Patrick J. Buchanan recently published “Churchill, Hitler and "The Unnecessary War’: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World," in an attempt to rewrite the history behind World War II... an unnecessary war?? In this book Buchanan put the blame of the human tragedy squarely where it belonged-- on the Brits(?)
Historian Victor Davis Hanson read the book and wrote a scathing review on Buchanan's scary revisionism- "The Bad War?"
Buchanan should have taken the licking and quit then but he didn't. He responded with a hit piece on VDH- "PJB: The ‘Good War’ and the Terrible Peace."
This weekend, Victor Davis Hanson rebutted Buchanan's rebuttal with-- "Patrick J. Buchanan—Pseudo-Historian, Very Real Dissimulator." Hanson produced Buchanan's column and then commented on each paragraph.
Here is part of the discussion:
Victor Davis Hanson: Britain declared war because for years Hitler had serially violated all of its WWI and international agreements, dismembered Czechoslovakia, and revealed the true nature of Nazi global aggrandizement as outlined years before in Mein Kampf.Buchanan is getting scary.
Patrick J. Buchanan: What were the consequences for Poland of trusting in Britain? Crucifixion on a Nazi-Soviet cross, the Katyn massacre of the Polish officer corps, Treblinka and Auschwitz, annihilation of the Home Army, millions of brave Polish dead, half a century of Bolshevik terror.
Victor Davis Hanson:This is reprehensible. Now British military weakness is blamed for Auschwitz, rather than the innate sinister nature of Nazism? Does Buchanan believe that had Britain not tried to stop Hitler, the death camps would have never occurred? Does he know of the prewar Nazi precursors to the Final Solution, the geneses of which were clear from Germany’s own treatment of its chronically ill and mentally disturbed?
Patrick J. Buchanan: And how did Churchill honor Britain’s commitment to Poland? During trips to Moscow, Churchill bullied the Polish prime minister into ceding to Stalin that half of his country Stalin had gotten from his devil’s pact with Hitler, and yielded to Stalin’s demand for annexation of the Baltic republics and Bolshevik rule of a dozen nations of Eastern and Central Europe.
Victor Davis Hanson: Churchill distrusted Stalin, but by 1943 understood that a weak British Empire had no leverage at all against Stalin’s 400 divisions. Again in hindsight Churchill can be made to look illiberal, but given the realities of the times, there was no one more suspicious of the ally Stalin, or more sympathetic to the Poles.
Patrick J. Buchanan: Was it worth 50 million dead, Hanson, so Stalin, whose victims, as of Sept. 1, 1939, were 1,000 times Hitler’s, could occupy not only Poland, for which Britain went to war, but all of Christian Europe to the Elbe?
Victor Davis Hanson: How odd that the allies are indirectly blamed for the Holocaust, as if its seeds were not innate to Nazism.
The fact that he is still paraded around as a legitimate conservative voice is outrageous.
If he wants to sympathize with the Nazis-- fine.
But, conservatives need to stay away from him.
Ed Morrissey wrote more on Buchanan's latest book.
Sadly, it seems Pat B. has gone off the deep end. Let's pray he comes to his senses.
ReplyDelete"Buchanan is getting scary."
ReplyDeleteGetting scary? The guy has been an unmitigated nutcase since at least his 1996 attempt at the Presidency. I think he blew a gasket sometime during the first Bush Administration.
Push a Populist far enough and you get a tyrant, whether you're talking Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader.
There are a few points here, regardless.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic party of 2008 would, and surely must agree that the invasion of Germany was an "Unecessary war". Germany did not attack us. Sure, they may have been mindless thugs, brutally repressive, and intent on attacking us or our interests at some future time, but it was in the words of one of the leaders of the Democrat Party "the wrong war, at the wrong time". How about this, a "War of choice"? For God's sake, we didn't even negotiate with Hitler!
I share Pat's frustration that Hitler (Nazism), has been cast as the greatest evil in history. "Nazi" is the word which silences debate, smears ideas, and instantly destroys credibility. The same is not true for the REAL champions of 20th century butchery, Mssrs. Stalin and Mao. They seem to lend an heroic aura to their movements and those who espouse the same, such as Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, that poor misunderstood N. Korean with bad hair, and Barack Obama. Stalin had armies of defenders in the West, starting with Duranty and the New York Times (which still does, seemingly as an editorial policy)
Stalin not only personally had more people murdered than did Adolph Hitler, but his proxies throughout the world have made the Nazi death toll seem like a 3-car accident by comparison. Uncountable millions have been destroyed by avowed Stalinists/Maoists in Africa and Asia, yet the actors in these scenes of destruction have largely been cast as revolutionary heros, or freedom fighters. I find that curious. I find it curious that if the Apartheid regime had lasted for 5000 years it would not have killed 1/100th as many people as Stalin and Mao's disciples have done in Africa since the end of the colonial period. How did it happen? The Anti-Marxist forces in Africa were cast as "Hitlers" and "Nazi's", and we in the West dutifully shoved them off the stage of history without question or complaint while the pictures of the Queen came down and up went the picture of.....you guessed it, Stalin, Marx, and Mao. Ho Chi Minh was lionized by the US press, actors, and political figures. No professor would allow a student to wear a Nazi T-shirt to class (rightly so) but has no problem with a student in a Mao, Che, or Lenin T-shirt?
Even worse for our sakes, the two world wars were tremendously wasteful fratricides, and accomplished two terrible, but unintended consequences. First, they killed off the seeds of future populations. Second, they engendered a European crisis of confidence that resulted in an inability to assert itself in the cause of civilization over barbarism. The latter has bourne the bitterest fruit of all in the form of the African decay of the late 20th century, and the rise of Islamofascism.
In hindsight, Hitler certainly should have been stopped sooner. In an ideal world, Chamberlain would have gone to Munich with a revolver in his hand, and told Hitler "One of us will never leave this room alive and you shall find all of England in accord with me." But, most people forget the absolute horror of the Great War, and the ghastly spectre it cast over everyone who lived through it.
Was the war necessary? Yes. Did we have to allow Stalin to win the peace? No. Ultimately, the war halted the suffering of one group of people, but unintentionally visited even greater suffering on more diffuse groups around the planet.
I was listening to Buchanan on NPR a couple days ago. I was shocked at what I thought I heard him say. I thought, until I read this article, that I must have been interpeting his meaning out of context.
ReplyDeleteOh my God, this means that what I thought I heard him say he did! This is why there are certain people, particularly Libertarians, who I like and I feel we can not live without, FREEDOM and economically wise, but they are stupid or insane when it comes to these sorts of matters, of which attitude is apt to get a couple hundred thousand or perhaps a million of us Americans (infidels)murdered in cold blood.
Bruchanan has definately gone off the deep end.
I thought this was ridiculous back when Pat wrote "A Republic, Not An Empire" back in 1999 or so.
ReplyDeleteI think it boils down to one thing: Pat is a 1930s style isolationist with all of the baggage it entails, including anti-Semitism.
One must remember that in the run up to and during WWII it was the Republican party who were against the war.
ReplyDeleteAlot of them had RDS-Roosevelt Derangement Syndrome. Go back and read some of the crap they said about him at the time. It was pretty much the same crowd as today too. "Intellectuals", academics, wealthy pseudo aristocrats like the Kennedy's, radical pastors and priests, college kids, etc.
They tried to disband our army. We kept it by one vote.
They fought tooth and nail against giving assistance to Britain and Russia. That is why Roosevelt came up with Lend-Lease as a way to get around their obstructionism.
They held constant protests and rallies and they had their own versions of Cindy Sheehan.
The press at the time was just as much against Roosevelt and the war as our press is today.
Hollywood and Radio (there was on TV if you remember)was even worse-they were openly and vocally isolationist until the Soviet Union was attacked, then they changed their tune. The only reason they seemed patriotic is that it was a good way for the many of them to avoid being drafted. Before someone jumps on me there were stars who supported the war did things like USO tours and some who fought alongside the "regular Joe". Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are just a few examples of this.
Pat has some competition on the 'getting scary'; Sen Chuck Schumer is raisings campaign funds for an anti-Semite.
ReplyDeleteIs there a word which describes a Jewish person(like George Soros) who wnats to see Jews destroyed? Can a Jewish person be anti-Semite? What does one call Sen Chuck Schumer, obviously he's not a Nazi sympathizer however he is supporting an anti-Semite?
The Democratic party of 2008 would, and surely must agree that the invasion of Germany was an "Unecessary war". Germany did not attack us.
ReplyDeleteWell, they declared war on us.
The failures of WWI are what led to the atrocities of WW2. PJB has argued convincingly against US involvement in WWI. WWI had become a stalemate. Say a truce is signed. A large German block is there to check the spread of Soviet Communism. Adolf H. can't come to power because he can't trade on the turmoil that existed in Wiemar Germany. He is just a lowly ex-Army lieutenant. No foreign entanglements (especially in Europe) is wise advice from our founding fathers.
ReplyDeleteHe is an idiot and a nutcase at best But I suspect he has not taken his meds recently
ReplyDeleteGive Pat a break. After all, he did make the first solo flight across the Atlantic. His baby son was kidnapped and murdered, and...
ReplyDeleteOoops, that was Lindbergh. I guess he has no excuse.
Elector;
ReplyDeleteGet a grip. As noted, Germany declared war on the U.S. I guess you would have just declined the invitation?
LOL