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 DemetriDominov wrote:
The answer:

Everyone is a war criminal because war is criminal.

Now get over this petty argument, it's not a constructive topic by any means to blame a country over another one - especially when the lessons learned by even those brainwashed into fighting are probably most prevalent in the countries that lost the most in the war.

Called a war criminal and brainwashed in one post. Thanks buddy! Proudly defending your rights to denigrate me for the past 10 years.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.

In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.

What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.

Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.

In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, there is less differentiation between combatants and civilians than in other conflicts, and sometimes no such differentiation at all, as nearly every human resource, civilians and soldiers alike, can be considered to be part of the belligerent effort.

The concept is that everything is part of the war effort. The civilian population and infrastructure are working to support their armed forces in the field. And according to the rules of war(silly concept but whatever...) anyone and anything activly participating in a war effort is a legitimate target.

Only read the OP, so sorry if I bring up points already mentioned. I always think of it like this.

The winners will always demonise their opposition to justify the war. There is no point in arguing against that one. Caesar did it in his Gallic War books, the British did it when writing about their colonial wars, etc.

To demonise their opposition one side will always bring in a lot of facts and figures that demonise their opposition - for example, the Americans accuse Pearl Harbour of being sneaky when in fact America probably would have gone to war with Japan anyway if they hadn't got their asses out of Manchuria and China.

No Allied commander was ever tried for war crime. Meanwhile guys like Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was executed for war crimes that, to be frank, were non-existant and no worse than the American removal of Japanese people.

However, I do not think that World War 2 will ever be considered a war of American aggression for the simple reason that America didn't get involved until the war had progressed quite a bit. It may eventually be considered a war of Allied aggression - after all, it was the Allies that declared war on Germany, wasn't it?

That day will not come soon though. It's clear to anyone who knows anything about World War 2 that it was a direct result of Nazi warmongering and expansion.

Nobody will ever see it as a war of Allied aggression.

They may have declared war on Germany and not the other way around, but the Nazi's were on a path of world conquest in no uncertain terms. They weren't hiding their plans to take over the whole world and the world responded appropriately.

That's not quite true. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. He said so in Mein Kampf. By doing so he wanted to expand Germany's borders but never wanted to take over the world, only to assert Aryan dominance. Kind of like what America has done now.

They also wanted revenge against the Allied nations for the Treaty of Versailles which they rightly viewed as unfair. I mean, if you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money, lose a lot of your land and disband your armed forces, you'd be pretty pissed off as well.

How is America asserting Aryan dominance?

We arn't conquoring the world regardless of what other people might say(we could if we really wanted to)

Sorry, must have mis-phrased that.

They're not asserting Aryan dominance at all, barely any of them are true Aryans!

The point of including America in my previous post was that the Germans would not have conquered the world. America asserts its dominance not militarily (well partially militarily) but mainly politically and economically. The Third Reich would have attempted to do that and show that the Aryan race was superior. They would have done this after annexing nearby countries to create Lebensraum for the German people.

Given that the Germans were training people to oversee their new holdings in areas far Europe I would say they had world conquest on their minds.

There was a story I heard about a captured german prisoner.

He spoke almost perfect English, American English. And in conversation with his army guard the subject of where the American soldier was from came up. He was from an obscure town in upstate New York. The German knew exactly where it was when the name was mentioned.

His explaination was that he had been trained to be an administrator of the new german territories of that area.

 whembly wrote:
But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.

The Allies shot Yamamoto's plane down in (IIRC) 1943, so I doubt that.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.

The Allies shot Yamamoto's plane down in (IIRC) 1943, so I doubt that.

Oops... who was the Admiral that surrendered on U.S.S. Missouri?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.

The Allies shot Yamamoto's plane down in (IIRC) 1943, so I doubt that.

yeah, Yamamoto was no more but the rest is true.


The Emperor is the one that ended the war. The people and military were ready to fight to the bitter end.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

No Allied commander was ever tried for war crime. Meanwhile guys like Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was executed for war crimes that, to be frank, were non-existant and no worse than the American removal of Japanese people.

Do not ever so blatantly deny the severity of genocide ever again.

According to you:

The rape of Nanking was "not worse" in any way and completely equivalent to a humane and temporary relocation. There is no justification in denying genocide the way that you have.

The list of Japanese war crimes and brutality against captured P.O.Ws and against civilian populations is long, detailed and very documented. Japanese war crimes are not up for debate. Unit 731's atrocious medical and weapons experiments against captured civilians and P.O.Ws are not up for debate, the use of comfort women is not up for debate, the Bataan death march is not up for debate, the instances of cannabalism against P.O.Ws and civilians are not up for debate, nor are any of their other crimes. These are facts and they are right on par with the worst behavior of the Third Reich in Europe.

Sigh, read what he actually wrote Ehrenstein, he said that the crimes of Yamashita were non-existant. Which, to be frank, there is very good evidence that they were not his crimes to atone for. Nowhere did he say that the Rape of Nanking didn't happen, he is referring to the events in Singapore and the Phillipines and General Yamashita's culpability for them.

Goodness gracious me.

What the heck? Where did the post from ExNoctemNacimur go?

 Ratbarf wrote:
Sigh, read what he actually wrote Ehrenstein, he said that the crimes of Yamashita were non-existant. Which, to be frank, there is very good evidence that they were not his crimes to atone for. Nowhere did he say that the Rape of Nanking didn't happen, he is referring to the events in Singapore and the Phillipines and General Yamashita's culpability for them.

Goodness gracious me.

What the heck? Where did the post from ExNoctemNacimur go?

He said war crimes that were NON EXISTENT or were no worse then the American internment of Japanese Americans during WW2. (deplorable to be sure, but certainly not genocide)

I'd say that implies quite a lot given the sector of the Japanese war effort under Yamashita's command.

Yeah, as in Yamashita was executed for war crimes that he a) didn't commit or could not reasonably be held culpable for, or b) that the crimes if he could be held culpable, were no worse than the American internment of the Japanese. Now I would agree with A, and B is really no different than the things that happened under Soviets part but we didn't scream out for their crimes to.

PS: I know they happened, y'all are blowing it out of proportion.

 Ratbarf wrote:
PS: I know they happened, y'all are blowing it out of proportion.

What is a little genocide between friends really?

 Ahtman wrote:

 Ratbarf wrote:
PS: I know they happened, y'all are blowing it out of proportion.

What is a little genocide between friends really?

There is no genocide like friendicide.

If it's a little genocide is it really genocide?

Just a wafer thin genocide, sir

The true irony of the war-crimes trials of the Japanese following WWII is that they had been merely following the pattern set by the western powers in their 'colonial' actions in the late 19th century.

Case in point: The American takeover of the Phillipines after the Spanish-American war was every bit as brutal and nasty as anything the Japanese did. The Phillipios had the Spanish beaten back to the fort-city of Manila even before the Americans had landed a single man. When the Americans came in to take Manila, they shot at any armed Phillipinos who dared to get close enough, because America wanted the Phillipines for herself. America took over where Spain had left off and ignored the Phillipino's desire for self-governance - they weren't 'white' and therefore were incapable of it, according to the 'wisdom' of the time. Naturally the Phillipino forces resisted, and a nasty little guerilla war persisted there for quite a long time. In retaliation, American troops rounded up Phillipino civillians into concentration camps, raped, killed, and plundered in the finest fashion of an army that had lots of practice doing the same against the Native American tribes not twenty years before.

(Those who say Iraq was the first time America committed a war of aggression don't know their history. The first war of aggression commited by America was Washington against the Iroquis... before there even was a nation called America. But that wasn't the last, not by a long shot.)

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

No Allied commander was ever tried for war crime. Meanwhile guys like Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was executed for war crimes that, to be frank, were non-existant and no worse than the American removal of Japanese people.

Do not ever so blatantly deny the severity of genocide ever again.

According to you:

The rape of Nanking was "not worse" in any way and completely equivalent to a humane and temporary relocation. There is no justification in denying genocide the way that you have.

Don't worry, I know a lot about Japanese history from the early days of the Shogunate to the end of World War 2.

Yamashita - the Tiger of Malaya. He was a brilliant general and shot through Malaysia and Singapore. He was then the commander of Singapore and later the Phillipines. It's hard to account him for the Sook Ching and Manila massacre since he didn't really have too much of a choice - in the Japanese high command there was a lot of Anti-Sinoism. What he really was executed for was his defeat, as he said during his trial that is still considered unfair. He wasn't even in charge of the Rape of Nanking.

Now, let's look at what the Allied powers had done, as Vulcan had already said.

-Massacre of indigenous Native Americans
-Massacre of Jews
-The random shooting of colonials with weapons
-The Belgian massacres of indigenous Congans
-Stalin's murder of 50 MILLION PEOPLE

Anyway, as I said before, we will never know the true extent of what the Allies did that could be considered a war crime because they covered it up and blew their enemy's ones out of proportion.

What do the top 4 have to do with WW2?

And care to explain #2 in full detail please.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
That's not quite true. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. He said so in Mein Kampf. By doing so he wanted to expand Germany's borders but never wanted to take over the world, only to assert Aryan dominance. Kind of like what America has done now.

They also wanted revenge against the Allied nations for the Treaty of Versailles which they rightly viewed as unfair. I mean, if you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money, lose a lot of your land and disband your armed forces, you'd be pretty pissed off as well.

I'll agree with you about the Treaty of Versailles being unfair, but I don't think many people from Europe would agree with you on the Germans not wanting to take over the world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think the Op's original question has been answered as far as this thread goes.

In theory you could blame the British and French for causing WWII.
If they kept their promises, and attacked Germany from behind when they invaded Poland the war would have been over before Christmas and wouldnt have evolved into a world wide conflict.
But no, they were too afraid of Hitler and just waited, and look what happened, Germans defeated the combined British-French forces faster than the Polish army.

The declared war for Poland, like when the Germans invaded it.

And not all the German manpower/resources was deployed in the east.

And the French put too much faith in the Maginot Line and were caught off guard by the blitzkrieg going around the side of it

EDIT: Spelling

Maginot.

Which, hilariously, keeps it's devise ''On ne passe pas'' (We do not pass).

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
The declared war for Poland, like when the Germans invaded it.

And not all the German manpower/resources was deployed in the east.

And the French put too much faith in the Maginol (Spelling??) Line and were caught off guard by the blitzkrieg going around the side of it

Maginot I believe

and you have to admit it's a brilliant tactical plan.

France: "Hahah try getting through our massive wall!"

Germany: "What if we go around it?"

France: "....gak"

Hey it's a cool sets of trench and fortifications, tho. Playing a paintball game in it would be awesome.

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
The declared war for Poland, like when the Germans invaded it.

And not all the German manpower/resources was deployed in the east.

And the French put too much faith in the Maginol (Spelling??) Line and were caught off guard by the blitzkrieg going around the side of it

They did indeed declare war on on Germany BUT they didnt do besides that, just sat on their asses while our country was attacked by both germans and russians.
Hitler anticipated that, and roughly 80% of manpower was in the eastern part of germany.
And yes, the French failed big time, but the Polish front was larger than the Maginot Line.