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Its important to realize that we're looking at this retrospectively. Imagine if the headline was about Nazi POWs escaping custody with the help of rigged board

Its important to realize that we're looking at this retrospectively. Imagine if the headline was about Nazi POWs escaping custody with the help of rigged board games. I don't think its fair to sort combatants into 'good/bad camps'. I totally agree about not militarizing groups like this. If you try to turn POWs into combatants, do they still have any protections? Its like having a brilliant scheme to dress a whole bunch of marines as field medics; at best it's unethical, at worst it puts real non-combatants at risk.

bdunbar 14y ago
> I don't think its fair to sort combatants into 'good/bad camps'. What's fair got to do with it? If there was ever a good/bad distinction between combatants, World War II was it. The Axis powers were evil, don't doubt it.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  History is written by the winners. The Nazis as an organization committed atrocities, yes, and their leadership was responsible for that. To the millions of boots on the ground - in battles, not the relatively small number implicated in concentration camps - there wasn't good/evil. There were people we should shoot, and people we shouldn't. Blurring that line with tricks like those described puts non-combatants at risk, which is pretty evil. Dropping a nuclear bomb on a civilian population is also pretty evil.
  - lostlogin 14y ago
    Exactly, and tee blurring or lines is easier to spot when you leave te US and UK out of it (despite their frequent abuses of human rights). What about French Vichy actions? Russian? And countless other more minor countries. Don't get me wrong, the worst side lost, but that didn't come without controversial and wrong behavior. Thhe non political NGO aid organizations chose to be independent, and involving them causes the potential for far reaching harm, without their consent.
  - DrJ 14y ago
    don't forget internment camps
  - nikcub 14y ago
    > History is written by the winners. Overused cliche line that doesn't mean anything and isn't true. The Soviets won World War 2, they won it more than the USA won World War 2 and more than the British or anybody else won World War 2 but we re-wrote their history as evil scumbags who committed atrocities during the war.
    - bdunbar 14y ago
      > we re-wrote their history as evil scumbags who committed atrocities during the war. Re-writing was not needed. Stalin was an evil thug, just as bad in minor ways as Hitler.
      - nikcub 14y ago
        News of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers in Katyn in 1940[0] by the Soviet Union was hushed up by the Western Allies during the various 3-body conferences. It only came out after the war and when Cold War tension rose[1] Contrast this to when Dachau was liberated, where the western media were given an official tour and relayed pictures, stories and the news only days later. Eisenhower sent out a press release when Dachau was liberated[2], but kept quiet about Soviet atrocities. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/katyn-massacre-hushed-stalin-slaughter-polish-officers-released-memos-show-article-1.1156361 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/katyn-massacre-hush... [2] http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/dachau/dachau-01.html http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/dachau/dachau-01.html
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  I don't know about that. The nazi leadership was evil, sure, but that doesn't automatically spread to their political allies.
  - yozmsn 14y ago
    Do you have any idea what Japan did to the Chinese? Those atrocities rivaled the Nazi's and they didn't have the excuse of antisemitism, they were just terrible people, for example: gang rape to death was the norm for a Chinese woman under Japanese occupation. (Read up on it sometime you will be traumatized but it's worth it) Only the Italians can excuse themselves as not being any worse than anyone else in Europe at the time, who also handed over all their Jews to Germany for extermination. To all those people who are claiming that only the leadership is to blame for the Holocaust, it takes a lot of man-power and planning to transport and kill 11 million civilians, this wasn't done by a small minority of the German Army or SS, even if the camps were administered by only SS, rounding up the people and stuffing them in cattle cars takes a lot of man-power.
  - bdunbar 14y ago
    Ignoring Italy - the slow little brother of the Axis Powers - the Japanese were fully as evil as the Nazis.
    - Dylan16807 14y ago
      I'll have to catch up on modern asian history.
    - robbiep 14y ago
      Italy under the fascists still did a pretty good job of shipping Jews off to concentration camps. Interestingly in Hungary the 'Arrow cross' party was the local fascist party in power and they were pretty horrible as well - the history about how the arrow cross higher-ups switched straight across from fascism to communism after the war is very interesting and well worth a read for anyone into history.. To a certain extent it was the same organisation in different clothing
  - lostlogin 14y ago
philwelch 14y ago
It's the duty of a POW to use every opportunity to escape. Also, it turns out the medic thing goes the other way around--medics are frequently armed so you can't distinguish them from ordinary troops, because fairly frequently the medics are singled out to be shot at first.
- martey 14y ago
  "...medics are frequently armed so you can't distinguish them from ordinary troops, because fairly frequently the medics are singled out to be shot at first." Medics are armed for their own defense, and generally wear clear insignia so they won't be targeted. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medics#Geneva_convention_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medics#Geneva_convention_prote...
  - elemeno 14y ago
    The protection though only extends to medics who are not armed with a weapon which 'can be used offensively'.
    - martey 14y ago
      While this is what the Wikipedia article states, it does not make very much sense. Furthermore, it is not upheld by the actual text of the Geneva Conventions (which is the source of the article section I previously linked to). See Articles 21 and 22: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570026?OpenDocument http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570026?OpenDocument http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570027?OpenDocument http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570027?OpenDocument
  - philwelch 14y ago
    I'm not talking about the Geneva Convention; I'm talking about what medics actually do, at least the ones I've personally heard from about the subject. It would be nice if we only got into wars with people who follow the Geneva Conventions, but we tend to get into wars with the type of people who specifically try to target medics.

bdunbar 14y ago

> I don't think its fair to sort combatants into 'good/bad camps'. What's fair got to do with it? If there was ever a good/bad distinction between combatants, World War II was it. The Axis powers were evil, don't doubt it.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
History is written by the winners. The Nazis as an organization committed atrocities, yes, and their leadership was responsible for that. To the millions of boots on the ground - in battles, not the relatively small number implicated in concentration camps - there wasn't good/evil. There were people we should shoot, and people we shouldn't. Blurring that line with tricks like those described puts non-combatants at risk, which is pretty evil. Dropping a nuclear bomb on a civilian population is also pretty evil.
- lostlogin 14y ago
  Exactly, and tee blurring or lines is easier to spot when you leave te US and UK out of it (despite their frequent abuses of human rights). What about French Vichy actions? Russian? And countless other more minor countries. Don't get me wrong, the worst side lost, but that didn't come without controversial and wrong behavior. Thhe non political NGO aid organizations chose to be independent, and involving them causes the potential for far reaching harm, without their consent.
- DrJ 14y ago
  don't forget internment camps
- nikcub 14y ago
  > History is written by the winners. Overused cliche line that doesn't mean anything and isn't true. The Soviets won World War 2, they won it more than the USA won World War 2 and more than the British or anybody else won World War 2 but we re-wrote their history as evil scumbags who committed atrocities during the war.
  - bdunbar 14y ago
    > we re-wrote their history as evil scumbags who committed atrocities during the war. Re-writing was not needed. Stalin was an evil thug, just as bad in minor ways as Hitler.
    - nikcub 14y ago
      News of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers in Katyn in 1940[0] by the Soviet Union was hushed up by the Western Allies during the various 3-body conferences. It only came out after the war and when Cold War tension rose[1] Contrast this to when Dachau was liberated, where the western media were given an official tour and relayed pictures, stories and the news only days later. Eisenhower sent out a press release when Dachau was liberated[2], but kept quiet about Soviet atrocities. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/katyn-massacre-hushed-stalin-slaughter-polish-officers-released-memos-show-article-1.1156361 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/katyn-massacre-hush... [2] http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/dachau/dachau-01.html http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/dachau/dachau-01.html
Dylan16807 14y ago
I don't know about that. The nazi leadership was evil, sure, but that doesn't automatically spread to their political allies.
- yozmsn 14y ago
  Do you have any idea what Japan did to the Chinese? Those atrocities rivaled the Nazi's and they didn't have the excuse of antisemitism, they were just terrible people, for example: gang rape to death was the norm for a Chinese woman under Japanese occupation. (Read up on it sometime you will be traumatized but it's worth it) Only the Italians can excuse themselves as not being any worse than anyone else in Europe at the time, who also handed over all their Jews to Germany for extermination. To all those people who are claiming that only the leadership is to blame for the Holocaust, it takes a lot of man-power and planning to transport and kill 11 million civilians, this wasn't done by a small minority of the German Army or SS, even if the camps were administered by only SS, rounding up the people and stuffing them in cattle cars takes a lot of man-power.
- bdunbar 14y ago
  Ignoring Italy - the slow little brother of the Axis Powers - the Japanese were fully as evil as the Nazis.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    I'll have to catch up on modern asian history.
  - robbiep 14y ago
    Italy under the fascists still did a pretty good job of shipping Jews off to concentration camps. Interestingly in Hungary the 'Arrow cross' party was the local fascist party in power and they were pretty horrible as well - the history about how the arrow cross higher-ups switched straight across from fascism to communism after the war is very interesting and well worth a read for anyone into history.. To a certain extent it was the same organisation in different clothing
- lostlogin 14y ago

philwelch 14y ago

It's the duty of a POW to use every opportunity to escape. Also, it turns out the medic thing goes the other way around--medics are frequently armed so you can't distinguish them from ordinary troops, because fairly frequently the medics are singled out to be shot at first.

martey 14y ago
"...medics are frequently armed so you can't distinguish them from ordinary troops, because fairly frequently the medics are singled out to be shot at first." Medics are armed for their own defense, and generally wear clear insignia so they won't be targeted. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medics#Geneva_convention_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medics#Geneva_convention_prote...
- elemeno 14y ago
  The protection though only extends to medics who are not armed with a weapon which 'can be used offensively'.
  - martey 14y ago
    While this is what the Wikipedia article states, it does not make very much sense. Furthermore, it is not upheld by the actual text of the Geneva Conventions (which is the source of the article section I previously linked to). See Articles 21 and 22: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570026?OpenDocument http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570026?OpenDocument http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570027?OpenDocument http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/365-570027?OpenDocument
- philwelch 14y ago
  I'm not talking about the Geneva Convention; I'm talking about what medics actually do, at least the ones I've personally heard from about the subject. It would be nice if we only got into wars with people who follow the Geneva Conventions, but we tend to get into wars with the type of people who specifically try to target medics.