Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show with me and Brian O'Neil takes on some fascinating historical topics in our "This Day in History" segment. For instance, I describe the comprehensive U.S. firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 that killed approximately 100,000 civilians. Who needs atomic bombs when you've got firepower like that -- and the ice water in your veins to make use of it? Brian and I also cover Ike's private criticism of Senator Joe McCarthy, the birth of Russia's "Communist Party" in 1918, Portugal's role in World War I, and Pancho Villa and the U.S. intervention in Mexican unrest during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
When we tackle current events, we naturally have a lot to say about the ongoing fighting in Ukraine, and about the potential for a negotiated solution that would pull Russia, Ukraine, NATO, and especially the United States back from the brink of a much wider and more destructive conflict. Brian and I also consider Russia's role in a potential new Iran nuclear deal, and why Iran may, in the final analysis, decide that nukes are critical to its security.
It's a show that you mustn't miss -- not if you value the gray matter sloshing around in that skull of yours!
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-march-9-2022-dr-nick-waddy/
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According to the Israelis, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have reached a critical stage. Let's hope both sides do the right thing.
And here's a great refutation of the Liz Cheney approach to the Russia-Ukraine war, which would maximize America's involvement thoughtlessly and needlessly.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Just a random thought here before I lose it (haven't listened to the broadcast yet): What if Ukraine actually kept some of their nukes?In extremis, would they use them? What then?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: the broadcast: I think McCarthy was crude but that he, Nixon and J.E. Hoover were emminently correct. Communism is a threat to humanity even worse than Naziism. There WAS Commie pollution of our federal gov't (eg. Hiss etc.and possibly Wallace etc depending on how much he venerated the Soviets). Of course it was right to direct consummate, withering attack on these subhumans and their dreamy admirers. All those cammpus marxist profs who popped up in the 60s got that way before the sixties; in my generation they saw their fondest dream, a multitudinous, unworldly revolutionary class right in their very classrooms. No wonder the left uses McCarthy's name as an assumed, reflexive, typically asserted irrefutable execration! He knew them and they know it. He terrorized them and they deserved it. Would we had his equal today to do as much harm to the American Commie pollution, even to the most significant decision forming and enacting level, yes, existentially at work today. One need solely, at a minimum,look at the MESS they have made in a one year domination of the executive branch! Our country is facing very close to unprecedented danger, at which American commies like Sanders and AOC rejoice, from undermining of our essential moral and doctrinal foundation. And this has allowed their rot to spread to our timbers. McCarthy WAS right!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Your comments on Ukraine in the broadcast were VERY well taken. You provided a very.primer on the situation, including plausible predictions!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: A thought: this would probably bring little consolation to Israel, though I'm sure they know the truth of whatever it might light upon: could it be that Iran has partial motivation to gain the bomb in order to counter a Russian threat? The Russians are infidels ( I mean if Muslimists still protest resentment of the Crusades, might they not also be yet aggrieved by Imperial Russian assumption and continuation of Byzantine greatness after they were at pains to eradicate Constantinople?) They were blithe to thereby force possibly the greatest church in Christendom into their faith; how might they even today regard such violation of their cherished sites! Surely with no sympathy or empathy. What does that say of them? And Iran surely considers Russia's onslaught on Ukraine too.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Re McCarthy: President Trump would be the ideal person to conduct an equally frank McCarthy like tasking of today's American Communist gang. Let it experience the appalling prospect of complete political and professional discreditation it casually and reflexively visits on those who violate political correctness.
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ReplyDeleteDr.Wadydy from Jack: Thanx for pointing out the connection and timming between the Villa raid, the unsuccessful punitive expedition and the German offer of alliance to Mexico. By April, 1917, the Uboats actually had the Brits considering imminent material starvation (First Sea Lord Jellicoe revealed this to US Admiral Sims when an American battle fleet arrived in 1917). US antisub warfare was untested and the Brits were still working it out. A German all out effort resulting in conquest of France, before the arrival of a US Army the Germans presciently feared, combined with an expected Russian collapse and Britain's Uboat forced admission of inability to carry on, might have left Germany the master of Europe. The Zimmerman telegram, if unknown by the US, could have been the catalyst. It might have preemptively engaged the US. What then for 20th century history?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Alternative history is so much fun. My thought: the Hohenzollern dynasty would have survived. Since a Nazi onslaught would have been unlikely, Jewish scientists and rocket engineers would have stayed, though knowingly disdained! By 1940, Germany might have possessed ICBMs and nuclear warheads. Across the Atlantic, an isolationist America would have bid its time. What might have been in store?
ReplyDeleteUkraine holding onto some nukes? I've never seen any evidence of that, but, yes, I would think, backed up against the wall, they WOULD use them. Frankly, if they wanted to protect their independence, (re)acquiring nukes might have done the trick far better than nuzzling up to NATO...
ReplyDeleteJack, that's a welcome perspective: McCarthy may have overplayed his hand in labeling certain people, or certain groups, as "communist", in the sense that they never were members of the Communist Party in the U.S., but he was absolutely correct that communist and Soviet sympathizers permeated our political, cultural, and academic elite. Frankly, the "pinkos" were in a position to do far more damage than the out and out "Reds". They still are.
I doubt Iran considers itself threatened by Russia, although nukes are a great insurance policy against even the most improbable of foes. I would think Israel, the U.S., Iraq, and the Saudis top the list of the more probable enemies of the Ayatollah.
Jack, it would be a delight if we could subject the American Left to a McCarthy-style purge...but we'd have to start with the press corps, and restoring sanity to that motley crew seems a forlorn hope, no?
Agreed, Jack: the German gambit in 1917-18 easily could have worked. The collapse of Russia gave the Germans a golden opportunity to win the war. As I understand it, the Germans weren't really prepared for an all-out U-boat offensive in either world war. Those operations were launched as afterthoughts, or as hail mary attempts to alter the dynamics of the conflict. Now, whether the U.S. could have been effectively bogged down in Mexico I don't know. In any case, we took so long to scale up our forces and get them to Europe that the Germans had ample opportunity to finish off the Brits and the French without us in the mix. They simply failed to get it done.
Hmm. A world in which the Germans prevailed in WWI? For sure, the Hohenzollerns would have stayed on the throne. Germany might, in fact, have taken a turn to the center or the (soft) left, since the right wouldn't have been emboldened by revanchism. Agreed: the prospects for Jews would have been much brighter, and those for Nazi hotheads a lot dimmer. I'm not so sure about the nukes and the ICBMs, though. No one would have built those without another major war impending, and with the Germans the masters of Europe I would doubt that the U.S. would hold out much hope to, or have much interest in, liberating the European continent. My guess would be that the Germans would be pretty focused on pacifying their eastern realms. And just imagine the colonial complications of a German victory! Oh, the possibilities!
Dr. Waddyfrom Jack: Another possible consequence of German triumph:a summary preemptive strike on Bolshevism.
ReplyDeleteIndeed! Then again, the Bolshies got into power in the first place by being handmaidens of the Kaiser. Maybe they would have found a modus vivendi?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Oh but , I would suggest, only with the most expeditious of intentions. Wilhelm II would not have countenanced the slaughter of his cousins! He had the power to do it dirt and, I think, would have done so!
ReplyDeleteGood point. The Germans were really playing hardball in underwriting Lenin against the Romanovs. Would that policy have persisted post-war? Maybe not.
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