Churchill war criminal, says German historian

[chequita guevara]

Stolen Valor, the jingoists' excuse to ignore any corroberating testimony from former solders. I just knew you were gonna try and through that in my face.

One of the very interesting things about soliders who've been in combat, I've found, is that they are very reluctant to talk about there experiences. The people who are FoS, on the other hand, tend not to be able to shut up. This was not a guy who seemed proud of what he did, nor ashamed. Reminded me a lot of MtG in ways, a little patronizing of my ideas but thought my heart was in the right place. He would just tell me, "You don't know the **** I've seen," and drop clues. He never admitted to anything specific, but I know from other sources that the Green Berets had committed attrocities in Guatemala and he wouldn't deny it. He'd just say, "I can't talk about that."

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Stolen Valor, the jingoists' excuse to ignore any corroberating testimony from former solders. I just knew you were gonna try and through that in my face.

One of the very interesting things about soliders who've been in combat, I've found, is that they are very reluctant to talk about there experiences. The people who are FoS, on the other hand, tend not to be able to shut up. This was not a guy who seemed proud of what he did, nor ashamed. Reminded me a lot of MtG in ways, a little patronizing of my ideas but thought my heart was in the right place. He would just tell me, "You don't know the **** I've seen," and drop clues. He never admitted to anything specific, but I know from other sources that the Green Berets had committed attrocities in Guatemala and he wouldn't deny it. He'd just say, "I can't talk about that."

Oh...puleez! You really are a sucker aren't you.

[chequita guevara]

At least I don't put wax in my ears, put out my eyes, and scream "NYAH NYAH< NYAH, Can't hear you!"

[TCO]

you've already shown extreme gullibility in the past, Che. Go have a burger at the Heartland. You can feel trendy as you gaze at the posters.

[chequita guevara]

The Heartland doesn't have good burgers.

[TCO]

Burger King better?

Well at least the commie-lite decor appeals to you. They have music sometimes too. My chemistry grad band (10 piece band with horns, etc.!) played there.

But of course after the revolution, we will have to round up the fellow travelers like you for a special self-criticism session.

[chequita guevara]

The Heartland has a great beer selection. Best burger in Chicago is at Dick's Last Resort. Though it's hard to deny the appeal of $.99 Whoppers.

Chemistry Grad Band?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
We also destroyed the economy of Vietnam and never paid them the reparations we agreed to in the treaty. According to MtG, the main refugees from Vietnam were the Chinese, who suffered from a backlash against the Chinese following the border war in 1979.

There were two waves of refugess - the 1975 wave which were those ethnic Vietnamese associated in some way with the ARVN government (whether as a clerk or streetsweeper, most of the serious folks left in '73), those who were educated, draftees in the ARVN forces late in the war, etc. Montagnards, Hoa Hao and Cao Dai groups, to the extent they could get out (not being coastal types or familiar with the large cities and smugglers) were in this group.

The second wave of refugees were the ethnic Chinese (who'd bein in Vietnam for generations as merchants and traders) primarily from the Cholon district in Saigon. These were persecuted/expelled in retaliation for the Vietnamese asskicking in the Vietnamese-started border war with China, but prior to that, they had been subject to the beginnings of a policy that was intended to be cultural genocide - with the prohibition on speaking, teaching, learning or owning materials related to Chinese literature, language or culture.

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The Heartland has a great beer selection. Best burger in Chicago is at Dick's Last Resort. Though it's hard to deny the appeal of $.99 Whoppers.

Chemistry Grad Band?

****'s is too touristy.

I do like the ****'s in San Diego, though. But it is a little wilder.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Still, it sort of kills the whole charm (if you could call it that ) now that ****'s has become a corporate chain.

GP - great story about your dad. That was one way to handle 'em.

Of course it's ironic that the DPRK would whine about war criminals, given that the NKPA solution would have been to shoot any troublemakers, or anyone who looked funny. Or was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Hell, they even imprisoned and in some cases killed their own ex-POW's when they were returned at the armistice.

Good ol' commie governments.

[chequita guevara]

It was always a corporate chain, just a small one at first.

[Jaakko]

Rumor says that there were some tribes of Tcho Tcho among the boat people as well...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Tripledoc

For the British and the Russsians it was a total war from the beginning.

The bombing of German cities reinforced that notion of total war in the German people and had the complete adverse effect of actually helping the German economy and body politic to mobilize on a full scale.

The Geneva convention very carefully prescribes how war is to be conducted on a legal basis. The Soviet government had not signed it. An the Geneva convention is indeed an insane western plot to legitimize imperialism and agression. Nevertheless, the warcrimes on the ground were few in number in battles between the Germans and Italians and the Anglo-British forces. And why were they, from a political, not legal, perspective?

American marines did commit the crime of grave-robbery - in order to get souvenirs from dead japanese soldiers. Also I fail to see how 'cannibalism' reflects in bad way on the Japanese morality - not to be confused with morale. The fact that japanese soldiers had to resort to 'cannibalism' - if it is even the case that they did - in order to stay alive is a tragedy and condemning it in order to vilify is hardly constructive. I think study into such things belongs to the anthropologists who have the proper scientific tools to deal with the issue.

I have actually heard the complete opposite. The V1 presumably made a sound like sewing machine - and could be heard from a long way off. When the sound stopped it meant the target would be hit in a short moment. And of couse nobody knew where it would land.
Speaking purely in terms of psy-ops such a weapon had to be capable of inducing greater terror than a completly silent weapon such as the V2. Silent until it hit home of course.

So the political objective was justified in revenge, the means to achieve the objective was terror. How is such a policy qualitatively different from Hitlers policy?

Unfortunately you are wrong in several areas of fact- Germany began the process of destroying Allied (and neutral) civilian morale through the deliberate bombing of cities with the destruction of Warsaw and Rotterdam (and continuing with the likes of Belgrade, and the deliberate massacre of civilian refugee columns in France)- the bombing of Rotterdam was a deliberate ploy to force the inhabitants to surrender and show the Dutch the violent consequences of any further armed resistance to the German invaders. I suspect the bombing of Warsaw had as much to do with Nazi anti-Slav Kultur Kampf as much as military strategy.

I fail to see how anyone with knowledge of Britain's armed forces readiness (or rather lack of it) and economy could say that from the beginning it was a 'total war' for Great Britain. Given that there was a strong appeasement movement, and given that, for instance, obvious warning signs such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the occupation of the Sudetenland, and the Austrian Anschluss had not prompted any serious reevaluation of the British 'war machine' or economy your contention that Britain was ready or committed to total war is simply wishful thinking on your part.

To briefly address the matter of Stalin and Russia's commitment to total war from the beginning of the German invasion- this seems equally unlikely, following hard on the heels of the purge of the Red Army's best minds (including Tukhachevsky, one of the best tank warfare strategists of the 20th Century) and the non-aggression pact signed with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939.

As for your belief that the Geneva convention 'legitimizes imperialist aggression' (as opposed to the usual friendly Soviet Russian intervention, say in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, or Red China's helping hand in Tibet, Mongolia, India, Vietnam) although I don't know your political views I think I can take an educated guess at what they are...

The facts of Japanese cannibalism of Allied soldiers (and sometimes their own) are not in dispute. What you fail to understand is that apart from the issue of morality there are the breaches of military discipline and human rights involved. Japanese forces in the Pacific theatre of war did not engage in cannibalism always and only through dire need- they were expected to live off the jungle's resources as a matter of course (sensible given the over-extended Japanese lines of supply). As a Japanese soldier in the Burma campaign said, 'we were taught the jungle was our friend'. They engaged in the cannibalizing and torture of Allied prisoners of war and combatants (and civilians) because they could- not because it was necessary.

Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, Westview Press, Boulder Colorado and Cumnor Hill Oxford, 1996, ISBN 0-8133-2717-2.

( Yuki Tanaka is a lecturer in Japanese studies at the University of Western Australia) :

'However, the reports of the Australian War Crimes Section clearly demonstrate that acts of cannibalism were not always the product of a collapse in morale and organization of Japanese forces. To the contrary, cannibalism was often a systematic activity conducted by whole squads and under the command of officers. Throughout periods of starvation and cannibalism, discipline was maintained to an astonishing degree. ' (Tanaka, 1996, p. 127)

'Indeed, documents exist demonstrating that the Japanese command took steps to accommodate the practice of cannibalism. For example, a captured Japanese soldier interrogated by the Australian military forces in December 1944 stated that orders had been given making it a crime punishable by death to eat the flesh of other Japanese soldiers but permitting consumption of flesh of the enemy. On December 31, 1944, Australian forces captured a secret order form that clearly supported the soldier's statement. The order, issued by Major General Aozu on November 18, 1944, stated that Japanese soldiers who knowingly consumed human flesh would be guilty of a crime punishable by execution; however, it was stated in parentheses that the consumption of enemy flesh was excepted. In this order Major General Aozu stated that he had issued many similar orders but that such incidents continue to occur. It appears, then, that orders permitting cannibalism were given by troop leaders in order to accommodate practices they knew to be unpreventable, in direct contravention of the blanket ban on all acts of cannibalism issued by the high command.'

(Tanaka, 1996, pp. 128-129)

The V1 rocket was capable of interception- tipping or shooting down by Allied fighter planes. The V2 was not, and in that respect made the more formidable psychological terror. The doodlebug (in the public's mind) could occasionally be defeated, its successor was impervious. Civilian morale was clearly affected by the rocket bombing strategy and the proximity of V2 launchers made the occupation of potential launch sites on the continent a high priority.

'Hitler had not hesitated to bomb Warsaw or Rotterdam and civilian refugees had been deliberately targeted throughout the Battle of France, but attacks on British cities would bring retaliation, so Hitler held off until some bombs fell on Berlin. Frustrated with the Luftwaffe’s failure to overcome Fighter Command he agreed to a change in air strategy that led to the first systematic area-bombing campaign in history.

[...]

Our memory of the horrors of the Blitz has been overshadowed by the much more devastating bombing of German and Japanese cities. More people were killed in Hamburg and Tokyo in one night than were killed in the entire war in Britain so the importance of the bombing of London and other British cities is said to be diminished. This is a curious view of the past that ignores cause and effect. In 1941 the British believed, correctly, that they had survived one of the most terrible experiments in the history of war. Hitler had threatened to exterminate the population of their cities and he had tried his best to achieve that goal. Was it any wonder that popular and parliamentary opinion supported retaliation?'

http://www.legionmagazine.com/features/canadianmilitaryhistory/96-01.asp

As I've stated, it's an insidious and invidious process that seeks with the benefit of hindsight to construct a moral equivalence between Allied war aims and methods and those of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan- especially when the person doing so begins from a position of accommodating 'facts' to suit a hardened dogmatic approach, that predetermines any supposedly objective conclusions.

I don't apologize for or hope to justify the bombing of Dresden, rather to offer a possible explanation- but lamenting the devastation of Dresden's cultural assets whilst conveniently ignoring or downplaying the obliteration of historical and cultural sites by the Japanese and the Nazis does history a disservice.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Unfortunately you are wrong in several areas of fact- Germany began the process of destroying Allied (and neutral) civilian morale through the deliberate bombing of cities with the destruction of Warsaw and Rotterdam (and continuing with the likes of Belgrade, and the deliberate massacre of civilian refugee columns in France)- the bombing of Rotterdam was a deliberate ploy to force the inhabitants to surrender and show the Dutch the violent consequences of any further armed resistance to the German invaders. I suspect the bombing of Warsaw had as much to do with Nazi anti-Slav Kultur Kampf as much as military strategy.

The German Lufwaffe's bombardment of enemy capitals was done to apply significant shock-value in forcing the respective governments (soon to be incorporated in the German economy) to surrender. It was the use of force for specific political ends. The Poles and the Dutch did promptly surrender. However abhorrant it might be this actually worked, unlike the bombardment of German cities which did not work - but perhaps benefited German expansion of the army and militia .

I fail to see how anyone with knowledge of Britain's armed forces readiness (or rather lack of it) and economy could say that from the beginning it was a 'total war' for Great Britain. Given that there was a strong appeasement movement, and given that, for instance, obvious warning signs such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the occupation of the Sudetenland, and the Austrian Anschluss had not prompted any serious reevaluation of the British 'war machine' or economy your contention that Britain was ready or committed to total war is simply wishful thinking on your part.

What I said was that the British war effort mobilized in the beginning. By that I mean it fully mobilized in 1940 - while the German did so in 1943. (Note that navy and airforce personel is not included in the following)


From sept 1939 to 1940 the number of army personel rose from 897.000 to 1.880.000 - 109% increase of 983.000 men. At the end of the war army size did not exceed 2.920.000 in 1945. The British population was in 1940 47.000.000 - that means that 4% of the population was enrolled in the army in 1940. Add to that the home guard which in june 1940 stood at 1.456.000.
Compare with the German army which rose from 3.740.000 to 4.370.000. A 16% increase of 630.000 men. The German population was 80,600,000 in 1940 - 5.4 % of population enrolled in the army. At it's highest in 1943 the army stood at 6.550.000.

What these numbers signify is that by the end 1940 the British had indeed mobilized, although it was from a low base - which is exactly the point, namely that mobilization starts from a low base.
Then one might say that the German economy had allready mobilized and was operating from a high base. The % number of men pulled from the labor market was greater in Germany but not significantly higher than the UK by 1940.

War expenditure as a % of public spending was in 1939 Germany 32.2 and the UK 15.0 In 1940 GE 48.8 UK 43. Again a significant increase in the financing of the war in the UK compared to Germany.

Anual Aircraft production
UK 39 7900 40 15.049
GE 40 8200 40 10.247
Tanks
UK 39 969 40 1399
GE 39 1300 40 2200

Here the percentage increase for the UK is also significantly higher.

It is my contention that by 1940 the UK war industry was indeed running to near maximum capacity. This can be seen from the fact that German industry expanded production of basic materials such as steel and coal - any comparable expansion did not take place in the UK. In my opinon because the capacity for expansion was simply not there. An interesting aspect is that coalminer 'absenteeism' in the UK rose from 7.26% in 1940 to 12.89% in 1944. The workers seemed to lack that 'national spirit'. The strikes and absenteeism should be compared to the fact that paradoxically private consumtion was significanly higher in the UK than in Germany as percentage of total expenditure.


The fact the German war economy had not fully mobilized yet can be seen from the vast increases in German armaments production from the year 1943. A comparable increase did not take place in the UK - there still was an increase, but not to the same degree. The reason the German economy was able to make such an expansion and continue to do so is probably due to the greater savings in private consumption. The UK economy was incapable of mobilizing to same extent as the German in 1943 because the UK economy was already in a 'straightjacket' and could not expand any further.

This points to the question whether the UK economy prior to the outbreak of the second world war was on a losing path.

As I've stated, it's an insidious and invidious process that seeks with the benefit of hindsight to construct a moral equivalence between Allied war aims and methods and those of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan- especially when the person doing so begins from a position of accommodating 'facts' to suit a hardened dogmatic approach, that predetermines any supposedly objective conclusions.

Yes - it would be provocative to say that UK policy was imperialistic since they actually lost their Empire as a direct result of World War II. I am trying to figure out why the UK economy was weak and if that was not precisely why a policy of strategic bombardment was employed against German cities. Clearly the greatest asset the Germans had was that their industrial base was actually capable of expanding - that their workers were under strict control is probably one reason. Hence targeting them specifically made sense from a UK perspective.

[chequita guevara]

British policy was imperialistic in that they engaged in war with Germany in order to keep their own empire. In this they failed, but let us not think that the Western powers had anything other than pretense when they claimed to be fighting for freedom.