This may be Bedlam but any more personal insults will earn the poster a holiday. Clear?

Google Corrie Ten Boom if you want another example of courage during the Nazi occupation. Or just read her book The Hiding Place if you find it in a used bookstore.

I own a used book store and I read it many years ago as young lad.

Thank the Lord that the Allied troops freed Corrie from that concentration camp the Nazis put her in. If no one had fought back she would have died there.

So then, Boon Mee, war is the answer, eh? The answer to our problems? You know, it wasn't the pacifists who started world war one, world war two, Korea, Vietnam, ad infinitum, the hundred years war, the thirty years war, the war of the roses, the war of Jenkin's ear (poor Jenkins!), or the football war (those pesky latinoamericanos), the Falklands war.

You can be pretty sure that the pacifists backed Chamberlain's decision to capitulate to the Nazis in World War 2. Having no spine is not the answer either!

Just a bit of food for thought Mr G and Boonie if thats possible.

It is the commonly held perception, it's what we get taught in history class, that the US entered the war in Europe to conquer Fascism.

An alternative perception would be that the US entered the war in Europe to stop the spread of Communism, which became a possibility after the collapse of Axis forces in Stalingrad and the Eastern front and also to secure Nazi scientists and their accumulated knowledge for US benefit.

I believe the latter to be true, the US does a great job of hiding it's fascistic credentials,

the Spanish civil War outlined the roles of nations for WW2,

the US and Britain were key supporters of Fascism,

pehaps thats why they never teach us about that in school.

reason for edit; know your history.

So, you are saying we should have let the Nazis win World War Two?

Is that the best comment you can make Mr G? No the Allies should have won and they did, but I know who the US would have preferrred to win and the appeasment of Hitler cannot be blamed on pacifists, but was a continuation of foreign policy by Britain and the US.

Your in the Boon Mee camp that says anybody who questions US foreign policy is a pacifistic commie terrorist.

You are like Boon in as much as you don't have the balls for reasoned discussion because you don't have a credible ideal worth defending and you would rather side track a serious debate with throw away one liners.

Holy aunt Jemima! The vitriole is being spat with such force here that I will be a roadside casualty just by reading it. I would rather posit that many folks hate American policy because it echos the mindset of British, German, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish governments of illustrious colonial times. Now that the US is the "big boy" in the world, and it is politically correct to be seen as soft, gracious, welfare-feeding carers of the starving populaces, who would and do eat their own if they need to survive, it is PC to bash the US. I think Mother Earth and the evil powers will orchestrate catastrophes that will show that the peace babies will turn to heathens to survive. If tree-hugging peace mongers in Vancouver will physically fight each other for bottled water when their tap supplies became undrinkable, think what the western peoples would do in an all out disaster.

You are like Boon in as much as you don't have the balls for reasoned discussion because you don't have a credible ideal worth defending and you would rather side track a serious debate with throw away one liners.

Looks like a personal attack to me?

Where are the repurcusions for these 'reasoned' replys?

Is that the best comment you can make Mr G? No the Allies should have won and they did, but I know who the US would have preferrred to win and the appeasment of Hitler cannot be blamed on pacifists, but was a continuation of foreign policy by Britain and the US.

Your in the Boon Mee camp that says anybody who questions US foreign policy is a pacifistic commie terrorist.

You are like Boon in as much as you don't have the balls for reasoned discussion because you don't have a credible ideal worth defending and you would rather side track a serious debate with throw away one liners.

Sorry, but your comments led me to believe that you supported the Nazis in World War Two. I don't see any other point to what you said and I felt that it was worth pointing out because it pretty much shows where you are coming from.

Is that the best comment you can make Mr G? No the Allies should have won and they did, but I know who the US would have preferrred to win and the appeasment of Hitler cannot be blamed on pacifists, but was a continuation of foreign policy by Britain and the US.

From what I can make out, here you are insinuating that the US would have preferred the Nazis had won World War Two. I guess that that makes about as much sense as the rest of your rambling.

I own a used book store and I read it many years ago as young lad.

Thank the Lord that the Allied troops freed Corrie from that concentration camp the Nazis put her in. If no one had fought back she would have died there.

Oooooohhhhhhh. Books. I love you even more UG.

Now quit fighting you boys. I love you both Robski and UG; what will happen with Easter dinner if there are spats? No war at the dinner table.

Google Corrie Ten Boom if you want another example of courage during the Nazi occupation. Or just read her book The Hiding Place if you find it in a used bookstore.

I own a used book store and I read it many years ago as young lad.

Thank the Lord that the Allied troops freed Corrie from that concentration camp the Nazis put her in. If no one had fought back she would have died there.

When my parents were away, the person they would mainly hire to house-sit us kids was a very nice elderly lady, who also happened to be concentration camp survivor in WW2. We always wanted to hear her story but she never told us until we got older. Then one day when we were in our early teens, she decided that it was time to tell us her story. She showed us the number tatooed on her arm, faded but still visible through the age and wrinkles. She told of the days when she last saw her mother, father and sisters. She told of how badly people were treated. She said she remembered everything as if it were yesterday. She was the only person in her family to survive the death camp. When I hear of these present day nutcases ranting how they doubt the holocaust ever happened, and I remember back to her story, it is sickening that people could possibly have such thoughts.

Isn't there some famous USENET axiom which says that all reasoned discussion on a thread stops the moment someone brings up Hitler?

Isn't there some famous USENET axiom which says that all reasoned discussion on a thread stops the moment someone brings up Hitler?

Probably...that guy sure gets some 'bad press'!

Yes, it's called Godwin's Law:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

[Oooooohhhhhhh. Books. I love you even more UG.

I love you too.

You are my favorite new poster and helping out my man Boonie too!

Google Corrie Ten Boom if you want another example of courage during the Nazi occupation. Or just read her book The Hiding Place if you find it in a used bookstore.

I own a used book store and I read it many years ago as young lad.

Thank the Lord that the Allied troops freed Corrie from that concentration camp the Nazis put her in. If no one had fought back she would have died there.

I failed to insert a smilie emoticon after the 'used bookstore' statement, Ulysses. Corrie told of how, after the war, some Dutch ladies refused to forgive their captors and occupiers, as Corrie had. So she cut short the Bible study that day and just asked them to say the Lord's Prayer together. When they got to 'forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespassed against us," they all repented of their hatred.

I'm very thankful that the concentration/extermination camps were liberated. I worked for a man who took part in those liberations. My son almost married a girl whose grandmother still had her numbered tatoo. We cannot imagine the horror. Furthermore, as a Christian pacifist, I see no virtue in killing the killers, or in even hating them personally. The Jesuit missionary who lived among the survivors of the Acteal massacre stated later at the Gandhi conference that he never heard one indication of hatred by the survivors, against those who killed their family and friends. It's a crazy world when Jesuit missionaries find more pacifism in a place like that, than you can find in Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Pentencostal, atheist, and agnostic groups.

I think the trap that people are falling into is of choosing to be one or the other. That is how religions get us into trouble. In order to be a "card carrying" member, you must buy the whole thing. Well, I don't and I won't because I have a mind. I also try to remember the difference between hindsight and foresight. Because I disagree with a policy doesn't mean I have any foresight.

War is always and always will be a crap shoot--high stakes and truly dangerous for all involved. Many of the questions about it's morality are unanswerable--except in hindsight.

I for one am probably a raging liberal--I am for gay rights, but not for women's rights (No, just kidding)!

Is that the best comment you can make Mr G? No the Allies should have won and they did, but I know who the US would have preferrred to win and the appeasment of Hitler cannot be blamed on pacifists, but was a continuation of foreign policy by Britain and the US.

From what I can make out, here you are insinuating that the US would have preferred the Nazis had won World War Two. I guess that that makes about as much sense as the rest of your rambling.

If you like books Mr G read The Spanish Civil War by Beevor. Might put things into perspective for you.

Certainly the US would have been happy to have a Facsist Europe the alternative would have been a Communist Europe.

The US went to war with Japan because they were attacked, but only committed manpower to Europe after the German collapse at Stallingrad.

I think the trap that people are falling into is of choosing to be one or the other. That is how religions get us into trouble. In order to be a "card carrying" member, you must buy the whole thing. Well, I don't and I won't because I have a mind. I also try to remember the difference between hindsight and foresight. Because I disagree with a policy doesn't mean I have any foresight.

War is always and always will be a crap shoot--high stakes and truly dangerous for all involved. Many of the questions about it's morality are unanswerable--except in hindsight.

I for one am probably a raging liberal--I am for gay rights, but not for women's rights (No, just kidding)!

Wheres the "off with his head" smilie when you need it?

How about this one then?

But I kind of prefer this one:

and this one:

But this one says it all

Hey sbk, that's not fair--I had a woman once tell me I could be replaced by a zuchhini!

Hey sbk, that's not fair--I had a woman once tell me I could be replaced by a zuchhini!

Ouch!

Hey sbk, that's not fair--I had a woman once tell me I could be replaced by a zuchhini!

Be thankful she didn't say baby carrot.

Certainly the US would have been happy to have a Facsist Europe the alternative would have been a Communist Europe.

I think that you mean that the US would have prefered a Fascist Europe over a Communist Europe - which is quite possibly accurate - but what you said before sounded like the US out and out wanted Europe to be Fascist which doesn't make any sense to me.

We sometimes have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

We sometimes have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Not when you're a moral genius, in which case the only choice is between good and evil. No sensible God says, "Okay, let's choose a sin today and call it righteous!!" However, Ulysses, you're in good company if you honestly believe the only choice is between evils; most theologians of ethics preach that heresy, too!

Certainly the US would have been happy to have a Facsist Europe the alternative would have been a Communist Europe.

I think that you mean that the US would have prefered a Fascist Europe over a Communist Europe - which is quite possibly accurate - but what you said before sounded like the US out and out wanted Europe to be Fascist which doesn't make any sense to me.

We sometimes have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Like I say Mr G, read the book and make up your own mind, theres always Hobsbawms take on it,(it's surprising how many Google links will tell you he is a Marxist, even though he is probably the most Conservative UK historian ( I guess thats what happens when you tell the 'truth')) Its up to you to make up your own mind wether you're left or right.

Hopefully, if you don't believe the hype too much, theres always the 'other' guy who has a pretty good spin on it too.

I don't want to mention his name, because you will flame me even though he is probably the greatest intellectual America has ever had.

If you really understand history and politics you will know who I am talking about.

Look into what I am saying and lets have a discussion about the US and it's crypto-facist credentials,

otherwise just stick to your bar girl comments which I find much more interesting.

Here's a site which describes the vehicles the US, GB and Canada provided the Soviets.

http://www.o5m6.de/index.html

427,000 trucks alone. There's also the tractors, armour, locomotives, aircraft, machinery, food and petrol. I wonder how far the Soviet supplies lines would have extended if they had to use horse and cart? The port of Murmansk alone received 2,146 A-20C, P-39, P-40, Hurricane, Spitfire and Mustang planes. By comparison here's the Luftwaffe serviceable aircraft strengths (1940-1945), from a low of 3157 to a high of 4928. Luftwaffe serviceable aircraft strengths (1940-1945 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

It leads me to believe the US was not happy with the Nazis. Mr. G makes a valid point. Given the USA had little control over the madness the Euros were going through it's quite possible that the US government concluded fascism was the lesser of two evils rising up in Euro politics. But it's speculation and we shouldn't talk of it as fact.

To extend the speculation even farther though. What was the US govt. supposed to think when all of continental Europe fell to the Nazis with so little fight? And then the occupied country's governments and police basically administered for the Nazis otherwise there is no way the Germans had enough troops to maintain order. What were the Euros supposed to do? They could have chosen to fight like the English did. It certainly wasn't reasonable for the English to fight. The German's were willing to extend a more equitable existence with them.

The USA is a vast nation with many sub cultures not all of them working as one and speaking with one voice. (continental Euros should understand that concept) We had our domestic politics to deal with while the Euros waged war. Many citizens and interests did not wish the USA to get involved, the pacifist movement being one of them. To propose the USA didn't enter the war because we wanted fascism to prevail disregards USA domestic politics that our leaders must take into consideration in order to retain their jobs.

Thanks for a really good reply aughie.

It's hard to understand why the British declared war on on Germany,

and I think to say it was because Germany invaded Poland is too simplistic.

I think it was more a case of do or die, Germany showed it's capability and Britain could see the writing on the wall.

Europeans have always had wars over who controls the continent.

Facsism was very popular in the 1930's with the US and Britain.

The alternative was trade unions and workers rights that would cut into bosses profits.

This was the phenomenon that was new to the 20th century.

Britain and America stated their positions in the Spanish Civil War.

They were in agreement for a continuation of fascist (anti-communist) policies in Europe.

The US didn't want to get involved in another European war.

They had no good reason to commit men to Europe, they were already fighting a war of their own,

they where also making a lot of money with the lend-lease progam to Britain.

Germany overstretched it's capabilities.

Hitler fcuked up.

Britain didn't have the power to take on the Soviet Union.

The only outcome was a Communist Europe.

Look at the timing. After the collapse on the Eastern Front.

Look at American foreign policy since 1945. Anti Communist.

Look at the benefits that America got from German scientists. And the alternative if that had been available to the Soviets.

Do you think that America wanted the 'commies' to win?

If the answer to that is no, who did they want to win?

The US won the war, but which political ideals did they support....... ?

And continue to support, wether your name is Bush or Clinton or Carter or LBJ or Nixon or........

Fascist, always have been, always will be.

Crypto Fascist if you can understand that, if you like or Neo-Con sounds better, but its all the same.

It was pretty accurate though Boon.

the guy that wrote it couldn't even get the title right! .... and it was all down hill from there!

The edit was fcuked up and I don't want to end my post with something inflamatory so.......

A more equitable existence as you say, it's a moot point and one that is open to interpretation, which version of history is more palatable?

After what time did the US supply armaments to the Soviets? How far were the US prepared for the Soviets to 'liberate' Europe?

To extend the speculation even farther though. What was the US govt. supposed to think when all of continental Europe fell to the Nazis with so little fight? And then the occupied country's governments and police basically administered for the Nazis otherwise there is no way the Germans had enough troops to maintain order. What were the Euros supposed to do? They could have chosen to fight like the English did. It certainly wasn't reasonable for the English to fight. The German's were willing to extend a more equitable existence with them.

The USA is a vast nation with many sub cultures not all of them working as one and speaking with one voice. (continental Euros should understand that concept) We had our domestic politics to deal with while the Euros waged war. Many citizens and interests did not wish the USA to get involved, the pacifist movement being one of them. To propose the USA didn't enter the war because we wanted fascism to prevail disregards USA domestic politics that our leaders must take into consideration in order to retain their jobs.

A couple of minor points. Europe also has many different cultures and is not as homogenous as many people seem to think. To talk of the populations of all those countries as 'Euros' is not very useful - and it was the British who carried on fighting, not the English.

It was pretty accurate though Boon.

the guy that wrote it couldn't even get the title right! .... and it was all down hill from there!

Not to cherry-pick the author's 10 points but one of the more valid ones is that the war in Iraq is all about oil.