I doubt seriously whether a pan-eurasian 3rd Reich would have looked anything like the EU, other than from a tarrif and currency standpoint. You're talking about a global dictatorship over 7/8th's of the world's population when all is said and done, consolidated under the rulership of madmen. The Jewish holocaust would have looked like sunday tea after the Germans had gotten done with all the ethnicities that they would now hold dominion over.
Is world peace under a Nazi dictatorship preferrable to today's world? I think not for the above reasons - and like magic, we are back on topic. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
One has to see things in their historical context. At the time of WW2 Germany had been on a nationalistic binge for some 60 years at least. And several times earlier the nation had shown it self scarily efficient and willing to do some good old blut und eisen politics. Against France and Denmark before the turn of the century. Again in WW1, and now WW2.
So Germany had a nasty track record. I believe USA intervened partially of shock, like 9/11 made some knee jerk invasion. Im not sure it was entirely in USAs best interest, unless the politicians realized the threat that German dominance would be to american trade. And I am not entirely sure it would be. Hitler and his goons didn't harbor any resentment towards USA, rather admiration.
Should they not have gone in? Hell yeah, I'd be german by conquest if they haven't. So yes, it was good. Now, the difference is, USA WAS NOT ALONE. USA had help of britain and help of USSR to fight it out. In Afghanistan they were alone. And its a mess there now. Finish the job already, would ya?
Iraq? Well I thought the Second Gulf war had it's merit. Kuwait was invaded. Iraq was again a threat to regional stability, and oil delivery, how ever much we do not like to admit we fight for oil, had probably the biggest meaning back then.
The third gulf war however, I am still sceptical about it. I think it is the mad neo conservative hatters (conservative is too good a word for them - foaming radicals is more a fitting description) having knee jerk reactions and seeing terrorists everywhere. Sure, the overthrowing of Saddam would be a good thing. Too bad things didn't go as smooth as we all hoped it would. Whats worse? Being abudcted and tortured to death by the thousands or blown to pieces ever day by partisans? Im not sure, but you end up dead either way.
I tried to stay away from moral argumentation here. Because if we are talking about Doing The Right Thing, well liberating the oppressed from the oppressors are always a noble deed. Just make sure it's actual not going from bad to worse while doing it, m'kay?
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:09 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I doubt seriously whether a pan-eurasian 3rd Reich would have looked anything like the EU, other than from a tarrif and currency standpoint. You're talking about a global dictatorship over 7/8th's of the world's population when all is said and done, consolidated under the rulership of madmen. The Jewish holocaust would have looked like sunday tea after the Germans had gotten done with all the ethnicities that they would now hold dominion over.
Is world peace under a Nazi dictatorship preferrable to today's world? I think not for the above reasons - and like magic, we are back on topic. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I think after WW2 the generals would have gotten rid of Hitler. No sane person would watch hitler getting rid of so much working power: africans, indians, chinese, japanese(?), native americans, south americans, australian aboriginals and whatnot. I even doubt that Hitler would have done all that. He killed jews only because he needed someone to blame for everything. Bad weather? German people, blame jews! It worked very well in the end. Pretty similiar to coldwar communist hunts.
Hitler needed an enemy to maintain power. That's how he got INTO power, that's how he kept power. The communists were the enemy! And his people would rally. The jews are the enemy! And his people would rally. Someone set fire to the reichtstag! And his people rallied allowing him to "eliminate" any competition.
What if he conquered russia, africa, and all of europe? He wouldn't look around and be satisfied. No, if he could conquer all of that, then surely america shouldn't be beyond his grasp. Evidently he showed that he would go as far as the world would let him when he declared war on america.
This is similar to saying "What if one leader got up, and outlawed disease." Anyone with a disease, especially genetic/hereditary diseases, would be killed. On the spot. Mass graves. And every citizen must be tested to ensure he did not have any sort of illness.
The species would prosper. All the weak have been eliminated, only the strong reproduce. Disease would still exist, but a very tiny fraction of the population would have any. This would, undeniably, be good for the human race as a whole.
Now morally? That crap don't fly! No one wants to be labeled the bad guy, and anyone who tried it would be stopped regardless of the advantages it would have in the long term. It's a delimma. You can't say "well, if hitler HAD gotten away with everything he wanted to, we'd have peace...". Well, if I killed everyone I saw, after about 6 billion times it sure would be peaceful. But that doesn't justify the action.
So I don't buy this "even if we hadn't intervened, hitler's actions, although bad, would have caused long term stability" crap.
<!--QuoteBegin--Immacolata+Oct 27 2003, 05:11 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Immacolata @ Oct 27 2003, 05:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> One has to see things in their historical context. At the time of WW2 Germany had been on a nationalistic binge for some 60 years at least. And several times earlier the nation had shown it self scarily efficient and willing to do some good old blut und eisen politics. Against France and Denmark before the turn of the century. Again in WW1, and now WW2.
So Germany had a nasty track record. I believe USA intervened partially of shock, like 9/11 made some knee jerk invasion. Im not sure it was entirely in USAs best interest, unless the politicians realized the threat that German dominance would be to american trade. And I am not entirely sure it would be. Hitler and his goons didn't harbor any resentment towards USA, rather admiration.
Should they not have gone in? Hell yeah, I'd be german by conquest if they haven't. So yes, it was good. Now, the difference is, USA WAS NOT ALONE. USA had help of britain and help of USSR to fight it out. In Afghanistan they were alone. And its a mess there now. Finish the job already, would ya?
Iraq? Well I thought the Second Gulf war had it's merit. Kuwait was invaded. Iraq was again a threat to regional stability, and oil delivery, how ever much we do not like to admit we fight for oil, had probably the biggest meaning back then.
The third gulf war however, I am still sceptical about it. I think it is the mad neo conservative hatters (conservative is too good a word for them - foaming radicals is more a fitting description) having knee jerk reactions and seeing terrorists everywhere. Sure, the overthrowing of Saddam would be a good thing. Too bad things didn't go as smooth as we all hoped it would. Whats worse? Being abudcted and tortured to death by the thousands or blown to pieces ever day by partisans? Im not sure, but you end up dead either way.
I tried to stay away from moral argumentation here. Because if we are talking about Doing The Right Thing, well liberating the oppressed from the oppressors are always a noble deed. Just make sure it's actual not going from bad to worse while doing it, m'kay? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> And just like that, Immac ruins the topic, bringing up Iraq. Can we PLEASE stay on topic as best as possible? If you read my topic, you will see we did not directly intervene in Germany - they declared war on us, then we reacted. As for your points about the help of other nations, they are immaterial to the discussion; there are 40 non-US nations right now providing support to the Iraqi occupation militarily, far more than the UK and Soviets in WW2, so obviously that's not a factor.
I'm asking nicely people - stop screwing with my topic. Analogies are fine, but this is not about Iraq.
I hesitate, in general, to raise the removal of a dictator to the level of a moral obligation. The question should not be whether there was an actual obligation to intervene in WWII; rather we should ask, was it justified to intervene?
I say stopping the Holocaust was a just cause. Such a horror was unheard of, it needed to be stopped for the sake of humanity. An invasion was the last resort. Still, it must be criticized that the means were not proportionate. Carpet bombing cities was unnecessary and cruel. Yet, in the end, law and order were restored.
The case for Iraq, however, is not at all analogous. There was no just cause and war was not the last resort.
<!--QuoteBegin--Dread+Oct 27 2003, 05:13 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dread @ Oct 27 2003, 05:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I think after WW2 the generals would have gotten rid of Hitler. No sane person would watch hitler getting rid of so much working power: africans, indians, chinese, japanese(?), native americans, south americans, australian aboriginals and whatnot. I even doubt that Hitler would have done all that. He killed jews only because he needed someone to blame for everything. Bad weather? German people, blame jews! It worked very well in the end. Pretty similiar to coldwar communist hunts. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> As many slavs died in the concentration camps as Jews, and there were a lot more slavs to go around. The Nazi's would not simply have gone out of power when the won the war, they would have become stronger. I am honestly baffled by your logic. The sucessor to Hitler would have been another core Nazi, not some democratically-elected president. It's a cycle that would have ended only in revolution by the occupied, or external warfare.
And he did not kill jews 'only to have someone to blame things on' - that's a policy of diminishing returns. If there's no one to blame, you go blame someone else. He killed jews because he despised them and thougt they were racially inferior. Once they lost all their power in Germany, the Jews cold no longer be blamed for anything. He covers all this in a pretty detailed manner in that filth he wrote, mein kampf.
Pardon good sir knight, but it is indeed a very artificial line in the sand to draw in such matters. But I understand why you might want to exclude that particular conflict.
For WW2, you had a world about to go up in flames. You could either sit on your hands and hope the fallout didn't hit you or do something about it. In the end, it was probably a very good investment made by USA, and Im sure that more than anything else catapulted the US economy post war, with Europes and Japans following in the draft wind. The good question is: what motive made USA do it? It was a good show of that removing oppresive regimes and installing democracies with trade as their holy goal was the better kind of world order.
If we speak of legalities, I believe USA was in good right to do it. They were too in Korea. They were not in Vietnam, that was sort of a conflict "outside the law". Which the underhanded support by the communists also showed.
<!--QuoteBegin--Twex+Oct 27 2003, 05:18 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Twex @ Oct 27 2003, 05:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I hesitate, in general, to raise the removal of a dictator to the level of a moral obligation. The question should not be whether there was an actual obligation to intervene in WWII; rather we should ask, was it justified to intervene?
I say stopping the Holocaust was a just cause. Such a horror was unheard of, it needed to be stopped for the sake of humanity. An invasion was the last resort. Still, it must be criticized that the means were not proportionate. Carpet bombing cities was unnecessary and cruel. Yet, in the end, law and order were restored.
The case for Iraq, however, is not at all analogous. There was no just cause and war was not the last resort. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> This is another topic - go open it. And explain to me how mass graves in Iraq with tens of thousands of executed civilians is any different from the holocaust except in the final bodycount. Then you can explain to me how the US fought he Germans over the holocaust, which is a myth; the holocaust was kept secret from the American public for years by its own government, so that's not the reason war was waged.
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:21 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:21 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> As many slavs died in the concentration camps as Jews, and there were a lot more slavs to go around. The Nazi's would not simply have gone out of power when the won the war, they would have become stronger. I am honestly baffled by your logic. The sucessor to Hitler would have been another core Nazi, not some democratically-elected president. It's a cycle that would have ended only in revolution by the occupied, or external warfare.
And he did not kill jews 'only to have someone to blame things on' - that's a policy of diminishing returns. If there's no one to blame, you go blame someone else. He killed jews because he despised them and thougt they were racially inferior. Once they lost all their power in Germany, the Jews cold no longer be blamed for anything. He covers all this in a pretty detailed manner in that filth he wrote, mein kampf. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> History definitely shows that if a madman gets into power, more madmen will follow him. So yes, having kept Hitler would have been BAD for all. But did anyone know back then? Did we have a long history of fascists and mad dictators by then? Perhaps not, but plenty of crazy kings. The powermonger was perhaps more the order of the day back then, so how could anyone predict what would happen or not happen?
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:44 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:44 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Was it enough that we had a moral obligation to the lives of those the Nazi's were ending (this did not cause us to enter for 2 years, after all)? Does an evil dictatorship's existence alone justify our entry? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> now now
this applies to Chinese too. it is possible its nether regions would still be fragmented into small kingdoms while by and large the northeastern and coastal regions would be occupied or lawless land. Furthermore the Japanese will have actively tried to destroy the Chinese population and assimilate the survivors. An affront of the most dire degree
Reply to MonsE: Remember the trials after WW2? Remember all the line soldiers talking in documents how they really felt? Yeah, they didn't actually hate Jews, they just bared with Hitlers 'fascination'. After Hitler, the next guy(if sane) would have gone for economy, re-construction etc.
Then again, we can't say for sure if the next guy would have been sane person. But try to understand one thing: Nazis weren't born hating anyone. They did it because it was the instruction of the leader. On the side, they really didn't want to do it.
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 12:52 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 12:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--CommunistWithAGun+Oct 27 2003, 01:42 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (CommunistWithAGun @ Oct 27 2003, 01:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Imagine this, imagine pearl harbor never happening, then imagine the US retaining its neutrality...Never to attack the Axis forces, and our friend Hitler invents the nuclear weapon. GG life....GG.... I realize this isn't much of a post, but I don't think I need to ramble on about how bad it would've been if we hadn't been involved. Scary thought. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ahh, but Pearl Harbor does happen. We just don't have Germany declare war on us, dragging us into the european conflict. We still probably would have developed the A-Bomb for that conflict, and the Germans never were very serious about creating one after British/Norwegian commando raids destroyed their only heavy water supply in Norway.
How is this different than Iraq though, for example? Should we have preemptively struck the Nazi's based on their treatment of their neighbors and own population, plus the fact that they had weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological, plus your point to planned nukes)? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> the geopolitics were different then. I suggest a return to said times.
If worst comes to worst the moral watchdogs can always try to kick the offenders butts.
I cannot even follow the flow of this discussion, just individual posts.
i really find questionable the fact even tho true for some that they didn't really want to do it. So what? I will try to have a more substantive answer later perhaps, but I do not excuse them so easily.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Then you can explain to me how the US fought he Germans over the holocaust, which is a myth; the holocaust was kept secret from the American public for years by its own government, so that's not the reason war was waged. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm well aware of that, but when we judge such an event in retrospective, the subjective knowledge of a particular party is not relevant. Only the objective truth is.
The Holocaust was stopped by the Americans. This justifies their actions, no matter what their actual intentions were. On such a grand scale, with millions of lives at stake, ignorance cannot excuse anything.
<!--QuoteBegin--Immacolata+Oct 27 2003, 05:22 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Immacolata @ Oct 27 2003, 05:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Pardon good sir knight, but it is indeed a very artificial line in the sand to draw in such matters. But I understand why you might want to exclude that particular conflict.
For WW2, you had a world about to go up in flames. You could either sit on your hands and hope the fallout didn't hit you or do something about it. In the end, it was probably a very good investment made by USA, and Im sure that more than anything else catapulted the US economy post war, with Europes and Japans following in the draft wind. The good question is: what motive made USA do it? It was a good show of that removing oppresive regimes and installing democracies with trade as their holy goal was the better kind of world order.
If we speak of legalities, I believe USA was in good right to do it. They were too in Korea. They were not in Vietnam, that was sort of a conflict "outside the law". Which the underhanded support by the communists also showed. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I mainly try to preemptively strike (heh) against the people in here that automatically want to make everything about iraq, because they are young and don't know any history. My apologies, fair damsel Immac. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
You make an important point that I've been waiting all day for someone to bring up (/me shakes fist at your incompetent teachers! Arggg!!! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) - and that is economics. With almost no exceptions, wars are at their root caused by economics (name me one you think was not, and I'll prove it was). WW2 pulled America out of its greatest disaster of all time, the Great Depression (ditto for Germany), and without that war, America might not have recovered soon, or at all, as we know it. Was <i>that</i> justification enough to join the war? Putting the country on a war footing pulled it out of a massive economic morrass (spare me the nonsense about CCC/WPA, that was diminishing returns from day one).
As for legalities - the US never declared war on Korea, or Vietnam. Constitutionally, they were completely illegal wars from a US perspective. WW2 was the last 'legal' war the US ever fought. Hows that for ethics? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
btw pre Imperial Chinese philosophy maintained that a moral obligation is an excellent reason to go to war. When the people see your righteousness who will dare oppose? Obviously you must take steps to appear to sincerely have the interests of the civilians at heart, and to be able to accomplish strides in those interests, if nothing barred your way.
<!--QuoteBegin--Dread+Oct 27 2003, 05:26 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dread @ Oct 27 2003, 05:26 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Reply to MonsE: Remember the trials after WW2? Remember all the line soldiers talking in documents how they really felt? Yeah, they didn't actually hate Jews, they just bared with Hitlers 'fascination'. After Hitler, the next guy(if sane) would have gone for economy, re-construction etc.
Then again, we can't say for sure if the next guy would have been sane person. But try to understand one thing: Nazis weren't born hating anyone. They did it because it was the instruction of the leader. On the side, they really didn't want to do it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I am frankly shocked that this is your belief, Dread, as you are quoting revisionist 4th reich propoganda. Ask Nemesis to provide more sources on this, but it's pretty well documented that the Nazi's truly hated almost everyone. There was no 'sane guy' in line, if you're read anything about the inner circle of the Nazi party. Line soldiers and Nazis are not related - the government was Nazis, and the line soldiers did what the government said. After 10 years of killing Jews and the german people doing nothing, it was obvious no one was going to argue with the Nazis about it and tacit agreement was reached.
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:33 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:33 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> With almost no exceptions, wars are at their root caused by economics (name me one you think was not, and I'll prove it was). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> French Revolution 1789? Israel-Palestinian conflicts? Scottish uprising against england? Pretty much all civil wars are started because the other side wants more freedom. The other side wants more power, not necessary economics <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Edit:<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I am frankly shocked that this is your belief, Dread, as you are quoting revisionist 4th reich propoganda. Ask Nemesis to provide more sources on this, but it's pretty well documented that the Nazi's truly hated almost everyone. There was no 'sane guy' in line, if you're read anything about the inner circle of the Nazi party. Line soldiers and Nazis are not related - the government was Nazis, and the line soldiers did what the government said. After 10 years of killing Jews and the german people doing nothing, it was obvious no one was going to argue with the Nazis about it and tacit agreement was reached.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, right. Nazis and line wermacht were completely different. However the question is: would the follower of Hitler be someone powerful non-nazi General or what? They were already planning Hitlers assasination pretty early on during WW2, do you think they would have let it go on like it did if Hitler would have continued to conquer the whole world?
Edit2: My belief is that Hitler would have been quickly replaced with someone less oppressive, thinking person. Just see what happens to Dubya <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
French revolution was about the massive class-warfare brought on by economic disparities.
Israeli-Palestinian conflicts are about land usage (which is economics at the core - farming, business, ownership).
Scottish uprising against England was about massive taxation of land, tennant farming, trade tarrifs, and other unfair economic practices.
What else you got?
Edit: and it is fair to say that if any of the Hitler assasination attempts had succeeded, you would have had a similar results as in the real history: everyone even slightly minutely possibly involved gets executed, and the Nazi machine keeps rolling on. You really think that Himmler and Heydrich and co. were just going to roll over if the Fuehrer died? He was an old man already, he probably only had a few years left in him. When Stalin died the soviet union did not just magically become a democracy - the party lived on, with new dictators.
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:33 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:33 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> You make an important point that I've been waiting all day for someone to bring up (/me shakes fist at your incompetent teachers! Arggg!!! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) - and that is economics. With almost no exceptions, wars are at their root caused by economics (name me one you think was not, and I'll prove it was). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> That sounds like Clausewitzian thinking to me <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
As the materialist I am, I tend to view all wars as a cause of economical concerns as well. It's simply too expensive to wage war if there isn't anything gained from it economically, or vital economcial interests losts. People might argue that religion and mad ideas tends to lead to war, but I truly cannot believe that any kind of organized war will be made without economical reasoning or circumstancens factoring in. We're on the same page.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->WW2 pulled America out of its greatest disaster of all time, the Great Depression (ditto for Germany), and without that war, America might not have recovered soon, or at all, as we know it. Was <i>that</i> justification enough to join the war? Putting the country on a war footing pulled it out of a massive economic morrass (spare me the nonsense about CCC/WPA, that was diminishing returns from day one). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it's a bold thought I must say, do you hereby think that USA went into the war because the administration saw it as a "Round two" of the new deal launched a decade earlier? It is funny, but after most wars there has been periods of prosperity. Apparantly, sometimes it takes the dismantling of walls, plundering of farms and raping of maidens to get the economy kicked into gear again. Crass.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As for legalities - the US never declared war on Korea, or Vietnam. Constitutionally, they were completely illegal wars from a US perspective. WW2 was the last 'legal' war the US ever fought. Hows that for ethics? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I had the impression that the american involvement in the Korean war was a UN operation? I haven't studied that so I stand corrected. I knew about vietnam. There was some murky Tonkin bay affair, but it was not in it self a justifiable cause of war was it? Anyways, to get back to More Recent Conflicts such as the Second and Third Gulf war: The second had clear economic motives. But I can't find heads or tails in the last one.
Believe it or not, Vietnam was a UN operation as well at various stages in the conflict. My pop served alongside Aussies, Koreans, and lots of other foreigners as well. Being a UN operation does not render any legal standing in the USA however, as the UN is not covered by the constitution...
The thing that makes us all rich is trade. So the US involvement in WW2 made sure to tear up some closed market and integrate world trade much better, thus resulting in more trade. The old New deal thinking isn't so bad. Remember that Japan experience a boom in modern times after they had their ports opened by force (some admiral, american?) in the 1860s. After that, during the Meiji Restoration, Japan boomed and kept booming, catching up from ages of isolationism. Another swift little waroperation, which was scarcely a war but intentions were the same, that shook up the economy.
<!--QuoteBegin--Dread+Oct 27 2003, 05:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dread @ Oct 27 2003, 05:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Edit2: My belief is that Hitler would have been quickly replaced with someone less oppressive, thinking person. Just see what happens to Dubya <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes. Himmler, the second in command of the party, the creator of the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and the SS, was a far less oppressive person...
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:56 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Dread+Oct 27 2003, 05:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dread @ Oct 27 2003, 05:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Edit2: My belief is that Hitler would have been quickly replaced with someone less oppressive, thinking person. Just see what happens to Dubya <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes. Himmler, the second in command of the party, the creator of the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and the SS, was a far less oppressive person...
<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> MonsE is right. If anything, social systems are self reproductive. A harsh punitive father raises kids that turns into harsh punishing fathers. And dictactors foster more dictators, be they his own offspring or ursurpers that none the less are brought up under the influence of said system, and thus shares it's core values.
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Oct 27 2003, 11:56 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Oct 27 2003, 11:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Dread+Oct 27 2003, 05:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dread @ Oct 27 2003, 05:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Edit2: My belief is that Hitler would have been quickly replaced with someone less oppressive, thinking person. Just see what happens to Dubya <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes. Himmler, the second in command of the party, the creator of the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and the SS, was a far less oppressive person...
<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Bah, I believe that if people get oppressed long enough, they either take over by theirselves or people in the upper levels dispatch the moron upsetting people and messing economy. Hasn't that been always the case in history?
EpidemicDark Force GorgeJoin Date: 2003-06-29Member: 17781Members
MonseEvil, most of the examples you mentioned did indeed involve economic as a part of cause, but not the primary cause (mostly religion and surpression). Also, was the ww2 started by economics?
<!--QuoteBegin--Epidemic+Oct 28 2003, 12:00 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Epidemic @ Oct 28 2003, 12:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> MonseEvil, most of the examples you mentioned did indeed involve economic as a part of cause, but not the primary cause (mostly religion and surpression). Also, was the ww2 started by economics? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Well, kind of. Hitler wanted more resources and power(not living space really). That's offtopic though, we should either make a new thread or handle it through PM's.
<!--QuoteBegin--Dread+Oct 28 2003, 12:00 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dread @ Oct 28 2003, 12:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Bah, I believe that if people get oppressed long enough, they either take over by theirselves or people in the upper levels dispatch the moron upsetting people and messing economy. Hasn't that been always the case in history? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Erm no. That's utopian Marxist thinking I am afraid. If history shows anything it isn't that systems are toppled over from below, it's rather that it gets top heavy and implodes. The roman empire wasn't overthrown by it's non-citizens and slaves, but by a pressure from outside that the system was unable to cope with, perhaps due to increasing conformity and topheavyness.
In recent times we have seen several countries having undergone revolutions. However, those were mostly due to external subterfuge (like how Lenin was supported by Germany) combined with increasingly topheavy regimes - the last tzar didn't exactly have a good way to run his empire, plagued by war and famine. If you keep the peons fed and shoot insurgents, you'll probably remain in power for quite a while. As long as you can justify your rule, as Machiavelli predicted, you will rule. And keeping everyone fed is a good justification, people will endure that some of the free thinkers gets a bullet to the head now and then if the alternative is starvation for everyone AND free bullets to the head. And if you get ursuped, chances are higher that it is a man of the system rather than some peasant-turned-liberator-of-the-people. Alas <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Democracy, however good and flawed, also produces men of the systems. That is why I predict that at some point they too will topple and be replaced by something different. Perhaps better, let us all hope, perhaps worse.
<!--QuoteBegin--Epidemic+Oct 27 2003, 06:00 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Epidemic @ Oct 27 2003, 06:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> MonseEvil, most of the examples you mentioned did indeed involve economic as a part of cause, but not the primary cause (mostly religion and surpression). Also, was the ww2 started by economics? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Really? So you can prove to me that economics are not the root cause? The reason I use the expression 'root cause' is because in every single war ever, you find economic basis at the very bottom. You may or may not find many tertiary reasons that were used to inflame the populace, such as religion or civil rights, which often get confused as more important issues in textbooks. They all boil down (yes, even religion and suppression) to economics, at their core. Not the other way around.
Comments
Is world peace under a Nazi dictatorship preferrable to today's world? I think not for the above reasons - and like magic, we are back on topic. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
So Germany had a nasty track record. I believe USA intervened partially of shock, like 9/11 made some knee jerk invasion. Im not sure it was entirely in USAs best interest, unless the politicians realized the threat that German dominance would be to american trade. And I am not entirely sure it would be. Hitler and his goons didn't harbor any resentment towards USA, rather admiration.
Should they not have gone in? Hell yeah, I'd be german by conquest if they haven't. So yes, it was good. Now, the difference is, USA WAS NOT ALONE. USA had help of britain and help of USSR to fight it out. In Afghanistan they were alone. And its a mess there now. Finish the job already, would ya?
Iraq? Well I thought the Second Gulf war had it's merit. Kuwait was invaded. Iraq was again a threat to regional stability, and oil delivery, how ever much we do not like to admit we fight for oil, had probably the biggest meaning back then.
The third gulf war however, I am still sceptical about it. I think it is the mad neo conservative hatters (conservative is too good a word for them - foaming radicals is more a fitting description) having knee jerk reactions and seeing terrorists everywhere. Sure, the overthrowing of Saddam would be a good thing. Too bad things didn't go as smooth as we all hoped it would. Whats worse? Being abudcted and tortured to death by the thousands or blown to pieces ever day by partisans? Im not sure, but you end up dead either way.
I tried to stay away from moral argumentation here. Because if we are talking about Doing The Right Thing, well liberating the oppressed from the oppressors are always a noble deed. Just make sure it's actual not going from bad to worse while doing it, m'kay?
Is world peace under a Nazi dictatorship preferrable to today's world? I think not for the above reasons - and like magic, we are back on topic. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think after WW2 the generals would have gotten rid of Hitler. No sane person would watch hitler getting rid of so much working power: africans, indians, chinese, japanese(?), native americans, south americans, australian aboriginals and whatnot. I even doubt that Hitler would have done all that. He killed jews only because he needed someone to blame for everything. Bad weather? German people, blame jews! It worked very well in the end. Pretty similiar to coldwar communist hunts.
What if he conquered russia, africa, and all of europe? He wouldn't look around and be satisfied. No, if he could conquer all of that, then surely america shouldn't be beyond his grasp. Evidently he showed that he would go as far as the world would let him when he declared war on america.
This is similar to saying "What if one leader got up, and outlawed disease." Anyone with a disease, especially genetic/hereditary diseases, would be killed. On the spot. Mass graves. And every citizen must be tested to ensure he did not have any sort of illness.
The species would prosper. All the weak have been eliminated, only the strong reproduce. Disease would still exist, but a very tiny fraction of the population would have any. This would, undeniably, be good for the human race as a whole.
Now morally? That crap don't fly! No one wants to be labeled the bad guy, and anyone who tried it would be stopped regardless of the advantages it would have in the long term. It's a delimma. You can't say "well, if hitler HAD gotten away with everything he wanted to, we'd have peace...". Well, if I killed everyone I saw, after about 6 billion times it sure would be peaceful. But that doesn't justify the action.
So I don't buy this "even if we hadn't intervened, hitler's actions, although bad, would have caused long term stability" crap.
So Germany had a nasty track record. I believe USA intervened partially of shock, like 9/11 made some knee jerk invasion. Im not sure it was entirely in USAs best interest, unless the politicians realized the threat that German dominance would be to american trade. And I am not entirely sure it would be. Hitler and his goons didn't harbor any resentment towards USA, rather admiration.
Should they not have gone in? Hell yeah, I'd be german by conquest if they haven't. So yes, it was good. Now, the difference is, USA WAS NOT ALONE. USA had help of britain and help of USSR to fight it out. In Afghanistan they were alone. And its a mess there now. Finish the job already, would ya?
Iraq? Well I thought the Second Gulf war had it's merit. Kuwait was invaded. Iraq was again a threat to regional stability, and oil delivery, how ever much we do not like to admit we fight for oil, had probably the biggest meaning back then.
The third gulf war however, I am still sceptical about it. I think it is the mad neo conservative hatters (conservative is too good a word for them - foaming radicals is more a fitting description) having knee jerk reactions and seeing terrorists everywhere. Sure, the overthrowing of Saddam would be a good thing. Too bad things didn't go as smooth as we all hoped it would. Whats worse? Being abudcted and tortured to death by the thousands or blown to pieces ever day by partisans? Im not sure, but you end up dead either way.
I tried to stay away from moral argumentation here. Because if we are talking about Doing The Right Thing, well liberating the oppressed from the oppressors are always a noble deed. Just make sure it's actual not going from bad to worse while doing it, m'kay? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
And just like that, Immac ruins the topic, bringing up Iraq. Can we PLEASE stay on topic as best as possible? If you read my topic, you will see we did not directly intervene in Germany - they declared war on us, then we reacted. As for your points about the help of other nations, they are immaterial to the discussion; there are 40 non-US nations right now providing support to the Iraqi occupation militarily, far more than the UK and Soviets in WW2, so obviously that's not a factor.
I'm asking nicely people - stop screwing with my topic. Analogies are fine, but this is not about Iraq.
I say stopping the Holocaust was a just cause. Such a horror was unheard of, it needed to be stopped for the sake of humanity. An invasion was the last resort. Still, it must be criticized that the means were not proportionate. Carpet bombing cities was unnecessary and cruel. Yet, in the end, law and order were restored.
The case for Iraq, however, is not at all analogous. There was no just cause and war was not the last resort.
As many slavs died in the concentration camps as Jews, and there were a lot more slavs to go around. The Nazi's would not simply have gone out of power when the won the war, they would have become stronger. I am honestly baffled by your logic. The sucessor to Hitler would have been another core Nazi, not some democratically-elected president. It's a cycle that would have ended only in revolution by the occupied, or external warfare.
And he did not kill jews 'only to have someone to blame things on' - that's a policy of diminishing returns. If there's no one to blame, you go blame someone else. He killed jews because he despised them and thougt they were racially inferior. Once they lost all their power in Germany, the Jews cold no longer be blamed for anything. He covers all this in a pretty detailed manner in that filth he wrote, mein kampf.
For WW2, you had a world about to go up in flames. You could either sit on your hands and hope the fallout didn't hit you or do something about it. In the end, it was probably a very good investment made by USA, and Im sure that more than anything else catapulted the US economy post war, with Europes and Japans following in the draft wind. The good question is: what motive made USA do it? It was a good show of that removing oppresive regimes and installing democracies with trade as their holy goal was the better kind of world order.
If we speak of legalities, I believe USA was in good right to do it. They were too in Korea. They were not in Vietnam, that was sort of a conflict "outside the law". Which the underhanded support by the communists also showed.
I say stopping the Holocaust was a just cause. Such a horror was unheard of, it needed to be stopped for the sake of humanity. An invasion was the last resort. Still, it must be criticized that the means were not proportionate. Carpet bombing cities was unnecessary and cruel. Yet, in the end, law and order were restored.
The case for Iraq, however, is not at all analogous. There was no just cause and war was not the last resort. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is another topic - go open it. And explain to me how mass graves in Iraq with tens of thousands of executed civilians is any different from the holocaust except in the final bodycount. Then you can explain to me how the US fought he Germans over the holocaust, which is a myth; the holocaust was kept secret from the American public for years by its own government, so that's not the reason war was waged.
And he did not kill jews 'only to have someone to blame things on' - that's a policy of diminishing returns. If there's no one to blame, you go blame someone else. He killed jews because he despised them and thougt they were racially inferior. Once they lost all their power in Germany, the Jews cold no longer be blamed for anything. He covers all this in a pretty detailed manner in that filth he wrote, mein kampf. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
History definitely shows that if a madman gets into power, more madmen will follow him. So yes, having kept Hitler would have been BAD for all. But did anyone know back then? Did we have a long history of fascists and mad dictators by then? Perhaps not, but plenty of crazy kings. The powermonger was perhaps more the order of the day back then, so how could anyone predict what would happen or not happen?
now now
this applies to Chinese too. it is possible its nether regions would still be fragmented into small kingdoms while by and large the northeastern and coastal regions would be occupied or lawless land. Furthermore the Japanese will have actively tried to destroy the Chinese population and assimilate the survivors. An affront of the most dire degree
Then again, we can't say for sure if the next guy would have been sane person. But try to understand one thing: Nazis weren't born hating anyone. They did it because it was the instruction of the leader. On the side, they really didn't want to do it.
Ahh, but Pearl Harbor does happen. We just don't have Germany declare war on us, dragging us into the european conflict. We still probably would have developed the A-Bomb for that conflict, and the Germans never were very serious about creating one after British/Norwegian commando raids destroyed their only heavy water supply in Norway.
How is this different than Iraq though, for example? Should we have preemptively struck the Nazi's based on their treatment of their neighbors and own population, plus the fact that they had weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological, plus your point to planned nukes)? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
the geopolitics were different then. I suggest a return to said times.
If worst comes to worst the moral watchdogs can always try to kick the offenders butts.
i really find questionable the fact even tho true for some that they didn't really want to do it. So what? I will try to have a more substantive answer later perhaps, but I do not excuse them so easily.
I'm well aware of that, but when we judge such an event in retrospective, the subjective knowledge of a particular party is not relevant. Only the objective truth is.
The Holocaust was stopped by the Americans. This justifies their actions, no matter what their actual intentions were. On such a grand scale, with millions of lives at stake, ignorance cannot excuse anything.
For WW2, you had a world about to go up in flames. You could either sit on your hands and hope the fallout didn't hit you or do something about it. In the end, it was probably a very good investment made by USA, and Im sure that more than anything else catapulted the US economy post war, with Europes and Japans following in the draft wind. The good question is: what motive made USA do it? It was a good show of that removing oppresive regimes and installing democracies with trade as their holy goal was the better kind of world order.
If we speak of legalities, I believe USA was in good right to do it. They were too in Korea. They were not in Vietnam, that was sort of a conflict "outside the law". Which the underhanded support by the communists also showed. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I mainly try to preemptively strike (heh) against the people in here that automatically want to make everything about iraq, because they are young and don't know any history. My apologies, fair damsel Immac. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
You make an important point that I've been waiting all day for someone to bring up (/me shakes fist at your incompetent teachers! Arggg!!! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) - and that is economics. With almost no exceptions, wars are at their root caused by economics (name me one you think was not, and I'll prove it was). WW2 pulled America out of its greatest disaster of all time, the Great Depression (ditto for Germany), and without that war, America might not have recovered soon, or at all, as we know it. Was <i>that</i> justification enough to join the war? Putting the country on a war footing pulled it out of a massive economic morrass (spare me the nonsense about CCC/WPA, that was diminishing returns from day one).
As for legalities - the US never declared war on Korea, or Vietnam. Constitutionally, they were completely illegal wars from a US perspective. WW2 was the last 'legal' war the US ever fought. Hows that for ethics? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Then again, we can't say for sure if the next guy would have been sane person. But try to understand one thing: Nazis weren't born hating anyone. They did it because it was the instruction of the leader. On the side, they really didn't want to do it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am frankly shocked that this is your belief, Dread, as you are quoting revisionist 4th reich propoganda. Ask Nemesis to provide more sources on this, but it's pretty well documented that the Nazi's truly hated almost everyone. There was no 'sane guy' in line, if you're read anything about the inner circle of the Nazi party. Line soldiers and Nazis are not related - the government was Nazis, and the line soldiers did what the government said. After 10 years of killing Jews and the german people doing nothing, it was obvious no one was going to argue with the Nazis about it and tacit agreement was reached.
French Revolution 1789? Israel-Palestinian conflicts? Scottish uprising against england? Pretty much all civil wars are started because the other side wants more freedom. The other side wants more power, not necessary economics <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Edit:<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I am frankly shocked that this is your belief, Dread, as you are quoting revisionist 4th reich propoganda. Ask Nemesis to provide more sources on this, but it's pretty well documented that the Nazi's truly hated almost everyone. There was no 'sane guy' in line, if you're read anything about the inner circle of the Nazi party. Line soldiers and Nazis are not related - the government was Nazis, and the line soldiers did what the government said. After 10 years of killing Jews and the german people doing nothing, it was obvious no one was going to argue with the Nazis about it and tacit agreement was reached.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, right. Nazis and line wermacht were completely different. However the question is: would the follower of Hitler be someone powerful non-nazi General or what? They were already planning Hitlers assasination pretty early on during WW2, do you think they would have let it go on like it did if Hitler would have continued to conquer the whole world?
Edit2: My belief is that Hitler would have been quickly replaced with someone less oppressive, thinking person. Just see what happens to Dubya <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Israeli-Palestinian conflicts are about land usage (which is economics at the core - farming, business, ownership).
Scottish uprising against England was about massive taxation of land, tennant farming, trade tarrifs, and other unfair economic practices.
What else you got?
Edit: and it is fair to say that if any of the Hitler assasination attempts had succeeded, you would have had a similar results as in the real history: everyone even slightly minutely possibly involved gets executed, and the Nazi machine keeps rolling on. You really think that Himmler and Heydrich and co. were just going to roll over if the Fuehrer died? He was an old man already, he probably only had a few years left in him. When Stalin died the soviet union did not just magically become a democracy - the party lived on, with new dictators.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That sounds like Clausewitzian thinking to me <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
As the materialist I am, I tend to view all wars as a cause of economical concerns as well. It's simply too expensive to wage war if there isn't anything gained from it economically, or vital economcial interests losts. People might argue that religion and mad ideas tends to lead to war, but I truly cannot believe that any kind of organized war will be made without economical reasoning or circumstancens factoring in. We're on the same page.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->WW2 pulled America out of its greatest disaster of all time, the Great Depression (ditto for Germany), and without that war, America might not have recovered soon, or at all, as we know it. Was <i>that</i> justification enough to join the war? Putting the country on a war footing pulled it out of a massive economic morrass (spare me the nonsense about CCC/WPA, that was diminishing returns from day one). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it's a bold thought I must say, do you hereby think that USA went into the war because the administration saw it as a "Round two" of the new deal launched a decade earlier? It is funny, but after most wars there has been periods of prosperity. Apparantly, sometimes it takes the dismantling of walls, plundering of farms and raping of maidens to get the economy kicked into gear again. Crass.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As for legalities - the US never declared war on Korea, or Vietnam. Constitutionally, they were completely illegal wars from a US perspective. WW2 was the last 'legal' war the US ever fought. Hows that for ethics? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I had the impression that the american involvement in the Korean war was a UN operation? I haven't studied that so I stand corrected. I knew about vietnam. There was some murky Tonkin bay affair, but it was not in it self a justifiable cause of war was it? Anyways, to get back to More Recent Conflicts such as the Second and Third Gulf war: The second had clear economic motives. But I can't find heads or tails in the last one.
The thing that makes us all rich is trade. So the US involvement in WW2 made sure to tear up some closed market and integrate world trade much better, thus resulting in more trade. The old New deal thinking isn't so bad. Remember that Japan experience a boom in modern times after they had their ports opened by force (some admiral, american?) in the 1860s. After that, during the Meiji Restoration, Japan boomed and kept booming, catching up from ages of isolationism. Another swift little waroperation, which was scarcely a war but intentions were the same, that shook up the economy.
Yes. Himmler, the second in command of the party, the creator of the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and the SS, was a far less oppressive person...
<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Yes. Himmler, the second in command of the party, the creator of the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and the SS, was a far less oppressive person...
<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
MonsE is right. If anything, social systems are self reproductive. A harsh punitive father raises kids that turns into harsh punishing fathers. And dictactors foster more dictators, be they his own offspring or ursurpers that none the less are brought up under the influence of said system, and thus shares it's core values.
Yes. Himmler, the second in command of the party, the creator of the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and the SS, was a far less oppressive person...
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Bah, I believe that if people get oppressed long enough, they either take over by theirselves or people in the upper levels dispatch the moron upsetting people and messing economy. Hasn't that been always the case in history?
Also, was the ww2 started by economics?
Also, was the ww2 started by economics? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, kind of. Hitler wanted more resources and power(not living space really). That's offtopic though, we should either make a new thread or handle it through PM's.
Bah, I believe that if people get oppressed long enough, they either take over by theirselves or people in the upper levels dispatch the moron upsetting people and messing economy. Hasn't that been always the case in history? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Erm no. That's utopian Marxist thinking I am afraid. If history shows anything it isn't that systems are toppled over from below, it's rather that it gets top heavy and implodes. The roman empire wasn't overthrown by it's non-citizens and slaves, but by a pressure from outside that the system was unable to cope with, perhaps due to increasing conformity and topheavyness.
In recent times we have seen several countries having undergone revolutions. However, those were mostly due to external subterfuge (like how Lenin was supported by Germany) combined with increasingly topheavy regimes - the last tzar didn't exactly have a good way to run his empire, plagued by war and famine. If you keep the peons fed and shoot insurgents, you'll probably remain in power for quite a while. As long as you can justify your rule, as Machiavelli predicted, you will rule. And keeping everyone fed is a good justification, people will endure that some of the free thinkers gets a bullet to the head now and then if the alternative is starvation for everyone AND free bullets to the head. And if you get ursuped, chances are higher that it is a man of the system rather than some peasant-turned-liberator-of-the-people. Alas <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Democracy, however good and flawed, also produces men of the systems. That is why I predict that at some point they too will topple and be replaced by something different. Perhaps better, let us all hope, perhaps worse.
Also, was the ww2 started by economics? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? So you can prove to me that economics are not the root cause? The reason I use the expression 'root cause' is because in every single war ever, you find economic basis at the very bottom. You may or may not find many tertiary reasons that were used to inflame the populace, such as religion or civil rights, which often get confused as more important issues in textbooks. They all boil down (yes, even religion and suppression) to economics, at their core. Not the other way around.