At War's End
Richard A. Widmann
Recent headlines announcing that World
War One had finally ended were sure to raise an eyebrow of those of us who
noticed. While even on-going wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan are
minor media stories dwarfed by the latest extravagances and debauchery of
Hollywood's rich and famous and the momentary stars of "reality"
TV, it's no wonder that most missed the end of "the War to End All
Wars." While few of us are old enough to recall the actual fighting
which drew to a close on 11 November 1918, the matter was apparently not
officially closed until Germany had made its final payment. It was indeed
that final payment to the war's victors that allowed the officials to
declare "game over."
Surprising headlines announce that
World War One has finally ended in 2010. For those posing by this
captured English tank, they surely anticipated an earlier end.
While this announcement may seem an
unimportant matter in our age of iPods and iPhones, it highlights several
key points for those of us who label ourselves 'revisionists.'
While "setting history into accord with the facts" as Harry
Barnes would have put it, is the stuff of which all good historical
writing has always been composed, it was in the years that followed
Europe's first great immolation that Revisionism was born. Attempting to
revise the terms of the Armistice as laid out in the treaty of Versailles,
revisionists sought to move beyond the old hatreds that fueled the murder
of millions to a common understanding among nations that would usher in a
time of peace. Revisionists accurately prophesied that the economic
punishment inflicted upon Germany as well as the humiliating coerced
admission of guilt for the war's initiation would serve no purpose but to
renew hostilities at the first possible moment. Indeed the economic
sanctions and the Treaty of Versailles were key elements in the rise of
National Socialism and the tremendous waste of life that became popularly
known as World War Two.
Crippling economic sanctions appeared to
be the peaceful weapon of choice in the years following World War One.
Sound economic theory would not only prevent "aggressor" nations
from rebuilding a military, it would funnel the pillaged booty of those so
foolish as to lay down their arms to those who refused to stop the
bloodletting. We must note the sums which seemed crippling some 90 years
ago seem insignificant when compared to the ridiculous spending of today's
wars. If Germany has only now paid off World War One, when might we expect
the current wars to be paid off?
From the standpoint of "perpetual
war for perpetual peace" and the ulterior motives and baggage
associated with such campaigns, revisionists should note that the
"war against terror" is a vast improvement over the "cold
war" and that, in turn, a vast improvement over the hot wars against
Germany and her allies.
Hot wars have an objective. There is a
goal that can be easily understood by all; to destroy one's enemy. The
enemy may be and often is cast as a monstrous villain who must be
destroyed at all costs. Failure to annihilate "them" will mean
sure annihilation of "us". But such hot wars come to an end –
at least the fighting and economic hyperactivity with which they are so
closely tied. The Cold War is a significant improvement as a concept. In
the Cold War you get all the spending with little of the death and
protests that come when a tired nation no longer recalls the reason to
halt the spread of foreign economic and social ideologies. With the War on
Terror the eternal threat of an extremist faith always ready to strike at
the civilian population not only ensures unlimited budgets for military
growth (wasn't it the Pentagon who recently asked to have its budget
slashed because it didn't know what to do with the funds?) but also the
need to deploy our forces to the far-flung corners of the empire. It seems
that out-of-control spending and self-inflicted debt can be our friend.
With an economics-in-wonderland attitude no debt can ever be too high, and
no debt will need be repaid. A lesson those silly fiscally responsible
Huns could never understand!
As the declaration of World War One's end
falls on deaf ears, we must wonder when the wars that followed will come
to an end. From the appearance of things, several may never end. By the
time of World War Two, economic deprivation had been replaced with
psychological persecution. This was not going to be the "guilt clause"
of Versailles but the new hyper-guilt of Nuremberg – a guilt that was so
great that no one would ever question the methods of the crusaders who
slew the Nazi beast. Civilians would be marched through the camps. Those
who did not see them personally would be subjected to the films made by
horror-film director Alfred Hitchcock and other Hollywood talent flown in
for the occasion. New words would be created, books would be written,
memorials and museums would spring up in what might be described as the
greatest faith-based movement of the second half of the 20th century.
While the payments for losing World War
One eventually came to an end, shedding the guilt of World War Two amounts
to denouncing the Virgin Mary as a harlot during the Inquisition – even
analyzing the Nazi Holocaust is the heresy of the 20th and now 21st
century. The guilt of World War Two and its associated atrocities are
fundamental to our world vision, our expansion of empire and our perpetual
wars. For every would-be tyrant, every former-friend-turned–despot,
enables a military action if only to prevent another "Chamberlain at
Munich." Every opportunity for diplomacy and peace is painted as
foolishness that is better resolved by blitzkrieg. Any ideology other than
social democracy is a threat that requires the speedy deployment of our
well-armed forces. The empire spreads and the economy inflates. Even
during our recent economic failures, the fear of mass depression (the
worst since FDR's New Deal) prevents the conclusion of hostilities abroad.
For without war we would surely feel the Depression's icy blast once again.
If the announcement of the end of World
War One means anything for American revisionists, it simply means that our
dream of the USA minding its own business, taking care of its own and
dismantling its empire is out of reach. Our solutions to the world's woes
are a heresy not unlike that of questioning the unique guilt and
monstrosity of Germans. So focused are American court historians on our
long-defeated enemy that they fail to recognize his likeness when they
look in the mirror. But then again, why should we consider our national
sins, (didn't the Japs in Nagasaki have it coming?) why should we wonder
about the origin of so much of the world's hatred towards us? Why should
we care while we have Facebook, reality TV, football and Hollywood? We are
a nation that would forfeit its rights for a flat-screen TV and a home
theater system. We are a naďve and self-absorbed people who are doomed to
pay the reparations of war both in dollars and blood forever into an
eternal future.
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