Europe more dangerouse than USA? (gunshots vs terror threat)

No, Germany was never going to rule the world. It repeated Napoleon's mistake, for one thing, and opened a second front against Russia - which just swallowed up its forces and sucked it dry. Germany was doomed in the long run, with or without us. Although it would certainly have taken longer without us.

 

Minor correction: If those dictators were envious of our way of life, they probably wouldn't have set up communist dictatorships as their form of government, would they?

Obviously they are not envious, but rather prefer the opposite type of life.

 

Yes. 65 years after the end of WWII end 20 years after the end of the cold war, we can see some things more clearly and put those times in more objective and rational perspective.

Around 80 % of total number of German military casualties fell fighting in the East. German Allies also suffered huge losses there. Add to that fact that Germany sent all the best man and equipment they had to fight against Soviets. (On the Western front, they kept less experienced and equipped troops, often older man and teenagers).

So, I think Red Army deserves more credit from us for their role during the War. They did the heavy lifting. What happened later, is other story …

By the way, talking about little known Soviet exploits, there was an interesting episode early in the war, in 1939, on the Mongolian – Manchurian border. Red Army under command of at the time not yet well known Zhukov, inflicted crashing defeat on Japanese forces. Japanese suffered loses of such an magnitude that Imperial General Staff concluded that planned conquering of the Siberia all the way to the Lake Balkai, (favourite war plan of the Japanese Army), wasn’t possible. So they immediately signed peace agreement with Soviets and didn’t border them again. Instead, they turned against easier targets, South East Asia, Dutch East Indies, Pearl Harbour …

But it is all history now, neither Germany, Russia, Japan, or China are trying to conquer the world and certainly no one will try to invade US. Even in decline, US stays big military power. Europe is also more then adequately equipped to discourage anyone’s foolish plans.

As of Jihadists they are at least partly product and blow back from a cold war era, interference in the Afghanistan from both sides of the curtain. We should search a wiser ways...

Big part of that story is poverty. Capitalism didn’t work all that well for them, wealth didn’t trickle down to the people. There was no middle class there, only tiny layer of extremely rich and huge numbers of desperately poor. Proclaimed freedom doesn’t mean much to those left behind with empty stomachs. It was bound to explode.

I think we, (West in general and especially US), should finally claim peace dividend and concentrate more on improvement of quality of life of all our citizens and less on military interventions abroad.

 

I think we can all agree this is a great idea!

 

"Minor correction: If those dictators were envious of our way of life, they probably wouldn't have set up communist dictatorships as their form of government, would they?" - What other form of government are they going to set up after killing the evil capitalist and driving out his cohorts? There is a circumstance named for this but the name escapes me. Two bit military dictators villanise the US to have an enemy. It's a kind of "us against them" strategy. If they were to simply have a coup and defeat the previous grand poobah, the people wud expect prosperity soon. But the dictators are needed this way. Chavez is one of the best examples. Venezuela had a tremendous standard of living and was bringing the poorest class, slowly, into prosperity. Now, the best and brightest of Venezuela live in Miami and Venezuela will have a hard time ever recovering, even swimming in oil. They have more oil than God and yet are price-freezing beans in the mercados and blaming corporate greed for making them hungry. The people of Cuba? Come on. They live in Miami, as well, the ones that could escape (and the undesirables that Castro let leave). There has never been a sorrier example of what communism can do to a country than in Cuba and the people know it. Castro even knows it now and recently STATED THAT FACT in an interview (and later retracted).
"...nor China are trying to conquer the world..." - U.S. Alarmed by Harsh Tone of China’s Military (Published 2010) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/world/asia/12beijing.html?_r=2&hp
Key quote: “All militaries need a straw man, a perceived enemy, for solidarity,” said Huang Jing, a scholar of China’s military and leadership at the National University of Singapore. “And as a young officer or soldier, you always take the strongest of straw men to maximize the effect. Chinese military men, from the soldiers and platoon captains all the way up to the army commanders, were always taught that America would be their enemy.”

"I think we, (West in general and especially US), should finally claim peace dividend and concentrate more on improvement of quality of life of all our citizens and less on military interventions abroad." "I think we can all agree this is a great idea!" - No, not all. I see disaster beget of complacency. I suppose it is my fatherly instinct, with five kids, to look out for the bad things that can happen. I simply cannot bring myself to mount your unicorns. Ahhh... where would the world be without Utopians! Do you really feel that Akmadinajab agrees with you? Do you really feel that the young Egyptian male that went to Germany and got the best education, came home, ready to fix all the problems awaiting...but there were too few assets and resources available to him and his girl went to another man while he was in university (meanwhile watching on TV the trade center buildings collapsing and seeing everyone around him cheering)... do you think HE is wanting to sing kumbaya? No, he goes to a mosque to seek consolation and purpose and somebody there pounds it into his head that it is Germany's and the US.'s fault that they are in a barrio and it is their duty to die for Allah and then "everything will be wonderful", 79 virgins, and all that. (This is a specific scenario in no way indicative of everybody there for those ready to pounce.) Damn, I thought with the recent turns of events, you people wud start to be more pragmatic. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. You'll continue to despise me for being a hawk and I'll continue to see you as misguided and overly optimistic.

 

hitler really didn't have plans to conquer the world just russia, most of europe and some other colonies.

but lucky for us we had hitler on our side

 

I assume you mean we had Stalin 'on our side,' not Hitler.

But Germany couldn't have conquered Russia and held it, especially on top of trying to hold Europe and Scandinavia. Do you realize that for most of the war, the Soviets were drafting half a million men per month?

And those soldiers may have been untrained, but they weren't cowards. It ws partially the arrogance of the Germans, and their contempt for 'inferior' Slavs, that contributed to their defeat.

To quote Wikipedia,

The Germans treated Soviet prisoners brutally and showed cruelty to overrun Soviet populations. This treatment instilled a deep hatred in the hearts and minds of the Soviet citizens. Hatred of the Germans enabled the Soviet government to extract a level of sacrifice from the Soviet population unheard of in Western nations.

The Germans underestimated the Soviet people as well. The German High Command viewed Soviet soldiers as incompetent and considered the average citizen as an inferior human being. German soldiers were stunned by the ferocity with which the Red Army fought. German planners were amazed at the level of suffering the Soviet citizens could endure and still work and fight.

 

Ooh....this is gonna be fun. Mark just called a fellow conservative wingnut a 'progressive." where's an 'eating popcorn' smilie when you really need one?

 

there are no consertives just wingnuts that call themselves consertive

 

OK, let's not get dogmatic and stupid the other direction, either.

There are plenty of people in my immediate circle of friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and acquaintances I would classify as conservative, with no insult intended at all.

 

And yet another thread descends into political gibberish....

edit: although I can't complain about the blondes who somehow sneaked into the discussion....

 

Yeah, you're right Troy. I was a little bored today, so my post wasn't all that great. ha ha ha

No more political gibberish from me. Promise.

 

You are wrong again. Hitler said "Heute Europa, Morgen die Welt" (Today Europe, Tomorrow the World.)

 

Veeery sloooowly, indeed. But why slowly? Why not fast? For a country so rich in the natural resources, (largest reserves of the light and heavy crude oil in the western hemisphere, exporting the oil sinds early 1920’s), it is a bit strange to have 80 % of population living in poverty.

Maybe those “the best and brigthiest” living in Miami were not that bright after all. Maybe they were just the greediest of all. Maybe it was a wiser to spread a little bit of all that wealth among the people and be able to continue to live comfortably in Caracas …

Hm. I you sure it is exclusively fault of “communism”? Nothing to do with other factors such as that Cuba is an island with a few natural resources that has to import most of the goods? Under economic embargo for how many years?

Still, by the South American standards Cubans are not that bad of. If you compare average life expectancy, literacy, health care, education … they are doing quite well compared to some other countries in their neighborhood that we consider democratic and free.

Did the majority of Cubans lived better during the Batista era? They were not under embargo in those days.

I don´t think so, but leaving him a side for the moment and looking at the broader picture through Iranian eyes, all that antagonism towards West doesn’t look so irrational, when you consider history of our relations. – In the XIX century they had two wars with Russia, costing Iranians sizable chunks of territory. Then came a war with a Britain, in the 1850’s, following with a period of British domination and control of Iranian oil and meddling in their political affairs. British and Russians occupied them during WWII, US brought down their Prime Minister in 1950’s. Then our sort of “neutral” role during Iran – Iraq war, (Sadam was our buddy back then), write down to the G. Bush who more or less declared war on them just a few years ago ...

They do have some legitimate concerns and we could do more to diffuse situation.

I do not despise you. I do believe in freedom of expression, and of course people have different views. That’s not a reason for anger. If we all think the same, discussions would get pretty dull.

I think we have to keep in mind that butter is very important, otherwise we could have similar path to late Soviet Union that focused too much on guns.

It used to be like that, but it isn’t any more, for quite some time. It is something seriously wrong with a system as somehow many don’t prosper. Gap is growing ever bigger. US used to be the most egalitarian society in the world. Not anymore. These days it has biggest gap between those who have and have not’s of the entire western world. It is not good when middle class shrinks.

 

but are they movers and shakers in the republican party

I'm a teddy rosevelt consertive