yeah Mango, what is that A HREF command that is in your post? does that somehow print stuff or are you just straight copying and pasting (and placing in italics) stuff from websites while using the hyperlink function to type in the heading for each website?
The protests could have something to do with the fact that we choose to topple the regime of a country with massive oil reserves while we've allowed other oppressive governments to chug along as long as they're friendly to U.S. interests. Color me crazy.
The part about Stalin trying to cut deals with the Brits & French is not my strength, so a few questions about that. Did Stalin expect some type of <i>wink</i> from France & Great Britian to rearrange borders in Eastern Europe as he got in the secret codicil of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? When the Czechs got the <b>bad deal</b>, France & Britian didn't gain territory/power/influence, while the Non-Aggression Pact and the secret codicil provided things that the USSR gained from. If Stalin and the USSR was on the up and up about fearing Hitler/Nazis (and wanted to do the right thing), why did they take things for themselves? Stresemann won a Nobel Prize, but have read enough about him to have a question. I have read portrayals of him as a pragmatist that worked to get better deals than what Versailles provided, but have also read about him having a certain <i>nationalist</i> bent that played to the feelings of discontent that were present in post WW I Germany. I am not saying he was a precursor to Hitler, but what is the general opinion on that aspect of him?
They might have been promising Stalin an early Western Front (Invasion of Europe), but the logistics were a stretch. Since action in Sicily was roughly 19 months since Pearl Harbor (December 1941), did Stalin really expect them (US & Brits) to mount anything significant on a shorter timeframe than that? The US was late to the game in rearmament and had to mount at least a triage action in the Pacific versus Japan. Also, the logistics of amphib assaults that the US & Brits would be doing were something that had to be tinkered with and learned from. To attempt Operation Overlord without experimenting on a smaller scale would have been foolhardy. Shifting the factories beyond the Urals was prudent. Human carnage on the Eastern Front............did the key personalities involved (Hitler & Stalin) make this such a bitter fight? You had touched on the makeup of Stalin, but Hitler was also <i>out there</i>.
i wish i was joking. seriously, that was my first thought (that it was hyperlink notation) so i looked at someone else's post with a hyperlink and it had the standard notation so i thought perhaps this... bad as people who ask how to quote and edit.
Macbeth, it is you who are doing the revisionist history. BUT let me put it to you in less controversial terms. THIS YOU CANNOT ARGUE WITH: "The United States of America entered World War II and HELPED rid France and Germany of totalitarianism."
Dude, without the US, Britan falls, Nazi England, game over. You're paper's cool and all that, but...you're overreaching.
Yeah, all I said was that the USA saved Europe. (I didn't mean to imply USA did it alone.) And of course Macbeth goes crazy and posts all this stuff about how the US did it for it's own ends and that Russia was more important. Anyways, I wonder if Mother Teresa had selfish motives for helping all those poor people. After all, she was doing it because she wanted to go to heaven! I wonder if Martin Luther King, Jr. was selfish. After all, he just wanted his own race to be free! Jesus Christ was selfish, he was doing what the Father told him to do! (sarcasm) This is ridiculous. The bottom line is Europe loved us when they needed us and we were sending our boys over there to get killed in a massive war. A few decades later and they HATE our guts. I think Europe is way out of line here, but the US still needs to do what is right.
MacBeth, you make some good points. At first it seemed like you thought Russia was the ONLY reason the Allies won WWII, but you clarified it for me. Nice post. Can I ask where do you get your info, I would like to do some reading. I find anything on WWII very fascinating. The history channel had an amazing piece on Russia moving their production facilites in WWII, weren't they moved the Siberia? I remember the speed that they did this in was incredible, war really brings out the best(worst) in some.
Understand that a lot of people DO make the claim that the US entered WWII in Europe and helped defend Western Europe from USSR tyranny as acts of self-sacrifice and altruism which is inaccurate and distortion of history. And based on this they then claim that Europe owes the US (because the US did it out of altruism and self-sacrifice). Does the fact that the US did it not for altriuism but had selfish and self-serving motives matter? It does when one starts making claims about how much gratitude and debt is owed. You can't make as strong of a claim if what you achieved was not purely altruistic but was forced upon you (as was WWII) or you had selfish self-serving motives. That is the point.
Mango...thanks so much...am a bit to drunk to give you propoer answers right now, and have noticed other posts in here I want to respond to with equal clarity, if not equal anticipation...Will respond to tomorrow...again, thanks buddy.
Britain was in great danger under Nazi's air strikes. Britain had no ability to counterattack but to suffer from Nazi's air dominance. Then Hitler thought Britain was nothing but a piece of cake, went crazy and ordered to shift the focus of war to USSR. Nazi's seriously underestimated the applusible will to fight of the Russians, the logistical difficulties, and the wartime production capability of USSR. Winter stalled Germany operations, the decisive battles were carried out after the winter, to say Russia won because of winter is exaggerating. America entered the WWII after USSR beat the crap outta Germany, forcing Germany to retreat and regroup. Possibility of the USSR to defeat Nazi Germany and occupy it existed. It's suspected that one of the motives for US to enter the stage was the fear that Germany would become USSR's satellite country. This worriness was not unfounded, USSR captured the chance and occupied nearly half of Gernmany. Not to take any credit away from the US for contributed greatly in defeating a depleted Germany, to say that the US saved the Europe and hence Europe owes the US without giving credit to USSR is totally wrong. To think the US as the white knight acting only upon justice without concerns of self intertest is a sure sign of extreme patriotism - whitewashing and glorifying one's country's motives and acts at the sacrifice of truth for a sense of moral supremacy. As to why the world didn't boycott China during Tiananmen incident, well seriously I'm simply amazed to see that fact is thought as a sign of differential treatment by the sucky people around the world to the almighty USA. The people of China were AGAINST it - as opposed to now that the majority of Americans favor the war instead of peace. The people of China had no say in such decisions as well. Why in the world should the world punish the innocent people of China, who were the biggest victims, for the atrocities done by the dictators in the forms of boycotting the products made by the poor Chinese poeple? I'm amazed, simply amazed at someone that readily throws words like "mental midgets" at peace loving people but can't distinguish between people oppressed under dictatorship and people who has a say in national decisions, and actually construe that as a fact of unfair double standard - well yes it's double standard because China and USA are two totally different countries, treating the USA with the same standard for China would be an insult- and use that "fact" for b****ing about the "mental midgets" around the world who knows seperation of identity which was absent in the sanctions imposed on Iraqis by the USA. Not that it matters, I used to like your basketball related posts DD, and I think you are a cool guy overall, but this is a big disappointment.
