Sunday, September 23, 2007
Soldiers of the Queen, cont. [Mark Steyn]
Re Fred Thompson and David Freddoso's remarks on who spilled more blood, I've had a remarkable number of emails along the lines of the following:
The Commonwealth figures for KIA and total casualties somewhat exceed the USA's figures for World War II, but it can also be argued that most of those casualties were taken in direct self defense of the homeland (Britain and Australia), mainly from attacks by Hitler's Germany and much less so from Japanese attacks on the Brit colonies in the Pacific.
The USA was not actually engaged in a war to defend its very existence from invaders in World War II, as clearly were the UK and Australia... It can be argued reasonably that the USA was engaged in the Atlantic War mainly for the benefit of its British allies and to prevent Hitler from dominating all of Europe. Therefore it can be argued that proportionally far more of the American casualties in Europe were suffered in defense of other nations' freedoms than in defense of the American homeland.
So now we're arguing about what proportion of a nation's war dead died in direct defense of its national territory as opposed to those who died as a selfless act of generosity to a remote people in a distant struggle in which they had no national interest at stake?
Okay, let's play this game. If the USA was "not actually engaged in a war to defend its very existence", then presumably neither was Canada. Yet Canada suffered a higher per capita rate of military casualties in World War Two than America. So, for that matter, did Newfoundland, which was not at that time part of the Dominion of Canada. No big surprise about that. They were both in the war two years longer than the United States. But, if my correspondent is going to get all Stanislavskian about it, what was the Newfie or Manitoban motivation for soldiering in Europe?
Look, I'm the least anti-American non-American on the planet. All I did was defend the Commonwealth's war dead and the 70,000 Irish volunteers who served with the British in the Second World War from the cheap sneers of David Freddoso. I certainly never attempted to argue that the Commonwealth had spilled more blood, or better blood, or proportionately more disinterested blood, as these correspondents are arguing, than the US. And I didn't do that for a very simple reason: It's unbecoming for a serious nation to get into a pissing match about whose pile of war dead is higher.
09/23 11:07 AM
Share
