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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (157920)	2/10/2005 4:02:12 AM
From: Bruce L	Respond to of 281500

THE CIANO DIARIES AND "GETTING BACK THE TRUST" OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE Mary Lou, Several weeks ago you wrote - in the post I am belatedly responding to - that after 9/11 we had a "lot" of Iraqis on our side, but that this was destroyed by our "atrocities", our wrongful imprisonment of people and our killing of innocents. I don't particularly care about the reasons you gave for our having it or not. It is the whole concept of "trust" - and its desireabilty - that stuck in my craw. You are, I know, a nice person and mean well. Idealistic people like you have even domestically accomplished much good, e.g., abolitionists, suffragettes, etc. But applying the mind set of Deepak Chopra and holistic healing to the field of foreign affairs is not merely silly, it is downright dangerous. But since I like you, I was in a quandary how to broach the subject in some polite form. THE CIANO DIARIES Count Galeazzo Ciano was Mussolini's Foreign Minister from 1935 through early 1943. Well educated and urbane, he had married the dictator's oldest daughter and been appointed to his high post at the age of 33! Bright enough to see the handwriting on the wall, he intrigued to replace Mussolini and come to a secret armistice with the Allied Powers. After a mock trial, he was ordered shot by Mussolini in January 1944. He kept a diary in his own hand during his years as Foreign Minister. It is absolutely fascinating reading, not only for insights into what motivated a dictator, but into the infinitely complex rivilries and animosities existing in middle and eastern Europe in the years before WWII. For example, Americans tend to believe that Poland in 1939 was a relatively homogeneous peace loving country that Hitler brutalized. In fact, Polish diplomats themselves characterized their country as "fascist" and Mussloini at one point seriously considered bringing it into the Axis partnership. In the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938 (Munich), Polish pressure was perhaps the straw that broke the country's back and Poland was rewarded with generous territorial booty. 18 million Poles headed by a military oligarchy ruled over 4 million Ukrainians, 1 million Germans, and 1 million Russians. There were also 2 million jews living in concentrated areas and subject still to periodic pograms that the government did little to prevent. FASCIST VIEW OF THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES Ciano's Diaries written over 7 years make plain in a thousand instances that Mussolini and Hitler viewed the western democracies as tired and degenerate and their leaders as "worms." Attempts by England and France to show "good faith" and to prove to the German and Italian People that they were entitled to their TRUST only further debased the democracies in the eyes of the dictators, and actually incited them to make further demands! A couple of examples. Before Italy invaded and conquered Abyssinia/Ethiopia in the face of the condemnation of the League of Nations, Mussolini did a study of the English People, by age group. According to Ciano, he found that of 46 million people, there were 2 million more womem than men and 12 million citizens over the age of 50, "the age limit for bellicosity." "Hence a predominance of the static elements over the dynamic elements of youth." Hence he could count on compromise/peace/getting away with it. Mussolini, especially, intervened on the side of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War (1936 -39). Unflagged "Pirate" ships in the Mediteranean sank ships bringing supplies to the Republic. These were actually Italian warships with Italian Naval crews. England and France invited Italy to join a "control" commission to stop this piracy; the Navies of all 3 nations patrolled the seas off the Spanish coast. Mussoini and Ciano had many a good laugh. THE STUDY OF HISTORY My brother Ed, who we both admire, once made the felicitous statement about Bush that he "had not studied enough history to have learned it." Have you ever studied history, Mary Lou? I am pretty sure that you haven't. And probably would assert that it doesn't matter. Right is right, right? THE IMPORTANCE OF "TRUST" TO HEGEMONIC POWERS I am using the word trust in the sense of affection and personal regard; not in the sense of belief it will do what it says it will do. Can you name a single hegemonic power that had the trust of the peoples that it dominated? Rome? The Athenian Empire? 16th - 17th Century Spain? Great Britain in the last 250 years? Imperial Russia over the thousands of minorities that it ruled before WWI? The United States which dominated the Western Hemisphere pursuant to the Monroe Doctrine? Anybody? THE IRAQIS From 300 B.C. Iraq was ruled by Macedonian dynasties. Then Rome. Then the Eastern Roman Empire out of Constantinople. Then the Frankish Christians. Saladin was a Kurd. Then the Turks ruled for 500 years. Then for 20 -30 years the British ruled, putting down a bloody Shiite uprising in 1936 with the help of the Sunnis. Then there was a Hashemite King for 20 years. And then there was Saddam. Mary Lou, When did the Iraqi People (meaning the sunnis, shiites, marsh arabs, and Kurds) "TRUST" any of these rulers??? Bruce