Text 1757, 67 rader
Skriven 2009-12-17 15:43:39 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
   Kommentar till text 1753 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: The Evil That Men Do
============================
Hello Bob,

On Thursday December 17 2009 12:22, you wrote to Björn Felten:

 BF>> What about the guys (easily identified) that dropped the bombs
 BF>> over Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, Baghdad etc.?

 BF>> They killed millions of innocent civilians because they "only
 BF>> followed orders", weren't they just as guilty?

 RB> You're confusing people like Eichmann with front-line soldiers.

So what about the people who gave the orders for those bombings?

 RB> One issues the orders, the other carries them out. So who's to blame
 RB> for the consequences? Both, in the final analysis - but without the
 RB> orders, there would be no action.

If no one would carry out the orders, there would be no action either. It is a
two way street Bob.

 RB> So go figure - and try your polemics elsewhere.

I think Björn raises a valid point.

I often wonder: "what if Hitler had won"? How would the world look at the moral
issues? Considering that it is the winner that writes history.

Had Hitler won, I probably would not have been born as my parents may never
have met. But my house was build before the war and so it would probably still
be here and someone would live here. Someone most likely born after the war as
almost all the older people live in old people's homes. That someone would not
be me, but it could be someone like me and of course that person would think of
himself as "me". So let us give that hypothical person the opportunity  to tell
his story in the frist person singular: (translated to English, he would write
in German of course)

I often get told "if we had not saved your sorry arse from the Yanks, you would
be speaking Amricenglish!" To that I shrug my shoulders. I doubt it, the Yanks
were never very good at imposing their language on others. I am glad that
German is my native language and that Hitler managed to make it the de facto
world langauge. Suppose the world wpuld still be divided by hundreds of
languages. Not a pleasant thought.

I a am also glad that everyone involved in the Manhattan programme was tracked
down and sentenced to death. How can anyone knowingly and willingly participate
in the construction of such a monstrous weapon? And who would knowingly and
willingly throw it on a city full of innocent citizens? They were just
following orders they claimed. Well, the tribunals did not fall for that lame
excuse. Luckily with all the people involved executed, the evil knowledge is
gone as well, so we now live in a world without nuclear weapons. How different
things would have been had the evil Yanks won.

What about the Holocaust you say?

In the mind of the hypothetical person living in my house, there would have
been no Holocaust. Winner writes history remember? Had there been any mention
at all of mass transportation of Jews, it would have been written down in a way
that makes it perfectly acceptable. E.g. they would have been portrayed as
terrorists, to dangerous to let loose on the world. Like the people now in the
Gitmo Hotel.


Cheers, Michiel

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