[From article]
You can play it either way, but "a plague on both their houses" didn't cut it in 1941, and it doesn't cut it in 2015.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 gave Hitler room to conquer Western Europe without fear of an attack on his rear. Stalin was a committed member of the pact until Hitler broke it, at which point Stalin brazenly pivoted to the Allies and demanded rights as a) a full partner and b) an aid recipient. FDR might have said, "Boy, watching Adolph and Uncle Joe battle it out would be great – fascists vs. communists, and no American boots on the ground."
[. . .]
FDR made a great many difficult and ugly decisions – aside from interning Japanese-American citizens and not bombing the railroad tracks to Auschwitz. In this context, he made two for what he thought was the greater good: ignoring Stalin's crimes, and committing all the resources necessary to achieve the unconditional surrender of Axis forces. He put the American economy on a war footing, drafted millions of soldiers, and dropped tons of bombs that often didn't distinguish between military forces and civilians. He believed that the faster the war ended, the better it was for the civilians and everyone else. It wasn't a perfect understanding – particularly for the Jews waiting for deliverance. But it was his understanding, and Truman concurred. Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a calculated decision to take the casualties, including civilians, up front.
[. . .]
The Cold War was the diplomatic way of boxing in the USSR until it collapsed.
That is not a tactical proposal for coming to grips with the dual horrors of ISIS and Iran. It is a strategic one.
The United States, President Obama, has to decide who the primary enemy is and how best to stop that one. Vladimir Putin posits that ISIS comes first, and requests – begs – the West to take on Sunni jihadists while giving Shiite jihadists a pass.
[. . .]
It is untenable for the U.S. to continue to dither.
[. . .]
Spending half a billion dollars training small groups of Syrians who lie when they pledge to fight ISIS rather than Assad; failing to provide weapons to the Kurds, who constitute the only serious fighting force south of Turkey; doctoring CENTCOM intelligence; and hectoring Putin – as the president did and continues to do – are also doomed to failure.
[. . .]
Thomas Hobbes is the prophet. "Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
If that works for you, fine. Otherwise, it is time to choose and get on with the war that is already raging around us.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/09/hitler_or_stalin_the_case_for_choosing.html
September 30, 2015
Hitler or Stalin? The Case for Choosing
By Shoshana Bryen
