Michael J. Totten: Bushs War

On the subjest of World War II:

Listen, kids, and listen well, because I'm going to tell you this from aperspective very different than your own. See, WW II was kind of personal to me and mine. All four of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. They were in the Nazi death camps. Most of my family perished in those camps, burned or shot or poisoned or gassed. So it touches me in a far more personal way than you can imagine.

World War II was not about savng European Jewery at all. The West knew about Hitler's genocidal programs in the mid-30s, well before the "Final Solution" was ever even conceived. Yet the West did nothing. In the final months of the war, the US knew of the routes that Nazi cattle cars (with my family as the cattle) were taking to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, yet they did nothing to interrupt them. And after the war, the US and Britian were the ONLY countries to allow Jewish refugees in - and even then only grudingly and because of massive public pressure.

World War Two was not about saving people. It was about killing them. And if the World War One victors had not set up the Weimar Republic for failure from the get-go, someone like Hitler would not have been able to take over the fledgling democracy so easily.

The US learned this lesson after the war, and implemented strong economic engagement reforms into the post-war plans for Germany and Japan. The result was two stable allies. We have gone even farther since then, engaging our two largest enemies - Russia and China - economically without war, and we have managed to create close ties with both. Only the most inane of warhawks prattle on about war with China now. I ask again why this cannot be done here.

Will Hussein do to the Kurds what Hitler did to the Jews in the final year and a half of the war? Remember, most Jews did not die until it was obvious that he would be defeated. For all the people who talk of Hussein being a madman, they don't seem to be afraid of backing him into a corner...

(edited to fix really awful spelling)

[Edited on Jan 21, 2003 by apocalyptica]

I just want to make two points:

1. our attack on the sovreign nation of Afghanistan in retaliation for the acts of a small terrorist group was not justified by any stretch of the imagination. What if England bombed Dublin because the IRA killed 3,000 people? Would anyone in the world say that's justified? Yet that's exactly what we did when we attacked Afghanistan. Never mind that we never caught the bad guys.

2. Instead of putting so much effort into justifying further unjust military action, I'd love to see a revival of the true spirit of liberalism. There was a great piece in Harper's by George McGovern in which he points out that the heart of liberalism is the belief that human beings/governments can improve the world. It's an essentially optimistic world view. Imagine if we took a fraction of the money that this war will cost and spent it on improving public transportation and our railroads. Imagine pouring money into research and development of renewable energy resources. Imagine working towards a future in which we're not dependent on foreign oil. You fund terrorism every time you put gas in your car!

I'll stop before I slip into full-on rant mode. My basic point is that the right-wing hawks have so villified "liberals" and "tax and spend" Democrats that there's no room for real discussion of how we could achieve real change at home.

I guess that's what happens when presidential elections are stolen by stooges of corporate oil...

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(Wake me when this is all over...................)

I do not like this article.

The opening argument that the Taliban attacked America is incorrect.

The distinction between "leftist" and "liberal" is incoherent.

I was really hoping for more naked pictures of Jessica.

I WAS done talking, as I have about a week and a half before I go, but Sinner669 said he'd be "in the middle" of all this. "If you have to give your life for your country?"
Forgive my enforcing years of continuing rivalry between our Armed Forces, but this is one comment I wish to engage. Simply because, YOU ARE NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF ANYTHING!!! NOT SHIT!!! It's like all those civie's talkin' patriotic garbage about being proud to defend their country. THEN ENLIST DAMN IT! STOP TALKING! Gov'ment deal can be full o' shit but it's neccessary until the WORLD calls for peace. And DON'T even THINK your bombing an already desimated air force counts for danger. Thats if you even fly. Ground war is my job kid-o! Don't scare your family and friends over some make believe threat. Come on down to earth if you want some real danger. Believe me chief, it ain't all fun an' games. I get to be part of ONE division, not even armor heavy, heading in from the north. Mountains! Great for tanks... HA! All I'm saying is don't steal our thunder. I may not be proud of THIS war, but I'm damn proud and more than happy to hit the shit to protect even the lowest member of the American totem pole. Of course, it's pretty cool the people of Iraq won't have to live uner Saddam anymore. But who's gonna take over? And will they be any better? Who knows if all we hear of Saddam is even real. You people have no idea how MUCH bullshit info you and I get to ensure we think the RIGHT way.

And sorry Sinner, no harm meant... it's just. Man YOU of all these guys gotta know what it feels like.

oh i do there di... but the thing that is wrong is that i WILL be in the heart of it all... i work on the flight line... statisticaly the FIRST place the enimy hits... you know the drill... air division, then ground, than infantry... unless ur spec ops... then good luck!

im not angry here... its just that there are soooo many points to all this that some people sometimes get confused...

good luck bro... we all need to root for each other if we wanna make it out alive

------------------------------c.w.reed (someloserstuckinjapan)

p.s. dont forget about korea... we just may be the ONLY thing guarding against that possible onslaught

finally,well said.

blah blah blah, listen to me, I'm an expert on (insert chapter from poli-sci textbook here). I think all you (blanket generalization of the other side) are full of (over used 4 letter words) if you really knew anything you would see that this is just like (shady comparison with a 50 year old event in another region). I know what will happen if we don't (do exactly what I say), the world is going to end in a fiery apocalypse. You won't listen to my (arrogant rhetoric) because you're all stupid. (insert plea for daddy's love here)

The only thing we can all seem to agree on is that we were attacked by Al Queda, and that they still threaten us. Do I need to remind everyone that they didn't need to use nuclear weapons or fancy chemical warheads? They used boxcutters for christ sake.

Our military is as impotent in this war as Bob Dole's dick was before Viagra. We have only one weapon that can fight Al Queda. Naked women.

I'm dead serious. We should paint naked women on vans and drive them around the middle east. It would overthrow a lot more regimes than bombs.

there is a division today between the leftists and the liberalists, and it is one of main-stream versus outsiders. unfortunatly Mr. Totten tends to see his idealogical opposites as "reactionaries" & "bushaphobes". the problem here is not a human rights issue, it's an international law issue. although i can imagine the Iraq citizens glad to see Saddam leave it's hard to see them cheering the same US military forces that twelve years ago actually targeted & destroyed their water purification system. The first Bush administration went on to write regulations into the UN sanctations that prevented the Iraqs from rebuilding. that was twelve years ago, since that time half a million iraqs have died due to unclean drinking water alone. nice huh? that's us nice, good & kind Americans that do justice and democracy good turns all the world round. I worry more about where our war on terrorism is taking us and what we're going to do in the name of democracy than any creditionals.

wow,where were all you bleeding heart pacifists in 1774?maybe the king of england would have rewarded you for your anti-American sentiments.never ever forget how America came to be,or how it has been able to continue to exist.yes the U.S.A has made many mistakes in the past.that gives no one the basis to continue to make mistakes.fogive me if i miss quote this,"THE BEST WAY FOR EVIL TO SUCCEED IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING!"

Funny that this article was on today's SG front page, I guess it somehow got cycled back into the rotation. Equally amusing is how virtually all of Totten's arguments have fallen flat on their face in the light of the past three years of history.

As wrong today as you ever were, Totten.

I was wondering if Totten had started writing for the site again.

Ditto.

I was wondering why this was on the Lifestyle board and not Politics.

that's kind of a lame thing to say.

he was arguing his beliefs based on the knowledge available 3 years ago.
in hindsight, so he was wrong. you're poking him in the eye for this now is a lot like judging someone on how good they were in a relationship 3 years ago. people change, arguments change, the amount of information available to help influence one's opinions change.

seems like a weird sort of reverse sour grapes.
seems like gloating.

and gloating is fucking lame. especially when no one wins.
we're still fighting over there, we're still all arguing about it over here. if you didn't like him that's cool, but the fact that he has been wrong about things is hardly amusing in the least. especially because in a lot of ways he was an optimist that we'd win this thing, not be quagmired as bad as we seem to be.

Many countries and individuals quietly called bs when George Bush tried to justify the attack on Iraq - it was perfectly reasonable, even likely, that no proof of WMDs would be discovered and that the situation would be as bad as it is today. The horror is not that people gloat, the horror is that the price isn't being paid by the bush and blair administrations but by coalition servicemen and iraqi citizens.

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