There's been quite a bit of furor over Pat Buchanan's recent diatribe that WWII was not worth fighting. (see it at
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44210)
I hate to defend the racist SOB, but he's not as big an idiot as Bush. In fact, I would say that Mr. Buchanan is either clever as a fox here, or simply displaying the logical extension of Bush's statements. Consider his piece at face value...below the fold.
While Pat is an utter idiot (and Neville Chamberlain hypocrite) to suggest that Hitler wouldn't have attacked France and Britain if they hadn't interceded on Poland's behalf, and he is morally unconscionable for failing to mention the Holocaust, his position is at least consistent--it's ultranationalist isolationism.
Here's what Pat is right about, though (and it pains me to say those words):
Bush made some RADICAL statements last week. He essentially said that FDR lacked the vision and moral fortitude to go to war with the USSR immediately following WWII. That FDR was, essentially, a morally spineless coward, along with Truman and Eisenhower. Why? Because they "allowed" Eastern "new Europe" to be oppressed within the Iron Curtain, without a fight.
That is the statement of an utter fool with no sense of history, and no understanding of what war even means. But then, just look at Iraq.
If you take Bush's words at face value, though, then WWII WAS a waste of time, like Pat says, at least until France was occupied and Britain was blitzkrieged.
If "New Europe" is the prize, and Hitler is = or < Stalin in evil, then you are left with two options: either NEITHER Hitler NOR Stalin were worth fighting, or BOTH were worth fighting.
Or, on the other hand, it could be that Hitler was worth stopping in his own right in a way that Stalin was not; it could be that picking a fight with the USSR would have been about as stupid as attacking Saddam and building a missile shield in order to fight terrorism (oh, wait a minute...); it could be that New Europe and Old Europe are not equivalent in value; it could be that Stalin had nukes and Hitler didn't, significantly changing the equation.
But then, that would make BUSH a big fat idiot. And it's not Buchanan's problem for pointing out the logical extension of Bush's argument--it's just his problem for agreeing with it.