70 years ago, WWII started

No, it's not exactly right on. The United States invaded Afghanistan late in 2001, but did not invade Iraq until 2003. So there is no basis for a claim that Canadians were fighting the good fight in Afghanistan while the U.S. "rushed" into Iraq.

That's the kind of problem you run into when you propagandize, rather than look at the facts with as much objectivity as possible. So, for example, objectively, the second world war began in Asia in 1937, when Japan and China went to war, and not in Europe in 1939.

People here have accused me of being "USA-centric." At no time in my posts about when and where that war started did i mention the United States and their part in the war. But so many people around the world get all worked up at any mention of the United States, and are willing to mention it themselves out of context just so they can get worked up.

I'll tell what i've seen here, i've seen a "Commonwealth-centric" point of view which makes out that the only significant aspects of the second world war revolve around England and her former colonies. In fact, the biggest threat to Australia was not anywhere in Europe--it certainly wasn't Germany. The biggest threat to Australia was Japan. Waxing emotional and getting hot under the collar while slamming the United States (apparently, the favorite indoor sport of people living in the Commonwealth) will not inform anyone about the facts regarding the second world war.

The second Sino-Japanese War, which began in 1937, has a far better claim to be the beginning of World War Two than does the invasion of Poland. Get over it, and find better excuses to vent your spleens on the subject of how much you despise the United States.

The "America First" movement was strong there, and my distant impression, from hearing stories about it and subsequent reading, is that it was largely motivated by impressions of the folly of WWI; the pointlessness of the European rivalries that led to it; the uselessness of our intervention in 1917; and distaste for the economic & political movements that emerged from the war and the revolutions it produced.

One might assume from that George that the America First movement was led by a gaggle of pious aunties rather than by hard-headed robber barons with an eye on the main chance. As far as I know history does not teach that Princes refrain from war for any of those reasons.

My inclination is to suspect their reason being that the drain on American resources attending a war would retard the sale of motor cars. And possibly transfer elsewhere substantial allocations of funds.

I didn't say Canada alone battled the Taliban in Afghanistan but they are in the stationed in the worst of it. So far, per/pop Canadians have the worst death rate of any of the invading armies.

I do think that if the US has concentrated their efforts in Afghanistan, instead of spreading out into Iraq, the war might have had different consequences by now, the Taliban may have been annihilated.

I don't think I'm alone when I say the US rushed into Iraq. Many of your fellow citizens think the same thing... Considering many of the excuses for starting were false.
I think your just a little too sensitive but I could be wrong there.
I mean ... it could happen. ;-}

Ceili wrote:

I do think that if the US has concentrated their efforts in Afghanistan, instead of spreading out into Iraq, the war might have had different consequences by now, the Taliban may have been annihilated.

Implicit in this is the assumption that the U.S. should do most of this work wherever it happens to be. Whether you think the series of post WWII conflicts in which we became engaged were worthwhile or not, the fact is we didn't get much help from Canada in many of them.

I don't know for sure just what was the motivation. I recall my father saying that one war in this century to save the British Empire was enough. There was also the widespread belief that our entry in WWI had been a mistake, and that we (and the Australians at Gallipoli) had been duped.

I do think that if the US has concentrated their efforts in Afghanistan, instead of spreading out into Iraq, the war might have had different consequences by now, the Taliban may have been annihilated.

I don't think I'm alone when I say the US rushed into Iraq. Many of your fellow citizens think the same thing... Considering many of the excuses for starting were false.

I think your just a little too sensitive but I could be wrong there.

Agreed. Indeed the Canadians there - unlike the Continental NATO allies - have been willing to get out of their bases and actually engage the Taliban.

He is also saying there is no bridging differing opinions of past events.