The Kapitein is entitled to believe whatever he wants to believe about the relative strengths of fascism and of the "antiwar movements" in Britain and the United States, or about Diana West's views on whatever.  But he is not entitled to misrepresent what I wrote here. 

I commented on a single statement from a perceptive Flemish lady as reported by Diana West.  I certainly did NOT write that "the average American household was more accustomed to war than their European equivalents".  What a ridiculous assertion to make, and how dishonest to make it.  I am not going to repeat what I wrote, and anyone who wants to free himself from KA-induced misperceptions better re-read what I wrote.

The comment of Diana West (or if you will the Flemish lady),  concerned a comparison between the difference in war experience of (a) citizens in occupied Europe on the Western front, and (b) citizens in Britain and the United States.  I repeat it was a very perceptive comment.

By contrast, the Kapitein keeps on inventing ridiculous straw men.  In his earlier commentary, the biggest strawman was "civilians don't count". In his latest it is the already-mentioned  "the average American household.....European equivalents". 

It would help if people could free themselves from expressions of infantile anti-American and anti-European feelings, and focus on the subtleties and arguments to be found in the articles and comments presented.

 

I'm truly surprised by those posters rallying around Diana West's ridiculous and propagandistic comments. The scale of the anti-war movements in both Great Britain and the United States was enormous, even when the governments of both began realising that Germany was intent on aggressive expansion. Many have documented these movements and argued that they in fact dwarf the protests against American involvement in Vietnam. If anything, the leaders in Washington and London, particularly FDR and Churchill were far-sighted, not the common man-on-the-street. Had American public and political opinion been otherwise, I'm certain that an American contingent would have fought alongside the BEF in 1940. Precious little was grassroots about war service until it was already too late. Yet pro-Fascist sentiment was fairly rampant, even in Canada.

 

Had Germany been permitted to occupy Western Europe unopposed, and had treaties been signed, etc., Hitler would have had access to an atomic bomb and state-of-the-art rockets within a few years. Japan was even farther ahead with its atomic programme, and had war broken out later rather than sooner - which it would've - the consequences would be terrible to imagine, for Washington and New York as much as London and Paris.

 

Even more surprising is marcfrans' willingness to buy into the "false revisionisms" and "smokescreens" offered by Diana West. As if the average American household was more accustomed to war than their European equivalents! From Great Britain to the Soviet Union, the "home" front was more than merely receiving news that a loved one was killed, or working in the munitions factories - one lived with air raids, rocket attacks and even occupation by soldiers.

 

I suppose it is natural for Europeans and Americans to regard WWII differently, but the degree of dishonesty, ignorance and downright resentment spewing from the American and pro-American commentators on this blog is ludicrous. I also see that certain commentators are still attempting to project onto me false loyalties and affinities. As if I gave a solitary fig (the real word is one character longer) about what the Benelux resistance did or did not do.

Well said sir!

Someone needed to tell that blowhard Kapitein Andre what a complete clown he is.

You nailed it when you said: "you are the poster boy for what Americans find disgusting with many Europeans".

 

 

@ traveller

 

http://www.hms.org.uk/nelsonsnavyspirit.htm

 

The rest of the website is well worth the read.

Diana West quoted a perceptive Flemish lady who said that for many West Europeans WW2 was largely a civilian matter of personal survival, not of national sacrifice (like in Britain and the USA).  These countries had nothing to 'decide' about any longer, and for their citizens the war became essentially a matter of personal survival. 

That lady was indeed perceptive, and the Kapitein's comment (on this specific point) is a pure smokescreen.   In a very short time of a few weeks, the German army controlled the Benelux countries and a big chunk of France  (besides occupations elsewhere in Europe).   Their peoples had no choices to make and were essentially reduced to a modern form of 'slavery' and of muteness.  By contrast, the British declaration of war, after Germany's invasion of Poland, was a belated but conscious and 'voluntary' decision to "sacrifice".  Obviously, it was based on a sense of needed sacrifice to ensure survival in the future.  It was based on a certain view of what the future would be like if the nazis remained unopposed any longer in the West.  And, obviously, given the realities of geography, the American decision to enter the war in Europe was even more a conscious chosen "sacrifice" (whatever the possible and disparate underlying motivations). 

The importance of West's or the Flemish Lady's comment is NOT that "civilians don't count".  No, the comment is about the (a) importance of the decisions or nondecisons that civilians make (e.g. in this case before the 'coming' war) and (b) how the experiences of civilians help shape their future decisions/nondecisions.

Nobody is served by engaging in false revisionisms and smokescreens about the past, nor about the present.

 

 

 

Kapitein Andre, please, the "resistance" was hardly equal to a full military response costing the lives of hundred of thousands of young soldiers. It wasn't like European countries didn't have a decade to figure Hitler out before he rolled out his troops.  Most of them sat on their asses and buried their heads in the sand, not so different from the attitude that is in play now while the fascist EU sucks all aspects of democracy out of Europe. And, you've forgotten to mention the collaborators like Vichy France or Mussolini's Italy.

 

After decades of systemic anti-American attitudes such as yours it shouldn't come as a shock to you that most of us Americans don't care enough to assist Europeans again as you slide into dhimmitude and EU fascism.

Oh, and, I would have thought that the London and Madrid train bombings would have given Europeans some insights into what 9/11 and Israel's experiences with terrorists have been about. It didn't seem to stick in your pea brain.  Whatever your snide point is, besides its swipe at Americans and Israelis, you are the poster boy for what Americans find disgusting with many Europeans. Rant all you want against Americans, we aren't stuck in your EU hell hole.  

West: But not necessarily regarded as such in the same way by its native populations. Nearby Belgium and Holland, for example, didn't field armies after they were swiftly occupied by Nazi Germany.

 

Both of these countries did in fact field active resistance movements. Neither had the opportunity - for obvious logistical reasons - to field a standing army for any significant period of time. France, which was maintaining the world's largest army, collapsed at a commensurate rate and has a questionable history of resistance against the Germans.

 

West: ...for many Europeans on this Western front the war was more a civilian matter of personal survival than the military exercise in national sacrifice that the United States and Great Britain in particular underwent.

 

Highly doubtful Diana. Moreover, if civilians don't count (someone has been watching a looped DVD of 300), then I suppose that the Jews have nothing to complain about. Nor the Roma. Nor the Londoners. Nor the Filippinos. Etc., etc.

 

West: ...such basic experiential differences still play out in ways both obvious and subtle in the American and European disconnect on sundry issues and attitudes – the fissures Americans airily dismiss as anti-Americanism, or perhaps see as doctrinal differences (eroding but historical) over socialism and capitalism.

 

Bullsh*t on a stick. The Belgians and Dutch have very long and distinguished military histories. So do the Russians, who did the lion's share of fighting against the Germans and remained under Soviet rule. Europe was even well-versed in terrorism, be it pub bombings in England, urban warfare in Northern Ireland, car bombs in Spain, cafe bombs and assassinations in France, etc (Germany, Greece, Italy). However, 9/11 gave the United States a taste of what the rest of the world (incl. Israel) deals with on a regular basis, and we're not going to hear the end of this one either.

In Europe, assuming we are even allowed to use such a term,  we'd probably be encouraged to say, 'Person-Up People! While in Spain it might soon be a legal requirement to say, 'Ape-Up Person! 

"Indeed, so shockingly totalitarian is the orientation of the EU, it strikes me that President Bush's misguided effort to democratize the Islamic Middle East might well have been better aimed at liberating the hostage peoples of the Brussels-dominated supra-state."

I think you guys are going to have to fight and win the war against the EU with your own blood and resources.

Here in the US, we're busy trying to fight the misguided, Fascist-minded Liberals who are trying to fashion America after the EU and the failed policies of the Welfare State.

We BOTH have our hands full.

BTW, Man-Up is an American term for "growing one's balls" while taking the fight to the enemy.