----- Original Message ----- From: "Ritu Ko" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, October 06, 2002 3:06 PM Subject: RE: U.S. drops leaflets warning Iraq of counterattack
> > Dan Minette wrote: > > > Indeed, for Americans, Europe's and its failure to respond to > > Hitler has > > been a paradigm example of what not to do for over 50 years of foreign > > policy. I cannot imagine you picking a worse example to use. > > It doesn't > > falsify your arguement, but it is not a good case study to > > make your point. > > Yes, I realised that. As soon as I hit 'send'. :) I thought you were/are insightful and to realize that fairly quickly. > However my point actually was the effect of the harsh terms of that > treaty on the German psyche. Had they been less humiliated, had they > been left with some more resources, some face-saving options, Hitler > might not have found such a fertile ground for his ideas. I brought that up with a conservative friend of mine (who's folks are from India) and he pointed out that the Germans after WWI got better terms than many losers of war. Indeed, after WWII, the US and its allies had much more control over Japan and West Germany than did the Allies over Germany after WWI. IIRC, the humiliation of Japan was overwhelming, they had a view that the losers of a conflict were shown to be an inferior sort of human. Yet, the US and Japan and Germany have decent relationships today. I'm not arguing that the war reparations were not a bad idea...but that they were essentially dropped and were thus meaningless. In a sense, the difference between WWI and WWII was that the winners ran the losing country for the benefit of the losers for a number of years (with the obvious exception of East Germany). So, the lesson from WWI and WWII would seem to be "win decisively and convincingly and be very magnanimous and generous in victory." Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
