[Wormwood]

So it is impossible to view a conflict from the point of view of one's enemies?

I wonder how much flak Aeschylus got when he wrote the Persians.

[ShadowDancer]

I read a book a few years back (for the life of me I can't remember the name of it) that was written by a WWII German soldier. I found it fascinating as hell.

[Verginius Rufus]

I doubt Aeschylus got any flak in Athens for his Persians. Xerxes comes across in the play roughly as George W. Bush does in the mainstream media, complete with unflattering comparisons to his father.

In the course of the Ionian Revolt of the 490s B.C., the Persians recaptured the city of Miletus, killing or enslaving most of the population (the rest were resettled in a town on the Persian Gulf). An Athenian playwright, Phrynichus, wrote a play about the capture of Miletus. When it was performed, the audience burst into tears; Phrynichus was fined 1,000 drachmas and it was made illegal ever to produce that play again.

[SampleMan]

So it is impossible to view a conflict from the point of view of one's enemies?

The Japanese tortured men for days for the fun of it, through babies in the air to see if they could catch them on their bayonets, killed more civilians with swords than both atomic bombs killed, raped women and then ate them. How far into that mind do you want to go?