The Splendid Failure of Occupation
Part 10: American Modified and Accepted Hitlerism: Discussion
By B.J. Sabri
Online Journal Contributing Writer


May 21, 2004, 16:08

�In recent years, I've argued that dropping the bomb was the proper thing to do . . . because it was the only way to impress on humanity the terrible nature of nuclear weapons. We have to invest them with the force of religious taboos, which are the only things strong enough to last for millennia . . . The images of Hiroshima have that force.''�Alvin Weinberg, a former director of Oak Ridge National Laboratories [1]

�Talking about that moment: �I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.� Does that capture the moment for you?��J. Robert Oppenheimer, supervising scientist of the Manhattan Project, responding on how he felt after the nuclear experiment in New Mexico. [2.]

�It was then that I had a letter from Leo Szilard suggesting that the first nuclear explosive used in the war should be used for demonstration and not for actually hurting man. I went with the proposal to Oppenheimer, who said, definitely, 'No.' Unfortunately, I took his advice."�Edward Teller, theoretical physicist, Los Alamos, for the development of the first atomic bomb [3]

�Truman ordered a halt to further atomic bombings. Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, �all those kids.��Henry Wallace, secretary of Commerce, diary note on Aug. 10, 1945 the day after Harry Truman incinerated Nagasaki and three days after the incineration of Hiroshima. [4]

"It'll come out in the wash.��Harry Truman replying to J. Robert Oppenheimer who told Truman, the day after Truman incinerated Hiroshima, �Mr. President, I have blood on my hands." [5]

�I think we could all agree that if they [the Soviets] struck first we are going to target our weapons against their society and destroy 120 million of them.��Robert McNamara. testimony to Congress, January 1967, [6]

Discussing the concept of �American Modified and Accepted Hitlerism� (AMAH) is an avenue to understand the working mechanisms of U.S. imperialism. Although I tend to accentuate violence as the most prominent expression of the concept, violence is only a co-factor in the multiple layers of U.S. ideological make-up. Any dedicated reflection on the ideological announcements of U.S. power holders would distinctly spell out all other factors including the desire for limitless imperialistic expansion, acquired or innate tendency for fascism because of unaccountability and supremacist mentality, lust for colonialism in all forms, and entrenched racism, all arranged into a corollary that U.S. imperialists affectionately call the �American experience.�

Inescapably, our contention is that, in all historical phases of this �experience� (colonial period, republic, empire, pre-Zionist era, and current Zionist phase), the rationales, ruses, actions, and applications of its guiding ideology has caused and is still causing unspeakable death, destruction, and desolation around the world. Because of the ease (based on a self-given right) with which the U.S. intervenes in the affairs of the world, the premeditation to inflict mayhem, and the recurrent announcements of supporting justificatory ideology, it is justifiable to conclude that manifest Hitlerism (as it relates to the American international ideology and praxis) and the U.S. have become synonyms.

Just as Hitler wanted to implement an order and had a vision for the world, American leaders had and still have identical objectives. For example, when retired General and former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, used a phrase like �Our strategy for the world . . . etc.) [7], we ask, �What strategy and lofty ideals did Scowcroft have in mind, who authorized him to devise a strategy for the world, and except for his imperialistic, Mormon, and military credentials, are there any intellectual, philosophical, physiological, biological, psychological, civilizational, societal, and literary qualifications that peremptorily put him in control of our destiny and of the world?�

Of course, I cannot answer all these questions without extensively studying Scowcroft and his life, a thing that goes beyond the scope of this work. Nevertheless, I shall dare to speculate by answering my question with a question�just give me a moment until the next paragraph. First, from reading �A World Transformed,� that he co-authored with George H. W. Bush, but with true writers writing the book for both of them, we can depict a rigid ideological makeup of a self-righteous and rigidly monolithic fascist imperialist. However, this is not the point, as discovering this trait of Scowcroft, a man indoctrinated in the philosophy of empire and militarism, is as equivalent to rediscovering that Earth is a planet. In the end, from that same reading, I did not see any serious qualifications that could authorize Scowcroft and his fellow imperialists to devise any strategy for the world. Further, to our knowledge, we have never come across any petition from the world soliciting the U.S. to devise a strategy for it. Now, let me answer the question that I begged for a moment to answer.

If we compare the overall civilizational baggage of Scowcroft, as a representative of his imperialist class, and that of Nelson Mandela, as a representative of all nations yearning for justice, freedom, and equality, who between these two leaders has the qualifications to devise a strategy for the world?

From where I stand, I cannot see but one African giant whose morality standards and sense of history overshadows and nullifies all petty thinking of Western imperialists, thus making them appear meaningless entities in the perennial human landscape. What I stated in the previous paragraph is not a comparison between personalities, and the answer I gave has to do only with my personal election of who has all required qualifications to design a strategy for the world. The ultimate purpose of the comparison, however, is to deflate to absolute zero the pretensions of U.S. imperialists to have the last word on the future of humanity. Of course, the U.S. can be an actor among many other actors, but not the only actor. In addition, it must earn that participatory role by self-reforming its Hitlerian soul, renouncing international terrorism, and accepting that the world is multiform, diverse, and has no plans to conform to the chauvinist tenets of imperialism and Zionism.

How does a fascist mentality work in the example of Scowcroft? In a special interview with Peter Jennings of ABC in 2000, Scowcroft stated that the U.S. does not want any democracy project for Iraq, and that the only thing the U.S. was pursuing, at that time, was that one of Saddam�s henchmen puts a bullet in his head; after that, Saddam�s regime can continue, but without Saddam. As for the people of Iraq, their life, and future . . . who cares! This is fascism, regardless of how we define fascism.

The �grandiose� strategy that Scowcroft had for Iraq or for the world was not just an isolated episode in American thinking. Interestingly, American presidents love to create grandiose doctrines, philosophies, and visions. Monroe, Wilson, Truman, Carter, and even a mediocre personality that owes his ascendancy to power to his dynastic roots and to the Supreme Court, is now advocating his own hyper-imperialist doctrine. The infatuation with �doctrines� and �visions� is not an exclusive privilege of presidents. Zionists have a vision, especially for the Middle East; opinion makers have a vision; bogus experts have a vision; and even talking heads have a vision, too. One common denominator for all these �doctrines� and �visions� is an aggressive hegemonic order that depends on military violence to achieve U.S. imperialistic objectives.

The most interesting aspect of U.S. ideological stagnation is that once a doctrine, vision, or a philosophy finds its way to the public domain of information, it becomes a rigid fixture of American life, thus testifying to the stultifying of American thought under the hermetic control of rulers and special interests groups. The path that leads from visions and doctrines to active implementation of the same has one consequence on an international level�violence and destruction of nations. To conclude this particular discussion, U.S. existence encapsulates the most active forms of cruel violence mingled with bizarre beliefs in its singular superiority. To double the charge against the mentality of international violence practiced by the United States, it appears that Zionists, militarists, supremacists, fascists, religious fanatics, and economic concerns tied to the empire project are determined to keep it that way, thus crowning the U.S. as the most criminal state in history and the ultimate menace to the survival of humanity.

There have been persistent insinuations and policy announcements by imperialists and cultural associates that the understanding of this pretended singularity is a means to accept reductionist and apologetic notions that posit a spurious theorem. According to this fascist theorization, the U.S. brand of violence and its guiding ideology are a necessity in a world dominated by �violence� [sic]. This is to say that the U.S. is adopting violence to respond to and subdue violence! This is preposterous; since its inception, the U.S. has been constantly the state that promoted and initiated violence. A sporadic look at the situation in Iraq can confirm this view, just read, �Violence in Iraq,� �Violence impedes re-construction,� etc. The U.S. appears so blatant in insulting our intelligence by insinuating that the Iraqis are using �violence� against harmless U.S. invaders who just went to Iraq to help it rid itself of dictatorship.

In other words, and according to this scheming thinking, Hitlerism, as an expression of international violence, is an acceptable price for the world to pay for the glory of hyper-empire and its Zionist promoters. From another viewpoint, there is an understatement in my idea of American Hitlerism as it relates to the wider notion of violence: Hitlerism as an ideology actually exists in the U.S. mentality only in modest proportions. Indeed, the rest of that mentality, especially in its current Zionist configuration, goes far beyond Hitlerism and makes this one a minor phenomenon on the wide turf of violence. Indeed, Hitler�s violence is actually mild in comparison with America�s violence. For example, Hitler hated Communism and even killed and incarcerated many communists, but the U.S. has killed 3 million Vietnamese because, supposedly, it was fighting to extirpate Communism, and that besides the military coups that it had promoted to annihilate hundred of thousands of people suspected of being communist sympathizers, as happened in Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Chile, and elsewhere.

Furthermore, violence is only one component of the American makeup. Even if America were not violent, its coercive programs for chauvinist supremacy, econo-political manipulation and control, interventionism, abuse of human rights around the world, would be still a serious menace to the world. As a result, our humanity cannot be free while America�s coercion extends its long arm like a permanent steel noose around the necks of nations.

Having arrived at this conclusion, I propose the following methodical analysis for the understanding of violence as manifested at multiple levels of the American minds that control and influence society. Let us start by dissecting the quote of Robert�s McNamara, here above quoted.

McNamara: �I think we could all agree that if they [the Soviets] struck first�

Comment: McNamara generalized his feelings and involved all those present to his testimony. In other words, he wanted to involve everyone in his genocidal imagination. In psychological terms, this is a way to ease the burden of possible scruples and feelings of guilt. It is the �collective murder of Julius Caesar syndrome�

McNamara: �If they struck . . ."

Comment: notice how McNamara used the conditional �if,� meaning a hypothetical scenario. This situation requires that a hypothetical question should have a hypothetical answer. McNamara, being an architect of war and violence, could not bring himself into the subtle terrain of argument where the extrapolation and mystification of terminology and meaning is an art. So how did the prodigious former defense secretary resolve the hypothetical Soviet attack?

McNamara: �We are going to target our weapons against their society and destroy 120 million of them.�

Comment: McNamara passed from the conditional and hypothetical by using the emphatic, �we are going to.� He expressed determination. He did not say, �We would target . . . etc.,� he was positive and sure of the quality of the American response. Further, instead of relying on the euphemistic, metaphorical, and the abstract such as the �U.S. would destroy Soviet cities,� implying people, he, with a dexterity acquired from killing hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, chillingly quantified a number�120 million of them to be precise. Now, even here, he could have used euphemism to lessen the impact of numbers by saying, for example, � . . . and inflicting disproportionate fatalities,� etc. No, he was arrogant, cocksure and emphatic on the precise number. (In his book, �In Retrospect,� McNamara mitigated his essential Hitlerism; he appeared as if he learned something about humanity, but that would not erase his record.)

The implication of all the preceding is that McNamara, as one of the archetypical characters in the vast American repertoire of violence, was not alone in his genocidal determinism. With few exceptions, the entire ruling classes think along the same lines. In my research on this quote, I was unsuccessful (maybe some energetic readers can help with this) to find out if there were negative reactions by the Congress to hear their defense secretary pronounce the phrase, �destroy 120 million of them,� as if McNamara were talking about squashing 120 million mosquitoes hovering over a stagnate pond. In retrospect, and on grounds of comparison, Hitler, reportedly, wanted to exterminate all Jews in Germany and in the world. Let us see the implication of numbers. The 1949 issue of the World Almanac, citing The American Jewish Committee, reported that in 1939 there were 16.6 million people embracing the Jewish faith in the world. [8] There are serious implications when we compare this number of potential Jewish victims with the number that McNamara hypothesized of Soviets he would kill in retaliation for a Soviet attack.

If we divide 120 million people that McNamara wanted to kill in response to a hypothetical Soviet attack by 16.6 million Jews of the world at the time of the Third Reich, the result is 7.22 times as many. Instead, if we divide 120 million by the face value number that Zionist organizations claim that Hitler killed which is 6 million, then that ratio increases to 20. Now since the West and Jewish organizations tell us the killing of 6 million innocent Jews is a holocaust, what should we call the hypothetical killing of 120 million innocent Soviet citizens? There could be many names to choose from including �macro-Holocaust,� �Super Soviet Holocaust,� or maybe, The Holocaust of Holocausts� or �Twenty Holocausts.�

One may rebut that I compared a hypothetical Soviet holocaust to: (1) a hypothetical holocaust of total world Jewish population of diverse nationalities, including real victims and (2) a supposedly actual number of innocent Jews that Hitler killed.

Of course, this rebuttal is valid, but if George Bush attacked Iraq because of imperialistic hypotheses, who would impede us to use just hypotheses without attacking any one? Ipso facto, what I am driving at here is to establish is intent. Suppose that in 1967 the USSR launched an attack against the United States. First, we do not know what exactly a Soviet attack would have targeted, and McNamara did not specify how many Americans a Soviet attack might have killed. A retaliatory intent of the size that McNamara imagined, i.e., to destroy 120 million lives, is large enough to question the intimate fabric of genocidal impulses that engulf the minds of many Americans in positions of command. Would comparing the Jewish Holocaust, in whatever number it is presented, to Native Americans, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Iraqis that the U.S. killed in its aggression against those four nations be valid? The answer to this question is a firm yes. Since the word �holocaust� is Greek for �sacrificed or perished by fire� then the phrase is applicable whenever there is annihilation by military fire and bombs.

More sinister and cynical than McNamara was Alvin Weinberg. A few facts emerge from reading the equivocal quote of Weinberg. First, he committed a gigantic intellectual as much as scientific fraud, when he stated that exploding the atomic bombs was a lesson, because it was the only way to impress on humanity the terrible nature of nuclear weapons.

If Weinberg were such an ardent believer on lecturing humanity on the horrors of the atom by showing them how countless people would incinerate instantaneously, there was a simpler way to demonstrate that. He could have volunteered to offer himself as immolation for the rest of the world and put himself at the epicenter of a microscopic nuclear explosion so the world could have seen firsthand the mini nuclear mushroom devouring him and everything around and beneath him.

In addition, from a scientific viewpoint, there was no reason kill hundreds of thousands of people to impress on humanity the terrible consequences of the atomic bombs. I can confirm this fact by analogy: there is no reason to kill 10,000 people with one single knife to impress upon us that a knife can kill. The point is that the nuclear test of New Mexico prior to the actual detonation over Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have sufficed as an ominous marker. Third, surprisingly, notice how genocidal impulses accumulate massively in one person as when Weinberg, categorically states, �In recent years, I've argued that dropping the bomb was the proper thing to do . . . We have to invest them with the force of religious taboos . . . etc.� It is clear that human vaporization by nuclear heat is of no concern to a scientist like Weinberg; his paradigm did not intend to show the horror of nuclear annihilation, as much as demonstrating a capitalistic approach to understand it, as in, �We have to invest. . . ."

Among all American criminal minds of the modern age, no mind can come close to that of a maniacal killer called Harry S. Truman. There were some figures, which timidly tried to imitate his style, including the minds of George H. W. Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, Barry McCaffrey, and George W. Bush. Let us substantiate this claim by studying the phrase, �Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, "all those kids."

Well, what can we say on the humane feelings of a mass annihilator? Did Truman imply that the incineration of hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki before wiping out the prospected 100,000 people was not horrible in the first place? As for his �he did not like the idea of killing �all those kids;�� this is hardly believable coming from the mouth of a nuclear murder who just a few days earlier burnt countless babies and children by nuclear holocaust.

The perturbed minds of lunatic killers that history imposed on us as leaders, such as Holagu, Napoleon, Sherman, Jackson, Custer, Hitler, Churchill, Truman, Stalin, Pol Pot, Sharon, and Saddam, work in many mysterious ways. But when a president of the United States who had just committed an immense nuclear bloodbath, tells his chief scientist, who was feeling the guilt of killing so many people, that the blood of hundreds of thousands will �come out in the wash,� he eloquently clarified and magnified the essence of American genocidal impulses. As for the Faustian and cynical hypocrisy of Oppenheimer, who felt blood on his hands, just re-read the quote I provided.

My conclusive point is that the way by which the American killing and annihilations of invented enemies goes beyond Hitlerism, which as I stated earlier, is modest in comparison with the American brand of violence. Although I shall use the concept of AMAH throughout this series, the realization that this concept may not be sufficient to reflect the exact nature of the American Empire, brought me to see the implications of violence under the light of predetermination, indifference, and ideological manipulation. This, as you will read in parts 11, 12, and 13 pushed me to look for a taxonomy that is possibly the nearest to rendering my idea. The main reason for that is that Hitlerism was straightforward in its theory and practice, the American Empire on the other hand is not. It is treacherous. It hides behind glamorous names that include democracy, the rule of the law, and elections.

In parts seven, eight, and nine, I assigned to the American violence a denominator based on Hitlerism, despite the fact that Hitler was not the worst among vicious figures in history, and in part eight, I explained why I called it �American Modified and Accepted Hitlerism.� Again, from studying history, it appears that any regime employing violence, always finds the means to justify it. This is not so in the American example, The U.S. does not justify its massive violence, it, instead, rationalizes and accepts it . . . George H. W. Bush once, chauvinistically, declared that he �will never apologize for America,� as if he wanted to ingratiate himself with the parochial part of the American people by taking jingoistic fascist attitudes.

Therefore, AMAH, as a paradigm, is a way to make violence appear as an ordinary fact of modern age. As for explanation of terminology, the word �modified� as it applies to Hitlerism indicates a situation where the concept describing mass killing changes its semantics to something not related to killing, such as when the U.S. calls the people it kills �collateral damage,� where �collateral� means: secondary, or accidental, and where �damage� does not even mean death or killing! Examples of modified and accepted Hitlerism include the Native Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Iraqi Holocausts.

The other situation of modified Hitlerism is when the U.S. massively kills the population it is attacking, but never talks about how many it killed, such as in Panama, Columbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and in American-arranged coups were millions of people perished. In this case, its silence tries to modify perceptions of mass killing, thus making it acceptable by avoidance. As for the word �accepted,� it is self-explanatory. However, this word is full of meanings and has serious implications. For instance, why does the U.S. expect us to gloss over its Native Indian Holocaust, but pay attention to Stalin�s pogroms? Why do Zionists propagandistically magnify the Jewish Holocaust, and minimize the Armenian Holocaust or the Iraqi Holocaust by installments?

AMAH, however, is not just an exercise in invented terminology. It is a strong indictment of atrocious and extreme barbarity and, as such, it has its own contextual and accusatory validity. To attest to this point, the more you accuse Sharon of Hitlerism, the more he becomes obdurate in his Hitlerian tenacity; and the more you indict Bush and Zionists for their crimes in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, the more they become obdurate in defense of their policies. The epitome of this was when Iraq�s colonial ruler and Israel�s supporter, Paul Bremer, annoyed with reports on Iraqi civilian casualties, ordered Iraqi hospitals and local authorities, acting under the occupiers� dictate, to stop counting them . . .

In the next two or three parts, we shall conclude our discussion on the manifestation of the U.S.�s many faces of international violence and its driving ideology. In particular, we shall discuss: (1) ideological expressions of American Hitlerism as they relate to the American �experience� and the domestic means or mechanisms that enable the U.S. to practice its brand of Hitlerism out of its borders with such ease, glamour, and adorned publicity, and (2) historical comparisons of Hitlerian mentalities.

Notes

 [1] http://mt.sopris.net/mpc/military/japan.html

[2] http://mt.sopris.net/mpc/military/japan.html

[3] http://mt.sopris.net/mpc/military/japan.html

[4] http://mt.sopris.net/mpc/military/japan.html

[5] Quoted in: Mickey Z.�s �We�ve got the Cards: 56 years after Hiroshima�
 
[6] John Newhouse, War and Peace in the Nuclear age, Vintage Press Edition, 1990, p, 202

[7] Robin Wright and Doyle McManus, Flash Points, 1991, p, 3

[8] The New York Times, February 22, 1948, p. 4

Next, Part 11: American Modified and Accepted Hitlerism: Elaboration