> Whining about Europe 'not intervening' in the 1860s completely misses the massive changes going on in Europe at the time - it's not like Europe was sitting around peacefully not doing anything in particular like the US was at the start of each World War. Only a few years after the US civil war finished, Germany came into existence and successfully invaded Paris, for example.
And when Germany manages to do that for the third time in 80 years, it's America's fault for not intervening?
Look, all I'm trying to do is refute the idea that it's somehow the responsibility of the US to step in and intervene whenever a war breaks out somewhere in the world. Germany invading Poland and France wasn't relevant enough to American interests to justify sending men across the Atlantic to die. It just seemed like business as usual. You can call that isolationism but it's not like any of the European powers stuck their neck out when it wasn't in their interests.
Again you fail to understand what was going on at the time, falling back on pop-culture memes. France and the UK were both hastily remilitarising and were buying time. Everyone knew war was coming, but the UK and the French needed more time to prepare, and it wasn't just the US that was suffering from economic depression in the 30s. They knew for 20 years that there would be another war - Marshal Foch said of the Treaty of Versailles "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years". He was only two months out.
I mean, come on. You have just said that Iraq was a war that 'called for intervention', but you say the same is not true of the Nazis? This is despite nearly 10 years of a steady exodus of Jews from Germany to the US and other countries? It's not like no-one knew that the Nazis were oppressive, it's just the depth that they would eventually get to that was unknown.
You can call that isolationism but it's not like any of the European powers stuck their neck out when it wasn't in their interests.
I never said the US should be faulted for isolationism, though it is odd you cheer both their early isolationism and their later interventionism. I said that you were mischaracterising what was going on and engaging in double-standards.
For example, given that the French were intervening this year in Mali, as 'France' and not part of the UN, how does this stack up against your claim of "Europeans don't intervene in Africa and haven't for 200 years"? Where are the US ground troops intervening in Africa? The US navy, along with European ones, are intervening against the Somali pirates, but that's to protect shipping, it's not to help the people. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some, but I'm unaware of any.
Look, all I'm trying to do is refute the idea that it's somehow the responsibility of the US to step in and intervene whenever a war breaks out somewhere in the world.
The US bills itself as the 'world cop', which was exactly its rationale for invading Iraq. It's natural for people to expect it to live up to its own rhetoric.
> Again you fail to understand what was going on at the time, falling back on pop-culture memes.
Stop posturing--these remarks add nothing to the discussion.
> France and the UK were both hastily remilitarising and were buying time. Everyone knew war was coming, but the UK and the French needed more time to prepare, and it wasn't just the US that was suffering from economic depression in the 30s. They knew for 20 years that there would be another war - Marshal Foch said of the Treaty of Versailles "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years". He was only two months out.
I don't see how that's anywhere at odds with what I'm saying, which is that Europe tended to have these wars from time to time and the US was justifiably reluctant to intervene.
> You have just said that Iraq was a war that 'called for intervention'
I said that's how the US government saw it at the time.
> but you say the same is not true of the Nazis?
> ...
> though it is odd you cheer both their early isolationism and their later interventionism
I did no such thing--I said it's hypocritical to criticize America for both isolationism and for interventionism. Please read what I actually wrote and make an honest attempt to comprehend it.
> The US bills itself as the 'world cop'
In 1939 they did that?
My whole point, which you have arrogantly refused to comprehend, has been to justify the initial American non-intervention in WWII, and in WWII the US never billed itself as any such thing.
I can offer no defense of American interventionism. I think it's consistently been a mistake. But if you're going to go around arguing that the US should have been interventionists in World War II, then you have to accept what it looks like when the US pursues a foreign policy of interventionism. Most people don't like how that turns out. Most people would prefer if the US would mind its own business and not get involved in wars overseas, but if they hold that position, it's hypocritical of them to criticize the US for not directly joining the Second World War before they had a good reason to.
And when Germany manages to do that for the third time in 80 years, it's America's fault for not intervening?
Look, all I'm trying to do is refute the idea that it's somehow the responsibility of the US to step in and intervene whenever a war breaks out somewhere in the world. Germany invading Poland and France wasn't relevant enough to American interests to justify sending men across the Atlantic to die. It just seemed like business as usual. You can call that isolationism but it's not like any of the European powers stuck their neck out when it wasn't in their interests.