{"id":635,"date":"2004-12-07T21:55:42","date_gmt":"2004-12-07T21:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:54","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:54","slug":"kevin_drum_and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=635","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Drum And ‘The Phony War’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Drum bases his challenge<\/a> I discuss below<\/a> on some basic history:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The basic post-9\/11 position among conservatives is that the war on terror is the moral equivalent of the anti-fascist crusade of World War II and the anticommunist crusade of the Cold War. Since this is their core argument, let’s take a look at the historical comparisons.<\/p>\n

\nFirst, World War II. Here’s a quickie timeline of what happened in the five years before the United States entered the war: In 1936 German troops occupied the Rhineland. In 1938 Austria fell in the Anschluss, Hitler bullied Neville Chamberlain into brokering the Munich agreement that turned over Czechoslovakia to Germany, and the Nazi holocaust against the Jews began in earnest with Kristallnacht. In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland, and a year later overran Scandinavia, Belgium, and France and began the Battle of Britain. In 1941 Rommel began operations in North Africa and in June Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

\nWhat’s the point of these historical highlights? Just this: in the five years before 1941, world events made the danger from fascism so clear that when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor even diehard Republican isolationists didn’t hesitate to declare war. The argument was over.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not quite so simple, Kevin. The period leading up to World War II was not nearly one of such clear political unity and commonality of vision. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Churchill also kept himself from falling prey to the trend toward unnuanced pacifism in the twenties and thirties. In 1929, sixty-two countries, including the United States, signed the Kellog-Briand Pact, an instrument renouncing war as a means of international power. Over three different years – 1935, 1936, and 1937 – the United States passed Neutrality Acts that prevented the United States from engaging in conflicts overseas and from selling arms to belligerents. Those in the West who urged taking up arms against expansionist dictatorships like Germany (Hitler spoke of increasing Germany’s “living space” and announced a rearmament plan in 1935) or Italy (Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in the same year) or Japan (which had invaded China in 1931) were seen as dangerous warmongers. The climate in the United States and Britain between Versailles and the German invasion of Poland was passionately antiwar. “Mr. Chamberlain can’t seem to understand that we live in a very wicked world,” Churchill said as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s government tried time and time again to find a way to manage Germany without resorting to arms.<\/p>\n

\n – Franklin and Winston, by Jon Meacham, p 36<\/p>\n

\n[On Dec 7, 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor] Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, then en route to the Soviet Union, reached Churchill that night. “He was naturally in a high state of excitement,” Eden recalled. He found Churchill was already full of plans to go to Washington. Eden, however, “was not sure that the Americans would want him so soon.”<\/p>\n

\nEden was right. When Roosevelt dictated his speech to Grace Tully, it concerned on nation – Japan. He did not mention Germany. Eden seemed to understand this distinction; Churchill did not. “The United States and Britain were now allies,” Eden said, “in the war against Japan.”<\/p>\n

\nAgainst Japan –<\/b> not yet against Germany. Typically, Churchill had suppressed nuance in his delight over the events of the day. Thus began a fraught week as Roosevelt put off Churchill’s excited talk of a quick trip to Washington.<\/p>\n

\nWould Hitler take America on?<\/p>\n

\n – pp 132-133<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reality is that even given Roosevelt’s clear perception that fighting Germany was part of the larger battle, we did not declare war on Hitler’s Germany – Hitler declared war on us in a typical fit of overreaching. Had he not done so, the history of the next year or two would have been far more complex, politically, for Roosevelt and Churchill.<\/p>\n

…to be continued…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Drum bases his challenge I discuss below on some basic history: The basic post-9\/11 position among conservatives is that the war on terror is the moral equivalent of the anti-fascist crusade of World War II and the anticommunist crusade of the Cold War. Since this is their core argument, let’s take a look at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}