Veteran's Day

[Freodin]

Which I didn't myself - but how does any of this justify you broadbrushing all involved as sheep?

Which I didn´t do... so we seem to be equal again.

In the UK it's known as Remembrance Day, which is what I do - remember. My strongest connection is my great-great grandfather who died during WWI. Hardly a war one can sympathise with, a total bloody disaster on all fronts (and I've been to British and German cemeteries alike). But like the name says - it's remembrance day, not apportioning blame day.

The post I commented on called for respect and salute for those who "served". This is what I was aiming at and this is the whole point of my position. I don´t disagree with remembering - I even recommended mourning for the victims. But I cannot respect war or those who participate in it, and I cannot respect those who demand respect for this slaughter.

I didn't use the word honourable.

Yep, sorry, this is what you get for not scrolling back to reference your sources. The term I should have used would be "respectable".

And who says the "topic" isn't of interest to those involved?

You think that could be any reason why a tailor from Oxford and a baker from Nuremberg should kill each other in a field in Flandres?

 

[driewerf]

Why do I get the feeling that those who criticise those "blindly" following orders are "blindly" following the anti-war sentimentalists, like Einstein, Jaures, et al.

because you apparantly are starting with false premises.

You falsely accept the premise that the anti war mouvement is fuelled by sentiments alone.

You falsely accept the premise that Einstein and Jaures are still relevant today.

 

[Gracchus]

You falsely accept the premise that Einstein and Jaures are still relevant today.

Whey are they not relevant today?

 

[Willtor]

Whey are they not relevant today?

He meant "reject" not "accept."

 

[lucaspa]

What kind of respect does stupidity and blind obedience deserve?

My respect goes to all you refused to serve!

IMO, both those who serve and those who do not deserve respect. I was calling attention to the bravery of American veterans (Veteran's Day is an American holiday), especially those of WWI.

There is a concept of a "just war". Unfortunately, the last 2 wars Germany has been led into did not qualify.

This is where there is a compact between soldiers and civilians. For the soldiers, their side of the compact is to fight when the civilian authority tells them to fight. They are to suffer hardships, perhaps wounds, perhaps death in order to defend their society against outside enemies. They do not get to decide which wars to fight.

The job of deciding when to order soldiers to fight is ultimately that of civilians. Their side of the compact is to ensure that soldiers only fight in just wars. That means they must question the ethics and justification of every war; that's their job. If they decide that the war is unethical and unjust, then the job of the civilians is to do whatever they can to stop the war. As an extreme example, in the case of a few German civilians during WWII, that meant being a "traitor" to Germany and assisting the Allies. In other cases, such as opposition to the Vietnam War, that includes protest marches, political activism, and perhaps even fleeing to Canada to avoid participation.

I'm sorry that German civilians failed to do their jobs and sent an excellent professional army -- the Wehrmacht -- off to fight in 2 unjust wars in the 20th century. That does not mean that the soldiers of the Wehrmacht were either stupid or doing blind obedience. They held up their end of the bargain; the civilians failed in theirs.

 

[lucaspa]

The post I commented on called for respect and salute for those who "served". This is what I was aiming at and this is the whole point of my position. I don´t disagree with remembering - I even recommended mourning for the victims. But I cannot respect war or those who participate in it, and I cannot respect those who demand respect for this slaughter.

You need to remember that sometimes one side has no real choice but war. If they don't fight, then there isn't a war, but a massacre.

You think that could be any reason why a tailor from Oxford and a baker from Nuremberg should kill each other in a field in Flandres?

Not for the baker from Nuremberg, but the tailor from Oxford had a good reason: keeping innocent Belgians and French from being murdered. We acknowledge that self-defense -- either of yourself or innocent, unarmed people -- is an ethical and justifiable reason for killing the killer or would-be killer. Sometimes there are people -- and nations -- from whom we need to defend ourselves.

Unfortunately, Germany in WWI was one of those. Official German policy even before the war began was 1) invading a neutral country (Belgium) and 2) using terror and mass murder to keep the Belgian people from interferring with the invasion. Barbara Tuchmann in The Guns of August does a good job of documenting this.

Did the baker of Nuremburg do any of the planning? Of course not. He upheld is half of the contract. The Imperial High Command and the civilian government (and by extension all civilians) failed to hold their side of the contract. The baker paid the price.

And yes, Americans have had to deal with this too. We treated soldiers who fought in Vietnam very badly because we considered the war unjust. So the civilians broke another part of their bargain: honor the soliders who go fight.