Finally someone has had the nerve to call-out Condi. Now there are things that require either stupidity or lying if you have a PhD in PoliSci. You see, recent history is a part of the curriculum because you cannot understand politics if you do not understand the events of the time. (I typed this last very slowly in case she's reading it) Strangely enough it was Keith Olberman who called BS.
Just to back up in time, shortly after Bhagdad fell and insurgents started killing people and the bodies were piling up pretty fast, the good Doctor likened them to the Wolfenstein in post-war Germany. These dead enders are officially credited with 32 killings, maybe more, maybe less since gangland killings were also going on - black market gangs. At that time there were several hundred dead in Iraq and no sign of a slow down. I don't have a PhD and I knew about it, but she said it. I bring this up because these folk like to bring up Hitler and WWII and say stuff that putting its best face on it is wrong. There's been talk of appeasers, of Churchillian Bush, of just about any appeal to that war imaginable in the face of the Iraq debacle. And they're back at it again in the most ignorant fashion possible.
Olberman:
'If Congress were now to revise the Iraq authorization, she said, out loud, with an adult present, "…It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown." '
***
'Invoking the German dictator who subjugated Europe; who tried to exterminate the Jews; who sought to overtake the world — is not just in the poorest of taste but in its hyperbole, it insults not merely the victims of the Third Reich, but those in this country who fought it. And defeated it.
Saddam Hussein was not Adolf Hitler.
And George W. Bush is not Franklin D. Roosevelt — nor Dwight D. Eisenhower.
He isn't even George H.W. Bush, who fought in that war.'
***
' "The resolution that allowed the United States to" overthrow Hitler?
On the 11th of December, 1941, at 8 o'clock in the morning, two of Hitler's diplomats walked up to the State Department — your office, Secretary Rice — and ninety minutes later they were handing a declaration of war to the Chief of the Department's European Division. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor four days earlier and the Germans simply piled on.'
***
'If you want to compare what we did to Hitler and in Germany, to what we did to Saddam and in Iraq, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy the whole analogy.
We were an occupying force in Germany, Dr. Rice, and by your logic, we're now an occupying force in Iraq.'
***
'But then there's this part about changing "the resolution" about Iraq, that it would be as ridiculous in the Secretary's eyes, as saying that after Hitler was defeated, we needed to go back to Congress to "deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."
Oh, good grief, Secretary Rice, that's exactly what we did do!
We went back to Congress to deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after Hitler was overthrown!
It was called the Marshall Plan.'
***
'Twelve billion, 400 thousand dollars to stabilize all of Europe economically — to keep the next enemies of freedom, the Russians, out, and democracy, in!
And how do you suppose that happened? The President of the United States went back to Congress, and asked it for a new authorization, and for the money.
And do you have any idea, Madame Secretary, who opposed him when he did that?
The Republicans!'
I've cut Keith's admirable prose to pieces for this little exercise, the logic is still there but the elegance is gone. If you'd like the whole thing go over to MSNBC and get it.
The level of intellectual dishonesty needed to say this crap is astonishing. If it were coming from one of the right wing nutblogs it would just be pathetic, but this is the Secretary of State of the USA and supposedly one with a doctorate in political science. It must have specialized in Orwellian politics. So far in this country, history is not in the hands of the government, knowledge will take them down, knowledge and nerve.
According to KOS, the history they do have in their hands is disappearing, Cheney's interviews from 2004 forward are going away - you know "last throws," that kind of stuff is g o n e... These people have been given so much leash with their framing, spinning, lying, defaming, ... that they have lost all sense of proportion, all recognition that they can be caught and kicked in the teeth for it. They only get away with what we tolerate, don't.
Showing posts with label WWII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WWII. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Blame Somebody
In regard to the mess in Iraq recently there has been a bit of a stir as neocons and their allies started slinging blame around, and everybody else seems to be pointing at somebody - that isn't them. Now let's just back the train up a little bit from where we are now after it seems everybody and their brother has screwed the deal; no lies told, nobody dead, just theories of ideology.
The idea was that military force could achieve regime change in countries that eschewed America's interests and that would provide for the implementation of American "ideals." Now wars are generally fought around a basis pretty similar to this if "ideals" don't get too lofty. (land, booty, etc) But here's the rub, the neocons wanted to change societies. This is not an impossible idea and in fact it has been done. The obvious question, if you have this aim, is how has it been done?
The successful implementation of this idea occured in World War II with Western Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan, the societies that emerged post-war had no real resemblence to their antecedents. The problem for the neocons is that the conditions neccesary were brutal, the countries were virtually destroyed, their armies broken, and resistance faced total destruction. Shock and Awe was a show, in WWII the cities and infrastructure were destroyed, the population faced death and destruction on a massive scale. Not even unreasonable people were able to mount more than token resistance in the face of the occupation. These countries were occupied, they were run by the conquerers. And then the conquerers rebuilt them. The they gave them back.
The neocon idea was that you could cut the head off a snake and it wouldn't thrash around. Social structures go much deeper than the government, and people do not willingly change something that basic. If your goal is to make that level of change then the pain of change must be less than the pain of staying the same. To acheive that level of pain the methods must be extraordinary and the results, horrific. No one in this government was willing to create that level of pain or commit the human resources neccesary to reach it, they created a wishful thinking scenario. I would doubt the sanity of any person who advocated a WWII warfare strategy to change Iraq, the problem is, that was the requirement.
To find an example of failure of the total warfare strategy in changing a culture we need look no farther than our own Civil War. The first part of the strategy was accomplished, the will to resist was broken, the problem was the Reconstruction and we paid for that failure for nearly a century. History provided the neocons clear and convincing guidelines and they ignored them in favor of wishful thinking dressed up as an ideology.
To go from such a basic failure to blaming the Adminstration, and from there all the other blames handed around is foolish. You cannot build an airplane if you start out with house plans, this mess was doomed from the outset, it cannot be fixed at this date, we can, however, leave. We can stay, and extend the suffering until we leave and the results are the same once we're gone. Or, we could raze the place, kill anything that moves wrong - including entire neighborhoods, take iron fisted control of the government and start rebuilding - I don't think that's gonna fly.
We elected a toy soldier and gave him the real things and gave him the opportunity to use them, and pretend intellectuals to guide him, and we're surprised at the result?
The idea was that military force could achieve regime change in countries that eschewed America's interests and that would provide for the implementation of American "ideals." Now wars are generally fought around a basis pretty similar to this if "ideals" don't get too lofty. (land, booty, etc) But here's the rub, the neocons wanted to change societies. This is not an impossible idea and in fact it has been done. The obvious question, if you have this aim, is how has it been done?
The successful implementation of this idea occured in World War II with Western Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan, the societies that emerged post-war had no real resemblence to their antecedents. The problem for the neocons is that the conditions neccesary were brutal, the countries were virtually destroyed, their armies broken, and resistance faced total destruction. Shock and Awe was a show, in WWII the cities and infrastructure were destroyed, the population faced death and destruction on a massive scale. Not even unreasonable people were able to mount more than token resistance in the face of the occupation. These countries were occupied, they were run by the conquerers. And then the conquerers rebuilt them. The they gave them back.
The neocon idea was that you could cut the head off a snake and it wouldn't thrash around. Social structures go much deeper than the government, and people do not willingly change something that basic. If your goal is to make that level of change then the pain of change must be less than the pain of staying the same. To acheive that level of pain the methods must be extraordinary and the results, horrific. No one in this government was willing to create that level of pain or commit the human resources neccesary to reach it, they created a wishful thinking scenario. I would doubt the sanity of any person who advocated a WWII warfare strategy to change Iraq, the problem is, that was the requirement.
To find an example of failure of the total warfare strategy in changing a culture we need look no farther than our own Civil War. The first part of the strategy was accomplished, the will to resist was broken, the problem was the Reconstruction and we paid for that failure for nearly a century. History provided the neocons clear and convincing guidelines and they ignored them in favor of wishful thinking dressed up as an ideology.
To go from such a basic failure to blaming the Adminstration, and from there all the other blames handed around is foolish. You cannot build an airplane if you start out with house plans, this mess was doomed from the outset, it cannot be fixed at this date, we can, however, leave. We can stay, and extend the suffering until we leave and the results are the same once we're gone. Or, we could raze the place, kill anything that moves wrong - including entire neighborhoods, take iron fisted control of the government and start rebuilding - I don't think that's gonna fly.
We elected a toy soldier and gave him the real things and gave him the opportunity to use them, and pretend intellectuals to guide him, and we're surprised at the result?
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