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CounterPunch
January
31, 2003
Bush and Hitler
Compare and
Contrast
by WAYNE MADSEN
Adolf Hitler would be proud that an American President
is emulating him in so many ways. Hitler, it will be remembered,
routinely ignored his military, other world leaders, and the
clergy. Bush seems to think that this policy, which ultimately
failed for Hitler, will work for him.
First, we should consider what Christian
leaders are saying about Bush.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal
Church in America, Frank T. Griswold III, says "I'd like
to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize
for being from the United States" and blasts George W.
Bush for his saber rattling. Apparently, poppy Bush, an Episcopalian,
believes that the head of his church is wrong and his wayward
son is right.
From the Vatican, Pope John Paul II fires
a shot over the bow of the Bush administration by declaring,
"war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of
ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and
in accordance with very strict conditions."
In a television ad, the chief ecumenical
officer of the United Methodist Church, Bishop Melvin Talbert,
says that his fellow Methodist's rush to war "violates
God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ.''
The Anglican House of Bishops has warned,
"without compelling new evidence to confirm that Iraq was
stockpiling chemical or biological weapons, war could not be
morally justified."
Bush, who, during one of the presidential
debates, said his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ, has
apparently decided to ignore his teachings.
Maybe Bush has decided to turn away from
Jesus Christ and instead seek Providence from a tequila bottle,
as his State of the Union address with numerous examples of
slurred speech would seem to indicate.
Bush, a so-called compassionate conservative
and born-again Christian, can only find religious support from
the same group of hackneyed pseudo-Christians, hate mongers,
and religious cult leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson,
Franklin Graham, and Sun Myung Moon. Bush opts for this band
of zealots and ignores South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond
Tutu who asked, "When does compassion, when does morality,
when does caring come in?" His words fall on deaf ears
in the Oval Office.
Content with ignoring the church, Bush
has also decided to play with dynamite by ignoring some of America's
top military minds.
One of them is retired General Norman
Schwarzkopf, the military commander of Desert Storm. He told
The Washington Post that he has yet to be fully convinced that
war with Iraq is necessary. Schwarzkopf's comments mirror those
of other retired top generals, including Anthony Zinni, Wesley
Clark, John Shalikashvili, Brent Scowcroft, Joseph Hoar, and
Merrill McPeak. Pentagon sources report that the obviously
mentally ill Donald Rumsfeld threatened to fire some members
of his Joint Chiefs of Staff for not supporting the war against
Iraq. These included former Marine Corps Commandant and now
NATO commander General James Jones and Army Chief of Staff General
Erik Shinseki. Another recipient of Rumsfeld's wrath is the
commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command General Charles
Holland who Rumsfeld accused of having a "case of the slows"
in carrying out Bush's war plans.
Pentagon sources report that morale among
senior military commanders is at an all time low. Rumsfeld rubbed
salt into open wounds when he ordered his "CINCs"
(Commander-in-Chief) to drop that title, declaring that there
is only one "commander-in-chief" and that is Bush.
Neither did it help when Rumsfeld said military draftees never
added any value to the service.
Pentagon sources report that some officers
are digging out old message traffic that emanated from the Nixon
White House in 1974 during the height of the Watergate crisis.
One particular order from then Chief of Staff Al Haig stated
that military commanders were to ignore any orders from Nixon
unless they were authorized and co-signed by Haig. The fear
then was that Nixon might have ordered a military move on the
Congress during the impeachment hearings and cite national security
as the reason for suspending the congressional proceedings against
him.
In the end, however, Nixon understood
the gravity of his constitutional responsibilities. He resigned.
Bush, on the other hand, has done more to shred the Constitution
than any of his predecessors.
Of course, there was once another fanatic
war-possessed leader who tore up his constitution and routinely
berated his generals and ignored their advice. On July 20, 1944,
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg strode into a conference room
in Hitler's Wolf's Lair compound with a briefcase bomb. Although
the plot to rid the world of Hitler once and for all failed,
it confirmed that a number of Germany's top generals, including
its most famous, Erwin von Rommel, were strongly opposed to
Hitler's fanaticism.
War making and saber rattling is not
the only similarity of Bush to Hitler. The German leader, along
with Joseph Goebbels, was also a master of propaganda. The Bush
administration, obviously putting its propaganda arm, the White
house Office of Global Communications, into full gear, convinced
nine European leaders to take out an ad, billed as an 'article,"
in several European newspapers supporting the Bush administration.
Some of the usual suspects signed on to the article, including
Tony Blair, who, in addition to Barney and Spot, is Bush's favorite
lap dog. But it is interesting to point out some of the other
leaders who backed Bush. They include the Prime Ministers of
Poland and Hungary and President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic.
These countries, which joined NATO a few years ago with the
provision that they buy billions of dollars of American warplanes,
tanks, and other hardware, are virtual subsidiaries of America's
military-industrial complex.
Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen is only in power because of the support he receives
from a rabidly anti-immigrant party that mirrors John Ashcroft's
brand of conservatism. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi heads a party
that has maintained strong links to Italy's neo-fascist movement
whose founding father was Benito Mussolini. Likewise, the parties
of Spain's Jose Maria Aznar and Portugal's Jose Barroso have
historical links to the fascist movements of Francisco Franco
and Antonio Salazar, respectively.
Bush's borrowing liberally from Hitler's
play book was not lost on Germany's former Justice Minister
Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, who last September said Bush wanted a
war with Iraq to divert attention from domestic problems. She
added, "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did that."
Bush, who is content to win the support
of Pentagon stooges in Eastern Europe and neo-fascists elsewhere,
has chosen to ignore people like former South African President
Nelson Mandela who made no secret of his disgust for Bush when
he declared at a women's forum, "One power with a president
who has no foresight -- who cannot think properly -- is now
wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
who did more to bring peace to the world in a couple of years
than either of the Bush's have done in two presidential terms,
said last year that George W. Bush is a threat to world peace
and that his plans to attack Iraq will destroy the international
coalition in the war on terrorism. Former President Jimmy Carter
and Nobel Peace Prize laureate warned that a pre-emptive US
attack on Iraq would have catastrophic consequences.
Bush's disparaging of the United Nations,
world opinion, and international statesmen is reminiscent of
an April 28, 1939 speech by Hitler before the Reichstag:
"Members of the German Reichstag:
The President of the United States of America has addressed
a telegram to me, with the curious contents of which you are
already familiar . . . The President of the United States believes
that in conference rooms as in courts it is necessary that both
sides enter in good faith, assuming that substantial justice
will accrue to both. German representatives will never again
enter a conference that is for them a tribunal . . . Mr. Roosevelt
asks that assurances be given him that the German armed forces
will not attack, and above all, not invade, the territory or
possessions of the following independent nations. He then names
as those to which he refers: Finland, Lithuania, Latvia,' Estonia,
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain
, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein,
Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria,
Turkey, Iraq, the Arabias, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iran.
I have first taken the trouble to ascertain from the states
mentioned, firstly, whether they feel themselves threatened,
and, what is most important, secondly, whether this inquiry
by the American President was addressed to us at their suggestion
or at least with their consent. The reply was in all cases negative,
in some instances strongly so . . . I have reunited the territories
that have been German throughout a thousand years of history-and,
Mr. Roosevelt, I have endeavored to attain all this without
bloodshed and without bringing to my people and so to others,
the misery of war . . . For my world, Mr. President, is the
one to which Providence has assigned me and for which it is
my duty to work. Its area is much smaller. It comprises my people
alone. But I believe I can thus best serve that which is in
the hearts of all of us a*" justice, well-being, progress
and peace for the whole community of mankind."
As Congress cheerfully applauded Bush's
State of the Union address, the Reichstag gave Hitler a thunderous
reception. Although Hitler's oratory skills were light years
beyond Bush's, the two speeches had something extremely fundamental
in common-- they were packed with lies.
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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January 25
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