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Re: More history (on meaning of Pearl Harbor) [OT]

  • From: Dean Robb
  • Date: Sun Sep 16 21:36:48 2001 
At 03:09 AM 9/15/2001, Vadim Antonov wrote:


If whoever bothered to invent that pseudo-quotation bothered to learn
hitory of WWII, he'd know that most military action had seen no American
involvement at all.  The widely regarded as the turning point of WWII was
Stalingrad battle, after which Red Army began the advancement on all
fronts.
Most Eastern Front action (although the 15th Air Force was helpful to the Russians with air support and Lend-Lease provided a great deal of Russian logistic vehicles), true. However, the North African campaign (Operation Torch, et al) and the Italian campaigns were conducted primarily by Americans. Of course, while the Normandy invasion and advance eastward were multi-national operations, the USA provided the vast majority of materiel, manpower, etc.

Stalingrad is widely regarded as the turning point for Germany's *Russian* campaign.

US become involved in the continental WWII to prevent Soviets from
occupation of the entire Europe, not to win the war with Germany.  It was
already going to be defeated (and it was the Red Army which took Berlin).
One wonders why Iosef Stalin was then so adamant that the other Allies MUST open a second front in France to sap German resources away from the Eastern Front? I must point out, too, that GEN Patton was poised to take Berlin well before the Russians arrived - but the political decision was made to allow the Red Army to take the city.

>From the point of view of saving Europe from communism it was a brilliant
move - wait for both sides to become exhausted before getting in.  By that
time the Red Army had no resources to fight both desperate Nazi and Allied
Forces (Japanese were no threat at all to USSR because it was protected
by huge very sparsely inhabited landmass, so they could be safely
ignored for a while), and this is how the modern political map of Europe
came to be.

I might point out that the Americans (and allies) had been fighting Germans in North Africa and Italy for quite some time - not "waiting to get in".

Furthermore, to say that Russia was not concerned with Japan is a gross mis-statement. From 1938-1940 Russia and Japan fought a series of skirmishes and minor battles along the Mongolian border with Manchuria (then the Japanese province of Manchuko, captured from the Chinese). The Japanese incursions into Russian territory were troubling enough to Iosef Stalin that he sent Zhukov (THE Zhukov) to stop them. On Aug 20,1939 he did just that - wiping out the entire Japanese 23d Div of the Kwantung Army at the Battle of Khalkin-Gol in the world's first example of blitzkrieg (learned from the Germans who used it in Poland 33 days later). After destroying the Japanese forces all the way to the interior Manchurian border, Zhokov then loaded his tanks onto trains for a quick trip east. Waiting for Zhukov and his armor is why the Russians were two weeks behind the Germans in taking their chunk of Poland.
Several divisions of men were left on the Mongolian border to ensure the sanctity of the Non-Aggression Pact signed on 16 Sep 1939.

After the Japanese took Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, and wiped out the Russian Pacific Fleet, Russia *NEVER* took Japan lightly. In fact, modern Red China exists because of heavy Russian support to the People's Army in their fight against the Japanese; support intended to keep the Japanese from being a major threat to Russia. Russia didn't even declare war on the Japanese until 8 Aug 1945 - 2 days AFTER Hiroshima and the day before Nagasaki were A-bombed.


Of course, American school textbooks forget those small details and make
it look like that US nearly single-handedly defeated fascism.  It didn't.
My history books included all kinds of small details - like the 15th Air Force flying ground support missions from North Africa and Sicily to assist the Red Army. Like Lend-Lease which provided Russia with most of it's logistic vehicles and a significant number of tanks - not to mention war materiel.

To get a sense of what was going on and who was fighting whom see

        http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2-loss.htm

??  This does nothing to support your contentions...



And if you ever wondered why America dropped A-bomb on Japan - it was to
prevent imminent occupation of Japan by the Red Army.  After Germany
capitulated the Soviet armies were quickly shipped eastward, and were
quickly advancing (this you can also see on the world political map,
especially if you compare pre-war and post-war boundaries).  The only way
to prevent People's Republic of Japan was to scare s*t out of Japanese to
force them to capitulate to Americans.
Again, note that Russia didn't declare war on Japan until 8 Aug 1945 - 6 days before Japan surrendered. Although Russia *DID* invade Manchuria after declaring war, the Japanese had already abandoned it. Furthermore, the Russians had NO naval capacity and no landing craft - were they going to swim to Tokyo from Mongolia? With the US on the Japanese doorstep?

The myth that American involvement in WWII made a significant difference
from the point of view of defeating fascism is just a myth. What US involvement did is to check advancement of communists, not Nazis.
I think that the NDSP, Vichy French and Italian Fascisti would find fault with that statement.


No wonder, US immediately took place of the main enemy of the Soviet
Union. It still was worth it, Stalin was no better than Hitler.
Stalin was always suspicious of the other allies. The enemity of the US/USSR is a far larger issue than this.

Sorry, fellow Americans, you _are_ brainwashed if you believe the drivel
they teach you as "history".  "Fascist powers were doomed" because of
Pearl Harbor, sure.  Until you check the figures and actually think for a
second or two.
Sorry, "fellow American" - your viewpoint of history shows a strong disregard for the facts and figures - as well as a lack of thought.

PS      If you want to know how _that_ is related to Sep 11, you may be
        interested to know that Chechens were collaborating with Nazi;
        which prompted Stalin to retaliate after the war with mass
        deportations.  They were allowed to return decade or so later,
        having no love for Russians and the Allies in WWII.  That's how
        their militant leaders became natural allies with Middle-Eastern
        terrorists, including (surprise) bin Laden.
Somehow, the connection between Chechens not liking the US and the argument that the US was a minor player in WWII escapes me...

Further discourse can be off-list - but I could not let this public gross mis-representation of history stand.



Dean Robb
www.PC-Easy-va.com
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Member, ICANN At Large