Nation Topics - Hitler | The Nation

The author criticizes documentary filmmaker Errol Morris for failing to take former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to task for his role in the Vietnam War and other alleged abuses of power during interviews for Morris' documentary, "The Fog of War." McNamara survived the 1960s, when he contributed more than most to the slaughter of 3.4 million Vietnamese (his own estimate). He went on to run the World Bank, where he presided over the impoverishment, eviction from their lands and death of many millions more round the world. And now here he is, the star of Errol Morris's much-praised documentary, talking comfortably about the millions of people he's helped to kill. It reminded me of films of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and then head of war production. It's good to have a new generation reminded of history's broad outlines, like the firebombing of Japanese cities and Vietnam, but I don't think Morris laid a glove on McNamara, who should be feeling well pleased. Like Speer, he got away with it yet again. Why did Defense Secretary McNamara overrule all expert review and procurement recommendations and insist that General Dynamics rather than Boeing make the F-111? The Six-Day War? The crucial OK came from McNamara, thus launching Israel's long-planned, aggressive war on Egypt, Jordan and Syria, which led to present disasters. And no, Morris didn't quiz McNamara on Israel's deliberate attack on the US ship Liberty during that war. We have so many sponsors of mass murder hanging around, it would be nice to see one of them, once in a while, take a real pasting., U.s. History -- The Cold War & Societal Change (1945-2000), Mcnamara, Robert, United States -- History -- 1961-1969, Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975, Morris, Errol, Fog Of War, The (film), Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Mass Murder, Israel -- History -- 1967-1993, Political Corruption, United States, Robert Mcnamara, United States -- History -- 1961-1969, Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975, Errol Morris, Fog Of War, The (film), Lyndon Baines Johnson, Mass Murder, Israel -- History -- 1967-1993, Political Corruption

Reviews the book, "Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact," by John Cornwell.

An explosive legal obstacle, currently ignored, lurks beneath the surface of the Iraq war debate--international law likely to ensnare and possibly crumple the American conqueror's grandiose plans to transform the nation it now occupies. Despite what many people, including many Washington officials, seem to believe, the US government is prohibited from simply seizing Iraqi oil revenues and spending the money however it chooses. The obstacle is the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which codified in greater detail the principles of "occupation law" first framed by the Hague Convention of 1907--rules of warfare meant to prevent a military power from plundering a defeated nation or reordering the country (as Hitler repeatedly did) to conform to the conqueror's ideology and economics. Bush may think he can safely blow off international law, as he has before, but once Iraqis have re-established a sovereign government they will be free to sue the US government for damages and reparations. "Occupation law imposes high performance standards on an occupying military power, and liability can arise quickly," David Scheffer, Bill Clinton's former ambassador for war crimes, has warned. Scheffer says that if the United States and Britain had obtained a specific resolution from the United Nations beforehand, spelling out the concrete purposes and justifications for the action, the two would have been relieved of their legal vulnerability.

Provides the author's opinions concerning the war with Iraq and the United States as an imperial power. In the past 200 years, all of the earth's great territorial empires, whether dynastic or colonial, or both, have been destroyed. The list includes the Russian empire of the czars; the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Habsburgs; The German empire of the Hohenzollerns, the Ottoman Empire, the Napoleonic Empire, the overseas empires of Holland, England, France, Belgium, Italy and Japan, Hitler's 'thousand-year Reich' and the Soviet empire. With its takeover of Iraq, the United States is attempting to reverse this universal historical verdict. True, American officials state at every opportunity that they do not intend to occupy Iraq. But then the British in the nineteenth century said the same thing. Two years before the liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone ordered the conquest of Egypt he declared that his heart's desire was an 'Egypt for the Egyptians.' The United States, it turns out, forgot to bring a new government with it when it set out from Kuwait to Baghdad. Before the war began, it was often said that winning the war would be easy and winning the peace hard. With every day that passes, 'the peace' looks more like another war.

According to the author, in the midst of the fiftieth-anniversary observances of World War II, Berlin appears more in need of exorcists than architects and city planners. Political ghosts are everywhere. No city in history has more sinister buildings. Ironically, in a capital where one out of four buildings was destroyed by war, many of those with evil histories survived. In western Berlin there is Plotzensee, the favored execution spot for German resisters, and the Bendlet-Block, the headquarters of the Wehrmacht, where some of the members of participants in the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler were shot and Lieutenant General Ludwig Beck committed suicide.

Presents several politically-related articles. "Tales of Terror," which discussed claims made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan regarding progress being made in efforts to reduce the activities of the death squads in El Salvador; "No Smoke Without Fire," which discussed a fire that destroyed 13,000 square miles of Indonesia; "Springtime and Hitler," which discussed the Hitler diary hoax.

Discusses the emergence of 'Eurofascist' atrocity in Germany, Italy and France. Objective of terroristic activities in Spain; Activities of the Black International, a group of people who are prepared to fight and kill for Hitler's New Order in Europe; Impact of the bomb explosion in the Munich Oktoberfest beer festival.