Poll: were world war 2 and the cold war clear cut battles between good and evil?

[Soods]

I don't belive in good and evil. So I'm gonna go with "No".

 

[RoonMian]

I refuse to measure something complicated as humans and everything humans do (such as war) into such extremes as good and evil.

But I satisfy my human need for categories with a scale between right and wrong. In my opinion WW2 was for the most part right against horribly wrong. The cold war was, again in my opinion, a little on the right side of neutral against a little on the wrong side of neutral.

 

[ImSkeletor]

World war 2 was and the cold war was not. If a group attempts to commit GENOCIDE and TAKE OVER ALL OF EUROPE AND POSSIBLY THE WORLD then they are more mustache twirlingly evil then most of the villians in MOVIES.

 

[dvd_72]

Arbitrary good and evil? I wouldn't say so, because evil implies that they do what they do for no better reason than to be evil or cause harm of various sorts.

Right and wrong? That can be more easily argued. While i'm not too familiar with all the particulars of the cold war, WW2 was in my opinion, a clear battle between right and wrong. Yes, Germany was bitter about the severity of the reparations after WW1, but it doesn't justify starting a war that killed 60 million people, or the genocide of a people based on thier religeon. Any sympathy I have for Germanies position after WW1 is far outweighed by thier actions in WW2.

I will admit, I'm no expert on history of any kind, so this is based on probably oversimplified information I have.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

No for either. WW2 was closer, with the Allies close-ish to being the outright good guys. Cold War was complete grey v.s grey though

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

WWII was a war between fascists and the USSR, the only thing the allies did was halt the red army steamrolling through Europe and being a pain in the ass to Germany. It was a battle between evil and evil.

The cold war was again an ideological war. The only thing that makes the USSR "evil" would be it preferring quantity over quality.

 

[Thaluikhain]

You know that at one point the UK was the only one fighting? Neither America nor Russia had come into it yet, and France had been defeated, so Britain stood alone. Should they have fallen, then the Axis would have immediately won.

Well, then Germany would have won the great European war of 39, but still lost the seperate WW2 when it started a few years later.

And, the Britain was never alone, one of the benefits of having a large empire.

Without Britain tying up heir resources, they could have turned the full might of the Germany military on Russia a lot earlier. Germany would have had a far greater access to the oceans, and would have had greater freedom to intervene in the Pacific. I wouldn't underestimate the impact Britain had on the war.

I still don't think the Nazis would have won even with that, the US had too much industry (and later, nuclear weapons) and both it and the USSR were logistically impossible to conquer.

That's not to say that the British Empire didn't play an important part in WW2, without it the war would have dragged along longer and many more lives would have been lost, merely that the Nazis were outmatched even without them.

As for not targetting civilians, that's ridiculous. Churchill himself advocated a campaign of terror to lower the morale of the German population. Throughout the latter years of the war, Allied planes specifically targetted civilian population centres. And then there's the atomic bombs. It'd be rather easy to find locations less heavily populated by civilians, but nope, America hit two major cities with them. It's pretty clear that even the "good" allies (the ones that aren't Russia, according to the Western world) were pretty damned evil.

Ah, ok, fair enough.

 

[Thyunda]

In before some clod tries to look smart and say it's all a matter of perspective.

World War two was fought because Germany and it's allies started attacking and conquering their neighbours, and those neighbours had allies who came to their defense (or, in the case of one particular country, rolled in late to the party and took all the credit. Whereas the Cold War was two global super powers engaged in a nuclear penis measuring contest, with some proxy wars funded among.

So in my opinion, WWII was, and the Cold War was not.

Scuse me good sir, I agree that we Americans came late to the party in that we didn't fight until Pearl harbor, but the Lend/Lease Act was signed in 1941...9 months before Pearl Harbor occurred. If you are not familiar with it, I would suggest reading up on it. In a nut shell it basically was: America began shipping war material(ammunition, vehicles, POL, guns etc) to the UK, USSR and China. It is estimated that fully 1/4 of British munitions were furnished by Lend/Lease program as well as up to half of their aircraft. By the end of the war over half of the logistical trucks in the USSR were American. America built 2000 train locomotives and over 11,000 rail cars and sent them to the USSR. Considering this is how supplies were moved at the time, that is one hell of an accomplishment. The list goes on and on but I get really tired of this bullshit that "America took all the credit" and "didn't really do that much" in WW 2.

Where, EXACTLY, was England or Europe for that matter, before US intervention? OH right! They were the only country in Europe not conquered. Silly me, the English were CLEARLY doing so well at that point. They were certainly giving the Nazis what for and holding them back. The only reason that England even lasted as long as they did is the miracle fog at Dunkirk and Hitler attacking the USSR too late in the year. If Hitler had allowed his generals to use their panzers to hit the Brits instead of demanding that the Luftwaffe get all the glory most of Britain's troops are gone. Wiped out. Killed or captured. Puts England at an even more severe disadvantage wouldn't you say? And let's talk U-Boats. How deadly were they? How many did the UK have? How effective would they have been if say, the US hadn't shipped tons of food and other material to the UK, and the UK had been forced to fend for itself? Devastating would be my answer as England simply would have been unable to feed itself much less wage a war. Yes, the Battle of Britain was truly inspiring, and good for them but its kinda hard to fight without bullets or planes. What decisive battle did the English ever win by themselves in WW2? The Battle of Caen? It only took them a month to take it, AFTER the US forced a withdrawal by continued attacks in the south. Yup those Americans sure did suck. Who would even have wanted them on their side?
Wait you say, the African campaigns! I want to talk about a battle the Americans lost? Kasserine. It was a disaster and it wasn't even CLOSE to a victory. Monty drove the Nazi's back! Freely granted, at least the Battle of Kasserine. What was the next big (land) defeat for the Americans? I can't think of one, unless you count the Battle of the Bulge(I do not due to the defense of Bastogne, which by the way effectively ended any real hope Germany had on the Western front). And as for Monty driving the Nazi's back, its pretty easy to drive an armored force back if they don't have any gas. Or ammunition. And he lost all of that area before he retook it (with American help I might add).
In short, this idea that the US came late and did nothing is utter crap. I will end with a quote from Stalin at the Tehran conference of 1943 "Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war."

OT: WW2 was absolutely a battle between good and evil. The Cold War was a dick measuring contest.

-gentle cough-
When you give me evidence of these new Channel-crossing Panzers, I'll accept your claims.

 

[Xanthious]

Nah neither war was a clear cut good vs evil scenario. The Cold War was one big shade of gray on both sides and WWII was more cloudy than most would like to believe. Yeah Hitler did some horribly evil things but what often gets lost is the massive amounts of good that he accomplished during his time in power.

He was responsible for reviving the crippled German economy that was literally in ruins after WWI. The policies that he implemented were responsible for a staggering number of medical advances that have saved countless lives. He was responsible for massive reforms to child labor in Germany.

Bottom line yes the genocide of millions of jews is indisputably horrible but even in light of that he was still a prolific leader responsible for pulling Germany back from the brink of ruin and responsible for many good things.

 

[Dyp100]

of course the cold war wasn't a war, it just had wars in it. but was it a battle between good and evil? (US vs. USSR/democracy vs. communism)

I voted that it was, but I refuse to be drawn on which side was which. Despite what I and many people feel Democracy is not an inherently better system of government than Communism. Both can lead to massive corruption and abuse... Democracy is, in essence, simply mob rule.

Communism has been shown not to work because of wide spread corruption and it's insistence on going against territory and ownership instincts. But Democracy has it's flaws as well.

Both the US and the USSR are/were massive nations that are/were willing to do anything to protect their perceptions of their nation's rights, and to suggest that the US was good and the USSR evil ignores this fact.

Edit: We really must stop editing posts while others are responding to them >.>

I'm sorry, but I really take issue with the 'democracy VS. Communism' thing.
Why?

September 11th. !973 is why. (The issue of that date's significance being drowned out by the much, much later 'september 11th' terrorist attacks might be worth noting, but for the fact that it's what led me to discover this earlier atrocity.)

Anyway, to summarise, in 1970, a democratically elected socialist government came to power in Chile.
Fearing this would turn into a communist regime (they were starting to take control over privately owned resources after all...), the US government backed a military coup, and this directly led to a military dictatorship taking control, which remained in power until 1990.

If this was really about democracy that would not have happened.

Communism isn't something that goes against democracy.

Communism is a form of government. (It claims to be an economic theory, which is why you get capitalism Vs. Communism, but Communism isn't actually an economic theory, neither is capitalism a form of government.)

It is quite possible to have a democratically elected Communist government, and I'd have to say anyone that actually thinks there was ever a conflict between Democracy and communism is the victim of propaganda.

Communist Russia had a lot of problems, but many of these were due to being run by an unaccountable dictatorship, and pretending to have a workable economic theory when in actuality they frequently failed to produce anywhere near what they needed to look after their own population.

Whether you believe in Capitalism or not. Economics is really quite simple. You need to have enough resources to go around, and you need to get those resources to the people that actually need them. And unless you have way more of a resource than you could possibly use, you have to do so as efficiently as you can.

Capitalism manages at least some of those things. Communism seems to fail at almost all of them.


As for the second world war... In isolation, yes. It looks like a very obvious good vs. evil thing. But if you look at in context... It's almost possible to argue that Germany's evil acts are a direct result of what others did to them beforehand.
(Also, even the nazis themselves did quite a few good things, which proves that at the very least, evil people don't spend all their time doing exclusively evil deed.)

Thank you, finally someone understands that Communism isn't a pure government model, but partly an economical model. I really hate it when people go. "Oh, Communism or Demoracy?" Why not "Dicatorship or Demoracy"? It's bloody stupid.

Also, on that Chile point: My dad actually took part in the capitalism coup on the Chilean government, crazy stuff, huh? He sometimes rants about communism and all that, it's kind of funny.

Either way. Yes, WW2 was more "clear cut evil", but in war there is no such thing. The Axis and Allie soliders were both people, who had lives and flaws and good and low points, but in WW2 the axis governments weren't exactly supporting peaceful ideas. Then again, the axis had been abused a lot and were lashing out. Japan only attacked Pearl Harbour because America was trying to cut off their oil supply.

The Cold War is just Russia and America trying to prove the are the best. After Stalin died there was no big bad evil figure. It was just a stupid and child-like contest of a war.

 

[spartandude]

In was there is almost never a "good" side, just evil and evil. or sometimes evil vs eviler, we all no what the Nazis did and japan in china, but what about the dresden fire storms? concentraion camps for the japanise in america? brits opening fire at french at dunkirk? and not to mention dropping not one but two atomic bombs on civilian centres


and cold war? haahahahahaha as if it was good vs evil at all

 

[Gerishnakov]

Communism isn't a government

Actually I think you'll find communism is both an economic and political model for running society. You cannot have a communist economy with democracy, unless by freak occurrence a real communist government gets elected. If you look at the various elected communist governments the world has had you'll see that none of them were truly communist. Indeed those that were closest to true communism were the ones that committed terrible atrocities, such as the USSR, PR of China and Cambodia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

 

[teebeeohh]

no
because in a clear cut battle between good and evil the good guys aren't the ones with doomsday weapons or the ones firebombing entire cities. Or putting parts of the population in internment camps because of their heritage. Or winning a war by sending masses of unarmed soldier into enemy fire till they run out of ammo, bodies pile up high enough to take cover behind.
the cold war was just a dick-measuring contest.

edit: there is a huge difference in sending guns and ammo to the people fighting a war and actually fighting it, with hundreds of thousands dying. Especially since i highly doubt the US supported the allies out of the kindness of their hearts bit a bigass war you're only tangentially involved in is good way to revive your economy after a great depression.

 

[Valanthe]

Wall o' text.

A. Why so touchy?

B. See my above post, I've already had this discussion with someone else.

 

[tthor]

Nuclear weapons have caused and will cause a great deal of suffering in future.

but they also prevent a great deal of suffering in the world. With the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, roughly 250,000 died (some, i will admit, horribly). But the other plan of Operation Downfall, a full out invasion of Japan, is believed that it would have cost well over 1 million Allied casualties, and around 10 to 20 million Japanese casualties. 500,000 purple hearts were made in preparation for Operation Downfall, (since it Operation Downfall never went through, every purple heart given for the last 70 years were all made for Operation Downfall in the 40s).
And with the Cold War, nuclear weapons brought about a little concept known as "Mutually assured destruction". What this meant is, with two sides who both possess nuclear weapons, both sides know that if they were to launch a direct attack against the other, that person would likely retaliate with a nuclear assault, and then they would be forced to also retaliate with a nuclear assault, resulting in both sides being destroyed. It is this concept that kept the Cold War a "cold" war; without nuclear weapons, odds are the cold war would have turned into an all out bloody war; instead they were forced to a war of words, and a number of smaller indirect battles. It is this concept of "Mutually assured destruction" that basically makes conventional direct warfare as we know it, between any nuclear powers, a thing of the past, because both sides are smart enough not to do something that will get everyone killed.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

For World War II:
-The US retaliated in revenge. The liberation was just a bonus which boosted the morale of the American people that allowed them to feel that they were in the right. They began to lose sight of things with the Internment camps, that certainly weren't horrible in any way, but were still a violation of human rights,
-The British retaliation of invasion. Again the liberation
-As for Russia, Stalin merely needed an excuse for war in which to seize power. He was already evil.

For the Cold War, NATO and the US lost sight of morality when they started seeing Communist and Socialist as "the enemy." It's the same today with people who accuse Obama of "socialism" and the Chinese government who accuse dissidents of "anti-Communism."

 

[spartandude]

For World War II:
-The US retaliated in revenge. The liberation was just a bonus which boosted the morale of the American people that allowed them to feel that they were in the right. They began to lose sight of things with the Internment camps, that certainly weren't horrible in any way, but were still a violation of human rights,
-The British retaliation of invasion. Again the liberation
-As for Russia, Stalin merely needed an excuse for war in which to seize power. He was already evil.

do you know what that excuse was to fight germany? hint retaliation, in fact he didnt want a war with germany he was happy to let the non agression pact last to keep the USSR safe. you cant just excuse Britain and America but no the USSR

and the internment camps werent horrible? what are you smoking? i want some because id love to live in your super kind fluffy dream world.

anyway Britain and France failed to uphold the treat of versailles and simply decided that with the invasion of poland (which they were allied to) germany was too powerful, the thought that we could beat them at the maginot line and failed, wasnt to do with liberationm it was because we were scared and wanted to see germany weakened

and Pearl Harbour is a bit tricky, while there is no doubt America had to retaliate after it (due to not honouring allianced and joining up in the first place) there are some rather plausable conspiracy theories about this event


and you cannot simply look at the reasons for the war, you must also look at what happened during the war, ive listed some horrors in a previous post which anyone may feel free to read

 

[Lovely Mixture]

and the internment camps werent horrible? what are you smoking? i want some because id love to live in your super kind fluffy dream world.

I've talked with a former internee. He said it wasn't good, but it certainly wasn't horrifying like a concentration camp. Of course different camps had different conditions, and I already said they were a massive violation of human-rights. Even if they weren't horrible, they weren't right.

do you know what that excuse was to fight germany? hint retaliation, in fact he didnt want a war with germany he was happy to let the non agression pact last to keep the USSR safe. you cant just excuse Britain and America but no the USSR

I was always taught that Stalin knew Hitler would break the pact. And I wasn't trying to excuse the US. How is revenge an excuse? Anger is not an excuse.

And Britain, I don't know too much other than the invasion.