5 ms·

Reading that made me feel physically sick, and then the line afterwards about the girls begging for their lives who were bayonetted. Just awful. I have, and pr

Reading that made me feel physically sick, and then the line afterwards about the girls begging for their lives who were bayonetted. Just awful. I have, and probably always will, find Chinese culture somewhat fascinating but I have no love for their political regime.

hux_ 9y ago
Yup in contrast the American regime has about 1000x [1] the death toll but at least those people weren't bulldozed and it didn't make you and me feel too bad. Calling the other side evil is easy. Spotting hypocrisy is easy. Doing something about hyprocisy is much harder. It involves admitting to ourselves that all of us are capable of doing dumb shit. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Yes, comparing the entire history of American war crimes against one domestic incident in China will give you a much bigger American death toll number. A fairer comparison would include Mao's killing of 45 million of his citizens.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - fastball 9y ago
    Still not fair comparison, as these were also "their own". Not saying "us vs. them" is something to aspire to, but I think we can all agree that a military's responsibility to their own populace is a bit larger than their responsibility to an enemy populace.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      Oh, for sure. If the poster's gonna compare apples to oranges, though, they should at least compare the full apple instead of a tiny sliver of it.
- epx 9y ago
  Tu quoque?
- melling 9y ago
  Most of these were during wartime. Criminal and regrettable, of course. However, attacking your own citizens while protesting in your own cities somehow seems a bit different. yup?
- rayiner 9y ago
  The difference is that we're trying to do something about it. Kids learn about many of the bad things America did (slavery, extermination of the native Americans, Vietnam war atrocities, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc.). They're taking down civil war monuments all over the country. The same will happen with Columbus soon--Los Angeles has already renamed Columbus Day in favor of the indigenous people he exterminated, and there are proposals to do the same/take down Columbus monuments in Baltimore, D.C., New York, etc.
  - intro-b 9y ago
    Exactly - part of America's heritage of a free, unusually aggressive, and intellectually combative free press (on both sides of the political spectrum) is that criticism of our government, history, and society is widely studied and disseminated, both domestically and abroad. Knowledge of American human rights injustices, ranging from slavery to Guantanamo Bay, is promoted, shared, taught in schools.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      It should be noted that American schools teach plenty of revisionist history or gloss over the worst excesses. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/opinion/how-texas-teaches-history.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/opinion/how-texas-teaches... https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-later-schools-are-still-a-battlefield-for-interpreting-civil-war/2015/07/05/e8fbd57e-2001-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-lat... https://jezebel.com/heres-how-new-texas-public-school-textbooks-write-about-1726786557 https://jezebel.com/heres-how-new-texas-public-school-textbo...
      - junkscience2017 9y ago
        not just America. growing up in Canada, exactly 0 minutes were dedicated to discussing treatment of First Nations peoples...noteworthy given that government's exceptionally awful history in that regard
- fastball 9y ago
  A couple things to unpack here: Firstly, I'm not sure we're reading the same article, but by my summary count, the total death toll for all combined US war crimes detailed in that article isn't much more than 10,000. Next, the veracity of some of those claims is questionable at best. Finally, it should be noted that the Tiananmen Square protests, were, in fact, protests. This was not an action against civilians during war time, this was an action taken by a government against it's own citizens who were protesting. Is killing unarmed soldiers or civilians in war time justified? Generally no. But it's a different type of crime when you're in the middle of a war zone. Humans don't deal well with the insane nature of war, and so they do horrible things. That's not an excuse, mind you. But I think collateral damage in a war and civilian casualties in a war zone are very different scenarios than Tiananmen Square.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    You ever see the shock and awe videos of Baghdad? That our government approvingly worked with cable news to make sure everyone saw it? For an operation very much not endorsed by the UN or international community? Good thing that's not a war crime, though.
    - ryanmarsh 9y ago
      Shock and awe was a brief bombing campaign that hit military and administrative buildings late at night when they were empty. I saw the buildings. They were not apartment blocks. If anyone died in that campaign it was purely by accident.
      - ryanmarsh 9y ago
        Go ahead, downvote me. I was there mother fuckers.
        dang 9y ago
        It's interesting that you were there, but please don't break the site rules here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Finnucane 9y ago
  The crimes of one country don’t lessen the crimes of another. A government ordering the wholesale slaughter of its own citizens should be roundly condemned by all no matter what.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

hux_ 9y ago

Yup in contrast the American regime has about 1000x [1] the death toll but at least those people weren't bulldozed and it didn't make you and me feel too bad. Calling the other side evil is easy. Spotting hypocrisy is easy. Doing something about hyprocisy is much harder. It involves admitting to ourselves that all of us are capable of doing dumb shit. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

ceejayoz 9y ago
Yes, comparing the entire history of American war crimes against one domestic incident in China will give you a much bigger American death toll number. A fairer comparison would include Mao's killing of 45 million of his citizens.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fastball 9y ago
  Still not fair comparison, as these were also "their own". Not saying "us vs. them" is something to aspire to, but I think we can all agree that a military's responsibility to their own populace is a bit larger than their responsibility to an enemy populace.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    Oh, for sure. If the poster's gonna compare apples to oranges, though, they should at least compare the full apple instead of a tiny sliver of it.
epx 9y ago
Tu quoque?
melling 9y ago
Most of these were during wartime. Criminal and regrettable, of course. However, attacking your own citizens while protesting in your own cities somehow seems a bit different. yup?
rayiner 9y ago
The difference is that we're trying to do something about it. Kids learn about many of the bad things America did (slavery, extermination of the native Americans, Vietnam war atrocities, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc.). They're taking down civil war monuments all over the country. The same will happen with Columbus soon--Los Angeles has already renamed Columbus Day in favor of the indigenous people he exterminated, and there are proposals to do the same/take down Columbus monuments in Baltimore, D.C., New York, etc.
- intro-b 9y ago
  Exactly - part of America's heritage of a free, unusually aggressive, and intellectually combative free press (on both sides of the political spectrum) is that criticism of our government, history, and society is widely studied and disseminated, both domestically and abroad. Knowledge of American human rights injustices, ranging from slavery to Guantanamo Bay, is promoted, shared, taught in schools.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    It should be noted that American schools teach plenty of revisionist history or gloss over the worst excesses. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/opinion/how-texas-teaches-history.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/opinion/how-texas-teaches... https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-later-schools-are-still-a-battlefield-for-interpreting-civil-war/2015/07/05/e8fbd57e-2001-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-lat... https://jezebel.com/heres-how-new-texas-public-school-textbooks-write-about-1726786557 https://jezebel.com/heres-how-new-texas-public-school-textbo...
    - junkscience2017 9y ago
      not just America. growing up in Canada, exactly 0 minutes were dedicated to discussing treatment of First Nations peoples...noteworthy given that government's exceptionally awful history in that regard
fastball 9y ago
A couple things to unpack here: Firstly, I'm not sure we're reading the same article, but by my summary count, the total death toll for all combined US war crimes detailed in that article isn't much more than 10,000. Next, the veracity of some of those claims is questionable at best. Finally, it should be noted that the Tiananmen Square protests, were, in fact, protests. This was not an action against civilians during war time, this was an action taken by a government against it's own citizens who were protesting. Is killing unarmed soldiers or civilians in war time justified? Generally no. But it's a different type of crime when you're in the middle of a war zone. Humans don't deal well with the insane nature of war, and so they do horrible things. That's not an excuse, mind you. But I think collateral damage in a war and civilian casualties in a war zone are very different scenarios than Tiananmen Square.
- jbooth 9y ago
  You ever see the shock and awe videos of Baghdad? That our government approvingly worked with cable news to make sure everyone saw it? For an operation very much not endorsed by the UN or international community? Good thing that's not a war crime, though.
  - ryanmarsh 9y ago
    Shock and awe was a brief bombing campaign that hit military and administrative buildings late at night when they were empty. I saw the buildings. They were not apartment blocks. If anyone died in that campaign it was purely by accident.
    - ryanmarsh 9y ago
      Go ahead, downvote me. I was there mother fuckers.
      - dang 9y ago
        It's interesting that you were there, but please don't break the site rules here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Finnucane 9y ago
The crimes of one country don’t lessen the crimes of another. A government ordering the wholesale slaughter of its own citizens should be roundly condemned by all no matter what.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]