Originally Posted by
AerialPerspective
Oh rubbish, Japan being an occupied country from one end to the other under virtual Marshall Law administered by the Allies and the Russians and Americans and British taking control of Germany perhaps had just a little to do with the Germans 'throwing away their copies of Mien Kampf... not to mention Allied Commanders insisting on tours of the concentration camps by ordinary Germans so they could see and smell up close what had been done in their name(s).
It's a well known fact that after the Luftwaffe were ordered to start using the Nazi Salute toward the end of the war, they were standing next to their aircraft out of earshot of their leaders, raising their hands and shouting at each other "The sh-t in Germany is now piled this high" so I think the German people or a sizeable proportion were well and truly over Mr Hitler by the end of the war. I dare say the Japanese had enough of firebombing and being irradiated too.
The truth about the Middle East is that it was first stuffed up by the British with their damn colonial nonsense, then leaving and arbitrarily dividing the area up in to countries knowing nothing about the culture, religion and subtle differences and arrogantly insisting they were right, followed by both the US and Britain interfering in the region constantly, including the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected and immensely popular government of Mossadeq, installing and supporting the murderous Shah which led Iran from a country that was very pro-US and pro-West to one that despises the West in many ways... the Persian people didn't just wake up one morning and decide to hate the US, these things take years of simmering under the surface.
Let's say Japan had invaded Australia in WWII and had got enough of a foothold and we had then been 'liberated' by the US who set up a new government and occupied the country for years, stole our resources and aribtrarily divided the country into different independent States - don't think for one minute we wouldn't have an undercurrent of hatred that would lash out at some point. Who is to say, we wouldn't have used passages in the Bible that referred to murdering all the people of the village if they not believe in god if we perceived their 'gods' to be heathen???
Top it off with the people of a region being treated or looked upon by the West for years as lesser peoples in the eyes of their colonising powers and the theft of priceless artifacts and you pretty much have the reason the region is how it is now.
Islam and the Middle East and Egypt were for centuries, centres of science and study. The numerals we use today and the concept of zero didn't exist until we adopted it from Arabic. A region like that didn't go rogue because it seemed like a good idea.
My post was in response to being told that Germans became friendly after ww2 due to less agregious war reparations than after ww1. I disagreed with that premise which I think you've confirmed, but have to admit I didn't bother reading all of your mishmashed rant.