A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[Americanizing history
By MICHAEL COREN
Sun Media
May 11, 2000 No doubt about it, U-571 is a good movie. But it is also a dishonest movie. It was British and Canadian sailors who risked and gave their lives to board German submarines and capture secret code machines. Just as it was British and Canadian fighting men who did most of what was achieved during World War II.
We now hear that Hollywood is remaking the Colditz story, about the heroic escapes by Allied prisoners from the infamous German camp. With American actors. But no American ever escaped from Colditz. No matter, say the makers, it's an American world now. Perhaps, but at least we can fire a few shots their way.
The United States is an inept military nation. Far from its boast that it has never lost a war, it has never really won one.
The War of Independence saw the Americans lose almost every battle against a British Army that was 3,000 miles from home and was already committed on two other continents. The Americans were aided by the French, Spanish and Dutch. Without these friends they would not have had a chance.
The only reason the war was fought in the first place was because the so-called patriots, happy in their slave-owning complacency, were angry at having to pay taxes to finance the previous wars fought by British soldiers to protect them from the French and the natives.
The American war against Mexico was a colonial campaign against primitively armed militia; the Indian wars consisted of a straightforward slaughter of an indigenous people. As for the Civil War, the losses were extraordinarily high due to incompetent leadership and lack of soldiering skills.
A nasty combination of newspaper barons and nationalist lunatics managed to provoke a war with Spain over Cuba, but this was hardly a war at all. Spain's empire was an empty shell, guarded by a decayed and outdated army with no will to fight.
World War I witnessed the evaporation of an entire generation of Europe's young men, but the Americans managed to sit out the deadly quagmire until it was almost over. The first six months of their effort saw numerous disasters, though by the final months their overwhelming numbers of fresh troops did have an impression on the crumbling Germans.
World War II? The less said the better. The Yanks were prepared to fight the war against Nazism to the last drop of British, Canadian and Australian blood; with apologies to the other nations that stood up so bravely. By the time the United States entered the war the German Navy had already been largely defeated and the Luftwaffe was bloodied and bruised. And the bodies of boys from Toronto, Winnipeg, London and Liverpool filled the soil of Africa, Asia and Europe.
Of the abilities of American soldiers, German war diaries are most revealing. GIs are treated with derision. The typical German attitude toward a commonwealth Tommy was "dislike but respect." Towards the Americans it was "pure contempt."
The Germans thought every other fighting man could be beaten. They even had ratios. One German to two Brits, for example. For the Americans it was one to 10.
Saving Private Ryan tells us of the gallantry of American soldiers. No doubt they were brave. But the beach in that movie was only so difficult to take because the U.S. Navy failed to do its job properly. British ships had to sail dangerously close to shore to shell the defences so as to get the American soldiers to safety.
The Canadian forces had an entire beach given to them on D-Day. In terms of the population of this nation this is quite extraordinary. Even after four years of war, and with a population a tenth the size of that of the United States, Canada was given half the work of its neighbour to the south.
Vietnam was a gross and almost laughable mess. The British had shown the way in Malaya with special forces who used skill and subtlety rather than brute force and money. The Gulf war was little more than a bully beating up a smaller kid and Grenada and the rest were just public relations exercises.
As for George Washington, he had wooden teeth and bad breath. Go make that into a movie!
Michael Coren is a Toronto-based writer and broadcaster Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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