A much much more tragic event because it was happening under everyone's noses ON American soil.
that's exactly why i posted thease docs, With the Marines at Tarawa & Hell in the pacific. people have all thease ideology's about the a - bomb and how wrong it was to use it, and this bulshit nostalgia about japanease honor. but thease same people have no clue of what it was like on the ground for a rifleman in an infantry unit. and don't even have the stomach to truly see what it was like even when it's right hear in there faces raw & uncut. This is why so many politicians are willing to send people to war & establish thease bulshit rules of engagement, because they've never had to expierience the horrors of war themselves
I don't think it's smart to position atrocities on totem poles. What the US did to the native Americans (and still does) is atrocious. What we've done in the Middle East is also heinous. The way we're supporting Isreal in their oppression of the Palestinians doesn't put us in the clear either. Germany didn't see itself as a country guilty of war crimes either at one time. But the US is definitely seen that way by a lot of countries.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo...eam2o1_400.gif
I know you're a marine and all, but that's really low. You're talking about other human beings. Don't be callous. If it were your family with chinese boots on their faces being yelled at in chinese, I doubt you'd feel the same way. "Oh, I'd kill them." And that's how they see us, my friend. The world is bigger than the US. It's not us against them. It's rich people exploiting poor people and sending other poor people to fight their wars for them so they can get richer. Don't be loyal to a system that exploits you. "I'm not poor." Tell that to the billionaires that fund the industry that sign your checks. Seriously, don't be loyal to a system that's not loyal to you. Your fellow soldiers may be. The system is not.
I dug wells, helped build schools in 122 degree heat, trained their military that turned around and shot my friends. I watched their own children throw each other in front of Humvees over a pack of skittles, and the parent just wanted money and didn't even cry. I say fuck Iraq not because of the killings that have been committed there in the name of a clearly bullshit war, I say fuck Iraq because they take your tax dollars. We got conned by Iraqi's and the corporate special interest contracting groups dickheads like KBR who got to sleep in there beds on a FOB Marines protected while getting paid three times as much. Iraq was a huge eye opener for me and Afghanistan even more so. I say fuck those countries because of what it is costing hard working people back home while fat cat asshole make all the money. I am not loyal to any system that allows that. I was a kid that didn't know better but I owned my mistake, did my 6 years and came out of it with a very real sense of the world we live in.
Sorry David I don't mean to get all "Vietnam" with my rants and I don't want to offend you either. If it did I am sorry.
I'd agree that its not smart as far as it is risk if your trying to be politically correct but in reality I think you could identify the various aspects of these events and the number of people who where affected by them and you would get a few stand outs. I'm not a history buff but the Armenian genocide, holocaust, and genocide of native americans, probably have an edge over nearly any others, I know there must be many i've never even heard of.
IMO the palestinians are terrorists, motivated by a fundamentally violent region with no legitimate claim to the disputed territories. I did think the israelis were land grabbers backed by the british at first, later the US. When I attempted to prove my position to a friend I eventually realized that history just doesnt support that view.
Seems like we did a piss poor job of managing iraq from a long term strategy aspect and probably shouldt have invade even though Im sure saddam was a horrible motherfucker there where/are worse warlords for sure. Is this what you mean by "what we've done in the middle east"?
What was your argument here? You shouldn't "rank" atrocities/genocides?
OK I understand, I was just thinking that in these situations, its really more of a matter of many war crimes, which when viewed retrospectively comprise what is considered a single historical event. Some of these events are comprised of hundreds of war crimes and others hundreds of thousands or more, like over 6 million for example.