The Last Correctly Prosecuted War....

[LadyEagle]

Ended 15 August 1945.

The US has not correctly prosecuted a war since then. Including the one going on now. Just my humble opinion.

You don't just defeat the enemy bit by bit, you overwhelm the enemy until you smash their will into tiny bits - you drive their will completely out of them so there is nothing left but complete surrender. That's what happened August 15 1945.

Thoughts?

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

How many years did it take to smash the will out of them and how many Americans died to liberate the Jews in Germany which isolationists like Lindberg and those in the America First crowd claimed was an internal conflict and none of our business and even went as far as to say that FDR and the Jews were agitating an unecessary war?

I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[CoachC]

I would tend to agree with you Lady Eagle. There is a part of me though that wonders if we shouldn't have listened to Patton and kicked the Soviets back into Russia. How much different would the last half century have been if the cold war had been snuffed out before it started.

 

[rsr]

I'm not sure we've ever had a properly prosecuted war.

 

[Dr. Bob]

Be hard pressed to condemn the war efforts of WWI from the US entry until Amistice Day. While we had some logistic failures (our artillery never did arrive and we used French equipment) our troops were trained, given objectives and pursued them.

Failure came AFTER the war but during it I would say it was better than most in prosecuting its goal.

 

[Roy]

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
How many years did it take to smash the will out of them and how many Americans died to liberate the Jews in Germany which isolationists like Lindberg and those in the America First crowd claimed was an internal conflict and none of our business and even went as far as to say that FDR and the Jews were agitating an unecessary war?

I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.

Joseph Botwinick

Do we need to send troops to every continent where murderous oppression exists or just to countries where Jews are threatened? I'm not making light of Nazi oppression, but oppression exists everywhere, and I don't see how the U.S. can go everywhere and deal with it. If we did, the country would collapse and the illegal immigrants who came here to escape oppression would find perhaps a worse scenario than that which they fled.

Roy

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Roy,

If you had been alive back then, would you have sided with the America First crowd and gone for isolationism on the basis that if we left Hitler alone, then he would have left us alone? Do you not understand that he would not have stopped with merely the Jews, or Great Britain, etc...

As to your question, I would respond that we have sent troops to a murderous regime that has oppressed mostly Muslims, not Jews. We should send troops to those who attacked us and those who support them. In WW2, it was Japan who attacked us and Germany who was allied with them. Today it was Islamis terrorists who attacked us and Saddam who was allied with them. Germany never actually attacked America. Do you think we took our eyes off the ball there? I promise you this: If we had not entered the war when we did and confronted Japan and Germany, they would have conquered the rest of the world and then turned their attention to us. We stopped them before they could do so.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[Ed Edwards]

Originally posted by LadyEagle:
You don't just defeat the enemy bit by bit, you overwhelm the enemy until you smash their will into tiny bits - you drive their will completely out of them so there is nothing left but complete surrender. That's what happened August 15 1945.

Thoughts?

Amen on that
part Sister LadyEagle -- Preach it!.

But recall the importance of ENEMY IDENTIFICATION.
Yes, we have the capability of turning all
of Iraq between the two rivers into a sea
of glass. (Heat sand to the temperature
of the sun's surface and it turns to
glass, easy to do with just a few hundred
nuclear weapons) However, the sand in
Iraq between the two rivers is NOT THE
ENEMY. The Iraqi people are NOT THE ENEMY.
The enemy in Iraq are terrorists who
have to be defeated individually. There
is no united enemy in Iraq, only
individuals.

Did somebody mention that the war on terror
is going to be different and cannot be
fought with the materials and methods
of past wars?

 

[mioque]

"if we left Hitler alone, then he would have left us alone?"
"
To give the historical answer.

No.
Hitler literally declared war on the USA.

In both world wars the US basically got sucked into the conflict instead of stepping in voluntarily. That's why after the second one the US pursued an interventionist policy instead of an isolationist one.
My own country was proudly isolationist untill it stopped working in May 1940.

 

[just-want-peace]

You cannot get rid of cancer by ignoring it! Doesn't help to put band-aids on it either. You either excise it, kill it in place, or it kills you. not a big range of choices!

But there are always those people who don't want to improve what's been done, they want to "re-invent the wheel"!

 

[Roy]

Joseph: Hindsight is always 20/20. If I had been around in the years preceeding Dec. 7, 1941, I doubt that I would have been chomping at the bit to get involved in any international conflict, and I don't think that the majority of U.S. citizens were either. The fact that our country stayed out of the conflict for as long as we did was a major factor in U.S.'s successful prosecution of the war. All other combatants were already war-weary by the time our troops hit the field, especially Germany. Despite our heavy losses of life, the U.S. was the only country that emerged with a strong economy and relatively little damage on the home front. I think it would have been a worse out-come if we had been spread out everywhere, like Great Britain was, and involved in all the conflicts from the start.

With an expanded NATO, troops in the Balkans, and troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, our country is now spread dangerously thin. We had to hit Afghanistan, ok and maybe Iraq, (even though our attackers were Saudis and not Iraqis) but there is no reason for the U.S. to be in the Balkans. If we don't find a way to get withdraw from some of our overseas comittments, we will be left in a seriously weakened state.

Roy

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Roy,

Do you believe as Lindberg and the America First crowd that the Jews and FDR were agitating an unecessary war with Hitler? What if Dec. 7, 1941 had never happened? Would you still have argued that it was an internal conflict and none of our business? How long would it have taken you to abandon your isolationist views long enough to realize that Hitler had designs on conquering the world? You are right about one thing: Hindsight is 20/20. Then again, I have to wonder where we would be today, and which Nazi dictator would be running our country today had it not been for an attack on our borders by Japan (not Germany) which suddenly made it acceptable to the America First crowd to care about what Hitler was doing to my ancestors in Poland. I wonder if I would even be here discussing it today. Who knows?

Joseph Botwinick

 

[mioque]

"which suddenly made it acceptable to the America First crowd to care about what Hitler was doing to my ancestors in Poland."
"
If Hitler hadn't declared war on the US, the US vs. Germany part of the war would have started later than it did. In theory it might have never gotten of the ground at all.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Had it started later than it did, I believe the size of Germany would have been much bigger than it was as they would have conquered Europe and the Soviet Union. They would have been even more dangerous than they were. And yes, it would definitely have gotten off the ground. You see, contrary to what the isolationists would like us to believe, it wasn't just an "internal" conflict that didn't threaten us and our national security.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[LadyEagle]

Roy, I agree there seems to be no reason to be in the Balkans. But the fact is, we are there and this is why:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/balkans.html

Also, we armed al-Qaeda in Kosovo and now we are fighting them.

Evil never makes sense.

 

[Stratiotes]

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
Had it started later than it did, I believe the size of Germany would have been much bigger than it was as they would have conquered Europe and the Soviet Union.

Or, as another alternative history, Stalin and Hitler could have destroyed each other. Instead, we chose one despot over another and, in the end, a large portion of eastern europe was enslaved to our "ally" in Moscow. Check the numbers too - I think you'll find Stalin's death camps were far more efficient than Hitler's at their purpose.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Yes, they were very deadly indeed. So, does this mean that you would have sided with the isolationists in the America First organization and stayed out of war at all cost? Do you agree with Lindberg's statements about the British, FDR and the Jews agitating an unessecary war? Had Hitler conquered all of Europe and the Soviet Union unimpeded by the Americans, he would have indeed been a lot more efficient than Stalin; not only that, but he would have also become more strong and more dangerous to America later down the road. Do you not think FDR did the right thing in confronting Hitler and his ever-spreading death machine? I do.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[Roy]

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
Roy,

Do you believe as Lindberg and the America First crowd that the Jews and FDR were agitating an unecessary war with Hitler?

No, and why would you care beans what Lucky Lindy had to say about anything? He was a has been at that time.

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
What if Dec. 7, 1941 had never happened? Would you still have argued that it was an internal conflict and none of our business?

I think that what I would have advocated is to be prepared. Beef up the defenses and offer aid to those fighting the NAZIs. Hitler was a maniac anyway and I don't think it would have been long before he would have crossed the line, pulling the U.S. into the war.

How long would it have taken you to abandon your isolationist views long enough to realize that Hitler had designs on conquering the world? You are right about one thing: Hindsight is 20/20. Then again, I have to wonder where we would be today, and which Nazi dictator would be running our country today had it not been for an attack on our borders by Japan (not Germany) which suddenly made it acceptable to the America First crowd to care about what Hitler was doing to my ancestors in Poland. I wonder if I would even be here discussing it today. Who knows?
[/QB]

You can call my nationalistic views isolationist if you want to. Isolationist is the term preferred by liberals and pseudo-conservatives. I don't apologize for caring more for my own country than for international issues that are of no importance to the U.S. The fact that someone in your ancestry saw fit to relocate the Botwinick klan to the U.S. should also tell you something. They left a land which, for one reason or the other, was seen as unfit to remain in and take a stand for.

What I'm getting from you is that we need to be ready to go to war to protect Jewish interests around the world. We have many other cultures in this country as well and if we accomodate you, then we must in all fairness accomodate the those of Haitian ancestry, Cuban ancestry, Mexican ancestry, Vietnamese ancestry, Chineses ancestry, Nigerian ancestry, and whatever else is out there. My point is that we can't do it.

You need to stop trying to be a Jewish Jessie Jackson - wearing your ethnicity like a chip on your shoulder.

Roy

 

[Turpius]

I think I would tend to agree with LadyEagle's OP.

 

[Stratiotes]

I tend to agree with LadyEagle as well - but, at the same time, we should never forget the maxim that the victors write the official histories and that our opinions are shaped by the history to which we expose ourselves. It is best to always question both sides in any conflict to get a clear understanding of the causes and results. I'm afraid that we Americans are not generally good at doing that.