28-06-2002 03:33									#121
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From what my grandfather said when he told me the story, it should have been plenty obvious to the Germans on the hill that they wouldn't be able to hold out forever. Of course, they probably had also been fed lies by the German command that they faced horrible tortures if taken POW by the Allies.

When the Bismarck was sunk, the British ships started picking up German survivors, but they got reports of U-Boat activity in the area. The British navy promply left. One of the British sailors, interviewed decades later, told how he was at the side of the ship, clinging to a German sailor whose legs had been blown off. He tried desperately to bring him on board, but the German didn't have the strength to hold on as the ship sped up. The legless sailor fell back to the water. The Brit would still get teary remembering it.

Anyway, they left several hundred of the Bismarck's survivors floating in the Atlantic to die (not by drowning, either, but by exposure). Can we blame them, in this instance? They had a threat, and if it's a choice between taking prisoners and making sure your own men don't get blown to bits, which would you do?

War is Hell. Easy answers in these situations are hard to come by.

	28-06-2002 04:00									#122
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No Boris, the English Navy had every right to evacute the scene under threat of U-boat attack. But the initial attempt at rescue shows the true humanity and decency of the English.

	28-06-2002 04:02									#123
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...as did the Dresden bombing later on?

	28-06-2002 04:09									#124
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quote: Originally posted by SpencerH So let me ask you "chivalrous" types this ? If I'm a sniper and I shoot from concealment with a nightscope and a silenced rifle from a distance where you dont have a hope in hell of spotting me, Is that OK? You're virtually a sitting duck with no more chance than the fleeing Iraqi army.

The difference is a sniper targets combatants, while the Iraqi army was retreating from the war zone. Unless the Allies intended to invade Iraq or had a serious belief that Iraq would turn around and attack, those fleeing troops should have been off limits. They were attacked not for military purposes, but political purposes.

	28-06-2002 04:13									#125
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quote: Originally posted by Ned So - Engel is a Nazi. No further crime need be alleged. Just shoot him now. Is that your position?

Just replace nazi with terrorist and you have your present US policies.

so maaybe it's better if you took a quick glance at the mirror?

	28-06-2002 04:14									#126
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I'm sorry Ecthelion, but I personally am tired of defending Dresden or the night bombing of German cities conducted by the British most of the war. The very justification of this bombing - terrorism - is today in disrepute.

I won't defend it anymore. If any leaders of that campaign are still alive, I would vote (if I could vote) they be tried as war criminals.

	28-06-2002 04:16									#127
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Paiktis, We have a lot of al Qaida in custody. We don't just shoot them.

	28-06-2002 04:17									#128
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara The difference is a sniper targets combatants, while the Iraqi army was retreating from the war zone. Unless the Allies intended to invade Iraq or had a serious belief that Iraq would turn around and attack, those fleeing troops should have been off limits.

If they wanted to surrender they should have done so. Retreating troops are just that, they can still turn and fight. It was the responsibility of our commanders on the ground to prevent the possibility of our casualties not to worry about the enemy casualties.

quote: They were attacked not for military purposes, but political purposes.

Please enlighten me

	28-06-2002 04:20									#129
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The purpose of killing them was to show what we are capable of doing, therfore, don't ever bother to fight us.

SpnceH, if there were a serious, belief that those troops were going to turn around and fight, fine. Even at the time, the US said that wasn't the reason. The US stated its reason for killing all those troops was because they were taking their equipment with them. Iraq had already said it was pulling out, it had given up.

	28-06-2002 04:22									#130
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Ned Nazis massacred and killed people. so they had to be killed. there wasn't really any question about it.

you dont know if al qaeda is really what you have there or what they did.

i should propably make a thread with all the mosntrocities of the nazis in occupied europe to give you an idea of what we are talking about.

	28-06-2002 04:31									#131
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quote: Originally posted by Ned A quote directly from Patton, I believe. I think the objective is to defeat the enemy with as few casualties on both sides as possible.

AFAIK Pattons 3rd army had quite high casualty figures so I guess he didnt achieve his objective then.

Another quote attributed to Patton

"Don't be a fool and die for your country. Let the other sonofa***** die for his."

quote: I believe your attitude, Spencer, is what the ICC calls "no quarter." If what you said is really true, the use of poison gas, bio-weapons or battlefield nuclears weapons would be quite permissible because the objective of piling up the corpses as high as possible would be the thing to do in all circumstances.

Churchill, who had seen war as a correspondant in South Africa, was willing to use poison gas on the Nazi's. The only reason it wasnt used was because there wasnt enough of it to be effective. I dont believe in "no quarter" but I dont believe in losing a war either. If you dont want to win dont fight.

	28-06-2002 04:37									#132
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara The purpose of killing them was to show what we are capable of doing, therfore, don't ever bother to fight us.

A perfectly valid military reason.

quote: Iraq had already said it was pulling out, it had given up.

Iraq said it was pulling out is not the same as Iraq had surrendered.

Personally, I think we would have been better off until the Iraqi dictator was dead, but the President did not ask for my opinion

	28-06-2002 04:54									#133
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Well, Spencer, we may soon succeed in finishing the job of the Iragi dictator. My point is that the highway of death forced a premature conclusion to the conflict. Had this not happened, we may have completely destroyed the Republican Guard and made Saddam's downfall immediate.

Regardless of the military reasons for attacking the column(s), I am willing to bet that if the military had it do do all over again, the highway of death would have come out differently.

	28-06-2002 05:09									#134
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Ned, why do you tell me you're sorry when you think in the right direction?

	28-06-2002 05:43									#135
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I'm sorry because I have defended our actions in WWII for a long time knowing in the bottom of my heart they were wrong.

	28-06-2002 05:56									#136
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Paiktis, I know the Nazi's committed atrocity after atrocity. So did the Japanese. Resistance was warranted and actually militarily beneficial.

However, if the German court is right and reprisals are justified - how much of went on was simply a cycle of violence - reprisal for reprisal, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? We see a lot of that today in the ME.

You might come up with statistics showing a geographic pattern of Nazi atrocities. I am willing to bet that there is a strong correlation to partisan activity.

	28-06-2002 06:03									#137
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Not even close, Ned.

We are talking about mass executions by the nazis, burning up of whole villages, tortures etc.

Nothing came close to their monstrocity and I am certaintly glad for every one of those who got killed.

all should be.

	28-06-2002 06:04									#138
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as i said beofre you are american and you cant really undestand because your country was not under occupation.

a good nazi is a killed nazi.

it's very simple.

	28-06-2002 06:07									#139
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Partisans were not covered by the Geneva Convention and any side could execute them. The allies also executed Axis partisans.

Where the Germans committed war crimes was with reprisal killings against civilians, which was common practice in all occuppied areas.

	28-06-2002 06:09									#140
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I'm sure the jews fit that category...

	28-06-2002 06:11									#141
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plus if a country is occuopied by the germans, there is nothing that can be considered a "reprisal".

they came, they had no right to. we kill them we have every right.

repirslas are then war crimes just as the occupation was.

(and the famine, and the brutality)

so each time a nazi is slaughtered, God smiles.

	28-06-2002 06:17									#142
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 I'm sure the jews fit that category...

No they fit a different category - crimes against humanity

The guy's defence is interesting - I'd like to see the judgement. The "I was only following orders" defence was not accepted at Nuremburg but it appears to have been accepted here.

Anyway at 93 this guy will soon be facing a higher court

	28-06-2002 06:17									#143
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Paiktis, I'm sorry for being an ignoramus here, but I was taught when I was growing up that the Nazi's committed these mass murders of whole villages as "reprisals." Was my education wrong?

	28-06-2002 06:19									#144
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 each time a nazi is slaughtered, God smiles.

I thought that bears repeating.

	28-06-2002 06:19									#145
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perhaps you should re - read what I wrote Ned.

plus if a country is occuopied by the germans, there is nothing that can be considered a "reprisal".

they came, they had no right to. we kill them we have every right.

repirslas are then war crimes just as the occupation was.

(and the famine, and the brutality)

so each time a nazi is slaughtered, God smiles.

	28-06-2002 06:20									#146
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara I thought that bears repeating.

thanks che. i just made it up.

	28-06-2002 06:21									#147
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AH, I don't think that "just following orders" is the entire defense. I think the court held that reprisals were justified. They probably were justified, under the court's thinking, even if Hitler did not order them.

	28-06-2002 06:27									#148
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well killing tens of thousands does not count as "reprisals",

first becasue they can be no "reprisals" since the country is occupied and the people have every right to free it.

second because this too counts as crimes against humanity.

we are talking about tens of thousands civilians murdered by nazis

i'm just glad the whole thing was not left in the hands of people who had not their conutry occupied and cant understand.

	28-06-2002 06:29									#149
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ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greece says it has evidence that Alois Brunner, the world's most-wanted Nazi war criminal, is in hiding in Syria.


Brunner, a senior Nazi SS officer and elusive fugitive for years, is accused of directing the deportation and killing of at least 130,000 Jews from European countries, including Greece, during World War II.


Government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said Greece, which has close ties with Syria, has evidence that Brunner, 84, is in hiding in Syria. He refused to elaborate, or say where the evidence came from.


Previous reports have said Brunner has been living in Syria since 1954. Syrian officials have always denied this, and they denied Tuesday's report as well.


More than 55,000 Greek Jews, or nearly 98 percent of the Jewish population in the northern port city of Salonica, died in concentration camps.


But Reppas said Tuesday that even though Brunner is implicated in many of those deaths, Greece could not request Brunner's extradition because it transferred its extradition rights to Germany in 1959.


``Still, we would like to see Brunner pay for the gross crimes he committed,'' Reppas said.


Brunner is wanted by Austria, France, Israel, the former Czechoslovakia and Germany, where a $345,000 reward has been posted for his capture.


All other top Nazis have died or been arrested. Adolf Eichman, Hitler's main henchman for the Holocaust, was executed in Israel in 1962.



these are news that make me happy

	28-06-2002 06:29									#150
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 plus if a country is occuopied by the germans, there is nothing that can be considered a "reprisal". they came, they had no right to. we kill them we have every right.

Under international Law that isn't right. If you aren't a uniformed combatant fighting as part of a recognised army you have no protection if you take up arms against an occupying army - you are at the mercy of their law. In Hitler's case that was the "Night and Fog" decrees of 1940 and their later elaborations.

But aren't we jumping the gun here? The court hasn't ruled yet.