Were there only wusses in WWII besides Russians, Germans and Americans?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Geronimo


Then why, oh why wasn't the aim of Canada Act of 1982 accomplished that way (bill in Ottawa)? I cannot begin to imagine allowing the indignity of going to a foreign parliment to grovel for permission to change my own countries constitution.

It's quite complicated and involves our being a former colony where peace, order, and good government along with the rule of law are and were quite highly prized.

1982 was the end of the journey that began in 1867. The end could have come at any time prior, but that would have involved breaking crockery, and that isn't something most Canadians would have been in favour of without a lot more stress than we ever experienced.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I think Americans have a hard time understanding some of this because we are much, much less of a constitution-driven country than they are. On a spectrum between the US and British role of a constitution, we're quite a bit closer to Britain.

I think it's a lack of appreciation of how political systems can evolve without sudden breaks with the past.

[notyoueither]

Incidently, the Queen or her representative still has to sign any bill before it can become law federally or in any province. She is still the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces also.

And most people are quite happy with the arrangement.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by notyoueither


It's quite complicated and involves our being a former colony where peace, order, and good government along with the rule of law are and were quite highly prized.

1982 was the end of the journey that began in 1867. The end could have come at any time prior, but that would have involved breaking crockery, and that isn't something most Canadians would have been in favour of without a lot more stress than we ever experienced.

How can you possibly claim that good government was highly prized if such a grossly innappropriate undemocratic system was tolerated all the way to friggin' 1982?? There is nothing 'good government' whatsoever about such an arrangement.

Furthermore "peace, order, and good government along with the rule of law" are highly prized by practically all of the mature democracies. I hope you're not implying that they would all tolerate the continuation of such a patronizing system for even a few months let alone decades. It's embarrassing to even consider.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Or george lansbury

"The East Fulham by-election in June 1933 was dominated by the issue of rearmament against Nazi Germany. Lansbury as Labour Leader sent a message to the constituency:

I would close every recruiting station, disband the Army and disarm the Air Force. I would abolish the whole dreadful equipment of war and say to the world "do your worst".

Aaah, so principled pacifism is the same as trading with Nazi Germany, is it ?

I suppose that makes Mahatma Gandhi equivalent to Tojo, and Martin Luther King equal to the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

Why not try to pick an appropriate analogy for once ? I could just about have understood if you'd chosen a British industrialist, maybe even at a stretch Mosley or the Mitfords.


But George Lansbury ? Is it because of the similarity to the Bush family name ?


Prescott Bush in the federal files (it's from an American paper, not the Guardian- it must be true!)

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2

Conceal their activities ? If you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to hide, says grandson Bush's government, doesn't it, to justify government intrusion into people's lives ?

Oh, but that's Muslims and such like. Not regular folks like Holocaust deniers and ex-Nazis and fellow travellers.

The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen died in Argentina in 1951.

Uh huh.

One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von Schwarzenberg, who also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, attempted to convince government investigators that the baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore should be allowed to maintain her assets.

"It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the Nazi party," government investigators concluded.

What ? You mean like these people :

Laszlo Pasztor and Nicolas Nazarenko ?

The Free Congress Foundation, founded by American far right strategist Paul Weyrich, became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Figuring prominently in this effort was Weyrich's right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross organization in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler's Reich. After serving two years in prison for his Arrow Cross activities, Pasztor found his way to the United States, where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican national Committee." (7)

Keeping it in the family:

The campaign may be over, but George Bush still needs to say what he plans to do with the 20-year-old Republican Heritage Groups Council, the ethnic outreach arm of the Republican National Committee. There is substantial evidence to suggest that the council was founded and continues to be led by people and organizations that collaborated with the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe during the Second World War.

The Bush campaign scored a major success in Sptember when it quickly discharged seven members of its ethnic coalition after a series of of news reports linked them to fascist, anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi organizations. But four of the seven discharged Bush ethnic leaders continue to hold leadership positions within the Heritage Groups Council.

Florian Galdau, for instance, still heads the Romanian-American Republic Clubs, one of the components of the Heritage Council. A retired priest, he was an ally of the late Archbishop Valerian Trifa, who was convicted by the United States for concealing his crimes against humanity committed in a Bucharest pogrom in 1941.

A leader of the pro-Nazi Iron Guard, Archbishop Trifa recruited Mr. Galdau in 1955 to run a Manhattan church. Former Iron Guard members, Federal Bureau of Investigation reports and Romanian Orthodox priests have identified Mr. Galdau as a recruiter for the Iron Guard. Mr. Galdau has denied these charges.
But F.B.I. reports and Iron Guard publications from the 1980's link him to Iron Guard activities.

The New York Times, Op-Ed page, November 19, 1988


Well so long as you don't like Commies and are willing to fund a Bush campaign it doesn't really matter how many Jews, politicals or gypsies you helped kill, does it ?

I sincerely doubt that for Burma was in a monsoon for the entirety of the four years it took the British to finally recapture it (with American assistance).

Drake

It might be nice if you actually addressed the issue, rather than wander off into the realms of amateur weather reporting. I'm fully aware of what a monsoon is, and what a dense tropical jungle is.

So: does a dense jungle on hills and mountainous slopes and in river valleys compare with tiny isolated coral atolls when it comes to difficult terrain ? Perhaps you could give us the benefit of your fighting experience on this... or not.

Animals...

I fail to see how killing the enemy in battle makes the British forces animals. Again, perhaps you can share with us your vast personal experience of seeing or hearing your defenceless wounded and sick comrades being murdered and how this might have affected your performance in the field of battle.

Let's hear from someone who was actually there:

Quarter was neither asked nor given.

Field Marshal Slim, 'Defeat Into Victory'

Is this really the only point you have to hang your hat on?

Unfortunately all you have to hang your dunce's cap on is a dull refrain of how bad at fighting the British Army supposedly were. Entirely as predictable as the dog returning to its vomit.

I've seen no evidence that you actually know much about the Burma Campaign, and in fact I've managed to show you were wrong when it concerned the British taking the fight to both the Japanese and the Germans.

Wingate and the Chindits won some minor victories, but they did nothing that would outweigh the terrible showing of the British Army that led to the conquering of Malaya, Singapore, Burma, etc. in the first place

From your limited perspective perhaps not.

On Wingate’s experimental raids which set down columns of troops far in the Japanese rear, Slim built up a technique of air-land supply which has revolutionized the campaign in Burma, enabling whole armies to march through trackless terrain entirely provisioned and munitioned by aircraft. On this pattern, Slim has won his victories. It will be the model of future wars wherever vast spaces pose the problem of logistics, which is the science of moving and supplying armies.

And who said anything about 'outweighing' any previous performance ? As I recall, in the Allied recapturing of Burma, the Japanese lost 350 000 men. Some people think that counts for something...

Here's what you said:

They can fight, unlike the British.

Try to maintain the same line of argument, why don't you, even when the facts awkwardly refuse to suit your original contention.

The Brits never would've taken Burma back without Stillwell's support.

An easy assertion, but one you've done nothing to support. Shock, shock, horror, horror...

That would be the same Vinegar Joe Stilwell who wasted Chindits experienced in long range penetration behind enemy lines as line infantry, would it ?

And had to be rebuked by Mountbatten for doing so...

[Drake Tungsten]

It might be nice if you actually addressed the issue

I'll start if you will. Unfortunately, you've drifted off into some irrelevant discussion about monsoons and jungle terrain and ignored my actual point, which was that invading Burma, positioned as it was right next to the British stronghold of India, would seem a simpler proposition than a lengthy series of amphibious operations spanning thousands of miles of open ocean.

I've seen no evidence that you actually know much about the Burma Campaign, and in fact I've managed to show you were wrong when it concerned the British taking the fight to both the Japanese and the Germans.

I certainly don't have as much interest in it as you seem to. Then again, I'm not out to revise Wingate's role into that of a conquering hero whose limited raids into Burma somehow restored the honor the British Army lost in its drubbing at the hands Japanese. I prefer to give the Burma campaign the attention it deserves based on its actual historical importance. Given that it was little more than a sideshow fought out by rather pathetic armies, I can't say I've devoted an inordinate amount of time to it.

And with that said, here's an attempt to emulate the oh-so-formidable molly bloom school of argument via irrelevant quotes...

after spending almost a week in India learning what he could from the British ("nobody but the quartermaster knew anything at all," he wrote in his diary during the visit), Stilwell finally arrived in Chungking

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/burma42/burma42.htm

Here's another...

However, the Chinese 200th Division held at Toungoo for twelve days against repeated Japanese assaults. Their stand represented the longest defensive action of any Allied force in the campaign.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/burma42/burma42.htm

Christ, even the Chinese put up a better fight in Burma than the British!

Now I'm off to invent arguments for Merrill's Marauders, a more effective American version of Wingate's Chindits, being not only the most important military unit of WWII, but maybe of all time. Two can play at this game!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

It might be nice if you actually addressed the issue

I'll start if you will.

About time...

which was that invading Burma, positioned as it was right next to the British stronghold of India, would seem a simpler proposition than a lengthy series of amphibious operations spanning thousands of miles of open ocean.

It might if you had any knowledge of what the terrain was like. Apparently the formidable Burmese terrain and adverse weather only counts for anything if you're Americans building a road and bragging about it.

Then again, I'm not out to revise Wingate's role into that of a conquering hero whose limited raids into Burma somehow restored the honor the British Army lost in its drubbing at the hands Japanese.

I see no sign of having done any historical revision to Wingate's role.

Given that it was little more than a sideshow fought out by rather pathetic armies, I can't say I've devoted an inordinate amount of time to it.

I see invective and sarcasm but little in the way of fact. Bile duct giving you problems ?

the oh-so-formidable molly bloom school of argument via irrelevant quotes...

Field Marshal Slim and Churchill irrelevant ? I'm fairly sure they had some more than tenuous connection with World War II.

Stilwell

That would be this Stilwell, would it ?

~{!0~}We were damned well licked~{!1~} said Stilwell, ~{!0~}the Japs ran us out of Burma.~{!1~}

And you accuse me of

irrelevant quotes

and

revis[ing] a role into that of a conquering hero

[Drake Tungsten]

The difference is that my irrelevant quoting and hero worship were knowingly ridiculous...

[Lancer]

Whatever credibility the Germans get for inventing the blitzkrieg, the jet, and the ballistic missile and certainly their fighting quality they lose for marching into Russia wearing not much more than G-strings.

[Qilue]

Originally posted by Lancer
Whatever credibility the Germans get for inventing the blitzkrieg, the jet, and the ballistic missile and certainly their fighting quality they lose for marching into Russia wearing not much more than G-strings.

Bah, intelectual property theft. The Russians did that in Finland a few years earlier.

[Lancer]

Right! Something we Americans never did. I claim Victory for the USA!

Whew, that was exciting.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

I have to stop and shake my head on some of the things that jimmy comes up with wrt Canadian history.

I can see how you might have that reaction. Maybe once you evolve past the WW2 bargain bin at Chapters, "complicated", nuanced interpretations of history won't seem so shocking.

As I've said before, the history I use is not of my own invention. In fact, its entirely mainstream academic history.

IOW, jimmy's earlier musings on the widespread discontent in Canada over our role wrt Britain is a crock of moonbat pooh.

Its difficult to address any of your points without understanding that you are, by and large, a complacent nationalist. Its also difficult to address points which involve nothing but platitudinal whimsies and regurgitated high school history factoids. You've demonstrated a lack of interest in critical thinking time and time again and its hard to imagine this ever changing.

But the next time I'm in the mood to bang my head against a wall and exchange the most basic, elementary level rubbish, I'll know where to look.

[Asher]

notyoueither is actually a history major...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Geronimo

How can you possibly claim that good government was highly prized if such a grossly innappropriate undemocratic system was tolerated all the way to friggin' 1982?? There is nothing 'good government' whatsoever about such an arrangement.

Furthermore "peace, order, and good government along with the rule of law" are highly prized by practically all of the mature democracies. I hope you're not implying that they would all tolerate the continuation of such a patronizing system for even a few months let alone decades. It's embarrassing to even consider.

What is so strange about Westminster having some control over a country inhabited by British subjects? What part of this do you not get? In 1870 Canadians were part of an empire, and most were damned proud of it.

Effective control over the nation was given to Ottawa in 1867. As times and people changed there were also changes made in the relationship with London. If the Brits had balked on these changes at some point and tried to say no, then we might have had a problem. However, they didn't balk so our system evolved without a need for any revolutionary activity.

And yes, many Canadians consider honouring past agreements and abiding by laws are part of peace order and good government. You might ask why it was done the way it was in 1867. Why weren't all powers transferred at Confederation?

Even if some Canadians had wanted that (which I doubt there were many, Republicanism was never a large movement here) it is not what a majority of Canadians wanted. We were British, and most liked it that way. London had to push and prod some of the colonies to join Confederation as it was.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn

I can see how you might have that reaction. Maybe once you evolve past the WW2 bargain bin at Chapters, "complicated", nuanced interpretations of history won't seem so shocking.

As I've said before, the history I use is not of my own invention. In fact, its entirely mainstream academic history.

Its difficult to address any of your points without understanding that you are, by and large, a complacent nationalist. Its also difficult to address points which involve nothing but platitudinal whimsies and regurgitated high school history factoids. You've demonstrated a lack of interest in critical thinking time and time again and its hard to imagine this ever changing.

But the next time I'm in the mood to bang my head against a wall and exchange the most basic, elementary level rubbish, I'll know where to look.

Jimmy, you are striking me as the prototypical ugly American. You've been here 6 months and you presume that you know more about us and our history than people who've lived and studied here their entire lives.This isn't the first time. However, let's give you a chance.

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Also, you're projecting the current view of WW2 as "the Great war" and "the greatest generation of warriors" onto the past. I think the average person in North America at the time would have seen it as just another one of the many many conflicts to take place in Europe.... so naturally people wouldn't be all gung ho about spending billions on someone else's big fight. In fact, Canadians and Newfoundlanders were resentful of being obliged to go over and fight another of Britain's wars - remember, this would have been just after WWI, just after the Boer War, etc. People were just sick of being forced to fight for Britain. It was also well known that Newfoundlanders and Canadians (the "colonials") would be used as front line cannon fodder for the British... one of the reasons why our casualities are so unusually high.

So to say that Canada (or Newfoundland) fought because it had some kind of moral high ground is just blatantly false. In fact, that Canada and Newfoundland were forced to take on such an un-naturally big burden for a war that largely didn't involve them is one of the great injustices of the 20th century. It was also one of the catalysts for Newfoundland and Canada's final split with GB.

Please demonstrate how Canadians were ho hum about 'just another one of the many many conflicts to take place in Europe'

Please qualify "Canadians and Newfoundlanders were resentful of being obliged to go over and fight another of Britain's wars." 5% of Canadians? 10%? 75% What is the basis of your statement?

Please offer some support for this. "Canadians (the "colonials") would be used as front line cannon fodder for the British... one of the reasons why our casualities are so unusually high."

What in the world made you say this? "In fact, that Canada and Newfoundland were forced to take on such an un-naturally big burden for a war that largely didn't involve them is one of the great injustices of the 20th century."

Elaborate a little, Jimmy. Maybe you'll have some basis from "mainstream academic history" for some of it and we can correct each other.