Tracy,

That are a lot of "What if's". No-one is able to predict how the world would have looked like right now without the US intervention. Maybe we would have been in war maybe in peace, maybe the russians took over. Maybe I would speak german right now. But this also accounts to the US. Maybe the US was not the world power rights now, maybe you'd be speaking Japanese, German. etc.
Remember that the future is more determined by economic, scientific and political factors than military (despite of what most of us seem to think up here).

Really nobody knows, but it is no use about rethinking about that. After all looking in retrospect who, nowerday really care about what happened to the Roman, Habsburg, Austrian, ottoman, napolean empire. We are here in this point in time, irregardless of how we came to be here. Also one times friend could be another times enemy (all too familiar on europes battlefields). Our arguments should about the future and not stuck to 'what if's in the past. The number of people who participated in WWII, motives and ideologies are dying out soon). It is time to look ahead. Being stuck in the past is not going to solve any issues we are dealing with today. This is why governments need to be more 'progressive'.







>So you believe that if the U.S. had not joined the allies, then Netherlands (and the rest of Europe) would stilll be free and also free of Hitler's control?
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>I disagree. There's a lot in that of course (pacific issues, Japan's oil needs, Japan and Singapore, China, Indonesia, not to mention the USSR fighting on both fronts...)
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>Wasn't it Winston Churchill, who when he heard of Pearl Harbor, remarked, "so we have won after all!" (which probably had more to do with Hitler declaring war on the U.S., not Pearl Harbor)
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>>Here is the part you must have missed: "someone from a country who's very existence as a free country is due to the USA".
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>>>I must have missed something because I didn't read where it was claimed we did it alone, only that what we did was not appreciated any longer. Besides, wasn't the discussion the Marshall Plan which Netherlands benefitted from and was the idea of the U.S.? It must be acknowledged that the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Program was almost as successful in building a strong post-war Europe as the Marshall Plan was.
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>>>>>Hi Walter,
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>>>>>>>Keep talking, Perry. You're a poster child as to why no one with concerns for their country and it's future should ever vote leftist.
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>>>>>>Can someone please explain why all other western countries are far more leftish than even your own left wing and currently are doing far better than the US on about every front?? The US economy is bogged down under the ongoing war on terror .... (uh um), a tremendous dept to the asian express, the financial crisis on the house market, continueing outsourcing and devaluation of the dollar. The past 8 years has lost a lot of credibility on adhering human rights (ignoring the geneva convention), the lies arround starting the iraqi war. Further the milestone of having 1 percent of your citizens imprisoned and crime rates that makes some 3rd world countries jealous, the skyhigh gasprices, the 2 party political system (tight into the corporate world, rather than being independed), the media that are hardly independed (most of them are bound to a certain political party) and the overall willingness (or unability) to do anything progressive
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>>>>>Exactly how are other Western countries doing far better than the US? In what area? Taxes? Name me a lower taxed EU country. Gas prices? Name me an EU country with lower gas prices. What area, Walter? Enlighten me.
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>>>>>I'm not going to argue "Iraq lie" or human rights since that's subjective evaluation. Crime rates and imprisonment are a complex issue - a lot of that stemming from our more libertine gun owenership laws and our more conservative crime laws.
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>>>>>We're just not as a progressive country in deed as Europe. We come from a different mindset and heritage. Europe evolved into the current progressive, "enlightened" mindset it now smugly exudes because the freedom to do so came from spent American lives when you folks suddenly decided to become fascists and imperialists. We, the American people, the country, infected you with the disease of democracy and tolerance and now you think you've discovered it all your own. The chutzpah amazes me.
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>>>>>>It really got me stumped as of why, after 8 year of Bush devistation anyone would not see that the current right-wing approach is on a road to nowhere.
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>>>>>Because there is no unilateral rightwing approach. I guess you weren't so cool on the European devastation of the 1940's either...oh, but wait, there was something called the Marshall Plan. Good thing you had powerful buddies to rebuild you, huh? Those same buddies you now disparage now that you have the means to give thanks to those same friends....you know, the ones you never bothered to pay back?
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>>>>>>From our pov, a left wing does not even exist in the US. There is right and even more right (There are some interesting papers to find on the internet describing this: eg. http://www.exponentialimprovement.com/cms/polspec.shtml)
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>>>>>>It really amazes me that you are battling between the democrats and republicans while they both are not addressing important issues at all (see the list above). you're stuck with two of the same kind and are nitpicking about the little differences that might be relevant to the individual but hardly do have any relevance in the bigger scheme. I guess it is the fault of your two party system where both have to do (promise) everything to even the smaller groups to help them to power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system
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>>>>>>The US is really an amazing country...
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>>>>>Yeah, amazing. Amazing that someone from a country who's very existence as a free country is due to the USA can dump on it. But I guess that's free and protected speech....something else we exported to you.
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>>>>It's a little surreal to read that democracy flowed from the U.S. to Europe instead of the other way around. Our system was modeled largely on European governments and ideas -- the English Bill of Rights, the French Enlightenment, etc. Apparently you are referring to our role in WW II. While no one can shortchange that, it's not like we did it alone. The English and French, among others, were fighting the Germans for two years before we showed up. And it's questionable whether the war would have been won without the Russians. It truly was a group victory and it's a little arrogant for one of the allies to claim they did it alone.