Pablo Cortez

A few specific answers to some identifiable questions---

1) Vichy France was neither set up by Nazi Germany nor was it an ally. Petain represented the body of Frenchmen who believed that German victory was inevitable and for that reason should surrender. Hitler postponed any settlement with France rewarding Franco and Mussolini hoping that France would join the Axis, which they never did. Depite this, Churchill ordered the bombing of the French fleet in North Africa. Vichy broke diplomatic relations (which would not have existed had they been an ally of Germany), but despite significant popular support for declaring war, Petain chose to preserve a neutrality that was friendly to Germany (much like Sweden). There were no German forces in Algeria or Morocco in 1942 until after the beginning of Torch. All the opposition to Torch came from the Vichy French who felt they were being sneak-attacked.

2) Some responders seem to have WWI and WWII confused. Wilson took the USA into war against the Kaiser, not Hitler. His reasons were not Belgium (as the British claimed for themselves), not the Lusitania (sunk in 1915, two years before the opening of hostilities between Germany and the USA), not even because of the Zimmerman Telegram. It was simply a case of "follow the money". US financial and manufacturing circles held so much British and French debt that J.P. Morgan and his friends and the armament industry demanded US intervention to save them from probable bankruptcy following a likely Central Powers victory in 1918. That piece of hypocrisy, his double standards at the Paris peace diktats, and his secretive negotiations with the British over the trial of Irish rebels in 1916 to help get himself re-elected are my reasons for adjudging him the very worst American president, and one of the most disastrous world leaders in the history of the World (his the biggest share of blame for making WWII and its aftermath inevitable.

3) Contrary to Bluesman, I specifically did not condemn or even disapprove of all the interventions I listed. I wrote then that some of them were fully warranted. It's our shame that some weren't made (like Rwanda). Further, I believe that we would be fully justified in intervening in Darfur (but China wouldn't like that) or places where there is a real crisis.

4)Isolationism is mostly a figment of the interventionists's imagination. Throughout the 20's and 30's the USA was fully engaged in international trade agreements, humanitarian assistance, and arms negotiations. Feeling they had been betrayed by the Allies and Wilson, most of the American public was convinced that it would be best to avoid another European war that was none of their business. They found it very hard to criticize Hitler for his demanding the same right to self-determination for Germans that Versailles claimed for Czechs, Romanians, Italians, etc. Austria, the Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, Upper Silesia, South Tyrol, and West Prussia were solidly German in population had had expressed the desire to be a part of Germany long before Hitler came to power. It was Allied refusal to deal justly with this issue that gave Hitler much of his appeal to the German voters. While they might not know the details, most Americans believed in the right of self-determination---it was, after all, the basis of the American Revolution. If Hitler wanted to move all the European Jews to Madagascar, it was better than killing 20,000,000 of them the way Lenin and Stalin had done in Ukraine and other agricultural regions---and the Poles had first proposed the idea, so his views weren't unique to Nazis. Jim Crow America, widespread eugenic programs, and the system of Indian reservations were Hitler's model for many of the Nuremberg Laws.

5)France is France whether it is royal; revolutionary; Napoleonic; republican; or Vichy. It was gratitude to France and recognition for its decisive role in winning American independence that gave created the romance behind the declaration of WWI "Layfayette, we are here!"
The GIs didn't go to support royal France nor republican France, they went to support France in its supposed hour of need as France had supported America in its own. France is difficult for America because in many ways it is so like America. Both nations tend to place themselves in the center of the world (can you spell c-h-a-u-v-i-n-i-s-m?), both enjoy what they consider their dominant role in culture (hence the food fight between Anglophones and Francophones in everything from Disneyland to sparkling wines), both are idealistic and simultaneously cynical, and both are willing to go it alone. There is one significant difference, there is no such thing as a processed product called French Cheese.
Skeptics of French importance in the Revolution need to read up on DeGrasse's fleet, Rochanbeau's army, and Franklin's diplomatic mission.

6)Plain speakers used to say that the purpose of NATO was
"---to keep the Germans down,
---the French up,
---the Russians out,
---and the Americans in".
With the Germans dying out, the French and Americans doing their own thing, and the USSR dead, what is the role of NATO?

7)The 50+ years of Iraqi occupation is a time-line being posed by many of the neocons and members of the Bush administration using the German and Korean occupations as a frame of reference. The huge bases now under construction there are also obviously intended to last beyond 2009. Before planning such an extended colonial era, we ought to ask the British how they enjoyed the 1919-1932 period when they created Iraq, occupied it, and fought a long insurgency capped by history's first heavy duty aerial bombardment of cities like Baghdad(the piddling efforts of the Zeppelins in WWI were miniscule by comparison). Oh, by the way, after all that nation-building and establishing of democratic institutions, Iraq first sought alliance with Hitler, then turned to various kings and dictators before settling down with Saddam. So why do we expect to be more succesful? We have an even greater disadvantage than the British, our uncritical support of every anti-Arab Israeli policy.

8)What I am proposing as a policy is what most of the world has always done---if you have differences with somebody, talk with them. If Bush doesn't like Iran's or Syria's policies, don't just fire rhetorical bombast at them, try finding out if there are any common interests. Diplomacy is not demanding unconditional surrender of everyone, friend (France and Germany) or foe (Hamas and Iran) alike.

9)Some aske, "What would you have the military do?". Here's my answer.
Since the Federal Government has been clearly unwilling to deal with the greatest invasion in American history (20,000,000+illegal immigrants), I would like to see a president willing to use some of our military might and expertise in closing the frontiers. The Border Patrol is a joke. If the Chinese were ever to decide to do some serious damage to the USA they will simply start subsidizing groups seeking a reversal of the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War. Some crazies along that line already exist---they seek the "liberation" of what they call "Atzlan", the Aztec name for what is today the southwestern USA. The Chinese wouldn't need intercontinental ballistic missiles when terrorism can be so destabilizing.