WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #179, MAY 29, 2024
Compiled by Dick Bennett
WORLD WAR II, the “Good War?”
David Swanson. Leaving
WWII Behind.
Daniele Ganser. USA: The Ruthless Empire.
“In Leaving World War II Behind, David
Swanson brilliantly destroys the myth that even if war is generally a bad thing
World War II was the good war. In a
stunning, fact-laden exposition, Swanson demonstrates the systemic failures of
the western governments together with their corporate enablers that generated
the practices of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps,
empowering Hitler. Swanson shows
incontrovertibly that it was an underlying drive to preserve capitalism and
destroy communist encroachment that led to support for Hitler when he was
eminently stoppable.” Ann Wright,
co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Daniele Ganser. USA: The Ruthless
Empire.
“World War II…is the
greatest man-made catastrophe in the history of mankind. “ It ended with the obliteration of two Japanese
civilian cities by atomic bombs, the war “characterized by a high degree of
brutality and ruthlessness.” “Some 60
million people lost their lives, the majority of whom were civilians, as well as
an undetermined number of seriously injured and traumatized casualties.” The Soviet Union “suffered the greatest losses…with
27 million dead”!
The war strengthened
the peace movement and the post-war generation in their firm conviction that
conflicts must be resolved without violence whenever possible, and that no one
should be excluded from the human family” (110). Out of that conviction arose the United
Nations in 1945. But by 1948 fear and loathing of
communism and the Soviet Union led to the establishment of NATO and its eastward
expansion continuing..
END WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #179, MAY 29, 2024