Since people on CE wanna chat about The World Wars on BC, I thought I’d make a thread for it here.
And respond to the sheer amount of bullshit coming out of some people’s mouths.
Comparing the allies to the Axis Powers as a “lesser of 2 evils” is not only dangerous, but extremely misinformed. Comparing Nazi Germany, a country and world power that used it’s power to commit a genocide on not just the Jews, but at least 3 other ethnic groups, not to mention LGBT people, to any Alliance power outside of Russia and justifying it by saying a few bad things that the Allies did is pathetic.
I’ll be the first to admit that the war reparations Germany was forced to pay after WW1 directly resulted in WW2. But to say that the Allied powers, who were literally fighting for their very lives and way of living, and the freedom of people everywhere to live how they want to, were just as bad as Nazi Germany because they bombed a couple of cities is atrocious, and if you believe that, you’re probably centrist scum who failed history class, and for good reason.
This attitude is directly leading to the rising of far right powers once again globally; populism is taking over and far right dictators like Trump, Bolsanaro, Putin and others are only strengthened in their views by this way of thinking. It’s outright dangerous to our freedoms as people.
Enough of the literal apples to oranges comparisons please.
Sincerely, A Politics/History major.
(This was typed up very quickly so it’s not as articulated as I’d like it to be, but I hope it conveys my general points well.)
There is no “black and white” in history but in the case of World War 2 it is clear who was on the right side of history. Don’t use any examples of allied civilian bombings as “proof” of evil on the alliedside, since Germany firebombed spanish towns off the map in 1936.
As for colonization, the atrocities committed in European dominated Africa, especially the congo, were just as bad as any German occupation. However, during and shortly after world war 2 the allied powers began to take a more pro-human rights stance, and colonies started to fade away as a whole, with those countries like France and England now donating millions, or in Frances case, billions to help stabalize African countries that are experiencing instability as a result of colonization.
If the axis had won, entire races would have been exterminated from Europe. Once the Soviets were conquered Germany planned to exterminate all slavs out of Russia, in order to make living space.
Dont even talk about Nazi Germany. You wanna talk real war crimes, look at Japan. Human experimentation, creation of super STDs, live frostbite experiments on POWs, beheading competitions, and events so horrendous they are described as Mass rapes.
20 million civilian deaths at the hands of the IJA and IJN, double that of the Nazi Germany. Low estimates put the rape of Nainking at 300,000 rape victims. To this day most of the Japanese government denies Unit 731’s existence and almost completely deny the Rape of Nainking despite picture and video evidence.
Yall think Germany was bad? Atleast they can admit they were the bad guy. Japan still believes it was the victim cause they got nuked. As if the 2 million total dead Japanese citizens compares to the 10s of millions they killed, millions they raped and hundreds of thousands they experimented on.
If any of this is news to you, I highly recommend you read up on Unit 731. Live vivisection, frost bite testing, STD creation, rape, forced pregnancy, testing on new born children, people placed in centrifuges and spun to death, horse urine injections, and I could keep going on but it makes my stomach sick.
I saw alot of death in the war, but the things I read about Unit 731 gave me nightmares.
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that the US and/or allies have never done anything so distasteful either though… who are we to say? we weren’t defeated and exposed, they were.
War is Hell.
World war 1 and World war 2 practiced what is called ‘Total war’ where civilians now become a military asset and are viewed as one… I won’t justify it, but I will say you all are rather softhearted to think that this is something new and not something that occurs throughout history over and over again. Even the atrocities that the Japanese committed really are nothing in the scope of history.
There are two sides, and they will eviscerate each other. That is war. Stop trying to see something else.
Thats just not true. Thats completely revisionist and ignorant. Trying to compare ANY of the actions taken by the western powers during WW2 to ANYTHING the Axis did is laughable. Did the western powers bomb civilians? Yes. Did the western powers lock civilians in camps? yes.
Did the western powers put live humans in furnaces? No. Did the western powers expose POWs to extreme cold to study the onset of frostbite in living tissue? No. Did the western powers create STDs by forcing fathers to rape their daughters over and over? No.
You know who did do all of that? The axis powers. Its not comparable.
I’m not saying necessarily that we did the holocaust or anything of that sort… but I just dont think it’s wise to think that one side is righteous and without wrongs and the other is full of wrongs.
You could argue the lesser of two evils, but not good and evil, in my opinion.
War in general just is a much more gray thing than that. What is right or wrong is largely perspective
War is a gray area yes. But the Nazis and Japanese imperialist were evil. Not all Germans and not all Japanese were evil, but those running the show were completely evil. The idea of “oh both sides did bad things” doesnt apply to ww2. WW1 yea, both sides did pretty horrible things and I wouldnt describe either as evil.
But WW2 was completely different. Explain to me the perspective where forcing Chinese men to rape their daughters to spread syphilis could be a gray area and then explain to how the Allies putting a stop to this madness could be anything but an absolute good.
Right and wrong is often based on perspective, right up until you start injecting horse urine into the livers and kidneys of POWs cause you were curious.
Its not the lesser of two evils. The Allies didnt even want to be involved in the war. The eastern powers just kept pushing until the Allies had to fight back.
The things that are gray is that America didn’t do any of this for moral reasons and only because they conflicted with American interests… you said it yourself, we didnt want to be involved in the war.
I’m not saying that they ( Axis ) were good, I’m saying that war isn’t fought over good and bad, that’s just how it is simplified. ( and justified sometimes )
( I also dont really see the point of this thread, likely only made by salty people so salty people can see others be salty )
Actually i made this thread for this discussion. It’s been interesting to read so far.
I think a lot of people forget all the human experimentation Hans Asperger did, specifically on twins, for Nazi Germany. Absolutely deplorable stuff, but some of the scientific advancements he made have been invaluable. Did the ends justify the means? I’m not qualified to say.
But arguing that the allies “maybe did some things wrong” is just pointless. There’s a reason Germany does not argue World War 2. They were very much wrong and know so, and anything the allies did was justified at the time, and even looking back here wasn’t much they did that wasn’t jusitifed.
Speaking as an Australian, we joined the war because it was the right thing to do. I can’t speak for American interests, so that is your debate to have.
Overall though, the broadcasts i saw on CE were just unacceptable levels of immaturity and downright dangerous thinking, so I created this thread so people had more than 150 characters to get their points across.
I don’t think Cody was trying to argue any side was either right or wrong. His point was (if I understand correctly) neither side joined the war to be the righteous or the evil. Thus attaching any connotation to their involvement is only possible in hindsight; they didn’t actually seek to represent either good or bad, at least in the global sense (they’re probably the “good” side for their country). Sure, you could, very rightly so imo, conclude the Allies are the “good” side, but they never intended to be that (again in the global sense), and hence shouldn’t be broadly painted as heroes.
Dont tell that to the WW2 veterans. On second thought, go ahead and tell the US soldiers they weren’t fighting for a righteous reason.
Countries may not be good or evil, but the men who perform acts of good and evil are.
All this crap about “history is written by the victors” is being spotted by those who have never seen what war looks like. War is clear cut, black and white. Their is almost ALWAYS a clear good guy and a clear bad guy. Are you raping and slaughters civilians? Congrats, your the bad guy. Are you going out of your way to protect civilians and prevent them from being slaughtered? Congrats, your the good guys.
And I want to emphasize I’m not one of those people who is all about ragging on America and the things we have done and only focusing on the negative. I think our military and our nation CAN be something to be proud of, but with that in mind you also need to clearly look at all the negative we do too. ( But my literal point in this entire discussions is basically: Which nation doesnt?! )
Great power comes great responsibility, not a fucking great blinding ego. ( though I suppose that’s a natural side effect )
