Iraq is not World War II: Bush's comparison is an affront to WWII

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Fri Sep 7, 2005 0:03

Iraq is not World War II: Bush's comparison is an affront to

WWII

 

 

 

Friday, September 02, 2005

Iraq is not World War II: Bush's comparison is an affront to WWII

veterans and shameless marketing for more war

 

 

 

This week, in the latest desperate move to shore up public support for

the increasingly unpopular war on Iraq, President Bush attempted to

frame the war as a modern version of World War II. He attempted to

equate 9/11 with Pearl Harbor, and the Iraqi resistance fighters with

Nazi soldiers.

 

For any who have even limited knowledge of U.S. history, this

invocation of World War II is a gross distortion of historical fact as

well as a disparaging of the honor of those courageous American

soldiers who fought in the war. Personally, I am outraged to hear our

President invoke such imagery in order to market his personal

warmongering campaign to a gullible population. But let's forget about

my own opinion for a moment and look at the historical record here.

 

First, let's consider the stark differences between World War II and

Bush's war on Iraq.

 

In World War II, nation states (Germany and Japan) formally declared

war on the United States

In Bush's war, there is no identifiable nation-state enemy

In 1941, to the great surprise of Roosevelt, Germany formally declared

war on the United States in the days following the Pearl Harbor

attack. With Japan's attack and Germany's declaration, we knew exactly

who we were at war with. The enemy had a name, a nation and a

geographic location.

 

But in Bush's war on Iraq, there is no such identifiable enemy.

Clearly, we are not at war with the Iraqi people, as they are

basically just milling around Iraq trying to survive. Clearly we're

not at war with Saddam Hussein, as he has long since been captured. So

who are we at war with? A " terrorist network? " Terrorist cells? There

is no identifiable enemy here. That's why Bush had to declare war on a

concept -- the " war on terror " -- rather than actually naming an enemy.

 

In World War II, the countries liberated by the U.S. (France in

particular) welcomed U.S. soldiers

In Bush's war, the vast majority of Iraqis hate the Americans and want

them to leave

The French gleefully welcomed U.S. troops during the liberation of

France in the Summer of 1942. But Iraqi citizens flat-out want U.S.

troops to leave. You can't liberate a country through an undesired

occupation. Bush may call the Iraqi occupation a " freedom operation, "

but it's not freedom to the people who don't want you there in the

first place. To them, it's just another military dictatorship. There

is no such thing as freedom at gunpoint.

 

In World War II, when Hitler was defeated, the war was over

In Bush's war, even after Saddam Hussein's capture, the U.S. continues

to occupy Iraq

If the war in Iraq was against Saddam Hussein, and if Hussein has long

since been captured, then what are we still doing in Iraq? The answer,

of course, is that we're installing a puppet government and calling it

Democracy.

 

In World War II, Congress declared war

In Bush's war, no act of war has ever been declared by Congress

In his recent speech, Bush declared, " We are at war! " That's funny, I

thought only Congress could declare war. Apparently, we are no longer

a nation of law, we are a dictatorship where one man (sane or

otherwise) can declare war, and our spineless members of Congress will

go right along with it, even when such an act is blatantly illegal

under U.S. law.

 

There's a reason this nation's laws say that only Congress can declare

war: because our founding fathers knew that the decision to go to war

should never be left to one man. It should be a consensus. With Iraq,

there is no such consensus: only the military conquest of one man who

abides by no law, domestic or international.

 

In World War II, our international allies were desperate for U.S. support

In Bush's war, there is virtually no international support

By 1940 - 1941, Britain was absolutely desperate for help from the

United States. In letters written to Roosevelt by Churchill, Britain

was described as being near collapse, running out of resources, funds

and men. If the U.S. did not assist Britain, it would fall under the

armies of Hitler, just as France had long since fallen.

 

In World War II, our strategic and economic allies begged for our

help. International support was strong. But in Iraq, there is little

to no international support except from Britain. The international

community rightly sees this military effort as an invasion, not as

self defense. In fact, arguing that an invasion of Iraq is self

defense is military insanity. But that never stopped Bush, who calls

it, " Preemptive defense. "

 

In World War II, we fought against an aggressor

In Bush's war, we are the aggressor

In the 1930's and 1940's, Hitler was clearly the aggressor. He invaded

Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the Soviet Union and a number of other

countries. His army was unmistakably attempting to wipe out one nation

after another, replacing them with his own governments, people,

culture and control.

 

Today, the U.S. is the aggressor. Our troops have invaded and now

occupy a land to which the United States quite obviously has no

rightful claim. And just as Hitler attempted to install his own

governmental control in the lands he invaded, the U.S. is now imposing

its own government upon the people of Iraq, almost entirely against

their will. The war in Iraq is no noble war to stop an imperialistic

regime, it is in fact an imperialistic war that mirrors the actions of

Nazi Germany.

 

In World War II, following Pearl Harbor, the American people were

almost universally supportive of the war effort

In Bush's War, the majority of Americans are now against the war

In 1941, although pre-war opposition was strong (the " America First "

movement), that changed dramatically after Pearl Harbor. By 1942, the

vast majority of Americans were fully supportive of the war effort,

and that support remained strong through the end of the war in 1945.

 

But in today's war with Iraq, the majority of the American people are

actually against the war! Although early pro-war sentiment was

manufactured by Bush (through outright lies and false evidence about

WMDs, by the way) the American people are growing weary of this costly

war, and they no longer offer majority support.

 

In World War II, the U.S. largely honored international law governing

Prisoners of War (POWs)

In Bush's war, POWs are being detained, tortured, and deprived of

Geneva Convention rights

Although there are certainly exceptions, U.S. troops in World War II

largely provided prisoners of war with basic human rights. Prisoners

were not starved to death, for example, nor sexually assaulted. But

today, POWs (or " enemy combatants, " as Bush calls them) are routinely

tortured, humiliated, beaten, sodomized and subjected to all sorts of

inhumane treatments at Guantanamo Bay.

 

Similarities between World War II and Bush's war on Iraq

While there are many difference between World War II and Bush's war on

Iraq, there are actually far more similarities among the two when you

compare current U.S. actions with those of Nazi Germany and Adolf

Hitler. The first and most obvious is the tone of the highly emotional

rhetoric used by both warmongers (Bush and Hitler) to evoke anger and

public support for military violence:

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush use emotionally charged rhetoric to evoke

public support

Hitler's rhetoric was legendary, and he often used mad-sounding

phrases to paint his political opponents as murderers and fanatics. In

his famous Berlin speech in 1941, Hitler described the emergence of

the Soviet army as the, " Fanatical appearance of a murderous ideology. "

 

Actually, that's not true. This phrase was uttered by President Bush

just days ago, right here in the United States in front of World War

II veterans. It just goes to show you that the warmongering speeches

of Hitler and Bush are nearly identical in their distortion of

language (and invocation of reactive emotion) to manipulate public

opinion to support their wars.

 

Other rhetoric similarities are similarly disturbing. Both Hitler and

Bush framed their wars in black and white terms, declaring that, " You

are either with us, or against us. " Both also spoke of anti-war

opponents as " unpatriotic " or, eventually, " treasonous. " In Nazi

Germany, those against the war were hunted down and shot or publicly

hanged. In the U.S., those against the war are character-assassinated

by the various defenders of the Bush regime.

 

Germany launched V2 rockets on civilian populations, the United States

uses Depleted Uranium (DU) shells on civilian populations

When it comes to the use of weapons of terror, Nazi Germany perfected

the V2 rockets -- a terror weapon that rained down upon civilian

populations in key British cities (especially London).

 

The U.S., in similar fashion, uses weapons of mass destruction, banned

by the Geneva convention, to rain down cancer-causing radiation upon

the Iraqi civilian population through the use of Depleted Uranium (DU)

shells.

 

Both were weapons of mass destruction. The only WMDs found in Iraq, by

the way, are the ones the U.S. is currently using against the Iraqi

people. If you detect any radiation in Iraq, it's from all the

radioactive ammo the U.S. military has been firing at the Iraqi people.

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush used blatant lies to manufacture support

for the war

To bolster support for his war, Hitler staged an attack on his own

troops at the Reichstag. With several dead Germans on his hands,

Hitler feigned outrage and used the event to incite rage against " the

enemy. "

 

Bush, in similar fashion, manufactured intelligence information about

the now-infamous weapons of mass destruction, then used the language

and imagery of mushroom clouds (nuclear weapons) to incite fear and

rage among the American people.

 

In both cases, these national leaders already had the intention of

war. They wanted war. And to get it, they both manufactured false

evidence to which the population would react in a predictable, pro-war

manner.

 

Also notably, both the Reichstag event and 9/11 resulted in the

near-immediate passage of new laws restricting the civil rights of

each nation's own citizens. Both Hitler and Bush used these events to

seize greater power and control over their own populations. In

Germany, this led to devastating consequences when, for example, all

Jews were required to turn in their firearms, leaving them defenseless

against the onslaught of Nazi troops who marched them off to

concentration camps.

 

In the United States, 9/11 and fictitious WMDs have been used to

legalize secret wiretapping of U.S. citizens, create a domestic spy

service (to spy on our own citizens), confiscate the library records

or private citizens, and to support other freedom-squashing tactics.

 

Both Adolf Hitler's invasions and Bush's occupation are about Oil

Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, and its push towards

Stalingrad, was largely about opening a channel to the rich oil fields

to the South (which were desperately needed by Hitler to continue

fueling his war machine). Today, Bush's war in Iraq is also about

controlling oil, and not at all about the fictitious Weapons of Mass

Destruction so frequently cited in the pre-war propaganda.

 

Interestingly, Hitler's march eastward stalled out at Stalingrad,

where the Soviets launched an emboldened pincher attack that encircled

Germany's 6th Army and resulted in the surrender of 300,000 (or so)

German troops. This was the beginning of the end for Hitler's Eastern

campaign. Bush is likewise bogged down in an increasingly unpopular

war in Iraq, and the Iraqi rebels / freedom fighters / insurgents are

wreaking havoc on the invading U.S. forces, much like Soviet citizens

resisted Hitler at Stalingrad.

 

Bush is about to learn what Hitler learned long ago: war is different

when you're attacking their homes. People will fight viciously to

defend their own land, towns and cities. On top of that, U.S. troops

are essentially mercenaries. This isn't their war. They just signed up

for student loans or a decent paycheck. But for the Iraqis, this IS

their war. It's personal, it's in their face, and it's their land,

after all. That's why the U.S. military still cannot control the

streets in Iraq (and never will).

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush claim that God supports their war

Invoking God is a frequent tactic of military madmen. Both Hitler and

Bush believe they are being guided by God himself, and that their war

is a holy war against the enemies of God. Historically, it is always a

danger sign when an ego-driven national leader invokes the name of God

in order to justify military action. A massacre is soon to follow.

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush deliberately confuse nationalism with

patriotism

Today in the United States, Bush (and Bush supporters) claim that

anyone who is against the war is unpatriotic, if not downright

treasonous. Hitler used the same tactic. He equated war with national

pride, and nurtured a nationalistic fervor among the population that

granted him popular support for an unjustifiable war.

 

In America, you see the exact same mindset displayed on bumper

stickers that proclaim, " American pride, " or, " these colors don't

run. " It takes a warped mind to equate the invasion of another country

with national defense, or to equate killing others with pride, but

that's exactly what both Hitler and Bush have been able to pull off.

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush claimed their invasions and military

occupations were creating " freedom "

Throughout history, nearly all invasions, occupations and massacres

have been framed in the language of freedom. Bush's war is no

exception. The U.S. invasion, occupation and overthrow of the Iraqi

government is, Bush says, " freedom! " The United States, in its own

humanitarian way, is delivering what I call, " freedom at gunpoint " to

the Iraqi people: support our freedom or we'll shoot!

 

Hitler justified all his invasions in the same language. His early

invasions of Czechoslovakia, for example, were described as freeing

the " German-speaking people " of that nation. His extermination of Jews

in Poland was described as protecting the freedom of German citizens

from the future threat of Jews and Communists who might someday rise

up and try to overthrow Germany. It was a classic case of " pre-emptive

defense " that has been perfectly mirrored by President Bush today. The

idea is, basically, kill them before they can kill you. And frame the

whole massacre in the language of freedom and safety.

 

Gullible Americans have essentially bought this farce hook, line and

sinker.

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush exploit low-income young males to do their

fighting for them

Mad national leaders never do their own fighting: they conscript

young, poor men into doing that for them. Hitler even had a national

training program that drafted boys as young as nine years old.

 

Today, Bush's war is fought primarily by young, poor men as well. The

military is concentrating its recruiting efforts on communities of

color and poverty where low education, bleak job opportunities, and

misinformation about military service fools young men into signing up

to act as paid mercenaries for an unjustified war.

 

Both Hitler and Bush have learned one thing: as long as you keep at

least part of the population poor and uneducated, you'll never run out

of warm bodies to send into enemy lines.

 

Both Adolf Hitler and Bush exercised near-total control over the

domestic press

Control of the German press was crucial to Hitler's political success

during his military campaigns. Today, the Bush Administration's

control of the U.S. press is equally important in bolstering support

for an illegal war.

 

For both Hitler and Bush, the key to controlling the domestic media is

two-part. First, both leaders make sure that their populations never

witness the true, horrifying images of war. In Nazi Germany, this was

to keep the population unaware of the war atrocities taking place on

the front lines (and in the concentration camps). In Bush's war, the

effort is to make sure the American population never sees dead

soldiers or " blown up " Iraqi women, children and elderly. The Pentagon

has even gone so far as to ban cell phone cameras in Iraq and censor

photos from Guantanamo bay, refusing to follow the orders of a judge

who ruled the photos be turned over as part of an ACLU lawsuit.

 

The second part of propaganda control is to make sure your own message

is the only message heard by the public. As President Bush said in his

own words on May 24, 2005 (I kid you not), " See, in my line of work,

you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the

truth to sink in... to kind of catapult the propaganda. "

 

Hitler couldn't have said it better himself. (Although Hitler was too

smart to actually describe his own propaganda process in such blatant

terms. Bush, it seems, isn't even smart enough to keep his own

propaganda tactics to himself.)

 

Both Nazi Germany citizens and modern Americans remain utterly

ignorant of the scale of atrocities committed by their armed forces

As a result of near-total control over the domestic press, the

populations of both Nazi Germany and modern America remain almost

universally unaware of the atrocities being committed by their

military machines. Most Americans still can't believe torture -- yes,

actual torture -- took place at Gitmo, under the supervision of U.S.

military leaders. It's incredible naive, yes, but then again most

Americans also still believe war is a clean, surgical operation with

no missed targets, bloodied children, or missing limbs.

 

In Germany, as in present-day America, the people are hopelessly

detached from the reality of war. And that, of course, is by design

(through control of the press and the censorship of horrifying war

images). People who are detached from the war probably won't discover

any good reason to get outraged about it.

 

Both Nazi Germany and modern America treat their ideological opponents

as second-class citizens

Under Hitler, Germany taught its citizens to look upon Jews and

Soviets as second-class citizens -- or even animals. Today, the U.S.

paints its own ideological enemies in a similar light. Hussein's

capture was staged to give the impression that he was living in a hole

in the ground, for example. We're told that terrorists live in caves,

like cavemen, and to this day, I still (unbelievably!) hear the term

" sand-nigger " used to describe anyone from the Middle East -- a term

that reveals, better than anything else, the abhorrent ignorance and

racism of Republican Americans.

 

The U.S. bombing of Fallujah is very much like the U.S. firebombing of

Dresden in World War II

There's one more similarity among these two wars: the rampant

destruction of civilian infrastructure by U.S. forces. In Dresden,

allied forces firebombed a city into rubble, killing at least 250,000

people -- far more than died in the atomic bomb explosions in Japan.

It was a holocaust-scale event. Click here to read more at Rense.com.

 

Over the last decade in Iraq, U.S.-led economic sanctions and air

raids have bombed various Iraqi cities (and infrastructure) into

similar rubble, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi

civilians, including women and children.

 

What is Bush really up to here?

If Bush wants to compare World War II to today's war on Iraq, he'd

better brush up on history, because historical fact clearly shows the

U.S. looks a lot more like Nazi Germany than Roosevelt's allied forces.

 

So what's the real reason Bush is conjuring up images of World War II?

It's simple: it's a shameless marketing ploy to establish credibility

via association. Bush wants to borrow righteousness from a war he

neither fought nor understands, and use that to confuse the American

people into blindly supporting his imperialistic regime's effort to

occupy and overthrow a foreign nation.

 

This effort is an outrageous insult to the men and women who

sacrificed their lives in World War II in order to save the world from

a warmongering madman bent on swallowing up entire countries in order

to feed his own oil refineries and bloated ego. I wonder: who will

save the world from Bush?

 

The Bush family support of Nazi Germany

One last point here: as it turns out, the Bush family has a history of

cavorting with Nazis, especially when it comes to finances. Read this

story published in the Guardian if you're curious to learn more about

the Bush / Nazi connection.

 

As quoted in the story:

 

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public

scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation

involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for

damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the

imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to

make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his

grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.

 

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the

Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown

Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German

industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s

before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has

seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based

Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US

interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered

the war.

 

Overview:

 

* Iraq is not World War II: Bush's comparison is an affront to

WWII veterans and shameless marketing for more war

 

Source: http://www.newstarget.com/011439.html