War? What is it good for?

[kentuck]

[Purveyor]

1. "War" by Edwin Starr (Original Video - 1969)

[Brigid]

2. OK, everybody! You know the answer!

Nice and loud so I can hear you!

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

For Smedley Butler.

[tularetom]

3. Did you know that was the original title of Tolstoy's "War and Peace"?

[think]

4. One of the most decorated Marines of all times spoke out loud against the multinational corruption

K&R

[Gravitycollapse]

5. The Third Reich would have won had the allied powers not intervened.

Nothing is so black and white. War is a despicable thing. Most of the time it is not needed nor wanted. But there are always exceptions.

[loli phabay]

6. yup sometimes the alternative can be worse.

[Bigmack]

11. I have a hard time...

.. being that dispassionate about it.

The Allies certainly never went to war to save the Jews. Power struggle in Europe.. nothing more. Been going on for centuries. Trade wars, wars of religion, ethnic wars, nationalist wars....

Hitler won in Western Europe. He couldn't invade England or the US. Napoleon could have told him about invading Russia. How long would the 3rd Reich have held together? Empires rise and fall... look at our own.

85 million dead people in WWII, and that doesn't count the wounded and maimed, or the psychologically scarred, or the misery.

Hard to think of that as better than any alternative.

[Lurks Often]

13. Contemplate Nazi Germany with atomic weapons

and very long range bombers and/or missiles. How long do you think it would have been before New York, Boston or Washington DC disappeared in a mushroom cloud?

[Bigmack]

21. Are you at all familiar with WWII weapons...?

Reliable long range missiles and bombers that could travel those distances weren't developed until at least 20 years later. Even early ICBMs had a range of around 3500 miles. That's short of the 5000 miles to the US. You honestly think that Germany could have sent bombers across the Atlantic or over the pole in numbers enough to get thru US defenses?

Please... don't use the mushroom cloud thing. First of all, the US is the only country to deploy those mushroom clouds. Second, do you remember the last time we were told we might get nuked...? Bush told us about a smoking gun with a mushroom cloud.

[Lurks Often]

22. And where do you think the Germans would have been in 5 years?

5 years of no pressure from England & the US and it is likely they would have come up with long range missiles and/or planes and if you don't think Hitler would have used atomic weapons you are either very naive or very ignorant.

[Bigmack]

25. And where do you think Russia would have been in 5 years...?

Berlin.

As long as you are playing "would have been" history.

[kentuck]

26. Also, when speaking of war, in general...

we are not just talking about America's involvement or not, but the involvement of the entire world.

[Lurks Often]

31. Most of the thread has been "would have been" history

and without England & the United States, Germany probably would have overrun Russia since it would have freed up divisions along with all the aviation assets that would not have been needed in Africa, Greece and the Balkans and probably some from France as well.

[Gravitycollapse]

15. "Hard to think of that as better than any alternative." - How about the total eradication of Jews?

Gypsies? Homosexuals? Dissidents? Socialists? Communists? Academics?

The total emancipation of the final solution from any restriction. The total establishment of the aryan as the prime human being. The cleansing of the African continent?

Do not take me for stupid. I know plenty about the horrors of the Third Reich just as I know the atrocities committed by the allied forces.

I also understand the motivation behind the entrance of the allied forces into the war. That does not change my position one bit. To make any attempt to equate the morality of the Nazis with the allied forces is absolutely absurd. It means you likely know little about what actually happened.

[Bigmack]

17. I don't take you for stupid...

... I take you for arrogant.

And undereducated.

I taught history for 30 years... MA in Modern History.

4 years in the Marine Corps... Vietnam.

You talk like World War II was fought to protect Jews and Communists.

No.

85 million dead.

[Gravitycollapse]

19. No, I talk like someone who understands what could have happened had the axis won.

As it turns out, war is a pretty dangerous affair and people die in dangerous affairs.

So because you fought in an immoral war it means all wars are immoral? Is that what you're getting at?

85 million dead. The vast majority of those were victims of the the Axis powers.

After the war ended, we liberated roughly 4 million people from concentration camps. But that doesn't bode well with your preconceived narrative. And you're a history teacher so that means whatever I say is wrong, right? Spare me. Some of the most historically illiterate people I know have degrees in history.

[Bigmack]

20. I can do math, too. 4 million is less than 85 million. nt

[Gravitycollapse]

29. Bravo! A history teacher who can do math?

Last edited Tue Jul 2, 2013, 12:06 AM - Edit history (1)

[think]

7. Another great quote from Butler on corporate war mongering:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler

[pinboy3niner]

8. And when you ask them, "How much should we give?" Ooh, they only answer "More! More! More!" yoh

[kentuck]

9. Thanks for the CCR

Brings back a lot of old memories...

[pinboy3niner]

18. You and me both, bro

I lost way too many friends in Vietnam for nothing.

I had a roommate who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. But it really blows me away to see the image of Butler's TWO Medal of Honor ribbons.

[In_The_Wind]

14. .

[Anansi1171]

10. K&R!!-NT

[Doc_Technical]

12. To quote Country Joe McDonald

"There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of it's trade"

The purpose of war is to make billionaires into trillion-aires.

[KoKo]

16. War is only good for those who MAKE WAR... The less than 1% Suffer

from it...but those who make it PROSPER. It's always been like that. Even in the so called Noble Wars...the results are still the same...but in those wars the 1% are Proud of their Dead...saying they Died for "Peace/Freedom/Liberation." It's a good excuse...but it's still the 1% that cause them through their actions or inactions...and the rest who suffer during and the aftermath.

War is Good for Nothing...In the End....imho

[KoKo]

23. 1%, Military Contractors, Wall Street, Military Industrial Complex, Military (Generals in Particular

Rand Corporation, Think Tanks that get Air Time on C-Span..Military Weapons Producers...Large Arms Manufacturers, Drone Suppliers, Robotic Arms and the rest of the MIC..all around the USA and DC Beltway!

That's who Profits.

[egduj]

24. That was the working title for Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

Little known fact.

[Initech]

27. War! What is it good for? Profit! Sing it again y'all!!!

[Honeycombe8]

28. All wars are hell on earth. But some are necessary.

Sometimes you have to defend what's yours, country, land, or people. Just like you and your family. If a home invader comes in, you defend, don't you? You don't just sit back and act like Ghandi?

[Cleita]

30. I've sort of been interested in studying why ancient civilizations went to war

and I end up going to one of the first wars in history that was recorded in song and poetry, not chiseled on the wall of a temple, or recounted on a clay tablet. That war was the Trojan war. No, it really wasn't about Helen. Agamemnon could not have assembled the war lords he did to get his brother Menelaus's woman and treasury back. It was a wonderful excuse to get rid of a problem. The inhabitants of the Troad exacted tribute from any ships who wanted to sail to the Black Sea and a wealth of goods they wanted to trade for with the inhabitants beyond there. The Hellenes were sea farers and traders and they had resented having to pay the Trojans for access to the places they wanted to trade. So there was war and both sides bled for it.

However, there was another faction in play here, the gods. They were the ones who set the whole thing in motion to begin with and after things got started, they sat up on Olympus watching the events and pitting one faction against the other, making bets with each other and sometimes, but not often getting involved. Of course there were the winners, the Greeks and the losers the Trojans, but the gods lost nothing. In fact they had gained so much in sacrifice and offerings that they generously allowed Helen to return unharmed to her husband, Menelaus, and both ended up in the Elysian fields.

Agamemnon didn't fare so well, however that's another story. My point is that the gods who set in motion global wars today are the real players here. Today they may be the global oil industrialists, or those who have so much money as to be untouchable even to the nations who pay them homage. They determine who will go to war, make sure we have all the right enemies to hate, even if they never were an enemy before and then they sit back and reap the profits. Our lives are cheap to them as much as the lives of humans were to the Greek gods.