Was WWII worth it?

[Senator Lamb]

Any opinions on Buchanan's latest column in which he says WWII was not worth it since Stalin ended up taking over Eastern Europe anyway. This comes as Bush criticized FDR and Churchill for Yalta. Here is an excerpt from Buchanan's column.




When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.
Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44210

[htuttle]

1. Hitler declared war on us after Japan attacked us

I guess ol' Patriotic Pat would have preferred that we surrender to the Nazis. Not terribly surprising.

[edbermac]

7. How'd you get that scrolling Blade Runner message?

[htuttle]

9. The MARQUEE tag

[edbermac]

2. Pat's got a bug in his brain....

Just eating away at those brain cells, one by one, until nothing will be left...

[shoelace414]

3. Except we didn't just invade Germany..

they declared war on us.

(I know, minor historical footnote)

[ProfessorGAC]

16. And, They Already Attacked Western Europe

He claims we drew them in to Western Europe. They already had troop formation massed along the Siegfreid Line just east of the Rhine. They claimed it was defensive, but we know how much veracity that claim was likely to hold.

So, his historical basis is pretty darned thin.
The Professor

[jobycom]

20. He was talking about Britain declaring war on Germany

Buchanan claims Hitler would not have invaded France if France and England had not declared war on Germany. They declared war to save Czechoslovakia, but then surrendered Czech to Stalin, who, according to Buchanan, was a worse tyrant.

It's not a completely meritless argument but Buchanan is loose with his logic. He claims that Hitler killed millions, but that Stalin and his cronies (Pol Pot, Castro and Ho Chi Min) killed tens of millions. That's a disingenuous claim, since he's comparing a twelve year reign over part of Europe to many decades of rule by four different dictators covering at least ten times the people that Hitler ruled. Give Hitler and his Nazi descendants more time, and they would have compiled more numbers, and been even more oppressive than Stalin.

And, there is no certainty that if Hitler had remained in power that Stalin's or Pol Pot's or Ho Chi Min's atrocities would have been avoided.

What Buchanan argues is that WWII killed 50 million and did not really free that many people, since Eastern Europe merely went from one dictator to another. His assumption is that Hitler would not have invaded France and England if they had not declared war. If that assumption is correct, Buchanan has a point. If he's wrong, then WWII prevented western Europe from falling under the hands of a brutal dictatorship.

That's the crux: is Buchanan right about Hitler's intentions? We've demonized Hitler so much it's hard to know. Our historians seem to believe Hitler would not have stopped. But they are on the winning side. And there is strength to the argument that Churchill's militarism forced Hitler to expand his plans. His initial conquests were nations that he considered threats to Germany. He may have been content to reign with bloody tyranny over Eastern Europe. I just doubt it.

I have a lot of training in history, but not modern European history, so I can analyze the logic of his arguments, but I'm weak on the details that would prove or disprove it. But that's my take.

[shoelace414]

22. If Hitler hated anyone more than Jews it was

Communists.. so he probably would have invaded Russia no matter what. but I can't say it for sure like Pat the all knowing can.

[jobycom]

25. Even at the time

Some people argued we should let Hitler and Stalin fight it out until they destroyed each other, then sweep up the mess. I think Hitler would have invaded Russia, or Russia Hitler, but Buchanan's argument was about Western Europe. He didn't care if a bunch of communists died.

[funflower]

4. Gandi said

that Hitler could have been defeated through civil disobedience with less loss of life than happened in WWII.

[plasticsundance]

10. Wow!! Gandhi said that?

Did he state this after we found out about the concentration camps? Did he know about Hitler's Blitzkrieg? Did he know how Hitler terrorized the Slavs? Any civil disobedience would have been met with swift reprisals, including murdering an entire village like he did in Czechoslovakia, or else, being shipped off with a one way ticket to a concentration camp.

If Gandhi indeed said that, I find it a stunningly naive statement.

[jwirr]

14. I think that Ghandi

recognized that there would be massive deaths from the brutality of Hitler but he thought that it would not have been any more dying than died with the war. Which to my way of thinking is kind of unsympathetic to the victims of the concentration camps.

[Guaranteed]

29. Yeah, but this way the Nazis were actually destroyed. nt

[kiki]

15. Well...

Did we destroy Hitler and the most prominent exponents of Nazism at the time? Yes.

Did we destroy the idea and philosophy of Nazism? NO.

Therefore, is the idea and philosophy of Nazism alive and well today? FUCK YES.

Therefore, while we might have won the war against Hitler, did we win the war against Nazism?


Don't get me wrong; WWII is obviously a case where action was needed. But the idea that you can defeat a dangerous or genocidal philosophy by simply killing all (or even every single one) of its adherents has never worked, and never will.

[Selatius]

30. More like fascism. Nazism is just an iteration of fascism.

Just read my signature.

[jobycom]

24. Not so far fetched

Hitler's troops were stretched thin. They would have had trouble maintaining control over all the peoples they had conquered. They would have filled their concentration camps and built more, but a strong program of civil disobedience would have shut down the railways, the supply lines, and Hitler's ability to supply his troops or move his prisoners.

It would have been bloody. If it worked, it would have been a huge triumph for peace, and for the will of the people over tyranny. It would have taken longer than the war did. But it may have cost fewer lives. In France alone the resistance drove the Nazis crazy.

But it's hard to organize such a thing. Many people decided that Hitler was better than death, and went along with his rule. In some places his rule may have even boosted the standard of living. That lowers resistance. Freedom is really over-rated when you are hungry, and when you realize that no matter how free you think you are, you are only as free as your government allows you to be. Or as your pocketbook or your belly allows you to be.

Who knows? Ghandi was smarter and wiser than me. I'll make note of his claim, as another historical question with no answer.

[funflower]

27. Here's the actual quote from Gandhi

http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/hitler.htm

According to Senator Lamb (original poster) we lost 50 million people in WWII.

[plasticsundance]

33. I've been contemplating the responses to my posts.

I think everyone has made compelling arguments on both sides of the issue. Thanks funflower for the full quote. It places a context and perspective to Gandhi's positing.

One thing that struck me in the full quote was Gandhi stating his success in India and South Africa. Although these were brutal, cruel, and racist regimes, these regimes were at some level accountable to world opinion. Nazi Germany was not. Just look at the more passive form of fascism brought about by the unilateral approach of the current Bush Administration. The Bush Administration has manipulated the MSM media to keep the US populace entrenched in ignorance to the point that many Americans thought that al-Qaeda and Saddam worked in tandem to bring about 911.

The group think in Germany during the NAZI regime was much more pronounced, so I do not think there was a strong base in Germany for civil disobedience. The phenomena of Hitler's grab on power was a unique moment in history with nuances that were not in Gandhi's India and South Africa model.

Secondly, the war machine of Germany did not begin to break down until 1943. Much of the war machine industry in Germany was broken down at considerable cost to our bomber pilots that suffered in the beginning of the war a 60 percent casualty rate on each single bombing sortie.

The concept of the blitzkrieg was a new terrifying tool that struck with awesome quickness. To inflict terror upon an occupied populace, the Nazi's would line people up, pull out a set of 10-20, place them on the ground and walk down the line choosing at random putting a bullet in the head of the victims. If you're a father with a family to support, you might rethink the concept of civil disobedience.

Here is another example, and please read my emphasis:

The man appointed to take over from Heydrich, Karl Frank, pointed out that the loss of 30,000 would have a severe impact on the Czech labour force. Hitler took this on board and changed the figure to the arrest of 10,000. On the night of May 27th, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, ordered Frank to shoot 100 “intellectuals” that night. Over the next few days, 3,188 Czechs were arrested of whom 1,357 were executed, while 657 died in police custody. However, none of this satisfied Hitler, though he had recognised the fact that 30,000 executions would have a negative impact on the labour force in Czechoslovakia.

On June 8th, a state funeral was held for Heydrich. On the next day, Frank received an order from Hitler which stated that a small community near an industrial centre was to be selected and wiped out as punishment. Therefore, there would be no impact on the Czech labour force, but Hitler would have gained his desired for revenge.

... The village was then destroyed – literally wiped off of the map. Houses were destroyed, orchards dug up and the graveyard desecrated. Even pet dogs were shot. When this was done, pioneer troops were sent in to plough the land flat. Seemingly nothing was left of the village, not even the outline. The whole episode was filmed by the SS.

Lidice 1942

Now, if you're someone that decides to enact civil disobedience against the Nazi's to inflict damage to Hitler's war machine industry, how would you feel if Hitler took reprisal not on you, but on a neighboring town that was of no use to the Nazi industry?

In any case, the effects of the blitzkrieg would still have made it necessary to dislodge Hitler control on Europe.

[funflower]

34. It seems to me that one Gandhi had that those opposed to Hitler didn't

was a unified oppressed group that was willing and able to work together. MLK, Jr. also had this during the civil rights movement. Hitler (not unlike some other governments) had a genius for dividing before conquering. I suppose if ALL - or nearly all - of the Czechs, Poles, Austrians or whomever stood together in nonviolent protest they might have been successful. What the Hitler did was to divide people on ethic/religious/political lines, rendering any kind of unified response extremely difficult.

One thing to consider in assessing Gandhi's approach is that he's not saying nonviolent opposition was without casualties. Indeed, many Indians died in the effort to free their country from British rule. However, it was certainly not at all comparable to Nazi brutality.

It is certainly scary to think of militarily powerful governments being untouchable by world opinion.

[NYCGirl]

5. I didn't log on to worldnetdaily, because I don't want to give the site

any hits, but even not having read the article,

THESE GUYS ARE FUCKING CRAZY!!!

[whistle]

6. Pat Buchanan must suffer from a hormone imbalance....

...because there is no way to predict what will come out of the mouth or pen of this pre-post menopausal cretin next! :wtf:

[JHB]

8. Remember this next time Pat says something bad about *

He's not to be embraced, he's a broken clock that gets it right twice a day.

It's too bad Pat wasn't entombed Smithers-like in the crypt of his mentor and employer, Tricky Dick Nixon.

[gordianot]

11. Yes, because in one word "Genocide".

There was a final solution underway against groups of people and ideas with homogeneous consequences.

Genocide may be a little out of favor (just didn't work out well)lately but similar forces today have a new list and are checking it twice.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Well, for one thing, since the Soviet republics gave at least lip

service to democracy, with their own twisted version of it, and maintained the fiction that the power of the state was the communal power of the people, it seems to me that a return of real democracy was just about inevitable.

The Nazi regime, however, openly despised liberalism and democracy and made no pretense of holding power in the name of the people. The only way to get them to let go of power was to forcibly remove them from it. Losing Eastern Europe for 4 decades was unfortunate. But if we hadn't joined the war against Hitler, all of eastern Europe, as well as the Soviet Union, Africa and the Middle East, would have fallen to the Nazis. We did relatively little fighting against the Nazis, but we supplied a huge amount of the material to the Brits and Russians at a critical time which kept them from falling.

[whosinpower]

13. Well to think that would mean

That Germany would of won.....and what consequences then? Another 5 million jews, gypsies and other naysayers murdered....a huge repressive empire that would of stretched across all of Europe, the middle east, Africa - and yes North America.

That is unthinkable. That is appeasing brutal dictators - something Chamberlain tried and failed.

WW11 was a sad tragic war but was a necessary fight.

[GRLMGC]

21. man if the Nazis had taken over the world

Buchanan would be set.

We were attacked by an actual, concrete force and had war declared on us by genocidal fascists? That wasn't worth fighting? I hate Buchanan. He's an idiot. And what's up with the attacks on FDR? I guess they're really trying to attack the concept of Social Security. Bastards

[Selatius]

32. I don't think Nazi Germany would've won even if the US stayed out

Unlike Poland and France, we are separated from European tyrannies by several thousand miles of ocean. No way would the US surrender to Nazi Germany if all of Europe including Great Britain fell. The US would not surrender if the enemy could not get an army onto US soil and force one.

At worst, the world would've been divided between the four world powers of the US, the USSR, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. Out of the four, the US and the USSR had the strongest hand as far as resources and numbers went. Hitler would've faced an uphill battle if he wanted to wage war against either the US or USSR.

[GreenArrow]

17. The Catholic monk and mystic Thomas Merton

speculated that we would defeat the Nazis, and in so doing, become them. He was right.

[Selteri]

18. Wow that's.... incredibly shallow. By the logic being said in this one...

I would have to say that it is basically saying, "Hitler wasn't so bad, so what if he was racing to take over the world and destroy the liberties." Sheesh, why not just announce, "We see no problem running this country like the Nazi's ran theirs. WE're getting what we want, you all can just snog off." I will continue to strive to bring people above this level of hate, for I do not hate the Republicans, I merely realize that their actions are presently taking us to an area that we best never go to again. It doesn't surprise me to know that Bush wasn't a good student, people who take the world to the brink rarely learn the lessons of history.

[Blue_Roses]

19. Pat Buchanan is a fucking idiot!

tell him to ask all those who fought in WWII if it was worth it...tell him to ask all those who were in concentration camps if it was worth it...tell him to ask the families of those who died in Pearl Harbor if it was worth it...:mad: I'm so fucking tired of these idiots who say this shit.:mad:

[Senator Lamb]

23. now that many weighed in

It is naive of Buchanan to think that Hiter was not attempting world domination or conquest. he always planned on invading Eastern Europe/Soviet Union for its resources and living space. If Britain and eventually the U.S were not involved he would have most likely succedded considering he nearly did with both countries in it. With this land, oil, resources, he would have been hard to beat. He would have conquered the world while wiping out groups such as the Jews and ending western democracy as we know it.

[PurityOfEssence]

26. Pat just has a soft spot in his heart for his fellow Catholic Hitler

This guy's a racist, sexist xenophobe, and his love of privilege and money has him permanently foaming at the mouth against pluralism and Communism. Fuck all different people and how dare they chip away at his undeserved power.

[Guaranteed]

28. Is he saying that Hitler wasn't already in Western Europe when

we went to war with Germany? "why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe?" WTF are you talking about, crackhead?

[Rex]

31. Was WW I worth it?

Has imperialsim been a net gain to mankind or a loss? Did we really have to FIGHT over resources?!?!?! Wouldn't we have saved a lot of human capital (8.5 to 10 million dead) by sharing what Earth has? How about WW II (53 to 80 million dead). And for what? 50 years of Cold War?

If only France and the UK could have been prepared for Hitler, it didn't happen. If only someone would have stopped Bush from invading Iraq, it didn't happen. Imperialism SUCKS, no one wins. I'm amazed by historians who say Imperialism died in 1914. Ummm, NO.