Quote :

"So?"

So you're an idiot if you don't think that the Axis powers would have eventually been a threat to the US.

5/2/2007 2:32:10 PM

Then don't hehehe.

I'm sorry I didn't make a more generic title for the thread...

5/2/2007 2:34:27 PM

Quote :

"^how so?"

back then the government was in charge of reporting, it was all propaganda. they had the complete authority to not show any news they didnt like (although it would take cable news to create the newsertainment market)

it was total warfare, no public can see those kinds of images 24 hours a day and not lose resolve. it took a measured campaign from the government to get the public behind the war effort (and it was immensely successful)

[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 2:56 PM. Reason : .]

5/2/2007 2:55:09 PM

japan did not attack us because we were aiding allied forces in europe. they attacked us because we stopped exporting scrap metal and other resources to them.

5/2/2007 4:33:07 PM

Agreed. The Japanese probably didn't give a real flip about the greater European conflict. They were pissed because we started implimenting economic sanctions because of their invasion of China and supplying the Chinese with weapons. I suppose they assumed that the European nations would be distracted by Germany so they could make a quick grab for those colonies. As for the Americans, they probably figured that the United States would interfere with those efforts and thought it would be more efficient to simply hit them quick and hard.

The Japanese brought us into it. We may have joined the war later anyways, but as the events had played out, we were clearly hit first.

As for overseas entanglements, I think we can certainly scale back our involvements. I would favor less American riflemen overseas but increased training and logistics support for other nations that are participating in peacekeeping efforts. Arming and providing logistics support for African Union and perhaps in the future, United Nations troops in Darfur for example.

Unless the UN grants us a mandate first (next to impossible with Russia and China). Then we should go all out.

5/2/2007 5:53:10 PM

Of course it wasn't necessary.

It's all a question of what language you'd prefer to speak.

5/2/2007 6:55:46 PM

All that needs be said about this issue is that if we hadn't taken out the goddamn fascists, the Communists would have, and they would have been even less pleasant to do war with later on. To my mind, a fair portion of the benefit from fighting the war as we did was that it prevented us from having to fight a much bigger one later.

5/2/2007 11:21:06 PM

I think TulipLovr is saying that if our actions had been more noble from since pre-WWI, then the conditions might not have been ripe enough to cause WWII. It's kind of like chaos theory. There's probably something that could have been done to stop it from the beginning at some point (like maybe if Hitler was hit by a car as a kid or something), it's self-evident. But, it would probably be difficult to pin down a precise American political ideology of the time that caused the whole thing to start.

We did have our fingers in trading and such, which determined our alliances, but it seems the brunt of the conflict were internal European stuff that we didn't have direct control over.

5/2/2007 11:32:17 PM

Quote :

"Only one person in congress voted against the declaration of war. Do you think that any modern war would have such unanimous support?"

I think so. The scenario, at least for war against japan was that a sovereign nation attacked us militarily. This has not happened since WWII, the ones who have attacked us are non-state actors. Think about all the other military conflicts we have been in since WWII, its all shit we felt like we needed to get involved with, although a lot we really didn't need to.

I would say that if china bombed us, there would be large support for a war. Unfortunately this war would probably be WWIII and involve nuclear exchanges.

5/3/2007 1:00:36 AM