Binker wrote:It's been done. The people who insist on reopening the discussion bear responsibility for the consequences.
Nice dodge. Please keep in mind that I am speaking IN TERMS OF THIS FILM. Please define how "fighting Nazis" is A-OK and then define "fighting".
Funny. You can stop trying to conflate Holocaust victims resisting Nazi persecution with Jewish Americans serving in the United States military committing rampant acts of torture and murder at any time.
This is the slippery slope. Nazis persecuted all Jews, no matter nationality, class, wealth, status, whatever. The leader of the Nazi party declared war on the United States. There are pragmatic reasons not to disobey the orders of their US superiors, but Jews killing Nazis on the battlegrounds of WWII is resistance. If your opinion (which is what morals are) is different, fine, I respect your opinion.
If Jewish American soldiers are sent to Germany to kill Nazi soldiers and they scalp a couple for fun, I have no moral qualms about it. They might, later down the line, but that's not my judgment. At least not in the days pre-You-Tube and negative P.R.
If Jewish soldiers were kidnapped or, worse, if the Nazis had won, would the Jewish soldiers be given respectful POW status? Or do you think they'd be thrown in with the rest of the Jews, "mischlinge," Gypsies, homosexuals, and other undesirables? The answer is why I consider any Jewish assault against Nazi soldiers as resistance.
Yes, shooting a combatant in open battle, hitting him with a bat in a kneeling position, scalping him, carving a swastika into his forehead, assassinating political leaders, murdering civilians who count themselves members of the Nazi party... it's all the same.
I never said it was all the same. I'm against the kind of absolute moralistic label that you are assigning to "war crimes." Each thing you mentioned has a practical and pragmatic reason why you wouldn't want to do each one, in addition to a moralistic reason shared by some not by others.
Again, IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS FILM, I don't even know what the Basterds do. All I know is Brad Pitt's character said is that he wants to kill Nazis. I don't know if this is shorthand for Nazi soldiers or any member of the Nazi party. I do know if I was a Jew in Eastern Europe during WWII, to speak to Pitt's character motivation, it probably wouldn't be of much concern to me. But of course, we should ignore character motivation for fear of making a "fascist" film. And even if I did have a problem with it, or if you have a problem with it, you don't have to agree with every decision the protagonist makes.
I simply don't understand people like you. Why do you insist on setting us back one hundred years? These discussions have taken place and the international community has agreed.. Of course, nation-states have ignored this whenever convenient and politically feasible, but whatever small limits we can place on the brutality of war seem worth upholding. At the very least, it's better than declaring, "War is hell, do whatever you want."
Certainly, the brutality of war should be limited, so long as we are speaking of innocents and externalities. When Brad Pitt speaks to "killing Nazis," I don't really consider that a group of innocents. Perhaps, I'll change my mind if Brad Pitt runs up and beats to death a poor German family whose best friends are the Rosenbergs next door and they all have a swastika on their door since they thought that new politician, the good orator, could've helped the economy. Of course, there are films regarding German societal guilt, but this isn't really that film. Thus, not getting worked into a frenzy over the politics.
This is just foolish. No minority group was more active in the establishment of international law in the two decades following the Shoah than Jews.
Fair enough. But again, if you're speaking of the Jewish population in the Shoah, you're speaking of civilians. Not Nazis, which was a political group that carried out a genocide.
You're all over the place. Whose applying absolute language now? I certainly don't believe war is a crime in all cases, either legally (this is a fact) or morally. As you pointed out above, violent action is sometimes justified and necessary.
Keep in mind whenever using "crime" that it's entirely arbitrary. Lots of things are declared illegal, a label only made legitimate by the force of the majority or, in some cases, the minority. And moral crimes are subjective from person to person.
So if you want to say that war is not a crime in all cases, sure, I'll agree with you. But then I'll also say that torturing and killing a person is also not a crime in all cases. If one Jewish soldier tortures and kills a Nazi soldier who's fighting for his Aryan country, I see no crime. Let's wait and see how the film paints those on the receiving end of the "crimes" before painting it as "fascist."
Ahh, so as long you torture and murder out of pure hatred, as opposed to some practical purpose, it's fine.
You don't see a practical purpose for Jews killing Nazis? Really?
Do you ever stop and consider the consequences of such simplistic moral declarations? How many atrocities has the United State's military committed? Does that justify all acts of brutality against US military personnel? What about those nonmilitary civilians who provide funding and financial support? What about those who simply provide ideological support? You've bought into a moral doctrine in which anything justifies everything against anyone. It's a doctrine that has been used by both state and nonstate actors to justify all varieties of atrocities. How many atrocities are committed in the name of a legitimate moral grievance?
Okay. I'm going to give you that last one since it was mainly IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FILM. I figured that'd be obvious by use of the term "bad guy". I don't actually believe that every civilian wearing a swastika is the same level of guilt as a member of the political elite as a soldier as a camp guard as Dr. Mengele. Nor do I actually believe that Indians with their backwards (or is it the right way) swastikas are Nazis.
Has the US military had atrocities? Of course. And we're beginning the infinite regress of revenge, which is one of the reasons I initially said that war is the crime, especially insofar as it places people into groups as opposed to saying "Did THIS PERSON commit an atrocity?"
But speaking on an individual level, in the context of the film, which I've been trying to do this whole time, do I see a moral disturbance by Jewish American soldiers skinning Nazi soldiers? No. I don't. Morals are only defensible on a gut level. And I see nothing wrong with it. If you want to talk pragmatism, sure, there might be some problems with soldiers abandoning their mission for a revenge tale.
If the "Nazis" that the Basterds start bashing up are civilians that don't know what a Jew is and are just trying to get to the soup kitchen, I reserve the right to change my opinion. I see no reason to believe that's the case, though. Nor do I believe that the sole fact of Jewish soldiers scalping Nazis makes this some kind of neo-fascist movie, but, then again, culture politicians have been diluting the term fascist for years now.
