Jim, I'm not going to point by point this one. I covered
most of it in my reply to you & it isn't shallow at all.
Perhaps you don't agree. Fine. However as each day passes
more & more will show that Bush did the right thing for the
right reasons.
As for straw dogs, you are wrong. There are WMD's & there
were terrorist camps (multiple). Saddam paid the families
of Palestinian homicide bombers who blew themselves up
along with innocent Isreali's. He paid them handsomely. And
he provided training for them too. Al Qaeda was in Iraq
along with terror groups associated with Alqaeda & Saddam
taught them how to make chemical weapons & helped finance
them.
And even if you are absolutely convinced there were no
WMD's & ZERO terrorist ties (which is pure folly IMVCO),
the humanitarian effort to free 24 million Iraqi citizens
was well worth the effort for most folks.
"you cannot even identify the political trap you are falling into, or as you claim, avoiding"
I think you need to read my reply a little closer if that's what you think.
'you cannot even identify the political trap you are falling into, or as you claim, avoiding
they said almost the identical angry vindictive stuff after World War I
they put it in writing at Versailles
you claim to know its details, but I doubt you do"
Wrong again ke-mo sah-bee. You did not read my reply close enough. That much is obvious. I expressed mucho anger, but made it clear that there should not be excessive penalties, but appropriately harsh, yet bearable penalties. .........
....Most of the discussions were about Germany, but the leaders also tried to redraw the map of Europe. They wanted to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire and give self-determination to the peoples of eastern and central Europe. The main details of the Treaty were:
1. Germany was forced to -
Reduce its army to 100,000 men and was not allowed to have conscription.
Reduce the navy to 6 warships and was not allowed to have any submarines.
Destroy all of its air force.
Give land to Belgium, France, Denmark and Poland. The land given to Poland became known as the "Polish Corridor" and it separated the main part of Germany from East Prussia.
Hand over all of its colonies.
Agree to pay Reparations to the Allies for all of the damage caused by the war; these came to £6,600,000,000.
Put no soldiers or military equipment within 30 miles of the east bank of the Rhine.
Accept all of the blame for the war, the "War Guilt Clause".
2. Italy was given the two small areas of Istria and the South Tirol. The Adriatic coast was made part of a new country called Yugoslavia, which included Serbia and Bosnia.
3. Other new countries were created -
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland were formed from land lost by Russia.
Czechoslovakia and Hungary were formed out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Allies also gave Germany a new form of government based on proportional representation. It was intended to prevent Germany being taken over by a dictatorship, but it led to the creation of more than thirty political parties; none of them was big enough to form a government on its own.
Several of the clauses of the Treaty were thought to be very harsh. It was going to be almost impossible to pay the Reparations. In fact, the German government gave up after only one year, and the War Guilt Clause seemed particularly unfair. How could Germany be the only country to blame for the war? After all it had started when a Serbian shot an Austrian.
It was felt that Germany had simply been made a scapegoat by the other countries for all that had happened.
Feelings like these led to a great deal of unrest in Germany in the years from 1919 to 1922.
A number of extremist political parties were set up, including the German Workers' Party, which Adolf Hitler took over in 1921. He based his support upon the hatred that many Germans felt for the Treaty of Versailles. |
