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The Hypocrisy of the International Community, Re: Russia

But that isn't the point Dichotomy! I'm not maligning what those soldiers did. I am criticizing our contemporaries for looking back at WWII in technicolour. How can we recoil at the Holocaust yet shrug at Hiroshima? The point is that war is horrible, and doesn't bring out the best in society, contrary to what Hollywood might want us to believe.
 
urbandreamer said:
The reason?

Well, nationalism for one.... I mean, the Balkans==will they ever get their **** together?

Two, N.American's were growing bored....we like watching things blow up on TV.:)

Three, Kitchener-Waterloo was seeking new immigrants from Serbia and Kosovo....;)
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The Balkans have their shit together when there's no meddling from the outside. Yugoslavia was running great as a beacon for Eastern Europe until the newly united Germany decided it was too powerful and must be divided. We know what happened after, wars, death and destruction. Seems whenever there's a big problem back in the old country, it was Germany sticking its nose in.

About point number 3, Belgrade is one of the major IT centres of Europe and growing by the year, investments into a highly educated Serbian workforce even ignore the political situation regarding Kosovo. Serbia's economy is growing at a staggering 7% annually!
 
Filip said:
Massive empires always collapse? Which is why I'm willing to bet the United States have a few decades left in them before they kick the bucket and the world is free.

Many leaders had pacts with Hitler before he turned against them, the allies did, Yugoslavia did, etc... The Soviet Union was just trying to protect its intersts, that is, until Hitler decided that Slavs were untermenschen (I'll need to brush up on my German but I think that's the term) and proceded to try and turn the Slavic world into Germany's breadbasket.

And for the record, for people here crying about the allies' crimes, and the bombing of Dresden (which I'm sorry, but I can't feel the slightest sadness, even though beauties were destroyed). Hitler's army flattened: Warsaw, Belgrade, Rotterdam. Bombed mercilessly: Moscow, St. Petersburg, parts of Prague, Budapest.

Then Hitler decided that one German life was worth 10 Serbian lives. So when 4 German soldiers were killed by hooligans while patrolling Serbian towns, Hitler ordered his men to kill 40 boys from a local high school where my mother grew up. She said even through her childhood, the mothers of the murdered kids would cry and lament.. Can you imagine, purposely picking high school boys and putting them out on a shooting range?

I say thank you Russia for having helped destroy Germany, and sorry Europe for having embraced Germany once again. I don't believe they can be trusted for... too long.
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The United States is not an empire in any classical sense; it is a nation-state with considerable economic and political influence. The Soviet Union was the last nation that exerted similar influence; China will possibly be the next. Which would you rater have? Also, due to its massive economy, the United States will continue to have a considerable influence for many years to come.

Sensible people wish for change that is constructive; you appear to wish for the destruction of anyone you find dislike for. That very attitude is at the centre of so many global problems.

Yes, Hitler was a bastard. And for you, anyone who then was German should have suffered or died by virtue of their ethnicity. And any German today should not be trusted. It's a rather shallow approach to the world around you.

Hundreds of thousands (possibly over a million) girls and women were raped during the first weeks of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Germany. Like all victims of such similar crimes, their single collective fault was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
afransen said:
But that isn't the point Dichotomy! I'm not maligning what those soldiers did. I am criticizing our contemporaries for looking back at WWII in technicolour. How can we recoil at the Holocaust yet shrug at Hiroshima? The point is that war is horrible, and doesn't bring out the best in society, contrary to what Hollywood might want us to believe.
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First of all, the history books are always written by the victors. Nothing will ever change that.
Secondly, are you kidding me with putting the Holocaust in the same league as the a-bombing of Nakasaki and Hiroshima? The Nazis made an educated, deliberate decision to wipe out an entire race. What Truman decided to do was show the Japanese that there was no way they could win the war and to lay down their weapons - now! We cannot judge modern 'enemies' with our own morality. When individuals are willing to lay down their lives for the greater glory (as in suicide bombers today and the kamikaze pilots of WWII), there is no reasoning with that type of warrior. The days of 'civilized' war are long gone; if, indeed, they existed at all.

Nothing - and I do mean NOTHING, compares to what the Nazis and the Japanese army did. Do you know Japanese pharmaceutical companies today have access to WWII live tests done on captured Chinese nationals? You do not want to know the types of tortures devised by 'scientists' to see what would kill a man. Or do you know the SS would train their elite by bayonetting babies in front of their mothers, then killing the mother, too - all in the name of 'hardening' them. How would this compare to US Army Intelligence torturing a capture soldier to gain vital information? Is that in the same league?
Were the Allies angels? No. But they didn't start the damned war and you can't expect a bunch of kids in a mob situation to behave when they've witnessed dozens of their own comrades cut down in action.
I don't think anything other than highschool text books gloss over what happened during WWII. Any serious research will easily reveal all kinds of macrabre deeds on both sides.

It is this type of debate that al-Qaeda and their friends are counting on. They are constantly testing the West's resolve to fight back. Sadly, we are failing on so very many levels.
 
Dichotomy, Hiroshima, Dresden and Nagasaki were not heat of the moment, Abu Ghraib-style events. You can't blame them on 'a bunch of kids'. They were premeditated attempts by the Allies' leadership to mass slaughter civilians with little to no military importance. Just because the Nazis/Axis did awful things does not make what we did right. Should we have lowered the moral bar for ourselves to their level?

Dresden was wholly unnecessary. Demonstrating nuclear capabilities may have been necessary, but military or industrial targets would have been more appropriate.
 
afransen said:
Dichotomy, Hiroshima, Dresden and Nagasaki were not heat of the moment, Abu Ghraib-style events. You can't blame them on 'a bunch of kids'. They were premeditated attempts by the Allies' leadership to mass slaughter civilians with little to no military importance. Just because the Nazis/Axis did awful things does not make what we did right. Should we have lowered the moral bar for ourselves to their level?

Dresden was wholly unnecessary. Demonstrating nuclear capabilities may have been necessary, but military or industrial targets would have been more appropriate.
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I don't think Germans were being careful when bombing Warsaw or Belgrade, two beautiful cities that were flattened to the ground. I believe carpet bombing German cities was justified for what they've done to other countries.
 
Filip, do you think the victims of Sept 11/2001 deserved to die? The US, through it's foreign policy in the Middle East, could certainly be described as 'deserving' such an attack.


What about the children of Beslan who were killed by separatists? Russia probably deserved the response after what it has done in Chechnya.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that citizens are frequently powerless to alter the policy of their government. Should they die for what their government/regime has done, even if they may have disagreed with it? If you think so, I can't describe that as anything but insane.
 
Doesn't karma operate at the individual level? I didn't think that each nation state had a pool of transferable karma.
 
http://www.slate.com/id/2197704/

I find the comments in response to that blog to be more interesting than the article itself, which is biased and didn't sit well with me. It seemed too pro-American for my taste.

If it was up to me, borders would be redrawn based on where people lived. Failing that, people should just move to where the borders for their country are, like happened with Poland, Germany and Ukraine/Belarus after the borders were redrawn after WWII. People mostly just picked up and moved to the country that spoke their language, and some areas were, um, repopulated. e.g. Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze) was German for a long time (although originally Slavic, as Pomerania has a Slavic etymology). After WWII, the lines were redrawn, and the area was, what we'd call today, "ethnically cleansed", and repopulated by people like my mom's parents. All's well that end's well. Altough to be fair, people back then lived in (relatively) shacks, so it didn't make a difference if they had to move to another shack on the other side of the border.

Similarly, Palestine is the Jewish ancestral homeland so I think it's fair that they have a state there. I'm not sure who the modern-day "Palestinians" are, really. I guess they were the Jews of Palestine who converted to Christianity and later most of whom converted to Islam? I really have no idea though. The Jews can have their state, Israel, and the Palestinans can have their state, Palestine. If they can't live together in harmony, have the Isrelis live on one side of the border, and the Palestinians on the other side. Build a wall so they don't even have to see each other. End of story. The only real sore point in my mind is Jerusalem. Old Jerusalem really. Maybe Palestinans get 2 of the Quarters, and the Israelis get the other 2 Quarters? Are there 4 Quarters? :p

I'm sure I'll get blasted from multiple sides for my opinion, but that's fine :)
 
Filip said:
I believe in karma and poetic justice, that's all I'll say.
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Not exactly a sound basis for justifying indiscriminate bombing on any human habitation.

Also, you seem to focus on the bombing of cities at the expense of mentioning the people.
 
Hydrogen said:
Not exactly a sound basis for justifying indiscriminate bombing on any human habitation.

Also, you seem to focus on the bombing of cities at the expense of mentioning the people.
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I dunno man.. tens of thousands died when Belgrade was flattened, and just 9 years ago in NATO's illegal strikes, civilian trains, TV stations, the CHINESE EMBASSY were bombed, all for what? Lies that propagated from the mouths of such degenerates as Clinton, Holbrooke and Albright? No thanks, nobody gave a shit about human lives then, it was indiscriminate bombing.. precision military targest MY ASS!

I truly believe for the United States' behaviour in the last few decades, they will get their comeuppance in one swift blow.
 
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