Was World War II worth it?
Patrick J. Buchanan:
Leninism was the Black Death of the 20th Century.
The truths bravely declared by Bush at Riga, Latvia, raise questions that too long remained hidden, buried or ignored.
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.
As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster they alternately and affectionately called "Uncle Joe" and "Old Bear," why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing the Sudetenland over to Germany? At least the Sudeten Germans wanted to be with Germany. No Christian peoples of Europe ever embraced their Soviet captors or Stalinist quislings.
Other questions arise. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war?
If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny even more odious, as Bush implies, did Western Civilization win the war?
In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain refused. In 1939, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Poland. Chamberlain agreed. At the end of the war Churchill wanted and got, Czechoslovakia and Poland were in Stalin's empire.
How, then, can men proclaim Churchill "Man of the Century"?
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.
When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?
If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.
If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.
Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?
News and Blogosphere:
Putin Won't Make More Apologies for Stalin
Bush Right to Recall Injustices by Soviets
Vladimir Putin's sinister nostalgia
What Is Bush Celebrating in Moscow?
Russia's Half-Truth
posted by Adam Lawson @ 12:16 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Russia (Putin in particular) really does have a lot of nerve.
In fulfillment of the 'secret protocols' of the August, 1939 German-Russian non-aggression pact, Russia invaded and occupied the eastern half of Poland, and not long after did the same to the Baltic states, which Hitler ceded as in the Russian's 'sphere of interest'. But as with the western nations, this bit of appeasement and treachery bought Stalin only a little time in the end.
Not to mention the Russian domination and subjugation of Eastern Europe after the end of WWII.
So it is interesting to watch Russia's arrogance about all of that, as contrasted with Germany's continued abject apologies; at this point both are a bit unattractive to me.
"Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?"
Now let me think for a second here---no.
Post a Comment
<< Home