In the years leading up to the start of the Second World War in 1939, the Soviet Union tried vainly on several different occasions to get Britain and France to join together in an anti-German pact, in an attempt to deter Nazi aggression in Eastern Europe. For a variety of reasons, the two Western Powers declined to do so. Then on August 25, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the “Nazi-Soviet Pact.” For the Nazis, the primary objective was to continue their “Drang nach Osten” (Drive to the East). Previously, the British and the French, refusing Soviet pleas to join in a pact to prevent the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, had strongly encouraged it with the Munich Pact in September, 1938. For the Soviet Union, the Pact was intended to buy time before the eventual German invasion that Hitler had been writing about since the publication of Mein Kampf in 1926. (That they made very poor use of the purchased time [and territory] is another story).
On September 1, 1939, using a false flag event, the German’s invaded Poland. Great Britain and France, citing hastily drawn-up treaty obligations to Poland, declared war on September 3. Germany rolled up its share of Poland (which included Warsaw) in about five weeks. The English and the French mobilized, The English sent an expeditionary force to France. There
things stood, with very minor actions (including some at sea), until
Germany invaded Norway and Denmark in April, 1940 and the Low Countries
(Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg) on May 10, 1940. All of a sudden, the war in the West was on in no uncertain terms. That interim period on the Western Front, in which little or nothing happened, had been quickly labelled The Phoney War. It was probably first given its name by the isolationist U.S. Senator, William Borah.
By all
accounts, Hitler did not expect to be invading Poland with his Panzer
divisions, opposed only by a Polish army heavily dependent on cavalry,
in September, 1939. Thus, on the Western Front, the Phoney War. By
all accounts, the Trumpites really did not expect to win the
Presidency, although their hopes rose significantly upon the
interference in the election by FBI Director, William Comey. But win they did. Unprepared
and poorly organized for Transition as they apparently were (under the
“leadership” of Chris Christie [who?]), I fully expected that Trump
would do nothing more than issue his usual blusters on a periodic basis
and also try to make nice, in a Trumpian sort of way, now and then.
Only after
Inauguration would he then launch into full Trump mode, fully and openly
in league with the reactionary forces that were increasingly gathering
around him after the leading Far Rightist Steve Bannon, et al, joined
the campaign in August. It
happens that the “et al” included Trump’s first really big money outside
man, Steve Mercer, a major factor in the “hedge fund” wing of the
ruling class. Trump is rich
(or at least he has claimed to be rich although declining to prove it
through, let us say, release of his income tax returns), but he had
never been a certified member of that class. Now it was becoming clear that Trump was beginning to seriously move towards it.
And so, I must say that I thought Trump
would engage in his version of the Phoney War right up until January 21,
2017, and then Boom! But I was wrong. Trump is nothing if not a clever marketer, particularly of himself and his name. And
so, almost since the election he has been engaging in a Trumpian Phoney
War while also making it very clear what the Trumpian Real War will be
like, once he takes power. And so, on the one hand he makes nice. “We all have to come together.” He
meets with the top leadership of The New York Times and, after slamming
them as hard as he could during the campaign, he says words to the
effect of that The Times is a great and important news organization. (This,
by the way, has to be seen in the context of his threatening libel
suits and the “loosening of libel laws [which, by the way, cannot be
done at the Federal level] during the campaign.)
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Source: The Greanville Post
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