World War 3... Here we come!

[kapkomet]

Balta, to counter that, just a bit, did you see southsider's posts about Ahmadinejad and his religious beliefs? This guy believes that we are in the time of the (Muslim) version of Armegeddon. That's nothing to make light of, and our government knows that is what we're up against. If this guy gets the bomb, he will use it. It's not about a country the size of Finland. It's about the fundamentalism that is taking hold in Iran. It's not something to dismiss forthright. I'm not saying we go in there and take care of crap, at least not yet, but the pressure has to be maintained to get these guys off that course. I personally think we're edging to the brink of something no one ever thought we would be at and that's a nuclear power in the middle east. It's not a pretty thought. All the negotiating in the world I don't think is going to stop this guy.

 

One other point. Ahmadinejad didn't rise to power on his own... none of them do. Think about it.

[YASNY]

Balta, to counter that, just a bit, did you see southsider's posts about Ahmadinejad and his religious beliefs? This guy believes that we are in the time of the (Muslim) version of Armegeddon. That's nothing to make light of, and our government knows that is what we're up against. If this guy gets the bomb, he will use it. It's not about a country the size of Finland. It's about the fundamentalism that is taking hold in Iran. It's not something to dismiss forthright. I'm not saying we go in there and take care of crap, at least not yet, but the pressure has to be maintained to get these guys off that course. I personally think we're edging to the brink of something no one ever thought we would be at and that's a nuclear power in the middle east. It's not a pretty thought. All the negotiating in the world I don't think is going to stop this guy.

 

One other point. Ahmadinejad didn't rise to power on his own... none of them do. Think about it.

 

I'm more concerned with our guy than their guy.

[kapkomet]

Well, I've said this before - I am deeply disappointed with our president. I think he's right on the issue of "the war on terror" but the way it's being handled is about as piss poor as I have seen any president handle a major issue certainly in our lifetime, if not history itself. The arrogance is astounding to me, and it's something I do not understand.

 

The one thing that I always come down to is these people have access to information we do not have, and the remarks that were made were made for a reason. For every response, there is a counter to it. I have to believe at least that much.

[southsider2k5]

Zakaria.

 

So I am curious where the label police are when "neoconservative" is thrown around by a "mainstream" publication like it is going out of style.

[kapkomet]

So I am curious where the label police are when "neoconservative" is thrown around by a "mainstream" publication like it is going out of style.

Of COURSE it's different, it always is.

 

[EvilMonkey]

I did find it funny that the writer took umbrage to the fact that Norman likened Dinnerjacket to Hitler. I guess comparing people to hitler is a liberal-only thing. Maybe he holds a copyright on that or something.

[GoSox05]

I did find it funny that the writer took umbrage to the fact that Norman likened Dinnerjacket to Hitler. I guess comparing people to hitler is a liberal-only thing. Maybe he holds a copyright on that or something.

 

 

It's the evil liberal media.

[GoSox05]

whatever, Mr. Chamberlain.

 

 

Way to get into name calling. Maybe you can call me a poo-poo face too.

[kapkomet]

Way to get into name calling. Maybe you can call me a poo-poo face too.

 

That's name calling?

 

You need grow a pair or whatever you want to call it.

 

I'm sure you know the history behind that "name-calling" and why that is relevant to your post.

[Gregory Pratt]

Neville Chamberlain was an appeaser and a coward, to be sure, but he wasn't just an active coward: he was a moral coward. His goal in appeasing Hitler was greater than the appeasement of Hitler: Chamberlain wanted to appease Hitler so that Hitler would turn his attention to Stalin and destroy the USSR.

 

He was a twisted little sissy.

[Balta1701]

Neville Chamberlain was an appeaser and a coward, to be sure, but he wasn't just an active coward: he was a moral coward. His goal in appeasing Hitler was greater than the appeasement of Hitler: Chamberlain wanted to appease Hitler so that Hitler would turn his attention to Stalin and destroy the USSR.

 

He was a twisted little sissy.

Just out of curiosity, what makes you so confident in that interpretation? Because honestly, it's one that I've only rarely, if ever, heard. By far the more common interpretation that I've come across in my studies is that Chamberlain was so willing to back down in no small part because Britain in 1938 was simply in no condition for war with Germany, and allowed the hope that he could in fact negotiate with Hitler to blend with that problem to wind up with the results we saw.

[Gregory Pratt]

Just out of curiosity, what makes you so confident in that interpretation? Because honestly, it's one that I've only rarely, if ever, heard. By far the more common interpretation that I've come across in my studies is that Chamberlain was so willing to back down in no small part because Britain in 1938 was simply in no condition for war with Germany, and allowed the hope that he could in fact negotiate with Hitler to blend with that problem to wind up with the results we saw.

 

You've rarely heard that? It's very well-known that the British -- and the world -- considered Stalin the greater of two evils, and hoped to pit Hitler against Stalin. Yes, the British were in no shape for war and the Americans were isolationists so they had less support, but it was integral for Chamberlain to turn Germany against the Soviets.

 

Here, on page five, are five reasons: http://www.ndu.edu/library/n1/96-E-09.pdf

 

The fifth is Russia, which it puts fifth but says "importantly" and it makes me wonder why it didn't put it fifth.

 

I'm sure there are plenty of other places to find it but that was the first. Besides Wikipedia, which should never be genuinely cited.

[sox4lifeinPA]

points and laughs....

 

too funny.

[Soxbadger]

Wow, so let me get this straight, Chamberlain was appeasing Germany, so that Germany would fight USSR.

 

I believe that this is more of a revisionist history. Chamberlain was nominated as a Tory, (English conservative party), Chamberlain considered himself a Liberal Unionist, but that merely had to do with Irish independence during late 19th century.

 

The Tory position was that Germany had been unfairly treated by treaty of Versailles

 

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWappeasement.htm%20" target="_blank"> http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWappeasement.htm

 

And here is what he said specifically about the Sudentenland;

 

http://www.historyguide.org/europe/munich.html" target="_blank"> http://www.historyguide.org/europe/munich.html

 

Here is what Neville Chamberlain said during that time. If you notice, there is no mention of trying to use Germany as a weapon, in fact the entire premise of appeasement was to prevent war, not to create a different war that would pit fascism against communism (which im sure is where people get the idea that you could have created a Nazi-USSR war in that fascism and communism hate each other at a fundamental level, and therefore could not coexist.) But that is actually a mistaken view point (imo), Stalin was a fascist communist. Communism is an economic principal, it does not spell out how the govt is to lead. Marx and Engels do not formulate the type of govt that is to run a communist nation, and my guess is that they would have wanted some sort of democracy/republic, because the entire point of the progression from capitalism to communism is to give workers more rights, not for them to lose rights to a fascist.

 

Hence why Stalin and Hitler could coexist, they were both out for the same goal. It is impossible to believe that Chamberlain could have bought Hitler to fight the USSR, too much of Hitler's goals were to the west, and there is no way that offering him more and more Eastern land would have done anything. Both Russia and Germany felt that they already had rights to that region, USSR believing that it was entitled to take all lands Slavic, and Germany believing that they were entitled to all lands that had pre-treaty of Versailles, which included Alsace-Lorraine. If you look at what Hitler did, he went after every single piece of land taken by the treaty of Versailles, and it was very hard politically for GB, France, and the rest of the allies to prevent this.

 

If they stood strong and enforced the treaty, they would be baiting the German's into fighting. It was apparent at this point that the treaty of Versailles had been one of the most horrible handcuffs ever placed on a nation, and the only way that Germany had been able to bring itself out of a death spiral of depression and inflation (German money was so worthless they had to bring it home in wheel barrels) was to recreate the military, in direct violation to the treaty. So that was the problem, by allowing the Germans to re-arm themselves, the strongest per-person military nation was rebuilt over night. Using fascist policy which countries like Great Britain could not do, the Germany machine was able to rebuild a better stronger army faster than anything the rest of Europe could put out.

 

Once Germany had its army, then what? Are you going to draw a line in the sand and say if you go over this line then its war for real, that eventually happened, and Germany beat the crap out of Europe. In fact appeasement may have saved Europe, for if France and GB had gone after Germany first, it would have been many more years before the US could have entered (and who even knows if Pearl Harbor goes down if Hitler is trying to play off that GB-France started World War II), US isolation policy was very strong at this point. In fact it was so strong that the US took on anti-semitic immigration policies in the later part of the 1930's to prevent jews from escaping Hitler, so as to not put undue pressure on the United States to do something against Hitler.

 

Its pretty easy to say that Chamberlain was a coward now, its much harder to actually have been in his position and see the monster that the world had created. Its easy to say now that we won, that we could have done it faster, easier, etc, that we could have prevented it. But that just is not reality, the reality is that Europe was closer to being lost to the Nazi's forever, than it was for us to have easily beaten Hitler. In fact, if not for Hitler attacking the USSR, if not for him stopping the raids on GB, if not for him splitting his army into 2 fronts as he had spent his entire political career trying to prevent, he may have just taken GB.

 

But in Stalin, Hitler faced some one who was far more cruel. There is a story about Stalingrad, in which Field General Paulus surrendered to the Soviets (first field marshall ever to be captured, hitler said he should have committed suicide). Paulus was one of the best commanders though, so Hilter tried to make a deal, Paulus, for Stalin's own son.

 

Stalin refused, stating he could not trade a private (his son) for a Field General. His son died in captivity, and Stalin never mentions him ever again.

 

Yeah I know thats off topic, but thats my view. And actually the paper you cited pretty much agrees with me and the reason he put your argument 5th is because:

 

1) Its the least credible argument and really is not accepted by mainstream history as to a real cause for British appeasement of Germany. While USSR and GB had frosty relations, it did not mean that they were in any hurry to get in another war.

 

2) It is qualified, by saying "The tory view" which is very important because it shows that only some GB's actually believed that Germany was their ally. The reason it is qualified is because Winston Churchill was one of the biggest detractor's to the "tory view" or conservative view, and believed that GB should be arming itself to fight Germany.

 

As you can see, the conservative Tory party, which Chamberlain was a part of, actually wanted to befriend Germany. They felt that the German’s had gotten a bad deal by the treaty of Versailles, and therefore were willing to meet the demands made by the German’s, because they felt they were undoing a previous wrong. The problem with that is that they did not know at that time that Hitler’s real motivation was not just to re-create the Austria-Hungary Empire, but instead to create the next formulation of the First Reich, the Holy Roman Empire, which meant they were going to eventually go after France. With historical hindsight, it is easy to see that the Tory position was horrible. Not only were they not antagonistic to Hitler, but they actually were sympathetic.

 

The problem though, is that by the time Chamberlain came to power in Britain, the pieces for World War II were already in place. Nazi rearmament had started in secret in1933, by 1935 it was made public, by 1938 t the German army was almost completely rebuilt and was technically more advanced than every army in the world.

 

The reality of this, is if not for Hitler’s own madness, it is very likely that all of Europe west of the USSR border would have fallen. It is easy now to say that if GB, France, etc had gone in guns blazing that they of course would have won, but it was only 1) the German’s splitting their forces and taking on 2 fronts, 2) the US entry, that gave rise to the defeat of the Nazi’s.

 

I guess the point in all of this is:

 

1) Chamberlain’s main goal was not to turn the Nazi’s against the USSR, it was to make the treaty of Versailles more manageable for the German people. After the German depression devastated the entire Western world, GB wanted Germany back on track. That is why they gave them land, let them build an army, etc. They needed that economy, they needed a Germany that was not going to be saddled by a debt to France and Belgium that it could never repay. This is why GB was at the front of appeasement, there losses in World War I were not to infrastructure, their land was not destroyed, hence the hate for Germany and Germans was not as strong. Germany and GB had always had a relationship, even to the point where many GB royals were of German royal blood.

 

2) Revisionist history is the worst with World War II. It is very hard for many, to hear that the conservatives in Britain were Nazi sympathizers. In retrospect the Nazi regime is one of the most horrible to ever exist, but at the time very few actually knew this. While Hitler was viewed as a threat, he was no worse than any one else. Many of the people living in the 1930’s had lived under King’s and Queens, a fascist dictator who was restoring Germany and Europe economically was not viewed as such a terrible thing. It is only because of Hitler that the terms dictator and fascism have such negative under tones, and that is a product of our history.

 

Even further, every historian with World War II wants to change what happened. They want to write that some one should have done something sooner, but the reality is unless you are talking about pre-1933 in which no one even knew who Hitler was, it was already to late. Once Germany had built its army, there was no turning back, there was no: “You broke the rules we are sending in weapons inspectors”, because Hitler knew that he could take on every European power and win as long as he did not fight a 2 front war. And that is the oddity of it all, Hitler, the one who was so damn stubborn about not fighting a 2 front war, eventually brought one upon himself.

 

Oh yah this is long, sorry, but some times when I see something that just so horribly describes a situation I have to speak out.

Edited October 24, 2007 by Soxbadger