QuoteU.S. model for a future war fans tensions with China and inside Pentagon
By Greg Jaffe, Published: August 1
www.washingtonpost.com
When President Obama called on the U.S. military to shift its focus to Asia earlier this year, Andrew Marshall, a 91-year-old futurist, had a vision of what to do.
Marshall's small office in the Pentagon has spent the past two decades planning for a war against an angry, aggressive and heavily armed China.
No one had any idea how the war would start. But the American response, laid out in a concept that one of Marshall's longtime proteges dubbed "Air-Sea Battle," was clear.
Stealthy American bombers and submarines would knock out China's long-range surveillance radar and precision missile systems located deep inside the country. The initial "blinding campaign" would be followed by a larger air and naval assault.
The concept, the details of which are classified, has angered the Chinese military and has been pilloried by some Army and Marine Corps officers as excessively expensive. Some Asia analysts worry that conventional strikes aimed at China could spark a nuclear war.
Air-Sea Battle drew little attention when U.S. troops were fighting and dying in large numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the military's decade of battling insurgencies is ending, defense budgets are being cut, and top military officials, ordered to pivot toward Asia, are looking to Marshall's office for ideas.
In recent months, the Air Force and Navy have come up with more than 200 initiatives they say they need to realize Air-Sea Battle. The list emerged, in part, from war games conducted by Marshall's office and includes new weaponry and proposals to deepen cooperation between the Navy and the Air Force.
A former nuclear strategist, Marshall has spent the past 40 years running the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, searching for potential threats to American dominance. In the process, he has built a network of allies in Congress, in the defense industry, at think tanks and at the Pentagon that amounts to a permanent Washington bureaucracy.
While Marshall's backers praise his office as a place where officials take the long view, ignoring passing Pentagon fads, critics see a dangerous tendency toward alarmism that is exaggerating the China threat to drive up defense spending.
"The old joke about the Office of Net Assessment is that it should be called the Office of Threat Inflation," said Barry Posen, director of the MIT Security Studies Program. "They go well beyond exploring the worst cases. . . . They convince others to act as if the worst cases are inevitable."
Marshall dismisses criticism that his office focuses too much on China as a future enemy, saying it is the Pentagon's job to ponder worst-case scenarios.
"We tend to look at not very happy futures," he said in a recent interview.
China tensions
Even as it has embraced Air-Sea Battle, the Pentagon has struggled to explain it without inflaming already tense relations with China. The result has been an information vacuum that has sown confusion and controversy.
Senior Chinese military officials warn that the Pentagon's new effort could spark an arms race.
"If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People's Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle," one officer, Col. Gaoyue Fan, said last year in a debate sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a defense think tank.
Pentagon officials counter that the concept is focused solely on defeating precision missile systems.
"It's not about a specific actor," a senior defense official told reporters last year. "It is not about a specific regime."
The heads of the Air Force and Navy, meanwhile, have maintained that Air-Sea Battle has applications even beyond combat. The concept could help the military reach melting ice caps in the Arctic Circle or a melted-down nuclear reactor in Japan, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the U.S. chief of naval operations, said in May at the Brookings Institution.
At the same event, Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief, upbraided a retired Marine colonel who asked how Air-Sea Battle might be employed in a war with China.
"This inclination to narrow down on a particular scenario is unhelpful," Schwartz said.
Privately, senior Pentagon officials concede that Air-Sea Battle's goal is to help U.S. forces weather an initial Chinese assault and counterattack to destroy sophisticated radar and missile systems built to keep U.S. ships away from China's coastline.
Their concern is fueled by the steady growth in China's defense spending, which has increased to as much as $180 billion a year, or about one-third of the Pentagon's budget, and China's increasingly aggressive behavior in the South China Sea.
"We want to put enough uncertainty in the minds of Chinese military planners that they would not want to take us on," said a senior Navy official overseeing the service's modernization efforts. "Air-Sea Battle is all about convincing the Chinese that we will win this competition."
Like others quoted in this article, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
A military tech 'revolution'
Air-Sea Battle grew out of Marshall's fervent belief, dating to the 1980s, that technological advancements were on the verge of ushering in a new epoch of war.
New information technology allowed militaries to fire within seconds of finding the enemy. Better precision bombs guaranteed that the Americans could hit their targets almost every time. Together these advances could give conventional bombs almost the same power as small nuclear weapons, Marshall surmised.
Marshall asked his military assistant, a bright officer with a Harvard doctorate, to draft a series of papers on the coming "revolution in military affairs." The work captured the interest of dozens of generals and several defense secretaries.
Eventually, senior military leaders, consumed by bloody, low-tech wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seemed to forget about Marshall's revolution. Marshall, meanwhile, zeroed in on China as the country most likely to exploit the revolution in military affairs and supplant the United States' position as the world's sole superpower.
In recent years, as the growth of China's military has outpaced most U.S. intelligence projections, interest in China as a potential rival to the United States has soared.
"In the blink of an eye, people have come to take very seriously the China threat," said Andrew Hoehn, a senior vice president at Rand Corp. "They've made very rapid progress."
Most of Marshall's writings over the past four decades are classified. He almost never speaks in public and even in private meetings is known for his long stretches of silence.
His influence grows largely out of his study budget, which in recent years has floated between $13 million and $19 million and is frequently allocated to think tanks, defense consultants and academics with close ties to his office. More than half the money typically goes to six firms.
Among the largest recipients is the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank run by retired Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich, the Harvard graduate who wrote the first papers for Marshall on the revolution in military affairs.
In the past 15 years, CSBA has run more than two dozen China war games for Marshall's office and written dozens of studies. The think tank typically collects about $2.75 million to $3 million a year, about 40 percent of its annual revenue, from Marshall's office, according to Pentagon statistics and CSBA's most recent financial filings.
Krepinevich makes about $865,000 in salary and benefits, or almost double the compensation paid out to the heads of other nonpartisan think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Brookings Institution. CSBA said its board sets executive compensation based on a review of salaries at other organizations doing similar work.
The war games run by CSBA are set 20 years in the future and cast China as a hegemonic and aggressive enemy. Guided anti-ship missiles sink U.S. aircraft carriers and other surface ships. Simultaneous Chinese strikes destroy American air bases, making it impossible for the U.S. military to launch its fighter jets. The outnumbered American force fights back with conventional strikes on China's mainland, knocking out long-range precision missiles and radar.
"The fundamental problem is the same one that the Soviets identified 30 years ago," Krepinevich said in an interview. "If you can see deep and shoot deep with a high degree of accuracy, our large bases are not sanctuaries. They are targets."
Some critics doubt that China, which owns $1.6 trillion in U.S. debt and depends heavily on the American economy, would strike U.S. forces out of the blue.
"It is absolutely fraudulent," said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior fellow at Brookings. "What is the imaginable context or scenario for this attack?"
Other defense analysts warn that an assault on the Chinese mainland carries potentially catastrophic risks and could quickly escalate to nuclear armageddon.
The war games elided these concerns. Instead they focused on how U.S. forces would weather the initial Chinese missile salvo and attack.
To survive, allied commanders dispersed their planes to austere airfields on the Pacific islands of Tinian and Palau. They built bomb-resistant aircraft shelters and brought in rapid runway repair kits to fix damaged airstrips.
Stealthy bombers and quiet submarines waged a counterattack. The allied approach became the basis for the Air-Sea Battle.
Think tank's paper
Although the Pentagon has struggled to talk publicly about Air-Sea Battle, CSBA has not been similarly restrained. In 2010, it published a 125-page paper outlining how the concept could be used to fight a war with China.
The paper contains less detail than the classified Pentagon version. Shortly after its publication, U.S. allies in Asia, frustrated by the Pentagon's silence on the subject, began looking to CSBA for answers.
"We started to get a parade of senior people, particularly from Japan, though also Taiwan and to a lesser extent China, saying, 'So, this is what Air-Sea Battle is,' " Krepinevich said this year at an event at another think tank.
Soon, U.S. officials began to hear complaints.
"The PLA went nuts," said a U.S. official who recently returned from Beijing.
Told that Air-Sea Battle was not aimed at China, one PLA general replied that the CSBA report mentioned the PLA 190 times, the official said. (The actual count is closer to 400.)
Inside the Pentagon, the Army and Marine Corps have mounted offensives against the concept, which could lead to less spending on ground combat.
An internal assessment, prepared for the Marine Corps commandant and obtained by The Washington Post, warns that "an Air-Sea Battle-focused Navy and Air Force would be preposterously expensive to build in peace time" and would result in "incalculable human and economic destruction" if ever used in a major war with China.
The concept, however, aligns with Obama's broader effort to shift the U.S. military's focus toward Asia and provides a framework for preserving some of the Pentagon's most sophisticated weapons programs, many of which have strong backing in Congress.
Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.) inserted language into the 2012 Defense Authorization bill requiring the Pentagon to issue a report this year detailing its plans for implementing the concept. The legislation orders the Pentagon to explain what weapons systems it will need to carry out Air-Sea Battle, its timeline for implementing the concept and an estimate of the costs associated with it.
Lieberman and Cornyn's staff turned to an unsurprising source when drafting the questions.
"We asked CSBA for help," one of the staffers said. "In a lot of ways, they created it."
If the US gets conquered by China, your city will be occupied by these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbMLeeV1ww
Do you still want to resist?
Pretty impressive parade shows. I wonder what kind of soldiers those in the bright red uniforms are?
Here is one thing I don't get: why waste time on training people to parade like automatons? Wouldn't it be more effective to train people in various killing techniques?
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 02, 2012, 12:09:30 PM
If the US gets conquered by China, your city will be occupied by these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbMLeeV1ww
Do you still want to resist?
Cute, they're reenacting the satirical propaganda from Starship Troopers, except in their case it's not satirical.
Quote from: DGuller on August 02, 2012, 06:18:54 PM
Here is one thing I don't get: why waste time on training people to parade like automatons? Wouldn't it be more effective to train people in various killing techniques?
Impress the locals. The primary purpose of that military is to keep the masses under control.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 02, 2012, 07:07:23 PM
Quote from: DGuller on August 02, 2012, 06:18:54 PM
Here is one thing I don't get: why waste time on training people to parade like automatons? Wouldn't it be more effective to train people in various killing techniques?
Impress the locals. The primary purpose of that military is to keep the masses under control.
Those things slung over their shoulders would do the trick. If a thousand soldiers would be coming straight at me, the presence or absence of perfectly synchronized movements would not significantly affect the quantity of fecal matter permeating my pants.
Quote from: KRonn on August 02, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
Pretty impressive parade shows. I wonder what kind of soldiers those in the bright red uniforms are?
If I remember correctly, they are reservists/militia.
QuoteTogether these advances could give conventional bombs almost the same power as small nuclear weapons, Marshall surmised.
How does better targeting permit a conventional bomb to kill five hundred thousand people at once, completely delegitimating a government that cannot protect its own cities? Oh, it said almost. So the better-targeted conventional bomb can kill four hundred thousand?
QuoteOther defense analysts warn that an assault on the Chinese mainland carries potentially catastrophic risks and could quickly escalate to nuclear armageddon.
Will it? How? Please show your work.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 02, 2012, 12:09:30 PM
If the US gets conquered by China, your city will be occupied by these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbMLeeV1ww
Do you still want to resist?
Armies that are good at marching suck at war.
The better they march the worst they fight.
Quote from: Monoriu on August 02, 2012, 10:38:19 PM
Quote from: KRonn on August 02, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
Pretty impressive parade shows. I wonder what kind of soldiers those in the bright red uniforms are?
If I remember correctly, they are reservists/militia.
You sure?
I thought they were military police.
Quote from: DGuller on August 02, 2012, 06:18:54 PM
Here is one thing I don't get: why waste time on training people to parade like automatons? Wouldn't it be more effective to train people in various killing techniques?
Dash and elan :)
Quote from: Lettow77 on August 05, 2012, 03:13:31 AM
Quote from: DGuller on August 02, 2012, 06:18:54 PM
Here is one thing I don't get: why waste time on training people to parade like automatons? Wouldn't it be more effective to train people in various killing techniques?
Dash and elan :)
Plz. We are in 2012, not 1912.
Quote from: KRonn on August 02, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
Pretty impressive parade shows. I wonder what kind of soldiers those in the bright red uniforms are?
An elite division. Their American equivalent are called "traffic cops".
Quote from: Siege on August 05, 2012, 03:08:31 AM
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 02, 2012, 12:09:30 PM
If the US gets conquered by China, your city will be occupied by these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbMLeeV1ww
Do you still want to resist?
Armies that are good at marching suck at war.
The better they march the worst they fight.
You can't march in step can you?
Quote from: Razgovory on August 05, 2012, 03:19:08 AM
Quote from: Siege on August 05, 2012, 03:08:31 AM
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 02, 2012, 12:09:30 PM
If the US gets conquered by China, your city will be occupied by these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbMLeeV1ww
Do you still want to resist?
Armies that are good at marching suck at war.
The better they march the worst they fight.
You can't march in step can you?
I can, but not nowhere near as elegant as the enemy can.
This video is Obama inauguration in 2009. I was there, if you faggots remember the pictures I posted.
Notice the bobing heads, which is the dudes out of step.
And this is the best of the best at marching, so imagine the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1KreBkLa_o
Maybe if you tried marching on different internal organs until you hit one that works for you.
Quote from: Siege on August 05, 2012, 03:09:57 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on August 02, 2012, 10:38:19 PM
Quote from: KRonn on August 02, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
Pretty impressive parade shows. I wonder what kind of soldiers those in the bright red uniforms are?
If I remember correctly, they are reservists/militia.
You sure?
I thought they were military police.
Yeah, the caption in Chinese says militia.
I wonder if these parades are a way to strip away personal initiative? Nothing says that you as individual don't count for anything like being forced to train for days on end to perfectly do exactly what hundreds of people around you do. In non-autocratic countries, personal initiate in the military is considered a big asset, but in autocratic you really don't want your soldiers to start having thoughts.
Quote from: Siege
Armies that are good at marching suck at war.
The better they march the worst they fight.
The link are the female soldiers. Most of them are intended for garrisons.
Which is great to tone down local resistance. If his city gets occupied by them, CdM has to choose between keeping the place filled with hot chinese girls, or let the US retake the city and have to look at YOU instead.
The ones you'd face are these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHZIUdHm6b4&feature=related
Also, note that the Prussian Army of Frederick II was also famous for doing the best parades in Europe. And in ww2 the German Army thought that the SS (especially the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler division) were only fit to look good on parades, as it seems that was all they could do.
Then those troops hit the field...
Quote from: Monoriu on August 02, 2012, 10:38:19 PM
Quote from: KRonn on August 02, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
Pretty impressive parade shows. I wonder what kind of soldiers those in the bright red uniforms are?
If I remember correctly, they are reservists/militia.
Bright red = elite milita
Pink = regular militia
Brown = Army
Blue = Air Force
White = Navy
Infantry is unimportant in modern warfare. All those Chinese girls are powerless against my one finger that rests on the button.
Didn't Germans eventually abandon the Prussian goose step sometime during the war, because it was wasteful?
Quote from: DGuller on August 05, 2012, 10:37:21 AM
Didn't Germans eventually abandon the Prussian goose step sometime during the war, because it was wasteful?
In favor of what? Quickstep? Dubstep?
Quote from: Siege on August 05, 2012, 03:08:31 AM
Armies that are good at marching suck at war.
The better they march the worst they fight.
Oversimplification (expected from you, since your brain "don't work right.") A lot of countries have units that specialize in pageantry type stuff and public marches, they typically aren't going to be the first into any battle, you can still have units like that but still have the rest of your military trained to actually fight.
Also, historically marching was a big part of military success, back before the modern era.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 10:25:27 AM
And in ww2 the German Army thought that the SS (especially the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler division) were only fit to look good on parades, as it seems that was all they could do.
Then those troops hit the field...
...and were largely inefficient and casualty prone compared to their Wehrmacht counterparts until they replaced the spit and polish bullshit with actual training.
LAH was best known in Poland for torching villages, and in France for massacring POWs.
Quote from: DGuller on August 05, 2012, 10:37:21 AM
Didn't Germans eventually abandon the Prussian goose step sometime during the war, because it was wasteful?
West Germany gave it up (after the war, obv) in order to avoid connotations with militarism. East Germany did not, but the 1990 reunification made the West German norm the rule for all the German military.
Quote from: Berkut
...and were largely inefficient and casualty prone compared to their Wehrmacht counterparts until they replaced the spit and polish bullshit with actual training.
LAH was best known in Poland for torching villages, and in France for massacring POWs.
They grew in size during the war. In the Union they got fame for being very hard to fight against at Uman, Kiev, the Don, Kharkov and Kursk. They had lots of casualties because they took many risks to get things done, a tactic I do not disapprove of.
They also killed many prisoners, but that's war - we also killed all of them that we could :P
(and, if your own American movies/series are anything to go by, wasn't the killing of POWs a regular thing that the GIs liked to do? In 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Band of Brothers' or 'Letters from Iwo Jima', for an Axis soldier to try to surrender to an US unit is basically a 50/50 tossup on weather he'll get killed on the spot or not).
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 12:25:50 PM
They grew in size during the war. In the Union they got fame for being very hard to fight against at Uman, Kiev, the Don, Kharkov and Kursk. They had lots of casualties because they took many risks to get things done, a tactic I do not disapprove of.
So you agree with Berkut that they were poor soldiers until they dropped the parade-ground mentality? Wise, as I think he hit the nail on the head.
QuoteThey also killed many prisoners, but that's war - we also killed all of them that we could :P
I am not clear on how the fact that you guys killed PoWs and grin about it is relevant to the reputation of LAH in France in 1940.
Quote(and, if your own American movies/series are anything to go by, wasn't the killing of POWs a regular thing that the GIs liked to do? In 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Band of Brothers' or 'Letters from Iwo Jima', for an Axis soldier to try to surrender to an US unit is basically a 50/50 tossup on weather he'll get killed on the spot or not).
Three problems independently make this statement absurd:
(1) Fiction isn't a very good basis for arguing facts.
(2) shooting a soldier who may be attempting to surrender in combat is not murdering POWs.
(3) While there certainly were instances where allied and Axis individuals or units deliberately killed POWs (or civilians), there weren't units which did this repeatedly and routinely, unlike the SS (and LAH in particular). [/quote]
Quote from: DGuller on August 05, 2012, 10:37:21 AM
Didn't Germans eventually abandon the Prussian goose step sometime during the war, because it was wasteful?
They only did it when they got in front of the reviewing stand. Once they round the the bend they went to normal march I think. Didn't the Soviets have some guys goosestep round the clock at Lenin's tomb though. Guy must be really fucking tired.
Quote from: grumbler on August 05, 2012, 12:41:18 PM
So you agree with Berkut that they were poor soldiers until they dropped the parade-ground mentality? Wise, as I think he hit the nail on the head.
As a group changes, so can another... dismiss a foe because it is disciplined in parade is foolish in the extreme.
Quote from: grumbler on August 05, 2012, 12:41:18 PM
I am not clear on how the fact that you guys killed PoWs and grin about it is relevant to the reputation of LAH in France in 1940.
I duuno, how is their reputation in France (I don't think it was 1940, the LAH at the time was a regiment and was pulled into reserve after the fall of the Low Countries) has anything to do with the way they fought battles? 'Cos for us, they were tough bastards.
Quote from: grumbler
Three problems independently make this statement absurd:
(1) Fiction isn't a very good basis for arguing facts.
As you very well remember, pre-1990 history books said pretty much nothing about US troops killing surrendering soldiers/POWs, but they DID mention often the execution of prisioners both by the Nazis (like the 113 US POWs killed by the LAH in Málmedy in 1944, dubbed "the WORST atrocity commited against POWs" (like here: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/malmedy_massacre.htm), and by the Union soldiers, and it wasn't until well-know anti-American anti-semites like Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood put these tales into images that the testimonies of US ww2 veterans began to be heard and publicized, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f86CTa7uGVQ
Of course, we know from experience in Korea and Vietnam that the GI habit of killing surrendering soldiers/POW is alive and well, and it continues in Afghanistan, if what has been coming out is true (like "the Convoy of Death' in Afghanistan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ6OytX80NI )
Quote from: grumbler
(2) shooting a soldier who may be attempting to surrender in combat is not murdering POWs.
Okay, then:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F7%2F7e%2FDachau_execution_coalyard_1945-04-29.jpg%2F800px-Dachau_execution_coalyard_1945-04-29.jpg&hash=7a20a19223b9f572559bd77fe4a30cfc66f95a5c)
Guess those Nazis are just attempting to surrender... sneaky types.
Quote from: grumbler
(3) While there certainly were instances where allied and Axis individuals or units deliberately killed POWs (or civilians), there weren't units which did this repeatedly and routinely, unlike the SS (and LAH in particular).
More accurately, since the US won the war, it had absolutely no interest whatsoever in telling anything about any executions of POW.
Very mich in just the same way it arranged the fairytale that the Japanese Emperor was totally blameless of Japan's role in the war and that Hirohito had been a puppet of the military in order to facilitate Japanese cooperation against the Union and later China, a myth that was only debunked when the historian Herbert P. Bix had the incredible idea of actually going to Japan and checking the records of Imperial conferences, thus being able to prove that Hirohito did have power during WW2*; until then, the vast majority of US historians merely parroted each other, all telling the official government line.
And still today, most Americans believe the official lie, so ingrained it is.
(*: for this, I recommend reading 'Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan')
It would therefore be hardly surprising if the same scheme hasn't happened for the allied units in WW2. While some are accused - like the US 34th Infantry Division - over the decades the US and its historians simply did not mention anything about the executions of POWs by its troops - but rather never missed a chance to point out those made by the Nazis or by the soldiers of the Union.
I suspect an actual investigation of US war archives - the kind you'd get if a nation like China conquered America and forced a deep and exhaustive research of the data and testimonies - would reveal a truth far different than that of "our units never did this so often".
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 05:35:24 PM
Of course, we know from experience in Korea and Vietnam that the GI habit of killing surrendering soldiers/POW is alive and well
We do? :unsure:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 05, 2012, 05:48:55 PM
We do? :unsure:
Sorry, I meant the Socialist Armies. Americans know more about My Lai and little else.
Anyway, heck people, Siege even posted here about how to kill surrendering enemies and explaining to other US troops how to do it! Have you forgotten already?
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 05:52:31 PM
Sorry, I meant the Socialist Armies. Americans know more about My Lai and little else.
Anyway, heck people, Siege even posted here about how to kill surrendering enemies and explaining to other US troops how to do it! Have you forgotten already?
I never read anything like that.
Help me out: are you maintaining that the US killed lots of surrendering troops during the Korean and Vietnam Wars or not?
You're allowed to kill franc-tireurs whether they surrender or not. Or at least, you used to be able to until the Geneva Conventions faggoted everything up.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 05, 2012, 05:48:55 PM
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 05:35:24 PM
Of course, we know from experience in Korea and Vietnam that the GI habit of killing surrendering soldiers/POW is alive and well
We do? :unsure:
I have no idea what the hell he's going on about. He and the ambassador must have been just butchering people on the Angola Savannah or something and now he thinks that's normal. Except those stupid Americans just don't know about it.
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.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 05, 2012, 05:55:48 PM
I never read anything like that.
Help me out: are you maintaining that the US killed lots of surrendering troops during the Korean and Vietnam Wars or not?
Don't you listen to the "well-know anti-American anti-semites like Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood?"
I'd also like to know when and where Martim Silva and his friends were fighting the LAH and learned that "for us, they were tough bastards."
Maybe that was something he learned while under the influence of the same drugs that made him believe Clint Eastwood was an anti-American anti-Semite. :lol:
Quote from: grumbler on August 05, 2012, 07:03:33 PM
made him believe Clint Eastwood was an anti-American anti-Semite. :lol:
"This country can't be knocked out by one punch; we get right back up again, and when we do, the world's gonna hear the roar of our ovens."(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nydailynews.com%2Fpolopoly_fs%2F1.1018553%21%2Fimg%2FhttpImage%2Fimage.jpg_gen%2Fderivatives%2Flandscape_370%2Fimage.jpg&hash=667b926ec8ebc663f4cb7d45f333eed98f954ca0)
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.
Goddamn Americans.
Seedy, I'm waiting for the Galaxy Quest still. :hmm:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 05, 2012, 07:28:00 PM
Seedy, I'm waiting for the Galaxy Quest still. :hmm:
:lol: That's such an awesome movie.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcf.geekdo-images.com%2Fimages%2Fpic1384326.jpg&hash=4a90302c4536dddee7c7ee38ff61ec02b7594078)
*snort*
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 10:25:27 AMAnd in ww2 the German Army thought that the SS (especially the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler division) were only fit to look good on parades, as it seems that was all they could do.
Then those troops hit the field...
And got their asses kicked in Poland and somewhat in France and proved to be pretty crap units until later.
From left to right in that pic, Slargos, Marti, Martim, Seefor and with the giant forehead, Isebrand.
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 05, 2012, 08:02:51 PM
From left to right in that pic, Slargos, Marti, Martim, Seefor and with the giant forehead, Isebrand.
I learned something about that movie recently. They have some nerdy trekky kid in the film, he later went on to be the "cool" guy in those mac vs pc commercials.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 05:52:31 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 05, 2012, 05:48:55 PM
We do? :unsure:
Sorry, I meant the Socialist Armies. Americans know more about My Lai and little else.
Anyway, heck people, Siege even posted here about how to kill surrendering enemies and explaining to other US troops how to do it! Have you forgotten already?
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.
Quote from: Razgovory on August 05, 2012, 06:54:50 PM
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.
Quote from: Admiral Yi
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.
Quote from: Alcibiades
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
Quote from: Siege
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)
Wait, so this Martim Silva guy has me confused. Is he a Portuguese high level diplomat or a Soviet NKVD commissar?
Germans in WW2 were illegal combatants. Just like American citizens of Japanese descent.
:secret: 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?
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 06, 2012, 07:23:34 AM
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*
QuoteFact2: 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.
QuoteYou 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.
QuoteI 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! :lol:
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.
Quote from: Syt on August 06, 2012, 07:35:10 AM
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.
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.
I hate ss fanboys.
@MS
Winners make the rules. America & It's Allies won. They make the rules. Stop pointing it out, we know.
Quote from: Grey Fox on August 06, 2012, 12:27:35 PM
@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.
Quote from: Razgovory on August 06, 2012, 12:21:05 PM
I hate ss fanboys.
I so want to wear this to the rich folk supermarket:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.warshows.com%2Fcatalog%2F10sspanzerlorez_2.gif&hash=5ac8bd608963194187eb1bab7987c65380164d77)
Y'all got some of that Bagels?
I know some Neo-Nazi Blood & Honour type folk. I wonder where do they get all those iconic SS stuff.
Quote from: Grey Fox on August 06, 2012, 12:27:35 PM
@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?
Quote from: Razgovory on August 06, 2012, 07:51:39 AM
:secret: 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.
It is always good for a giggle when non-Americans tell is the "facts" about what Americans believe.
Quote from: Berkut on August 06, 2012, 03:47:05 PM
It is always good for a giggle when non-Americans tell is the "facts" about what Americans believe.
You didn't learn that in school. :mad:
Quote from: derspiess on August 06, 2012, 03:43:05 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on August 06, 2012, 07:51:39 AM
:secret: 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.
I always find it odd, that sort of event was hushed up or not given its due prominence; 'fact' is it was entirely understandable.
Same goes for the newly liberate inmates taking revenge on remaining guards, capos and informers; not pleasant but why would people not react in that way given the system of horror, they somehow managed to survive.
Quote from: mongers on August 06, 2012, 04:18:05 PM
Is always find it odd, that sort of event was hushed up or not given its due prominence; 'fact' is it was entirely understandable.
In 1947 I doubt anyone cared much.
Quote from: derspiess on August 06, 2012, 05:04:42 PM
Quote from: mongers on August 06, 2012, 04:18:05 PM
Is always find it odd, that sort of event was hushed up or not given its due prominence; 'fact' is it was entirely understandable.
In 1947 I doubt anyone cared much.
Agreed. Even Martim back then was probably more concerned about getting in touch with Argentinian ambassador.
Quote from: Berkut on August 06, 2012, 03:47:05 PM
It is always good for a giggle when non-Americans tell is the "facts" about what Americans believe.
Martim does take the cake though. Probably has to feed all those ambassadors with it.
Quote from: derspiess on August 06, 2012, 03:43:05 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on August 06, 2012, 07:51:39 AM
:secret: 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.
I don't doubt it. I think everyone knew that POWs would sometimes get shot. There were occasional massacres of several dozen through out the war. SS had a stronger tendency to do this then normal soldiers (and they suffered for it. In the early stages of the battle of Normandy the 12th SS HitlerJugend killed a group of Canadian POWs at an abbey. When the Canadians found out about it, they just stopped taking SS men prisoner). Most of these acts were unplanned and unsanctioned. None of it compares to what the SS was doing in the East where they were deliberately just depopulating the countryside in partisan operations and of course where they murdered every Jew they could get their hands on, sometimes tens of thousands at a time. I know of no instance where any Allied formation captured a hospital and then raped the cancer patients, something an SS unit actually did during the Warsaw uprising.
Now where there some things covered up during the war? Yes. The US submarine campaign in the Pacific against Japanese shipping wasn't talked about. It became known after the war, but never got the attention that it deserved. Allied warfare against Japanese merchant shipping was devastating to Japan.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 05, 2012, 12:25:50 PM
(and, if your own American movies/series are anything to go by, wasn't the killing of POWs a regular thing that the GIs liked to do? In 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Band of Brothers' or 'Letters from Iwo Jima', for an Axis soldier to try to surrender to an US unit is basically a 50/50 tossup on weather he'll get killed on the spot or not).
Meanwhile not a single American POW was ever killed in Hogan Heroes, putting the lie to the brutal reputation of the Nazi war machine. Whereas in Stalag 17, the German agent was deliberately exposed by the Americans to rifle fire, while William Holden was spared despite several incidents of over-acting.
It is shameful that so-called reputable historians have engaged in a conspiracy of deception to hide from the world the brutal carnage exacted on innocent German POWs by bloodthirsty American teleplay and screenwriters. I propose the Oscars be boycotted until Hollywood is called to the Hague to answer for its war crimes.
Surround this thread with a ring of steel!
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wearysloth.com%2FGallery%2FActorsC%2Ftve2516-19670210-156.gif&hash=f5adefe1e684cc20b6816fc131c013c2f8dfbc27)
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 06, 2012, 07:23:34 AM
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.
But they were kicked out of the Club Med loyalty program because they served their beer too warm.
Jesus, even awful movies like The Big Red One had scenes of soldiers killing camp guards.
It was known, portrayed, and horribly overacted.
Quote from: PDH on August 07, 2012, 09:48:34 AM
Jesus, even awful movies like The Big Red One had scenes of soldiers killing camp guards.
It was known, portrayed, and horribly overacted.
Ugh, Puke Skywalker in a war flick. :yuk:
"The convoy of death" have nothing to do with american soldiers.
Is it ok to post stuff about the warmongering Chinese here, or is this thread so derailed I should post it in a new thread?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 08, 2012, 06:39:38 AM
Is it ok to post stuff about the warmongering Chinese here, or is this thread so derailed I should post it in a new thread?
No such thing as too many warmongering Chinese threads. If it's the one in today's NYT, go for it.
Quote from: Razgovory on August 06, 2012, 07:51:39 AM
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.
Okay, let's say in 1947 WWIII broke out between the Union and the Western Allies. Say the Red Army advanced deeper into Germany and entered the British "Interrogation Camp" of Bad Nenndorf, commanded by this excellent British officer:
(https://www.mi5.gov.uk/upload/ab_img_tin_eye.jpg)
Lt. Col. Robin Stephens.
Now, this camp was originally intended to "interrogate" Nazis, but it soon devolved into an internment camp for everybody that had an ideology that the Western Allies disapproved of, namely Socialists or anyone that had a favorable opinion of the Soviet Union.
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/bad-nenndorf.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/dec/17/secondworldwar.topstories3
Now say the Red Army saw the inmates, as they were treated by the British:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.guim.co.uk%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2006%2F04%2F02%2Fprisoners372ready.jpg&hash=a798946afb854ef31b97d8e0c48075f6a3d1b65f)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/apr/03/uk.freedomofinformation
Would you have, then, any moral problem if the Red Army troops just rounded up the British garrison and shot them all on the spot?
Quote from: Grumbler
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.
Mostly because the ww2 history books that I read in the 70s and 80s all dedicate chapters to the killing of US POWs by the Nazis, but never mention any similar act by the Western Allies. And that no normal person thought about the possibility before they saw those things in the movies (historians were probably a different thing, as they heard the veterans, but they sure didn't put that in their books).
Quote from: Grumbler
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! :lol:
You're more mature than that, and fully capable of understanding that my first mention was clearly ironic.
Quote from: Grey Fox
Winners make the rules. America & It's Allies won. They make the rules. Stop pointing it out, we know.
You didn't win Korea.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/093099korea-us.html
These American veterans say that in the first desperate weeks of the Korean War, American soldiers killed 100, 200 or simply hundreds of refugees, many of them women and children, who were trapped beneath the bridge.
(...)
One American veteran, Eugene Hesselman of Fort Mitchell, Ky., recalled his captain as saying: "The hell with all those people. Let's get rid of all of them."
Norman Tinkler of Glasco, Kan., a former machine gunner, said, "We just annihilated them." Or
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-4234885.html
The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it "would be permitted" to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces.There are other (worse) massacres mentioned by North Korea, but I guess you'll just dismiss them out of hand, as it is told by "the Other Side"
Also, you didn't win Vetnam:
http://hnn.us/articles/1802.html
On October 19, 2003, the Ohio-based newspaper the Toledo Blade launched a four-day series of investigative reports exposing a string of atrocities by an elite, volunteer, 45-man "Tiger Force" unit of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division over the course of seven months in 1967.
The Blade goes on to state that in 1971 the Army began a four and a half year investigation of the alleged torture of prisoners, rapes of civilian women, the mutilation of bodies and killing of anywhere from nine to well over one hundred unarmed civilians, among other acts.
The articles further report that the Army's inquiry concluded that eighteen U.S. soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. However, not one of the soldiers, even of those still on active duty at the time of the investigation, was ever court martialed in connection with the heinous crimes. Moreover, six suspected war criminals were allowed to resign from military service during the criminal investigations specifically to avoid prosecution.Quote from: Razgorovy
I think everyone knew that POWs would sometimes get shot.
Raz, when I was in my teens, even to suggest an american unit (a lone GI maybe, but a unit?) killed POWs would be laughed on. For the regular citizen, US troops as a whole never did anything wrong in any war.
Sounds like the problem is Portuguese history books. :(
So am I suppose to respond to all of this, or just the part where you answered me? I really wouldn't care if the Soviets had shot a crazy prison camp commandant. However, equating this to Dachau where 200,000 people died is kinda sick.
I'm pretty sure the Red Army would have no problems with any kind of treatment of German POWs. Are you not familiar with how the Soviets viewed the Germans?
Quote from: garbon on August 08, 2012, 10:57:49 AM
Sounds like the problem is Portuguese history books. :(
Yeah, looks like a case of Marty syndrome. "If it's true where I live, it's true everywhere!" It occurs to me that MS post is rather self defeating. His evidence to Grey Fox (who's a Canadian, not an American), kinda undercuts his argument while not contradicting what Grey Fox said.
LOL, Herr Martim is comparing Bad Nenndorf, where two people died due to abuse, there was a huge scandal and investigation, charges were filed, courts martial were held, etc. to Dachau.
If Red Army troops came upon Bad Nenndorf, and found 2 malnourished prisoners, I am not sure what they would do - but it probably would not be similar to what US soldiers did coming upon Dachau with thousands of nearly dead prisoners, and train cars full of bodies.
Wow, a full on Nazi apologist. They are so rarely seen in the wild these days!
Over/under on the start of quotes from "Other Losses"?
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 10:44:14 AM
Okay, let's say in 1947 WWIII broke out between the Union and the Western Allies. Say the Red Army advanced deeper into Germany and entered the British "Interrogation Camp" of Bad Nenndorf, commanded by this excellent British officer:
Hah - you can't fool me - that guy is wearing a monocle. He's no true Englishman, he's a crypto-Kraut.
Quote from: Berkut on August 08, 2012, 11:19:21 AM
Wow, a full on Nazi apologist. They are so rarely seen in the wild these days!
Is he actually a Nazi apologist, or does his hatred for the US just run that deep?
Quote from: Neil on August 08, 2012, 12:50:10 PM
Quote from: Berkut on August 08, 2012, 11:19:21 AM
Wow, a full on Nazi apologist. They are so rarely seen in the wild these days!
Is he actually a Nazi apologist, or does his hatred for the US just run that deep?
His usual MO is as a lefty apologist, but in this particular case it's just his US hate showing.
I don't think Marty S is particularly lefty; I think he's anti-US and in love with his own very idiosyncratic understanding of world events where he's the only one who truly understands what's going on.
Quote from: garbon on August 08, 2012, 10:57:49 AM
Sounds like the problem is Portuguese history books. :(
The problem was that the books I referred to weren't Portuguese; I got them from Brazil, Spain, France, the US, the UK... it was pretty much the same thing all over. Western Allies Do No Wrong.
After the Revolution I could read the history books published in the Eastern Bloc, and they had quite a different take on... well, mostly everything, really. Though I suspect most of you would reject everthing they said (and I do mean *everything*, from pre-history to the modern days, passing by the Middle Ages).
Quote from: Razgorovy
So am I suppose to respond to all of this, or just the part where you answered me?
You already did, you said you didn't care. But more to the point:
Quote from: Jacob
I'm pretty sure the Red Army would have no problems with any kind of treatment of German POWs. Are you not familiar with how the Soviets viewed the Germans?
What I am getting on about
isn't how Germans were treated (don't give a rat's ass - you lot just fixated on it because it allowed you not to address the fact that your troops commit warcrimes), but rather more than the Western Allies have a permanent 'holier-than-thou' attitude towards everyone else [particularly Russia and China], while being systematically oblivious to what they themselved did and DO today.
In the case of the British camp, note that you only accept this because the facts were made public in 2005 (the process in the late 40's was internal). If I had posted anything about it in 2004, you would all be calling me ignorant and reject even the possibility that it had existed. And it's only because the media made it public - how many others like it actually existed? Probably in 20 years' time there will be more of those to talk about. But the western public will just remember the Gulags and forget everything else.
Quote from: Jacob
I don't think Marty S is particularly lefty; I think he's anti-US and in love with his own very idiosyncratic understanding of world events where he's the only one who truly understands what's going on.
Did you ever ponder the possibility that Americans (and other allied nations, in particular Britain and its former Dominions) may also have an idiosyncratic view of themselves?
It does recall the US idea that it is a "nation-builder", without pondering that the results it got in Western Germany and Japan just might have had more to do with the fact that these were disciplined peoples who worked hard, and that thus any effort in the Middle East will result in failure, as those populations lack those characteristics. Yet Americans went into Iraq and Afghanistan fully believing they would "build" those contries into prosperity.
(and that they would respect Human Rights along the way, for that matter)
I don't know weather to laugh or to cry.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:24:26 PMhistory books published in the Eastern Bloc, and they had quite a different take on... well, mostly everything, really
I have a textbook for German history teachers, dated 1942. Shockingly, it also has a different take on, well, many things, really.
Martim, simply because you could not find these books, doesn't mean they didn't exist. Trust me, in the 1960's and 1970's there plenty of people on both sides of the Atlantic that were willing to say American soldiers murdered people.
Quote from: Razgovory on August 08, 2012, 01:32:56 PM
Martim, simply because you could not find these books, doesn't mean they didn't exist. Trust me, in the 1960's and 1970's there plenty of people on both sides of the Atlantic that were willing to say American soldiers murdered people.
What's even odder is that I don't get what his point is even if he could somehow prove that many people didn't feel that way back then. Alright, so what does that have anything to do with the present day / last 20 years?
Quote from: Syt
I have a textbook for German history teachers, dated 1942. Shockingly, it also has a different take on, well, many things, really.
Indeed, different ideologies present the world in different ways. But in the West (mostly the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and France), people do BUY what they're told without critical thinking.
The common folk DOES believe that their troops will help the countries they invade, that they WON'T harm the locals; they DO believe privatization and liberalization is the best economic answer for everything; they REALLY believe that the mockery of 'Democracy' that they have is the most wonderful system EVAH. They DO think that there is very little corruption in Liberal Democratic regimes, and that systems like the Chinese are full of it.
In short, they are just like someone that read your Nazi textbook and bought all the crap in it, hook, line and sinker. Brainwashed and unthinking.
The exhaustion of the conquered Germans and Japanese probably helped, as did the proven inferiority of their way of life.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:36:40 PM
The common folk DOES believe that their troops will help the countries they invade, that they WON'T harm the locals; they DO believe privatization and liberalization is the best economic answer for everything; they REALLY believe that the mockery of 'Democracy' that they have is the most wonderful system EVAH. They DO think that there is very little corruption in Liberal Democratic regimes, and that systems like the Chinese are full of it.
In short, they are just like someone that read your Nazi textbook and bought all the crap in it, hook, line and sinker. Brainwashed and unthinking.
I don't see how you could continue to hold that true (as in we think we do nothing wrong). My text books in school (90s - which mean the texts I was reading came from the 80s :lol:) - had lots about horrible things done by all sorts of regimes including America. If anything I'd suggest our textbooks/instruction from teachers was slanted to convince us that our country was pretty terrible.
The current liberal democratic system of politics and government is the best system EVAH though.
That isn't brainwashing - it is a perfectly supportable claim made on the basis of measuring the things that humans generally value.
You can make counter arguments, certainly - but the blanket claim that the only reason someone might think such a thing is the result of brainwashing is almost stunning in its basic ignorance.
The rest if just - well, crazy. The portrayal of western soldiers engaging in warcrimes is not some new revelation brought about by pioneering Hollywood visionaries intent on shedding new light on western history. Quite the opposite - it is portrayed in film because western society actually does in fact find such portrayal shocking because it does in fact fly in the face of our national myths about "just war", which is what makes it powerful storytelling. Not because nobody knew before Ton Hanks decided we ought to know.
This is just sophomoric equivalency - the fascists and communists engaged in rampant "pravda" and organized distortion of history, it has happened to some greater or lesser degree in the West, therefore the West is really no different. When in fact any kind of objective and detailed analysis shows that in fact the West *is* different. Same exact thing with the claim that there is no real difference between the LAH Waffen-SS and American soldiers, or there is no difference between Dachau and Bad Nenndorf. It is the worst kind of lazy thinking to justify a per-conceived notion you want to be true.
The fact that Martim is willing to climb into bed with Nazi apologists in order to indulge his anti-American screed really ought to give him pause. The fact that it does not says everything that probably needs to be said about his intellectual rigor.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:36:40 PM
Quote from: Syt
I have a textbook for German history teachers, dated 1942. Shockingly, it also has a different take on, well, many things, really.
Indeed, different ideologies present the world in different ways. But in the West (mostly the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and France), people do BUY what they're told without critical thinking.
The common folk DOES believe that their troops will help the countries they invade, that they WON'T harm the locals; they DO believe privatization and liberalization is the best economic answer for everything; they REALLY believe that the mockery of 'Democracy' that they have is the most wonderful system EVAH. They DO think that there is very little corruption in Liberal Democratic regimes, and that systems like the Chinese are full of it.
In short, they are just like someone that read your Nazi textbook and bought all the crap in it, hook, line and sinker. Brainwashed and unthinking.
I don't see how that makes the narrative of Communist historians more valid than those of the West. Also, I doubt that critical thinking was more prevalent than in the West, or South, or North.
I'm all for challenging set notions lest we become mired in doctrine, but I still prefer it happens through the free exchange of thoughts and ideas in the liberal democracies and not in an environment of state ordained truths.
It's nice that you now have access to both Western and Ex-Communist treatments of the subject - in the Communist block the choice wasn't quite as large.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:24:26 PMDid you ever ponder the possibility that Americans (and other allied nations, in particular Britain and its former Dominions) may also have an idiosyncratic view of themselves?
Yes, many times. They do. But that's not really relevant to your retarded Nazi-apologia comparing the death of two people in an incident that was thoroughly investigated and documented with the industrialized mass murder carried out by the Nazis.
Certainly, America has any number of myths and comforting illusions; and it's certainly worthwhile to subject them to critical scrutiny. However, your attempt to do so seems as accurate and informed as CdM and Ed Anger having a debate about the nuances of Chinese domestic politics. You have a picture that's at least 30 years out of date that no one shares and that has no semblance to reality.
QuoteIt does recall the US idea that it is a "nation-builder", without pondering that the results it got in Western Germany and Japan just might have had more to do with the fact that these were disciplined peoples who worked hard, and that thus any effort in the Middle East will result in failure, as those populations lack those characteristics. Yet Americans went into Iraq and Afghanistan fully believing they would "build" those contries into prosperity.
That's an interesting hypothesis, and it may even be somewhat accurate. I don't see what that has to do with anything you've posted previously, unless your objective is to just splooge incoherent "America sucks" at everything?
QuoteI don't know weather to laugh or to cry.
How about trying to make sense?
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:36:40 PM
The common folk DOES believe that their troops will help the countries they invade, that they WON'T harm the locals; they DO believe privatization and liberalization is the best economic answer for everything; they REALLY believe that the mockery of 'Democracy' that they have is the most wonderful system EVAH. They DO think that there is very little corruption in Liberal Democratic regimes, and that systems like the Chinese are full of it.
In short, they are just like someone that read your Nazi textbook and bought all the crap in it, hook, line and sinker. Brainwashed and unthinking.
But you... only YOU have torn the scales from your eyes and see the TRUTH!
If only the fools would listen :cry:
Quoteas CdM and Ed Anger having a debate about the nuances of Chinese domestic politics.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi291.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fll283%2FFrakker_77%2FCounterpoint.png&hash=facf8cf86b82af7774f4677860f52782038885e3)
I say, fuck 'em
Thing is, Communist narratives of history were well known in the West during the Cold War. There was no shortage of Marxist interpretations of war, the West or Marxists to print and publish them. Even if there weren't native Marxists (which there were plenty in the West), the Soviet Union was not shy about trumpeting what it thought of the West. You could acquire Marxist histories in the US, or Britain or Canada, or France at any time during the Cold War. Now, I don't know if that was true in Portugal. That country was a dictatorship for a significant period and so I don't know what you could get there.
Martim, you argued an untenable position and further posts haven't advanced your case. You made absurd claims that have been easily proven incorrect, and then shifted to unprovable stuff about brainwashing and the like. I think it's time to pack it in.
QuoteYou could acquire Marxist histories in the US, or Britain or Canada, or France at any time during the Cold War.
The Soviet embassy sent my bro a shitload of their little books when he wrote them for research help on some school paper. I wish they were kept.
They were a hoot.
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 08, 2012, 03:58:24 PM
QuoteYou could acquire Marxist histories in the US, or Britain or Canada, or France at any time during the Cold War.
The Soviet embassy sent my bro a shitload of their little books when he wrote them for research help on some school paper. I wish they were kept.
They were a hoot.
My school had a bunch of thes olde magazines that were published by the Soviets to foster friendship between the US the SU and gloat about their power and greatness. They were really proud of weird things like tractors and steel production. That country must have been really boring to live in. No wonder they were always drunk.
If Martim's thesis is that all Americans think our conduct in war is flawless that's obviously not true. The "howling wilderness" atrocity in the Phillipines was widely reported at the time and familar to anyone who has read about that war. Anyone with decent knowledge has heard of My Lai, and the deepest retard knows about Abu Ghraib.
If his thesis is that American movies tend to whitewash conduct more than movies from other countries, there's probably something to that. WWII movies have tended not to be very dark, with a few exceptions like SPR, whereas in Europe dark movies about colonial wars seem not to be that rare. And Europe for the most part went through their colonial wars before the US went through Vietnam, which is the counterpart.
If his thesis is that American history books sanitize the truth compared to other countries' history books, I'm not sure I see it. Do American books about WWI, for example, sanitize the truth compared to Italian books about WWI? Do French books about WWI routinely mention the killing of surrendered or surrendering enemy troops?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 08, 2012, 05:15:27 PM
If Martim's thesis is that all Americans think our conduct in war is flawless that's obviously not true. The "howling wilderness" atrocity in the Phillipines was widely reported at the time and familar to anyone who has read about that war. Anyone with decent knowledge has heard of My Lai, and the deepest retard knows about Abu Ghraib.
If his thesis is that American movies tend to whitewash conduct more than movies from other countries, there's probably something to that. WWII movies have tended not to be very dark, with a few exceptions like SPR, whereas in Europe dark movies about colonial wars seem not to be that rare. And Europe for the most part went through their colonial wars before the US went through Vietnam, which is the counterpart.
If his thesis is that American history books sanitize the truth compared to other countries' history books, I'm not sure I see it. Do American books about WWI, for example, sanitize the truth compared to Italian books about WWI? Do French books about WWI routinely mention the killing of surrendered or surrendering enemy troops?
I don't know if our films whitewash any more then others. I mean, France banned the film Battle of Algiers for several years. I think the difference might be that European empires were collapsing and it's hard to be upbeat about defeat, while American films often recounted triumphs. You do see a shift in tone after Vietnam, but that shift seems to have been temporary. Saving Private Ryan did depict Americans shooting POWs, but it is still about triumph and heroism. While most of the characters die, their side wins and the movie is about the fact that their struggle was worth it in the rather ham fisted bookends. My point is I think the difference is one of optimism. Now, we are only comparing films in the West. I don't know enough about Soviet and Chinese films in the time period. I suspect they were rather patriotic and optimistic.
I remember Sputnik, the magazine.
Before the Perestroika it was pure soviet propaganda.
By the way, there were a few soviet sci-fi novels I found quite interesting, if lacking in originality.
This is Alexei Tolstoy's "Aelita" (1923)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelita_(novel)
This is Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars" (1917)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Princess_of_Mars
As you can see, the plot is so similar, that I am convince that comrade Alexei read Burroughs work.
The first sci-fi work in the russian language is nothing but plagiarism.
And the soviets were sooooo proud of Alexeis' work.....
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:24:26 PM
It does recall the US idea that it is a "nation-builder", without pondering that the results it got in Western Germany and Japan just might have had more to do with the fact that these were disciplined peoples who worked hard, and that thus any effort in the Middle East will result in failure, as those populations lack those characteristics.
See Jake, the problem isn't anti-Americanism at all; it's racist stereotyping.
Quote from: Berkut on August 08, 2012, 11:19:21 AM
Wow, a full on Nazi apologist. They are so rarely seen in the wild these days!
Obviously, you haven't been to Hungary lately.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 01:36:40 PM
The common folk DOES believe that their troops will help the countries they invade, that they WON'T harm the locals; they DO believe privatization and liberalization is the best economic answer for everything; they REALLY believe that the mockery of 'Democracy' that they have is the most wonderful system EVAH. They DO think that there is very little corruption in Liberal Democratic regimes, and that systems like the Chinese are full of it.
Taking the US, let's go one by one:
1) The common folk DOES believe that their troops will help the countries they invade, that they WON'T harm the locals.
Popular attitudes in the US have almost always opposed nation-building, which is why Bush ran against it in 2000. Recently polling data show spikes in support for isolationism which is now a majority position.
2) they DO believe privatization and liberalization is the best economic answer for everything
Which is why the voters elected Obama, why the US government spends more on health care than anyone else in the world, why the US has the toughest financial regulation and enforcement in the non-commie world and continues to pile on new laws, why the US never privatized the post office, etc. etc. ?
3) they REALLY believe that the mockery of 'Democracy' that they have is the most wonderful system EVAH
Do you have any historical or present alternatives you would propose?
4) DO think that there is very little corruption in Liberal Democratic regimes, and that systems like the Chinese are full of it
Compared to China or Russia, there is relatively little corruption
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 08, 2012, 03:58:24 PM
QuoteYou could acquire Marxist histories in the US, or Britain or Canada, or France at any time during the Cold War.
The Soviet embassy sent my bro a shitload of their little books when he wrote them for research help on some school paper. I wish they were kept.
They were a hoot.
I have some similar material from East Germany from the 80s, in English. They are also a hoot. Apparently the DDR had tons of free speech, religious freedoms *and* a perfectly functioning "socialist" system. Everyone was happy, and their GDP automatically grew by like 7% each year.
I think the Mimzy moment did kik Martinus sock puppet out of the ski.
Quote from: derspiess on August 09, 2012, 11:55:17 AM
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 08, 2012, 03:58:24 PM
QuoteYou could acquire Marxist histories in the US, or Britain or Canada, or France at any time during the Cold War.
The Soviet embassy sent my bro a shitload of their little books when he wrote them for research help on some school paper. I wish they were kept.
They were a hoot.
I have some similar material from East Germany from the 80s, in English. They are also a hoot. Apparently the DDR had tons of free speech, religious freedoms *and* a perfectly functioning "socialist" system. Everyone was happy, and their GDP automatically grew by like 7% each year.
:lol:
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 06, 2012, 07:23:34 AM
Quote from: Siege
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)
Are you really quoting siege? I mean really? He's an old mediocre soldier from Israel, and an E-4(maybe E-5 now?) to boot. Nobody listens to him, he has no sway and maybe is able to influence 3-4 soldiers if they don't already realize he is batshit crazy.
It's like referencing the crazy hobo on the corner holding a sign saying the world is ending. He's either completely talking out of his ass or insane.
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 08, 2012, 10:44:14 AM
You didn't win Korea.
Are you sure?
Seoul
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsuperjchung.files.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F02%2Fseoul.jpg&hash=ad00846b1cfca32010d8e5b7a7a960083a296bf9)(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.qldaccommodation.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F05%2FSeoul1.jpg&hash=ad27e22470ba3a83652348c6eabf1844f5af8aef)
Pyongyang(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.realbollywood.com%2Fup_images%2Fpyongyang4680.jpg&hash=f8b348139d0065bbf56483f0a3e9a5a7567719ce)
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvarifrank.com%2Fimages%2Fpyongyang.bmp&hash=32daba3f44149b26192ba8fabcdd00e80182f460)
All those pictures tell me is that Seoul has some pretty fucked up rush hour traffic, while I could be home in Pyongyang in 7 minutes.
Most of the Pyongyang pictures we are shown always seem to be in the Fall. Is there no summer in the PRK?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 10, 2012, 08:46:01 AM
All those pictures tell me is that Seoul has some pretty fucked up rush hour traffic, while I could be home in Pyongyang in 7 minutes.
Yeah, but you'd be living in Pyongyang.
Still would be way easier to find out which car now has his stolen license plates.
Quote from: Jacob on August 10, 2012, 09:03:44 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 10, 2012, 08:46:01 AM
All those pictures tell me is that Seoul has some pretty fucked up rush hour traffic, while I could be home in Pyongyang in 7 minutes.
Yeah, but you'd be living in Pyongyang.
You got a problem with the Revolution?
Quote from: Razgovory on August 08, 2012, 05:36:30 PM
You do see a shift in tone after Vietnam, but that shift seems to have been temporary.
Eh before WWII the US was dealing with the trauma of the Civil War. After a few decades of mutual accusation and bloody shirt waving we decided to invent the myth that the war was nobody's fault, it seems those states were forced to secede by like the Demi-Gods of history or something, and we had all these Blue-Gray reunions to try to get the veterans to kiss and make up. The first couple meetings were really tense but eventually they got with the program. Which led to a period following WWI where we decided the whole Civil War was a mistake and a huge waste of life for no reason at all and a tragedy...which was totally not influenced at all by the experience of WWI.
I think the super-patriotism that followed WWII was another attempt to finally end the sectional divide and trauma of the Civil War. Then Vietnam brought up a whole bunch of new issues that we are still dealing with, the culture war and all that. And I think the return to American 'rah-rah' is an attempt to deal with that issue.
I am pretty amazed the 150th anniversary of the ACW has come with barely a peep from anybody. It looks like the burden of it and slavery is finally being lifted from the US' shoulders.
Quote from: derspiess on August 09, 2012, 11:55:17 AM
I have some similar material from East Germany from the 80s, in English. They are also a hoot. Apparently the DDR had tons of free speech, religious freedoms *and* a perfectly functioning "socialist" system. Everyone was happy, and their GDP automatically grew by like 7% each year.
It was sorta sad how much our western intelligence agencies seemed to believe their garbage as well. They considered the DDR one of the strongest economies in the world before the wall collapsed and we learned the truth.
Of course over-estimating Soviet Bloc strength also had certain bureaucratic advantages for the CIA and company...
Quote from: Valmy on August 10, 2012, 09:59:13 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on August 08, 2012, 05:36:30 PM
You do see a shift in tone after Vietnam, but that shift seems to have been temporary.
Eh before WWII the US was dealing with the trauma of the Civil War. After a few decades of mutual accusation and bloody shirt waving we decided to invent the myth that the war was nobody's fault, it seems those states were forced to secede by like the Demi-Gods of history or something, and we had all these Blue-Gray reunions to try to get the veterans to kiss and make up. The first couple meetings were really tense but eventually they got with the program. Which led to a period following WWI where we decided the whole Civil War was a mistake and a huge waste of life for no reason at all and a tragedy...which was totally not influenced at all by the experience of WWI.
I think the super-patriotism that followed WWII was another attempt to finally end the sectional divide and trauma of the Civil War. Then Vietnam brought up a whole bunch of new issues that we are still dealing with, the culture war and all that. And I think the return to American 'rah-rah' is an attempt to deal with that issue.
I am pretty amazed the 150th anniversary of the ACW has come with barely a peep from anybody. It looks like the burden of it and slavery is finally being lifted from the US' shoulders.
I think the shift in thinking on the Civil War occurred before WWI. People pretty rah-rah during the Spanish-American so Americans had gotten back their patriotism by then. Still Americans were kinda anti-war before the entry into WWI, but they never reached the pessimism that Europeans had after WWI.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 10, 2012, 08:46:01 AM
All those pictures tell me is that Seoul has some pretty fucked up rush hour traffic, while I could be home in Pyongyang in 7 minutes.
3 minutes to get halfway there, then another hour to walk after you run out of gas and find out you can't refill.
Quote from: Alcibiades on August 10, 2012, 01:42:52 AM
Quote from: Martim Silva on August 06, 2012, 07:23:34 AM
Quote from: Siege
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)
Are you really quoting siege? I mean really? He's an old mediocre soldier from Israel, and an E-4(maybe E-5 now?) to boot. Nobody listens to him, he has no sway and maybe is able to influence 3-4 soldiers if they don't already realize he is batshit crazy.
It's like referencing the crazy hobo on the corner holding a sign saying the world is ending. He's either completely talking out of his ass or insane.
Whoa, this is uncalled for.
And I have been an E-6 for almost 3 years now.