The Situation Room: Buchanan and Hitler
By Nicole Belle Wednesday May 28, 2008 11:00am 
Politics makes strange bedfellows, as the old saying goes. Former presidential candidate and current professional Republican pundit Pat Buchanan is one of the few voices on the right that agrees with us on the left about the uselessness of the Iraq invasion and occupation. Unfortunately, to arrive at the same conclusion we have, Buchanan has to hop on the bus to CrazyTown, by way of Isolationist-Ville via the Godwin Express.
Buchanan has written a new book: Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War where he places blame for the Holocaust and WWII at an unconventional target: Winston Churchill. Though I can't claim to be a history buff to say definitively, Buchanan's reasoning is a little shaky at best. All this time, I thought it was Hitler that caused the Holocaust. Who knew?
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Somehow, Buchanan manages to pull from this Godwin nightmare that had England not promised to save Poland, Hitler would not have exterminated 6 million Jews, and like that unnecessary World War II, the lesson that we should take from that is that Bush is making similar imperialistic entries and taking us into an unnecessary war in Iraq.
Like I said, we arrived at that conclusion without the detour into CrazyTown.
Full Transcripts below the fold...
Joining us now from our studios in New York is Pat Buchanan. He is the author of a brand-new big entitled, "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War." Britain lost its empire and the West lost the world.
Pat, thanks very much for joining us.
PAT BUCHANAN, FORMER GOP PRES. CANDIDATE: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: You make the case there would have been no Hitler, there would have been no World War II, there would have been no holocaust albeit in effect for Winston Churchill. What's the point?
BUCHANAN: Well the point of this is obviously Hitler came out of World War I and the tearing apart of Germany but what I am saying is, had Britain not given an insane war guarantee to Poland and then go on the war on behalf of a Poland it could not save, I don't think there would have been any war in Europe. I don't think there would have been a war against the western democracy. At the very least, all the Jews of Western Europe would have survived. That's basically one of the cases we make.
BLITZER: Here's what you write on page 421. Let me read it to you.
"Rather than follow the wisdom of conservative men like Kennan, Eisenhower and Reagan, we began to emulate every folly of imperial Britain in her plunge from power. With all our braying about being the indispensable nation and bring them on bravado (ph), we exhibited an imperial hubris the whole world came to detest."
You're implying that the same mistakes that Churchill made that you suggest he made between World War I and World War II President Bush has been making now.
BUCHANAN: That's right, Wolf. What I'm saying is this. Basically the blunders the British made in alienating allies, in pushing enemies together or rivals together and turning them into enemies, in cutting off alliances, in giving war guarantees they could not defend, the United States has been emulating itself. Just has Britain gave a foolish war guarantee to Poland it could not honor and did not honor in the end, the United States is giving war guarantees to Poland, the Baltic Republicans. We're thinking of giving a NATO war guarantee to Ukraine and to Georgia.
Secondly, the United States is engaging in wars I think are unnecessary wars.
BLITZER: You speak specifically about the war in Iraq which you think has been a horrible blunder.
BUCHANAN: I think the war in Iraq was quite clearly an unnecessary war. Saddam Hussein did not attack us, did no threaten us, want war with us, and we went to war with him to deprive him of weapons he did not have.
BLITZER: You would agree --
BUCHANAN: It was an unnecessary war.
BLITZER: You agree with Scott McClellan who in his new book, the former White House press secretary writes, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary and the Iraq war was not necessary." It's not shocking to hear you say that. It is pretty shocking to hear a former White House press secretary imply, suggest that 4,000 American troops, $600 billion, $700 billion have been squandered for nothing.
BUCHANAN: You've got to ask why Scott McClellan didn't resign, for heavens sakes. He said basically that the Bush White House and the others were propagandizing for war, cherry picking information, making the case as a prosecutor would for a war in which Scott McClellan did not believe. I would wonder why a man would participate in something like that if he disbelieved in the cause and in the war, Wolf. I can't explain that. I haven't read his book. But I have read what he said.
BLITZER: John McCain says the United States will never surrender in Iraq. He wants to win. Can the United States do what McCain says?
BUCHANAN: I think it's possible, Wolf. There's no question about it. The surge has worked. Maliki has taken down. Sadr City and Basra. There's a possibility you could have a Shia government which could deal with the Sunnis and could get dominance over the south of Iraq. I say it's possible. It may be probable. I'm not certain. I do think it's far more possible now than it was in 2006 when the Iraq report came in saying we were losing the war and catastrophe impended. It doesn't impend right now.
BLITZER: We asked our viewers to send in some I-reports. We told them you were going to be on the show. We asked them if they had any questions. This would be a good way to pose their questions. We got this I-report from John Carol. He says he plans to vote for Obama. Listen to his question.
JOHN CAROL, IREPORT QUESTION: I wanted to hear your thoughts on an idea I had to allow every Canadian, U.S., and Mexican citizen the right to work in any of these three countries, sort of a NAFTA labor union that would match to some degree what the Europeans are doing with the European Union.
BLITZER: The point being you live in Europe, if you're a member of the EU you can work in any of those countries, he says we should do the same thing in America.
BUCHANAN: Those European countries are not being allowed to vote in Britain are surrendering their national sovereignty, independence. That fellow's a Canadian as I understand it. Americans fought and died from 1775 to 1881 in enormous numbers to make us a sovereign, independent, free republic forever. I believe in free trade with Canada. I don't agree with the NAFTA agreement. I do insist and most Americans will insist we maintain our sovereignty, our independence, our unique culture, language and borders.
BLITZER: Let me get back to the book now because we're almost out of time. I want you to explain the notion that you have that Hitler would have never come to power, there would have been anti- Semitism, to be sure, but there wouldn't have been the extermination of 6 million Jews. Because that's going to cause a lot of controversy, this notion you have that, in effect, Churchill was responsible for the chain of events that led to the Holocaust.
BUCHANAN: Churchill was not -- Chamberlain made the decision to give the war guarantee to Poland.
Here's my view, Wolf. I've read and studied Hitler. One thing he did not want was war with the British Empire. He admired it. He respected it. He never wanted war with it. He wanted to make an ally of it. Had Chamberlain at the goading of Churchill not given a war guarantee to Poland, Britain would not have had to go to war on behalf of Poland. It's because Britain declared on Germany that Germany came west. That's the reason Germany had basically hostages of everybody in Western Europe from the --
BLITZER: Hitler had plans of exterminating the Jews in the '30s, a lot earlier.
BUCHANAN: Wolf, I have not seen any plans of extermination. Hitler went genocidal after the invasion of Russia was broken down in Russia, after he declared war on the United States, and he was looking to defeat in the face. It was at that point that the conference was held, Wolf. As you know, that was in January of 1942.
BLITZER: What about all the anti-Semitic laws, all those Jews who were rounded up starting in the 30s in Germany?
BUCHANAN: Look, there's no doubt Hitler was anti-Semitic from the time even before he wrote camp. What we're talking about, when you mention the Holocaust, for heaven sakes, is genocide. You're not talking about anti-Semitism. It was anti-Semitism in Poland in those years. There's no doubt that Nuremburg laws were in 1935. They were dreadful. As a consequence, half the Jews had left Germany before November 1938. Another half fled after that. They were outside Germany with the curtain fell.
What Hitler did was a monstrous crime, Wolf. It was a war crime. Had there been no war, there would have been no holocaust in my judgment.
BLITZER: All right. Pat Buchanan has written a provocative book, "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War." Pat, thanks very much for joining us.
BUCHANAN: Thank you as always, Wolf.
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The (crazy) context for this is the bogus idea that Germany was in some manner defending itself in attacking Poland and even in its treatment of Jews. Right-wing German historians have made this argument. It's called the Historiker Streit. This argument has been demolished--quelle surprise. It's a shameful argument. Again, I'm shocked.
Adolf Buchanan should be banned from the ariwaves.
Make that airwaves.
lilybelle @ 1:
Tone clarification: Of course I'm not shocked to see Pat Buchanan make a crypto-fascist or not even so crypto-fascist argument. This is what he has often done.
notice how pat(sy) slips in the 'the surge was a success' PR/talking point... chat, chat, chatter away
and, slightly OT, did anyone see lawrence o'donnell absolutely, without remorse, no quarter-like, take down buchanan last night? wow.... i have never seen anyone actually hold buchanan responsible for his part in the nixon crime syndicate.
My German is an awesome German!
What's really sad is that real historians are going to have to take the time to tell everyone what we already know, that Pat is full of shit.
After buchanan's 1988 they're not Americans speech at the republican convention, I expected the crowd to break out singing Deutschland Uber Alles.
What's the difference between Deutsch and douche
Or for that matter a vinegar douche and the malted vinegar I put on my fish and chips?
Buchanan is making a common logical error.
Just because two thing happened one after another doesn't mean the first is the cause of the second.
Blaming the Holocaust on the Allied forces simply shows the level of ignorance (stupidity?) Buchanan possess on forming logical thought and forming reasonable conclusion.
How is this clown a public figure?
Your right Samson, Watching O'Donnell tear Pat a knew one was Awesome. I don't think I have ever seen Buchanan speechless. Wonder what Baye has been doing lately? Still pining for Romney I'll bet.
I think that McCellans book will have more sales.
curtilingus @ 6:
How is that germaine to the subject?
Mein Kampf perhaps?
You know, the problem with publishing books like Why Johnny Can't Think is that some wingnut gets their hands on it and realizes that no one will know what the heck they are talking about and they can just make stuff up...now Buchanan is blaming the one guy who stood up to Hitler for the Holocaust? Unfrickingbelievable!
Actually, it was all the fault of South American sea-bird sh*t, because if they hadn't lain so much guano down on the coasts of South America (especially Chile), the Germans wouldn't have had all the chemical precursors for ammunition they needed until synthetics were invented.
Pat is easier to read than to listen to, that's for sure.
This is one of those times for me when I must remind myself that it is better to be thought a fool than to open ones mouth and prove it. My knowledge of WWII is downright pathetic, so I'll just sit this one out and read what more knowledgeable commentators here have to say.
Wow! Let's rewrite history so that we can use our Appeaser campaing against Obama!!!
What a nice little trooper you are Pat.
Or to Jermaine Jackson?
Samson- @ 5:
heard it was awesome. looking forward to seeing it somewhere on the toobz.
Oh well, another day, another toilet paper book being pimped by a fat ass career bullshit artist making blood money off of war.
pissed off patricia @ 15:
Well, this much I know to be true.
WWII and the Holocaust was Hitler's fault.
Once again Pat reminds the world he's Bay's brother.
It thought it was Wilt Chamberlain's fault.
churchill responsible for the holocaust uh huh...buchanan sure takes the different view of history... it's pretty much established that the jews were going to be exterminated from the get go.
Good thing O'Donnell and Maddow have been around lately or Pat would've caused my TV to suffer from a severe case of brickitis.
Blue Lensman @ 24:
Pat may be responsible for a lot of stuff but I'm not going to let him destroy my TV by proxy. Control, control, self control.
Winston Churchill was no saint, Nicole. His country was being ravaged by the Nazis, and in an effort to save England, he wooed FDR, who was sympathetic but more beholden to the anti-war sentiment of US citizens.
Ultimately, Churchill and FDR essentially baited the Nazis (at sea), who took the bait, and sunk a US ship escorting a British ship across the pond. The reaction was sort of like how we felt when the WTC was, er, attacked.
I haven't read Buchanan's book, but Churchill did his part in bringing the USA into the conflict with Germany.
It's all ugly. I'm no longer shocked at the activities of men in power.
buchanan is nothing more than a toxic fungus that seems to live within the walls of all the cable news channels ...........
Well, you can't blame Buchanan for looking back fondly on the pre-WWII colonial days. I mean really, wasn't the world at it's best when all the European countries had parts of the 3rd world under their beneficial control? Africa, Indochina, South America never had it so good. That Gandhi guy? I heard Buchanan on MSNBC this morning saying if they hadn't had a war and the British had just shot Gandhi, they'd still have an Empire.
Then Churchill & Hitler had to get into that silly war and screw up a good thing. Like any superior European, of course Buchanan is upset, aren't you?
Buchanan is an unreconstructed anti-Semite who believes "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Man these whores will write anything to sell a book.
Former presidential candidate and current professional Republican pundit Pat Buchanan is one of the few voices on the right that agrees with us on the left about the uselessness of the Iraq invasion and occupation.
He agrees but for different reasons.
Typical right wing ignorance of history...
Even more shocking is how openly venemous the right is towards FDR....Granted his incarceration of Japanese Americans was a disgrace, but he was a far better leader than anything the Republicans offered the last century...
Hitler and the Nazis's hatred of the jews had nothing to do with England! Is Bucannon out of his gourd? The whole basis of Hitler's philosophy was a hatred of Jews, that dates back to the 1920s, if not before....
One would think the right wing would understand their fellow right winger, Adolph Hitler, seeing how they share similar triats, i.e singling out an entire group of people to hate. Hitler hated all Jews, all gypsies, all communists. American wingnuts hate all immigrants, all gays, all latinos, etc)
There are a shocking number of wingnuts who feel the US should only have fought Japan in ww2, and not Germany- They seem to forget Germany declared war on us-
El Cid @ 14:
but, had god not created the south american sea-bird, and provided it a way to dispell its biological waste, then the sea-bird wouldn't exist, and couldn't shit, thus no poop, thus no chemies, thus no holocaust...
hey, maybe hagee is right, the holocaust was a god-thing!!!
/snark off
(good one el cid)
Words almost fail me. The plan to kill the Jewish identity goes back before the the British promise to Poland. It goes back to Hitler's book Mein Kampf, where he writs about his vision of the future. The Nazi Party, before it came to power and after was planning and putting into practice those plans needed to identify the Jewish populations in Germany and in the rest of Europe. They also had plans to identify by religion, profession, race and other factors all the populations in the other nations of Europe. This was done with the use of tabulating equipment provided by IBM under the supervision of Thomas Watson Sr. The start of the destruction of European Jewry was already underway by the time Poland was invaded in september 1939. By this time all Jewish professionals had been removed from the positions in these professions, and in many cases forced to flee the country or were arrested and placed in detentions centers, which soon became much more than that. What the Nazis did was to use modern methods to identify their enemies and to isolate them to use them and to destroy them in the end. The path to this goal started long before the German invasion of Poland.
Lollimom @ 26:
Let's not forget the antisemetic sentiment of some US citizens...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Coughlin
Nicole - how can you be writing about this when Rachel Ray is wearing a terrorist scarf! Priorities!
Christ, no wonder I'm jaded. Listening to these blowhards is making me nuts.
Wonder if NBC can't wait until his contract ends, or is desperate to renew?
I thought it was all the marx brothers fault
Did anyone see "Verdict with Dan Abrams" last night? Lawrence O'Donnell NAILED Pat Buchannon several times about his role in the Nixon administration. He had Pat grabbing his coffee cup to mask the look on his face while he took the beating. Awesome.
What are the odds Liberman will praise the book?
The Other Ed @ 27:
except, "the world at it's best when all the European countries had parts of the 3rd world under their beneficial control" is still ongoing today.
instead of classical colonialism, the core countries have 'evolved' to neocolonialism, where the same colonial yoke is placed on "developing" countries by way of financial imperialism (structural adjustment, IMF, trade policies, etc).
Buchanan should be packing his bags for Bejing as the U.S. entry in mental gymnastics.
this is not ignorance...nor is it an excersice in hypothetical masturbation
buchanan was and is a jew hater
does anyone have any doubts now that in 2000, no way would a jew in palm beach county vote for this man?
everyone agrees that as a result of the policies towards germany post ww1, that allowed the nazi rise to power....but only pat is saying that poland shouldve been handed to hitler, and only pat is saying that churchill is to blame for the holocaust
his next book will be about the myth of the holocaust
his book after that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that ww2 and all wars since all came about because of the jew
he is an evil little man
Lollimom @ 26:
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941). The U.S. and Britain declared war on Japan (Dec. 8, 1941). Germany declared war on the U.S (Dec. 11, 1941). In that order.
Whenever I hear Pat Buchanan say anything, I can't help but think of what the late, great, Molly Ivins said about his 1988
Republican Con-vention speech:
"It sounded better in its original German"
DaveK @ 43:
Very true,
but remember the US gave considerable assistance to the allied cause before that, admittedly quite a bit by being paid in the majority of the worlds gold reserves, but still, I won't take that away, it was needed.
V for Vonnegut @ 44:
Boy, I miss Molly.
DaveK @ 43:
Not talking about Japan. Dates are meaningless; the important stuff is what prompts attacks and declarations of war.
I'm no historian, and Churchill was no saint (nor was FDR, for that matter).
Pat's a moron. #44's comment was terrific & closes the case
for Pat's sanity hearing. :-)
One could argue that EVERY war in human history was unnecessary.
Johhny Wand @ 30:
no, what he is saying is that it was the war that made him kill the jews
in doing so, he is denying the fact that from the outset of the creation of the concentration camps, a main goal for those camps was the elimination (ie murder) of millions of undesirables....long before germany started losing the war
btw, had pat been alive and in germany at that time, he wouldve been put to death, cuz hitler also ordered the murder of all the mentally handicapped
Lollimom @ 47:
Nobody baited hitler to war. He did basically the same thing shrub co. did to the US.
He stole power. Found a scapegoat to blame everything on. Geared the entire country for war and assured them it was coming so they had to be ready. Of course it was coming. He was going to start it. Then he proceeded to take over every surrounding country and with every new conquest he assured the rest of the world that it was the last one.. really.. honest this time.
If you think he was going to stop then you and Chamberlain would have been great friends.
No one is saying churchill was a saint. But he most certainly did not bait anyone into war. He was trying to stop hitler because unlike a lot of other people he had a much better idea of what was going on in germany.
Dates do matter.
So does Japan.
V for Vonnegut @ 44:
I can't believe he's still around and people still listen to him. He didn't bus there... he's the bleeping MAYOR of crazytown.
I'll confess first off that i clearly don't have the sage's wisdom that Pat has (regarding World War 2), but i seem to remember that Hitler's utopian vision was an Aryan, Jew-free world...
Christ almighty...
I really shouldn't be surprised -- though i am somewhat suprised that i didn't hear "Churchill and his Jewish financiers" pass through his greasy little lips).... it's been my experience that when you come across a right-winger who is against the war, against free trade, etc., it usually means one of two things: A) they've had a bit of sense knocked in to them over the past several years, or B) They are of the freakishly ultra-nationalist, "Get yer guns boys, the coloreds and the communists at the UN are a'comin!" stripe.
Please Pat... just go away. Just crawl into your bunker and take the cyanide so that you can join your buddies in the "whites only" section of heaven.
It would be funny if i was kidding.
Honest to god, i can't stand these people.
MargeAggedon @ 51:
Oh please. I'm not going to respond to these comments anymore, as you folks have selective memories when it comes to facts.
If you want to ignore some facts and cite others, fine. But to say that Churchill/FDR did not bait anybody is ridiculous.
Now all you have to do is label me a Nazi sympathizer. Go for it.
Mike the Canuck @ 37:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOzG7bBylRo
Buchanan sounds like he just "fell off the turnip truck". What a wus!!
His elevator stops at the 13th floor.
Mike the Canuck @ 37:
And Charlie Chaplin ...
I think I would blame the Treaty of Versailles much more strongly than any entangling alliances that Britain entered into as the cause of resurgent German nationalism and Hitler's power grab. Once Hitler was in charge of Germany, the ball was rolling down the hill and bad shit was going to happen. But the population was radicalized (not entirely, but enough for Hitler) by the world punishing it for WWI. With technological expertise and land, Germany could rebuild and rearm quickly, and war became inevitable.
So Patty-patty-buch-buch is on to something in that we should look at historical factors when saying "how did WWII happen," but (IMO) way off on which ones are paramount.
A big steaming bowl of horse crap, You have to wonder what goes through his mind, Ah-oh here comes another acid flash-back in history, the colors, oh the colors.--ceo
Hey, Buchanan's RIGHT!!! I read all those same books he read, and here's how I remember it:
When Hitler decided to start rounding up the Jews in their Happy Fun Time Camps, Churchill was like, No, Hitler, they must pay for their crimes of big noses and work 16 hours a day! Put them in concentration camps!
And Hitler was like, NO WAY, the Jews need marshmallows and pie!
And Churchill was like, Well, Me and Poland are gonna freeze your underwears while you sleeps!
And Hitler was like, The hell you say!
And Churchill started spraying the Jews with flesh-eating bugs and they started screaming for their savior Hitler, and Hitler showed them great mercy by burning them in huge ovens.
If it weren't for that dag-gum Churchill, those Jews would still be eating marshmallows and pie in their Happy Fun Time Camps!
Buchanan '08!
If I recall correctly, A.J.P. Taylor's "The Origins of the Second World War" kind of took that position too. I don't think he specifically said the holocaust wouldn't have happened, but in regards to Jews he stated Hitler's anti-semitism wasn't too different than millions of other Germans/Austrians, etc.. Taylor was/is a respected historian so his book caused a bit of a stir. While I didn't agree with the book when I read it, it raised some interesting points.
Shheee, I always thought that the "Acting under orders" defence at the Nuremburg war crimes trails was lame, but how come nobody at the trials put forward this as a defence?
Buchanan is sort of ok (meaning that I wince at certain parts of his argument, but can't really fault him objectively) until his last statement "It was a war crime. Had there been no war, there would have been no holocaust "
That is sophistry. The holocaust would have occurred with or without a war - Hitler made his intentions clear in Mein Kampf. That it occurred during wartime makes it a "war crime", had it occurred during peacetime it would not have been a "war crime"
But it still would have been genocide or the more accurate term a "crime against humanity".
Buchanan is running a denialist argument. (And it sounds just as bad in the original German)
PS - I can fault him actually. The idea that Churchill "goaded" Chamberlain into issuing the September ultimatum in defence of Poland and then declaring war - what Buchanan elides as "a war guarantee" - is risable. Chamberlain came to his senses in March 1939 when he realized that Hitler had duped him at Munich and began the British rearmament. He then went to war in September when he realized he had no real choice. Churchill was gingering him from the sidelines at that point, but it was the circumstances that provoked Chamberlain to act.
Decorated war vet Buchanan speaks.
Its just bad history, period. Hitler was creating lebensraum for his "pure blooded" Volk by emptying out eastern europe; besides the Jews, the Slavs, the Poles and the Russians were next on the list. They were all going to be killed or worked to death. I'm no fan of Churchill, but Buchanan's argument is just stupid. Hitler needed no provocation to engage in mass murder; he wanted the real estate and the free labor while it lasted.
Instead, why not argue that Woodrow Wilson's reckless and unwarranted intervention in WW1 gave rise to Hitler, because the US had no conceivable interest in preventing a German victory in 1917. The harm done by this blunder is incalculable, and its one that Cong. Paul and the other neo-isolationists like Buchanan strangely don't mention. But that's a genuine issue, with relevance today.
Buchanan sounds like he just "fell off the turnip truck". What a wus!!
If somebody really wants to learn about WWII - really fast - all you have to do is a "Google Search. On Google, the facts are right.
Lollimom @ 54:
ok...when did churchill say..."attack poland...i dare ya"?
ah, but what of the responsibility of the "Good Germans?"
brando @ 61:
taylor was right...it wasnt different
and that is why the germans/austrians/poles were happy that the jews started dissapearing
Lollimom @ 54:
I responded to your remarks. I called you nothing. I do get a kick out of how you use no facts, because as we know, they're irrelevant, as is japan, but then accuse everyone else of ignoring them.
You are incorrect all around. So it's good to hear you're going to stop responding.
You may want to consider looking into some of those 'facts' though. They help when you want to make sense.
AlexB @ 58:
Exactly! It was the Treaty of Versailles (ToV) and the anger and resentment resulting from it which enabled Hitler to gain power on the German nationalism above all others platform. A dynamic speaker who got the public behind him in fiercely believing that they were #1 in the world and anyone else wasn't. Of course there was the scapegoat for who created the dastardly conditions which Germany was in after WW1.
Hitler knew what he wanted to do long before he did it. I think the ToV was the original Pearl Harbor (vs. the real Pearl Harbor or the PNAC 9/11 Pearl Harbor). It was an enabling moment.
Live Frankly
But if your objective was to take over the slavic countries because you thought they were inferior and rightfully your, and the same would be true of the Jews, nothing Churchill would have done would have changed Hitlers mind about his actions. In other words, it sure is easy to be a 21st century armed chaired quarterback looking back at events 60 years ago.
And if Pat had pressed a few more palms at the Iowa cacuss he would have been president. That has about as much logic as what he says about Churchill.
Thank god we have such astute experts to explain the world to us simpletons.
It's hardly worth commenting on something so insanely ridiculous---sort of on the order of arguing if the world is round---but didn't Hitler SAY he was going to destroy all Jews in Mein Kampf, which was published long before he rose to power?
Speaking as someone who does have a BA in history (with a specialization in 20th Century history) I can say this theory is total bunk. Hitler's views and desired goals toward the Jews were mapped out beforehand in Mein Kampf, and some (albeit faltering) steps toward the full-blown Holocaust were already underway as early as 1938. The declaration of war cloaked Germany under a veil of secrecy that made full implementation of the Holocaust possible -- but to suggest that Churchill was the spark that ignited the ultimate conflagration is absurd. What's more, the Third Reich squandered vast military, industrial and logistical resources to carry out the Holocaust -- resources that would have been far better served (if you were a Nazi) by defending the country from the Allies. Wasting those resources to kill 6 million noncombatants in the midst of a war for your very survival is madness -- and a sure sign that Hitler and his minions were dead-set on genocide regardless of what Winston Churchill did or didn't do.
Buchanan's ideas challenge the orthodoxy that WWII was a "good war," and therefore they must be quashed! Just shows that the Left can be as vitriolic and closed minded to real debate as the Right ("...should be banned from the airwaves"). I'm not sure I agree fully that the Holocaust would have been avoided, but it has some standing based on history (see below). And his larger point is that we should avoid entangling alliances, which was of course the view of that "crypto-fascist" George Washington.
His ideas are hardly original...and hardly anti-Semitic. Way back in the mid-50s, Jewish American Milton Meyer went to Germany to interview Germans who had lived through the rise and fall of the Nazi Party. Here is an excerpt from his book They Thought They Were Free, quoting a fellow academic:
"Once the war began, the government could do anything ‘necessary’ to win it; so it was with the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem,’ which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its ‘necessities’ gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong."
Again, not sure I agree fully, but it's a point worthy of reasoned debate. Those who claim to "know" Buchanan's idea to be "bogus" etc. show their intellectual vacuity.
Moggy @ 76:
Exactly.
And from everything I've ever read and learned about WWII Churchill did everything he could to stop hitler before the miserable !$@#&^ got it rolling even to the detriment of his own political career and social status. There were those who wanted to give hitler what he wanted so he'd go away. Churchill knew that wasn't going to happen and capitulation was the wrong path. Who knows what they could have stopped if they had listened to Churchill first.
katie @ 60:
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I love this :D Excellent!