Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Diana West's Series on FDR-era Soviet Influence In US

Update on the Florida bus beating:

Both the media and supposed civil rights activists have been strangely silent on the savage beating of a white kid on a school bus that was committed by three blacks kids. The only complaints that I found were about the bus driver, an old man who was clearly distraught when he called for help on the radio. For crying out loud - the poor guy was 64 years old!
In an echo of his Falklands/Malvinas screw-up in which her referred to the islands as the Maldives* (Quite far away), we read that the high IQ-having President now either does not know what the geographic term "gulf" means or thinks that US port cities on the Atlantic seaboard are in the Gulf of Mexico:


In Breitbart, I came across one essay of a five-part series that answered a question that had vexed me for a number of years. Why are we repeatedly hit with claims that the US did very little to defeat Hitler's Germany while the Soviets were forced to bear - not the bulk, but supposedly almost all of the brunt of the fighting?

For anyone who has even a passing familiarity with WWII, the claim that the USSR stood alone against the Third Reich makes no sense whatsoever. The Soviets conveniently stayed out of the war with Japan until they could get some easy pickings in the last few days before Hirohito declared that his nation must accept a unconditional surrender, the British were heavily engaged with Germany since the beginning of the war (Including the period when Stalin was still enjoying the benefits of his peace deal with Hitler - one in which the USSR also attacked and took half of of Poland*), and the US was providing a smorgasbord of vital materiel the Soviet Union.

After Pearl Harbor, the US effectively left the Pacific theater alone, our besieged troops in places such as the Philippines to their own devices, and concentrated on fighting the Germans in Africa. Shortly after this, the invasions of Sicily and Italy were begun. Italy is admittedly mountainous along its spine and by extension not the easiest place for a campaign, but this theater gave the allies several advantages. It also has areas along the coasts suitable for large troop movements, numerous port cities and landing-suitable areas for additional support on both sides of Italy, France, and the Balkans, and bases firmly in allied naval and air control in the Mediterranean. The Po Valley, once reached would have been a tremendous venue for a campaign just as it was for the ancient Gauls, and the later Byzantines and Lombards. From a strategic standpoint, it gave the Allies an advantage that a move from the West (France) could not offer - positioning our forces in a manner that would threaten the southern flank and supply lines of the Wehrmacht. The Germans could easily have been forced to withdraw from France in order to prevent having their forces in Western Europe being cut in half as the allies thrust north towards Germany itself.

Attacking from the West forced the Germans to do what no enemy should be even allowed to do - concentrate their forces in a effort to avoid being split by an opposing force.

Massing forces in an entirely different location (The UK for Normandy) was a move that could only take more time, stifle the success of the moves against the "Soft underbelly of the Axis" (Churchill) by drawing away crucial resources, and guarantee massive casualties, yet the allies did so anyway.

Looking over the maps through the years, I could not see why we did this.

But we still are told that we waited a long time before opening up a second front in Europe (Even though we already had one), thereby letting the Soviets be bled dry.

It wasn't true in any way at all, in fact the entire move only prolonged the war in Europe, so why do we keep hearing this?

I knew for a along time that FDR was an admirer of Stalin, that many among his staff were Soviet sympathizers, and that both our educational system and media have long been run by Leftists, but I still did not know that the influence of Stalin had been enough to slow down the allied war effort in the West:

"The two most ardent boosters of the Normandy invasion were Stalin and Harry Hopkins.
[Stalin's boy]

......the question becomes to whose end was the invasion launched – ours or Stalin’s?


In his memoir, Calculated Risk, Gen. Mark Clark, commander of U.S. forces in Italy, explains how gutting his forces in Italy in the months before D-Day stalled Allied progress against German forces. (Italy had already surrendered.) Meanwhile, the disappearance of Allied men and materiel from the battlefield completely mystified the Germans.

Italy, after all, as a senior U.S. commander explained to assembled military brass at the Cairo conference in late 1943, “was the correct place in which to deploy our main forces and the objective should be the Valley of the Po. In no other area could we so well threaten the whole German structure including France, the Balkans and the Reich itself."

"Here also our air would be closer to vital objectives in Germany,” he explained. The commander went on recommend “operations in the Aegean”: "From here the Balkans could be kept aflame, Ploesti would be threatened and the Dardanelles might be opened.”

That commander’s name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Soon, he would be named Supreme Commander of the Normandy invasion. His enthusiasm for the Churchillian Italian/Balkan campaign is preserved in the State Department records of the Cairo Conference...............

On August 11, 1943, John C. Wiley, a Soviet expert in the OSS, wrote to FDR recommending the opening of a front in the Balkan area “where it could best influence the course of the war, diplomatic relations with the Kremlin and the peace to come... An invasion of France and the Lowlands would give us no political authority in central and eastern Europe. Only a successful Anglo-American invasion of southeastern Europe can give us a real voice in the eventual peace settlement.”

John Wiley's exhortations were ignored, Germany was given the time and space to concentrate her forces. Even more importantly, Stalin was given time to creep ever closer to Germany and in the process consolidate control over the nations that later would be forcefully incorporated into the Warsaw Pact.Stalin did not want us to end the war more quickly, he wanted to prolong it so that he could gain control of Eastern Europe - and probably all of Germany.

How many more allied troops were killed in Northern France (And in Italy with the allies being reduced in strength) rather than possibly being saved by waging a more strategically sound campaign we will never know, but we do know this much:

Europe had a second front long before that for which the allies are given credit, this while Stalin lost nothing against Japan.

The campaign in the south was sacrificed for the delays and allocations necessary for the invasion of Normandy.

The time spent enabled the Soviets to gain far more ground than if we had continued with our move north and possibly initiate another move from the Balkans.

The strategy was a great success for Stalin. He gained Eastern Europe and half of Germany.

*The invasion of Poland was the reason for the declaration of war by France and Britain, but nothing was said or done about Stalin's very same move)

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