War in Ukraine

Stirlingsays said:
I believed that as well.

I also think that it's a reasonable argument and that you might be right.

My position is half based upon the war's consequences, with client status being one of them along with our replacement and how it relates back....and what the possible futures might have been.

While I accept that maybe I'm wrong let's consider some of the points that form why I now have major doubts over what happened.

It's certainly no endorsement of Hitler nor of pacifism and it's more related to should we have taken offered off ramps and was Stalin better than Hitler given the circumstances.

From what I've looked into in later life I've realise that what I was raised with was a 'take'..... it's one version of the truth.....Maybe it's the right one but other versions exist...and the access to alternative viewpoints wasn't easy to access.....alternative viewpoints that were being discussed even within Churchill's cabinet.

It's an extremely detailed topic but I'll very very briefly touch on several 'answers' to your points. One was that Britain was offered an alliance against communism (doesn't sound like an intention to invade). Countries that stayed neutral like Switzerland and Sweden were not invaded....though mainly this was because they weren't required for Germany's war aims.

Staying out of the war was a very real option for us......Like most wars it only brought ruin....and personally I think that's foolish unless the war is existential and for Britain it was a war of choice....For France as well as it should be remembered that France also declared war on Germany over Poland (though it was understandable)....Not the other way round......That said I also believed that Germany's motivation was to be the dominant force in Europe....(EU anyone?)

This is Grok's take on Britain as a target for Hitler before the declaration of war:

'Britain as a Target: Hitler’s attitude toward Britain was more complex than it was towards France. He initially hoped to avoid war with Britain, believing they could be persuaded to accept German dominance on the continent (as seen in his offers of peace during the Munich Crisis). However, contingency plans for invading Britain existed, and the Kriegsmarine’s expansion (e.g., Plan Z for naval buildup) was aimed at challenging British naval power in the long term. The invasion of Poland was undertaken with the understanding that it might provoke Britain, but Hitler gambled they would not act decisively.'

We attacked Germany first with bombing runs, they weren't looking for war with us. The decision to go to war with Germany over Poland (the route they had to secure to get at Russia) wasn't a defence of democracy as Poland was itself a dictatorship.

As for this freedom loss you talk about. Well, if Hitler had defeated us and occupied (which only didn't happen due to his timeline plans to attack Russia(his real motive all along)) then he'd have taken out the elites and Jews that's for sure...However, Hitler wasn't going to destroy Anglo Saxons (both are Germanic tribes), we would have survived and the country would have stayed Britain.

This is no defence of Hitler, his real plans were the elimination of Jews in Europe and to be the dominant power in Europe (which he wanted to unite) and the attack and defeat of Soviet Russia.

Regardless, now the next generation have a real existential mess on their hands and it may be lost already.
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Thanks. I see the logic and the different ‘take’ and wish none of it ever happened. What Hitler tried to achieve actually ended up being many times worse decades later. If he was around now he’d probably have a stroke from high blood pressure.

The challenge of Britain’s naval force leads you to think it might not have been as peaceful as promised, especially considering the British Empire.

This isn’t part of my view but there’s a strong possibility one side of my family would have been exterminated and I wouldn’t be born later on. One side 100% English. The other half Irish/half East Prussian Jewish with Hamburg being the last home city and nationality on paper. So they were placed on the Isle of Wight as illegal aliens having come from Germany. Unwanted in Germany due to religion and routes, unwanted in Britain due to nationality on paper. Religion was dropped in Britain years before. Not as important as getting on with life. A bit different to today’s problem aliens.
 
I wonder if Hitler were allowed to dominate Europe and beyond, what the American response would have been eventually, with or without Japan bombing Pearl Harbour or some other attack. Would there have eventually been an atomic attack on Germany and Europe and an atomic war? Under 10 years ago the theoretical question asked was if you could travel back in time, would you kill Hitler? Issue with that is there could have been something worse later on with the atomic bomb or nuclear. But maybe that’s nonsense, I don’t know. And what would have risen in Germany without Hitler? Communism?
 
Wisbech Eagle said:
Whereas the man who leads his adversary is part of an organised crime gang from Europe. What the hell does it matter what suit someone wears when people are being killed?
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It does matter and I’m sure you dress appropriately. It’s irrelevant what Putin is or isn’t. Meeting with Trump in February he wears something close to army fatigues when he’s the country’s leader. Yesterday he’s dressed like the son of an Albanian organised crime gang.
 
cryrst said:
Just maybe trump is getting closer to saving 1000s of lives. Still be something that anyone could have done will be the moan.
If he pulls this off then clearly is a great leader. TDS incoming 😂
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Whether this is the right place to put this I am not sure but in the US thread a few weeks ago the subject of Trump’s involvement with Russia came up again with some parroting Trump’s claims of it all being a “witch hunt” and that Mueller “exonerated” him, with me providing a link to an investigation that proved he didn’t.

With Trump now increasingly following Putin’s line on why the war exists and what must happen to end it, even temporarily, it’s worth reviewing whether there really is something behind this.

C4 Dispatches produced a well researched and informative documentary on this about a month ago. With what’s now happening it’s worth a look:-

 
Rudi Hedman said:
It does matter and I’m sure you dress appropriately. It’s irrelevant what Putin is or isn’t. Meeting with Trump in February he wears something close to army fatigues when he’s the country’s leader. Yesterday he’s dressed like the son of an Albanian organised crime gang.
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It ought not matter beyond a raised eye brow!

People need to get such things is proportion. It’s only because Trump made such a big deal about it during his staged tirade earlier in the year that it’s being discussed now.

That Trump can behave like an arrogant idiot is par for his course. We don’t have be that stupid.
 
Rudi Hedman said:
It does matter and I’m sure you dress appropriately. It’s irrelevant what Putin is or isn’t. Meeting with Trump in February he wears something close to army fatigues when he’s the country’s leader. Yesterday he’s dressed like the son of an Albanian organised crime gang.
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He should probably be wearing a shroud and the European leaders should be in sack cloth and ashes.
 
eaglesdare said:
Is this one real?
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When it comes to photos AI has reached the stage that if well done you can't tell the difference.

The photo itself seems unlikely on how you'd set up that meeting from an American perspective as it's designed to look like a collective against Trump.....but I can't tell just looking at it.

You can still tell the difference with combined video and audio a lot of the time but usually only if you're looking for it and they have closed the gap significantly.....sometimes it's so good you can't.

The potential for scamming is obvious and everyone is at higher risk of that....especially so a lot of trusting boomer types who don't keep track of these kind of things.
 
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Rudi Hedman said:
It does matter and I’m sure you dress appropriately. It’s irrelevant what Putin is or isn’t. Meeting with Trump in February he wears something close to army fatigues when he’s the country’s leader. Yesterday he’s dressed like the son of an Albanian organised crime gang.
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Both Ukraine and Russia are essentially crime states.

The west are heavily invested in Ukraine....Blackrock, hedge funds and all the rest of it.....Zelensky himself...the guy they presented like a hero....is himself extremely rich because like most of them he creamed off the top. His donors are no better.

So they ignore the one and highlight the other.

It's the lying and treating the public like fools that irritates me.....Unfortunately it works on a lot of people, some of those people are busy and not political and so have an excuse....others not so much.
 
Mike Benz (former state department and close to the administration...ie he's influenced Trump scripts) on the motivations around what we are seeing on the conflict.

 
Rudi Hedman said:
Thanks. I see the logic and the different ‘take’ and wish none of it ever happened. What Hitler tried to achieve actually ended up being many times worse decades later. If he was around now he’d probably have a stroke from high blood pressure.

The challenge of Britain’s naval force leads you to think it might not have been as peaceful as promised, especially considering the British Empire.

This isn’t part of my view but there’s a strong possibility one side of my family would have been exterminated and I wouldn’t be born later on. One side 100% English. The other half Irish/half East Prussian Jewish with Hamburg being the last home city and nationality on paper. So they were placed on the Isle of Wight as illegal aliens having come from Germany. Unwanted in Germany due to religion and routes, unwanted in Britain due to nationality on paper. Religion was dropped in Britain years before. Not as important as getting on with life. A bit different to today’s problem aliens.
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Yep, if you have Jewish genetics it makes total sense to view Hitler as something that must be fought to the death. I get that and that it would be emotive to the core.

I think you have a rounded view of things. I'm sympathetic to Pat Buchanan's view of WW2 as the 'unnecessary war', but I recognise that it's also valid to attack that opinion as is the case for every 'take'. How we played both Hitler and Stalin is a grey topic as both were responsible for tens of millions of deaths.

My view on the Jews and WW2 is that an argument exists that we could have saved more Jews by avoiding war than by pursuing it. Firstly there would have been no 'starvation blockage' and the Germans would have had the means to feed their prisoners.

But the main argument for this is for what actually happened in Axis countries that didn't agree with Hitler on the Jewish question. Mussolini for example was a fascist without Hitler's position on Jews and wouldn't round them up and it wasn't until Germany reinstated him that he followed their lead, other minor Axis powers also resisted the Jewish policy and it wasn't until late on as the Nazis were in its death spiral that it insisted and made this happen. Japan also had a tiny Jewish population but wasn't interested.

The view is that Hitler could have been bargained with over Jews, especially as we were a great power and in my current view is that directing him towards Communism and Stalin was a better idea than what happened.

It gives us and America far more time to build up strength while both of them weaken themselves (Germany had top troops but Russia had the numbers and ruthlessness), saves a lot of Europe from destruction.

That's where I am, while being fully aware that it's said with hindsight and that many would disagree with me.
 
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Stirlingsays said:
Yep, if you have Jewish genetics it makes total sense to view Hitler as something that must be fought to the death. I get that and that it would be emotive to the core.
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It isn’t really the angle I’m looking at it. I didn’t grow up with my father and that’s the side of half Irish, half Jewish.

But on my mother’s side the men fought in the army and were captured and put in POW camps.
 
Rudi Hedman said:
I wonder if Hitler were allowed to dominate Europe and beyond, what the American response would have been eventually, with or without Japan bombing Pearl Harbour or some other attack. Would there have eventually been an atomic attack on Germany and Europe and an atomic war? Under 10 years ago the theoretical question asked was if you could travel back in time, would you kill Hitler? Issue with that is there could have been something worse later on with the atomic bomb or nuclear. But maybe that’s nonsense, I don’t know. And what would have risen in Germany without Hitler? Communism?
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The old, 'would you kill baby Hitler' question.

The old 'butterfiles flapping its wings'.....Hitler is a consequence of how WW1 ended but even Hitler was an extreme within the National Socialists itself and a different leader? He wasn't the most likely leader as he was shot and killed in the 20s.....but like you say, we don't know what would have happened.

Counterfactuals are important as they teach us like chess lines before you select a move. However, like those possible chess moves we will never know.....We just look at the outcomes of what actually happened and why.
 
Rudi Hedman said:
It isn’t really the angle I’m looking at it. I didn’t grow up with my father and that’s the side of half Irish, half Jewish.

But on my mother’s side the men fought in the army and were captured and put in POW camps.
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Yep, my grandfather and his brother fought in the war, one being injured in Italy (I only know one side of my family). My grandmother was part of Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) working out anti aircraft fire.

I had the chance to talk to both about the war as a young teen and both weren't fans of Churchill and I remember my grandfather calling him a war-monger. It shocked me at the time but both were very old school Labour....my grandmother even being against the Falklands war as I remember.

But they like most of those in that time did their duty regardless of their feelings about how they got there.

We were and are all brought up with the same culture around the war. I look at where we are heading and I see the dots of where it came from.
 
Regime News, oh sorry 'Sky News' partakes in the necessary narrative shift and explains to its viewers how and why Crimea ended up as part of Ukraine in 1991.

The new realities on the likely result in Ukraine will require new 'facts' and justifications that the establishment once demonised and called 'Russian' properganda.

To paraphrase: 'For hundreds of years, the Russians fought for Crimea and Sevastopol, but in 1954, Khrushchev handed over the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR. But this was a purely administrative decision. The country was one.'
 

Attachments

Rudi Hedman said:
I wonder if Hitler were allowed to dominate Europe and beyond, what the American response would have been eventually, with or without Japan bombing Pearl Harbour or some other attack. Would there have eventually been an atomic attack on Germany and Europe and an atomic war? Under 10 years ago the theoretical question asked was if you could travel back in time, would you kill Hitler? Issue with that is there could have been something worse later on with the atomic bomb or nuclear. But maybe that’s nonsense, I don’t know. And what would have risen in Germany without Hitler? Communism?
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I went back in time and cut off his other ball. That made sure.
 
The last time Britain got involved in Crimean conflict, it produced another magnificent historical military victory. I give you, Charge of the Light Brigade.
However, with our current leaders, I think it likely we call fall below that benchmark quite easily.
 
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