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When will it be that we people will accept the truth of those rather ancient war years. Hitler himself, after all, had his generals halt before Dunkirk. He is one of the precious few in the media who tell it straight.Most of us still see the greatly manufactured and selective history of that time through the colored lens of the victors.As far as the holocaust goes, depending on which Jews and their policies you consider, some, in fact most, are against it (but treasure it), while a few very high powerful Jews back then wanted to generate it through a continuation of WWII because it would provide the rationale and public sympathy for the creation of a Zionist State. What he wanted was to combine forces with them to fight the Soviets. And for those who are so hypercritical of him, please back off. Pat Buchanan is viewed by many, correctly I believe, as a national treasure. It has been seventy long years since 1940. He, after all, had his generals halt before Dunkirk and kept the British army alive.
100. What he really wanted was to combine forces with the Brits to fight the Soviets.Hitler in his public comments and writings had always liked and respected the British. 200.But I believe I am detecting a bit of a movement in the direction of an objective re-assessment of the major actors of that time in the cause of simple historical truth. Amazingly Churchill didn't want peace and put the quietus, (and most likely worse), on Hess. Pat Buchanan goes a long way to flesh out the correct history of that time. To let the stale, hold-over ideas of 1940's wartime propaganda continue to this day to dictate our thoughts on how we view the main cast of characters and official policies of that time seems to be a lazy habit of thinking or a fear of bucking the notions held by the elite minority.
(But then the dimensions of the holocaust itself are problematical; as no one yet has provide absolute proof of gas chambers using Zyclon B to kill inmates, or any other murdering of the Gypsies, Jews, or Gentiles).But now after all these years we are finally getting more information on Hitler, Hess, and Churchill, as from Henry Makow's site, 16 August 2010, "Why Rudolf Hess Was Murdered".We see that when Hess flew to the UK he conveyed an extremely generous peace offer full of deep concessions from Hitler. Hitler in his public comments and writings always liked and respected the British. How many years will it take to get over that, 80. In that, Pat Buchanan's book is in the vanguard.
Patrick Buchanan is a political hack with flimsy academic credentials to evaluate 20th century European history. His research is superficial and his conclusions are wildly speculative. Much better is anything on Churchill by Martin Gilbert--who, by the way, read all the original sources and interviewed hundreds of participants in the actual events. Buchanan's book should be in the science fiction department along with time-travel novels and books that ask questions like, "What if the South had won the Civil War." Don't waste your time or money.
There's no source, just a groundswell, which of course has to come from somewhere. I don't think there's anything new here; however the fact that it's published by a large publisher (part of Random House) I suspect marks a milestone. For example Buchanan deplores Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Communism without noting 3 of 4 were Jewish. Really though it's a sign of a change of policy. I say behind the scenes because there is no one promoter or inventor of it. Buchanan is (I think) unusual in considering the British planners of war reluctant; he misses out the gung-ho feeling of the time though a bit inconsistently he is sound on the vicious anti-German feeling promoted about 1940. The First World War material, in particular the secret agreement with France, is well-known, as are the effects of Versailles - self-determination unless you're German.
Buchanan has done a half-decent job, literally, in looking at the results of war; I suppose at the simplest level you need a feeling for assets, before and after; populations, before and after; and the way these were changed. What's missing from Buchanan is the entire Jewish element. Interesting book and incidentally not as bulky as it's made to appear - large typeface in the text and huge bibliography see to that. Saddam Hussein's relative lack of power. This looks like a history book. For fifty years or so there's been a behind-the-scenes promotion of immigration into the USA and Europe. The Vietnam War and other US atrocities isn't even indexed. However there isn't anything in this book to suggest Buchanan understands or will humanise US policy.
The post-WW2 German deaths are a relatively new mainstream topic, having been censored for about fifty years. In my view the people who have promoted the policy are having second thoughts. And he says nothing about finance and the issue of paper money which of course became more important when the gold standard was abandoned. He accepts the myth of the 'holocaust' though he's quite good on e.g. And about time too, in fact. Four stars because it's a signpost, not because it's good.
his MO was most often ad hoc reactions hastily taken in fury. Buchanan offers a dissident historian's view of recent European and world history, and, since 'extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof', he takes pains to exhaustively document and buttress his analysis.His last chapter shows why he wrote the book in the first place: as a warning from History, and a critique of the path America took under the 'untutored president' George W Bush. Second, it strengthened the spine of dictatorial Poland in her dealings with Germany and led her to unwarranted arrogance, and three no discernible British national interests, present or future, could possibly be then linked to Poland's fate. He had no grand plan, no vision. His last chapter is squarely directed at George W Bush's policies and is absolutely chilling, as it foretells America's passing from the world stage and the West's decline as a direct consequence of the policies of GWB - the 'untutored president'.Thos who criticize this book either have not read it, as seemes apparent from a few comments, and pan the book because of its author's public profile, or are nervous at America retreating behind the well-delineated bailiwick advocated by Buchanan - a bailiwick that would leave some areas and countries, not deemed vital to US interests, at the mercy of the frigid winds of History out there. As a codicil - this commitment had never been sought by Poland in the first place, and the Polish colonel dictator-in-charge could not believe his ears when he heard of it, 'between two flicks of his cigarette ash.'2- Hitler was an intellectually dim thug - a rat.
Life under a hitlerian dictatorship would have been horrid, but it would have covered but a minority corner of the world and eventually passed - beginning with Hitler's eventual demise.Buchanan's view is one of harsh Realpolitik - nowhere does he in the slightest water down, excuse, or exculpate the crimes of Nazism. In his well-buttressed view, the Bush administration policies of recklessly granting blanket commitments to all and sundry, outside America's ambit of vital interests, will inexorably lead to her final decline and exit from History as a great power.Buchanan's main arguments are as follows:1- Britain's blanket commitment to Poland to go to war for her was madness on three key grounds: first, it put the key decision to commit or not Britain and British soldiers to battle into the sole hands of a foreign government (a dictatorship, no less) - an uncalled-for and wholly unnecessary yielding-up of national sovereignty to a power that was neither democratic nor predictable or rational. He repeatedly stumbled into catastrophic decisions because he was painted into that corner, and because he was not educated - 'untutored'.3- And thus -there was no such thing as a grand German plan for world domination - Germany had demonstrably not in the least prepared in any way for world domination, and Hitler knew as early as 1942 that his war was lost. And perhaps the worst way to deal with a rat, let alone a big rat, is to paint it into a corner - a course of action repeatedly taken because of the small egos of a handful of men at the levers of power in several countries. Hitler - albeit sly and sometimes street clever - was not an intelligent man, and he was repeatedly utterly baffled at what he had wrought and where he wound up. His argument is that to remain strong and solvent, a country needs to pick her battles, and that overstretching one's might to intervene into areas that do not have the slightest bearing on one's national security is a recipe for catastrophic terminal decline.
But as Buchanan asks - wherein lies the better security, a strong America only concerned within her sphere, or an overstretched, hence weakened America soon relegated to second power status.
Buchanan documents, as have others before him, that both the First and Second World Wars are primarily the product of wretchedly incompetent management of international relations on the part of Britain, France, Germany, and others.Buchanan's main themes continue unto the Second World War. RJB. Each reader must decide for him or her self. Who can say.Personally, I still think that Hitler was determined to fight a bloody war against Russia and persecute the Jews and other nationalities and ethnicities that he hated. Buchanan points out that in his 25 years as the German Kaiser, neither Kaiser Wilhelm or his nation had been involved in a single war. Buchanan provides copious evidence that the Kaiser was trying to avert war even at the eleventh hour, and that Britain could, and should, have averted war by simply refusing to commit to a war in continental Europe.Regarding this first theme, Winston Churchill comes in for savage criticism by Buchanan.
Buchanan's arguments, they are worthy of respect, and can shake up one's settled beliefs. Britain, by contrast, had fought ten wars during this period including the bloody and recent Boer War. Most readers have doubtless made up their minds about the causes of World Wars I and II. Danzig was, after all, formerly a part of Germany until the Versailles Treaty, and its inhabitants almost to a person desired to be part of Germany. While Austria is seen as the unwise bully that it was, Mr. Buchanan documents in depressing detail the utter fecklessness of European diplomacy both before and after the First World War. He then contrasts this with US diplomacy from World War I to the end of the Cold War. France had been involved in numerous bloody colonial wars as well.
This book will, at the very least, challenge most readers to re-examine many of their opinions. Buchanan challenges is the notion that the First World War was essentially the product of German and Austrian aggression against the reluctant Allied Powers. It will cause most readers to at the very least re-examine what they think about the causes of the two great wars of the Twentieth Century. His main thesis is that it was Britain's guaranty to go to war if Germany attacked Poland that triggered the global war. Notwithstanding that fact, Buchanan makes a pretty good case that Hitler was an opportunist, and that he was not without justification in seeking return of the Sudetenland and of Bohemia.
In this excellent piece, Pat Buchanan makes some excellent points which conflict with the conventional wisdom about some of the most important events of the Twentieth Century. The contrast between the success of America in winning the Cold War without a World War (albeit with some sizable errors such as Vietnam) and European fecklessness in managing to start two world wars in 25 years, is stark. For that, this one merits five stars. Had he stopped there, and negotiated return of Danzig without war (which Buchanan says would have happened absent the British guaranty) we might be living in a very different world. Ultimately, it seems that Hitler was bound to fight such a war, but Buchanan makes some case that the world might have been better had Germany and Russia fought their war without the Western Allies being involved. There is little evidence that any country anytime ever had much luck negotiating with Hitler, and it is far from clear that Britain's guaranty caused the German-Polish conflict or that its absence would have prevented it.
Buchanan believes that Hitler would have accepted terms over the question of Danzig and the Polish Corridor that Poland otherwise could, (and, he says, should) have found acceptable. Buchanan's theme is that Churchill's appetite and ardent desire for war was pivotal in causing England to guaranty Belgium's defense, which guaranty very likely made war inevitable. While I do not accept all of Mr. Hitler seemed willing to invade neighboring countries on almost any pretext and with a complete disregard to ordinary Western standards of decency.
However, the author rigorously annotates his points, not just in footnotes but quotes of primary sources in the text of the book. I don't accept this thesis.Mr. Those who feel it necessary to take heed of the opinion of the elites of these countries would do well to study this component of the book. Even more significantly, once America became the leading world power, American diplomacy repeatedly avoided war-starting confrontations by refusing, not without anguish, to fight wars for non-vital interests to America. During this time American leaders refused to be easily drawn into conflicts and joined the World Wars only in their latter stages (particularly the First) thereby avoiding in significant degree, the horrendous casualties that many others suffered. Many readers will disagree and perhaps even be offended by Buchanan's analysis. Buchanan's most insightful analysis is at the very end of this piece.
He argues, as discussed above, that inept European diplomacy in which Great Powers went to war for non-vital reasons, was the cause of the World Wars. Buchanan's Second World War arguments are somewhat more problematic. Regarding the fecklessness of European diplomacy, and the causes of the First World War, I think that Buchanan is on solid ground. Other researchers before Buchanan have found the First World War to have been an avoidable tragedy that the European states should have been able to avoid. The first theme that Mr.
This is a truly fascinating insight which in my opinion is the major contribution of this book.This book is interesting, readable, and provocative. He makes a strong case that this guaranty put the question of global war into the hands of a Polish government which immediately became intransigent once it received this guaranty. Given the facts that at the time Britain had only two battle-ready divisions, a minuscule air force, and that its Navy could not influence any German-Polish conflict in a meaningful way, Buchanan argues that the guaranty was essentially inexplicable.Once again, Buchanan savages Winston Churchill, who was again instrumental in causing Britain to make the guaranty that Buchanan believes triggered "the unnecessary war."Most readers, myself included, will not buy all of Buchanan's arguments. Hence America's refusal to fight wars over Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, or even the Cuban Missile Crisis. Highly recommended.
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