Posted on 03/20/2003 8:20:09 PM PST by Salvation
A Malignant Dictator
The man in the British newspaper ridicules America for making so much fuss about Saddam Hussein. He thinks comparing Hussein's threat to America with Adolf Hitler's is a thundering absurdity. A truly alarming number of certified intellectual journals, journalists and commentators in too many countries that ought to know better agree. "Saddam isn't even a pale 'Hitler Lite,' " goes the refrain. "Hitler commanded a powerful state in the center of Europe. His armed forces were cutting edge. Hitler had the momentum, the enthusiasts, the financers, the cheerleaders, the cinematic geniuses to enlarge his image, the mobs of enthusiastic Germans and German speakers in countries adjacent to Nazi Germany." "Saddam, however," the story goes, "commands a weakened and almost impotent military. His population is divided. He isn't even in control of his whole country." I disagree with those multitudes, but I'll take their argument exactly as they state it and use it as my very own. I think they've stated the case not for tolerating Hussein, abiding Hussein, shielding Hussein, protecting Hussein, ignoring Hussein, or hating Hussein but not doing anything beyond hating him to remove Hussein. I think they've stated MY case: the case for moving in forthwith and dismantling Hussein's ability to harm others. Rarely does a boxer, no matter how intellectual, so obligingly hold his hands behind his back, jut forth his chin and say: "Here's my jaw. Help yourself!" Watch out for the falling glass! Once upon a time that other dictator, Hitler, was worse off than Hussein is now. Hitler, too, had a weakened and almost impotent military. His population was also divided. And Hitler didn't have any oil! And inflation had swelled the single German mark to – get this – 3 TRILLION MARKS! And, just to put the symmetrical cherry atop the historical sundae, Hitler also was not even in control of his whole country! (Germany was forbidden under terms of the Versailles Treaty ending World War I to station any troops in the Rheinland, Germany's western region bordering France.) Hitler wrote, talked and gestured belligerently, but no other country even dreamed of doing anything about mere writing, talking and gesturing. Then one day in 1936 Hitler sent units of his reborn army into that forbidden Rheinland with instructions, we now know, to retreat at once if the French so much as raised an eyebrow. The French did not so much as raise an eyebrow. Neither did anybody else. And whaddayuhknow, that dictator was all of a sudden in control of his whole country. And then one day in l938, he sent his forces into Austria and proclaimed that state annexed to his no-longer-so-weak-and-impotent Germany. And whaddayuhknow, now he was all of a sudden in control of TWO countries. And the French and British and everybody else merely looked on, their very postures and facial expressions spelling disapproval. Next Hitler demanded, not the whole thing, but just the teeniest little western slice of Czechoslovakia where the inhabitants, after all, spoke his language. The western democracies said, "Okay, as long as that's the end of it." Hitler praised them for their statesmanship and then proceeded to swallow ALL of Czechoslovakia in a single day. Now he was up to three countries. Need we go on, into World War II? Comic Henny Youngman mentioned World War II at a Hollywood party in the late 1970s. A pretty blond starlet blinked her eyelashes and asked, "World War II?" Henny broke the embarrassed silence by saying, "Yes, Baby, you remember World War II. It was in all the papers!" We know that there are two kinds of tumors – malignant and benign. That exact analogy also holds for global affairs. First-year medical students learn how to look at cells under microscopes and distinguish instantly between malignant and benign. You and I don't need much training to distinguish between malignant versus benign dictatorships. Francisco Franco of Spain was a dictator, no denying it. Franco ran Spain like a Coney Island concession. However, at no point did Franco show any interest in or appetite for a single square inch of land OUTSIDE Spain. Neither did his neighboring dictator, Salazar of Portugal, seek territorial aggrandizement outside the borders of Portugal. Alfredo Strossner was the strongman of Paraguay for many decades, but at no point did he menace an acre of neighboring territory. There are many others, but you don't hear about them. Benign tumors don't make medical headlines, and neither do benign dictatorships. Hitler, however, was the poster boy for totalitarian malignancy. The question, then, is not so much whether a dictator is large or small, weak or strong, but rather whether he is malignant or benign. Saddam Hussein is a malignancy. He has invaded two of his neighbors, bombed three others with Scud missiles, and used chemical and biological weapons against his own Iraqi citizens. Hussein did his damnedest to get the nuclear bomb, an aspiration which almost surely would have succeeded by the mid-1980s if it hadn't been foiled by an (insufficiently praised) Israeli air strike on his (French-built) nuclear facility in 1981! It is now time to forget about President Bush's grammar, Bush and Cheney's oil connections, the slander about America's lust for "oil conquest," allegations that Bush is trying to give us a cheap victory so we'll forget about a sagging economy, and how eager Pentagon warriors are to try out their smart new superweapons. Ask instead: In the post-9/11 world, if Saddam Hussein remains in power and succeeds in producing God-awful weapons, will he – or will he not – hand off those weapons to those willing to commit suicide in order to kill Americans in our homeland and elsewhere? I say yes, he will – so get rid of him! Whosoever believes that the mere display of American force will inspire Saddam Hussein to come to his senses is confessing that he's already taken leave of his own. A lot of people, from the Security Council to the mobs on the streets of the world, seem to believe that every housefly is really just looking for a way out! They fail to understand or believe this kind of malignancy. Are they whimsical, naive, stupid, cowardly or simply anti-American enough to deodorize Saddam Hussein? Who knows. One opponent of Bush's policy whose honesty wins my approval is my daughter, who said, "Daddy, I don't think we ought to go in even if we ought to go in!" The display of pro-Saddam feeling, even though presented as "anti-war" feeling, is beyond depressing. It sickens the soul attached to a brain that remembers Munich. The trouble with "experience" is that the final exam comes before the lesson. But some of us remember this lesson from 1939; we've saved our notes. We're the ones who don't need the multi-count indictments from Secretary of State Colin Powell bouncing off the consciences of a willfully deaf Security Council. We're the ones who realize that malignancy is to be exorcised, not compromised with. We're the ones who say, "Do humanity a favor and rid the world of that tyrant now!" Explain, please, why a malignant dictator who's small should be allowed to grow large, or why one who is weak should be allowed to grow strong. And how dare we feel the need to audition our cause before the United Nations. Who, please, has defended more freedom, punished more aggressors and liberated more innocents – the United States of America or the United Nations? Do it! And don't do it with equivocation and apology. Do it affirmatively, forthrightly and proudly. If we'd done it in 1939, the name "Hitler" would be no better known today than the names Pilsudski and Metaxas. No bells ringing? They were the BENIGN dictators of Poland and Greece at the same time. Imagine, just imagine! What if a malignant, aggressive dictator were smashed and removed before he could unleash terror weapons upon any more innocent peoples! What if? In fact, that's too good for "What if?" That's good enough for "I have a dream!" Barry Farber
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Why don't liberals "get it?"
They have sick souls.
Undoubtedly, they faithfully listen to NPR (national propaganda radio) like all of my liberal friends. Yesterday the liberal NPR-ophytes were quick to mention how our initial attack failed to get Saddam. Since all of my prior attempts at persuading them to try an alternate news source have failed, I refused to respond to this particular, liberal "bait-of-the-day".
I've tried convincing myself that if a terrorist attacked my liberale' friends directly that they would finally "get it". However, I suspect that years of indoctrination (via NPR, et. al.) have completely convoluted their logic systems. Any survivors of such an attack would search for the external, environmental influences that drove the "poor, helpless individuals" {a.k.a. - murderous terrorists} to commit the act. Furthermore, my liberale' friends would not see it as a crime against them; but a mere "cry for help" or "______" (fill in the blank with one of the countless liberal gobbledy-gook excuses for evil behavior).
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