[stcredzero]

I'm saying that what you claim to be the ideological basis of the war is untrue.

The ideological basis and the geopolitical basis are two entirely different things.

I still consider it rather ironic how Ho Chi Minh was originally a supporter of democratic instutions and a friend of the US, until he decided the independence of his people mattered a lot more.

That's a place where the USA really f'd up!

[guildwriter]

The ideological basis and the geopolitical basis are two entirely different things.

Geopolitics and ideology have to be considered hand in hand when making decisions at the scale that Roosevelt and Eisenhower did. Before Pearl Harbor, even though the general US populace knew what the Nazis were doing to some extent, even Lend-Lease was hugely controversial. It took a surprise attack on US soil to galvanize people into action. To me, I think survival of the US is a much easier sell as being the prime ideology. Everything else such as protection of rights and freedom were good partial truths. Otherwise things like the internment of the Japanese, rationing, censorship, propaganda, and so on become harder to explain.

Again, none of these encroachments take away from the rightness. I just think it's important to acknowledge that the ugly and the good and everything else can stand together all at once.

I think it's also worth mentioning that when I'm thinking of WW2, I'm also thinking of WW2 as a whole. Not just from a purely US centric perspective.

[stcredzero]

To me, I think survival of the US is a much easier sell as being the prime ideology.

Please don't confuse motivations with ideology. Ideology is a philosophical thing. Motivations can be ideological, but they can also be apart from ideology. Fighting "to preserve our way of life" is effectively an ideological call out. It certainly was in the 1930's and 1940's America.

To me, I think survival of the US is a much easier sell as being the prime ideology.

Fighting to protect your home is rather at a more basic level than the ideological basis of the USA, which is that of individual human rights on the English model. American GI's, German Wehrmacht, and Red Army soldiers -- all 3 of them were motivated by patriotic defense of the homeland. However, all 3 groups had widely differing ideologies.

Ideology needs special attention. Especially at times like this.

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