# Marines Pose with Nazi SS Flag?



## Matt308 (Feb 10, 2012)

The U.S. Marine Corps once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS — a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others. 

The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the Marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 will not be disciplined because investigators determined it was a naive mistake.

The Marines believed the SS symbol was meant to represent sniper scouts and never intended to be associated with a racist organization, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, where the Marines were based.

"I don't believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII," Chapin said. "It's not within who we are as Marines."

The Corps has used the incident as a training tool to talk to troops about what symbols are acceptable after it became aware of the photograph last November, Chapin said.

[Source: MSN.com]


----------



## mikewint (Feb 10, 2012)

Matt, that is typical of what I see in the schools that I present in, i.e. very little knowlege or grasp of history. Hard to believe that anyone could look at that symbol and think it stood for Sniper Scouts is hard to fathom. Then again I had 7 classes of high school Jrs Srs who had no idea who Alexander Hamilton was except for one young lad who thought he was one of the old-tyme US Presidents. One or two thought that the North had won WWI


----------



## pbfoot (Feb 10, 2012)

Dumb kids


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 10, 2012)

Yeah I find it hard to believe anyone could think it means anything differently. Pretty stupid if you ask me.


----------



## Thomas Clarke (Feb 10, 2012)

The twin Sigs are not unfamiliar to US Marines. They are trained to kill. So were the SS. Sepp Dietrich has long been portrayed as a good soldier doing his duty. These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy. That the Marine Corps continues to support an American Military Policy that emulates a criminal organization does not speak to traditional Allied values, but does kill a lot of people. Sepp would have been happy.


----------



## evangilder (Feb 11, 2012)

Man, talk about fitting the stereotype of "dumb effin' Marines". Mass media and the ease at which photos and video can be shared has made it very dangerous for our troops. Anyone who has ever worn a uniform knows that soldiers sometimes do stupid (or politically incorrect) things. It's when they photograph or film it, it becomes a nightmare for the Public Affairs Officer. 

Thomas, you are entitled to your opinion, but political commentary is not tolerated around here. Just a heads up.


----------



## A4K (Feb 11, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Yeah I find it hard to believe anyone could think it means anything differently. Pretty stupid if you ask me.



Agree completely Chris.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 11, 2012)

Thomas Clarke said:


> The twin Sigs are not unfamiliar to US Marines. They are trained to kill. So were the SS. Sepp Dietrich has long been portrayed as a good soldier doing his duty. These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy. That the Marine Corps continues to support an American Military Policy that emulates a criminal organization does not speak to traditional Allied values, but does kill a lot of people. Sepp would have been happy.




Does not make it any better. I served in the US military and was trained to kill, I still would not use such a symbol. Why would anyone?


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 11, 2012)

"... These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy."

WTF .....

MM


----------



## A4K (Feb 11, 2012)

No offence intended, but this is the typical idealistic sort of BS expression foreigners expect of the US forces.


----------



## evangilder (Feb 11, 2012)

Evan, you raise a good point. With the political climate around the world the way it is, this kind of thing reinforces negative stereotypes of Americans/American troops, etc. If most Americans don't believe no one in the squad knew that symbols history, clearly the rest of the world feels the same. It was definitely a poor choice of fonts, at the very least.


----------



## A4K (Feb 11, 2012)

Exactly, Eric.


----------



## pbfoot (Feb 11, 2012)

Thomas Clarke said:


> The twin Sigs are not unfamiliar to US Marines. They are trained to kill. So were the SS. Sepp Dietrich has long been portrayed as a good soldier doing his duty. These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy. That the Marine Corps continues to support an American Military Policy that emulates a criminal organization does not speak to traditional Allied values, but does kill a lot of people. Sepp would have been happy.


I thought the Afghans were our allies and that Al Quaeda and to a lesser extent the Taliban were the enemy , I think you should do a crash course on current events. .


----------



## mikewint (Feb 11, 2012)

Not trying to be political but it comes back to what has happened in and to our schools. US schools send a very clear message to students: Don't worry about passing just show up and breath. Public schools by and large have no retension policy especially in the Jr-highs. I talk to many freshmen/soph. They openly brag that they failed every subject but were still passed on to high school. Happy passing students make happy parents and sadly no one really cares if they actually have learned anything. Students are simply not responsible for any part of their education. Responsibility has shifted to the teachers. They are at fault is students do not pass, i.e. everyone passes. Even sadder is that Colleges love it. 80% of incoming college freshmen are placed in remedial classes. They are charged full tuition but receive no college credit. The US is 30th in the world in terms of education. So I can easily believe that these guys REALLY thought it stood for Sniper Scouts


----------



## stona (Feb 11, 2012)

Dumb? Didn't know what it stood for? Maybe,or maybe we are making excuses. Noone has asked the question what were they doing with those symbols if they DID know their origin. They are pretty familiar to every neo-facist or white supremacist anywhere in the world. That,for me,is a far more worrying question.
The U.S. military is not alone in this,there were problems a few years ago in the Bundeswehr and the young Germans involved could not claim ignorance.

Steve


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 11, 2012)

This is PC BS - the whole story. End of story. The Waffen SS was _elite_ - like their politics or not. French, Norwegian, Estonian, Dutch and many other nationalities served in Waffen SS regiments - and weren't guarding Concentration Camps. *I have no time for Nazism, racism or fascism* .... but if you admire/respect the military "arts" how can you not respect a Michael Whitman or a Hans U. Rudel ....? Esprit de Corps in any organisation is based on _elitism_ ... that, and discipline, is why it works. 

MM


----------



## mikewint (Feb 11, 2012)

Michael, all true but as in all things PERCEPTION trumps reality. Does it really matter any more that the swastika is an ancient symbol going all the way back to the Indus valley civilizations, that it is a chinese character, that it is used in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. It is forever Nazi and as such evokes a viseral reaction above and beyond being PC. I'm as far from being PC as one can get and yet I can remember my reaction when I saw swastikas on temples in Vietnam.


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 11, 2012)

The death camps was under the Allgemeine SS, but just as much SS as the Waffen SS. The Einsatzgruppen death squads were SS, Josef Mengele was SS. There's no PC about it, the SS runes are forever going to be immediately associated with murderers of defenseless people. 
What's so bad about this is it appears this might have been their symbol for as many as 20 years. But I might just be passing on a rumor there.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 11, 2012)

"... What's so bad about this is it appears this might have been _their symbol_ for as many as 20 years. But I might just be passing on a rumor there..."

OK, sorry you're so offended, tyrotom, , .... I guess it's a good thing they didn't have their *"blood type"* tattooed in their armpit ... OMG ... _THAT_ would be fascist elitism of the worst kind ... .

I think you Americans are too _close_ to this .... IMHO, 

MM


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 11, 2012)

michaelmaltby said:


> "... What's so bad about this is it appears this might have been _their symbol_ for as many as 20 years. But I might just be passing on a rumor there..."
> 
> OK, sorry your're so offended, tyrotom, , .... I guess it's a good thing they didn't have their *"blood type"* tattooed in their armpit ... OMG ... _THAT_ would be fascist elitism of the worst kind ... .
> 
> ...


It's my country, and i'd like to see us not make enemies faster than we can kill them. 

I was once a kid in combat, and we could get pretty gruesome around each other, but most of us understood what we saw, and what we did, was not for the general public.


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 11, 2012)

.


----------



## evangilder (Feb 11, 2012)

I am very close to putting the lock on this thread. 

What do you think our friends and allies in Israel think of this, Michael? It's not about whether or not it is offensive, it is the fact that people that already may have a skewed perception of Americans/American soldiers now have even worse fodder. That symbol represented hatred and intolerance. That is NOT a symbol I want troops that are defending our freedoms using.


----------



## vikingBerserker (Feb 12, 2012)

IMHO much ado about nothing. It's nothing more then a symbol whose only power comes from what people bestow upon it.


----------



## stona (Feb 12, 2012)

vikingBerserker said:


> IMHO much ado about nothing. It's nothing more then a symbol whose only power comes from what people bestow upon it.



So it's okay for our Princes to attend fancy dress parties wearing a swastika arm band? 
These symbols are only acceptable in an educational context, they represent elitism,superiority,facism,nazism and mass murder. Wearing an arm band,as Prince Harry stupidly,did insults the memory all the victims of Nazism. 
The grandfathers of these men fought and died to provide the freedom and liberty that they now abuse.
It's not big and it's not clever. At best it is stupid,at worst.....
If that runic symbol has been an emblem of that unit,unchallenged for twenty years,then the US military has a bigger problem than I thought.

Steve


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 12, 2012)

"... What do you think our friends and allies in Israel think of this, Michael?"

Well, they were content to use ME-109's in their war of independence. And they use state of the art German subs. And are masters of strategy and marketing .... so I wouldn't worry too much about Israeli sensitivities .... as long as US foreign policy supports Israel

No Stona it's NOT alright. Prince Harry is in a position of extreme privilege. He's not serving in a combat zone. (and living people remember that his Great Grand Dad's brother flirted with Nazism).

"... That symbol represented hatred and intolerance. That is NOT a symbol I want troops that are defending our freedoms using.''


----------



## krieghund (Feb 12, 2012)

I have a hard time believing none of those Marines ever watched a WWII movie?


----------



## evangilder (Feb 12, 2012)

Using Me-109s and German equipment are WAY different from using symbols that represented the SS. I have several relatives that fought in WWII and they cringed when they saw that photo. Some of my wife's family were wiped out by the ones who wore that symbol 70 years ago. Not only did they disappear, but there is _nothing_ left, no photos, no records, nothing. 

You can call it a "symbol" that means nothing, or pass it off as people being too sensitive if you wish, but this is something that hits some people very hard. 

Posting a rebel flag doesn't hold a candle to the systematic mass murder of millions of people. Did it represent hatred? Yes, and oppression. Do I support that flag? No I don't. What exactly was your point with that?


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 12, 2012)

Here is my take. Yes it is a symbol, but the symbol stands for something. A military unit today should not use this symbol because of what it stood for. 

I am an avid 3rd Reich collector. I have dozens upon dozens of swastikas and SS runes in my collection, but I only display them as a collection and nothing else. I hope to have a museum some day... That is far different than displaying it as a unit symbol or something like that.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 12, 2012)

What is my point .....?

"..... cringed when they saw that photo".

Did your relatives cringe at the symbol ...? or cringe at the stupidity of the guys that used it in the USMC ....?

Cause and effect. It's important to make sure you identify the right "cause" when you detect an "effect" ... otherwise you're working in the dark.

No one - and I mean no one - other than neo-nazis-shaved-heads would actively chose the swastika or the double thunderbolt today. Those marines were dumb .... dumb, dumb, dumb. So were the clowns guarding Abu Greb prison. **** HAPPENS.

But in the end ACTIONS speak louder than words (or symbols).

I am told (and I hope one of our Finnish friends will confirm/deny) that during the Finnish War of Continuation against the Soviets, several Finnish soldiers were awarded The Iron Cross by their German co-combattant allies. Some of the Finns were Jewish. The Germans _knew_ that when the awards were proffered. The Jewish candidates declined the award - but kept on fighting. Actions speak louder than words.

My point? Life is _ironic_ .... war even more so. 

(Later, the Finns were forced by the Soviets to clear out the Germans from the north as a condition of their negotiated 'peace' )

MM


----------



## evangilder (Feb 12, 2012)

They cringed that a symbol like that was being used by ANY US unit. Not at the stupidity of it (which it is stupid), but the fact that they were using it and claiming ignorance of the symbol. One cousin called BS on that, by the way. 

One thing that some may not have thought about is that our enemies could use that for propaganda. An American flag with an SS flag directly below it with proud troops standing with their weapons. People that are not in support of our troops will also see this as additional ammo.


----------



## stona (Feb 12, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I am an avid 3rd Reich collector. I have dozens upon dozens of swastikas and SS runes in my collection, but I only display them as a collection and nothing else. I hope to have a museum some day... That is far different than displaying it as a unit symbol or something like that.



Which is fine,noone is trying to deny history. It's all about context. Education,education and then some more education is a good thing and surely the purpose of your putative museum.

Western troops in the Islamic world are all too often portrayed as occupiers,oppressors,torturers and ,thanks to idiotic comments by a certain former President,crusaders. 
This sort of image is not going to help much.

Steve


----------



## mikewint (Feb 12, 2012)

Michael, how can you not see the POWER in a symbol, it is all around us. Our flags are SYMBOLS many many men have died for those symbols, the Cross is a symbol as is the Star of David how many millions have died for both. Words are also symbols think of the power of the N***** word. I agree that symbols have no intrinsic power of their own, only the power we give them but symbols reach past he thinking brain down to a viseral level. Name calling is a prime example. Depending on the name chosen you can get a mouth full of fist. Think of how FBJ and others on this forum are reacting to the fake Navy officer. That uniform and medals are symbols and people are reacting to them on a viseral level


----------



## Maximowitz (Feb 12, 2012)

Hmmm... this thread has turned argumental.

Strangely though not the argument I expected.


----------



## mikewint (Feb 12, 2012)

Curious, Max, what were you expecting? We only have a pic and pics are subject to interpretation. Did those marines really not know what the SS was/stood for or was it all just a dumb error?


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 12, 2012)

".... Michael, how can you not see the POWER in a symbol, it is all around us."

No doubt. Symbols speak loudly. But they have no power in and of themselves. The POWER only arrives when human will is harnessed to - connected with - the particular SYMBOL. Those Marines in Iraq were dumb - actually I don't mean that - I mean their leadership failed them. 

Were they acting like Waffen SS ...? I don't know, I wasn't there. But - if they were behaving like that then, to locals, the lasting symbol would be Old Glory - not the double thunderbolt. For _the theatre of operations_, the double bolt actually may have had a positive effect - Arabs generally admire the Germans, Hitler, and all things German-made . I've talked to Mercedes LD truck drivers in Saudi and Jordan and they would point to the Mercedes 'star' on the gill and say "strong, like Hitler".

Actions speak louder than words (or symbols). How did these Marines conduct themselves? were they effective? ... that is the important question.

MM


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 12, 2012)

So if they were effective, they can wear armbands and jackboots too?

When I was in the Army, I would not think about adopting any of the symbols of the enemies my dad and uncles fought against. No matter how "effective" I thought I was. To me that would be disrespectful of their sacrifice.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 12, 2012)

You gottme, tyrotom. . What can I say .... "To me that would be disrespectful of their sacrifice."

I _*doubt *_any one involved knowingly elected to be disrespectful of their _service_ - someone involved thinks the double thunder is cool, edgy, goth .... whatever. And everybody went along with the idea ..... Sad. Misguided. Means nothing.

"... So if they were effective, they can wear armbands and jackboots too? " 

Jackboots - sure, if they're comfortable

Armbands - maybe - depends what's on them ...?

MM


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 12, 2012)

I'm sure you know what i meant by armband and jackboots. To me, flying their flag is no different than wearing their uniform.


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 12, 2012)

My dad, and 2 of my uncles were in the WW2 Marines. I can make a good guess what they'd say if they were still alive. " We whip their ass, and now you #$%&s fly their flag!!!"

Of course, they all fought in the Pacific, one died there.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 12, 2012)

".... Of course, they all fought in the Pacific..."

With respect to the deceased and the living, in the Pacific theatre there were 'outrages' about ear and gold tooth collection .... to me, in a war, that kind of thing happens. Punish it. Move on.

MM


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 12, 2012)

michaelmaltby said:


> "
> 
> With respect to the deceased and the living, in the Pacific theatre there were 'outrages' about ear and gold tooth collection .... to me, in a war, that kind of thing happens. Punish it. Move on.
> 
> MM


Which has 0 to do with US Marines flying a Nazi flag under a US flag in Afghanistan.


----------



## vikingBerserker (Feb 12, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> So if they were effective, they can wear armbands and jackboots too?
> 
> When I was in the Army, I would not think about adopting any of the symbols of the enemies my dad and uncles fought against. No matter how "effective" I thought I was. To me that would be disrespectful of their sacrifice.



My ancestor’s fought against the British in the Revolutionary War as well as the War of 1812. At the college I attended there is a memorial that is the only shore installation in the U.S. permitted to fly the Royal Navy Ensign. I do not feel this in any way disrespects my ancestors. IMHO if we go back far enough in any of our respective county's history we would probably find events today we would not be too proud of that might even approach those of the SS, yet we refuse to let these events define it.


----------



## stona (Feb 13, 2012)

vikingBerserker said:


> At the college I attended there is a memorial that is the only shore installation in the U.S. permitted to fly the Royal Navy Ensign. I do not feel this in any way disrespects my ancestors.



Not comparable really. The War of Independence was in some ways a civil war,the revolutionaries had all been subjects of the crown up until their unilateral declaration of independence when they became,technically,traitors. Something they were fully aware of,had they lost they'd have been hanged and they knew it. They won and are quite correctly seen in a more favourable light 

I'm not aware of the Royal Navy ever having run or staffed extermination camps in the colonies.

Steve


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

"... Which has 0 to do with US Marines flying a Nazi flag under a US flag in Afghanistan."

Except behavior that was disgraceful ..... duh.

MM


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

"... I'm not aware of the Royal Navy ever having run or staffed extermination camps in the colonies."

Sorry ... I forgot that the British Government _OUTSOURCED_ the transfer of "criminals" to Australia ....  so 'technically' you're right.

Concentration Camps were first used by the British in The Boer War ..... 

History is a bitch, eh Stona. 

Chairs,

MM


----------



## tyrodtom (Feb 13, 2012)

michaelmaltby said:


> "
> 
> Except behavior that was disgraceful
> 
> MM


 Sounds like we're agreeing on something.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

We are. 

MM


----------



## stona (Feb 13, 2012)

The deportation of criminals to Australia is not in anyway comparable to the genocide committed by nazi Germany in the extermination camps. Such a comparison is disgraceful. 

The use of what have been referred to as concentration camps during the Boer wars is not a particularly pleasant episode in British military history. They were however concentration camps,not extermination camps.The intent was not to exterminate the Boer people but to isolate their "Commandos" from the support of their "Volk". The camps were not dismantled because the Boer peoples won their "Engelse oorlog" but because in a democratic system they were eventually deemed,in the UK parliament,to be unacceptable. Not likely to happen in nazi Germany. The military authorities in Southern Africa couldn't hide such a thing from the people back home,even at the turn of the 20th century,indefinately. Politicians in a democracy HAVE to be wary of public opinion. Again,no comparison.

Every nation that ever fielded an army has an Amritsar or a My Lai in its history. These are not things we can be proud of but they are not national policy.In that sense history can indeed be a bitch. We should seek to learn from it.

In making such petty comparisons you singularly fail to grasp the enormity of what happened in Europe in the 1930/40s. 

Steve


----------



## Freebird (Feb 13, 2012)

michaelmaltby said:


> "... I'm not aware of the Royal Navy ever having run or staffed extermination camps in the colonies."
> 
> Sorry ... I forgot that the British Government _OUTSOURCED_ the transfer of "criminals" to Australia ....



Where most of them began new lives as productive citizens, escaping poverty a grim life in old blighty.
MM[/QUOTE]



> Concentration Camps were first used by the British in The Boer War



Which is not the same as extermination camps.
The


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

".... In making such petty comparisons you singularly fail to grasp the enormity of what happened in Europe in the 1930/40s. "

Apparently ........ at least by _your_ standards. But I assure you, stona, that the blood of Canadian-born relatives who fought '14-18 and again '39-45 was just as righteous as any being shed by your lot.

"... They were however concentration camps, not extermination camps."

Two words: *communicable disease*. It (they) took the lives of Boer women and children ... and disease took 1,000's in the Nazi labour camps. You kill 'em, you bare responsibility for 'em. If that was the rule for the Nazis then that's the rule for Britannia -- no finessing the 'logic', friend. 

"... Where most of them began new lives as productive citizens, escaping poverty a grim life "

Sure, just like the Highland Scots Britain shipped out to the fertile clime of Cape Breton after the slaughter at Culloden.

Spin away ....

MM


----------



## stona (Feb 13, 2012)

You still can't compare camps that were a heavy handed military solution to a military problem and were dismantled by the government of the same nation whose military had built them with a national policy of genocide. Despite the deaths of many thousands of Boer people in the The South African camps this was not an attempted genocide. Noone in the British government was making coded allusions to a "final solution" of the Boer problem. There are no minutes of anything resembling a Wannsee conference. It is disingenuous and provocative to suggest otherwise.

A small but significant percentage of the present Australian population is descended from deportees. I've visited and worked in Australia on several occasions and they seem alright to me. One of the guides at Melbourne's old gaol did seem to take undue pleasure putting me into a cell but then we had just beaten them at cricket. 
Where are the descendants of Polish Jewry? Few and far between and rarely in Poland. Spin that.

Steve


----------



## mikewint (Feb 13, 2012)

Stona, going "off the ranch" here but Michael is correct about british concentration camps: The British had some mastless prison ships in NY harbor during the war. American prisoners (enlisted men) were stuffed into the hold and not allowed to come up on deck for exercise or fresh air. They had to urinate and defecate over the side and, since the ship was anchored, the foul water was only washed away with the tides. They were given small cast iron pots (1 for every 10 men) to cook whatever rancid meat they were given and it had to be cooked in salt water since they weren't given any fresh water for cooking. And the only salt water they could get was the aforementioned water covered with feces. Occaisionally, locals would row out to the ships and donate or sell fresh food to the prisoners. Thousands died under those conditions. Michael also mentions the "civil war" aspects, also true, in many parts of America, the Revolution took on aspects of a Civil War in that families and neighbors of seperate alligences fought against one another out of revenge, greed, spite, or whatever excuse they could find to get some land or possessions. There was a story of a woman down south who was found tied to a tree and her unborn infant had been cut out of her, hung upside down to the tree and a note attached to it saying, "This bastard will never grow up to be a rebel." The Hessians were noted for their lack of compassion to surrendering troops and there are several accounts of them bayoneting Americans asking for quarter. The most famous account was after the Battle of Camden when Banistre "Bloody Ban" Tarleton had his men slaughter surrendering American troops. The ironic thing about that was Tarleton's troops weren't British, but American loyalists who gladly slaughtered their own people.
Sorry, off topic but any and every army/country has and will continue to comit such acts during a time of war/combat
Michael, if you would re-read my post, I agree about the lack of intrinsic power of symbols but you missed my second point, i.e. Symbol bypass the thinking brain and act on a viseral level. Stop your knee from jerking when you strike the patellar tendon. The viseral power of symbols is the very reason they are used


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

"... Where are the descendants of Polish Jewry? Few and far between and rarely in Poland. Spin that."

Israel. Lots. Canada, more than you'd concede. 

Better read "Bloodlands" stona, or re-read if the impact has worn off.

I realize that (in your words) : ... (I) singularly fail to grasp the enormity of what happened in Europe ..." but what in truth I do grasp is the enormity of the struggle for and against communism in the years you have identified. The mindless slaughter by Soviet politicos in the Ukraine, later in Poland and elsewhere is just as monumental and horrific as anything you want to lay on the Germans - and I don't give a rats ass if the Reds held a conference about it or not. 

IIRC, in 1939 the Allies went to war against Nazi Germany - this war was about a number of issues and unilateral acts of aggression. Liberating European Jews was only one item on that list of issues. Post WW2, increasingly the War in Europe is being portrayed as the war against the Holocaust. The Holocaust is symbolic and I appreciate the sacrifice the Holocaust embodies -- but it is NOT why most Allied service people fought. 

Do _you_ endorse this revisionist portrayal of WW2, stona?


----------



## stona (Feb 13, 2012)

A mastless prison ship is not an extermination camp. Prison hulks were moored in the Thames estuary at this time. It was a common and accepted solution to a prison problem,along with the deportations equated by some with genocide. I'd be grateful to be sent to Botany Bay compared with the options for a French deportee for example.
Those American prisoners were not being singled out for special treatment. We must not judge the past by present standards. The treatment of those prisoners was a military atrocity. We should all be careful about throwing that stone as we will find that we are all living in glass houses.

Extermination camps are part of a genocide reflecting the national policy of a particular regime. Genocide has become a much overused and devalued word. Look at the appalling atrocities in the Balkans. Despite the use of the word genocide to describe the horror it was not genocide. Ethnic cleansing may be a euphemism for dreadful suffering,terror and dislocation but it is not a euphemism for genocide. Saddam's gas attacks on the Kurds are atrocities,not genocide. He never intended to kill all Kurdish people however much he may have wanted to.
Some people posting in this thread,like some modern journalists,have lost a sense of proportion.

Steve


----------



## mikewint (Feb 13, 2012)

Again I agree with Michael: Genocide is an old tried and true practice used by all countries. And just because we don't manage to kill ALL of them, it is not from a lack of trying. Po-tay-toe or Po-taa-toe. The Pilgrims gave smallpox infested blankets to the indians and the army/railroad slaughtered the buffalo to stave out the indians. Austrailians slaughtered the bushmen. Slalin killed 3X to 4X the number of people that Hitler ever did. Serbs and Muslims, it goes on and on. Does not make it right by any means but civilization is a very, very, thin veneer on our species


----------



## stona (Feb 13, 2012)

I do not endorse revisionist histories and I have a fairly decent grasp of what the second world war was about. I have never suggested it was a war against the holocaust. It was you who equated the holocaust with transportations to Australia and South African concentration camps.

There were about 3.35 million Jewish people in Poland when war broke out(by statistical extrapolation from the 1931 census figures) and about 2.8 million left in German occupied Poland after the Soviet zone was overrun. Your "lots" should be tens of millions and it is not.
I'm not going to get into an argument about numbers it is distasteful and disrespectful. Some number crunching is unavoidable. 
Are you attempting to deny the fate of Polish Jewry? Your descendants may well be from the 116,000 Jews who left Poland between December 1931 and Sepember 1939 or even the 300,000 who escaped to the USSR after a border was established late in 1939. The fate of those who remained is well known and proven by evidence from the perpetrators. Are you suggesting that many more survived than actually did? If you are we don't really have anything to discuss. That is a strain of revisionism which I will not engage with.

Steve


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

"... a genocide reflecting the national policy of a particular regime".

TRUE.

But since you sit on such morally high ground, stona, what kind of a "national policy" does Britain's opium policy to China represent. We won't kill 'em, just render 'em useless. Britain tolerated hashish in Egypt (locals only) for the same reason. 

"... Some people posting in this thread,like some modern journalists,have lost a sense of proportion."

Who would that be, stona, me ....? 

You better read my first post on this thread before it went pear shaped .... of this Marine Nazi flag issue I wrote: "PC BS ... move on"

I suggest we do ....

MM


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 13, 2012)

Just a reminder everyone, to play nice. This thread has the content to get out of hand, lets not let that happen. 

Now, carry on...


----------



## stona (Feb 13, 2012)

Is this a new definition of genocide?
The British were comitting genocide in South Africa in the 1900s? The United States was comitting genocide in Vietnam in the 1960s? The French comitted genocide in Algeria? The Portugese in Mozambique? The British,again,in Kenya? The Burmese?
I don't think so.
Over and out.
Steve


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 13, 2012)

Genocide takes many forms, stona.

In the end, trying to limit it to "pre-meditation" does the subject (and the victims) great injustice.

Whether you march the men, women and children to a camp - screen them for usefulness then murder the old, sick or 'unproductive' and work the rest to death, OR, eradicate a people by killing the males of sexual age, impregnating the fertile females with YOUR seed and genetically destroying their future as a viable people/culture, OR, hunt them down in their habitat as sport or 'national interest' --- THE END RESULT is .... eradication.

MikeWint is correct to point out the long sad history or eradication.

I did not start discussing the Holocaust .... _you_ warped my Concentration Camps in South Africa into EXTERMINATION CAMPS -- a claim I never made.

"Are you attempting to deny the fate of Polish Jewry? " ......

Nice try.

MM


----------



## pbfoot (Feb 13, 2012)

Every nation has commited genocide in one form or another , the US in 1870's were not exactly benefactors of North American Indians , diito for Canada


----------



## mikewint (Feb 13, 2012)

We're all off topic here and basically just discussing the meaning of words: concentration camp - re-education camp - re-location camp - Disney world. euphamism one and all
Arbeit macht Frei and the "shower" building call it what you will the end result is the same. War means kill the enemy and it is much easier if the enemy is sub-human.


----------



## stona (Feb 14, 2012)

I wasn't going to post anymore but it is important to differentiate between the several hundred concentration camps spread across occupied Europe and the few extermination camps which were established specifically to execute the genocide,principally of European Jewry. It's a distinction made by the nazis and one that several involved were keen to make in their testimony at Nuremberg,particularly if they could associate themselves with the perceived lesser of two evils.

Remember

Auschwitz-Birkenau,Chelmno,Belzec,Majdanek,Sobibor,Treblinka.

Remember also that several were dismantled and "landscaped" by the nazis because their work was done.

There may be a couple more in Belarus or Croatia which some modern historians add to this list but I don't believe Eichmann or Heydrich had them on their lists. Either way it still amounts to a small number of sites responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings. The deaths in concentration camps were,for the nazis,a bonus. It's almost incredible to type that seventy years later.
Steve


----------



## michaelmaltby (Feb 14, 2012)

*Marines Pose with Nazi SS Flag?*

"... The U.S. Marine Corps once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS — a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others. 

The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the Marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 will not be disciplined because investigators determined it was a naive mistake.

The Marines believed the SS symbol was meant to represent sniper scouts and never intended to be associated with a racist organization, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, where the Marines were based.

"I don't believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII," Chapin said. "It's not within who we are as Marines."

The Corps has used the incident as a training tool to talk to troops about what symbols are acceptable after it became aware of the photograph last November, Chapin said."

Sad story. Unfortunate. Learn from your mistakes. Move on.

The End.

MM


----------



## mikewint (Feb 14, 2012)

Agreed Michael


----------



## ToughOmbre (Feb 14, 2012)

michaelmaltby said:


> *Marines Pose with Nazi SS Flag?*
> 
> 
> Sad story. Unfortunate. Learn from your mistakes. Move on.
> ...



Couldn't agree more.

TO


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 14, 2012)

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I just think that people find it hard to believe that they could be naive enough to do something like that. That's all...


----------



## pbfoot (Feb 14, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I just think that people find it hard to believe that they could be naive enough to do something like that. That's all...


I`m sure someone in that group was aware of the meaning of of


----------



## mikewint (Feb 15, 2012)

That, of course, is something that outsiders will never know for sure. If the Corps knows for sure I doubt if they will ever "come clean" as it were. Scary thought is that it was deliberate and they really saw themselves in that light. As I posted earlier Civilization is a very thin veneer on our species. Any breakdown in modern services food/water/police/fire/power/etc. brings out the vultures. I await 12/21/12. The wackos will be out


----------



## proton45 (Feb 15, 2012)

michaelmaltby said:


> Actions speak louder than words (or symbols). How did these Marines conduct themselves? were they effective? ... that is the important question.
> 
> MM



I agree...the soldiers showed very poor judgment when they chose that flag. Like it or not, but a deployed soldier, is an emissary for the USA. Everything that they do will be judged as an expression of the "American Way".


----------



## Matt308 (Feb 15, 2012)

...and thus we end this thread. Lively discussion gents. But let's let this one close.


----------

