>>>>>I'm not 'Making it look' like anything. I never said the US acted alone. I simply pointed
>>>>>out the fact that the US could have opted to not join the war in Europe,
>>>>
>>>>No, the US could not have realistically opted for this.
>>>
>>>What people forget is that the US refused to get involved into WWII and if it was not for pearl harbor and the threats that hitler expressed towards the US, they probably never would have stepped in.
>>>
>>>It was very lucrative to sell goods to esspecially brittain, but I assume any other country.
>>>But that definately changed with both the japanese and hitler declaring war to the americans.
>>
>>That's not quite correct. Britain and Russia were broke.
>
>Well the US technically is too, but the china express still pays the bills.

Hey, without us where would they get rid of all that lead paint ? <g>

>
>BTW, Russia, might have been broke, but that did not stop them from conquering half of europe on their own.

But they depended heavily on the Murmansk run and Stalin really needed American and British airpower to keep Germany's industrial capacity under producing.

As to their conquering half of Europe, rolling over the part the Germans had occupied had the advantage that those people hadn't experienced *Russian* occupiers ... yet. And they did have the best tanks in the world.

They could easily have rolled through the other half before 1950. Rest assured if we hadn't lit up Hiroshima nd Nagasaki it could have been more than half.


>
>>It was in our economic best interests of course to protect investments there, but we could have profited much more from dealing with the Germans. ( ask the Swiss )
>
>Are you sure? Even after the hostilities of Hitler against the US? Political that would not have been a choice that could have been defended IMO.

Certainly could not have been defended morally, but probably could have been made to fly politically - especially without FDR.

There were substantial American ( and British and Dutch ) business interests that really thought you could work with Germany in an anti-communist - and highly profitable - way.

Joe Kennedy, Lindburgh, Ford and some other very high profile people were singing Hitler's praises through 1936 and beyond.

Without the pro-Brit lobby ( and FDR ) it would have been fairly easy to keep the US out long enough to make Germany the only game in town in Europe. Those who wanted us in wanted us in '39. Those who didn't want us in in '39 really didn't want us in at all.

Of course never underestimate Hitler's ability to do something incredibly stupid - Operation Barbarossa comes to mind. He may have provoked a crisis even if left unmolested. But aid to Britain was controversial here and those who wanted to keep us out would have been quite happy to trade with and profit from both sides.