A common new angle taken when the "we liberated you !" fails to work.

The communists already had a large influence on Europe; both before and after the war. Europe is politically very different to the USA, also Western Europe. Interventions where executed in Greece, Italy and France to prevent these nations from going really socialist. Nearly all Western Europe nations went socialist to various degrees anyway. Note how all these area's were under Western Ally control at the end of WW2 !

Additionally a good argument can be had about the rise of a more relaxed Europe if the Western powers hadn't decided to concilidated their fear of communists, detonating some nuclear bombs as a showcase, deviding Korea, Pattons remarks of forming old Nazi forces into new battle units, forming NATO and cracking down on communists partizans (main stay in the resistance) in Greece and Italy; all in a row. Soviet union felt threatened especially since she was heavily damaged from 5 years of all out ground war and again 20 million deaths. They wanted a new buffer zone and the warschau pact was a direct anwer to that threat. From then onwards they scrambled to also get a nuclear bomb and the cold war was born.

One could actually argue that the G.I.'s on the ground were actually instrumental in creating the situation that influenced Europe heavily and is known as the cold war. A couple of years later we got the korean war, the Berlin airbridge and the creation of the wall and iron curtain. All the result of escalation of tensions between the former allies because the west wanted to push back communism. The western allies had also remained very quiet on the pre-war rise of Hitler mostly because he was so anti-communist.


History won't permit itself to be easily summerized in a few one-liners. Certainly not if you want to advance some political points. That whole time frame between 1910 and 1989 was a pretty dirty story, on both sides. Actually I should write "1910 - present" as the blinded hatred of Communists resulted in the collapse of the Aghan nation and the rise of super fundamentals like Al-Queda and ... Well I guess you know what I mean here. Does anybody realize that in the 1970's Afghan women were walking around in miniskirts and getting university education ? However, as the communists were responsible for that it had to be destroyed. The only viable candidates to implement such a policy were the fundamentalists; who were weak at the time.

Pardon me, but I'm not convinced that the West was much better is doing "good things" then the East was.

Wouter