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Until I figure out how to un-close it, at least.

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So yeah.

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Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: May 01, 2014, 02:06:40 pm

[mainiac]

Not punishing Assad for the use of his chemical weapons was clearly refusing to cash a check written before.

But we did cash that check!  Yes we showed some flexibility but the underlying principle of what we insisted on was what we got.

And this is happening even as American military and intelligence personnel are openly aiding Syrian rebels in Southern Syria.  This isn't a Putin-like not hiding it well affair; American people in American uniforms are openly supplying weapons and training to some elements within Syria.  The chemical weapons thing was an agreement on that one single issue, not a blanket agreement with the Assad regime.

[RedKing]

This debate is probably best offloaded to the Arab spring thread.

But it should be noted that you're not going to see something like that in Ukraine/Crimea.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Ha, well Brennan did make a rather public trip to Kiev the other week.

[vagel7]

I was not comparing the guy to Hitler. I was saying how western leaders would go to the end of time and give almost everything up, just to avoid a conflict. Putin knows that and as such knows how to play the game.

This ties in with McCain's comment on the ultimatiums. At least this time western leaders are giving the illusion of threat to Putin. They did not even do that to Hitler. West is downplaying its legitimacy.

Again, I am not comparing Hitler to Putin, I am just comparing pre-WWII and nowadays western leaders. They want to play everything so by the book that whenever somebody decides to break the rules a bit, they all get confused and can't comprehend how somebody does not want to play by the rules, yet they still just keep sending them letters and frowning upon it.

[mainiac]

I was not comparing the guy to Hitler. I was saying how western leaders would go to the end of time and give almost everything up, just to avoid a conflict. Putin knows that and as such knows how to play the game.

Yeah the French totally should of declared war as soon as Hitler annexed the Austria with the Austrian people's consent.  That would show the world an important lesson about peace and self-determination.  Do you think the French should have settled for just breaking Germany into client puppets or should they have insisted on the de-industrialization of Germany and population controls too?

When Hitler reneged on the Munich agreement and annexed territory without it's people's consent for the first time, the world did notice.  France and the UK went to full conscription and war economies.  Even the US started mobilizing key industries.  The French and British gave an unconditional guarantee of Polish territorial independence which they backed up with war when it came down to it.

Not everything is a prelude to a world war.  Ever heard of the Turkish annexation of Hatay in 1937?  Polish annexation of the Czeck border railroads?  Nationalist Chinese strongarming of the Gaunxi clique?  American occupation of Iceland and the French islands off Canada?  That's just picking examples from the same decade and in all four examples "appeasement" worked perfectly at avoiding conflict.  Appeasement had even worked recently with the Germans!  In the 20s the democratic government of Germany had made territory claims on Poland that the League of nations decided in Germanies favor with French support.  The result of this was a strengthening of the legitimacy of the democratic constitution in Germany and a reduction in tensions between Poland and Germany.  But the history channel doesn't do specials on territory disputes that were settled calmly.

[Darvi]

The history channel doesn't do specials that don't involve aliens, illuminati, or illuminati aliens, so that's kind of a moot point.

[vagel7]

They waged war only after they let Nazi Germany rip off a piece of Czechoslovakia. I don't remember there being consent from the government of the country that was ripped to pieces. I don't even remember anybody asking them if they would be okay on giving land to a dictator just because the UK and France wanted to avoid war. This also left Czechoslovakia weakened and easy pickings.

You had a nice post, but totally forgot how world powers were okay in sacrificing a sovereign country just so that they would not need to wage war.

There is also absolutely no need to try and offend people. If that is what you were trying to do with you "history channel" quip.

[scrdest]

Which territory claims? Because there were a couple of pro-Polish insurrections in western territories in the 20s.

And annexation of Czech railroads makes sense in the context of Poland annexing a part of Czech Republic while Hitler was annexing the rest, which was a massive, massive dick move by us towards Czechs, especially since Poland pretty much just came out of the exact same situation after 123 years.

[Guardian G.I.]

The history channel doesn't do specials that don't involve aliens, illuminati, or illuminati aliens, so that's kind of a moot point.

Spoiler: Television related off-topic (click to show/hide)

Weird. The localized version of History Channel transmitted by Russian satellite TV operators shows nothing except programs about American businessmen who repair old cars/sell antique items/whatever.

[Sheb]

Actually, that's one bright spot of the current situation. Back then when Hitler took the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia's neighbours were all like "Hey, we want a piece too", with Poland grabbing the railroads and Hungary claiming a piece too.

Now Europe is united. Too bad Ukraine was still outside, but at least Poland and Romania didn't decide to annex part of Ukraine this time.

[mainiac]

They waged war only after they let Nazi Germany rip off a piece of Czechoslovakia.

Yes?  Do you think that they were capable of just marching into Berlin in 1938 and telling Hitler to do what they said?  Did they have a time machine they could use to remove the German troops from the Czeck territories?  The French and British did everything they could, going to full mobilization and making it clear that the next annexation would mean war.

[scrdest]

Actually, that's one bright spot of the current situation. Back then when Hitler took the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia's neighbours were all like "Hey, we want a piece too", with Poland grabbing the railroads and Hungary claiming a piece too.

Now Europe is united. Too bad Ukraine was still outside, but at least Poland and Romania didn't decide to annex part of Ukraine this time.

Not just railroads, a bunch of regions on the border which were disputed.

[Guardian G.I.]

Actually, that's one bright spot of the current situation. Back then when Hitler took the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia's neighbours were all like "Hey, we want a piece too", with Poland grabbing the railroads and Hungary claiming a piece too.

Now Europe is united. Too bad Ukraine was still outside, but at least Poland and Romania didn't decide to annex part of Ukraine this time.

If I recall correctly, back in March some Hungarian nationalists from Jobbik reportedly proclaimed that Hungary should annex Ukrainian territories that were once part of Hungary (Transcarpathia with the town of Uzhgorod). The Jobbik party isn't in control of Hungary, though.

[vagel7]

They waged war only after they let Nazi Germany rip off a piece of Czechoslovakia.

Yes?  Do you think that they were capable of just marching into Berlin in 1938 and telling Hitler to do what they said?  Did they have a time machine they could use to remove the German troops from the Czeck territories?  The French and British did everything they could, going to full mobilization and making it clear that the next annexation would mean war.

Well then they held true to their final threat. The thing is, would our current world leaders do the same?

And even if you do look at it like that, Hitler could of kept his annexed territories with the full consent of the Allies if he would not have annexed any further.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I think Ukrainian Ranger will be very comforted by the next round of ultimatums as he watches the Eastern part of his country collapse into chaos.

I don't know if that is chaos... It is more like nonsense. The separatists\terrorists\protesters\whatever are at most one thousand strong... And yet government doesn't stop them. On other hand terrorists either unable or unwilling to spread, too