Presedential Election

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1325969073' post='2364566']
straw man.



Right. So Britain and France, both of whom had had an entire generation (and in the case of France, the nation itself) crippled in a massive war a mere decade before should have launched a massive ground campaign, against international law, into central Europe based on the hyperbolic speech of an Austrian fascist who wanted to annex traditionally Germanic parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland, when neither country had yet rebuilt itself to a point where they were really capable of launching such a ground campaign. That's an obvious course of action.

It's very fashionable to pretend that the only thing necessary for the prevention of the mass slaughter that was the second world war would have been for Chamberlain to have had a bit of spine but the hard truth is that there were no good options for dealing with the resurgence of Germany and we don't have any sort of guarantee that attacking Germany early would have had any better an impact in the grand scheme of things. Fascism was an organic movement and much more popular in even Western Europe than we like to pretend when we write histories of the region. And the fact is that for most of the buildup the western powers did a not awful job of trying to contain Hitler while they rebuilt their capacity to fight a serious land war against a historically massive industrial power (fighting wars takes a tremendous infrastructure than broken and bankrupt countries have difficulty furnishing in an instant).

We know in hindsight that taking Hitler out early was probably the best option but that was far from obvious at the time. And the particular circumstances that led an obscure Austrian fascist to power in post-WWI Germany an the geopolitical implications of this power grab do not, contrary to the chattering classes on cable news, provide some Rosetta Stone through which we can view contemporary current events and act with perfect knowledge.

People said the same thing about the USSR's incursion into Afghanistan. It was an act of expansionism, just like Hitler's early expansion into Czechoslovakia, and we must do exactly what we failed to do with Hitler, right? Wrong. Taking on the Russian's directly would have been disastrous. Particularly since, rather than a virile act of expansionism by a resurgent Russia, the invasion into Afghanistan was, although we didn't know it at the time, the last desperate bid of a failing regime to shore up its southern security. But we must fight the Russians, right? Indirectly, at least? Well, that's what we did. And it worked well at the time. Until that particular decision significantly led to the deaths of 3,000 Americans two decades later. So we should have stayed out, right? Well. Maybe not. By sucking Russia into a long, unnecessary war in Central Asia we helped expedite the collapse of the regime. And who knows what would have happened if Russia had collapsed a decade later than it did with different acts holding the reigns of power (and access to their nuclear arsenal).

International relations are opaque and the 'right' thing to do is never obvious. Stop pretending otherwise.
[/quote]

Except that we now have the benefit of learning from history.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Norseman82' timestamp='1326500498' post='2368591']
Except that we now have the benefit of learning from history.
[/quote]

Forgive me, but I was under the impression that the discipline of history pre-dated World War II.

[Socrates]

[quote name='InPersonaChriste' timestamp='1326434477' post='2368236']
I'm so glad I am Canadian.
[/quote]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg[/media]

[4588686]

[quote name='Norseman82' timestamp='1326500498' post='2368591']
Except that we now have the benefit of learning from history.
[/quote]

Yes. What we learned from history is that Hitler was an evil flupper mupper and Stalin was even worse. That's about it. We don't know what would have happened had we invaded. The situation was not simple and still isn't. Chamberlain wasn't asleep at the helm. He was using appeasement with the hope of stalling Hitler while the UK, a country utterly devastated by the first War, built back up their capacity to wage war. That's not to take away from Churchill. For all his faults the world can be grateful for, to paraphrase Hitchens in his review of Buchanan's book, a man like Churchill who fundamentally and categorically could not bear to share this world with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. But it is still not clear what should have been done, knowing what they did, to stop Hitler. What surrounding country had the capacity to invade and occupy Germany? Germany is not a tiny country and the Germans probably wouldn't take kindly to being invaded. Who would do it? The UK? France? Those are the regional (and in the case of the UK the world power) at the times and neither had the military capacity to fight a serious ground war and occupy a major country. And how would the USSR have responded to this? How would they have responded to the worlds policeman, the UK, and the other regional powers being utterly stretched to their breaking point occupying the other hegemonic power in the region (Eastern and East-Central Europe). Would Stalin have taken that opportunity (Germany occupied and the UK and France committing their ground forces to occupying Germany and combating the insurgency that would undoubtedly ensue) to pass up the opportunity to reclaim the land lost to the Russian Empire during the First World War? How are the Western Powers going to contain world Bolshevism in these conditions? How would the other fascist countries react to this? How would the significant portions of the population all over Western and Eastern Europe deeply sympathetic to Fascism react to this? Would France and the UK be able to occupy Germany and put down fascist insurrections?

This isn't an easy problem. It wasn't an easy question then and it still isn't that clear.

[4588686]

I remember reading a few years ago a point Kissinger made. He said that had Germany probably could have regained much of the 'Germanic' lands had they simply built up gradual pressure and been willing to acquire this land over time. But they didn't. Why didn't they? Because it turns out that Hitler had come to the conclusion from studying his family history that he would very likely die of a (I believe) the chronic heart conditions that plagued the men in his family and he would probably dies before the age of 50.

That's not something form policy around. We can know that now. Going through his private papers and notes. But who the hell would think of that? Hey, I bet that Hitler will initiate a global war at an inopportune time for Germany because he's convinced that he needs to conquer the world before he turns 50.

My point is that international relations always have and away will have a strong element of guess work to them and you are almost never going to have an obviously correct option. The system is just too complicated and the agents at play are neither fully rational nor always in possession of accurate information (in terms of what the other players want, their willingness to go after what they want, and what the know et cetera)

[PhuturePriest]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1326151118' post='2365937']
man the bar for that is getting lower every day it seems.

Used to be, if you leave your first wife while she is dying of cancer because "she is not pretty enough or young enough to be the first wife. besides she has cancer"(his words) to marry the woman you were having an extramarital affair with, and then leave that woman to marry another woman you were having an affair with(while calling for clintons head on a platter because he cheated), then you don't get to be taken seriously as the "faithful, family values catholic".
[/quote]

Last I recall, he became Catholic in 2009. Those things happened before then.

[Jesus_lol]

that can be taken a bit far. charles manson(to pick a random bad dude) converts to catholicism tomorrow and looks sincere, and now he is totally razzle dazzle to be the president.


changing your religion doesnt totally change the person you were before. if i remember correctly he has always been about espousing family values.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326517195' post='2368765']
Yes. What we learned from history is that Hitler was an evil flupper mupper and Stalin was even worse. That's about it. We don't know what would have happened had we invaded. The situation was not simple and still isn't. Chamberlain wasn't asleep at the helm. He was using appeasement with the hope of stalling Hitler while the UK, a country utterly devastated by the first War, built back up their capacity to wage war. That's not to take away from Churchill. For all his faults the world can be grateful for, to paraphrase Hitchens in his review of Buchanan's book, a man like Churchill who fundamentally and categorically could not bear to share this world with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. But it is still not clear what should have been done, knowing what they did, to stop Hitler. What surrounding country had the capacity to invade and occupy Germany? Germany is not a tiny country and the Germans probably wouldn't take kindly to being invaded. Who would do it? The UK? France? Those are the regional (and in the case of the UK the world power) at the times and neither had the military capacity to fight a serious ground war and occupy a major country. And how would the USSR have responded to this? How would they have responded to the worlds policeman, the UK, and the other regional powers being utterly stretched to their breaking point occupying the other hegemonic power in the region (Eastern and East-Central Europe). Would Stalin have taken that opportunity (Germany occupied and the UK and France committing their ground forces to occupying Germany and combating the insurgency that would undoubtedly ensue) to pass up the opportunity to reclaim the land lost to the Russian Empire during the First World War? How are the Western Powers going to contain world Bolshevism in these conditions? How would the other fascist countries react to this? How would the significant portions of the population all over Western and Eastern Europe deeply sympathetic to Fascism react to this? Would France and the UK be able to occupy Germany and put down fascist insurrections?

This isn't an easy problem. It wasn't an easy question then and it still isn't that clear.
[/quote]

I understand what you are saying. However, there are a few other points to consider.

First, Germany was not a military superpower when Hitler took office. His military buildup took a few years. Britain and France had ample time to similarly build up their armed forces.

Second, as I stated previously, there was a report that if Britain and France used military means to oppose Hitler's illegal military occupation of the Rhineland (I was in error when I said Saar earlier), then the German military was prepared to stage a coup against Hitler. This was in 1936, I believe. France and Britain would not need to occupy Germany.

[Sarah147]

I was very happy with Rick Santorum's interview last night. Big Catholic family, man of faith, etc.

[4588686]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1327182080' post='2372849']
I was very happy with Rick Santorum's interview last night. Big Catholic family, man of faith, etc.
[/quote]

And happy to help his friend Sen. Ensign evade repercussions for his adultery when the man he had cuckolded contacted Santorum begging for help.


What a swell guy.

[ardillacid]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1327195902' post='2372989']


And happy to help his friend Sen. Ensign evade repercussions for his adultery when the man he had cuckolded contacted Santorum begging for help.


What a swell guy.
[/quote]interested in what saints you've been voting for lately...

[Sarah147]

Yeah really. We're all sinners. We all fall everyday. Thank God for His mercy.