Why do Americans...

[thegreekdog]

Changy, what's the difference between "America being an ally" and "American saving our arse?" Can countries be allies and one save the other's ass?

My view on all this is that the US should have been involved from the get-go, at least with respect to Hitler. I admittedly don't know the politics and international relations details that go into why the US did not get involved. I don't accept racism or anti-Semitism as answers, by the way.

[Pedronicus]

The Russians who were encircled in Stalingrad were starving, and they carried on fighting. It was freezing cold, and people were eating dogs, cats, dead Russians, soap, anything they could get their hands on in sub 20 degree temperatures. And those starving Russians defeated the Germans.

So if Germany had of successfully landed in England, Do you really think that we would of lost ww2?
Would we bollox.
With Germans on the ground, instead of the air, every man who could hold a gun would of been shooting at Germans, instead of a small group of Airmen.
We would of been hungry if the U boats had cut off the food, and I mean real hungry, but I doubt we would of been eating soap. As someone else said earlier in the thread - We aren't some desert island.

The yanks saw just how hard it was to conquer small islands no more than 15 sq miles occupied by 200,000 japanese nutters.

We'd been bombed and being bombed didn't make us want to give up, it just hardened our resolve. We haven't been invaded since 1066, and if the Germans had of gotten a foothold, British propaganda would of been needed too much. We're an island nation, and a waring nation. Having Germans on our soil would of been enough to make every Englishman fight to the death.

You only have to look at Afghanistan today to know that certain people around the world don't give up. No matter how steep the odds.

[jefjef]

The Russians who were encircled in Stalingrad were starving, and they carried on fighting. It was freezing cold, and people were eating dogs, cats, dead Russians, soap, anything they could get their hands on in sub 20 degree temperatures. And those starving Russians defeated the Germans.

So if Germany had of successfully landed in England, Do you really think that we would of lost ww2?

Stalingrad: The Russians reinforced the city across the river every day/night. The daily casualties were astronomical. Only after the Germans were encircled and being resupplied by air just a fraction of what they needed did the Germans surrender due to lack of fuel/ammo/food and no reinforcements. You did not quite portray it as it was. It was a well supplied and reinforced Russian army that defeated a hugely under supplied/unreinforced German army.

1940 when Germany was considering operation Sea Lion they had a 4 to 1 advantage in troops over Britain. I believe England only had 72 obsolete tanks and a severe shortage of field guns and shells in country in June 1940. The Germans real problem was a lack of navy and ability to transport enough, quick enough, across the channel.

If they could have...

Well England had plans in place to escape the Navy to America and Canada.

[Mr Changsha]

Changy, what's the difference between "America being an ally" and "American saving our arse?" Can countries be allies and one save the other's ass?

Of course. I think the issue here is that I was responding to earlier comments which were frankly disrespectful to a nation that fought 3 great powers alone, until 1942, and had to deal with its entire European strategy collapsing because the French capitulated in a month (when one would have assumed that, like WW1, they could have held their line indefinitely) and therefore fought itself to a standstill holding the line against powers that threatened not just Britain's way of life but also America's...as was finally made clear to America once Japan bombed Pearl Harbour.

This is why British people get a touch annoyed with Americans on this issue. If your people, like Churchill, had recognised that these nationalistic powers couldn't be ignored, had to be faced, then you would have joined in fully once France had fallen. You should have joined in fully once Britain and France declared war against Germany.

That is not to underestimate what help the Americans did gave...there is nothing small about cash, munitions and ships. The British operated on the same basis until France fell. But that's the key point. Once that huge French army fell (and remember it was expected to hold Western Europe such was its strength), America should have jumped into gear immediately. For Britain has never in its history really been a land-based power. To expect it to do anymore than hold its island and greater empire is ridiculous. Therefore, once France fell (I'll say it again), America was always going to have to build up its army, combine with a new British army and defeat Hitler.

My view on all this is that the US should have been involved from the get-go, at least with respect to Hitler. I admittedly don't know the politics and international relations details that go into why the US did not get involved. I don't accept racism or anti-Semitism as answers, by the way.

America was stuck in a pre-1914 isolationist 'Europe isn't our concern' mindset. Which made sense until technology moved forward enough to make even North America unsafe from attack. Once that became clear to the people (Pearl Harbour) America got most wonderfully into gear and certainly did its bit.

[thegreekdog]

I think I agree with that reasoning. Except that FDR, a fairly progressive president, was in office at that time. I suppose it was more Congress's doing.

On a side note, I took three World War II college-level courses and I do not know the answer to "why the US did not get involved in WWII." That's pretty sad. And I went to a pretty good university.

[PLAYER57832]

Changy, what's the difference between "America being an ally" and "American saving our arse?" Can countries be allies and one save the other's ass?

My view on all this is that the US should have been involved from the get-go, at least with respect to Hitler. I admittedly don't know the politics and international relations details that go into why the US did not get involved. I don't accept racism or anti-Semitism as answers, by the way.

Ignoring the impact of racism is to ignore most of our history. It is not that we were directly racist in the sense of southern bigotry against blacks, for example. However, it feeds into the whole "its not our problem" and "they cannot really be telling the truth" .bits.

But, I leave most of this to more knowledgeable folks.

[thegreekdog]

Changy, what's the difference between "America being an ally" and "American saving our arse?" Can countries be allies and one save the other's ass?

My view on all this is that the US should have been involved from the get-go, at least with respect to Hitler. I admittedly don't know the politics and international relations details that go into why the US did not get involved. I don't accept racism or anti-Semitism as answers, by the way.

Ignoring the impact of racism is to ignore most of our history. It is not that we were directly racist in the sense of southern bigotry against blacks, for example. However, it feeds into the whole "its not our problem" and "they cannot really be telling the truth" .bits.

But, I leave most of this to more knowledgeable folks.

I'm ignoring it because I don't think Nazi anti-Semitism (and potential American support of anti-Semitism) had much to do with why we did not get involved in WWII. For example, I'm fairly sure England and France didn't declare war on Germany because the Nazis were anti-Semites (it was because Germany attacked Poland).

[Timminz]

Why are non-American... apparently incapable of discussing anything except America?

2 words.
Penis envy.

lol.

I'm going to guess that you didn't mean to imply that USAians are all dicks.

[PLAYER57832]

I'm ignoring it because I don't think Nazi anti-Semitism (and potential American support of anti-Semitism) had much to do with why we did not get involved in WWII. For example, I'm fairly sure England and France didn't declare war on Germany because the Nazis were anti-Semites (it was because Germany attacked Poland).

No, you have the wrong direction. The argument is not that either the British or the US got involved in the war because the Nazis were anti-semites. The argument is that it took all of us much longer to get involved because the victims were Jews and other only moderately "accepted" people in the US, in contrast with Germans who are related to something like 70% of the US.

(and the fact that Germans were so much "like us" is why the Holocaust resonates so strongly with us, even though more people were actually killed in "equally" or perhaps more brutal ways in other conflicts)

But yes, ultimately, the attack set the path. And, I am not strongly arguing the point, as I said.

[thegreekdog]

I'm ignoring it because I don't think Nazi anti-Semitism (and potential American support of anti-Semitism) had much to do with why we did not get involved in WWII. For example, I'm fairly sure England and France didn't declare war on Germany because the Nazis were anti-Semites (it was because Germany attacked Poland).

No, you have the wrong direction. The argument is not that either the British or the US got involved in the war because the Nazis were anti-semites. The argument is that it took all of us much longer to get involved because the victims were Jews and other only moderately "accepted" people in the US, in contrast with Germans who are related to something like 70% of the US.

(and the fact that Germans were so much "like us" is why the Holocaust resonates so strongly with us, even though more people were actually killed in "equally" or perhaps more brutal ways in other conflicts)

But yes, ultimately, the attack set the path. And, I am not strongly arguing the point, as I said.

Yes, I don't think it took us longer to get involved because the victims were Jews, because we didn't know about Jewish victims until at least 1941 and probably not until 1944. As far as we (and the Brits and French) knew, the victims were Austria, the Czechs, and Poland.

[tzor]

No, you have the wrong direction. The argument is not that either the British or the US got involved in the war because the Nazis were anti-semites. The argument is that it took all of us much longer to get involved because the victims were Jews and other only moderately "accepted" people in the US, in contrast with Germans who are related to something like 70% of the US.

(and the fact that Germans were so much "like us" is why the Holocaust resonates so strongly with us, even though more people were actually killed in "equally" or perhaps more brutal ways in other conflicts)

But yes, ultimately, the attack set the path. And, I am not strongly arguing the point, as I said.

I think you have the cart before the horse. Germany wasn't the first attempt at national genocide (although it was on a scale never done before) but they got caught with their pants down. When the allied forces started liberating thier own POWs (and although conditions in Germany were harsh they were nothing like the conditions in the death camps ... had Germany treated their POWs like Japan things might have been different) and they realized how really bad things were in those camps, they started to really push the issue.

Now a reply by me would not be complete without a recent NPR reference, Film Confronts France's Wartime Roundup Of Jews which is about a film that documented the efforts of the French police (after eing occupied by Germany) to round up and deport 76,000 Jews. It took a long time for the other shoe to drop; finger pointing and blaming the NAZIS was easy; realizing that there were a lot of people who were directly and indirectly irresponsible is another matter.

[Fruitcake]

We would have held on indefinitely for the simple reason that we enjoy Brussels sprouts and in all my travels I have yet to meet more than a handful of Johnny foreigners who don't think we are all completely barking for relishing this vegetable.

Hitler and his bunch of nancy boys would have stepped into England on a Sunday afternoon in the late autumn, just as this vegetable reaches its full potency, got whiff of the side effect and raced back to Berlin in double quick time.

Simple.

As for Americans...well one can only say that it is surely them who really showed what it is to be fashionably late. But I love them all the same.

[jefjef]

The US got involved beginning in 1939. Assisting China - France - England with critical weapons and supplies. Embargoed Japan and Germany.

It was as it was then as it is today. Europe prefers us to stay hands off and doesn't want us involved until it's obvious they need US in a big way.

And then give us shit for taking so long...

[englishboy77]

The US got involved beginning in 1939. Assisting China - France - England with critical weapons and supplies. Embargoed Japan and Germany.

It was as it was then as it is today. Europe prefers us to stay hands off and doesn't want us involved until it's obvious they need US in a big way.

And then give us shit for taking so long...

Yes, because americans are fat and slow....

[PLAYER57832]

No, you have the wrong direction. The argument is not that either the British or the US got involved in the war because the Nazis were anti-semites. The argument is that it took all of us much longer to get involved because the victims were Jews and other only moderately "accepted" people in the US, in contrast with Germans who are related to something like 70% of the US.

(and the fact that Germans were so much "like us" is why the Holocaust resonates so strongly with us, even though more people were actually killed in "equally" or perhaps more brutal ways in other conflicts)

But yes, ultimately, the attack set the path. And, I am not strongly arguing the point, as I said.

I think you have the cart before the horse. Germany wasn't the first attempt at national genocide (although it was on a scale never done before) but they got caught with their pants down. When the allied forces started liberating thier own POWs (and although conditions in Germany were harsh they were nothing like the conditions in the death camps ... had Germany treated their POWs like Japan things might have been different) and they realized how really bad things were in those camps, they started to really push the issue.

Never said Germany was the first to attempt genocide, not by a long stretch! I said that we were able to dismiss the rest because either the victims or the perpetrators were "not like us". While Jews were only marginally accepted here in the US, the holocaust was so methodical and so superficially "civilized" and the victims so clearly not threatening, not "savages"... it struck us in ways that no other tragedy has before or since.

However, in sheer magnitude, many other events .. the Japanese in China, Pol Pot, us to Native Americans, etc... all of those saw greater numbers and perhaps even worse horror for the people involved (debateable.. I mean is it really better to be boiled in water than oil?.. does it really matter at that point much?)

Now a reply by me would not be complete without a recent NPR reference, Film Confronts France's Wartime Roundup Of Jews which is about a film that documented the efforts of the French police (after eing occupied by Germany) to round up and deport 76,000 Jews. It took a long time for the other shoe to drop; finger pointing and blaming the NAZIS was easy; realizing that there were a lot of people who were directly and indirectly irresponsible is another matter.

No argument. And again, part of the reason it was so horrific to us is that it wasn't "slant eyed unChristian savages", but "little old ladies" who "went to church", "knitted", etc. The horror was that it wasn't just a few aberrations, but the whole soceity.. and many others, too.

[tzor]

Hitler and his bunch of nancy boys would have stepped into England on a Sunday afternoon in the late autumn, just as this vegetable reaches its full potency, got whiff of the side effect and raced back to Berlin in double quick time.

First and foremost, let us remember that WWII is the perfect example of why evil never wins in the end ... because pride and vanity make them do extreemely stupid things. WWII was one of the most brilliant and swiftest of the wars that never was. The defeat of France and their moronic defense system was cake. The armies of England were traped on the shores of the continent with their backs to the sea. Victory was practically guarenteed. The date: May 1940.

In one of the most widely-debated decisions of the war, Adolf Hitler ordered his generals to halt for three days, giving the Allies time to organise an evacuation and build a defensive line. Despite the Allies' gloomy estimates of the situation, in the end, over 330,000 Allied troops were rescued.