I think that's rather like the Wehrmacht, Steve. Because the SD came along behind them and committed atrocities, does not authorize condemning the common foot soldier out of hand. I restricted my remarks to Churchill and Harris for precisely that reason. That is why public dissent and questioning of the motives and actions of the government are so crucial. We not only cannot hold the aircrew responsible, we have to have a system in which aircrew, or foot soldiers, execute their orders immediately, to the best of their ability, witout question--if we are to have effective military establishments upon which we can rely.
Your point about the nature of hindsight is very much to the point. It is difficult indeed to take a courageous position in such a circumstance. In the Sherston trilogy, Seigfried Sassoon (sp?) tells a fictionalized version of his own stand against the madness. He went to the Somme in 1916, where he was said to have been recklessly brave, and where he was once decorated for having captured a german trench line by himself. When his friend David Thomas was killed, he decided to take a stand, and refused to return to the trenches. I've read Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, but not the last work, the title of which i do not recall. That is a rare form of courage indeed.
William Faulkner wrote a novel, A Fable, to which he devoted ten years of his life, and which he personally considered his masterpiece. It was based upon the 1917 French mutiny. The conviction and execution of enlisted "ringleaders" is an extended metaphor from the last supper and the crucifixtion.
William Campbell was a veteran of the United States Marines in World War I. He fought at Belleau Wood. After the war, writing under the pen name William March, he wrote a single novel for which he is only obliquely remembered--The Bad Seed. Maxwell Anderson made a play of the novel, and a motion picture was made in 1956, which is considered the type from which stories such as The Exorcist derive. But March (Campbell) also wrote Company K, a collection of stories about 113 survivors of a Marine Company on the western front. In it, he relates instances of Marines executing German POW's, and mutinies put down with the threat of machine guns. When no was paying any attention to the book, the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1930's ranted against the book and author with great shrillness. It certainly makes one wonder.
An interesting question you pose, Steve--how would one act in such a situation? Why was dissent from the First World War so noticeable, and why did some muntinies occur, but we hear nothing of this in World War Two? I have read that a Territorial Division (maybe the 52d? i con't recall) from London mutinied, and refused to advance during Montgomery's fiasco campaign against Caen in Normandy. Pvt. Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion in the face of the enemy, the only soldier charged with the crime and executed in the U.S. Army in World War Two--an excellent movie was made with Martin Sheen in the title role. But why are these stories buried, or forgotten? Are we still so addicted to notions of martial glory?
Set
you pose a lot of interesting questions, and some day, when the effects of ethanol have receded, I intend answering them.
or should that be 'affects'
I really worry about thes things now. A sign of ageing perhaps? No doubt our resident English German scholar, sorry German English scholar ....yes you Walter, will advise.
Affect can only be used as a verb, while effect is normally a noun.
To affect something is to bring about an effect. The words are not interchangeable.
However, just to complicate things, effect may also be used as a verb meaning "to bring about" or "to accomplish":
"The drug effected a change in his personality."
As most Germanic languages, Ebglish isn't very logical (and differs a lot from German [where we have plural sheep, Setanta - although some were killed
]).
And: thanks for that compliment, Steve - but as an experienced Hochdruckreiniger expert, you mustn't know all
Thanks Walter, I will remember that effect is a noun, except when its a verb.
But at least I used it correctly despite being affected (passive? verb) from the effects (noun) of alcohol. Its beer that effects (verb) change. So lets raise a glass to the wonders of English and Hochdruckreiniger.
We'll do this on Thursday (for 'English') and Friday (for the 'Hochdruckreiniger')
(add another glass for 'history' to Thursday)
Since some days, there's a very interesting re "allied bombing of Germany" online (on a forum of 'h-net', thus no "amateurish" commends):
World War II bombing: rethinking German experiences
From the Introduction:
Quote:The publication last fall of Joerg Friedrich's book, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945 (Munich: Propylaeen, 2002) unleashed a heated public discussion within Germany of the (as a Spiegel series described it) Bombenkrieg gegen die Deutschen and allowed at least some in the German public to question the meaning of German "victimhood" under bombardment. Only three years earlier, W. G. Sebald had described postwar German literature's almost total silence on the air war (Luftkrieg und Literatur), a literary taboo that seemed to suggest that wartime destruction had become little more than a necessary staging ground for the postwar economic miracle. Together, these two books have helped to delineate a shift in this public discussion but also to challenge historians to find a space for their own critical perspective, one that builds on forty years of increasingly nuanced examinations of war, violence, destruction, complicity, and resistance.
As international tensions increased in the run-up to the war in Iraq, the German debate crossed the Atlantic and interjected itself into American discussions as well. Peter Schneider's New York Times review of Friedrich's book was entitled "The Germans are breaking an old taboo" (NYT 18 January 2003, B7). National Public Radio even included an interview with Friedrich in a discussion of World War II memories and German opposition to the war in Iraq (available online). Thus while World War II Anglo-American bombing campaigns have figured prominently in British and American historical accounts and memoirs from the period, these recent moments of publicity hint at the intellectual and political resonance that this ambiguous, German experience might enjoy beyond German borders.
Following the success of H-German's spring forum on the miniseries, Hitler: the rise of evil, the editors are pleased to announce an upcoming forum that will use the books of Sebald and Friedrich as a starting point for a discussion of the historical and historiographical implications of this recently emerging debate. In particular, the editors view this as an opportunity to maintain our commitment to both the intensive engagement with the theoretical and practical implications of recent scholarship and the analysis of the place available to German history and its scholars in the public intellectual arena.
..wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity...
By that definition, the answer can only be: YES
1.Dresden
2. A city in the baltic, full of refugees, purposely attacked and killed following a Russian wish.
Agree marxism, except for your Marxist (revisionist) geography. Welcome to A2K btw.
Huh? What is the problem with Marxism?
Marxism wrote:Huh? What is the problem with Marxism?
1) Point out its successes. Note, this is not an invitation to examine, explain, confirm, deny, or otherwise debate, challenge, or defend Marxism as philosophy or ideology, it is a challenge to point to anywhere, anywhen, geographically and temporally that Marxism has proved efficacious, practicable, and successful.
2) See #1
I submit you'll have to look further afield than Chile. To critically examine that example, I suggest you look at, among others,
Marxism in Latin America (Revised Edition);
Ed. Aguilar, J. , Temple University Press, 1997/1999,
The Struggle for Democracy in Chile;
Eds. Drake, P. and Jaksic, I, University of Nebraska Press, (Rev. 1995)
and
Marxism in Latin America: From 1909 to the Present;
Ed. Lowry, M., Prometheus Books, 1991
The website
www.vcrisis.com offers this pertinent study:
Venezuela: Back to the Future, a Comparison with Chile's Transition to Democracy , which points out
Quote:In the case of Chile, Pinochet's rise to power was a direct result of two factors: 1) a widespread fear of Marxism that was embodied in the Allende government; and 2) desperation for a return to social order which had unravelled with the mass protests against the Allende government. Chileans had come to believe that traditional politics had failed and politicians were incapable of resolving the country's problems. Only someone capable of rising above politics, endowed with great powers could bring stability to the country.
Also, a relevant segment of a very lengthy Yale University paper may be found at:
http://www.yale.edu/yup/pdf/cim13.pdf (Download notice: 10 page PDF file)
And finally, I submit to you that Allende's experiment was anything but a success, for Marxism, for Chile or for himself. Widespread popular unrest, acompanied by violence and resulting in the imposition of a brutal successor regime and further dire fiscal and humanitarian distress is hardly success. Unless you like things that way.
I wanna know when they moved Dresden from Saxony to the Baltic . . . that musta cost a mint . . .
Yeah, we still collecting money to re-move it to the original place
Required donations
Geeze, and that's just one church . . . good luck, Walter . . .
Setanta wrote:I wanna know when they moved Dresden from Saxony to the Baltic . . . that musta cost a mint . . .
I think you'll have to consult priveliged Marxist history to ferret out the details; this bit of geopolotical upheaval appears to be a closely guarded secret available only to trusted initiates.
Marxism is correct that bombing Dresden was a war crime. He is also correct that Chile was or at least might have been a success, had it been given a chance, and not subverted by American corporations, the CIA, and the American government.
Marxism is wrong about the location of Dresden.
2 out of 3 ain't bad.
I thought stupidity wasnt present here, oh well.
I gave 2 examples of War crimes, not one. One be Dresden, the other one the baltic city I dont know the name of.
I too am well aware where Dresden is situated. I grew up in the GDR.
And timberland, you are (most likely a) conservative
The only thing that was violent and inhuman was the American interfering when allende ruled the country.
I am pretty sick of people like you and dont intend to waste more time on this.
I just like to remind you, that it would be good to read as much as possible about Marxism and how it was abused.
But you are deaf, thus I stop here.
How about you read a bit of history, and learn how Marxism has abused, maimed and murdered millions of people in the last 80 years. Only the Nazi holocoust comes close to the oppression and inhuman crimes of the Communists. The Nazis crimes lasted a decade. Communist oppression began in 1918 and still exists as an ideal for a some.
Philosophical Marxism is a beautiful idea, but it has deadly flaws. Like Christianity and Islam, it can not tolerate the existence of any different ideal. It must reign supreme, and any means necessary can be explained as merely the historical forces of Dialectical Materialism. Marxists tend to be academics or fanatics, neither of whom have much understanding of the human condition. The crimes of the USSR, China, DPRK, Cambodia, half of Africa, Southwest Asia, and the dictatorships of South America can be directly traced back to the the notions expressed by Karl Marx, and the thugs who used that philosophy to justify their dictatorships.
Timber, you say, must be a conservative? I think so, but then you must be a naive child to think that Marxism is an ideal worth studying and pursuing.
