Speak to me no more of Pat Buchanan. In his most recent column, “Was it the ‘Good War’?“, he demonstrates that he has not just lost his moral compass, he has tossed it over his shoulder and smashed it to shards.
And the illogic! I don’t know the names for all the logical fallacies he employed (do I have to know the names?), but they are obvious, and egregious. Surely someone more adequate to the task than I will dissect this sorry mess.
Did I misread this, or did he actually claim that the annihilation of European Jews was a result of the war, rather than the avowed intention of Hitler that preceded by many years, in both planning and execution, the outbreak of the war?
War always produces the most horrific examples of the so-called Law of Unintended Consequences. Things don’t go the way you expect them to, and don’t end up the way you expected them to. Does that somehow retroactively discredit the decisions made in the beginning, based on the situation confronting you at the time?
Consider: I see a neighbor abusing his wife and children. There is clear evidence of serious physical abuse, maybe worse. One night there is screaming next door, children in the yard crying. I call the police. Husband is arrested, jailed. End of abuse. Wife loses parental rights for not having protected the children by contacting Child Protective Services herself. Kids get put in foster homes. Some wind up abused again, one develops a drug addiction and dies of an overdose. Mom starts going to night school to get a degree and a better job, then gets struck by a drunk driver and killed.
None of that would have happened if I hadn’t called the police, so that makes it all my fault, eh? Seems to me that is what Mr. Buchanan’s logic would conclude. I should have just turned up my stereo and ignored the screams that night.
And what does Mr. Buchanan imagine the world would look like now had we ignored the screams of Europe that began in 1939?
Dishonest. Sad. Pathetic. Worthy of anger and disgust.
Afterthought: My dad was a veteran of that war, fought in Germany under Gen. Patton. He admired Buchanan and supported him when he ran for the Republican nomination. I’m glad he was spared reading this column.
Filed under: International affairs, Military matters, World War II
My impression was a bit different. He seemed to be pointing out that our attitude to that particular war tends to be one of praise more than mourning. Many Americans are glad that we did it, not simply sad that it had to be done in the first place. So I think he’s using the word “good” in a slightly different sense than your reading.
Then again, he never makes this critique explicit in the article, so I’m probably barking up the wrong tree.