Top ten Terrible Decisions of the 20th and 21st Century

We all make bad decisions. Fortunately our decisions don’t usually cause continent-wide destruction. Here are the most catastrophic decisions of the twentieth century. I think you’ll find a few surprises.

10:Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Though Harry Truman was under extreme pressure to end the war and reduce American casualties I think his decision to drop two atomic bombs on August 6th and August 9th, 1945 was in error. The Japanese were already defeated. According to Army Air Force General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, “It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” President Eisenhower declared in an interview with Newsweek: “…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

9:Elite within the Democratic Party

Bad move. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the so very lofty upper-class took control of the Democratic Party. Since then the Democrats rarely win elections, no matter how stupidly the Republicans behave. Tragically some thought this new elitist Democratic Party would be pro-peace. In fact the Democrats are more war-like than ever, only now the wars are even more pointless. (Example: our invasions of small Muslim nations.) What happened to Democrats that stand up for working people?

8:Vietnam War

General MacArthur said that any defense secretary who advises the president to fight a land war is Asia should “have his head examined.” Unfortunately this is just the advice Defense Secretary Robert McNamara gave to President Johnson, and troop levels rocketed upward in the mid-1960s. The war suited the enemy. No domestic opposition was permitted in Vietnam so the government didn’t have to worry about public opinion. Vietnam possessed a large population that could hide from American firepower in the dense jungle. In contrast, the United States media often criticized the war effort. Americans don’t like high casualties, especially not in an interminable war half way around the world.

7:Iraq War

The 9/11 Commission chaired by Republican Tom Kean concluded that Saddam Hussein did not aid Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction after 1991. So why did so many people die in the 2003 launched Iraq War? Why the huge expense?

6:Foundation of Israel

After World War II, many Jews fled to Palestine and established the new nation of Israel, thus antagonizing a huge new set of people – the Muslim community which now numbers about 1/5 of the world’s population. Hitherto Muslims had been particularly anti-Jewish, but after the Zionists massacred villages and forced the original population to flee, Muslims turned against the Jews. It would have been far preferable for Jews to migrate to any of the English-speaking nations.

5:Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

The December 7th, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor was madness. What’s startling is that Admiral Yamamoto, who planned the attack, knew very well Japan could not possibly win a protracted war against the United States. The U.S. possessed a far larger population and greatly superior industrial strength. Though his staff celebrated on December 8th, Yamamoto was sunk in depression.

4:Mao Left in Power

If only the decision had been made to remove Chairman Mao from power! The long-suffering Chinese people would have been spared the Great Leap Forward (actually Backward), the Great Famine of 1958-1962, and the Cultural Revolution. Just one of Mao’s bright ideas during the Great Leap Forward: his plan to exterminate sparrows. He thought the sparrows consumed primarily grain, where in fact they consume a lot of insects. With the sparrows gone the locust population exploded, causing immense ecological damage.

3:British Guaranty to Poland

Winston Churchill never should have issued a guaranty to Poland in 1939, which led to war when Germany invaded Poland. As esteemed American diplomat and historian George Kennan wrote: “the British guaranty to Poland … was neither necessary nor wise.” The British and French didn’t have the power to save Poland from Germany. Churchill’s foolish guaranty only benefited Stalin, who was happy to see Germany, France, and Britain destroying one another. Stalin had killed millions of his own people in his vast system of prison camps and the engineered famine of 1932-1933 (the Holodomor). Churchill I think should be singled out as the single worst decision-maker of the century. As First Lord of the Admiralty he energetically banged the drums for war as Britain pondered whether to enter World War I. Churchill also deserves a great deal of blame for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw the catastrophic return of Britain to the gold standard, which helped bring about the Great Depression.

2:The Treaty of Versailles

Prime Minister Clemenceau perhaps deserves the most blame for the vindictive Versailles Treaty (signed 1919) though some of his compatriots thought him too generous. Despite promises made to the Central Powers, territory was parceled out by the victors regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. Germany was saddled with huge reparations payments, impossible to pay. Economist John Maynard Keynes wrote of this decision: “I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible.” The Central Powers were unfairly forced to accept sole responsibility for the war. Keynes concluded that the Versailles treaty was a “Carthaginian peace.” Versailles vengeance sowed the seeds for World War II.

1:British Involvement in World War I

In 1914 Prime Minister Asquith and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey decide to involve Britain in World War I, although it was France and Russia – not Germany – that threatened the British Empire. British policy called for an alliance against the most formidable continental power, but long-term was Germany alone so overwhelmingly superior to both France and Russia? If Britain had not send troops the war would have ended within a year. Europe would have been spared one of its greatest nightmares – the millions that died from machine gun, cannon, disease, poison gas, and starvation. The rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia, with all its attendant misery, and the atrocities of World War II would also have been avoided. Instead of the Great War we would have had the relatively minor War of 1914, and Europe would never have descended into the depths of despair and decadence from which they still haven’t entirely recovered.

Source: listserve.com

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World War II - Most Astonishing Unknown Facts

There are many unknown events in the history of the World War II including death match, first Shot, Horst Wessel Song, ‘The third Reich’ and so on. Here is the list we compiled about the most astonishing unknown facts in WW2.

The death match

“Death Match” is one of the interesting unknown facts about World War II. The Death Match was the Soviet propaganda name for a non-official association football match in 1942 between the local workers of a bakery factory, former professional footballers from Dynamo Kyiv and Lokomotyv Kyiv called FC Start and soldiers of the Nazi German Wehrmacht named Flakelf. This is the nickname for a football match which took place on August 9, 1942 between FC Start and Flakelf. Eager to prove the superiority of the Aryan race, the Nazis forced the team to play against their Flakelf and threaten them to lose their lives if they disagree. The match was very unfair and the players of FC began to know the consequences of winning a game against the Nazis. However, they do not accept the loss of voluntarily and so the game ended 5-3 for FC Start. Then many of the Ukraine players were later arrested and sent to a labor camp.

The death match is unfair match ended with a score line that was almost guaranteed to lead to tragedy and death during the World War II

Horst Wessel Song

Horst Wessel was a 19-year-old member of the Nazi party, one of the first to join this organization. He is famous for having composed the song ‘Fly the Flag high’, which was later changed into ‘the Horst Wessel song’. It became the national hymn of the Nazi Germany and its importance was so great that a citizen was executed for keeping its hands in the pockets while the band was playing this song. The young Nazi died at the age of 23 by the hands of a jealous man, an ex-lover and pimp of his wife, a former prostitute.

Stalag Luft III

Stalag Lust was a Luftwaffe run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. An escape Committee counting 600 persons planned to dig tunnels which were completed on March 24th 1944 after having made huge efforts and endured great dangers. However, the escape was discovered and nearly 77 prisoners managed to run away, only to be caught hours or days later. Three men only got away with it while 50 were executed.

This incident is actually not one of the unknown facts and the simple reason is that it was made into a movie, ‘The great escape’, in 1963

The Nurses

The important role of women in World War II was working mostly as nurses who were learned not to feel disgusted by the horrible wounds they had to deal with. For their courage and devotion, they were awarded around 1,619 medals as well as other types of recognitions

The Ni’ihau Incident

One of unknown facts in World War II is the Ni’ihau Incident happened on December 7, 1941, when a Japanese Zero pilot crash-landed on the Hawaiian island of Ni’ihau after participating in the attack on Pearl Harbor

The first Shot

The first shot of World War II is the name of a German training warship. With the aim of honoring the German sailors who died on a cruiser named Magdeburg in 1914, the ship was on the runway to Poland. In the early morning of September 1, 1939, the ship made a battle against the Westerplatte, composed of the Polish army barracks and ammunition storage. After that, the order “Fire” was launched and World War II begun.

Although the first shot is not a very important moment in history, this is one of the unknown facts of World War II

Japanese Fire Balloons

Fire Balloons which was made out off paper and filled up with explosives was released by Japanese in the fall of 1944. A total of 9,000 balloons were launched until April 1945, but only 1000 reached their destination and caused 6 casualties.

Japanese Fire Balloons was an unknown event of the World War II which is worth remembering as one of its few funny stories

‘The third Reich’

The first Reich (or Empire) originated in 962 A.D when Otto the Great became the Emperor of the Holly Roman Empire. Otto Von Bismarck’s Second Reich was named in 1871 after overthrowing France in the Franco-Prussian war. After that, in 1918, William II abdicated and Hitler’s third Reich lasted 12 years and four months from 1933 to 1945 when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Nazi Germany, officially the Greater German Reich or the Third Reich, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945 when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party

The Vision of a Franco-British Union

The Vision of a Franco-British Union was named by two great men, Churchill and De Gaulle. It was said to be a reasonable decision in those desperate moments, when France was about to give up. The official ‘Declaration of Union’ was “France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France." Unfortunately, despite a full support of the Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, the proposal was rejected by the French Cabinet, becoming one of the unknown events.

The Vision of a Franco-British Union, one of the most fascinating secrets about World War II is a concept for a union between the two independent sovereign states of the United Kingdom and the French Republic

Source:http://society.ezine9.com/

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