Patton gets a bad rap. Okay, sure, there’s that story about being on the hill in Italy and claiming he’d been there before when he was a Roman emperor, but I just call that colourful, not crazy. Yeah, okay, so there was that slapping incident too. Yeah, and the flashy clothes and loud speakers. Fucking with everyone around him, including joking that he could drive the British back for another Dunkirk. What’s not to love? This is the kind of shit you want in a general.
I do actually think the U.S. should have gone after the communists then. I know I’ve said this before, but I’m not quite sure what the point was in going after fascist dictators running riot over Central Europe and China only to have communist dictators running riot over Central Europe and China. That’s one of those annoying problems with democracies – people don’t have the sack to finish what they started.
Hilarious. Only China only owes 5% of US debt. China’s stimulus to deal with the recession was massively bigger considering the size of its economy relative to the US, and lo, they exited in much better shape.
As for gov taking over industry perhaps you should familiarize yourself with modern Chinese economic models. The state advances, the private sector retreats is the slogan for the latest 5 year plan. Oh and of course the Chinese are likely to bring in a socialized medical system in the coming decade as they need to stimulate the domestic economy and people just won’t spend when they need to keep all their savings for a medical emergency.
MM -
I’m on to your wily antics.
You post a comment that makes it appear as if you completely mis-read/mis-understood/mis-interpreted/just didn’t fucking understand the post you’re responding to and thus divert the thread into a “thread about you.”
Crafty fellow you are…but we’re onto your tricks… :discodance:
Hey, kids, here’s one of my favorite tricks. I ask TainanCowboy to explain what he means, or to back up an assertion, or to apologize when he’s clearly been shown to be misinformed…and he disappears! :roflmao:
WAY too big to take on, they had battle hardened troops and Soviets had a huge armanents base by the end…plus they were the US allies![/quote]
It was never a possibility - people were tired of war. The Allied forces were mostly civilians and they were keen to get back home. The electorates didn’t want more years of bloodshed and hardship.
They still didn’t finish what they’d started. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact gave Eastern Europe to dictators. Yalta and Potsdam gave Eastern Europe to a dictator. Doesn’t make much sense to me. Why bother with 1939-1945?
WAY too big to take on, they had battle hardened troops and Soviets had a huge armanents base by the end…plus they were the US allies![/quote]
It was never a possibility - people were tired of war. The Allied forces were mostly civilians and they were keen to get back home. The electorates didn’t want more years of bloodshed and hardship.[/quote]
The US also had the bomb.
which I suppose sounds nasty, but I wonder, if 1 million more had to die in 1945 to end communism right there and then, to spare all these decades of cold war and millions of other deaths associated with the cold war, and perhaps avoid the geopolitical map we have now, would a leader say, knowing that future, it would be worth the sacrifice?
Yeah the US had the bomb, but if it started bombing innocent people (and it did in Japan and the allies in Germany) what would have been the difference with the Nazis, stamping one’s ideology on a foreign country. Anyway the US would have had internal differences pursuing such a strategy to it’s end…civil war even…and countless millions more lives lost. Trying to ‘stamp’ something out often only encourages it’s existence. There was a reason why Communism was popular, don’t forget! Nah they took the right approach back then and who are we to second guess their decisions from our 21st century comfortable armchairs. Looking back at the end result, the Cold War eventually had a peaceful ending and that is something to be celebrated (even if it was touch and go sometimes).
Using excessive force or punishment on civilian populations would leave a strong residue of hatred and those population later on…we had seen the result in Germany from WWI and also the existing victim complex of Chinese towards foreign powers to this day.
I forget how we got to this hypothetical lol. but i would disagree with your examples. They aren’t result of excessive force. Punishment in Germany in the form of burdensome treaties, yes. but probably more to do with irredentism (and I suppose arguably, a host of factors to explain for rise of fascism there). Foreign power intervention in China wasn’t really directly inflicted on civilian populations (at least nothing violent like an a-bomb or bombing of Dresden, etc.) excluding the Japanese of course. Humiliating, yes. Unfair, yes. but not horrifically violent.
Japan is one of the US’ strongest allies despite being the only victim of the a-bomb. And they are a strong democracy, etc. there isn’t any strong lingering hatred etc although there are pacifist movements and anti-nuke groups.
I’m not trying to be a hindsight armchair general, but clearly, the west recognized the communist threat in those days and some considered it worst than fascism (and naiively hoped fascism and communism would destroy each other).
I’m just wondering out loud how the world might be different. For e.g. if you could “justify” a massacre centuries ago (where there weren’t concepts of human rights) that would bring homogeneity in a region either ethnically or religiously, what an effect (no matter the ill intent) it would have on future generations in terms of less conflict.
jack, what are you talking about? The republicans were still in control of China the end of WWII and Russia was an ally. The Cold War had not even begun. Your hypothetical would have been an indefensible slaughter. In any case, America’s attempts to use force to bring democracy have not always borne fruit have they? Iraq could very well slip back into civil war and in any case US action there has made Iran one of the strongest regional players (oops).
The world would no doubt be different if China and Russia had been bombed by the US, but not necessarily for the better.
Don’t get your point, Japanese inflicted horrendous damage on the Chinese civilian population, which is why they are so hated in certain parts. Just last time I was there I met a taxi driver whose grandfather had his arm hacked off by a Japanese soldier in Manchuria. Rape of Nanking…Japanese were especially cruel in China. Germans ‘got over’ their bad treatment at the end of WWII knowing they precipitated some of the suffering on themselves, the Russians and the Chinese would never ever forgive such treatment. If the US had used the a-bomb for some reason against other countries there would have been accelerated programs worldwide to develop, would have been even more unstable and US would have been completely overstretched. Also the abomb as the ultimate weapon is over exagerrated. Countries can hold whole cities to ransom like how Seoul could be obliterated in minutes with conventional mortars and rockets. There are chemical weapons such as sarin gas that are also extremely deadly, easier to manufacture than abombs and could cause mass civilian casualties…attacks on nuclear plants with long range missiles and planes…you get the picture now.
