BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq

Subject: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Oct 02 - 11:25 AM

Somehow, today I find myself thinking and wondering about historical parallels and what people think about them. And ideas about "those not willing to learn from the past are due to repeat it."

Specifically, in '37 the International Brigades volunteered and went to Spain to fight fascism and promote left-leaning thought. These are thoughts with which I generally concur. They have always said that if Hitler had been confronted then and there, World War 2 would not necessarily been fought.

When those volunteers came home, in the U.S.A. at least, they were branded as PRE-MATURE ANTI-FASCISTS and were persecuted and marginalized.

Of course, hindsight is always 20-20. My question is this. WHAT IF????

Might Bush (as much as I hate to even say it) be correct?? Is a premptive strike called for now in the same way that it MIGHT'VE BEEN almost three quarters of a century ago.

I want / need to say that I have always been in favor of peace. But one more QUESTION: Was peace, as Nevil Chamberlain thought in the Sudetenland muddle, always preferable to a JUST WAR ? I think not. I was totally against what to me was an unjust and terribly inhumane and wasteful war in Viet Nam. All that said, I simply want to toss out this polemic to provoke a conversation.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 02 - 02:43 PM

My feeling is that confronting Hitler and Mussolini in Spain wouldn't have made that much difference to the way the war developed, initially anyway, up until the fall of France. I suppose, if the Spanish Republic had still been in existence in 1940, having beaten off the generals and their allies, the next stage after France might have been a German invasion of Spain, and a new Peninsular War.

But that's really beside the point Art is making here, which is about a putative similarity between Hitler in 1938 or so and Saddam in 2002. There are similarities, such as both being ruthless dictators, but these shouldn't mask the crucial dissimilarity.

And this essential dissimilarity, in my view, is that Hitler was the popular head of a powerful country with an expansionist agenda, but, when you get down to it, Saddam in 2002 is the highly unpopular head of a very much weakened country with no record of successful expansion, and his main ambition is to survive.

The more fitting parallel would surely be the popular head of a powerful country with an expansionist agenda.

Subject: RE: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Oct 02 - 04:50 PM

McGrath,

points well taken. I want you to be correct. It would surely be much easier with less bloodshed. I see I'm arguing with myself in order to come to a position based on decently thought out reckonings.

Art

Subject: RE: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: michaelr
Date: 11 Oct 02 - 07:43 PM

If one accepts the premise that life is sacrosanct, there can be no such thing as a just war.

There could be such a thing as a "justified" war, if you see the difference, but I don't think Bush has proven his case.

Let us not forget that he's talking about attacking a sovereign nation. Defiance of UN resolutions is not enough of a justification for that.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 02 - 08:23 PM

It seems pretty clear that under international law, any war without the approval of the UN Security Council would be (will be?) illegal, except in very limited circunmstances, which do not appear to apply in the case of Iraq at this time.

Hitler was doing things during the years leading up to 1939 which woudl have constituted a legal grounds for making war. Saddam is not, in the view, it appears, of the CIA and British Military Intelligence, according to reports which have come out this week.

In the circumstances it was perhaps prudent of Bush to work pretty successfully to exclude United States citizens from the scope of the International War Crimes Tribunal. On the other hand Blair and his advisers do not have not that protection.

Subject: RE: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: NicoleC
Date: 11 Oct 02 - 11:42 PM

Gee, is *everyone* avoiding the Spain question because we've all seen a documentary on the History Channel on the subject and that's about it? ;D

Saddam is no Hitler. Hitler had a huge dose of charisma and mesmerizing speaking skills, and much, much bigger ambitions. Saddam may WANT to be Hitler (only he knows for sure), but he just doesn't have the skill set. Nor does he have war-hardened, patriotic and stubborn German people, who almost managed to take Europe. Nor does Iraq have anyone with resources that is likely to become an ally.

There is one big similarilty, though -- no one cares about the Kurds unless it's politically expedient, just as no one cared about the Jews for a long, long time. However, the Kurds have decades of insurrection and violence behind them, and as far as I know the Jews were peaceful, except for a few Jewish terrorists running around Palestine trying to create Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Amos
Date: 12 Oct 02 - 11:47 PM

Good points, and clearly out as usual. I have been worried about the same analogy that Art raises -- not the question of whether Saddam is like Hitler, but whether in some different way he is a huge catastrophe waiting to happen just as Hitler was when he ttook over and started setting the Brown Shirts loose , and just gettinghimself a wee bit of liebensraum, but not enough to provike an immediate militarty response from the combined forces of Europe.

I do not believe that Saddam is the catastrophe a-borning that Bush's apartchiks paint. But the similarities -- cunning, brutality, megalomania, indifference to suffering and the will to resort to extreme -- even excessive -- measures-- are disturbing.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 06:17 AM

I think you meant "Lebensraum" Amos. I would understand "Liebensraum" as the space you would need to do something more discreet...
The usual point at which we feel obliged to confront dictators is when they cross there borders. If we relax this restraint, we shall have to go to war with China, most of South East Asia, most of Africa and several countries in South America. I agreed with the first Gulf War. It was not - as the sloganists pouted "Blood for Oil". It was about the dangerous power Saddam would have possessed had he got his hands on Saudi Arabia's oil. ( I regard the House of Saud as a shower of loathsome dictators too - but they do not threaten us in the same way as an over powerful Saddam). In short, Saddam does not have the means to pose a real threat to us. He will probably be capable of causing injury and damage on a smaller scale, but that does not threaten our security any more than a variety of potential terrorist adversaries. That really does not compare with Hitler at all. Many historians believe that had France gone to war in September 1939 - instead of just declaring it - Hitler would probably have been doomed much earlier. There is no lack of willingness to confront Saddam if he forgets where Iraq's borders end. It is only at that point that military action against him is justified. The Hitler analogy is worth exploring, because Saddam is as egocentric and vindictive for sure. It breaks down though, because he is nowhere near as powerful.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 10:38 AM

I meant "their" borders. That's what happens when you use a computer before you have woken up!

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Amos
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 10:44 AM

Quite right, Alan -- althoguh the expression liebensraum could be coined and put to use for instances of 'sleeping with the enemy' or other cases of politics making strange bedfellows. :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 01:25 PM

That's Mudcat for you Amos. If we aren't wrestling with extant languages, we are making new ones up!

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 04:09 AM

Hi Art, the historical parallel is not with Spain and events of the Spanish Civil War. The parallel is with Germany from 1919 to 1936, and Iraq 1991 to 2002:

1. Both lost devastating wars where massive reparations formed part of the negotiated peace agreement.

2. Both were required to disarm under the terms of that negotiated peace agreement.

3. Both agreed to disarm in compliance and both broke those agreements.

4. The respective international bodies (League of Nations and United Nations) who should and could have prevented this rearmament, stood idly by and allowed it to happen. The governments of the constituent countries preferring to believe what they wanted to happen rather than what might happen given the track record and declared intentions of the rulers of Germany (Hitler)/ Iraq (Hussein).


Hitler was advised to have his war in 1938 or no later than 1944. All boigraphies and memoires agree that Hitler was absolutely furious on conclusion of the Munich talks in 1938. Chamberlain, with his peice of paper, bought time - If you do not believe me look at the changes in the RAF and in the Royal Navy's building programme that came into immediate effect after Munich. Acceleration of the introduction of Radar stations, monoplane fighter aircraft to replace the bi-plane fighters that made up the bulk of the RAF's fighter strength in 1938, requests for designs for heavy bombers. In the Navy, accelerated research in the field of ASDIC and increase in orders for escort vessels.

Had Hitler been opposed in his re-armament programme, or if he had been opposed when he occupied the Rhineland, a lot of people would have been spared a great deal of grief.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Hrothgar
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 05:10 AM

Who should have the Hitler role - Saddam or Bush?

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 09:22 AM

There are many dissimilarities between Hitler then and Hussein now (and the respective countries) as McGrath has pointed out. Nevertheless I share Art's worry that the one big similarity is that an early moment of inaction might cost a lot later. Though I share that worry I have no good reason to decide whether that worry is true (like more or less all of us). I can only hope that Bush/Blair know much more than they have told us.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 10:39 AM

I share your hope, Wolfgang, but they have not indicated that they do. I feel it is a thin thread of hope.

We are now facing an undefined threat in Iraq, while in Indonesia there is a much more overt aggression on the record. However, less oil. So it will be interesting to see what the US' response is to the recent slaughter of innocents in Bali.,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 10:48 AM

In the Spanish Civil War Franco's emergent fascist regime was aided by the fascist regimes of both Italy and Germany. The later used the conflict to test out equipment and tactics. Any confrontation would have had no effect in either Italy or Germany.

Wolfgang, there are more similarities that dissimilarities as long as you set the time frames (Art's is 1937, McGoH's is 1938 & 1939, mine is 1936).

1937 - Hitler had already re-occupied the Rhineland and his rearmament programme was well under way. The Austrian Anchluss had been accepted by the international community.

1938 & 1939 - All of the above except that Germany now had the Sudatenland, plus Czechoslovakia and had prepared the carve up of Poland in conjunction with Stalin's Russia under the terms of the non-aggression pact.

1936 - In power for three years, secretly rearming with personnel being trained in tank warfare in Russia, submariners being trained in Italy. Coming out of a major domestic (internal) rebuilding/restructuring programme without any hope of being able to raise the finances to pay for it.

The impression that Germany was a strong industrial economic centre in the years 1933 to 1936 was an illusion - a bubble that was about to burst.

Some more similarities:

1. Both countries are ruled by National Socialist Governments. (The Ba'ath Party in both Syria and Iraq are modelled on the German National Socialist Party)

2. Both leaders on suceeding to power carried out ruthless purges of their party faithful.

3. Both undertook programmes to improve the domestic situation of their civilian populations.

4. Both set out clearly in print what they felt that their chosen mission was (Hitler Mein Kampf - defeat of Communism and extermination of the Jews: Saddam Hussein Annihilation of the State of Israel).

5. Both believed that the International Organisations would go for the laissez-faire option and leave them severely alone.

6. The obvious one - both had moustaches (to-days version being a great deal more luxurient than his later-day counter-parts - might make him more dangerous!)

Amos:

"I do not believe that Saddam is the catastrophe a-borning that Bush's apartchiks paint. But the similarities -- cunning, brutality, megalomania, indifference to suffering and the will to resort to extreme -- even excessive -- measures-- are disturbing."

If he manages to hoodwink us this time round and does get his hands on a nuclear weapon - this guy could make Hitler look like a boy-scout.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: NicoleC
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 12:27 PM

RE: #3 LOL!
Yeah, gotta watch those dangerous rulers who actually try to help their citizens!

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 12:53 PM

Now here is my take on all this.

There's a real danger around with real terrorists killing people - and Bush and his friends are trying to exploit worries about that to get approval to carry out a private war against a country which, while it has a deeply unpleasant ruler, currently poses no significant threat, but which has large reserves of oil which can be used to pay for the war and then some. And in the process get some electoral advantage. At least that is the idea.

And the outcome is likely to be to make the threat of terrorist atrocities around tey world even gtreater - though the cahnces arer thta they won't measure up to the killing that is going to be done on people in Iraq in the course of the war.

And looking for historic parallels here is looking in the wrong direction.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 12:57 PM

Sure, he would. The same would be true of the Unification Church, if they got a hold of a nuclear weapon and gave it to Sun Yung. Well, maybe they would be less scary -- but, say, the Indonesian Al Quedae who blew up three hundred folks Sunday?

Whatif and woulda and coulda in one hand and a quarter in the other still only buys one day-old doughnut. You may think this is a naive attitude. It is not. It is a repeated request for facts.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 01:02 PM

Wish I had more time to get into this thread, but the day job has been keeping me pretty busy lately. So just a few random thoughts, and apologies for throwing them in rather like hand grenades in what is up to now a reasonably temperate thread, but I suppose that my resentment about Bush's treatment of the rule of international law has reached boiling point.

As far as I have read, Saddam's real hero is Stalin, the ally whom the West tries to ignore when it talks WWII up into a crusade of good against evil. Sure Hitler was evil, but Churchill was above all concerned to preserve as much as he could of the British Empire, and went along with Yalta which consigned several generations of Central and Eastern Europeans to slavery.

US sentiment after both World wars was that traditional European diplomacy and power politics were the root of all evil, and Wilson after WWI and Truman after WWII were both instrumental in establishing the League of Nations and the UN as attempts to replace power politics and militarism with the rule of international law.


Neither the LoN nor the UN was perfect, but both were a step in the right direction, and provide a basis for progress. Yet it seems to me now that the US has now just about got to where Europe was in Summer 1914: spoiling for a fight, and forgetting what war is really like - even though its own civil war was the first real modern war. The ultimatums to Saddam are also reminiscent of the way Austria kept changing its ultimatums so that war became inevitable, thus revealing that war and not meeting the terms of the ultimatum was and is the real objective.


And a footnote on the Bushies' disgraceful behaviour in relation to the International Criminal Court: by rejecting and undermining it, they are retrospectively giving credence to the neo-Nazi view that the Nuremberg tribunal was, after all, just "victors' justice".

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 02:58 AM

No one mentioned the role of the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. For supporting the fighting Republic they took her gold reserves, and after Franco's victory kept them.
Methinks Art's parallel is wrong. Several nations supported the warring parties, but mostly used Spain as a trainig ground for their troops - the Germans mainly for their freshly formed Air Force (Luftwaffe). The efforts were marginal in comparison with a real big natonal war as WWII (seen from the German side).
For the International Brigades: it was a good occasion for the communists to ged rid of a lot of unruly spirits in the Spanish fields of fire.
The Spanish Republic was doomed in this fight because of her lack of unity; the Republican forces consisted of different political directions fighting not only Franco but often one another. Better than in Hemingway's book you may find it in Orwell's reminiscences of the Spanish war.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 03:25 AM

Sorry about that Kevin, I was only attempting to answer Art's original question.

NicoleC:

"RE: #3 LOL!
Yeah, gotta watch those dangerous rulers who actually try to help their citizens! "

Point being made was that neither could actually pay for the populist programmes they implimented. The solution was to acquire the revenue elsewhere (Hitler, Sudatenland and Russia - the occupation of western europe did not feature in his original plans: Hussein, Iranian oilfields and control of the Shat-Al-Arab and when that didn't work Kuwait).

People keep coming up with this motive, on the part of the American Government, of a desire to take over and control the oilfields of Iraq. The only person who has ever done this is Saddam Hussein.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 05:54 AM

The people who keep on coming up with the suggestion that getting hold of the oilfields is part of the plan, and that revenues will be used to help pay for the whole operation, include allegedly knowledgeable experts writing in the mainstream press, and people who support the idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 06:17 AM

So Kevin, just for arguements sake, let's go along with them. When has any American administration ever actually done what the "knowledgeable experts writing in the mainstream press" (Guardian) say they are going to do.

The "people who support the idea", believe it purely because they want to believe like there is going to be no tomorrow, completely ignoring the fact that in the past it has never actually panned out that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 07:11 AM

Never panned out what way?

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 07:51 AM

The US "getting hold of the oilfields"

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: NicoleC
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 12:45 PM

One needn't physically occupy a place in order to have economic control.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 01:05 PM

One way and another the US oil empire seems to have effective control of rather a lot of oil fields already.

I rather thought Teribus was saying that predictions about there being no tomorrow had never panned out so far. Mind, that seems to be the assumption that underlies the oil industry and the whole fossil fuel monopoly. (Meanwhile in Wales people are being prosecuted becxause they have discovered that it's possible and cheaper to run their diesel cars using cooking oil, a totally renewable resource, instead of diesel. The truth is we don't really need this fossil oil.)

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 07:06 AM

Just what exactly is this "US oil empire". People hammering on about it should read a 395 page book first published in 1976, entitled "The Seven Sisters" if you want some idea how the oil industry works.

Another point that people should be aware of is that oil companies do not own oil fields, they hold licences from governments to run oil fields. Those licences can be revoked and have been in the past.

Behind the oil companies, you have the major service companies that supply technology for the extraction of oil. As this historically has been an "American Industry" most patents connected with the oil industry are American. The biggest and most powerful of these service companies is Halliburton (Mr Cheney was their boss for a while), then you have companies like Schlumberger.

America buys oil and it buys oil from a world market same as everybody else. The largest oil producer in the world is Russia, at present their entire national economy depends on keeping the price of oil above 21 dollars and 50 cents a barrel. While there is TALK of war the price stays up, if there is war the price falls - that's what happened the last time.

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 11:16 AM

An amazing discussion. These deep and convoluted mental machinations seem more like real life complexity than the wishful thinking in my original and hopeful post---that a simple pre-emptive and precisely surgical military interjection might've and/or could've eliminated a dark historical episode from the pages of history. But I do suspect that feeling and hoping that a big military gesture (if not posture) might do just that, is often a motivation for the first moves of those kinds in a given direction---a direction that usually has numerous unthought out repercussions. But maybe...

Would that we could simply toss our rings of power into a crack of doom-----and un-make it. I would readily give the finger to/for the cause if I thought that would take care of the smoky horizon that seems to cloud our visions of future happenings. Here near the latter years of my life, I would like to be more optimistic than I can be right now.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Spain-Germany1937/Bush-us/Iraq
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 12:28 PM

brandon parva