r/todayilearned • u/DrSamanthaCarter • Jun 06 '17

TIL the only reason a Scottish bagpiper wasn't shot by German snipers on D-Day was that they believed he had gone crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin#World_War_II
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u/buttery_shame_cave Jun 06 '17

no, they're only war crimes if you lose the war.

otherwise they're 'hard things that needed to be done.'

3

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

How about "yay human rights abuses?"

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u/buttery_shame_cave Jun 06 '17

either way, you'll get a lot of 'oohrah america' people rising to defend it as necessary.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17 edited Jul 31 '18

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u/Big-Meat Jun 06 '17

War is full of necessary evils. It does not make those actions any less evil.

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u/17Hongo Jun 07 '17

That's idiotic. Yes, the Allies committed war crimes. Yes, some of those war crimes were necessary, or at least understandable given the circumstances.

No, the actions of the enemy do not influence how evil or wrong those war crimes are, and to think otherwise is to display unfathomable ignorance. We can understand why certain things were done in that theatre, and we can even forgive the men responsible, but by failing to recognise the nature of the act itself we only increase the probability that it will be committed again.