Posted on 11/21/2004 12:31:59 PM PST by everitt12
Okay, I was reading through the stupid signs on this guy's blog, and I want to challenge all the Freepers to come up with some witty responses to these claims.
For example, when he writes:
We Won World War II
It should be pointed out that Ike won WWII, Roosevelt started the Cold War.
We defeated nazism without your help
We defeated communism without your help
We defeated tyranny without your help
Get the message??
The 'Rats now wish we would do away with them!
We defeated communism without your help
It should be pointed out that Ike won WWII, Roosevelt started the Cold War.
Be fair. Eisenhower wasn't President, even though he was supreme Allied Commander in Europe. His judgement helped win the war, but it was Roosevelt's Presidential leadership which pulled it together. Give credit where credit is due.
Of course, it was also Roosevelt's (socialist) policies that led to World War 2. Our inability to deal with any of the problems in the world is directly attributable to his "new deal" regime of bread and circuses, while Hitler, Stalin and Tojo killed millions, long before December 7, 1941.
It was also not his Presidency that ultimately ended the war, or gave us the Cold War (which rightly should be called World War 3). Truman gave us both of those, good and bad. The end of WW2 was the result of the inertia of the Manhatten Project, not any brilliance on Trumans part (though it was both gutsy and right to make the call). The cold war, including the stalemate in the battle of Korea and the loss in the battle of Vietnam, is directly attributable to the inertia of a failed liberal Presidency of a small, if tough, little man.
bttt
"It should be pointed out that Ike won WWII, Roosevelt started the Cold War."
Ike must have had a damn big gun if he won WWII all by his lonesome self. It should also be noted that the Russians had no role to play in the cold war. They were just innocent onlookers. LOL!
Look, Oliver Willis is one of those people who suffer from conspiratorial retardation, and is in a perpetual blame-a-thon. Everything is a conspiracy to this moron. Bush says Earth is round - CONSPIRACY! It's pathetic and sad, really.
What nonsense. Hitler would probably have one the war had he not attacked Russia while he had Britain on the ropes. And the Cold War started in the fifties when FDR was long dead.
one = won
as well as Cuba, N.Korea. potentially Venezuela
The Cold War started on 12 November 1945. That was one day after the armistice was signed and the Allies started carving up Europe.
But if you really want to get down to where the rubber meets the road, the Cold War started on 17 October 1918, when Lenin came to power and the Communist Party was born.
Then it was exported to the west as part of their so-called 5 year plan. WWII was an interlude to the Cold War.
It was also not his Presidency that ultimately ended the war, or gave us the Cold War (which rightly should be called World War 3). Truman gave us both of those, good and bad. The end of WW2 was the result of the inertia of the Manhatten Project, not any brilliance on Trumans part (though it was both gutsy and right to make the call). The cold war, including the stalemate in the battle of Korea and the loss in the battle of Vietnam, is directly attributable to the inertia of a failed liberal Presidency of a small, if tough, little man.
a failed liberal Presidency of a small, if tough, little man.
His actions may have been the only choices, in each case, but they were the actions and choices of a failed policy, not a winning policy. The Truman administration didn't win anything. At best it can be argued that they set the stage for the winning of the "long struggle" some 40 years later. Others would argue that his failures and inadequacies led to 40 years of corruption and the imprisonment or death of millions. We can never know. We do know he didn't win anything while he was President based on his own policies (except his defeat of MacArthur... great legacy).
One question, in hindsight (I know, we can't change what happened then) what do you think he could have done better?
I believe that I stated something to the effect of "we'll never know," but what the heck...
The extreme case would to follow Patton in Europe and MacArthur in Asia. The outcome of that choice is the great imponderable.
Horrors! That would have meant nuclear war!
Probaly, but there were maybe 100 nuclear warheads available in 1946 to 1950, probably 95 of them ours. Nuclear war then and nuclear war now are two totally different things to contemplate. And Truman's alternative was to internationalize control of atomic weapons through the UN. Oh, that policy worked out well. Are we better off that we're facing that nightmare now? With potentially thousands of nuclear weapons in play?
If Patton were allowed to march East from Germany how many millions would have been spared entire lifetimes of slavery? How many would have died? That's impossible to tell.
Driving the Russians back into Russia would have been a worthwhile task, and we could have done it. There might be some places in eastern Europe that were nuclear battlefields, but what would be different, compared to what is there today?
The ecological and human damage to eastern Europe as a result of Soviet domination is probably greater than the results of that hypothetical nuclear exchange. Remember, we're talking about the results of kiloton devices then, versus multi megaton devices now. Chernobyl by itself was equivelant to several Hiroshimas in residual radiation. There are many millions of tons of toxic elements that have been liberally poured over eastern Europes countryside by uncaring Communist bureaucrats over the last 60 years that make the question arguable.
If MacArthur were allowed to not only reshape the postwar nation of Japan but also to have been given full control of the formerly Japanese held areas, namely China, Korea, etc., would that history have been different? I think Mao would have found an active and able opposition on his long march. I think a billion people might have lived in freedom.
maybe. Odds are probably against it succeeding. We do know that what Truman set out to do failed. Only Reagan, with his "radical" ideas and "cowboy" attitude changed the outcome. Gee, I wonder if that might serve as a model for what might have happened if we'd confronted these toads way back then?
As I say, not likely to have turned out better, too many imponderables. But possible. That doesn't make Truman any less gutsy for what he did do. Not necessarily right, but gutsy. He was the one who had to make the call, just as W is the one who has to make the call today. Somehow I don't think his partisan critics will give him the courtesies that our side has given to Truman's decisions.
conspiratorial retardation
I love that!!! So appropriate! Sure makes more snese than PEST ever did.
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