No one has yet made this obvious historical analogy, so I will
As you may have learned in high school history class, in 1914 Germany went to war with Britain. In a vein attempt to starve out their enemy, the German Navy set up a blockade of the British Isles in international waters.
In 1915, a civilian ocean liner,
the Lusitania, bound from New York to Liverpool was warned by the German government before departure that they put themselves at risk in breaking the German blockade. On approach, off the coast of Ireland, a German U-Boat attacked the Lusitania, sinking the ship and killing the civilian passengers.
Following the attack, what we would call today a "public relations shit storm" for Germany followed in the United States and Britain. The German government defended their attack on the civilian ship by claiming that it was the Lusitania that brought the attack upon itself by entering a "war zone", of which the crew and passengers had been warned. Germany also made the dubious claim that the civilian ship in fact "carried contraband of war", it "was naturally armed with guns".
Nobody much bought into the German propaganda bullshit and German officials were condemned in the international press as "war criminals", paving the way for the US entrance into the war against Germany in 1917.
Considering all that Germany suffered in the 20th century as consequence of aggression and imperialist action by their leaders, what nation would be crazy enough today to emulate such an example of behavior?
