While CNN this morning has a headline implying that Bush is offering tongue to the Saudi King to get oil prices down, there is one other historical piece of illogic that has too often shaped U.S. foreign policy and is clearly winning what little mind George Bush has.
It’s always Munich 1938 for Bush and his kind and they are always Churchill and the rest of us are always Chamberlain. Someone else, whatever the convenient target is, is Hitler.
For years, it was the Soviets. And though they had their own criminalities they could be excoriated with, it was easy to call anyone in favor of dealing with them as an "Appeaser"; then it was Mao; then it was Ho Chi Minh; Castro; Khomeini and Iran; the Sandinistas; Saddam; Chavez; and now it is back to Iran again. So many faux Hitlers so little facts.
Poor Chamberlain, let his foolish ghost rest in peace, and stop making the most powerful country on earth, the U.S., into the Sudetenland.
But time after time the rhetoric goes there. And again on his latest awkward trip overseas, the alleged history major Bush and his black and white, pop history, version of the world came on full bore and should scare us shitless.
There are two key moments when this incredibly insipid and dangerous predeliction was exposed and I am hardly the first one to note it.
First, Bush brings up the thought to Condi Rice "we should have bombed Auschwitz" as if this thought never occurred and was never debated at during the Second World War. There are, of course, a myriad number of reasons this did not occur, from the fact it would be ineffective — the Germans weren’t above killing people in mass shootings (Baba Yar ring a bell?) to the fact it would have been incredibly difficult for much of the war to pull off. Whether it was the camp itself or railways such bombing by B-24s or B-17s would have been quite difficult, risky, and likely ineffective. It is a debate that has been engaged in countless times, but ultimately in the manner in which Bush made it, comes down as an accusation at Franklin Roosevelt and the usually sainted Churchill (or even Eisenhower) who as war leaders Bush is a tragically laughable shadow.
Second, Bush’s even more worrisome and bizarre statement to Ehud Olmert (who is even less popular in Israel than Bush is here) that the President of the United States is disowning his own intelligence services for that of Israel’s because the latter gives him the Iranian intelligence he WANTS to believe — that Iran equals Nazi Germany 1938 (or in Jonah Goldberg’s World: Berkeley, California 2008).
Added together, with just over one year left in his presidency, with the moronic yelps of how "victory" has been achieved in Iraq (victory apparently then takes at least a decade off), one starts to realize that Bush has resurrecting Chamberlain’s ghost one more time and Iran is the Rail Depot to Auschwitz of his fevered dreams.
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Yeah but the chimp is such a prude, he just used his tongue to lick the bottom of all the Sauds boots.
Mornin’, Attaturk & moondancer -
The usual early crew must be sleepin’ in today….*g*
“A joke is a very serious thing.” –Winston Churchill
I’ve often thought that George Bush has been running a private joke on the public for the last decade and a half. After all, he famously quipped that “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones to concentrate on.” It’s clear from the Bush Dyslexicon that some serious writing effort went into some of his zingers…
My tastes run to a more refined era, when the aristocracy ruled in Britain and a certain style of icy repartee ruled the world…
A lady who was known as Churchill’s main rival in parliament was giving a speech. Churchill, with his usual enthusiasm for his rival, dozed off while the lady was speaking. She stopped her speech and awoke Sir Winston by yelling, “Mr. Churchill, must you sleep while I talk?” Churchill sleepily replied, “No, ma’am. I do so purely by choice.”
***
Winston did have his tiffs with the toffs…
< *> Lady Astor to Churchill “Winston, if you were my husband I would flavour your coffee with poison”
Churchill: “Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it”
< *>On Clement Atlee: “A modest man, who has much to be modest about.”
And finally, Churchill on Chamberlain: “He looked at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe”
For no known reason, I always ’specially loved that Astor v. Churchill story.
NOTICE: New Currency To Be Issued In America, Prepare To Disgorge Your Standing Liberties Immediately!
Mornin, at risk of going OT here’s a couple of pics of Lil Bit
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill
Now that is hard to argue with!
Actually Iran should be up there in your list Attaturk at the beginning as well, remember Mossadeq in 1953 and 1954?
Also Rayduray @3 the Churchill quip on Atlee was before Atlee thumped him at the next General Election, and brought us in the UK the National Health Service. And who told you Churchill wasn’t a toff? Compared with Atlee he was way up the toff scale.
Atlee wasn’t exactly sittin’ on his ass during WWII either. It was Atlee that was at the lead of forging a National Unity Government and bringing about the downfall of Chamberlain and making Chamberlain PM. Atlee was the #2 man in the Unity Government throughout the war. A fact not lost on the British voter but totally lost to American history.
Re:
Perhaps I misspoke.
Howzabout “brawls with his brethren bespoke”?
Good morning Attaturk and firepups.
As long as we’re dropping Churchill quotes this morning, I’ve always found this one fascinating.
To Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons, after the Munich accords (1938):
Re:
They teach history in America? Who knew?
Oh, thank you for remembering!
She’s a cutie! Where did the Bohdi meet the alpaca? And that one-eyed squint is a hoot.
Attaturk @10 2nd Chamberlain a Churchill?
Our organic farmer buddy has a Llama and and Alpaca check the VID
Billboard’s #1 hit in 1685.
Good morning, pups. It’s Bobo and Herbert in the Times. Bobo says all the rhetorical devices that have been a staple of identity politics are now being exploited by the Clinton and Obama campaigns against each other. Mr. Herbert says with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s win in New Hampshire, gender issues are suddenly in the news. He wonders where everybody has been.
http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/
There is also speculation about whether that business in the Gulf of Hormuz with the Iranians and the navy may have been a hoax.
The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I over-bought bananas so today we have banana bread with pecans. Have a great day.
Hey Marion
KO said last night that the “attack” was by the “minnow” and the voice was a well known Gulf marine heckler.
Dial-up =
VID:-( but thankee anyway.Ray @ 5 -
That linky must be vid b/c it never did load….but the comments were rather fun. *g*
Hi Marion,
Care for a little carioca with that cocoa?
Darn! My man had the kids line up with food in their hands and go “honk honk honk” and the Llama came and ate the food out of their hands. Bohdi and butterbean were into their herding act!
Ding
Re:
That’s right. The site is called Blip.TV.
So, you got the ‘lil ‘puter on the prairie’ syndrome going? Are you out in the sticks? If not, then there’s some new WiFi technology that’s dirt cheap and well worth looking into.
Alas, I got a 404 page not found…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related
found your list with the help of sleuthy selise. google searching was more productive than using the internal search engine.
g’morning all. no lake-dipping today. only half way to meeting the deadline and doing so–12 straight hours of typing– has woken up an old shoulder hurt, so this is the last walking my fingers will do (remember the advdert anyone?) toward the lake. tell raven there is a note from me to him on a yesterday p.m. re puppy.
be good to each other. but don’t forget the snark.
talk virtual breakfast with ya when recovered from subject of @27
What up BSRH!
O/T: I had been taking a break from this blog and to the best I can, all news about the campaign. That’s in its second day. I’m back now because there is some good news.
There is a proposed constitutional amendment to the state constitution here which would ban gay marriage. Its proponents had announced they had the signatures, submitted them and it was on the ballot. That was being accepted and reported as fact. Today it’s reported that, in fact, they are about 20,000 signatures short. Technically, there’s still time for them to make but it’s only 17 days. I’m sure they’ll be back but for now, it’s good news. Especially in a presidential election year. Supposedly, the evangelicals are luke-warm to most R candidates. Stuff like that proposed amendment brings out the JF’s out of te woodwork and while they were at the polls a lot of them would have voted R anyway. Here’s a link. I hope I did it right.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com…..6164.story
One quote struck me: One of the leaders of the petition drive said: “We are at the mercy of the professionalism and the competence of the elections officials.” Um, this is Florida, man. You’re fucked.
Given that the printed word/pix that don’t move can still be found at abc/msnbc/et al sites, one never knows until the click…which is why it’s really kind when people give ya a heads-up. The “sticks” it is, plus I have this weird commitment to our regional independent ISP….they were here for us when nobody else was and have contributed a great deal to progressive principles/activities in the area as well.
Thanks for the working linky! That was fun — and helped to get me moving this morning!
Bobo Brooks with his usual tripe:
I just left this on a previous thread but will copy here since it’s sort of related, and I’m guessing some here will beg to differ:
Huh?
Obama’s playing the dirty tricks?
I see this exactly the opposite. Since Iowa, Team Clinton has been on constant attack mode toward Obama. Is he supposed to just keep his mouth shut and not respond to these constant insults? He hasn’t been perfect, but for the most part Obama has not instigated a thing. I wish he’d play tougher, but I think he’s trying to win on ideas and show you can succeed in politics without playing the same old game, which the Clintons are doing.
For instance, Hillary’s claim that Obama’s “NH Chair is a lobbyist” is sort of true, since the dude is registered with the state of NH. But the guy is one of four NH Chairs (one of four in one small state), and this does not violate Obama’s pledge, which was about Federal lobbyists. Personally, I wish Obama would’ve pointed out the extremely odious people working on her behalf, like her CAMPAIGN MANAGER Mark Penn, who is a registered Federal lobbyist for Blackwater, among many other truly disgusting companies.
Is this Hillary’s idea of “keeping it about the issues?”
I read the supposed “Obama memo” on that HuffPo link, and what was the problem with that? They made no mention of race at all, and was just direct responses to Clinton insults, which were quoted with context, and the only mention of race was from quotes by Donna Brazile. a Clinton lackey. Who’s stoking racial flames? Not to mention it’s from a SC Press Sec. I’ve been a local “campaign manager,” and much of what’s done on a state and local level is done autonomously and not controlled by the National. Sure, they’ll send things for you and action plans from time to time, but in my experience, you’re able to do a lot on your own.
Anti-Clinton press? Please. All we’ve been hearing from approx 1999 is how Hillary is “unbeatable” and “inevitable.” The other Dem candidates have had to chip away at the name recognition and media manufactured persona, and as we’re seeing when it gets down to nitty gritty time, Hillary doesn’t pass the test and is more of politics as usual, which we’ve all been bitching about for years. I can’t understand why other Liberals are supporting these actions from Team Clinton. Plus, even around here, the overwhelming amount of the talk has been about race/gender spats (ALL created by Team Clinton), and very little about the candidate’s proposals. Do you know about Obama’s plan to utilize the Internet and new technologies to make government much more transparent than ever in history? Do you know about his plan for reducing lobbyist influence? Not everything is perfect from Obama, even Paul Krugman will say his plans are going in the right direction.
http://venturebeat.com/2007/11…..y-officer/
Instead, we know every little detail about every supporter of every campaign says at any moment of time, and we’re parsing she said/he said arguments. More politics as usual. It’s the only game the Clintons know.
Here’s a guy that gets himself into this position all on his own, overcoming huge societal barriers in the process, and if elected will be one of the great American success stories, and for the most part never compromising his integrity (This Rezko land deal is Whitewater all over again, only on a much, much smaller scale). I’d say he probably knows what he’s doing.
the real thing I think you’re missing attaturk is that bush is more closely aligned with hitler then the saviors from hitler
unprovoked attack, pillaging of nations, demonizing innocents, inventing threats that never existed, relying on fear, war monguering, creating shadow army, (brown shirts/blackwater), shadow government, the fear of torture, secret prisons, jailing people and torturing them for no reason, suspending all law as it applies to him.
Good Morning!
ON WASHINGTON JOURNAL
Tuesday, January 15
7:30am – Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin (D), National Popular Vote Bill Sponsor
8am – Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA): 33rd District, Oversight & Government Reform Committee, Member
8:30am – Student Call-In from Lake Braddock Secondary School
8:30am – Jim McTague, Barrons Financial Weekly, Washington Editor
Do you think this is “keeping it about the issues?”
Why would the Allies even consider bombing Auschwitz? Wouldn’t that be defeating the purpose and kill not Germans, but Jews?
It’s keeping it about the tissues when I read the newspapers. Pass the kleenex.
Good morning pups!
thanks for asking.
intimations of old frozen shoulder redux. referred pain down rest of arm. ice no help. next home grown PT. should work.
promised myself this is the last of the one-fingered typing for today. unless Impeachment or resignation or inherent contempt occurs, I’ll be gone or only lurking.
have fun. a pet to the pup.
Of course not. That’s why the official Obama campaign said this:
I’m voting for Edwards at the moment. I do think it’s been unfair to lump Obama HIMSELF and the actual campaign people he controls in with the negative campaigning Hillary HERSELF and Bill HIMSELF have been doing. Obama has been displaying a refreshing approach to campaigning.
Now if he’s the nom, I hope he goes maddog on the Repubes.
(((((BlueState)))))—
We’ll rant on your behalf, ok? Hope you’re feeling better soon.
Dang, maybe we need voice recognition software.
Well, let’s hope that the media finally sit up and realize that John Edwards is actually a candidate… (fat chance, alas). I do believe he would be the most effective candidate, and the only one to go, as needs to be done, “maddog on the Repubes.” Go, John!
oh, they know he’s a candidate, they are doing whatever is possible to keep him from the ballot
Good Morning everyone. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Andrea Mitchell mention Edwards on Morning Joe just now. She showed the latest polling with a virtual 3-way dead heat in Nevada. Said Edwards has a lot of support from labor. I know….shocking.
Good Morning, Firepups!
It’s cool and cloudy in central Jersey this morning, with some showers in the forecast. I suppose it’s too much to hope that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will announce that they do not condone attacks made by their supporters (including a certain former president). I think Obama has shown much more forebearance in the face of attacks, and Camp Hillary has engaged in much more egregious namecalling [kudos to him, and shame on her]. Retail politics is coming to a fast close, and with the February 5 primaries looming ahead, everyone seems to want to land as many punches as possible now.
I’ve got more coffee and hot water for tea, and a big batch of houseblend granola [lots of extra fiber, flaxseed, dried cranberries, dried cherries, and sliced almonds–yum!), along with a bowl of yogurt. Help yourselves.
Work for peace, every day.
On Topic-I see Bush is offering weapons to the Saudis to
fightdefend themselves against Iran. Have the Saudis ever waged war?You’re probably right that Edwards will be the ATTACKKKKKK!!!! dog of the two. If it’s Obama, I worry about all the can’t we all just get along talk, and let’s put this national nightmare behind us stuff, when we need to bury the neocons once and for all. Otherwise, they’ll just lay low until they get another chance.
O/t – Love the header AB put on this one:
Merrill Lynch, Citigroup & Countrywide CEOs invited to Congress
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1041
I think the only war they’ve fought was the War on Christmas(TM).
Prezeedent Shithead thinks there were “smart” weapons in 44-45.
Great.
Poppy, for Christ’s sake. How can you live with yourself?
Not as a nation. But of course SA has largely a tribal society. I’m sure they’ve had their share of internecine strife.
Bush thinks that wishing it makes it so.
live with himself?
I’ve heard him defend everything his son has done as president
don’t forget, he’s the man that was responsible for Iran contra, bush was already ravaged by altzeimers disease and bush was the acting president at the time
he’s as deadly as his son
I wish Bush would think
Not that I’m aware of, but it is one of their favorite exports.
Progressives should be prepared that the last year of the bush regime will be totally liberating for the immature, petulant dolt residing in the White House. As indicated in the latest effort to lock the US into long term commitments in Iraq, the final devastating year of bush will be tantamount to a year of “wilding”, with the brat boy-king having an orgy ‘sticking it in the eye’ at every opportunity of every American not in lockstep with his deluded anti-American fantasies of his own omnipotence.
Progressives should be bracing for outrage the likes of which are unimaginable and that will make the previous 7 years outrage of anti-America, anti rule of law and constitution shredding look like a minor dust-up. This year will be the most dangerous destructive year in terms of loss of American values in the history of the US.
.
we’ve got them beat
Re:
Pretty continuously for about 3,000 years.
Which reminds me of the question:
Q: Why are academic disputes so heated and vitriolic?
A: Because there is so little at stake.
What for ?
Bush continues to offer our own kids as Proxies.
no shit. i thought the issue was about bombing the train tracks to auschwitz?
BSRH – hope the shoulder is better soon, good luck with the writing.
An aside, as I hear that Condi has taken a side trip over to Baghdad. Is she house hunting? Since she likes the country to much maybe she can just stay there. Please.
Attaturk is upstairs with a new post.
Not since the tribal days of Lawrence of Arabia and Aquaba.
right. issue was to bomb the rail tracks or now. DC Holocaust Museum has section devoted to question. shoulder pain receding. thanks for good wishes. back to work.
or not, not or now. one finger typing stinks.
Any chance Bush is aware that Chamberlain was a Tory party leader, said party being soft on Fascism just like the Republican party at the same time?
The reason Churchill, who had an ugly authoritarian streak of his own, made a good national unity leader for Britain was because he had been anti-fascist in the 1930s, willing to side with the socialists and social liberals instead of hewing o the politically correct position of the rest of the British Conservatives.
The week before the Munich Conference, Prescott Bush’s firm (BBH) provided the letter of credit that transferred 500 tons of Tetra Ethyl Lead from Britain to Nazi Germany, in violation of British Law.
While Chamberlin was trying to prevent or postpone war, Prescott Bush was selling WMDs to Hitler. TEL was vital for high octane gasoline — no TEL, no Luftwaffe, no Blitzkrieg.
Of course, the Bushies always loved them some Hitler — that’s why George Herbert Walker funded Hitler in the 1920s when he was a beer hall bully, and Prescott helped smuggle Nazis out of Europe after the war.
American nationalism and the feeling that we should not get involved in the affairs of Europe is what made the League of Nations crumble.
From the void of world leadership structures arose stronger nationalist brand identities of fascism.
Republicans in America actually backed the Nazis as an answer to emerging socialism or communism. Germany and its neighboring buffer states were seen as a hedge to communist Russia.
Chamberlain really doesn’t fit any of the comparison models today. Everyone is interventionist. Churchill himself was an interventionist, until he lost a war in Iraq between the world wars and came back hurting. Winston’s gratuities from BP oil and their manipulation in Egypt and Saudi Arabia soothed his hurting venture capitalist ambitions at the time…
Gillard used to look at Iraq through the spectrum of his own familiar love for history, the ghost of Churchill and Halliburton stirred in its wake.
Would have to be a Daytime Mission to hit railways tracks, outside the range of fighter support. It would have resulted in major aircraft losses, if before 1944 at a time when every aircraft was needed for D-Day or support for the invasion of Western Europe…if after, then it would have been at a loss for the push to Berlin.
It would have been really only feasible at the very end of the push to Berlin, when the US and Britain did bomb sites in Poland and Eastern Germany in support of Soviet troops. Even this was controversial as it likely allowed the Soviets to gobble up territory faster and may have actually resulted in the US push to Berlin to slow. By then the trains were not bringing new prisoners in. And bombing the camps? No one knew what was going on in terms of mass executions…the Germans had started forced marching many of the prisoners towards Berlin at that time. Would a week of bombing saved or killed more prisoners with the Russians coming on the camps so quickly?
Hard to measure the cost-benefits, and in the fog-of-war it was even harder..for Bush and Condi to try to make points on what “they” would have done in terms of events that happened when they were children (Rice wasn’t even born!) is absurd.
Maybe Bush should revisit all the other things that “If I had been President when…”
“I would have attacked Japan before the “Rape of Shanghai”, “I would have pushed for the development of the atomic bomb in 1932…that would have stopped Hitler in his tracks!”, and “I would have made sure Congress freed the slaves when the Constitution was originally drafted! It would have stopped the Civil War!”
It’s a good way to shine the sh*t of his own record, I guess.