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RangerDick · 01-06-2005, 06:28 AM

Life Magazine, 7 January 1946, an article appeared entitled "American's are Losing the Victory in Europe": http://www.jessicaswell.com/MT/archives/000872.html

These quotes all sound a little familiar.....

..."A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word “liberation.” Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting."

"The first winter of peace holds Europe in a deathly grip of cold, hunger and hopelessness. In the words of the London Sunday Observer: Europe is threatened by a catastrophe this winter which has no precedent since the Black Death of 1348. There are still more than 25,000,000 homeless people milling about Europe. In Warsaw nearly 1,000,000 live in holes in the ground. Six million building were destroyed in Russia. Rumania has her worst drought of 50 years, and in Greece fuel supplies are terribly low because the Nazis, during their occupation, decimated the forests. In Italy the wheat harvest, which was a meager 3,450,000 tons in 1944, fell to an unendurable 1,304,000 tons in 1945. In France, food consumption per day averages 1,800 calories as compared with 3,000 calories in the U.S.' "

And here's the kicker...

"We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease."

Although, this may not be an exact parallel to the current state of affairs in Iraq, I think it illustrates the point that even after a clear Allied military victory in Europe in WW2, things weren't rosy right away.

Saying things are worse in Iraq now than they were this time last year is like saying a patient who is lying on the operating table in the middle of a surgery is in worse condition than he was before the surgeon cut him open.

History will have to judge. But 20 years from now, when (hopefully) Iraq is a successful democracy, people will probably say Bush had nothing to do with it anway, that Baathism and the Saddam regime were on the decline anyway and that democracy was inevitable.

01-06-2005, 06:28 AM	#19 (permalink)
RangerDick Loser Location: manhattan	Life Magazine, 7 January 1946, an article appeared entitled "American's are Losing the Victory in Europe": http://www.jessicaswell.com/MT/archives/000872.html These quotes all sound a little familiar..... ..."A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word “liberation.” Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting." "The first winter of peace holds Europe in a deathly grip of cold, hunger and hopelessness. In the words of the London Sunday Observer: Europe is threatened by a catastrophe this winter which has no precedent since the Black Death of 1348. There are still more than 25,000,000 homeless people milling about Europe. In Warsaw nearly 1,000,000 live in holes in the ground. Six million building were destroyed in Russia. Rumania has her worst drought of 50 years, and in Greece fuel supplies are terribly low because the Nazis, during their occupation, decimated the forests. In Italy the wheat harvest, which was a meager 3,450,000 tons in 1944, fell to an unendurable 1,304,000 tons in 1945. In France, food consumption per day averages 1,800 calories as compared with 3,000 calories in the U.S.' " And here's the kicker... "We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease." Although, this may not be an exact parallel to the current state of affairs in Iraq, I think it illustrates the point that even after a clear Allied military victory in Europe in WW2, things weren't rosy right away. Saying things are worse in Iraq now than they were this time last year is like saying a patient who is lying on the operating table in the middle of a surgery is in worse condition than he was before the surgeon cut him open. History will have to judge. But 20 years from now, when (hopefully) Iraq is a successful democracy, people will probably say Bush had nothing to do with it anway, that Baathism and the Saddam regime were on the decline anyway and that democracy was inevitable.