It’s a worthwhile mental exercise to work out the moral calculus of the conflict between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Both had totalitarian regimes that committed attrocities on a scale that are impossible to fully comprehend. Both were aggressive and militant in exporting their totalitarianism, and both were willing to enforce their will on other nations through brute strength and horrid oppression. When one considers the comparable evils of the two regimes, it’s hard to fault Patton for believing that once we had defeated the one, we should have just kept rolling eastward. How many lives would it have been worth to spare hundreds of millions (or, if you presume Mao could not have triumphed in China without Soviet aid, billions) from decades of dark tyranny?

But the West came to an understandable belief that the Communists weren’t as much a threat as the Nazis. So we allied with evil to defeat what we believed was a greater evil. Indirectly, and certainly against his will, Stalin’s assistance helped the West end the war in a dominant position, which in turn resulted in the amazing explosion of democracy and freedom that has characterized the last 65 years.

War is not only hell, it is complicated. A good war memorial should not only serve to highlight our victory, but what did to achieve that victory. The great liberation of western Europe could begin in Normandy only because the vast bulk of the Nazi army was tied up in the east, where the two greatest evils of the last century fought over who would get to oppress eastern Europe. Not thinking of that reduces understanding of how serious Americans regarded the war – serious enough to ally with Communists – and it retards retroflection about how we handle the evils of our day.

The first is to turn the son into the police and try to have them throw the book at him.

The second is that the father, after killing his son, should have killed himself.  Somebody should take the blame for not raising this kid right. 

Thoughts?