Tibet

Of course you don't Calvin, if you were say for instance an ex-serviceman, or even well read at all, you would know that enemy soldiers are not

they are specifically protected under a variety of circumstances, and the killing of such protected persons is in fact criminal.

 

Gryle, I thinhk Majorwoody is not referring to 'soldiers' in the strictest sense of the word but rather combatants... Persons who do not take part in the fighting are protected from violence etc, as per Article 3(1) of the GC including civillians and surrendering soldiers... A soldier in combat however is not protected from such things... Nor are Partisans as is asserted in a previous post, because they are participants in the fighting

I'm sure majorwoody knows full well that the Geneva convention does not condone the killing of surrendering soldiers

 

Though it is true that when Texas was claimed by American settlers it was officially a part of Mexico. The only reason behind the American claim was that they actually inhabited the area, unlike the Mexicans.

 

[quote="Kaiser"

Kaiser, your stands on this exchange of fire impressed me!
Would like to stay neutral ... People in Singapore dun give a damn who and what Mao did as well as the million death he directly or indirectly caused. Yes, Singapore might be made up of70% Chinese but at this generation, Kaiser and myself consider ourselves Singapore Chinese rather than anything related to PRC Chinese or Communist. The thoughts of We Singapore Chinese supporting Mao is TOTALLY flawed :x

In another 50 years, when Chinese (i'm no franatic supporter of Communist China) dominate the world ecom and perhap militray, who care about all these statistics. Just like now that American dominate the world, who care what happen to the Red indians. When Brits and Dutch colonised more than half of the world, god know how many millions of unrecorded (will never) deaths they caused to the indigenous & aborigines over the Globe, who cares? When the Manchus occupied Han Ming China, They have done more "rape of nanking" that resulted in Millions and Millions of death, By the fifth Manchus Emperor, they brought stability and progress to the Han better than theMing Hans Emperor, so who cares?

What the current intention of US over Taiwan over PRC China? We'll ustd why majorWood made those remark. Check out the Taiwan link in same forum for the island's history...

Meant to be indirectly, so as not to be flame by any party ...

Let talk about Tibet ... (i thought its the main topic? )

 

Nope it was but topics always get side tracked and sometimes have little or no connection.

 

well ..ok ,once again i would argue that anyone who systematically murders thousands or millions of innocent cvivillians can be labeled as evil....stalin ,hitler ,pol pot and mao imo are all in this catagory. kaiser feels that in maos case this label is unfair...because in his personal life he was not evil as was stalins ( i still await an expaination of kaisers personal life theory ) ...gunter would posit that know one can define the word evil and therefor there is no such thing as an evil person ,this seems a silly notion to me,gunter please refer to websters dictionary...another poster felt that when i said enemy soldiers i ment p.o.w.s , i did not.... i ment enemy soldiers wether front line troops or truck drivers ,quatermaster ,signals or rear area clerk typests... all are still legit targets...with the exception of medical personel ,what enemy troops are not legitimate targets ..? ..kaitido ,kaiser feels that taiwan is part of china and in fact many if not most taiwanese wish to be absorbed into the prc...do most chinese singaporeans feel this way?...as for the millions of deaths caused by the evil dictators listed above ,you say who cares ?...well i would suggest that most people who are members of this forum care quite a lot ...i know i do...

 

:roll:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/First_Geneva_Convention

 

ok....medical personel and those under their care,hospitals ,ambulances,ect of course in real life medics and war corespondents when intermingled with combat troops enjoy no actual protection from bullets and shrapnel in the fog of war,nor do they expect any....btw did you read this entire thread ,gryle...? ..gunter implied that a combat soldier was just as evil as mao or stalin because he may have killed numerous enemy troops and therefor is just as guilty ,so what is the difference...do you agree with this notion , gryle ?

 

You missed "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause", that is, you are not allowed to shoot:
-enemy soldiers that are sick, or wounded to the point that they are not able to fight back,
-enemy soldiers who are surrendering,
-enemy soldiers detained by their own side or any other,

-and, note the use of the term "any other cause" which could include a vast number of circumstances that prevent them from taking part, too broad to cover here.

As you can see enemy soldiers are most certainly not always legitimate targets.

 

Perhaps it would have been simpler if Majorwoody had just copied and pasted the entire Fourth Geneva convention and every clause relating to soldiers therein? :roll: It seems to me like he has given a decent overview of its position in relation to enemy soldiers; that you are basically restricted from shooting any person who is unarmed.

I'm going to agree with him on this one... Chairman Mao can be described as 'evil' if for no other reason that his regime has violated the Geneva Convention (particularily the 3rd and 4th). A combat soldier who kills without violating the convention cannot be held accountable, thus in law he is not considered to have done any wrong, and is not 'evil'...

I am not claiming China to be an active defier of the Geneva convention, however, given its history it is doubtless that certain articles have been breached, particularily in relation to internment and distribution... I do not consider China to be evil just because it has in history broken some international law, law breaking occurs everywhere and is often unavoidable. So too, arguably, has America... consider Guantanamo Bay with Article 146., or perhaps some of the minor legal intricacies which are difficult to avoid, for example, one interesting one that I found in the Fourth Geneva Convention...

"A woman internee shall not be searched except by a woman"

I'm sure this rule has inadvertantly been broken many times

The point I'm making is that violating any of the Geneva Conventions is a crime... Mao's regime did so with improper treatment of civilians and POWs, and negligent economic programs resulting in starvation... He has broken the law, thus he is evil (note that China ratified the convention in 1956, whereas the Great Leap Forward lasted until 1961, so he IS at least answerable to any deaths incureed after 1956)... Gunter's soldier or Majorwoody's artillerist have not broken the law, they have killed ten armed soldiers, which is allowed by they Geneva Convention... that is not evil. If the soldiers were surrendering it may have been another story

 

No Majorwoody,in HISTORY, and not kaiser's feelings, Taiwan is a province of China.Taiwan being the hometown of renegade soldiers who lost the Chinese civil war.Do you get that in now signore?Supposed the Confederates still holds some part of the States now,would not the Union try ways and means to get it back?

Also,as i have said,and which YOU have not been paying much attention except perhaps to the tune of your own music,we did not say "ABSORBED" but rather i used the word "AMALGAMATE".It would deefinitely do both of us good if you could just simply find out the difference between those words my dear senior.
And for one thing which i find amusing and yet offending at the same time.The chinese in SINGAPORE isn't part of CHINA.WE ARE A FREE NATION.Just like no black american would want to return back to Africa,the same theory applies here.Surely a man of such intelligence as yourself would have worked it out long ago?

It seems that whatever i said in my previous post is useless.As of now,about three days after i answered your questions,you have yet to offer me any remotely satisfactory answer to my questions from the last post.Is this so called "feigned ignorance" to my perfectly logical questions or is it because i did not spell it out probably?Majorwoody,pls stop answering my questions with more questions.We'll just never stop.[/b]

 

You are working backwards logically. Enemy soldiers are legitimate targets subject to certain exceptions.

 

I'm kinda confused also.
Do the Taiwanese consider their land to be a province of China? Why is Singapore a free nation but not Taiwan? Taiwan was once a province of China historically but then Texas was once a part of Mexico, Alaska was once a part of Russia, Ukraine was once a part of the USSR, The US was once a part of the British Empire and so on. Things change.
As to answering questions with more questions and to never stopping; I may be wrong but stopping discussion isn't really the point of a discussion forum is it? Endless deiscussion is pretty much what it's about ,I think.

 

Kaiser, Majorwoody:

Gentlemen, I don't really see how you can be in such violent disagreement with each other. When I read your posts I really only see two different moral judgments of Mao; I'm sure that if you both take a minute to carefully re-read each other's posts from the start you'll find that the basic conflict isn't all that complicated or deep-running as to be insoluble.

Majorwoody is saying Mao is evil because, under his regime, millions of Chinese people were killed or died because of the living conditions they were forced to suffer. I don't see what Chinese Singaporeans have to do with this...

Kaiser is saying that while Mao's policies turned out very wrongly, the man himself was not evil because he intended only to make China strong; much unlike Stalin who also acted out of blatant and murderous self-interest and random paranoia.

Could you guys pick it up from here perhaps?

 

Now you make me confused.Singapore is a free nation because it was given its independence and fully recognised as a sovereign state.

I think you need to realise that the history of Taiwan and Singapore is very different.Singapore was never a province or whatsoever of China.Please Gentlemen who have means to the internet...pls do research before you spew things out.
I see your point Grieg in telling me about the history of texas and alaska.
But alaska was sold under legal terms and recognised by both parties therefore Americans has a right to alaska.Texas was won through the Mexican-american war(am i right?)and the loser recognised this fact and so if Mexico wants it back,he is breaking an agreement and loses all goodwill and integrity.
But TAIWAN,gentlemen,was Chinese for a few thousand years.And at the point of the civil war,the KMT simply retreated to a land that was undeniably,Mainland Chinese.HAving lost a civil war and cooped up in a land not recognised as a sovereign state.,i don't see how Singapore has got to do with Taiwan.

And yes,read the news more gentlemen,Taiwanese are all the more prepared to talk about being autonomous.An act of submission.

 

Anyone read the book "Rogue State" 3rd edition by William Blum? You will found some of the comments/ view amusing.

I am a fan of US military machine and tech but to the way its "governing" the world, is a NO NO. Probably that will help us to ustd some of the sentiments, comments or views made in this forum.

Taiwan has more than a century of history, being part of China Dynasties LONG before USA was founded, it has changed hand some many times by colony powers. Like what have being mentioned, KMT lose the civil war (under USA strong support) and retreated to fortress of Taiwan. PRC Red, without formidable Marine like US, could not cross the strait of Taiwan effectively esp with US 7th Fleet off the coast... Taiwan had been populated by native mountain people until the Hans, retreated from mainland settle in and systematically wipe them out (if there's Taiwanese in this forum, pls corrrect me if i am wrong, it's what have being protrayed). Since 1949 Taiwanese, made out of defeated Nationalist, would never agree that they are part of the PRC but instead, Mainland China belongs to them rather then the rebels. But coming to the 21st century, things are changing. Massive ecom poweress and globalisation means Taiwan must adpot, with KMT transiting from governing party to opposition party few years ago, they are ganging up with PRC against their current governing party. So i would say it's a mixture of sentiment now in taiwan.

Singapore, like US has been a immigrant society, although not as powerful and significant, never will. Brits meant Singapore to be a free port between East and West, together with the strait settlements that includes Malacca and Penang. Over the century since Singapore was founded in 1819, Chinese mainly from Southern part of China flock into the Strait settlements for trading and to make a living as there's used to be a EVIL :evil: regime in China at that time, discrimating against Hans population as well as wide spread famine and other factors. So chinese popluation mulitpled in the settlements and when Singapore declared independance in 1965, the strait settlements are made up of Chinese SETLLERs whom already know themselves as Malaya Chinese rather than PRC/ taiwanese Chinese. Singapore becoming independance but the other 2 settlement chose to remain with malaya Fed. We in Singapore studied more of Southeast Asin History than China history except higher learning as well. So, please do not assume that Singapore Chinese pledge allegiance to the PRC Red. As matter of fact, there used to be a period of confronation betwwen Sg government forces and communist insurgents, which of course, we won.

Some of us might want to feel righteous with some happening in course of history, maybe we look at it at a boarder Perspective ... Taking an example, without Sun Yat Sen, China might be another Africa, his movements cause chao across China for 20 years (warloads warring period) that caused numerous suffering and thousands if not millions of death (EVIL?). Chiang wipe out the warlords, respectable but give rise to wide spread corruption, which like all 3rd world country by WONDERS of Capitalism and cause million to starve (EVIL?). This flaw of Capitalism also existing in US at current. Have they sort out New orleans? Why is excessive funding goes to Pentagon and Iraq still intead of new Orleans? (EVIL?)Now back to china, Mao... being righteous, associated with few good others, uprise against Chiang regime. Try to ustd Chinese people instead of imposing a Westener view and perspective, They gain WIDESPREAD support since end of WW2 and "liberation" swept across China. The Nationlist, with massive suuport from US retreated by Taiwan within 3 years. The success of Communist is mainly on morale rather than weaponary and Communist soldier (just like the NVA) includes ten of thousands of nationalist soldier who switch side. Mao did the right thing in that perspective. However, when someone got old and "overdue" in office, esp with women playing politics around you, he screwed up and made one of the BIGGEST mistake of his life, that cause China 20 years of its progress. Yes he screwed up but at least he ADMITS and RECOGNISED it, allowing history to judge him (like all good leaders including lots of US presidents) before he die. Last good thing he did, he hand over to another good leader, Deng XiaoPing, father of modern China.

Once Again ... pls look at thing the Oriental point of view taking into consideration the hardship that Chinese people had went thru thousnads of years and countless of invasion and racial cleansing. Westeners are entitled to their point of views, but to the point of imposing ... NO NO :angry:

 

Kaiser, i feel that you and majorwoody are getting personal. Its about individual views that we are rightfully entiltled to. You might not want to use the word "you amercian" as it is unfair to our amercian allies and counterpart in this forum. Also from some of the comments, it is clear that they dun have a good ustd of Oriential cultures and way of seeing and doing things, Confucius had talk about forgiving aswell as mother Theresa, so keep cool. The forum and its value should be about sharing and exchange of valunable opinions and infomation not available on textbook, in which i learn alot from lots of gentlemen in the forum.

Let talk about Tibet... :roll:

 

I did not say that but you did. I was mearly making the point that how can you make a critical judgement on something if you have no criteria. Does that not make sense? If so please tell me because now it is getting on my nerves I have been trying to make this point for what 2-3 weeks now? It is not a hard concept to concieve. It would be like saying a tank is good because its 1 example of it had a good combat performance and no actualy criteria to judge why it was good. I dont get what the bloody problem is with getting that into your head. SO STOP TRYING TO PUT WORDS INTO OTHER PEOPLE"S MOUTHS!!!! :angry: :angry:
But now that you mention it is there any scientific proof that there is something called 'evil". Hey you brought it up but it makes so much sense not if you put togethor that I have been saying.
I could turn this into a religious debate but it would prove/solve nothing!

I have read what i said it does seem like I did imply it but it is not what I ment. Reffering to resistance movements like the French Underground and not soldiers and not guilt by rightiousness. See first you claim that I say there is no evil now you say I imply that someone is as evil as somebody else is that not a contridiction in your assumption?

I was not aware breaking a law is evil. Like I said it seems like are implying that doing somethign against the law is evil but I will let you clear that up because I am sure thats not what you mean because than almsot everyone would be evil, would they not?

Like I said a crime is not evil. I have broken the law does that make me evil? I bet most people on the forum broke the law wether they know it or not.

Does that mean Geneva Convention is the judgement of evil and not evil?

 

Enough personal attacks now, everyone. The key sentence is the following:

You are not getting through to each other due to misunderstandings and (at least in my view) overhasty replies to posts that are not fully understood. Like I said in my last post, take your time to re-read what has been written. If you can't go on without commenting on each other's personalities, I will have to lock this topic.

Gunter, as far as I understand it you are asking yourself exactly what "evil" is, so that we can judge people along that standard and solve the debate of whether or not Mao was evil. In one of his posts above, majorwoody outlined some things which almost every agrees are evil, or at least not morally justifiable. If that's not what you're after, why don't you try to define it yourself, and see if that answers the question?

 

Happy to clear up what i meant Gunter,
A crime is not evil, most people have comitted a 'crime' at one point in their live (I know i have)

However, can you name even one person you consider 'evil' who has not comitted a crime?

Breaking the law is not evil, but evil cannot be achieved without breaking the law give me just one example, theoretical even, that one can do an evil deed without breaking a general priciple of law (like murder) and i will happily cave in and say that there is no was of showing Chairman Mao was an evil man...

P.S. as far as breaking rules go, violating the Geneva convention incurs hefty penalties because it is very very serious... Lets say Chairman Mao had only been jaywalking, then i would not consider him to be evil... its really a question of how serious a law one violates that makes him evil, and you can't get much more serious than the Geneva Convention