Posted on 09/10/2009 3:50:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sept. 1 was the 70th anniversary of Hitler's blitzkrieg into Poland and the beginning of World War II. Fifty million people died. Western Europe was devastated. Eastern Europe was more thoroughly devastated and subjected to communist tyranny that for decades seemed invincible and a threat to the Free World, which remained armed and vigilant. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt emerged from that war as legendary heroes who saved our civilization. Almost immediately, there were skeptics. Some claimed that both were responsible for the war. Some claimed that Roosevelt provoked the Pearl Harbor attack and failed to notify our doomed soldiers and sailors. These skeptics were, of course, cranks.
Yet now there is another generation of skeptics sounding off, and one might well wonder whether they, too, are cranks. Or have these skeptics developed evidence against Churchill and Roosevelt that was heretofore unknown?
On Sept. 1, the distinguished debating organization Intelligence Squared teamed up with the London Evening Standard to afford America's most famous Churchill critic, Pat Buchanan, the opportunity to argue that Churchill was "more of a liability than an asset to the free world." Actually, if I have read Buchanan accurately, he holds Churchill responsible for the war. As he writes on his Web site, "Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940." Churchill and Roosevelt's policy of unconditional surrender caused it to drag on to May 1945. They also are responsible, if I read Buchanan accurately, for the Holocaust. As Buchanan said the night of the debate, "No war, no Holocaust." On his Web site, he claims that Hitler wanted to end the war "almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps."
At the debate, which took place in London, Buchanan faced a formidable team of historians -- Antony Beevor, Richard Overy and Andrew Roberts -- all widely published experts on, among other matters, World War II. On his side, Buchanan had distinguished scholars, also -- Norman Stone and Nigel Knight -- neither of whom seemed completely in sync with Buchanan. They were critical of Churchill for other issues. I was not at the debate, but my agents were, and when Buchanan said that the killing of the Jews did not begin until January 1942, I would like to have seen the looks on his teammates' faces. Even better, I would like to have seen the look on Buchanan's face a few minutes later, after Roberts enunciated the places where the Nazis killed more than 1.5 million Jews before the first month of 1942. Really, Pat, "no war, no Holocaust"?
Buchanan's point seems to be that Hitler had limited geopolitical aims and that the excitable Churchill overreacted. Buchanan doubts that Hitler "was out to conquer the world," because Hitler did not build a military with the strategic reach to conquer the world. What is more, he let the British army evacuate from Dunkirk, France, and he built a defensive line between Germany and France, the Siegfried line. That Hitler was a racist lunatic and military incompetent escapes Buchanan's notice.
So does the word "Lebensraum" escape Buchanan's notice. Lebensraum was the Nazi name for Germany's policy of aggression. Developed when Hitler was in Landsberg Prison in 1924 -- counseling with such theorists of Lebensraum as professor Karl Haushofer -- Hitler explained the whole rapacious policy in "Mein Kampf." If the Lebensraum policy of conquering other lands for the security and economic well-being of the Nazi state was not "world conquest," as Buchanan puts it, it was a sufficient threat to the Western democratic order for Western alarm. It is easy to be nonchalant about old Adolf today. But back in the 1930s, thugs such as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were frisky, and I think we all should be grateful that Churchill sounded the alarm -- and Roosevelt, too.
I can understand what motivated the early critics of Churchill and Roosevelt. I have read enough of their criticism to mark them down as simply perverse and in some cases very stupid. But what motivates Buchanan and our contemporary critics?
Consider boredom. One of my most deeply held beliefs is that boredom is one of the most underestimated motives behind human action. It has been behind reform movements that spring up almost unbidden. It has been behind great debates, for instance, this one over Churchill's value to the Free World. Very few people are fetched in the least by Buchanan's argument. In an audience of some 1,800 people, only 181 agreed with Buchanan, but Pat can be very entertaining. He amuses others, and he amuses himself. He knows how to beat boredom. Apparently, C-SPAN agrees. Before the month is out, I am told, the network will air this entire debate. Watch for it, particularly if you are bored.
One of the most brassy insults by this administration to a generally loyal ally was the return of the bust of Winston Churchill. That was not a casual thing. That jerk-off in the White House knew exactly what he was doing and why when he did that.
What a scumbag. He isn't fit to lick Churchill's shoes.
I have read all of Churchill’s books. Read any volume of “The History of the English Speaking Peoples” and then read one of Pat’s or Obomba’s “books” and a proper contrast will come to life!
Churchill and Pat might agree on what Winston said about the Bolsheviks and who they were.
If Hitler had negotiated an end to the war in 1940 it would have been only for the purpose of catching his breath and letting the western powers drop their pants again.
Mega-Dittos !!!
Most of the British War Cabinet wanted to accept Hitler's offer. Churchill was able to resist only by arguing that Britain must at least fight on until her situation improved, in order to avoid devastating peace terms.
If Halifax had become PM in May instead of Churchill, he certainly would have taken Hitler's offer. And Hitler may well have conquered Russia, and most of the world.
Pat Buchanan believes that helping Hitler conquer Russia would have been a good idea. Pat disapproves of Communists, but not Nazis.
Sure Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940 but Pat should explain Battle of Britain which was Hitlers attempt of forcing Britain to negotiate an armistice or an outright surrender. Pat also needs to explain why the concentration camps started in 1933 and what was their purpose? Hitler wanted peace and to prove it Hitler signed a peace accord with Chamberlain? “Peace in our time.”
LLS
I don't read Buchanan on this subject at all, but surely what Hitler wanted in 1940 was to win the war, end it quite on his terms. As for the policy of unconditional surrender, that was Roosevelt's thing; Churchill winced when he heard it -- and he knew he had to support it.
Pat’s gone round the bend, and is quite barking mad. (as the Brits might say.)
Strangely, this seems to be true.
>>>THE ONLY WAY THAT A LEFTIST CAN ACCEPT HISTORY IS TO CHANGE IT WITH LIES
I’m not really sure what that has to do with Pat Buchanan, except perhaps to illustrate how the VERY far right and the VERY far left meet and merge on the other side of the circle, becoming in many respects indistinguishable. Pat’s total comfort on MSNBC for instance, they hate so many of the same people.
I used to try to defend Pat in various venues from the unfair nature of much of the criticism of his writings. His original thesis about staying neutral between Germany and Russia was a fair academic exercise of the “what if” genre. But he just kept drifting further and further into antisemitism and general crankdom, speaking for him became futile, and even embarrassing.
As for Churchill, revisionist pipsqueaks can’t harm him. His place is secure.
"Strangely, this seems to be true."
~~~~~~~~~
I am interpreting your response as follows:
Yes, it is true that some claim Roosevelt provoked Pearl Harbor and failed to notify our doomed soldiers and sailors. Not that Roosevelt did so.
See Lie #3 in "48 liberal lies about American history: (that you probably learned in school)" by Larry Schweikart
Takes you via Google to the selected page in Schweikart's book.
One of the reasons that Germany fought to the bitter end was the policy of “Unconditional Surrender”. That was a gift that allowed Hitler to retain power. If that had not been in place, Hitler would probably have been removed by the German army in late 1943 or 1944.
However, by 1944, Stalin was sufficiently strong enough that he might have taken Germany no matter what the Western allies did.
LLS
It looks like FDR did sacrifice our troops to his lack of leadership.
This is, of course, absolutely correct. Hitler had no desire to conquer Britain. He wanted to divide the world with her. All he wanted from Britain was acquiscance in his conquests.
Germany would take Europe. Britain could control the coloreds Hitler had no desire to deal with.
It is far more than likely, of course, that this "peace" would have been a pause to digest the meal followed by a renewed offensive. Probably within 10 or 20 years Britain and USA would have had to fight a Germany in control of the human and industrial resources of all of Europe and the Middle East, probably allied with an Imperial Japan controlling the Far East and with various Latin American toadies, and with no USSSR for an ally.
How that war would have turned out is impossible to predict, but it most certainly would have been worse for USA than the WWII of history.
This all leaves The Bomb out of the equation, but without the US full-bore into the war (since it ended in 1940) there is at least as good a chance that the Nazis would have gotten it first.
If you have not read the book, despite perhaps not agreeing with Schweikart on the Pearl Harbor issue, it is worth reading.
Here is from the intro:
Book overview
48 Liberal Lies About American History
by Larry Schweikart
A historian debunks four-dozen PC myths about our nations past. Over the last forty years, history textbooks have become more and more politically correct and distorted about our countrys past, argues professor Larry Schweikart.
The result, he says, is that students graduate from high school and even college with twisted beliefs about economics, foreign policy, war, religion, race relations, and many other subjects.
As he did in his popular A Patriots History of the United States, Professor Schweikart corrects liberal bias by rediscovering facts that were once widely known. He challenges distorted books by name and debunks forty-eight common myths. A sample: The founders wanted to create a wall of separation between church and state Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation only because he needed black soldiers Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima to intimidate the Soviets with atomic diplomacy Mikhail Gorbachev, not Ronald Reagan, was responsible for ending the Cold War Americas past, though not perfect, is far more admirable than you were probably taught.
Haven't seen the transcript, so I'm not sure who said what, but these two concepts are not necessarily as in conflict as they appear.
"The Holocaust," in its most common sense, is usually thought of as the industrialization of murder as exemplified by Auschwitz. The policy to institute this system did indeed not get going till 1942.
The concentration camps were indeed started in 1933, but these were not true extermination camps initially, although the distinction blurred in later years.
There was lots of killing of Jews (and Poles, etc.) prior to 1942, of course, but it was using mostly the old-style mass murder methods of machine guns and mass graves, although with some experimentation with poison-gas vans and such.
There is considerable evidence that the remarkably inefficient methods of Auschwitz, etc. were largely instituted due to passive resistance by the German Army to being used as murderers and to High Command complaints that doing so was detrimental to discipline and military effectiveness.
There is also considerable evidence that initially Hitler's aim was to deport most of the Jews from Europe, while undoubtedly killing a great many in the process. The "Final Solution" of just killing them all was settled on after it became clear that it wouldn't be possible to ship them all off to Madagascar.
For some reason your link won’t load.
Probably has something to do with me being at work.
I’ll check out the book though.
Thanks.
Slight follow up and an FYI.
I too, always viewed FDR as the being in the know and culpable.
So I took another look at my paperback version of the “48 Liberal Lies About American History”.
At the end of his introduction, Schweikart makes a word of caution. It is the second to the last paragraph of pages 11-12. It is appropriate to our discussion:
“Some of the conclusions I have made in this book cut across traditional partisan lines, but I prefer to go where the evidence leads. Prohibition was not the flop it has been portrayed as being; LBJ didn’t ‘off’ John Kennedy, and Franklin Roosevelt did not ‘set up’ the U.S. 7th Fleet to be destroyed at Pearl Harbor. Facts are uncomfortable things. On the other hand, most of the [48] falsehoods examined here do seem to originate on the left side of the political spectrum, and that fact too, is an uncomfortable thing.”
Try to get to it this way. Go to Google books
search for Schweikart.
http://books.google.com/books?q=schweikart&btnG=Search+Books
PS Just sent you another comment from Schweikart upstairs.
Got to do some work myself. Catch you later.
Same thing.
Any “negotiated” settlement would have had to include Hitler’s removal from power and “arrest”. You’re right—any Peace agreement where Hitler retained the upper hand would not have worked (for us anyway).
On reflection, there is no perfect solution to war. War will never be ended, though chapters may, because of the nature of man.
Negotiated peace does not stop war. Unconditional surrender does not stop war, but I still lean toward unconditional surrender as the best option. It does stop that particular enemy. Negotiated peace encourages other enemies.
I suppose it is possible that even if the war ended in 1944, with the Nazis removed from power, that Germany might have risen again in 15-20 years to challenge Europe. The reason they didn’t is because they were brutally beaten and occupied for long enough to change the German mindset. In WWI, the Germans were nominally “winning” until the the summer of 1918. Remember, in the Spring of 1918, they knocked Russia out of the war. So, when the war ended, many felt betrayed because they hadn’t “accepted” the loss. That, plus the humiliation of Versailles, gave rise to WWII. After WWII, almost every surviving German felt the pain and hardship. Plus the fact that the country was occupied by the victors and split for nearly 45 years. You can make a similar argument about the Japanese.
A war is only really over when the loser admits defeat. To get to that place, the cruel fact is that you have to break your opponent, both physically and mentally. We did that with the Germans and Japanese. Today, most people would be horrified to think in those terms. With our emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties at all cost, we will probably not do that again until our survivial is really threatened. As a result, I don’t see us winning any wars in the near future. And, yes, I include Iraq and Afghanistan.
But of all of his speeches, this passage of all of them is the one that still gives me goosebumps every time I read it:
"...What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" Winston Churchill - June 18, 1940
I'm afraid Larry Schweikart errs here.
1. Attacking the great Franklin Roosevelt over the issue of his ushering the United States into the Second World War is not a liberal thesis, but rather an isolationist (paleocon) and Republican one. The isolationists may have been wrong -- may -- but in 1941 there was no evidence of e.g. German plans for a Holocaust, or for world conquest, to propel honest dissenters into the Churchill camp.
2. Robert Stinnett is correct about the evidence of White House possession of substantial knowledge that the attack was coming. John Toland, whom I've read, has also toiled in the groves of "revisionism" and built a solid case on the same lines --the "official version" owing its stature only to FDR's incumbency, his crooked "investigations" designed to pin the blame on the Hawaiian commanders, and to the junkyard-dog ferocity of liberal Democrats and newspapers in protecting their principal, FDR -- which ferocity and propensity for lying has been abundantly documented in later circumstances by Ann Coulter, mining the Venona Papers and comparing their contents with those of the vast, bulging storehouse of lies and wilful deceit that are the archives of The New York Times, for example.
3. The British, the Dutch, a number of Korean dockworkers organized into a desperately brave spy ring, American HF-DF stations and their central command, and Roosevelt himself, and his Sec'ies of War and the Navy, his CNO and Army Chief of Staff (George Marshall) all had this information. J. Edgar Hoover had it. The President insisted to several of his informants that he would handle the information sent him about the Kido Butai -- and then he refused to send it, or to allow it to be sent, to Hawaii.
True Fact.
Uh, sorry Pat. Wrong. The Holocaust was baked into the cake, the minute Hitler came to power. He was an arch-hater.
“True Fact.”
I didn’t know there were true facts, a fact is a fact ;)
Schweikart wrote his book after Stinnett.
In any case, see my
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2336206/posts?page=22#22
regarding comments from Larry Schweikart as to where the evidence leads him. Mostly debunks Left but says there is some Right he debunks.
If you have evidence that Schweikart is wrong, contact him here:
http://academic.udayton.edu/history/schweicv.htm
If he is a true historian, he would amend his findings.
Lentulus, I may be betting on the wrong ‘lie’ here. From BroJoek supporting your statement as well
;)
In case you missed this.
From BroJoeK
“ Larry Schweikart is a great guy, he’s on our side, I have his book here, have read it and agree with almost all of it.
But on this particular subject, he is as wrong as wrong can be, and I have debated this at endless length with him, without any success. One reason is that he counts himself, and rightly so, as an expert on the subject. So, literally, no one can tell him anything about it.”
See
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2329334/posts?page=233#233
Thank you, BroJoeK, for the follow up and explanation.
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