Few additions - our destiny was defined in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Germany. Although officially labeled a "non-aggression treaty", the pact included a secret protocol, in which the independent countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania were divided into spheres of interest of the parties. The secret protocol explicitly assumed "territorial and political rearrangements" in the areas of these countries. The other countries obeyed what was agreed, but not Finland - we wanted to maintain our independence. The western countries did not support us because they did not believe that we can fight for our destiny. And that we really did. In ground Finn/Soviet death toll was 1/12 - in air rate of destroyed air planes was 1/53. Whenever we had proofed our ability, the Germans came to help us but Britain and USA established war against us. Thus, Finland was in a very special position - it was at the same time at war against Russia, USA, Britain, many other countries, and later also against Germany ... and we kept our independence without becaoming occupied ever. Well done?

Thank you gentlemen for the complements, but I confess the real credit goes to a Finnish exchange student who attended the HS where I teach a few years back.

He bequeathed to our library a copy of a book titled 'Mannerheim' by Matti Lappilainen that chronicles the leader in English, Swedish, and Finnish.
I've read it a few times to get a feeling for how the Finns view what we call 'WWII'.

I've also tried to piece together the Swedish and Finnish via comaprison with the English-language chronicle. I've found that while I can make some headway with the Swedish in that manner, the Finnish remains a language of mystery. I understand that it is related to Hungarian, and I know that Hungarian is viewed as more of a code than a language, in terms of ease of understanding (at least by English language based folks like myself).

But perhaps I'll gain the basics of Finnish someday. After all, I spend much of my vacation time in Michigan's UP- which is America's center of Suomi culture. So it would be of use.

There is nothing mysterious in the Finnish language - the only problem is that the newcomers in Europe want to forget or missinterpret the whole issue.

The Finnish language belongs to the so called old European languages which were spoken almost in the whole Europe and in parts of NW Asia at least 10.000 yrs (after the ice sheet melted). When the Indoeuropeans (later developing Latin based languages; Italic, Spanis, German, French, Russian, English, Swedish, etc) came to Europe some 5000 yrs ago the language of Europe was gradually changed. The old Europeans were mostly hunters and they did not have permanent settlements. The Indoeuropeans brought agriculture with them and established firm villages and their language prevailed in such villages and the original people had to learn the village languages soon. The original European language only remained in areas, where the influx of Indoeuropeans was small enough. Thus, the laguage related to the Finnish is in the background everywhere in an extensive area of Europe and NW Asia.

At the moment the Finnish language is quickly disappearing from Russia, where Finnish related people dominate especially in the northern parts (from the southern parts it has already disappeared long time ago).

Of course these issues are subject to scientific debate like the history always. The newcomers want to dismiss the original population as always. One of the pioneers in this respect is Dr. Kalevi Wiik:

Europe's oldest language?
Finnish Mythology

Then why was America fighting the Germans. They hadn't taken any of our territory, we weren't occupied, and frankly a hell of a lot of us thought it was none of our business? Just curious about your thoughts.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Thank you, Analyst (#18),

Is there anyone who has shown a linguistic link between Basque and Finnish?

The Americans had two reasons to come to Europe in WW2 - 1) the help Britain and 2) to get profit from the Russian success and increase US power in Europe.

The EU is still an occupied union - it is occupied by USA. Soviets did not ever have an idea to occupy Europe - only to take what was decided in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (of course that was quite a criminal pact).

The American people did not want to go to the European war. More than 80 % was clearly against that. Therefore Rosevelt together with some 30 insiders had to make a conspiracy against his own people and invite Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. Germany and Japan had a military defense agreement and the Japanese attack (so called backdoor to European war) was the only way to FDR to twist his people behind the war (there is a discussion thread about that here).