From: Randall Parker 

In <38d529e5{at}w3.nls.net>, the sagacious richhong{at}hawksci.com Richard
Hong perspicated:
> Actually, WWII itself is an example of what would have happened in its
> absence.  We tried the traditional method of dealing with vanquished nations
> and a trashed continent.  It was the Treaty of Versailles.

No, the traditional method would have been to kill or enslave everybody and
to occupy the place and make it a part of an empire of the conquerors.

>  It made Hitler
> possible.  You, who likes to speak of historical precedent, seem to have
> forgotten that the Marshall Plan happened largely because the memory of how
> Versailles eventually created Hitler was fresh in their minds.

Versailles is at least an argument for no half-measures. While Versailles
was not the right settlement for WWI I am not convinced that a settlement
that was less punitive to Germany would have avoided WWII. They still had a
mindset and arrogance that seems to me in retrospect to have been something
that would have been hard to deal with no matter how WWI was settled (short
of the real traditional treatment of enslavement and such).

I'm not defending punitive treatments of defeated nations and I certainly
think Versailles was a bad idea. But i reject the idea that if only for
Versailled we could have avoided WWII.

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