World War II has been over for more than 62 years now, but it never ceases to amaze me how that conflict continues to be “protected” event in history that you must never question or subject to any serious scrutiny. The recent letter by Neil Grieco attacking a previous letter by me as a case in point.
It seems fairly obvious to me that Mr. Grieco has never read the thoughts or views of America's founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, all of whom warned over and over again to avoid foreign wars, alliances and entanglements.
His argument is apparently based on the premise that America and its citizens exist for the sole purpose of being the world's “moral policeman,” ready to do battle with any nation that isn't living up to our expectations. Since that can be any country at any time, I guess we better be prepared for an unending war! Somehow I don‟t think the previously mentioned founders of our Constitutional Republic would approve of that scenario.
Let's review some of Mr. Grieco's claims. He says that Japan began building at Pacific empire as early as 1904. Weren't they only copying the British, French, Portuguese and Dutch, all of whom had colonialist and imperialist holdings in Asia? Maybe it's only offensive to Mr. Grieco when Asians want empire and not when the Europeans have them!
This reference toward glorious allies in World War II as being “peace loving” brought a smile to my face. Does he mean the Communists in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin and were the Communist guerrillas in China led by Mao Tse-tung? Rough estimates (we‟ll never know the exact number, I‟m sure) have the number of victims of Communism in the USSR and China at about 60 million dead.
As for the German attacks on the U.S. merchant fleet and Navy destroyers in 1941, prior to our “official involvement,” he left out the fact that those cargo ships were carrying war material to Britain, Germany's enemy, and the destroyers were along for protection of these convoys across the Atlantic.
Just for the record, Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939, not the reverse! (And please don't trot out the old line that they declared war on Germany to support Poland. The Soviet Union also invaded Poland in 1939, yet Britain and France did not declare war on it.)
In sum, World War II was not a noble crusade between “good” and “evil” (all the participants–yes, that includes the U.S. too–had blood on their hands). It was rather a struggle between different forms of a collectivist ideology and philosophy. You had fascism and National Socialism on one side and communism and various types of socialism in Britain, France and Roosevelt's “New Deal” America on the other side. No one was fighting for individualism, private property rights or true free market (unsubsidized) capitalism at all....
Considering the groundswell of support that the libertarian oriented Ron Paul is getting in his candidacy for president, I'd like to say more than a few people are interested in libertarian message of non-interventionism abroad and limited government and civil liberties here at home.
Mark Richards is a West Milford resident
Published in AIM West Milford on January 11, 2008 and Suburban Trends on January 6, 2008