As for the WW2, I do think that there are no reasonable excuses (except for the sheer ignorance) for ANY attempts to legitimize the tiresome old tune of: "see, the Soviets were evil, so the poor ol' Germans didn't have much of a choice: who knows what might have happened if those darn Bolshies somehow just have vanished".

Soviet regime (before, during and after Stalin's era) was a living nightmare for the most of its people, no argue about that. On the other hand, the Western democracies were endlessly far at the time from the high standards they preached (of course, in comparison to the totalitarian USSR, they were, for all their faults, far better places). I just objected to the moral high-ground position that Mr. Buchanan took on that subject of Britons and Americans sharing the same court with Vishinsky and his ilk. I just said that, from strictly legal point of view, the Soviets could've also objected the twisted morality of the Western allies. You know, Churchill personally was not far from Hitler in his belief in eugenics, and there was a certain thing called "the Jim Crow laws" in the US.

But, my point here is that one just CANNOT dismiss the Naziism (which WAS all things evil incarnate, if you like) as just another totalitarianism, because it was much, much worse than that. For starters, it was a set of the wicked ideas whose very PREMISE was the extinction the whole peoples and races, and subjugation of.. well, pretty much the rest of the humanity, in order to set the rule of "the master race". You cannot bargain or coexist with such a thing, not in the long term. Which is exactly why it was necessary to fight against it. You can like or dislike the fact that the Russian army was the key factor in defeating the Nazis (and the country that payed the biggest price), but that's the history you cannot change.

It is precisely your beliefs about the war that the book attempts to refute. Portraying Nazism as all things evil incarnate, while the Soviets were something much less, is a perverse interpretation of the facts. Before WWII Stalin had murdered far more than Hitler ever would. They were two peas of the same totalitarian pod, and to have one sit with the U.S. in judgement of the other demonstrates a twisted morality. In addition, to try to equate Soviet crimes with American racism of the day is the evidence of a morally bereft individual. It doesn't matter what the Soviets might have said in their defense. They had the blood of tens of millions on their hands, American racism did not.

Mr. Kabala is correct -- the OTHER Hitchens (Peter) is, from what I can tell, a conservative, and as unlike his brother "as chalk and cheese" as the English would say.

Diego, the realization that Hitchens will face judgment should remind us to pause and reflect that we will all experience such. Salvation/damnation is not pre-determined.

Right on. Thanks for injecting a shot of the WW2-reality into this discussion. Since I haven't read Mr. Buchanan's latest book, I'll abstain from the pointless labeling; though the fact that there are quite enough of his other writings and views to be appreciated, hardly helps his cause here. Simply, it's next to impossible to redefine the allied victory of Soviets and Western nations (as well as all the other resistance movements worldwide!) over the utmost evil of Naziism other than the greatest human accomplishment of the modern age. Of course (as #3, Grumpy Old Man, pointed), showing awareness of one's own side's crimes against civilians is an honorable thing. Apart from that, it is gigantically inaccurate and unfair to dismiss the Nuremberg as the "show trial". Since it was not. The Nazis were rightly punished for their crimes, and the only thing to regret is that so many of them fooled the justice by escaping from Germany (and the bulk of its friendly mass-murdering satrapies). The VERY fact that the Allies' crimes against civilians are KNOWN of, testifies that the good had prevailed. If the other side had won, many of us wouldn't have lived to hear the victor's version of history (and I can say that with a certain legitimacy, being a member of a nation considered "subhuman" in Nazis' eyes, and mercilessly treated as such, during the WW2)

As for Stalin's "rape" of Poland, what exactly could he have done, facing the threat from the increasingly aggressive Hitler, than to buy a year or two before the inevitable war? Mind you, Checkoslovakia was handed over to Hitler just a year before Poland, and the West played the ball. The fact that Stalin's regime was brutal and tyrannical is a self-evident fact. But, I can't help thinking that Mr. Buchanan act a tad bit too one-sided, moaning over the discredited morality of the West, sitting with Vishinsky at the same table. His disgust is not completely unlike the one, hypothetically expressed by some old USSR-nostalgic version of himself, who would undoubtedly resent the fact that the Dear Comrade Vishinsky was sharing the same courtroom with the evil imperialist Brits and Americans, who (in their own countries) were, at the time, judging people by the color of their skin rather than the crimes they've committed, and who were the parts of the judicial systems which legally ghettoed, interned and otherwise discriminated their own citizens, based solely on their ethnic profiles

Yes, of course he was. The vast majority of Norwegians would have welcomed the English and, under the circumstances, considered their presence to be an important safeguard against German aggression. Only Vidkun Quisling and a few other traitors would have dreamt of calling it a "violation" of Norwegian neutrality.

Yes, and now also Mr Pat Buchanan, it seems.

Distinguishing between the help from an ally and the aggression of an enemy - it ought to be elementary. The fact is that the legally elected Norwegian government took a stance against the Nazis from day one. Only ignorants and people with hidden agendas still talk about Norwegian 'neutrality' before the German invasion.

How far along are you with your book, and do you have a time frame of when it will be published?

Isn't it strange that it is difficult to write the truth about WWII even now, more than 60 years after the war ended?