Ford’s veto?

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday’s post of mine was linked at Dean Esmay, and my old friend mikeca wrote a critique in the comments section there.

I’ve already debated mikeca’s viewpoint about whether or not the South Vietnamese ARVN might have held off against the North if our support had continued, here, so there’s no need to take that question up again. But I was intrigued by his assertion that Ford did not veto the late-1974 bill that pulled the financial plug on the ARVN.

It’s an interesting question, although not an especially important one, because I’m actually in agreement with mikeca’s contention that it was not only the Democrats who were for abandoning Vietnam; some Republican members of Congress were in favor of it, as well. Ford, only a few months into his unelected Presidency, most definitely didn’t have the stomach necessary for the fight, either. He saw his mission as a healing, uniting one, although he himself would have preferred the funding continue.

I went to the links mikeca gives on the subject, as well as doing a number of new searches of my own, and it’s still not clear what actually happened. There’s no question the funding was cut substantially, and that what was appropriated was woefully inadequate, and that this led to the unraveling of the morale and the fighting ability of the ARVN, as well as the opposite for the North–a conviction, quite correct, that they would now be able to achieve their goal of conquering the South, which occurred in short order.

But the rest of the details are murky. I got my original information that Ford had vetoed the bill from Wikipedia (see under the heading “South Vietnam Stand Alone, 1974-1975”), but no source was given there, nor could I find one.

Vietnam timelines state that the fund cuttoff occurred in Congress in September of 1974, which would have been a month after Nixon’s Watergate-inspired resignation. And yet Ford’s signing statement for the bill, which mikeca links to, occurred on December 30, 1974.

If I were more familiar with how long it ordinarily takes bills to go from passage to signing, I’d be more able to analyze what the four-month delay might have meant. One possibility, however, is that the bill was indeed initially vetoed by Ford and then overridden, and that he signed it after the override. That’s mere speculation, however; I could find nothing else on the subject other than assertions such as that in Wikipedia that there had been a veto, without citations or sources.

We do have the evidence of what Ford thought about the cutoff, however, in his words in the signing statement:

In South Vietnam, we have consistently sought to assure the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own futures free from enemy interference. It would be tragic indeed if we endangered, or even lost, the progress we have achieved by failing to provide the relatively modest but crucial aid which is so badly needed there. Our objective is to help South Vietnam to develop a viable, self-sufficient economy and the climate of security which will make that development possible. To this end, the economic aid requested represented the amount needed to support crucial capital development and agricultural productivity efforts. The lower amount finally approved makes less likely the achievement of our objectives and will significantly prolong the period needed for essential development.

The understatement of the century.

Vietnam on the mind: Congress jockeys for position on Bush’s new plan for Iraq

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s an awful lot of speculation on what Bush’s new plan for Iraq might be. The consensus is that it will take the form of the “go big” option: the so-called “surge.”

The details–just how large that surge will be, how long it might last, and what other policies or plans it will be tied into–remain to be seen. The plan is not just a strategic one for Bush and for Iraq, but it presents members of Congress with strategic dilemmas and decisions as well. They not only have to take a position on the merits, but in the time-honored way of most politicians, they have to decide what’s in it for them in terms of re-election.

Bush, after all, has been released from that particular consideration. He only needs to take into account his own “vision” and plan for “success” (derided here by Fred Kaplan of Slate); Bush is exempt from serving another term. So, as Kaplan writes, “He’s playing for History (most definitely with a capital H), which, he seems convinced, is on his side.”

That’s for history (or History) to decide. But history isn’t written in the present, much as some would like to think it can be. Therefore the Democrats and Republicans trying to decide right now whether to support a surge in Iraq only know what has happened in the past, in distant times and places that may or may not be analogous; try as they (or we) might, they can’t foretell the future.

John Keegan, a British writer who specializes in the history of war, opines that a surge could well be helpful in Iraq if it consists of a force of at least 50,000 troops and takes the war to the enemy rather than waging it defensively. Robert Tracinski, a disciple of Ayn Rand and head of The Intellectual Activist, thinks the only worthwhile approach would be to wage war–literal, not metaphorical–against Iran (this option is probably not going to be part of Bush’s “go big” plan–he’s thinking big, but not that big).

The jockeying for position goes on among members of Congress, with McCain being a major proponent of the “surge” policy, some Democrats (and a few Republicans) such as Biden saying a definite nay, and Democrat Carl Levin, new chief of the Armed Forces Committee, taking a middle, noncommittal, road:

While he would oppose an open-ended commitment, Mr. Levin said, he would not rule out supporting a plan to dispatch more troops if the proposal was tied to a broader strategy to begin reducing American involvement and sending troops home.

The dark shades of Vietnam hover over the proceedings, of course. Those who remember history know that US fighting forces had left Vietnam for several years when the US Congress pulled the financial plug on the South Vietnamese, against the will of then President Ford. Can, and will, there be a repeat?

As Kaplan points out, in this case it would be much more difficult for Congress to accomplish similar ends in Iraq:

…the Democrats are still plagued by the charge that they lost [Vietnam]. If Congress cuts off, or sharply cuts back, funding for the Iraq war, and if things subsequently get worse, who will be blamed in 2008 and beyond? The question answers itself. Purse strings are unwieldy instruments for such purposes, in any case. Few legislators of either party favor a total, immediate pullout from Iraq. Yet even if Congress somehow collectively decided how many troops should be withdrawn or redeployed, and what those left behind should do, it would be another task entirely to translate that decision into budgetary terms””and politically all but impossible to do so while the White House and its supporters sternly warn from the sidelines that the cuts will “hurt the troops.”

In Vietnam, it was relatively easy to cut funding to the ARVN. Because Vietnamization had been successfully accomplished, in the sense that there were no more US combat troops there (and had not been for years), Congress’s betrayal of the South Vietnamese to their fate was part of a foreign policy appropriations bill, the Foreign Assistance Act of December 1974, which was vetoed by President Ford but overridden and passed by the hugely Democratic Congress of the time.

Since Iraqization is far from complete at the moment, and American combat forces are most assuredly still in Iraq, appropriations for this war don’t come under the heading of foreign aid. Any withdrawal of funds would be part of the appropriations for the military as a whole, and that probably wouldn’t be a popular stance in this post-9/11 world, even for most Democrats, except those whose constituencies are profoundly and markedly liberal/Left.

And so Congressional leaders who might want to withdraw funds to Iraq and stymie Bush’s “go big” plans are in an interesting position, lacking the tools used by their Vietnam-era predecessors–although, if Iraqization were successful, it paradoxically would give Congress the power it had (and exercised) in late 1974, the power to abandon the country for which so many had previously sacrificed, when the cost had shrunk down to a relatively bearable one.

Saddam’s justice: a tale of two videos

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s a bootleg video of Saddam’s execution circulating online. Taken surrepticiously by a witness with a cellphone camera (the photographer has since been arrested), it shows a semi-carnival atmosphere, with the former dictator being mocked and exchanging taunts with some in the crowd before he is hung.

The Iraqis were in charge at that point. US officials say they would have done it differently, in an atmosphere of greater dignity. I believe them–and, from the descriptions of the video (I haven’t watched it), it would have been an improvement on what actually happened.

The footage of the execution has been condemned as inflammatory and likely to incite Sunnis. Perhaps this is true–although lately, predictions of what the “Arab street” will do have been dismal. But there’s little question the Iraqi government is unhappy that the footage was taken and released; it definitely shows the event as less controlled and more mob-like than they would liked it to have been.

And yet, when observers who number among a tyrant’s victims are witnesses to his execution, it’s almost inevitable that they will have a hard time keeping their mouths shut. I wrote previously about what happened to Mussolini’s body, for example; these images from Saddam’s execution fall very far short of that sort of desecration, obviously.

But it’s just as obvious that it would have been better if no taunting and exchange of insults had occurred at all. Yes, Saddam’s execution was way too much of a “spectacle,” and it’s unfortunate that it happened that way.

However, it’s hard to get too incensed at the Shiites involved for giving vent to their emotions, considering the murders Saddam perpetrated against that group (although it’s easier to blame them for their support of al Sadr; apparently they shouted his name as part of the taunting). And the words ““The tyrant has fallen,” which were spoken around the moment Saddam died, seem only appropriate.

There can be no comparison whatsoever between the emotional outbursts that marred the “dignity” of Saddam’s last moments (and in which he, by the way, participated, giving back as good as he got), and the lack of “dignity” he afforded his own victims when he was in power. Everyone knows about the gassings, the rape rooms, the torture.

But I want to focus on another chilling sequence, back when Saddam first came to power.

Saddam was originally right hand man to his cousin Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, President of Iraq in the early 60s. Together, they eliminated rivals and modernized Iraq. The realpolitik of those Cold War times made the US take their side against Soviet-sympathetic rivals. The US role was not pretty, but it seemed pragmatic at the time, the best of a bunch of bad choices in the region.

And yet Saddam hadn’t shown his true colors yet. Murders of rival factions in Iraq were par for the course in those days–each modern succession had been accomplished by the assassination of the previous rulers. As al Bakr’s second in command, Saddam was the architect of a strong internal security apparatus, it’s true. But he also:

…became personally associated with Ba’athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, widening his appeal both within his traditional base and among new sectors of the population. These programs were part of a combination of “carrot and stick” tactics to enhance support in the working class, the peasantry, and within the party and the government bureaucracy. Saddam’s organizational prowess was credited with Iraq’s rapid pace of development in the 1970s; development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million persons from other Arab countries and Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.

But Saddam’s real goal was his own personal power, and to that end he slowly usurped his cousin’s rule, taking charge of the country years before he formally became President in 1979 by pushing his cousin out for good (although he didn’t murder him).

It was at that point, finally in control, that Saddam’s Stalinesque tendencies became fully visible, in a true “show trial” of staggering sadistic intent (and note that Saddam had the proceedings videotaped):

No sooner had [Saddam attained the Presidency] than he purged the party’s Revolutionary Command Council. Hussein announced the discovery of a plot against himself and the Baathist regime. Then he held a kind of show trial, which he videotaped. The footage shows party members gathered in a large auditorium. Saddam Hussein is on stage, smoking a cigar. The alleged plot leader confesses his crime. Then he reads out the names of his supposed co-conspirators. As their names are called out they are led from the hall to be arrested and shot. Members of the audience shout out their allegiance to Saddam Hussein.

Here’s another description:

You notice the mounting hysteria as nobody knows quite who’s name is going to be called out next. And so of course this means that the survivors cheer even more frenziedly for Saddam Hussein. It’s a very chilling documentary. But Saddam Hussein wanted that to be seen. This was an exercise of power which he would use to impress upon the surviving Baathists in Iraq that he had absolute control over their lives and deaths.

According to Kanan Makiya:

And when the firing squad is assembled to execute these so-called traitors who does he use but the remaining members of the Revolutionary Command Council and his own ministers and so on to implicate them in a sense in his own rise to power. Because that is the event upon which he cements his own presidency.

At this point, the cult of Saddam had taken over. And that’s the way most of his decisions as President went; they were all about power, and about him. Shortly thereafter he managed to undo all the economic good the previous regime had accomplished by launching an ill-thought-out war on Iran, lasting eight years and accomplishing absolutely nothing except the death of hundreds of thousands (perhaps a million) of his own people, as well as huge numbers of Iranians. Next he pursued weapons of mass destruction at Osirik. Stupidity and desire for power also marked his Kuwait endeavor, although the length and the human cost of that foray weren’t as high as in the Iran war.

But back to that earlier video of the assembly of Party officials, Saddam’s show of sadistic force. It’s everything they say it is, and more. I’ve seen it myself, years ago, and I never forgot it. The look of satisfaction and enjoyment on the man’s face was extraordinary, the fear on the faces of his victims starkly chilling.

This was the essence of Saddam. If Iraq is a bloodthirsty place today, and if people are itching for revenge and accustomed to murder, Saddam, more than anyone else, is responsible for that. The video of his execution pales in comparison, I’m afraid.

Ban’s already an improvement

The New Neo Posted on by

Nearly everything I’ve heard about the new UN Secretary-General Ban has been good. Or, at least, comparatively good–compared, that is, to his predecessor Kofi Annan.

Now he’s done two reasonable things, after only a couple of days on the job: refused to condemn the execution of Saddam Hussein in the usual pious and doctrinaire UN fashion, and stated a commitment to dealing with Darfur.

Don’t cry for Saddam and his “show trial”

The New Neo Posted on by

The loaded phrases “show trial” and “show execution” have been used by the Left recently to describe the judicial proceedings regarding Saddam Hussein (just Google “Saddam ‘show trial'” and you’ll find plenty more examples).

Ah, the Left should know about “show trials”-they championed them and applauded them (and practically invented them), back in Moscow in the thirties. Take a look and you’ll see a description of a bunch of real show trials.

It’s part of the debasement of language that Saddam’s trial can be called a “show trial.” I’ve read many essays that make that accusation, and most of them seem to have no conception of what a show trial actually is, or what might be wrong with it.

There’s nothing inherently wrong, for example, about a trial that is for public consumption. In that sense, of course, Saddam’s trial is “for show;” how could it not be? The same was true for the Nuremberg trials, the proceedings that set the precedent for trying leaders of a defeated regime for the offenses known as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that trying a defeated former dictator and tyrant in a court of law is an inherently murky situation. The law is not really designed to deal with this sort of thing–war is. The idea of bringing defeated heads of state to trial is a relatively new one, and international law is confused on how to deal with it, as well (just look at what happened with Milosevic).

What are the alternatives to such a trial? The tyrant can get off scot-free and go to a cushy exile somewhere like Saudi Arabia, where he gets to die in bed at a ripe old age. This, for example, is what happened to the notorious Idi Amin of Uganda. To most, that’s a solution that fails abysmally in serving the cause of justice.

The second alternative, the time-honored and traditional approach, is to kill the leaders in question without even the pretense of a legal proceeding, if the opportunity presents itself. After all, such dictators tend to be violently deposed; it’s very unusual for a person of this type to give up power voluntarily. Live by the sword die by the sword, and all that. And this might have happened to Saddam at the very moment he climbed out of his hiding hole.

But the decision was made to do something more progressive. It’s considered an advance over that kind of summary justice to have a trial; that’s what happened with Saddam. And of course such a trial, by its very nature, must be “for show.” That is, it is for the people of the country in question–as well as other tyrants of like ilk, and the world–to view.

The purpose? To show the superiority of court justice to the random murders the person in question has perpetrated. To allow the traumatized people of the dictator’s country the satisfaction of seeing the formerly all-powerful leader brought low by the justice system, and forced to watch the proceedings as his own crimes are paraded before him.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that sort of “show.” It represents an improvement of sorts over the first two alternatives mentioned. Certainly, no one would suggest that a secret trial would be better. No, there’s no way around the fact that trying a former dictator is inherently a “show,” in the sense of an object lesson and a demonstration. But that’s not the “show” that makes a trial a true “show trial.”

It’s often said that “show trials” are ones in which the outcome is a foregone conclusion and the guilt of the accused is known. But that can’t be the definition, either, because then all such trials of former mass murdering dictators would be “show trials.” After all, it’s not as though they are routine suspects picked up because they happen to fit the description of some eyewitness to a crime.

No, their crimes are already well known and documented, and their identity is not in question. So of course, by the time a trial of such a leader commences, even though they are de jure legally innocent till proven guilty, it’s realistic to say that they are de facto regarded as guilty by most who have followed their history (which, after all, is mostly in the public domain). The trial functions–and cannot help but function–more as a documentation and demonstration of that fact.

There’s no way around that truth. The mental gymnastics required to ignore Saddam’s known and vast history of human rights abuses are too much for most people to perform. Nor does this mean his trial is inherently unfair.

His trial, of course, was imperfect in terms of the definition the ACLU would give for such things. It was an Iraqi proceeding, and each country’s legal system is quite different. But there’s no question that Saddam was not railroaded. Nor was he convicted of crimes he did not commit. Nor was he tortured to extract some sort of confession. And these elements are the key attributes of “show trials,” such as the Moscow variety.

The Moscow trials were applauded by American Communists and supporters of the time, however. The following was typical of the reaction:

…Communist Party leader Harry Pollitt, in the Daily Worker of March 12, 1936 told the world that “the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress.” The article was ironically illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov, himself shortly to vanish and his photographs airbrushed from history by NKVD archivists. In the United States, Communist proponents such as Corliss Lamont and Lillian Hellman also denounced criticism of the Moscow trials, signing “An Open Letter To American Liberals” in support of the trials for the March 1937 issue of Soviet Russia Today.

Later, even Khrushchev acknowledged that the trials were, quite simply, frameups to get rid of Stalin’s enemies, the confessions that so impressed Western Leftists extracted by torture. In Orwell’s chilling 1984, he based the treatment of Winston Smith at least partly on the example of these trials and similar ones staged by the Communists.

It’s an interesting example of projection, once again, that Leftists today make the charge of “show trial” towards Saddam Hussein’s, when the Left presided over the most prominent example of the genre in recent memory. And, by the elastic definition the Left now holds of the term “show trial,” no trial of a former dictator for war crimes could help but be a “show trial,” because all are conducted with an eye to the purpose of “showing” to the world what that leader has done, all begin with factual knowledge of the perpetrator’s well-known guilt, all have elements of vengeance for the terrible crimes committed, and all have partly political aims.

There is absolutely no way to avoid these things. But trials such as Saddam’s lack the elements that would make a trial truly a “show trial” and a sham: framing the innocent with trumped-up charges, confessions and testimony extracted by torture (true torture, by the way, which isn’t the same as sleep deprivation).

However, if the Left ever gets its chance to try Bush and Rumsfeld for war crimes, you can rest assured they’ll consider those to be no “show trials” at all, but the fairest of fair proceedings.

Have a ball: today is the first day of the rest of 2007

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, I’ve recovered from last night.

Not all that much to recover from, actually, compared to my wild and misspent youth. Yes, on certain New Years Eves Past I actually used to haul myself off to Times Square to watch that ball go down, back when it was really just a plain sphere rather than some sort of complex and enormous light-studded Christmas ornament resembling the mother ship from “Close Encounters.”

Here‘s a history of the Times Square ball. Memory did serve me well; it turns out that my forays into Times Square were made during the era of the unadorned aluminum ball, a mere 150-pounder (the ball, that is, not me!) sort of like the plainness of Pat Nixon’s Republican cloth coat.

Today’s ball, by comparison, weighs over one thousand pounds, is studded with Waterford-crystal triangles and lit by–well, it’s way too complex, so I’ll just quote the official site:

For the 2007 New Year’s Eve celebration, 72 of the crystal triangles feature the new “Hope for Peace” design, consisting of three dove-like patterns symbolizing messengers of peace. The remaining 432 triangles feature Waterford designs from previous years, including the Hope for Fellowship, Hope for Wisdom, Hope for Unity, Hope for Courage, Hope for Healing, Hope for Abundance, and Star of Hope triangles. These crystal triangles are bolted to 168 translucent triangular lexan panels which are attached to the aluminum frame of the Ball. The exterior of the Ball is illuminated by 168 Philips Halogené¡ Brilliant Crystal light bulbs, exclusively engineered for the New Year’s Eve Ball to enhance the Waterford crystal. The interior of the Ball is illuminated by 432 Philips Light Bulbs (208 clear, 56 red, 56 blue, 56 green, and 56 yellow), and 96 high-intensity strobe lights, which together create bright bubbling bursts of color. The exterior of the Ball features 90 rotating pyramid mirrors that reflect light back into the audience at Times Square. All 696 lights and 90 rotating pyramid mirrors are computer controlled, enabling the Ball to produce a state-of-the-art light show of eye-dazzling color patterns and a spectacular kaleidoscope effect atop One Times Square.


But I digress. Today’s the day for New Years resolutions, pristine ones we haven’t yet had time to break. So, here are mine:

(1) The usual diet stuff. Say no more; we all know the drill.

(2) Get the house in order and put it on the market.

(3) Plan the move.

(4) Throw out the junk.

(5) Redo the blog to make it more difficult for trolls to post.

(6) Write more segments of the “change” series!

(7) Read more books. Ever since I’ve been blogging, reading for pleasure has fallen by the wayside.

(8) Realize that this list, which is only the beginning of what I need to do (and only deals with the outer, rather than the inner, self) would probably take most of 2007 to accomplish.

2007-it has a ring to it, doesn’t it? One of the things I find it hard to believe is how much time has passed since the millennium. I’ve read that time really does appear to pass more quickly as one gets older (and that’s the only direction in which one can ever go, it seems) because a year becomes a smaller percentage of the life already lived.

When you’re five years old, a year is one-fifth of your life, and it seems like the next birthday (or Christmas, or whatever it is one is waiting for) will never ever come. But when you’re–oh, to choose a round and arbitrary number, fifty–that same year is only one-fiftieth of your life. Thus, the perception of the acceleration of time.

But, whatever your age, have a good year! If anyone wants to share New Years resolutions here, feel free.

Happy New Year!

The New Neo Posted on by


I want to wish you the happiest of Happy New Years! May the coming year be much better than the last for everyone–except the terrorists and their henchmen.

Party on, and drive safely.

How the crowded blogosphere works

The New Neo Posted on by

Richard Fernandez has a thought-provoking take on how the blogosphere works, including the various categories of Finders, Linkers, and Thinkers, and the roles they play.

In his comment on that thread, blogger Tigerhawk discusses Fernandez’s contention that, originally, it was feared that the blogosphere would be a powerful force for the dissemination of disinformation. But it turns out that it’s been more instrumental in countering the spread of disinformation so far. Tigerhawk attributes this to something in the structure of blogs; “perhaps their sheer numbers.”

If so, I think it’s an illustration of the principles in the book The Wisdom of Crowds. In it, author Surowiecki asserts that:

…large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant””better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives.

As for “predicting the future,” I thought it was pretty funny that blogger William Beutler at P.I. managed to predict Time magazine’s rather inane selection of “You” as Person of the Year, and even got the cover of the issue close to right (hat tip: Pajamas Media). But then, when I thought about it some more (I try to be a “Thinker,” after all) I realized the sheer size of the blogosphere indicates that, merely by chance, somebody’s bound to get it right. Right? (Not quite like those infinite monkeys and Shakespeare, however–not yet).

Yes, the blogosphere is very large indeed. But, as Tigerhawk also points out, its actual readership, though growing, is still relatively small. Right now it only has true influence in certain very dramatic cases like Rathergate; otherwise, the news (for example, of Hezbollah’s disinformation campaign during the recent Lebanon/Israel war) doesn’t truly penetrate the still vastly greater audience and influence of the MSM.

Mistah Saddam: he dead

The New Neo Posted on by

It has been announced that Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging a few hours ago.

I’m not a death penalty fan. But I’ve always realized that there are some situations in which execution seems only appropriate.

A trial of Adolf Hitler would have been one of them, if he hadn’t finessed the situation by killing himself first. It’s difficult to see how keeping him alive after a trial would have been anything but a trivialization of the enormity of his crimes.

Saddam wasn’t Hitler, but he was definitely evil enough, and on a large enough scale, to justify the death penalty. His continued existence would have had other dangers, as well–it would represent a rallying point for future hopes of a Baathist resurgence.

Unlike Saddam, Hitler cheated his executioner, as did the clever Goering, who managed to swallow poison just a few hours before he was due to hang. Then there was Milosevic, who died during his four-year-long trial, which had seemed interminable up till that point.

But many other prominent Nazis were executed after being sentenced at the Nuremberg trials, and the disposal of their bodies was treated with great care. Photographs were taken and distributed to prove they were actually dead (the same, apparently, is true of Saddam; as I write this, the photos and videos are expected to be released shortly). But after that documentation, the bodies of the executed Nazis were thoroughly destroyed, to avoid any possibility of a grave with remains that could inspire veneration and devotion in followers:

Afterwards, the bodies of the executed were photographed and, writes Anthony Read in The Devil’s Disciples (W.W. Norton, 2004), “wrapped in mattress covers, sealed in coffins, then driven off in army trucks . . . to a crematorium in Munich, which had been told to expect the bodies of fourteen American soldiers. The coffins were opened up for inspection . . . before being loaded into the cremation ovens. That same evening, a container holding all the ashes” ”” including those belonging to Field Marshal Hermann Gé¶ring, who had committed suicide a few hours earlier ”” “was driven away into the Bavarian countryside, in the rain. It stopped in a quiet lane about an hour later, and the ashes were poured into a muddy ditch.”

The Soviets and the Chinese Communists, on the other hand, have managed to make the bodies of their mass murderers into Madame Tussaud-like figures, embalmed and displayed as relics in shrines that have an almost religious quality (see this post I once wrote on that strange and grisly subject).

Mussolini, on the other hand, would probably have preferred any of the previous body dispositions to his actual fate–a fate that was on Hitler’s mind when he not only shot himself, but also gave orders for the destruction of his own corpse to prevent it from falling into the hands of his enemies.

Mussolini had been executed by Communist partisans, his body dumped in a public square, then strung up and beaten and otherwise desecrated by a crowd that had gathered. But he was later cut down and buried in a family plot, which became the focus of visits by neo-Fascist admirers.

What will happen to Saddam’s remains is unclear. His daughter is requesting temporary burial in Yemen, until Iraq can be “liberated” and he can be reinterred there. She is probably well aware of the tradition of destroying the bodies of executed dictators, and the reason this is done. She’s clearly hoping for some almost-Soviet style veneration in Saddam’s future. A fitting wish, since Saddam himself was a great admirer of Uncle Joe Stalin, the butcher of millions who himself died peacefully of natural causes–or did he?.

[ADDENDUM: The precedent of the past isn’t being followed: Saddam’s burial place is known, in his home base of Tikrit, about two miles from the graves of his sons. Thus, shrine possibilities remain intact.]

Resisting the Nazis (Part II)

The New Neo Posted on by

[Part I here.]

By early 1943, the time of the Rosenstrasse Protest, the Final Solution were well underway. The Nazis had been very careful about their policy of extermination of the Jews; one can view the entire operation as a series of slowly escalating experiments to see what the German public and the world would tolerate.

The persecution of the Jews started out with a group of racial laws in Germany (the Nuremberg Laws) that isolated and ostracized them from other Germans; previously the Jews of Germany had been among the most assimilated in Europe. What happened as a result? Not much, apparently. Here is a summary of German reports of the time evaluating the responses of the general population of Germany, reported to have been either “satisfaction,” “enthusiasm,” “understanding,” or “silence” (the latter in the predominantly Catholic town of Aachen, which bordered Belgium).

The Nazis were well aware that their policies required cooperation, active or at least passive, from the public. They had learned this during an earlier “experiment,” the T4 program, which had involved murdering the mentally and/or physically disabled. When word had gotten out about the T4 program, there were massive protests (the only large ones for any policy of the Hitler regime) and Catholic officials spoke out publicly to criticize it.

As a result the program was officially scrapped, although it continued to a certain degree in a more clandestine way. But this outcome shows the power of German public opinion, even for the Nazis. They were indeed worried about the perception of the public towards their policies, and weren’t willing to create public discord by firing on German demonstrators and causing a backlash.

This is an interesting fact. The Nazis were indeed brutal killers, but they were canny about what they did. Mass murder of their own people–in the style of other tyrants such as Stalin and Pol Pot–was most definitely not the style of the Nazis. They needed and wanted the cooperation of the German people, and were well aware of how far the people could be pushed before they would withdraw that cooperation and begin to cause trouble. Therefore the Nazis carefully calibrated their moves, backtracking (or becoming more secretive and hidden) when the rumblings threatened to get out of control.

The reaction to T4 clearly indicates that a stronger protest by the German people to the Nuremberg Laws, and then to the roundups of Jews, could have either halted the entire endeavor or made it far more difficult. T4 had another significance: it was a chance for the Nazis to perfect some of their techniques, since it featured the first mass gassings, cremations, and even the decoy shower heads in the gas chambers, all prototypes for the techniques of the death camps.

Other well-known early “experiments” in mass killings–this time of the Jews–were the notorious Nazi “Einsatzgruppen” mass murders on the Eastern front in Russia and Eastern Europe. These killings were quite different from those in the subsequent death camps. They featured open-air shootings over mass graves dug by the victims themselves, and were supervised by the SS but were mainly performed by squads of specially trained German and Austrian police.

Although not publicized, these killings could hardly be kept totally hidden from the German people, as Goldhagen’s controversial book Hitler’s Willing Executioners makes clear. Nor were they secrets to the occupied countries involved–in fact, locals were sometimes recruited to help out with the proceedings.

The relatively primitive and bloody chaos of these massacres on the Eastern Front occurred mainly in 1941 and early 1942, and were limited to those occupied territories. Later efforts were the death camps, a more “refined” and hidden “solution” to the problem, as well as a far more efficient one: less manpower and ammunition required.

It is sobering to think that the near-extermination of the Jews of Europe occurred without anything resembling the protest that marked the German reaction to the T4 program. It’s sobering partly because it’s very clear that such protests would, and could, have been at least somewhat effective. The Nazis were clearly afraid of the power of public opinion–at least in Germany, at least for pragmatic reasons.

The one example (besides the T4 protests) of this type of group demonstration by a significant crowd of Germans was a very specialized one. Known as The Rosenstrasse Protest, it is a relatively little-known event in the history of the Third Reich,

Because of the prewar assimilation of the Jews of Germany, there were a number of intermarriages, especially in Berlin. When the Jews of Germany were rounded up and sent to the camps, these Jewish spouses were spared–temporarily.

This in and of itself is in interesting fact, another example of the Nazis’ cunning. Rounding up regular Jews was one thing, and they correctly surmised it was unlikely to occasion more than a ripple among the ordinary German population. But taking away the Jewish spouses of “regular” Germans could be expected to be a much more emotional undertaking. And so, mindful of the need to keep the public calm, the selection of those spouses was postponed.

The roundup action, in early 1943, was meant to be a birthday present for Hitler:

The Gestapo called this action simply the “SchluéŸaktion der Berliner Juden” (Closing Berlin Jew Action). Hitler was offended that so many Jews still lived in Berlin, and the Nazi Party Director for Berlin, Joseph Goebbels, had promised to make Berlin “Judenfrei” (free of Jews) for the Fé¼hrer’s 54th birthday in April.

It was mostly successful; 8,000 of the 10,000 rounded up were not spouses in mixed marriages, and they were sent off to Auschwitz with hardly a ripple. The 2000 remaining were the spouses (all husbands, actually; I’ve never seen a report that mentioned what may have happened to Jewish wives in mixed marriages). In a spontaneous reaction, their non-Jewish wives came to the place where they were being held–an office in central Berlin that gave the protest its name.

The weeklong demonstration grew in numbers and seriousness, although it was never officially organized. SS guards threatened to shoot the women, but the wives were defiant and no shootings ever happened. In fact, the men were released, and even a few who had already been sent to Auschwitz were returned.

What was going on here? Once again, we see the Nazi respect for public order and the desire not to push the German people one ounce beyond what the latter could and would tolerate. Two thousand Jewish men remaining in Berlin were considered a small price to pay to maintain the public order. The plan was to take care of them later–but “later” never happened; almost all the men survived the war safely in Berlin.

In a recent book on the matter, Nathan Stoltzfus concludes that the German people had far more say in Nazi policies than they would have you believe. The evidence is fairly clear that protests would have made a difference. The sad fact is that the Germans were only energized a few times to engage in protests, and only in certain very specialized situations.

Many who advocate nonviolence consider it almost a panacaea. It is not, of course. The Nazis had a particular and relatively benign and respectful attitude towards their own people that not all tyrannical regimes share. For a peaceful protest to be successful, there must be that all-important attitude on the part of the government: a modicum of respect for the people involved, and a reluctance to upset them by a show of force and muscle. Because if the authorities decide to go for brutality and power, nonviolent protesters can be easily deterred and silenced.

Gandhi didn’t think so, as I’ve written here. The type of absolute pacifism he suggested is both unrealistic, given human nature, and absolutely ensures a mass bloodbath if the authorities being challenged are brutal enough. As I discussed in the linked piece, Gandhi famously advocated that the Jews go willingly and meekly to the slaughter to prove a point and take the moral high road.

But it turns out he would have done far far better to have suggested to the German people that they undertake nonviolent protests in order to protect the Jews–if, in fact, they had any motivation to do so, which seems to have not been the case. Because it’s clear from the evidence that protest by the German people themselves would have been successful in forestalling the Holocaust, as it was for other resisting groups such as the Danes and the Bulgarians whom the Nazis happened to respect.

One remaining question is whether the German people knew, or should have known, their own strength. In order to have the courage to act en masse in protest, most people need to believe they are not going to be mowed down in cold blood by superior firepower. The overwhelming evidence is that, if the Germans had been paying attention, they ought to have known their influence because of the precedent set in T4. The nearly inescapable and sorrowful conclusion is that most Germans simply did not care enough about what was happening to the Jews to mount any sort of protest at all, because if they had, it would have been successful.

Resisting the Nazis (Part I)

The New Neo Posted on by

Nonviolent resistance to totalitarian governments can be very difficult because of Draconian retaliation against such efforts and the resulting climate of fear among the populace, as well as the constant propaganda designed to reduce dissent to a minimum. But not all totalitarian regimes are alike in how far they are willing to go to crush resistance. And even the same totalitarian regime is not always willing to go equally far to crush resistance under all circumstances at all times against all comers.

The German Reich was a case in point. The Nazis were relentless in their drive to conquer Europe and make it Judenfrei. But the Nazis had a hierarchy of countries in their racial pantheon, and treated the inhabitants of those places differentially based in large part on the Nazi system of racial classification.

The top of the heap, of course, were the “Aryans” of Germany and Austria. But countries defined as “Nordic” were considered just about as good. And, although supposedly “Aryan,” the Slavic races were regarded as markedly inferior, so the conquered Poles were accordingly treated far more harshly than the Danes, for example.

In looking at the idea of whether successful nonviolent resistance to some of the Nazis’ harshest edicts was possible, one must always remember this differential treatment of occupied countries. What was successful in one place could never have been so in another. Just as Gandhi’s success depended on the fact that he was facing the relatively humane British, so it was that the brutality of the Nazi occupation in one country wasn’t the same as the Nazi occupation in another. Different policies allowed differential responses, such as, for example, the ability of the relatively autonomous and respected Danes to evacuate and thus rescue their relatively small Jewish population.

The Nazis were well aware of the possibility of resistance and the need for a cooperative captive populace. That’s one of the reasons they thought it best to disguise and keep quiet the scope of their genocide. They feared a public backlash against it, even (or perhaps especially) in Germany.

The Nazi racial laws that singled out the Jews for special persecution started slowly in Germany during the early 30s, increasing the Jews’ isolation from the general public over the years and culminating, as we know, in the Final Solution. There’s a great deal of controversy over how much the German people actually knew about the true nature and extent of the death camps. But certainly extreme persecution of the Jews of Germany and elsewhere was common knowledge, as was their deportation to parts unknown, never to be heard from again. So even if the German people didn’t know everything, they knew a great deal.

Some of those “parts unknown” were in concentration camps in Germany itself, such as Dachau and Mathausan-Gusen. So the Germans in the surrounding area clearly knew about these camps. However, the term “concentration camp” is so familiar that most people do not realize that it’s a general term covering two horrific but somewhat different types of institution: the labor camp and the death camp. The camps in Germany were labor camps.

Although conditions in labor camps were dreadful, and death was a common and expected occurrence in them, the main purpose of these camps was not to exterminate directly, but rather to harshly extract the full measure of hard labor out of the inmates with the least cost. If they happened to die from the conditions there, then so be it—and die they did, in droves. The death camps, however, existed solely for the purpose of efficiently killing virtually all their inmates shortly after arrival.

A related distinction is also not ordinarily understood: none of the death camps was located in Germany. Rather, all six were in Poland. Why was this? Poland had a large Jewish population, and therefore the camps were located near the source and less transport would be needed. But it seems that the Nazi leadership may also have wanted to protect the German population from exact and precise knowledge of what was happening, by placing the death camps far away. Perhaps they didn’t have full confidence that their own populace would support outright extermination if it came to know, unequivocally and undeniably, that this was what was actually happening.

In order to accomplish the task of genocide, especially the all-important initial action of rounding up the Jewish population, the cooperation of the local non-Jewish population was a requirement for success. And, as the example of the Danes shows, that cooperation was not always a given. So it would be best to keep the final destination as quiet as possible, to reduce the probability of protest.

It didn’t always work. In addition to the Danes, the Bulgarians were able to defy the Germans and save their Jews. The Bulgarians were even more autonomous than the Danes (in fact, they were unoccupied German allies). They saved their Jews through a combination of church leadership and the fact that anti-Semitism had never really taken much hold there. The Nazis didn’t want to strong-arm the citizens of countries such as Denmark and Bulgaria, who were not considered enemies, into giving up their Jews. They were willing to wait and concentrate on places such as France where it was much easier to get public cooperation for the roundup of their prey. Later, they thought, they’d tie up loose ends in other places.

Anyone who knows Holocaust history knows that Poland was its center. The Polish people have often been condemned for their participation in the death of their Jews–but, although there was indeed a great deal of cooperation from the Poles, it turns out that the situation was far more complex than that. Not only were there also a great many rescuers in Poland (see this book for a thorough documentation of these stirring tales), but the Poles had a great deal more to lose than most from saving Jews. Not to minimize the accomplishments of the Danes or the Bulgarians, but to be a hero in Poland was a lot more meaningful than to be one in Denmark or Bulgaria–or even, as it turns out, in Germany.

Why? Because Poland was the only Nazi-occupied country in which helping Jews would officially get you the death penalty. Here are the horrific facts (read them and ask yourself if you would have been as brave as the many Poles who did shelter and save Jews):

Poland was the only place where German law rendered any assistance to Jews punishable by death. That punishment was severe and collective: It was meted out not only to the rescuer but also to his entire family and to anyone else who knew about such activities and did not report them. Almost 1,000 Poles were killed this way, including entire families whose children were not spared.

Germans of the World War II era have defended themselves against criticism by saying they not only didn’t know the details of the Holocaust, but if they’d tried to protest, they themselves would have been imprisoned or killed. But in Germany—unlike Poland—this was not true at all. Successful resistance was most definitely possible, as the little-known but fascinating story of the Rosenstrasse Protest shows.

[In Part II, tomorrow, I will explain what this protest was and why it was important.]