14 ms·

Why is it, when reading this article, all I can picture is that meme of the SS officer saying "Wait a minute... Are WE the baddies?". I am starting to interpre

Why is it, when reading this article, all I can picture is that meme of the SS officer saying "Wait a minute... Are WE the baddies?". I am starting to interpret a lot of things I took for granted in my younger years with a different viewpoint, and I am increasingly horrified when I do, as the perceptions I've always had that most Western countries are the benevolent benefactors is tainted by stories such as this, which shows a brutal, callous disregard for other sovereign nations.

fiendlygenus 7y ago
Recall that as they say, "history is written by the victors." The victors tend to whitewash what they do.
- dm3730 7y ago
  That quote is from the genocidal racist, Winston Churchill. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
- kiba 7y ago
  That's inaccurate. It would be more fair to say that history is written by whoever left behind written records. Example: Europeans who survived the black death were arguably losers of history.
chvid 7y ago
You don’t win the war by being good. But if you win the war you get to write the history.
- cyberferret 7y ago
  True that. Both my parents grew up near a POW camp in Malaysia during WWII. They said that yes, when the Japanese occupied Malaya, the treatment of the allied prisoners by the Japanese guards was brutal and cruel. But they also said when the tables turned later in the war, and the Japanese were prisoners in the same camps under British and US guards, the treatment dished out was every way just as bad.
  - evgen 7y ago
    Then your parents are completely full of shit. We have documentation of the crimes committed by the Japanese when it comes to captured prisoners, both military and civilian. If the British or US did anything even 1/10 as bad it would have been widely reported by at least the 60s or 70s (by communist groups aiming to disrupt US influence in that region if not by anyone else.)
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 7y ago
      Please don't respond by breaking the site guidelines, regardless of how wrong a comment is or you feel it is. Your post would be just fine without the first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - kenned3 7y ago
      I assume by "documented the crimes" you include your documentation of things like the mai lai massacre as well?
      - evgen 7y ago
        Why yes I do. There is a very long list of actual crimes committed by US troops during various conflicts and I would never seek to hide them, but having done some basic research I am also going to call out misinformation and unverified BS when I see it.
    - cyberferret 7y ago
      Well, forgive me for taking the word of people who actually witnessed things first hand, rather than 'scholars' who rely on the words written by the winners 5 decades later. I assume you have read the exploits of US guards torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib? I've also read reports that one much vaunted US air ace in the European theatre during WWII was renowned for machine gunning German pilots while they were hanging from their parachutes or running from the burning wrecks of their aircraft on the ground. Funny how those sorts of stories are not widely circulated these days? Then again, with a president who recently pardoned a war criminal who shot a young civilian girl in the M/E just for kicks, and indeed, is now celebrating him as a hero - I won't hold my breath.
skrebbel 7y ago
It took me a long time to realize this, but now I recognize that which I think most of my fellow Europeans already know: yes, you're the baddies (I knew that already), but you're the best baddies of the baddies available. Our other options are to associate with eg China or Russia, and between those the US, even with people like Trump at the wheel, is splendid. Naturally, I think that the US should do a much bigger effort to be less evil. But at least in the US, people can wonder what you're wondering. There's a chance that one day the US will be less bad, while staying a superpower. There's freedom of speech and a generally functioning democracy. Yes, you're the baddies, ish, and you can help make it better. That's super cool. EDIT: obviously we (NL, EU, etc, are evil in many ways too. This bothers the shit out of me and I try to do my part to fix it)
- gdy 7y ago
  "Our other options are to associate with eg China or Russia, and between those the US, even with people like Trump at the wheel, is splendid." Russia has done nothing even remotely comparable to what the US has done in Middle East: after the second Iraq war the country still hasn't recovered, Libya is a mess, Syria is a mess, ISIS was a horror. After all that calling the US splendid compared to Russia is bizarre. Maybe you at least should try to do what benefits the EU, not the US, or Russia, or China.
  - keldaris 7y ago
    The only reason Russia comes out okay in your comparison is because it simply lacks the capacity to project power the way the U.S. does - there's only one global superpower, for now. If you look at areas where Russia has had an effectively free hand - like Chechnya, for instance - adjusting for scale, the resulting atrocities are worse than anything the U.S. has done since Vietnam. And in terms of internal repression, there's just no comparison at all. The EU is simply not a credible military force. For many EU states therefore "friendship" (which really means acquiescence) to the U.S. is the only effective antidote to the geographical malady of being next to Russia.
    - gdy 7y ago
trevyn 7y ago
>Western countries are the benevolent benefactors is tainted by stories such as this, which shows a brutal, callous disregard for other sovereign nations. The US took control of the Marshall Islands in 1944. From Japan. After Pearl Harbor. There was no sovereign nation.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  Wow, for a moment, there, i thought we could esacpe moral what-about-ism with the fig leave of legal trickery and pretend to be civilized again.
elfexec 7y ago
> most Western countries are the benevolent benefactors Did you miss out on the world events of the past 500 years? It has been 500 years of war, genocide, rape and theft by the west on the rest of the world. I don't recall anyone using benevolence to describe what happened in the past 500 years. There isn't an ounce of benevolence in the west or east or south or north or wherever. Human beings are brutes. This isn't really a western trait, it's a human trait. When one group gets the upper hand, you get brutish behavior. For one reason or a another, the west got the upper hand for 500 years. And it's been a relentless and horrific series of genocides, slavery, conquest, mass rapes, nukes, etc - not benevolence.
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted. North America started with the deliberate genocide of its indigenous population -- who by recent estimates numbered in the millions -- continued to brutal enslavement of Africans and then proceeded to project imperial control over the rest of the hemisphere in the 19th century, then the world in the 20th century.
- cvshepherd 7y ago
  it's been really sad to see the trend of downvoting things that hurt people's feelings carry over to hacker news.
tekkk 7y ago
Well when you look down the history you'll find every nation did something horrible (if they have existed long enough). US itself is quite special case in its imperialism which happened much later than the others's (Spain, Netherlands etc). But coming back to present day, it's the actions that we do now that in my opinion matter the most. And US keeps failing on those still, time after time. European countries are in some regards better, but well we are still far away from that utopian society where all things are in perfect balance. It's sad though that US can't take responsibility for their own nuclear waste. They spend billions on their armed forces yet fixing the aftermath of their nuclear bomb tests can't be fit into that budget? Makes no sense.
- digitalengineer 7y ago
  I think the people in former Yugoslavia and also the Middle East would love to see the army pick up after itself. Especially the depleted uranium ammunition turns the areas it was used in into a wasteland. I remember a British researcher pulling one used round from a water-tank and brining it home. The airport in the UK went NUTS. One round... The army used 1000 tons of depleted uranium munitions in 3 weeks during the 2003 Iraq war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Ammunition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Ammunition
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Then again, airports are remarkably touchy about many things that aren’t all that bad.
- ianleeclark 7y ago
  > US itself is quite special case in its imperialism which happened much later than the others's (Spain, Netherlands etc). This happened because the US emerged and differentiated itself from a colonial power. Also, the imperialism of the US was there from almost the very beginning. A call-to-action of sorts for the colonies was when their British metropolitan counterparts attempted to limit their western expansion. There's a weird belief where people think the US only turned to imperialism around the time of the Spanish-American war, but this was only due to running out of western expansion within their own lands.
magicsmoke 7y ago
If you want to be an optimist, the fact that you're worried about atrocities committed by the American empire means that you're not a cold-hearted brute that believes inflicting human suffering is something to be applauded or encouraged. Being concerned about such things means you believe they're not right and should be changed. If you want to be a pessimist, the ability to be concerned about how America's actions hurt others is actually a luxury you can only afford because you grew up in a time after America has committed all the atrocities that brought it to where it is today. The US has an entire continent of land and resources, a low population density and plenty of room to grow, and no powerful neighbors that could threaten to invade it because it has two oceans as natural boundaries. Back when American settlers couldn't satisfy the lower rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food and security, they had no problems taking land from natives and eliminating hostile tribes as they expanded to the Pacific. But only after those needs were satisfied could Americans think about needs like esteem and self-actualization. Etc being a compassionate country that doesn't commit atrocities and being a global leader. Unfortunately, this means that as America's standing in the world becomes less secure with the rise of powerful rivals and changes due to global warming, it's quite likely concerns about "being the baddies" will slide to the background.
haecceity 7y ago
Stop thinking too much. Look at the crazy stuff North Korea is doing!
sorokod 7y ago
Mitchell and Webb. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
ummonk 7y ago
If we weren't before, wee certainly are the baddies after the Eddie Gallagher pardon.

fiendlygenus 7y ago

Recall that as they say, "history is written by the victors." The victors tend to whitewash what they do.

dm3730 7y ago
That quote is from the genocidal racist, Winston Churchill. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
kiba 7y ago
That's inaccurate. It would be more fair to say that history is written by whoever left behind written records. Example: Europeans who survived the black death were arguably losers of history.

chvid 7y ago

You don’t win the war by being good. But if you win the war you get to write the history.

cyberferret 7y ago
True that. Both my parents grew up near a POW camp in Malaysia during WWII. They said that yes, when the Japanese occupied Malaya, the treatment of the allied prisoners by the Japanese guards was brutal and cruel. But they also said when the tables turned later in the war, and the Japanese were prisoners in the same camps under British and US guards, the treatment dished out was every way just as bad.
- evgen 7y ago
  Then your parents are completely full of shit. We have documentation of the crimes committed by the Japanese when it comes to captured prisoners, both military and civilian. If the British or US did anything even 1/10 as bad it would have been widely reported by at least the 60s or 70s (by communist groups aiming to disrupt US influence in that region if not by anyone else.)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't respond by breaking the site guidelines, regardless of how wrong a comment is or you feel it is. Your post would be just fine without the first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - kenned3 7y ago
    I assume by "documented the crimes" you include your documentation of things like the mai lai massacre as well?
    - evgen 7y ago
      Why yes I do. There is a very long list of actual crimes committed by US troops during various conflicts and I would never seek to hide them, but having done some basic research I am also going to call out misinformation and unverified BS when I see it.
  - cyberferret 7y ago
    Well, forgive me for taking the word of people who actually witnessed things first hand, rather than 'scholars' who rely on the words written by the winners 5 decades later. I assume you have read the exploits of US guards torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib? I've also read reports that one much vaunted US air ace in the European theatre during WWII was renowned for machine gunning German pilots while they were hanging from their parachutes or running from the burning wrecks of their aircraft on the ground. Funny how those sorts of stories are not widely circulated these days? Then again, with a president who recently pardoned a war criminal who shot a young civilian girl in the M/E just for kicks, and indeed, is now celebrating him as a hero - I won't hold my breath.

skrebbel 7y ago

It took me a long time to realize this, but now I recognize that which I think most of my fellow Europeans already know: yes, you're the baddies (I knew that already), but you're the best baddies of the baddies available. Our other options are to associate with eg China or Russia, and between those the US, even with people like Trump at the wheel, is splendid. Naturally, I think that the US should do a much bigger effort to be less evil. But at least in the US, people can wonder what you're wondering. There's a chance that one day the US will be less bad, while staying a superpower. There's freedom of speech and a generally functioning democracy. Yes, you're the baddies, ish, and you can help make it better. That's super cool. EDIT: obviously we (NL, EU, etc, are evil in many ways too. This bothers the shit out of me and I try to do my part to fix it)

gdy 7y ago
"Our other options are to associate with eg China or Russia, and between those the US, even with people like Trump at the wheel, is splendid." Russia has done nothing even remotely comparable to what the US has done in Middle East: after the second Iraq war the country still hasn't recovered, Libya is a mess, Syria is a mess, ISIS was a horror. After all that calling the US splendid compared to Russia is bizarre. Maybe you at least should try to do what benefits the EU, not the US, or Russia, or China.
- keldaris 7y ago
  The only reason Russia comes out okay in your comparison is because it simply lacks the capacity to project power the way the U.S. does - there's only one global superpower, for now. If you look at areas where Russia has had an effectively free hand - like Chechnya, for instance - adjusting for scale, the resulting atrocities are worse than anything the U.S. has done since Vietnam. And in terms of internal repression, there's just no comparison at all. The EU is simply not a credible military force. For many EU states therefore "friendship" (which really means acquiescence) to the U.S. is the only effective antidote to the geographical malady of being next to Russia.
  - gdy 7y ago

trevyn 7y ago

>Western countries are the benevolent benefactors is tainted by stories such as this, which shows a brutal, callous disregard for other sovereign nations. The US took control of the Marshall Islands in 1944. From Japan. After Pearl Harbor. There was no sovereign nation.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Wow, for a moment, there, i thought we could esacpe moral what-about-ism with the fig leave of legal trickery and pretend to be civilized again.

elfexec 7y ago

> most Western countries are the benevolent benefactors Did you miss out on the world events of the past 500 years? It has been 500 years of war, genocide, rape and theft by the west on the rest of the world. I don't recall anyone using benevolence to describe what happened in the past 500 years. There isn't an ounce of benevolence in the west or east or south or north or wherever. Human beings are brutes. This isn't really a western trait, it's a human trait. When one group gets the upper hand, you get brutish behavior. For one reason or a another, the west got the upper hand for 500 years. And it's been a relentless and horrific series of genocides, slavery, conquest, mass rapes, nukes, etc - not benevolence.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. North America started with the deliberate genocide of its indigenous population -- who by recent estimates numbered in the millions -- continued to brutal enslavement of Africans and then proceeded to project imperial control over the rest of the hemisphere in the 19th century, then the world in the 20th century.
cvshepherd 7y ago
it's been really sad to see the trend of downvoting things that hurt people's feelings carry over to hacker news.

tekkk 7y ago

Well when you look down the history you'll find every nation did something horrible (if they have existed long enough). US itself is quite special case in its imperialism which happened much later than the others's (Spain, Netherlands etc). But coming back to present day, it's the actions that we do now that in my opinion matter the most. And US keeps failing on those still, time after time. European countries are in some regards better, but well we are still far away from that utopian society where all things are in perfect balance. It's sad though that US can't take responsibility for their own nuclear waste. They spend billions on their armed forces yet fixing the aftermath of their nuclear bomb tests can't be fit into that budget? Makes no sense.

digitalengineer 7y ago
I think the people in former Yugoslavia and also the Middle East would love to see the army pick up after itself. Especially the depleted uranium ammunition turns the areas it was used in into a wasteland. I remember a British researcher pulling one used round from a water-tank and brining it home. The airport in the UK went NUTS. One round... The army used 1000 tons of depleted uranium munitions in 3 weeks during the 2003 Iraq war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Ammunition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Ammunition
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Then again, airports are remarkably touchy about many things that aren’t all that bad.
ianleeclark 7y ago
> US itself is quite special case in its imperialism which happened much later than the others's (Spain, Netherlands etc). This happened because the US emerged and differentiated itself from a colonial power. Also, the imperialism of the US was there from almost the very beginning. A call-to-action of sorts for the colonies was when their British metropolitan counterparts attempted to limit their western expansion. There's a weird belief where people think the US only turned to imperialism around the time of the Spanish-American war, but this was only due to running out of western expansion within their own lands.

magicsmoke 7y ago

If you want to be an optimist, the fact that you're worried about atrocities committed by the American empire means that you're not a cold-hearted brute that believes inflicting human suffering is something to be applauded or encouraged. Being concerned about such things means you believe they're not right and should be changed. If you want to be a pessimist, the ability to be concerned about how America's actions hurt others is actually a luxury you can only afford because you grew up in a time after America has committed all the atrocities that brought it to where it is today. The US has an entire continent of land and resources, a low population density and plenty of room to grow, and no powerful neighbors that could threaten to invade it because it has two oceans as natural boundaries. Back when American settlers couldn't satisfy the lower rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food and security, they had no problems taking land from natives and eliminating hostile tribes as they expanded to the Pacific. But only after those needs were satisfied could Americans think about needs like esteem and self-actualization. Etc being a compassionate country that doesn't commit atrocities and being a global leader. Unfortunately, this means that as America's standing in the world becomes less secure with the rise of powerful rivals and changes due to global warming, it's quite likely concerns about "being the baddies" will slide to the background.

haecceity 7y ago

Stop thinking too much. Look at the crazy stuff North Korea is doing!

sorokod 7y ago

Mitchell and Webb. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

ummonk 7y ago

If we weren't before, wee certainly are the baddies after the Eddie Gallagher pardon.