WW3 & Reasons to Fight - What are your thoughts?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Both the Korean War and Vietnam war killed millions,with significant civilian casualities. North Vietnam was carpet bombed,and both Napalm and chemical defoliants were used. The French,the US and the Chinese all did it and yet got away with it.

The US supplied Stinger MANPADs to UNITA during the Angolan civil war with Europe allowing such shipments. That war killed 500000 people and only ended when UNITA was defeated when its leader was killed. We helped prop them up.

FFS,look at the last 30 to 40 years of problems in Iran and Iraq- we helped foster that. The Shah of Iran,Saddam,etc.

We end up judging so many other poorer and weaker countries for war crimes,yet quietly absolve ourselves of any of the same justice for our own actions.

We have been involved in so many wars both directly and indirectly and helped so many dodgy people out there and do I wonder in 100 years time how we will be judged??

[wasabi]

It is interesting (for want of a better word), that the worst aspects we perceive in WW2 appear not to be the aspects of great motivation at the time - holocaust, sick eugenics etc. Part of that might of been indifference to anti-semitism or the philosophy of eugenics (or support of those things), the larger part might have been the lack of awareness of what was going on.

I suspect tanks and troops in Poland and France were rather more at the forefront of consciousness at the time.

[Galant]

I suspect tanks and troops in Poland and France were rather more at the forefront of consciousness at the time.

Indeed. My point was that looking back, when we think of WW2 and the Nazis we think not simply about a political power attempting conquest but a regime engaged in genocide and committing horrific acts, and that is a very significant aspect. I was asking whether that now revealed reality has any bearing on how we act from now on?

Both the Korean War and Vietnam war killed millions,with significant civilian casualities. North Vietnam was carpet bombed,and both Napalm and chemical defoliants were used. The French,the US and the Chinese all did it and yet got away with it.

The US supplied Stinger MANPADs to UNITA during the Angolan civil war with Europe allowing such shipments. That war killed 500000 people and only ended when UNITA was defeated when its leader was killed. We helped prop them up.

FFS,look at the last 30 to 40 years of problems in Iran and Iraq- we helped foster that. The Shah of Iran,Saddam,etc.

We end up judging so many other poorer and weaker countries for war crimes,yet quietly absolve ourselves of any of the same justice for our own actions.

We have been involved in so many wars both directly and indirectly and helped so many dodgy people out there and do I wonder in 100 years time how we will be judged??

I agree, but I'm thinking more on engaging with these issues at the personal level. Why or how might we be personally motivated to engage in fighting, and more specifically now, how has/should what we learned from WW2 and the Nazi crimes influenced that?

One might argue that what was done by the Nazis goes beyond even those examples of suffering because they not only engaged in genocide but horrific experimentation. Additionally, their guiding philosophy was one that went beyond murder and any single conflict or race but rather attempted to act on a re-definition of humanity carrying out the most awful acts to eliminate the disabled, weak and 'different'.

[opel80uk]

Putting it more simply, does the now known fact of the holocaust now require us to act in order to stop any further such atrocities?

But who determines what is or is not an atrocity? And who decides what atrocities deserve intervention? While the Holocaust was taking place, Millions were dying in the Gulags, but because it suited us at the time, we (The Allies) turned our faces away. It could be argued that it was the lesser of two evils, but once you go down that road, you open yourself up to all kinds of accusations, hypocrisy being the main one. Some might say that it should be the international community who decides, yet Israel continually refuses to accept judgments passed by the international community, and I don’t see the usual suspects about to enter Jerusalem. On the other hand, we used the flimsiest of evidence and ambiguities in international law to go and invade Iraq and topple a regime that we didn’t like and, although terrible IMO, was no worse than other States that we are happy to do business with.

[Galant]

But who determines what is or is not an atrocity? And who decides what atrocities deserve intervention? While the Holocaust was taking place, Millions were dying in the Gulags, but because it suited us at the time, we (The Allies) turned our faces away. It could be argued that it was the lesser of two evils, but once you go down that road, you open yourself up to all kinds of accusations, hypocrisy being the main one. Some might say that it should be the international community who decides, yet Israel continually refuses to accept judgments passed by the international community, and I don’t see the usual suspects about to enter Jerusalem. On the other hand, we used the flimsiest of evidence and ambiguities in international law to go and invade Iraq and topple a regime that we didn’t like and, although terrible IMO, was no worse than other States that we are happy to do business with.

To me, though, (and I'm not saying this was your intention) that line of thinking just raises more questions and evades the original one(s), answering nothing. If we are to say that no-one should do anything unless they then do everything then nothing will get done. Since no-one can or will ever do everything, we must ask ourselves whether or not we should do nothing, or, if we choose to do something, how much should we do and what are the criteria? And that is basically the original question - what, for you, would be motivation/impetus for stepping up to fight in a conflict?

[opel80uk]

To me, though, (and I'm not saying this was your intention) that line of thinking just raises more questions and evades the original one(s), answering nothing. If we are to say that no-one should do anything unless they then do everything then nothing will get done. Since no-one can or will ever do everything, we must ask ourselves whether or not we should do nothing, or, if we choose to do something, how much should we do and what are the criteria? And that is basically the original question - what, for you, would be motivation/impetus for stepping up to fight in a conflict?

Honestly? Probably if I thought me or my family’s lives would be in danger depending on the outcome of a particular conflict. And I don’t mean having to live under a different coloured flag but being left alone; that wouldn’t bother me in the least, but if a particular outcome meant that our lives would be in danger, I would do what I could to avoid that.

I would like to say that if there were a holocaust like attempt to exterminate a race (any race) or group of people, I would step up, but would I? Would I have felt compelled to join, for example, a force in Rwanda trying to halt that Genocide, if I were of that age? Probably not is the honest, painful, answer.

[peterb]

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