Germany, 1939; America, 2009; And Perverted Science
Sherwood Ross
It has become commonplace for
Congress to ignore the public's yearnings for peace and to support the
Pentagon's now habitual wars of aggression.
Last November's anti-war vote
illustrates this disconnect between public opinion and public policy. War-weary
Americans went to the polls believing they were voting for peace but President
Obama has instead merely shifted the focus of military action from Iraq to
Afghanistan while planning to maintain a major garrison of 50,000 troops in
Iraq, hardly a "withdrawal."
U.S. taxpayers---who already
pay more for wars than the rest of the world combined---are not blood-thirsty.
They didn't want any war against Iraq to begin with and have long preferred
diplomacy to conflict.
In January, 2003, a CBS News/New York Times poll found 63% of
Americans wanted President Bush to find a diplomatic solution to the Iraq
crisis compared with just 31% who wanted to intervene militarily.
This great
cry for peace, not war, arose despite a shower of lies from the White House
that Saddam Hussein threatened America with WMD.
As for Afghanistan, a CNN/Opinion Research
Corp. poll last February, showed 5l% of respondents opposed to the war in Afghanistan, compared to 47% in favor. Yet,
President Obama is plunging ahead against the majority and mindless of the cost
to a tottering domestic economy starved for good jobs, good housing, good
education, good medical care, and good credit.
attitude with President Franklin Roosevelt's careful reading of public opinion
in the Thirties that caused him to go slow even in aiding countries threatened
by Hitler. FDR never did help the embattled Loyalist government in Madrid fight
the insurgent generals led by Franco and their Nazi allies. And he moved slowly
coming to Britain's aid before providing "lend lease" to London. FDR
consistently acted in concert with public opinion, reading the lips of an
"isolationist" public that did not want
to get embroiled in a second European war in 20 years.
and Obama that run contrary to public opinion are not unique to America. This
disconnect between public and presidential desire recalls the opposition of
what likely was a majority of the German people to Hitler in 1939, people who
feared to stand up to Hitler and were led to their doom by their Nazi leaders.
A joke Germans told at the time asked: "Hitler, Goebbels, and Goering were in a
plane that crashed and they were all killed. Who was saved?" The answer:
"Germany."
Germans feared Hitler's aggressiveness would lead to war. Commentator William
Shirer, who covered Germany for CBS, wrote in his "Berlin Diary" on Sept. 27,
1938, that when a motorized column paraded through the streets after a Hitler
speech, Berliners didn't both to watch but crowded into the subways to go home.
They "refused to look on" and "the handful that did at the curb (stood) in
utter silence unable to find a word of cheer for the flower of youth going off
to the glorious war."
stood on his balcony "and there weren't two hundred people in the street or in
the great square of the Wilhelmsplatz. Hitler looked grim, then angry, and soon
went inside, leaving his troops to parade by unreviewed." Two hundred onlookers
in a city of five million souls! Shirer said what he saw rekindled his faith in
the German public because "They are dead set against war." They were right to
be, of course. By the time the war was over, Germany lost 5.5-million men and
1.5-million civilians.
The Pentagon recognizes
Americans today do not want war, and has devised ways to circumvent the
anti-war movement. There are no conscriptions as during Viet Nam. Military recruiters are squeezing every enlistment they can out of low-income and minority communities, targeting youth who couldn't otherwise find jobs. Today's oil wars are being fought partly by
contractors to hold down official military casualties. The Pentagon is also
buying good will by farming out billions in biological warfare research to
colleges and universities.
is as formidable as that faced by the German people of 1939. We have a moral
obligation to stop the Warfare State.
The robot planes now swooping
down on Afghanistan and Pakistan are but crude harbingers of future Pentagon
technology that will employ weapons of increasing sophistication directed by
remote operators seated at surveillance systems like video gamesters. These
operators may employ a variety of ever more lethal and/or incapacitating
weapons---ranging from guided missiles to tungsten poles hurled down from space
platforms at supersonic speeds to destroy victims. Moreover, the Pentagon is
pouring over a trillion dollars into new research to refine its sophisticated
killing systems. And what may be used on foreigners, may also be used on
Americans.
Thus it has come to pass that
the nation that gave the world such brilliant inventions as the electric light,
airplane, phonograph, telegraph, movies, automobile assembly line, and
telephone(all developed at private expense by private enterprise) now sags under the weight of a government war
machine that pays fine scientific minds to work at the Devil's Bench. In his
famous address of June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill denouncing Hitler spoke
words that sadly apply to America's Pentagon today: "But if we fail, then the
whole world...will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister...by
the lights of a perverted science."
stop the Pentagon war machine, like the German public before them under
Hitler they will bear a heavy responsibility for the ensuing calamities caused
by their inaction. #
(Sherwood Ross is a
Miami-based public relations consultant for non-profits who formerly worked for
the Chicago Daily News and wire services. To contact him or contribute to his
Anti-War News Service: sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)
Author's Bio: Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for Chicago; as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and workplace columnist for Reuters. He has also been a media consultant to colleges, law schools, labor unions, and to the editors of more than 100 national magazines. A civil rights activist, he was News Director for the National Urban League, a talk show host at WOL Radio, Washington, D.C., and holds an award for "best spot news coverage" for Chicago radio stations for civil rights reporting. He is the author "Gruening of Alaska,"(Best Books)and several plays about Japan during World War II, including "Baron Jiro," and "Yamamoto's Decision," read at the National Press Club, where he is a member. His favorite quotations are from the Sermon on The Mount.