*liberals are whining like little girls over this article. what do you think. btw, before you go spewing nonsense please check your historical timeline.*

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44210

In the Bush vs. Putin debate on World War II, Putin had far the more difficult assignment. Defending Russia's record in the "Great Patriotic War," the Russian president declared, "Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries."

Those countries are, presumably: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Finland.

To ascertain whether Moscow truly liberated those lands, we might survey the sons and daughters of the generation that survived liberation by a Red Army that pillaged, raped and murdered its way westward across Europe. As at Katyn Forest, that army eradicated the real heroes who fought to retain the national and Christian character of their countries.

To Bush, these nations were not liberated. "As we mark a victory of six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox," he said:


For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end the oppression. The agreement in Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. ... The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs in history.


Bush told the awful truth about what really triumphed in World War II east of the Elbe. And it was not freedom. It was Stalin, the most odious tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot and Castro murdered their tens of millions.

Leninism was the Black Death of the 20th Century.

The truths bravely declared by Bush at Riga, Latvia, raise questions that too long remained hidden, buried or ignored.

If Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a cynical "Declaration on Liberated Europe" that was a monstrous lie.

As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster they alternately and affectionately called "Uncle Joe" and "Old Bear," why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing the Sudetenland over to Germany? At least the Sudeten Germans wanted to be with Germany. No Christian peoples of Europe ever embraced their Soviet captors or Stalinist quislings.

Other questions arise. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war?

If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny even more odious, as Bush implies, did Western Civilization win the war?

In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain refused. In 1939, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Poland. Chamberlain agreed. At the end of the war Churchill wanted and got, Czechoslovakia and Poland were in Stalin's empire.

How, then, can men proclaim Churchill "Man of the Century"?

True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland.

When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?

The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling – not British and French. Understandably.

Yes, Bush has opened up quite a can of worms.

that was the great imperialist war. the war for controll of resources, land, and most importantly power.

>that was the great imperialist war. the war for controll of
>resources, land, and most importantly power.

You're answer in light of what else could have happened his funny! Like funny haha! Or maybe like funny... oh shit, why'd you have to say something so positively cliched and dumb?

*alternate ending*

And this just in from central Africa, the occupying German authorities have succeded in killing all Africans without blue eyes and blonde hair, now back to your regularly scheduled program, "As the Reich Turns".

"Oh Klaus you ubermensch..."


S.ean | Waiting For Something Witty To Pop In Here

German imperialism?

>German imperialism?

Knowing this dude... I doubt it.

S.ean | Waiting For Something Witty To Pop In Here

the fuck is that posed to mean, niguh. dont make me start web slappin nigguhz. aight.

>the fuck is that posed to mean, niguh. dont make me start
>web slappin nigguhz. aight.


I'm scurred.

Leave that bullshit macho posturing for someone who gives a fuck.

Sean

>>the fuck is that posed to mean, niguh. dont make me start
>>web slappin nigguhz. aight.

And to cap it off, don't call me niguh, unless that means I get to call you it too.

S.ean | Waiting For Something Witty To Pop In Here

how is that stupid. my great grand father fought in that shit, and the niguh came back to the pj's and amerikkkas racism. keep drinkin the whitemans koolaid, it'll be the death of us. fuckin suckuh.

______________________________

*TWINNING*

n/m

I can imagine a dark room in the late 30's in Washington with them flipping a coin on which tyrant to support.

And, would Hitler have killed more than Stalin did if given more time?

Remember, we basically put Hitler on lockdown while giving Stalin free reign.

Also, I think I read somewhere that countries living under US Imperialism faired worse (I think in terms of deaths and quality of life) than Soviet colonies.

Which is odd, considering my father's stories from growing up in Bulgaria after WWII.

Oh well.

t

>Also, I think I read somewhere that countries living under US
>Imperialism faired worse (I think in terms of deaths and
>quality of life) than Soviet colonies.

Yeah, and I think that what you read was either a false history or printed in 1970's Russia.

S.ean | Waiting For Something Witty To Pop In Here

>>Also, I think I read somewhere that countries living under
>US
>>Imperialism faired worse (I think in terms of deaths and
>>quality of life) than Soviet colonies.
>
>Yeah, and I think that what you read was either a false
>history or printed in 1970's Russia.



I think it was regarding South Vietnam, Haiti, our support for Indonesia 's attacks on East Timor and what we did in Central America.



But, I suppose when Nixon tells his military 'if it moves, kill it' doesn't count as holocaust if there isn't a fence involved; and instead of a shower full of gas, it's dropped from an F4.


Just a thought.


t

>I think it was regarding South Vietnam, Haiti, our support for
>Indonesia 's attacks on East Timor and what we did in Central
>America.

1.Was Indonesia ever under 'imperialist' American control as you assert in your first post?

2.Was South Vietnam? (Indo-China as it was known to its French imperialist oppressors)

3.Have you ever been to Central America? Have you ever been to Central Europe? The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how many American machinations were put into play in Central America or South East Asia, it was not 'imperialism' as you put it in the first place, and all of the places that American 'imperialism' was felt have turned out a lot better than all the places that Russian Impirialism was.

>But, I suppose when Nixon tells his military 'if it moves,
>kill it' doesn't count as holocaust if there isn't a fence
>involved; and instead of a shower full of gas, it's dropped
>from an F4.

1.how is that impirialism? And you seemingly forget everyone who came before Nixon (is it just because Tricky Dicky is an easier target of scorn and ridicule?).

S.ean | Waiting For Something Witty To Pop In Here

Posted in the wrong place, I think.

Anyways, I'll concede the use of the word imperialism in the cases I listed, but I don't think Haiti has fared much better than the Eastern Bloc countries.
Regardless, I hope you don't think these actions are justified because you don't think of them as Imperialist.
Murder is murder.

So the USA's treatment of Vietnam from 1945 -1975 wan't Imperialist?

Lots of people died in East Timor-THE Rwanda of its era.

2 million civilians killed in North Korea by firebombings in urban/non-military targets.
Curtis Lemay is quoted in the book by Richard Rhodes "Dark Sun-the Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" -had the USA lost ww2-Lemay and his colleagues would be considered War Criminals for what happen in ww2 Japan and subsequently in North Korea.

4 Million dead in Vietnam.
TWICE the payload of tonnage than ALL of ww2.
4 Million tonnes of high exposives dropped in thousands of carpet bombings.

What ever money and resources the USA has spent in its Imperialist campaigns in Asia/SE Asia/Latin America....the Soviets would also have had to commit the commensurate resourses/man power.


If you don't think what the USA did to Vietnam wasn't blatant fascism-then what was it?
Altruism..?

this guy is a die hard appologist/rejectionist


«SiG»
“Stand out firmly for Justice as witness before God, even against yourselves, against your kin and against your parents, against people who are rich or poor. Do not follow your inclinations or desires lest you deviate from Justice."
-Qur’an 4:135

Christopher Hitchens "The Trial of Henry Kissinger".

Wahtever you want to call it..imperialism/fascism/altruism/happy birthday...Vietnam/Korea --it was VERY messy and mostly UNNECESSARY.

i will check for that book, but you are very much on point. they bomb a country with that much shit, and at home they killin off and firehosing a race of people.

I don't think the blacks of this country were treated nearly as bad as the South Vietnamese were during that same period.

What would seem more appropriate of a complaint would be the idea that while the government was trying to maintain their grip around african's necks in this country, they were forcing them to go kill/die in defense of their societal structure and business desires in Vietnam.

the reason the u.s. fought in veitnam was to try and get what the french couldnt.

the French were there for fucking ever, couldnt capture the region. Our puppet government and millions of troops couldnt get shit, either.

McNamara himself said that the war was unnecessary, unwinnable and also speaks to the "lack of proportionality" in the atrocities committed against Japan in the Errol Morris film and his book "the fog of war"

I'm picking my jaw off the floor on this one....wow

Tarnished NEEDS to read Williams Blums reference book "Killing Hope: Us Military and CIA Interventions Since WW2"
Dozens of countries have been INVADED and OCCUPIED to protect U.S. Corporate Interests.

And this guy BOTHERS to impugn MY credibility?.....wow...wow

>I'm picking my jaw off the floor on this one....wow
>
>Tarnished NEEDS to read Williams Blums reference book "Killing
>Hope: Us Military and CIA Interventions Since WW2"
>Dozens of countries have been INVADED and OCCUPIED to protect
>U.S. Corporate Interests.
>
>And this guy BOTHERS to impugn MY credibility?.....wow...wow

Where did I deny 'US Imperialism'? I simply said that the situations the guy used weren't good examples. Didn't say anything about the Spanish American War... didn't say anything about... didn't say anything about...

Now, knock off this political chickenshit.

S.ean | Waiting For Something Witty To Pop In Here

Vietnam being THE most disasterous/bloodthirsty and DESPARATE attempt at keeping the U.S.A's South East Asian hegemonic ducks in order .

After 40 years of a COMFORTABLY harmonious relationship between the USA and Suharto in Indonesia-I'd venture to guess that there are millions of Indonesians who'd beg to differ with your cheerful assessment/denial U.S. Imperialism in that region.
Not to mention the Kissinger/Ford hatched massacre of 5-600 000 peeps in East Timor.

The USA's Imperial map now covers most of what you pro'lly consider to be the "free world".
All of the WESTERN HEMISPHERE,most of Europe,most of Africa,Central Asia,South East Asia and Nixon/Kissinger even had cordial relations with CHINA where Capitalists have been making steady inroads for decades..!!

The former USSR's imperial map barely covered part of Europe and and Central Asia.

okay, no doubt that putin is wrong for saying russia liberated eastern europe from the nazis. i mean, if you liberate them, they become free to govern themselves. don't just take them from tyrant to tyrant.

but, the u.s has also done this. spanish-american war, anyone? did we not supposedly liberate cuba, puerto rico, and the phillipines just to pillage their resources and claim them as territory?

even after the u.n. was set up, the u.s. was the shadowy black hand in many a puppet regime. such as vietnam. yeah we didn't colonize them, but we had south vietnam in our pocket, easy. and you have coups in south america, also perpetrated by the u.s.

but to answer your question, world war II was worth it. fdr pulled hitler's card early, but europe didn't want to go through another hellish war, which is understandable. so hitler just did his thing. and you can't have some crazed ass just taking over your country. you gotta fight back.

plus, the vaccuum of world war II changed the global power structure. europe lost many of its colonies since the powers were weak at that point. the u.s. and u.s.s.r. became the polar opposites of the world and the cold war did involve many countries. wwII is extremely significant.

but dammit, i can't stand that the history channel shows, like 8 wwII programs a day! i can't even watch anything about it anymore!

buchannan puts part of the blame on F.D.R.

yeah, since he was just saying stuff but didn't actually take action until we were attacked. and that was years after hitler invaded poland.
i'm not sure if he just had his hands tied w/the depression or if he was just like, 'well, screw it, you didn't listen to me in the first place...'

well it was FDR and Churchill that signed those smaller nations over to stalin proclaiming they were free...

Fine, I'll concede use of the word 'imperialism', there are examples, but perhaps my examples are not the best.

But, I hope that you don't justify these US actions by not classifying them as imperialism.

i don't think it's right that we covertly tried to spread "democracy" (when y'all know they were spreading capitalism) and set up coups and kill leaders just 'cause they didn't see it "our" way.
but say putin threw that at bush. he'd fire back with, "well, we didn't rule those nations. we just helped them." help, my ass.
i'm saying that we still had a considerable amount of influence in certain places, even though we didn't directly link them to our country, the way the u.s.s.r did. i think bush believes the u.s. is "better" by not claiming any territory that hitler lost after the war. hell, the u.s. wasn't gonna try to claim western europe. we're just as wrong, but i don't think BUSH believes that.

That's why the USA LOST the Vietnam War/Bcause the Vietnamese were seasoned guerrilla warriors.

but i was thinking more about vietnam right after france lost them and they signed the geneva accords. we tried to control south vietnam by putting diem in power (and you see how we screwed that up). we did lose because the point was: LET THE PEOPLE GOVERN THEMSELVES, DAMMIT! they didn't want to be controlled by an outside nation.
so yes, you're right. i just didn't clarify where i was coming from.

...is the sense that that Ho Chi Minh and the USA were originally partners back in the late 1940's-the Golden Era of the OSS.

similarities aye. But Vietnam and that era was far more ideolgical.

I don't think the government lost the Vietnamese war.
But, then again, I think all they wanted was a few million of them dead for a while.
THose farmers were a tremendous threat, and we know what the US does to threats, right?

That is why Siagon is now called Ho Chi Minh City.

It is THE lesson for the USA that was also partailly learned during the Indian Extermination Campaigns.

No matter how many bombs you drop/people you kill/women and children you murder/Men and boys you torture and exterminate...some people will NEVER GIVE UP the fight against Foreign Invaders.

THe Plains Indians NEVER GAVE UP-and were never quite defeated in the Field of Battle.
So the US Government had to resort to starving the Indians out by WIPING OUT the Buffalo.

The Vietnamese NEVER GAVE UP -no matter how many MILLIONS of TONNES of high explosives the USA dropped from b52's at 30 000 feet-they NEVER GAVE UP!

I think you and I are trying to make the same point, just different ways.

Anyways, I think the US couldn't care less about who was in charge of the Vietnamese, their goal of bombing them into even less organized farmers was accomplished.

Buchanan for writing this tripe, and Activist for supporting it.

If Buchanan thinks Churchill went to war only to save Poland, then he needs to go back to high school world history. Such elementary-minded arguments don't deserve my time, especially when there's been several other bloggers who've already ripped this crap to shreds:

http://vodkapundit.com/archives/007819.php

http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2005_05_08_archive.html#111590715963036197

http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchive.php3?a=499
__________________________
Sports and Politics are all found here:

http://expertise.blogdrive.com

have 2 concur with this one...

i think a lot of the bloggers out there paint buchannan as a facist apologist. they are wrong. in this article buchannan never says that facism is good. or that hitler was right to kill millions of people. what he does say is that the alternative, stalinism/communism, had a much worse outcome on europe because of the decisions made by the allies after WW2. i dont see how this makes him an apologist for facism. this sort of ties in to the post about the most evil dictator. perhaps FDR and Churchill were forced to chose the lesser of the two evils. Buchannan thinks they chose poorly and that claiming the eastern european countries were free since they were under stalin and not hitler was ridiculous.

>perhaps FDR and Churchill were forced to chose the lesser of
>the two evils.

No, they were forced to recognize the reality on the ground. They didn't give Eastern Europe to Stalin, he had already taken it. So to say the decision made by the allies after WW2 is to blame is absurd.

>Buchannan thinks they chose poorly and that
>claiming the eastern european countries were free since they
>were under stalin and not hitler was ridiculous.

Have Buchannan and you never heard of Churchill's Iron Curtain speech? Try dealing with reality instead of blind ideology.


------------------------------------------------------------
Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!

did i say i believed what buchannan wrote? im just trying to clarify what HE said. not what I said.

the title of his article is 'was world war 2 worth it.' ww2 didnt become ww2 until the US got involved...

>did i say i believed what buchannan wrote? im just trying to
>clarify what HE said. not what I said.

you said "well it was FDR and Churchill that signed those smaller nations over to stalin proclaiming they were free", so you obviously agree with what Buchanan wrote. Only problem is, they did not lose their freedom because FDR and Churchill signed them over to Stalin, Stalin already had them firmly in his grip. Which is why Buchanan's and your arguments are total bullshit.

>the title of his article is 'was world war 2 worth it.' ww2
>didnt become ww2 until the US got involved...

First that's a stupid definition. Second, do you recall how the US got involved in WWII? A little incident called Pearl Harbor, you might want to look it up.

------------------------------------------------------------
Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!

>>did i say i believed what buchannan wrote? im just trying
>to
>>clarify what HE said. not what I said.
>
>you said "well it was FDR and Churchill that signed those
>smaller nations over to stalin proclaiming they were free", so
>you obviously agree with what Buchanan wrote. Only problem is,
>they did not lose their freedom because FDR and Churchill
>signed them over to Stalin, Stalin already had them firmly in
>his grip. Which is why Buchanan's and your arguments are total
>bullshit.

how does this show that I agree with buchannan? simply repeating something he wrote is hardly agreeing.

>
>>the title of his article is 'was world war 2 worth it.' ww2
>>didnt become ww2 until the US got involved...
>
>First that's a stupid definition. Second, do you recall how
>the US got involved in WWII? A little incident called Pearl
>Harbor, you might want to look it up.

and how does this change the fact that it wasnt ww2 until the US got involved?
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!

>how does this show that I agree with buchannan? simply
>repeating something he wrote is hardly agreeing.

you didn't simply repeat what he said, you made your own statement about it. And your statement shows you have no fucking clue about what actually happened.

>and how does this change the fact that it wasnt ww2 until the
>US got involved?

And what the fuck does that have to do with whether the war was worth it?

------------------------------------------------------------
Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!

listen. you obviously have no sense of logic left so why dont you step away from your computer and read a book or something. you need to practice your context clues.

Why don't you learn history from someone more informed than Buchanan next time.

------------------------------------------------------------
Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!

not a fan of buchanan tho, and he pushes the christian thing too hard
(religious freedom was only one dimension of freedom taken from us, after all)

but yeah:

- fuck a churchill. all british ppl i've spoken to refuse to comprehend why he's a reprehensible piece of shit who gambled (and lost) with millions of people's lives.

- any right-thinking person will know to take any declaration coming from Russia re: ww2 "liberation" with a grain of salt.

- expertise's vodka pundit guy is a tard, particularly with regard to this: "Stalin, for all his evil ways, never made plans to deport entire nations to Siberia..." Not only did he make plans, he carried them out thoroughly. OkayChechens where u at?

- last but not least, george muthafuckin patton was right!

what was Britain supposed to do? "we'll let the nazis secure strategic positions around Europe, and hope they don't try to invade us afterwards"

Oh boy-it would seem as though Right-Wing historical hacks really need for us all to believe that-as bad as things are with Capitalism/Globalization,these days-it was way way worse with Communism.

So this article posits that for every NAZI occupation of these Eastern European countries-the Russian liberations were worse?

Shouldn't there be AS MUCH evidence to prove this as there is that proves the Nazi Holocaust?

wow....this is some Orwellian doctoring of the historical record..when will it end?

Castro killed millions?...bbbwwAaaHHaaahh

History ...REwritten by LIARS.

By David Greenberg
Posted Tuesday, May 10, 2005, at 10:23 AM PT

After World War I, the political right in Germany developed a myth called the "stab in the back" theory to explain its people's defeat. Though military leaders had helped negotiate the war's end, they fixed blame on civilian leaders—especially Jews, socialists, and liberals—for "betraying" the brave German fighting men. This nasty piece of propaganda was later picked up by Hitler and the Nazis to stoke the populist resentment that fueled their rise to power.

America has had its own "stab in the back" myths. Last year, George W. Bush endorsed a revanchist view of the Vietnam War: that our political leaders undermined our military and denied us victory. Now, on his Baltic tour, he has endorsed a similar view of the Yalta accords, that great bugaboo of the old right.

Bush stopped short of accusing Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill of outright perfidy, but his words recalled those of hardcore FDR- and Truman-haters circa 1945. "The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history."

Bush's cavalier invocations of history for political purposes are not surprising. But for an American president to dredge up ugly old canards about Yalta stretches the boundaries of decency and should draw reprimands (and not only from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.).

As every schoolchild should know, Roosevelt and Churchill had formed an alliance of necessity with Josef Stalin during World War II. Hardly blind to Stalin's evil, they nonetheless knew that Soviet forces were indispensable in defeating the Axis powers. "It is permitted in time of grave danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge," FDR said, quoting an old Bulgarian proverb. He and Churchill understood that Stalin would be helping to set war aims and to plan for its aftermath. Victory, after all, carried a price.

In February 1945, the "Big Three" met at a czarist resort near Yalta, in the Soviet Crimea, to continue the work begun at other summits, notably in Tehran in 1943. (Many of the alleged "betrayals" of Yalta, at least in rough form, were actually first sketched out in Tehran.) By this time, Soviet troops had conquered much of Eastern Europe from the Germans, including Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, East Prussia, and Eastern Germany. The Western allies, meanwhile, remained on the far side of the Rhine River. Having made terrible military sacrifices to gain these positions, Stalin resolved to convert them into political payoffs.

Many of the agreements the Big Three reached at Yalta were relatively uncontroversial: The Allies decided to demand unconditional surrender from Germany, to carve up the country into four zones for its postwar occupation, and to proceed with plans to set up the United Nations.

But other issues were contentious. Asia was one. FDR wanted Stalin to enter the war against Japan, so as to obviate any need for an American invasion. In return, Stalin demanded that Russia regain dominion over various lands, notably Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, then under Japanese control. He forswore any designs on Manchuria, which would be returned to China.

By far the knottiest problem—and the source of lingering rage among the far right afterwards—was the fate of Poland and other liberated Eastern European countries. Over several months, the Allies had been divvying up Europe according to on-the-ground military realities and their own individual national interests. The United States and Britain had denied Stalin any role in postwar Italy. Churchill and Stalin had agreed (without Roosevelt's participation) that Britain would essentially control Greece, and Russia would essentially control Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

Poland was another matter. In Lublin, Poland, the Soviets had set up a government of pro-Communist Poles. Back in London, however, a pro-Western group claimed to be the true government-in-exile. Throughout the war, Stalin had acted with customary barbarity in seeking an advantage. In 1940 he ordered the slaughter of thousands of Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest, fearing their potential allegiance to the London Poles. In 1944, he stalled his own army's march into Poland to let the Germans put down the Warsaw Uprising, again to strengthen the Communists' hand.

At Yalta, Stalin wanted FDR and Churchill to recognize the Lublin government. They refused. Instead, all agreed to accept a provisional government, with a pledge to hold "free and unfettered elections" soon. For other liberated European countries, the Big Three also pledged to establish "interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population" and committed to free elections.

Roosevelt knew that Stalin might renege, and it was perhaps cynical for him to trumpet elections that might never take place. But as the historian David M. Kennedy has written, he had little choice, "unless Roosevelt was prepared to order Eisenhower to fight his way across the breadth of Germany, take on the Red Army, and drive it out of Poland at gunpoint."

Stalin, of course, never allowed elections in Poland or anywhere else. "Our hopeful assumptions were soon to be falsified," Churchill wrote. "Still, they were the only ones possible at the time." Short of starting a hot war, the West was powerless to intervene, just as it was in Hungary in 1956 or Prague in 1968.

Because FDR kept many details of the Yalta agreements under wraps, people in Washington began whispering conspiratorially about "secret agreements." Soon, critics, especially on the far right, were charging that FDR and Churchill had sold out the people of Eastern Europe—charges that Bush's recent comments echo. They asserted that the ailing Roosevelt—he would die only weeks later—had come under the malign influence of pro-Communist advisers who gave Stalin the store.

But Yalta did not give Stalin control of the Eastern European countries. He was already there. Moreover, as Lloyd C. Gardner has argued, it's possible that postwar Europe could have turned out worse than it did. For all its evident failings, Yalta did lead to a revived Western Europe, a lessening of open warfare on the continent, and, notwithstanding Bush's remarks, relative stability. Without Yalta, Gardner notes, "the uneasy equilibrium of the Cold War might have deteriorated into something much worse—a series of civil wars or possibly an even darker Orwellian condition of localized wars along an uncertain border." Such "what if" games are generally pointless, but they can remind us that the harmonious Europe that Yalta's critics tout as a counter-scenario wasn't the only alternative to the superpower standoff.

Along with the myth of FDR's treachery in leading America into war, the "stab in the back" interpretation of Yalta became a cudgel with which the old right and their McCarthyite heirs tried to discredit a president they had long despised. Renouncing Yalta even became a plank in the 1952 Republican platform, although Eisenhower did not support it. In time, however, these hoary myths receded into the shadows, dimly remembered except as a historical curiosity, where, alas, they should have remained undisturbed.

David Greenberg writes the "History Lesson" column and teaches at Rutgers University. He is the author of Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2118394/


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Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!

Both my grandfathers lost a good part of their youth fighting against the Japanese in the Philippines, so it better had been worth it. I'd like to see somebody pop that shit at an American Legion or VFW gathering.

I've known a lot of veterans, and have always disliked my choice of simply keeping my mouth shut around them.

Of all the antiwar ideas I believe with, and have read about, I have yet to read anything that attempts to take away from the suffering endured by soldiers on either side.

But that's always the response, isn't it? -You better not say that around anyone that was there.
My boss is a Vietnam vet who had been in a few helicopter crashes and was in the back seat of a birddog (if you know what that is, spooky shit) and even has the yellow ribbon on his car.
I don't imagine he's ever taken my anti war statements as a personal offense, and I'd be shocked if anybody did.
To imagine that speaking out against war, present or past, is speaking out against soldiers is as ridiculous as the idea that speaking out against our government is insulting the population.

The problem with the whole question of whether WW2 was worth it is it panders to anti-Communist sentiments. Seeing as the modern American Right sees liberalism as the intellectual and ideological successor to the Communism it's not all surprising. Therefore, by raising this issue--belatedly, I might add--it's a passive-aggressive way of attacking several targets, most prominent among them that lord of Communist deception, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

It isn't that cut and dry. I remember I saw a peice on PBS when a soldier said that if the protesters want to help they should enlist and come help fight in Iraq.

So it isn't that simple.

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I think the point is that the protesters don't see enlisting the Army as helping their cause. I think I saw that piece, or similar pieces at least about the same sentiments from US military personnel. I've also seen the flip side of that coin, too.

Consider who affected US military operations more: the people who accepted the draft and went, or the people who fought for what they didn't believe in and made it that much more difficult to attack other countries in the following decades.

I'm not asking which side is right, but they both affected the foreign policy in one way or another. I'm just saying that you don't have to join the military to effect it.

No, in case you're going to ask, I refuse to do either.

Interestingly on FoxNews I recently saw a roundtable thing where they matteroffactly said that aligning with Stalin to beat Hitler was acceptable/natural...patten and other generals wanted to go to war with the soviets ten minutes after V Day...it's a tough call, so many factors at play and "was IT worth it" doesnt really define an alternative. I think the US should have been involved long before it was, personally.

that should make us reconsider whether WWII was worth it.

THE most extreme of Right-Winger is promoting these silly fairy tales about how "Leninism is the Black Death of the Last Century"

Are "left-wing" OkActivists in agreement with these FABRICATIONs?

Inside EACH of the above named Baltic States were extensive NAZI SS Units who committed all manner of depravity during WW2.

In each State-the NAZI SS Units and their indigenous armies were co-opted/absorbed by the U.S. State Department immediatley after WW2.

These War Criminals went on to have illustrious careers as drug+arms dealers/military "advisors" in nice countries like Peru,and Bolivia where Klaus Barbie went on to capture and murder Che Guevara-see the book "The Nazi Legacy: Klaus Barbie and the International Fascist Connection" by Magnus Linklater,Neal Ascherson and Isabel Hilton (Holt,Rinehart+Winston 1984)

Thousands of these maniacs and murdering shitheads ended up in YOUR communities...yeah-those old Eastern European dudes ?
Don't ask them what they were doing in the summer of 1943.

Some of their most important work with the U.S. Government was RE-writing the History Book to suit the needs of a Neo-Imperialist Ideology -consolation being a key ideological pillar.

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman have written extensively on this in books such as "Power and Ideology" especially with regards to the NAZI Gehlen Org.





Hopefully those on OkActivist who consider themselves "left-wing" or even )))) shudder (((( -anarcho/syndicalists,will think twice before believing ANY of this horseshit about "Stalins Crimes".

this really is bullshit. if they waited 2/3 years with the war they would have lost the war. don't forget that the us stole the ideas of a nuclear bom, jet engine and rockets from the germans. in the last days of the war they only could destroy the german jet fighters when they were landing(they didn't have much fuel). also london was heavily bombed by the german v2 rockets. I think if they hadn't started the war that even the us would be under nazi occupation

>this really is bullshit. if they waited 2/3 years with the
>war they would have lost the war. don't forget that the us
>stole the ideas of a nuclear bom, jet engine and rockets from
>the germans.

1. The US didn't steal the idea of a nuclear bomb from the Germans, they just used a number of Jewish physicists on the project who fled from the Nazis.

2. the British invented the jet engine

3. the Germans stole the ideas of rockets from the US first

>I think if they hadn't started the war that
>even the us would be under nazi occupation

The Nazis couldn't even cross the English channel to invade Britain, and you think they were gonna cross the Atlantic and invade the US?


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Now you know - and knowing is half the battle!