reply to post by glasshouse
You will never convince me that, in order to end the holocaust and unrelenting march of nazi germany across europe, all we had to do was stage
a sit in. The suggestion is absurd.
If you are already convinced, why are you still posting? From what you are saying, it's futile to debate your points.
But anyway...
World War 2 started because Germany started hostilities towards Poland. 2 days later Great Britain declared war on Germany, and WW2 was starting to
unfold.
Now, I do agree that the U.S. participation - and scale of participation - was extremely necessary. Hitler was to be stopped at all costs.
But have you cared to think backwards, and analyze the real problem?
If people would care about peace, and acted as conscious and responsible citizens, the holocaust and the rise of Hitler would never have happened. Are
we conveniently forgetting about that? Are we supposed to accept that the
decades of humiliation and attacks on Germany, that fueled the fire
of hate, never happened? Are we supposed to believe that Hitler didn't spend year after year marching, protesting and making racist and extremist
speeches?
He did gave warnings. Even before he was in power. But he was able to reach power for two main reasons:
1- People didn't care to act when it was time, ignoring his words and his extremist inhumane concepts.
2- Nobody outside of Germany cared for what was growing in their politics, because they had just been defeated in WW1. "poor germans" people
thought...
Like I said, and I say again: war is avoidable. People just need to care and be responsible enough to avoid it.
I guess it depends on what metric you use. You apparently prefer the metrics of money and fear.
I don't need to use metrics. I'm very well capable of understanding and formulating complex thoughts and concepts.
I referred money because it's a humanitarian waste to spend billions on developing weapons that you aren't going to use anyway, spend billions just
looking at them, and then spend billions on security because the modern risk of a nuclear attack is actually greater than before.
We spent billions on creating a problem, but people continue to argue over "what if's" and imaginary scenarios.
Can you imagine where mankind would be if that same amount of effort would be put into real, useful, science?
Just saying...
And by the way, don't twist my words into fitting your arguments. That's weak.
I prefer to use the metric of lives lost vs the potential number of lives that would have been lost.
I don't want to scare you, but the risk of millions being vaporized is actually greater today, than before.
The only thing that changed are the guys behind the buttons.
That alone puts a big, flashing "USELESS" sign on the top of nukes.
I'd prefer to be broke and paranoid than see millions around the world vaporized.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
The fear of mutually assured destruction has, to this point, saved lives.
I think it hasn't. It just changed the realities of war. Instead of direct conflicts, you started to have proxy wars. Death and suffering were always
there. But instead of defending your home, you were defending your politics.
People often forget that right after WW2, the Korean war started. And a couple of years after, Vietnam started.
I think you are starting to understand where I'm going with this.
MAD hasn't saved anyone. It just inspired fear into everyone's soul.
Even the U.S. and URSS admitted to that. Yet you are defending it.
The Soviet Union was bankrupted by trying to keep up with our weapons programs as well as continuing to fight the proxy war in
Afghanistan.
No. The Soviet Union collapsed on it's own weight. There are a lot more political details than just a small proxy war and a weapons program. It's
actually other major politics inside the URSS that started to bring it down.
Proof of that is that the weapons program continued active - although a lot smaller - after the Soviet Union fell.
If by decisive you mean the total destruction of two countries and everyone in them, I would would probably go with the alternative.
If the only option was all-out war, both countries would avoid it. Since they had the fear of nukes in them, they opted for proxy wars.
With no nukes, you only had one way to act: with balls.
And anyway, you can't use that as an argument because you can't predict alternative path's in history. Neither can I, for that matter.
I think a quick review of the American Revolution and the American Civil War would suggest otherwise.
World history
proves otherwise.
