Thread: Victor Gregg

Originally Posted by Humbert

This phenomenon of trying to demonize the allies and sanitize the Nazis is really only a veiled effort tied to holocaust denial and anti-semitism.

Originally Posted by Humbert

But I think many have an agenda for dredging it up and conflating it with the German mass extermination of the Jews.

Originally Posted by Humbert

A poster attempts to make a comparison of the Nazi attrocities to the mistreatment of German POW's by the Allies. He goes on to cast doubt on the Holocaust. Then the same poster follows up with a thread entitled VICTOR GREGG and cast light on the atrocities committed by the Allies in Dresden. You don't see an agenda? People are making an argument for moral equivalence.

Originally Posted by Humbert

My point has been that the bombing of Dresden is argued by some as being morally equivalent to the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis which was a matter of state policy. Are you arguing that they are equivalent?

You're good at this, somewhere between Goebbels and Fox News...

Your next step, presumably is to call ''the some people" either terrorists or communists or cockroaches or some such dehumanizing name (such as the Germans; just one more little step, you're nearly there...) then we can all set about burning them or beating them to death or bombing them to death like "the Vietnamese"...

The whole point of this thread is how mass murder of innocent civilians is hidden by various forms of discourse; the irony is your continuation to use such mechanisms...

I read this book a few short weeks ago:



In the USA it has at times been banned from literature classes, removed from school libraries, and struck from literary curricula.[18]

In 1972 it was banned from the public schools of Oakland County, Michigan. The circuit judge described the book as “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.”[17]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five

I wonder if the circuit judge considered the murder of hundreds of thousands innocent people as "depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar and anti-Christian?" More food for thought...

Originally Posted by Humbert

Originally Posted by Kockupocket

Pointing to your enemy's guilt does not establish your innocence. If you want to say that these mysterious 'some' are wrong for indulging in a bit of whataboutery, then you're probably right but that doesn't do anything at all to support what seems to be your belief that the deliberate targeting of huge numbers of civilians for very limited strategic ends was justified.

Who would you like to see the hair shirt Boloa?

kockupocket is not me Humbert..........I haven't posted much in the last day on this thread as most are making points that I agree with..........no point in keep repeating what has already been said.

Originally Posted by Humbert

Let me break it down for you. We have an AUSCHWITZ thread started by Kevin. A poster attempts to make a comparison of the Nazi attrocities to the mistreatment of German POW's by the Allies. He goes on to cast doubt on the Holocaust. Then the same poster follows up with a thread entitled VICTOR GREGG and cast light on the atrocities committed by the Allies in Dresden. You don't see an agenda? People are making an argument for moral equivalence.

I assume the poster you are talking about is me.At NO time have I cast doubt on the mass killings of Jews in WW11 but what I did cast doubts on was the alleged number of Jews gassed at Auschwitz ( the thread was about Auschwitz after all ).Over the years I have never seen any hard evedence that the reported number of Jews were gassed at Auschwitz,if fact most evednce has been the opposite.
Then to suggest my Victor Gregg thread is just part of some hidden Pro Nazi/anti semitic agenda is ludicrous....my only agrenda is to point out like VG is that atrocities of war ( by all sides) should not be forgetten...... so we can all learn from out mistakes .

Originally Posted by boloa

Victor Gregg says sadly " I think I have got a duty to impress on others that there must be a better answer than people killing one another.I don't think I will ever succeed in this..... as they are still doing it "

BBC News - Dresden survivor's story

Originally Posted by Humbert

Originally Posted by robuzo

Nothing about genocide committed or an agenda, but something about your lack of sympathy for dead German civilians- "the Germans," right?

I'm sorry for civilian deaths but the responsibility lies with their own government.

I've made a similar point when discussing the aerial bombardment of Japanese cities with Japanese people- given that the Imperial Japanese government was willing to let civilians be killed in their tens of thousands isn't it a bit much to claim that the Americans should have shown restraint? If so the Americans are being given far too much credit, we really aren't that nice (although to their credit some American military leaders did oppose the firebombing of defenseless cities).

There are other defenses of the bombing of Dresden, etc.- that they forced the Germans to withdraw fighter planes from frontline areas at a time when the Germans were desperately attempting to hold off the Red Army in the east. According to Beevor it was the Soviets who requested the bombing of Dresden, and Harris complied. These excuses ring hollow in hindsight, in my opinion, but I'm also not sure we are in a position to judge based on what we know now.

It's possible to view this and similar actions "war crimes," or probably more accurately as crimes against humanity, in which various parties on both sides were complicit. Of the Axis nations the Germans have been the most serious about taking responsibility for their actions and would surely not on the whole look well on anyone seeking prosecutions (those responsible are surely dead by now) or asking for reparations. Taking a hard look at this sort of action might help change the view of WWII as the Good War to something more like the Necessary War (in large part necessary because of stupid actions after the previous World War). Americans in particular might consider that not everything they did during the war was quite so squeaky clean or "good," and if they can apply those lessons (extremely) belatedly to the War on Terror it would be for the better.

I read the following in an interview with Wendell Berry the other day and strikes me that it might be relevant- if not, forgive me:

"We threaten and make war, as a first choice or as a matter of course, because we conceive of violence as the normal answer to other people’s violence. As war becomes ever more industrial, more technological, more able to inflict its damage at a distance and by remote control, we seem to like it better. President Obama has become, as he was fated to be, the new head pioneer of remote control. There is no need to face your enemies or even know them, if you can push a button and kill them at a distance of thousands of miles without getting up from your chair. For this there are the urgent practical reasons that war invariably supplies."

Perhaps if we take the lessons of Dresden seriously it might make it more difficult to blow up wedding parties in the Hindu Kush or in Yemen. Civilians will die in war, it's the nature of the beast, and while the enemy may ultimately be responsible for putting his own people in the way the ease with which we can kill at a distance, a practice that first came to the fore in WWII, should, if anything make us even more reticent to enter into war unless it is absolutely necessary.

bettyboo, you really need to stop your idealistic and childish tree hugging and accept once and for all that the world was, is and always will be a terrible place, and so long as humans survive, it will be ruled by terrible people.

with all this dreamy womens institute theorizing about humanity, shamefulness and ethics, you sound like the archbishop of canterbury's greasiest acolyte.

the world is what it is, a bit of a shithole thanks to mankind, and if the bullies are not challenged, they will take over, and the end result will be far worse than a few thousand innocent deaths. the human race survives an amoral squalid existence based on selfishness, violence, greed and ego. and thats exactly how it was designed to survive, like every other animal on the planet. ruthlessness ensures survival, and civilisation tempers our natural inclination towards ruthlessness

civilised societies try to keep the worst excesses under control, but thanks to political correctness, tolerance and liberalism, seem to be fighting a losing battle against mankinds natural inclination to find any chink in the armour of restraint, common sense and fairness and mercilessly exploit it.

just look as IS, boko haram or Putins madcap adventures to see how the future could unfold unless action is taken.

fact is, these days, we need more controls, bombs and soldiers, not less. however unpalatable that sounds the situation demands it.

ive said it before and i'll say it again, you cant make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.