Genuine courage

[213374U]

Guys, Wrathie is just angry, because no one has nominated Carth for heroism in this thread.

That's because Carth is more like "an hero", though.

[Lare Kikkeli]

I agree with Dagon, we should have put all of ze germans into camps and just gassed em. Evil sons of bitches.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[Wrath of Dagon]

Yes, I see you have some unbiased sources there. The LA times didn't say anything about not prosecuting rape, but I didn't read the entire article.

 

What would be an example of an unbiased news source?

Sources that don't say things like the first statement in the aztlan link.

Neat. One of the sources he posted is biased, so clearly all three are biased AND what they are reporting must be FALSE. Uncanny logic.

 

But here, let me dig up a more "respectable" source for you:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/1...ape-claim-block

 

30 Republican members voted against it, including the former presidential candidate John McCain.

 

Mythical myths and innuendo, no doubt.

What does it have to do with US soldiers guilty of crimes not being prosecuted as Kikkeli claimed? Also that case was about civil liability, criminal liability can not be replaced by arbitration, it would still be tried by a criminal court with jurisdiction.

[alanschu]

The quote actually said SS was the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, since this was a job specifically given to them. That does not absolve the Wehrmacht of their resposibility, as Hurlshot implied.

 

Hurlshot did no such thing.

 

The Holocaust is the big focus of the war crimes, and the reason why we had Nuremburg trials at all. People looked at what was happening and went "ZOMFG I can't believe what's going on there." By being the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, they become pretty key players in the war crimes focus. When people start thinking of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime, they look at what happened in the death camps, and to a slightly lesser extent the Soviet Union. Yes the Wehrmacht committed war crimes, and some of them were even along the lines of the war crimes of the region. Not surprising given the widespread indoctrination and propaganda spewed forth by the NSDAP, but if I was going to be as academically dishonest as you're being right now, I'd conclude that you feel that every single German soldier in World War 2 was a slightly lesser version of an SS, hell bent on murdering innocent civilians, particularly if they were Jewish. Which, quite frankly, isn't true. If you'd prefer, perhaps you'd rather he had said the German Heer?

 

The fact that they committed war crimes isn't surprising. But no one is denying that, and you're the only person here that seems to think someone is.

 

My problem is with your implication that the front line soldier was somehow just an innocent bystander, instead of an active participant.

 

Near as I can tell, you're the only person making this implication.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Tigranes
alanschu is an angry elephant

[Wrath of Dagon]

I don't even understand what the hell you're arguing anymore. As far as what Hurlshot meant to say or didn't mean to say, I suggest you leave that question to him, he's just as capable of typing as you are.

[Purkake]

Aww, don't be a sore loser, Dagon.

[alanschu]

I don't even understand what the hell you're arguing anymore.

 

Frankly, that doesn't surprise me. You don't seem to have any idea what anybody is saying.

 

 

As far as what Hurlshot meant to say or didn't mean to say, I suggest you leave that question to him, he's just as capable of typing as you are.

 

His just as capable typing hands already stated that I interpreted it correctly, while you did not.

[Walsingham]

You know I don't have any personal beef with you Aram, but you're talking like an arse. What on earth makes you think he didn't value his own life? Duty being an obligation doesn't take that away.

Basing it on nothing, really, except maybe what were apparently his last words. "Duty called and duty must be obeyed."

If duty dictates that you should get blown up six different times in one of the dumbest wars ever fought, **** duty. That's not a good enough reason alone.

 

Duty in this case is duty to your comrades in arms. Once you're in uniform the politics comes waaaaay second. Heroism - physical heroism - is tactical. If any soldier, be it Taliban or German or British made those personal sacrifices detailed above out of a sense of duty then he's a hero in my book. If that same sodier then goes on to machinegun a bunch of orphans then he's a fallen hero.

[Gorgon]

Heroism is tactical...

 

So, wiping out a village of partisans, raping the cows and killing the women, is heroic, as long as they put up a good fight and your side looks out for one another, sacrificing personal safety in order to prevail against the odds.

 

What if our hero knew beforehand that he was going to machine-gun ever orphan he could get his hands on.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Gorgon

[Hurlshort]

I'm pretty sure Wals addressed that by saying "If that same sodier then goes on to machinegun a bunch of orphans then he's a fallen hero."

 

There is a code of conduct among soldiers. True heroes follow it, and they hold their fellow soldiers accountable to it. While the events of a massacre like My Lai are horrid and the soldiers involved all deserve punishment, there are some soldiers like Hugh Thompson Jr. who risked his life and confronted the men carrying out the massacre.

 

It sounds like we need to define what "duty" means here, as I think there are a few different interpretations clashing here.

[Aram]

Heroism - physical heroism - is tactical.

Which is precisely why it exists. "Heroism" is a concept created by war leaders a very long time ago to inspire troops or knights or whatever kind of warriors to take greater risks and make graver sacrifices. Every parade a hero ever got in ancient times was designed to get more people to sign up for the next war, and they still have the same effect today even if we do it without realizing it. I’m not saying there haven’t been some genuinely glorious sons of bitches doing some genuinely glorious things in war time, but their worship is exploitative and overshadows the fact that a couple million men just like them died face-down in mud without getting a chance to do any such things in a war that doesn’t actually need heroes--just bodies to stack against the other side’s.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Aram

[Gorgon]

'Fallen' infers a state change. Logically if it is the act itself and not an ideal it doesn't matter if his motivation for going to war was to rape cows and machine-gun orphans. If he saves his fellow war criminals at great personal risk, he is a hero.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Gorgon

[Walsingham]

Heroism - physical heroism - is tactical.

Which is precisely why it exists. "Heroism" is a concept created by war leaders a very long time ago to inspire troops or knights or whatever kind of warriors to take greater risks and make graver sacrifices. Every parade a hero ever got in ancient times was designed to get more people to sign up for the next war, and they still have the same effect today even if we do it without realizing it. I

[Walsingham]

'Fallen' infers a state change. Logically if it is the act itself and not an ideal it doesn't matter if his motivation for going to war was to rape cows and machine-gun orphans. If he saves his fellow war criminals at great personal risk, he is a hero.

 

The german panther tank was a great tank. It was a nazi tank but that doesn't stop it being a good tank. Otto Skorzeny was a nazi, and his special group prolonged the war, probably by up to a year. But he was a hero. He was also, incidentally, tried for and acquitted of war crimes.

 

But he's not as unequivocal as the chap in the first post. Anyway, I just realised someone invoked the nazis. Doesn't that mean you lose?

[Aram]

For every good thing hero worship inspires, it inspires something equally needless and destructive. People on the losing side of a war who prolong the fighting and get more people killed needlessly do so in the quest for glory. Every suicide bomber fancies himself a hero and a martyr. Every soldier who climbs out of his foxhole and rushes against impossible odds thinking there's a chance to make himself a hero when there isn't, dying unnecessarily, is a victim of heroism. There are times, I believe, that cowardism is a far greater virtue than heroism. I drink to the cowards, the sniveling wretches, and the Sir John Falstaffs. I don't mean to say, of course, that war is always unnecessary and people shouldn't fight, and even die, for a just cause they believe they can win, but they should do it for that reason, without expecting a parade, and their deaths should be noted as we note the deaths of natural disasters--tragic losses, doubly tragic if they're preventable.

[Aram]

So. ****ing. Enlightened.

[Walsingham]

Not usre I follow you, mate. But if you are drinking to the poor sod who climbs to the lip of a shellscrape and is just about to save the day when he gets hit by random shrapnel and has his face pushed out his arse then I'm with you. If you're drinking to the poor sods who fell off the scramble nets on D-Day while boarding the landing craft and sank without a trace, then I'm with you. If you are drinking to the poor tommies who would have died for queen and qoutry but s*** themselves to death from typhoid, then I'm with you.

 

But they still aren't heroes in the way that Capt. Chevasse was a hero.

[Aram]

No, they're all boobs. I drink to the mutineers, the deserters, and the French soldiers who thought hey let's wait and see if we can come up with a better idea and to hell with what they'll say about us.

[Gorth]

Heroes seems to be those who inspire others to do stupid things. What would you call those who inspire others to do good deeds?

[Aram]

Heroes seems to be those who inspire others to do stupid things. What would you call those who inspire others to do good deeds?

Swell?

[Hell Kitty]

What would you call those who inspire others to do good deeds?

 

Inspirational?

[Purkake]

Heroes seems to be those who inspire others to do stupid things.

No, I'm pretty sure that's religion.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Why is it that every opinion I post leads to people attacking me?

 

I added the Jewish thing, as Hurlshot, and apparently only Hurlshot, had the analytical skills to point out, to put my opinion in context: I'm highly biased, and I thought that would probably be necessary to add in my post. I guess not.

 

Heroes seems to be those who inspire others to do stupid things.

No, I'm pretty sure that's religion.

 

Quite right.

[Purkake]

Being proud of being biased is pretty weird, though.

[Aristes]

People attack your posts, teh kotor, because you aren't in lockstep with prevalent views. Plus they are a little excessive sometimes, but most of them are here.

 

I have no beef with Aram. I don't think he's talking like an ass at all. No, there's nothing ass-like about him. Nevertheless, his underlying point mistakes the salient fact that we live in a world of limitations and every advancement we've achieved as a species has only served to highlight our limitations in new ways. Yeah, we have the technology to build a fleet of colony ships that would, with almost preordained certainty, transport enough humans to another planet to ensure the survival of the species. ...But, since we're not using this technology that we almost certainly have right this very second, we have to face things as they exist on earth.

 

It's true that heroes are the object of exploitation in almost every way. However, cheering cowardice because bravery provides fuel for exploitation is not only stupid, it's dangerously stupid. There is no 'better way' if the idea behind it expects humanity to be something other than human. We are limited by our humanity, which means that some people are brave and some are cowards. Some exploit the brave while some fools celebrate the cowards. That's not going to change anytime soon. We might want to believe in some advanced state of mankind that we'll achieve by evolving into something else. While we remain human, though, we're pretty much trapped.

 

I don't tend to be effusive about heroes. I tend to think that the terms is often applied where it is not warranted. ...But I do believe that true heroism deserves praise.