forgetfoo.

Circling Sharks Smell American Blood
America should keep quieter abroad — and try finding a bigger stick.

On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama found China, Japan, and South Korea — like many nations these days — in no mood to hear more American lectures.

Beijing is worried about owning so much American debt. Tokyo is tiring of an American military base in Okinawa, and wants to redefine its relationship with us. Seoul is starting to doubt American commitment to keep it safe from North Korea.

Why all the sudden pushback to our charismatic president?

Our dollar is crashing, while the price of gold is soaring. The budget deficit has never been worse — and the president wants to float even more debt for health-care and energy initiatives.

By the end of this presidential term, we may add another $9 trillion to our already astronomical $11 trillion debt. Unemployment has already topped 10 percent. This quarter’s trade deficit reached a near-historic high. Our debtors and oil exporters talk of scrapping the dollar as the common international currency.

American hesitation abroad reflects the shaky economic news. In Afghanistan, we can’t decide whether to seek victory or admit defeat — or simply vote present by keeping the status quo. President Obama reached out to enemies such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. But so far they remain unimpressed, despite his apologizing for an assortment of supposed past American sins.

The Chinese don’t listen all that much anymore to our sermons on their human-rights, coal-burning, and free-trade abuses — not when they hold $1.5 trillion in U.S. assets. The president took a lot of flak for bowing to Saudi royals and the Japanese emperor. But why wouldn’t he show deference — given America’s huge dependence on foreign oil and Japanese imports?

in keeping with my regular victor hanson posting every friday, so no surprises here... good article though, and one that's been resignating with most americans for awhile now -- i really don't know many people that are exactly happy about the turn of events this past year, and how it seems to just be getting worse and worse since Obama took office.

Same Old, Same Old at Fort Hood
This attack was the rule, not the exception.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of murdering last week 13 people (12 of whom were soldiers) and wounding another 30 at Fort Hood, Texas. It was not the first, nor will it be the last, domestic terrorist incident since Sept. 11, 2001.

We now see that authorities had, or should have had, reason to be suspicious of Hasan — including his contact with a radical cleric and a bizarre “medical” presentation he once gave to Army doctors that focused on Islam and the military.

Now, we're also learning that someone going by the name Nidal Hasan posted extremist views on the Internet, and that at least one former classmate questioned his loyalty to America.

Yet no one acted.

Was, as there appears to be, a fear among would-be accusers of being charged with politically incorrect bias?

That worry has certainly been evident in the postmortem Fort Hood analysis. Repeatedly the media advised us not to rush to judgment about the motives of Hasan, who, witnesses say, yelled “Allahu Akbar!” before he shot the unarmed.

Many commentators were more likely to cite the stresses of hearing patients discuss two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than Hasan's own apparent extremist beliefs.

In truth, the Fort Hood murders fit into a now familiar pattern of radical Islam-inspired violence that manifests itself in two principal ways.

First are the formal terrorist plots. Radical Muslims have attempted, in coordinated fashion, to blow up a bridge, explode a train, assault a military base, and topple a high-rise building — in ways al-Qaeda terrorist leaders abroad warned us would follow 9/11.

This year alone, three terrorist plots have been foiled.

good stuff as always... i'm still disappointed in Obama and that craptastic "speech" he gave after the terrorist shootings at Fort Hood, though -- giving a damn shoutout and talking about native american indians? wtf?

happy friday everyone! here's the latest from victor hanson -- Afghan Mythologies

As President Obama decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, we should remember that most of the conventional pessimism about Afghanistan is only half-truth.

Remember the mantra that the region is the "graveyard of empires," where Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, and the Soviets only three decades ago inevitably met their doom?

In fact, Alexander conquered most of Bactria and its environs (which included present-day Afghanistan). After his death, the area that is now Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire.

Centuries later, outnumbered British-led troops and civilians were initially ambushed, and suffered many casualties, in the first Afghan war. But the British were not defeated in their subsequent two Afghan wars between 1878 and 1919.

The Soviets did give up in 1989 their nine-year effort to create out of Afghanistan a Communist buffer state — but only because the Arab world, the United States, Pakistan, and China combined to provide the Afghan mujahideen resistance with billions of dollars in aid, not to mention state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.

While Afghans have been traditionally fierce resistance fighters and made occupations difficult, they have rarely for long defeated invaders — and never without outside assistance.

Other myths about Afghanistan abound.

i haven't been following it all that closely, but i'm not exactly sure why Obama hasn't sent in more troops into afghanistan as the generals over there have requested... why the hold up? what's the alternative, to let the taliban regain control as they've been steadily doing now for the last year? not sure i really follow...

it's friday morning and that usually means a weekly dose of victor -- Voting Present on Illegal Immigration

Immigration activists and Hispanic groups are demanding that President Obama deliver on his promised comprehensive package of immigration reform.

Already, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) has derided federal sweeps of illegal aliens as "un-American." And recently the Obama administration stripped the federal authority of Arizona's controversial Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to make immigration arrests.

Yet expect the public to oppose any so-called comprehensive immigration reform even more vehemently than it did George W. Bush's doomed 2007 proposals.

Why?

Conditions on the ground have changed drastically in the last two years.

First, the nation's unemployment rate is now over 9 percent. It may peak beyond 10 percent. In many western states, such as California, the jobless rate may climb even higher.

The old notion that "illegal immigrants pick the lettuce that Americans refuse to" is an ossified stereotype. In fact, today fewer than one out of 20 illegal aliens currently do farm labor. Most are engaged in construction or working in the service industry, or are homemakers with childcare responsibilities. While plenty of unemployed American citizens still may not yet wish to pick oranges, the jobless might consider taking jobs like hammering nails or working in restaurants.

Second, many states are broke. Taxes are rising. The public is questioning all sorts of government entitlement expenditures. In California, the latest budget crisis saw a $26 billion shortfall — at a time when some studies put the state's net health, housing, education, and criminal justice costs for some 3 million illegal aliens at more than $10 billion a year.

Yet illegal aliens who receive government help somehow can send money back home to Mexico.

with all the shit that's happened with the economy, recessions, and these g'damn "bailouts" -- which feels more like handing over billions to the fat cats on wallstreet -- things like illegal immigration that seemed like such a hot topic not to long ago have just about disappeared.... but it's still there, and it's certainly not helping.

it's time for our friday morning victor hanson moment, because i know you'd freak out without the illumination -- America's Obama Obsession

For 30 months the nation has been in the grip of a certain Obama obsession, immune to countervailing facts, unwilling to face reality, and loath to break the spell. But like all trances, the fit is passing, and we the patient are beginning to appreciate how the stupor came upon us, why it lifted, and what its consequences have been.

HOW OBAMA WON
Barack Obama was elected rather easily because, in perfect-storm fashion, five separate trends coalesced last autumn.

1) Obama was eloquent, young, charismatic — and African-American. He thus offered voters a sense of personal and collective redemption, as well as appealing to the longing for another JFK New Frontier figure. An image, not necessarily reality, trumped all.

2) After the normal weariness with eight years of an incumbent party and the particular unhappiness with Bush, the public was amenable to an antithesis. Bush was to be scapegoat, and Obama the beginning of the catharsis.

3) Obama ran as both a Clintonite centrist and a no-red-state/no-blue-state healer who had transcended bitter partisanship. That assurance allowed voters to believe that his occasional talk of big change was more cosmetic than radical.

4) John McCain ran a weak campaign that neither energized his base nor appealed to crossover independents. McCain turned off conservatives; many failed to give money, and some even stayed home on election day. Meanwhile, the media and centrists who used to idolize McCain's non-conservative, maverick status found Obama the more endearing non-conservative maverick.

5) The September 2008 financial panic turned voters off Wall Street and the wealthy, and allowed them to connect unemployment and their depleted home equity and 401(k) retirement plans with incumbent Republicans. In contrast, they assumed that Obama, as the anti-Bush, would not do more bailouts, more stimuli, and more big borrowing.

Take away any one of those factors, and Obama might well have lost. Imagine what might have happened had Obama been a dreary old white guy like John Kerry; or had Bush’s approvals been over 50 percent; or had Obama run on the platform he is now governing on; or had McCain crafted a dynamic campaign; or had the panic occurred in January 2009 rather than September 2008. Then the trance would have passed, and Obama, the Chicago community organizer and three-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, would have probably lost his chance at remaking America.

good stuff as always... personally, even with all the damn hysteria of the annointed one, i'm starting to think he'll be a one-term president -- but that's just me. *shrugs*

it's a cold, wet, and miserable looking friday morning here... hell man, it's been in the 40's and raining for the last three days, which totally sucks... but at least it's friday, and around here that usually means a quick hop into the milky land of victor hanson -- Obama's Theorems

Part of the problem with the president's agenda is that it is predicated on a number of radical ideas that are asserted, rather than proven. His experts and the elites assure us of a reality that most people in their own more mundane lives have not found to be true. In short, they may find Obama personally engaging, but they no longer believe what he says.

Take cap-and-trade legislation. We are asked to endanger an already-weak U.S. economy with a series of incentives and punishments to discourage the use of carbon-based fuels, with which — whether shale, natural gas, coal, or petroleum — America is rather well endowed.

A number of eminent scientists, along with environmental advocates such as Mr. Gore, lecture us that global warming as a manmade phenomenon is unimpeachable. But this month Americans are shivering through one of the coldest Octobers in memory, whether in Idaho, Colorado, or Michigan. They understand that over the last decade average global temperatures did not spike; in fact, they slightly decreased.

We are advised, of course, to look at larger trends to grasp the full extent of the looming disaster. But again, that is a more abstract proposition. And it is not one that is enhanced by elite condescension. In the here and now, the weather seems cooler, and it has for a decade. Voters, unless convinced otherwise, are not about to invest trillions on a theorem.

If borrowing money is the right way to get us out of the recession, the public wants to know why we do not call it "borrowing," rather than "stimulus." If well over a trillion dollars in new debt was supposedly essential to restarting the economy, why not three, four, or five trillion more to make recovery a sure thing? And if Americans know from first-hand experience that charging purchases on their credit cards is optional, quick, easy, and fun, but that paying them off is necessary, slow, difficult, and unpleasant, why would they think their government's charges would be any different?

good stuff as always, but after this last year or so i really find most of the news about the world and economy to be rather depressing.

i think the world needs more boobies.

it's time for our weekly dose of victor hanson, because it's a bit of a tradition at this point and... well, i know you'd be sad somewhere deep down inside if i didn't post it... here's the latest — Guru America

President Obama last week flew to Copenhagen to persuade the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 games to Chicago, his hometown. He and first lady Michelle Obama delivered their now well-known inspirational stories about their Chicago neighborhood experiences. They even had Oprah in tow, along with a number of other Chicago big shots.

Danish crowds thronged to see the celebrity president. The paparazzi had a field day. After little more than an hour-long presidential pep talk, Obama's Chicago whirlwind entourage jetted back home on Air Force One. A few hours later, the IOC rejected Chicago's we-are-the-world bid in the first round.

The rebuff of the well-received rock star Obama was a minor affair. But the snub was emblematic of all sorts of larger problems with America's new therapeutic foreign policy.

In the last ninth months, President Obama has used his youthful charisma and nontraditional background to wow nations abroad with his message that a new, friendly White House can export its trademark “hope and change.”

He has sent special envoys to dictators in Cuba and Syria. Yet the former has not granted more freedom to its oppressed people, and the latter has not stopped funding terrorists or sabotaging Lebanon.

In Venezuela, it seems the more Hugo Chávez praises nice-guy Obama, the more the dictator brags about plans to acquire rockets and develop a nuclear program (all the while jailing opponents).

Months ago, Obama also sent an olive branch to the Israel-hating, terrorist-sponsoring Iran. In reaction, the Iranians kept on building a new secret nuclear facility. The International Atomic Energy Agency acknowledges the regime now has the necessary expertise to build a bomb.

America recently sought an implicit grand deal with Russia's Vladimir Putin: We would halt missile-defense plans in nearby Eastern Europe, which Russia believes is still in its sphere of influence; he then would pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program. Putin, of course, loved the missile-defense part of the deal — but did nothing concrete to pressure his long-term Iranian friends. In the process, democratic but vulnerable Eastern European states have learned not to rely on the United States.

All these recent examples could be expanded, but suffice to say that former and present enemies now get more presidential attention than friends.

keep 'em coming, victor... heh.

i almost can't believe it's friday... man, what a week, and i'm pooped... anywho, here's the latest from my man, victor hanson -- The Obsolescence of a Slur

The charge of racism has been leveled against critics of President Obama's health-care reform by everyone from New York Times columnists, racial activists, and Democratic legislators to senior statesmen like Jimmy Carter ("It's a racist attitude"), Bill Clinton ("some . . . are racially prejudiced"), and Walter Mondale ("I don’t want to pick a person [and] say, 'He's a racist,' but I do think the way they’re piling on Obama . . . I think I see an edge in them that's a little bit different").

But are Obama's critics really racists?

It is a serious charge. If true, it means the hope of a color-blind society is essentially over after a half-century of civil-rights progress. If false, it means that we have institutionalized vicious smears as legitimate political tacticsh — and, in the process, discredited the entire dialogue that surrounds racial prejudice.

How do we determine the accuracy of the "racism" charges?

1) Is the criticism of Barack Obama unusual by recent presidential standards?

No. Bush hatred was even more intense. Furthermore, it very soon went from fierce partisanship into a deviant desire for the president's injury or death. Such derangement was tolerated or indeed enhanced by mainstream liberal establishment figures.

Alfred A. Knopf published a novel speculating about killing the president. The Toronto Film Festival gave a prize to a docudrama about an envisioned assassination of George W. Bush. His death became the stuff of a New York play, the dream of a Guardian columnist, and a common theme in the left-wing blogosphere.

A certain amount of this kind of venom was evident in the opposition to Bill Clinton, who was accused of everything from covering up murders to being a serial rapist. By any fair standard, nothing so far in the health-care pushback has approached the smears and dirt directed at Presidents Bush and Clinton.

2) Is there a systematic racialist attack on other black politicians and leaders?

No. Gov. David Paterson of New York, for example, alleges a new racism as the chief cause of his own decline. But it is President Obama himself, not white racists, who is pressuring Paterson not to run for reelection.

Charles Rangel cited racism for much of the public outrage over his behavior. But clearly his problems were caused by his own tax fraud, inability to tell the truth, and violations of ethical standards — which would have destroyed most other politicians long ago. There may well be some racially motivated criticism of prominent at-risk black politicians, but so far there is no evidence that anything other than their own actions accounts for their political troubles.

3) Is President Obama's agenda, or Obama himself, the problem?

Barack Obama could not have been elected without millions of white voters, coupled with a near-monolithic black base. To believe that innate racism has caused many of the millions who voted for him spontaneously to withdraw their support makes no sense.

Take moderates and independents who were once strong Obama supporters. Why would someone vote for a black man, then eight months later decide that he could not support a black man? Clearly, Obama's problems derive not from his race, but from his radical agenda for out-of-sight government spending, high taxes, mega-deficits, nationalized health care, cap-and-trade, and an apologetic foreign policy.

good stuff as always... personally, i think some people have been all too comfortable waving the "racist" card, and it's both transparently weak and insulting... just because i happen to not like one of Obama's plans, or proposed policies, doesn't make me a fucking racist... actually, for me, it makes people like Carter and Clinton look like total douchebags.

it's a weekly ritual that's been going on around here for the last year or more, and i'd hate to break with tradition... so here we go with the latest op/ed illumination from victor hanson -- A Fishy Tale

Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the delta to improve marine ecology.

The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats, and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing.

Environmentalists counter that the real cause of the cutoff is an ongoing drought. They argue there are too many claims on too little fresh water with no margin of safety in dry years like this one. The problem is not just saving tiny delta smelt or salmon, but a larger one of living within our means and not polluting our fragile ecosystem.

Emotion colors the arguments of both sides. The west side is not yet a "dust bowl," as claimed on Fox News, and San Francisco Bay and the delta will not turn stagnant, as some environmentalists fret. The majority of west-side land is still farmed, and the bay is far cleaner than it was decades ago.

The crisis is not over an entire valley, but instead a sizable part of it without regular irrigation deliveries. For those farmers and workers whose livelihoods depend on that parched acreage, the result is undeniably catastrophic.

All this should remind us that Americans have developed a bad habit of avoiding tough choices. Californians could build more dams and more canals, and farm with adequate irrigation, but that would mean fewer natural flowing rivers, fewer fish, and saltier deltas.

Few, though, will honestly acknowledge, "I want 10,000 acres of almonds, but I realize that will mean a slightly saltier delta and less marine life," or, on the flip side, "I vote for more delta smelt but understand that will mean fewer tomatoes."

Instead of making these bad/worse decisions, we dream on about a natural California, with plenty of rain, stuffed with 36 million affluent residents (most of them crammed near Los Angeles or San Francisco).

Amnesiac federal officials and judges likewise are just as unrealistic.

funny, but with all the news about the everybody walking out on the ravings of Ahmadinejad in the UN, or the 94 minute tirade of a crackhead... you'd think that victor would've jumped all over it, but i guess he's digesting it all and maybe will write an op/ed about it later. i hope.

the backlash is sharp as voters learn that Obama is not the man they thought he was --

No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11. We all knew what Obama's weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.

But given the unhappiness over the war, the September 2008 financial meltdown, the animosity toward Bush, and the lackluster Republican campaign, millions of moderates and conservative Democrats were willing to give the unconventional Obama a chance.

Voters wanted political change — anything other than the status quo. They warmed to the idea that in their generation America would elect its first black president. When the most partisan member of the U.S. Senate started sounding like the least partisan, they believed him.

There was a sense of reassurance that Obama was a healer. He was a transcendent figure that would bring us together at home and make us better liked, and perhaps thereby more secure, abroad. People assumed that his easy rhetoric was not a result of studied preparation or superficial style, but a natural reflection of honesty and sincerity. So Obama was elected and enjoyed quite a 90-day honeymoon in an atmosphere of promised transparency and togetherness. A "god," a Newsweek editor called him.

Now nearly half the country is not merely distrustful of him, but increasingly viscerally angry at him as well. Actually, "him" is a construct: At times there seems to be no "him." Instead, the people don't know whether the kindly Dr. Barack is their president, or his unpredictable double, Mr. Obama.

They never expected the president to show mastery of economic affairs or reveal much expertise in matters abroad, and accordingly were not disappointed when he did not. His critics concede that he inherited two wars and a dismal economy, though they argue that he may be making these bad situations far worse.

Instead, the real anger from independents arises over disappointment, false merchandising, and hypocrisy. It is real and deep — as is true of any animosity that arises from a sense of betrayal of former trust. You see, it took millions of Americans months of fair and judicious examination to conclude that Obama's real weaknesses were his once-advertised strengths: He seems not a healer at all; he is not particularly sincere; and he is not especially veracious. Someone other than the man who ran for president is sometimes occupying the Oval Office: The present Mr. Obama looks and sounds like the old Dr. Barack, but he surely does not act anything like the candidate who persuaded America.

good stuff as usual... i think there definitely is a lot of growing concern and some really pissed off people out there -- hell, i'm one of them -- and the underswell of discontent is growing... i was also rather disappointed to see former president Carter pulling out the race card in some interview -- sorry, but that's just a co-out and very weak... that's what a policitian goes to when there's nowhere else to go, because people aren't pissed because Obama is black, they're angry at what he's doing and the policies and agencas he's pushing for. duh.

well it's a day late, but better now then never, right? i normally post something on 9/11 every year to honor those that we lost on that fateful day... it's still a bit of a sad day for me, especially when i see the foot'age on tv and remember back... anywho, here's the latest op/ed from the infamous victor hanson -- Our National 9/11 Schizophrenia

Ninety-six months ago, 19 Islamic terrorists — led by Mohamed Atta, organized by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and ordered by Osama bin Laden — hijacked four American airliners. They destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, and murdered 2,974 people. The al-Qaeda–planned attack was the most lethal on the American homeland in our history.

In response, the United States quickly attacked and removed the Taliban government that had offered sanctuary to the killers. About 15 months later, in March 2003, America successfully invaded Iraq, deposed the dictator Saddam Hussein, and fostered a constitutional government in his place.

At home, a new Department of Homeland Security oversaw fresh counterterrorism measures. The government stepped up wiretaps and email intercepts of suspected terrorists. It established military tribunals, continued renditions of jihadists abroad, and inaugurated Predator-drone assassinations of terrorists along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Bush administration ordered the creation of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

All of these post-9/11 measures were debated in the congressional election campaigns of 2002, and during the presidential campaign of 2004. Incumbents responsible for such a muscular response to al-Qaeda were mostly reelected — given that, despite the steep human costs, the Taliban regime and Saddam Hussein were gone, democracies were in their places, and the United States had not suffered another attack when most experts had affirmed that such an event was inevitable.

In addition, almost immediately after the removal from power and later capture of Saddam Hussein, Pakistan put its nuclear proliferator, A. Q. Khan, under house arrest. Libya voluntarily surrendered its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and its facilities for manufacturing more. A peaceful “cedar revolution” in Lebanon led to the removal of long-standing Syrian occupation troops.

None of this was easy. Almost 5,000 Americans died in the two wars; over $1 trillion was spent. At home the country was torn apart in domestic acrimony. The last eight years have seen a resistance culture spring up, let by such as Ward Churchill, Michael Moore, Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan, and Joe Wilson — coupled with congressional fury in which senators have characterized our own troops as analogous to Pol Pot, Nazis, Communists, terrorists, and Saddam Hussein’s Baathists.

Today one-third of Democrats believe that President Bush was involved in the planning of September 11. Best-selling books have alleged that 9/11 was a planned government operation. Novels were published and movies screened envisioning the assassination of George W. Bush. Politicians as diverse as Robert Byrd, Al Gore, and John Glenn all compared the president or his policies to Nazis or Brownshirts. All that was in response to the losses in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo, in addition to the partisan advantage sought by discrediting the Bush presidency.

Now, on the eighth anniversary of the assault, the world has changed almost beyond belief — even if many circumstances that led to the attack on America have not. The Taliban regime and Saddam are still gone. Democracies still function in their place. America remains safe from attack. Yet rarely do we credit anyone for such facts.

great stuff as usual... i almost can't believe it's been eight years since 9/11.

The Second World War — 70 Years Later
Did any good come from such a monstrous bloodletting?

Seventy years ago this week, on Sept. 1, 1939, the Second World War broke out with the German invasion of Poland. Thousands of books have been written about the war. And by now revisionist historians of revisionist historians engage in an endless cycle of disagreement over why the war started, how it ended, and what it all meant.

Here are a few more controversial thoughts on the horrific conflict that killed 60 million people, wrecked Europe, and set the stage for an ensuing half-century Cold War.

Many blame Germany’s aggressions on the supposedly harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty following the First World War, which stripped a defeated Germany of territory, required reparations, and dismantled its military.

But Versailles was far more lenient than what the Germans had planned for Britain and France should they have won in 1918. And it was not nearly as harsh as the terms the Germans imposed on a defeated Russia under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918, before they lost the larger conflict.

A better reason there was a Second World War, but not a Third, is that Germany was occupied and monitored after 1945 — unlike following its previous defeat in 1918.

Most give the Red Army the most credit for wrecking the German army. That is absolutely true: Two of three German soldiers who died in the war were killed on the murderous Eastern Front, a larger theater of conflict than all others combined.

Yet despite the superhuman heroism of millions of brave Russian soldiers, Stalin’s Soviet government was largely an amoral actor throughout the war. It, along with Hitler’s Germany, invaded neutral Poland in September 1939. Three months later, it attacked tiny Finland.

Until the day it was invaded by Hitler, Stalin’s Soviet Union had provided Nazi industry with much of its strategic materials used to defeat and occupy democratic Western Europe. Communist Russia renounced most of its wartime promises, guaranteeing that a war that started to free Eastern Europe from totalitarian government ended by ensuring it under Soviet control.

Lately, the role of the United States in World War II has been downplayed, since we came late to it, and suffered the fewest military and civilian casualties of the major Allies. But no other power fought on so many fronts in so many crucial ways: strategic air campaigns against Germany and Japan; invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Western Europe, and the Pacific islands; submarine and surface fleet operations against Germany and Japan; and massive convoys and supplies to Britain, China, and the Soviet Union.

Likewise, it has become fashionable to diminish the British role, given that by 1943 its manpower reserves were exhausted and the bulk of the later fighting against the Axis was conducted by Russian and American troops.

In fact, Britain nearly alone saved Western civilization between September 1939 and June 1941. From May 1940, it fought almost alone against the entire continent of occupied Europe, when the United States was still isolationist and the Soviet Union was actively helping the Nazi cause. One of the great mysteries of the war is how an isolated Britain survived the Blitz, German submarines, Gen. Erwin “the Desert Fox” Rommel, and the industrial might of the entire European continent until Russia and America joined its cause.

a bit longer than most posts, i know, but damned if it's not worth the read... especially while enjoying some damned good coffee on this beautifoo friday morning.