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How many even remember today? If it happened today we would have scores of fools making excuses and wondering "What did WE do to make them want to attack us?" And then the same people call the president a warmonger for striking back. This country couldn't survive WWII now let alone win it...
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Ah, WWII, a subject as near and dear to me as Napoleon is to GL....
I thought of that when I changed the calendar this morning as well. I was at UC during the 50th anniversary, and what I remember most about that commemoration was...well...the lack of commemoration. A student wrote a letter to the "News Record" (UC's paper) questioning why, every year, there was a write-up in that paper regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but even on the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, not much at all.
The following week, one of my fellow political science majors wrote a response, basically arguing that the dropping of the atomic bombs was one of the most significant events in history (he's right there) as well as one of its greatest war crimes (LanD and I will be debating this at Colerain High School one of these days), while December 7 more or less didn't signify that much.
And if he actually had known what he was talking about (he didn't), there is actually a grain of truth to that statement. The Soviets had been at war since June 1941 (and actually fought the Finns in 1940, and the Japanese in 1939). The British and the French had been at war since 1939. The Germans, depending on what date you want to use, had been invading other countries going back to 1936. The Japanese went into Manchuria in 1931. So while December 7 was a huge date in American history, it wasn't so big for the rest of the world, most of which was already at war.
Except.......
It marked the official beginning of the end of the Japanese empire (they lost that war the moment the first bomb fell on Honolulu). And because Germany subsequently declared war on us as a result, it pretty much sealed their doom as well.
I agree with your sentiments, GL. I don't really think you can do the "what if" with Japan vs. the U.S. But where I think it gets interesting is if the Japanese had attacked Eastern Russia in 1941, right after (or close to) the German invasion on the west. Despite their strategic blunders, the Germans came awful close to breaking the Soviets. I think their guns made it to about 30 miles from Moscow, and while I don't think the Soviets would ever have surrendered entirely, the Germans could have occupied enough of their land to render them ineffective as to the Allies. Especially if the Soviets would have had to divert resources to fighting a Japanese invasion from the East.
The significance of the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 also can't be overstated. I don't believe the Germans would have been able to conquer Britain, but again, I'm not sure they necessarily had to. All they had to do is cripple them enough to the point where they become ineffective. Their failure in 1940 allowed the Brits to continue building the same airplanes and tanks that started to turn the tide in 1942-43.
I suppose in hindsight, our development of the A-bomb may have made all of it moot, anyway. Regardless of what FDR told Churchill, it's clear that the U.S. believed the Germans were capable of defeating Britain. This is demonstrated by our development of the long-range bombers (first the B-29, and later the B-36) that could take off from North America, bomb Germany, and return without having to rely on the Brits in any way.
And all participants made huge blunders that, in hindsight, had enormous consequences. A lot of Russians did not care for Stalin and his policies. There were those in the German command who argued that the Germans should spin their "invasion" of the Soviet Union as a "liberation" of its people from tyranny. Similarly, there was a Japanese plan on the table to attack India but spin it as "freeing" them from British colonialism. As it turned out, the Germans proceeded to lay-waste to Russia (ensuring that all those fractured Soviet states became strongly united against a common enemy), and the Japanese invasion of India never really got off the ground.
As if you couldn't tell already, I am an emormous WWII-phile, I just think it is the most amazing thing to read about. In think the convergence of technology alone is astonishing. It was the last war to use bi-planes in combat, it was the first war to use jets. It was the last war to use horses, it was the first (and hopefully last) to see atomic weapons. There were 6 major carrier vs. carrier battles in the Pacific, I don't see how there will ever again be a carrier vs. carrier battle (and I shudder to think what would happen if there was).
Compare this:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">With this:Quote:
If it happened today we would have scores of fools making excuses and wondering "What did WE do to make them want to attack us?" And then the same people call the president a warmonger for striking back. This country couldn't survive WWII now let alone win it...
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Interesting...Quote:
There's no reason why we should ask them to apologize for doing something that we more or less wanted them to do, i.e. attack us.
In speculating "what if" the U.S. never entered the war, I sometimes go back much further. What if we had not committed genocide against Native Americans and secured the territory between two oceans? And what if we had decided to let the South secede? We would not have been able to open another front in Europe = The 1000 Year Reich.
And if I may extrapolate on an issue that has always bothered me...
A lot of American organizations have expressed disappointment (sometimes anger) that Japan has never "apologized" for Pearl Harbor.
I respectfully dissent. There's no reason why we should ask them to apologize for doing something that we more or less wanted them to do, i.e. attack us. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that we wanted them to attack and kill over 2,000 of our military personnel in Hawaii. But we did want them to attack, and the Philipines was (in our estimation) the most logical choice.
Some people had argued, going back to the turn of the century, that the U.S. and Japan would fight a naval war. Gen. Billy Mitchell, in 1924, had warned of a carrier attack on Pearl Harbor someday (in an editorial opinion, the New York Times basically laughed him out of the building for such a silly suggestion).
My grandfather didn't even know what Pearl Harbor was when he learned of the attack. I suspect that was true for the vast majority of Americans who heard the breaking news. You go back and read the newspaper accounts, and even the history books, and that's pretty much the company line- that we were minding our own business, when for no reason at all we got sucker-punched.
History has more than demonstrated it was just a little more complicated than that.
We had entered into a trade embargo that required the Japanese to do one of two things- a) pull out of Indochina, or b) go to war with us. We certainly wanted option (b). I've always wondered what we would have done if they would have agreed to our demands.
Believe it or not, there were those in the Japanese high command who knew that attacking the U.S. would be suicide for their empire. Unfortunately for them, the ones who had the final say felt otherwise. Yamamoto himself had argued for years against a war with the U.S. But, once it became clear to him that war was inevitable, he actually did what a good military leader would do- he designed a plan which, if executed properly, would give his Navy the best chance to win (and by "best chance", I mean "slim" as opposed to "none")
You make some very good points Lew, esp about the background leading up to the attack. Who can guess what the results of WWII had been had Japan not given FDR the cause celebre he needed to draw us into combat? England would have fallen, Hitler would have controlled all of Europe and cultivated US neutrality to fight Russia, Japan's Empire would have grown, leaving the US basically isolated between the Germans and Japan. At least that's one simplistic scenario. One needs to factor into Hitler's possible conquests in this scenario the resistance and guerilla tactics that would have been employed against him, and the growing dissent in the German high command. While not a student of WWII per se, I have often wondered "what if..." the US had not ever entered into the conflict at all.
Lan, there are some books about what would be different if the the South had won by Newt Gingrich (Lew baby, that's your cue to return one!) that you might find interesting.
Bob recently finsihed "December 8th" (also by Newt); he said it's good, and should be a must read for folks like Lan.
That aside, 12/7/41 is what caused my father to finish high school early and sign up. Just like his older brothers. And friends. And cousins.
Semper Fi to all of our heros.
Actually I have been interested in reading Gingrich's book about "what if" Hitler had won, forget what it's called...
Gae-
I gave that Gingrich book to LanD, and he told me he'd see to it personally that you guys got it back....
WILL YOU RELAX? It's right on my bookshelf, I have read it, I will get it back to you. Geesh...
LanD, while I have not been a proponent of the current fighting in Iraq, I do agree with GL that it would have been difficult (if not impossible) for the Allies to prevail had they had to deal with this current generation of media types.
And don't get me wrong, I don't believe in government control of the media during a time of war or anything like that. Truth be told, there are probably a lot of things that the WWII media did NOT report that they should have.
I guess I'm still jaded (20 years later) by Mike Wallace's comments on the PBS "Ethics in America" series, when he said that if he were embedded with enemy troops, and knew of an ambush on unsuspecting U.S. troops, he wouldn't do a thing about it....yes that's only one person's opinion, but I wonder how many of them share his feelings, and that was 20 years ago, God knows what they would say today...I don't know, it just really disturbed me.
As for the "what if" discussion, it's true that the farther back you go, the harder it is to guess how things would be different because so many variable would be altered (for example, the naval battle at Salamis in 480 B.C.- go back in time and change that result ro a Persian victory over the Greeks, it seems safe to say that "western" civilization would have taken a decidedly different course but we can't be specific)
But when you're talking about more recent events, the field is comparatively more narrow and you can speculate with a comparatively higer degree of authority.
There is a wonderful Simpsons episode that deals with the butterfly effect. Homer goes around killing different creatures, and each he returns the future has been dramatically altered (among the various future timelines, it rains donuts instead of water).
Or, as Jay Leno pointed out regarding that infamous picture of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart's lap, you go back in time and put one extra deck chair on that boat, Gary Hart could have been the President of the United States.
Sometimes I think about the time machine I used to have - and that butterfly I stepped on in the Jurassic Period. Is that why the world is so screwed up now? I hope not. I'd hate to have a butterfly taking on all that blame. [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img]
Did you know the term "bug in the system" in reference to computers actually refers to a butterfly? Back when the first computer was developed (it used vacuum tubes and generated a lot of heat) a butterfly actually flew into one of the tubes from outside.
Now on the "what if..." scenarios, what if Blucher had been delayed in June 1815 and Napoleon WON Waterloo? May well have prevented WWI 100 yrs later...
GL, since I don't know about the Napoleonic era, is it apples to apples to compare the French invasion of Russia to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union? The Germans had tanks, motorized infantry, planes, modern technology, etc. and they still couldn't conquer Moscow. And when you look at a map of Russia, Moscow isn't anywhere near the center, it's clearly on the western side. Yet it's still a long way from western Europe. Hitler overestimated his chances and didn't bother to prepare his troops for winter fighting. And from what I've read, the winters there are so harsh that the only "fighting" you can do is against the weather, not your opponent.
If the Germans were going to win, they had to do it in 1941. They did survive that winter, and made another go of it in 1942 but the Soviets were in better shape than the year prior and they held. The 1942-43 winter beat the hell of out the German army, and from 1943 on they were on the defensive.
And I confess I know more about the Pacific theater than Europe, but I just don't see anyway that the Germans could have ever conquered the Soviets. If they had been able to concentrate their all their resources, maybe. But they couldn't do that because of the fighting in North Africa as well as western Europe. Stalin always whined that the allies should have opened a western front in 1942 and then 1943 (which we didn't do until June 6, 1944 of course). But the fact is, there WAS a western front when you think about all the bombing that was done by the British and the Americans in 1942 and 1943. I've read estimates where the Germans had to commit somwhere between 1 and 1.5 million servicemen to combating allied bombing. And every pilot that had to concentrate on the British and Americans was one less pilot that the Soviets had to deal with (and remember, not just pilots, we're talking planes, mechanics, fuel, etc.)
But back to my original question, since Napoleon had none of that technology (of course, neither did Czarist Russia), did he ever have a realistic chance of conquering them?
Good question Lew. In my opinion, Napoleon should have marched on St Petersburg for several reasons.
* It was the modern, working capitol of Russia while Moscow was the traditional, religious capitol (and in Russia the Czar was both religious and secular leader)
* Moscow is indeed very far from Western Europe, esp on foot and on animals. Even more than his loss of soldiers (and people were an even cheaper commodity then than they are now in world politics) his loss of horses for his cavalry and to move artillery hurt his chances for near future battles more than anything.
* He should not have proceeded to Moscow, but in every battle since his 1st Italian campaign, he won and dictated peace terms from the vanquished capitol. He wanted to do this to bring Alexandre back into line with his "Continental System" wherein he blocked British goods from entering Europe.
Had he been able to draw the Russian General Kutuzof into battle he had enough men and weapons and material to win. But Kutuzof, sly as a fox or simply old and tired, would not allow him the chance. He drew him into the waste lands of Russia to die of the winter.
Winter came early and hard in 1812-1813. His march on Moscow thinned his supply line beyond sustainability.(And in previous battles in Europe his troops could and did live off the land. The Russians introduced a "scorched earth" policy. No food to eat for the troops and no food for the horses. Napoleon suffered significant losses before he ever reached Moscow and had he not been victim of his own megalomania by then he would have stopped) And rear guard attacks by the main Russian army and Cossacks caused serious attrition. He also did not achieve help from the locals as he had in Italy and other areas that viewed his invasion as "liberation". They didn't want to be "liberated" (nor did the Spanish population) He also took on Russia before wrapping up things in Spain, so he had 2 fronts. (another similarity to Hitler in WWII) Then ofcourse the Russian Rostopchin (mayor of Moscow) is the one responsible for the burning of Moscow. Napoleon did not burn his winter refuge so far from home. He dallied too long hoping Alexandre would sue for peace. But had Alexandre, chances are his nobles would have assasinated him in St Petersburg for his weakness.
So in essence, Hitler's invasion was very similar to Napoleon's. They both bit off more than they could swallow. But I will not draw any similarities beyond that between Napoleon and Hitler.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 13, 2007 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Beachcomber ]</font>
I have Winston Churchill's WWII memoirs, and in there is a picture of Hitler visiting Napoleon's tomb, and the commentary was that, while Hitler lauded Napoleon for his great conquests, he also criticized him for his lack of vision. So much for learning from the past...
Actually, we can tie-in Napoleon's Russian incursion to the Cold War. There are primarily four schools of thought regarding the Cold War: 1) it was the Soviet's fault; 2) it was the American's fault; 3) it was both their faults, and could have been avoided; 4) it wasn't really anyone's "fault" because it was an inevitable consequence. I have always ascribed to No. 4.
We originally portrayed Soviet actions in Eastern Europe as evil and corrupt. How dare they erect this "Iron Curtain" against democracy.
The fact is, three times in 130 years, they had been invaded from the West. Napoleon did it, Imperial Germany did it, Nazi Germany did it. Yes, all three invasions failed, but not without tremendous loss of Russian and Soviet life. Depending upon whose numbers you believe, the Soviets may have lost 25M people during WWII. Americans have no grasp of those kinds of numbers. I would imagine our total loss of life in all wars (going back to the revolution) can't be much over 2M.
Think about the death toll on September 11. Now multiply that times a factor of 6. Now imagine that happening every day for 4 years. That's how many people the Soviets lost during WWII.
And think about our response to September 11. Don't you think we'd take dramatic action if an enemy killed 25 million of us over a four-year period?
From 1945 onward, I think it was the core of their foreign policy that they would never, ever again be invaded from the west. And when you look at how many of them were killed, I don't think you can blame them. Thanks to all the documents that have come out in recent years, this has only been further confirmed. Apparently, their gameplan during the 60s and 70s was, in the event of an attack, to nuke Poland and basically make it an impassable, nuked-out barrier.
And don't get me wrong, I'm hardy exonerating them. Personally, I rank Stalin as worst human being of all-time (with Mao and Hitler battling it out for second place). Their hard-liners were bastards of the highest order. Communism, as an economic policy, has been proven over and over again to be a failure, and millions of Soviets over the years starved and suffered because of it.
But, I think it's unfair (and quite frankly, wrong) to look at the Cold War as the mean ol' Russians throwing up an Iron Curtain like they did. It was inevitable, and there really wasn't anything either side could have been expected to do about it.
Of course, had Napoleon conquered Russia, WWI may never have occurred (which means WWII may never have occurred), so in a way, I think we can blame all of it on Napoleon's failures [img]wink.gif[/img]
You forgot to list Woodrow Wilson's expeditionary force that invaded Russia briefly at the close of WWI in an attempt to overthrow Lenin.
And you make very good points Lew. I have long contended that the USSR reacted to apparent US and British sabre rattling at the close of WWII. We no longer perceived them as a necessary ally after we nuked Japan. And Churchill thrived on war, his entire career was that of a warmonger and Britain sent him into retirement as soon as they perceived the danger was past, only to re-elect him when they felt threatened again. It was his game and he was a master at it.
I have seen in recent years, esp during the Bush administration, an apparent policy of alienating Russia and re-enacting cold war tensions. NATO recruitment of post Soviet break away republics, if the USSR no longer exists who is the common enemy then? I have long espoused warmer relations with Russia. Whether or not they can be trusted is a matter I'll leave to the experts, but the day will come when China is going to flex their muscles and we better have more friends in that part of the world than we have now.
And whether you meant it in jest or not, Napoleon's fall really did lead to WWI. It enabled the Hapsburgs to remain in power another century, it enabled all the rotten and despotic regimes to remain in control. The spirit of the French Revolution and equality before the law were buried in reactionary regimes. The Congress of Vienna, controlled by Talleyrand imposed on Europe the concept of "Legitimacy" which meant those in power had sole rights to it. The rise of Communism was a direct result of the upper classes refusing to yield an inch to the lower classes. One did not get promoted by merit, but by birth. Britain had an absolute free hand to colonize the entire world and enslave the natives. Austria held on to it's crumbling empire and kept Italy from self actualization. Prussia and Austria equally held down the spirit of German nationalism, unable to make themselves the master of it until Bismark came along. That same nationalism asserted itself against the Hapsburgs, and WWI was born.
You read editorials from the 50s and 60s, you take a look at the propaganda films (which I love those old movies, I could watch them all the time), and there are two recurring themes: 1) we have to build-up our defenses because the Soviets want to invade us; and 2) we have to build-up our nuclear arsenal because the Soviets want to nuke us.
Yet if we want to be accurate here (and you know how fond I am of accuracy), two statements are true: one (and as you alluded), while no Soviet troops ever fought on U.S. soil against Americans, U.S. troops did fight on Russian soil against the Reds. I did not know about that until I was in high school. You can bet Soviet schoolchildren were taught it from day one; and second, in the history of the world, only one nation has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation, and it wasn't the U.S.S.R.
I know you can take these last two posts of mine, and there's no way I could ever gain admittance to the John Birch society. But I'm sorry, those are the facts, and there's no getting away from them.
When you've won a war, you inherently want to reap the spoils. After all, you just lost a lot of lives (as you mentioned in one of your earlier posts, not that the government particularly cares about that other than it means fewer soldiers for them), you've spent a lot of money, you've consumed a lot of resources. So now you've won, it's time to start reaping.
I don't believe it was ever in the Soviet plans to try to invade us. But I do believe they would have tried to invade western Europe. And again, I can see why they would want to, and I also see why we would want to stop them. So like I said, I see the Cold War as an unavoidable consequence of the aftermath of WWII.
And thank you as always for the information regarding the happenings of Europe in the 19th century, an area I am painfully ignorant about but I must confess it's nice to have a cheat sheet like GL [img]wink.gif[/img]
And to touch on colonialism, as you alluded...you know, you go to Valley Forge, you go to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, you go to Independence Hall....it's all about freedom. Freedom from tyranny (which, interestingly enough, "tyranny" in those days was a glorified word for taxation).
OK fine, I buy into that. But isn't it amazing how wonderful it was for us to exert our independence from colonial rule, yet when other peoples around the world tried to do it.....we tried to stop them. As I appreciate it (and if anyone disagrees with me, please correct me), Ho Chi Minh didn't even ask for our financial support, just our diplomatic blessing in Vietnam gaining its independence from France. They had been dominated by China for most of their modern history. Then the French had controlled them for about 100 years. That temporarily ended with the Japanese invaded them, but after Japan was defeated, they wanted to become an independed state. France said no, and we (because we don't always take the time to think) supported France. Truth be told, France had its own postwar mess to clean-up, it had more important things to worry about than its colonies. And think if we would have supported Ho Chi Minh. Or at least stayed out of their business altogther.
Nope, we go in to help France, who then leaves us holding the bag in 1954, and the next thing you know....well, there's 58,000 names on that wall, that pretty much speaks for itself.
And 53,000 died in Korea. History portrays the Cold War as just that- a "cold" war, fighting without fighting. Well, that's 111,000 Americans right there who died in it. I don't know how many the Soviets and Chinese lost (plus you can add in Soviet losses in Afghanistan, which was their Vietnam).
And we could go on and on all day about US interference in Latin America and Mexico. At one time Standard Oil ran Mexico (until 1910 at least)and we have not been real circumspect in the "leaders" we have chosen to uphold. (LanDroid has made reference to this numerous times) My contention is the only reason we never removed Fidel Castro from Cuba is because he is the bogeyman we can point to, to continue interfering. "We don't want another Cuba..." We could also catch Osama Bin Laden, but again with him captured the biggest poster boy in the war on terror would be removed.
Lew,
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This may not be entirely true. Please see this:Quote:
in the history of the world, only one nation has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation
Mahabharata, or The First Nuclear War
and then there are the unexplained vitrified forts around the world, stone structures turned to glass...
It fits into the theories of a mega-civilization tens, even hundreds of thousands of years ago, with as much technological advancement as the present day or even higher, that either self destructed or was destroyed by some other means and only legends and folklore remained with the survivors of said civilizations. Great Flood legends are in part of all the worlds' cultures. So many priceless records of the distant past have been destroyed by closed minded missionaries of Christian and muslim faiths, we may never know the history of our planet beyond the curtain of the ancient Egyptians...
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 19, 2007 09:30 AM: Message edited by: Beachcomber ]</font>
Oh my Lord, our record in Central and South America is absolutely pathetic, GL. Other than our treatment of the Indians, I submit it represents the very worst of our foreign policy. The famous quote from Marine General Smedley Butler speaks for itself (where he talks about how he had basically been a racketeer for the U.S. government in Latin America)
But at least I can see where the Monroe Doctrine (and its legacy) came from. America is protected by two big oceans on its east and west, and the Arctic to the north. The only way an enemy could conduct a sustained, land-based invasion would be from the south. As such, it has always been a keystone of U.S. foreign policy to ensure that didn't happen. I'm not saying I condone Wilson's policies, at least not in full, but I can at least see why they existed.
As for southeast Asia, you've got me. I cannot believe that race didn't come into play, at least in part. Why should the peoples of Asia fall under rule of Britain, France, or Holland? I suppose the only legitimate reply would be that, if those peoples weren't going to be ruled by western Europe, the Soviets and the Chinese were going to step in and try to take over. And it would be better that they be "westernized" rather than fall to the Communists (obviously, the best answer is that they should be allowed to rule themselves, but hey, we can't have that, can we?)
Then you look at Sub-Saharan Africa, and that's a part of the world that really confounds me. All throughout the 80s, all we heard about was South Africa and "Rockers Against Apartheid" and blah blah. OK fine, so things changed in South Africa, presumably for the better. But then when people took a look at Nigeria and Rwanda and all kinds of wonderful things happening there, and there were those who suggested that we put the pressure on them as well...nope, the U.S. Council of Mayors vehemently objected to that. Apparently, if it's a white ruling class dominating blacks, that's the worst thing ever and we have to sing songs to end it. But if it's a black ruling class dominating a subservient black class (hell East Timor apparently still has slavery), Bono is nowhwere to be found.
It just depresses me, that's all. People either have a right to sovereignty or they don't. A rigid, discriminatory class system is either wrong, or it isn't. And all this moral relativism crap....what was it, Jeanne Kirkpatrick said that the difference between "authoritarianism" and a "dictatorship" was whether the leader was friendly towards the U.S.?
I agree 100% with you Lew. And as to Bono, well he's a singer. A drunk looking, disheveled nonentity who presumes to be some expert on feeding the poor. He looks like a poster child for the homeless himself.
After my post, I did a little follow-up research and I checked to see what the Council of Mayors is up to these days. To their credit, at least on paper, they talk a good line about freedom and human rights. I don't know if their actions support their sentiments, but I did come across this excerpt from a U.S. House subcommittee hearing that took place in May of this year, and thought I made for a nice trip down memory lane (and I post it verbatim, there is no commentary from me):
"? At the top of the chart, you see Sudan, which received $3.26 billion in total U.S. aid, much of it at a time when President, formerly colonel, Nimieri was offering concessions to U.S. oil corporations and cooperating with the Reagan
administration efforts to topple Libya?s Gaddafi;
? Somalia received $1.56 billion after Marxist President, formerly general,Barre, granted President Carter the use of military bases for the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force for the Middle East. I note that the third country in line
there, Kenya, had $1.55 billion in aid which was also related to the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force and its use of the Mombasa naval base;
? Liberia received $1.12 billion, in return for which President, formerly master sergeant, Doe continued throughout the 1980?s U.S. use of the U.S. Navy?s Omega navigational tower, as well as the widely-reported CIA operations center
for Africa and the Voice of America continental transmitter; and
? Zaire, now known as Congo, received $1.07 billion in aid, which came at a time when access to such strategic minerals as cobalt was important to U.S. military production, and when President, formerly colonel, Mobutu was allowing
the CIA to send through Zaire its weapons for the UNITA rebels in Angola."
I mean, it gets no better than that, does it? You go read about the Wilson administration's policies in Central and South America, compare them to the Carter-Reagan era policies in Africa....hey at least we're consistent...
Bono is not an non-entity. He traveled with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil around Africa. O'Neil wrote about that trip in a book and in particular a low tech method that would bring fresh water for the entire continent at a total cost of something like a paltry $50 million. O'Neil could not get the Bush administration to go for that legacy...
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What are we going to do, bring democracy to every oppressed country on earth at the point of a gun? As President Clinton once said, "We can't afford to get involved in all of these problems, but we also can't afford to get involved with none of them".Quote:
It just depresses me, that's all. People either have a right to sovereignty or they don't. A rigid, discriminatory class system is either wrong, or it isn't.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As a practical matter, Jeanne is correct and part of the difference is in the outcome. When the outcome is good as in our alliance with Stalin, why it's statesmanship! But when the outcome is bad as in our assistance to Saddam Hussein or the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, only then does it become moral relativism.Quote:
And all this moral relativism crap....what was it, Jeanne Kirkpatrick said that the difference between "authoritarianism" and a "dictatorship" was whether the leader was friendly towards the U.S.?
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 22, 2007 08:21 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>
Well first off, Lan, I think Paul O'Neil was a solid right-fielder (he has 5 rings), but I mean, let's leave it at that, I don't want to hear the word "Cooperstown" being uttered.
Secondly, I never claimed Bono had no influence. To the contrary, he has always kept a high-profile when it comes to such causes. My problem with him in the 80s (and not just him, all of those "Rockers Against Apartheid") was that we needed to presure pressure pressure South Africa (which, ok, fine) but when it came to other nations on the African continent, we needed to back off and let them handle their own affairs.
And then what happened in Rwanda in the 90s...I mean, genocide. Plain and simple (although maybe I'm wrong, since the State Dept. never officially employed that term). And no one did anything about it.
BTW, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it has always disturbed me. And I know one has to play the political game, you have to say it's for "human rights," you can't say it's for our "economic interests," even though human rights has about as much to do with it as vinyl records.
True LanDroid, he isn't a non-entity I guess. He is an obscenely rich singer who thinks the United States does not spend enough on feeding the poor in Africa. He wants the government to tax us and send the money to feed Africans that none of us sired or gave birth to. Typical leftist do-gooder who has so many good ideas how to tax and spend everyone else's money...
Which all of this makes me want to segue into a topic near and dear to me, and which is making it's way through the news today....
There is a new book out that apparently suggests that Alexander Graham Bell stole the patent for telephone. I have not read the book, nor had I ever heard this theory. As always, I would demand hard, reliable evidence for such a claim. But I would be open-minded about it (I mean, if he did, he certainly wouldn't be the person to ever steal someone else's idea).
But why I mention this, I note there are a lot of comments screaming about "revisionist" history. You may as well take a fork and run it over a chalkboard, because that wouldn't make me cringe any less than hearing that term.
So we're all clear on this, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REVISIONIST HISTORY. And I admit, I once used the term myself, but fortuntely in time I came to see the light.
What happened in the past, happened. What we say happened in the past is "history." That distinction is important.
Suppose some math geek comes up with a theory that 2+2=5. OK I'll grant you, that would be "revisionist" math, because we have known for some time that 2+2=4; it is provable, it is demonstrable, and it is a fact.
But history is not like that. It's not just facts, it's our interpretation of them. This whole discussion GL and Lan and I have had about Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima surely demonstrates this. The IJN attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. That is a fact. But, the questions of why they did it, what we knew beforehand, whether we wanted them to do it, what its legacy is...those questions do not lead to simple, factual answers.
Same thing with Hiroshima. For the better part of 50 years, the Hiroshima bombing was simply accepted an action that was justified and which brought immediate results. In time, certain commentators began to question this, and lo and behold here came the screams of "revisionism." As if the old party-line version was the "facts," and how dare LanD or anyone else come along now and tell us that 2+2=5.
Nonsense. If LanD says that the Hiroshima bomb was dropped on August 5, he's wrong. But if he says that we were not justified in dropping it...that's not a statement of fact to begin with, so it can't possibly be a "revision" to known and accepted "facts."
Like I said, I used to use that term, but not anymore. They need to hold a funeral for the "R"-word.
Well Lew you bring up a good point. As someone near and dear to my heart once said:
"History is the set of facts agreed upon by the victors"
That may not be the exact quote, but it is a good summary.
I'll let you guess who said it and think about how "history" is reported and by whom it is reported and figure it out. When I want to study a subject I try to read every source available about it, pro and con. Usually the truth is somewhere in the middle. Primary source memoirs are my favorite resource.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 28, 2007 08:52 AM: Message edited by: Beachcomber ]</font>
No question, GL. And of course, there's "good" history and "bad" history, and the difference lies in the thoroughness and accuracy of the evidence. Your thoughts on Napoleon would carry more weight than mine by virtue of the fact that you know so much more about him than I do (and what little I do know is from what I've read of your postings here [img]wink.gif[/img] ) And one thing to look out for with authors on the book-tours....if you're writing a book about something that hasn't been written about, that's one thing. But if you're writing about, say, Lincoln, or Vietnam, or anything else that has been the subject of countless writings...you've got to make your book stand-out somehow. You've got to come up with some hook to attract the potential reader. And often times, that "hook" tends to consist of some outrageous comment intended to create controversy.
Quick example- I have a book called "Titanic Conspiracy." It's "hook" was that the OLYMPIC and the TITANIC may have been switched as part of an insurance scam by White Star (they were sister ships). Sounds ludicrous, but I bit and purchased the book anyway.
Turns out it was a pretty good book. And surprisingly, well-researched. And it didn't even touch the "conspiracy" theory until the end, and even then its ultimate conclusion was that the conspiracy theory was bogus. Basically, the authors were "debunking" this theory. But, on the outside of the book, it gives you the impression that they're aruging for the theory. I felt somewhat misled, but on the other hand, I'll take accuracy over woo any day of the week.
I didn't read the book, but I am aware of the Titanic conspiracy theory. The Olympic was severely damaged the year before and they wanted to collect the insurance money on it. But this would presuppose an entire disregard for their passengers, crew and most important: their reputation for safety. Lose $1.00 to save a nickle? That's what the misconstrued theory would amount to. In fact, the Titanic sinking so damaged the company they never built the Britannic which was supposed to fill out their trio of super liners. Eventually Cunard bought out White Star, and the loss of the Titanic was really the death blow.
And the Olympic was sunk in shallow waters off Greece by the Germans in WWI when it was serving as a hospital ship. Nasty lot those Germans in wartime.
Now how often do I get to enlighten GL? Rarely, so I'll relish the opportunity.... [img]wink.gif[/img]
It's the BRITTANIC that was sunk while serving as a hospital ship. The OLYMPIC actually had a career and was eventually scrapped. But it's true that no more vessels of the OLYMPIC class were ever built (I've read in some books that the 3rd ship was supposed to be called GIGANTIC, but was renamed the more patriotic-sounding BRITANNIC as war was becoming inevitable; but I've also read where that's crap, it was always supposed to be called BRITTANIC).
For the record, I liked Cameron's movie (well, I like Cameron; I think Terminator, T2, Aliens, and Abyss are four of the best Sci-Fi movies ever made). I know a lot of the hardcore TITANIC buffs got mad at the whole Jack/Rose thing, since they weren't real people.
But on the other hand, I was always a fan of the story of the TITANIC. And it's not like you're going to get millions of people to go watch a documentary about. And even though the main characters were made-up, the other characters were real and I thought he told the story fairly accurately (the suicide scene notwithstanding).
In my opinion, the story itself is a tragedy. 1,500 people died needlessly. But, what happened afterwards is just downright disgraceful. There were two government inquiries- one in the U.S, the other in Britain. With all due respect to Sean Pa, the Admiralty hearings were a joke. They more or less exonerated the one man who was most at fault (Captain Smith), and instead placed the blame on Captain Lord (of the CALIFORNIAN) for not coming to rescue the TITANIC passengers in time (I have less of a problem with O.J.'s jury).
Heh, Paul O'Neill is a lot more talented than I realized!
I'm not so sure about the funeral for the "R" word. Seems like there should be some description for an alternate history that challenges basic notions of an event. You can't say there's only one history, because certain versions dominate. If absolute proof were discovered the Roosevelt was fully aware of the Pearl Harbor attack and let it happen or if detailed proof of Japanese negotiations to surrender prior to the A-bombs, I'd call that revisionist history. The reason is the vast majority of Americans would never accept those facts and the dominant story would continue to be told. As GL suggests, the victor suppresses revisionist history...
<font color="#0000FF" size="1">[ December 29, 2007 01:44 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>
Actually, that is a good point, Lan. GL has alluded to various archeological findings throughout history that may have been suppressed by the Catholic church because the contradicted history as set forth in the Bible.
And as you're using the "R" word, then I see your point. I guess my context was that history is never a proven set of facts in the first place (unlike math), and so I cringe when people scream "revisionist history" when what they're really complaining about is point to which you just alluded- learning things we don't want to learn.
I personally have no problem with that. You show me the smoking gun that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen, I'll certainly have to go back and re-think my analysis of him.
Most subjects tend to be either more objective (math, science, geography, etc.) or more subjective (literature, reading, music). History heavily involves both- we have to uncover the facts, but then we have to interpret them. And there is the added complication of the fact that the victor gets to write it.
Except, of course, for the American Civil War, which is the only example I know of where the losing side actually wrote the history (LewMan ducks as Trav is about to throw a rock at his head [img]wink.gif[/img] )
Fuck the rock, I'm pullin out the Glock.
Now if Bobby Lee had a few hundred of them with about 1,000,000 rounds...
Lew you can correct me anytime it's necessary. I bow to your knowledge. Here I thought I knew ocean liner hiostory pretty well. Back to the books...