The Chinese and the British were as instrumental in the defeat of Japan as anyone else.
The western front would have collapsed due to the pressures of the eastern front. Due to the subsequent occupation of eastern europe historians ignored for almost 40 years that at no time was anything less than 3/4 of all German military strength on the eastern front. The loss of Africa was serious for German supplies and opened up the possibility of a second front. Churchill wanted Italy, Roosevelt France. If we had gone through Italy the occupation of eastern europe would probably not have happened.
American help was invaluable in the final stages of the war and no-one denies their contributions. The impression I often get from Americans is that they conveniently forget that there wouldn't have been a WWI or WWII if Britiain had stuck by its principle to defend Belgium in the first and Poland in the second. It took America a long time to honour its responsibilities to the international community as a world superpower and join in. My main point is that America was part of a winning team, not the winning team - it is somehting that is often overlooked, particularly by Hollywood.
Really? Perhaps you could give us some numbers on what percentage of peacekeepers have been French and German? I would suspect that is extremely low. While I don't find any statistics about who the troops are, I see that the US is over 27% of the peakeeping funding, whether in troops, supplies, or cash to pay for both.
The real question is how many of them were involved in some way? Did they give sanctuary, provide arms, were members of Hezbollah, etc.? That is the question. The person who fired the bullet is responsible but so are the people that planned it and knowingly give them shelter.
You are right that WWII could have been avoided if Britain had the principled leadership. It didn't. Britain rectified that during the war. I don't think we could have avoided WWI due to the alliances and how they were set up. It was going to happen. Many in the States did not want to become involved with Europe due to the recognition of the problems with the alliances that caused WWI. It was definitely a case of sticking the head in the sand.
Well there is the PAST 6 decades that would not have happenned had the Arabs acceppted the original UN resolution and acceppted Israel's right to exist. From my conversations withIsralis, how many more decades is still mostly up to the Arab countries.
Sure, Israels indiscriminate bombing of civilians will undoubtedly fuel more anti-Israeli extremists and lead to many more suicide bombers. Hezbollah & Haofftopics certainly don't need a recruitment drive when Israel does it for them.
i was talking about the whole post not just that one quote.
as for that specific quote, france has the fourth largest military expenditures worldwide. don't fall into the idiot trap set by the right in the US that goes on about how france is a weak kneed military lightweight becuase it simply is not true. in fact they spend more than the UK..
Good example of this is the senario they keep showing on the news where Hezbollah is providing Lebanese civilians with shelter and food.
They have a nice video(they being CNN/MSNBC/ETC) of the citizens swearing loyalty to Hezbollah because they are the only ones helping them. It was a shopping garage full of people, sure seems like Israel is doing a great job of eradicating Hezbollah......
I'd disagree with the first statement but not the second. It all depends upon how you define a superpower. That could be the subject of a massive thread of its own. I'm not going down that road.
Hezbollah agreed to disarm as Israel left Southern Lebanon but they never did. Saddam Hussein was supposed to be open about his weapons programs and he wasn't. Saddam killed more Muslims than Israel or the US.
Al Qeida has declared war on Shiites. Most Al Qeida terror attacks seem to kill innocent Muslims.
The Fatah movement and Hamas were on the brink of civil war when this started. Maybee the soldiers were kidnapped to unite them against Israel.
Really? I would stand up and cheer. Personally, I'd love to see someone else take the lead for a change instead of standing around begging us to do something about everything, ala the Balkans. It be nice to see that someone can do something without the US having to hold their hand.