I did not say that the Germans were fighting for your freedom. I said that the German soldier would have said that he was. In saying that, I took a bit of license with your words, but the German soldier would have said and believed that he was fighting for "a better world" for you (if you were of the right ethnic heritage) as well as for himself. I am well aware of the evils the Nazis did, and believe that much of that evil was inherent in the Nazi worldview. But, since we were talking about the causes and alternatives to war, I just wanted to stress that even a German soldier, fighting for the Nazi regime, thought he was risking his life for a good reason. This is a part of the problem peacemakers always face: Both sides believe in their cause strongly enough to die for it! The morality of fighting for the Nazis troubles me even when I play SH3. But it didn't trouble a lot of people, ordinary folks who were hardly sociopaths. It is often easy for an outsider to look at a conflict and find that, in his eyes, one side clearly has the moral high ground. But that in no way diminishes the commitment of the other side's combatants, and "you are wrong!" is not a convincing argument. Finding ways to bring peace to the world is very different from creating a rational, comfortable Internet site.
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