On Nov 11, 2010, at 11:52 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> ... Chamberlain"appeased" Hitler by handing him Czechoslovakia.
> That only emboldened the Germans, who put forth new demands (the
> "corridor") and eventually started the war. From the
> hindsight, it is easy to blame Chamberlain for not seeing it
> coming. But I
> am not sure if the counterfactual (standing ground on
> Czechoslovakia) would
> have produced different results, and if so, what those results would
> have
> been. Perhaps WW2 would have started in 1938 rather than in 1939
> and run
> its course as it did, or perhaps it would have not started at all
> and the
> Nazi regime would have stayed in power as long as those of Franco and
> Salazar. Who knows?
>
This is to ignore the history of the "Oster conspiracy." The British
cabinet were well informed not only that the Wehrmacht High Command
was opposed to Hitler's crazy plan to invade Czechoslovakia (with the
Sudeten fortifications the Czechoslovak army would in itself have been
a formidable opponent) but were prepared finally to act to overthrow
Hitler the moment he ordered war. Chamberlain's problem was that
Hitler by his repeated public pronouncements had left himself no
political room to back down. So the choice was not war or
capitulation--it was upheaval in Germany with the threat of another
1919, or capitulation. The national interest said stop Hitler, but
class interest said keep him in power at all costs. The choice was a
no-brainer.
> The same can be said about O's strategy of "appeasement." In the
> hindsight,
> we know it did not work - but that was not so certain in 2008. And
> I am not
> sure if a different strategy would have produced different outcomes,
> as the
> Reps had the capacity of outflanking the liberal Maginot lines
> anyway. Nor
> do we know what the final outcome of this war will be - perhaps
> wiping out
> blue dog Dems in 2008 and the pain inflicted by austerity measures
> imposed
> by Reps will produce a "Stalingrad" in 2012.
>
> And one final point - I am not swallowing Dem party line, in fact, I
> would
> gladly support any serious alternative to them, had it emerged. I
> am just
> trying to think strategically and take into consideration the
> deployment of
> forces on the ground. SA is absolutely correct by saying that this
> deployment favors Reps by a significant margin. Perhaps O made a
> tactical
> mistake, but the blame for the failure of his strategy falls
> squarely with
> the electorate.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
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Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64