From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Aug 27 2002 - 18:39:35 MDT
Extropian discussion on Winston Churchill:
Avatar Polymorph comments...
Clearly war crimes encompass the deliberate bombing of civilians en masse
regardless of the cultural parameters. In this regard, both Hitler and
Churchill are war criminals. So too are Truman, Kissinger and Nixon. No
amount of obfuscation or justification makes the deliberate bombing of
civilians, pensioners, children, responsible. Unless the word "war crime"
has absolutely no meaning. It is very shameful that few except for Kurt
Vonnegut and some intellectuals recognized that killing civilians from the
air was no different to machine gunning them. Perhaps if they had the Soviet
air bombing of Afghanistan (5% of population killed, 1 million) or the US
bombing of Vietnam (1 million killed) or Cambodia or even the more "grey
area" bombing of the retreating Iraqis in the Gulf War by the US (including
fuel-air explosives) (100,000 Killed?) might have been avoided.
this doesn't mean we don't forgive these characters. Concurrently, it
doesn't mean we don't forget the lessons entailed.
Two wrongs never make a right. Nothing excuses killing children, wifes,
non-combatant males and pensioners unless the concept of "war crime" is
thrown out the door completely. Bombing civilians in civilian areas clearly
has no purpose other than to kill them. It is not about "depleting morale"
or "reducing the war effort of the enemy" - it's about killing defenceless
enemy civilians.
US hi tech developments have allowed air power to be used without killing
civilians in Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan. This is to be applauded. Note of
course that this does not retrospectively justify war crimes along the lines
that it "couldn't be avoided with the then tech." The purpose of the earlier
bombing was not to wipe out enemy troops but to kill defenceless enemy
civilians. Especially note, unless they are clutching anti-aircraft guns in
their civilian hands they are certainly "defenceless".
For more direct figures on GENOCIDE, see
http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocidetable.htm
Note how many died in the Soviet Union and China AFTER World War Two, in
South East Asia and then more recently how many millions have died in
Africa. On a minor note, note how the plight of Mayan Indians has attracted
little attention in the West. It is a useful exercise to simply grade
genocide post WWII country by country with no cultural "blinkers". In
general, all one can say is that Stalin, Hitler and Mao inflicted a lot of
it, but that the Russians have suffered the most (one in six or so dying
from 1930 to 1960). It is stunning that no one in the West noticed that so
many people were "missing" in Russia (that is, our spies) - was it reported
at all in the press? Even with a totalitarian state, the fact that so many
people are missing in a nation of dozens of millions surely couldn't be
missed?
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