What has lead to peace in Europe?

And if your making comparisons to the SS and Facists, the Black and Tans certainly come close for me. I mean, at least the RA was illegal, the Tans were being supported, actually supported by the British government. And with their gerry-mandering of costituency borders to ensure that the bare minimum of Nationalist MPs got into Stormount, and tuning the public services to be anti-Catholic (many a Catholic family could be waiting weeks for a council house, but a newly wed Protestant couple would be sorted in a few days), the government of NI 1922-1969 is probably one of the most Facist you can get.

I mostly agree with you, Todyo, but I'm saying this to the pair of you: every time you abuse the word "fascist", George Orwell writes an angry column about it in his grave.

Gerrymandering and favouritist public services are not "fascism", they are the methods pretty well every ethnic group in a divided society has used to keep control of things from the post-reconstruction South to present-day Estonia. Armed gangs and attrocities are similarly ubiquitous.

Neither of our countries have ever been fascist. Random SS comparisons are stupid. Everybody clear?
 
I mostly agree with you, Todyo, but I'm saying this to the pair of you: every time you abuse the word "fascist", George Orwell writes an angry column about it in his grave.

Gerrymandering and favouritist public services are not "fascism", they are the methods pretty well every ethnic group in a divided society has used to keep control of things from the post-reconstruction South to present-day Estonia. Armed gangs and attrocities are similarly ubiquitous.

Neither of our countries have ever been fascist. Random SS comparisons are stupid. Everybody clear?

Fair enough. It's just because Steve called the IRA "facist" and l "ike the SS". Also I view both the Tans and pre-Westminster rule Stormount as incredibly violent and totalitarian. Not as bad as the SS, Nazi Germany or Facist Italy but certainly not acceptable for a democratic nation.
 
Fair enough. It's just because Steve called the IRA "facist" and l "ike the SS".

Very stupid of him; let's not meet like with like.

Also I view both the Tans and pre-Westminster rule Stormount as incredibly violent and totalitarian.
Not as bad as the SS, Nazi Germany or Facist Italy but certainly not acceptable for a democratic nation.

"Totalitarian" also has meaning (very extensive state intervention and control in every aspect of a citizens private life and at all times). Estonia, South Africa, the pre-civil-rights South, and Stormont had in common the curious property of being reasonably liberal societies if you belonged to the correct tribe.

Also, vis Tans: if there was in Europe a situation of mixed ethnicities, one in a ruling position, that didn't see some sort of nasty bloodshed after WW1, I haven't found it yet. Not justification, but context. These were the days when Britain and France, democratic states for their own people, were bankrolling and equipping an Armenian state run by the Dashnaks that was burning whole Azeri villages and had assisted in launching an outright pogrom in Baku, and Denikin, with his charming habit of beheading peasants. Agrarian disturbance in India was getting per-itty bad, too.

Whether or not anything is "acceptable" behavior for a democracy, democracies have done it - and they're doing it now. I think a more useful thing to talk about would be the acceptable behavior of a decent civilised human being. We can see, then, that for most of history most of us haven't been treated with proper dignity. Everybody is just as guilty as everybody there.
 
Alright points taken. But I assume you understand what I'm trying to say, that the Republican paramilitaries, whilst bad, were not necesserily worse then any pro-Union groups.

And I suppose that Westminster can't necesserily be blamed for the Tans. They were sending Great War veterans into a situation probably worse then the trenches, in the era when they were still calling shell-shock cowardice. It's cheap soldiers, not a deliberate death squad. Though try telling that to the Irishmen of 1920.
 
Britain: Suez, Malaya, Kenya, Oman, Falklands, Kuwait
France: Suez, Vietnam, Algeria, Kuwait

Hmmmm........

I disagree. The Brits were attacked by a nutty Argentine junta. The Falkland War from the British end was widely self-defense as their sovereign land was techncially attacked first.
 
I disagree. The Brits were attacked by a nutty Argentine junta. The Falkland War from the British end was widely self-defense as their sovereign land was techncially attacked first.

See now that's what I love about the world today. If Argentina attacked the Falklands, they're really attacking Britain. If nations had had that attitude in the 19th Century then the world would be an entirely different place today.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
See now that's what I love about the world today. If Argentina attacked the Falklands, they're really attacking Britain. If nations had had that attitude in the 19th Century then the world would be an entirely different place today.

I guess it feels better for both sides, the Argentines can say they attacked Britain and the British can say they defended Britain...
Instead of it being a stupid colonial war fought over a bunch of almost uninhabited rocks and 20.000 sheep.
 
Why Irish troops?

How about some neutral country like Sweden, Denmark, or Australia? Maybe an Asian army like Koreans?

Well like I said, they've been very popular with local populations under UN command. And many soldiers from far more powerful militaries have commented on how professional Irish troops were when in the field.
 
Alright points taken. But I assume you understand what I'm trying to say, that the Republican paramilitaries, whilst bad, were not necesserily worse then any pro-Union groups.

Absolutely right.

And I suppose that Westminster can't necesserily be blamed for the Tans. They were sending Great War veterans into a situation probably worse then the trenches, in the era when they were still calling shell-shock cowardice. It's cheap soldiers, not a deliberate death squad. Though try telling that to the Irishmen of 1920.

Westminster can be blamed for authorising and putting up with such a measure. You're quite right as to why the attrocities happened, but the government knew they were happening and very much turned a blind eye.

I'm just saying that in 1920s Europe, death-squads were a normal method of border rectification.
 

abc123

Banned
Since the end of WW2 Europe has mostly been peaceful. Germany, France, England, Spain, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, have gone 65 years now without any major wars erupting between them. Now we have an organized European government, a continental currency (imperfect but mostly intact), and borders where people now frequently cross without having to show papers.

What caused it?


Defeat of Germany and Pax Americana.
;)
 
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