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HK

wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:53:35 -0000, thunder
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:15:43 -0500, gfretwell wrote:

I'm not sure I buy European culture had a "gentlemanly war ethic". Look
at the "ethnic cleansing" of the Balkans, the uncivil Spanish Civil War,
the Holocaust, or even the Russian- German battles of WWII, none were
very gentlemanly.
You are talking about people who were not part of the European "royal
families". Even with your examples there is still little comparison to
the things that happened to the people who the Japanese conquered.
European wars have little to compare to the rape of Nanking, the forced
prostitution of Korean women, sword practice on allied prisoners and the
bayonetting of babies by the jap troops. Europe also never really saw
anything like the Kamakazi.
I'm not disputing the barbarity of Asian wars. The Japanese were incredibly brutal, as was Pol
Pot, the Chinese Nationalists (Yellow River Flood), etc. I was disputing the "gentlemanly"
character of the European. Because of our predominately European heritage, many of the
European atrocities have been glossed over, including our own.

I think the reason I feel this way was my father was a POW in WWII.
The Germans picked him up on the battlefield, severely wounded and
unable to walk, They put him in a hospital and saved his life. Again
wounded (his second purple heart) while running from our allies, the
russians, to get back to the American lines they again spared his life
when he could not move on his own,

The japs would have killed him the first day.

Yes, the Germans were very admirable adversaries during World War II,
especially when they were killing millions of Jews, Gypsies,
homosexuals, and the mentally ill. Not brutally, of course, but with the
greatest of care and love.