"KERRY: UNSERE LETZTE HOFFNUNG!"
Dean
Back in May, a really creepy obsessive named Dave Neiwert, well known for lunatic fringe conspiracy theories, decided to insinuate that your host (Dean Esmay) is a secret Nazi sympathizer. Or at least a fascist at heart, though my dark desires are hidden to anyone but clever brave scribblers such as himself, anyway.
Now such accusations are nothing new. If you ever read Niewert's materials (no links for him--attention is what people like him crave and I won't give it to him, although if you follow some of my links below you can find his strange site if you really want to), you can see that he is of the exact same mindset as people like Lyndon LaRouche, the white supremacists who believe we live under a Zionist Occupation Government, the Holocaust Revisionists, and creeps like Michael Moore. Just take a whole jumble of seemingly related facts, slap it all together, and come to vile, hateful conclusions based on your own paranoia. It's classic Conspiracy Theory reasoning. You can read a pretty good dissection of the mindset in Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style In American Politics or in Daniel Pipes' Conspiracy: How The Paranoid Style Flourishes And Where It Comes From. You can see how Niewert's long, intricately reasoned nonsense is a textbook case of the Conspiracy Theorist mindset. Niewert'd get along great with the LaRouchies, or those who think that the Freemasons control world events.
By the way, if you don't know who the LaRouchies are, you're missing out on some fun. They are the followers of a gentleman named Lyndon LaRouche, who I must say is the creme-de-la-creme of modern American nutjobs. He has written countless voluminous essays, intricately referenced, exquisitely reasoned, internally consistent, and absolutely nuts. You owe it to yourself to check him out some time. You'll find LaRouche's main web site right here. Just perusing the titles and summaries should give you a clue what the guy's about, and how easy it is to fall for a madman's reasoning. (You can also gain insights into similar crackpot lunacy by reading our discussion of the great Jack T. Chick from earlier this year.)
Anyway, back to the intellectual titan Dave Niewert. What caused this strange paranoid to make his absurd insinuations? Basically, it's because I posted the cartoon that appears over at the left. It was drawn by occasional Dean's World commenter Cerdipity. If you want the long blow-by-blow of the whole stupid kerfuffle, you can read about it right here. My favorite moment in the whole escapade was when some uber-lefty asked me to prove that Cerdip's cartoon wasn't Nazi-inspired.
Well. Some things ya just can't answer, ya know?
Anyway, if you don't want to read the whole silly history of this (I wouldn't), I can summarize by telling you that that cartoon was a strong condemnation of the graphic shown below. That photo, which first appeared on the hard-left hate site, "Indymedia," was noted by me and countless other people back last December when it was first created. Cerdip's cartoon not only objected to that hateful attack on America's troops, but also objected to the vicious demagogues of the left who say America only went to war for racist reasons, to get Saddam's oil, because we're imperialists, and so on.
Anyway, that's the story. According to LaRoucheNiewert, this cartoon illustrated the secret fascist mentality of people like me. At least, in the paranoid mindset of LaRoucheNiewert and his fellow travellers on the fringe left, anyway. Pretty cool, huh?
Now, mind you, I'm not the only secretly Nazi / Fascist / Stalinist person in the blogosphere according to LaRoucheNiewert. No, the cabal of crypto-fascist / crypto-Stalinist / crypto-racist baddies of the Blogosphere includes Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Green the Vodka Pundit, Charles Johnson, and a host of other people, all of whose biggest claim to common ground is that we think the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's fascist tyranny was a good thing. Which LaRoucheNiewert commonly defines as "The Right."
It's rather amusing, isn't it, that those of us who wanted to see the end of Saddam's fascist regime (which was directly modeled after Nazism, by the way) are secretly (maybe even unwitting) Nazis, but those like Niewert who opposed that liberation are... what? Well, George Orwell would have called them "objectively pro-Fascist" for opposing the liberation of Iraq from fascism, but I'm sure Niewert and his followers have found some way to rationalize their way out of that. Somehow, they've concluded that those of us who wanted to remove a fascist tyrant are actually secret fascists ourselves. I won't try to argue with people that far gone in the fever swamps of pseudo-reason. I merely make note of it and chuckle.
By the way, I only bring any of this up because apparently, Lyndon LaRoucheDave Niewert is at it again. I gather that I'm in his crosshairs. I only know about this because I heard about it from the inimitable Eric of Classical Values. Actually, it's Eric who's in LaRouche'sNiewert's fever swamp this week. Apparently I'm just sort of an afterthought at the moment. You can read about the madness here if you are curious. You may consider this my public response to this latest round of "Dean is a fascist at heart" nonsense from the hate-soaked, Michael Moore-style Uber-Left.
I would like to come to Eric's defense, though. Eric is as big a fascist-loather as I am, and he runs a terrific weblog, which everyone should read more often: Classical Values, which should also be on your blogroll if you have one.
I'm also using this as a long-winded way of making a little joke, by the way. (Ah, I'm sure LaRoucheNiewert just knew I had a secret motive!) As I said earlier, I once posted the above cartoon to make a strong political statement about the hate-soaked left, and Niewert concluded that if anything looks like anything the Nazis ever put out, well, you do the math, right?
So. In honor of that little LaRouchismNiewertism (anything that looks like anything the Nazis ever did or said is evidence of Nazi thinking), I would also like to note a delicious irony: A currently popular poster being put out by the Kerry/Edwards campaign reads "Kerry: Hope Is On The Way."
As it happens, in the fateful year of 1932 when Hitler took power in Germany, a popular campaign sign around Germany read "Hitler: Unsere Letzte Hoffnung." Translated into English: "Hitler: Our Only Hope."
Well, what else could this possibly mean?!?!?!
You know, come to think of it, Kerry did say that the war to topple Saddam's fascist dictatorship was wrong. So, I mean, really now: what more needs to be said?
And doesn't Kerry look just a little, y'know, French? Maybe even... VICHY FRENCH?!?!?!
Well. I'm not saying it's so. I merely leave it to the reader to draw his own conclusions. (Sly wink.)
Waaahhh!
The Lefties are refighting Berlin 32, and this time THEY want to intimidate, firts.
Yes, it's Berlin 1932 all over again. You know it's so. Chimpy McSmirkhitler has proven it to us all...
:p
—|PW|—
You can argue with a conspiracy theorist. You can also argue with a barnyard animal for all the good that'll do you.
Just wait until he starts screaming Partisian anthems and calling you and everyone you associate with facists.
Wait a sec, I associate with you.....aww crap
j/k
quote:"As such, the Dolchstoß quickly became a central image in propaganda produced by the many right-wing and traditionally conservative political parties that sprung up in the early days of the Weimar Republic, including Hitler's NSDAP."
You have to know about this to interprete the cartoon correctly. I guess Mr. Niewert was aware of the inherent allusion, so he simply didn't get that it was supposed to be a joke. Of course, he went to far anyway by concluding you're a fascist.
The cartoon as well as the times-cover are idiotic. Neither the war protesters nor the war supporters are fascists.
I doubt that Orwell would make such a simplistic generalization, but in case you cited him, please tell me which of his books or articles you're refering to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolchsto%DFlegende .
If this doesn't work you can google "Dolchstosslegende" or "dagger-blow legend"...
Unsere letzte Hoffnung:
HITLER
And showed a bunch of sad-faced and hollow-eyed Germans trudging around under a darkening sky, presumably out of work, hungry, and looking for someone or something to blame it on, and a savior to lift them out of their morass.
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/pli04734/">You can see for yourself a copy of the original "wahlplakat der NSDAP" at this link.</a>
Anyway, when I saw some Kerry posters in Madison, Wisconsin last week bearing an English language rendition of more or less the same words, I got to thinking (morbidly) that the more things change, the more they remain the same. At least in political science.
(Now, let's see if the comments links work properly for me on Dean'w World, at last.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Actually, arguing with animals is quite beneficial. You feel better and the animal isn't insulted.
It's also easier to find a stray cat than a conspiracy theorist who will listen to you.
Yes, historically there was a Nazi cartoon showing German troops being stabbed in the back. This means any cartoon that shows troops being stabbed in the back is Nazi inspired? Only a simplistic buffoon or a hatemongering idiot would say such a thing.
But as for George Orwell, the complete quote is as follows:
"Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'"
It was in his 1942 denunciation of those who opposed the war with Hitler and Mussolini on the grounds of "pacifism."
It is, of course, true that he later decided his words were too harsh. Then again, he had, after all, fought in the Spanish civil war against Franco's fascism in Spain, and then seen how the Stalinists stabbed the anti-fascist freedom fighters in the back, and as he aged his cynicism grew greater and greater.
But Orwell never lost his hatred of fascism--and it is sad that anyone, but especially any modern German, would opposethe war against Saddam's fascism. Indeed, you would think ALL Germans would be red-faced and embarassed at ANYONE who opposed a war against mass-murdering, Nazi-inspired fascist like Saddam.
Indeed, it is very frightening that Germans have so forgotten the lesson of Hitler that even now they are willing to defend another fascist, one DIRECTLY INSPIRED BY HITLER, and they would oppose such a war of liberation based on such morally bankrupt arguments as being "against war."
How utterly revolting such sad and deluded people are. I am ashamed that Americans would make friends with such people.
And Andreas, I will leave you with another quote, by the great liberal thinker John Stuart Mill, who also someone like you should learn from:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Shame on you, every one of you, who opposed the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's mass-murdering, fascist tyranny, in the name of "peace."
I know you don't directly address this, but what would you say about those who opposed the invasion of Iraq on the grounds of cost or strategy?
--|PW|--
Defensible. Morally barren, but then, realpolitick is often morally barren by necessity. We cannot take out every mass-murdering dictator on the planet. Not at the moment, anyway, especially with our dessicated European "allies" such as the Germans and the French and the Russians still opposed to such measures.
Still, any who opposed the liberation of Iraq from fascist tyranny should be confronted with certain basic questions: given that we know that maintaining the sanctions and the No-Fly Zones and the inspection regime et. al. was incredibly costly to millions of innocent Iraqis and resulted in thousands of deaths a month due to our unwillingness to force the dictator out of power, and given that we now know for a fact that the Russians, the French, the Syrians, and others were directly benefitting financially from the UNSCAM "Oil for Food" lie--why were we expending US and British money to keep Saddam "contained" for well over a decade? What was our strategic interest in that? And was the cost in human lives of doing that--which, again, was hundreds of thousands of civilians, I must add--really worth it? Would extending it a few more years have really been the best use of our resources--and can you really stomach the thought of that many more Iraqis dead and that much more human suffering due to unwillingness to finally put an end to the fascist travesty that was Saddam's regime?
Yes, I grant that you could defend the pre-liberation status quo by saying that it wasn't in American best interests to expend the blood and treasure to get rid of Saddam and free those people. I'd disagree with it but I wouldn't consider it morally evil. Just morally bereft and incredibly Machievellian, in the best Henry Kissenger tradition.
Now, as it happens, I think that it WAS very much in America's strategic interests. I still do for that matter. But I see the brutally pragmatic legitimacy of arguments that say there were better ways to expend our military efforts. I can't think of any, but others are entitled to their opinions.
If Dean won't address it, I will :)
There are a bunch of legitimate reasons to oppose the war in Iraq: diversion of resources, soldiers' lives, won't work anyhow, etc.
Most of these arguments don't make a whole lot of sense when made by non-Americans (Why should Europeans care so much about US soldiers? Doesn't the idea that the US Army is a vital resource contradict the global antiwar message?)
Which is why the vocal, organized global antiwar message is that the invasion was immoral.
And that claim deserves to be called pro-Saddam.
The counterpoint to this, however, is that it opens the United States to the demand that it act in a "rule utilitarian" manner and apply the "dead nationals" rule to any regime ... including the murderous regimes in Africa and elsewhere.
I do happen to prefer the morally bankrupt stance of realpolitik. Central to my own philosophy of international relations is the premise that the United States must act in its interests and in its interests alone. Sometimes that means installing democracy somewhere. Sometimes it means leaving a bloody-handed dictator in power because his nation has no resources that would be valuable to the United States.
There are three problems with swearing fealty to higher moral values, rather than to a national interest:
1. Swearing fealty to a higher moral value places the United States in an untenable place, as I alluded to above. Suddenly, every nation that violates human rights must be invaded and taken down or else nullified via sanctions or some other regime. From a military standpoint, this is simply unrealistic. Sanctions have often proved ineffective, and there simply isn't a large enough American military (or enough of a civilian will to empire) to civilize the entire world.
2. A "morals" stance conflicts with longstanding concepts of sovereignty. This is the big one. Under sovereignty, a nation is generally free to do as it likes within its borders -- and another nation is not free to enforce its will on the smaller nation simply because of morals or because it has a stronger military. If sovereignty is no longer deemed worthy of respect, then a large chunk of international law is rendered void.
3. Many "morals" are subjective, rather than objective. Is it immoral for a commercial concern to conclude a natural-resources contract with an oppressive government? If so, does that justify invasion of the commercial concern's home country or guerilla action against the corporation? Is it moral for one nation to conclude a politically convenient arrangement with an oppressive regime? If not, then is military action against the contracting nation justified?
I am interested in your response.
--|PW|--
--|PW|--
The issue is when someone embraces that imagery to the exclusion of reasonable discourse. We all fall prey to it from time to time, the trick is to remember there's usually a rational way to discuss the issues. Despite the large dose of snark, you have proven to be fairly decent at doing so, regardless of previous comments I have made that might imply the contrary.
Although it sounds conflicted, I was/am both in favour and against the war in Iraq. I believe that ousting Saddam was a worthwhile cause and that it needed to be done. However, I didn't and don't agree that the American-led approach was the right one. I don't know what a better alternative would have been; the UN wasn't effectively dealing with the issue.
The War on Terror isn't necessarily an American phenomena, but it is being led by the Americans. That's probably (and rightly) because 9-11 took place on your soil. However, the world can't simply be divided into 'allies' and 'enemies'. There are shades of people in between.
Go ahead. Call me a left-wing nutjob. Just don't call me pro-fascist, because I'm not.
-Melissa
Not a nutjob, but not really fair, either. You said, "However, I didn't and don't agree that the American-led approach was the right one. I don't know what a better alternative would have been; the UN wasn't effectively dealing with the issue."
I like the fairness and honesty about the UN, we don't usually get that. But you just said, essentially, that you didn't think our approach was right without supplying an alternative. The sentence "Surely there is a better way" is trivially true, and it is a criticism that applies to every approach. The key thing is that Bush acted. A perfect plan was not possible, so Bush went with a very good one. It isn't really fair to compare this approach to some imaginary perfect one, or even some imaginary extremely good one.
If you are saying you don't like war, welcome to the club. Myself, I like small wars better than big wars, and small wars better than big mass-murderers.
Yours,
Wince
For years, we have been fairly low-key about this power, following the first half of Teddy Roosevelts advice. But following 9/11, this gorilla has raised the big stick, and much of the world has ties to the fanatics who inflicted this wound upon us. What they need to remember is that we, as before, don't hold grudges against the past associations, but only threaten those that continue to support those who would attack us. And if you want to be as strong as we are, either follow our example or find your own way. So long as it does not harm Americans, we welcome the competition.
Dean wrote:
"I would like to come to Eric's defense, though. Eric is as big a fascist-loather as I am, and he runs a terrific weblog, which everyone should read more often: Classical Values, which should also be on your blogroll if you have one."
Absolutely! Terrific! Thank you, Dean. That's exactly what I've been saying here for a long time. I read Eric Scheie's Classical Values every day. I'm one of his favorite commenters. And I strongly recommend his blog. He is one of the elite of the elite, at the top of my blogroll, right up here with Dean and the Queen of All Evil.
READ IT!!!! Eric Scheie's Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Classical Values
Melissa: What Wince said.
"LaRouche for President!" has always been one of my favorite jokes. Lyndon LaRouche has always had an extremely interesting _style_, including his name, but I can never forgive him for attacking a Queen. HAIL TO THE QUEEN....!!!!
I have Daniel Pipes's book on "Conspiracy", as well as another book buried somewhere in my library, George Johnson's "Architects of Fear", dealing with conspiracy theoeies, mainly on the Right. It's funny, conspiracy theories used to be mostly a phenomenon of the Right, since the French Revolution (whence came our spectrumological symbolisms of "Left" vs. "Right"), and it was only a decade ago that I wrote about a conspiracy theory beginning on the Right but later adopted by the Left. Uncannily, it's coming true.
Anyway, about this "fascist" thing, a very interesting blogger, whom I still like even though he doesn't like me any more, a man's man whose initials are "A.S." but he's not Andrew Sullivan, once wrote that Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds would soon be in charge of censoring the media under the Bush administration's "New Fascism". He sent me an e-mail late this June in which he called my friend Eric Scheie a "fascist", called Glenn Reynolds "InstaFascist", and called Steven Malcolm Anderson a "fucking asshole moron bastard". That last, I have to say, was a quite accurate assessment, one that is rather difficult to dispute.
I hope this David Niewert calls me a "fascist" some day soon. It would be quite an honor. I would love to be in the same company as Eric Scheie, Jeff Soyer, Dean Esmay and the Queen of All Evil, Glenn Reynolds, Charles Johnson, and other such bloggers of freedom. Communist definition of "fascist": an active, effective anti-Communist
This may be open to debate however.
Preview
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My first suggestion would have been the UN. I think that it's a necessary organization with a good purpose. But it wasn't working. It's as simple as that, whether you support the UN fully or whether you think its an outdated organization that's served its purpose. The Iraqis weren't co-operating with weapons inspectors. Members of the security council weren't prepared to support the American plan. Nothing was going to come of it.
However, the Americans went into Iraq fairly unilaterally. (Yes, I do know that there was an alliance operating, but for the point of comparison, it was and still remains mostly American.) Whatever objectives that people speculate and whatever the official line is, Bush decided he was going to do it and he did it. It doesn't matter why. The fact simply remains that he did, whether for better or for worse.
But then again, he also decided to go into Afganistan. There was no global outcry against that attack. Perhaps it was its relationship to 9-11. Perhaps it was the direct link to Osama bin Laden and terrorist organizations. Or perhaps it was the fact that more people than just the Americans (again, I know it's not just the Americans in Iraq) are involved in the operation.
That's where I think that Bush's plan is wrong. (Wrong is perhaps too strong of a word, but I don't quite know what else to put there. Not right?) He took something that had been a fairly global war on terror and made it more into an American war on terror. But what's the problem with that?
The problem with that is that there's not another big gorilla with another big stick. For one of the very first times in history, a superpower is flexing its muscles without another superpower there to balance it. Like it's been stated, there isn't another country in the world that can match the US militarily.
Has Teddy Roosevelt's theory of carrying a big stick become outdated? I don't know if it ever will. But has it become more dangerous? Maybe not if you're the one with the big stick. But what about for everyone else?
I would also raise the question, "Why is it Bush's fault that not quite as many other countries didn't want to participate as much in Iraq? Aren't they responsible for their decisions too?" In other words, I'm arguing that the refusal of France, et al, to set aside bribes in favor of doing The Right Thing had as much or more part in making it "more into an American war on terror".
The short form is, we Americans have a simple saying, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
We choose to lead.
I agree that it was the lack of other nations that transformed the global war on terror into an American war on terror. I'm not arguing that point, I was merely stating that it did happen. America can't be held responsible for the decisions of other nations (although some people would like to) unless they honestly did something to influence those decisions. And as I said, only the people who listened in on the discussions can know what happened.
And as for matching the US... Not even the Soviets at the height of their power could match the US, but at least they were a counter balance. They were another superpower that could help keep the US military might in check.
My rational basis for applying this to having the US as the great superpower (as opposed to having Russia or some arbitrary superpower) is that the US isn't always right. Simple as that. No other country is always right either. It's not that I don't think the US should be the only superpower, it's more so that I don't think that anyone should be a sole superpower. (So I suppose that the argument would be the same for the hypothetical cases as well...)
I know that its not likely to happen that things will all be shared fairly between countries and everyone will play nice and there won't be any more wars. But what worries me is that the US is starting to wake up to the fact that the people with little sticks are poking them. And they've decided to do something.
Should you sit back and do nothing? No. And that's what makes having that balancing superpower that much more important. A war has to be fought against someone. But if the people you're fighting against aren't as strong as you are, then there's nothing to stop you from doing as you wish. (Speaking hypothetically. I have no desire to have my head served to me on a platter.)
The US has become, in a sense, the world police. For the moment, you're doing things that are beneficial to other countries. I have no reason to think that you'll stop pursuing that policy. But if the US did choose that course of action, there isn't any other nation that could stop them. That's what concerns me. Not that it would happen. But that the potential exists.
Looking at it from within the safety of America it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. You know that you aren't likely to do something like that. In theory, the rest of the world (or most of it) knows that too. But when people like Bush start making statements like 'If you're not with us, you're against us' things start looking differently. It becomes that you either follow the US around obediently, doing as they wish, or you're aligned against them. But there is no other side to be aligned with. So you either follow, or you're on your own.
(Black and white examples provided for the purpose of argument only. Disclaimer included because it appears as though I'm the only dissenting voice... It's lonely over here on the left... ;,) )
Which is what we're currently teaching the Islamofascists. As Tom Clancy noted, "If you kick a tiger in the tail, you better have a plan to deal with the teeth."
The US has an odd mentality about war. We dislike having to go into war, and would prefer people to just get along with us. But at the same time we admire and respect those who are accomplished in battle, and much of our entertainment consists of fictional accounts of the same. But for the most part we're all about doing business.
"The French termed us the "hyperpower" and not admiringly."
That's only because they're jealous because they are no longer the "hyperpower" they once were. Tragic. I love France. I love the French language, French cuisine, French literature and philosophy, the Gothic cathedrals of France, the glorious history of France. Pity that it's all wasted on the French.
And, what was Athens saying about Rome in 30 A.D.? That's the exact parallel as I see it.
Dean, be careful who you give those green borders to, you might end up giving one (or two!) to me. Funny, I've written better stuff than that here. Or maybe not. What could I write better than an endorsement of Classical Values? Anyway, thank you, Dean!
Melissa
"Andreas: No, the cartoon is not linked to the Nazi cartoon you speak of. Neither the artist nor I knew anything about that imagery." Sorry, my mistake, you obviously misunderstood what I wanted to say. I simply wanted to explain on which basis this Niewert draw his idiotic conclusion, ok ? No offense there. Not at all. Maybe I expressed it wrongly. With no word did I accuse YOU of linking the cartoon to the NSDAP-imagery. I just thought ( and I said that ) that there is an inherent allusion. The "Dolchstosslegende" is something which is talked about in german history-classes, because of it's prototype-character as a despicable means of propaganda, and I wanted to explain to you, that this Niewert might have refered to that. I wouldn't have said anything, if I'd thought you already knew about this - so how can I accuse you of linking things you don't know about ???
Calm down please. "This is a vicious, hateful accusation you and Niewert have made" : don't confuse me with this guy - in the very same posting I wrote : "Of course, he went to far anyway by concluding you're a fascist", so why are you freaking out in the rest of your response like : "Indeed, it is very frightening that Germans have so forgotten the lesson of Hitler that even now they are willing to defend another fascist". Now THAT is insulting. And it's nonsense, and you know it. "defend another fascist" ?...omg Dean :-(.
I already told you that the german constitution doesn't permit such a military interaction anyway. Please remind yourself that this has a lot to do with exactly the history you assert modern Germans are unaware of - don't you think that this is utterly offensive :-( ?
"Shame on you, every one of you, who opposed the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's mass-murdering, fascist tyranny, in the name of "peace." I doubt that you will find a single german, who would oppose a liberation...
But speaking of Orwell : war = "liberation from mass-murdering and fascist tyranny", that surely sounds like Newspeak to me, sorry.
"The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war" might be worse than war itself, but blind obedience as a result of a perverted understanding of morality and patriotism is worst - that's something I as a German learned from the history of my country. Just stop denying the moral integrity of people, who think that there are certain situations in which war is the wrong answer - that's as illiberal as can be.
And please throw away your nationalistic bias. I owe you an apology, because you misunderstood what i wrote about this fool Niewert and his alleged motives. Ok, here it is : Sorry. But I am sure you owe me one too, for this huge litany of libels you posted in response.
For one of the very first times in history, a superpower is flexing its muscles without another superpower there to balance it.
Uh, not quite. See Alexander the Great, the Roman empire, the Chin dynasty, the Mongols, etc.
Balance-of-power politics works, sort of, but when it doesn't, it really doesn't. See World War I, World War II.
And really: look around at the realistic candidates for rival superpower. Which of them is preferable to the USA?
Of course, we and the world have been there before.
In 1945, all the world's superpowers beat each other into near-oblivion, except one: the USA. Had we wanted to, we could have simply kept on fighting and taken over the world. No one, not even the Soviets, could have stopped us.
Indeed, at the time there were some American generals and political leaders who wanted to keep going and whip the Soviet Union. At the time, they were dismissed as warmongers, but what if we had followed their advice?
But we did not. We helped fix up the devastated nations, and then we got ready to slink back into our usual isolationism. This gave the Soviets the time to rebuild and become a world power. Unfortunately, they also built up their own expansionism and belligerence, much as Hitler had in the 1930s. Seeing the seeds of another world war, we reluctantly remained on guard, and the Cold War was born.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the last century, mostly over quarrels we ignored until we were forced into them. Is it any wonder that we react strongly to provocation today? We know that, should another global conflict arise, we will likely not be the primary cause, even if our sacrifices make us appear otherwise. So why not sacrifice early, so as to minimize the sacrifice and not let our enemies gather strength?
I do not say that all of this is right. (Well, I'm pretty sure the history is right.) But it is the way many of us see things.
Alexander the Great wasn't a sole superpower. He, like Charlemange later, is an example of an extremely successfuly general who managed to build an empire. As with Charlemange, the empire didn't last long as a whole but was divided into three parts shortly following the death of the empire-builder.
And even Alexander the Great had another power to contend with. The vast majority of his campaigns were waged against the Persian empire. The Greek cities of Asia Minor had to be liberated from the Persians. Darius, the Persian king, was pursued several times until he was finally killed. And prior to Alexander's assuming the Macedonian throne in 336 BC, there had been a whole series of Greco-Persian wars. Persians had invaded Greece itself in 490 BC and again in 480 BC. Although the Greeks defeated the Persians at Marathon and then again at Thermopylae and Salamis, those were hardly the actions of a nation with no power. Although temporally removed from Alexander's reign, the Persians also aided the Spartans in their conquest of Athens, the dominant Greek power, in 404 BC.
Alexander died in 323 BC. The empire that he had built was split up. The period of Alexander himself could be thought of as not so much a period of a single superpower, but rather as one superpower defeating another. (The same thing probably would have happened during the Cold War had the US and the USSR duked it out with conventional weapons. Yet they were both considered superpowers.) The post-Alexander period didn't have a comparable united front to present. Although all theoretically still belonging to the same sphere, the three kingdoms were actually quite different and not quite united because of the infighting between them.
The Roman Empire, although undeniably a sole superpower for at least part of its existance, wasn't alone for its entirety. (In my original post I had had some nice dates and such of Roman defeats by various groups to prove my point. Too tired to look them up again now.) It took a hundred years and the three Punic wars to bring Carthage under control. Cleopatra in Egypt (one of the direct successors of Alexander's half-brother) didn't surrender to the Romans until 30 BC. Superpowers? No, probably not. But then again, I didn't say that this was the first time in history that there was a sole superpower. Only that it was one of the first.
Unfortunately I don't know anything about the Chin dynasty in China or the Mongols. I'll have to let those go with the same argument as above. Three occurrences (assuming that I take your word on those two) in the span of human existence is a very low number, even considering that the Roman empire lasted almost unopposed for quite a long time.
On to WWI... The way I see it, WWI didn't arise because there was only a single superpower. WWI arose because there were too many superpowers. And all of those superpowers were locked in rigid alliances that didn't lead any to any conclusion but war. Having too many superpowers is just as bad as having too few.
WWII came about because of the growing dominance of a single superpower with intentions to conquer. But there wasn't just one superpower in that case. The fact that we're sitting here having this debate is proof enough of that. I don't expect this single case to prove my point, but it is a point to consider. Had there not been other superpowers, Germany would have been almost unopposed. Same goes for Japan in Asia.
Jeff, you also said, "Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the last century, mostly over quarrels we ignored until we were forced into them." That's true. But Americans weren't the only ones who died fighting in the last century. It almost seems as though Americans seem to forget that. Although this is just a perception issue, brought on by the typical tendency for a nation to focus on its own acheivements, that's the way that it can sometimes seem. The Americans are always the ones riding in to save the day.
Yeah, it probably would have been very hard to win WWII without American industrial might and their armies. But you weren't the only ones fighting. It was 'a quarrel that [you] ignored until [you] were forced into [it].' I don't necessarily see that as a reason why you 'react strongly to provocation today.'After all, some of the nations that reacted right away to those conflicts are still reacting now. What is it that still keeps them fighting following that logic?
The pre-emptive strikes are good military tactics. They make sense. You don't want to hit an enemy when he's waiting for you. You want to hit him when's he's not waiting.
But if there's no balance. Then there's nothing stopping you from making everyone your enemy, one country at a time. After all, if you control everything, then there's no one left to fight against you. That's why there's the need for balance. Not because something like that necessarily would happen. But because there's always the chance.
All dates (when they were correct) came out of 'Europe: A History' by Norman Davies. Apolgies again for the not-necessarily coherent post.
Yours,
Melissa
Good history of Alexander and of the rise of the Roman Empire. I must mention also that, while Rome was ruling the Mediterranean, there was another superpower to the east: the Parthian Empire, descendant of the Persian Empire. The religions that flowed westward from that cultural domain, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Manichaeanism, had a great influence on Christianity.
Its pretty clear you're not a moron...but we'll leave the rest up to your judgement...
:o)
But there has never been a power like the United States in the world - Persia, Rome, France, Britain, Germany...at their peak they diposed only a tiny fraction of the relative power the United States disposes of today.
It was more than 150 years ago that Lincoln observed that in the trial of a thousand years, no enemy could by force take a drink from the Ohio river - even back then, pre-Civil War, we were invulnerable in large measure to any outside attack; since that time, we have merely strode from power to power - and, yes, I recognise that the overwhelming nature of the United States frightens the world. Mostly, of course, it frightens the elites of other nations - a top dog in France or China realises that in context of the United States, he's pretty small beans; what is the President of France in relative power and influence compared with the governors of New York and California? He's probably less influential - as compared to the President of the United States, he's insignificant.
The whole trend of the world, pace the conspiracy-theorists, is towards a unified world government - and this strikes terror in the hearts of many foreigners. The reasons for this are:
1. American popular culture just swamps everything out there. Call it lowest-common-denominator trash all you want, but everyone out there wishes to wallow in it; the varied culturual strains of the non-American world are already being submerged in an American flood...the more unified the world becomes, the more likely this trend will become.
2. Anyone can become an American - but no matter how hard you really try, if you weren't born in France, Russia or Japan then you'll never be French, Russian or Japanese; the power of American popular culture and the ability of the United States to refashion anyone into an American means that the very nature of, say, Japanese or French culture could be swept away entirely...to become just another strand in the American tapestry, rather than a separate fabric unto itself.
They look at us and see their death - so they seek to hobble us, to make us more like them; to divide us among ourselves....
Thank you!
Very interesting analysis. Yes, I remember that Lincoln quote very well. And he concluded that: "...If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. We will either live for all time or die by suicide." He also said: "We shall either nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of Earth."
How true. Yes, America is the last, best hope of Earth. The rest of (yes, rest of) Europe has passed from decrepitude to decomposition. Only America still stands, stands astride the Earth, defending what still remains of our Western civilization, offering hope to "the huddle masses yearning to breathe free", and arousing the envy and hatred of tyrants everywhere. I'm an elitist snob and not a fan of much of popular culture, but even our lowest trash is a ray of hope to those trapped in the squalor, sickness, starvation, and slavery that is the lot of most of the world.
If we are headed toward "One World", then I want it to be under the U.S., not the U.N..
The best way to do that is twofold: first, eliminate as many bases as possible, which we have accomplished directly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and indirectly in many other countries, including Libya. Second, we literally give the young men who would join groups like Al Qaeda another choice: join a productive democracy instead. And -parenthetically- demonstrate that self-rule is possible in the Arab world.
This is something that most folks forget, which is ironic considering all the above discussion of the NSDAP. I'm sure Arnold remembers, but let's the rest of us recall that the most fertile group for the Nazis were young middle-class men who had no where do go in Germany.
If you look at the movers and shakers in islamofascism you'll see the same thing: young, educated middle-class men who have almost literally no where else to turn constitute a large part of the movement. Add to that the limitations on pre/extra-marital sex in the Arab world, and the delay of marriage until the man can economically support his wife (recall the depressed economic conditions in that region), and you have an educated, middle-class, and sexually frustrated young man. Is it any wonder they want to blow themselves up?
Further evidence that the US can act from selfish motives which are -at the same time- also altruistic can be found in FDR's Lend/Lease program. It was in our selfish best interests to keep Great Britain fighting, but was also the "right" thing to do.
Casey, previously I had noted,
But following 9/11, this gorilla has raised the big stick, and much of the world has ties to the fanatics who inflicted this wound upon us. What they need to remember is that we, as before, don't hold grudges against the past associations, but only threaten those that continue to support those who would attack us.
I pointed it out, but in a roundabout way. I'll try to be more direct in the future.
I am rather bemused by people who do not notice this, or notice the fact that the U.S. has an incredibly history of putting its soldiers on foreign soil at the request of that nation, and then of politely leaving when asked.
If that were true, I'd give them out more often, and wouldn't give them to people who disagree with me.
The counter to this, however, is that this does not represent fealty to a hire ideal, but rather a co-incidence of American interests with a moral interest.
--|PW|--
Dean is right about American popular culture. We import and incorporate as much as we export. We may be flooding the globe with baseball and McDonalds and Starbucks and Walt Disney cartoons, but we also eat sushi and pho and watch Japanese anime cartoons and practice Japanese martial arts and dabble in religions from the Near and Far East. So it was in ancient Rome, in ancient Egypt in the New Kingdom, and with every other Late civilization.
Please note the standard Borg catchphrase:
We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. Your technological and cultural distinctiveness will be assimilated and added to our own.
Quick to adapt, unstoppable except by sneak attacks and treachery from turncoats, and far more advanced than any of their neighbors.
Resistance is futile
--|PW|--
The physical aspects of the Borg, and particularly the later establishment of them as a casted hive society came much closer to the Communist metaphor, but I still think my interpretation is good. The heavily negative imagery placed upon the Borg conceals the allusion, basically a socialists worst fears about America exagerrated to its extreme.
In my little history lesson earlier, I did not mention the Parthian empire. But then again, I also didn't mention the Islamic empire. I didn't go into Charlemange's empire or the Holy Roman Empire. I didn't mention the Marovingians in France or a whole slew of others. Coming to the Americas, we hadn't dealt on the Incas, the Aztecs, or the Mayans. There are a whole lot of great powers that we didn't mention.
Mark-
You said:
That's true, but you didn't take into account the fact that the world has changed drastically since any of those countries were superpowers. America's military might doesn't rest solely on its nuclear arsenal, but no matter the size of the US army, without those nukes you wouldn't be nearly as strong as they are now.
The comparisons with the superpowers of Antiquity or the medieval superpowers is especially difficult because of the limited scale of the world at that time. There weren't really sovereign nations in the sense that there are now, only empires trying to expand their borders and bumping up against one another. The styles of warfare and the technology precluded swift campaigns. (Although there were exceptions to that statement.) It wasn't possible to do many of the things that are possible now. Diplomacy in the modern sense didn't really exist.
America masses more strategic power than any empire before it could. But that's because there's more power, even looking at it relatively. The world has changed and power itself has changed with it. There isn't a good comparison because
trying to make one is trying to compare Bush to Marcus Aurelius. It's an unfair comparison, for both men.
You also said:
Part of that security, even now, is strategic location. Pre- (and even post-) Civil War, there wasn't another nation with the strength of arms massed in North America. The British didn't have a strong troop presence in what would become Canada. They barely had enough troops to defend the territory from the US during the War of 1812. (Which actually lasted until 1814, when the British burned the White House.) They had to bring in troops from Britain to finally win the war (and burn the White House).
Now, even assuming that the US wasn't such a superpower, there isn't a springboard from which to launch an invasion. Even if the US didn't have the troops to immediately crush such a build-up of arms, it would be difficult for an overseas power to invade. Nuclear missiles can decimate from across the world, but a traditional (or even modern Iraqi-style) invasion needs some place to start from. The Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans do a good job of protecting that Ohio River.
Steven-
Just because America is the biggest kid on the playground doesn't mean that it's right. It doesn't mean that it's the best. It's just the strongest.
When you say things like "Yes, America is the last, best hope of the Earth," those are the things that make me believe that we need another superpower. Even another superpower allied with the Americans. Just something else to counter statements like that.
The 'American way' isn't always the best way. It isn't always the right way. It's just your way. The peoples of some other countries also live in freedom. Are not they also bastions of democracy and freedom?
Dwight Eisenhower said:
The problem with having only a single superpower is that you're either with them or against them. Coming to that conference table, you can only be confident if you can offer your full support to the superpower. That, in my opinion, is not freedom for all.
That, and as I said, if you find a better way, we'll retrofit it into our system and continue on. The reason we have fought socialism for decades is because it has proven not to work.
Sure other countries have different ways. They havent worked as well as America. We have the oldest existing government on the planet. And concerning our military power, you are quite incorrect. A Marine-supported carrier group possesses more firepower than France and Germany put together. Two carrier groups outweigh China's capability, barring land force, and they would be decimated shortly after we brushed aside their air cover. We have force projection capability that can touch any point on the planet. Because we choose not to use it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. But all anyone could do to the US is fight a defensive action.
And as I have said, we have proven our intentions time and again. We are asked to trust those who have proven untrustworthy (France, for the best example), but told we cannot be trusted despite our proven record. Thats a large part of why, when we're given polls of how other countries disagree with the US, we shrug and say 'so what.'
Remember what I said, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
The only "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric that every came out of our President was when he said TO REGIMES THAT ARE KNOWN TO SUPPORT TERRORISTS that they needed to decide whether they were on our side or the terrorists' side. Which was and is the right thing to say to them.
Of course, backing that rhetoric up is challenging. It took a year or so for Libya to fall in line. The Saudis have changed their ways but not enough. Still, I never expected this effort to be over in a year, and neither did the President, as his comments have made clear so many times.
"Andreas: No, the cartoon is not linked to the Nazi cartoon you speak of. Neither the artist nor I knew anything about that imagery." Sorry, my mistake, you obviously misunderstood what I wanted to say. I simply wanted to explain on which basis this Niewert draw his idiotic conclusion, ok ? No offense there. Not at all. Maybe I expressed it wrongly. With no word did I accuse YOU of linking the cartoon to the NSDAP-imagery. I just thought ( and I said that ) that there is an inherent allusion. The "Dolchstosslegende" is something which is talked about in german history-classes, because of it's prototype-character as a despicable means of propaganda, and I wanted to explain to you, that this Niewert might have refered to that. I wouldn't have said anything, if I'd thought you already knew about this - so how can I accuse you of linking things you don't know about ???
Calm down please. "This is a vicious, hateful accusation you and Niewert have made" : don't confuse me with this guy - in the very same posting I wrote : "Of course, he went to far anyway by concluding you're a fascist", so why are you freaking out in the rest of your response like : "Indeed, it is very frightening that Germans have so forgotten the lesson of Hitler that even now they are willing to defend another fascist". Now THAT is insulting. And it's nonsense, and you know it. "defend another fascist" ?...omg Dean :-(.
I already told you that the german constitution doesn't permit such a military interaction anyway. Please remind yourself that this has a lot to do with exactly the history you assert modern Germans are unaware of - don't you think that this is utterly offensive :-( ?
"Shame on you, every one of you, who opposed the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's mass-murdering, fascist tyranny, in the name of "peace." I doubt that you will find a single german, who would oppose a liberation...
But speaking of Orwell : war = "liberation from mass-murdering and fascist tyranny", that surely sounds like Newspeak to me, sorry.
"The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war" might be worse than war itself, but blind obedience as a result of a perverted understanding of morality and patriotism is worst - that's something I as a German learned from the history of my country. Just stop denying the moral integrity of people, who think that there are certain situations in which war is the wrong answer - that's as illiberal as can be.
And please throw away your nationalistic bias. I owe you an apology, because you misunderstood what i wrote about this fool Niewert and his alleged motives. Ok, here it is : Sorry. But I am sure you owe me one too, for this huge litany of libels you posted in response.
And I'm still waiting for your apology.
Kick it, Inigo:
You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
In my comment on the Parthian Empire, I wasn't criticizing you at all, not would I expect anyone ever to provide a historical atlas of the world within a comment on a blog. I mentioned the Parthians for one reason only: most people don't know they even existed! There is a very popular belief that the Romans ruled "all the known world". They didn't. Not only did they have to fight off the barbarians to the North (my ancestors), but they also had to ward off the Parthians (Persians) to the East.
Most people also think that Columbus discovered that the Earth is round. He didn't. Eratosthenes discovered that long before, in ancient Greece, and the educated men of the Church in the Middle Ages knew that from reading Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Also, most people have no idea how much Persian religion influenced Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam.
There is another country besides America that it has historically been impossible to invade: Russia. No one since Genghis Khan has ever succeeded in conquering the Russians. Napoleon tried it, the Germans tried it in World War I, and Hitler tried it. They all failed, disastrously. Even during the brief period after World War II when the U.S. held a monopoly on the atom bomb, we didn't try it.
As to "might is right", my position is that might is not always right, but to fail to use one's might in defense of one's rights is always wrong. The United States is, I believe, the freest nation on this planet. The Netherlands has certain freedoms that I envy, legalized drugs, homosexual marriage. But no nation has the freedom of speech that we have. Rev. Fred Phelps can stand on a street corner and yell "God Hates Fags" and "God Hates America", and I, for one, wouldn't have it any other way. I will defend his freedom just as I will defend my freedom to disagree with him.
We also have that freedom that undergirds all other freedoms: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. I wil never surrender that indespensible freedom. America must, for that same reason, remain strong militarily, and must, whenever necessary, stand ready to use our military might in defense of our freedom.
But since Saddam was a mass-murderer (used chemcial weapons against thousands of Kurdish civilians), a dictator (unaccountable head of state), and a tyrant (rule by whim rather than rule of law, both he and his sons tyrannized Iraqi's), your comparison between calling him exactly that and Orwell's Newspeak is a complete contradiction. Iraq also has been liberated, it is a sovereign nation with its own government, and will be conducting its first real elections as a modern nation in January. You might not like it that way, but thats how it is. You also have compared apples and oranges, where Dean has criticized (quite rightly) ardent pacifism (the belief that all war, any violence at all is wrong) you conflate that wrongly with disagreement in any war.
"...your comparison between calling him exactly that...". Um, I didn't make such a comparison. But your description of Saddam looks quite suitable; at least I agree with it.
"...conflate that wrongly with disagreement in any war"...didn't do that either. First you say I compare apples and oranges, then you say I conflate/merge them, altough I did nothing of the sort. I wonder why I have to point that out, but I set a "." between "...history of my country" and "Just stop denying...". Maybe I should have put some blank lines in between additionally. I constantly seem to overestimate the syntactic skills of the readers in this blog, sorry.
"Iraq also has been liberated, it is a sovereign nation with its own government, and will be conducting its first real elections as a modern nation in January. You might not like it that way, but thats how it is." Actually, I do like it that way :-). Don't you ?
"...but thats how it is"...I'd say that's what it hopefully will be like.
1) The statement on the table is that absolute pacifism is wrong. Supported by historical fact and quote from Orwell.
2) Quite right that "...history of my country" and "Just stop denying..." were separate statements, and I therefore left out any criticism of Germany's track record. I can go into it if you wish, there's a long list, but I concentrated on your second statement in that paragraph. You again attempt to merge the two, equating condemnation of absolute pacifism with condemnation of those who believe there are certain situations in which war is the wrong answer.
Still nope. "...you implied they were equally identified by Dean's statement." Nope. Won't become true even if you repeat it. If you interprete it this way, that's your problem, sorry.
To 1) That's not "on the table", because I still agree with you on that. You see a problem where there's none :-). You'll have to look for somebody else, if you want to argue on this issue.
To 2) "...were separate statements." So you're saying it yourself :-). I made two separate statements. You got it. Congrats. I didn't merge, I didn't attempt to merge - why should I ? Just imagine I wrote two seperate paragraphs, if the "." and my remark about "blank lines in between" are not sufficient. My SECOND statement refered to something else Dean said, and since I didn't address you ( I told you that, too ) you maybe couldn't understand what I said anyways, unless you didn't look very closely on what Dean said.
If any merging happened at all you might ( I don't assert that's the case ) find it in "...they would oppose such a war of liberation based on such morally bankrupt arguments as being "against war."", because the Germans Dean seemed to have meant are all Germans - which of course would be nonsense like the assertion, that Germans "are willing to defend another fascist" and that was what my "Just stop denying..." statement was aimed at. All that is insulting and looks hypocritical considering that you'll probably find more admirers of Hitler in the U.S. than in Germany - and over there neo-nazis are still allowed to parade like it was the 1940s, screaming "Sieg heil" and dressing in SS-uniforms, right ? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I also bet you'll find ardent pacificsts everywhere - I saw a lot of them on american television. You surely won't find a majority of them in Germany and "modern" Germans really don't like to be confused with the superficial, prejudiced and totally biased image, which lingered behind Dean's assumption. You tripped over your own sad generalizations, I'm afraid.
You see, I agreed with you substantially but you didn't get it :-). Somewhat funny, but somewhat tiresome too, so let's leave it at that.
As for neo-Nazi's, yes the US has an absolute rule, freedom of speech. We do not prevent people from speaking their minds, no matter how wrong they are. The cure for bad speech is more speech, and we mock these people, tear down their arguments, rip their viewpoints to shreds, but we do not prevent them from speaking. It's an extension of our capitalist society, where ideas compete in a marketplace as much as products do. It works, as I've pointed out, for it has allowed us to build the most powerful nation ever.
It is my understanding that Germany, France, the UK, and many other EU nations have restrictions on speech, particularly in the media. We have no such restrictions, and even slander and libel laws are so thin (and civil, rather than criminal offenses) there are very few cases of successful litigation.
Steven, in light of your unsurpassed mastery of eliminationist rhetoric, AND for displaying the most mobilized (probably mutative) passions I have seen, it is my considered opinion that you be admitted to fascism's inner sanctum -- NUNC PRO TUNC!
Der Dolchstoss
What is the Dolchstosslegende?
You decide.
What kind of twisted nutjob would assume a Nazi connection simply because this cartoon looks very vaguely like an old Nazi cartoon? Especially when the artist--and myself--have already explained we were unaware of the Nazi image, and what the image really meant to us?
Seriously. Get a grip on reality, and stop demonizing people you don't agree with.