History Nuts

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people on this forum that enjoy history. So I decided to start this thread here in the lounge where everybody can get together to talk about history. Who knows maybe we can learn something about everyones home country that we didn't know before. I'm not sure where to start so can maybe someone can just name a history even and say what they think about it and that'll get us started.

 

The Netherlands started enslaving people, but we also founded New York.
There you go.

 

Thanks Aurora I appreciate it. See I didn't know that the Netherlands started enslaving people. I think it was about two years ago that I learned that it wasn't just Africans that where enslaved but before them people with white skinned where enslaved as well. I wonder why America's history books don't mention that. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln didn't care about slavery. He adopted his antislavery views later just to get the north to like him. So so I heard.

 

Never knew that. But the reason for enslaving people was the East Indian Trading Company. We needed people to work at those spice fields, so yeah. Our history sucks a bit on that part. At least we have no intention to cover it up. What do American history books -at schools- say about Vietnam? I always wondered about that.

 

Most of them say Veitnam was a horrible mistake, but it wouldn't have been if Washington had gotten its **** straight and let soldiers fight the war instead of politicians. They never learn anything.

I love my country but I'm ashamed of its people, i just can not believe how people just turn on their country for every decision it makes. It's ridiculous.

 

What screwed us over in Vietnam was the then President keeping secrets from us. The history books as I remember them said that Vietnam was a costly war that no one liked that was fought because of our governments huge scare of communism. I watched a special on it a few months ago and they said that we screwed over a lot of people during that war. We pledged troops that never came plus President Ford had different views then the president before him so that screwed up the battle field. My dad and English professor fought in that war. A lot of prejudices was brought out because of that war to. My dad told me that every day they'd march all the soldiers out and read to them the list of everyone who was killed the day before and would breed a hatred into them for anyone who was Asian.

 

It was the whole idea of containment, that was the main thing, imo, that did us in. You don't enter a war without the will to win, otherwise you just screw yourself over.

 

America. Nuff said.

Vietnam was a war for us playing defensively. Wars can't be defensive.

 

'Nam was a stupid war. The reason we went to war was to stop them from turning Communist (Domino Theory yo). The reason they went Communist was because we went to war with them. Hurrah.

Also, for the record, Communism isn't bad if it's done right.

 

The Korean War was also a war to stop the spread of communism. The thing is is that the reason people wanted communism was because the leaders that were in charge were corrupt so the people thought communism was the right choice. I say communism sounds good but really doesn't work out good unless you adopt a capitalist economy with it. I'm all for a socialistic government instead. It's similar but does have a few differences. As for vietnam, I am ashamed though that we punished the solders that came home. Many of them committed suicide because f how we treated them. Plus I still call people who were from America that went over to help our enemies traitors. I don't care if they are accepted now in my eyes they will always be traitors.

 

A lot of them committed suicide because of addictions to opiates.

 

Err and about stupid wars... I was wondering if you guys aren't still concerned about Irak and the fact that you guys flagrantly broke the Geneve convention, commited what classifies as an act of naked aggression, and so on?

Didn't W basically said like this afterwards?

"um... yeah we pretty much like lied to you about those WMD's... that or our intelligence department is retarded and we just well happened to invade anyways so now we are all there and... yeah..."

I was a bit dissapointed though, cold war intelligence would have just FABRICATED the damn WMD's even if they weren't there. You guys are losing your style.

 

Amen, I can't even stand to be in the same room with people like that.

Sueco, it's Iraq not Irak, and don't even get me started on the Geneva Convention, most of it does not apply to terrorists since they are not fighting an actual formed national army. Might want to check up on that.

 

How about something called 'human decency'? Ever heard of waterboarding?

 

when they become decent, we will become decent. Why dont you ask them about human decency when they threw those women and children off a roof, when Sadam put his own people in a gas chamber, or when those four contractors were stopped and burned alive inside their car without some much as reason why.

Yes water-boarding is extreme, and should only be used in the most serve cases, but it works and that is all that matters. They should be thankful that they have not been killed after we received the information they had. Decency, its rare in this world, but we have to live in it.

 

**** son, I'd rather be dead than tortured. And wtf is up with "when they become decent, we will become decent"? Why should we emulate terrorists? Since we're supposedly awesome, shouldn't we set an example? Why don't you ask yourself about decency when you condone torture, when our soldiers rape and pillage, when you continue to support a war built on lies?

 

Sounding like a true peace advocate there Fenix... There is more to this war than what CNN and MSNBC tells you. Our armed forces are the finest in the world and we are more than decent to begin with. We have something called the Law of War; Tell me when you have enemies that do not follow the Law of War, that hide within the general population, and use innocent civilians as shields, please tell me how do you react? How do you fight an enemy hiding in plain sight? The use of enhanced interrogation techniques divulged vital information that stopped the LA bombing plot and saved thousands more lives by helping identify critical targets and their locations.

Just because a few bad soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen committed things that are frowned upon does not give you any right to make a gross generalization about the rest of the armed forces. I wonder why torture is the only thing you seem to be dwelling upon? Is it because you have nothing else to say because the war is being won and you dislike the outcome? Also please tell me how Nancy Pelosi's stories are turning out about the use of EITs and why Chairman Obama decided not to release the photos of Gitmo. Please inform me!

The American public was so eager to get into the war you say was built by lies yet the American public is not eager to standby the gains made by our servicemen and women. Patience is a virtue that not many of us Americans exhibit. Iraq will be the second successful democracy in the middle east. Truly a milestone in history. There was reason to believe Iraq had nuclear weapons, they had tried before but the Israelis took it out in Operation Opera (Babylon). Also Iraq under Saddam had used dirty bombs against the Kurds. Afghanistan was known to be the lair of the Taliban (It is also deeply rooted in Pakistan but you know, they pretended to be our friends!) and Al-Qaeda. The Phillipines Mindanao Islands are home to Abu Sayyaf and MILF rebels. The Horn of Africa is a volatile place and do not get me started with the Trans Sahara.

There is a bigger underscore to the war with our enemies having a religious duty to make war with the infidels until there are none. Western civilization is at stake yet we are so eagerly giving way. America is the biggest wall yet our own people keep pulling out bricks to the foundation.

 

I'm sory but the geneva convention was agreed upon after WW2 had finished killing off 50m people. Terrorism was daily bread during that period, only difference it was not by muslims.

9/11 is a drop in the ocean compared to that period in history, and you justify throwing it into the trash the first time something bad happens? I thought Americans were tougher than that. That plus your own government recognized there were no WMD's so really, why didn't you pull out the second the invasion was illegal even by those low standards?

International law is something you respect if you want others to respect it back for you later otherwise its a big free-for-all and you have no claim to any justice other than your own, and that's not the world i want.

 

Oh yeah, and: http://megavideo.com/?v=RXRB381M

Hear what he says at the end?

Sons of *****es, murderers, all of them.

 

@ Imagine - I believe in war for the proper purpose. World War II? Good war. Revolutionary War? Yup. Iraq war? Hardly. War on drugs? urdoinitrong.

Personally, I more than frown upon a rapist, I generally prosecute or hope they get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

"enhanced interrogation techniques" Lol let's use fancy words to hide what it means. Torture, in the plainest sense. There's no other way to spin that. To me, this has nothing to do with war. There is absolutely no reason to ever willingly, maliciously even, cause pain to another being. Yes, I know the terrorists do that, I'm not on their side. I'm saying since we're supposedly the greatest nation on earth, the 'best', why do we need to resort to such lowbrow, inhumane actions.

Also, I'm more than aware that CNN and MCNBC are full of ****. I'm a huge fan of the adage 'bad news makes good news.' However, what I'm more concerned about is what goes on behind the scenes. For instance, did you know that Afghanistan exported more than 1.44 billion USD worth of opium last year? Either our troops are only good at executing warlords and not drug lords, or the CIA is drug trafficking again. Either way, not something I'm proud of.

Honestly, we've been in this war almost 8 years now. World War 1 was 4 years. World War 2 was six. Those actually had an effective outcome. This? A few years off from a decade, and we still haven't come close to finding the guy we came over to kill in the first place. We never will.

Also, and I don't really feel I need to go too fine on this point, **** Cheney. He's basically Satan. Just look at these stock photos of him: