Email from my father regarding the Iraq/USA situation

VangelicSurgeon

VangelicSurgeon

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Jul 26, 2002
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I thought this quote was apropriate given the current national circumstances

"Of course the people don't want war... That is understood. But after all,
it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a
simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That
is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same in any country."
Hermann Goering, 1946
Adolf Hitler's Deputy Chief and Luftwaffe Commander, at the Nuremberg
trials,
from G.M. Gilbert (1947). Nuremberg Diary
 
Of course, keep in mind that that's exactly how England got embroiled in WWII...the pacifists were excoriated, and until the British became convinced that they were indeed under attack, they did not enter the war.

Every war ever has happened because of this. People don't go to war solely for altruistic reasons ("Let's save the Jews of Europe!" "Let's free the slaves of the South!") but because of a combination of altruism and selfishness ("We're getting buzzbombed into oblivion! And we have some Jews to save!" "We're going to lose our breadbasket! And we have some slaves to free!").

If the altruistic reasons are valid, I only have a minor problem with fictionalising the selfish ones.
 
it must be nice to have an "aware" father. good stuff.

what suprises me is the amount of anti-war sentiment on display in my neighborhood. i've always assumed i dwell in a conservative stronghold.

there are so many home-made signs denouncing this intended action, in windows and on lawns... that i'm actually shocked.
 
I like right next to Berkeley, the home-base of the pacifists and doves. If you say you're in favor of war out here, you're in the unpopular minority.
 
Originally posted by deadair
you get the feeling bush is doing this to cover up something else that is going on...


clintion did it... so now i just assume the worst i guess.
Click to expand...

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Klaus Barbie (the butcher of Lyon)
Klaus Barbie was born in the village of Bad Godesberg in 1913. He was the son of a school teacher. While studying at the Friedrich-Wilhelm Institute, Barbie became a member of Hitler's youth brigades. After getting his degree in 1934, he enrolled in the security services of Himmler, head of the Gestapo. In 1937 Barbie became a member of the Nazi party.

In 1940, Barbie traveled to La Haya as a member of a research group with the only purpose of gathering information about the Jews "situation" in that city. Then he went to Amsterdam and finally to Lyon, where he committed his most terrible crimes, as head of the Fourth Section of the Gestapo. A dedicated sadist, responsible for many individual atrocities, including the capture and deportation to Auschwitz of forty-four Jewish children hidden in the village of Izieu, Barbie owed his postwar notoriety primarily to one of his "cases," the arrest and torture unto death of Jean Moulin, the highest ranking member of the French Resistance ever captured by the Nazis. On behalf of his cruel crimes and specially for the Moulin death, Barbie was awarded, by Hitler himself, the "First Class Iron Cross with Swords".

When the war was over, Barbie was convicted in absence and given the death penalty. During the immediate postwar period (1945-1955) he was protected and employed by American intelligence agents because of his "police skills" and anti-Communist zeal. With their protection, Barbie, together with his wife and children, escaped to Latin America, where he spent a long and prosperous career. Barbie established residence in Bolivia, where he obtained citizenship in 1957. He lived there several years under an alias (Klaus Alttman), working primarily as an interrogator and torturer for dictatorships both in Peru and in Bolivia. He helped the Luis Garcia Meza narco-coup in Bolivia in 1980.

The "butcher of Lyon", responsible for the torture and death of more than 26,000 people, was a wanted man in France, particularly for the torture and death of Jean Moulin. Though he was identified in Bolivia at least as early as 1971 by the Klarsfelds (Nazi hunters), it was only in 1983 that Barbie, left unprotected through the coming to power of a moderate leftist government in Bolivia, was deported to France. In 1987, he was tried in Lyon and sentenced to life imprisonment for his crimes against humanity. Barbie died in prison in 1991.
 
Of course, keep in mind that that's exactly how England got embroiled in WWII...the pacifists were excoriated, and until the British became convinced that they were indeed under attack, they did not enter the war.

Well, that's kinda correct. England certainly tried their best to pacify Germany, though. Pacifists had the lead til the war started in ernest in '39. I mean, they gave Hitler huge pieces of land and colonies...they were desperate for him to not rock the boat. It was only when he rolled over Poland that the British realized they at least needed to start helping out the continent.

And you make it sound, although I know you don't mean it, like England wasn't seriously under attack. During the Battle of Britain Germany was a day or two away from ordering ground troops in when they realized the air war was going south. The ground troops probably could've made pretty substantial inroads, too. Instead they (the Germans) decided they really need to get Russia, and derail their whole effort.

Every war ever has happened because of this. People don't go to war solely for altruistic reasons ("Let's save the Jews of Europe!" "Let's free the slaves of the South!") but because of a combination of altruism and selfishness ("We're getting buzzbombed into oblivion! And we have some Jews to save!" "We're going to lose our breadbasket! And we have some slaves to free!").

And that's not to say that sometimes the government never has a better idea of what to do than the people. There wasn't a groundswell of support for FDR getting the country into WW2, either. (Thus all the conspiracy blah blah about his knowing about Pearl Harbor...) But I certainly think the world's better off with no Hitler, or at least no Hitler-dragging-out-his-plans-for-world-domination-until-1950 or what-have-you. Britain and Russia may have stood up to the Reich, but after their respective battles they really weren't in any position to stage D-Day or do all the precision bombing the Americans did, either.
 
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