we need a new holiday

[ivan]

every march 16, shouldn't we get a day off to remember this great amerikkkan event?

[ivan]

“He fired at it [the baby] with a .45. He missed. We all laughed. He got up three or four feet closer and missed again. We laughed. Then he got up right on top and plugged him.”

[Dirtyleaf]

Why am I proudtobeunamerican?

[billcoe]

It was universally decried and it's not a pus speck on the pimple on the ass of Stalin, Mao, Franco, Pol Pot, Idi Amin or Hitler. If you want to bring up how shitty we are as Americans, google Curtis LeMay and lets have celebratory bonfires of remembrance for this that and the other. Hard to calculate but in 5 months it looks like Lemays "successful" firebombing campaign killed @ 500,000 Japanese civilians and left 5 million homeless.

 

And the moral of that story is:???

 

Bombs have no eyes.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

It was universally decried and it's not a pus speck on the pimple on the ass of Stalin, Mao, Franco, Pol Pot, Idi Amin or Hitler. If you want to bring up how shitty we are as Americans, google Curtis LeMay and lets have celebratory bonfires of remembrance for this that and the other.

 

Right on Bill! The difference between us and the others is that *WE* put our own on trial for this shit. But the hate-America-first crowd are always looking for a way to foist the moral-equivalency bullshit over their like-thinking simpleton compatriots and anyone else stupid enough to buy into it.

 

[billcoe]

Opps Steven, I added Curtis Lemay while you were posting, he got promoted.

[ivan]

we got the movie dr. stangelove for lemay - ain't no stinking holiday gonna top that!

 

i may just be hoping to parley the single day off for a combo-meal deal w/ st paddy's, where we get extra-liquored up to forget what we did in the first place

 

seriously though, bill, your generation remembers my lai (and lemay), but you're kidding yourself if you think kids born in the clinton-era (my bread n' butter) will

[ivan]

Right on Bill! The difference between us and the others is that *WE* put our own on trial for this shit.

yeah, all those my lai guys are still rotting in jail!

 

you might read the later-part of that link, kk, for the scores n' highlights of how every-one involved was spared an iota of responsiblity

 

on the flip side, today is also the anniversary of the halabja massacre - the iraqiis actually tried n' executed the fella who did that

[billcoe]

Yeah, but they'll know who Martin Luther King is even if you folks aren't teaching who George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are any more.

 

BTW, the leaftlet that the US dropped into the targeted cities before the bombing campaign started so as to give them a heads up was this. " Front side of OWI notice #2106, dubbed the “LeMay bombing leaflet,” which was delivered to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities on 1 August 1945. The Japanese text on the reverse side of the leaflet carried the following warning: “Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.” (See Richard S. R. Hubert, “The OWI Saipan Operation,” Official Report to US Information Service, Washington, DC 1946.)"

 

The Japanese military responded by executing all but a few captured Air Force officers and US civilians in detention.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Right on Bill! The difference between us and the others is that *WE* put our own on trial for this shit.

yeah, all those my lai guys are still rotting in jail!

 

 

Did I say they were in jail?

 

Did the Nazis, Stalin, Tojo, Pol Pot ever put their own on trial for war crimes? Was there a public outcry in their countries for these crimes? Were the regimes bitterly criticized in the press of their own nation?

 

That's right, I thought not.

[ivan]

we did a great job of prosecuting colonel chivington of sand creek fame too!

 

in fact, can you think of an american who was actually jailed or executed for a crime of this magnitude?

 

oh right - winning the war means not having to say yer sorry!

 

i will now return to punching my american flag in the face

[KaskadskyjKozak]

i will now return to punching my american flag in the face

 

why don't you just punch yourself in the face?

[ivan]

Did I say they were in jail?

 

Did the Nazis, Stalin, Tojo, Pol Pot ever put their own on trial for war crimes? Was there a public outcry in their countries for these crimes? Were the regimes bitterly criticized in the press of their own nation?

 

That's right, I thought not.

so we get to walk around w/ a smug sense of superiority b/c we put a handful of guys on trial, then let them all walk?

 

you might be getting me wrong - i'm not saying we're as awful as hitler, stalin or the like - our illusion of democracy IS brighter!

[ivan]

i will now return to punching my american flag in the face

 

why don't you just punch yourself in the face?

somehow this reminded me of my first fight w/ tyler

[billcoe]

Ivan, the amount of innocent civis we killed during the war was massive, although often unintentional. How many do you think we killed from high level B52 runs as we ramped them up as part of an exit strategy? ? Truthfully, those folks suffered bad, and they were not really counted and were generally impossible to count, unlike the Mai Lai massacre.

 

Lemay again in Vietnam from wikipedia:

 

"LeMay advocated a sustained strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnamese cities, harbors, ports, shipping, and other strategic targets. His advice was ignored. Instead, an incremental policy was implemented that focused on limited interdiction bombing of fluid enemy supply corridors in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. This limited campaign failed to destroy significant quantities of enemy war supplies or diminish enemy ambitions. Bombing limitations were imposed by President Lyndon Johnson for geopolitical reasons, as he was afraid that bombing Soviet and Chinese ships in port and killing Soviet advisers would bring the Soviets more directly into the war and destabilize the European Cold War.

 

Some military historians have argued that LeMay's theories were eventually proven correct. Near the war's end in December 1972, President Richard Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a high-intensity Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aerial bombing campaign, which included hundreds of B-52 bombers that succeeded in widespread destruction of previously untouched North Vietnamese strategic targets. These arguments state that the intense bombing compelled the communist government to quickly conclude negotiations that finally ended America's longest war. Others believe the impact was smaller, as the peace negotiations were only temporarily stalled and the North Vietnamese were trying to get better terms."

____________________________________________________________

 

 

And the moral still is? _________________________

[billcoe]

I am still left wondering why we fought in WW1?

[prole]

The difference between us and the others is that *WE* put our own on trial for this shit.

 

We cannot allow bad apples to spoil the bunch!

[tvashtarkatena]

A whole lotta WWII analogies get trotted out in threads like these, but I think it's instructive to track the nations which have started wars since then, and who is inarguably on the top of that heap. You can pretty much check the 'bullshit' box as far as justifications go for just about every single one of those conflicts, too.

 

Once we're in a war, of course, a whole lot of civilians die, but Hey, we didn't really mean it.

 

Yeah, we're so very different from the rest, but not necessarily in the way we'd all like to believe.

Edited March 16, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[tvashtarkatena]

It's also helpful to remind ourselves that we live in a country where a substantial percentage of the population favors waging first strike nuclear war against Iran. Furthermore, we bought and paid for the capability to do just that a thousand times over.

 

Yes, we're all so very different here.

[tvashtarkatena]

I've got to wonder whether adult infants like KKK ever ask themselves whether they're rooting for the country that is or the country that could be.

[ivan]

I am still left wondering why we fought in WW1?

"the first world war came and it went

the reason for fighting i never did get

but i learned to accept it, accept it with pride

and you don't count the dead

when god's on your side"

 

[tvashtarkatena]

But hey, Stalin sucked worse so it's all OK.

 

Setting a low standard is the surest formula for success.

[tvashtarkatena]

It's also the best excuse for failure.

 

Sarah Palin comes to mind.

[ivan]

Setting a low standard is the surest formula for success.

especially when yer 15 n' looking for yer first highschool girlfriend

I am still left wondering why we fought in WW1?

the krauts were trying to stir up the wetbacks firkrisakes!

[Choada_Boy]

The firebombing of Tokyo has to be up there as one of the worst atrocities committed during WWII. ~100,000 dead, a million injuries, a million without homes, in 6 hours, on basically civilian targets. The justification for bombing civilians (that the Japanese had put their military industry into people's homes in a sort of "cottage industry") was weak at best. Of course, this took the lessons learned at Dresden and Hamburg and took it to another level. LeMay used up all the incendiaries available to him in the Pacific Theater by the time he was done.