World War II a "European Civil War?"

History is being increasingly whitewashed, either to avoid "offending" anybody (such as the suggestion that the Holocaust not be taught in schools for risk of offending modern Germans) or in some weird attempt to foster European unity.

The latter appears to be the case in the latest outrage.

The European Union is opening a £44 million museum called the House of European history that will change World War II to be "the European Civil War." (h/t: National Review's "The Corner")

What blatant stupidity! Not to mention offensiveness. It signifies an increasingly narrow viewpoint that disregards anything that's not European in nature, all in the name of trying to unify the continent?

It's patently absurd.

(Hint to the EU: This didn't take place in Europe. Thanks to Answers to the Questions)

Donal Blaney in the Daily Mail says it best:

"Europhiles love to decry those of us who want Britain to become an independent nation state as "little Englanders" - despite the fact that we want Britain to continue its role as a global trading nation.

In truth the proposal to redesignate World War II as the European Civil War shows Europhiles to be "little Europeans" - insular, arrogant and inward-looking."

This idiocy completely ignores every other theater of the war, disregarding the Americans, Russians, Japanese, Australians, Chinese, and so many other nationalities who fought and died in this horrible war.

I think "insular" is probably a great word for it. Narrow-minded, disrespectful, and ignorant are some more great words for it too.

As Mark Steyn says (also on the Corner):

"If this were truly a 'European Civil War', it would have been over in nothing flat, because on the Continent of Europe every nation was either neutral, conquered, or on the wrong side. It’s hard to have a civil war with only one team."

Britain was the only European country holding out against the Nazis (Russia doesn't exactly consider itself part of any "European identity" that's being fostered, which is why I think Steyn excludes them in that quote), which doesn't make it much of a civil war, does it?

There are so many things wrong with the European Union as a political entity. This is just another example of how they are trying to force this "unity" down everybody's throats. One of these days, everybody's going to choke on it.

I'm not one to get on the "offense" gravy train, as I think people take offense to things way too easily. This, however, is offensive in so many ways. The exclusion (and thus disrespect) of so many millions of people who fought in World War II who aren't European. The reasoning behind it, creating some sort of artificial unity that nobody seems to really want.

All of that, but I also think that it reduces the fight against Nazism to some sort of political struggle rather than the fight against evil it was. Sure, countries didn't go to war to save the Jews and prevent the Holocaust (many denied it was happening at the time or didn't seem to care). But they did go to war to fight the same type of evil that would perpetrate the Holocaust, subjugate any race or nationality that got in the way of their plans for territorial expansion, and ostensibly want to take over the world.

Can that really be boiled down to a "civil war?" Even if you do just keep to the European part of the war?

That's the really offensive part.