and now for something completely different..

Having read a lot of information about WWII over the past year or two, I tend to hold accounts from 1936-1948 in somewhat reverential awe. And so would most, at least in this country. But it is refreshing to read a perspective that seems to see the forest for the trees, and remind us of the grim realities behind what Stephen Ambrose and Steven Spielberg tend to focus on. After all, many of the major ethnic and cultural problems the world faces today emerged from those years of turmoil; Iraq, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine, not to mention the USSR, East Germany and the entire former Communist bloc are testaments to the political morass from which the war came and to which it returned.

I don't agree with everything this guy says, but he makes some extremely good points, especially about the fascination with fascism that pretty much gripped pre-war Europe. Here's an excerpt from the article:

The biggest lie about WW II is that it was a war between good and evil. Bullshit, because there were no good European countries.

Fact No1: They Were ALL Fascists. At a military level, let's face a nasty fact: WW II was Stalin vs. Hitler. The rest was window dressing. Stalin won because--because what, he was a nicer guy? Nope, he won because his brand of fascism was actually way more ruthless and bloody and effective than Hitler's smalltime snobbery, and because Stalin had the whole US industrial machine backing him..