Actually, Belgium was imvaded on May 10 and surrendered on the 28th. As far as the Germans bombing Brussels into rubble the next day, to quote Wikipedia, “Beginning on May 10, 1940, Brussels was bombed by the German army; however, most of the war damage to the city took place in 1944–1945.”
Because if there’s one thing our students desperately need, it’s Spam that, judging from that brief excerpt, commits one factual error per sentence.
An ally like England? Curses! The damn yanks have seen through the dastardly Scottish/Welsh plan to destroy their nation! Och, and it was so close to completion, boyos!*
Oh, and the RAF won the Battle of Britain, but I see the flaws with that particular part have already been brought up.
*Sterotypes provided by the Royal Stereotyping Academy of Oxford.
He is entirely correct on that point, Belgium did, in fact, surrender “on one day”. Such dreary formal occasions seldom involve prolonged festivities.
I finally understand what the :rolleyes: is for.
I like s’mores as much as the next guy, but where do Opal and Profit! enter into the equation?
(patting my body) Nope, fat but alive. Next?
Yes, and the author needs more.
As an amateur historian, like Mr Kraft, I agree. Unfortunately for Mr Kraft, what comes from more knowledge of history, especially military history, is the realization of just how wrong he is on everything else. Dude should study more. He’s embarassing himself.
I think friend Gus should have taken his own advice on this one.
Jeez, I don’t think even W believes this shit any more!
There are a couple of good core points there, but the history is so shoddy and inaccurate that they’re not obvious but must be separated like wheat from chaff.
Oh and Diogenes? There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and I think that classifying only one one hundredth of a percent of them as fanatical is way, way, wayyyy low. 1% of any group of any size is batshit crazy, when you’re talking about religion (any religion) I’d venture that 5-10% is much more realistic. In any event, there are a not insignificant number of fanatical Muslims who DO fit the profile painted by the glurge in the OP, something which should not be poo-pooed away because it inconveniently disagrees with your ideology.
:rolleyes:
:rolleyes:
:rolleyes:
Now, this would be easier or at least more satisfying if I could grab you by the collar and shake you up untill making you understand that there´s zero possibility of having a vicious war and stablishing a happyla-la-land on the same space/time coordintes.
Geez!, what´s up with people that peddle that crap of an argument? Do you actually think at all?
Man, I´m pissed.
The original piece is about three years old. It described pre-Pearl Harbor America and refers to that period as “sixty-three years ago.” At some point someone updated the number of troops who have been killed, but it is over 3700 now, not 3,000. We passed the 9-11 total long ago.
And that doesn’t include the unspeakable number of other troops and Iraqi citizens and other human beings slaughtered.
As I read the first paragraph about the sacrifices that were made on the homefront during World War II, I couldn’t help but wonder why this President hadn’t taken advantage of the spirit of unity that this country felt after 9-11. It would have been very understandable if he had called upon us to conserve gasoline and oil in every way possible. We on the homefront were wanting to do something. The moment passed.
The “voice” of the author changes considerable during the piece. At the beginning he sounds a little like Walter Cronkite or Lowell Thomas. But that begins to break down and eventually a trembling Barney Phife shows up.
No there aren’t. The Nazis were a real threat to the US, radical Islam is not.
I actually said a thousandth of one percent, not a hundred. There are only a few thousand Muslims who could catually be classified as violent terrorists. There may be a lot more fundy, fanatical assholes than that but most of them are not terrorists. There is a lot of space in between just being an intolerant asshole and being an intolerant asshole with a bomb strapped to your back. Not everybody that bashes the queers or pickets an abortion clinic is going to go on a bombing spree like eric Rudolph.
The percentage of Muslims who are irrationally and suicidally violent is not significant enough to warrant anything close to the Chicken Little rhetoric quoted by the OP.
ETA, what “ideology” do you imagine I’m defending?
I couldn’t even get into the meat of this “article”. I gave up about 4 paragraphs in
Completely apart from the numerous factual errors in those paragraphs, the person who wrote this has the temerity to call himself a writer?
This tripe is, At Best, high school level writing. The sentence construction, word usage, grammar, etc, etc, is dreadful.
If this is an example of his work how the hell does he make a living from writing?
Where do you start. Its appalling gibberish, riddled with so many historical inaccuracies I almost want to weep.
The most intelligent comment was at the start “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The author obviously failed to learn his history and certainly should be made to repeat the subject!
WW2 did not start in 1928. It did not last 17 years. The Russians did not lose 24 million people at Moscow and Stalingrad alone. Belgium did not surrender in a day. Brussels was not bombed into rubble. Britain did not narrowly escape invasion. “Europe” did not spend 50 years fighting Napoleon. Peace activists are not killed in Spain (sheesh!)
The rest is a hysterical rant.
No, what we call “WWI” began before 1914 and extended past today. Among others, Kraft assumes it ended. We have enough to straighten out in what is assumed to be “Europe”–and I consider the Americas an extension of Europe–to give two shits about what is happening in Mesopotamia. It wasn’t our fight and we shouldn’t have involved ourselves in it.
Come to think of it, the existence of Iraq as a multinational, multiconfessional state is a direct result of WWI. One more mess that still hasn’t been straightened out (and won’t be in my lifetime or yours).
No, it’s not likely it will.
(edited to add) We forget how recent WWI was. I’ve known participants and, for them, it was extremely recent history. Their children view it as just happening, especially if it affected their birthrights. It is completely here-and-now for many people.
I think you’re referring to Michael Trotter’s Daily Report
I take our failure to actually pay for the war as an indication of how seriously we take its consequences.
Wait, what?
SPAIN?
Generalisimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Spain is a first-world liberal democratic constitutional monarchy which is a member of the European Union – and as it happens, some of the largest peace protests in history took place there, with upwards of a million people protesting in Barcelona against the Iraq war in 2003.
y’all jumping on Gus as tho he believes the quoted text - did you miss his last sentance?
Seems to me he just wants confirmation that it is, indeed, hogwash (which you all have done, thank you) but he does not subscribe to it, nor is he advocating it be passed along.
Unfortunately, when Giraffe recoded the OP, it became unclear what was quoted and what was Gus’ own statement.
Not to mention including Ireland as one of our allies in WWII.
Dude, Ireland was neutral during WWII. They were sympathetic to the Allied side, but Ireland as a country stayed out of the war. Of course, plenty of Irish citizens fought for the allies.