Not sure what prompted Yglesias to write why Americans shouldn't be so "self-congratulatory" about being on the good side of defeating the worst imperialistic powers civilization has ever seen. Maybe he got mad when he saw some tourists gawking at the WWII memorial in DC during his morning bike ride or something. From Think Progress:
The greatest example of that has to be America’s bizarre self-congratulatory narrative about World War II. It’s a narrative that’s all the more bizarre for the fact that the truth would still reflect well on us. But somehow the fact that the Soviet Union did more, objectively, to beat Hitler gets excised. As does the fact that it was Canada, Australia, and New Zealand rather than the United States that really did somewhat selflessly jump to throw in with the Allies at the earliest possible date. Somehow we’re supposed to believe that the United States single-handedly, and in a completely disinterested manner, rode to the rescue and that it was incredibly cowardly of the nation of France to located itself adjacent to Germany rather than having the foresight to be courageously separated from Hitler by the Atlantic Ocean.Does anyone not know about London getting continuously bombed in 1940 or that the Soviets had the most casualties? His contrived strawman seems to be an horrible dumbass in history. Yglesias also conveniently leaves out that whole Pacific campaign portion of WWII, because of the inconvenient fact that we had more skin in the game there than our European allies. He seems to be channeling the standard conservative stereotype of liberals that courage, sacrifice, and patriotism is something the left is embarrassed by and that America is always in the wrong.
See what the others have said:
5 comments:
USSR lost so many because they simply didn't care about saving their people. By that standard concentration camp inmates did more than the US, too. 6 million dead! Such sacrifice!
One wonders how well Stalin would have done without the flood of trucks and other materiel we sent him...
You know what’s really fucking hilarious/disgusting about this is the fact that left wing faggots assholes like Yglesias were practically choking on Hitler’s cock during the Molotov-Rippentrop Pact. They even wrote protest songs and signed petition against Roosevelt because he had the nerve to enact Lend Lease and not let Britain starve. Much like today guys like Yglesias were a virtual fifth column.
I guess you could say they were against the war before they were for it.
Its hardly our fault that the Soviets were too goddamn stupid to listen to their own spies who told them the exact date and time that Hitler would unleash 170 divisions on them during Barbarossa. Couple that with Stalin’s complete disregard for his own citizens life and massive Soviet casualties were guaranteed.
Evidently the esteemed and “Harvard educated” Yglesias, fat little fucking ball of dough that he is, must not have learned that in “Hating ‘Merica 351”.
Was that offensive enough because I am pissed.
There is so much wrong with this I really don't even know where to begin. Canada, NZ and Australia threw in with Britain because they are commonwealth countries. The industrial capacity of the US quite literally overwhelmed the capacity of any other nation involved in the conflict.
Many of the planes, tanks and ships (lend-lease) of England during the beginning of the war were made in the US. The USSR didn't turn the corner against the nazis until WE opened a second front in Africa, later expanded that to Italy and France pulling troops from the Eastern Front.
I could go on but I'd get blisters on my fingers it could get long. I'm with Mike on this one.
Larison's article in the American Conservative is good: Americans do construct a narrative that our intentions are always on the side of right, and that we go to to war to liberate people.
It was the case in WW II, but it is not the case now. As pointed out morals sometimes intersect with national interest, but not always.
Lisa, I'm pretty sure every country goes in thinking they are on the side of good. Even Hitler thought he was doing the Germans a favor. For example, when the enemy collects info, it is called spying, a prosecutable offense. However, when the good guys do it, it is called reconnaissance.
Yglesias seems to forget how the Soviets entered the war with Japan once we had it wrapped up. Plus, our industrial might built more ships than the German u-boats could sink. We did have a back hand in the war before Pearl Harbor (why Japan attacked in the first place), but my guess is that he is talking about the general isolationist attitude of the US prior to 7 Dec. I would also like to know who planned the Normandy invasion? Patton had a pretty strong hand in taking North Africa and Italy.
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