a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Tuesday, March 21, 2006 The Germany ComparisonHard drive's still down, but it's hard to resist Rumsfeld's anniversary column on the Iraq war. He's taking heat for writing that abandoning Iraq now would be like handing Germany back to the Nazis after World War II. "That is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history," said Zbigniew Brzezinski. "There was no alternative to our presence [in Germany]. The Germans were totally crushed. For Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn't know history or he's simply demagoguing."Let's be nice to Rummy for a minute. He's not just taking heat from the left, but also from the right: Everyone from David Brooks to General Paul Eaton has been blaming the poor guy for messing up their war, as if he personally mucked up what should have been a shining instance of American glory. All he means by the Nazi comparison is that if there had been organized Nazis after World War II who were in any position to take over the country, the Allies would have had a moral obligation to stand by the good German people and rebuild their nation so nothing like Hitler would ever happen again. Right? Sorry, that was sarcasm. A Jewish friend of mine who was still alive in Berlin after World War II tells me postwar Iraq looks nothing like Germany then, and never has. The German people were defeated and demoralized; there were no serious Nazi resistance movements; the scattered gangs shooting in the streets were quelled in a matter of months; electricity and water were back on quickly in Berlin because the western Allies were already trying to impress the Russians. "No, Iraq looks to me like Germany after World War I," he said -- meaning a ruined economy, street violence, and an angry, humiliated population. Rumsfeld needs to flip back through a history book and remember what that led to. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:40 AM
Comments:
That's funny that you quote Brzezinski; I had just started reading him before this whole dance thing of mine got heavy and I had to put everything down. I don't think I was ready for him even a few years ago, but he makes sense now.
Nothing in what this administration has done suggests to me that they have any grasp of history whatsoever. But then, a grasp of history doesn't seem to be one of the things the American electorate requires of its representatives. That much-vaunted frontier "can-do" mentality? Our relative newness on these shores?
Dude, that's why they invented cut and paste.
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And relevant to our earlier discussion about all the strange people I must be related to? He's Ukrainian, you know. You better deal with your hard drive soon. I'm about to write you a paper letter, and we all know how illegible my handwriting is. | |
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