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Post Info TOPIC: Not sure if this is allowed here, but I was wondering if anyone knows a gay site like this one?


Goddess

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RE: Not sure if this is allowed here, but I was wondering if anyone knows a gay site like this one?


Needing the French to give you even a hope of victory counts as losing, yonder. Don't know what other war you could be talking about. The only war between the UK and US was the War of 1812, which we certainly didn't lose. Although I understand American revisionist history might tell you differently. The same history that tells you the US has never fought an aggressive war or ever had any of its land occupied by a foreign military.

Don't forget which of our nations burned down the government buildings of the other.

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Goddess

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If the British taught the world anything, it's that the victor writes the history book. And yeah, 1812 was a tie (do you guys actually call it the War of 1812?). Yes, it was a tie, but since you guys quit treating us like a sub-nation, we consider it a victory. How many sailors did you enslave (oh I'm sorry, empress) after 1812? M'kay, mission accomplished!:)

And yes, GG, the Americans owe their victory to many things. One being Howe's utter incompetence and arrogant nature (glad to see *THAT* changed... /cough), another was due to Washington's awesomeness, and yet another was due to the French navy *FINALLY* showing up just in time for the Brits to say "okay fine, we give up, egads, you idiots are simply not worth the effort!"

Seriously tho LD, thanks for not sending a real general to beat us. We tip our hats to you. /wink

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Goddess

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Washington was no great general, it's simply that Howe was a bad one. Just unfortunate that Wellington was busy fighting a real war. ;)

What else would the War of 1812 be called? I think at the time it was called the American War, which has a sort of logical sense to it. Never understood why you colonials got so mardy about the pressed sailors. The Royal Navy did that to everyone. Not even the officers were really volunteers.

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Lord David wrote:

The same history that tells you the US has never fought an aggressive war or ever had any of its land occupied by a foreign military.

 

Not sure which history book you have but the Japanese occupied two Aleutian Island from June 1942 to August 1943. 

 



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Goddess

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LD - I just figured you wouldn't have thought highly enough of it to actually call it a War. I figured maybe it was "that stupid annoying distraction over there that irritated us while we were putting Napoleon in his place" tho that doesn't quite roll of the tongue very well.

And so what if you enslaved everyone? It still annoyed the crap outta us. Pretty sure just about everyone else in the world agreed, it's just that we were the only ones with the balls to do anything about it (plus we were kinda uppity and wanted to prove ourselves, so that was a convenient excuse).

Washington *WAS* a great general. Just because you don't win a ton of battles doesn't mean you don't win the war. Ask General Giap of Vietnam or General Fabius of Rome or General Houston of Texas. Hannibal may have been a battlefield genius, but Fabius was better. He knew when *NOT* to fight. Many of the best generals were great because they knew when *NOT* to fight. In any given fight I doubt I'll take Washington, but as head of a *WAR*... heck yes, thank you verily much.

But yeah... we definitely agree on Howe. Also... there's some debate that he may have been a sympathizer (or at least wasn't fond of fighting a war for an insane king).

GeeBee - No one has ever claimed that. The claim is that US has never had any of its STATES occupied, and that's true, tho we've obviously had foreign troops on our state soil, ala 1812. Alaska in WW2 was a territory, the same as the Phillipines (mind you, our intent with the Phillipines in 1941 was to give it up and our intent with Alaska was for it to become a state). Point being, if you count Attu and Kiska, then obviously you're already counting Luzon and Minandao and Leyte and the other thousand or so Fillipino (seriously, why is it F?) islands. As for LD's history books... he reads British books. They're silly. As arrogant as we Americans are, we're not as arrogant as Europeans like to paint us as. I don't think most Americans know enough to be arrogant honestly. :)

Anywayz, I'm going to get back to my third reading of Liddel Hart, cuz that man knew how to write about war... tho I'd never name a kid Basil.



-- Edited by yonderboy on Tuesday 20th of December 2011 09:09:00 PM

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Goddess

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According to my reading, Washington is severely over-rated. I suppose you lot want a hero from back then, but really he was no great shakes as far as I'm aware. As we've established, the American colonies could only break away with French aid and with Britain fighting a real war against a real enemy and having sent an idiot over to fight you.

Ah, Hart, the real inventor of the Blitzkrieg. Even the documentaries on Discovery don't know the Germans didn't invent it, they only implemented it with typical efficiency.

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There's an AfterEllen equivalent called AfterElton, but I don't know of any EGMS

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Goddess

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I don't disagree with any of your facts LD, just the interpretation of Washington. It's all in what you want. If you want someone to lead an inferior force that needs to *SURVIVE* in order to have a *SHOT* at winning a war, then give me Washington. If you're going to give me two equal forces up against each other in a "fair" fight on an open battlefield, give me Napoleon or Wellington any day. Washington was a superb strategist. Big picture dude. AND... he knew who to appoint (very much like Napoleon on that last aspect). On the battlefield, he was decent. If you want his battlefield awesomeness, I give you the French And Indian War (see... we have different names, hence my question of the War of 1812 naming. Everyone knows the *REAL* name of the war was the Seven Years War. He was definitely good on the battlefield, but not incredible by any measure. And, of course, your "severely over-rated" thing is Washington's best trait. He was ROUTINELY under-rated.

If Howe (heh) hadn't underrated Washington then Washington never would have escaped Long Island (which, btw, was a SUPERB military maneuver). Same goes for Harlem Heights.

Washington was, yet again, underestimated at Trenton (a battle you guys weren't remotely expecting, thus more of an ambush). Now you want to talk *ACTUAL* battles? Shortly after Trenton was Cornwallis vs Princeton. Washington's first major "standard" victory, and he did pretty decently. So, yeah... strategist, not battlefield general (tho he was pretty good at that). Kinda like Eisenhower. And unlike the Napoleon Wars, you guys didn't have anything better to do in the 1770s. Cornwallis was good, Howe was............................ full of himself (I'm being nice). The wars in India were minor compared to Americaland. If Britain was half the Empire they claimed to be, you should have been able to win both at the same time. I do enjoy the phrase "Britain decided they'd rather have India"... it makes me grin.

We did have GOOD generals tho, and Washington. And, much like Eisenhower, Washington knew those when he saw them. I'll give you Arnold and Greene for our best standard and guerilla generals.

But it's no surprise that the Brits think Washington is overrated and Americans worship him as a military god. Let's look elsewhere to get a better view. He was an inspiration (militarily) to the Vietnamese, and we all know how that turned out. NO ONE thinks Giap was a better battlefield general than Westmoreland, but that didn't matter, did it?

Mind you, most of this is because, unlike the French, or virtually ANY general in WW1, Washington learned the correct lessons from Clausewitz. Good times.

No... you want to talk about overrated, I'll give you Monty and MacArthur (to be Fair & Balanced) from WW2. Ugh.

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Goddess

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I don't have enough knowledge of the 1770s to dispute your claims. I only know what a single history book had to say about Washington, and that book was written from the (humorous) point of view of our conflicts with the French over the centuries. Of course, we really ought to have been able to win both wars at the same time, but just like always the government didn't want to pay.

I don't think it's fair to say that Montgomery is overrated. He defeated Rommel, a feat no other general had thus far managed and led the 8th Army successfully in Sicily and Italy before transferring to France. What lets Montgomery down is his rivalry with Patton, who apart from being a terrible person was a decent general. If they'd cooperated instead of competing for glory Sicily in particular would have gone much easier. But then Sicily is another of those cases of a poorly-planned operation going wrong.

I don't know much about MacArthur, only that he allowed Japanese war criminals from Unit 731 to escape prosecution in exchange for information on their chemical weapons being handed over to the US and hidden from the wartime allies. For that alone I think he should have been hanged alongside the worse of the Second World War criminals.

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Goddess

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I can respect a man who admits his ignorance (tho I'm confused as to why you had an opinion in the first place), we all have our weaknesses in knowledge... nutting wrong with that. You're unsurprisingly wrong about Monty tho. Cunningham did just as well against Rommel as Monty did, the only reason Rommel *KEPT* retreating past Cyrenacia when Monty was pursuing was because the green Americans were in his rear and rebuilding his supply base wasn't an option. The only "defeat" he did with Rommel was to retreat (properly, just like Washington) to the *ONE* point in all of Africa where Rommel couldn't out-maneuver Monty and standfast and wait until he had an overwhelming supply buildup. He was definitely not bad, I just think he's overrated. He reminds me of McClellan (US Civil War), tho Monty was definitely not nearly as bad as McClellan. Maybe you don't view him as highly as most Brits I know who seem to worship Monty for reasons I cannot comprehend. Good(ish) general, sure, but far from the best British general. I actually think Alexander (Monty's boss during El Alemein I believe) is horribly underrated.

Patton is a perfect example of what I'm talkin about. Superb battlefield general. Horrible anything-above-battlefield. There's a reason he always had a boss (Bradley is one of the more underrated generals). And yeah, you're entirely right about Sicily, and you can apply the same logic to Tunisia as well, which the green Americans nearly totally screwed up. Luckily, Rommel's hands were tied and he wasn't allowed to completely stomp us and then turn around and stop Monty. North Africa and Sicily were America's European (theater, in the case of NA) bloodletting. We had a few lessons to learn, the same ones Rommel had taught you guys the years previously. That being said... it took you guys *WAY* too long to learn to not march straight at the 88s, didn't it? What's up w/ that :)

And yeah... MacArthur was crap. Here's another lil tidbit for you. The Phillipines were invaded 9 hours after Pearl Harbor. Mac was in charge. And yet, magically, most of the American planes were destroyed on the ground. HRMM.

But you want to talk Allied war criminals? I'll see your MacArthur and raise you Harris.

I think we can agree, tho, that Arthur Percival isn't the best example of British ingenuity?

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Goddess

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Oh, and I should ban you for hijacking this topic!!!!!!!!!

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Goddess

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Lol... the sad truth is... this is the most successful OT thread in over a year.

You people need to bring in more OT topics! Sheesh!!!

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Goddess

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I had an opinion about Washington because I've read a little bit.

By modern standards Harris would be a war criminal, but it was the Second World War that created those standards. Let's not forget that Britain wasn't the first nation in the war to actively and deliberately target civilian populations. It was wrong to do it, but at the time no choice was seen and I can't see, looking at the history, any viable alternative. After all, the war industry factories and associated facilities were in the civilian cities for the most part. Apart from bombing things like ports and airbases, which we were also doing, what other way was there to strike at the German war industry?

I think it's a great measure of the integrity of the British forces and government of the day that the worst war criminal that can be pointed out is Harris. Compared to the Nazi and Japanese war criminals he was nothing more than a man who tried to end the war. There were no sadistic medical experiments on German PoWs, no systematic slaughter of German nationals in the occupied German colonies, nothing like the evil of the Axis powers. Britain is certainly not blameless in history but compared to them we're like Sunday school teachers.

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Goddess

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I was comparing Harris to Patton and, more importantly, MacArthur. The only "war criminal" standards that MacArthur was guilty of, Harris was guilty of too. Btw... you want to talk Americans guilty of possible war crimes, you *HAVE* to talk about Hap Arnold. He looked at Dresden and said "What a glorious idea!" (I'm oversimplifying). But then again... one could argue that type of bombing was more necessary in the Pacific than in post-Normandy Europe. And, to be pragmatic, BOTH sides (read: American/Soviet) freed war criminals because they would be useful. That's not a comparison of American morality to Soviet morality, I'm saying Britain didn't do it because of the situation (they had America to do for the upcoming Cold War). I don't know IF Britain did but that's mostly because

1)Britain, unlike France, quickly accepted it's post-WW2 role as a world power (as opposed to superpower)
2)Britain had a crapton of awesome scientists/engineers. Now... could you have benefited from a few nazis? Sure. Did America *NEED* nazis more than Britain did? I think so. Does that mean America was *behind* britain in top-level science in 1945? I'd wager no. But only barely. Then again, you guys were slightly naive about the cold war (Churchill *OBVIOUSLY* excepted). I point to you "Sir" Stafford Cripps, the dude who sold the Soviet Union Britains post-WW2 jet plane. *THANKS FOR THAT* :) Britain has earned a permanent /glare from me for that.

Speaking of glare-earning.... I've never understood parliamentary governments. Do you guys just throw your hands up in disgust and give up whenever you feel like it? I'm specifically referring to the "vote of no confidence" in parliamentary nations (the ones that copy the British, I'm not talking Russian governments... holy CRAP I'm not even going to try to understand *THAT*!) and the what APPEARS to be unscheduled election cycle. But I suppose that's a whole other discussion. I just don't understand how Britain could give Churchill the boot in 1945. I realize that, in the British view, the war was over (Germany>Japan, even more for Britain than for America) but sheesh. Seemed a BIT early.

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Goddess

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As I understand it, Churchill was a great wartime prime minister, but no one wanted him around in peacetime. Plus, we British have a way of producing great soldiers, using them for everything they're worth, then dumping them as soon as the shooting is over. We always do it. We produce the best army in the world, trounce the enemy, then sack the lot and leave them to starve in the gutter.

What is it you don't understand about parliamentary government? I didn't follow your post very well.

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