Do you read what is typed or do you only see what you want to see? I never said to be a victim you had to have breasts. I was clarifying that the majority of the victims were actually women and children and the elderly - ie non-combatants and innocent civilians who were the most vulnerable in that society at that time because they were essentially unprotected against such an attack. Do you understand now?
And I'm pointing out there gender is irrelivent. I'm a huge surporter of Angus Huston's plan to get women into the front line combat jobs and the SAS.
It is overtly sexist to insist that able-bodied women are inherently unsuitable for combat, let's note. Not that Japan (and plenty of other countries besides) didn't endorse such sexism, then and now, but still. Moreover: why do people keep harping on the distinction between civilians and combatants in the context of modernity's definitive total war? The whole thing about total war is that the distinction between civilian and combatant is greatly reduced, possibly to the point of irrelevancy.
It is my understanding that there are many references in ancient Greek literature to a wild plant, found on a few of the Greek islands whose tea was an effective birth control agent and in the later literature complaints that it was going extinct or very hard to find and much too expensive.
Indeed. I never disagreed with that point. I have no idea. I think those who support the total war scenario seem to view it as an excuse to commit wholesale slaughter of one's enemies or even one's perceived enemies, where mere knowledge or not protesting or trying to overthrow the State because of the war can make you an enemy or no longer deemed a civilian in the context of war. The herb was called silphion. There are several possibilities given for how it became extinct - from over-grazing by animals who were allowed to feed on it as it improved the meat, to over harvesting and supposed inability to cultivate it.
I have a suggestion, though: given that the people in question are the same ones who endorse a total-war reading of the scenario when it's Americans dieing, I'd propose that it's a cheap tactic in a game of nationalist baiting. You mean the total war scenario of the present? Sure. But it's interesting that the exact same poster doesn't seem to want to aknowledge that WWII was a total war - was openly aknowledged as such by all sides, at the time - because the same logic would excuse American destruction of Axis civilians. Hence, cheap.
Actually alot of Germans were hung for the crimes they commutes yet I haven't herd one Allie being charged with so much as rape. Deriliction of duty, going AWOL sure but nothing form crimes they commited. Futhermore Japan has been forced to.apologize for its crimes yet I don't hear so much as an official letter of regret from the UK and US. Hell they are still fighting Australians who seek compensation for the nuclear testing done on our soil (the UK I mean) and no I don't surport what osama did but ts bloddy hard to critizie what they do when they can turn around and list the number of wedings bombed by US troops, the number of cars full of families shot up, the number of dictators including Sudam and now the corupt president karzi, the fact that everytime one of your OWN ALIES like the UK has called Israels actions to account under international law you have just blocked it.
If the US sinks into deep long-lasting depression (and drags EU with it) via collapse of the dollar due to over production of them then the FEDs' recent policy changes may be the most important event in US history: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! If by some miracle the FED can destroy money equally fast then given that it is so strongly connected to stocks, what do you think happens to the one part of the US economy that is doing well?
Except the complaint is exactly that the people Osama does stuff to, are not quite the same people that make the decisions he turns around and complains about. Bottom line is that if you're going to accept the logic that there are no civilians in a democracy, then what we're left with is not a question of law and justice, but a brutal struggle for survival and dominance. If those are the terms of engagement, why would anybody care about being a hypocrit? Total wars aren't won by impressing some judge with your ethical consistency. They're won by employing unrestrained violence on an industrial scale. So you should think carefully about exactly what sort of terms you prefer said conflicts to be couched in, and exercise caution in ensuring that your argumentative positions are consistent with that. You can't argue total war one minute, and international legal arbitration the next. Well, there was that time where OUR OWN ALLIES the UK and France teamed up with Israel to launch an illegal invasion of Egypt to sieze control of the Suez Canal, and the USA pulled the carpet out from under them and forced them to withdraw. So, not "everytime."
Especially when that person has made claims that his own grandfather was "ILLEGALLY" nuked by Americans during WWII. As if, his logic didn't apply to Americans previous to WWII. One could simply substitute parties in his statement (using reasonably correct spelling): "I don't support what [Truman] did but its bloody hard to criticize what they did when [the USA, China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand] can turn around and list the number of [Chinese children massacred, Koreans exterminated, Formosans (Taiwanese) wiped out, Filipinos torched and US & British bases attacked]." ~String
Yeah. They lost. And, even more importantly, swaths of Germans got off scott free. Okay. How many Germans were tried for rape, then? Why would the allies turn around and try their own soldiers (political suicide, not that you are capable of understanding that) who just won the most vicious war in history? What crimes? The Japanese still teach--to this day--that the nuking of its two cities almost sprang from nowhere. The current mayor of Tokyo wants to cancel any reparations to Koreans and Chinese and wants to go to war with Russia to get Sakhalin Island and the Kurils back. The Japanese government has successfully created a domestic swearing-under-the-carpet of its culpability for starting its half of WWII. I don't see you bitching about those facts. When you get a little more balanced, then you can complain about those nations that secured your freedom. You, who? As an Australian, then "you" must be equally guilty of every misdeed your nations has committed, right? ~String
That is quite un fair. The Japanese really had no choice but to attack Pearl Harbor. You need to know why they did - as a last chance to survive the attack of the British on their oil life line. All their oil came thru the St of Malacca, and the Brits had cut it off. They had a major naval base in Singapore and the British Naval high command had assured Churchill that Singapore could not be taken by the Japanese, if they blocked the St of Malacca, but they were wrong. Japan took Singapore, liberated their oil life line and hundreds (thousand?) of Brits fled north into the jungle. Then in an obvious effort to form an invincible naval battle group to go and rescue the Brits and re-impose the oil blockade, the US assembled the entire Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt having been assured that it was too far from Japanese controlled water to be attacked. That too was wrong. Japan had less than 90 days of oil left when it attacked in desperation Pearl Harbor as its only hope to survive. They knew that once the US pacific fleet was on its way to Singapore, it was unstoppable and all would be lost. SUMMARY: Japan distorts history and tries not to blame the US or England for economic reasons, but not nearly as much as the US and England do – but that re-rite of history is what the winners always do.* If Hitler had won WWII, most would believe it was all the fault of the Jews and other degenerate human like forms. ----------- *The US civil war started because the North did not like the south selling its cotton to England, especially the textile mills running on New England’s water power were upset, so blockaded all southern ports, especially the port of Charleston S. Caroline which was the main one for cotton export (closer to England and at the center of the cotton growing area.) The North’s Fort Sumner is on an island in that harbor and controlled all its shipments. The South had no choice but to try to take that Fort, but you won’t read much about this in history books used in high schools as the North won the war. Slavery was a useful "flag" to wrap this economic struggle in, but had little to do with why there was a war. The “emancipation proclamation” did not come until near the end of the war. By then the Southerners were short of man power and using slaves for their supply line wagons etc. It was really an effort to weaken the South’s ability to resist the North’s forces. As they say: "Truth is the first causality of war."
Oh, poor Japan! It's not as if they had done anything to make Britain legitimately hostile to them, like, say, forming an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and sticking with it after the outbreak of a world war. No, they were just minding their own business, invading China and the USSR, when mean old Britain decided to beat up on them! And yet, Japan seems to have "survived" not only such losses, but a massive defeat to these same powers. So you seem to be using "survive" in a peculiar sense here - does it mean anything other than "continue a vicious campaign of imperial expansion?" Because you make it sound like they were fighting for mere national existence, when in fact they were conducting massive, unprovoked aggression all over the region - which is what they needed all the oil for. And they also knew that such was only a matter of time regardless - Pearl Harbor would maybe buy them some time to consolodate, and thereby try to strike a deal with the USA. Right, because there's absolutely no relationship between southern plantation slavery and the cotton industry. Indeed, one would have to be a complete sheeple to even suggest that those two issues are one and the same.
Yes, in the 1930s Japan was ruled by a ruthless and aggressive Military dictatorship that sought to dominate Asia. In early December 1937 Japanese forces captured Nanking (China) and by Christmas, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped. This nearly unprecedented barbaric act still adversely effects relations between Japan and China. But to understand it one must go further back into history and then find it all started with Great Britain’s domination of the world in the 1800s. To subdue China, clipper ships, filled in strong Indian opium, arrived every few days in Chinese ports, often two at a time. See old etching of two arriving in my post at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2668027&postcount=358 Britain used opium to illegally annex parts of China (Hong Kong and several other islands) and to introduce hundreds, if not more than 1000 Christian missionaries, neither of which were effectively resisted as most young men were in opium stupors in opium dens the Brits had established and supplied with opium until the late 1800s, when the Boxer Rebellion began: “... The uprising took place in response to foreign "spheres of influence" in China, with grievances ranging from opium traders, political invasion, economic manipulation, to missionary evangelism. In China, popular sentiment remained resistant to foreign influences, and anger rose over the "unequal treaties" (不平等條約), which the weak Qing state could not resist. There existed growing concerns that missionaries and Chinese Christians could use this decline to their advantage, appropriating lands and property of unwilling Chinese peasants to give to the church. This sentiment resulted in violent revolts against foreign interests. …” {Billy T notes: “spheres of influence” refers to fact that all of China was dominated by various European countries in the late 1800s who formed an “Alliance” to exploit China and avoid conflicts between Europeans after the Brits suppressed Chinese resistance with Indian opium for about 100 years.} The boxers were defeated with European brutality not to be seen in China again until the Japanese took Nanking: “…The Guardian journalist John Gittings also claimed that when the Alliance force entered Beijing, "it proceeded to loot, kill and rape with as much ferocity as the Boxers had shown (with the difference that the Boxers looted and killed, but did not rape)."[136] It was reported that Japanese troops were astonished by other Alliance troops raping civlians.[137] Thousands of Chinese women committed suicide. The Daily Telegraph journalist Dr. Dillon stated it was to avoid rape by Alliance forces, and he witnessed the mutilated corpses of Chinese women who were raped and killed by the Alliance troops.[138][139] Japanese officers had brought along Japanese prostitutes to stop their troops from raping Chinese civilians. A foreign journalist, George Lynch, said "there are things that I must not write, and that may not be printed in England, which would seem to show that this Western civilization of ours is merely a veneer over savagery." …” Both this quote and one above From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion Finally in early 1900s the “Boxer Protocol” was signed by the Chinese that gave to all the European powers of the alliance and the Japanese, the right to station troops in China, mainly along the railroad lines and in the ports. Some did not exercise this right but the Japanese did and in excess of the quota allowed. This and Japanese night time troop movements caused friction with local Chinese governments, but Japan agree to give prior notice before any troop movements. One night they moved troops to the end of the of the important and historic Marco Polo railroad bridge without prior notice and a Japanese soldier was probably killed by surprised Chinese soldier and promptly buried to hid the body. That was all that the Japanese military dictatorship needed as excuse – It all rapidly went downhill from there: “… On the night of July 7, 1937, night maneuvers were carried out without prior notice, greatly alarming the local Chinese forces. Chinese troops, thinking an attack was underway, fired a few ineffectual rifle shots, leading to a brief exchange of fire at approximately 23:00. When a Japanese soldier failed to return to his post, … {The Chinese said:} Japan had violated China's sovereignty by conducting maneuvers without advance notice, and refused the Japanese demand for entry into Wanping {to search for their missing soldier}. However, {Chinese general} Qin said that he would order Chinese troops stationed at Wanping to conduct a search on their own with an attached Japanese officer. … while both sides prepared their investigators, a unit of Japanese infantry attempted to breach Wanping's defences and were repulsed. … At around 03:30 on the morning of 8 July, Japanese reinforcements in the form of four mountain guns and a company of machine gunners arrived from nearby Fengtai. The Chinese also rushed an extra division of troops to the area. At around 04:50, two Japanese investigators were allowed into Wanping. However, notwithstanding the presence of the Japanese investigators within the town, the Japanese Army opened fire with machine guns at around 05:00. Japanese infantry backed with armored vehicles attacked the Marco Polo Bridge, along with a modern railroad bridge to the southeast of town. Colonel Ji Xingwen led the Chinese defenses with about 1000 men, with orders to hold the bridge at all costs. After inflicting severe casualties, the Japanese forces partially overran the bridge and its vicinity in the afternoon, but the reinforced Chinese soon outnumbered the Japanese. Taking advantage of mist and rain on the morning of 9 July, the Chinese were able to retake the bridge by 06:00. …” From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge_Incident SUMMARY: The pacific part of WWII really was the end result of English abuse / destruction of China to introduce Christianity, control its wealth / trade, and confiscate parts of it (Honk Kong, being the most important) with 100 years of nearly free distribution of strong India opium. The settlement of the Boxer Rebellion authorized limited Japanese occupation and divided China in zones of control by several European Nations. The Japanese army initially brought their own prostitutes, but soon learned from the westerners the economy of raping local women. They also moved troops without authorization one night to the Marco Polo bridge. That surprised Chinese forces defending it so they open fire upon the Japanese. One of the Japanese soldiers was never seen again and this escalated into war between the Chinese and the Japanese in less than a week. If not by this incident, a war between them would have found some other trigger as Japan was ruled by an aggressive military dictatorship, seeking to dominate Asian, but that would not have been possible, or even attempted against a strong China, if the Brits had not destroyed the Chinese nation with opium and superior military forces to annex Chinese land at will and support the Christian missionaries. Thus, in one way a long time ago or another way more recently with the blockade of the St. of Malacca, Britain, with no provocation to its self, caused WWII in the Pacific to follow from its actions. .
That makes no sense at all. As you say in your own supporting text, Chinese weakness was a precondition of British imperialism there, not a product of it (this being typical of imperialism). The lack of a strong China is due to China's centuries of self-imposed isolation and stagnance - the imperialism (both European and Japanese) was a symptom of a weak China, not it's cause. Moreover, using this sort of "logic," one can equivalently argue that any number of different actors "caused" WWII with no provocation to themselves. Which I suppose is fine, so long as you include some disclaimer that the ultimate causes of WWII are manifold, and saying that one party "caused" them is not exclusive of saying that various other parties also "caused" them.
Those charts are a fuckin affidavit to a CRIME. Start demanding gold for a paycheck people, look how a government can easily and quickly 1/4 your fucking income and savings!
I think the Civil war should definitely be in the top 5. I'm not choosing sides, but imagine if the south had won...we would not necessarily be the "united" states today....wonder what that would have been like?
