Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

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>This makes me lose respect for Piketty. There's a very clear difference between a country that comes out of two world wars, with everything all but destroyed, including millions dead.

Yes. The main difference being that Greece didn't invade anyone, didn't cause millions of deaths and didn't exterminate 6 million Jews.

Just over-borrowed. And it has paid for it with 5 years destruction of its economy (40-50% effective less buying power per person among other things and unemployment rates similar to the Weimar republic). Hey, Greece didn't even ask for its loans NOT to be repaid -- they just asked for a better deal, without heavy taxation and anti-business austerity measures that prevent development and make it even more impossible to reboot.

The idea that the first case is somehow more justified to relieve is ludicrous -- not to mention insulting to the victims of the Holocaust and WW.

[EDIT] Besides, the main historical reason Germany was "forgiven" wasn't that it had suffered losses too (war agressors have no right to complain about that), but because it suddenly was in the right place to serve as a nice Cold War ally, half to the West/NATO and half to the USSR, so both sides wanted it to be in good standing.

>Yes. The main difference being that Greece didn't invade anyone....

Actually Greece Invaded Turkey in WW-I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%...

Well, not exactly. You get a better context if you say that the two countries have a sweet little history going back to byzantium, where turks invaded, greeks invaded, turks invaded, greeks invaded, turks invaded,...

PS: And yes, it was the ottoman empire, etc, but that's semantics.

Does that change the fact that this was an invasion? Last time Ottomans invaded Anatolia was 12th century. Current Greece was invaded in end of 15th century. And Greece tried to invade Anatolia in 20th century.

Context, please.

Greece, the nation, emerged after liberating its land from centuries of Turkish (then Ottoman) occupation (with several failed smaller scale attempts at independence in between).

After the Ottoman Empire was collapsing, the succeeding regime, the "new turks" who created Turkey, started an ethnic cleansing attempt, killing millions of Greek Pontians, Armenians, Assyrians etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide

After a decade of this happening, Greece (and with the assistance and encouragement of Western powers) invaded Asia Minor, where 1.5 million of Greek ethnicity were still living among the other local populations. Then the Greek army had the not so brilliant idea to march forward to the inner Turkey, and they got slashed. A massacre followed, with the Turkish army slaghtering the Greek population of Asia Minor (including in a great fire), and creating huge swarths of immigrants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Smyrna

So, I'd say Greece paid quite hard for that "invasion", but also that: a) 1.5 million of your people living in a place, b) some centuries of occupation, c) a decade of genocide, more or less justifies some kind of military campaign.

Context was that Greek army invaded Asia minor during WWI, period. The reasons of the invasion is always justifiable by the invader.

That land was invaded by Turkish Tribes during 12th century. So historical occupation that far cannot be justified with 20th century invasion. Greek people living in the invaded areas were around %18 of the population.

Besides, Atrocities goes both ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalova_Peninsula_massacres_(19...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tripolitsa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarino_massacre

Edited for wording and some corrections.

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