North Korea…..what do we do?

That almost worked. But…no. How many of those “invasions” have been legal actions under a UN mandate or as a result of an international agreement such as NATO? How many times has the US acted in response to allied requests for assitance?

Yes, legal under the US influenced UN, or US controlled NATO… how about using that to say the Soviets had a clean sheet of paper… their invasions were all legal under either UN or Warsaw Pact rules? Since when did NATO become an international organisation able to legitimise attacks on soverign nations?
If the Soviets wanted to conquer Eastern Europe it could easily have dissolved borders and displaced locals and Sovietised every country. Look at a map of Europe from just before WWI… how many countries do you recognise? Why didn’t they rewrite it again if they were merely after territory.

Regarding the US, they started late in the Imperial game but they certainly started…

Seems to me you’re condemning or blaming the Japanese culture.

So describing a negative feature of a culture condemns that culture? No wonder the Yanks hate me… I’ve been condemning them all this time…

Perhaps English is not your first language so I’ll be especially clear. If I said all Japanese people were evil because of their culture, that would be condemnation.

In fact if we look at the difference between the Nazis and the German people… you had on the one hand the average German that just kept their nose clean and didn’t actively support the Nazis, though nor did they actively work against the Nazis. They benefitted from the good times the Nazis initially brought to Germany and probably got a share of the wealth that was created, but then also shared in the punnishment that was inflicted on Germany during and after the war.
Now some blame all germans for the war (some blame the west for the harsh terms in WWI creating WWII), while others blame the Nazis for WWII and the depths of inhumanity that that war revealed.
Personally I blame the Nazis for the atrocities they committed and the war they started. I can accept that there are many Germans that either opposed what the nazis were doing or took no action to help them do what they tried to do. I don’t blame them. There were plenty of German army units that didn’t act like animals, or treat those they occupied like cattle. There was a racial agenda the Nazi Government wanted to spread, but apart from the SS units many German soldiers didn’t follow such things.
In the Pacific war however it was a generally held belief amongst all Japanese that they were somehow superior to other asians, and even the Russians… this is of course a mine field. The Japanese respected the west and the Europeans and seem to have decided that the Europeans were who they could learn from. It wasn’t the Japanese alone that defeated the Russians at Port Arthur. It was tactics and training learned from the Germans that defeated the Russians in 1905.
The invasion of China by Japan was an initial part of a plan to grab land and resources. Siberia was largely unpopulated but even in the mid 20th century known to hold vast resources or wood and minerals. It was a sound drubbing at the hands of Zhukov in Mongolia/Chinese border plus the revelation of the Molotov pact between the Soviets and the Germans that made the Japanese look south for the resources they craved. The Japanese deciding to use Germany but to never trust her after hearing of the pact they made with the Soviets.

As did the European imperialists. 😀

D’oh! The Romans were European imperialists. :rolleyes:

We could always keep count of the Godwins, I suppose………

Exactly

Now how many nations has the US invaded with the intent of conquering them? North Korea?

Cheaper to rule via proxies.

How many times has the US acted in response to allied requests for assitance?

Cheaper to rule via proxies. :p

A US chap started this topic. It seems the common denominator in most conflicts these days is the US.

My quote..You shoulda quoted it too in your answer :diablo:

I didn’t realise you were appointed the independent judge. In fact I didn’t realise this discussion was a contest.

Everything is a pissing contest in the end Darling 😀

I think we should take the 30 000 nukes owned by Russia and the US and share them out at the UN. 😉

You can’t pin that particular “innovation” on the Neocons, me old mucker.

The Romans knew that one! 🙂

As did the European imperialists. 😀

Where do I condemn their culture?

See post 114…I’ll quote it for you..
“The treatment of prisoners however was not a government order thing, but a Japanese cultural thing. They considered themselves superior to their neighbours and treated other asians much the same way the Nazis treat the slavs and the gypsies. Their government helped cultivate this belief in personal superiority and seperateness, but was not the originator of such beliefs.”

Seems to me you’re condemning or blaming the Japanese culture.

You don’t even need your soilders on the ground to rule, there are plenty of natives who would gladly be a puppet leader for you, and they can command local soilders to keep things running the way you like it.

You can’t pin that particular “innovation” on the Neocons, me old mucker.

The Romans knew that one! 🙂

How many times has the US acted in response to allied requests for assitance?

And how many times have the US irgnored allied requests for aid when it suited it to do so?

Now how many nations has the US invaded with the intent of conquering them? North Korea?

Come on, thats old-fashioned thinking mate, and I think you know it. The provailing opinion for Neocons these days is that you no longer needed to have your flag planted on a patch of land to effectively rule it. You don’t even need your soilders on the ground to rule, there are plenty of natives who would gladly be a puppet leader for you, and they can command local soilders to keep things running the way you like it.

These days, Empires rule via proxies and they wage war in the name of values and beliefs. And in the event that values and beleifs are not strong enough an incentive to convince the masses, they demonise their foes, so that they can say that they attack to ‘protect’ themselves from possible future attack. Just to be doublely safe, its best to also make the people think that the ‘hostile leaders’ are unpredictable berzerkers so that you don’t even need to prove that the ‘foe’ is prepairing to attack, after all, a crazy nut might go bonkers without warning at any time, so its better to be safe rather then sorry.

I didn’t realise anyone was keeping score, either. :confused:

We could always keep count of the Godwins, I suppose……… :diablo:

So after a careful reading, I think Gary wins.

I didn’t realise you were appointed the independent judge. In fact I didn’t realise this discussion was a contest. :p

I see Japan isn’t satisfied with the UN resolution (who can blame them), so they’re considering imposing other sanctions like a block on money transfers and bilateral trade.

At the end of the day…how many countries has North Korea invaded?.. The US?

That almost worked. But…no. How many of those “invasions” have been legal actions under a UN mandate or as a result of an international agreement such as NATO? How many times has the US acted in response to allied requests for assitance?

Now how many nations has the US invaded with the intent of conquering them? North Korea?

At the end of the day…how many countries has North Korea invaded?.. The US? :diablo:

A US chap started this topic. It seems the common denominator in most conflicts these days is the US. :dev2:

So after a careful reading, I think Gary wins.

I’m just disappointed Sferrin didn’t poke his head in more often. Generally does when Gary is around. Have you two met?

I think it is a little like having a steroid cheat at the Olympics. Perhaps we should all have nukes…it is going to end up like that anyhow. Just a teensy little bit of thought would reveal that something cannot be un-invented. Indeed, it seems once a nation has nukes it is safe from a round of light-hearted bombing.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others!! 😀

Neither you nor I mentioned the lovely islands of New Zealand…
I was simply quoting you.

The piece you quoted was just an example used to shift blame…ie I wasn’t a nazi… I was only following orders.

What I was trying to say is what you said, that you blame the Japanese culture for a lot of the attrocities Japan committed in WWII…while not blaming the European culture for the things the UK, Commonwealth, USA, USSR did in the war.

Japanese attitudes to prisoners of war were not government regulated. It wasn’t just the culture of the armed forces at work that allowed civilian Japanese scientists to infect 500 prisoners with anthrax and then butcher 3-5 people per day every day to follow and record how the anthrax spread and killed its victim. There were never any survivers. Anyone who survived what they were infected with was butchered to determine why they didn’t die. Don’t remember such things happening in Britain, or the US, or for that matter the Soviet Union. The soviets also had a very low opinion of prisoners and treated their own prisoners as being turned (ie collaborators) when they returned. They didn’t perform such experiements on them however, though like the Americans they did release the cold virus and study how it spread through (their own) major cities to determine how many doctors would be needed and how much medicine etc etc.

I’m not willing to go as far as you in condeming the culture.

Where do I condemn their culture?

Also, I’m not aware of any Japanese war criminals coming to the US.

Yeah, like the KLA said in Kosovo… they have no criminals… you don’t have criminals where there is no law. There were no Japanese war criminals because there was no Nuerenberg like trial for Japan. The US was keen to get the records the Japanese kept of the diseases they tested for potential use as biological weapons against the Soviets. Hense instead of trying the criminals, they offered a nice house in the US and a well paying job if they surrendered and didn’t destroy their notes (ie the evidence).

We did welcome German rocket scientists (some of which were former Nazis)…but any significant number of Japanese coming to the US is news to me.

Yes, of course, Werner Von Braun was happy to admit he was a nazi. He was too important to put in a cell. The US also thought those japanese scientists would be very useful too… even more so… imagine a plague that would only kill your enemy…
You think the US department of defence would announce to the world about the work they put these guys to?

The treatment of prisoners however was not a government order thing, but a Japanese cultural thing. They considered themselves superior to their neighbours and treated other asians much the same way the Nazis treat the slavs and the gypsies. Their government helped cultivate this belief in personal superiority and seperateness, but was not the originator of such beliefs.

Put it this way. Two men in Britain butchered a woman (one was her brother and the other was her cousin) in front of her own children and her family. It was an honour killing because she had fallen in love with an Afghan. Shall we blame the country she lives in and its government, or the culture and religion of the family that deems the murder of your own family as less shameful than a daughter marrying someone of a different culture?

Of course the British people and the American people and the Soviet people are responsible for the respective bombings of germany. Who do you think fund their respective armed forces?

If you can find where I stated that the Japanese race started WWII please quote it here.

The attrocities of Nazi Germany are well documented, and were punnished at the nurenberg trials where possible. Those that escaped that little bit of theatre were hunted down, largely by the Israelis, but many governments helped. Where were the same trials for the many attrocities in the Japanese front. All those asian people killed, all those allied prisoners killed, those experiments performed on living people. The purpetrators not only got off free, but often got houses and jobs in the US. No wonder the Japanese like to suggest to anyone who will listen that they didn’t do anything wrong…

I minor correction.. I did not mean to imply Japan started WWII, though it certainly did for the USA…Pearl Harbour, etc. What I was trying to say is what you said, that you blame the Japanese culture for a lot of the attrocities Japan committed in WWII…while not blaming the European culture for the things the UK, Commonwealth, USA, USSR did in the war. In other worlds, “our” culture is clean, our people are basically good…”their” culture produces blodythirty…or at least cruel people. Sorry I don’t buy it. And I don’t think you’d buy a blanket statement if I made it about certain other countries.

While I will agree that Japan…and a lot of the rest of the world…(see what’s happening in the Mid East) have a different outlook on life and perhaps the value of life than the west (how else do you explain Kamikazes and suicide bombers?)…I’m not willing to go as far as you in condeming the culture.
I’ve lived in Japan, and known a lot of Japanese, my experience and education won’t allow me to back up your assertions.

Also, I’m not aware of any Japanese war criminals coming to the US.
We did welcome German rocket scientists (some of which were former Nazis)…but any significant number of Japanese coming to the US is news to me.

Neither you nor I mentioned the lovely islands of New Zealand…
I was simply quoting you.
I’ve underlined your exact quote:

What is so hard to stomach? It wasn’t my fault… it was my goverments policy to treat the populations of the countries we occupied like cattle. It was government and Army and Navy and Airforce policy… .

Hope this helps…

You’re applying different standards to your country and Japan.

Again. Where did I mention New Zealand?

So let me see if I understand your logic…it’s your county’s GOVERNMENT fault if it does something bad. But it’s Japanese culture (i.e. people, hertiage, beliefs, religions…all the things that make up culture) and not the governments fault if Japan does something bad in war.

The Japanese government is responsible for sending its forces overseas to aquire territory and resources. It is the Japanese governments responsibility for declaring war and acts of war against those countries it fought in WWII.

The treatment of prisoners however was not a government order thing, but a Japanese cultural thing. They considered themselves superior to their neighbours and treated other asians much the same way the Nazis treat the slavs and the gypsies. Their government helped cultivate this belief in personal superiority and seperateness, but was not the originator of such beliefs.

Put it this way. Two men in Britain butchered a woman (one was her brother and the other was her cousin) in front of her own children and her family. It was an honour killing because she had fallen in love with an Afghan. Shall we blame the country she lives in and its government, or the culture and religion of the family that deems the murder of your own family as less shameful than a daughter marrying someone of a different culture?

If so…. hate to tell you…but it sounds like you’re a racist.

Of course the British people and the American people and the Soviet people are responsible for the respective bombings of germany. Who do you think fund their respective armed forces? Do you think the people of London were crying to hear of germans dying in Dresden? Do you think those that lived through the 900 day siege of Leningrad care that Berlin was firebombed too. If you asked them I am sure they will ask that it be done to every German city.

In otrher words…it was the UK governments fault for Dresden..the US government’s fault for bombing Japan…but not the fault of the Anglo Saxon people/race. But it is the fault of the Japanese race for WWII?

If you can find where I stated that the Japanese race started WWII please quote it here.

The attrocities of Nazi Germany are well documented, and were punnished at the nurenberg trials where possible. Those that escaped that little bit of theatre were hunted down, largely by the Israelis, but many governments helped. Where were the same trials for the many attrocities in the Japanese front. All those asian people killed, all those allied prisoners killed, those experiments performed on living people. The purpetrators not only got off free, but often got houses and jobs in the US. No wonder the Japanese like to suggest to anyone who will listen that they didn’t do anything wrong…

It is enough to say that most people in SK probably prefer a NK with nukes than a Japan with nukes.

What to do?

Get the “mighty” USAF to dump tons after tons of bombs and napalm on the DPRK, that should satisfy the Pentagon and perhaps the wetdreams of those bomb-obsessed individuals in the US of A.

Yes, it was (and remains) mighty. Thanks for noticing. 😀
By the way, the Pentagon…nor many Americans are calling for a strike against N. Korea.
Park the propaganda. Vietnam was over before you were born..give it a rest.

What is so hard to stomach? It wasn’t my fault… it was my goverments policy to treat the populations of the countries we occupied like cattle. It was government and Army and Navy and Airforce policy… it was Japanese culture to treat prisoners like slaves. It was was Japanese culture that made it OK to perform experiements on prisoners with biological and chemical weapons. It was Japanese culture that made comfort girls an acceptible solution to make the troops on distant islands happier.

Emphasis added

So let me see if I understand your logic…it’s your county’s GOVERNMENT fault if it does something bad. But it’s Japanese culture (i.e. people, hertiage, beliefs, religions…all the things that make up culture) and not the governments fault if Japan does something bad in war.

In otrher words…it was the UK governments fault for Dresden..the US government’s fault for bombing Japan…but not the fault of the Anglo Saxon people/race. But it is the fault of the Japanese race for WWII?

Did I get that straight?

If so…. hate to tell you…but it sounds like you’re a racist. Moderators…note the qualifying word “sounds”..I’m not name calling…
You’re applying different standards to your country and Japan.

[QUOTE=Gollevainen]I’d said they have done suprisingly well considering the US criminal embargo over them…

[QUOTE]

What’s criminal about choosing not to do business with a government you oppose and a government that has ben hostile to yours?

The UN has impsed sanctions against a number of countries over the years.
Why is it when the US does it it’s “criminal”?

And if they hate the US so much…why do they want to trade with the US?
Aren’t they getting what they need from the EU, Canada and Latin America?
Probably because they don’t want American products…they just want American dollars to help their trade with other countries.