�Mussolini was of similar fascist cloth to Hitler. It seems absurd to choose between two such figures when a third alternative is available. Bush and Kerry are likewise cut from the same privileged corporate-imperial cloth. Why should one anticipate favorable big outcomes from Kerry? He is claiming that he will outdo Bush militarily.��Kim Petersen

�At stake is not simply the leadership of our party, and even of our country, it is our right to the moral leadership of this planet.��Sen. Robert Kennedy� [1] [Emphasis added]

Including the system of government, i.e., the political order, in the comparison between Nazi imperialism and U.S. imperialism is neither crucial nor necessary. In fact, the nature, philosophy, institutions, and practice of any political system are not relevant to its objectives. Historically, Soviet communism, British imperialism, Japanese imperialism, South African apartheid, Iraq�s Baath, the Egyptian bureaucratic system, Israeli Zionism, etc., all acted in accordance with an established ideology rather in conformity with the system of government they devised to implement it.

However, from my perspective, comparing political orders is significant in one respect�it identifies the nominal nature of the state. This is important for one good reason: to allow us to dismantle the theory according to which the nature of the political order is an indication of either benevolence or malevolence, especially in international relations and adventures of imperialism. The direct implication of this postulation is that we are required to give our assent to a state, based on how that state rules its citizens, but not on the policy and actions that it implements outside of its national boundaries. Briefly, if the system is asking us to vouch for its choices regardless of our reasoning, then it is evident that the form of the state is only justificatory in nature and bureaucratic in function.

We can unfasten all connections that hold this pretentious theory of political orders in place, by noting that the U.S. and the West habitually indulge in justifying their interventionist imperialism based on the assumed �goodness� of their orders, but without providing any compelling evidence that the nature of a political order has any relevance to imperialism.

Dialectically, this assumption is baseless. For example, should Britain, transform itself from a constitutional monarchy to a presidential republic or dictatorship, its colonialistic attitudes, revanchist imperialism, crude fascism, supremacist ideology of empire, and cultural chauvinism will not undergo any changes. A change would happen only if exceptional circumstances bring the abrupt dismantling or gradual disintegration of the ideological foundation of the British state itself.

Likewise, if Israel were to change its political order from a parliamentary to a presidential system or monarchy, but leaving intact its racist Zionist foundation and its incipient ideology of world domination through American power, nothing will change in the fundamental nature of the Israeli state.

Finally, the diversity of political orders and the libertarian or totalitarian nature of a state must not constitute an alibi for its policy. Definitely, the policy of a state, meaning the policy of the ruling class, is a distinct entity that does not relate to any nature except the nature of ideology that created them.

Nazi System of Government

The passage from the Weimar Republic with its heavy inheritance from WWI to the Nazi order, did not bring with it fundamental structural changes in the German state. For instance, the chancellorship became F�hrership, then intended as the combination between a leader and a dictator, the bureaucracy remained almost intact, and the economic structure of Germany were only adapted to reflect the injunction of the Nazi Party. In addition, capitalism continued to thrive, although Hitler tended to concentrate power in the hands of large corporations for an easy control over their decision making to further the objective of the nascent Nazi order. Generally, the political power of Germany remained the privilege of the Nazi leadership. Was Germany under Hitler a dictatorship? Most likely it was, although semblance of power sharing between all sectors of society appeared functional as the Reichstag was still in charge of legislating laws.

U.S. System of Government

The U.S. built its political system based on the premise of representative democracy. However, this is only a superficial denomination as many restricting factors in this type of democracy inhibit the development of true popular participation in its decisions. In effect, the scope of this has passed from effective participation in policymaking, to endorsement of pre-decided policies through elected representatives who, once installed, would have nothing to do with the original objectives for which they came to power. To compensate for this obvious contradiction, both, candidates and population ignore the real problem and engage in a mutual game of perception and expectation.

While the fossilized two-party system consolidated its pattern and stranglehold on American life, the true power that defines the political order has passed, through time, from the power base of each party to self-reproducing elites (economic, political, and ideological) that control the entire socio-political order of the state and its foreign policy. Is the U.S. a democracy? Whether the U.S. is a democracy or not, is not relevant. What is relevant from the viewpoint of history is that the U.S. is an outlaw imperialist state responsible for unspeakable atrocities around the world.

Although many differences do exist between the U.S. and Nazi political states, elements such as Western matrix, capitalism, basic psychology of domination, dominant religion, control of the elites, and so on, make similarity between both political orders a plausible option.

Structure of Political Power

If we take any political order, identify each of its parts by name and hierarchy, then remove the core or the structure that supports and maintains it, that order would lose its configuration, and could even cease to exist. In practical terms, once the system of government is in place, the power that makes it function would fill all paths, voids, and ancillary components. Both, Nazi and U.S. imperialisms have created monolithic power structures that differ on superficial modalities but not on intrinsic nature. However, contrary to generic assumptions and uncritically accepted notions, the U.S. power structure is more monolithic, more resilient, and more insidious than that of the Nazis. The reason being, while the Nazi power structure depended on coercion and indoctrination, the U.S. power structure subsists effortlessly on consent that, in turn, takes its force from indoctrination and other minor factors such as the deification of the system and its virtues.

Nazi Structure of Power

Even though it was a byproduct of specific historical events, the Nazi power structure itself was not an accidental product of those same events, but rather a momentary conversion of preexistent forces that traditionally ruled Germany. All that Hitler and the Nazis did was to reshuffle and reconfigure their hierarchal order and subordinate them to the requirements of the new regime. Among these elements in descending order were the Nazi Party, the army, the bureaucracy, financial capital, industrialists, agrarian capitalists, and the German population at large.

It is more than probable that the Nazi party was not the only decision maker of the Nazi policy. Potentially, any firm refusal from any power element to line up behind Hitler could have reduced or annulled the Nazi momentum. So why, did this not happen? It did not happen because Hitler opted to share power; therefore, serious refusal did not materialize. Nazi power sharing was divided as follows: 1) with the army, 2) with the industrialists and the financial capital through consolidation of large companies, 3) with the masses that, once indoctrinated and aroused, provided the vital force that propelled Nazism forward, and 4) with the forces of German nationalism. I must note that the financial capital and the industrialists had no meaningful influence on the direction that Hitler was taking the country. This was the privilege of the Nazi leadership. Nevertheless, it is elementary that all parties connected to the Nazi program had hoped to capitalize on the potential material benefits of that experience.

U.S. Structure of Power

The most important aspect of the U.S. structure of power is not how it began, but how it developed and what it has become. Briefly, and just until WWII, the transformation of America from rural-industrial country to nuclear industrial power was guided mostly by an unequal sharing of power between political and industrial-financial classes, and with American people uncritically believing that they have a role in shaping events and socio-economic models.

After WWII and up to the present, the emergence of American-Soviet rivalry and the consolidation of U.S. economic corporatism, new elements re-configured the fabric of the U.S. power structure. The most important among these are massive militarization of U.S. imperialism, cohabitation between the military industry, the Pentagon, and political classes. As for the emergence of anti-system political dissent, that was and still is an intellectual force that rarely managed to change the international behavior of the system and its foreign policy options.

As many analysts concentrated on Eisenhower�s hypocritical warning of the military-industrial complex, the true control of power has passed to a new m�nage involving at least six leading groups. Indeed, while the traditional sectors of power, i.e., military industry, the Pentagon, and political classes remained unaltered, the newest groups engulfed the old ones and relegated them to subaltern roles. These groups are:

1. Consolidation of Zionist control over the Republican and Democratic parties, hence control over all political processes of the United States, especially in foreign policy;
   
   
2. The emergence of right-wing, Christian fundamentalist, and Zionist think tanks connected to the military industry, to the government, to the ideologies of empire, and to Israel that has become the de facto decision maker of U.S. world policy;
   
   
3. The transformation of media and its concentration in the hands of a few corporations with connections to the imperialist project;
   
   
4. The mummification of the two-party system and its conversion to a tool in the hands of all groups cited in number 2;
   
   
5. The role of technology in reinforcing militarist attitudes and imperialist interventionism;
   
   
6. The role of the entertainment industry in indoctrination, manipulation, falsification of history, and the degradation of culture in favor of misinformation and the spread of accepted stereotyping and violence against foreign nations.

While the Nazi structure of power was traditional, yet extraordinary and guided by one party, U.S. power: 1) is rigidly controlled by two identical parties, often in collaboration to keep the status quo of power structure, 2) has more resources, and is supported by continuing influx of technical advancement, political control of information, and public relation stunts. Collectively, as these factors obliterated the often vaunted but never seriously exercised notion of �checks and balances,� they established their preeminence by imposing unaccountability, mental sedation of the masses, spin control as philosophy, and political mediocrity as a means of perpetual control.

Romantic Nationalism

From martial Sparta to pathologically aggressive U.S.A., it seems that all fascist, nationalist, and imperialist regimes, regardless of historical epochs, freely use the concepts of national or ethnic superiority to expand and conquer. Ours, however, is not a study of nationalism, but rather a look at the practice where Nazi Germany and the United States employed and exploited the idea of nationalism to indoctrinate, advance, and justify ideological objectives.

Nazi Romantic Nationalism

Was Hitler the first leader to invent and apply fascist or super-romantic nationalism? Of course, not, history is replete with figures like Hitler since time immemorial. Moreover, contrary to this characterization of feelings that one has towards his or her own kind and national history, there is nothing glamorous or romantic about nationalism. If nationalism is a unifying romantic force in normal situations of any society, then why does that same society discriminate against its own members in countless ways? Nevertheless, nationalism, as a force of history, may be valid but only under special circumstances such as oppression, occupation, and planned erasure of national character by foreign invaders. In that case, it is a formidable force for liberation, whereby its appeal can catalyze national forces to fight foreign subjugation.

Moreover, was Nazi nationalism necessary, to get Germany back on its feet after WWI? No. One can answer this speculative question, as the study of social forces in Germany at that time, coupled with the once prevalent international situation would require extensive research and may yield no answer. However, what we know is that Hitler and Nazism invented for Germany and the world three ideological platforms: 1) biological superiority of the Aryan race of which, supposedly, the Germans are the highest representatives, 2) hence, national or societal superiority of the German people, and 3) hence, the inherent right of the Germans to rule over others. Once Hitler amalgamated these three notions in one parameter of exclusive divine-like superiority, the passage to super-aggressive and fascist nationalism was complete.

U.S. Romantic Nationalism

From my question whether the U.S. employment of depleted uranium in Iraq was infatuation or deliberation, through the question, whether Hitlerism is a mentality, and to the current discussion on American Modified and accepted Hitlerism, I provided many examples where the U.S. used the national superiority paradigm as a means to eradicate all preexistent societal structures of Native Americans. The question remains, after the establishment of a super continental state, were there other reasons that urged the U.S. to continue with its racial and national postulations of superiority?

The answer is yes. Being born out of colonialism and claiming the �divineness� of its existence, the U.S. compounded imperialism first with �God� and then with an opportunist but initially servile Zionism to continue experimenting with the grandiose design for building a universal empire. Throughout this series, I documented how successive American establishments aimed at establishing such an empire; but the idea of empire itself is a euphemism for domination over others. Most interestingly, that was the same aim of Hitler although he was mostly seeking European domination.

In addition, after 9/11 many forces including US Jewish Zionists and Christian Zionists pushed an already super inflated nationalism into the path of total hysteria that eventually became the overwhelming pretext for a new empire. Therefore, to describe U.S. ideological making, I shall reprise, after editing, my description of Hitler�s themes of superiority and domination.

Three concentric ideological platforms distinguish the American imperialist experience: 1) superiority (initially biological, but no longer such) of the American society, whereby the U.S. is the highest representative of all sums of past and present civilizations, 2) hence, national or societal superiority of the American state, and 3) hence, the �inherent� right of the U.S. to rule over others. Once the U.S. amalgamated these notions in one parameter of exclusive superiority, the passage to ultra-aggressive and fascist nationalism was complete.

Propaganda and Indoctrination

It is dubious that the ruling class of any society, ancient or modern, can last without indoctrination and propaganda. This is not to say that this is an endemic phenomenon or just a second nature of those classes. On the contrary, those two factors determining survival of regimes are the result of rational processes of thought and deliberation. From all aspects, Nazi Germany beat all previous human civilizations combined in those sectors of political control. The only other three states that surpassed the Nazi methods of indoctrination and propaganda are, in descending order, Israel, the U.S., and the former USSR.

Nazi Propaganda and Indoctrination

Nazi propaganda was all of the following things at once: racist, supremacist, emotional, rhetorical, figurative, plain, persuasive, evocative, prurient, hateful, violent, homicidal, imbalanced, psychopathic, false, and untrue. However, despite all of its macabre attributes, Nazi propaganda was effective�by using specific words, predetermined phrases, romantic images, black uniforms, red ribbons, classical marching music, rhetorical fervor, arousing speeches, flag waving, and unvarnished demagogy, the Nazi regime changed the course of history forever.

U.S. Propaganda and Indoctrination

Unlike Nazi propaganda gadgetry that was primitive by current technical standards, the American propaganda machine is technically advanced and supported by countless revolutionary media including the motion picture industry, television, Internet, think tank publications, advertisements, public relations, spins, politically controlled �independent� commissions, teleprompters, investigative journalism that does not investigate, focus groups, etc.

However, despite all of its advancement and the glamorous way by which it spreads, U.S. propaganda is only halfway effective. Although, it navigates effortlessly in the minds of the majority, its untruth and false premises lose their veracity and effect almost immediately, thus pushing the system into dizzying chain-spins. One reason for that is the powerful role of committed alternative media; another one, is the age in which we live in, where satellites and wireless communications tell of events as they happen, thus deflating claims and smashing assertions.

Regardless of its partial effectiveness, American propaganda is more insidious and ubiquitous than its Nazi counterpart even without using uniforms or marching music. By repeating the same slogans, words, phrases, and spins; by injecting romantic images into the public conscious, by using fear for public endorsement of policy, by exploiting general apathy of the population toward foreign issues, by depending on rhetorical fervor, arousing speeches, flag waving, unvarnished demagogy, lies, and deception, the American regime is changing the course of history as well.

Statements of intent

Although the history of Nazi imperialism was brief, the civilization it made, the cosmic cruelty it committed, and the ideology of empire and nationalist supremacy it produced, was not an accidental phenomenon but deliberated decisions. Equally, U.S. Imperialism that is over two centuries old has been creating its own civilization, committing cosmic cruelty, and producing ideology of empire and nationalist supremacy with firm deliberation and intent. Both imperialisms committed massive acts of violence against their accidental, targeted, and invented adversaries. The crucial thing to demonstrate here is that the affinity between both systems is such that the ideological edifice of Nazism resembles that of American imperialism.

Nazi Statement of Intent

Aside from Hitler, Heinrich Himmler is the embodiment of the ideological aberration of Nazism. The following quote is from a speech to the SS guards:

You Einsatztruppen (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs and rats�against vermin. [3] [Emphasis added]

U.S. Statement of Intent

Correspondence between President Truman and Senator Richard Russell: In his diary, President Truman spoke of a letter dated August 9, 1945, that he sent to Sen. Richard Russell in response to Russell�s letter where the senator urged him to hit Japan with more atomic and conventional weapons. Let us read the following three quotes from the letter:

�I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that, because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in the same manner.

�For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the 'pigheadedness' of the leaders of a nation and, for your information; I am not going to do it until it is absolutely necessary . . .

�My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children in Japan."

Correspondence between President Truman and Samuel McCrea Cavert, general secretary of the Federal Council of Churches: In a letter to the president dated August 11, 1945, Cavert wrote, "Respectfully urge that ample opportunity to be given Japan to reconsider ultimatum before any further devastation by atomic bomb is visited upon her people." The following was Truman�s reply:

"Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.

"When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true." (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, material quoted from pg. 563).

Without its cosmic atrocity, crimes against humanity, screeching supremacist nationalism, and ideology of power, Nazism could have ended just like any other oppressive regime in history. That did not happen. Hitlerism as mentality, ideology, and practice still lives.

Likewise, without its aggressive imperialism, screeching supremacist nationalism, and ideology of power, the United States could have become truly the greatest nation in history and not a terrorist state. The U.S. democracy alibi to justify its colonialist-imperialism and international terrorism, and its claims of moral leadership are the greatest grotesque joke ever invented.

Having explored thus far the nature of U.S. aggressive imperialistic violence, I shall discuss in the coming parts of this series the occupation of Iraq in multiple contexts. These include international, regional, UN, American, Zionism, Israeli, Arab, and Iraqi contexts. Afterwards, I shall discuss the splendid failure of the American conquest of Iraq, its meaning, and implication. However, before all that, I shall introduce you first to hyper-imperialist personalities, apologists and mystagogues of empire, and to the theorists of the clash of civilizations who are shaping another bloody American century.

NOTES:

[1] Quoted in Loren Baritz, Backfire, William Morrow And Company, 1985, P.30

[3] Quotes from Hitler�s Henchmen and Nazi Sympathizers, compiled by Jim Walker

Next: Part 17: Colin Powell, a Hyper-imperialist Explains Conquest