Examples of wars with no real "good side" and "bad side"

[Tooting Carmen]

One of the common beliefs in the modern era is that wars always have to have the "good guys" and the "bad guys". But is this so? Quite apart from the rather obvious fact that all sides in wars commit often unspeakable atrocities, there are also times when the ideologies, beliefs and drivers of two opposing sides in a war may well be as bad as each other. Some possible examples:

(1) Spanish Civil War 1936-39

Contrary to the belief held by many people on the Left (and even some people on the Right), this wasn't a war between "democracy" and "fascism", but between two sets of fanatics and bigots. Long before Franco's forces launched their invasion from Northern Morocco, the Spanish Republican Government was regularly burning down churches (sometimes during Masses and even baptisms), as well as assassinating priests, businesspeople and others regarded as "bourgeois reactionaries". Of course these atrocities intensified even further during the war. All the same, one shouldn't underestimate how ruthless and brutal the Nationalists were too, both during the War and especially in the earlier years of Franco's dictatorship, quite apart from the extremely authoritarian policies and way of life imposed on the country by the regime.

(2) Balkan Wars 1991-99

The truth is that the Western media and politicians frequently overstated Serb atrocities, while downplaying or even totally ignoring Muslim and Croat ones. It was a war between several mutually hostile ethnic groups, and the plan for a "Greater Serbia" was only one albeit important part of it. Milosevic and Tudjman were pretty much of the same mold. Large scale rape, murder and ethnic cleansing were perpetrated by all sides in the conflict. Indeed, the US assisted Croatia in 1995 through Operation Storm, which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of several thousands of Bosnian Serbs, as well as helping put the KLA into power in Kosovo, who promptly targeted Serbs and Gypsies.

(3) Iraq-Iran War 1980-89

One of the few sensible things Henry Kissinger ever said was "it's a shame both sides can't lose!" While Saddam's Iraq was the original aggressor and invader, principally to grab its hands on the extensive oilfields in Western Iran, it is hard to sympathise with the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamist regime, which eventually decided to counter-invade Iraq and called for the Islamic Revolution to spread there and elsewhere in the Middle East.

[Stratagos]

"I wish mine were the last Spanish blood that spilled into civil ********* I wish the Spanish people, who are so rich in good qualities, could find finally the Motherland, the Bread and the Justice." José Antonio Primo de Rivera.

[B01AB20]

Once the spiral of violence is started it's difficult to say who are the good and the bad ones.

Both sides react to the atrocities done by the other and they feedback each other with a 'legit' desire for revenge and deep hate.

Who had the reason in the beginning?. Once the spiral of violence is started it doesn't matter anymore.

[Cristiano viejo]

(1) Spanish Civil War 1936-39

Contrary to the belief held by many people on the Left (and even some people on the Right), this wasn't a war between "democracy" and "fascism", but between two sets of fanatics and bigots. Long before Franco's forces launched their invasion from Northern Morocco, the Spanish Republican Government was regularly burning down churches (sometimes during Masses and even baptisms), as well as assassinating priests, businesspeople and others regarded as "bourgeois reactionaries". Of course these atrocities intensified even further during the war. All the same, one shouldn't underestimate how ruthless and brutal the Nationalists were too, both during the War and especially in the earlier years of Franco's dictatorship, quite apart from the extremely authoritarian policies and way of life imposed on the country by the regime.

BULLSHIT.
Of course there was a good side (Franco) and a bad side (lefties). Franco rised because as yourself have commented, lefties were burning churches and killing priests, raping nuns, etc

[Raslen3]

No war ever had a "good" or "bad" side , it is better to ask of any example of a "good vs bad" war .

[Papa]

I think people here are missing the use of the opposition good/bad in wars.

In a war, your side is the "good side", their side is the "bad side", and no matter the amount of atrocities committed by your side, you will still have to considerate your side as the good one if you want not losing moral or worse.

But, as someone said above, when the battle occur, the opposing forces are gonna fight for sure, being already indoctrinated about the goodness of their own cause.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

BULLSHIT.
Of course there was a good side (Franco) and a bad side (lefties). Franco rised because as yourself have commented, lefties were burning churches and killing priests, raping nuns, etc

No, he wasn't the good side. And the Republican government didn't send people to burn down churches. It was sporadic attacks from anarchists and communists that the Republican government couldn't control. Whenever someone uses dramatic language such as 'burning churches even during baptisms' I already know what's up.

A little history lesson for CV who thinks Franco's rebellion was the good side.

Morocco tackles painful role in Spain's past

NADOR, Morocco (Reuters) - Slimane Betmaki smiles at the memory of the terror he inflicted on Spanish villagers on behalf of former dictator Francisco Franco.

He and many of his comrades recruited to Franco’s cause still cling to a belief in the rightness of the fight against suspected sympathizers of Spanish communist “Rojos” (Reds), whom Moroccan conscripts saw as the enemies of religion.

Now 98, he recalls children, women and the elderly fleeing at the sound of the Islamic prayers he and his fellow soldiers chanted while attacking and destroying their settlements.

“We spared nothing and no one. We uprooted everything and killed everyone we encountered,” Betmaki said with pride.

“We chanted an Islamic prayer to praise the Prophet Mohammed before launching raids. Horrified Spaniards attempted to flee as soon as they heard the words of our prayer.”

Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards were killed in the 1936-39 conflict that Franco began after raising a rebel army in Spanish Morocco, and which saw the forces of the elected Republican government in Madrid defeated.

The war was a precursor to the ideological battles that dominated the 20th century and left deep wounds in Spanish society that are visible today.

Those wounds have been reopened, say conservatives, by Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has championed a new law forcing Spain to examine its murky past for the first time since Franco died 33 years ago.

Councils are removing symbols of the dictatorship and up to half a million descendants of Franco’s opponents forced to flee Spain are expected to apply for citizenship.

Local governments are having to help activists exhume some of the thousands of civil war mass graves still lying unmarked across the country.

Among them, forgotten by European history, are tens of thousands of Moroccan fighters, their burials unrecorded and their fate unacknowledged.

About 136,000 fought for the Generalissimo’s “Army of Africa,” the feared vanguard of a force that, ironically, Franco portrayed as a Christian crusade against godless communists.

The Civil War ended with the victory of Franco’s rebels, armed and heavily backed by fascist Italy and Germany, over the Republican government which received some support from the Soviet Union and Mexico.

SOURCES OF TENSION
The Moroccans’ role has further complicated uneasy ties with Spain, lying just across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Moorish sultans ruled in Spain for almost 800 years until Granada’s fall in 1492, an occupation that engendered a fear and suspicion of the “moro” that more than 600,000 Moroccans now living in Spain have to contend with.

Diplomatically, Spain’s possession of the north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla continues to rile Rabat, and there are other sources of tension between Morocco and its much wealthier former colonial master.

Twelve of the 21 men convicted of carrying out the al Qaeda-inspired train bombings, which killed 191 people in Madrid in 2004, were Moroccans. This deepened suspicions about Islam in sectors of the Spanish political right.

But Moroccan intellectuals and rights activists say the time has come to address the past to help expand cooperation with Spain, which ruled Morocco’s mountainous northern Rif region until 1956.

Some former “moro” fighters say poverty drove them to war.

“I was orphaned at 15. I lost both my father and mother because of grinding poverty and social misery. We suffered hunger and joblessness in the Rif,” Ahmed al Fisouni, 87, said referring to the northern region where many were recruited.

“I was among the lucky men to be accepted into Spain’s army. Spain gave us meat, fish, bread and fruits as good food on top of 50 Moroccan dirhams ($5.95) as a family aid alongside a monthly salary of 250 dirhams,” he added.

Asked whether he and other fellow soldiers were to be blamed for their killing of civilians suspected by Franco’s forces of sympathy with their opponents, Fisouni replied:

“We were like any other army soldiers across the world. We followed orders from our top commanders.

“For us, being in the army then was a chance to save ourselves and our relatives from starvation and misery.”

Moroccan rights activists in November set up the non-governmental Center for Common Memory and the Future to try to reach out to Spanish civic groups to change attitudes to the past and focus on cooperation.

“There is no doubt that Morocco had a role in Spain’s history and in a gloomy sense Morocco had links to Spain’s tragedy,” Laura Lorca, a niece of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, told the Moroccan newspaper Al Massae. Lorca was killed by Franco sympathizers and buried in a mass grave.

A bit ironic that the defender of Spanish Catholicism Francisco Franco unleashed Moorish troops onto Spain.

Speaking of Spanish Catholicism...

Here is another example of the fruits that came from the victory of the "good side."

In Spain, A Criminal Ring Of Nuns And Doctors Stole Hundreds Of Thousands Of Babies

Throughout much of 20th century Spain, a criminal network of doctors and nuns stole anywhere from 40,000 to 300,000 babies from their mothers at birth, constituting one of the most horrific yet least known events of the Franco dictatorship.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/stolen-babies-spain

[Cristiano viejo]

No, he wasn't the good side. And the Republican government didn't send people to burn down churches. It was sporadic attacks from anarchists and communists that the Republican government couldn't control. Whenever someone uses dramatic language such as 'burning churches even during baptisms' I already know what's up.

A little history lesson for CV who thinks Franco's rebellion was the good side.



A bit ironic that the defender of Spanish Catholicism Francisco Franco unleashed Moorish troops onto Spain.

Speaking of Spanish Catholicism...

Here is another example of the fruits that came from the victory of the "good side."

You are really idiot and manipulator. Not surprised why your family had to fled of Spain like rats. How can you say Republican gov. did not send people to burn churches, and a few words below you insinuate the Francoist regime was behind the stole of these children, fuckin motherfucker??

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

You are really idiot and manipulator. Not surprised why your family had to fled of Spain like rats. How can you say Republican gov. did not send people to burn churches, and a few words below you insinuate the Francoist regime was behind the stole of these children, fuckin motherfucker??

I can easily say the Republican government weren't behind the burning of churches because there is not only no evidence for it but there is evidence of them having difficulties with the Communists and Anarchists.

And yes I can say the Franco regime played a role in the kidnapping of infants because we're speaking of a few hundred of thousands over years and targeting Republican families only and given to families that supported Franco's rebellion and rule. You can't have a few hundred of thousands of infants stolen from their biological parents and not be aware of it. It also doesn't help that the government promoted it along side its major supporter: the Catholic Church.

My family left Spain because it was an economic shithole thanks to Franco's ignorance of economics.

Btw, have you been to a local mosque to give thanks to the Moorish troops? Without them those early military successes that were so crucial in getting Franco support from Spaniards who were on the fence on whether they should throw their lot with him wouldn't have occurred.

A tough pill to swallow, eh? Franco allowing Moorish troops to commit war crimes against his own countrymen.

[Tacitus]

I can easily say the Republican government weren't behind the burning of churches because there is not only no evidence for it but there is evidence of them having difficulties with the Communists and Anarchists.

And yes I can say the Franco regime played a role in the kidnapping of infants because we're speaking of a few hundreds of thousands over years and targeting Republican families only and given to families that supported Franco's rebellion and rule. You can't have a few hundred of infants stolen from their biological parents and not be aware of it. It also doesn't help that the government promoted it along side it's major supporter: the Catholic Church.

My family left Spain because it was an economic shithole thanks to Franco's ignorance of economics.

Btw, have been to a local mosque to give thanks to the Moorish troops? Without them those early military successed that were so crucial in getting Franco support from Spaniards who were on the fence on whether they should throw their lot with him wouldn't have occurred.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that a lot of the atrocities committed by the left during the war (in particular those directed towards the clergy) were in fact committed by Soviet NKVD agents in Spain, and not so much by Spanish anarchists and the like.