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Post by conz on May 13, 2009 7:05:08 GMT -6
Yes, I actually say that all the time with my fellow Cav officers. <g> We like that statement..."It's a good day to die."...or more modern..."Whatever..." <g>...or the Errol Flynn translation: "Do you want to live forever?"
I respect the desire to be free, and to fight for that right. But I can't respect a decision that fights for no chance at anything, and gets your family killed doing it. Sorry...that is not worthy of respect...it is worthy of derision and condemnation.
So would I, but we aren't talking about OUR sacrifice and honor...we are talking about the survival of our wives, sisters, mothers, and children. I have respect for THEIR needs, over my ego.
I disagree with this...survival on the rez, bad as that is, is still better than extermination of your genes. We did, after all, treat the Native Americans that lost to us MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better than they treated each other when they captured other Native tribes, right?
So I think the Americans and their government actually exceeded the cultural expectations of the Native Americans. The NAs really had no right to expect to be alive after defeat in battle, by their own standards for each other.
You cooperate as little as possible with your oppressors until you have a chance to be free again. That's not collaboration...that is survival. Every prisoner does this...you comply with your captors demands, but as little as possible and still survive. If he demands that you do something immoral, than you have to die, but their is no avoiding that without sinning. I do think it is better to die, than to sin, if you can help it.
Now if there is no chance of your original freedom again, as in the NA's case, then you look for new ways to carve out the best measure of freedom that you can. You adapt, you cooperate, you learn the system, and you achieve the best standard of living possible. It may take generations. It may eventually require a revolution, if you find an opportunity to improve your lot by so doing.
In the NA's case, most became proud Americans, learned the system, joined the Army, government, and society at large, and are equal citizens to all the rest of the amalgamation of American societies.
Red Cloud was right; Sitting Bull was wrong. History proves it.
Clair
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Post by wolfgang911 on May 13, 2009 14:36:39 GMT -6
I must say I admire your way of turning out of the nazi collaborator trap I placed for you which to me is evidently the outcome of your adviced behaviour to immoral losers. Submit. Now you go submit yourself waiting to save your genes and don't spank your monkey 'ego' too much you might need those cells. Anyway historically you're wrong. Sitting Bull got a better life for his followers from 1868 till 1881 then Red Cloud, after that it was all the same. Beggars don't make chosers. And who cares, just for sitting front row on the LBH theatre you would be a real indian nerd to miss out on that. A real loser if you sit with red cloud and the fat fluffy loafers at the fort begging for favors whilst others are having fun in full regalia. After such a tremendous decade you can die in peace. Plus : Sitting Bull was not responsible for the wounded knee killing party, he was murdered remember ; Which books did you read that make Red Cloud such a hero for you? He was not the chief on Kearny and he was not saving nobody at wounded knee (he tried a little peacetalk but in your opinion only results count). In most events he was at the right place right time for touching a penn here and there amits even weaker chiefs while the real guys that put the pressure where out. Well forget anyway. Your opinion on wounded knee is so disgusting let's forget your books. Throw em away. But your a funny opponent that gives at least some debate in sometimes dull places. To run into a Sheridan gene clone in 2009 on a board is a surpise to me though.
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Post by conz on May 13, 2009 15:51:53 GMT -6
Sitting Bull got a better life for his followers from 1868 till 1881 then Red Cloud, after that it was all the same. Beggars don't make chosers. Ever read the state of his tribe while staying in Canada?! Why do you think they left to come back to the U.S. reservations? Pretty ugly... I think you'll find that as badly as Red Cloud's people were treated, they still lived better than Sitting Bull's tribes by any standard you want to create, except that SB's people could ride horses farther afield...that WOULD be important to me, anyway. But if I was a Warrior with Red Cloud, I'd figure out a way to be one of the few policemen allowed a horse and license to hunt the area. So I'd be satisfied on the rez. That is the very attitude that I call immoral, and will cause extermination of your people. I suggest you change it, or the Army will come along and change it for you, which they did. There really is no honor in resisting...only shame and pain. You know, you may find that Sitting Bull's death, which occured as native policemen were arresting him for traitorous behavior and was probably justified, actually caused the environment that allowed Wounded Knee to happen. So let's add Sitting Bull to our list of people responsible for the tragedy at Wounded Knee to both Soldiers and Natives. He should not have resisted his arrest and stirred up his tribesmen. Any George Hyde book will do...a classic is Red Cloud's Folk, one of my favorite Native American histories, along with Kingsley Bray's Crazy Horse. "Disgusting" isn't a very helpful criticism of my views. What about my views do you find disgusting, other than that I don't agree with YOU? THAT is the right attitude! We in the Officer Corps, if nothing else, somewhat consistent in attitude. We certainly know how to defend our own against outsiders, when we take breaks between fighting each other, internally. <g> Clair
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Post by Melani on May 13, 2009 16:37:29 GMT -6
Well, I must agree that you guys are certainly entertaining, if nothing else.
Wolfgang, I understand what you're saying about the Indians' way of life, but I think you're romanticizing it a bit too much, as well as demonizing whites. I don't think anybody in this story was all good or all bad, and I think it's not really our place to be making such sweeping moral judgments from the perspective of more than a century. I would also like to point out that nobody is calling you stupid, disgusting, criminal or a Nazi collaborator, and I don't think comments like that really enhance this discussion.
You mentioned the "once-proud Hunkpapa." So think about it--what were the Hunkpapa proud of? Certainly not their lifestyle of peaceful co-existence with their neighbors. The Lakota were the bad boys of the Plains, feared by all, and rightly so. They only reason they lost in the end was lack of resources.
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Post by conz on May 13, 2009 18:22:25 GMT -6
Playing devil's advocate here, what war crimes might we investigate the Army of committing?
At the top level, one might believe the war itself was immoral, for any number of reasons. So anything the Army did, just by being there, is automatically a war crime.
That doesn't help the Army learn any lessons except to revolt against its government if it believes it is being unjustly ordered into a war, and we won't go there. So I'll dismiss this argument.
Past that hurdle, whether the war was immoral, or inevitable, or both, can we evaluate if the conduct of the Army was moral and legal? First, you have to believe that prosecuting a war can be morally done...there are moral and legal ways to conduct war.
Only if you agree to these first two can we discuss the conduct of the military here. Okay so far?
Potential actions that I believe might be war crimes:
> Premeditated killing of anyone in cold blood. Defining cold blood is the trick here.
> Deliberately targeting women and children. This means you intend to specifically harm them, and carry out that intention. It doesn't count if you fire into a village at the property and Warriors knowing that the civilians will get killed. That is NOT targeting civilians. It is like bombing a city with factories, knowing that you will kill thousands of civilians working in them and living all around them...that is not a war crime in Geneva or my church.
> Violating a truce. If you have a negotiation and are under a white flag, you are not allowed to fire first, or arrest the other party. To do so is a violation of the laws of war, if not specifically a war crime according to Geneva.
Do you agree with this standard? Would you like to discuss any others?
Once we do this, we can see if any apply to Wounded Knee, or any other action of the Indian Wars.
Clair
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Post by crzhrs on May 14, 2009 6:27:26 GMT -6
<You know, you may find that Sitting Bull's death, which occured as native policemen were arresting him for traitorous behavior and was probably justified, actually caused the environment that allowed Wounded Knee to happen. So let's add Sitting Bull to our list of people responsible for the tragedy at Wounded Knee to both Soldiers and Natives. He should not have resisted his arrest and stirred up his tribesmen>
SB did NOTHING traitorous . . . he did not believe in the Ghost Dance, was not a follower of it, and in fact did not believe Indians could come back from the dead. He even offered to go with the Indian Agent (McLaughlin) to the Ghost Dance Camps and watch the dancers. If the dead Indians did not come back he would tell the followers that the religion was no good and to give it up. The Agent refused out of pettiness, egotism, and his constant feuding with SB. The Agent had a perfect opportunity to put the Ghost Dance to an end and didn't. I would say he was more responsible for the Wounded Knee Massacre than anyone else.
Once again . . . Conz' lays blame on any Indian that stood up for his rights.
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Post by crzhrs on May 14, 2009 6:30:34 GMT -6
<Deliberately targeting women and children. This means you intend to specifically harm them, and carry out that intention. It doesn't count if you fire into a village at the property and Warriors knowing that the civilians will get killed. That is NOT targeting civilians. It is like bombing a city with factories, knowing that you will kill thousands of civilians working in them and living all around them...that is not a war crime in Geneva or my church>
What a weaselly way of getting out of committing the killing of innocents!
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Post by crzhrs on May 14, 2009 6:31:43 GMT -6
Conz:
Do you ever wonder why current Sioux speak highly of SB & CH and rarely say anything about Red Cloud?
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Post by crzhrs on May 14, 2009 8:18:07 GMT -6
<It is like bombing a city with factories, knowing that you will kill thousands of civilians working in them and living all around them...that is not a war crime in Geneva or my church>
Didn't the 9-11 terrorists use that as a means for attacking New York?
Afterall the Twin Towers were a financial center that made the country run. It would be a legitimate target and if non-coms were killed that would be regretable part of war.
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Post by conz on May 14, 2009 15:33:49 GMT -6
Conz: Do you ever wonder why current Sioux speak highly of SB & CH and rarely say anything about Red Cloud? Yes, I do, since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were DESPISED by most of their people after the winter of 1876...they only had a small following left compared to their hey-day. Their reputations were at a low point after that campaign. It is like Harry Truman, past President of the United States. He is today considered one of our most respected Presidents, with his "The buck stops here!" statement and all. But when he was alive, he was so despised that he couldn't run for re-election for his second term. Just like SB and CH, I think. It is romantic to look at the fighters of our past, regardless of race. But the true heroes are the peacemakers, not the Warriors. The people who HAD to live then know this. We today, who didn't have to suffer under the Warriors, forget that... Clair
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Post by crzhrs on May 14, 2009 16:11:08 GMT -6
Despised?
I find that hard to believe.
Sitting Bull took hundreds of followers to Canada and they stayed there for a number of years.
Crazy Horse had move than 1,000 people with him when he came to the Reservation in May of 1877.
That's a lot of people who "despised" their leaders but yet stayed out with them.
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Post by conz on May 14, 2009 17:02:56 GMT -6
Crzhrs...
Here are the facts via Utley:
"At Standing Rock dwelled Siitting Bull, still the mightiest of Sioux chiefs, still uncompromisingly opposed to the white man's ways. The Ghost Dance had taken hold in his camps on Grand River, and he had seized upon it as a powerful weapon in his long contest with the government for the allegiance of the Hunkpapas....Miles issued orders for the arrest of both Sitting Bull and Big Foot.
"The veteran agent at Standing Rock, James McLaughlin, had been urging Sitting Bull's arrest for several weeks, but preferred to accomplish it with Indian police rather than soldiers..."
These facts seem just opposite of your facts...it paints SB as a continued danger and agitator, and McLaughlin being reasonable. Where do you get your facts from?
What rights? What rights do people who fight a bloody war, and lose, really have? What did the Natives have a right to expect after fighting and killing Americans, and only surrendered after they had been militarily defeated and were faced with extermination?
Getting out of what? Are you saying that killing innocents is either immoral or illegal? Be clear.
There are plenty of justifications for killing innocents...we do it in the Army all the time...we HAVE to. We have no choice. If you want to prevent the killing of innocents then prevent war.
It certainly is no war crime, nor against most church philosophies, to kill innocents. The key here is why and how the innocents were killed.
You may as well say it is a crime against nature to walk upon the grass, because you hurt some of it.
No, because they were deliberately trying to kill civilians. They had no cause to destroy our infrastructure, factories, highways, etc. They only wanted one thing...to kill civilians. That is immoral and illegal. Now if they were only trying to destroy a factory because that would allow them to win their war, and the civilians were in the way, that would be both moral and legal, by Army standards.
And if you believe that this would win the war for the Islamists, that would be justified. But 1) that target did NOT make the country run...we did just fine (even profited), with its destruction, and 2) even if you believed it was the real target and not the people, it would not advance their victory one bit. In fact, it had just the opposite effect, did it not? It was the provocation that resulted, and continues to result, in the death and destruction of themselves, their families, their people, and their villages.
So I don't think they have a very good moral or legal basis for using lethal force here, do you?
Clair
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Post by conz on May 14, 2009 17:48:42 GMT -6
Despised? I find that hard to believe. Sitting Bull took hundreds of followers to Canada and they stayed there for a number of years. Crazy Horse had move than 1,000 people with him when he came to the Reservation in May of 1877. That's a lot of people who "despised" their leaders but yet stayed out with them. Would you like some more facts, then? Here you go: Facts out of Kingsley Bray’s Crazy Horse biography, in the winter of ’76: “A significant break immediately appeared in the Oglala façade of total resistance. The council deputed a headman named Red Sack to go to Red Cloud Agency ‘to ascertain how matters were and to return and let them know as soon as possible.’ The reopening of dialogue indicated that the situation was slipping out of Crazy Horse’s control. Faced with council consensus, the war chief chose not to press the issue and rupture what remained of village goodwill.” “The nearly simultaneous exit of another party bore no council imprimatur. When fifteen lodges of Brules, Oglalas, and Miniconjous started for Spotted Tail Agency, Crazy Horse deployed the akicita. In a sinister echo of army surrender terms, the warriors seized the defectors’ arms and ponies. The confiscation hardened the resolve of the deserters and secured the pity of their tribespeople. The fact that friends and relatives secretly outfitted the party with fifty-four horses and a handful of firearms, to enable a nighttime departure, testifies that the war front was dangerously alienated from its own people. Although Crazy Horse might in the short term tighten his control, Lakota society could not run against the grain of public opinion.” After the departure of most of his people for the reservations… “For a day or two, Crazy Horse lingered at the old campground, as if expecting a change of heart, then he too ordered his tipis struck. Only ten lodges strung behind Crazy Horse, the families most intimately bound to him by blood, marriage, and adoption…For Crazy Horse, it was plainly a pause for reflection and reevaluation. Political disunity was one lesson – even the Hunkpatila band, united for years behind his leadership, had broken under the intolerable strains of martial law.” “During April, the Cheyenne village straggled past Bear Lodge en route to surrender. Still lodged in wretched shelters, many Cheyennes nursed personal grievances against Crazy Horse. Matching Little Wolf’s promise, they declared that upon surrender many would volunteer as Army scouts.” After Crazy Horse’s surrender, he “daily grew more insolent and intractable, thinking perhaps that he could manage matters better to suit himself…Little Big Man had begun to carve out an independent constituency. He would repeatedly polarize the village through the summer, challenging Crazy Horse as its key decision maker.” “Many followers began to feel disquiet at the war chief’s intransigence. A slow drip of defections began during the second week of August [1877], as the moderate began to consider seriously the option of attaching themselves to the bands of agency relatives. Red Cloud in particular stepped up appeals to kin to leave the northern village ahead of a final reckoning.” Red Cloud is still trying to save Crazy Horse’s people from annihilation, as the peacemaker. Among his own people, living at the time, Crazy Horse ended as an impotent and pathetic figure, too wild to live with the changing times, and dangerous to his own people around him. Same as Sitting Bull later... Clair
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Post by wolfgang911 on May 17, 2009 16:25:48 GMT -6
What about my views do you find disgusting, other than that I don't agree with YOU?
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Post by markland on May 17, 2009 17:26:13 GMT -6
Bullcrap Wolfgang-if you haven't bothered studying the Indian Wars more than it appears, you are a poor apologist for the NAs. The facts are incontrovertable that Indians murdered and raped Anglo & Hispanic when on the warpath...if you wish to doubt my word, I'll be glad to supply primary & secondary sources.
Billy
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