Is patriotism an excuse for doing terrible crimes ?

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I'm not sure if this topic is entirely political or not but I seem to think that those people who go to war and found to committed horrible war crimes are still seen by their side as patriots who fought for their country even when they went on trial and punished. People like Karadzic and Mladic who committed atrocities in the Balkans had many fellow supporters in Serbia even after their trials and regard them as heroes but the Serbs accuse the Croats of terrible things, the Croats accuse the Serbs of terrible things, the Bosnians accuse the Serbs and Croats and the Serbs and Croats accuse the Bosnians of terrible things during the Yugoslav wars. I don't know if the judges who punished them were fellow Serbs or Croatian or Bosnian. I feel patriotism should never be an excuse for such abhorrent actions and those who commit them such be brought to justice and their fellow countrymen need to understand that it was wrong and atrocious crimes in war can not be justified.

IMO, patriotism can be dangerous. If you have a bigger club to hit your opponent with, you win. It ceases to be a matter of right or wrong

They have been killing each other and burning each other's houses down in that region forever,accept when there under the rule of someone else.The south Slavs were united against Austria and the Ottomans pre WW1.Then once they got there own Nation Croats killed 800,000 Serb Eastern Orthodox in WW2.Then there was peace under Tito,but when the eastern bloc fell,hell broke loose again,this time with Serbia/Montenegro as the aggressor.
The Balkans are just made for self destruction,there biggest holiday St. Vitus commemorates a war they lost in the battle of Kosovo,if that just doesn't say it all.

I like to think there's a difference between true patriotism and 'nationalism'. Nationalists may call themselves patriots but they are the ones who typically think that it's OK for their country to do anything they want to their enemies as long as it brings victory for them.

We're seeing more of that here in the US later, Nationalism under the guise of Patriotism.

Another thing about that region is religion.
Serbia and Montenegro are very Serbian orthodox
Croatia is very Catholic
Bosnia,Albania and Kosovo are all majority Muslim

It's not healthy for people who are so different to be all inside a small area,it's a crucible for the creation of wars.

Hmm kinda like the melting pot of different races, religions, and cultures here in the US?

Sorta reminds me of Old South Day here in Georgia.

Queens, all 100 square miles of it, has people from almost all the countries of the world who speak almost all the languages of the world.

Indeed, and the entire US is actually pretty diverse. We have all sorts of people living in this country.

I think it can be both a good and a bad thing.

The united States is one country,The Balkans were at peace with each other under Austria-Hungary and The Ottomans and under Tito's Yugoslavia.

The US is a federal nation and the Queens Kraftie talks of is part of the US as a nation.

With the Yugo Slav states or South Slav states you have many sovereign nations living in close proximity to one another all having very different national,cultural and religious identities and these nation have a history going back to 1389ce of being in conflict with each other.

This is comparing apples and oranges if you compare the South Slav nations with America.And America itself has had it's share of problems over the years with different religions,races and ethnicities.The civil war comes to mind,imagine if there was no strong federal government to work out all the problems,imagine how much worse it would be,look at todays riots,race is the main issue.And the Balkans had peace when they had a strong central government.

So in other words without a strong federal government the US would be in worse chaos than it is right now.

A lot worse,imagine if every state was it's own country,trying to work out,race,the police and riots.In some states it might be better in other maybe drastically worse.

My state has been virtually untouched by riots,after the Kenosha shooting Gov. Charlie Baker brought out the national guard and the rioters decided to stay home.Other states would fall into complete choas,or a state like Texas might go apeshit and just gun down the rioters in the streets and solve the problem that way,Texas justice.But Texas can't do that because there not a sovereign state.

Other states like Oregon and Washington have no back bone and have let the rioters take over and if they were countries they would now be puppet states of the rioters.There is no way we could survive this current crisis without a Federal government.

I agree, I think that explained why there was a civil war and religion I suppose played a part in it, I mean the victims of the Srebrenica Massacre, were Bosnian-muslims.

The Bosniaks (Muslims)aren't real popular in the region,there passionate muslims but are notoriously lousy muslims with a great love of sausage among other Islamic taboo's.

It is in fact the best excuse.

Committing terrible crimes for religious or ideological excuses usually require some additional sort of justification (although a *very* flimsy one will often suffice), while the Patriot™ can simply indiscriminately kill, torture, maim and rape anyone not part of his/her morally, physically and aesthetically superior nation, tribe or country.

And if the Patriot™ clearly commits a something utterly beyond the moral event horizon, he can usually expect lenience or secrecy.

Patriotism is also good physical exercise. All that chest-thumping will do wonders for one's upper body strength, so the Patriot™ will have an easier time punishing the Eastasians (or was it the Eurasians?) for existing within his ever-expanding Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere/Lebensraumsphere of influence.

Again, I think this describes Nationalism and not really Patriotism. There's nothing wrong with being Patriotic and loving your country, but there is something very wrong with thinking that your country is superior to all others to the point that other countries are subhuman.