Patton and War Crimes

[Brenus]

From your own source: “Hard work in the Soviet labor camp, harsh climate and meager food, poor health”.

Not built to kill all passengers of a train in 2 hours, time needed for the train to refuel and turn…

Still have to find a EXTERMINATION camp in Soviet Union PZ. But you had the one I was expected, as it is the most famous…

Treblinka: June,22, 1942 – November 1943: about 850,000 people were killed here - Jews from occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and USSR, as well as from Germany and Austria. Polish and German Gypsies were also sent to Treblinka.

Sobibor: in 18 months at least 250,000 men, women, and children were murdered. Only 48 Sobibor prisoners survived the war, thanks to an escape.

[PanzerJaeger]

From your own source: “Hard work in the Soviet labor camp, harsh climate and meager food, poor health”.

Actually, my link said:

In 1937, at the height of the Purges, Stalin ordered an intensification of the hardships prisoners were forced to endure.[4] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes camp commander Naftaly Frenkel as establishing the new law of the Archipelago: "We have to squeeze everything out of a prisoner in the first three months — after that we don't need him anymore." [5] The system of hard labor and minimal or no food reduced most prisoners to helpless "goners" (dokhodyaga, in Russian).

Robert Conquest, Yevgenia Ginzburg, Anne Applebaum, Adam Hochschild and others (see bibliography) describe the Kolyma camps in some detail. The suffering of the prisoners was exacerbated by the presence of ordinary criminals, who terrorized the "political" prisoners. Death in the Kolyma camps came in many forms, including: overwork, starvation, malnutrition, mining accidents, exposure, murder at the hands of criminals, and beatings at the hands of guards. A director of the Sevvostlag complex of camps, colonel Sergey Garanin is said to have personally shot whole brigades of prisoners for not fulfilling their daily quotas in the late 1930s.[6] Escape was difficult, owing to the climate and physical isolation of the region, but some still attempted it. Escapees, if caught, were often torn to shreds by camp guard dogs. The use of torture as punishment was also common. Soviet dissident historian Roy Medvedev has compared the conditions in the Kolyma camps to Auschwitz.

Further, it goes on to say:

In Bitter Days of Kolyma, Ayyub Baghirov, an Azerbaijani accountant who was finally rehabilitated, provides details of his arrest, torture and sentencing to eight (finally to become 18) years imprisonment in a labour camp for refusing to incriminate a fellow official for financial irregularities. Describing the train journey to Siberia, he writes: "The terrible heat, the lack of fresh air, the unbearable overcrowded conditions all exhausted us. We were all half starved. Some of the elderly prisoners, who had become so weak and emaciated, died along the way. Their corpses were left abandoned alongside the railroad tracks."

Another vivid account of the conditions in Kolyma is that of Brother Gene Thompson of Kiev's Faith Mission. He recounts how he met Vyacheslav Palman, a prisoner who survived because he knew how to grow cabbages. Palman spoke of how guards read out the names of those to be shot every evening. On one occasion a group of 169 men were shot and thrown into a pit. Their fully clothed bodies were found after the ice melted in 1998.

Anyway, you seem to be arguing that the method of killing is the distinction - that it is somehow worse to kill people with poison gas than to slowly work and starve them to death. I just don't see much distinction, other than being starved to death entails a far longer period of suffering.

WikiChart

I was very surprised to see that you posted that chart. I would expect such sloppyness from others, but from our previous discussions, I know that you know your history better than that. Now I'm questioning my vote.

Anyway, I would think anyone who has spent any time studying the war would realize that a chart entitled "WW2 Deaths" broken down into Axis and Allied military and civilian deaths would represent data very different than a chart that depicted Axis and Allied deaths directly caused by the enemy.

And sure enough, a simple perusal of the footnotes to that chart shows that counted in "Allied Civilian Deaths" include millions who died in ways that are somewhat difficult to blame on the Axis. Here are some of my favorites:

-famine in unoccupied zones
-disease in unoccupied zones
-Nationalist Chinese repression
-Chinese Communist repression
-other Chinese repression from various warlords
-French killed during Allied air raids
-Koreans who died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
-Micronesian war related civilian deaths caused by American bombing and shellfire; and malnutrition caused by the U.S. blockade of the islands
-Polish citizens who perished due to Soviet repression
-Stalin's repression of his own people, including deaths in the Gulag system

Now, I'll give you a gold star if you can somehow pin those who died in Stalin's Gulags on Germany.

Anyway, the reality is that the disproportionality represented in that chart - apart from Allied repression and bombing of Allied civilians - is mainly due to the Soviet and Chinese inability to feed their own people and contain disease. If you were to take those two out, and compare civilian losses between 1st world nations like Britain, France and the US - I believe the proportions would be more evenly matched. An argument could be made that by simply starting the war the Axis countries were responsible for those deaths, but such an argument would be severely undercut by the fact that those nations couldn't even feed and treat their own people before the war due to collectivist schemes in Russia and poor infrastructure due to Western repression and internal strife in China. Regardless, the facts behind that chart represent a little bit different picture than the one you were (I assume) trying to paint.

As to your point - that the Axis killed more civilians than the Allies during the war - I've never argued otherwise. Now if you want to look at the whole scope of Russian and Chinese communism, that's a different story - but that is not what is being discussed here.

Also, are there any Allied equivalents of Mengele and Unit 731?

The London Cage comes to mind. Of course, there was no medical pretense to what went on there - just pure unadulterated torture.

[Pannonian]

The London Cage comes to mind. Of course, there was no medical pretense to what went on there - just pure unadulterated torture.

You're seriously comparing that to what Mengele and Unit 731 did?

[Sarmatian]

I was very surprised to see that you posted that chart. I would expect such sloppyness from others, but from our previous discussions, I know that you know your history better than that. Now I'm questioning my vote.

Anyway, I would think anyone who has spent any time studying the war would realize that a chart entitled "WW2 Deaths" broken down into Axis and Allied military and civilian deaths would represent data very different than a chart that depicted Axis and Allied deaths directly caused by the enemy.

And sure enough, a simple perusal of the footnotes to that chart shows that counted in "Allied Civilian Deaths" include millions who died in ways that are somewhat difficult to blame on the Axis. Here are some of my favorites:

-famine in unoccupied zones
-disease in unoccupied zones
-Nationalist Chinese repression
-Chinese Communist repression
-other Chinese repression from various warlords
-French killed during Allied air raids
-Koreans who died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
-Micronesian war related civilian deaths caused by American bombing and shellfire; and malnutrition caused by the U.S. blockade of the islands
-Polish citizens who perished due to Soviet repression
-Stalin's repression of his own people, including deaths in the Gulag system

Now, I'll give you a gold star if you can somehow pin those who died in Stalin's Gulags on Germany.

Anyway, the reality is that the disproportionality represented in that chart - apart from Allied repression and bombing of Allied civilians - is mainly due to the Soviet and Chinese inability to feed their own people and contain disease. If you were to take those two out, and compare civilian losses between 1st world nations like Britain, France and the US - I believe the proportions would be more evenly matched. An argument could be made that by simply starting the war the Axis countries were responsible for those deaths, but such an argument would be severely undercut by the fact that those nations couldn't even feed and treat their own people before the war due to collectivist schemes in Russia and poor infrastructure due to Western repression and internal strife in China. Regardless, the facts behind that chart represent a little bit different picture than the one you were (I assume) trying to paint.

As to your point - that the Axis killed more civilians than the Allies during the war - I've never argued otherwise. Now if you want to look at the whole scope of Russian and Chinese communism, that's a different story - but that is not what is being discussed here.

C'mon, PJ, you can do better than that. Do you have the data how many people in Soviet Union died outside occupied areas? Or in China? Do you really think it would change the overall ratio THAT MUCH? Instead of 58%, how much would it be? 52%? 42%? 30%?

The only way you can seriously question established figures is with different figures. Mentioning Allied crimes one by one won't get you anywhere. Take away ALL Soviet and Chinese civilian casualties and still Axis civilian casualties were much smaller than Allied.

You can't because you don't know and you're trying to push your agenda by spamming/mentioning various incidents. So, for the third time, bring different numbers to the discussion. I'm all for revisionism but only when it is backed up with proper data.

[Pannonian]

The only way you can seriously question established figures is with different figures. Mentioning Allied crimes one by one won't get you anywhere. Take away ALL Soviet and Chinese civilian casualties and still Axis civilian casualties were much smaller than Allied.

You can't because you don't know and you're trying to push your agenda by spamming/mentioning various incidents. So, for the third time, bring different numbers to the discussion. I'm all for revisionism but only when it is backed up with proper data.

In PJ-world, an Allied camp where German prisoners were beaten and shouted at is equivalent to Axis institutions where prisoners were dissected alive while fully conscious.

[PanzerJaeger]

C'mon, PJ, you can do better than that. Do you have the data how many people in Soviet Union died outside occupied areas? Or in China? Do you really think it would change the overall ratio THAT MUCH? Instead of 58%, how much would it be? 52%? 42%? 30%?

Are you serious? You throw up a chart that includes those who died in the Gulags and under Nationalist Chinese repression and try and pass it off as some sort of representation of the proportionality of those killed by the Axis countries and then question me about numbers?

In any event, those that died of disease and famine in unoccupied zones alone ranges into the tens of millions. So yes, removing those from the equation, not to mention the litany of other non-axis deaths in your chart that I touched on, would have a dramatic effect on the outcome.

You can't because you don't know and you're trying to push your agenda by spamming/mentioning various incidents. So, for the third time, bring different numbers to the discussion. I'm all for revisionism but only when it is backed up with proper data.

You and Brenus seem to know more about my intentions than I do. Can you please explain what my agenda is, and how I've been "spamming" it? Furthermore, can you please cite any inaccurate information I've provided in this or any other thread?

Seems to me, hearing about Allied war crimes makes some people uncomfortable. Don't shoot the messenger. As I said before, I started this thread because people asked me about the topic. I presented the information in as objective a way as possible. I only jumped back into the thread when the statement "all in all America's fighting men performed far more humanely than the japanese" was made. It was inaccurate and needed to be corrected.

You got it right the first time when you said:

I don't think that PJ's point was that allies were just as bad as the nazis, On the other hand, we shouldn't just ignore war crimes that weren't committed by the nazis.

In PJ-world, an Allied camp where German prisoners were beaten and shouted at is equivalent to Axis institutions where prisoners were dissected alive while fully conscious.

Surely you meant to say "beaten until they begged to be killed", among other various delights. Of course, when the British torture people, it's just adorable.

No comment. No ******* comment. This is too outrageously ridiculous a claim to even take seriously. Your unrelenting and utterly misguided crusade to make the Allies as black as the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese continues, to the hilarity of all. Try telling that to any of the victims of Nanjing. Or any professional historian of any merit whatsoever. Take a shot. See what happens, champ.

From one of my earlier posts:

Ah, but they [American military personnel] didn't just rape civilians and shoot prisoners. They also ripped the gold fillings out of their heads - alive or dead. They tore them limb from limb for souvenirs. They traded Japanese ears amongst themselves for cigarettes and chocolates. They decapitated Japanese POWs with their bayonets, boiled their skulls and sent them home to their mothers and girlfriends. These actions were common and widely accepted by both grunts and officers.

You're welcome to disprove this. I'll be waiting.

[The Wizard]

Are you serious? You throw up a chart that includes those who died in the Gulags and under Nationalist Chinese repression and try and pass it off as some sort of representation of the proportionality of those killed by the Axis countries and then question me about numbers?

Are you serious? You throw up the extremely weak and dubitable argument that, magically, famine brought on by war declared by Nazi Germany and Japan (respectively) is to be blamed on the Soviet Union and the Chinese (which never would have experienced those famines if they hadn't been invaded by these two murderous regimes) and you're arguing numbers?

Get real, PJ. Your entire argument rests on thin air, namely the complete flaming that is asserting that famine brought on by war is to be blamed on the attacked and not the attacker. Best argument ever: the Nazis occupying the breadbasket of the Soviet Union means it's Stalin's fault Russians starved! I guess the same is true for the Javanese famine, which caused the deaths of over 4,000,000 people during the Japanese occupation! Wow, I could have never imagined. When not even remotely in control of a place, you can still be blamed for what happens there! This is an amazing innovation in logic!

Switching cause and effect is the only thing enabling you to posit the preposterous mound of steaming that is your argument.

As for claiming the shooting of surrendered Japanese soldiers puts the Rape of Nanjing "to shame"... holy crap. Again, no comment. Just no comment. I don't even have to deal with this, it's that ridiculous.

[PanzerJaeger]

Are you serious? You throw up the extremely weak and dubitable argument that, magically, famine brought on by war declared by Nazi Germany and Japan (respectively) is to be blamed on the Soviet Union and the Chinese (which never would have experienced those famines if they hadn't been invaded by these two murderous regimes) and you're arguing numbers?

Get real, PJ. Your entire argument rests on thin air, namely the complete flaming that is asserting that famine brought on by war is to be blamed on the attacked and not the attacker. Best argument ever: the Nazis occupying the breadbasket of the Soviet Union means it's Stalin's fault Russians starved! I guess the same is true for the Javanese famine, which caused the deaths of over 4,000,000 people during the Japanese occupation! Wow, I could have never imagined. When not even remotely in control of a place, you can still be blamed for what happens there! This is an amazing innovation in logic!

Switching cause and effect is the only thing enabling you to posit the preposterous mound of steaming that is your argument.

I'm not really sure what to make of that other than a strong suspicion that you didn't read my post thoroughly. It may be a daisy emoticon too far for me.

Let me ask you if you believe civilian deaths caused by the conflict between the various Chinese factions, which ran into the millions, should be attributable to the Axis?

As for claiming the shooting of surrendered Japanese soldiers puts the Rape of Nanjing "to shame"... holy crap. Again, no comment. Just no comment. I don't even have to deal with this, it's that ridiculous.

Those that were shot before they were torn limb from limb were the lucky ones. Again, I'm waiting for you to disprove what I said. You'll need a little more than hysterics to do that.

Then give me some different numbers to talk about. You say those are incorrect. Let's hear the correct ones and we'll go from there.

So you post a misleading graphic and I go to the trouble to go through the footnotes in an effort to help you understand why it is misleading and now you want me to do more of your homework?

Let's forget about all Chinese and Russian civilian casualties. If all the rest Allied civilian casualties are smaller than German and Japanese ones, I'll concede that Allies were just as bad as the Axis.

Again, you're arguing against positions I have not taken. You keep trying to broaden the argument to enhance your position. I did not take a position as to which side was "worse". I don't quantify morality through body counts. I took the position that the wiki graphic you posted was inaccurate in relation to the point you were making. Allow me to quote myself again.

As to your point - that the Axis killed more civilians than the Allies during the war - I've never argued otherwise.

Well, let's see. You provided that some German POWs were killed under Patton. Ok, I believe that's correct. You said what American marines did to the Japanese puts what happened in Nanjing to shame - that I have serious trouble believing, especially unless it backed up by hard facts, meaning time, place and numbers. So far you're several hundreds thousands people killed and tens of thousands of women raped short.

As I've said, the information is all out there. I would recommend War against subhumans: comparisons between the German War against the Soviet Union and the American war against Japan, 1941-1945, by James Weingartner, as a decent start.

So, you're saying American soldiers didn't perform more humanely than the Japanese? They behaved the same? There is no difference between them? Is that what you're saying or we have a bad connection?

That is what I am saying.

Yeah, based on our earlier discussions, I didn't expect this from you. From a person conducting a scholarly discussion you've come real close to being a Nazi apologist.

That is a strong accusation. I'm wondering how you justify it. Considering the only statements I've made that you question are about the US soldiers behavior towards the Japanese - wouldn't that make me a Japanese apologist?

[drone]

Those that were shot before they were torn limb from limb were the lucky ones. Again, I'm waiting for you to disprove what I said. You'll need a little more than hysterics to do that.

This is textbook argumentum ad ignorantiam. You are making the assertion, therefore the burden of proof is on you. Hitler had sex with goats, prove to me that he didn't.

[The Wizard]

I'm not really sure what to make of that other than a strong suspicion that you didn't read my post thoroughly. It may be a daisy emoticon too far for me.

Let me ask you if you believe civilian deaths caused by the conflict between the various Chinese factions, which ran into the millions, should be attributable to the Axis?

Don't try to change the subject. Fact is, war-related famine in a country that is the victim of aggression by another is the fault of the latter. This is undeniable, and I see you've wisely chosen to stop trying to deny it.

As for the victims of Chinese civil war being included in the number of victims of the Japanese invasion and occupation: I really, really doubt that takes place anywhere except the official PRC history of the war (and maybe the ROC version, too). But academic studies on the subject? Don't think so.

Those that were shot before they were torn limb from limb were the lucky ones. Again, I'm waiting for you to disprove what I said. You'll need a little more than hysterics to do that.

You may notice, if you read my post, that I said nothing regarding the veracity of your claim about U.S. war crimes. All I did was ridicule the assumption that the war crimes carried out by individual Marines or even units of Marines can somehow, in any way, equal a crime on the sheer scale of the Rape of Nanjing.

The point is really that you're trying to morally equate the Allies with the Axis on false grounds. The two are so far apart in number and scale of crimes that it isn't even funny. Just take one look at Louis's post. It would have ended this thread, if you had had the courage to simply distance yourself from the ridiculous claims you're making.

EDIT: I mean, all I really have to do to put your utter nonsense to rest is quote from one of your own posts:

The US military's own correspondence explicitly acknowledges the widespread nature of these practices, as do the films shown to soldiers imploring them not to kill surrendering Japanese.

The U.S. Armed Forces made movies to dissuade its own troops from killing surrendering members of the enemy. What more proof do you need that you are trying to compare incidents to policy of the highest order? What next, PJ? Are you gonna tell us that Goebbels and the Japanese made movies telling their soldiers not to kill the Jewish pest and Slavic Untermensch, or the inferior Chinese?

We are talking about the south not the north. The north was constantly drafting and conscripted soldiers, most southern men signed up right off the bat except for the rich. The men who fought the war for the south were poor Scots-Irish from the Appalachian mountains for the most part.

No, I responded to A Very Super Market talking about the motivations of Northern soldiers.

[PanzerJaeger]

double post

[Centurion1]

double post mate.

[Sarmatian]

Are you serious? You throw up a chart that includes those who died in the Gulags and under Nationalist Chinese repression and try and pass it off as some sort of representation of the proportionality of those killed by the Axis countries and then question me about numbers?

Then give me some different numbers to talk about. You say those are incorrect. Let's hear the correct ones and we'll go from there.

In any event, those that died of disease and famine in unoccupied zones alone ranges into the tens of millions. So yes, removing those from the equation, not to mention the litany of other non-axis deaths in your chart that I touched on, would have a dramatic effect on the outcome.

Like Wizard said, you're reversing cause and effect. Occupation of Ukraine from which most of the USSR food came was a major factor in the famines. That makes Nazis indirectly responsible for their deaths, at least most of them. Here's a treat for you - let's forget about them. Let's forget about all Chinese and Russian civilian casualties. If all the rest Allied civilian casualties are smaller than German and Japanese ones, I'll concede that Allies were just as bad as the Axis.

You and Brenus seem to know more about my intentions than I do. Can you please explain what my agenda is, and how I've been "spamming" it? Furthermore, can you please cite any inaccurate information I've provided in this or any other thread?

Well, let's see. You provided that some German POWs were killed under Patton. Ok, I believe that's correct. You said what American marines did to the Japanese puts what happened in Nanjing to shame - that I have serious trouble believing, especially unless it backed up by hard facts, meaning time, place and numbers. So far you're several hundreds thousands people killed and tens of thousands of women raped short.

Seems to me, hearing about Allied war crimes makes some people uncomfortable. Don't shoot the messenger. As I said before, I started this thread because people asked me about the topic. I presented the information in as objective a way as possible. I only jumped back into the thread when the statement "all in all America's fighting men performed far more humanely than the japanese" was made. It was inaccurate and needed to be corrected.

So, you're saying American soldiers didn't perform more humanely than the Japanese? They behaved the same? There is no difference between them? Is that what you're saying or we have a bad connection?

You got it right the first time when you said:

Yeah, based on our earlier discussions, I didn't expect this from you. From a person conducting a scholarly discussion you've come real close to being a Nazi apologist.

[Centurion1]

Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, Marcus M. Spiegel volunteered in 1861 to fight in the Civil War. Born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1829, Spiegel took part in the failed German revolution of 1848. In the following year he emigrated to Ohio, where he married the daughter of a local farmer. When the Civil War broke out, the nation's 150,000 Jews represented less than 1 percent of the total population. But Spiegel shared wholeheartedly in American patriotism. He went to war, he wrote to his brother-in-law, to defend "the flag that was ever ready to protect you and me and every one who has sought its protection from oppression."

Spiegel rose to the rank of colonel in the 120th Ohio Infantry and saw action in Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana. He corresponded frequently with his wife, Caroline. "I have seen and learned much," he wrote in 1863. "I have seen men dying of disease and mangled by the weapons of the death; I have witnessed hostile armies arrayed against each other, the charge of infantry, [and] cavalry hunting men down like beasts." But he never wavered in his commitment to the "glorious cause" of preserving the Union and its heritage of freedom.

What one Pennsylvania recruit called "the magic word Freedom" shaped how many Union soldiers understood the conflict. The war's purpose, wrote Samuel McIlvane, a sergeant from Indiana, was to preserve the American nation as "the beacon light of liberty and freedom to the human race." But as the war progressed, prewar understandings of liberty gave way to something new. Millions of northerners who had not been abolitionists became convinced that preserving the Union as an embodiment of liberty required the destruction of slavery.

Marcus Spiegel's changing views mirrored the transformation of a struggle to save the Union into a war to end slavery. Spiegel was an ardent Democrat. He shared the era's racist attitudes and thought Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation a serious mistake. Yet as the Union army penetrated the heart of the Deep South, Spiegel became increasingly opposed to slavery. "Since I am here," he wrote to his wife from Louisiana in January 1864, "I have learned and seen . . . the horrors of slavery. You know it takes me long to say anything that sounds antidemocratic [opposed to Democratic Party policies], but . . . never hereafter will I either speak or vote in favor of slavery."

Marcus Spiegel was killed in a minor engagement in Louisiana in May 1864, one of 620,000 Americans to perish in the Civil War.

(Taken from Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Volume I (New York 2009), p. 480-482)

We are talking about the south not the north. The north was constantly drafting and conscripted soldiers, most southern men signed up right off the bat except for the rich. The men who fought the war for the south were poor Scots-Irish from the Appalachian mountains for the most part.

[Ibrahim]

We are talking about the south not the north. The north was constantly drafting and conscripted soldiers, most southern men signed up right off the bat except for the rich. The men who fought the war for the south were poor Scots-Irish from the Appalachian mountains for the most part.

you are basically correct, but that part is actually misleading: correct, the North did institute the draft (in 1863), and their aggressiveness in pursuing it did cause the draft riots in NYC that year (among other factors), but the way the draft worked was such that only a minority of the soldiers were actually drafted (~6%). here is a source that describes the draft in its basic process.

the south also instituted a draft (in 1862), but also, as in the north, it didn't account for the majority of troops that served.

either way, both armies were mostly-ney, overwhelmingly-manned by volunteers, not draftees.

here is a source with the number I mentioned.

[Louis VI the Fat]

And sure enough, a simple perusal of the footnotes to that chart shows that counted in "Allied Civilian Deaths" include millions who died in ways that are somewhat difficult to blame on the Axis. Here are some of my favorites:

-famine in unoccupied zones
-disease in unoccupied zones

-French killed during Allied air raids

I hold the Nazis responsible for all of these.

When the nazis hide in a French city to prevent any allied bombing of their position, I place full blame on the nazis. Allied mistakes that were made are the ultimate responsibility of Berlin too. One can argue about the wisdom of bombing mediaeval Caen...
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Charnwood
http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/20...ime-de-guerre/)

...but at the end of the argument, the Nazis had no business being there in the first place. The allies, French and otherwise, had a moral greenlight to kick them out. This greenlight sits somewhere between the equally preposterous 'destroying and killing the whole of France', and 'enormous allied casualties to save a two French roosters and a wooden shack'. At the final balance, I think the allies did alright, really.


As for famine and disease in unoccupied zones of French territories, I place full blame on the Axis powers too.

[PanzerJaeger]

I hold the Nazis responsible for all of these.

You're missing the point. He posted that graphic to illustrate how many more civilians the Axis countries directly killed than the Allies. However, the chart is full of Allied (and presumably Axis) civilian deaths that were not intentionally inflicted by their respective enemies. If he had said, "the Axis and Russians started the war, and are thus ostensibly responsible for all civilian deaths that occured during the war" there would not be an issue. However, he was taking a more nuanced position that the graph did not represent.

[Sarmatian]

You're missing the point. He posted that graphic to illustrate how many more civilians the Axis countries directly killed than the Allies. However, the chart is full of Allied (and presumably Axis) civilian deaths that were not intentionally inflicted by their respective enemies.

No, you missed the point. The graph says WW2 casualties not civilians directly killed. Now, I posted it to give an impression of a huge disrepancy between Allied and Axis civlian casualties. I'm fully aware that graph isn't 100% accurate but even with taking everything you said into account, it doesn't change the ratio that much, therefore it was accurate enough for the point I was trying to make.

Also, you said Can you expand on this a bit in regard to the Soviets? I'm trying to think of the worst things the Nazis did off the top of my head, and everything I can think of was either comparably duplicated by the Soviets or even worse. and American soldiers were just as bad as the Japanese.

That's two major axis and two major allies and you're saying that Soviets were just as bad, or even worse than the nazis and that Americans were just as bad, or even worse, than the Japanese. It doesn't take a huge leap of faith to see that this is basically saying Allies were just as bad, or even worse than the Axis - which is what I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that Americans, Soviets... didn't commit crimes, there is substantial proof that they did, I'm not disputing that, it's just that figures don't add up if you say they were just as bad as the Germans or Japanese.

So, if you want to discuss Allied crimes, as far as I'm concerned, go for it. I'd like to read more about it, but when you put "=" between Allies and Axis, we're gonna have a problem.

[PanzerJaeger]

No, you missed the point. The graph says WW2 casualties not civilians directly killed. Now, I posted it to give an impression of a huge disrepancy between Allied and Axis civlian casualties. I'm fully aware that graph isn't 100% accurate but even with taking everything you said into account, it doesn't change the ratio that much, therefore it was accurate enough for the point I was trying to make.

And 2+2=5.... or close enough. I'm sorry, that's just sloppy, misleading, and over-inflates your point.

That's two major axis and two major allies and you're saying that Soviets were just as bad, or even worse than the nazis and that Americans were just as bad, or even worse, than the Japanese. It doesn't take a huge leap of faith to see that this is basically saying Allies were just as bad, or even worse than the Axis - which is what I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that Americans, Soviets... didn't commit crimes, there is substantial proof that they did, I'm not disputing that, it's just that figures don't add up if you say they were just as bad as the Germans or Japanese.

This, I think, strikes at the heart of the disagreement. You and the others are taking solace in the fact that the Allies killed less than the Axis. As I've said and re-quoted over and over, I don't disagree. I just don't quantify morality through body counts. Is a man who kills 5 people worse than one who kills 3? Does the fact that Stalin's final body count is some x millions more than Hitler's make him a slightly worse person? Does your equation mean that Mao was the worst person in the world? Certainly the outcome is worse, but does it really take slightly more moral depravity to kill x than y. I think not. Once that line is crossed, once you begin to see people as disposable, body counts are just a function of the amount of power a person wields and how long they are allowed to continue killing.

I judge morality, who was "worse" if you will, based on the depths that the government and people are willing to sink to. It is obvious that the Russians, like the Nazis, had no problem with launching wars of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and internal repression. The Western Allies were certainly different from the Nazis and the Soviets, but it is also clear that they engaged in the same kind of dehumanization and illegal war practices that the Nazis did in the East, as much as some here want to put their fingers in their ears and hum the Star Spangled Banner. I guess it's just a subjective measurement.

You post unsupported tripe like this, and you wonder why this thread is an explosion of hostility toward your position? Good lord, man. It's one thing to point out that some Marines committed war crimes, it's quite another to equate their behavior with that of the Japanese Empire.

Unsupported tripe? I feel like I've stumbled on to StormFront or something. "They changed the Auschwitz sign from saying 4 million were killed to 1 million, therefore if they can overestimate the numbers by 3 million then they don't really know, therefore it didn't happen!!1" The denial is thick. Have you read anything, anything at all, on the subject? Have you read the US military's own correspondence on the issue?

[Lemur]

Unsupported tripe?

Indeed.

I feel like I've stumbled on to StormFront or something.

The difference being that white supremacists, much like truthers, birthers and tinfoil-hat wearers of all stripes, stake out a position that is contrary to consensual history. So they have rather a lot more to prove. Analogy: If I assert that gravity exists, there is no overwhelming obligation for me to prove this assertion, as it is in line with just about every respectable physicist. If I assert that gravity does not exist, I have my work cut out for me.

You are the one staking out a minority viewpoint, i.e., that the behavior of the United States Marines was somehow equivalent to the worst excesses of the Japanese Empire. When you make that assertion, you have a lot of work to do, and those telling you to your face that your ideas are nuttier than a granola bar are not out of line.

And even though your motives are entirely salient, you skitter away from addressing them. Again, why is this dubious point so important to you?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I judge morality, who was "worse" if you will, based on the depths that the government and people are willing to sink to. It is obvious that the Russians, like the Nazis, had no problem with launching wars of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and internal repression. The Western Allies were certainly different from the Nazis and the Soviets, but it is also clear that they engaged in the same kind of dehumanization and illegal war practices that the Nazis did in the East, as much as some here want to put their fingers in their ears and hum the Star Spangled Banner. I guess it's just a subjective measurement.

I'm sympathetic to this view right up to the part about Germany on the Eastern front. The Germans were conducting a race war, a war of extermination - not just for the Jews, but to get the inferior Slavs out of the picture. It was far more systematic and intentional than simply shooting POWs because they're Asian. The goal of the war in the Pacific wasn't to clear out all the locals, and I don't think you've shown that the American high command issued orders that POWs should be shot. American massacres of POWs are obviously horrible and possibly (maybe even probably) racially oriented, but they were standard operating practices (or at least not as you've demonstrated).

If you want to make the case that the US was fighting a war of extermination in the Pacific, and you come up with evidence to back that up then maybe you could call the sides somewhat equivalent. But I don't see that from what you've posted.

[Sarmatian]

And 2+2=5.... or close enough. I'm sorry, that's just sloppy, misleading, and over-inflates your point.

In a way, yes. When I know that X is in the range of 1-5 and Y is in the range of 500-1000, I have no troubles claiming Y is bigger than X. Whether it is 500 or 750 or 1000, it is bigger and by a big margin and my point stands.

This, I think, strikes at the heart of the disagreement. You and the others are taking solace in the fact that the Allies killed less than the Axis. As I've said and re-quoted over and over, I don't disagree. I just don't quantify morality through body counts. Is a man who kills 5 people worse than one who kills 3? Does the fact that Stalin's final body count is some x millions more than Hitler's make him a slightly worse person? Does your equation mean that Mao was the worst person in the world? Certainly the outcome is worse, but does it really take slightly more moral depravity to kill x than y. I think not. Once that line is crossed, once you begin to see people as disposable, body counts are just a function of the amount of power a person wields and how long they are allowed to continue killing.

That's not the half it. Nazism was an evil ideology based on racism and total contempt for human life that treated various people as vermin, rats and sub-humans, fit only to be exterminated or to be slaves. That ideology got a hold of a powerful country and managed to act on it. Had it been succesful, the world would have been a terrible place to live. Allies on the other hand, with all their quirks and flaws, were fighting a defensive war for the defeat of that ideology, and after that ideology had been defeated, Allies didn't take vengeance but had rebuilt Germany and Japan and allowed them to take their place in the world as influental and successful nations. That is not what would have happened had the Axis won the war. In the process of defeating that evil ideology, Allies also committed far less war crimes and killed far less innocent civilians.

I can not equate Allies with the Axis, unless it is proved to me that Allies started an aggressive war, whose goal was territorial expansion and extermination and enslavement of millions.