Somehow, today I find myself thinking and wondering about historical parallels and what people think about them. And ideas about "those not willing to learn from the past are due to repeat it."

Specifically, in '37 the International Brigades volunteered and went to Spain to fight fascism and promote left-leaning thought. These are thoughts with which I generally concur. They have always said that if Hitler had been confronted then and there, World War 2 would not necessarily been fought.

When those volunteers came home, in the U.S.A. at least, they were branded as PRE-MATURE ANTI-FASCISTS and were persecuted and marginalized.

Of course, hindsight is always 20-20. My question is this. WHAT IF????

Might Bush (as much as I hate to even say it) be correct?? Is a premptive strike called for now in the same way that it MIGHT'VE BEEN almost three quarters of a century ago.

I want / need to say that I have always been in favor of peace. But one more QUESTION: Was peace, as Nevil Chamberlain thought in the Sudetenland muddle, always preferable to a JUST WAR ? I think not. I was totally against what to me was an unjust and terribly inhumane and wasteful war in Viet Nam. All that said, I simply want to toss out this polemic to provoke a conversation.

Art Thieme