The Good Germans
by John S. Hatch
www.informationclearinghouse.info,
12/06/04
"ICH" -- It is a commonplace
that at the end of WWII scarcely a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer could
be found, or even anyone with an inkling that a Holocaust had
been taking place. Even as rocks flew through Jewish shop windows
and homes were burned, the Good Germans didn't know. Even when
Jews began disappearing in huge numbers from right under their
noses, the Good Germans weren't aware. Later on, even amongst
Holocaust deniers I used to wonder if there were a mitigating
percentage, however small, who as otherwise decent human beings
simply could not accept the horror that human nature can be so
vile. To admit the truth would be to recognize that life was essentially
meaningless and insane, with suicide as the only logical course,
a choice which the all-powerful instinct for self-preservation
attempted to prevent. Thus self-deception for self-preservation;
an unhappy compromise. It was the Nazi-exploited Nietzsche who
pointed out (in the late 1800's remember) that one must first
know the truth in order to bury it. Everybody knew, in one way
or another. Violence, after all, is what One-Thousand Year Reichs
do, and they must start very early.
America, America, Uber Alles
While there is much justified consternation
surrounding the truly astonishing election of George W. Bush-first
he steals power, then it's handed back to him tied with a fancy
yellow ribbon-the fact is that for the longest time American foreign
policy (and often domestic as well) has been so savage as to shock
the world. Yet the average American seems to care as little
as the average German did about the Third's Reich's crimes against
humanity or the Holocaust. Didn't know, didn't care or-liked it
very much. 'We' are empire! Therefore 'we' are a priori justified
in anything we do. Rules only apply to lesser nations, lesser
beings.
Just to go back a short way, while George
crusades to 'free' his beloved Iraqis' (almost universally referred
to as 'ragheads' and 'sandniggers' (!) , bastards and faggots
by his like-thinking men and women in the field), LBJ was a crook
with indirect ties to the Mafia, and likely foreknowledge of the
Kennedy assassination. (And we can't forget his vice-crook 'Nolo
Contendere' Spiro Agnew, can we?) Nixon's boys had their inherited
gooks and commies to torture and murder and bomb and napalm, and
he had even more direct ties to the Mafia from almost the beginning
of his criminal career. (And Rumsfeld and Powell were honing their
skills for later- Rumsfeld in Defense, Powell as chief spinner
for My Lai). Both Nixon and Bush lied about their respective wars,
using the most unscrupulous but effective assistants (Murray Chotiner,
Karl Rove) in order to get elected, and then surrounded themselves
with ambitious thugs and criminals, all rising like pus out of
a pimple (Kissinger, Mitchell, Erlichman, Haldeman, Liddy, Hunt
et al), or far-right religious zealots (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld,
Ashcroft et al, including the multi-untalented David Frum, sophomoric
enough to brag about the pathetic comic-book phrase 'Axis of Evil').
Then came Ford, who will always be remembered for pardoning Nixon's
crimes, many of which weren't then known to the public, and as
a participant in the official Kennedy assassination cover-up known
as the Warren Commission. Meanwhile the CIA continued to mingle,
meddle, and assassinate willy-nilly wherever they felt like it.
Jimmy Carter may have been a gentler soul, but he welcomed the
despised Shah of Iran, installed by the US after deposing the
elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq for deciding to take control
of Iran's own oil resources. The nerve of that uppity Mohammed!
(Yet the neo-con tut-tutters keep saying that oil was not a factor
in Iraq's invasion-they forgot all about Iran, but would like
to visit again, and soon.) The corporate press blubbered on and
on when Reagan mercifully died, with scant mention of his murderous
if shaky hand, guided by the likes of the truly bizarre Ollie
North, John Poindexter, and the depraved (but very ambitious)
John Negroponte, newly appointed ambassador to Iraq (honestly,
it would require an outsourced factory of Shakespearian elves
working overtime to do adjectival justice to some of these malicious
miscreants).
How much American psychic energy was
required to 'forget' Reagan's 'freedom fighters' of Nicaragua
('the equivalent of our Founding Fathers', he was already demented
enough to pronounce)? They used tactics learned at the famous
US Army 'School of Americas' at Ft. Benning, Georgia, also known
as 'School of the Assassins', whose distinguished graduates include
Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos, formerly of Panama, and Roberto
Violo of Argentina. The freedom fighters raped nuns and peasant
women and used all sorts of lethal terror methods in the countryside
to dislodge the elected government. Preferred targets were teachers
and medical staff, but they bagged an Archbishop as well. A favorite
horror method involved the stuffing of a grenade into the bleeding,
broken-toothed mouth of an innocent man woman, and yes, even child
(of course child, when you think about it) and then detonation
in front of what might be left of the as-good-as-dead family.
Well it seemed to work in the long run. Ronnie must have been
proud. And looking at The Gipper's shiny coffin and poor Nancy's
touching grief, how hard was it to forget Reagan's prior treasonous
secret interference in foreign policy affairs in order to have
the American hostages in Iran freed later rather than sooner,
with arms as a reward, more cash to the freedom fighters for grenades,
and coke to California as a byproduct? He forgot all about it,
right away. Ollie too. I wonder if any one of those dignitaries
was trying to forget Ronnie's pal 'Blowtorch Bob' (D'Aubisson)
of El Salvador, and how he came to acquire his colorful sobriquet?
Or even remember?
On and on. Bush I's puerile denial that
he wasn't in Reagan and Ollie's loopy 'loop' regarding Iran-Contra,
his message to Saddam through Ambassador April Glaspie
(July 25, 1990) that America was neutral regarding Iraqi plans
vis a vis Kuwait, then presto! Ill-equipped, ill-trained and terrified
Iraqi soldiers were being buried alive in the desert, surrender
not even an option. Later, elsewhere, weaponless soldiers were
picked off one by one by stationary, low flying helicopters while
their brave pilots whooped and hollered, intoxicated by the sheer
joy of delivering no-risk murder. Then there was the notorious
'Highway of Death', a 60 mile stretch between Mutlaa, Kuwait and
Basra where non-combatant soldiers, fleeing back to Iraq on orders
and civilian men, women and children were mowed down by bombs
(including napalm and/or phosphorus) and bullets from planes and
helicopters until not a single human being remained alive. Not
even a dog. Such was the enthusiasm for the sport that extra air
traffic controllers had to be brought in so that as many pilots
as possible could participate without fear of bumping into each
other. Estimated casualties (just dead, no wounded) were in the
tens of thousands. Tens of thousands.
Then there came the insane sanctions,
which did absolutely nothing to slow the building of palaces for
Saddam and his revolting sons (did we forget that America had
earlier assisted Saddam in its war against Iran, even providing
certain chemicals which were to become famous?) Extending through
the Clinton years these otherwise ineffectual measures are conservatively
credited with killing one million ordinary Iraqis through malnutrition
and lack of basic medicines. Perhaps one of the most heartbreaking,
irrevocably America-defining utterances regarding Iraq and America's
arrogance and ignorance and self-induced amnesia was not by some
slippery, war-mongering Republican from Kentucky, but from educated,
refined ex-Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who
when asked if the cruel and futile sanctions had been worth the
deaths of 500,000 innocent Iraqi children, looked genuinely thoughtful
for a moment, then answered in the affirmative. It is truly to
weep. Adieu America! The requiem is for you too.
Armageddon the Blues
With his second, and perhaps final term
(don't forget, many Americans wanted to amend the Constitution
to allow dear old Ronnie a third term) George W. Bush will feel
emboldened to spend his famous political 'capital' in a world
growing increasingly wary, fearful, and fed up with America's
growing rogue status, lack of trustworthiness, and willingness
to embrace violence. That Bush would ever even consider appointing
as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a signal that the former's
one-finger victory salute was not a joke, as tasteless as it was.
To appoint as top law enforcement officer a man who considers
the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' and obsolete and the strictures
against torture inapplicable, the World Court without jurisdiction
is unprecedented in any civilized nation anywhere. Add to that
even more draconian elements to the execrably designated 'Patriot
Act', and I am genuinely surprised that given the American proclivity
for chattering incessantly about love of country and constitution,
and bravery and freedom ('Give me freedom, or give me.fries!'
Freedom fries!) that the streets haven't been deluged with incandescently
angry
(real) patriots demanding their country back. No not demanding,
taking. Perhaps America was always just empty talk, a superpower
as vacuous as some of your 'superstars', as George II, lead by
the nose by crazy Likudites, crazy Christians, and just plain
power-mad crazies, leads the world to the brink of Armageddon.
But there is no Jesus waiting (and, thank goodness, certainly
not the creepy Christ of the cretinous far Christian right), no
Anti-Christ (not even the U.N.), only prolonged hell on earth
for many, hamburgers and SUV's and beer for the few. And of course,
Wal-Mart for everyone.
George II insists we have to be for or
against. Well, I'm proud to come out against. I know America is
a ruthless and formidable foe, but remember, there are billions
of us around the world We are angry and sickened, and perhaps
have finally had enough. Violence is not necessary (if only America
would learn that)-imagine what a worldwide boycott of every single
thing American would do to your economy, in fairly short order.
The dollar would further erode, stock market indicies would plunge,
more countries would switch to the Euro as reserve currency, foreign
owned treasury bonds would be called in in the billions, the American
financial system would risk collapse. For starters. Imagine that
your political elite and their oozing advisors not daring to leave
the country for fear of arrest for war crimes and crimes against
humanity. It happened to Chile's Pinochet in great Britain, and
Kissinger escaped detainment in France only by a whisker (or was
it a prayer?). That America no longer recognizes Geneva Conventions
and International Rules of Conduct doesn't mean that more civilized
nations no longer do. For starters. A few days ago President Bush
came to my country, Canada. Were there to exist true justice,
he would have been arrested the moment he stepped off Air Force
One in Ottawa, and would be held on suspicion of having committed
a breath-taking array of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Of course that didn't happen. Yet. But we can take some consolation
in the fact that, despite being invited to address a joint session
of Parliament and Senate as protocol dictates, his handlers politely
declined, fearful of what his reception might be. Now, a group
of Vancouver Lawyers
(L.A.W.-Lawyers Against War) has filed papers with the U.N. charging
Mr. Bush with war crimes. As Mr. Bush is not Canadian, our Attorney
General has eight days in which to approve the filing or reject
it. It will of course be rejected. For now.
John Hatch is a writer, novelist, and
film-maker living in British Columbia, Canada. His novel The Wolfe
Chronicles was published in 2001. He is also a contributor to
bcpolitics.ca He can be reached at <johnhatch@canada.com>
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