Posted on 06/26/2008 1:43:44 PM PDT by BeanAZ
MEMBERS of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory. Moreover, the documentary, titled "The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century," asserts that the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin, who was as brutal as the one they were fighting, Adolf Hitler - and by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics practiced by the enemy. The three-part documentary is a companion to the best-selling book, "The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West" by Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson. The one-hour Part One of the documentary premieres Monday night at 10 on Ch. 13. The other two parts air the following two Mondays. World War II is the focus of Part Two. His thesis: Instead of looking at the 20th century as having been disrupted by two world wars with periods of relative peace before, between and after them, it is more appropriate to view much of the history of the century as a continuous bloody conflict that was interrupted occasionally for a few short, exhausted catnaps of relative calm. It is an illuminating viewpoint, and Ferguson does an effective job tying all of the century's mass deportations, enslavements, ethnic cleansings and genocides together so that you can't help being won over to his view that the violence of the 20th century was virtually never-ending.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
and we pay to produce this crap?
WAY past time to defund PBS, NPR, NEA et al.
Revisionist history alright. Unbelievable.
So the allies tortured and executed 6 million Jews and 10 million Chinese too?
Pat Buchanan, this should be right up your alley.
We of the enlightened age don't seem to understand that fact.
Nowdays however, the "good blood letting" will come nuke sized, in one convenient fire ball.
Human history happened for a reason and it will continue to happen.
Isn’t thre something as taxpayers we can do?
Certainly not an unreasonable point there.
The only surprise is that the leftards of PBS would allow Uncle Joe to be slandered. I guess he's collateral damage in their ongoing celebration of the myriad ways in which America sucks.
The rest of the contention ("adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics practiced by the enemy) will remain idiotic, until they can cite the millions of innocents murdered at the hands of the American military.
I quit being surprised at what turns up on PBS.
War is hell but the bombing of Tokyo and Dresden does not equate with the very personal brutality of the Nazi and Japanese.
“pbs show to show that allies were as bad as nazis.”
one wonders if they’ll ever have a show that shows that liberals, in the 1960’s, were as bad as their vc/north vietnamese allies.
one also wonders if they’ll ever have a show that shows that liberals, these days, are as bad as their al qaeda
allies. hmmmm?
IMHO
Niall Ferguson is one of those - lost British empire whiners. Now looking to make a buck crapping on the US that took his rightful God given seat at the table.
We're all guilty!
With more liberalism, comes more political correctness and more historic revisionism. Pathetic!
And the problem with this?
Mind, you, I'm not crazy about allying with Josef Stalin, but, heck, the liberals used to LOVE him!
To say nothing of another 7 million Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals and others the Reich found inconvenient or distasteful.
These are afterall the enlightened deciders of Progressiveness. Its the template of anti-Americanism from the far left Educrats.
It is far beyond time to defund this BS.
This is a disgrace to the greatest generation that hit the beaches of Normandy and liberated Europe from Tyranny.
If it were done all over again - the troops would be getting briefing from ACLU lawyer in LT advising them to not shoot NAZIs but tell them to surrender and they will have comfort in a jail as we extend civil rights to them.
I will take a look at the series and maybe pick up the book when it hits trade paper. Adam Buckman is a decent TV reporter, but I really doubt he understands what Ferguson's points are, and focused on what he thought was explosive.
As far as the claims that Allied actions were as horrific as the Axis, if anyone believes that Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo were events that did not exceed Rotterdam and London, that person is delusional. Indeed the very first order given the US Navy on Dec 8 was to wage "unrestricted submarine warfare" against Japan. The was exactly the same activity that Adm Karl Doenitz was convicted at Nuremburg.
My suggestion is don't jump to conclusions because of Adam Buckman. Watch an hour of the first installment, maybe you'll be surprised, maybe not.
True.
...it is more appropriate to view much of the history of the century as a continuous bloody conflict that was interrupted occasionally for a few short, exhausted catnaps of relative calm.
It is an illuminating viewpoint
Illuminating viewpoint? That's a common viewpoint.
...can't help being won over to his view that the violence of the 20th century was virtually never-ending.
Won over to that view? The violence of the 20th century was virtually never-ending.
If we hadn’t allied with Stalin, 20 more million or more Russians would have died and all the Jews would have been killed. PBS would then be producing documentaries saying how cruel and heartless we were for not allying with Stalin.
If we hadn’t bombed the Japanese and Germans flat, we’d have had to shoot or shell or burn them to death in hand to hand fighting. Then PBS would make documentaries claiming that by doing all of this stuff on the ground instead of 35000 feet up, we had turned an entire generation of Americans into bloody-handed murderers.
Blah, blah, blah.
Most of my close family members who fought that war are gone...and cannot stand up for themselves against this putrid rubbish.
Shame on PBS and double shame that we let them have our tax money to create this filth.
This seems to be a trend in the media/academic world.
They are trying to discredit the moral triumph of World War 2.
I think the ultimate objective is to justify a second Holocaust on behalf of their oil tick masters.
To quote football coach Herm Edwards “You play to win the game”. At least we used to.
... if anyone believes that Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo were events that did not exceed Rotterdam and London, that person is delusional
I can’t even respond further to you - you are sooooo off the wall.
So I suspect that wires got crossed at the Post. You can't write a history of WWII without dealing with all the various atrocities. Whether that means that the Allies will end up looking as bad as Hitler remains to be seen.
Nope, they tortured and killed a lot more people than that. The Allies, unfortunately, included the USSR. Its murder total is variously estimated at 20 to 60M people, considerably more than the Nazis and Japanese combined.
That said, the author's thesis can be easily blown out of the water.
Would a world where Hitler won be a better place? The mind reels.
This might sound scary but when the WW2 generation, and their children, die off in the future, and Europe becomes more Islamic and resinds laws against denying the Holocaust and displaying Nazi imagery it’s not hard to imagine that Hitker may come to be as romanticized as Napoleon is today.
the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin
From August 1939 to June 1941, Stalin was effectively allied with Hitler. Stalin only became an “ally” - and a troublesome one at that - because Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
“As far as the claims that Allied actions were as horrific as the Axis, if anyone believes that Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo were events that did not exceed Rotterdam and London, that person is delusional.”
Wow, I’m shocked that someone presenting an objective position would leave out the Bataan Death March, Katin Forest, the Malmedy Massacre, and last but OBVIOUSLY not least the attempted, and damned near accomplished, wholesale slaughter of Jews in Europe.
Is that you Pat Buchanan?
When attacked by mad dogs, good people should respond with necessary force. I just wish we had developed nukes earlier.
We may be coerced by the government into paying for it, but we don’t have to watch it.
They are past that...their hero is Lenin — Joe has been deemed guilty of implementing a style of government rather than maintaining the constant flux of an emerging Marxist terror apparatus...
IMO Lenin and his henchmen (and women) was worse because he established the apparatus that subsequent madmen could use to further and expand terror.
Actions were compared, not purposes. If you truly believe the Allies won WWII by playing the marquis of queensbury rules there can be no conversation. The things that can not be compared are the visions of the world each side fought for. But had we not exceeded the ferocity of the Axis war machines you and I would not be here to talk about it. There is only one rule in war, DON”T LOSE!
“Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson”
Before we virtually string up this historian, it would be good to
note that he changed the minds of some Canadians about the importance of
having a Republican in The White House to keep the world a safer place.
And he (along with Krauthammer) polished the floor with Ms. Samantha
Powers in that debate.
I’ve only read a few of Ferguson’s columns in the WSJ and heard him
on TV a few times...he seemed to be fairly sane and reasonable for
an academic historian.
Maybe he had a bad day when he came up with the premise for the
PBS series...or some PBS flunky decided to warp some of Fersguson’s
writing in order to improve PBS’s miserable ratings.
Samantha Power & Niall Ferguson: Face-off over foreign policy
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/51138.html
And you’ve left out lots more victims of the Nazis and their allies as in Serbia and Greece...really all throughout Europe the misery and death the Nazis and their fellow devils reveled in.
And this guy says he teaches...God help his students.
If the democrats are successful in bringing back the alleged ‘fairness doctrine,’ will that mean the end of PBS anti-American propaganda?
Right side:
 Bombs Away Lemay |
 Bomber Harris |
Wrong side:
The best strategy against aggressive fascists is the disproportionate response.
WWII began when Japan invaded Manchuria and Italy invaded Ethiopia in the mid-1930’s, and it ended when the Soviet Union’s empire in Eastern Europe collapsed, 1989-91.
The best strategy against aggressive fascists is the disproportionate response
LOL. If you didn’t say it I was going to! Buchanan LOVES this! It has been his argument since day one that the Nazis were as good as, if not better, than the allies.
Doenitz had the misfortune to be named Fuehrer in Hilter’s political will. U.S. Navy officials protested the prosecution of Doenitz, but the Russians wanted his scalp.
BTW, Hitler wanted the survivors of U-Boot attacks machine gunned, Doenitz successfully resisted, saying that it would demoralize the German crews. As a substitute, the captains and first engineer of sunken ships were to be taken prisoner.
Am reading this book now, as part of my research for a new book. He says some preposterous things, like the flu epidemic contributed to Germany’s surrender in WW I-—so as to de-emphasize the arrival of the Americans.
The fact is that all wars are won by “pitiless” and “remorseless” tactics that are ONLY mitigated by western Christianity, values, and mercy. And it is only the western way of war that ENDS wars quickly, as opposed to non-western approaches that drag them on for centuries.
U.S. power did not NEED actual colonies under its heel. We simply Americanized the world through language, McDonald's, General Motors, Pan Am, Starbucks, Nike, and Coca-Cola. You don't need a colonial presence when you have Big Macs.
I’m reading the book now. He’s flat goofy in places. And no, Europe would not have been better with a quick German victory. Ask the Belgians. Some of his “evidence” is silly. A flu epidemic, not the arrival of a million fresh American troops (with two million more on the way), caused the Germans to surrender in WW I.
A few years ago, for a gaming mag, I did a counterfactual of the U.S. NOT entering the war, and focused on the 30% of German military resources going solely to stop the U.S./Brit bombing campaign. I asked what would have happened if the forces as they stood at, say, Kursk---the key battle in the East---if the Germans had 30% more air. Easy answer: they win the air battle on day one, and the Stukas with the 37 mm take out the Russian tanks like crazy for the next couple of days. German victory.
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