The "Wars of the Past" Thread

[Venom75]

But he definitely deserves his reputation, imo. His streak of luck is nigh on unparalleled in history, and if I were superstitious, I'd say bordering on supernatural. From being spared from death in WWI, to his "punishment" for the Munich Putsch, joining the National Socialists and the petty arguments between Papen and Schleicher which almost cemented him becoming Fuhrer and then most of the war, along with surviving the assassination attempt.
.

I have an utter fascination with him. Truthfully,I have no hatred of him at all. I hate what he did,but I don't hate the man. He has developed a kind of,supernatural reputation over the years,no doubt. He certainly seemed like a "man of destiny." From homeless drifter to ruler of Europe. That's actually quite impressive,no matter how you feel about the man.

 

[8wid]

^You know I never connected the trauma of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II to Russian paranoia during the Cold War. When Truman in part detonated the atomic bomb on Japan it was done to intimidate Stalin and warn him against invading western Europe. The fact the Americans use it on a civilian population in the first showed the Russians to be a as cruel as the Japanese had been to them. Decades of American military intervention in other nations also showed the Russians that the United States was an imperialist power too and didn't trust them. As much as Americans claim the Soviets to be an inhumane and monstrous civilization, they saw America the same way because the US was in no way totally innocent of crimes against humanity.

 

[Thundercrack85]

The ironic thing is though that the Soviets and Americans (the common man anyway) never had a beef. There are a number of pictures, quite strange in retrospect, which show Americans and Soviets (mostly soldiers obviously) meeting in Germany in 1945 as the war came to an end. Hundreds of pictures of them hugging, changing gifts, posing together.

Ironically, the shared lack of hatred is probably why the Cold War stayed cold.

 

[8wid]

Excessive wars has caused all of the previous imperialist nations including the Soviet Union to crumble, thanks to the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and others for nearly a decade, the United States will be soon joining that list. This current economic crisis is the finalization of that process.

The nice aspect is that by 2050 I can see the long Cold War dream of disarmament finally coming to fruition between Britain, France, the United States, Russia, and China. Even though the number of nuclear nations has increased the number of nuclear weapons on the planet has dropped dramatically since the end of the Cold War and with the Start II treaty being renewed by Obama, that process is only going to continue.

While many fear the regimes of Iran and North Korea getting ahold of nuclear weapons, the truth is the world is actually becoming safer from them because fewer are being maintained. The real threat was at its height decades ago. Despite what the mainstream media says about Israel needing to counter attack Iran, the world is actually safer from nuclear weapons than it has been since the bomb was first invented.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Excessive wars has caused all of the previous imperialist nations including the Soviet Union to crumble, thanks to the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and others for nearly a decade, the United States will be soon joining that list. This current economic crisis is the finalization of that process.

The nice aspect is that by 2050 I can see the long Cold War dream of disarmament finally coming to fruition between Britain, France, the United States, Russia, and China. Even though the number of nuclear nations has increased the number of nuclear weapons on the planet has dropped dramatically since the end of the Cold War and with the Start II treaty being renewed by Obama, that process is only going to continue.

While many fear the regimes of Iran and North Korea getting ahold of nuclear weapons, the truth is the world is actually becoming safer from them because fewer are being maintained. The real threat was at its height decades ago. Despite what the mainstream media says about Israel needing to counter attack Iran, the world is actually safer from nuclear weapons than it has been since the bomb was first invented.

The US isn't in the financial crisis it is now because of foreign interventions, granted those are rarely good for the economy, but the crisis we have now is mostly due other circumstances.

Also, North Korea already has nuclear weapons. They are merely improving them now. Though they seem to content with extorting the rest of the world for food and money, and not actually using them. At least not yet. As for Iran, only the madmen running it know what they're planning.

Considering India just tested its most advanced ICBM, various pariah states making threats, and the likely competition all the major world powers will have in the next decades (especially the US and China), I think it's a little premature to be singing kumbaya.

 

[8wid]

^That's why I didn't name Israel, India, Pakistan, or North Korea because they are not members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that will still test growing numbers of weapons. The arsenals of these countries except North Korea is not actually growing.

The growing conflicts between the United States and China is going to be purely economic in the future because China has never significantly expanded its military or been an aggressive nation. America can no longer afford to maintain it's overly large military presence in the world.

Excessive spending on defense, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being created because of 9/11, a real estate bubble created when the Federal Reserve lowered its interest rates to pay for the start of the Iraq War, the destruction of Iraq and Yemen's oil producing capacity due to Middle Eastern wars, tensions over terrorism and Iran have driven up prices, as has the Arab Spring which was catalysted by high food prices caused by America's negative impact on the global economy, etc, fuel prices go up because of all this too. America's current problems realize it or not is a result of over elongated and reckless strategies in fighting Middle Eastern wars and its response to deal with the economic effects caused by this excessive drain at home through its policy.

Most of the defificit comes from excessive military spending during the Cold War that began during the Carter administration that has continued to grow at a constant rate and never been stopped in forty years.

 

[8wid]

Robert Dallek: Vietnam Under JFK?

 

[8wid]

It's funny how Oliver Stone's movie JFK has a military conspiracy to kill Kennedy because he was supposedly going to start pulling out of Vietnam, however he really wasn't because he has escalated the number of advisors there. He wouldn't have committed to a ground war like Johnson, but he wasn't leaving Vietnam behind.

I can say too there was a conspiracy by Theodore Roosevelt to kill William McKinley because he was intent on pulling out of the Philippines and willing to give them independence. What happened on September 6, 1901 was a cou de tat and it was covered up by like-minded individuals in the Buffalo Police Department, Secret Service, US Army, and all the way up to Theodore Roosevelt and the White House...

 

[8wid]

If anyone is interested in a good radio play Fatherland is available on BBC Radio. It starts two minutes in though.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Has anyone ever seen the PBS documentary "Broadsides?" about the three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century?

 

[8wid]

If Al Gore Had Become President

I think this will become another what if issue like what if Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy had lived for this generation.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Hard to say. A large scale terrorist attack in the 21st century does seem inevitable, given what we now know. However, there would have been no Iraq War. Past that, it's hard to make predictions. It's only been twelve years.

 

[8wid]

^Definently no Bush era tax cuts and real estate bubble as a result. Ronald Reagan already caused enough of a big one in the 1980s.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Economics is not my strong suit.

I do question whether or not Gore would be reelected. It's safe to say following a 9/11 type attack, that he would go into Afghanistan. However the war in Afghanistan would have turned out very differently without the Iraq War. But once you get that far, it's hard to predict anything.

 

[8wid]

^I think if 9/11 succeeded Gore would have gone after Bin Laden in Afghanistan much quicker and eliminated him faster too. Doing this would have made him a heroic president and gotten him reelected.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Bin Laden was in Pakistan the whole time. Whether or not Gore would have sent more soldiers into Pakistan anyway would probably have made the difference.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Bin Laden was in Pakistan the whole time. Whether or not Gore would have sent more soldiers into Pakistan anyway would probably have made the difference.

Sorry Parker, but that's false. Bin Laden was confirmed to be in Tora Bora, Afghanistan in December 2001. He was at least in Afghanistan up to that point.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I actually had an earlier post that posted "if he was in Pakistan", but with the hype keep crashing on my posts, I decided to make it shorter.

How did he get out of Afghanistan, if I may ask?

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I actually had an earlier post that posted "if he was in Pakistan", but with the hype keep crashing on my posts, I decided to make it shorter.

How did he get out of Afghanistan, if I may ask?

A little help from his friends...

The theory is US forces dropped the ball by letting Northern Alliance take the lead on Tora Bora (the reasoning was to avoid US casualties). Of course, any idiot could have forseen there would be elements of the Northern Alliance who would at best be susceptible to bribes and at worst be sympathetic to his jihadist cause. They probably pointed him to a tunnel or helped escort him through the cordoned off area somehow. Who knows the specifics. Osama knew, but he aint talking. He's dead now, so this massive intelligence foul-up doesn't bother me like it used to. But for a while this really bugged me.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Thanks for the info.

So it all comes to whether Gore would let the US forces take the lead on Tora Bora?

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I don't blame Bush for Tora Bora's foul-up. That's someone in CIA/Pentagon. Maybe you could pin that on Rumsfeld or whoever was CENTCOM commander back then. I don't know.

I hear this book tells you who dropped the ball.

http://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Attack-Personal-Account-Commander/dp/0307237400

 

[chamber-music]

Intresting 1944 public information video about West Indians WW2 contribution.

[YT]ViGwxJloI70[/YT]

Has anyone ever seen the PBS documentary "Broadsides?" about the three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century?

Most British people don't even know about the Anglo-Dutch wars. It isn't one of the major historical events covered in most schools with the exception of the William Of Orange stuff which is a hot topic in Ireland to this day.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Does anyone have any opinions on how the world would be different, had the South won the American Civil War? How long would the Confederacy lasted as a viable nation when over half of the population was made up of subjugated slaves?

I say "world history" because the war did have world wide consequences. Britain and France depended on the South for their cotton supplies, which they were cut off from during the war. Britain adapted and started growing cotton in India, placing more focus on the subcontinent.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, I don't see how the South could have won. The best they could hope for would be a temporary cease fire.

But like you said, the slave population would pose the biggest problem. Since, the North, or even just the abolitionists in the North could (and would) do everything in their power to instigate massive slave revolts.

So, the Southerners would either have to free the slaves, kill them, or deport them. Either way, it would destroy their economy, and leave them vulnerable.

If they kept slavery going, and did somehow manage to survive, I imagine it would turn into something resembling Nazi Germany. Since their entire "culture" is based on racism and human exploitation. And of course, Southern military tradition.

Inevitably the South would be destroyed, or forced to reunify with the North.

Now, the interesting hypothetical is what would happen to the North. It would be a lot more liberal. Probably have a desegregated military in a decade...

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

The South would have eventually outlawed slavery, because there would be too many external factors pressuring them. Foreign countries would refuse to trade with them, few countries would recognize them, they would be denied entry into international bodies like the UN and NATO. The most likely scenario is they eventually would have collapsed anyway like East Germany and be absorbed back into the US. But they would be far behind in education, infrastructure, GDP, etc. If they remained a sovereign entity (a big IF) I think two scenarios are likely, (a) peace would be declared between the South and the North, resulting in an eventual USA-Canada situation with the South renouncing slavery, but remaining sovereign and somewhat behind the Northern states in progress and quality of life... or (b) the South would be ostracized and poor and it would be a North Korea-South Korea (except the Union would be like South Korea and the Confederacy would be like North Korea) situation, with most countries refusing to do business with them and people swarming the Mexican border to escape IN to Mexico instead of vice-versa.