Letters From Iwo Jima on AMC tonight

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I don't remember the kid surviving. I thought he ended up getting shot defending the body of the General...?

I dunno. It's been a while since I've seen it.

-f-

Watched the second showing the other night (only time I've seen it). The kid dragged the generals body away from the scene and buried it (unseen by the audience). He staggered back to the scene of the death dragging the shovel, captured by two American Marines. There was a whole squad around him when he noticed the generals pistol tucked in the belt of one Marine. He went half berserk and began swinging the shovel around trying to kill first that Marine then anybody who tried to take him down. The officer or sergeant who was in charge (I didn't catch that) ordered that no one shoot him. Finally one of the Marines managed to butt stroke him over the back of the head. There was an ending sequence with him lying on a stretcher next to American wounded, as they lifted someone away from one side he was able to turn his set and look out over the ocean at the setting sun (just above the horizon).

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: Snowman999

ORIGINAL: Feltan

I somewhat agree with your opinion too, to a point.

Every nation has miscreants in their population, and every nation has had dark chapters. I think that is a given.

However, I also think it is intellectually lazy to say everything is relative. It isn't. When one country's policy is to mistreat POW's and slaughter civilians and offend the norms of civilized behavior measured by the peer nations at the time -- I have no problem calling them evil.

Regards,
Feltan

I have a problem with the word "evil", but that's just me. I don't believe in B/W choices and that word lends itself to those. I usually talk about ethics rather than morals, and ethics are a spectrum.

That said, were the Allies more ethical? Probably, but marginally. We didn't do death marches, but our side definately mistreated POWs. Much eyewitness and oral testimony from the Pacific War that prisoners were shot or not allowed to surrender. Did we do "Nankings"? No, but we did Tokyos, and Dresdens and Colognes and Hiroshimas. Wholesale civilain deaths rather than one-ers after a gang rape, but just as dead. For that matter the US and UK allied with Uncle Joe, and the Red Army DID do Nankings, especially to Berlin. War changed in WWII from WWI norms, and civilians were fair game for area bombing and fire bombing; the Japanese and Germans may have started it, but we finished it.

I spent a good portion of my twenties training every day to kill between 30 and 50 million civilians in an afternoon, and it wasn't much commented on as "bad." Just strategy. We were always told we'd only slaughter after the other guy started it, but we were sure going to slaughter. And the other guys in their boomers were told the exact same thing about us.

It's all relative.

During WWII, the bombing of cities was an accepted practice. If you try and look back in history from 2008, virtually every combatant falls short of today's ethical standards. Looking back with modern sensibilities isn't a particularly productive exercise. Rather, the standards at the time (as well as today) were breached at Nanking and in the aftermath of Berlin; while no one at the time was particularly outraged over the accepted practice of fire bombing cities.

I maintain things, things of good and evil, are not relative. Perhaps the training you underwent, by necessity, dulled your ability to discern between the two. No disrespect intended -- but if your role in life was to launch nukes, you have to somehow prepare yourself to press that big red button.

Regards,
Feltan

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: Snowman999

ORIGINAL: Feltan

I somewhat agree with your opinion too, to a point.

Every nation has miscreants in their population, and every nation has had dark chapters. I think that is a given.

However, I also think it is intellectually lazy to say everything is relative. It isn't. When one country's policy is to mistreat POW's and slaughter civilians and offend the norms of civilized behavior measured by the peer nations at the time -- I have no problem calling them evil.

Regards,
Feltan

I have a problem with the word "evil", but that's just me. I don't believe in B/W choices and that word lends itself to those. I usually talk about ethics rather than morals, and ethics are a spectrum.

That said, were the Allies more ethical? Probably, but marginally. We didn't do death marches, but our side definately mistreated POWs. Much eyewitness and oral testimony from the Pacific War that prisoners were shot or not allowed to surrender. Did we do "Nankings"? No, but we did Tokyos, and Dresdens and Colognes and Hiroshimas. Wholesale civilain deaths rather than one-ers after a gang rape, but just as dead. For that matter the US and UK allied with Uncle Joe, and the Red Army DID do Nankings, especially to Berlin. War changed in WWII from WWI norms, and civilians were fair game for area bombing and fire bombing; the Japanese and Germans may have started it, but we finished it.

I spent a good portion of my twenties training every day to kill between 30 and 50 million civilians in an afternoon, and it wasn't much commented on as "bad." Just strategy. We were always told we'd only slaughter after the other guy started it, but we were sure going to slaughter. And the other guys in their boomers were told the exact same thing about us.

It's all relative.

Morality is the mother of ethics, not the other way around. 'Total War' is just that...TOTAL. You have to look at a nation's, a people's, morality, culture and behavior outside of (or just prior to) conflict before you can judge conduct in a 'TOTAL WAR'. It was the lack of morality/ethics of the Japanese that resulted in the Death March and atrocities prior to and continuing thoughout the war. It was there before the war began. It rapidly revealed itself with the war against China. The behavior continued throughout the war uninterupted. Contrast that against the Allies. No intention of world domination and slavery prior to (or even after) the war. But to win against this type of enemy, you have to 'fight fire with fire'. And you reach a certain point, that you cannot judge ethical behavior anymore. You can't appease with one hand and fight with the other. We have found out too many times since that this doesn't work, but we keep trying...


TOMLABEL

[Mynok]

War is evil, period. It can certainly and has certainly been necessary for the greater good, but there is no good in the effective and efficient execution of it. That is just the reality of such things. Whatever will end the carnage as quickly as possible seems the appropriate action, no matter what the cost.

JMHO.

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


War is evil, period. It can certainly and has certainly been necessary for the greater good, but there is no good in the effective and efficient execution of it. That is just the reality of such things. Whatever will end the carnage as quickly as possible seems the appropriate action, no matter what the cost.

JMHO.

Totally agreed.

TOMLABEL

[witpqs]

Tom,

It wasn't a lack of morality and/or ethics that resulted in those atrocities. They had ethics and morals. While some of those ethics and morals were violated, the greatest issue was that their morals and ethics differed sharply for those of many other peoples and nations. It's critical to pay attention to our individual and collective morals and ethics before conflicts happen (and they will always happen while humans exist), which means all the time.

I say this not as any kind of excuse, rather to emphasize that one must always realize where you are and where you want to be in terms of morals and ethics. You must also realize where others are and both where they seem to want to be and where you want them to be, so you can work towards moving things there. I say 'towards' because there (obviously) is no absolute power over such things.

It's simply a matter of the real world that there is no one moral and ethical standard at any given time, even today. We can (and should) talk about "today's" standards, but in reality when we look around we see many groups that hold to many different standards. Best to try as we can to understand it, as we can't change it.

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Tom,

It wasn't a lack of morality and/or ethics that resulted in those atrocities. They had ethics and morals. While some of those ethics and morals were violated, the greatest issue was that their morals and ethics differed sharply for those of many other peoples and nations. It's critical to pay attention to our individual and collective morals and ethics before conflicts happen (and they will always happen while humans exist), which means all the time.

I say this not as any kind of excuse, rather to emphasize that one must always realize where you are and where you want to be in terms of morals and ethics. You must also realize where others are and both where they seem to want to be and where you want them to be, so you can work towards moving things there. I say 'towards' because there (obviously) is no absolute power over such things.

It's simply a matter of the real world that there is no one moral and ethical standard at any given time, even today. We can (and should) talk about "today's" standards, but in reality when we look around we see many groups that hold to many different standards. Best to try as we can to understand it, as we can't change it.

Yes, I agree with most of what you said....but where does one place the standard of ethics and morality? Whose culture, what group, what standard of living? Is leniance granted for cultures below the 'adopted' or 'average' standard of ethical behavior and unforgiveness or harsher criticism placed on cultures deemed to be above it? My point of view is that in time of war for survival, such judgements on behavior are really pointless. A nation or a people do what must be done to win, although its inherent morality or ethics are usually revealed in the overall conduct of such actions.

TOMLABEL

[witpqs]

You are quite correct. what I said doesn't contradict that at all.

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

You are quite correct. what I said doesn't contradict that at all.

As are you, sir. Your points are very good and well taken. [:)]

TOMLABEL

[Scott_USN]

I liked Letters from Iwo the first one Flags of our Fathers I didn't like very much.

[Scott_USN]

I think it is rather pointless to compare our ethics today to yesterday. Its all good for friendly debates and to exercise the mind but in reality our ethics and dare say morals can not be used on past actions so far behind us. We should learn from such things and we should strive to do better but trying to compare our ethics to say the Roman Legions is an exercise in futility because it can't be done. Some things are beyond the pale such as Stalinist USSR or Nazi Germany or even many of the atrocities of Japan where the ethical choices far out strip human understanding. They were not the first but they are the recent examples of not human existance or even animal but pure evil. Evil exist and to think otherwise is silly.

The firebombing of Japan and Germany was a reaction to warfare of that time and the strategic operations that were acceptable. No different than say Blitzkreig. For us today we can frown on it but in reality it was considered warfare. In 1939 FDR sent a urgent message to European powers to not use bombing of civilian populations as a tool of war. It was ignored; however the fact that he sent the request shows that it was at that time acceptable by military minds as a way of waging war. No different than say using urban areas for defense. I have no concern stating that in 100 years the idea of embargo of Iraq for 12 years will seem barbaric and horrible. However to me it was a tool that was needed and acceptable.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima are just a culmination of this style of warfare. Truman knew no more about the power of the atom bomb than he did say incendiary weapons or the huge British area bombs, forget their names.

There were two distinct types of killing of surrendered soldiers, there was battle field executions during the heat of battle which are not easy to be judged really from our stand point and then there was rear area executions. Japan had no problem executing POW's at any period of confinement by rear echelon forces. The Allies (barring the USSR) didn't do this wholesale it no doubt happened but if it did happen it was done by a murderer and not a soldier and are criminal. We can judge one style but I find it much harder to damn men who may have shot the enemy during the heat of battle or right after.

[Scott_USN]

Which reminds me of a part of Letters. Right when the Japanese commander (forget the name) is about to give up and surrender he gets the radio broadcast from Japan of children begging to be saved by the soldiers at the front. At that point no man that I know with exceptions could ignore his duty to the nation. That thought process will make a man go to the very ends of extreme and make atrocity seem very easy to excuse.

[Howard Mitchell]

ORIGINAL: Snowman999

I have a problem with the word "evil", but that's just me. I don't believe in B/W choices and that word lends itself to those. I usually talk about ethics rather than morals, and ethics are a spectrum.

That said, were the Allies more ethical? Probably, but marginally. We didn't do death marches, but our side definately mistreated POWs. Much eyewitness and oral testimony from the Pacific War that prisoners were shot or not allowed to surrender. Did we do "Nankings"? No, but we did Tokyos, and Dresdens and Colognes and Hiroshimas. Wholesale civilain deaths rather than one-ers after a gang rape, but just as dead. For that matter the US and UK allied with Uncle Joe, and the Red Army DID do Nankings, especially to Berlin. War changed in WWII from WWI norms, and civilians were fair game for area bombing and fire bombing; the Japanese and Germans may have started it, but we finished it.

It's all relative.

I have a problem with the word 'relative', but that's just me.

If you think triggering the worst war the world has ever seen, invading (in Germany's case) 10 countries and perpetrating the holocaust counts as 'marginally' less ethical than the behaviour of Britain or America then you need to think harder.

I imagine you would have been quite happy fighting for Nazi Germany then as you see so little difference between the two sides? No?

[Hortlund]

Havent we done this discussion already?

[witpqs]

You know, PzH, it's just hard to listen to you try to break up a fight when it's coming from that avatar of yours! [X(][:D]

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Snowman999

... Nations aren't "good" or "bad." They're bundles of self-interests colliding with each other.

St. Augustine would disagree w/you, and the bible paints all nations as "beastly," but today we describe colliding bundles of self-interests as "super organisms" competing for limited resources.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Snowman999

... I spent a good portion of my twenties training every day to kill between 30 and 50 million civilians in an afternoon, and it wasn't much commented on as "bad." Just strategy. We were always told we'd only slaughter after the other guy started it, but we were sure going to slaughter. And the other guys in their boomers were told the exact same thing about us.

It's all relative.

Mutually Assured destruction (MAD) works as long as all the players understand the consequences of a game no one wants to play, but now we have new players who have a very different view concerning personal annihilation, even on a global scale; the term "relative" may no longer apply.

[Embark]

I had a chance to go to Iwo Jima back in 2005. I posted a bunch of pictures on another message board if anyone is interested in seeing them.
 
http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26545&highlight=jima+pictures
 
 
 
Ben