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CounterPunch
September
24, 2002
Germany Shows
the Way
by Wayne Madsen
Ironically, it is Germany that has pointedly shown
the rest of the world that George W. Bush's march to war and
attendant post-9/11 totalitarian trends in the world can be blocked
through an election process. The German Red-Green coalition fought
off a challenge by Christian Democrat leader Edmund Stoiber of
Bavaria, a right-wing bastion, which like many southern American
states, is a home to intolerance, bigotry, xenophobia, and right-wing
fanatical politicians. Stoiber even announced that if his party
won, Germany wanted a final financial settlement from the Czech
Republic for post-war German refugees from Sudetenland! (Yes,
you are reading this correctly, it is the same parcel of territory
that the Nazis used as justification to invade Czechoslovakia
in 1938). The election success of Germany's Social Democrat/Green
coalition follows by weeks the election victory by Sweden's Social
Democrats. Democrats, moderate Republicans, and Greens in the
United States should take heart from Germany and Sweden. The
Bush-Rove attempt to capitalize on a future war with Iraq should
mobilize progressives to turn out the vote in November and defeat
the White House's attempt to take the Senate, keep the House,
pack the Supreme Court with fanatic fundamentalists, and further
erode the Constitution of the United States.
However, Germany's popular veto of American
policy was not without its victims. After his thin election victory,
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced that his Justice
Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin would not be back in his cabinet
(although she will thankfully remain in the Bundestag). In an
earlier campaign speech, Daeubler-Gmelin had  likened
Bush's policies to those of Adolf Hitler. That incurred the wrath
of Bush's senior lieutenants, including the Soviet Union expert
and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Of course, Rice's
ability to comprehend and analyze the post-Cold War world is
problematic. As one Washington foreign policy sage put it, "having
a Soviet expert as National Security Adviser is about as effective
as having an expert on the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empires in
that job."
What happened to Daeubler-Gmelin was
not much different than what befell Georgia Representative Cynthia
McKinney. Last April, McKinney questioned what Bush knew about
the September 11 terrorist attack beforehand. Not surprisingly,
she was pilloried by the right-wing. However, McKinney was also
left defenseless by fellow Democrats. But with the release of
the much-awaited Senate-House Joint Intelligence Committee Staff
Statement, McKinney has been vindicated. The bi-partisan committee
concluded that one of the highest classified items of information
still being withheld from the committee is Bush's pre-knowledge
of the 9/11 attack: "the President's knowledge of intelligence
information relevant to this Inquiry remains classified even
when the substance of that information has been declassified."
Daeubler-Gmelin's job as Justice Minister
gave her deep insight into the future plans of Bush and his fascistic
Attorney General John Ashcroft. As Justice Minister, Daeubler-Gmelin
has been intimately involved with Washington's global plans for
controlling the Internet; monitoring e-mail communications; and
sharing intelligence on political, religious and social rights
groups. These discussions, which have included Daeubler-Gmelin,
have taken place between Justice and Interior Ministers under
the aegis of the Group of Eight (G8) countries. The United States
will soon have an Interior Minister at future meetings in the
guise of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Daeubler-Gmelin
had a front row seat in the discussions that will lead to Bush's
Orwellian and Kafkaesque "New World Order." So when
she likened Bush's war rhetoric to that of Hitler's, she had
a unique insight. When Bush announced in his new national security
strategy that the United States reserved the right to launch
pre-emptive attacks on adversaries who threaten U.S. interests,
Daeubler-Gmelin can be forgiven if she thought the rhetoric sounded
like that from the dais of the Reichstag in 1938. After all,
Hitler said Germany attacked defenseless Poland in 1939 because
the Poles had "attacked" a German border outpost and
Germany had to prevent a pre-emptive "Polish invasion,"
Germany's ally, Japan, used such reasoning in its attack on Pearl
Harbor. It reasoned a pre-emptive attack on the American Pacific
Fleet would give it time to consolidate its hold on its East
Asian "Co-Prosperity Sphere," Japan's version of the
Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Daeubler-Gmelin's comments were vilified
just as those of Canadian Prime Minister's comments about Western
"greed"(e.g., Bush's Big Oil friends) being responsible
for breeding the type of anti-Western hatred that resulted in
the September 11 attack. What the right-wing wants in the world
is the same kind of self-censorship that people in Nazi Germany
imposed upon themselves. It is absolutely true that Bush wants
to rattle sabers to get the minds of Americans off of a shattered
economy, ballooning deficits, Enron, and the "disappeared"
being held incommunicado by Ashcroft's Gestapo. The only problem
with likening Bush to Hitler is that such a comparison might
unfair to Hitler. Adolf Hitler wrote a book whereas it can be
argued whether Bush ever completely read one.
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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September
21 / 22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
An Entire
Class
of Thieves
Tom Gorman
The Press & Sabra
and Shatila
Amelia Peltz
Anniversary with Life
in Palestine
Susan Martinez
By the Hand
of the Father
Ben Tripp
Advice from
a Polemicist
Adam Engel
From Above:
Forgetting bin Laden
Chris Clarke
The Ann Coulter Test
Tariq Ali
Doing as the
Romans Did
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Bush Victory
in Iraq
Ralph Nader
Greed Without Limits
Thomas Croft
The Life of Jim Cummings
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen:
a serialized Novel,
Episode One
Wolff, Dailey, Metres
& St. Clair
Poet's Basement
September
20, 2002
Joan Hoff
Debating
War:
the Forgotten Tradition
Norman Madarasz
Lessons from a Cyncial Master Jean
Chretien's
New York State of Mind
Mitchel Cohen
Toxic Wastes
and
the New World Order
Peter Lee
Why Bush
Wants This War
Bruce Jackson
20 Questions
About Bush's
War Against Arabs
Krystal Kyer
Greenwashing the Marketplace
September
19, 2002
Ron Jacobs
Cheney's
Vermont Breakfast
Ilija Trojanow
/ Ranjit Hoskote
Who Cares
for Human Rights?
It's a "Just" War
Jordy Cummings
How
to Silence
Pro Palestinian Voices
Salam Rahal
The Rape
of a Nation
Richard Falk
& David Krieger
War with
Iraq:
It's Not Bush's Decision
Ralph Nader
How Congress
Can Fight Corporate Crime
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Senior:
Hating Saddam, Selling Him Weapons
September
18, 2002
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
Goodbye
to All That
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Cancerous
Air
Born Under a Bad Sky
Ben Tripp
Smoking
Gun
of a Hatchet Job
Peggy Thomson
20 Years
After:
Sabra and Shatila
Thomas Mountain
September
1982
Sabra and Chatila (Poem)
William Cook
Yet Another
Bush Doctrine
Kathleen Christison
Israel's Other Voices
Resources:
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About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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Read
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Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
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Whiteout:
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by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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