Fuehrer Bush

While selling his attack on Iraq, Bush often draws an analogy with Hitler's Germany. He likens the threatposed to the world by Saddam today to the threat posed by Hitler in the mid 30s. The point that he tries tomake is that it would cost the world much more to tackle Saddam later if he is not tackled now, just as itwould have been less wasteful to stop Hitler when he just began his aggressions over Eastern Europe. While theanalogy between Saddam and Hitler may be laughable, it is instructive, though frightening, to draw an analogybetween Bush and Hitler and the threats posed by them to other nations and to world peace. 

There is no comparison between the absolute and relative, offensive and destructive military power inHitler's arsenal and that available to Bush today. The US has more than 50% of the world's military hardwareincluding more than 10,000 nuclear weapons and enormous quantities of chemical and biological weapons. It candestroy the planet many times over and render it unfit for any form of life. It spends more on offensivemilitary hardware than all the rest of the world put together.

Compared to the military arsenal of the US today, Germany's under Hitler was nothing. The lack of respectof the US for international law is evident not only in the number of occasions that it has engaged inunilateral overt military aggression over countries during the last 50 years, (China, Korea, Guatemala,Indonesia, Cuba, Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq,Bosnia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan) but also from the number of occasions that it has vetoed unanimousSecurity Council resolutions which were passed to make Israel comply with international law.

This lack of respect for international norms of civilized behaviour (which prompts Chomsky to call it aRogue State) is most clearly evident in not just the refusal to sign the charter of the International CriminalCourt but in its active campaign to torpedo it. Any doubt whatsoever about the willingness of Bush to trampleupon all norms of international law, should have been dispelled by the manner in which Bush has beenproclaiming his contempt for the United Nations. He has even hinted that if the UN does not back his plans toattack Iraq, it would become irrelevant and he might form a parallel international body with those who arewilling to support him -"the coalition of the willing". 

It is obvious by now that the real objective of the attack on Iraq is not to stop Saddam from acquiring andusing weapons of mass destruction, nor even to change the regime in Iraq.  The real objectives have to dowith securing and controlling Iraq's oil, which has the second-largest reserves in the world, and indeed toacquire strategic control of the entire Middle East.

From the belligerence and arrogance exhibited by Bush and his top advisers, such as the Defence SecretaryRumsfeld, the White House spokesman Ari Fliescher, the National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, the UnderSecretary of State Wolfowitz and others, it appears that the objective is also to generate fear among othercountries that the US would be willing to use its military might against nations which cross its path.

The recently tested sub nuclear "mother of all bombs (MOAB)" by the US, and the open threat touse it, along with nuclear tipped deep penetration missiles, against Iraq, is not just designed to scare Iraqinto submission, but also to put other countries to notice that the US will not hesitate to use weapons ofmass genocide against countries which do not toe its line. 

The US diplomacy in trying to bring around small-undecided nations to support its resolution to attack Iraqhas been marked by threats and blandishments. The blandishments held out are a piece of the pie of thepost-war reconstruction of Iraq.  Imagine the sheer brazenness of it all.  "Allow us to destroyIraq", says Bush, "and we will give you multimillion-dollar contracts for rebuilding what we wouldhave destroyed". An invitation for a veritable feast of vultures! 

A subsidiary of Halliburton, a scam tainted company of which Cheney was the Chief Executive Officer for sixyears till he became vice president, has already been short listed by the US Agency for InternationalDevelopment for $900 million contracts to control oil fires in post-war Iraq.  It may be noted thatHalliburton was the largest contractor for the reconstruction of Kuwait after the first Gulf War. 

Dick Cheney made more than $25 million from this company during this time, and continues to hold stockoptions in it and receives a million a year from the company even now. The connections of Bush and his menwith oil and arms companies are well known.  These are the two industries, which hope to gain enormouslyfrom the war being planned by Bush. Thus the personal vested interest that Bush and his men have in this waris more than Hitler ever had in the wars that he planned. 

But, it may be objected, that it would be unfair to compare Bush with Hitler, since Bush leads a democraticcountry, while Hitler had established a dictatorship.  But even Hitler had come to power through ademocratic election.  It was only thereafter, that he used the Reichstag fire and the demonising of theJews to generate mass hysteria and acquire absolute power.  Hasn't Bush also used the events of September11 to carefully orchestrate his "war on terror" to generate the same kind of hysteria?

He has used that hysteria to get the Congress to abdicate and cede many of its powers to him, particularlythe all-important power of permitting attack on other countries under the cover of this war on terror. He haseven got several draconian laws passed, including the infamous Patriot Act, which is being used to erode civilliberties and gradually take the US on the path of a Police State.

Several thousand persons have been imprisoned by the government since September 11 without charges andwithout trial.  Several thousand others are being held in inhuman conditions in Guantanamo Bay withouttrial.  Even though the US government holds them, the US courts have held that they have no jurisdictionto entertain petitions on behalf of such prisoners.  The mass media in the US is so tightly controlled bybig business and influenced by the oil/arms lobby, that even it has not been much of a sobering influence onthe hawks that are ruling the country today.

An analysis of the editorials of all the major newspapers of the US in the last six months shows that morethan 90 percent have supported the aggression against Iraq.

Thus from every objective standard, Bush today poses a much greater potential threat to world peace andthose countries which do not toe his line, than Hitler ever did. His military arsenal is far bigger and morelethal than any arsenal ever assembled in history. He has displayed an open contempt for the United Nationsand International law and an easy willingness to use unilateral military force to even commit mass genocide byusing weapons of mass destruction to achieve his ends.  He has skillfully generated mass hysteria in thecountry to increase his own power by whittling down the power of the Congress, and eroding civil liberties. His personal commercial interests and those of his men are closely tied to oil and war and he has demonstratedthat he will trample upon all international norms in the pursuit of those interests. 

After he is through with Iraq, what is to prevent him from going after other countries?  Not justIran, Syria and North Korea (which he has called the axis of evil), but even Pakistan, India, (which possessnuclear weapons) and Saudi Arabia, Jordan etc (which have large oil reserves). And why would he not pursuecountries like France, Russia and China thereafter? After all, they too represent potential threats to Bush'sstrategic objective of dominating and controlling the world -- an objective that was quite candidlyarticulated by his men (Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz among others) in a strategic document called"Project for the New American Century".

Thus what Bush has been saying about Saddam is certainly true of him.  He must be stopped now beforeit is too late.  The threatened war on Iraq has laid bare the threat posed by the US as never before. It is time for the entire international community and also the people of the US to come together and confrontthis threat.  The costs of not doing so now would be much greater later.

The writer is a public interest lawyer, Supreme Court of India.