@General:
There was a time when I was growing up (50s-60s-70s) that we were surrounded by survivors of WWII,civilian and military. Books,movies and television were all there reminding us of the past sacrifices made to bring us to where we are today. I had a great interest in history,I loved to read. Then in 1969 I discovered AH/SPI which just expanded my horizons. WWII was a pivotal moment on this planet towards a better world to live in peace and someday maybe make war obsolete. Many sacrifices were made for the good of many. WWII is important to remember for all the lessons learned. Political-talk and appeasement just create more suffering in the end.The U.S. is the leader of the free world for the free world needs one. We took on that responsibility during WWII and to my knowledge have not resigned from that obligation. WWII taught that war is sometimes a necessary evil that one sometimes must decide to go to earlier rather than later if one wants less suffering. Global peace needs a leader that will not shirk from war. Pre-WWII had no leader.WWII taught that the free world needs a good leader. A leader must be able to climb out of the trenches and advance forward without looking back for he knows that the others are following and if not he will go on alone because the free world needs him to for future generations. Everyone should be a WWII Junkie so that we can understand how why we might have to decide to go to war now while the enemy is at weakest. The U.S. is the worlds leader for peace and WWII taught that the free world needs one that will be willing to take up arms sooner rather than later.
You’ve raised several interesting issues. It’s possible your perspective and mine are somewhat different WRT those issues. And that’s okay.
American participation in WWI was a mistake. We thought we were going to war to prevent or avenge German atrocities in Belgium. After the war, we learned that British and French atrocity propaganda had been a pack of lies. The idea that Germany did horrible things in Belgium during WWI was an Allied fantasy. We were told we were making the world safe for democracy. It turned out we’d made the world safe for France to resume its centuries-old policy of brutally exploiting Germany. We’d promised the Germans an honorable peace if they laid down their arms. Unfortunately for them, the cruelty of the Versailles Treaty bore no relation at all to the fair peace described in the Fourteen Points.
The lesson to be learned from WWI is to look before we leap. The United States is very strong. Just as a strong man should think twice before swinging a hammer at someone’s skull, a nation as powerful as the United States should be cautious about how it uses its power.
The worst, largest-scale mass murders have been perpetrated by communist nations. Prior to the start of WWII, the Soviet government had killed tens of millions of innocent people. The victims were often chosen because of their accomplishments: independent farmers were targeted, as were intellectuals, the educated, the clergy, anti-communists, successful business people, etc. Class warfare meant exactly that: the literal extermination of all economic classes seen as undesirable. The true harm of Soviet mass murder cannot be measured with numbers only. One also needs to remember that the best, the brightest, the most accomplished or the most idealistic were often the very ones selected as victims for the NVKD.
As of August of 1939, the Soviet Union had exterminated tens of millions of innocent people; whereas Nazi Germany had executed a few hundred. Why did the major Western democracies choose to adopt pro-Soviet, anti-German foreign policies? Was it because Western democracies had elected idealistic politicians, pure of motive, selflessly determined to make the world a better place?
The direct, foreseeable result of WWII was to create a power vacuum in the heart of Europe; into which the Red Army expanded. There is this notion that the Western democracies somehow “won” WWII, even though Britain and France purportedly went to war in the first place to save Poland; and even though Poland was not, in fact, saved from hostile foreign domination or postwar mass murder. The Western democracies gained nothing useful in Europe they could not have achieved by accepting the peace Hitler had offered to Britain and France after the fall of Poland.
Today, the world’s population is expanding; with no clear plan about how to feed all these extra people. The environment is deteriorating. Cultural differences are diminishing, in part because of immigration, and in part because corporation-created cultures are partially replacing pre existing cultures. Put another way: the world has more people than ever before, but with a declining level of cultural and racial diversity. If these trends continue, then someday everyone will be like everyone else, with no one able to step outside that rather narrow perspective. Further large-scale increases in global population will cause additional environmental damage; plus massive disease and famine. I am not suggesting that all of this should be blamed on the Allied victory in WWII. But neither would I agree with the perspective that Allied victory set us on the road to an increasingly better world.
