An evil war

[hnumpah]

Was WWII a war against evil? Were the actions of the Germans and Japanese during the war evil?

You could say they were. They rounded up civilian populations that they deemed 'impure' for forced labor and extermination camps. Between them, they wiped out millions of civilians. As well, the Japanese were particularly brutal in their treatment of prisoners of war.

So were the average German and Japanese soldiers evil? Did following the orders of their leaders and fighting the enemy they were told to fight in order to survive themselves make them evil?

Our nation had no business being the aggressor in this fight. There were no WMD's, Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, they were not in cahoots with Al Qaeda - in short, we had no justification for attacking them. That doesn't make the troops who followed orders and went to Iraq evil.

As for getting a pass, they'll have the rest of their lives - the ones who lived through it, anyway - to consider whether they did the right thing, or whether they should have stood up and said no. It will be between them and their conscience.

[BT]

Mikey seems to think that eveil is in the eye of the beholder. To the Iraqi's our soldiers are evil and deserve what they get. To the Germans i suppose, those who took part in firebombing Dresden were pure evil. Being evil is one thing, being punished for that evil is another. And that probably depends on whether the side you are on wins, or not.

[Plane]

<<If it is hard not to do evil, do the soldiers get a pass?>>

Yeah, sure, I'll tell the Iraqi Resistance not to lay out any more Ides for them.

They get a pass from anyone who thinks its perfectly OK for them to be thousands of miles from home among st people whose language they don't speak, whose culture they don't share, whose religion they don't respect, killing, burning, blasting, torturing and raping.  From the actual victims, no, they don't get a pass.  They get the IED.

Much more than ten to one the innocent victims in Iraq are being killed, burned, blasted, tortured and raped. By the Insurgents native to the region , the militias loyal to local leaders and the Al Quieda who speak the right language with an accent. Why do they get a pass for greater evil?

[sirs]

Yeah, sure, I'll tell the Iraqi Resistance not to lay out any more Ides for them.  They get a pass from anyone who thinks its perfectly OK for them to be thousands of miles from home among st people whose language they don't speak, whose culture they don't share, whose religion they don't respect, killing, burning, blasting, torturing and raping.  From the actual victims, no, they don't get a pass.  They get the IED.

Much more than ten to one the innocent victims in Iraq are being killed, burned, blasted, tortured and raped. By the Insurgents native to the region , the militias loyal to local leaders and the Al Quieda who speak the right language with an accent. Why do they get a pass for greater evil?

I think they get the pass because Tee has already designated this country as the evil bad guy, it's military the raping arm of it, and those muslims/persians/arabs involved just trying "fight for their country".  and everything presented subsequent will be rationalized in those 2 directions.  When viewed threw that acutely distorted prism, what other way could one see who gets a pass & who gets an IED?

[Michael Tee]

<<Mikey seems to think that eveil is in the eye of the beholder. >>

That's bullshit.  Evil is as evil does.  To rape is evil.  To kill innocent civilians is evil.  To torture is evil.  To invade another's country fro no good reason is evil.  To occupy another's lands by force is evil.  To humiliate people is evil.  To burn people alive is evil. 

If the Americans did all of those things to the Iraqis - - and they most certainly did - -  they are evil. l

<<To the Iraqi's our soldiers are evil and deserve what they get. >>

Well, D'uh.

<<To the Germans i suppose, those who took part in firebombing Dresden were pure evil. >>

You don't have to suppose, it's a fact - - to the Germans, RAF Bomber Command was evil.  The U.S. 8th Air Force was evil.  The Jews were pure evil.  The Red Army was evil.  Winston Churchill was evil.  FDR was an evil Jew.  Pablo Picasso was evil.  Karl Marx was evil.  Albert Einstein was evil.  The French Resistance was evil  The Gipsies were evil.  The Communists were evil.   The Czechs, the Polacks, the Dutch, the Norwegians . . . you name it, evil.   The Germans themselves, strangely enough, were NOT evil.  They were pure - - pure in blood, pure in race, pure in deeds, pure in spirit; just pure in every sense of the word.  Nevertheless their awe-inspiring purity was not enough to save them from the rain of fire that poured down from the sky that February night in 1945.  Heartbreaking, eh?  The purest of the pure, roasted alive by evil barbarians.  Shit.  Is there no end to the injustices of the world?  And the angels wept.

<<Being evil is one thing, being punished for that evil is another. And that probably depends on whether the side you are on wins, or not. >>

Well, THAT'S for God-damn sure.  Kind of explains how come Saddam wound up on the end of a rope while Bush is still prancing around the White House planning more "Mission Accomplished"s and "liberations."

[Michael Tee]

<<Much more than ten to one the innocent victims in Iraq are being killed, burned, blasted, tortured and raped. By the Insurgents native to the region , the militias loyal to local leaders and the Al Quieda who speak the right language with an accent. Why do they get a pass for greater evil?>>

Who said they got a pass?  Doesn't your army boast every day how many "terrorists" they killed?  How many they "captured?"  ("Captured," BTW, doesn't mean just "captured" any more, it means TORTURED - - ever since the Bush admnistration declared the Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War to be "quaint" and "old-fashioned.")  So, I don't know, with daily reports on "terrorists" killed and/or tortured, don't look to me like anyone gets a pass anymore.

Looks like one gigantic free-for-all - - the Americans rape, kill, torture and murder, the Shi'ites rape, kill, torture and murder, the Sunni rape, kill, torture and murder and each group punishes the others for their transgressions.  It's miraculous - - God's will is done and all the wrongdoers are paying the price.  Thanks to G. W. Bush, Iraq has finally realized its destiny, to become the 13th Circle of Hell on Earth.  All praise to the "heroic" leader of the Free World.

[BT]

Mikey,

You make some good points in your usual inflammatory way. If the war is evil as Charlie Reese and members of this forum say, then those who prosecute the war as well as those who implement that prosecution of the war, ie. follow orders down the line are evil as well.

I don't see why those who were just following orders get a pass.

You don't seem to think they do, i don't think the war is evil, but there are those among us who believe the war evil but are reticent to assign blame all the way down the line. And that just doesn't make sense.

[Michael Tee]

You know, BT, it was always my theory that if the Nazis had murdered six million white Anglo-Saxon Protestants instead of six million Jews, there wouldn't be one fucking German left alive on this planet today.  They (the English and the Americans) wouldn't STAND for that shit.  They would seek out every one of those bastards and cut their fucking heads off.  But because it's just six million Jews, nobody gives a shit.  War crimes trials for a year or two and then EVERYBODY gets a pass.  "I vass chust follovink orders" is the Get Out of Jail Free card of post-war Europe.  That's OK, fuck it, I see now the Jews themselves say the same thing in the West Bank and Lebanon.

That doesn't make it right.  The guy who follows his orders has the option to turn his gun around and blow off the guy's head who gave the order.  He chooses not to to save his own skin?  Fuck him, his skin was up for grabs the day he went into a war zone with a loaded gun in his hand.  He can't save his own skin by running away under enemy fire, but he CAN save his own skin by participating in atrocities against civilians?  I will tell you the truth:  there are times when a soldier will risk his own skin; he's prepared to risk it every day by going into combat with his fellow soldiers.  So it isn't fear of harm that prevents the soldier from resisting orders to commit atrocities.  He commits the atrocity because at heart he's an evil racist bastard like the evil racist bastards who sent him there; he hates "gooks," "ragheads," "slopes," "sand niggers" or whoever he's committing his evil racist acts on.  You can't convince me that if this punk were sent to Topeka Kansas into some middle-class white household he would commit the same acts there.  Bullshit.  It's his hate and his racism that allow him to rape and kill and all the BS and spin in the world won't change that fact.

[Amianthus]

But because it's just six million Jews, nobody gives a shit.

Probably for the same reasons that the roughly equal number of non-Jews the Nazis killed gets short-shrift by you.

[Michael Tee]

<<Probably for the same reasons that the roughly equal number of non-Jews the Nazis killed gets short-shrift by you.>>

Oh well, then that makes it all right.

[Plane]

But because it's just six million Jews, nobody gives a shit.

Probably for the same reasons that the roughly equal number of non-Jews the Nazis killed gets short-shrift by you.

I don't think it true either way.

The massacre of Chineese was one of the reasons that there was an embargo put on Japan , Americans in general were offended by stuff like that .

If the scale of the final olution were better advrtised it would have caused more reaction sooner.