Ethics of pilots fighting for the sides in WWII

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Dietger

I beg to differ!

As a human being, I believe peace and freedom are free!
And by their very nature easy to keep!

If someone wants to make you "pay" for it, they lie.

Your model needs the ppl to be identical, if you were right, communism would work.

If you find yourself taking other mens live, somewhere far from home - somthing is going utterly wrong. And (!) your probably be infact the "bad" guy, the attacker - NOT the defender.

If materialism, struggle for resource, dominance, simple greed drive the governments around the globe, its of course hard to "keep" peace, LOL since you constantley seek to suppress others!

In history, freedom was never free.
Also the urge to suppress, to dominate, seems to be in our genetic code, at least for some.

Compare an chipmunk family or a wolf pack.

Maybe war is just part of our evolution.

Originally Posted by Avala

This is pure psychopathic sentence. (I don't say that Swiss is psychopath, he is just being taken by them)

Funny, I dont know of any free country which achieved this status without bloodshed.
Please explain.

Or, maybe wee should discuss the term "free".
The Taliban f.i. probably consider their system very free(and right).
It all lies in the eye of the beholder.

Btw: I am not a psychopath for sure, but a Machiavellian maybe.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Dietger

There is not a single case in history, in all of it, in which ppl - civilians, as they are called here, where NOT an utterly important! - startegic and tactical - target(s).

You win, by killing as much as possible of them, preferably in the shortest time possible - keeping the $ost low.

There is not a single army in history, in all of it, which haddnt done so.

You're saying that ALL wars have been won by killing as many civilians as possible? Obviously that's incorrect.

it doesent make any sense to destingush between German pilots or British, US, Russian etc pilots, cos all of them killed civilians;

Well all sides killed civilians, but not all pilots did. And I think there are reasons to distinguish between aggressors and defenders in different conflicts.

Cos you cant kill for peace, you just keep it!
And killing is bad, periot.

I guess we're just going to have to disagree again. Shooting at a madman that's wandering through the streets killing civilians is not a bad thing to do. And there can be occasions when peace will be reached more quickly by killing.

And although its a tragedy, no couch potato has the right to point the finger - some 60 years later

I think I probably agree with your underlying point that it's all too easy for us to judge when we really have no idea about a lot of these things, and it's unfair to judge a lot of it from our armchairs - but we do have the right to judge, that's the point about freedom.

The right question should be : WHAT WOULD HAVE YOU! DONE???

That's just as hard to answer - again all to easy to swagger and say what we'd have done, but until we're put in that position we can't always be sure.

There is no excuse for shooting pilots on chutes. Bombing cities. Strafing ppl.

As I've written enough in the other thread, I disagree. And fortunately, so did the allied commanders.

Its ridiculous, all history books, writen by the winner long after the war(s) are full of self-righteousness, proclaiming, once again!, how they served peace by killing all the other(bad) ppl.

I agree that history is generally distorted by those that have won - but in recent wars around the world, the losers are often equally able to write history books on the subject. If talking about WWII, the Germans are totally free to write history books on it.

Wouldnt you think, that by now, after all this thousends of years - killing, all "bad" should be dead once and for all???

There's one born every minute.

Originally Posted by Dietger

I beg to differ!

As a human being, I believe peace and freedom are free!
And by their very nature easy to keep!

If someone wants to make you "pay" for it, they lie.

Lol, you think Peace is easy to keep? There's never been peace in the world, it can't be that easy. The saying that freedom isn't free doesn't mean that you should have to pay for it, it just means that it's not easy to keep freedom and it does cost you. So when the Polish were free before WWII, and Germany invaded, were the Poles supposed to say 'freedom is free, you lie, please leave'? Obviously they wanted freedom, and to get it they'd have to pay in the form of a war.

Being attacked or helping a poor soul is as well your right. Notwehr-Selfdefense!
...
If you find yourself taking other mens live, somewhere far from home - somthing is going utterly wrong. And (!) your probably be infact the "bad" guy, the attacker - NOT the defender.

There are plenty of wars where I agree with you there, but it is also possible that the poor soul that you're helping is a long way from home. For example, you agree it was right of the Americans to help in Europe in WWII I take it?

In regards of todays "asymetrical war(s)": there is no defense against terror!

- other then(real heartfelt) dialog.

Again, its a thin line ....

Terrorism is certainly not easy to defend against, but are there any examples in history where 'real heartfelt dialog' has worked against terror?

[Theshark888]

Originally Posted by Dietger

And although its a tragedy, no couch potato has the right to point the finger - some 60 years later - and make big, meaningless gestures!

With this type of attitude, why don't you Euro's stop trying to justify the actions of your ancestors by dragging the USA into the conversation all the time. Their is a price for freedom.

Look at the terrible past actions of your own European countries before you try to drag the actions of the USA down to that level. The actions of the US government do not even come close to the atrocities, death, destruction and sheer numbers of killed caused by European countries throughout their history. Unfortunately we were dragged into your dirty business twice in the past century, but at least we were able to stop a third world war. Without the actions of the "terrible" USA you would have all destroyed yourselves (and the world) long ago.

It is because of our money that you are able to sit in relative safety in your homes and even begin to give biased and propaganda opinions about the actions of the USA.

[winny]

Originally Posted by Theshark888

With this type of attitude, why don't you Euro's stop trying to justify the actions of your ancestors by dragging the USA into the conversation all the time. Their is a price for freedom.

Look at the terrible past actions of your own European countries before you try to drag the actions of the USA down to that level. The actions of the US government do not even come close to the atrocities, death, destruction and sheer numbers of killed caused by European countries throughout their history. Unfortunately we were dragged into your dirty business twice in the past century, but at least we were able to stop a third world war. Without the actions of the "terrible" USA you would have all destroyed yourselves (and the world) long ago.

It is because of our money that you are able to sit in relative safety in your homes and even begin to give biased and propaganda opinions about the actions of the USA.

It's only because the USA is so young. You're pretty much all Europeans (if you are white at least) so they were your ancestors too.

Nobody in the western world can claim that they don't have blood on thier hands somewhere along the line.

As for your money.. where did that all come from?

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Theshark888

why don't you Euro's stop trying to justify the actions of your ancestors by dragging the USA into the conversation all the time.
...
Look at the terrible past actions of your own European countries before you try to drag the actions of the USA down to that level. The actions of the US government do not even come close to the atrocities, death, destruction and sheer numbers of killed caused by European countries throughout their history. Unfortunately we were dragged into your dirty business twice in the past century, but at least we were able to stop a third world war. Without the actions of the "terrible" USA you would have all destroyed yourselves (and the world) long ago.

It is because of our money that you are able to sit in relative safety in your homes and even begin to give biased and propaganda opinions about the actions of the USA.

Blimey. I think you should have a nice cup of coffee Shark. Dietger didn't even pick on the US did he? And if he did, what's that got to do with everone else in Europe? Your comments are a bit out of line IMO.

Originally Posted by winny

It's only because the USA is so young. You're pretty much all Europeans (if you are white at least) so they were your ancestors too.

Nobody in the western world can claim that they don't have blood on thier hands somewhere along the line.

As for your money.. where did that all come from?

Exactly - except there's no blood on my hands, I won't take responsibility for my ancestors and I don't expect anyone else to take responsibilty or blame for theirs.

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by Theshark888

With this type of attitude, why don't you Euro's stop trying to justify the actions of your ancestors by dragging the USA into the conversation all the time. Their is a price for freedom.

Look at the terrible past actions of your own European countries before you try to drag the actions of the USA down to that level. The actions of the US government do not even come close to the atrocities, death, destruction and sheer numbers of killed caused by European countries throughout their history. Unfortunately we were dragged into your dirty business twice in the past century, but at least we were able to stop a third world war. Without the actions of the "terrible" USA you would have all destroyed yourselves (and the world) long ago.

It is because of our money that you are able to sit in relative safety in your homes and even begin to give biased and propaganda opinions about the actions of the USA.

Shark, that's too direct and too vehement. Not wrong, just....harsh.

In fairness, I think a lot of Europeans appreciate the US as allies just as we appreciate them. But I do think the anti-US and socialist crowds are growing. We could argue about why, but it wouldn't change the fact.

A lot of Americans felt that way prior to 9/11 too. That tragic event woke up some of them (some are slipping back into their old thought processes now though). Europeans didn't have a 9/11 and have no idea how "personal" our war on terror is to most of us. Many are "with us" but can't appreciate the depth of the hurt and anger....I guess we can't expect them to. It is hard for them to comprehend what 9+ years of foiled attacks here are worth to us.

They say we torture and thus are evil. Most have no idea that three terrorists have been waterboarded and that those interrogations account for more than 50% of our information on Al Qaeda. As for the practice itself, I have gone through it and it's terrible but has no lasting effects.

It's hard people outside of the US to understand we are fighting a group of radicals who would kill us all "over there" rather than "over here". This is much like WWII to us in that respect. We were late to this party too.

Anyway, Shark, I am sure you will get blasted for your comments. I probably will too. That's sad but....does it really matter?

Splitter

[Abbeville-Boy]

Originally Posted by Theshark888

With this type of attitude, why don't you Euro's stop trying to justify the actions of your ancestors by dragging the USA into the conversation all the time. Their is a price for freedom.

Look at the terrible past actions of your own European countries before you try to drag the actions of the USA down to that level. The actions of the US government do not even come close to the atrocities, death, destruction and sheer numbers of killed caused by European countries throughout their history. Unfortunately we were dragged into your dirty business twice in the past century, but at least we were able to stop a third world war. Without the actions of the "terrible" USA you would have all destroyed yourselves (and the world) long ago.

It is because of our money that you are able to sit in relative safety in your homes and even begin to give biased and propaganda opinions about the actions of the USA.

i wish we would pull all of our troops and expense out as fast as possible

[winny]

Originally Posted by Triggaaar

Exactly - except there's no blood on my hands, I won't take responsibility for my ancestors and I don't expect anyone else to take responsibilty or blame for theirs.

You're spot on. I live right here right now. If we all had to pay for our ancestors crimes we'd all be in prison for something.

@ theshark : A load of stuff that a bunch of long dead people did a long time ago has nothing to do with the ethics of world war 2 pilots.. And to roll out the 'we saved your asses' routine is also completley idiotic.

[Theshark888]

Originally Posted by Splitter

In fairness, I think a lot of Europeans appreciate the US as allies just as we appreciate them.

Sure, the governments in power aprreciate us (I'm not sure about the "man on the street") but also use us as the "punching bag" to deflect from their own problems. This goes on all the time in the Euro media and the masses fall for it.

Splitter-it doesn't matter what others think. Sometimes the present generations of Euro's need to be reminded of their own history before they obsess with ours.

[moilami]

Originally Posted by Theshark888

Unfortunately we were dragged into your dirty business twice in the past century, but at least we were able to stop a third world war. Without the actions of the "terrible" USA you would have all destroyed yourselves (and the world) long ago.

Lol u just came and kill stealed twice

And remember Europe has been a mess. In WW1 it was Germany who helped Finland to get independence. In WW2 it was Germany who helped Finland to maintain independence. How did USA help Finland? Did you knew Finland had plans to get a German prince as king of Finland? I bet you did not.

Originally Posted by Theshark888

It is because of our money that you are able to sit in relative safety in your homes and even begin to give biased and propaganda opinions about the actions of the USA.

Lol? Without USA I wonder would there be this "war against terrorism" at all