By Shoshana Bryen September 30, 2015 "Who was worse: Hitler or Stalin?" It isn't a parlor game, but rather the historical equivalent of "ISIS or Iran (or proxy Syria)?" You can play it either way, but "a plague on both their houses" didn't cut it in 1941, and it doesn't cut it in 2015. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 gave Hitler room to conquer Western Europe without fear of an attack on his rear. Stalin was a committed member of the pact until Hitler broke it, at which point Stalin brazenly pivoted to the Allies and demanded rights as a) a full partner and b) an aid recipient. FDR might have said, "Boy, watching Adolph and Uncle Joe battle it out would be great fascists vs. communists, and no American boots on the ground." But even before Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war against the U.S., FDR and Churchill set aside their disgust for Soviet internal behavior. They knew full well about the millions dead in the Stalin-engineered Ukrainian famine, even if Walter Duranty was keeping it from NYT readers. But they determined that Hitler was the greater immediate threat. FDR made a great many difficult and ugly decisions aside from interning Japanese-American citizens and not bombing the railroad tracks to Auschwitz. In this context, he made two for what he thought was the greater good: ignoring Stalin's crimes, and committing all the resources necessary to achieve the unconditional surrender of Axis forces. He put the American economy on a war footing, drafted millions of soldiers, and dropped tons of bombs that often didn't distinguish between military forces and civilians. He believed that the faster the war ended, the better it was for the civilians and everyone else. It wasn't a perfect understanding particularly for the Jews waiting for deliverance. But it was his understanding, and Truman concurred. Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a calculated decision to take the casualties, including civilians, up front. It is also worth remembering that the Allies never did turn their armies toward Stalin to the dismay of millions of prisoners of the gulags, millions more forcibly detained in the Soviet empire for the next 45 years, and captive Soviet Jews. But the Allies meaning America did in fact create the framework for 70 years of multilateral understanding in Europe and Asia. The Cold War was the diplomatic way of boxing in the USSR until it collapsed. That is not a tactical proposal for coming to grips with the dual horrors of ISIS and Iran. It is a strategic one. The United States, President Obama, has to decide who the primary enemy is and how best to stop that one. Vladimir Putin posits that ISIS comes first, and requests begs the West to take on Sunni jihadists while giving Shiite jihadists a pass. He makes a decent case for the immediacy of the threat of ISIS to the region and beyond. Iraq our putative ally joined Iran and Syria last week in approving the Russian position. France joined this week by bombing an ISIS training camp in northern Syria in what it called its first strike. China claims to be in Russia's coalition as well. It is untenable for the U.S. to continue to dither. It is difficult to imagine a less productive activity than reminding Americans, as the president did in a town hall meeting two weeks ago, "I told [Putin] it was a mistake he did not take my warnings(http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...imir-putin-did-not-take-my-warnings-on-syria/). ... You can't continue to double down on a strategy that is doomed to failure." Spending half a billion dollars training small groups of Syrians who lie when they pledge to fight ISIS rather than Assad; failing to provide weapons to the Kurds, who constitute the only serious fighting force south of Turkey; doctoring CENTCOM intelligence(http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html); and hectoring Putin as the president did and continues to do are also doomed to failure. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/arti...alin_the_case_for_choosing.html#ixzz3nHCqJfwV I guess Obama's "Leading From Behind" isn't working out too well. When you consider other "Democrats" in history that have made difficult decisions none of them created by their own incompetence but by the times. Surely the Progressive Left continues to blame Bush for all this, while since 2009 to the present the decisions on foreign policy and domestic welfare have solely been made Barack Hussein Obama II, and his appointee Socialist friends. While Obama has reached a crossroad in his presidency, we are waiting to see what road he will take. IMHO, Oblamer will fold like a cheap tent in a breeze.
Hitler killed fewer people so I guess he wins. So is the American NonThinker trying to get people ready for the election next year?
I've e mailed her asking if she wants to join and explain whether or not she was drunk when she wrote that piece. She's a looker..
I think it has to do with the office of the presidency and the difficult choices that have to be made that shape history and the country.
Of course Hitler. Stalin was just destructive. Hitler had a creative side. If Nazi Germany had have survived to have a cold war with the West, it would still be going, but the world would be in better shape imo. Nazi Germany actually made sense. The soviet union just seemed to exist for its own sake.
Well American troops already had gotten their butts kicked by the red army during our invasion during their revolution so I doubt that any president would want to try that again. Germans were easier to fight against so I guess you would have to say that Hitler and the Germans were less evil if you measure it in terms of difficulty.
American Expeditionary Force Siberia - Wikipedia, the free ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_S iberia American troops in Vladivostok parading before the building occupied by the staff of the Czechoslovaks. ... Empire, during the end of World War I after the October Revolution, from 1918 to 1920. ... The last American soldiers left Siberia on April 1, 1920. During ... The Unknown War with Russia: Wilson's Siberian intervention. ~~~~~~ When Foreign Adventures Go Bad: The Case of America's ... http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/5118 Jun 14, 2004 - The American Expeditionary Force North Russia (AEFNR) was to ... This was Wilson's justification for sending two forces to Russia, one to North Russia the other to Siberia. ... the Allied Intervention in Northern Russia and Siberia (1918-1920) ... to define why we should stay on in Russia after the Armistice. ~~~~~~ American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia, Russia | 1918 - 1920 | World War I Documentary [video=youtube;7H3Y_qvwGdY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H3Y_qvwGdY[/video] Shh...., We are not supposed to talk about that debacle caused by Woodrow Wilson the patron saint of the Progressive Socialist movement.
I like to remind liberals what warmongers they are and how they have started more conflicts then the guys on the right have. Tell them that one of their heroes invaded Russia and they get this stupid look on their face. Its hilarious.
