Sunday 16 March 2003History, not Politics, dammit! Excuse my French.
Caterina has been comparing the Bush administration and American people to Nazi Germany. Disgusting. Two weeks ago, a number of Holocaust historians gathered in the Philadelphia hotel where I had then been staying to discuss how existing communities (such as a particular one in Germany) should confront their pasts, tainted with complicity in the Holocaust. Among the watchwords were courage, honesty, and integrity. Caterina, do you believe that your comparison is an apt one? an honest one? do you truly believe that you can say that with complete integrity? I think that both the Holocaust dead and the historians would have begged to differ.16 March is a significant date, one that has a place in history much like our current situation. The Versailles Treaty that placed severe restrictions on Germany died this day, as Hitler told his country that the hated restrictions were to be thrown off in defiance of the Allies and the putative compliance for the last several years was nothing but a sham.
World New York, which limits its comments to registered members, says this:
—American soldiers were only one part of the victory of the two wars, and only part of the liberation of France. Depending upon your source , in World War II, America lost 292,000 soldiers world-wide and few civilians. France, with a much smaller population, lost 210,600 soldiers and 108,000 civilians. In World War I, France lost 1,400,000 men; America 116,000.Who among you will claim that France has not always done its part? Who among you will begrudge them our dead? Or their dead? Those men gave their lives so that you and I could live, not so that we could borrow their glory for our own little jokes to pass around the Internet.
Whether you are for the coming war or against it, you cannot reasonably claim that France has shirked in its duties. It has held up its end, as we have held up ours. That one of our long-standing allies disagrees with us now should give us reason to reconsider our own decisions, not reason to belittle theirs.
You would think, though, that with the French agitating for the Allies to enforce the terms of the Versailles treaty being ignored by Sir John Simon, they would be a bit more sympathetic to the position we hold now. What if Simon had told Germany, “stop producing your U-Boats and your air fleet and your heavy warships,” which were produced with only a token attempt at secrecy? Those hundreds of thousands of people who died in terror and pain would not have died. Millions of Jews, gypsies, gays would not have suffered the privations of the Holocaust. Could a sufficiently weakened Germany have dared cause Russia the deaths they did?
It is exceedingly strange to find that the French, the flower of chivalry and the defender of Europe and the Church from the incursions of the Arabs in Spain, are accused of cowardice. Renaming fries may seem puerile, and really, it is. But feeling that the French government is being hypocritical about the enforcement of the terms of the Iraqi ceasefire—that it’s telling its people self-serving lies to its people in order to cover the extent of their oil and arms industries’ involvement with Iraq—is natural.
The French may have sacrificed their people, but have they learned the lessons of their history, about the price that must be paid for freedom from murderous dictators? So, I guess I begrudge them our dead. If our dead cannot serve as a reminder of the close bonds between our peoples, and the mutual price our peoples paid for freedom, I would fear me they would be now turning in their graves.
It is hard for Americans such as myself to think of a democratic people as separate from their government, as our education in Civics always drums in the dictum, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The French may easily say that they hate our administration, but not our people. For a people who are accustomed to thinking of their government and themselves as one, this may be hard for Americans to reciprocate. So let us spare some compassion for Americans who are outraged by threats to veto an important issue so much like the one that the Allies and the League of Nations failed to enforce sixty-odd years ago. If there is some resentment, let us pray that it is short lived, and our longstanding ties will not be abnegated by the heat of overheated passions.
11:56:25 PM # comment []
End of 100 posts
Felicity has done it: 100 posts in less than twenty-four hours. Congratulations!5:06:58 PM # comment []
100 posts by Felicity at Goliard Dream
Oh, fer cryin’ out loud.
Go, Felicity, go!
2:51:53 PM # comment []
Which Humor Troubles the Disposition of YOUR Body?
[by way of Graham Leuschke]
2:43:19 PM # comment []
The Network:
You are the Voice of World Control.
Fnord.
Which Illuminati are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
[by way of Ron]
2:42:32 PM # comment []
Psychokitty vs. Psychopath
This is Toby Zak, the psychokitty.
She hates evildoers!
Go get ’im, Toby!
[By way of Twirlip of the Mists. The above picture is currently... awaiting permission.
Ron, Brendan Loy, the kitty-photographer, goes to USC.
Do you remember when the dorms were burning Saddam in effigy out the windows? Good times....]
1:42:05 PM # comment []
Copyright 2003 R Allan Baruz
Theme Design by Bryan Bell
