Ex-UN official: Bush, Blair like Nazis

[CHIMO]

US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair acted much like Nazi war criminals in ordering the invasion of Iraq, the United Nations' former chief weapons inspector to the country says.

Scott Ritter said the "aggressive warfare" of the United States and Britain in Iraq was similar to German actions in Europe in World War II.

"Both these men could be pulled up as war criminals for engaging in actions that we condemned Germany in 1946," Ritter said in an address at the Chatham House think tank in London on Friday.

"Tony Blair and George Bush are guilty of the crime of planning and committing aggressive warfare."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6E301628-4024-4CBA-9D4C-69A2771A2B5C.htm

[politicaholic]

1. Hmmm...Hitler referances really devalue an arguement...

I wish he could have cited specific crimes and urged action rather than thrown over-used cliches.

too bad.

[DemoTex]

4. Bu$h and Blair are perhaps guilty of 3 of 4 Nuremberg indictments.

The indictments at Nuremberg:

1. Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression
3. War-Crimes
4. Crimes against humanity

Bu$h and Blair (and others) are almost certainly guilty of 1 & 2, probably 3, and maybe 4. Is that specific enough? I, for one, will not tap-dance around the Nazi references. This war is being waged in my name (and your's), and the world holds us all accountable.

[politicaholic]

6. You see, was that so hard?

All he had to do is what you just did and the impact would have been far more impactful.

They ARE criminals and SHOULD be held accountable, especially after Bush vetos the Torture Bill.

[DemoTex]

8. Not hard at all for a critical thinker.

That is the problem. The Nazi slogans often come from those who have not analyzed the situation vis-a-vis history and politics. So we basically agree.

[susanna]

40. Here's my guess: a diplomat said it.

And diplomats always soft-pedal the obvious.

On edit: I'm not talking about DemoTex, but the original story.

[Minstrel Boy]

59. Ritter probably did lay out specifics,

as he did in Frontier Justice, but journalism often doesn't have patience for such things.

[LynnTheDem]

54. There is no "probably" with #3.

Near every Geneva Con has been violated by bushica, and that's rock-solid fact. Those are war crimes.

The invasion itself was deemed ILLEGAL by international law; that's a war crime.

No doubt about it; America IS a rogue state and JUST AS GUILTY AS HITLER'S GERMANY.

[indepat]

73. Yeah, but we are the good guys spreading liberty, democracy, and freedom

on a mission divined by God Almighty and Hitler was a bad guy.

[DemoTex]

78. You are probably right on my ranking of #3.

If you choose to use the standards of the late Sir Bertrand Russell, then Bu$h and Blair are certainly guilty of war crimes (and the soldiers at Abu Ghraib and their chain of command are guilty of crimes of war .. Sir Bertrand makes a distinction). But then, Sir Bertrand considers me - a combatant in Vietnam - as guilty of crimes of war for flying an unarmed SP-2E electronic spy-plane (below) over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. LBJ, Nixon, etc., were guilty of war crimes, according to Russell. Maybe that explains my 35+ year guilt trip.

[LynnTheDem]

81. I understand your guilt trip, having many Viet-Vet friends and a hubby

who was in Desert Storm (most Americans still don't have a clue about the bullshit that got us into that one, or the war crimes committed) and bush's illegal invasion.

Hubby went to Iraq because he was the only combat-experienced soldier in the entire unit. He wanted to keep them safe as possible and from doing anything stupid, and by extension keep the Iraqis as safe as possible...but he views himself as a war criminal for being involved in an illegal war of aggression. He'll have a lifetime of guilt for it.

All we can do is the best we can in whatever life throws at us, and forgive ourselves for being human.

:hug:

[malaise]

63. I knew this since

2003. Just the truth.

[Stuckinthebush]

22. Only if you are referencing the holocaust

From an historical viewpoint, the aggressive actions of the Third Reich against its neighbors is very appropriate to reference.

[Jacobin]

23. Why do you think so

I can't think of a more accurate comparison.

[BillZBubb]

30. True: The real comparison is Fascist Italy.

There you had a puffed up, ignorant buffoon who thought he was some macho savior. You had his blackshirted followers without a brain in their heads. You had repression of those opposed to the fascist policies. And you had attacks on weak countries who posed no threat to Italy justified by the whim of Il Duce.

We have Il Dunce. Other than that its the same old story.

[nickgutierrez]

34. "Il Dunce"

:rofl:

Nice one. :)

I like the fascist Italy comparison much better - the Nazi comparison implies some sort of intended genocide, whether it was the intention of the comparison or not.

[Kenergy]

48. Very well said n/t

[K-W]

35. He did cite the specific crime, aggression. He explained the comparison.

He said that they were much like the Nazi's because of thier aggression.

Hitler references if used improperly devalue an argument.

It just so happens that the Nazi's are the ones who inspired international law, so when people break the laws established to prosecute the Nazis they can and should be compared to the Nazis.

[norml]

41. Nazi is as Nazi does. There is much that is nazi-like about them

and there is much that is nazi-like about the evil movement that calls itself conservative.

Nazi-like behavior wherever and whenever it may be found should be identified and ridiculed.

Just ask the Soup Nazi.

Look at some of the original Nazi propaganda and you'll see that except for the loony racial theories, it's identical to what's being put out by the right wing media machine today.

[AusTexDem]

47. get out of my head!

[Kenergy]

49. Yes it is n/t

[Boo Boo]

58. Aggressive war is a specific crime.

There were German officers that were tried and hanged, not for being Nazis, not for committing genocide, but for the crime of aggressive war; for attacking another country without provocation. They protested that they were only following orders, but that didn't save them from having their necks stretched. Ritter is saying that he believes Blair and Bush are guilty of a crime that we (America) had a major hand in defining: the crime of aggressive war. He is saying, in effect, "Look, we used to hang Nazis for this."

Maybe he should avoid the 'N' word, and just say "Germans." After all, many German officers were Nazi in name only. OTOH, WWII, and the war crime trials that followed are hardly "cliche." Blair's government, in particular, was acutely aware of that they might violate international law with regards to aggressive war (Bush didn't seem to give a rat's ass), and the Nuremberg trials were where that law was laid down.

And it was the Americans and British that laid it.

[Peace Patriot]

65. Tell that to the millions who died as the Nazis marched across Europe--

that the Nazis are an "over-used cliche."

He is quite specific: "Tony Blair and George Bush are guilty of the crime of planning and committing aggressive warfare."

Bush/Blair have done to Iraq exactly what Hitler did to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, France--invaded them without justification, because he and the Nazis wanted to make a Nazi empire in which the superior race of German Aryans would rule everybody else. They would have done the same to England, Russia and the U.S. if these countries hadn't mobilized to stop them. Read the "Project for a New American Century." The Bush Cartel is following a plan--or appears to be following a plan--very similar to the Nazis' plan for world domination. Iran is next.

They planned and executed the Iraq war without justification, slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people, and are illegally occupying that country and killing Iraqis who fight back. And they are clearly planning further invasions. Listen to their rhetoric. They are making up all kinds of excuses to invade Iran, just as they did with Iraq--based on the premise that they now have a "right" to be in Iraq (thus, if any Iranians are supplying arms to Iraqis, that is somehow an offense that deserves punishment), and also based on the premise that Iran somehow has lost the right to defend itself (for instance, by developing nuclear weapons) against the plain unadulterated aggression and threats of the Bush Cartel. The Nazis used the same kinds of justifications to crush smaller, weaker countries and any resistance that developed.

When Bush announced his new "doctrine" of preemptive, unilateral war, at West Point in 2002--a speech that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies failed to highlight as they should have--the Bush Cartel crossed the line into Hitlerian ideology, in opposition to all international law. Within months, they had invaded Iraq without the slightest justification--and, indeed, in the teeth of world opposition--and are now saber-rattling at Iran and Syria. Similarly, the creation by fiat of a legal category of "enemy combatant" (a war prisoner with no human rights) and the egregious violation of the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice as to the torture and indefinite detention without trial of persons who have not even been accused of a crime, let alone convicted, parallel Hitler's view of the law: whatever is convenient for the "defense of the Fatherland" (i.e., expansion of Nazi power) is justified, no matter what law it breaks.

The parallels are compelling. This is not an "over-used cliche." This is the lesson of history, that if aggressive war is permitted to go unpunished, it will spread. The conquerers will not stop with the first conquest. This is WHY, after WW II, the United Nations was created, and all of the treaties and conventions that formed our world--to STOP this kind of aggression. And we are now in violation of all of those agreements and laws, and are acting just like the bloody Nazis who inspired them.

There are further parallels to Nazism within our society--the stolen elections, the retention of the forms of democracy without the substance, the vicious anti-intellectualism, the sham patriotism, the hatred of "the left," etc., etc. The signs are there, and anyone who doesn't see them, or who dismisses them as a "cliche," is guilty of sticking his head in sand.

Rather than trying to shut down discussion--by airily dismissing this quite relevant historical parallel as a "cliche"--we should be exploring what the lessons are, and what are the similarities and dissimilarities in our situation, in order to devise effective strategies to defeat this junta and restore democracy in the U.S.

There ARE some important dissimilarities--one of the critical ones being the Bush Cartel's motive of greed. Greed trumps ideology every time--very unlike the Nazis. These are essentially empty men, with no ideology (not even a false, evil one) and no interest in governing. PNAC and all this "Christian Crusade" business is just window-dressing. They are not creating anything that anyone--even brownshirts and wingers--could believe in. They may pave the way for a Hitler, but--odd to say--they don't have Hitler's sincerity or passion, or governing skill, for that matter--insane though it all was. Hitler wanted to transform the world. Dick Cheney & Co. just want to create opportunities to loot it. PNAC means nothing to them, except as the means to lard global corporate predators like Halliburton, and to have the power to do so. And the more this becomes apparent, the faster their support--which was only minority support to begin with--sinks.

Or so it seems to me. And the biggest strategic question, to my mind, is whether or not the great progressive American majority can recover the power of the vote, in the face of Bushite corporate control of vote tabulation (with "trade secret," proprietary programming code permitted in their contracts for electronic voting systems), and bipartisan corruption in the $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle--in order to throw these criminals out of office.

In any case, this is the kind of analysis we need. And off-hand dismissal of the Nazi model--as poor P.R. (or whatever)--is not helpful. Cliche or not, the Nazi model is instructive, and was a searing lesson to the world about what overweaning, unchecked executive power, and the possession of a vast military machine, can lead to.

[TankLV]

80. How so - they are pretty valid here.

Just because you and a few other like to spout that diddy, doesn't make it any more true.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. I don't like the war or the reasons for it

but I have to disagree with Ritter here. I think comparisons to the Nazis are way over the top. I understand the frustration and the emotion, but it is not a good arguing point, if your aim is to win people over to your point of view. It puts up a huge brick wall in the argument that just can't be cleared.

Now, if this war turns out to be the intro to an escalation that ends in 50 million deaths and another 6 million of their own countrymen exterminated in camps, I'll be convinced

[DemoTex]

12. Why wait until that happens?

At what point do you cry "uncle?" The empirical graphs of Fahrenheit vs. Celsius temperatures merge at -40 degrees (-40F = -40C). At what point does the graph of Bu$h war crimes cross that of Hitler? Do you want to wait until that happens? Can it? Will it? I'm convinced now that Bu$h will intern his own countrymen and women. I am convinced that he will use tactical nuclear weapons .. sooner rather than later. I am convinced that Bu$h is sicker than Hitler ever was. Verb Sap, my friend. Verb Sap.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. Hope you are DEAD wrong...can't predict

but I have to show my stupidity and ask you to define verb sap.

[DemoTex]

16. "Verb Sap," one of my favorite Latin caveats ...

Verbum sat sapienti est..: A word to the wise is sufficient.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

17. Ah! The coolest thing I have learned on DU! Thanks!

[ninkasi]

46. That is my feeling, also

Since we already have Hitler, Nazi Germany, and the holocaust as examples, when we see a situation which is clearly following that path, why wait until the threshold has been crossed? Does anybody of any reasoning ability truly think that given unlimited power, Bush will stop himself?

Nothing I have seen, and every bit of evidence I have read, and heard, leads me to believe that Bush will follow the same path that Hitler and Mussolini did. Has he ever given any indication that he would not?

[Joe Chi Minh]

70. When a certain depth has been plumbed,

quantification of the atrocity should be superseded in our minds by a consideration of the quality, the depth, the intensity of the wickedness.

Do you think, politicaholic, that if the Nazis had "only" conquered half of Europe or a quarter of it, maybe, the level of the wickeness it portrayed would in some way have been mitigated.

Or if the population of the subjugated black Africans in South Africa had been a quarter its size, the wickedness of the apartheid regime woud have been less? Quantity and quality are often correlated, but only up to a certain pitch, and never correspond.

Also, don't forget, as far as we know, child rape was never offical Nazi policy. If it had been, it would surely have come out by now. Though I did read somewhere that Nazi officers were seen masturbating as they watched people being tortured.

[loyalsister]

14. The misunderstanding of the politics of Nazism

It has become such a symbolic image of racism that the facts have been forgotten. The rise of the third reich was not necessarily related to genocide as much as it was to facism.
It was about the very tradition that Mussolini mentioned- Corporatism. That is exactly where we are. Hitler was interested in empire building and world domination. It is difficult to argue that there is no similarity to our current arrogant approach to foreign policy.
Building a superior race was a sidline. And, "defective" German citizens were included in the "purge."
BTW, The original Eugenics blueprints can be traced back here. Right down to catalogueing imigrants. Our idea was to build a Superior Nordic Race. Don't think for a second that goal has been entirely abandoned.
The first steps Hitler took to gather resources to support war were to cut off health care for "life unworthy of life." This applied to German citizens.
Does any of this sound familiar????

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. So you are saying then

that basically the whole Aryan thing was kind of a red herring?

If I can swallow that concept, which actually makes sense to me, then I can see the parallel.

Thanks for the information.

I am especially interested in this because my father in law was a Jewish Nazi.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

18. They exploited a long time tendency to blame

Jews for problems, to oppress Jews.

They exploited fears, economic disaster, militarism, overzealous nationalism.

I wouldn't say it was a red herring.

It all was part of the same mess.

More Jews were eliminated in the "final solution", the holocaust, than any group of non Jews.

The lessons, all of them, need to be remembered.

[loyalsister]

19. Sort of

In the sense that the main goal of Nazi Germany was geopolitical.

In reality, during that time, many people in the U.S, other parts of Europe and Hitler were on the same page re: Eugenics. It was an international movement.
We sterilized at least 60,000 people against their will.It may have continued here if we had not been so horrified by what happened in Germany. That was our wake up call. We are fortunate that our citizens were finally outraged!
The court ruling- Buck vs. Bell which allows for sterilization of persons who are "feebleminded or epileptic" still stands here.
We did not object to Hitler's first killings. "Life unworthy of life" euthanasia. They were done in the name of "compassion," and ruled so in the Nuremburg trials.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. You all have obviously

studied this intently and I thank you for the insight.

My father in law lived a life of hell, unable to list his father (a Jew) on his birth certificate, and serving for four years with the SS, hiding his heritage.

He was very young and a skier and worked in communications.

Obviously it has had its effects and he is a difficult person to live with today because of it.

[loyalsister]

32. I feel for anyone who had any part of it

Your father-in-law must have eventually experienced a unique conscience torture.
Part of Hitler's sick sick brilliance was to create a common enemy that helped bind people together. Many Jews who had a strong grasp on Hitler's policies were supportive. The reason is it was as much pro good stock as it was anti- bad stock. If a person could talk themselves into believing they were part of the good stock- or even a charter member, they could be inclined to go along with it, because it meant "belonging" to the superior majority.
This is very similar to our working poor who vote against their self interest. They think their common enemy is people who are poorer- thus costly to hardworking taxpayers.


See:
It is common mis-knowledge today, that Nazi policies were basically those of building up a military-industrial complex, of one-man rule, or of marching Jewish people into gas chambers. Such specification misses the root which generates fascist policies.

The root of Nazi ideology comes from the rejection of man's nature as a creature with creative God-given intelligence and responsibility (even though many Nazis claimed to be Christians). Such a rejection leads to cultural pessimism, the idea that man cannot use his reason to solve the problems he faces; thus man turns to mysticism (often of a racial sort). The Nazi ideology also embraced Social Darwinism, the theory that only the strong are fit to survive, and this was often combined with a cost-cutting mentality, which views people as defined by their usefulness in accomplishing a particular task.

Thus, the Nazi movement promoted what looked like a moral family life, for those of the right blood stock and race, but its devotees were prepared to carry out the most hideous atrocities against "outsiders," if it were deemed necessary for the safety and survival of the race.

From the time of Hitler's takeover, the measures taken cohered with this outlook. Organizations representing the poor and downtrodden--such as labor unions--were crushed. Living conditions were suppressed, in order to permit the buildup of the armaments industry. Laws were passed which sought to cut down on the expense of maintaining those who were either of the wrong "stock," or not totally capable of working to the fullest. Concentration camps were set up, first for the political problems, and then increasingly for other "undesirables," like Jews and Gypsies.

While these were Hitler's policies, they were also the policies of many of his financial backers, not only in Germany, but internationally. Hitler's Economics Minister, until 1937, Hjalmar Schacht, acted virtually as a representative of the British-dominated international banking community, in implementing fascist labor policies. It was only when these policies came to their logical conclusion, in the launching of Hitler's war to the East, that Schacht left the government. In fact, there was an international movement that shared the Nazi ideology, a movement that explicitly opposed the "pedagogy of progress in every sphere" which Christianity had promoted and made possible. (This view was directly expressed by Armin Mohler, an active organizer for National Socialism, and the coiner of the term Conservative Revolution for the fascist movements of the 1920s and 30s.)

Cost-Cutting and Useless Eaters
The social policy which cohered with this overall Nazi outlook, was laid out on the table in the Nuremberg Trials, including the trials of the Nazi Doctors. The policy was one of dehumanization, which began with deciding that some lives were not worthy to be lived. We quote Dr. Leo Alexander, a psychiatrist who formulated the core theory of the doctors' trials:

"Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in basic attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually, the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted, then finally all non-Germans. But it is important to realize that the infinitely small wedged-in lever from which this entire trend of mind received its impetus was the attitude toward the nonrehabilitatable sick" .

In other words, is a person useful to society, or not? If not, don't worry about why, or what could be done. Just get him or her out of the way.

http://www.larouchepub.com/impeach_ridge/ridge_5.html

[reprobate]

67. And let's not forget who helped finance the Nazi military industrial ....

...complex..

None other than Glorious Leader's grandpappy, Prescott Bush.

He was half owner, with Averil Harriman, of the investment bank, Union Bank.

Union Bank was confiscated by the United States government for trading with the enemy, and Prescott bush was paid a million dollars for his stock in it. That's where the Bush money to start up in the oil business came from.

So we can see that any connection of the bush family with nazis is no more than a generation old. It runs in the family The Bush Family Evil Empire. America's First Family of Crime.

[Tace]

39. I Had A Step Great-Grandfather Who Was A German Submariner...

in WWI. He wasn't a Nazi, and was actually a pretty nice guy when I met him in his 80's in Haddonfield, NJ.

[norml]

45. Link to Nazi Propaganda Archive.

You must look at their original materials to see how little the right wing rant has changed.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ww2era.htm

[Zhade]

50. My two best friends in the world both had Nazis in their family.

One's great-something was a high-placed SS officer, the other's intervened to prevent my friend's grandmother from going to a camp because she let Jews pass through her house.

They BOTH think of this administration as Nazis, and they don't flinch from that.

Remember, it took Hitler YEARS to get to the Final Solution.

[CHIMO]

27. Prof reveals 'eugenics machine'

July 18, 2003 - Dr. Jana Grekul has some painful memories of her PhD research on the history of eugenics in Alberta.

"There was one patient consent form I remember particularly well that had a crudely scratched X where the signature should have been," she said. "I really thought about the person who signed that X and what they really understood about what was happening to them. I also thought about the other people in that room at the time and what part they played in this person's life. It's really quite heartbreaking to consider."

Eugenics is the controlled breeding of a population in order to reduce the occurrence of undesirable genetic conditions. In Alberta, a eugenics program led to almost 3,000 people being sterilized, many without their consent, and some without knowing they were being sterilized. This happened from 1928 until 1972, when the law allowing this--The Sexual Sterilization Act of 1928--was abolished.

"You have to understand that the government was working with the best information they had at the time," she said. "They really thought they were doing a good thing."

http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=4594

From the numbers in this article, a Provence that today has a population of about three million, 60,000 seems like a low number.

And another part of the story.

http://www.canadiancontent.ca/issues/0299sterilization.html

[UncleSepp]

83. thank you for this... n/t

[UncleSepp]

84. thank you for this... n/t

[maryallen]

24. I think the citizens of Falluja would disagree with you.

I understand that Falluja is a bombed-out shell of a town ... many, many innocents killed, but not widely reported in the US.

[UpInArms]

44. here are just the military deaths

this chart shows through October 4, 2004 - that was a year ago



here is the current casualty number:

Period	US	UK	Other*	Total	Avg	Days	
4 	514	10	17	541	2.16	251	
3 	579	26	27	632	2.93	216	
2 	718	27	58	803	1.89	424	
1 	140	33	0	173	4.02	43	
Total	1951	96	102	2149	2.3	934

here is the death rate for the past 8 days:

Period	US	UK	Other*	Total	Avg	Days	
10-2005 	18	0	1	19	2.38	8

Since that chart was created, we have lost an additional 887 military (just in deaths - these do not count those that have merely lost the legs, arms or minds). This is a rate of 2.43 per day.

At which point is it enough? I thought that one was too many.

[Joe Chi Minh]

71. Do you think those figures are more or less accurate?

I never have.

[UpInArms]

76. with the privatization of the military, i.e. mercenaries (Blackwater etc)

there will always be a tremendous undercounting of all the deaths as those mercenaries are not always from the US.

This is just the current count of the military and I do not believe that they could really have the ability to hide those deaths from the families.

[mmonk]

79. The only difference definitively

is the bush administration likes Israel, a Jewish state, and doesn't persecute them. However, one might say it appears Muslims will take the place of the Jews for this particular movement. The persecution of the Gay and lesbian community matches a Nazi theme of persecution as well as hatred of leftist governments. Going to war using forged documents is another match with the Nazis along with "shock and awe" and Blitzkreig (lightning war- attacking swiftly and rapidly capturing the capital of a target country with an initial strike and race to the capital city). And of course, the theme of terrorism and the cessation of certain liberties -"enabling act"=patriot act and the creation of a national security state. Also, the idea of empire and a "new Rome". Hidden prisons around the world and the use of torture is a match. Also, the Nazis depended on the military/industrial complex. There actually is quite a few similarities if one takes the time to look.

[K-W]

87. What are you talking about? He didnt do a sweeping comparison.

He made the very specific point that the US has now committed the crime of aggression, a crime we prosecuted the Nazi's for.

He compared us only insofar as we were nations who have committed the crime of aggression. He was ot making a point about the US being a facist society or Bush being equal to Hitler.

Nobody is trying to convince you that Bush is the same as Hitler so why are you responding as if they did?

[Selteri]

3. Like it it is a surprise when George Bush thinks the Senate is

Revolting for telling him he can't condone torture.

[Zhade]

51. Read that line twice, let it sink in...

...and then say we're nothing like Nazi Germany.

I can't.

(Likewise, I know you probably can't, either!)

[Captain Hilts]

5. Playing the Nazi card is rarely a good idea... nt

[norml]

42. No soup for you!

Better call Seinfeld and tell him the Soup Nazi bit wasn't funny.

[Captain Hilts]

66. It was funny. In fact, a friend of mine knows him and he's really nice...

to her.

But, in political discussions, it's rarely a good idea to throw the 'nazi' card on the table.

[K-W]

88. He didnt play the Nazi card.

He was referencing international law, for which Nazi Germany is largely the precedent.

[moobu2]

7. Scott Ritter is exactly right

What Bush and Blair did was no different than what Hitler did when he invaded Poland. And, If Bush and Blair had somehow been able to maintain broader support, they wouldn’t have stopped with Iraq either (Iran and Syria for example and probably other countries).

You may not like hearing it but it's true.

[Opusnone]

9. Didn't we already discredit Ritter?

I thought we had our people plant stories of his freindship to Hussein and young kids? Let's get back on that striaght away. Attack the messenger. Attack.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

11. Yes, from neoconese to English: discredit is "smear"

:puke:

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

10. It is risky to make such a comparison, and yet

so many have arrived at similar conclusions independently.

Some who watched the rise of H in pre war Europe.

Honestly when you put the whole picture together, from torture to wars of aggression to the lies to not taking care of the poor, to money only going to cronies and the already wealthy, the talk of bringing in the military to handle disasters or epidemics (hint hint martial law) to the whole PNAC thing.

Knowing that *'s chomping at the bit to go after more nations in that region and is held back only by reality of not enough troops and resources, although you never know.

Drawing up new nuke plans, to the r*ve who is dual citizen with Germ*ny, to the lockstep goose step marching repugs, to the distortion of science, to the fanaticism of the religious right zealots to the fanaticism of the neocons.

The problem is that each step along the way is only one more step, and we get desensitized gradually to the criminality in gov't.

By the time it is full blown f*scism, and you can feel safely accurate in calling them that, you've lost an awful lot of ground already.

:argh:

[Kenergy]

53. Does Rove really have dual citizenship with Germany?

I sensed that he is very well versed in knowledge of the 3rd Reich.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

60. Yes, he does.

I can't recall the source, but at one point I recall checking it out.

[Kenergy]

74. Thank you n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

77. Anyway, such characterisations can only ever be of

a ball-park sort of nature, but why would anyone expect different? The nature of Nazism, even when applied to the original German Nazism, was not susceptible to measurement and testing in a laboratory.

Such names are mean to epitomise, rather than describe their subject in exhaustive detail. It's what language is for, most of the time. There seems every reason to believe that the trend is towards a close equation of the two regimes. Certainly, the all-embracing Patriot Act and the so-called "rendering" are massive indicators.

[Lena inRI]

21. Don't pay any attention to the historical hairsplitters here. . .

CHIMO, because though history may never repeat itself EXACTLY, it sure does come around again with a different degree of emphasis. . .nevertheless it's the same evil ambitions.

Nothing beats the 1971-74 series, The World at War, BBC producer Sir Jeremy Isaacs.

Been re-watching/1st-time watching all 26 plus supplemental hours . . .and the extended interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's private secretary, was bone-chillingly prophetic:

She said, that in the hours before he committed suicide, he said to her that his "experiment" has ended but he predicted another would take his place but next time it would be a religious fervor that would take control of the people. . .

I had to replay her words to be sure I wasn't hearing things.

Hitler=Bush couldn't be more real.

And, btw, Traudl and Harriet Miers have an eerily similar appearance. . .go take out the supplemental dvds from your local library and tell me I'm not imagining all this!

[DemoTex]

25. Bingo. I'd rather say why I call Bu$h a Nazi than why I do not.

I'll apologize to the man if I am wrong. But I agree with you, Lena: Hitler=Bush couldn't be more real.

[Lena inRI]

31. Go to your local library for this series asap, DemoTex. . .

I was so freaking amazed at what Traudl Junge said about future religious fanatics. . .I tell you, she gave me chills down my back as I pictured Dobson/Robertson et al with GWB doing as they say. . .

The whole series interviewed actual people who worked for Hitler. . .no second-hand historian's take. . .they reveal many details long lost in the historical analytical discourse. . .nothing like first-person histories.

And, then there's the BIG UNDENIABLE FACT that GWB's grandpa, Prescott Bush, did business with the Nazi regime. . .good grief, I say every American should be required to see this series on Hitler. . .ya know, get educated to maintain a functioning democracy. . .

:kick:

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

33. I was talking to someone about this, *'s

gramps and the war profiteering.

The person said that obviously grandpa put money over ideology.

Took me a moment to absorb that comment.

Then I said that normally we are critical of someone who puts ideology over substance, but when you put money over ideology AND ideology over substance...

That's really amoral at the very least.

[Lena inRI]

36. Amoral indeed, HumorIC. . .

and downright pathological for Prescott Bush's nitwit grandson to send people off to their deaths for a war we didn't have to fight. . .

I see you, too, are hoping for some Clarksanity come 2006 and 2008. . .as Clark has said all along FROM EXPERIENCE and WISDOM, war only, only, only as a last resort.

Now that's morality for ya.

:thumbsup:

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

37. Yes, and even that idea got scorn from Perl in one of their

encounters.

His positions and he pretty much epitomize morality, integrity, humanity, compassion, and courage too.

IMHO.

[DemoTex]

38. War as a first resort is a crime.

Pure and simple. Nuremberg proved that. It is in articles one and two of the Nazi indictments:

1. Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression

Again, how does Bu$h sleep at night? How does anyone who does not actively oppose this war sleep at night?

[Zhade]

52. He's a sociopath, that's how.

Seriously, all that coke destroyed whatever empathy he might have had.

It'll do that.

[CHIMO]

28. Not A Problem

As I didn't find the article in any of the MSM, and I appreciate Scott's views, I thought that I would post it.

I find the to-ings and fro-ings interesting, as in order to come to a consensus on something people have to be "speaking the same language," so to speak.(Reminds me of something Thom Hartmann would be doing.)

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

26. Unfortunate. Now if he had compared them to

even worse war criminals like, Grant, Garfield, McKinley et al

we often forget we have our own American holocost in our extermination of the American Indian, which has never seriously been examined by most.

[DemoTex]

29. Don't forget my great, great uncle Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar.

Second president of the Republic of Texas (Sam Houston's VP) and big time killer of Native Americans. I mean BIG TIME! I am not proud of uncle Buddy-Beau.
Mac

http://members.aol.com/eleanorcol/MBLamarBio.html


Uncle Buddy-Beau

[Just Me]

43. They ARE GUILTY of planning/committing aggressive warfare.

Mr. Ritter should say that, such aggressive warring hasn't been engaged since WWII and betrays everything the United States advocated to prevent such wars. Yet, the USA along with GB are violating the very principles and agreements and laws that THEY endorsed and pushed!

TACT. MUST BE TACTFUL.

[WinkyDink]

55. And what, pray, is so different?

Hitler's initial invasions, prior to The Final Solution decisions, were illegal, as was our invasion of Iraq.

Lebensraum and Oil are sisters under the skin.

Bush has a Nazi heritage, one could say.

[norml]

56. "The German fight is a defensive fight."

The English wanted this war in the crazy hope that it was their last chance to stop Germany's growing strength. They passionately avoided doing anything that might have prevented war. Rather than encouraging Poland to accept the Führer's generous proposals to resolve the situation, they encouraged it to let the deadline pass, thereby providing a reason for war. The Führer felt obliged to strike back only after Polish troops had crossed the German border at several places. The German fight is a defensive fight. We fight because we were forced to fight by the insults and demands against us, because of the brutal suppression of ethnic Germans in Poland, and because of the open announcements that they would do everything in their power to strangle National Socialist Germany through military or economic means.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/wehr02.htm

[K-W]

69. Well done with the quotes. EOM

[norml]

57. "German soldiers in particular, do not take revenge on defenseless"

Germans in general, and German soldiers in particular, do not take revenge on defenseless opponents, or even torture them. The opposite is the case. The danger is that German generosity will too quickly lead us to forget our victorious position, and presume our own decent attitudes and behavior on the part of the enemy, whether soldier or civilian.

That is why news of atrocities that our enemies commit against Germans or the civilians under their rule are often greeted with a certain skepticism. One doesn't not believe others can do what one is oneself incapable of doing. We remember that reports of the bestial brutalities committed by Poles against ethnic Germans, especially in Bromberg, were thought to be exaggerated. Meanwhile, the German people have learned the truth.


snip


http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/feldpost.htm

[TallahasseeGrannie]

61. I'd like to say

as this thread winds down that it has been a pleasure reading all these thoughts and opinions about a subject that has always been very much a part of my family's life.

I have become convinced that Ritter, whose actual statement was that the aggressive warfare was similar to German actions, is on the right track. And I have read the links regarding the early Nazis and I agree it appears we could be on a similar path. As I see it, the only thing between us and that fate is the American electoral system and that in my mind is rather hanging by a thread, given our distrust in our vote.

I am increasingly convinced of the puppet nature of the Bush presidency, as while I am not one who thinks he is stupid, I don't think he is the philosophical thinker he would need to be to spearhead such a movement. Rove and Cheney, however...

And the thing is, I believe in their minds they are convinced they are all-American patriots and don't see the similarities at all.

This is why Rove's indictment is so vital, and if Cheney was included..well, scary, because it brings it to a head. But without them I think Bush will just collapse.

[muriel_volestrangler]

62. BBC radio interview with Scott Ritter from yesterday here

27 minutes: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/the_interview.shtml

It's a fairly hostile interviewer, but Ritter holds his ground well. He says there was fraud in the counting of the Iraq elections; he also says (I think I heard this right) that the US is already making small attacks on infrastructure in Iran.

[ElectroPrincess]

64. Very FEW "public personas" have the COURAGE to

talk truth to power. Even foreign country leaders keep their mouths shut out of fear of retribution from the "American and British Empire."

May God Bless Scott Ritter. O8) :hug: :thumbsup:

He is a HERO in the true sense of the word.

Our country needs more "public figures" and "legislators" to unite with Scott,

"The Emperor and his minions have No HUMANITY!"

[Barkley]

68. Great Scott!

In his speech he also mocked Britain's supposed "special relationship"
with the United States, likening London's position to that of a "disregarded mistress".

"Britain gets nothing, other than to say they are America's closest ally in Europe," he said.

So true.

[goforit]

72. And Bush Senior and Presscott Bush supported Hitler/Convenience?

[Endangered Specie]

75. As with many people here, I think a comparision with Fascist Italy

is more appropriate.

[bpilgrim]

85. Imperial Japan's "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere"

is even more similar, imho.

peace

[K-W]

86. But he wasnt doing an overall comparison.

He was making a point about illegal aggression, which we prosecuted, convicted and hung the Nazi's for.

[lonestarnot]

82. Right on Scott Ritter! Bushitler is a Nazi and Blair is his Nazi Yute!