The lessons from the fall off South Vietnam
James A. Donald
When a big event takes place, its meaning is not at first apparent.
A generation has now passed, and we can now see the meaning of the
fall of South Vietnam.
The fall of South Vietnam had shocking and horrifying effects on
Indochina, and large and disturbing effects throughout the world in
places far distant from Indochina. For fourteen to fifteen years
following the fall, a multitude of evils flowed from this event. From
those consequences we can now draw some conclusions:
1. There could be no peace with communists, because communists do not
recognize peace. For communists there is only war and near war
accompanied by preparation for predatory attack.
2. There could be no surrender to communists, because communists do
not recognize surrender. If one attempts to surrender to communists,
one merely gives up ones arms so that they can continue to make war on
one unimpeded and unopposed.
3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
knife to another.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Lnsdq0Tnv9WJeiFfyzNO/JCrkxeCfaQ27QilRlf7
4CgZruWAKfMG05skOKmPVgtkXorVDuEAfzXMUWJU8
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
Mark Roddy
wrote:
[blah blah blah]
>
>3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
>because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
>submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
>rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
>imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
>did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
>knife to another.
>
Interesting interpretation of history as Sihanouk's political throat
was cut by the right wing US-backed militarists, not the vietnamese.
By the way, aside from the mess in cambodia, indochina has been at
peace since the fall of saigon. The mess in cambodia was of course
ended by those nasty vietnamese communists, who were the only ones
with the moral fortitude to do the right thing and end the horror.
Mark Roddy
Scott B-house
When a big mistake takes place, James, its meaning is not at first
apparent. Sounds a little gotistical of you to be able to categorize every
person who believes in the writings or idealogy of communism by the actions
of a couple of leaders. Perhaps I should judge your idealogy based on the
events that have occured by others? Hitler was a pretty damn loyal
capitalist, and used the people's capitalism to gain his power. Maybe you
should consider the reverse of what you say next time?
>
> A generation has now passed, and we can now see the meaning of the
> fall of South Vietnam.
>
> The fall of South Vietnam had shocking and horrifying effects on
> Indochina, and large and disturbing effects throughout the world in
> places far distant from Indochina. For fourteen to fifteen years
> following the fall, a multitude of evils flowed from this event. From
> those consequences we can now draw some conclusions:
>
> 1. There could be no peace with communists, because communists do not
> recognize peace. For communists there is only war and near war
> accompanied by preparation for predatory attack.
>
> 2. There could be no surrender to communists, because communists do
> not recognize surrender. If one attempts to surrender to communists,
> one merely gives up ones arms so that they can continue to make war on
> one unimpeded and unopposed.
>
> 3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
> because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
> submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
> rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
> imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
> did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
> knife to another.
>
>
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > 3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
> > because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
> > submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
> > rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
> > imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
> > did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
> > knife to another.
On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 07:09:09 -0500, Mark Roddy
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
> Interesting interpretation of history as Sihanouk's political throat
> was cut by the right wing US-backed militarists, not the vietnamese.
He did a deal with the communists, presumably because he thought they
were going to win. He suffered as a result of that deal, and when
they won, they discarded him.
> By the way, aside from the mess in cambodia, indochina has been at
> peace since the fall of saigon.
Typical Roddy tall tale. Communists are never at peace.
Three hundred thousand Laotians fled Vietnamese aggression against the
Laotian people.
The war against the South Vietnamese did not cease with the fall of
Saigon. They murdered huge numbers in the course of pacification.
Once South Vietnam and Laos was dealth with, the regime resumed its
unfinished internal war against Vietnamese racial minorities, the war
that they had postponed for a generation in order to deal with
external enemies.
North Vietnam was aggressive and expansionist, and subdued all its
neighbors except China. Having subdued them, it continued to act as
if it was in a state of war against the populations that it had
recently conquered, and in a state of war against a large portion of
the long conquered North Vietnamese population.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
hgExXynpqA1BWEAZ7GGU+KwVU/sPHZmy7diPyx/g
41VMlqFp5ccR+q79FNozseAMe6NeLNSiHyCd04iR0
James A. Donald
On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:52:59 -0600, "Scott B-house"
<sbh...@ruraltel.net> wrote:
> When a big mistake takes place, James, its meaning is not at first
> apparent. Sounds a little gotistical of you to be able to
> communism by the actions of a couple of leaders.
Every place that communism was tried, they used the same methods, and
had the same results.
> Perhaps I should judge your idealogy based on the events that have
> occured by others? Hitler was a pretty damn loyal capitalist,
Liar.
Hitler was a socialist. Check out the nazi and "nordic" web pages.
They say that the means of production must be put at the service of
the state, not the individual, and do not use such words as "property"
or "market". They called themselves socialist then and they call
themselves socialist now in those web pages, (though they also quote
Mussolini, who certainly does not), their ideology was socialist, is
socialist right now in those web pages, and they acted like
socialists.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Dcns77TdG5OzpGOVpnACMCQHLDgApHeOVbMeVq0G
45VjF685D0usWPi/UK+WQL6TXeYAnsZgWo1InNPzp
anarchometer
Scott B-house wrote in message ...
> When a big mistake takes place, James, its meaning is not at first
>apparent. Sounds a little gotistical of you to be able to categorize every
>person who believes in the writings or idealogy of communism by the actions
>events that have occured by others? Hitler was a pretty damn loyal
Hitler was a socialist.
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>James A. Donald:
>> > 3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
>> > because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
>> > submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
>> > rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
>> > imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
>> > did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
>> > knife to another.
>
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 07:09:09 -0500, Mark Roddy
><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>> Interesting interpretation of history as Sihanouk's political throat
>> was cut by the right wing US-backed militarists, not the vietnamese.
>
>He did a deal with the communists, presumably because he thought they
>were going to win. He suffered as a result of that deal, and when
>they won, they discarded him.
>
No donald, shianouk was discarded by a right-wing military coup
sponsored by your hero RM Nixon. But please don't let the facts get in
the way of your diatribe.
>> By the way, aside from the mess in cambodia, indochina has been at
>> peace since the fall of saigon.
>
>Typical Roddy tall tale. Communists are never at peace.
>
Except of course when they aren't at war. You'll have to redefine
peace to make this point of yours,w hich of course you do below.
>Three hundred thousand Laotians fled Vietnamese aggression against the
>Laotian people.
>
>The war against the South Vietnamese did not cease with the fall of
>Saigon.
There was never any such war. South Vietnam was a fiction created by
the 1954 Geneva Treaty.
>They murdered huge numbers in the course of pacification.
No they didn't. They aren't saints and they are totalitarian
communists, but they did not commit any mass killings after the war.
>Once South Vietnam and Laos was dealth with, the regime resumed its
>unfinished internal war against Vietnamese racial minorities, the war
>that they had postponed for a generation in order to deal with
>external enemies.
>
More bullshit.
>North Vietnam was aggressive and expansionist, and subdued all its
>neighbors except China.
Except that its borders are the same as ever, so its an odd sort of
expansionist policy. The one exception, your fantasies above ignored,
was the over-throw of the truly hideous khmer-rouge regime. Do you
count that in the crimes vietnam has committed?
Mark Roddy
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > > > 3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
> > > > because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
> > > > submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
> > > > rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
> > > > imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
> > > > did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
> > > > knife to another.
Mark Roddy:
>No donald, shianouk was discarded by a right-wing military coup
>sponsored by your hero RM Nixon. But please don't let the facts get in
>the way of your diatribe.]
Sihanouk was not an ally of the US. He was an ally of Moscow.
Therefore the US could not "discard" him.
Mark Roddy:
> > > By the way, aside from the mess in cambodia, indochina has been at
> > > peace since the fall of saigon.
James A. Donald:
> > Typical Roddy tall tale. Communists are never at peace.
Mark Roddy:
> Except of course when they aren't at war. You'll have to redefine
> peace to make this point of yours, which of course you do below.
Forty five thousand dead Laotians would not think much of your concept
of peace.
James A. Donald;
> > The war against the South Vietnamese did not cease with the fall of
> > Saigon.
Mark Roddy:
> There was never any such war. South Vietnam was a fiction created by
> the 1954 Geneva Treaty.
Who is redefining peace now?
James A. Donald:
> > They murdered huge numbers in the course of pacification.
Mark Roddy:
> No they didn't. [...] they did not commit any mass killings after the war.
What a ridiculous lie. Ask at your local noodle house. Even your
great hero Chomsky cannot bring himself to come forth with such an
absurdity, employing elaborate equivocations instead. Although it is
impossible to make any accurate estimate of the number murdered,
Jacqueline Desbarats estimated one hundred thousand extradjudicial
executions and about two and half million processed in slave labor
camps, and Chomsky conspicuously failed to contradict her, resorting
to elaborate equivocations instead.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
ifpYSu8Xm8itfv+tPawD18fbAAGIoXoNE9cMSRbn
4q3azrz+TJW00eAlJvOxByI3mBNDigIN292CjbN9o
misty
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:3892d6b6...@nntp1.ba.best.com...
> --
> When a big event takes place, its meaning is not at first apparent.
>
> A generation has now passed, and we can now see the meaning of the
> fall of South Vietnam.
>
> The fall of South Vietnam had shocking and horrifying effects on
> Indochina, and large and disturbing effects throughout the world in
> places far distant from Indochina. For fourteen to fifteen years
> following the fall, a multitude of evils flowed from this event. From
> those consequences we can now draw some conclusions:
>
> 1. There could be no peace with communists, because communists do not
> recognize peace. For communists there is only war and near war
> accompanied by preparation for predatory attack.
>
> 2. There could be no surrender to communists, because communists do
> not recognize surrender. If one attempts to surrender to communists,
> one merely gives up ones arms so that they can continue to make war on
> one unimpeded and unopposed.
>
> because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
> submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
> rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
> imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
> did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
> knife to another.
>
>
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> 4CgZruWAKfMG05skOKmPVgtkXorVDuEAfzXMUWJU8
James A. Donald
On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 15:18:30 -0800, "anarchometer"
<anarch...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Hitler was a socialist.
This of course depends on ones definition of socialist. A lot of
socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder enough
bourgeois.
But no matter how one defines socialism, he was an opponent of free
markets.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
3X2MMMnmqdsnsw9C+w+0F2V4+SgF398XdaMdSRGg
4uedq8R530xwRaYTC6vRVx/GMz00COoEIGQ2EjyRJ
misty
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> Lnsdq0Tnv9WJeiFfyzNO/JCrkxeCfaQ27QilRlf7
> 4CgZruWAKfMG05skOKmPVgtkXorVDuEAfzXMUWJU8
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 15:18:30 -0800, "anarchometer"
><anarch...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Hitler was a socialist.
>
>This of course depends on ones definition of socialist. A lot of
>socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
>which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder enough
>bourgeois.
>
No he failed to qualify because he left the capitalists in charge of
the economy. Oh they did have to support the war effort and things
like killing 12 million or so civilians, but they got to keep their
factories and banks (unless they were jews of course.)
Mark Roddy
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>James A. Donald:
>> > > > 3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
>> > > > because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
>> > > > submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
>> > > > rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
>> > > > imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
>> > > > did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
>> > > > knife to another.
>
>Mark Roddy:
>>No donald, shianouk was discarded by a right-wing military coup
>>sponsored by your hero RM Nixon. But please don't let the facts get in
>>the way of your diatribe.]
>
>Sihanouk was not an ally of the US. He was an ally of Moscow.
>Therefore the US could not "discard" him.
>
Ok rat thing, I haven't the time to address all of your bullshit, so
lets finish the Sihanoukone first. Above you say that Sihanouk, the
ruler of neutral Cambodia, was done in by the vietnamese. Yet this is
obvious bullshit as Sihanouk government was overthrwon by a US
sponsored military coup that resulted in the Lon Nol government that
led a pro-US regime until overthrown by the Khmer Rouge. The US didn't
'discard' Sihanouk in the sense of getting rid of an ally, they
discarded him in the sense of sponsoring a coup that overthrew his
neutral government.
So once again, your original claim that:
>>>>>>"Whoever
>> > > > imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
>> > > > did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
>> > > > knife to another.
Is just patently false. Rather than attempting to divert this thread
away from your blatent lies, why don't you back up your claim that the
vietnamese did in Sihanouk?
Mark Roddy
James A. Donald
On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:30:24 -0500, Mark Roddy
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
> Ok rat thing, I haven't the time to address all of your bullshit, so
> lets finish the Sihanoukone first. Above you say that Sihanouk, the
> ruler of neutral Cambodia, was done in by the vietnamese. Yet this is
> obvious bullshit as Sihanouk government was overthrwon by a US
> sponsored military coup that resulted in the Lon Nol government that
> led a pro-US regime until overthrown by the Khmer Rouge. The US didn't
> 'discard' Sihanouk in the sense of getting rid of an ally, they
> discarded him in the sense of sponsoring a coup that overthrew his
> neutral government.
Your lies are getting ever sillier. How can Sihanouk's government
have been neutral when it cut off all interaction with the US,
installed an iron curtain, and sponsored attacks on US forces from
within its territory?
Sianouk and the Sihanoukists were part of the alliance that overthrew
the Lon Nol regime, and Sihanouk was the nominal leader and head of
state of that communist alliance.
So Sihanouk was theoretically ruler of Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Except,
of course, he was not. He was discarded by his allies the communists.
He was not "discarded" by the US, since he was an enemy of the US, and
and imagined himself to be an ally of the communists. (Of course, in
reality, communists have no allies.)
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
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4WitfhOa5QiPGfWKAqadcPUOB16OodrSfbrIWqwKG
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > This of course depends on ones definition of socialist. A lot of
> > socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
> > which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder enough
> > bourgeois.
Mark Roddy:
> No he failed to qualify because he left the capitalists in charge of
> the economy.
No he did not leave the capitalists in charge of the economy.
> but they got to keep their factories and banks
They got to hang around as junior managers in their factories and
banks.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
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41SzWab9WjwZFrUxZY0L8aA409RMN7tz8+5GIIDzw
p@u.c
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> --
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:52:59 -0600, "Scott B-house"
><sbh...@ruraltel.net> wrote:
>> communism by the actions of a couple of leaders.
>
>had the same results.
>
>
>Liar.
>
>Hitler was a socialist.
Haven't we gone over this already? Hitler was not a socialist. Some
Nazis were socialists, but Hitler purged them from the party in
the process of consolidating his power. Nazi Germany was not socialist.
Try to get it right next time, James.
--
Patrick Crotty
e-mail: prcrotty at midway.uchicago.edu
home page: http://home.uchicago.edu/~prcrotty
p@u.c
><anarch...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Hitler was a socialist.
>
>socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
>which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder enough
>bourgeois.
>
>markets.
Which is a pretty good reason to be careful about how one defines
"socialist." Simply opposing free markets doesn't cut it, unless one
is going to call, say, the British government during the 1700s "socialist"
because it tried to monopolize the tea trade through the British East
India Tea Company.
James A. Donald
On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:27:19 GMT, p@u.c wrote:
> Which is a pretty good reason to be careful about how one defines
> "socialist." Simply opposing free markets doesn't cut it, unless one
> is going to call, say, the British government during the 1700s "socialist"
> because it tried to monopolize the tea trade through the British East
> India Tea Company.
If it tried to monopolize internal trade as well, then it would have
been socialist.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
BG9f+K8x5yV8+vCkVHgz4vah2w9rjLd9dViI1KLH
45pvNyRsYycSph7UJpbjKu0QhwdJ0MDccMscv3Ift
p@u.c
>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:27:19 GMT, p@u.c wrote:
>> Which is a pretty good reason to be careful about how one defines
>> "socialist." Simply opposing free markets doesn't cut it, unless one
>> is going to call, say, the British government during the 1700s "socialist"
>> because it tried to monopolize the tea trade through the British East
>> India Tea Company.
>
>If it tried to monopolize internal trade as well, then it would have
>been socialist.
Why would it have been socialist? Statist, maybe, but why socialist?
James A. Donald
On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:52:59 -0600, "Scott B-house"
> > > occured by others? Hitler was a pretty damn loyal capitalist,
James A. Donald:
> > Liar.
> >
> > Hitler was a socialist.
On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:23:29 GMT, p@u.c wrote:
> Haven't we gone over this already? Hitler was not a socialist.
Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism. Whether you
want to call that socialism or not, it is a lie to claim him to be
"loyal capitalist". As I said, check out the Nazi web pages.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
OKjEdjVb+PpMtzLPfUj2vzTWSYaLvV3sqN0qvwvi
4SaIAwvYFjKpLST4isNHqZPIpOk/ZvHB/aWf71MzZ
James A. Donald
On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:27:19 GMT, p@u.c wrote:
> > > Simply opposing free markets doesn't cut it, unless one
> > > is going to call, say, the British government during the 1700s "socialist"
> > > because it tried to monopolize the tea trade through the British East
> > > India Tea Company.
James A. Donald:
> > If it tried to monopolize internal trade as well, then it would have
> > been socialist.
p@u.c
> Why would it have been socialist? Statist, maybe, but why socialist?
Random house Dictionary:
Socialism: A theory or system of social organization where the means
of production are owned and controlled collectively or by the
government.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Dm+UZtmkvBkMQejlBmCck9yBACEyPqCvRbbcTWMt
4qRYOnZnev6Q2BsMYfmOCHpqueVaghU4mOyRUEGKv
p@u.c
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:52:59 -0600, "Scott B-house"
>> > > Perhaps I should judge your idealogy based on the events that have
>> > > occured by others? Hitler was a pretty damn loyal capitalist,
>
>James A. Donald:
>> > Liar.
>> >
>> > Hitler was a socialist.
>
>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:23:29 GMT, p@u.c wrote:
>> Haven't we gone over this already? Hitler was not a socialist.
>
>Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism. He did *not* think of
it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
socialist; he did *not* subscribe to socialist ideology, whether
the social-democratic version of the SPD or the Marxist version
of the KPD. He kicked orthodox socialists out of his party or
murdered them, and when he came to power, he did not pass any
recognizably socialist laws.
I've already discussed this at length, with citations and quotes,
in a previous post. But I will reiterate that Hitler used
"socialist" in a way that very few real socialists would agree with,
basically to vaguely mean "love of the German Volk." That's no
more socialist than is the right-wing American slogan "My country
right or wrong."
Nazi Germany was not anticapitalist, but state-capitalist. Owners
of businesses were allowed to profit, but their production activities
were directed from above. The workers got screwed as always.
>Whether you
>want to call that socialism or not, it is a lie to claim him to be
>"loyal capitalist". As I said, check out the Nazi web pages.
I didn't make that claim and I wouldn't try to equate the Nazi
economic system with the corporate-capitalist one currently in place
in America. But it's also incorrect to equate it with social-democratic
economies. It was a statist variant of capitalism. Statism can
be capitalist or socialist; neither capitalism nor socialism are
necessarily statist.
As for the Nazi web pages, I'd think twice before using the blathering
of some ignorant, whiny skinhead somewhere as an authoritative source.
Constantinople
>As for the Nazi web pages, I'd think twice before using the
>blathering of some ignorant, whiny skinhead somewhere as an
>authoritative source.
If you want to know what Nazism is, there is no better group of
people to study than Nazis.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
> > reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
p@u.c:
> Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
You have an unsual meaning for the word "wrong".
> He did *not* think of
> it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
> socialist;
Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
> I've already discussed this at length, with citations and quotes,
> in a previous post. But I will reiterate that Hitler used
> "socialist" in a way that very few real socialists would agree with,
Yet at the time, most real socialists did think he was socialist, most
infamously George Bernard Shaw. Moscow and its numerous servants
proclaimed him a capitalist tool, but they proclaimed everyone who was
not entirely servile to Moscow in every respect to be capitalist
tools.
> basically to vaguely mean "love of the German Volk." That's no
> more socialist than is the right-wing American slogan "My country
> right or wrong."
That has absolutely no resemblance to Nazi ideology, which was and is
a lot more coherent than Marxist ideology.
I have frequently remarked on the fact that those who deny the
existence of nazi ideology usually have an ideology almost
indistinguishable from nazism, aside from minor changes in the
villains to be exterminated, and the masters to be triumphant.
In fact I usually hear this tall tale not from the commies but from
those whose ideology comes straight from the ideologues of nazism,
from Barre, Heidegger, and Paul De Man, and from the immediate
disciples of Nazi philosophers, such as Derrida.
> But it's also incorrect to equate it with social-democratic economies.
The difference being?
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
tKV8ijSMNYgJoSWmTBnP7ZF8VqNzr69szVYQ3mHn
45UBWntsOvTWQabWdY981iOKBTcqJP3DAXfH0PT88
p@u.c
>James A. Donald:
>> > Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>> > reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
>
>p@u.c:
>> Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
>
>You have an unsual meaning for the word "wrong".
I define "wrong" as "incorrect" or "erroneous."
>> He did *not* think of
>> it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
>> socialist;
>
>Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
>not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
>believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
That's because, frankly, you're ignorant. I've already spent a lot
of time digging up historical references to show that Hitler did
not think of himself as a socialist, and I'm not going to waste
any more effort on someone who covers his eyes whenever confronted with
undeniable facts refuting his position and yells "Hitler was a socialist!
Hitler was a socialist!" Let alone someone who is too deluded or
clueless to see the obvious differences between fascism and social
democracy.
Go and read a few history books, and then get back to us.
Constantinople
>
>In article <389f0554...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>> --
>>James A. Donald:
>>> > Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>>> > reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
>>
>>p@u.c:
>>> Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
>>
>>You have an unsual meaning for the word "wrong".
>
>I define "wrong" as "incorrect" or "erroneous."
A: That is called a bat.
B: Wrong. That is called a *baseball* bat.
A: You have an unusual meaning for the word "wrong".
B: [response indicates B doesn't get it]
>>> He did *not* think of
>>> it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
>>> socialist;
>>
>>Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
>>not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
>>believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
>
>That's because, frankly, you're ignorant.
How interesting that the word "frankly" so often marks a lie for
easy identification.
--
"The most important function of economics as a discipline is its
didactic role in explaining the principle of spontaneous order."
-- Buchanan
p@u.c
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <KSil4.58$E3.589@uchinews>, p@u.c says...
>>
>>In article <389f0554...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>> --
>>>James A. Donald:
>>>> > Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>>>> > reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
>>>
>>>p@u.c:
>>>> Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
>>>
>>>You have an unsual meaning for the word "wrong".
>>
>>I define "wrong" as "incorrect" or "erroneous."
>
>A: That is called a bat.
>
>B: Wrong. That is called a *baseball* bat.
>
>A: You have an unusual meaning for the word "wrong".
>
>B: [response indicates B doesn't get it]
Actually, B *does* get it, because A was attempting to imply that a
piece of wood used to hit a ball is the same thing as a small winged
mammal, merely because they are referred to by the same name.
>>>> He did *not* think of
>>>> it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
>>>> socialist;
>>>
>>>Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
>>>not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
>>>believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
>>
>>That's because, frankly, you're ignorant.
>
>How interesting that the word "frankly" so often marks a lie for
>easy identification.
Fine. Then, getting away from pointless sophistry and back to the
topic, prove that Hitler was a socialist, and refute the evidence I've
brought up previously showing that he was *not* a socialist.
I'm waiting. . .
Constantinople
>
>In article <874jm2$2j...@edrn.newsguy.com>,
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>In article <KSil4.58$E3.589@uchinews>, p@u.c says...
>>>
>>>In article <389f0554...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>>>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>>> --
>>>>James A. Donald:
>>>>> > Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>>>>> > reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
>>>>
>>>>p@u.c:
>>>>> Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
>>>>
>>>>You have an unsual meaning for the word "wrong".
>>>
>>>I define "wrong" as "incorrect" or "erroneous."
>>
>>A: That is called a bat.
>>
>>B: Wrong. That is called a *baseball* bat.
>>
>>A: You have an unusual meaning for the word "wrong".
>>
>>B: [response indicates B doesn't get it]
>
>Actually, B *does* get it, because A was attempting to imply that a
>piece of wood used to hit a ball is the same thing as a small winged
>mammal, merely because they are referred to by the same name.
Then why didn't B say that, rather than incorrectly saying that A
was wrong? For, in fact, baseball bats are called bats.
>>>>> He did *not* think of
>>>>> it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
>>>>> socialist;
>>>>
>>>>Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
>>>>not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
>>>>believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
>>>
>>>That's because, frankly, you're ignorant.
>>
>>How interesting that the word "frankly" so often marks a lie for
>>easy identification.
>
>Fine. Then, getting away from pointless sophistry and back to the
>topic,
You have an unusual meaning for the word "sophistry". I think the
word you're looking for is "digression".
>prove that Hitler was a socialist, and refute the evidence I've
>brought up previously showing that he was *not* a socialist.
Better yet, why don't you refute the mountain of evidence I've brought
up previously showing that demons have possessed my goldfish? (I wonder
if you'll get that.)
>I'm waiting. . .
--
"The most important function of economics as a discipline is its
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:30:24 -0500, Mark Roddy
><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>> Ok rat thing, I haven't the time to address all of your bullshit, so
>> lets finish the Sihanoukone first. Above you say that Sihanouk, the
>> ruler of neutral Cambodia, was done in by the vietnamese. Yet this is
>> obvious bullshit as Sihanouk government was overthrwon by a US
>> sponsored military coup that resulted in the Lon Nol government that
>> led a pro-US regime until overthrown by the Khmer Rouge. The US didn't
>> 'discard' Sihanouk in the sense of getting rid of an ally, they
>> discarded him in the sense of sponsoring a coup that overthrew his
>> neutral government.
>
>Your lies are getting ever sillier. How can Sihanouk's government
>have been neutral when it cut off all interaction with the US,
>installed an iron curtain, and sponsored attacks on US forces from
>within its territory?
>
Would that have been before or after the US invasion of Cambodia ?
>Sianouk and the Sihanoukists were part of the alliance that overthrew
>the Lon Nol regime, and Sihanouk was the nominal leader and head of
>state of that communist alliance.
>
Ah James, you've gotten desperate here. Sihanouk was the ruler of
Cambodia, the actual ruler, not a figure head used by various
political forces, up until the Lon Nol coup. That coup was sponsored
by the US and was the event that deposed Sihanouk. After the vietnam
war ended Sihanouk indeed was used by various parties for various
purposes, and in fact at least part of the time the US, China and your
buddies the Khmer Rouge all went through the pretense of Sihanouk
being the head of some sort of governemtn in exile, He was however the
head of nothing and merely a pawn in a dismal and morally bankrupt end
game played out by China and the US as part of the end of the
Indo-China conflict. The vietnamese were not the bad guys in this
period of the conflict, even you should admit that it was they who
stood up and ended the bloodbath in Cambodia.
>So Sihanouk was theoretically ruler of Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Except,
>of course, he was not. He was discarded by his allies the communists.
>He was not "discarded" by the US, since he was an enemy of the US, and
>and imagined himself to be an ally of the communists. (Of course, in
>reality, communists have no allies.)
>
No James, at the time that Sihanouk was the head of the government in
exile he was in fact allied with the US, China and the Khmer Rouge. He
was also not the ruler of anything at that time.
All of which is irrelevant as your original claim was that the
vietnamese 'cut his throat' after sihanouk 'allied with them'. Which
they did not. As I have said repeatedly, and about which you continue
to preambulate around the suburbs of veracity, Prince Sihanouk was
deposed as the actual ruler of Cambodia by a US sponsored coup, not by
the vietnamese government.
Mark Roddy
Mark Roddy
>In article <874jm2$2j...@edrn.newsguy.com>,
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>In article <KSil4.58$E3.589@uchinews>, p@u.c says...
>>>
>>>In article <389f0554...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>>>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>>> --
>>>>James A. Donald:
>>>>> > Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>>>>> > reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
>>>>
>>>>p@u.c:
>>>>> Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
>>>>
>>>>You have an unsual meaning for the word "wrong".
>>>
>>>I define "wrong" as "incorrect" or "erroneous."
>>
>>A: That is called a bat.
>>
>>B: Wrong. That is called a *baseball* bat.
>>
>>A: You have an unusual meaning for the word "wrong".
>>
>>B: [response indicates B doesn't get it]
>
>Actually, B *does* get it, because A was attempting to imply that a
>piece of wood used to hit a ball is the same thing as a small winged
>mammal, merely because they are referred to by the same name.
>
>>>>> He did *not* think of
>>>>> it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of himself as a
>>>>> socialist;
>>>>
>>>>Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
>>>>not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
>>>>believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
>>>
>>>That's because, frankly, you're ignorant.
>>
>>How interesting that the word "frankly" so often marks a lie for
>>easy identification.
>
>Fine. Then, getting away from pointless sophistry and back to the
>topic, prove that Hitler was a socialist, and refute the evidence I've
>brought up previously showing that he was *not* a socialist.
>
>I'm waiting. . .
>
Don't hold your breath. The only real evidence is the use of the term
'socialism' in 'national socialism'. It is, as you point, argument by
word play and nothing else.
Mark Roddy
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>James A. Donald:
>> > This of course depends on ones definition of socialist. A lot of
>> > socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
>> > which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder enough
>> > bourgeois.
>
>Mark Roddy:
>> No he failed to qualify because he left the capitalists in charge of
>> the economy.
>
>No he did not leave the capitalists in charge of the economy.
>
>> but they got to keep their factories and banks
>
>They got to hang around as junior managers in their factories and
>banks.
>
Care to show some evidence that the Nazis replaced the upper
management of major non-jewish german corporations? Or is this just
more of your unsubstantiated nonsense?
Mark Roddy
Constantinople
<bkuWOPl5cjb7vp...@4ax.com>:
For those interested, this page is made up largely of quotes from
businessmen doing business under the Nazis.
Constantinople
>Don't hold your breath. The only real evidence is the use of the
>term 'socialism' in 'national socialism'. It is, as you point,
>argument by word play and nothing else.
The policy of the Nazi State had in common with
interventionism the practice of retaining the forms of private
property, while granting to government ever greater power not
merely to regulate, but to direct the activities of nominally
private enterprises. The Nazis went beyond the more moderate
interventionists in giving the state virtually unlimited power
to direct economic enterprises, consistent with the
totalitarian power the Third Reich exercised over politics,
culture and communications. National Socialism was socialism,
not interventionism. Mises states the situation:
"The German pattern differs from the Russian one in that it
(seemingly and nominally) maintains private ownership of the
means of production and keeps the appearance of ordinary
prices. There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs but only
shop managers(Betriebsfuhrer)...The government tells the shop
managers what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom
to buy, at what prices and to whom to sell. The government
decrees to whom and under what terms the capitalists must
entrust their funds and where and at what wages laborers must
work...all the prices, wages and interest rates are fixed by
the central authority...The government, not the consumers,
directs production. This is socialism in the outward guise of
capitalism."
http://www.antiwar.com/berkman/mises.html
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > How can Sihanouk's government
> > have been neutral when it cut off all interaction with the US,
> > installed an iron curtain, and sponsored attacks on US forces from
> > within its territory?
Mark Roddy:
> Would that have been before or after the US invasion of Cambodia ?
The US never invaded Cambodia. The US attacked forces located on
Cambodian soil after those forces had attacked US forces located in
Vietnam. After each such attack, the US immediately withdrew.
However the attacks on US forces that provoked the US attacks to which
you refer, occurred after Sihanouk cut off all relations with the US.
Later the US bombed large portions of Cambodia very heavily, at the
request of the Lon Nol government of Cambodia, which had taken power
with US assistance. The Lon Nol government was fighting the North
Vietnamese army at the time. The North Vietnamese DID invade Cambodia.
The US never did. The North Vietnamese launched full scale invasions
of Cambodia on several occaisions, arguably the biggest such invasion
being their war to overthrow the Lon Nol government. They attempted
to use conventional war tactics. This was unsuccessful. . The US
also bombed the Khmer Rouge extensively, which may have caused very
heavy civilian casualties because the Khmer Rouge did use guerrilla
tactics, and were more heavily intermingled with the civilian
population than the Vietnamese, thus harder to bomb.
> > Sianouk and the Sihanoukists were part of the alliance that overthrew
> > the Lon Nol regime, and Sihanouk was the nominal leader and head of
> > state of that communist alliance.
> Ah James, you've gotten desperate here. Sihanouk was the ruler of
> Cambodia, the actual ruler, not a figure head used by various
> political forces, up until the Lon Nol coup. That coup was sponsored
> by the US and was the event that deposed Sihanouk.
The coup was caused by the fact he was in alliance with the
communists, which pissed off both his own violently anti communist
army and bureacracy, and also the US.
After the coup he was indeed a figurehead ruler used by the
communists, but he did not realize he was a mere figurehead until too
late. Thus it is accurate to say the communists used and discarded
him. His alliance with the communists brought him destruction, they
pretended they would support him and repay him, and they did not.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
P3/+DCP1EBWK5jy4m4TR0ulHz237EtDh2/fZUsXQ
4of8JC2VutReQVh9XUoOA3ehFWB3hbC9GyhI2LnrJ
James A. Donald
> > Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and tended
> > not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no reason to
> > believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
p@u.c:
> That's because, frankly, you're ignorant. I've already spent a lot
> of time digging up historical references to show that Hitler did
> not think of himself as a socialist,
You have dragged up historical references to show that Hitler opposed
class warfare. The dictionary makes no reference to class warfare
when it describes socialism.
James A. Donald
On Mon, 31 Jan 2000 21:57:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
> Care to show some evidence that the Nazis replaced the upper
> management of major non-jewish german corporations?
They replaced few. They subordinated all to government ministries.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
t9cZ/hAXPVN5O2xXG10Pqe7T7T1R7mCPw95E5KnA
4m/oL3jwcuQ7i8HaE7icnHCu1a6zkIgAqYwfjhJyh
anarchometer
Constantinople wrote in message <8ECCED22Ff2...@209.99.56.11>...
>ma...@wattanuck.mv.com (Mark Roddy) wrote in
Tim Starr
>James A. Donald:
>>>How can Sihanouk's government have been neutral when it cut off all
>>>interaction with the US, installed an iron curtain, and sponsored
>>>attacks on US forces from within its territory?
>
>Mark Roddy:
>>Would that have been before or after the US invasion of Cambodia ?
>
>The US never invaded Cambodia. The US attacked forces located on
>Cambodian soil after those forces had attacked US forces located in
>Vietnam. After each such attack, the US immediately withdrew.
Yes. According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in such "hot
pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own personal
communication with Sihanouk.
In any case, Cambodian neutrality was first violated by the Viet Cong,
starting in 1958 when they started building the Ho Chi Minh trail
through eastern Laos & Cambodia, so they could supply their aggression
in South Vietnam while using the fig leaf of "neutral" territory to
protect themselves. They did this with Sihanouk's permission, but if he
had only given permission to the Viet Cong to use Cambodian territory
for the war against South Vietnam, & not the Allies opposing the Viet
Cong, then that would've hardly been "neutral".
Sihanouk secretly permitted the Allies to enter Cambodia in hot pursuit
of the Viet Cong, at least at first, thus preserving his neutrality.
Then he evidently withdrew his permission, thus siding with the Commies
& abandoning his neutrality. That made him a legitimate target for
overthrow by the anti-Communist Allies, just as Quisling was a
legitimate target for overthrow by the Western Allies in WWII for his
betrayal of Norway.
Tim Starr
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 05:37:40 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>wrote:
>
>[blah blah blah]
Translation: "I can't respond to anything else James Donald wrote, so
I'll just snip & deride it."
>>3. There could be no alliance with communists, or between communists,
>>because communists do not recognize alliance, only domination,
>>submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
>>rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
>>imagines himself in alliance with communists, as for example Sihanouk
>>did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
>>knife to another.
>
>Interesting interpretation of history as Sihanouk's political throat
>was cut by the right wing US-backed militarists, not the vietnamese.
Sihanouk cut his own throat by siding with the Commies whom he had
allowed to use Cambodia for attacks upon South Vietnam.
>By the way, aside from the mess in cambodia, indochina has been at
>peace since the fall of saigon.
False. Vietnam & China fought a war after the Vietnamese invasion of
Cambodia.
>The mess in cambodia was of course ended by those nasty vietnamese
>communists, who were the only ones with the moral fortitude to do the
>right thing and end the horror.
The Vietnamese invaded Cambodia for imperialist reasons, not to end the
democide. They didn't "end the horror", they intervened in an internal
conflict within the Khmer Rouge, overthrowing the Pol Pot faction &
putting the other faction in its place as Vietnamese puppets.
The rule of the Vietnamese puppet regime in Cambodia was much worse than
Pinochet's rule in Chile (about 100 times worse, going by the
bodycount). It only looks good in comparison to the rule of the Pol Pot
regime.
Only a lying commie-symp or commie-dupe would call an invasion to
establish an imperial puppet regime which murdered about 100 times as
many people as Pinochet "the right thing", & praise those who did it for
having the "moral fortitude" to "end the horror".
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
[snip]
>>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 07:09:09 -0500, Mark Roddy
>><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>>Interesting interpretation of history as Sihanouk's political
>>>throat was cut by the right wing US-backed militarists, not the
>>>vietnamese.
>>
>>He did a deal with the communists, presumably because he thought they
>>were going to win. He suffered as a result of that deal, and when
>>they won, they discarded him.
>
>No donald, shianouk was discarded by a right-wing military coup...
Sihanouk was the one that discarded his anti-Communist allies by
breaking his word. Sihanouk had secretly promised the U.S. Ambassador
that he wouldn't object if the Allies chased the Viet Cong into Cambodia
in hot pursuit. Then Sihanouk objected to the U.S. bombing of Viet Cong
targets in Cambodia. Since he'd already given his permission to the
Viet Cong to operate in eastern Cambodia, this withdrawal of his
permission to let the US target the Viet Cong in the same territory not
only amounted to a breach of promise, but also abandonment of neutrality
in favor of the Viet Cong, thus making him a belligerent & a legitimate
target for overthrow by the anti-Communist Lon Nol from within
Sihanouk's own government.
[snip]
>>Three hundred thousand Laotians fled Vietnamese aggression against
>>the Laotian people.
>>
>>The war against the South Vietnamese did not cease with the fall of
>>Saigon.
>
>There was never any such war. South Vietnam was a fiction created by
>the 1954 Geneva Treaty.
All states are "fictions" "created" by international treaties. The fact
remains that South Vietnam was the internationally-recognized government
of South Vietnam, against which North Vietnam waged a war of aggression.
[snip]
>>They murdered huge numbers in the course of pacification.
>
>No they didn't. They aren't saints and they are totalitarian
>communists, but they did not commit any mass killings after the war.
The North Vietnamese murdered an estimated 50K people when they
collectivized agriculture in the late 1950s. After the fall of Saigon,
agriculture was also collectivized in South Vietnam, too. Every other
known case of collectivization of agriculture required mass murder,
including the previous one by North Vietnam. What reason is there to
believe that the collectivization of agriculture in South Vietnam after
the fall of Saigon by the same Hanoi regime which carried out the
previous one was any less murderous?
If the Hanoi regime didn't commit any democide after the fall of Saigon,
then what were all those hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese "boat
people" fleeing from?
[snip]
>>North Vietnam was aggressive and expansionist, and subdued all its
>>neighbors except China.
>
>Except that its borders are the same as ever, so its an odd sort of
>expansionist policy.
North Vietnam's borders most certainly are not "the same as ever". The
borders of North Vietnam didn't include South Vietnam before 1975.
>The one exception, your fantasies above ignored, was the over-throw of
>the truly hideous khmer-rouge regime. Do you count that in the crimes
>vietnam has committed?
The Hanoi regime also invaded Laos, overthrew the government, & set up a
puppet regime in its place. The Hanoi regime did the same to Cambodia,
using the pretext of stopping the democide of the Pol Pot regime as a
fig leaf with which to camouflage its imperialist expansion. Of course
that is among the crimes the Hanoi regime has committed.
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
[snip]
>...you say that Sihanouk, the ruler of neutral Cambodia, was done in
>by the vietnamese. Yet this is obvious bullshit as Sihanouk government
>was overthrwon by a US sponsored military coup...
Sihanouk had given permission to the Viet Cong to operate from eastern
Cambodia. He'd also given permission to the US to pursue the Viet Cong
into Cambodia in hot pursuit. Sihanouk then withdrew the permission
he'd given the US, breaking his promise that he wouldn't object, thereby
siding squarely with the Commies, making himself a belligerent & a
legitimate target from anti-Communists within the Cambodian government.
Sihanouk had only himself to blame. He didn't stay neutral, he sided
with the Commies, & he broke his promise to the US. He deserves no more
sympathy for his treason than does the Yugoslav ruler who was overthrown
for committing treason by allying with Hitler.
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 21:21:43 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>wrote:
[snip]
>>Your lies are getting ever sillier. How can Sihanouk's government
>>have been neutral when it cut off all interaction with the US,
>>installed an iron curtain, and sponsored attacks on US forces from
>>within its territory?
>>
>
>Would that have been before or after the US invasion of Cambodia?
The US didn't invade Cambodia. Sihanouk secretly gave the US permission
to pursue the Viet Cong into Cambodia in hot pursuit, promising the US
Ambassador that he wouldn't object. Then Sihanouk objected to the US
bombing of Cambodia, breaking his word & siding with the Commies. Then
he was overthrown by the anti-Communist Lon Nol, who also gave
permission to the US to pursue the Viet Cong into Cambodia, which the US
did. This is covered in standard, mainstream histories of the Vietnam
War, like Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History". Only lying commies &
commie-dupes maintain otherwise.
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
[snip]
>Don't hold your breath. The only real evidence is the use of the term
>'socialism' in 'national socialism'.
That's funny, the mainstream liberal historian Stanley Payne writes in
"A History of Fascism, 1914-1945", that Nazi Germany was totalitarian,
& that all totalitarian regimes must necessarily be socialist, so
therefore Nazi Germany was socialist. (He goes on to assert that
socialism needn't necessarily be totalitarian, which is false, per
Hayek.)
The evidence that Nazi Germany was truly socialist is that the entire
economy was under State direction & control, even though it was left in
private hands. Private property was only held in trust for the State in
Nazi Germany, left in private hands so long as it was used in accordance
with the State's purposes, & confiscated if it was used contrary to the
State's purposes. There is ample evidence of this in the historical
record.
The only people who deny that Nazi Germany was socialist are the lying
commies, commie-symps, & commie-dupes who've bought into the Comintern's
line of "Fascism, the final stage of Capitalism." In fact, the opposite
is the truth. Fascism is the final stage of Socialism.
Mussolini consciously modeled the first Fascist regime on Leninist
Russia. Hitler consciously modeled Nazi Germany on Fascist Italy.
Soviet official Karl Radek called the Nazis "National Bolsheviks".
Lenin quickly abandoned the total nationalization of industry ("War
Communism") in favor of total State control of the economy, with the
nationalization of strategic industries ("New Economic Policy"). Stalin
rejected Trotsky's policy of permanent revolution in favor of "Socialism
in One Country", which would be expanded to other countries only when
the opportunities presented themselves. Thus, even Soviet Socialism
quickly became Russian National Socialism.
Tim Starr
> In article <3895dbb1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
> >> When a big mistake takes place, James, its meaning is not at first
> >> apparent. Sounds a little gotistical of you to be able to
> >> categorize every person who believes in the writings or idealogy of
> >> communism by the actions of a couple of leaders.
> >
> >Every place that communism was tried, they used the same methods, and
> >had the same results.
> >
> >> Perhaps I should judge your idealogy based on the events that have
> >> occured by others? Hitler was a pretty damn loyal capitalist,
> >
> >
> >Hitler was a socialist.
>
>Nazis were socialists, but Hitler purged them from the party in
>the process of consolidating his power.
Hitler purged Ernst Roehm, leader of the Brownshirts, as well as the
Strasser brothers. The Brownshirts (Sturm Abteilung, "Storm Troopers")
were the street fighters whose main business was murdering political
opponents like the Commies. Their disagreement with Hitler was that
they wanted to proceed straight to the "War Communism" phase, to
"complete the National Socialist Revolution", while Hitler wanted to go
to the "New Economic Policy" phase, skipping "War Communism". They
wanted "National Socialism In One Country", while Hitler wanted to first
conquer the territory he thought he needed, then complete the National
Socialist Revolution within all the territory he'd conquered.
You're defining "socialism" as murdering Commies & immediately
nationalizing the whole economy, all within one country. Very unusual
definition of "socialism" you have there.
rat_...@my-deja.com
Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
> been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in
> such "hot pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own
> personal communication with Sihanouk.
I am disinclined to believe in "personal communications". That the US
forces did not stick around and thus did not directly oppose Sihanouk's
authority or violate the principles of Westphalia is known to all.
That they consulted with Sihanouk is not.
--
-- rat_thing
Tim Starr
[snip]
>>Hitler was some variant of anti capitalist, a variant that he quite
>>reasonably called socialism and thought of as socialism.
>
>Wrong. He called it *National* Socialism.
Which is just one kind of socialism. The predominant kind, BTW, when it
comes to the actual practice of totalitarian regimes.
>He did *not* think of it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think of
>himself as a socialist...
Yes he did. Look up his debates with the Strassers about this, in a
book like Alan Bullock's "Hitler & Stalin: Parallel Lives". Bullock is
one of the foremost experts on Hitler in the world, having written the
first biography of Hitler in the English language ("Hitler: A Study in
Tyranny").
>he did *not* subscribe to socialist ideology, whether the
>social-democratic version of the SPD or the Marxist version of the
>KPD.
He was anti-Communist on nationalistic grounds. He was against "Jewish
Bolshevism", but he also recruited many ex-KPD members into the Nazi
Party. Over half of those who joined the Nazi Party in 1933 were ex-KPD
members. He was closer to the SPD, & admitted that he'd learned much
from them & adopted many of their methods. (E.g. - the SPD was the
first party to field a political militia, the
Reichsbanner-Schwarz-Rot-Gold, of which the SA was an imitation.)
>He kicked orthodox socialists out of his party or murdered them...
Only those who disagreed with his schedule for completing the National
Socialist Revolution. Most of the ex-KPD members who joined the Nazi
Party were never purged or murdered. They remained members in good
standing until the end of the war. Many of those who were in the
Soviet-occupied part of Germany were then absorbed into the SED, the new
East German Communist Party (now the PDS). Many of the Gestapo in East
Germany were simply reassigned to the Stasi.
>and when he came to power, he did not pass any recognizably socialist
>laws.
Yes he did. He had massive public-works projects paid for by the State
to provide jobs to relieve German unemployment. That's how the Autobahn
was built.
Tim Starr
G*rd*n
| Somebody had too much propaganda for breakfast!
Umm, Propaganda Flakes! But I think James's little disquisition
may contain some useful truth -- but not _particularly_ about
Communists, who have been turning themselves into capitalists
over the last few years. It's getting hard to find a
credible Communist these days.
Suppose we generalize the passage, substituting THEM and
THEY for "communists":
| > 1. There could be no peace with THEM, because THEY do not
| > recognize peace. For THEM there is only war and near war
| > accompanied by preparation for predatory attack.
| >
| > 2. There could be no surrender to THEM, because THEY do
| > not recognize surrender. If one attempts to surrender to THEM,
| > one merely gives up ones arms so that they can continue to make war on
| > one unimpeded and unopposed.
| >
| > 3. There could be no alliance with THEM, or between THEM,
| > because THEY do not recognize alliance, only domination,
| > submission, and non aggression pacts that are a brief and temporary
| > rest from the normally universal condition of aggression. Whoever
| > imagines himself in alliance with THEM, as for example Sihanouk
| > did, places a knife at his own throat, and gives the handle of that
| > knife to another.
Does the refrain not sound awfully familiar? What
antecedents can we give this so-accomodating pronoun?
Or -- perhaps it would be better to ask -- what antecedents
can we _not_ give it?
The only one I can think of is "We, the Good Guys -- the
ones wearing white hats." You cannot make _we_ or _you_
the antecedent of THEM.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 12/6/99 }
Nathan Folkert
> In article <877cna$uk4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
> > been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in
> > such "hot pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own
> > personal communication with Sihanouk.
>
> I am disinclined to believe in "personal communications". That the US
> forces did not stick around and thus did not directly oppose Sihanouk's
> authority or violate the principles of Westphalia is known to all.
> That they consulted with Sihanouk is not.
The consultation with Sihanouk is apparently well founded enough to have
become a part of the Library of Congress's country study of Cambodia:
As the government in Phnom Penh began to feel keenly the loss of economic
and military aid from the United States, which had totaled about US$400
million between 1955 and 1963, it began to have second thoughts about the
rupture with Washington. The unavailability of American equipment and
spare parts was exacerbated by the poor quality and the small numbers of
Soviet, Chinese, and French substitutes.
In late 1967 and in early 1968, Sihanouk signaled that he would raise no
objection to hot pursuit of communist forces by South Vietnamese or by
United States troops into Cambodian territory. Washington, in the
meantime, accepted the recommendation of the United States Military
Assistance Command--Vietnam (MACV) and, beginning in March 1969, ordered a
series of airstrikes (dubbed the Menu series) against Cambodian
sanctuaries used by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.
from: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+kh0027)
> --
> -- rat_thing
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>On Mon, 31 Jan 2000 21:57:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>> Care to show some evidence that the Nazis replaced the upper
>> management of major non-jewish german corporations?
>
>They replaced few. They subordinated all to government ministries.
>
Ah, so when you said: " but they got to keep their factories and banks
They got to hang around as junior managers in their factories and
banks."
That was, to be generous, hyperbole. As I said, they had to support
the war effort, and to be sure the state, as it is everywhere, was
ultimately the last authority on everything. But replaced they
weren't, profit they did, willingly, enthusiastically, and criminally.
This was not socialism.
Mark Roddy
Mark Roddy
wrote:
>In article <lZ+UOPa2nbFwG6...@4ax.com>, Mark Roddy
><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 03:48:49 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>>wrote:
>>
>>> --
>>>On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 15:18:30 -0800, "anarchometer"
>>><anarch...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>> Hitler was a socialist.
>>>
>>>This of course depends on ones definition of socialist. A lot of
>>>socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
>>>which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder
>>>enough bourgeois.
>>
>>No he failed to qualify because he left the capitalists in charge of
>>the economy. Oh they did have to support the war effort and things
>>like killing 12 million or so civilians, but they got to keep their
>>factories and banks (unless they were jews of course.)
>
>The "capitalists" weren't "left in charge of the economy", they were
>left in their offices as managers of the big corporations, but they had
>to accept Nazi Party officials on their boards of directors & they had
>to follow the orders of the Nazis who were forced onto their boards of
>directors. This amounted to a de facto demotion of all CEOs & their
>replacement with Nazi Party officials. These Nazi Party officials had
>more power over German businesses than comissars did in the Red Army
>during WWII. They had about as much power as comissars did during the
>Russian Civil War, when the Red Army was first formed & many of the
>officers were ex-Tsarist professionals who had to be kept under close
>watch to ensure their loyalty to the Bolshevik regime.
>
[blah blah blah]
So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over and
run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
responsibility for their use of slave labor?
Mark Roddy
Nathan Folkert
> Nathan Folkert wrote:
> > On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 rat_...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > In article <877cna$uk4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > > Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > > > According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
> > > > been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in
> > > > such "hot pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own
> > > > personal communication with Sihanouk.
> > >
> > > I am disinclined to believe in "personal communications". That the US
> > > forces did not stick around and thus did not directly oppose Sihanouk's
> > > authority or violate the principles of Westphalia is known to all.
> > > That they consulted with Sihanouk is not.
> >
> > The consultation with Sihanouk is apparently well founded enough to have
> > become a part of the Library of Congress's country study of Cambodia:
>
> [snip]
>
> That Sihanouk secretly gave the US permission to enter Cambodian
> territory in "hot pursuit" of fleeing Vietnamese troops does not seem to
> be controversial. The only controversy would seem to be whether by such
> "hot pursuit" he also intended to allow the US to enter Cambodian
> territory at any time it felt like it, to carry out such actions as
> killing Cambodians uninvolved with the conflict between the US and
> Vietnam. Considering the specification of "hot pursuit" and Sihanouk's
> strenuous objections to other US incursions into Cambodia (including not
> only the "secret bombing" campaign but thousands of attacks on
> Cambodians documented in a white paper issued by his government), it
> seems most unlikely.
As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I believe
(or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd have to look it
up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real neutrality for his country, but
the compromise he made (apparently at the behest of the Viet Minh, though
I'm not entirely sure on that) is that a watered-down Cambodian neutrality
would allow military forces to move through or be stationed in Cambodian
territory so long as they did not pose a "security threat" to Cambodia.
What this definition means is anyone's guess (it may be defined in the
official treaties), but it's probably not out of the question that
Sihanouk could allow US troops to pursue Viet Cong and allow Viet Cong to
travel through Cambodian territory so long as they did not pose a threat
to the Cambodian people. Of course, to have battling forces moving
through your territory at all poses a threat to the people in the area,
but these were the terms he apparently had to accept at one peace accords
or another.
If I'm correct in asserting this (and I could be mistaken -- I'll try to
confirm this when I have more time), then it might have been entirely
within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal rights to ask that US bombers no
longer strafe the Cambodian countryside. They should have also requested
that the Viet Cong no longer traverse their territory, because their
presence was a security threat, and I've no idea if they did this or not.
Does anyone have any further information on these points?
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
"God is as real as I am," the old man said. My faith was restored, for
I knew that Santa would never lie.
Nathan Folkert
I was able to find it remarkably quickly, to my surprise. It was an
agreement at the Geneva Conference:
In exchange for the withdrawal of Viet Minh forces, the communist
representatives in Geneva wanted full neutrality for Cambodia and for Laos
that would prevent the basing of United States military forces in these
countries. On the eve of the conference's conclusion, however, the
Cambodian representative, Sam Sary, insisted that, if Cambodia were to be
genuinely independent, it must not be prohibited from seeking whatever
military assistance it desired (Cambodia had earlier appealed to
Washington for military aid). The conference accepted this point over
North Vietnam's strenuous objections. In the final agreement, Cambodia
accepted a watered-down neutrality, vowing not to join any military
alliance "not in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the
United Nations" or to allow the basing of foreign military forces on its
territory "as long as its security is not threatened."
From: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+kh0025)
It's not clear as to why they accepted this "watered down neutrality".
The implication from the first sentence is that it was in fact the
Communists who wanted full neutrality for Cambodia to prevent encirclement
(obviously not to protect Cambodia), though they also wanted to prevent
Cambodia from receiving US military aid -- a request which was not granted
-- and the Cambodians agreed to this alternative for some other reason
than Communist pressure, though it doesn't specify. I'm not sure if this
implication is correct. Does anyone have any more complete sources on the
Geneva Conference than this?
Tim Starr
[snip]
>>>He did *not* think of it as (small-S) socialism; he did *not* think
>>>of himself as a socialist;
>>
>>Big business believed he did think of himself as socialist, and
>>tended not to make the subtle distinctions that you make. I see no
>>reason to believe that Hitler made these distinctions either.
>
>That's because, frankly, you're ignorant. I've already spent a lot
>of time digging up historical references to show that Hitler did
>not think of himself as a socialist...
Lie. You've shown that Hitler didn't believe in class warfare, that he
didn't immediately rob all the capitalists & murder them, but class
warfare, robbing capitalists, & murdering them. This doesn't tell us
that Hitler wasn't a socialist, it just tells us that you think
socialism is defined as class warfare, robbing & murdering capitalists.
That's a perfectly acceptable definition of "socialism" to me, since all
forms of socialism eventually require class warfare & the robbing &
murdering of capitalists, but, strictly speaking, socialism isn't
defined by those things. It's defined by collective control & ownership
of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, the instrument of
collective control was the Nazi Party, just as it was the Communist
Party in all recently-existing socialist states, & the Nazi Party had
total control over the entire German economy.
[snip]
>Go and read a few history books, and then get back to us.
I've read two which are directly relevant & contradict you: Alan
Bullock's "Hitler & Stalin: Parallel Lives" & "A History of Fascism,
1914-1945", by Stanley Payne. Both are mainstream liberal historians
whose work has been widely praised. Payne's book was even praised by
the person who reviewed it for the left-wing magazine "The Nation".
Bullock quotes from Hitler's debates with the Strassers, in which he
asserts several times that he's a socialist. Payne argues that Nazi
Germany was totalitarian, & that all totalitarian regimes are
necessarily socialist, since to allow the economy to be under private
control is to allow the existence of a major sphere of social life to be
outside the total control of the State. (He also mistakenly says that
socialism needn't necessarily be totalitarian.)
Which history books did you have in mind? "The Age of Extremes", by
that unrepentant Stalinist Eric Hobsbawm, perhaps?
Tim Starr
Tim Starr
To say that German capitalists were "left in charge of the German
economy", just because they continued in their offices on the boards of
directors of most German corporations, is as absurdly false as it would
be to say that Tsarist officers were "in charge of the Red Army", just
because they were restored to their former ranks, ignoring the fact that
they were under the total authority of the comissars.
This was only a temporary expedient that Hitler used to remobilize the
German economy so it could support the war effort Hitler was planning.
Once the German economy had recovered from the Depression, Hitler took
even greater control, replacing Hjalmar Schacht with Hermann Goering &
building the Hermann Goering Works so that the Nazis would have their
own set of nationalized industries directly under State control.
Tim Starr
>In article <877cna$uk4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr
><tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
>>been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in
>>such "hot pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own
>>personal communication with Sihanouk.
>
>I am disinclined to believe in "personal communications". That the US
>forces did not stick around and thus did not directly oppose
>Sihanouk's authority or violate the principles of Westphalia is known
>to all. That they consulted with Sihanouk is not.
You're right to distrust personal communications, but I've another
source that confirms this:
"Sihanouk had, in fact, confidentially told an American ambassador that
he would not object if American forces engaged in 'hot pursuit' of
Vietnamese forces in unpopulated areas of Cambodia."
- Bruce Sharp, http://users.aol.com/bsharp26/cambodia/banyan1.html
Unfortunately, Sharp's article isn't footnoted, so we can't tell which
of his sources supports this claim. Nor do I have any reason to believe
that either Sharp or Karnow lied on this issue.
Constantinople
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 00:25:01 GMT, Tim Starr
><tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>[blah blah blah]
>
>So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over
>and run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should
>bear no responsibility for their use of slave labor?
That's a moral question, and regardless of the answer it appears
you've conceded the factual point.
Constantinople
>On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 07:04:02 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A.
>Donald) wrote:
>
>> --
>>On Mon, 31 Jan 2000 21:57:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
>><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>> Care to show some evidence that the Nazis replaced the upper
>>> management of major non-jewish german corporations?
>>
>>They replaced few. They subordinated all to government
>>ministries.
>>
>
>Ah, so when you said: " but they got to keep their factories and
>banks They got to hang around as junior managers in their
>factories and banks."
>
>That was, to be generous, hyperbole. As I said, they had to
>support the war effort, and to be sure the state, as it is
>everywhere, was ultimately the last authority on everything.
I see, so you think the Nazi state was no different from any
other state, and therefore that every state was, is, and will be
totalitarian. I think you need to refine your concepts.
>But replaced they weren't, profit they did, willingly,
>enthusiastically, and criminally. This was not socialism.
Whether they were replaced is irrelevant, because the who does
not matter. Whether a few Germans lived better than the rest is
also irrelevant, as this happened in other socialist states as
well, for instance, Nicaragua. I don't see how the presence of
enthusiasm or willingness has anything to do with the economic
system. Socialism is intrinsically criminal, so if crimes were
committed, that's weak evidence of socialism.
Dan Clore
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 rat_...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > In article <877cna$uk4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > > According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
> > > been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in
> > > such "hot pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own
> > > personal communication with Sihanouk.
> >
> > I am disinclined to believe in "personal communications". That the US
> > forces did not stick around and thus did not directly oppose Sihanouk's
> > authority or violate the principles of Westphalia is known to all.
> > That they consulted with Sihanouk is not.
>
> The consultation with Sihanouk is apparently well founded enough to have
> become a part of the Library of Congress's country study of Cambodia:
[snip]
That Sihanouk secretly gave the US permission to enter Cambodian
territory in "hot pursuit" of fleeing Vietnamese troops does not seem to
be controversial. The only controversy would seem to be whether by such
"hot pursuit" he also intended to allow the US to enter Cambodian
territory at any time it felt like it, to carry out such actions as
killing Cambodians uninvolved with the conflict between the US and
Vietnam. Considering the specification of "hot pursuit" and Sihanouk's
strenuous objections to other US incursions into Cambodia (including not
only the "secret bombing" campaign but thousands of attacks on
Cambodians documented in a white paper issued by his government), it
seems most unlikely.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
James A. Donald
On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 20:06:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
> So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over and
> run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
> responsibility for their use of slave labor?
It was frequently the case that the original managers of the company
had no power to hire, fire, or discipline workers. The original
managers decided what the workers should do, but only the nazi
managers had the power to make them do it.
If this was also the relationship between the original managers and
the slave laborers, and it seems it frequently was, then of course in
that case the original managers bear no responsibility for the use of
slaver labor
It seems that usually the slaves were directly supervised and assigned
by nazi officers appointed by the state, and allocated to their tasks
by these officers, though it is hard to be altogether sure because
there is a cloud of lies on the topic.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
SHs9BgQLIZL24aEm7ekdGvM2b5kOv4MRrVLij762
4WYjAk0PmyFFeTYzIGzD//E7tWef5C0EvZA0FbqDo
Mark Roddy
(Constantinople) wrote:
[[blah]
>>
>>[blah blah blah]
>>So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over
>>and run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should
>>bear no responsibility for their use of slave labor?
>
>you've conceded the factual point.
>
anything. I'm assuming your side's assertion and drawing the logical
conclusion that if you assert that the nazi's socialized the german
economy, replacing the private owners of german corporations with
government agents, then I assert you should also not hold these
corporations responsible for their wartime activities. If your
original assertion is true,then you should also believe that these
corporations were 'just following orders' and should not be held
accountable.
So, do you believe that the german corporations, privately held before
during and after the nazi era, that made use of slave labor and
committed other crimes against humanity, should not be held
accountable for their actions?
Mark Roddy
Mark Roddy
wrote:
> --
>On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 20:06:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>> So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over and
>> run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
>> responsibility for their use of slave labor?
>
>It was frequently the case that the original managers of the company
>had no power to hire, fire, or discipline workers. The original
>managers decided what the workers should do, but only the nazi
>managers had the power to make them do it.
>
>If this was also the relationship between the original managers and
>the slave laborers, and it seems it frequently was, then of course in
>that case the original managers bear no responsibility for the use of
>slaver labor
>
>It seems that usually the slaves were directly supervised and assigned
>by nazi officers appointed by the state, and allocated to their tasks
>by these officers, though it is hard to be altogether sure because
>there is a cloud of lies on the topic.
>
Summary: rat_thing thinks the german corporations that, as has been
extensively documented in the european courts, enthusiastically used
slave labor for their profit during the war, should not be held
accountable for their crimes. At least he is consistent.
Mark Roddy
Constantinople
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 01:09:17 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com
>(Constantinople) wrote: [[blah]
>>>
>>>[blah blah blah]
>>>
>>>So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over
>>>and run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion,
>>>should bear no responsibility for their use of slave labor?
>>
>>That's a moral question, and regardless of the answer it
>>appears you've conceded the factual point.
>>
>Well of course it is a moral question, however I'm not conceding
>anything. I'm assuming your side's assertion and drawing the
>logical conclusion that if you assert that the nazi's
>socialized the german economy, replacing the private owners of
>german corporations with government agents,
Socialization is not a question of who, so it does not follow
from socialization that the previous officers of the company were
not given a place in the new socialist hierarchy.
>then I assert you should also not hold these corporations
>responsible for their wartime activities.
The corporations are not people; they can't be responsible. The
owners or officers can if they collaborated.
>If your original assertion is true,then you should also believe
>that these corporations were 'just following orders' and should
>not be held accountable.
People have a moral obligation not to follow evil orders. That
has nothing to do with who they are.
>So, do you believe that the german corporations, privately held
>before during and after the nazi era, that made use of slave
>labor and committed other crimes against humanity, should not be
>held accountable for their actions?
I do not know enough about the period to say. I suppose that vast
numbers of criminals got away with their crimes. We have Josef
Mengele who escaped eventually to Paraguay, and so on, and then
surely vast numbers of people whose crimes were never even
suspected.
James A. Donald
On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 18:30:48 -0800, Nathan Folkert
<nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
> believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
> have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real neutrality
> for his country
Real neutrality would require him to resist and forcefully oppose any
foreign armed forces using his country for acts of war. Instead he
signed up with the commies, and cut himself off from the US, which
turned out to be a seriously unwise decision.
Sihanouk's policy was one of homicidal and murderous anti communism
internally, and Soviet alignment externally. As events showed, when
you have got Soviet aligned troops marching over your territory, this
is an unworkable combination.
> it might have been entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal
> rights to ask that US bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian
> countryside.
The laws of war permitted the US to hit the NVA wherever they were to
be found.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
dvPtaXRtEjroZHR1+HDDg6W4Ug9XPkan5nz6DDjK
49tho6HF1HXSMjDzdnDPP0K6wNAhJpCs9R+//mg9I
James A. Donald
On 1 Feb 2000 22:56:28 GMT, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> Suppose we generalize the passage, substituting THEM and
> THEY for "communists":
Then the passage would be false:
Observe the borders of communist countries and compare them with the
borders of substantially capitalist countries. On every communist
border, regardless of whether it was a border between a communist and
non communist country, or a border between two communist countries,
either the communist country had subordinated and subjugated the
bordering nation, or else the border was in a continual state of near
war, heavily fortified, with frequent bursts of savage violence.
Borders between predominantly capitalist nations are not like that.
Orwell got it only half right. The big lie of communists is not that
war is peace, but that peace is war. By depicting peaceful and
harmonious cooperation as class or race war, they justify war on
peaceful unarmed people, which reveals an intention to make war on
everyone, which is what they did.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
rccBftSqh41ucIAvwwDEJXdr1DG544y7clSa9OAK
46t/PRjGxq84Wu0DmvaIB+KeELOVK6rPHHITBbhx+
G*rd*n
| > Suppose we generalize the passage, substituting THEM and
| > THEY for "communists":
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| Then the passage would be false:
|
| Observe the borders of communist countries and compare them with the
| borders of substantially capitalist countries. On every communist
| border, regardless of whether it was a border between a communist and
| non communist country, or a border between two communist countries,
| either the communist country had subordinated and subjugated the
| bordering nation, or else the border was in a continual state of near
| war, heavily fortified, with frequent bursts of savage violence.
Where?
I think one of the lessons we might get from the fall of
South Vietnam is that Communism tends to evaporate.
| Borders between predominantly capitalist nations are not like that.
| ...
That might indicate a more thorough takeover by the ICC. They
have certainly had a few go-'rounds in the past.
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 00:25:01 GMT, Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>
>>In article <lZ+UOPa2nbFwG6...@4ax.com>, Mark Roddy
>><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>>Donald) wrote:
>>>
>>>> --
>>>>On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 15:18:30 -0800, "anarchometer"
>>>><anarch...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hitler was a socialist.
>>>>
>>>>This of course depends on ones definition of socialist. A lot of
>>>>socialists around here define socialism in terms of class war, in
>>>>which case Hitler failed to qualify because he failed to murder
>>>>enough bourgeois.
>>>
>>>No he failed to qualify because he left the capitalists in charge of
>>>the economy. Oh they did have to support the war effort and things
>>>factories and banks (unless they were jews of course.)
>>
>>The "capitalists" weren't "left in charge of the economy", they were
>>left in their offices as managers of the big corporations, but they
>>had to accept Nazi Party officials on their boards of directors &
>>they had to follow the orders of the Nazis who were forced onto their
>>boards of directors. This amounted to a de facto demotion of all
>>CEOs & their replacement with Nazi Party officials. These Nazi Party
>>officials had more power over German businesses than comissars did in
>>the Red Army during WWII. They had about as much power as comissars
>>did during the Russian Civil War, when the Red Army was first formed
>>& many of the officers were ex-Tsarist professionals who had to be
>>kept under close watch to ensure their loyalty to the Bolshevik
>>regime.
>
>[blah blah blah]
The eloquence of your reply is noted.
>So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over and
>run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
>responsibility for their use of slave labor?
Non-sequitur. Consider my analogy: should the ex-Tsarist officers of
the Red Army bear no responsibility for any war crimes they committed in
the Russian Civil War, just because they were under the authority of the
comissars? No, because there is a duty to resist orders to commit war
crimes.
The German corporations had a duty to resist the use of slave labor,
even if they were ordered to do so. I don't know enough about the facts
of the case to say whether they were in fact ordered to use slave labor,
or whether they volunteered, or whether they resisted any such orders.
If they used slave labor without being ordered to, or if they failed to
resist their orders, then they were responsible for the use of slave
labor, & owe compensation to their victims.
The German government also ought to be held at least partly liable for
enslaving people & providing them as slave laborers to German
corporations. How come you've never so much as hinted anything about
any compensation owed to slave laborers by the German government?
Tim Starr
<Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine38.Stanford.EDU>,
Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 rat_...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>>In article <877cna$uk4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>>Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>>According to Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History", the U.S. had
>>>been secretly given permission to enter Cambodian territory in
>>>such "hot pursuit" by Sihanouk. His source is evidently his own
>>>personal communication with Sihanouk.
>>
>>I am disinclined to believe in "personal communications". That the
>>US forces did not stick around and thus did not directly oppose
>>Sihanouk's authority or violate the principles of Westphalia is known
>>to all. That they consulted with Sihanouk is not.
>
>The consultation with Sihanouk is apparently well founded enough to
>have become a part of the Library of Congress's country study of
>Cambodia:
>
>economic and military aid from the United States, which had totaled
>about US$400 million between 1955 and 1963, it began to have second
>thoughts about the rupture with Washington. The unavailability of
>American equipment and spare parts was exacerbated by the poor quality
>and the small numbers of Soviet, Chinese, and French substitutes.
>
>In late 1967 and in early 1968, Sihanouk signaled that he would raise
>no objection to hot pursuit of communist forces by South Vietnamese or
>by United States troops into Cambodian territory. Washington, in the
>meantime, accepted the recommendation of the United States Military
>Assistance Command--Vietnam (MACV) and, beginning in March 1969,
>ordered a series of airstrikes (dubbed the Menu series) against
>Cambodian sanctuaries used by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.
>
>from:
>
>http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+kh0027)
Thanks, Nathan.
So, what this means is that for about a decade, the Viet Cong were using
Cambodia with Sihanouk's permission as a safe haven for supplying the
war on South Vietnam & to escape Allied attacks. Then, in response to
the withdrawal of US aid, Sihanouk permitted the US to attack the Viet
Cong in Cambodia in hot pursuit, only to later withdraw that permission
when the scale of the US attacks on the Viet Cong in Cambodia exceeded
his expectations.
That doesn't look like "neutrality" to me. It looks like more than a
decade of de facto alliance with North Vietnam, then a couple of years
of neutrality, induced by the withdrawal of US aid, which was then
ended, returning Cambodia to its de facto alliance with the Viet Cong.
As James Donald said, true neutrality means not letting foreign troops
on your soil, not letting your territory be used as a staging ground for
attacks upon another country, or a safe haven against counter-attack.
Switzerland was truly neutral in WWII. The Swiss Army shot down German
fighters that overflew Swiss territory. Allied planes weren't allowed
to overfly Swiss territory, either. Swedish neutrality was violated
when Sweden allowed Germany to transport troops from German-occupied
Norway to Finland.
If Sihanouk wanted to be truly neutral, he should've refused to allow
the Viet Cong to build the Ho Chi Minh trail through Cambodia in the
first place.
jo...@my-deja.com
> <nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> > As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
> > believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
> > have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real neutrality
> > for his country
>
> Real neutrality would require him to resist and forcefully oppose any
> foreign armed forces using his country for acts of war. Instead he
> signed up with the commies, and cut himself off from the US, which
> turned out to be a seriously unwise decision.
>
> Sihanouk's policy was one of homicidal and murderous anti communism
> internally, and Soviet alignment externally. As events showed, when
> you have got Soviet aligned troops marching over your territory, this
> is an unworkable combination.
>
The South Vietnamese who were seeking refuge in Cambodia would have had
no need to leave their country if the U.S. wasn't trying to kill them.
> > it might have been entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal
> > rights to ask that US bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian
> > countryside.
Might?!
>
> The laws of war permitted the US to hit the NVA wherever they were to
> be found.
>
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of force
unless the country using force is under threat of armed attack.
Matt
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 09:02:06 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
> wrote:
>
> > --
> >On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 20:06:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
> ><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
> >> So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over and
> >> run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
> >> responsibility for their use of slave labor?
> >
> >It was frequently the case that the original managers of the company
> >had no power to hire, fire, or discipline workers. The original
> >managers decided what the workers should do, but only the nazi
> >managers had the power to make them do it.
> >
> >If this was also the relationship between the original managers and
> >the slave laborers, and it seems it frequently was, then of course in
> >that case the original managers bear no responsibility for the use of
> >slaver labor
> >
> >It seems that usually the slaves were directly supervised and assigned
> >by nazi officers appointed by the state, and allocated to their tasks
> >by these officers, though it is hard to be altogether sure because
> >there is a cloud of lies on the topic.
> >
>
> Summary: rat_thing thinks the german corporations that, as has been
> extensively documented in the european courts, enthusiastically used
> slave labor for their profit during the war, should not be held
> accountable for their crimes. At least he is consistent.
A corporation is composed of individuals. Why should a present day
shareholder, who was perhaps not even alive in the Nazi era, be held
accountable for something he did not do? Or are you claiming a
corporation is equivalent to a person, has the same rights as a person,
and thus can be punished like a person?
--
Matt (djar...@usa.net)
Tim Starr
cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
[snip]
>That Sihanouk secretly gave the US permission to enter Cambodian
>territory in "hot pursuit" of fleeing Vietnamese troops does not seem
>to be controversial. The only controversy would seem to be whether by
>such "hot pursuit" he also intended to allow the US to enter Cambodian
>territory at any time it felt like it, to carry out such actions as
>killing Cambodians uninvolved with the conflict between the US and
>Vietnam.
Collateral damage to non-combatants is inevitable in guerilla war, since
guerillas commit the war crime of failing to separate their military
targets from the non-combatant population. That would come within the
scope of Sihanouk's authorization. What wouldn't is if non-combatants
were targeted in themselves. Some argue that the US did target non-
combatants in its bombing campaign, others disagree. I don't yet know
enough about it to form a firm opinion of my own.
At any rate, it's clear that there wasn't any US invasion, since the US
was allowed into Cambodia by Sihanouk.
Tim Starr
Tim Starr
<Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine16.Stanford.EDU>,
Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
>believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
>have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real neutrality
>of the Viet Minh, though I'm not entirely sure on that) is that a
>watered-down Cambodian neutrality would allow military forces to move
>through or be stationed in Cambodian territory so long as they did not
>pose a "security threat" to Cambodia.
Which isn't neutrality. Finland wasn't neutral when it allowed Nazi
Germany to put troops in Finland along the Finnish-Russian border, using
Finland as a staging area for the German invasion of Russia. Cambodia
wasn't neutral when it allowed North Vietnam to put troops in Cambodia
along the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border, using Cambodia as a staging
area for the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam.
[snip]
>If I'm correct in asserting this (and I could be mistaken -- I'll try
>to confirm this when I have more time), then it might have been
>entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal rights to ask that US
>bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian countryside.
Only if they stopped the Viet cong from violating Cambodian neutrality.
>They should have also requested that the Viet Cong no longer traverse
>their territory, because their presence was a security threat, and I've
>no idea if they did this or not.
They would've had to do more than just request it, they would've had to
actually secure their border against the Viet Cong. They didn't. In
all fairness, Cambodia's military wasn't strong enough to keep the Viet
Cong out of Cambodia, but in that case they ought to have either allied
themselves with someone strong enough to keep them out (like the U.S.)
or they ought to have let the US pursue the Viet Cong into Cambodia,
right from the start.
Instead, Sihanouk permitted the Viet Cong to use Cambodia as a staging
ground for the invasion of South Vietnam from 1958 until 1967, then
briefly permitted the US to enter Cambodia in hot pursuit for a few
years, only to revoke his permission. That's not neutrality, that's a
de facto alliance with the Viet Cong for 9 years, with a brief hiatus of
a few years, then a return to the de facto alliance with the Commies.
Tim Starr
<Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine16.Stanford.EDU>,
Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>I was able to find it remarkably quickly, to my surprise. It was an
>agreement at the Geneva Conference:
>
>In exchange for the withdrawal of Viet Minh forces, the communist
>representatives in Geneva wanted full neutrality for Cambodia and for
>Laos that would prevent the basing of United States military forces in
>these countries. On the eve of the conference's conclusion, however,
>the Cambodian representative, Sam Sary, insisted that, if Cambodia
>were to be genuinely independent, it must not be prohibited from
>seeking whatever military assistance it desired (Cambodia had earlier
>appealed to Washington for military aid). The conference accepted this
>point over North Vietnam's strenuous objections. In the final
>agreement, Cambodia accepted a watered-down neutrality, vowing not to
>join any military alliance "not in conformity with the principles of
>the Charter of the United Nations" or to allow the basing of foreign
>military forces on its territory "as long as its security is not
>threatened."
>
>From:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+kh0025)
That's entirely different from what you've been saying. You've been
saying that Cambodia was required by the Geneva agreement to allow the
Viet Cong into Cambodia, unless its security was threatened. What the
above says is that Cambodia vowed not to allow any foreign troops into
Cambodia, unless its security was threatened.
You've been saying that Cambodia was obligated to allow the Viet Cong
into Cambodia by the treaty. In fact, Cambodia wasn't under any such
obligation. Cambodia had sworn not to allow any foreign troops into
Cambodia, except in case of a threat to Cambodian security.
Cambodia was obliged not to allow its territory to be used to supply the
war on South Vietnam, as a staging area for attacks on South Vietnam, &
as a safe haven for the Viet Cong where they could escape prosecution of
the war by the Allied defenders of South Vietnam.
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 01:09:17 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com
>(Constantinople) wrote:
>[blah]
>>>
>>>[blah blah blah]
>>>
>>>and run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should
>>>bear no responsibility for their use of slave labor?
>>
>>you've conceded the factual point.
>
>Well of course it is a moral question, however I'm not conceding
>anything. I'm assuming your side's assertion and drawing the logical
>conclusion that if you assert that the nazi's socialized the german
>economy, replacing the private owners of german corporations with
>corporations responsible for their wartime activities. If your
>original assertion is true,then you should also believe that these
>corporations were 'just following orders' and should not be held
>accountable.
Why? "I was just following orders" wasn't a valid defense before the
Nuremburg Tribunal - why should it be a valid defense for the activities
of German corporations under Nazi rule?
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 09:02:06 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>wrote:
>
>> --
>>On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 20:06:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
>><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>>run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
>>>responsibility for their use of slave labor?
>>
>>had no power to hire, fire, or discipline workers. The original
>>managers decided what the workers should do, but only the nazi
>>managers had the power to make them do it.
>>
>>If this was also the relationship between the original managers and
>>the slave laborers, and it seems it frequently was, then of course in
>>that case the original managers bear no responsibility for the use of
>>slaver labor
>>
>>It seems that usually the slaves were directly supervised and
>>assigned by nazi officers appointed by the state, and allocated to
>>their tasks by these officers, though it is hard to be altogether
>>sure because there is a cloud of lies on the topic.
>
>Summary:
You mispelled "Lie:"
>rat_thing thinks the german corporations that, as has been
>extensively documented in the european courts...
Are these the same European courts that haven't prosecuted any of the
former Communist officials, nor banned any of the Communist parties, of
Eastern Europe?
Nathan Folkert
> --
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 18:30:48 -0800, Nathan Folkert
> <nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> > As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
> > believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
> > have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real neutrality
> > for his country
>
> Real neutrality would require him to resist and forcefully oppose any
> foreign armed forces using his country for acts of war.
Yes, that would be real neutrality, but apparently the Geneva Treaty
required him to accept foreign forces on Cambodian soil unless they
represented a "security threat". Personally, I'd say that any active
foreign forces on your soil in time of war represents a security threat,
but the term may have been defined more precisely (or not defined at all,
to allow easier reinterpretation by one side or the other for their own
legal advantage) in the Geneva Accords themselves. I'm curious about this
myself, which is why I asked if anyone had better information.
> Instead he
> signed up with the commies, and cut himself off from the US, which
> turned out to be a seriously unwise decision.
He cut off diplomatic representation from the US in the mid-60's due to
violation of Cambodian airspace by South Vietnamese and US forces and due
to the threats posed by fighting on Cambodian soil resulting from his "hot
pursuit" policy. When he told the US in 1969 that he would not be against
them striking against the insurgents in Cambodia, they began to do so, at
a tonnage exceeding 3.5 times that they used against all of Japan in WWII.
Predictably, this caused a great deal of suffering, and, in any case,
represents an obvious security threat to Cambodia. If he cut Cambodia off
from the US again, which I cannot determine whether or not this was the
case, prior to his overthrow in 1970, then he would have been fully
justified to do so, provided that he also make provisions to expel the
communist insurgents from Cambodian soil and change the idiotic treaty
that endangered the lives of Cambodians over a third-party dispute (and
the UN should have condemned the parties that insisted on this arrangement
and ordered reparations, but that's another story). His "signing up with
the Commies" did not come until after the Lon Nol coup, and was apparently
solely for the purpose of having Cambodians regain control of the
Cambodian government (Sihanouk was an extreme patriot, and he viewed the
Lon Nol government, apparently, as an American puppet. Why he agreed to
aid into power a Chinese puppet, I have no idea), and he was fully
cognizant of the fact that the communists would use him and discard him
once gaining power. At least that is the story portrayed in the Library
of Congress Country Study on Cambodia. I'm not sure if they're painting a
rosier picture of Sihanouk than he deserves (read it yourself -- it is
quite critical of him in some cases), but from the events they describe,
it doesn't sound like he had too terribly much choice in the matter.
> Sihanouk's policy was one of homicidal and murderous anti communism
> internally, and Soviet alignment externally.
He actually attempted non-alignment, seeking aid from both Washington and
Moscow. This, of course, is seen as Soviet alignment by many biased
observers, just as India was often considered Soviet-aligned. It may be
that his policies were de facto Soviet leaning, or that he sympathized
with the Soviet forces, that I don't know. But his stated policy was
non-alignment, and nothing that I saw in the Cambodian country study
seemed to suggest that his behaviour was unreasonable given the
circumstances.
> As events showed, when
> you have got Soviet aligned troops marching over your territory, this
> is an unworkable combination.
Of course, especially if you're Soviet.
> > it might have been entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal
> > rights to ask that US bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian
> > countryside.
>
> The laws of war permitted the US to hit the NVA wherever they were to
> be found.
And the law stated in the Geneva Treaty was that Cambodia had a
watered-down kind of neutrality that included being impartial to foreign
troop movements through and stationing in its lands unless it represented
a "security threat" (which is really what judges this whole issue, so it
would be important to find out how this is defined), in which case their
disallowing American bombers on the grounds that they endangered the lives
of Cambodian civilians would have been entirely legal (if this was defined
as a security threat), and further action by the US could be considered
aggression against Cambodia. Furthermore, when the Lon Nol government
requested that the US specifically attack targets in Cambodia (as opposed
to granting permission, as Sihanouk apparently did), Cambodia was
violating the Geneva Treaty (if the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia was
not a "security threat" as defined by the treaty) and thus was an
aggressor against the Vietnamese Communists, which, according to the logic
of this newsgroup, would have justified the later aggression against
Cambodia, though to me it just seems like madness. Regardless, Sihanouk
should have never agreed to the terms in the Geneva Treaty that so
obviously would have led to the Cambodians being pulled into the
Vietanmese conflict, and should have recognized and expelled the
Vietnamese troops from his territory after he disallowed US bombing,
because their presence clearly was a security threat. I'm not sure why he
did so -- it's possible that the alternative circumstances (such as the
continued occupation of Cambodia by the Viet Minh after Dien Bien Phu)
might have justified this choice, but the probable consequences of his
actions were entirely predictable (though perhaps the alternative would
have been entirely predictable as well -- in that case, I suppose,
all of Cambodia would have been a legitimate target of the US as an
occupied territory of the Viet Minh. These points are very complicated).
If anyone has more information on these matters, I am most interested in
learning what role the Geneva Treaty played in the resulting conflict in
Cambodia, and who -- the French, the Communists, the US, the South
Vietnamese, etc. -- was pressing Cambodia into this watered-down
neutrality that clearly put it in danger of being pulled into a terrible
war.
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> dvPtaXRtEjroZHR1+HDDg6W4Ug9XPkan5nz6DDjK
> 49tho6HF1HXSMjDzdnDPP0K6wNAhJpCs9R+//mg9I
>
> ------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
> of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
> right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
>
> http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
>
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
*****************************************
* Now brave boys we're off for marching *
* off for Portugal and Spain *
* Drums are beating, banners flying *
* The divil a home we'll come tonight *
*****************************************
* Whiskey you're the divil, *
* You're leading me astray *
* O'er hills and mountains *
* Unto Amerikay! *
*****************************************
Nathan Folkert
> In article <uYKXOKJhZY4d3U...@4ax.com>, Mark Roddy
> <ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
[snip]
> >So then the german corporations of today that were 'taken over and
> >run' by those damn socialist nazis, in your opinion, should bear no
> >responsibility for their use of slave labor?
>
> Non-sequitur. Consider my analogy: should the ex-Tsarist officers of
> the Red Army bear no responsibility for any war crimes they committed in
> the Russian Civil War, just because they were under the authority of the
> comissars? No, because there is a duty to resist orders to commit war
> crimes.
Indeed. There are two extreme ways to look at free will in this world.
Either you have it, and you are required by universal morality (if such a
thing exists, which I will argue in a moment), or you don't, and you are
the unwitting pawn of outside forces, be they your superior officers or
societal compulsion. The gestalt approach would be that at some basic
level each of us has free will and there is an underlying set of
unchanging morals by which the use of our free will may be judged, and
there are also outside forces which predispose us to certain choices that
might excuse minor infringements of this judgement or allow us to choose
inaction if the resistance is too great, but which are not overpowering, a
stance I'll argue in a moment.
In the first case of the extreme view, everyone can be judged for all of
their actions (at least those whose consequences are reasonably
predictable regardless of whether one chooses to predict them or not,
since that choice is part of your free will), in which case guilt is
rather easy to assign. In the other case, no one can be judged for their
actions, since they have no control over them, in which case it is just as
valid for us to assign guilt and inflict punishment based on our societal
compulsion as it was for the perpetrator to have originally acted against
our morals. Either way, if a system is to be fair, which is the whole
point of a moral system (fairness in expectation, as opposed to fairness
in outcome, generally, though in some plausible moral systems these two
are subsumed by each other), then the rules have to apply to each actor,
in which case neither of these two views of personal freedom of action
really are useful, since the first offers no contingency (at least in the
form I've presented it, though others may be able to reformulate it so it
does), while the second offers no responsibility (at least in the form
I've presented it, though others may be able to reformulate it so it
does).
By personal reflection on how I judge my own actions and how I judge
other's actions, I think it is only fair to consider both personal free
action as well as external influences, and to judge relative to the degree
of the moral error how to judge the action. Thus an action with
predictable consequences (shooting a man causing him to suffer and die)
might be excused in the first case by an external influence (he was aiming
a gun at your wife, even if he did not really intend to shoot her), while
some responsibility can be placed on both the judged and the judges in the
second case. The degree to how much these matter is an important
philosophical question.
As to a universal morality, I can support it only with belief. As I
define it, morality is a system of rules to live by, by which both your
own personal happiness and the personal happiness of everyone in the
society who might be affected by your actions is maximized (or,
equivalently in either case, suffering is minimized). Well, the "ideal
moral system", by which everyone is compelled to make exactly the right
choices that perform this maximization, is a very difficult problem. It
resembles what in computer science is termed a satisfiability problem,
only with many, many, many more variables and feedbacks. At the very
least, then, to axiomatize the moral system that would best fulfill these
requirements, you would require an exponential sized calculation relative
to the number of people involved -- which, for more than, say, 50 or 60
people, even for very simple variables (which these are not), you would
quickly exceed all the computing power available to humanity.
Regardless, by reasoning alone one can arrive at the existence of this
"ideal" or "universal" morality (there may be more than one way to achieve
maximization, mind you, though each of these systems could be mutually
exclusive, so "ideal morality" also includes a kind of "moral
cooperation", which ensures that the "universal morality" of one person
does not contradict the "universal morality" of another, thus
contradicting the idea that it is, indeed, a "universal" morality,
satisfaction of which would require another level of exponentiality in
computation), but unless we can determine a better way by which to solve
problems of satisfiability (which no one has yet proven that we cannot),
we cannot hope to calculate what it might be or give up hope in
calculating it.
On the other hand, there is nothing stopping us from using heuristics to
approximate a solution to a problem that is unsolveable by explicit
methods. This, in my opinion, is what a liberal democracy is. It is,
actually, in fact, what all societies are.
Totalitarian societies attempt to solve the "satisfiability problem" not
by calculating it, but by restricting the variables -- telling people how
they can "be happy", which is, of course, not actually maximizing
happiness, but rather setting a maximum cap on happiness, which ultimately
contradicts what they are trying to do.
Hierarchical systems of all kinds tend to have moral heuristics that
attempt to maximize the happiness of a certain class of people -- in
monarchies or theocracies, this class is generally rigidly specified and
grows only with relation to the societies capacity to satisfy this ruling
class, while in an anarcho-capitalist society (I would argue that this
kind of society falls under this category, though I could be easily
reasoned out of this position) in this class, people compete for positions
or attempt to create new positions if the society can afford to expand its
capacity for satisfying the ruling class (essentially the key differences
are mobility and, in the former, growth is encouraged largely by the
ruling class, while in the latter, growth is encouraged by everyone,
because everyone has an opportunity to join the "ruling class", and also
to lose their position in it, thus one's heuristic for moral cooperation
is coercion, while the other's is cooperation by mutual competitive
self-advancement approximating cooperation). I am simplifying a great deal
-- there may be many levels in the hierarchy, and the distinction between
levels may be blurry, but this is a generality of the belief.
In democratic societies, the heuristic for cooperation is cooperation at
some level -- in liberal democracies and representative democracies this
is through submission to an elected authority who theoretically governs as
one wishes (or at least approximates one's wishes), while in an anarchist
democracy such as anarcho-socialism or in consensus democracy, the group
together attempts to solve the problem of maximal satisfiability (which is
why I believe such societies, at least with our current heuristics and
computational ability, cannot sustain more than a few dozen or more
members).
In any case, I await the answer to the question of whether
nondeterministic polynomial functions are in fact solveable
deterministically in polynomial time to make my final judgement on whether
any such society attempting complete satisfaction by cooperation is
feasible. Liberal democracies, in my opinion, provide the best available
heuristic for solving the moral issue from a societal level (each of us is
responsible individually for coming up with our own morality to guide us
on the individual level, a characteristic that anarchist societies of
every stripe rely upon in their foundational premises to build a
cooperative system at the societal level), which is essentially what, I
believe, Winston Churchill said, at one point or another.
The easiest way for us to improve our moral heuristic, in my opinion, is
to remove senseless restrictions on personal satisfaction which do not
directly affect others, such as homosexual marriage, recreational drug use
in a responsible manner, the use of non-provoking obscenity on television,
etc., etc. After and while these issues have been resolved, we can
together work through interpersonal and interstructural issues and the
best ways to resolve those, such as trade, taxation, defense, economic
development, racial equality, and ecological protection. But I digress.
So, to make a long story short, yes, the German corporations, in any
reasonable moral system, should not have used slave labour. Their
circumstances are affected in that they were ordered to do so, but, quite
frankly, I think anyone resting a defense on that position would be full
of shit. One can only push those moral excuses so far, and I think
torture, slavery, rape, genocide, or non-defensive homocide are all
definitely inexcusible in almost any conceivable circumstance (and anyone
who can conceive of such a circumstance should be writing science-fiction
horror novels).
> The German corporations had a duty to resist the use of slave labor,
> even if they were ordered to do so. I don't know enough about the facts
> of the case to say whether they were in fact ordered to use slave labor,
> or whether they volunteered, or whether they resisted any such orders.
>
> If they used slave labor without being ordered to, or if they failed to
> resist their orders, then they were responsible for the use of slave
> labor, & owe compensation to their victims.
>
> The German government also ought to be held at least partly liable for
> enslaving people & providing them as slave laborers to German
> corporations. How come you've never so much as hinted anything about
> any compensation owed to slave laborers by the German government?
I think that the German government has been paying such reparations,
though I'm not entirely sure. I don't know that much on the issue either,
except from what I can reasonably judge from my knowledge of the
circumstances, but I think it is entirely reasonable to compensate
Holocaust survivors and the families of survivors, from the government,
from corporations, and from guilty individuals. I also think it's
reasonable to compensate any group that has suffered and continues to
suffer losses due to the actions of another group (depending on the nature
and extremity of those actions), but I'm not sure where to draw the line.
Obviously there are people still alive in Russia who directly suffered
from the worst of the Soviet repression. There are no American Indians
alive who directly suffered from the *worst* of the US oppression, but yet
it is abundantly clear still that the American Indians continue to suffer
lost opportunity and benefits that they would have had they retained
possession of their ancestral lands, and similarly African Americans and
post-colonial and post-totalitarian societies (except in the latter cases,
there are quite a number of survivors alive today). These are, again,
moral issues that we need to address, but that have no simple answer.
> Tim Starr
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
*****************************************
* Well, I can drink and no' be drunken, *
* I can fight and no' be slain! *
* I can lie with another man's lass, *
* And still be welcome to me ain! *
*****************************************
- The Barnyards of Delgaty
Nathan Folkert
> In article
> <Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine38.Stanford.EDU>,
No problem.
> So, what this means is that for about a decade, the Viet Cong were using
> Cambodia with Sihanouk's permission as a safe haven for supplying the
> war on South Vietnam & to escape Allied attacks. Then, in response to
> the withdrawal of US aid, Sihanouk permitted the US to attack the Viet
> Cong in Cambodia in hot pursuit, only to later withdraw that permission
> when the scale of the US attacks on the Viet Cong in Cambodia exceeded
> his expectations.
Yes, it can be interpreted in this way, though from a legal standpoint
(and I'm sure Cambodia would have realized that both the US and the Viet
Cong were reading between every line of the Geneva Treaty in order to gain
a strategic advantage in their war), it may have been the case that he had
no choice. It wasn't the presence of Viet Cong or US troops that resulted
in the break in 1965, but rather airspace violations (which could,
perhaps, have been interpreted out of the Geneva Treaty) and ground
fighting in Cambodia. Had he disallowed outright the passage of either
side's troops through Cambodia, they might have been able to justify (by
the word of the Treaty) this action as an aggression against them, because
it violated Cambodia's negotiated position of neutrality.
Regardless, I don't know the full story behind any of this, just what I
can gather from this work on the web. I don't have time to do research on
the subject, because I'm currently involved in a number of projects here.
If you or anyone else can find a better interpretation of exactly what the
Geneva Treaty said about Cambodian neutrality, that would help resolve
some of these issues, otherwise we're both just speculating, and possibly
(I don't know if you'll give any credence to my possible interpretation,
though given more evidence, I could easily go with yours) agreeing with
each other's interpretations but unable to commit to our own.
> That doesn't look like "neutrality" to me. It looks like more than a
> decade of de facto alliance with North Vietnam, then a couple of years
> of neutrality, induced by the withdrawal of US aid, which was then
> ended, returning Cambodia to its de facto alliance with the Viet Cong.
Yes, true neutrality would require noninvolvement, but Cambodian
"neutrality" was negotiated with warring parties at Geneva, so it was more
a state of law than a policy of Cambodia. Depending on how one reads the
definitions of that treaty, they may have violated or kept their
neutrality, and to do anything otherwise might have either violated or
kept their neutrality, depending on which of the first positions you took.
> As James Donald said, true neutrality means not letting foreign troops
> on your soil, not letting your territory be used as a staging ground for
> attacks upon another country, or a safe haven against counter-attack.
Agreed. I think it was ridiculous of Sihanouk to accept such a position,
but I wonder what would have happened had he not. I don't know the full
context. The Viet Minh were, at the time, in control of roughly half of
Cambodia, and almost based their negotiating stance on either Cambodia
having true neutrality by law or to remain in occupation of this Cambodian
territory. I don't know what threats they might have made, but for some
reason Sihanouk eventually accepted a neutrality that was very unstable at
best, but perhaps it was the best way he could preserve Cambodian
independence and he thought it was the best way to avoid being pulled into
the war (though I've no idea how he could have concluded that).
> Switzerland was truly neutral in WWII. The Swiss Army shot down German
> fighters that overflew Swiss territory. Allied planes weren't allowed
> to overfly Swiss territory, either. Swedish neutrality was violated
> when Sweden allowed Germany to transport troops from German-occupied
> Norway to Finland.
Right. But the nature of Cambodian neutrality was agreed upon at the
Geneva Conference which included parties on both sides in the Vietnamese
conflict (which was never a declared war to begin with, so I'm not even
sure how the rules of international conflict apply in this case). In the
case of Switzerland and Sweden, I do not know how they negotiated their
"neutrality" with the warring powers. If Switzerland had granted troop
movements through their territory (which would have been insane), then
they would be violating their neutrality by shooting down either planes,
becoming a third-party aggressor if they shot down planes of both sides,
at least in the eyes of the law. If Sweden had stated that no foreign
troops would be allowed transit through their territory, then they would
have been violating their neutrality in allowing passage for the Nazis,
thus joining an implicit alliance with them.
How international law regards these issues is important in determining
whether Sihanouk was right or not in his actions after the Treaty.
Discovering the nature of the conditions on which he was allowed to
negotiate is important in determining whether Sihanouk was right or not in
his decision in the Treaty. Regardless, the end result was massive
Cambodian suffering that might have otherwise been averted, though I'd
need to learn more on this story.
> If Sihanouk wanted to be truly neutral, he should've refused to allow
> the Viet Cong to build the Ho Chi Minh trail through Cambodia in the
> first place.
Yes, but for Sihanouk to be truly neutral could have been interpreted by
the Viet Cong (or the US for that matter) as a violation of their agreed
neutrality. I don't know, though, which is why I'd like to find out more
on the subject.
Nathan Folkert
> > > it might have been entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal
> > > rights to ask that US bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian
> > > countryside.
>
> Might?!
I said *legal* rights, not moral rights. I don't know the full nature of
the Geneva Treaty, so I can't say for not whether this request could be
considered a violation of Cambodia's "neutrality" or not. I would hope
that such situations were agreed upon by Cambodia to be a "security
threat", but then, I would have hoped that they would have barred entry
into their borders any foreign troops at all, at the very least for the
sake of the Cambodian people.
Nathan Folkert
> In article
> <Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine16.Stanford.EDU>,
> Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> >As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
> >believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
> >have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real neutrality
> >for his country, but the compromise he made (apparently at the behest
> >of the Viet Minh, though I'm not entirely sure on that) is that a
> >watered-down Cambodian neutrality would allow military forces to move
> >through or be stationed in Cambodian territory so long as they did not
> >pose a "security threat" to Cambodia.
>
> Which isn't neutrality. Finland wasn't neutral when it allowed Nazi
> Germany to put troops in Finland along the Finnish-Russian border, using
> Finland as a staging area for the German invasion of Russia. Cambodia
> wasn't neutral when it allowed North Vietnam to put troops in Cambodia
> along the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border, using Cambodia as a staging
> area for the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam.
As I stated before, this is a disanalogy (or at least it most likely is; I
don't know the nature of Finnish neutrality). We know the terms that were
agreed to on Cambodia's neutrality, or at least we have a rough idea of
them. I don't think much more can be said on this unless someone looks up
the treaty or a good interpretation of it and the events surrounding it as
they apply to Sihanouk.
> [snip]
>
> >If I'm correct in asserting this (and I could be mistaken -- I'll try
> >to confirm this when I have more time), then it might have been
> >entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal rights to ask that US
> >bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian countryside.
>
> Only if they stopped the Viet cong from violating Cambodian neutrality.
Again, the Viet Cong would only be violating Cambodian "neutrality" in the
legal sense if they posed a security threat. In my opinion, any warring
force in uncontested territory is a security threat even if it isn't
attacking the population because they are still a likely target of attack,
legal, invited, or not. Whether the treaty goes further on explaining
what a "security threat" is, I do not know.
> >They should have also requested that the Viet Cong no longer traverse
> >their territory, because their presence was a security threat, and I've
> >no idea if they did this or not.
>
> They would've had to do more than just request it, they would've had to
> actually secure their border against the Viet Cong. They didn't. In
> all fairness, Cambodia's military wasn't strong enough to keep the Viet
> Cong out of Cambodia, but in that case they ought to have either allied
> themselves with someone strong enough to keep them out (like the U.S.)
> or they ought to have let the US pursue the Viet Cong into Cambodia,
> right from the start.
I don't know if they'd have to request it or not, but at some point they'd
have to draw the line between Viet Cong as not violating Cambodian
neutrality (no security threat) to violating Cambodian neutrality
(security threat), at which point they could consider the Vietnamese
aggressors. The same could be considered of the US, but in that case, I
doubt that Sihanouk would have sided with the Vietnamese against the US,
because such a policy would have been suicidal. He probably viewed an
alliance with the US against the Viet Cong as suicidal as well, and the
thousands of tonnes of bombs and tens or hundreds of thousands of dead
Cambodians attest to that. I think he was probably screwed either way,
which is probably why he tried to maintain this half-assed "neutrality" as
long as he could, and why he agreed to it in the first place.
> Instead, Sihanouk permitted the Viet Cong to use Cambodia as a staging
> ground for the invasion of South Vietnam from 1958 until 1967, then
> briefly permitted the US to enter Cambodia in hot pursuit for a few
> years, only to revoke his permission.
He didn't specifically ban US movement or staging grounds in Cambodia
until 1965, when he apparently viewed the armed conflict within Cambodia's
borders as a "security threat". So it was really only two years that this
"de facto" alliance existed between Cambodia and the Viet Cong, and it may
have been within Cambodia's rights to request that.
That's not neutrality, that's a
> de facto alliance with the Viet Cong for 9 years, with a brief hiatus of
> a few years, then a return to the de facto alliance with the Commies.
It's the neutrality negotiated. A pretty bum deal for the Cambodians if
you ask me.
> Tim Starr
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
>
--
Tim Starr
>In article <389a5bae...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>>>As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
>>>believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
>>>have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real
>>
>>Real neutrality would require him to resist and forcefully oppose
>>he signed up with the commies, and cut himself off from the US, which
>>turned out to be a seriously unwise decision.
>>
>>you have got Soviet aligned troops marching over your territory,
>>this is an unworkable combination.
>
>had no need to leave their country if the U.S. wasn't trying to kill
>them.
1) The Viet Cong who used Cambodia as a safe haven included North
Vietnamese as well as South Vietnamese troops.
2) The US wouldn't have been trying to kill the Viet Cong if the VC
aggressors weren't trying to overthrow the internationally-recognized
government of South Vietnam so they could extend the totalitarian
clutches of the Stalinist-Maoist Hanoi regime & enslave the people of
South Vietnam.
>>The laws of war permitted the US to hit the NVA wherever they were
>>to be found.
>>
>> --digsig
>> James A. Donald
>
>The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of
>force unless the country using force is under threat of armed attack.
This, from the ignoramous who argued that reprisals were never legal
under international law, only to have me quote the Geneva Convention
from the web site of the International Committee of the Red Cross to the
contrary.
Why should we believe anything you say about international law,
Democide-Denier Duncan?
jo...@my-deja.com
So what? It also included Cambodian villiages and even Vietnamese
villages that were transplanted across the border to escape U.S. (or
U.S.-directed) terror. For the most part it was civillians that were
killed when Cambodia was bombed.
>
> 2) The US wouldn't have been trying to kill the Viet Cong if the VC
> aggressors weren't trying to overthrow the internationally-recognized
> government of South Vietnam so they could extend the totalitarian
> clutches of the Stalinist-Maoist Hanoi regime & enslave the people of
> South Vietnam.
>
Why should anyone here care if the Quisling regime in SV was recognized
by diplomats?
> >>The laws of war permitted the US to hit the NVA wherever they were
> >>to be found.
> >>
> >> --digsig
> >> James A. Donald
> >
> >The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of
> >force unless the country using force is under threat of armed attack.
>
> This, from the ignoramous who argued that reprisals were never legal
> under international law, only to have me quote the Geneva Convention
> from the web site of the International Committee of the Red Cross to
the
> contrary.
>
So why didn't Lt. Calley protest at his court martial that he was
merely performing a reprisal?
I recall reading from the web site mentioned above and I also recall
that only the most tortured (and certainly incorrect) interpretation
would lead to the conclusion that massacring civillians in response to
resistence to occupation was legal.
If you'd like to embarrass yourself further, you can repost the link.
Jon Duncan
Tim Starr
<Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine37.Stanford.EDU>,
Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, James A. Donald wrote:
>
>> --
>>On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 18:30:48 -0800, Nathan Folkert
>><nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>>>As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
>>>believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
>>>have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real
>>>neutrality for his country
>>
>>Real neutrality would require him to resist and forcefully oppose
>>any foreign armed forces using his country for acts of war.
>
>Yes, that would be real neutrality, but apparently the Geneva Treaty
>required him to accept foreign forces on Cambodian soil unless they
>represented a "security threat".
I think we've already established in a post which hasn't made it through
DejaNews yet that this is a misinterpretation of the treaty terms.
Cambodia wasn't obligated to accept foreign forces in its territory,
Cambodia promised not to accept foreign forces in its territory without
a real threat to national security.
[snip]
>>Sihanouk's policy was one of homicidal and murderous anti communism
>>internally, and Soviet alignment externally.
>
>He actually attempted non-alignment, seeking aid from both Washington
>and Moscow. This, of course, is seen as Soviet alignment by many
>biased observers, just as India was often considered Soviet-aligned.
India signed a 20-year "Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation"
with the Soviet Union in 1971. India was a client-state of the Soviet
Union, but not a Soviet satellite. (See "The Rise & Fall of the Soviet
Empire", by Brian Crozier, pp. 274-275.) India may not have been
Soviet-aligned, but it was the next closest thing. India's role in
regards to the Afghan-Soviet war was pro-Soviet; Pakistan supported the
Afghan resistance, & India's opposition to Pakistan led it to support
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
>It may be that his policies were de facto Soviet leaning, or that he
>sympathized with the Soviet forces, that I don't know.
Yes you do. The Viet Cong were Soviet puppets. Sihanouk let them run
rampant in eastern Cambodia. That's a de facto pro-Soviet alignment.
>But his stated policy was non-alignment, and nothing that I saw in the
>Cambodian country study seemed to suggest that his behaviour was
>unreasonable given the circumstances.
It was unreasonable for him to allow the Viet Cong to violate Cambodian
neutrality. It was unreasonable for him to refuse to allow the
defenders of South Vietnam to pursue their enemies in Cambodian
territory.
Tim Starr
Tim Starr
<ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 07:04:02 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>wrote:
>
>> --
>>On Mon, 31 Jan 2000 21:57:39 -0500, Mark Roddy
>><ma...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>>Care to show some evidence that the Nazis replaced the upper
>>>management of major non-jewish german corporations?
>>
>>They replaced few. They subordinated all to government ministries.
>
>Ah, so when you said: "but they got to keep their factories and banks
>They got to hang around as junior managers in their factories and
>banks."
>
>That was, to be generous, hyperbole. As I said, they had to support
>the war effort, and to be sure the state, as it is everywhere, was
>ultimately the last authority on everything.
Ah, yes, the "everybody does it" defense, a.k.a, the fallacy of common
practice. That's no defense, of course. Furthermore, it's not even
common practice.
Only in totalitarian regimes is the state "the last authority on
everything." In a democratic capitalist society like the USA, the State
isn't the last authority on a great many things - who I live with, where
I live, what I read, what movies I watch, what I say, what God I believe
in - if any - etc.
>But replaced they weren't, profit they did, willingly,
>enthusiastically, and criminally. This was not socialism.
Sure it was. Socialism isn't defined by the absence of profits obtained
by those who enthusiastically & willingly commit crimes. Socialism is
based on the enthusiastic, willing commission of crimes for profit -
such as workers violently holding the fixed capital of a factory hostage
in exchange for the ransom of wage increases.
Tim Starr
> In article <87ahjf$ae6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > In article <87a85f$365$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > >In article <389a5bae...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
> > >><nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> > >>>As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
> > >>>believe (or it may have been their independence from France --
I'd
> > >>>have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real
> > >>>neutrality for his country
> > >>
> > >>Real neutrality would require him to resist and forcefully oppose
> > >>any foreign armed forces using his country for acts of war.
> > >>he signed up with the commies, and cut himself off from the US,
> which
> > >>turned out to be a seriously unwise decision.
> > >>
communism
when
> > >>you have got Soviet aligned troops marching over your territory,
> > >>this is an unworkable combination.
> > >
> > >The South Vietnamese who were seeking refuge in Cambodia would have
> > >had no need to leave their country if the U.S. wasn't trying to
kill
> > >them.
> >
> > 1) The Viet Cong who used Cambodia as a safe haven included North
> > Vietnamese as well as South Vietnamese troops.
>
>So what?
So, your implication of poor innocent South Vietnamese non-combatants &
heroic rebels against tyranny driven into Cambodia by the evil
aggression of a superpower is false. You might as well say that the
German Army wouldn't have had to retreat from Russia in 1944 if the Red
Army wasn't trying to kill them.
[SNIP]
>>2) The US wouldn't have been trying to kill the Viet Cong if the VC
>>aggressors weren't trying to overthrow the internationally-recognized
>>government of South Vietnam so they could extend the totalitarian
>>clutches of the Stalinist-Maoist Hanoi regime & enslave the people
>>of South Vietnam.
>
>Why should anyone here care if the Quisling regime in SV was
>recognized by diplomats?
1) Quisling was a puppet ruler put into power by a foreign invasion.
Diem was appointed by Emperor Bao Dai, the legitimate ruler of South
Vietnam, then confirmed in a plebiscite by an overwhelming majority
after he overthrew the Emperor. Diem came to power peacefully, & was
democratically-confirmed in office. Quisling came to power violently, &
was never democratically-confirmed in office.
2) Because it's illegal under international law to overthrow by force
any government which is internationally-recognized by foreign aggression
or foreign-sponsored subversion.
[snip]
>>>The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of
>>>force unless the country using force is under threat of armed
>>>attack.
>>
>>This, from the ignoramus who argued that reprisals were never legal
>>under international law, only to have me quote the Geneva Convention
>>from the web site of the International Committee of the Red Cross to
>>the contrary.
>
>So why didn't Lt. Calley protest at his court martial that he was
>merely performing a reprisal?
Because he wasn't.
>I recall reading from the web site mentioned above and I also recall
>that only the most tortured (and certainly incorrect) interpretation
>would lead to the conclusion that massacring civillians in response to
>resistence to occupation was legal.
You "recall" no such thing. You're making it up.
>If you'd like to embarrass yourself further, you can repost the link.
Why should I be the least bit embarassed to quote the International
Committee of the Red Cross?
Tim Starr
<Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine20.Stanford.EDU>,
Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Tim Starr wrote:
>
>>In article
>><Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine16.Stanford.EDU>,
>>Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
>>>believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
>>>have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real
>>>neutrality for his country, but the compromise he made (apparently
>>>at the behest of the Viet Minh, though I'm not entirely sure on
>>>that) is that a watered-down Cambodian neutrality would allow
>>>military forces to move through or be stationed in Cambodian
>>>territory so long as they did not pose a "security threat" to
>>>Cambodia.
>>
>>Which isn't neutrality. Finland wasn't neutral when it allowed Nazi
>>Germany to put troops in Finland along the Finnish-Russian border,
>>using Finland as a staging area for the German invasion of Russia.
>>Cambodia wasn't neutral when it allowed North Vietnam to put troops
>>in Cambodia along the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border, using
>>Cambodia as a staging area for the North Vietnamese invasion of South
>>Vietnam.
>
>As I stated before, this is a disanalogy (or at least it most likely
>is; I don't know the nature of Finnish neutrality).
How could you have commented on this analogy before, when I've never
used it before?
There was no such thing as "Finnish neutrality" in the German invasion
of Russia. Finland was allied with Germany in that invasion, & fought
on the same side as Germany, out for revenge for Finland's territorial
losses in the Winter War of 1940. Finland's army stopped its advance at
the limits of the territory it was fighting to regain, but Britain still
declared war on Finland for allying with Germany against Russia.
The point of my analogy was that even if Finland had only let Germany
use Finnish territory as a staging area for the invasion of Russia, that
would still have violated Finnish neutrality & made Finland a German
ally, even if Finland hadn't joined in the invasion & had been coerced
by Germany into allowing German troops onto Finnish soil.
[mistaken interpretation of Cambodian neutrality as defined in the
Geneva agreement snipped]
>>Instead, Sihanouk permitted the Viet Cong to use Cambodia as a
>>staging ground for the invasion of South Vietnam from 1958 until
>>1967, then briefly permitted the US to enter Cambodia in hot pursuit
>>for a few years, only to revoke his permission.
>
>He didn't specifically ban US movement or staging grounds in Cambodia
>until 1965...
The first U.S. Marines (ground troops) arrived in Da Nang in 1965.
Before 1965, there were barely any US troops in the area, just a few
advisers & pilots to help ARVN. He didn't ban US troops from Cambodian
soil before 1965 because there was nothing to ban before 1965.
>when he apparently viewed the armed conflict within Cambodia's borders
>as a "security threat". So it was really only two years that this
>"de facto" alliance existed between Cambodia and the Viet Cong...
The Viet Cong started building the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1958, to
tranport troops & supplies to South Vietnam, through Laos & Cambodia.
Sihanouk agreed to the Viet Cong presence, for fear of being overthrown
by the Viet Cong. The Cambodian military was only about 30K men,
miniscule compared to the forces of the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong did
invade Laos & set up a puppet regime there (Pathet Lao). Then, when the
first US ground troops came within range of Cambodia, he banned them
from entering.
Tim Starr
<Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine20.Stanford.EDU>,
Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>>So, what this means is that for about a decade, the Viet Cong were
>>using Cambodia with Sihanouk's permission as a safe haven for
>>supplying the war on South Vietnam & to escape Allied attacks. Then,
>>in response to the withdrawal of US aid, Sihanouk permitted the US to
>>attack the Viet Cong in Cambodia in hot pursuit, only to later
>>withdraw that permission when the scale of the US attacks on the Viet
>>Cong in Cambodia exceeded his expectations.
>
>Yes, it can be interpreted in this way, though from a legal standpoint
>(and I'm sure Cambodia would have realized that both the US and the
>Viet Cong were reading between every line of the Geneva Treaty in
>order to gain a strategic advantage in their war), it may have been
>the case that he had no choice.
He had "no choice" except whether to ally with the Viet Cong, or against
them, because of the threat of Viet Cong invasion if he didn't comply
with their demands.
>It wasn't the presence of Viet Cong or US troops that resulted in the
>break in 1965, but rather airspace violations (which could, perhaps,
>have been interpreted out of the Geneva Treaty) and ground fighting in
>Cambodia.
Which is an inevitable consequence of allowing a belligerent to
transport troops & supplies through your territory.
[snip]
>>Switzerland was truly neutral in WWII. The Swiss Army shot down
>>German fighters that overflew Swiss territory. Allied planes
>>weren't allowed to overfly Swiss territory, either. Swedish
>>neutrality was violated when Sweden allowed Germany to transport
>>troops from German-occupied Norway to Finland.
[snip]
>In the case of Switzerland and Sweden, I do not know how they
>negotiated their "neutrality" with the warring powers.
Germany threatened to do to Sweden what Germany had done to Norway, if
Sweden didn't allow German troops to cross Swedish soil. Germany
threatened to invade Switzerland several times, to which the Swiss
responded by mobilizing 850K men in arms out of a population of 4
million & giving them all orders to never surrender even if the Swiss
Federal Council said to give up. Sweden compromised its neutrality,
Switzerland maintained its neutrality in full accordance with
international law at the time.
>If Switzerland had granted troop movements through their territory
>(which would have been insane)...
Didn't happen. If Stalin had wised up to the German invasion plans &
attacked the German troops en route to their Finnish staging areas while
crossing Sweden, that would've been allowed under the laws of war.
>If Sweden had stated that no foreign troops would be allowed transit
>through their territory...
That's the default in international law. Neutrality means not allowing
belligerents to use your territory for troop placement or transport.
>then they would have been violating their neutrality in allowing
>passage for the Nazis, thus joining an implicit alliance with them.
Exactly.
G*rd*n
| > > > Suppose we generalize the passage, substituting THEM and THEY
| > > > for "communists":
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| > > Then the passage would be false: Observe the borders of communist
| > > countries and compare them with the borders of substantially
| > > capitalist countries. On every communist border, regardless of
| > > whether it was a border between a communist and non communist
| > > country, or a border between two communist countries, either the
| > > communist country had subordinated and subjugated the bordering
| > > nation, or else the border was in a continual state of near war,
| > > heavily fortified, with frequent bursts of savage violence.
G*rd*n:
| > Where?
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| All of them. Every single one: The border between Cambodia and
| Thailand. The border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The border
| between Vietnam and Laos, the border between China and Vietnam, the
| border between the Soviet Union and China, and so on and so forth all
| the way west, across all the many borders, to the border between East
| and West Germany.
But now they're all getting along (where they haven't
abdicated or been kicked out) -- they're even getting along
with liberal states. So history disproves your theory.
What a surprise!
| And within this newsgroup we can observe that the communists in this
| newsgroup display desires and personal characteristics that if they
| were to achieve power would certainly lead to the endless war and
| internal democide that characterized all recently existent communist
| regimes.
In the sense you seem to be using the term, I haven't observed
any Communists in any of these newsgroups in some time.
Congratulations, however, in getting a lot of people off on
a chase into distant countries and obscure events, instead
of dealing with their own lives and the problems actually
present to them. The former must be far more entertaining.
jo...@my-deja.com
> > > 1) The Viet Cong who used Cambodia as a safe haven included North
> > > Vietnamese as well as South Vietnamese troops.
> >
> >So what?
>
> So, your implication of poor innocent South Vietnamese non-combatants
&
> heroic rebels against tyranny driven into Cambodia by the evil
> aggression of a superpower is false. You might as well say that the
> German Army wouldn't have had to retreat from Russia in 1944 if the
Red
> Army wasn't trying to kill them.
The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of S outh
Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
amount of support. Since the U.S./GVN could not defeat them politically
they decided to use state terrorism. When the response to that (sane
people generally consider uprising against foreign-directed terrorism
to be legitimate) was about to topple the U.S.-backed regime, the U.S.
began attacking South Vietnam directly. A major part of the U.S. policy
was to create as many refugees as possible and force as many of those
as possible into concentration camps known by various names
including "Strategic Hamlets".
If the U.S. didn't do this sort of thing, there would be no need
for "violation of neutrality" by the South Vietnamese of Cambodia.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> >>2) The US wouldn't have been trying to kill the Viet Cong if the VC
> >>aggressors weren't trying to overthrow the internationally-
recognized
> >>government of South Vietnam so they could extend the totalitarian
> >>clutches of the Stalinist-Maoist Hanoi regime & enslave the people
> >>of South Vietnam.
> >
> >Why should anyone here care if the Quisling regime in SV was
> >recognized by diplomats?
>
> 1) Quisling was a puppet ruler put into power by a foreign invasion.
> Diem was appointed by Emperor Bao Dai, the legitimate ruler of South
> Vietnam,
I'm having a hard time remembering just what Tim considers himself to
be politically. What is it? Monarchist?
>then confirmed in a plebiscite by an overwhelming majority
> after he overthrew the Emperor.
Yeah, a free and fair election, I'm sure.
> Diem came to power peacefully, & was
> democratically-confirmed in office.
The only reason he was allowed in by the people of S. Vietnam was
because he was expected to be gone as soon as the Geneva Agreements
were implimented.
Quisling came to power violently, &
> was never democratically-confirmed in office.
>
Diem kept his power violently and was never democratically confirmed in
office.
> 2) Because it's illegal under international law to overthrow by force
> any government which is internationally-recognized by foreign
aggression
> or foreign-sponsored subversion.
That's not what happened.
>
> [snip]
>
> >>>The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of
> >>>force unless the country using force is under threat of armed
> >>>attack.
> >>
> >>This, from the ignoramus who argued that reprisals were never legal
> >>under international law, only to have me quote the Geneva Convention
> >>from the web site of the International Committee of the Red Cross to
> >>the contrary.
> >
> >So why didn't Lt. Calley protest at his court martial that he was
> >merely performing a reprisal?
>
> Because he wasn't.
He certainly could have, if he wanted to. The people in the villages of
those areas were helping to kill his men.
>
> >I recall reading from the web site mentioned above and I also recall
> >that only the most tortured (and certainly incorrect) interpretation
> >would lead to the conclusion that massacring civillians in response
to
> >resistence to occupation was legal.
>
> You "recall" no such thing. You're making it up.
>
How do you know?
> >If you'd like to embarrass yourself further, you can repost the link.
>
> Why should I be the least bit embarassed to quote the International
> Committee of the Red Cross?
>
> Tim Starr
Because it doesn't say what you say it does.
Jon Duncan
Tim Starr
>In article <87ar94$h36$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>>>>1) The Viet Cong who used Cambodia as a safe haven included North
>>>>Vietnamese as well as South Vietnamese troops.
>>>
>>>So what?
>>
>>So, your implication of poor innocent South Vietnamese non-
>>the evil aggression of a superpower is false. You might as well
>>say that the German Army wouldn't have had to retreat from Russia
>>in 1944 if the Red Army wasn't trying to kill them.
>
>The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of South
>Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
>amount of support.
Which "support" was obtained by murdering all political opponents, as
the Viet Cong had done since 1945.
>Since the U.S./GVN could not defeat them politically they decided to
>use state terrorism.
The NLF were the terrorists. The Allied defenders were engaged in
counter-terrorism, trying to liberate the South Vietnamese peasants
from the NLF terrorists.
>When the response to that (sane people generally consider uprising
>against foreign-directed terrorism to be legitimate)...
The NLF was the one engaged in foreign-directed terrorism. The NLF was
Hanoi's puppet, supplied by the Ho Chi Minh trail which the Hanoi regime
started building in 1958.
>was about to topple the U.S.-backed regime...
More precisely, when the South Vietnamese who overthrew Diem proved to
be worse at counter-terrorism than Diem was, the US sent in troops to
help defend South Vietnam against the Viet Cong terrorists.
>the U.S. began attacking South Vietnam directly.
The U.S. began attacking the Viet Cong terrorists directly, not the
South Vietnamese people. The NLF were the puppets of a foreign
totalitarian dictatorship, not representatives of the people of South
Vietnam. The NLF assassinated the representatives of the South
Vietnamese people, for the same reason that the Klan used to lynch
"uppity niggers".
>A major part of the U.S. policy was to create as many refugees as
>possible and force as many of those as possible into concentration
>camps known by various names including "Strategic Hamlets".
The purpose of the "strategic hamlets" was to separate the South
Vietnamese non-combatants from the NLF so the non-combatants could be
protected from the NLF. The US got the idea from the British, who did
it successfully against the Commies in Malaya. It didn't work in
Vietnam, for various reasons, but the purpose was to protect the South
Vietnamese people.
>If the U.S. didn't do this sort of thing, there would be no need
>for "violation of neutrality" by the South Vietnamese of Cambodia.
That would only make sense if the U.S. started putting South Vietnamese
peasants into strategic hamlets BEFORE the violations of Cambodian
neutrality by the Viet Cong. But the opposite is the truth: it was in
response to Viet Cong terrorism, which involved the violation of
Cambodian neutrality, that the U.S. tried to protect the South
Vietnamese people by putting them into strategic hamlets.
>>[SNIP]
>>
>>>>2) The US wouldn't have been trying to kill the Viet Cong if the
>>>>VC aggressors weren't trying to overthrow the internationally-
>>>>recognized government of South Vietnam so they could extend the
>>>>totalitarian clutches of the Stalinist-Maoist Hanoi regime &
>>>>enslave the people of South Vietnam.
>>>
>>>Why should anyone here care if the Quisling regime in SV was
>>>recognized by diplomats?
>>
>>1) Quisling was a puppet ruler put into power by a foreign invasion.
>>Diem was appointed by Emperor Bao Dai, the legitimate ruler of South
>>Vietnam,
>
>I'm having a hard time remembering just what Tim considers himself to
>be politically. What is it? Monarchist?
Bao Dai was the head of state of South Vietnam, according to
international law. Diem was appointed Prime Minister by Bao Dai, &
South Vietnam went to Diem as per the Geneva agreement which ended the
First Indochina War - an agreement which was signed by the Viet Cong,
meaning that they agreed that Diem was the legal ruler of South Vietnam.
>>then confirmed in a plebiscite by an overwhelming majority
>>after he overthrew the Emperor.
>
>Yeah, a free and fair election, I'm sure.
Freer & fairer than any election that was ever held by the Hanoi regime.
>>Diem came to power peacefully, & was democratically-confirmed in
>>office.
>
>The only reason he was allowed in by the people of S. Vietnam was
>because he was expected to be gone as soon as the Geneva Agreements
>were implimented.
No one but the Viet Cong expected Diem to be gone. If Diem was "expected
to be gone as soon as the Geneva Agreements were implemented", then why
did hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people bother voting with their
feet by migrating from North to South Vietnam? The actions of the
Vietnamese people speak more authoritatively for their beliefs than your
parroted Viet Cong propaganda.
>>Quisling came to power violently, & was never democratically-
>>confirmed in office.
>
>Diem kept his power violently...
Diem resisted the attempt by foreign puppets to subvert his rule by
terrorism, yes.
>and was never democratically confirmed in office.
Lie: "The political crisis came to a head on October 18, when Diem
refused to bow to an order from Bao Dai dismissing him. On October 23,
1955, Diem called a referendum, which brought him an overwhelming vote
of support. Three days later Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed a Republic with
himself as president." - Brian Crozier, "The Rise & Fall of the Soviet
Empire," p. 244
>>2) Because it's illegal under international law to overthrow by
>>force any government which is internationally-recognized by foreign
>>aggression or foreign-sponsored subversion.
>
>That's not what happened.
That's exactly what happened.
>>[snip]
>>
>>>>>The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of
>>>>>force unless the country using force is under threat of armed
>>>>>attack.
>>>>
>>>>This, from the ignoramus who argued that reprisals were never
>>>>legal under international law, only to have me quote the Geneva
>>>>Convention from the web site of the International Committee of the
>>>>Red Cross to the contrary.
>>>
>>>So why didn't Lt. Calley protest at his court martial that he was
>>>merely performing a reprisal?
>>
>>Because he wasn't.
>
>He certainly could have, if he wanted to. The people in the villages
>of those areas were helping to kill his men.
No, they weren't, as far as his court-martial could tell, because if
they were then they would've been legitimate military targets & he
wouldn't have been convicted.
>>>I recall reading from the web site mentioned above and I also
>>>recall that only the most tortured (and certainly incorrect)
>>>interpretation would lead to the conclusion that massacring
>>>civillians in response to resistence to occupation was legal.
>>
>>You "recall" no such thing. You're making it up.
>
>How do you know?
Because it's false, & because you're a lying commie with no regard for
the truth, Democide-Denier Duncan.
>>>If you'd like to embarrass yourself further, you can repost the
>>>link.
>>
>>Why should I be the least bit embarassed to quote the International
>>Committee of the Red Cross?
>>
>>Tim Starr
>
>Because it doesn't say what you say it does.
Prove it, liar:
1) What did I say it said?
2) What does it say?
The answer to both those questions is public record on the ICRC web site
& the Deja archive.
Tim Starr
Nathan Folkert
> In article
> <Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine20.Stanford.EDU>,
> Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Tim Starr wrote:
> >
> >>In article
> >><Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine16.Stanford.EDU>,
> >>Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>As part of the Geneva Treaty asserting Cambodia's neutrality, I
> >>>believe (or it may have been their independence from France -- I'd
> >>>have to look it up), Sihanouk attempted to guarentee real
> >>>neutrality for his country, but the compromise he made (apparently
> >>>at the behest of the Viet Minh, though I'm not entirely sure on
> >>>that) is that a watered-down Cambodian neutrality would allow
> >>>military forces to move through or be stationed in Cambodian
> >>>territory so long as they did not pose a "security threat" to
> >>>Cambodia.
> >>
> >>Which isn't neutrality. Finland wasn't neutral when it allowed Nazi
> >>Germany to put troops in Finland along the Finnish-Russian border,
> >>using Finland as a staging area for the German invasion of Russia.
> >>Cambodia wasn't neutral when it allowed North Vietnam to put troops
> >>in Cambodia along the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border, using
> >>Cambodia as a staging area for the North Vietnamese invasion of South
> >>Vietnam.
> >
> >As I stated before, this is a disanalogy (or at least it most likely
> >is; I don't know the nature of Finnish neutrality).
>
> How could you have commented on this analogy before, when I've never
> used it before?
I had started that paragraph thinking you were talking about Sweden again.
I fixed it, and made Sweden into Finland, but then I completely forgot
about what the sentence said. You're right, Finland was not neutral in
WWII. Sorry about the confusion.
> There was no such thing as "Finnish neutrality" in the German invasion
> of Russia. Finland was allied with Germany in that invasion, & fought
> on the same side as Germany, out for revenge for Finland's territorial
> losses in the Winter War of 1940. Finland's army stopped its advance at
> the limits of the territory it was fighting to regain, but Britain still
> declared war on Finland for allying with Germany against Russia.
>
> The point of my analogy was that even if Finland had only let Germany
> use Finnish territory as a staging area for the invasion of Russia, that
> would still have violated Finnish neutrality & made Finland a German
> ally, even if Finland hadn't joined in the invasion & had been coerced
> by Germany into allowing German troops onto Finnish soil.
Correct. If it had been the case that Finland's neutrality required
allowing Germany to stage invasions, though, they wouldn't have been in
violation, given this "even if...only" hypothetical. But it turns out
that this point is a disanalogy to the Cambodian case based on a
misreading of the text, so it doesn't matter anyway. That was the
position that I had been taking, but there's no reason to take it now
since it clearly doesn't apply.
> [mistaken interpretation of Cambodian neutrality as defined in the
> Geneva agreement snipped]
>
> >>Instead, Sihanouk permitted the Viet Cong to use Cambodia as a
> >>staging ground for the invasion of South Vietnam from 1958 until
> >>1967, then briefly permitted the US to enter Cambodia in hot pursuit
> >>for a few years, only to revoke his permission.
> >
> >He didn't specifically ban US movement or staging grounds in Cambodia
> >until 1965...
>
> The first U.S. Marines (ground troops) arrived in Da Nang in 1965.
> Before 1965, there were barely any US troops in the area, just a few
> advisers & pilots to help ARVN. He didn't ban US troops from Cambodian
> soil before 1965 because there was nothing to ban before 1965.
You're right. I was generalizing. These were ARVN troops. The United
States was involved because both South Vietnamese and US aircraft were
violating Cambodian airspace.
> >when he apparently viewed the armed conflict within Cambodia's borders
> >as a "security threat". So it was really only two years that this
> >"de facto" alliance existed between Cambodia and the Viet Cong...
>
> The Viet Cong started building the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1958, to
> tranport troops & supplies to South Vietnam, through Laos & Cambodia.
> Sihanouk agreed to the Viet Cong presence, for fear of being overthrown
> by the Viet Cong. The Cambodian military was only about 30K men,
> miniscule compared to the forces of the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong did
> invade Laos & set up a puppet regime there (Pathet Lao). Then, when the
> first US ground troops came within range of Cambodia, he banned them
> from entering.
True. But he had tolerated for some time ARVN troop movements and US
overflights until he became convinced (with or without justification; I'm
not sure on this) that the US was encouraging the Khmer Serei to overthrow
him, when he cut off US aid. Regardless, this is no excuse for his not
closing the borders to foreign troop movement (though I'm not entirely
sure how he would have prevented it without becoming an ally of the United
States and thus a "legitimate" (at least in the ways war works) target of
the Vietnamese).
> Tim Starr
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
*****************************************
Nathan Folkert
> In article
> <Pine.GSO.4.05.100020...@elaine20.Stanford.EDU>,
> Nathan Folkert <nfol...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
[snip]
> >It wasn't the presence of Viet Cong or US troops that resulted in the
> >break in 1965, but rather airspace violations (which could, perhaps,
> >have been interpreted out of the Geneva Treaty) and ground fighting in
> >Cambodia.
>
> Which is an inevitable consequence of allowing a belligerent to
> transport troops & supplies through your territory.
Which I fully agree with.
[snip]
> >If Sweden had stated that no foreign troops would be allowed transit
> >through their territory...
>
> That's the default in international law. Neutrality means not allowing
> belligerents to use your territory for troop placement or transport.
Yes. I had thought this a special case. It's not.
> >then they would have been violating their neutrality in allowing
> >passage for the Nazis, thus joining an implicit alliance with them.
>
> Exactly.
Which it turns out was happening in Cambodia.
> Tim Starr
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
*****************************************
Matt
> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> | > > Then the passage would be false: Observe the borders of communist
> | > > countries and compare them with the borders of substantially
> | > > capitalist countries. On every communist border, regardless of
> | > > whether it was a border between a communist and non communist
> | > > country, or a border between two communist countries, either the
> | > > communist country had subordinated and subjugated the bordering
> | > > nation, or else the border was in a continual state of near war,
> | > > heavily fortified, with frequent bursts of savage violence.
>
> G*rd*n:
> | > Where?
>
> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> | All of them. Every single one: The border between Cambodia and
> | Thailand. The border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The border
> | between Vietnam and Laos, the border between China and Vietnam, the
> | border between the Soviet Union and China, and so on and so forth all
> | the way west, across all the many borders, to the border between East
> | and West Germany.
>
> But now they're all getting along (where they haven't
> abdicated or been kicked out) -- they're even getting along
> with liberal states. So history disproves your theory.
If communists abdicated or were kicked out of some country, their
country is no longer communist, or is only nominally communist. Thus
that country is not counter-evidence to James's argument, which had to
do with real communist countries.
The most communist country in the world today is North Korea, and indeed
it is heavily militarized--so militarized, in fact, that they had to
demilitarize a zone on the border with South Korea to alleviate the
constant threat of war breaking out.
Other communist countries, such as China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba, seem
to be backing away from communism now that the movement has basically
collapsed and died. Thus James's argument does not apply with as much
force now as it did when communism was strong. Nevertheless, if you
compare the military expenditures of even nominally communist countries,
you see that they are more miltarized than their democratic neighbors
(these stats are in the CIA world factbook).
Vietnam's government, for example, spends 9.3% of its GDP on its
military. By contrast, non-communist Cambodia spends only 2.4% on the
military, Thailand only 2.5%, South Korea 3.2%, and India 2.7%.
Communist Laos is up at 4.2%. Communist China we don't know.
We're also unsure about North Korea, but the Factbook's estimate is
between 25-33%! Conservatively that's almost eight times that of its
more capitalist neighbor.
Even the non-communist authoritarian government of Burma spends only
2.1% on its military.
The US spends 3.4% of its GDP on the military, in contrast to Cuba's 4%.
Note also that the USSR used to supply Cuba, yet even now that the USSR
is dead and the Cold War over, Cuba still spends more on the military
the the US. And Cuba is an island!
Admittedly my "research" has been hasty, but it confirms my impression
that communist countries are extremely war-like in nature.
Now many countries are war-like in nature no doubt as a result of having
authoritarian political institutions. I think, however, that the
communist economic system impels governments to be even more war-like.
Capitalist or at least partially capitalist countries benefit from open
trade with their neighbors. Communist countries don't.
If citizens are profiting from trade with others, they are not as
dependent on the state. Worse still, they are making decisions that
might deviate from the economic goals of the state. Thus communist
countries want to keep their subjects insulated from other countries;
they want to keep their borders closed. If they succeed, a result of
this is a lack of interdependence with other countries. And therefore
the costs of going to war with those countries are much less. That's my
guess, anyway.
> | And within this newsgroup we can observe that the communists in this
> | newsgroup display desires and personal characteristics that if they
> | were to achieve power would certainly lead to the endless war and
> | internal democide that characterized all recently existent communist
> | regimes.
>
> In the sense you seem to be using the term, I haven't observed
> any Communists in any of these newsgroups in some time.
What about Black Dragon? Or are you unable to distinguish him from an
anarcho-socialist?
> Congratulations, however, in getting a lot of people off on
> a chase into distant countries and obscure events, instead
> of dealing with their own lives and the problems actually
> present to them. The former must be far more entertaining.
What does this mean? James has not kidnapped anyone and forced him to
tour the borders of distant countries. It's just Usenet. No one has to
read his posts. Indeed, if you only want to deal with your immediate
life and problems, it doesn't make sense that you would read any of
these threads.
--
Matt (djar...@usa.net)
James A. Donald
On Thu, 03 Feb 2000 20:56:57 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of S outh
> Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
> amount of support.
When Indochina fell to the communists, we saw exactly how much support
they had. Everyone thought they were savage and destructive monsters.
Everyone was terrified. Everyone was right.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
xm3heo3MBFoeyMF/v1r0T4Iy7Lv1O9PnauYHL5Vi
4xADpeg+0MZzEXik5bVJmtgd4wVvl2wu0wciUVcik
James A. Donald
On Thu, 03 Feb 2000 20:56:57 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of S outh
> Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
> amount of support.
Observe that carefully clever phrasing.
The reason they were the only group is that shortly before they had
murdered everyone who might potentially be a threat to them.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
kEhxBn0LN7bdBpZNtlvoQCqUUOVmP3YEb5YLIJHp
4r4FMhnPAv1TEr58rag7N6v4l0LDp/aXd+edkU0Vf
Tim Starr
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2000 20:56:57 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of S outh
>>Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
>>amount of support.
>
>they had. Everyone thought they were savage and destructive monsters.
>Everyone was terrified. Everyone was right.
This is the right description of the situation in South Vietnam after
the fall of Saigon in 1975, but not the situation in Cambodia after the
fall of Phnom Penh. In Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge were welcomed at
first as heralds of peace. The Khmer Rouge put that delusion to rest in
short order when they evacuated the entire population of the city, then
subjected the entire country to an even worse reign of terror than the
Viet Cong did in South Vietnam - one of the worst of the 20th century,
which says a lot.
Tim Starr
(James A. Donald) wrote:
> --
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2000 20:56:57 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of S outh
>>Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
>>amount of support.
>
>
>The reason they were the only group is that shortly before they had
>murdered everyone who might potentially be a threat to them.
Precisely. But Democide-Denier Duncan will of course deny that, just as
he denies the Hue massacre, even though we have much better evidence for
the Hue massacre - bodies, mass graves of people shot in the back of the
head with their hands tied behind their backs with wire, people buried
alive in the country side, stories from witnesses to the atrocities when
the Viet Cong held Hue during the Tet Offensive (see Don Oberdorfer's
"Tet!", which has been in print for decades, for details).
Democide-Denier Duncan is a denier of Commie democides. Here's an
excellent article about people like him:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/leftism/glazov10-28-99.htm
Here's the most relevant part:
'Western "progressives" who deny or reject the significance of Communist
Holocaust incessantly talk about "equality" and, more frighteningly yet,
the possibility of the perfectibility of human institutions and of the
human race. We've heard that language before as well: in the speeches of
Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, as those would-be saviors cranked the
genocidal machines that liquidated millions of people on the altar of
ideas. Today, the Left needs to safeguard its language and secular
religion, so it must deny what this language and religion caused. That
way, more Gulags and "Cultural Revolutions" become possible.'
Mark Roddy
wrote:
>In article <87buhq$l83$1...@news.panix.com>, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>
>> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
>> | > > Then the passage would be false: Observe the borders of communist
>> | > > countries and compare them with the borders of substantially
>> | > > capitalist countries. On every communist border, regardless of
>> | > > whether it was a border between a communist and non communist
>> | > > country, or a border between two communist countries, either the
>> | > > communist country had subordinated and subjugated the bordering
>> | > > nation, or else the border was in a continual state of near war,
>> | > > heavily fortified, with frequent bursts of savage violence.
>>
>> G*rd*n:
>> | > Where?
>>
>> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
>> | All of them. Every single one: The border between Cambodia and
>> | Thailand. The border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The border
>> | between Vietnam and Laos, the border between China and Vietnam, the
>> | border between the Soviet Union and China, and so on and so forth all
>> | the way west, across all the many borders, to the border between East
>> | and West Germany.
>>
The border between USA and Canada, the border between the USA and
Mexico, the border between Israel and all of its neighbors, the
borders of many Latin American countries and their neighbors, the
borders of virtually all european countries and their neigbors,...
Nations have border disputes, it is rather common.
Now, as to this other thing. Vietnam did in fact invade Cambodia after
the end of the US occupation and the fall of the US client regime in
the south of vietnam. That invasion was not in fact a border dispute,
but a real invasion. It also was how the Khmer Rouge were put out of
power and their reign of terror ended. It was also in my opinion the
moral thing to do, precisely because it ended the Khmer Rouge regime.
Mark Roddy
Jon Duncan
"James A. Donald" wrote:
> --
> On Thu, 03 Feb 2000 20:56:57 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of S outh
> > Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
> > amount of support.
>
> When Indochina fell to the communists, we saw exactly how much support
> they had. Everyone thought they were savage and destructive monsters.
> Everyone was terrified. Everyone was right.
>
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
The NLF was more than decimated by U.S.-directed terrorism by the end of
the war. The fact that Northern Communists were so prominent in running
the South after 1975 is used by apologists for the war as "proof" that the
North Vietnamese were the aggressors and had intended to take over all
along, etc. What is conveniently left out is the fact Southern society was
effectively destroyed by American violence. Too many of the Southerners
who would have leaders were dead and the country was too much of a mess
for the South to be solely run by Southerners after 1975. They also leave
out the fact that the artificial economy that existed because of the
presence of the U.S. military and from colonialism that so many (urban
especially) S. Vietnamese depended on for their livelihood disappeared
after the fall of Saigon.
Jon
Jon Duncan
Tim Starr wrote:
> In article <87cq2m$spc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >In article <87ar94$h36$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> >>>>1) The Viet Cong who used Cambodia as a safe haven included North
> >>>>Vietnamese as well as South Vietnamese troops.
> >>>
> >>>So what?
> >>
> >>So, your implication of poor innocent South Vietnamese non-
> >>combatants & heroic rebels against tyranny driven into Cambodia by
> >>the evil aggression of a superpower is false. You might as well
> >>say that the German Army wouldn't have had to retreat from Russia
> >>in 1944 if the Red Army wasn't trying to kill them.
> >
> >The NLF was the only political grouping in the countryside of South
> >Vietnam (where 80% of the SV population lived) with an significant
> >amount of support.
>
> Which "support" was obtained by murdering all political opponents, as
> the Viet Cong had done since 1945.
I don't know about that. I do know that pro-war experts like Douglas Pike
believed that the NLF's use of terror was not nearly as important
(especially early on) in gaining support as its political program was. The
U.S. side's "support", except among those who helped the French run colonial
Indochina, depended pretty much entirely on violence.
>
>
> >Since the U.S./GVN could not defeat them politically they decided to
> >use state terrorism.
>
> The NLF were the terrorists. The Allied defenders were engaged in
> counter-terrorism, trying to liberate the South Vietnamese peasants
> from the NLF terrorists.
>
Spoken like a true fan of terrorism.
>
> >When the response to that (sane people generally consider uprising
> >against foreign-directed terrorism to be legitimate)...
>
> The NLF was the one engaged in foreign-directed terrorism. The NLF was
> Hanoi's puppet, supplied by the Ho Chi Minh trail which the Hanoi regime
> started building in 1958.
>
Diem's "Algerian war" (his words) against the population was already in high
gear at that point. He would have announced his intention to ignore the
Geneva agreements by then too.
>
> >was about to topple the U.S.-backed regime...
>
> More precisely, when the South Vietnamese who overthrew Diem proved to
> be worse at counter-terrorism than Diem was, the US sent in troops to
> help defend South Vietnam against the Viet Cong terrorists.
>
Sounds like Chechnya. You should have wrote propaganda for Stalin or
Yeltsin.
>
> >the U.S. began attacking South Vietnam directly.
>
> The U.S. began attacking the Viet Cong terrorists directly, not the
> South Vietnamese people.
No one who has any idea what went on believes that. Did "free fire zones"
attack the "terrorists" directly? You would at least be more convincing if
you said that the U.S. killed South Vietnamese peasants in response to
attacks by the "terrorists".
> The NLF were the puppets of a foreign
> totalitarian dictatorship, not representatives of the people of South
> Vietnam. The NLF assassinated the representatives of the South
> Vietnamese people, for the same reason that the Klan used to lynch
> "uppity niggers".
>
The GVN "representatives" only achieved something like legitmacy when backed
by U.S. firepower.
>
> >A major part of the U.S. policy was to create as many refugees as
> >possible and force as many of those as possible into concentration
> >camps known by various names including "Strategic Hamlets".
>
> The purpose of the "strategic hamlets" was to separate the South
> Vietnamese non-combatants from the NLF so the non-combatants could be
> protected from the NLF. The US got the idea from the British, who did
> it successfully against the Commies in Malaya. It didn't work in
> Vietnam, for various reasons, but the purpose was to protect the South
> Vietnamese people.
>
It's funny how those people had to be taken away to their "protection" at
gunpoint.
>
> >If the U.S. didn't do this sort of thing, there would be no need
> >for "violation of neutrality" by the South Vietnamese of Cambodia.
>
> That would only make sense if the U.S. started putting South Vietnamese
> peasants into strategic hamlets BEFORE the violations of Cambodian
> neutrality by the Viet Cong. But the opposite is the truth: it was in
> response to Viet Cong terrorism, which involved the violation of
> Cambodian neutrality, that the U.S. tried to protect the South
> Vietnamese people by putting them into strategic hamlets.
>
The NLF initially relied on captured U.S. weapons (acquired very easily
because of the shakey loyalty of the ARVN) and they lived among the general
population. There was no need for Cambodia.
>
> >>[SNIP]
> >>
> >>>>2) The US wouldn't have been trying to kill the Viet Cong if the
> >>>>VC aggressors weren't trying to overthrow the internationally-
> >>>>recognized government of South Vietnam so they could extend the
> >>>>totalitarian clutches of the Stalinist-Maoist Hanoi regime &
> >>>>enslave the people of South Vietnam.
> >>>
> >>>Why should anyone here care if the Quisling regime in SV was
> >>>recognized by diplomats?
> >>
> >>1) Quisling was a puppet ruler put into power by a foreign invasion.
> >>Diem was appointed by Emperor Bao Dai, the legitimate ruler of South
> >>Vietnam,
> >
> >I'm having a hard time remembering just what Tim considers himself to
> >be politically. What is it? Monarchist?
>
> Bao Dai was the head of state of South Vietnam, according to
> international law. Diem was appointed Prime Minister by Bao Dai, &
> South Vietnam went to Diem as per the Geneva agreement which ended the
> First Indochina War - an agreement which was signed by the Viet Cong,
> meaning that they agreed that Diem was the legal ruler of South Vietnam.
>
They signed the agreement which called for elections which everyone knew Ho
would win if they were fair.
>
> >>then confirmed in a plebiscite by an overwhelming majority
> >>after he overthrew the Emperor.
> >
> >Yeah, a free and fair election, I'm sure.
>
> Freer & fairer than any election that was ever held by the Hanoi regime.
>
The "Republic of Vietnam's" constitution prohibited membership in any
communist party. Any election under those circumstances is a joke.
>
> >>Diem came to power peacefully, & was democratically-confirmed in
> >>office.
> >
> >The only reason he was allowed in by the people of S. Vietnam was
> >because he was expected to be gone as soon as the Geneva Agreements
> >were implimented.
>
> No one but the Viet Cong expected Diem to be gone. If Diem was "expected
> to be gone as soon as the Geneva Agreements were implemented", then why
> did hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people bother voting with their
> feet by migrating from North to South Vietnam? The actions of the
> Vietnamese people speak more authoritatively for their beliefs than your
> parroted Viet Cong propaganda.
>
They were Catholic and they were afraid of real and imagined communist
oppression. The CIA was helpful in fueling their imaginations. So is Douglas
Pike a communist propagandist? Was Bernard Fall?
>
> >>Quisling came to power violently, & was never democratically-
> >>confirmed in office.
> >
> >Diem kept his power violently...
>
> Diem resisted the attempt by foreign puppets to subvert his rule by
> terrorism, yes.
>
The Southern communists were initially convinced not to fight back against
Diem despite the fact that they were being massacred. Not the usual activity
of terrorists.
>
> >and was never democratically confirmed in office.
>
> Lie: "The political crisis came to a head on October 18, when Diem
> refused to bow to an order from Bao Dai dismissing him. On October 23,
> 1955, Diem called a referendum, which brought him an overwhelming vote
> of support. Three days later Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed a Republic with
> himself as president." - Brian Crozier, "The Rise & Fall of the Soviet
> Empire," p. 244
>
There was a referendum but it had nothing to do with democracy.
>
> >>2) Because it's illegal under international law to overthrow by
> >>force any government which is internationally-recognized by foreign
> >>aggression or foreign-sponsored subversion.
> >
> >That's not what happened.
>
> That's exactly what happened.
>
People are allowed to defend themselves.
>
> >>[snip]
> >>
> >>>>>The UN Charter, which the U.S. signed, does not permit the use of
> >>>>>force unless the country using force is under threat of armed
> >>>>>attack.
> >>>>
> >>>>This, from the ignoramus who argued that reprisals were never
> >>>>legal under international law, only to have me quote the Geneva
> >>>>Convention from the web site of the International Committee of the
> >>>>Red Cross to the contrary.
> >>>
> >>>So why didn't Lt. Calley protest at his court martial that he was
> >>>merely performing a reprisal?
> >>
> >>Because he wasn't.
> >
> >He certainly could have, if he wanted to. The people in the villages
> >of those areas were helping to kill his men.
>
> No, they weren't, as far as his court-martial could tell, because if
> they were then they would've been legitimate military targets & he
> wouldn't have been convicted.
So babies are "legitimate military targets" now?
>
>
> >>>I recall reading from the web site mentioned above and I also
> >>>recall that only the most tortured (and certainly incorrect)
> >>>interpretation would lead to the conclusion that massacring
> >>>civillians in response to resistence to occupation was legal.
> >>
> >>You "recall" no such thing. You're making it up.
> >
> >How do you know?
>
> Because it's false, & because you're a lying commie with no regard for
> the truth, Democide-Denier Duncan.
>
How do you know?
>
> >>>If you'd like to embarrass yourself further, you can repost the
> >>>link.
> >>
> >>Why should I be the least bit embarassed to quote the International
> >>Committee of the Red Cross?
> >>
> >>Tim Starr
> >
> >Because it doesn't say what you say it does.
>
> Prove it, liar:
>
> 1) What did I say it said?
>
That it's okay to massacre people as long as it's done as a reprisal to an
attack by people not in uniform.
>
> 2) What does it say?
>
Something else.
>
> The answer to both those questions is public record on the ICRC web site
> & the Deja archive.
>
> Tim Starr
>
Find it yourself.
Jon
Jon Duncan
Nathan Folkert wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2000 jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > > > it might have been entirely within Sihanouk's and Cambodia's legal
> > > > rights to ask that US bombers no longer strafe the Cambodian
> > > > countryside.
> >
> > Might?!
>
> I said *legal* rights, not moral rights. I don't know the full nature of
> the Geneva Treaty, so I can't say for not whether this request could be
> considered a violation of Cambodia's "neutrality" or not. I would hope
> that such situations were agreed upon by Cambodia to be a "security
> threat", but then, I would have hoped that they would have barred entry
> into their borders any foreign troops at all, at the very least for the
> sake of the Cambodian people.
>
> --
> Nathan Folkert
> nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
> http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
>
I know what you wrote. The idea that strafing villiages was legal is so
outlandish that we should be presented with something resembling iron-clad
proof before we consider that this might possibly be the case. Unless I've
missed something, there hasn't been anything resembling evidence. So why
wonder whether it "might" be legal?
I don't know much of anything about how or why gravity works but if I was
teaching physics, I wouldn't say that a lead-filled basketball *might* fall
at a faster rate than an air-filled one. That's about how odd your wondering
about the legality of Sih.'s complaint seems to me.
Jon