I have to say that after reading the original article I could not get offended. Perhaps pre-911 I could have. But post-911, I am totally numb to being offended and it should be said to being offensive. And please no lectures on the coming of barbarism --it is already here. Churchill gets much wrong and the equivalence of the US today to that of Germany of yesteryear is tiresome and not because there are no comparisons to be had--the constant drone of national chauvinism, the constant assertion that America is the embodiment of the highest stage of human civilisation, the constant barrage of militaristic images and near totalizing militaristic aesthetic which has come to dominate its popular and intellectual landscapes-- but, rather, because it is a measure of how ugly things are. Rhetorically it does not make good sense to use such an extreme example, such as that of Nazi Germany to make ones case. How easy it is to prove that America is not the 3rd Reich or even this millennium's new Reich. And why should we need to demonstrate that America today is the highest embodiment of Evil that has ever captured popular resonance in the twentieth century, i.e., that of Hitler, in order to motivate a conversation or action on the part of a largely duplicitous American populace in the preservation of domination through empire? Evil is rarely so clean-cut and obvious.
Oh that it would be that GBJ had pictures of himself all over the US on massive billboards and was running concentration camps in the American heartland (concentration camps are, by the way, a British invention pioneered during the Boer War). And this brings me to the point. America is a global empire and like the British empire, it is attempting to make the world in its own image--how many good Englishmen and women found this civilisational discourse soothing? Many, in fact enough that the civilisational discourse never came unhinged and supported the expansion of Britannica until... well after the empire was gone. In fact it still lingers in the UK today. Often colonial excesses are justified through this civilisational discourse. And we might add that it certainly seems to be the origin of the glint in Tony Blaire's eyes when he talks of Iraq.
There is much to recommend and dislike about Churchill's rant, but, in the end he has fallen prey to his own quarry. The right has a lengthy text with which to hang him. What is more, in an era of five second sound bites and a cartoonish imagination vis-a-vis good and evil Churchill has managed to reinforce rather than deconstruct the narrative of empire. What are the chances of getting the American populace to equate Sadam with Hitler? Very high. Now what are the chances of getting the American populace to see themselves as functionaries of Nazi fascism? About as likely as clemency for a prisoner on death row in Texas. So the game of pick your Hitler needs to be put to rest. There are far more fertile grounds to be sewn. This said, like I said, I remain un-offended by Churchill.
Travis
>
> I may be the only one on this list who has spoken up in support of
> Churchill's arguments, but I know that I'm not alone. I know of many
> leftists and anarchists who support what Churchill is saying, but who
> keep their words private. The mood in this country AND on this list is
> such that anybody who expresses their true beliefs are at risk for
> attacks.
>
> Chuck0
>
> -------
>
> Alright already. I've written rants so similar to Churchill, pure
> guilt drags me out of lurking. I read Churchill's essay this morning,
> and all I've got to say is right-on Ward, warts and all.
>
> His complete essay is here:
>
> http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html
>
> Unfortunately, it's long winded and wonders a lot. Here is a taste that
> includes the `little Eichmanns' part (see below).
>
> I wouldn't have used Eichmann as a rhetorical example only because
> Eichmann was an officer seeking advancement. I don't know the names of
> all the millions who just went along with the program, the Good
> Germans, any more than I know the names of the people killed in
> WTC. But clearly Churchill's meaning was directed at the Good Germans,
> the Good Americans, just doing their `job'.
>
> On the other hand, let's not kid ourselves that most of our `jobs' are
> in fact devoted to supporting and promulgating the evil Empire and its
> neoliberal capitalist pig hegemony---mine included (when I was still
> working). That's what `jobs' tend to be in the Empire.
>
> Do we `deserve' deferments from the war because we have the right
> thoughts and sympathies? I don't think so. That was Robert Fisk's
> problem in Afghanistan and he took his beating for it. Most of us are
> lucky enough to not have to take a beating or a killing. Chances are
> we will stay lucky.
>
> But sometimes luck runs out. As Camus wrote, neither victims nor
> executioners. How that trick is performed is something I don't know
> how to do--but just doing my `job' turned out to not be the answer.
>
> CG
>
> -------
>
> Meet the "Terrorists"
>
> Of the men who came, there are a few things demanding to be said in
> the face of the unending torrent of disinformational drivel unleashed
> by George Junior and the corporate "news" media immediately following
> their successful operation on September 11.
>
> They did not, for starters, "initiate" a war with the US, much less
> commit "the first acts of war of the new millennium."
>
> A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants
> has been waged more-or-less continuously by the "Christian West" - now
> proudly emblematized by the United States - against the "Islamic East"
> since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More
> recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first
> lent significant support to Israel's dispossession/displacement of
> Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered
> "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of several points in between. Any
> way you slice it, however, if what the combat teams did to the WTC and
> the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war - and they can - then
> the same is true of every US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day
> one. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred
> on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting
> under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The
> most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is
> that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has
> dispensed to their people as a matter of course.
>
> That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action
> at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and
> restraint.
>
> They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."
>
> There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel
> killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside
> comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World
> Trade Center . . .
>
> Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were
> civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a
> technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial
> empire - the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension
> of U.S. policy has always been enslaved - and they did so both
> willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" - a derivative, after
> all, of the word "ignore" - counts as less than an excuse among this
> relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were
> unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were
> involved in - and in many cases excelling at - it was because of their
> absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too
> busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell
> phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which
> translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance,
> into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better,
> more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty
> befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the
> sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in
> hearing about it.
>
> The men who flew the missions against the WTC and Pentagon were not
> "cowards." That distinction properly belongs to the "firm-jawed lads"
> who delighted in flying stealth aircraft through the undefended
> airspace of Baghdad, dropping payload after payload of bombs on anyone
> unfortunate enough to be below - including tens of thousands of
> genuinely innocent civilians - while themselves incurring all the risk
> one might expect during a visit to the local video arcade. Still more,
> the word describes all those "fighting men and women" who sat at
> computer consoles aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, enjoying
> air-conditioned comfort while launching cruise missiles into
> neighborhoods filled with random human beings. Whatever else can be
> said of them, the men who struck on September 11 manifested the
> courage of their convictions, willingly expending their own lives in
> attaining their objectives.
>
> Nor were they "fanatics" devoted to "Islamic fundamentalism."
>
> One might rightly describe their actions as "desperate." Feelings of
> desperation, however, are a perfectly reasonable - one is tempted to
> say "normal" - emotional response among persons confronted by the mass
> murder of their children, particularly when it appears that nobody
> else really gives a damn (ask a Jewish survivor about this one, or,
> even more poignantly, for all the attention paid them, a Gypsy).
>
> That desperate circumstances generate desperate responses is no
> mysterious or irrational principle, of the sort motivating
> fanatics. Less is it one peculiar to Islam. Indeed, even the FBI's
> investigative reports on the combat teams' activities during the
> months leading up to September 11 make it clear that the members were
> not fundamentalist Muslims. Rather, it's pretty obvious at this point
> that they were secular activists - soldiers, really - who, while
> undoubtedly enjoying cordial relations with the clerics of their
> countries, were motivated far more by the grisly realities of the
> U.S. war against them than by a set of religious beliefs.
>
> And still less were they/their acts "insane."
>
> Insanity is a condition readily associable with the very American idea
> that one - or one's country - holds what amounts to a "divine right"
> to commit genocide, and thus to forever do so with impunity. The term
> might also be reasonably applied to anyone suffering genocide without
> attempting in some material way to bring the process to a halt. Sanity
> itself, in this frame of reference, might be defined by a willingness
> to try and destroy the perpetrators and/or the sources of their
> ability to commit their crimes. (Shall we now discuss the US
> "strategic bombing campaign" against Germany during World War II, and
> the mental health of those involved in it?)
>
> Which takes us to official characterizations of the combat teams as an
> embodiment of "evil."
>
> Evil - for those inclined to embrace the banality of such a concept -
> was perfectly incarnated in that malignant toad known as Madeline
> Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Jaba the Hutt, blandly
> spewing the news that she'd imposed a collective death sentence upon
> the unoffending youth of Iraq. Evil was to be heard in that great
> American hero "Stormin' Norman" Schwartzkopf's utterly dehumanizing
> dismissal of their systematic torture and annihilation as mere
> "collateral damage." Evil, moreover, is a term appropriate to
> describing the mentality of a public that finds such perspectives and
> the policies attending them acceptable, or even momentarily tolerable.
>
> Had it not been for these evils, the counterattacks of September 11
> would never have occurred. And unless "the world is rid of such evil,"
> to lift a line from George Junior, September 11 may well end up
> looking like a lark...
>
>
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