Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Quest for the Perfect Parallel
Last week, before Reagan's departure to the ultimate "shining city" obliterated all other news coverage, a curious change in rhetoric began sweeping over the political landscape. Whereas Bush and his supporters often likened the fight against terrorism (and therefore Iraq) to fighting "evil", in a general "evil is bad" sort of way, the D-Day anniversary begged for new comparisons to the Second World War. Condi Rice and Donni Rumsfeld stepped up these comparisons earlier this year (especially as it related to reconstruction efforts), and Bush himself has echoed the arguments in recent speeches, including his Air Force Academy address last Wednesday.
Some of the parallels strain credulity, specifically with regards to Rumsfeld's observation that disgruntled post-SS officers caused problems similar to the current Saddam loyalists and Iraqi insurgents -- true to a point, but we're talking about a few isolated incidents in Germany versus almost daily fighting in so-called "post-war" Iraq. Incidents against U.S. forces were rare in Japan, too, although Japan had suffered so much near the end they were more demoralized than angry. (Well, that, and MacArthur's first order was to completely disarm the Japanese populace, so that probably helped, too.)
But many other comparisons end up in Bush's favor. Unlike Germany and Japan, for example, Iraq sits on oil reserves which will provide an enormous amount of wealth for the nation, and make it less dependent on foreign aid than the post-WWII axis. (It also helps that Saddam was deposed with a shocking minimum of collateral damage to the country.) As Minnesota congressman Gil Gutknecht has pointed out, "it took three years to get an independent central bank in Germany. In Iraq, it took two months. It took 14 months to get police established in Germany. In Iraq, it took two months. It took 14 months to get a cabinet in Germany. In Iraq, it took four months." Indeed, the incredible speed and success of this occupation make post-war Germany and Japan seem molasses-slow. Also more than after WWII, despite the pain of the insurgencies, the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly supportive of the U.S. efforts, repeatedly stating than the removal of Saddam was worth any subsequent hardship by a 2 to 1 margin (62% to 30%), and that Iraq will certainly be better off in five years than if the coalition hadn't acted by more than an 8 to 1 margin (67% to 8%). And one can expect those numbers to increase when the governing council has full sovereignty.
All those decrying why we should have the right to "force democracy" on other peoples (how's that for an oxymoron) should find me a person currently living in Japan who hates how it all worked out for them. Theirs was a greater cultural and political shift than is now being tried in Iraq (and had just as many naysayers worldwide claiming the nations' respective peoples just "couldn't culturally adjust" to democracy, which really is quite insulting when you think about it.) The plan for post-war Japan immediately included such foreign concepts as a woman's right to vote, the disarming of the nation's weapons (civilian and military), holding free elections, redistribution of land wealth, forming labor unions, free exercise of religion, open instruction in schools, and tons of other changes similar to what we've done in Iraq and that were if anything a lot more radical for the Japanese. The occupation and interim government of Japan was essentially run by one man, General MacArthur, in many ways much more "unilateral" than anything Bush has done in the past two years (though there was more worldwide support, albeit only vocal.) And this occupation lasted seven years.
Of course, it is easy to point out that, unlike Iraq, Japan did in fact personally attack us, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps an ambitious ludicrosity commenter would say "ah, but these comparisons you make seem more in tune with our invasion, occupation, and rebuilding of Afghanistan, not Iraq." But consider where this argument would logically take you, a la Susan Sarandon: "Iraq didn't attack us on 9-11. Iraq may have been led by a madman bent on world domination, tried exercising too much 'breathing room' and assassinating a world leader, was accumulating more illegal weapons programs in defiance of international law, was brutalizing its own people and committing acts of genocide against the Kurdish people through mass extermination, but they hadn't directly attacked us so it was none of our business." It doesn't take a stretch to word-swap Germany for Iraq, Pearl Harbor for 9-11, and the Jews for the Kurds before you've just talked yourself out of attacking Hitler. Sure, Saddam was more of a 1939 Hitler than a 1943 Hitler, but remember the whole point of this "pre-emption" was that it's better to wage a little war now than suffer through a big war later.
And does anyone really wish we hadn't entered WWII a few years earlier?
Last week, before Reagan's departure to the ultimate "shining city" obliterated all other news coverage, a curious change in rhetoric began sweeping over the political landscape. Whereas Bush and his supporters often likened the fight against terrorism (and therefore Iraq) to fighting "evil", in a general "evil is bad" sort of way, the D-Day anniversary begged for new comparisons to the Second World War. Condi Rice and Donni Rumsfeld stepped up these comparisons earlier this year (especially as it related to reconstruction efforts), and Bush himself has echoed the arguments in recent speeches, including his Air Force Academy address last Wednesday.
Some of the parallels strain credulity, specifically with regards to Rumsfeld's observation that disgruntled post-SS officers caused problems similar to the current Saddam loyalists and Iraqi insurgents -- true to a point, but we're talking about a few isolated incidents in Germany versus almost daily fighting in so-called "post-war" Iraq. Incidents against U.S. forces were rare in Japan, too, although Japan had suffered so much near the end they were more demoralized than angry. (Well, that, and MacArthur's first order was to completely disarm the Japanese populace, so that probably helped, too.)
But many other comparisons end up in Bush's favor. Unlike Germany and Japan, for example, Iraq sits on oil reserves which will provide an enormous amount of wealth for the nation, and make it less dependent on foreign aid than the post-WWII axis. (It also helps that Saddam was deposed with a shocking minimum of collateral damage to the country.) As Minnesota congressman Gil Gutknecht has pointed out, "it took three years to get an independent central bank in Germany. In Iraq, it took two months. It took 14 months to get police established in Germany. In Iraq, it took two months. It took 14 months to get a cabinet in Germany. In Iraq, it took four months." Indeed, the incredible speed and success of this occupation make post-war Germany and Japan seem molasses-slow. Also more than after WWII, despite the pain of the insurgencies, the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly supportive of the U.S. efforts, repeatedly stating than the removal of Saddam was worth any subsequent hardship by a 2 to 1 margin (62% to 30%), and that Iraq will certainly be better off in five years than if the coalition hadn't acted by more than an 8 to 1 margin (67% to 8%). And one can expect those numbers to increase when the governing council has full sovereignty.
All those decrying why we should have the right to "force democracy" on other peoples (how's that for an oxymoron) should find me a person currently living in Japan who hates how it all worked out for them. Theirs was a greater cultural and political shift than is now being tried in Iraq (and had just as many naysayers worldwide claiming the nations' respective peoples just "couldn't culturally adjust" to democracy, which really is quite insulting when you think about it.) The plan for post-war Japan immediately included such foreign concepts as a woman's right to vote, the disarming of the nation's weapons (civilian and military), holding free elections, redistribution of land wealth, forming labor unions, free exercise of religion, open instruction in schools, and tons of other changes similar to what we've done in Iraq and that were if anything a lot more radical for the Japanese. The occupation and interim government of Japan was essentially run by one man, General MacArthur, in many ways much more "unilateral" than anything Bush has done in the past two years (though there was more worldwide support, albeit only vocal.) And this occupation lasted seven years.
Of course, it is easy to point out that, unlike Iraq, Japan did in fact personally attack us, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps an ambitious ludicrosity commenter would say "ah, but these comparisons you make seem more in tune with our invasion, occupation, and rebuilding of Afghanistan, not Iraq." But consider where this argument would logically take you, a la Susan Sarandon: "Iraq didn't attack us on 9-11. Iraq may have been led by a madman bent on world domination, tried exercising too much 'breathing room' and assassinating a world leader, was accumulating more illegal weapons programs in defiance of international law, was brutalizing its own people and committing acts of genocide against the Kurdish people through mass extermination, but they hadn't directly attacked us so it was none of our business." It doesn't take a stretch to word-swap Germany for Iraq, Pearl Harbor for 9-11, and the Jews for the Kurds before you've just talked yourself out of attacking Hitler. Sure, Saddam was more of a 1939 Hitler than a 1943 Hitler, but remember the whole point of this "pre-emption" was that it's better to wage a little war now than suffer through a big war later.
And does anyone really wish we hadn't entered WWII a few years earlier?
