Saturday, June 21, 2008

Was WW II Necessary?

Patrick Buchanan has written a new book entitled Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessay War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. It is a work of revisionist history that is written through Buchanan's isolationist eyes. In a new article Buchanan states that if there had been no war - for which he blames England and Churchill specifically - there would have been no holocaust. He also blames the British for the spread of Communism throughout eastern Europe. Wow - Maybe Churchill caused global warming or Hurricane Katrina. Buchanan disregards the absolute evil in Hitler. He says that Hitler did not desire world domination, that he did not want war and that the holocaust didn't begin until 2 years after the war began.

Buchanan is arrogant enough to rewrite history and look down his nose at anyone who questions his thesis. I have heard and read several interviews in which he refuses to consider any other opinion about WW II even those from experts. While there may be some truth that Hitler did not desire war, he took by force any country that would not roll over for him. It is also true that he was a rabid anti-Semite and blamed the Jews for all the ills that befell Germany after their loss in WW I. Had war not been declared on Hitler's Germany does any rational person believe that he would have let the Jews live in peace? That idea is patently ridiculous. Hitler's belief in a Germanic superior race required that anyone not fitting that ideal be disposed of, much like radical Islamists believe that infidels be killed. In fact Buchanan blames the US for Islamic hatred of the west.

I know mistakes were made by the allies before, during and after WW II, but defending the world against the evilness of Hitler was not one of them. Buchanan should go back to school.