Dresden was a great example of fuck around and find out - a textbook case that should be taught in schools to show the consequences of actions.
Would 9/11 also qualify for saying FAFO, seeing that the person supposedly organising it was an ex-CIA asset?
if i have my facts correctly, taliban as a whole was funded by us to overpower the then russian influenced govt.
No, this is a common misconception. The Mujahedeen which the US funded overthrew the Soviet-backed Afghan government, and were themselves overthrown by the Pakistani-backed Taliban in the early-mid-1990s, and many Mujahedeen continued resistance against the Taliban up until the US invasion in 2001.
And ironically one of the more potent weapons the Taliban had against the US was US Stinger surface-to-air missiles.
But it was not just a Russian influenced govt, it was a straight Soviet invasion, so basically a full role reversal.
it was a straight Soviet invasion, so basically a full role reversal.
while writing, i was confused about this. was it a russian puppet state that was established, or like directly reporting to moscow. so i thought russia influenced was a safer bet.
It doesn’t really make sense to compare a world war (initiated by Germany) with a terrorist attack (shaped by a long history of people being instrumentalized in a Cold War context) - unless you’re trying to imply something specific. What exactly?
Also, I was born in Dresden - I know firsthand what it looks like to play the victim while ignoring the bigger picture.
Yes
The only thing I complain about is that the Allies won’t admit they committed war crimes. It’s only a crime if you lose the war. Just live up to it. There is no such thing as a “clean” war, everybody plays dirty.
Oh just fuck off with this neonazi dogwhistle, there were absolutely allied war crime trials. Few convictions sure, but nobody’s denying things like the Take No Prisoner orders in the south pacific, the Biscari massacre or the Dachau reprisals happened (lets be real, the Dachau reprisals weren’t actually a crime) (Side note: people do deny all the rapes the allies committed on Japanese women still though, that one’s a big problem, even though there were prosecutions of it. Though, like, marines are still doing that today so why do we even bother caring anymore fuck this world. But weirdly nobody ever brings the horrors of the south pacific up, it’s always just focused on allied crimes in western europe…).
And FWIW:
- Dresden is only noteworthy because the Nazis made up a bunch of propaganda about it, Cologne was far far worse (I think we destroyed literally every structure except for the cathedral? It was an atrocity)
- Almost nobody went down for for War Crimes (or in general) on all sides. The Nuremberg trials prosecuted less than 200 people, and only 3/4 of those were convicted.
- The blitz wasn’t considered a war crime either.
- This entire premise is misinformation designed to bias people against the western powers and move them towards the sensibilites presented by the growing neonazi / alt-right movements.
To add: at the Nuremberg Trials, the bar to define a German war crime was to prove that the other side did not do worse. So, there is some truth to the winner making the rules.
I consider myself very far left, but hearing all the time that fire bombing cities to target civilians was justified (which I read on Lemmy just a few days ago) makes me sick. Targeting civilians is always a war crime. I don’t even care if people went on trial for that. I just want it to be taught and talked about at what it was. Of course the fucking fascists needed to be stopped, just like the Japanese did. They were committing atrocious crimes, far worse than what the Allies did. And so it was decided to commit some more war crimes and over all it worked. But that doesn’t fucking change the fact that fire bombing cities like Dresden or Hamburg or Tokyo or dropping the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t also fucking war crimes. You can’t win a war like this and claim everything you did was fine and dandy and completely justified. That you can’t find that annoying without being called a neonazi is seriously fucked up.
The only thing I complain about is that the Allies won’t admit they committed war crimes.
It’s only a crime if you lose the war.
This is what you said. Those are classic neonazi lines, up there with the clean wehrmacht (if not as popular). They’re bullshit. The allies committed war crimes, they admitted those crimes, those crimes were tried. That you’re shifting your claim to criticism of cultural attitudes towards actions committed (regardless of if they were declared war crimes or how valid your criticism is) to defend your initial position is concerning, and I’d like to remind you that as the cat says, you are not immune to propaganda.
Can you elaborate on blitz not being considered a war crime? I assume we’re talking about blitzkrieg, which to my knowledge is just a strategy, and I don’t really see why would it be considered unethical.
The Blitz is the name for the terror bombing campaign carried out by the Luftwaffe against cities in the UK. The name comes from blitzkrieg, but has little or nothing to do with the combined-arms tactic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
8 month long bombing of London and other cities.
Today it would be a war crime as collective punishment, as an indiscriminate attack, and for deliberate targeting of civilians.
You don’t even need to ‘win’ the war to avoid admitting war crimes. As evidenced by Japan.
Or italy, austria aso
Still crazy that only recently austria started to admit and take tiny responsibility for the war they were active part of. over 70% of people in austria dont know fully who the nazis were.
And the myth of austria being the first victim still is strong today.
For historical explaination i reccomend: sirmanatee
It’s a never a war crime the first time. Is a saying.
Would have been even funnier if you were from .ca! Haha
