American War Crimes in WW2

[Black_Wolf]

good post Sulk

 

[Tagaziel]

You're right about the Great Purge, Sulk. I think it was over in the early 1930s...

Anyways, the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to name a few actually can be considered pre-meditated murder, at a great scale, due to the fact, that civilian population was the target, not any military installations/units.

Not kosher.

 

[bliink]

Nobody likes you.

Nobody likes Black_Wolf.

Spamming/flaming verboten

 

[15357]

It doesn't matter if Dresden or Hiroshima or Nagasaki were war crimes. It's over. They won, and the losers can't bitch about anything.

 

[Black_Wolf]

nvm....numbers aint worth the high blood pressure.

 

[CptStern]

It doesn't matter if Dresden or Hiroshima or Nagasaki were war crimes. It's over. They won, and the losers can't bitch about anything.

yet you still hold a grudge against the japanese for atrocities commited during ww2 ..you lost that part of the war, there was no victory for your country

 

[15357]

Technically, we won.

 

[smwScott]

Anyways, the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to name a few actually can be considered pre-meditated murder, at a great scale, due to the fact, that civilian population was the target, not any military installations/units.

Not kosher.

I don't pretend to know much about the Dresden bombings, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets. What happened there was terrible, but it prevented a land war that would have taken many years and possibly cost just as many or more lives in total. And yes, when you're in a war, the lives of your countrymen are worth more than theres'. That's not to even mention the effect it had on the Cold War.

 

[CptStern]

Technically, we won.

you lost 60,000 civilians ..doesnt sound like a victory to me

 

[15357]

you lost 60,000 civilians ..doesnt sound like a victory to me

The Japanese lost some 15,000 troops in Korea (and KLA - based Manchuria) alone.

And then they removed the Military Police and the remains of the troops stationed back to mainland Japan, thus eliminating the control in 1945.


And with your logic, the USSR lost WW2.

 

[Bull Goose Loony]

I remember a teacher told me this story about allied pows being killed by japanese via some crazy method of putting them neck-deep in large metal drums and beating them so that the resulting vibration somehow killed them, and were then able to ship them back to america as death by natural causes. is that at all true?

 

[15357]

I remember a teacher told me this story about allied pows being killed by japanese via some crazy method of putting them neck-deep in large metal drums and beating them so that the resulting vibration somehow killed them, and were then able to ship them back to america as death by natural causes. is that at all true?

Who knows? They did some crazy stuff then. I don't see it as implausible.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I have two words for the entire subject of this thread.

Instant karma.

 

[Absinthe]

I remember a teacher told me this story about allied pows being killed by japanese via some crazy method of putting them neck-deep in large metal drums and beating them so that the resulting vibration somehow killed them, and were then able to ship them back to america as death by natural causes. is that at all true?

It's entirely possible. Japanese did a lot of ****ed up "experimentation" during that time. And I put that word in quotes because it was probably just an excuse for sadism.

Unit 731

 

[15357]

http://www.japanarmy.com/english/e-photo.htm

May... be... disturbing.... not all of them are Unit 731 photos though.

 

[Tr0n]

Well some could consider it an eye for an eye. The Japanese committed the Massacre of Nanking and America sent over two atomic bombs.

I for one see the acts of masscare on boths sides to be horrible.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Why is it always the asians who look like they enjoy the murder, death, and savagery? Every photo I see of Nazis or something, they look just like "meh," but the Japanese always have some kind of enthusiasm added to them as they perform a vivisection on someone.

 

[Kangy]

Dresden sucks, but I think if you refuse to take steps like that when they've already been used against you, you could soon find yourself wishing you had. I don't like Dresden, but there are very few things outside of it I'm not too shocked happened. The Russians raped and killed a lot of Germans initially, but I think that was more red-eyed vengeance considering what the Germans did to Russian populations that they captured.

As for German, nearly everything was justified. Had the Allies persued conventional war, the loss of life would have carried on for a long, long time.

 

[Ome_Vince]

I think the scale of mass-attrocities also depends on the stakes, frustraion and scale of the war. For example. In WW1 the Turks thought they could capture bits of Russia.
They got their ass kicked by the Russians, result -> on their way back the Turks committed Genocide -> 500.000 Armenian civilians dead.
Dresden got bombed because the deathtoll on the Allied side was getting extreme, they wanted to get Germany to surrender, just like Germany did to my country -> by destroying an entire city.
People grow tired of the war, and push their governments overboard, just like what happened to the Tsaar in WW1.

In World Wars, stakes are high, the whole country gets involved. There is no "lets be nobel here".
First its "lets win this whatever it takes".
You think the USA didnt know Hiroshima and Nagasaki werent "military bases" (what Roosevelt i think even mentions in his speech "we nuked a military base called Hiroshima", this to prevent civilian casualties... lol wtf )
Look at Iraq's "nobel war" and how they obeyed international law by lobbing Chemical WMD's in Iran, killing 100.000 people...
International Law and the Geneva convention are a joke. Only sides who can actually afford to stick to the rules, try to stick to them, but even then often dont.
War is not like playing soccer where you have a set of rules and you try to be gentlemen -> its trying to defeat/kill each other, plain and simple.
There's nothing nobel, nothing glorious, its pure massacre, and there are no rules, and nothing has changed in the thousands of years we've been doing it.
One might say we've gotten a little more effecient at it, and mostly its less "obvious" than it was.

 

[0mar]

Look, for the Allies to be prosecuted for war crimes, they need to have lost. There's no doubt that they'd be tried for war crimes. Conversely, none of the Axis members would have been tried for their war crimes. It's simply whoever wins sets the terms of defeat. The winners rarely get punished. Allied troops could have eaten babies and raped 12 year old girls (which many did) and still get away with it. Axis troops can sneeze in the wrong way and get tried for it. It's the nature of winning.

 

[Bob_Marley]

Well I just keep asking myslef WHY Dresden?
The brits and the US knew it was full of refugees.

Firstly, Dresden was an entirely British operation. Unlike the other infamous "firestorm" raid on Germany, Hamburg, which did have a bit of US involvement (But we got there first and started the firestorm).

Anyway, Dresden was bombed to show the Russians the destructive power of the allied airforce. To show them how costly a war with the Western Allies would be if they got any funny ideas.

That is the reason Dresden was bombed. It was a big city, with a big population that was vulnerable to firestorm (Unlike, for example, Berlin) that was right in the path of the Russian advance through Germany.