If the United States openly attacks a country which has not initiated force against it or any other nation, then the entire history of the US will be transformed into something I will find unrecognizable.
The comparison of Iraq with Nazi Germany is risible to anyone who actually bothers to read history. Hitler took power in 1933 and openly geared Germany, at that time the third (maybe second) biggest GDP in the world, into creating a war machine (Wehrmacht) that was one of the most deadly -- maybe the most deadly per capita -- the world had ever seen. Ask a military historian whether the Soviets alone, or the Allies alone, could have beaten Germany. I believe you will learn that Hitler's fatal error was fighting a two front war.
Sneer at Chamberlain all you want, but he bought time for Great Britain (about a year) which allowed them to gear up for the inevitable war. The Wehrmacht was truly deadly, and everyone at that time knew it. Maybe the Allies should have stood their ground, or attacked? War gamers game that situation all the time, but the results are not strongly in favor of either solution. Chamberlain's choice was not a bad one, even in retrospect.
The country we are really appeasing, in my opinion, is China. Which, interestingly, is arming the various hostile nations which Dubya called "the Axis of evil" (Iran, Iraq, North Korea.) Kinda mindblowing, don't you think? When thinking about really scary people, the "Arab street" isn't what comes to my mind. Rather, it's the politbureau in China. The ones with the transcontinental nuclear weapons.
At any rate, we(United States) do not initiate force. If we should decide to initiate force, then we are tacitly agreeing that all other nations have the right to initiate force.
Or maybe the Monroe Doctrine is outdated? The world is our oyster? It's all within our sphere of influence?
If so, God help me, I did not sign on for this. |
