DiamondGooner wrote:Pat Rice in Short Shorts wrote:Can I ask how old you are? Not a hostile question, I am seriously interested in why certain generations view historic events so differently. I grew up in a home which had the leaded windows bowed in from German bombs. There were still ruble filled vacant properties all across South London where homes once stood. This was in the sixties, and the war was just 40 years past.
As for war, having fought in two I can assure you that it is far better for civilians and combatants alike (as a whole obviously) when the decision to take military action is taken to just go in and win. That is what nuking Japan was about. Half assed military operations like Viet Nam and the current conflicts in the desert are far worse in the end. Nobody is flag waving.
BTW, the US and allies including Arab nations are securing the few oil wells in Syria because ISIS was funding themselves through the proceeds. Trump spouts off about keeping the money to pay for cost of defending the rest of the world but that is all talk. The US spends trillions of dollars rebuilding nations of leaders that they defeat. FFS, if not for the US we would be speaking German. Yup I used the cliche...but it was true then and it is true now.
39 and as hard nosed as they come.
I just know that the West re-writes history from their perch, if Russia nuked London or Newyork we'd never forgive them for as long as humans live and breath and you know it.
Vietnam was a shocker, but it was armed personel mainly fighting each other, the ones who felt hard done by mainly were the Americans because they actually had to fight a war like everyone else does.
............. the result is the public get a distaste for war, not what they do now where they sit at home and the 10 o'clock News looks like an exciting scene from Top Gun and all you see are fancy jets and at worst a plume of smoke with no thought to who's under that plume.
Just imagine for one moment Russia or China flew Jets into England and bombed Manchester, we'd be going fkin mental and besides ourself ............. for people in Syria that's daily life.
Basically what I'm saying is, its all well and good, even "Win, win" when its not happening to you, a lot of people cant comprehend the difference because they've never had to experience it.
We did in the 1940's and haven't shut up about it since.
What I think you are ignoring is the difference between defending one's nation from aggression and instigating the aggression.
The nukes the US developed came just in time as the Germans were getting close to having the first one. Are you that confident in the morality of the likes of Hitler and Hirohito to suggest that they would not have nuked London had they been able to? Think about it, that would have won the wars they started.
As someone else wisely stated the nuking of Japan demonstrated to everyone just how terrible those weapons are when used. That had a huge effect on how Vietnam was fought. Don't forget that it was South Vietnam fighting invasion by proxy from the USSR and China during the height of the cold war when the communists were trying to do exactly what the Axis was up to. Like I said, everything needs to be viewed through the lense of the times.
The cold war standoff was based on mutually assured destruction, and quite frankly that probably saved millions upon millions of lives rather than fighting ground wars. That said there were enough proxy wars going on that most folks in the west ignored because they were not fought 30 miles from Dover.