6 ms·

I don't think that was a conscious decision of the Western Allies, but rather a consequence of the freedom of the press. Gruesome stuff was quickly exposed to p

by zeteo 16y ago

I don't think that was a conscious decision of the Western Allies, but rather a consequence of the freedom of the press. Gruesome stuff was quickly exposed to public reaction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese...

philwelch 16y ago
Using aircraft carriers to win naval battles wasn't a conscious decision either (the US was just completely out of battleships), but it sure worked out nicely. Still, the press in WWII was not interested in making the government look bad. They were active participants in keeping many secrets throughout the war, including the fact that FDR was crippled from polio. "Total war", which is unknown to this country since WWII, means the entire civilization participates in the war effort, and while the press had the legal freedom to criticize the government and reveal their secrets, it would have been unconscionable at the time for them to do anything that could impede the war effort. Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another.
- sedachv 16y ago
  "Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another." Care to point out any instance of any order to do any of the things listed issued in any branch of the military in any of the countries you mention? I mean I know most Americans view everyone else as drooling, barbaric apes, but you seem to be an expert on the US media in WWII (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article10.html https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...), so I assume you can point out some specifics of why they are drooling, barbaric apes.
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    Soviet sergeants and officers were often ordered to shoot their own men if they attempted to retreat - Soviet infantry was instructed to advance at all cost. Also, since Stalin executed his highly ranked officers frequently due to paranoia, the average Soviet officer was something like 12 years younger than the average Nazi officer. These two factors combined meant utter brutality and massacre for Soviet forces and contribute to them having overwhelmingly the highest number of causalities in the war. With a culture like that against their own soldiers, is it any surprise they loot, raid, pillage, and rape? That's all fairly well documented among Soviet forces, there's plenty of memoirs of the gulags (which had a lower survival rate than even Nazi concentration camps), and there's plenty of memoirs of the horrors the Soviet troops committed in occupied cities. German women would often offer themselves to Soviet officers so as to be protected from the brutality of the enlisted men. > so I assume you can point out some specifics of why they are drooling, barbaric apes. Utter brutality, a win at all costs mentality more than anyone else, and very inexperienced leadership. Much of this is directly attributable to Stalin, but really all the Socialist Soviet Republics and People's Democratic Republics went similarly (USSR, cultural revolution, Khmer Rouge, etc). For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be governmental model conducive to high morale, dignity, and respect in their armed forces.
    - sedachv 16y ago
      Wow, way to take my trolling seriously. I didn't ask you to regurgitate your reagan zombie history "facts," I asked for some references that have some references that might have some other references to army orders/policy documents to "kill, rape, pillage" etc.
      - lionhearted 16y ago
        A decent place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes Slightly earlier than WWII, but some precious quotes by Lenin and other early leaders here, it pretty much set the tone for the USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_terror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_terror "We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the blood of fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will let loose the floodgates of that sea [...] For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinoviev and Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois - more blood, as much as possible." – Announcement of the start of the Red Terror on 1 September 1918, to the Bolshevik newspaper, Krasnaya Gazeta > Wow, way to take my trolling seriously. I didn't ask you to regurgitate your reagan zombie history "facts," I might take this a little more seriously than most people since seeing the Killing Fields and Security Center 21 in Cambodia shook me to the core. Collectivism of any stripe - whether under a banner of socialism, communism, nationalism, whatever - produces really fucking evil results. Reagan was a decent American President in some ways, did a poor job in others, but that's besides the point. Playing down or ignoring or marginalizing the utter fucking atrocities that happened under National Socialism, Bolshevism, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, etc, etc - nothing else even comes close. Some people like to play a really backwards moral relativism card here - no, nothing else comes close. I've walked through the jails where they tortured people. Tons of real photos, the Khmer Rouge documented the hell out of it. I saw the metal plate that they cracked the the heads of the children of the "bourgeois" into as an inexpensive execution technique. These aren't Reagan zombie facts. This is reality. When people stop being individuals and give themselves over to a collective, all hell and madness breaks loose. If we forget this, we'll suffer for it.

by zeteo 16y ago

philwelch 16y ago

Using aircraft carriers to win naval battles wasn't a conscious decision either (the US was just completely out of battleships), but it sure worked out nicely. Still, the press in WWII was not interested in making the government look bad. They were active participants in keeping many secrets throughout the war, including the fact that FDR was crippled from polio. "Total war", which is unknown to this country since WWII, means the entire civilization participates in the war effort, and while the press had the legal freedom to criticize the government and reveal their secrets, it would have been unconscionable at the time for them to do anything that could impede the war effort. Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another.

sedachv 16y ago
"Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another." Care to point out any instance of any order to do any of the things listed issued in any branch of the military in any of the countries you mention? I mean I know most Americans view everyone else as drooling, barbaric apes, but you seem to be an expert on the US media in WWII (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article10.html https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...), so I assume you can point out some specifics of why they are drooling, barbaric apes.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  Soviet sergeants and officers were often ordered to shoot their own men if they attempted to retreat - Soviet infantry was instructed to advance at all cost. Also, since Stalin executed his highly ranked officers frequently due to paranoia, the average Soviet officer was something like 12 years younger than the average Nazi officer. These two factors combined meant utter brutality and massacre for Soviet forces and contribute to them having overwhelmingly the highest number of causalities in the war. With a culture like that against their own soldiers, is it any surprise they loot, raid, pillage, and rape? That's all fairly well documented among Soviet forces, there's plenty of memoirs of the gulags (which had a lower survival rate than even Nazi concentration camps), and there's plenty of memoirs of the horrors the Soviet troops committed in occupied cities. German women would often offer themselves to Soviet officers so as to be protected from the brutality of the enlisted men. > so I assume you can point out some specifics of why they are drooling, barbaric apes. Utter brutality, a win at all costs mentality more than anyone else, and very inexperienced leadership. Much of this is directly attributable to Stalin, but really all the Socialist Soviet Republics and People's Democratic Republics went similarly (USSR, cultural revolution, Khmer Rouge, etc). For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be governmental model conducive to high morale, dignity, and respect in their armed forces.
  - sedachv 16y ago
    Wow, way to take my trolling seriously. I didn't ask you to regurgitate your reagan zombie history "facts," I asked for some references that have some references that might have some other references to army orders/policy documents to "kill, rape, pillage" etc.
    - lionhearted 16y ago
      A decent place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes Slightly earlier than WWII, but some precious quotes by Lenin and other early leaders here, it pretty much set the tone for the USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_terror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_terror "We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the blood of fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will let loose the floodgates of that sea [...] For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinoviev and Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois - more blood, as much as possible." – Announcement of the start of the Red Terror on 1 September 1918, to the Bolshevik newspaper, Krasnaya Gazeta > Wow, way to take my trolling seriously. I didn't ask you to regurgitate your reagan zombie history "facts," I might take this a little more seriously than most people since seeing the Killing Fields and Security Center 21 in Cambodia shook me to the core. Collectivism of any stripe - whether under a banner of socialism, communism, nationalism, whatever - produces really fucking evil results. Reagan was a decent American President in some ways, did a poor job in others, but that's besides the point. Playing down or ignoring or marginalizing the utter fucking atrocities that happened under National Socialism, Bolshevism, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, etc, etc - nothing else even comes close. Some people like to play a really backwards moral relativism card here - no, nothing else comes close. I've walked through the jails where they tortured people. Tons of real photos, the Khmer Rouge documented the hell out of it. I saw the metal plate that they cracked the the heads of the children of the "bourgeois" into as an inexpensive execution technique. These aren't Reagan zombie facts. This is reality. When people stop being individuals and give themselves over to a collective, all hell and madness breaks loose. If we forget this, we'll suffer for it.