World War 2

Re: oh yeah

America has a long tradition of taking credit for things it didn't do. The movie U-571 is a classic example, taking an actual mission an extremely dangerous one, by British men some of whom are still alive and turning it into a USA is great Blockbuster movie.

These men were genuine hero's, who didn't get up and dust themselves down and go back to their dressing room for a backrub when they got shot. The makers of that movie should be ashamed to show their faces.

There's no doubt that the USA played a vital role in WW2, and it's almost a truism to say that things would have turned out differently if they hadn't joined the effort. Of course it wasn't an altruistic gesture, they had there own reasons for joining.

I don't know if we'd have ended up speaking German. I'm pretty sure that if the German's had put us in charge of building Motorways they'd have pretty quickly sent us back to Ireland and paid us no further attention.

Anyway, how bad would it have been to speak German? We have the English to thank that we speak English and can be understood when we travel abroad.

Imagine for a second what it would be like to only speak Irish.

Conquest has it's perks!

-Rd

re: Oh yeah

"Imagine for a second what it would be like to only speak Irish."

If we hadn't been colonized by England, I'm sure we would speak both languages anyway. It's a fact that most of the world's population speak at least two languages fluently. We Irish monoglots are in the minority (even in the dark ages we spoke both Irish and Latin). Our proximity to Britain and historic relationship with the US would assure this.

"we speak English and can be understood when we travel abroad. "

You mean to non-English speaking countries. Like the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Spain etc. etc. That just proves my point. That so many other countries have English as their second language, so would we....

Re: re: Oh yeah

I think there are two sayings relevant here:

- The first casualty in war is the truth.
- History is written by the victors.

ww2

" If the germans had put us in charge of building motoways they would have sent us back "

The actual plan was the useful extermination of non-ayrans. If you go in to the museum at Dachau you will be amazed at the amount of flags from various countries, all of which had citizens exterminated there.

Have you ever thought of how allied pows were treated in the far east by the Japanese , building railways, bridges etc ? Were they sent back ?

WW2

I was just reading some movie review and the users comments mentioned how basically we would all be speaking German if the Americans hadn't off stepped in

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The problem is that that is pretty much the case. Before the Americans joined the war they were funding and supplying the British almost totally. The Marshal aid programme was a far sighted and incredible generous move that laid the foundations of modern democratic Europe. The US cannot be given enough credit for what they did during the second world war. Many people posting here seem to be letting their dislike for the Bush administration colour their view of history.
Our stance of neutrality when faced with Nazi Germany, which can only be described as pure evil, showed moral and political cowardice. To besmirch the conduct of those who died by their tens of thousands to keep us free is churlish in the extreme.

Re: WW2

The problem is that that is pretty much the case. Before the Americans joined the war they were funding and supplying the British almost totally. The Marshal aid programme was a far sighted and incredible generous move that laid the foundations of modern democratic Europe.

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I think this is a bit incorrect. The Americans did provide the British with a large number of destroyers, but the only reason they done this was to have a 99 year contract with a number of bases - basically allowing them set up bases in English controlled land.
As for the Marshal aid programme. I agree it was excellent and I will not say anything negative about it, but this is irrelevant as it was not in place until after the war.

The US cannot be given enough credit for what they did during the second world war.

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Sorry, but I disagree. Yes, it was great that they came in, and they should be given credit, but your statement is exactly what my issue is - too much credit.
The problem I have is that some Americans seem to think that they single handedly won the war, and if it was not for them, then we would all be speaking German.
It is my opinion that the real heros of the war was the Russians as they fought the Nazis with very little supplies. So many of them died, and without their effort, I believe the Germans would have won the war - so the point is this was a combined effort, and equal credit has to go to the Russians as well.

any people posting here seem to be letting their dislike for the Bush administration colour their view of history.

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Please don't include me in this. This issue has nothing to do with Bush, but rather it is my belief that we (sorry, the Allies) would have won the war if America had not joined in.

Our stance of neutrality when faced with Nazi Germany, which can only be described as pure evil, showed moral and political cowardice. To besmirch the conduct of those who died by their tens of thousands to keep us free is churlish in the extreme.

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As I said before, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Remeber this was occurred as the Germans were under the same sort of oppression that the Iraq people were under for the last 10 years, and probably even worse. They were not allowed to have an army to defend themselves. They had to pay huge repreations to the victors of the first World War. There was vast unemployment.
The world at the time saw this and for the 100 years previously, all big countries were still trying to expand their borders - England, American and Germany. There was no UN then to sort out world matters (the League of Nations was more helpless than the UN when America wanted to invade Iraq)
So, when this war was going on, no one knew about the Holocaust. No one knew what Hitler had in store for the rest of the world.

So, I just want the American public to come down off their high horse, and remember that if it a combined effort, and in fact, in would be interesting to know what would have happened if Russia was not draining the German resources. Remember that Germany ruled the sea. Maybe the Americans would have been speaking German with us!

Re.Re.WW2

Maceface,
I agree that the Russians had the greatest influence on the defeat of national socialism in Europe but just as the British in Britain and the Russians in Russia both portray their role in the war as being pivotal, so do the Americans.
The issue here is our exposure to American mass culture. Most of the films we see are American so that's the picture we see. I am sure if we all watched Chinese TV we would see an understandably biased view of their role in the second world war.
The point is that they are understandably proud of their role in the war and if we choose to watch their films that's our choice.
There was strong opposition within the US to their joining the war both from isolationists and from industrialists, most of whom thought that the shift to military production would destroy their peace time markets (this was pre- the "industrial-military complex"). So to say that they only got into the war to get ports/bases in Britain is totally incorrect.

The Americans did provide the British with a large number of destroyers

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They also gave them tanks, planes, guns, uniforms, trucks, pontoon bridges, ammunition, and liberty ships by the hundred. They also set up an exclusion zone hundreds of miles into the Atlantic to protect British ships as they collected their cargo from US ports.
You must also remember that the US fought in the Pacific and were the major allied force in this theater.

ww2

It was not all American aid and effort in Europe / to Russia. As regards valour, the Swiss airfields in ww2 were full of intact American bombers, who crews when flying over Germany decided to end the war in a safe , neutral country. Practically no RAF planes done that : their crews were fighting for their homeland, which had been attacked and bombed in turn by Nazi Germany.

Many British convoys travelled the treacherous "Arctic Route" to Russia with military supplies, to help them beat the Nazis.

So, all in all, we owe a major debt of gratitude to the British and the Americans for saving the world and us from the Axis powers in ww2, along with other struggles before and since ( eg the Cold war ).

Re.ww2

Re P;
I agree. It was a combined effort in WW2 and a combined effort that defeated the totalitarian evil of communism.
It is also worth noting that Ireland stood idly by during the latter struggle as well, only piping up the odd time with mindless criticism of those who guarded us and kept us free.
Neutrality, don't ya just love it!

Re: ww2

At the time the state was immature and its leaders felt the need to make a point of not explicitly siding with the side that included Great Britain. Not an acceptable excuse for moral equivocation in the face of evil but I think an understandable position for them to take given their background.

It would have been better if we were in there fighting the Nazis and of course many thousands of Irish people did volunteer for the war in a personal capacity.