In Defense of WWII: Chapter 1 of 5

Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens take on the WWII revisionists, centering on Patrick J. Buchanan, the author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. In terms of the origins of the conflict, Buchanan says essentially that Britain's guarantee to protect Poland in the event of a German invasion made the war inevitable. Hanson counters that Germany's invasion of Poland was not an isolated act. Hitchens says Buchanan is "consciously trying to deceive us."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Victor
• Davis
• Hanson
• Christopher
• Hitchens
• Peter
• Robinson
• Hoover
• Institution

[nyomythus]

But the sun comes up after "that day" .. there is still a decision to be made and I don't think it is, was, sit this one out; sit out WW1 yes, Vietnam yes, WW2 no, Iraq no, just my votes.

[DimitrisKs]

acctually they gave their lives for the re opening of the world trade among other reasons, not freedom, john mosier and david irving are just 2 name of good historians on the subject.

this war is so complex someone needs to read a LOT to figure out what happened in reality, not the stupid romantic notions, no "good" or "bad" guys here

nice vid cheers

[nyomythus]

Trade with other nations is a keystone part of freedom; freedom from provincialism, isolationism, anti-diversity, and regression in general.

[aunch3]

Actually, I've read Pat's book and he does make a good point.

In the end 50 million people were killed and Europe was destroyed forever. Eastern Europe, which is what the War was fought over in the first place, ended being controlled by the eqaully evil Soviets. By 1939, it was not worth going war with the Axis powers.The time to do it (and Hitler admitted this) was in 1935 when the Rhineland was occupied, The Germans weren't re-armed yet and would have been destroyed that day, not 6 years.

[TheFlameoftheWest]

It would have been a more fair and engaging discussion if Pat Buchaman were there to defend his point of view.

Don't get me wrong though, this was a fun thing to watch.

[qwertypoiu4321]

Hitler was not going to expand west, nevermind take over the earth. The British should have accepted the four-power pact, but they wanted a war over nothing, and that is what eventually happened.

[cyberdaemon]

WW2 was good war, but not so good for eastern europe :P And for some countries like Ukraine, they also faced a 12 years lasting guerrilla war, Stalinist presecution...

[MaximusProteus]

@Hazardous117 You`re forgetting the main reason for the time and very fact of British propsal of alliance.... Ribbentrop-molotov pact. Actually the same day Britain proposed it, on 25 august, Germany planned invasion already and some forces couldn`t be stopped.... so called Jabłonków incident.

[Bosco239]

I think it's important to understand that Pat Buchanan is fucking mental.

[TheIranianAnarchist]

On the contrary I find that Hitchens Marxism is very relevant. To start he is one of the few intellectuals out there who supports the Marxist parties in the middle east, he wrote a very good article explaining how Das Kapital can explain the economic crisis, he is one of the greatest defenders of Salvador Allande, and most importantly as an Orwelle-ite he supported the Anarchist Communist uprising in Spain

Hanson my friend supports NONE of those things

[Hazardous117]

It seems that at 6:38 the host presents a hypothetical which essentially happened. He says that Britain could have put off the war guarantee to Poland until it was militarily capable of challenging Germany. However, it was my understanding that that is what occured in 1938 with Munich, that Chamberlain's advisors informed him that Britain was incapable of self-defense in 1938 and it was only in 39 that the military was sufficiently capable, hence the Poland guarantee.

[MitchofSmeg]

lol at the wait a while get better, the british military was only strong after learning the problems they met fighting the germans early on, without that the germans would have gotten massive tanks while we went about with our little 2 pounder guns.