The US was motivated by ideology.

Why was the US an ally of GB/France/etc and not Germany/Italy? Contrary to your belief, greed can be ideological -- striving for global free trade is an example of this.

I'll admit I was modifying what I would have said IRL for this medium. You are absolutely right: one of the most brilliant victories of so-called "neoliberal" capitalism is how it's utterly convinced people that it represents human nature. That it's not ideological. What I meant by my comment was that "saving the world from the evil of global Fascism" was a post-hoc rationalization, not what motivated America to join the war years after it had begun.

FYI: I said I know why my grandfather fought, NOT WHY his commander in chief ordered him to fight.

That's a big difference, and one you chose not to respect.

His CiC may not have agreed, but my grandfather told me, to my face, that he fought fascism and was proud to do so.

I'd like to be clear that I know and love that the soldiers and everyone else who fought fascism did so to defeat fascism: it's very possible that I wouldn't be commenting today had your grandfather not made that decision. That's not what i meant to imply here.

EDIT: To make clear what I meant, re: your comment: the state-building narrative the US has adopted substitutes the righteous struggle of people like your grandfather in order to avoid acknowledging, among many things, the reluctance to participate in world affairs and the frankly brazen pro-Nazi stances of many in the american public and the government at the time.

> The US was motivated by ideology.

Well, certainly, the Roosevelt Administration was, but they were (prior to Pearl Harbor) also forced to maintain an outward pretense of neutrality while backing the Allies, because a large part of the rest of the US was also motivated by ideology...to either be sympathetic to the Axis Powers (one large, well-bankrolled faction) or to be opposed to intervention (another large, well-bankrolled faction, that often worked together with the preceding one against any interventionist policy.)

Then why wasn't the US in the war from the beginning? Did it take 2 years to discover that Hitler was bad?

The US was always on the allied side, through funding and supplies. The whole reason the Lusitania was sunk was because the US was sending arms to support the Allied war effort, even if it wasn't officially declared. Even if it wasn't until Pearl Harbor that the US joined the war officially, there is little doubt what side Roosevelt and much of the American people wanted to win.

...the Lusitania was two decades before Hitler even came to power.

You're right. I messed up WWI vs WWII for a second there. The rest of the comment stands though that the US provides major aid to the Allied powers.

> The US was always on the allied side, through funding and supplies.

Businesses in the US were serving both sides of the conflict.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

Holy cow do I feel bad for the people that grow up with education system of your country. Look up Lend Lease.

Lend-lease was enacted March 11, 1941. IBM was cataloguing religious and other minorities for the Nazis in the 30s. [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust#cite_ref...

The US in the early 20th century had a very strong non-interventionist policy, at least vis-a-vis Europe (Latin America was a different story). The general standpoint was "we don't want to get involved with whatever mess is going on in Europe." Note that this strain was so strong that one Congresswoman actually refused to vote for war even after Pearl Harbor.

However, by 1940, it was very clear that the US was going to get dragged in anyways, and it would serve the US interests first to start preparing for war before it starts (note that the draft was instituted over a year before Pearl Harbor). Moreover, the US was neutral only in name: various acts passed more or less saying that the US would give aid to anybody so long as they were British or French. (Originally, it was cash-and-carry, but when Britain exhausted its cash reserves, it became Lend-Lease instead).

A correction to your otherwise correct comment: Lend-Lease was extended to the Soviets as well (and perhaps equally if not much larger than to the Franco-British military).

Lend-lease was the last of the neutrality gimmicks, and was the first one that really applied to the Soviets--mere weeks before the US entered the war proper and lend-lease became the vehicle for general military and logistical aid to all Allies.

It took 2 years for a country that values personal freedoms and international free trade/security to decide that the Axis powers winning the war would be bad for both.

Also, the US formally joined the war in 1941, but were providing material support to the Allies and otherwise prepping before then.

No one knew about the death camps until basically the end of the European stage of WWII.

> No one

The intelligence services knew. The general public didn't.

Germany declared war on the US, not the other way around.

I didn't say the US did?

Well you asked why wasn't the US allied to Germany in the war. Asking that makes it sound like you weren't aware that Germany declared war on the US, because that's a pretty obvious reason for the US not to be allied to Germany.

The US was allied with the "Allies" before the US become formally involved in the war. They were already providing material aid to Britain/France before Pearl Harbor / war declared by Germany. I'm definitely not the one who is "unaware" of the key details in this discussion.

The US provided support to the side they ideologically agreed with -- it wasn't just a case of "Germany randomly declares war on the US".

The US also provided support (lend-lease) to the USSR.