Yalta

With Bush's visit to the Baltics as part of the WW2 Commeration Yalta is te topic of the day. Vodka Pundit is discussing it. So is InstaPunk. I come at it from a whole nuther direction:

We are looking from 2005 back.

What we need to do is look from Feb 1945 (the time of the Yalta Confrence) forward. Every body but Hitler is tired of dying. There are a few more months left in Europe but the end is in sight.

That leaves?

Japan.

Which is expected to be a very tough nut to crack. A million casualties. We would have split Japan with the USSR (ala Germany) to have them share in the body count.

Thank God for the bombs.

They saved 1/2 of Japan from Soviet domination.

However, at the time no one knew the bombs would work and a deal had to be made for the next 6 mos. to year of the war. With the possiblity of the war with Japan lasting as long as 18 to 24 more months.

In a way the east Europeans lost their freedom to a Japan that would not give up.

Yalta was a bad deal. It may have been the best one we could get at the time.