Double standards in warfare

en.wikipedia.org...

some quotes from the site and some of my own thoughts with it:

During WW2, Adolph Hitler is said to have caused the deaths of six million Jews in concentration camps. He was violently opposed by the British.

During the Second Boer War, between the war heroes Lords Roberts and Kitchener,
over 26,000 women and children were to perish in (the South African) concentration camps.

These are only the white deaths. The blacks apparently were not considered to be that important – of the 120,000+ who are said to have been interned, only 12,000 deaths are recorded. An incredibly low number. Dare i say, too low for the amount of interneds. Roberts and Kitchener fought for the British Empire.

The Boer War concentration camp system was the first time that a whole nation had been systematically targeted, and the first in which some whole regions had been depopulated.

Adolph Hitler merely expanded on it, it seems.

So, here is the tricky question for the day:

How many civilian deaths are needed before a (British) military tactical genius becomes the equal of one considered to be a (German) genocidal maniac?

I thought this was going to be about how when Dems expand wars and worse crimes are commited under their directives they got a pass by the media. But, on topic.......it depends upon the goals and the outcome, the victors write hisory.

Get your point but a big difference - Nazi concentration camps were for the extinction of an entire peoples, Boer War concentration camps were for storing people until they decided what to do with them. Quite an important difference.

Also, numerous examples throughout early history of victors destroying the defeated (Caesar and Rome with the Nervii Tribe, Carthaginian action against city states in Sicily, etc, etc)

reply to post by J.Smit


Interesting to consider and I see where you are going with this but I think you have to allow "intent" to figure in here somehow. Intention, or what it is you are trying to do needs to be considered as well as what you are doing.

it's easy to sit back and judge. The fact is when there is war people are going to die. You are either against all war or you have to admit that people (innocents included) are going to die.

I thank those troops that died for the USA so that I can sit here and post this

I think that intent plays a part. The British concentration camps, while immoral, were not intended to kill boers, rather to deprive the commandos of their support network.
The Nazi ones were purely to kill people.


Wow, some folks sure can type fast. :-)

Originally posted by SprocketUK
I think that intent plays a part. The British concentration camps, while immoral, were not intended to kill boers, rather to deprive the commandos of their support network.
The Nazi ones were purely to kill people.

Of course, the Nazis imprisoned and murdered their actual---and the most mildly suspected---political enemies [i.e. Communists], like far too many paranoid psychotic and totalitarian regimes.

The Nazis were close to unique however in having an explicit policy of separating, oppressing and exterminating groups of their own citizens who were productive and loyal---and then going out of their way after invading other countries---to exterminate the same subsets.

reply to post by Pastafarian


I am a soldier. I have been to war. I am in a support role, not combat. Some colleagues were murdered during peace time. Some colleagues died during deployment. I know death is a part of my employment, i know it is a part of this life on this earth. Believe me, i am a realist, not a pessimist who says "It's war, we're dead!", nor an optimist who says "We won't die because we don't believe it!"

I do not judge soldiers for doing their work when the need arises. I am pro-death penalty for specific crimes, such as murder, rape, marine piracy...

But i am against soldiers abusing people, be they military or civilian. And i despise two scales of measurement, one for this side and another for the opposition.

My question is based on history. Why is one considered a mass-murderer, while those who opposed him and helped with branding him, did the same half-a-century earlier?

Originally posted by mbkennel

The Nazis were close to unique however in having an explicit policy of separating, oppressing and exterminating groups of their own citizens who were productive and loyal---and then going out of their way after invading other countries---to exterminate the same subsets.

edit on 7-4-2011 by mbkennel because: (no reason given)

Negative on that. Joseph Stalin murdered roughly twenty million of his own, Pol Pot between a quarter and one third of his own, Nicolae Ceausescu roughly 5,000, Mao Tse-Tung roughly forty-five million of his own during his "great leap forward" (and he is an inspiration for some of Obama's cabinet)...

reply to post by J.Smit


Mate, the difference is in what was intended.
The British camps were intended to hold civilians until the war was won. They were only supposed to be kept there to stop them being able to resupply the commandos. That many did die was due to ineptitude on the part of their captors.
The Nazi ones were all about killing the prisoners.

Double post. Please delete this one, moss.