MaiLuk Posted September 2, 2005 Report Share Posted September 2, 2005 And no, the US did not "commit everything" to Europe during WW2. You can clearly see that if you have a look at the casualty statistics of WW2. If i rememer correctly the US is rather at the bottom with only about 200.000 dead (no civilian casualties) - a miniscule number compared to the other major warfaring powers. This is in reply to allholk also. The US committed everything to the european theatre. The war in the pacific took a major back seat. Mcarthur who ran the pacific campaign complained bitterly about the US decision to commit the lion's share of all resources to europe. It was decided by the president and the US military (probably with some persuasion from churchill) that germany posed the most significant threat to the world. So Mcarthur had to deal with japan with the assets that were there and new assets all went to europe. When you say the europeans took more casualties. Of course they did the war happened on their backyard. What more could the US have possibly done? Every factory in the US was converted to war material production. 10 million american men and woman joined the military, the woman filled the factory positions at home, and on D day the US and the Brits went in together. The US economy was stretched to the max and the military in the pacific surrendered the phillipines and other places to the japanese cause they had nothing to fight with. On the western front, once the US got involved, who took the most casualties? The US. If there was something more the US could have committed to the effort i would like to know what. The result of the complete militarization of the USA during wwII (its what i call giving it their all) is pretty well known i hear you guys lamenting it repeatedly in this thread . And no, even after the war the US did not commit everything to rebuilding. It did though commit everything to rebuilding its own stragegically important positions. Germany was one. It is interesting to note that America's partner Britain has had food rationing far longer than its former enemy, now startegic partner, Germany. Not sure what you are getting at. Germany had more food? East Germany was home to an increasingly difficult and expansionist soviet union so of course we worked on fortifying germany. Why do you imply some dark motive to it? It was simple. We were all in it together, so we all worked together. The US government knew very early that at no time the arsenal of the Sovietunion came even close to being a real danger in military terms. Only the US population did not know those facts. This is now common knowledge. The US did not know early on. U2 flights were operating in dangerous airspace because we did not "know". The missile gap that didn't exist was not discovered until much later. And the missiles the soviets had most definitely were a threat to the west contrary to your assertion. The soviets had missiles pointed at europe and the US just not as many originally suspected. If you are saying that the US did not need to build a trillion missiles of its own, well you won't get an argument from me on that point. Special interests run the US congress when it comes to the military. Your good friend Rumsfeld :: is trying to change the services but good luck is what i say. You conveniently generalise "communism", you, and the US governments at the time, ignored that the illfated ideology of communism had many different directions - from more socialist peasant liberalisation movements, strict stalinism, maoism, nationalist-communist anka madness of Pol Pot, and many more. Many of those ideologies are actually not that far away from the founding principles of the US itself. Wrong. The founders of the US were fanatical believers in freedom of religion. The right of private citizens to own property was a real big deal to these guys and the courts of law were in place primarily to protect private property rights and contracts. They believed that people should be free to pursue their interests (i.e. engage in business and make big money). All of that is anathema to marxism and communism, in fact marxist ideology is premised on the workers rising up (with some persuasion by the so called intellectual elite) and destroy the whole capitalistic structure described above. To allow communism to spread can be a major problem for capitalist countries. I'm sure you will agree that without markets to expand into, capitalism will slowly strangle. A country that falls to communists takes their markets off line and if you want to piss off a capitalist start taking away his (potential) markets. Pol Pot - he was a communist. The US wanted to counter the viets and he was looking like a possibility. Who knew he would turn out the way he did? And there was no way the US was going into to cvambodia after the viet fiasco and if they did i'm sure it would be seen as another example of US militarism. I do seriously question the actions of the US, or, better - of the few powerful families there, since WW1 (actually, even way before WW1, counting the indian holocaust as well). From what i can see, it is a history of hypocracy, of bending facts, reinterpreting history with one single result - the same leading families in the US always came out on top. I don't know what this is about. R U talking about political families or the big time wealthy families? You know, in today's economy the world is organized along corporate accumulations of wealth. The ownership of alot of the biggest companies is spread out over many thousands of owners. Other huge companies themselves take ownership positions ion large companies. Now if you follow chomsky you will be severely misled because he does not understand the profit motive and interprets all large corporations as evil entities (never mind that a corp is not a person they are evil that is his position). So if represerntatives of a corporation bribe some officials in africa because thaty is the only way to do businees there, chomsky concludes that the entire multi billion dopllar corporation is evil. Not joking. This guy is immensely popular in the US don't know about europe but his arguments seem to come out in this thread. Anyway, i like a good conspiracy theory (sometimes they are true) so i would like to know what families are running the US. In the end you and i will agree that it is not the "people" running the show but we may have a different idea of whio are the real mover and shakers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Reading your post i have to assume that two or three decades from now you will state that the US has committed everything to help the world with the "war against terror". And with your droll believe and trust in the basic good of the US you will be insulted/astonished again that most humans do not share your convictions. What possibly could the US have done, you ask? Just don't get involved - clean up your own country first before saving the world (and make a nice profit at the same time ). Recent events in New Orleans show rather well that there is a lot to clean up in the US - a tornado and a flood, and instead of getting on with it like other societies when hit by a natural catastrophy, your folks go bonkers, shoot each other, shoot national guards (the few that are not fighting in Iraq) - basically - let chaos and mayhem prevail. Rather shocking, wouldn't you say so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 ALHOLK said: The guy seems like a person who has given himself a religious mission of sorts. Which is what makes him dangerous. We agree! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaiLuk Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 >>And with your droll believe and trust in the basic good of the US you will be insulted/astonished again that most humans do not share your convictions.<< My convictions are rather more complex than believing the US is "good". If you notice there are many posters in this thread who criticise the US and i don't take issue with them. My posts are directed at the "everything the US does is evil" crowd. So when someone says the US is evil for fortifying germany i state the obvious counterpoint that seems to have eluded them. Does not follow that i have the opposite view of the "US is evil" crowd. >>What possibly could the US have done, you ask? Just don't get involved - clean up your own country first before saving the world (and make a nice profit at the same time ). << C'mon now, you would not really want the US to stay at home. If they did, say good bye to S Korea, taiwan, and in the past germany would have been unified but not under a gov that would let you complain about it. So you may hate the US but you can still put its fanatical and astronomically expensive build up of its military to some self serving use as others seem to have done (like the Saudis). >>Recent events in New Orleans show rather well that there is a lot to clean up in the US - a tornado and a flood, and instead of getting on with it like other societies when hit by a natural catastrophy, your folks go bonkers, shoot each other, shoot national guards (the few that are not fighting in Iraq) - basically - let chaos and mayhem prevail. Rather shocking, wouldn't you say so? << Not shocking really. There are war zones in the US that are off limits to your middle class types even without a disaster to set things off. So why does the US not fix that problem? The good folks who really run the gov have no interest in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 I have to agree that at the present moment the US has entangled itself so far into the world that it can't just stay home anymore. But it could start disentangling itself. Well, that is wishful thinking I believe that there would have been no WW2 if the US stayed at home during WW1, and that Hitler would have been just another raving loony in a beerhall. But that is hypothetical. What the people of the US could do though is accepting how much they were screwed by the ones who run the show there, and to what extend they were/are used as cannon fodder to screw the rest of the world. And to stop letting them get away with it. But that is wishful thinking, again. You mentioned that the ones who are running the show have no interest to fix the problem inside the US. If they aren't why would they have the slightest intention to fix problems somewhere else, other than what gives more power and money to them? Terrorism "threatening our way of life"? Bullshit. Those organisations are just a disturbance. It just keeps people occupied so they won't watch where they actually should. What is really threatening our accustomed way of life in the long run is that the US has slowly turned into a strange sort of feudalism - the most powerful country on earth since Rome. I can't even have a fucking spliff anymore without getting paranoid because the US deems it criminal and forces every country to adopt their druglaws. What is the "freedom" in that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evel_Penivel Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 sourkraut said: I can't even have a fucking spliff anymore without getting paranoid... You want to take it easy with those spliffs, sourkraut. It seems you already have a strong streak of paranoia that doesn't need aggravating, but most importantly, you need to conserve the brain cells you have left. In the meantime, enjoy the colors of twelve and the sounds of blue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Hi! The US committed everything to the european theatre. The very fact that there was a war in the pacific counters this statement. While in no way diminshing the American contribution to the war effort in Europe I still claim that the US war was mainly in the pacific. It was decided by the president and the US military (probably with some persuasion from churchill) that germany posed the most significant threat to the world. They were probably right but the fact remains that the US didn't enter the war when Germany invaded Poland. They waited until they they were attacked at Pearl Harbor. On the western front, once the US got involved, who took the most casualties? The US. I fail to see how takeing casualties is a criteria of war effort. Have you seen the movie "Patton". It starts with a scene where general Patton is adressing his soldiers. His very words are - "No son of a bitch has won a war by dying for his country. You win wars by making the other sons of bithes dying for their country." This was a movie and I have no idea if he ever said this. However if he did he must be one of the greatest generals that has ever lived. Those who rant about the "honor" of dying for your country are generally those who stand very little risk of dying themselves. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 <<I can't even have a fucking spliff anymore without getting paranoid because the US deems it criminal and forces every country to adopt their druglaws. What is the "freedom" in that? >> Finally we get to the root cause of your US rantings :: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 17, 2005 Report Share Posted September 17, 2005 uhmmm...spent the whole evening yesterday faced with islam issues... started rather harmlessly when my muslim associate tried to check in the jewish run hotel across a synagogue I usualy stay in in Paris and were I booked a room for him. Not sure he told something like "Inchala you give me a good rate" but I had the manager on the line asking for higher rate and ended up cancelling all reservations for months to come. Not sure that's what motivated the rest of the evening but followed in the cinema watching Paradise Now , the story of two palestinian guys who go for a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv. Interesting movie and opinions presented although nobody pointed that if the Gaza strip looks like such a jail it's not only because israeli don't want palestinians. They're not welcome in Egypt either. The end is a long silent and it's pretty fair from the film maker not to offer evident solutions. Bleak palestinian horizon for sure... Than came back home and started to watch a french movie about a french guy from algerian ascent going back to visit his relative in Algeria, country hardly appeased after the long lasting slaughtering there. Movie ends with the main character and his cousin beeing abruptly pulled over by armed militia when riding a moped more or less on the way back to France. They're speaking in arab so it's difficult to understand but someone screams "Allah Akbar" and as too usual when the forgiving god is greated lives are taken away. The two boys get shot and within a few seconds their live has tilted and the movie's over. "Allah fuckingAkbar" talk about mass dellusion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 18, 2005 Report Share Posted September 18, 2005 " if the Gaza strip looks like such a jail it's not only because israeli don't want palestinians. They're not welcome in Egypt either" Thinking about this last night, I remembered that the movie actually occurs in Naplouse, not in the gaza strip then, but same comments should apply Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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