Pat Buchanan says he was trying to defend 'appeasement advocates' against Bush's anti appeasement remarks in Jerusalem.
What he said, though, in fact reduced pro appeasement rhetoric to its illogical extreme:
Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.
But the Poles refused to negotiate. Why? Because they were a proud, defiant, heroic people and because Neville Chamberlain had insanely given an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland. If Hitler invaded, Chamberlain told the Poles, Britain would declare war on Germany.
From March to August 1939, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. But the Poles, confident in their British war guarantee, refused. So, Hitler cut his deal with Stalin, and the two invaded and divided Poland.
The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.
http://www.humanevents.com/...
Buchanan follows up this mind bogglingly revisionist history (ookay, Hitler just wanted to defend his Volks against evil Communists, but Polish and British intransigence just forced him to sign a pact with Stalin to divide Poland?) by defending negotiating with Ahmadinejad and Hamas.
You know, I always suspected that paleocon isolationist Buchanan thought the wrong guys won World War II. But I never thought he'd be so blatant about it.
If Buchanan was trying to defend Obama --- well, with friends like this Obama doesn't need enemies.
On the other hand, Buchanan has very ably demonstrated the incredible intellectual contortions that result when one tries to argue for "unconditional" negotiations with demonstrably untrustworthy adversaries. It is also a reminder that 'negotiating' may have some serious negative consequences, such as dismembering Czechoslovakia or Poland. And, at least some of the time, the alternative to war, the 'diplomatic option' often bandied about by statesmen of all parties, is simply a euphemism for 'surrender'.
Buchanan's unconditional defense of appeasement has led him to recast Hitler as a misunderstood 'partner for peace'. I hope the jarring crash of his rhetoric will serve as a caution to all travellers on the diplomatic highway.