Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States–and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union–won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler–made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, Americans often shot captured Waffen-SS soldiers out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear–barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton or a Georgi Zhukov.
This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party.
Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.
It also explains why Hillary Clinton finds herself on the defensive in the last week of the 2016 Presidential race.
Throughout her campaign, the Democratic Presidential nominee has been stalked by her use of a private email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, while Secretary of State (2009-2013).
Hillary Clinton
She did not use, or even activate, a State Department email account, which would have been hosted on servers owned and managed by the United States government.
Republicans have portrayed this as a criminal act–and their Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has threatened to send her to prison for it if he’s elected.
It wasn’t.
When she became Secretary of State, the 1950 Federal Records Act mandated that officials using personal email accounts turn over their official correspondence to the government.
Clinton maintains that most of her emails went to, or were forwarded to, people with government accounts, so they were automatically archived.
In November 2014, President Barack Obama signed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments, which require government officials to forward any official correspondence to the government within 20 days. But even under this new law, the penalties are only administrative, not criminal.
In May, 2016, the State Department’s Inspector General found that:
- Clinton’s email system violated government policy;
- She did not receive permission in setting it up; and
- The agency wouldn’t have granted approval had she asked.
Nevertheless, her behavior did not constitute criminal conduct.
Clinton’s use of a private email system became a major political issue when The New York Times broke the story in March, 2015.
Since then, Republicans have attacked her as having endangered national security as a result.
In doing so, they have totally ignored two embarrassing facts:
First: During the George W. Bush Presidency, Clinton’s two Republican predecessors as Secretary of State–Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice–also used private email accounts; and
Second: Government computer systems are not secure–and have been repeatedly hacked. Among the agencies attacked:
- The White House (2014)
- Federal Aviation Administration (2015)
- Department of Defense (2015)
- Internal Revenue Service (2015)
- Pentagon (2015)
- Department of State (2014)
- Department of Homeland Security
As soon as Republicans began attacking Clinton’s use of a private server, Democrats should have threatened to convene hearings spotlighting similar behavior by Powell and Rice.
Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice
Powell and Rice–both still highly influential figures within the Republican party–would have pressured their fellow Republicans: Knock this off–now.
Even if Republicans had continued to hound Clinton on her email server, Democrats could have summoned and publicly grilled Powell and Rice.
This would have served Republicans a lesson on Realpolitik straight out of Niccolo Machiavelli’s primer, The Prince:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
