<p>all I am saying is that is a self-defeating strategy I hope they continue to support. Please, go ahead I find all the nuanced reasons why the blame for 9/11 should be spread around to include the US. Keep up the good works.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, thank you for bringing up Hitler, as as study of WWII and how the Nazis came to power - and to do what they did - is pretty informative here. It wasn’t just “Hitler” who did all those bad things, you know. He came to power legitimately, and enjoyed the support of the majority of Germans. Now, I don’t think that there’s anything about Germans which predisposes them to be a genocidal, militaristic race; German is one of the largest ancestry sources for Americans. Chances are you, or your spouse, or an in-law have German blood.</p>
<p>So how do you explain the rise and excesses of the Nazi regime? Many authorities on the subject blame the Treaty of Versailles which ended WWI as triggering a set of economic, social and political events which led to Hitler being head of the nation and leading to WWII, the holocaust, and all the rest. </p>
<p>So don’t you think it’s worth thinking about how and why the Treaty of Versailles - which seemed perfectly reasonable to our side at the time - turned out to be a really, really bad idea? Maybe Hitler and WWII were “chickens coming home to roost” from what we had done just 20 years before. Maybe we’ve been making the same kind of mistakes recently that we made back in 1918? I don’t know, myself, but I do think it’s worth thinking about and I’m not going to go all politically correct and shout down anyone who may suggest that that might be the case.</p>
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<p>My sincere apologies, fundingfather, if I wrongly attributed that quote to you. I just went back and combed the thread for both the quote and its author, but strangely enough, wasn’t able to find either. Is it possible that it was deleted?</p>
<p>razorsharp,
The enemy was all but defeated anyway. There wouldn’t have been any “years” of war, not with the USSR entering the war against Japan. I believe the will of the people could break without killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Yes, it was a politically expedient thing to do, but an amoral one. So let’s not make USA a shining beacon of all that is right, it’s a country like any other, with it’s great times and shameful ones. I consider it MY country and I love it, warts and all, but I don’t equate patriotism with blindness.</p>
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<p>Exactly! I couldn’t have said it better.</p>
<p>there would have been thousands more dead. you do not seem to understand the power of loyalty in Japan. they were ready to die for their emperor regardless of the cost. the japanese plans (in the waning days of the war, when they were preparing for invasion) held for the Japanese to throw men at the invading forces and defend the emperor at all costs. In the 80s there were reports of men being found 40 years later in the jungles still ready to fight the Americans. They had hid in the jungles and their rifles were still functioning. It is astounding.</p>
<p>Well, and let’s not forget that the USSR was invading Japan. The war had better end before Soviets got a large chunk of Japan as well as Europe. Politics is often a dirty business and the ones who suffer most are not the ones who bear arms.</p>
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<p>The whole problem with your argument and approach is that you fail to properly address CAUSATION. Many people foolishly say “what goes around comes around” or the “chickens have come home to roost” etc. without first determining whether there is actually any causality between the events. There is rarely causality between a series of independent actions. Simply because you can look in hind sight and then conclude a pattern developed does not show any causality. Hilter was a horrible man who was able to persuade others to act to their detriment. Some treaty did not cause him to do anything. Hilter made decisions based on his own self-interest, just like everyone else does and the result was misery. </p>
<p>To suggest that 9/11 was the result of some American action is simply ridiculous. It was the result of independent decisions by horrible people who should be killed, every last one of them.</p>
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If the life of one American solider was saved by dropping the Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a wise decision to do so. The life of a single American solider is more valueable than all of the lives of any enemy that declared War on American.</p>
<p>BTW, all those peacenicks of today who say American should never fight back, are ignoring what happned when American did just that in the 1940s. We were not bothering anyone, yet Japan decided to attack us. America should always be taking whatever actions are necessary to protect our people and national security.</p>
<p>Uh, Razorsharp - are you suggesting that WWII and all of the hideous acts of the Third Reich were completely due to one man - Hitler? That Hitler somehow hypnotized the entire German nation into following him? Because I don’t think that’s a reasonable take on history. The world isn’t random; events frequently do cause other events - in conjunction with other events. Few people who have studied European history believe that there was no causality between the end of WWI and the rise of Fascism and WWII. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure that the folks behind 9/11 feel exactly the same way you do - only reversing the people who should be killed. Personally, I’d like to see if there’s a way to the future that doesn’t involve my kids getting killed by you and your al Qaeda counterparts going at each other.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, you really, really need to read up on history. Hitler’s rise is directly attributed to the economic conditions caused by the Treaty of Versailles and the aftermath of WWI. After the first war, the victors demanded Germany be stripped of its military and pay back the damage caused by the war. This, in conjunction with the Great Depression, caused the country to quickly become broke and unemployed. Hitler rose to power by creating a scapegoat in the Jews and by appealing to the average German’s love of country. This nationalism, fueled by desperate and hungry out-of-work men and by propaganda (and quickly by blind obedience), created the conditions for Hitler to grab the power for himself, which led to WWII. All historians agree that there was causation. Without the Treaty of Versailles, or with a gentler version of it that allowed Germany to recover, Germans might have survived the Great Depression much like the people in any other European country. Hitler was seen as a hero because the people were desperate for one. The Treaty is a direct cause of the vacuum that allowed him to rise.</p>
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<p>Thank goodness! The Founders were pretty big on permitting citizens to engage in critical thinking, thus the Bill of Rights. If they’d wanted us to be blindly patriotic, they sure wouldn’t have added it</p>
<p>Could anyone else have done what Hitler did? *Would *anyone else?</p>
<p>One of the unfortunate things that happened in WW2 was that we killed more civilians that we had in a previous war. It started with the Blitz and went on with the carpet bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima was mere icing on the cake. I can’t help thinking we could have had the same effect by nuking a lot fewer people and I don’t think there’s any excuse for Nagasaki.</p>
<p>Enderkin - ever hear of Il Duce? And yes, Mathmom, it’s true - all sides waged war on civilians in WWII. It actually started with the Spanish civil war. In a sense it was a return to an earlier, even more savage time. As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki - we weren’t there at the time. It’s kind of Monday morning quarterbacking at this point. I might have made the same decision. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t deliberately and wantonly kill innocents as a result of that decision.</p>
<p>“The life of a single American solider is more valueable than all of the lives of any enemy that declared War on American.”</p>
<p>Even the innocent civilians? You see no difference between the populace and the government? </p>
<p>So if some people in Iraq think the same way they would be justified in killing American soldiers because USA declared war on Iraq?</p>
<p>Last I checked there was free speech here in America. America looks a lot less beautiful to a black man who came of age here in the fifties and sixties.
And if you delve into our history in places like Iran and Central America, among many others, you will see how our arrogant policies have led to much loss of life and created great hatred. </p>
<p>We Americans are ignorant of much of what our government has done overseas. I have lived in two developing countries, in Latin America and the Middle East, and I can tell you that the United States is hated by many, many people. We may feel our policies are the right ones, but we should know that in many cases they are hurtful to others. We are not the only country that hurts others but we’re the largest and most powerful, so we will attract the most animosity.</p>
<p>Yea; and I have lived in many countries also and find that Americans are also admired by many, many, people too. </p>
<p>Maybe if we can get enough people to hate us, we won’t have the largest amount of immigration; both legal and illegal; in the world. Hmmmm??? That’s a thought. Yea, our immigration issues are probably not really existent at all. After all, with such hatred, no one in their right mind would want to risk their lives, give up their families, start with almost nothing, etc… just to come here.</p>
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<p>Razor, I have to say that that’s a breathtakingly cold statement. Are you really saying that one American Soldier’s life is worth more than all the hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were incinerated by the A-bomb? Really? In order to truly believe that, you would have to totally de-humanize these individuals, to count their lives as virtually worthless, like comparing the strong Dollar to the currency of the collapsed Yugoslavia. You would have to see these people much in the way that Hitler saw 6 million Jews—as easily expendable toward the achievement of a “greater good”.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>well, we could’ve gone and invaded the country, had (hundreds of) thousands die and (hundreds of) thousands more wounded on both sides, faced militancy and hatred by the civilian populace, and wasted billions of dollars attempting to pacify the area over a long period of time–much to the chagrin and disapproval of the American populace, which would undoubtedly have become uneasy with the length of the war and the number of men dying left and right. </p>
<p>we could’ve done that, or we could’ve dropped the a-bombs. one or the other. let’s not pretend that there was another way. </p>
<p>the soviets knew the consequences of invasion just as well as we did. we just had the bomb. it was, frankly, coldly, unfortunately, easier.</p>