From: mariond@facts.com   
      
   Chris wrote:   
   >>>> Nowhere else in the world is there the freedoms that exist in the USA.   
   >>>   
   >>> Ho ho ho!   
   >>> The USA version of freedom, rather.   
   >>   
   >> If it wasn't for the USA, all of Europe save for the UK would be speaking   
   >> German by now.   
   >   
   > What a tedious argument. If it weren't for the Brits you'd be speaking   
   > French or Spanish.   
   >   
   > Americans always forget their role in allowing hitler to grow stronger,   
   > expand Germany with impunity and allowing the war to start. Just like Trump   
   > with Putin.   
      
   I don't disagree that the isolationist USA was tired of the constant   
   warring factions in Europe from the 1850's to the start of World War II.   
      
   While officially neutral, the U.S. did allow economic and industrial   
   conditions that indirectly benefited Germany (e.g., trade, delayed   
   sanctions) just as Stalin was the major supplier of petroleum (sound   
   familiar) and aircraft training & industrial supplies to Germany.   
      
   WWII taught the USA the lesson that it had to be the world's policeman.   
      
   But never forget Stalin and Hitler carved up Eastern Europe for themselves.   
   Their partitioning of Europe had nothing directly to do with the USA.   
      
   Stalin absorbed Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania under the   
   pact, and used those successes to threaten the brave Finnish people.   
      
   Hitler only attacked France because France & the UK had guaranteed Poland's   
   sovereignty, even as Russia & Germany carved it up for themselves.   
      
   After the Anschluss & the Sudetenland & Czechoslovakia occupations, the   
   carving up of Poland caused France & the UK to declare war. In response,   
   Hitler attacked Denmark & Norway and then the low countries (Belgium,   
   Netherlands & Luxembourg) to activate the Schlieffen Plan II through the   
   Ardennes to bypass the Maginot Line where Churchill was shocked Weygand had   
   no strategic reserve (and neither had Gamelin).   
      
   France gave up in six weeks, where only Norway fought for two months.   
      
   Denmark surrendered their lives to the Germans in less time than it takes   
   to digest a meal and the Netherlands took less time than it takes to fight   
   off a common cold.   
      
   Meanwhile the Italians tried to cash in on the turmoil (they needed a few   
   dead soldiers to claim the spoils) and the French throughout the war fought   
   everyone but the Germans. Thank God the Italians weakened Germany almost   
   immeasurably, as the Germans kept having to shore up Italian losses.   
      
   Also it was fortuitous that Franco stalled by making impossible demands on   
   Hitler when he refused to commit Spain to the war at Hendaye (promting   
   Hitler to remark he'd rather have a tooth pulled than do that again).   
      
   In the end, Germany only lost because he attacked his erstwhile ally, where   
   the Soviets signed friendship pacts with all the enemies of the Allies.   
      
   Only the UK and Finland have anything to be proud of during that time frame   
   (don't even get me started on the cowardice of Sweden for example).   
      
   WWII convinced U.S. policymakers that isolationism was untenable. The only   
   neutral country is a country that hasn't anything worth taking so it hasn't   
   been attacked yet.   
      
   But don't forget Stalin facilitated Hitler more than anyone else.   
      
   Without Soviet oil, grain, and raw materials, Hitler's early campaigns   
   would have been impossible. The irony is that Stalin enabled Hitler's rise,   
   only to become the decisive force in his downfall.   
      
   But even the Soviets would have fallen had the USA not supported them.   
   --   
   Intelligent people are well aware of not only history, but of lessons   
   taught. History doesn't repeat itself so much as rhyme poetically similar.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)