The Unnecessary War

From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Sat, 2008-06-21 08:06

A quote from John Zmirak at Takimag, 17 June 2008

Book Cover

You can err to the left all you want – Christopher Hitchens still venerates Leon Trotsky, not that it stops “conservative” journalists from licking his Bolshie jackboots. There are no enemies on the left. But lean a little too far to the right end of the narrowly circumscribed spectrum so recently established […] and you might as well be a confessed pedophile. […]

It’s clear that in writing Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, [Patrick] Buchanan was courting controversy […] Like Buchanan, I see much to admire in Winston Churchill, although The Unnecessary War has added shadows to the portrait, revealing that statesman as a flawed and troubling figure, a broken record whose refrain – “Now is the time to stand firm against the Germans!” – finally came round to being right. It was indeed right to stand firm against the Germans in 1937, and again in 1940, when they were governed by a murderous sociopath. What Buchanan reveals is that Winston Churchill had been urging last stands against German “barbarism” since before World War I, when the relatively harmless Kaiser Wilhelm sought an English alliance. (England allied instead with the Tsar who permitted pogroms, and the Belgium which had butchered some 7 million helpless Africans in the Congo.)

And again, Churchill urged ruthless firmness against the “Huns” in 1918, when they were ruled by hapless, well-meaning Social Democrats. Indeed, Churchill demanded the toughest line possible against the sane liberals and moderate nationalists of the Weimar Republic – undermining their attempt to revise an unjust Versailles Treaty, and unwittingly helping Hitler and his thugs to gain political power. From the extensive materials Buchanan carefully adduces, it seems clear that Churchill himself was a nationalist, and not of the moderate variety. […] Only a bloodthirsty lover of war could approve the high spirits that Churchill expressed six murderous months into World War I: “I think a curse should rest upon me – because I am so happy. I know this war is smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment and yet – I cannot help it – I enjoy every second.”

Thus spoke the Man of the Century – as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis slogged through filthy trenches and watched their closest friends butchered – in defense, essentially, of what? Of Serbian terrorism? Of genocidal Belgium? Of the bumbling, Jew-baiting Tsar Nicholas? Of the corrupt, anti-clerical Third Republic (which only ten years before had stolen every church in France and expelled all religious orders, which denied women the vote because they would vote in defense of the Church)? It scalds us to admit it, but the conflict from 1914-1918 was a snuff version of “Seinfeld”: A War About Nothing. […]

Given that Britain and France had no intention of fighting for Poland, was it really right to lie the Poles into war? What did this accomplish in the war against Nazi evil, other than buy a few months (Sept. 1939 to May 1940) in which to rearm? The Allies would have had that time in any case, had they allowed Germany to march through a compliant Poland against the Soviets. In essence, I cannot help but conclude that the Allies sacrificed Poland to an unprecedented genocide in order to bolster morale, and to salve their leaders’ bad consciences over Munich. Little good it did them. The rearmament they managed between 1939 and spring 1940 was not sufficient to keep Hitler from conquering most of Continental Europe, and seriously menacing Britain. Those brave Poles died – like Tolkien’s comrades on the Somme – for nothing.

At this point, I must differ with Buchanan. I’m not at all sure that the Allies would have sufficiently rearmed against a Hitler bogged down fighting the Russians. Nor might they have done what was essential to preserve their independence – and invade Germany from the West before he defeated Stalin. Given the folly, cowardice and short-sightedness of the French Third Republic, and the fiscal weakness of the English, it’s quite possible the Allies might have rested on their laurels, congratulated themselves on the defeat of Bolshevism, and ended up surrendering to a triumphant Nazi Germany that reached from Utrecht to the Urals. A horrible prospect – arguably worse than what actually happened, the conquest of half of Europe by Josef Stalin. (But for American intervention, he would have swallowed our Mother Continent whole.)

Here again, I will dissent from a man I deeply admire. I think America owed it to Europe to intervene in World War II. As part of Christendom, which took our entire civilization from that continent, we could not rightly stand by and allow it to be engulfed entirely by either variety of ideological evil. Mere filial piety demanded we hold the barbarians back.

Here I will agree with someone I’ve criticized quite sharply on this site, historian John Lukacs, who has written that Nazism was fundamentally more dangerous to the West than Communism, if only because the latter was so obviously impossible and insane. The abolition of private property, national independence, organized religion and the state, and all the other delusions which Marx foisted on intellectuals around the world – none of these could long have stood the reality test. The gap between Communist promises and Soviet reality could only ever have widened over time, leaving a regime empty and discredited as Brezhnev’s sclerotic state.

The distopia promised by the Nazis, on the other hand, really was possible. A dominant race really could have enslaved and exploited weaker peoples on a vast scale, just as Hitler had promised. Whole nations could have been exterminated, as Europe’s Jews and the Roma nearly were. Entire peoples could have been consigned to slavery for centuries. The Mongols managed it. So have the Moslems. Hitler’s “promises” were well within the range of the possible, and his degraded ethics were all too well-suited to modern man. If you don’t believe me, think about this: How many retarded children have you seen on the street lately? They used to be rather common – before the free, Christian peoples of the West discovered amniocentesis. Which side really won World War II?

Churchill and the Gestapo

Submitted by Armor on Thu, 2008-06-26 21:24.

Quoting from FRW's link :

"The success of an anti-Nazi coup [in Germany, during the war] would have damaged Churchill’s war aims, which included, beside the utter devastation of a defeated Germany, cashing in on the good will of Soviet Russia. Churchill went so far in his efforts to keep anti-Nazi German patriots, including moderate leftist like Julius Leber, from prevailing against Hitler that he leaked information about their identities and whereabouts to the Gestapo, with the help of the BBC and the Chief of Political Warfare John W. Wheeler-Bennett."

Is what Gottfried says true?

@ Armor

Submitted by traveller on Fri, 2008-06-27 08:15.

Churchill was the one who wanted to continue the war and clear out the Russians from Germany. Roosevelt stopped him. That's how much he loved the Russians.

@ FRW

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Tue, 2008-06-24 23:53.

Thanks for posting that Lew Rockwell link. I don't know about you but, personally, I'd now like to see Messrs Gottfried and Hanson go head-to-head. Wouldn't that be an interesting, lively and thought provoking debate?

@ marcfrans

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Mon, 2008-06-23 23:55.

In my opinion Peter Hitchens is a walking paradox. On the one hand his views on 'traditional values', immigration and the EU are to be particularly commended.On the other hand I will concede that his position on Iraq,  al- Qaeda  and now this  Buchananesque revisionist theory  concerning the events leading up to WWII are strange to put it mildly.

Disappointment # 3

Submitted by marcfrans on Mon, 2008-06-23 15:17.

@ Atlanticist

 

It is hard to believe Peter Hitchens could write such crap.  I don't know were to even start, and do not have the time nor the stomach for it. Just two examples:

1) Hitchens writes: "the USA did very well out of a war in which Britain and Russia did most of the fighting, while Washington pocketed (and still keeps) most of the benefits". 

Washington did "well" out of a war, with half a million dead American soldiers?  And what exactly are these supposed "benefits" that Washington is still keeping?  Could Peter care to spell those out specifically?    I mean, this is the sort of crap one could get from the typical anti-American leftie anywhere, or from envious and/or nostalgic Brits of the John Laughland-type on the Brussels Journal.  But, from one of the Hitchens' brothers?

2) Hitchens writes: "...his (Buchanan's) surgical examination of Britain's guarantee to help Poland in 1939.  Hitler saw our 'stand' as an empty bluff and called it....We then embarked on a war which costs us our Empire...".

Mon Dieu, by the beard of the Profet, how can he write such stuff? It is as if Hitler invaded Poland for the express purpose of calling British "bluff".  That is what he sees.  The invasion of Poland was about Britain?  Where is the man's moral compass?  And has this need for self-flaggelation and self-hatred infected 'conservative' commentators as well?  As to the loss of "our Empire"......my God it's like in the Kindergarten "Miss, Joe took my ball away!".

@traveller

Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Mon, 2008-06-23 14:35.

traveller: I personally talked to people who supplied the arms industry to the soviets and installed them in Siberia. In the 90's I visited those factories although I was not allowed to do this.

 

An unnecessary fun fact. In any event I'm reporting your transgression to the FSB. Keep an eye on your tea.

 

traveller: I also know that the German bosses of industry advised Hitler that the Russian arms industry was dangerous for Germany.
I know all that but this dosn't explain the way Hitler took on the whole world together with the Japanese lunatics.
My own father told me that everybody was shaking his head when he attacked Russia(he was welcomed in Ukraine in the beginning until he started to kill them too as inferior animals, pragmatic you think?) As soon as he attacked Russia he was done for. I repeat Russia, the rest didn't count and was used as cannon fodder by Stalin.

 

Far from shaking their heads, Britons were relieved that the evil eye had left their battered isles and been cast eastward. It even provided the Western occupied countries a certain reprieve.

 

When Stalin was informed of the invasion, Molotov was the one who had to address the Soviet people. Stalin was convinced that his purges and dismissal of intelligence reports would find him arrested and shot. Incredibly, the CPSU rallied around him. However, despite the differences in size of Germany and Russia's economies and populations, the Germans did have a chance of knocking Russia out of the war. They inflicted tremendous casualties on the Russians and captured territory, plant, equipment and people at an alarming rate. If the Germans prepared themselves for General Winter, if they had heavier tanks, had they seized viable objectives instead of Stalingrad and had the Japanese at least threatened to invade Siberia, Moscow would have fallen.

 

Moreover, the Western Allies supplied Russia and opened the second front so quickly in order to prevent a breakdown or Stalin being forced to sue for peace.

 

Ultimately, Germany could not conquer the entire world by herself (read Russia and the United States) or with Japan. And the latter was hopeless unless Hawaii could be occupied. Even then...

@ KA

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-23 15:24.

Nothing funny about and don't bother the FSB knows about it, they are the ones who brought me in and got yelled at.
The only correct thing you say is that Russia would have lost if Japan would have attacked Siberia.
Hitler as well as the Japanese were lunatics.

Disappointment (2)

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sun, 2008-06-22 22:33.

@ marcfrans

 

I have a similar problem with our own Mr Hitchens. (No, Armor, not the Hitchens you erroneously characterize as being one of my "heroes", but his younger sibling, Peter, with whom I have a much closer political and philosophical affiliation). Please, take a look at this article by the great man and tell me if you understand what I mean.

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2008/04/was-world-war-t.html

 

 

Disappointment

Submitted by marcfrans on Sun, 2008-06-22 21:49.

It is always disappointing to see a 'conservative' (even a paleo one) who fails to grow intellectually.  Buchanan is such a man. 

As I wrote earlier, his roots lie in a particular kind of 'catholic' and antisemitic upbringing that is pre-ww2 in spirit and that is not well suited to help preserve western values in today's world.  To a casual observer there appear to have been 3 constants in his public life: racism, antisemitism and anti-Britain attitudes.  The racism was manifest in the 60's and 70's, but has been under careful wraps in recent decades (and now only rarely shows its ugly face).  His antisemitism is still going strong, and it might well have helped him getting into Richard Nixon's inner circle.  His anti-Britain feelings are still going strong too, and help 'explain' this book and his attempt to paint Churchill as a fool rather than a hero. These feelings are of course rooted in his 'Irish-American' upbringing and, I repeat they are not helpful in promoting western values in today's world.

As Edwin Yoder wrote in the Washington Post today, Buchanan is resurrecting an old revisionist argument.  Isolationists like Lindbergh and Joseph P kennedy (yes that old rascal again) were dazzled by Hitler's power and would not have minded for him to take Eastern Europe (or worse).  Just like Buchanan is misjudging some of today's totalitarians as well, these people all misjudged the character and ruinous ambitions of megalomaniacs.  By contrast, to quote Niall Ferguson, "Churchill saw through Hitler's blandishments".

If I had a magic want, and if Buchanan can't get rid of his old demons, I would send him to a retreat in a monastery, where he could not do any further damage to 'western values' in today's culture wars.   

If the USA had not removed Hitler

Submitted by Armor on Sun, 2008-06-22 14:39.

I think what makes Hitler special is his brutality. He murdered a lot of Poles who were supposed to be inferior beings, but he also murdered a lot of his own former political friends, and in the end, he thought the best solution was to destroy all of Germany.
In the recent past, everyone in the western world used to consider most third world people as third rate, but we still recognized they had a right to exist. In France, the state bureaucracy obviously considered themselves as very superior to the people living in Brittany, and they did try to destroy us, but not by killing us. What is funny with Hitler, is that he probably considered the French as an inferior species, which must have come as a surprise to the arrogant French "elites". I don't know why Hitler was so much more brutal in Poland than in France. If the Americans had not removed him from office, there is no telling what his policies might have become in Western Europe. Maybe he would have killed everybody ! Still, there is a chance that he would have died early from a heart attack after killing off most of the leftists who were already doing their best to destroy European civilization at the time. Today, we would have a great future. Instead, it is now very bleak.

"I don't know why Hitler was

Submitted by dethule on Sun, 2008-06-22 14:55.

"I don't know why Hitler was so much more brutal in Poland than in France."

Quite simple: a) a certain lawlessness existed in the East, as compared to the West. Accordingly, e.g. the French and
Dutch were treated in a very different manner than, say, the Poles were. Which is not to say that the
Germans would have necessarily been a lot more harsh towards the indigenous French population had
certain distinct circumstances prevailed at that time .
b) The Poles being a Slavic people, they occupied a lower rank in Hitler's abnoxious idea of racial
hierarchy than Roman peoples

@ Atlanticist911

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2008-06-22 11:24.

Tnanks.
Sorry but Pat, whom I loved in Crossfire,is far too simplistic here.
Hitler did NOT invade Russia for convincing the British, he invaded them because he considered them third class human beings who should be controlled and ruled by superior beings. Several high ranking officers of the SS and the Wehrmacht had already chosen their "territory" which they would own with the people on it as their bonded labour, in German language:they would be "Junkers" of Russian territories which was basically a Prussian attitude.
Hitler was a megalomaniac nutcase with brilliant insights in the human psyche and the psyche of the masses.

Hitler was way too much of a

Submitted by dethule on Sun, 2008-06-22 13:06.

Hitler was way too much of a pragmatist as to solely attack the USSR for reasons of racial inferiority. A lot has been published on the subject lately, which is why there can't be any credible doubt with respect to Stalin's own preparation for war against the Third Reich.

Reducing the entire campaign to a mere proof of Hitler's racism is bollocks and gullibly whitewashes the Soviets' very own responsibility.

@ dethule

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2008-06-22 16:20.

Hitler was at Berchtesgaden when the Germans attacked Russia. The same morning he had, as always, visitors there. Amongst them was a Hungarian countess, who didn't know anything about what was happening, she was somebody Hitler consulted from time to time as somebody with a sixth sense.
That morning the countess came on the terrace with Hitler, looked at the rising sun and cried in German: Blut!! Blut!!(blood, blood). Hitler looked at her and uttered: "well if it has to be, it better be all gone at once". Exactly the same attitude he kept afterwards, if the German people couldn't execute his Grand Scheme they didn't deserve to survive.
Very pragmatic.
This story was told many times by his driver-bodyguard who survived the bunker afterwards.

First of all the Germans did

Submitted by dethule on Sun, 2008-06-22 17:34.

First of all the Germans did not attack Russia but the USSR. That is a vast difference.

Second of all, your story is all very good, but I doubt it suffices to characterise as complex a mind as Hitler.
Denying his mania defies mental sanity, yet entirely portraying him as a loony would not account for much of his, however unfortunate, success. Also, it would be far too easy a suggestion as to fully grasp Hitler as political and rhetorical mind.

In 1941, war between the Third Reich and the USSR seemed inevitable to both the German as well as the Soviet high command. I recommend you study the historical situation of that time and, who knows, perhaps you will find something that renders German military preparations conceivable.

@ dethule

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-23 09:07.

I know the Germans attacked the USSR, thank you. I also know Stalin was from Georgia.
I personally talked to people who supplied the arms industry to the soviets and installed them in Siberia. In the 90's I visited those factories although I was not allowed to do this.
I also know that the German bosses of industry advised Hitler that the Russian arms industry was dangerous for Germany.
I know all that but this dosn't explain the way Hitler took on the whole world together with the Japanese lunatics.
My own father told me that everybody was shaking his head when he attacked Russia(he was welcomed in Ukraine in the beginning until he started to kill them too as inferior animals, pragmatic you think?) As soon as he attacked Russia he was done for. I repeat Russia, the rest didn't count and was used as cannon fodder by Stalin.

@911

Submitted by Amsterdamsky on Sun, 2008-06-22 08:17.

Please stop posting insults to me unless you are actually responding to something I have said.  I am sure the owners of this site would agree.

Hobson's choice # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Sun, 2008-06-22 02:11.

@ Atlanticist

That was not a "private" endorsement from the oracle from Detroit/California/Amsterdam, but rather a very public one.  It has been my observation that Buchanan was not always sufficiently careful about the company that he chose to keep in the past.  But, I do concede that he did some good work on 'crossfire' in the culture wars.  At the same time, I shudder to think about some of the alternatives that Amsterdamsky might have voted for (because of the abortion 'argument').  Perhaps his new-found "wish" is a sign of some 'maturation'.  On the other hand, there are better conservative alternatives available than Patrick Buchanan, alternatives without his racist and antisemitic baggage.

Hobson's choice

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sun, 2008-06-22 01:07.

It would be interesting to know which recent development Pat Buchanan finds the most embarrassing, a public dressing-down from VDH or a private endorsement from Amsterdamsky.

Who is worse: Hitchen or VDH ?

Submitted by Armor on Sun, 2008-06-22 02:06.

" a public dressing-down from VDH " ! ?

I think it is the other way around. Your heroes VDH and Hitchen have recently received public dressing-downs from Pat.
For more public dressing-downs of your heroes, I suggest you turn to VDare.

PS: Here is the message I got when I clicked your link to humanevents :
"We're sorry, but this page is no longer available at HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE. If you reached this page through an atlanticist link, please be sure to let him know that we recently changed our links."

Go Pat!

Submitted by Amsterdamsky on Sat, 2008-06-21 23:48.

Wish I had voted for this guy despite our opposing views on abortion.  His debates on Crossfire with Slate editor Kinsley are classic. Time to blast away some of the marxist indoctrination of 20th century "education".

An unmissable read # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2008-06-21 16:48.

@ Atlanticist

Thanks for presenting the unmissable read from Victor D Hanson.  When a populist old-style 'paleoconservative' (like Buchanan) attacks a genuine-intellectual 'neoconservative' like Hanson, there is much to be learned from the response.

Buchanan has always struck me as someone who fights yesterday's culture wars, not today's.  His worldview derives from a partcular kind of 'catholic' and antisemitic upbringing that is pre-WW2 (in spirit), and not well suited to preserve western values in today's world.  His historical revisionism should not be taken seriously. 

Neither should John Zmirak (from Takimag's blog) be taken too seriously.  He ends his lengthy piece with admiration for pope Pius XII, and does NOT seem to understand that the "regime Pius XII governed" could only survive because Roosevelt and Churchill defeated the dictators of their time. His implied notion that "the regime Pius XII governed" would have survived a nazi victory in Europe is ludicrous. People who display such little grasp of reality cannot be trusted with historical judgments.     

 

Welcome to the dark side

Submitted by Mystery Meat on Sat, 2008-06-21 15:01.

Pat Buchanan has some interesting ideas, but he wandered into crazyland and got lost, a long time ago.

According to Pat, the worst villain of WWII is Churchill, not Hitler.

According to Pat, the Allies fought on the wrong side. They should have been allied with Hitler against the Soviet Union.

dethule

Submitted by Vincep1974 on Sat, 2008-06-21 13:49.

Thanks for your answer. I'm on a crusade to reorient the word fascist.

Totally futile, like all the other problems we have.

The Dark Side

Submitted by Fjordman Blogger on Sat, 2008-06-21 10:26.

Buchanan has squarely joined the Dark Side with this book, and I see no reason to take anything he says seriously. He's clearly not on our team.

Vince: You're right, Nazism could from some perspectives well be described as a left-wing ideology.

Why is NAZI a Right wing thing?

Submitted by Vincep1974 on Sat, 2008-06-21 08:22.

Why do the people of today continue to repeat the lie that Joe Stalin invented to discredit National Socialism (and favor International Communism) which was to state that NAZIism is right-wing.

 

Fascism

Submitted by dethule on Sat, 2008-06-21 12:06.

The entire of idea of labeling someone a fascist is to discredit him. This term applied today is entirely devoid of content and serves solely to smear anyone whose political opinion those loony leftwingers don't share. Stalin himself called everything he didn't like fascist, which is where this derogatory term originated from. People using it nowadays show merely a substantial lack of historical knowledge.

ad Nazism: It's a blend of revolutionary Marxism and supremacist chauvinism.