Patton and War Crimes

[Seamus Fermanagh]

History is not one big blur, where every wrong is equal to another, or easily compared. It is commonly accepted that all (modern, big, western) countries have a warmongering past. Few ever hold anything against the Third Reich with a claim of complete innocence of their own past.

Events must be seen in their full historical light, not compared by resemblances alone. One does not compare the Germanic expansion in the fourth and fifth centuries with the quest for Lebensraum in the twentieth. One will end up like those confused anarcho-communists who maintain that the Berlin Wall was as trivial a wrong as the wall in the Arizona desert. Both are walls meant to stop people etc.


Me, I maintain that the greatest crime ever committed by mankind was my very own ancestor, Ugh the Cro Magnon cavepainter of Lascaux, who genocided an entire human species by killing the last neandertal.

Nice one Louis -- but you know the paleo records don't fully support that hypothesis. Like most species extinctions, there were probably a small host of factors.


PJ:

We did the Amerinds a dis-service. Having conquered them, we should never have left them any land. Instead, forced assimilation should have been required. Many rich tribal cultures would have become a thing of the past, but at least I wouldn't be losing my shirt at one of their casinos.

[rotorgun]

A very fascinating 7 pages of reading gentlemen. I offer the following along the moral side of this argument to consider: "he who is merciful unto the Cruel will eventually be cruel unto the Merciful" (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:16). I can't remember the name of which person who said "To show mercy to your enemy during war is the height of folly", but it is apt. If one takes a legal point of view than the killing of an enemy who has surrendered, or in the act of surrendering is wrong. If one looks at it dispassionately though, it an unfortunate byproduct of war. I daresay even God himself views it so.

I quote General Robert E. Lee "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow to fond of it". Many of the combatants of the WWII from every country committed murder of POWs at various times; from the SS to the headhunters of Borneo. As for wanton killing of civilians; from the Rape of Nanking to the Rape of Berlin, from Rotterdam to the fire bombing of Japan such acts occurred on such a vast scale as to astonish the mind. The only good thing about war is it's expeditious ending. That's why Sun Tzu claimed that "War is of vital concern to the state."...something Japan and Germany should have thought deeply about before allowing themselves to be deceived by the militarists and demagogues.

PS: Hi everyone! I missed you guys!

[KrooK]

I can mention other war crime.
When Americans liberated Dachau they killed 300 poor guardians (and some dogs - bloody bastards) - just poor soldiers executing (or rather poisoning :) ) their orders. Poor Germans, we all regret them.
All modern hippies should put these bloody Americans on trial.
We can't regret Germans during world war II. They started war and massive killing - they got what they wanted.

http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...20051121135904

[al Roumi]

A very fascinating 7 pages of reading gentlemen. I offer the following along the moral side of this argument to consider: "he who is merciful unto the Cruel will eventually be cruel unto the Merciful" (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:16). I can't remember the name of which person who said "To show mercy to your enemy during war is the height of folly", but it is apt. If one takes a legal point of view than the killing of an enemy who has surrendered, or in the act of surrendering is wrong. If one looks at it dispassionately though, it an unfortunate byproduct of war. I daresay even God himself views it so.

Well thank god (ha) we do have laws to make the killing of a surrendered enemy unlawful. IMO, your biblical quotation is an excellent example of how religion or any ideology can be used to justify many a heinous act.

While we are in the business of quotations:

"And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. " Saadi

[rotorgun]

Well thank god (ha) we do have laws to make the killing of a surrendered enemy unlawful. IMO, your biblical quotation is an excellent example of how religion or any ideology can be used to justify many a heinous act.

While we are in the business of quotations:

"And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. " Saadi

Dear me, I really didn't intend such an interpretation to be surmised, for I am passionately on the side of the law. I was merely trying to point out that the brutality of war is part and parcel with the act of making war. I also feel that sometimes there might be circumstances that bring out this vengeful nature in man, and that there may be some who are killed who deserve it. I am very impressed with your counter quotation, an excellent counterpoint indeed. I should like to add another for consideration.

War is hell! General Sherman

PS: I hope you took notice of the second paragraph of my previous post; one could argue that Japan and Germany did much to reap the whirlwind they sowed.

[al Roumi]

Dear me, I really didn't intend such an interpretation to be surmised, for I am passionately on the side of the law. I was merely trying to point out that the brutality of war is part and parcel with the act of making war. I also feel that sometimes there might be circumstances that bring out this vengeful nature in man, and that there may be some who are killed who deserve it. I am very impressed with your counter quotation, an excellent counterpoint indeed. I should like to add another for consideration.

War is hell! General Sherman

PS: I hope you took notice of the second paragraph of my previous post; one could argue that Japan and Germany did much to reap the whirlwind they sowed.

I did read your second paragraph but the first was so strong I'm afraid I felt compeled to respond to it particularily. The horrific ease by which religion or ideology can be used to justify -or rationalise, any number of atrocities is terrifying.

[Karl08]

I can mention other war crime.
We can't regret Germans during world war II. They started war and massive killing - they got what they wanted.

Reaped what they sowed, yes, but got what they wanted? Hardly. And just because you can expect the defeated party to be treated harshly, doesn't necessarily make it right. In many cases it's understandable, and in some cases one might say well deserved. But one cannot generalize.

Anyway, the Allies aren't entirely blameless for the war, you know. The Germans were themselves after revenge for the extremely punitive conditions of the Versailles treaty. That's what made it easy for Hitler to make the Germans crave a rematch.

[Sarmatian]

Anyway, the Allies aren't entirely blameless for the war, you know. The Germans were themselves after revenge for the extremely punitive conditions of the Versailles treaty. That's what made it easy for Hitler to make the Germans crave a rematch.

Might I refer you to the excellent thread where treaty of Versailles has already been discussed.

[Karl08]

We did not kill as many of them as they killed of ours. The total number of Axis civilian deaths is some 1.5 to 2.5 million. The total number of Allied civilian deaths is some 30-40 million.

No matter how you break down those numbers, they are wrong. It seems that all of the civilians perished in the Holocaust are automatically lumped in the "Allied civilians" category. If you want to argue that they shouldn't be counted among Axis civilians because they were killed by the Axis, fine, but then what about the millions of Russian civilians killed by Stalin? It's a bit inconsistent.



And thanks for the pointer, Sarmatian.

[PanzerJaeger]

No matter how you break down those numbers, they are wrong. It seems that all of the civilians perished in the Holocaust are automatically lumped in the "Allied civilians" category. If you want to argue that they shouldn't be counted among Axis civilians because they were killed by the Axis, fine, but then what about the millions of Russian civilians killed by Stalin? It's a bit inconsistent.

Those numbers are pure fantasy, at least in relation to the point that they are being used to make. Not only do they include millions of deaths not at all attributable to the Axis nations, such as those killed in Soviet gulags as well as communist and nationalist repression in China; those alleged deaths that can be attributed to the Axis are speculative at best. The vast majority of "Allied civilian deaths" are from Russia and China. The estimates for the Russian deaths vary by a degree of tens of millions depending on the source being considered, and have consistently been scaled downward from earlier claims. As for the claims of Chinese dead, much less the actual causes of said deaths, they barely register as educated guesses.

[Brenus]

“Those numbers are pure fantasy, at least in relation to the point that they are being used to make”: Yeap, figures are not exact. It was exaggerated for propaganda purpose in both sides.
But amazingly enough, not in what some could expect.
The Russian atrocities or the Allies “killing”, as the figures for Dresden, are going down, and the Nazi victims are going up with the “recent” discovery or the extermination without camps (in former USSR).
A French Catholic Priest is actually doing an excellent job en the Baltic States in discovering new mass graves, which were covered-up by and to the Soviets for various reasons…
However, Stalin probably killed more Russian than Hitler on a longest period but there is no reason to take some blame of Hitler for being less successful.
But again, no real figures are actually available so we’ve got the so-called Holodomor (genocide or just the communist version of the Irish famine 1845-1852) Bad government or Cruel Government? At least, Ireland was still exporting food when the Irish were dying…
We do know that Stalin executed the ones he ordered to surrender in 1941 as they were witnesses of his mistakes and put the blame on Germany. But it is a small amount comparing the Russian POW victims of the Nazi.
We can mégoter or pinailler (French for arguing about figures or fact that doesn’t make really a difference) about how much of the Chinese were victims of the Civil War between the Nationalists and the Communists, however, the rape of Nankin and the bombing campaign against the Chinese towns were Japanese.

Some less important nations were forgotten in the count for the axis victims e.g. the Vietnamese or the Forced Indigenous Labour on the River Kwai railways sites.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'd like to put a little different spin on this if I might.

You've spent the last two weeks in slimy, bug-infested foxholes which fill up to the top when the torrential rains hit. You've been treated for malaria on several occasions, and had all kinds of tropical diseases. You have to fight the hordes of biting insects as well as the Japanese, and the mid-day temperature often reaches 100 degrees F.

At night, you listen to the Japanese screaming obscenities about what they're going to do to your wife and kids (who you haven't seen in nearly a year) when they're finished killing all you gaijin, and constant night skirmishes has meant you've had very little sleep since you hit the beach.

Just last night, your best buddie got killed by a Japanese soldier who appeared to be surrendering...until he pulled the pin on a grenade and jumped on your friend when it exploded.

Today you are involved in mop-up operations, and several ragged-looking Japanese regulars emerge from their tunnel with hands up.

Your current situation feels like this:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...000ydStare.jpg

What are you going to do?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

(Among other things) that line of reasoning justifies liquidating villages to nail a few partisans.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I did not intend it to justify any such atrocities. What I wanted to point up is that we are all so used to pushing icons around on map and tend to forget what those icons actually represent.....that armies are made up of individual soldiers, each with their own level of moral character. When individual characters are placed under the tremendous stresses a battlefield imposes, how will they react? How would you react, given that marines' circumstance? (you didn't answer the question, btw).

One of the reasons Saving Private Ryan is my favorite war movie is that Spielberg addresses this issue on several occasions. First, when Miller's rangers have pushed past the beach and are in the process of neutralizing the fortification that's been so deadly. When the first two Germans attempt to surrender, Mellish shoots them. The rangers then go about looting dead Germans for trophy's.

Later, in Neuville, Caparzo, rather naively, exhibits the sort of compassion that one might expect from Americans, and gets shot by a sniper.

At the radar tower, after Wade gets killed, the whole scene with 'Steamboat Willie', the German taken prisoner, points up rather nicely. All the squad except Upham want to shoot him. They make him dig graves and let him go, instead.

However.....later, in the fictional village of Ramelle, Upham ends up shooting 'Steamboat Willie' himself, when he attempts to surrender a second time (and after having killed Mellish).

So......the entire range of reactions from individuals, from compassion to cold-blooded murder. My long-winded point is......rather than judging from the comfort of your home, place yourself on the battlefield.

What will you do?




.......and to answer my own original question.......I wouldn't take any chances.......I'd shoot them.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I can't know what I'd do, since I've never been in a remotely comparable situation. That doesn't have any bearing on whether such a course of action is moral or not.

However, if we can start saying "it's ok to shoot non-combatants because it's really hard for your infantryman in a warzone" why would anyone be trying to claim the moral high ground in the first place?

[ReluctantSamurai]

However, if we can start saying "it's ok to shoot non-combatants because it's really hard for your infantryman in a warzone" why would anyone be trying to claim the moral high ground in the first place?

I'm not trying to say such actions are right. Just that it's too easy to point fingers if you've never been there.

My war would've been Vietnam. My draft number was high enough that I never got called. But I've talked with vets who did go, and most get that far-away look in their eyes when recalling an event that boot camp could never prepare them for. Like when this vet had to shoot a Vietnamese woman who pulled a rifle from concealment, and was going to shoot a fellow GI who was giving candy to a kid. It still bothered him years after the event. I've had similar conversations with vets who fought in WW2 (when I lived in up-state New York, USA, there was a VA hospital in a nearby town and I did a lot of contractual work there, so I got to talk to a lot of vets). Those conversations left a lasting impression on me, obviously.....

Not looking for excuses.....just a tad bit of understanding, is all.

[Brenus]

“Not looking for excuses.....just a tad bit of understanding, is all.”
The problem is you can find reasons for all war crimes, from My Ly, to Srebrenica…

[Karl08]

“Those numbers are pure fantasy, at least in relation to the point that they are being used to make”: Yeap, figures are not exact. It was exaggerated for propaganda purpose in both sides.
But amazingly enough, not in what some could expect.
The Russian atrocities or the Allies “killing”, as the figures for Dresden, are going down, and the Nazi victims are going up with the “recent” discovery or the extermination without camps (in former USSR).

I notice you put "recent" in quotation marks, and at any rate I'd like to know what you mean by "recent". It has always been known, surely, that most victims of the Holocaust were killed outside camps.