Out of curiosity, I wonder how People see America's past, in particular the wars that America has fought. The most justifiable war in my opinion has been the American Revolution. The least justifiable wars were World War I and the Vietnam War. To me, the Civil War was a bad war since it involved Americans fighting against Americans, regardless of the slavery issue. WWII was also a bad war since it involved the military draft and the carpet bombing of civilian populations.

As far as the leaders are concerned, Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson should be considered war criminals because of their lies and the massive damage that resulted from those lies.

So the questions for debate is
In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?
Are there any war criminals in America's past?

I'd say that probably about the biggest war crime we committed was the bombing of Dresden. I cringe every time I read about what happened there, it was so awful. It may have even been worse than the attacks on Japan, because those could (maybe) plausibly be said to have been militarily necessary to avoid a land invasion, but Dresden was of no strategic value. And it put the people there (many of them working-class refugees from other bombardments, thinking they were in a safe haven because the city had so little military value) through three days of absolute hell on earth.

Then you have the brutal suppression of the rebellion in the Philippines, shortly after we assumed control of the place following the Spanish-American War. That war was supposedly a crusade to liberate people from Spanish oppression, but that pretty much rang hollow once we decided to assert control there.

On the other hand, there were times when our conduct did us proud. During WWII, many islands in the western Pacific, including islands with ethnic Japanese populations, were much happier to have us there than to have their own Japanese troops there. As late as the multinational occupation of Somalia, our troops were the ones the Somalis trusted the most to deal with them fairly (at least before we made the very foolish decision to go around disarming them).

I don't really agree with your take there. A war isn't justifiable based on how brutal or painful it is, it's justifiable based on what ideals and principles were at stake. You couldn't say murdering someone over something petty is justifiable if you kill them painlessly. The civil war was justified because the CSA was fighting to keep slavery. If another American takes up arms against the government to protect something as reprehensible as slavery, the government is justified in putting down the rebellion. In the case of WW2, the drastic measures the US took were 100% justified because they were necessary to defeat the most evil country in the history of the world. Surely that has to come into deciding whether or not something is justified. Sure, the Civil War and WW2 required terrible pain and anguish but when you weight whether or not they had to be fought, WHAT we fought FOR has to be the main question. WW2 wasn't just a decision between fire bombing Dresden or not; it was also a question of allowing the world to be overcome by tyranny and genocide. The decisions to have a draft or bomb cities wasn't just made in isolation in Washington. The decisions are inexorably linked to what happened in Warsaw, Nanking or plantations in the South.

In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy? Obviously not. America's war (genocide) on Native Americans was disgusting and immoral. The Mexican War was basically an expansionist land grab. The Spanish-American war and the Iraq War were started on false pretenses.

Are there any war criminals in America's past? Yes, especially in connection with the Native American genocide. Andrew Jackson is a great example with the trail of tears. But in recent memory the America has been civilized most of the time.

In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?

Always the opportunistic guy perhaps. Our actions in various interventions and wars could be classified as dubious at best.

Revolutionary War? We were the one's mistreating American colonists who were British loyalists. US taxes were lower then they were in Britain. We essentially did what the south did in the American Civil War. maybe you can justify it by saying that Britain didn't have a right to be here either so rebelling agains't them was rebelling against an establishment that had no right to exist on the American continent.

War of 1812? We were valid taken by itself in my opinion. The British were impressing American sailors and encouraging insurgent strikes on our northern borders. Then again looking a little deeper the Native American's had every right to want to kill white settlers and you have to understand that Britain's actions were largely a result of animosity still looming from the Revolution.

Mexican American war? Absolute land grab. Theft. The Texans were essentially terrorists. Moved in and stole a land and tried to become independant in order to utilize slavery which Mexico abolished.

American Civil War. A war fought because of slavery and southern paranoia of the spread of abolitionism in the certain parts of the North. Years of treaty and free/slave agreements culminated into a war fought by southerners who wanted to regulate and decide slavery for themselves and northernors who laregly could care less about slavery but didn't think the south had a right to cede.

Spanish American War? Fought over a lie. The Maine was not sunk by some Spanish-Cuban sabateurs. It's smoke stack exploded and the ship sank.

WWI? Unecessary from an American perspective. A clash of European colonial powers that had been edging closer and clser to complete war for several decades. Wilson illegally was aiding Britain in a time of declared neutrality. We had no business to enter this war.

WWII. Very legit reasons. Our cleanest war entry.

Korean: A civil war really and in that regards maybe the US had no right to meddle but the USSR meddled and given the high risks geo-political cold war battles that were waging this is a war that is just kind of ...there.

Vietnam: Please.

Desert Storm I. I have read some things that have cast a suspicious light on this conflict. About the fake Iraqi invasion force said to be amassing on the Saudi border that was a lie. The incubator baby photos I think are alleged to be faked and correspondance between Saddam's inner circle and I believe our State Department in which US operatives stated that what Iraq did in regards to Kuwait wasn't of interest for us. Kind of us giving a green light.

All the conspiracy theories aside. Iraq invaded a sovereign nation and was attacked .

Afghan invasion? Extremely valid

Iraq II? Catastrophic mistake. Unecessary.

I left out the smaller scuffles. Panama, Grenada, Kosovo, Bay of Pigs and all of the indian wars. Plus US interventions in places like Chile, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Laos, Haiti and the dozens of other places we have meddled with the CIA and other governmnet agencies.

Are there any war criminals in America's past?

Everyone who took part in the revolution you could call a war criminal maybe. American commanders in that war who abused and harassed Loyalists who had just as much right to exist on our mainland as anyone else.

How about the southern soldiers executing caught black soldiers in the American Civil War...like at the battle of the Crater and other battles?

Heck too many to list.

Henry Kissenger is a war criminal and a nobel peace prize recipient. Digest that one.

Well- involvement or war? Guatemala- we were the bad guys, every time on the mainland South America- America was the bad guy. Iran- our installation of the Shah of Iran- we were the bad guy again. South Vietnam- we didn't belong there- though both sides were equally bad there. Grenada- one of the rare cases we actually did the opposite of what we normally do- support the freely elected Bishop and throw out the bad guy. Panama- we installed an evil man, then we had to take him out- we propped up Saddam, though did not directly support him as much, but he is partially of our doing.

It is very hard to find a post-Korean involvement where we were even marginally "the good guys and justified by what we do".

In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?
Good guy? Always? No. Almost always? Yes. Pure as the driven snow? No.

Revolutionary War: Good guys

Barbary Wars: Definitely good guys.

War of 1812: Good guys, pretty much.

Indian Wars: Mixed. Could have utterly annihilated the Indians, but didn't. "Peaceful coexistence" was, in the long term, not realistic.

Mexican-American War: Good guys. Okay, fair guys. Not bad guys.

War Between the States: Mixed. The Confederate States did have a right to secede, (i.e. "War of Union Aggression"), and the institution of slavery was also abhorrent.

Spanish-American War: Good guys.

Phillipine-American War: Bad Guys.

China Relief Expedition, aka Boxer Rebellion: Good guys (note, the other elements of the "Eight Nations" were a very mixed bag.)

World War I: Mixed.

Russian Expeditionary Force: Good guys

World War II: Good Guys

Korean Conflict: Good Guys

VietNam War: Good Guys. Anybody who doubts this need simply look at what happened to VietNam, Cambodia and Laos after the Communists took over.

Desert Storm: Good Guys.

Afghanistan: Good Guys.

Iraq: Good Guys.


Are there any war criminals in America's past?
That depends on how you define "war criminal." If you're a pacifist, then there are millions. If the standard is Hitler, Himmler or Pol Pot, then there are none. The truth lies somewhere in between. One clear example is likely Jacob Hurd Smith.

**************************************************************

Robert Saunby, Deputy Air Marshal at Bomber Command, commenting on the bombing of Dresden.

"That the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy none can deny. It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself. Once full-scale war has broken out it can never be humanized or civilized, and if one side attempted to do so it would be most likely to be defeated. That to me is the lesson of Dresden."

Um- BD- we commited a holocaust on the American Indian that makes Hitler and Stalin combined looked like rank amatuers.

Don't you think a few of those major massacres qualified as war crimes?

We cancelled free and open elections in Vietnam because we knew that Ho Chi Mingh would win.

I don't think there would have been any difference in bloodshed between the totally corrupt South if they would have run things- unless we interfered and toppled that goverment too.

I still say Vietnam was a "wash" as bad vs good- though we had no business being there in the first place.

Afghanistan I missed- we had every right and reason to go in there IMHO.

The argument "we could technically have acted worse" does not qualify you to be a good guy. And though the US did not utterly annihilated the Indians, they came reasonably close...




Several people have referred to the US entry into WWI as mixed or foolish, and this confuses me. A foreign power had declared unrestricted Submarine warfare in the Atlantic and was targeting US ships, including having sunk a few.

It is also easy to look upon the Zimmerman telegram with 20/20 hindsight as a silly event that would never have amounted to anything, but this was far from assured at the time. Frankly the US entry into WWi was a lot more justified than its entry into many more recent conflicts.



How is that again? Again, one can look on Soviet excesses with 20/20 hindsight, but at the time the US sent troops in to put down a rebellion against an authoritative monarchichal state, and in doing so prolongued a civil war that killed tens of thousands, all for no effect.



What happened in Vietnam after the war pales utterly in compairason to the US involvement and its 2-odd million Vietnamese dead. Frankly the changeover was brutal, but relatively bloodless. As for Cambodia going to Pol Pot, that happened BECAUSE of the war. Before the US involvement the Cambodian communists were a pitiful bunch unlikely to seize any power. Mass opposition to US involvement and illegal bombing of Cambodia, as ell as support from the NVA to fight the US is what caused that atrocity. In no way can the US claim to be the good guy in Vietnam.



Yes well, the world disagrees, and increasingly so do the people of the US, but we will leave this for debate in innumerable other threads.




What has been left out mind you, is in my mind the one shining case where the US did the right thing for the right reasons, and that is intervention in Somalia. I can hardly think of a case where the US has been as much on the side of the angels as in that conflict. Its too bad it ended so poorly, because it was in its conception a real example of how a superpower SHOULD act...

Vermillion- you missed an important part of the American psyche on your last post WE ALWAYS CLAIM to be the good guys- but rarely are. The arrogance of the american viewpoint towards those we "liberate" is one of the TRUE reason of "why they hate us". You pointed out 2 million dead from the US involvement- but it was 'not on purppose"- and later on, Communists killed some poeple- but OUR killing was righteous and true?

Oh, couple I almost forget- anything in central America, specifically during the Reagan era- bad, bad, bad guys- the worst of the worst here.

On the Afternoon of 10 December 1981, units of the Atlacal Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalion (BIRI) arrived in the village of El Mozote, Department of Morazan, after a clash with the guerrillas in the vicinity . . .
Early next morning, 11 December, the soldiers reassembled the entire population in the square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked everyone up in different groups in the church, the convent and various houses.

During the morning, they proceeded to interrogate, torture and execute the men in various locations. Around noon, they began taking the women in groups, separating them from their children and machine-gunning them. Finally, they killed the children. A group of children who had been locked in the convent were machine-gunned through the windows. After exterminating the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the buildings.

UN Truth Commission on El Salvador
The El Mozote Massacre
April 1, 1993

And that is just the tip of the iceberg- and one reason I hate Reagan so much. He backed those monsters. Most of the worst of them were educated right here in the School of the Americas, or whatever they call them.

"inquiries by the National Security Archive and other investigators unearthed a number of documents showing that White House officials, including Oliver North, knew about and supported using money raised via drug trafficking to fund the contras. Sen. John Kerry's report in 1988 led to the same conclusions, however, major media outlets and the Justice Department denied the allegations."

Ya, the US, and that paradigm of conservative "morality" were dealing drugs to fund death squads.

Some good guys we are!

I have heard during a history class in college is that the belligerent countries were using civilian vessels to transport weapons and other supplies for the war, which should have been considered a war crime like the placement of AA guns in the middle of residential areas. The proper thing for Woodrow Wilson to have done is warn the American public to stay off of ships travelling to Europe, and provide Destroyer Escorts for the civilian ships. Whatever the American civilian death count was for the Luisitiana, it pales in comparison with the 100,000 soldiers lost during WWI.

Yes, though never officially confirmed, there is evidence that the US was shipping purchased war supplies to Europe before the official entry into the war. Though mostly on Freighters, apparently on some liners as well. Not that this is not as odd as it sounds, liners then carried enormous cargo capacity and used cargo as a means to suppliment their transatlantic runs.


However, through the actions of the US are shady here, that does not alter the fact that the Germans were sinking American ships. Think about it, does the fact that the Lusitania may or may not have been secretly carrying munitions (which it probably was) in any way alter the offense of a German Uboat firing on a US liner?


One can hardly blame the US for getting involved at that point, the combination of German unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram was far better justification than the US has used to enter subsequent wars...

Wow, I never thought that somebody could make such a bizarre claim when faced with the raw numbers of people killed, but leave it to CR to revise history in a strange attempt to make the U.S. into the bad guy in every nearly every situation. Let's look at the numbers shall we.
The generally accepted figures of soviets killed during Stalin's reign is around 30 million (including those killed in the famine brought about by farm collectivism and the disastrous five year plans).
We all know that the number of Jews killed by Hitler is just around under 6 million.

That's roughly 36 million.....give or take.

Now to be ridiculously fair, let's use Ward Churchill's numbers of American Indians killed:
Thus, according to Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a "vast genocide . . . , the most sustained on record." (this number includeds those killed by diseases, in which they had no immunity)
Link

Hitler and Stalin were still rank amateurs???

I certainly don't mean to gloss over the plight of the Indians. I believe it to be the worst act committed on American soil, by far. But let's inject a smidgen of truth now and again, shall we? You are also a fan of condemning US actions in Central America, but you act is if they occurred in a vacuum. You somehow forget the equally horrendous left wing atrocities.

In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?
Of course not, no nation or state can claim that title. It would go against the laws of human nature to be correct in one's actions 100% of the time. I believe that our intent and actions have been for honorable purposes through most of our history. I just don't believe that American lives should have been sacrificed in all of those occasions.
I agree with Vermillion, in my study of the Zimmerman telegram, it clearly was a provocation of war that could not be ignored. We were justified in going to war with Imperial Germany.

Are there any war criminals in America's past?
Of course, LT. Calley comes to mind immediately, as do several cavalry commanders in the old west. I would submit that in many cases, U.S. military commanders have sacrificed American soldiers through incompetence more often than any have been war criminals concerning actions towards the enemy.

It is a very tragic for the Americans who were aboard those liners. But you have to look at the scale of the threats and seriously consider whether 100,000 lives is worth the sacrifice. Before sending troops to Europe, the US lost 138 lives on the Lusitania. If America tried to make every part of the world safe for Americans, America would have to draft people to go fight on every continent. Its simply not possible to guarantee security everywhere.

[quote=Bikerdad,Feb 18 2006, 01:17 AM]
In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?
Good guy? Always? No. Almost always? Yes. Pure as the driven snow? No.

Revolutionary War: Good guys

Barbary Wars: Definitely good guys.

War of 1812: Good guys, pretty much.

Indian Wars: Mixed. Could have utterly annihilated the Indians, but didn't. "Peaceful coexistence" was, in the long term, not realistic.

Mexican-American War: Good guys. Okay, fair guys. Not bad guys.

War Between the States: Mixed. The Confederate States did have a right to secede, (i.e. "War of Union Aggression"), and the institution of slavery was also abhorrent.

Spanish-American War: Good guys.

Phillipine-American War: Bad Guys.

China Relief Expedition, aka Boxer Rebellion: Good guys (note, the other elements of the "Eight Nations" were a very mixed bag.)

World War I: Mixed.

Russian Expeditionary Force: Good guys

World War II: Good Guys

Korean Conflict: Good Guys

VietNam War: Good Guys. Anybody who doubts this need simply look at what happened to VietNam, Cambodia and Laos after the Communists took over.

Desert Storm: Good Guys.

Afghanistan: Good Guys.

Iraq: Good Guys.


Are there any war criminals in America's past?
That depends on how you define "war criminal." If you're a pacifist, then there are millions. If the standard is Hitler, Himmler or Pol Pot, then there are none. The truth lies somewhere in between. One clear example is likely Jacob Hurd Smith.


Hey I agree completly.
Except for the Civil War -- Good Guys There too.

**************************************************************

The victor gets to write (right?) history- and 12 million is pitifully low.

the difference between the "left wing atrocities" and the "right wing atrocities" is the fact that WE backed the right wingers. I would denounce them equally if they were supported by us.

I guess I never gave a lot of thought of how were are not much different from terrorists.

We routinely use lies and deception to justify wars. Nothing's changed there. But the amount of non-combatants we've targeted and killed is astounding - Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, the list goes on and on...I'm not convinced the enemies we've coughed up half our civil liberties for could kill as many innocents as we have.

And we want to spread our ideals across the globe? No wonder they hate us...

In any case, Hitler attacked our allies and we came to their defense (to the dismay of Bush apologists that claim we weren't attacked in WWII, so Gulf War 2.0 was no different) in WWII. Japan attacked us, so our response was correct. Saddam attacked/invaded an ally in Gulf War 1.0 (this one is a little iffy, but I'm not sure allowing Saddam to topple kingdoms like us would have been in our best national security interest).

Vietnam and Gulf War 2.0 were based on idealogy and used deception to convince Americans they were justified. The next war will do the same.

A few quick historical facts.

Firstly, (though I assume you already know this donttreadonme), Hitler is responsible for a lot more than 6 million deaths. Ignoring the deaths of the wars he started for a moment, he is directly responsible for about 10-11 million deaths, of which betwee 5.5 and 6.5 million were jews.

On the other hand, the number of 12 million Natives in North America in 1500 is most certainly on the low end of the estimates. The generally accepted figure for natives in the Americas just prior to the arrival of Europeans was about 100 -120 million, about 30% of which were in North America.

HOWEVER, the vast majority of these deaths, between 75% and 80% of native fatalities, were due to smallpox, and to a lesser extent, plague, measles and a few other European diseases. Though unquestionably a horror, one can hardly blame the Europeans for that. What is interesting is that most of these diseases arrived via trade among the natives from Mexico, and actually PREdated the arrival of Whites in most parts of North America. There are plenty of stories of white explorers coming across empty villages where no white man has come before.

Tales of whites deliberatly spreading items like blankets infected with smallpox are true in a few cases, but VERY rare, and ironically, would have made no difference, as by the time that tactic was tried the remaining natives were immune...

Later massacres of natives by deliberate agency by the British, French and eventually American authorities amounted to probably less than 2 million dead, most of those of deliberate starvation.

A moment please, while I collect myself.

CR, there is no rational equivalence between Hitler (21 million over 12 years), Stalin (43 million over 30 years) and Pol Pot (2 million, over a mere 3 years!!!) with the United States Government over 130 years.

Pre-20th Century Democide - US vs. the Indians

Not to be overlooked is that democide associated with the clash of civilizations and in particularly the European conquest of the Americas. There is no ambiguity about the outright massacres that occurred, such as the Puritan killing of 500-600 Pequot Indians at Mystic Fort in 1637 and the French annihilation of perhaps 1,000 Nanchez Indians in the lower Mississippi after defeating them in 1731. As everyone knows, such also occurred with the post-conquest expansion of national frontiers, as in the United States. Although cowboy and Indian movies leave the impression that Indians were massacred by the tens of thousands, actual body counts show otherwise. To consider one notorious massacre, in 1864 citizen and military troops enlisted from the Colorado territory and led by Colonel John Chivington surrounded and surprised Cheyenne at Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory. Two-thirds of them women and children, the Indians tried to surrender and parley, but all were killed without mercy, their bodies being scalped and mutilated. In total from 70 to 600 were massacred, the latter the upper estimate of the Colonel; 130 killed seems closer to the truth. It was argued that this massacre did not reflect government policy, and it was the subject of army and congressional investigations. But other than Chivington resigning his commission, no one was punished. Just to note the other most well-known massacres by Calvary: at Washita 103 Cheyenne were killed in 1868; in 1870 at Piegan Village 173 Indians were killed; and at Wounded Knee in 1890 it was possibly 146 Sioux. Also often cited is the Bear River Massacre of 1863 in which 250 Shoshoni were wiped out. This began as a battle between Indians and soldiers, but degenerated into a slaughter of helpless and wounded Indians.

While these were the largest American massacres, there undoubtedly were numerous small ones. Moreover, many Indians were killed by vigilantes while local government looked the other way, or were murdered individually by settlers. Taking all the army-Indian battles and massacres into account, probably no more than some 3,000 Indians were killed in the years 1789 to 1898. Settlers and vigilantes likely killed a thousand more. Since many of these Indians were killed in pitched battles, it seems very unlikely that the number of Indians massacred outright by Calvary and settlers in the American West could have been more than 4,000, and was probably a good number less.73 But this is not the whole story. Many Indians also died from barbarous mistreatment or conditions purposely forced upon them.

For example there was the fate of the Californian Yuki Indians. Originally having a population of around 3,500, in a little more than thirty years its numbers fell to about 400 through "kidnapping, epidemics, starvation, vigilante justice, and state sanctioned mass killing." Moreover, there was the so-called Trail of Tears deaths. In the 1835 treaty of New Echota with the U.S. government Cherokee leaders of a minority faction, and without the approval of the majority, agreed to the nation moving out of Georgia to West of the Mississippi River. Although many prominent Americans publicly opposed such a deportation, in 1838 President Van Buren ordered the army to enforce the treaty. At gun point the Cherokees were thus made to trek westward to Oklahoma in the winter of 1838-39. The resulting exposure and disease killed off nearly 25 percent of the tribe, or about 4,000 people. While the Federal Government's responsibility is mitigated by the treaty, the cruelty of the enforcement amounts to indirect massacre. It was democide. Perhaps overall, considering these and other cases and including massacres, by 1900 some 10,000 to 25,000 Indians may have been killed.

Were the massacres war crimes? Most of them, yes. Do "we" come anywhere close to Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot? Nope.

I don't think it was foolish, although it was a bit naive. However, as noted by Kalabus, it was essentially a European Imperialist war. The German decision to go to unrestricted submarine warfare was quite understandable, since we were supplying the British and French, and not supplying them. We "didn't have a dog in the fight", but allowed ourselves to get dragged in.

Actually, we sent in troops to prevent war supplies from falling into German hands, and to toss the Bolsheviks out, who had overthrown the Russian Provisional Government. The Tsar had abdicated the year before. Facts can be so inconvenient.

Are you honestly claiming that the US is responsible for 2,000,000 dead in Vietnam? The facts say otherwise.

Vietnam War : War Deaths and Democide

"Brutal but relatively bloodless"? Nay nay. Communist atrocities after the Fall of Saigon

I just want to make a comment about WWI.

Germany's unrestricted submarine campaign taken by itself may seem vile but you also have to look at the US who was aiding Britain and France at a time of declared neutrality. We were shipping supplies. The Luisitania was shipping supplies.

Germany almost had no choice but to start targeting American ships.

I am not sure why the US is the good guy for choosing sides in a conflict we had no right to choose sides in.

Why are we the good guy for saying we were neutral and then by illegally aiding 1 side?

Edit: I didn't read everything above. Now I have so I will elaborate as I saw the discussion was discussed further.

The Zimmerman Telegram: Came in 1917. After the Lusitannia and after the US began illegally aiding 1 side of the war. You can easily argue that Germany's hand was forced by US actions. That Germany was defending itself.

Even the Zimmerman Telegram stated that the German intentions were for the US to remain neutral. The Zimmerman Telegram was directed for Mexico in the case that the US had already declared war on Germany. The Zimmerman telegram did not direct Mexico to begin attacking the US but to attack if the US declared war on Germany.

I also saw someone speaking about residual effects of the US intervention in Vietnam and how it gave rise to Pol Pot etc, etc.

What about US involvement in WWI and the coming reality of WWII?

Winston Churchill even blamed US involvement in WWI as causing the rise of Nazi Germany.

I disagree with him but it is Winston Churchill.

I find WWI to be a massively unecessary intervention. It was a European colonial war. Woodrow Wilson (English mother and all) initiated an Anglophile US propaganda machine. Created and nurtured anti-German sentiment aka anti-hun sentiment.

Creating the illusion of the blood thirsty German army.

Firstly, this U of Hawaii guy you source is an idiot. Have you read through his theories? 25,000 Indians directly killed in US history? 5,500 Vietnamese killed by shall and bomb attacks? On the other hand, he claims Hitler (not through war, but through direct action) killed 21 million people.

Find another source.


[quote=Bikerdad,Feb 18 2006, 07:46 PM]
[quote]How is that again? Again, one can look on Soviet excesses with 20/20 hindsight, but at the time the US sent troops in to put down a rebellion against an authoritative monarchichal state, and in doing so prolongued a civil war that killed tens of thousands, all for no effect.[/quote]

Actually, we sent in troops to prevent war supplies from falling into German hands, and to toss the Bolsheviks out, who had overthrown the Russian Provisional Government. The Tsar had abdicated the year before. Facts can be so inconvenient.

Yes, can't they just Bikerdad?

The first US troops did not arrive in Russia until 6 months AFTER the end of the war in Europe, so it had nothing to do with keeping Russian war supplies out of German hands.

And how exactly was intervening on behalf of the 'provisional government' which had existed for 10 months and had no control of the country against the latest Bolshevik revolution make the US a good guy, again without 20/20 hindsight?

The reality is the same thing ended up happening but with the loss of unecessary US and Russian lives.

[quote]Are you honestly claiming that the US is responsible for 2,000,000 dead in Vietnam? The facts say otherwise.[/quote]

Facts? Did you actually read the source you quoted me? It tried to blame every single death on the communists through math. It claims that between 1965 and 1972, the US killed 5500 Vietnamese using shells and bombs. 5500!

Instead of this crazy guy's wild imagination based on nothing, shall we look at actual numbers?

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

(estimate between 1 and 2 million Vietnamese deaths)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Casualties

(estimate between 1 and 4 million Vietnamese deaths)

http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

(estimates between 1 and 1.5 million deaths)

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000508/falk

(Estimates between 2 and 4 million deaths)


To quote someone I heard on this board, Facts can be so inconvenient.


[quote]"Brutal but relatively bloodless"? Nay nay. Communist atrocities after the Fall of Saigon[/url]
[/quote]

Firstly, the entry you quote, saying s many as a million deaths is way higher than ANYTHING I have ever heard, but I will tell you what... so what?

Yes the Vietnamese communists were unpleasant and brutal, they were far moe brutal mind you after Ho Chi Mihn died... so the fact that they were brutal before the US attacked, and brutal after the US attacked (arguably due to the US presence) how does the US arriving and killing another 2 million people make them the 'good guys'?

The US has long accepted the national tragedy of the loss in Vietnam, and the mistake made in committing troops there, you should try and keep up.

The 5,500 figure that you have such heartburn with is specifically identified as democide, i.e. without justification, and attributed to US action. The "war dead" casualties are considered separately, and are not attributed to either side.

The 5,500 is in contrast to the 1,040,000 attributed to the Vietnamese post-war, and in contrast to the 216,000 victims of democide attributed to the Communists from '54 to '75. Again, these figures are democide and do not count war dead.


The first US troops arrived in Arkhangelsk on September 4, 1918, the war in Europe ended on at 11am, on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, i.e. more than 2 months after the US troops arrived.

What makes you think it takes 20/20 hindsight to determine that the Bolshevik Revolution was a bad thing? (Heck, there's lotsa Leftists who still can't figure that one out even with hindsight!)

So, are you arguing that because we weren't successful, it was a bad thing to try? Does that mean that when we are successful, ipso facto our efforts are a good thing?


Hmmm, perhaps you should look at "Idiot Professor's" Line 785 - 2,115,000 Pre-Guerilla and Vietnam War Period Dead. Kinda falls right in range with the estimates you've offered, eh? Not bad for a "wild imagination." Its all there in the tables.

Probably the most illuminating thing you've ever written on this board.

None of your sources support your claim that the US killed 2,000,000 people.

Tragedy, yes. We clearly differ on the nature of the tragedy.

Actually that was just one of the many insane figures I took issue with. As I said, get another source, or better yet deal with any of the several I provided... His numbers all throughout are ludicrous.




Please. A Field hospital, an ambulance unit and a batallion of engineers arrived then, significant military force did not arrive until 1919. Even those forces that were there, their presence had nothing to do with preventing war materiels from falling into German hands as you contend.

And the provisional government was an autocratic regime, at least as far as could be told, truth is it was so short lived and unstable nobody knew what kind of regime it would be.

No, the US intervention was not a bad idea because it failed, it was a bad idea because the US interfered in a civil war it knew little about and could not hope to win, killed some people, lost some people and then left without altering a thing except creating a lasting mistrust of the US in the eyes of the new Soviet government.




You really need to make up your mind. So now you AGREE that Vietnamese war dead exceeded 2 million? Understandable, as all the sources I quoted (and you did not address) said the same thing...




So the over 2 million Vietnamese war dead YOU just cited (supporting the same numbers I cited), they were all suicides then? 2 million Vietnamese people killed in war-related road accidents, unrelated to the US presence? 2 million people tripped and fell down the stairs? Please.

When you say, "shipping supplies", what exactly do you mean? Normal items of trade with neutrals aren't prohibited during wartime, and the fact that we were engaging in such trade doesn't mean we were "aiding" them.

I do agree, however, that it wasn't a legitimate cause of war when Americans die on a vessel flying the flag of a belligerent, any more than it's a legitimate cause of war when Americans die in an air raid on a foreign city during wartime. Citizens of neutral countries take their own risks when setting foot in belligerent countries or their vessels.


I'm inclined to agree with you there. Germany's arrangement with Mexico was a precautionary measure, and it's the type of thing that I'm sure we'd do if there was another country who seemed to be teetering on the edge of going to war with us.


I disagree with him - a little. I wouldn't ascribe Hitler's rise to our intervention itself, but to Wilson's bait-and-switch that he pulled on Germany. As the Germans were feeling the noose tighten as the Allies drew near, he began waving his "Fourteen Points" promising them a fair deal. But then when Germany accepted and agreed to an armistice, Wilson sat back and let Clemenceau and Lloyd George make mincemeat of that promise and impose humiliating terms on them. The sense of betrayal that the Germans felt was almost certainly a significant factor in their postwar radicalization.

By the way, Vermillion and Bikerdad, according to Regiments.org (a site that at least seems to know what it's talking about), Allied forces (including Americans) began arriving in Russia in June of '18. And it also made the further point that the main objectives in the intervention were strategic objectives relating to the war against Germany. Fear of Communism was very much a secondary concern. But the thing to keep in mind here is something somebody earlier said about "20/20 hindsight". We may know now, looking back, that the Bolshevik Revolution was there to stay, but at the time, it was simply a mutiny against one of our allies, that was being carried out with more than just the incidental support of the Germans. Helping an ally fight off a threat to its existence was not an inherently immoral thing to do, even though in hindsight, it did turn out to be a strategic blunder. These things aren't always obvious when they're happening, though.

As for Vietnam, do we know how much of those 2 million Vietnamese dead can be truly attributed to us? As has been pointed out already, Ho Chi Minh's guys weren't exactly the Boy Scouts, even towards their own people.

when considering Amerrica's history it is easy to notice that it is predominately dominated by various wars and conflicts. These wars and or conflicts were bad wars, wars are generally bad. They were bad but most if not all of them were necessary. To properly defend this statement I would be forced to recount the reasons that made each war necessary, but I do not have the time to do that. However, let me repeat that the majority of the American wars were necessary. That being said, I do believe that the Federal Government was not helpful in the Vietnam war, and yes there have been war criminals in America's past. However, these two points should not keep Americans from fighting wars in the future; and Americans should not be surprised at the tactics that are used in war. The use of those tactics is necessary. Just because our nation now has the luxury of fighting with more precision, which can result in fewer civilian casualties, does not mean that it will always be this way. Other countries are catching up to our level of technology, one day we will again be involved in a war that requires the killing of many civilians. On that day America should not be shocked at the horrors of war but determined to once again ensure that freedom is given to its offspring.

[quote=skeeterses,Feb 18 2006, 05:49 AM]
Out of curiosity, I wonder how People see America's past, in particular the wars that America has fought. The most justifiable war in my opinion has been the American Revolution. The least justifiable wars were World War I and the Vietnam War. To me, the Civil War was a bad war since it involved Americans fighting against Americans, regardless of the slavery issue. WWII was also a bad war since it involved the military draft and the carpet bombing of civilian populations.

As far as the leaders are concerned, Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson should be considered war criminals because of their lies and the massive damage that resulted from those lies.

So the questions for debate is
In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?

I think the Vietnam war was a lost war with no reason of doing this war.
It costed about: $5.1 billion per month, adjusting for inflation.
It took the lives of: 58.000 American lives
between 1 or 2 million vietnames lives

Everybody makes mistakes, the Vietnam War is the mistake off the US.


Are there any war criminals in America's past?


War criminals? The president which was the first involved in the Vietnam war was president Kennedy. Is president Kennedy a war criminal? I don't think so. It was a different time with a lot of tensions. He made a mistake by getting involved in the Vietnam War. But he made a whole bunch of good decisions including in 1962 (Cuba crisis), I think Kennedy saved the world with this decision.

Greetings mupampi

I suppose if you were a Nazi intent on dominating all of Europe and killing every Jewish man, woman, and child, WWII was a "bad" war.

I suppose if you were a member of the Southern Confederacy and believed that Africans were not "humans" and that they could be bought, sold, and traded like cattle, then the US Civil war was a "bad" war.

I suppose if you were a totalitarian communist, insistent on enslaving the citizens of Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and many others... then JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan would be "war criminals".

And, I suppose if you were a Jihadist intent on creating an Islamist world and destroying the west, particularly the "Great Satan" USA, you would think that President G.H.W Bush and President G.W. Bush were "war criminals".

I'm sure that some on the left would agree with you with respect to Reagan and Nixon since they have historically sided with totalitarian communists.

And, I'm sure that some on the left would agree with you with respect to Bush I and Bush II since they've both countered middle eastern aggression and terrorism to an unprecedented degree.

Personally, I think that you are just being silly or trying to be provocative.

Even though it involved Americans fighting Americans?

Technically speaking, there was no "carpet bombing" of civilian populations by America during WWII. Strategic bombing, yes. Fire bombing, yes. Carpet bombing, no. The only use of carpet bombing I'm familiar with was the Cobra bombing. To understand the difference between the strategic bombing of cities, and carpet bombing, read Page 31-32, General Bayerlin's recollection of the carpet bombing of his Panzer Lehr Division, St Lo, France 1944

Note that this technical distinction is not meant to diminish the fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden, merely correct an erroneous understanding of "carpet bombing."

I'm not sure how Wilson could be considered a "war criminal" based on "massive damage" resulting from the lies, as war crimes are committed against the enemy. Granting for sake of argument that Wilson got the US into WWI by lying, what's the war crime? The US didn't commit any atrocities against Germany, the war was already under way, etc... (Impeachment, perhaps, but not war crimes.)


Vermillion,

I'm tired of constantly running back and forth as you move the goalposts. You object to the failed American intervention in Russia, yet have constantly had to change the articulated basis of your objection.

I never disputed the 2,000,000 (ballpark figure), nor did I ever offer the 5,500 as being the extent of American cased casualties in Vietnam, or the extent of total casualties. That erroneous and thoroughly incomplete reading of the link I provided is your introduction to this discussion.

Perhaps you can prove that the 2,000,000 casualties are the result of American action, or even make a coherent argument that the Vietnamese casualties would not have occurred without American involvement. Perhaps you can point to specific examples of Rummel's numbers that are wrong, and explain why your numbers (which, btw, fall into the same range...) are correct.

Perhaps....

Though this is generally an effective tactic in debating, to accuse your opponent of moving the goalposts or changing his questions, it is sadly utterly misapplied here.

Firstly: You seem to be arguing that there is no way the US invasion of Vietnam caused 2 million dead, yet you agree to the sum of 2 million vietnamese dead in Vietnam.

Secondly, you keep referring back to this insane guy from the University of Hawaii who based on mathematical projections (not a study of the facts) determined that the US was responsible for at most 25,000 native American deaths in its history, while Hitler's holocaust (not the war, but the holocaust itself) killed over 21 million people. Please, please find another source. If your numbers are as correct as you presume them to be, that should not be hard. The lunacy of this guy is a seperate issue to the debate.

But then, what numbers are you proposing exactly? It seem we both are proposing the same numbers, I provided 5 sites on the topic, at least 2 million Vietnamese war dead.

So having agree with that, EXACTLY what IS your argument?

This is as close as you have come to an actual position, below:



OK, so having now accpted the approximate number of war dead from the Vietnam war, which you will recall resulted from the US sending half a million soldiers into Vietnam to fight the VC and the NVA because the ARVN were uncapable and unwilling...

Now you are asking me to prove that the 2 million war dead in the USA vs. North Vietnam and South Vietnamese rebels war had something to do with the US military?

Seriously?

Your alternative theory is what, exactly? That all those bombs (more than dropped in the entire WWII) all missed and hurt nobody?

I remind you that the 2 million+ Vietnamese war dead is SEPERATE from the ARVN dead. But why not ask the experts? Robert macnamara, who I think was in a position to know, estimated the Vietnamese killed as a result of the US decision to enter Vietnam at about 3.2 million.

I further remind you that the communists under Ho, while certainly unpleasant and brutal people, were quite restrained in their actions agaiunst the populace, which is one of the main reasons so many people flocked to the VC in south Vietnam. After Ho's death of course things got much bloodier, but thats late in the war.


So exactly what is your alternate theory on who killed the 2 million+ Vietnamese war dead? Perhaps it was the Australians? They had about 30,000 men in Vietnam, maybe THEY killed all 2 million of the enemy...

Oh, and while you are continuing to try and portray the involvement of the US in Vietnam as the 'good guys', perhaps you could feel free to address the 40,000 or so Vietnamese killed SINCE the war by US mines, bomblets and unexploded munitions?



As I have said, most of the US has long since come to terms with Vietnam, but there seem to be a few around who still like to pretend otherwise...

Would that be the same Bush II that wandered around the country on September 11, 2001 when Osama bin Laden launched the most terrible attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor? The same Bush II that hadn't won the war in Afghanistan before going off on a misadventure in Iraq based on faulty intelligence that was cooked to fit a neo-conservative agenda of imperialism?

Would that be the same Bush II whose former Homeland Security chief kept raising and dropping the terror alert based on purely political considerations instead of solid information of impending terrorism? Would that be the same Bush II who went into Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction but to this date has only succeeded in killing, wounding and maiming a lot of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Would that be the same Bush II that has yet to capture or kill that same Osama bin Laden who slaughtered thousands of Americans almost FIVE YEARS AGO?

Would that be the Bush II you've lavished such praise upon? Because it can't be the George W. Bush Jr. who has been running this country into the ground for the last six years.

It has to be some other Bush II.

I can't help you night timer if you keep on grasping to historical inaccuracies.

Bush "wandered around" when we were under attack? You are mistaken. Find someone in the legitimate military, secret service, or joint chiefs who agrees with your mistaken perception. Oh, and Michael Moore isn't qualified to make such a judgement. If you want to find out where the nearest "Halo Burger" drive thru is, call on Moore. If you want to know what the standard operating procedure for the President is when this nation, and Washington D.C. is under attack, then ask someone in the know.

Bush "ignored terrorist warnings"? Wrong. Bush started fundamentally changing our policies from the failed Clinton policies of 8 years of inaction. After 8 years of inaction against Bin Laden's Jihad, the ignoring of the camps and efforts in the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, the flaunting of Iraqi cease fire arrangements and UN resolutions by Saddam, and the creation of the hand-tying intelligence "wall" by Reno and Gorelick, the best the Clinton people could say was that they left Bush with a "plan"?? Nice job your democrat administration did. They left it to Bush to deal with after they blew it for 8 years??

Bush went into Iraq to find WMD's? Yes. And so did the democrats who voted for the war. Are you really stating that Kerry, Edwards, Reid, Hillary, and Lieberman are "imperialists"??? But, anyone who paid attention to the debate prior to the war knows that there were a plethora of reasons to attack Iraq with WMD's being only one of them. And, it would be a stupid strategy (in my humble opinion) to put 100% of our focus on capturing one individual (Bin Laden) and ignore the state sponsored infrastructure that made his organization possible in the first place. And why, pray tell, did Saddam act so GUILTY if he was totally innocent? The glove did fit, Johnny.

Bush hasn't captured Bin Laden, true. But Bin Laden is not coordinating attack after attack on us like he was during the 8 wasted years of the perpetual adolescent Clinton. He isn't on CNN being interviewed like he was when Clinton's primary foreign policy interest was Monica Lewinsky. He's in a hole somewhere afraid to show a hair on his chinney, chin chin.

Bush is running this country into the ground? In what way? How it relates to YOU? Stop blaming others for your own lack of progress and success. Our economy is doing BETTER than it was under Clinton when you take out the one-time y2k and internet bubbles (which burst just like Greenspan said they would). In fact, the unemployment under Bush is LOWER than it was under Clinton. Growth is REAL not based on hyped up corporate earnings reports promoted by industry chiefs who looked at the lying cheating Clinton and his good "poll numbers" and said... "why not??!!". The economy under Clinton was like Clinton himself; superficial and filled with hype, not substance.

Bush is doing a fine job given the mess he inherited. The missing "w" keys on the White House computers weren't the only things that the Clinton people left for Bush and his people. They also left a recession (which began with the rapid decline of NASDAQ and the tech sector in mid 2000), the 9/11 terrorist attacks (planned during the last year of the Clinton administration), the Taliban in Afghanistan (who took power while Bubba was getting himself impeached), a dangerous North Korea situation (in which Clinton and Albright were duped by that regime), and a misguided approach in the middle east that rewarded the terrorist (Arafat) and just encouraged groups like Hamas to keep pushing for more, more more at the expense of Israel.

I suggest that your deep rooted hatred of all things republican (including our current president) is clouding your judgement. Hate, especially the deep rooted kind, is not healthy. It just makes one a bitter old man. Many people feel liberated when they let this sort of hate go. I'm just trying to help, after all.

Rather than rebut all the obvious errors in your post nightimer (Unemployment lower under Bush than under Clinton? Not according to the US department of Labour) and thus take this debate totally off topic... let me instead ask another question.

Why is it that whenever anyone attacks Bush Jr's record, the right instantly turns around and, rather than defending Bush Jr, launches into a vitriolic attack on Clinton? Clinton was never mentioned in the previous post, but it seems like the automatic response is: "yeah, our guy might suck, but let me insult someone the left seems to like!" You seem genuinely insulted that Clinton had over double the popularity ratings of Bush Jr at this point in his term.

Trying to defend Bush Jr.'s economic performance by lambasting Clinton is irrelevant, and also laughable. Bush Jr did not inherit a recession thats just rhetorical excuse-making, though interestingly, Clinton did, a recession created by his predecessor. The economy after Clinton was in excellent shape, with record low unemployment, a record surplus meant for his sucessor to save social security (where is Bush Jr on that, by the way?) while according to the Economist (a traditionally conservative paper) Bush Jr. is on his way towards actually ruining the unruinable US economy with his monumental increase in deficit spending. Remember back in the day when 'republican' meant 'fiscal conservative and balanced budget'? No wonder Bush Jr. has lost the popular support of all but the fanatic Christian right.

Don'y get me wrong, I think Clinton made a lot of mistakes. But to launch into this vitriolic, irrelevant and almost entirely inaccurate rant about Clinton, THEN finish your post with this classic line:



...is the deppest funniest demonstration of irony I have seen in a long time...


(PS: This is terribly off topic, so if you want to continue it, might I suggest starting another thread elsewhere?)

In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?

I'd say that to answer this question, the conduct of specific campaigns - some of which are going to be bad, mistaken or just clumsy, just as some are so enlightened or strategically perfect that they will be part of the military studies at Starfleet Academy (or whatever it's called) 1,000 years form now, assuming our species still exists and still fights wars - has to take a secondary position to the reasoning that led to entering the war and the objectives that were aimed for in waging it.

On that ground, I'd make a few points on just some of the conflicts in question:

• I don't think that the Revolution was a matter of good guys and bad guys, at least not to begin with, and (as has been mentioned) it could easily be described as a dirty civil war supported by foreign powers on both sides as a noble fight for freedom form imperial oppression. These powers included Britain, France and the various Native tribes who got involved, mostly for their own reasons, which had little or nothing to do with the Enlightenment ideals that we are now told the Revolution was fought to advance. Like many wars, it started for one set of reasons, but the rationale changed during its course and its aftermath.
  
  Happily, the likes of Jefferson and Franklin were involved in the war of ideas as well as the war of bullets, and in the eyars after the Revolutionary War ended, they put in place the really enduring ideas to form the Consitution. This was not a done deal during the war - wasn't George Washington offered the throne in a new American monarchy at one point? How different would America be today had he accepted?
• The War of 1812 wasn't quite the all-American triumph that posters have so far painted. It was fought will bad grace by the British, granted, but from their point of view, they were defending Canada from unwanted and unjustified American expansionism. By that measure, Britain won (America didn't expand into Canada). Of course, I am as biased to this point of view as any American is to the received wisdom in America.
• WW2 was the last "noble" war (and possibly the first) fought by anybody anywhere, I think. That's not to say there will never be another, but I don't think there has been one since. Specifically on Dresden, it's worth reminding Americans that it was not a solely American operation. To my knowledge, it was a joint raid with the RAF and other Commonwealth/Empire forces, and was conceived and planned mostly by British leadership ("Bomber" Harris). As such, as well as the strategic message it sent to Nazi Germany, it can be seen simply as not very noble, but understandable, revenge for the systematic and sustained German bombing of British (mostly English, as it goes) cities, most notably Coventry. If bombing Dresden was a war crime, and I'm not sure it is, America is significantly less culpable than Britain.
  That said, the overall strategic aims and objectives of the Allies in WW2 were broadly the most noble and justifiable of any side in any war, so by my own description, we were all the good guys.

Are there any war criminals in America's past?

Well, it's unwise to project modern ideas (and especially modern laws) onto the past. "War Crimes" only really came to be defined in a meaningful sense in the first few decades after the end of WW2, largely in response to the horrors uncovered in areas formerly controlled by the Nazis.

It might be interesting to wonder what modern laws would have been broken by the participants in the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Salem Witch Trials, or - why limit ourselves to the USA? - the Boer War, Napoleonic Wars or the Second Punic War, but it doesn't really change anything or help modern soldiers and politicians how to conduct themselves.

But we can only really talk with conviction about "war criminals" in conflicts that began after (at least) 1939.

To answer the question - yes, of course there are - My Lai, anyone?

The bothersome, even worrying, thing is that increasingly Western governments - especially since 9-11 which, we are told, "changed everything" - seem more secretive and less willing to open themselves to scrutiny. Signs of this? Legal sophistry around exactly how to define 'combatant', 'torture' etc ; presentation of ambiguous or outright false intelligence in such a way as to support a predetermined, ideologically-based strategy; movement of suspects, let alone convicts, around the world from places where a particular behaviour towards them is illegal to somewhere it is not; refusal to cooperate with journalists unless they are "embedded" and can therefore be controlled and cannot get a full picture of what's actually going on beyond what they are permitted to see by troops.

We know that soldiers, no matter how well trained or in how noble a cause they fight, sometimes break the "rules of war" and commit war crimes. The measure of our civilisation is not that this never happens, but of how quickly and severely we investigate suspects, try defendants, and punish the guilty.

It worries me a little that in the "war against terror", some of the steps we have taken seem to mitigate against offences being uncovered in the first place, while others seem to seek to unilaterally redefine what exactly constitutes a war crime. I am more than suspicious that future historicans may not only question the stated strategy and objectives for the conflict, but will condemn much of conduct.

Most of what our forces are doing in Iraq, especially, just doesn't feel right.

In America's history, has America (the Federal Government) always been the good guy?

Of course it has. Every side who ever took part in a war looked upon itself as being the good side. No one goes to war because they believe in an evil cause. Even the horrible American war in the Philippines was undertaken because the Americans believed what they were doing was the right thing.

All the colonial powers believed the same thing. They saw themselves as the forces of goodness and freedom, bringing laws, technology and prosperity to the rest of the world. Slavery and the plunder of natural resources was seen as nothing more than 'just rewards'.

Its only with hindsight that any one can claim some one was the bad guy. Even the Germans during the Second World War considered themselves as having a just and noble cause. It was only when things started to go wrong that they understood the rest of the world's view was the 'correct' one.

If you really want to you can go through the list of US military actions and label them good or bad, but whats the point? Its still only a personal, subjective perspective and in every case there were good and bad people, motivated by myriad reasons, on both sides of the conflict.

The thing we have to remember when considering questions like this, is what was the context of the time? For most of these 'war crimes' there were well established historical precedents that set the moral standards.

I also think the question itself is dubious. Why single out the federal government?

Its not as if the USA is a kingdom where the people are without any responsibility for the actions of their government. In a democracy... or a republic run on democratic principles, the people also bear the responsibility for their government so any 'unjust war' being fought by the 'feds' is just as much a war being fought by the people... regardless of whether or not they voted for the warlord.

You can't just turn your back on your responsibility by saying 'not in my name' because thats exactly what it is. Its a war being fought in your name. If you don't like it, then either become a politician and stop the war or seek nationality in a nation which doesn't fight wars.


Are there any war criminals in America's past?

'Murder' is an illegal killing which means its okay to kill some one if its legal.

You could just as easily say we are all war criminals if we wage war.

War is itself can be considered a crime against humanity. Just because we wrap it up in laws and treaties doesn't change the fact that we're killing people because we can't figure out how to talk to each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Don't you think this has to do with how hard its becoming for democratic nations to defend themselves given the global climate of instant accountability?

How is a western nation supposed to wage clandestine operations against a secretive enemy when its every move is pounced upon, sliced, diced and debated by ten thousand different attitudes and largely condemned by every one with an opposing agenda?

It doesn't seem to matter what the western democracies do any more, whether it be using certain kinds of conventional ammunition or just drawing pictures. Everything we do, even down to our charity work, is now demonised and vilified by large proportions of the general public following this agenda or that.


Here is the point at which I believe the chain hops off and the whole western PC ideology stops making sense.

How can we justify war, killing and maiming people, and then turn around and say, that one particular incident is illegal? Its ridiculous.

If we can't stomach the reality of war, then plain and simply, we shouldn't engage in war.
Prosecuting a soldier because he acted as a soldier is ridiculous. The concept of war crimes followed the slaughter of millions but today its become a tool to attack individuals and if a nation can't tolerate to see its soldiers beating up rioters then it ought not to have put those soldiers there in the first place!

Soldiers are human beings too but its politically acceptable to use them as cannon fodder, both physically and politically, by both sides of the political divide and no one complains about 'war crimes' when a coalition soldier is killed by an Iraqi.

Why is that? Why is there such a big difference?


Bah! How many historians today make moral judgements about the Roman destruction of Carthage?

No one will care. It will just be described as being a part of history.


It feels very right to me.

The world is at a familiar cross roads once again. The last time we were at this junction, the British PM spoke of 'peace in our time' and we all know where that got us.

The thing about extremists is, you can't keep appeasing them. Sooner or later your going to have to fight them, one way or another or they'll defeat you. It was the same with Napoleon and Hitler and Stalin. Saddam Hussein has taken his place in the dictators hall of fame and there is nothing wrong about that!

Until the day comes when all nations are democratic, then war will remain a viable option and as long as it is, then the democratic west needs to stand firm behinds its beliefs and all this navel gazing and self flagulation (sp?) serves no purpose and merely weakens our resolve and jeopardizes our freedom.

This is a very good point about the current situation. Although history has proven that it normally takes a horrific act to mobilize the correct response. As bad as 9/11 was I’m not sure it was bad enough for the West to fully understand what is at stake. I think that eventually the West will do something about the problem. Russia, Europe, and the US are all experiencing terrorism of some kind. The question is what to do about it. I’ll stop there because this is off topic.

While you are quite correct about the subjective nature of motive in war, I think you have missed the point of the thread. The point is to consider the 'good' or 'bad' nature of each war in the light of reality, because all too often Americans (including some on this board) assume that they have always represented the side of the angels. This false history of infallability isone of the main things that leads to people nowadays refusing to accpt the possibility that the US could have done wrong. After all, they NEVER do wrong, right?

The idea is not to set up arbitrary designations of good and bad, it is simply to make people realise that the US, like any other country, is capable of being bad, and has in fact done so in the past. Once the possibility of fallability is accepted, it makes the whole current Iraq debate far more reasonable.




Its funny how easy it is to condemn the malfeasance of those with an 'opposing agenda' when the agenda they are opposing is one you agree with.

Yes, the public is holding the US (and every other western democracy for that matter) accountable for its actions. Are you suggesting that somehow this is a bad thing? The 'instant accountability' of the current times simply means that people in power can get away with less. The fact that it is EASIER to hold politicians accountable does not in any way reduce the burden on them to act in an accountable manner.




Did you ever stop to consider the possibility that one of the reasons a nation might be villified in the world, is because they are acting like a villain? Perhaps it is not your charity work people are mad about, but your invading other countries.

It is always easier to act martyred then to take responsibility for one's actions.




No, its extremely easy. We call it civilisation.

The fact that war itself is not illegal is not a moral failing on the part of the writers of the geneva convention, it is simply an aknowledgement of the impossibility of preventing it. Indeed in some cases, such as in 1939, it is even desireable.

We place rules on warfare so that people know that even this horror does not mean that any act can be allowed. It means that even in war governments have a responsibility to act in a certain manner.

We have these rules because without them, you get the holocaust.


So to be brutally honest, defending the excesses of the US by claiming 'oh, but these rules are silly anyways' is just absurd.

When arrested of murder, you can complain all you want about the philosophical and astronomical lack of importance about one life, and the siully burden placed on sociaty by laws for the protection of the individual. It might make a good essay in philosophy 101. You sill killed a person and broke the law, with ull knowledge of the fact that your action was against the law.


Soldiers are human beings too but its politically acceptable to use them as cannon fodder, both physically and politically, by both sides of the political divide and no one complains about 'war crimes' when a coalition soldier is killed by an Iraqi.

Why is that? Why is there such a big difference?




Furthr when arrested for murder, you can tell the police "Ah, but who will care in 10,000 years?". It might make a good sequel to your earlier philosophy essay. You still broke the law with foreknowledge. And by the way, the same argument can be used by the person who then decides to kill you.




Ah the ultimate 'ends justify the means' argument. Here is the problem, unless you truly believe that the United States is infallable (in which case you need psychiatric help) then every country NEEDS the 'navel-gazing and self flagellation' as you call it.

Besides, I always find it amusing when people get all angry at critics of the President, forgetting just how loudly they shouted along with the critics when they were yelling at a previous president.

er... who do you think you are addressing here Vermillion? You seem to be in some confusion as to who I am, not least in that your quoting me as Julian though I assume this is a posting error.

What ever the reason, I've certainly not been a supporter of GW Bush.


yeah... well... I'm not convinced by this argument. I have rarely met any person who didn't perceive themselves to be 'the good guys'.

The only difference between that minority of Americans to whom you refer and your own good self is they have a different perspective to you. You both consider yourselves to be 'the good guys'.

The consequence of this is that the point of the thread is point-less because no one can change the fact that all people consider themselves to be the 'good/right ones' and those they disagree with to be 'the bad/wrong ones'.


Okay, I had to look up what malfeasance means but I think I have the gist of it... so, yeah, its easy to agree with.



It would be nice to think it was this simple, but it surely isn't.

The 'public' does not have more power over the governments today than it did three or six decades ago, nor is it easier to hold politicians accountable. If that were so, Donald Rumsfeld would have been out on his ear a long time ago.

The media has more power, not the public... and the last time I looked, the media was not subject to democratic control, nor was it exempt from ulterior motives.


Do you really think so? I've often found that taking responsibility is far easier and much more preferable than playing the marytr. I'd only play the marytr if I had no choice and was prepared to lie...

Of course, if, as you imply, a nation, like say the USA, since that is the nation this thread deals with, is acting like a villain, then why does it need to be villified?
The truth speaks for itself.

Has the USA acted like a villain? In some cases, like the Philippine war, then yes, it surely did...by our contemporary, and thus subjective perspective.

Even though the Americans at the time probably didn't see things as we did with our convenient post colonial hindsight, we can sit here, in comfortable ease and pass judgement on our forefathers decisions safe in the knowledge that the dead can't answer back.


So, war is civilised...?


In case you hadn't noticed Vermillion, we've seen the Holocaust repeated several times despite the Geneva Conventions.

I agree with you though that the purpose of the Geneva Conventions was to stop states acting as nazi Germany did and to prevent 'atrocities' from taking place, but that doesn't change the fact that its 'civilised' to slaughter children with white phosphorus if the state has sanctioned it by legal means where as if a couple of rowdy soldiers beat up some Iraqi youths during a riot, then its considered a breach of the 'rules of war'... or 'uncivilised'.

If this is civilisation, then civilisation is ridiculous and we're no better than 'gentlemen meeting at dawn' to kill each other in accordance to the rules of ettiquette.


Well, to be equally brutal... I never said that.