"If it wasn't for us, you would be speaking German"?
It is a veiled reference to the German occupation of Europe during WW2. Some feel if the US hadn't become involved, all of Europe, including the UK would have eventually been over run by Hitler and his thugs. It is a short sighted thing for anyone to say. One of these days we could be in trouble too. According to Atilla , the Americans didn't have to fight the Germans in WWII, get back to the books, you missed a chapter in History class.
If 9/11 wasnt an Inside Job then Why would the U.S Govt Lie?
dude, the only answer to what happen to 911 is to move on! Nobody knows what happen exactly! if anything look at it as a part of world history. You can read, and hear about who did it, or why it was done, or if it was an inside job blah blah blah. 911 conspirators come up with thier own thoery every second . If I will guess, I will say it was the Arabs, for retaliation over the OIL trade. The war for OIL has been going on since oil was discover! 911 was just a bigger attack from the arabs The Abrabs do not have the firepower like most of this hi-tech nation. The US can bring the war into their home soil easily with all this hi-tech war planes, ship, tank etc, while the arabs only weapons are rocket launchers, AK's,homemade explosive etc... And with all this defense system the US has, I doubt it if any of the arabian country will ever cross into the US with war ship, tanks, plans etc, and do damage like the US does. so the only strategy left was what happen on 911, and has been going on before 911, and will continue to go on. Generally speaking though, the goverment are far worse than liers. Think About this, We pay this fools our hard earn $$ so this baffon can make decision for us! Decision that only benefits them! So basically we PAY them to tell us how to live our lifes. Aint that a shame. This is what the Goverment is, they are bunch of lazy, arrogant, money hungry scums. So if you worrying about if the goverment lie or not, you need to be more concern about what they stand for. Take care.
Would the U.S. be better if it wasn't bipartisan?
The US IS better because most of it is NOT bipartisan. The number of people who let themselves fall into the false dichotomy of "left or right" has been shrinking and will continue to do so, to the betterment of our country.There is a more important political spectrum, from authoritarian (left and right are both on this end) to libertarian (anarchy is the extreme). I am squarely on the anarchy side of this spectrum, and I think most people are heading in that direction.Disclaimer: I am the webmaster for The Voluntaryist.
Do Americans ever tell Chinese people, "If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking Japanese"? "If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German" is/has often been said to British people (and possibly other Europeans) on a regular basis.
I will agree with those who say no - I've never heard this - but in case someone is unclear about this I'd like also to point out that it's not true.Sure, China could never have caused unconditional Japanese surrender on its own. But Japan could also never have conquered China, even if the US had never gotten involved. In late 1941, when the US entered the war, the Japanese were already hopelessly bogged down in China. They controlled all the major cities in the east and as far west as Wuhan, and much of the countryside around them, but the further west and outside major urban areas they got, the weaker their control was. Air superiority enabled them to bomb Chongqing (Chungking) regularly, but as the Germans discovered around the same time, that is far from being able to exert control or end resistance. And they were fighting a very expensive guerrilla war in several provinces that showed no signs of abating.I've seen it written that the whole Japanese invasion of China was a huge miscalculation, based on previous experience with China and with the fact that the Japanese army in China was completely out of control of the leadership back in Japan. Perhaps Japanese leadership thought that, as in previous episodes, they could engineer a crisis, use it to take more territory and resources, and that the Chinese leadership would have no choice but to accept it. Instead, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) decided to go all in and simply refused to negotiate, just falling back and regrouping after each loss. In the process the Chinese managed to win some key battles, changing perceptions of the conflict on both sides and around the world, gaining huge international support, and making it clear there would be no clear Japanese victory.Yes, the Pacific war greatly helped China, and the Flying Tigers, one of warfare's most inspiring stories, had a big effect on morale in both the US and China (although with extremely dubious tactical impact.) Perhaps without US involvement (and as Feifei Wang points out, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria) the Japanese would have held on to parts of eastern China for a long time. But overall, the Sino-Japanese war was won by China.
Would the US have become a superpower if World War II hadn't happened?
No.The two world wars decimated the power of other global leaders — including the “victors.” Britain had food rationing til the mid-Fifties. It “lost” its empire because its vassal states had tasted liberation during and right after WWII and Britain didn’t have the ability to hold on to — fill in the blanks, India, Palestine, East Africa, you name it. France, ditto. The Netherlands had no hope of retaining control of Indonesia. All the colonial powers were on notice that they’d be out of Africa shortly — and in just a few memorable weeks in 1960, they were gone and dozens of new states (no longer “French West Africa” or “British East Africa”) were born.Germany was flattened til the Sixties. Ditto Japan. The USSR had plenty of troops and tanks, but had lost over 20 million citizens and its economy was a mess.The sole survivor — protected by two oceans and luckily late to both of the conflicts — was the US. Industrially mobilized. Full of piss and vinegar. And thankfully virtually unharmed.And - the US had nuclear weapons.
Do you think the United States would have entered World War II had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor?
Given the U.S.'s isolationist approach to war during the first few years of World War II, would the U.S. have entered it were there not an attack on Pearl Harbor to garner public support?