Winston Churchill: "If Hitler invaded hell...

[Dem4Life1102]

I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

I am reminded of this Churchill quote this morning. When Hitler invaded Russia, he offered Britain's full support to Stalin. After a colleague reminded him that he had always been an enemy of communism, Churchill responded with the above quote.

The reason that I bring this up is that in several threads some are objecting to many of us here at DU celebrating the efforts of some on the right and some on the left who are now supporting Biden. Somehow the people behind the Lincoln Project or former Bernie Bros. should still be shunned and attacked because of past sins.

Sorry but that just seems very short sighted to me. We need all the allies that we can get right now.

[ananda]

1. Like

The idea is for all of us to cherish our allies whether we like them or not,
and to support Biden whether he was our first choice or not.

Good.

[empedocles]

2. Agreed. If stalin had lost, hitler/Germany would've been in a mighty power position.

Shudder just to begin to think about it.

Now, as then. 'We need all the allies that we can get right now.'

[The Magistrate]

3. And That Is How It's Done, Sir

Note the absence of any follow-up along the lines of 'but of course Stalin shouldn't be in command, and we should do everything in our power to break him just as soon as this Hitler fellow is settled.'

Mr. Churchill simply said his piece, and said it as someone everyone knew was an absolutely uncompromising opponent of Bolshevism, who had seen to the dispatch of British soldiers to fight for the Whites in the Russian Civil War, and broken a general strike in England after the Great War. And Mr. Churchill backed up what he said with territorial concessions and military equipment and supplies, at some cost of casualties to England on the high seas to boot. Even if he did remain hostile at heart, as he certainly did, Mr. Churchill made no public display of it over the duration of the alliance.

[milestogo]

4. Thank you.

The anti-Bernie hostility is on par with the anti-Trump hostility. That makes no sense to me.

[Stuart G]

5. Hitler's invasion of Russia, was the reason he lost the war.

...I could go into it at length, but Churchill knew as did Roosevelt. Millions of Russian lives were lost, but we as a team won. Most people do not know the incredible cost the former "Soviet Union" paid during WWII.

........About 26,000,000 Russians lost their lives during WWII (according to Wikipedia)

.....compared to 415,000 U.S. deaths.............(according to Wikipedia)

NOTE: Soviet population...approximately 170,000,000...about 1 in 7 lost their lives during WWII
________________________________________________________________________________________
compare to our Civil War....population in U.S.A. in 1860 31,000,000.

618,222 men died in the Civil War, 360,222 from the North and 258,000 from the South — by far the greatest toll of any war in American history.

...approximately 1 in 50 of our population died during the civil war.

During WWII approximately 65,000,000. lost their lives (civilians & military combined) from all countries..

[Chainfire]

12. Hitler's invasion of Russia was the war

If WWII were a movie, the credits would have been something like this:

Starring The Soviet Union and Germany
Also appearing, in alphabetical order.....

[Stuart G]

13. Not exactly.....not in my opinion..

[Chainfire]

15. Everyone is entitled to an opinion

For what its worth, I come by my opinions of WWII after a 50 year study of the subject.

[Disaffected]

14. Approximately 2/3rds

Last edited Sun May 24, 2020, 04:50 PM - Edit history (1)

of the German army & airforce were consumed on the eastern front.

However it was the US that did the heavy lifting in the Pacific. The war could not have been won without both.

[Chainfire]

16. Japan could have been dealt with after the defeat of Germany if we had chosen to do so.

The Japanese were never a serious threat to the USA. They just did not have the population or the industrial capacity to take us on, and geography was certainly not on their side. Japan ran a huge bluff and we called them.

The only reason we chose to fight a two front war is that the people were so pissed off over Pearl Harbor, that we could not sit the game out for several years while we took on Nazi Germany. The Pacific war, when we fought it, was more a matter of pride than military necessity. We could have waited them out because once Germany was defeated, Japan would have been doomed regardless. In the end, it may have been the more rational decision to wait as it would have saved American and Japanese lives without changing the end result.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Sun Tzu

[Disaffected]

17. I'm not sure what your reply has to do

Last edited Sun May 24, 2020, 04:49 PM - Edit history (1)

with what I said (non-sequitur).

And, you seem to talk of the Pacific war as the US was the only affected power i.e. "we". Do you actually believe the US should have stood down in the Pacific until the defeat of Germany? That's the first time I've ever encountered such an interpretation of these historical events.

[Chainfire]

18. Yes, but only if National Morale was not an issue...

There was hot debate, in the American military leadership, at the time as whether to pursue a two front war. I think we made the wrong decision.

We blundered our way through the Pacific War on many levels. At the beginning of the war, Navy was poorly led, unprepared, outdated, and insufficiently trained. Our planes were obsolete, and torpedoes did not work. Our navy had prepared for a battleship war in the day of aircraft carriers; and then we lost the battleships on the first day!

We attacked many islands, with huge loss of life without gaining any benefit. Our Navy suffered some nasty defeats that would have been avoided with additional experience. Had we waited, many of these issues would have resolved themselves with gained experience while we were attacking Germany. Had we just ignored the Japanese, concentrated all of our resources in a quicker victory in Germany we could have reversed the Japanese the gains in the same time or shorter time frame with a lot less carnage. Even the architect of the Japanese Naval war knew that they could not compete on an equal footing with the US for more than 12 months....

We could have been a huge thorn in the side of Japanese if we had increased our submarine warfare while we marked time. When you are a nation of ten thousand islands spread over half of the Pacific, you are dependent upon sea transport for survival; it was their weak point....Instead we attacked fortified islands, some of which had little or no strategic value. We just pissed heroic troops away for no good reason.....

Even if the Japanese retained Korea, Indochina, the Mariannas, the Carolines and the Phillipines, they still would have been defeated and would have lost these possessions after their cities were destroyed by the atomic bombs. And yes, we could have delivered those bombs without having possession of the islands near Japan.

We had a long drawn-out war of attrition with the Japanese that was avoidable and No nation has ever benefited from a prolonged war. (Sun Tzu again)


Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but we are just playing what if aren't we.

[Disaffected]

19. That's an interesting take on it alright.

I am in no way equipped to refute in any detail what you contend, only to repeat that it is a perspective I've not heard before.

It seems to me however that by giving Japan an opportunity to consolidate (and expand their gains), as well as enslaving millions more (perhaps even including Australia) it would have been More difficult to defeat them later on (especially given that in 1942, the A bomb was not a predictable factor). And, that presumes that the US would have even been willing to enter into another major war after the fall of Germany (and the cold war with the Soviet Union began)..

Out of curiosity, how would the A bombs have been delivered from afar (wait for development of long range rockets or planes?)?

[DTomlinson]

22. I'd agree with that, if we're talking about the European Theater specifically...

[DTomlinson]

21. But invading the USSR was the whole point for Hitler, wasn't it? "Lebensraum" and killing all Jews..

Widespread, systematic murder of Jews didn't happen during the war until Operation Barbarossa.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. In full agreement!

[secondwind]

7. Amen!!

[colsohlibgal]

8. Amen +1000

Every port in this storm. And those Lincoln Project Ads are brilliant and on point. Mourning as a play on Morning was clever.

Trump is our Hitler/Mussolini and must not only lose but lose badly. He’ll still whine and cry “Fake News” , his devoted fans will do the same. We must be on guard and ready to deal with his Neo Nazi base and their reaction. They are nuts and armed to the teeth thanks to our insane and uneven gun laws.

[Stuart G]

9. OP. "We need all the allies that we can get right now" ..That is it, Yes, we must save the U.S.A.

We must win. Trump must lose, bigger the loss the better, but, TRUMP MUST LOSE.....

.........after the loss, an investigation...but Trump must lose to save this country...(& he will lose)

[Mister Ed]

10. I welcome the aid of all who wish to save U.S. democracy.

I fully hope and expect that they will then work to use the democratic process to advance their policy agendas.

I'm likely to support the policies favored by the Sanders wing, and oppose with my vote most of the policies favored by the Lincoln Project Republicans. That's fine.

Sometimes we'll butt heads and sometimes we'll work together, but so long as we value democracy even more than we value our own policy goals, we ultimately will make America truly great again.

[Hortensis]

11. Admire CHURCHILL to people who object to never-Trumpers?

Just hope no one's hair caught on fire in outrage.

Here's one to calm some down, though gasoline's as easily obtainable, and maybe this is for some:

Liberalism supplies at once the higher impulse and the practicable path; it appeals to persons by sentiments of generosity and humanity; it proceeds by courses of moderation. By gradual steps, by steady effort from day to day, from year to year, liberalism enlists hundreds of thousands upon the side of progress and popular democratic reform ... Churchill

As always, in his day and ours, if there's a happy ending it's because the many who are too sensible and thoughtful to be distracted to destruction saved the rest from themselves.

[smirkymonkey]

20. +1000