A brief, but interesting history lesson.// Got this e mailed to me what do you think?

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A brief, but interesting history lesson.


Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and

hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more

than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America

for food and war materials.



At that time the U.S. was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most

Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.



Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress

unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which

had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.



France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned

itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as

Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was

not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of

Asia. Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada

and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our

northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia

and Europe. America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland,

Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from

Norway to Italy, except Russia in the east, was already under the Nazi heel.



America was certainly not prepared for war. America had drastically

downgraded most of its military forces after WWI and throughout the

depression, so that at the outbreak of WW2, army units were training with

broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on

the doors because they didn't have real tanks. And a huge chunk of our navy

had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.



Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600

million in gold bullion in the Bank of England, that was actually the

property of Belgium, given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when

Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact). Actually, Belgium

surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion,

and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they

could. Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of

staggering shipping loses and the near-decimation of its air force in the

Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because

Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat

that could be dealt with later, and first turning his attention to Russia,

at a time when England was on the verge of collapse, in the late summer of

1940.



Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for

two years, until the U.S. got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.



Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and

Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but

also more than a MILLION soldiers.



Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war

effort against the Brits, then America. And the Nazis could possibly have

won the war.



All of this is to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey

things. And now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in

history.



There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and

may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical

weapons, almost anywhere in the world.



The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they

believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should

own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. And that

all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or

subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge

the world of Jews. This is their mantra.



There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not

a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its

Reformation, but it is not known yet which will win -- the Inquisitors, or

the Reformationists.



If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the

Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies. The

techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC

dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated

by the Jihadis.



You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want the

dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim

Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.



If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe

that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with

the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then

the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate

and prosperous Middle East will emerge.



We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the

Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic

terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. And we can't do it

everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time

and place of our choosing........in Iraq.



Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we

are doing two important things.



(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly

involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively

supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist.



Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the

deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.



(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic

terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people,

and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good

shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for

democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a

stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it

is needed.



World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with

a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the

Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America

joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed

by another decade of U.S. occupation in Germany and Japan to get those

countries reconstructed and running on their own again ... a 27 year war.



World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full

year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars.

WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000

still missing in action.



The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion, which is roughly

what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, which

is roughly 2/3 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on

9/11. But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been

unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.



Americans have a short attention span, conditioned by 30 second sound bites,

60 minute TV shows, and 2 hour movies in which everything comes out okay.



The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes

bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.



The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we

defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.



If the U.S. can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have

an "England" in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help

modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the

clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the

barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in

this ancient and never-ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the

barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless somebody prevents them.



We have four options:



1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.



2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may

be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran

claims it is).



3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle

East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in

America.



4. Or, we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is

more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated

France and Germany and maybe most of the rest of Europe. It will, of

course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.



If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or

grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the

Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.



The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural

clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and

civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.



Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists

always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.



Remember, perspective is everything, and America's schools teach too little

history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.



The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down

in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century

fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.



World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and

the U.S. still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in

the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million

people, depending on which estimates you accept.



The U.S. has taken more than 2,000 KIA in Iraq. The U.S. took more than

4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the

Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WWII the US

averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles

of WWII lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.



But the stakes are at least as high ... A world dominated by representative

governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms ... or a

world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under

the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).



It's difficult to understand why the American left does not grasp this. They

favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for

Iraqis.



"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's

safe.



Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan,

North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most?



The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights,

democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins,

wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights,

democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the

liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raymond S. Kraft is a writer living in Northern California. Please consider

passing along copies of this article to students in high school, college and

university as it contains information about the American past that is very

meaningful today -- history about America that very likely is completely

unknown by them (and their instructors, too). By being denied the facts of

our history, they are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to reasoning

and thinking through the issues of today. They are prime targets for

misinformation campaigns beamed at enlisting them in causes and beliefs that

are special interest agenda driven

I about did as well lol but it was an interesting article.

Riser how do you know I am foreigner and not an American gringo? Damn your ignorant lol

RUSS your answer only sows that you lack attention to detail. This is an article that was written and i am posting it for opinions.

RUSS your answer only shows that you lack attention to detail. This is an article that was written and i am posting it for opinions.

RUSS your answer only shows that you lack attention to detail. This is an article that was written and I am posting it for opinions.

Casey

There is a question to this post. What do you think about this article written by Mr. Kraft from Northern California? Now that I have rephrased the question do you have an opinion? :)

Answer 1

A brilliant piece of writing I totally and completely agree with you 100% Well done to you for making available for me to read .

Answer 2

I know rather well history and the text contains a lot of crap and what ifs that are not founded.That Raymond S. Kraft should do his homework again.

WWII started actually by the signing of the Versailles treaty which gave the Germans too heavy conditions and the feeling that they were traited to hard. Consequently they wanted a revenge.

About Belgium : Brussels is not bombed to rubbles and the Belgian Army held out 18 days and NOT one day. They surrendered only after the lines where (unrepairable) broken on several points. At the moment the Belgians surrendered the evacuation of Dunkirk had already started. Without their fighting till the bitter end, the evacuation in Dunkirk would have been a disaster.
Much more than the loan of gold, was that Belgian refused to negotiate about Belgian Congo with the Germans and the colony continued the struggle. Without the raw materials of Congo the victory would have been very hard to gain.

I don't even spend more time to analise the rest.

The point of making the battle in Iraq could work if the US didn't make so much diplomatic errors and in fact it is creating more enemies than that they are eliminating.
In Europe their are strong Muslim immigation groups and year after year they are becoming more extreem because of the error the US makes (fe. unconditionally supporting Isreal, Al Greip prison, ...) The good things the US does, comes not enough in the Islamic press. You are risking again loosing the battle of the heart as you did in Vietnam. Sorry to say but that are the real facts.

I like the US but sometimes you are to much looking only at your point of view. Try to understand your ennemy, it's the key to victory.

Think first about that in stead of giving immediatly a bad quotation to my remarks. Real friends are not afraid to give negative comment even when it hurts. False friends say only that you are right !

Answer 3

war is about strategy, controling resources and using propaganda! and ofcourse innocent civilians get killed in the process. i strongly believe that the high social elites do not give a a damn about the poor innocent llives. it is stupid and ignorant of some poeple to think that world hunger and poverty is hard to tacle! its even more stupid for people to think/believe that the AIDS epidemic is out of control... ofcourse not to mention a world free of wars.

nothing can better illustrate how these elite leaders and powerful governments think than simply playing PC strategy games like command & conquer, sim city, civilization....etc the first thing the player aims for is territory expantion and having control of most resources (OIL)!

sometimes the answers and solutions are right infront of our eyes but we ignore to see the truth. especially in america!

Answer 4

propaganda message and nothing more

if u had some common sense u would investigate the motives behind 9/11, 7/7 and all

the truth is that these supposedly terrorist organizations have been fed up by decades of american terrorism

its retaliation and not terrorism, hell, who wants to live his life by spreading only terror? there is a reason that has nothing to do with religion

Answer 5

Saddam was scared of terrorists and would not help them, lest they hurt his un-Islamic regime.
Our unconditional support of Israel is the reason they hate us.
They don't bomb Switzerland's or Finland's buildings because they mind their own business.
But your outlook is from the slow decay caused by only watching Fox news.

Answer 6

Was there a queston in here some place? Or did you have nothing better to do this evening than to try to dazzle everyone here with your amazing knowledge. I think history lectures are supposed to be given at the local college.

Answer 7

10 out of 10 plus a gold star for a super star because that's how funny yoo are ha ha ha ha

Answer 8

This is an old Communist tactic. Bore them into submission. That's how they took over the unions and the film industry. You don't have a question , just a tired tirade. ******* foreign devil.

Answer 9

Your question only shows you are long winded, it does not show you have a true grasp of history!

Answer 10

WTF?! I thought you said BRIEF! My mouse nearly broke down scrolling through all that!