Make Today, Day 61 the day!
Posted on 03/02/2014 1:18:21 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Ed Miliband is personally to blame for the crisis in Ukraine, senior Conservatives claimed last night.
Allies to David Cameron and George Osborne made the extraordinary claim after Russian president Vladimir Putin authorised military action within the country.
There is a "Direct link between Miliband's cynical vote against Syria motion & Russia's actions on Ukraine," Treasury minister and close aide to the chancellor, Sajid Javid tweeted, adding that this made the Labour leader "Completely unfit to lead Britain".
He was joined by planning minister and close ally to the prime minister, Nick Boles who said that Miliband's "weakness" had caused the conflict.
The "PM was right to urge Parliament to stand up to Putin and punish Assad's use of chemical weapons," Boles tweeted. "Look where Miliband's weakness has led us."
The Labour leader's decision to oppose military action in Syria led to one of David Cameron's worst defeats as prime minister and stalled hopes of intervention against president Assad.
Some analysts believe the failure to act against one of Putin's allies, has emboldened the Russian president.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com ...
Yeah, blame everyone but the bolshe... oh wait, Russians.
Waiting for the first media pundit to blame it on Bush.
Well, if Bush had invaded Russia and replaced their government with the Seattle city council, we wouldn't be in this mess. As I understand it, everything that happens in the entire world is a result of "the mess we inherited."
Oh, that Milliband! He’s done it again.
Okay, I give up....It’s all MY fault.
Well, if Bush had invaded Russia and replaced their government with the Seattle city council, we wouldn't be in this mess. As I understand it, everything that happens in the entire world is a result of "the mess we inherited."
Actually I think you can trace this back to FDR not letting Patton roll through Russia at the end of WWII. And it was Pattons speaking truth about the Russians that got him assassinated.
It wouldn’t be a matter of FDR (Truman, really) “letting” Patton do it... it would be a matter of the ORDERS not being issued. The axe does not swing the one who wields it. The CiC is a civilian office for excellent reason.
Uhh, even Patton might not have found it all that easy to “roll through Russia.” There was a very large, experienced and battle-hardened Red Army that would have had something to say about where he rolled to.
You can play idiotic “what if” games in which we ally ourselves with the defeated Wehrmacht and launch a surprise attack on the Reds.
The problem is that Americans had just spent four years being told what great guys the Russians were and would never have supported such an attack.
Not to mention the millions of American soldiers who expected to go home, and would now be told that they had to fight their way east another 1000 miles to Moscow. Bad morale would have been the least of the military problems that resulted.
Such a surprise attack on an ally can only be carried out by an absolutist or totalitarian government, as Hitler did in 1941. I give thanks America is and always has been incapable of doing such a thing.
Russia always fights best defending one thing, Russia. Truman did the best he could, getting Austria back and keeping Greece out of the commie orbit.
For those who are interested, I ran across this book on Google Books. The chapter on the regions of Ukraine appears to be quite relevant now.
Isn't that a big part of what we do here? What if we had an American President, what if he had balls, what if the GOP was conservative, what if the Republicans chose a candidate that could win? Seems to me we do an awful lot of what if's here, idiotic or not. And the Red Army though battle hardened were very under supplied and dependent on the U.S. at the time, but as you point out I was only making a what if scenario of what Patton wanted not America who was rightfully tired of war.
According to Justin Trudeau it is because the Russians lost at hockey at the Olympics and got mad.
I’m sure Patton was all for any war he could keep going. He loved war. (I’ve read his personal papers and diaries.) Remarkably few Americans of the time would have been willing to follow him.
On reviewing my comments I see I was too harsh. My apologies. I’ve had a number of contentious discussions on this topic with people who think we “missed an opportunity” when we didn’t just keep going when we got to Berlin.
I should not have jumped to the conclusion this was your opinion.
Without nuclear weapons, Patton, nor the entire U.S. Army was not going to roll through the Red Army. The Germans believed, almost till the end, that the Western Allies would ask the Wehrmacht to help them handle the Russians, essentially making an alliance with post-Hitler Germany on the fly. Truman was depending the Atomic bomb to keep Stalin in check, and it did.
The America public was sick and tired of war in 1945, rightly so.
Thanks.
I would agree it is possible to make a purely realpolitik case that we should have attacked Russia in 1945.
I contend, however, that such an attack was never remotely possible for the US to launch. For us to do so we would have to be a very different nation, of a type I’m glad we’re not.
I agree, and I think America as well as the world was too war weary for anything like that to be possible anyway. God knows where we would all be if it had been tried.
If we were a nation of a Nazi or Commie type then we could have launched such an attack. Given our monopoly of nukes at the time, I think there’s little chance we would not have “won,” whatever that would mean in context. Although our supply of nukes was strictly limited in number.
Then we would have presumably had to occupy and garrison the conquered territories, put down rebellions, suppress resistance movements, extract tribute to support the occupations, etc.
America is not Rome, and that’s a good thing.
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