''Iraq is no Nazi Germany''
Printed on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 @ 15:29:21 EST
By Matthew Riemer
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) – Analogies have been drawn ad nauseum between Germany and Iraq and between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein ever since the Bush administration's drive to war with the keystone Middle Eastern country began in late 2001. The comparisons quite obviously seek to equate the two leaders and countries as well as to define the possible ramifications of not dealing with Iraq correctly (read immediately and militarily). Presumably, one does not liken Saddam to Hitler to make the case against an invasion of Iraq.
Yet the analogy is sorely lacking when one turns to the body of evidence known as history. Aside from the fact that both Saddam Hussein and Hitler have moustaches, there are few striking similarities between the two rulers, or for that matter, Iraq and Germany.
At the dawn of World War II, Germany was one of the world's great military powers. This can hardly be said of Iraq, which, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard B. Myers, explicitly stated during a press conference on Saturday, September 15, 2002, has a weaker military than they did 12 years ago when Iraqi forces were toyingly slaughtered and completely decimated by American firepower in a matter of days.
Germany was also economically prosperous, having a distinct middle class. Following the U.S.' Desert Storm and Desert Fox campaigns and twelve years of crippling sanctions designed to decimate the country's infrastructure, Iraq is now largely composed of powerless and sickly individuals juxtaposed with their decadent oppressors.
Germany's might was largely its own doing and they possessed advanced technologies of all kinds -- encryption, rocket and missile development, etc. In fact, the U.S. smuggled many war criminals out of Europe following the war to help boost their rocket programs, which were vitally important to their nascent rivalry with the Soviet Union. Virtually all of Iraq's weaponry -- SCUD missiles, chemical and biological agents -- were directly imported from the former Soviet Union and, most notably, the United States.
As Hitler's war machine rampaged the European countryside, the U.S. anxiously watching from afar, Germany was obviously and completely out of control and threatened the whole of the continent. Iraq, isolated and impotent, may possess weapons of mass destruction and may possess the missile technology capable of delivering such armaments. And there is no credible evidence to date that Iraq possesses the more destructive of the WMD -- nuclear warheads. The differences then between the "imminent threat" posed by the Nazi Germany of yesteryear and the Iraq of today could not be greater and the analogies could not be more dishonest or misleading.
Hitler was also, as many forget, the elected leader of the German people. Saddam Hussein is not the popular choice in Iraq.
To call for a preemptive invasion of Iraq itself is questionable enough. But to then draw the analogy between the two situations described above, perhaps implying that another event as horrific as the Jewish Holocaust could result from U.S. inaction, is hysterical and insulting to all who possess a shred of moral decency or an ounce of historical knowledge.
[Matthew Riemer has written for years about a myriad of topics, such as: philosophy, religion, psychology, culture, and politics. He studied Russian language and culture for five years and traveled in the former Soviet Union in 1990. In the midst of a larger autobiographical/cultural work, Matthew is the Director of Operations at YellowTimes.org. He lives in the United States.]
Matthew Riemer encourages your comments: mriemer@YellowTimes.org
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