Arnold and Waldheim - So What?

PG,

you make a good point about the difference in the nature of the loss, that Jews were being executed because Hitler wanted to kill all Jews. But this hatred was Hitler's, and his top echelon. everyone else was working for that machine in a totalitarian state.

How much better would it be for Jews if all that effort that goes into hunting down 85 year old Nazis went into an effort to forge better understanding between Arabs and Jews HERE, NOW?


Avenging great grandmother is not the priority. Stopping the next bus bombing is. Do we look forward or backward?

 

I agree Friendly Fan,

on a side note, I've always wondered what are the limitations on trying officials for war crimes who were just following orders. In other words, how far down the chain of command do the international courts go before they say that an individual was just following orders?

 

Outstanding post PG.

FF -- the obsession with the holocast is not about avenging great granny. It's about addressing one of the greatest hate-crimes of our times. It's also about the whole issue of personal accountability even when 'under a totalitarian state' or 'just following orders.'

In 10 years, I suppose there will be no more idividuals to 'hunt down' but that wont be the end of our focus on the holocast. You are dead on when you say much more effort has to go to forging better arab/jewish relations, but I don't think that has to be at the expense of dismissing the consequences of events of less than a lifetime ago.

(And thanks articulating your Vietnam experience -- that's too, is something we tend to gloss over).

 

We all have cultural things we need to get over. My God, the number of people in the South still carrying the Civil War grudge is compelling. Christians with the grudge over Jesus (which ironically does not apply to Italians). Arabs with the grudge over Jews. Jews with the grudge over Nazis. I know an old man who still hates "Japs" as he calls them, over the Bataan march.

My family has served in numbers in all our wars, and I can say that none of us carry a grudge. That tells me that we can learn to separate our war experience from that which follows. We have to.

As long as everyone takes their hate and makes it a central feature of their existence, no one gets off.

 

well, I wish I could say the same, but we could not disagree more on Osama. He's a terrorist acting on his own backward, outdated, worthless beliefs, and he needs to die.

Osama is the enemy. We did not make him our enemy by acting against him. We became his enemy because he is a 7th century sheep herder with 21st century means and money. This throwback to the Stone Ages is killing people, our people.

Your point is that he has a reason and that reason is US policy. So what? Everyone disagrees with US policy, but the ones who disagree AND attack us deserve killing, as soon as possible.

You need to stop trying to defend Osama. It can't be done. He is a bad man who has to die, painfully, if possible.

 

You're really mixing some issues w/ very different circumstances and very different reactions. Do you feel comfortable doing that?

E.g., are people seeking justice against others who are still alive to be characterized as synonymous to grudge/bigotry/hatred tied to events from 150 or 2000 years ago? Where do you draw the line? If someone breaks into your home, is your pursuit of justice now to be characterized as 'your grudge'?

 

I like to put my two cents in on this subject.

First of all, I found Lil’s posts refreshing and thought-provocative. He might say things with a hint of disrespect to the Jewish victims. But his premise is that violence begets violence and hatred begets hatred, and this has to stop, hardly the philosophy of a hater.

But there is a predominate climate here that because we were being attacked, it gives us a moral right to attach anybody without justification. I applaud his courage for going against the flow and trying to present the other point of view.

Now in terms of whether Osama shall have a grudge against us. Well, let me put it the other way around.

If Osama ever came across me and I happened to have a gun with me, will I shoot him? Of course I will. I will not just finished the chamber, I would probably came over and stump on his corpse until it is just a bloody pulp. But did he or his group ever do me wrong? Not really. But I am a part of a bigger group (USA). When the group is being wronged, I felt being wronged personally.

Clearly, the vast majority of Muslims felt they being wronged by us. It is not just Muslims in Saudi Arabia, but also the majority of Arabs; not just Arabs, but the Persian also; not just the Gulf Muslims, but also the Muslims in Pakistan, in China, and in Indonesia. They all felt US being treating Muslims harshly. They probably have good reasons.

I don’t think Lil ever said that killing innocent women and children is O.K. and Osama shouldn’t been punished. Am I correct, Lil?

I think all he was trying to do is to point out the reason behind Osama’s action.

Now, back to the original topic, I feel that the Nazi shall be punished. He shall be punished not out of justice. I do not found justice punishing somebody who been doing good deeds for the past 50 years. But punishment also involves prevention.

 

That's a valid point.

There is a huge difference in Billy Bob Redneck with his rebel flag, and RM et al seeking justice for the holocaust. It is not the righteousness of the anger, but the lingering aspect to which I address myself.

Break into my home? How about someone who killed the guy who played football beside me for 6 years? Let's keep it in perspective. War deaths are analogous to war deaths, not something else. We make war. Then we make peace. And when we don't make peace right, we have to make war again.

Let's return to the point of the beginning: Waldheim. Is he judged for his Nazi history, or what he did after that? And let me hasten to add, we have many, many good American men who served in war and knowingly killed innocents. Killing in war is different because the person is thrust into a bizarro world.

Just about every soldier who fought in heavy combat has a story of someone he killed that he feels guilty about. And many have a story of an opposing soldier he could have killed, but didn't, usually because THEIR EYES MET and they shared a single moment of humanity.

Cohen, I have passed on my thoughts as a non Jew. I don't carry any anti Jewish sentiment, not for religion or any other reason. But I do view all special interest groups and their objectives with caution. I view the juggernaut against old Nazis to be such a special interest group, non unlike Pan African Groups who view the slavery history in the same light.

What is gained when an old Nazi is found? And how is it justice? Hiding out for 60 years, perhaps with true remorse and shame, isn't enough? When some guy who was a guard in some camp gets grabbed I don't see it as justice. I see it as retribution gone awry. The horrors that Israel suffers today are in part due to their relentlessly unreasonable policies, which smack of the same lack of empathy for others.

in other words, Israel continues to create for itself bad karma, and seeking retribution is bad karma.

If some guy killed someone in 1944, and he got caught now, I wouldn't want him prosecuted, I don't care what the statute of limitation is. If he's lived a decent life since, I don't believe in punishment so far removed from the event.

 

Just understand where we disagree strongly on Osama and his supporters

 

Originally posted by Friendly Fan
That's a valid point.

There is a huge difference in Billy Bob Redneck with his rebel flag, and RM et al seeking justice for the holocaust. It is not the righteousness of the anger, but the lingering aspect to which I address myself.

OK

Break into my home? How about someone who killed the guy who played football beside me for 6 years? Let's keep it in perspective...

The analogy was only intended to elucidate the difference between 'grudges', 'justice', etc. Not to be of the same moral weight (...I really wouldn't be comparing the holocaust to theft..would I?

War deaths are analogous to war deaths, not something else. We make war. Then we make peace. And when we don't make peace right, we have to make war again.

War deaths <> analogous to ALL other war deaths. That is why humanity has created special rules for war crimes.

Let's return to the point of the beginning: Waldheim. Is he judged for his Nazi history, or what he did after that? And let me hasten to add, we have many, many good American men who served in war and knowingly killed innocents. Killing in war is different because the person is thrust into a bizarro world.

Sorry. There is no statute of limitations on murder in this country for a reason. There is no statute of limitations on war criminals (that I am aware of).

Just about every soldier who fought in heavy combat has a story of someone he killed that he feels guilty about. And many have a story of an opposing soldier he could have killed, but didn't, usually because THEIR EYES MET and they shared a single moment of humanity.

And this is somehow related to the intentional, systematic tortue, murder and destruction of large groups of people the Jews were not the only who suffered from the holocaust)?

Cohen, I have passed on my thoughts as a non Jew. I don't carry any anti Jewish sentiment, not for religion or any other reason. But I do view all special interest groups and their objectives with caution. I view the juggernaut against old Nazis to be such a special interest group, non unlike Pan African Groups who view the slavery history in the same light.

It is an issue for those Nazis who still live, not their offspring. Big difference.

What is gained when an old Nazi is found? And how is it justice? Hiding out for 60 years, perhaps with true remorse and shame, isn't enough? When some guy who was a guard in some camp gets grabbed I don't see it as justice. I see it as retribution gone awry. The horrors that Israel suffers today are in part due to their relentlessly unreasonable policies, which smack of the same lack of empathy for others.

Are you certain they feel shame? It's irrelevant anyway. What is the 'justice' in your mind? Tirture and murder millions...then hideout long enough and you're free and clear?

in other words, Israel continues to create for itself bad karma, and seeking retribution is bad karma.

I am unconvinced that it's not justice.

If some guy killed someone in 1944, and he got caught now, I wouldn't want him prosecuted, I don't care what the statute of limitation is. If he's lived a decent life since, I don't believe in punishment so far removed from the event.

Well, sorry, but that's were your wants and the law differ.

FWIW, I respect your opinion. Your appear to be truly the forgiving type...with no other agenda. I think, just like you mistakenly anthropomorphize nazis (assume they would all feel shame), you misunderstand lils motivation here also.

 

some things require time to absorb, and the true meaning of a poster lies within that

I appreciate your comments, Cohen, and I cannot say I would feel differently if I were Jewish. I know if I were Vietnamese, I wouldn't be ready to forgive Americans yet. We lost 58K. They lost at least 10 times that, and there were no smart bombs. When a village got hit from the air, everything died. Back then, B-52s dropped bombs they hoped would come within 100 yards of the target. 20-30 at a time, so they land every 5 yards, a killing path longer than a football field and just as wide. a kill box.


Cohen, we've all got blood on our hands, it's just a matter of how far we are removed from the one who did the deed.

 

Cohen, as a postscript, I find advocating the minority view generally more inviting that siding with the prevailing or conventional view. That doesn't mean I advocate a position I don't believe, but I advocate it to fill a void I sometimes see.

This thread needed something between Lil and most of the others, and I've attempted to stake out that ground, without the troubling Osama aspect, with which I vehemently disagree.

If someone else had said what I said, I wouldn't have felt a need to say it.

His desire to bring in Osama clouded the issue, IMO, and I attempted to remove that from my mix and address it as saw it. It's tied into a personal philosophy of forgiveness as a condition to better understanding. It's YOUR gut that's eating itself, guys, when you become angry. I'm always lively, but almost never angry.

For society, anger is similarly displaced. There's a nasty cultural turn towards scapegoating. Everything that goes wrong requires that someone be blamed and subjected to shame for it. Things that used to be high school pranks and hijinks are crimes.


sadly, my profession has been the pimp for this perverse turn

 

I understand.

And I see nothing wrong with anything you presented here. There is a big distinction in my mind between you and lil. Part of what lil said could have made for an interesting discussion...but when he inserted things like 'spiteful race'...he no longer represented just forgiveness, did he. Out of many millions of Jews around the world, how many preoccupy themselves with the surviving Nazis? Yet he attributed his dislike across the entire race...hmmm. Very illuminating. Your discussion was quite worthy, IMO.


And FWIW, let me also respond to a reference you made...and say that I would hope to be just as angry at someone's bigotry regardless of what group was targeted. I believe that all of us deserve respect, and that religion, skin color, social status, etc means nada on the 'other side', which is the reality. Why should they carry any special meaning for me here?

An example, remember the Pakistani who was asked by the pilot to leave the plane shortly after 9-11? Matt Lauer asked the man several times 'But can't you understand why he did that?'..as if that was OK. The man was speechless. I was absolutely disgusted and sent the Today Show a scathing e-mail. They probably rec'd quite a few... the next day Couric had a segment on why that stereotyping was wrong.

I was living in LA during 9-11 and there was a lot of concern for backlash to Muslims. I delivered some flowers to a local mosque...just to send a message (an admittedly small token but if it made just one person feel better it is was worth it).

And I am still dumbfounded by the world's seeming lack of interest in what happened in Rwanda. I think it is the most dissappointing and embarassing thing for humanity in 50 years... or at least 25 (Cambodia). I'm rambling now.

So I can easily get pissed-off about people being mistreated, not just my ancestors. I accept and consciously perpetuate this, I don't mind getting angry about it. Again, FWIW.

 

Lil, I just want to say a couple of things about the grievances that OBL claims to fight for.

The things he mentions (U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, support of Israel, and the former sanctions that hurt the Iraqi people) I agree with to a large extent.

However, I think it's a mistake to think OBL actually is fighting for those causes. Why attack people in the Philippines, Indonesia, etc. if those are the things you are really fighting against?

I believe that OBL uses those causes to for recruitment and propoganda. Down deep he's dillusional Islamic reporters from Pakistan and Al Jazeera who've spoken with him admit that he has little knowledge of the Qu'ran. He would like to see fundimentalist Islamic regimes set up in countries but not out of any real knowledge of the religion himself. He's a terrorist and the things he spouts basically only because it serves his purpose as a charismatic leader and can further his terrorism. I think he has misguided romantic notions about what he's doing, but it's done for those romantic notions and not for any real dedication to a cause.

I say this because of the actions he takes against the govts. I mentioned above, and his attacks and work in Africa.

 

I.....can't....take ...it ......anymore.....I ......tried....to ...........be.......civil...............

you are a ****ing idiot.