True Hitler Parallels
People are always fond of using Hitler comparisons to demonize whoever is the enemy of the moment. Whether it was Saddam or Arafat or Khomeini the media and political leaders always throw out the Hitler line as an excuse for a military action of some kind. And in most cases these alleged Hitlers are usually low level dictators who have trouble running their own countries, let alone achieving world domination.
But let's look at a case where I see true parallels to Hitler's rise to power and where it seems not enough attention is being paid. Let's look at Russia.
Hitler came to power by using the defeat of Germany in WWI. He successfully appealed to the ego of the German people by blaming their misfortunes on "the other" (Jews and the Entente Powers), and proclaiming the German people a superior race.
Vladimir Putin came to power after losing a different kind of war - the Cold War. But he is equally bitter about the low esteem he feels towards Russia from the rest of the world. He feels Russia is a super power and wants to get his "props". Where Hitler used the Jews as his scapegoat, Putin uses the Chechens. Where Hitler used the Sudetenland to test the will of the Allies, Putin is becoming increasingly bold in interfering in the former Socialist Republics. Especially in Georgia and the Ukraine.
The thing that seperates Putin from other would be Hitlers is that he actually has the brains, the charisma, and the weaponry to stick it to the west anyway he wants.
Last week Putin made it pretty clear that he will assist Iran militarily in any "act of aggression" that is made against their territory. Meanwhile back in the land of the free, home of the brave we have the ass-clowns in Washington working harder every day to come up with a pretext to drop bombs on Tehran. Of course I blame the current occupant and his band of evil men, but I don't exclude the gutless wonders of the Democratic party (yes Dick Durbin, I'm looking at you). These schmucks have us all preoccupied with the illegal war in Iraq while Putin sits in the corner with his Cheshire grin, biding his time. Nobody seems to be manning the helm.
Look, I'm just a dope from the Southside of Chicago, and I'm no great student of world affairs or political history, but this stuff is starting to get me worried. The true tragedy is that none of this needed to be happening. As terrible as 9/11 was for this country, it also afforded us an amazing opportunity. For months afterward we had the world (yes even the Muslim world) on our side. It afforded us the greatest chance in my lifetime to settle things up in the Middle East. The Iranians were coming forward with deals, the Saudi's were coming forward with deals, even the Israeli's were willing to work for a solution to a Palestinian state. As the great philosopher Belushi used to say, "But Noooooooooo!"
Rummy and Cheney and Kristol and Wolfowitz and Perle and Bush and Rice and Kagan and Scaife and Abrams and Armitage and anybody who ever accepted a paycheck from or delivered office supplies to "The Project for The New American Century", your table is ready. It's located just inside the Gates of Hell
I want to close this by admitting I have to relearn how to imbed links, but most of what I have been reading about this came from the website of the Council on Foreign Relations http://www.cfr.org/ and a Google search of "Putin protects Iran".
But let's look at a case where I see true parallels to Hitler's rise to power and where it seems not enough attention is being paid. Let's look at Russia.
Hitler came to power by using the defeat of Germany in WWI. He successfully appealed to the ego of the German people by blaming their misfortunes on "the other" (Jews and the Entente Powers), and proclaiming the German people a superior race.
Vladimir Putin came to power after losing a different kind of war - the Cold War. But he is equally bitter about the low esteem he feels towards Russia from the rest of the world. He feels Russia is a super power and wants to get his "props". Where Hitler used the Jews as his scapegoat, Putin uses the Chechens. Where Hitler used the Sudetenland to test the will of the Allies, Putin is becoming increasingly bold in interfering in the former Socialist Republics. Especially in Georgia and the Ukraine.
The thing that seperates Putin from other would be Hitlers is that he actually has the brains, the charisma, and the weaponry to stick it to the west anyway he wants.
Last week Putin made it pretty clear that he will assist Iran militarily in any "act of aggression" that is made against their territory. Meanwhile back in the land of the free, home of the brave we have the ass-clowns in Washington working harder every day to come up with a pretext to drop bombs on Tehran. Of course I blame the current occupant and his band of evil men, but I don't exclude the gutless wonders of the Democratic party (yes Dick Durbin, I'm looking at you). These schmucks have us all preoccupied with the illegal war in Iraq while Putin sits in the corner with his Cheshire grin, biding his time. Nobody seems to be manning the helm.
Look, I'm just a dope from the Southside of Chicago, and I'm no great student of world affairs or political history, but this stuff is starting to get me worried. The true tragedy is that none of this needed to be happening. As terrible as 9/11 was for this country, it also afforded us an amazing opportunity. For months afterward we had the world (yes even the Muslim world) on our side. It afforded us the greatest chance in my lifetime to settle things up in the Middle East. The Iranians were coming forward with deals, the Saudi's were coming forward with deals, even the Israeli's were willing to work for a solution to a Palestinian state. As the great philosopher Belushi used to say, "But Noooooooooo!"
Rummy and Cheney and Kristol and Wolfowitz and Perle and Bush and Rice and Kagan and Scaife and Abrams and Armitage and anybody who ever accepted a paycheck from or delivered office supplies to "The Project for The New American Century", your table is ready. It's located just inside the Gates of Hell
I want to close this by admitting I have to relearn how to imbed links, but most of what I have been reading about this came from the website of the Council on Foreign Relations http://www.cfr.org/ and a Google search of "Putin protects Iran".
posted by 35th 'n Shields at 8:42 AM
1 Comments:
To 35th 'n Shields:
I can think of some much more frightening parallels between Hitler's Germany and the present day.
Imagine that it is August 1939. Even as Hitler's Germany massed its troops along Poland's border, imagine that the League of Nations—as led by Germany but also Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—imposed sanctions on Poland to prevent Poland from destabilizing Europe. Having just swallowed all of Czechoslovakia earlier that spring and gotten away with it, why not make it harder for the Poles to acquire arms? Besides, what right could the Poles have to defend themselves against Germans? And why not accuse the Poles of threatening not only German security—but the peace of Europe as a whole?
Of course this never happened. The "Munich" of our history books is the Munich of September 1938, when London and Paris took Berlin at its word that the Sudetenland was the "last territorial claim" the Germans had in Europe.
But though this didn’t happen at the start of World War II, something eerily like it is happening today, almost 70 years later.
Do you suppose that Afghanistan and Iraq are the last two territorial claims the Americans will make on the world?
"It Could Happen Here," Gregory Meyerson and Michael Joseph Roberto, Monthly Review, September, 2007, http://www.monthlyreview.org/1006meyerson.htm .
David Peterson
Chicago, USA
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