[Peace-discuss] The myth of the good war

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Raimondo is hardly infallible -- he doesn't like Chomsky, who is -- but he gets 
some things right that others don't.  But I was astonished to see that he 
doesn't mention here Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke"  -- the best book recently 
on WWII. --CGE]


	The ‘Good’ War: It wasn't so good
	by Justin Raimondo, September 04, 2009

I write these words on September 3, 2009, seventy years to the day since Britain 
and France declared war on Germany – an occasion observed, if not exactly 
celebrated by the leaders and opinion-makers of the West, as the beginning of 
"the good war." The War Party just loves WWII because it’s the one war where all 
agree we had no choice but to fight and win a war to the death. Well, not quite 
all, but on this question dissent is simply not tolerated.

Take, for example, Pat Buchanan, who marks this anniversary with a reiteration 
of the theme of his excellent book, The Unnecessary War, which makes the case 
that war was never inevitable, and that only the pernicious idea of "collective 
security" – the Franco-British "guarantee" to Poland – made it so. Buchanan also 
makes the indisputable point that if only the Poles had given Danzig back to 
Germany, from whom it had been taken in the wake of the disastrous Treaty of 
Versailles, a negotiated peace would have been the result – a much more 
desirable one than 56,125,262 deaths and the incalculable toll taken by the war 
in terms of resources and pure human misery.

Oh, but no: to the "bloggers," left and right, this is a case of "Pat Buchanan, 
Hitler Apologist." In the political culture constructed by these pygmies, any 
challenge to the conventional wisdom – especially one that involves questioning 
WWII, the Sacred War – is something close to a criminal act, one that separates 
out the perpetrator from the realm of polite society and consigns him to an 
intellectual Coventry, where he can do no harm. And of course attacking US entry 
into WWII is considered a "hate crime" because – well, what are you, some kind 
of "Hitler apologist"?!

But of course WWII was not inevitable, and Hitler was indeed amenable to 
negotiations: he never wanted to go to war with the British — whom he admired — 
and the French, whose influential native fascist movement had good relations 
with their German co-thinkers. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the East, 
specifically the Soviet Union, and the lands of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. 
This is stated quite plainly in Mein Kampf, where the whole idea of lebensraum 
was broached: Hitler envisioned the Nazi empire bestriding the Eurasian 
landmass, basically replacing Russia as the preeminent transcontinental power.

As it was, antiwar sentiment in the years prior to Pearl Harbor was the dominant 
trend in America, so much so that not even Franklin Roosevelt dared go up 
against it: in the course of the 1940 election, with war a looming possibility, 
he infamously declared:

"I have said before, but I shall say it again and again and again: your boys are 
not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

FDR was a much better liar than George W. Bush, but you’ll never get anyone over 
at TPM or the Center for American Progress to admit it. Or, maybe you will: 
maybe they’ll take the line of historian Thomas A. Bailey, who admired Roosevelt 
and wrote: "Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period 
before Pearl Harbor." Oh but it was a Good Lie, because: "He was faced with a 
terrible dilemma. If he let the people slumber in a fog of isolationism, they 
might fall prey to Hitler. If he came out unequivocally for intervention, he 
would be defeated" in the 1940 election. The people need to be lied to by a Wise 
Leader if it’s for their own good: that’s the consensus in Washington, D.C., at 
any rate, and nothing appears to have changed since that time.

[...]

Writing in Salon, columnist Glenn Greenwald lays out the historical record:

"There was a time, not all that long ago, when the U.S. pretended that it viewed 
war only as a "last resort," something to be used only when absolutely necessary 
to defend the country against imminent threats.  In reality, at least since the 
creation of the National Security State in the wake of World War II, war for the 
U.S. has been everything but a "last resort."  Constant war has been the normal 
state of affairs.  In the 64 years since the end of WWII, we have started and 
fought far more wars and invaded and bombed more countries than any other nation 
in the world — not even counting the numerous wars fought by our clients and 
proxies.  Those are just facts.  History will have no choice but to view the 
U.S. — particularly in its late imperial stages — as a war-fighting state."

The "Good War," in short, was the launching pad for the American Imperium, and 
ever since we’ve been marauding all over the world, likening our foes to Hitler, 
and building up a mighty apparatus of mass murder answerable to no one and 
nothing – certainly not to the American people. As Greenwald puts it:

"As became clear with Iraq, the ‘mere’ fact that a large majority of Americans 
oppose a war has little effect — none, actually — on whether the war will 
continue.  Like so much of what happens in Washington, the National Security 
State and machinery of Endless War doesn’t need citizen support.  It continues 
and strengthens itself without it.   That’s because the most powerful factions 
in Washington — the permanent military and intelligence class, both public and 
private — would not permit an end to, or even a serious reduction of, America’s 
militarized character.  It’s what they feed on.  It’s the source of their wealth 
and power."

People wonder why I continue to rail on about WWII as the unnecessary war: 
that’s a hard case to make, they say, so why not leave it alone? Content 
yourself with opposing the Iraq and Afghan wars, they counsel. But it’s 
precisely because I oppose both those wars, and all the wars to come, that I 
persist in trying to get past the mythology and emotion-driven made-in-Hollywood 
version of "history" which rationalizes and even glorifies a war that killed 
over 50 million human beings and consigned whole nations to privation and tyranny.

Because you’ll note how every war is likened to WWII: every attempt at 
negotation is derided as "another Munich," and every tinpot dictator is yet 
another "Hitler." It worked so well in 1940 that the War Party keeps reenacting 
the same scenario: the Iranians, we are told, are crazed anti-Semites who want 
to create another Holocaust by nuking Israel. Saddam Hussein, we were told, was 
a Middle Eastern version of Hitler, and even Manuel Noriega – remember him? – 
was likened to the German dictator. Hitler – that’s the image they want to keep 
in front of our faces, the one that evokes hatred and a desire to kill, and even 
somehow justifies the deaths of multi-millions.

The power of this historical narrative is uncanny. The other day, I got into an 
argument with a friend of a friend, a nice liberal chap who dutifully supported 
Obama, and considers himself a good "progressive" with enlightened liberal 
views. This guy claimed that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was 
"necessary" in order to "win" WWII. He made this argument as our mutual Japanese 
friend sat there and listened, impassively – doubtless quite used to Americans 
rationalizing the mass murder of his countrymen.

Ah yes, the "good war," just like the Afghan war that liberals are following 
their Dear Leader blindly into – although, it seems, more than a few outside the 
parameters of Washington, D.C. are beginning to question its alleged goodness.

It takes time, but the truth eventually comes out: it did in the case of the 
Iraq war, and our alleged "war of necessity" in Afghanistan which is being 
debunked in record time. World War II, however, remains ensconced in popular 
mythology as a kind of storybook narrative where Good confronted Evil and the 
latter was utterly and finally defeated. This myth of the "greatest generation" 
will likely persist for a while longer, overshadowing our contemporary debates 
about which wars to fight  and why, but it cannot last forever. Eventually, the 
truth will out, as it always does, and then we can begin the process of 
dismantling its monstrous progeny, the National Security State.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/09/03/the-good-war/