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Ghettoizing people, Kristallnacht and the experiments on people began before 12/7/1941...while the "Final Solution" hadn't been enacted yet, the massacre of humans had already begun. Plus, the war in Europe had already been raging for two+ years when the US entered and many civilians had been murdered by Nazis already.
Yeah, not to sound callous but there were massacres going on pretty much everywhere. I assume you would've been in favor of invading the Soviet Union during the deliberate famine in the Ukraine, right?
My argument is that when something 'wrong' is done (gassing jews, for instance), it's wrong. Just the same as distributing smallpox infested blankets to Native Americans was wrong of the US. Just as holding other human beings as slaves was wrong. It was all wrong. But wrongs are not the sole domain of the US. And if you people can support an argument that actions by the US have been wrong, then you obviously know that there is a 'wrong.' So quit playing games. All crimes against humanity are wrong (unless you are a sociopath) and the label of 'wrong' should be applied proportionally to whomever perpetrated these atrocities.
I agree with all this.
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So as for WW2, you can take your pick of all the combatants
There's where you begin to go off the beam. Yes I certainly can take my pick of all the combatants. But I sure as hell don't have to. I can pick none of the above.
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You can choose the allies who, YES, did commit some obvious violations with respect to the human rights of innocent people, or you can pick the axis side, who intentionally committed mass murder—not just a few, but millions upon millions based on race, national origin, mental condition, and political view.
If burning entire cities off the map is not mass murder, I'm not sure where else we can go with this. That's not even mentioning the 1.7 million Germans killed in reprisals and population transfers after the war was over. Statements like "did commit some obvious violations yadda yadda yadda prove the point that YOU are whitewashing the Allies, WE are not whitewashing the Axis.
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Yes, the US locked away their own citizens of Japanese heritage.
I don't remember having brought this one up, unless to answer the sometimes heard, but specifically pointed question, "Why did the Germans build concentration camps if they weren't planning a Final Solution all along?" Obviously we had concentration camps and no genocide, which proves the small but salient point that concentration camps =/= genocide.
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It is a mindset that forgoes reason and common sense and embraces emotionalism, which is never a substitute for logic.
Believing that you can save, or dramatically improve the world with rifles and bayonets and napalm and atoms is an emotionally based view. Logic, since you are its apparent patron, is heartless. It is cynical. It doesn't go much for delusions of heroism. In other words, it's a lethal enemy of the whole patriotic interpretation of WW2.
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I can generalize that pretty much the whole world sucks in that regard and each nation is guilty of its own horrors. Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature, at least for a portion of us. For the rest, it's a matter of finding the lesser of the evils and trying to lead, hopefully, a peaceful life.
The trouble is, that the lesser evil doesn't always let you lead a peaceful life. At which time you move to Spain or Ireland or Switzerland.
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When someone (such as me) defends the US from these sorts of slams on this thread, it's not because I, or we, are 'captain America.' It's just that we all realize that it's not necessarily better in this respect, and in many cases much worse, elsewhere. I am by no means a 'captain America' type. Number one, I don't even believe in government of any kind, but recognize it (given the social mentality of our species) as a necessary evil (and of course one would hope to minimize that evil). Number two, I can name several countries that, if I could gain residency within (legally!), I would leave right now. I have no great love for any nation (although I do acknowledge and appreciate the freedom I am afforded here in the US), but I have a hard time reading slanted, one-sided, biased BS. If you are going to call something unjust or wrong, call it wrong across the board, put your burning cross down, and quit singling out the United States as the bad guy, when all nations are in this pot together and all guilty to one extent or another--and its that extent you need to take into account in your reasoning.
While I find Rush Limbaugh a loathsome figure, I can't help calling to mind his slogan: "I don't need equal time; I am equal time." No serious-minded person needs to explicitly repudiate Nazi Germany in a society where the mere mention of Hitler's name causes a frisson of dread, unlike the name of any other tyrant. Whereas it's entirely necessary for conscientious people to denounce the American jingoist version of events, because it's based in fraud and hypocrisy, and because nobody ever does it.
Can you imagine if Hitler had developed nuclear weapons first? I don't think we'd be speaking any language. I think WWII was the only case of a justified war for the US in the last 150 years or so. Of course war mongers have used that as a justification for every case of American imperialism since then like Vietnam, interventions in Central and South America, Iraq.
Can you imagine if Hitler had developed nuclear weapons first? I don't think we'd be speaking any language. I think WWII was the only case of a justified war for the US in the last 150 years or so. Of course war mongers have used that as a justification for every case of American imperialism since then like Vietnam, interventions in Central and South America, Iraq.
Entry into the war was not required for successful development of defensive weapons systems; and none other than J. Robert Oppenheimer didn't believe that either the Germans or the Soviets would ever have been able to build an atomic weapon on their own. Not least because Germany had long since expelled all its best minds, and because the Soviet's view of science was hobbled by dialectical oddities of various kinds.
Can you imagine if Hitler had developed nuclear weapons first?
Their military also had a means of deployment in the ongoing V2 rocket development--the closest thing at the time to an ICBM. The range was limited, but they were working on extending it. They also had plans for submarine based launch of conventional V2 rockets into cities within the US, and to arm the V2 with chemical and biological weapon payloads for general deployment. No doubt if they would have had the time to do that, or the time and 'minds' to develop nuclear technology, things could have gone much differently for them.
Their military also had a means of deployment in the ongoing V2 rocket development--the closest thing at the time to an ICBM. The range was limited, but they were working on extending it. They also had plans for submarine based launch of conventional V2 rockets into cities within the US, and to arm the V2 with chemical and biological weapon payloads for general deployment. No doubt if they would have had the time to do that, or the time and 'minds' to develop nuclear technology, things could have gone much differently for them.
If they had the capability of delivering an atomic bomb to the US, they would have delivered at least one conventional bomb over the US. An atomic bomb of a city in Europe would not have killed any more civilians than when out own heroes firebombed Dresden. If Hitler had bombed several European cities, it would have done no more damage than what we did to Japan, which they recovered from very quickly.If we had not entered the war, the Germans would have had no reason to bomb us, without first subduing all of Europe, which is not a given. Florence Chadwick could swim across a body of water that the Germans failed to cross with armed ground forces in four years of effort.
...If we had not entered the war, the Germans would have had no reason to bomb us,...
Of course not. They already had too many 'irons in the fire,' so to speak. They certainly didn't need us added into the mix. But I think we can agree that they did have some pretty effective military R&D going on at the time--and, of course, they have always been noted for their industrial capability.
I'm certainly not claiming that had the US not entered the war, Germany would have won the war. 'World builders' have never succeeding at any point in history. Some have done better than others for a time, but they've always met their Waterloo somewhere along the line.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, full of crock/sh*t/crap wrong.
We, fighting for democracy? Please, give us a break. We were fighting for money. We placed so much money (i.e. credit) on the war that if we lost, Hitler would have been the least of our worries. When Britain went damn near broke we loaned them guns and weaponry on credit; the more we loaned the more we had to win the war to get our pay out.
Fighting for democracy was the line they told to the masses to keep them happy and pumping out machinery for the war. There is no democracy in fighting or war. Plenty of bloodshed, backstabbing, and one upmanship but democracy cannot be found.
Dude, do you even know a little bit about WWI and what was really going on? Did you know that at one point we considered joining Germany to defeat Britain (there were playing dirty, the Germans promised to stop using the submarines to sink boats and the British kept using their dirty tricks after the fact! Classic!). It wasn't about freedom or democracy, it was (once again) about money. War is always about money (or fulfilling some evangelical promise to God through force - i.e. the Crusades). It's the winners who write the history books and history is just agreed upon lies. Know your facts; there is always two sides to a story. Google, is truly your friend. Utilize it. Love it.
Are you seriously saying this? What if it was your son, your brother, your uncle, father, or friend that was used as cannon fodder simply to get into a war? Would you be singing the same tune? See, this is the problem with people who say we are fighting for democracy and all that other bullsh*t. They don't care until it is their relative or friend that dies for the use of furthering someone's political goals. They don't care until it's their parent, child, friend, or relative that gets their head blown off or holes shot in their knee caps that they were used for some irrevelant reason. Japan wouldn't have bombed us if we hadn't placed an embargo on their oil (and steel I believe) while we traded freely with G.B. If we weren't meddling in their affairs they wouldn't have had a reason to bomb us; contrary to popular belief, they didn't do it on abitrary grounds and had a reason for attacking us.
Because something known as guerrilla warfare was unheard of at that time.
Again, in WWII they knew who the enemy was. It's pretty hard to tell a child is an enemy until they throw a grenade your way.
Dude...
No. We dropped bombs on Japan because the war would've dragged on for much much longer. Japan had no intention of giving up even though they knew they were going to lose. They were going to take down as many soldiers as they could before it all went down in flames. Dropping those bombs just stopped the another million that would have been lost if we had kept fighting; hardly were we trying to show Russia what great huge balls we had.
OK, so you picked me apart, something I felt strongly about at 3 o'clock one morning and wrote off the top of my head. If we had lost in WWII, what would have been the end result? Occupation if they could have spread themselves thin enough. They would have ruled in the old "boot on the neck" style of government. You're right in that wars are always fought for economic reasons--"they have it, we want-need-desire it". Or, as you said for religious reasons, as in the Middle East for the last couple of millenia.You're also right when you say the history books are written by the victors. But, when you think about it, what are we? We're childlike emotional beings who from time to time can exhibit all sorts of violent and aggressive behaviors. If we are hit, we hit back. If you hit my friend, I go to his aid. If you take my ball, I chase you, smack you, and get it back. We are no different as adults. Our leaders will always feed you a line of crap to get you to do something. It's up to the individual to decide how far they want to take it. What I meant when I wrote about America being galvanized by the Japanese attack was that we went out the next day and said "enough is enough". As for cannon fodder SIMPLY to get into a war. There is no simply about getting into a war. At this point, Hitler was taking over Europe, toppling countries one by one, while his buddies the Japanese were taking over the Pacific one Island-nation at a time. The handwriting was on the wall. The Japanese had been exhibiting all sorts of terrible bahavioral problems. What had they been doing to Korea since the turn of the century? What did they do in China in the mid thirties? They had already killed tens of millions of people before we went up against them. You ask me how I would feel if it were one of my relatives who got hurt. I've been there. I grew up in Queens, NY. My whole family has been there for almost 100 years. I have a cousin who lost his son in the WTC attack. A kid in his mid-twenties who I watched grow up. He got a job at Cantor-Fitzgerald 6 months before the attack, got engaged 2 monthe before. I lost several friends with the fire department. It changes your way of thinking from "everythings OK, it's 6 thousand miles away" to "lets go fix them". The Japanese needed to be fixed. True we did use the atom bomb to shorten the war by a few months, That was maybe a bad thing to do from a moralistic point of view. But why not use it if you have it? Uncle Adolf would most have certainly used it if he could have gotten his hands on it. We probably did save a million men's lives by not having to invade the home islands. While we did use this weapon to end the war, we were also sending a message to our "allies" the Russians, who were only our friends through the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". That message was don't mess with us.
That's your standard of good behavior? Good to know.
We could've saved 1,120,000 lives by ending the war in July, as the Japanese were trying to do.
Yeah, the poor, poor Japanese were trying to give up. We'll surrender, but let us keep the Emperor. You know what they say "war is hell".
As for Hitler NOT using a tool of war if he had it at his disposal? The Germans had some of the most fantastic war machines ever seen. Panzer tanks Tiger tanks V-2 bombs. He had a jet plane, the ME-262, the first operational Jet Fighter. If he hadn't run out of time and pilots could have given them air superiority. You control the sky, you control the war.This all goes back to a basic fact of life- Never start a fight, but if you get in one, make sure you finish it. Simplistic. I live a Gandhi-esque life myself - turn the other cheek. Tired of getting two smacks for my troubles.
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Please, give us a break. We were fighting for money. We placed so much money (i.e. credit) on the war that if we lost, Hitler would have been the least of our worries. When Britain went damn near broke we loaned them guns and weaponry on credit; the more we loaned the more we had to win the war to get our pay out. 
