Author: John Leo
Publication: townhall.com
Date: November 7, 2001
URL: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/printjl20011107.shtml
By late 1942, after Adolf Hitler
had invaded most of the nations of Europe, relentlessly bombed England
and declared war on the United States, the vexing question naturally arose:
What's better, to fight back or to sit down and study the root causes of
Germany's behavior?
Some impetuous students simply rushed
off campus to defend their homelands. But their professors knew that many
semester hours of causal analysis lay ahead, especially since several very
promising root-cause seminars in Poland and Belgium had been interrupted
by Panzer divisions rolling through on their way to Paris.
The root-causists agreed that Germany
had been badly misunderstood and that Britain and America had brought the
terror of war upon themselves. Some pointed to misguided policies -- not
handing over the Rhineland and Czechoslovakia to Hitler quickly enough,
for example. Others thought the deepest roots of the root causes were in
the eighth century. That was when the Teutonic knights were treated discourteously
by newly Christianized Slavs, thus setting the stage for a perfectly understandable
"religious war" between the pagan Nazis and majority Christian nations
13 centuries later.
One problem with the growing sympathy
for Hitler was the unsettling news that the Nazis were rounding up and
killing Jews, some 6 million of them. But the Episcopal bishops of the
United States were able to put this in perspective. In a soothing formal
statement titled "Wage Reconciliation, Not War," they said that while killing
so many people is surely not a good thing, it is also true that 6 million
children die of natural causes every few years without attracting nearly
as much attention.
When President Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Churchill put together their "broad coalition" to fight Hitler,
they ran into unexpected problems. One ally said it would fight only if
the war could end within two months. A few wanted a cash payoff before
joining up. One was willing to fight without a bribe but would cease fighting
if it didn't like the looks of the probable postwar government in Norway.
And one said, we are with you all the way, but we can't send troops, and
you can't use our airfields or our airspace. And please don't mention that
we're on your side.
As if that weren't bad enough, the
Allies had to confront the ticklish question of whether to suspend the
bombing of Germany during Oktoberfest. The Nazis, in fact, had already
killed several million people during previous October beer-drinking festivals,
but they were known to be very much opposed to being shot at themselves
during this culturally important period. "What's next? Bombing during Lent?"
asked a New York Times editorial. It appeared under the headline "Let's
Bomb, but Sensitively."
Several papers ran daily photographs
of dead German children, helpfully provided by Berlin. As a result, some
columnists pronounced themselves shocked into second thoughts. Nobody had
told them that children sometimes die in war. They had been led to believe
that Allied bombs, though dropped from 30,000 feet, would fall only upon
the heads of German troops and Nazi-armband wearers.
Another problem was that German
saboteurs were known to be crawling all over America, but the FBI was reluctant
to arrest any lest it be accused of "racial profiling" or outright ethnic
insensitivity. Besides, if you start arresting German-Americans, German
speakers all around the world and all students who have ever studied German
or visited Germany will hate Americans forever.
National Public Radio weighed in
with a 19-part series reporting widespread bias against German-Americans.
The series said Americans of German descent had been targets of 100,000
hate crimes -- two had been shot at, three had suffered punches in the
nose, one had been slapped with a bratwurst, and 99,994 had received hurtful
sidelong glances or insincere hellos from neighbors.
NPR also announced it had decided
to cover the war by attending every meeting of the Berkeley, Calif., city
council. NPR reported that the council, by a 7-to-2 vote, decided not to
declare war on either Germany or Japan. Instead, the nine members and all
10,000 students at Berkeley lighted candles and declared themselves individual
hate-free zones.
Somehow, however, America and Britain
won the war and established the peace, probably because they ignored all
the amazing nonsense around them and just fought the good fight. But then
some people always prefer standing around with scented candles instead
of attacking the darkness.