- World War II is supposedly the one "just" war
America has fought. Even critics of the Vietnam War or the so-called War
on Terrorism feel obliged to say that World War II was necessary.
-
- And that war provided a justification for all sorts of
military adventures afterward. In fact, whenever I write that Americans
shouldn't be bombing Iraq or Serbia or Afghanistan or some other hapless
Third World country, I get e-mails from critics saying such things as:
-
- * "You would have turned the other cheek after Pearl
Harbor."
- * "Munich showed you have to stop a dictator before
he's too strong to resist."
-
- * "If you'd been in charge in the 1940s, we'd all
be speaking Japanese or German today."
-
- World War II has always been of great interest to me.
I've known for decades that it was just one more war the politicians suckered
us into. But I still learned a great deal from reading Richard Maybury's
new book "World War II: The Rest of the Story."
-
- Maybury provides no startling new evidence. But he sifts
through the known facts - which nearly all historians agree on - and assembles
the evidence to show irrefutably that:
-
- * The U.S. could had stayed out of the war, because Hitler
had no chance of conquering England - let alone America. (His doom was
sealed the moment his troops invaded Russia in August 1941.)
- * The Pearl Harbor attack was neither a surprise nor
"unprovoked." (The Japanese code had been broken 16 months before,
and Roosevelt had bullied the Japanese in order to provoke a war. On Nov.
26, 1941, Secretary of War Stimson wrote in his diary, "The question
was how we should maneuver them into firing the first shot without allowing
too much danger to ourselves.")
- * There was no military reason to drop atomic bombs on
Japan. They were used as terrorist weapons - killing innocent people to
influence other people. (Japan was already offering to surrender, their
homeland was blockaded, and the Japanese couldn't have survived six months
even without an invasion.)
-
- There's much more, of course. But the main point is that
America should never have intervened in the age-old quarrels of Europe
and Asia. If our politicians had minded their own business, 292,131 Americans
wouldn't have died - died thinking they were defending American freedoms,
but actually sacrificing for the benefit of politicians.
-
- The Roosevelt myth
-
- Why did America get in the war?
-
- Because Franklin Roosevelt thought it was to his personal
advantage.
-
- In 1939, most people considered the New Deal to be an
abject failure. The unemployment rate was still at 17 percent, with no
end in sight to the Depression.
-
- Roosevelt still managed to be re-elected in 1940 because
he had great personal charisma, and because he was running against a typical
me-too Republican, Wendell Wilkie - a man with no solution for the economic
crisis. Roosevelt insisted he would keep America neutral, proclaiming "I
have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your
boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
-
- But in reality, Roosevelt saw getting into the war as
a way to redeem his reputation and join the ranks of the "great"
presidents - wartime leaders like Washington, Lincoln and Wilson.
-
- Making the world logical again
-
- Maybury writes in a lucid, easy-to-follow style. He explains
how Hitler made impressive early victories in the war, but still never
had a chance once he decided to invade Russia. His sources of information
are the same available to anyone else, but many of his insights and conclusions
are original and refreshing.
-
- He ties what happened in World War II to what is happening
today in the so-called War on Terrorism. In fact, he shows that today's
crises are simply an extension of one century-long war.
-
- Reading this book may help you see the world as a logical
place again. It answers a question that might concern any lover of liberty:
Why did a nation devoted to freedom and small government - blessed by being
isolated from the age-old turmoils of the Old World - cross two oceans,
sacrifice a quarter-million Americans, and become embroiled in everyone
else's affairs?
-
- The answer: It was done to satisfy the personal ambitions
of politicians - not to save America from tyranny.
-
- It's too much to expect tens of millions of Americans
to understand that our wars are just a political racket - not when their
historical knowledge consists of the one-liners fed to them in government
schools. But it is important that you understand - if you hope to be effective
in restoring liberty to America.
-
- If you want to know more about World War II, I urge you
to read "World War II: The Rest of the Story," which you can
obtain at Maybury's website.
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