Was World War II worth it?

[size=+2]Was World War II worth it?[/size]


[size=-1]Posted: May 11, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

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[size=-1]© 2005 Creators Syndicate Inc. [/size]



In the Bush vs. Putin debate on World War II, Putin had far the more difficult assignment. Defending Russia's record in the "Great Patriotic War," the Russian president declared, "Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries."

Those countries are, presumably: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Finland.

To ascertain whether Moscow truly liberated those lands, we might survey the sons and daughters of the generation that survived liberation by a Red Army that pillaged, raped and murdered its way westward across Europe. As at Katyn Forest, that army eradicated the real heroes who fought to retain the national and Christian character of their countries.

To Bush, these nations were not liberated. "As we mark a victory of six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox," he said:

For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end the oppression. The agreement in Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. ... The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs in history.

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Bush told the awful truth about what really triumphed in World War II east of the Elbe. And it was not freedom. It was Stalin, the most odious tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot and Castro murdered their tens of millions.

Leninism was the Black Death of the 20th Century.

The truths bravely declared by Bush at Riga, Latvia, raise questions that too long remained hidden, buried or ignored.

If Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a cynical "Declaration on Liberated Europe" that was a monstrous lie.

As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster they alternately and affectionately called "Uncle Joe" and "Old Bear," why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing the Sudetenland over to Germany? At least the Sudeten Germans wanted to be with Germany. No Christian peoples of Europe ever embraced their Soviet captors or Stalinist quislings.

Other questions arise. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war?

If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny even more odious, as Bush implies, did Western Civilization win the war?

In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain refused. In 1939, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Poland. Chamberlain agreed. At the end of the war Churchill wanted and got, Czechoslovakia and Poland were in Stalin's empire.

How, then, can men proclaim Churchill "Man of the Century"?

True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland.

When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.



If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?

The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling – not British and French. Understandably.

Yes, Bush has opened up quite a can of worms.

 

Let's not forget keeping Hitler from becoming the first to develop the atom bomb. The Nazis came really close.

 

Over 80% of my family remained in Europe during the war. One great uncle and is wife had fled to Palestine in the last half of the war. I don't think the question deserves an answer. And I think you need to work on your profile. "Dead" is not an appropriate response.

 

This thread isn't worth a considered response as there is no considered argument being raised... if your gonna swallow the shit that flows from Bushes mouth then you'll end up choking yourself. Can't you see the theme of self justification, a deluded madman rationalising his own actions... how can bush talk of liberation, the almighty oppressor, voted in just like Hitler!

 

Yes and thankfully America got there first, responsibility and an example to the world how pretty a mushroom cloud looks floating above a city

 

even though I oppose war. WWII did bring the U.S out of the Depression and it gave us the technology for the atom bomb. War to me isnt all that bad. It can do some good but also destroys more than it does good.

 

Yes, thankfully America got there first. You being from London should appreciate that, as no doubt Hitler would have nuked London.

 

Need I say more

 

So you think that bringig you the atomic bomb and resulting you killing thousands of innocent japanese was good?

 

we got there first but that was just as or just after hitler surrendered just in time to use it on innocent japanese.

 

and that is better than dropping an atomic bomb on Japan then is it? I don't think so... and I wasn't alive then so I had no nationality, maybe if all those people in Japan weren't blown up I would have been born out there to a different family, maybe that would have been a better life than I have now?? maybe not? but your statement has no substance, it just assumes I am only concerned about my current state of existance, and that my current state of existance is all.

 

And what about the world's current state of existance? What would that be like if the Axis Powers had won the war? The entire world under a military dictatorship where all forms of dissent are met with deadly force?

And don't be naive enough to suggest our current state is no different, because it's not. Just because we don't have total freedom doesn't mean we don't have any freedom.

Japan and Germany should have taken their cue from Italy and surrendered when it was apparent that defeat was inevitable, but Hitler and Tojo knew that surrender meant their executions, so they let millions die in order to keep themselves alive for a couple more years. They are the ones to blame for the destruction of Germany and Japan, including the two atom bombs.

 

When speaking of worht we speak of What is Ideal. A poeple of earth seperated by nations is not Ideal.

 

If Germany had won,could you imagine the borders they would have to defend.The populations they would have to keep under control.The same problem the USSR had to deal with.Their military was overstreched leading to their downfall.Certainly Germany would have also self destructed.

 

True, but what is ideal is usually not what is real.

I'm not so sure about that. If Germany had won because they developed nuclear weapons first they certainly wouldn't have allowed anyone else to develop them, including Japan. So who would declare war against Germany knowing that they couldn't win? Yes there would be underground resistance to this day and keeping such populations under control would be expensive, but if the Nazis controlled the world's economy they could pay for it. Of course, they had their final solutions for keeping certain populations under control: the Jewish population, the Gypsy population, the Slavic population, and eventually the black population. Perhaps after they had achieved their stated goals the Nazi regime would become less tyrannical as it no longer felt threatened, but I don't know if it would have self destructed.

 

The bombing of Dresden city in germany kill more than horishima or nagazaki combine .

 

NOT NESSC the german would simply nuke them and return 5 years later when they felt rediation was down to safe levels.

 

Innocent? Do you forget we were at war with them? And that they attacked us 1st? And that the Japanese did try to attack American home soil during the war too but failed at it, their attacks only killed 5.

 

We push the Japs into the war since we made our mind up they were not going to get oil.

 

Let me see...they try to conquer China, Korea and Southeast Asia, pulling off atrocities like the rape of Nanking, and we hit them with an oil embargo. Oh yeah, we were way out of line.