[Peace-discuss] Fw: [socialistdiscussion] War with the Empire

[David Johnson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Dan 
To: socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2013 5:52 AM
Subject: [socialistdiscussion] War with the Empire


  
There was a rivetting programme on the UK Channel 5 yesterday which described in great detail War Plan Red. Apparently this programme has been around for some time, but it was new to me.

This plan was drawn up in the early 1930s and envisaged an aggressive war by the USA against the British Empire, invading Canada and British Caribbean possessions as first steps in breaking the British domination of world trade backed by its hugely powerful naval fleet.

The programme correctly stated that British Capitalism had achieved the status of the world's Superpower by defeating every emerging rival - Spain, Netherlands, France in turn and that by the end of the Great War was faced with two emergent powers - Germany and the USA. US military strategist argued that it was only a matter of time before a new conflict broke out between Britain and its rivals. War Plan Red was its reply.

The invasion of Canada foresaw the bombing of industrial centres and the employment of poison gas. At the same time, the "civilised" imperialist powers were hypocritically condemning the use of poison gas and attacks on civilians while there was a plan in place for committing precisely such war crimes.

Apparently the plan was leaked in 1931 and up until 1940 US public opinion was opposed to a war in Europe. It took, as we know, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour to change this.

Obviously the British state would have known about the secret Plan but that did not hinder Churchill in seeking a special relationship with US imperialism and joint military action against the Third Reich.
In the event, joint action did not salvage the Superpower status of the British Empire; US loans to supply warship and munitions so indebted the British economy that it took many years even to restore the standard of living of 1939. The dollar replaced the pound sterling as the world's reserve currency; the US demanded payment in gold for their "help" in defeating Nazi Germany. The uprisings and the costliness of maintaining colonies did the rest and US imperialism achieved its goal to become a Superpower in the immediate postwar period, with both Britain and Germany crippled.

It is instructive to go over the cold cyniscism of these detailed war plans. Imperialism does not recognise sentimental gush about "a common language, history and culture" which allegedly linked the USA and the British Empire, let alone a common political stance for the "defence of democracy", "respect for human rights" or "rejection of war crimes and atrocities". A sick joke.

View the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4hjyyrpiKQ
Read more:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red



__._,_.___Reply via web post  Reply to sender  Reply to group  Start a New Topic  Messages in this topic (1)  

Recent Activity: a.. New Members 1 
Visit Your Group 
 Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest . Unsubscribe . Terms of Use . Send us Feedback .
 
__,_._,___
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20130202/7f289bc8/attachment.html>