70 years ago, WWII started

I take it all back Ceili.... He's overplaying his hand again.

For the life of me George, I just can't make heads or tails of his posts. Madly off in all directions.

Interesting, didn't know that.

Others have the same problem. He is deliberately whimsical and comes at issues from a different, but somewhat consistent, prespective. I enjoy him a lot, but don't entirely agree with him.

The Americans will always do the right thing . . . After they've exhausted all the alternatives.
Winston Churchill

The largest concentration of (Canadian) post war graves in Europe is in Werl (that's where the radio station was, too): 124 military and 324 family members of the Royal 22e Régiment are buried there (which is 20 miles from my place).

Interesting to note that today (2 Sept.) is the anniversary of the the war's final ending aboard the USS Missouri,with the Japanese signing an unconditional surrender document on 2 Sep 1945.

It's also Sedan Day . . .

So I think I'll go and seddahn.

Yesterday was also the anniversary of the beginning of the great fire in London in 1666 . . .

Yep. Ember-ence day.

And what was so great about it?

It burned down London.... ha ha ha
(the was my Irish side) ;-}

Wicked . . .

"The United States found itself at war on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese bombing of the US Navy's base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii."

NO.
You REALLY think that Britain just marched into war against Germany all by its lonesome, in order to save POLAND? I.e. that there was NO promise of aid by the USA--but that this assistance all simply "HAPPENED; " and that the good ol' USA, saved the world from evil ol' Germany-- TWICE in the span of 20 years?

Yeah, I guess you believe in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny too.
Just remember: if someone tells you a story that SOUNDS too good to be true, and doesn't make sense-- IT PROBABLY IS; there's a sucker born every minute-- long with a DOZEN con-artists.

If you care to read the facts, you'll see that FDR ATTACKED Germany and Japan LONG before they did ANYTHING in return; he also made treaties against both nations, which did NOTHING to further the US interest.
He also REFUSED to meet with the Price of Japan regarding his PLEAS for peace-- TWICE-- prior to Pearl Harbor-- in addition to cutting off 98% of Japan's supply of oil, which was guaranteed by treaty, with absolutely NO reason or warning (the Rape of Nanking was over four years earlier, and FDR was ordering US military operations in China AGAINST Japan -- a clear ACT OF WAR, along with many others).
And all the while, FDR pretended that the USA was minding it's OWN LITTLE OL' BUSINESS, and doing NOTHING to bother ANYONE.
I.e. he LIED, and claimed that the USA was NEUTRAL.

Do you STILL want to say that "The United States found itself at war on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese bombing of the US Navy's base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii"?

Sure... and SANTA brought you that X-box, too.

The truth, is that FDR FORCED a retalliative strike, so that he could BLAME the other side for "attacking innocent little us."

Time to grow up and realize there IS no Santa Clause... and history's a little messier than you thought-- but a LOT more plausible.

And speaking of WWII, you should also realize that the Easter Bunny isn't real either; i.e. that WWII was just a encore-performance of WWI, but under FDR instead of Wilson; exept that Wilson did it for money, while FDR did it for GLOBAL POWER. It's no accident that FDR also founded the League of Nations, which later became the UN; he was a global socialist-- i.e. a "Glozi" (rhymes with "Nazi"), and he was willing to pay any price to realize his dream -- in OTHER people's wealth blood-- starting by stealing all privately-owned gold in the USA, and then forcing a war and allying with Russia, Japan's old enemy.

Hopefully the spread of the internet will put all this old fairy-tale history to rest, but it can't happen soon enough.

"Given that the Chinese had already been viciously and horrendously attacked by an Axis power, (though I am not sure that Japan was formally an Axis power at that point) and a number of countries nowhere near Europe decided that Hitler was worth fighting right there and then, I think your comment re Eurocentrism is quite misplaced."

Do you know why China has a Great Wall?
Because they don't have a 2nd Amendment.
That's right: the Chinese government never allowed the people to bear arms-- rather, they simply built a giant wall to keep out invaders, since a wall can't be taken by citizens against the government in order to create a free state.
This is why barbarian Mongols were able to defeat the much more advanced Chinese society; it's also why Japan was able to the same thing, and the Chinese were like sitting Peking ducks-- i.e. since the Chinese government only had enough guns to keep their disarmed people in line... the same reason why the Communists were able to marchin in and do likewise about 15 years later.

In contrast, the US began striking against Japan in China, while still claiming to be neutral-- so clearly it wasn't for the benefit of the Chinese; and in reponse, Japan didn't even THINK about striking back, knowing that "there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass--" since we DO have a 2nd amendment.

So the notion that FDR cut 98% of Japan's oil-supply in retalliation for the Nanking Invasion, is as much a fairy-story, as the claim that the USA was NEUTRAL before Pearl Harbor-- or that the USA began giving aid to Britain (and attacking Germany) at this time, with NO secret agreement prior to Britain's declaring WAR on Germany. It was just a MIRACLE-- just like, of course, that the "good guys" always seem to win: after all, it SAYS so in the history-books that they write!

The problem with reality, is that people become too attached to their self-flattering make-believe, that a paradigm-shift becomes impossible-- REGARDLESS of how plausble (and provable).
That's what government-taught history is all about-- and always HAS been: i.e. force-feed them self-flattering (and self-FULFILLING) lies from birth, and they won't know the truth when it bites them on the ass: look how well it works for Al-Queda or ANY other kool-aid cult.
The down-side, of course, is that A is A-- and thus ignorance will ALWAYS get you an F.
And the world is "F'ed up" enough ALREADY from ignorance-- let's not make it any worse: denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

"Interesting to note that today (2 Sept.) is the anniversary of the the war's final ending aboard the USS Missouri,with the Japanese signing an unconditional surrender document on 2 Sep 1945. "

While their only "condition" would have been keeping their emperor.
So the FDR/Truman administration dropped 2 atomic bombs-- resulting in "microwaving" 300,000 civilians-- in order to force ONE person to resign.... who had no more real power over Japan, than the Queen had over Britain. (But of course this was ok, because "they struck first." Sure-- that's what EVERY setup-artist says.)

And of course that's not even counting the nuclear Arms-Race and political Cold War it started with the USSR, leading to the spreading of Communism throughout much of Asia (in conjunction with the Yalta resolutions, which gave Stalin half the globe anyway)-- not that phony-crony "capitalism" of the west was much different, other than to present the East with a fine fat "capitalist" strawman to knock down in defense of Marxism-- which is like Rush Limbaugh speaking out against drug-addicts.
In a word: HYPOCRISY.

Youtube is full of videos of the 1939 invasion of Poland.
Fascinating stuff:

Just bumping this up a notch due to its current timeliness.

Watching the war news back then ,like watching serials, brought folks to the town's mvie theater at least once a week.