Niall Ferguson; War of the World; Part III; PBS; Cold War; Cuban Missile Crisis; Guatemala, Bosnia

Click here for my notes on Part I and Part II of Niall Ferguson's documentary.

In Part III of this maligned documentary, Ferguson explodes myths and explores little known facts about the Cold War.

• Ferguson reveals that JFK's seeming success in the Cuban missile crisis was not such a success after all. JFK agreed to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey in exchange for Kruschev's withdrawal of missiles from Cuba. (Conservatives have known this for decades, but nobody has ever paid attention before.) Ferguson further reveals that Kennedy wanted this deal to remain secret.
• The documentary mentions the Guatemalan coup of 1954, in which the Soviet puppet government was removed. Ferguson shows some film in which evidence of the regime's Soviet ties was revealed.
• Ferguson downplays the role of Nixon's Chinese diplomacy, stressing that U.S. efforts to court China resulted in the growth of China as a superpower (including China's role in backing the Kmehr Rouge in Cambodia and the subsequent killing fields).
• In discussing Soviet recruitment in the third world, the documentary refers to "third world Lenins" that followed the Soviet lead - while showing film of dictators like Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi.
  

Ferguson repeated the usual obligatory moonbattery about CIA backed regimes in South America killing thousands of their citizens and he downplayed the role of Reagan and Thatcher in winning the cold war against the Soviet Union. Ferguson's theory credits (who else?) Gorbachev. This is to be expected from almost any PBS documentary. But he adds much that the left in this country would not like. Any history that confirms old conservative Cold War theories can't be all bad.

Ferguson also discusses the Bosnian civil war from the early 1990's. But he fails to credit the centuries old influence of Islam in this long suppressed struggle.

Ferguson attributes the 20th century War of the World to economic conditions and ethnic strife occurring on the fault lines of competing or declining empires. He references Poland, Cambodia and Bosnia as examples where these conditions led to some of the worst such violence of the century. He then points to the modern day middle east as an example in which history may repeat itself.

In fact, the Islamic world meets most of Ferguson's criteria. If we think of the Islamic world as an expanding empire and substitute religion for ethnicity, we have the recipe for a repeat of the worst slaughter of the 20th century. Everywhere Islam borders another religion [India, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Israel, Kosovo], brutal war exists. Ferguson missed this point.

As he did in Parts I and II, Ferguson lumped Hitler, Stalin and Mao into one group. This treatment contrasts with the MSM/DNC, who spent more than half a century trying to place their ideologies on the opposite ends of the political spectrum (with Reagan always a little closer to Hitler while we never quite heard who the leftist politicians were close to). We must think of totalitarianism like Ferguson instead of simply using one form of it (Nazism) as a handbag to swing at Republicans.

Ferguson's perspective contained the obvious, obligatory anti-Americanism, but that may have been simply the price Ferguson paid for the documentary to see the light of day. The documentary is worthwhile if one already has some knowledge of the 20th century and can place the relevant facts into context. If one can remember how the MSM/DNC tried to deny vigorously some of the facts set forth by Ferguson (even where he misinterprets those facts), one can benefit from this documentary.
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visit counter added 7-14-08

War of the World, Part II; Niall Ferguson; PBS; George Bernard Shaw; North Star; Kursk;

Click here for my notes on Part I of Niall Ferguson's PBS documentary, "War of the World." The documentary has drawn much crticism from conservatives because Ferguson is critical of various aspects of Western participation in the war.

PBS presented Part II of this documentary a few hours ago.

Part II does allege that some American soldiers shot wounded Japanese prisoners in retaliation for Japanese atrocities against Americans. Ferguson supports this charge with some film and eyewitness accounts of Charles Lindbergh. Ferguson partially blames these incidents for lengthening the war. He believes the Japanese fought with greater ferocity and refused to surrender on Okinawa because the Japanese believed they would be killed even if they surrendered.

Ferguson also sites allied bombing of civilian populations in Hamburg and Dresden. These incidents have been documented in books such as Advance to Barbarism (which I have not read).



But far more important than this aspect of Part II (which didn't show up until the second half of this evening's show) was Ferguson's treatment of Soviet Russia and its dealings with the West.

Conservatives have long maintained that Stalin's Soviet Union was protected and kept alive by western governments and western liberals since its inception, including time periods long before World War II (as well as during the war). Ferguson provides a rare discussion of only some of these facts. Ferguson shows film of leftist icon George Bernard Shaw (a founder of the modern socialist movement and all that the Western left considers holy) traveling to Stalin's Russia in 1931. While Ferguson does not mention the forced famine in the Ukraine at that time, he discusses much of the brutality that Stalin practiced. (Part I was also unkind to the Soviet Union in this fashion.) Ferguson states that Shaw checked his usual "cynicism" at the door when he entered Soviet Russia. Ferguson quotes Shaw's praise of Stalin.
























It is enjoyable to watch the true colors revealed on one of the left's favorite icons. Rather than criticize this documentary, conservatives should relish this part at least. We always knew leftist judgment to be impaired. Here we have a concrete example of a leftist being duped. More importantly, the left's veneration of this dupe calls into question the entire foundation of the modern leftist movement (as if we needed another reason to deride the leftists). George Bernard Shaw is as important to leftists of our era as Karl Marx or the New Deal. Learning of Shaw's admiration of Stalin is equivalent to discovering Barack Hussein Obama's co-dependant relationship with racists, terrorists and other assorted enemies of the U.S.

Ferguson goes on to describe only a small part of the military aid that the U.S. provided to the Soviet Union during the war. For years, the standard MSM/DNC line has been that the Russians won the war because they were patriotic and brave and they pulled together to defend their workers' paradise. Most history texts downplay the American contribution to the war relative the Soviet effort. In fact, millions of Russian soldiers surrendered to the Germans in the early part of the German invasion. Ferguson describes the Russian defeats in mid-1941 as the worst disaster in military history.

In contrast, the Western version of the war has always dovetailed with the pro-Soviet propaganda film The North Star. But for the first time that I have noticed, a mainstream source has showed the significant role played by United States "capital" in saving the Soviet Union.

More of the story of American capital saving the Soviet War effort has been known to conservatives through such books as "From Major Jordan's Diaries" for decades.



But now, Americans who have been misled by the Soviet-loving left can learn the truth also. Specifically, Ferguson shows how American military aid provided the crucial difference for the Soviets in the pivotal battle at Kursk.

American P-39 tank killer painted with Soviet insignia for use at Kursk

While most histories of WWII focus mainly on Nazi brutality (which Ferguson does also with gusto), "War of the World" focuses equally on Stalin's brutality against his own people and Soviet complicity in the start of war. Ferguson details the Soviet-Nazi deal to carve up Poland with Hitler and the resulting brutality on the Soviet side of the new Polish dividing line. Ferguson quotes Solzhenitsyn (usually forbidden in the MSM/DNC) as having characterized Stalin as paranoid to the point where he trusted only one person in his entire life - and that person was Hitler in the 1939 deal to carve up Poland. I would have liked to hear about the effect on the Western leftist movement of the announcement of the Hitler-Stalin pact, but it was only a one hour documentary.

Most important was the conclusion, in which Ferguson questioned who really won World War II. Given the Soviet's conquest of Eastern Europe at the end of the war and the communist conquest of China, it is clear the Soviets were the largest beneficiary of the war - a war that led directly to what we know as the Cold War. The Soviets had been pursuing the "Cold War" since the Bolshevik Revolution. Our own perspective on World War II has missed the point for 60 years. For the people of China (inter alia) 1945 was only a beginning - a beginning of more than a half century of totalitarian rule that may yet erupt into another major shooting war.

The War of the World presents a unique perspective on the 20th century (and even the 21st) that connects the dots and allows us to see the roots of the present crises.
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Part III.
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Visit counter added July 15, 2008

Rathergate anniversary - 24 days and counting - David Brancaccio fights back

On the PBS pledge drive Friday night, David Brancaccio appeared and asked for money on the basis that he is an actual reporter. He specifically contrasted himself with bloggers. Brancaccio, you see, goes out and gets the story instead of simply reporting what other people are saying (the way bloggers do). Brancaccio did his best to appear nonchalant as he explained this difference.

It is apparant from Brancaccio's comments that the MSM/DNC knows that blogging is not a temporary phenomenon. MSM/DNC views blogs as its chief competition.

Brancaccio is the new host of "Now", the weekly program created by Bill Moyers several years ago for the purpose of talking only about Enron. In fact, Brancaccio does very little actual reporting. A show dedicated to rehashing Enron until the end of time is not engaging in "journalism." "Now" is simply a rehash of MSM/DNC approved stories with MSM/DNC approved spin and a healthy dose of class warfare agitprop. "Now's" take on Enron consists in the proposition that the "rich" took their Enron "winnings", bought up the state of Colorado and left the proletariat to suffer from reduced value in their stock portfolios. That is what passes for reporting at PBS.

Remember that bloggers' best work has been the result of actual reporting. Rathergate was the result of bloggers finding their own experts who could disprove the alleged authenticity of the ANG "documents." Easongate resulted from individuals who heard Eason Jordan's speech and exposed it on the internet. The best stories result from bloggers reporting on stories that the MSM/DNC won't touch.

That MSM/DNC continues to attack the blogosphere eleven months after Rathergate speaks volumes about the progress we have made.

Click here for previous posts on the Rathergate aftermath.