BS: WWII unjustified?

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 02:10 PM

English philosopher Edmund Burke said, 'The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.'

For some people, pacifism = doing nothing.

There are other ways to fight.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 01:47 PM

Re. Pat Buchanan: Even broken clocks are right twice a day.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 01:34 PM

Patrick Buchannon couldn't agree with you more.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: pdq
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 01:29 PM

Neither would Saddam Hussein.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 01:25 PM

Pacifism

I used to get beat up in grade school by a fellow I will call Bob. Bob tormented me for over a year about once every two weeks. He did mean nasty things because I was pacifistic. Never fought back, just took the lumps. I went home one day with a particularly vivid black eye and lip that had been cut a bit. Anyway, my grandfather saw me and wanted to know in no uncertain terms wtf was going on. I told him. He taught me how to box. I was uncomfortable with the knowledge but began to see that things had not been right. My pacificism had resulted in no change in Bob. Learning to box resulted in a change in me. Bob eventually received his due, and I gave it to him. He never after that day came near me again.

I have since learned different styles of fighting/self-defense but I tend to avoid trouble. There's a line bullies shouldn't cross with me. Three (or four?) have ever found out the hard way just where that line is--and that ain't bad for a guy who's 60 now.

I admire pacifists very much. One of the bullies mentioned in the previous paragraph receive enlightenment because he was pushing a pacifist around. My friend disagreed with what I'd done before, during and after that brief but violent episode. I admire him for that. But sometimes I don't listen too good.

Don't know why I said this here, but I will say one more thing before I leave for the day: I don't think Hitler would have been stopped by pacifists.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 01:00 PM

On the subject of air attacks against civilians in the UK in WW2, there were five civilians killed in Bridlington on 11 July 1940 when a lone Ju88 of KG30 dropped bombs near the railway station.

On 18 July the little seaside village of Skipsea was attacked by a single aircraft that dropped two bombs that did no damage and then turned round to machine gun the village, although on this occasion there were no casualties.

There were attacks by individual bombers against coastal towns throughout early August. But what is more significant, the same night that the 'lone German bomber got lost over London', Ju88s of KG4 flying from Schipol in the Netherlands attacked 11 different targets in East Yorkshire, killing six civilians in my home town. Although these were supposed to be directed at searchlight units, the attacks were indiscriminate.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 05:56 AM

"Who is "they"? If you mean that every German soldier, worker, housewife, and civilian knew and approved of the Nazi policies of exterminating people which were ordered by sickos like Heinrich Himmler, you are deeply mistaken. The average German soldier, sailor, and airman were in the exact same position as their counterparts in any other armed forces in that war."

As to being in exactly the same as their counterparts in any other armed forces in that war I would say that could be refuted, as who were the allied equivalents/counterparts of the Waffen SS, possibly the Soviet Army NKVD battalions, but as opposed to combat troops they were more of a political police force. The allies also did not have the hordes of ruthlessly loyal "second echelon" troops who used to sweep into conquered land on the heels of the Wermacht.

Under orders not to bomb London, in poor weather and cloud cover, the pilots of those bombers had the same option that the allied bomber pilots had and used often - some say it was responsible for the death of Glenn Miller - return to base and jettison your bombs in the sea.

The raid on Thames Haven, on 24 August, 1940 by German aircraft was commanded by one Rudolf Hallensleben who went on to win the Knights Cross for other actions. Not one single aircraft Little Hawk, and as stated above they did have other options open to them.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 11:42 PM

That last post was me. I was logged out, and didn't realize it before I hit "submit". If a clone sees this, maybe you can change that post back to my name from "Guest". That's the post at 13 Jun 08 - 11:39 PM

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 11:39 PM

"the german military started planning the rebuild in 1923"

No kidding! Gosh! Well, and so would have the military of virtually any other nation in this world that had been forced to disarm itself after it lost a major war. If the USA or Britain or France had lost a major war in 1918, and had been forced by terms of the treaty to disarm themselves, do you not think they would have clandestinely started rebuilding their military forces within a few years????

I don't see any reason why the nation of Germany should have been forced to gut itself economically and disarm itself after WWI, because they were no more to blame for that war than anyone else was...they just happened to fight a bit better, that's all, and then they lost it in the end...but they got blamed for the entire thing! Either no one was to blame for that war...or everyone was...but there was no reason to pin it all on the Germans.

The Treaty of Versailles was a travesty, and it is simply incredible for anyone to imagine that the Germans would NOT have soon violated it and started re-arming themselves. The USA would have done exactly the same thing if they've been put in the spot that Germany was put in.

So spare me all this righteous indignation, because it's like the protestations of one murderous mobster over the dishonesty and brutality of another. It's like Al Capone complaining about Meyer Lansky being a "thief". LOL!

Why on Earth would you expect the Germans to adhere to a situation that no other major power comparable to them would ever have put up with for long?

"Also the whole German population had been brainwashed since even before WWI that they WERE wonderful and that everything evil nasty and dirty was Polish and French..."

True. But the French thought that way too, didn't they? And so did the British. They were all equally pompous and grandiose and imperially minded about their special favored place in the world's affairs. And the American population has been similarly brainwashed during my entire lifetime and long, long before it to think that they and their system are wonderful and that everything evil, nasty, and dirty exists somewhere else...in Great Britain, in Russia, or China, or Iraq, or France, or Germany, or Japan, or Vietnam, or Chile, or Iran, or Cuba....evil is always "somewhere else", never on the home turf.

Give me a break. You can see the hypocrisy of it easily when the Germans do it, or when the Japanese or Russians do it, but you can't see it when it's plainly happening in your own front yard and it's your own children who are being brainwashed, generation after generation, and who are being taught to see themselves as being better than anyone else in the world, and as having the inherent right to go forth into the world and make others do it "the American way" (whether they wish to or not).

Nor can the British see it in themselves, apparently. You are both nations living in denial of your own darkness, just like the Germans were. You have much the same kind of grand illusions about yourselves that they did. Fascism is not attached to specific nationalities or nations...it moves around freely like a disease to wherever it finds a host, and that host is powerful, ruthless, ethnocentric people who are blind and deluded enough to feed the disease with their unbridled hubris and their militarism and their aggressive nationalism.

The Nazis serve now as your most handy symbolic excuse that you can trot out again and again to keep pointing to a past that is long gone and saying "There was the ultimate evil!" They serve as a good distraction for you to focus attention on. They keep you from facing up to what you yourselves are becoming in the present day. You're going down a very similar road to what they did, but you don't see it.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 10:37 PM

Forgot to state - the german military started planning the rebuild in 1923 - long before Hitler got anywhere. After 1933, Hitler became the main one to deal with, so he got the backing.

WWII would have eventually started without Hitler, or even the Nazi party - remember that Hitler pushed things forward beacuse of his age. Hitler had pushed plans to invade USA, there were even long range plans to use submarines, and that is why the long range rockets were worked on, as well the A-bombs. The Allies seriously outnumbered the Germans in things like tanks in 1939 - even the calibre of the weapons was lesser due to the treaty restrictions, but the concentration of tanks in the Ardennes blew away the allies who had them strung out in small numbers all along a long border. Also the whole German population had been brainwashed since even before WWI that they WERE wonderful and that everything evil nasty and dirty was Polish and French...

I don't often agree with Teribus, but he is closer to what I have investigated than some other in this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 10:28 PM

As far as pacifism being a reasonable alternative in WW II, consider what two prominent figures in the 1930's said:

Gandhi to Britons during the Blitz: "Let them take possession of your beautiful island with its many beautiful buildings. You will give them all this, but neither your minds nor your souls."

His advice to German Jews: make "a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah".




And Hitler's advice to Lord Halifax in 1938 on how to rule the Subcontinent: "shoot Gandhi, and if that does not suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of Congress, and if that does not suffice, shoot 200, and so on until order is established."



It seems evident that for pacifism to work, you'd best be pretty careful in picking your opposition--and WW II was not the best circumstances for pacifism.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 10:24 PM

"this could also be why he held back the Panzers at Dunkirk the same year and allowed most of the B.E.F. to escape"

The documentary I mentioned before says that this theory is utter BS. The real reason is that certain generals deliberately disobeyed orders and out ran the original Blitzkreig (Mannstein!) plan, and Hitler was more interested in consolidating his own power by back stabbing and undermining competent generals (I worked in the public service!!!) than in the british troops. So he insisted that the tanks stop and he intimidated the generals into obeying him. No other generals were brave enough to defy Hitler later, so he became totally surrounded by yes men.

There are lots of other BS theories that do not take into account the serious (private) power plays and backstabbing in the Nazi party. The British used this with the 'Man that never was' and the 'turned super spy' who fed false information - and the fake FUSAG group, etc - my dad was stationed in Scotland with the fake Northern group. The Allies knew that all they had to do was fool Hitler and he was their best agent for defeating the German military - look at the stupidity at Stalingrad.

Not to be forgotten is that Hitler's own Chief of Military Staff carried a pistol in his pocket during the days of 1939/40, making a private fuss that he intended to shoot Hitler, but he never did. He also later fell out of favour with Hitler too.

We Aussies have a good name for people like Mr Baker - starts with "W" and rhymes with 'banker'...

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:12 PM

The only reason I mentioned Prescott Bush and not the others is because his is the name most people are familiar with and I didn't have time to type in all of the others mentioned in the article. But as I said before, I would like to see a list of all of those who were instrumental in assisting Hitler.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 08:45 PM

"They had orders NOT to bomb London, and they did their very best to obey those orders as long as those orders stood."

But they DID bomb London!!!!! What the hell isn't there to get about that? And they WERE bombing other British towns! And they WERE at war! This was not a video game (not that those existed then).

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 08:37 PM

Henry Ford - Grand Cross of the Germany Eagle (highest civilian Nazi medal)and Ford Motor Company. HF financed American printing of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

Walter Teagle, Pres. Standard Oil provided high octane fuel for Nazi war machine. Largest stockholder, Rockefeller trust.

Tom Watson - IBM met w/ Hitler in 1937 to beef up business w/ the Nazi regime.

Alcoa - part of Aluminum cartel w/ IG Farben (Germany) investigated (1941) for withholding aluminum from US aircraft industry, while Nazi Germany had lots of the stuff.

Joseph Kennedy - disparaged Britain and British Democracy in 1940 while Ambassador to that country. The Communist term 'useful idiot' would seem to describe his actions. [This is an analogy, folks, not saying the elder Kennedy was a Communist or a Fellow Traveler.]

These are some other important Americans who and which had close ties with Nazi Germany. And there are many more who have dirty hands from dealing with Hitler even after his intentions were known. And I'm sure there were probably British folks doing much the same. Perhaps not so much the French.

So is there any reason that Prescott Bush was the only important person mentioned on this thread? Could someone's agenda sort of want to taint a certain President with the "sins" of his grandfather?

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 08:13 PM

"They knew exactly what they had in mind." - Weelittledrummer

Who is "they"? If you mean that every German soldier, worker, housewife, and civilian knew and approved of the Nazi policies of exterminating people which were ordered by sickos like Heinrich Himmler, you are deeply mistaken. The average German soldier, sailor, and airman were in the exact same position as their counterparts in any other armed forces in that war. Their concerns were to do their duty as best they could, as any soldier does, to watch out for the lives of the other guys in their unit, and to stay alive for another 24 hours, and to somehow to get through the damned war in one piece.

Your dehumanizing of them is just as inhuman as the WWII Nazi propagandists' dehumanizing of other people was.

Their flyers were just as courageous, dedicated, and often chivalrous as your own in England. Their great aces and airmen fully respected yours. When Douglas Bader was shot down over German territory he was shortly picked up by Adolf Galland and several other pilots from Galland's squadron and taken to dinner and honored and treated like a friend at their airfield. There was great respect among those men, because they had faced the same dangers in the same way.

Your damnation of all Germans in that war on account of what their stupid, irresponsible leaders in government sent them out to do is utterly uncomprehending of what they were actually dealing with on the human level...and if you'd been German and you'd there at the same time, chances are a thousand to one that you'd have done the very same as they did.

I do not buy guilt by association. If I did, I would consider every single American soldier who is presently stationed in Iraq to be a war criminal...and I don't consider them so. I see them as innocent victims of the situation foisted upon them by their bad and irresponsible leaders.

And how do you miss the river Thames when you're lost in a WWII bomber, you ask? I'll tell you how. You miss it (and everything else that's below you) when the whole damn area is totally socked in by cloud, fog, and ground mist to virtually zero visibility...as happened quite a bit over England in bad weather conditions, specially after dark...and still does nowadays, I believe. In a case like that you jettison your bomb load to increase your range and hope to hell you will find your way back across the channel and get back to your airfield.

They had orders NOT to bomb London, and they did their very best to obey those orders as long as those orders stood.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Greg B
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 08:06 PM

There's a fellow over at the National Catholic Reporter (who
enlist all kinds) named Coleman McCarthy who tries on occasion
to convince us all that if everyone had just 'passively resisted'
the Nazis, they would have capitulated in the end.

Of course he doesn't ever calculate how many years and dead
Catholics, Jews, homosexuals, and anyone who wasn't blonde
with blue eyes that would have taken...

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:48 PM

Whatever the arguments about the justification for the war, and whether it could have been avoided, and what alternative paths history might have taken, it is worth reflecting that the Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but one of its consequences.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:39 PM

To add on to Carol's post, the linked article makes some seriously good observations about both then (Nazi germany) and today (Canada, US, Mexico). THIS IS worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:37 PM

I suspect most wars are accopmanied by alot of PR. Always interesting to see another perspective to an old story, for reflection purposes, even if not for a learning experience.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:14 PM

We know that there were non-Germans who were instrumental in the financing of Hitler. Several of them at least, were Americans, including Prescott Bush...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brown_Brothers_and_Company

Prescott Bush also appears to have profited from slave labor from the concentration camps through his involvement with the Silesian Steel Company.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:13 PM

In my home own Boston in Lincolnshire, they captured a German paratrooper. The guy knew all the pubs in Boston - he had been sent over here reconnnoitering the place before the war.

They knew exactly what they had in mind. I don't buy this tripe about, 'sorry guv we must have turned left at Basingstoke at that roundabout and hit london by mistake....'. I mean seriously how could you miss tell tale signs like the River Thames......

If Hitler was only impersonating a complete bastard, he wasn't a real one....he had me fooled. it was a bloody good act. Germany's got talent. They wouldn't need to rely on dancing dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:09 PM

I don't think so. But you're welcome to your opinion.

The tremendous capacity of the human race to adapt and endure tends to overcome the grandiose notions of extreme idealogues like Adolf Hitler. They run headfirst into reality, and it defeats them.

I expect that to happen to the current crop of fascists as well...in time.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:03 PM

If Hitler had invaded Britain we'd not be reading anything. We would have been the next after the Jews for a "Final Solution". He as good as predicted such an end in Mein Kampf.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 06:56 PM

All I'm saying, Don, is that the Luftwaffe had been given very specific instructions in 1940 NOT to bomb London. They were to avoid doing so at any cost. This could have been for a number of different reasons...I don't think it was because Hitler was a notable humanitarian! ;-) I think it was mainly because Hitler was still hopeful of reaching some kind of negotiated settlement with the British to end the fighting, and then getting them perhaps to join him in attacking Russia at some point which was what he had always hoped to do, and he didn't want to alienate them beyond a certain point by bombing their capital.

(this could also be why he held back the Panzers at Dunkirk the same year and allowed most of the B.E.F. to escape.)

It was probably also because he didn't want to cause them to retaliate by bombing Berlin and other major centres in Germany...which they obviously could do if they decided to.

I am not saying the British are to blame for the German Blitz. I am saying that the German Blitz on London did not begin as a policy until after the British had deliberately bombed Berlin...and Hitler then went berserk, made a big speech about how he was going to bomb the hell out of London (just like Bush would do if someone were to bomb Washington or any other big American city)...and WHAMMO! Pandora's box was then well and truly opened.

I'm sure it would have happened at some point anyway. These things always do in wartime. The unthinkable rapidly becomes thinkable in the heat of action. And the fact is, both sides always feel 100% justified in what they are doing, because they are both under the rock solid impression that THEY and they alone are the "good guys" and the defenders of civilization!

That's how the human mind functions. It is forever justifying its own actions to itself (and to anyone else who can stand listening...).

If the Germans had won that war, we'd all still be reading about their "heroic" deeds on behalf of humanity till the more cynical or skeptical among us were heartily sick of it, I assure you. And we would never hear a peep about the concentration camps either...unless it was Soviet ones perhaps.

And the less skeptical among us? Oh, they'd be repeating the official line as gospel, and Churchill and Stalin would be their standins for "Hitler".

Nothing conforms like conformity. Nothing succeeds like success.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 06:55 PM

Well of course it could just be phenomenon that WLD so aptly described in another thread about a book identifying Jack The Ripper:

"Its a bit like a book purporting to prove the earth is flat. Experience informs us this book was probably:-

1) written by an utter twat
2) written for the money"

Apologies Al just couldn't resist it - seemed to fit the circumstances so well.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 05:51 PM

why is it we can all see this blokes talking a load of crap and the publisher and the media whores who publicise this crap can't see it?

Have you considered the possiblity that you have as awful a class system in the USA as we have over in England?

If this was some thick arsehole in a pub with fifteen pints inside him talking this bollocks - you'd move out of his way. Because he has the all the tags of intellectual respectability - he sneaks in below the bullshit radar, drops his pants, unloads the incendiary crap and produces a media firestorm.

I blame Guy Gibson.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 05:43 PM

""Now, as far as I know according to what I've read, the first bombs dropped by the Germans on London were dropped by a single lost German bomber that had no idea where he was at the time and he was afraid of not getting home, and he jettisoned the bombs through the overcast in hopes of dumping weight and staying in the air longer.""

Yes, LH, I believe it was a single bomber, a fact which became apparent, AFTER the war, when German records were captured (great record keepers, the Germans).

However, Churchill and Co were no better at mind reading than anyone else, and it was, AT THE TIME, taken for the first direct attack on London civilians.

Would that hindsight came berore the event, but alas, it doesn't.


Logic, Joe, suggests that the alternatives to war that were tried, resulted in German control of the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria.

How then can you extrapolate from that, a logical sequence of events in which this land hungry aggressor suddenly decides he has enough territory, and stops annexing sovereign states.

No, my friend, the only logical prediction is that at some point he will have to be stopped by force.

This is not justification by proving him evil. It is recognition of his predatory intentions, and frustration of said intentions by the ONLY logical means available.

Justification per se is immaterial. All that is needed is to recognise that only force CAN work in this scenario, and it is a scenario entirely of Hitler's making, whatever past events may have led to it.

After all, the crushing of German military might after 1918 (to which Hitler so violently objected) was in response to that country having plunged Europe into a four year war of attrition which killed more human beings than WW II.

Does anyone see a pattern here, and an indication of a national characteristic?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 05:15 PM

Wiki article that basically agrees with other histories I've read.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 05:13 PM

I wonder about the similarities and/or differences between Baker's book and Buchanan's. I'm not likely to buy either one, and it'll be a while before the library gets copies. I'm sure they agree on some points and differ on others, and I'd imagine that the points of agreement may be more-or-less persuasive, or at least worthy of consideration.

**********************

You can be a pacifist without having to claim that everyone has to be a pacifist, and especially without having to prove that past events would have turned out better if everyone on one side of a conflict were pacifists while those on the other side remained belligerent.

(If everyone on both sides of a conflict should embrace pacifism, of course, there would be no problem at all. I'm reminded of my mother's angry objection to my refusal to be drafted for Vietnam: "What if everybody thought like you do ~ then what? We'd all be killed!" Such a reaction, of course, is based on the assumption that only "we," the human beings on our side, are included among "everybody.")

Pacifism may be "about" the very public and communal experience of warfare, but it's really and most basically a personal spiritual stance. Insofar as pacifism can play a role in the public arena, nonviolent resistance to evil is the key element, and it ain't easy. Stringsinger is right: pacifism is decidedly not "passive-ism."

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 05:03 PM

It's well-known that Hilter was very cozy with the major German industrialists - the relationship between Hitler and I.G. Farben chemical was particularly disturbing. He didn't have such a good relationship with the military - a large number of high-ranking officers were involved in the 1944 assassination attempt.

I gather that in general, railroad lines are not good targets for bombing. Bridges are, trains are, but not the tracks themselves. When tracks are damaged here at Donner Pass on the Transcontinental Railroad, they can be fixed within hours. And Hitler had slave labor to do the repairs.

Frank mentions the Resistance. I suppose it wasn't pacifist, but its most effective targets were facilities instead of people - and certainly not civilian targets. The Resistance was certainly effictive against railroads, apparantly much more effective than aerial bombing.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:40 PM

My position shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I am quite consistent in my stance on human rights.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:33 PM

Joe, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is "non-violent resistance" not shown in WWII.
It would have never been given credence. You could postulate though that it might well have worked were it planned and organized against Hitler. Those who consider this idea naive have not done research on the application of non-violent resistance. It is assumed that somehow pacifism is passive but it is anything but.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:24 PM

Lord! It is a miracle! The heavens have opened up and the angels sing!

CarolC and I agree on something, at least in general, even if not the actual analogy she makes.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:17 PM

I would like to see a list of all of the people and corporations that financed Hitler's rise to power, and his military machine during the war. I suspect that, while the war was necessary once Hitler was entrenched, it may have been one of those situations in which (like Saddam), his rise to power was assisted by people with secondary agendas, and not all of them Germans.

I would also like to know why, not only the death camps, but also the railroad lines leading to the death camps were not bombed into oblivion early on. That's a question that has been bothering me for a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:12 PM

"Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc"

THAT is caused by smoking too much.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:06 PM

Joe, I, too took a course in logic. It was one of the short stories compiled in Max Shulman's, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," the book not the TV show, or "Barefoot Boy with Cheek." I forget which.
Dicto Simpliciter, Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc...see, I are educated.

(actually they did adapt the story for the series, but it wasn't as funny)

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:47 PM

"the potential author could probably get a government grant to off-set costs and other expenses."

OK, I'm on it.

"The War That Never Was" by Fred Krum.

I awoke earlr that ill-fated September morn from a deep sleep. Trouble by persistent dreams of the war that wasn't about to happen I lept from the bed only to catch my balls on the brass bedpost. Screaming like Stukas from the war that wasn't about to happen I--

How is it so far?

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:46 PM

Joe, my post at 3:34 refers to yours at 3:11.

Re: Yours at 3:32, I agree no one is 'really blaming' Britain, but it comes awfully close, IMO, to removing some of the onus from Hitler in starting the Blitz. Too, I believe, by analogy with his other actions, that Hitler would have blitzed London in the not distant future whether or not Britain retaliated for that 'accidental' raid.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:46 PM

SIX debate points awarded to Bruce Murdoch ;)

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:42 PM

"argumentum ad absurdum"

I think I contracted that in the 1960s. If I recall, penicillin cured it in about ten days.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:38 PM

C'mon, John. It's an old political trick, also used by religious groups and by nations that want to justify warfare by proving an opponent evil:

redefine your opponent's position until it's ridiculous, and then refute it - that's argumentum ad absurdum.

Hey, I gotta do something with my minor in Philosophy and six years of Latin (and my expertise in HTML).
-Joe-

You, too, can do amazing things like blue clickies - just see the Mudcat HTML Guide.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:34 PM

Joe, does this mean we all need to use italicized Latin to score points?
Since I don't do HTML nor foreign language, I'll never score. Nonetheless, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right! Just ask me if it isn't so. ;=)

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:32 PM

If you'll forgive my use of another philosophical term, it seems to be argumentum ad absurdum to accuse the author of blaming Britain for the bombing of London.
(another two debate points awarded to Joe Offer).

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:14 PM

I love it. It's Britain's fault that London was bombed! Whether the initial bombing of London was an accident, on purpose, or accidentally on purpose, the fact is Germany and England were in a hot war. Germany was bombing British towns and cities. As I've said on other threads, the perpetrator does not get to choose the victim's form of response.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:11 PM

Hi irishenglish -

I don't think Little Hawk or I see anything offensive in your post. I certainly agree that the Allies had the "Moral High Ground" in World War II. Still, I think there's good reason to explore pacifism as an alternative. Even if the Allies were right, was war justified, and did it do better than the alternatives? The cost of World War II was amazingly high.

John of the Sunset Coast, I would agree that the Holocaust not an a priori justification for World War II. However, it has been used countless times as an ex post facto justification. Bill D will no doubt come in and correct me on my misuse of philosophical terms, buy I'm sure you catch my drift...
(two debate points awarded to Joe Offer).

-Joe, of the Sunset Foothills-

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:04 PM

I really don't buy that. Germany's actions leading up-to nd during the war were more than just 'what their government did.' There was something seriously wrong with that generation.
"If you'd been born one of them, you would have to suck up all your pride now and listen to someone like you telling you how evil and unforgivable your people are for what their government did. You wouldn't like that. When the shoe is on the other foot it doesn't feel good at all."

A few years after Napoleon passed away, someone wrote a book claiming that he never existed!!
"IMO, someone with the time should write a book proving that WWII never happened at all."

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 02:59 PM

"the first bombs dropped by the Germans on London were dropped by a single lost German bomber that had no idea where he was at the time and he was afraid of not getting home.......Upon arriving back at his home airfield, the crew was in deep trouble with their own high command.......I believe they were arrested and sent to Berlin for extensive questioning." - Little Hawk

I know where you got that from the screenplay from the film "Battle of Britain"

Here on the other hand is what actually happened according to the official history of the period:

"During a raid on Thames Haven, on 24 August, some German aircraft strayed over London and dropped bombs in the east and northeast parts of the city, Bethnal Green, Hackney, Islington, Tottenham and Finchley."

Hells-teeth LH, that one lone aircraft must have been carrying one hell of a bomb load to bomb all those areas of London.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 02:52 PM

"Human Smoke," by novelist Nicholson Baker indicates that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt share blame with Adolf Hitler in setting the stage for the deadliest and most destructive war in history.

Now I would have a little difficulty in swallowing that line of argument particularly in the case of Churchill. The charge – "share blame with Adolf Hitler in setting the stage for the deadliest and most destructive war in history." The book ends on December 31, 1941, as the world plunges into the abyss.

To be responsible for setting the stage for what was to become known as the Second World War I would have imagined that it would be necessary if not essential for an individual to have some sort of political power to be able to influence things. From the 1929 Election until he was recalled to the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 Churchill held no appointments at all, yet we are expected to believe that between Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill the tragedy know as Second World War was cooked up.

"Churchill responded to Hitler's attacks on Poland and other neighboring states by launching a relentless bombing campaign against German cities as well as a blockade that was designed to starve the enemy into submission." – Baker was surprised and shocked about this according BB's post.

I must admit so am I, because if memory serves me correctly Hitler's attacks on Poland and other neighbouring states were made whilst Winston Churchill was at the Admiralty – Anyone care to explain how the First Lord of the Admiralty could launch, "a relentless bombing campaign against German cities", I can, however, see how he could be very well placed to mount a, "blockade that was designed to starve the enemy into submission". That has after all been the standard operating procedure for the Royal Navy in time of war since the days of the Armada – I believe that during the American Civil War the Naval Forces of the Union blockaded the ports of the Confederacy. In time of war you do not allow your enemies the luxury of resupply if you can possibly avoid it. Counter to what Mr. Baker might think Churchill was not, "acting like a bloodthirsty maniac during that period" – He was applying cool clear commonsense and putting into place the resources at his disposal to the best possible effect.

This bit I thought was hilarious:

"Baker maintains that Churchill's bellicose actions and Roosevelt's eagerness to supply Britain with ships and planes served only to prop up Hitler's standing with Germans and strengthen his hold on the country.

"It was the war -- the long, slow war of bombing and blockade -- that fundamentally helped to keep Hitler in power," he said. "The fact that the country was attacked night after night in this way released a massive antipathy to the British."

As if had neither done that Hitler would have quietly relinquished power and all would have been well. That sort of conveniently ignores the fact that by this stage by force of arms the man has rampaged across the whole of Europe and has suceeded in enslaving the populations of those countries unfortunate enough to have fallen under the "protection" of the Third Reich.

Now apparently "Human Smoke," draws its title from a description of the ashes at Auschwitz, now that draws me to this:

"Among the skeptics was Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum, who helped oversee the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"If there ever was a war that was worth fighting it was World War II, and there is no evidence that I know of whatsoever that Hitler would have responded to passivity except to regard that as empowering him to expand," Berenbaum said. "Hitler could only be stopped by force."

The ashes that Mr. Baker drew his book's title from were people who showed exactly how Hitler responded to passivity.

I can remember a long time ago on a Junior Staff Course being part of a group given the task of proving that the United States of America was responsible for starting the Second World War – We did quite a good job of it, although the culprit was not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was Woodrow Wilson, his Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles.

Subject: RE: BS: WWII unjustified?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 02:46 PM

Don, I fully agree that it was unwise to keep appeasing Germany during the 30's. It was a huge error. If the French and British had openly, forcefully opposed the Germans far earlier in the game (such as when the Germans moved troops into the Rheinland) the war would have been prevented, and Hitler's government would have failed to endure very long. If the French and British had stood by Czechoslovakia in '38 and if the Czechs had held their nerve and prepared to fight, there is strong evidence to suggest that Hitler's government would have collapsed in a military coup launched by the German top generals against Hitler and his chief Nazi lieutenants. The reason? The German generals, a traditional and practical bunch, were convinced that their military forces were not ready to fight the Czechs (who were well-armed and well-entrenched), let alone the Czechs with French and British support. That would have saved Germany from Naziism and prevented the Second World War.

Never make the mistake that I would be advising appeasement toward the Hitler regime. I would not have advised it whatsoever. They had to be confronted as early as possible, and with absolute resolve on the part of the French and the British.

***********

Now, as far as I know according to what I've read, the first bombs dropped by the Germans on London were dropped by a single lost German bomber that had no idea where he was at the time and he was afraid of not getting home, and he jettisoned the bombs through the overcast in hopes of dumping weight and staying in the air longer. Upon arriving back at his home airfield, the crew was in deep trouble with their own high command...because they had unintentionally violated official orders not to bomb London. I believe they were arrested and sent to Berlin for extensive questioning.

The accidental bombing of London by one lost airplane does not constitute a deliberate bombing attack by Germany upon London. It does not constitute an act of policy. The British response to it was very deliberate. They bombed Berlin in substantial numbers, and it did constitue an act of policy...a policy which continued to the war's end. The German Blitz on London was in immediate response to that policy. Hitler ordered it for primarily emtional and political reasons (to appease his own public) and in so doing he inadvertently lost the Battle of Britain! (because the vital airfields of Fighter Command got a reprieve, just at the point where they most desperately needed one)

My father was there also in the Blitz. He saw the air battles happening directly over London, and he told me a great deal about it. His favorite plane, naturally, was the Spitfire. His interest in the aircraft of the time had much to do with my lifelong interest in modeling those same aircraft.

Every human population, Don, goes enthusiastically for a war when their country is winning, they cheer for their leaders, and they hunker down and dig in and fight bitterly when their country is getting the worst of it. This is a universal characteristic of human populations, all of whom dearly love the land they were born on, and the Germans are no different in that respect from anyone else. Patriotism is natural to all populations.

They just happened to be under a very bad government at the time. If you can't feel sorry for them, then you have never really known them as your fellow human beings. That's unfortunate, but I don't expect to be able to do anything about it.

(By the way, they don't all say now, "Well, of course we were all against him".   They say nothing of the kind, at least in private. I've known quite a number of Germans who were in that war, and I never heard one of them say that yet. Most of them freely admit that they fully supported Hitler at the time, and they genuinely thought he was doing the right thing for Germany (in terms of fighting the war, etc....I am not referring in any way to the Holocaust). Many of them now can see plainly that the Nazis were a bad government which misled the country...most did not see it at the time, except very late on in the war...and some of them will never see it that way.)

The average Briton, if born in Germany, would have supported Hitler every bit as enthusiastically as the average German did.

If you'd been born one of them, you would have to suck up all your pride now and listen to someone like you telling you how evil and unforgivable your people are for what their government did. You wouldn't like that. When the shoe is on the other foot it doesn't feel good at all.