Xander

There are deep problems with the outcome of WWII. Most disturbingly, the war ends with the Josef Stalin and the Soviets in control of half of Europe and dominant in Asia. Yet the narrative is that WWII was fought to end tyranny. In the Atlantic Charter FDR stated that one of the core aims of Allied intervention was to establish "a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want." But that isn't what happened. Instead, WWII ended with a brutal dictator in control of vast swaths of new territory. WWII did not end aggression or tyranny. If anything, the conflict ended with even more human beings worldwide under totalitarian domination. Was WWII fought to free Poland? If so, it was a failure. Poland remained under Soviet control for another 40+ years. Was WWII fought to free China from aggression and genocidal? If so, it was a failure. The communists immediately seized control and brutally murdered and starved tens of millions. I have been told that Germany invading Poland in September of 1939 was a terrible international crime. Yet, the USSR also invaded Poland in September of 1939, seizing more territory than the Nazis! The communists also immediately killed nearly 10x the number of Polish civilians during the period between 1939-1941. Yet, at Nuremberg Soviet judges sat in judgment over their former Nazi allies! How can we call this justice? What a farce. Claims that the holocaust justified American intevention are also flawed. For one, no Allied leader made alleviating the plight of the Jews a central cause of going to war. Not one! Jewish suffering was not important to FDR. It certainly was not important to Josef Stalin. Historical honesty means we need to understand the Allied leaders as they understood themselves. We must also confront the way in which the war was fought. Every major allied combatant targeted civilians for destruction and employed concentration camps. This raises a question: if murdering civilians in death camps is evil then how can we justify killing them with high explosives and nuclear weapons? If the Nazis rounding up and imprisoning Jews was wrong then why was FDR rounding up and imprisoning Japanese justified? Is murdering civilians always evil or is it only evil when the bad guys do it? I have never seen defenders of the mainstream narrative provide a satisfactory answer. In the end, the chief defenders of the mainstream narrative revert to arguing that the Allies had "no choice." We had to give $300 billion in aid to Stalin. We had to let him take over half of Europe and virutally all of the Far East. We had to help Mao come to power. We had to firebomb all those women and children. We had to nuke those Japanese. We had no choice. In the end, I find this argument childlike and weak. A serious thinker considers alternatives. Even more disturbing, virtually every defense of Allied conduct in WWII ultimately becomes a defense of communism and the Soviet Union. It is clear that we desperately need to take a fresh look at the most important conflict of the modern world.