To PlumberJack…Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised but you’re statements are flabbergasting. Adolf Hitler conveyed his thoughts on war and his purposes for it in Mein Kempf. One of his desires was revenge for the Treaty of Versai which incorperated part of East Prussia into Poland, thus creating “The Polish Corridor” and declaring Danzig (a former German city) a free city. His interests were far geater reaching than simple revenge however. Under the pretext of incorperating all German speaking peoples into the new Nazi regime he demanded Czechoslovakia turn over all areas with a rich German population Hitler even accused Czech’s of “persecuting” Germans in this area in dispute (sounds familiar). Eventually he invaded Poland, conveniently blaming the Jewish people in the process. Hitelr’s goals from here were outlined, as previously mentioned, beforehand. He wished to destroy communism which he percieved as a “Jewish conspiracy” and create Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people and inslaving or massacring the slavic peoples in eastern Europe. Thus creating his “Thousand Year Reich”. With all the anti-semitism obvious in his mind, he planned to exterminate the Jewish race from Europe and “liberate” Europe from the “Jewish vermin”. Russia also held valuable resources with which to support his new empire and war machine. His was a detailed plan to create a nation of the so called “super race” and dominate Europe under his heel.
Next, allowing a man such as Saddam, who is practically as unscrupulous as Hitler in some ways, to present himself with the oppurtunity to utilize biochemical or nuclear weapons is out of the question. Unlike in the past one cannot sit and hope he chooses to be rational (though the world did the same as Hitler grew in power in the 1930’s and despite possessing no biochemical or nuclear weapons it still lead to the most devesating war this world has ever known) and peaceful; something I’m not willing to risk given Saddam’s past history.
The world waited to long in attempting to depose Hitler (Chamberlain’s now imfamous “peace in our time” immediately springs to mind); let us hope history does not repeat itself once again.
[note: though I do not think Saddam’s armies has the ability to conquer one country after another as Hitler did the weapons available to him today make this somewhat superfluous]
I’d also like to point out that I consider 9/11 an act of war on the United States. If the present were 1941 there would be no question as to what course of action the US would take. I mention this because Saddam is a strong supporter of terroristic activities and frankly did we not decaler war on not only Japan but when German did so with us did we not declare war on all her supporters (Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary) as well and put them out of business? It’s obvious to realize that Hitler was no different than Saddam (and vice versa) as they are both totalitarian dictators and terrorists. One simply utilizes different tactics and potentially possesses more powerful weapons. This in addition to financially supporting terrorism.
In closing I’d like to state that Bush-Hitler comparisons are not only historically naive but sorely lacking in common sense.