An opinions column published on Friday, titled “America still the greatest,” is comprised of both bad history and bad ideas. It is my intention to correct the most egregious historical statement and address the most distressing idea within that article.
Let us start with the historical idea that “even if Hitler had not attacked any of our allies,” the United States still would have gone to war with Germany to “banish [Hitler’s] ridiculous views.”
First, the United States was not bound by treaty to come to the defense of Poland, France or Great Britain against Nazi Germany at the outbreak of war in September 1939, and therefore did not have any true allies.
The United States, or any free country for that matter, did not “impose democratic values” on Mussolini when he invaded Ethiopia in 1935 or on Hitler when he invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938. In fact, the United States, Britain and France were very much interested in avoiding war at all possible costs.
For Europeans, the memory of The Great War and the loss of almost an entire generation just over 20 years before sat heavily in their minds. For Americans, there was much dissent with the prospect of sending sons, fathers and husbands to die for European concerns.
For the sake of argument, however, let us call the anti-German alliance of Poland, France and Britain “allies” of the United States. If Nazi Germany had not invaded Poland, there would have been no war with France or Britain.
With no invasion of French territory, would the United States have become so upset with the annexation of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to invade Germany with a never-before-attempted airborne invasion? Perhaps they could have just nuked Germany from orbit after developing fission bombs for no particular strategic reason. It is the only way to be sure.
Germany declared war on the United States after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States did not arbitrarily declare war on Germany because we suddenly found out about “Hitler’s ridiculous views.”
By “Hitler’s ridiculous views,” I assume the author is referring to the massacre and genocide of over seven million innocent European citizens who just happened to be Jews, homosexuals, Slavs or just plain dissidents. The death camps that hid the truth of Nazi Germany’s “final solution” were not discovered until Soviet and Allied troops started liberating the camps in 1944, almost five years into the war.
The second idea I refuse to swallow is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are justified by a sense of global American superiority. Well over 5,000 Americans, and innumerable local civilians, have died in Iraq and Afghanistan because of a totally inept assessment of foreign threats to America.
To say we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to impose our form of democracy on them is incorrect.
To say we went to war in an attempt to secure our own land against attack is another argument entirely, and one that is rightly up for debate.
Neil W. Adams is a junior majoring in public relations and history.
