Your CdM's China Warmongering Thread du Jour

[Martim Silva]

Incidentally,the photo he has is Americans who gunned down a bunch of camp guards at Dachau.  The Americans were rather upset about the whole death camp thingy.  Calling the camp guards soldiers is somewhat of a stretch considering what they were doing.  You can read about it in this book http://www.amazon.com/Dachau-Hour-Avenger-Eyewitness-Account/dp/0913159042 Which was curiously published pre-1990.  Fancy that.

Fact1: if the uniforms of the guys behind the guns were of the Red Army, ALL of you would be calling the photo another "proof of Soviet brutality" (and if the uniforms were reversed... well, 'warcrime' would be the least of the classifications). Since it's Americans, it somehow becomes 'not a biggie'.

Fact2: Sure, they were upset about "the death camp thingy"... too bad Dachau wasn't a Death Camp, but a regular concentration camp for political prisioners.

According to all Holocaust historians, the Death Camps were: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.

What I got from Martim's Speilberg and Eastwood comment is that Saving Private Ryan and Gran Torino are historical documents which demonstrate the frequency with which GIs kill surrendering enemy troops.

You may be too young, but until fairly recently, even Grumblers' admission that some US units might have killed POWs in WW2 (not to mention other wars) would be considered ridiculous and nobody would buy it: for most people, Western Allied units never Did Anything Wrong ever.

Not that the US actually ever denied anything, it's just that these were just... skipped in historical literature. Better not mentioned, or somehow 'justifiable', like Raz tried to do.

I mentioned Spielberg and Eastwood precisely because these directors are 100% pro-american and thus, extremely unlikely to make up things that made US troops look bad; if they put such scenes in it, they had to have a justification.

And like the link I posted, today there are plenty of US veterans who now get themselves heard about the executions of POWs. Just google them; you'll get plenty of hits right off the bat.

Heh, you can't get away with that shit in modern war very well, at least from my experiences. You can ignore it, as the media may, but it still gets found out. People always find out, there's always someone who hears something or knows, or the locals raise a huge stink, and they have a large voice in modern conflicts.

My platoon used proper escalation of force procedures back in 2008 against a vehicle coming towards our checkpoint which resulted in the death of a civilian which subsequently had no weapons or bombs on him.  Huge investigation and we were checked on semi-frequently afterwards.

I'm willing to bet over 90% of 'atrocities' committed by US conventional forces in the WOT are public knowledge, you just can't hide anything any more.

I don't have your experience, but in the thread here in Languish about the GI that killed 16 afghan civilians, Siege wrote that one doesn't get away with so many at a time, and that he recommended (hinting heavily that he has done so) to do "3 or 4 at a time". The thread is still here on Languish, read it: http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,7160.0.html

I always taught my guys the right way to do it, and get away with it:
1- No women, no kids, unless they got guns.
2- MAMs (military age males) are fair game, even without guns, as long as you can talk your way out it, convincing your chain of command the dudes were a threat.
3- Never kill 16 at ONE TIME. I mean, come on. You can get away with 40, in twos and threes, but not with SIXTEEN at ONCE.

(It seems that Yi, using selective memory, 'forgot' the thread: it's always 'forgotten' if it involves GIs)

[Syt]

Wait, so this Martim Silva guy has me confused. Is he a Portuguese high level diplomat or a Soviet NKVD commissar?

[The Brain]

Germans in WW2 were illegal combatants. Just like American citizens of Japanese descent.

[Razgovory]

   Fact 1, is not a fact.  In English it's called a "conjecture".  Fact 2 is some sort of quibble over death camps and camps where they starve people to death.  A distinction that was probably lost on the people the people dying in there and the American soldiers who liberated it.  You also stated that pre-1990 American history books said nothing about the US killing POWs, and I immediately found one that had to do with the photo you posted.  How many books would I have to post here before you admit that statement was bullshit?

[grumbler]

Fact1: if the uniforms of the guys behind the guns were of the Red Army, ALL of you would be calling the photo another "proof of Soviet brutality" (and if the uniforms were reversed... well, 'warcrime' would be the least of the classifications). Since it's Americans, it somehow becomes 'not a biggie'.

I like this concept where you make an argument and then tell us what we think.  makes it easy on us; we can just spectate while you make up facts and arguments for both sides.

*Pops popcorn*

Fact2: Sure, they were upset about "the death camp thingy"... too bad Dachau wasn't a Death Camp, but a regular concentration camp for political prisioners.

I don't think you actually need to be physically inside a death camp to be upset about the "death camp thingy."  The troops had found a train full of emaciated corpses just before they captured the camp at Dachau, so the "death camp thingy" was pretty fresh in their minds.

Now, there is no excuse for what they did, but what they did isn't relevant to any arguments anyone has made in this thread.

You may be too young, but until fairly recently, even Grumblers' admission that some US units might have killed POWs in WW2 (not to mention other wars) would be considered ridiculous and nobody would buy it: for most people, Western Allied units never Did Anything Wrong ever.

Portugal sure is a weird country!  Why do you think that the Portuguese educational system taught you to reject the idea that some US units might have killed PoWs in WW2?  That fact has been known and accepted in the US educational system and public at large since at least the 60s.

I mentioned Spielberg and Eastwood precisely because these directors are 100% pro-american and thus, extremely unlikely to make up things that made US troops look bad; if they put such scenes in it, they had to have a justification.

Earlier you said that they were anti-American and antisemitic, now they are "100% pro-american(sic)"!  Make up your mind about which lies you want to promulgate, for hod's sake! 

Fiction isn't evidence, no matter who the author/director/producer is.  There is plenty of real evidence to support an argument that US units killed PoWs and surrendering enemies, just like in any other army at war like that.  I am not sure why you are arguing so hard for a trivial and uncontested argument when there is a huge, gaping hole in your argument that US units committed atrocities on the scale of the SS.  To do that, you are going to have to show where a US unit committed multiple atrocities under the command of a field grade or senior officer, like LAH did.  Good luck with that.

[DGuller]

Wait, so this Martim Silva guy has me confused. Is he a Portuguese high level diplomat or a Soviet NKVD commissar?

Maybe he was an SS guard at Dachau?  It would certainly explain many things.

[Berkut]

I think DGuller has hit on something...

It is always kind of fascinatingly weird to see people start in on the "ZOMG TEH WHAFFEN SS WERE SO BAD ASS!!!" thing.

[Razgovory]

I hate ss fanboys.

[CountDeMoney]

"the death camp thingy"

Awesome.

[Grey Fox]

@MS

Winners make the rules. America & It's Allies won. They make the rules. Stop pointing it out, we know.

[Razgovory]

@MS

Winners make the rules. America & It's Allies won. They make the rules. Stop pointing it out, we know.

That reminds me, I have a thread to make.

[Ed Anger]

I hate ss fanboys.

I so want to wear this to the rich folk supermarket:



Y'all got some of that Bagels?

[Grey Fox]

I know some Neo-Nazi Blood & Honour type folk. I wonder where do they get all those iconic SS stuff.

[grumbler]

@MS

Winners make the rules. America & It's Allies won. They make the rules. Stop pointing it out, we know.

What a bizarre basis for morality.  Is this "might makes right" mentality common among Canadians, or is it just you?

[derspiess]

  Fact 1, is not a fact.  In English it's called a "conjecture".  Fact 2 is some sort of quibble over death camps and camps where they starve people to death.  A distinction that was probably lost on the people the people dying in there and the American soldiers who liberated it.  You also stated that pre-1990 American history books said nothing about the US killing POWs, and I immediately found one that had to do with the photo you posted.  How many books would I have to post here before you admit that statement was bullshit?

"Company Commander" was written in 1947 by Charles B. MacDonald, and he mentioned (somewhat vaguely, but there's really no doubt) that some of his troops had shot German POWs.  I'll have to dig out that book when I'm home to find the specific passage.