The "Wars of the Past" Thread

[Hobgoblin]

I kind of hoped that Indy would have run into Stalin the same way he bumped into Hitler in TLC.

 

[8wid]

^I thought KOTCS was going to be about the crystal skulls from earliest inhibition, but I'd thought it was going to be set in 1949 like Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine was. I am totally for making the United States the enemy of Jones for the next one if its approached.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I think we all know that the U.S. will never be the enemy in any such high profile movie.

 

[demitri_vampiro]

I am surprised that nobody who was involved in the Balkan Wars fled to South America.

because most of them got rich and have huge businesses or they run the countries.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Some of those Nazis would have made a better villain for Indiana Jones 4 than the Soviets did. A plot revolving around the resurrection of Hitler with the crystal skulls was more interesting than them being from aliens.

I actually think ancient aliens could have worked if they had handled it properly. But they didn't seem to put much thought into it. They never even explained the connection between the ancient aliens, and the aliens coming to Earth in the forties and fifties. It was very poorly slapped together.

Perhaps they didn't want to go too far into the modern alien / UFO phenomena. On the other hand, it was a huge part of that era. But they just left it there, without really addressing it, even though it was critical to the movie's plot.

I would however approve of a plot involving Nazis in South America. That's very Indiana Jones. But ancient aliens could have worked, if they had actually had a half decent writer.

 

[8wid]

^I know that when Independence Day came out discussions for Indiana Jones 4 were still happening and Spielberg didn't want to use the idea of ancient aliens because he knew fans would think the movie was being made simply to make a quick buck on a popular subject by mixing genres.

Even though that really wasn't the case, most people who saw KOTCS just assumed that anyway.

Back to the wars of the past thread, while I'm certain JFK would have gotten the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act passed in his second term as long as Johnson was his vice-president still and it probably would have taken his entire next term to do so and no other social programs like Medicare and Medicaid would have been passed which means poverty in the United States would still have been immense.

Kennedy would have continue to increase the number of US advisors to South Vietnam by the tens of thousands, but never committed to such a large military campaign as Johnson did or put ground troops into fight the war. A document like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution would have never been passed as Kennedy was much more cool headed than that in previous Cold War scenarios and probably would have directed more economic aid than anything else and would have started Vietnamization before Nixon would have. But the limited US troop levels in Vietnam likely meant Saigon would have fallen to the communists earlier and this may have allowed the GOP to get control of the White House if Vietnam fell, but Kennedy most likely would have not have withdrawn all of the US advisors unless the country had fallen to communism. Richard Nixon would have held those cards next one would think.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

A couple pages back people were talking about the possibility of the USSR invading Britain at the end of World War II. As far as I know, no such plan ever existed. However, what did exist were plans for the aptly-named Operation Unthinkable - a crackpot scheme by Winston Churchill for the western Allies to invade the Soviet Union alongside re-armed German troops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

Ultimately, there was no way they could have pulled that off. Allied soldiers would never have stood for attacking a country that they had been told for the past 4 years were their brothers in arms against the Axis.

It always rankles me whenever the reactionary warmonger Churchill is celebrated as some kind of great statesman. He was good for one thing - beating the war drums, which is an excellent talent to have in the middle of a world war. But other than that, he was useless.

Today Churchill is portrayed as the beloved wartime leader of Britain, but the fact is that by the end of the war British voters had had more than enough of his right-wing bluster - hence his crushing defeat to the Labour Party in 1945.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I recall Patton wanted to do something like that. Unfortunately, it just wasn't realistic. You can't topple Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the same war. That would be having your cake and eating it too.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

It would also unquestionably be a war of aggression, against a country that had not attacked the western Allies. You would be invading a country that just saw 27 million of its citizens killed. I don't care how evil you think the Soviet Union was: invading a country so devastated by war - a former ally, which had shouldered most of the burden in the war against Hitler - would be beyond the pale.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Tell that to the North Koreans, and the 50 million dead Chinese (I forget the exact number, but once you surpass a million, it really gets ridiculous anyway). The Soviet Union was no better than Nazi Germany. Ask Poland.

Though it just wasn't going to happen.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

What do North Korea and China have to do with what I was talking about?

Step outside the ideological sandbox for a second. I'm saying that for the western Allies to invade the Soviet Union in 1945 would have been a war of aggression, pure and simple. There's no other way to describe attacking a country that did not attack you first.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Oh, if that's your problem, so what? You've just invaded / liberated most of Europe, Africa and half of Asia, what's one more country? Well, technically it would be several. Winner writes history, right?

The point is, and these people weren't shortsighted, that the Soviets would infest the rest of the world with Communism. Which they did. Which cost more lives than the damn world war.

There is some hilarious irony of you of all people telling me to step out of the ideological sandbox.

 

[The Overlord]

What do North Korea and China have to do with what I was talking about?

Step outside the ideological sandbox for a second. I'm saying that for the western Allies to invade the Soviet Union in 1945 would have been a war of aggression, pure and simple. There's no other way to describe attacking a country that did not attack you first.

To be fair, for Britain Polish independence was the main reason for them getting into the war in the first place and Stalin clearly wasn't going to give Poland independence, so I can image Churchill and Britain being unhappy with Stalin for doing the same thing Hitler did in regards to Poland.

I think Churchill is more gray then you are making him out to be, he had some real faults, he was racist, an imperialist and a hypocrite, wanting Poland to be interdependent, but not India. But you seem to be criticize him for beating the drums of war, what was the alternative in 1939? Do what Chamberlain did and just let Hitler have anything he wanted? Sometimes you need to beat the drums of war, it really depends on the war. Churchill's resolve to fight Nazism can be admired, well his other faults can be still be acknowledged. He wasn't a saint, but he wasn't a cartoon bad guy either.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Oh, if that's your problem, so what? You've just invaded / liberated most of Europe, Africa and half of Asia, what's one more country? Well, technically it would be several. Winner writes history, right?

As you pointed out, invading the Soviet Union wouldn't exactly just be "one more country". Apparently, Churchill had the same hubris as Napoleon and Hitler.

The point is, and these people weren't shortsighted, that the Soviets would infest the rest of the world with Communism. Which they did. Which cost more lives than the damn world war.

Invading the Soviet Union wouldn't necessarily have prevented Mao from coming to power in China and instituting disastrous policies like the Great Leap Forward. All you would be doing is starting a new war that would be hell for millions of people on both sides.

There is some hilarious irony of you of all people telling me to step out of the ideological sandbox.

Give me a break. Everyone has an ideology of some sort.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

I think Churchill is more gray then you are making him out to be, he had some real faults, he was racist, an imperialist and a hypocrite, wanting Poland to be interdependent, but not India. But you seem to be criticize him for beating the drums of war, what was the alternative in 1939? Do what Chamberlain did and just Hitler have anything he wanted? Sometimes you need to beat the drums of war, it really depends on the war. Churchill's resolve to fight Nazism can be admired, well his other faults can be still be acknowledged. He wasn't a saint, but he wasn't a cartoon bad guy either.

Nice post - very nuanced.

The thing is, when you compare anyone to Hitler, they're going to end up looking good, since Hitler was the cartoon bad guy par excellence. I just think the way we lionize Churchill as some kind of hero is a bit much, especially when you consider that his anti-communism led him to express admiration for the fascist leaders in the 1930s:

I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understood it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or a working class leader has been that of being undermined by someone more extreme than he. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.

 

[The Overlord]

Nice post - very nuanced.

The thing is, when you compare anyone to Hitler, they're going to end up looking good, since Hitler was the cartoon bad guy par excellence. I just think the way we lionize Churchill as some kind of hero is a bit much, especially when you consider that his anti-communism led him to express admiration for the fascist leaders in the 1930s:

To be fair, that was Mussolini he was praising, not Hitler. Mussolini is not even in the same ball park as Hitler, in terms of either threat he presented to or how immoral he was. Even though Churchill hated Communism, he felt Nazism was a bigger threat. That's how dangerous Hitler was, compared to Mussolini, Churchill put aside his anti communist feelings because Hitler was that much of a threat. Nazism is more then just fascism, its fascism taken to an insane extreme. Mussolini on his own likely wouldn't have come up something as evil as the Holocaust. Mussolini was kinda of a pathetic tin pot compared to Hitler, Churchill might said that because he thought Mussolini was no real threat to any other country and given Italy's track record in the war, he was right.

Besides that's just how history is, people get remembered for either the best or worst thing they did and that overshadows everything else. For Nixon Watergate will overshadow everything else has done, would you say that is fair or unfair? History is judged through human eyes and humans judge things according to their own biases.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Well, the winners write the history books, so naturally we look upon Churchill as a great leader. But he clearly wasn't as popular with rank-and-file Britons by the end of the war as history makes him out to be, if the 1945 election results are any guide.

Here's a Churchill quote that's actually about Hitler:

One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Most people would agree that if Hitler was killed before World War II (even by a year), that he would be remembered as one of Germany's greatest leaders, up there with Bismarck. So, at the time, there really wasn't anything particularly controversial about Hitler. He didn't become the most evil man in history until people learned about the holocaust and the various other crimes against humanity. Though by the early 1940's, most of Europe hated him anyway.

As for invading the Soviet Union in 1945, it just wasn't realistic. The British were exhausted, the Americans wouldn't want to start a new war. It just wasn't going to happen.

But without the Soviet Union, Mao could have never conquered all of China. And of course, without the Soviet Union there would be no North Korea.

 

[The Overlord]

Well, the winners write the history books, so naturally we look upon Churchill as a great leader. But he clearly wasn't as popular with rank-and-file Britons by the end of the war as history makes him out to be, if the 1945 election results are any guide.

Here's a Churchill quote that's actually about Hitler:

Of course history is written by the winners, who wants to back a loser? If the USSR had actually worked, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we?

Morality is nice, but often has to make way for pragmatic reality. Besides isn't history fair in some of its casting of heroes and villains. Would you disagree with the negative treatment Nixon has gotten from history? Sometimes history gets its right and sometime it gets it wrong, but that's because it is written by flawed human beings, not perfect gods.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

But without the Soviet Union, Mao could have never conquered all of China.

Actually, Stalin's USSR was very stingy when it came to assisting China. Mao conquered China with barely any help from the Soviet Union. He was able to accomplish this because:

1) Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists had depleted much of their forces in the war against Japan
2) American soldiers would have been unwilling to fight a war against a WWII-era ally (similar to Churchill's proposed war against the Soviet Union)
3) The presence of a massive Stalinist state on China's borders dissuaded the US from intervention

So the USSR was only one of many factors that led to Mao's victory.

Of course history is written by the winners, who wants to back a loser? If the USSR had actually worked, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we?

Morality is nice, but often has to make way for pragmatic reality. Besides isn't history fair in some of its casting of heroes and villains. Would you disagree with the negative treatment Nixon has gotten from history? Sometimes history gets its right and sometime it gets it wrong, but that's because it is written by flawed human beings, not perfect gods.

It seems to me that Nixon has been vilified partly because he crossed a line: his crimes interfered with sections of the U.S. establishment, specifically the Democratic Party (through Watergate) and The New York Times. Basically, he offended the wrong people.

 

[The Overlord]

Actually, Stalin's USSR was very stingy when it came to assisting China. Mao conquered China with barely any help from the Soviet Union. He was able to accomplish this because:

1) Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists had depleted much of their forces in the war against Japan
2) American soldiers would have been unwilling to fight a war against a WWII-era ally (similar to Churchill's proposed war against the Soviet Union)
3) The presence of a massive Stalinist state on China's borders dissuaded the US from intervention

So the USSR was only one of many factors that led to Mao's victory.



It seems to me that Nixon has been vilified partly because he crossed a line: his crimes interfered with sections of the U.S. establishment, specifically the Democratic Party (through Watergate) and The New York Times. Basically, he offended the wrong people.

What about George W. Bush, he is regarded as a failure, was that unfair assessment? What about the Vietnam war being seen as a failure, is that unfair assessment?

You cannot judge everything based on morality alone, someone who has good intentions, but fails to realize them, will not have the same impact if they succeeded. Wars, elections, movements are often won by strategy, not morality. If someone thinks they can win a battle based on morality alone, they are doomed to fail. Morality is nice, but it often gives way to realistic pragmatism.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

What about George W. Bush, he is regarded as a failure, was that unfair assessment? What about the Vietnam war being seen as a failure, is that unfair assessment?

No and no.

You cannot judge everything based on morality alone, someone who has good intentions, but fails to realize them, will not have the same impact if they succeeded. Wars, elections, movements are often won by strategy, not morality. If someone thinks they can win a battle based on morality alone, they are doomed to fail. Morality is nice, but it often gives way to realistic pragmatism.

I'm not sure how that relates to my arguments.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Without Soviet backing, Mao wouldn't have been able to conquer China. Now, he may have captured part of it, sure, the communists already did rule entire cities. And they might have held on to it. But, without the Soviets, he wouldn't have had the resources to destroy the Nationalist forces and the various other factions and unify it.

The Soviets literally gave Mao Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, after they took it from the Japanese. Really, they just gave him Northern China on a silver platter. He couldn't have asked for much more.

 

[8wid]

Mao is essentially a replacement leader for the authoritarians that the Chinese were used to for thousands of years before the Boxer Rebellion happened. The Chinese didn't know anything else except dynasties of monarchs for centuries and did not have much knowledge to adapt to a democratic system, nor is their culture so individualistic either. However I feel in the future the time is coming for the end of communism in China as it is more economically significant in the world, they two system's can't really operate together that well. China seems practically a capitalist nation anyway more and more as time goes on. Mao would not be happy.

Besides the Chinese Civil War technically didn't end, not until Taiwan is truly independent or the two governments reconcile will there be a true end to the strife. If Taiwan ever does declare independence officially, they will be shelled from the mainland before they know it. If the US gets involved that's a recipe for disaster in the Pacific.

 

[8wid]

The author of Fatherland speaks