In Defense of WWII: Part 4 of 5

Niall Ferguson, author of The War of the World, describes the Allies in WWII as just as brutal as the German and Japanese opposition. In rebuttal, Hitchens makes the point that Germany and Japan were nurtured back to health following defeat, something that never would have happened to Russia or Britain under German occupation. Hanson adds that any atrocities committed by the Allies were incidental, not premeditated.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Niall
• Ferguson
• PBS
• revisionist
• history
• Christopher
• Hitchens
• Victor
• Hanson
• World
• War
• Two
• II
• Atrocities
• Hitler
• Churchill

[renaldo999]

The fire bombings of Tokyo and other cities (in both Germany and Japan) were "incidental"? Somebody revoke Hanson's historian's license. He has proved himself time and again to be no more than a partisan, neoconservative hack.

[AngrySkeptic]

As Hanson explained, the strategic bombings of German and Tokyo were NOT specifically targeted to exterminate populations.

Now, if we imagine a German or Japanese victory, we have little trouble envisioning the ethnic cleansing that would occur as those acts are inherent in their ideologues.

[cancerparty]

This is a similar argument used against Clinton and the bombing of the Al Shifa chemical plant. Yes, it killed thousands, but they (The Americans) believed, with good measure, that Al Qaeda members were hiding out there. Did they *plan* to murder innocent civilians? No. Try telling that to Noam Chomsky and his apologetic terms towards Islamic fundamentalism. Imperfect? Yes, but there is no moral equivalency here whatsoever between the West and fascism, past or present.

[AngrySkeptic]

Apparently they did not, in fact, feel confident about the Al Shifa medicine factory.

That's why they bombed it at night.

[RobGoth100]

"Try as he may, he cannot find my G-Spot"

Hitchens

I can't wait to use that in a sentence.

[spartan0187]

@AngrySkeptic The Dresden and Hamburg bombings are clear examples counter to your point. The RAF and the USAAF clearly bombed many cities that were not "strategic military" targets at all. But I agree that an Axis victory would have produced much worse results after the war. War is war.

[MrAcarine]

There is no evidence that the destruction of the Al-Shifa plant "killed thousands". None of the people who were tracking Sudanese mortality have provided any support for these allegations.(the sources Chomsky cited didn't present any documentation to back up their claims of mass death) Leo Casey showed that the Sudanese regime was quite capable of replacing any medicine that was lost.

[PkayerZxz2]

@renaldo999 You're fucking retarded. The strategic bombing campaigns were necessary strategic decisions that were made to bring about allied victory sooner. And it is an indisputable fact that the allied strategic bomber campaigns against the axis was the most decisive factor in the war. While without a doubt some acts were brutal and could even be considered war crimes (Dresden comes to mind), the allies were not trying to exterminate the axis. But the axis were trying to exterminate the allies

[MaximusProteus]

@qwertypoiu4321 In a way it was, until the national socialist party took power and... ruined its economy and public order. A toll union was profitable, since Poland was the City`s biggest trading partner.

Tiso was given an ultimatum, secession or a takeover. I don`t mind the legal status Germans issue in thier administrative divisions, that was a vivid violation of the Munich treaty and de facto annexation of Bohemia. Does the west direction make any difference? Soon it expanded in every.

[qwertypoiu4321]

@MaximusProteus German-Danzig was under external and economic control by Poland. Tiso came to Hitler, and Hitler did not annex Prague; that is hardly expanding west, never mind taking over the earth.

[MaximusProteus]

@qwertypoiu4321 Free City of Danzig was NOT under Polish rule, but under the League of Nations.

To belive that this was a serious reason for the German invasion you just have to be naive or simply a beliver of German war propaganda. The aim of Germans and soviets was to rewise the Versaillese treaty, particulary to destroy Poland again, split Romania and take over or set satellite states in the region.

The "etchnic German" excuse didn`t worked since Germany broke the Munich treaty in march `39.

[qwertypoiu4321]

@UCBfan1 Britain/France gave a war guarantee and declared war on Germany in order to keep German-Danzig under Polish rule.

[UCBfan1]

@qwertypoiu4321 "they invaded over Germany bringing Germans from under Polish rule." What?!

[UCBfan1]

@MrSalamander7 No it is not. It is a perfectly good point, for anyone who wants to properly understand history to keep in mind. It doesn't do any good to simply read back your own personal morality, and comfortable hindsight, on to people in the past who had to make tough decisions and who fighting against a much greater evil than themselves. The point of studying history is to understand the past, not to simply gratify your own ego with sanctimonious expectations of perfectibility.

[spader49]

I'm a huge fan of the Hitch and Hanson; however, the point that Ferguson was quite clear on was that the allies were just as bad because the Soviet Union was part of the Allies.