Well, then Germany would have won the great European war of 39, but still lost the seperate WW2 when it started a few years later.Da Orky Man said:You know that at one point the UK was the only one fighting? Neither America nor Russia had come into it yet, and France had been defeated, so Britain stood alone. Should they have fallen, then the Axis would have immediately won.
I still don't think the Nazis would have won even with that, the US had too much industry (and later, nuclear weapons) and both it and the USSR were logistically impossible to conquer.Azahul said:Without Britain tying up heir resources, they could have turned the full might of the Germany military on Russia a lot earlier. Germany would have had a far greater access to the oceans, and would have had greater freedom to intervene in the Pacific. I wouldn't underestimate the impact Britain had on the war.
Ah, ok, fair enough.Azahul said:As for not targetting civilians, that's ridiculous. Churchill himself advocated a campaign of terror to lower the morale of the German population. Throughout the latter years of the war, Allied planes specifically targetted civilian population centres. And then there's the atomic bombs. It'd be rather easy to find locations less heavily populated by civilians, but nope, America hit two major cities with them. It's pretty clear that even the "good" allies (the ones that aren't Russia, according to the Western world) were pretty damned evil.
-gentle cough-crazyarms33 said:Scuse me good sir, I agree that we Americans came late to the party in that we didn't fight until Pearl harbor, but the Lend/Lease Act was signed in 1941...9 months before Pearl Harbor occurred. If you are not familiar with it, I would suggest reading up on it. In a nut shell it basically was: America began shipping war material(ammunition, vehicles, POL, guns etc) to the UK, USSR and China. It is estimated that fully 1/4 of British munitions were furnished by Lend/Lease program as well as up to half of their aircraft. By the end of the war over half of the logistical trucks in the USSR were American. America built 2000 train locomotives and over 11,000 rail cars and sent them to the USSR. Considering this is how supplies were moved at the time, that is one hell of an accomplishment. The list goes on and on but I get really tired of this bullshit that "America took all the credit" and "didn't really do that much" in WW 2.Valanthe said:In before some clod tries to look smart and say it's all a matter of perspective.
World War two was fought because Germany and it's allies started attacking and conquering their neighbours, and those neighbours had allies who came to their defense (or, in the case of one particular country, rolled in late to the party and took all the credit. Whereas the Cold War was two global super powers engaged in a nuclear penis measuring contest, with some proxy wars funded among.
So in my opinion, WWII was, and the Cold War was not.
Where, EXACTLY, was England or Europe for that matter, before US intervention? OH right! They were the only country in Europe not conquered. Silly me, the English were CLEARLY doing so well at that point. They were certainly giving the Nazis what for and holding them back. The only reason that England even lasted as long as they did is the miracle fog at Dunkirk and Hitler attacking the USSR too late in the year. If Hitler had allowed his generals to use their panzers to hit the Brits instead of demanding that the Luftwaffe get all the glory most of Britain's troops are gone. Wiped out. Killed or captured. Puts England at an even more severe disadvantage wouldn't you say? And let's talk U-Boats. How deadly were they? How many did the UK have? How effective would they have been if say, the US hadn't shipped tons of food and other material to the UK, and the UK had been forced to fend for itself? Devastating would be my answer as England simply would have been unable to feed itself much less wage a war. Yes, the Battle of Britain was truly inspiring, and good for them but its kinda hard to fight without bullets or planes. What decisive battle did the English ever win by themselves in WW2? The Battle of Caen? It only took them a month to take it, AFTER the US forced a withdrawal by continued attacks in the south. Yup those Americans sure did suck. Who would even have wanted them on their side?
Wait you say, the African campaigns! I want to talk about a battle the Americans lost? Kasserine. It was a disaster and it wasn't even CLOSE to a victory. Monty drove the Nazi's back! Freely granted, at least the Battle of Kasserine. What was the next big (land) defeat for the Americans? I can't think of one, unless you count the Battle of the Bulge(I do not due to the defense of Bastogne, which by the way effectively ended any real hope Germany had on the Western front). And as for Monty driving the Nazi's back, its pretty easy to drive an armored force back if they don't have any gas. Or ammunition. And he lost all of that area before he retook it (with American help I might add).
In short, this idea that the US came late and did nothing is utter crap. I will end with a quote from Stalin at the Tehran conference of 1943 "Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war."
OT: WW2 was absolutely a battle between good and evil. The Cold War was a dick measuring contest.
Thank you, finally someone understands that Communism isn't a pure government model, but partly an economical model. I really hate it when people go. "Oh, Communism or Demoracy?" Why not "Dicatorship or Demoracy"? It's bloody stupid.CrystalShadow said:I'm sorry, but I really take issue with the 'democracy VS. Communism' thing.Craorach said:I voted that it was, but I refuse to be drawn on which side was which. Despite what I and many people feel Democracy is not an inherently better system of government than Communism. Both can lead to massive corruption and abuse... Democracy is, in essence, simply mob rule.mega48man said:of course the cold war wasn't a war, it just had wars in it. but was it a battle between good and evil? (US vs. USSR/democracy vs. communism)
Communism has been shown not to work because of wide spread corruption and it's insistence on going against territory and ownership instincts. But Democracy has it's flaws as well.
Both the US and the USSR are/were massive nations that are/were willing to do anything to protect their perceptions of their nation's rights, and to suggest that the US was good and the USSR evil ignores this fact.
Edit: We really must stop editing posts while others are responding to them >.>
Why?
September 11th. !973 is why. (The issue of that date's significance being drowned out by the much, much later 'september 11th' terrorist attacks might be worth noting, but for the fact that it's what led me to discover this earlier atrocity.)
Anyway, to summarise, in 1970, a democratically elected socialist government came to power in Chile.
Fearing this would turn into a communist regime (they were starting to take control over privately owned resources after all...), the US government backed a military coup, and this directly led to a military dictatorship taking control, which remained in power until 1990.
If this was really about democracy that would not have happened.
Communism isn't something that goes against democracy.
Communism is a form of government. (It claims to be an economic theory, which is why you get capitalism Vs. Communism, but Communism isn't actually an economic theory, neither is capitalism a form of government.)
It is quite possible to have a democratically elected Communist government, and I'd have to say anyone that actually thinks there was ever a conflict between Democracy and communism is the victim of propaganda.
Communist Russia had a lot of problems, but many of these were due to being run by an unaccountable dictatorship, and pretending to have a workable economic theory when in actuality they frequently failed to produce anywhere near what they needed to look after their own population.
Whether you believe in Capitalism or not. Economics is really quite simple. You need to have enough resources to go around, and you need to get those resources to the people that actually need them. And unless you have way more of a resource than you could possibly use, you have to do so as efficiently as you can.
Capitalism manages at least some of those things. Communism seems to fail at almost all of them.
As for the second world war... In isolation, yes. It looks like a very obvious good vs. evil thing. But if you look at in context... It's almost possible to argue that Germany's evil acts are a direct result of what others did to them beforehand.
(Also, even the nazis themselves did quite a few good things, which proves that at the very least, evil people don't spend all their time doing exclusively evil deed.)
Actually I think you'll find communism is both an economic and political model for running society. You cannot have a communist economy with democracy, unless by freak occurrence a real communist government gets elected. If you look at the various elected communist governments the world has had you'll see that none of them were truly communist. Indeed those that were closest to true communism were the ones that committed terrible atrocities, such as the USSR, PR of China and Cambodia.Dyp100 said:Communism isn't a government
A. Why so touchy?crazyarms33 said:Wall o' text.
but they also prevent a great deal of suffering in the world. With the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, roughly 250,000 died (some, i will admit, horribly). But the other plan of Operation Downfall, a full out invasion of Japan, is believed that it would have cost well over 1 million Allied casualties, and around 10 to 20 million Japanese casualties. 500,000 purple hearts were made in preparation for Operation Downfall, (since it Operation Downfall never went through, every purple heart given for the last 70 years were all made for Operation Downfall in the 40s).Craorach said:Nuclear weapons have caused and will cause a great deal of suffering in future.
do you know what that excuse was to fight germany? hint retaliation, in fact he didnt want a war with germany he was happy to let the non agression pact last to keep the USSR safe. you cant just excuse Britain and America but no the USSRLovely Mixture said:For World War II:
-The US retaliated in revenge. The liberation was just a bonus which boosted the morale of the American people that allowed them to feel that they were in the right. They began to lose sight of things with the Internment camps, that certainly weren't horrible in any way, but were still a violation of human rights,
-The British retaliation of invasion. Again the liberation
-As for Russia, Stalin merely needed an excuse for war in which to seize power. He was already evil.
I've talked with a former internee. He said it wasn't good, but it certainly wasn't horrifying like a concentration camp. Of course different camps had different conditions, and I already said they were a massive violation of human-rights. Even if they weren't horrible, they weren't right.spartandude said:and the internment camps werent horrible? what are you smoking? i want some because id love to live in your super kind fluffy dream world.
I was always taught that Stalin knew Hitler would break the pact. And I wasn't trying to excuse the US. How is revenge an excuse? Anger is not an excuse.spartandude said:do you know what that excuse was to fight germany? hint retaliation, in fact he didnt want a war with germany he was happy to let the non agression pact last to keep the USSR safe. you cant just excuse Britain and America but no the USSR