The text below has been adapted from a post, made on 27 Oct, in response to John Quiggin's article Unnecessary Wars of 21 Oct 2016. (The paragraph commencing "Today, almost certainly ..." differs.)

Professor Quiggin wrote:

The same point is made by Newton in Hell-Bent: Australia’s leap into the Great War (recommended in comments a while ago by James Sinnamon.

Thank you, Professor Quiggin.

In 2014 - before July 2014 when "Hell-Bent" was published - I have deduced - Douglas Newton also published "The Darkest Days - the Truth Behind Britain's Rush to War, 1914". Other titles by Douglas Newton listed on DouglasNewton _dot_ net include: "Germany 1918 - from Days of Hope to Years of Horror" (2016), "British Policy and the Weimar Republic" (2016), "British Labour, European Socialism and the Struggle for Peace 1889-1914" (2016). (He seems very prolific in writing about topics which are of interest to me. I will be sure to make enquiries at my local bookshop and library.)

Anthony, your grandfather's experience seems similar to those of Ernest Hemingway in Italy in 1918 as described in his book "A farewell to Arms" (1929).

I disagree with what John B. wrote:

Churchill sent my father to Greece to become cannon fodder for the Germans. This manouvre was executed by Churchill on the pretext of trying to get the US to support the British.

... which appears to have become established wisdom. Had Churchill (for all his terrible faults) not sent Commonwealth forces to Greece, Hitler would have been able to launch his invasion of the Soviet Union some weeks earlier than 22 June 1941 and the German Army would have almost certainly defeated the Red Army before the 194/42 winter set in.

The consequences for humanity would have almost certainly been even more terrible than that which subsequently occurred. Eastern Europe, and much of Russia, would have been depopulated, with starvation, bullets and extermination camps, to create Lebensraum for the Aryan "master race."

Today, almost certainly, we would, at best, be living in a world divided up between the German Third Reich, the Empire of Japan and the United States. At worst, we would be living in a bi-polar world, split between Germany and Japan.

The terrible sacrifice made by Australians, New Zealanders, British and Greeks against the Italians and Germans in 1941 was clearly a sacrifice that was vastly preferable to the alternative.

So, whilst I agree with Professor Quiggin that the First World War was a stupid unnecessary slaughter, humanity truly had a stake in the outcome in the Second World.

The "Balmain Trotskyists", including Nick Origlass, Issy Weiner, Jim McLelland and Laurie Short, in accord with the views on held by Leon Trotsky, before his murder in August 1940, applied the template, through which they had correctly viewed the First World World War, to the Second World War.

As shown in "The Battle for Australia" (2013) by Bob Wurth, industrial action by trade union militants, as advocated by the "Balmain Trotskyists" on a number of occasions, hampered efforts to defend Australia. This included industrial action on the Darwin waterfront in January 1941 (p59, p107).

The contrary view, which applies the abovementioned Trotskyist paradigm, which I consider flawed, to the Second World War is to be found in "Australia's Pacific War" (2011) by Tom O'Lincoln.

The following is to be posted to johnquiggin.com:

Certainly President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) was not a criminal. To the contrary, I believe that the evidence shows that he is the kindest, most intelligent and most courageous person to have risen to such high office that this world has ever known. Consider these facts:

1. On no less than three occasions, as shown in JFK and the Unspeakable - Why He Died and Why it Matters (2008) by James W. Douglass, he over-ruled his armed services Joint Chiefs of staff, when they wanted to launch a first-strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. (For this alone, we are almost infinitely indebted to him.)

2. In 1957, as Senator he passed a resolution that made the United States change from supporting France’s colonial war against Algeria to becoming neutral. After he was elected President, the United States supported the Algerian FLN resistance movement against the French colonialists.

3. As attested to on Sunday, September 4, 2011, by Mr. Vo Hong Nam, the youngest son of the late Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013) "President Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam in late 1963" and had planned to have completely withdrawn from Vietnam by 1965. Vo Nguyen Giap led the Viet Minh armies which defeated the French colonialists at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and he was commander-in-chief of the Vietnamese armed forces during the subsequent war against America.

And I could write so much more. JFK is one example of how, even, in a corrupt political system, contrary to "established wisdom", decent people with integrity can still rise all the way to the top.

The "established wisdom" of many who purport to be for progressive change and against the wealthy elites is that anyone, who makes it all the way to the top as JFK did, is, by definition, corrupt.

Truly corrupt politicians are seldom bothered by this, because whenever a politician, who genuinely wishes to challenge vested interests of those they serve, makes it to the top, they themselves can more easily falsely label that politician 'corrupt'.

This was posted to a debate on johnquiggin.com.

You wrote :

Sure, [Hillary] is crooked. But don't forget crooked Trump. Equally crooked and even more reactionary, if that is possible.

Even if we were to believe all of the claims made against Donald Trump, he would still only be a fraction as horrible as Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton started, or helped to start, a number of wars: against Serbia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011 and Syria, also, in 2011. Not only did hundreds of thousands of Iraqis die, but in America, as a result of the criminal 2003 Iraq invasion, 22 veterans, are taking their own lives EACH DAY as a result of their experiences.

Clinton is the walking, talking definition of a political prostitute, completely controlled by special interests, Israel and the shadow establishment. Since the beginning of 2013, Clinton has received at least $21.7 million for 92 speeches she has given to private organizations and groups. This includes $225,000 from Morgan Stanley; $225,000 from Deutsche Bank; $225,000 from Bank of America; and $675,000 from the Goldman Sachs Group (for three separate speeches). George Soros, the investor, billionaire and regime change extraordinaire, has also put millions into Clinton's campaign. - Hillary as President would be Catastrophic for the US and the World (3/4/2016) by Steven MacMillan | New Eastern Outlook

Whilst Donald Trump is not without apparent flaws - in 2013 he called Edward Snowden a traitor and he is bellicose in his pronouncements against Iran - he has also challenged a number of facets of the official global narrative of the United States establishment.

He has challenged the claim that Russia is a threat to US interests and said that the US could gain a lot from friendship with Russia. Donald Trump has also praised Russia for its bombardment of Islamic State terrorists in Syria - unlike the United States' and Australia's murder of 62 Syrian soldiers at Deir Ezzor on 17 September in support of Islamic State terrorists.

As I noted above, Donald Trump opposes globalisation and the export of American jobs to low-wage economies and opposes mass immigration across the Mexican border into the United States.

I think Donald Trump's decision to nominate for President was courageous. Americans and the rest of the world should be grateful to him.

If you are still not convinced (or even if you are), be sure to watch the debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton tomorrow (Tuesday) from 11:00am until 1:30pm on ABC News 24.

The following is my response to a discussion on Professor John Quiggin's Monday Message Board of 19 Sep 2016 :

Paul walter wrote on September 20th, 2016 at 10:55 :

Deir Al Zor and bombing of Syrian army troops.

Was it just an accident..bad enough. Or is something more sinister involved involving the US, ourselves and ISIS?

...

In March 2011, after several dozens of police and soldiers, armed only with batons, were killed by supposedly unarmed protestors, the Syrian government rightly feared that, unless they acted decisively against the insurrection, Syria would soon endure what Iraq endured between 1990 and 2009 as a result of two criminal wars and the illegal sanctions in which Australia participated. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in that time including 500,000 children.

Just as Australia almost endured a foreign invasion in 1942, Syria has been faced with a foreign invasion in the last five and a half years.

In Syria, the situation is much more serious than anything faced by Australia in the Second World War: tens of thousands of takfiri terrorists, armed and paid for by the US, its European allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc., have entered Syria through Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As a result of that invasion, around 400,000 Syrians have died, including 80,000 soldiers. Compare just the 80,000 military dead alone to the 27,073 Australians who died in the Second World War or the 60,000 Australians who died in the First World War.

Even if we were to accept the 'explanation' for Deir Ezzor (paul spells it 'Deir Al Zor') - that they thought they were attacking Islamic State (IS) and not the Syrian Army - given by the United States, and their Australian, British and Danish accomplices for the Deir Ezzor bombardment, the attack was still a violation of Syrian national sovereignty.

However, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad explained on 22 September in an interview with RT, the attacks, which lasted for one hour and which were immediately followed by a ground attack on the besieged Syrian Army defenders by IS fighters, were intentional: "How could they know that America was going to attack that position in order to gather their militants right away and attack it one hour after the strike?" he asked.

Clearly Australia and the US, contrary to their supposed abhorrence of IS, is supporting that very same IS against the Syrian government. The cover story for now siding with IS against the Syrian government, previously stated by some mainstream media 'reporters' is that for all its brutality, the "Assad regime" is even more brutal than IS.

According to reports which have yet to be confirmed or denied, immediately after the Deir Ezzor attack, Russia responded by taking out, with a ship-launched Caliber rocket, 30 Israeli, Turkish, Saudi and Qatari officers in an intelligence post illegally located inside Syria outside Aleppo. If this is true, the United States global bully may have learnt that there is a cost to be paid for such blatent acts of aggression.

"The Fars report conveys the impression that the Operations Room was largely integrated by Israelis. In all likelihood, the US was “calling the shots” and the facility was coordinated by Washington’s regional allies, in close liaison with (and on behalf) of the US military and intelligence apparatus. With the exception of the Fars report and Sputnik Arabic, this Russian attack directed against a US-led coalition intelligence facility has not made the headlines. In fact there has been a total news blackout. The accuracy of the Fars report is yet to be fully ascertained. What is significant is that the Operations Room situated in rebel held territory in the Aleppo region is manned by the main state sponsors of ISIS Daesh and Al Qaeda inside Syria, namely the US, UK (largely involved in the air raids), plus four countries of the region: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Qatar. The respective roles of the four regional countries relating to recruitment, training, logistics and the financing of terrorism have been amply documented. This Operations Room (i.e Combat Information Center) in the Aleppo region as well as field operations rooms in other regions (in territories controlled by rebel forces) are in permanent liaison with the US, Israeli and allied military command and control. We will recall that in October 2015, Obama announced that he was dispatching US Special Forces to operate on the ground inside Syria in the alleged counterterrorism operation against ISIS-Daesh. These US Special Forces would “involve fewer than 50 Special Operations advisers, who will work with resistance forces battling the Islamic State in northern Syria but will not engage in direct combat” (WP, October 30, 2015). They will not engage in combat, they will be involved in”advisory” activities, –i.e. both within rebel formations as well as in the field operations rooms. In recent months (May 2016), Washington confirmed that another 250 US special forces were to be deployed on the ground in Syria. A select number of intelligence officials were no doubt assigned to the field operations rooms. This dispatch of US special forces coincided with the influx of thousand of newly recruited “jihadist mercenaries” who joined the ranks of the various terror formations. “Thousands of terrorists” were reported to have crossed the Turkey-Syria border in early May 2016, to be deployed against government forces in the Aleppo region."

Below is a quote from this very interesting and concise video about Soros. (The video gets it wrong on his Israel policies, [1] but seems to be on the mark for everything else.)

Quote on Soros and EU open borders and where Merkel's policy came from on refugees

"After it was revealed that Soros' NGO's distributed handbooks to migrants in the Balkans which offered advice on how they could illegally enter Europe, Soros was condemned by the Hungarian government Mr. Soros now issued an email statement to Bloomberg claiming his foundations help uphold European values while mr. Orbán's actions in strengthening the Hungarian border and stopping a huge migrant influx undermine those values.

“His plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective...

... and the refugees as an obstacle,” Mr Soros added.

“Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective...

and national borders as the obstacle.” European Union supporter George Soros has claimed Europe should take "at least a million" refugees every year, and let them choose where they want to live.

But he knows that Europe cannot afford pay all of this.

In another interview Mr Soros has further atmitted that it would be impossible for the EU to finance this expenditure out of its current budget, and so advocates they're taking on additional debt instead.

Mr. Soros states flatly that in part as a result the EU is on the verge of collapse, and that the very survival of the EU is at risk.

And when speaking specifically on the decision of the UK to leave the EU, he was very clear "Now the catastrophic scenario that many feared has materialized, making the disintegration of the EU practically irreversible."

It's also been shown conclusively that the Merkel Plan for Europe is in fact the Soros Plan.

Merkel would seem like so many other politicians, is just another one of his puppets.

In his latest article for the New Eastern Outlook, American author, researcher and strategic risk consultant F. William Engdahl narrated that what was dubbed "the plan" turned out to be string of inexplicable actions, including the violation of principles of free speech, all to indulge the controversial and current Turkish regime "All of those seemingly inexplicable actions from the once-pragmatic German leader appear to go back to her embrace of a 14-page document prepared by a network of pro-NATO think-tanks, brazenly titled 'The Merkel Plan'.

Indeed on October fourth the European Stability initiative, an international think tank with headquarters in Berlin, Istanbul, Brussels and Vienna, issued the Merkel plan, a proposal for the Syrian refugee crisis which was strikingly similar to the strategy that the German Chancellor has since recently pursued in Europe.

Suspiciously the authors of the ESI plan titled their plan as if it had come from the German chancellor's office and not from them.

More suspicious is the contents of the Merkel plan of ESI.

In addition to already taking more than 1 million refugees in 2015, Germany should agree to grant asylum to half a million Syrian refugees registered in Turkey over the coming 12 months.

In addition Germany should accept claims from Turkey and provide safe transport to successful applicants already registered with the Turkish authorities.

And finally Germany should agree to help Turkey obtain visa-free travel.

Sound familiar?

Million dollar question that arises then is, how is behind the European Stability Intiative?

Current ESI chairman directly responsible for the final Merkel Plan document is Istanbul based Austrian sociologist, Gerald Knaus.

Knaus is also member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and an Open Society fellow.

And did no surprise the European Council on Foreign Relations is sponsored by Soros.

And it is Soros who is the creator of the Open Society Foundations.

Thus already it becomes clear that the Merkel plan is the Soros Plan in fact.

And mother Merkel, as she is known to her millions of new male migrants from Africa and the Middle East, is also the inspiration to the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States, Hillary Clinton.

And like mother Merkel, the tentacles of Soros enveloped not only Hillary and her husband Bill, but the entire Democratic Party of the United States."

Notes

[1] A comment below the aforesaid video from Ziv G on Soros policy towards Israel:

Please correct your data. George Soros is LOATHED in Israel, as he supports, organizes and funds extreme left anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian NGO's that work incessantly to destabilize the Israeli society from within and without, and promote delegitimization of Israel. He funds numerous extreme left NGO's that are considered blatantly traitorous by the Israeli public, such as Breaking the Silence, Btselem, Yesh Din, MachsomWatch, Ir Amim and many many more. His web of poisonous threads largely stays below the radar of the leftist (duh) media, but the NGO's he's funding are well known and hated in Israel. George Soros is a self hating Jew, anti-Semite and anti-Zionist. Saying that Israel is the only country he doesn't meddle in is a sad sad joke. Please check the NGO-monitor site for more details:

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/funder/open_society_institute_osi_/ http://www.ngo-monitor.org/books/bad_investment_the_philanthropy_of_george_soros_and_the_arab_israeli_conflict/