Posted on 06/20/2008 8:12:50 AM PDT by kellynla
So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.
Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.
That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks."
Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The Brits kicked away their empire. Through colossal blunders, Britain twice declared war on a Germany that had not attacked her and did not want war with her, fought for 10 bloody years and lost it all.
Unable to face the truth, Hitchens seeks solace in old myths.
We had to stop Prussian militarism in 1914, says Hitchens. "The Kaiser's policy shows that Germany was looking for a chance for war all over the globe."
Nonsense. If the Kaiser were looking for a war he would have found it. But in 1914, he had been in power for 25 years, was deep into middle age but had never fought a war nor seen a battle.
From Waterloo to World War I, Prussia fought three wars, all in one seven-year period, 1864 to 1871. Out of these wars, she acquired two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. By 1914, Germany had not fought a war in two generations.
Does that sound like a nation out to conquer the world?
As for the Kaiser's bellicose support for the Boers, his igniting the Agadir crisis in 1905, his building of a great fleet, his seeking of colonies in Africa, he was only aping the British, whose approbation and friendship he desperately sought all his life and was ever denied.
In every crisis the Kaiser blundered into, including his foolish "blank cheque" to Austria after Serb assassins murdered the heir to the Austrian throne, the Kaiser backed down or was trying to back away when war erupted.
Even Churchill, who before 1914 was charging the Kaiser with seeking "the dominion of the world," conceded, "History should ... acquit William II of having plotted and planned the World War."
What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the Holocaust.
Yet consider. Before Britain declared war on him, Hitler never demanded return of any lands lost at Versailles to the West. Northern Schleswig had gone to Denmark in 1919, Eupen and Malmedy had gone to Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine to France.
Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.
If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered? Germany had to give up its High Seas Fleet in 1918.
Why did he build his own Maginot Line, the Western Wall, in the Rhineland, if he meant all along to invade France?
If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?
That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.
Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.
That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.
And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.
Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.
"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime ... ?"
Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.
Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.
The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. No wonder Winston Churchill was so melancholy in old age. No wonder Christopher rails against the book. As T.S. Eliot observed, "Mankind cannot bear much reality."
Apparently Buchanan has never heard of Plan Z: the Nazi plan to build a great fleet in order to neutralize the British advantage.
Hitler began constructing an aircraft carrier in 1935.
Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered?
Part of Hitler's propaganda was that France would remain an independent republic following the surrender and retain possession of all its military resources - this was to give the Vichy regime the appearance of governing a France that was a willing ally of Nazi Germany.
Regardless of what the formal terms of the treaty dictated, the Vichy regime was a Nazi puppet state and its army and navy were Nazi property as a practical matter.
It didn't much matter, since the UK Royal Navy destroyed France's North Atlantic vessels or incorporated them into the Free French Navy, and the Vichy Navy was bottled up in the Mediterranean at Toulon or at Dakar in Senegal by the Royal Navy as well.
And, in 1940, the Marine Nationale was no larger than the Italian Navy anyway.
In order to swallow Buchanan's analysis, you need to believe that Vichy France was a free and independent state that was an equal partner in a voluntary alliance with Nazi Germany.
And just think: Patsy is the go-to conservative for MSNBC.
Britain losing her empire was inevitable, I think most people realize that. Considering that the same thing happened to every European power, placing blame on Churchill is disingenious.
He is a whore.
Nothing more than a sad bid for attention. Mr. Buchanan has reached the point where the only way anyone will print his name is for him to trot out his odd notions about history and foreign policy. And so he keeps doing it.
It's too bad. At one time he was a clear thinker.
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.
Huh? So, no Inquisition, no Torquemada?
I think you don't get what he's saying. He is saying that the preconditions that empowered Hitler were engendered by the aftermath of WWI.
Remember that not long before Hitler became chancellor, the city of Berlin had been taken over by the Spartakusbund, a rabidly communist party comprising many Reform Jewish leaders, particularly Polish Jewess, Rosa Luxemburg. The Spartakusbund brought crushing strikes and depravity to Berlin, which was rapidly becoming the San Francisco of Germany. It was to be the first step in a nationwide communist takeover repeating a first attempt in 1848. These folks had the German middle class shaking in their boots. Not a few fell into Hitler's arms out of fear.
Toss in news of the Balfour Declaration as a cause of America's entry into WWI and Germany's resulting loss. That was easily portrayed as a betrayal in return for the historic accommodation the Germans had shown for the Jewish people, despite the fact that the agreement had been concluded by radical Sabbatean bankers who had nothing but antipathy for the Orthodox Jewish commoner.
History is more complicated than good guys v. bad guys. People need to understand that Judaism is by no means homogeneous, but deeply divided between Orthodox and the Sabbatean left, inventors of communism in the first place.
I’m just finishing the Max Hasting book. It’s excellent.
“He’s regularily published by conservative sites like Townhall and World Net Daily. Though the latter can’t really be called Conservative. I don’t know what the hell it is really.”
We need to write those groups and respectfully ask them to not give Pat Buchanon a platform to spread his poison.
I am against censorship, but private organizations have the right -— and responsibility — to keep not let nutbags like this spread nonsense.
Disingenuous is a very kind way of putting it.
Well, actually, before the bullets and shells started flying, it wasn't.
Germany cleaned France's clock in the Franco-Prussian War and the World went on, hardly noticing.
The traditional enemy of Britain was never Germany. It was France. In their hearts, the French still feel that way. Just ask one of them.
The Anglo-German rivalry began with the threat to British naval supremacy but that did not have to lead to war. Britain could have made room for a powerful ally on the waves that Britannia ruled rather than devastate Britain in a World War.
After World War One, a similar situation was developing between the U.S. and Britain. In the 1920's, most senior U.S. naval officers believed that the most likely future enemy of the U.S. Navy would be the Royal Navy.
Especially when that indicated a failure of Chamberlain's appeasement policies?
I agree with all your comments. It’s a schtick. Although I think it is a schtick near and dear to his malignant heart. I never for an instant liked this guy. He’s a modern John Bircher.
I tend to agree with you. Pat is primarily a hater. Unfortunately, his position on Illegal immigration which I concur with is based on hate. My position is not based on hatred of any racial group. Any racial group who gets here legally and not by illegal invasion, I welcome. The illegal invasion of this nation has become an unwelcome issue on the MSM except for Lou Dobbs. So Pat is not welcome to rant, vent, and hate against illegals. In the era of Barry, the networks not only tolerate more anti-Semtism, they will give it a voice with Buchanan who is more than happy to fall back and scapegoat the Jew who has always been the convenient scapegoat.
Not sure “Sabbetian” is the word you are looking for.
Sabbateans is a complex general term that refers to a variety of followers of, disciples and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626 - 1676), a Jewish rabbi who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1665 by Nathan of Gaza. Vast numbers of Jews in the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims, even after he became a Jewish apostate with his conversion to Islam in 1666. Sabbatai Zevi’s followers both during his “Messiahship” and after his conversion to Islam are known as Sabbateans
The late, liberal columnist Molly Ivins had the best line about a Buchanan speech: She thought it must have sounded better in the original German.
This is actually a very good point. Maybe it is time to really try to purge him. I wonder what the response here on FR would be, both from the operators of this great site, as well as from the Freeper community. Is this is a justifiable cause for Freeper activism? I think so. But I wonder what the general reaction would be to an enthusiastic, unabashed call to freepers to expunge Pat Buchanan from conservatism. Thoughts?
/Rev Wright rant
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