declared war soon after the invasion of Poland, I can't see that any intelligent discussion with you about politics of morality is worthwhile. I means seriously, you think that Germany was not going to launch a war against France and Britain, once he had secured the east with the invasion of Poland and with Russian safely contained by the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact?
You believe perhaps, Poland was the limit of Hitler's ambitions?
Believing that would be stupidity on a grand scale.
France and Britain's declaration of war of against Germany on September 3, 1939 was a declaration of the intent to make a pre-emptive strike against Germany and, had they attacked Germany, they would have been just as guilty of waging a war of aggression as Germany was.
This contradicts your argument that the Western Allies were fighting in "self-defense" in the European Theater of war. Stop and think about the logic and morality of your argument.
The point is to show that nazi Germany's atrocities against the Slavs was not unique and had their parallel in fascist Japan's atrocities against the Chinese and other Asian peoples in their occupied territories.
This poses no problem for me as opposed to you. Unlike you, I make no claim that the Western Allies were waging a war of aggression in the European theater for either self-defense or to end nazi atrocities.
Again, if it was to end nazi atrocities, then how could the U.S.A. and Britain make any logically and morally consistent argument about this when they themselves were guilty of committing atrocities?
Wrong. But despite my pointing out the myriad errors in fact that you base this opinion on, I highly doubt that you can be convinced otherwise. Japanese attrocities, for example, use of gas, and germ warfare, punative attacks against the civilian population were aimed at achieving military outcomes. Germany, likewise used many devasting weapons upon civilian population to achieve military effect, but they also engaged in highly co-ordinated and coherent campaigns, authorized at the highest levels of government, aimed solely at the object of ethnic cleansing.
Two points:
1. The Holocaust was an atrocity, just like all the atrocities committed by the Japanese, the Axis powers and the Allied powers. As I have argued elsewhere, an atrocity is an atrocity. From the perspective of universal morality and justice, the Holocaust does differ from the other atrocities qualitatively, only quantitatively.
2. Just because the German nazis had copious documents and communications concerning the Holocaust and the Japanese fascists had little or none concerning their racist, inhumane and genocidal acts against masses of people who were ethnically different from themselves doesn't make it any less "real" or what the German nazis did any more "real".
In fact, it begs the frightening question of what kind of society and culture did the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army come from where it was not necessary for them to be given written orders to commit the racist, inhumane and genocidal acts against masses of ethnically different people, but where it was accepted as a given by their government and Army headquarters in the Japanese home islands that they would do this as a matter of course if it furthered their aims?
These acts were a policy that systematically occurred over a period of months and years. They were not the spontaneous acts of large groups of non commissioned soldiers. They were orders that came from high ranking officers in the field.
Here's another contrast: Hitler gave written orders in the last year of the war for all soldiers defending "festung bergs", "fortress cities" to fight to the last bullet and to the last man. The vast majority of German soldiers did not obey these orders.
From 1942 on, when Imperial Japanese soldiers realized that they were losing a battle, they committed suicide by the thousands by yelling "Bonzai" and charging against American rifle and machine-gun fire from secure entrenched positions.
From 1944, thousands of young Imperial Japanese airmen committed suicide in kamikaze attacks.
From 1944, mini attack and recon subs were converted and built for tens of young Imperial Japanese seamen to engage in kamikaze attacks against U.S. vessels.
There were no written instructions from the Japanese government ordering them to do so. It was expected they would 'voluntarily' do it, and they did.
I find the whole thing the Japanese fascists had going on to be more frightening than what the German nazis were doing. To do what they did, the German nazis needed written orders. The Japanese didn't.
If you want to talk bullshit about politics or what I would call the collective social mindfuck, and how this influenced or determined military strategy, pick up a book and educate yourself about military policy of Imperial Japan from 1930 to 1945.
Tue, 2010-08-17 00:23
#71
Cueball's argument is that because Hawaii in 1941 was a "protectorate" (colonial possession) of the U.S.A., Japan did not attack the U.S.A. Therefore, by waging a war of aggression against Japan, the U.S.A., nor any of the other European colonial powers, was engaging in self-defense.
I never wrote anything at all like that. What I said is that all of the European states, including the United States acted, not to defeat imperialism, but to defend their own. I did not even say they were engaging in a war of aggression. I said Japan was merely playing the European empire game in Asia just like anyone else.
Hawaii being a possession is an example of this, but it is no different that the UK claiming Hong Kong.
In my view, who attacked who is a moot point, since no one was engaging in a war of self defense, and all were engaging in aggressive imperial wars, against the people they attacked and occupied, and against each other. I didn't say any of it was justified. I said, all players were morally equivalent, as in equal.
Just as I am arguing the same is true for the European Theater of war. The only Allied country that can make a case for self-defense is Russia.
Tue, 2010-08-17 00:31
#72
It was a pre-emptive war against Russia! They were witholding land and resources from western industrialists and bankers. Of course, today their order of importance is reversed. Today under the "new" liberal capital scheme of things, it's bankers, money magnates and a few industrialists for effect. And this is why North Atlant Treaty Org nations are parked on Russia and China's front doorsteps and surrounding them with WMD.
Tue, 2010-08-17 00:38
#73
Was it a mistake for President Harry Truman to order the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The alternate was an invasion of the Japanese homeland: Operation Downfall. Historians estimate the casualties would have been in the millions, including both Japanese nationals and invading Allies. The sites below offer the insights into crucial information upon which Truman relied in making the decision to go nuclear.
Tue, 2010-08-17 01:01
#74
It's total crap that they deliberately starved people to death in Vietnam and Indonesia. Everyone says this, but it is utter bullshit. After they lost the Solomon Island campaign, the Japanese navy was completely unable to deal with the US submarine threat, and the entire Japanese merchant marine was being hacked to pieces, and simply not able to supply the Japanese army overseas, and they rolled back the supply train that was left for Truk Island, Phillipines, and the interior defensive perimeter;
Your argument is total crap. What has what happened concerning the Solomon and other Pacific islands got to do with what happened in French Indo-China/Vietnam? Vietnam did not need to be supplied with food imported on ships. Food could be brought from the countryside, Laos, Cambodia, China, the Maylay peninsula, Burma and Thailand. Food was available and the Japanese and French administrators could have supplied it to the Vietnamese, but they chose not to as a means of either weakening or defeating the insurgency war of independence against them.
The Vietnamese who suffered were those who lived in the Japanese held cities. When the Imperial Japanese Army landed on the shores of Vietnam, the French colonial administration greeted them and accepted French defeat. In return, the Japanese allowed them to continue to govern Vietnam, with Japanese oversight - of course.
From 1944, Ho Chi Minh and his insurgents were trained and armed by U.S. OSS servicemen.
When the French "returned" to Vietnam and decided to impose their rule by war starting in 1946, the U.S.A. underwrote the French economy so France could afford the war and supplied the French with U.S. arms, combat vehicles and equipment. The Viet Minh insurgents the French fought against were those insurgents who had been trained and armed by the U.S. to earlier fight against the Japanese.
How do you like them for apples?
The Japanese army was starving to death. As can be expected a starving army will look after itself by eating the civilian supply.
It was not an intentional genocide of any kind.
Yeah? Tell that to a Vietnamese survivor of this period. You're telling me that they are liars? What else did they lie about? The French and later, American war/wars of Imperial aggression? (1945-1975).
Your song and dance routine (as I have alluded to before) of how the Japanese were such "nice guys, really" is getting very sickening, very fast.
Interesting. Some nazis at the time and some Holocaust deniers since, have used the same argument about films and photographs depicting emaciated death camp survivors. Their claim is, "These were not death camp survivors. This was not intentional genocide of any kind. In the last year of the war, Germany was unable to import food from outside and was unable to grow enough food to feed its own people from within. The government and the Wermacht made sure that they were fed first so that they could continue to defend Germany. Those peole you see are malnourished Germans who are suffering from the effects of the war the Allies waged against them."
Again I ask, just because the Holocaust is more documented than the atrocities perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese forces, does it make the Holocaust more "real"? Are documents more "real" than the testimonies (with little or no documents) of thousands of people?
My answer is a definite NO!
What's yours?
Tue, 2010-08-17 01:20
#75
Was it a mistake for President Harry Truman to order the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The alternate was an invasion of the Japanese homeland: Operation Downfall. Historians estimate the casualties would have been in the millions, including both Japanese nationals and invading Allies. The sites below offer the insights into crucial information upon which Truman relied in making the decision to go nuclear.
I take it you missed the discussion in "Part I" about the Japanese Army being dead, a small handfull captured, another small handfull hiding out in the jungles and the rest cut off (from the Japanese home islands) on Pacific islands and in China?
Such was the state of the Japanese Army. By mid 1944, all the Japanese capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) were at the bottom of the sea. All Japan had left really, were its merchant marine and small ships like destroyers and submarines. The U.S. Navy had control of the Pacific and Japanese coastal waters.
The U.S. Air Force had air superiority. They roamed the Japanese skies at will. Having run out of strategic military targets, the U.S. Air Force scoured Japan for 'targets of opportunity'.
The U.S. military had Japan blockaded. Invasion was not necessary. The U.S.A. could have starved Japan into surrender - which in my opinion isn't any more morally justifiable than any other atrocity the U.S. either did or could have perpetrated against the Japanese.
When one considers this, Operation Downfall becomes yet more unjustifiable propaganda.
Tue, 2010-08-17 01:54
#76
Cueball
From 1944, Ho Chi Minh and his insurgents were trained and armed by U.S. OSS servicemen.
Ok. Randomly, I'll pick this paragraph. Actually not really. A modicum of equipment was supplied, an agent and a radio operator basically. If you want more information on this topic try reading Ho Chi Minh: A Life by William William J Duiker. A lot of Americans try and brag about this support, or make some use of it to demonstrate some point or other, as you just have, but "support" is a pretty strong word. Indeed, The United States was supporting a united front of Vietnamese Nationalist forces, including the Viet Minh, but anyway... those are just the facts. Continue with your diatribe....
Tue, 2010-08-17 02:19
#77
Cueball
Goodie, here is another one:
Such was the state of the Japanese Army. By mid 1944, all the Japanese capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) were at the bottom of the sea. All Japan had left really, were its merchant marine and small ships like destroyers and submarines. The U.S. Navy had control of the Pacific and Japanese coastal waters.
That is why the Yamato sailed out to intercept the Ameican Okinawa invasion fleet on April, 1945: Operation Ten-go.
If you are actually interested in reading more on this topic try, "Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tamechi Hara. An interesting read, he was the inventor of the Japanese destroyer torpedo doctrine, and interestingly, details the activities during the period of the Tokyo Express, where Japanese destroyers were forced into being the primary escorts of the rapidly dwindling cargo fleet, in their desperate attempt to feed starving Japanese troops stuck on the Solomon Islands.
As well, main capital ship assets available to the Japanse navy after that point included 2 aircraft carriers, a light aircraft carrier, 3 battleships, a handful of cruisers. These were all sunk in attacks against the Kure Naval base in July of 1945. To suggest that there was any merchant marine left, is a joke, since by 1944 the US submarine fleet was destroying Japanese transport at a rate of 50 a month. There were so few targets left that American submarine captains had to start picking on the Japanese fishing fleet.
So, normally I would agree with your assessment that the Japanese Navy capacity at the end of 1944, but your absurd hyperbole, overstatment, exagerations, and loose attitude to the facts, makes me want to point it out.
Tue, 2010-08-17 02:24
#78
From 1944, Ho Chi Minh and his insurgents were trained and armed by U.S. OSS servicemen.
Ok. Randomly, I'll pick this paragraph. Actually not really. A modicum of equipment was supplied, an agent and a radio operator basically. If you want more information on this topic try reading Ho Chi Minh: A Life by William William J Duiker. A lot of Americans try and brag about this support, or make some use of it to demonstrate some point or other, as you just have, but "support" is a pretty strong word. Indeed, The United States was supporting a united front of Vietnamese Nationalist forces, including the Viet Minh, but anyway... those are just the facts. Continue with your diatribe....
I was pointing out the irony of the U.S. arming and supporting the French who were fighting against the Vietnamese insurgents armed with the same weapons supplied by the U.S.(!)
I'm talking about small arms in the case of the Vietnamese. Like .38 and .45 Smith&Wesson revolvers. .45 Colt revolvers and 1911 .45 Auto Colt Pistols, Thompson submachineguns, Colt M3 submachineguns, 1906 Springfield rifles, M1 Garand rifles, M1,M2,M3 carbines, .30 cal. machineguns, grenades etc.
I think "Random" is a good name for you.
I tackle all your points and agree with some, disagree with most, but in every case I state the reasons why.
In your case, you just randomly pick the odd one of my points here and there to debate, but claiming you ignore the others because they are all wrong.
The way I see it, you're bluffing. Otherwise, why don't you return the courtesy and address all my points. Who knows? You might even agree with some.
No, I think it's intellectual dishonesty and laziness on your part.
Are you up for the challenge?
Tue, 2010-08-17 02:24
#79
Cueball
Again I ask, just because the Holocaust is more documented than the atrocities perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese forces, does it make the Holocaust more "real"? Are documents more "real" than the testimonies (with little or no documents) of thousands of people?My answer is a definite NO!
My answer is that I have read "the documents" on both these subjects. You have not, apparently. You just have this idea, and are applying it willy-nilly as you fuzzify the facts to fit the theory you want to believe.
Again, the Japanese did not set of to Indonesia with the express purpose of exterminating the Indonesian people, as a people, because they were Indonesian. On the other hand, the Germans under the NSDAP, set of to Russia with the express purpose of exterminating the Slavs, as a people, because they were Slavs.
Tue, 2010-08-17 02:38
#80
Cueball
There is no challenge. I didn't enter into this discussion for challenge. I wanted to discuss the relationship between ideology, politics, and policy and how that manifests itself in war.
By now, I am just picking at your bullshit. I don't see any reason of showing you any courtesy at all. You don't even have the courtesy to respond to what I say. For example, you suggested that I think the "Japanese were such nice guys, really". Never said any such thing. You made that up. Just like a lot of "facts" you bring to the table.
I said there was not much to distinguish them from a moral standpoint with any of the other empires, to say such is not to say they were "good" like the British, because I never said the British were "good". I also happen to believe that there was something particularly malignant about National Socialism, and their occupation strategy for Eastern Europe was something more than "imperialism on overdrive", which is how you seem to think about it.
Why should I address your points, since you don't even bother to try and understand mine.
Tue, 2010-08-17 05:13
#81
My answer is that I have read "the documents" on both these subjects. You have not, apparently. You just have this idea, and are applying it willy-nilly as you fuzzify the facts to fit the theory you want to believe.
Again, the Japanese did not set of to Indonesia with the express purpose of exterminating the Indonesian people, as a people, because they were Indonesian. On the other hand, the Germans under the NSDAP, set of to Russia with the express purpose of exterminating the Slavs, as a people, because they were Slavs.
C'mon get real. The nazis set out with the express purpose of exterminating the Jews and they gave a real 'trooper's' effort at attempting it as well. Concerning the Slavs, Hitler gave an order to his Wermacht officers to wage a 'scorched earth' campaign of warfare against Russia - 'give no quarter and take no prisoners.'
Even the most rabid, lunatic anti Slavic nazi would realize that there were far too many Slavs to be able to anywhere near realistically exterminate them. C'mon, how in the hell could the nazis hope to: prosecute the war and execute the Jews and execute the Slavs? Impossible.
Print some quotes and give some web addresses that show there were orders to not only have a Holocaust against the Jews, but against the Slavs as well where Slavic people were systematically rounded up, thrown on trains, sent to death camps and gassed by the millions. I thought the figure of 6 million consisted overwhelmingly of Jewish people - or do you know different?
Why is it in Israel and elsewhere there are (Jewish) Holocaust memorials and no Slavic Holocaust memorials in Russia or anywhere else?
Why is it whenever the state of Israel wants to go to war against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank or Middle Eastern countries, does Israel wave the "bloody shirt" of the "others" being an "existential threat to Israel"?
Why is it that the Soviet Union/Russia since World War II, whenever it is either surrounded or threatened by the U.S.A. and its 'partners in crime' never makes the claim that they are threatening the "existential" existence of the Russian/Slavic people?
I know some Indonesian people who lived through World War II.
You know what happened to them? They were deported by the Japanese to Thailand to work on the China-Burma-Thailand railroad. Ever read any diaries of British and American, etc., PoWs and how they were treated by the Japanese? The Japanese had their wounds treated by doctors. Not so for the PoWs. They had to perform operations without disinfectant, anesthetics or any surgical instruments. In fact they performed surgeries using their razor blades originally intended for shaving.
- So don't give me more of your "The Japanese weren't so bad, really", horseshit.
I think you get your jollies by derailing a thread just so you can talk about how the nazis were the biggest bad asses of World War II and trying to hide this with the flimsiest of excuses that you're interested in some shit about how 'politics' influences military policy.
Fri, 2010-08-20 00:44
#82
There is no challenge. I didn't enter into this discussion for challenge. I wanted to discuss the relationship between ideology, politics, and policy and how that manifests itself in war.
By now, I am just picking at your bullshit. I don't see any reason of showing you any courtesy at all. You don't even have the courtesy to respond to what I say. For example, you suggested that I think the "Japanese were such nice guys, really". Never said any such thing. You made that up. Just like a lot of "facts" you bring to the table.
I said there was not much to distinguish them from a moral standpoint with any of the other empires, to say such is not to say they were "good" like the British, because I never said the British were "good". I also happen to believe that there was something particularly malignant about National Socialism, and their occupation strategy for Eastern Europe was something more than "imperialism on overdrive", which is how you seem to think about it.
Why should I address your points, since you don't even bother to try and understand mine.
I understand your arguments perfectly well.
Where does this argument about the "good" like the British come from? Where have I ever argued that anyone from either the Axis powers or the Allied powers was good?
If you were to study fascist Japan as much as you study nazi Germany, you would realize that fascist Japan's and the Japanese Imperial Army's occupation strategy for East Asia and their treatment of any race that was not their own, was equally malignant and something more than "imperialism on overdrive". WAKE UP: A good portion of Italian fascism, Japanese fascism and German fascism/nazism consists of racism; it influenced the ideology, politics and policy of their respective societies and governments and this manifested itself in the way they prosecuted the war. Look at how the Japanese fascists prosecuted the war in China, look at how they enslaved their subjugated peoples and transported them by force to Thailand to construct the China-Burma-Thailand railroad and how they treated them, and how they treated Allied PoWs - in a manner just like the nazis in Eastern Europe and how they treated people in the death camps (worked them to death, and if they survived, then) before they gassed them. Look at how the Italian fascists prosecuted the war in Tripolitania (Libya), Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Italian occupied Yugoslavia.
The only instance where the nazis went farther was the Holocaust. From the perspective of universal morality and justice, it is a difference of degree, not in kind. What are you telling us that is new? What are you telling babblers that they don't already know? Where is your critical moral judgement, where have you offered any moral criticism of what the nazi Germans (and inclusively, the Japanese and Italian fascists) have done? Where is there a moral conclusion about the end of the war? Was it a just end? I'm thinking particularly of the Nuremberg Trials. Did the Trials go too far? Not far enough? Were they about right? Why do you think other babblers have lost interest in this thread? IT IS BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT BRINGING ANYTHING NEW, PROFOUND OR TERRIBLY INTERESTING TO THE TABLE? YOU ARE JUST REHASHING (IN A DESCRIPTIVE FASHION) OLD HISTORY. HISTORY WE ALREADY KNOW.
You still cling to the myth of World War II as the "good war" at least in terms of the Western Allies waging a war of aggression on the Western Front.
I have shot that argument down on a number of occasions.
You want to know what my argument is?
It's:
1. To destroy the myth of World War II as the "good war".
2. My conclusion is that all W.W. II amounts to is a scramble to determine who would be 'at the top of the heap'. In other words, it was a murderfest to determine who the next world Superpowers would be. ALL POWERS (ALLIED AND AXIS) WERE GUILTY OF HAVING COMMITTED ATROCITIES DURING THE WAR.
Which is to say greed is behind it all. When you control the majority of the world's resources, you stand to make a lot of money.
What are you wasting your time on nazi Germany for? The zenith of the Third Reich that was supposed to be the new Ancient Roman Empire that was supposed to last "for a thousand years", only lasted from the end of 1941 to the middle of 1943.
The American Empire has lasted from 1945 to 2010, some 65 years - a little longer than the German Third Reich. I think you'd be better off studying the 'politics' and how that influences the military strategy of the American Empire. If holocausts are your thing, then why don't you do what "NoDifferencePartyPooper" does and research American culpability in the 1994 Rwandan genocide?
Fri, 2010-08-20 00:48
#83
Cueball
Look man. As far as I am concerned this conversation is over. I never said WWII was a good war. Nor did I say that the imperial powers did not first and foremost look after their own interests. That said, nothing you can say will ever shake my belief that the right side won that war, whatever might be said about their motives, as tainted as they were. The subtle distinction I made was actually that there was nothing at all to distinguish the "imperial" motives of the Japanese and the various "Allied" powers in WWII in Asia, and that in no way shape of form did the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour constitute "just cause" that made the Allied war in Asia "good".
But this is what you don't seem to get is that it was entirely irrelevant what the overall ambitions of the ruling powers of England, the USA, France and Russia were. All of that is entirely irrelevant. The British PEOPLE. the French PEOPLE, the Russian PEOPLE, the Yugoslav PEOPLE, the Greek PEOPLE, the Polish PEOPLE, the Dutch PEOPLE, the Norwegian PEOPLE and all those attacked by National Socialist Germany all had a clear right to defend themselves from aggressive attack and occupation by a foreign power, and they had a right to do so under any banner they chose, regardless of the motives that their leadership may or may not have had.
You seem to have a real problem seperating the collective rights of "peoples" and whatever crimes may be committed in their name by their rulers.
As well, it is particularly the case that the Slavic people necessarily had the right to do so in the face of a genocidal war of annihilation, of the kind planned and perpetrated by Germany under the leadership of Adolph Hitler. You don't believe that, you seem to think it was just British imperialism on steroids or something, but you are just wrong on this count.
In the face of that, the numerous peoples of Europe who used any means necessary to defend themselves, and liberate themselves from that particularly vicious, racist and totalitarian regime have every right to celebrate their victory over racism and tyranny. Good war? No. No war is "good". War is always a crime as Hemingway said, no matter how just.
But it was a damn good thing that the PEOPLE won.
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:20
#84
Look man. As far as I am concerned this conversation is over. I never said WWII was a good war. Nor did I say that the imperial powers did not first and foremost look after their own interests. That said, nothing you can say will ever shake my belief that the right side won that war, whatever might be said about their motives, as tainted as they were. The subtle distinction I made was actually that there was nothing at all to distinguish the "imperial" motives of the Japanese and the various "Allied" powers in WWII in Asia, and that in no way shape of form did the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour constitute "just cause" that made the Allied war in Asia "good".
But this is what you don't seem to get is that it was entirely irrelevant what the overall ambitions of the ruling powers of England, the USA, France and Russia were. All of that is entirely irrelevant. The British PEOPLE. the French PEOPLE, the Russian PEOPLE, the Yugoslav PEOPLE and all those attacked by National Socialist Germany all had a clear right to defend themselves from aggressive attack and occupation by a foreign power, and they had a right to do so under any banner they chose, regardless of the motives that their leadership may or may not have had.
You seem to have a real problem seperating the collective rights of "peoples" and whatever crimes may be committed in their name by their rulers.
As well, it is particularly the case that the Slavic people necessarily had the right to do so in the face of a genocidal war of annihilation, of the kind planned and perpetrated by Germany under the leadership of Adolph Hitler. You don't believe that, you seem to think it was just British imperialism on steroids or something, but you are just wrong on this count.
In the face of that, the numerous peoples of Europe who used any means necessary to defend themselves, and liberate themselves from that particularly vicious, racist and totalitarian regime have every right to celebrate their victory over racism and tyranny. Good war? No. No war is "good". War is always a crime as Hemingway said, no matter how just.
But it was a damn good thing that the PEOPLE won.
YES!!! By George, you've got it. It's PEOPLE that matter.
That's why we cannot explain away/belittle/justify for example, Imperial Japanese soldiers and the French colonial administration intentionally starving Vietnamese as a policy to weaken or defeat the insurgency. Or transporting Philippinos, Indonesians, Malayans, Thai, etc., by force to Thailand to use them as slave labor and treat them abysmally to construct the China-Burma-Thailand railroad. Or The Rape of Nanking. Or the use of biological and chemical agents against unsuspecting Chinese civilians. Or the unethical scientific experiments Unit 731 conducted upon people just like the SS. Or the treatment of Allied PoWs in the same fashion as death camp inmates who were (intentionally) neglected and overworked by the nazis.
It is interesting that the (Allied) countries who engaged in largescale conventional bombing of cities and firebombing of cities were Britain and the U.S.A. The Russians, the Yugoslavs, the Poles, the Czechs, the Hungarians, the Rumanians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, etc., did not do this.
In fact, Josef Stalin gave a directive to his generals which was passed down the chain of command: That no soldier of the Red Army is to commit any act of murder, assault, rape, theft, individual and willful destruction and damage of property against the German people.
The fight was against the nazis, not the German people. Yes, there were individual acts of murder, assault, rape, theft, and willful (outside of war and combat) destruction and damage of property. However, given the way the nazis prosecuted the war on the Eastern Front, the number of atrocities Red Army soldiers perpetrated upon the German people were surprisingly few, even though the Red Army had ample opportunity and reason to do far worse.
Ever see the movie Cross of Iron by Sam Peckinpah?
At the end there is a quote by Bertolt Brecht: "Don't rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."
Look around you. Look at the American Empire. Look at the Afghan and Iraq wars. Look at the saber rattling against Iran and North Korea. Look at all this shit we're in. Look familiar?
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:24
#85
All of that is entirely irrelevant. The British PEOPLE. the French PEOPLE, the Russian PEOPLE, the Yugoslav PEOPLE, the Greek PEOPLE, the Polish PEOPLE, the Dutch PEOPLE, the Norwegian PEOPLE and all those attacked by National Socialist Germany...
Should I ask why you persist with this Goebbelsian fiction describing it as "Nationalist Socialist" Germany? The fascists murdered the socialist wing of the party in their sleep in 1934 to satisfy their corporate and banking friends.
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:30
#86
#81 wins Post of the Thread award. Word!
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:33
#87
Cueball
Look around you. Look at the American Empire. Look at the Afghan and Iraq wars. Look at the saber rattling against Iran and North Korea. Look at all this shit we're in. Look familiar?
You really don't read anyones posts but your own do you?
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:38
#88
Look around you. Look at the American Empire. Look at the Afghan and Iraq wars. Look at the saber rattling against Iran and North Korea. Look at all this shit we're in. Look familiar?
You really don't read anyones posts but your own do you?
If there are threads where you have posted these arguments, show me as you haven't posted them until now on this thread.
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:43
#89
. Good war? No. No war is "good". War is always a crime as Hemingway said, no matter how just.
Not everyone everywhere is against war. There have been so many phony wars since WW II. War is like a Keynesian make-work project for rich people. And contrary to what the 9/11 Commission cover-up stated, it really is important to discover who financed 9/11. Because it's people, with the emphasis on those in power and their rich industrialist and banking friends who tend to profit handsomely from war, who don't want you to know. Hitler, Emil Kirdorf, Prescott Bush, IG Farben, "Daddy Warbucks" etc never died. They're all the same madman.
Fri, 2010-08-20 01:49
#90
Cueball
Look around you. Look at the American Empire. Look at the Afghan and Iraq wars. Look at the saber rattling against Iran and North Korea. Look at all this shit we're in. Look familiar?
You really don't read anyones posts but your own do you?
If there are threads where you have posted these arguments, show me as you haven't posted them until now on this thread.
From this thread:
The case is put forward by the Allied powers that the Japanese 'surprise' attack upon European colonial possessions constituted and egregious and amoral act, justifying their reassertion of their dominance in Asia. Indeed, in the first case, there is no clear moral case for the USA, France, Britain and the Netherlands to claim the possessions Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines; Indochina; India, Singapore and Hong Kong; and Indonesia. In the final analysis we can see the brutal repression of independence movements throughout Asia that were spawned in the wake of the Japanese surrender (in particular the attempted suppression of the Indonesians and the Vietnamese) as a continuation of the previous colonial policy, backed by the United States the primary mover on the Allied side during the Pacific war.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:05
#91
But this is what you don't seem to get is that it was entirely irrelevant what the overall ambitions of the ruling powers of England, the USA, France and Russia were. All of that is entirely irrelevant. The British ...
No, it's clearly you who doesn't get it. It's self-interested, greedy madmen, as in rich and powerful individuals and namely capitalists, who create and give life to other madmen for the sake of begetting more insanity than they are otherwise capable of without there being twins of their rotten and conniving selves. They actually don't think any more of the average white WASP or any other whitey than they do people of colour, Slavic ancestry or whatever the historical case may have been. The fascist bastards just want to enslave or mass murder us all for fun and profit, really. Self-interest has a tendency to manifest itself as appalling greed, and ultimately, insanity and megalomaniacal aspirations for power and wealth. Like what's happening again today with kapitalism. The whole system breeds insanity.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:06
#92
Cueball
Yeah Fidel. They all should have just given up and surrendered.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:15
#93
From this thread:
The case is put forward by the Allied powers that the Japanese 'surprise' attack upon European colonial possessions constituted and egregious and amoral act, justifying their reassertion of their dominance in Asia. Indeed, in the first case, there is no clear moral case for the USA, France, Britain and the Netherlands to claim the possessions Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines; Indochina; India, Singapore and Hong Kong; and Indonesia. In the final analysis we can see the brutal repression of independence movements throughout Asia that were spawned in the wake of the Japanese surrender (in particular the attempted suppression of the Indonesians and the Vietnamese) as a continuation of the previous colonial policy, backed by the United States the primary mover on the Allied side during the Pacific war.
As I said, the Second World War was a murderfest to determine who the next Superpowers would be.
If fascist Japan had won, then the brutal repression of independence movements throughout Asia would still have occurred (just as it did under Japanese occupation.) The history of Asia today wouldn't be much different than it is now. Only just a different oppressor/empire.
Instead of a rising China, it would be a rising Japan(ese occupied China.)
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:25
#94
Yeah Fidel. They all should have just given up and surrendered.
No I was referring to your smoothing things over for the kapitalists and warfiteers who engineer these lessons in organized slaughter. Yes my father and grandfathers fought in the world wars. And, yes, they were people among a larger subset of people in general who fought in wars for the sake of real estate grabs. The problem is that none of the sonsobitches who mastermind wars, and we've seen that word tossed around in our corporate-sponsored newz rags a lot since 9/11 - ever seem to be part of that larger subset of people who end up getting their hands dirty in actual war. No, they sit back and watch the bloodbaths happen. And after it's all over they are the ones who divvy up the real estate grab for themselves and other rich and powerful people. But they are not part of the same general group of people who end up on the short end of the stick after war is over. Warfiteers and their hirelings in government are people, too. But they are not like you or me. That elitist subset of us wouldn't spit on the larger group of people if we were on fire.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:48
#95
I disagree on this last point by the way, because the Japanese never planned to win an all-out war with the USA. That would have been insane to think such.
Japan's elite were afraid of growing communist movement as a result of bad economies and unemployment in 1920s-30s Japan. It's an island with finite resources. Japanese imperialists saw no other way than to go to war for territorial conquest. Fascism and war tend to arise as a result of pro-democracy movements and socialism. You can try to present Japanese imperialist-fascist maneuvering as rational behaviour, but it wasn't. All crazy people on the right tend to think alike, and Japanese right-rightists were no different. The US was involved in a number of covert military actions designed to draw Japan into attacking the US in the lead up to Pearl Harbor. With fascism, it's all about appearances and maneuvering and prodding the people into believing that war is necessary. It's only necessary to prop up fascism.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:51
#96
Cueball
From this thread:
The case is put forward by the Allied powers that the Japanese 'surprise' attack upon European colonial possessions constituted and egregious and amoral act, justifying their reassertion of their dominance in Asia. Indeed, in the first case, there is no clear moral case for the USA, France, Britain and the Netherlands to claim the possessions Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines; Indochina; India, Singapore and Hong Kong; and Indonesia. In the final analysis we can see the brutal repression of independence movements throughout Asia that were spawned in the wake of the Japanese surrender (in particular the attempted suppression of the Indonesians and the Vietnamese) as a continuation of the previous colonial policy, backed by the United States the primary mover on the Allied side during the Pacific war.As I said, the Second World War was a murderfest to determine who the next Superpowers would be.
If fascist Japan had won, then the brutal repression of independence movements throughout Asia would still have occurred (just as it did under Japanese occupation.) The history of Asia today wouldn't be much different than it is now. Only just a different oppressor/empire.
Instead of a rising China, it would be a rising Japan(ese occupied China.)
I know you want to lecture me on geo-politcs. Yeah. I get it. But, it would be helpful if you would read what I write first.
I disagree on this last point by the way, because the Japanese never planned to win an all-out war with the USA. That would have been insane to think such. I tried to outline for you the actual basis of Japanese strategic thinking as essayed by themselves in the Liason Conference, which determined the feasibility of the attack on the European powers, and the terms upon which they determined they might win it.
The only terms upon which they determined they might come out further ahead was in the context of a "limited" war.
Indeed, their purpose was to have a short sharp contest with the European powers that were otherwise distracted, in the belief that the USA would not want to fight an all-out war in Asia. The hoped for outcome was a quick settlement around issues in China, and a return to the status quo with the USA after a show of force, from which the Japanese would back down, but with concessions from the USA on the China issues.
Both sides would quickly move to the negotiating table and Japan would come out slightly further ahead in the bargain. Both sides could claim victory. The USA would be able to claim they had "restored order" through a successful "police action" in Asia, and Japan could win recognition of their claims in China.
In other words, they believed they could incrementally assert a larger role for themselves in Asia, as an equal among imperial powers in Asia. They never believed, nor wanted to engage the USA in an all out war, because it is obvious what the result would be. Very much the model they applied was meant to be a repeat of their successful war with Russian in 1904/1905, including a reprise of their surprise attack with Pearl Harbour standing in for the attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1904.
They hoped that the Americans would be as disinterested as the Russians were 36 years earlier.
When seen in this light, the whole insanity of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, now begins to make a little more sense. It wasn't just some hair-brained scheme of fanatic Asians (the traditional and racist view), but a carefully thought out and quite rational, if risky power play. The Japanese were quite well aware that they could not defeat the USA -- they thought that they might be able to make it so costly for the Americans that they would demure from a serious struggle.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:55
#97
I know you want to lecture me on geo-politcs. Yeah. I get it. But, it would be helpful if you would read what I write first.
I disagree on this last point by the way, because the Japanese never planned to win an all-out war with the USA. That would have been insane to think such. I tried to outline for you the actual basis of Japanese strategic thinking as essayed by themselves in the Liason Conference, which determined the feasibility of the attack on the European powers, and the terms upon which they determined they might win it.
The only terms upon which they determined they might come out further ahead was in the context of a "limited" war.
Indeed, their purpose was to have a short sharp contest with the European powers that were otherwise distracted, in the belief that the USA would not want to fight an all-out war in Asia. The hoped for outcome was a quick settlement around issues in China, and a return to the status quo with the USA after a show of force, from which the Japanese would back down, but with concessions from the USA on the China issues.
Both sides would quickly move to the negotiating table and Japan would come out slightly further ahead in the bargain. Both sides could claim victory. The USA would be able to claim they had restored order in Asia, and Japan could win recognition of their claims in China.
In other words, they believed they could incrementally assert a larger role for themselves in Asia, as an equal among imperial powers in Asia. They never believed, nor wanted to engage the USA in an all out war, because it is obvious what the result would be.
Japanese fascist racism held that Japan would win the war against the Europeans and the Americans in Asia and the Pacific because the Europeans and Americans were soft and effete. With its far flung Pacific island fortresses, the Japanese government believed it would be able to keep it all. No country/race would have the 'strength of character' to resist and defeat the Japanese.
The only well known Japanese historical figure who was not surprised that the U.S.A. did not "play ball" with the Japanese and was pepared (and did) fight Japan to eventual defeat, was Admiral Yamamoto. He was the one within the Japanese government who held your views and advocated such a strategy.
Ironically, he was made head of the Imperial Japanese Navy even though he opposed an attack on the U.S.A. for these reasons. Equally ironically, before he could convince the Japanese government to seek a diplomatic or 'peaceful' resolution to the Pacific War, he died when his plane was shot down by American interceptors in the Pacific in 1943.
Even if he had lived, it wouldn't have made any difference as the U.S.A. wasn't going to negotiate with Japan. It was Unconditional Surrender (U.S.) style surrender that manifested itself in the form of mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Fri, 2010-08-20 02:57
#98
Cueball
The Japanese were not sucked into war. Sorry. This is another racist construction. They had a very specific plan. They were not so irrational as not to be able to see precisely what the USA was doing, and why. They took up the gauntlet on their own terms, as a calculated risk.
But yeah, you can pretend to yourself that the Japanese were total morons, or ethnically inferior, and incapable of planning, forethought or guile of their own, patsies for Roosevelts scheming. Of course. Asians are all dumb.
Fri, 2010-08-20 03:05
#99
The Japanese were not sucked into war. Sorry. This is another racist construction. They had a very specific plan. They were not so irrational as not to be able to see precisely what the USA was doing, and why. They took up the gauntlet on their own terms, as a calculated risk.
But yeah, you can pretend to yourself that the Japanese were total morons, or ethnically inferior, and incapable of planning, forethought or guile of their own.
Yes, imperialists and fascists really are morons regardless of ethnicity. Is it your personal opinion that only white people are capable of being fascist-morons? Because if true, then that in itself is a racist point of view.
Whether it was a calculated risk or not, they committed acts of war and war crimes along the way. Deliberately starving millions of human beings in Vietnam and Indonesia were still war crimes. They wanted to hack off pieces of China for themselves the same as fascist-morons here in the west were attempting to do with supporting the very fascist fucktard-moron, Chiang Kai-shek and his moronic gangsters who murdered ten million Chinese before fleeing to Formosa and Burma where they dealt in drugs and weapons smuggling, trafficking in human slaves and general all around fascist gangsterism with help from the CIA for many years afterward.
Fri, 2010-08-20 03:42
#100
Cueball
No.That is pop history.
Yamamato insisted on attacking the USA on threat of resignation. The army opposed this plan, and advised a simple attack on the Dutch East Indies. They thought it best to leave the "war" declaration in the court of the USA, so that Roosevelt would have to fight congress for the go ahead. This fits in with the theme of limited war.
Yamamato argued that this would leave the USA athwart their supply lines from the Phillipines and at Guam, and further argued that since some kind of conflict with the USA was inevitable, and it was just a matter of when that it would be best to attack at Pearl Harbour in order to prevent the Pacific fleet from intervening against the landings in Indonesia, and also before the USA could prepare positions in the Phillipines and at Guam.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Yamamato's "sleeping giant" statement.
Fri, 2010-08-20 03:47
#101
No.That is pop history.
Yamamato insisted on attacking the USA on threat of resignation. The army opposed this plan, and advised a simple attack on the Dutch East Indies. They thought it best to leave the "war" declaration in the court of the USA, so that Roosevelt would have to fight congress for the go ahead. This fits in with the theme of limited war.
The "surprise attack" on Pearl Harbor is a myth. It was one of many deceptions concerning WW II. There would be no fighting Congress on behalf of US warfiteers. Not if the American people could be whipped into a nationalist frenzy after a "surprise attack." The British and US oil embargos on Japan left them few choices but to invade the East Indies for resources in order to continue waging war on China. We have to remember that it was US and British fascists who also had designs on China. Three's a crowd as far as fascist bastards were concerned in those days. When fascist-fucktardian morons plot and scheme toward war, the result is usually war with democracy gagged, bound and thrown in the back seat.