# From a conservative friend, an email history from WWII to Iraq.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 27, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479 "2006-04-27T17:42:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479/41 "2006-04-28T02:50:14Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Again, don’t know if it counts as an historical falsehood, but the Wahhabis ALREADY control the oil (at the very least the 25% under Saudi Arabia). Billions of dollars flow into Wahhibi evangalism every year from Saudi Arabia (and certainly large chunks of that money ends up in the hands of extremists). Sub-saharan Africa has traditionally practiced a moderate liberal form of Islam, but Wahhibism is growing every year fuelled by Saudi money (Just as fundementalist protestanism is growing in Catholic latin america, fueled by US money). Yes, listen to what **griffin1977** says, it’s true. They’ve been working their mischief in Bosnia, Chechnya, Central Asia, and Pakistan as well. For Bush supporters to complain about Wahhabis is a very sick joke. The [Bush family](http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm) has been in bed with Saudi Wahhabis for decades. I was trying to tell people 20 years ago Wahhabis were bad news, but back then no one wanted to listen. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479/42 "2006-04-28T03:19:33Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > I don’t see how those troops would have had a big effect on the war. During the tail end of the war it was all about the islands, and the USA had total control of the sea around Japan. Except the final decision to surrender was the result of politics and opinion within the Japanese government, not the strategic situation at the front (which had long been hopeless). Both the Atomic attacks and the Russian intervention influenced this. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479/43 "2006-04-28T03:40:16Z")
> [@Mr. Kraft](#): > > If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today. To paraphrase Uncle Joe Stalin, how many divisions do these mullahs have? I find Mr. Kraft’s interpretation of the events of WWII to be somewhat inaccurate, and that’s being charitable. I further find his attempt to compare the populous, militarily powerful, broadly-based economies of the Axis powers to the unpopulous, militarily weak, single-commodity economies of the countries he demonizes to be laughable, or at least it would be if he weren’t making such a transparent attempt to whip up anti-muslim hysteria. I particularly enjoyed this little bit of bloviation: > [@Mr. Kraft](#): > > We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihad, the French, Germans, and Russians were selling them arms - we have found more than a million tons of weapons and munitions in Iraq. If Iraq was not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam need a million tons of weapons? Utter nonsense. No one I know of who actually knows anything about the region thinks Saddam was a Jihadist, so we can dispense with that one. Next, I would like to see a cite that any significant amount of actual arms, as opposed to spare parts and non-armament military goods, were sold to Iraq by any of the countries named by Mr. Kraft after the first Gulf War. Before the first Gulf War, IIRC, most of Europe, and the US, supported Saddam as a balance against Iranian ambitions in the region. As for his last statements, I would again like to see a cite that a million tons of weapons were in fact found in Iraq after the US invasion. Even if that if that figure happens to be remotely close to accurate, I have at least three responses I could name: 1. If Iraq did have such a vast load of weapons available, they certainly didn’t use them very effectively, did they? 2. I bet if someone bothered to add them all up, the US has hundreds of millions of tons of weapons, many of them nuclear. If the US is not a threat to anyone, why does it need hundreds of millions of tons of weapons? 3. If we found a million tons of weapons, how did we miss all the improvised devices and RPGs that are still floating around and killing both Iraqis and Americans every day? Sorry, having to wade through paragraphs of jingoistic crap of the sort spewed my Mr. Kraft makes me a bit cranky. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479/44 "2006-04-28T18:34:22Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > I don’t see how those troops would have had a big effect on the war. During the tail end of the war it was all about the islands, and the USA had total control of the sea around Japan. > > Those troops might have managed to kill some more Chinese and maybe some Russians…but I don’t see how they could have affected the decision to surrender. > > -Joe You do realize that the entire Pacific war was actually about more than just the islands. It actually started in 1937 with China. The bulk of Japan’s war effort was against China throughout. They hoped their Navy and island airbases could hold off any US military interference once teh US declared war but most of Japans forces were in China. By the end of the war there were hopes in Japan that they could transfer the main land troops against the Americans. Once the Soviets successfully opened up another front and dealt horrific losses it was obvious there was no way Japan could continue to fight. Of course the popular history is that Japan only fought an island war in WWII and once two A bombs fell Japan surrendered. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479/45 "2006-04-28T20:31:02Z")
> [@kingpengvin](#): > > You do realize that the entire Pacific war was actually about more than just the islands. Gosh, thanks. :rolleyes: In 1945 what influence do you think the fate of the Japanese troops on the Asian mainland had on those island-bound Japanese leaders? Those troops weren’t going to stop a US invasion of the Japanese islands. They weren’t going to slow it down. From a “making Japan surrender” perspective, they were irrelevent. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479/46 "2006-04-29T13:12:02Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > If you don’t believe me, perhaps you will believe [Christopher Hitchens.](http://www.slate.com/id/2108636/) roflmao. Hitchens, the pinnacle of credibility. hahaha That’s a good one. fwiw, Hussein has very well documented history of funding, supplying and housing the same terrorist organization that GWB’s presidential advisor raised funds for here in DC not too long ago - the Sazeman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran (or the PMOI, or the NCRI, or the MEK, or the MKO etc) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-conservative-friend-an-email-history-from-wwii-to-iraq/354479.md?page=2)