Posted by
gilroy man on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:54:33 PM
Disappointment in Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan’s new book is out, and this time his variation on the “death of the west” theme is Winston Churchill and WWII. Supposedly Churchill was a war loving cowboy who forced the issue with Hitler and sparked an unnecessary and needless war.
I have a few questions for Mr. Buchanan.
1) Did Churchill force Poland and Hungary to demand territory from Czechoslovakia and assist Hitler in its dismemberment?
a. No. Despite the romanticized history of Poland, the interwar Polish government fought a war with the Soviets, demanded territory from the Czechs, and played off the French, Soviets, and Germans against each other in a venal game of manipulation. That Poland ultimately lost that game does not absolve them of their territorial greed or their refusal to cooperate in international agreements to reign in the Germans. If you want to pass around blame for WWII, include the Poles too.
2) Did Churchill prompt the Soviets to provide food, raw materials, and weapons testing to the Germans throughout the 1920s?
a. No. The Soviets did that all by themselves. During the 1920s, Germany was isolated and Soviet assistance was invaluable to their efforts to rebuild their military. The Soviets tried to portray themselves as an ally with the West against the Germans in 1936, but a decade of assistance to the Germans totally undermines that campaign. The Soviets deserve their fair share of blame for WWII.
3) Did Churchill propose a British alliance with Japan in the 1930’s which would isolate the United States?
a. No. Neville Chamberlain did. Chamberlain was so anti-US that he proposed an alliance with the Japanese to counter the United States. Does Buchanan think the war with Japan was unnecessary as well?
I could go on, but I think the point is made that it is totally unrealistic to blame one man for the outbreak of WWII, or to pretend that the entire war was unnecessary. But I don’t think that is Buchanan’s purpose. To me, his book is an attempt to link Churchill to George W. Bush. 2 war hungry cowboys who sparked unnecessary wars. Since the outbreak of WWII and the Iraq war are totally different, with a completely different cast of characters, this is nothing more than shameless demagoguery. Buchanan knows that popular opinion is against the Iraq war and wants to gravy train on that sentiment with false historical analysis, making a few quick bucks along the way.
But it’s even worse. Linking Bush and Churchill plays into the liberal hatred of white males, who supposedly sparked the American Revolution for their own interests, and whose contributions to the world are routinely broken down and disparaged in today’s universities. Notice that we no longer have Lincoln’s birthday or Washington’s Birthday as holidays, but we do have a Martin Luther King holiday? So Buchanan pretends to stop the death of the west, and then climbs on the bandwagon to help the libs bash historical white male figures when it is convenient for his own purposes. Unbelievable.