Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
With about a quarter of the effort and sacrifice, and virtually without a single casualty, the US could have maintained a home front that would have successfully repelled any attempt to attack our shores. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese could have inflicted any significant damage within our continental borders. Even if they did get in a lucky shot or two, the losses would have been a tiny fraction of the war dead. Neither country had anywhere near the manpower to militarily occupy the USA and all of the other countries that they would have had to successfully overrun before that.
If America had stayed out of those wars, Europe would have played itself out, the African and Asian colonies would have belonged to a different colonial power, Germany and/or Japan would have fared no better than the USSR, and today the world would look very much the way it does now. Maybe with global wealth distributed a bit differently, and a little more or less democracy in a few places..
To say we would all be speaking German now is as simplistic and ignorant as to say the Hungarians all speak Russian now, not even counting the fact that our perimeter defenses would have kept the Germans out.
I agree we had no business fighting the Germans in WW2. The Japanese, yes, they invaded us, but we had no quarrel with the Germans.
Germany declared war on us immediately upon hearing we had declared war on Japan. Kinda hard to say we had no business fighting them. I'm always saddened by the lack of historical knowledge alot of Americans exhibit.
That aside we could have & should have played a much smaller role. Given the lack of gratitude I'd let the chips fall where they may next time around myself.
Not really sure what i means to be an intellectual sand trap but I will defend myself anyway. Now from my understanding of your argument you think america should have stayed isolationist, which I can understand. And I agree the Germans never had any intention of invading America, thats why we needed the Japanease to attack us. Without the Japs, who knows how it would have played out. I guess it comes down to a simple question: if you have the power to stop evil, do you have a responsibility to do so? even if it means putting people that were otherwise perfectly safe into harms way? Some say yes, some say no, and if you want to start an isolationist debate I would gladly join in, but this thread is comparing mexicans to nazis and that is deplorable.
OK, that's reasonable. Sorry about the sand trap thing.
Obviously you can guess where I stand on so-called isolationism, as well as the relative expediency of spreading an existing war in order to "stop evil."
Germany declared war on us immediately upon hearing we had declared war on Japan. Kinda hard to say we had no business fighting them. I'm always saddened by the lack of historical knowledge alot of Americans exhibit.
Both the war with Japan and with Germany were the result of a long string of provocations of them, by us. If you read Germany's declaration of war on us, they had some pretty good reasons. Not compelling reasons, but better than, say, our reasons for the invasion of Iraq.
Both the war with Japan and with Germany were the result of a long string of provocations of them, by us. If you read Germany's declaration of war on us, they had some pretty good reasons. Not compelling reasons, but better than, say, our reasons for the invasion of Iraq.
To make a statement on a separate issue that is directly related to some of the arguments I read on this thread: It doesn't matter who is being discussed--Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ghenghis Khan, or any other oppressor/sadistic mass murderer--some of you would defend them. It wouldn't matter if Satan himself came to earth and started murdering people by the billions, you would still defend him and justify his actions. To you, this country, the United States is ALWAYS in the wrong. No matter the issue. Always wrong. You loath this country. Yet, you have the freedom to ***** about it as you will. Do you think you'd have the right to do that under Hitler?
Typical illogic of the neoconized brain; living under Hitler wasn't one of the alternatives (unless people decided to emigrate there.)
Back when we were committing genocide in the Phillipines, do you wish the Germans had found a flimsy pretext to invade us and burn our cities to the ground? No? Then it's not okay the other way around.
We are not "the" aggressors? True. I rarely say we are "the" anything. But did our leaders intentionally maneuver this country into being attacked? They did. That isn't even debated any more, even among historians who excuse it.
Originally Posted by Tin Knocker ::: Germany declared war on us immediately upon hearing we had declared war on Japan. Kinda hard to say we had no business fighting them. I'm always saddened by the lack of historical knowledge alot of Americans exhibit.
------------
If a petty bully in some central African country declares war on the US, does that oblige us to go over there and create a fire-storm in one of their cities? Or can we just take note of their belligerence and think about what we'd do if their warships turned up off our shores? Man, it sure would be easy to sucker you into a bar-room brawl.
We are not "the" aggressors? True. I rarely say we are "the" anything. But did our leaders intentionally maneuver this country into being attacked? They did. That isn't even debated any more, even among historians who excuse it.
What unadulterated crap. The Japanese attacked us. There is no spin that you can put on that to make a ****-ants worth of difference. Until that point we were officially neutral in the conflict. You're right it isn't debatable. To assert otherwise is just bunk.
Why was the US in WWII? The same reason we were in WWI.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xrouteman
To defend democracy and freedom. We helped Britain and what was left of the useless French beat the Kaiser in the teens, made them de-militarize, but they were stung and embarrased enough to re-militarize and come back 20 years later.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xrouteman
When Hitler started taking over Eastern Europe, we figured "what is he gonna do cross the Atlantic to get us?" We had as isolationist stance, meanwhile, Chamberlain was getting very nervous, since he was the last domino staring down the barrel of the shotgun. As Hitler gobbled up more and more of Europe, forming pacts with Italy and Japan, signing non-agression treaties with Russia, we stood by and nothing. All we did at that point was Lend-Lease with Britain sending them supplies that we could get past the Wolf-packs. Meanwhile, we had backed Japan into a corner by cutting off their oil, along with other embargoes. They figure what the hell, let's take out their Pacific Fleet and we can do what we need without fear of retaliation. Little did they know they were kicking a sleeping giant. Was Pearl Harbor the greatest sneak in military history, or did FDR have access to the broken diplomatic codes of Japan? Did he use the attack to rouse the country and get them in the fight? Looks that way. Was it necessary to sacrifice 3000+ military personnel? Probably.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xrouteman
How come our fathers and grandfathers could conquer from the French coast to Berlin and from Hawaii to Japan in 14 months against the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, some of the most incredible pieces of destructive engineering known to man up to that point and the endless hordes of small yellow suicidal men?
Because something known as guerrilla warfare was unheard of at that time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xrouteman
How come it has taken 8 years to not catch one man hiding in caves on the Pakistani side of the border? We shouldn't offend the Pakistanis? But, I digress.......
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xrouteman
We even had the time to show those Godless Commies what a set of balls we have by dropping two atom bombs on Japan, even though they were screaming for a surrender.
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.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
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. 
