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Author Topic: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack  (Read 13562 times)

Urist is dead tome

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #90 on: April 15, 2011, 12:20:46 pm »

US help to Britain (and, to a lesser extent, Russia) was a pretty huge help to their war efforts even before the USA joined the war. They also did most of the work against Japan, as far as I recall.

I feel the need to clarify that I am not from the US, but a Finn.

If the USA wasn't attacked and Japan went north to Russia then Russia probably would have lost and we might not have won.

On a related note I would like to add the the Finns kicked ass in the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Hayha

Just an article about one of my heroes.

Land war in Asia, and all that.

Don't remind me...

EDIT: And lets not forget that the man power problem got so bad we got to drafting midgets, to look around in airplane wings and whatnot.

Vector, on your earlier point: Hear hear!
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 12:24:14 pm by Urist is dead tome »
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Vector

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #91 on: April 15, 2011, 12:29:35 pm »

Vector, on your earlier point: Hear hear!

Haha, well--it's kind of nice to be on the same side for once.  I thought you'd like that argument =)
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"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

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Mindmaker

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #92 on: April 15, 2011, 12:30:10 pm »

Eh, Russia was doing fine.
It just takes a while for the 'russian steamroller' to come into motion.
However I do agree, the US was needed as a counterweight. For example Austria, was inbetween those great forces.
Got split up between the USA, the UK and the Russians. From what I heard, everybody got along nicely.

Poland on the other hand, still hasn't fully recovered from the russian occupation.
It's even more distinctive for west and east germany.

So while the USA might not have won the war, they did a marvellous job on damage limitation and helped Europe to come on its feet again.
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Bauglir

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #93 on: April 15, 2011, 12:34:49 pm »

Spoiler: Random History Tangent (click to show/hide)

All that said, the US' economic assistance was pretty much crucial throughout the whole thing, even before war was officially declared, and the US unquestionably contributed militarily once those operations actually got underway.

Also, I feel I have to point out, if only for clarity, that the use of "we" is misleading. It always just bugs me a little when people describe the actions of their own country that way, when there's no way the person speaking could actually have participated. I know you probably don't mean it this way, but it just always comes off as a weird sense of entitlement. It's just a quirk of the way nations have a tendency to be discussed (in English, at least, I don't know about other languages) that is mildly irritating, and I feel compelled to bring it up here.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Vector

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #94 on: April 15, 2011, 12:48:17 pm »

-enormous snip-

Huh, those were mostly details not covered in my history class or later study.  Thanks so much for the clarification!  I've heard quite a bit about the French resistance, but I thought that was more renowned than that of Poland and didn't think to mention it.  Shame on me.

As far as saying "we," I do so because I know that as an American I have a certain cultural image, fair or unfair, based on projections of the past actions of my ancestors and their fellow citizens.  So, I mean "we" in terms permuting that cultural image, which does pertain to "me" in a certain sense.  I do not mean "the US as a country," but "the US in terms of individual citizen action," and so because "we" implies a collective of citizens rather than the actions of the heads of state, the metonymy is a little bit better for my argument and appeal to personal ethos/pathos.  Helps to remind the person that I'm speaking to that I happen to be part of the pool of individuals they're talking about, without doing so explicitly.

However, I agree with you that the grammatical construction has unfortunate connotations in general usage.
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"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".

Bauglir

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #95 on: April 15, 2011, 01:08:16 pm »

-enormous snip-

Huh, those were mostly details not covered in my history class or later study.  Thanks so much for the clarification!  I've heard quite a bit about the French resistance, but I thought that was more renowned than that of Poland and didn't think to mention it.  Shame on me.

As far as saying "we," I do so because I know that as an American I have a certain cultural image, fair or unfair, based on projections of the past actions of my ancestors and their fellow citizens.  So, I mean "we" in terms permuting that cultural image, which does pertain to "me" in a certain sense.  I do not mean "the US as a country," but "the US in terms of individual citizen action," and so because "we" implies a collective of citizens rather than the actions of the heads of state, the metonymy is a little bit better for my argument and appeal to personal ethos/pathos.  Helps to remind the person that I'm speaking to that I happen to be part of the pool of individuals they're talking about, without doing so explicitly.

However, I agree with you that the grammatical construction has unfortunate connotations in general usage.

Cool, cool. I've focused on WW2 to the extent that I'm historically blind to a lot of other stuff, unfortunately. I need to work on that, and I'm sure I've misremembered one or two things (feel free to correct my corrections, readers). Still, I'm always glad to flaunt the knowledge I do have.[/ego] I should've realized you weren't omitting the French Resistance through lack of knowledge, though, given your interest in French culture and the like. Sense Motive fail on me, there. Oh well!

As for the grammatical thing I brought up on a tangent, yeah, I can agree with you there. That's pretty sound reasoning, and I'm always glad to hear a good explanation for something that's bugged me for a long time. Helps me wrap my head around why it's in use and what its value actually is, instead of just focusing on what I don't like about it.

I begin to feel as if I should contribute to the topic, but unfortunately I don't know enough to make an intelligent comment and I don't think any of my uninformed reactions are at all original.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Urist is dead tome

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #96 on: April 15, 2011, 01:09:57 pm »

All this talk of Russia reminds me how important Stalin was to the allies. Despite his brutalities he had the right mind in making Russia so powerful so quickly.
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Sheb

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #97 on: April 15, 2011, 01:15:21 pm »

Well, he did a lot of stupid stuff as well, shooting his whole officer corp in '38 surely didn't help.
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Urist is dead tome

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #98 on: April 15, 2011, 01:17:03 pm »

Well, he did a lot of stupid stuff as well, shooting his whole officer corp in '38 surely didn't help.

And lets not forget that canal.... Or the famine.
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Vector

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #99 on: April 15, 2011, 01:21:52 pm »

And *cough* the engineless tanks being rolled off the production line  ::)
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"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".

Urist is dead tome

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #100 on: April 15, 2011, 01:23:06 pm »

And the invasion of Finland.
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Sheb

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #101 on: April 15, 2011, 01:23:37 pm »

And the refusal to acknowledge the Germans were invading, with most of the Red Army being captures or killed.

P.S. What's the problem with the invasion of Finland, except that they failed at it?
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Quote from: Paul-Henry Spaak
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Urist is dead tome

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #102 on: April 15, 2011, 01:25:19 pm »

And the refusal to acknowledge the Germans were invading, with most of the Red Army being captures or killed.

P.S. What's the problem with the invasion of Finland, except that they failed at it?

It was a huge debacle that only brought back the war effort. They lost a lot of good men. Not to mention money, arms, tanks, and artillery.
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Digital Hellhound

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #103 on: April 15, 2011, 01:32:11 pm »

Actually, they got territory from the Winter War and a shitton of money (it was a shitton to Finland, at least...), more territory and a huge influence on finnish politics from the Continution War.
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Urist is dead tome

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Re: Pakistan to CIA: Hit the road, Jack
« Reply #104 on: April 15, 2011, 01:34:06 pm »

Actually, they got territory from the Winter War and a shitton of money (it was a shitton to Finland, at least...), more territory and a huge influence on finnish politics from the Continution War.

Not money, mostly just finished goods, and not much territory.
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