Ignorant, worthless article.
This piece is leftist propaganda; the “Western democracies” had many more volunteers fighting for the communists than for Franco. Franco himself appealed to the West for aid and was ignored; he saw the communists for what they were, and nobody would help him and the other generals suppress the communist revolt. It ignores the burning of churches, seizures of properties, and executions of the upper class and clergy.
Supporting Franco in Spain was the best thing Hitler and Mussolini ever did in their miserable lives; when they appealed to him to join the Axis he refused, saying he only wanted to live and die in a Catholic Spain.
Anyone interested should get the rest of the story in the book “The Last Crusade”.
We should stay out of that mess. If for no other reason, Obama can be absolutely trust to send weapons to the wrong guys. They’d probably end up with Muslim terrorists somewhere. And in the meantime, our military would have even fewer supplies if we actually need to fight.
Yes, because those Republicans were such angels, what with the murdering of clergy and all.
Franco saved Spain.
So, Paul Greenburg is pro-communist, good to know.
Ted Cruz is right, send weapons to Ukraine.
Obama is wrong in opposing Ted Cruz.
“The same evil empires that conspired to crush republican Spain in the 1930s — Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia — would unite again to invade Poland at the end of that decade, and set off worldwide calamity.”
The Nazis supported the rebel Nationalists.
The Soviets supported the in-power communist Republicans.
“Setbacks come at every turn,
New ways are hard to learn.
Tonight I saw Guernica burn;
There was always “The Cause”.
Al Stewart
I doubt that I'll bother with "Dr. Aron's piece" or Mr. Greenberg's future opinions.
Pablo Picasso’s huge mural, “Guernica”, is an anti-war masterpiece. And he painted the whole thing in blacks, whites and grays. That basic color scheme made it much more powerful. It hurts your soul when you look at it. And I think that’s what he intended.
If you change the country’s name to Vietnam and the times to 1945-75, you’ve got the same scenario. The Communists armed their forces for victory and enlisted the whole Soviet Bloc and the Red Chinese and their military industries, to overwhelm the So. Vietnamese who had garbage weapons as compared to Communist ones.
Also, the Reds never stopped sending in men and supplies despite the Paris Peace Agreement of 1973. The US abandoned SVN, Cambodia and Laos by cutting their supplies to below an allowed “one on one replacement”.
The communists didn’t want a Christian/Catholic Spain which is why they murdered thousands of clergy.
In SVN, Cambodia and Laos, the Communists didn’t want Buddhist/Christian populated countries. Church oppression in SVN is still continuing at this moment, with Buddhist priests and Catholics being tortured and jailed on non-existent and/or flimsy charges.
Franco was no saint but in terms of Spain, he actually save the country from the Communist bloc. Diem and Thieu were not saints either, but they were true patriots who tried to save their country from the atheists in Hanoi, Moscow and Peking.
Their betrayal can be laid right at the feet of the Democrats in Congress who sold them out at the cost of genocide (over 2,000,000 Cambodians, SVNese and Laotians were killed after the war was over).
Sometimes history does repeat and has a lesson that we can learn from.
And the amount of Soviet-supplied armaments shipped to the "Republicans" was impressive, not to mention all the communist troops dispatched to fight in Spain.