The Past Is Another Country--Counter-factual History and the Buchanan Controversy
Patrick Buchanan’s new book, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World is a must-read for anyone interested in international affairs, world history, World War II, and Winston Churchill. It’s not a standard history book but a long essay that utilizes secondary sources, mostly published books and articles and that promotes several intertwined theses with certain implications for current U.S. foreign policy.
As Buchanan sees it, both W.W.I and W.W.II were “unnecessary” wars that led to the erosion in the political, economic and military power of Europe and the British Empire, and by extension that of the West. If certain crucial policy choices, including the decision by Britain and France to offer guarantees to Poland, would not have been made, the conflict between the European powers could have been averted. Germany and Britain share responsibility for the series of decisions that led to the two wars. And Churchill played a leading role in creating the conditions for the entry of Britain into the Great War (doing that indirectly through his supportive rhetoric and political maneuvers) and into the Second World War (by mobilizing the elites, press, and public opinion to go to war, not unlike the neocons before and after the Iraq War).
Americans should recognize that by pursuing such Churchillian-like policies and overextending and overstretching their military and economic resources around the globe, the U.S. could find itself in the same position into which Britain was forced into after W.W.II—a has-been global power. Churchill’s central role in these developments—the two world wars, the collapse of the British Empire, the decline of the West—suggests that he was, indeed, the Man of the (20th) Century, but deserving of this designation more for his warmongering, poor judgment, and blundering than for his being the savior of western civilization (for which the neocons love to eulogize him).
Although I’ve read many, many books about W.W.II and several biographies of Churchill, including most of those listed in Buchanan’s bibliography, I enjoyed his book and found it very thought provoking. I’ve always liked revisionist studies that challenge our basic philosophical assumptions and our conventional wisdom about history. I also thought that in his review, John Lukacs doesn’t actually refute Buchanan’s main arguments regarding the events that led to W.W.II. Instead, he suggests that there is not enough historical evidence to support them and that your perspective on all this depends very much on our estimation of Churchill’s personality and modus operandi. Clearly, Lukacs’s and Buchanan’s are very different.
While I agree that the David Irving analogy was a cheap shot, Buchanan’s book is meant as a provocation, and I’m certain that he expects and, in fact, welcomes critical reviews and is ready to respond to them. Also, one of the reasons that I enjoy reading and writing for such publications like Chronicles, TAC, and Takimag is that unlike, say, The Weekly Standard, a lot of what they publish is unpredictable, contrarian, doesn’t follow a certain “party line” and challenges the powers that be. And that even “cranks” are welcomed to contribute.
I’d also warn against the tendency to search for certain continuities in political history that reflects our current biases and leads us sometimes to apply faulty historical analogies. We don’t like it when the neocons do it: every conciliatory diplomatic move is compared to “Munich,” every leader they want to depose in a “Hitler,” every civil war in which they want the U.S. to intervene is the first stage is in genocide, and all their critics are “appeasers,” “isolationists,” etc. And I’m not so sure that is makes a lot of sense for us to turn the tables on them and mirror image their dubious intellectual exercise and ironically end up doing exactly what the neocons are doing: comparing Churchill to Bush, and the strategic choices that America faced after 9/11 to those that Britain had to confront in the late 1930’s. Hence I don’t buy into the notion that since George W. Bush and The Weekly Standard worship Churchill, then ipso facto those of us who oppose them and their policies should regard Churchill as The Villain in the narrative of “the short twentieth century.”
In terms of his upbringing and personality, Churchill was like de Gaulle and Adenauer, a traditional conservative whose ideological roots go back to the 19th Century. If you apply the standards of our age, he was a “racist” and an “anti-Semite” (and by the way, for many of his contemporaries there was no contradiction between his occasional criticism of Jews and his support for Zionism). Like Teddy Roosevelt, he apparently suffered from some sort of depression, and like TR, he was attracted to violence and war which seemed to serve as a kind of Prozac for him. Poor Teddy didn’t get his big war. Moreover, Churchill, like his archrival Neville Chamberlain, was a British nationalist, imperialist, Realpolitik type in the tradition of Disraeli, and not in that of William Gladstone whose views were more characterized by the kind of liberal idealism that was later embraced and extended by President Woodrow Wilson. It’s this latter foreign-policy tendency, and not so much Churchill’s, that has been the hallmark of the neoconservative agenda as well as that of the humanitarian interventionist on the political left. And to demonstrate how even this “realist vs. idealist” dichotomy can be confusing, recall that Buchanan’s old boss, Richard Nixon—who is considered by many to be a flaming realist (China, Détente)—was an admirer of Wilson. One could be critical of both Chamberlain and Churchill for many different reasons, but it’s important to stress that both of them were pursuing classic forms of realist foreign policy and weren’t motivated by any sense of spacey idealism, like trying to make the world safe for democracy, nation building, etc.
Moreover, while it’s necessary to study the role of personalities in determining the course of history—interestingly enough, both Lukacs and Buchanan seem to apply that level of analysis in their work; hence, their preoccupation with Churchill and Hitler—we need to consider the impact other factors—geo-strategic, economic, demographic, geographical, and environmental—on historical processes.
W.W.I and W.W.II as well as the Cold War resulted from changes in the balance of power in Euro-Asia, and in particular the response to the rise of Germany as a leading European power and the strategic maxim that was central to British policy, and by extension Anglo-American policy: that no one great power should be allowed to control the Euro-Asian center of gravity—western and central Europe.
From that perspective, the debate between the British leaders was on the means to deal with Germany—military force, diplomatic accommodation, or a combination of both. (And by the way, the same kind debate took place in Washington after W.W.II with regard to the U.S. strategy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, with containment ending up as the consensus strategy.
It’s possible to envision a scenario in which the German and British Empires could have pursued policies that would have led to mutual accommodation and that would have prevented the Great War. Niall Ferguson makes such an argument in The Pity of War, suggesting that the British Empire could have lived side-by-side with a German-dominated Europe. And in any case, a military stalemate between the warring powers would have been the best-case scenario. Hence, American military intervention was in retrospect a historic blunder, and in that context, we should regard the idealist scheming Wilson as the main Villain in the narrative. In fact, Lukacs has drawn the outline of a What If? scenario in which President Teddy Roosevelt succeeds in pressing the two sides to negotiate a fair and stable conclusion to the war. And, yes, it would have been great if all the pre-WWII Empires of the time wouldn’t have been shattered (although while I imagine that at Takimag many readers and contributors are nostalgic for the good old days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I doubt that they miss the not-so gemütlich Ottoman Empire, which was defeated by the Brits).
It seems to me that against the backdrop of rising nationalism and the spread of liberalism and popular mass democracy, such an outcome was inevitable sooner or later (which explains why the notion of establishing an American Empire and spreading democracy at the same time doesn’t make much sense). The Great War may or may not have been inevitable, but it was Wilson’s postwar policies that were responsible for the mess that eventually led to the next war. He was the villain in the story.
Now to Hitler and Churchill. Much of the historical debate centers on whether Hitler would have accepted the kind of deal with Great Britain that John Charmley, Buchanan, and others believe had been possible. In fact, would Hitler have accepted in the late 1930s a Yalta-like accord with Britain (and France)—a division into spheres of influence?
Buchanan provides some evidence to support the view that Hitler would have accepted such a settlement that would have given him a yellow light to invade the Soviet Union. We’ll never know. The counter-argument, based mostly on Hitler’s modus operandi, the notion that he was a realist, is that that after achieving his strategic goals in the East, nothing would have prevented Hitler from taking steps to challenge the Brits in the Middle East and India and turn Britain into a German satellite or vassal state (like Finland vis-à-vis the Soviet Union).
I think that the preoccupation with the treaty with Poland misses a point. Chamberlain was really not interested in a “treaty with Poland” because he admired or was seduced by the Poles etc., and was more concerned about the balance of power in Europe that was successfully challenged by Berlin as a result of Munich and its aftermath. The British and the French needed a “tripwire” as a way of counterbalancing the German moves, and that tripwire was Poland.
Was setting up this tripwire was a mistake? Perhaps. But my guess is that at some point the British and the French would have been forced to respond to other aggressive German moves in the Balkans, the Middle East, etc. In any case, it’s not clear to me whether Buchanan shares Charmley’s view that London should have made a deal with the Germans after Hitler had invaded France (which Hitler was hoping to get).
Many revisionists also criticize the demand of “unconditional surrender” by the allies that, they argue, weakened the opposition against Hitler inside Germany. Perhaps the allies could have tried at this or that stage of the war to reach a deal with some of the more pragmatic figures in the German military and government that would have deposed Hitler and cooperated with the Americans to defeat the Soviets?
Both Alliance of Enemies: The Untold Story of the Secret American and German Collaboration to End World War II and Plotting Hitler’s Death: The Story of German Resistance speculate and provide some sketchy evidence that that could have happened. But as Thomas Fleming points out in The New Dealers’ War: FDR and the War Within World War II, it was FDR that was the driving force behind the strategy of unconditional surrender. Indeed, after a certain point in the war, it was FDR and his advisors whose goals were to both defeat the Axis powers and to destroy the British Empire—and eventually create the foundations for a post-war American-Soviet alliance (which took the form of a condominium in Yalta, who were making the critical decisions in the war).
And apropos the collapse of the British Empire. As Buchanan examines the events of the 20th century from his current vantage point, he seems to suggest that those who are concerned about the erosion in the power of the U.S., and by extension about the decline of the West, should observe the direct line that runs from W.W.I and W.W.II to the fall of the British Empire to the Iraq War. First, I do think that Lukacs is getting at something when he mentions his surprise over Buchanan’s sense of nostalgia for the British Empire. After all, going back to the debates that preceded U.S. entry into both W.W.I and W.W.II, one of the common threads that brought together the forces of the respective antiwar coalitions on the political left and the political right--Irish- and German-Americans, “isolationist” mid-westerners, etc.--was a strong opposition, if not hostility towards the British Empire, a staunch anti-imperialist attitude, and the suggestion that the Americans would end up saving the crumbling empire.
Moreover, the British Empire started to show signs of overstretch and overextension long before the two world wars. In a way, if one is searching for historical analogies, it’s the British role in the Boer War that is the appropriate analogy to apply to the American policy in the Iraq War (and interestingly enough, many Americans stood by the side of the Boers and against the Brits). We could debate forever whether the imperial project had benefited Britain (and the other European powers) or not. But I really don’t see any reason why an American, and especially an America First nationalist that was considering his nation’s long terms strategic and economic interests (forget the ideals of freedom and liberty) at any point in the 20th century would have argued that the U.S. should have backed the efforts by the British leaders to perpetuate their empire (assuming that that was even a realistic proposition). If anything, many historians who criticize U.S. policy during the Cold War fault it for the efforts to shore up the crumbling British and French empires after W.W.II (Vietnam being the best example).
From their perspective as British nationalists/imperialists, Churchill and his contemporaries were operating based on what they considered to be their national interest when they successfully brought about U.S. military intervention on their side during the two wars. Buchanan and other revisionist historians have some evidence on their side to counter with the thesis that the British would have been better off by making a deal with Germany that would led eventually to the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Unfortunately, since the British government has yet to provide access to the entire collection of their official documents from the era, that the Russians would probably never do that, and that most of the German documents have been destroyed, we will probably never know what would have happened if the British had followed the policies advocated by Churchill’s critics.
In any case, while these kind of counter-factual scenarios are very intriguing, history doesn’t flow in some linear fashion that leads from X to Y, and that assumes that if only we had taken this road as opposed to that road, we would have reached our destiny. The benefits of a realist perspective in foreign policy is that is makes it easier for us to develop specific policies based on the consideration of our concrete national interests—preserving the security of the nation-state is a top priority—and the military, economic and other means that are available to us. In that sense, both Churchill and Chamberlain were realists—while differing on the means to achieve the same goals.
The overall goals that both Stalin and Hitler set for themselves were based on religion-like ideologies and fantasies that challenged the entire nation-state system of the time. Stalin (very much like Franco, and at an earlier stage, Mussolini) ended up embracing realist strategies, including the agreement with Hitler and later the alliance with the capitalist West. Hitler’s decision-making and behavior during the war—his decision to abrogate the treaty with Stalin and attack the Soviet Union as well as his declaration of war on the U.S.—raises doubts whether he was a “rational actor” in the same way that Stalin proved to be. My main criticism of the decisions made by President Bush and his aides in the last eight years is that they were based on religion-like ideologies and fantasies and that unlike Stalin, they have never been able to cut their losses and take steps to secure long-term U.S. interests.
I’m not sure whether a President Obama or a President McCain will be able to do that. But unlike our “What If?” questions about Churchill, we’ll be able to find out very soon how that scenario will evolve, how they will do things in the future.
Dr. Leon Hadar is a Washington-based journalist, author, and global affairs analyst. His most recent book is Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.
Comments
I made the following comment on Lawrence Auster’s VFR blog:
It seems to me that Buchanan and many others are wrong to conflate Hitler’s policy towards England with Hitler’s policy towards France. German war strategy had long called for knocking out France before attacking Russia, in order (in theory) to avoid a two-front war with both. That’s the strategy the German general staff followed in 1914, and which Hitler likewise followed in May 1940. It seems to me very likely that Germany would have attacked France whatever Churchill did. But the Germany-England situation is quite different. From the German perspective they were natural allies; Germany would have preferred an alliance with Germany controlling continental Europe and England (Britain) retaining her maritime empire, to the benefit of both. This however conflicted with England’s long-term policy (inherited after WW2 by the USA I believe) of preventing a single power from dominating continental Europe. England’s policy had previously been directed against France; as France weakened towards the later 19th century it became directed against Germany. Indeed by all accounts even today the British Foreign Office still retains a policy of allying with France against Germany--a completely obsolete policy since France and Germany since WW2 have had a policy of mutual alliance in order to dominate Europe together. In summary, it seems to me that Buchanan might be partly correct--Britain could have allied with Nazi Germany, disavowed all interest in continental Europe, and retained her empire. But France, and effectively all of continental Europe, would have been lost to Nazism. From a purely selfish point of view, Britain and Churchill made the wrong choice. From the point of view of humanity and civilisation, it seems to me to have been a price worth paying.
Auster:
So in that scenario, England makes peace with Germany, accepts its domination of the continent, and in that case Germany does not invade Africa?
me:
That’s what I’d expect. Of course Germany would expect to regain her pre WW1 colonial possessions. And a successful Third Reich dominating Europe would have worked hard to bring Britain and America into line with Nazi ideology, just as she brought Italian Fascism into line with Nazi ideology and as Soviet Russia worked to bring the West into line with Communist ideology. So Britain and America would not have remained pure unsullied exemplars of Anglo-Saxon democracy; the prestige and power of Nazism would I think have gradually brought us into the Nazi orbit, even though Germany probably would not have attacked us. I guess this doesn’t bother Buchanan, but it certainly bothers me.
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Hey,
V. Dick Hanson just wrote some rebuttal of Buchanan’s about VDH’s column about Bucanan’s book
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/patrick-j-buchanan—pseudo-historian-very-real-dissimulator/
Fun stuff.
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Victor Davis Hanson’s ridiculous response to Pat’s book only reveals the severity of his enthrallment to ideology. I feel sorry for the man.
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Let’s see, Mr.Hanson’s piece on Pat’s book boils down to one irrefutable argument: rrs brought up on Germans are evil! And to a generation of National Review readers brought up on
Hollywood films, that appears to be enough.
Personally, I have always thought that Mr. Hanson bears an uncanny resemblance to Joan
Crawford. He has that same psychotic motherly domination that seems to keep his fans
enthralled.
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Bob,
I agree. A pity more people do not point out the irony of Hanson’s first name.
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Mr. Newman, perhaps you can explain to me how destroying Germany and thereby inviting the Communist invasion and occupation of central Europe was “from the point of view of humanity[!] and civilization [!]… a price worth paying”.
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All the counterfactuals are nice but too many forget Hitler’s revanchist intentions of crushing France and creating an Aryan Empire from the North Sea to the Urals.
Pat failed to read Hitler’s Second Book. And frankly it follows a pattern set by his refusal t o understand Islam. Pat refuses to see our enemies as such and keeps himself willfully ignorant. Hence his works are effectively enemy propaganda, just like that of the anti-anti-communist left.
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RonL’s Manichean, black and white thinking continues to betray him as suffering from Neocon intellectual patterns.
Hadar correctly observes that Neocons suffer from “party line” thinking, which debilitates them intellectually, and distorts an objective search for truth and reason, which then manifests in warped policy positions.
When RonL says Pat’s thinking “follows a pattern set by his refusal to understand Islam. Pat refuses to see our enemies as such and keeps himself willfully ignorant,” he correctly puts his finger on a phenomenon, but not one that applies to Buchanan, but rather to Neocons who subscribe to Zionist party line ideology.
For Zionists, nearly every US Mideast policy is approached through the lens of “Is it good for Israel?” instead of “Is it good for America?” They then keep themselves willfully ignorant and in denial of any policies that are good for America, but bad for Israel, and ruthlessly attack those who do not.
The Iraq war flowed from this kind of thinking, as does the push for war with Iran.
Any time a Zionist writes something like “Pat refuses to see our enemies...” the question has to be asked: who do they mean by “our”—Israel or America? What interest does America have in making an enemy of Islam?
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Acurmudgeon:
“Mr. Newman, perhaps you can explain to me how destroying Germany and thereby inviting the Communist invasion and occupation of central Europe was “from the point of view of humanity[!] and civilization [!]… a price worth paying”. “
It was terrible, but I think a Nazi-controlled Europe would ultimately have been worse. Your mileage may vary.
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Chris Moore:
“What interest does America have in making an enemy of Islam?”
America doesn’t get a choice. If you have dealings with Islam you get a choice: convert, submit (dhimmutude), fight or die. The only way to avoid this choice is not to have dealings with the Islamic world; in particular don’t allow Muslim immigration. I am not a neocon but I’ve lived in London six years and I’ve seen the Islamisation process first hand. Paleocons who think the Islamic threat to the Western world is just something made up by the Neocons are mistaken or wilfully blind.
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Islam has been around for hundreds of years, and will be around for hundreds more. The only reason it has become an issue of late is because of Neocon/Neolib policies within Western civilization—from open borders immigration (because they hate white Christians and want cheap labor and a compliant, disorganized and disconnected population detached from its roots and reliant upon the State instead of the Church, which makes it easier to exploit, sujugate and manipulate) to fanatical Zionism (which resulted in the 9/11 attacks perpetrated by a handful of Arabs).
The problem isn’t Islam; the problem is Neocon/Neolib elites and their policies. They are the real enemies of Western civilization, and more so because they purport to represent its interests even as they scheme to destroy it.
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Ron L,
I remain unconvinced that Hitler was a fanatical ideologue. He seems more like a heartless Machiavellian without any moral inhibitions stopping him from accomplishing his ends.
What evidence do you have to the contrary ?
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Leon Hadar:
>[...]I imagine that at Takimag many readers and contributors are nostalgic for the good old days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I doubt that they miss the not-so gemütlich Ottoman Empire, which was defeated by the Brits.
Professor Hadar, in the Balkans the Ottomans were rolled back in the 19th and early 20th centuries (prior to WWI) largely through the efforts of the Balkan peoples, sometimes with significant Russian military participation. In WWI the British failed in their aim to wrest Constantinople from the Ottomans. Moreover the British-supported Greek expedition into Anatolia immediately following WWI also ended in disaster.
It’s true that the Ottomans lost their extensive holdings in the Middle East partly due to British and French efforts. Nevertheless the Arabs (in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Greater Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, etc) do not consider the Brits as liberators, but rather as imperialists who pursued their own aims, drawing borders and setting up client regimes. Only the Israelis remain grateful to the Brits for the Balfour Declaration and other support.
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I trust that Charles was parodying the failure of some commenters to understand basic facts and ascribe moral values when he wrote:
“I remain unconvinced that Hitler was a fanatical ideologue. “
Otherwise, I fear that pointing out Hitlers wittings, speeches, and actually conduct in power will not sway him, because nothing can.
Mr. Moore, I hardly know where to begin.
“RonL’s Manichean, black and white thinking continues to betray him as suffering from Neocon intellectual patterns.”
Considering your desire to call me a Neocon, a laughable false claim based in its own “us vs them” worldview, I do suggest that you stop calling the kettle black.
“For Zionists, nearly every US Mideast policy is approached through the lens of “Is it good for Israel?” instead of “Is it good for America?” They then keep themselves willfully ignorant and in denial of any policies that are good for America, but bad for Israel, and ruthlessly attack those who do not.”
And certain people are so petty as to hate Israel for the sake angering of Neocons. These people reflexively oppose any policy in America’s interest, which may benefit Israel.
“The Iraq war flowed from this kind of thinking, as does the push for war with Iran.”
Taht Iran wants to destroy the US is manifestly less important than the fact that disarming Iran would also help Israel. Res Ipsa Loquitor.
“Any time a Zionist writes something like “Pat refuses to see our enemies...” the question has to be asked: who do they mean by “our”—Israel or America? What interest does America have in making an enemy of Islam?”
By “our”, I mean Americans living in the real world, the one facing Islamic expansion since the brigand pedophile began joining tribes in the Hejaz.
The simple fact is taht Islam demands world-wide rule and that a moderate position is not opposing the imposition of Sharia in America, but having it done by immigration and Dawa, not conquest of arms.
“Islam has been around for hundreds of years, and will be around for hundreds more. The only reason it has become an issue of late is because of Neocon/Neolib policies within Western civilization—from open borders immigration (because they hate white Christians and want cheap labor and a compliant, disorganized and disconnected population detached from its roots and reliant upon the State instead of the Church, which makes it easier to exploit, sujugate and manipulate) to fanatical Zionism (which resulted in the 9/11 attacks perpetrated by a handful of Arabs).”
And were you to know anything of Islam, you would see how it conquered from Morocco to Indonesia.
That liberal policies make Islamic conquest easier is prima facia proof that Neocons who support such treason to the West are not true Zionists any more than they are patriotic Americans.
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RonL:
“That liberal policies make Islamic conquest easier is prima facia proof that Neocons who support such treason to the West are not true Zionists any more than they are patriotic Americans.”
Well said.
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My conservatism was fostered on inter alia Buchanan’s literature, in particular his 1982 essay “Old Rights and The New Right”, yet when I read he dismisses the brutalization of Poland as something unworthy of civilisation’s response, I confess I feel ashamed for him and his followers.
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Hansen’s, rebuttal to Pat’s column is pathetic. Just name calling and knocking down of straw men. Our neo-con professor-farmer needs to read more history and less David frum.
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Mr. Montgomery,
You should actually read the book. Buchanan doesn’t dismiss the brutalization of Poland by the Nazis, he points out that, despite being the ostensible cause of war for the Allies, they did nothing to assist Poland, either in 1939, when the British and French did nothing, or in 1944, when the Allies did nothing to assist the Warsaw Rising, or in 1945, when the Allies handed Poland over to Stalin.
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It seems to me I hear over and over again fears that giving in to Hitler on Poland would only lead to a worse scenario later on but I do not feel that is any way supported. Regardless of what Hitler may have written at one time or other you still have to deal with a person in good faith until he proves he is otherwise untrustworthy. That Hitler’s ambitions would have ended at Danzig we don’t know but we do know that guaranteeing a war to Poland by France and England did in fact lead those two countries into war. The rest is all speculation. What is not speculation is that taking a wait and see approach would have been better. I believe the threat of the Soviets would have been all but eliminated and probably any threat that the Nazis posed as well had France and England not gotten involved when they did. The assumption of those who defend the guarantee that was given to Poland is that England and France could not have gotten involved in the war at a later date. There is simply nothing that supports this especially since we do know that Hitler would have certainly weakened his forces attacking the Soviets.
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“That liberal policies make Islamic conquest easier is prima facia proof that Neocons who support such treason to the West are not true Zionists any more than they are patriotic Americans.”
It is Zionism and its authoritarian abuses that are uniting Islam and making Islamic conquests easier, which is prima facia proof that “Americans” who support Israel first are not true advocates of Western civilization any more than they are patriotic Americans.
I have no problem with Jewish nationalism so long as it stands on its own two feet and quits implicating America and the West every time some screwball Jewish Zionist in Israel goes haywire and kills (or devises an authoritarian plan for the killing of) Palestinians and Muslims.
And it is primarily Zionists in America who see to it that we are implicated. Fight your own battles. If Jewish nationalism has validity, it will be able to survive on its own instead tenuously existing at someone else’s expense.
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Britons can honor Churchill’s achievements without ignoring his failings or his
darker side. It’s not uncommon to find people who give him credit for his wartime
leadership while excoriating him for his other public acts.
Americans tend to be slavish in their devotion to the man, and this
provokes muckraking reactions, which in turn are taken as lèse-majesté or support for
Hitler by US Churchillians, and that incites the anti-Churchillians yet further. If we
could see the man as he was, rather than as an icon of political virtue, it would be
healthier for us.
Hadar does make a good point: Charmley’s nostalgia for the British Empire doesn’t
go along well with American isolationism, which tended to be quite anti-British. One
objection to Buchanan’s book may be that he has brought together a variety of theories
and hasn’t really made the material his own.
has brought together
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Chris Moore writes:
“It is Zionism and its authoritarian abuses that are uniting Islam and making Islamic conquests easier, which is prima facia proof that “Americans” who support Israel first are not true advocates of Western civilization any more than they are patriotic Americans.”
That is one of the silly comments I have heard this side of a leftist college professor.
There was no Zionism in 618, when Mohammed’s minions started to tear through the Jewish communities of the Hejaz. There was no Zionist movement when his followers conquered Persia and then swept into the Byzantine Empire.
There was no Zionism when Saracens invaded Vandal Africa and Hispania, or crossed the Pyrenees into France. There Was no Zionism when the Muslims conquered the Turkic trives of Oxiana and fought the Chinese and Indians. There was no Zionism when Muslims instigated a thousand years of Piracy and razzias (slave raids) in the Mediterranean Sea. There was no Zionism when the Sejulk Turks invaded the Byzantine Empire and disrupted Christian pilgrimages, causing the Crusades. There was no Zionism when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and then swept the Balkans, Romania, Hungary and were only stopped at the gates of Vienna.
On the other hand, Israel now does serve a purpose of keeping the Islamic world physically seperated and has beaten the Arab armies on 6 occasions.
Europe’s suicide is not the fault of Israel. The Eurabia Plot is openly anti-Israel and in practice as anti-Jewish before anti-Christian.
“I have no problem with Jewish nationalism so long as it stands on its own two feet and quits implicating America and the West every time some screwball Jewish Zionist in Israel goes haywire and kills (or devises an authoritarian plan for the killing of) Palestinians and Muslims.”
What planet do you live on? There is no Jewish plot to wipe out Muslims. Under Israeli rule, the Arabs of the disputed territories more than doubled in population.
“And it is primarily Zionists in America who see to it that we are implicated. Fight your own battles. If Jewish nationalism has validity, it will be able to survive on its own instead tenuously existing at someone else’s expense.”
I don’t recall American involvement in 1948 and 1956, except to curb Israeli advances in 1956. In 1967 and 1973, the US did act to block Soviet influence.
Or should we have ignored Soviet advances because Israeli might be hurt?
For the last 30 years, US policy has been to bribe all parties and pressure Israel to give up land.
It has not been once sided.
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RonL,
If the Jewish nationalist movement would close its diaspora political satellites that lobby and agitate for unconditional Western support and aid, and instead rely on contributions and support from diaspora Jewish nationalists such as yourself, we each would have nothing left to argue about on this issue. Until it does America-firsters and Israel firsters can never find common ground, or common cause. We both know there is no such thing as Judeo-Christian civilization; there is Western (Christians) civilization, and there is Judaic civilization. They might be able to ally on certain issues, but where the rubber meets the road, I’m going to put Western civilization first, and you’re going to put Judaic civilization first—which perhaps is as it should be. But you seem to want your cake, and to eat it too; that is, serve two Gods—Western civilization and Judaic civilization. We both know that this is untenable.
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Mr Hadar wrote: “Americans should recognize that by pursuing such Churchillian-like policies and overextending and overstretching their military and economic resources around the globe, the U.S. could find itself in the same position into which Britain was forced into after W.W.II—a has-been global power.”
and
We 9anti-war libertarians and America First Paleos) don’t like it when the neocons do it: every conciliatory diplomatic move is compared to “Munich,” every leader they want to depose in a “Hitler,” every civil war in which they want the U.S. to intervene is the first stage is in genocide, and all their critics are “appeasers,” “isolationists,” etc. And I’m not so sure that is makes a lot of sense for us to turn the tables on them and mirror image their dubious intellectual exercise...”
You have correctly put your finger on the political objective of Buchanan’s book.
I would agree that Buchanan’s analysis is flawed by his apparent admiration for the British Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire--ie, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. YOu are also correct that both empires were falling long before WWI. Churchhill was motivated by his desire to prop up and protect British Imperialism, and ironically for me---a dedicated anti-communist---I must agree that in that sense Marx and Lenin were right in the
sense that Imperialism leads to constant war.
Particularly I must disagree with Buchanan that the dismemberment of the Hapsburg Empire put millions of Germans unfairly into Slavic nations against their will. Most of these German “minoriites” forcably displaced the native populations in attempts to “Germanize” other populations against their will. For instance, the “Sudenland"… These German “minorities” had no claim to the lands they sat on, and no right to dispute the democratic
governments that followed the breakup of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The “plight” of the
German minorities might be compared to the “plight” of whites in the American South, who found it uncomfortable to live among the majority of their former slaves. Slavs in this case.
Of course, we might lose site of the political importance of Buchanan’s book in disputing the details of this analysis, and his obvious bias toward the British/Holy Roman Empire that detracts from his analysis. The BIG objective is to undermine the moral authority of the neo-cons in their comparison to US occupation and intervention in the Mideast to their “War against Terror.”
In that objective, I share hope that Buchanan succeeds, as we all must do.
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Quote from RonL: “Under Israeli rule, the Arabs of the disputed territories more than doubled in population.”
“Disputed Territories?” There was no dispute before the Nabka as to who was living there.
Quote: “There is no Jewish plot to wipe out Muslims.”
So the Transfer Committee did not exist?
The imperial design of political Zionism is a fact and it cannot be denied. RonL I’m about to bury you with starting with Jabotinsky. From the Iron Wall:
“There can be no discussion of voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs, not now, and not in the foreseeable future. All well-meaning people, with the exception of those blind from birth, understood long ago the complete impossibility of arriving at a voluntary agreement with the Arabs of Palestine for the transformation of Palestine from an Arab country to a country with a Jewish majority. Each of you has some general understanding of the history of colonization…
It matters not what kind of words we use to explain our colonization. Colonization has its own integral and inescapable meaning understood by every Jew and by every Arab. Colonization has only one goal. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible. It has been necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs and the same condition exists now. “
Rabbi Fischmann testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on July 9, 1947:
“The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. It includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”
Question: Which country which often engages in illegal wars, invasions, occupations, and bombing of Lebanon and Syria? Now you know why.
From Theodor Herzl (Complete Diaries, Vol.II, Page 711) in describing what is Israel: ““From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”.
From Oded Yinon, an official in the Israeli foreign ministry, the article was entitled, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s.”
“Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.”
So RonL has you read “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s.”? What do you think about the Lavon Affair? What you thinking about the Israel program for the treatment of Palestinian Prisoners? Do you support the torture of Christian Palastinians under this program? I can go on and on but it boils down to my do you want me Mr.RonL to help pay for this? Which country country do you love? America or Israel?
Sir, please give us evidence that Muslims are in an international “Eurabia Plot” to conquer the West? Can’t you cite their documents? Who heads this plot. Who funds it?
It you want to play “conspiracy theory” and international intrigue I’m afraid you’re a rank amatuer. Cause unlike you I have Ray McGovern,William Christison, Scot Ridder, Philip Giraldi, Karen Kwiatkowski, Robert David Steele, David MacMichael, Michael Springmann, Gen. Albert Stubblebine, and many many more folks who will tell that this “Eurabia Plot” of “former” British Intelligence agent Benard Lewis is a propaganda campaigne by the very folks creating the Neo-liberal policies that you don’t like.
If it empowers the State at the expense of the native population then it a lie and anticonservative. Does our Israel Policy empower the State at the expense of American People?
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Thanks for your comments.
Joe populist: I suppose that we would have been better off is these empires would have gone through a process of gradual and peaceful devolution of power. It didn’t happen, mainly because of the power of nationalism.
cognate: You are correct in placing my critique in the larger context of a weakening Ottoman Empire. But the British and the French were the ones who defeated this empire and the “Arabs”—actually a small elite—did cooperate with the British through Lawrence, etc. Their expectations (independence) weren’t fulfilled until after WWII. But the same applies to the Zionist movement.
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