The American Spectator : Is Pat Buchanan a Crank?

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Is Pat Buchanan a Crank?

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 9.10.09 @ 6:08AM

Going after Churchill on British soil — and apologizing for Hitler.

WASHINGTON — September 1 was the 70th anniversary of Hitler’s blitzkrieg into Poland and the beginning of World War II. Fifty million people died. Western Europe was devastated. Eastern Europe was more thoroughly devastated and subjected to Communist tyranny that for decades seemed invincible and a threat to the Free World, which remained armed and vigilant. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt emerged from that war as legendary heroes who saved our civilization. Almost immediately there were skeptics. Some claimed that both were responsible for the war. Some claimed that Roosevelt provoked the Pearl Harbor attack and failed to notify our doomed soldiers and sailors. These skeptics were, of course, cranks.

Yet now there is another generation of skeptics sounding off, and one might well wonder if they too are cranks. Or have these skeptics developed evidence against Churchill and Roosevelt that was heretofore unknown?

On September 1 the distinguished debating organization, Intelligence Squared, teamed up with London’s Evening Standard to afford America’s most famous Churchill critic, Pat Buchanan, the opportunity to argue that Churchill was “more of a liability than an asset to the free world.” Actually, if I have read Buchanan accurately, he holds Churchill responsible for the war. As he writes on his website, “Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940…” Churchill and Roosevelt’s policy of unconditional surrender caused it to drag on to May of 1945. They also are responsible, if I read Buchanan accurately, for the Holocaust. As Buchanan said the night of the debate, “No war, no Holocaust.” On his website he claims that Hitler wanted to end the war “almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.”

At the debate, which took place in London, Buchanan faced a formidable team of historians, Antony Beevor, Richard Overy, and Andrew Roberts, all widely published experts on, among other matters, World War II. On his side Buchanan had distinguished scholars also, Norman Stone and Nigel Knight, neither of whom seemed completely in synch with Buchanan. They were critical of Churchill for other issues. I was not at the debate, but my agents were, and when Buchanan said that the killing of the Jews did not begin until January 1942 I would like to have seen the look on his teammates’ faces. Even better, I would like to have seen the look on Buchanan’s face a few minutes later after Roberts enunciated the places where the Nazis killed over 1.5 million Jews before the first month of 1942. Really, Pat, “No war, no Holocaust”?

Buchanan’s point seems to be that Hitler had limited geopolitical aims and that the excitable Churchill overreacted. Buchanan doubts that Hitler “was out to conquer the world,” because Hitler did not build a military with the strategic reach to conquer the world. What is more, he let the British army evacuate from Dunkirk and he built a defensive line between Germany and France, the Siegfried Line. That Hitler was a racist lunatic and military incompetent escapes Buchanan’s notice.

So does the word Lebensraum, escape Buchanan’s notice. Lebensraum was the Nazi name for Germany’s policy of aggression. Developed when Hitler was in Landsberg Prison in 1924, counseling with such theorists of Lebensraum as Professor Karl Haushofer, Hitler explained the whole rapacious policy in Mein Kampf. If the Lebensraum policy of conquering other lands for the security and economic well-being of the Nazi state was not “world conquest,” as Buchanan puts it, it was a sufficient threat to the Western democratic order for Western alarm. It is easy to be nonchalant about old Adolf today. But back in the 1930s when thugs such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were frisky, I think we should all be grateful that Churchill sounded the alarm and Roosevelt too.

I can understand what motivated the early critics of Churchill and Roosevelt. I have read enough of their criticism to mark them down as simply perverse and in some cases very stupid. But what motivates Buchanan and our contemporary critics?

Consider boredom. One of my most deeply held beliefs is that boredom is one of the most underestimated motives behind human action. It has been behind reform movements that spring up almost unbidden. It has been behind great debates, for instance this one over Churchill’s value to the free world. Very few people are fetched in the least by Buchanan’s argument. In an audience of some 1,800 people only 181 agreed with Buchanan, but Pat can be very entertaining. He amuses others and he amuses himself. He knows how to beat boredom. Apparently C-Span agrees. Before the month is out, I am told, the network will air this entire debate. Watch for it, particularly if you are bored.

topics:
World War II, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler

About the Author

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (139) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Dave Lincoln| 9.10.09 @ 6:43AM

Pat Buchanan knows a lot of history - he could easily be a very good professor of history, and maybe he has been (I don't know all his background). He does have some different ideas about WWII, most of which the Lew Rockwell gang agree with, but I am not sure.

Back then, itt was a matter of letting England die and ending up having a cold war, or maybe hot war, later, with the Nazis instead of with the Commies. Who knows about that, but definitely FDR did many unconstitutional things to bring the US into the war to help Great Britain. There is no doubt about that - it is all documented. Some of Pat's thoughts (and Lew Rockwell folks' too) are that it was unnecessary for the US to get into WWI and also that the terms of surrender of that war were bound to push the Germans so hard that WWII was then inevitable (Wilson, of course, was responsible for our part in the terms of the treaty of Versailles).

So, Bob Tyrrell, I can see where many would not agree with Pat, but he is definitely interesting, as you said. In addition, he has a knowledge of history that would put you to shame (maybe me too, but definitely you)

stephanie| 9.10.09 @ 6:57AM

Anybody who would sit day after day with Mika, Joe and the rest of those silly libs on MSMBC, why is it suprising he would say something so damned stupid. If he's so smart on the subject of history, why the heck is he on that loosing channel and not FOX?

William R| 9.10.09 @ 6:59AM

Buchanan's thesis is that Hitler's real goal was Stalin thus Britain and France should have let them fight it out. When the Germans launched operation Barbarossa June 1941 they initially were treated as liberators. Why? Because Eastern Europe had not forgotten the 1930s. Long before Hitler launched his murderous holocaust Stalin was killing millions of Kulaks. The Ukrainian holocaust. And the uncomfortable truth is that Jews played a major role in the Bolshevik revolution and were some of Stalin's worst killers. This didn't escape the people of eastern Europe so when Germans invaded they gladly turned Jews over to the Germans.

http://www.ukemonde.com/zhydy/.....unism.html

unger| 9.10.09 @ 7:26AM

Tyrell is completely wrong in attributing Buchanan's position to theories for boredom's sake. Buchanan has been pushing a non-interventionist /isolationist position for years. This is just a little bit of revision of history by Pat, which he hopes will bolster his call to isolationism. To Pat all actions create bad consequences. The man has ossified to bone and fossilized to stone. And yes he is a crank.

Emil| 9.10.09 @ 7:46AM

Pat's ideas never evolved past 1936. He is an interesting relic of what the average American thought in the late 1930s

Michael L. Hauschild| 9.10.09 @ 7:51AM

The mob that he once motivated to carry pitchforks and torches has turned around and is now bearing a straitjacket.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 8:08AM

"Lebensraum was the Nazi name for Germany's policy of aggression."

Actually, 'lebensraum' was the name for a concept which entailed expanding Germany eastward.

"Developed when Hitler was in Landsberg Prison in 1924"

The concept itself predates Hitler. It was previously called "Drang nach Osten", which means "the push Eastward".

"If the Lebensraum policy of conquering other lands for the security and economic well-being of the Nazi state was not "world conquest," as Buchanan puts it, it was a sufficient threat to the Western democratic order for Western alarm."

Certainly. But the lands to be conquered and incorporated were to the east of Germany - not the West. Lebensraum involved expanding Germany into eastern, Slavic lands, purging the Slavs and replacing them with Germans. However immoral and inhumane this policy was, it did not entail conquering Western Europe, much less the United States.

That being said, Pat makes a good argument but I think it falls short. Perhaps things wouldn't have gone as far as they did if Germany's had been handled more deftly, or if Versailles wasn't so brutal etc. But they weren't, and it was, and to argue that Hitler was not an aggressor seems silly and counter-productive.

What Buchanan - and any other sensible American - should be doing is demonstrating clearly that it is no longer 1939, and there is no "new Hitler". There is no aspect of American foreign policy today which is in any way analogous to the situation faced in Europe in 1939.

martin j smith| 9.10.09 @ 8:12AM

yes, pat buchanan is a crank --an isalationist who I would not trust with American foreign policy

Michael Tomlinson| 9.10.09 @ 8:21AM

Pat Buchanan, the MSM media's darling pseudo-conservative is a Nazi/Hitler apologist, anti-Semite and CRANK with a limited grasp of history. He is the anti-Reagan "conservative" who has had the gall to liken Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to the 20th century's greatest President. As any real conservative that stupid?

As for being an isolationists I'm dubious since he was an advocate of the US invading the Balkans (where there was no US interest) to defend Croats and Bosnian Muslims engaged in rape and mass murder like their Serbian cousins. Buchanan's isolationism seems to be linked to his desire to protect Muslim terrorists who not only target the US, but his enemy Israel.

It is time the right repudiate and quit trying to explain or defend a white Jeremiah Wright or Van Jones.

William R| 9.10.09 @ 9:06AM

Tomlinson, I think it is safe to say Buchanan has forgotten more history than you'll ever know!

Etiquette Man| 9.10.09 @ 9:45AM

Pat has always been a Jew-hating crank. I'm actually glad he's not trying to hide it anymore. One less nut to listen to.

Since his political aspirations have come to naught, he has nothing to lose by venting his moronic revisionism. It's not new, though. It's always been there, like just the faintest whiff of leftist sulfur . . .

I remember a conservative friend of mine who was pulling for Buchanan for Prez back in the GOP primaries in 92 or 96 (can't recall which). When I told him that Buchanan was a leftist crank, he looked at me like I had two heads. I'll have to ask him what he thinks now.

Cordially,
EM

Kevin, Meath| 9.10.09 @ 9:46AM

Churchill is too often put forward as a perfect hero which is wrong he had many faults which gives those who want to attack him plenty of ammunition. However from my study of history if he had not been Brtish PM in 1940 the world would be a very different place and not a better one.
Some British historians believe that he did turn down a very favourable peace offer in 1941 before Hitler turned east. This would have been better for British interests but Churchill hated the Nazi's and their ideals (thank God) and prefered to fight on no matter what the cost, so he did 'prolong' the war. When Hitler invaded Russia he made a speech full of praise of 'Uncle Joe' and the Red army. When it was pointed out that was a bit rich considering his opinion of Stalin, he took a puff on his cigar and answered 'My dear boy if Hitler invaded hell I'd find a kind word to say about the devil'

Klabautermann| 9.10.09 @ 9:46AM

History is written by the victors. Our opinions of this passionate subject are based upon what we know about the period. Unfortunately much of this information is slanted. One example is the U.S. government's role in the slave trade. The Morgenthau Plan included a provision for the use of "German labor" as a form of reparations. This was included in Roosevelt's Yalta Agreement. It is mentioned in Secretary of State James Byrnes' inappropriately named book "Frankly Speaking." In it he describes it as "enforced labor." There has never been a detailed study of this subject. No "professional" historian would touch the subject. See "The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy." for a brief outline of the subject.

DNT| 9.10.09 @ 10:04AM

Short answer: YES. The Paleos have declared themselves a breed apart and the rest of us say "good riddance". While in the White House, Reagan quoted or invoked Churchill 150 times, more than any other U.S. President. No Reaganite is going to disown Churchill -- PERIOD.

Tim| 9.10.09 @ 10:09AM

Mr. Buchanan, long considered a conservative elder statesman has revealed himself as a Nazi apologist, bad enough, and possibly worse.
Principled conservatives should be washing their hands of him. Whatever reputation he enjoyed in the past, he is quickly approaching crazy uncle territory.

Doctor Right| 9.10.09 @ 10:13AM

Despite his vaunted, much-touted intellect. Pat Buchanon IS a crank, and has been a crank for quite some time.

His intense dislike of the Bush family for reasons that seem completely personal was the first sign that his public persona has gone over the abyss. His choice of Ezola Foster as his runninmg mate for the inept "Reform Party" in 2000 was another.

Additionally, these aren't the first controversial things that Buchanon has said about Jews or Israel. He has referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory." He's referred to Adolph Hitler as "an individual of great courage...." He also challenged the historical record that thousands of Jews were gassed to death by diesel exhaust at Treblinka, saying "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." Buchanan has also been a frequent critic of the "Neo-Cons" like Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol, who are, not surprisingly, Jewish, and he has blamed their influence in the decision to go to war in Iraq (such scapegoating is unfortunately very familiar in history).

Arch-Catholic Buchanon is the modern-day Father Coughlin. Coughlin was an isolationist, latching on to the America First sentiments of the time: Let Europe settle its own problems. Hitler had no interest in attacking the United States. Our national interest was in protecting our own borders. Similarly (and eerily), Buchanan once said "Hitler made no overt move to threaten U.S. vital interests...Hitler had not wanted war with the West."

The idea that Hitler wanted "...to stop the war in 1940..." is nothing short of idiotic. The idea that there would have been no holocaust in Germany or any of the land that Germany occupied after 1940 is a shameful and disgusting denial that would make David Irving proud.

It's time for Conservatives to jettison Buchanan as one of our own, not out of fear for a political backlash from the Left (who have substantial issues with anti-semitism in their own ranks), but because it's the right thing to do. Buchanan left the reservation long ago...Time to acknowledge that.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 10:15AM

"The Paleos have declared themselves a breed apart and the rest of us say "good riddance"

Of course Paleos are a breed apart from the Fox News Right - paleos are "conservative". They are proponents of a small federal government, fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets, strong defense and a foreign policy that puts America first. These conservative goals are rejected emphatically by the Fox News Right, which has no principles whatever beyond being pro-war, any-war. Conservatives and the Fox News Right are not merely a breed apart - they are in fact opposites. Conservatives seek to shrink the welfare/warfare state, whereas the Fox News Right seeks to grow it.

Tim| 9.10.09 @ 10:17AM

Franz Liebkind: You know, not many people know zis, but der Fuhrer was a terrific dancer.

Max Bialystock: Really? Gee, we didn't know that, did we, Leo?

Leo Bloom: No, we sure didn't.

Franz Liebkind: THAT'S BECAUSE YOU WERE TAKEN IN BY THE BBC! Filthy British lies! But did they ever say a bad word about Winston Churchill? CHURCHILL!
[gags]

Franz Liebkind: With his cigars, and his brandy, and his ROTTEN paintings! ROTTEN! Hitler, there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!

Logmank| 9.10.09 @ 10:20AM

Is Buchanan a crank? No.
Is he a lunatic? Yes. Is he a Jew hating Nazi apologist? Yes.
Is he a conservative (in any meaningful sense of that word)? Absolutely not.
Buchanan should be shunned as the blithering idiot he is, rather than exalted as some sort of wise elder statesman.

Robert| 9.10.09 @ 10:28AM

Didn't the Poles have an alliance with England? If Hitler didn't want to take on the British, why did they invade Poland?

Logan| 9.10.09 @ 10:32AM

I think Pat is trying to say that the western democracies should have let Hitler and Stalin battle each other to bloody oblivion. This is not pro NAZI or Communist.

Etiquette Man| 9.10.09 @ 10:50AM

Dear S.L. Toddard,

I'm worried about you. Did Soros cut your pay? Are you suffering from a bout of dysentary? Is your mother renovating the basement? You're not putting as much effort into pretending to be a conservative as usual. Hence my sincere concern.

It's always a sad thing when a troll loses his teeth, and can no longer knaw on bones like he used to do. It's sort of like watching a recently declawed cat try to climb the drapes.

Hope you feel better/get a pay raise soon!

Be sure to say "hi" to the gang over at DailyKos and HuffPo!

Toodles!
EM

Paul Milenkovic| 9.10.09 @ 11:04AM

Is Pat off his nut? Yes. Was Churchill on the side of the angels? Not really.

However necessary and honorable resisting Hitler was, there was a sense that Mr. Churchill was willing to stand and fight "down to the last Canadian." And Pole. And Yugoslav.

Yugoslavia was neutral until Churchill through his US partner Bill Donovan assisted with a "palace coup" that had the effect of throwing Yugoslavia into the cogs of the German war machine, perhaps buying the Russian ally a couple weeks more time at best, and of course bleeding the German army through guerilla resistance for the remainder of the war. Was it worth it? Was suicidal resistance by Yugoslavia a moral imperative for Yugoslavs?

Then post war, Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe were sacrificed to Communism, perhaps aided by the Burgess-Philby-Maclean communist infiltration of Great Britain, perhaps by the agreements made by Churchill with Stalin as part of the war effort.

As to these questions about whether Hitler was bent on world conquest from the beginning or had more "modest" aspiration in making the Eastern Europeans subject peoples or worse, the circumstances under which Hitler rose to power were that German speaking people were living and in some cases are living to this day throughout Eastern Europe and Russia.

Wilsonian doctrine on Nationalism was the reason German speakers were living as minorities in Slavic-speaking states, and Wilsonian Nationalism turned on its head was Hitlers pretext for German conquest of lands holding German speaking people.

Every time WW-II Germany or Hitler are invoked, we are in a Godwin's Law situation of an irreconcilable debate, but WW-II Germany and Hitler had such an effect on the current landscape that there is no avoiding it.

When Aric Sharon responded angrily to American pressure regarding the Middle East peace negotiations, he spoke of being of Israel being "Czechoslovkia" -- half the people didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about, the other half knew and took huffy offense at the remarks, and a tiny minority agreed with Mr. Sharon.

The continued committment to Wilsonian Nationalism and the resulting contradictions apply as much to modern Israel and Gaza and West Bank as they did to the Sudeten Germans and Czechoslovia back in the day.

For Mr. Sharon to make the point that Israel equals Czechoslovakia makes Mr. Sharon out to be the nut case among the same right-thinking people who reflexively hold Churchill up as a hero and think Pat to be the nut case.

In interpreting history to make sense of the mess in the modern world that is the continuing aftermath of WW-II, Pat is wrong, but that doesn't necessarily make his critics right.

CPAP Machines | 9.10.09 @ 11:05AM

Michael, conservatives have been debating Buchanan's crankitude in attacks going back twenty years or more. I wish I could remember the date, but NR once ran an entire issue devoted to the proposition - specifically on whether Pat was an anti-Semite. WFB himself wrote the main piece I believe. I think WFB came down in the affirmative.

Christopher Scott| 9.10.09 @ 11:12AM

I think you are willfully misreading Pat Buchanan's recent column on the start of World War 2 and his other public utterances on this subject. He is saying that judged from the standpoint of September 1, 1939, France and Great Britain made a mistake when they declared war against Nazi Germany over its invasion of Poland. Further, he asserts that a deal probably could have been struck with Nazi Germany whereby it would have recovered Danzig and the land between the main part of Germany and what was then called East Prussia. He says Germany had a legitimate grievance with her post World War 1 borders because there were numerous German majority areas contiguous to Germany that were controlled by other countries and that the Nazis wanted to include these areas within Germany. Implicit in his argument is that the Nazis would not have started a war shortly after September 1939 by attempting to take Alsace and Lorraine back from France, or attack some other country.

Indisputably, World War 2 destroyed the British Empire, the European theater of that war killed tens of millions of people, and, after the war was over, the eastern half of Europe was occupied by the USSR. This was a horrible outcome for the Western World and we would clearly be better off if a peaceful resolution was possible. Even if this meant that Nazi Germany would be left in control of an area of land that is slightly larger than Germany's 1914 borders.

At the end of the day, I think Hitler's invasion of the USSR in June 1941 proves Mr. Buchanan is wrong because Hitler went to war against the USSR after it had achieved what Mr. Buchanan views as Hitler's real war aims. However, his views are not clearly wrong because they are hypothetical guesses at how Nazi Germany would have acted if Great Britain and France did not declare war in September of 1939. I think he is right that the British and French publics would have tired over a war against Germany to save Poland if the war had dragged on inconclusively like World War 1. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, Germany conquered France in six weeks in the Spring of 1940 and presented a mortal threat to Great Britain from June of 1940 until the United States was fully engaged in the European theater combat. Most people remember what really happened in Europe and are not willing to engage in hypothetical thinking along the same lines of Pat Buchanan. That doesn't mean that Pat Buchanan is a crank.

Tim| 9.10.09 @ 11:16AM

Stalin made peace with Hitler in 1939 and a fat lot of good it did him...

JP| 9.10.09 @ 11:18AM

The one area where I agree with Buchannan concerns the British entry into WWI supporting the French and Russians. From 1871 onward, the French made it clear that they would seize Alsace-Lorraine once they became strong enough (They lost that province in the Franco-Prussian War -a war they started). The Russians had well documented dreams of a Pan-Slavic Empire that would stretch into the Adriatic and the Straits of the Dardenelles. Germany remained in the middle.

The problem with the 2nd Reich was its Kaiser. Unlike Great Britain there was no constitutional means to force him to abdicate. He was a walking, talking diplomatic disaster. He lived in a fantasy world and without some strong personality like Bismarck, there was no one to hold him in check. His biggest blunder was giving in to Admiral von Tripitz desire for a Navy that could compete with Great Britain. Between that blunder and various other ones (Remember the Boer War?), the Kaiser single handily ruined the close relationship between Berlin and London.

However, buffoonery alone wasn't reason enough for Great Britain to ally itself with France. Despite the Kaiser, Germany offered Great Britain many benefits -name its large standing army and its ability to influence Russia, Austria, and the Ottomans. By 1903, Britain threw in its hat with France and Russia. By 1905 General Schliefflen wrote his famous memo detailing a new strategy, which included a strong flanking movement through Belgium and Holland. The Schliefflen Plan was a desperate move contrived by an soldier convinced that the next war would be catastrophe.

France and Russia sucked Britain into a war Britain had no reason to engage in. It was British troops who delivered the fatal blow to the German 2nd Army during the Battle of the Marne. But that victory ended all chances for a short war. Four years and ten million casulties later, the war ended.

Churchill was one of the early and foremost hawks in 1914. His Gallipoli campaign was a disaster, and should have ended his career. Thankfully it didn't. Churchill was the only person who recognized early on the threat Hitler posed to Europe.

Kevin, Meath| 9.10.09 @ 11:58AM

Hitler stated during the 30's that he would expand eastwards into the then soviet union and that he wanted a European war. Britain had no treaty obligations to Poland but after chamberlain 'sold out' Czechoslavakia in 38 for the Sudentenland (because he thought it a price worth paying to avoid the death of millions) and Hitler took all of Czechoslovakia he made it known that Britain would not tolerate any further expansion. Wise? who knows, Britain could do nothing to help Poland. Hitler was convinced it was a bluff in the Nazi mindset Democracies are weak and would never go to war unless directly attacked. Britain and France were convinced that nobody could be so stupid as to launch a world war over a few bits of Poland.

Kevin, Meath| 9.10.09 @ 12:18PM

The big German mistake in WW1 was to invade Belgium, Britain may have stayed out of the War as i understand it the cabinet was far from keen to declare war. However Belgium had a treaty of defense with Britain, it was old (80 years) but had never been repudiated. The Germans thought it madness that a country would go to war over a 'scrap of paper' . If the Germans had quickly defeated the Belgians and marched through as planned then again it might have all been protests etc but 'plucky' little Belgium standing up to the big bully Germany, this with German 'ruthless' treatment of civilians gave propaganda to the prowar lobby. In the end a treaty was a treaty and was honoured. Anyway the Kaiser was assured the war would be over quickly before Britains might could be mobilised he told his troops to 'sweep aside that contemtible little army'.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 12:37PM

Here is the Buchanan piece in full, for anyone interested in refuting his argument:

Did Hitler Want War?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war.

Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers.

By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the greatest terrorist of them all, Joseph Stalin.

What cause could justify such sacrifices?

The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.

Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.

But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?

Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.

Comes the response: The war guarantee was not about Danzig, or even about Poland. It was about the moral and strategic imperative “to stop Hitler” after he showed, by tearing up the Munich pact and Czechoslovakia with it, that he was out to conquer the world. And this Nazi beast could not be allowed to do that.

If true, a fair point. Americans, after all, were prepared to use atom bombs to keep the Red Army from the Channel. But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet’s, or Fidel Castro’s, was out to conquer the world?

After Munich in 1938, Czechoslovakia did indeed crumble and come apart. Yet consider what became of its parts.

The Sudeten Germans were returned to German rule, as they wished. Poland had annexed the tiny disputed region of Teschen, where thousands of Poles lived. Hungary’s ancestral lands in the south of Slovakia had been returned to her. The Slovaks had their full independence guaranteed by Germany. As for the Czechs, they came to Berlin for the same deal as the Slovaks, but Hitler insisted they accept a protectorate.

Now one may despise what was done, but how did this partition of Czechoslovakia manifest a Hitlerian drive for world conquest?

Comes the reply: If Britain had not given the war guarantee and gone to war, after Czechoslovakia would have come Poland’s turn, then Russia’s, then France’s, then Britain’s, then the United States.

We would all be speaking German now.

But if Hitler was out to conquer the world—Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia—why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.

Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Miklos Horthy’s Hungary and Father Jozef Tiso’s Slovakia.

Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.

As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?

Winston Churchill was right when he called it “The Unnecessary War”—the war that may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine......-want-war/

Dan| 9.10.09 @ 12:50PM

Buchanan is insane and has been for quite some time. In addition he is an outright anti semite.

Dan| 9.10.09 @ 12:50PM

Buchanan is insane and has been for quite some time. In addition he is an outright anti semite.

JP| 9.10.09 @ 12:54PM

Kevin,
You are quite right to say that the invasion of Belgium lost Germany the war. However, one must look at what caused the Germans to adopt such a gamble. For the Prussians were, if anything, a very rational people. The German General Staff studied war frome very angle, both the military and political sides, not to mention the economic sides of the coin.

Going back centuries, the biggest fear of the Prussians was a 2 front war. During the 7 Years War, Prussia actually fought against France, Russia, and Austria. The war was a draw (it did gain some territory for Prussia, though), and bankrupted Prussia. After the Napoleanic Wars, and after the Great German General Staff was formed, one of the key pieces of thier strategy for decades was to avoid a general war against 2 or more European nations.

The Franco Prussia War changed everything. Germany was united under Prussian rule; France lost to Prussia Alsace Lorraine; and Bismarck's strategy of Real Politik would ensure that France would remain without allies for decades. Yet, the great German thinker von Motlke (the Elder) still believed that in the long run it would be prefferable to fight a decision in the East and not the West should a war on 2 fronts occur.

This thinking held true until General Count von Schlieffen became convinced that not only would Germany face both France and Russia in a future war, but also Great Britain. He knew this change of diplomatic fortunes ensured a German defeat, for Great Britain would surely blockade German sea ports (which they did ruthlessly).

Schlieffln, unlike his predecessor von Moltke believed that he could force a decision in the West first. He believed that Russia would not offer the Germans a decisive battle; he beleived they would retreat into Russia and like Napolean, the Germans would suffer the same fate. For all of his brilliance, Schlieffen seriously miscalculated a number of things. The man who followed Schlieffen, von Motlke the Younger, kept Schlieffen's disasterous plan intact, but he also weakened it.

There are a lot of what ifs. The biggest being, "What if the German's forced the issue in the East and remained on the defensive in the West (ie not invading Belgium)? Many people forgot that it was also the French who invaded German territory, and they suffered unimaginiative casulties (litterally thousands died the first day from well placed German machine gun and artillery fire). Would the British have stood by and watched the slaughter?

General Moltke the Younger promised the Kaiser that he could defeat the French in 6 weeks. This was pure folly. The time frame coincided with the belief that it would take the Russians 6 weeks to mobilize thier army (in fact it took them only 3 weeks to field 5 large army groups). There was a tremednous amount of group think in the German Army at this time, and any dissenting voices were cashiered.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 1:09PM

"Buchanan is insane and has been for quite some time. In addition he is an outright anti semite."

You confuse anti-Israel with anti-semite. And Buchanan is hated mostly because he dares suggest - to neoconservatives of all people - that the world might be more complex than a profession wrestling storyline. There is nothing the Fox News Right hates more than having their black-and-white Good Vs Evil narrative questioned, especially now that their party has been buried and suffocated beneath the proof of its fraudulence.

Nobama| 9.10.09 @ 2:06PM

To hell with all of those damn Europeans. I'm sick of them. Buchanan's nuts, too.

Anthony| 9.10.09 @ 2:16PM

Churchill's instincts about Hitler were right, because they were based on Churchill's formidable understanding of both history and human nature.
Hitler would have turned on Western Europe as sure as the sun rises. (which it did briefly over Pearl Harbour, thanks to FDR, who was first amoung the D elites not to connect the dots)

Profusion| 9.10.09 @ 2:40PM

Anthony, I believe you are correct and Pat Buchanan is all wet over this. Buchanan tries to search out Hitler's war aims, but he neglects the larger point that Hitler needed external enemies in order to maintain his totalitarian regime. He could only stay in power by keeping Germany on a permanent war footing. Had Britain and France allowed Hitler to have his way in Eastern Europe, you can be sure that Hitler would have found some way to start a way in the west at some point. Appeasement has never worked in the entire history of mankind, and you'd think Buchanan would be learned enough to understand that. On the other hand, Mr. Tyrrell's "boredom" theory is interesting. I would add a "novelty" addendum to it. Buchanan doesn't get readers if he parrots the conventional wisdom, does he?

jerryofva| 9.10.09 @ 2:45PM

William F. Buckley read Buchanan out of the Conservative Movement in the late 1990's . Buckley devoted the cover article of the National Review to the question "Is Pat Buchanan an Anti-Semite?" He concluded that Buchanan was both anti-Semitic and a ultimately a statist and with that dismissed him. However, the MSM continues to use him as their house conservative so that they can later tar the entire movement with Buchanan's crank views. If anything Buchanan demonstrates the close afinity between Fascism and Socialism. Historically Fascism is a leftist doctrine and brother Pat fits the bill.

Kevin, Meath| 9.10.09 @ 3:06PM

JP,
thanks for the interesting comment, as to whether the British would have stood by while the Germans and French slaughtered each other, they might have. Going to a 'European' contiental war was something Britain traditionally avoided, even during the napoleonic wars she only put a small army in the field and that was in a secondary theatre. She may also confined herself to (or tried to) naval war instead of using her pathetic little army (very high quality but the BEF was only 95,000 compared to the millions in the other armies). All what ifs and maybes, the world would be different and there would be an ex-corperal ,who thought he could paint, moaning about the jews being the root of all his ills in some Munich bar.

Don L| 9.10.09 @ 3:08PM

"(Wilson, of course, was responsible for our part in the terms of the treaty of Versailles)."
I understood that Wilson needed to get us into WWI in order to have a seat at the disposition of Europe at the end of the war - for one reason - his failed League of Nations.

ncatty| 9.10.09 @ 3:22PM

Based on the amount of resources the Germans devoted to eradicating Jews from Europe, that eradication must be considered a principal goal of the Third Reich. No war, no holocaust? If the Germans had stopped before Poland, the scale would have been less, but any Jews within the jurisdiction of the Reich would have been destroyed.

Tim| 9.10.09 @ 3:27PM

"The War of The Gods and Demons
GK Chesterton

..."If the Romans were ruthless, it was in a true sense to an enemy, and certainly not merely a rival. They remembered not trade routes and regulations, but the faces of sneering men; and hated the hateful soul of Carthage"

http://www.worldinvisible.com/.....art1c7.htm

Mihailushka | 9.10.09 @ 3:39PM

Really good article.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 4:06PM

Thanks, Mr Tyrrell, for another great piece.

One wonders about Buchanan. He seems like a very decent man, often. I find myself agreeing with him when he talks about the importance to America of preserving a manufacturing and farming base.

But then he goes off on these very weird, very disturbing tangents. I don't understand how you can look at the history of WWII and come away with a sense that Churchill started the war or was somehow dangerous to western democracy. It's just breathtaking.

One thing I have learned this summer:

Public schools, the media, and political leaders need to combine the efforts and teach Americans about WWII.

WWII is the defining event in modern history. It shaped the world we live in so much I don't think we can even see it. It'll be 500 years before historians put it into proper perspective.

To hear Americans, left or right, compare politicians to Hitler is just one symptom of the widespread historical ignorance that prevails in this country.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 4:10PM

About the relationship between the war and the Holocaust:

Hitler's decision to begin the war was greatly motivated by his desire to consolidate dictatorial power and carry out his policy of exterminating Jews.

The two issues are difficult to disentangle, however, just as the hatred of the Nazis for Jews was intimately related to their hatred of socialism or Marxism, which they viewed as a "Jewish" conspiracy.

(Nothing could be less true than the notion that socialism and Nazism are related; that is rank ignorance propagated by hacks on the right.)

Tim| 9.10.09 @ 4:15PM

(no, it's not)

ARealist| 9.10.09 @ 4:18PM

In the late 1920s, when the future Der Fuhrer was in the slammer for carrying out his beer hall putsch, he wrote Mein Kampf; in which he laid out his philosophical ideas and political goals.
He did not explicitly state he intended to exterminate certain classes of people, or that he intended to conquer France and Russia to effect his lebensraum, etc.; but he left no doubts what he was thinking.
Of course, when this book was published it was mostly dismissed by everybody as the lunatic ravings of some wacked out nut job (though not by his supporters - they knew he was dead serious).
The rest - as they say - is history.
Pat Buchanan ignores ALL EVIDENCE that implicates Hitler as the cause of WWII - even Hitlers own writings and speeches prior to 1933.

Like the 9-11 conspiracy wackos, or the holocaust deniers, Buchanan is either delusional, or, more likely, motivated by other reasons; e.g., his hatred of the English and Jews. (He is Irish, after all).

In this , there is precedent.

Joe Kennedy Senior, the bootlegger, lying scoundrel, and father of the recently deceased, lying, slanderous, slimey snake, Ted Kennedy, was also driven by his Irish blood and hatred of the English, to open channels of communications with Hitler, WHILE AMBASSADOR TO ENGLAND, and against express orders from FDR.
FDR fired him and placed him in charge of the SEC. Joe Kennedy's sympathies were clearly for Hitler and against the English; in line with many Irish.

Buchanan, like Joe Kennedy Sr. - both Irish, hate/ed the English and informs/ed their views. Additionally, Buchanan hates Jews , though I have not quite figured out why.

Ark Ashamed of Bill| 9.10.09 @ 4:25PM

Pat Buchanan may be a crank, but he’s a devilishly clever one, and this piece fails to address many of the facts that he uses to make his case. For starters, Britian declared war on the Reich when neither it nor France, which had spurned de Gaulle’s proposal for an armored corps, had the means to assist their ally Poland. This was the culmination of the feckless policy of allowing Hitler to create a military juggernaut without even attempting to direct it at the West’s other enemy in Europe, Stalin. Stalin deftly redirected Nazi aggression to the West, fueled by Stalin’s oil. Buchanan is astute enough to know that Hitler had tried to make Poland a junior partner in his drive to the east but was spurned. Given how things turned out for Poland, it is hard to imagine how it did itself a favor by rejecting Hitler’s offer.

Mr. Tyrrell also doesn’t take into account Hitler’s well-known January 30, 1939, threat to exterminate European Jewry if a general war broke out in Europe. Hitler believed his own propaganda, and doubtless saw the British and French declarations of war as the work of international Jewry. One could certainly argue that by declaring war the British and French unleashed the Holocaust, but since Chamberlain was PM instead of Churchill, Chamberlain could be held accountable.

Another factor Mr. Tyrrell fails to take into account is that Anglo-Saxon Britons are Aryans whom Hitler admired and respected. By some accounts Hitler didn’t understand why his fellow Aryans were fighting him, and he expected Britian to come to terms once its army had been defeated on the continent. There’s an outside chance Hitler might have called off the Holocaust had this happened.

Mr. Tyrrell’s analysis of Pear Harbor is even worse. The fundamental problem here is that Roosevelt wanted to take America to war against the wishes of the American people. Roosevelt allowed British agents to freely build up pro-war sentiment, and all of the most sensitive departments of his administration had been penetrated by Stalin’s agents, who were doubtlessly working feverishly to bail Stalin out of his Molotov-Ribbentrop folly. Recent accounts of the revelations from the Soviet archives and the Venona decrypts indicate that one of FDR’s most trusted advisors, Harry Hopkins, who had his own room in the White House, was one of these Soviet agents.

Mr. Tyrrell appears to be a poor student of World War II and the Cold War, and it shows. He doesn’t seem to understand that we had the Cold War because the Second World War failed to rid the world of aggressive dictators.

I don’t care for Pat Buchanan’s politics, but conservatives should never forget that he was one of the few, if not the only, Republican to hold his own in the Watergate hearings. For this conservatives owe him a debt of gratitude.

Tim| 9.10.09 @ 4:26PM

Churchill hated the hateful soul of Nazism.

Jonathan| 9.10.09 @ 4:48PM

This is a subject about which there lies truths on both sides and one side has no monopoly. The name calling is wasted time and adds nothing. RET is a good example of a writer who has contributed much good material in the past and has good ideas and yet his admiration for FDR is positively nauseating. No one gets it right 100% of the time and personalities should be left out of it. Buchanan's best point in the book is that without the sheer idiocy of WWI (Entente and Central powers equally at fault), WWII would have never happened. The US involvement in that war is perhaps the greatest disaster in world history.

Kevin, Meath| 9.10.09 @ 5:05PM

It is legitimate to blame Britain for WW II and therefore the Holocaust etc but not for the reasons Buchanan stated. At the end of WWI Germany was beaten (although her army was still intact but the generals new it was only a matter of time and ask the civilian government to seek peace that gave rise to the stab in the back theories). The French want to crush Germany to take revenge, it would have been cruel, unfair etc and the Germans would have hated it but been in no position to do anything about it. The Americans wanted everyone to be nice, start again, bygones be bygones lets pretend nothing happened. Millions dead, Belgium & Northern France terrorised and a wasteland sure but lets move on. Fair? no. Sensible? yes. Unfornunately Britain was between the 2, they tried to do what was fair, what was the right thing, what we ended up with was a treaty that pissed off Germany but didn't stop them within 2 decades of re-building a very efficient war machine. No one particularly liked the treated so was unwilling to enforce it.

Margie| 9.10.09 @ 5:15PM

My word. Reading all of this is a history lesson in itself. With commentary from all angles. Who needs school? ;^)

Bob| 9.10.09 @ 5:16PM

The answer to your question is: No, Pat Buchanan is not a crank. And if we had listened to him on current policy, we would not be mired in Iraq. He was right all along, and Tyrrell has been wrong all along.

Daisy| 9.10.09 @ 5:21PM

Everyone should keep in mind that the reason Buchanan gets attached by the likes of Terrell, one of our so called ‘conservatives’, is because Buchanan did not support the war in Iraq and has been very critical of it. If Buchanan had come out in support of that disaster Terrell and others like him (Frum, Kristol et al) would be singing his praises right how no matter what he wrote about WWII. What matters to Terrell is the war in Iraq. Because Buchanan did not support it he is the enemy no matter what else he believes in and his reputation must be destroyed. But if the last eight years are any indication it is more likely that the neocons and their moronic minions like Terrell and George W. Bush who will have their reputations shattered. It is already happening to Bush.

Original Daisy| 9.10.09 @ 5:38PM

I don't know who the troll is posting under my name--but the schmuck's poorly worded comments don't represent my point of view.

Get your own name, scuzzball.

Original Daisy| 9.10.09 @ 5:42PM

You misspelled the author's name, too: It's TYRRELL. Dope.

Thom| 9.10.09 @ 6:00PM

Pat’s theory makes perfect sense if you ignore everything the Germans planned for prior to 1939 and did from Poland on.
The German General Staff’s grand plan called for general war no earlier than 1946. That time table was based on an expansion and consolidation of resources and industries captured eastward that would have given Germany a fleet capable of standing up to and defeating the combined British and French fleet. You don’t need that kind of investment to take out Russia. Germany’s submarine fleet in 1940-41brought Britain to the brink of collapse despite being a fraction of the size planned for in 1946. Their invasion of Norway provided valuable resources at great cost to their tiny fleet. All this would have happened regardless of what Britain and France did and since they both declared a “phony” war on Germany over Poland the case was made for all to see that both combined didn’t have the resources or preparation to take on Germany even then.
It was Hitler’s general plan to go into Russian in 1940 not 1941. The Russian military was a complete mess in 1941 as demonstrated and even worse in 1940 due to Stalin’s purges of mid level officers. Take away the losses Germany suffered in France in 1940, particularly to its air force over Britain and move that east into Russian in 1940 and I think they would have come closer to achieving their basic goals. Had that happened I think it is fair to say that Britain had no capability against the German ground or air forces without a general war footing and France was so invested in “defense” that it would have been hard pressed to switch over to an offense of any type and attack Germany occupied in Russia. France had the only ground force capable of given German forces any grief and I think the jury has been in on how both the British and French forces did against the combined might of the German forces in 1940.
Had Pat’s grand plan been put into practice it is quiet likely the Germans could have fatally crippled the Russian ability to make war and consolidated their gains from all this and turned West with not only a larger more powerful force but one that was battled hardened.
I give Churchill credit for understanding what the German General Staff already knew. They couldn’t wage a successful two front war and needed time to prepare for what they planned. Is Pat a crank? Not if you ignore the actual performance of the German military, its stated plans and ability to wage offensive war against forces ultimately 5 times its number.
As to Hitler’s offer to make a “peace” with Britain well you need to ask Uncle Joe how well Hitler kept his promises and it was Uncle Joe’s plans to attack Germany in 1942. Everything makes perfect moral sense if you ignore the 13,000,000 Europeans under German occupation in Germany and eastward that would have still died in the “camps” under Pat’s brain storm here.
The longer Germany could avoid a general war on multiple fronts the better their chances overall while the opposite is true if they engaged in one sooner. Poland was the tripwire and on just the off chance that Britain knew about the secret 1939 Pact with Russia that would tend to pour water on the idea the Britain and France could simply ignore the military machine before them in 1939, let alone in 1940 and later. Revising history is a dangerous game when you ignore the evidence that exists. Trying to bring such conclusions forward in time to justify a position in current time is usually just as dangerous. 64 years after the end of WWII there is still classified information about which only a handful of people ever really knew the truth.

Daisy| 9.10.09 @ 6:05PM

My goodness. Touchy touchy Oirginal Disay (sp??)

My apologies to Mr. Tyrrell for misspelling his name.

HD| 9.10.09 @ 6:07PM

Crank? Idiot is more like it.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 6:41PM

I agree with Thom.

We might as well mark this on the calander and check out the window, since pigs are probably flying.

Serge from Wellington| 9.10.09 @ 6:47PM

TO William R| 9.10.09 @ 6:59AM

Just look at the link you offer as a reliable source of info, more specific to the word after the first slash: /zhydy. This is the Russian equivalent for "kikes"... so do you continue to insist we should enlighten ourselves from this well of knowledge and goodness?

Serge from Wellington| 9.10.09 @ 7:05PM

Liberal Reader: Nothing could be less true than the notion that socialism and Nazism are related; that is rank ignorance propagated by hacks on the right.

You would be right only if ethnicity or religion of a creator determined the outcome of their work. For instance, if Bethoven wasn't a German but a Dutch composer because of his origins; or FDR a Dutch politician, not an American. But this would be a racist attitude, wouldn't it? So Marx's Socialist/Communist theory was a German one, after all. As well as it's bastard National Socialist "theory". Except you're siding with Hitler's view on this subject... well, this won't be a surprise, what with this nickname.

robert curry| 9.10.09 @ 7:14PM

a crank? you betchum !

Serge from Wellington| 9.10.09 @ 7:17PM

A very tired, worn off one liner from S. L. Toddard:

You confuse anti-Israel with anti-semite.

Toddy, this wisdom is evidence of a brain with single convolution. Israel is the Jewish state, so blindly anti-Israel means exactly this: antisemitic.

Alan| 9.10.09 @ 7:18PM

For Dave Lincoln,

Buchanan an "excellent professor of History"?

C'mon now, you must really be joking. Buchanan would be an excellent history professor if you subscribe to the Fascist rot ala David Irving, whom I've heard Pat likes, if doesn't outright support, that there was NO Holocaust, that Hitler never signed off on the murder of Jews or was a reluctant warmaker.

Heck, anyone who read "Mein Kampf" or his subsequent plan for world domination would know better. But Pat and Irving do remind me of Professors like Grover Furr, the Stalinist English Professor at Montclair State College in New Jersey who insists Stalin was never an anti-Semite either, and that his murdering of Tuckhachevsky and the Soviet High Command was a good thing because they were all Nazis.

Yeah, the murder of Tuckhachevsky was a good thing, all right. For Adolf Hitler and the Nazi high command, as they had a plum tree dropped right in their lap by the pockmarked Georgian freak.
Oh yeah, Furr says Yezhov was behind the mass murders in the Purges - to which I said, well, who hired Yezhov? The tooth fairy??

Ditto for Pistol Pat, perhaps the worst appointment outside of James Baker (another anti-Semite) in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Pat's myopic view of the world would have got him a cabinet position with Obama had he not been so blatant about it - heck, even Zbig Brezinzski has the ears of the Messiah Chimp for his worldview - which by the way is not so remote as it might seem from Buchanan's.

Pat would have preferred we stay Isolationist, that Britain had gone down, and that the world would have ganged up on Uncle Joe - without America. Nice, but that would have left both Hitler and Stalin, still in alliance up to 6 months before Pearl Harbor, fully armed and a threat to the world, which after the fall of France was basically us and the Brits.

No, we don't need Buchanan as we don't need Grover Furr.

Nazi| 2.26.10 @ 2:58PM

Sieg Heil!!!

Hehe...Obama is a Messiah Chimp.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 7:47PM

"Israel is the Jewish state, so blindly anti-Israel means exactly this: antisemitic."

That's simply incorrect. "Anti-Israel" and "anti-semitic" have two different definitions. Israel is a nation-state - a political body. Jews are a people strewn across the globe. "Israel" and "the Jews" are, quite obviously, not synonymous.

S.L. Toddard| | 9.10.09 @ 7:50PM

"Everyone should keep in mind that the reason Buchanan gets attached by the likes of Terrell, one of our so called ‘conservatives’, is because Buchanan did not support the war in Iraq and has been very critical of it"

That is, of course, entirely true, though there are legitimate arguments to make against Buchanan's take on the causes of WWII. What is not in debate, however, is that Buchanan and the rest of the conservative right were *correct* about Iraq, and the Fox News neocons and the rest of the Big Goverment right were miserably wrong. Conservatives will never be forgiven by their wayward neocon cousins in the Fox News Right for being factually and morally right on Iraq.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 7:50PM

Alan --

Obama is a "Messiah Chimp"?

Oh yeah. You guys aren't racist. Nice, Alan. You sound like a Nazi yourself.

Margie| 9.10.09 @ 7:56PM

S.L. Toddard~~ Then why does one hate Israel?

William R| 9.10.09 @ 8:01PM

Serge from Wellington| 9.10.09 @ 6:47PM

TO William R| 9.10.09 @ 6:59AM

The author Chuck Morse a talk show host from Boston and Republican politician who ran against Barney Frank is Jewish. So much for your theory Serge.

Quartermaster| 9.10.09 @ 8:01PM

A lot of smoke, no light. A lot of bald assertion that Buchanan is a crank, but no support. None of you have bothered to make an honest effort to refute Buchanan's article. Not a one of you. Buchanan is a crank, or an idiot, because you say he's a crank or an idiot.

Churchill himself said WW2 was the unnecessary war. He destroyed the British Empire and was shameless enough to become PM again later. A decent man would have left public life after Gallipolli, but not Churchill.

Hitler's natural enemy was Soviet communism and that's what he wanted to fight. He had to go through Poland, and Hitler tried to get Poland Involved since Poland had suffered tremendously from Russian Imperialism. Poland seemed to hate Germany even more and it brought them Katyn slavery under the Soviet Union, to which Britain abandoned them.

The idea that anyone that thinks that FDR did not intentionally get us into the war has never read the case against him in Stinnett's "Day of Deceit." Stinnett got copies of teh Navy's radio traffic dealing with the issue and showed the FDR administration knew that Japanese were coming. The Jap fleet was far from silent. Even so, Stinnett is an FDR worshiper, so the wall Tyrrell and others have to climb is a very high wall, but it is far easier to simply call those who have the goods on you a crank and idiot.

It is well known that Buckley became mentally weak as he aged. Anyone aware of Buckley's mental slide is not impressed with WFB's declaration of Buchanan as an anti-semite. Equating his criticism of Israel with anti-semitism is no different than the left labeling criticism of Obama racism, and just as stupid.

Many of you rightly criticize the left for it's ad hominem and lack of critical thinking skills. Why do so many of act the same way as the left,a nd encourage Tyrrell to act the same way? Could it possibly be that you are just as poorly educated as they and just as bad off? From the indications I see here, and the comment galleries of places like Hot Air, it would certainly seem so.

Two words...Grow up. Then educate yourselves as the public schools clearly did a poor job of it.

Dennis| 9.10.09 @ 8:20PM

Pat has always had some loopy ideas about some issues and on others he raises interesting points; however, I cannot agree with Pat on his "history" of Hitler and WWII. Of course, being over on state- run MSNBC can do it to the best of us. Maybe they need a swine flu shot for people exposed to NBC & MSNBC....

Thom| 9.10.09 @ 8:21PM

Quartermaster, just one trivial point. When the Japanese attacked us and the Brits between December 7-10th and then the Germans declared war on us because of its alliance with Japan, can you explain how that war was unnecessary in Churchill terms? The Germans were furious with the Japanese for bringing us into the war when they did. Moving the goal post a couple years down the field wasn’t going to stop the game from being played. If Britain and France’s pledge to go to war with Germany was “unnecessary” and started the war in 1939 please explain how the unfortunate events in Dec 1941 were any different to what took place in 1939? Had those “unnecessary” events not occurred in 1939 we would have not started mobilizing for war in 1940 and the difference between what we had for forces in 1939 and late 1941 is significant in the scheme of things.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 8:28PM

Serge --

I'm siding with Hitler? Can you read, sir?

If so, go to a library and READ a book about Hitler's Germany. I'd recommend Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Whatever you do, you need to learn something about the topic.

Hitler's Germany and fascism in general are reactionary responses against socialism. They are its political opposite. Hitler loathed socialism and loathed Jews because he believed them to be incubators of socialism.

But you know what? I'm not going to do a seminar on history you should have learned in secondary school. You need to go to do a little work on your own and come back when you know something about the topic.

And just a suggestion: telling people they "side" with Hitler is really stupid. I wouldn't recommend you do that in a bar -- at least where I come from. You'll get your ass kicked into next week: and rightly so.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 8:43PM

ARealist --

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at.

Buchanan is Irish and Joe Kennedy was Irish. What's your point, exactly?

By the way, Joe Kennedy's view on Germany and the war were extremely wrongheaded: in fact, they matched what most Republicans in Congress were arguing at the time he articulated them. Kennedy, like many, many Americans at the time, was prejudiced against Jews. He was, however, not a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer. Like many people, he looked at the immense destruction of WWI and just thought another war would be detrimental to the west.

There's something to be said about the ability to make somewhat finer distinctions ...

Margie| 9.10.09 @ 8:46PM

Quartermaster~~ "Churchill himself said WW2 was the unnecessary war." Uh huh. Yes. He knew that Hitler could have been dealt with early on, instead of waiting. Because Chamberlain took the "appease" route, the rest is history. Fast forward to now. We have Obama doing the same thing. The mighty appeaser. How long do you think it'll be till WWIII? Just asking.

jerryofva| 9.10.09 @ 9:00PM

It occurs to me that we are having this discussion becuase the neo-Fascist progresssives attacks on Israel have legitmatized traditional anti-Semitism. If the left had not embraced jew-hatred Buchanan would have been marginalized by for his Nazi sympathies long ago.

Jack| 9.10.09 @ 9:04PM

Is Tyrell a neo-conservative? Why?

Thom| 9.10.09 @ 9:08PM

Buchanan’s political fantasy is based on at least three absolutes that have no basis in facts at all.
1) The Nazi’s would never attack West.
2) The Nazi’s could not beat the Russians and would have died there without our direct or indirect intervention.
3) Japan and Italy, both part of the Axis collation and tied to what every Germany did one way or the other and vs. verse would have simply disappeared off the face of the earth had Britain and France not declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland.
First off, there isn’t a shred of evidence to support 1 and 2. The Germans pretty much had their way in Russian from June 1941 till Sept 1942 while having to tie down substantial forces in the West and Med that could have been put to better use on the Russian Front. Take away the events the tied down those forces down and let Germany sit on defense in the Siegfried line and Russia would have likely been overrun as far as needed for the German objectives to have been met. Less we not forget, the Russians got a lot of war material from us and the Brits and the Germans weren’t just going let us remain neutral if we were supplying the Russian forces. That’s a pipe dream to think otherwise. Concentrate the German sub fleet off the North Cape rather all over the globe attacking British shipping and nothing gets through to Russian from Britain or US. Through the Med wasn’t a very efficient alternative either.
Second, Italy’s own adventure got England into the war in the Med and Germany had to rescue them. That’s not going to change.
Third, whether FDR knew where the Japanese Pearl attack force was or not is irrelevant. Pearl was the first event in a five month surge into the South Pacific that we had no forces to counter with or without the forces at Pearl. Our material losses at Pearl had no impact on the outcome of the war and we had no forces in the Pacific that could stand up to the Japanese forces at that time or rescue the Philippines. It was almost 6 months before we could even support naval operations in the South Pacific and nearly 9 months before any offensive ground forces could be brought into play there. Had the Pearl attack fleet tuned back and our un-modernized WWI era battleships sortie out to help the Philippines they wouldn’t have lasted 30 minutes against the Japanese carrier aviation units. Ground based Japanese bombers took out a modern and modernized British battleship and battle cruiser with relative ease right after Pearl. We weren’t just sleeping at dawn in Hawaii. The entire country was in perfect sync with what Buchanan thinks and we know how that turned out.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 9:10PM

"Then why does one hate Israel?"

One what?

Robert Wheatley| 9.10.09 @ 9:16PM

I believe he is entitled to his logical conclusions, whether or not they agree with the rest of us. I just wonder why Mr. Tyrrell wastes his and our time attacking Mr. Buchannon instead of giving us more truths about this administration being perhaps totally Marxist.
And just wondering: Why does nobody ever mention FDR's total admiration for Stalin's idea of communism being the best possible form of government?

kingsmill| 9.10.09 @ 9:26PM

RET is attempting to curry favor with the Podhoretz, Kristol crowd. This is one of the lamest contributions to the marginialize Buchanan effort. And I think Buchanan is all wet on Churchill.

Thom| 9.10.09 @ 9:30PM

I believe Buchanan’s world views in certain quarters of the world and the current Marxist in Chief are in sync actually (with vastly different motives and goals to be fair). Buchanan did not like W using the word “appeasement” in one of this speeches concerning Iran and linking the era we are talking about here to current events. The reason for that is obvious but I think Mr. Tyrrell should speak to that matter directly himself. It is just my view that Pat is setting himself up for “useful idiot” role if he keeps trying to revise history to fit his current world view on how to use isolation in the age of atomic weapons and ballistic missiles as a political tool.

Richard Baker| 9.10.09 @ 9:36PM

I have Pat Buchanan's autobiography and his Dad, who taught him conservatism, would be ashamed of Pat, were he alive today. Read the book and you'll understand why.

Liberal Reader| 9.10.09 @ 9:39PM

Daisy, I sincerely apologize to you for stealing your name. I am an Axelrod Astroturf loser and have nothing better to do than troll Conservative websites pretending to be other posters. My spelling skills suck, too.

Sorry. Please forgive me.

Mary Louise| 9.10.09 @ 9:42PM

Did Buckley actually declare Pat an anti-Semite? I thought he said something along the lines of “I don’t know if Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite or not, but his words force me to conclude that it’s quite likely he is.” I don’t know if he is either. The epithets anti-Semite and racist have lost so much meaning because they’re held so cheaply and brandished with such little cause. Gran Torino is about a lot of things, and one of them is that words are not actions, and that only totalitarians think they are.

Was Kirk really an anti-Semite because of his comment on Tel-Aviv? In all fairness, I don’t think Decter accused him of being an anti-Semite just uttering something anti-Semitic. The American Jew’s connection and love for Israel is no secret, and I don’t find that odd at all. Italy is on a par with Israel historically speaking, and I think and feel exactly the same way about her as I imagine Jews feel about Israel. If Italy got into trouble and needed the United States to help her, I’d want the US to come to her aid. I wouldn’t hold it against my adopted homeland if she didn’t. I’d accept it with sadness. To accuse someone of having dual loyalties you’d have to know an awful lot about that person.

Buchanan grew up in and with a Catholicism that was much different than the Catholicism that exists today.

The G-Man (I love Liddy!) told of an incident with a nun in his autobiography. Apparently, one of his nuns (I think he was about 10 or 12 at the time) was teaching that the Jews had killed Jesus. Jesus’ death being so hideous there wasn’t much chance of being able to look at the death historically, especially at that tender age. He went home and told his father -what an impressive man Liddy’s father was!- what had transpired and his father pretty much told him that it was nonsense and to forget the silliness of the nun. Buchanan was probably exposed to similar musings and babble. Paul Johnson noted in his History of Christianity that anti-Semitism began in earnest in the early part of the 3rd C, as Christians believed the coming of the anti-Christ was imminent and that he would be a Jew.

In my catechism worshipping w/Protestants is categorized as a mortal sin. A mortal sin!!!! Rape is a mortal sin; sodomy is a mortal sin; murder is a mortal sin. Not that I dared utter it, but even at 12 I knew it was nuts, nonsense and couldn’t possibly be true. Pat seems to have a soft-spot for Evangelical Protestants so he’s not a lock-step Vatican I Catholic.

He’s a very intelligent man, and flaws and all, I find it hard not to like him. I can see him at 17 being a brawler. I’ve always had a soft-spot for brawlers because sometimes, without beckoning, they come to your aid and salvation without a thought for their own safety.

His Republic Not an Empire was good but it didn’t take reading too many pages before recognizing it as speculation. The tension between disparate visions, hopes and plans for America is there from the beginning. Hamilton is no less a Founding Father than Adams. Jefferson’s foreign policy seems like something between the two men. And if the wonderful historian Paul Johnson is correct, without Hamilton, the US would have quickly devolved into a shabby, squabbling South American nation with an economy to match.

Margie| 9.10.09 @ 9:51PM

The Jews physically crucified Christ with the agreement of Pilate. The Bible is true. However, we also crucify Him afresh if we choose to reject Him.

Nobama| 9.10.09 @ 10:09PM

Jesus is/was a Jew.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 10:26PM

"In my catechism worshipping w/Protestants is categorized as a mortal sin"

Many protestant sects consider Catholicism a heresy as well.

Margie| 9.10.09 @ 10:32PM

Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. That includes the Jews, the Romans, Pilate. It includes everyone, past, present, and future. THAT is amazing.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 10:37PM

"Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. That includes the Jews, the Romans, Pilate. It includes everyone, past, present, and future. THAT is amazing."

So everyone gets into heaven, then? Jews and Muslims who deny Christ, Catholics who worship the Virgin, etc?

Margie| 9.10.09 @ 11:02PM

S.L. Toddard~~ I stated a fact. It was in God's plan from before the creation of the universe that Christ would die for the sins of the whole world.

John 3:16~ "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone believing into Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

~That's the basis. Any arguments, take them up with God.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 11:03PM

"That's the basis. Any arguments, take them up with God."

I have no argument. Sounds good to me.

Mary Louise| 9.10.09 @ 11:03PM

Well, they're cranks too then. But they don't have the Vatican, and no Protestant claims to be the Vicar of Christ. It's a bit different. Fissiparity is the protestant evil.

EENS, predestination, election, vessels of wrath, responsible for the ends but not the means: Madonna Mia, che torre di Babele! And that's why you find the Church crippled as she is.

For those readers who know that the Church can be trusted with absolute power about as much as the State I quote Robert Heinlein:

There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile the Doctrine of Divine Mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. 'The Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores. [Methuselah's Children]

Heinlein again:

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Even if I never live to see it, I hope we're moving past the inability to hold tensions as natural. Moving towards holding pluiformity as natural and hale, like the Trinity. To see conformity and "oneness" for the evil that they are.

Mary Louise| 9.10.09 @ 11:05PM

Sorry for leaving tag open. Last paragraph is mine.

Mary Louise| 9.10.09 @ 11:11PM

Should read pluriformity.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 11:13PM

"EENS, predestination, election, vessels of wrath, responsible for the ends but not the means: Madonna Mia, che torre di Babele! And that's why you find the Church crippled as she is"

The Catholic Church is crippled because it is Catholic? I suppose that true to an extent. But more than that, it's crippled because it's Catholic in a secular, materialistic, self-obsessed age that has no love for tradition, beauty, wonder, charity, mystery or peace.

I hope the Church will go into its inevitable obsolescence with dignity, holding to its ancient and noble traditions rather than morph into another airy fairy self-help organization like those of the television preachers and their sterile, Godless corporate mega-churches. It's going to lose adherents either way - it shouldn't lose its soul as well, which lit the Western world for nigh on two millenia.

S.L. Toddard| 9.10.09 @ 11:15PM

"To see conformity and "oneness" for the evil that they are."

Ironic, considering that you are arguing that the Catholic church is crippled due to its unwillingness to conform to the age.

Mary Louise| 9.10.09 @ 11:26PM

The Church has conformed in many ways. To know that you don't know what God thinks, and that you can't speak for Him is the beginning of all wisdom. Fear and awe of the Lord, and there's nothing relative about it.

The Church, like every one of its children, lost bits of its soul via the long and winding road of living and sinning. St. Augustine: The Church is a whore but she is my mother. Fine. No problem.

But she's not my mother because my mother is not a whore. She wouldn't bring strange men home who could harm her children.

Brawlers who would lay down their lives for a friend are God's children whether they ever step foot in a Church or not.

Jesus isn't much more than a docetic dream because 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

Nobama| 9.10.09 @ 11:28PM

Margie didn't say that everyone will go to heaven--that was your assumption, moron.

Commie atheist libtard.

Alan Brooks| 9.10.09 @ 11:40PM

Buchanan-- to get back ontopic-- isn't as bad as I thought. After the deification of Ted Kennedy, Buchanan doesn't look so evil.
Now things are coming into focus; if you are iberal you can do what you want; if you're not liberal then you have to play by the rules-- liberal rules. As Pat says, "the liberal double standard is the 8th wonder of the world."

Peter | 9.10.09 @ 11:55PM

I am pretty sure that FDR did a whole bunch of illegal, possibly unconstitunional things to keep Great Britain afloat before we actually declared war.
On that, Pitchfork Pat is right.

My father fought in the Pacific (literally, he made that long walk through the lagoon at Tarawa) and my uncle flew P-47s, the famous Jugs over Europe. And I'm glad FDR did what he did and I'm glad we defeated both of those murderous crowds. No one will ever know how many Chinese, Koreans and all those others were murdered by the Japanese, the total is probably higher than the Germans.

I am most of all glad that us monggral Americans defeated the Master Race and those who were the grandchildren of the Sun God. I only wish we had listened to Georgie Patton and taken out the Commies when we had the troops in Europe to do it. I'm proud to be a Mongral American.

Jamie Pepin | 9.11.09 @ 3:11AM

Meanwhile he neglects the larger point that Hitler needed external enemies in order to maintain his totalitarian regime. He could only stay in power by keeping Germany on a permanent war footing. Had Britain and France allowed Hitler to have his way in Eastern Europe, you can be sure that Hitler would have found some way to start a way in the west at some point Bailey Button Ugg Boots . Appeasement has never worked in the entire history of mankind, and you'd think Buchanan would be learned enough to understand that cheap ugg boots . On the other hand, Mr. Tyrrell's "boredom" theory is interesting..

Tom Livesey | 9.11.09 @ 3:12AM

I dont understand why do so many of act the same way as the left,a nd encourage Tyrrell to act the same way ugg boots uk ? Could it possibly be that you are just as poorly educated as they and just as bad off cheap ugg boots ? From the indications I see here, and the comment galleries of places like Hot Air, it would certainly seem so.

Kevin,Meath| 9.11.09 @ 4:49AM

It is completely wrong to say Stalin was ant-semitic, he was not a racist. As you were marched off to the Gulag to be beaten/worked to death you could be safe in the knowledge it wasn't because of your race, religion or skin colour, it could easily been a random selection. Stalin was a mass murderer easily on a par with Hitler but he slaughtered without prejudice, favour or bias he hated everyone, even his own family.

Hal g. P. Colebatch| 9.11.09 @ 7:37AM

Yes, and a highly-dangerous one, more dangerouos than many outright Leftists. He is poisoning the well-springs of conservatism by linking conservatism with general political ratbaggery and anti-Israel obsessions.

bluecollarbytes| 9.11.09 @ 7:49AM

Tyrrell: "That Hitler was a racist lunatic and military incompetent escapes Buchanan's notice. "

Buchanan's theories on the 'second world war' do seem to imply the opposite. It's as though Hitler had Good Sense, great military expertise, and a desire on some mysterious level to just get along after merely trying to correct the injustice dealt Germany after the first world war.

Hitler was a monster. His aims towards the Jews and German expansion were Hitler policies regardless of the fact they had roots in those who went before him.

Buchanan did sound the alarm on the 'culture war' years ago, which is a deeper problem than it sounds, now that we're living the results with a radical Leftist president. For that I'll have a fond place for Buchanan. But I've thought Buchanan is mostly interested in caving out his own contrarian niche, living as he does off his unique perspective. He reminds me of the Democrat strategist on FoxNews that has been condemning Democrats and the Democrat Party since Bill Clinton was forced to put criminal defense lawyers on TV defending his Lewinski epic. The guy claims to still be a Democrat just as Buchanan is still a Republican.

Hal G. P. Colebatch| 9.11.09 @ 8:02AM

How, incidentally, can Buchanan, who claims to be an "arch Catholic," believe Poland, the most Catholic State in Europe, should have been thrown to the wolves - 3,000 Catholic Priests killed in German concentration camps, many in medical experiments, and that is even before we consider the Soviet Communist contribution, the future Pope John Paul II a slave-labourer in a stone quarry, etc, etc?

jerryofva| 9.11.09 @ 8:05AM

Mary Louise:

Perhaps you are not fully acquainted with Bill Buckley's ability to turn a phrase to better stick a knife in someones chest.

The phrase "I don’t know if Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite or not, but his words force me to conclude that it’s quite likely he is.” is just Buckley's way of saying "hell yes , he's neo-Nazi."

dartmouth park| 9.11.09 @ 9:24AM

"The French want to crush Germany to take revenge, it would have been cruel, unfair etc and the Germans would have hated it but been in no position to do anything about it. "

The French occupied the Ruhr in 1923-1924 in default of reparations payments. That occupation could hardly be described as benign.

"As you were marched off to the Gulag to be beaten/worked to death you could be safe in the knowledge it wasn't because of your race, religion or skin colour, it could easily been a random selection."

Unfortunately, this was not true for the Krim Tartars, the Volga Germans and especially the Ingrians who were all but exterminated by Stalin for being non-Slavs living in a sensitive area between Leningrad and the Baltic States.

"It is completely wrong to say Stalin was ant-semitic"

The extermination in 1948 of a large number of Jewish intellectuals, the Doctors' Plot and the mass "anti-Zionist" campaign, acknowledged by East Germany's Volkskammer and the Polish Sejm to be anti-semitic, seem to suggest otherwise.

"even during the napoleonic wars she only put a small army in the field and that was in a secondary theatre."

Britain only had a small army at the time, but its naval victories at Copenhagen and Trafalgar put a stop to France's capabilities at sea. One might also remember that on land France was, at various times, facing Russia, Prussia, the Netherlands and Austria, all of which eventually vanquished Napoleon.

" The Americans wanted everyone to be nice, start again, bygones be bygones lets pretend nothing happened."

To an extent under Wilson; that's why there are streets in dozens of European cities named after him. But the Senate and the new Harding administration wanted none of it and all but killed any hope of a peace with collective security at birth. If the British are to blame, then so is the US. Personally, I think World War 2 was started by the Nazis.

Buchanan's central point that the West should just have let Germany and Russia fight it out in a war of national triumph on one side and total destruction on the other ignores about three hundred years of European history. Whoever won such a war would then have all but complete domination of the continent with the option of strangling Britain or France whenever it wished. Domination by one power, be it the Bourbons, Napoleon, Hitler or Stalin, was always brought low by the opposition of other powers seeking to restore a balance of power.

The Kaiser's invasion of Belgium is a case in point. The German navy had expanded hugely in the previous ten years. The Schlieffen Plan threatened to repeat the Prussian victory of 1871 by crushing France. Once Germany was in control of the Channel ports of Belgium, it is hard to see what choice Britain could have made other than to go to war.

kingsmill| 9.11.09 @ 9:26AM

Bill Buckley gave us David Brooks, Sam Tannenhaus and Gary Wills, just to name a few. After the New York mayoral race, Bill petered out as a conservative. Great celebrity, judge of conservatives, not so much.

jerryofva| 9.11.09 @ 9:33AM

Dartmouth:

And Uncle Joe had his Rahm Emanuel as well in Lazar Kagonovich.

Kevin, Meath| 9.11.09 @ 9:49AM

Dear Dartmouth Park,
you make some fine points
My point about Stalin was that he killed -- yes whole racial or social groups-- not based on any 'logic' like a hatred of a people or group (if you want to call that logic) but with one aim in mind to secure power for himself, first and last.

I do think Hitler was the main cause but there were other causes and failure to 'settle' WWI was a big part. The treaty with Germany was harsh enough -- as you point French occupation, reparations etc to create a sense of injustice in Germany but not harsh enough to stop them doing something about it.
Its all counterfactual anyway, if Germany had been treated 'better' the social/political effects in France ,that were bad anyway, may have resulted in revolution and perhaps we would have had a Fascist France. There were Fascist parties in every country.

S.L. Toddard| 9.11.09 @ 10:27AM

"great celebrity, judge of conservatives, not so much"

Bill Buckley was indeed a fantastic celebrity and talk show host. He truly excelled at pretending to be some sort of American nobility. I don't think I ever heard him drop the affected mid-Atlantic Thurston Howell III accent he always pretended to have, and that alone is quite an accomplishment.

Still though - not much of a thinker, ol' Bill. He loved celebrity and having parties, playing his harpsichord, entertaining, prancing around (there has always been a question as to Buckley's... um... masculinity) and so forth, and I don't think that left him much time to do any brain-work.

Regardless, as far as Bill Buckley deciding who is and isn't Conservative, let's all remember that it was Bill Buckley himself who declared that conservatives must abandon conservatism and instead embrace Big Government and totalitarianism (as most of you have done):

"We have got to accept Big Government for the duration–for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged...except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores"

- William F. Buckley
"A Young Republican View"
The Commonweal
January 25, 1952.

Benya | 9.11.09 @ 11:06AM

This is very interesting post, I can't imagine this.

Robert| 9.11.09 @ 12:07PM

Adolf Hitler? Oh yes, I remember him. For some reason the German people loved him, as fervently as the Russian people despised Stalin, and the Cuban people currently despise the twin communist pig, Castro.

Daisy| 9.11.09 @ 2:38PM

As this is getting to be a rather long thread, I think it is time we concluded the discussion.

So in summary, Tyrrell is a Crank and Buchanan is right.

You people can argue all you want about the specifics of Buchanan's argument and Tyrrell’s article but you are missing the point. Tyrrell’s attack on Buchanan regarding his theories about WWII is just a smoke screen. He is attacking Buchanan because Buchanan was against the war in Iraq. It really is that simple. He hates Buchanan because Buchanan has been one of the biggest critics of the war and he is an authentic conservative. As I said before, you would not have heard a single criticism about Buchanan from the likes of Tyrrell no matter what he wrote if only Buchanan had support the war. But Buchanan did not so he has to be destroyed.

jerryofva| 9.11.09 @ 3:53PM

No Daisy, you are missing the point. Buchanan opposed the war in Iraq for the same reason that he argues against the allies in WWII. Both Hitler and Hussain wanted to dispose of the Jews.

The new revisionism about WWII has nothing to do with the actual events of the era. It is attempt both by traditional neo-Nazis like Buchanan and the new neo-Nazis (see Nicloaus Baker's "Human Smoke') on the so-called left to argue for a second holocaust

Margie| 9.11.09 @ 4:30PM

My Husband's Parents were both in Russia during the war, and both were in prison camps. His Father was a pilot in Stalin's Army and shot down 2 or 3 times. He escaped out of one prison camp using his gold watch that he received for being a top student in the University, by "bribing" a guard. He later came to America after waiting for 10 years on a list, while living in Canada, where he met his Wife, Julia, who was in the Volkswagen prison Camp during the war. After the war, and for decades, his Father continued to get letters from Russia asking him to return "home". He answered this later early on by saying he would NEVER return there, that his home is now the United States of America." They never stopped trying. Do you know what they would have done to him if he were to return? Julia told me that Stalin was so outraged by his response that he scratched her Husband's name from off the wall of names at the University, where it was, as he was one of the top students. When my Husband was around age 13, he used to watch Hogan' s Heros on t.v. One day his Father s took him aside to explain that this was no laughing matter, and told him all about the war. Julia is still living. She is a beautiful person with the most cheerful disposition of anyone I have ever met. She puts me to shame. I think a book ought to be written. I know there are so many who could do the same. I write this because this post is so fantastic and I, who was brought up in the U.S.A., and have only known complete and utter freedom, do understand the meaning and importance of fighting against the enemy, that is, having to go to war! I'm still learning about this war and I can tell that there are some really good men in here posting and I just have to say thank you. I know that you see what's going on with this current President and I fear it is the same spirit running him. Liberalism=Socialism=Communism.

Mary Louise| 9.11.09 @ 9:06PM

Jerry,

I’m sipping a nice beer wondering how best to respond to you without becoming a Digital Barbarian. I really like Joseph Epstein. Had never heard of him until I found him at the Standard. There’s a masculine sweetness in his writing that’s very attractive.

Beer makes you a little stupid, a little dull-witted, I think. I prefer scotch. A bunch of lawyers I worked for helped me acquire a taste for it. They were really good guys. What started out as a temp assignment turned into a few years of employment, and an offer to pay for my education as a paralegal. They were all Italian. You know tribe does matter. Not in the way Sotomayor thinks. It’s not about the tribe arriving at better conclusions, it’s about shared sensibilities and antipathies and culture and food. I could mutter ‘oofa’ under my breath and it would bring a big smile to their faces because they could remember their mothers and fathers muttering in exactly the same way.

Perhaps Buckley was calling Pat an absolute and positive neo-Nazi in the piece I referenced. When reading it I got the impression that he was sincerely saying that since he really couldn’t peek into Pat’s soul he couldn’t definitively say he was an anti-Semite, but that all signs pointed to that being the case.

I subscribed to the American Conservative and then cancelled after three months. Not because the writing was poor or the writers unlearned. Some of the writing on the war in Iraq was quite good, but there was an undercurrent there that impressed me as shut-in, and maybe even a bit inbred. The AC noted the widows and orphans we’ve made in Iraq, and it’s important to recall and name them just as we do our soldiers.

Certain acts and writing, if you’re a writer, can come to define you. There’s no getting around it because what usually defines us is what is revealed by our bout with adversity. Buckley was never much of an influence on me. My conservatism, if that is what it can rightly be called, was passed on to me by my parents, and a bit by the RCC. To their everlasting advantage, my parents weren’t catechized very much. My grandparents and great grandparents advanced the Church much more than the local priests and bishops ever did or could. They were the salt of the earth, and ‘their shakers weren’t bad either.’

A black co-worker once confessed to me that she could tell by looking at a person’s face if he or she was racist. I thought about it for a while and thought maybe when a large enough group of people think you’re lower than a quadruped you develop a talent for sensing that before the proof is evident and very dangerous.

It could be that Pat really believes that those he criticizes have an attachment to Israel that could harm the separate and unique interests of the United States. In good conscience, I can’t follow Pat there. It could be that he hates Jews and would opt for some modern version of the Ovens, but that seems an enormous and dangerous leap to make. And if Buckley believed that, and I’m assuming from your response, Jerry, that you believe that too, that’s not somewhere that I can follow either one of you in good conscience.

Sam H| 9.12.09 @ 2:34AM

Gentlemen,

While Sir Winston certainly had his human frailties (Gallipoli not being among them because, had his plan been followed, it would have been an example of his strategic genius), he was, and remains to this day, the finest example of manhood ever produced. The Great Man possessed personal courage, the sharpest of intellects and penetrating vision; married, to be sure, to some irksome personal peccadilloes. However he is truly the greatest man of all in my honest opinion. Others will take issue and argue for Leonardo or some other "artist." But, for me, one look at this monument to courage, standards, civility, action and thinking can only lead to one exclamation:

What a life and what a man!

Kevin Dunstan| 9.12.09 @ 10:59AM

To Sam H:

My List of the Western A-team:

Charles Martel
Charlemagne
Alfred the Great
Winston Churchill
Ronald Reagan

JP| 9.13.09 @ 9:49AM

"The Kaiser's invasion of Belgium is a case in point. The German navy had expanded hugely in the previous ten years. The Schlieffen Plan threatened to repeat the Prussian victory of 1871 by crushing France. Once Germany was in control of the Channel ports of Belgium, it is hard to see what choice Britain could have made other than to go to war."

Nonsense. The German Navy hadn't the means to ferry even an army corps across the Channel. The leaders of the British military knew that the Germans had no particular intentions of occupying anyone. The German arrangements were defensive against both France and Russia. And if the Germans would have beaten the French in 1914, they would have been fully occupied in Russia for at least 2 years.

The British in 1914 had nothing to fear from the Germans. The Prussians and the British were natural allies whose friendship goes back even before Fredrich the Great.

The British diplomatic calculations after 1900 were not based in reality, or even self interests. Thier diplomatic miscalculations cost an entire generation of thier "Best and Brightest" thier lives.

clint willson| 9.13.09 @ 3:56PM

You Neo-cons and Bushites will enjoy this. From the Jewish Telegraph Agency. Sept. 3, 2009:

"MSNBC removes Buchanan column defending Hitler
September 3, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- MSNBC took down the Pat Buchanan column defending Hitler's actions hours after a Jewish group urged its removal.

The National Jewish Democratic Council had released a statement Thursday imploring MSNBC to remove the article from its Web site.

Buchanan, a conservative pundit, had alleged that Hitler did not want war and that the Allies' actions were unnecessary.

"MSNBC took the responsible action" in removing the column, NJDC President David Harris said in a statement.

"No worthy news organization should employ and promote a commentator who engages in such vile fiction," he said. "This sort of historical revisionism is deplorable."
Wherefore free speech, or
How stands the Union now, Daniel Webster ?

Buchanan has been accused in the past of making racially insensitive and anti-Semitic comments.

S.L. Toddard| 9.13.09 @ 8:46PM

"It could be that Pat really believes that those he criticizes have an attachment to Israel that could harm the separate and unique interests of the United States. In good conscience, I can’t follow Pat there."

Why? Because it would be politically incorrect to do so, or because you believe it inconceivable that that Israel and the U.S. may not have identical interests?

S.L. Toddard| 9.13.09 @ 8:49PM

"The new revisionism about WWII has nothing to do with the actual events of the era. It is attempt both by traditional neo-Nazis like Buchanan and the new neo-Nazis (see Nicloaus Baker's "Human Smoke') on the so-called left to argue for a second holocaust"

Since only an intellectually bankrupt buffoon would make such an accusation without compelling evidence I can only assume you have plenty of it. Please cite some of your evidence that Pat Buchanan desires and is arguing for a "second holocaust".

Margie| 9.15.09 @ 12:44AM

New definition: Neon-con. One who is such a con artist that he glows in the dark. Applies to all Libs.

Bird| 2.26.10 @ 2:47PM

Most of the Conservative Republican Party affiliates and sympathizers are a religious self-satisfied pillar of society. Their righteous indignations, and anxiety about possessions and pretensions, their ingrained habits of blaming, despising and condemning are due to lack of peace and mental clarity.

tiger tim| 4.16.10 @ 4:56AM

---All of this ad mauseum WWII 'revisionism,
and PC WWII retreading --? ---in 2010?
--huh?

---Has anyone else been noticing ---'isolationist'
'populist' Pat is very much acting the downsizing,
blindsiding cover guy for our cross the boards,
decades long Red China dumb-down, sellout
and fold down?

You don't follow? --well, consider this
---while America is being set-up for yet
another round of seen-to-death, guilt-trippy
PC WWII retreads ---the 60th Anniversary
of the epically relevant ---STILL unfolding
--KOREAN WAR is once again being 'mysteriously overlooked'...

----------Getting the picture?

Good
g

ben zalman | 5.16.10 @ 3:55PM

God should only save us from the Pat Pukecaanons of the world. He defends that murderer Demenchek Nazi rat! And he hates Israel..the best ally the USA could have.

Ben Zalman | 5.16.10 @ 4:02PM

Roosevelt and Churhill were not perfect men, but as leaders of Britain and the USA they put together the best Army in the world to beat what was the best armies (Japan And Germany.) Buchanan would have been the presidnet of the Old "America First" organization. if we'd have listened to them we would all be speaking German and Japanese! Phooey on Patsey!

tiger tim| 5.29.10 @ 9:47PM

--STOP buying into the 'Populist/America First/Right Wing' brand! ---it's a phoney!

FACT IS --Pat's very, very much acting the
'Conservative' frontman and apologist for our
disastrous, decades long sellout and suck-up
to history's --MOST-- awesomely genocidal
regime ---ACROSS the Pacific.

In this he's reading from the very same playbook
as the lowest mercenary sleaze in our PC franchise
slum movie biz and media.

"The Americans came just like a whore,
all dressed up and knocking at our back door--"
-Chou En Lai
Nixon/MAO Summit
1972

-PAT was on board!

On this, the once again 'mysterously overlooked'
60th Anniversary of the startlingly relevant
---indeed, STILL unfolding KOREAN WAR
---need we say more?

-AMEN-

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