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Thread: The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

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    Veteran Member Adina's Avatar
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    Default The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    I just finished watching Errol Morris's documentary, 'The Fog of War.' For those of you who do not know, it's a basically an extended interview with Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ during the Vietnam War. Pretty disturbing material, particularly in light of the conflict we are in now. I urge everyone to put aside the jingoistic, sensationalist shit the media feeds us, see the film, and form your own judgements.

    http://www.errolmorris.com/

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Quote Originally Posted by Adina link=board=1;threadid=10349;start=msg126096#msg126 096 date=1087882204
    I urge everyone to put aside the jingoistic, sensationalist shit the media feeds us, see the film, and form your own judgements.
    Amen to that!
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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pan Dah link=board=1;threadid=10349;start=msg126629#msg126 629 date=1087955921

    The blurb bemoans the bombing of Japan during World War II - I seem to have missed the part that mentions Pearl Harbor, Bataan or the Rape of Nanking.
    Two wrongs don't make a right. The Japanese showed unparalleled savagery during World War II, it is true, and they started the fight with us. But compare the figures of non-combatant lives lost in the bombing of Japan (the fire-bombing raids being far worse in toto than the atomic bombs dropped), and the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese, and you will see that the USA killed far more innocents than the Japanese, even if it seemed as though the latter were asking for it.

    Had I been Commander-in-Chief, I might well have approved these raids, and the similar raids on Germany--many of which were targeted specifically on civilians--which caused hundreds of thousands of casualties. But I wish to hell we hadn't done it. Killing women and children is not the way I believe war should be waged.

    I am tired of hearing the same old horseshit about how unpatriotic it is to bring it up. THAT is the worst kind of jingoistic propaganda, and is far more dangerous to what is perhaps greatest about this country--the fact that we have the ability to examine ourselves and our history objectively--than any supposed 'liberal' bias in the media.

    BTW, where is all that filthy liberal bias whenever we see anything about stripclubs in the news?





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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pan Dah link=board=1;threadid=10349;start=msg126880#msg126 880 date=1088006071
    Aw, Djoser, some day you may actually learn to respond to what was written, or at least clearly implied, in a post instead of throwing up yet another straw man (for which you were recently called on another related thread) to justify a rant of your choosing.
    Enlighten me, I don't recall being "called on" by anyone...

    You are saying you don't give a shit about civilians being burnt alive because they were 'on the wrong side', and sorry, I disagree.

    Yeah, I like reading John Leo and Bill O’Reilly better than the NYT or watching Peter Jennings, and you may have the opposite viewpoint, but the only thing proved by what any of them say is that they said it.
    Agreed. The media, whatever it's myriad displays of bias--both liberal and conservative--is largely full of shit. It would be nice if people, both 'conservative' and 'liberal', would actually crack a book and read a little, such as the history of World War II, and the wanton destruction of innocent human life it caused, without dismissing it as being OK if "they weren't on our side".

    I would claim an 18 year old kid pumping gas or a 14 year old studying for a math test on December 6, 1941 were both pretty innocent.
    Agreed. But they at least had a chance to shoot back, unlike the several hundred thousand infant children and mothers trying to save them in the firestorms created by bombing raids on Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, and other cities. This was outright butchery.

    Probably under the influence of über-feminist liberal Catherine MacKinnon <sp?> and her followers?
    Good call, except that she represents an extremist element amongst the &#039;liberal&#039; population, comparable to Jesse Helms position within the Republican Party.

    Nonetheless, you will find much more active opposition to stripclubs in the religious right elements attacking our civil liberties, than from what few radical feminists are taken seriously in the political arena or the media. I have yet to see news coverage on any television station, &#039;liberal&#039; or not, which didn&#039;t fail to cast aspersion on the strippers who were arrested as a part of this ongoing war for Family Values and Morality, largely being perpetrated by conservative elements.

    Pan Dah, the bottom line is, you don&#039;t seem to give a flying fuck that hundreds of thousands of people were killed in an extremely horrible and brutal fashion, because their leaders were refusing to stop fighting. Shut up already, we know the Japanese started the war, and they were brutal in it&#039;s execution. I would prefer that we hadn&#039;t responded in kind, with even greater destruction of non-combatant life. Babies being burnt alive by phosphorus incendiaries is no way to fight a war, as far as I am concerned.

    You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

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    George Clinton

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Djoser.

    I don&#039;t want to belittle anything that your saying with your views. I agree some shitty things happen in war. War brings out the worst in people, but also brings out the best.

    You mention cracking a book and reading what happened. I agree with that, but books to are feeding you with, as you put it, SHIT. Go and talk to the source. Talk to a veteran who were there, who stared down the man down his gun sight on the beaches of Normandy. Talk to the veteran who saw his friends getting shot down over Germany. Talk to the sailors who endured shitty conditions in the Pacific, fighting ship to ship battles. When you do sit down and talk with them, maybe just then you will understand a small glimps of what they went through, what their mentality was during that period, and what compelled them to fight for their country. To rely on books solely is ignorance within itself, as books only give you the information the author wants you to have.

    I have been researching my grandfathers bomb group from WWII, talked with many a veteran, and still am trying to find what drove most of those men. But to paint them as &#039;savages&#039; or &#039;cold hearted people&#039; as it seems your posts are, is not right at all.
    I&#039;ve heard that a good signiture sets you apart from everyone.
    Well......is this good enough???

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    So, I&#039;m guessing, Pan Dah, that you&#039;ve actually SEEN the film, right?

    For the record, McNamara doesn&#039;t "bemoans the bombing of Japan during World War II." He bemoans the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reasoning that the country had already been crippled by the firebombing of nearly all its major cities (27% of Japan&#039;s land mass was firebombed and leveled). This is an opinion shared by others, though both side to the argument have very valid and salient points. 27% of Japan&#039;s land mass was firebombed and totally destroyed. As far as " the part that mentions Pearl Harbor, Bataan or the Rape of Nanking" there is plenty of scholarship out there that is devoted to those incidents. Fog of War is an interview with Robert McNamara about his life and experiences and such a discussion is beyond the scope of the film.

    It&#039;s funny, Panda, that you revert to discussions about World War II when the gist of my post was clearly the situation in Iraq and the so-called "War on Terrorism." World War II happened sixty years ago - honarable as our actions were, it does not compenate for or excuse our present actions. I prefer to live in the here and now and my concern is the future, not the past.

    My "is history repeating itself" comment relates to the present situation in Iraq, and how struck I was by the mirroring of what happened in Vietnam. I don&#039;t know about you, but I&#039;m a little angry that, despite the fact that there was no missile attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, despite the fact that JFK, LBJ and McNamara tacitly admitted that we were losing the war in their private conversations (as you will hear when you see the film) they continued to put on a cheerful facade to the media and American public of progress being made in the name of "democracy"...sounds a little too familiar. And then they sent more than 50,000 of our men to their deaths, and 300,000 plus to be injured, including my father, who is a parapalegic as a result of action he sustained in combat in Vietnam. Interesting to note, also, that more Vietnam vets have committed suicide since the end of the war than all the men who were killed in combat there. I AM patriotic - and I don&#039;t want our boys and men sent off like sacrificial lambs yet again.

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pan Dah link=board=1;threadid=10349;start=msg126629#msg126 629 date=1087955921
    It seems what you really mean is "I urge everyone to put aside the media presentations I don&#039;t agree with and form your opinions based on the ones I do agree with."
    No, what she said was that she urged everyone to "form your own judgements."

    Shortly before completely distorting what Adina had to say, you trashed The Fog of War because the box blurb wasn&#039;t politically correct enough to say that--even though McNamara had nothing whatsoever to do with Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, or the Rape of Nanking--these were really, really horrible crimes which justified several hundred thousand more civilian deaths than all three atrocities combined.

    Even though the movie is concerned in large part with McNamara&#039;s involvement with strategic bombing--during which civilians are unfortunately so often killed in large numbers, how dare the designers of the packaging fail to make sure we all remember that the Japanese were way, way worse than we ever were, so deserved everything they got, and possibly more?

    I refuse to feel guilty or run around wearing a hair shirt because they happened.
    But apparently we who feel that other atrocities than those perpetrated by the Japanese should have their own, independent studies should be donning hair shirts.

    Why is killing 100,000 young men moral, but killing 100,000 old men, young women, or children immoral?
    It&#039;s not moral, but at least they had, quite literally, a fighting chance. The toddlers were no threat to anyone but their diapers.

    Finally, the ultimate liberal debating tactic surfaces…
    That&#039;s right, only liberals ever display any shred of rudeness, intolerance, or bad judgement. You know, maybe I was rude to ask you to shut up about Japan, already--but a hell of a lot less rude than you were to Adina.

    ...throwing up yet another straw man (for which you were recently called on...
    The only ones I hear screaming the word "unpatriotic" are the anti-war protesters who are saying that Bush is calling them that.
    How about the best seller (among many other similar titles at your local Waldens Bookstore) by Ann Coulter? It&#039;s called "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism", according to which I am probably not only unpatriotic, but a fucking TRAITOR to boot, though I have never even considered myself to be a &#039;liberal&#039;. I am really someone who is skeptical of the PR blitz by Bush, et al, created to justify a very bad war--which just happens to be very profitable to a lot of his close supporters.

    Which brings us to the assertion of Samart, "But to paint them as &#039;savages&#039; or &#039;cold hearted people&#039; as it seems your posts are, is not right at all."

    Of course that would not be right. If I had been at Bloody Ridge on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or any of the other places that US servicemen were getting their balls blown off, I would probably personally volunteered to drop as many A-bombs as were available on Japan. But I would hope someone would have stopped me.

    One of my good friends in Daytona was a former tough from the US 1st Marine Division, who was on Guadalcanal. Though I often entreated him to tell me about his experience there, he wouldn&#039;t--it was too horrible. He now feels that wars are started by old men in power, for their own benefit, and that young men die as a result of this.

    The guy I would most love to talk to about his war experience would be Ron Kovik, who was paralyzed while voluntarily fighting another bad war, as he initially thought for his country. He has become an anti-war activist, and a traitor, according to Coulter.

    The veteran--and president--I most admire is Dwight D. Eisenhower, who I have quoted before, and Adina has elsewhere. A Republican, I might add, and therefore presumeably not warped by evil &#039;liberal&#039; media bias.

    He tried to warn us--unsucessfully it seems--about a danger which is, like terrorism, insidious and very real.

    The military/industrial complex.






    You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
    George Clinton

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Djoser~

    Yeah, it&#039;s shitty that innocent civillians die in war. But it&#039;s hardly anything new. Hell, go back to the wars the friggin cavemen fought and you&#039;ll find it there, even.

    Dr. Jane Goodall once filmed a documentary on chimpanzees (It&#039;s name escapes me, but i saw it in Omnimax format, so that might be a clue) that actually featured two rival clans going to war against one another, it was absolutly brutal. The victors literally wiped the losing clan out to the last little chimpling...

    It sucks, but i have a feeling it&#039;s wired in, a part of humanity&#039;s evolutionary past that exists still from a time before we were human.

    After all, we have paleolithic brains in a 21st century world.

    Just a thought.


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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Quote Originally Posted by Madcap link=board=1;threadid=10349;start=msg127305#msg127 305 date=1088064555

    After all, we have paleolithic brains in a 21st century world.
    Quite possibly the single most intelligent statement posted on any of these various political threads for the last week, at least.
    You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
    George Clinton

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Well at least now I understand why so many people say we need more women as leaders in government...
    I agree completely ! Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir etc. definitely had the right idea.

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Ann Coultier, however, is the demon-spawn...

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    I would agree that I would hope someone would stop me from pushing the button for the Bomb. However, when you see the carnage, the bloodshed, the death.........IMO it was the best choice.

    Lets put forward that the bomb wasn&#039;t dropped. We setup in the Pacific for another great invasion, probably one that would surpass the invasion of Fortress Europe. We begin the invasion of Japan in the southern part of the country. Resistance is greater then anticipated, so heavier shore bombardment is done. However, losses are higher. So we start to bring in more paratroopers for behind enemy lines drop. Losses are higher then D-Day. We continue on this cycle until the island has been taken. Now the bloodshed on both sides is in the Millions.

    I know my &#039;what if&#039; scenario isn&#039;t all that detailed, but you get the picture. As horrible as it was, as much death as it did inflict, lives were saved on that day, because the bomb was dropped. I can say that one of my family friends survived because of the drop, as he was slated to be on the invasion force for Japan.

    Just my 2 cents.........
    I&#039;ve heard that a good signiture sets you apart from everyone.
    Well......is this good enough???

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Sorry samart,


    &#039;What if", "Might have been", "Could have", "Should have", and "Would have" all amount to "Isn&#039;t"

    get my drift?

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    You are saying you don&#039;t give a shit about civilians being burnt alive because they were &#039;on the wrong side&#039;, and sorry, I disagree.
    How nice that your concept of warfare is so sanitized and sterile as to suggest that a natural aversion to civilian casualties is more humane and pragmatic in the prosecution of war.

    On the contrary, when involved in unlimited, total warfare, the key to reducing both military and civilian casualties and bringing a swifter end to conflict is to radically intensify the violence. In this way, you achieve the goal of warfare--that is, to make your enemy lose the will and the means to resist. Granted, directing violence at the means of resistance is ideal, but it&#039;s a fuzzy concept to implement in practice with complete efficacy.

    The fact that 27% of Japan was incinerated and there were more civilian deaths from those firebombings isn&#039;t the issue; it&#039;s that when atomic weaponry was used, the will to resist--and therefore the war--effectively ended.

    Two cents.
    Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

    William F. Buckley, Jr.

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Quote Originally Posted by Casual Observer link=board=1;threadid=10349;start=msg128226#msg128 226 date=1088202466
    You are saying you don&#039;t give a shit about civilians being burnt alive because they were &#039;on the wrong side&#039;, and sorry, I disagree.
    How nice that your concept of warfare is so sanitized and sterile as to suggest that a natural aversion to civilian casualties is more humane and pragmatic in the prosecution of war.

    On the contrary, when involved in unlimited, total warfare, the key to reducing both military and civilian casualties and bringing a swifter end to conflict is to radically intensify the violence. In this way, you achieve the goal of warfare--that is, to make your enemy lose the will and the means to resist. Granted, directing violence at the means of resistance is ideal, but it&#039;s a fuzzy concept to implement in practice with complete efficacy.

    The fact that 27% of Japan was incinerated and there were more civilian deaths from those firebombings isn&#039;t the issue; it&#039;s that when atomic weaponry was used, the will to resist--and therefore the war--effectively ended.

    Two cents.
    In a perfect world...

    I see what they are saying, I wish it was the case. Wish in one hand and shit in the other, what gets filled up first?

    They have their hearts in the right place, though.

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    I used to vigorously defend the dropping of the atomic bombs, until I read more than just purely military history. My research into the destruction of Dresden and Hamburg, particularly the use of phosphorus, led me to rethink my views concerning the strategic bombing effort--and as an extension of this process, the need to create the precedent for the use of atomic weapons against civilians.

    Now I am not so sure it was necessary, especially if we had been patient. Since Japan had no industry left, no oil to fuel what few ships or aircraft they had left, and no way to hurt us if we stayed out of Kamikaze range, we could have won the war without killing a couple hundred thousand people more.

    On the other hand, we wanted to END the damned war already--and the proposed inveasion of Japan was expected to produce one MILLION US casualties, and many more times that among the Japanese.

    I still don&#039;t get all that riled up about the atomic bombs being used; the man in charge felt it was the best choice, and the Japanese had demonstrated through their Kamikaze attacks--causing far more loss of life than Pearl Harbor--and the civilian suicides on Okinawa, that they still had plenty of fight left, whether they had lost the war or not.

    But the fire bombing raids were not only more horrific in terms of casualties, they caused more human suffering. They also actually increased the Japanese will to resist, to some extent.

    In "A Glorious Way to Die", an excellent book about the last mission of the Yamato, this is made abundantly clear. The crew were eager and willing to sacrifice themselves and the largest battleship ever built, for a chance to hit back at those who were burning their wives and children alive (One interesting bit of information revealed in this book---the Yamato actually DID have enough fuel to get back--not that they ever would have made it. But those who ordered the mission weren&#039;t aware of this).

    I have read far more books about the US Navy and the horrific casualties (especially the burn wounds so common in naval warfare)caused by fighting the IJN and the Kamikaze raids.

    Well, guess what? I am glad we won the war. And if we had to drop the fucking atomic bomb, so be it. But, sorry, I still can&#039;t be complaisant about women and children being slaughtered.

    And to scream bloody murder about someone saying this is regrettable, and accuse them of being intolerant, as the respondent to Adina&#039;s post did, merely because a video package failed to document every atrocity the Japanese instigated--though the subject of the film had nothing to do with this--is not only the height of ignorance, but rude as well.

    How nice that your concept of warfare is so sanitized and sterile as to suggest that a natural aversion to civilian casualties is more humane and pragmatic in the prosecution of war.
    Do I detect sarcasm?

    The Mongols, having no need for cities or subservient populations sharing the grazing lands they had conquered, generally just killed them all. While I admire their efficiency, I cannot condone their moral view of warfare. I could write all night about how war creates similar disdain for human life and suffering amongst those doing the fighting.

    I would prefer that my country abstained from using phosphorus against purely civilian targets, and I suggest that it might backfire and cause deeper resolve and opposition amongst the relatives and armed forces of the targeted nation. Obviously the bombs we dropped in Vietnam (more than in all of WWII) failed "to make your enemy lose the will and the means to resist."





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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    My research into the destruction of Dresden and Hamburg, particularly the use of phosphorus, led me to rethink my views concerning the strategic bombing effort--and as an extension of this process, the need to create the precedent for the use of atomic weapons against civilians.

    Now I am not so sure it was necessary, especially if we had been patient. Since Japan had no industry left, no oil to fuel what few ships or aircraft they had left, and no way to hurt us if we stayed out of Kamikaze range, we could have won the war without killing a couple hundred thousand people more.
    Ironically, I agree completely. Wasting Dresden served no strategic purpose; it was British Air Arthur Harris who decided to give the Germans a taste of what London had three years before. It was a waste of manpower and resources and didn&#039;t impact the end of the war in Europe.

    Truman didn&#039;t even know about the Manhattan Project when he came into office, and frankly, we didn&#039;t need to use it to win. The Russians were going to join in against the Japanese and they would have taken some of the hits. But we wanted to show the Russians that we had this new weapon (which they already knew from espionage that lasted into the late 1950s) and we wanted to test it in a combat environment. More importantly, we wanted Japan to surrender BEFORE the Russians would occupy their territory, knowing they were going to be the enemy soon. So we used it. There was simply a lot more going on than just the US fighting Japan.

    But it did in fact, accelerate the end of the war, because if the Japanese themselves had some will to resist in late 1945, they had fewer means with which to do so.

    Obviously the bombs we dropped in Vietnam (more than in all of WWII) failed "to make your enemy lose the will and the means to resist."
    True. Strategic bombing alone has never been a singularly decisive means of bringing an enemy to surrender.

    Because unlike in WWII, the US was fighting a limited war, and the NVA were fighting an unlimited war. Therein lies the difference, political overtones aside.

    If I am willing to do anything to win, but my opponent is not, then I will eventually win and he will lose because there is no limit to what violence I&#039;m willing to inflict or how severe my losses are. This was General Giap&#039;s strategy--it was the only one they could have, given their situation.

    Two more cents.
    Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

    William F. Buckley, Jr.

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    Default Re:The Fog of War...is history repeating itself?

    Good point that there was considerable motivation to use the A-bombs as a demonstration of force to the Russians as well as the Japanese.

    Our glorious allies (never mind the fact that Stalin killed more of his own people than Hitler killed Germans) had actually worked out an unspoken agreement with the Japanese not to fight each other. This enabled Stalin to avoid losing the war in fall of 1941, when he stripped the frontier (with Japanese forces) of his crack Siberian divisions. These were barely able to halt the Germans, who came within miles of the Kremlin, and the brutal winter fighting left Hitler able to mount serious attacks the following summer.

    But things had changed considerably by 1945. Thanks to our mobilization of the Russian Army, who drove to war in Ford trucks, they were in a position to dominate half (almost more) of Europe, and had their eyes on East as well.

    Though the Japanese Army was largely intact (they opposed us mostly with naval and air forces, there being little room to deploy ground troops on islands, and little means to transport them there) in China and on the home islands, they were no match for the Russians.

    There is still considerable debate concerning the need for the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese. But not much in my mind that deliberately targeting civilians is reprehensible.
    You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
    George Clinton

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  4. Fog of War
    By madgrad in forum Political Poo
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 01-03-2005, 07:25 AM

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