Posted on 08/06/2007 12:56:08 PM PDT by Philistone
This is the third time I've run across this argument on some moonbat chat board in the last few weeks:
The most likely outcome of World War I sans our misguided participation would have been a stalemate with both sides exhausted from 5 years of trench warfare. The rise of Hitler and Mussolini probably would have been precluded. Thus there never would have been a second world war.
Playing with counterfactuals is always pointless as no logical conclusion can ever be drawn from them (since, by definition, one of the premises is false).
Despite the lack of historical or even philisophical rationale, these arguments keep popping up. Is this the way American History is being taught these days?
Before one can intelligently discuss the ‘what ifs’ of history, one must understand history; I’ve never known a moonbat yet who has even the most fundamental grasp. To them, history is just something else that must be tortured to conform to their extremist agenda.
They are wrong.
We could have done better with our post-war settlements, but Hitler and WWII could not have been “precluded.”
These are the same dingbats that can argue that if Shakespeare were alive today he’d be writing sitcoms. There’s no proving or disproving such stupid arguments. All you can do is point to the facts.
WWI stopped tyrannical aggression and helped unite freedom-loving countries in such a way that they would form an alliance that would survive the rest of the century and thus preserve democracy.
Mass and Leatherneck who think that there would have been no WWII are also overlooking the developing USSR that already had its eyes on the eastern countries.
Had there been no WWII, there would have been a WWII. The alliances would have been different, but the aggressions nearly parallel.
In light of this thread, you might enjoy Pax Britannica.
I think the most obvious failure arising from WWI was the League of Nations. To the left's credit, they were consistent enough to repeat their mistake by founding the UN after WWII.
I blame France. :P
Well said! That's why I don't respond anymore to the angry, vile, filthy posters from the left. They really are filthy "pigs" that enjoy spreading their anger.
Let us assume that they are correct for the sake of argument.
What they are admitting, in effect, is that the nations of the European Union now owe their independence and freedom to the United States of America.
Without the involvement of the United States, what is now the European Union would today still be under the domination of either the Third Reich or the still existing Soviet Union as the Soviet Union would have otherwise "liberated" all of Western Europe either to the Pyrenees or to the Portuguese Atlantic coast.
But then if a frog had wings...
I don't think there would have been a Soviet Union either. Germany would have smacked the Red Army down in short order not having to reinforce the Western Front.
While Italy was technically a victor, they had enormous losses, over 600,000 in a country of 36M, roughly proportionate to total American dead in the WBTS.
They didn't get nearly as much loot out of the war as they thought they should, so they felt like victims even though they were on the winning side.
As I said, we could have done better with the post-war settlement. The greedy Europeans split up some Muslim countries and added fuel to the already burning fire of militant Islam.
But at least our reps in both houses had the foresight to squash the LoN. It passed in only a shadow of Wilson’s intended tyranny over sovereign nations, the US included.
I don’t get what you don’t get.
Sooooo, pacifists argue that the world would have had less war if only there had been less war?
Why would you not expect that from them?
Seriously, are you expecting pacifist educated kids in school today to argue that, what, sometimes war is good? That sometimes war is necessary?
Do you spank your dog for not speaking well, too?
What about the effect of the Great Depression on Germany? I know the terms of surrender were punitive for Germany but the country would likely have avoided Hitler if the depression hadn’t compounded their troubles. You can play this game all day and it’s fruitless.
The Germans were going in reverse well before the Western Front got started. Also, until shortly before D-Day almost all the German units on the Western Fron were second and third rate units, with the elite units facing the Commies.
Almost 90% of the German soldiers who died during WWII were killed by the Red Army.
Once the Soviets recovered from the shock and surprise of Barbarossa, the Germans were no longer able to roll over them. And, as numerous attackers (Charles XII, Napoleon, Hitler) have discovered, if you don't beat the Russians quickly, you won't beat them at all.
No, but I spank him and rub his nose in it when he poops on the carpet.
It's just that the argument (from a philosophical standpoint) is so shoddy, and seems to be coming up repeatedly lately.
Just wondering where that particular meme came from. Hence the title of this thread. I don't believe for a moment that the particular moonbats I've heard it from were smart enough to come up with it themselves.
Exactly my point.
I believe the medical term for this is called mental masturbation.
5.56mm
I just got done reading
A World Undone
this weekend which was a history of WW-I.
It was like 1000 page softcover book. From what I read and everything else I read, American involvement really didn’t change anything, it just hurried up the collapse of Germany.
There was absolute exhaustion on both sides pre-America however, America didn’t change much in terms of goals...
ie: once Germany was expelled from France, the Allies did not pursue Germany into thier country.
It was England and France that demanded the harshness of the peace terms.
So no , America didn’t cause WW-II. France’s insistance on the subordination and humiliation of Germany did.
Germany was spent. It would not have been able to conquer France. Germany wasn’t able to make any breakthroughs in the years and years of the war, and the longer the war went on the more depleted they were becoming and then with the Influenza of 1918 it’s doubtful they would have had enough capacity to make an offensive breakthrough and then do something they were never able to do (nor France).. sustain it.
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