Things we don't know about

[Fiz]

Originally Posted by 88 Bronco

But I would say that's a lot of lives lost for a war that was over. Sounds like you're using Bush's gauge for victory.

do i really need to explain to you how wars can go on far past their usefulness, how country's like to enter wars at the latest stages to have a place at the negotiating table, how ww1 had basically turned into a meat grinder, or how the american government basically lied to their own citizens to manufacture consent to go in?

i mean you tell me what you know about ww1, where your knowledge starts and stops (probably at the same point), and I'll go from there.

SAVE BELGIUM FROM THE RAPING GERMANS

[Jangler]

Don't want you to think I'm making up Numbers...

http://www1.va.gov/opa/fact/amwars.asp

[88 Bronco]

Originally Posted by Fiz

do i really need to explain to you how wars can go on far past their usefulness, how country's like to enter wars at the latest stages to have a place at the negotiating table, how ww1 had basically turned into a meat grinder, or how the american government basically lied to their own citizens to manufacture consent to go in?

i mean you tell me what you know about ww1, where your knowledge starts and stops (probably at the same point), and I'll go from there.

SAVE BELGIUM FROM THE RAPING GERMANS

Just because a war has outlasted its usefulness doesn't mean it's over. Iraq has outlasted its usefulness and it it still going. You are the last person I want history lessons from.

[Fiz]

Originally Posted by ncbobcat

WWI--was NOT over, actually it was at a stalemate, but wasn't over. The U.S. actually hastened the end of WWI.

a stalemate that would have ended without american involvement and almost certainly would not have led to the rise of the nazis in germany

WWII--had the U.S. not got involved in Europe, Hilter could have devoted more resources to the eastern front and possibly defeated the Soviets, thereby, refocusing on the Western front and finished of the British (not to mention the scant pockets of French resistance groups).

british manufacturing was already outpacing what the germans could do since they were completely out of oil and coal. they weren't going to defeat the soviets. they couldn't even take stalingrad.

Vietnam--Even if the French had given up on THEIR colony, they could have at least stuck around to help out the mess, THEY started by not giving the people thier independence sooner in the 1950's when the situation was festering.

well I completely agree with that.

I would say maybe, but if the country was stable prior to the mid-sixties, I doubt our government would have intervened in a country that peacefully turned pro-communist.

lol what the hell it's all we did after ww2

read you some killing hope son

Again, without the revolt versus the French, we don't know if the North Vietnamese would have been such a cohesive fighting force a decade or more on into the 1960s.

well the vietnamese had been fighting for like two millennium so I don't think fighting out the french was really what put them over the top.

Actually, I was very good friends with a foreign exchange student from France in college and he concurred the sentiment that France, as a whole, feels superior to the U.S. We just have a more mighty military. When he wasn't gloating about France, he was actually a cool dude.

MY FRENCH FRIEND

[ncbobcat]

[QUOTE=Fiz;2087959]do i really need to explain to you how wars can go on far past their usefulness...

So by usefulness, you mean the initial point of the war? Because as long as there's not negotiated surrender or at least a cease fire, then a war is not over.

You know, for a fact, WWI was about to stop with or without the U.S. involvment. Granted the support was waning, but that, in and of itself, does not spell, the IMMEDIATE end of a conflict. It could have drug on another several years even at a decelerated rated.

[Fiz]

Originally Posted by 88 Bronco

Just because a war has outlasted its usefulness doesn't mean it's over.

are you really going to turn this into a niggling little debate that it wasn't totally OVER?

okay fine the allies had absolutely no hope of gaining any meaningful ground and every single major european power was trying to figure out a way to end it. if america hadn't entered it would have ended FAR better than it did.

just because wilson sent a ton of corn fed boys to their death in the mud fields of europe doesn't mean we contributed anything necessary to something that would have ended better without our "help"

[88 Bronco]

Originally Posted by Fiz

are you really going to turn this into a niggling little debate that it wasn't totally OVER?

okay fine the allies had absolutely no hope of gaining any meaningful ground and every single major european power was trying to figure out a way to end it. if america hadn't entered it would have ended FAR better than it did.

just because wilson sent a ton of corn fed boys to their death in the mud fields of europe doesn't mean we contributed anything necessary to something that would have ended better without our "help"

You have the makings of a politician if you could control your superiority complex.

[Fiz]

Originally Posted by ncbobcat

You know, for a fact, WWI was about to stop with or without the U.S. involvment. Granted the support was waning, but that, in and of itself, does not spell, the IMMEDIATE end of a conflict. It could have drug on another several years even at a decelerated rated.

ww1 would have stopped without american involvement. i can't give you a specific date and time but it would have ended, much like most europeans wars over the last two millenniums that just kinda dragged to a halt with no real winner

i mean its what they do. fifty years ago they'd be tearing each other to pieces trying to get brussels before the belgian economy collapsed

[SmootsDaddy89]

Even in the Eastern Front the Russians had pretty much stopped fighting the Germans by 1916 and were looking at all possible means to make peace with them before there was a revolution. (lol how'd that work out?) The Germans STILL couldn't make any progress against the French and British in France.

[Jangler]

Originally Posted by Fiz

just because wilson sent a ton of corn fed boys to their death in the mud fields of europe doesn't mean we contributed anything necessary to something that would have ended better without our "help"

I bet you are a hoot on Memorial and Veterans day.