February 1, 2003

RHETORIC OF WAR



In contrast to magazines which routinely predate their issues by several days, these essays are indeed sent to the web on the mentioned date. This means, however, that in these fast moving times events may occur which were unexpected and have to be commented upon. The Columbia shuttle explosion which happened this morning was one of those. What might have been simply a national tragedy, similar to the Challenger disaster, has potentially the makings of an international catastrophe. One of the crew members was an Israeli Air Force officer and the hopes of his entire country were flying with him. He was the shining star in the midst of gloom which was suddenly extinguished in a mass of disintegrating debris. Since mission command had lost contact with the shuttle crew 15 minutes before impact, while the shuttle was still at an altitude of 200,000 feet, any type of terrorist action initiated from the ground is highly unlikely. Nevertheless, there is hardly any doubt that conspiracy theorists will immediately go to work, especially since the Israeli officer had piloted one of the planes that bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981. It is clearly too early to gauge Israeli and American reactions to this tragedy and I shall abstain from speculating. The following article was written during the past two days and inasmuch as today's tragedy does not invalidate any aspect of it I shall leave it in its original form.



This was the week where the course for the current decade and possibly beyond was set. Sharon was, as expected, re-elected and has already spurned an offer by Arafat to enter into negotiations about the conditions the Palestinians are forced to live under. There will, therefore, be continued stalemate and further bloodshed in that country. As predicted in the April 1, 2002 installment Palestinian State or Israeli Protectorate, Sharon has in the meantime indeed re-occupied the West Bank and major portions of Gaza, although he has so far refrained from martyring Arafat. To foresee events like these does not take special prophetic powers. All one has to know is the character of the leaders of a given nation and their actions become predictable. Any hope for an early peace in Israel has been destroyed by Sharon's re-election and the situation will continue to have to go from bad to worse. Eventually the Israelis may wake up, say enough is enough and follow Mitzna's disengagement plan which actually dates back to 1968 as pointed out in Whither Zionism?. Unfortunately the majority of Israelis are not yet ready to face these harsh facts of life and continue to believe that Might makes Right, that fear will spawn hate, and hate combined with military force will eventually triumph. That was also Hitler's fantasy.

The fate of Israel would not necessarily be of major concern to Americans had our politicians not yoked us, apparently irrevocably, to Jerusalem's policies for reasons which were spelled out in the Unholy Alliance article of May 1, 2002. President Bush seems to have a rather simplistic view of the world. There is only good and evil. He has declared after 9/11: Who is not with us, is against us. The inhabitants of this world are now being divided by Washington into those who are good, i.e. they agree with America's point of view; or evil, namely those who disagree and especially those who oppose us by means of terror. States who pursue an independent nuclear policy are "rogue states" and have to be dealt with by the American military. We are after all "the only superpower" and have the best trained army in the world. As the former Secretary of State, Madelaine Albright, reportedly told the generals who were reluctant to get entangled in Balkan politics: what good is it to have such a wonderful military if you don't want to use it? Now we have a President who does want to use it because it has been reported that he sees himself as an instrument of Providence to rid the world of evil. An inner belief of this type should raise concern because it brings inevitably past history to mind.

In his State of the Union speech our President made it clear that he feels America has been chosen by history to rectify evil throughout the world, but most urgently in Iraq. "America and the world will not be blackmailed . . . . A brutal dictator with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, and great potential wealth in a vital region will not be permitted to threaten the United States." He has "shown utter contempt for the United Nations and the opinion of the world . . . . It is up to Iraq "to account for what happened to the "25,000 liters of anthrax, the 38,000 liters of botulism toxin, the 500,000 tons of sarin, mustard and VX agents" as well as the "30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents." The "high strength aluminum tubes" capable for developing nuclear weapons were also referred to although an hour earlier the Chief Nuclear Weapons Inspector, Mohamed El Baradei, had told us in a TV interview that the aluminum tubes had nothing to with atomic weapons, and that his experts have so far been unable to detect anything that would raise concerns. The President then asked the rhetorical question what all of this arsenal is good for. "But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for these weapons is to dominate, intimidate or attack." He could "resume his ambition of conquest and create deadly havoc in this region . . . . Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy and it is not an option." Subsequently the President enumerated again the major sins Saddam has already committed. He used poison gas "on whole villages leaving thousands of its civilians dead, blind or disfigured." He, tortured "children while their parents watched." Saddam's CIA personnel poses as scientists and the real scientists are forbidden to talk to UN inspectors on pain of death, which includes their families. In Saddam's prisons tongues have been ripped out, skin burned with acid and there is rape. The President declared that "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." He went on to say that "We fight reluctantly, we strive for peace," but "if war is forced upon us we will fight in a just cause with just means, sparing the innocent," but we will "fight with the full force of the American military and we will prevail." Although God has been banished from U.S. schools He seems to be alive when needed and the President concluded with the assurance that He will help us and finished with the familiar refrain of "God bless America."

I have recited the essence of this speech in such detail because Central Europeans of my generation have heard this type of language before when an attempt was made to create enthusiasm for war, which was notably lacking by the populace. The year was 1938 and the evil person, for Germany was in those days Mr. Beneš, the President of Czechoslovakia. In the middle of September the Sudeten crisis was in full bloom. Chamberlain had twice, unsuccessfully, met with Hitler who had kept upping the ante and war seemed imminent. Hitler's September, 26 speech in the Sportpalast gave the signal for, and the cause of, the impending war. As everybody knows he was, like Fidel Castro, exceedingly loquacious and his speech - reprinted in Domarus' Hitler Reden 1932-1945 kommentiert von einem Zeitgenossen - takes up 8 pages even in shortened form.

Before going any further let it be understood quite clearly that I am not comparing the person of President Bush with Hitler; or that of Saddam Hussein with Beneš. All I intend to do is to show how the rhetoric which is used to whip up enthusiasm for war is timeless, the same the world over, and can be used by anybody. Here are some key morsels from that speech but I am somewhat handicapped by Domarus excerpts' because the main hate tirade against Beneš was omitted. Domarus merely mentioned that it had occurred. Nevertheless what is printed is enough to give the flavor. The following are direct quotes when translated from German. "The question which has so deeply concerned us during the past months and weeks is well known: It is not so much: Czecho-slovakia, it is: Mister Beneš," whom Hitler called "the father of lies, responsible for the slaughter [niedermetzeln] of thousands of Germans." Hitler then went on to recite, what Domarus appropriately calls, the "Parteierzählung," namely his regularly repeated mantra of how he, the poor orphan and unknown soldier, had been led by Providence to first head the party, then the Reich and now, after the incorporation of Austria, Greater Germany. But eventually he got back to Beneš who had created this state (Czechoslovakia) from a lie because he promised a Swiss type model where all the minorities were supposed to have had equal rights. This never came to pass "he started a regime of terror!" When members of the three and a half million German minority protested they were "shot down . . . . Mr. Beneš had decided to slowly but inexorably exterminate the German population . . . . He has succeeded to a certain extent. He has thrown innumerable human beings into the deepest despair. Through unabashed use of his terror he has succeeded to silence and frighten these millions while at the same time the international obligation of this state became clear. This state [CSR] is now used by Bolshevism as its entry door," and it represents an airbase which threatens all of Germany. Beneš' enslavement of the people by the military leads "to gruesome figures: in one day 10,000 refugees, on the next 20,000, one day later now 37,000, again two days later 41,000, then 62,000, then 78,000, now there are 90,000, 137,000, and today 241,000. Entire districts are being depopulated, villages are being burned down; with grenades and gas one attempts to smoke out Germans [ausräuchern] . . . . The time has come for plain talk . . . . If anybody has that amount of patience as we have had in the past one can surely not say that we are eager for war." Hitler ended the speech with the statement that he had given Beneš his outline for a peaceful solution, which included incorporation of the German speaking areas of the CSR into Greater Germany. "The decision is now in his [Beneš'] own hand! Peace or War! He will either accept this offer and give the Germans at last their freedom or we shall bring about this freedom by ourselves . . . . We are resolute! Mister Beneš may choose now!"

Let me re-iterate, there is no doubt that Hitler not only exaggerated but used outright lies, especially when he declared in the same speech, that once the Sudeten question has been settled in his favor he has no further territorial demands in Europe and specifically, "we don't want any Czechs." His motive, however, was not the plight of the Sudeten Germans but Czechoslovakia had to disappear so that he could then proceed with his march to the East. Lest there be a misunderstanding I want to state once more that President Bush and his speech writers acted in good faith but the point is that rhetoric has consequences and in this respect the two speeches are a good example for how to inflame public opinion at home and abroad. Hitler's war against Beneš was avoided at the last minute by the Munich conference, which is now universally condemned as appeasement. Nevertheless, it had its value at the time because neither England nor France could have helped the Czechs in 1938, just as they could not help the Poles a year later, when they did declare war on Germany. The year England gained enabled her to build up the RAF and defeat the Luftwaffe in the battle of Britain another year later. Chamberlain deserves better than the "bad rap" he is currently receiving. While Churchill pushed for war in 1938 and is now held up as the paragon of wisdom it must be admitted that although he won the war he lost the empire as a result of it. The outcome of wars tends to be quite unpredictable.

But back to the President's speech and the comparison. In both instances, the adversary is depicted as an individual consumed by utter evil. In both instances figures are trotted out, to demonstrate that an intolerable situation exists. In both instances it is emphasized that if the condition is not immediately rectified the most dire results will occur and in both instances the choice between peace and war is attributed to the adversary. The danger in Hitler's case was the threat of Bolshevism, which had served him exceedingly well throughout his career, and in the current instance it is the specter of atomic or biochemical annihilation of our cities by terrorists. Although Hitler did not use the phrase "this war which has been forced upon us" on this occasion it was regularly employed after the victorious Poland campaign, when he saw no reason to continue the war with the West. He wanted to go east because that was where the empty spaces and material resources lay which he coveted.

Bush's premise is that America is in mortal danger from this "madman," Saddam, and immediate action to disarm him is required. But just as in 1938 there is a hidden agenda. Disarmament is clearly not enough. It needs "regime change" and unless there is a coup inside Iraq, or Saddam were to be willing to go into exile with his family, as well as the top leaders of the Ba'th party, this can only be accomplished by American military ground forces. But we don't want just "any regime," we need a client state in the area because there happens to be the proverbial elephant in the living room in the region of whom nobody talks about here. It is Israel, who as our friend and not just ally needs friendly regimes as neighbors. Neither the Turks, the Syrians, the Jordanians, the Saudis and maybe even the Kuwaiti seem to be particularly afraid of Saddam's WMDs. So it does boil down to Israeli politics, the regional nuclear superpower. Bush's rhetorical question why Saddam needs his WMDs has another answer. They are Saddam's life insurance and not necessarily intended for the purposes mentioned by the President. His nuclear reactor was bombed once by the Israelis and he may want to make sure that if they attempted to interfere again in what he regards as his own internal affairs they would suffer the consequences.

Now let us take this point a step further. Granted that Saddam has no conscience and will do anything to stay in power. Granted further that he has some WMDs; does it follow that he will use them to antagonize us on purpose? I have dealt with this question in the December, 2001 installment on War on Terrorism and can find no reason from his past behavior that he is suicidal. The total annihilation of his country would be assured if he indeed launched germ or chemical warfare against us without a prior invasion. Let us in addition think unpopular thoughts and place ourselves in his shoes. The President has declared that "trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not an option." What would you do if you were to be devoid of a conscience, your life is on the line, and your country is invaded by a superior force? Would you not want to use whatever WMD is in your arsenal and in addition give some left overs to known terrorists? Thus our policy instead of decreasing the threat of terror might actually increase it geometrically.

This leaves aside the unrest which is likely to be spawned in other Arab and Muslim nations, who have a vast reservoir of human suicide bombers. Our announced policy to stomp out evil in the world wherever it exists cannot succeed. It assumes a static world, where we can enforce our will wherever we want. This assumption is fundamentally flawed because the laws of physics assure us that for every action there is a re-action. We also know from history that there are no "final solutions." "A New Order" in the world by rearranging borders has always had a short life span. It was pursued by Hitler in Europe, by Japan in East Asia, and most recently by the President's father, who promised that he would "bomb Baghdad back into the stone age." The only universal law of life is change and Fukuyama's "End of History," in the sense of absence of wars and revolutions, will never arrive as long as there is a human rather than humane race.

It seems clear, to me at least, that whatever we do in the Middle East cannot lead to permanent peace in the area unless the Palestinian problem is addressed. It is this purulent wound which poisons not only the region but our active support of Israeli policies, threatens our own future and that of our children. Last year the President chided the UN for not enforcing its decisions on Iraq and he did so again this week. But Iraq and North Korea are not the only states which thumb their noses at the UN. So does Israel and the silence from our part in this respect is truly deafening. Nevertheless, the rest of the world sees what is going on and will accuse us, not without good cause, of hypocrisy. Hiding behind noble words and calling opponents to Likud policies anti-Semites is not likely to succeed forever and we are squandering whatever good will America has built up in the world over the past century.

Neither is it correct to assume that all the people in this country, nor abroad, who oppose a war against Iraq at this time are professional protesters and "cooks." We have faith-based groups both here in Utah, as well as the country at large who do not believe that the current situation meets the Christian theological preconditions for a "just war." Abroad, Germans are chided for being opposed to the war, because they should toe the American line. After all, we have liberated these ingrates once and the French even twice. That Americans have insisted after WWII that Germans change into pacifists is not to be remembered. Furthermore, citizens of the former Greater Germany have their collective noses utterly full from, "Führer befiehl, wir folgen." They did follow their leader, blindly trusting in his good will, and it destroyed their countries. Questions about the wisdom of leaders should not be ridiculed or snuffed out but honestly debated. This debate should take place in broad daylight rather than behind closed doors.

The most important question is: Why Now? This is the first question every physician asks when a patient comes with a chronic illness. Our Secretary of State will give the answer to the world next week. But, General Powell please pardon me for being skeptical. If we had unequivocal proof for Saddam's imminent threat to our shores we would have no hesitation sharing it with the rest of the world. The fact that the President himself did not announce it this week seems to indicate that he wants to gain some additional time. The Turks should cooperate with an invasion from the north and the buildup of military forces in the Gulf seems to have progressed slower than expected. There may also have been some procurement snags with the protective suits against toxic agents. But as the President said, "We are talking weeks and not months." This is the point where Rhetoric of War comes back to haunt us. The President has painted himself with his own words into a corner from which he will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to extricate himself. Words have consequences and once they have left the mouth of the speaker they assume a life of their own.

In the February 2002 installment The Great Satan I have made the point that when one is faced with a difficult decision whether to act immediately or consider first the potential consequences, one should keep in mind that God has time! The good and the true will still be available to us after deliberation and consultation with others. Only "Satan," the adversary, lacks time and urges us into precipitous action. When we are told that "time is running out," we have both the right and the duty to ask "Why?" A reasonable course of action would be to allow the UN inspectors whatever time they require to do their job. Saddam cannot be an immediate threat as long as they are in his country and we can use the time to address other more pressing issues. The economy needs to be rescued here at home, rather than stressed further with a war and a prolonged occupation of Iraq. The war against terrorism needs to be continued with international cooperation of police and intelligence services. The job in Bosnia, Kosovo, rump Yugoslavia and especially Afghanistan has been left unfinished. We promised these people better lives but have failed to come through with the necessary action. To promote HIV-AIDS relief for Africa is laudable but hardly deserves the priority assigned to it by the President when we have so many other pressing problems and a massive, steadily growing, budget deficit. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, we should use the time gained, by allowing the inspections to proceed, to finally use our influence to bring the Palestinian tragedy to a reasonable conclusion. By showing genuine impartiality towards Jews and Arabs alike we may be able to turn world opinion in our favor again. We should not allow the perception to continue that Israel's policies determine those of Washington. The elephant in the living room has to be addressed. If we don't do it ourselves the Arabs will, but in a manner we are not going to like. Concrete actions which promote peace and good will should now be the order of the day rather than Good and Evil rhetoric and "My way or No Way."
 
 
 
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