Quote:
Originally Posted by angus58
Ben's comments about the 1930s and WW2 are widely held revisionist views and not at all controversial. He is certainly entitled to hold his beliefs and not once did I hear him say he supported the nazis or Hitler as was widely and gleefully reported on this forum earlier by his haters. I imagine that Ben, being Jewish himself, would never condone the holocaust. The way I took his comments was that more could have been done in the way of diplomacy to avoid the conflict and knowing what we now know, who's to say he's wrong. Steve unfortunately just decided to take it as an attack on all those who had died in the war, when Ben was actually saying they needn't have died if war could have been avoided.
What Steve and Nathan took exception to were Ben's comments about Britain not being the policeman of the world and I think Ben is absolutely correct. Yes, we should help those countries that need our help if it is within our power and duty to do so, but too often we poke our nose in where it is not wanted and often make matters much worse. We do not have the manpower or financial resources to fight every country's battles.
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I think Steve probably over-reacted for obvious reasons - and may have misunderstood Ben's point! It is clearly a very emotive subject for him!
But he doesn't deserve vilifying for that!
I do agree with Ben that we can't police the world and neither should we! We value our soldiers lives and don't want them taking any more risks than is necessary! The world's problems are not ours, or our soldiers' responsibility!