but you sir are a lunatic, and a necromancer to boot.
And how would you describe Martin van Creveld, teacher of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem?
In 2004 he lectured the german Federal Ministry of the Interior, Mr Otto Schily, the Ministry of the Interior of the capitol Berlin, Mr Ehrhart Koerting and the chief of the
Federal Intelligence Service, BND, Mr August Hanning about fighting against insurrections.
He repeated this lecture the next day before the Institut für Staatspolitik IFS (Institute for statepolitics).
He used two examples about how to fight insurrections. He described the british method (keep your forces on a short leash and make sure they behave) and the syrian method (send an army division with lots of artillery and fire away).
After his speech at the IFS there was a loud uproar. The next speaker Karl Feldmeyer of the newspaper FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, left the meeting under protest. He said that the syrian method is totally unacceptable for western democracies and this method is unlawful regarding Article 1 of the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz).
After cooling down it was found out that the moral outrage was about the fact that van Creveld presented both methods but did not judge them morally.
In the article it was said:
" Creveld used this outrage to show the difference between analysis and worth evaluation (the german word wertentscheidung is not found among dictionaries). As an expert did he show the ideal type of procedures without political and moral distortion, the decision about which method is used, including the question of ethics, is the duty of the complete human. As his own family was partially killed in the holocaust, he is definitely no backer of the excisionstrategy."
This is the above translated text in german:
"Creveld hob aufgrund des Eklats ausdrücklich den Unterschied zwischen Analyse und Wertentscheidung hervor. Er habe als Fachmann idealtypische Prozeduren ohne politische und moralische Verzerrung dargestellt, die Mittelauswahl auch nach ethischen Gesichtspunkten sei die Pflicht des "ganzen" Menschen. Ihm, dessen Familie zum Teil dem Holocaust zum Opfer gefallen sei, stehe eine Befürwortung einer Ausmerzungsstrategie im Antiterrorkampf fern."
In his speech van Creveld also described a meeting between him and General Paddy Walters in 1988. General Walters was the CiC of the British Forces in Northern Ireland and he told van Creveld that the people in NI were killing them and their neighbours since 800 years and no army could change that. But he said, he would do everything in his power to reduce the numbers of killing.
Martin van Creveld was shocked about the way of thought of the General as about then the first Intifada had started and (according to the speech) Defense secretary Yitzhalk (of Israel) had ordered his forces to break arms and legs. (According to Wikipedia the defense secretary of 1988 was Yitzhak Rabin).
To quote Wikipedia:
"When the first Intifada broke out, Rabin adopted harsh measures to stop the demonstrations, even authorizing the use of "Force, might and beatings," on the demonstrators. Rabin the "bone breaker" was used as an International image."
For references please see the wikipedia site.
The reason for this speech was, how would Europe react, if every country would slide into the quagmire that Bosnia is. He eventually asked, if certain countries would be able to follow the british example or not. He was not sure if all countries have the same moral strength, backbone or however you call it, if an insurrection starts.
I am no Martin van Creveld.
But I was wondering what would happen, if a certain government would have reacted differently as it did. Pure Alternate History.
In this case: Just look at 1938-1945.
About 50 million people died. Remember Winston Churchills speech about "We will fight them on the beaches..."
If on September 3rd, 1939 GB and France had not declared war on Germany, how many million would not have died?
In my Alternate History question I molded Thatcher like she was an amalgation of Winston Churchill and Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart. Both were diehard enemies of Germany.
To quote Wikipedia about Baron Vansittard:
" This doctrine, which was known as "Vansittartism", was quite influential in Britain and the U.S. The
Morgenthau Plan drew on it, and Vansittartist attitudes helped obstruct contacts between the Western Allies and the
German Resistance. "
I took the last halfsentence "and Vansittardist...Resistance" and translated it to "after the bombing Vansittardism made contacts between british and irish politicians who wanted peace (including unofficial contacts to the IRA; UDF) more than difficult."
And no, my father who lived as a small boy with the threat of bomber command, made sure that i definitely do not want to experience a war or God forbid, an ethnic cleansing.
If any of my words made this impression I apologize.