Carico - 24 June 2009 10:10 PM

Sorry but WWII is a hobby of mine. So I’ve watched just about every documentary that’s been made public on it, and have read so incessantly about it that I have rows of books on my booksheves that I’ve read about the ecomonic, socio-economic, political and religious reasons for WWII. So your overview leaves a lot to be desired. 

Well, then it should be easy for you to cite the books and page numbers where you got those ideas about WWII.

Carico, you declare that you have lots of books. Well, so do I, but that really doesn’t matter. What matters is the evidence and the reasoning you bring to the matter. For example, have you looked at the budgets for military spending as a percentage of GDP in the Western democracies during the 1930s? I don’t have those numbers off the top of my head, but as I recall they reached minimum around 1933 and steadily rose thereafter. That doesn’t jibe with your “asleep at the wheel” hypothesis. Or what about the existence of the US carrier force BEFORE Pearl Harbor? The Lexington and the Saratoga both date from the 20s, but the Enterprise keel was laid down in 1936.

Or consider the Maginot Line. Work on it was begun in 1930 and continued all through the 1930s. If the French were naive about Hitler, why did they spend such a stupendous sum on static defenses at the German border?

I could dig out some more facts but I think my point is clear: the Western democracies had no illusions about Hitler. They recognized the threat he posed and they prepared for war even as they negotiated for peace.

Carico - 24 June 2009 07:57 PM

Ecrasez l’infame! - 18 February 2009 09:27 PM

According to the Global Policy Forum, Rumsfeld may be prosecuted for war crimes.

“There is now enough evidence to try former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes, Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, recently told “Frontal 21,” a German television program. Nowak’s statement confirms what human rights and legal organizations have been saying for several years, and spotlights one of the Bush administration’s most controversial decisions regarding the use of torture.”

See the full article at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/2009/0217rumsfeld.htm

  Rumsfeldt is the Churchill of the last decade. Obama is the Neville Chamberlain of the last decade.  Churchill was called a war monger too and Hitler the man of peace, just like the liberals called Saddam Hussein a man of peace and the Bush administration the war mongers.  But Churchill saved England. 

Condi Rice can be Batman, Cheney can be John Wayne, Nancy Pelosi can be Porky Pig, The Pope can be the Green Lantern. Who else can we make comparisons about? Comparisons that are completely nothing!! Nothing! The Iraq war is like the game Monopoly and Candyland combined.. come on, I’ll explain it to you.

Carico, “reading a lot of books” does not necessarily lead to a reasoned, thoughtful argument or conclusion.  Your statements in multiple threads here demonstrate that quite nicely.

Hawkfan - 25 June 2009 08:06 PM

Carico, “reading a lot of books” does not necessarily lead to a reasoned, thoughtful argument or conclusion.  Your statements in multiple threads here demonstrate that quite nicely.

I suppose you also mean ‘nicely’ in the original meaning of the word as well!

BTW, while checking up some of my facts, I came across an interesting tidbit on the ramp-up to World War II. It seems that the Me-109, the main German fighter in the early war, was ordered into production AFTER the British Spitfire was ordered into production. In other words, if you think of an arms race for fighters, the British led the arms race and the Germans reacted to the British. So much for the myth of the British asleep at the wheel while the Germans prepared for war.