Churchill war criminal, says German historian

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Cambodia was never "Carpet Bombed"

I suppose you are referring to tactical strikes on a primative trail called "Ho che min".

Leave me out of it.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


No he didn't. The Allies bombed Dresden because it was in the path of Soviet armies. It was a demonstration to the USSR of the power of the Western Allies before the dropping of the atomic bombs. Even in 1944, the Western allies were already laying the groundwork for the Cold War.

Well before 1944 Stalin's goverment was setting up spy rings in it's allies' territory, so who laid the ground for the cold war first? Let's also not forget the systematic elimination of people who had belonged to non-communist political parties throughout eastern europe as well.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Nerve gas was a WWII German invention. The British didn't have nerve gas until they captured some at the end of WWII.

The first organo-phosphate was developed in the 1930s in Nazi Germany, quite by accident. It's used today largely in mosquito abatment programs, which is why it's a good idea to close your windows when the foggers come by, even if it's in quantities so low it can't kill you (at least immediately, there is some concern that extremely low doses can lead to an increase in cancer risks).

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Just because Marlon Brando's character in Apocolypse Now said that doesn't mean it really happened. The Vietnamese didn't have to force the civilians to hate the Americans, we accomplished that all by ourselves with out free fire zones and removal of populations and the way we treated the Vietnamese people. We were outsiders, foreign invaders, we never had any trust to lose.

Well...they didn't have a boat people exodus until the commies took over. That should tell you who they hated worse. Communists always have to build a wall to keep people in...we build one to keep them out.

[chequita 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.

[TCO]

The boat people don't matter. It's ok to pile up some skulls if you're a commy

[chequita guevara]

I've never piled any skulls. I know a former US Army Ranger who murdered peasants in Guatemala on orders.

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I've never piled any skulls. I know a former US Army Ranger who murdered peasants in Guatemala on orders.

Just like you "knew" that the Democrats didn't vote against Gulf War 1. You are full of misinformation.

[chequita guevara]

I personally knew him.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
To the Brits, you have several times said you were taught that area bombing of German civilians was "justified."

What was the justification?

The story I've always heard was that the Brits and Germans avoided bombing each other cities for fear of retaliation. Then during the Battle of Britain, a British bomber goes off target and bombs a German city (Hamburg I think). The Germans respond by bombing London while claiming the old "he started it." The Brits then claim they were justified in deliberately bombing German cities because the German bombed London.

The Brits have also claimed that area bombing was necessary because they did not have the technology to conduct pinpoint daylight bombing.

The overall target for the Brits was the German war machine which was a legitimate target.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Tingkai
The story I've always heard was that the Brits and Germans avoided bombing each other cities for fear of retaliation. Then during the Battle of Britain, a British bomber goes off target and bombs a German city (Hamburg I think). The Germans respond by bombing London while claiming the old "he started it." The Brits then claim they were justified in deliberately bombing German cities because the German bombed London.

The Brits have also claimed that area bombing was necessary because they did not have the technology to conduct pinpoint daylight bombing.

The overall target for the Brits was the German war machine which was a legitimate target.

1. It was actually a German plane which veered off course and bombed London, against their standing orders of not to bomb cities.

2. Area bombing is fine: against military and industrial targets.

3. No. There are memos and letters to and from British top brass at the time that clearly show the object of the exercise was to break the morale of the German people.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


No he didn't. The Allies bombed Dresden because it was in the path of Soviet armies. It was a demonstration to the USSR of the power of the Western Allies before the dropping of the atomic bombs. Even in 1944, the Western allies were already laying the groundwork for the Cold War.

The Allies took the opportunity to demonstrate its firepower, but there was still a request by Stalin. U.S. Chief of Staff George C. Marshall announced publicly that Dresden had been attacked at Stalin's specific request (or was that just PR?)

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I personally knew him.

I knew a guy who claimed to have been a marine grunt in Vietnam assigned to work with "Operation Phoenix". He claims that he personally participated in numerous assasinations. Frankly I was always leery of his claims.
The really interesting thing is that I met him when he was doing his 4th year medical clerkships. Afterwards he went into a psychiatric residency. Whether he acually did what he said he did, one way or the other, I find the idea of him going into psychiatry very interesting. ........ or maybe ludicrous.

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I personally knew him.

Read Stolen Valor. There are a lot of people who exagerate their war records. I bet the guy was a clerk at Fort Benning. Had a few beers with SF types and got busted halfway through his hitch. I've seen the type. Full of ****.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Was WWII a total war? Yes.

It was not a total war for the Germans before in 1943 I believe Goebbels in an orchestrated manner laid down his infamous question to the German people whether they wanted (paraphrasing)"a radical and total war, the like history had not seen before." That was also the year Speer took over war production.

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.

All wars have involved to some extent, the destruction of civilian property and life- unless countries agree on some new 'bushido' rule that allows only for the killing of armed combatants in regular armies then it will always be that way.

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?

...nor did Allied soldiers routinely engage in acts of cannibalism (as did Japanese soldiers in the Pacific war theatre).

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.

Government records show that Churchill was greatly disturbed by the effect that the silent V2 rocket was having on civilian morale.

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.

You might see the bombing of Dresden as revenge for Belgrade, Rotterdam, Lidice, Oradour sur Glane, Plymouth Hoe, Exeter and Warsaw- you might also see it as a way 'pour encourager les autres' - a hint to the German High Command that Allied strategy was heading towards a scorched earth scenario.

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?

Either way, seeing WWII through 20-20 hindsight serves no purpose whatsoever.

Yes, that is probably what your state want's you to believe. Do you propose one should employ a 'blurry vision' approach in laying out the past? I agree that condemning past action should not rest on morality - but whether the policies were sound.