Yes, how convenient for FDR. After siting anxiously on the sidelines, itching to get in (as he actually should have been to come to the defense of allies), Germany acted the only way it could after Japan's "surprise attack" on the US.
But, in keeping with the intent of the thread, it was the Paulian-like isolationism that actually compounded and lengthened an already long and bloody war. FDR was right to want to get into the war earlier on. But, it was the old-style isolationism of the GOP that kept him from doing so. That was a mistake that cost tens of thousands of US and allied lives, not to mention the lives of perhaps millions of Jews, amongst others.
Even Paul would have declared war after Pearl Harbor and Germany subsequently declaring war on the U.S.
After siting anxiously on the sidelines, itching to get in (as he actually should have been to come to the defense of allies), Germany acted the only way it could after Japan's "surprise attack" on the US. But, in keeping with the intent of the thread, it was the Paulian-like isolationism that actually compounded and lengthened an already long and bloody war.
Well, Paul's not an isolationist so you got that one wrong.
Anyway, what do you mean "lengthened" and "compounded?" You realize WWII was only 2 years old when the U.S. entered, right? At the time, Hitler was Europe's problem, not the US.
FDR was right to want to get into the war earlier on. But, it was the old-style isolationism of the GOP that kept him from doing so. That was a mistake that cost tens of thousands of US and allied lives, not to mention the lives of perhaps millions of Jews, amongst others.
Pure bovine scat. Those lives would have been lost regardless if the U.S. had intervened earlier.
There was no way to save the lives of millions of people (not just Jews - and I have no idea how some Jews today think that they could have been saved any better than the other six+ million people that Hitler killed in bulk numbers) other than by crushing the German war machine.
We didn’t have the machinery to make war in 1940. And especially not in 1939. If you think we did, please go back and review the detailed history of WWII and our industrial capacity at that time. After WWII broke out, the US started tooling up for war - in a big way. If we had decided to get into the war in late 1939, so we could please all manner of European pecksniffs (who, truth be told, were the ones who created and enabled Hitler - not the US), we would have suffered losses akin to those of the USSR, who got into a shooting war before they had their industrial capacity spun up to meet the needs.
The US, contrary to this revisionism of today, was not sitting around with our thumbs up our asses in ‘39 to ‘41. Example: the B-17E, which was the first heavy bomber to carry the fight to Germany, wasn’t completed until late (September) 1941. The first PROTOTYPE of the B-24 flew in (drum roll please) December, 1939 - three months after WWII started.
Long story short: We didn’t have jack-all with which to fight WWII when it started. It is nice for elegant cripples, who will never have to go to war because we strangely seem to always field the armored wheelchair brigades last in a battle, to want to get us into wars... but the truth was that we simply were not ready. And the most sage and practical minds of the day were the ones who prevailed. Wars are fought by political types with “strategy” and high-minded ideals, but they’re fought in reality by real men who worry about logistics. Logistics sounds so terribly unimpressive, but it is what wins wars.
We didn’t have Liberty ships until the middle of 1941. So even if we wanted to get into a fight overseas, we not only lacked the weapons, we lacked the shipping infrastructure necessary to ship huge amounts of material to the battle theatre.
Sometimes, diplomacy is the art of saying “Niiiiice doggy” whilst you’re reaching for a suitable rock...