Was WWII the only major war under whih there was a clear good side and bad side?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You could say the Allies played a role in that.

Only if you're trying to get the Nazis off the hook. No one forced them to murder the great majority of Ashkenazim who still lived in Europe, no one forced them to murder millions of other groups as varied as Roma and Soviet POWs, and no one forced them to launch a war of annihilation and destruction.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

but there are plenty of people in, say, Estonia that would disagree with even that statement.

Considering the extent of popular involvement in the Holocaust in the Baltics, I do find it very hard to be sympathetic...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

it was merely a matter of degree between the Axis and the Allies.

No, that isn't true at all, sorry. Dreadful things were done by the Allied powers during the War (and after), but by focusing on individual acts of mass cruelty, you miss the bigger picture. Which in that war of all wars mattered more than anything else.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What could they have done instead? Fight another war over it?

People on this board have actually made that argument before. Seriously.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, and quickly before the U.S.S.R. built its own nukes.

Three questions.

1. Why so bloodthirsty?

2. Do you know roughly how many Soviet citizens were killed during the War?

3. Do you have any idea what state most of Europe was in immediately after the War?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. Because it would have been much more beneficial for U.S. interests to make Stalin's regime collapse and replace it with a capitalist (and democratic) one.

Aha... right. Please do note that your answer was in response to the question "why so bloodthirsty?" and your response was essentially "because the result would be good for U.S interests". Do you engage your brain before you type or are you a sociopath?

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Are you trolling me?

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I wasn't thinking in purely emotional terms...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Stalin was reactionary.  I know it seems obvious that he would he want to conquer the world, but he was a very unpredictable man.

It might seem obvious but is basically untrue. The problem is that we have a Hitler complex when it comes to thinking about evil dictators; you know, if someone is an evil dictator than that someone must want to conquer the world, because Hitler did and he is the archetype of evil dictators as far as most of us are concerned. In reality, what the Soviet Union wanted was security. The man was extremely paranoid rather than being a meglomaniac.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The deeds of Adolf Hitler's Germany may have been some of the most disgusting crimes against humanity ever in the history of mankind, but those weren't American Jews, those weren't American gays, those weren't American Catholics, those weren't American gypsies, those weren't American people being rounded up wholesale and being thrown into concentration camps, therefore we had no moral or ethical obligation to get ourselves involved in the War in Europe.

In practice that means that you think that the lives of non-Americans are worthless. Which, by the way, makes your opinions worthless.

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Then you have a very twisted sense of morality and probably need mental help.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So the lives of non-Americans are so valuable that 400,000 Americans have to be sent to die to protect them?

I would like you to know that you are beyond all forms of parody.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

SPC is a special snowflake.