It's a perfectly rational answer because by fighting Hitler we helped Stalin. This is an uncontroverible fact. By fighting Hitler, all we did was trade Nazi enslavement of Central and all of Eastern Europe for Communist enslavement. Is that worth hundreds of thousands of American lives?
If I'm not mistaken, Hitler invaded france/poland, etc. before he broke his pact with Stalin. Accordingly, your entire premise is based on an incorrect "fact".
France declared war on Hitler before he invaded France. On several occasions Hitler explicitly stated in public, in private letters, etc. that he had no interest in fighting the West. He only invaded France because he did not want to have to fight a two-front war. This was also the reason he signed the pact with Stalin, so he could quickly remove the threat from his West without worrying about the East.
What brought France and Britain into the war was the fact that they gave Poland a war guarantee, which BTW did Poland no good anyway. The opinion of Lloyd George and other eminent British statesmen at the time was that this was stupid. Had they not given Poland the war guarantee, Hitler would have marched on straight to Russia. This is also the opinion of many eminent British historians today, such as Keagan.
But what of poor Poland, the land of my ancestors, you ask? By 1939, there was nothing France and Britain could do to save her. They should have stopped Hitler when they had the chance, and they had numerous chances. By 1939, it was too late, and their war guarantee did Poland absolutely no good at all.
You really have to give me your source for this quote. Most historians have missed it, whatever the source is. I would be very interested to see this admission by FDR.
It was in private correspondence with his staff. I'll get you a reference. This is not controversial.
I simply do not understand isolationists. Do you honestly believe america can just sit back and not participate in the world?
No. Where did you get the idea that I think that?
If you do believe America should participate in the world, how?
In a way that advances our interests. i.e. opening up foriegn nations to trade, destroying regimes that harbor terrorists, etc. There are countless ways.
Isolationists seem to be against an awful lot, but I have never heard what they are for (aside from closed borders and high tariffs). For instance, North Korea is a nice isolationist state. Should we be more like that?
I'm not an isolationist. Neither were most Americans back in 1940-1941. Wishing to stay out of wars that do not concern one's nation does not make one an isolationist.
Yes. America has never been isolationist. That is one of the monstrous lies of those who want to abandon the wise Washington/Jefferson foreign policy, but it has no truth whatsoever. We have always been involved with the world, not trying to mind the affairs of othes, or permit others to mind our affairs, but via trade and friendly relations. (See An American Foreign Policy and George Washington's Farewell Address.)
As for Joe McCarthy, I disagree with Pat Buchanan, here, in characterizing McCarthy as being on the Right. He wasn't. While he focused on fighting Communism, he also supported the Moderate/Liberal agenda, supported by most of the more Liberal Republicans in the 1950s. In this he was not voting with men like Taft & Bricker, but with the Eastern Republicans.
On the other hand, if he did cut a few corners in identifying people as Communist--i.e., people linked to the Bolshevik structure--who might have been only communists with a small "c"--i.e., American "Liberals" seeking an egalitarian world order--or communist sympathizers; the overreach was no more, and probably less extreme than that we see today in the smearing of American religious leaders and Southern statesmen by the spokesmen of the Left.
Indeed, Pat Buchanan, himself, has probably been subjected to far more overreaching attacks than McCarthy even arguably launched in his entire career.
I was still a school boy, when the McCarthy lynching took place; and I have always had the notion that his real offense against the "Liberals," was that he blurred the disctinction that they so desperately sought to create between those who were collectivist egalitarians, outside the formal Communist apparatus, and those who were collectivist egalitarians, under party discipline. That distinction had some significance in providing counter-espionage; but in terms of the ideological confrontation of the 20th Century, had only minor importance.
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