Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini did not count America as a credible adversary of the Third Reich because of its incoherent racial mix; they saw Americans as a "mongrel race", "half-Judaised" and "half-Negrified". [1]In an address to the Reichstag on 11 December 1941, Hitler declared war on the United States and lambasted U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
He [Roosevelt] was strengthened in this [political diversion] by the circle of Jews surrounding him, who, with Old Testament-like fanaticism, believe that the United States can be the instrument for preparing another Purim for the European nations that are becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. It was the Jew, in his full Satanic vileness, who rallied around this man [Roosevelt], but to whom this man also reached out.[2]Just to be clear, those who have hated us have always attacked us and lost. Why? Probably because America's enemies have always assumed that we were less than them and that we would fight the last war. Admittedly the current track record of America's wars is unimpressive. However any rational thinker has to admit that none of the wars since WW II has ever galvanized America to believe that its very survival was at stake.
Imagine what America would do to China if America's back was up against the wall? Does anyone in China's leadership really doubt that America would rally around an existential threat to its way of life and its very survival?
During WW II, after America had defeated Germany and Italy and could focus its attention on Japan, the Japanese became desperate and started attacking America with suicide fighter kamikaze pilots. In spite of relentless suicide pilot attacks America did not stop and went on to evict the Japanese out of the western Pacific. When America was contemplating invading the Japanese home islands they knew that the Japanese were planning hell on earth and death for millions before Japan would surrender. America's political leadership decided to cook two cities in Japan and everyone in them like god-damned fried eggs in order to drive home the point that Japan must either surrender or die. This resoluteness forced the mad-dog Japanese leadership to surrender.
If China thinks that it is going to intimidate and bully America then it is making the very same mistake that many other countries have made regarding America and will never make again. Make no mistake, Americans admire Chinese culture, history, and aspirations, but we will bury you if you push too far and the humiliation of the Opium Wars in the 19th century will look like a golden age.
Here is a personal anecdote to drive home the message. In 2005 I took my family to Washington D.C. to let my retired marine father-in-law get his fill of American history. After what must have been the 50th war memorial of the trip my 11-year old daughter asked me, "This must be the hundredth war memorial we have been to, how many are there?" I replied to her that "There are hundreds because the world is full of assholes."
China, please don't be another, prolapsed, gaping, asshole.
1. Rubin, Barry; Rubin, Judith Colp (2004). Hating America: A History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-530649-X.
2. Saul Friedlander (2008) The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939–1945. London, Phoenix: 279
mongrels can BITE
Thank you for that post...that was a trip down memory lane...thank you so much... ;0)