[vuroth]

I *think* Poland is a different case than say Iraq or North Korea, because Poland was occupied by a foreign power whose ability to "hold" external territories was waning. Who knows, though?

[phil_20686]

vuroth, on Sep 7 2010, 11:40 AM, said:

I *think* Poland is a different case than say Iraq or North Korea, because Poland was occupied by a foreign power whose ability to "hold" external territories was waning. Who knows, though?

Depends what you mean by "waning". I am certain that Soviet era military technology at that time was superior to current Iraqi technology. Most of Saddam's Military technology was bought from soviet states anyway, its just a bit more run down now

In reality further weapon advances are somewhat irrelevant, machine gun technology has passed the stage where its lethality is improving against un-armoured humans, and has been for some time.

More worrying is increasing surveillance technology, but again I think that the soviet era police states were still well ahead of what a contemporary Iraq could achieve.

[mike777]

In any event looking at history...even modern history


One common alternative to WAR is genocide........

I guess one can hate war ...but accept genocide...



---
Do not forget concentration camps in our family lives...

-------


Do not forget concentration camps in Europe In 1990's..working camps in the worst sense of the word in Europe!

--------------


Guys this is our history...not some dusty history.....

---------------


As for Poland....Hitler and the leaders in Germany really believed this fully:
1) Kill all polish and russian jews
2) Slavs are subhuman...
3) THEY ARE SLAVES.....BEASTS OF BURDEN: ANIMALS
4) NO EDUCATION FOR SLAVS THEY ARE SERFS....SLAVES....SERVANTS AT BEST..AT BEST.....


------------

NOTE IN OUR FAMILY LIVETIMES...


RAPING SLAVS ARE OK...THEY ARE SUBHUMAN
------------
------------

RAPING GERMANS IS OK...SEE HMM 2 MILLION GERMANS RAPED ...BOYS...GIRLS....OLD WOMEN......
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MY POINT IS WAR IS BAD.....ALTERNATIVE CAN BE WORSE: SURRENDER CAN BE WORSE!

[P_Marlowe]

hrothgar, on Sep 7 2010, 09:28 AM, said:

shyams, on Sep 7 2010, 05:15 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Sep 7 2010, 03:13 PM, said:

Some people thought that the Soviet Union was too powerful to fall. They were wrong.

But did the USSR fall due to a people-led revolution?

I think that the attempted Green Revolution in Iran last year is the most appropriate comparison.

I don't think that there is much doubt that a very significant portion of the Iranian population would like to see the current regime removed.

The protest movement was crushed mercilessly by the government.

<snip>

So what?

The above argument is no argument at all.

You may look at China, something similar happened 1989 there as well.
But the fact, that the society in China is changing, even opening up, it may
just be, that the Chinese goverment detected, that they needed something
to do.

You may look at Germany, 1848, something similar happened there as well.
Did only good things come out of 1848? No. Hitler also occurred, and the way
the change in Germany occurred contributed to Hitler taking over the power.

And even in Iran there is movement in the society, as far as I know the Iranian
society is based on common mutual agreement (bad wording, maybe you get,
what I mean), so the unrest was disturbing for the "Mullahs", because the
"Mullahs" recruit their followers also out of the society, so this unrest will also
go into goverment decision, .... maybe we will see it, maybe not.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mgoetze]

phil_20686, on Sep 7 2010, 04:13 PM, said:

However, in such a Policy it is impossible to know everything. Not every intervention can end well. Vietnam is the obvious example. CIA's involvement in the rise of the Muhajadeen in Afganistan another. The Bay of Pigs, and now Iraq.

You forgot about 25 negative examples. http://www.tomveatch...tatorships.html

[Zelandakh]

phil_20686, on Sep 7 2010, 03:13 PM, said:

Western Eurpe in particular owes America a lot for assistance in two world wars, and for the immense programme of aid given to help rebuild Britian France and Germany.

May I point out here that when Britain went to America looking for some help they were turned away. They were then given a loan on some of the most unfriendly grounds ever in recent history. The strings for this loan led to a run on the poound which very nearly collapsed the British economy. What is more the loan was only paid off a few years ago.

We thank you for your assistance during the war. Do not expect thanks for what happened afterwards.

[blackshoe]

As far as I'm aware, we don't expect thanks for anything we did after WWII. OTOH, this is the first time I've heard of discontent in Britain about our aid to you.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on Sep 9 2010, 07:40 PM, said:

As far as I'm aware, we don't expect thanks for anything we did after WWII. OTOH, this is the first time I've heard of discontent in Britain about our aid to you.

Its probably resisdual bitterness when we hung them and the French out to dry during the Suez crisis back in 56...

[phil_20686]

mgoetze, on Sep 8 2010, 06:07 PM, said:

phil_20686, on Sep 7 2010, 04:13 PM, said:

However, in such a Policy it is impossible to know everything. Not every intervention can end well. Vietnam is the obvious example. CIA's involvement in the rise of the Muhajadeen in Afganistan another. The Bay of Pigs, and now Iraq.

You forgot about 25 negative examples. http://www.tomveatch...tatorships.html

I think that's a little naive- Often the alternative to supporting a dictator is a civil war which only kills more people. Obviously its hard to know with certainty, but one could point to Sri lanka, where there was an orderly transition from relatively benign colonial masters to a Sri-lankan parliament, but that sure went to hell in a hurry.

It is perfectly possible for political dictatorships, while persecuting their political enemies relentlessly, to enact sensible reforms that improve the lot of the vast majority of people. Pinochet is actually a good example of this policy, his reforms strengthened Chile, and a slow change in popular opinion led eventually to a peaceful changeover and to a judiciary that felt strong enough to indite him for fraud.

It is a fairly common idea in political science that it is better to focus on economic reform before political reform in third world countries, that only when people are existing beyond the subsistence level do they have the time, education and energy to devote to producing a working democracy based on policies rather than personalities. Chile can be thoguht of as an example of this, although the cost was about 2000 people who were "disappeared". Money buys influence, us aid allowed the us to pressure Pinochet into economic reform, by threatening to stop giving aid.

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on Sep 9 2010, 11:26 AM, said:

phil_20686, on Sep 7 2010, 03:13 PM, said:

Western Eurpe in particular owes America a lot for assistance in two world wars, and for the immense programme of aid given to help rebuild Britian France and Germany.

May I point out here that when Britain went to America looking for some help they were turned away. They were then given a loan on some of the most unfriendly grounds ever in recent history. The strings for this loan led to a run on the poound which very nearly collapsed the British economy. What is more the loan was only paid off a few years ago.

We thank you for your assistance during the war. Do not expect thanks for what happened afterwards.

I am not sure of the events you are speaking of here. Generally I find talk of how Europe should show proper appreciation to be unproductive at best. We fought together during the war. We should honor our common effort. If we get into who owes what to whom, it could be noted, for example, that French fatalities, combining military and civil as makes sense when a country is occupied, were something like three times the number of U.S. dead. A much smaller population. Combine that with the fact that we got into the war about eighteen months after the Germans rolled into Paris and all this talk a few years back about french fries being renamed to freedom fires really looks pretty nuts. We did a good job when we got in. So did the French. So did the Brits. Leave it at that.

I was in Greece some years back and there were many Greeks who still talked with great enthusiasm of Harry Truman and the actions of the U.S. against the communists in the time directly after the war. Of course that opinion came from the Greeks I talked to, others may have a different view.

After the war, Western Europe, including Germany and those allied with it, rebounded. Of course the Europeans get the lion's share of the credit, but still we probably did something right. Better than the Russians in their sector, and probably better than what happened after the Great War. Maybe neither of these is a high bar to exceed. My knowledge is limited and I am interested in just what you are referring to.

[Aberlour10]

Some thougts about the ERP >> Marshall Plan...Surely, most of the Europeans appreciated this help from the USA and are thankful for it till today., but this was by far not a charity enterprise. The benefits for the USA were in economical and political regards enormous...

-the war was over,the over-capacities in the american industries could bring the sitiuation similar to this one like in the 30's, ERP helped to boost exports, to establish the strong position of the US companies in the european markets, this has effects till today.

-political cool calculated, ERP stammed the influance of the communists in the to this time very unstable Europe, espacially in Italy and France, no doubt a mile stone in the geopolitical strategy of the USA.

[kenberg]

Aberlour10, on Sep 10 2010, 08:19 AM, said:

Some thougts about the ERP >> Marshall Plan...Surely, most of the Europeans appreciated this help from the USA and are thankful for it till today., but this was by far not a charity enterprise. The benefits for the USA were in economical and political regards enormous...

-the war was over,the over-capacities in the american industries could bring the sitiuation similar to this one like in the 30's, ERP helped to boost exports, to establish the strong position of the US companies in the european markets, this has effects till today.

-political cool calculated, ERP stammed the influance of the communists in the to this time very unstable Europe, espacially in Italy and France, no doubt a mile stone in the geopolitical strategy of the USA.

To me, this seems like the sort of effort that is most likely to be sustainable and successful. Common interests often succeed where appeals to charity and generosity do not. Somalia would be an example, perhaps. Everyone was fine with our efforts in preventing starvation, up until Americans started to die. Then it was "What's in it for us? Nothing? We're outta here". In 1945 we definitely saw a resurgent Europe as being in our interests and had the good sense to invest intelligently in this outcome. Acknowledgment of good judgment seems right in this matter. Eternal gratitude is asking a bit too much, and really is not a good basis on which to build.

[ggwhiz]

Eternal gratitude is not in the cards, nor should it be.

I was asked what we thought about Americans (as a Canadian) living in South Africa by some locals and said: Sometimes they are our loud obnoxious cousins and we want to slap them upside the head but at the end of the day, they are family.

And we value that connection very much and I'm positive they feel the same way about us at times.