In Defense of WW2 Part 2 of 5

[PkayerZxz2]

The Holocaust was inevitable as soon as Hitler got power. Whether Germany was at war or not, Hitler was going to kill them all eventually. Also, Germany wasn't surrendering till Hitler was dead.

[therealaj123]

The Morgenthau Plan was rejected by both the Department of State and the Department of War, it was soon recjected and shelved by FDR, and it was never an official document, position, or policy of the United States.

[PeterMayer]

People on the right have their revionsism as well, as in the case of the south/civil war, calling the North "aggresors". What a joke.

[qwertypoiu4321]

5:04- It is not Munich that led to the Hitler-Stalin Pact, it was Britain giving a war guarantee to keep German's under Polish rule that shoved Hitler into his enemy.

5:34- Hitler invaded Russia to militarily stop one of Britain's two potential allies from co-invading Germany with Britain.

6:18- Giving a war guarantee to keep German's under Polish rule is the act of a warmonger.

[qwertypoiu4321]

1:02- Hitler blamed the war on Jews, so he committed an ethnic war crime in response. No war, no war crime. If Britain would have dealt with Versailles when Germany was run by democrats Hitler would never have come to power.

3:50- That was in response to the war, there was no Holocaust before the British invasion.

4:23- If Britain and France had not gangraped Germany during Versailles there never would have been a Hitler in Germany.

[josefHful]

Russia were the ones who showed Hitler about Mass Murder, only Hitler thought he could be more "efficient" than them with chemicals/gases which he later learned from the Allies thru covert ops, which u can find thru other books..we made the nerve gas, and Hitler and others developed it further, just like Anthrax. Later, Hitler came across Heavy Water and was about to have nuclear materials.. the holocaust would've happened anyway with or without war. With war, we know about it, w/o it, we don't

[nexivdr]

all you needed to do is lay down a copy of mein kampf. wrote in the early 30s, tells his whole plan 

[CosmosLoyal]

The Fascist 'Revolution' was a coup détat against the rule of parliament, aided and abetted by Conservative 'statesmen' such as Salandra, the House of Savoy, the Roman Catholic Church and the security forces who could no longer maintain their hegemony through the democratizing parliament. Clearly 'liberal' Italy was becoming too liberal for its own good.

[DrCruel]

I expect your error is in thinking that, since fascism was so awful, that the Bolshevik socialism that so often contended with it was both opposite and somehow better than fascism. Neither is the case. As for "democratic" socialism, that contradictory ideal would have to wait until after the Marshall Plan, when the European economy was sufficiently robust that it could accept the burden of a series of vast, interconnected, kleptocratic socialist bureaucracies without collapsing.

[CosmosLoyal]

I expect your error is that you're under the false pretence that fascism was a response to Bolshevik socialism. Fascism was a counter-revolution of the ancien regime in Europe against liberal democracy. They were to use the fear factor of 'Bolshevik socialism' in a McCartyist, propagandist way to subvert the rule of parliament which they could no longer control by legal means. Spanish fascism was not a counter-revolution against Stalinism but against the democracy of the 1931 constitution.

[DrCruel]

Instead, societies with capitalist economies overwhelmingly take the form of elective republics. Socialist societies, especially during the mid-20th century, took the form of oligarchies or autocratic tyrannies.

Bolshevik Marxists were keen to label any alternate state (including opposition Leftist factions) as "Rightist", "reactionary" and, later, "fascist". But this did not make the assertion any more valid than Lysenko biological theory. Nazism was obviously a Leftist, socialist ideology.

[VictorLepanto]

" Guess we do?" Hah! "My German COMRADS?" Hitchens shows the narrow pettiness that animates his thought. He is an obviously intelligent man. He has a great ability to analyse the political scene before him. However, his natural mental gifts are betrayed by a youthful commitment to an insane & doomed ideological sectarianism. Most all he says & does meant to preserve his illusion that his Trotsky fantasism is still practically viable.

[DrCruel]

Whatever one might think of Hitchens and his "Trotskyite fanaticism", the concession must be made that the man has a high degree of personal integrity, and stands by his principles. Unlike much of the Left today, he will not bend his beliefs to serve the economic interests of the Left fascists, regardless of their high profile or predominance.

If more Leftists were like Hitchens, I would have a great deal more respect for their intentions and views. I consider him Orwell's ideological heir.

[VictorLepanto]

@DrCruel: It is easy to misread when one reads through quickly. Please note, I said "fantasist," not fanaticism. I am accusing Hitchens of clinging to an absurd political anachronism. His commitment to this illusion blinds him to a great deal. In this video he practically says that it is better that Hitler had not been killed by Stauffenberg b/c that meant a more complete defeat for German conservatism. He backs down only when confronted.

As for Orwell, I agree.

[DrCruel]

He does cling to a debunked ideological viewpoint - but again, doing so with integrity and with no small measure of personal decency. He will not do as someone like Chomsky would do, such as "chum up" with Hezbollah to serve the immediate interests of the Left's bottom line. Likewise Saddam's economic value to the Left's terrorist interests did not sway him one iota - quite the reverse.

He's quite a decent fellow. That counts far more for me than his religious faith in neo-Trotskyism.

[VictorLepanto]

@DrCruel: I wouldn't much dispute you on many of your points. He is decent & respectful generally. Though, he does have his lapses. I remember his being on program w/ Charlton Heston, when Heston was serving as president of the NRA I believe, he was quite rude & patronising to Heston. He has lapses, it is his antique ideological blindness that explains his lapses. His excessively harsh critique of Churchill is an example, as is his defense of the fire bombing or German cities in WWII.

[DrCruel]

He doesn't have "lapses". He is who he is, and is entirely uncompromising about it. I may not always like what he has to say, but I have a great more respect for the man than I do for practically any other Leftist I can think of.

Not that we have much to argue about anyway. I expect we're in general agreement. You just have less of a tolerance for some of his more "controversial" stances. But I must admit a respect for his inclination to remain consistent, and to be honest about his opinions.

[VictorLepanto]

@DrCruel: No, I suppose we see many things in his regard the same. I am just thinking of what Emerson said about a foolish consistancy.

Though, I would call defending the fire bombing of German cities in WWII a very serious lapse of judgement. I saw him on C-Span once, doing precisely that. He talked about the same issue he raises here. The utter discrediting of the "reactionary" German politics in the out come of WWII. There is a basic morality, divorced from ideological or political issues.

[andi332]

well these guys clearly dont know what are they talking about, i would have liked see them discuss the book with buchanan as opponent

[anastasia2657]

What novel are they discussing here?

[AgrarianReformist]

"As Trotsky points out..." --Hitchens. So so perfect :)

[cancerparty]

I see by some comments below that opposing tyrant theocrats, fascistic religion and just being generally well read makes you a neo-con! Hitchens is what the Left *should* be, like other great English writers like Nick Cohen and Martin Amis. Why do none of my fellow Scots have anything like their mental stature?

[PrivateEye8]

Quite so. The political Left is built on shifting sands, Cohen has highlighted this hypocrisy fairly comprehensively in his excellent writing. People shouldn't conflate Hitchens' views as a betrayal of certain traditional Leftist values, but frequently of a bold affirmation of them.

[antonyvt]

f.....

[holt2k]

Calling Hitchens a neo-con shows how little a person saying those things knows about Hitchens. On topic though, VDH and Hitchens sure gave that dumbshit bigot Pat Buchanan a beatdown.....and this is coming from a conservative such as myself. Pat Buchanan is a paleoconservative who shouldn't be taken seriously by anybody on Earth.

[TBlake34]

In a sense, you're correct.

Hitchens is not, himself, a neo-con, but in the most shameful episode of his otherwise brilliant career, he allied himself with that group thinking that neo-cons were interested in Iraq to battle religious extremism.

And Buchanan is in a political world with a population that includes...pat Buchanan.

[DrCruel]

That is to say, when Christopher Hitchens was forced between supporting the interests of Leftist fascism and supporting his libertarian ideals, he chose to buck the mainstream Left and supported the overthrow of Saddam.

The only people who might consider Hitchens "shameful" in this regard are the people who champion Left fascism. I had my fill of those cretins in 1991, when they were supporting Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

[ShadowPa1adin]

Fascism isn't "Left" (good luck finding a left-wing corporatist). The left-wing equivalent in terms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism is Communism.

[DrCruel]

Fascism was supposed to be a "third way", and in practice was not uniform in ideological stance. For example, Portuguese and Spanish fascism was "classic" (ie, pre-Marxian) Rightism, especially in the Spanish case. Italian fascism had its roots in anarchism. As for Nazism, it was more authentically socialist than Bolshevism.

To accept the argument that fascism is "Rightist", one first needs to acknowledge Marxian analysis as valid, as this is where the misconceived relationship first arises.

[CosmosLoyal]

"Italian fascism has its roots in anarchism"

Indeed but it was nothing more than a maniac sect which polled 5,000 votes in the 1919 election at this stage. When Italian Fascism really started to rise was when it was colonized by the traditional conservative classes of Italy who were to use it as a tool to subvert the gains made by democratic socialists, in much the same way as Iberian fascism. Fascism was in essence an attack on the most progressive features of democracy by conservatives.

[DrCruel]

Iberian fascists did successfully resist the Stalinists of the "progressive" Spanish Left. Italian fascism, however, was initially quite amenable to the liberal intelligensia, and throughout was quite socialist. Likewise, during the "progressive" era of Depretis, Italy was a basket case, marred by rampant corruption, authoritarianism and poverty. It was also Depretis, not Mussolini, that began Italy's colonialist adventures.

[CosmosLoyal]

There is incontrovertible evidence to prove that Italian Fascism was staffed and funded by the rural conservative landowners who opposed the belated reformism of 'liberal' Italy, such as the legalization of the strike and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1912. To call Italian Fascism a socialist movement between 1921 and 1943 (its years of actual relevance!) would be nothing more than a propagandist revision.

[VictorLepanto]

@ShadowPa1adin: Found one! His name is Obama. He is the sock puppet of Bill Ayers, & Ayers (or someone anyhow) speaks to our little Kermit the President through his famous teleprompter.

[JohnR22926]

The holocaust a cause or result of the war? Irrelevant IMO. Hitler was bent on a larger war...in the east (USSR)...to gain lebensraum (living space) for his 3rd Reich. Whether the Allies fought over Poland didn't matter...they would have had to fight when Hitler invaded Russia.

And Hitler was certainly pondering extreme solutions for the jews. Mass deportation to madagascar, etc. When war came (as it had to with Hitler), his opporunity to exterminate the jews would have presented itself.

[nadeau]

Hitchens is not a neo-con.

[lakerfiend]

No he's a Trotskyist.

And we know neocon thought has no connection to that disgraceful ideology. Which is why Hitchens is so welcome on NRO, whereas a real conservative like Buchanan might as well be the Dev...oh, wait, let's make it truly evil, Adolf Hitler.

You know, the gold standard of "evil".

As opposed to a butcher like Trotsky, Hitchens (Podhoretz's, et cetera) standard bearer for Zionist imperialistic thought.

[Guedingen]

Many thanks, look forward to the rest.