History or Balance

[aletoledo]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Which is probably accurate and China could probably use some of the same today for that matter.

It's pure bullsh*t. When you modernize a conquered nation one of the things you do is give it a viable industry. Japan was in Manchuria for two decades. Name one factory, other than a chemical reagent factory (whose involuntary test subjects were Manchurians) Japan built in Manchuria.

The problem for Japanese civilians was that they did not entirely believe the evidence in their own newspapers about the treatment of Chinese civilians by the Japanese Army ore else they did not care. The lead Japanese newspaper of the day *boasted* of a beheading contest between a couple of low ranking Japanese officers. There were photographs. And that was a small fraction of the conduct that occurred in China.

Here's a clue. These faces are Chinese civilians in a photo taken in 1936. Their heads did not fall off on their own.

And there's far more ugliness available here:

http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/hol ... 7/pic1.htm

Now tell me again how Japan was treated unfairly during WW2 if you dare.

I suppose I could dig up pictures of american indian scalps that the US leaders encouraged neighboring indian tribes to attack each other for. war isn't pretty and I'm not saying that japan didn't commit atrocities, what I'm saying is that the western powers have committed almost as many crimes, only they did their more in the 18 & 19th centuries.

[juliet7bravo]

I can't speak for the accuracy as yet, these articles are no doubt heavily slanted, but I think it's safe to say they had at least "one factory". There was alot more going on in the puppet regimes than people generally think, on the industrial, resource, and local military fronts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansyu

Manshukoku Hikoki Seizo KK (Manchurian Aircraft Company) was the aircraft factory in Manchukuo for Nakajima Hikoki KK (Nakajima Aircraft Company) of Japan. For short it was Mansyu. These installations were in Harbin, and began to manufacture air engines for the first national Manchu airplane, the Mansyu Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon) Mark I, II, and III. It was part of the standard equipment of Manchukuo National Airways. The factory constructed under license, or on its own behalf, the following planes, from the 1930s to August 1945:

Transport Mansyu Hayabusa I,II,III (30 units)
Advanced trainer Mansyu Ki-79
Light fighter Nakajima Ki-27 "Nate" (1,379 units)
Advanced fighter Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate "Frank" (94 units)
Advanced cannon armed-dive bomber Mansyu Ki-71 "Edna" (some one prototype with permit of 1st Tachikawa Army Arsenal/Mitsubishi Company)
Advanced twin-fuselage high altitude Interceptor Mansyu Ki-98 (only certain prototypes along Nakajima company technical advisers) and other aircraft and prototypes.
Additionally it was a repair shop for Manchu and Japanese aircraft. Some types maintained for the Japanese and Manchukouan Air Forces

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showa_Steel_Works

Showa Steel Works began as a Japanese government-sponsored industrial combine called the Anshan Iron & Steel Works. It was built under the auspices of the South Manchurian Railway Company, in 1918. The city of Anshan, in Liaoning was chosen for its proximity to the Takushan iron ore deposits and rail works at Mukden. The company used low grade iron; in 1934 it mined 950,000 tonnes. In 1933, after a reorganization, it was renamed the Showa Steel Works.

Total production of processed iron in Manchuria in 1931-32 reached 1,000,000 tonnes, of which almost half was made by Showa Steel. In 1941, Showa Steel Works had a total capacity production of 1,750,000 tonnes of iron bars and 1,000,000 tonnes of processed steel. By 1942, Showa Steel Works total production capacity reached 3,600,000 tonnes, making it one of the major iron and steel centers in the world.

It was therefore of strategic importance in the Pacific War, and was subject to constant attack by B-29 bombers of the USAAF. Japanese Army detached the 1st Chutai (unit) of 104th Sentai (Squadron) of theImperial Japanese Army Air Service, to Anshan, with other air squadrons for industrial defense purposes. This unit was equipped with modern Nakajima Ki-84Ia (Manshu Type) Hayate "Frank" fighters, manufactured by Manchurian Aircraft Company under license from the Nakajima Aircraft Company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Manchukuo

Industry
Prior to Japanese intervention, the sole industry was the Mukden Arsenal, property of Chang Hsueh-liang (son of Chang Tso-Lin), the Manchu Dictator. However, the Japanese established various types of factories and developed industries, mining products from Fushun Pehnshiu and Fusin, establishing locomotive and railway industries for manufacturing and repairing railway machinery, locomotives, etc. in Kantoshu (Kwantung), during the Manchukuo Empire period. During 1937 the Japanese Government with the Japanese Army commissioned the industrialist Yoshisuke Aikawa to organize and direct the Manchuria Industrial Development Company with a capital of 758,000,000 yen, in other words the "Manchoukuoan Zaibatsu Empire" after much difficulty and guided in centralizing the local mining and heavy industry. These government empires organized and implemented two five-year plans during the 1930s (reminiscent of Soviet Five-Year Plans too) with the aid of Naoki Hoshino. These five-year plans contributed to pushing the industrial development quickly into form. The heavy industry provided materials for construction, machinery, tools, tool machines, locomotives, small vessels, airplanes, automobiles and trucks, hand and heavy weapons and munitions for the Japanese and Manchu armies, candies and foods, cement, liquour and beer, bread and flour, synthetic gasoline and shared oils, tar, vegeteble and synthetic oils, electric devices, mining equipment, etc.

On the other hand, Manchoukou received from Japan certain quantities of scrap iron for iron and steel processing and at same time export unfinished products, coal (processed or raw), iron-derived steel products, etc. Other Manchuokuan products were rudimentary and modern farming equipment, industrial paint, boots, rubber articles, processed leather products, milk and cheese, carpets, glass, blankets, colours, dyes and inks, bricks, industrial paper and raw cellulose, fabrics, etc. These last areas are covered for local production of many tailors and hilanders, and overall modern textile factories with imported cotton. There were 500,000 spindles and fabric factories which annually produced 25,000 tonnes of cotton fabrics. Joining this industry was the dye and coloring industry.

Some Cyphers of Manchu Industrial Production(1932-35):

Coal production:15 Milions of Metrical tonnes of Coke Coal
Cement Production:one 10° Part of Japanese Cement production
Steel Production:450,000 metric tonnes

[Erik Rutins]

With all due respect to history, I think we can discuss this without posting pictures of severed heads in this forum. Thanks.

Regards,

- Erik

[DuckofTindalos]

That's the same sort of crap we found when looking in Wikipedia the other day for the Susie bomber: a long diatribe about Japanese atrocities in China and how the aircraft was used against civilians.

[juliet7bravo]

"a long diatribe about Japanese atrocities in China and how the aircraft was used against civilians."

The Chinese government doesn't miss too many tricks, and has a much better grasp of the importance of the Internet than most...not, of course, that they have to exagerate all that much when it comes to the IJA's activities in China.

[mdiehl]

I suppose I could dig up pictures of american indian scalps that the US leaders encouraged neighboring indian tribes to attack each other for.

U.S. leaders did not encourage scalping. Scalping was a tallying practice (for bounties) implemented primarily by His Majesty's colonial governers in the American colonies. If your looking for a possible equivalent in US conduct you might look to McNamara's body count stats from Viet Nam, although most of the VN bodies *officially counted* were combatants. I don't know whether one can say the same about the scalped.

That said, the practice continued, largely as a matter of local bounties (not Federal ones) during the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War. If you can find 400,000 of them, you could begin to compare US or at least "American militias" conduct with that of the Japanese during the winter of 1936 in Nanking.

war isn't pretty and I'm not saying that japan didn't commit atrocities, what I'm saying is that the western powers have committed almost as many crimes, only they did their more in the 18 & 19th centuries.

I don't include the US with said "western powers." Again, since you're being vague I'm not sure how to rebut. In the US, most Native American deaths, (deaths, mind you) occurred as a consequence of smallpox epidemics that raged through the continent prior to the mid-18th century. By the time 1776 rolled around, smallpox and British and French colonial policy had wiped out most of the eastern US tribes, even those as far west as the Ohio valley.

So for the US you basically have a few examples and the scale of these is impressively miniscule. There were also substantial domestic opposition to many of these policies.

The worst of them is the Trail of Tears. There's no excusing Andrew Jackson or his cronies for that. Deported the Choctaw and Cherokee so that he and his cronies could put slave plantations on the stolen land. Andrew Jackson was a one of a kind maniac as far as US presidents go (although with respect to flaunting checks and balances and tossing aside the US Constitution, the current Idiot in Chief rivals Jackson).

Then you have a handful of "massacres" during the Plains Indian wars. Sand Creek being the most notorious. But the Native Americans were, themselves, hardly guiltless in the manner of executing civilians or captured prisoners. The Wikipedia entry is actually surprisingly well researched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Massacres

There are however a few errors. The First Seminole War was between a Federally funded civil militia and the Seminole, not the U.S. Army or as a deliberate matter of Federal policy. The US government did not authorize the massacre of civilians or prisoners even then. But, if you will come to know the subject, you will come to know the players. The leader of that civil militia was, wait for it, Andrew Jackson (who held a brevet US Army command at the time).

If you investigate the incidents in detail, even obvious "massacres" like Wounded Knee are obviously NOT acts of Federal policy. In the case of Wounded Knee there is much of the tragic misunderstanding (a la Kent State Ohio massacre almost a century later under Nixon). Along the lines of: someone shot, we heard gunfire, we started shooting.

The point is, and this IS the point, you can't find in American occupation policy anything that rivals Japanese conduct in the 20thC esp WW2 and in China, German conduct during WW2, British conduct in the 18th-19thC pretty much everywhere, Spanish conduct in the 16th-18thC, Dutch Conduct in the Netherlands East Indies, French conduct (in central and northwest Africa or Indo-China), or Italian conduct in Ethiopia. The U.S. never held entire colonial civil populations to be collectively responsible nor did we make a policy of rounding up lots of people and killing them, much less for pure brutal sport as did the Germans and Japanese.

[DuckofTindalos]

And what the hell has that got to do with anything???

[mdiehl]

OK Erik. Wilco. I was trying to make a point and it's not a delicate subject. I did select one of the least brutal images.

That's the same sort of crap we found when looking in Wikipedia the other day for the Susie bomber: a long diatribe about Japanese atrocities in China and how the aircraft was used against civilians.

Terminus, your reply is what's "crap" It's not as though anything about the Rape of Nanking is fabrication, nor is it as though these photos are fakes. Some of them come from Japanese newspapers and were published in 1937. I agree that the long diatribe against the Susie was inarticulate and not germane. But that has nothing to do with the conduct, scale, and scope of the Rape of Nanking. There have been numerous independent examinations of the subject and ALL sources credibly document the slaughter of at minimum about 400,000 Chinese, and that's JUST Nanking and JUST late 1937. Sometimes the horrific truth seems too absurd to be real, I'll warrant, but unfortunately the horrific truth is sometimes real.

If you don't trust Iris Chang's book vis the Rape of Nanking (she's a US citizen) you might consider the BBC an authoritative source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/223038.stm

Or you might even trust the New York Times. Here is from 17 December 1937 New York Times, pp. 1, 10, filed by reporter Tillman Durdin.

Aboard the U.S.S. Oahu at Shanghai, Dec. 17.

Through wholesale atrocities and vandalism at Nanking the Japanese Army has thrown away a rare opportunity to gain the respect and confidence of the Chinese inhabitants and of foreign opinion there....

The killing of civilians was widespread. Foreigners who traveled widely through the city Wednesday found civilian dead on every street. Some of the victims were aged men, women and children.

Policemen and firemen were special objects of attack. Many victims were bayoneted and some of the wounds were barbarously cruel.

Any person who ran because of fear or excitement was likely to be killed on the spot as was any one caught by roving patrols in streets or alleys after dark. Many slayings were witnessed by foreigners.

The Japanese looting amounted almost to plundering of the entire city. Nearly every building was entered by Japanese soldiers, often under the eyes of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted. The Japanese soldiers often impressed Chinese to carry their loot....

The mass executions of war prisoners added to the horrors the Japanese brought to Nanking. After killing the Chinese soldiers who threw down their arms and surrendered, the Japanese combed the city for men in civilian garb who were suspected of being former soldiers.

In one building in the refugee zone 400 men were seized. They were marched off, tied in batches of fifty, between lines of riflemen and machine gunners, to the execution ground.

Just before boarding the ship for Shanghai the writer watched the execution of 200 men on the Bund [dike]. The killings took ten minutes. The men were lined against a wall and shot. Then a number of Japanese, armed with pistols, trod nonchalantly around the crumpled bodies, pumping bullets into any that were still kicking.

The army men performing the gruesome job had invited navy men from the warships anchored off the Bund to view the scene. A large group of military spectators apparently greatly enjoyed the spectacle.

When the first column of Japanese troops marched from the South Gate up Chungshan Road toward the city's Big Circle, small knots of Chinese civilians broke into scattering cheers, so great was their relief that the siege was over and so high were their hopes that the Japanese would restore peace and order. There are no cheers in Nanking now for the Japanese.

By despoiling the city and population the Japanese have driven deeper into the Chinese a repressed hatred that will smolder through tears as forms of the anti­Japanism that Tokyo professes to be fighting to eradicate from China.

The capture of Nanking was the most overwhelming defeat suffered by the Chinese and one of the most tragic military debacles in the history of modern warfare. In attempting to defend Nanking the Chinese allowed themselves to be surrounded and then systematically slaughtered....

The flight of the many Chinese soldiers was possible by only a few exits. Instead of sticking by their men to hold the invaders at bay with a few strategically placed units while the others withdrew, many army leaders deserted, causing panic among the rank and file.

Those who failed to escape through the gate leading to Hsiakwan and from there across the Yangtze were caught and executed....

When theJapanese captured Hsiakwan gate they cut off all exit from the city while at least a third of the Chinese Army still was within the walls.

Because of the disorganization of the Chinese a number of units continued fighting Tuesday noon, many of these not realizing the Japanese had surrounded them and that their cause was hopeless. Japanese tank patrols systematically eliminated these.

Tuesday morning, while attempting to motor to Hsiakwan, I encountered a desperate group of about twenty­five Chinese soldiers who were still holding the Ningpo Guild Building on Chungahan Road. They later surrendered.

Thousands of prisoners were executed by the Japanese. Most of the Chinese soldiers who had been interned in the safety zone were shot in masses. The city was combed in a systematic house­to­house search for men having knapsack marks on their shoulders or other signs of having been soldiers. They were herded together and executed.

Many were killed where they were found, including men innocent of any army connection and many wounded soldiers and civilians. I witnessed three mass executions of prisoners within a few hours Wednesday. In one slaughter a tank gun was turned on a group of more than 100 soldiers at a bomb shelter near the Ministry of Communications.

A favorite method of execution was to herd groups of a dozen men at entrances of dugout and to shoot them so the bodies toppled inside. Dirt then was shoveled in and the men buried.

Since the beginning of the Japanese assault on Nanking the city presented a frightful appearance. The Chinese facilities for the care of army wounded were tragically inadequate, so as early as a week ago injured men were seen often on the streets, some hobbling, others crawling along seeking treatment.

Civilian casualties also were heavy, amounting to thousands. The only hospital open was the American managed University Hospital and its facilities were inadequate for even a fraction of those hurt.

Nanking's streets were littered with dead. Sometimes bodies had to be moved before automobiles could pass.

The capture of Hsiakwan Gate by the Japanese was accompanied by the mass killing of the defenders, who were piled up among the sandbags, forming a mound six feet high. Late Wednesday the Japanese had not removed the dead, and two days of heavy military traffic had been passing through, grinding over the remains of men, dogs and horses.

The Japanese appear to want the horrors to remain as long as possible, to impress on the Chinese the terrible results of resisting Japan.

Chungahan Road was a long avenue of filth and discarded uniforms, rifles, pistols, machine guns, fieldpieces, knives and knapsacks. In some places the Japanese had to hitch tanks to debris to clear the road.

Chicago Daily News reporter Archibald Steele reported on the Nanking massacre on 15 December in the by-line "Four Days of Hell."

C. Yates McDonald of the associated press summarized his account in his diary, which he wired to the US on 16 Dec. "My last remembrance of Nanking: Dead Chinese, Dead Chinese, Dead Chinese."

[mdiehl]

And what the hell has that got to do with anything???

If you're Aletoledo it has everything to do with your previous post. If you're not but you're reading Aletoledo's posts and have any interest in the subject then it ought to interest you. Aletoledo has tried to argue that there is some sort of "moral equivalence" between US conduct, umm, *somewhere* (he hasn't been too specific outside of the firebombings in Japan proper) and Japan's conduct as a colonial power. He's wrong.

[VicKevlar]

Along with the no severed heads.......stop the personal shots and insults.

[aletoledo]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

And what the hell has that got to do with anything???

If you're Aletoledo it has everything to do with your previous post. If you're not but you're reading Aletoledo's posts and have any interest in the subject then it ought to interest you. Aletoledo has tried to argue that there is some sort of "moral equivalence" between US conduct, umm, *somewhere* (he hasn't been too specific outside of the firebombings in Japan proper) and Japan's conduct as a colonial power. He's wrong.

I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

didn't you just say...

The point is, and this IS the point, you can't find in American occupation policy anything that rivals Japanese conduct in the 20thC esp WW2 and in China, German conduct during WW2, British conduct in the 18th-19thC pretty much everywhere, Spanish conduct in the 16th-18thC, Dutch Conduct in the Netherlands East Indies, French conduct (in central and northwest Africa or Indo-China), or Italian conduct in Ethiopia. The U.S. never held entire colonial civil populations to be collectively responsible nor did we make a policy of rounding up lots of people and killing them, much less for pure brutal sport as did the Germans and Japanese.

or am I mis-reading your statement (which was my point all along) that every western power at one point or another has pursued imperialist expansion brutally at one point or another in their history. fine, if you want to argue that the US government has never harmed an innocent person in its exspansion, you'll listed quite enough examples of others who have.

[mdiehl]

I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

No. You are wrong for saying that the *US* behaved similarly to Japan and other western powers. Your original comment upbraided me for my lack of willingness to see "it" from the "Japanese point of view," for not accounting US firebombing raids in discussing the *origins* of WW2, and for generally being too provincial to see the big picture. All of which are incorrect.

fine, if you want to argue that the US government has never harmed an innocent person in its exspansion, you'll listed quite enough examples of others who have.

I don't wish to argue that nor have I. So, umm, yeah, you missed the point. There is a huge degree of difference between the conduct (and scale of consequence) of individuals or small groups vs. the official policy of nations. Japan's conduct in Nanking* wasn't a matter of harming "AN innocent person." Japan slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocents as a matter of official policy. Even with the UK's (much more chequered than the US) rocky record of *official* policy one is pressed to find clear cut examples of massive, deliberate, systematic, government sanctioned brutality. I don't know their Indian (asia) record too well, but there's Britain's conduct in Natal Province.

* And much of the rest of China. And in the Solomons Islands vis the native Melanesians there. And in Korea vis women forced into sex-slavery. And in the Philippines in Manila (where Japan's conduct repeated in smaller scale their conduct in Nanking), and at Wake Island (where American civilian contracters captured with that Island in Dec 1941 were beheaded), and again in the PI (where IJA HQ had ordered that all US POWs in captivity in the PI were to be executed rather than allowed to fall into US hands). You can't call that a big coincidence, the act of a few individuals, random acts, or the usual casual low level brutality that comes with warfare.

[BLUESBOB]

The U.S. never was a major colonial power. We did, however, love interfering in the politics of other countries, especially in Latin America. We must of sent the Marines to other countries 20-30 times prior to WWII because we didn't like the results of an election. And we did this in the name of "protecting American business interests". So much for respecting the democratic processes of other countries. We have to long a history of putting capitalism, our capitalism, ahead of democracy. Perhaps we should at the situation of the Pacific rim just prior to Dec. 7th as an American capitalist businessman/ millionaire trying, as usual, to make the greatest profit while benefitting absolutely nobody but themselves and other capitalist businessowner/ millionaires, to find what everyone's true motives were.

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

No. You are wrong for saying that the *US* behaved similarly to Japan and other western powers. Your original comment upbraided me for my lack of willingness to see "it" from the "Japanese point of view," for not accounting US firebombing raids in discussing the *origins* of WW2, and for generally being too provincial to see the big picture. All of which are incorrect.

Why you just dont want to understand what he said. Even me, with my pidgeon-english can understand what atoledo want to say....


Japan was quite a late with his imperial conquest. Suprisingly they learn this from the western powers (i believe that you won't negate Perry's ships in Japan?).

Japan was self-sufficient nation until western powers didn't interfere....

Atoledo just want to say that... he didn't want to equal war crimes. But, does it means that we can forget and justify western powers politicy in China (opium wars) Pacific (Hawai) etc...etc....

[aletoledo]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

No. You are wrong for saying that the *US* behaved similarly to Japan and other western powers. Your original comment upbraided me for my lack of willingness to see "it" from the "Japanese point of view," for not accounting US firebombing raids in discussing the *origins* of WW2, and for generally being too provincial to see the big picture. All of which are incorrect.

fine, if you want to argue that the US government has never harmed an innocent person in its exspansion, you'll listed quite enough examples of others who have.

I don't wish to argue that nor have I. So, umm, yeah, you missed the point. There is a huge degree of difference between the conduct (and scale of consequence) of individuals or small groups vs. the official policy of nations. Japan's conduct in Nanking* wasn't a matter of harming "AN innocent person." Japan slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocents as a matter of official policy. Even with the UK's (much more chequered than the US) rocky record of *official* policy one is pressed to find clear cut examples of massive, deliberate, systematic, government sanctioned brutality. I don't know their Indian (asia) record too well, but there's Britain's conduct in Natal Province.

* And much of the rest of China. And in the Solomons Islands vis the native Melanesians there. And in Korea vis women forced into sex-slavery. And in the Philippines in Manila (where Japan's conduct repeated in smaller scale their conduct in Nanking), and at Wake Island (where American civilian contracters captured with that Island in Dec 1941 were beheaded), and again in the PI (where IJA HQ had ordered that all US POWs in captivity in the PI were to be executed rather than allowed to fall into US hands). You can't call that a big coincidence, the act of a few individuals, random acts, or the usual casual low level brutality that comes with warfare.

I believe that you're wrong about the slaughter of innocent people being part of official japanese policy. To my understanding the brutality committed in nanking was not sanctioned by the japanese government. also to my understanding of the japanese ww2 military, there was a lot of power accorded to the local commander and thus he could easily go out of approved policy. thats really the whole basis of the "incidents" that occured in china before 1941, i.e. the local units stepping beyond their authority and restraints.

at least you acknowledge the UKs "chequed past". so we can at least agree as far as beheadings go, England performed a lot of beheadings to quell revolts in Scotland and Ireland.

My reference to the USA deliberate firebombing, I still believe to be a true war crime, but my argument isn't solely with the USA actions, but all "western powera" (england france, spain, netherlands...). these were the powers that Japan had to model itself after. The japanese didn't one day wake up and invent this idea of expanding their empire through military force, they learned it from us.

I don't intend to make this personal, but it appears that you want to make it clear that the USA has no blood on its hands. remember that the victors write history and for this reason it may be why you can't find a lot about american atrocities against the american indians. you've seemed to reason that because I push you around and push you around, then you take a swing at me, it gives me the right to totally beat you to a bloodly pulp. you're forgeting that I did the pushing first though.

[pasternakski]

Can this thread be locked now so that posters can go read some history and (if we who read this tripe are lucky) inform their odd pronouncements with some grounding in scholarship and fact?

I prefer games that are grounded in scholarship and fact (a paean to what I understand to have been the actual subject of this thread). I guess that makes me a "history fanboy."

Mdiehl, old scout, you have gone around and around on these forums far more times than I have trying to talk sense, but you're going to get nowhere coming to the defense of anything America has ever done among this lot. Thanks for bothering to know some stuff and for caring about whether historical revisionism will eat us alive - unfortunately, I think it already has, and we're about to get squirted out the other end as a substance quite similar to what flows from the mouths of many.

[Speedysteve]

Come on guys.......[8|]

[DuckofTindalos]

Too late... Just lock this thread already; it's served its purpose...

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

Can this thread be locked now so that posters can go read some history and (if we who read this tripe are lucky) inform their odd pronouncements with some grounding in scholarship and fact?

I prefer games that are grounded in scholarship and fact (a paean to what I understand to have been the actual subject of this thread). I guess that makes me a "history fanboy."

Mdiehl, old scout, you have gone around and around on these forums far more times than I have trying to talk sense, but you're going to get nowhere coming to the defense of anything America has ever done among this lot. Thanks for bothering to know some stuff and for caring about whether historical revisionism will eat us alive - unfortunately, I think it already has, and we're about to get squirted out the other end as a substance quite similar to what flows from the mouths of many.

I'm pretty close.

I might even suggest that the history reading start with the Philippines (hint, hint). But the heavy political flavor of this thread needs to end of it will end.

[Speedysteve]

Lock it please. So much of this stuff does not belong here