During the Cold War, there were people in the West (mostly in academia) who lectured Poles (and others living with Soviet jackboot in their face) about what was good for them.

Fortunately, they were not taken seriously.

Neither should you.

A wonderful encapsulation of the war's "unintended" (and sometimes not so unintended) effects. Of course, for millions, it was not a "good war", at all. I am happy you are always ready to challenge the cherished beliefs which seem to override any rational analysis and appreciation of major world events. The Second World War was, as you noted, laced with harm being done to innocents by the "saviours", and while the defeat of Hitler and Tojo is laudable, the time to take responsibility for what we - and our allies - did is long overdue. We need to admit it and try to redress it! Where it was reasonable "collateral damage", say so . . . and where it wasn't, admit it and assume responsibility. This isn't "trashing a memory", but standing against the "flight from responsibility" that characterizes so much of our modern thinking at all levels.

No. 6: When distinguishing between the Hitlerian view of Poles, and the Stalinist view, remember not only that the Russians re-opened the universities, but the fact that first, when the Poles greeted the Russian invaders in September 1939, coming in from the East three weeks after the Germans came in from the West, they thought the Russians were helpers against the Germans; they weren't, but rather were in Poland to take the Eastern half of that 1939 country which had been negotiated for by them in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939. And, they kept it; so, when the 1945 defeat of the Germans was complete, if you were a pre-war citizen of Lvov, Poland, for example, you were now a Russian, because Stalin made sure - in agreements with the Allies - that the half of Poland he got from Hitler would remain his. And: who egged on the Polish Home Army to rise up in Warsaw, and then sat by and watched it be destroyed? The same friendly Russians who killed the Polish officer corps at Katyn. So, they opened the universities? To teach what?

No. 20: Japan ". . . was on a maniacal rampage . . ." Please. Yes, Japan was on a program of conquest to establish its pre-eminence in East Asia; our provocation was mainly to curtail oil shipments, to allow a "private" air force to be raised among Americans to fight for Chiang Kai-Shek, and so on. "I don't think Hitler needed much provocation . . .": no, he didn't. Hitler simply applied bluster and bullying tactics in international politics - sometimes they are (and were) successful, and sometimes not. But that doesn't change the fact that he got a lot of provocation from us. The "Neutrality Act" was a sham, and the order for the U.S. Navy to "shadow German ships" and report their positions to the British, the "shoot on sight" order against German U-Boats prior to the beginning of the war (for us), Lend-Lease, etc., provided all the provocation anyone could ask for, even if the Germans had no idea of the existence of the Argentia Bay, (Newfoundland) Conference.

I hold no brief for the Japanese and Germans who committed atrocities against helpless people. Such acts themselves assured that any "gains" could only be repulsive to most of us and thus vainglorious achievements for the perpetrators. Likewise, any such acts by the Allies should be "owned up to", and accepted for what they are, and to the degree possible, atoned for.

Finally, Mr. Buchanan, I am sure you are not perturbed by those who try to insinuate that you are somehow "Nazi"-influenced: this is the intellectual refuge of people who need a smear-crutch to bolster their arguments, because the facts do not support them.

I have no problem with Polish foreign policy (or any other country's foreign policy) being subject to debate or criticism such as yours, as no country is perfect.

My objection is to a lopsided attitude of Buchanan, who still hasn't gotten over Versailles, who constantly criticizes Britain, but never ever criticizes Germany.

FYI, Pilsudski rejected an alliance with the Russian Whites, whose Constituent Assembly had recognized Polish independence.

Red commander Tukhachevsky is on record for believing that a Polish-White alliance could've very well resulted in a defeat of Bolshevism.

In 1938, Poland joined Nazi Germany and Hungary in ther dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Something which the West didn't oppose. The USSR offered a united front with the West to opppse a nazi advance on Czechoslovakia. The West opted for the appeasement route; no doubt hoping that the Nazis and Soviets would beat each other to a pulp, with the Westy left alone. Albeit a monster, Stalin was diplomatically prudent in making his own deal with the Nazis.

It's a great shame that many innocents die over such geopolitical board games.

I understand NGPM's concern. Deconstruction or destructuring is important and inevitable in order to ascertain if the component parts of a relative whole contain the essence of themselves essential to truth...When it is felt or suspected the relative whole in question is hollow or bogus i.e. in this case the good war/bad war, etc.

Go back to the Greeks for guidance because afterward the Latin notion that myth destroys logos or word in the process and so it was either myth/ or logos [not both] became the standard in philosophy yet with us today - more, than less. {Another mistake held as a standard is to avoid contradiction in order to arrive at truth but that is false as well. Truth is a double-edged sword, but that is for another discussion.}

The Greeks understood that myth is also process, just as logos is not only word but process and so myth is also logos intertwined along the way in TIME. ... Until the point at which the most pristine essence of each can't remain a tandem and they separate. Thus the appropriate combination in time and separation at the appropriate time are necessary, (it's the human/divine factor walking hand in hand), and when appropriate not evil. Then to force connection after the Fact in time, would lapse into that being an evil.

Thus both gentlemen from their own perspective in time are accurate.

Another mistake is that myth is destroyed by 'logic' also associated with logos (and is one of the few mistakes in Plato's work). But the Greeks found out and proved of course that logic is not absolute. ... I called Plato's few mistakes in that regad, when I posted as 'george' on the old sf site - the Platonic facade. And also referred to such similar mistakes when they cropped in conceptual perspective in modernity as the Semitic Facade. Plato was the greatest philosopher ever or neck & neck with Aristotle but it's an imperfect world and he was not an exception in that regard.

Thus nothing religious (matters of faith) can ever be destroyed per se, and least of all by 'logic.' The only thing that can destroy the religious is the withdrawl of the God or the divine and that equates with such a tandem no longer being timely in terms of the preservation of the most essential of each.

So I agree with both gentleman except with the caveat that to indicate as NGPM did that all deconstruction or destructuring is flat out evil (as some'times' it may be) 'as if' that were an absolute without the consideration of time is a mistake. ... And one of the old mistakes too of Christianity under an imbalance toward the Latin at the expense of the Greek in toto. In the past [in time] such Latin proclivity (or imbalance) may not have been a mistake but something temporally fortuitous. And going forward needs an eye both toward the present as it unfolds and thus toward eternity as well. Yes.

It's why the exoteric and the esoteric in religion (and the best ones have both) although different only at the level of their most pristine essence are along the way in time also Legitimately the same. Good.

We are all in time a sign that cannot be completely read only approximated. Until the garments of this world case by case are completely enfolded into eternity (we build for eternity by dwelling - therein along the way as Chronicles has pointed out in one of its issues). And is why we have no purpose per se but rather exist within an occasion always for indebtedness and responsibility which is the first not the last standard of our Christianity. 'The first shall be last, the last first.'

'What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,
That tremble at the'imagination?' -W.S.

And that's the way it is, April 11, 2008 - the place to be

P.S. that's why I like to say Myth Works

At one time I thought Dr. Fleming was something of a grouch. But as I've grown older I've lost my temper a couple of times with people of stupid persuasions (I hesitate to call them "stupid" myself because breaking out myself was quite a nightmare. Other times I've tossed a statement based on an assumption that (almost) everyone posting on this site would know is sensible, and the horror I provoked from passers-by was frustratingly dramatic.

Of course, what's more frustrating--and what leads to those inappropriate outbursts--is that feeling of stalemate, like you reach a point where you can no longer confide in or vent to anyone because no one around you speaks your language. But we shouldn't complain: personally, I wouldn't start speaking NARAL or RNC for the world.

"But I have in the past made the mistake of attempting to impress postmodernists, and whether I won their respect or not (in most cases I am sure I did not) I came away hating myself for ever wanting it in the first place."

I get the impression that as more and more people become more and more steeped in modernist ideology -- Left or Right -- it becomes more and more difficult to communicate any sane or intelligent observation to them, however basic or small.

Be blunt .... and they get offended, oversimplify your words into strawman-form.... and hence they tune out what you're really trying to convey.

("You're a racist," or "You're an anti-war pacifist," etc....)

Be diplomatic .... and they assume you are just reiterating what they already think anyhow ..... and hence they tune out you're really trying to convey.

("Oh, sure we need to worry about Muslims taking over the West ... which is why I'm glad I voted for Bush!" or "Oh, sure, the invasion of Iraq was a mistake... which is why I pine for the good ol' days of Clinton...")

Trying to share even the most meager crumb of truth becomes a tightrope-walk.