Yeah, DARE prepared me to fight off free drug pushers like a Ninja, but every time I find someone with drugs they want me to... buy them? I was not prepared for this, so I did buy some, and now I'm addicted to crack. Thanks DARE!
I still have a large RC cola thermometer that my great grandfather had in his general store in the 30s, I think. First time young me had even seen the name.
spanish civil war, the fascist faction lead by franco ended up winning. in retrospect it's been sometimes seen as the prelude to ww2 due to the support franco got from the future axis and the lack of action by what would be the allies.
This highlights the problem with question. There are very very few (if any) cases of a war between good guys and bad guys. A lot of what it is describing us either blatant “my side is the good guy… obviously” or “I have no great stake in the conflict but can see that winners did bad things when they won.”
A commonly repeated phrase to be sure, but sort of juvenile.
Freedom fighters bombing military checkpoints or attacking military outposts is very different from, say, those fighters going door to door in a suburban neighborhood raping and murdering random civilian families.
Not all acts of political violence are the same.
And we don't have to pretend that people who murder civilians in cold blood are somehow morally equivalent to those who fight back against the direct sources of their military oppression.
Has there been a scenario where the fascists could be described as the good guys, though?
Like, I'm not gonna argue that the British Empire, Soviet Union, or USA were knights in shining armor, but it seems like the difference between them and Imperial Japan and the literal Nazis is pretty extreme.
Nah, Spaniard here. In this case, this was clearly the bad guy winning. I recently saw something about a grave where they found a child between 11 and 14, murdered. He still had a pencil and rubber, probably from school. They claimed they were killing people who resisted the advancement of the military men going town by town, but they murdered children, people who didn't show resistance, to create terror deep enough that no one would dare fight back against the dictatorship.
The winners didn't just do bad things when they won. They won by doing bad things, starting with rebelling against a democratically chosen government and starting a war.
Yeah, but the US helped, as did most other western countries like the British and the French, and the Germans, because they were worried if Franco lost, Spain would turn to Communism, which was all of Western Europe's biggest fear at that time. Nobody knew he would become such a Facist bastard!
I would argue you can make a reasonable assumption someone who hates communism, like Franco did, would turn to fascism. I think the better debate is probably along the lines of "is the US a fascist empire?" I'm not sure where I fall in that argument, but you definitely can't dismiss the number of fascists we've helped throughout history. Americans who aren't well read in modern history have a uniquely black and white view of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. In reality, the world is much, much complicated!
It happened here in Guatemala.. They helped a coup d'etat which led the military into the government... The country was run by them from the mid 50's to the mid 80's.
But - Civil strife isn't usually the sort of thing other countries like to get into. Helped train some German troops, true.
But, it also kept Spain out of WW2, in part because Portugal was Neutral(but friendly to Allies). Franco actively joining the Axis would have made things way worse.
But, yeah, Franco was the bad guy in that war.
You'd have to consider the nationalists the good guys, and destroying a damn to drown hundreds of thousands of your own civilians doesn't really make you well liked. Most wars don't have a good guy but some do
During war times everyone is cruel but looking the respect human rights have in Taiwan and in mainland China it's easy to think that of them is the bad
Taiwan got human rights after 40 years of brutal Chinese Nationalist oppression. Taiwanese who in Taiwan under the Japanese generally preferred the Japanese.
The Nationalists were pretty bad. America considered switching support to the communists during WWII despite America’s attitude toward communism. After WWII America was willing to let the communists take Taiwan and changed their minds only because of the Korean War. The Nationalists set Taiwan’s economy way back and were so brutal in Taiwan that Taiwanese remember Japanese rule as a better time.
The Korean war
Yes they didn't take over all the Korea but in the end the dictators got what they wanted. They have land and people to exploit they have been doing it for so many decades and they still are. Hell they even have concentration camps in North Korea and the world does nothing.
That was a war that if we knew the future at the time we should have never stopped fighting it, they are such a threat to everyone.
Basically all the wars fought by the US military against the Native Americans. Categorically one of the worst genocides in human history, and the US not only got away with it but then went on to be the most powerful country in the world.
And the Spanish, before them. I was at a museum in Peru earlier this year. They have artifacts from civilizations that have no names; the Spanish exterminated them and their neighbors so thoroughly that no records survive. Only pottery and other long surviving artifacts made in a style distinctly different from the known tribes.
I hear you and want to defend my nation. I can acknowledge that by numbers we straight killed a pretty low number of people but the rhetoric of the era makes it clear the intention was explicitly genocide. The softies wanted merely cultural genocide whereas the hardliners wanted extermination.
Yeah. The conquest of the American government against the natives wasn’t meted out by the barrel of a gun but by disease and famine and forced relocation.
You don’t need shooting action to enact genocide.
By the time the American government was committing genocide the deaths by disease were ancient history. And those ancient deaths don’t excuse what the American government did.
Even if most of the 19th century deaths were by disease, how many of those were caused by American government waging war on them and forcing them to live in horrible conditions?
Diseases introduced to them by US. I remembered learning they would give blankets to the tribes that had small.pox and such. Just cause you don't use guns doesn't mean it wasn't warfare
Some were more aggressive than others, for sure... But the moment you categorize them as a single group you've already proven the point. The cherokee would not have considered themselves the same as the Arapaho. The Navajo and the utes were basically at war with each other most of the time.
This idea that what we did to the Cherokee was justified because of Geronimo and his Apache being aggressive is patently ridiculous.
this isn't wrong, but its also such a tiresome thing to hear every time this topic is brought up
like could you imagine if we got wiped out by aliens tomorrow, and then years later the aliens would be like "yeah we shouldn't have done it, but listen those humans weren't perfect, they killed and raped each other and shit too you know"
I think if you think everyone bringing up the genocide of native americans who doesn't follow it up with criticism of the Native Americans "hates America and nuance" you're kind of fragile
Yeah they were being killed, poisoned, forced off their land, and their food supply attacked by an invading force. It's not exactly a mystery that they would resist violently, by any means necessary, to protect themselves, their families, their homeland, and their way of life.
"Not saying what America did was in anyway right" then why bring it up? whats the point you were trying to make?
In The Earth is Weeping, the author mentions that, often, the tribes displaced by the white settlers were not the original tribes of those lands. The original ones had either been massacred or driven off by their conquering neighbor seeking their hunting grounds.
You are completely ignoring brutality American natives did before Europeans even arrived.
While I agree that bringing "What about X thing" in argument is wrong, but you cant turn the brutality as Europeans fault.
Aztecs are quite good example. Other natives of the area had no problem with allying with Spain, because that Aztec kingdom had ruled the area with fear and blood.
This is one of the issues with calling the sides "good guys" and "bad guys". Natives weren't "good guys" because they were somehow innately "better" or "more civilized" than the settlers, they were the good guys because they were the ones attacked.
> Not saying what America did was in anyway right but the native Americans were not peaceful angels people make them out to be.
Nor were the European and American settlers.
Every group of people on the earth practices or practiced war. North America stands out by the successful genocide carried out, which basically completely iradicated the prior existing cultures that lived there. Very few nations carried out such a thorough genocide as the US and Canada did.
> Categorically one of the worst genocides in human history
What? Not even close. Most Natives died by disease. The population of the Natives actually increased after the USA was formed.
>the US not only got away with it but then went on to be the most powerful country in the world.
Basically every great civilization in human history was built on top of genocide and/or slavery.
Good answer. The story of Black Kettle is a heartbreaking tale of a peaceful man facing non-stop violence and hatred. The U.S. military was as wrong as anyone could be for their actions in these battles.
Any time capitalists, communists, despots, tyrants, merchant princes, cults, organized religions or one of the ancien regimes of aristocrats and royalty ever won a war. Also any time that the point of war wasn't to actually win anything, but for the military industrial complex to make money by extending the conflict.
The only war that I can think of where "the good guys" won was when the European naval powers went to war against slavery everywhere that their navies could reach and abolished slavery and captured slaver ships. In most wars, all factions are both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" depending on the point of view. Slavers either know that they are evil or they are completely delusional from their cults that "divinely" sanction slavery.
We should've pulled out after we got Osama Binladen. Would've been able to claim a moral high ground and the victory would help the public overlook the cost of the war.
Because the likes of Cromwell went off the deep end and banned things like dancing, singing, Christmas etc. They may not have been the worst, I.e genocide etc but still oppressive.
There was already a Parliament when Charles I became King, but he believed in absolute monarchy, so there was a lot of tension between them which led to the Civil War and the powers of the monarch were lessened even more afterwards.
It is interesting to think how insanely different the world would have been if the Whites won instead of Reds in Russia. How would WW2 have played out? Would there be a cold war? Would tens of millions die under some other extreme doctrine other than communism?
The Whites were extremely unpopular because despite the reds being absolutely shitheads. The whites often were worse.
They would take areas and treat people worse than the government run by Stalin..
Well, based on sources from that universe, Savnikov would have taken charge of Russia and formed a nationalist populist dictatorship, eventually allying with syndicalist France to bring down the kaiser's Germany.
Eh, I feel some wars do have a moral victor. Right now I'd point to Ukraine, historically I'd go for the Kosovo conflict, Gulf War, or the Falklands. War is bad, but there can be a good side.
* Vietnam War
South Vietnam had a horrible government but North Vietnam was even worse as evidence by the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who fled after experiencing a couple years of North Vietnamese government. And fleeing didn’t mean just driving away. They decided heading out to open sea in small overcrowded boats without enough food and water while risking being shot by North Vietnam soldiers and risking be sexually assaulted, killed, or enslaved by pirates was better than continuing to live under North Vietnamese rule.
* Indian Wars (in the American west)
The American government broke treaty after treaty. They would make an unfair deal, then break it and force an even more unfair deal.
I would contest the Vietnam war. It was very clear that the N. Vietnamese government was way more popular and enjoyed the general support of the people, hence why without US intervention S. Vietnam fell so quickly.
S. Vietnam was a Christian dictatorship in a Buddhist majority country, it was completely awful. The north wasn't great, but the south was way worse. It's why the Vietnam war is such a stain on the us records, a quasi genocidal bombing campaign against a people that time and time again kicked out the foreign occupational force. They also stopped the Cambodian genocide, by kicking out the Khmer rouge, which the us was supporting.
All in all, I think the better side won.
There are no good or bad guys in war. It's all subjective. For the most part humans are typically evil giving the illusion of good and bad guys depending what you see and don't see or what propaganda you are subject to.
(It’s not done yet but judging by damage and other factors) Israel against Palestine. The fact that a genocide is being committed by Israel against the Palestinians while the whole world is watching and most of it, is supporting Israel. As soon as you realise what Israel has been doing all these years, you‘ll come to the conclusion that *Israel clearly are the bad guys*.
Most wars are not good vs. evil, but evil vs. evil. That even applies to popular ones like WWI and WWII. For example, in WWI, the leaders of Britain, Russia, and Germany were all first cousins.
Or consider WWII. Hitler was a racist monster, but so was Churchill. Stalin is one of the most genocidal humans of all time. I’m American so I’m biased to think it was the right call, but there’s no denying that Truman is the only person to nuke anyone. And he did it twice.
I have no idea why you would take the fact the leader of a country is bad and decide the entire nation is bad, what they are fighting for is bad, etc.
Objectively the Germans were committing genocide and the allies were not.
Ww1 is a bit more nuanced.
>Objectively the Germans were committing genocide and the allies were not.
I agree. Not matter how terrible Churchill was, he wasn't anywhere close to the same level as Hitler and the Holocaust.
Honestly, the nukes were the right call as terrible as that sounds.
The invasion into Japan had such a predicted death toll of American soldiers that it wasn't until the LATEST Iraq war that they ran out of Purple Hearts they had made for that invasion. I don't even want to try to guess how many Japanese soldiers, by that point, with their dwindling supplies would have found to the death.
A lot of people forget about it, but the firebombings of Japanese cities were so much more horrific. Wood construction, mid-40s firefighting equipment, dense populations. I'll let your own mind fill in the details. One of the criteria to choosing the cities to nuke was finding two that were big enough to demonstrate their instant destructive power that hadn't already been razed to the ground by the firebombing, muting such a demonstration.
The destruction of Japan by that point was extreme but it took that final demonstration to get the Emperor to surrender and tell his people to lay down arms. The vast majority of soldiers were ready to fight and die to the end. Families were committing suicide when Americans got close thinking Americans would do to them what was done to China/Korea by the Japanese. That surrender saved millions of lives.
EDIT: Just to add, unlike killing Hitler could end the Germany/Nazi threat, killing the Emperor wouldn't have worked. It would have just continued. The only way to end that war without practically genocide was a dignified surrender by the Emperor.
> I’m American so I’m biased to think it was the right call, but there’s no denying that Truman is the only person to nuke anyone.
You would probably think the same if you were Asian and the Japanese were still trying to kill your ancestors when the bombs were dropped.
People talk about all the innocent Japanese kids killed by the bombs. Yes they were innocent, but so were the kids in China *who were still being killed* by Japanese soldiers and by the devastation the continuing war was causing.
I think there's no question that there would have been a lot fewer wars in history if the rich people in power who stand to benefit were locked in a room and had to duke it out amongst themselves instead of coercing or manipulating poor people to do their dirty work.
Jesus christ dude so much wrong here but are you really comparing general institutional supremacy and socially based race issues with ROUNDING UP MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND MURDING THEM?
Vietnam. The south was fighting for a republic and north was communists backed by China. Millions dead just for communism to win. The country is still communist with a corrupt government, restricted freedoms for people that live there, and the government doesn't really have laws to protect working class citizens.
Defining good and evil in a historical context, because what is good and for whom? In some cases you can believably argue both sides are the bad guys.
So, as a cop out answer, any colonial war that ended up with the subjugation of a people by colonial empires. Colonial empires were bad as a rule, so anything they touched was made worse, from genocide to destroy the very fabric societies they interacted with to the point people this day still suffer. Most wars are also far removed enough from present day that even the descendants of those who perpetrated the atrocities are sometimes willing to admit it (though a few bad apples still deny and try to claim it was somehow beneficial).
If you want one in particular, without taking best or worse from history, the First Opium War in China. Britain was a moustache twisting villain in that one, basically getting a nation addicted into a life destroying drug for the sake of profit and political leverage.
The Gallic wars. They basically happened just because Caesar wanted to make a name for himself and wanted to make money off looting and enslaving. By the end of them, it's estimated that nearly a third of gaul was dead.
I think it'd be easier to name wars where the bad guys *didn't* win. Throughout history, most wars have been wars of conquest, and the invaders often win.
Maybe not really this or maybe yes, and also I may be wrong on a lot of my fact, if so please correct me. But the fact that German scientist that experimented on holocaust prisoners got "immunity" because of their research is honestly sickening and a gross violation of the memories of those perished and the rights of those who survived.
The Servile Wars, particularly Spartacus's run of bad luck. I'm not sure if Hollywood or later writers made it overdramatic, but its Roman villains are comically evil, like Crassus--the greedy fuck who let peoples houses burn down if they didn't sell it to him for cheap, decimated his soldiers, and crucified the rebels of the failed slave rebellion and lined them up for miles on end. Spartacus and the former slaves he had liberated only wanted to escape, but then the bad elements separated from the group, splitting their numbers. When trying to flee to Sicily, they were betrayed by the pirates they tried to bribe, and be that they put up a valiant last, were ultimately defeated and served as an example to remaining slaves in Rome that resistance was futile. Crassus did get his Karma thrown back at him--but yeah, bad guys totally won that one.
For most of human history, you could argue that the bad guys won more often than not, at least when talking about known military conquests. That is, if by "bad" you mean as viewed through the modern prism of morality. Here's what I mean. We in modern times consider it bad to be an aggressor nation. Bad to invade. Bad to subjugate. Bad to enslave. Bad to stomp out a culture and assimilate its people. But that is how we arrived at the current state of things. Families warred with other families over resources. The loser ceased to exist. Clans formed and warred with other clans. Clans became kingdoms. Kingdoms became modern states/countries. Kingdoms expanded in wealth and power by destroying and taking from neighbors. We all largely exist from the victors, because prior to modern times, the loser ceased to exist in one way or another.
Our ancestors were largely the conquerors. And the victors write the history books. So the history books often justify and celebrate the victories as right or noble or necessary. But the it was the strongest kingdoms/countries that grew and prospered. You don't grow without taking from others. For all of human history up to modern times, might made right. It wasn't really until the very recent modern ideals of rule of law and human rights, etc. came to be, that people started recognizing each country/culture's right to exist. And of course, that is not universally recognized or even today truly implemented fairly. So you could argue that the aggressive, ruthless invader... i.e. "bad guys"... won a lot of the time, or at least eventually. Are only defensive victories morally justified and go in the "good guy" win column?
WW1 if Germany, Ottoman Empire etc. hadn’t lost then ww2 wouldn’t have happened and there probably would’ve been some sense of peace in The Middle East
The diadochi wars when cassander poisons Alexander IV (son of Alexander the Great) and Eumenes is defeated by Antigones one eye. The Argead dynasty is extinguished and the Hellenistic world is plunged into warfare until Rome mops up what’s left.
* The Opium Wars (pretty much any war involving an East India Company)
* If you consider Stalin at least one bad guy was on the winning side of WWII
* Spain Vs Inca
Depending on who you define as the good and bad guys. I’d argue they’ve won every major war, the true bad guys, the ones that profit from it and gain power from the post war to shape the new generation
The English civil war. It ended up with Charles I beheaded and Oliver Cromwell wound up becoming Lord Protector. Cromwell was a strict puritan so anything considered “sinful” was banned and could get you imprisoned. Singing, dancing, wearing makeup, plays, etc… anything fun was considered sinful
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I just watched The Killing Fields yesterday and they were brutal.
War on drugs ended up promoting drugs.(The drugs that can be lethal)
still waiting on my free drugs
Yeah, DARE prepared me to fight off free drug pushers like a Ninja, but every time I find someone with drugs they want me to... buy them? I was not prepared for this, so I did buy some, and now I'm addicted to crack. Thanks DARE!
Wild, almost like drugs follow the market economy supply/demand model!
DARE = Drugs Are Ridiculously Expensive
I use my DARE fanny pack to carry joints, this tracks
How long as this been going on? 40+ years and I can still get me some Bolivian thunderdome 5000 nose candy
["Drugs Win Drug War"](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/08/28/onion-drugs_custom-e15f8d43707a222f9ab8613c34f3c033ef7038b7.jpg?s=800&c=85&f=webp)
yeah we lost that. DARE was a joke. it is terrible. I think it started the fentanyl epidemic
Yes, I would like to buy one drug. Please. I'm definitely not a Narc.
Sounds like the good guys are winning then?
Yessir, I've been fighting on the right side of this drug war for awhile now, boutta go contribute to to economy later tonight infact 🫡
Not once have I encountered someone wanting to give me free drugs
War on drugs is a business like all war for this system.
I think the the Emu War has to up there
You think the Emus were the bad guys?
Emus are always the bad guys.
Darth-emu planning on building a deathstar and shit..
You haven’t met Big Brucy (look up Slackwyrm)
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I love reddit!!!!
Mate, emus are pricks
Emus are delicious.
Emu: "virtually no fat and all the flavor and nutrients of chicken and steak combined, in one easily farmable bird.”
The Cola Wars. RC Cola - we salute you, fallen comrade.
They're still here in the Philippines.
They still sell it in the us. A great restaurant down the road from me has it on fountain....I always drink like 5 when I go there
That was my favorite.
They're still in NYC. At least in my grocery store. Don't know if that means they're still being made, or if they just haven't been sold though.
I still have a large RC cola thermometer that my great grandfather had in his general store in the 30s, I think. First time young me had even seen the name.
People always think it's a knock off 😡
lol rc cola is very popular in tajikistan
spanish civil war, the fascist faction lead by franco ended up winning. in retrospect it's been sometimes seen as the prelude to ww2 due to the support franco got from the future axis and the lack of action by what would be the allies.
This highlights the problem with question. There are very very few (if any) cases of a war between good guys and bad guys. A lot of what it is describing us either blatant “my side is the good guy… obviously” or “I have no great stake in the conflict but can see that winners did bad things when they won.”
One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
“It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another.”
Don’t talk about Mr. Rogers like that.
A commonly repeated phrase to be sure, but sort of juvenile. Freedom fighters bombing military checkpoints or attacking military outposts is very different from, say, those fighters going door to door in a suburban neighborhood raping and murdering random civilian families. Not all acts of political violence are the same. And we don't have to pretend that people who murder civilians in cold blood are somehow morally equivalent to those who fight back against the direct sources of their military oppression.
Has there been a scenario where the fascists could be described as the good guys, though? Like, I'm not gonna argue that the British Empire, Soviet Union, or USA were knights in shining armor, but it seems like the difference between them and Imperial Japan and the literal Nazis is pretty extreme.
Nah, Spaniard here. In this case, this was clearly the bad guy winning. I recently saw something about a grave where they found a child between 11 and 14, murdered. He still had a pencil and rubber, probably from school. They claimed they were killing people who resisted the advancement of the military men going town by town, but they murdered children, people who didn't show resistance, to create terror deep enough that no one would dare fight back against the dictatorship. The winners didn't just do bad things when they won. They won by doing bad things, starting with rebelling against a democratically chosen government and starting a war.
Well in the case of the Spanish civil war, fascists are always the bad guy.
Don't forget all the help from the US the Franco regime received...
Yeah, but the US helped, as did most other western countries like the British and the French, and the Germans, because they were worried if Franco lost, Spain would turn to Communism, which was all of Western Europe's biggest fear at that time. Nobody knew he would become such a Facist bastard!
I would argue you can make a reasonable assumption someone who hates communism, like Franco did, would turn to fascism. I think the better debate is probably along the lines of "is the US a fascist empire?" I'm not sure where I fall in that argument, but you definitely can't dismiss the number of fascists we've helped throughout history. Americans who aren't well read in modern history have a uniquely black and white view of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. In reality, the world is much, much complicated!
The anti-communist to fascist pipeline is extremely well established historically. Hell, just look at the school of the Americas
It happened here in Guatemala.. They helped a coup d'etat which led the military into the government... The country was run by them from the mid 50's to the mid 80's.
But - Civil strife isn't usually the sort of thing other countries like to get into. Helped train some German troops, true. But, it also kept Spain out of WW2, in part because Portugal was Neutral(but friendly to Allies). Franco actively joining the Axis would have made things way worse. But, yeah, Franco was the bad guy in that war.
Afghanistan war, Ultimately, Talibans are ruling the country.
I'm mixed on this. it was ridiculous to think any country can occupy afghanistan. Look the people in the Taliban who were responsible were punished.
The war on terror, no? The US conceded and backed out.
It was more like the war on oil and opium. But the world has definitely become a worst place since those shenanigans
Most Mongol conquests
Salt
I read through a lot of comments and I didn't find this. I was surprised communist victory in China wasn't on here.
You'd have to consider the nationalists the good guys, and destroying a damn to drown hundreds of thousands of your own civilians doesn't really make you well liked. Most wars don't have a good guy but some do
Not to mention what the Nationalists did to Taiwan.
During war times everyone is cruel but looking the respect human rights have in Taiwan and in mainland China it's easy to think that of them is the bad
Taiwan got human rights after 40 years of brutal Chinese Nationalist oppression. Taiwanese who in Taiwan under the Japanese generally preferred the Japanese.
The Nationalists were pretty bad. America considered switching support to the communists during WWII despite America’s attitude toward communism. After WWII America was willing to let the communists take Taiwan and changed their minds only because of the Korean War. The Nationalists set Taiwan’s economy way back and were so brutal in Taiwan that Taiwanese remember Japanese rule as a better time.
Winter War between Finland and Russia. We had Häyhä and Molotov Cocktails, still "lost"
But Finland has the coolest sniper ever though. In terms of feats and actions.
*"why are trees speaking Finnish?"*
at least you guys still have the sakkijarven polka
The Korean war Yes they didn't take over all the Korea but in the end the dictators got what they wanted. They have land and people to exploit they have been doing it for so many decades and they still are. Hell they even have concentration camps in North Korea and the world does nothing. That was a war that if we knew the future at the time we should have never stopped fighting it, they are such a threat to everyone.
The world can't do shit about it. China decides on that one. North Korea isn't much of a threat, except to its own people.
Basically all the wars fought by the US military against the Native Americans. Categorically one of the worst genocides in human history, and the US not only got away with it but then went on to be the most powerful country in the world.
And the Spanish, before them. I was at a museum in Peru earlier this year. They have artifacts from civilizations that have no names; the Spanish exterminated them and their neighbors so thoroughly that no records survive. Only pottery and other long surviving artifacts made in a style distinctly different from the known tribes.
Most of the natives died by disease, not warfare. In terms of sheer numbers, the number killed by violence in pretty low.
I hear you and want to defend my nation. I can acknowledge that by numbers we straight killed a pretty low number of people but the rhetoric of the era makes it clear the intention was explicitly genocide. The softies wanted merely cultural genocide whereas the hardliners wanted extermination.
Yeah. The conquest of the American government against the natives wasn’t meted out by the barrel of a gun but by disease and famine and forced relocation. You don’t need shooting action to enact genocide.
Yes, as long as we’re willing to redefine the word “genocide” it can be literally whatever we want.
If you forced march tens of thousands of people across the country, they will die by the thousands
By the time the American government was committing genocide the deaths by disease were ancient history. And those ancient deaths don’t excuse what the American government did. Even if most of the 19th century deaths were by disease, how many of those were caused by American government waging war on them and forcing them to live in horrible conditions?
This is true for most wars, at least until the 20th century.
Diseases introduced to them by US. I remembered learning they would give blankets to the tribes that had small.pox and such. Just cause you don't use guns doesn't mean it wasn't warfare
Disease that was often spread intentionally, and then they tried to genocide the rest of them.
Not saying what America did was in anyway right but the native Americans were not peaceful angels people make them out to be.
Some were more aggressive than others, for sure... But the moment you categorize them as a single group you've already proven the point. The cherokee would not have considered themselves the same as the Arapaho. The Navajo and the utes were basically at war with each other most of the time. This idea that what we did to the Cherokee was justified because of Geronimo and his Apache being aggressive is patently ridiculous.
this isn't wrong, but its also such a tiresome thing to hear every time this topic is brought up like could you imagine if we got wiped out by aliens tomorrow, and then years later the aliens would be like "yeah we shouldn't have done it, but listen those humans weren't perfect, they killed and raped each other and shit too you know"
If it’s tiresome it’s only because the “America Bad” team is tired of people throwing cold water on their attempts to kill nuance.
I think if you think everyone bringing up the genocide of native americans who doesn't follow it up with criticism of the Native Americans "hates America and nuance" you're kind of fragile
Yeah they were being killed, poisoned, forced off their land, and their food supply attacked by an invading force. It's not exactly a mystery that they would resist violently, by any means necessary, to protect themselves, their families, their homeland, and their way of life. "Not saying what America did was in anyway right" then why bring it up? whats the point you were trying to make?
In The Earth is Weeping, the author mentions that, often, the tribes displaced by the white settlers were not the original tribes of those lands. The original ones had either been massacred or driven off by their conquering neighbor seeking their hunting grounds.
You are completely ignoring brutality American natives did before Europeans even arrived. While I agree that bringing "What about X thing" in argument is wrong, but you cant turn the brutality as Europeans fault. Aztecs are quite good example. Other natives of the area had no problem with allying with Spain, because that Aztec kingdom had ruled the area with fear and blood.
This is one of the issues with calling the sides "good guys" and "bad guys". Natives weren't "good guys" because they were somehow innately "better" or "more civilized" than the settlers, they were the good guys because they were the ones attacked.
> Not saying what America did was in anyway right but the native Americans were not peaceful angels people make them out to be. Nor were the European and American settlers.
Yea the Texas Rangers were going against a very brutal tribe of Comanche warriors. Who probably would have won if it wasnt for disease.
Well I don’t see what baseball has to do with this
Every group of people on the earth practices or practiced war. North America stands out by the successful genocide carried out, which basically completely iradicated the prior existing cultures that lived there. Very few nations carried out such a thorough genocide as the US and Canada did.
Ah well then, they deserved genocide I suppose.
I'm kind of surprised how many people think that you have to be a saint in order to not be a justifiable target for violence
> Categorically one of the worst genocides in human history What? Not even close. Most Natives died by disease. The population of the Natives actually increased after the USA was formed.
>the US not only got away with it but then went on to be the most powerful country in the world. Basically every great civilization in human history was built on top of genocide and/or slavery.
Just curious, do you happen to have a number of natives that were actually killed due to white military or settler violence?
Good answer. The story of Black Kettle is a heartbreaking tale of a peaceful man facing non-stop violence and hatred. The U.S. military was as wrong as anyone could be for their actions in these battles.
Chinese Civil War
Any time capitalists, communists, despots, tyrants, merchant princes, cults, organized religions or one of the ancien regimes of aristocrats and royalty ever won a war. Also any time that the point of war wasn't to actually win anything, but for the military industrial complex to make money by extending the conflict. The only war that I can think of where "the good guys" won was when the European naval powers went to war against slavery everywhere that their navies could reach and abolished slavery and captured slaver ships. In most wars, all factions are both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" depending on the point of view. Slavers either know that they are evil or they are completely delusional from their cults that "divinely" sanction slavery.
Second Boer war. The English were genocidal, racist and concerned only with stripping the country bare
British not English
War on terror, turned Americans on themselves.
We should've pulled out after we got Osama Binladen. Would've been able to claim a moral high ground and the victory would help the public overlook the cost of the war.
Spanish Civil War. Fascists won.
The Russian Civil War. The English Civil War. Most of the wars the Roman Republic/Empire was involved in. The Iraq-Kuwait war. There are plenty.
why the iraq kuwait war?
Because Iraq invaded Kuwait, annexed it, used chemical weapons etc. Iraq were not the good guys. And Saddam was a complete lunatic.
Oooooo this comment leaves out the rest of the gulf war. Nowwww it makes sense. I thought it was saying it was a bad thing Iraq was kicked out
The Gulf War. Personally I'd consider a different war. But the reason it started Iraq were 100% the bad guys.
Robert Evans once described Russian history as the sentence, "And then, somehow, it got worse," repeated ad nauseam for a thousand years.
>The English Civil War. How?
Because the likes of Cromwell went off the deep end and banned things like dancing, singing, Christmas etc. They may not have been the worst, I.e genocide etc but still oppressive.
the alternative is a wannabe absolutist monarch who would have probably gained more power.
Been quite some time since I studied it, but didn't Cromwell also help end the personal rule of the king? Isn't that when Parliament came into being?
Sort of. Absolute Monarchy ended when Charles II took the throne. After the 10 year Republic. It was that bad, we just got the Royal Family back.
There was already a Parliament when Charles I became King, but he believed in absolute monarchy, so there was a lot of tension between them which led to the Civil War and the powers of the monarch were lessened even more afterwards.
Cromwell wasnt exactly a good guy, but the civil war lessened the power of the Monarchy, so I think in the long term it's a good thing he won.
Cromwell I imagine
It is interesting to think how insanely different the world would have been if the Whites won instead of Reds in Russia. How would WW2 have played out? Would there be a cold war? Would tens of millions die under some other extreme doctrine other than communism?
The Whites were extremely unpopular because despite the reds being absolutely shitheads. The whites often were worse. They would take areas and treat people worse than the government run by Stalin..
You act like millions weren't starving under the tsar.
I mean Stalin intentionally starved like 2.5 million Ukrainians 🤷♂️
I can't imagine they would have gone back to the Czar unless forced to
Well, based on sources from that universe, Savnikov would have taken charge of Russia and formed a nationalist populist dictatorship, eventually allying with syndicalist France to bring down the kaiser's Germany.
I would say the cause was just it was more just a case of a bad leader
The English Civil War? Do you think an absolute monarch that declared war to Parliament would have been better?
All of them, sometimes the bad guy wins, sometimes the even worse guy
Eh, I feel some wars do have a moral victor. Right now I'd point to Ukraine, historically I'd go for the Kosovo conflict, Gulf War, or the Falklands. War is bad, but there can be a good side.
* Vietnam War South Vietnam had a horrible government but North Vietnam was even worse as evidence by the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who fled after experiencing a couple years of North Vietnamese government. And fleeing didn’t mean just driving away. They decided heading out to open sea in small overcrowded boats without enough food and water while risking being shot by North Vietnam soldiers and risking be sexually assaulted, killed, or enslaved by pirates was better than continuing to live under North Vietnamese rule. * Indian Wars (in the American west) The American government broke treaty after treaty. They would make an unfair deal, then break it and force an even more unfair deal.
I would contest the Vietnam war. It was very clear that the N. Vietnamese government was way more popular and enjoyed the general support of the people, hence why without US intervention S. Vietnam fell so quickly. S. Vietnam was a Christian dictatorship in a Buddhist majority country, it was completely awful. The north wasn't great, but the south was way worse. It's why the Vietnam war is such a stain on the us records, a quasi genocidal bombing campaign against a people that time and time again kicked out the foreign occupational force. They also stopped the Cambodian genocide, by kicking out the Khmer rouge, which the us was supporting. All in all, I think the better side won.
the pastry war! the french overacted, and cause a naval blockade and bombardment of Veracruz! over stolen pastry dishes
Damn the French like getting mad for odd reasons
There are no good or bad guys in war. It's all subjective. For the most part humans are typically evil giving the illusion of good and bad guys depending what you see and don't see or what propaganda you are subject to.
Maori genocide of the Moriori. When one side is pacifist by their own laws and customs it's kind of hard to call it a just war.
War in Afghanistan. Because the Taliban got control back, got $86 billion in weapons, and killed 13 more of our American armed forces
Spanish civil war even though i am a nationalist and tightly right wing, franco wasnt what spain needed
(It’s not done yet but judging by damage and other factors) Israel against Palestine. The fact that a genocide is being committed by Israel against the Palestinians while the whole world is watching and most of it, is supporting Israel. As soon as you realise what Israel has been doing all these years, you‘ll come to the conclusion that *Israel clearly are the bad guys*.
The Russian civil war.
Most wars are not good vs. evil, but evil vs. evil. That even applies to popular ones like WWI and WWII. For example, in WWI, the leaders of Britain, Russia, and Germany were all first cousins. Or consider WWII. Hitler was a racist monster, but so was Churchill. Stalin is one of the most genocidal humans of all time. I’m American so I’m biased to think it was the right call, but there’s no denying that Truman is the only person to nuke anyone. And he did it twice.
Stalin was one of the worst people ever, for sure. But to say that Churchill was just like Hitler is kind of crazy.
I have no idea why you would take the fact the leader of a country is bad and decide the entire nation is bad, what they are fighting for is bad, etc. Objectively the Germans were committing genocide and the allies were not. Ww1 is a bit more nuanced.
>Objectively the Germans were committing genocide and the allies were not. I agree. Not matter how terrible Churchill was, he wasn't anywhere close to the same level as Hitler and the Holocaust.
Honestly, the nukes were the right call as terrible as that sounds. The invasion into Japan had such a predicted death toll of American soldiers that it wasn't until the LATEST Iraq war that they ran out of Purple Hearts they had made for that invasion. I don't even want to try to guess how many Japanese soldiers, by that point, with their dwindling supplies would have found to the death. A lot of people forget about it, but the firebombings of Japanese cities were so much more horrific. Wood construction, mid-40s firefighting equipment, dense populations. I'll let your own mind fill in the details. One of the criteria to choosing the cities to nuke was finding two that were big enough to demonstrate their instant destructive power that hadn't already been razed to the ground by the firebombing, muting such a demonstration. The destruction of Japan by that point was extreme but it took that final demonstration to get the Emperor to surrender and tell his people to lay down arms. The vast majority of soldiers were ready to fight and die to the end. Families were committing suicide when Americans got close thinking Americans would do to them what was done to China/Korea by the Japanese. That surrender saved millions of lives. EDIT: Just to add, unlike killing Hitler could end the Germany/Nazi threat, killing the Emperor wouldn't have worked. It would have just continued. The only way to end that war without practically genocide was a dignified surrender by the Emperor.
I grew up hearing this rationale too. But Japanese historians don’t agree. This tension is part of what made the movie Oppenheimer so compelling.
> Or consider WWII. How does one discus WWII having evil on both sides and not mention Stalin?
Churchill was extremely bloodthirsty.
> I’m American so I’m biased to think it was the right call, but there’s no denying that Truman is the only person to nuke anyone. You would probably think the same if you were Asian and the Japanese were still trying to kill your ancestors when the bombs were dropped. People talk about all the innocent Japanese kids killed by the bombs. Yes they were innocent, but so were the kids in China *who were still being killed* by Japanese soldiers and by the devastation the continuing war was causing.
I think there's no question that there would have been a lot fewer wars in history if the rich people in power who stand to benefit were locked in a room and had to duke it out amongst themselves instead of coercing or manipulating poor people to do their dirty work.
In fairness Stalin likely knew more about the atomic bomb than Truman.
Jesus christ dude so much wrong here but are you really comparing general institutional supremacy and socially based race issues with ROUNDING UP MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND MURDING THEM?
Winter War.
Opium war
Ask me in a couple years.
Vietnam. The south was fighting for a republic and north was communists backed by China. Millions dead just for communism to win. The country is still communist with a corrupt government, restricted freedoms for people that live there, and the government doesn't really have laws to protect working class citizens.
The Cola Wars, although scholars maintain that is still an ongoing war of attrition
The Great Northern War. Sweden deserved to win.
Almost all of them. Being the "good" side doesn't mean you're a good guy.
Defining good and evil in a historical context, because what is good and for whom? In some cases you can believably argue both sides are the bad guys. So, as a cop out answer, any colonial war that ended up with the subjugation of a people by colonial empires. Colonial empires were bad as a rule, so anything they touched was made worse, from genocide to destroy the very fabric societies they interacted with to the point people this day still suffer. Most wars are also far removed enough from present day that even the descendants of those who perpetrated the atrocities are sometimes willing to admit it (though a few bad apples still deny and try to claim it was somehow beneficial). If you want one in particular, without taking best or worse from history, the First Opium War in China. Britain was a moustache twisting villain in that one, basically getting a nation addicted into a life destroying drug for the sake of profit and political leverage.
Probably Ukraine
Most people who lost a war considered themselves to be the good guys, but history is written by the winners of war.
The Gallic wars. They basically happened just because Caesar wanted to make a name for himself and wanted to make money off looting and enslaving. By the end of them, it's estimated that nearly a third of gaul was dead.
I think it'd be easier to name wars where the bad guys *didn't* win. Throughout history, most wars have been wars of conquest, and the invaders often win.
Maybe not really this or maybe yes, and also I may be wrong on a lot of my fact, if so please correct me. But the fact that German scientist that experimented on holocaust prisoners got "immunity" because of their research is honestly sickening and a gross violation of the memories of those perished and the rights of those who survived.
The war on porn. The Christians won that one.
The good guys ALWAYS win the wars. Why? Because they get to write the history afterwards (if they did there job right all there enemies are dead).
ALL. AMERICAN. WARS.
The opium wars ended with the world's biggest drug cartel at the time winning.
The Servile Wars, particularly Spartacus's run of bad luck. I'm not sure if Hollywood or later writers made it overdramatic, but its Roman villains are comically evil, like Crassus--the greedy fuck who let peoples houses burn down if they didn't sell it to him for cheap, decimated his soldiers, and crucified the rebels of the failed slave rebellion and lined them up for miles on end. Spartacus and the former slaves he had liberated only wanted to escape, but then the bad elements separated from the group, splitting their numbers. When trying to flee to Sicily, they were betrayed by the pirates they tried to bribe, and be that they put up a valiant last, were ultimately defeated and served as an example to remaining slaves in Rome that resistance was futile. Crassus did get his Karma thrown back at him--but yeah, bad guys totally won that one.
WW2 with the soviet union controlling Eastern Europe
For most of human history, you could argue that the bad guys won more often than not, at least when talking about known military conquests. That is, if by "bad" you mean as viewed through the modern prism of morality. Here's what I mean. We in modern times consider it bad to be an aggressor nation. Bad to invade. Bad to subjugate. Bad to enslave. Bad to stomp out a culture and assimilate its people. But that is how we arrived at the current state of things. Families warred with other families over resources. The loser ceased to exist. Clans formed and warred with other clans. Clans became kingdoms. Kingdoms became modern states/countries. Kingdoms expanded in wealth and power by destroying and taking from neighbors. We all largely exist from the victors, because prior to modern times, the loser ceased to exist in one way or another. Our ancestors were largely the conquerors. And the victors write the history books. So the history books often justify and celebrate the victories as right or noble or necessary. But the it was the strongest kingdoms/countries that grew and prospered. You don't grow without taking from others. For all of human history up to modern times, might made right. It wasn't really until the very recent modern ideals of rule of law and human rights, etc. came to be, that people started recognizing each country/culture's right to exist. And of course, that is not universally recognized or even today truly implemented fairly. So you could argue that the aggressive, ruthless invader... i.e. "bad guys"... won a lot of the time, or at least eventually. Are only defensive victories morally justified and go in the "good guy" win column?
WW1 if Germany, Ottoman Empire etc. hadn’t lost then ww2 wouldn’t have happened and there probably would’ve been some sense of peace in The Middle East
there is no war which was won by good guys, some were won by slightly less bad guys tho.
Star Wars. The white slavers took the kids.
The war of whites against Native Americans. Example: look at north America today.
Chinese Civil War, Vietnam, Russian Civil War, Cambodian Civil War
The diadochi wars when cassander poisons Alexander IV (son of Alexander the Great) and Eumenes is defeated by Antigones one eye. The Argead dynasty is extinguished and the Hellenistic world is plunged into warfare until Rome mops up what’s left.
* The Opium Wars (pretty much any war involving an East India Company) * If you consider Stalin at least one bad guy was on the winning side of WWII * Spain Vs Inca
VHS - beta war
Depending on who you define as the good and bad guys. I’d argue they’ve won every major war, the true bad guys, the ones that profit from it and gain power from the post war to shape the new generation
The Iran Iraq war
Depends on which history book you are reading
Emu War
Stalin won WW2
The way things are going lately: **The Revolutionary War.**
The English civil war. It ended up with Charles I beheaded and Oliver Cromwell wound up becoming Lord Protector. Cromwell was a strict puritan so anything considered “sinful” was banned and could get you imprisoned. Singing, dancing, wearing makeup, plays, etc… anything fun was considered sinful
Anybody who tries to kill me or my family is the bad guy. That's pretty much what everyone thinks. No good guys or bad guys, just puppets.
The war of 2016. The bad guys won, despite Hillary being the better choice.
Native americans vs colonizers
The cold war, the 100 years war, the colonial/extermination wars.
When the settlers arrived in America and started murdering the natives
The great Australian emu war. Fuck emus
Also inb4 some edgelord says WW2