We should pool resources
Ukrainian War Developments
- Thread starter james smith esq
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Can you quote exactly where Sun Tzu allegedly approves of genocide or practically genocidal actions?
I have noticed that there seem to be disturbingly many writers here who apparently believe that 'Might makes right'
and 'the end always justifies the means'. Do they apply those principles to the conduct of their personal lives as well?
An American once told me that the USA could have 'won the war' in Vietnam by turning every village into a My Lai.
Genocide would have been his way of winning the war. Would not many writers here approve of that outcome?
If Indira Gandhi had bombarded the Golden Temple into oblivion, about all Sikhs would conclude that India had declared
war upon their faith. The Sikhs then (encouraged by Pakistan) would have intensified a 'holy war' against India.
Hitler had Tabun long before the RKKA invaded German territory. And Hitler never showed much, if any, concern for
German civilians in places overrun by his enemies. Hitler had some moral or personal scruples about chemical warfare.
In 1942, a German U-boat (U-156) sank the British ocean line RMS Laconia. Werner Hartenstein (U-156's captain)
immediately ordered rescue operations to begin for thousands of survivors. He broadcast his location and offered safe
conduct to Allied vessels for rescue work. He sought and received approval for this from Admiral Dönitz.
In response, having been made aware of its location, the USAAF ordered a B-24 bomber to sink U-156 at all costs.
When the B-24 arrived, it reported observing several lifeboats around the U-boat and many civilians on its deck.
Aboard the U-boat, a RAF officer (who had become a POW) asked for and received permission to contact the B-24.
"I'm a RAF officer aboard the U-boat. British women and children are aboard. Do not attack, I repeat, do not attack."
As the B-24 circled above (awaiting confirmation of the order to attack), a German sailor asked his captain:
"Requesting permission to open fire now. Let's shoot down that **** before it can kill us."
"Permission denied. Let it fire the first shot."
The B-24 descended even closer. As the bombs emerged, a cry of fury erupted from everyone beneath, regardless
of nationality. "Verdammt! Turn hard starboard now!" U-156 desperately attempted to evade at the last moment.
The bombs scored a near miss, killing civilians on or near U-156 but failing to sink or cripple it.
"The B-24 killed dozens of Laconia's survivors with bombs and attacks, forcing U-156 to cast into the sea the
remaining survivors that she had rescued, and to to avoid being destroyed."
--Wikipedia
Admiral Dönitz then ordered the U-boats never again to risk being attacked by stopping to rescue survivors.
This became known as the Laconia Order. Some U-boat captains disobeyed it and helped survivors anyway.
"The B-24 pilots mistakenly reported they had sunk U-156, and were awarded medals for bravery. Neither the US pilots
nor their commander were punished or investigated, and the matter was quietly forgotten by the US military. During the later
, a prosecutor attempted to cite the Laconia Order as proof of by Dönitz and his submariners.
The ploy backfired and caused much embarrassment to the United States after the incident's full report had emerged to the
public and the reason for the "Laconia order" was known."
--Wikipedia
After the B-24 attacked, a British man survived after drifting for many days in a lifeboat, where many other people died.
Once every year, he observes a solemn ceremony in which he prays for the souls of his long departed friends and for
Werner Hartenstein, who was later killed in action. He cannot forget or forgive the American airmen who attacked.
Would not many writers here admire those American airmen much more than they would respect Werner Hartenstein?
Germany never used what was by far the most effective and advanced chemical weapon arsenal in WWII because of 2 reasons:
1. The Germans actually didn’t know they were more advanced than the British or Americans. In fact they thought the reverse was true and the Americans checmical weapons technology was even further ahead than Germany’s own. The reason they believed is it interesting. They knew from pre-war the US chemical industry overall much larger and broadly as advanced as those of Germany. The germans had carefully monitored professional, academic, and technical literature originating from the US for indications of fundamental research that could lead to major chemical weapon advances. They found largely an absence of such topics amongst the literature. They erroneously concluded that the absence must be the result of a massive censorship campaign to disguise actual chemical weapon development because it is inconceivable the Americans were so far behind they hadn;t begin to do that kind of research yet. Based on the presumed scale of the imaginary censorship, the German erroneously deduced the american chemical weapons research program must be much larger than Germany’s own and given the scale of american chemical industry overall, likely resulted in much more progress than the Germans themselves had made.
2. Despite the popular image of the German army being highly mechanized, in fact majority of the German army during wwii still relied on horses for transportation motive power. The Germans never managed to develop a effective, well sealed gas masks that horses can be trained to wear. So even in cases where chemical weapons would have strongly favored the defenders such that even if the attacker had better chemical weapons, the deployment of chemical weapons by both sides would have given the advantage to the defenders, they Germans could not afford to use chemical weapons because it would have killed the horses which German infantry divisions relied upon for mobility of its supplies and heavy equipment.
Not really, American media use to market its lies but the reality is different "The missile strikes/Campaign did not suppress the Iraqi air defense commands or air defense network, but the Iraqi air defense force was subjected to extremely complex interference and electronic warfare that was not prepared/ ready for such a procedure, which blinded the radars and the missiles". Many Iraqi former air defense generals talk about this issue and I can put the links here if you like it (it is in the Arabic language)
100% agree
I would have love being a fly on the wall at that meeting. The quartet's interest are many and not all divergent, like oil and gas a good prices.
Now you are being dishonest, where have I mentioned genocide? You know this is just virtue signaling right? Have you just conveniently ignored the many parts where I said to avoid urban combat and war in general?
With your favorite example the Sikh situation I'd have attempted to siege the temple to starve them out, if they indeed do starve to death then it is their choice and not my fault. Again, avoid CQB if I can help it.
If the area is devoid of civilians then all target is valid military target, if the enemy is using civilian as meat shield then it is a hostage situation. The military is not police, how do they deal with hostage situation?
Don't be so CNN please, genocide is a very specific word with very specific definition. Don't just use the word whenever you feel like being dramatic.
Most of us are of the opinion to avoid war at all costs, but if you are going to fight, do it properly.
Americans had no problems committing genocide in Vietnam, there was very little "holding back". Neither did they in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was clear from that start that America/NATO considered their enemies subhuman.
No, the right thing would have been to find a peaceful solution and not turn a holy site for some Indians into a battlefield. Gandhi (the real one) wouldn't have attacked the Golden Temple.
If he used chemical weapons then so would the allies. It was in effect a MAD situation. He didn't have any problem using chemical warfare against his own civilians if they were Jews.
I'm not sure the point you are making. Is it admirable to put yourself and your own soldiers at risk to save civilians? Yes, but it can also be seen as dangerous. In that situation it's not appropriate to call either side good or bad and it's one of the unfortunate things that happens in war.
I don't morally agree with the idea that 'Might makes right' or that 'the end always justifies', its just that when the other party operates under that idea while we stick to our ideals righteously, we ended up losing more battles and grounds to them, because they give themselves more room to maneuver, which in turn give them more advantages, while we become restricted by our morals.
So we're forced to either stick to our ideals or survive by abandoning temporarily, others permanently for reasons they found that made them feel its pointless or indignant.
At last, the current material conditions of the world doesn't give us a lot of choices. People fight over an ever shrinking pie of prosperity, countries over dwindling resources and territories, and over ideologies because we all like to think we know better than another over how to better govern and fix the crisis we're currently experiencing that are sadly is beyond our control.
However I can see a way forward in the future, as key technologies slowly get ever more developed like AI, fusion energy, 3D printing and synthetic biology. We maybe able to finally solve those problems that are used to be beyond our control, and finally transition to a different type of world where we no longer divide ourselves through war, borders and identities.
If you check my post history, you might get the idea that I really want to the entire western world to collapse while China become the sole hegemony. However that just the product of me learning how this world currently operates, where even if I choose not to define myself, other will do it for me, so its better for me to root the side that promises my safety and prosperity. I truly hope that the things I'm optimistic about the future becomes reality, and that I can return to the views I used to hold as a child, the view that we should all work as one, which is humanity.
The context is Hitler's decision not to use chemical weapons in the Second World War.
What's relevant is what Hitler believed, not what some other Germans might have assumed.
First of all, Germany was unquestionably the most advanced in chemistry during the First World War.
" had been a major (and almost unique) producer of natural deposits such as ()."
--Wikipedia
Without the pioneering research of Fritz Haber and other chemists, the German war effort would have suffered
greatly due to the British naval blockade cutting off supplies from Chile.
"Although the Haber process is mainly used to produce today, during it provided with a source
of ammonia for the production of , compensating for the ' trade blockade on ."
--Wikipedia
It's well-known that Hitler was contemptuous of American technology and industrial potential.
In retrospect, this seems insane, but the USA's record of war production in the First World War was not very impressive.
The USA relied upon making or using primarily French arms (ranging from the famous 75 mm gun to fighter aircraft).
Hitler apparently concluded that the Americans were poor at innovation in military technology and would be no
better in the Second World War than they were in the First World War.
In the Second World War, Germany was more advanced than the USA in many fields of military technology.
Was there any reason to conclude that Hitler refrained from using chemical weapons only because he believed that
the USA was technologically superior in chemical weapons--of all things? I think not.
Hitler did not live long enough to see the first atomic bomb, but he was far from being in awe of American technology.
As a historian, I am aware of countless popular myths about the Second World War.
I already was well aware that the Wehrmacht had only a rather small minority of its divisions as mechanized.
Before the war, Germany was a less motorized society than the USA, UK, or even France.
But the argument that "one cannot use chemical weapons if one needs to use horse-drawn transport" is anti-historical.
In the First World War, both sides used chemical weapons on a wide scale even though they were even more dependent on horses.
In the Second World War, the Wehrmacht was not more dependent on horses than the RKKA (which had cavalry corps) was.
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