Best. News. Ever.

[Grelf]

Wounded Knee is what 150 years ago. Also how many civilians did the American Indians happen to massacre through out that period. They are not exactly innocent.

The bounds of your stupidity is just amazing. With this statement alone, you've reaffirmed my belief in eugenics. Please report to the sterilizing center before you breed.

[Nosartur]

Yeah becuase only those that agree with your revisionist history through coke bottle lens can have an opinion.  I statated it badly but the jest of the point was that Wounded Knee was fought in the same manner of battles previous to it for about 8000 years.  You raid our villages (western settlers) and we raid your villages (Indian villages).  Trying to apply modern military doctrine to the way a war was fought over a hundred years in the past is fucking pointless.  

As to Nagasake you do know that the Japanese still were not going to surrender after Hiroshima.  Oh wait no we had to kill japanese civilians that is why we rounded them up by the thousands and gased them after the war.

[cerberus]

we did not give them enough time to surrender. The USA dropped nagasaki because the soviets were beginning to advance on japan and we didn't want to share japan like we did germany. And nos, we were wrong for what we did. USA massacred the native americans, and while I don't feel much guilt to current native americans the least we can do is not fucking distort history.

[Nosartur]

Linkage of facts to back up that assertion would be nice.  I doubt it for the simple fact that military timetables are drawn up weeks in advance.  Here is the document that authorized the droppings of the atomic bombs.  It is dated, July 25, 1945, two full weeks before Russia declared war on Japan, August 8, 1945.  Also the Russians still had to get through Manchuria, they were rolling along nicely but they still had no way to cross the Sea of Japan.  They had no amphibious capability what so ever so I put little stock in your evaluation.

I never argued that the massacres of the Native American populations was not wrong nor did I argue that it never took place.   I just do not see the relevancy of what is basically ancient history when talking about modern warfare.  I also try to see things and understand decisions made in the context of the time not that of modern Western Culture.  Wounded Knee was a massacre however at the time that was the way things were down all over the world.  It was a different time than now.

[CmdrSlack]

IIRC, the practice of scalping was something the natives learned from us, not the other way around.

Not to mention smallpox, alcohol and every other initiative taken by white people to decimate the natives.  I guess you could argue that we didn't know smallpox would kill the natives.  I guess you could argue taht it was their own fault for drinking the booze we sold 'em.

Or perhaps it was that whole "manifest destiny" and "white man's burden" mentality.

[Nosartur]

Scalping was well entrenched in Native American culture long before the Europeans showed up.    This is a long winded archeological paper on scalping in North America.  

Your veiws on small pox are ignorant since it was still killing Europeans by the thousands.  It was just an unintentional consequence of the meeting of the cultures.  Alcohol wasn't so much used to decimate the populations as it was a way to subdue them once on the reservations.

[Grelf]

Please feel free to refer to my earlier post.

[Nosartur]

Grelf either make relevant points or butt the fuck out.  This is not the Vault.

[daveNYC]

Grelf either make relevant points or butt the fuck out.  This is not the Vault.

If it were the Vault he would have said something like "STFU N00b!!!!11!"  Instead he used complete sentences, and words that could be found on the SAT.  Well, maybe the PSAT.

[Grelf]

Gladly, I was just busy earlier.

Wounded Knee is what 150 years ago. Also how many civilians did the American Indians happen to massacre through out that period. They are not exactly innocent.

The original discussion was the slaughtering of civilians. Someone mentioned a few places of contention, to which, you replied with the above in regards to Wounded Knee.

Just to nitpick, Wounded Knee occurred 114 years ago, Dec. 28, 1890 to be exact.

All the indians were civilians, there was NO standing amerind militia or army. There never was, since the tribal mindset didn't allow for it.

As for all the poor civilians they murdered, I would think if the Chinese decided to come to your town, kill your men, rape/kill your women, take your land, use up everything there, and basically tell you to go screw, you'd sit there and say "thank you, could I have another.".

And finally, in regards to the Massacre at Wounded Knee, not only did the Seventh Cavalry of the US Army kill men, women and children, at Wounded Knee Creek, but they also slaughtered a number of the surviving prisoners, some miles away from the original scene. And not only did they murder them, and cover up the entire incident, they were given medals of honor, which still have yet to be rescinded. Just business as usual as far as the goverments dealings with the american indians.

This of course is the last of the so called 'indian wars', of which most of them due to either the goverment breaking contracts with the american indians, and backing it up with force, or making sure any land given to the indians were of so poor use, they all wind up starving to death.

I could go on and on and on, but I'm fairly sure I've made my point, about the stupidity of your post regarding Wounded Knee.

[Nosartur]

Not once did I say that none of that occured.  The date was prefenced with a "what" becuase I wasn't sure of the date and didn't feel like looking it up.

If you are taking up arms against an opponent how are you a civilian again.  At what age did the majority of Native American Males become warriors in their tribes?  I bet it would be of an age we would call children now.  My main point of it although worded poorly the first time was what does bringing up what amounts to ancient history as far as military history is concerned in the discussion of modern military doctrine do.  Things were done differently in the past it was a much different world then.  The life of an opponent was considered cheap by both sides.

Was the treatment of the Native Populations by America deplorable, yes.  That has little to do with the modern world.

Also as I pointed out in the original thread that most of this covers from the original WT I said there were much better incedints to use to argue the point.  Prisoners in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam were often executed.  That would not be tolerated in todays military.  It was ignored in times past for a number of reasons.  Inability to move the prisoners, tactical considerations, and a few others.  And yes I can see how a commander would issue such orders in those time periods well all except Vietnam.

[Grelf]

If you are taking up arms against an opponent how are you a civilian again.

I'd have to counter this with, if you're taking up arms to slaughter people wholesale, how are you a civilian? Wounded Knee Creek is just one of the more reprehensible acts committed by the government.  The number of American Indians, slaughtered by non-military settlers is much greater.

I took offense to intimation that the Indians were not a civilian population, and they somehow 'deserved' the treatment they received at Wounded Knee.

And scalping, may or may not be an invention of the Indians, but there is proof that the scalping of ones fallen foes originated in Ancient Iran with the Scythians in 5 BC. Persians, Visigoths, Anglo-Saxons and Francs have also practiced scalping. The long winded paper you referred to isn't incontrovertible proof, just a theory, one based on word of mouth stories.

Either way this is veering greatly from the original post. Simple fact, is none of us know why Sharon and/or Israel allowed the assassination, but I think we can all agree it's going to make for very interesting, if not dangerous times in Israel.

Military attacks on civilian population is nothing new, it's called winning by attrition, and while a deplorable practice, it's been shown to work, and to backfire, in just about equal instances. My personal opinion is Israel is causing more problems for themselves by so publicly and openly killing those people who are the brains behind the fanatics. It seems to me, if Israel was interested removing the 'brains' behind the suicide bombers, they could assassinate them much quieter, without causing these people from becoming martyr’s and fueling their followers even more.

Would have been just as effective to poison the old man, and make his death seem natural, thus neutralizing any chance of him becoming anything more then a garden-variety martyr. IMO, they are looking more to make a statement, then anything else.