Ann Coulter on Allied occupations

TomF

Here's an interesting Ann Coulter comment on the advisability of letting "the Allies" help occupy Iraq. This woman's columns should be printed the Irish Times. I'd love to see her matched in a TV debate against Fintan O'Toole. O'Toole would be waving his pale, trembling writer's hands all over the place (like his appearance with The Wolfe Tones on the Late Show).

"After World War II, the United States ran the Japanese occupation unilaterally. Without the meddling of other nations, the Japanese occupation went off without a hitch. Within five years, Gen. Douglas MacArthur had imposed a constitutional democracy on Japan with a bicameral legislature, a bill of rights and an independent judiciary. Now the only trouble Japan causes is its insistence on selling good products to Americans at cheap prices.

By contrast, the German occupation was run as liberals would like to run postwar Iraq – a joint affair among "the Allies," the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. It took 45 years to clean up the mess that created.

The Soviets bickered with the French, refusing to treat them as "allies" (on the admittedly sensible grounds that they didn't fight). While plundering their zone, the Soviets refused to relinquish any territory to France. Trying to be gallant, the U.S. and British carved a French zone out of their own sectors. The Soviets then blockaded Berlin, built the Berlin Wall, and Germany was split for the next 45 years.

The British made Germany's war-torn economy worse by trying to impose socialism in their zone (as well as in their country). Predictably, economic disaster ensued. Over the next five years, the U.S. was required to spend the equivalent of about $200 billion annually in today's dollars to bail out Western Europe under the Marshall Plan. I note that there was no need for a Marshall Plan in Japan."

mike65

"After World War II, the United States ran the Japanese occupation unilaterally. Without the meddling of other nations, the Japanese occupation went off without a hitch...

...By contrast, the German occupation was run as liberals would like to run postwar Iraq – a joint affair among "the Allies," the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. It took 45 years to clean up the mess that created.

er....Cold War anyone?

Tom do you have a link?

I'll get my asbestos gloves and googles....:ninja:

Mike.

shotamoose

Originally posted by TomF
I note that there was no need for a Marshall Plan in Japan."

Maybe because Japan hadn't been a warzone for the previous five years. Idiot.

TomF

The link to Ann Coulter, surprisingly-enough, is:
http://www.anncoulter.org/

TomF

I found this on
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2124.html

"After World War II had ended, Japan was devastated. All the large cities (with the exception of Kyoto), the industries and the transportation networks were severely damaged. A severe shortage of food continued for several years."

And this doesn't take account of the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

shotamoose

Originally posted by TomF
I found this on
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2124.html

"After World War II had ended, Japan was devastated. All the large cities (with the exception of Kyoto), the industries and the transportation networks were severely damaged. A severe shortage of food continued for several years."

And this doesn't take account of the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Pretty much every city in Germany looked like it had been hit by an A-bomb. And that's just one country - much of the rest of Europe was similarly devestated. Besides, Japan got plenty of aid from other countries, mostly in the form of free food, technology transfer, trade preferences, etc.

Ann Coulter is clearly insane, if she really believes that all the problems in post-WWII Europe were caused by 'liberal' (ie, Democrat-like) policies, ignoring as she does the rather significant role played by the Soviet Union (of course to her, Democrats are the same as Communists). Presumably, though, none of the benefits - massive economic growth, highest standards of living in the world after a few decades - can be ascribed to either the Marshall Plan or liberal policies. Oh no, that must be just coincidence.

TomF

I wasn't aware that all of Europe was occupied after World War II. I know Germany and Austria were occupied by the Allies, and that the unfortunates east of Germany were "liberated" for a very long time by the Red Army.

Which countries were those that gave so much aid to postwar Japan? Are there any references giving figures?

shotamoose

Originally posted by TomF
I wasn't aware that all of Europe was occupied after World War II. I know Germany and Austria were occupied by the Allies, and that the unfortunates east of Germany were "liberated" for a very long time by the Red Army.

Which countries were those that gave so much aid to postwar Japan? Are there any references giving figures?

The point is that Marshall Aid was spread around almost all of Western Europe. Which shows that Coulter's implication - that the Marshall Plan was a response to economic crisis brought on by British mismanagement of their German occupied zone - is completely incorrect.

Japan received food aid, cheap credit and market access from the USA, and also food aid from Argentina at least. I've seen figures in academic books but nothing online.

TomF

Ann Coulter wrote: The British made Germany's war-torn economy worse by trying to impose socialism in their zone (as well as in their country). Predictably, economic disaster ensued. Over the next five years, the U.S. was required to spend the equivalent of about $200 billion annually in today's dollars to bail out Western Europe under the Marshall Plan. I note that there was no need for a Marshall Plan in Japan.

I've been surfing the Internet to see if I can find any basis for Ann Coulter's comment on the British trying to impose their form of socialism, and so far cannot find anything that convinces me. I wonder if she is referring to conflict between Konrad Adenauer and the British occupying powers? It seems the British insisted on dismantling much German industry in their zone, piece-by-piece, and I'm wondering if they were trying to break up the remnants of the big German companies in favor of some kind of state-owned company?

A controversy like this thread urges one on to further research, and in doing that I've uncovered something interesting from the obituary of a famous Anglo-Irish figure, Lord Longford:

"In the 1945 Labour land slide, Longford - then Frank Pakenham - stood for Oxford, but was defeated by Quintin Hogg, later Lord Hailsham. Attlee was persuaded to elevate him to the peerage, and bring to Labour's sparsely populated Lords benches a youthful thinker who had been Sir William Beveridge's right-hand man on his landmark welfare state report."
...

"In 1947, Attlee made him, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, responsible for the British zone of occupied Germany. It was Longford's finest hour as a minister. For a year, he worked tirelessly to stop the Germans starving to death. He reopened schools and hospitals, and worked with American and French counterparts on the currency reform that would bring stability to West Germany.

"He fought the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, for a reappraisal of the industrial dismantling of the occupied zone under the reparations' policy, but Bevin refused. On the ground, Longford saw sooner than his superior that cooperation with the Soviets was impossible, and that partition was inevitable. Konrad Adenauer, the father of West Germany, came to regard him as his people's one true friend in London.

"This tribute was prompted perhaps by Longford's optimistic avowal to the Germans that the British had forgiven them the wartime excesses. His remarks caused a storm of outrage in a country still suffering rationing. Attlee was persuaded to move him to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, where he proved a successful minister, save for the mishandling of the report from a crash enquiry that almost cost him his job. Attlee stuck by him, and later raised him to First Lord of the Admiralty, just outside the cabinet."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4234149-108996,00.html

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from TomF
He fought the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, for a reappraisal of the industrial dismantling of the occupied zone under the reparations' policy, but Bevin refused

I think that there is the answer you were seeking - the industrial dismantling of the British West German zone was little to do with socialism and more to do with replacing in Britain what the Germans had destroyed - the reparations policy as the article states.

bonkey

Originally posted by TomF
It took 45 years to clean up the mess that created.

By "mess", I assume Ms Coulter is referring to the fact that Germany was effectively split in two, as a result of the vastly diverging nature of the nations who were allied against the Germans.

Strangely, most people consider the (what was) West German recovery to be one of the modern miracles (up there with Japan, if not surpassing it).

So maybe what Ms Coulter is saying is "the Soviets screwed up East Germany, and that means all of Germany was screwed". Newsflash darlin....they ain't around no more, and no-one is suggesting that Iraq be split into seperate governances with differing ideological groups of the UN in charge of each.

Shotamoose - I assume the "idiot" reference is not to TomF (who you attribute the quote to) but rather to Ms Coulter?

jc

shotamoose

Originally posted by bonkey

Shotamoose - I assume the "idiot" reference is not to TomF (who you attribute the quote to) but rather to Ms Coulter?

jc

Indeed. I should have made that clearer.

mike65

Or as I put it Bonkey -

Originally posted by mike65
er....Cold War anyone?

The woman is quite deranged, I only wonder if she is married and what kind of chap would might be able to cope....knowing the febrile mind he is sleeping next to....:eek:

Mike.

keeaumoku_tofu

or does Ann Coulter have an Adam's apple?

bloggs

The difference between Iraq and Germany/Japan is that the latter two signed unconditional surrenders. Iraq hasn't surrendered it was just defeated, so it's people feel that they have been invaded wrongly.
Just my 2c

sovtek

Ummm Ann Coulter is a pundit, and not a very good pundit. She basically says outragous things to sell books and TV advert time. Not much different than most political pundits frequently appearing on American cable these days (and increasingly mainstream TV).
I really wouldn't take her seriously (and please no anti-feminism be read here ). That's unless you want an exercise in futility.:rolleyes: