Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ChristheBoy
'Ours' is for a future where all conflict will be at our behest, or ended...at our behest.
Mr. Rodgers, maybe I read your post wrong, maybe your last comment was a sarcastic one, but if you truly believe that all conflicts will be started and resolved by the USA I wonder how you justify that rhetoric?
When the Allies effectively ended WW2 the Germans were disarmed and all fighting ceased. Europe was rebuilt and prospered as it grew into the end of the century and this one. Other than a few neo-Nazi idiots still spray painting graffiti swastikas, the aggressive German war machine has been replaced by a productive democratic country that participates in the good of Europe.
Since then, the USA has fought against North Korea, who is still technically at war with us 60 years later. You fled Vietnam with your tail between your legs, Afghanistan is still a war torn nation where savages rule. Iraq is in a constant civil war were women's rights and rights in general have regressed by 100 years, although you managed to keep Russian bases out of Cuba (partial victory) you failed to remove Castro for 50 years. You bombed Cambodia, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, guatamala, sudan, congo......
None of those nations has today a democratically elected government. When every president who attacked has always declared that they are going to defend democratic freedoms and principals.
Before stating that the US will decide if and when it will start or stop a fight, maybe you want to actually end on properly before making that declaration. The victory of 1945 is a dim memory in most peoples minds now a days.
The U.S. still has the option at this point, though. The only difference between World War II and subsequent wars is that, during World War II, we demanded unconditional surrender. Hitler probably would have made a peace deal in 1943, but that was unacceptable to the Allies, who opted to continue fighting until the bitter end.
Patton believed that we should have gone to war with the USSR after World War II, but the US leadership fired him and rejected that option. It was similar with MacArthur during the Korean War. Strictly speaking, we could have kept fighting, but we chose to make a deal instead of demanding unconditional surrender (which was another option of ours). Our government and military leadership may have been genuinely frightened of escalation, which is why all the above-named wars were limited in their scope. The policy of Containment was not specifically designed to spread or expand democracy into nations which didn't have it, but rather to protect democracies which were already established.
Due to larger geopolitical issues, there were places where the US had to concede territory to the enemy, such as in Cuba and Vietnam, as you mentioned. Those can be considered lost battles, but the Cold War overall might be considered a victory from the U.S. point of view, since the Berlin Wall fell, the Iron Curtain was lifted, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Even Red China turned capitalist, and even Vietnam and Cuba have been opening up lately. Cambodia has also been improving, and I even read that their government has recently apologized for the Killing Fields period. Guatemala is, in fact, a democratic nation now. Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Congo, and Sudan are still in a state of flux; the situations in those countries have not stabilized so we don't yet know what the final picture will look like.
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RE: Team America - World Police: The Obama Years - 
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