The Bad War?

Primetime Politics ^ | June 5, 2008 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Nony]

Normandy, France — Questioning the past is a good thing, but rewriting it contrary to facts is quite another. In the latest round of revisionism about the Second World War, the awful British and naive Americans, not the poor Germans, have ended up as the real culprits.

Take the new book by conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Buchanan argues that, had the imperialist Winston Churchill not pushed poor Hitler into a corner, he would have never invaded Poland in 1939, which triggered an unnecessary Allied response.

Maybe then the subsequent world war, and its 50 million dead, could have been avoided. Taking that faulty argument to its logical end, I suppose today a united West might live in peace with a reformed (and victorious) Nazi Third Reich.

[BilLies]

Heard Buchanan on a talk show this weekend promoting his book. He should be on Art Bell's and George Norry’s (sp) “Coast to Coast”.
I am convinced the reason that Pat gets so much exposure in the MSM is because he is held up as a republican wacko.

[GWMcClintock]

What happened to Pat Buchanan? During the Reagan years he was a stand up guy, but the last ten years it seems like someone scrubbed his hard drive!

[U S Army EOD]

I wonder how things would have worked out if England, France, and the United States had taken Hitler out in 1936 like Bush took out Saddam before he became a real threat. Sometimes you have to have the courage to fight the small wars to prevent the big ones.

[Polybius]

Take the new book by conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Buchanan argues that, had the imperialist Winston Churchill not pushed poor Hitler into a corner, he would have never invaded Poland in 1939, which triggered an unnecessary Allied response

If Hitler had been smart, he would have avoided war in 1939, talked Peace to idiot isolationist such as Buchanan and then pushed his military R&D to the max during the 1940's.

By the 1950's, an isolationist America, a cowering Western Europe and a backwards Soviet Union would have had a very brief showdown with a nuclear armed Nazi Germany.

[gusopol3]

maybe it was the ‘92 convention speech, received tumultuously on the floor, but then immediately scorned, distorted and derided by the punditry to being some horrible expression of hatred

[Polybius]

I wonder how things would have worked out if England, France, and the United States had taken Hitler out in 1936 like Bush took out Saddam before he became a real threat.

World War II would have been avoided but you never get credit for the disaster that you prevent and therefore never were.

The war with Germany would have been short but not bloodless. The Isolationists and the Peacniks would have denounced the action as militaristic bullying of a poor and weak Germany. For years, there would be arguments over how many German children died because of the unnecessary invasion.

[Leisler]

Hitler was smart. He was a socialist though, that means you don't believe in markets, market signals or free citizens. By the time Germany invaded, German credit was at a Robert Mugabe type cliff. It was either default to New York Banks, and be exposed as a charlatan or attack and steal the land and various forms of wealths of other to import physically into Germany what Germany could no longer borrow money to buy.

[ops33]

How could Churchill have pushed Hitler into invading Poland in 1939 when Churchill didn’t become Prime Minister until 1940?

[hellbender]

When I see the behavior of many politicians in their old age—Buchanan, Goldwater, Ron Paul, etc.—I have to think that age-related creeping dementia is a factor. Buchanan is approaching 69.

[ImpBill]

Isn't it amazing how many people make money by looking at "history" and saying, "But what if?"!

History is history - can't be changed.

Pat has had, in the past, some good ideas in his message. Pat as a messenger is beyond flawed.

[hellbender]

There’s no way the US would or even could have become involved at that stage. Our armed forces were small and none were staged in Europe, and isolationism was in vogue (Ron Paul would have been delighted). France had gone to a defensive posture after WWI, when their initial strategy was offensive, and they suffered terrible casualties (they were not always “surrender monkeys”).

[PGalt]

The mistake instead was not occupying all of imperial Germany after the first war in 1918-19. That way, the Allies would have demonstrated to the German people that their army was never “stabbed in the back” at home, as the Nazis later alleged, but instead defeated by an Allied army that was willing to stay on to foster German constitutional government and its reintegration within Europe. The Allies later did occupy Germany after World War II — and 60 years without war have followed.

The same could be said of the 1st Gulf War...(I know Powell and some of the coalition had no stomach for it)

It's too bad the United Nations wasn't around before WW's I & II, as all of the killing certainly could have been avoided /sarcasm

Very good article by VDH. Thanks for posting.

[railroader]

The communists and western liberals would have said, “Look what those western imperialists did to poor Germany! Baldwin, Lebrun and Roosevelt should be tried for war crimes!”

[scotiamor]

Pat Buchannan should here be recognized as a Irish zealot, with strong antipathy towards Britain. The sort who collaborated with german spies during WWII. The enemy of my enemy is my friend logic.