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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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I always admire the confidence of Monday-morning Quarterbacks.
I have to wonder about the Japanese people who said they regretted that Tibbets express regret. Have those individuals apologized to China for starting the war in the first place? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:36 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I always admire the confidence of Monday-morning Quarterbacks. |
Indeed. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Have those individuals apologized to China for starting the war in the first place? |
Getting the Japanese to apologize for anything they did during the Empire, or even getting them to teach their kids the truth about that time, is like pulling teeth.
Asian countries and their "face". Bleh. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:13 am Post subject: |
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I think a lot of the individuals who took part, on either side, feel a lot of pain and regret for their actions. But generally they were just doing what they had to do.
Can anyone find a single documented case of a bomber crew not releasing bombs on a city during the war in order to spare lives? Generally you were given a target and you attacked it. If you didn't then the other side would do the same to you. That was the mentality the soldiers were operating under, whether it's justified or not. The simple fact that the vast majority of crews did their jobs shows that those actions were all too human. Most of us, had we been born at the right time and given the same kind of training and experiences, would be pushing the button as well.
It's also funny how there's so little focus on the firebombings, which killed so many more. What is it about nukes, anyway? |
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KirbyMagnus
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:14 am Post subject: |
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It is good of him to apologise. But it was a war. He was following orders. That is the understanding. It is not for individuals to apologise, the governments they served must apologise for their actions and the orders they gave.
WW2 was a dark time in human history. We must remember it to ensure that it does not happen again. But in terms of handing out blame and apologies, we should just draw a line under what happened and move on. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:17 am Post subject: |
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| KirbyMagnus wrote: |
It is good of him to apologise. But it was a war. He was following orders. That is the understanding. It is not for individuals to apologise, the governments they served must apologise for their actions and the orders they gave.
WW2 was a dark time in human history. We must remember it to ensure that it does not happen again. But in terms of handing out blame and apologies, we should just draw a line under what happened and move on. |
The allies changed some of those rules when they executed a lot of the death camp guards and commandants. And a good thing too.
Although your idea is good in principle, "I was following orders" isn't a sufficient legal defense for atrocities. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 2:26 am Post subject: Re: Luftwaffe pilot apologises for bombing England: would yo |
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| Julius wrote: |
"The war was madness. I realise now what I did and will come back to say sorry.
"I was afraid the British would be very angry but I find that now they are very gentle."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=547269&in_page_id=1770
By Contrast:
"Japanese survivors of the world's first nuclear attack on Hiroshima voiced regret that the American pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb died without saying sorry.
Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr, whose B-29 bomber dubbed the Enola Gay dropped the 9,000-pound "Little Boy" bomb on August 6, 1945, died on Thursday at his home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 92.
Tibbets never expressed regret for the bombing that led to the end of World War II but at a horrific price: 140,000 dead immediately and 80,000 other Japanese succumbing in the aftermath"
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2513549.cms |
It's worth pointing out that under the Japanese occupation of China, Korea and Southeast Asia, well over 100,000 Asians were dying of starvation, war and forced labor every month since at least the beginning of 1944. And the majority of Japanese were in favor of continuing to prosecute the war even after the Hiroshima bombing. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| Long story short: Julius you've had your ass handed to you. Better luck next time. *grin* |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:34 am Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Have those individuals apologized to China for starting the war in the first place? |
Getting the Japanese to apologize for anything they did during the Empire, or even getting them to teach their kids the truth about that time, is like pulling teeth.
Asian countries and their "face". Bleh. |
Asian concept of face > Western perpetual demand for apologies for past wrongs |
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KirbyMagnus
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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| OneWayTraffic wrote: |
| KirbyMagnus wrote: |
It is good of him to apologise. But it was a war. He was following orders. That is the understanding. It is not for individuals to apologise, the governments they served must apologise for their actions and the orders they gave.
WW2 was a dark time in human history. We must remember it to ensure that it does not happen again. But in terms of handing out blame and apologies, we should just draw a line under what happened and move on. |
The allies changed some of those rules when they executed a lot of the death camp guards and commandants. And a good thing too.
Although your idea is good in principle, "I was following orders" isn't a sufficient legal defense for atrocities. |
I agree. But what I meant was that the individual front line soldiers should not be handed any blame. At the Nuremberg trials it was the high ranking officers who gave the orders who were executed. Your average grunt doesn't really have a choice on whether to follow orders or not.
I don't believe anything goes in war. there are War Crimes tribunals for a reason. The death camp guards deserved to be punished as well as their superiors. But the bomber pilots were following orders, the officers are accountable. The death camps were not a military operation.
Though they were bombing civilian targets I still consider it a comabt operation, in the context of WW2 (now such tactics are rightly considered abhorent). The slaughter in the death camps however was genocide.
There is a difference between "Collateral Damage" (I hate that term) and ethnic cleansing. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 4:15 am Post subject: |
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| KirbyMagnus wrote: |
| But what I meant was that the individual front line soldiers should not be handed any blame. |
If a gang puts a gun in your hand and tells you to kill a guy in front of you, and then points out behind the gang is your family in bondage and the gang will kill every last one of them unless you follow orders, what is the logical choice? |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: |
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The point is: Yes, nobody should be forced to apologise for what they did in wartime. It is unreasonable to expect.
but: An apology helps heal the emotional suffering of victims. It also makes the person involved feel better and heal. It heals international relations. In short, it is very good value and produces very positive results with very minimal effort. It has only good results: there are no negatives to such an act. As I pointed out to misery guts earlier.. everybody wins!.
But i didn't expect mindmetoo to get it: every action in life has to have scientific justification as far as he's concerned. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
But i didn't expect mindmetoo to get it: every action in life has to have scientific justification as far as he's concerned. |
No. That's a silly straw man. My point is you had your ass handed to you. Lick it up. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| KirbyMagnus wrote: |
| But what I meant was that the individual front line soldiers should not be handed any blame. |
If a gang puts a gun in your hand and tells you to kill a guy in front of you, and then points out behind the gang is your family in bondage and the gang will kill every last one of them unless you follow orders, what is the logical choice? |
Start shooting the gang members. Interrogate the survivors. |
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KirbyMagnus
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 7:16 am Post subject: |
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| OneWayTraffic wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| KirbyMagnus wrote: |
| But what I meant was that the individual front line soldiers should not be handed any blame. |
If a gang puts a gun in your hand and tells you to kill a guy in front of you, and then points out behind the gang is your family in bondage and the gang will kill every last one of them unless you follow orders, what is the logical choice? |
Start shooting the gang members. Interrogate the survivors. |
They outnumber you. They have guns. End result. You maybe kill a couple of them. The guy in front of you gets killed, you get killed, and your family gets killed.
So instead of one guy dying, a lot of people end up dying.
You must follow orders. You have no choice. It is war. |
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