If Spain has an imperial prescence in Florida are we justified in seizing it?
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Churchill war criminal, says German historian
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I have no problem with buying or trading for land, but if there was no moral way to acquire land outside the 13 colonies, then we should have stayed with those original 13."An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop" - Excession
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Originally posted by David Floyd
Yes, that's what I meant - what Japan does in Asia is of no real concern to the US, or at least it shouldn't be.http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=John+Williams+The+Imperial+M arch+from+The+Empire+Strikes+Back.ogg&wiki=en
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Originally posted by David Floyd
Just because the Constitution says something doesn't make it right. People - including people who own businesses - ought to be able to do whatever they want with their property, provided they aren't hurting anyone. And trade, by definition, is not a harmful act - quite the opposite, in fact.
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=John+Williams+The+Imperial+M arch+from+The+Empire+Strikes+Back.ogg&wiki=en
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Originally posted by David Floyd
You're saying that our acquisition of Hawaii was NOT imperialistic?
THEIR imperialism is the EVIL EMPIRE, and bad.
Right?http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=John+Williams+The+Imperial+M arch+from+The+Empire+Strikes+Back.ogg&wiki=en
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Sorry to interrupt, but regarding your posts and the thread title: Don't you think it's time to have an own thread for this?"The world is too small in Vorarlberg". Austrian ex-vice-chancellor Hubert Gorbach in a letter to Alistar [sic] Darling, looking for a job...
"Let me break this down for you, fresh from algebra II. A 95% chance to win 5 times means a (95*5) chance to win = 475% chance to win." Wiglaf, Court jester or hayseed, you judge.
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Wernazuma, the Brits and probably most Americans on this forum believe that firebombing German cities was justified. I personally do not agree and think we owe Germany, the German people and the people who actually suffered or their descendants an apology.
Declaring Churchill a war criminal, though, may be a bit much.
What do you think?http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=John+Williams+The+Imperial+M arch+from+The+Empire+Strikes+Back.ogg&wiki=en
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Originally posted by Ned
Molly, my apologies.
The earlier Nazi terror bombing was specifically intended to cause early surrender, not so? However, since the British terror bombing had gone on since 1940, one could reasonably conclude, could they not, that the terror bombing would not hasten a Germans surrender. It was therefor justifiable, if at all, only because it was effective in winning the war.
But, as time went on and German war production continued to climb, could one not also conclude that the terror bombing was ineffective in winning the war?
At some point during the war, reasonable people should have realized that the terror bombing campaign was not militarily justified.
Yet it continued.
The main idea of British night bombing was to disrupt German industry by attacking the workers in that industry. The RAF was not able to put up the forces required for day light precision bombing, so they opted for night time area bombing. They would hit factories as well as the areas around them (to disrupt the work force).
As far as the Brits knew, this was a successful way to interfere with the productive abilities of the Germans. It was too, as their own experiences with trying to run an economy under attack demonstrated; but not to the degree they thought prior to the end of the war.
Thus, yes, it was to win the war. By slowing down German production through attacks on both the industrial targets and the work forces of those targets. There were some other motivations and objectives, but what I outlined was the main focus.
Such practices were not considered immoral at the time, although the raids on Hamburg and Dresden were questioned by some among the British themselves at the time of them happening.
I can dig up some sources later if you wish and if I have time.Last edited by notyoueither; January 17, 2003, 23:46.(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.
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Floyd, what "Natural right" did Japan have to Manchuria?
Korea?
Formosa?
Okinawa?
Indochina?
Mainland China?
They had taken these places BEFORE the US moved any forces to Hawaii.
In 1941, how many Hawiians considered themselves "victims" of imperial agression?
In fact, the only protest goes back to the 1890s, when the "queen" objected to being tossed by the US, and managed to gather a handful of followers, that amounted to zilch.
The Hawiians were happy to be rid of her.
Now, how many Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese were happy with Japan?
What right did Japan have to to take them over?
According to you, everybody has "natural human rights".
Why aern't you outraged that Japan over-turned these"rights"?
Or is it because they aern't Americans, so they don't have rights?
Saying the US "provoked" Japan into war is like saying Russia "provoked" Germany in 1941.
It doesn't make sense and it isn't true.
And spare me the riff about the poor civilians of Japan, where is your moral outrage for the Chinese that Japan used as cannon fodder?
Or the Phillipenoes?
Or the Indonesians?
Or the Vietnamese?
Or the Burmese?
Or the Thais?
Guess they don't rate.I believe Saddam because his position is backed up by logic and reason...David Floyd
i'm an ignorant greek...MarkG
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Only personal morals matter to libertarians."The French caused the war [Persian Gulf war, 1991]" - Ned
"you people who bash Bush have no appreciation for one of the great presidents in our history." - Ned
"I wish I had gay sex in the boy scouts" - Dissident
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As I noted in the Libertarian thread, it appears that Libertarians believe it is immoral to take action against the immoral, with perhaps the sole exception being self defense.
Only by compromising their core beliefs can they even agree to live in a society with law and law inforcement, or in a world where the strong and good protect the weak against oppression.http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php?path=John+Williams+The+Imperial+M arch+from+The+Empire+Strikes+Back.ogg&wiki=en
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Re. Natural right to colonies.
So Japan had no right in territorial expansion. However, whether, the creation of the Japanese co-prosperity sphere was an attempt to liberate the Vietnamese from the French, the Phillipinos from the US, the Burmese, Malayans, Hong Kong Chinese and Indians from the British, and the Indonesians from the Dutch - or it was simply just mean conquest is an irrelevant issue, since the very war in itself meant that all these colonies became free from Western domination - which they obviously were not very happy with in the first place.
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Originally posted by Tripledoc
Re. Natural right to colonies.
So Japan had no right in territorial expansion. However, whether, the creation of the Japanese co-prosperity sphere was an attempt to liberate the Vietnamese from the French, the Phillipinos from the US, the Burmese, Malayans, Hong Kong Chinese and Indians from the British, and the Indonesians from the Dutch - or it was simply just mean conquest is an irrelevant issue, since the very war in itself meant that all these colonies became free from Western domination - which they obviously were not very happy with in the first place.
Remind me- which European power colonised Korea, after a coup d'etat?
Oh, yes, the little known European power of Japan.
An example of the 'prosperity' enjoyed by Japanese occupied Korea:
Korean production of rice doubled during Japanese domination, but this was at the expense of the Koreans, since their overlords saw to it that the amount of rice available to Koreans dropped by half.
All in all, Japanese exploitation was worse than European economic colonialism, since when it came to trade, the Japanese had no interest in rewarding the providers of the raw materials it plundered so readily, and there was no grounding of this exchange in international trade. Whilst oil, iron ore, rubber, quinine, foodstuffs such as sugar, tea, coffee, rice and salt and valuable metals such as magnesium, bauxite, manganese and nickel flowed to Japan, the occupied territories could expect in return, arbitrary punishments, mass killings, widespread human rights abuses and slave labour.
The figures for economic soldiers (slave labour) sent to the Home islands of Japan (or eslewhere) amount to:
800 000 Koreans
300 000 from the Dutch East Indies
1 000 000 Chinese
100 000 Malays.
It goes without saying, that the welfare of these workers was not of paramount importance to the racist Japanese. These figures leave out the numbers of women impressed into army brothels against their will, and repeatedly raped to satisfy the Imperial Japanese Army.
And which colonial power invaded, occupied and destroyed large swathes of China hitherto uncolonised by other European powers? Yes, that's right- Japan.
An example of the 'prosperity' enjoyed by the Chinese under Japanese occupation:
Filipino opposition to Japanese occupation was not only Communist inspired- there were also Filipino patriots who were not communists who wanted rid of the murderous Japanese invaders. Of course, they had to fight not only the occupying forces of the aggressor nation, Japan, but also the avowedly anti-imperialist Huk communist guerillas too- who were at least as interested in seeing off their Filipino compatriots.
In Burma, the Japanese were opposed not only by Aung San's Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League, but by the Karen, Kachin and Chin peoples (who also of course faced oppression from the Burmese).
In the Dutch East Indies, whilst the Japanese enjoyed some success in creating a collaborationist Javanese power bloc, they and the Javanese were opposed by Timorese and Sumatran and Borneo based groups.
In Malaya, the Japanese began their era of 'co-prosperity' by executing 5 000 Chinese and their families after the brutal occupation of Singapore.
In French Indo-China, the Japanese launched a pre-emptive attack on the Franco-Vietnamese army in March of 1945, believing it might soon attack the Japanese aggressors. This led to the involvement of a now well-known figure of resistance- Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh.
Seems an odd way to go about encouraging nationalist movements- killing huge numbers of the people who might be expected to support these 'anti-colonialist' groupings.Vive la liberte. Noor Inayat Khan, Dachau.
...patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. Edith Cavell, 1915
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