World Forums

Marko

I see that our resident trained military historian responded on cue to your mention of him. Let's consider the following gem, which aptly demonstrates his military acumen:

And US fought an enemy greatly inferior tactically (Japan) and numerically (Germany). So?

What does it say about American superiority relative to the Japanese if the latter are greatly inferior tactically to the former?

:P

Synthese

A bit of a shame, since any commercial treatment of history cannot possibly do it justice.

Like I said, come back when you do some research into WWII. I am highly confident that when you do, you will eventually come to terms with things like the Maginot Line and the Vichy.

At the very least, you should become very familiar with names like the following: Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry Arnold, George Patton, Anthony McAuliffe, Mark Clark, Maxwell Taylor, Thomas KinKaid, Henry Arnold, George Marshall, William Halsey, Chester Nimitz, Mathew Ridgeway, James Doolittle, Claire Chennault.

Hint: they are a sampling of the top American military Generals, Admirals, and Air Wing commanders of WWII...representing a pantheon of military excellence, elan, adaptation, and leadership unmatched by no other power of the time, not even the vaunted Germans. Indeed, many of these names are famous, both in pop culture and in military history.

Of course, I have never compared them to a DeGaulle or LeClerk. Didn't come across them too often in my military education and research.

The subject is France and the nutter comes up with Midway. Seems like ADD. He must have forgot to take his Ritalin ...

Nobody is disputing the military prowess of the WW2 American generals, but your intimation that there is room only for them in your 'pantheon' of war heros.

You are suffering from selective memory, a consequence of reading far too much American military history.

Synthese...Bzzzt!!!

I mentioned Midway for specific reasons. Hint: try to conceptualize what it means to be disproportionately superior in military terms.

There, that should tie up your brains for a good while.

Hint: try to conceptualize what it means to be disproportionately superior in military terms.

Try to conceptualize (period) You have difficulty in following an argument and answering in a manner addressing the thread of logic. Midway has nothing whatsoever to do with military superiority, which the Americans, at that point in the Pacific war, had not yet achieved. It was a colossal bit of luck. So much the better, you can have all the brilliant tactics in the world along with "military superiority" and still lose a battle. Halsey had luck, which is a prime ingredient of any war, but not the only one. Yes, it also takes balls to win.

There is no doubt that the US is THE dominant military power today. That has never been the issue. America likes its military superiority and pays expensively for it. Europe has objectives other than policing the world. Been there, done that, your turn.

Still, for all the sophisticated technology America can muster, a handful of Iraqi insurgents with AK47s and RPGs can take a terrible toll on American lives.

For all its planning, America expected to walk into Iraq, beat the shit out of the Iraqi military and prance home as heroes. They did not prepare for guerilla warfare and have had their major losses as a result. That is the consequence of having "military superiority" and "no brains".

The French left Vietnam with 15,000 dead. The Yanks marched right in to show the world how it would do what the French could not. Result, 35,000 deaths and billions of dollars later, it quit Vietnam with its tail between its legs.

When are you guys EVER going to learn? Who's next? North Korea? Another cakewalk? Go for it!

PS: SPQR stands for Senatus PopulusQue Romanus

Synthese

I took Latin throughout High School and know exactly what SPQR stands for. In fact, we had a running conversation on the matter at another thread, where I showed that I am grammatically correct in my usage.



As for conceptualization and debating, sorry, hard as you try, you just aren't impressing anybody...least of all me. That being so, you certainly are in way over your head in expecting to win a contest of wits gainst me on subjects I am intimately familiar with. Time and again I'll keep picking apart your lack of logical acumen. Consider this gem:

Midway has nothing whatsoever to do with military superiority, which the Americans, at that point in the Pacific war, had not yet achieved. It was a colossal bit of luck. So much the better, you can have all the brilliant tactics in the world along with "military superiority" and still lose a battle. Halsey had luck, which is a prime ingredient of any war, but not the only one. Yes, it also takes balls to win.

One, if the ratio of forces was significantly in favor of the Japanese, can it not indicate something more than luck being a factor if the US destroyed 3 enemy aircraft carriers as opposed to losing 1 of their own.

Two, after Midway the US certainly achieved total naval superiority and never lost it, never suffering some colossal bad luck...or perhaps the US kept having colossal good luck? Or is it that when the US loses, you attribute it to the superiority of the enemy...and when the US wins, it is colossal luck?

Three, in the vast majority of cases, superiority in tactics, equipment, leadership, and training result in overall victory...especially in the long run. Your theory on colossal luck is cute, but hardly validated by empirical analysis of military history.

Four, yes I agree that it takes balls to win. However, I find it ironic that this is known by a Frenchman. How novel.

Another cakewalk? Go for it!

WWI. WII. Korea. The Cold War. Panama. Greneda. Gulf War I. The Balkans.

Oh yes genius, we're still very much in the fight militarily in Iraq. If you really were a bit more discerning, you would actually understand that the current Iraq conflict validates the reality of American military prowess...not least because of Fallujah. Sorry, this ain't Vietnam.

Note: Several versions are suggested about the correct meaning of the acronym, depending on the presumed declination of 'R', which can be as well Romanus (Senatus or Populus) or Romani (Senatus and Populus) or Romae (of Rome). However, Senatus Populusque Romanus is the version given on Trajan's Column .... a monument in Rome raised by order of emperor Trajan.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/spqr

OK, so Trajan evidently did not know Latin grammar as well as you do. But, then, you know everything, don't you.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

If you really were a bit more discerning, you would actually understand that the current Iraq conflict validates the reality of American military prowess

"Administrator" Bremer, preparing for his tenure in Iraq, read a book on the postwar occupation of Germany. He read that the allies had disbanded the remnants of the German army and fired all the nazi government administrators. (Regardless, Germany recovered.) He figured, "Hey, that's a great idea!"

So, first thing he did in Iran was the same, which proved really stupid. Had the Iraqi forces been kept in place, the subsequent insurgency, that consisted largely of the fired soldiers, would never have taken place with such vehemence. (In fact, pre-invasion contacts with one Iraqi general indicated that he was willing to have his division stand down if guaranties were given. Rumsfeld turned him down.)

Bremer failed to realize that the Iraqi Army was, in fact, simply a means for providing unemployment benefits to young men who were, otherwise, unemployable. More so, the payments supported thier families.

Bremer could have consigned the reconstituted Iraqi Army to protecting the borders, and fewer radicals would have entered from Syria. Anything would have been better than to have those kids (who kept their weapons) on the streets aiming at American soldiers. So, once REALLY unemployed, and madder than hell, they took up arms and started shooting at anything that looked like an occupation force in anger at thier forced unemployment. Most of these guys were Shi'ites, not Sunnis.

What happened subsequently once the Americans realized the mistake of firing both the soldiers and the Baathist intelligence operatives? It went out on a hiring frenzy to get competent people armed and patrolling the streets. Why? Because, nobody else in the coalition but the Yanks would do the job. It now has the very same people who were fired from the intelligence operations doing intelligence ... and it seems to be paying off.

However, the learning curve (1600 bodybags) was expensively paid due to those two "brilliant" mistakes. So much for America's "military prowess".

America may have won the war, but it lost the peace.

Lots of things have changed since Bremer left. Now even the Financial Times, the Guardian and the Independent, hardly friends of the United States, are admitting that America is winning.

We won the war and we're winning the peace.

Eat your heart out, French losers and collaborators.

Synthese

One, like I said, I know my Latin grammar.

Two, like I said, we had a long discussion on these threads about the phrase in question and I stand fast in my being gramatically correct. I don't have the inclination to detail this for you right now.

However, as you evidently did not do enough googling, please go back and do a little more reading on the matter.



As to American military prowess, just who do you think you're trying to kid? The fact remains that the overall casualty count remains comparatively low relative to the size of the Iraq operation...sad though it is about any such casualties. Nevertheless, any nation would be proud to have done half as well. Any nation would be proud to even have the capability of such strategic power projection. I'm proud because my country is doing the right thing...albeit with some operational errors that you connivingly manipulate...staying the course despite our losses.

Think US versus Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Think Russia in Chechnya. There is a huge difference between militarily what we do and how we do it.



Sorry, you betray deep envy through your malcontent banalities that interpret events through an anti-American prism. It doesn't matter, as the reality is something other than your own brand of nationalist wishfulness.

You simply know little about the United States of America.

CHIRAC THEN [Andrew Stuttaford, National Review]

These days Chirac may like to compare economic liberalism with the horrors of communism, but here’s what he was saying in 1984:

"Liberalism seems to be working... Faced with a state machine that has become crazy, faced with a state bureaucracy that is growing monstruously, faced with an already difficult situation that will become even bleaker in the coming years, what will the next political leader be able to do, after the next election? He won't have any other choice than liberalism. More to the point: liberalism won't be a choice, but a necessity."

Back then, of course, he was looking to win an election against the Socialist president Mitterand.

Times, quite clearly, have changed.

The reader in France who sent me that quote adds this:

“Let us not forget that Chirac in his youth was a communist, distributing l'Humanite, the French communist newspaper, on street corners. [He] is more of a "girouette" (wind vane) than Clinton ever was...”

National Review
Denis Boyles

What’s God Got to Do with It?
Terri Schiavo makes a place for religion in politics.


Religion — that is to say "popular" religion, old time religion, the kind of thing that will drive huge numbers of men and women into American churches this Sunday to sing out loud and be glad — is not practiced well in Europe. Church attendance is low, headed south, and a revival of any kind is out of the question. In France especially religion simply has no place in public life.


France considers itself a secular republic. This means that in France, Catholicism is just another cultural ornament — a collection of old music and pleasant buildings and the provenance of long holiday weekends, like this one. Practically speaking, modern secularism in Europe is forced de-Christianization in favor of humanism's new convictions. Meanwhile, the most avid followers of faith on the continent these days are all those imported Muslims, many of whom zealously follow their beliefs outside the mainstream of daily life — forever destined to be Muslims first and Frenchmen second. In the 21st century, a "devout Frenchman" for example, is either a Muslim or an oddity, if not an outright oxymoron. Religion is for children and Yanks. If Americans didn't exist, Europeans would have to invent them, because otherwise, they'd never talk about God at all.

To our traditional allies — them perfidious, unbelieving Frenchies and their Euro-kin — the controversy swirling around poor Terri Schiavo is yet another example of dumb American over-simplification grown fat, an outbreak of lunacy inspired by Upper Room Baptists and the like. The attempts by the Congress and the president to limit the damage done by a judiciary that is unresponsive, elitist, arrogant, dictatorial, self-protecting — something very much like the government of France, come to think of it — looks, to Eric Fottorino, writing in Le Monde, like proof that Bush will do anything, including rushing to the "bedside of an almost-dead person" in a "coma," to cement his relationship with the Bible-thumping, gel-haired, tele-mullahs of the right. To the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the congressional intervention was a drama of "Life, Death and Power" with a grandstanding U.S. president bestirring himself from his Crawford ranch, something the paper claims he'd never do for a crisis or a mere war. In the leftwing Independent, the slow starvation of Terri Schiavo is how the paper's correspondent describes a death with "dignity," something Americans can't get right — no doubt because of what Tony Blair described to the Daily Telegraph as the "unhealthy" American penchant for giving religion a prominent role in election campaigns. For Libération, the whole save-Schiavo spectacle was enough to merit a sneering headline on a piece or two, but nothing more.

Not that this kind of coverage is particularly surprising, of course. It reflects the general sentiment of the left toward muscular Christianity, something they find almost as appalling as actual muscles. Despite the fact that the New York Times has been in a persistent vegetative state for a lot longer than 15 years, the struggle to save Terri Schiavo was laughed off by one longtime columnist as part of the "God racket" — a "circus" of "religio-hucksterism." Times writers routinely ridicule the concerns of Americans for things like the life of Terri Schiavo as a predictable byproduct of a surplus of stupid red voters held hostage by Bible-thumping extremists. That America is where all Republican policies are spun to accommodate right-wing Christian nuts, where the poor all starve and where religious fervor sweeps the land like a great, darkening storm, blocking the sun of French-style reason and the grand traditions of that enlightenment thing.

This Easter weekend, let's pray to God they're right. If you ask me, the widespread grieving for Terri Schiavo is not only an indicator of the political significance of moral values but also a barometer of the nation's spiritual health. Did people go too far to try to pretzel-twist the judicial process and cheek-slap states' right? Maybe — but I don't think so, and anyway that's not the point. The alternative to being passionately engaged with the terrible fate of Terri Schiavo is to mutter a few words about how "sad and tragic" it all is and just move on. That's certainly what the New York Times and most Europeans would like to see. However, in the grim arc of two lifetimes, we've seen very often what happens when you shrug off one death, let alone many, many more. In fact, we saw it in France, where all those enlightened rationalists live, less than two years ago when 15,000 weak and elderly men and women were left to die in a summer heat wave while government services shut down and their families all went on holiday.

By the end of August 2003, 15,000 French people had died of simple neglect. That's the equivalent of five 9/11s in four months. One such event is all it took to transform America. In France, massive death received a massive shrug. I've reported this before, of course, but I still can't get over it: As a result of what happened during those awful weeks, nothing changed. The French press ignored the story almost entirely as it unfolded and only began reporting it in detail well after the fact. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, at his villa in the south of France, held a casual, poolside press conference as the bodies piled up — and denounced "partisan politics." Chirac remained on holiday through the disaster, but addressed the nation and promised sweeping changes. Meanwhile, jammed funeral homes began turning bodies away. Many of them went unclaimed. Chirac's grand plan? If you are old and infirm and at the edge of death and French, do not go to an understaffed, overheated hospital. Instead, go to the movies, where it's air conditioned. The last I read, more than a year and a half after the event there are still unidentified bodies of grandmothers and grandfathers stuffed into the morgues of Paris.

I didn't mean to produce a homily for the holiday, but it does seem to merit mentioning that Terri Schiavo's plight has been caricatured by the French and European press for a reason other than just to make droll. France despises America because we display, rather ostentatiously at times, all the marks of spiritual enthusiasm while they cling tightly to rational secularism. Much of what distinguishes the U.S. from France follows from that: Where we are optimistic, France is pessimistic. Where we have hope, they have cynicism. Where we are energetic, they are complacent. Where we are open and occasionally naive, they are secretive, deceitful and aloof. Where we succeed, they cannot.

As I finish typing this early Friday morning, I don't know what Terri Schiavo's fate will be. But I do know that because of our affection for the "God racket," Terri Schiavo's body won't go unidentified, her passing won't be unnoticed, and, if the politicians have learned anything from this, the thousands of others like her without any written instructions concerning end-of-life care won't be shrugged off. Whether she's seen as an innocent woman neglected by an adulterous, grasping husband and murdered by dim judicial decree, or as programming fodder by news channels, or as a "sad and tragic" case by those inclined to side with the judge and the pseudo-husband (and by the way, where are all you timid feminists...?), everybody in America knows who Terri Schiavo is, where she is and what has happened to her, minute by horrible minute, slipping silently through Holy Week, from Maundy Thursday into Good Friday, while millions of Americans pray for her and for her family — and especially for those who torment her and ridicule the unshakable faith of her mother and her father. Those two know that for their daughter justice of one kind of another is absolutely inevitable.

mate wrote:What does it say about American superiority relative to the Japanese if the latter are greatly inferior tactically to the former? :P

You answered your own question. US were superior to Japanese tactically. You like repeating what others say.

Besides, you're the only one to have claimed to be trained historically. Sadly that does not show.

mate wrote:Bzzzt! Synthese & Eugene...Aka Beavis & Butthead

You both should take a look at the particulars of the Battle of Midway in WWII, the most decisive engagement of the Eastern Theatre war. The US...with inferior numbers of ships, plane, and men...utterly destroyed the Japanese, knocking out 3 aircraft carriers.

Gentlemen, you are making this way to easy. Just who do you think you're fooling?

So? So what? At Casserine Pass, Germans defeated a US force superior in numbers, equipment, supplies, armor, and even air support.

And how much the multi-fold US and UK superiority in all those factors gave them at the four battles of Monte Cassino, I do not have to remind you.

BTW, what makes Midway the most decisive Eastern Theater engagement (correction, Pacific Theatre, not Eastern)? How about 1938 engagement at Lake Hasan where numerically inferior Soviets destroyed the initially much larger Japanese force (which determined Japanese hesitation to attack Russians, choosing to, instead, strike US)? 1945 Manchurian Campaign?

Comrade Eugene

I'm actually having a WWII review debate on another chat board comparing the United States military versus the Nazi German Wermacht. Trust me, we are reviewing matters in depth and even the most partisan pro-Wermacht propnents are backing off their position that their army typically outperformed the American.

Indeed, remember how I demonstrated for you that the US inflicted disproportionate casualties against all her enemies in WWII? Well, looks like I have many agreeing. Hence, now the pro-German side claims that the numbers, though favoring the US, are misleading because they Americans never faced the cream of the crop of the Wermacht...that we fought major battles only long after the enemy had been withered through years of combat against the Soviets.



At the very least, take a look at the actual numbers in North African battles. It is a stretch of the imagination to say Allied forces took heavy casualties. Certainly, there was nothing to compare to the something like The Battle of the Bulge...not even close! The bottom line is that overall, the American GI and Marine, backed by incomparable atrillery, air, and naval power, inflicted far more damage than he received.

BTW, what makes Midway the most decisive Eastern Theater engagement (correction, Pacific Theatre, not Eastern)? How about 1938 engagement at Lake Hasan where numerically inferior Soviets destroyed the initially much larger Japanese force (which determined Japanese hesitation to attack Russians, choosing to, instead, strike US)? 1945 Manchurian Campaign?

Come now, this absolutely proves how dumb you really are.

:P

One, the Soviets and Germany eventually signed a non-aggression pact. The Japanese had a free hand in this regard.

Two, do you understand that the Battle of Midway pretty much destroyed Japanese strategic naval power? I would say this was far more decisive than you fabled Lake Hasan battle.

Finally, um Comrade Evgeny, Russia once lost an entire war to the Japanese, becoming just about the first European power in modern times to lose to a non-European state. The United States utterly defeated the Japanese in WWII...and Germany.

Try someone else you communist revisionist sympathizer.

"We won the war by overwhelming Germans with our dead bodies, we buried Germans under them"

Viktor Astafiev, WW II veteran and the famous Russian writer.

Jerusalem Post

Viva la France (and Israel too)!
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL

While the French and Israeli national soccer teams gear up for Wednesday night's World Cup qualifying match at Ramat Gan's National Stadium, hundreds of French Jewish fans are torn over which side to support.

Some 1,000 French Jews arrived earlier this week on a solidarity visit, and purchased more than 300 tickets for the game, but pangs of dual loyalty still torment the group.

"There are a lot of French Jews who love Israel and want Israel to win," said Dr. Joel Mergui, an organizer traveling with the group, "although I think that the majority will end up rooting for France."

For many in the group, a strong allegiance to Israel as a "land of the Jews" may outweigh their French patriotism.

"I feel like I may have to sit on the Israeli side, because lately I have been feeling that I want that team to win more," said Marie, who chose not to give her last name because "my husband would kill me if he knew I cheered against France!"

Many French officials have arrived to back the team, led by captain Patrick Vieira, including Deputy Justice Minister Nicole Guedj and Trade and Finance Minister Patrick Devedjan. Pierre Repellini, a French soccer player, has also arrived. French-Jewish singer Enrico Macias has been asked to sing the French national anthem. And to top it all off, Patrick Bruel, the "hottest" pop idol in France, will attend the game.

"I think it is mixed, whom the people will root for," said Alain Calmat, the former French minister of youth and sport. "I hope that the French will be supported... I'm French, so I very much hope that France will win."

But all of this won't sway French Israelis, whose loyalty is clear. "I am definitely going to cheer for Israel," said Lisa Levy, who immigrated a year and a half ago. "I live here now and I think it is normal to support your country."

For Aliette Kaen, who immigrated five years ago, supporting Israel is an important stance. "My family left France because we were not comfortable with how we felt as Jews there," she explained as she sat in a Jerusalem caf dipping a cheese burekas into a caf au lait. "I have felt more at home here in Israel than I felt in my entire 20 years in France."

Kaen, who will be attending the match with a group of French friends, said that she is preparing signs that will say "Go Israel" in French.

Earlier this month, goalkeeper Fabien Barthez threatened not to join his team in Israel due to fears for his personal security.

"I see everything that is happening there and it worries me enormously," Barthez told a press conference during training in France last week.

Kaen said she was also preparing a sign for Barthez: "Go home, scaredy-cat!"

LoL @ scaredy cat

mate wrote:
I'm actually having a WWII review debate on another chat board comparing the United States military versus the Nazi German Wermacht. Trust me, we are reviewing matters in depth and even the most partisan pro-Wermacht propnents are backing off their position that their army typically outperformed the American.

Riiiiight!

At the very least, take a look at the actual numbers in North African battles. It is a stretch of the imagination to say Allied forces took heavy casualties. Certainly, there was nothing to compare to the something like The Battle of the Bulge...not even close! The bottom line is that overall, the American GI and Marine, backed by incomparable atrillery, air, and naval power, inflicted far more damage than he received.

Statement that you know not to be true.
Germans, as I have shown, referring to leading history experts, suffered fewer losses than the Allies in both the African theatre and the Western Front (including Italy).

The very fact that you are now saying that you, SOMEHOW, showed otherwise is laughable. If anything, I displayed the numbers and the source, who showed that German forces were actually more effective than the American forces in combat. Once again, you were shown wanting.

Come now, this absolutely proves how dumb you really are.

The best you can do?

One, the Soviets and Germany eventually signed a non-aggression pact. The Japanese had a free hand in this regard.

Japanese, hosever, chose not to attack the Soviets in 1941, where USSR was in deep trouble against the Barbarossa. Some think that could have been the dagger in the back. But, as any respectable historian would show, Russians showed that with inferior numbers they could soundly defeat any Japanese attack. Thus, Japan chose to strike US.

Two, do you understand that the Battle of Midway pretty much destroyed Japanese strategic naval power? I would say this was far more decisive than you fabled Lake Hasan battle.

See above, the war took the direction it took precisely because Japanese felt their chances in the Far Eastern offensive against prepared Russians were inferior to catching US unawares in a large maritime conflict.

Finally, um Comrade Evgeny, Russia once lost an entire war to the Japanese, becoming just about the first European power in modern times to lose to a non-European state. The United States utterly defeated the Japanese in WWII...and Germany.

US once lost to Vietnam, but I fail to see what that has to do with World War II.

Try someone else you communist revisionist sympathizer.

Learn some history, and try to present it without your exaggerated patriotic garbage.

Mate, do you really enjoy being soundly beaten? At least come with better prepared arguments to improve your performance.

Comrade Evgeny

The sheer stupidity of what you just said is so self-evident that it really doesn't warrant an explicit rebuttal.

However, let's get one thing straight...you and I both know that only you assign yourself kudos when it comes to our debates. I can't count the times other posters chimed in to comment favorably on my points versus yours.

You are simply reduced to issuing banal self-congratulatory claims of victory...which only ultimately reinforces the barreness of your positions and intellect. Sorry, your "winking" is an emperor with no clothes situation if there ever was one.

If Eugene has no clothes on then shouldn't we all have both eyes closed :

mate wrote:Comrade Evgeny

The sheer stupidity of what you just said is so self-evident that it really doesn't warrant an explicit rebuttal.

However, let's get one thing straight...you and I both know that only you assign yourself kudos when it comes to our debates. I can't count the times other posters chimed in to comment favorably on my points versus yours.

You are simply reduced to issuing banal self-congratulatory claims of victory...which only ultimately reinforces the barreness of your positions and intellect. Sorry, your "winking" is an emperor with no clothes situation if there ever was one.

Bull shit, Matey, I can count quite a few cases that you were resiliently fighting alone, against pretty much everybody else supporting the information provided by me from historical sources.

YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO NEVER PROVIDES ANY PROOF.

You, at the same time, believe your own unending self-fulfilling righteousness, which prevents you to ever concede an argument when you lose. But you always come back claiming you won.

Mate you are the fool and butt of most jokes out here.

And, your historical knowledge merits exactly that.

Any respectable historian would tell Eugene that Japanese didn't "choose" not to attack the Soviet Union because blah blah...

Japan and the Soviet Union signed the mutual non-aggression treaty, to which Japan held true.

Leonid wrote:Any respectable historian would tell Eugene that Japanese didn't "choose" not to attack the Soviet Union because blah blah...

Japan and the Soviet Union signed the mutual non-aggression treaty, to which Japan held true.

Are you really that dense? Germany and Russia also signed a non-aggression treaty! So what? Why did Japan hold true to the treaty? Because they have tried to attack the Soviets before and were badly burned.

Because that's what most, but not all, countries do, you idiot. They respect non-aggression treaties. Not your lovely Commies though, not to mention their spiritual brothers, Nazis.

Another ridiculous statement.

Your friends commies and your friends NAZI did not differ from the tactics of most other countries.

Japanese never respected any treaties, as their policies in 1933-1939 showed!

Besides, the Soviet-Japanese nonaggression treaty was signed... are you ready for this?... AFTER Soviets kicked the crap out of the Japanese at Khalkin Gol and Lake Khasan in 1938 and 1939 respectively!

Some historical sources:

http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/utm/kogun.txt

KOGUN

THE JAPANESE ARMY
IN THE PACIFIC WAR



SABURO HAYASHI
In collaboration with
ALVIN D. COOX

The Nomonhan Incident gave the Japanese Army an opportunity to realize
the actual ability of the Soviet Army. Seeing was believing.

(1) The bulk of the Soviet ground forces-artillery and armor-were far
superior to the Japanese Army in terms of fire power and mechanized equipment.

(2) The Japanese were exceedingly surprised by Soviet capability of
transporting and storing war materiel at a battlefront 600 kilometers away
from a railroad terminal.

(3) Having rid itself of the inflexibility which characterized the old
Czarist forces, the Soviet Army proved able to change tactics from battle to
battle. At the beginning of the Incident, for example, most of the


15





JAPANESE ARMY IN THE PACIFIC

Soviet tanks were ignited by gasoline-bottles hurled at them by Japanese
troops. A month later, however, the Russians were using crude-oil fuel, or
were covering the tank chassis with wire nets. Other cases of Soviet field
improvisation were numerous.

(4) The Soviet Army was more tenacious than had been expected.

The Washington Post

De Gaulle's Tattered Legacy

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, March 31, 2005

Charles de Gaulle bequeathed the French two big ideas and the atomic bomb to see them through the sad national duty of surviving without him. The bomb is still there and probably always will be. The ideas may not be as resilient. They face severe challenge this spring.

One idea was to form a superbly educated, merit-based political elite to revitalize the defeated and demoralized nation that emerged from World War II. The cream of the intellectual crop would be chosen by rigorous examinations, educated in prestigious national schools and assigned important government jobs based on grades.

This meritocracy produced two working generations of talented, dedicated administrators who gradually moved to the top of France's business and political establishments. How you respond to "the French" depends in some measure on how you react to dealing with the smartest kid in the class, who cannot resist occasionally reminding you of that fact. You may not find that as invigorating as I (usually) do.

But the French elite -- and the system that produced it -- is on trial this spring in a Paris courtroom, where 47 political party activists and business executives stand accused of falsifying government contracts to provide France's main parties with secret campaign funds.

If these people did participate in a corrupt, long-standing conspiracy to parcel out hidden business payoffs to France's Gaullists, socialists, communists and others, the probability that the country's most important political leaders were not involved approaches zero. France's political class operates as the country's central nervous system.

Constitutional law prevents the investigation or prosecution of President Jacques Chirac in such cases. But the trial, which is expected to last four months, casts shadows on the Elysee Palace and saps the moral authority of Chirac's government, which also faces voter discontent over unfulfilled promises and a sluggish economy.

This noxious mix is creating a challenge to the other big idea, which de Gaulle adopted, reshaped and sold to the French public as a matter of national survival. That is the concept of a united Europe -- united under French intellectual leadership and political parity with Germany (which also has ideas, but does not have the bomb).

France's leaders have been stunned by recent public opinion polls that show a clear majority of the electorate intending to vote against the European Union's draft constitutional treaty in a May 29 referendum. A "non" from France would kill the treaty and open an existential crisis in the 25-nation union.

These two trials of France's elite -- the legal one in Paris, the political one of coaxing a "oui" to a more politically integrated Europe -- are merging into a policy maelstrom that swirls beyond France's borders.

As his domestic challenges mount, Chirac seeks refuge and armor in foreign policy decisions and meetings. To reassure the electorate that French rights are not threatened by the new constitution, he has been busy defying the existing procedures and powers of the union's executive arm in Brussels.

French opinion makers portray the polls as symbolic vehicles for voters to express their disillusion with the Chirac government, not with Europe. The polls are treated as a beneficial early warning: They will mobilize the elite into vigorously and lucidly campaigning, explaining Europe to the voters anew to get to "oui."

The constitution was after all drafted under the leadership of former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing. He predicts that when the French go into the voting booth, they will put aside their national quarrels and their concern over losing influence in a body that began with six members in de Gaulle's day but jumped to 25 in 2004.

"The French people already think enlargement went too far too fast. They are probably right," Giscard said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in New York on March 7. "Once they understand there is nothing in the constitution that permits a further enlargement" that would include Turkey, they will vote yes.

It may well be so. The odds are often with the smartest kid in class. But de Gaulle's progeny -- the French elite -- is today deeply divided over the future of the union he helped create. Chirac supports eventual Turkish membership; Giscard opposes it; Socialist Laurent Fabius believes he can regain control of his party by defeating the constitution, which normally he would be expected to support; and so on.

This suggests that instead of growing clarity, there could be growing confusion on Europe and other matters. In a Paris courtroom, acid drops daily on the bedrock of credibility and integrity that has empowered modern French rulers to govern, and to explain.

Leo

The man is a fool. This what he initially wrote:

BTW, what makes Midway the most decisive Eastern Theater engagement (correction, Pacific Theatre, not Eastern)? How about 1938 engagement at Lake Hasan where numerically inferior Soviets destroyed the initially much larger Japanese force (which determined Japanese hesitation to attack Russians, choosing to, instead, strike US)? 1945 Manchurian Campaign?

Midway was indeed the most decisive battle in the East because it basically destroyed Japanese strategic naval and air capabilities. Hence, it would be only a matter of time before American "Island Hopping", taking them one by one in isolation, would culminate in a siege of the Japanese mainlaind.

In no way did the Japanese encounter with the Soviets in 1938 change much regarding Japanese strategic capabilities...nor do much with regards to impacting a Japanese invasion of the Soviets in 1941.

Like I said, Germany was taking care of the Soviet Union and Japan saw the US as their chief threat.

Mind you, all of this is orthogonal to the main point, that US forces inflicted disproportionate losses on all their WWII opponents, especially in the major encounters.

mate wrote:In no way did the Japanese encounter with the Soviets in 1938 change much regarding Japanese strategic capabilities...nor do much with regards to impacting a Japanese invasion of the Soviets in 1941.

Wrong. According to the documents of Japanese general HQ. Which I have provided, Japanese military, clubbered in 1938 and 1939 at Khalkin Gol and Lake Hasan chose not to concentrate on USSR. In fact, had the 1938 and 1939 encounters not end the way they did, Japan would have continue their aggression against Siberia and, more likely than not, Pearl Harbor would not even have happened as well as everything (including Midway) that followed. It just shows your utter ignorance.

Mind you, all of this is orthogonal to the main point, that US forces inflicted disproportionate losses on all their WWII opponents, especially in the major encounters.

Which is actually absolutely wrong. In fact, Germany had lost almost as few dead in Western Europe throughout the whole 1944-1945 as United States did ALONE!

Those are factual numbers. I have provided sources, books, and links to support those numbers. You, on the other hand, lacked any evidence to the contrary.

Some numbers:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2stats.htm

NW Europe, 1944-45
Ellis
Germans: 128,030 (KIA only, incl. SS troops, to Dec. 1944. Another est. is 80,820K + 490,260M = 571,080 in Field Army only, to April 1945.)
Americans: 109,820
British: 30,280
French: 12,590
Canadians: 10,740
Poles: 1,160
[TOTAL: 292,620]

Italy, 1943-45
British: 89,440 (K+W)
Germans: 59,940 (KIA only, incl. SS troops, to Dec. 1944. Another est. is 46,800K + 208,240M = 255,040 in Field Army only, June 1941-10 April 1945.)
Americans: 29,560
French: 8,660
Canadians: 5,400
Indians: 4,720
Poles: 2,460
S. Africans: 710
Brazilians: 510
[TOTAL: ca. 125,000]

North African Desert, 1941-43
Ellis
Italians: 20,720
British: c. 7,000 in W. Desert + 6,230 in Tunisia
Germans: 12,810
Americans: 3,620
Australians: 3,150
French: 12,920 (all casualty types)
New Zealanders: 6,340 (incl. k. in Italy)
S. Africans: 2,100
Indians: 1,720
[TOTAL: 57,350, excl. French & New Z.]
Clodfelter
British Commonwealth: 35,476 KIA
Germans: 18,594
Italians: 13,748
[TOTAL: 67,818]

As usual, Mate, the facts are not on your side.

You want to look at major battles? Fine, we can do that:

Anzio, World War II (22 Jan.-23 May 1944): 10 000
CMH
Allies: 4,400 k., incl. 2,800 Americans.
Germans: 5,500 k.

The Bulge or Ardennes Offensive, World War II (16-29 Dec. 1944): 38 000
Elstob, Hitler's Last Offensive (1971)
Germans: 19,000 KIA in Ardennes and Nordwind
USA: 16,000 KIA (16 Dec.-25 Jan.)
UK: 200 KIA
[TOTAL: 35,000]
Gilbert, History of the Twentieth Century
US: 19,000 k.
Clodfelter
USA KIA: 4,138 (defnsv) + 6,138 (counteroff.) [=10,276]

Market-Garden, World War II (17-25 Sept. 1944): 16 000
Wikipedia
Germany: 4,000-8,000 k
UK: 6,484
USA: 3,542
Polish: 378
[TOTAL: 16,404 ± 2,000]

http://www.answers.com/topic/battle-of-monte-cassino
Monte Cassino
Casualties
Allies ~54,000 casualties
Axis ~20,000 casualties