Posted on 05/11/2005 9:08:36 AM PDT by EveningStar
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?
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Find it yourself. I didn't say it was in volume 6 but that might be the one it is in.
I have all six volumes but don't think I will bother to look it up just to please you. I suspect someone else may know exactly where it is, if so they can tell you.
I am certain btw that he did say that or words to that effect. If you don't believe it fine, but there is zero doubt that he did say it.
I have zero doubt that you are twisting his words to suit your agenda. And since you have not proven your own proposition, your credibility is also nil.
Wow. I actually supported this clown in 96?
I left his party, several people who showed up to work the campaign were supporters of David Duke!
Pat gets dumber everyday.
Fortunately, your opinion is worth whatever you are worth.
Hmm, go read the article, he is not so off base as the cut and paste implies.
Not that I agree, but his point is valid: If liberating France meant a Communist Poland, why go to war at all?
If signing a peace treaty with England means Hitler proceeds west to claim territory, then why sign the treaty with England?
He is being too simplitic in his approach, but he has one valid point above all: Why in the world are we celebrating tossing Hitler out of Germany, when the end result was a worse dictator enslaving more nations than Hitler attacked and killing more people than Hitler did?
After reading the whole Article, I disagree with much of the disagreement; he is being provacative, but he is NOT calling the war on Hitler a mistake, he is calling our assessment of victory a mistake when the end result was the enslavement of more nations and people than Hitler tried to do himself.
Thanks for clarifying; I was kind of scratching my head over what you meant.
Leaving aside the fact the he declared war on us, Poland didn't become Communist because we liberated France. There's no connection between the two, and we can clearly call WWII a victory. We liberated Western Europe, which is better than liberating nothing, despite the fact that Stalin stayed in power. Unfortunately Poland was screwed either way, though at least the avoided complete dismemberment and were able to emerge at the end of the cold war, something that wouldn't have happened under either of the 1939-1940 models. I suspect Pat's opinion is based on the idea that liberating Western Europe Hitler isn't necessarily a good thing. The idea that Hitler wouldn't have turned on France and England when the time was right, which underlies Pat's theory, is dubious. Are we in the wrong in Iraq because we're not liberating Iran? Wrong in South Korea by leaving North Korea alone?
Pat had you scratching your head, not me. He does that. :>)
Gosh, I hope Iran is next! ...(sigh)...
Patty doesn't make me scratch my head; he makes me want to tear my hair out by the roots : )
I guess the pact between Japan and Nazi Germany did not mean squat to Pat. Especially after Pearl Harbor.
Not enough Jews died for Pat's taste. What a loon.
[T]he WWI treaties .... carved up German territory to the benefit of the Poles, the Czecks, the Russians, Hungary and others;
I think Mr. Powell (if that's the one cited) is way off base here. First, the Russians and Hungarians lost HUGE amounts of territory after the war: the Soviet Union ended up ceding much of what had been the Russian Empire -- in particular Finland and the Baltic states (which became independent); and a good chunk of Belorussia and Ukraine (which became part of Poland after Poland the USSR stopped fighting each other in 1920). The Hungarians likewise were forced to give up territory whose inhabitants were predominantly Hungarian-speaking, such as Transylvania (to Romania) and Voevodina (to Yugoslavia).
Also, during tentative negotiations between Germany and the Wilson administration in 1918, Germany had agreed that a Polish state would (re-)emerge afte conclusion of the war, and would include a corridor to the sea. However, most of what became Poland in 1919 was taken from Austria or Russia.
[Giving the Sudetenland, which had been part of Austria-Hungary and was almost completely German-speaking, to Czechoslovakia WAS a major bonehead move, for which Wilson among others, deserves scorn].
[I]t seems, from Mr. Powell's point of view, that without U.S. intervention in the 11th hour of the war, it simply would have stopped with a stalemate, with no one having gained or lost much territory ....
Mr. Powell is naturally entitled to his opinion. I think he's wrong. Assuming America stayed out of the war, the unlimited submarine warfare waged by Germany would have weakened Britain to the point that it couldn't continue the war. France, for its part, was even experiencing mutinies on the front lines. In the east, the Bolsheviks had sued for peace, which freed up a great deal of troops and resources for Germany to use on the Western front.
IMO, the Germans would have won in the West absent American intervention.
With regard to losses/gains of territory had the US not entered the war, it is worth noting that as early as 1915, Germany was planning to annex Belgium (or at the least, turn it into a satrapy of Germany). More to the point, did Mr. Powell consider the terms imposed by Germany on the Soviet Union via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? Namely, the Baltic states, Belorussia and Ukraine were taken by the victorious Germans, some of it outright and others to be turned into "protectorates."
All that proves, I suppose, is that land-grabs by the victorious countries were inevitable after years of bloody warfare. However, it is wrong for Mr. Powell to say that absent US intervention, the war would have ended in stalemate and, territorially at least, a return to the status quo ante August, 1914.
Maybe I should get Powell's book, if only to see whether he even mentions the Zimmermann telegram, in which the German government (in Jan. 1917) offered Mexico, in return for its fighting against the US if the US declared war on Germany, the return of the "lost territories" of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico upon successful conclusion of the war.
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Silly me. I thought Hitler (mach shemo) had invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, North Africa, and the USSR (his former ally and moral equivalent) well before the US declared war on him (four days after Pearl Harbor).
Oh. I see. Buchanan meant that Britain and France "forced" Hitler (mach shemo) to invade all those countries (they provoked him by sitting there on the Maginot line and doing absolutely nothing during the period of Sitzkrieg). Don't the commies also claim we "made" them conquer so much of the world?
And this bastard is back in the Republican party, with all his Birchite/Lindbergh/Henry Ford hordes. Just what we needed!!!
Only on "Informal Fridays"..
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