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This weekend I, like many I suspect, will be remembering the 1456 Siege of Belgrade and obviously, the Pyrrhic War, of 280BC.
Every soldier in every war in every country
sussex.... some of our soldiers have done all those things..........
i think its the time to remember all the waste of lives over the years from conflicts...from the civilians to the soldiers of all countries.
the majority fighting on all sides were just doing their job for their country.....
sadly there are a few evil people that get into every army and position of power on all sides
Millions were raped when the Russians invaded Germany. A FEW evil people?
small percentage as a whole...and a few evil people can convince a whole lot of people that what they are doing is right.....
So, we're all agreed then? War is bad.
War is bad. N'kay
40% tax is tax. it keeps MPs in jobs, soldiers in flak jackets and kids in schools. It has nothing to do with charity in any respect whatsoever. Except, as I have said, in your own mind.
I'm also pretty sure it has only the most tenuous link with the subject of this thread.
Just to go back to the original post - you won't see me wearing a poppy because I always lose them but I have donated.
Takes us back to an age old concept in war. The winners had God on their side and what they did, they were excused (babies adults women and children) as it was done in the name of God and being right. The losers are automatically war criminals, when in reality (although I support our armed forces) all war is murder like it or not.
I think that's over simplistic. Yes the winners do often write the history, but that doesn't mean right and wrong don't exist (I am not saying one side is totally right and the other totally wrong btw).
Certainly from a UK perspective WW2 was a just war - Nazi Germany way by any definition (other than a Nazi one I suppose) an evil and expansionist regime and Britain was defending itself and others from that expansionism. Self defence is not murder, unless you want to define all killing as murder.
Britain declared war on Germany so therfore you could argue the Germans were in self defence. You call it an evil regime but might be calling it a much different name if the outcome had been reversed. Which was Running man's point.
And expansionist? ever heard of the British Empire? Do you think those countries asked to be ruled?
the carpet bombing of Dresden and Hamburg, and the flattening of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was defence was it?
We've somehow convinced ourselves that these were justifiable acts and not a form of genocide.
Have you read about the bombing of Dresden?
A dreadful thing, yes, (as was the bombing of Coventry and Hamburg) but by the standards in place at the time it was a justifiable military target (as were Coventry and Hamburg).
Nobody would have tried to claim any of those raids were defensive, they were attacks. Attacks by nations trying to defeat an enemy. That's what war is.
And in Dresden the Nazis grossly inflated the number of casualties by the power of five, reportedly even of ten, in some reports - so make of that what you will.
I did write that neither side was totally right or totally wrong - clearly in any conflict there will be wrong done on both sides. Unless you are an absolute pacifist though I can't see there being a much more just war than Britain's participation in WW2 - and if you accept that then killing is an inevitable consequence.
I'm not happy to see people that killed in that war labelled murderers - your freedom to express opinions like that may well only exist because of them.
It is state Murder, my point is the state makes you believe it is right to kill (whether under Islam, in the name of a God or for a King or Queen) and the state that was prepared to jail and execute people who were not prepared to kill in their name.
We are the luckiest generation ever, we have not had to fight a war, so anyone of us under a different timescale would have had to kill or be killed, so I would never condemn the Soldier, there were many people shot in WW1 who were unwilling to kill or be killed, and it was all state murder.
You're getting a bit mixed up with your terminology there. The killing is either lawful or not lawful. It's not murder, it's lawful killing.
If you want to take it to the absolute and say though shalt not kill. Then do that, don't try and mix up your argument.
So the killing of the Jews, lawful under the Nazi regime, was not murder?
It won't be treated any differently if we continue to allow killing to be called legal
Perfect example, a state governed by their own laws, and in wartime did what they said was right. Therefore legal. Killing someone in the name of a political argument can never be right
It wasn't legal. The perpetrators were tried, and many of them executed, for war crimes.
Point is it was legal in Germany for them at that time because they made it legal, the winners decided who was right and wrong, if we had lost the war the war criminals would have been the bombers of Dresden and Nagasaki, this is the whole point.
I think there is a difference.
If you had taken the bombers of Dresden and Nagasaki to a tiral they could have made the case that their actions were justifiable militarily even if the the judges didn't find in their favour.
Killing Jews (gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill) just because they were what they were isn't justifiable in any way.
I'm not even sure that the Nazis would have tried to say that was legal. They knew what they were doing was wrong but did it because they wanted to do it and thought they could get away with it.
No I'm sorry if you're going to indiscriminately kill civilian men, women and children I don't think your method of despatch is a mitigating factor
Specifically because of the Second World War. If the Germans had won, eugenics would have been fully put into place. Millions of people would have been put to death.
It wasn't "indiscriminate", that's the point - Hamburg and Dresden were industrial towns producing war materiel and therefore legitimate military targets. As were London, Southampton Liverpool, Coventry and so on.
Remember the Nazis weren't put on trial for bombing enemy civilians - they were put on trial for genocide of what, first and foremost were other Germans.
Specifically because of the second world war, the Geneva convention stated that aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited. However it is still going on now