The role of the USA as world guardian angel...

[leda]

Agreed on pretty much everything apart from your very harsh treatment of the French. Hitler had a tactic of placing existing politicians sympathetic to his cause in positions of power. If he had conquered Britain, he probably would have used Edward VIII, who had been forced to abdicate due to his Nazi beliefs. This would not have made Britain a bunch of Nazi sympathizers.
The people of France fought the Nazis in their day to day lives. The Resistance played a vital part in the war effort and I have read of many acts of almost incredible heroism on their part. Collaborators where treated mercilessly by the French publilc. When the allied invasion came, it happened on French soil, and they bore the brunt of it. Do not let your current relations with France cloud their true contribution to the war.

 

[Hesomagari]

But quesswho

The USA of course did not win WWI single handed. Many other countries also contributed but USA was the butts saver.

US behaves as if they were the only people who did anything, or made any difference, and that they saved the whole world from the nazis and the germans and THAT is wrong.

I don't believe that had USA NOT turned up, the europe would have lost in the end. And that argument has only started because people here have arrogantly argued without the USA the world would be in the stone age.

Spyke, you plainly don't know your history. You compatriot, tiassa, has already educated this board on Mossadegh.. it appears you never read it. I dispute your version of those reasons.

Again, the only reason the USA decided to bomb in "democracy" in Iran, was because it cut across the US interests. And the same happened when Saddam nationalised Iraqi oil. But you don't say that Iraq were then unable to sell that oil, do you? And Desert Storm was Bush Senior's first opportunity to get back at Saddam for being thrown out of Iraq with BP. Don't tell me that Desert Storm was about Kuwait, because it wasn't. And everyone with a decent handle on Middle Eastern history could see through that little deception from the start. It is plainly in the UN record, from an official complaint by Saddam, way before Desert Storm, that Kuwait was angle drilling into Iraqi oil fields, thereby stealing oil that was not their. Saddam asked UN to do something about it, and they did nothing. Therefore, Saddam attacked Kuwait. Bush knew all about Kuwait's nasty little stealing, but never mind. Lets get back at Saddam for having thrown us out. You don't honestly expect a knowledgeable rest of the world to buy the rubbish that Bush Seniors first excursion into Iraq was solely for the reasons stated do you?

And plainly, Bush Junior had to trump up lies and fabrications to try to finish what Daddy hadn't.

Your kKnowledge of your own country's involvedment in both wars is appalling, since all I know about what happened in WW1 and 2 with regard to the USA, comes from books I purchased in USA, which were printed in USA in 1986. Yes, 18 years out of date, but you would think accurate. Unless what you read has been subject to revisionism since then....

If Woodrow Wilson though that the Treaty of Versailles war reparations the German were saddled with, then his is a hypocrite, because the 14 points that these hinged on, were, according to YOUR history books, penned by him. The same textbook, published in your country states clearly that it was American weapons that insured an Allied victory in world War 1, and that your leaders decided the main points in the Treaty of Versailles.

Yes, I agree that america had decided to be an Isolationist, and that was again, Woodrow's choice. He chose not to to into the League of Nations, something even he regretted, later sayng

We had a chance to gain the leadership of the world. We have lost it, and soon we shall be witnessing the tragedy of it all.

(Seems to me, that stayed in the front of USA's mind as the ultimate goal... and still is )

Woodrow's ideas were bound to cause trouble, espeically when the Rihine was not set as a permanent boundary to protect France from Germany. French Marshal Foch stated immediate that "this is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years" and how right was he!

And just remember that it was Woodrow Wilson, who created all the new nations of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and enlarged Serbia, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania. After all, the Americans argued verbally, that since their contributions had "won" the first world war, they had the right to make all the major terms.

Don't forget now, this is in YOUR history books.

Furthermore, the USA pressed enormous loans on the Germans even though they had no credit, and couldn't possibly pay them. And of course, they then refused to pay... Furthermore, USA imposed on Germany a democratic constitution, which again, was unheard of in a country previously run by emperors. (Sound familiar?) As churchill wrote:

Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Replublic with a constitution sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser under a council of regency. Instead, a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a consitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and parliamentary processes were for the time beying, being unhinged. The Weimar Republic, with all its liberal trappings and blessings, was regarded as an imposition of the enemy.

Again, he also pointed out that that was a result of

The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy

though he has the decency to admit that Mr Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract that.

Well, I dont think I would have attempted to counteract it either, since it was Woodrow Wilson who drove the Treaty of Versailles in the first place...

And it was this treaty, as the French said at the time, that guaranteed the conditions whereby a second world war was guaranteed.

On to the second world war. I'm taking bits out of your own books here.... (condensed) American came out of World War 1 confident, prosperous and supremely powerful. During the 1920's, America did not want to get involved in world affairs. The American people now regretted their active involvement in WW1,....

During the 1930's american was too concerned abuot healing its economic wounds to pay much attention to Europe.

In 1939, americans opened their newspapers and found that Europe was once again at War. To most people it seemed that the war was just another quarell between Germany, France, and Britain, and most American expressed a strong desire to stay out of Europe this time.

As the ward progreesed, U,S, maqnufactures were producing more and more weaponry. But this war, material was sold on a strictly cash basis, because Europe had not fully paid its debt from the previous war, "so why loan them more?". However, american wanted to watch from the sidelines and not get involved.

By March 1941 as the war ramped up, congress decided that all war material should be provided to England on credit, and huge armadas of ships took the supplies to England... True to his pledge, Roosevelt sent in "an ever-increasing numbers of ships, planes, tanks and guns"

Germany was immediately furious. "How could America call itself neutral and supply the Allies with weapons?", so Hitler ordered that all Armadas be attacked. Everyone thought that that would bring America into the war, but no.

That only happened when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in December 1941, and america had to concentrate of japan, so even though Roosevelt wanted to go to Europe, he could not. America only joined the allies in Africa in 1943, and joined the allies in the European arena in 1944 while still fighting Japan.

Note this. YOUR textbooks, don't say that USA "won the war" at all. YOUR text books say "The Allies" won the war BUT if you look at the photograph at Yalta, where it was decided who would take the spoils of war, again, it was Roosevelt who was in the front centre, and again, it was "America" who had a major hand in decided who got what. and it was Roosevelt and Churchill who gave in to Stalin's demands for control over Eastern Europe, even though they must have known that his promises of representative government and free elections was a load of bull.

(Even talking to my father who was involved in the war, he said that at the time, the Allies got totally pissed off with the Americans who verbally maintained the victory was solely due to them. And that attitude still stands to this day on this board. I agree at least one American here has the decency to admit that the Allies did have something to do with it.)

Truman, however, was immediately more interested in the perils of Soveit Union and communism, so announced his Truman doctrine, and blended it with the Marshall plan whereby economic assistance to European nations recoverning from WW2, was contingent on them rebuilding the economy, and resist communist aggression. So again, USA saw the war as an opportunity to flex their muscle and influence in Europe. Naturally, the Soviet Union spat tacks on that, and set up the Molotov Plan to counteract that.

You could say that both the Soviet Union and USA were pushing their own causes in the guise of helping each other. True. It goes on to this day.

The USA was eventually paid back all the debt on weapons for the first world war, the second world war, and loan capital to re-establish devastated economies. The USA did very very well of the backs of both wars.

Now, if you don't like this version from your books, perhaps you could provide me with the proof that the Versailled problems were created by everyone else but Woodrow.

Or will you tell me that the USA books lied in order to make USA look more powerful than anyone else?

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised, since Japan re-wrote their history books to do the same thing. And to this day, they still do.

But in this instance I am using american books to prove the point.

Leda, just remember that the majority of US deaths were in the Japan arena, not Europe.....

Paula, what makes you think that the Nazis were not entiredly unwelcome in France??? That is exactly the opposite to what I know. And given that some of my family live there, and none of the French I know of had any truck with the Nazis..... and given that no history book I have says that the French welcomes the Nazis with open arms, I'd like to know how it is that you think that...

In my opinion, you not "damned when you do and damned when you don't"

when you are damned is when you take far too much upon yourself, and try to impose solutions that are unworkable. Your country has a history of that. Not just in terms of the treaty of Versailles, and that it was a prime reason why WW 2 happened, but also before.

And to add a bit more to the original list, perhaps you can explain the damned if you do, and damned if yuo don't to explain this next list as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1776 Tried to add Canada to US union

1812 Canada again.

1898 Invaded Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines... You kept Hawaii and Puerto Rico, freed Cuba from Spain. After freeing Philippines from Spain you spent the next two years fighting the locals who did not like freedom under US control. Philippines freed finally in 1945.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So what made the USA, right from after your own South/North internal wars, think that they should so regularly interfere in other people's affairs?

And while you are at it, perhaps you could explain all the unjustified military interferences in the first list, in the original post.

Most of your unjustified "wars" were nothing to do with having a strong military to keep harm at bay. They were all to do with expansionism, Empire building, and making sure that the world worked the way USA wanted it to.

 

[Hesomagari]

Do not let your current relations with France cloud their true contribution to the war.

and what about France? Did they not in your post history, do you some major favours?

 

[Spyke]

Spyke, you plainly don't know your history. You compatriot, tiassa, has already educated this board on Mossadegh.. it appears you never read it. I dispute your version of those reasons.

Um, yes, well, Tiassa is a knowledgable guy and all that, but I tend not to get my US foreign relations history from a message board.

Again, the only reason the USA decided to bomb in "democracy" in Iran, was because it cut across the US interests.

Of course, the decision to aid the coup to get rid of Mossadegh was becaue it suited US' interests. I never said otherwise. Nation's don't scratch their asses unless it suits their interests. Their interests in 1953 was preventing Moscow from gaining influence in the Mideast, which was of vital concern to the West. MI5 was involved in the coup because the British lost control of the oil contracts in Iran.

And the same happened when Saddam nationalised Iraqi oil. But you don't say that Iraq were then unable to sell that oil, do you? And Desert Storm was Bush Senior's first opportunity to get back at Saddam for being thrown out of Iraq with BP. Don't tell me that Desert Storm was about Kuwait, because it wasn't.

Yes, to a great degree it was, although it obviously wasn't a concern for the Kuwaitis themselves. The US wasn't going to allow Saddam to gain control of Kuwait and its oil, and then pose a threat to Saudi Arabia. Both of those countries were moderate Arab nations with decent relations with the West. Saddam in control of those nations meant Saddam would be in control of most of the region's oil.

And everyone with a decent handle on Middle Eastern history could see through that little deception from the start.

Yes, I can tell you were all over it.

It is plainly in the UN record, from an official complaint by Saddam, way before Desert Storm, that Kuwait was angle drilling into Iraqi oil fields, thereby stealing oil that was not their. Saddam asked UN to do something about it, and they did nothing. Therefore, Saddam attacked Kuwait. Bush knew all about Kuwait's nasty little stealing, but never mind. Lets get back at Saddam for having thrown us out.

Yes, and it's very likely that Bush was willing to allow Saddam to address his grievances on the angle drilling along the border, but not take all of Kuwait.

You don't honestly expect a knowledgeable rest of the world to buy the rubbish that Bush Seniors first excursion into Iraq was solely for the reasons stated do you?

Well, it certainly wasn't to save 'democratic' Kuwait, I'll grant you that. But I thought we were talking about Iran in 1953?

Your kKnowledge of your own country's involvedment in both wars is appalling, since all I know about what happened in WW1 and 2 with regard to the USA, comes from books I purchased in USA, which were printed in USA in 1986. Yes, 18 years out of date, but you would think accurate. Unless what you read has been subject to revisionism since then....

If Woodrow Wilson though that the Treaty of Versailles war reparations the German were saddled with, then his is a hypocrite, because the 14 points that these hinged on, were, according to YOUR history books, penned by him.

So tell me, since your knowledge of Versailles is so vast, exactly which one of those 14 points was it that slapped Germany with the war reparations? Let me answer that for you. There wasn't one. Wilson's 'Peace without Victory' point was replaced by the Europeans with the 'guilt clause' which hit Germany with the reparations.

The same textbook, published in your country states clearly that it was American weapons that insured an Allied victory in world War 1, and that your leaders decided the main points in the Treaty of Versailles.

Nearly all of Wilson's 14 Points were ultimately rejected by the Europeans and the Japanese, some of whom wanted to carve up the empires of the Central Powers, and some (mainly France and Germany) who wantd to strap Germany with the debt for the war. The European allies had already concluded a number of treaties during the war that divvied up those empires.

Yes, I agree that america had decided to be an Isolationist, and that was again, Woodrow's choice. He chose not to to into the League of Nations, something even he regretted, later sayng
“ We had a chance to gain the leadership of the world. We have lost it, and soon we shall be witnessing the tragedy of it all. ”

(Seems to me, that stayed in the front of USA's mind as the ultimate goal... and still is )

You're not even close. Wilson was the leading advocate for the US joining the League. He pushed hard for the League. He literally traveled the country pushing for support for the League. The treaty was rejected in the Senate by Republicans, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, because Wilson refused to negotiate with them over certain points. They wanted Article X removed from the Charter, which would have committed the US to automatically getting involved in future European wars.

Woodrow's ideas were bound to cause trouble, espeically when the Rihine was not set as a permanent boundary to protect France from Germany. French Marshal Foch stated immediate that "this is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years" and how right was he!

That was the European allies own fault. When they decided to set such ridicuously harsh penalties on Germany they should have gone ahead and delivered a killing blow, because by leaving Germany a little breathing room, she was bound to come up off the floor swinging.

And just remember that it was Woodrow Wilson, who created all the new nations of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and enlarged Serbia, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania. After all, the Americans argued verbally, that since their contributions had "won" the first world war, they had the right to make all the major terms.

The end result was that Wilson didn't set all of the major terms. Yes, many of those new states were created, some according to his 'Self-Determination' point, but some according to those treaties created by the Allies during the war, such as the London Treaty and the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which carved up the Middle East.

Furthermore, the USA pressed enormous loans on the Germans even though they had no credit, and couldn't possibly pay them. And of course, they then refused to pay...

Don't be absurd. The US didn't press the loans onto Germany. The Europeans strapped Germany with a $33 billion debt, something she could not pay. They did this in part to help pay their own debts back to the US. Germany defaulted on the debt in 1923, and French forces immediately occupied the Ruhr Valley, Germany's industrial heartland. Germany retaliated by prtinting more money. If you know anything about economics, you know that this caused a massive inflation, which first effected the German middle class by wiping out their savings, which threatened the stability of the new Weimar Republic, and soon effected the economic structure of a Europe that was trying to recover economically from the war.

In 1924 a US businessman, Charles Dawes talked the Europeans into scaling back the German war debt and in return the US promised to help stabilize the German economy. American bankers then made loans to Germany, who used the loans to pay the Europeans, who in turn, paid back their debts to the US. Basically it amounted to taking money out of one American bank vault and putting it in another one. In 1926 the US also reduced the European allies war debts. Candcelling the debts altogether would have probably made more sense, but the Americans obviously weren't qite that forgiving at the time.

That's what is in US history books.

Furthermore, USA imposed on Germany a democratic constitution, which again, was unheard of in a country previously run by emperors. (Sound familiar?)

The US did not impose democracy on Germany. The Weimar government came about when the Social Democrats in the Reichstag gained control in the fall of 1918, after the Kaiser abdicated. A brief revolution started in the navy at Kiel in November 1918, and soon leftist elements among the workers joined in. In January 1919, about the time the delegates were gathering in Paris for the peace conference, the Sparticus League also joined in the brief revolution. The Weimar government used the Friekorps to violently put the revolution down. Neither the far left nor the far right in Germany accepted the Weimar government. That fact, coupled with the enormous war debts, made the life of the republican govrnment tenuous. But the repbulic was not imposed on Germany by the US.

Well, I dont think I would have attempted to counteract it either, since it was Woodrow Wilson who drove the Treaty of Versailles in the first place...

And it was this treaty, as the French said at the time, that guaranteed the conditions whereby a second world war was guaranteed.

The French have only themselves to blame.

Germany was immediately furious. "How could America call itself neutral and supply the Allies with weapons?",

Because FDR supported the Allies, as he made clear, and was only constrained by US internal law in the form of the Neutrality Act of 1935, and its revised forms, which had been created by the Isolationists who controlled Congress at the time. If FDR had had his way, the US would have been in the war much earlier.

and it was Roosevelt and Churchill who gave in to Stalin's demands for control over Eastern Europe, even though they must have known that his promises of representative government and free elections was a load of bull

Actually, Churchill didn't want to give into Stalin's demands. Churchill quite rightly never trusted Stalin. FDR seemed to be rather naive in regards to Stalin, at least up until shortly before his death. Truman was much closer to Churchill in his view of Stalin.

(Even talking to my father who was involved in the war, he said that at the time, the Allies got totally pissed off with the Americans who verbally maintained the victory was solely due to them. And that attitude still stands to this day on this board. I agree at least one American here has the decency to admit that the Allies did have something to do with it.)

Well, I don't know of any Americans personally that think American solely won WW2 on their own. Certainly I've never seen an American history book that makes that claim.

Now, if you don't like this version from your books, perhaps you could provide me with the proof that the Versailled problems were created by everyone else but Woodrow.

I just did.

Or will you tell me that the USA books lied in order to make USA look more powerful than anyone else?

Let's see. Didn't you tell me that you got all of your info from a US history book? Duh.

But in this instance I am using american books to prove the point.

You apparently picked the wrong one.

1776 Tried to add Canada to US union

But not by invasion. They wanted Canadians to join them in revolution. There was not even a US union in 1776.

1898 Invaded Hawaii

The US annexed Hawaii in 1898. It didn't invade.

 

[Hesomagari]

Um, yes, well, Tiassa is a knowledgable guy and all that, but I tend not to get my US foreign relations history from a message board.

What a shame.. It was impecably referenced with lots of links, and reference material, and was far better than any college or university geopolitical expose I've ever had to sit through. Someone should employ him to educate Americans.

Well, it certainly wasn't to save 'democratic' Kuwait, I'll grant you that. But I thought we were talking about Iran in 1953?

Wrong. Both Iran and Iraq were about oil, were for the same motivation, are right next to each other, and America's willingness to support Iraq in attacking Iran, was yet part of the same old plot. Oil, oil, and more oil,

Right, it wasn't to save democratic Kuwait. It was with the aim of claiming back, what both USA and British BP had once considered their property. After all, once when they had total access to Iraq's oil, all the Iraqis got was 3 cents in the dollar value. Pathetic.

Once it was nationalised, shock horror, both countries had to pay market value. And as other people in the Bush emporium have stated, Bush senior was seriously pissed off.

So tell me, since your knowledge of Versailles is so vast, exactly which one of those 14 points was it that slapped Germany with the war reparations? Let me answer that for you. There wasn't one. Wilson's 'Peace without Victory' point was replaced by the Europeans with the 'guilt clause' which hit Germany with the reparations.

According to your text book it was provision number 3, a. and b. And the total reparations due by Germany, was $33 billion dollars.

Nearly all of Wilson's 14 Points were ultimately rejected by the Europeans and the Japanese, some of whom wanted to carve up the empires of the Central Powers, and some (mainly France and Germany) who wantd to strap Germany with the debt for the war. The European allies had already concluded a number of treaties during the war that divvied up those empires.

The basic 14 points that ended up in the Treaty were the ones that Woodrow wrote. He did however, get septic that some of his other points he added later, got left out. Most of the main provisions in the Treaty mirror the January 1918 speech Woodrow gave to congress.

According to your textbook, the four separate treaties and the Treaty of Versailles were all worked out together , and signed at the conference containing the covenant of the League of Nations. All five treaties together, aer known as the Peace of Paris and were worked out together at the same time. You are wrong, therefore, that the European allies had already concluded a number of treaties before the Treaty of Versailles.

You're not even close. Wilson was the leading advocate for the US joining the League. He pushed hard for the League. He literally traveled the country pushing for support for the League. The treaty was rejected in the Senate by Republicans, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, because Wilson refused to negotiate with them over certain points. They wanted Article X removed from the Charter, which would have committed the US to automatically getting involved in future European wars.

I went and looked it up, and your text books say this:

By the time the treaty of Versailles was put in final form, many Americans had come to oppose it. Liberals insisted it was too harsh on Germany. Conservatives feared the entangling alliances that would be made by joining the League: they believed the United States might be forced into a European war which was none of our concern. The Republican-dominated Senate, which opposed Wilson on political grounds, would not accept the League charter without certain reservations to guarantee United States sovereignty in its international affairs, and president Wilson's supporters in the Senate would not vote in favor of a "watered down" version of the League covenant.

There was no provision in the charter compelling USA to automatically enter any other wars. The league of nations covenant was a document which Woodrow worked hard on writing and having drawn up himself. It was his baby. Do you honestly think an American president would have committed USA by proxy, into another world war? Would any country do that? No. That was never the way the League of nations works, and its not the way the the present UN, the league of nations successor works either.

yes, he was pissed that the Senate chose to bicker in a ridiculous fashion, which was why he said, as I quoted above, that "We have a chance to gain the leadership of the world. We have lost it, and soon we shall be witnessing the tragedy of it all."

That was the European allies own fault. When they decided to set such ridicuously harsh penalties on Germany they should have gone ahead and delivered a killing blow, because by leaving Germany a little breathing room, she was bound to come up off the floor swinging.

Oh yeah, right. Like what? America wasn't quite ready to drop a couple of Nukes at that point.... thank goodness...

It wasn't France's fault about the boundary line. They could do nothing about the rest of it, because they were not driving the deal. The Americans were.

The end result was that Wilson didn't set all of the major terms. Yes, many of those new states were created, some according to his 'Self-Determination' point, but some according to those treaties created by the Allies during the war, such as the London Treaty and the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which carved up the Middle East.

That is a total red herring. Those two treates were nothing to do with the Treaty of Versailles or the conditions put upon Germany, which led to the second world war. They were not even part of the Peace of Paris which were the determinants of the grudges that led to WW2.

Don't be absurd. The US didn't press the loans onto Germany.

Pardon? Those words are the exact words in your text book. With everyone else owing huge megabucks to the USA for armaments who else could afford to loan the money to Germany to repay any debt?

Of course Germany defaulted the debt.

And it was obvious to many that that is what would happen as the price was far too high.. yes, I know about the money printing, inflation, and the baskets of money to buy one loaf....

The US did not impose democracy on Germany.

Pardon? According to your book, you have got all that paragraph wrong. Again, these are the exact words in your text book. A democratic consitution, in accordance with all the latest improvements , was established at Weimar. Emperors having been driven out, nonentitites were elected. Beneath this flimsy fabric raged the passions of the mighty, defeated, but substantially uninjured German nations. The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy, which Mr Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract, had made it clear to the beaten Empire that it would have better treatment from the Allies as a republic than as a Monarchy.

England, and the rest of Europe couldn't have given a toss about Monarchy, since many of them operate democratically, alongside a monarchy system, but well, since USA was established to run away from Monarchys, that's understandable. But shortsighted, as Churchill was to state at the time. But again, USA wouldn't listen. Yes, the Kaiser abdicated abdicated in 1918, and a republic was created, BUT the actual constitution was not written as the abdication was only a matter of a few months before the Armistic on November 11, and a country at war isn't about to waste time writing constitutions. It was part of the "spoils" or war that "others" got to have a huge say in it...and add in all their "improvements".

As no doubt, USA would also like to have a huge say in the Iraqi constitution. Seems to be a USA habit, to assist in rewriting other people's futures. Fortunately, time, and later elections usually solves those problems. As will happen in Iraq, in the usual sharia Muslim way.

(The only royals US cozies up to is the Saudi royalty, but that's all to do with a matter of billions they have invested in the USA... again, personal interests and oil supercede any inate "qualms" about "royalty"....)

And it was this treaty, as the French said at the time, that guaranteed the conditions whereby a second world war was guaranteed.

The French have only themselves to blame.

I disagree. The USA should have kept their big butt out of deciding where boundaries were going to go, or of assessing the amount of debt. And that, according to your book, is something the USA had a big say in.

If FDR had had his way, the US would have been in the war much earlier.

So, and your point is? It is neither here nor there, whether Roosevelt would have, or wouldn't have. The fact is that USA had stated that they were neutral, when they were anything but.

So why lie? I guess its the american way.( see the supposed "causes" of the vietnam and Iraq II war...)

Actually, Churchill didn't want to give into Stalin's demands. Churchill quite rightly never trusted Stalin. FDR seemed to be rather naive in regards to Stalin, at least up until shortly before his death. Truman was much closer to Churchill in his view of Stalin.

No, churchill didn't trust Stalin. And yes he stated that he didn't want to give in, but he felt he had to, because whether you like it or not, or are prepared to admit it or not, Roosevelt basically ran the post war show. Churchill could only argue so much.

Well, I don't know of any Americans personally that think American solely won WW2 on their own. Certainly I've never seen an American history book that makes that claim.

We agree on one thing. I've never seen an American history book that says that. But here, in SCIFORUMS, and on redneck boards like Freepers and other such like places, Americans often say things like "if we hadn't come during WW1 and WW2 y'all would have been speaking german and japanese." I hear it here quite often.

The fact is that America did not win the war on their own, and the fact is also, that the americans had a huge hand in why WW2 even happened in the first place, but.. they will never admit it, just as there are few Americans who admit that any of the unjustifiable interferences of the last two decades were actually "unjustifiable". They always come up with excuses, excuses and more excuses.

But in this instance, I am using a american books to prove the point

You apparently picked the wrong one.

Ah so.

So there are right American books and wrong american books. Okay, so how do you know whether your American books are right, or my American books are right?

But not by invasion. They wanted Canadians to join them in revolution. There was not even a US union in 1776.

Really??? What about 1812 then? That too, wasn't invasion???

The US annexed Hawaii in 1898. It didn't invade.

Annexed? According to whom? The Americans or the Hawaians? More sanitised history?

 

[Hesomagari]

Next you'll be saying that the war in Iraq wasn't an invasion, but was "self defence"....

 

[Hesomagari]

PS, since when it Kuwait democratic? None of the nurses who go from here to there would agree with that definition.

 

[Paula]

Hesomagari,

The US wanted a much milder version of the Treaty of Versaille. It was England and France that insisted on sticking it to Germany and giving rise to Hitler, whom they then appeased.

 

[Paula]

Spyke,

I will have to disagree with you on Hawaii. Hawaiians voted unanimously, in fact every single Hawaiian signed a petition, that they did not want to become part of the US. Unfortunately for them, a large number of wealthy Americans had bought up for a pittance, huge tracts of Hawaiian land and took up arms against the locals. When the US military showed up to quell the situation, American soldiers would not fire on American civilians. This left the Hawaiian natives with no recourse to re-claim their nation. Their popular Queen was imprisoned (I assume for sedition or something similar), her ancient family possessions, including family pictures, auctioned off right in front of her and Hawaiians relegated to second class status in their own country.

This is one case where a native people stood together in their rejection of the US and lost. With other Native tribes it is more difficult because many sided with the US against other tribes. This is not the case in Hawaii.

I have never said we haven't done things that would be considered immoral by an individual. Powerful countries don't get powerful by selling Girl Scout Cookies.
What I have said is that we have played the game every powerful country (Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands) has played throughout history but never has it gotten personal as it has with Americans.

Hence, anti-Americanism is a prejudice for which the current War in Iraq (which is not actually killing very many Europeans but does threaten their pocketbooks) can be drummed up as a justification.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Does anyone here like Elvis?...

 

[Spyke]

Um, yes, well, Tiassa is a knowledgable guy and all that, but I tend not to get my US foreign relations history from a message board.
What a shame.. It was impecably referenced with lots of links, and reference material, and was far better than any college or university geopolitical expose I've ever had to sit through. Someone should employ him to educate Americans.

So it's links you want? OK. I can do that.

Well, it certainly wasn't to save 'democratic' Kuwait, I'll grant you that. But I thought we were talking about Iran in 1953?
Wrong. Both Iran and Iraq were about oil, were for the same motivation, are right next to each other, and America's willingness to support Iraq in attacking Iran, was yet part of the same old plot. Oil, oil, and more oil,

I never said Iran wasn't about oil, as I said the US was concerned over Moscow gaining a foothold in the region because the Mideast was a vital spot (meaning its oil). But the US main concern was communism. It was the British trying to recover control of its oil concessions. But to give you some links:

In 1949, the British demanded a better deal. The National Front, a popular coalition led by Mossadegh, opposed it. (In 1947 he had written a law demanding the renegotiation of the AIOC concession and forbidding any others.) The Shah appointed General Ali Razmara as prime minister at the insistence of the British, who wanted a strong PM. Anglo-Iranian could have fatally weakened the National Front by agreeing to the Razmara's compromise solution, but they rejected it: "Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast", as Dean Acheson said: conciliation was impossible. Razmara was assassinated and Mossadegh succeeded him.

Instead of the Razmara's proposed 50/50 split, Mossadegh demanded and got from the Iranian parliament complete nationalisation. The Shah - under duress - revoked the concession, Mossadegh became a national hero, and the British fumed.

Truman received news from Henry Grady, his ambassador in Iran, that Britain wanted to overthrow Mossadegh (an act of "utter folly", as Grady put it), and let it be known that a coup would be totally unacceptable. The British, with epic miscalculation, took their case to the United Nations Security Council. In fluent French, the frail Mossadegh appealed to the United Nations as "the ultimate refuge of weak and oppressed nations" and denied Britain's claim to the oil. The British thought he looked "like a cab horse", but theirs was a minority opinion: he was Time's man of the year in 1951.

While Iran was concentrating on Iran, America too had a consuming interest: communism. The British persuaded Eisenhower that Iran was in danger of falling to communism.
http://www.nthposition.com/alltheshahsmen.php

And from an Iranian website:

The Premier, whose mind runs in a deep single track, was committed to nationalization—and much to the surprise of the British, he went through with it, right down to the expulsion of the British technicians without whom the Iranians cannot run the Abadan refinery.

Results: I) the West lost the Iranian oil supply; 2) the Iranian government lost the oil payments; 3) this loss stopped all hope of economic progress in Iran and disrupted the political life of the country; 4) in the ensuing confusion, Iran's Tudeh (Communist) Party made great gains which it hoped to see reflected in the national elections, due to begin this week.

Tears & Laughter. Mossadegh does not promise his country a way out of this nearly hopeless situation. He would rather see the ruin of Iran than give in to the British, who, in his opinion, corrupted and exploited his country. He is not in any sense pro-Russian, but he intends to stick to his policies even though he knows they might lead to control of Iran by the Kremlin.
The suicidal quality of this fanaticism can be seen in the two men closest to Mosadegh in politics. Ayatulla Kashani is a zealot of Islam who has spent his life fighting the infidel British in Iraq and Iran. He controls the Teheran mobs (except those controlled by the Communists), and his terrorist organization assassinated Razmara. Hussein Makki controls the oil-rich province of Khuzistan, in which the Abadan refinery lies. When the British got out, Mossadegh put Makki in charge of the oil installations. Makki's view on oil: close up the wells, pull down the refinery and forget about it. Neither Makki, Kashani nor Mossadegh has ever shown any interest in rational plans for the economic reform and development of their country.
http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/1/529

As I said, during the Cold War the US always saw communism as its main threat.

Right, it wasn't to save democratic Kuwait. It was with the aim of claiming back, what both USA and British BP had once considered their property. After all, once when they had total access to Iraq's oil, all the Iraqis got was 3 cents in the dollar value. Pathetic.

Claiming back? The US never considered Iraq 'their' property. It was the British that had held Iraq as a UN mandate. And in case you didn't notice, in 1991 the Coalition forces didn't conquer Iraq and take its oil. They pushed the Iraqi's out of Kuwait and quit. Iraq controlled 10% of the world's oil, and Kuwait accounted for almost as much. Allowing Iraq to control Kuwait would have given Saddam control of 1/5 of the world's oil, and would have made the dictator very powerful and very dangerous to the region.

Once it was nationalised, shock horror, both countries had to pay market value. And as other people in the Bush emporium have stated, Bush senior was seriously pissed off.

Once what was nationalized?

So tell me, since your knowledge of Versailles is so vast, exactly which one of those 14 points was it that slapped Germany with the war reparations? Let me answer that for you. There wasn't one. Wilson's 'Peace without Victory' point was replaced by the Europeans with the 'guilt clause' which hit Germany with the reparations.
According to your text book it was provision number 3, a. and b. And the total reparations due by Germany, was $33 billion dollars.

This is Point 3 of Wilson's 14 Points:

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918/14points.html

Nothing in there about war reparations for Germany.

According to your textbook, the four separate treaties and the Treaty of Versailles were all worked out together , and signed at the conference containing the covenant of the League of Nations. All five treaties together, aer known as the Peace of Paris and were worked out together at the same time. You are wrong, therefore, that the European allies had already concluded a number of treaties before the Treaty of Versailles.

Really? Hmm, then what about these?

Secret Treaties: While the war was being fought, there were a series of agreements made among the Allies for dividing up the spoils. In March 1915, France was promised Alsace-Lorraine, control of the left bank of the Rhine and German colonies in Africa while Britain was allowed to take over German colonies in Africa and the Pacific. In April of the same year, Italy was tempted to join the war on the side of the Allies by promises of Austrian and Turkish territory. In August 1916, Rumania was promised territories in Transylvania and Bukovina. The Big Three had to respect these treaties when they were making the territorial settlement after the war.
http://admiralty.pacific.net.hk/~tkchung/hists/total/wwresult.htm

26 April, 1915
The Treaty of London
ARTICLE 4. Under the Treaty of Peace, Italy shall obtain the Trentino, Cisalpine Tyrol with its geographical and natural frontier, as well as Trieste, the counties of Gorizia and Gradisca, all Istria as far as the Quarnero and including Volosca and the Istrian islands of Cherso and Lussin, as well as the small islands of Plavnik, Unie, Canidole, Palazzuoli, San Pietro di Nembi, Asinello, Gruica, and the neighbouring islets....

ARTICLE 5. Italy shall also be given the province of Dalmatia within its present administrative boundaries....

ARTICLE 6. Italy shall receive full sovereignty over Valona, the island of Saseno and surrounding territory....
ARTICLE 13. In the event of France and Great Britain increasing their colonial territories in Africa at the expense of Germany, those two Powers agree in principle that Italy may claim some equitable compensation.... ARTICLE 14. Great Britain undertakes to facilitate the immediate conclusion, under equitable conditions, of a loan of at least 50,000,000 pounds....
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1915/londontreaty.html

15 & 16 May, 1916:
The Sykes-Picot Agreement
1. That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab State or a Confederation of Arab States in the areas (A) and (B) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (A) France, and in area (B) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (A) France, and in area (B) Great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States.

2. That in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States. 3. That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other Allies, and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca.
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1916/sykespicot.html

Germany also lost all her colonies in Africa and the Pacific. Most of them were transferred to the League of Nations which allowed the victorious powers such as Britain, France, Belgium, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan to rule over them as Mandates.
http://admiralty.pacific.net.hk/~tkchung/hists/total/wwresult.htm

All of those treaties concluded before Versailles.

You're not even close. Wilson was the leading advocate for the US joining the League. He pushed hard for the League. He literally traveled the country pushing for support for the League. The treaty was rejected in the Senate by Republicans, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, because Wilson refused to negotiate with them over certain points. They wanted Article X removed from the Charter, which would have committed the US to automatically getting involved in future European wars.

I went and looked it up, and your text books say this:

By the time the treaty of Versailles was put in final form, many Americans had come to oppose it. Liberals insisted it was too harsh on Germany. Conservatives feared the entangling alliances that would be made by joining the League: they believed the United States might be forced into a European war which was none of our concern. The Republican-dominated Senate, which opposed Wilson on political grounds, would not accept the League charter without certain reservations to guarantee United States sovereignty in its international affairs, and president Wilson's supporters in the Senate would not vote in favor of a "watered down" version of the League covenant.

Thank you. That simply confirms what I said, that it was the Republican Senate that rejected the treaty, not Wilson, as you claimed when you said:

Yes, I agree that america had decided to be an Isolationist, and that was again, Woodrow's choice. He chose not to to into the League of Nations, something even he regretted, later sayng
“ We had a chance to gain the leadership of the world. We have lost it, and soon we shall be witnessing the tragedy of it all.

Then you go on to say:

There was no provision in the charter compelling USA to automatically enter any other wars. The league of nations covenant was a document which Woodrow worked hard on writing and having drawn up himself. It was his baby. Do you honestly think an American president would have committed USA by proxy, into another world war? Would any country do that? No. That was never the way the League of nations works, and its not the way the the present UN, the league of nations successor works either.

Your misunderstanding is because you don't understand Wilson's character. Wilson believed that the League of Nations would prevent future wars, that's why he felt no compunction to committing the US to a collective security agreement. He was an idealist. Lodge, and most of the Republicans in the Senate were realists. They didn't necessarily believe that a League of Nations, already watered down by the Allied powers (who didn't want to restrict their own soveriegnty), would, or could, prevent future wars, and they were concerned about Article X, which would automatically commit the US to collective action if a member state in the League was attacked. They wanted the decision for the US going to war to remain with the Congress, hence their refusal to accept Article X.

Article X
In trying to win support for his Article X, which he personally believed was the moral cause of the war to end all wars, the President was once again ineffectual and created an even deeper schism in his relations with the Senate. Senator Lodge of Massachusetts was willing to accept the treaty with one reservation--that the U.S. would not go to war to defend a League member without the approval of Congress. Wilson was unwilling to compromise on this issue, and exacerbated the situation to an even worse degree when he called on all Democrats to oppose Lodge's reservations and elect a Democratic president in the coming election as a stand to ratify the treaty status quo. With further stubbornness on Wilson's part, the treaty was never passed, and Congress was compelled to make a separate peace treaty in July of 1921.
http://members.aol.com/adriana116/dbq2.html

The Covenant of the League of Nations was the source of much criticism. Article X of that document prescribed the use of collective security actions to guarantee the status quo in the postwar world. Lodge and others were disturbed by the prospect of having American soldiers called to protect the territorial integrity of other member states and serve under the command of foreigners in faraway places. Other critics pointed to the League’s voting procedures that assigned a single vote to the United States, but allowed six from the British Empire.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1338.html

Collective Security
An Article 10 provision of the League charter, it stated that if one country was involved in a confrontation, other nations would support it. Collective security is agreements between countries for mutual defense and to discourage aggression.
http://apstudent.com/ushistory/cards/cards23.html

And that says it all.

yes, he was pissed that the Senate chose to bicker in a ridiculous fashion, which was why he said, as I quoted above, that "We have a chance to gain the leadership of the world. We have lost it, and soon we shall be witnessing the tragedy of it all."

It was hardly ridiculous bickering. Yes, Lodge and Wilson despised each other, but the possibility of Congress forfeiting the decision to war to a world body was a legitimate concern.

Woodrow's ideas were bound to cause trouble, espeically when the Rihine was not set as a permanent boundary to protect France from Germany. French Marshal Foch stated immediate that "this is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years" and how right was he!

And just remember that it was Woodrow Wilson, who created all the new nations of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and enlarged Serbia, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania. After all, the Americans argued verbally, that since their contributions had "won" the first world war, they had the right to make all the major terms.

Don't forget now, this is in YOUR history books.

I'm dying to know what US history book, or books, you're getting this from. Care to post the title and author?

Many of those territories were established through treaties before Verailles took place, and had to be recognized in the Paris Peace. Sure, Wilson supported them, because of his idea of 'self-determination', but he didn't cause their creation:

New States: Before the Conference opened in January 1919, the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires had collapsed. Within these empires, there arose many new states—Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The Big Three had to accept the existence of these new states when they were making the territorial settlement after the war.
http://admiralty.pacific.net.hk/~tkchung/hists/total/wwresult.htm

Those states were created before Wilson even arrived in Paris.

Furthermore, the USA pressed enormous loans on the Germans even though they had no credit, and couldn't possibly pay them. And of course, they then refused to pay... Furthermore, USA imposed on Germany a democratic constitution, which again, was unheard of in a country previously run by emperors. (Sound familiar?) As churchill wrote:

“ Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Replublic with a constitution sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser under a council of regency. Instead, a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a consitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and parliamentary processes were for the time beying, being unhinged. The Weimar Republic, with all its liberal trappings and blessings, was regarded as an imposition of the enemy. ”

Again, he also pointed out that that was a result of
“ The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy ”

though he has the decency to admit that Mr Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract that.

Well, I dont think I would have attempted to counteract it either, since it was Woodrow Wilson who drove the Treaty of Versailles in the first place...

And it was this treaty, as the French said at the time, that guaranteed the conditions whereby a second world war was guaranteed.

First, on the loans to Germany:

Reparations were the payments which required Germany to pay to repair all the damage of the war.

The first problem was to work out how much. The figure was changed many times during 1919–1921. Eventually, in April 1921, the League of Nations agreed a sum of £6.6 billion.

Note that it was the League of Nations that set the final sum of payments on Germany. Note further that the US wasn't a member of the League, so had no hand in setting that figure.

The harsh reparations were set by Clemenceau and George. Clemenceau because he wanted to pay Germany back for 1871, and to ensure Germany would no longer be a threat, and George because the British people insisted he punish the Germans. Wilson wanted light reparations, if any.

The first problem, however, was that it was very difficult to work out the cost of the damage the war had done. France wanted a very high figure. Wilson and Lloyd George wanted less. In 1919, reparations of £1 billion were suggested. During 1920, the figure was raised to £4½ billion, and then to £12½ billion! Eventually, in April 1921, the League of Nations agreed a sum of £6.6 billion – in installments, until 1984 – and defeated Germany had to agree to pay.
Even at the time, economists like JM Keynes said that reparations would ruin, not only Germany, but the world economy.
http://www.johndclare.net/EA7.htm

If you want to blame anyone for WW2, blame the Europeans.

But back to the loans the US gave Germany through the Dawes Plan:

Reparations ruined Germany’s economy, but when Germany failed to make its January 1923 payment, French troops invaded the Ruhr. This led to hyperinflation, and the Munich Putsch. Germany was falling apart, and the Allies realised that they would have to do something. In April 1924, an American banker called Charles Dawes prepared the Dawes Plan, which gave Germany longer to pay and gave Germany a £45m. loan to get its economy going.
http://www.johndclare.net/EA7.htm

Germany had lost her richest farmland (West Prussia) and the Saar coalfields. Its economy had been damaged by the war. It couldn’t stand large payments of gold leaving Germany every six months. In July 1922, there was an economic crisis, and Germany was granted a six-month delay in payments. But when the German government failed to make its January 1923 payment, French and Belgian troops invaded the Ruhr, and began to take in kind what they were owed. German miners in the Ruhr refused to work for the French and went on strike, which created hyperinflation. German began to fall apart, and there were revolutions in the Rhineland and (led by Adolf Hitler) in Bavaria. In the meantime, because they weren’t getting German reparation payments, Britain and France defaulted on their loans to America.

The Allies realised that they would have to do something about reparations. In April 1924, an American banker called Charles Dawes prepared the Dawes Plan, which gave Germany longer to pay, allowed Germany to pay only what it was able, and arranged to give Germany a £45 million loan to get its economy going.
http://www.johndclare.net/EA7.htm

Again, the US did not press loans onto Germany.

Pardon? According to your book, you have got all that paragraph wrong. Again, these are the exact words in your text book. A democratic consitution, in accordance with all the latest improvements , was established at Weimar. Emperors having been driven out, nonentitites were elected. Beneath this flimsy fabric raged the passions of the mighty, defeated, but substantially uninjured German nations. The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy, which Mr Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract, had made it clear to the beaten Empire that it would have better treatment from the Allies as a republic than as a Monarchy.
England, and the rest of Europe couldn't have given a toss about Monarchy, since many of them operate democratically, alongside a monarchy system, but well, since USA was established to run away from Monarchys, that's understandable. But shortsighted, as Churchill was to state at the time. But again, USA wouldn't listen. Yes, the Kaiser abdicated abdicated in 1918, and a republic was created, BUT the actual constitution was not written as the abdication was only a matter of a few months before the Armistic on November 11, and a country at war isn't about to waste time writing constitutions. It was part of the "spoils" or war that "others" got to have a huge say in it...and add in all their "improvements".

That in no way supports your claim that Wilson either insisted upon, or forced, a democratic style government on Germany. The intent of the Germans had been to establish a constitutional monarchy, but when the revolutions broke out and the kaiser abdicated, the Social Democrats in the Reichstag felt the need to take control before the communists did.

The then-current plan to transform Germany into a constitutional monarchy quickly became obsolete as the country slid into a state of near-total chaos. Germany was flooded with soldiers returning from the front, many of whom were wounded physically, psychologically, or both. Violence was rampant, with fights breaking out even between rival leftist groups at funerals for leaders assassinated by right-wing adversaries.

The Weimar Republic, proclaimed on November 9, 1918, was born in the throes of military defeat and social revolution. On November 3, mutiny had broken out among naval squadrons stationed at Kiel. Workers had joined the revolt, which had quickly spread to other ports and to cities in northern, central, and southern Germany, finally reaching Berlin on November 9. Largely as a result of the November Revolution, Prince Max von Baden, the German chancellor, announced the abdication of the emperor. Following the abdication, the Social Democrats in the Reichstag gained control of the government; they proclaimed the republic, formed a provisional cabinet, and organized the National Assembly. Another revolt instigated in Berlin by the Spartacus League, a group of left-wing extremists, was crushed by the army in January 1919. In February the National Assembly elected Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert to the presidency and drafted a constitution.
http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/germany-east/germany-east30.html

Wilson, while there is little doubt he preferred seeing a republic in Germany, nevertheless had no influence in Germany politics.

As no doubt, USA would also like to have a huge say in the Iraqi constitution. Seems to be a USA habit, to assist in rewriting other people's futures. Fortunately, time, and later elections usually solves those problems. As will happen in Iraq, in the usual sharia Muslim way.

No doubt the US would like have some influence in fashioning Iraq's constitution. And certainly there is no doubt Wilson would have like to have played a larger role in shaping post-war Germany, as well as shaping post-war Europe. But the simple fact is, as the information of above clearly shows, Wilson didn't have near as much influence at Versailles as you seem to think. The Europeans were determined to make Germany pay.

The French have only themselves to blame. ”

I disagree. The USA should have kept their big butt out of deciding where boundaries were going to go, or of assessing the amount of debt. And that, according to your book, is something the USA had a big say in.

Wilson had little influence in setting boundaries. I already showed you that with the links above.

If FDR had had his way, the US would have been in the war much earlier. ”

So, and your point is?

The point was a response to your saying that Hitler couldn't understand why the US claimed neutrality while in reality supplying the Allies. I merely pointed out that FDR was forced to get around the Neutrality Acts that had been enacted by the Isolationists in Congress. He was always pro-Britain, as evidenced by the Atlantic Charter.

It is neither here nor there, whether Roosevelt would have, or wouldn't have. The fact is that USA had stated that they were neutral, when they were anything but.

And your point is? I already said just that.

Actually, Churchill didn't want to give into Stalin's demands. Churchill quite rightly never trusted Stalin. FDR seemed to be rather naive in regards to Stalin, at least up until shortly before his death. Truman was much closer to Churchill in his view of Stalin.

No, churchill didn't trust Stalin. And yes he stated that he didn't want to give in, but he felt he had to, because whether you like it or not, or are prepared to admit it or not, Roosevelt basically ran the post war show. Churchill could only argue so much.

So you're saying FDR ran the post-war show from the grave? He died before the war ended, which I'm sure you knew, or didn't your book mention that little tidbit?

But not by invasion. They wanted Canadians to join them in revolution. There was not even a US union in 1776.

Really??? What about 1812 then? That too, wasn't invasion???

Uh, I didn't say anything about 1812. I agree with you on that. I said you were wrong about 1776.

The US annexed Hawaii in 1898. It didn't invade. ”

Annexed? According to whom? The Americans or the Hawaians? More sanitised history?

There was never a US invasion of Hawaii. Period. In 1898 the island was governed by a provisional government controlled mainly by American and American-Hawaiian planters, who had seized control of the government in 1892 from the queen in a bloodless coup. She had come to power upon the death of her father, the king, and had abolished the constitution that had existed under father since the original friendship treaty signed back in 1875, which gave the planter class considerable influence. When she abolished the constitution and even threatened to have them executed, they acted, and organized a coup. The US minister to the island acted on his own and ordered marines from a US warship stationed in Pearl Harbor to come ashore and ostensibly protect the US ministry, but in reality to ensure that the queen's forces couldn't enter Honololu and aid the queen. The planters established a provisional government and sent representatives to Washington, asking to be annexed as a state of the Union. An investigation ordered by the incoming president, Grover Cleveland, discovered the minister's unauthorized involvement, and noted that most native Hawaiians did not support annexation, and the US rejected the provisional government's request, and the matter died until 1898. In that year, with the war with Spain underway, and with the US needing troops and supplies sent to the Philippines, and Hawaii being a stepping stone across the Pacific, the matter of annexation was again brought up in Congress, and this time was accepted.

PS, since when it Kuwait democratic? None of the nurses who go from here to there would agree with that definition.

There never was a democracy in Kuwait. My comment was a shot at Bush elder.

Next you'll be saying that the war in Iraq wasn't an invasion, but was "self defence"....

Irrelevant, not to mention a silly comment.

BTW, again how about giving me the title and name of the author of the book, or books, you are using.

Also, you're claim from an earlier post that the US supplied arms to Germany in WW2. I asked you for some proof of that. How about it?

Spyke,

I will have to disagree with you on Hawaii. Hawaiians voted unanimously, in fact every single Hawaiian signed a petition, that they did not want to become part of the US.

Paula,
I never said different. What I did say was there was not an invasion of Hawaii in 1898 as H claimed.

 

[Hesomagari]

Spyke, Thank you for putting up all the links.

I am not going to put up the name or the author of the book that I bought. I don't want to get into a pissing contest.

What I am going to do, since we homeschool, is to use this book and the links you have given me, and I will now go to Amazon and other to buy other history books to compare them all, and I will use all of it to show the children that the reality of history is that the victor writes many versions to suit whatever they want to suit, for their particular agenda. I tend to believe more what is on a university website, than in the book I have. Since academics are more likely to try to edit out political crap.

We have also done the same thing with Japanese History books, and the same war written by the americans. victors chose how they describe things, and have their own agendas.

It is still true, in war, that the whole truth is the first victim.

I concede that this book may have inaccuracies, and it was probably unwise to start a 'fight".

But I do not yet concede that everything on the US websites is totally accurate, since I am sure that the Americans will want to point the finger at others just as much as others would want to do likewise.

It also reinforces that much of what is written about "history" is most likely inaccurate.

For instance, the revisionist stance now taken, and the re-writing of the history of Christopher Colombus. Wouldn't recognise it if you compared it with texts of yesteryear.

The US never considered Iraq 'their' property.

Okay, you missed the point of what I was saying which related then to this comment...

Once what was nationalized?

the US, with the help of BP, developed the original Iraqi oil refineries. Because they would only pay 3 cents per dollar of profits, Saddam nationalized the Iraqi oil, and chucked Bush Senior and the BP guys out of Iraq.

And IMo, it was that single action, that was in the back of both Bush Senior and Junior's minds with both Desert Storms.

Yes, I misworded the bit about Woodrow, and I should have changed it. Yes, it was the Senate members who vetoed that idea.

With regard to the Canada dates I put up two, and you chose only to go with one. I consider the first attempt simply a civilised version of the second.

Regarding Hawaii, as far as I am concerned, Hawaii was "invaded". to describe it as an annexation is merely sanitising what is essentially the same thing.

 

[Spyke]

I am not going to put up the name or the author of the book that I bought. I don't want to get into a pissing contest.

I would really like to know what book and author it was. I don't care about a pissing contest. If it really was an American author I would like to check the book out. You can always PM me with the info so as not to have to publicly display it.

I will use all of it to show the children that the reality of history is that the victor writes many versions to suit whatever they want to suit, for their particular agenda.

Well, I disagree in this case. According to your version, which you said was from an American author, Wilson was to blame for WW2, which of course, is rubbish, but if the victors get to write history why would an American author want to blame America for WW2? That makes no sense.

I tend to believe more what is on a university website, than in the book I have. Since academics are more likely to try to edit out political crap.

Not really. Academics tend not to edit anything. They depend on grants for their research, and they tend to be like vultures waiting on declassified government material being released.

We have also done the same thing with Japanese History books, and the same war written by the americans. victors chose how they describe things, and have their own agendas.

The further removed a writer is from the event, the better chance you get for an unbiased, strictly neutral, historical account. Someone writing 30-40 years after the event will likely have less of an attachment than someone writing during or immediately after the event. And it will likely be a fullere account because of newer released government documentation.

But I do not yet concede that everything on the US websites is totally accurate, since I am sure that the Americans will want to point the finger at others just as much as others would want to do likewise.

They weren't all American websites, and just because some were doesn't mean they were inaccurate. What happened at Versailles, and some of the other events we disagreed on is not disputed among the Allies. Read either a British or French account and it is going to read the same as an American one. Everybody knows the Japanese edited much of the history of the war out of their textbooks. That doesn't mean it is common practice.

It also reinforces that much of what is written about "history" is most likely inaccurate.

For instance, the revisionist stance now taken, and the re-writing of the history of Christopher Colombus. Wouldn't recognise it if you compared it with texts of yesteryear.

Perhaps, but what is 'inaccurate' is not always the same as 'altering' history. Sometimes, as in the case of Columbus, we simply learn more that disputes what we thought we knew.

Okay, you missed the point of what I was saying which related then to this comment...
“ Once what was nationalized?
the US, with the help of BP, developed the original Iraqi oil refineries. Because they would only pay 3 cents per dollar of profits, Saddam nationalized the Iraqi oil, and chucked Bush Senior and the BP guys out of Iraq.

Well, while you're correct about nationalization, you're a bit off in your timeframe, and I don't think that was the main reason Bush invaded, although no doubt oil was an issue. Iraq nationalized the oil in 1972 and Desert Storm didn't occur until 19 years later. Beginning around 1989 Saddam begin making overtures that he was going to cut off relations with the West and start investing in the Soviet Union. The US was not about to allow him to seize Kuwait, control 20% of the world's oil, and move closer to the Kremlin.

With regard to the Canada dates I put up two, and you chose only to go with one. I consider the first attempt simply a civilised version of the second.

I only chose to go with one because it was the one you were wrong about. The colonies weren't concerned about invading Canada in 1776. They had bigger problems to consider. They simply hoped Canadians would rebel with them.

Regarding Hawaii, as far as I am concerned, Hawaii was "invaded". to describe it as an annexation is merely sanitising what is essentially the same thing.

An invasion is not quite the same thing. Granted, the majority didn't want annexation at the time, but it worked out pretty good for them. Also, the Americans worried that either the Germans or Japanese might seize the islands at some point. This would threaten the West Coast, and would also threaten the future canal to be built in the isthmus.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Anyways...