The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/ article/0,2763,1067259,00.html
An odd sort of story this; it seems to be saying that one should not acknowledge the human suffering caused by the Allied bombing campaign of Germany in the latter stages of WWII because of the human suffering caused by Germany in the form of the holocaust.
Does anybody have any thoughts about this?
An odd sort of story this; it seems to be saying that one should not acknowledge the human suffering caused by the Allied bombing campaign of Germany in the latter stages of WWII because of the human suffering caused by Germany in the form of the holocaust.
Does anybody have any thoughts about this?
Page:
Emperor Xerxes wrote:
> But I, and I say 'I',
> stongly believe that war can never be justified on moral ground, only
> on the outcome, and any good consequnces.
I disagree there, war in places like Kosovo, and Bosnia, in my eyes can be justified on moral grounds. And i don't think war can only be justified when it has a good outcome. Take Somalia, the US was doing a good deed ther, and suffered for it. By moral standards, it was the right thing to do, its outcome was poor though, so it can be justified morally, but not by the outcomes.
Anyway, my point is war and Conflict are very often the only way to bring about change, social, leadership, religious etc... They will happen, if lawyers say its ok or not.
> But I, and I say 'I',
> stongly believe that war can never be justified on moral ground, only
> on the outcome, and any good consequnces.
I disagree there, war in places like Kosovo, and Bosnia, in my eyes can be justified on moral grounds. And i don't think war can only be justified when it has a good outcome. Take Somalia, the US was doing a good deed ther, and suffered for it. By moral standards, it was the right thing to do, its outcome was poor though, so it can be justified morally, but not by the outcomes.
Anyway, my point is war and Conflict are very often the only way to bring about change, social, leadership, religious etc... They will happen, if lawyers say its ok or not.
I never thought so many people would so completely miss the point. Actually, yes I did. Yesterday. And every other day in the last few months.
It was a throwaway comment not meant to be taken seriously!
It was a throwaway comment not meant to be taken seriously!
Yep, I'd agree with most of that. except to say the reason why there is no example of a fairly fought equally balanced conflict is that because no one would win that way.
It always comes back to Iraq.
I just knew a someone would have to reference it. Of course it was bloody illegal. So was the US killing native Americans. So was the Persian invasion of Ancient Greece. So was the Rome taking over Europe. So was the Mongol invasion of China. So was Pearl harbour. Get over it. If your that annoyed set up a pressure group.
Actually it wasn't illegal. How can war, the process of killing one another, ever be legal. It involves survival and brute force. Legality doesn't come into it, even in todays international law it would seem.
What is legal is what is writen by the victor. Just look at the Bauyeax Tapestry. The Normans certainly thought 1000 of them hijacking England was perfectly legal.
What I find astounding is the number of people that believe that war can be either clean or legal. I would commend anyone here to give me an example from anytime in history where the war was either started or fought on both sides nicely and equally. And I think that anyone doing research will find that killing civilians was not new to World War II. True, it was on a whole new level, but then so was the rest of the war. Its war people. Its bloody. And guess what people the whole concept of war being legal or illegal is rubbish. Its all about one guy hitting the other guy on the head for his cave. Its just on a larger scale, if I may make such a crude analogy. This doesn't justify war. But I, and I say 'I',
stongly believe that war can never be justified on moral ground, only on the outcome, and any good consequnces.
And may I also add that while the lesser of two evils is still usually evil its still LESSER. And when your country is getting bombed the crap out of then you don't have time to think...hmmm, maybe we shouldn't retaliate against NAZI Germany...after all what will users on internet chatforums say about us in 60 years time?
I am not really having a go at anyone, these are just my thoughts, because this whole business of legality and what is right and wrong in war is, to me, a fallacy. And I think we are probably missing the whole issue. What was gained, what was lost, and have we learned from our mistakes.
Adeiu.
I just knew a someone would have to reference it. Of course it was bloody illegal. So was the US killing native Americans. So was the Persian invasion of Ancient Greece. So was the Rome taking over Europe. So was the Mongol invasion of China. So was Pearl harbour. Get over it. If your that annoyed set up a pressure group.
Actually it wasn't illegal. How can war, the process of killing one another, ever be legal. It involves survival and brute force. Legality doesn't come into it, even in todays international law it would seem.
What is legal is what is writen by the victor. Just look at the Bauyeax Tapestry. The Normans certainly thought 1000 of them hijacking England was perfectly legal.
What I find astounding is the number of people that believe that war can be either clean or legal. I would commend anyone here to give me an example from anytime in history where the war was either started or fought on both sides nicely and equally. And I think that anyone doing research will find that killing civilians was not new to World War II. True, it was on a whole new level, but then so was the rest of the war. Its war people. Its bloody. And guess what people the whole concept of war being legal or illegal is rubbish. Its all about one guy hitting the other guy on the head for his cave. Its just on a larger scale, if I may make such a crude analogy. This doesn't justify war. But I, and I say 'I',
stongly believe that war can never be justified on moral ground, only on the outcome, and any good consequnces.
And may I also add that while the lesser of two evils is still usually evil its still LESSER. And when your country is getting bombed the crap out of then you don't have time to think...hmmm, maybe we shouldn't retaliate against NAZI Germany...after all what will users on internet chatforums say about us in 60 years time?
I am not really having a go at anyone, these are just my thoughts, because this whole business of legality and what is right and wrong in war is, to me, a fallacy. And I think we are probably missing the whole issue. What was gained, what was lost, and have we learned from our mistakes.
Adeiu.
"We" did have time to debate Iraq, 12 years at the last count...
Belldandy wrote:
> Blank wrote:
> Skarra wrote:
> Ask the people of Kuwait and Israel if they think Iraq was a threat.
>
> Congratulations: you've missed the point.
>
> No more than you seem to - the Iraq analogy is a bad one
Congratulations: you too.
I wasn't making a serious point, just saying that you're wording implied that today we have time to debate things. You related it then to Hitler, saying he imposed a threat, so I made reference to the latest military conflict, Iraq, and made use of your term "they didn't have time to debate things like we do" to mean that Iraq didn't pose a threat, so we had time to talk it over. Get it?
> Blank wrote:
> Skarra wrote:
> Ask the people of Kuwait and Israel if they think Iraq was a threat.
>
> Congratulations: you've missed the point.
>
> No more than you seem to - the Iraq analogy is a bad one
Congratulations: you too.
I wasn't making a serious point, just saying that you're wording implied that today we have time to debate things. You related it then to Hitler, saying he imposed a threat, so I made reference to the latest military conflict, Iraq, and made use of your term "they didn't have time to debate things like we do" to mean that Iraq didn't pose a threat, so we had time to talk it over. Get it?
Skarra wrote:
> It's all too easy to apply today's morals to events that took place
> in the 40's. Truth is, they just don't apply to back then, right up
> until the past decade or two, those 40's beliefs were seen as ok,
> after all, the Germans did start it all, so the belief system went.
I'm not sure that morals have changed all that much. We rightly apply today's morals to the holocaust and condemn it as the worst episode in our history, but people at the time were equally horrified; their revulsion played a major part in guarateeing oppressed peoples the right to asylum in a safe country. And the post-war powers gave us the Geneva Convention to protect both civilians and combatants from the worst aspects of war: a tacit and very quick admission that such a war should never be fought again.
In any case, looking at the holocaust, for example, without applying morals to it is ridiculous; and I think that if you apply morals to the slaughter of Jews in Germany, then you should also apply them to the firebombing of civilians in Dresden and the nuking of Nagasaki.
I know WWII was fought for the best of motives but it was not the clean-cut, heroic conflict that it is normally portrayed as in this country. Even our own suffering has been given a nice rosy glow - using the phrase 'spirit of the blitz' whenever we have a powercut makes the bombs and killings sound like a jolly old knees up down the East End. Bell was right to say that WWII could never have been cleanly won, but the media myth is that it WAS, at least by our side.
I see this happening again with the way the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been reported. Embedded reporters; pictures of missiles going off; palls of smoke in the far distance; and...nothing...cut back to smiling newscaster. The consequences are rarely shown, and it seems like we're forgetting that no war can be won cleanly and no war leaves one side totally innocent and the other totally guilty.
A book like this is important because, as the old saying goes, he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it.
> It's all too easy to apply today's morals to events that took place
> in the 40's. Truth is, they just don't apply to back then, right up
> until the past decade or two, those 40's beliefs were seen as ok,
> after all, the Germans did start it all, so the belief system went.
I'm not sure that morals have changed all that much. We rightly apply today's morals to the holocaust and condemn it as the worst episode in our history, but people at the time were equally horrified; their revulsion played a major part in guarateeing oppressed peoples the right to asylum in a safe country. And the post-war powers gave us the Geneva Convention to protect both civilians and combatants from the worst aspects of war: a tacit and very quick admission that such a war should never be fought again.
In any case, looking at the holocaust, for example, without applying morals to it is ridiculous; and I think that if you apply morals to the slaughter of Jews in Germany, then you should also apply them to the firebombing of civilians in Dresden and the nuking of Nagasaki.
I know WWII was fought for the best of motives but it was not the clean-cut, heroic conflict that it is normally portrayed as in this country. Even our own suffering has been given a nice rosy glow - using the phrase 'spirit of the blitz' whenever we have a powercut makes the bombs and killings sound like a jolly old knees up down the East End. Bell was right to say that WWII could never have been cleanly won, but the media myth is that it WAS, at least by our side.
I see this happening again with the way the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been reported. Embedded reporters; pictures of missiles going off; palls of smoke in the far distance; and...nothing...cut back to smiling newscaster. The consequences are rarely shown, and it seems like we're forgetting that no war can be won cleanly and no war leaves one side totally innocent and the other totally guilty.
A book like this is important because, as the old saying goes, he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it.
So anything redressing the balance is a good thing.
Skarra wrote:
> It's all too easy to apply today's morals to events that took place
> in the 40's. Truth is, they just don't apply to back then, right up
> until the past decade or two, those 40's beliefs were seen as ok,
> after all, the Germans did start it all, so the belief system went.
And Hitler's morals at the time were that is was okay to slaughter millions of Jews.
Does that mean we shouldn't criticise him either?
As for the original issue: If we comemmorate allied suffering in the war, it seems damn right that we should look at Germany's civilian casualties in the same light.
I agree with Unknown, all I see in the media is a good-evil distinction between 'us and them' - for the vast majority of all war references anyway.
> It's all too easy to apply today's morals to events that took place
> in the 40's. Truth is, they just don't apply to back then, right up
> until the past decade or two, those 40's beliefs were seen as ok,
> after all, the Germans did start it all, so the belief system went.
And Hitler's morals at the time were that is was okay to slaughter millions of Jews.
Does that mean we shouldn't criticise him either?
As for the original issue: If we comemmorate allied suffering in the war, it seems damn right that we should look at Germany's civilian casualties in the same light.
I agree with Unknown, all I see in the media is a good-evil distinction between 'us and them' - for the vast majority of all war references anyway.
insance?
Page: