4 ms·

This statement by Nuremburg prosecutor Ben Ferencz has resonated with me: That's nonsense. That's nonsense. There's no Greatest Generation. Greatest Generation

This statement by Nuremburg prosecutor Ben Ferencz has resonated with me: That's nonsense. That's nonsense. There's no Greatest Generation. Greatest Generation are the ones who have the courage to say that what the government's doing is wrong, and we'll not support it. That's the Greatest Generation. When they said, "Hell, no," in the Vietnam War, "Hell, no, Mr. President, we won't go." Stop war-making is the answer. Source: https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/take-no-prisoners-inside-a-wwii-american-war-crime/ https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/take-no-prisoners-inside... (Note: the transcript is mislabeled.)

umvi 6y ago
Not every war is "war-making". South Korea wouldn't exist if not for the US intervention. Who knows what Japan would be like if it weren't for the US declaring war on it. But before the US forced a new democratic government on them they were bullies and warmongers. Heck, there's a sister thread on HN with people calling for the US military to help Hong Kong. It's one thing to conscientiously object to Vietnam, quite another to conscientiously object to WW2. Some people may genuinely have moral objections, but surely some % are just plain scared of dying and want an out...
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Where did you get the idea that conscientious objection was about disagreement with the government's evaluation of the benefits of the war? It's for people who think that it's wrong to kill, not people who think that the war won't be profitable.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Yes well, sometimes it's kill or be killed. How can you conscientiously object to WW2 when evil is at your doorstep threatening to destroy your country and kill you and your family?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - strogonoff 6y ago
      Taking this logic further, the only way to guarantee your safety is to eliminate all your enemies as early as possible. Perhaps even if there is a consensus to fight against a common enemy, the presence of voices that refuse to be violent helps maintain some perspective.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > It's for people who think that it's wrong to kill The linked article specifically points out that some WWI-era conscientious objectors did not object to war in general, they just didn't want to fight that particular war. There is a whole range of conscientious objection.
- belorn 6y ago
  Forced military service has one very important aspect that often get overseen. It is forced. People may object because of moral reasons, or because of religious reasons, or because of fear, but then we also have people who believe that forcing people into service is simply wrong. To me there is very little difference between men being forced into military service and women being forced to breed and taking care of the home, as was a common view of gender roles during world war 2. Men get sent to war and women stay behind and produce more men. It is a very dehumanized way to treat people. The distinction between forced conscription and volunteering to work in the military is day and night, and you only have conscientiously objection in one of those.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > Who knows what Japan would be like if it weren't for the US declaring war on it. It's the other way around. For the past 150 years, nations usually "declare" war with an initial attack to gain surprise, like Pearl Harbor in WW2, which was done to secure their colonization of Manchuria (China.)
- TheBobinator 6y ago
  Japan declared war on the US by pre-emptively bombing pearle harbor in an attempt to permanently cripple the US Pacific fleet. The president at the time knew it was coming via intel and forward radar installations and let it happen to maximize the political mobility of the act. After WW2, the US had been drug into 3 seperate foreign wars at that point; the Spanish war, WWI and WWII. Spanish war we were attacked at the southern tip of Texas and won that one before an invading army could get into the states, Both WWI and WWII The US entered because their merchant fleet was being attacked. In WWI a luxury cruseliner was sunk and that served as the tipping point, and in WWII our mechant fleet escort ships were attacked and the tipping point was a Torpedo fired at the Greer, a military escort ship. Basically, once you begin attacking the merchant fleet, your next step is to attack ports and port cities to stop material from getting on boats and to stop boat production. The Japanese harbored expansionist\empirial ambitions and knew they'd come into conflict with the US, hence the reason they had built a huge pacific fleet. That doesn't just happen overnight, they had a lot of build up of ships and material. Once the US entered the European theatre officially, the Japanese Military command became worried the US might attack them due to their alliance with Germany\Italy, hence the pre-emptive strike. Had Japan not attacked pearle harbor, had stayed in Asia, and had not built an alliance, a good sized chunk of China would probably be Japanese today and we might've had a Japanese-Indian war. After WWII, The US had a unique viewpoint. Because we had just about every single culture on earth represented here, we could see how dumb these squabbles were. We had the bomb, and decided that instead of having a war every generation, we'd instead build the most terrifying set of ICBM's, Bomber planes, and nuke subs to make our adversaries know that attacking us or involving us in a war is Dumb. The tech for it was leaked to the soviets by US Scientists fearing a monopoly of power and M.A.D was born. This shifted warfare into the use of economics and psychological warfare (cold war) to trash your enemy before an attack and the use of psychological warfare specifically and the creation of puppet ideologies used to weaken an adversary is what lead to the war against the spread of socialism\communism. E.G. The soviet union used ideological subjugation (look up Yuri Betzmenov on Youtube) successfully against countries including Afghanistan and Venezuala and those places are hot messed due to it today. Marxism is what we call the current puppet ideology in the US; it encompasses a lot of things the Russians do not do or believe in today and never really believed in and most people don't recognize that. The Vietnam\Korean war was largely about stopping the spread of Communism by setting up military bases on Mainland china to keep an eye on the chinese, and creating capitalist\democratic economic powers in mainland China to serve as an example. It was a pre-emptive war to stop a bigger war from ever occuring. The problem we have today with Conscientious objectors is psychological warfare is now a thing and if an adversary can eliminate your will to fight, they can take you by suprise or engage in domestic politics to create domestic problems to keep your attention at home. In WWI, trench warfare was an excuse to send lots of perfectly good men to their deaths in a bullshit defensive game. Great thinking exercise; what is the cost per square mile of territory taken in human life? You'd extinguish the US male population before you got halfway into Germany. Given the survial rate of front line troops, objecting was an intelligent decision; that's no way to fight a war. In WWII, they had less issues after pearle harbor due to the politics played. You had much better survivability and moral politics in that war. When you get into the cold war and attacking smaller countries on the auspice of stopping the spread of an ideology, that is going to create cognitive dissonance.

umvi 6y ago

Not every war is "war-making". South Korea wouldn't exist if not for the US intervention. Who knows what Japan would be like if it weren't for the US declaring war on it. But before the US forced a new democratic government on them they were bullies and warmongers. Heck, there's a sister thread on HN with people calling for the US military to help Hong Kong. It's one thing to conscientiously object to Vietnam, quite another to conscientiously object to WW2. Some people may genuinely have moral objections, but surely some % are just plain scared of dying and want an out...

whatshisface 6y ago
Where did you get the idea that conscientious objection was about disagreement with the government's evaluation of the benefits of the war? It's for people who think that it's wrong to kill, not people who think that the war won't be profitable.
- umvi 6y ago
  Yes well, sometimes it's kill or be killed. How can you conscientiously object to WW2 when evil is at your doorstep threatening to destroy your country and kill you and your family?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    Taking this logic further, the only way to guarantee your safety is to eliminate all your enemies as early as possible. Perhaps even if there is a consensus to fight against a common enemy, the presence of voices that refuse to be violent helps maintain some perspective.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > It's for people who think that it's wrong to kill The linked article specifically points out that some WWI-era conscientious objectors did not object to war in general, they just didn't want to fight that particular war. There is a whole range of conscientious objection.
belorn 6y ago
Forced military service has one very important aspect that often get overseen. It is forced. People may object because of moral reasons, or because of religious reasons, or because of fear, but then we also have people who believe that forcing people into service is simply wrong. To me there is very little difference between men being forced into military service and women being forced to breed and taking care of the home, as was a common view of gender roles during world war 2. Men get sent to war and women stay behind and produce more men. It is a very dehumanized way to treat people. The distinction between forced conscription and volunteering to work in the military is day and night, and you only have conscientiously objection in one of those.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> Who knows what Japan would be like if it weren't for the US declaring war on it. It's the other way around. For the past 150 years, nations usually "declare" war with an initial attack to gain surprise, like Pearl Harbor in WW2, which was done to secure their colonization of Manchuria (China.)
TheBobinator 6y ago
Japan declared war on the US by pre-emptively bombing pearle harbor in an attempt to permanently cripple the US Pacific fleet. The president at the time knew it was coming via intel and forward radar installations and let it happen to maximize the political mobility of the act. After WW2, the US had been drug into 3 seperate foreign wars at that point; the Spanish war, WWI and WWII. Spanish war we were attacked at the southern tip of Texas and won that one before an invading army could get into the states, Both WWI and WWII The US entered because their merchant fleet was being attacked. In WWI a luxury cruseliner was sunk and that served as the tipping point, and in WWII our mechant fleet escort ships were attacked and the tipping point was a Torpedo fired at the Greer, a military escort ship. Basically, once you begin attacking the merchant fleet, your next step is to attack ports and port cities to stop material from getting on boats and to stop boat production. The Japanese harbored expansionist\empirial ambitions and knew they'd come into conflict with the US, hence the reason they had built a huge pacific fleet. That doesn't just happen overnight, they had a lot of build up of ships and material. Once the US entered the European theatre officially, the Japanese Military command became worried the US might attack them due to their alliance with Germany\Italy, hence the pre-emptive strike. Had Japan not attacked pearle harbor, had stayed in Asia, and had not built an alliance, a good sized chunk of China would probably be Japanese today and we might've had a Japanese-Indian war. After WWII, The US had a unique viewpoint. Because we had just about every single culture on earth represented here, we could see how dumb these squabbles were. We had the bomb, and decided that instead of having a war every generation, we'd instead build the most terrifying set of ICBM's, Bomber planes, and nuke subs to make our adversaries know that attacking us or involving us in a war is Dumb. The tech for it was leaked to the soviets by US Scientists fearing a monopoly of power and M.A.D was born. This shifted warfare into the use of economics and psychological warfare (cold war) to trash your enemy before an attack and the use of psychological warfare specifically and the creation of puppet ideologies used to weaken an adversary is what lead to the war against the spread of socialism\communism. E.G. The soviet union used ideological subjugation (look up Yuri Betzmenov on Youtube) successfully against countries including Afghanistan and Venezuala and those places are hot messed due to it today. Marxism is what we call the current puppet ideology in the US; it encompasses a lot of things the Russians do not do or believe in today and never really believed in and most people don't recognize that. The Vietnam\Korean war was largely about stopping the spread of Communism by setting up military bases on Mainland china to keep an eye on the chinese, and creating capitalist\democratic economic powers in mainland China to serve as an example. It was a pre-emptive war to stop a bigger war from ever occuring. The problem we have today with Conscientious objectors is psychological warfare is now a thing and if an adversary can eliminate your will to fight, they can take you by suprise or engage in domestic politics to create domestic problems to keep your attention at home. In WWI, trench warfare was an excuse to send lots of perfectly good men to their deaths in a bullshit defensive game. Great thinking exercise; what is the cost per square mile of territory taken in human life? You'd extinguish the US male population before you got halfway into Germany. Given the survial rate of front line troops, objecting was an intelligent decision; that's no way to fight a war. In WWII, they had less issues after pearle harbor due to the politics played. You had much better survivability and moral politics in that war. When you get into the cold war and attacking smaller countries on the auspice of stopping the spread of an ideology, that is going to create cognitive dissonance.