Pat Buchanan Still Doesn't Believe in Extermination Camps?

Sorry, I can't resist.

Here's the latest piece of journalistic genius from Pat Buchanan. WorldNetDaily: Was World War II worth it?:

"When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France - hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires - was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a 'smashing' success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in. (Sorry Pat, but about 33% of Germans voted for Hitler and then the Conservative Christian Democrats agreed to form a coalition with him rather than the Socialists and Communists. Hitler then seized power through force via a putsch -- that's German for a coup of sorts but essentially involved him consolidating power forcefully rather than democratically.)

If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him (oh, so the British and the French started WW II. I was confused about that) and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war with 50 million dead?

The war Britain and France declared My emphasis) to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling not British and French. Understandably. Yes, Bush has opened up quite a can of worms."

Gee, what about those 6 million Jews and 6 million other victims of Nazi extermination? What about the fact that when Britain and France initially declared war on Germany they would hardly have thought that the deal would entail ceding the East to Russia since the Soviets were closer to Hitler at this point than to the West.

There's no use parsing dictators here but Pat implies that WWII was a waste since it resulted in Slavic European countries coming under the domination of Stalin rather than Hitler (or subsequent to Hitler). 6 million Jews (interesting that Pat writes on the day before Israel's birthday) and their descendants might argue otherwise. Atrios has the best response:

Now, if somebody wrote that the United States' actions before 9/11/01 may have been a catalyst for those dastardly acts, they are supposed to be shamed and humiliated to the end of their days.

But such will not be the fate of Pat. Hell, he's probably on Scarborough tonight and McLaughlin Group this weekend.

UPDATE: I am embarrassed to say I missed this the first time: "When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France - hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires - was World War II worth it"

Hmmmm. The loss of empires. There's something we should all be ruing these days. The lost empires of Britain and France when good wise white people ruled over silly brown and yellow folks. I guess this is part of the deeper and more subtle conservative thread that nations such as those in Africa were better off under white rule than they are today. I think David Horowitz (or D Ho as Michael Berube calls him) runs this line of argument 'Reparations? Heck you should thank us for getting you out of Africa.'

Piteous. Just piteous.