Similarities of Hitler and .........Clinton
The Big Lie About Kosovo
Richard Poe
April 14, 1999
"Save the Albanian Kosovars!" Clinton cries. "Save the Sudeten Germans!"
Hitler trumpeted in 1938. The names have changed, but the strategy
remains the same.
For more than 50 years, we Americans have looked down our noses at the
Germans, for having followed Hitler so blindly. But now it's our turn.
We are proving no more resistant to propaganda than those cheering
crowds in Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.
Back in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler needed an excuse to seize
Czechoslovakia. So he invented one. Three and a quarter million ethnic
Germans lived in the Sudetenland, under Czech rule. As William L. Shirer
recounts in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Hitler secretly funded
an extremist group called the Sudeten German Party and ordered it to
provoke an uprising against the Czechs.
Kosovo, too, appears to have been destabilized by outside forces. For
years, Kosovars protested Milosevic peacefully. But in 1997, a group
called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) suddenly started shooting. Who
were these people?
The Times of London (March 24, 1999) described the KLA as "a Marxist-led
force funded by dubious sources, including drug money." European police
suspect the KLA of connections to Albanian gangsters. At least two of
the group's backers appear to have been the CIA and the German spy
agency BND, according to intelligence analyst John Whitley, quoted in
the Truth in Media Global Watch Bulletin (April 2, 1999).
The purpose of staging a provocation is to create a backlash. This
strategy certainly worked for Hitler in 1938. As unrest spread in the
Sudetenland, the Czechs cracked down. Czech President Eduard Benes
ordered troops into the region and declared martial law.
Right on cue, the German press went wild. "Women and Children Mowed Down
by Armored Cars," ran a typical Berlin newspaper headline in September
1938. "Poison Gas Attack on Aussig" cried another.
Hitler accused Benes of waging a "war of extermination" against Sudeten
Germans. "The Germans he now drives out!" cried Hitler, in a September
16, 1938 speech. "We see the appalling figures: on one day 10,000
fugitives, on the next 20,000... and today 214,000. Whole stretches of
country were depopulated, villages are burned down, attempts are made to
smoke out the Germans with hand-grenades and gas."
Sound familiar? Hitler's rhetoric bears an eerie resemblance to the CNN
news blitz on Kosovo. Of course, Hitler was exaggerating. Many of the
atrocities he alleged later turned out to be fabrications.
But the same is true of our newscasts on Kosovo.
Take the alleged massacre of 45 Albanian civilians at Racak, for
instance, reported in January 1999. Forensic and other evidence now
suggests that the bodies were those of KLA guerrillas killed in combat.
The hoax has been widely discussed in the European press (including Le
Monde, Die Welt, Le Figaro and the BBC). But U.S. news outlets have
been as silent on the controversy as if they were taking orders from
Goebbels himself.
In the Sudeten crisis, Hitler claimed to be inspired by internationalist
ideals. "Among the fourteen points which President Wilson promised ..."
the Fuhrer proclaimed, "was the fundamental principle of the
self-determination of all peoples ..." By freeing the Sudeten Germans,
Hitler argued, he was fulfilling Wilson's vision.
Clinton too claims he is fighting for human rights. But ethnic cleansing
does not bother Clinton when his friends are the ones doing the
cleansing. He ordered no bombing when the Croatians drove 300,000 Serbs
from Krajina, burning their homes and killing many. Nor did he intervene
when our NATO ally Turkey slaughtered over 35,000 Kurds.
Every schoolchild today knows that Hitler's real goal, in seizing
Czechoslovakia, was to use it as a stepping stone for his planned
invasion of Russia.
But what is Clinton's real interest in Kosovo? Nobody knows.
Many theories have been floated. Some point to the Trepca mines of
northern Kosovo, rich in gold, zinc, silver and lead. The New York Times
called them the "Kosovo war's glittering prize" (July 8, 1998).
Others see a more far-reaching strategy. The Russians claim that NATO,
like Hitler, wants to use the Balkans as a stepping stone for extending
its power eastwardeventually meddling in the affairs of Russia itself.
But this is all speculation. Only time will reveal Clinton's true
intentions, as it ultimately did Hitler's.
In his memoir Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer recalled the anxious
mood of Berliners, in September 1939, as they digested the news that
England and France had declared war.
"The atmosphere was noticeably depressed," he recalls. "The people were
full of fear about the future. None of the regiments marched off to war
decorated with flowers as they had done at the beginning of the First
World War. The streets remained empty. There was no crowd on
Wilhelmsplatz shouting for Hitler."
A wise man once said that those who fail to study history are condemned
to repeat it. Should Clinton actually succeed in sparking a world war,
Americans will no doubt react with the same shock and fear as Berliners
did in 1939. But we will have only ourselves to blame.
Richard Poe is a freelance journalist and a New York Times-bestselling
author. He writes frequently on historical themes. Poe's latest book,
"Black Spark, White Fire", explores the Afrocentric controversy
concerning ancient Egypt.
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