id bb27242; 8 Feb 96 22:55 GMT id aa07588; 8 Feb 96 22:51 GMT (router,WinSmtp -Win32- V1.07beta1.3.s(unregistered)); Wed, 07 Feb 1996 00:40:34 (158.152.94.213::mail daemon; unverified,WinSmtp -Win32- V1.07beta1.3.s); Wed, 07 Feb 1996 00:40:20 From: mark To: Racial-Religious-EthnoNationalist Violence Studies Subject: RE: Racism ... remember? Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 00:37:55 -0000 Two recent items in the 'discussion' caught my eye. The first refers to war crimes, prompted by Alan Spector. The mistake = people always make is to see 'war crimes' in their own terms: they may = have butchered some of us, but we butchered some of them. They feel = quite radical when critcising their own government for being 'as bad as = the rest'. But war is war. There will always be butchery. Whether it becomes a war = crime or not depends on which country you are in when you look at the = war. In this country it was sacrilige to mention that British soldiers = cut off the ears of Argentinian soldiers as souveniors, or that the = 'Road to Basra' was a turkey-shoot of 100,000 Iraqis. The point is to challenge that arrogance of the Western powers who = believe they have the right to do whatever they want, whenever they = want, to whoever they want. For example, the Japs were bombed at = Hiroshima and Nagosaki because they were 'monkeys' in the eyes of the US = and Britain, not because the techonology 'distanced' the bombers or the = generals from their victims, as some have said in this forum. At the end = of the day war crimes are about whose side you are on, and your racial = make-up. How many of those in this forum who have criticised the States = for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki are at the same time supporting the = US pursual of so-called war criminals in the Balkans? Given all of this, it did surprise me that Rodney Coates' response to = racism - that experienced by the Japanese in WW2 and Black Americans = today, is to have a Black - sorry, Afro-centric - History day, on which = he recommends the participants purchase nothing from China or Korea. So Rodney says 'buy American'. The same place that bombed Korea, Vietnam, Japan and Iraq, to name a = few? On your extra day, Rodney, remember the reason Muhammed Ali gave for not = 'fighting for his country' during the Vietnam war. He said it wasn't = 'his' country to fight for. After all, he said, "no Viet Kong ever = called me nigger."