Hiroshima

I can see you have a big heart and imagine that the rest of humanity is like you. Its not. “There has never been a culture so devoid of empathy that any one given
member of it could batter to death more than a few hundred unarmed children and
women in cold blood, let alone a few hundred thowsand, for no more reason than they
where called "enemy".”

I can see you have read NOTHING about ancient history, nor genocide either apparently.
Nor have you read about the 10 million Stalin killed, or the 20 million Mao killed. Apparently you never heard of Dresden or Hamburg. Nor about the rape of Nanking.
I live not all that far from the Sand Creek Massacre here in Colorado where a whole tribe was wiped out by the Volunteers of a state militia back in the mid 1800s – including men women and children. How about the Saxons when they invaded Britain after Rome withdrew its forces? The invading Germans slaughtered almost all the Celts before them? How about the Roman practice of reducing cities that resisted them to ash, bashing all the babies heads in and selling all the women into slavery, while often crucifying all the men. Obviously YOU NEVER HEARD OF GHENGIS KHAN, who according to history slaughtered 18,000,000 Chinese, turned cities around Samarkand into grasslands, killing everyone who could not show some value. The Mongols are estimated to have wiped out 30 million souls in less than 100 years. Or how about the Biblical accounts of wars? Entire nations destroyed, every man, woman, child, and even the cattle slaughtered in Caanan. But that was not untypical of that period. Obviously you never read about the Crusades, nor many of the wars before and after that period. Nor the wars around Asia Minor or those that centered around Constantinople. Actually I have to ask, are you 10?

Obviously you never hear about Africa - say Rwanda where the Hutu slaughtered the Tutsi to the tune of between 500,000 to 1,000,000 people - mainly children and women. Or we could look back to the anti-colonial conflicts or the conflicts after colonialism in Africa - in one I know of 100,000 killed in the most brutal ways. The favorite method back then was filling a person's stomach with gasoline - poking a hole in their stomach and then lighting them off so that their guts would explode. Is that mean enough for you? Obviously you never heard of the fire bombing the USA did on Japan - fire bombing towns in a ring pattern so that NO MAN, WOMAN, OR CHILD COULD ESCAPE. It was done on purpose. Then I suppose you never hear about the two nukes dropped on Japan. It had little to do with military targets - those two cities had been spared regular bombing - they had been held in reserve for SPECIAL TREATMENT - i.e. Atom Bomb testing.

You guys are clowns.

[Letum]

All the examples you cited are the result of riot and/or duress of authority and/or
the result of modern technology allowing killing from a distance.

They are the nature of crowds, weapons that kill without the killer seeing the victim
and systems of rule, not the nature of man.

*edit2* Whilst Stalin, GengisKhan and other leaders are not under the duress
of authority, they are only able to kill so many because of their authority.
Unless they where psychopathic (many of them where!) they would not want to,
or be able to, commit the same number of murders with rock and noone to do the
dirty work for them.

*Edit3* Just to be clear, here is the quote from me in full. (now with spelling corrected )

Since the dawn of man people have shown compassion to their enemies, even in
warfare. There has never been a culture so devoid of empathy that any one given
member of it could batter to death more than a few hundred unarmed children and
women in cold blood, let alone a few hundred thousand, for no more reason than they
where called "enemy".
That manner of thing only ever happens in the fury of riots, the oppression of authority
or, more recently, in the mushroom-clouds of technology.

*edit* I really dont mean this as a personal attack or anything, but the use of caps to emphasise
things makes it a little hard to read for me, could you use bold text instead? Just for me?

[baggygreen]

There was a time when warfare was looked upon as a gentlemanly pursuit. Prisoners were treated nicely and once the killing stopped, everyone went back to being jovial.

The war we're in now, like it or not, has been going on since before 2001. Undeclared, perhaps, and against an idea rather than a nation. This war is a helluva lot different to those of the past, including WW2 when wars were still declared against a nation. The way wars were fought can't happen anymore. On one side you have people trying to fight by 'rules' and on the other you have people who dont follow those rules. This war won't be won by occupying entire countries or destroying an army, it can only be won by killing the entire enemy. Which obviously leads to a tough question, just who is the enemy??

In order for this war to be successful, the rules we fight by need to be disregarded. Which makes life tough for moralists, indeed for everyone involved - how low can one stoop to win, while still trying to stay above the level of the enemy? If we start summary executions of terrorists, for example, are we any better than those terrorists who behead their captives for tv? One thing that won't happen is for the west to use a nuke on terrorists. that is one rule that won't be breached by the west *except in retaliation*. More later.

Success depends on a drastic reevaluation of so many aspects of morality and conscience. Letum's way of thought (no offense mate) needs to be the minority, else we cannot win.


I touched on nukes briefly before. Noone in the 'civilised' world is willing to use them. in the cold war there was MAD, even now it'd probably be a case of shoot first, apologise later if someone saw icbms gettting launched. But noone was willing to go there because it would cost their own nation as well. Their use was literally *the* last resort. If nothing else, nukes are indiscriminate, as shown by the 2 japanese cities. the civilian population was decimated just as surely as military, and following the war, it was still the civilians who suffered. It is an unofficial rule that will not be broken easily.

Unfortunately, the enemy we fight now lacks the same ethical and moral standards we hold ourselves by. They do indeed have morals, however values are different. We see only the "military" units as a valid target, they see everyone as a valid target. To the eyes of our enemy, hiroshima and nagasaki are proof that nukes are an ideal weapon. Huge numbers of casualties for decades, what could be better?! They arent an individual nation which can be attacked, and more importantly they dont care if they die. They'd prefer to die.

What im getting at here is that nukes havent been used for 60 years. We've come close, maybe, but they havent been used! if we dont succeed in this war in the very near future (hence i tried to point out necessities for victory), we will see nukes used again. Only this time, casualties will make the japanese cities seem like nothing. (no offense intended there). and these will be used first on Western targets - big cities, sporting events, etc, with retaliatory strikes to places through the middle east. Will it stop there? unlikely... What will China and Russia do when they detect the US's launches??? Thats why we needa win this war asap, because otherwise we'll see nukes used again.

No Letum, Ghengis Khan was not under riot or duress - he was following the ancient custums of his people. As for the men in the B29s fire bombing Japanese cities they were low enough to the ground to smell the burning flesh and hair to the point that they sickened. But what differnece is that? The point is men kill each other in war, including women and children on a constant basis from recent times all the way into the ancient times. And your ancestors were among those killers - that is certain. What ever goofy theory you have about riot or duress is MEANINGLESS. Many of these killings were done as tribal policy and tradition. Here in Colorado the Cheyeanes would once a year ride through Denver as they headed into the mountains. Once there they'ed wipe out a Ute village and then ride back through Denver with their horses covered with human scalps and leading captured Ute Sqaws - not old women of course - just the yonng ones - the old ones were slaughtered. There was not riot or duress in what they did - it was a yearly tribal CUSTOM and they thought it great fun.

Your views of right and wrong are recent - except for certain religions. I suppose you believe the killing of the Jews was fake? Just riot or duress?

Speaking to you further is pointless.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

against an idea rather than a nation.

Originally Posted by baggygreen

it can only be won by killing the entire enemy.

If it is a war against a idea, then even if you somehow manage to kill every last sole
with that idea, you have not won because at any moment someone else could have
the idea.

It's a little like other wars on ideas, such as the "war on drugs". Even if you lock up
every drug user in the world, you haven't won the war because at any moment
someone else could become a drug user.

In these kind of "wars" it is better to target the idea, rather than the people with the
idea. If you manage to convince everyone that something is a bad idea, then it doesn't
usually re-surface.

No one thinks the world is flat or believes in Zeus.
This isn't because all the flat world and Zeus believers where killed, it's because the
idea was killed.


This is wildly off topic btw.

[Letum]

I don't usually like doing this because it ends up in messy posts, but allow me to
address you one quote at a time.

Originally Posted by Wave Skipper

No Letum, Ghengis Khan was not under riot or duress.

See "edit2" in the post before my previous one. Sorry about all the edits, mind at work between posts.

As for the men in the B29s fire bombing Japanese cities they were low enough to the ground to smell the burning flesh and hair to the point that they sickened. But what differnece is that?

A big difference!
To quote my self from a earlier topic:

Try to sneak up behind them and aim for the top of the head.

However unflinching you think you are you will suffer trauma to some extent if the
young man is facing you and it takes several messy blows to finish the job with a
less than surgical hand-to-hand weapon.

He may be the enemy, but you don't want the kind of dreams that the money from
veterans day trys to help people with when you go to sleep the next night.

If you really want to kill someone [...] then go with a gun.
It's all about the distance, speed, visible damage and blame.

It is far less traumatic to kill with more speed, distance, less visible damage and to
put some blame on to an inanimate object or someone else. Guns do all 3 fairly well,
better than a claw hammer anyway.

Of course guns have limitations, the Nazis found this out when trying to kill Jews.
After shooting several hundred the people doing the shooting started to suffer from
trauma.
The gas chambers and ovens fixed this by increasing the distance, decreasing
visible damage and transferring more of the blame away from the killer and onto the gas.

If you want to push it all the way then the A-bomb is a great way to kill people trauma free.
the distances are massive, there is no visible damage to people, speed isn't a issue
and you can blame it all on the bomb, even if you don't then you can always blame it
on someone else responsible for the drop.

If those who dropped the bomb had to kill all those people with a claw hammer then
they wouldn't have got past the first hundred thousand with out breaking into a
gibbering wreck.

Here in Colorado the Cheyeanes would once a year ride through Denver as they headed into the mountains. Once there they'ed wipe out a Ute village and then ride back through Denver with their horses covered with human scalps and leading captured Ute Sqaws - not old women of course - just the yonng ones - the old ones were slaughtered. There was not riot or duress in what they did - it was a yearly tribal CUSTOM and they thought it great fun.

No riot?
Sound pretty much like a riot to me!

*edit* Perhaps I am useing a definition of "riot" that is a little too broad, but I can
think of no better word at the moment.

you believe the killing of the Jews was fake? Just riot or duress?

Certainly not riot, it was as cold blooded as you get, but certainly duress and the
convenience of distance and transference of blame.
See the Milgram Experiment for a nice example of the subtle ways authority makes
normal people act in immoral ways they would not normal consider.
I am certainly not saying that the perpetrators of such acts where in any way
forced to do what they did, or that they did not want to do what they did. Just that
they would have not have killed people like that if it was not for the convenience of
distance, transference of blame and the duress of authority.

That is why the allied forces did not continue the killing when they found the camps.
Not because they where fundamentally any different to the young German men who
signed up as camp guards.

Speaking to you further is pointless.

For me the point of talking in debate is to find what the ideas of others are, construct
my own ideas from them and to have my ideas challenged, tested and occasionally even
changed. That means there is almost always a point for me.

What is the point for you, and why isn't it there?

[baggygreen]

You're right, in the sense that its almost impossible to wreck an idea - and the comparison to the earth being flat i like a lot. I'll admit i'd not considered that, and it is good in several respects but for one - how do you prove or disprove the presence of an omnipotent being??

I dont think its so offtopic either. the thread starts with a question of if it was a military or political decision to drop the bomb, moved into morals of both the bomb and war, and i brought this up because its something we're going to have to face again in the near future - a momentous decision that will be influenced by politics, ethics and military necessity - only this time, we'll have the benefit of previous examples to help guide us.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

You're right, in the sense that its almost impossible to wreck an idea - and the comparison to the earth being flat i like a lot. I'll admit i'd not considered that, and it is good in several respects but for one - how do you prove or disprove the presence of an omnipotent being??

They did quite a good job with Zeus without "proof".
Althow your quite right, it is not a simple, easy or quick thing to do.
A good education is a good start, but not all of the answer.

I am of the mind that it is only a matter of time, but it looks like a long time. We
certinaly need to speed it up, but as I said it is not a simple, easy or quick thing to do.

In regards destroying the idea of anti-western feeling amongst Islamic extreemist, I
rather suspect that invadeing and killing them will do more to spread the idea then
kill it.
If Martin Luther King had decided to destroy the idea of anti-black feeling amongst
white Americans by encourageing black people to kill white Americans then I doubt
he would have helped his cause much to put it lightly.

[baggygreen]

:rotfl:

Nicely put!

Has Zeus been disproven tho? or have his followers merely died out?

Now that you are going into more detail it helps. Not that I agree with everything you say, but hey, one thing U-boat men have to learn is getting along with others inside the steel tube. I think of all the military forces of modern civilization, its the navy that was the most humane. Partly because the main enemy of the navies is a shared one: the sea. And partly because navy men see the world, visit strange ports and distant lands. It opens minds. In WWII Germany it was really only the navy that did not fully suck down the Nazi logic.

Why don't you guys move this debate to the general section forum. Further flesh out your ideas and views there and I will keep an open mind. God knows if someone took a snap shot of me during my 20s, 30s, 40, and so forth, you'd have several different people at odds with one another.

Yes, usually small boys have to be trained to kill, just like lion cubs. Most primitive warrior societies started training them early so that by the time they were men they could slaughter without a second thought. Basically I see you are likely a humanist or socialist who views all difficult men as simply broken and in need of repair. And I would not disagree with all that. I believe that men are rarely individuals - and are almost always under contrl of some society, government, civilization or religion. Truth is we are down loaded with huge scripts and logic codes by the civilization that is over us, even from the time we sucked our thumbs - before we knew our right hand from our left hand. SO I do not lay the blame of ancient warriorism on individuals. Like I always say - IF a person is not a broken in the brain, generally he will be an ok guy on a one to one level no matter where he comes from. Its only when people are in groups, societies, clans, tribes, nations, civilizations that pack mentality takes over. Just like dogs - one dog rarely rips a small child apart. One dog is usually easy to get along with. But add more - until you have 3 to 5 and suddenly a new beast appears: the pack, and the pack has a super-mind of its own. Take an inner city gang member out of the city to a ranch or wilderness setting and within days his hard exterior begins to fall away.

Really when I was speaking about war and its history I was speaking about the super-minds (a kind of group-think meme) that takes over individuals and many of which go back into the most ancient of history. But, on the other hand, the Eskimos - living in the constant battle with nature (very harsh in the far north) tended to be very peace loving people - where even common anger was viewed as insanity.

Really I got into this debate on the tail end - and believe mere semantics was causing me to misunderstand you.

Be seeing you.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

:rotfl:

Nicely put!

Has Zeus been disproven tho? or have his followers merely died out?

Neither
He can't be disproved and his followers where not all suddenly killed in one instant.

I have no idea how Zeus and his religion died out, but I would guess that it dwindled in
popularity when a new religion came along and then was finally killed off over a
hundred years or so after state religion changed.

Ideas only completely die when the circumstances that created them change.


Oh, and cheers!


*edit* why does this post have a little red thums down on it?
*edit2* Gah! Just seen the time! Well, I look foward to continueing this tommorow.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

You can not make peace by war.

That is a favourite catch-phrase of principal pacifists, but occasionally it has proven to be wrong. At least, often you can set favourable preconditions for the time after war. but in the first, war is not about peace, but about defeating the enemy by breaking his neck, no matter how. the more you restrict yourself, the higher the chances that yoi fail in that, and eventually get your own neck broken instead.

Originally Posted by Letum

I don't think you would either SB, dispite your words.

Don't be too sure of that. I am damn serious, due to some bad things I have seen.

Originally Posted by Letum

All the examples you cited are the result of riot and/or duress of authority.

then Dresden and Stalingrad also must be considered as being "riots". I assume that makes Allied bomber pilots and Wehrmacht units nothing more than riot police.

It was fun, but I am bailing out here. continuing the talk is pointless from here on.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

but eventually you can set favourable preconditions. And in the end, war is not about peace, but about defeating the enemy and breaking his neck.

Don't be too sure of that. I am damn serious, due to some bad things I have seen.

then Dresden and Stalingrad also must be considered as being "riots". I assume that makes Allied bomber pilots and Wehrmacht units nothing more than riot police.

It was fun, but I am bailing out here. continuing the talk is pointless from here on.

No, it may be as tough as hell being a bomber pilot, be he certainly isn't rioting in the
cockpit.

To quote my self from earlier:

For me the point of talking in debate is to find what the ideas of others are, construct
my own ideas from them and to have my ideas challenged, tested and occasionally even
changed. That means there is almost always a point for me.

What is the point for you, and why isn't it there anymore?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

I see it is all so clear now. I should just threaten to nuke anyone who dissagrees with me.

Pointless comment. I am talking about the condition of war, not about nuking the debate group on TV.

Using nukes always has been part of NATO strategy if it ever should be attacked and cannot stop the invasion of europe by conventional forces alone, btw. And during the 1991 war, Israel is said to have had fighters with nuclear bombs in the air on the ready.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

What is the point for you

It's only repetition again and again now, while you and me do not even speak the same English language and do not use the same definition of terms.

See you in the next thread.