Oh?
Where should we be lead to think about that comment?
BB,
Apologies. After seeing the context, I realize the point of the joke.
I withdraw the comment and apologize.
I said I didn’t want the US to get pulled in. Full stop.
America got “pulled in” to the world wars by a perceived self interest, at least on the part of the elites. If you don’t want to get pulled in to yet another, vote for someone who won’t pretend they got pulled in. Don’t complain that Europe has problems so you had no choice.
Silly me. I thought America went to war against Japan because the Japanese attacked them, and went to war in Europe because Germany declared war on them.
Now I learn they went to war because of “a perceived self interest, at least on the part of the elites”.
If only it were that simple. If wars never spread beyond borders, we could let folks fight to their hearts’ content. So, my concern is both internal, local and global:
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I don’t think we should be egging people on to engage in civil war unless there is some legitimate gripes about human rights abuses and oppression that cannot be solved by the political process. Even if were certain that the war would be contained internally.
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Civil wars have a habit of spilling over into neighboring countries, and so we should not be naive and think that they can just “fight amongst themselves”.
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History has shown us that European wars, especially, have a nasty habit of turning into much more than just regional conflicts, and so we all (in the global community) have a vested interest in not encouraging such wars.
I am alarmed that some people in this thread are so ignorant of history to think it’s nothing for a European country to be split apart as one or more regional powers vie for geopolitical advantage.
If you want to interpret that as “America isn’t going to save your ass this time”, go ahead. But you aren’t justified in doing so.
Man, this thread sure goes off the rails in weird tangential directions a lot. I’m unsure what the how the US got pulled into (or jumped into eagerly or whatever) the world wars has to do with what’s happening in the Ukraine atm, unless someone is trying to make the case that the West will respond with force to Russia. Even if that’s the case (and frankly, I doubt ANYONE wants a shooting war, or anyone wants the US involved in a shooting war in the Ukraine against Russia), I’m not seeing the connection between the current, US with a global perspective and as a major (if not THE major) super power, and the isolationist US of either WWI or WWII. We are a completely different nation than we were during those times…as are all the other major players in that war. Not really comparable.
You’re right. That was silly of you.
But my apologies to you, John Mace. I guess I’ve heard “We saved yer butt in WW2” a few times too many and had a reflex reaction. I really don’t think “History has shown us” that European wars=global conflict, but perhaps that’s for another thread.
And there is a real, even if small, chance that this mess could spill over into one of the newly minted NATO countries, in which case the US gets “pulled in” by treaty obligation. So does a country like Denmark (yes, I’m looking at you, Rune). We should all be looking for ways to resolve this peacefully. Russia moved lots of Russians into surrounding republics (Russification, anyone?) in the past and if they really want to help those “Russian speakers” they can offer them all moving expenses back to Russia. But they don’t get to take their current country with them with they go.
Won’t have anything to do with us saving Europe’s bacon…we will be obliged by treaty to help out of NATO got involved. Another key difference between today and either WWI or WWII.
But yeah, secessionists don’t get to basically secede and take the territory with them. Not without a fight or using the mechanisms in place in their own constitution or whatever process. It’s hard to fathom some of the people in this thread that think this is a good idea. My own mental analogy for this would be the US moving it’s army to the border with Mexico (or Canada), sending in the CIA to contact local groups who were opposed to the government, getting them to stir up trouble, then using that as a pretext to slice off a chunk of their territory and annex it for the US. That’s something the US did do in the past, of course, but today? No one would stand for that. Yet that’s basically what Russia is doing in the Crimea and attempting to do in the eastern Ukraine…and some folks here are perfectly good with that, as if that is how it should be. Even if, say, the Senora region of Mexico actually did have a majority of folks who wanted to join the US (or a vocal enough minority who wanted too), they couldn’t just arbitrarily decide that, hey, let’s join the US! It wouldn’t be kosher for the US to allow that, especially with the Army doing ‘maneuvers’ on the border, and it wouldn’t be kosher for the Mexicans to be trying that without some sort of national referendum and vote…yet, again, that’s what some folks in this thread seem to think is perfectly cool to happen in the Ukraine.
It’s a puzzlement, especially some of the people who were cheering on the Russians or at least approving of this course of action. 
Do you have a further explanation of why it is “silly” of Malthus to believe the generally accepted version of history, as opposed to some conspiracy theory?
What he said. I’m aware of the oil embargo and the Reuben James, etc. Still - WTF?
Well, that goes back to my point about people who decide they need to pursue their independence through military means. I’d then need to defend it against everyone.
If Fort Worth decided that getting my half acre of paradise back wasn’t worth it, I’m sure we’d be viable and prosperous until Village of the Damnedistan (the neighbors have about a dozen blond haired kids) decided they needed lebensraum and attempted to annex us. I am sure we’d put up a valiant resistance, but the numbers are against us. There’s going to be a couple of hours on most days where the cat is the only defense. That’s when Village of the Damnedistan will make their move.
Ok I see that lenta.ru has reported about it. Here is their translation:
“Those aggressors [Nazis - terr] motivated their conquest not only with the goal of grabbing the land and enslaving the people, they also proclaimed slogans pretending that they were all about freeing the nations that lived on the land that Hitler tried to conquer. If you read history, we see that one of his first slogans was - freedom for people from the Communist yoke, freeing people from the tyrant Stalin…”
I don’t see anything either objectionable or factually incorrect in the speech. Anyone?
No worries. I really did not want to get into “saving your ass” territory, but keep in mind that this could spill over into a NATO country, and then we’re pulled in whether we want to be or not. Putin is a wild card here, and he’s all over the map (pardon the pun). He seems to be testing things to see just how much land he can grab. And the more that we hear people cheerleading the secessionist movements of “Russian speakers” in Ukraine, the more I worry about the Baltic states, Estonia in particular.
Nazi agencies weren’t fomenting revolution* as an immediate prequel to invasion in any of their assaults. Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the USSR were all attacked by surprise, without formal declarations of war preceeding hostilities. You’re probably thinking of post-annexation recruitment into the Waffen SS or other auxilliaries. Or perhaps you’re thinking of the pre-war period when Germany bullied the Germans (and their land) out of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania. Otherwise, I agree with the gist of your argument.
*In Poland, there was that ridiculous Gleiwitz incident, but that was transparently bullshit at the time.
I don’t see anything in the speech about fomenting revolution before invading USSR. But once they did, there was definitely Nazi propaganda spread among the occupied population claiming to have liberated them from the Communist oppression.
So then I assume you are also aware of lend-lease and seizure of Japanese assets. Yet my comment still raises a “WTF” moment for you? It’s that baffling to you that someone might disparage the simple “they started it” reason for the U.S. entering the War? Ok. Not going to continue a big hijack of this marathon thread though.
Quoting you again directly: “… they [Nazis] also proclaimed slogans pretending that they were all about freeing the nations that lived on the land that Hitler tried to conquer.” Your quoted source is purportedly drawing an analogy between the actions of Hitler and Putin vis-a-vis their territorial conquests.
The analogy fails because this was not the Nazi M.O. As I said earlier, they certainly tried to recruit large numbers of conquered peoples into their war effort, but that only did so after they had taken the lands in question. A much better analogy would’ve been between Putin and Stalin, as the latter did in fact use the tactic of ostensibly protecting Slavic minorities as a rationale for his land grab of Eastern Poland and the Baltic States. From Wiki regarding the Polish case:
“The Soviet government announced it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the Nazi German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens.[13][14][15][16]”
I’m under no illusion that the US was actually neutral in 1939-41. My point was that, no matter how far the U.S. stuck its chin out and dared the Axis to hit it, it was still down to Japan and Germany to directly precipitate open hostilities by their choices. After the oil embargo, Japan was bound to a course of action with only two real outcomes: surrender of their conquests on the Asian mainland to that point, with a good chance of their government collapsing as a consequence; or war with the US. The German decision was far more questionable.
Anyway, you’re right - this is a hijack. But at least I didn’t use the phrase “Russian speaking Ukrainians”. 