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In reply to the discussion: Related to another OP, should the US have entered World War II earlier than it did? [View all]leveymg
(36,418 posts)17. That's an important quote, but it was Sen. Borah who said it, according to Rob't Parry
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051808.html
The Bushes and Hitler's Appeasement
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Sunday 18 May 2008
The irony of George W. Bush going before the Knesset and mocking the late Sen. William Borah for expressing surprise at Adolf Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland is that Bush's own family played a much bigger role assisting the Nazis.
If Borah, an isolationist Republican from Idaho, sounded naive saying "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided," then what should be said about Bush's grandfather and other members of his family providing banking and industrial assistance to the Nazis as they built their war machine in the 1930s?
The archival evidence is now clear that Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from and collaborated with key financial backers of Nazi Germany.
That business relationship continued after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and even after Germany declared war on the United States following Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It stopped only when the U.S. government seized assets of Bush-connected companies in late 1942 under the "Trading with the Enemy Act."
So, perhaps instead of holding up Sen. Borah to ridicule, Bush might have acknowledged in his May 15 speech that his forebears also were blind to the dangers of Hitler.
Bush might have noted that his family's wealth, which fueled his own political rise, was partly derived from Nazi collaboration and possibly from slave labor provided by Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
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Related to another OP, should the US have entered World War II earlier than it did? [View all]
pampango
Mar 2013
OP
I wouldn't say I studied it closely but my understanding is that we realized limited benefits and
Cary
Mar 2013
#24
I think history shows that bombing civilians increases their hatred and will to fight rather than
pampango
Mar 2013
#29
I agree. In fact I posted that FDR had no choice given the sentiments of the time.
pampango
Mar 2013
#7
We should have at least used the Neutrality Act to prosecute Prescott Bush and other Wall St
leveymg
Mar 2013
#5
That's an important quote, but it was Sen. Borah who said it, according to Rob't Parry
leveymg
Mar 2013
#17
All very interesting and plausible possibilities. Just goes to show how unpredictable war
pampango
Mar 2013
#23
The Czarist Okhrana precipitated the assassination plot of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo.
leveymg
Mar 2013
#19
That's a toughie, but a big part would be to render Archduke Ferdinand's killing irrelevant
Taverner
Mar 2013
#35
There is no guarantee that an earlier entry to the war would have helped the allied cause.
JVS
Mar 2013
#16
I think you are right. It took us a long time to crank up military production and draft and train
pampango
Mar 2013
#26
I agree that we were not ready - even in 1941. France and Britain were not ready either but
pampango
Mar 2013
#36
If France & England had been smarter they would have beaten Germany in 1940.
GreenStormCloud
Mar 2013
#37
Actually, had Hitler not declared war on us, it would have been a hard sell to fight him.
Tierra_y_Libertad
Mar 2013
#33
What if we had had a strong army in 1939? Would entering the war at that point have been
pampango
Mar 2013
#38
I'm fundamentally an isolationist, but in the case of WW-II we royally screwed up.
talkingmime
Mar 2013
#39