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Pontius Pilate

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1 minute ago, SeanF said:

To take the most horrific example, the Holocaust.  It wasn't just a loathsome crime, it also detracted from Germany's war effort, by diverting resources that could have been used for fighting, and by depriving the Germans of a useful labour force.

Also, I believe there is an old study out there that basically concluded that British civilians that had the experience of being bombed were more willing to continue with the war.

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Yes.  That doesn't mean that maximising casualties among civilians should be a military aim.  Leaving aside the morality of it, it may be completely counterproductive, as a means of achieving one's war aims.

To take the most horrific example, the Holocaust.  It wasn't just a loathsome crime, it also detracted from Germany's war effort, by diverting resources that could have been used for fighting, and by depriving the Germans of a useful labour force.

War is politics by other means, and the Nazi aim was the extermination of the Jews (and others). As such, the Holocaust was the point of the exercise, not a diversion.

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1 minute ago, Hoo said:

During thee WWI  Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian troops entered a few counties in Serbia, and wiped out 500,000 people.  Mostly those not fit for service who stayed behind in villages, women, elderly, children.   

That is the goal of war!  Anyone who says otherwise is peddling bullsht.  Selling you unicorns.  The reality is something else.

You are claiming Genocide is just part of the ordinary prosecution of war.  If that’s the case why should anyone be upset about the Shoah or Rwanda?

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2 minutes ago, Hoo said:

During thee WWI  Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian troops entered a few counties in Serbia, and wiped out 500,000 people.  Mostly those not fit for service who stayed behind in villages, women, elderly, children.   

That is the goal of war!  Anyone who says otherwise is peddling bullsht.  Selling you unicorns.  The reality is something else.

Civilian casualties in the First World War were dwarfed by the Western Front, as you know very well.

Again: if you break the rules of war, everyone else will break the rules against you. A prospect so terrifying that it kept Adolf Hitler himself from breaking out the gas on the battlefield.

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5 minutes ago, Hoo said:

During thee WWI  Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian troops entered a few counties in Serbia, and wiped out 500,000 people.  Mostly those not fit for service who stayed behind in villages, women, elderly, children.   

That is the goal of war!  Anyone who says otherwise is peddling bullsht.  Selling you unicorns.  The reality is something else.

There are genocidal wars.  But, they are rare.  As Thucidydes put it, most wars are fought for reasons of "honour, interest, or fear."  Most wars are fought for limited objectives, not to completely annihilate the opposing side.  Once that point is accepted, it benefits both sides to accept limits on what their soldiers are allowed to do.

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10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You are claiming Genocide is just part of the ordinary prosecution of war.  If that’s the case why should anyone be upset about the Shoah or Rwanda?

You can be upset, depending on which side of war you are on.

Hutu wiped out 70% of Tutsi.  That was the war, its ordinary prosecution.  That is the reality.

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1 minute ago, Hoo said:

You can be upset, depending on which side of war you are on.

Hutu wiped out 70% of Tutsi.  That was the war, its ordinary prosecution.  That is the reality.

No, it really isn’t.  Normalization of Genocide is an incredibly disturbing and dangerous idea.  

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Most wars are fought for limited objectives, not to completely annihilate the opposing side.  Once that point is accepted, it benefits both sides to accept limits on what their soldiers are allowed to do.

That is propaganda.

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25 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

My blog post on the political lunacy of what Daenerys has just done (notwithstanding that people are trying to rationalise it).

I agree that her actions will come back to bite her, if only because the story demands it,

I don't see her behaviour as lunacy, though.  Turning up the cruelty has worked for her, at several points in her career, whereas showing restraint has not, in Seasons 7 and 8.  IMHO, turning up cruelty works, right until the point when it doesn't.

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1 minute ago, Hoo said:

You can be upset, depending on which side of war you are on.

Hutu wiped out 70% of Tutsi.  That was the war, its ordinary prosecution.  That is the reality.

So Hitler was evil because he lost, not because he was running industrial scale genocide and started a war that killed fifty million people?

In that case, do you consider Stalin a bad guy? You know, seeing as he won?

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1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No, it really isn’t.  Normalization of Genocide is an incredibly disturbing and dangerous idea.  

It's reality of war.  Civilians flee for that reason.  They know what's coming.

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1 minute ago, Hoo said:

That is propaganda.

Not at all.  The Falklands War, or the First Gulf War, for example,are textbook examples of wars being fought for limited objectives. At no stage was the annihilation of the Argentine or Iraqi peoples a  war aim.

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Just now, Hoo said:

It's reality of war.  Civilians flee for that reason.  They know what's coming.

It is not.  Nor should it be considered such.  You are seeking to normalize Genocide.  If it is part of the ordinary prosecution of war then it would not be considered a crime.  

I’m curious to see your answer to Marquis de Leech’s question.

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11 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

So Hitler was evil because he lost, not because he was running industrial scale genocide and started a war that killed fifty million people?

In that case, do you consider Stalin a bad guy? You know, seeing as he won?

 

Hitler and Stalin are considered evil because they persecuted "political" enemies.  In the case of Hitler the Jews, targeted as a group enemy of National-Socialist political agenda. Stalin, the same thing.

Nobody cares that Russian civilians were killed en masse in WWII.   Hitler and Stalin were not building a "democratic" society.  That is their sin.  It's political bullsht.  

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Just now, Hoo said:

 

Hitler and Stalin are considered evil because they persecuted "political" enemies.  In the case of Hitler the Jews, targeted as a group enemy of National-Socialist political agenda. Stalin, the same thing.

Nobody cares that Russian civilians were killed en masse.   They were not building a "democratic" society.  It's political bullsht.  

But Stalin won. Isn't all that matters to you - destroying the enemy?

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11 minutes ago, Hoo said:

That is propaganda.

No, it is truth. It is the norm for vast majority of conflicts. Because needless escalation into genocide would motivate the other side (and their neighbors) to escalate as well. Most wars were fought over fairly small territorial (or other) gains. If you enter war to claim Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark, you conduct the war until the Denmark surrenders. At the same time Denmark knows that if they surrender, they lose territory (and that is painful), but nothing more.

Genocide and mass slaughter was frowned upon in the Middle Ages as well. Part of why the Mongols were so feared after few "examples".

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10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is not.  Nor should it be considered such.  You are seeking to normalize Genocide.  If it is part of the ordinary prosecution of war then it would not be considered a crime.  

Genocide was so abnormal, the term was only invented in the 1940s.

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25 minutes ago, Hoo said:

You can be upset, depending on which side of war you are on.

Hutu wiped out 70% of Tutsi.  That was the war, its ordinary prosecution.  That is the reality.

 At this point it might be a good idea to step away for a bit, take a walk, really think about what you're saying.

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