Originally Posted by
Excargodog
You believing that other potential Russian leaders wouldn’t have done the same thing had they been in charge is totally bonkers. And like MOST Americans, I’m far more concerned about domestic problems than I am about European ones.
Europe has more than adequate population and financial resources to protect Europe against Russia - whoever happens to be the Russian leader - SHOULD THEY CHOOSE TO USE THEM. I do not regard them opting to spend their resources on other things as creating an obligation on our part to do the job for them.
False equivalencies with slavery (which the Europeans also had - especially in their African colonies - or of the Holocaust (which IIRC was lead by Germany and Austria with the assistance of fascist parties throughout Europe) was yet another example of the fecklessness of European politics:
It wasn’t just Jeff Davis that is responsible for slavery, it isn’t just Hitler that is responsible for the Holocaust (and that was our legal position at the post WW2 war trials) and it isn’t just Putin that let this war happen, however happy such a superficial belief makes other people who share that belief feel.
Do you believe WWI was ENTIRELY the fault of the Bosnian who killed Archduke Ferdinand?
Book recommendations.
"Black Earth" by Timothy Snyder
"Hitlers Willing Executioners" by Daniel Goldhagen
In an attempt to add some insight to your post----
A large town/small city in Poland that I have spent some time in has a comparatively recent memorial erected for the memory of 16 men (one was only 16 years old) who were hung by the Germans in 1944.
The memorial makes reference to Hitlerowskich & Hitlerowskiego regarding whom tortured and invaded respectively.
As you may surmise invoking Hitler translates as Nazi. In an official act of political correctness the memorial diplomatically places the blame for this crime on the ephemeral "nazis".
What a crock.
The men were murdered by Germans. Period.
But just like your referenced legal position taken by the USA, Poland doesn't want to offend their neighbor to the west. Gotta move forward and all that, doncha know.
Just as former SS officers can be useful rocket engineers.
As Goldhagen emphasizes in his book, the Holocaust was conceived by and perpetuated by the German nation. But it was Hitler who had the vision and harnessed the national culture and deep prejudices to act on his vision.
In Snyder's book there is a chapter titled Auschwitz. In it Snyder argues that by making Auschwitz the face of the entire Holocaust it makes the crime politically manageable for Germany. It obscures the logistical enormity of what happened and how widespread it was in all facets of German activity. Hitlerowski indeed.
Only military defeat stopped furtherance of the holocaust and the next planned phase: Generalplan Ost. Had that actually occurred add another 50 plus million to those murdered.
As a sidenote and relevant to today, the above is recent enough that there are lots of thoughtful people who do not share your desire for Germany to create a bigger and more powerful army. The wish is for Germany to be a participant in what was once referred to as a "security community". Not a new Prussian powerhouse.
To make the Marshall Plan work a military alliance was needed so everyone would play fair. A security community that, yes, will face Soviet aggression, but also make sure the murderous wars between the non-soviet controlled states become a thing of the past.
NATO was, and is, much more than just a deterrence to Russia. It was also to create a peace between its members. A "security community".