pdq, I do not put Hitler's actions on the same moral ground as those who defended themselves against him.

What I do say is that the big industrialists who happily financed Hitler's rise and then equally happily financed the people who fought against him also didn't particularly give a damn about who lost their lives in the process...and they still don't give a damn.

I am in favour, generally speaking, of anyone who defends his own land against an unprovoked foreign invasion...and we've been over that ground over and over again in past discussions.

I do not necessarily equate motives of fighting powers. The power that provokes and launches a war usually has darker motives in the immediate sense than the ones that get attacked by it. Thus, I would say that in World War II, for example: Germany had considerably darker motives than Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, France, the UK, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia....and Russia (when they were attacked by the Germans in '41). Russia had darker motives than Finland when they launched the Winter War. Italy had darker motives than Greece when they attacked the Greeks. And so on...and so on...

They were all dealing with cynical realpolitik and watching out for whatever self-interests were at stake, of course...but the aggressor in a war normally has much darker motives than the passive target of his aggression.

The Japanese clearly had dark motives in the Pacific. So did the USA, however, and Roosevelt deliberately created a situation (through a trade embargo) where the Japanese would go to war, would launch the initial attack...and therefore would appear allow the USA to get into WWII while looking like a victim. The fact of the matter is, the USA and Japan were both attempting to dominate the Pacific theatre by whatever means possible, and had been drifting slowly and inevitably toward a great naval war since the 1920's. In addition to that, Roosevelt felt that it was absolutely necessary to fight and defeat Germany...but how could he arrange it with an isolationist public and Congress? By getting into a war with Germany's semi-ally, Japan, that's how. That would end the spirit of isolationism once and for ALL, specially if the Japanese could be maneuvered into making a "dastardly sneak attack", and they were. Then Hitler did Roosevelt the amazing favour of hurrying up the inevitable and immediately declared war ON THE USA! LOL! Roosevelt should have sent him a personal 'thank you' note. ;-)

Still, I'd say that in the Pacific the Japanese had the darkest motives...in a general sense. Okay?

Now, Stalin....Stalin's motives were about as dark as motives can get. He was a monster. Nevertheless, the Russians were innocent of any dark motive when they became the victims of Germany's aggression in '41. They were not innocent of dark motives, however, in regards to territorial grabs in Finland, Poland, Rumania, and so on...

So, as usual, it's a mixed picture.

The USA's so-called War on Terrorism is a false war, it was manufactured well ahead of time, and its purposes were various...to control Middle Eastern oil, to strengthen America vis-a-vis Russia and China, to keep a certain level of conflict happening and keep the arms business humming, to reshape American society into a semi-police state by degrees, to keep certain people in power in the US government, to create a new "great demonic enemy" to replace the vanished Soviets, and so on.

The Islamic terrorists are people who were once trained and organized BY the USA to fight Russia. They now are turned loose, and they are exactly what the USA wants in order that it can conduct foreign wars and clamp down on domestic freedoms. Every terrorist attack enables the neocons to do what they wanted to do anyway.

If something like 911 had not been arranged by anyone else, the neocons would have had to arrange it themselves...any maybe they did. They needed a "Pearl Harbour" style incident in order to put their programs into action. If no one's willing to do it for you, you do it yourself...or you con someone else into doing it for you by provoking them on the one hand, and funding them on the other.

They are as bad as the Islamic terrorists they pretend to be defending you and me against.

It's not a real war. It never had to be. It's an arranged charade of a war which you and millions of other people have bought into...just like millions of Germans bought into Hitler's nonsense about Jews and Communists in the 30's and 40's.

Millions of Muslims have bought into it too, and it's their violent activities you fear...but they were not the original architects of the situation. They're just reacting blindly, as people do when under great stress.