End these bogus parallels. We are fighting no Nazis now

[laststeamtrain]

End these bogus parallels. We are fighting no Nazis now

Any attempt to equate the war in Afghanistan with the great conflicts of the 20th century is a gross misuse of history

Simon Jenkins
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 20.30 BST

We are awash in history. This week the Poles again climb on stage, as they do each time anniversary journalism returns to the second world war. It is 70 years since German ships bombarded the fort of Gdansk, then known as the free city of Danzig, while Polish lancers turned their horses to face Hitler's Panzers in the most romantic and idiotic act of suicide of modern war. Last month we heard the fell tones of Chamberlain announcing: "We are at war with Germany." Next spring we shall be back in Dunkirk.

Meanwhile we must also take time off to record the 40th anniversary of Gadaffi of Libya, the 30th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fifth of the Beslan massacre. While gazing at the calendar we might recall the 40th anniversary of vasectomy, the 50th of the M1 motorway, the 60th of the chairmanship of Mao, the 80th of the traffic light and the centenary of the force-feeding of suffragettes. There is no end to the trough of history at which hungry readers can feed.

History always arrives with its raucous child, lessons to be learned. Today the glib linking of any passing dictator with Adolf Hitler continues to pollute analysis of international relations. It is impossible to write against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the so-called war on terror without being accused of guilt by association with 1930s appeasement – usually by Americans, who were the most serious appeasers of all.

The idea that questioning any military adventure, however ill-advised, must be a re-enactment of Chamberlain at Munich is worse than an abuse of history. It is an offence against the millions who died in Europe and Asia in the terrible years before, during and after the second world war. To put the war on terror in the same historical basket as the war against Nazism is like equating a single terrorist bomb to Hiroshima. Yet it is leading thousands of soldiers and civilians to their deaths, on the pretext that "western civilisation" is being threatened in the sense that it was in 1939.

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History is not bunk. It is a glorious seam of human experience from which leaders can seek guidance on their present conduct. But its parallels are never exact and are easy to distort, while its lessons are quarrelsome. Today we are not, anywhere, retreading the same foothills as we did on the outbreak of the second world war. If that is the best parallel we can draw to illustrate our discontents, we should ban history from public debate.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/01/afghanistan-war-on-terror-history

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Maybe, but it's easy to see how Hitler is where uncontrolled right wingerism leads

And actually, there are so many parallels that can be drawn between basic Nazi ideology, from a disdain for the helpless, to an obsessive love of war, to the use of patriotism and patriotic symbols to manipulate, etc. etc.

[Laelth]

2. Excellent essay. Recommended. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Doctor_J]

3. Speak for yourself, Sir

We are fighting Nazis here. And we have a lot more to fear from the GOP than from the Taliban or Al Qaeda

[paulsby]

4. the taliban are not the nazis, but damn close

they want to WIPE OUT ALL NON-MUSLIMS. from the face of the earth.

they don;t have the war maching that nazi germany had (thank god), but their ideology is at least as dangerous as the nazi's.

bin laden himself said it best. his is a culture that worships death, not life.