Your opinion about the USA

Actually I would say most Americans know their past from their home country.  I know my parents do quite well, as do I. 

But America is probally the most diverse country in the wolrd which is one of our reasons for success. 

In the War of 1812.

I accept of course that from some French points of view, siding with Napoleon was a good thing.

Nope. The attack on Pearl Harbour was not preceded by a formal declaration of war, but it itself was a declaration alright. And the German government declared war on the US in conformity with their mutual defence treaty with Japan.

This is the text of Roosevelt's message to Congress on December 11 1941:

"To the Congress of the United States:

          On the morning of Dec. 11 the Government of Germany, pursuing its course of world conquest, declared war against the United States. The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire world now are moving toward this hemisphere. Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization. Delay invites great danger. Rapid and united effort by all of the peoples of the world who are determined to remain free will insure a world victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the forces of savagery and of barbarism. Italy also has declared war against the United States.

          I therefore request the Congress to recognize a state of war between the United States and Germany, and between the United States and Italy.

                                                                                          Franklin D. Roosevelt"

Note that he states that Germany (and Italy for that matter had ALREADY declared war on the US, and he only asks Congress, not for a declaration, but for a RECOGNITION that war already existed.

The full text of Roosevelt's message is at:

http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/germwar.html

The kind of distortion of the truth you engage in here helps get the US resented. As does the fact that generations of Americans have been brought up to believe an untruth.

I believe of course that FDR welcomed the fact that Germany had forced the issue, since he himself might well have entered the war earlier. But there was no way, in the political situation of the time, that he could have got a declaration of war out of Congress.

No-one I think denies that the US helped. But take a look at the numbers of soldiers and civilians killed in the war. Take a look at the numbers of troops involved (discounting here those involved against Japan). Teke a look at the size of the populations involved at the time.

Once Hitler invaded the USSR in June 1941 (at least, once it became obvious that he came as a conqueror not a liberator, which didn't take long)  Germany's eventual defeat became inevitable. Germany's sole chance of winning lay in its initial blitzkrieg being sufficient to occupy Britain - or at least cut Britain off from the Commonwealth - and take Moscow and Leningrad.

By the time US troops came into action, all of these had failed.

Of course there are a lot more detailed considerations, including especially the fact that Pearl Harbour brough both Japan AND the US into play. But essentially there's no more truth in 'The US saved Europe from the Germans' than there is in 'The US declared war on Germany'.

Ah! Our strength is our weakness.  Plurality isn't easy, and yes, we've had all sorts of failures.  Just what those failures are is a matter of political and historical debate.  Right now, the debate seems to be over morality.  Just how much hedonistic excess is allowed?  Some believe there's not enough.  Some believe there's too much. 

Mord.

And you wrong. For which I note you are not apologising.

Wrong again. But Mixcoatl has dealt with that one.

Why not? Because when you do that the chief contributor to beating Germany would be the Soviet Union?

It seems a not insignificant criterion. The point is that claiming 'America saved Europe from the Germans' rather implies that America made considerable sacrifices for other people and those other people should be grateful for that. Now you're complaining that, well, after all, the actiual degree of sacrifice is not all that important.

No-one is denying that. But it's a far cry from there to 'The US saved Europe'. Moreover, that hardly applies to WWI, when again, the US claims to have 'saved Europe'.

In both wars, America's eventual involvement hastened the end for Germany. In the first (in which it is true America declared war) the American role was truly minor, but was enough to tip the balance as support for the war fell apart in Germany itself.

In the second the role of the US was still greater, but it still only started, on the ground, when Germany had in fact been fought to a standstill in the West, North Africa, and the Soviet Union, and in the latter two cases the tide had started to turn. 

Think about it. You're making my point for me. Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the various Commonwealth countries and smaller European countries had fought for years to hold off Germany and give the US a chance to develop its war potential in safety. And even then, the US was not prepared to join the war until it was forced to (as I gather you're now willing to admit).

You don't want to count men and deaths and sacrifice as measures of a country's contribution. However, it wouldn't seem a bad idea to count the available population and mineral and other resource available, including money, as measures of a country's ability to wage war. Do that as of 1939 and Germany was always going to be beaten, unless, as I pointed out, its original superiority in war readiness and equipment, and in strategic and tactical thinking allowed it to deliver a quick knock-out blow.

It didn't do that, and it was doomed.

In war as in boxing, the good big un may not always beat the good littl'un, but that's the way to bet. 

PS If you want some safer ground, claim that the US saved Europe from the Soviet Union after 1945. There's a much better case for that.

As long of course as you don't make the mistake that I've seen recently in the US of viewing the Berlin airlift as an American operation.

The results of this poll are irrelevant.  The United States will address its own interests without regard to the opinions of others...as ALL nations do.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, no acts of terrorism have occurred on U.S. soil.  Why?  The war has been carried to other lands where these filth will have to spend their time and resources hiding from and dodging American power.  If you don't like it, too bad.  Get over it.  We do it because we can.