Quote:


Let me note first that I am no lover of Patrick Buchanan or David Irving, and I only know N. Baker from his last anti-Bush novel.

However, Hitchens is correct in his evaluation of US-UK politics.  It was a stipulation, directly from Roosevelt to Churchill, that the cost of the Lend-Lease bailout would be the dismantling of Britain's colonial empire and the UN support of nationalism.  Roosevelt was apparently not the originator of this, as it was carried on after his death under Truman's admin (and FDR never thought Truman worthy of including in any war briefings).

The upshot of the empire's dismantling was US military and surveillance proximity to Soviet satellite nations and the USSR itself, from former British turf.  This, along with the long Cold War, *may* have been the endgame of FDR's backers in US-international banking.  It may have been the point of FDR's early courting of Stalin, of his insistence that only he understood and could play "Uncle Joe," and of his shutout of Churchill's overtures to Stalin at Yalta.  On the same business trip, FDR also shut out Churchill from US negotiations with Ibn Saud for aid in exchange for oil and military rights in Arabia.  Consider also Eisenhower's refusal to permit Anthony Eden to use the British military to take back the Suez in the Egyptian nationalization crisis.  See Paul Johnson's excellent study of the 20th century, "Modern Times," and ex-CIA officer Robert Baer's recent precis on the Saudi meeting in "Sleeping with the Devil."

In its day (and in the years before 1917), US entry into WW I was widely perceived by the Left in the US as a fight to protect US investments in Europe.  I myself am interested in Buchanan's thesis that WW I and WW II are the same conflict redux, as the upshot of both was a repartitioning of Europe (and, at Versailles, 1919, the Middle East and western Central Asia).  After WW II, the 1919 repartitioning co-opted from Woodrow Wilson's idealism by David Lloyd George of England and Clemenceau of France was adapted by the US to serve its own petroleum needs, and the requisites of the long Cold War game of bankrupting the Soviets.

As I have made manifest, I tend to agree with Hitchens' suggestion that a Pearl Harbor-style incident was used to create paranoid support for the latest grab of land, resources, and governments.  In 1917, suspicion of the motives of the Great War could not be immediately laid to rest in the US citizenry by the sinking of the Lusitania, which only resulted in the persecution and even lynching of German-Americans in podunk towns of the midwest.  It took Wilson's 1917 revelation to Congress of the infamous Zimmerman telegram, timed to coincide with the abdication of the Czar and the impending withdrawal of Russia from the war, to get the US to declare war on Germany.  "Infamous" as in the infamous "attacks" at Pearl, the Gulf of Tonkin, the WTC/Pentagon.
   

sirmoonie wrote on May 28^th, 2008 at 3:24pm:



Your assertion is belied by the historical record.  I bet you still believe the Lusitania was an innocent ship also.....more myths foisted on us by those who seek to rewrite history.

lotsajizz wrote on May 28^th, 2008 at 7:36pm:

In very brief form, my understanding of the historical record is that after losing World War I, Germans decided to expand their territory and began systematically invading neighboring countries and exterminating or enslaving the inhabitants.  The underlying basis for this violence and conquest was a belief in some kind of German racial superiority (thereby adding the only humorous bit to the saga the ruined the lives of hundreds of millions of people) and entitlement.  None of this was secret, it was shouted by their duly elected leaders for years.  Things were atrocious in the countries that Germans decided to invade (Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, and others), as the inhabitants were considered inferior people or "Untermenschen" and treated in like fashion.  Along the way, it was decided that the entire Jewish race should be exterminated, and progress was made toward that goal even before, as you, Peter Hitchens, and the Pope believe, Churchill decided to start World War II. 

There is absolutely no evidence, as you suggest there is, that this behavior would stop on its own at any time.  Why the hell would it?  Its entire purpose, in and of itself, was to keep expanding.  My view, which is the significant majority view now, is that German cultural model would be a threat to civilization as we know it, and knew it then.  I guess you either agree with that or not.

lotsajizz wrote on May 28^th, 2008 at 7:46pm:


He meant the Welsh.

gimmekeef wrote on May 29^th, 2008 at 10:09am:

Jizz is enjoying the luxury of baseless hypothetical theories - no way to actually prove him wrong.  But even assuming Germans only wanted to kill and enslave the entire Eastern half of Europe for their Lebensraum, and then magically stop just because they were completely satiated, wouldn't it still be a good idea to challenge that?  I mean, surely there are some human and moral principles involved in this somewhere?  And wouldn't the world be a lot different and a lot more miserable if that had been allowed to happen?  Its all ridiculous in any case, its clear exactly what Germany wanted to do based on the many words of its elected leaders, its actions, and the actions of the partners it acted in concert with.  These people thought it was a good idea to spend time, energy, national resources, and $$$$$ building human extermination camps, ffs.

!!!!!!!!

" what's next? prohibition? pay the bill for the mini bar? ....  "



What ?!   :


!!!!!!!!

lotsajizz wrote on May 29^th, 2008 at 3:33pm:


Your argument hinges on Hitler being a rational thinker dedicated to his previous writings.History would suggest a lunatic capable of heinous crimes with no thought of compromise.Stalin and Mao were no saints either of course but Hitler had to go first.We just should have reloaded Patton and let him roll east.

Any one suggesting to read more of "Mein Kampf" or David Irving....


(During the trial, an English court found that Irving was an "active Holocaust denier," as well as an antisemite and racist, and that he "associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism."[3] The judge also ruled that Irving had "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence."[3][4]

He served a prison sentence in Austria from February to December 2006 for glorifying and identifying with the German Nazi Party, which is a crime in Austria under section 3g of the Verbotsgesetz law. )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving

...should get their head examined and consider to have a swastika tattooed to their forehead.

FUCK IT 

open-g wrote on May 29^th, 2008 at 7:22pm:

HAHA!!  It's that David Irving??  I didn't catch that reference amid all the other confused garbage Hitchens was trying to say.  Holy fuck, what an idiotic article.  No wonder his brother doesn't talk to him.

come now G...you have to read MK to understand hitler.

just happens to be the most longwinded, crappily written piece of trash in the history of stringing words together...but until you've read it, you can't understand why what sean says is true.

lotsajizz wrote on May 29^th, 2008 at 9:06pm:


Childish?.   Hey buddy I have a masters in political science and studied history.Your whole argument is naive and based on your personal observations and thoughts.You have an opinion..great..now respect those that have different opinions.

Ich bin beides - deutscher und engländer zugleich

...and no, I won't start reading that crap.