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

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
The military channel is running a program about FDR and Churchill.

Newsflash- anyone seriously interested in history, or studying history, doesn't rely on television programmes.

Here's why:

A company...recently asked me to help them with a programme on Columbus, which, I was told, had been commissioned by America's Learning Channel. All I asked from them was a donation of 100 pounds to the Hakluyt Society's 150th Anniversary Appeal.

In a script 25 pages long, I counted 34 serious errors of fact.

I returned it promptly with appropriate annotations, to receive back an 'ammended [sic] version' which eliminated some, not all, of the mistakes I had pointed out, while introducing new errors- of varying degrees of folly and flagrancy- in their place.

He goes on to say:

I drew the company's attention to the deficiencies of the new version but was told that the schedule allowed no time for further changes.

Viewers who tune in to a 'Learning Channel' will therefore presumably hear Columbus's landfall wrongly dated, the chronology of his career muddled, his relationship with his patrons misrepresented, his attitudes to his discoveries traduced and the names of his companions garbled-

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, 'Times and Tides', History Today Volume 46(7), July 1996

See, he's what's known as a proper historian. Unlike David Irving, who is known as many things, few of them suitable for mixed or timid company.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

They saw no threat to America despite all the heated rhetoric of FDR.

Did the heated rhetoric of anti-semites like Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh have anything to do with that ?

Gosh, Henry Ford did have quite close ties with Hitler, didn't he ?

His portrait hung up by Hitler, his book 'The International Jew' favoured Nazi reading matter, his money used to support German rightwingers... ah, but then he's a private individual, you'll say, Ned.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

Do you support the mass slaugter of civilians in wars?

Kind, dog loving vegetarian Herr Hitler supported the mass murder of civilians in peace time-Kristallnacht .

He was also keen on the mass killing of those deemed racially unfit (by virtue of mental or physical or 'racial' defect ) to continue life amongst the pure Aryans:

Hitler ordered a halt to the Euthanasia Program in late August 1941, in view of widespread public knowledge of the measure and in the wake of private and public protests concerning the killings, especially from members of the German clergy. According to internal T4 statistics, approximately 70,000 adult disabled patients were murdered during this initial gassing phase. However, this did not mean an end to the Euthanasia killing operation. The child Euthanasia Program continued as before.


Moreover, in August 1942, the killings resumed, albeit more carefully concealed than before. Victims were no longer murdered in centralized gassing installations, but instead killed by lethal injection or drug overdose at a number of clinics throughout Germany and Austria. Many of these institutions also systematically starved adult and child victims. The Euthanasia Program continued until the last days of World War II, expanding to include an ever wider range of victims, including geriatric patients, bombing victims, and foreign forced laborers. Historians estimate that the Euthanasia Program, in all its phases, claimed the lives of 200,000 individuals.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005200

The Imperial War Museum has one of the patients' couches from the 'clinics' in its Holocaust exhibit.

Hitler's euthanasia letter- helpfully backdated.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


The question is not about German Jews, but the Jews of the Pale.

I had thought the question was actually about Jews in Poland, how many, where they lived, and why you tried to imply they were mostly in the Soviet occupied part of Poland ?

I fail to see why it is 'obscene' to say that Jews could be patriots in the Pale or elsewhere for that matter.

By the way, any luck on finding that research about Jewish populations in Poland in 1939 ?

We'd all love to see where you found it.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


ElTigre, your're analogy is not apt.

His analogy is quite apposite, given that Hitler was basing his concept of German identity on spurious racial grounds.

Why should Nazi Germany have had the Sudetenland ?

Because Germans lived there- despite the fact that it wasn't part of a German state or German kingdom.

Well,if the only criteria for land to be transferred or occupied by the Third Reich is that racial Germans lived there, then the new Reich should have incorporated the Pennsylvania Dutch (originally Deutsch), parts of Chicago, the Canadian Prairies, the Barossa Valley in South Australia, parts of the American MidWest, the Volga, Rumania, Hungary and of course, the Italian Tirol, and German speaking parts of Switzerland.

The sky's the limit when race is the only determining factor.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Wycoff
What about Turkey?

Yeah, but they're a pretty satisfied power with interests in the region mostly where it concerns Kurds. A strong Iraq would have dealt with those on his territory, but from a general power perspective it seems Turkey saw more profit in supporting the UN/US action.

A strong Iraq would have meant Saddam influence on Saudi Arabia as well. More oil power concentration!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


OK, let's start with WWI. Why was Germany a threat to the US then?

Well, they blew up things in New Jersey.

They sank American merchant shipping. They killed American seamen and passengers.

That seems clear. Oh, and they sent a telegram to Japan and Mexico suggesting an attack on the United States.

What else do you suggest they should have done to threaten the U.S. ?

Invade Hoboken ?

After the war, evidence revealed that the destruction of Black Tom was a deliberate act by German saboteurs. Black Tom was only one of approximately 200 acts of German sabotage during the war years.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snpwwi4.htm

Look Ned- Internet history- it must be true!!!!!

I don't think we can blame the Bush Administration for this explosion:

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

Britain was the most powerful nation on Earth prior to WWII. Why wasn't Britain a threat?

It wasn't 'the most powerful nation' and it wasn't a threat.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

Japan was engaged in a war of conquest in China. The war was started by China, but it was going to be finished by Japan in the most brutal way.

Amazing.

I had thought you had reached the limits of ignorance with your lack of knowledge of European history, but I'm astonished to see that you've spread your lack of expertise to Asian history too.

Which war was started with Japan by China, and when ?

FDR intervenes to stop the war.

He did ? Which war, where and with what ?

How was Japan a threat to the United States?

Um, it was planning to attack the United States ?

With aeroplanes and ships and bombs and stuff.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Yeah, but they're a pretty satisfied power with interests in the region mostly where it concerns Kurds. A strong Iraq would have dealt with those on his territory, but from a general power perspective it seems Turkey saw more profit in supporting the UN/US action.

A strong Iraq would have meant Saddam influence on Saudi Arabia as well. More oil power concentration!

I was asking whether you thought that Turkey would react to try to contain a potentially hegemonic Iraq had the U.N. not intervened in the situation. Iran and Turkey may have been able to provide a regional counterweight to Iraq.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Wycoff


Austrians in German Austria considered themselves to be German.

'Some' Austrians considered themselves to be Germans, if we're talking about nationalities, rather than 'racial' identity.

But then only 'some' Austrians were in the Austrian Nazi Party, and only some Austrians took part in the abortive coup in which Chancellor Dollfuss was killed.

It is wrong to think that German identity is fixed by what Hitler considered it to be- as Bavarian conscripts in 1870 shouted- 'We don't want to be Prussians!'

Neither did inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine.

Bismarck went to great trouble in order to remove Austria-Hungary from German affairs. His annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was hardly based on the plaintive cries of its inhabitants begging to be let back into the German Confederation- after all, for many the only home they had known had been in France- where their families had lived since the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th Century.

In fact the annexation wasn't a cultural outreach to dispossessed Germans- it was a calculated strategic and military annexation.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Newsflash- anyone seriously interested in history, or studying history, doesn't rely on television programmes.

Here's why:



He goes on to say:



Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, 'Times and Tides', History Today Volume 46(7), July 1996

See, he's what's known as a proper historian. Unlike David Irving, who is known as many things, few of them suitable for mixed or timid company.

how very sad.

such documentaries may lose all of their entertainment value along with whatever credibility I was prepared to give them because of this revelation.

Thanks for posting that.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Geronimo


Ned are you saying that you think that if stalin had invaded one of the NATO countries that ww3 would not have resulted?

There was no hot war against Stalin's USSR during the cold war because he carefully avoided invading any western alliance countries during the cold war.

Stalin invading NATO country = ww3

Hitler invading a country with an open defense agreement with GB = war with GB and her treaty bound allies.

Where is the double standard?

Oh and if you re-read my post that you quoted you will see that I anticipated that you would ask me about my thoughts on the slaughter of civilians and I already made quite clear that I'm against it. It makes me very sad. What has that got to do with Britains desperate attempts in 1939 to stabilize europe and your claims that those attempts somehow constituted responsibility for the war Hitler started?

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. 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. This so-called defense was a defense not of Poland, per se, but of the Versailles treaty.

Now the justice of Briton's position depends upon the justice of Versailles in the first place. In my view, Versailles was an unjust treaty and Briton and France were being "aggressive" against Germany in its defense.

Stalin dared not, as Hitler dared not, attack a Western country directly because that would bring all out war. What Stalin did was to attack on the periphery, usually by using national liberation movements. We did our best to oppose him, but did not lauch an all out war on Stalin or his successors because that was not necessary for our national survival and would have resulted in the death of innocent millions.

Poland was more like Afghanistan or Korea or Vietnam. We resisted, but did not go to war against the USSR.

[ElTigre]

Ecthy,

I'm studying Modern History and Politics at Bonn university.

Originally posted by Ned

But, in Poland's case, it had the support of both Britain and France for a hard line. Had that support been of a different nature, Poland might well have negotiated and WWII may well have been avoided.

You still don't get it: for me, Poland "negotiating" with Germany would have been the worst case scenario, even worse than what actually happened. WWII couldn't have been avoided, simply because Mr. Hitler had already decided to turn Europe into an Aryan paradise, conquering all nations that would stand in his way, killing and abusing all minorities he could get a hold of, and exterminating the population of all areas he deemed necessary for the German "Lebensraum".

Polish "negotiations" would have just added another country to the list of nations that folded to Hitler without resistance, and would have given Hitler even more time to commit his atrocities before the actual, unavoidable world war would have begun. It wasn't a matter IF World War 2 was going to happen, it was only a matter of WHEN - and IMO the earlier, the better. My hat is off to the Poles for being the first nation to stand firm against Nazi Germany - too bad other, more powerful nations didn't do this earlier.

In regard to the Pale, molly has already answered that. But let me add again that I'm disgusted by your innuendo - that in your opinion Jews living in countries like Russia, Poland or Germany couldn't be patriots, because they were mistreated by their governments.

African-Americans were also an oppressed minority in the 50ies and 60ies. Using your logic, these people weren't Americans, right?

[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. 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.

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.

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?