Post a response to this discussion thread
Speaker4Dead wrote:
"Savages would be people who where always at war, killing each other, like Indians" [quoting X-Man]
Anthropological research in Australia has shown that before the white European invaders arrived, the Australian Aborigines existed in an almost continual state of low-level inter-tribal warfare. Estimates vary, but I believe the best figure was that the average male had a 50% chance of being murdered in his lifetime.
I'm not sure exactly what the corresponding figure would be for the American natives, but I'd guess it would have been similar.
We "civilized" Westerners may not have abolished war, but at least we invented peace.
"Well, in the 200 or so years our country has been around, we've been in a large variety of wars, many of them pointless (Vietnam, Korea, etc.). We've killed thousands upon thousands."
You might consider the Vietnam war pointless, but the refugees who have fled the communists didn't think so. Neither do the South Koreans enjoying a measure of freedom and prosperity, especially when they compare themselves to their northern brethren suffering famine and oppression.
"Also, we're the only country who deliberately bombed civilians."
Unlike those German Zeppelins in World War One? Or the German bombers in WW2, against London, Warsaw, Moscow, Belgrade, Stalingrad, etc? Or the British, Canadian and Russians who retaliated?
Or the Japanese against China, Singapore and others? Italy against Albania and Abysinia? Terrorists from Ireland, Palestine, Greece, Libya, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Germany, Eygpt, and any number of other countries who have bombed civilian targets? Iraq against the Kurds, Ethiopia against the Eritreans, the Spanish against themselves during their Civil War, the Russians in Afganistan... I could go on and on and on.
You flatter yourself if you think the USA is the only country that knows how to build and use bombs.
"And the only country who used atomic weapons."
So far. Also the country who, by the threat of using nuclear weapons, kept the peace for over 50 years between the superpowers.
Post a response to this discussion thread