Reminds me of recently how Obama had been in contact with Abe about visiting Hiroshima to give a speech about how the world needs to get rid of nuclear weapons and some silly person put a footnote on a press release offhandedly stating that he wasn't going to apologize about the bombings. As far as I had read nobody on either side really cared about an apology; the White House didn't want to do it and the Japanese were more interested in the forward outlook of nobody ever getting bombed again rather than looking back at the past with an apology. Regardless, the entirety of American media headlined "Obama's not gonna apologize!" and ignored everything else about the visit just to get the rabble roused.
That stuff's complicated to begin with, and politics and human behavior in general always gets in the way somehow.
Any grudge needs only be between those who were personally involved. Even the immediate children of both oppressed and oppressor really have nothing between them if both groups are born in peacetime.
People also forget any men involved in war participate against their own will nor just following orders. Holding grudges over things that happened out of our timelines based in actions directed by governments of that time is just ridiculous. It only makes you a straight racist (or whatever right word I can't come up with because any nation have many races... xenophobic? no, that doesn't work either).
People also forget any men involved in war participate against their own will nor just following orders. Holding grudges over things that happened out of our timelines based in actions directed by governments of that time is just ridiculous. It only makes you a straight racist (or whatever right word I can't come up with because any nation have many races... xenophobic? no, that doesn't work either).
That presumes there was a draft. There was in WW2 for all the major nations involved, but it's not universal. Post-Vietnam, the US military is all volunteer, so they did, in fact, "sign up for this shit".
Even in WW2, though, not all actions carried out by soldiers were actions that were ordered. To use warships as an example, unless high command radioed in, the captain was the law, and had wide latitude to behave as he saw fit. This leads to some like Ikazuchi's Captain Kudo putting his ship at great risk to rescue the sailors of enemy ships he'd just sunk, to others like the captain of the I-8 after her German trip captain she's represented with in-game getting the crew to pick up survivors of ships he'd sunk, then use them for sword practice to bait sharks to eat the rest of the survivors. The same goes down the line - a lieutenant can have an effect upon the temperament of their platoon as much as a general upon a regiment.
Of course, if it's individual initiative on the part of leaders who get their men to follow, then it does just make blaming anyone but the people involved ridiculous, anyway.
People like to paint WW2 as a black-and-white morality story about "the Greatest Generation", but there were heroic moments and times of sheer barbarity on every side. The only thing "great" about firebombing civilian population centers like Tokyo and Dresden was the scale of death. ("Fun" fact: more people died by burning to death by fires set by incendiary bombs in the Tokyo firestorm than died from the Hiroshima bomb, even including radiation poisoning afterwards. Hiroshima was just considered more horrifying because of the poisoning and what sort of war it meant the next one would be.)
I personally see it as a wash, where there isn't any point in holding grudges, and that people should just be honest about history, rather than trying to whitewash everything. The only thing that annoys me is seeing people trying to cover it up, whether it is whole nations removing facts from textbooks or the Internet trolls that try to attack people who talk about these things.
That said, any time anyone says something like this, it always winds up getting voted down, so obviously, still censorship of a sorts...
"hatred cannot be the only reason for war. it only brings about more pointless deaths." Dietrich "Boss" Kellerman Belkan air force / 51st air division / 126th tactical fighter squadron
"hatred cannot be the only reason for war. it only brings about more pointless deaths." Dietrich "Boss" Kellerman Belkan air force / 51st air division / 126th tactical fighter squadron
Last I checked, hatred was never the sole reason for any war I know of.
World War 2 is one of the war based on hatred, Hitler hate jews and commies so much that he declared war to wipe them out of the face of the earth
It was started with living conditions, built upon hatred, carried out by glory, and ended by retribution.
Hitler himself came to talk about hate on the Jews and communists because the living condition of the common German was bad. But instead of blaming the British and other winners of WW1 (for many reasons), he pinned it on the upper class of Jews for them holding most money in Germany and communists for trying to not work without proper pays. Then, it was glorified into the superior of the Aryan race. That Germany should be on top. That the glorious future is Germany's to grasp. But the whole war got paid back in full. And then some. By the Soviet, the American, the British, the French, and all members who fought against Germany.
As I said, it was never about just hatred. And WW2 was definitely a war about glory just as much is it about hate. Tell me singing about dying for your country being worth it isn't a sign of glory seeking.
Iowa,tear
"Attack on the Foreign Ship" 4/4
It's sad to see them grow up like this...They may have seen that quintessential truth behind human nature within Isonami...No one can continue living on perpetual hatred alone....everyone's all grown up.WAAAAAAAAAARGH—Ammo...tearThe ammo's... gone... gone, gone...Isonami too...I'm out of ammo...Fubuki, and Murakumo too...
