Posted on 05/12/2005 2:08:18 PM PDT by HangnJudge
For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end the oppression. The agreement in Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. ... The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs in history.
Bush told the awful truth about what really triumphed in World War II east of the Elbe. And it was not freedom. It was Stalin, the most odious tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot and Castro murdered their tens of millions....
...If Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a cynical "Declaration on Liberated Europe" that was a monstrous lie.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Few are interested in actually addressing his argument. I doubt that most of the people who are calling him names even got beyond the first sentence.
Of course, Hitler then killed his millions, following the footstept of our glorious ally Joe Stalin.
True. But it was late in the war before Hitler really got cranked up to kill masses. I'm only arguing that under the glare of diplomacy and open travel within a Germany not at war with the west, that Hitler would not have been nearly as successful at his goal.
How different a non-defeated Japan would be is a good question. Certainly the Japan of today would not hold colonies. But they tend to copy the west, and after England got rid of her colonies, I think Japan might have as well. Who knows?
Germany wasn't making much progress on the atom bomb. And if they had defeated Russia in 1942, they might not have even continued the project. It never was anywhere near the size of our Manhattan project, and was certianly years away from a weapon. Governing Russia I believe would have sucked up all of Germanys attention, and would have been their "Vietnam".
The bottom line is that the communists killed far more people after 1941 than Hitler ever dreamed of. Had we allowed Hitler to decimate the Soviets, it couldn't have been a bad thing. I'm not making this argument out of antipathy toward Jews. Remember my argument is that I don't think Hitler could have done what he did except under the cover of total war.
Allowing Hitler to defeat Russia might have even saved Russians. How many people died in Russia in the war? 20 million? Yes, they would have lived in German tyranny. But instead they lived in Soviet tyranny. At least they would have lived.
By the way. I'm not necessarily trying to defend Buchanon. I think he's been a whack job ever since he ran for president.
Nonsense. He felt Germany was humiliated bt the WWI surrender and Versailles Treaty. There was going to be pay-back, sooner rather than later.
Maybe so.
But France and England certianly gave him the excuse he needed.
Remember that the German General staff often discuraged Hitler from making bold moves. Certianly had France and England not declard against Germany, he would have had to do much more pursuading to initiate the war in the west.
The Nazi's were very "German". Meaning that they were very legalistic about what they did. They often needed some cover of international legality to act (even if they had to fake it). That's something that they didn't need to worry with when considering their move west. France had already invaded Germany (and then retreated) during the phony war, certianly giving Germany all the excuse in the world to invade in return.
true, it wouldn't have been easy. Of course, Stalin was so paranoid, he was killing a lot of his best men. Many on the guys that conquered Berlin were sent to Siberia. In hindsight maybe we should have given the Soviets France. Trying to incorporate the French military into Soviet controlled Europe would have erased the hard lessons learned on the Eastern Front in no time :o)
LOL, true, that would have toppled the Soviets. It would have been a brilliant move :)
Was the 15th post of this inane article worth it?
That's just not accurate. Hitler wanted to kill the Jews all along. It's in Mein Kampf, it's in the captured documents. To say otherwise is just naive. Hitler stated before the Reichstag on 1-30-1939, 6+ moths before the war started, that if war were to happen, and he was dtermined thta it would the result would be "the annihilation of the Jewish race throughout Europe". Note the throughout Europe part, not just in Germany. Himmler addressing the SS office corps in 1943 "I want to talk to you about the extermination of the Jewish race. This is a page of glory in our history"
No one says Stalin wasn't bad but to imply that well "Stalin did bad stuff do, Hitler wasn't the only one" that's silly. They were both bad guys.
That is incorrect. Jews were being shot in Poland in
1939 weeks after the start of WWII.
"Aktions" by the Einsatzkommandos began in the Baltics
in Summer 1941. This was all pre-planned and there was no
serious attempt to organize any real exodus of Jews except
into holes in the ground.
Ninth Fort, Rumbula Forest, and the "Great Aktion" of December 1941 go to show that the real goal was to make
Europe "Judenrein" from the git-go.
When powers with the will to War arise you WILL fight them whether you want to or not.
Re Hitler's invasions of Belgein etc; if I recall my WWII history corectly, the Germans figured if they were going to war against France and Britian, the occupation of these countries was a military necessity. For example, the Maignot line was a militarily powerful defense...as long as Germany didn't violate the borders of neutral Belgium. Actually Pat didn't "conviently overlook" this, from the article:
True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland.
Is Pat a Nazi? At least he's a Naz-symp or fellow traveler.
Pat says nothing in his article, nor in any other forum I've heard him in, that indicates the slightest sympathy for Hitler or the Nazi cause. I think he is asking some important questions that were obvious to me even before I saw Pat raise them. Even if you think Pat is totally wrong in his historical analysis; that still doesn't make him a "Nazi."
As for the "Jew" thing...you do know that America entering the War had nothing to do with saving Jews...and that FDR ignored the opportunities pre-War and during the war to save Jewish lives? I've never seen any actual anti-semitic statement by Buchanan...just smears.
There's an argument for poor little Belgium. First with WWI German strategy against France required running through Belgium. They did not invade Holland, it was unnecessary.
Holland and the other small countries were considered strategic by both England/France and Germany.
Was World War II worth it? is too general a question and can't be answered with a solid yes or no.
The real question was whether the U. S. should have become entangled in European continental quarrels. Even after Japan's cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt kept the emphisis on the war with Germany.
Who knows? If the U. S. had stayed out of the European war and devoted all of its energy to defeat Japan that nation would have been beaten in a few months instead of over four years.
Of course after mid-1942 and Midway Japan was essentially a beaten foe. Japan's greatest military blunder was to go to war with the U. S. in the first place. After the attack on Pearl Harbor every battle the Japanese engaged in was, for Japan, a loser.
Japanese military strategists were inept and ignorant of modern total war.
Was World War II worth it? is too general a question and can't be answered with a solid yes or no.
The real question was whether the U. S. should have become entangled in European continental quarrels. Even after Japan's cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt kept the emphisis on the war with Germany.
Who knows? If the U. S. had stayed out of the European war and devoted all of its energy to defeat Japan that nation would have been beaten in a few months instead of over four years.
Of course after mid-1942 and Midway Japan was essentially a beaten foe. Japan's greatest military blunder was to go to war with the U. S. in the first place. After the attack on Pearl Harbor every battle the Japanese engaged in was, for Japan, a loser.
Japanese military strategists were inept and ignorant of modern total war.
Man on train: Don't take that tone with me young man. I fought the war for your sort.
Ringo: I bet you're sorry you won.
Otherwise we'd be speaking German, ya?
Pat's logic is flawed in many ways, but he is asking the basic question of what was gained if after tens of millions of casualties just as many people were under dictatorship as before. In Europe, the main liberated areas were West Germany and Italy.
But Pat is wrong in so many ways. First, the rest of Europe has been liberated now. Would that have been possible with Hitler? What if Hitler had conquered Russia? Certainly he would have taken France next and probably Britain and the U.S. And Hitler seems to have been far more aggressive than the Soviets. Pat seems to have missed that Hitler felt his ultimate enemy was America.
But Pat's right that the European allies screwed up their handling of the war, and probably of the post war.
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