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Emperors Faithful wrote:Did I just agree with mattrym?

Frazzled wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:Allow me to rephrase. ' I'm pretty sure if I'm the getaway driver for some bank robbers, I'll be considered just as guilty despite having not actually robbed the bank itself.'

You'd be considered guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal, yes, and possibly more if it is proven you knew what you were doing.

By making me rephrase, we're no longer considering words like 'crime' and 'criminal'. I did that so that I couldn't be led off of the point I was ambling towards, that in aiding and abetting people who committed such evil, I believe the US of the time must be therefore be morally virtually as bad as those who committed the deed itself.

That lacks sanity.

Pretty sure he meant those who actually assisted those who committed the crime to avoid justice. Not that the US as a people were evil. Same goes for the Japanese.

Gotcha edited.
I thought I made that clear though in the other post. If you were involved in such then thats your crime, not the crime of the country.

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Melissia wrote:I couldn't care less.

Then why are you engaging in dialogue with me?

It's early in the morning and I'm too grouchy for my own good, which is also why I said that even though that really isn't what I meant. And why I was so slow to edit it out.

I disagree. One can arguably benefit from evil without oneself being evil. But that particular argument is something I have no intention of participating in.

But the US did not merely 'benefit from' the evil. They actively prevented justice and retribution being brought to bear upon the perpetrators, shielded them, gave them work, a new place to live and so on. That goes a spot beyond simply wandering by the labs after the war and picking up the research notes, wouldn't you agree?

Emperors Faithful wrote:Did I just agree with mattrym?

Frazzled wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:Allow me to rephrase. ' I'm pretty sure if I'm the getaway driver for some bank robbers, I'll be considered just as guilty despite having not actually robbed the bank itself.'

You'd be considered guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal, yes, and possibly more if it is proven you knew what you were doing.

By making me rephrase, we're no longer considering words like 'crime' and 'criminal'. I did that so that I couldn't be led off of the point I was ambling towards, that in aiding and abetting people who committed such evil, I believe the US of the time must be therefore be morally virtually as bad as those who committed the deed itself.

That lacks sanity.

Pretty sure he meant those who actually assisted those who committed the crime to avoid justice. Not that the US as a people were evil. Same goes for the Japanese.

If the US government of the time are the ones who took the decision to shield, employ, and protect the Japanese scientists as they did, I must consider them to be of moral parity as the Japanese Government who initiated the crimes.

Ketara wrote:

filbert wrote:Why does everyone have to try and boil this thread down to who is more complicit? War in general is a pretty bad thing; every nation participates in activities that would normally be considered beyond the pale. Trying to distil it all down to who is worse than everyone else is like trying to determine whose poo smells worse.

Can we not just agree that Japan did some fairly terrible things in WW2 in the name of war as did practically every other nation.

I am aware that every nation does bad things in war(that being the point), but the reason Nazi Germany is so villified is because of the actions it took that went beyond the pale and norm of warfare. If we just say, 'everyone is as bad as each other', you're effectively saying Nazi Germany was no worse than the Allies. And where does that leave morality?

However, I'm genuinely intrigued as to whether you could consider the US any better than the Japanese in this respect, because of the getaway driver analogy I gave earlier. So I'm throwing the concept out there for dialogue, that being the purpose of a forum (to discuss).

Personally, I think morality has no place when it comes to discussing the war - war by its very nature is inherently immoral and trying to steer a moral path is a tricky road. I'm not sure you can tar everyone by association though. Arguably, the US wouldn't have won the space race without the aid of German rocket scientist defectors, like Werner Von Braun but we wouldn't call the US Nazis because of this association? Likewise I wouldn't dare claim that the US committed atrocities on the same scale or intensity as Japan did just because they used Japanese research to further their own biological warfare program. It doesn't necessarily mean the US is whiter than white though. History is written by the victor as they say. I'm sure the US and British armies have plenty of skeletons hidden that were proffered in the name of warfare advancement.

Melissia wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Melissia wrote:
I disagree. One can arguably benefit from evil without oneself being evil. But that particular argument is something I have no intention of participating in.

Interesting, especially if you consider killing in self-defence defence an 'evil' act.

Though the US aiding war criminals for personal gain really doesn't compare, and you've already said you don't want to get drawn into this.

Right. Also, I'm Texan, so take from taht what you will about the first part.

What I meant to say is if you consider the act of killing someone to be evil, then you can benefit from an evil act (not dying yourself) without being evil (self-defence). I wasn't saying that self-defence is evil, just wondering if the act of killing itself would be considered evil (regardless of circumstance).

Ketara wrote:That goes a spot beyond simply wandering by the labs after the war and picking up the research notes, wouldn't you agree?

This, by itself, out of context, yes . In comparison to what the Japanese did,supported, covered up, then went in denial about, no.

Is it impossible to be a Japanophile and condemn their wartime history?

Kilkrazy wrote:Is it impossible to be a Japanophile and condemn their wartime history?

It's not impossible. Why do you ask?

filbert wrote:
Personally, I think morality has no place when it comes to discussing the war - war by its very nature is inherently immoral and trying to steer a moral path is a tricky road.

Then why do we have 'laws of war', and not just firebomb every single Middle Eastern nation, send in some colonists and claim all the oil for ourselves? To argue morality has no place in warfare, as said before, means that the Nazi's were no worse than the British of the time, and that stance I find hard to comprehend.

I'm not sure you can tar everyone by association though. Arguably, the US wouldn't have won the space race without the aid of German rocket scientist defectors, like Werner Von Braun but we wouldn't call the US Nazis because of this association?

The analogy is incorrect. Rocket scientists did not inflict moral atrocities in the same way. Otherwise we'd ahve to start considering every single person who designed a Panzer/machine gun/ anything to dow ith the german war effort to be just as bad as the Japanese scientists who tied up chinese civilians in a field and sprayed them with anthrax.

A more suitable analogy would be the US deciding to remove all the concentration camp killers(be they doctors or soldiers), and take them to the US to continue studying how to keep doing exactly what they'd be doing in the concentration camps up to that point.

Likewise I wouldn't dare claim that the US committed atrocities on the same scale or intensity as Japan did just because they used Japanese research to further their own biological warfare program. It doesn't necessarily mean the US is whiter than white though. History is written by the victor as they say. I'm sure the US and British armies have plenty of skeletons hidden that were proffered in the name of warfare advancement.

It's not a question of moral purity, and who's better than who. I'm merely questioning as to whether the US could be considered to be better than the Japanese morally, considering they ultimately have complicity in the immoral acts themselves (as demonstrated by the getaway driver analogy).

Ketara wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:
Pretty sure he meant those who actually assisted those who committed the crime to avoid justice. Not that the US as a people were evil. Same goes for the Japanese.

If the US government of the time are the ones who took the decision to shield, employ, and protect the Japanese scientists as they did, I must consider them to be of moral parity as the Japanese Government who initiated the crimes.

I can understand that line of thinking, though I'm not sure if I agree with it entirely. The actions of the US here definitely aren't moral, but I don't think it should be on parity with those that actually committed the act.

Melissia wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Is it impossible to be a Japanophile and condemn their wartime history?

It's not impossible. Why do you ask?

Because your initial statement in the thread was very provocative.

Ketara wrote:It's not a question of moral purity, and who's better than who. I'm merely questioning as to whether the US could be considered to be better than the Japanese morally, considering they ultimately have complicity in the immoral acts themselves (as demonstrated by the getaway driver analogy).

I see what you're saying.

I still think that at least by using the knowledge gained from unit 731's barbarism at least some good can come of their research. I think to simply pretend it never happened would have made it evil and pointless which, to me, seems worse.

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:That goes a spot beyond simply wandering by the labs after the war and picking up the research notes, wouldn't you agree?

This, by itself, out of context, yes . In comparison to what the Japanese did,supported, covered up, then went in denial about, no.

The only step that is missing that the US did not commit is the act itself. But as mentioned before, is a getaway driver somehow morally better than the robbers he is helping to escape from justice? Because he did not rob the bank himself?

With the getaway driver anology. Would he be charged for the same crime? Just what would his punishment be?

Ketara wrote:
It's not a question of moral purity, and who's better than who. I'm merely questioning as to whether the US could be considered to be better than the Japanese morally, considering they ultimately have complicity in the immoral acts themselves (as demonstrated by the getaway driver analogy).

That is why I started off by asking why everyone always tries to bring these sorts of threads down to absolutes. Why do we have to try and label and pigeonhole everything? Why does it have to be categorized? Why are we trying to posit some sort of moral superiority for one nation over another? Can we not just agree that war is a pretty filthy place and that all countries engage in some fairly unscrupulous behaviour (sometimes with justification, sometimes not)?

Emperors Faithful wrote:With the getaway driver anology. Would he be charged for the same crime? Just what would his punishment be?

As Melissia forced me to change my analogy earlier, its necessarily a case of 'crime' as per se. Rather, it is a case of whether he bears any more or less moral responsibility for the act, despite having not committed it himself.

Ketara wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Melissia wrote:I couldn't care less.

Then why are you engaging in dialogue with me?

It's early in the morning and I'm too grouchy for my own good, which is also why I said that even though that really isn't what I meant. And why I was so slow to edit it out.

I disagree. One can arguably benefit from evil without oneself being evil. But that particular argument is something I have no intention of participating in.

But the US did not merely 'benefit from' the evil. They actively prevented justice and retribution being brought to bear upon the perpetrators, shielded them, gave them work, a new place to live and so on. That goes a spot beyond simply wandering by the labs after the war and picking up the research notes, wouldn't you agree?

Emperors Faithful wrote:Did I just agree with mattrym?

Frazzled wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:Allow me to rephrase. ' I'm pretty sure if I'm the getaway driver for some bank robbers, I'll be considered just as guilty despite having not actually robbed the bank itself.'

You'd be considered guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal, yes, and possibly more if it is proven you knew what you were doing.

By making me rephrase, we're no longer considering words like 'crime' and 'criminal'. I did that so that I couldn't be led off of the point I was ambling towards, that in aiding and abetting people who committed such evil, I believe the US of the time must be therefore be morally virtually as bad as those who committed the deed itself.

That lacks sanity.

Pretty sure he meant those who actually assisted those who committed the crime to avoid justice. Not that the US as a people were evil. Same goes for the Japanese.

If the US government of the time are the ones who took the decision to shield, employ, and protect the Japanese scientists as they did, I must consider them to be of moral parity as the Japanese Government who initiated the crimes.

Um...no
See thats where Melissia is right. Thats being an apologist. You've taken collusion from the Cold War to imagine moral parity with a government that slaughtered across a continent, with a government that kicked their ass.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Is it impossible to be a Japanophile and condemn their wartime history?

It's not impossible. Why do you ask?

Because your initial statement in the thread was very provocative.

Yes, it was, wasn't it? I do dislike a boring conversation!

Emperors Faithful wrote:With the getaway driver anology. Would he be charged for the same crime? Just what would his punishment be?

Aiding and abetting or something similar. I don't think he could be charged with armed robbery unless he actually participates in the robbery. But that's not the point that Ketara is trying to make. It's the moral connection between the two.

filbert wrote:

Ketara wrote:
It's not a question of moral purity, and who's better than who. I'm merely questioning as to whether the US could be considered to be better than the Japanese morally, considering they ultimately have complicity in the immoral acts themselves (as demonstrated by the getaway driver analogy).

That is why I started off by asking why everyone always tries to bring these sorts of threads down to absolutes. Why do we have to try and label and pigeonhole everything? Why does it have to be categorized? Why are we trying to posit some sort of moral superiority for one nation over another? Can we not just agree that war is a pretty filthy place and that all countries engage in some fairly unscrupulous behaviour (sometimes with justification, sometimes not)?

But as mentioned before, surely to abandon doing so makes the Nuremberg trials, and any atrocity ever committed in any war ever, excusable?

Ketara wrote:The only step that is missing that the US did not commit is the act itself. But as mentioned before, is a getaway driver somehow morally better than the robbers he is helping to escape from justice? Because he did not rob the bank himself?

Yes. S/He isn't morally good, but still better than the actual robbers.

It's like saying that a dictator's bodyguard is as morally bad as the dictator themselves because they stop an assassin from killing said dictator. No, the dictator is still an evil bastard, and the bodyguard's decision is morally ambiguous in comparison, and could concievably be defended.

Frazzled wrote:[
See thats where Melissia is right. Thats being an apologist. You've taken collusion from the Cold War to imagine moral parity with a government that slaughtered across a continent, with a government that kicked their ass.

Imagine? What has their defeat got to do with anything?

The Allies defeated Germany in WW1, but I wouldn't consider either side to be morally superior in that example. Just because a side triumphs over another does not indicate moral superiority.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Ketara wrote:The only step that is missing that the US did not commit is the act itself. But as mentioned before, is a getaway driver somehow morally better than the robbers he is helping to escape from justice? Because he did not rob the bank himself?

Yes. S/He isn't morally good, but still better than the actual robbers.

Fair enough. If that's your stance, that's your stance.

Ketara wrote:

filbert wrote:

Ketara wrote:
It's not a question of moral purity, and who's better than who. I'm merely questioning as to whether the US could be considered to be better than the Japanese morally, considering they ultimately have complicity in the immoral acts themselves (as demonstrated by the getaway driver analogy).

That is why I started off by asking why everyone always tries to bring these sorts of threads down to absolutes. Why do we have to try and label and pigeonhole everything? Why does it have to be categorized? Why are we trying to posit some sort of moral superiority for one nation over another? Can we not just agree that war is a pretty filthy place and that all countries engage in some fairly unscrupulous behaviour (sometimes with justification, sometimes not)?

But as mentioned before, surely to abandon doing so makes the Nuremberg trials, and any atrocity ever committed in any war ever, excusable?

That's why things like the Geneva convention are supposed to provide a framework for warfare. Because a moral judgement is invariably a judgement from a victor to a loser - like saying 'I have beaten you and will now cast my judgement on your actions'. I'm sure if the Nazis had one, there would have been something similar to prosecute Allied commanders.

I'm not saying that German or Japanese actions can be excused or aren't inherently evil - all I'm saying is that the very nature of war means that participating nations commit actions that we would normally find immoral or 'wrong' for a want of a better word.

Ketara wrote:

Frazzled wrote:[
See thats where Melissia is right. Thats being an apologist. You've taken collusion from the Cold War to imagine moral parity with a government that slaughtered across a continent, with a government that kicked their ass.

Imagine? What has their defeat got to do with anything?

The Allies defeated Germany in WW1, but I wouldn't consider either side to be morally superior in that example. Just because a side triumphs over another does not indicate moral superiority.

The Japanese Empire slaughtered across a continent, killing millions. This particular unit performed hideous war crimes. To attempt to make the US morally equivalent because they took some of that knowledge is sophestry at best.

In your analogy the getaway driver always gets a lesser sentence than the bank robber that goes in and wastes everyone in the bank.

Frazzled wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Frazzled wrote:[
See thats where Melissia is right. Thats being an apologist. You've taken collusion from the Cold War to imagine moral parity with a government that slaughtered across a continent, with a government that kicked their ass.

Imagine? What has their defeat got to do with anything?

The Allies defeated Germany in WW1, but I wouldn't consider either side to be morally superior in that example. Just because a side triumphs over another does not indicate moral superiority.

The Japanese Empire slaughtered across a continent, killing millions. This particular unit performed hideous war crimes. To attempt to make the US morally equivalent because they took some of that knowledge is sophestry at best.

In your analogy the getaway driver always gets a lesser sentence than the bank robber that goes in and wastes everyone in the bank.

The US did not engage in war against the Japanese for atrocities against the Chinese though, rather because they were attacked themselves.

The particular unit you are referring to was shielded, employed, paid, and protected by the US. As said before, its not quite wandering by the labs and finding the research notes afterwards.

Judging by their actions, and their shielding of perpetrators of atrocities from justice for their crimes, the US goverment implicitly endorses their actions.

If you believe as does Melissia, that's fine. That's your stance. But to pretend that the US had no complicity in these actions, and no moral responsibility would be incorrect.

Frazzled wrote:The Japanese Empire slaughtered across a continent, killing millions. This particular unit performed hideous war crimes. To attempt to make the US morally equivalent because they took some of that knowledge is sophestry at best.

In your analogy the getaway driver always gets a lesser sentence than the bank robber that goes in and wastes everyone in the bank.

What if the driver pulls the shooter out of the bank, takes the money the shooter stole and sets him up with a new identity/job/home and ensures he will never face trial for the murders? That's what I'm wrestling with here, whether that somehow makes the driver a 'less evil' person.

Ketara wrote:

I am aware that every nation does bad things in war(that being the point), but the reason Nazi Germany is so villified is because of the actions it took that went beyond the pale and norm of warfare. If we just say, 'everyone is as bad as each other', you're effectively saying Nazi Germany was no worse than the Allies. And where does that leave morality?

However, I'm genuinely intrigued as to whether you could consider the US any better than the Japanese in this respect, because of the getaway driver analogy I gave earlier. So I'm throwing the concept out there for dialogue, that being the purpose of a forum (to discuss).

There's a flaw in comparing the Nazi regime to the Japanese germ warfare unit. The Japanese program existed specifically to further Japan's ability to make war- not to kill civilians for being civilians. The worst we can say about Japan is that they engaged in unethical human testing on unwilling subjects. The Nazis engaged in genocide for the purpose of purifying the human race.

If something grew to be considered unethical or dangerous, you would still use the knowledge gained from it- if for no other reason than you would never have to repeat those experiments.

Ketara wrote:The US did not engage in war against the Japanese for atrocities against the Chinese though, rather because they were attacked themselves.

And a person who shoots a serial murderer out of self defense didn't do it for the good of all the murderer's future victims or to prevent any murder but their own. Doesn't mean that the person didn't do some good. Analogies work against you too Ketara

Whilst the Soviets were incredibly vicious when they started their march into Germany, they had lost around 20 million people.

The argument that the war was nasty on both side is correct, but the Axis committed acts of sadistic cruelty and brutality on a scale not seen before or since. Germany openly flagellates herself about this and has thrown the doors of guilt and admittance wide open, Japan has instead created a cult of denial and whitewashing over the blood on her hands.

The actions of Japan in WW2 were monstrous. Where were the equal actions to Nanking by the Allies? The Japanese army turned an entire Chinese city into a drug addicted rape camp and impaled thousands of their female victims on bamboo whilst still alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

The Axis were the aggressors, they bathed themselves in blood. The suggestion that both sides were equal in savagery and the horror of war is not an accurate one, the Axis powers turned medieval torture into an industrial scale evil.

Of course, it was because of Japan's actions in China that led to the oil embargo, that in turn, led to Pearl Harbor that led to the destruction of the Japanese Empire.

So yea, inadvertantly the US did engage in war because of Japan's actions in China.

filbert wrote:Aiding and abetting or something similar. I don't think he could be charged with armed robbery unless he actually participates in the robbery. But that's not the point that Ketara is trying to make. It's the moral connection between the two.

The law of conspiracy says that if you are a part of a conspiracy (to rob a bank), then you can be charged with any crime committed by a fellow conspirator (even if they shoot up the bank irrationally) in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Aiding and abetting is different, because it requires that you were not a conspirator/party to the underlying crime, but helped the guilty party escape justice while knowing that they were being pursued.

Finally, there is obstruction of justice. This is after the crime has occurred and the criminals have reached a place of safety (no more hot pursuit). Anyone helping them after this point to avoid capture is guilty of obstructing justoce by hampering police investigation.

IMO, and in the view of the law, these are varying degrees of moral wrongs.

At worst, the US is guilty of aiding and abetting, which probably isn't as bad as the actions of Japanese POW camps (which were tame compared to Unit 731).