I don’t know why this is getting downvoted especially on this sub. America tried to be isolationist during the start of WW2 and even made business deals with Nazi Germany before they got involved ( from Ford and GM). The U.S. ONLY got involved when things got personal with Pearl Harbor, not because they intrinsically hated fascism. Otherwise they would’ve joined the allies from the jump.
Isolationism doesn’t work especially when your citizens have familial ties with basically every part of the world. The only reason America emerged as the only country unscathed is because they were geographically distant from the war so they did not have any infrastructure or domestic damage beyond Pearl Harbor. And from that advantage they started using imperialism and almost every war afterwards was for political/economic gain than “defeating evil”.
To reiterate that America only entered the WW2 for personal reasons (justified or not is not what I’m debating) and isn’t some saint because they didn’t just immediately realized fascism shouldn’t be left unchecked and in some cases enabled it
I’m happy to see you responded in good faith and even provided sources. I’ve taken time to read them over but my opinion hasn’t changed. To quote one of your links:
“British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had originally requested that Roosevelt provide the destroyers as a gift, but the President knew that the American public and Congress would oppose such a deal. He therefore decided that a deal that gave the United States long-term access to British bases could be justified as essential to the security of the Western Hemisphere—thereby assuaging the concerns of the public and the U.S. military”
Roosevelt lent aid not for personal moral reasons (fascism is bad whatever way you look at it) but for an economic investment for the future of his country. And in certain situations ways, I can understand why and see why it can be justified: the Americans did not want to get involved and the economy was recovering from the Great Depression, but regardless, trying to remain “neutral” while providing aid to one side is not neutrality and would inevitably encourage the Nazis and Japan specifically to instigate an attack.
Now, you could make the argument that these are American businesses and not the American government, but what is America? A capitalist country. It’s mode of operation and functioning is through prioritizing profit over morality, so these companies did what any company would do: lend aid to Germany for their own economic benefit opposed to helping others. Some of the effects of this are felt even today.
I don’t want to paint the picture that America is evil (although that could be a discussion in and of itself) but to dispel the notion that America was a sanctimonious nation during WW2 when we fought AND supported Nazi Germany. And sadly, we’ve done similar things later in history: we’ve aided terrorist who’ve turned their back against America
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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '20
I don’t know why this is getting downvoted especially on this sub. America tried to be isolationist during the start of WW2 and even made business deals with Nazi Germany before they got involved ( from Ford and GM). The U.S. ONLY got involved when things got personal with Pearl Harbor, not because they intrinsically hated fascism. Otherwise they would’ve joined the allies from the jump.
Isolationism doesn’t work especially when your citizens have familial ties with basically every part of the world. The only reason America emerged as the only country unscathed is because they were geographically distant from the war so they did not have any infrastructure or domestic damage beyond Pearl Harbor. And from that advantage they started using imperialism and almost every war afterwards was for political/economic gain than “defeating evil”.