Sally Redux

We find ourselves in an Orwellian cycle of war against shifting opponents. The true causes are largely economic.

I think people have to ask themselves whether they want to get sucked into it all.

Regarding "What should have been done about Germany in 1938?" some measure of blame lay with the heavy war reparations demanded after WWI. Keep pushing people and extremism will arise.

Giantaxe

That is that poster's modus operandi. Best to ignore people of his ilk and concentrate on discussing the input of others.

Sally Redux

Lancet estimate of cost of Iraq War:

"more than 116,000 civilian lives in the space of eight years and cost the US about £530 billion"

I used The Telegraph as it is not 'leftie'.

Iraq war 10 years on: at least 116,000 civilians killed - Telegraph

FlaviusAetius

This has always been the debate - and there are two sides. The one says the years of Chamberlain's appeasement policies bought time to rearm (my father joined the RAF in 1936 and wasn't de-mobbed until 1945).

The other, and very intriguing view is that if Chamberlain had encouraged Poland to accommodate Germany on Danzig, with railway rights across the Corridor, WWII might have been avoided, at least for a while. Germany was talking about a military alliance with Poland aimed at the USSR. That would certainly have been much more in Poland's interest than in relying on an Anglo-French guarantee that bought it what it bought it until 1991.

[By the way, I would be interested in knowing how you KNEW that Powell's presentation to the UN on Iraq was a pack of lies before HE knew it. Was Powell stupid, uninformed, or a totally unprincipled liar? Did you have better information available than the highest levels of our government? Don't forget, intelligence is seldom absolutely correct, and policymakers have to decide on whether act on the best information available or not, and face consequences either way.]

CelticRover

Refresher debate of the times:

http://publish.dvlabs.com/democracyn...n2013-0206.mp4

kimilseung

I think he (Powell) says that he was misinformed and misled. A little look across history told us to question the presentation. Do you remember it, fuzzy pictures of Taji with claims given in a not very confident manner. A number of voices from inside the administration (Greg Thielmann) and the UN team (Scott Ritter) that made statements to the contrary before the invasion.

robin1234

I think Powell and colleagues, including Rumsfield, Cheney etc. were unprincipled liars. The U.S. and UK governments must have known there were either no WMDs, or only degraded, older, legacy WMDs.

OK I didn't "know" but the indications pointed strongly. Scott Ritter, UN weapons inspector, came to the college where I worked for public seminars and classroom invitations etc. I met him and found his evidence and narrative compelling. This was an interesting case of actually meeting an expert witness and being convinced, rather than just reading about an issue and soon forgetting....I believe the US government tried to implicate him in a child sex case but not sure of the details of that.

Giantaxe

Powell has subsequently admitted that giving that speech was the worst moment of his political career. He knew that the evidence was at least partially fabricated, but chose to give the speech anyway. It's a tragedy that he didn't have the guts to resign instead.

robin1234

I hadn't read that, about Germany contemplating an alliance with Poland. I'd be sceptical about it working out for Poland long term, since we know Hitler despised Poles as much as he hated and feared Jews. And if Poland had thrown in their lot with Germany, presumably France and the UK would no longer have felt bound by their earlier guarantees to Poland (although, as you say, they weren't worth a lot to Poland anyway. ) I'd be interested to read more about that, though.

CelticRover

I was aware of a German/Polish non aggression pact from 1934, even although Germany had been planning to invade Poland as far back as the 1920's, but not aware of any mutual military alliance.

The Avalon Project : The British Bluebook

robin1234

Well, apparently in 1938, having annexed Czechoslovakia, Germany proposed a renewal of the 1934 pact with Poland, with the addition of a German road and rail corridor at Gdansk, so the Germans could easily move troops and materiel from Germany proper into East Prussia, presumably in preparation for invasion of the Soviet Union. Poland declined, and the rest is history.

zzrmark

Somewhat ironic that, after all the 'kerfuffle', Germany is now the economic powerhouse of Europe

FlaviusAetius

You are certainly entitled to your opinion regarding the former SecDef and VP.

As someone who worked in Army Intel for several years in the later 1960s, I can tell you that Intelligence gathering and interpretation is an inexact thing. Handlers have their agents (and so do journalists, for that matter) whose sources of information may have greater or lesser veracity. People take sides with their sources and these debates continue up the line.

If you read the background to Powell's presentation to the UN, you will see that there were huge disagreements within the Administration as to where the truth lay. No one knew for sure - and no one could. If the Iraqis had the capability of reconstituting biological or chemical agents in a short period of time, did they "have" WMD? If - as they did - they refused to allow the inspections required of them under UN mandates, could we responsibly walk away from that potential danger?

As for Ritter, after he wasn't given the green light for his more aggressive inspection routine in Iraq he did a 180 and became the antiwar hero who did the college tour and wrote a lot of books on the subject before he went out of circulation in 2011.

CelticRover

WMD or not, the U.S. was going into Iraq come hell or high water. The notion of ruining Powell's sterling record and credibility was of no concern to the cadre who hatched and carried out the invasion.

Giantaxe

Vanity Fair did a pretty good (and long) job of exposing the White House's lies on WMD and how they threw Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame over a bus after Wilson debunked the Niger yellowcake "intelligence":

Craig Unger on Yellowcake Uranium | Vanity Fair