RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY THE TIMES' SIMON JENKINS
Note to Willy Smith:
America has not won any of its many ugly colonial wars since WW II. It was disgraced in Vietnam, sent with its tail between its legs from Somalia, made a truce in Korea, and now faces certain ultimate defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
America's founding war, the Revolution, was not even a victory. French armaments, generals, and loans - never paid back - actually were the cause of success at Saratoga and Yorktown - the only two crucial victories.
Where America really succeeded was in the slaughter of native people and small populations of Spanish residents in its march to seize the continent.
It only won WWII by using the atomic bomb on civilians, twice.
The American record is truly rather shabby. Always ready to bomb civilians. Never, after all the arrogant initial huff and puff, doing what they said they'd do.
But I don't expect folks like Willy to understand. They learn the equivalent of the Gospel as American history.
