Excessive use of force in war

Discussion in 'History' started by spacemansteve, Jun 20, 2006.

  1. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    I had the feeling that excessive force is the entire point of war. As they say in Apocalypse Now, arresting someone for murder in Vietnam is like arresting someone for speeding at Indianapolis--the whole point of Indie is that you go there to speed.
     
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  3. G. F. Schleebenhorst England != UK Registered Senior Member

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    It's funny, because that's exactly how I see it from my side of the argument. No matter what testimony you post by whatever high ranking US military officer or respected historian, or no matter how sound the logic, there's always some right wing pro-yank fanboy who cannot accept that his beloved country can be anything other than "the good guy" 100% of the time. Either that or they're an ignorant piece of shit who believes that the civilians of another country are worth less or deserve less rights than the civilians of his own.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2006
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  5. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    the entire point of war is to defeat your enemy.
     
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  7. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    G. F. Schleebenhorst, or the ignorant piece of shit that want to politically correct history so they can look down their snotty noses in superiority at the people who new how to fight and win a war that set up the freedom that he enjoys today, that is the problem today is that to many people don't want to go the distance and win which is why we keep having these never ending little wars, we are held back by people like you who think this is a foot ball match and that you have to be fare with your enemy, the only time to be fare with a enemy is after the war, and you have won, then you can be magnanimous and do like we did after WWII and help them rebuild and reestablish their governments and economies, is a less violent system, the pattern was established in the end of WWII, and it has led to the longest time of peace in Europe and the Far East, yes there have been little wars, police actions, and that is the problem, we don't take the time to win those and establish the rule of peace, so they keep coming back and like a house infested with flees, they keep jumping out of the carpet and sucking your blood!
     
  8. The Devil Inside Banned Banned

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    ill give you this, buffalo:

    you are a thousand times more entertaining to read than Woody.
     
  9. The Devil Inside Banned Banned

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    i seriously hope you werent lumping me into this definition.....as it is just about the opposite of my actual views.
     
  10. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    G.F.
    just like there is a certain british fanboy.
     
  11. G. F. Schleebenhorst England != UK Registered Senior Member

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    It might have (and I could argue that yankmerica had almost fuck all to do with those freedoms, but that's another thread), but the atomic bombings had nothing to do with that.

    ....you mean too many people don't want to kill women and children, which sounds fine to me. You can dress it up in whatever euphemism you want, but it's still just killing innocent women and children.


    It's called honour....a concept as alien to yanks as irony.

    No, the reason that these wars happen like they do, in the last 50 years, in most cases is because the US meddled in that country's affairs, toppled democratically elected leaders, funded genocidal dictators, sold that country WMDs, or put a despot in charge of that country. That is why terrorists want to blow you up and I (and a rapidly increasing number of my countrymen) am ashamed that my country considers you an ally.
     
  12. my_Names_Steve Registered Member

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    The problem with thinking about humane ways of killing people in a war is just that. We are in a war, and death will happen. You do what you need to do to win. It is kill or be killed. In any example of war; if you didnt take that shot in your heli with the missle, those guys would have been shooting at your friends or you, with the intent on killing. Humane does not need to be taken into consideration at that point. Excessive force does not need to be taken into point at this time.
    Humane and excessive force should be used to limit what people do in a more... homefront battle. The battle against crime and drugs, not the battle against nations. The countless police using excessive force is one example of when to impliment some change. The humane treatment of POWs is an example of when to use a humane mindset.
     
  13. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    I hear you. You don't want hospitalized people picking up their crutches, waving them in a threatening fashion in the air, and throwing bandaids at your buddies.
     
  14. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    especially if they're iraqis
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Schleeb, this is a big country. There are three hundred million of us. We are not all the same. Lots of us are just as honorable as you are and have devoted substantial energy to trying to restore the honor of the USA.

    Considering that "Yankees" differ from one another about as much as Jews, right down to the absence of common DNA, a statement like this is about as "racist" as a similar statement that lumps all Jews together as a monolithic ethnic group.

    It's just karma that every country goes through a bad patch. The test of its people is whether and how they get themselves out of it. The amount of damage they do in the meantime is as much an accident of history as it is a measure of how "dishonorable" they are. Fate has handed us the opportunity to wield an extraordinary amount of power just at the point when we're going through some agonizing internal squabbles over isolationism, religion, respect for elders, and many other Big Issues. Every nation that's been in this role has screwed up. Spain, Japan, Germany and Russia were blights on the history of the human race; we've got a chance to redeem ourselves before being invited into that particular gentlemen's club.

    The world we've been thrust into is largely a world created by the British. They bask in the progressive legitimacy of a European Union many of them didn't even want to join and criticize us for the way we're handling this, but it was they who created Iraq, Israel, and the hodgepodge quasi-nations in Africa. Many of us feel that they should be taking a far more active role in sorting out their own mess. Being a toddler as nations go, we have no sense of history and it's impossible for us to understand the sheer weight of karma in disputes that go back more than a thousand years. It would be really nice if some of our elders would do more than nag us for not knowing what we're doing.

    Yes we've got the village idiot running the village, but roughly half of our citizens have never supported him or his hubris-driven holy war. The fact that he had to lie, cheat and steal his way to victory in the election should be enough to clue you in to the fact that he does not represent some mythical consensus of the American people. So please don't tar us all with the same brush. The same is true of every leader we've had since Roosevelt died, almost none of them were handed anything close to a mandate. The Cold War, Vietnam, Israel vs. Palestine... at least 40% of our people have made up the "loyal opposition" on each of those issues, and in many cases more. And in many cases not so loyal, either.
    If we've been meddling, toppling, funding, arming, and despotizing, we've been merely following in a grand tradition that goes back to the Greeks and Romans. We're pikers compared to the colonial powers who spent nearly half a century trying to rebuild the nations outside Europe as labor and consumer markets under puppet governments.
    I can understant the terrorists, because from their perspective we're just the next foreign power trying to fix their problems. We've inherited the legacy of the Ottomans and the British. Still, we've only been doing it for half a century. I don't understand the European attitude, since you guys were the last foreign power to do the same thing and you did it for centuries.

    Give us a break. There are more Americans who agree with you and are ashamed of our government than there are people in your entire country.
     
  16. The Devil Inside Banned Banned

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    it is fashionable to dislike americans, in europe.
    i have experienced this firsthand, and every single time the person who expressed the opinion that americans were warmongers or whatever shut his/her mouth, as soon as it was made clear that their opinion was baseless.

    i have a political speech memorized for every single person i meet. this shouldnt be necessary, or even "normal"...but it is, here.
     
  17. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Americans are warmongers devil. In general. Just look at history.

    Maybe you aren't. But americans are.
     
  18. Destroyer Banned Banned

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    What is it?
     
  19. The Devil Inside Banned Banned

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    conceded.

    but the point is that people should never be tarred with the same brush.
     
  20. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    No, they shouldn't.

    But there is something like a collective guilt. You can see this collective guilt in Germans after what happened in WW2 and you can see it in Germans that weren't even born then.

    And are we really innocent in regards what our countries do? Isn't that the origin of collective guilt. Knowing what your country has done and not acting. Or knowing what horrible things you country in the past has done and regretting the misery it caused.

    Overall I don't see much of this collective guilt in Americans. And I do not know if that is a good thing.

    Here on this forum (which is hardly a natural representation of the american people) you even see lots of boasting.

    And that pisses me off.

    To create misery and boast about it.

    But knowing you you have similar feelings.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2006
  21. The Devil Inside Banned Banned

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    i think it is sick for ANYONE to be proud of their tribe's ability to murder en masse better than another tribe.

    however, there are plenty of us who are dissenters.
     
  22. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I look at history and I see an event named the "The Hundred Years War." I see a country named Spain that obliterated two entire civilizations, and a religious community named Islam that obliterated an earlier one. I see a people named the Mongols that exploded out of their homeland at various times in about six different directions, raping and pillaging everyone and everything in their way. I see an island named Japan that carried on that tradition after the Mongols were finally absorbed by China. I see Germany... but I don't want to violate Godwin's Law again.

    I don't know what your reference standard is for "warmongers," but with competition like that we just don't qualify.
     
  23. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    when i look at history i notice that the dutch have been conquered at least 3 times. once by the british, the spanish and the germans.
    but it's america you hate. go figure.

    the dutch not only have no balls, it appears they have no backbone.
     

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