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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (6455)	2/7/2003 11:12:22 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

I am quite aware of the history you cite. Actually let me fill in some parts you left out: After the Allies defeated Germany in WW1, Britain and France forced the vengeful Versailles Treaty down Germany's throat. As he left for the peace conference the British PM said he was going to "squeeze them till the pips squeaked". With the help of an equally vengeful France, and against President Wilson's counsel, he did just that. The US, mainly because of the League of Nations clause, did not ratify the Versailles Treaty and concluded its own peace with Germany. Germany was charged huge reparations for losing that war. Those reparations impoverished the country and paved the way for Hitler. Germany was allowed no air force, a navy that only amounted to a coast guard, and an army of only 100,000 men- -enough to keep order. In 1933 Hitler became chancellor. Paul von Hindenburg, the German President, and German industrialists, who backed and financed Herr Hitler, were certain they could control him. Unfortunately, Hindenburg, who was quite popular in Germany, died the next year. In 1935 Hitler began rearmament and instituted the military draft, both prohibited by the Versailles Treaty. The Allies did nothing. In 1936 Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland which had been demilitarised in 1919. This meant that he was able to station forces on the French border. This was prohibited by the Versailles Treaty. The Allies did nothing. The fact is that the German commanders had sealed secret orders to retreat if the Allies intervened. In 1936 Hitler sent forces (known as the "Condor Legion") to Spain to support General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Clearly Germany now had an air force, another violation. The Allies did nothing. In March 1938 he carried out the Anschluss. The Nazis stirred up trouble in Austria which Hitler then used as an excuse to invade. While not explicitly a violation of the treaty, it was a very shameful performance by Britain and France. They refused to back the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg and in fact were effectively co-conspirators with Germany. On 12th September 1938 Hitler demanded self-government for the Sudeten Germans. These were German speakers who lived in the state of Czechoslovakia, which had been set up in 1919. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew to meet Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 15th September and agreed to Hitler's demands. He then returned to London and persuaded the French Government to agree as well. The Czechs were subsequently told to accept Hitler's demands. But when Chamberlain returned to meet Hitler for a second time at Bad Godesberg on 22nd March, he was presented with new demands. Hitler insisted that the Sudetenland should be handed over to Germany and other territory given to Poland and Hungary. On 28th September 1938, Mussolini suggested a Four-Power Conference to settle the matter. The four powers would be Germany, Britain, Italy and France. The leaders met in Munich on 29th September and signed the Munich Agreement. Hitler got everything that he wanted. The following morning Hitler and Chamberlain signed the "scrap of paper" by which they promised never to go to war again. In March 1939 Hitler occupied all of Western Czechoslovakia. This became part of Germany. Even Chamberlain got the message now: appeasement wasn't going to work. In April 1939, Britain and France signed a mutual defense treaty with Poland, the next obvious target. Hitler then negotiated a non-aggresion with the Soviet Union. In contained a secret protocol between Russia and Germany. Russia would allow Germany to invade and occupy most of Poland. In return the Soviet Union would be allowed to invade the Baltic States and Finland and would get a slice of Poland. On September 1, 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany. The Second World War had begun. Appeasement comes with a high price. Are you willing to pay it again? There already were hundreds of thousands of deaths before American's 2000 perished at Pearl Harbor. So because of that, should wee have ignored Pearl Harbor? I suppose the most important point to demonstrate here is that Iraq did not kill 3,000 of our citizens! Iraq did agree to a set of conditions to end the Gulf War. The current problem grew out of its violations of those conditions. Now look back at all the violations of the Versailles Treaty that the Allies permitted Germany. Those initial violations- -the Rhineland occupation, rearmament, conscription, building an air force- -led to the events that resulted in a very bloody war. Suppose they had stopped Hitler when he marched into the Rhineland. Would he have been overthrown and would there have been no Second World War?