Where were you on Hitler and the Sudetenland? Poland?
Where were you on Tibet?
Would you have started war with Hitler when he marched into the Rhineland?
A strong Czechoslovakia was a vital piece of the Versailles system. Crimea and even the Ukraine itself does not approach it in importance.
Speaking of WW2, just wanted to say I have no interest in supporting neo-nazis either.
Putin is not Hitler.
Where were you when Russia was defending Orthodox Christians from the Ottomans?
Just checking how far back you want to go) I’m not a fan of Putin or Russia.
I understand your analogy but believe it to be falacious. Hitler professed expansionism beyond traditional borders and occupied the Sudetenland, the Rhineland and invaded Poland as part of Lebensraum. Putin full well understands the necessity of a warm-water port and desires to maintain the Crimea for Sevastapol. He may incur into the Ukraine but he is far to intelligent to take on NATO, even if he thought he could win initially. He knows that he would eventually lose and lose big. Too much at stake so he will allow natural political processes to occur and provide the populace with enough incentive to join (even if those incentives are negative).
Putin is a patriot. Love him or hate him, he loves Russia and as former KGB, he loved the Soviet Union and as such, probably desires a return to many aspects of it. That is troubling for the West but to those of us who spent a career studying it, understand where he is coming from.
Putin has the mantel of power and likes it, his is not one to throw it away on trivial matters (geo-politically speaking) and will bide his time. Obama is far to weak to do anything of substance against over actions of expansionism, but Putin knows where to push and where to allow natural assimilation.
Where where you on a progressive President who dragged us foolishly into WWI? Which decision BTW led directly to Sudetenland and Poland.
The Sudetenland was a much more complicated issue than how it is remembered in the West today.
The Bohemian Germans had lived where they did for a thousand years. They lived throughout that period in a German state, which arguably oppressed the Bohemian Czechs to varying degrees over the years. Little of that oppression was from the Bohemian Germans, though, it was by Germans in Vienna.
So Austria loses WWI, and the Czechs want to be independent. Suddenly the Czech demands for self-determination of peoples goes out the window and they instead demand the "historical boundaries of the Bohemian Crown," which of course included the 3M Bohemian Germans, who almost unanimously wanted to remain part of a German nation and lived in areas contiguous to either Germany or Austria. Instead, they were handed over by "the powers" to the rule of people who hated them.
On March 4, 1919 the Germans of Bohemia demonstrated, with 54 of them being killed by the Czechs.
IOW, the Sudeten Germans had perfectly legitimate complaints about how they'd been treated by the "international community" and the Czech government.
Did Hitler care about them? Of course not. He just was able to effectively exploit their legitimate grievances for his own purposes.
But those grievances wouldn't have existed if Wilson and the other powers hadn't abandoned their own proclaimed principles in the interests of expediency.
Hitler's invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia and then of Poland didn't have even a trace of legitimate justification.
There were a lot of Americans who shared Mr. Paul’s opinion right up to Dec 7, 1941.
How about trying this one for size: where are you with regard to Japan's attack on both Singapore & Pearl Harbor? Do you know what forced the Japanese to initiate this attack?
How about some background information. I can tell from your previous posts that you're one of those who believes in America's imminent "fossil fuel independence". AKA another sucker falling for a pump & dump scam. (You know none of the major oil companies got involved, and that they're already cutting back on capital expenditures and dipping into reserves to cover dividends in order to maintain share prices, right? Bueller?)
The truth of the matter is the USA passed peak oil back in '73 when Nixon took us off the gold standard, for good reason. With both Cantarell & Gwahar showing precipitous declines, it's clear we're facing the downward slope on a global basis.
The last region remaining today with impressive proven reserves, is, you guessed it, Russia. Just like the USA was the world's largest producer on Dec 7, 1941.
So, to get the analogy straight, our backing of the illegal insurrection that overthrew the legitimate government of Ukraine was tantamount to 12/7/41: engaged as a long-term play to eventually defeat Russia and gain possession of it resources.
Everything Putin, et al have been doing since have been defensive reactions to our offensive campaign. And just like WWII, this is only the start. We will continue to press the attack in the hope of defeating our last chance to gain hold of sufficient reserves to keep the Ponzi going for another generation or so.