We're the Military and Airpower Guys of Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online + a stray we found wandering around looking lost. All original material JHD, BHD, JR, WT, and KA 2003-2010 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:58:09 Z Movable Type 4.12 en Copyright 2012 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:38 -0600 In late 1944 - early 1945, the army had several infantry regiments in France, tasked only to capture deserters and black marketeers. Things like that needs to be balanced against the catchy title of a Tom Brokaw book to give a real picture of the US war effort of the 40's. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112596 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112596 Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:44:08 -0600
I'll grant you Americans have not been terribly deeply involved in this war. I'll grant America seems listless and lacks direction.

However (you knew that was coming surely),

There have been manifest destinies declared since the beginning of time from many a ruler, kingdom and nation. It has always been a political tool. Germany had one too, they were looking for lebensraum. It failed. American success and German failure in this effort had nothing to do with any manifestation of destiny. It had much more to do with the driving forces and problems along the way. Now let's brush aside the good and ill of expansionism and consider the deeper question. What would *you* declare to be America's Manifest Destiny? For the expansionism meaning of the past would still appeal to some. What if we declared to covert all to Christianity which has been done before and certainly aligns more with the theocratic basis of destiny. What if we declare, a la Obama, a newer greener future of revitalised economic growth through solar cells and minimalist living? What if we thought Manifest Destiny meant we personally were to rule with Lordship and dominion over all you petty plebs? What if Manifest Destiny should be to set free all from religious influence?

I'm sure you see my point by now. Americans are very individualist. Aligning on some Manifest Destiny is hardly going to happen without there being very real desire for such alignment amongst enough of those individuals.

Secondly the 'Greatest Generation' stuck in my craw. Not just because I'm not a member but because I'm tired of hearing things being attributed to a generation rather than the people who actually do the deeds. This Greatest Generation is a myth. It had, as have other generations, fine upstanding people along with all the kind of crooks, liars and cheats we also find in other generations.
]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112535 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112535 Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:57:30 -0600
The whole ideaolgy behind Pearl harbor was summed up by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto  "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
Wholelly and truthfully the American people wanted little if anything to do with World War II. We were extremely isolationist (example the Neutrality act of 1937)

Rossevelt all but kicked us in to the war, physically. In spring of 1941 we were talking stratgey should we enter the war, but we still refused to do so. We sent massive amounts of supplies via Lend Lease, but no troops or units.

Hell, Canada declared war before we did. We built plants, and sent more supplies but still stopped short of outright work.

It wasn't until Pearl Harbor that we became involved. Their mistake to be sure.

My own family went to war, not so much out of patriotism, but becase as my grandfather said its what we Irish do...fight wars. One of the few things we exceptionally good at and have been for several hundred years.

While I agree there are fewer parades in the streets with this homecoming, there are also fewer soldiers being buried in foreign lands, and fewer bodies returning in caskets than before as well. So the impact while there is not as, shall we say? self evident?


]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112527 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112527 Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:44:46 -0600
This war isn't that war. This war we had the advantage of a few decades of real solid investment and an R&D system that makes our military all but untouchable in the field.

We so thoroughly outclass every possible enemy at this time that even with the "peace dividend" incompetence, we can still gear back up quickly enough to meet any threat any where at any time.

That war we had nearly nothing at the start. We were even outclassed in various issues of gear and equipment. It all had to be done very nearly from scratch. We were also fighting a MUCH larger war in that war. 70ish divisions worth of larger, iirc.

Oh, and take off the rose colored glasses on the "Greatest Generation".

The socialists and soviet lovers were just as powerful then as they are now. The "good war" didn't become the good war until after Adolfyboy betrayed poor old beloved Stalin with operation Barbarossa. Prior to that, there were marches in the streets, sabotage on the docks, walkouts in various industries, ect and so on, declaring that the wars over there weren't our prob and demanding that we stay out of it. This, of course, let a manageable situation get completely out of hand. Where 100s of 1000s might have been enough to pay the blood price, several millions ended up being required.

After Hitler and Stalin went to fighting, all the sudden, it was a good war that the US had to get behind... to save Russia!!!

The men and women who fought did their duty as citizens of this country at war. Same for those who put in the extra effort on the industrial and research fronts. Glory to them. Earned and given.

There were also draft dodgers aplenty. That's a rather large part of how San Fran got to be queer capital. San Fran was a primary intake point for west of the Mississippi. Those that either got 4Fed or played up to get 4F, couldn't go home out of shame. They stayed and San Fran ain't been the same since.

The men and women that sign up now? Best of breed for humanity. Even after decades of degenerate socialist utopianism indoc and narrative dominance, this country still manages to field the largest, strongest, best equipped, best led, most fierce warfighting organization in the history of mankind. And yeah, I'm serious about the best led part too. Lets see some of them magical mystical heros of ancient legend manage today's logistics and 4CI.

There's a thing that happened when the fighting was the most brutal, most intense and most noisy on the TV. The battle of Falujah and Al Anbar at it's worst. I only know of the USMC part but I think it safe to assume the same for the US Army.

In the USMC, when things were at their worst and the casualty count was a daily count in dead and wounded. When it was at its darkest, the Commandant had to issue a temporary stop order to transferes to the infantry and also on recruiting specifically for infantry. The worse it got, the more young men wanted to stand the line and be counted.

We do not lack for the stalwarts to man our shieldwall in this country.

As to the rest of the country being "at the mall"... of course it was.

1st: Short memory or deep memory hole... one of those. Do you recall after 9/11 just how damaged our economy was? Do you remember that? Our economic recovery was phenominal. World wide market colapse was the general prediction of that day. Remember?

2nd: Global socialism. It aint exactly the grand Internationale of scientific socialsim, but it is insanely parasitic none the less. Someone had to float all those economic sumps of our allies. That someone was us.

Of course, now, the parasites are gonna have to learn how to live without their arms shoulder deep into our pockets... and we're gonna have to learn to live without the idiotic Europeaneque socialist utopian bullcrap at home too. But that's a war still on the way.
]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112518 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2010/09/the_end_is_here.html#comment-112518 Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:02:20 -0600