What if Bush41 had continued to Baghdad and destroyed the Iraqi regime?

[Ned]

ElTigre, WWII was inevitable only if Hitler was going to attack West.

A lot of your post relies on Hitler's racism to justify what Briton did, implying that Hitler would eventually attack Briton because of it. But, in reality, this doesn't make much sense. Hitler's racism didn't require him to conquer West, as those lands were already settled by fellow Aryans. His racism posed no threat to Briton.

He did want to "break" the hegemony of Briton in Europe. That does not mean that he would go to war with Briton if they would agree to negotiate new European security arrangements. The problem he faced is that Briton always seemed more than willing to go to war to keep her hegemony, and he fully expect war with Briton at some time in the future.

Planning for war and planning to start a war are not the same thing.

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by Ned
ElTigre, I don't suggest that the Jews of the Pale couldn't be good Russians or Poles. I just suggest that they were not.

I'm not interested in suggestions, I'm interested in facts which you can prove with sources. Got any on this point?

They were roundly abused by the Russians for generations,[so much so that many prominent Jews didn't want the US to go to war against Germany because that would be we would be helping Russia, their enemy.

Interesting. Link?

Now I am not clear on the attitude of the Jews of the Pale about Poland after WWI. But, given that the Poles joined in with the Nazis in killing the Jews shortly after the German takeover in WWII, I suspect the relations between the Poles and the Jews of the Pale were not all that good.

Yeah, right. THE Poles joined the Nazis in killing Jews after 1939. What about the Poles that did not help the Nazis? What about the Poles that risked their lives to help Jews escape from the Ghettos, who gave them food and kept them hidden?

The key words in your paragraph are (again) "I am not clear" and "I suspect". CASE DISMISSED, because the prosecution fails to produce any evidence, and relies on personal opinion only. [According to your profile, this should be a language you can understand]

But that question is largely irrelevant to the question of whether Jewish-dominated lands in the old Russian empire should be organized into a Jewish state at the close of WWI. The Poles got theirs. The Czechs and Slovaks got theirs. The Serbs took over all other Slavic states as they wanted. But the Jews got nothing.

Why?

Maybe because in the history of mankind there had never been a Jewish state in Eastern Europe? Maybe because Zionists weren't interested in a Jewish state here, but wanted a Jewish state in Palestine? And again, maybe because being Jewish and being a citizen of Poland, Russia and Czechoslovakia isn't mutually exclusive???

[Ned]

Etchy, nice summary of global politics.

What you seem to have missed is conflicting interests. Just because Germany was growing stronger or that Saddam was gaining power is not enough for "hostility." There has to be more.

In the case of Stalin, his global ambitions to spread communism was the strongest reason for every capitalist nation to oppose him, IMHO. The conflicts with Germany in both wars are not clear. Nor is the conflict with Japan, unless Japan was going to freeze the US out of Asian markets with its new Empire.

BTW, there was a conflict with the British Empire that almost made FDR think twice about backing Briton. The Brits had virtually exclusive trading relatinships within its empire due to high tarriffs. In exchange for US aid, FDR asked that these tarriffs be reduced or eliminated. Churchill flatly refused. If subsequent events hadn't forced the two back together, Briton may have lost US support.

[Ecthy]

As I indicated, there was always the potential threat of either of the two powers applying leverage in the Americas. But these are vague assumptions based on alternative outcomes i.e. factual hegemonies of either of the two.

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by Ned
ElTigre, WWII was inevitable only if Hitler was going to attack West.

A lot of your post relies on Hitler's racism to justify what Briton did, implying that Hitler would eventually attack Briton because of it. But, in reality, this doesn't make much sense. Hitler's racism didn't require him to conquer West, as those lands were already settled by fellow Aryans. His racism posed no threat to Briton.

He did want to "break" the hegemony of Briton in Europe. That does not mean that he would go to war with Briton if they would agree to negotiate new European security arrangements. The problem he faced is that Briton always seemed more than willing to go to war to keep her hegemony, and he fully expect war with Briton at some time in the future.

Planning for war and planning to start a war are not the same thing.

So in your opinion France and Britain should have given Hitler free hand in Eastern Europe because they weren't directly threatened by Nazi Germany (a claim which I vehemently oppose, but lets pretend for a moment)?

[Ned]

Etchy, I was trying to find again the article about Jewish opposition to America joining the war against Germany prior to 1917, and found this exchange in a leftist blog:

"And the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis too.

RL: Yes, they did, but so did our lovely, charming Palestinian and other Arabs friends. Our friends the Syrians and Egyptians harbored Nazi war criminals after the war, and our beloved Iraqis had an openly pro-Nazi regime in Iraq during the war. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a Nazi sympathizer and openly collaborated with Nazis.

For Chrissake, what do you mean Zionism caused the Holocaust, my God? The Nazis supported the Zionist movement in Palestine, for God's sake. At least at the start anyway. After the Holocaust got going, I don't know. The Nazis probably would have killed the Jews if they ever made it to Palestine from North Africa. They seemed to kill them everyplace they conquered.

So your thesis is entirely wrong. There would not have been a Holocaust if there was no Zionist movement to begin with.

RL: Huh? Is this some new theory? Because this is the first time I have ever heard of it. Gosh. For Chrissake, the Nazis thought Zionism was a *great* idea. Jews out of Europe, to Palestine...cool! No more Jews in Europe, yahoo, what a plan. The Zionist movement had absolutely zero, nothing, nada, zip, zilch, to do with the Holocaust.

I do think I see what you are getting at here, though, through the murky outlines of your exposition. I think what you are really trying to say is this:

1. British made deal with Zionists do get Zionists to get US involved in WW1 to save Britain's ass if only Britain supports Balfour.

2. Deal is done, Brits sign Balfour, US enters WW1, Germany defeated, Jews at Versailles help assure that Germany is screwed.

3. This conniving by Zionist interests to defeat Germany in WW1 and to screw her afterwards (with help of the West) is the basis for Hitler's "the Jews stabbed us in the back" line and forms the basis for some of the rage towards Jews in Germany in 20's.

However, Hitler never mentioned one single word about Zionism or Balfour. In fact, almost no one was even aware of this deal until Benjamin Freedman revealed it years later. If Hitler said anything about Zionism, he probably thought it was a *real cool* idea.

So, I can see your pt. here, though you could have made it more clearly. You are taking Benjamin Freedman's line about Zionists setting the stage for the rise of Nazism.

However, by 1932, Jews owned 34% of Germany, being only 2% of the population. This had almost zero to do with Zionism. The Jewish worldwide boycott of Germany, followed by the retaliatory German boycott of Jews, had zero to do with Zionism.

In fact, the Zionists opposed the boycott and supported the Nazis the whole time. The Zionists did not want any troubles between Jews and Germans; they just wanted Jews out of Germany. The Zionists supported Nazism because according to them, it was analogous to Zionism! Two ethnic chauvinist nationalisms.

Zionism helped set the stage for Nazism but there were many other factors, especially Jewish domination of German society. Jews owned almost all the banks and 98% of the press.

In the 1920's, the German economy collapsed and Jews came in and bought up the country for about 10 cents on the dollar. Then they took all their cash and put it in Swiss bank accounts and mostly refused to invest it in the country.

Jews also quickly became 50% of German judges and 40% of law school professors. Also about 50% of doctors. All this happened overnight. Your average German woke up in 1932, and his country was practically taken over by a bunch of Jews, 2% of the population. No country is going to put up with that, sorry. All of this forms the backdrop to Nazism that you leave out.

So you still seem to think that Zionism had nothing to do with the Nazi hatred of Jews?

RL: The Nazis never saw it that way. Their attitude was "the Jews stabbed us in the back". The Nazis may not have been aware of the Balfour deal, and the Nazis never made any kind of distinctions between Zionists and other Jews.

The Nazis noted that large Jewish (Zionist) papers rapidly turned against Germany in 1917 and started feeding the people a lot of pessimistic stuff.

Organized international Jewry did indeed betray Germany when they got America to join England in WWI.

RL: Hard to say...they were split. A lot of them supported Germany. I would say the Zionist faction did, but Organized Jewry was not necessarily Zionist back then. Some where, some were not.

Fact. This (Organized Jewry's...

RL: Only the Zionist faction.

...collusion with England for the Zionist goal for a Jewish state in Palestine) was indeed the straw that broke the camel (Germany's) back.

RL: It's true, but we don't have any evidence that the Nazis ever figured this out about this deal - the Jews would get the US into WW1, and in return, the British would give the Jews Balfour. All they knew were that prominent German Jews used their position of power in Germany to try to turn the population against the war in 1917.

You wrote: "All they knew were that prominent German Jews used their position of power in Germany to try to turn the population against the war in 1917." And any German simpleton at the time would have known that Jews were hellbent on getting a Jewish state in Palestine as Hertzl started his mission there in the 1880s, and guess who was in charge of Palestine - yes, you know that at least - England.

RL: But no German Gentile cared one whit about Zionism, or Palestine, or Herzl, or any of that. If they thought about it at all, they probably thought it was a *good idea*. Cool, no more Jews, yeah!

Do you really think that Germans couldn't put two and two together on that?

RL: I'm not aware they did. The overwhelming majority of German Gentiles had no opinion at all about Zionism, or if they did, they probably supported it as a way cool idea to get rid of Europe's Jews.

As if it wasn't bad enough that they got America to fight with England against Germany - for whatever reason?

RL: I'm not aware that any Germans knew about this...show me some evidence...

I'm sure the Germans weren't as clueless as you are.

RL: No one knew about that deal til Freedman spilled the beans years later.

But come on. Obviously one of the reasons the Jews would side with England was because England was in charge of Palestine and the Jews wanted Palestine.

RL: Wrong. Only about 20% or less of Jews in the world were Zionists at that time. The rest were either anti-Zionists or non-Zionists. So the vast majority of world Jews did not give a flying f--- about Britain or Palestine or any of that. And the "Jews did *not* want Palestine".

Only a minority did - 20%. The rest were opposed to the whole thing. It's really interesting how you call 20% of world Jews "the Jews" and dismiss 80% of world Jews as nonexistent. Nice trick!

Any dopey person, including you, should be able to figure that out. I'm sure the Germans did.

RL: They didn't, because 80% of German Jews were opposed to Zionism.

Interesting how you quote the 80%/20% equation. Don't you know that that's the way it is in life often? 20% of the people control 80% of the wealth.Therefore 20% of the Jews (the ones with the power) controlled the fate of the rest of the Jews.

RL: Zionists were not necessarily rich, though many rich Jews were Zionists.

The only Jews who were really anti-Zionism were the Ultra-Orthodox Jews such as the Neturei Karta...

RL: You're wrong. The vast majority of Jews were anti-Zionist or non-Zionist back in those days, especially in Europe. Most of them thought Zionism was stupid or had religious reasons to be against it. After the Holocaust, though, most of them started supporting it.

...which even today remain a fringe, marginalized group.

RL: You don't understand the history of Zionism."

http://robertlindsay.blogspot.com/2005/10/did-zionism-cause-holocaust.html

[Ned]

Originally posted by ElTigre


So in your opinion France and Britain should have given Hitler free hand in Eastern Europe because they weren't directly threatened by Nazi Germany (a claim which I vehemently oppose, but lets pretend for a moment)?

Yes.

And we should not have ousted Saddam from Kuwait b/c that got us bin Laden and the second Gulf war and a whole world of hurt.

Back to your question, yes if they wanted peace with Germany. The US long ago told Briton and France to stop messing around in the Americas because that was our back yard.

Ditto: France and Briton in Germany's back yard.

And to emphasize this point, the West's messing around with the Ukraine and other states from its former empire has gotten Russia very nervous and has a lot to do with increasing Russian hostility, IMHO.

[ElTigre]

Now tell us what would have happened in your opinion in "Germany's back yard" (Eastern Europe, if I understand your analogy correctly) after 1939 if the West would have given Hitler free hand.

[I'll reply tomorrow]

[Ned]

This is also interesting. Taken from a speech by one Benjamen Friedman in 1961:

"World War I broke out in the summer of 1914. There are few people here my age who remember that. Now that war was waged on one side by Great Britain, France, and Russia; and on the other side by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey.

Within two years Germany had won that war: not only won it nominally, but won it actually. The German submarines, which were a surprise to the world, had swept all the convoys from the Atlantic Ocean. Great Britain stood there without ammunition for her soldiers, with one week's food supply -- and after that, starvation. At that time, the French army had mutinied. They had lost 600,000 of the flower of French youth in the defense of Verdun on the Somme. The Russian army was defecting, they were picking up their toys and going home, they didn't want to play war anymore, they didn't like the Czar. And the Italian army had collapsed.

Not a shot had been fired on German soil. Not one enemy soldier had crossed the border into Germany. And yet, Germany was offering England peace terms. They offered England a negotiated peace on what the lawyers call a status quo ante basis. That means: "Let's call the war off, and let everything be as it was before the war started." England, in the summer of 1916 was considering that -- seriously. They had no choice. It was either accepting this negotiated peace that Germany was magnanimously offering them, or going on with the war and being totally defeated.

While that was going on, the Zionists in Germany, who represented the Zionists from Eastern Europe, went to the British War Cabinet and -- I am going to be brief because it's a long story, but I have all the documents to prove any statement that I make -- they said: "Look here. You can yet win this war. You don't have to give up. You don't have to accept the negotiated peace offered to you now by Germany. You can win this war if the United States will come in as your ally." The United States was not in the war at that time. We were fresh; we were young; we were rich; we were powerful. They told England: "We will guarantee to bring the United States into the war as your ally, to fight with you on your side, if you will promise us Palestine after you win the war." In other words, they made this deal: "We will get the United States into this war as your ally. The price you must pay is Palestine after you have won the war and defeated Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey." Now England had as much right to promise Palestine to anybody, as the United States would have to promise Japan to Ireland for any reason whatsoever. It's absolutely absurd that Great Britain, that never had any connection or any interest or any right in what is known as Palestine should offer it as coin of the realm to pay the Zionists for bringing the United States into the war. However, they did make that promise, in October of 1916. And shortly after that -- I don't know how many here remember it - - the United States, which was almost totally pro-German, entered the war as Britain's ally.

I say that the United States was almost totally pro-German because the newspapers here were controlled by Jews, the bankers were Jews, all the media of mass communications in this country were controlled by Jews; and they, the Jews, were pro-German. They were pro-German because many of them had come from Germany, and also they wanted to see Germany lick the Czar. The Jews didn't like the Czar, and they didn't want Russia to win this war. These German-Jew bankers, like Kuhn Loeb and the other big banking firms in the United States refused to finance France or England to the extent of one dollar. They stood aside and they said: "As long as France and England are tied up with Russia, not one cent!" But they poured money into Germany, they fought beside Germany against Russia, trying to lick the Czarist regime.

Now those same Jews, when they saw the possibility of getting Palestine, went to England and they made this deal. At that time, everything changed, like a traffic light that changes from red to green. Where the newspapers had been all pro-German, where they'd been telling the people of the difficulties that Germany was having fighting Great Britain commercially and in other respects, all of a sudden the Germans were no good. They were villains. They were Huns. They were shooting Red Cross nurses. They were cutting off babies' hands. They were no good. Shortly after that, Mr. Wilson declared war on Germany.

The Zionists in London had sent cables to the United States, to Justice Brandeis, saying "Go to work on President Wilson. We're getting from England what we want. Now you go to work on President Wilson and get the United States into the war." That's how the United States got into the war. We had no more interest in it; we had no more right to be in it than we have to be on the moon tonight instead of in this room. There was absolutely no reason for World War I to be our war. We were railroaded into -- if I can be vulgar, we were suckered into -- that war merely so that the Zionists of the world could obtain Palestine. That is something that the people of the United States have never been told. They never knew why we went into World War I."

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-leaders-freedman.html

There is a lot more, and it is all interesting.

[Zkribbler]

Ah, so Hitler was right! The Jews were the reason the Germans lost World War I. Who'd have thunk it.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ned
In the case of Stalin, his global ambitions to spread communism was the strongest reason for every capitalist nation to oppose him, IMHO. The conflicts with Germany in both wars are not clear. Nor is the conflict with Japan, unless Japan was going to freeze the US out of Asian markets with its new Empire.

Do you know what the nature of the ideological dispute between Stalin and the trotskyists was?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ned

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-leaders-freedman.html

There is a lot more, and it is all interesting.

linking to Jewwatch??

[notyoueither]

4.

[Fake Boris]

While that was going on, the Zionists in Germany, who represented the Zionists from Eastern Europe, went to the British War Cabinet and -- I am going to be brief because it's a long story, but I have all the documents to prove any statement that I make

Here's for a change…

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


Poland was not France or Britain or, even for that matter, Belgium. It was a construct of Versailles and it was formed, in part, from German Empire lands.

The Kingdom of Poland has a rather long history, greatly antedating the Second German Empire, which was formed mainly through the direction of the ex-Electorate of Brandenburg-Prussia, an electorate of which part had been held as a fief of the...

...kings of Poland.

Really, you come out with some remarkably silly statements. The Second German Empire (founded only in 1871) was of course created partly out of former Danish, French, Polish, and Austrian lands (parts of Silesia had of course also been in the Polish kingdom and under the Bohemian Crown too, but that's the complicated fabric of European history for you).

While Briton and France had every right to defend themselves and bordering neutrals, the nature of its defense of Poland when it went to war with Germany over issue raised by Versailles is quite different.

Great Britain did not go to war with Nazi Germany over 'issues' raised by the Treaty of Versailles. It went to war with Nazi Germany because it invaded Poland, which had formally signed a defence treaty with Great Britain in August 1939- a treaty inspired by the aggressive untrustworthy actions of Hitler.

Now the justice of Briton's position depends upon the justice of Versailles in the first place.

It has nothing to do with the Treaty of Versailles.

In my view, Versailles was an unjust treaty .

That's your view. It butters no parsnips.

and Briton and France were being "aggressive" against Germany in its defense

I fail to see how a defence treaty is aggression. Compare if you will Mussolini's remarks on the Pact of Steel with Nazi Germany, which as he said was an aggressive treaty because noone was planning to attack Italy or Nazi Germany.

Who knows better the situation then, one of the creators of the Pact of Steel and the Axis, or you ?

Stalin dared not, as Hitler dared not, attack a Western country directly... blah blah blah.

All of which is irrelevant.