Look, it's really simple. The question was, "Will the US military obey unlawful orders."

I pointed to one proven instance where they absolutely did just that. I didn't bring up rape or any of that, you did, but it actually makes my case even more solid. Not only did they OBEY those orders, they took them several steps further on their own. Abu Ghraib is an excellent example because there was a court case and therefore there's a lot of documentation.

There are a ton of other examples, especially from WWII onward, firebombing major German cities, nuclear attacks on Japan, use of Napalm in Vietnam. Treatment of POWs.... It's a very long list of debatable war crimes, many of which are poorly documented. If you want to pick one as a better example, go ahead, but building up straw men to attack when you seem to essentially agree with the thrust of my argument seems petty and ridiculous.

The bit about pop culture portraying New Yorkers as criminals, with the "stigma" leading some to intentionally lose their accents, that was pretty lame for an otherwise intelligent video. It gets presented as a researched fact when it sounds more like a ridiculous theory.

From my experience, current generations weaned on those movies shown in the clip would be more inclined to adopt that accent as just another affectation, tattoo, piercing, meme, avatar, email signature, sampling, bumper sticker.

And the bit about the accent losing favor after WWII, "as Americans were focused on their own identity, rather than maintaining ties to England". Sounds like something a college freshman would write at the last minute to fill out a 1000 word essay.

I play Insurgency and the WWII mod they just released for it and I always have to hit the headphone mute button at the end of each round. Because like clockwork you have squeaky-voiced 10 year olds screaming allah akbar and heil hitler directly into their mics. Idiots.

Maybe she left out some ingredients she took for granted? I dunno, or it was all just bland ass food built off of post depression/WWII tastebuds. If her grandma was like my grandma, she was born in the depression, all the men in her family went to WWII, Korean War, she's a product of the Cold War, sons in Vietnam, and on and on -- she's had some rough first world problems shaping her from the get go. Poor ass family and then living off grandpa's Navy pay check.

So it may also be a way to make do with very little. My dad has some stories about my grandma feeding him some nasty concoctions and he declares spam no more. Grandma, despite having money now, still makes some gross ass food made out of random cheap things from the grocer. Campbell's + ANYTHING. Spam + ANYTHING. Saltine crackers, baby. That's the story of one of my grandma's at least.

Your video, WWII Vet Richard 'Bud' Peterson on The Etiquite of War, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 7 Badge!

It is in some ways far more terrifying to have these type of individuals around and even the REMOTE possibility that they will implement any of their "solutions", rather than the threat ISIS poses to us.

For example, the one individual who thought it was getting to the point (which is absolutely mind-blowing since this person has a better chance of knowing a victim of one of the many gun-massacre assholes, rather than any ISIS encounter) were we needed to re-use the VERY badly implemented and all-around bad idea internment of Japanese U.S. Citizens during WWII. But, like Trump and all of his gaffs and mistakes, he's doubling down and telling everyone that this is definitely something that needs to be looked at.

I'm actually amazed these people can walk through their house at night while it's dark! The amount of phobia and absolute paranoia is amazing. It is RAMPANT amongst the republican candidates; you simply don't hear the same "type" of rhetoric from the left (not yet, anyway).

ISIS is winning without EVER setting a foot on U.S. soil and even if they HAVE, they STILL have achieved more in some ways than Al Queda did. Al Queda was only the boogyman in the closet after 9/11 (except to those of us paying attention and knew damn well who it was on that day because they already tried it once) was carried out and time went by (after all it needed to be "confirmed"; THEN they were terrifying...).

ISIS could commit to ONE crime and the amount of absolute hysteria on our news cycle and amongst our own people will probably make sure we see to it that an NEW federal organization is created to protect whatever they target; if they target a Hostess factory, we'll have a federal agency in one year to protect our precious and vital Twinkies from the harm that may come to them...

This is the craziness John is speaking of. I have NO idea what to do to make Americans dial it down to five rather than eleven for every negative event to happen, including the way they think they need to react to said event.

Hopefully, we have leaders that can react to these events in a much more balanced approach (like, well, Obama).

Thinking of you. Miss your bon mots and perfect English.

My cousin just helped an ailing former POW from WWII write his memoirs. I thought of you when he told of crossing a bridge with a huge unexploded bomb wedged into it.

She did some research to pad out his few memories, and added a story about unexploded ordinance being found in... Frankfurt? During construction?

I can't remember the details, but I do know that when it first happened you sent me a link to the discovery of the bomb.

Hope all is well.

I can, almost, oblige... watch this *related=http://videosift.com/video/WWII-Newsreel-of-Exploding-Sodium video. The first barrel is close to what you're after.

WWII Newsreel of Exploding Sodium has been added as a related post - related requested by oritteropo.

We're also living in the most media-reported time ever. Where our "news" organizations have become propaganda machines.

There's a valid point of "It's never been this bad." is actually "I've barely heard of this before."

Ant submitted http://videosift.com/video/The-Fallen-of-World-War-2-WWII a few months ago. At the end the narrator puts forth the Most Peaceful Time conclusion as well.

@Lawdeedaw

There's so much factually wrong here, I don't know where to begin. Let's start with this:

"That rape and mutilation has been going on for centuries but was significant in the Second Sino-Japanese War, a distinct war in and of itself."

Japan was in a state of almost complete isolation from the rest of the world between the years of 1633 and 1853. Even after the period of isolation ended, Japan was too busy for decades industrializing to be rampaging through China, as you suggest.

Japan DID eventually get involved in Chinese politics and in fact went to war with them in the First Sino-Japanese War... in 1894. There are no reports of atrocities committed by the Japanese military during this conflict. In fact, quite the opposite, Japan would release Chinese prisoners of war once they promised not to take up arms against Japan again.

The subjugation of Taiwan (which was ceded to Japan at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War but resisted Japanese rule) is a different story. However, accounts of what exactly happened are sketchy and most of the information we have is anecdotal. What can be gleaned from these anecdotes is that the Formasians put up a fierce guerrilla resistance campaign and that the Japanese tortured and killed anyone suspected of aiding the resistance. Still, it doesn't appear to have been on the same scale as the massacres which occurred during the Rape of Nanking.

As you mentioned, some of the most awful abuses were done during the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945 (the Rape of nanking occurred during this war). The abuse ended Japan's defeat in WWII.

What you can see here by doing the math, is that Japan's military abuses in China lasted a grand total of 50 years--from the subjugation of Formosa (Taiwan) to the end of World War 2--not "centuries."

Next, let's talk about misrepresentation. You seem to be implying that Japanese textbooks don't say that Japan is the aggressor in WW2 (or previous conflicts). As I pointed out in my last post, that is flat-out wrong. There is ONE textbook that was approved for use that whitewashes the history but that book has been ignored an not used by the vast majority of schools in Japan.

If you want to criticize Japanese textbooks, you could criticize them on the grounds that though they mention the terrible things that Japanese forces did, they don't go into a whole lot of detail. See this article for more information.

As far as Abe goes, what exactly has he said that is so terrible? Yes, he hangs out with revisionists. Yes, he has expressed his opinion that Japan should stop apologizing for WWII and start looking to the future instead of the past. Yes, he has said that the issue of "comfort women" should be re-examined in light of claims that some of evidence of their existence was fabricated. But these are not really radical statements by any means. And many people and newspapers do strongly and openly disagree with his statements, so this idea that Japanese people don't challenge him is completely wrong as well.

Yasukuni is a total clusterfuck of a situation. It is a shrine to ALL of Japan's war dead. This includes war criminals, but it also includes regular soldiers just doing their duty. In terms of Shinto beliefs, all of their souls now reside there. Basically, if you want to pay your respects to someone who died in military service in Japan, you have to go there to "see them."

Abe is a total dumbass (and the press let him know it) for going there because he knows already how China and Korea will perceive it, but on the other hand his going there does not mean in any way that he reveres the war criminals who are interred there. I have no idea what his personal views are but publically he has stated that he and his wife go there to remind themselves about the terrible toll war had on Japan the last time Japan engaged in it.

Finally, as for the link you provided, it was to a year-old opinion piece that lacks context. Abe made that statement at a time when it was revealed that some of the evidence of the existence of comfort women in Japan had been faked. It was later decided that the apology would not be changed. In fact, The Japan Times is reporting that it is likely that Abe will mention that "comfort women" had their human rights violated by Japan in his upcoming address on the end of WWII, so the comparison of him to Ahmadinejad is a bit far-fetched.

Actually, Japanese kids learn about Unit 731, the rape of Nanking, and the issue of "comfort women" (though they are still not called by their proper term "sex slaves"). See here for more info.

What is controversial is that the right-wingers managed to get a textbook approved by the Ministry of Education that whitewashes Japan's military past--a textbook, by the way, that was shunned by almost every Board of Education in Japan (it was used by only 0.039% of the schools in Japan).

The notion that Japanese people are unaware of the crimes committed by the Japanese military during WWII is utterly false. As I mentioned, there are revisionist right-wingers out there who are actively working to change that but so far they have been unsuccessful.

Your video, The Fallen of World War 2 (WWII), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

It's interesting---against the United States Navy's 3rd Fleet, Japan's attempts to to use islands to hold a perimeter against the United States in WWII, while certainly causing the issue to be in doubt from time to time, ended up stranding and wasting more resources than not.

Not that we'd ever get to a hot war except through miscalculation and bad judgement---but defending each of those "islands" against a full strike might get tricky.

But this is the internet and I could easily be wrong.

Has ChaosEngine left New Zealand? Is he living in the US now? It is remarkable how much time he spends thinking of the US and how awful it is.

Did we invade NZ? I suppose our troops were there during WWII when we were trying to keep the sword-happy Nipponese from playing 'who can lop off the most heads this week' game.

Sorry to inconvenience you.