Was World War Two Worth it?

[lester1/2jr]

no.  most of the evils it eradicated were either caused by the statecraft preceding it or the war itself.  Worldwide the submission to  the state and sacrafise of liberty was worshipped like a golden calf.  Virtually no tradition of either conservatism or liberalism can be reconciled with this dark, cynical vision of humanity and delight in uniformity.


Was It 'The Good War'?
by Patrick J. Buchanan


         


"Yes, it was a good war," writes Richard Cohen in his column challenging the thesis of pacifist Nicholson Baker in his new book, Human Smoke, that World War II produced more evil than good.

Baker's compelling work, which uses press clips and quotes of Axis and Allied leaders as they plunged into the great cataclysm, is a virtual diary of the days leading up to World War II.

Riveting to this writer was that Baker uses some of the same episodes, sources and quotes as this author in my own book out in May, Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War.'

On some points, Cohen is on sold ground. There are things worth fighting for: God and country, family and freedom. Martyrs have ever inspired men. And to some evils pacifism is no answer. Resistance, even unto death, may be required of a man.

But when one declares a war that produced Hiroshima and the Holocaust a "Good War," it raises a question: good for whom?

Britain declared war on Sept. 3, 1939, to preserve Poland. For six years, Poland was occupied by Nazi and Soviet armies and SS and NKVD killers. At war's end, the Polish dead were estimated at 6 million. A third of Poland had been torn away by Stalin, and Nazis had used the country for the infamous camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Fifteen thousand Polish officers had been massacred at places like Katyn. The Home Army that rose in Warsaw at the urging of the Red Army in 1944 had been annihilated, as the Red Army watched from the other side of the Vistula. When the British celebrated V-E day in May 1945, Poland began 44 years of tyranny under the satraps of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.

Was World War II "a good war" for the Poles?

Was it a good war for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, overrun by Stalin's army in June 1940, whose people saw their leaders murdered or deported to the Gulag never to return? Was it a good war for the Finns who lost Karelia and thousands of brave men dead in the Winter War?

Was it a good war for Hungarians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Rumanians and Albanians who ended up behind the Iron Curtain? In Hungary, it was hard to find a women or girl over 10 who had not been raped by the "liberators" of the Red Army. Was it a good war for the 13 million German civilians ethnically cleansed from Central Europe and the 2 million who died in the exodus?

Was it a good war for the French, who surrendered after six weeks of fighting in 1940 and had to be liberated by the Americans and British after four years of Vichy collaboration?

And how good a war was it for the British?

They went to war for Poland, but Winston Churchill abandoned Poland to Stalin. Defeated in Norway, France, Greece, Crete and the western desert, they endured until America came in and joined in the liberation of Western Europe.

Yet, at war's end in 1945, Britain was bled and bankrupt, and the great cause of Churchill's life, preserving his beloved empire, was lost. Because of the "Good War" Britain would never be great again.

And were the means used by the Allies, the terror bombing of Japanese and German cities, killing hundreds of thousands of women and children, perhaps millions, the marks of a "good war"?

Cohen contends that the evil of the Holocaust makes it a "good war." But the destruction of the Jews of Europe was a consequence of this war, not a cause. As for the Japanese atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, they were indeed horrific.

But America's smashing of Japan led not to freedom for China, but four years of civil war followed by 30 years of Maoist madness in which 30 million Chinese perished.

For America, the war was Pearl Harbor and Midway, Anzio and Iwo Jima, Normandy and Bastogne, days of glory leading to triumph and the American Century.

But for Joseph Stalin, it was also a good war. From his pact with Adolf Hitler he annexed parts of Finland and Rumania, and three Baltic republics. His armies stood in Berlin, Prague and Vienna; his agents were vying for power in Rome and Paris; his ally was installed in North Korea; his protégé, Mao, was about to bring China into his empire. But it was not so good a war for the inmates of Kolyma or the Russian POWs returned to Stalin in Truman's Operation Keelhaul.

Is a war that replaces Hitler's domination of Europe with Stalin's and Japan's rule in China with Mao's a "good war"? We had to stop the killers, says Cohen. But who were the greater killers: Hitler or Stalin, Tojo or Mao Zedong?

Can a war in which 50 million perished and the Christian continent was destroyed, half of it enslaved, a war that has advanced the death of Western civilization, be truly celebrated as a "good war"?

[Ash]

The very fact that you even bothered to ask this ridiculous question proves how ignorant you are.  (my karma better not drop from 202 for saying that)

I am inclined to give you negative karma but I won't...
Because I feel, like many others here, that based on your previous posts, you are truly misguided and/or f***ed up in the head.

[ulthar]

What's the point of this discussion?

Is it to argue that the Allies should have not gotten invovled after Germany invaded Poland?

In answer to all the "was it worth it questions" that are asked, the only correct context is to ask "would it have been worth it to do nothing?"

Would the world be a better place now if Germany and the Third Reich been allowed to free reign to conquor?

In other words, I find discussions like these pointless - a bunch of gasbag speculation coming from people who see the world in one dimension.

[lester1/2jr]

Why are you guys so hostile?  it's just a discussion. 

ash- I'm the one who is going to get the negative karma so don't worry! 


if you can try to read a little of the piece not just the title

[Ash]

Lester...there is a reason why you have 0 karma.
Learn when to take a hint and don't pursue this topic any further.

[lester1/2jr]

lol cuz YOU say so?  fat chance.  most boards don't have karma and I don't care about it

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

It beats being nuked by crazy Adolf in 1954, every minority and free thinker in America systematically slaughtered in camps, paying percentages of what's left of our GNP to Germania for 50 years before they crumble beneath their own excesses, Japan raping and slaughtering all of East Asia, the Pacific, and raids on the US West Coast during the Hitler nuking.  But that's just me.

[clockworkcanary]

I knew who started this thread just by the title.

[RCMerchant]

 This is insane. Lester-you seem like an intelligent guy. And I really do understand where your coming from-sometimes-but this is totally off the wall.  NO war is good. ALL war has consequences...good and bad. That's the breaks. But appeasment of Nazi Germany would have been totally INSANE. Hitler was a rascist power hungary mainiac,the Holocaust would have been worse. YOU would not be sitting here typing your opinion on this that and the other. YOU would be dead!  Do you think a facist state would allow you the freedom to spout your thoughts in a public forum?  WWII was not caused by the US...it was ended by us. What happened afterwards ,in many cases,was unfortunate...but I don't think Poland,for example, would have been better off if Hitler expaned his Warsaw Ghetto into the rest of the country!!! Hitler,Mussolini,Stalin...all power hungry meglomaniacs. Some people should die. Those 3 were EVIL.

To answer your question-'Was it a good war?" NO. NO WAR IS GOOD. Was it a nessacary evil? YES. We,as a country,to stand by and do nothing while the Axis butchered millions? We did the right thing. Many died. But I am PROUD to say that my country saved the world. We didn't fix it...but dammit,we DID fight the GOOD FIGHT.

You claim to promote Capitalism? Do you think Stalin would NOT have gained what he did...if not MORE, if we had not interceeded?
What were we supposed to do? Sit on our f#cking hands?!?!? C'mon! Be real!!!

[raj]

Yes, yes it was worth it.  Ask the Korean "comfort women" who were liberated from practically round the clock raping.  Ask Eli Weisel or any of the other hundreds of thousands liberated from Auschwitz, etc.

A better question to ask is why France and Britain didn't challenge Hitler early on when he rearmed in violation of the Treaty of Versailles or why they appeased him with the Sudetenland.  Even if they had checked him, Japan was on the march and going to clash with the US anyhow.  Japan attacked us in large part because we stopped shipping them oil and steel, should we have appeased Tokyo by continuing to supply its war machine in its conquest of eastern Asia?  If so, would/did you support doing business with Apartheid era South Africa.

BTW, Pat Buchanan is a populist, isolationist, borderline anti-semite.   He wants to believe we are living in the 19th century.  I wouldn't quote him on anything.

[ulthar]

Why are you guys so hostile?  it's just a discussion. 

Lester,

For the record, my comments were aimed at the authors of the articles you mentioned, not at you.  I think those kinds of articles are pointless, since they create a false dichotomy.

[lester1/2jr]

first, let me say I posted this becausee the topic of ww2 is sometimes brought up by me and others and it is a sort of figure of speech as a "good war".  Both my grandfathers fought in it, onee dropped bombs on german cities. 

   At a certain point, like when hitler declared war on us, we had little choice but to enter.  My main point is about he pre war statecraft:  specifically the treaty of versailles.  The massive debt put on post war germany led to hyperinflation, what zimbabwe has now, where a loaf of bread costs 4000 dollars then 5000 by the time you get to the front of the line.  Hitler emerged as a false saviour out of this tumultous experience.  i dare say there would NOT have been a nazi party had their not been hyperinflation.  and there would not have been hyperinflation had the allies post ww1 not imposed such insurmountable debt on the people of germany.


I'd further ad that had we not intervened at operation barabarossa, stalin and hitler would have in all likelihood fought each other to a standstill, possibly sparing the continent of europe of both of those monsters. 

raj

Ask the Korean "comfort women"

okay, but we didn't enter the conflict to free those women.  it was in response to pearl harbor.  That happened in no small part because of our cutting of oil to Japan as you note.

things don't happen for no reason.  it wasn't just we were smashing evil.  things led to world war 2 and, again, it wasn't just evil men. 

should we have appeased Tokyo by continuing to supply its war machine in its conquest of eastern Asia?

that's a good point. i don't know the answer to that.

Pat Buchanan is a populist, isolationist, borderline anti-semite.

I am also an isolationist, except for the revolutionary war and the souths se cession in 1861, but we'll leave that for another day.  I'm not a populist or anti semite though

Do you think a facist state would allow ..

stalin didn't allow it but we sided with him.  containing the USSR was no mean feat, it took decades.  I doubt the prisoners at kolyma and places likee that were glad Stalin became their judge and jury.

What were we supposed to do? Sit on our f#cking hands

what did somalia do?  what did brazil do?  are they bad people because they didn't send their kids to die? 

Hitler,Mussolini,Stalin

FDR took some pretty extreme measures as well.  thankfully, our constitution prevented him from fully implementing his crazy ideas, though we do suffer the stain of having interred japanese people. 

tars-  anything stalin and mao did puts that stuff to shame and it went on for decades. 





but thank you all for indulging me here and I'll stick to lighter fare next time around.

again, at a certain point we had to fight. 

My main concern is that i feel the official narraive of this conflict is lacking in facts and leans heavily on nationalism and myth making.

[indianasmith]

Without commenting on Buchanan's essay, let me challenge you to read Harry Turtledove's chilling alternative history novel IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES for a view of a world in which Germany won World War II.  Or, perhaps Thomas Harris' FATHERLAND.  One is set early in the 21st Century, the other in the 1960's.  Both provide a cogent rationale for our involvement and intervention.

As far as Hiroshima and Dresden and all the rest . . . Hitler started the mass bombing of purely civilian targets with the terror bombing of Coventry, and he reaped what he sowed.  The Atomic bombs that ended the war were truly horrible, but they saved more lives than they took.  One of the lives they saved was my Dad's.  He was 19 years old and scheduled to go ashore in the second wave of the invasion of Japan.  Based on the casualties taken at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, his wave was expected to have a survival rate of 1 out of every 132.  That's right.  One out of 132 American boys who went ashore would walk away without being killed or wounded.  What would you have done if you had been in Truman's shoes?

[ER]

I will agree this far: all war is obscene, all war is evil, yet sometimes going to war represents the lesser obscenity, the lesser evil.

The Second World War rid planet earth of Nazism and Japanese Imperialism. This in itself justifies Allied involvement in World War Two, but if further justification was needed, then it should be remembered that both Germany and Japan (along with Italy) declared war on the United States before the United States declared war on them. The Soviet Union, though hardly an innocent, non-violent nation prior to June 22, 1941, was likewise the victim of German invasion. In short, the west had this war thrust upon it. When attacked by tyrannical totalitarian states, what other logical choice is there but to fight back?

I'll also submit that in our Mideast versus the west struggles we are perhaps involved today in the Third World War and have been for some time now, though we don't recognize this and it will take historians of the future to give our pan-global and so far low intensity conflicts that label.

You know, I have to say it, with our fondness for waging ever more destructive wars, our embracing of violence, our rampant consumption of finite resources, our misuse of other species, the human race might just be the worst thing ever to happen to this little blue planet.

[Zapranoth]

Looking back on Buchanan's essay, I guess I'd have to agree with the questions others have raised.  What would the cost of our uninvolvement have been?    I am no WWII scholar so have little to add, except that neither I nor anyone who is a friend of mine has ever used the phrase "good war," and I would heap criticism on anyone who did.