RE: Stupid- better questions to ask

The questions make no assumptions about the motives of the French. Who knows what they were? Thomas Jefferson probably; he had been in Paris for years begging them to come and help. They certainly didn't get much out of it other than the satisfaction of beating the British for once.

The fact remains that Washingtons' forces really were in terrible shape and would most likely have lost - not because they were inferior soldiers but because they were on short service enlistments and had better things to be doing back on the farm. The unpalatable fact is that the French won the final decisive battle of our revolutionary war. Not us. Yorktown was a convernional European-style fortress seige battle - It was an artillery affair with a naval blockade preventing a rescue and leading to a professional surrender before the soldiers could get at each other - nothing to do with American irregulars or their superior ability in fighting a revolutionary war in the forests of North America. That is folklore, and it is time we grew up and understood the adult version.

Our motives for helping the French in the 20th century are much more suspect. If we had cared about the French in World War II we would have gone in with the British to help save it from invasion in 1940 - as we did in the last month of WWI. When we eventually went in 1944 it was to use France as a convenient battleground, not to save it from the Germans.

We can't stand the idea of owing our liberty to the French, but it is much more the case than them owing us for theirs.

I agree about the Russians having more impact in defeating Germany than the USA. Another unpleasant truth. However, a full assessment would show that The economy of the USA would have been decisive if the war had gone on much longer.

In the 1930s communism appeared to most thinking people to be the only force capable and willing to defeat facism. Many decent Americans took this view, and were later persecuted by McCarthy. They were right. We were unwilling to start on the facists until Pearl Harbour.

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