At 11:58 25-5-01 -0400, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
>Jeroen, you do understand that there was a big difference between NATO
>forces in West Germany and Soviet forces in East Germany - that the
>people of West Germany got to choose, freely, to have American troops
>there, and could (and still may) freely ask them to leave at any time?
For quite a number of years after the war, West Germany wasn't allowed to
have much of a military (and once they were, they weren't allowed to
operate abroad till fairly recently). With Russian forces right there on
the other side of the border, West Germany really didn't have much of a
choice but to allow a massive Allied presence on their soil. IIRC, the US
even tied it to the Marshall Plan, along the lines of "if you want our help
to rebuild the country, you must allow our forces in your country".
>The people of East Germany didn't get to make that choice. Don't you
>think that has a _little_ effect on the situation?
Irrelevant. I argued that NATO forces were ready to roll into East Germany
should NATO deem it necessary; the size of a military force has nothing to
do with whether or not the population wanted to have the military there.
> Also I deny,
>entirely, by the way, that NATO tanks were ready to roll into Eastern
>Germany. Believe that if you choose - no person with any knowledge of
>the military could look at the correlation of forces at any time after
>1950 and say that this was ever even conceived by the NATO alliance.
NATO wanted to show the Warsaw Pact that attacking Western Europe would be
a bad idea. To get that idea across, you need a lot of firepower. If NATO
wouldn't be able to attack (IOW: didn't have enough firepower), their
entire presence would have been useless because they would have been wiped
out in a few days at most. I think it's reasonable to assume NATO was
ready(*) to enter East Germany.
(*) where "ready to" means "was capable of", not "was planning on"
> > I still doubt that the Warsaw Pact seriously considered invading
>Western
> > Europe, though. They knew very well it would be extremely difficult
>and
> > extremely expensive to win a war against NATO. Contrary to popular
> > capitalist belief, communists aren't all that stupid. They have
>different
> > ideas, but they aren't stupid.
>
>You know, invading France in 1914 and 1940 was difficult and expensive
>too.
That was a different situation. NATO was formed to show the Soviet Union
that if they would attack, Western Europe and the US would strike back as
one. When Germany invaded France, something like NATO didn't even exist.
Germany probably reasoned that some countries would defend France, some
would stay neutral, and the US would stay out of the conflict altogether.
> > >Grenada was the first country that
> > >endured a communist takeover to be liberated since WWII.
> >
> > Funny thing, that. When the Soviets invaded a country, it was called
> > "communist aggression" and "takeover", but when the US invaded a
>country,
> > that very same aggressive act was all of a sudden called
>"liberation"...
>
>First - let me point out the actual facts of what happened in Grenada,
>since very few people remember, I think. A _socialist_ freely elected
>President of Grenada was overthrown and executed by guerrillas who
>proclaimed that they had established a Communist government and then
>threatened the lives of several hundred American students who were
>studying on the island. The United States then intervened, defeated
>the guerrillas, _re-established_ the democratic government of Grenada,
>and left the island. You can't see a difference between the behavior
>there, and, say, the Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia, who occupied the
>country, established a dictatorship, butchered democratic protesters
>in 1968, and stayed in the country until 1991? Those two behaviors
>are _equivalent_ to you?
Of course they are not equivalent. The only thing I am arguing here that
when the US does something (be it invading a country, supporting terrorists
or shooting down civilian airplanes), it is supposed to be alright, but it
is all wrong when the Soviet Union does the same thing.
>So, when Germany invaded France in 1940 and the United States (with
>Britain and Canada) invaded France in 1944 - those were the same thing
>to you? I'm being honest - I'm not trying to be offensive - I just
>really can't figure you out, at this point. It seems to me that if
>you believe what you wrote above, then you should believe that too.
>It seems to me that there are three possibilities:
>1. You don't think that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship that
>established dictatorships everywhere that its troops occupied. I find
>this difficult to imagine.
>2. You believe that the _United States_ was a dictatorship that
>conquered all of the countries where its troops were stationed -
>including your own - and established dictatorships in all of those
>countries. I find this equally difficult to imagine.
Yes, the Soviet Union was a dictatorship, and no, the US wasn't. They did
basically do the same thing though: overthrow governments to install
governments that were more friendly towards them. The major difference is
the method: the Soviet Union invaded other countries, while the US
preferred the method of heavily supporting the opposition in a country (by
means of financing, training, and providing weapons). The effect was the
same, though: control over a country, either by keeping it occupied, or by
installing a friendly regime.
Jeroen
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