Relativity speaking

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by SamSam, Feb 21, 2015.

  1. whitepointer23

    whitepointer23 Previous Member

  2. gonzo
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    gonzo Senior Member

    Rurudyne: I have a hard time following your post. If I understand you call "them" cowards because they fight an invader any way they can. However, you are part of the "heroes" because you bomb the land you invaded. Further, they are "dumb because they fight an enemy they can't reach". Those are big words for people that left with their tail between their legs.
     
  3. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    No, I called folks cowards because they were fighting against civilians or soft targets. That's how so many thousands of civilians died.

    I also used the term "rat *******" to describe points others might call Machiavellian (and lots of the insurgents were invaders too). I was not describing a heroic crusade.

    As for the last: it stands. The folks that flooded into Iraq chose to fight in a time and a place where they couldn't really hurt most coalition allies but we could thump them personally and hard.

    As military decisions go it stands right down there, and maybe a bit lower, with the Germans and Italians declaring war on the US (the Italians were utterly without excuse for at least they understood Machiavelli, consider Foreign Minister Ciano: "A night telephone call from Ribbentrop. He is overjoyed about the Japanese attack on America. He is so happy about it that I am happy with him, though I am not too sure about the final advantages of what has happened. One thing is now certain, that America will enter the conflict and that the conflict will be so long that she will be able to realize all her potential forces. This morning I told this to the King who had been pleased about the event. He ended by admitting that, in the long run, I may be right. Mussolini was happy, too. For a long time he has favored a definite clarification of relations between America and the Axis"). Had the fascists had a lick of sense when the Japanese attacked and then basically expected "hey, guys, you said you would declare war" they would have responded "which conversation was this now?"

    And as for leaving: it was kinda promised some folks over there. And over here too long beforehand (I remember personally being "overjoyed" that we'd let the insurgents know just how long they had to hold out ahead of time /sarcasm). It may not have been the smartest thing, and indeed Machiavelli might have condemned it as a promise best not kept, but that isn't tail between the legs.
     
  4. gonzo
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    gonzo Senior Member

    Seems like sour grapes. That rhetoric has been used too many times to cover up a retreat. I think it is the main reason nobody learns from their mistakes. There is Korea, Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, Somalia, Cuba, Afghanistan among the many "foreign interventions", police actions and a war.
     
  5. tom kane
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    tom kane Senior Member

    There is no such thing as a civilian in any war all people participate somehow.
     
  6. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    I always wondered why Germany declared war on the USA, in retrospect it seems like extreme foolishness. But, at the time (Dec '41), it was, according to witnesses in the camp, a calculated decision by Hitler, with the deliberate aim of preventing the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the Far East to bolster the defence of Moscow. He hoped by showing such solidarity with Japan, they would reciprocate by at least keeping those forces in the east tied up, and unable to help in the west. As it turned out, the Japanese struck south, and not into Russia, the divisions that were freed up proved decisive in the failure of the German campaign in Russia. Had it gone the other way, the declaration of war against the US would have been irrelevant, the Nazis would have swept down through the Middle East and the Mediterranean and Britain would have been forced into submission. D-day would never have happened. I cannot imagine what the world would look like today if that had happened, and the idea that there was an inevitability about events ( i.e., losing the war) once Hitler declared war on the USA, is not correct.
     
  7. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    No, I actually was quite annoyed at the time that they said when we'd be leaving.

    Mind you, it wasn't that we'd be leaving that was the issue (I more or less expected that) rather than staying forever (please don't try to get me started about the German Chancellor who said we couldn't close down certain bases because that might hurt their local economy back during Bush 41's days), but that they gave the time line.

    And also, for the record, the Constitution gives Congress Power to declare war ... not some consarned "police action". It's a Truman era crap idea on the heels of other crap ideas from that era. Fight wars and be honest about it (if you gotta fight them, that is).
     
  8. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    This reminds me of the "if it affects commerce among the several States it's interstate commerce even if it's just some guy who is not engaging in commerce at all but only growing his own food or feed" argument.
     
  9. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Yeah.

    I've sometimes wondered — as a real cynic about government in general and not a true believer/fan like the fascists were — that a 4-6 week delay might have been better for the Axis because, in the absence of the immediate DoW, FDR would have started mobilizing the US to fight a one front war. A lot of things would have started moving, at least conceptually if not literally, West and it might have happened that Congress would have brought up the whole lend lease etc stuff now that we had a real war of our own somewhere else. 4-6 weeks is enough time for inertia to set in in the US but not enough time for the Russians to do much in the middle of winter.

    Then declare war and you've got a bunch of stuff trying to turn around midstream against that inertia. The way governments work I figure that would add on at least another 4-6 weeks before that gets sorted out. So maybe 2 to 3 months of the US government not being effective?

    Might make a neat feature for an alternate timeline book set later I guess.
     
  10. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    Some historians are quite happy to put their name to the theory that the US would not have gone to war with Japan, if they had just left alone the US territories (Phillipines etc) and assets in the region of SE Asia, they were intent on absorbing into their Empire, which already included large swathes of China and Manchuria. It is an idea supported by the fact that Japan occupied French Indo-China well before the Pearl Harbour attack. No war over that. I sometimes wonder whether our American friends would even have arrived to rescue us poor Aussies in that scenario, if the Japanese pushed that far.
     
  11. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    America had already declared war on Japan, with a number of geo-political sanctions, which effectively forced the militaristic side of their government, to seek an umbrella of protection for resources, from recently acquired possessions. Simply put, to protect their shipping lanes, they needed to control the central eastern Pacific, so Hawaii, Midway and to some extent the Philippines needed to be excised from US control. In hind sight, we cut their throats geo-politically and they, given their mind set, had no choice but to declare war. If this country had 80% of it's imported oil embargoed (what we did to Japan), we'd drop a bomb on someone, you can guarantee it.

    Australia would have never had to stand for long against Japan, particularly considering how they'd have to take it. They (Japan) were well over extended in southeast Asia, so Australia and New Zealand where a bit of a logistical stretch for them, and they knew it. They did pretty much what all of the last "empires" did and bit off way more than they could chew. They where just a couple of decades behind what the other major empires had already learned in this regard.

    As far as Europe was concerned, we were also at war there too, prior to 12/7/'41, with huge expenditures to England and the Soviet Union. Pearl Harbor's attack was fortuitous, in as much as one, FDR wouldn't have to explain the budgetary additions and two offered an easy "out" for additional discretionary expenditures.

    All the intellectuals of the day, knew war with Japan was inevitable and assumed as much with Germany as well, for similar reasons. Even the staunchest of isolationists voted for the B-17 funding in 1936, knowing full well what they'd be used for and likely where too. If you take a closer look at government spending and actions during the run up to WWII, in retrospect, you'd think there weren't any isolationists.

    All this debate shows a lack of history fans. War(s) are pretty unique and very complex things. This is especially true with many modern engagements, where no discernible goal can been shown. It's actually fairly easy to over throw a government, but you have to be careful what you wish for. We've allowed the neo-cons to talk us into to this a lot in recent decades, with nothing but disastrous results. We bombed Libya, to toss out Gaddafi and now it's an unpredictable, failed state, we've done the same in Lebanon, several African countries, south east Asia, spent a trillion in Iraq and now have a failed, unpredictable state. The same is true of Afghanistan and many other "vested interests" around the world. Fortunatly we managed to stay out of Syria, for the moment, but I can assure you, if we do go, we'll just topple Assad, giving the Ba'athist leftovers from Iraq and Syria more war lord territory to play with.

    There are those that pay enough attention that reasonable predictions can be made, but unfortunately, much of the time, these folks are drowned out by the shouting of those with not enough understanding or a vested interest (like the neo-cons), so we stubble from butthead moment to butt head moment. Simply put, in the current Syiran conflict, most think we've just started, but in fact we've been at war with these exact folks since 2005. ISIL isn't new, it's the remains of a reorganized Iraq Al-Qaeda, now bolstered with the remains of the de-Ba'athist program, Bush shoved down the Iraqi's throats. Yep, these are the exact same guys we fought, when we launched the sunni genocide in Iraq. This is the same mistake every other "dominatrix" of this area of the world has made, from Alexander to Bush. If you really want to blame someone, give it to the British, as they're the ones that created the current environment over there. We would have been much better off with the Ottoman empire having their way in the region. It wasn't especially fair, but at least they had a sand box to fight in, without it spilling over the sides.
     
  12. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    The US impact on the Euro war was minor prior to 1942, but the Nazis were then on the brink of a victory that would have been unbearably difficult for the US, and what remained of the allies, to reverse. Hitler made a desperate move declaring war on the US in 1941, it didn't induce the Japanese to help him, and according to his then adjutant, Hitler intimated the war was lost there, before 1942, and he blamed, above all, inaccurate intelligence from the Abwehr regarding enemy strength, for the loss. There is much scholarly support for that view. And the Abwehr only got worse as the war continued.
     
  13. VinTin
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    VinTin Junior Member

    Scary stuff.

    So is Creationism here in the states.
     
  14. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder


    Incorrect on several levels. Billions of US dollars, where spent on the domestic side, as well as to European allies, prior to 12/7/'41. Where do you think just about every single P-39 went after they rolled out of the Bell plant? The made 600 to 700 of these, before Pearl was attacked and 400 of them went to the Brits, and many of the remaining went to the Russians. The USAAC had no use for them, though they where the first USAAC aircraft to see Europe action, the P-40 was considered superior and was also preferred by the pilots. The P-39 was mostly a trainer for European theater fighter pilots. In a nut shell, about 20% of USA's war expenditures where to the "lead lease" program (started in early spring 1941), of which the P-39 was an element.

    The Nazis where beaten in nearly every single engagement, once they faced an army that didn't arrive on horseback, of course not counting the French (typical). Yeah, they looked good against Poland, but the ME-109's shot down their biplanes, pretty easily and machine guns handled the cavalry, just as handily. The Brits took it on the nose a few times, but when push came to shove, the great Nazi air arm got their *** handed to them, in their first confrontation with a 1st world power. The Nazi's never recovered, nor did they ever win a major engagement with a real first world power. Their best generals where defeated in every arena, even by the green, untested US army when they showed up in western Africa. Yes, there where the occasional skirmishes that they won, but they where hamstrung by a corporal, ad hoc military genius, that wasn't promoted to sergeant (first WW), simply because his superiors didn't find him fit to lead. His tactics where horrendous and typically foolish. He had zip for long term strategy and logistics, which is what actually wins wars.

    Hitler's declaration of war was required under treaty and alliance with the empire of Japan. Hitler was simply an idiot that conned a country, by telling them what they wanted to hear. There wasn't anything brilliant or clever about him. Militarily, he was a complete fool, making repeated mistake after novice mistake, ignoring historic and strategic decisions, that any first year West Point cadet wouldn't make. What's really ironic, is that no senior officer had enough balls to put a bullet in his head, as they all knew he was a nut job. Lastly, Hitler never trusted anyone. His woman was chosen, because she was stupid and couldn't challenge him, his generals subornate and the argumentative ones lost commissions or their lives. He blamed everyone except the actual ***** that was responsible. He had plans to attack the USA and developed a few concept aircraft to bomb NY city! He was a classic sociopath with several psychotic tendencies. Had he been killed early in the war, the German army run by professional solders, would have been a much more formidable force, but then again, they wouldn't have tried to take over Europe, west Asia and Africa at the same time either. In all likelihood they would have figured what was really what and found a way to fight to a stall, then sued for piece.
     

  15. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    I'm pretty sure you "poor Aussies" wouldn't have been taken out so easily, and not just for reason of the insanely dangerous Fauna that you already know how to deal with. Though Britain might have lost access to your food exports for a while.
     
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