On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:18:04 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:


"Eiron" wrote in message
...
On 25/02/2011 16:27, Keith G wrote:


Why do your posts come out in such tiny lettering? What are the font
settings - are they less than 11 pt. in 'Compose'?

No idea. As far as I can tell, my posts are in plain text.


But at what size? Does anybody else get your posts in tiny text I wonder?


My newsreader sets its own text size and font. Or rather I have chosen
them in a settings menu. As far as it is concerned every post is just
plain ascii text with no extra parameters attached.

Simpler is usually better.

d

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in
message

But doesn't describe everyone having to speak German.

Right, but that is clearly implied.

In any case Hitler made up policy on the hoof.

During the war, yes. We'll never know for sure what he would have done had
he won the war. But the goal of establishing the "Thousand Year Reich"
suggests something well-organized and pervasive.

As you say we'll never know.


I've noticed this face-saving myth seems popular in
certain sections of American society, that the US only
lost the war in Vietnam because it was fighting "with one
hand tied behind it's back".

Two hands. We had to deal with the mess the French left behind.

No you didn't! The US could (and should) have stayed well out of it. There
was absolutely no reason for the US to go charging in when the French had
very sensibly decided to withdraw. The phrase "fools rush in where angels
fear to tread" comes to mind, it sums up the US decision to take over the
colonial role of the French extremely well. In the end, of course, it was
the poor old Vietnamese who had to sort out the mess when the Americans
finally left.


We came out of the Vietnam war with vast stocks of ordinance, some of
which we worked off in Kuwait. We never ever gave Vietnam our all.

Not in terms of US industrial production, no. But, with the exception of
nuclear weapons, there was no war-fighting tactic or technology left
untried.

What we actually see is a military, frustrated at
being unable to defeat a supposedly inferior enemy,
resorting to almost any tactic to try and "win".

No, we did not use *any tactic*.

Near enough.

It's understandable that some US troops, trained to
regard the Vietnamese as barely human, resented having any rules
imposed on them at all.

You're speculating wildly.

Am I? I don't think so.

But it's also understandable that
politicians, all too well aware of the devastating effect
news of each new massacre was having on both domestic and
international public opinion, wished to keep such
massacres to a minimum.

The fact is that massacres are not effective.

True, which is why rules of engagement are instituted to try and stop them
happening. But with the sort of conflict that the Vietnam war was, they
happen.

Since it was public opinion that eventually forced the US
government to throw in the towel it's arguable that had
those rules of engagement not been in place the US would
have been forced to concede defeat sooner.

Thanks for admitting that due to poltical considerations we never were
able to give the war our worst.

I don't know what you mean by "your worst". The US tried it's damndest to
win that war, and failed. It didn't lose because it wasn't trying, it lost
because it had the wrong troops and the wrong strategy. Not having rules of
engagement would not have made a difference to the final outcome.

Not using nukes serves our own purposes, because within
a week, fallout from anyplace falls on us.

And within a day the far more important fallout of
international opinion would have made a little matter of
radioactive fallout seem insignificant. Whether the US
likes it or not (and it frequently gives the impression
that it doesn't) it is, actually, just one nation amongst
many on this planet, and does have to co-exist with the
others.

World opinion does not kill.

If it resulted in military action being taken by another power?

Sticks and stones and all that. Fall out does kill. Worrying what happens
tomorrow is not as compelling as worrying about what happens for the rest
of your life, particularly when that means that you're dead in a month.

You claim to be a Christian, yet I haven't spotted a hint
of regret on your part at the considerable death,
destruction and suffering that the US inflicted on
Vietnam.

It happened against my will. I sacrificed to not be a direct part of it.
It clearly would have happened even if I burnt myself to death on the
steps of the White House.

I'm not asking you to burn yourself to death. I was just hoping that you'd
agree that the Vietnam war was as much the result of stupidity and arrogance
as Hitler's invasion of Russia was.

And before you accuse me again of "UK
chauvinism" I'd mention that I am every bit as critical
of much of British policy in acquiring and administering
the "British Empire", as I am of US foreign policy in the
post-WW2 era.

I'm not faulting that. I'm faulting the false idea that the US wasn't a
deciding factor in WW2. Note: "a deciding factor", not "the deciding
factor". We tried hard to keep WW2 from happening, but Europe had to go
its own way. We worked hard to pick up the pieces when it was all done,
and give them back to the Europeans. The Europeans did learn and did
better.


When did I say that the US wasn't a deciding factor? Clearly the US was
*the* deciding factor in the Pacific war, in Europe it was *a* deciding
factor. All I challenged was the idea that, without US involvement, "we'd
all be speaking German". Leaving aside the quaint idea that the inhabitants
of Europe would have all started speaking German simply because Hitler
wanted them to, I simply argued that, even without US involvement, the
Soviet Union could, and would, (eventually) have defeated Germany.

I'm not sure what you mean by "We tried hard to keep WW2 from happening".
There were a lot of Nazi sympathisers in the US before the war,
proportionately even more than there were in Britain, and the only American
efforts to stop WW2 from happening that I know of came from them.

And I regard your comment "The Europeans did learn and did better" as
patronising. How long did it take the Americans to learn that they should
never have gone to war in Vietnam?

David.

Keith G said...

But at what size? Does anybody else get your posts in tiny text I wonder?

Using Gravity everyone looks the same. I've just fired up Windows Mail
and subscribed to the group and while most messages display correctly,
Eiron's messages are displayed in a tiny font.

Must be the way WM handles different character sets.

--
Ken O'Meara
http://www.btinternet.com/~unsteadyken/

"UnsteadyKen" wrote in message
m...
Keith G said...

But at what size? Does anybody else get your posts in tiny text I wonder?

Using Gravity everyone looks the same. I've just fired up Windows Mail
and subscribed to the group and while most messages display correctly,
Eiron's messages are displayed in a tiny font.

Must be the way WM handles different character sets.


OK Ken, thanks for that! It tells me I'm not the only one and it's not at my
end!

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
Why do your posts come out in such tiny lettering? What are the font
settings - are they less than 11 pt. in 'Compose'?

No idea. As far as I can tell, my posts are in plain text.


But at what size? Does anybody else get your posts in tiny text I wonder?

Posts to usenet don't include font size or indeed font details.

--
*One of us is thinking about sex... OK, it's me.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:23:44 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
Why do your posts come out in such tiny lettering? What are the font
settings - are they less than 11 pt. in 'Compose'?

No idea. As far as I can tell, my posts are in plain text.


But at what size? Does anybody else get your posts in tiny text I wonder?

Posts to usenet don't include font size or indeed font details.

They can, but in a text-only group such as this they should by rights
get filtered out by the system. Unfortunately Usenet is no longer run
properly and text groups are in effect part binary.

d

"David Looser" wrote in
message

No you didn't! The US could (and should) have stayed well
out of it. There was absolutely no reason for the US to
go charging in when the French had very sensibly decided
to withdraw. The phrase "fools rush in where angels fear
to tread" comes to mind, it sums up the US decision to
take over the colonial role of the French extremely well.
In the end, of course, it was the poor old Vietnamese who
had to sort out the mess when the Americans finally left.

I agree that the US should have handled Vietnam differently. For example, Ho
Chi Minh had made overtures to the US, but we were too interested in
remaining friends with the French to follow up on them. Note that we handled
Egypt differently.

We came out of the Vietnam war with vast stocks of
ordinance, some of which we worked off in Kuwait. We
never ever gave Vietnam our all.

Not in terms of US industrial production, no. But, with
the exception of nuclear weapons, there was no
war-fighting tactic or technology left untried.

I'm sure this is an error of omission on your part, but we had both chemical
and biological weapons on hand that we never used in Vietnam.

What we failed to do is give it our full-court press in terms of volume and
strategy.

What we actually see is a military, frustrated at
being unable to defeat a supposedly inferior enemy,
resorting to almost any tactic to try and "win".

No, we did not use *any tactic*.

Near enough.

Not near enough to win! ;-)

It's understandable that some US troops, trained to
regard the Vietnamese as barely human, resented having
any rules imposed on them at all.

You're speculating wildly.

Am I? I don't think so.

I was trained to fight in Vietnam and knew many returnees. There was no such
training.

But it's also understandable that
politicians, all too well aware of the devastating
effect news of each new massacre was having on both domestic
and international public opinion, wished to keep such
massacres to a minimum.

The fact is that massacres are not effective.

True, which is why rules of engagement are instituted to
try and stop them happening. But with the sort of
conflict that the Vietnam war was, they happen.

And did. But not so many.

Since it was public opinion that eventually forced the
US government to throw in the towel it's arguable that
had those rules of engagement not been in place the US would
have been forced to concede defeat sooner.

Thanks for admitting that due to poltical considerations
we never were able to give the war our worst.

I don't know what you mean by "your worst".

Now discussed above.

The US tried
it's damndest to win that war, and failed.

Not our damndist. Not even near.

It didn't lose because it wasn't trying, it lost because it had the
wrong troops and the wrong strategy.

The troops were at least adequate. It was the wrong strategy that ruined our
effort, but more effective strategies were known to us.

Not having rules of
engagement would not have made a difference to the final
outcome.

That makes me believe that you don't understand how limiting rules of
engagement can be and in this case, were.

Not using nukes serves our own purposes, because within
a week, fallout from anyplace falls on us.

And within a day the far more important fallout of
international opinion would have made a little matter of
radioactive fallout seem insignificant. Whether the US
likes it or not (and it frequently gives the impression
that it doesn't) it is, actually, just one nation
amongst many on this planet, and does have to co-exist with the
others.

World opinion does not kill.

If it resulted in military action being taken by another
power?

Who is going to take the US over against our will?

Sticks and stones and all that. Fall out does kill.
Worrying what happens tomorrow is not as compelling as
worrying about what happens for the rest of your life,
particularly when that means that you're dead in a
month.

You claim to be a Christian, yet I haven't spotted a
hint of regret on your part at the considerable death,
destruction and suffering that the US inflicted on
Vietnam.

It happened against my will. I sacrificed to not be a
direct part of it. It clearly would have happened even
if I burnt myself to death on the steps of the White
House.

I'm not asking you to burn yourself to death. I was just
hoping that you'd agree that the Vietnam war was as much
the result of stupidity and arrogance as Hitler's
invasion of Russia was.

I think that in both cases the option to simply not go there existed, and
both parties were foolish to not exercise that option.

Its interesting to see that left to their own devices, the Vietnamese have
become friendly enough with us.

And before you accuse me again of "UK
chauvinism" I'd mention that I am every bit as critical
of much of British policy in acquiring and administering
the "British Empire", as I am of US foreign policy in
the post-WW2 era.

I'm not faulting that. I'm faulting the false idea that
the US wasn't a deciding factor in WW2. Note: "a
deciding factor", not "the deciding factor". We tried
hard to keep WW2 from happening, but Europe had to go
its own way. We worked hard to pick up the pieces when
it was all done, and give them back to the Europeans.
The Europeans did learn and did better.

When did I say that the US wasn't a deciding factor?

If you never meant to give that impression then that is a good thing.

Clearly the US was *the* deciding factor in the Pacific
war, in Europe it was *a* deciding factor. All I
challenged was the idea that, without US involvement,
"we'd all be speaking German".

Whether you'd be actually speaking German or speaking to Germans when ever
you wanted to wipe you tooshies, not such a big difference in my book.

Leaving aside the quaint
idea that the inhabitants of Europe would have all
started speaking German simply because Hitler wanted them
to, I simply argued that, even without US involvement,
the Soviet Union could, and would, (eventually) have
defeated Germany.

I don't think that the current collected undrstanding of of historians go
that far.

I'm not sure what you mean by "We tried hard to keep WW2
from happening".

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

"The United States took a more conciliatory view toward the issue of German
reparations. Before the end of the war, President Woodrow Wilson, along with
other American officials including Edward M. House, put forward his Fourteen
Points, which he presented in a speech at the Paris Peace Conference. The
United States also wished to continue trading with Germany, so in turn did
not want to treat them too harshly for these economic reasons."

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_nations

/
There were a lot of Nazi sympathisers in
the US before the war, proportionately even more than
there were in Britain, and the only American efforts to
stop WW2 from happening that I know of came from them.

And I regard your comment "The Europeans did learn and
did better" as patronising. How long did it take the
Americans to learn that they should never have gone to
war in Vietnam?

Many in the US knew that well before the actual war began! Many more knew
that in the middle of the war and by the end of the war just about everybody
knew that.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in
message


I agree that the US should have handled Vietnam differently.

Indeed. The big mistake was to get involved with Vietnam at all.

After WW2 the French thought they could just take their former colony back
as if nothing had happened. Naturally the Vietnamese disagreed; they hadn't
fought to expel the Japanese just to let the French back in and were quite
prepared to continue their war of national liberation against any foreign
power that thought otherwise.

For example, Ho Chi Minh had made overtures to the US, but we were too
interested in remaining friends with the French to follow up on them.

Or: the US allowed it's cold-war paranoia about "communism" to determine
it's foreign policy.

Note that we handled Egypt differently.

When did the US "handle" Egypt?

I'm sure this is an error of omission on your part, but we had both
chemical and biological weapons on hand that we never used in Vietnam.

Well OK, but these weapons had never been used anywhere by the US, and
rarely by any other nation as much because of real doubts about their
utility and safety (to one's own troops) as because of ethical concerns.
Mind you the use of chemical defoliants sounds a lot like chemical and/or
biological warfare.


Near enough.

Not near enough to win! ;-)

It's understandable that some US troops, trained to
regard the Vietnamese as barely human, resented having
any rules imposed on them at all.

You're speculating wildly.

Am I? I don't think so.

I was trained to fight in Vietnam and knew many returnees. There was no
such training.

I didn't mean formal army training. But in any war the de-humanising of the
enemy is part of the process of psychologically preparing ones troops to
kill. Its certainly easier when there are racial and cultural differences,
as in Vietnam. But even when these differences do not exist this
dehumanising goes on. Look at some of the anti-German propaganda in British
newspapers in the early months of WW1.


But it's also understandable that
politicians, all too well aware of the devastating
effect news of each new massacre was having on both domestic
and international public opinion, wished to keep such
massacres to a minimum.

The fact is that massacres are not effective.

True, which is why rules of engagement are instituted to
try and stop them happening. But with the sort of
conflict that the Vietnam war was, they happen.

And did. But not so many.

Not so many as what? There are many well documented examples of atrocities
committed by both sides during the Vietnam war.

The US tried
it's damndest to win that war, and failed.

Not our damndist. Not even near.

I find that a bizarre claim. The Vietnam war cost the US dear. All the
deaths, the injuries and broken lives. The social disruption, the alienation
of a generation, the loss of international repetition not to mention the
huge financial cost. And you are telling me that the US paid that price, and
then lost the war simply *because it didn't try*? Unbelievable!

It didn't lose because it wasn't trying, it lost because it had the
wrong troops and the wrong strategy.

The troops were at least adequate.

Most historians seem to agree that poor moral amongst US conscripts was a
major factor in the US defeat.

It was the wrong strategy that ruined our effort,

And underestimating the enemy (always a mistake).

Not having rules of
engagement would not have made a difference to the final
outcome.

That makes me believe that you don't understand how limiting rules of
engagement can be and in this case, were.

So what were these limiting rules of engagement?


World opinion does not kill.

If it resulted in military action being taken by another
power?

Who is going to take the US over against our will?

Military action doesn't have to be a take-over. A limited attack on US
interests and US personel could still kill plenty.


I think that in both cases the option to simply not go there existed, and
both parties were foolish to not exercise that option.

Its interesting to see that left to their own devices, the Vietnamese have
become friendly enough with us.

Indeed, demonstrating that the outcome feared by the US when the French
withdrew was illusory.


Leaving aside the quaint
idea that the inhabitants of Europe would have all
started speaking German simply because Hitler wanted them
to, I simply argued that, even without US involvement,
the Soviet Union could, and would, (eventually) have
defeated Germany.

I don't think that the current collected undrstanding of of historians go
that far.

I imagine that Russian historians might disagree.

There has been an unfortunate tendency in the west to understate the Soviet
contribution to the defeat of Hitler. The Soviet forces stopped the German
advance at Stalingrad largely on their own, and then pushed the German
forces back, again largely on their own. The Soviet union was vast, and
could build huge armaments factories out of range of German bombers. Once
geared up for total war the Red Army was a formidable fighting force and the
Russians badly wanted revenge for the appalling way that German forces had
behaved in Russia. Given also that, unlike Hitler, Stalin had the sense to
leave strategy to his generals my money's on Stalin beating Hitler, rather
than the other way about.

Of course this can never be anything more than speculation. The other
alternative history is that Hitler kept to his non-aggression pact with
Stalin. In that case he could have consolidated a European Empire that ran
from the Atlantic coast to Poland. Whether he would have felt it worth
having another go at invading Britain or not there would have been little
that Britain, without US help, could have done about Hitler's continental
empire, especially with Fascist dictators in Italy and Spain as well. My
guess is that Britain would have sued for peace and, whilst remaining
outside of the German Empire, would have become marginalised on the world
stage.

I'm not sure what you mean by "We tried hard to keep WW2
from happening".

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

"The United States took a more conciliatory view toward the issue of
German reparations. Before the end of the war, President Woodrow Wilson,
along with other American officials including Edward M. House, put forward
his Fourteen Points, which he presented in a speech at the Paris Peace
Conference. The United States also wished to continue trading with
Germany, so in turn did not want to treat them too harshly for these
economic reasons."

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_nations

Are you telling me that Wilson had a 20-year crystal ball and could thus
forsee the rise of the Nazi party and Hitler's to the position of German
Chancellor?

*With hindsight* we can see that the harsh terms imposed on Germany
at the treaty of Versailles contributed to the conditions that lead,
eventually, to WW2. But to suggest that Wilson's "fouteen points" can be
interpreted as "trying to keep WW2 from happening" seems to me to be a
considerable misuse of historical hindsight.

David.

"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in
message


I agree that the US should have handled Vietnam
differently.

Indeed. The big mistake was to get involved with Vietnam
at all.

After WW2 the French thought they could just take their
former colony back as if nothing had happened. Naturally
the Vietnamese disagreed; they hadn't fought to expel the
Japanese just to let the French back in and were quite
prepared to continue their war of national liberation
against any foreign power that thought otherwise.

For example, Ho Chi Minh had made overtures to the US,
but we were too interested in remaining friends with the
French to follow up on them.

Or: the US allowed it's cold-war paranoia about
"communism" to determine it's foreign policy.

Some of that, too. History says that we overestimated the Russians.

Note that we handled Egypt differently.

When did the US "handle" Egypt?

The Suez crisis. We chose not to support the UK.

I'm sure this is an error of omission on your part, but
we had both chemical and biological weapons on hand that
we never used in Vietnam.

Well OK, but these weapons had never been used anywhere
by the US, and rarely by any other nation as much because
of real doubts about their utility and safety (to one's
own troops) as because of ethical concerns.

Agreed.

Mind you the use of chemical defoliants sounds a lot like chemical
and/or biological warfare.

That is a really broad brush you're weilding there. The defoliants were
mostly 2, 4D which is a household chemical in the US.

Near enough.

Not near enough to win! ;-)

It's understandable that some US troops, trained to
regard the Vietnamese as barely human, resented
having any rules imposed on them at all.

You're speculating wildly.

Am I? I don't think so.

I was trained to fight in Vietnam and knew many
returnees. There was no such training.

I didn't mean formal army training. But in any war the
de-humanising of the enemy is part of the process of
psychologically preparing ones troops to kill. Its
certainly easier when there are racial and cultural
differences, as in Vietnam. But even when these
differences do not exist this dehumanising goes on. Look
at some of the anti-German propaganda in British
newspapers in the early months of WW1.

That's not training. In fact its a training failure.

But it's also understandable that
politicians, all too well aware of the devastating
effect news of each new massacre was having on both
domestic and international public opinion, wished to
keep such massacres to a minimum.

The fact is that massacres are not effective.

True, which is why rules of engagement are instituted to
try and stop them happening. But with the sort of
conflict that the Vietnam war was, they happen.

And did. But not so many.

Not so many as what? There are many well documented
examples of atrocities committed by both sides during the
Vietnam war.

They were exceptional cases. Everybody makes mistakes.

The US tried
it's damndest to win that war, and failed.

Not our damndist. Not even near.

I find that a bizarre claim.

You seem to prefer to underestimate the US.

The Vietnam war cost the US dear.

Not really all that bad.

All the deaths, the injuries and broken lives.

Vietnam 58,209 deaths
Korea 53,686 deaths
WW2 405,399 deaths
WW1 116,516 deaths

The social disruption, the alienation of a generation, the
loss of international repetition not to mention the huge
financial cost.

The Vietnam war had hardly any actual impact on day-to-day life in the US
other than TV news. And, the current wars may actually be causing more
perceived loss.

And you are telling me that the US paid
that price, and then lost the war simply *because it
didn't try*? Unbelievable!

AFAIK, Britiain lost the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 for
exactly that reason. Together, they cost Britain one of the most valuable
colonies in the history of man.

It didn't lose because it wasn't trying, it lost
because it had the wrong troops and the wrong strategy.

The troops were at least adequate.

Most historians seem to agree that poor moral amongst US
conscripts was a major factor in the US defeat.

No, history says that the poor morale was in Washington DC and among
civilians.

It was the wrong strategy that ruined our effort,

And underestimating the enemy (always a mistake).

If you want to talk about paying a price, count their costs!

Not having rules of
engagement would not have made a difference to the final
outcome.

That makes me believe that you don't understand how
limiting rules of engagement can be and in this case,
were.

So what were these limiting rules of engagement?

That's a long story:

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/AirOps/cas-roe.html

World opinion does not kill.

If it resulted in military action being taken by another
power?

Who is going to take the US over against our will?

Military action doesn't have to be a take-over. A limited
attack on US interests and US personel could still kill
plenty.

Vague. Nothing to respond to.

I think that in both cases the option to simply not go
there existed, and both parties were foolish to not
exercise that option.

Its interesting to see that left to their own devices,
the Vietnamese have become friendly enough with us.

Indeed, demonstrating that the outcome feared by the US
when the French withdrew was illusory.

I'm not disagreeing with that. It is possible that a perception of that
fact is one reason why we stopped our devastation of Vietnam.

Leaving aside the quaint
idea that the inhabitants of Europe would have all
started speaking German simply because Hitler wanted
them to, I simply argued that, even without US involvement,
the Soviet Union could, and would, (eventually) have
defeated Germany.

I don't think that the current collected undrstanding of
of historians go that far.

I imagine that Russian historians might disagree.

Probably, but that is just them. ;-)

There has been an unfortunate tendency in the west to
understate the Soviet contribution to the defeat of
Hitler.

I don't know about that.

The Soviet forces stopped the German advance at
Stalingrad largely on their own, and then pushed the
German forces back, again largely on their own. The
Soviet union was vast, and could build huge armaments
factories out of range of German bombers. Once geared up
for total war the Red Army was a formidable fighting
force and the Russians badly wanted revenge for the
appalling way that German forces had behaved in Russia.
Given also that, unlike Hitler, Stalin had the sense to
leave strategy to his generals my money's on Stalin
beating Hitler, rather than the other way about.

You seem to forget that Stalin killed or jailed virtually every senior
officer before the war started.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/AirOps/cas-roe.html

"He eliminated all political enemies, including a revolutionary rival named
Leonid Trotsky, *all high commanding officers in his army*, all foreign
ministers that had left the country and returned, all religious leaders and
priests, and an extra 40 random people every day."


I'm not sure what you mean by "We tried hard to keep WW2
from happening".

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

"The United States took a more conciliatory view toward
the issue of German reparations. Before the end of the
war, President Woodrow Wilson, along with other American
officials including Edward M. House, put forward his
Fourteen Points, which he presented in a speech at the
Paris Peace Conference. The United States also wished to
continue trading with Germany, so in turn did not want
to treat them too harshly for these economic reasons." (2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_nations

Are you telling me that Wilson had a 20-year crystal ball
and could thus forsee the rise of the Nazi party and
Hitler's to the position of German Chancellor?

His crystal ball was probably too fuzzy for that level of detail.

*With hindsight* we can see that the harsh terms imposed
on Germany at the treaty of Versailles contributed to the conditions
that lead, eventually, to WW2. But to suggest that
Wilson's "fouteen points" can be interpreted as "trying
to keep WW2 from happening" seems to me to be a
considerable misuse of historical hindsight.

You get to have whatever opinon you want. ;-)

I don't think that anybody else tried harder to do the right thing than
Wilson and the US. Certainly France and Britain were all to eager to do the
wrong things.

In article ,
Arny Krueger wrote:
"David Looser" wrote in

Mind you the use of chemical defoliants sounds a lot like chemical
and/or biological warfare.

That is a really broad brush you're weilding there. The defoliants were
mostly 2, 4D which is a household chemical in the US.

That seems a very odd comment.

Bleach is a common household product. But is also sometimes used by bank
robbers to squirt into the eyes of people and make their robbery easier.

Many simple 'everyday' chemicals can also be used for other purposes. e.g.
the use of such to make large car-bombs for terrorist activity. As I think
has been seen in the USA as well as elsewhere.

So I'm not sure why one chemical being "houshold" for some purpose somehow
means its use in a conflict for other reasons can be dismissed.

The problem I think David was referring to was the deliberate use of
'chemical agents' for (declared) purposes of defoliating lare areas of
land. Said chemicals then had all kinds of side-effects and damaging
consequences.

It would equally seem odd to me to dismiss dropping napalm on civilians
because "people use similar gels like vasaline at home".



The Vietnam war cost the US dear.

Not really all that bad.

All the deaths, the injuries and broken lives.

Vietnam 58,209 deaths
Korea 53,686 deaths
WW2 405,399 deaths
WW1 116,516 deaths

It would be interesting to now compare those figures with the totals for
the two WWs. And perhaps with the total deaths in the earlier two.


There has been an unfortunate tendency in the west to
understate the Soviet contribution to the defeat of
Hitler.

I don't know about that.

Honest answer. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

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