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In regard to the War of Independence:
Americans were threatened economically and through unfair legislation and political domination.
The lives of the people in British America were not threatened. It was a rebellion. It was more the form of a civil war initially, with most not backing the rebels. Only when the Spanish and French stuck their oars in did it became an independence war.
In regard to the War of 1812:
The USA moved into Canada using violence to subjugate the people and steal territory.
They were resisted with the invaders ejected with the securing of the borders of Canada.
The USA failed to achieve their aims
The British succeeded in their aims.
The British won.
At no time were the lives of the people in the USA under threat before the US invasion of Canada.
Yes, it was a rebellion and a brutal civil war in some states. Our affinity for Great Britain has never wained, even after the destruction left by British troops in the Chesapeake. Its little wonder that when Queen Elizabeth II visited VA in 2007, it was not just a state holiday, but banks and many businesses closed in her honor.
Yes, the British won the War of 1812, we failed to realize any of our objectives. We see it as a victory however, not sure why other than it helped unite the nation further.
Its alternate history now, but had Virginia (Lt.) Governor Fauquier lived, VA may have not supported the Revolutionary movement. Alas, his recommendations to Parliament on governmental reforms for the colonies is now lost. (Note the Wikipedia article has a portrait of his son, not him.) The American Revolution
You mean intervened and invaded, right? Perhaps intervening everywhere there is dissent isn't necessary. Not saying the wonderful human beings who went these places to fight weren't the heroes.
Vietnam War Lost:
*humanitarian disaster under the guise of anti-communism
*napalm was genetic destruction, America not told the truth about this
Iraq War Lost:
*18 year war
*Cheney said they had WMD which they did not
*Killed the bad guy dictator that was preventing radical groups from rising
*created a humanitarian disaster
Afghanistan War Ongoing:
*killed Osama of Al Queda and created ISIL
*military invention became a humanitarian disaster
Syria:
*intervened between clashing rebels against Assad
*bombing created humanitarian disaster
Libya
* killed the bad guy dictator who had a tight rein on radical groups
* fanned flames of a civil war
Vietnam was a bad decision. I blame Truman for starting us on that path.
Iraq was necessary. There absolutely was WMD, but it was moved to Syria days before we attacked.
Afghanistan was a disaster long before we got there. I agree that Obama’s failed policies caused terrorism to grow here and in the region. But the Taliban aided OBL, and they got what they deserved.
Syria- Another poor decision by Obama.
Libya- Yet another poor decision by Obama.
People love to blame Bush, but Obama’s policies caused much more death, destruction, and destabilization. Trump cleaned up the region very well, but I guess Americans tired of all the peace in the region, so they elected Biden to prop up Iran once again and destabilize the region, yet again.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by webster
Yes, it was a rebellion and a brutal civil war in some states. Our affinity for Great Britain has never wained, even after the destruction left by British troops in the Chesapeake. Its little wonder that when Queen Elizabeth II visited VA in 2007, it was not just a state holiday, but banks and many businesses closed in her honor.
Yes, the British won the War of 1812, we failed to realize any of our objectives. We see it as a victory however, not sure why other than it helped unite the nation further.
Its alternate history now, but had Virginia (Lt.) Governor Fauquier lived, VA may have not supported the Revolutionary movement. Alas, his recommendations to Parliament on governmental reforms for the colonies is now lost. (Note the Wikipedia article has a portrait of his son, not him.) The American Revolution
The British Parliament was divided over the issue of giving the US more representation and in terms of taxes, the US actually had far lower taxes than people residing in Britain, despite the US having a higher standard of living.
Americans at the in New England paid on average 1 shilling per year in taxes, compared to an average of 26 shillings a year back in Britain.
As for Parliament it was divided between those who supported the Americans having greater representation and those against, and individuals such as Thomas Pownall and Adam Smith proposed a system of further representation.
The War of Independence could have been avoided if both sides had been a little bit more flexible.
As for the 1812 War that was caused the commercial restrictions that Britain's war with France imposed on the U.S. So this war was largely the result of a far larger global conflict.
The US War of Independence are only seen as footnotes in relation to the far more important struggle in Europe, which eventually led to the Napoleonic Wars.
Some historians refer to the Seven Year War and the Napoleonic War as being part of the real first world war, and that these wars were fought on a far more global scale than WW1 which was largely confined to Europe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PBS
“No taxation without representation” — the rallying cry of the American Revolution — gives the impression that taxation was the principal irritant between Britain and its American colonies. But, in fact, taxes in the colonies were much lower than taxes in Britain. The central grievance of the colonists was their lack of a voice in the government that ruled them.
In drawing attention to the role of representation as a spark for revolution, they note that the average British citizen who resided in Britain paid 26 shillings per year in taxes compared to only 1 shilling per year in New England, even though the living standard of the colonists was arguably higher than that of the British.
There were proposals to settle the colonial crisis peacefully, most notably by Thomas Pownall and Adam Smith. Smith, for example, proposed “a system in which the political representation of Great Britain and America would be proportional to the contribution that each polity was making to the public treasury of the empire.”
There are certainly arguments that can be made, however, that the titles "First World War" and "World War One" are misleading. The Seven Years War, the mid-18th Century battle for supremacy among Europe's great powers, and the Napoleonic Wars were also fought across the globe, on multiple continents causing severe disruption to global trade.
Moreover, if measured in comparison to World War Two, which saw widespread fighting in China, South-East Asia and the Pacific, then 1914-1918 looks more like a European conflict - the key fronts that would decide the outcome of the war were all in Europe.
Vietnam was a bad decision. I blame Truman for starting us on that path.
Iraq was necessary. There absolutely was WMD, but it was moved to Syria days before we attacked.
Afghanistan was a disaster long before we got there. I agree that Obama’s failed policies caused terrorism to grow here and in the region. But the Taliban aided OBL, and they got what they deserved.
Syria- Another poor decision by Obama.
Libya- Yet another poor decision by Obama.
People love to blame Bush, but Obama’s policies caused much more death, destruction, and destabilization. Trump cleaned up the region very well, but I guess Americans tired of all the peace in the region, so they elected Biden to prop up Iran once again and destabilize the region, yet again.
You know, I'm no fan of Obama. People love to swoon over the guy when he really made some truly destructive and boneheaded decisions.
However, everything else you wrote does nothing more than provide covering fire and minimize the outrageous invasion of Iraq in 2003. From the fraudulent casus belli to the wholesale lack of planning to the ongoing denial of an insurgency, it was a disastrous move that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, cost this country an enormous amount of money and prestige, created an enormous power vacuum for the Iranians to step in, and later provided fertile ground for ISIS to develop.
There are indeed hints of evidence that Saddam smuggled chemical weapons out of Iraq into Syria prior to the 2003 invasion. However, that is a far cry from the Bush administration claims that the Iraqis were building nuclear weapons or were in league with Al Queda. Those were absolute falsehoods, more a fig leaf for an invasion that was not in our strategic interests, undertaken with literally no thought as to what would happen the minute after Saddam was deposed.
I know this because I spent several days interviewing a key intelligence operative in postwar Iraq. A fluent Arabic speaker, he not only interrogated all the leadership of the former Iraqi regime, but was involved in the investigations. I literally have the declassified documents and notes. I spent months reading documents and secondary interviews on the subject.
Further, the Pentagon released a report to that effect in 2007. At the same time, it also released a report that a small cadre of Pentagon officials under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld produced alternative intelligence (Read 'lies') that touted a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda in order to create a secondary invasion pretext. Those turned out to be complete falsehoods, ginned up out of mid-air.
I mean, heck, even Bush in 2008 admitted that the entire invasion was based on faulty intelligence. If Bush admits the 2003 invasion was a mistake, I'm not sure why you would disagree.
I'm not fan of Obama, but your statement simply ignores the wholesale fiasco that was the war in Iraq. It was a war waged without foresight and planning for what happened after Saddam's statues were toppled in Baghdad. Never should have happened.
I often hear that America has been in needless war after needless war.
I’m asking the smart people here to tell me the truth.
Which wars had an active role in significantly protecting/improving/securing the American people?
Ww1 - for Britain after they begged rothschild with balfour declaration that would support a state of isreal creation. ( enemy - no one knows)
Ww2 - again no need until pearl harbor which could have been averted. Its hardto believe planes flying 8 plus hours unnoticed
Vietnam - no idea
91 onwards - gulf oil wars
2001. - to protect corporate oil interests in that region and assist iraq is in shambles but guys like shell xom can ramp the production and iraq still temained a huge oil producer. I ve seen shell employees brag about how they cleared landmunes and extracted oil.
And idont really believe those guys can even travel in a plane correctly, let alone hijack and crash at 1000 feet. In die hard 2007 movie an f 16 flies under the bridge . None of them on standby is surprising
You know, I'm no fan of Obama. People love to swoon over the guy when he really made some truly destructive and boneheaded decisions.
However, everything else you wrote does nothing more than provide covering fire and minimize the outrageous invasion of Iraq in 2003. From the fraudulent casus belli to the wholesale lack of planning to the ongoing denial of an insurgency, it was a disastrous move that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, cost this country an enormous amount of money and prestige, created an enormous power vacuum for the Iranians to step in, and later provided fertile ground for ISIS to develop.
There are indeed hints of evidence that Saddam smuggled chemical weapons out of Iraq into Syria prior to the 2003 invasion. However, that is a far cry from the Bush administration claims that the Iraqis were building nuclear weapons or were in league with Al Queda. Those were absolute falsehoods, more a fig leaf for an invasion that was not in our strategic interests, undertaken with literally no thought as to what would happen the minute after Saddam was deposed.
I know this because I spent several days interviewing a key intelligence operative in postwar Iraq. A fluent Arabic speaker, he not only interrogated all the leadership of the former Iraqi regime, but was involved in the investigations. I literally have the declassified documents and notes. I spent months reading documents and secondary interviews on the subject.
Further, the Pentagon released a report to that effect in 2007. At the same time, it also released a report that a small cadre of Pentagon officials under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld produced alternative intelligence (Read 'lies') that touted a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda in order to create a secondary invasion pretext. Those turned out to be complete falsehoods, ginned up out of mid-air.
I mean, heck, even Bush in 2008 admitted that the entire invasion was based on faulty intelligence. If Bush admits the 2003 invasion was a mistake, I'm not sure why you would disagree.
I'm not fan of Obama, but your statement simply ignores the wholesale fiasco that was the war in Iraq. It was a war waged without foresight and planning for what happened after Saddam's statues were toppled in Baghdad. Never should have happened.
I’m fully aware that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld wanted war. They created two avenues, the WMD and the Al Quaeda link. They were unable to make any headway on the Al Qaeda front, so it was scrapped and they went with the the WMD track and trotted Powell out to discuss the mobile labs, or some such nonsense. I am glad that you know about the WMD going to Syria, because 99.9% of Americans don’t.
As far as the biological weapons, that was shut down in 1996, but could’ve easily been started within weeks, and he (Hussein) was bragging about doing it. The nuclear weapons program, you can’t just start that from scratch and get it rolling, it takes a long time to ramp that up, so I will readily agree that while he would’ve loved to have had that program, it was probably beyond his capability.
Now, my statement that war was warranted, I still stand by that. The problem is that the execution and aftermath was completely botched. Bush and his leadership didn’t understand the hatred within the country between Shia, Sunni, and Kurd. They naively thought they could keep it together. The only way Saddam kept it together was mass killing, something we were never going to do.
So we should have had a better plan than what we did. Partitioning the country? I know the whole Kurd-Turk situation made that untenable, but perhaps UN troops on the border so the Kurds couldn’t foment dissent on the other side of the border? Just a thought, but other options? Perhaps allowing the military to reconstitute under Ba’ath leadership? Forcing a coup within Iraq? Anything was better than what we did.
I get it that even those ideas might not have worked either, but Saddam had to go. There was no way he could’ve been left in power to continue thumbing his nose at us. It was untenable in my opinion, and apparently in Bush’s mind too.
He’d still be there to this day, and we’d still have the no fly zones up? Come on man!
It was damned if we do, damned if we don’t. The courage to try and make something better is not a bad characteristic of a leader.
This is the History forum. We do not discuss current politicians here. I'm tired of reminding people that Trump is not an appropriate topic for this forum. Everybody go read the forum rules.
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