En defensa de “Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War” de Pat Buchanan (y 3)

Front Page Magazine se apunta al tiro al mono, en la misma línea. Yo creo que en este caso no se han leído el libro:

What Buchanan doesn’t mention is that there was no way to provide viable self-determination for some groups without creating new minorities, as Europe‘s populations were deeply entangled.

Buchanan no lo tiene porqué explicar, sino quienes propusieron ese principio de «autodeterminación». Fue Wilson que soltó esa patochada sin tener en cuenta la historia de Europa. Además lo aplicaron sistemáticamente contra Alemania, recortando zonas de población mayoritariamente alemana y poniéndolas bajo las nacionalidades creadas.

Buchanan tactfully says nothing about why Britain found itself in 1938 at Munich with the unenviable dilemma of either conceding Hitler’s demands or going to war with Germany when «she had no draft, no Spitfires, no divisions ready to be sent to France.» Yet the reason for precisely this dilemma and these near-fatal deficiencies was years of appeasement – precisely the policy Buchanan is at pains to resurrect.

En el 40, cuando dio garantías a Polonia no estaba en mejor situación para defenderla. También Buchanan condena el apeasement de primera hora, cuando se podía haber atacado a Hitler o marcarle límites.

A refusal to arm and maintain necessary forces to keep the peace; a refusal to reverse Hitler’s violation of the peace when he remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 – something that could have been accomplished easily with available forces when Hitler’s armies were as yet too weak and small to face determined opposition; a refusal to make common cause with the Soviets to counter Hitler – all these and more found Britain so fatefully unprepared for the crisis when it came. But Buchanan fixates on Munich, divorced of its historical and moral context, his unctuous tone notwithstanding.

Buchanan considera error que Francia no respondiera la reocupación de Renania por Hitler, que empezó mandado unos pocos soldados de prueba. De nuevo, vemos que se pide el pacto con los soviéticos, que para entonces habían matado de hambre a millones de campesinos. ¿No hubiera sido mejor dejar que ambos se neutralizaran?

In short, abdication at Munich led to the ill-considered and unenforceable guarantee to Poland, which Buchanan deplores – he merely fails to explain that his preferred appeasement policy brought Britain to that very pass.

No. Esto es casi una calumnia.

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Igual de lamentables me parecen descalificaciones ad hominem como esta: Warning: Nazi Sympathizer Pat Buchanan Is Getting Scary. Lo de las simpatías nazis se debe a que ha coincidido en un programa de radio con supremacistas blancos y negadores del holocausto:

You read that right. On June 29th, MSNBC personality and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan appeared on a neo-Nazi radio program to promote his new revisionist history of the Second World War, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. James Edwards is the host of the program «Political Cesspool,» the stated mission of which is to «represent a philosophy that is pro-White.» Edwards and his colleagues seek «to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races» and believe that «Secession is a right of all people and individuals. It was successful in 1776 and this show honors those who tried to make it successful in 1865.»

Ya me contarán cómo invalida eso los argumentos de su libro.

Pero hay más, aquí afirman literalmente que Buchanan dice que Hitler no planeó el holocausto (Nazi Tool Pat Buchanan Says Hitler Did Not Plan Holocaust):

Buchanan’s Nazi conversion is complete. Today he claims…»Hitler did not plan to kill the Jews.»

That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. “Mein Kampf” is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.

That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.

And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.

Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.

“Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime … ?”

Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.

The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.

Pues tiene toda la razón. A Occidente el antisemitismo de Hitler no le importó gran cosa. En fin, ya os hablaré del libro.

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