[kj] Prague set-list

[Amy Moseley Rupp]

> >Wasn't that guy who was US president during
> >Vietnam war (Kennedy) a Democratic president? Was
> >that war any better or justified than war on Iraq?

The Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as the Bay Of
Pigs crisis, were all in the name of fighting
communism.  The US had been burned badly by Stalin --
FDR had thought he was an okay guy (guess he hadn't
heard of the 10,000,000 Russians Stalin had 'purged'
or he thought Stalin had reformed) and agreed to let Stalin
have the honour of occupying Berlin toward the end
of WWII because of the 20,000,000 Russians the Germans
had killed in the war, either directly or due to
starvation etc.  Churchill raised all hell, but FDR was
insistent, which meant holding up US troops that
could have reached Berlin sooner.  As a consequence
the Russians overran many countries between Russia
and Berlin, and then surprise! refused to let them
go after the war.

Just before his death, FDR had finally sussed Stalin out
and sent him a bitter note; but when FDR died, Truman
was in shock at becoming President and just stuck
to FDR's plans for the finale of the war.

Then you had the partitioning of Berlin, the Berlin
air drop, the Wall, the Russian bloc, Prague Spring...

In the meantime FDR had insisted that Churchill give
up the UK's colonies, calling it an unfair practise;
and you saw Palestine becoming modern-day Israel and
Jordan, and the partitioning of India and Palestine
after the war.  At least the UK kept their promises.

So *part* of the Cold War, at least, was the US
pissed off that Russia had stabbed everyone in
the back, and the US didn't want Communism to
gain a single more country (oh, and by this time
Mao had seized control in China, and Chiang
Kai-Shek, who was a neutral-ally to the Allies
in WWII, had fled to Taiwan).  Korea, so close in
time to WWII, certainly wasn't a war we wanted to
go fight.  but.....

After a while it *did* become about power and
money for US multinational corporations, but
it legitimately fed on Americans getting pissed
off at Russia and China post WWII.

If you read about WWI and WWII, the politial
divisions and attitudes of the different
countries in the 20th century become very
obvious; it truly helps to see how we got
to where we are today.  You Brits may know
all of this; but we truly aren't taught this
in school here in the US.  We get:  Communism
bad.  Capitalism good.  Dictatorship bad.
Theocracy bad (then turn around and insist
America is a Christian nation).  We are
absolutely discouraged from thinking ;-)

That's yer free history lesson for the day.

--Amy (Republicans baaaaaaaaaad)