[B-Chan]

Patrick Buchanan is right about a great many things. I think that he is wrong on the topic of World War II.

That being said: I have not read this book. I intend to do so as soon as possible, and to consider the ideas Buchanan proposes within carefully and seriously.

Opinions expressed in links posted by me to FR do not necessarily reflect my own opinions.

[Dilbert San Diego]

It’s politically incorrect to say this, but many people are having fewer children or not having children at all. The Muslim population in Europe are having more children than native Europeans.

Sad to say that reproductive choice all too often means not having as many children, for lifestyle reasons. If “demography is destiny” the civilized world as we know it is in trouble.

[DB]

“Had Britain not declared war on Aug. 4 and brought in Japan, Italy and the United States, the war would have ended far sooner. Leninism and Stalinism would never have triumphed in Russia, and Hitler would never have come to power in Germany.”

Up is down, black is white...

All because Britain stood up to Hitler when he started rolling through Europe...

Nuts.

[littlehouse36]

“How the West Lost the World”

Birth control.

[max americana]

As long as we sacrifice the Euros to the Muslim horde, we’re fine...they’re cannon fodder.

[icwhatudo]

Pat jumped the shark long ago. Theres a reason MSNBC uses him as the token con.

[nathanbedford]

Without question, one of the most original and provocative writers on the scene today is Patrick J. Buchanan. Every time a piece written by him appears in Free Republic, it engenders a flurry of posts and much invective grounded in the belief that Buchanan is anti-Semitic. It is not my point here to argue one side or the other that issue, however, I restate my general proposition that ad hominem arguments are a very bad way of getting at the truth and in the long run only serve to divert this forum from its grand potential which is to be a leading light of conservatism as the movement enters its exile in the wilderness.

My quarrel with Buchanan is that he appears to judge historical figures according to hindsight and not upon a standard limited to what the figure knew or should have known at that time. Here is an example of the absurdities into which this practice can lead a historian:

A third was the British decision to capitulate to U.S. demands in 1921 and throw over a faithful Japanese ally of 20 years. Tokyo took its revenge, 20 years later, by inflicting the greatest defeat in British history, the surrender of Singapore and an army of 80,000 to a Japanese army half that size.

It is absurd to pin blame on a politician or a statesman for a policy that goes wrong two decades later. This is an old trick of the left. For example the left blames Dwight Eisenhower for installing the Shah in Iran nearly 3 decades before the Shah was ousted and our people were taken as hostages. In between, a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, declined to act to save the Shah. To impute responsibility to Eisenhower for the hostage crisis 30 years later or, equally, to British statesman for the fall of Singapore 20 years later, is preposterous.

Seems to me, without having my judgment handicapped by actually reading Buchanan's book, this amounts to little more than parlor game, a "what- if" game. It is one thing to examine history to distill from it the essences of timeless truths. Is appeasement a good and safe policy? Are secret alliances a smart policy? Should commitments be made which in reality are so impractical that they cannot be honored? Should commitments be made the implications of which cannot be known? These are all legitimate questions coming out of the run-up to World War I and they present some truths that clearly have application to our war on terror today. It is quite another thing to play parlor games with history.

Buchanan's article, and presumably his book, contains other problems:

He led the West down a moral incline to its own barbarism by imposing a starvation blockade on Germany in 1914 and launching air terror against open cities in 1940.

Has Buchanan not heard of unrestricted submarine warfare? Is he unaware of German surface Raiders attempts to starve Britain at the beginning of the war? Does he not know that the ultimate near starvation of the German homefront by 1918 was a principal reason for the disintegration of Germany, causing Hindenburg and Ludendorff to tell the Kaiser there was no option but surrender?

With respect to the, "air terror against open cities in 1940," one can only respond: is Buchanan ignorant of Rotterdam? Of Coventry? Of the decision by the Luftwaffe in mid-September 1940 to divert its attacks from English airdromes to English cities thus commencing "the blitz?"

These kinds of ludicrous assertions which actually are wholly counter to historical reality betray a shallowness or more likely a need to create controversy in order to sell books.

Similarly, Buchanan claims:

He was behind the greatest British military blunders in two wars: the Dardanelles disaster of 1915 and the Norwegian fiasco of 1940 that brought down Chamberlain and vaulted Churchill to power.

It is no good playing with the English language like that. Either Churchill was responsible for Gallipoli and should therefore be blamed or he was not. In either case, a historian making this kind of an assertion is obligated to marshal facts to prove it. It is only cute to say that Churchill "was behind" the Dardanelles disaster-was he or was he not responsible and why? What does it mean that he was "behind" it?

If Buchanan wanted us to explore the real lessons of World War I and other lessons from Churchill's career, he might have talked about how technology outran the generals of World War I, or how secret alliances confounded diplomats before 1914. He might even argue that by 1939 there was very little option but to appease Hitler and the practice should have never gotten that far.

These are all respectable points of view that can be argued. When one writes revisionist history as Buchanan has apparently done here one owes it to the reader to be very careful with the facts.

When one undertakes to undermine the reputation of the man whom I think is the greatest man of the 20th century, one ought to consider how Churchill drew his moral judgments from World War II:

In war: resolution

In peace: magnanimity

In defeat: defiance

In victory: Goodwill

[patriciaruth]

Had the Kaiser known the British Empire would fight for France, he would have moved more decisively than he did to halt the plunge to war in July 1914. Had Britain not declared war on Aug. 4 and brought in Japan, Italy and the United States, the war would have ended far sooner. Leninism and Stalinism would never have triumphed in Russia, and Hitler would never have come to power in Germany.

This is such total crap.

ONE. The Kaiser Wilhelm II was an young ambitious man when he came to power, and he began building his army AND his navy immmediately with the absolute determination to become the conqueror of Europe. There is absolutely nothing that England could have done to turn him from his ambition, just as there was nothing they could do in the 1930's short of war to turn Hitler from his ambitions.

Until near the start of hostilities in WWI, Churchill had a pleasant relationship with the Kaiser, who was a grandson of Queen Victoria, while Churchill was the grandson of a Duke and part of England's aristocracy which allowed them to interact with respect for each other.

Churchill was reluctant to believe the Kaiser had such great ambitions and was such a threat to England, but when he saw the Kaiser building up Germany's Navy, Churchill as the Lord Admiral of the Navy could not let England be overshadowed. Two thirds of England's food supply was imported. The British Navy was needed to defend the merchant marine bringing goods and food back from the far flung British Empire. So, Churchill, with great resistance from the government of the time, built up their Navy even more than before so they could blockade any attempt by the Kaisar to take control of the English Channel.

Looking at the close proximity of French ports to England, and knowing that Southern England was undefended to any landing attempt by a hostile nation, Churchill realized that they could not allow the Kaiser to overrun the European continent, as then he would be in a position to gravely threaten England.

Churchill decided that they would have to make alliance with some nation in Europe to defend it against German invasion, and strategically they decided that France was the best bet. The British public was dead set against any involvement in Europe, although they did consider Belgium an underdog that should be defended if invaded. But for a couple of reason the decision to defend France was made secretly. One, that to give away one's strategy to an implacable enemy in advance would simply mean that the enemy would subvert your strategy by choosing another route to conquer Europe. And two, the British public did not yet realize the grave threat posed by Germany and wouldn't have allowed the government to stand if such a strategy had been made public.

Buchannan has always been a Nazi apologist, and to excuse Hitler, he has to excuse the Germans in WWI and condemn the peace treaty that was so onerous to them after the war.

For the record, Churchill begged Prime Minister Lloyd George and the King of England to send a dozen ships with food to Germany after its surrender in WWI. And he and Lloyd George both were against the onerus terms of the Versailles treaty, but Lloyd George wanted to shoot the Kaiser while Churchill did not. It was the French under Clemenceau who were adamant about reparations as they had suffered incredible destruction due to the occupation of the Germans.

TWO. If the British had not declared war on August 4, and entered with their army already ready to go and NAVY war games planned, France would have been overrun. Japan and Italy refused to become allies of the British. England had nothing to offer them in return, except to turn a blind eye if Japan should invade China or Italy should grab territory in Africa. And it is totally laughable to suggest that the United States would have entered the war early. Who is his right mind thinks that holds any water??

But then Buchannan has always been insane.

[patriciaruth]

He [Churchill] was behind the greatest British military blunders in two wars: the Dardanelles disaster of 1915

Investigation after the fact exonerated Churchill of the Dardanelles disaster. The blame lay with the Naval commanders of the fleet that were pushing through the Dardanelles, and with the Prime Minister for flinching inches before the operation was completely successful.

I will go into the particulars of why the Dardanelles operation was inches from success if wanted, but the Turks knew it was inches from success and were evacuating Constantinople (Istanbul) and were down to their last three rounds of munitions at the Narrow Straights forts when the Brits flinched.

Many military historians believe if the British naval commanders had simply persisted one more day that all of history would have changed. They would have been able to offer another front over the stalemated and deadly Western Front of trench warfare, and brought the war to an end much sooner. They would have been able to supply the Russians through the Black Sea and quite probably prevented the Russian Revolution.

It was the fear of the naval commanders that they were being fired on from Gallipoli peninsula that caused them to pause and ask for the Gallipoli peninsula to be cleared of Turkish defender by the army before they continued through the Dardanelles. The Turks were astounded that the British paused for weeks allowing the Turks to return to Gallipoli and bring in more amunition and guns. (They had been pounded to pieces by the naval guns which had longer range than the guns at the Turkish forts).

Churchill was deadset against the delay. He was exonerated when the facts were investigated later.

[joe fonebone]

pat did not mention the biggest blunder...allowing him to have a forum to spew forth his egotistical self centered garbage...pat buchanan is a moron...

[Randy Papadoo]

First, I agree with those of us who believe Pat Buchannan has gone over the edge on this one. World War II, IMHO, had little to do with the third world’s emigration to Western Countries.

In Henrik van Loon’s “The History of Mankind”, the movement of populations always to greener pastures has been a constant throughout history. All these countries who now have influxes of these immigrants either have lax entry requirements, or needed more population to aid the economy and build up the tax base, since their own slow-growing population was not keeping up the tax revenues and no longer worked menial jobs.

The Western world lived a luxurious lifestyle compared to the Third World, so, according to van Loon, the Third World population movement to greener pastures is a natural and to-be-expected event.

But this, in time, does detract from the luxurious lifestyle. Look at Southern California....many problems with the Mexican immigration (except to farmers, etc). Tax revenues allocated to support them, instead of going for the usual and regular requirements. Pollution goes up.

So, what do the luxuriants do? The only thing they can do: Leave the beautiful beaches and the pollution and the skewed politics, and move to Utah, Arizona, Idaho, etc, which have now become the greener pastures.

Always moving to greener pastures. Seems like a lousy way to go, but it is natural and inevitable so long as the World’s population continues to grow and move.

[pyrless]

Declining birth rates in Europe are economic and morality issues. I lay it primarily on their rampant liberalism:

1. The average family is squeezed by taxes so much they can’t afford kids, especially with education costs driven up so high by the libs.

2. Liberal secularism has driven family values so low that easy abortions are the preferred economic choice.

[Cronos]

The West lost the World at many points:
1. When Sweden set up an alliance with the Ottoman Caliphate,
2. When the British and French supported the Ottoman Caliphate against the Russian Orthodox who could have returned Constantinople to Christian hands in the 1800s.
3. When the French didn't return to a monarchy in 1848
4. When the Christian powers didn't forcibly return North Africa to Christianity

[Tailgunner Joe]

Winston Churchill and Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1909

[Revolting cat!]

All right, people, start...

[dfwgator]

Pat’s pal Hitler bears a lot of responsibility for the West’s decline.

How much blood and treasure did the west lose to rid the world of Hitler? And because of Hitler, Western culture got a huge black eye in the eyes of the rest of the world.