this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Sometimes a war is justified, and coming to the aid of an ally getting invaded is a damn good justification.

Especially if that ally is simply asking for more hardware and not asking for feet on the ground.

Edit: Fixed the link, it was broken for some reason though it worked earlier today. IDK this mirror should work though

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[–] Lexam@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Fun history fact (any actual historians can correct me) Many of the Americans who were against war with Germany were sympathetic with Hitler's genocidal views or were straight up Nazis themselves.

[–] Poob@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

20,000 American Nazis held a rally in Madison Square Garden. Facism was quite popular in the United States all the way til WW2 (and continued to be for 83 years afterwards).

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago

somehow I'm not suprised

[–] animelivesmatter@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I love when "anti-war" people just end up justifying and defending someone else's war, or when "anti-imperialists" just end up justifying someone else's imperialism. Real anti-imperialists (me) think that fighting against imperialism is good, and that only offering lip service to anti-imperialism while also decrying any attempt to put it into action is shitlib behavior, actually

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm anti wars of aggression and anti imperialism, I condemn that shit when I see it and tell my representatives my opinions on the matter when they give theirs.

Though I do believe that investments in other developing countries in principle can be good if the terms of the investment are good, but it unfortunately can be pretty predatory if not done with care.

I'm (in general) pro wars of defense, countries defending themselves (and when necessary with help) is a good thing IMO.

I feel we should be building towards a better world for everyone which is apparently a controversial view among some people.

Ideally someday (probably a long way into the future) we can be a united humanity building for the better of mankind but damn do we have a lot of work to do.

[–] animelivesmatter@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In case it's unclear, I'm not calling you a shitlib, I'm saying that the people you're criticizing act like shitlibs (and frankly most of the time they are just shitlibs). General support of wars of defense is an anti-imperialist position

[–] MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was a part of Shitlib Central, r/neoliberal, before the Great Migration and let me tell you: We did not tolerate any defense of the Ruskies in Ukraine and I’m willing to bet we still haven’t. So the idea that we “offer lip service to anti-imperialism while also decrying any attempt to put into action” is merely folly.

[–] animelivesmatter@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You've got it the wrong way around. I'm talking about people that call themselves "anti-war" or "anti-imperialism" but hold positions opposed to that, specifically. The kinds of neoliberals you're talking about don't generally claim those positions to begin with, so I'm not talking about them. They aren't even offering lip service on being anti-imperialism, they're just pro-western interests and occasionally that lucks them into a somewhat correct position. There's more than one way to be a shitlib, you know.

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As a Czech, I feel like many people forget that the Soviet Union demanded all the allies come to Czechoslovakia's aid and kick the Nazi menace in the bud as soon as they tried to subjugate us. Instead, the UK, USA, and most egregiously, Poland, stabbed us all in the back at the negotiating table while denying the Soviet Union a seat. The western allies were intent on bolstering Nazi Germany and Poland so that they could mount an invasion of the Soviet Union in order to 'free' more markets for Western exploitation. This necessitated conceding to Hitler's demands on the Sudetes and Danzig. Even more interestingly, it also necessitated giving Czechoslovak land to Poland, and some of these regions were quite important for steel production. Of course, the western powers were playing with fire. Hitler famously gave the Danzig or War speech, much to the surprise of Polish diplomats, who were actively in talks to cede Danzig to Germany in order to receive support for war against the Soviet Union (which they had already instigated once before, annexing an independent socialist government in Western Ukraine, and one in Belarus, both who were allied with the Soviet Union and later voted to join it). Turns out, Nazi Germany wasn't a fan of sharing spoils of war.

These things were all fairly obvious to people that lived in Eastern Europe back then, which is why so many Slavs turned to communism.

So to reiterate, anti-war positions are actually good. The west wanted this war, it simply backfired. If the West never jockeyed for this war posture due to a never-ending greed for increasing profits, its likely Hitler would have never gotten anything done and would have been a footnote.

This is what Czech textbooks generally teach about the war, and I'm partial to this interpretation, though I've read that they are changing them recently to 'revise' our historical narrative.

[–] NeoMoss@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's why the udssr where allied with Hitler early in the war and signing a NAP, only stopping because Hitler betrayed them and attacked anyway?

Sorry, but this interpretation sounds a bit revisionistic. It was lot of people's fault that Hitler could do what he did, that's not a east vs. West thing. People should focus on the real factors and watch that something like this never happens again.

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Claiming the USSR and Nazi Germany were allied is not only Nazi propaganda (aka 'double genocide' theory), but also holocaust denial. And, you know, a basic denial of reality.

It should be noted that Poland invaded the Soviet Union during the Russian Civil War and opportunistically killed tens of thousands of Jews. The Soviet Union, by the accounts of many Jewish and Slavic survivors of the holocaust, saved hundreds of thousands of lives and won the war by not only signing that NAP, but also making sure that the Nazis were not occupying vast swathes of territory in western Belarus and Ukraine that had tons of vulnerable groups in them. The price for being an antisemite was death in the Soviet Union.

I say this as someone whose family house was annexed by the Nazis, and our relatives house was torched and their kids were stolen away to the Rhineland, which we only learned of recently through genetic testing. We just assumed they all died.

[–] NeoMoss@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not saying allied, but had an agreement that lasted until the nazis betrayed them. But equalling that saying this is the same as holocaust denial plays holocaust denialism down.

To me it seems that the polish wanted independence, but I don't know much about this conflict, so I am not really comfortable to comment on that.

Fighting nazis was a good thing and the appeasement politic from western nations was a bad take, I would never argue against that, but I don't know how the NAP helped, because for me it semms more like it gave the nazis time and space to make atrocitys in Europe and German.

Sorry to hear that this happens to your family. War is hell an leaves it scars. Hope your family can heal.

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

To me it seems that the polish wanted independence, but I don't know much about this conflict, so I am not really comfortable to comment on that.

Poland went to war with basically all their neighbors at this point and were largely supplied by Germany. There are anxieties about this history to this day in Western Ukraine, Belarus, Slovakia, and Czechia, because the Poles massacred a lot of people. Its one thing to want independence, its another to massacre innocent civilians for fun.

It wasn't 'appeasement', it was active collusion.

because for me it semms more like it gave the nazis time and space to make atrocitys in Europe and German.

The Soviet Union had just got out of a Civil War and had almost no industry. They had roughly 10 years to build an industrial base capable of defeating what essentially amounted to all of mainland Europe. They were a feudal society before WW2 and were starting from scratch. And they won, so clearly what they did, communism, worked.

[–] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

War, like all violence, is always wrong and not always avoidable.

[–] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Especially when the enemy of your friend is also your enemy.

[–] bbnh69420@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

See, much easier when you just admit that you’re fueling the meat grinder to weaken your geopolitical rival

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

prior to Pearl Harbor german warships had attacked 5 US navy vessels and over 100 US merchant marine vessels. the nazis declared war on the US 4 days after Pearl Harbor. the fact is that Nazi Germany was waging undeclared war on the US for the better part of a year, and indeed were the ones to formally declare war too. this is not an apt comparison to contemporary events.

[–] Zirconium@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reading the comments here makes me glad hexbear defederated from us. A lot of revionist authoritarian apologistics holy shit

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago

Straight up, and the amount of upvotes those shitty comments got as well

[–] Anti_Weeb_Penguin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

A war is always a good idea to reclaim lost territory.

Don't do it, seriously.

[–] Doug@midwest.social 11 points 1 year ago

I'm reasonably confident that every part of the inhabited world has been "lost territory" more than once.

[–] animelivesmatter@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

israel moment