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The Vietnam war which was meant to stop the spread of communism or Iraq and the war on terror, for me the Vietnam conflict wins hands down as however misguided and badly executed communism may be, it's a peacetime movement that is inherently democratic, and to send young men to their deaths solely to try and stop a political movement gathering momentum because you fundamentally disagree with their values is the work of the devil.   

War, what is it good for ?

This has a slight whiff of Dostey about it.  Next version?

Nazism was political?

Got some pretty decent poetry (Owen, Sassoon) and painting (Paul Nash) out of WW1.....books out of WW2, eg Catch 22, Slaughterhouse 5....and films about Vietnam, eg Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket.

Some of the WW1 poetry is very moving, very dark and hard hitting.

Not too mention Bakdricks attempt.

all war is a disgrace, a unnecessary waste of life

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/september/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310.html

Stalin killed more of his own people than Hitler ever did....communism was and is a nasty regime that to this day shows there real traits on a regular basis.
Only recently a certain Korean gentlemen wiped out family and friends because they were not a big fan of his way of ruling which is...well communism.
That said what has the recent war in Afhganistan proved...the Taliban seem stronger than ever which make it incredibly tragic that around 500 British troops have died...was it for nothing?
The Boer war between the Afrikans and the British was the first real modern war along with the tragedy that was the Crimean war.
The first World War for some reason is the war that is remembered as a hideous piece of modern history...it was because of the modern methods used by a few generals on all sides to use men as canon fodder on a momentous scale....incidently at the wars end around 1918 another 20/30 million people perished from the deadly Spanish Flu that spread around Britain and Europe.

So now to answer your question and this of course is just my opinion....for me WW2 was the most hideous war on account that just 20 odd years after WW1 the same happened again with even worse consequenses for millions of INNOCENT people not soldiers....Jewish civilians who never raised a finger in anger...the Romanies were wiped out almost...who did they ever fight against.
Clever people and Homosexual people killed for what they were....not because they were soldiers.
We are lucky in a sense...people born around the 1900's had two World Wars to live through(if they were very lucky)..and then in older age must have looked on with amazement when Vietnam came around....some may have been around to see the folly in the Falklands.

War is never far around the corner for any nation which brings me to a completely different question to the Scots who desperatly want independance.....in two world wars the home countries stuck together like glue under the UK banner to fight wars....millions of them died.
Have Scotland thought of this if in 200 years time a manic dictator decides he likes there whiskey...will they have there own army to defend itself....or will it rely on the UK for its defence.
Think we all know the answer to that one  which makes the meaning of the word Independant rather strange...because in essence they never will be.

According to Michael Gove, Balder's poetry doesn't reflect reality but is left wing/BBC conspiracy to denigrate the heroic British ruling classes' leadership of the Empire....much like Dickie Attenborough's Oh What a Lovely War

remember supermarioTV?

Boom boom boom boom......

I think the Sweaties have thought about this, and many have decided that they want no further part in the UK's anachronistic militarism...which is why they'll vote Yes.  

I think Cameron is just waking up to the fact that his historical legacy, will be like that of George Germain, the man widely blamed for the loss of the US.

PS Leefer, if you want to upset a Sweatie, spell it whiskey (American or Irish) rather than whisky (British)

You could counter argue that had WWII not happened, even more innocent people would have perished. Hitler and his cronies viewed anyone who wasn't 'Aryan' as inferior. Jews, Gypsies and Slavs weren't even human to them; they classed them as sub human. If the Nazis hadn't been stopped, who knows how many millions would have perished?

Always a surprise to me that we went into the second world war primarily using a free Poland as an excuse only for it to be swallowed up by the soviets post war and so remain definately not free for many many years.

Yeah, those kind of posters tend to stick in the memory.

Someone was trying to tell me the other day that more people have been killed in historical wars cause by atheism than by religious 'disagreements'.

I didn't do any study, but surely that can't be true?

The person was 'attacking' me after I had the temerity to question him after the UN's report on the Catholic Church last week.

Well Hitler was Christened a catholic and often referred to god in his speeches. Even if he wasn't religious himself then he certainly used religion to help empower himself. I think a catholic's involvement in WWII would sway the numbers somewhat.

Either way, I don't know how that could possibly justify the Catholic Church for covering up kiddy-fiddling.

I stupidly got involved when he said he was going to protest at the Scots vote to legalise gay marriage and it kind of spiralled from there.

Sadly I have read some comments from defenders of the Catholic Church who say that 'defrocking' priests for abusing children is punishment enough. Seems some of these people are totally brainwashed.

Anyway, sorry to get away from the thread a little.

So he questions the morality of atheists and then tries to defend kiddy fiddlers.

He sounds like a grade A tool to me.

I've had this debate before, it's not true. Religious types like to use this as a comeback to a jibe from athiests about the suffering and death caused by religion (which in itself does not directly refer to wars). Wars / deaths & violence directly caused by atheism or atheists is extremely minimal. Wars and deaths caused by people who didn't believe in a God have happened, but they didn't do it BECAUSE they didn't believe in a God, they were just power hungry tyrants. Some even believed themselves to be God.

And with regards to Hitler, he wasn't a strict catholic, however he did have a treaty with Vatican City. Not saying that the Catholic Church supported the Nazi's of course, but they certainly didn't seem to oppose them.

Like the Swiss.

I'm sure Hitler sent a gaggle of attractive looking boys to the pope and all was forgiven.

This is true, I'm sure there are very few atheist suicide bombers who before they detonate shout 'IN THE NAME OF NO GOD'

It would be more correct to say "in the name of religion". A lot of things are justified by some people in the name of religion. It doesn't make them right and it doesn't make that religion wrong.

Exactly your average nutter needs a cause and religion is a good one, especially as its such a hot potato now you are guarenteed the publicity that is sought.

I fear that any aspiration that less religion means less war is unlikley....

Well when you have religious scriptures that actively condone and even encourage the killing of people of different faiths, along with countless other atrocities, it's a tad difficult to exonerate that religion from all wrong doing.

I wonder how many wars have been started 'in the name of atheism'?

Wars are caused by people not things, faiths, systems or anything else....people, and its to do with greed, fear and power

None. However there have been plenty of examples of atheist regimes persecuting, murdering and torturing people who actively profess a religious faith, purely because of that faith. The Nazis are an obvious example, as are most of the various Communist regimes, some of whom are still at it today. As others have said, it's people, not religion or politics per se, that is the problem

And by the same tolkein you could say that the people were the problem in WWII, not Nazism itself.  ;) *

*No, I'm not trying to say Nazism is OK, incase anybody wants to make that leap of 'logic'

That's a he'll of an autocorrect you have on your phone flash

Ooops. That's just a bad hobbit, I mean habit, of mine.

Good point, well made, only slightly undermined by the Hobbit-ing :) Also applies to the examples of Communist oppression as well, and is equally valid as in both instances the ideologies themselves were inherently violent and repressive.

Truth is the first casualty of propagandolph in war

I disagree that Communism is violent per se.  Of course it was in the outworking, because, actually, those of us who believe in justice and also believe in freedom cannot have it both ways, human nature appears to be competitive.  Communism set up a structure which sought to manage and control that urge to compete, to avoid the winners and losers which typify most if not all societies; but at the end of the day, those who took control could not themselves live the philosophy they espoused.  So corruption and persecution followed.

Nazism was indeed violent - root and branch....but it was devised by people...and as with most evil (religious or other!) there may have been grains of truth and/or wisdom, or justified antagonism towards the Treaty of Versailles, or a whole lot of other bits and pieces which characterised early C20th Europe,which then grew into the despicable monster that Nazism was/is because people (and not only Hitler) saw their opportunity for power, and realised the power of fear and hatred for achieving their ends.

But it is always people.....psychology and sociology are so important for understanding history.

Where's doore these days? We need more doore

The Tolkien/Hobbit links to WW2 isnt to strange, Tolkien served in WW2, and the Nazi occupation of most of europe was the influence behind Orks, Mordor, Sauron etc etc