leonmarino said:
America's participation in WW2 for example, fighting Nazi's in Europe while African-Americans were second grade citizens in their own country; the only reason to free Europe was because the US was afraid that the commies would influence Europe too much.
I don't believe this bullshit. And that's what it is: bullshit. First of all, we fought a damn civil war to free African-Americans. Second of all, Jim Crow was a product of southern (i.e. Confederate, i.e. the losing side of the civil war) politics, not northern, and if you have a problem with it, take it up with Mike Cash. Thirdly, the philosophies behind American racism were founded in Europe, and touted by the likes of V. Gordon Childe and Gustaf Kossina. Racism wasn't born in America, it was imported along with European colonialism. Fourthy, if you read about the history of the U.S. Constitution, you'll read how plenty of northern delegates argued heatedly with southerners against slavery, citing that "all men are created equal".
Us racing to Berlin against the Commies and our entire involvement being an attempt to halt the advance of Communism is bullshit because we were
isolationist before the war. We didn't want to get involved at all. We figured the fascists and commies could blow the rest of Europe to hell and back. If Hitler hadn't declared war against the U.S., we would have focused all of our energy against Japan. If you read the December 8, 1941 newspapers, Japan is all over them,
not Germany.
If we were so damn scared of Commies as to require using the A-bomb to intimidate them, why wouldn't we have joined the Nazis and supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War against the Communists? Our fear of Communism explains why we allied with them? Guess what, guys, if we didn't land in France, the Soviets wouldn't have reached Berlin. Rudolph Hess, before Operation Barbarrossa, flew to England for the purpose of securing a peace with the British against the Communists. Winston Churchhill's Britain was so scared of the Communists that he told Hess to "piss off" and stayed allied with the Commies? That doesn't make sense. We
weren't as scared of Communism as you'd like to paint us to be. Stalin started gobbling up Eastern Europe and it turned out that Stalin had lied to Roosevelt at Yalta about Eastern European freedom. Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, were all democracies before the war. After the war, they were Soviet puppets with communist regimes. I guess you'd like to imply that we had nothing to be afraid of, huh?
The rebuilding of Europe and Japan was only logical to breed goodwill amongst the peoples and keep the countries controllable. They did a better job at forming the former enemy Japan to an ally than breeding goodwill amongst the European people, but that's beside the point.
I'm insulted. So damn insulted I can barely enunciate it. More Americans died in Europe than any other nation except for Russia. What do you think about the bridge at Arnhem? Breeding goodwill amongst Europeans? You rotten bastards wouldn't even have your own damn countries if it wasn't for us. You'd be speaking German. And guaging from your comments, it would serve you right if you were. Who bombed Rotterdam? And who rebuilt it? Where did that goodwill go, and whose fault is that?
As for the UN-US relationship, the US is the biggest debtor to the UN.
To the UN? We don't owe anything to the UN, we have been sinking billions of dollars
into the UN, and we don't get anything from it. We are the biggest debtor among UN nations, yes. But we are also the biggest spender, and all of the other UN countries' expenditures
into the UN don't even amount to half of what the US spends.
I can't stand it if people portray the US as being altruistic; the US bases its actions on self-interest, like any other country would. And the US is not "kinder" than the Roman Empire, the Mongols, the Dutch or any other world power from the past. Sure the leaders from the past have been doing some heavily cruel things, but in the time frame of their situation they were just as self-centered and aggressive as the US is our time frame.
You are so full of ****. American people independently gave more money to the tsunami relief than you Europeans did. On top of that, our government gave more money to tsunami relief than any European country's government did.
Yes we are kinder. And that "time frame" argument is a load of crap. When an empire existed is of no consequence, it does not absolve them of any actions. You cannot apply anachronistic morals. You claim that the Mongols were cruel, but common in contemporary terms, and then lambast us for Jim Crow (which was acceptable to both Americans and Europeans at the time). You imply that we were worse than our contemporaries in the early 20th century, but forget the French in Indochina, and the British in India and Burma. Either we were the same, better, or worse. Make up your mind.
Here's a case study for you. An 80-year-old German woman I know hates the European (especially English) soldiers because they shot at her and her sister, who were
non-combatants, during the war. She loved Americans because they gave her chocolate bars and asked her to dance. Now you tell me who the ******* in this case study is?
You happily compare the United States to horrific empires, but you fail to show one that is better in any way, shape, or form, just as I challenged you to do. Your dubiousness about our "kindness" is met with a claim that our government owes money, but you fail to challenge our financial charity.
osias said:
The US didn't have to conquer the Philippines, for example. No matter how hard you try to portray the US as an altruist, the US also did and does act as a perpetrator in many countries around the globe.
1) We got them from the Spanish, we didn't "conquer" them.
2) They have their independence. I seriously doubt Japan was going to let all that territory in their "Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" just go after they conquered it. Sixty years after the Spanish American War, the Phillipines are an independent democracy. Sixty years after capturing Korea, the Japanese were still firmly in control of it.
You also fail to confront how American dollars, food, and medicinals donated freely to people throughout poor countries is not altruistic. In fact, none of you can contest that. Americans are, by far, more generous than our contemporaries.
The title of one American history textbook: Triumph of the american nation. All you want to know is victor's history, blind patriotism, and a flag waving story of american achievement.
So, you are implying that Americans should all hate themselves and hang their heads for the horrible crimes they've committed? You people would paint a picture of the entire history of the United States as one of savagery, hatred, exploitation, and conquest, with no redeeming factors at all.
By the way, I've got four different American history textbooks, and they all admit the atrocities that we committed against the Native Americans. They all discuss the strife and problems caused by the south's refusal to relenquish slavery. And the US government has issued a formal apology to the Japanese Americans who it interned during the war.
The Japanese government won't even let its own schoolchildren know about Nanking. And they for sure haven't issued any apologies to Korea and China.
leonmarino said:
I think you misread my post there; there is no excuse for using the A-bomb. I think it should never have happened.
Next time you have a choice between letting a million of your own people die in a meatgrinder amphibious landing and being forced by the defenders to commit genocide because they are charging at you with bamboo spears, or dropping one or two bombs and killing only a few thousand, let me know. I hope you hold yourself to the former, rather than committing the latter.
caster51 said:
I think you guys are terrible....
A-bomd is the easiest weapon for massacre indiscriminately.
We didn't use it indiscriminately. The Japanese government was arming its own citizens with bamboo spears with orders to resist the invading Americans. And we were planning to invade in order to end the war like we (as well as England and Russia) had in Germany. The civilian casualties were projected to have been in the tens of millions.
Oh, and by the way, we never dropped the bomb on another country. In fact, Truman fired MacArthur before he could use the bomb on China during the Korean War.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki together claimed less lives than the British bombing of Dresden (which had no strategic significance whatsoever). And it claimed less lives than the Japanese did during the Rape of Nanking. Now, whose terrible?
As for Sukotto, you are so misinformed, I don't even know where to begin.
Sukotto said:
Later I learned that that wasn't exactly the reason for joining WW2, and most of the fighting in Europe was left for the Russians.
Where did you hear this? Are you implying that because more Russians died that the U.S. didn't fight as hard as they did? And you would, in fact, compare us to them? Half of the Russian soldiers didn't have weapons, and were ordered to arm themselves by cannibalising their dead "comrades". If they retreated, they were shot by their commissars.
Any opinion that the
primary reason Truman had dropped the bombs to intimidate the Soviets is revisionist garbage. Besides, you are linking debates, which means these topics are far from being settled.
As for disarming after the war, we did. We sent millions of men home. We started demobilizing as soon as we had won in Germany, even before we finished with Japan. As for maintaining a strong military presence, Truman didn't need to stir up Cold War fears, it wasn't America who blockaded Berlin. Nor was it an American who coined the term "Iron Curtain". And the Berlin Airlift is the definition of altruism. Americans died flying coal, chewing gum, and food to keep the Berliners from freezing and starving to death. So much for "just being a plain jerk" with a quote from a (then) isolationist Harry Truman.
And citing articles about Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky shows that you are about as biased against your own country as Goebels was against the Jews.
Hachiro said:
Maybe everbody would have just appreciated the US not getting involved in WWII. Then what kind of world would we have today?
GEL makes a great point there about that....like it or not...thanks to the good old U.S. of A. a lot of people's lives today are a whole hell of a lot better thanks to the US's generosity.
Thanks, Hachiro. And that generosity is very unappreciated by a great many people.
If we were so evil and manipulative, we wouldn't have given Mercedez-Benz and BMW back to the Germans, two companies that fueled the German war machine. We did the same thing with Mitsubishi and Fuji Heavy Industries. Mitsubishi is the company that built the Zero, which is
the symbol of Japanese aggression in World War II. These were companies that killed Americans. And British. And Russians.
It's so wrong to be afraid of the commies. Explain Berlin in '53, Hungary in '56, the Berlin Wall in '61, Prague in '68, solidarity in '80?
I am tired of all this "Americans were bad" and "Europeans are good" and "Communism wasn't so bad" logic. It is just an excuse to hate on the United States. It is America-bashing just to bash away at something. And if the United States wasn't the "big bad empire" but somebody else was, people would be hating on them. There aren't any Americans who run around these forums bashing foreign nations, leveling the finger of judgement on the imperial histories of countries from across the globe. In fact, many Americans, like Sukotto, have been brainwashed into thinking we are all-bad and that there that we have nothing positive to offer.
The truth is that, although the United States has done bad things, we are no worse than anyone else, and in plenty of ways we are better. Like I said, we gave more money to the tsunami relief than anyone else, both from our government and from our own pockets. If we were so interested in dominance and exploitation, explain why we'd be concerned with the well-being of Muslims halfway across the world that we don't even know.
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