Here are all my posts from some recent interloping into Catallaxy. You get people killed when you refuse to follow reason in policy. Catallaxy is a place where people cannot get things right even with 20-20 vision. We see in their devotion to groupthink how it is that we screwed up and got six million Jews killed, when we ought to have been able to save most of them. The posts are just cobbled together in one long stream. Its a bit hard to take it in. But its really for the permanent record lest they be wiped.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
How about trying to disprove even one of his theories then!!!! Give it a go. It ought not be that hard.
No – (dash) he ought to be able to prove one or some of the subjects theories wrong. For example if the main thrust of the holocaust was a done deal prior to the housing stock being diminished, then he would have gone a long way to disproving this theory.
It appears that already there is two of you who don’t know what a refutation involves. It is not just about Birdlab, or some other uneducated low-life quoting accurate stuff in the context of the delusioinal belief, that merely to quote someone is to refute that person.
Clearly we have a two people here, only one of whom can be named, who didn’t get anything like a good education. Supposing I were to quote Pielke Junior with derision? Is that a refutation? Well you people seem to think so. Perhaps there is different rules here then elsewhere.
Simon is presumably talking about the origin of this idea of the need for Lebensraum. They have more people and less space now. But they don’t appear to feel this need. We are not talking about the origins of the concept of the need for Lebensraum. We are talking about those factors, working both for and against, “the final solution.” The phrase “the final solution” may have a sick joke and feeble excuse imbedded in it. But nonetheless these things are never necessarily a done deal. There would have to have been factors working both for and against this policy. Or else why was it not started ten years earlier?
What year are you talking about? Thats the question that Dot left out. What year are you talking about? Hitler probably wanted them all dead right from the start. But this is not what we are talking about. Hitler may have wanted a great many things that he could have put on the back-burner. Hitlers position as numero uno is itself not to be thought of as a done deal.
Hitler rounded a lot of Jewish families up and requested that the rest of us take them as immigrants. When we failed to do so surely this had something to do with what subsequently happened. Thats a straw on the camels back. Or more like ten bushels. Another ten bushels would have to be when we slaughter tens of thousands of German women and children for no reason, and leave millions more homeless by carpet-bombing their houses.
This is the context in which Hitler went through with one of his fantasies. It appeared to be more convenient to let these people die then to accept them as migrants. After refusing them, and carpet-bombing German houses, it would have appeared really pretty convenient for your middling-evil Nazi, to just go along with the killing of these people. Its when people who are only somewhat wicked start seeing mass-murder as reasonable; Thats when its going to go ahead. This was not the Soviet Union. This was formerly the most cultured nation in Europe. It took a lot for Hitler to be able to effect his acknowledged wickedness. After we commit war crimes against German kids, people would figure it was a no-holds-barred situation. When we commit war-crimes we have to take some responsibility for how others respond.
“Just keep digging.”
You don’t have any children do you Birdlab? You don’t do you? You are too stupid to have a wife and you keep shooting blanks.
Pick any theory of his. Any theory at all. Can you not even prove 1 (one) of them wrong?
Dot. You are not coming close to even dealing with the same subject. Are you a teenager? Ought you not be simply reading this site, and not participating?
We are talking about the allied carpet-bombing of the German housing stock. You want to at least be on the right subject.
So far none of you have made a relevant point against a theory that you appeared to feel was self-evidently ludicrous. Now isn’t that revealing? The pseudo-points made left out the concept of time, dates, chronology. So the pseudo-points made were irrational. Not even a glancing blow, therefore, has been made against a theory, that Birdlab thought could be debunked, merely by quoting it.
Perhaps you are all late for your siesta or something. Feeling a bit drowsy? A bit sluggish? Brain not working?
“….Right. Is there a reference made to this at the Wannsee Conference?….”
I give up. Do you know one way or another? It probably wouldn’t have made the minutes if so. What is more important is which came first? The conference or the war-crime of bombing women and children, blasting them to pieces, leaving their stinking burnt flesh all over the place, along with many more injured and millions homeless?
You have finally made a valid and relevant point. But reality is far more subtle than that. The situation of rotting burnt flesh of German children and millions of people homeless. This is the context, setting, ambience, shadow-over …. the conference. The context can be invisible to notes, minutes and even transcripts of a conference.
But good show for finally getting onto something relevant. Potentially the first small glancing blow to a theory that is so far holding up pretty well.
“When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town ….”
All rather excellent and some fairly serious home truths being laid down. Everyone ought ask themselves if they make it to fallen angel status or are they merely unrisen apes? Certainly anyone who thinks war-crimes aren’t going to affect the behavior of the victim population is likely wallowing in excrement, in his hairy birthday suit, all the time slipping on banana peels.
Its not like all the above doesn’t have relevance to today. We have to find a better way to process refugees in line with our aspirations not to be merely screaming baboons, in recognition of the terrible consequences of the mistakes we have made in the part, consistent with our national interest, and with the dignity of these people, law-breakers that they are. While one may think the open thread has talked about several topics in quick succession, they are all but one topic. When Zarathustra speaks, all must listen.
“Zoroaster,
How come the Blitz never induced the English to masacre say the Welsh?”
Because we are not talking in simplistic one cause for one action. When actions are taken, we can best believe there are more than one reason for these actions taken. Seldom do I go to the shop to buy butter, except that I take the opportunity to buy other items. Nor would I find myself motivated to go to the shops, if the felt need was for butter alone. If this be the case for a single individual, then how much more would this multiple motivations business count for a population?
Anti-semitism and the mass-inflation of the prior decade meant the trigger was already cocked. A decade of Goebbels and Hitler hate-mongering made the trigger-finger itchy. Surely the denial of safe passage of the corralled Jewish boys and girls, combined with the war-crimes and the idiocy of unconditional surrender policy …. surely these were factors only a madman would deem irrelevant to the trigger at long last being pulled.
Its quite a fearful thing to watch people so adamant that our own wicked behavior isn’t part of the context to what happened. Plus its demoralizing. We want to be able to really let the average Germanoff the hook some, avoid making the same mistakes in the future, and make sure these miscreant Nazi leaders in the Middle East don’t get the chance to effect another holocaust.
“…..has just labelled our brave Aussie air-crew a bunch of war-criminals.”
Its tautologically true that if you participate in war crimes, you are a war criminal. Too harsh a reality for you to deal with Birdlab? Choose reason. Because if we want to avoid pressuring our guys to be part of war crimes in the future we need to accept reality and learn from our mistakes.
“…..has just labelled our brave Aussie air-crew a bunch of war-criminals.”
Its tautologically true that if you participate in war crimes, you are a war criminal. Too harsh a reality for you to deal with Birdlab? Choose reason. Because if we want to avoid pressuring our guys to be part of war crimes in the future we need to accept reality and learn from our mistakes.
No dot you are wrong. I have been right in every last thing I’ve said so far.
“… if you’re laying the Holocaust and/or the eastern campaign at the feet of the British, don’t be silly. What a revolting concept. On the other hand, let’s be adults here and stop pretending that it was heroic when “our boys” incinerated people in Europe and Japan by the hundreds of thousands…..”
You just admitted to not reading what has been said. You might want to read what has been said. Thats the usual procedure. Reading what has been said and then making comments on that basis.
Things happen for a reason. Hitler may have not even so much as been the leader of Germany, but for the starvation blockade of Germany, after the German surrender, at the end of World War I. Hitler may not even have been able to maintain his leadership but for the idiocy of the policy of unconditional surrender. You cannot possibly know that these Hitlerian projects would have gone ahead but for aspects of British policy. Since you cannot know who would have lead Germany, under different British policy, nor how much support that person would have been given.
And I don’t quite see, Mr Crystal Light ball, how you can know for sure, that there would have been the Jewish holocaust, if we had all accepted the refugees that Hitler had imprisoned? I don’t see how you can know that. I cannot know that one way or another. But it would appear to me that those Jewish kids who were fortunate enough to be excepted in Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas, may have been safe. Shot in the dark. Standing out on a limb.
Now the fact is we have to understand that our actions do affect the context and the actions of others. Our policy could scarcely have made mass murder more likely. Backing a psychopath up against the wall like that, and financing the greatest mass-murderer ever known to history. How could we have conducted matters to more thoroughly influence events in the direction of mass-murder? As if to emphasize this we then followed up with still more mass-murder. Keelhaul, the promotion of the Soviet Empire, and the implementation of the murderous Morgenthau plan. Our hands are covered in blood with that damned war like with no other.
“…..has been going out of his way to exonerate the nazis…..”
Looks like someone cannot find his reading glasses or his logic pills. The Nazis probably wouldn’t have been the Nazis and probably would not have come to power, but for the British starvation blockade. The Nazis may not have been able to hold power, but for the idiocy of the policy of unconditional surrender (in the context of the British starvation blockade and the bombing of civilians). And were it not for appalling allied policy we may have held enough leverage over the Nazis, or whoever was in power, to be able to influence them away from their course of a war of extermination.
Its as if this is all new information for you. Its as if you had never considered these realities at any time prior.
“Why didn’t the UK tell the French just to lie down and let them rape them then?”
Does DOT usually go off on these strange tangents? Is he posting in on his new i-PAD from some sort of varsity pub crawl?
“…To Hitler the Jews were the key to everything else. This is in Mein Kampf…..”
Yes thats true I think. I agree. Anyone who had a problem with Hitler, ought to have done his homework, read his book, and known what he was after. So the idea was to rescue the Jewish people. Not act in such a way as to get six million of them killed. But what was your point?
“The Nazis probably wouldn’t have been the Nazis and probably would not have come to power, but for the British starvation blockade.
This is like saying Al Capone wouldn’t have become a gangster kingpin if it wasn’t for the idiocy of Prohibition. But how does that excuse Capone clobbering people to death on a regular basis?”
Exactly right. Again Crystal-Light-Ball. Its always better to read what the person is actually saying. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Without prohibition there would be no Al Capone. In saying this I make no excuses for Capone. But the fact is without prohibition Al Capone would not have done the damage he did.
Got it now? Or are you suffering from post-lunch fatigue?
Secondly we need to believe people when they say they want to do something. If the Iranian leadership says that the Jews need to be slaughtered we ought to believe them, and act accordingly, understanding that this is not inevitable, but one of their goals that they may effect under some circumstances. By not believing Hitler and taking his anti-Jewish hysteria seriously, we helped get six million of these Jews murdered. We were supposed to save them. Not get them all killed.
A Better World: Graeme Bird For High Office 
Is the murder of most Israelis by Iran utterly inevitable? Is it something that has nothing to do with the policies of third party nations? No and no.
The Iranians have expressed the goal of committing the crime of a second holocaust many times. But does that mean that this crime is inevitable and will happen no matter what anyone does?
No of course not.
Ought we wish away the statements of Iran and not take their stated intentions seriously? Of course not. People ought to be taken seriously. These are murderous psychopaths, these Iranian clerics.
All the above goes for the way we responded to the Nazis. We fucked up and got six million Jews killed, just for starters. We should have realised what he was capable of. But we ought to understand that the killing of these six million Jews was not inevitable, just as the annihilation of Israel, by the Iranian leadership, is by no means inevitable despite the nasty things these criminals say.
There is a fundamental error n the way that Catallaxians view history. They don’t appear to have a sense of time. History happens like all things happen. One day at a time.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 4:36 am
“I think we can now safely say that we have risen to the challenge and disproven one of Bird’s theories.”
Not even a dent you dumb fuck. Not even a valid point that seemed to have weight. And the investigation turned up even more evidence in my favor. What was presented at the conference suddenly became altered WITHOUT A FURTHER CONFERENCE, and in apparent response to the area-bombing/de-housing.
The timing was on my side. Further evidence for my case and for you having no case whatsoever. The plan was to kill the Jews slowly through forced labor. Which means of course that many of them stood a very good chance of surviving even at that late stage. The area-bombing began and the policy was altered. And what have you got to the contrary? To the contrary of allied policy getting six million Jews killed? Nothing. Because this is a fact of history. The policies, the ones actually taken, saw six million Jews killed. Whereas pitting one tyrant against another could have seen us exercise enough leverage over both tyrants to save them. The policies followed got six million Jews killed. Policies made on the basis of reason ought to have saved most of those six million. Hence its manifest that the policies that Catallaxy advocates (starvation blockades, the bombing of civilians, unconditional surrender, the expansion of the Soviet Union, the bankrolling of the worst mass-murderer till that date in history ……..) It was these policies that got six million Jews murdered, 50 million plus Chinese murdered, and countless other millions murdered too. Whereas the body count by following reason would have been much less. Even a fucking 7 year old knows not to get between two bullies going toe to toe.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 5:27 am
hey graeme
here’s the full text for Thus spake Zarathustra
I think you’ll like it
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/n/nietzsche/friedrich/n67a/
By: Genghis Sun on July 8, 2010
at 5:36 am
Good stuff.
Nelson and Wellington et al conduct just war against Napolean. Then subsequently serious people set up a serious peace at the conference of Vienna. Then you get a century of peace in Europe.
The British conduct the starvation blockade, and thereafter policy is more or less idiotic on our side, from then on. And we have a century of utter slaughter. There is likely to be some connection here.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 5:48 am
Hitler was a product of very much the exact same ideologies e.g. social Darwinism, that produces racist “libertarians” such as Joe Cambria, Jason Soon or rabid rightwing nutjobs like John Greenfield.
By: Philomena on July 8, 2010
at 7:36 am
Right. Though I think we can leave Greenfield out of it. And we need to make a couple of caveats there. Note that when Hitler came to power, like on the very week of the elevation of Hitler to the top job, an Australian newspaper said “Look out Liberals and Jews” or words almost exactly the same. Hitler hated classical liberals. People who would call themselves libertarian today. But I’m not hassling you on your putdown of SOON and CAMBRIA. Since they aren’t fit to wash a classical liberals feet. However you may be not letting bygones be bygones with Greenfield. He does seem to be well-motivated in the course of freedom. Perhaps if he showed his regard for freedom more stridently he would be by now banned from Catallaxy.
So Hitler was anti-libertarian. A national socialist. Note that this is where Cambria’s instincts are at least. He is one confused wop. Thinks he’s a libertarian, but is in favor of bank parasitism.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 10:00 am
Hitler’s heroes were all “great men” – Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Bismarck, Wilhelm 1. He was not in the tradition of Marx and Engels – or historical materialists – for whom the class struggle is paramount. For Hitler, history was a catalogue of racial struggles, although the outcome always depended on great men.
He often quoted Helmut von Moltke, a C19 German general who had argued that leaders should always use the most terrible weapons and tactics available because by (arguably) shortening hostilities, lives would be saved.
Sound familiar?
By: Philomena on July 8, 2010
at 7:48 am
“Hitler’s heroes were all “great men” – Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Bismarck, Wilhelm 1. He was not in the tradition of Marx and Engels…”
The first of those is right Philomena. But he was also definitely in the tradition of Marx and Engels. Fascism was simply a break-away sect, of the wider socialist church. It had to happen in industrialised Europe, since more traditional notions of socialism meant immediate collapse. After the disaster of Soviet Communism, socialists to the South of the Soviets cast about for alternatives to keep their ideals alive.
It is by no means surprising that all attempts at dictatorial socialism, become idiosyncratic and a product somewhat, of the personality, of the dictator. Since socialism cannot work. So all attempts at it, can be seen as outside the socialist tradition. The tendentiousness on this point need never end. Socialists will claim no failure as their own. The application of socialism leading to immediate starvation and chaos, any temporary success must as of necessity lie outside of the mainstream socialist church.
Whereas Stalin thought he had to kill off the kulacks before a second attempt at true communism, Hitler had his Utopia in a fantasy world that would exist after the capture of Soviet lands. The Germans would all become vegetarians you see. Everything good was to come after the violence and killing. Thats the impulse that Marxism renews. Violence and stealing first. Good stuff after the disaster. Whereas what we should be doing is trying to live a little bit better every day.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 10:08 am
But in connection with the above I must say that the bankers are really pushing us. They would seem to be pushing for a showdown, where people the world over will need to get nasty just to get them off our backs. This is something of their doing. If a showdown is required well so be it. But this is not the general way to approach the need to change and improve things. And yet this is always the utopian-eschatologist vision that Marxism inspires.
Its as though the people who pulled off 9/11 feel that they can now get away with anything. If they can do that, leave all the evidence behind, and still get away with it, then they can steal off us in broad daylight. Get bailed out from their bad loans to Greece, and steal the Greek Islands as well. And just keep going on this thieving and enslavement campaign. I think they’ve way overplayed their hand. But from their point of view it must look like there is nothing they will not be able to get away with.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 10:16 am
Looks like the conversation just went a little bit too far over poor stupid Birdlab’s head.
“So, to summarise Bird: The Holocaust was caused by the British.”
My goodness. When you are that fucking low-wattage there is no remedial learning possible. I’ll refer intelligent third parties to my final comment in response to CL.
Bear in mind that Stalin EFFECTIVELY brought both Hitler and Mao to power. I say EFFECTIVELY since when things are in the balance, even a weak force tipping the balance, is decisive.
So the bad policy of the British, from the starvation blockade onward, EFFECTIVELY lead to a century of mass slaughter. Since it tipped the balance of things in favor of the mass-killers. And Stalin EFFECTIVELY brought both Hitler and Mao to power. Since in both cases matters were in the balance, and Stalin had just enough influence to tip this balance.
Tipping the balance is what we are talking about in this discussion. But the idea of tipping the balance the wrong way, is just a little bit difficult for someone like Birdlab to comprehend.
“So, to summarise Bird: The Holocaust was caused by the British.”
You see that? The idea of bad policy on the part of the British and Americans tipping various balances, and the idea of Stalin, using persistent and subtle influence to get his way, almost all the time ……. Its just too difficult for someone like Birdlab. Just too fucking difficult for a fucking moron like Birdlab.
“So, to summarise Bird: The Holocaust was caused by the British.”
Just too fucking difficult. But the rest of us have to learn from history. And we must take responsibility for the evil that we spread, by means subtle, unintentional or otherwise.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 10:42 am
Compulsive liar THR does a great impersonation of Birdlab:
“The feathered one continues to thrash about in his padded cell:
Stalin EFFECTIVELY brought both Hitler and Mao to power.”
This is simply a fact of history in both cases. Matters were in the balance. Stalin tipped that balance. Both directly and via his influence in America. Total fact of history. No need to be in denial about it.
Now you see this is the whole point. This is the real deal. If you just sum up the local scene accurately, and then you see where matters are fairly closely balanced, and then you use all your state powers to tip these contests in your favor ….. Then you can exercise power totally out of proportion to your resources.
Its a fact that this is what Stalin did. Get used to it THR you compulsive lying cunt.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 11:57 am
“Yeah Steve I’m a leftie.” You are a Chinaman SOON. You tell the emperor what he wants to hear. Even if it means compromising your field of speciality. Any way the wind blows. Doesn’t really matter. Chinese networks have uniquely learnt how to create wealth, in almost all circumstances. But the downside is that they always tell the main source of power what they want to hear. Kind of admirable on a existential basis. But parasitical on others when it comes to the struggle for liberty.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 12:02 pm
No sorry THR. You are full of shit and a compulsive liar and its a fact of history that Stalin tipped the balance in both cases.
“Stalin had negligible influence in the US, except, of course, to McCarthyists with paranoid psychosis. In any event, Hitler obtained power through a legitimate election, not through US or Soviet interference. Mao was able to stage a revolution in spite of Stalin’s bungling, not because of it, and he certainly didn’t have the US urging him to do it.”
No you are full of shit mate. You are a known compulsive liar and an idiot. Again. It is a fact of history, that matters were in both cases, in the balance. And that Stalin tipped that balance in his favor. And why wouldn’t he?
When matters are in the balance IT DOES NOT TAKE a lot of influence to tip that balance. Stalin had a great deal of influence in the US and elsewhere. But it doesn’t TAKE a lot of influence.
Thats the whole point you fucking retard. If tipping the balance is the basis on which you operate you can exert massive effective power despite modest resources. Stalins resources were far from fucking modest. But it does not take much resources to tip a balance. Capiche.
Now obviously I’m explaining to third parties because THR is a cunt. A fucking disgraceful human being. A fucking moron. A pro-banker pig. And a compulsive liar.
It is a fact of history that Stalin tipped the balance in Hitlers favor. This must be emphasised. Its an unassailable fact of history. Without the communist vote, Hitler would not have won. Its fucking irrelevant whether the election was legitimate. I didn’t say it wasn’t you complete cunt THR. You are on the broken nose list you cunt. You have lied once too often.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 12:23 pm
THR at it again. To those following Catallaxy, bear in mind that THR is a compulsive liar, and he is going to keep on going with the compulsive lying regardless of whether he is talking to me or to CL or anyone else.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 12:34 pm
“The issue was Stalin’s influence in the US. What key decisions did Stalin pull the strings on?”
Everything. Everything in the latter Roosevelt years. Keelhaul. Dresden. The Normandy landing. The policy of unconditional surrender. The failure to make peace with the Japanese. Every fucking thing…….
Now stop lying about it you cunt.
Where did Britain pull the strings? In getting the US into the war in the first place. Setting up a British colony in Hollywood. Systematically discrediting the America-firsters. Propaganda about German war-aims. For fucksakes man. Roald Dahl was over there rooting rich sheilas for the crown. It was total subversion of the US decision-making process by the British and the Soviets both. Its not even anything to be fucking childish about you lying cunt. Subversion and the exercise of influence WORKS. We know that it works. Its pointless trying to make some sort of social fucking faux pas about it.
By: graemebird on July 8, 2010
at 12:39 pm
Bird, when you talk of the “Starvation blockade” you fail to mention that the German’s were attempting (less successfully) the same thing on Britian with their U-boats.
In a total war are you suggesting that we must fight with one hand behind our back?
By: Steve Edney on July 9, 2010
at 12:46 am
The whole point is that its not a one to one thing. Its a very strange idea that people have, when if you point out that if the superpower commits war crimes, then many terrible things can flow from that …… well simplistic people assume that you are running an excuse-making campaign on behalf of the people doing the terrible things. CL made that assumption, presumably because every palooka on Catallaxy was making the assumption. But if Catallaxy cannot muster the collective brain power to get beyond that level of stupidity, then CL ought not be hanging out there. Lest he be lead astray by boneheads all over again.
Until some dim light of understanding is perceived on Catallaxy, for what I would have assumed was a very basic point, then even posts like this one may be turned into a full-blown thread. I suppose we are going to have to go over it, and over it, and over it again until we come to grips with the basics.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 12:47 am
“Bird, when you talk of the “Starvation blockade” you fail to mention that the German’s were attempting (less successfully) the same thing on Britian with their U-boats.”
Not after the war was over they weren’t. The Germans may have kicked off the war. But they were also magnanimous enough to call it off unconditionally. Thinking, as it turned out wrongly, that the British leadership was civilized. You see the 19th century was so damn civilized that no-one would ever have thought of anything as monstrous as the starvation blockade. A terrible sign of things to come was the Boer war. And of course World War I was foreshadowed by the American civil war. But the Germans had every reason to believe that the British would act with some sort of magnanimity and human feeling.
But the Brits acted like monsters. The problem with hunger, just shy of famine, is that you cannot pin a death down to it. Because having been so weakened, people die from other causes. But it is thought that as many as 750 000 people died from this blockade.
You add to that the deaths under Keelhaul. Civilian Area bombing….
((((we won’t include honest attempts to target weapons manufacturing and/or fuel manufacturing that leads to accidental killing)))))
… And the hundreds of thousands, if not millions that died under the Morgenthau plan …. before human being Truman got abreast of matters …..
…. If you add that all up we have a total unjustified killing tally that really is disgraceful. Somewhat short of the Nazis and the Soviets yes. But in many ways more horrible and cowardly.
“In a total war are you suggesting that we must fight with one hand behind our back?”
We didn’t gain from any of this. The bombing campaign took up huge resources. The killing of our natural allies in Keelhaul, the starving of the German people, and the betrayal of the East Europeans, meant we didn’t have a robust confident anti-Soviet populace where we ought to have. You don’t think the Russians demoralized and controlled all those millions on their own do you? No we murdered them and demoralized the survivors.
Britain didn’t gain from aiding the mass-murderer. Immediately she lost Singapore with the diversion of resources necessary to take over Iran and give away all this aid that their own troops needed. She didn’t gain bombing civilians. Another diversion of resources.
Hitler didn’t gain with the war of extermination. Rather he lost his only chance of survival. The Germans didn’t gain with the holocaust. Rather that may have allowed people like Eisenhower to justify not resigning over Morgenthau and actually fucking implementing it for awhile. Making him a serious war criminal. No matter how good a President he wound up being later on.
You don’t gain from doing this sort of stuff. And even if you did gain a little bit. It still wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 1:02 am
“In a total war are you suggesting that we must fight with one hand behind our back?”
You ought never fight total war. You ought always fight the sort of war that Nelson, Wellington and Reagan fought. Total war means having all your power sunk in the field. Leaving no whoop-ass over to give steel to your diplomacy.
Total war is total from a resources-burnt-up point of view. A more comprehensive war focuses also on your non-military resources. Verbal and moral. Like what Reagan and Pope Paul mustered. Thats a more literal total war then so-called “total war”. Because its more comprehensive.
Reagan didn’t neglect the military component. Good Lord no. He fought proxy war wherever he could and comprehensively upgraded the American military whoop-ass.
Total war as traditionally fought, meant not having anything left over. Everything sunk in the field.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 1:10 am
The justification for total war came from notions of two armies clashing on a flat field. It really comes out of Napoleans field tactics and a sort of mathematical analogy.
Supposing if you have two armies clashing. Each mans firepower is the same. If you cluster all your men so they are concentrated ten to one against the enemy, you will slaughter their guys and most of your guys will make it home to their Mothers. This is because the firepower disparity will get larger and larger as each one of their guys falls. You can prove this mathematically but it would take me about half and hour to set up an example.
The answer to this from late 19th century theorists was to mobilize the entire population for war, try to avoid fighting on two fronts, and put a lot of emphasis on logistics, so the entire bulk of your army could wipe out the other guy in a series of clashes.
This was how Napolean worked early on. He had all his logistics worked out so that he could move people to the point of engagement very fast. A French soldier explained in a letter home that Bonaparte had developed a new type of war where none of the French soldiers got killed.
Thats where the thinking behind total war came from. But bear in mind that Napolean lost to an even more powerful type of war that Nelson and Wellington put forth. It is the Wellington/Reagan type of war that ought to be applied. And in most cases you will wind up with a negotiated and just peace.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 1:21 am
“The greatest pleasure in life is to crush your enemies and hear the lamentation of their women.”-Genghis Khan.
By: Genghis Sun on July 9, 2010
at 1:26 am
I’LL NOT HAVE STATEMENTS OF OUTRIGHT GENOCIDE SUPPORT AND FASCISM ON THIS BLOG MR SOON. IT IS VERY CHILLING HOW OFTEN YOU MAKE THESE STATEMENTS. AS BLOOD-CURDLING AS FINDING OUT THE DALI LAMA IS A MAOIST.
By: Genghis Sun on July 9, 2010
at 1:34 am
Well thats what he said. And young Conan too. Hitler went further then that and killed the lamenting women. Look where it got him? Lost his last chance of survival, since the first time the Germans rolled in they were greeted enthusiastically as liberators from Stalin. Bear in mind that Genghis was the greatest mass-murderer ever up until Stalin.
Also bear in mind that us helping Stalin got at least 50 million of your own people killed since Stalin went on to bring Mao to power, as well as influence the Americans to do likewise.
The further idiocy of Birdlab. What is the argument here?
“Here is a picture of people branded by the Winged Loon as “war criminals”:
http://knol.google.com/k/460-squadron-townsville-to-london# ”
Did these guys engage in area-bombing over civilian targets? Yes or No? If the answer is yes, then after that they are war criminals. Does Birdlab have an “out” for them? Blasting little German girls to pieces, on purpose and not as a sideline to a military target ….. This is not a war crime? Because of a group photo.
There are many complete fuckwits on Catallaxy. THR I find the most offensive. But none is so dense as Birdlab.
Its the case of the missing argument again.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 1:38 am
What I will call COMPREHENSIVE WAR, waged under just war theory, is far more effective than “total war” So its really a question of naivete and the cult of human sacrifice, versus military understanding and reason. Its not a close-run-thing.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 1:44 am
But it was millions of Jews, amongst others, who got killed because of the context that this nasty terrorist war-making set.
I know I’d have to keep re-wording that for the drooling seats but thats the fact of it. With what I’m calling “Comprehensive Just War” as opposed to “Total War” We would have been extraordinarily unfortunate not to have saved most of those people.
But of course we need to have a pre-existing temporary apartheid setup for absorbing and then dispersing refugees under the status of well-treated dhimmitude. These issues are living issues. We need to set up the scenario that might have gotten the Jews out alive. What we set up has to be in Australia’s interests and a low-risk prospect for Australia.
If there is some criminals out there that want genocide, those that don’t want to stay and fight ought to be able to leave to a sanctuary of sorts. All in the context of being in the incumbent Australian interest.
Nicholson Baker thinks that for the allied elites, he got the feeling during his research, that it may have been easier to declare war on Germany, then it was to accept all these refugees.
A little bit of thought about the issue will leave you realising, that as horrible as that is, its probably true. Now we cannot have this as a contemporary reality. We have to do something about it.
By: graemebird on July 9, 2010
at 4:45 am