A War Worth Fighting

plains5728, I doubt you'd know a Nazi sympathizer from a transit of Venus, but don't let that get in the way of your paranoia.

I have often suspected that Pat Buchanan was a Nazi sympathizer. His new book on World War II removes any doubt of that. As long as MSNBC gives Patrick J Buchanan a forum to speak I will not watch MSNBC.

Serbia was behind the assanation

Nobody should be surprised that Buchanan is an embracer of contradictions: after all, at the same time he opposed the Iraq War, he gloated over such developments as the physical intimidation of Chris Hedges by pro-war hooligans at Rockford College in 2003. But I digress. Buchanan is absolutely right in his general evaluation of WW2. There is no "moral" case for American intervention that could not equally well be deployed in favor of intervening against Stalin on behalf of the Ukraine, or against Mao on behalf of Tibet, or against any cruel dictator on behalf of anyone. Obviously if one wants to live in a country that is not constantly at war, one can't adopt that kind of foreign policy consistently. (And adopting it inconsistently begs embarrassing questions like: Why is a Ukrainian or Tibetan or Chechen worth less than a Jew?) When Hitchens says, "Unless or until Nazism had been vanquished, millions of people were most certainly going to be either massacred or enslaved in any case", one wonders what he thinks actually happened in all those countries where the red flag flew, thanks to our destruction of its main competition. No: our alliance with Stalin against Hitler and the Japanese was no more attractive and no more necessary than the reverse scenario would've been, especially as they were disposed to fight each other and we were more than capable of defending ourselves against both. We won a cold war with the commies with the fascists absent; we could have won a cold war with the fascists with the commies absent. I am quite proud of the fact that America stayed out of the fray until December 1941, and wish to hell we'd stayed out longer or entirely. And, in passing: no, the atrocities of the Holocaust most certainly do NOT provide retrospective justification for burning the eyeballs out of Japanese schoolkids and wiping German cities off the map, and the suggestion to the contrary is an almost perfect paragon of immorality: a combination of reckless vengeance and twisted utilitarianism.

Nobody should be surprised that Buchanan is an embracer of contradictions: after all, at the same time he opposed the Iraq War, he gloated over such developments as the physical intimidation of Chris Hedges by pro-war hooligans at Rockford College in 2003. But I digress. Buchanan is absolutely right in his general evaluation of WW2. There is no ???moral??? case for American intervention that could not equally well be deployed in favor of intervening against Stalin on behalf of the Ukraine, or against Mao on behalf of Tibet, or against any cruel dictator on behalf of anyone. Obviously if one wants to live in a country that is not constantly at war, one can???t adopt that kind of foreign policy consistently. (And adopting it inconsistently begs embarrassing questions like: Why is a Ukrainian or Tibetan or Chechen worth less than a Jew?) When Hitchens says, ???Unless or until Nazism had been vanquished, millions of people were most certainly going to be either massacred or enslaved in any case???, one wonders what he thinks actually happened in all those countries where the red flag flew, thanks to our destruction of its main competition. No: our alliance with Stalin against Hitler and the Japanese was no more attractive and no more necessary than the reverse scenario would???ve been, especially as they were disposed to fight each other and we were more than capable of defending ourselves against either. We won a cold war with the commies with the fascists absent; we could???ve won a cold war with the fascists with the commies absent. I???m quite proud of the fact that America stayed out of the fray until December ???41, and wish to hell we???d stayed out longer or entirely. And, in passing, no, the atrocities of the Holocaust most certainly do NOT provide retrospective justification for burning the eyeballs out of Japanese schoolkids and wiping German cities off the map, and the suggestion to the contrary is an almost perfect paragon of immorality: a combination of reckless retributivism and twisted utilitarianism.

Was Buchanan aware that at one time the Kaiser was looking at an <a href="http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa050902a.htm"> invasion of the United States</a>?

Buchanan should have read The Arms Of Krupp, by William Manchester, an immaculate historian who spent some years researching the manufacture of German Arms by the Krupp arms factory in Germany. Especially in the years preceding WWII, one can hardly deny that Hitler had Big War in mind and domination of more non-German territory than Europe would ever be able to tolerate, if not even all of Europe. It is hard to see how he could be serious in calling our involvement in WWII a "war of choice". Weren't Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war against the U.S. just a few days after Pearl Harbor enough? How could we choose not to declare war in return? Choice? What choice?
If he writes this book in an effort to somehow excuse the administration for starting the Iraq war, then I can understand the book as some kind of political ploy for those who can barely read well enough to read his book.

Dear One, I agree with you about the horrible social conditions in Iran. I have two things to say about that. One is, Americans need to be VERY CAREFUL not to let the religious right wing take over the Supreme Court, considering that Iran shows you what it really looks like when a nation fails to separate church and state. The second point is that WE, the USA, put those nut jobs in power by placing the Shah in power then controlling his government as a puppet, which infuriated the Iranian people. The Iranian people rebelled against such imperialism, and in the middle of this secular political rebellion, the Ayatollahs seized power. Not to mention the very cogent fact that WE, the USA, gave Iran their first nuclear reactor. Oh, yeah. We forgot all about that. Now we are threatening to bomb them for possessing technology that WE gave them?

And what is all this nonsense about Iran attacking Israel? Iran has been at war with Iraq for decades, and never succeeded in even taking over a neighboring province. How are they going to fight a long distance war with Israel? Iran does NOT have significant military force to back up a nuclear strike, even if it were stupid enough to indulge in one, even if it already had the warheads, which it does not.

And ask yourself, who has strengthened the religious fanatics that control Iran? The USA. First, we give them nuclear power, then we set up conditions for the Ayatollahs to seize power, then we plunge Iraq into civil war and destroy Iraq's infrastructure, which effectively disables Iran's greatest enemy. Furthermore, Bush refuses to have diplomatic relations, only worsening the situation. And McCain threatens to bomb Iran, which is even stupider (and much more real) than Iran threatening to bomb Israel. We have no one but ourselves to blame for the horrible situation in the middle east.

VOTE FOR OBAMA to end all this needless drama.

Fascism resembled Communism only in its appeal to the masses. Fascism actually was a way of fighting Communism and Socialism by substituting the classless nation or race for the class struggle of the Marxists. Where the Left appealed to class, the Right appealed to the Nation in order to prevent social revolution. The Nazis did many revolutionary things -- but always in the interest of preventing real revolution, class revolution.

Well, Mr. Hitchens, have you ever fought in a war? Have you ever seen someone bite off his tongue in pain? Have you ever seen someone's eyes roll in the back of his head? Have you ever heard a dying soldier cry out for his mother? I thought not. Then you are in no position to say that war is necessary. No war is ever necessary. Wars are started by politicians who don't give a damn one about anyone but themselves and their positions. The politicians in three-piece suits who sit on their asses eating five-course meals planning for next year's re-elections never send their sons and daughters out on the battlefield. It is the dumb, American voter who believes all this God-Country-Mom-And-Apple-Pie nonsense who does the fighting for them. And of course they sit up there in Washington laughing the whole time wondering why they didn't start a war sooner if it was going to be that easy to find all the John Waynes and Sergeant Yorks willing to throw their lives away for a little glory and perhaps a monument or two. Just what good does dying for one's country do for the dead soldier? Are you stupid enough to believe that God sits up there in heaven handing out medals to slain Americans? If you do you are no different than the ignorant terrorists who believe Allah has 72 virgins waiting for them in the afterlife. War is never necessary and never solves anything. Show me an example in history in which a war has resulted in a better life for all those involved.

Saw a link to this article at www.polijam.com The site contains many great links. It is scary that so many Americans have become so complacent with their lifestyles that they think that no war is ever necessary. It is scary because what keeps an enemy such as terrorist entities in check is the fear of retaliation. Whether one in fact does fight is often unimportant. It is the enemy's knowledge that one is ready to fight that can keep the enemy in check.
Under the theory that one can always pursue peace and avoid war at virtually any cost, one enables the enemy. Today's Western approach to war consist of following legalstic rules that the enemy does not. It amounts to fighting a war with one hand tied behind your back. The enemy knows it, and rejoices.

What a great article. It's been a long time since I've read a more entertaining column in the pages of Newseek.

I wonder what Patrick and Christopher would have to say about the desirablity/possibility of living with terrorism? Is our current war "necessary" or "avoidable"?

For that matter, is ANY war "necessary" or is it "avoidable"? Our Civil War? Our Revolutionary War? Were they both really "necessar" or were they "avoidable."?

I suppose that it would be technically "possible" to live with slavery or to live with taxation sans representation, but then wouldn't we all be someone else? I mean, we wouldn't be the same country if we found it "possible" to live with these things. So those wars became "necesary."

My own guess would be that it's not possible to share the planet with people who think it a good idea to fly airplanes into our buildings or to behead us or to turn women into cattle. This suggests a "necessary" war.

Hitchens bungles his argument when he labels Nazi Germany a "right-wing" government, and betrays his not entirely shed radical Leftist past. Nazi Germany was a left-wing, totalitarian socialist government. It was only "right" in the sense that it was a socialist movement that did not take orders from Stalin. It's difficult to take Hitchens' historical arguments seriously when he makes such sophomoric mistakes.

This is one of the best articles ever to appear on the Newsweek website. Wow!