In a heated debate about the crisis behind closed doors in Brussels on Saturday, the prime minister told an EU summit that Putin had to be stopped from seizing all of Ukraine, according to La Repubblica, the Italian newspaper, which obtained details of the confidential discussion."
Wow, a British politician reviving the despised memory of a dead German leader in an Italian newspaper. "We run the risk of repeating the mistakes made in Munich in '38. We cannot know what will happen next," Cameron was reported as warning.
No,
he did not make any mention of the U.S. corporations that funded the Nazis, or
the fact that it was the Russians, not the Brits, who stopped their blitzgrieg,
or, for that matter, all the war criminals who escaped prosecution.
Owen Jones of the Guardian was disgusted by what he read in his own paper.
"Here we go again,' he wrote, adding, "The west comparing its latest enemy number to the German Fuhrer has been a standard tactic for decades. When Egypt's General Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, Britain's prime minister, Anthony Eden, compared him to Hitler, while Labour's Hugh Gaitskell opted for a comparison with Benito Mussolini. Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic was the Hitler of the late 1990s, and the US dabbled with describing former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in these terms too.
On the eve of the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was repeatedly compared to Hitler, with Donald Rumsfeld even casting George W Bush in the role of Winston Churchill. The media abounded with such parallels in the build-up to the Iraq disaster, with one Telegraph article headlined "Appeasement won't stop Saddam any more than Hitler" and even suggesting Iraq could bomb Southampton. On either sides of his rapprochement with the west, Libya's Colonel Gaddafi faced the Hitler treatment, too.
In and of themselves, these comparisons are self-evidently ludicrous."
But, why let historical facts get in the way in a conflict that seems to have real Hitler lovers in the ranks of Ukraine's hard-right bully boys, the very people Putin has been denouncing. Talk about twisting reality inside out.
JP Sottle writes that this tactic has spread across the ocean: "when it's time to fire up the Great American Fear Factory for another "lobbying blitz" and bellicose "product launch", America's policymakers conjure up the darkest star of human history. They say "Hitler".
And now, as if on cue, Secretary of State John Kerry said "Hitler"..."Evoking Hitler is the foreign policy equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater."
How did this all start? Listen to someone who has been paying attention to the details. Former AP reporter, Robert Parry, of Consortium News reports facts, not contrived historical comparisons.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
