Back to Iran. Talk of a unified Qaeda/Iran/Hezbollah/Syria menace is nonsense as a casual scan of actual Sunni jihadist views will make clear. As Fred Kaplan notes, if Churchill and FDR had operated with the Bush mentality, "they might not have formed an alliance with the Soviet Union (out of a refusal to negotiate with evil Communists), and they might have therefore lost the war."
It's worse than that, though -- they might have proposed attacking the Soviet Union in the middle of the war because Bolshevism and Nazism were both species of Eurofascism.
-- Matthew Yglesias
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. keep blathering on about fascism and about not negotiating with terrorists. But they don't understand what fascists really are. They don't really understand the factions involved. And they try to use history to show they have a noble cause. But they are not really listening to the lessons of history. If we'd been so insistent on our supposed moral high ground, would we have worked closely with the Soviet Union during World War II? And if we hadn't, would we have a drastically different world now?
6 comments:
The use of the word Fascism aside, as I've already stated I find it quite appropriate, I don't think Bush will be able to get a war with Iran started in the next two years. He's got two already started and a bunch of Senators speaking out against one or both. He doesn't get to decide to just go to war, he's got to get it passed in congress.
However, if he does start one, it'd be even more evidence that the country desperately needs a third party because our system of checks and balances will have further deteriorated.
Scott,
I agree with you on both your points. No matter how much he may want to initiate a war with Iran, logistically, I don't know where he would get the boots from.
... the country desperately needs a third party because our system of checks and balances will have further deteriorated -- amen, brother. I really wish your party, the Libertarians, or the Greens, or both would get some people in Congress. There are a lot of Republicans and Democrats (and others) whose voices aren't being heard.
Picking your political friends has everything to do with expediency. If The UK/USA had decided that Communist Russia was a bigger threat to them than Nazi Germany we would have 'managed it' so that the Nazi's were our 'friends' and the Communists where the worst thing in the world.
It's one of the many reasons I don't trust politicians - they normally have zero moral scruples.
Calling the enemies of the US (and by extension the Rest of the 'Free' World) 'fascists' gives any war waged against them a spurious legitimacy that it didn't have before... that and the specture of them acquiring WMD of course!
Scott,
I agree with you on both your points.
Wow. Just wow.
Scott,
Enjoy it ... it may not happen again. :-)
We are all in agreement. Take cover, the world is about to end!
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