Seriously though, the USA is virtually always bad.

    • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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      Ah yes how could I forget a war that the US only joined years late and well after millions of people had already died. A war where the US setup their own concentration camps for Japanese Americans. A war where the US used nuclear bombs to obliterate civilians in an unprecedented way. SURELY that war the US was definitely the good guys there.

      And then Ukraine, a war where the US is giving unlimited guns to literal Nazis and shoving civilians into an endless and completely unnecessary meat grinder. Yeah definitely the objective good guys in that conflict. Also the US was largely at fault for the conflict in the first place so even if they were objectively the good guys here it would be them cleaning up their mess. They aren’t though they’re making it worse.

      • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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        There are a few literal Nazis on both sides. Ukraine doesn’t have any in the government or high command apparatus.

        Why is the meat grinder unnecessary? Should Ukraine just give up it’s sovereignty and become part of Russia? If not, the war remains necessary.

      • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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        Was WWII the US’s fault? No it wasn’t. Was it good they joined? Yes, you even agree since you think they joined to late. (And I agree they joined too let too) So that fits the qualifications of the first question.

        • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Was WWII the US’s fault? No it wasn’t.

          Hitler was heavily inspired by American treatment of Native Americans and black people. Although not completely, he thought the one drop rule was a little too much.

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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            Yes and eugenics was horrible. But are you saying the entirety of Nazi Germany is the majority the fault of the US? That’s even more of a stretch than just following orders.

            Edit: solely to majority to better reflect the question

        • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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          Love that you completely ignored the part where the US involvement led to them brutalizing and murdering countless completely innocent civilians. That part is pretty inconvenient to your argument that they were somehow the good guys here so yeah it is a pretty safe bet to ignore it. I’d love to hear you defend it though I’m sure you’ll do Uncle Sam proud

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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            But it’s irrelevant to the question. The question was whether it was good the US joined WWII. Even accounting for the atrocities, I don’t know anyone who would say the US shouldn’t have joined the war.

            • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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              No the question was is there a time when the US was objectively good. You used WW2 as an example. And then ignored all the completely heinous shit the US did during WW2.

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                SIR, MY PUBLIC EDUCATION HISTORY CLASS SAID WE WERE HEROES AFTER FORCING ME TO SAY THE PLEDGE OF ALLIEGANCE EVERY MORNING, HOW DARE YOU QUESTION DROPPING NUKES ON CIVILIANS, PARTICULARLY THE SECOND ONE WHERE JAPAN’S SURRENDER ALREADY WENT FROM INEVIETABLE TO UNDENIABLE AFTER THE FIRST. I AM A HERO BY VIRTUE OF BEING BORN IN AMERICA. A “FEW” HORRIFIC, CIVILIAN MASS MURDERS IS MY DEFINITION OF OBJECTIVELY GOOD.

              • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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                But it can still be objectively good they joined even taking into account the atrocities. It doesn’t need to be all good to be good over all.

            • Lochat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              No, he asked if they were objectively good in that war, which they weren’t even fucking close. At best they were a grey-moralist lesser of two evil, but the fact you conflate that with “good” is exactly why you’ll never comprehend any situation with any nuance. In your mind it’s always “WW2 USA GOOD GUYS SAVED WORLD” like some lead-poisoned brain damaged boomer desperately trying to live voraciously through low-rent nationalist propaganda. I’d say, yes, America was the lesser of two evils compared to Nazi Germany and Japan, and the fact that’s the closest you can get to “good” and the political parties you need to compare yourself to, to look better in comparison to someone, proves Infamousblt’s point.

              The closest to “objectively good” America’s actions has been in a situation is “well, it’s not as bad as letting Nazi Germany take over all of Europe” and that’s not good, that’s horror.

              • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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                The closest to “objectively good” America’s actions has been in a situation is “well, it’s not as bad as letting Nazi Germany take over all of Europe” and that’s not good, that’s horror.

                That’s just the largest example that comes to mind.

                I thought the question was ‘has the US done any good actions,’ which would qualify WWII. If instead the question was asking ‘has the US done any actions that are entirely and completely perfect’ I would say no nation has.

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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            You want to explain that giant limbo to me? The US wasn’t even in on the treaty of Versailles if that’s what you’re taking about.

              • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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                So that makes them entirely the US’s fault? Capitalists and communists in many countries helped cause their rise to power.

                • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                  Capitalists and communists in many countries helped cause their rise to power.

                  You’re just saying that because “both sides” feels true to you. It’s not, though. Communists in Germany were the bitterest opponents of the Nazis, before the latter even had a strong party formation. And as the first line of the poem goes, Communists were the first ones “they” came for (although this is usually omitted in liberal retellings".

                  If you’ve ever heard of Antonio Gramsci you know that imprisoning or killing communists was the first order of business under Mussolini.

                  You can name any country that went fascist, and we can point out where the capitalists were easing it along and the communists were fighting it tooth and nail.

                • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  Probably the Italians and Germans were a bit involved too, obviously ww2 is not entirely the fault of America but they were some giant fucking dominoes that fell.

            • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              The US wasn’t even in on the treaty of Versailles if that’s what you’re talking about.

              The US however was very stringent in demanding repayment for all weapons it provided to UK and France, with interest, which necessitated those countries being harsh with Germany over war reparations in turn. German war reparations essentially all flowed to America, to say they weren’t in on the treaty is true but it’s sleight of hand ignoring the role US played in dictating the economic direction of Europe through its role as creditor.

              Then, you had US industrialists funding and working with the Nazis as they rose to power.

              • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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                The US however was very stringent in demanding repayment for all weapons it provided to UK and France, with interest, which necessitated those countries being harsh with Germany over war reparations in turn. German war reparations essentially all flowed to America

                This is an absurd take, regardless of its veracity (do you have a source?).

                The budgets of the French and British governments are not the responsibility of the US, and there is no reasonable argument that would have justified forgiving those loans. The UK and France were harsh with Germany because they hated and feared Germany and wanted revenge after World War 1.

                I have absolutely no doubt that you would be even more outraged if the US had indeed forgiven its wartime loans to Britain and France after WW1. I’m not sure what your angle would be, but it would probably be more persuasive than your current argument 😉

                • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  The book Super Imperialism by Michael Hudson gets into this in depth with all the receipts. It was common practice in Europe that debts incurred by wartime allies were forgiven, so it was actually breaking with all precedent that the US demanded full repayment with interest from their allies, and the circular flow of payments from US banks to postwar Germany, to the European allies and back to the US is clearly documented and laid out by Hudson in his book. This is an arrangement that was intentional and beneficial to the United States at the expense of Europe, until it came crashing down when the financial bubble it created popped and the Great Depression resulted.

                  How can a take be “absurd regardless of its veracity”. Literally stating the truth is “absurd” if it reflects poorly on the United States? Do you find yourself overwhelmed living in such an absurd world (this one, where the United States is objectively a bad actor)?

                  • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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                    Thank you for providing a source.

                    The reason I say it’s absurd regardless of veracity is because it was not a valid geopolitical option. The US was still pursuing an isolationist foreign policy in the eyes of the public, it would have been political suicide to forgive those loans. The fact that we got involved at all was already shocking to Americans, if we then waived repayment it would have been a national outrage.

                    Also, I that I highly doubt that the US decision to demand repayment of the loans is notably outside of the bounds of normal international conduct. I haven’t read that book so I can’t say for sure, but I have a hunch that you’re making a false equivalency somewhere.

                    debts incurred by wartime allies were forgiven

                    Perhaps this is the reason, because the US was less of a wartime ally and more of a savior. The US was under absolutely no military threat, and thus viewing the loans as part of some kind of collective wartime struggle is quite the stretch.

                • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                  I have absolutely no doubt that you would be even more outraged if the US had indeed forgiven its wartime loans to Britain and France after WW1.

                  You’d be shocked to hear what this site’s position is on most state loans in general, especially ones originating from Western countries.

                  • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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                    I’m not sure that any positions taken by this site are likely to shock me at this point 😅

                    But sure, try me.

                • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  What the fuck does

                  there is no reasonable argument that would have justified forgiving those loans

                  even mean? How about “these countries were just destroyed by war and can’t reasonably be expected to pay”?

                  Governments can and do forgive loans when they feel it’s appropriate. The U.S. made a conscious decision to wield its creditor status without mercy to further crush Europe and solidify its own position as top global power.

                  The budgets of the French and British governments are not the responsibility of the US

                  Yeah which is why they should have told US to stuff it with its ridiculous demands for payment lol

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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            At fault I was interpreting as majority. And it seems like people should be accountable for their actions even if they aren’t entirely original.

        • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Was the US being in ww2 good? Probably not. Not just becoming a rogue nation and using WMDs on civilians but the money we stole from Europe went on to pay for us doing several genocides. So on balance it isn’t great

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      lmao they put half the nazis back in power after the war and are now arming nazis in Ukraine

      If thats the best you can find, then holy shit

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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            But was the government Nazi? Since Nazi Germany had conscription, I’d image it’d be hard to find anyone in Germany who wasn’t a Nazi. But as I understand it, there was actual systematic denazification that kept the government on track.

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              But as I understand it,

              you have demonstrated over and over again that your understanding is woefully incomplete, almost cartoonishly shallow

              • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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                Since Nazi Germany had conscription, I’d image it’d be hard to find anyone in Germany who wasn’t a Nazi. But as I understand it, there was actual systematic denazification that kept the government on track.

                Seems like you didn’t have a good response to this point, would you like to try again?

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                  It’s not worth responding to blatant lies, West Germany did not have “actual systematic denazification”, their government was staffed with Nazis and they literally had a Nazi general as head of NATO. This is akin to burying your head in the sand and complaining that people aren’t helping you see.

                • Babs [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  There was no “systemic denazification”. We killed a few figureheads, then put the rest back into power, and into NATO leadership. West Germany was a Nazi country.

                  • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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                    The soviets did a much more thorough job of denazification. How did that work out for the people of east Germany?

                    Is Germany still a nazi country now? If not, when did it stop being a nazi country?

            • trompete [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              Look up some of these Nazis in the BRD. We’re not talking about conscripted soldiers. The people that are brought up check one or (often) multiple of the following boxes:

              • Members of the Nazi party and other Nazi organizations, and they weren’t forced to join these either.
              • Officers or officials in charge of the war crimes, the Holocaust, or some other Nazi crimes.
              • People directly on-the-ground involved in war crimes and mass murder.
              • Capitalists or managers profiting off the Nazi war effort, using slave labor and/or profiting of stolen Jewish wealth.

              There were thousands of people guilty of stuff like this in all levels of the BRD government, including many the highest levels. This was normal. The Western allies could have hanged some top 10,000 of those responsible, easily, but they didn’t. They let them out of prison, hired them, and helped them escape justice.

              • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                They did the same thing in occupied Korea with Japanese occupiers and collaborators. Put the fascists back in charge who had enslaved their countrymen. They did this everywhere. America merged with fascism it didn’t defeat it, it’s upgraded to level 2 fascism.

            • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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              The Gehlen Organisation, which later became absorbed wholesale into the West German state as their intelligence apparatus, was literally just a bunch of Nazis headed by Nazi lieutenant-general Reinhard Gehlen.

              Was the government Nazi? Well, that entire arm of the government certainly was!

            • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              Pretty sure camp survivors weren’t. They would have needed new jobs so that would have been pretty a pretty good way to help fix things. Only we didn’t want justice. We wanted people who were used to fighting the soviets. So nazies. We wanted them in power, just working for us.

    • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      D-Day happened not because of some altruistic desire to liberate France but because the remaining capitalist states saw that Germany was neither salvageable nor willing to work with them, and something need to be done to stop the Soviets from liberating all of continental Europe and building a socialist bloc with abundant year round naval ports in the open Atlantic.

      Prior to the war Nazi Germany was chomping at the bit to destroy the Soviet Union, and the Soviets wanted to take a wrecking ball to Germany, both for the sake of destroying the political epicenter of European fascism, and so they could keep pushing the revolution westward and take the entirety of the continent.

      The Western alliance with Poland was an attempt at managing this rivalry, so that they could try to force this nearly inevitable conflict to happen on their terms, not Germany nor Russia’s. The West must have seen that if Germany won this fight and had their pick of whatever they wanted in Eastern Europe, France would end up with a monstrous neighbor that occupied the entire rest of the European mainland, and although Communism would have been uprooted from Russia, Germany could easily use its newly acquired land/resources/industrial capacity to double back and take on France. The goal of destroying the Soviets is achieved, but the Fascist bloc becomes the dominant faction of the imperial core and the anglo-Liberal forces are forced to either submit or try to hold out as just the UK and US against the rest of the world.

      Now, if Russia were to win this impending Russo-German war, there was no way in hell Stalin slows his roll after beating Germany and stops at the French border— France and possibly Franco’s Spain would be next, and where does this leave the West? Unlike a German victory, the anglo-Liberal faction of the imperial core is all that’s left and they are stuck with the entire European mainland controlled by communists, an outcome they’ll do anything to avoid. With the shipyard of Germany and France and access to the open Atlantic, they can threaten anglo naval superiority and even plan an invasion of the British isles— and unlike Hitler, who represents just another faction of capitalism, Stalin and the communists are far less likely to give the remaining Western countries the option to accept subservience if they lay down their arms.

      So the West find themselves in a position where if they do nothing in this coming Russo-German war, they are screwed either way, and although a Nazi victory is preferable, they figure that through geopolitical fuckery they can get involved and alter the tides. If they side with the communists, which god knows the Western governments broadly speaking do not want to do, they can at least manage the fall of Germany, and hopefully negotiate a post-war European order where the Soviets do not have access to the open Atlantic (i.e., ports that aren’t in an inland sea or the hard to navigate Arctic). D-Day was of course an attempt at taking back territory in France but more importantly it was the first step toward securing a foothold in Germany and making sure that there was a mobilised, battle-hardened force waiting to meet the Soviets so that a hard limit could be put on their Western advance. I don’t mean to say that no one wanted France back under a French government, or that there weren’t people in the anglo military commands and governments who were genuinely disgusted by the Nazis and the crimes committed continent-wide during their occupations, but to the cold, realistic, realpolitiking minds of the people at the top like Eisenhower, the primary goal was setting up the board for the next fight— the Anglosphere versus the Soviet Union.

      US General George Patton was adamant that if he was allowed to, he could have taken American troops to Prague and secured Czechia for the West in the post-war order well in advance of the Red Army’s arrival. He was promptly informed by Eisenhower that he would doing no such thing. The post-war order had already been negotiated behind the scenes, and through strategically supporting their mortal enemies against a foe that really wasn’t much different than themselves politically or economically, the intact West had made sure that they also held at least part of Central Europe, instead of either Germany or the Soviet Union controlling the entire continent. So D-Day wasn’t purely an anti-communist action, but was also crucial to the Western grand strategy of making sure the Soviets didn’t just keep steaming onward, and setting the stage for the Cold War in terms more favorable to the West.


      based on comments by @FLAMING_AUBURN_LOCKS@hexbear.net

      • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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        While there are aspects of that narrative I agree with, I think there’s some pretty questionable claims as well.

        Now, if Russia were to win this impending Russo-German war, there was no way in hell Stalin slows his roll after beating Germany and stops at the French border

        What?? Even with support from the rest of the Allies, WWII was devastating for the Soviets, it required an extraordinary loss of life and resources to defeat the fascists. I’m not inclined to believe that Stalin would simply attack France out of nowhere in this timeline, and I certainly don’t agree that “there was no way in hell” they wouldn’t. What’s your reasoning or evidence for this idea?

        So the West find themselves in a position where if they do nothing in this coming Russo-German war, they are screwed either way, and although a Nazi victory is preferable, they figure that through geopolitical fuckery they can get involved and alter the tides.

        It’s quite a big brained move to try to alter the tides by siding with the larger threat lol.

        I don’t think there’s reason or evidence to suggest that the West found German dominanation all that preferable to Soviet domination. Losing is losing, and while the fascists would preserve and extend the systems of capitalist exploitation, it likely wouldn’t be the same exploiters at the top. Germany posed a very real threat of dethroning and replacing the exploiters, which to the exploiters is just as bad as the system of exploitation being dismantled.

        This narrative also neglects the Soviet perspectives of the time. The Soviets were more than happy to accept help from the Allies and if anything were critical of them not taking more territory faster. It was only once victory was a forgone conclusion that the rush to sieze land really kicked off. It’s also worth noting that the UK and France got involved before any fighting between Germany and the USSR broke out.

        So D-Day wasn’t purely an anti-communist action

        Wasn’t purely anti-communist?! It’s pretty absurd to imply that it was primarily anti-communist, the Soviets wanted D-Day to happen.

        I find this whole narrative is very oversimplified, speculative, and not aligned with the actual history.

        • SimulatedLiberalism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          Actually the overwhelming majority of French resistance saw the Red Army as liberators in 1945. The last thing they wanted was to see the bourgeois collaborationist government come back, as were many countries in Europe. There was practically no resistance if the USSR wanted to move into France.

          The problem that Stalin would face was whether the Americans would allow it, and if the situation would devolve into the US dropping atomic bombs in Europe (since there was no way that the Americans could fight the Red Army without losing support of the population of the entire continent i.e. practically handing Europe over to the Soviets, and also risking domestic dissent at home since, you know, dropping the A bomb on white people is not the same as dropping it on the Japanese).

          • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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            Actually the overwhelming majority of French resistance saw the Red Army as liberators in 1945.

            That’s a totally different scenario to what’s being discussed. We’re not talking about the USSR moving into France in the historical timeline. We’re talking about a timeline where France and the UK sit back and let Germany duke it out with the USSR, and then, after a long, bloody war, the USSR emerges victorious, and then decides to invade France for some reason. In this scenario, there is no French resistance because there is no Nazi occupation of France.

              • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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                The USSR never invaded West Germany post-WWII, so with the benefit of hindsight, probably never.

                However, if France and the UK were so concerned about that, then instead of going to war with the USSR’s #1 enemy, they could have sat back and built up their strength while letting the two fight. Then, once in this timeline the USSR finally defeats the Nazis singlehandedly, they could attack the USSR themselves, since it would’ve been considerably weakened while they were at full strength.

                The reality of British and French motivations were more complex than a singular focus on defeating the USSR through the 5th dimensional chess move of forming an alliance with them. What they wanted was stability. They wanted to maintain their “rules based international order” (with themselves on top). The idea was to keep Germany on a leash as a guard dog against the Soviets, and they cut him an incredible amount of slack, just straight up handing him Czechoslovakia in spite of being in a formal alliance with them. But Hitler figured he could just get away with whatever and it turned out that there was, in fact, a line.

                • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  In this scenario there is no west Germany because the ussr extends out fast past the border the americnas wouldn’t have been there to create. The USSR would have been the only industrial power left in Europe which as a region would have been even further destroyed. So just pushing into the territory of the old empire to fix everything would have looked like a pretty good idea especially since it wouldn’t be risking a nuke from the US to do so.

                  • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    In this scenario there is no west Germany because the ussr extends out fast past the border the americnas wouldn’t have been there to create.

                    I know, I’m saying that historically, the USSR did not expand westward into West Germany so it’s unlikely to think that they would expand westerward into France in the hypothetical. Certainly not inevitable.

                    The USSR would have been the only industrial power left in Europe which as a region would have been even further destroyed.

                    Are you considering France and the UK to not be industrial powers? The areas that would be destroyed in this scenario are limited to territories occupied by the USSR, since we’re talking about the UK and France staying out of the conflict.

                    So just pushing into the territory of the old empire to fix everything would have looked like a pretty good idea especially since it wouldn’t be risking a nuke from the US to do so.

                    Not sure why you’re assuming the US doesn’t get nukes here. Am I to believe that Germany would fall more quickly if it was just focused on fighting the Soviets?

                    Honestly this whole premise is completely ridiculous. It’s not like Germany was easy pickings for snatching up territory at the start of the war. What you’re doing is looking at the very end of the war, when Germany was defeated and everyone was rushing to seize more territory, and trying to extrapolate those conditions back to the start where they don’t apply. Going to war with Germany just to make sure the Soviets don’t get the territory means a prolonged war with a very real threat of losing for literally no reason when they could’ve just stayed out of it and mopped up the pieces later if that was their only goal. It’s nonsense.

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      They entered WWII in the European theatre long after the heavy fighting was already done, same in the Pacific outside of their little island-hopping campaign. They waited that long so they could be war profiteers beforehand. They had a doctrine of targeting civilian population centres, culminating in the needless nuking of two Japanese cities, despite the Japanese being willing to surrender already.
      During the war American companies were still producing war material for Germany, and these companies were compensated by the US government whenever they got bombed by the allies.
      After the war the US absconded with several high-rsnking Nazis and integrated them into their own government. Others were pardoned after a few years. Same was done with war-crime unit 731 in Japan. After the war the US also initiated operation gladio, which created several fsr-right stay-behind terror organizations, with the purpose of suppressing left-wing movements in Europe.
      The US sucks.

      CW: sa

      Even according to the NATO-rag that is Wikipedia, the us soldiers were responsible for 14.000 rapes in France alone. They were known to be pillagers.

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            That makes the definition very broad indeed. In that case I’d have a hard time seeing any country satisfy it. Since everything impacts everything else in some way, and since an entire nation never have completely spotless intentions, no country ever would fit these criteria as you’ve expanded them.

              • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Having a government in power that you backed is beneficial to you, therefore it isn’t altruistic. So it isn’t fully objectively good as someone above objected.

                • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Now you’re changing the definition of good to exclude anything that benefits you. Hugging your mother isn’t objectively good. And for no other reason than in this narrow context in an argument it helps you save face.

                  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    No, someone above was arguing that the US joining WWII wasn’t good because it wasn’t altruistic. I was applying the same logic.

                    Edit: see here

                    The US was blatantly looking after its own interests rather than a genuine commitment to destroying Nazism