Post Iraq Post
Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 06:38PM This post is not going to get into dogging on President Bush for this mistake, or praising President Obama for getting us out. (Though I agree with both points, I think this has been done enough.) The point of this post is to remind that we are far from done in the Middle East, and in Iraq entirely. We are still going to leave some troops there, and have our presence felt. This post is about how the victorious country should handle the spoils of war. No experience teaches that lesson more painfully than The Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. This treaty was also the genesis of the turmoil that would become WWII.
The truth about the start World War II, is not anti-Semitism or the evil of Hitler. It was a product of how the allies treated Germany at the end of WWI. I am not in any way defending Hitler, and trust me in the alternate reality of this history Hitler would still be a sick piece of shit. He just wouldn’t have been also a leader of millions of Germans.
You see, you gotta conquer but you can’t control. You have to win the battle but the tell the other nation, “Look, you're gonna be my bitch, but I’m going to treat you so good, you’re gonna love it.” All the great empires, the Roman Republic, Cyrus, Alexander, maintained their empires because while they ruled a land they also bettered the land. Peoples' lives were better. Sure they were second class citizens, but shit they had roads.
On the other side empires that milked their colonies: England, French, Eastern European Communism, all lost them to the hands of the colonists. If you make the rules unwinnable, people will break the rules. If you make people’s lives unlivable, they will take lives. That is how a revolution is born. People have to be willing to kill. The Germans had to pay 5.8 billion Francs for fire wood. That style of living will make you see red.
Hitler was evil incarnate. The lowest of lows. Hitler’s lack of a soul is never in question when we think of World War II. What is, is how a nation of people could have followed him—loved him. They couldn’t live by the rules of Versailles and survive. They revolted against that, which in turn was Europe, which at that point was basically the world. "Fuck it, let’s build an army, let’s reclaim some boundaries, let’s blame the Jews."
Ideas are ideas, powerful, but still just crazy ideas. Hitler would just be a drunk at a bar, if people were not willing to listen. Willing to kill. If Germans in the 1920’s had been given a respectable terms of surrender, like Japan after World War 2 (could not have an army, they would be protected) and most important avoided the war debt, the average citizen would not want war. Total war.
Total war is the most honest action a nation can take. The populace is participating and fighting this war. It is choosing the war and standing for what it stands for. Because if the people are already taken up arms, their either going to fight the war, or fight the people making them fight the war--their own country. Ask Nicolos II of Russia. The total wars fought in America, American people (myself included) stand by the wars. The Revolution, The Civil War, WWII. It is the other wars (Vietnam, Spanish, Iraq) that I and other people call these wars into question.
The German people are not blameless, but they are excusable. Even some Southern Americans still talk about rising up against the north just of the treatment during Reconstruction. The lesson to be taken here is not just about World War II causes, but that after conquest it is imperative to be a mother country and notn an empire. It is better to be loved than feared. People do crazier shit when they are scared. They risk a lot less when they are happy. How we should leave Iraq, is not our trademark rape the land and make the people worthless workers, but allow them to flourish. Allow them to see how great this liberal democracy concept really is. We are hurting too much to give generously to other countries, and I'm not against making some money off this country, but don’t exploit it. Or our Children will fight one of the deadliest wars and die on a sand dune in Babylon. Let them see the tyranny of their old ways, before they see the greed of ours.
Reader Comments (3)
The advent of WW11 was much more than the Treaty of Versailles and its unfair vanquish of the 1900's German War Machine.
Hitler, by all accounts, used the Treaty to fuel the hatred of the Jews as his vehicle to power. The inablity of the German government and specifically von Hindenburg to forge a new Germany was the prime opportunity for Hitler to herd the German people and bend them to his will.
Hitler was on record since 1926 that his disdain for the Jewish people drove his political thought. ( Mein Kampf ).
However I dont see the relation to the arguement you make that the US leaving Iraq would present the Iraqi people with the same circumstances as the Germans were face with in the 1920's. Nor do I eqaute the ending of the Iraq war with the total and humilating defeat of Germany in 1919. Its not the same.
By the way.. those GREAT EMPIRES you mentioned all came to ruin from greed and war...they lost their souls...their purpose...as Marvin Gaye sang..."war is not the anwer"...I challenge you to unequivocally state what good ever came from war...
I do enjoy your stories by the way...and now I shall keep close attention to your blogs...
Dominic
that's why I made it a point to state Roman Republic and not Rome in general. The republic was great once it became an empire it started it's decline. Alexander and Cyrus were great leaders, it was after their death that their empires failed. But the two main points here of confusion.
I am not at all saying Hitler would not have thought what he thought regardless how WWI ended. What I am saying is that the German people would have never responded positively to Hitler, if their lives post WWI were not so unbearable.
Also my connection is not that these wars and situation are similar, in fact they are not even close. What I want to say is that you must "conquer, but not control." If we have our troops there still trying to take whatever we can from Iraq, it will boil into a one day revolution. We need to work to make their country great, not work to make our country great. That is all I am trying to warn here. Whenever any country exploits another, over time, the meek will inherit the earth.
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