Was WWII Worth This?
James Bacque's "Other Losses" documents Eisenhower's deliberate killing of German POWs (hundreds of thousands), murderous cruelty which Patton denounced as un-American.
Thoughts attributable to Mr. Hitler I tend to dismiss as merely speculative or unreliable. "Mein Kampf", penned before he had become comic-book evil, must reflect his thoughts (though there are doubts as to its authorship). Aside from that, public speeches are all that I'd take as bona fide. Very rubbery translations by master word-smiths don't help.
I believe Patton's mysterious death was something more sinister, along the lines of the "suicide" of James Forrestal.
Fake news has a very rich historic tradition.
The Lies That Bind Us
The Foundational Falsehoods of the American Dream
“An appeal to fairness by the defeated is a clutch sign of weakness.” – James LaFond 11/17/2017
“Wrong doing tends to invite over-reaction’ – Barry Farber, Talk Radio Personality
“There are two classes of people, one demanding the utter extinction of the Indians, and the other full of love for their conversion to civilization and Christianity. Unfortunately, the Army stands between them and gets the cuff from both sides.”
William Tecumseh Sherman, Commanding General U.S. Army, 8 March 1869-1 November 1883
The death of so many German POWs in American custody is appalling, but rates a big ‘so what?’ in the overall outcome of the war. And I say this even as someone who had blood relatives among those German POW’s. Germany got off easy. The other allied powers wanted to show Germany and the German people no mercy at all. They wanted vengeance and would have exterminated Germany if they had had their way. It is only because of the good offices of the U.S Government and many humane and sympathetic people in it that Germany was allowed to exist at all as an independent country post-war. And eventually the Democrat and Communist German successor states were allowed to reunify. You can’t sucker punch someone and then expect easy treatment when the other guy gets you down.
WWII was an absolute disaster for the German people as much as for anyone else involved. That’s the way most Germans, even ardent Nazi’s, felt about it from day one, as American Journalist Lothrop Stoddard discovered when he visited Germany during the winter of 1939-1940 and wrote about his experience in his subsequent book. Most Germans were shocked and appalled by Hitler’s precipitous invasion of Poland. They felt that Hitler had committed them to a war of national survival, and that if they didn’t win this one they would be shown NO MERCY by the Allied powers (certainty they would not have, had the roles been reversed). So they saw it as win or die. Obviously many Germans weren’t adverse to taking advantage of the situation while the getting was good either.
ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n2p69_Stoddard.html Into the Darkness: A Sympathetic Report from Hitler's Wartime Reich, by Lothrop Stoddard. 1940 From Chapter Five – ‘This Detested War:
“When they found themselves suddenly plunged into a decisive struggle with the Western Powers, Germans were torn between two emotions: disgust at what they considered a stupidly needless war, and fear for the consequences which it might involve. All sorts of persons I talked with stigmatized the war as a tragic blunder. Some of them went so far as to criticize their Government for having acted too precipitately. They thought the war could have been avoided by cleverer diplomacy. But those very persons approved of the end sought, no matter how sharply they disapproved of the means. Even ardent Nazis, who claimed that Hitler had taken the only possible course and who professed perfect confidence in ultimate victory, revealed the same underlying mood of regretful irritation. "Think of it," they would explain, "here we were busy making over our country, and now we have to lay aside most of our fine reconstruction plans to go and fight it out with those damned Englishmen!" In this respect, Germany's attitude can perhaps best be compared to that of the big winner in a poker game who was just raking in the chips when somebody kicked over the table.”
Mr Bentham,
I agree with your sentiments about Hitler's disastrous territorial aspirations and frankly much of his social program as well.
But the "So what?" just won't do.
Eisenhower deliberately re-classified POWs as DEF (Disarmed Enemy Forces) so as he could starve them to death on the banks of the Rhein and not be touched by the Geneva Convention (to which the Nazis had adhered). The was a mountain of food available and fresh water only yards away, but anyone approaching the camp to feed the detainees could be shot.
Every time I hear Eisenhower's Presidential valedictory speech on the evils of the military-industrial complex I wonder which circle of Dante's Inferno he now wanders. A toss up between the Seventh and the Ninth. No shortage of presidents (or Führer) on that circuit, either.
Its over, Jeremy. The US government was the ultimate villain in the war, you know it in your guts. All those american soldiers fought and died for LESS than nothing.
Take the Red Pill, let go of this WW2 nonsense already. I too used to justify allied bombing of the Germans (also blood relatives, how "American" to do that!) for the benefit of others. Who still hate us to this day!
The damn USSR turned out to have less negative effects on the counties they occupied when all was said and done. Where ever the GI roamed in Europe, you now have tranny rainbow marches, bugmen, insane women, a corpse of free speech and so called refugee muslims increasing in number. Sweden just wants to be like those countries for some reason.
Ironically FDR, Eisenhower, blah, blah, blah will all be seen as vile, sexist racist white males anyway and the negation will be complete.
Auf Wiedersehen!
I might add that every major combatant nation targeted and exterminated civilians by the tens and hundreds of thousands. The Soviets, Italians and Germans even practiced on the Basques in the Spanish Civil War.
In my view, in WWII, there were only evil nations, not a good guy on the map, the aim of all cultural annihilation and either regional or global hegemony shared by all.
WWII is the best argument that humanity should remain earthbound until erased by a comet.
Patton's convenient death was probably the first major "hit" by the post-war Deep state. A CIA/OSS operative had a few drinks at his retirement dinner and took full public credit for the operation.
Well Hey Bob, 'so what' will have to do. It's a done deal. Ike is dead and can't be brought back for trial for his alleged crimes against a defeated aggressor enemy. One who did not scrupulously adhere to the Hague and Geneva Conventions either by far. One that half the people in America (as well as Europe) wanted to see dead anyway. Why? Because they were Nazi's and Nazi's deserve to die, that's why! Otherwise I must suppose there would be more public outrage about whole affair, had it even all happened as alleged, which is always a question with any historical account, even 'secret histories'. Punishment in the afterlife? That's all bullshit, you know that. So unless Congress sees fit to enact a 'Damnatio Memoriae' on Ike wiping his name and image from the historical record for all time, a done deal is where it is going to stay. But, you Bob, are free to say what you will about him. We are all still free to denounce America and anyone in it as stupid and evil all we want, aren't we?
Mescaline, forgive me, but being the jingoistic myrmidon that I am I will just never get with the program. We will just have to agree to disagree. As obnoxious as the PC SJWs are and as threatening and disruptive as the dindu's are today I just cannot imagine that America would have been a better place to live during the last 72 years had the Nazi's won WWII.What is happening today is a separate issue. I can tell you from long experience that even 'regular' Germans tend to be bossy and controlling and unpleasant to deal with when they have the upper hand (just look at Merkel). So what would Nazi rule of occupied America have been like? Omigosh! Glad Grandpa and Grandma caught the boat. Well I guess many of us harbor fantasies about being made 'za Gauleiter of Zin-zinatti' or some other such unaccountable potentate had history turned out different, eh? In Bagdad I had an ex-pat Iraqi colleague who fled Iraq when Saddam came to power. He often found himself in discussion with Arabs from other countries who thought Saddam was a good guy. So my colleague would tell them "If you believe that then I wish for you to live under a ruler like Saddam some day." So likewise for all you people who profess to hate America and believe it is a stupid evil place, I wish for you that you will be able to live someday in a place that is NOT America. But hey only the PC Left wants to live in a society where nobody is allowed to disagree with them, eh?
Jeremy, this thread has got me thinking again of the fact that all of the belligerents seem to have had a mania for targeting civilians—a pre collateral damage mentality—in WWII.
Was that just the predictable conduct of a nationalistic war waged with popular consent [I think every populace backed their leaders in this one] with industrial means?
Or was there a mechanism that emerged or was triggered by the process of conducting such a war?
I know it sounds like the same thing, so I suppose this is a question as to the initial human agency—what came first, the desire to lay the nuclear egg or just a desire to prevail so strong that the Hen of War just had to lay that egg?
From my vantage, as an admitted extraterrestrial, the only thing that really mattered about WWII was how it ended and whether or not these scheming apes may be trusted in space.
James, you bring up an interesting point. One on which I will give some thought and make my reply in another missive. As for whether we naked apes may be trusted in space? Well of course not! Klaatu already gave us a talking to about curbing our aggressive violence and for 66 years we have refused to heed his warning. Therefore I expect Gort to return any day now to mete out our punishment.
youtube.com/watch?v=TKKE58-06dk
I loved the William S. Burroughs piece where everyone is bemoaning civilians being thrown down and raped in front of their children and being killed in droves. The character then bemoans these facts to an Army Sargeant who delivers a bored sigh and replies "What the fuck do you think civilians are for?". One of my best reads of the summer was "Germany After the War" which covers the American atrocities against the German people and combatants. POWs left out in muddy fields, in freezing cold, and left unfed. Over a hundred thousand in just one location died of starvation or exposure. I read a lot of things along this line. It undoubtedly occurred. Now I'm all Kennedy murder through the 22nd and am getting some amazing angles I've not heard before and I thought I'd read it all. I just want to leave with one thought here, and that is this: The German people lost the war. The Nazis won. Just look around.
America First's large number of supporters, and high-profile ones at that, sure didn't want to enter the war. If it weren't for FDR's oil embargo to provoke the Japanese attack (for which he had foreknowledge), the non-interventionists might have carried the day.
And Germany couldn't have invaded the US. It didn't even have invasion plans for Britain.
History is constantly subject to the changing political climes. The ascendant force gets to rewrite it.
Yes, I read Smedly Butler's case against the obvious coming war, published in '37, I think. But once FDR goaded the Japs into attacking Pearl Harbor, consent had been manufactured, just like the dead Kuwaiti baby stories and WMD lies got me and others to support the 1991 Iraq War.
By my way of thinking more than 50% of citizens being keen for war is a huge consensus, especially in light of the fact that 95% of medieval people never approved of war—but, of course, had no voice and understood that war brought only suffering for such as they. Nation State war consensus in the Industrial Age was a genius stroke, like getting prairie dogs to agree that herds of bison clashing overhead was good for their warrens. Getting folks onboard through state formation and mass communication gets you a bigger and more enthusiastic killing machine and at the same time develops internal national cohesion.
Hell, I wonder if being the one left standing to write the lionizing lie might not be the goal. For a turd like FDR or Churchill to go down in history as an Achilles or such must have been an intoxicating prospect.
Merkel's only loyalty is to the Washington agenda, to destroy all European nations through Third World mass immigration. The Kalergi Plan.
Why Patton was disgusted by Eisenhower:
youtube.com/watch?v=EnZ4sQbKuCU
The Bottom Line about WWII is that it would have be real easy for Germany and Japan to have avoided going to war with America and completely avoided the rain of ruin that followed. As you say the majority of the American people were of an isolationist bent and certainly didn't want war. But instead the Germans and Japanese picked a fight with America, attacked and/or declared war, and as a result got their asses kicked royally. In a way that made an impression on the whole world, as was intended. They missed a golden opportunity to keep their mouths shut and mind their own knitting. Much like James' analogy of how it's dangerous to be a loud-mouthed tough guy: you're liable to over-estimate your fighting prowess, pick a fight completely out of your league and get hurt real bad at the hands of a vengeful opponent or opponents. Regardless of the fact that FDR was spoiling for a fight and saw war with Nazi Germany and Japan as inevitable. Hitler and Japan saw war with America as inevitable too. But they weren't worried about the outcome of any war with America, even as unprepared for a global, total war as their respective country's economies really were. In spite of their militaristic cultures. The Axis believed their moral/spiritual superiority would completely outclass and overwhelm any material advantages the rich, capitalist USA had. Both Hitler and the Japanese oligarchs thought America was a decadent, capitalist, sissy country and that Americans wouldn't fight. It was ripe for conquest, if not today then in the future. Americans were exploited and oppressed and not a free people like they foolishly believed they were. America and its leaders didn't have any will to win, didn't have any real belief in themselves or their society in other words. So they weren't going to fight to support the unjust and exploitive social order in their country. Much like Northerners during the US Civil War, including U.S. Grant, initially imagined that poor Southern whites weren't going to fight to defend slavery and their own marginalization in Southern society. The poor whites would abandon their slave-owning leaders and flee the field the first time they were confronted by federal troops. Or like Saddam didn't think Americans had any fight left in them after Vietnam. In all these examples the other side found out differently very quickly, didn't they? Now of course had Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan simply waited 60 or 70 years, they'd have had everything their way, wouldn't they? They would then face an America with no world class military and no nuclear weapons and a multicultural American people with even less cohesion and belief in themselves and their country. The Communists by contrast were much more patient and subtle, much more committed to the termite style inside job.
Jeremy, I do think WWII from the Axis perspective went down in macrocosm just like Charlottesville went down for the Alt-Right.
For the next podcast I'll do a reading from a Jap militant of 100 years ago. Yes, I think the U.S. goaded Japan into launching first in an unwinnable war. But I also think it was about as difficult to accomplish as talking Big Ron into banging a buxom barmaid.
Nazi Germany did everything possible to avoid dragging America into the war, given the far superior resources in manpower and weapons it could bring to the fight (I mean look at Lend-Lease and the help the British were getting from a "non-participator"). FDR realized the casus belli was to be had through Japan, totally dependent on US oil imports for her economy. Cutting off oil supply would be a death sentence, literally, and FDR's strategists correctly assessed that Java's oil fields would be seized, with an attack on the US fleet first. There's a strong circumstantial case for Pearl Harbor foreknowledge on Roosevelt's part.
Much like WWI, America's intervention was primarily driven by internal political considerations, namely various Jewish lobby groups. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.