Originally Posted by
Jenns
I think I have already made my point about the perceived symbolic significance of the statue in as few words as possible. I do not agree with most of your efforts for justification but that discussion would be endless and unproductive. As I mentioned before it is also irrelevant to my argument. The only thing I want to add is that I am in absolutely no way looking for "moral equivalence" or comparisons so please do not imply that. My initial provocation was just based on the observation that "following orders" is not an excuse. At least it brought up some decent arguments. Whether I agree with them or not is also not relevant.
You might consider using more words, since your points as they stand seem to suggest that you aren't aware of the whole moral equivalence debate, particularly that prompted by Jörg Frederich.
You also seem not to understand that the 'following orders' debate for Harris is much more complicated than you presuppose (see Grayling, Cox, Gray, Garrett and Burleigh to name but five, and probably lob in Richard Overy as well). This gives the impression that you'd quite happily have seen Churchill, Truman, Portal, Spaatz, LeMay, Sinclair, Cherwell and others treated no differently to those who set out to exterminate an entire religious faith, and who regarded millions of Europeans as racial inferiors.
It also means that you are, even if not intending to do so, eventually going to get to the point where we're suggesting that all the members of Bomber Command were war criminals too, because they were 'following orders'. It's far more complex and contested than your posts present.