Poll: were world war 2 and the cold war clear cut battles between good and evil?

[mega48man]

it's the cold war part that gets me, i started off thinking that it wasn't clear cut, but i'm beginning to think the opposite.

So, what made you think USA WERE evil during Cold War after all?

snip

By the way, talking about America not being evil: if America isn't evil, then why the hell did it help Georgia (country, not state) in 2008's conflict? Y'know, when Georgia decided there were too many ossetians and abkhazians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and Russian peacekeepers were stopping them from committing genocide.

well if i added anything about the recent conflict in georiga in my essay, i'd probably get minus points for being off topic, which is what you are being. cold war ends in 1989, what you're talking about is in 2008, thus it is not part of the cold war. yes, it was wrong that it happened, but it's irrelevant to the topic.

 

[albinoterrorist]

Nope, nope, nope.
In WW2 the American army refused blacks into combat units until 1944, refused to allow white soldiers to be treated by black nurses (in case the blood mixed) and interred vast amounts of Japano-Americans (despite them often proving themselves more patriotic than the average american).
And that's just ONE of the Allied powers. God forbid we bring in the Soviet's track-record from Eastern European and German occupations...

The Cold War was two states merely struggling to outlast the other.
It was lack of understanding of the other's perspective that brought both sides so close to cataclysm.

 

[albinoterrorist]

Oh no trying to create a master race isn't evil in the slightest.

Spoiler

Glad we agree.

 

[Skillswords]

also something worthy of note, we didn't fight the Nazis because of their mistreatment of jewish people, we only realized their crimes AFTER we invaded germany. At the beginning of the war all the allies thought was that Germany was breaking their contract and started taking back its land. again we didn't fight the Japanese for the baaton death marches, we just took back the Philippians and it happened to have been destroyed by the Japanese,of which the only previous foreign history policy was the America sending battleships to say "open your trade with us or die". Ironic that the country's who's reason for war was "We want our land to remain in our control" eventually began to resemble the good guys.

if you weren't to base your opinions on social policies, the allies were complete douche-bags.

 

[Andreson]

There is no good or evil in any war, and there never was. There are no hero's and no traitors.

 

[Vegosiux]

josef mengele wasn't the only scientist, he was just the most notorious scientist at Auchswitz...Auschwitz being the key word...it's like everyone keeps forgetting that hitler gave the o.k. for the SS to systematically torture and kill millions of people. what the hell do they teach you brits in school across the pond?

So, you're back to appealing to emotion, and to assuming things about other people that you know nothing about. Hint: not a Brit here.

I think we're done talking.

things that i know nothing about?

"Things about other people you know nothing about". Like my nationality, for example.

asshole

Yep, we're done talking.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I would think the initial part when Germany start invading Europe and Britain stood against them was a battle of good and evil. However once the war began, it wasn't all black and white.

 

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

I would LOVE to see someone justify the cold war as Good V. Evil.

Considering both sides were developing enough weapons to apocalypse the world Fifty times over.

It was Evil Incompetent Asshole V. A Mirror with a mustache drawn on it.

 

[R Man]

Just a few things. Stalin, while an evil jerk he wasn't quite as bad as is often made out. He did kill a lot of people, but no where near the Holocaust. The problem comes from Robert Conquest who basically made up figures for Stalin's crimes and exaggerated by putting them at 50 mil (which is ridiculous). Also people are confused about Gulags. Most people think that Gulags are filled with political prisoners, but that was really the special camps, which are a subset of the Gulag system. Less than 1/3 rd of prisoners were actually political, the vast majority were legitimate criminals (though Soviet Justice was very harsh). Stalin also had a few social achievements to boast about, such as greatly improved public education and hygiene.

The Soviet war performance is also confused. The Soviets were not in denial about an eventual Nazi attack. They knew full well that it was coming. The problem was they were undergoing re-organisations at the time and were incapable of actually fighting, so Stalin resorted to trying to 'buy them off'. It failed.

As for the allies I believe that Anthony Beevor has written a book on Normany which shows that allies war crimes may have been more extensive than first thought. But I haven't read it yet so...

And the cold war. Both sides were dicks. And on both sides there are atrocities that are forgotten. The Americans sponsored attacks such as in Guatemala (the Guatemalan Civil War) which saw over 200 000 native Mayans and intellectuals killed, yet almost no one knows about the support. Then their is the support of the Contras in Nicaragua. But these instances are not very well known.

 

[Exterminas]

Okay, let me try to break down why people tend to see the german actions in World War II as evil, but why they really weren't at the time.

1. War of Aggression
They started it. At least from our perspective. To them a lot of the attacks on other countries were in the area of payback for World War I (of which they had wrongly been blamed for).

Once they got their tanks rolling and were on the winning streak that whole World-Conquest-Idea hatched, It was just offering itself at the time since the Blitzkrieg was revolutionizing warfare.

And even if all their attacks were Wars of Aggression, you really can't say these are evil. Sure it's not really polite, but it has been done at any point in history and was not specifically illegal at the time. (All the international laws that condem this kind of warfare have been invented after WWII. And even today they can be bent. (See the war against Terrorism)).


2. Genocide
The idea of eugenics and racial purity was a worldwide idea in the 19. and 19. centuries. Every nation had eugenical institutions and representants. The germans just took it to industrial perfection, just as they did at the time with everything else.

It may be hard to swallow that pill, but germany was the technological superpower of it's time at the start of WWII. They really just finished the trains of thoughts other people had started, pretty much like they did with the developement of the Panzer.

And then of course there is the fact that the Allies commited enough shit that came close to the Konzentrationslagern themselves. Japanes Internment-Camps anyone?


So in summary: Yes, from our perspective these acts were definately evil. But you can not handle history like that, or it turns into 5000 years of evil. The germans firmly believed that they did the world a favor by killing the jews. While this is a demented point of view, to improve the world for the good of all humanity (what they see as humanity anyway), is generally not the mindset of a villain.

 

[R Man]

the nazis weren't evil.they banned smoking and gave animals rights. they also invented the jet engine. the russians and americans were more evil than the nazis

Oh no trying to create a master race and killing 12 million inocent people isn't evil in the slightest.

first 6 million. you cant just say they killed 5 million more than they did. second the Russians massacred more than that not jews but anyone they could get their hands on. and the americans DROPPED A FUCKING NUKE ON JAPAN. TWICE. thats not very nice in its self.

what im trying to say is that war is hell. no one is mr knight in shining fucking armor. so the hazis may have been bad but so was everyone else.

Actually the 6 mil figure is only jews. It doesn't include Roma, Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communist and Russian POW. Now the Soviets were nasty but they were actually very methodical and whole sale slaughter was actually very unusual. Nor did they kill more people. Bombing Japan was again very nasty, but it did help end the war quickly, even if I think that a military target would have been better than a civilian one.

 

[Patrick Buck]

I do think there were good and evil sides in WWII and The cold war, but the Evil commited by one side was not the cause of the war/standoff. The cold war was just fear of Nukes, and WWII was Started becuase Germany was punished too harshly after WWI, but in all fairness, Germany were being dicks too.

Thats my over-simplyfied version.

 

[albinoterrorist]

Bombing Japan was again very nasty, but it did help end the war quickly, even if I think that a military target would have been better than a civilian one.

A lot of people tend to forget this, but (objectively, at least) nuking Japan wasn't that bad. Even though it happened twice.
Nuclear attacks leveled 90% and 45% of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.

Massive-scale raids using conventional firebombs caused 58% of Yokohama to turn to ash, left only 1% of Toyama standing and (within one night of bombing) scorched away 49% of Tokyo.
That's only three of the cities they targeted.
What's honestly worse against a people who make their houses from wood and paper - a pair of nuclear bombs, or hundreds of tonnes of firebombs?

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

(fighting the japanese in the pacific)

Which started 2 years after the war began...

 

[DSK-]

There is no good or evil in warfare. Humanity is just as brutal in peace time as it is in war time.

I would personally argue that one of reasons as to why the Germans geared up for WW2 because of the heavy burdens placed on them courtesy of the Treaty of Versailles. Let's not forget also that in the 1920's there was the 'Wall street crash', so it would have been incredibly shitty to live in Germany during that time.

The atomic bomb's dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima killed many, many people. Was it necessary? maybe, maybe not. It would have been a ridiculously bloody battle to invade the Japanese homeland and the people of Japan would have literally fought tooth and nail - there would have been a terrible loss of life, particularly on the US front and, if they managed to reach Japan, the Russian front.

I could list many examples of such things similar to the above, but the fact of the matter is no war is inherently evil or good. All sides in a conflict believe their actions are just, and the history is written by the victor.

Although there were "no losses" in the Cold War, the US and Soviets fought via proxy battles with pawns that did take losses.

The issue is, those in power are the ones who dictate what happens in war, and war occurs for many reasons.

 

[The White Hunter]

No man acts for evil.
All men do what they think is right.
So no, neither were, the nazis did what they thought was right, for the most part, in our eyes they are evil but they would not have commited the acts they did if they themselves thought them wrong.
As for the cold war, penis envy, as mentioned above.

 

[The White Hunter]

Guest my ass! I'm signed in, SkarKrow foolish forum, S-K-A-R-K-R-O-W!