HUMAN SMOKE - BOOK REVIEW

Pacifist Nicholson Baker in his new book, “Human Smoke,” questions whether World War II produced more evil than good. This book cites some of the same episodes, sources and quotes as this author in my own book out in May, “Churchill, Hitler and ‘The Unnecessary War’” argues.

Richard Cohen in his column says “Yes” and goes on to state, “There are things worth fighting for: God and country, family and freedom. Martyrs have ever inspired men. And to some evils pacifism is no answer. Resistance, even unto death, may be required of a man.” Then he goes on “But when one declares a war that produced Hiroshima and the Holocaust a “Good War,” it raises a question: good for whom?”

Cohen contends that the evil of the Holocaust makes it a “good war” despite the tens of millions of others who died in addition to the Jews. Gypsies, Jahovah’s Witness’, homosexuals and a near generation of other innocents who perished.

“Can a war,” write Pat Buchanan,” in which 50 million perished and the Christian continent was destroyed, half of it enslaved, a war that has advanced the death of Western civilization, be truly celebrated as a “good war”? Once again Buchanan exercises his right to free speech but ignores his obligation to think calmly and clearly. There are grim questions confronting, the West and Christianity and others. The weightiest of questions as we collectively sit perched on the precipice deciding whether to take the seemingly easier road backward into slavery or not.