Previous  1  2

   

Your profile states you are from the "Middle of Nowhere".
That explains the above statement.
Lack of knowledge is always reflected in our opinions.
Any thinking person realizes that a total commitment by all Allies was necessary to win WW II.
What military group was used to secure Iwo Jima? How did the flag photo event come about?

   

Check the facts before you post BS like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_th ... n_Iwo_Jima

   

Worse is that you believe the garbage you post. Stay out of history - it's embarrassing.

   

No we know what the real history in spite of Hollywood and the History BS that
floats around here. Where most Americans are most ignorent about is the War of
1812.

We are taught in school how heric we were fighting the mean nasty British
Government and were were doing good and noble things and that all Canadians
deep down have a secret desire to be Americans and were only waiting for us to
"liberate" them from the said mean, nasty and thoughly rotten British.

100% BS. The War of 1812 was not one of brighter moments. If the American conduct were judged by current standards the Americans would be considered war criminals. There was nothing to be proud of on the American side. We did a lot of very nast things. Most Americans don't know this.

   

The War of 1812 started for a number of reasons.

1. Most important, the Royal Navy stopped US flagged vessels on the high seas and forced Americans into Royal Navy service and then there's that thorny issue of the Royal Navy simply stopping US shipping whenever they felt like it.

2. The British continued to patrol the Great Lakes and they continued to maintain bases on what was arguably US soil (in modern day Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Minnesota)).

3. The British continued to support Indians hostile to the US by supplying them with arms and encouraging them to attack American settlements. It's the British agitation of the Indians that led Andrew Jackson to order almost all of the Indians to live west of the Mississippi.

4. The US tried to prevent the Royal Navy from attacking US shipping by restricting US ships to US waters. The Royal Navy then took up the practice of raiding our ships for crew within site of land.

When the war commenced the attack on Canada was motivated to a large degree by an American desire for additional territory, but the military imperative was driven by the fact that Canada was a British base on our northern frontier. It would have been strategically foolish to ignore it.

While the war ended in an overall draw what it did accomplish for the US was that the Royal Navy left our ships alone and it also caused the USA to develop a powerful navy of our own. The US Navy of the time was disproportionately effective against the RN due to superior ship construction (a subject all its own) and superior gunnery. After the war the Royal Navy studiously avoided contact with American warships as any 1:1 contest was expected to result in a loss for the RN. RN policy during the war demanded that any contest against the US Navy had to have, at minimum, a 3:1 ratio for the RN.

So, is this what you were referring to when you said we were ignorant of that war?

   

I read this great semi-fictional book about Tecumseh one time. I think it was called Panther in the Sky. Even though it was fictionalized he made a good case for the idea Tecumseh died as a result of the ineptitude of the British General. (I forget his name, but I know Ontario named a city after him).

I was taught in school to think of Brock as a hero, but after him, and after reading the Tecumseh book, I always had the impression there were battles we could have done better in if the British had just stayed in the background, and supplied arms.

   

I was fortunate enough to meet some body who was there. He was
a US Marine Lance Corporal at the time. He was in the whole
blood and horror of that battle. He wasn't one of the flag
raisers but he did see both flags go up the smaller American
flag and the larger American flag. The larger flag qwas raised
to be certain that all the Marines could see it and raise
morale and to piss off the Japanese and help destroy their
morale. That is exactly what it did.

The flag raising was not a staged Hollywood type made up
stunt. It was real. It may be PC to knock it as it is PC
in a lot of circles to knock every thing American, but
it isn't true. It was and still is an iconic moment in
time just as their is Candian moments that are also iconic.

   

In regards to the War of 1812 you also need to include the Trade War (U.S. wanted to maintain neutrality and trade with any European nation despite any negative repercussions), Geographical pressure, British Retention of Western Posts and importantly, American War Hawk agitation (Jingoistic Congressional Republicans – Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun – wanted a continental war for land acquisition and national pride.)

   

The US did, indeed, wish to be able to conduct trade with France and anyone else we wanted to trade with without prior consent from London. That was the point of the little fracas that took place from 1775-1783.

The Brits did, indeed, keep hold of their bases with the intent of hemming in the US on the eastern side of the Appalachians and, later, on the eastern side of the Mississippi. This would've been easier for the Brits if they had colonies in that part of North America...oh, wait.

The War Hawks did not want war just for the sake of going to war. They wanted the US flag respected on the high seas so we could conduct trade like any other nation. The British attitude of the time was that the USA was an experiment and that the Americans would eventually wish to be under the Union Jack again. Hell, even in my lifetime there have been Brits who STILL evidence this attitude by calling us "the Colonies".
Unfortunately, respect from an armed superpower means you need to be armed and you need to teach them a lesson. What the US taught the UK during that war was that we were willing to take them on and that we were willing to fight battles in the English Channel...something that scared the pants off of them. Yes, the British were beating us in most of the land war but once the USA started gaining an upper hand in the sea war the Brits realized that they had a logistical problem in the making. American arms factories could literally deliver new weapons to the US military and see those weapons in service the same day they were finished. British soldiers were quite often forced to eat food that had first been shipped 3,000 miles.

That means the principle goal of the war for the US was respect. And we got it. By 1842 when it came time to discuss the border between the US and Canada the Brits sat down with us a sovereign and independent nation.

   

War Hawk agitation was for land, national honour (you're right) and they specifically wanted British expulsion from the continent. I guess the latter didn't work out so well. Moreover, they say settlement opportunity in Loyalist Canadas ( they wrongly assumed that anti-British sentiments would make invasion a matter of marching). This wasn't merely about only garnering international respect.

The American military misadventures (it would have been much worse it weren't the the Napoleonic wars) almost resulted in a major defeat early on and while some success was realized on the Great Lakes, the Americans never saw an advantage on the Atlantic where the British Navy (by 1813, the British had taken the initiative at sea and by 1814, their control was evident as they stormed ashore in the District Columbia to set ablaze the White House) maintained a pretty consistent trading network, mosltly as a result of their unmolested coastal presence. The main source of American military pride was the Battle of New Orleans (but, as many know, concessions were already underway in Belgium)

Lastly, the principle goal of the war for the United States was not merely for respect. There were lingering issues from the Revolutionary War, but this ignores Land greed, removal of the continental British power, suspicions of British-Native activities and it should be remembered that the Northeastern American states opposed war (see Caleb Strong, and New Englander's refusal to lend money to their own federal government), thus making it difficult to even find a common American policy goal.

   

Previous  1  2