Canada, Australia, Argentina

[Brad DeLong <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Why do you slander the Argentinians, who were victims of Anglo-
> > American expoliation and thus had at least a reasonable motivation to
> > remain neutral, while you do not slander the Swiss or the Swedes?
>
> Or the Americans?  Whose own popular president (if you don't count the views
> of the big cappos, anyway) couldn't manage to bring that mighty democracy
> into the war against tyranny until it got one of its colonies bombed by it
> (and Germany, rather ambitiously, declared war).  How long would Unca Sam
> have sat and watched, selling its hardware to the combatants all the while,
> if events hadn't forced his mighty hand?
>
> C'mon Brad.  Be fair.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob.

Oh, I'm very happy to also slander the Swedish scum (selling iron ore
up until the very last minute; shipping Wehrmacht troops to Finland
to reinforce the Finnish front against Russia) and the Swiss scum
(ditto) in addition to the Spanish fascists and the Argentine
semi-fascists.

And you are right about the Americans. I think FDR deserves a lot of
credit for trying very hard to get the U.S. into the war early. I
think the rest of the American political system deserves no credit at
all.

In fact, all countries except for two either (i) waited for Hitler to
bring the war to them, or (ii) joined in the war against Hitler only
in the last stages, after his defeat was assured.

Only Daladier-Reynaud in France, and Chamberlain-Halifax in Britain
actually put their countries into harm's way. They had many flaws.
But we should all remember that they had the guts to do the one
important thing right that no other heads of government did...


Brad DeLong