Is Obama a Socialist?

[gagged_Louise]

The UK has never bowed down to pressure from Europe when it comes to things that matter to us and our closest Allies. The USA ought to be thankful for that fact, because if the UK had not pushed them as hard as the United States were pushing, Sadam would still be in charge if Iraq and Both of our countries would not be over in Afghanistan getting our asses kicked, and for the Brits it is for the second time in history.

Sorry, you seem to have missed the plot, and as you're clearly worked up I'm not going to make any further replies on this line. At least, you missed the real gist of what I was saying. The UK may have acted headstrong sometimes but not once sxince the Suez crisis (1956) have British leaders attempted to do gunboat diplomacy by openly or indirectly invoking their *own* nuclear arms (no, not the US war capabilities or American nukes). And actually the UK wouldn't have picked to go to war with Hitler in 1937, probably not even if Churchill had been PM at the ime, unless Hitler had acted like a complete fool and forced his hand, which he wouldn't do.

I'm picking that up because 1937 - or Munich in 1938 - is often cited as a point when Britain (and France. but hey we all know the French can't fight don't we?) should have spoken loud and saved the world, and as a precedent for "staring the bad guys down" and taking on a first-strike war against a tyrant. The trouble is, it's so unlikely any British leader would have declared war on Hitler in 1937 even if he had been perfectly aware of that Hitler was planning a new Europe-wide war.. Why? Because England was nowhere near ready for a war in terms of armament, anyone could see that, You picked up speed a good deal in the years up to 1939 and kept running: more and better airplanes, most of all, and a wider awareness that the war was coming. In 1937, Hitler would have crushed you and that was part of the cold reality behind why Hitler wasn't addressed the way Nazi majors are sometimes spoken to in the movies. I admit it would have been morally right, but the point is that doing it - declaring war in 1937 - is just a rear mirror dream: Britain would not have done it, and if she did she would have lost that war.

The stuff I'm discussing is when a country tries to rearrange the part of the world close to her own shores mainly by her own design, simply by resort to her own force, peaceful (economic) or military. Britain didn't quite do that one single time with Europe at least post 1920, and most of the time didn't even try. In the colonial world yes, sometimes, in Europe no, not simply grabbing the reins and reordering things to your liking.. Neither in 1914 nor in 1939 did Britain go to war on its own, by its own terms and out of a decision that was simply her own decision, triggered by none other than the immediate reasons for the war. Which is substantially what the USA would do in 1941, did in 2003, and would have done in 1950 and 1962 if the Korea and Cuba crisises had led to direct, hot face-to-face confrontations.

Suppose the Red Brigades, the commie terrorist group,from Italy, had struck in London in the early 80s, perhaps in collusion with the IRA, and there had been some kind of spurious evidence that they had acted in connivance with the Italian government at the time (stranger things have happened for sure!). Does anyone think Margaret Thatcher would have spoken boldly to Rome, demanded an unconditional excuse by the Italian cabinet before anything ahd been found out - or a confronation? That she would have kicked off a war with Italy over the affair, even if the British public were as furious as they were with Argentina? Or even threatened Italy the way Bush spoke of Iraq up to March 2003? Nope, and that's the difference in how political action and political language work in America and in Europe.