Posted on 04/09/2008 9:47:21 AM PDT by Borges
"Yes, it was a good war," writes Richard Cohen in his column challenging the thesis of pacifist Nicholson Baker in his new book, "Human Smoke," that World War II produced more evil than good.
Baker's compelling work, which uses press clips and quotes of Axis and Allied leaders as they plunged into the great cataclysm, is a virtual diary of the days leading up to World War II.
Riveting to this writer was that Baker uses some of the same episodes, sources and quotes as this author in my own book out in May, "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War.'"
On some points, Cohen is on sold ground. There are things worth fighting for: God and country, family and freedom. Martyrs have ever inspired men. And to some evils pacifism is no answer. Resistance, even unto death, may be required of a man.
But when one declares a war that produced Hiroshima and the Holocaust a "Good War," it raises a question: good for whom?
Britain declared war on Sept. 3, 1939, to preserve Poland. For six years, Poland was occupied by Nazi and Soviet armies and SS and NKVD killers. At war's end, the Polish dead were estimated at 6 million. A third of Poland had been torn away by Stalin, and Nazis had used the country for the infamous camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.
Fifteen thousand Polish officers had been massacred at places like Katyn. The Home Army that rose in Warsaw at the urging of the Red Army in 1944 had been annihilated, as the Red Army watched from the other side of the Vistula. When the British celebrated V-E day in May 1945, Poland began 44 years of tyranny under the satraps of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
Was World War II "a good war" for the Poles?
Was it a good war for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, overrun by Stalin's army in June 1940, whose people saw their leaders murdered or deported to the Gulag never to return? Was it a good war for the Finns who lost Karelia and thousands of brave men dead in the Winter War?
Was it a good war for Hungarians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Rumanians and Albanians who ended up behind the Iron Curtain? In Hungary, it was hard to find a women or girl over 10 who had not been raped by the "liberators" of the Red Army. Was it a good war for the 13 million German civilians ethnically cleansed from Central Europe and the 2 million who died in the exodus?
Was it a good war for the French, who surrendered after six weeks of fighting in 1940 and had to be liberated by the Americans and British after four years of Vichy collaboration?
And how good a war was it for the British?
They went to war for Poland, but Winston Churchill abandoned Poland to Stalin. Defeated in Norway, France, Greece, Crete and the western desert, they endured until America came in and joined in the liberation of Western Europe.
Yet, at war's end in 1945, Britain was bled and bankrupt, and the great cause of Churchill's life, preserving his beloved empire, was lost. Because of the "Good War" Britain would never be great again.
And were the means used by the Allies, the terror bombing of Japanese and German cities, killing hundreds of thousands of women and children, perhaps millions, the marks of a "good war"?
Cohen contends that the evil of the Holocaust makes it a "good war." But the destruction of the Jews of Europe was a consequence of this war, not a cause. As for the Japanese atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, they were indeed horrific.
But America's smashing of Japan led not to freedom for China, but four years of civil war followed by 30 years of Maoist madness in which 30 million Chinese perished.
For America, the war was Pearl Harbor and Midway, Anzio and Iwo Jima, Normandy and Bastogne, days of glory leading to triumph and the American Century.
But for Joseph Stalin, it was also a good war. From his pact with Adolf Hitler he annexed parts of Finland and Rumania, and three Baltic republics. His armies stood in Berlin, Prague and Vienna; his agents were vying for power in Rome and Paris; his ally was installed in North Korea; his protege, Mao, was about to bring China into his empire. But it was not so good a war for the inmates of Kolyma or the Russian POWs returned to Stalin in Truman's Operation Keelhaul.
Is a war that replaces Hitler's domination of Europe with Stalin's and Japan's rule in China with Mao's a "good war"? We had to stop the killers, says Cohen. But who were the greater killers: Hitler or Stalin, Tojo or Mao Zedong?
Can a war in which 50 million perished and the Christian continent was destroyed, half of it enslaved, a war that has advanced the death of Western civilization, be truly celebrated as a "good war"?
Oh my. Pat you are such an ass. Wars are never, ever good, but they are sometimes not only inevitable but necessary. Only those that prefer slavery over death would think otherwise. People die in wars, and they die in peace. Do they die free or as slaves. That is the eternal question.
The question posed by Pat is “was WWII “Good” vs. “Unnecessary””?
It was necessary because there was no lasting negotiation with Hitler’s tyranny. It was necessary because even the USSR and US Communists were against war with Hitler until he betrayed Uncle Joe Stalin.
We didn’t go hand to hand in war against Joseph Stalin and even more people died under Soviet Communism than under German Nazism.
Its not a bad question from Pat ...as so many are saying all wars are bad ...but Pat has the wrong answer
Its not a bad question from Pat ...as so many are saying all wars are bad ...but Pat has the wrong answer
Within Germany, yes. But when Germany & the Axis gained control of (almost) all of Europe, the brakes were off.
I would add that Buchanan’s point is moot because Germany started the war, so the question of whether the Holocaust somehow a consequence of WW2 is just silly.
You saw this right?
L
Buchanan is now clearly and unequivocally an apologist for Nazism and should be shunned. As in, his remaining friends in the Beltway should no longer have anything to do with him.
How about after you were stuck in the cold or the heat and because you were you broke the back of the Germans offensive during the Battle of the Bulge or ejected the Japs from Guadacanal and sent the Imperial forces of Japan reeling backwards inevitably towards Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sounds good to me.
ordinary foot soldier is stuck there, living one day at a time, with death tugging at his elbow. Good war, that doesn't sound good to me.
The men on the lines didn't have time to see that their tactical efforts would produce strategic results. But the freedom they brought whether foreseen by them or not at the time made their efforts part of a 'good' war.
Are you dissatisfied with the results? What's your point? War sucks so we shouldn't participate? If the results aren't factored in, no war could be seen as positive.
I am overjoyed by the results, but lets not pretend that however important the struggle, however morally just cause, a soldier or marine on the front lines cannot allow himself to think about grand strategy but only on survival - and killing the enemy, of course.
If no one had risen to oppose Nazi militarism on the Continent which Buchanan weeps for, that entire Continent would have been destroyed and enslaved - and given Nazi efficiency and the enormous financial resources of Europe, it would be enslaved today as a vast stronghold of a neopagan empire far more sinister than the EU.
It certainly was a good war - the only person who could possibly think it a bad one is a person who is upset about who won.
I used to like the McLaughlin show where Buchanan would batter eleanor clift around like a cheap toy, but lately they have transcended irritating and wandered into whack-job land.
This crap about trying to equivocate on WWII is offensive to the memories of patriots who fought and bled and died to defend us.
Screw him...
Well said.
I can't believe I actually had respect for this individual as recently as 16 years ago.
His disciples here have not only drunk the Kool-Aid, but have apparently snorted the Kool-Aid mix.
Mind-boggling...
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