Naturally the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
But, after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along….
All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country.
–Rcichsmarshall Hermann Goering
Much of the moral basis for American leadership was destroyed by the dark parallels between Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Among these:
ADOLF HITLER
Adolf Hitler (third from left) with his generals
In 1970, Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler’s former architect and then Minister of Aramaments, published his bestselling postwar memoirs, Inside the Third Reich. In a striking passage, he revealed how the Fuehrer really felt about German soldiers who were suffering and dying in a war he had provoked.
One evening during the middle of the war, Speer was traveling with Hitler on the Fuehrer’s private train. Late at night, they enjoyed a lavish dinner in the elegant rosewood-paneled dining car.
As they ate, Hitler’s train slowed down and passed a freight train halted on a side track.
From their open cattle car, recalled Speer, wounded German soldiers from the Russian Front–starved, their uniforms in rags–stared across the few yards to their Fuehrer’s dining-car window.
Albert Speer
Hitler recoiled at seeing these injured men intently watching him–and he sharply ordered an adjutant to lower the window shades.
Hitler had served as a frontline soldier in World War 1 and had won the Iron Cross for bravery as a dispatch runner.
As Fuehrer, he often boasted of his affinity with the average German soldier. He claimed that “my whole life has been one long struggle for Germany.”
Yet throughout the six years of World War II, he refused to visit German cities ravaged by British and American bombs.
Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, despaired at this.
Joseph Goebbels
Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain, often visited cities hit by German bombers, and Goebbels knew these visits greatly boosted British morale.
Goebbels urged Hitler to make similar visits to bombed-out German cities, but the Fuehrer refused.
Albert Speer believed that Hitler couldn’t bear to see the carnage wrought by his decision to provoke a needless war.
George W. Bush “looking” for WMDs in the White House
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Bush showed his contempt for the soldiers suffering and dying in his own unprovoked war.
On March 24, 2004, at a White House Correspondents dinner, he joked publicly about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.
“Nope-–no weapons over there! Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
In a scene that could have occurred under the Roman emperor Nero, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women–-the elite of America’s media and political classes–-laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.
Only later did the criticism come, from Democrats and Iraqi war veterans–especially those veterans who had suffered grievous wounds to protect America from WMDs.
Click here: Bush laughs at no WMD in Iraq – YouTube
In his Presidential memoirs, Decision Points, Bush failed to mention his joking about the “missing WMDs” at the correspondents dinner.
In writing about discovering insights into the human character, the ancient historian, Plutarch, said it best:
And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.
* * * * *
So add it all up:
- Two all-powerful leaders.
- Two nations lied into unprovoked wars.
- Adolf Hitler’s war costs the lives of 4.5 million German soldiers.
- George W. Bush’s war costs the lives of 4,486 Americans.
- Germany’s war results in the deaths of millions of Europeans and Russians.
- America’s war results in the deaths of an estimated 655,000 Iraqis, according to a 2006 study in the Lancet medical journal.
- Hitler is literally driven underground by his enemies and commits suicide to avoid capture, trial and certain execution for war crimes.
- Bush retires from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection. He writes his memoirs and is paid $7 million for the first 1.5 million copies.
- Hitler is branded as a symbol of demonic evil.
- Bush becomes a target of ridicule for comics.
Who says history is irrelevant? Or that it doesn’t repeat itself?
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
"AMERICAN SNIPER, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICAN GUN, AP, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KYLE, CLINT EASTWOOD, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, EDDIE RAY ROUTH, FACEBOOK, FIREARMS, MENTAL ILLNESS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MOVIES, NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, POLITICO, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NAVY SEALS, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WAYNE LAPIERRE
THE MOST DANGEROUS THERAPY
In History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 26, 2018 at 12:10 amChris Kyle was an American patriot—serving four tours of duty in Iraq.
And he was a killer: From 1999 to 2009 he recorded more than 160 confirmed kills as a sniper—the most in U.S. military history. Iraqis came to refer to him as “The Devil” and put a $20,000 bounty on his life.
Chris Kyle
He was an expert on firearms: After leaving combat duty, he became the chief instructor for training the Naval Special Warfare Sniper and Counter-Sniper team. And he authored the Naval Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine, the first Navy SEAL sniper manual.
He was a successful writer—author of the 2012 bestselling American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.
In 2013, he wrote the equally bestselling American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms.
He created a nonprofit company, FITCO Cares, to provide at-home fitness equipment for emotionally and physically wounded veterans.
In 2014, his autobiography, American Sniper, became a major film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie portrays his work as a SEAL marksman in Iraq and his struggles to be a good husband and father during his tours of duty.
And Kyle was a mentor to veterans suffering from PTSD—Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
It was this last activity—and, more importantly, his approach to therapy—that cost him his life.
On February 2, 2015, Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, died in a hail of 13 bullets fired by a semi-automatic pistol.
The murderer: Eddie Ray Routh, an Iraqi war veteran reportedly suffering from PTSD, while the three visited a shooting range in Glen Rose, Texas.
Routh, of Lancaster, Texas, a former corporal in the Marines, had been deployed to Iraq in 2007 and Haiti in 2010.
His motive: “I shot them because they wouldn’t talk to me. I was just riding in the back seat of the truck and nobody would talk to me. They were just taking me to the range so I shot them. I feel bad about it, but they wouldn’t talk to me. I am sure they have forgiven me.”
Eddie Ray Routh
On February 25, 2015, a jury convicted Routh of double murder and sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
Kyle’s believed that shooting could prove therapeutic for those suffering from mental illness. And it was that belief that ultimately killed him.
According to Travis Cox, the director of FITCO Cares: “What I know is Chris and a gentleman—great guy, I knew him well, Chad Littlefield—took a veteran out shooting who was struggling with PTSD to try to assist him, try to help him, try to, you know, give him a helping hand, and he turned the gun on both of them, killing them.”
Chris Kyle was a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), whose stance on firearms is best described as: “The more guns, the better.”
The NRA:
Chris Kyle was undoubtedly one of the foremost experts on firearms in the United States. Few knew better than he did the rules for safe gun-handling.
And yet he broke perhaps the most basic commonsense rule of all: Never trust an unstable person with a loaded firearm.
And it was the breaking of that rule that killed him.
Even worse, he knew that Routh was unstable. During the drive to the shooting range, he texted Littlefield: ‘This dude is straight-up nuts.”
Kyle, who was 38, was survived by his wife, Taya, and their two children.
Kyle was undoubtedly sincere in wanting to help his fellow veterans who suffered from PTSD.
But he could have offered them different—and far safer—forms of help, such as:
Instead, he chose “gun therapy” as his preferred method of treatment.
Kyle was an expert on using firearms in self-defense. But that knowledge proved useless when he allowed his empathy to overrule his common sense.
Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, has repeatedly asserted: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.”
But the death of Chris Kyle raises a question that the NRA has yet to answer: If a certified weapons expert can’t protect himself against a psychopathic gunman, how can the rest of us?
Share this:
Like this: