No, you didn’t limit it to ‘never in history’, but if you had it would have included the American Civil War.
The citizens who most experienced “modern/industrial occupation of a foreign power” were in Western and Eastern Europe 1940-45 under the Germans and in Eastern Europe post-war under the Soviets for rather longer.
As for experiencing “modern/industrial occupation of a foreign powerstretched over war years at the doorstep.” nobody in Western Europe has experienced that since WWII either as, unless my news sources over the past half century have been seriously deficient, there haven’t been any wars in Western Europe since WWII.
And, yes, European survivors of WWII exist. And they exist because of American, Soviet, British, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, Brazilian and sundry other nationalities who fought and defeated the Nazis after the French and BEF had been defeated following King Leopold of Belgium’s unexpected surrender.
The people of occupied Western Europe have no experience of waging the modern / industrial WWII against the Nazis and Italians and Japanese over vast distances and the constant loss of soldiers, sailors and airmen during the years the Allies fought a grinding war against the Axis while, unless you happened to be a Jew or homosexual (other than those prominent in Nazi ranks) or Gypsy or in some other group targeted by the Nazis, life in occupied Europe continued rather satisfactorily for most people.
The people of Western Europe undoubtedly suffered various privations (and many benefits for some, but that’s been lost under the cloud of bullshit that holds every Frenchman a stout member of the Resistance) under the German occupation as well as being occasional targets of Allied offensive activity, but for about five years from Dunkirk to the German surrender they mostly went about their affairs while people outside Western Europe fought the war which liberated Western Europe from the Nazis.
Most people in Western Europe got a better deal 1940-45 by sitting on their arses under German occupation than the British, Americans and others who fought and died and expended their industrial and economic resources to expel the occupiers.
As indeed did Western Europe benefit during the Cold War from the American and British presence facing the Soviets, not least because Western Europe couldn’t have defended itself from a Soviet attack.
since when were there foreign occupating powers in USA between 1860-1865?
It seems to me you are unconsciously trying to divert the discussion to “modern war” , but I am not talking about modern war, I am talking about the foreign occupation, the uncertainty and the results of war.
The citizens who most experienced “modern/industrial occupation of a foreign power” were in Western and Eastern Europe 1940-45 under the Germans and in Eastern Europe post-war under the Soviets for rather longer.
As for experiencing “modern/industrial occupation of a foreign powerstretched over war years at the doorstep.” nobody in Western Europe has experienced that since WWII either as, unless my news sources over the past half century have been seriously deficient, there haven’t been any wars in Western Europe since WWII.
so they are dead then and specificaly numb.
I wonder if there are people here about the age of my grandparents. Because I need to now them: they are unuimportant it seems.
And, yes, European survivors of WWII exist. And they exist because of American, Soviet, British, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, Brazilian and sundry other nationalities who fought and defeated the Nazis after the French and BEF had been defeated following King Leopold of Belgium’s unexpected surrender.
What’s the point?
Suggesting the French surrendered because of Leopold or what? :lol:
Unexpected? :lol:
The people of occupied Western Europe have no experience of waging the modern / industrial WWII against the Nazis and Italians and Japanese over vast distances and the constant loss of soldiers, sailors and airmen during the years the Allies fought a grinding war against the Axis while, unless you happened to be a Jew or homosexual (other than those prominent in Nazi ranks) or Gypsy or in some other group targeted by the Nazis, life in occupied Europe continued rather satisfactorily for most people.
The people of Western Europe undoubtedly suffered various privations (and many benefits for some, but that’s been lost under the cloud of bullshit that holds every Frenchman a stout member of the Resistance) under the German occupation as well as being occasional targets of Allied offensive activity, but for about five years from Dunkirk to the German surrender they mostly went about their affairs while people outside Western Europe fought the war which liberated Western Europe from the Nazis.
Most people in Western Europe got a better deal 1940-45 by sitting on their arses under German occupation than the British, Americans and others who fought and died and expended their industrial and economic resources to expel the occupiers.
Yeah, like no one died over here… :evil: like no one had friends … like there was no paranoia, no hunger, no chance of a youth if you were 12-14 at 1940…
I’m going to be honest, but I am truly quite disgusted with this part of your posts…
life in occupied Europe continued rather satisfactorily for most people.
:evil: yeah, most people…
except those who died you mean. Or are crippled for life…
As you describe it, it seems we were better of you guys didn’t come at all then?
:evil:
As indeed did Western Europe benefit during the Cold War from the American and British presence facing the Soviets, not least because Western Europe couldn’t have defended itself from a Soviet attack.
You are not willing or uncapable of seeing things in their context. How can you even expect more from Euro citizens than they already showed during the last century?
Depends what you mean by ‘foreign’, but in the Civil War the Union and Confederate forces qualified as ‘foreign’ when in each other’s territory. If you think the Union occupation of the Confederate states (and vice versa) was a gentle occupation, you might like to consider this contemporary account http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/williamson/text.html The Germans were generally much better behaved than that in Western Europe, unless you happened to be one of their target groups. In fact, the German troops occupying France were probably better behaved 1940-44 than the Americans who moved through France in the second half of 1944 if one looks at figures for rape of civilians and other offences against civilians.
I’m not sure that you grasp the scale and impact of the Civil War. From memory, about 10 times more Americans died in that war than in WWI more than half a century later from a much larger population.
I’m also not sure that you grasp the viciousness of the Civil War with guerrilla forces on both sides engaging in actions that in WWII would have qualified as atrocities; nor the devastation that the regular forces wrought on the land, towns and people as they moved across the land; nor the economic impact on the South of its war and defeat.
I was merely responding to your statement about “modern/industrial occupation of a foreign power stretched over war years at the doorstep”. That seemed to me to link modern occupation of a foreign power to war years, which seemed to me to be about occupations related to modern war. As we were discussing WWII, I assumed that that was the relevant modern war. Apparently I got that wrong. Could you let me know which occupation of Western Europe you are discussing?
Leaving aside the fact that Leopold’s actions in capitulating to the Germans were unconstitutional and possibly treasonable, Churchill’s (obviously bitter and rather optimistic as far as defeating the Germans and especially in Poland, but nonetheless militarily accurate view of the effect of Leopold’s capitulation on the French and British forces) at the time was expressed to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940 in his ‘we shall never surrender’ speech. I think you will find that Churchill and others found Leopold’s surrender unexpected.
The King of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.
I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/128-we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches
The French didn’t surrender because of Leopold, nor was Britain forced to evacuate from Dunkirk because of Leopold’s capitulation, but by his unilateral action in making a separate peace with the Germans he pulled the remaining rug out from the other two Allies then fighting the Germans.
I didn’t say that.
One of my points was that people in occupied Western Europe who weren’t in Nazi target groups, such as Jews, Gypsies, communists and homosexuals, were generally better off and at less risk than those in the armed forces still fighting the Nazis. Much as it may piss off some people now in Europe who want to believe their ancestors were all staunch heroes of the resistance and forced to live on turnip peelings thrown out of Heer kitchens, the fact is that a good proportion of the population in occupied Western European countries were (as were significant elements in Britain) sympathetic to the Nazis and (as would have been the case with those significant elements in Britain if the Nazis had invaded Britain successfully) were quite happy to collaborate with and often profit from the Nazis. The Vichy regime is the best example of this at a government and large scale level. At a lower level I have known people who did rather well out of trading with the Germans in Holland, which was probably the country which was most united in its opposition to the Germans.
Everything is relative. Take hunger for example. Western Europe was hugely better off than Eastern Europe under the Nazis. See The Annihilation of Superfluous Eaters: Nazi Plans for and Use of Famine in Eastern Europe at http://www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/
You mightn’t be if you managed to be less self-pitying as the descendant of an occupied country and more objective about the relative risks and benefits of being in occupied Western Europe compared with being, say, an airman or soldier or sailor engaged in the fighting from 1940 to 1945 which liberated Western Europe.
Many, possibly most, of the Allied airmen who flew over Belgium 1940 to 1944 to attack Germany didn’t survive the war. Very few of the Belgians they flew over failed to survive the war. The odds were a lot better for Belgians, or anyone else on the ground in Western Europe, than Allied aircrew fighting to liberate them.
Perhaps you should be disgusted that you want to wallow in “how terrible it was to be in occupied Western Europe where almost all of us survived” instead of being thankful that “while almost all of us survived people outside our country died in droves to liberate us”.
It’s up to you whether you want to whinge about how a Belgian supposedly was a bit short of food (as were all people in combatant nations to varying degrees) or how a Belgian teenager had a hard time getting a job under the Occupation while British and American teenagers and teenagers from other nations not under occupation were fighting and dying to liberate Belgium and the rest of occupied Europe from the Nazi yoke.
RAF Bomber Command had a death rate around 45%. I expect that the death rate in Belgium, even including Nazi target groups, was somewhat less in even the worst years of the war.
How’d you like to dig out the death rates for the occupied period in Belgium and demonstrate your implied position that Belgians, and presumably French and Dutch, were dying at death rates five or ten or more times higher than before the war? Then separate the deaths caused by Allied action from the vast numbers you imply were caused by the Germans rounding up the few civilians outside their target groups that the Germans hadn’t starved to death and then executing them by the tens of thousands. I’m taking a gamble here that there might be a spike in deaths during the occupation but I’m also inclined to think that it might have been due more to Allied action than German executions etc.
Could you also provide the figures and rates for people crippled during the occupation compared with beforehand and demonstrate how the Germans caused that?
However, if I was to respond to your comment I’d say that Belgium has every reason to complain about the other Allies liberating it from the Germans as this interfered with the Belgian King’s decision to subject his country to German occupation. What gave Britain and America the right to expel the Germans from Belgium when its King has installed them there?
Or might it be that, as someone outside Europe, America, and Britain and whose country did not fight in the Western European land war, I see the context rather more objectively than you do from your perspective as the citizen of a country in Western Europe occupied by the Germans?
Well, for a start, I think it would have been great if there was less sympathy by Euro citizens with the anti-Semitism espoused by the Nazis, and even better if the non-German (but not necessarily non-Nazi) Euro citizens guilty of those attitudes and the conduct it produced were identified and lumped in with the Nazis. Anti-Semitism wasn’t a Nazi invention and the Nazis didn’t fill the cattle cars all by themselves. Blaming the Nazis alone for the Holocaust is as mistaken as seeing all French people as anti-Nazi members of the Resistance.
hah! that’s a very simple one you know.
The Belgian gouvernment went into exile into france and england, making Leopold’s actions not only unconstitutional but irrelevant. A vast majority of the people supported the gouvernment, not the King. Ever heard of the monarchist crisis in post-WWII in Belgium?
Leopold III is called “the nazi King” and there are studies concerning his “new order” views way before the war.
Or might it be that, as someone outside Europe, America, and Britain and whose country did not fight in the Western European land war, I see the context rather more objectively than you do from your perspective as the citizen of a country in Western Europe occupied by the Germans?
There would be no discussion if there was no different perspective. That doesn’t make for objectivity though…
Well, for a start, I think it would have been great if there was less sympathy by Euro citizens with the anti-Semitism espoused by the Nazis, and even better if the non-German (but not necessarily non-Nazi) Euro citizens guilty of those attitudes and the conduct it produced were identified and lumped in with the Nazis. Anti-Semitism wasn’t a Nazi invention and the Nazis didn’t fill the cattle cars all by themselves. Blaming the Nazis alone for the Holocaust is as mistaken as seeing all French people as anti-Nazi members of the Resistance.
anti-semitism is found everywhere, as it was even found in the homeland of the allied liberators. You can’t rout out anti-semitism on itslef, yet you can rout it out of active politics. Just as racism on itself can’t be routed out of your own hometown today.
What you are saying here actually is that the suffering of civilians is always underestimated, exactly what I am trying to define. Whether friend or foe, every civilian looses a toe.
I’m not sure that you grasp the scale and impact of the Civil War. From memory, about 10 times more Americans died in that war than in WWI more than half a century later from a much larger population.
How can it be differently if the war is fought on another place and you act as an expeditionary force?
I’m also not sure that you grasp the viciousness of the Civil War with guerrilla forces on both sides engaging in actions that in WWII would have qualified as atrocities; nor the devastation that the regular forces wrought on the land, towns and people as they moved across the land; nor the economic impact on the South of its war and defeat.
I never said the Americans had a lot of fun, my friend. No war is fun. Never. Yet some are more different than others. I gave specific examples, which you waved away as if it were questionable, irrelevant and almost not painful at all with a hint of typical european small mindedness.
It is in fact that small mindedness that rejected a lot of US war politics nowadays. And it was worth it. It could have saved American military lives, which you seem to cheerish more than civilians anyway.
I was merely responding to your statement about “modern/industrial occupation of a foreign power stretched over war years at the doorstep”. That seemed to me to link modern occupation of a foreign power to war years, which seemed to me to be about occupations related to modern war. As we were discussing WWII, I assumed that that was the relevant modern war. Apparently I got that wrong. Could you let me know which occupation of Western Europe you are discussing?
I was partially excluding the Civil War on some points.
Leaving aside the fact that Leopold’s actions in capitulating to the Germans were unconstitutional and possibly treasonable, Churchill’s (obviously bitter and rather optimistic as far as defeating the Germans and especially in Poland, but nonetheless militarily accurate view of the effect of Leopold’s capitulation on the French and British forces) at the time was expressed to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940 in his ‘we shall never surrender’ speech. I think you will find that Churchill and others found Leopold’s surrender unexpected.
Ah Politicians … they think more things than they say and usually what they think is mor important. I remember something like Chamberlain & co …
Making you blame the population or the descendants?
One of my points was that people in occupied Western Europe who weren’t in Nazi target groups, such as Jews, Gypsies, communists and homosexuals, were generally better off and at less risk than those in the armed forces still fighting the Nazis.
You like comparing the military risks with civilian risks, because it’s very fortunate for your views, but it is a complete falacy that I completely reject.
What do you think about the Eastern Europeans who were theoretically “better off” than German soldiers on the Eastern front?
Much as it may piss off some people now in Europe who want to believe their ancestors were all staunch heroes of the resistance and forced to live on turnip peelings thrown out of Heer kitchens, the fact is that a good proportion of the population in occupied Western European countries were (as were significant elements in Britain) sympathetic to the Nazis and (as would have been the case with those significant elements in Britain if the Nazis had invaded Britain successfully) were quite happy to collaborate with and often profit from the Nazis. The Vichy regime is the best example of this at a government and large scale level. At a lower level I have known people who did rather well out of trading with the Germans in Holland, which was probably the country which was most united in its opposition to the Germans.
I cannot see were you make your point about the “rather good life” in occupated territory. You even mention the segregation of the own population. Excellent point. In the DDR, they were even lucky enough to live 45 years in happy good times like that.
Everything is relative. Take hunger for example.
:oops: my god
Why on earth shouldn’t the effort of the American or Australian citizens in WWII be relative then?
You mightn’t be if you managed to be less self-pitying as the descendant of an occupied country and more objective about the relative risks and benefits of being in occupied Western Europe compared with being, say, an airman or soldier or sailor engaged in the fighting from 1940 to 1945 which liberated Western Europe.
You continue to blame and therefor hurt the western Europeans twice as much with these words. You say, with other words but nevertheless, that we have it all to blame on ourselves. You laugh with the resistance. You blame western europeans for not delivering true hero soldiers since we were “lazy arsed”. And once we were liberated, we simply had to be happy and realise that we always have been happy in occupation. Simply because we didn’t have an army any more? That’s a pitty and a very small view on society and life.
Many, possibly most, of the Allied airmen who flew over Belgium 1940 to 1944 to attack Germany didn’t survive the war. Very few of the Belgians they flew over failed to survive the war. The odds were a lot better for Belgians, or anyone else on the ground in Western Europe, than Allied aircrew fighting to liberate them.
Again, comparing civilians under occupation and active military is falacy.
An occupated people is crucial in the build up of society. Expedetionary military returning to the homeland are paria. Which has painful proof nowadays with the soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
I wonder how much suffering there is nowadays in the US in your eyes… And how the “death rate” of Afghan soldiers is reflected in the overall death rate of the US people.
Americans soldiers in WWI had more food in their trenches than the french/ belgian citizens and surely more than the Germans… But that can not be a definition of happy times is it?
Perhaps you should be disgusted that you want to wallow in “how terrible it was to be in occupied Western Europe where almost all of us survived” instead of being thankful that “while almost all of us survived people outside our country died in droves to liberate us”.
No, I will not. Because I don’t do the one thing in expense of the other.
being thankful is not the same as adoration and mental slavery, which I don’t exercise.
Are you really saying that not “almost all Americans and Australians” survived WWII, which the western Europeans did indeed in your views?
It’s up to you whether you want to whinge about how a Belgian supposedly was a bit short of food (as were all people in combatant nations to varying degrees) or how a Belgian teenager had a hard time getting a job under the Occupation while British and American teenagers and teenagers from other nations not under occupation were fighting and dying to liberate Belgium and the rest of occupied Europe from the Nazi yoke.
How many American en British teenagers were there in 1944?
Were they all fighting? Or were some doing some stupid, silly, unbrave things like organizing their living in war economy?
RAF Bomber Command had a death rate around 45%. I expect that the death rate in Belgium, even including Nazi target groups, was somewhat less in even the worst years of the war.
Hmm death rates… yes that was my point from the beginning…:neutral:
What was the death rate of Belgian POW’s in Germany under slave labour?
What was the death rate of Belgian first row personel in POW’s in Germany under slave labour? What was the death rate of the few soldiers in Eben Emael? What was the death rate of the few tortured prioners assumed resistors etc?
death rates …
What’s your death rate?
It’s clear that you again compare military, in this case parts of military, with a complete population. Again: compare death rate of Belgians with Americans, not just American military.
“I’m not sure that you grasp the scale and impact of the Civil War. From memory, about 10 times more Americans died in that war than in WWI more than half a century later from a much larger population.”
For Steben’s benefit, some figures that may give scale to the impact of the American Civil War. They are not all to the last digit, but will render a clear enough image of that war.
Casualties for U.S. soldiers in Viet Nam covering nearly 10 years, 57,000.
Casualties for the Battle of Gettysberg covering 3 days, 51,000
Casualties for U.S. soldiers at Normandy one day, 6,603
Casualties for the Battle of Antietam, (Maryland) one day, 22,717
It is not uncommon to find that families had members on both sides of this war, my own included if my grand mothers recollections are at all accurate. My distant relative Mathew Van Brocklin took part in, and survived the fighting at Harper’s Ferry W. Virginia. The maternal side of my family is from the Netherlands, starting with Cornelis Teunissen Van Brackle, Magistrate of Beverwych who arrived in N. America in 1631.
All emotion aside, I can’t see the added value in clarifying that a homogeneous American Civil War on American soil costed more American soldier lives than a heterogeneous World war “abroad”. That is no more no less than irrefutable logic, no?
What is the link with the statement that there was more American suffering than Belgian in WWII? How do you measure this? By simple ratios’s? Relative? Why isn’t the American effort “a laugh” compared to the Russian if Belgian effort is “a laugh” compared to the American? etc etc…
Why is it irrelevant that WWII is more recent than the Civil War? Why is it irrelevant to point out that World War (especially the most recent) is very specific in its social-economic impact, still having impact today on europeans’ legacy?
Get a life Steben. I’m American. I was also born in Holland during the last year of the war, during the ‘honger winter’. My parents experienced the whole war and the whole Nazi occupation. They remember their liberation by the Canadians and Americans. I’m unsure of what point you are making about some supposed moral ascendancy of Europeans because they were occupied by Germans, There is no moral position of superiority on the part of Europeans that derives from this.
And yes, not only am I European, there were plenty of them here (and still are) in the aftermath of 9/11. There were no reprisals against Europeans here. Zero. Nada. Niente. Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as a “homogenous” American population, which you would realize if you lived here longer than ten minutes. For heaven’s sake, cut it out.
Sorry Steben, but as usual your post is too convoluted, and unclear to respond to. In particular, this: “That is no more no less than irrefutable logic, no?” As to your questions, why this, why that, go back through the posts to find your answers. I could put the same question of you. Why is it not relevant that the Civil War took place before WW II ? All of the posts that you refer to are made by others in response to your own posted assertions, which can be quite vague, or general at times. Those who respond to you, are doing so to point out the errors contained in the assertions of some of your posts. countering these factual corrections by resorting to nebulous assessments of value, (why’s, if’s ,and maybe’s, and phases of the moon) does not further the discussion.
I was also born in Holland during the last year of the war, during the ‘honger winter’. My parents experienced the whole war and the whole Nazi occupation. They remember their liberation by the Canadians and Americans. I’m unsure of what point you are making about some supposed moral ascendancy of Europeans because they were occupied by Germans
My grandparents talk about specificaly 1941-1942 as the worst period, about the loss of people, the double life and smuggling and of course the life as POV in Germany. I’m quite unsure myself there is a uniform story about europeans those days and their recollection of the war. I guess our both legacies are different already.
And yes, I am very interested about your parents’ opinion concerning 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan?
There is no moral position of superiority on the part of Europeans that derives from this.
superiority??? Say what? Of course not!
And yes, not only am I European, there were plenty of them here (and still are) in the aftermath of 9/11. There were no reprisals against Europeans here. Zero. Nada. Niente. Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as a “homogenous” American population, which you would realize if you lived here longer than ten minutes. For heaven’s sake, cut it out.
I never talked about reprisals, I was merely describing the dark mental issues Americans were struggling with shortly after 9/11.
And its a strange feeling I have to speak about American identity… if you guys are saying it doesn’t exist. I’m sure not all your fellow countrymen agree.
It’s easy to dismiss the foreigner on language terms if you yourself are speaking your native language. I try to be as clear as I can.
In particular, this: “That is no more no less than irrefutable logic, no?”
What isn’t clear about that?
As to your questions, why this, why that, go back through the posts to find your answers. I could put the same question of you. Why is it not relevant that the Civil War took place before WW II ? All of the posts that you refer to are made by others in response to your own posted assertions, which can be quite vague, or general at times. Those who respond to you, are doing so to point out the errors contained in the assertions of some of your posts. countering these factual corrections by resorting to nebulous assessments of value, (why’s, if’s ,and maybe’s, and phases of the moon) does not further the discussion.
I’m sorry too, but I don’t feel my questions are answered.
I feel a sense of denial and fear. And a lot of: get a life and start asking the things we like to hear. I’m quite sure as well, other forums would say I’m saying at least interesting things. Well, they do actually …
I have a life and it’s about fine as it is.
Things as “western europeans were rather doing well under nazi occupation” makes me spin around a bit …
Try saying this about Jews themselves and you know what I mean. Because most of them were also still alive as well you know. It doesn’t mean “it wasn’t that bad at all”.
They did not have armies as well in the camps. Were they lazy arsed?
Talking about casualties amongst soldiers as response to my statement the US/UK/Australia never experienced nazi occupation is another terrifying thought … and makes me think I’m talking to a wall of strictly military interested. Just as other forums (slightly less into war subjects) turn their heads when someone starts about military sacrifices … which is as blind as this.
I really would like an answer on my question why europeans would need to be thankful to get rid of a regime that was apparently that good for us, or at least “not that bad”. Let me make it really simple: it was horror and that’s why we should be thankful.
Steben, no one is making fun of your English, just letting you know that you are not often clear in you posts. It can be a problem for those who do not speak English on a daily basis, and everyone here makes allowances, and tries to work around it. The answers you receive will be only as good as the questions you post. Argument for its own sake is not the purpose of the site, and is discouraged. Posting assertions in order to stir up a storm of responses is also discouraged. Its up to you as to what kind of experience you will have here.
Yes, who are the bad guy and who made the war atrocity is decided by the victors.
Firebombing is a deliberate act to destroy an entire civil population of a city without using NBC weapons, simply burning them alive. It’s a crime.
I think some of your figures might be distorted by mixing casualties with deaths.
The figure you give for Vietnam is about the number I recall for total US deaths (KIA, DOW and other causes), not casualties which is KIA, DOW and other deaths plus WIA and MIA and maybe even SIW and other injuries.
I don’t know about the other figures you’ve mentioned.
The term casualty in my usage encompasses wounded,dead, and missing presumed dead. It is a fairly non-specific term, I agree, but it serves to illustrate the point you were making concerning the U.S. civil war.
Wow , what a nice thread i missed;)
I look up and cann’t hide my delight, seeing the mr steben’s enthusiasm. It so reminds me myself couple of years back…
Well seemt his thread is turning into the “Europe vs USA”:D. Beeing the proud european ( although nazis claimed i belong to asiatic hordes:)) i have to take the challenge…
Soviets had retreated in 1991. The Americans steel in Europe and seems going to place there newest nuclear missles.
Involving the Europe into the new danger race.Who is now occupant?
And, yes, European survivors of WWII exist. And they exist because of American, Soviet, British, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, Brazilian and sundry other nationalities who fought and defeated the Nazis after the French and BEF had been defeated following King Leopold of Belgium’s unexpected surrender.
The people of occupied Western Europe have no experience of waging the modern / industrial WWII against the Nazis and Italians and Japanese over vast distances and the constant loss of soldiers, sailors and airmen during the years the Allies fought a grinding war against the Axis while, unless you happened to be a Jew or homosexual (other than those prominent in Nazi ranks) or Gypsy or in some other group targeted by the Nazis, life in occupied Europe continued rather satisfactorily for most people.
If life was comfortable under nazis - why then shall they fight them? And mate,do you really want to record all the ww2 European resistence into the “Jews , Gypsys and homosexuals”?:);)That’s something never come in my mind.
As indeed did Western Europe benefit during the Cold War from the American and British presence facing the Soviets, not least because Western Europe couldn’t have defended itself from a Soviet attack.
Soviet attack wasn’t actualy needed. After ww2 the communist of France , Italy and probably Holland could easy take the power by the legal way via elections. However they were banned soon by the govenmens , intalled by allies.
And while i almost ready to believe the American stayed in Europe to defend them from Soviets - why has they not withdrew after the Soviet threat was self-eliminated. From which enemy the USA now “defend” the Europe? From CHina, Al quaeda,Russia, Iran, domestic anti-semitism or may be want JUST to keep them under control?
This question seems bother europeans more and more.
Well, 1945-1991 is rather longer than 1940-45 for Western Europe.
It doesn’t matter. In another ten to thirty years China will be the main power on the planet (unless it implodes with another of its mad exercises like the Cultural Revolution) and then your and my children will be wishing that the Yanks were protecting Europe, and that MacArthur had taken out China during the Korean War.
I think you might have misunderstood my comments. I was saying that the average people in occupied Western Europe weren’t fighting the Germans 1940-45 because the Germans weren’t attacking them, but that the Nazis attacked the Jews, Gypsies etc in those countries.
America has to defend Europe from itself. Before America had military forces in Europe the European nations / peoples had been fighting each other for the past couple of thousand years. Since America has had military forces stationed in Europe there hasn’t been a European war (assuming one treats the Balkans as not being part of Europe ).
If you do some survey you may find many Europeans want to return to the cold war years much more than world war II. Cold War is synonym for stability. Actually Cold War is strangely enough quite opposite of Warm war.
The fear of the terror is better than the terror itself.
It doesn’t matter. In another ten to thirty years China will be the main power on the planet (unless it implodes with another of its mad exercises like the Cultural Revolution) and then your and my children will be wishing that the Yanks were protecting Europe, and that MacArthur had taken out China during the Korean War.
It’s exactly this attitude that is a fallacy again. Europeans want to talk to Russia and China and India much more than the USA. Being a former superpower in distress (and probably in decay) doesn’t allow for soft alliances with new superpowers. It may seem like accepting your new role as less powerful nation. An attitude European on the other hand excel in. The Eurasian axis is the future for us, whatever the Americans may think about it.
I think you might have misunderstood my comments. I was saying that the average people in occupied Western Europe weren’t fighting the Germans 1940-45 because the Germans weren’t attacking them, but that the Nazis attacked the Jews, Gypsies etc in those countries.
No the Germans were not merely attacking the Jews, Gypsies etc. Why do you think you are in position of teaching us our own history?
They were an occupating force spreading terror and assuring their grasp on daily life. They were sucking resources, limiting wealth, creating and even drafted manpower in smallminded circles (especially fearful christians that wanted to help fighting bolsjevism). By the way, if they wouldn’t have done that, the war really wouldn’t have lasted that long.
America has to defend Europe from itself.
The Nazis thought the same. Roman Empire thought the same. Napoleon thought the same.
America needs to defend itself right now more than anything else.
Before America had military forces in Europe the European nations / peoples had been fighting each other for the past couple of thousand years. Since America has had military forces stationed in Europe there hasn’t been a European war (assuming one treats the Balkans as not being part of Europe ).
America is a force for peace.
Soviets were in Europe too. It was the total of Cold War that allowed peace. Balkan wars reached their peak exactly after the Cold War.
And America has troops everywhere in the world, peace however is not everywhere.
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