Meh. Recollect Finland was invaded by Stalin. So all those “decades of ambivalence” were, or are, up for grabs.
Yes, we may seem to be flabby but that’s only some of us.
“There is iron in those pistols you carry so there is iron in your words. It shall be so.”
You equate the country. with the elite. I believe you are mistaken in that.
Remember that Churchill also declared war on Finland during WWII. Finland has been an equal opportunity football between West & East for a long time. That is what made the post-WWII neutrality such a wise course of action for the Finnish people. Of course, now the party girl has thrown away the security from that delicate balancing act – and it is never coming back.
Flabby? That refers to the DC Swamp Creatures and their bureaucracies. Yes, there are many in the US who do not fit into the flabby category – but it is the Swamp Creatures who are running the show.
For now. Don’t hold your breath.
Perhaps your knowledge of history is better than mine, but I don’t recall Britain invading Finland. Remember, Churchill was a politician. AND he is largely responsible for the post-WWII world we experienced, commonly called the “cold war”. England was an ally in WWII, yet truth be told, Churchill ran both the military and political strategy, causing us to abandon trusty allies in support of communist movements which in truth had no interest in fighting the Nazis but in gaining control of the local nation. Yugoslavia may be your easiest example, but the nations thatt ended up “behind the Iron Curtain” are directly Churchill’s fault.
But the reality of the war was that WE produced the needed war material, provided the bulk of the troops, did the bulk of the fighting, gave Russia and Stalin a chance to survive, and were the real reason WWII was won. Montgomery made multiple strategic decisions - ALL of which were wrong - AND cost American lives.
In the context of the US versus Perfidious Albion – yes, the US did much more. In the context of World War II, it would be tough not to acknowledge the huge role played by the people of the USSR in grinding down German forces on the Eastern front, at very high cost to themselves. FDR apparently did give priority to supplying the USSR over supplying US forces, but the USSR also reportedly manufactured startlingly large quantities of weapons. Some Westerners would look down their noses at the quality of USSR planes, tanks, trucks – but Quantity Has A Quality All Of Its Own, as Stalin said.
Agreed – Churchill shamefully abandoned the people of eastern Europe at the end of WWII. This was especially ironic when considering that England declared war on Germany, triggering the Western Front, specifically to save Poland. But we also have to accept that FDR went along with Churchill’s abandonment of the eastern Europeans.
Wars are messy and create moral failures. Best to stay out of them unless the homeland is directly threatened. A message for all of us today.
In The Second World Wars, Victor Davis Hanson estimates that between 70% and 80% of all German soldiers killed in World War II were killed by the Red Army (p. 225).
Hitler was reported to have said after the initial assault on the Soviet Union stalled that if he had known of the quality and numbers of the T-34 tanks his forces would encounter, he would not have invaded.
An excellent resource on this is Freedom Betrayed by some guy named Herbert Hoover, who worked on the book from the end of the war until his death in 1964. Perhaps because of his incendiary analysis of the sell-out by Churchill and Roosevelt, the book was not published until 2011.
I would wholly agree with your closing statement.
As for how many Russians were killed fighting the war, that number is dwarfed by how many Stalin killed. Made Hitler and his holocaust look like a piker. Furthermore, to quote Tommy Lee Jones, “I don’t care!” I would overall think it far better that the Germans and Russians killed each other off than we had to truck through all the muck.
And truth be known, the Western Front would have disappeared had Ike listened to his most brilliant general, Patton, and allowed him to encircle the Western German forces. But that asshat, Montgomery, objected - and Ike listened to him instead of the guy he knew better. THAT would left left the Germans to fight the Russians - and us to maybe stay out of the Ardennes. Just to hammer the point, remember that when Hitler created The Bulge, Monty, on its left flank, did ZERO to help us out. Took Patton and his 3rd Army to come up all the way from the south to stop the kraunts.
He’s lucky that Eleanor Roosevelt did not send the FBI to confiscate his records in 1945.
No two democracies have fought a war against each other. There was no invasion, no fighting, no deaths, just a declaration. Hard to claim, then, that this is a counter-example.
Some caveats are needed. First, that in the democracy, most males (sorry women) must have the franchise, and the war must have more than 1,000 deaths. In other words, skirmishes don’t count as a war. That’s why they have a separate name from “war”.
Maybe when the police get a swatting call, they should respond to both the caller’s and the reported location? Cuz somebody’s got to go to jail.
That was President Hoover’s view too. Nazis and Communists were destined to fight; US should have stayed out the way. Unfortunately, he was ex-President at the time.
Of course, the world would be a much much better place today if the US had decided to stay out of World War I, and left the Europeans to do what Europeans do best. No Treaty of Versailles; no Bolshevik take-over of Russia; no World War II.
One would hope that American politicians would have learned the lesson about staying far out of European conflicts … but that hope would be in vain.
How much of FDR’s support for Russia was due to most of his cabinet being riddled with either full on commies or commie sympathizers? One prominent cabinet member was held by Harry Dexter White who the Venona decrypts show allowed the Chi-Comms to overrun the Kumatang and push them to Taiwan. At least I believe his name was Harry Dexter White–I might be confusing that name for someone else.
Harry Dexter White was not a cabinet member, but was the senior economist and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. He played a central role in the Bretton Woods monetary conference that set up the postwar dollar exchange system and became the first U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund.
He was a Soviet agent from the 1930s through the postwar period, and both ex-communists Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley provided evidence of his activities. This has now been confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt by the Venona decrypts. This was known to the FBI in 1950.
He was also behind giving the USSR copies of the printing plates for the currency we were issuing in the occupation. As we backed this currency, it was like letting Ivan print dollars.
https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal53-1369307
Thanks guys. It’s always good to have back up.
Yes, that is what we tell children. The story that no two countries with McDonalds had ever gone to war probably made more sense – but that was then, this is now.
The historical fact is that England declared war on Finland in December 1941, Perfidious Albion may have been as dilatory about actually waging war against Finland as they were about actually waging war against Germany back in September 1939 (Phony War, remember?) – but that does not change the fact that democratic England declared war on democratic Finland.
They keep telling us that the Ukraine is a “democracy” – admittedly the kind of democracy where Zelensky locks up opposition politicians, bans opposition political parties, and nationalizes the media; that kind of democracy. And Russia is a democracy too – they have a variety of political parties, a parliament, and elections. Some might question whether Russian elections are legitimate, but every open-minded person acknowledges that US elections are not obviously clean & above board – see, for example, Biden. I guess it all comes back to something that Bill Clinton might have said: It depends on what the meaning of “democracy” is.
In an editorial in the August 2022 issue of Nature Human Behaviour, “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans” [PDF] which begins,
Although academic freedom is fundamental, it is not unbounded. The same ethical considerations should underlie science about humans as apply to research with human participants.
the Springer journal lays out “New ethics guidance addresses potential harms for human population groups who do not participate in research but may be harmed by its publication.”
Here is page 2 of the article, with some highlights.
Race, ethnicity and racism. Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies.
This would seem to be a statement of dogma, rather than a question to be investigated by science. According to “modern biological criteria” when Nature, the parent journal of this one, was founded in 1869, races not only existed by there was a clear hierarchy among them. If science has now come to a different conclusion, is it not possible that further scientific investigation, if its publication is not prohibited, may require further revision of this conclusion?
Perhaps we should rename the whole field “Human Behaviour Studies”.
Oh my, lack of consistency in the very core of the woke movement:
Black staffers were 39% less likely than white employees to get one of the top two ratings on the Times’ six-level scale, and 60% more likely to get one of the bottom two ratings, the union found. Hispanic workers were 44% less likely to get a top rating and 74% more likely to get a low one. Asian workers were 26% less likely to get a top rating and 37% more likely to get one of the bottom ones.
We clearly need Procrustes:
In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed.
The word “Procrustean” is thus used to describe situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, while completely disregarding obvious harm that results from the effort.
While failing at its core responsibility, the CDC has stretched its powers and mission. Consider a CDC study in May, which attributed increased gun violence in 2020 among young, black men in part to “longstanding systemic inequities and structural racism.” Its suggested remedy: More government transfer payments.
More spending is Dr. Walensky’s other proposed remedy. The agency received a 7% raise this year, but she wants more for a new office of “equity” to increase workforce diversity and improve communications with minority groups. Isn’t that what the CDC’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Office of the Associate Director for Communication already do?
