Shit, I must have been asleep. So they're anti-ship now? What can't they do? I'm holding out hope for an A-10 dogfight against a significantly more advanced fighter where it emerges the victor. Or has that happened already?
The fundemental problem is, what makes us think the rebels are any better?
Is this some sort of joke? Please, find me even a tiny bit of evidence which suggests the 'rebels' are even remotely as bad as Gaddafi's forces. When the revolutionaries start using the same sort of fucked up tactics (shelling cities with mortars, sniping anyone they see, firing on hospitals, etc) and no longer have the support of the Libyan people, yeah maybe you might have a point. Until then, even suggesting they're remotely close is delusional at very best.
Wait, what?
The rebels are led by Gaddafi's former henchmen.
For instance, Abdul Younis was Gaddafi's Interior Minister - the same department responsible for operating those torture chambers and secret prisons. And those aren't things that just started up in February 2011, when Younis resigned. They've been going on for a while now, with Younis presiding over them.
Younis is currently Chief of Staff to Khalifa Hifter, commander-in-chief of the rebel military (a post Younis himself held previously).
Many of the rebel leadership have already done their fair share to warrant skepticism. If Himmler had rebelled and tried to overthrow Hitler, should he have been made part of the post-WWII German (transitional) government?
BubbaT on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
Here is a thought, why don't we give the rebels boots, hunting radios, body armour w/helmets, medical supplies, capes/blankets, sand bags, camel packs/canteens, and rice/MREs. Such things would probably be a good way to exchange for intel on them as well. It doesn't have to be rockets and missiles. How does that axiom go? "Militaries move on their stomach"? Don't have to arm a potential enemy as many seem to be choosing to see this uprising, just give em a chance to live long enough to learn from their mistakes. They seem to be supplying themselves with fire power and treasure from Gadaffi's stock piles and supply lines anyways.
So...we're still there? We better be getting some oil for this, because this is apparently causing oil investors to be "concerned" and driving prices up.
WASHINGTON - The United States may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, according to the general who led the military mission until NATO took over.
Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers Thursday that added American participation would not be ideal, and ground troops could erode the international coalition and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.
Ham said the operation was largely stalemated now and was more likely to remain that way since America has transferred control to NATO.
WASHINGTON - The United States may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, according to the general who led the military mission until NATO took over.
Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers Thursday that added American participation would not be ideal, and ground troops could erode the international coalition and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.
Ham said the operation was largely stalemated now and was more likely to remain that way since America has transferred control to NATO.
Just send in Sam Fisher, secretly kill Quadaffi and get out. Rest of the country will collapse and the rebels will clean up and the country will continue on and everything will be better.
While I figured it would lead to us putting troops on the ground, I also hoped and prayed that it wouldn't. I guess this is just further proof that God just doesn't care anymore.
Apparently Gaddafi put forward the idea of his son (Saif) taking over if he were to step down. Which begs the question: Does he have a sense of humor, is he just too crazy to know that was a stupid idea, or some more nuanced motivation that falls in between?
About bloody time. I should hope we'll see something akin to the international alliance that lifted the siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking.
Kelborn on
"Let us disdain earthly things, and despise the things of heaven, and, judging little of what is in the world, fly to the court beyond the world and next to the Gods. In that court, as the mystic writings tell us, are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones in the foremost places; let us not even yield place to them, the highest of the angelic orders, and not be content with a lower place, imitate them in all their glory and dignity. If we choose to, we will not be second to them in anything."
The fundemental problem is, what makes us think the rebels are any better?
Is this some sort of joke? Please, find me even a tiny bit of evidence which suggests the 'rebels' are even remotely as bad as Gaddafi's forces. When the revolutionaries start using the same sort of fucked up tactics (shelling cities with mortars, sniping anyone they see, firing on hospitals, etc) and no longer have the support of the Libyan people, yeah maybe you might have a point. Until then, even suggesting they're remotely close is delusional at very best.
Wait, what?
The rebels are led by Gaddafi's former henchmen.
For instance, Abdul Younis was Gaddafi's Interior Minister - the same department responsible for operating those torture chambers and secret prisons. And those aren't things that just started up in February 2011, when Younis resigned. They've been going on for a while now, with Younis presiding over them.
Younis is currently Chief of Staff to Khalifa Hifter, commander-in-chief of the rebel military (a post Younis himself held previously).
Many of the rebel leadership have already done their fair share to warrant skepticism. If Himmler had rebelled and tried to overthrow Hitler, should he have been made part of the post-WWII German (transitional) government?
So the rebels have set up their own torture chambers and secret prisons then? Plus they're actively targeting civilians and shelling cities? Otherwise I'm not sure how any of that means they're worse than Gaddafi.
Yeah, I have no doubt there are some assholes in the rebels, but prosecuting them right now isn't going to help anything (convincing Gaddafi's lackies to defect or just helping to fight Gaddafi). Right now, those matters are less important than just winning. I'm pretty sure the same would've been done in your ridiculous comparison too.
Here is a thought, why don't we give the rebels boots, hunting radios, body armour w/helmets, medical supplies, capes/blankets, sand bags, camel packs/canteens, and rice/MREs. Such things would probably be a good way to exchange for intel on them as well. It doesn't have to be rockets and missiles. How does that axiom go? "Militaries move on their stomach"? Don't have to arm a potential enemy as many seem to be choosing to see this uprising, just give em a chance to live long enough to learn from their mistakes. They seem to be supplying themselves with fire power and treasure from Gadaffi's stock piles and supply lines anyways.
We're already giving them some of this stuff -- in particular, they were given communications equipment a little while back so they could communicate their own positions and enemy positions to one another and to NATO in a timely fashion. As for the other stuff, though, there's very little indication that the rebels have established the logistical network necessary to distribute it. This is part of why they keep getting beaten back after taking ground -- they're advancing beyond their ability re-supply themselves.
Not that we actually need to trade with any of them for intelligence because of my next point...
The fundemental problem is, what makes us think the rebels are any better?
Is this some sort of joke? Please, find me even a tiny bit of evidence which suggests the 'rebels' are even remotely as bad as Gaddafi's forces. When the revolutionaries start using the same sort of fucked up tactics (shelling cities with mortars, sniping anyone they see, firing on hospitals, etc) and no longer have the support of the Libyan people, yeah maybe you might have a point. Until then, even suggesting they're remotely close is delusional at very best.
Wait, what?
The rebels are led by Gaddafi's former henchmen.
For instance, Abdul Younis was Gaddafi's Interior Minister - the same department responsible for operating those torture chambers and secret prisons. And those aren't things that just started up in February 2011, when Younis resigned. They've been going on for a while now, with Younis presiding over them.
Younis is currently Chief of Staff to Khalifa Hifter, commander-in-chief of the rebel military (a post Younis himself held previously).
Many of the rebel leadership have already done their fair share to warrant skepticism. If Himmler had rebelled and tried to overthrow Hitler, should he have been made part of the post-WWII German (transitional) government?
So the rebels have set up their own torture chambers and secret prisons then? Plus they're actively targeting civilians and shelling cities? Otherwise I'm not sure how any of that means they're worse than Gaddafi.
Yeah, I have no doubt there are some assholes in the rebels, but prosecuting them right now isn't going to help anything (convincing Gaddafi's lackies to defect or just helping to fight Gaddafi). Right now, those matters are less important than just winning. I'm pretty sure the same would've been done in your ridiculous comparison too.
Younis has already run torture chambers, under Gaddafi. As Minister of Interior, he ran the secret police.
And the rebels are criticizing the West for NOT shelling civilians. Gaddafi's troops are sitting in civilian-populated areas, and the rebels want us to bomb the crap out of them anyways. The UN mandate is to protect Libyan civilians, not to "Protect Libyan civilians except in cases where the rebels say it's okay because it will help the rebels capture, or maintain control of, a strategic objective."
Gaddafi's troops captured by the rebels, especially the mercenaries, have been subject to abuse. There have been charges of rebels persecuting, beating, raping, and lynching civilians of sub-Saharan descent (ie, blacks) in rebel-controlled areas. Rebel leadership has called it the result of "inexperience and revolutionary fervor".
As mercenaries, reputedly from Chad and Mali fight for him, a million African refugees and thousands of African migrant workers stand the risk of being murdered for their tenuous link to him.
One Turkish construction worker told the BBC: "We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: 'You are providing troops for Gaddafi.' The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves."
One young man from Ghana bolted from the prisoners queue. He shouted in English at an American reporter: "I'm not a soldier! I work for a construction company in Benghazi! They took me from my house … "
A guard shoved the prisoner back toward the cells.
"Go back inside!" he ordered.
The guard turned to the reporter and said: "He lies. He's a mercenary."
...
"These are the people who came to kill us," said Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, a military spokesman for the council, gazing on the detainees with contempt.
Asked whether some of the accused might indeed be foreign construction workers, Bani replied: "We are not in paradise here. Do you think they're going to admit they are mercenaries? We know they are, of course."
Bani said nightly raids to detain men named in the internal security files had intensified in recent days and would continue "until we get them all."
One of the accused shown to journalists was Alfusainey Kambi, 53, a disheveled Gambian wearing a bloodstained sport shirt and military fatigue trousers. He said he had been dragged from his home and beaten by three armed men who he said also raped his wife. A dirty bandage covered a wound on his forehead.
Khaled Ben Ali, a volunteer with the opposition council, berated Kambi and accused him of lying. Ali said Kambi hit his head on a wall while trying to escape.
He commanded the prisoner to comment on his treatment in the detention center.
Kambi paused and considered his answer. Finally, he glanced warily up at Ali and spoke.
"Nobody beat me here," he said in a faint, weary tone. "I have no problems here."
I ask you: what is there that should make me believe the rebels are truly interested in protecting civilians, as opposed to being more interested in beating Gaddafi and winning their war - even at the cost of civilian lives? Has there been some mission where the rebels diverted troops or supplies to protect civilians at the cost of securing some objective? Have they shown concern about the civilian population of Libya as a whole, or just the civilians who support them?
Note that we've helped the "lesser to two evils" before. We helped the mujahadeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We helped Saddam against Iran. We helped Stalin vs Hitler. Franco in the Spanish Civil War. We helped Idi Amin against Milton Obote in Uganda, thinking "How bad could Amin really be? Surely he can't be worse than Obote!" - and then Amin killed over 100,000 of his own people.
Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier.
Pinochet.
Suharto.
Mubarak.
Every single one of them, we thought couldn't possibly be worse than the alternative.
Maybe the rebels WILL be better. Maybe they'll turn Libya into Super Happy Democracy Land. But what I've seen so far, in addition to their backgrounds, suggests to be cautious in assigning the rebels white hats. They may not be the romanticized image of plucky freedom fighters that's been portrayed the majority of the media.
BTW - is the comparison of Himmler trying to overthrow Hitler really so ridiculous? There were Nazis (thought not Himmler) who went to the Allies offering Hitler's head on a pike in exchange for a place in a post-Hitler German government. The Allies were decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of allowing the German high command to remain in power, and rejected it.
Let's not pretend like our involvement in WW2 was to specifically stop a genocide. The reasons for our involvement were purely rooted in money.
That is an amazing mis-portrayal of history. Hell, if anything, the economy tanked during WW2. Hence the issue of war bonds, and such.
Genocide was not what we went to war for, no.
In fact, from what i've read of the days prior to the D-Day landings, there were some reports filtering in at the time, of the death camps. But no-one really took the claims seriously until we had boots on the ground and saw it for ourselves.
I mean, imagine some guy telling you that a major world power is rounding up and killing a sizable portion of their working population during a time of war between multiple other world powers. At the time, it seemed a bit nuts. Still does, in fact. Which just highlights one of many indicators as to how hosed up in the head Hitler was.
I'm pretty sure Pearl Harbor, and the fact that the enemies of our allies at the time proved to be completely untrustworthy, played something of a role in our involvement.
I don't think we went to war with Japan to drill for oil, is what i'm saying.
Late I know but also remember Hitler then declared war on the USA, because the war in russia was going so well. . . The US sort of got handed a reason for war with Germany.
Bastable on
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
We were basically at war with Germany in the Atlantic the minute we passed Lend-Lease. They made it official December 9th, we declared war December 11th.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Actually, didn't Himmler try to make exactly that move in early '45?
Yes. A popular portrayal of it can be found in Der Untergang, i.e. the Angry Hitler yelling on Youtube Movie.
I stand corrected on Himmler. I was thinking of the German generals who tried to cut a deal with the Allies in earlier years, like Hans Oster and Ludwig Beck.
Although, by 1945 there was no way the Allies were going to compromise on anything. Stalin was out for German blood by then, and the Western Allies couldn't have stopped him if they'd wanted to, short of using nukes. Hell, even the Japanese were afraid of Stalin - the same Japanese who were prepared to fight the US with bamboo spears, ran headfirst into machine gun fire, and basically shrugged off the nuking of Hiroshima.
BubbaT on
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South hostI obey without questionRegistered Userregular
Actually, didn't Himmler try to make exactly that move in early '45?
Yes. A popular portrayal of it can be found in Der Untergang, i.e. the Angry Hitler yelling on Youtube Movie.
I stand corrected on Himmler. I was thinking of the German generals who tried to cut a deal with the Allies in earlier years, like Hans Oster and Ludwig Beck.
Although, by 1945 there was no way the Allies were going to compromise on anything. Stalin was out for German blood by then, and the Western Allies couldn't have stopped him if they'd wanted to, short of using nukes. Hell, even the Japanese were afraid of Stalin - the same Japanese who were prepared to fight the US with bamboo spears, ran headfirst into machine gun fire, and basically shrugged off the nuking of Hiroshima.
Actually, the Japanese considered the Soviet Union a potential arbiter for peace, and even a way out of the war. The reasons are pretty obvious: the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941. The notion of a separate peace with the Soviet Union bothered the United States a great deal (particularly because of how it might make things worse in China, which the US had decades-long interest in).
The Japanese hopes were largely dashed to pieces with the Soviets honored their promise to declare war on the Japanese, made at Yalta (in effect to declare war on Japan 2 - 3 months after the end of the European War, presumably to give them a moment to breathe), and launched the Manchurian Strategic Operation against the +1 million reserve troops just sitting in Manchuria since the sinking of the Japanese Navy by the US.
By this point, the Japanese were far more afraid of the United States than the USSR, and with good reason: the US was the only nation in the world with the ability to launch an effective amphibious landing in Japan, the USSR didn't have literally thousands of bombers pounding Japan daily (the US did), and the, as they'd later find out, the USSR did not have an atomic bomb. These is even in the context of Japan as the last allied nation to withdraw from the Allied Invasion of the Russian Civil War (in 1922), and the previous fighting.
The fundemental problem is, what makes us think the rebels are any better?
Is this some sort of joke? Please, find me even a tiny bit of evidence which suggests the 'rebels' are even remotely as bad as Gaddafi's forces. When the revolutionaries start using the same sort of fucked up tactics (shelling cities with mortars, sniping anyone they see, firing on hospitals, etc) and no longer have the support of the Libyan people, yeah maybe you might have a point. Until then, even suggesting they're remotely close is delusional at very best.
Wait, what?
The rebels are led by Gaddafi's former henchmen.
For instance, Abdul Younis was Gaddafi's Interior Minister - the same department responsible for operating those torture chambers and secret prisons. And those aren't things that just started up in February 2011, when Younis resigned. They've been going on for a while now, with Younis presiding over them.
Younis is currently Chief of Staff to Khalifa Hifter, commander-in-chief of the rebel military (a post Younis himself held previously).
Many of the rebel leadership have already done their fair share to warrant skepticism. If Himmler had rebelled and tried to overthrow Hitler, should he have been made part of the post-WWII German (transitional) government?
So the rebels have set up their own torture chambers and secret prisons then? Plus they're actively targeting civilians and shelling cities? Otherwise I'm not sure how any of that means they're worse than Gaddafi.
Yeah, I have no doubt there are some assholes in the rebels, but prosecuting them right now isn't going to help anything (convincing Gaddafi's lackies to defect or just helping to fight Gaddafi). Right now, those matters are less important than just winning. I'm pretty sure the same would've been done in your ridiculous comparison too.
Younis has already run torture chambers, under Gaddafi. As Minister of Interior, he ran the secret police.
And the rebels are criticizing the West for NOT shelling civilians. Gaddafi's troops are sitting in civilian-populated areas, and the rebels want us to bomb the crap out of them anyways. The UN mandate is to protect Libyan civilians, not to "Protect Libyan civilians except in cases where the rebels say it's okay because it will help the rebels capture, or maintain control of, a strategic objective."
Gaddafi's troops captured by the rebels, especially the mercenaries, have been subject to abuse. There have been charges of rebels persecuting, beating, raping, and lynching civilians of sub-Saharan descent (ie, blacks) in rebel-controlled areas. Rebel leadership has called it the result of "inexperience and revolutionary fervor".
As mercenaries, reputedly from Chad and Mali fight for him, a million African refugees and thousands of African migrant workers stand the risk of being murdered for their tenuous link to him.
One Turkish construction worker told the BBC: "We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: 'You are providing troops for Gaddafi.' The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves."
One young man from Ghana bolted from the prisoners queue. He shouted in English at an American reporter: "I'm not a soldier! I work for a construction company in Benghazi! They took me from my house … "
A guard shoved the prisoner back toward the cells.
"Go back inside!" he ordered.
The guard turned to the reporter and said: "He lies. He's a mercenary."
...
"These are the people who came to kill us," said Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, a military spokesman for the council, gazing on the detainees with contempt.
Asked whether some of the accused might indeed be foreign construction workers, Bani replied: "We are not in paradise here. Do you think they're going to admit they are mercenaries? We know they are, of course."
Bani said nightly raids to detain men named in the internal security files had intensified in recent days and would continue "until we get them all."
One of the accused shown to journalists was Alfusainey Kambi, 53, a disheveled Gambian wearing a bloodstained sport shirt and military fatigue trousers. He said he had been dragged from his home and beaten by three armed men who he said also raped his wife. A dirty bandage covered a wound on his forehead.
Khaled Ben Ali, a volunteer with the opposition council, berated Kambi and accused him of lying. Ali said Kambi hit his head on a wall while trying to escape.
He commanded the prisoner to comment on his treatment in the detention center.
Kambi paused and considered his answer. Finally, he glanced warily up at Ali and spoke.
"Nobody beat me here," he said in a faint, weary tone. "I have no problems here."
I ask you: what is there that should make me believe the rebels are truly interested in protecting civilians, as opposed to being more interested in beating Gaddafi and winning their war - even at the cost of civilian lives? Has there been some mission where the rebels diverted troops or supplies to protect civilians at the cost of securing some objective? Have they shown concern about the civilian population of Libya as a whole, or just the civilians who support them?
Note that we've helped the "lesser to two evils" before. We helped the mujahadeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We helped Saddam against Iran. We helped Stalin vs Hitler. Franco in the Spanish Civil War. We helped Idi Amin against Milton Obote in Uganda, thinking "How bad could Amin really be? Surely he can't be worse than Obote!" - and then Amin killed over 100,000 of his own people.
Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier.
Pinochet.
Suharto.
Mubarak.
Every single one of them, we thought couldn't possibly be worse than the alternative.
Maybe the rebels WILL be better. Maybe they'll turn Libya into Super Happy Democracy Land. But what I've seen so far, in addition to their backgrounds, suggests to be cautious in assigning the rebels white hats. They may not be the romanticized image of plucky freedom fighters that's been portrayed the majority of the media.
BTW - is the comparison of Himmler trying to overthrow Hitler really so ridiculous? There were Nazis (thought not Himmler) who went to the Allies offering Hitler's head on a pike in exchange for a place in a post-Hitler German government. The Allies were decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of allowing the German high command to remain in power, and rejected it.
I'd say this is a pretty classic case of confirmation bias. I'm not familiar with the specifics of that whole list, but some of those are misleading or even false examples. In many cases the dictators in that list were not supported because they were the "lesser of two evils," but because they advanced US foreign policy. That list also doesn't take into account instances where the US intervened with a positive turnout.
First, the falsehood: the US government did not support Franco (he's the fascist-oriented Nationalist). The US didn't even - in fact - support the Republicans (as they were associated with the USSR). Actual American people (and industry) supported both sides. After the war the US normalized relations with Franco's government in the 50s, but aside from formalizing diplomatic relations the US didn't do anything to put Franco in power or directly keep him there.
Second, discarded instances: if you're going to classify lend-lease as support for Stalin you'd also have to include Britain, China, France and other minor states that received US-assistance from the law. This is generally support against Hitler more than support for Stalin. Unless you're saying Churchill was worse than Hitler.
Third, half-truths: many of the people listed above were not choices of "the lesser of two evils." They were "who will best further US foreign policy abroad." E.g. we backed Saddam because he was part of a coup that toppled a government that seemed to be going pro-Soviet and he was attacking a vehemently anti-American Iran. We did not support him because we thought he'd be the best thing for the Iraqi people. We supported Mubarak because we feared a more extreme government and wanted to maintain the status quo with Israel to avoid another Six-Day War (or worse) - not because we thought he was best for the Egyptian people.
(This does not necessarily mean I believe the rebels are plucky, humanistic freedom fighters.)
Actually, didn't Himmler try to make exactly that move in early '45?
Yes. A popular portrayal of it can be found in Der Untergang, i.e. the Angry Hitler yelling on Youtube Movie.
I stand corrected on Himmler. I was thinking of the German generals who tried to cut a deal with the Allies in earlier years, like Hans Oster and Ludwig Beck.
Although, by 1945 there was no way the Allies were going to compromise on anything. Stalin was out for German blood by then, and the Western Allies couldn't have stopped him if they'd wanted to, short of using nukes. Hell, even the Japanese were afraid of Stalin - the same Japanese who were prepared to fight the US with bamboo spears, ran headfirst into machine gun fire, and basically shrugged off the nuking of Hiroshima.
Actually, the Japanese considered the Soviet Union a potential arbiter for peace, and even a way out of the war. The reasons are pretty obvious: the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941. The notion of a separate peace with the Soviet Union bothered the United States a great deal (particularly because of how it might make things worse in China, which the US had decades-long interest in).
The Japanese hopes were largely dashed to pieces with the Soviets honored their promise to declare war on the Japanese, made at Yalta (in effect to declare war on Japan 2 - 3 months after the end of the European War, presumably to give them a moment to breathe), and launched the Manchurian Strategic Operation against the +1 million reserve troops just sitting in Manchuria since the sinking of the Japanese Navy by the US.
By this point, the Japanese were far more afraid of the United States than the USSR, and with good reason: the US was the only nation in the world with the ability to launch an effective amphibious landing in Japan, the USSR didn't have literally thousands of bombers pounding Japan daily (the US did), and the, as they'd later find out, the USSR did not have an atomic bomb. These is even in the context of Japan as the last allied nation to withdraw from the Allied Invasion of the Russian Civil War (in 1922), and the previous fighting.
The reason Japan was pushing so hard for the USSR to stay neutral was exactly because they were afraid of the USSR. And with good reason - anytime the 2 brushed up against each other in Manchuria, the Soviets kicked the Japanese's ass. And that was in 1939, when the Japanese military was in much better shape. By 1945, the Soviets were capturing Japanese armies whole - in part due to the Japanese underestimating Soviet logistical capabilities.
The US was not the only nation with amphibious assault capability. The Soviets launched several amphibious assaults on Japanese territory after declaring war - Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. That put the Soviets in prime position to invade Hokkaido, which was relatively undefended.
The Japanese weren't afraid of the US to that same degree. Even after Okinawa and Iwo Jima, they were preparing to defend themselves against an American invasion of the home islands, using swords and spears. They were willing to fight Marines, they weren't willing to fight the Red Army.
I don't see the nukes as a game-changer for the Japanese in 1945 (though obviously their legacy is huge today). Less people died at Hiroshima or Nagasaki than died from conventional bombing in Tokyo. The only difference was it took 1 bomber to level a city instead of 100, but considering the Americans had air superiority the only difference at the time between nuking a city and destroying it conventionally was how long it would take. The folks on the ground would still be dead either way.
And finally, and the Imperial household would not have survived Soviet occupation of the home islands.
The popular image of Japanese preparing home defense with spears and pikes isn't because they didn't consider the Americans a serious threat--it was an effort at propaganda to keep the state from collapsing on itself, and because there was literally no way for the state to arm them better. Industrial capacity still existed, but it was taxed to the limit trying to replace what the United States was constantly destroying. This idea that "they'd only fight the Americans, not the Soviets" on the home front isn't entirely convincing, when it was the Americans setting fire to entire Japanese cities while the Soviets have suffered millions upon millions of losses.
The confidence you're describing almost certainly did not exist within the Soviet Union itself. Any successes the Soviets had enjoyed recently up to that point where overwhelming masked by the huge embarrassment of the Russo-Japanese War combined with the further embarrassment of the actual occupation of parts of the Russian SFSR by actual Japanese soldiers until 1922. No amount of early "ass-kicking" at Khalkhin Gol or elsehwere could come close to erasing those memories (hell, even Khalkin Gol, which I believe was the most decisive Soviet victory prior to Manchuria in the far east, was not as huge as the Soviets apparently liked to claim 60,000 Japanese losses, the Japanese claim 8,440, and there's reason to believe the Soviets may have exaggerated this claim).
It's possible the Japanese were not as confident as the Soviets were embarrassed, but until the huge success of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation that these possibly unrealistic fears were overcome. You're absolutely correct that the impression of the Soviet Union, both among the political leadership and the country at large, changed radically after Manchuria's defeat--many leaders did not think the Soviets would honor their promise in the first place. Then again, Manchuria only occurred after Hiroshima (and I think Nagasaki?) were bombed, so they happened a little too late to really shape Japanese fears during the war.
Of course the US wasn't the only country in the would actually capable of some sort of amphibious landing. Canada performed amphibious landings, as had Britain. Nonetheless, the amphibious capability of the Soviet Pacific Navy (as it existed at the time) doesn't really compare to that of the US, or what the US projected it would need to invade Japan from nearby islands it held. Amphibious assaults in Korea and the Kurils half-halfheartedly compare to landings in Okinawa.
Yes, the Imperial Household would not have survived a Soviet occupation. However, neither the household agency nor the leadership in Tokyo knew for a fact of certainty that it would survive an American occupation--it was hoped that it would, but likewise the possibility that it would not was a huge concern among the citizenry (thanks to mobilization of propaganda) to avoid a surrender. This was still a particular point of fear among the population--further stoke by the long anti-communist propaganda tradition--but among a military leadership that was actually willing to place the emperor himself under house arrest (Kyūjō Incident) it wasn't overwhelming compared to the overall fear of total extermination from the air or sea.
You're right in that there's a difference between the fears of the political government leadership and the fears of the general citizenry and body--that being said, I think you're underestimating the terror the biggest air bombing campaign in human history, combined with one of the greatest naval blockades to ever been enacted, had on Japan, which had been at war since 1931, but had suffered such catastrophic damage and defeats since the escalation with America, which border strikes against the Soviet Union couldn't really compare. The conventional bombing, as you pointed out, was more than devastating enough--the Japanese knew the Soviets were in no position to set fire to the entire country, even if it hadn't already happened.
russian guy I know sees the russo-japanese war as giving the japanese the incorrect idea that they could beat a real imperial army and kicking them off towards military rule
That sounds like me. Not many others who'd fit that role, heh.
The point of that example, anyway, was to clarify what people were talking about. The Khatyn Massacre, for example, the most famous murder of POWs perhaps (for example, between 3 and 5 million Red Army POWs were killed--can anyone name a specific incident? Here in the west, probably not, but many of us have at leas heard of Khatyn) was not an act perpetrated on liberated Polish POWs...they were Polish POWs who had fought against the Soviet Union (in hopes of liberating their nation, in hopes of conquering Belarus as living space for Poland, fighting the communist revolution, etc.) and thus, were billigerents in one side of a conflict. Was it still a criminal act? Yes, it was.
The most famous example of Soviet brutality towards POWs are actually to their own countrymen. This might sound surprising, but reason is actually pretty basic, from a cynical standpoint--between 60 and 90% of Soviet POWs were executed, the large majority of them in a short period of time. If you're a cynic, you'll say 90%, and you'll also wonder why this remaining 10% survived. Unfortunately for the innocent POWs, there were huge numbers of collaboraters and other so-called traitors for any number of reasons (everything from anti-Stalinist positions, anti-communism, pro-White sympathizers from the civil war and genuine sympathy for Fascism and/or Germany). Germany had their so-called national liberation units, ostensibly organized to liberate their nationalities from Soviet rule, and not all people in them were serving unwillingly. There were actual, genuine collaborators to fuel the paranoia and anger of those who hadn't been captured or surrendered.
On the other hand, for Americans liberated by the Red Army, there are both accusations of brutality (or even just negligance, as the Soviets dragged their feet to repatriat many of them), and also incidents of praise for the Red Army rescuring American (Charles Bond had to crash land in Stalingrad, Joseph Beyrle is literally liberated from a German POW camp and convinced Marshal Zhukov to allow him to fight into Berlin, after which he was repatriated). So it works both ways, depending on the issue.
There's also the fact that surrender was considered counter-revolutionary and was punishable by death. Forsaken: American Tragedy in Stalin's USSR tells the typical horrifying tales of Soviet POWs asking to be taken back to the US instead of back to the USSR, NKVD Barrier Troops executing Red Army soldiers who wouldn't press forward, US soldiers liberated by the Red Army and simply disappearing.
That sounds like me. Not many others who'd fit that role, heh.
The point of that example, anyway, was to clarify what people were talking about. The Khatyn Massacre, for example, the most famous murder of POWs perhaps (for example, between 3 and 5 million Red Army POWs were killed--can anyone name a specific incident? Here in the west, probably not, but many of us have at leas heard of Khatyn) was not an act perpetrated on liberated Polish POWs...they were Polish POWs who had fought against the Soviet Union (in hopes of liberating their nation, in hopes of conquering Belarus as living space for Poland, fighting the communist revolution, etc.) and thus, were billigerents in one side of a conflict. Was it still a criminal act? Yes, it was.
The most famous example of Soviet brutality towards POWs are actually to their own countrymen. This might sound surprising, but reason is actually pretty basic, from a cynical standpoint--between 60 and 90% of Soviet POWs were executed, the large majority of them in a short period of time. If you're a cynic, you'll say 90%, and you'll also wonder why this remaining 10% survived. Unfortunately for the innocent POWs, there were huge numbers of collaboraters and other so-called traitors for any number of reasons (everything from anti-Stalinist positions, anti-communism, pro-White sympathizers from the civil war and genuine sympathy for Fascism and/or Germany). Germany had their so-called national liberation units, ostensibly organized to liberate their nationalities from Soviet rule, and not all people in them were serving unwillingly. There were actual, genuine collaborators to fuel the paranoia and anger of those who hadn't been captured or surrendered.
On the other hand, for Americans liberated by the Red Army, there are both accusations of brutality (or even just negligance, as the Soviets dragged their feet to repatriat many of them), and also incidents of praise for the Red Army rescuring American (Charles Bond had to crash land in Stalingrad, Joseph Beyrle is literally liberated from a German POW camp and convinced Marshal Zhukov to allow him to fight into Berlin, after which he was repatriated). So it works both ways, depending on the issue.
There's also the fact that surrender was considered counter-revolutionary and was punishable by death. Forsaken: American Tragedy in Stalin's USSR tells the typical horrifying tales of Soviet POWs asking to be taken back to the US instead of back to the USSR, NKVD Barrier Troops executing Red Army soldiers who wouldn't press forward, US soldiers liberated by the Red Army and simply disappearing.
At the risk of sounding like an apologist--I don't want to--surrender was not "counter-revolutionary", or rather, that wasn't the mentality behind it. It was considered tantamount to desertion, which itself was considered high treason. It's hardly any more reasonable, but a difference worth noting. Red Army soldiers surrendered during the Civil War in large numbers, and weren't executed as being "counterrevolutionaries" despite the fact that revolutionary fervor was both significantly stronger and taken much more seriously. In actuality, appearing to fail to do your duty due to cowardice can get you shot in any number of armies--Omer Bartov does a very good description of just that happening in the German Wehrmacht in Hitler's Army, and for an American example, you can find a smaller number (though still plenty of them) in Michael C. C. Adam's The Best War Ever. The Red Army has a particularly bad problem with this due to the huge defeats it suffers early on which claim many professional soldiers, and also poor strategy which leads men to surrender. Does it suck? I'd say yes, it does, in any war, but I was a conscript in my own country, and not a commander.
Likewise, the really famous image of NKVD "commissars" in their blue caps executing troops who refuse to run towards the enemy, Enemy at the Gates-style? Largely fictional. First, NKVD "commissars", as in military officers, don't exist--the army has political and security officers of its own, usually "politruk". "Commissar" is otherwise a high title equal to commissioner or even general, not someone who'd actually be in a battlefield. Basically about as accurate a reflection of reality as Saving Private Ryan after they finished the beach landing. The Germans had no problem killing enemy soldiers who were running away. The Penal Battalions are a famous example where it mirrors the popular image more closely, alongside Partisan fighters, who would execute their own for cowardice quickly, but among 'normal' conscripts, that's largely an invention of popular media. There were plenty of other horrible threats and punishment they could use that would leave a soldier still physically capable of fighting.
When the word got out, Soviet POWs frequently considered themselves to be in grave danger (and not without reason) when repatriated (though, contrary to the popular image in the west, not every Soviet taken prisoner was executed--you can find literally thousands of accounts given by POWs who were not harmed after repatriation in CIS literature, simply because of the sheer size of the war itself).
And there are even weirder stories--take the Belorussians who were forced into the 30th SS Division (1st Belorussian) by the Germans during the occupation of their republic. They were sent to France because they were considered too unreliable to fight the Red Army, where they murdered their officers and surrendered to the United States. Since it was common knowledge they were foreign soldiers in the SS, when asked of their nationality, they would say they were Belorussian. Since the Americans who captured them did not know where Belarus was (or if they did, did not consider it a viable answer), they were usually informed that they would be considered Polish in the eyes of the United States (since Poland occupied half of Belarus since the war with the USSR). Except the Belorussians, who did not know Poland was going to be occupied by the Red Army and believed it would remain an independent state, panicked, believing (not incorrectly) that they'd all be executed if they were sent to Poland, so they had to claim they were Russian instead.
EDIT: Also, we're really getting off topic, largely because of me.
In many cases the dictators in that list were not supported because they were the "lesser of two evils," but because they advanced US foreign policy.
How does that not make them the lesser of two evils? We knew Saddam was an goose, but he was an anti-Soviet goose, which made him the lesser of two evils compared to the pro-Soviet geese in Iran.
I don't know of any of those dictators I listed where the US thought they were some kind of benevolent freedom-loving ruler. They were all pretty well-known as geese beforehand.
That list also doesn't take into account instances where the US intervened with a positive turnout.
True. Kosovo seems to be the one many are hanging their hat on. I guess South Korea would be another - we supported tyrannical SK leaders for decades, and finally in the late 80s and 90s they started getting around to instituting democratic political reforms.
Third, half-truths: many of the people listed above were not choices of "the lesser of two evils." They were "who will best further US foreign policy abroad." E.g. we backed Saddam because he was part of a coup that toppled a government that seemed to be going pro-Soviet and he was attacking a vehemently anti-American Iran. We did not support him because we thought he'd be the best thing for the Iraqi people. We supported Mubarak because we feared a more extreme government and wanted to maintain the status quo with Israel to avoid another Six-Day War (or worse) - not because we thought he was best for the Egyptian people.
I didn't say the US thought Saddam was great. Lesser of 2 evils is still evil.
You both do realize that you two are just arguing the same thing from different perspectives, right? Both views (Lesser of two evils vs Advance foreign policy) really mean the same thing when talking about prospective dictators. Ultimately which form of the argument you'll take comes down to whether you agreed with the decision to some degree or not
I hadn't known that we supported Saddam in the Baathist coup. Funny considering we supported them hoping to turn Iraq away from the USSR. The Baath party in general wanted to create a pan Arabic state between Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. For a brief period of time there actually WAS a single country that constituted both Egypt and Syria.
Regardless, both Egypt and Syria were Soviet leaning countries, at least more so than US leaning ones. Mainly because the US largely supported Israel. The Baath party was a socialist party as well.
However, the main reason behind Egyptian and Syrian unity was to consolidate the power of Socialist Arab parties against a growing Communist party in both countries.
In many cases the dictators in that list were not supported because they were the "lesser of two evils," but because they advanced US foreign policy.
How does that not make them the lesser of two evils? We knew Saddam was an goose, but he was an anti-Soviet goose, which made him the lesser of two evils compared to the pro-Soviet geese in Iran.
I don't know of any of those dictators I listed where the US thought they were some kind of benevolent freedom-loving ruler. They were all pretty well-known as geese beforehand.
That list also doesn't take into account instances where the US intervened with a positive turnout.
True. Kosovo seems to be the one many are hanging their hat on. I guess South Korea would be another - we supported tyrannical SK leaders for decades, and finally in the late 80s and 90s they started getting around to instituting democratic political reforms.
Third, half-truths: many of the people listed above were not choices of "the lesser of two evils." They were "who will best further US foreign policy abroad." E.g. we backed Saddam because he was part of a coup that toppled a government that seemed to be going pro-Soviet and he was attacking a vehemently anti-American Iran. We did not support him because we thought he'd be the best thing for the Iraqi people. We supported Mubarak because we feared a more extreme government and wanted to maintain the status quo with Israel to avoid another Six-Day War (or worse) - not because we thought he was best for the Egyptian people.
I didn't say the US thought Saddam was great. Lesser of 2 evils is still evil.
Pro-Soviet geese in Iran? You mean, the Ayatollahs constructed a theocracy and then allied themselves with an unabashedly Atheistic empire? Nope, the Iranians were anti-USA (more generally, anti-West), plain and simple.
The only difference was it took 1 bomber to level a city instead of 100, but considering the Americans had air superiority the only difference at the time between nuking a city and destroying it conventionally was how long it would take.
In many cases the dictators in that list were not supported because they were the "lesser of two evils," but because they advanced US foreign policy.
How does that not make them the lesser of two evils? We knew Saddam was an goose, but he was an anti-Soviet goose, which made him the lesser of two evils compared to the pro-Soviet geese in Iran.
I don't know of any of those dictators I listed where the US thought they were some kind of benevolent freedom-loving ruler. They were all pretty well-known as geese beforehand.
That list also doesn't take into account instances where the US intervened with a positive turnout.
True. Kosovo seems to be the one many are hanging their hat on. I guess South Korea would be another - we supported tyrannical SK leaders for decades, and finally in the late 80s and 90s they started getting around to instituting democratic political reforms.
Third, half-truths: many of the people listed above were not choices of "the lesser of two evils." They were "who will best further US foreign policy abroad." E.g. we backed Saddam because he was part of a coup that toppled a government that seemed to be going pro-Soviet and he was attacking a vehemently anti-American Iran. We did not support him because we thought he'd be the best thing for the Iraqi people. We supported Mubarak because we feared a more extreme government and wanted to maintain the status quo with Israel to avoid another Six-Day War (or worse) - not because we thought he was best for the Egyptian people.
I didn't say the US thought Saddam was great. Lesser of 2 evils is still evil.
Pro-Soviet geese in Iran? You mean, the Ayatollahs constructed a theocracy and then allied themselves with an unabashedly Atheistic empire? Nope, the Iranians were anti-USA (more generally, anti-West), plain and simple.
You're right, I had that backwards. The Iranians weren't pro-Soviet, but the Soviets were pro-Iran (even while selling guns to the Iraqis as well).
Brezhnev praised the "profoundly anti-imperialist" Iranian revolution in February 1981 - by which point the Iraq-Iran War was already 6 months old - in front of the Communist Party Congress. In July 1981 the USSR and Iran signed treaties which provided for Soviet arms sales to Iran, as well as providing Iran with Soviet military advisors. North Korea served as a middleman for deniable Soviet arms sales to Iran. At the beginning of the war Iran had mostly American arms, left over from the Shah's rule. By the midpoint of the war, the vast majority of Iranian arms were Soviet.
Soviet efforts, for all of Iran's anti-everybody rhetoric, did not go unnoticed. In 1986 Soviet Prime Minister Kornyenko visited Tehran to discuss Soviet-Iranian economic cooperation, such as the resumption of Iranian gas exports, which occurred later that year. In 1989 Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze was welcomed for an official visit to Tehran, and granted an audience with Khomeini. Shevardnadze's visit resulted in the Iranians agreeing to a transnational railway crossing their Soviet border.
In 1981 the Iranians allowed the Soviets to construct a surveillance base in Baluchistan - even though the base would allow the Soviets to track pro-Afghan supply convoys coming in from Pakistan, and the Iranians ostensibly supported the mujahadeen.
Yes, Iran was officially neutral regarding the US and USSR, and they liked to claim they supported neither East nor West. In truth, they were about as neutral as the Swiss during WWII.
The US still has yet to match such headway with Iran, despite the USSR having been dead for the last 2 decades.
Man, the Libyan Rebels are just getting the shit kicked out of them in the Western part of the country. I think it's mostly in part to Gaddafi's forces being pretty indiscriminate in the slaughter, but that's not necessarily good news.
It doesn't seem like Western bombing is giving the rebels much of an advantage on this front since the national forces changed up their tactics and started taking the fight to an urban street-by-street style.
Witch_Hunter_84 on
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
It is, after all, a reason Iranian-Russian revolutions had been a point of hope for Tehran in the most recent decade. The various Iranian peoples in the Soviet Union (mostly Kazakhstan, Azerbijan, Tajikistan, Armenia, etc., I think) were also a (minor) consideration.
But yes, for a second there, I thought you were equating deposed Prime Minister Mosaddegh with Saddam Hussein of all people.
It is, after all, a reason Iranian-Russian revolutions had been a point of hope for Tehran in the most recent decade. The various Iranian peoples in the Soviet Union (mostly Kazakhstan, Azerbijan, Tajikistan, Armenia, etc., I think) were also a (minor) consideration.
But yes, for a second there, I thought you were equating deposed Prime Minister Mosaddegh with Saddam Hussein of all people.
Just a little nitpick on those countries with Iranian peoples.
Kazakhstan? Not so much. Azerbaijan has a lot, indeed Azeris are arguably Iranian anyway, at least so claim Iranian nationalists. Either way the territory has been part of Iran/Persia before.
Tajikistan has a lot of Iranian descendents and speak a version of Persian, which I find odd for how far it is from Iran. The rest of the 'stans are mostly Turkic peoples... except for one, which I can't for the life of me remember right now, but I think the Uzbeks or Kyrgyz. Of course there are lots of Persian/Turkic mixes, differentiated by when and where they mixed.
I just read a book on Central Asia, and while informative, I must say learning about this stuff was more boring than anything else. Anyway, carry on.
Like, this doesn't seem like an extensive operation, so having weapon supply issues over it would imply that Europe's military power is actually pretty sorely deficient, and that, seems like a pretty big issue to me.
Oh god, is this finally justifying our massive defense budget? Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now a bombing campaign in Libya and we still can bring the bombs...
Oh god, is this finally justifying our massive defense budget? Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now a bombing campaign in Libya and we still can bring the bombs...
I wouldn't say justify, more like showing just how extreme our defense budget really is.
Posts
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-08/news/mn-937_1_air-combat
Well, it can shoot down helicopters, but that doesn't really count, I guess.
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=6347&lang=0
And that's the thing it did against the ships.
Wait, what?
The rebels are led by Gaddafi's former henchmen.
For instance, Abdul Younis was Gaddafi's Interior Minister - the same department responsible for operating those torture chambers and secret prisons. And those aren't things that just started up in February 2011, when Younis resigned. They've been going on for a while now, with Younis presiding over them.
Younis is currently Chief of Staff to Khalifa Hifter, commander-in-chief of the rebel military (a post Younis himself held previously).
Many of the rebel leadership have already done their fair share to warrant skepticism. If Himmler had rebelled and tried to overthrow Hitler, should he have been made part of the post-WWII German (transitional) government?
Really? HIFTER?
That's a quirk.
Just send in Sam Fisher, secretly kill Quadaffi and get out. Rest of the country will collapse and the rebels will clean up and the country will continue on and everything will be better.
While I figured it would lead to us putting troops on the ground, I also hoped and prayed that it wouldn't. I guess this is just further proof that God just doesn't care anymore.
About bloody time. I should hope we'll see something akin to the international alliance that lifted the siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking.
So the rebels have set up their own torture chambers and secret prisons then? Plus they're actively targeting civilians and shelling cities? Otherwise I'm not sure how any of that means they're worse than Gaddafi.
Yeah, I have no doubt there are some assholes in the rebels, but prosecuting them right now isn't going to help anything (convincing Gaddafi's lackies to defect or just helping to fight Gaddafi). Right now, those matters are less important than just winning. I'm pretty sure the same would've been done in your ridiculous comparison too.
Yet another translation issue. I'm pretty sure most people just use Haftar.
As to the A-10 Talk:
Put a target infront of this -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjVR_E7hQGs&feature=related
It dies.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
We're already giving them some of this stuff -- in particular, they were given communications equipment a little while back so they could communicate their own positions and enemy positions to one another and to NATO in a timely fashion. As for the other stuff, though, there's very little indication that the rebels have established the logistical network necessary to distribute it. This is part of why they keep getting beaten back after taking ground -- they're advancing beyond their ability re-supply themselves.
Not that we actually need to trade with any of them for intelligence because of my next point...
The Americans certainly use Haftar, right? Right?
Younis has already run torture chambers, under Gaddafi. As Minister of Interior, he ran the secret police.
And the rebels are criticizing the West for NOT shelling civilians. Gaddafi's troops are sitting in civilian-populated areas, and the rebels want us to bomb the crap out of them anyways. The UN mandate is to protect Libyan civilians, not to "Protect Libyan civilians except in cases where the rebels say it's okay because it will help the rebels capture, or maintain control of, a strategic objective."
Gaddafi's troops captured by the rebels, especially the mercenaries, have been subject to abuse. There have been charges of rebels persecuting, beating, raping, and lynching civilians of sub-Saharan descent (ie, blacks) in rebel-controlled areas. Rebel leadership has called it the result of "inexperience and revolutionary fervor".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12585395
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/24/world/la-fg-libya-prisoners-20110324/2
I ask you: what is there that should make me believe the rebels are truly interested in protecting civilians, as opposed to being more interested in beating Gaddafi and winning their war - even at the cost of civilian lives? Has there been some mission where the rebels diverted troops or supplies to protect civilians at the cost of securing some objective? Have they shown concern about the civilian population of Libya as a whole, or just the civilians who support them?
Note that we've helped the "lesser to two evils" before. We helped the mujahadeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We helped Saddam against Iran. We helped Stalin vs Hitler. Franco in the Spanish Civil War. We helped Idi Amin against Milton Obote in Uganda, thinking "How bad could Amin really be? Surely he can't be worse than Obote!" - and then Amin killed over 100,000 of his own people.
Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier.
Pinochet.
Suharto.
Mubarak.
Every single one of them, we thought couldn't possibly be worse than the alternative.
Maybe the rebels WILL be better. Maybe they'll turn Libya into Super Happy Democracy Land. But what I've seen so far, in addition to their backgrounds, suggests to be cautious in assigning the rebels white hats. They may not be the romanticized image of plucky freedom fighters that's been portrayed the majority of the media.
BTW - is the comparison of Himmler trying to overthrow Hitler really so ridiculous? There were Nazis (thought not Himmler) who went to the Allies offering Hitler's head on a pike in exchange for a place in a post-Hitler German government. The Allies were decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of allowing the German high command to remain in power, and rejected it.
Yes. A popular portrayal of it can be found in Der Untergang, i.e. the Angry Hitler yelling on Youtube Movie.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I stand corrected on Himmler. I was thinking of the German generals who tried to cut a deal with the Allies in earlier years, like Hans Oster and Ludwig Beck.
Although, by 1945 there was no way the Allies were going to compromise on anything. Stalin was out for German blood by then, and the Western Allies couldn't have stopped him if they'd wanted to, short of using nukes. Hell, even the Japanese were afraid of Stalin - the same Japanese who were prepared to fight the US with bamboo spears, ran headfirst into machine gun fire, and basically shrugged off the nuking of Hiroshima.
Rebels are trying to conventionally, Libyan forces are fighting more like the insurgents, with technicals and the like.
Actually, the Japanese considered the Soviet Union a potential arbiter for peace, and even a way out of the war. The reasons are pretty obvious: the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941. The notion of a separate peace with the Soviet Union bothered the United States a great deal (particularly because of how it might make things worse in China, which the US had decades-long interest in).
The Japanese hopes were largely dashed to pieces with the Soviets honored their promise to declare war on the Japanese, made at Yalta (in effect to declare war on Japan 2 - 3 months after the end of the European War, presumably to give them a moment to breathe), and launched the Manchurian Strategic Operation against the +1 million reserve troops just sitting in Manchuria since the sinking of the Japanese Navy by the US.
By this point, the Japanese were far more afraid of the United States than the USSR, and with good reason: the US was the only nation in the world with the ability to launch an effective amphibious landing in Japan, the USSR didn't have literally thousands of bombers pounding Japan daily (the US did), and the, as they'd later find out, the USSR did not have an atomic bomb. These is even in the context of Japan as the last allied nation to withdraw from the Allied Invasion of the Russian Civil War (in 1922), and the previous fighting.
I'd say this is a pretty classic case of confirmation bias. I'm not familiar with the specifics of that whole list, but some of those are misleading or even false examples. In many cases the dictators in that list were not supported because they were the "lesser of two evils," but because they advanced US foreign policy. That list also doesn't take into account instances where the US intervened with a positive turnout.
First, the falsehood: the US government did not support Franco (he's the fascist-oriented Nationalist). The US didn't even - in fact - support the Republicans (as they were associated with the USSR). Actual American people (and industry) supported both sides. After the war the US normalized relations with Franco's government in the 50s, but aside from formalizing diplomatic relations the US didn't do anything to put Franco in power or directly keep him there.
Second, discarded instances: if you're going to classify lend-lease as support for Stalin you'd also have to include Britain, China, France and other minor states that received US-assistance from the law. This is generally support against Hitler more than support for Stalin. Unless you're saying Churchill was worse than Hitler.
Third, half-truths: many of the people listed above were not choices of "the lesser of two evils." They were "who will best further US foreign policy abroad." E.g. we backed Saddam because he was part of a coup that toppled a government that seemed to be going pro-Soviet and he was attacking a vehemently anti-American Iran. We did not support him because we thought he'd be the best thing for the Iraqi people. We supported Mubarak because we feared a more extreme government and wanted to maintain the status quo with Israel to avoid another Six-Day War (or worse) - not because we thought he was best for the Egyptian people.
(This does not necessarily mean I believe the rebels are plucky, humanistic freedom fighters.)
The reason Japan was pushing so hard for the USSR to stay neutral was exactly because they were afraid of the USSR. And with good reason - anytime the 2 brushed up against each other in Manchuria, the Soviets kicked the Japanese's ass. And that was in 1939, when the Japanese military was in much better shape. By 1945, the Soviets were capturing Japanese armies whole - in part due to the Japanese underestimating Soviet logistical capabilities.
The US was not the only nation with amphibious assault capability. The Soviets launched several amphibious assaults on Japanese territory after declaring war - Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. That put the Soviets in prime position to invade Hokkaido, which was relatively undefended.
The Japanese weren't afraid of the US to that same degree. Even after Okinawa and Iwo Jima, they were preparing to defend themselves against an American invasion of the home islands, using swords and spears. They were willing to fight Marines, they weren't willing to fight the Red Army.
I don't see the nukes as a game-changer for the Japanese in 1945 (though obviously their legacy is huge today). Less people died at Hiroshima or Nagasaki than died from conventional bombing in Tokyo. The only difference was it took 1 bomber to level a city instead of 100, but considering the Americans had air superiority the only difference at the time between nuking a city and destroying it conventionally was how long it would take. The folks on the ground would still be dead either way.
And finally, and the Imperial household would not have survived Soviet occupation of the home islands.
The confidence you're describing almost certainly did not exist within the Soviet Union itself. Any successes the Soviets had enjoyed recently up to that point where overwhelming masked by the huge embarrassment of the Russo-Japanese War combined with the further embarrassment of the actual occupation of parts of the Russian SFSR by actual Japanese soldiers until 1922. No amount of early "ass-kicking" at Khalkhin Gol or elsehwere could come close to erasing those memories (hell, even Khalkin Gol, which I believe was the most decisive Soviet victory prior to Manchuria in the far east, was not as huge as the Soviets apparently liked to claim 60,000 Japanese losses, the Japanese claim 8,440, and there's reason to believe the Soviets may have exaggerated this claim).
It's possible the Japanese were not as confident as the Soviets were embarrassed, but until the huge success of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation that these possibly unrealistic fears were overcome. You're absolutely correct that the impression of the Soviet Union, both among the political leadership and the country at large, changed radically after Manchuria's defeat--many leaders did not think the Soviets would honor their promise in the first place. Then again, Manchuria only occurred after Hiroshima (and I think Nagasaki?) were bombed, so they happened a little too late to really shape Japanese fears during the war.
Of course the US wasn't the only country in the would actually capable of some sort of amphibious landing. Canada performed amphibious landings, as had Britain. Nonetheless, the amphibious capability of the Soviet Pacific Navy (as it existed at the time) doesn't really compare to that of the US, or what the US projected it would need to invade Japan from nearby islands it held. Amphibious assaults in Korea and the Kurils half-halfheartedly compare to landings in Okinawa.
Yes, the Imperial Household would not have survived a Soviet occupation. However, neither the household agency nor the leadership in Tokyo knew for a fact of certainty that it would survive an American occupation--it was hoped that it would, but likewise the possibility that it would not was a huge concern among the citizenry (thanks to mobilization of propaganda) to avoid a surrender. This was still a particular point of fear among the population--further stoke by the long anti-communist propaganda tradition--but among a military leadership that was actually willing to place the emperor himself under house arrest (Kyūjō Incident) it wasn't overwhelming compared to the overall fear of total extermination from the air or sea.
You're right in that there's a difference between the fears of the political government leadership and the fears of the general citizenry and body--that being said, I think you're underestimating the terror the biggest air bombing campaign in human history, combined with one of the greatest naval blockades to ever been enacted, had on Japan, which had been at war since 1931, but had suffered such catastrophic damage and defeats since the escalation with America, which border strikes against the Soviet Union couldn't really compare. The conventional bombing, as you pointed out, was more than devastating enough--the Japanese knew the Soviets were in no position to set fire to the entire country, even if it hadn't already happened.
russian guy I know sees the russo-japanese war as giving the japanese the incorrect idea that they could beat a real imperial army and kicking them off towards military rule
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There's also the fact that surrender was considered counter-revolutionary and was punishable by death. Forsaken: American Tragedy in Stalin's USSR tells the typical horrifying tales of Soviet POWs asking to be taken back to the US instead of back to the USSR, NKVD Barrier Troops executing Red Army soldiers who wouldn't press forward, US soldiers liberated by the Red Army and simply disappearing.
At the risk of sounding like an apologist--I don't want to--surrender was not "counter-revolutionary", or rather, that wasn't the mentality behind it. It was considered tantamount to desertion, which itself was considered high treason. It's hardly any more reasonable, but a difference worth noting. Red Army soldiers surrendered during the Civil War in large numbers, and weren't executed as being "counterrevolutionaries" despite the fact that revolutionary fervor was both significantly stronger and taken much more seriously. In actuality, appearing to fail to do your duty due to cowardice can get you shot in any number of armies--Omer Bartov does a very good description of just that happening in the German Wehrmacht in Hitler's Army, and for an American example, you can find a smaller number (though still plenty of them) in Michael C. C. Adam's The Best War Ever. The Red Army has a particularly bad problem with this due to the huge defeats it suffers early on which claim many professional soldiers, and also poor strategy which leads men to surrender. Does it suck? I'd say yes, it does, in any war, but I was a conscript in my own country, and not a commander.
Likewise, the really famous image of NKVD "commissars" in their blue caps executing troops who refuse to run towards the enemy, Enemy at the Gates-style? Largely fictional. First, NKVD "commissars", as in military officers, don't exist--the army has political and security officers of its own, usually "politruk". "Commissar" is otherwise a high title equal to commissioner or even general, not someone who'd actually be in a battlefield. Basically about as accurate a reflection of reality as Saving Private Ryan after they finished the beach landing. The Germans had no problem killing enemy soldiers who were running away. The Penal Battalions are a famous example where it mirrors the popular image more closely, alongside Partisan fighters, who would execute their own for cowardice quickly, but among 'normal' conscripts, that's largely an invention of popular media. There were plenty of other horrible threats and punishment they could use that would leave a soldier still physically capable of fighting.
When the word got out, Soviet POWs frequently considered themselves to be in grave danger (and not without reason) when repatriated (though, contrary to the popular image in the west, not every Soviet taken prisoner was executed--you can find literally thousands of accounts given by POWs who were not harmed after repatriation in CIS literature, simply because of the sheer size of the war itself).
And there are even weirder stories--take the Belorussians who were forced into the 30th SS Division (1st Belorussian) by the Germans during the occupation of their republic. They were sent to France because they were considered too unreliable to fight the Red Army, where they murdered their officers and surrendered to the United States. Since it was common knowledge they were foreign soldiers in the SS, when asked of their nationality, they would say they were Belorussian. Since the Americans who captured them did not know where Belarus was (or if they did, did not consider it a viable answer), they were usually informed that they would be considered Polish in the eyes of the United States (since Poland occupied half of Belarus since the war with the USSR). Except the Belorussians, who did not know Poland was going to be occupied by the Red Army and believed it would remain an independent state, panicked, believing (not incorrectly) that they'd all be executed if they were sent to Poland, so they had to claim they were Russian instead.
EDIT: Also, we're really getting off topic, largely because of me.
How does that not make them the lesser of two evils? We knew Saddam was an goose, but he was an anti-Soviet goose, which made him the lesser of two evils compared to the pro-Soviet geese in Iran.
I don't know of any of those dictators I listed where the US thought they were some kind of benevolent freedom-loving ruler. They were all pretty well-known as geese beforehand.
True. Kosovo seems to be the one many are hanging their hat on. I guess South Korea would be another - we supported tyrannical SK leaders for decades, and finally in the late 80s and 90s they started getting around to instituting democratic political reforms.
I didn't say the US thought Saddam was great. Lesser of 2 evils is still evil.
Regardless, both Egypt and Syria were Soviet leaning countries, at least more so than US leaning ones. Mainly because the US largely supported Israel. The Baath party was a socialist party as well.
However, the main reason behind Egyptian and Syrian unity was to consolidate the power of Socialist Arab parties against a growing Communist party in both countries.
Pro-Soviet geese in Iran? You mean, the Ayatollahs constructed a theocracy and then allied themselves with an unabashedly Atheistic empire? Nope, the Iranians were anti-USA (more generally, anti-West), plain and simple.
That's a pretty big difference though.
You're right, I had that backwards. The Iranians weren't pro-Soviet, but the Soviets were pro-Iran (even while selling guns to the Iraqis as well).
Brezhnev praised the "profoundly anti-imperialist" Iranian revolution in February 1981 - by which point the Iraq-Iran War was already 6 months old - in front of the Communist Party Congress. In July 1981 the USSR and Iran signed treaties which provided for Soviet arms sales to Iran, as well as providing Iran with Soviet military advisors. North Korea served as a middleman for deniable Soviet arms sales to Iran. At the beginning of the war Iran had mostly American arms, left over from the Shah's rule. By the midpoint of the war, the vast majority of Iranian arms were Soviet.
Soviet efforts, for all of Iran's anti-everybody rhetoric, did not go unnoticed. In 1986 Soviet Prime Minister Kornyenko visited Tehran to discuss Soviet-Iranian economic cooperation, such as the resumption of Iranian gas exports, which occurred later that year. In 1989 Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze was welcomed for an official visit to Tehran, and granted an audience with Khomeini. Shevardnadze's visit resulted in the Iranians agreeing to a transnational railway crossing their Soviet border.
In 1981 the Iranians allowed the Soviets to construct a surveillance base in Baluchistan - even though the base would allow the Soviets to track pro-Afghan supply convoys coming in from Pakistan, and the Iranians ostensibly supported the mujahadeen.
Yes, Iran was officially neutral regarding the US and USSR, and they liked to claim they supported neither East nor West. In truth, they were about as neutral as the Swiss during WWII.
The US still has yet to match such headway with Iran, despite the USSR having been dead for the last 2 decades.
It doesn't seem like Western bombing is giving the rebels much of an advantage on this front since the national forces changed up their tactics and started taking the fight to an urban street-by-street style.
But yes, for a second there, I thought you were equating deposed Prime Minister Mosaddegh with Saddam Hussein of all people.
Just a little nitpick on those countries with Iranian peoples.
Kazakhstan? Not so much. Azerbaijan has a lot, indeed Azeris are arguably Iranian anyway, at least so claim Iranian nationalists. Either way the territory has been part of Iran/Persia before.
Tajikistan has a lot of Iranian descendents and speak a version of Persian, which I find odd for how far it is from Iran. The rest of the 'stans are mostly Turkic peoples... except for one, which I can't for the life of me remember right now, but I think the Uzbeks or Kyrgyz. Of course there are lots of Persian/Turkic mixes, differentiated by when and where they mixed.
I just read a book on Central Asia, and while informative, I must say learning about this stuff was more boring than anything else. Anyway, carry on.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/04/15/libya-cluster-munitions-strike-misrata
Like, this doesn't seem like an extensive operation, so having weapon supply issues over it would imply that Europe's military power is actually pretty sorely deficient, and that, seems like a pretty big issue to me.
I wouldn't say justify, more like showing just how extreme our defense budget really is.