What did history teach us?

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by GePap
Comparing anyone to Hilter, or Stalin, or anyone else for that matter is historical idiocy. Saddam does not act like Stalin, or Hitler.

Saddam is very much like Stalin. Saddam has modeled his whole life after Stalin. He even looks like him.

From a PBS Frontline interview:

Do we know whether or not Saddam has actually studied Stalin's tactics?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Saddam studied Stalin. Stalin is his hero. Stalin came from a humble background. Stalin was brought up by a mother. Stalin used thugs. Stalin used the security service. Stalin hated his army. And so does Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein models himself after Stalin more than any other man in history.

He has a full library of books about Stalin. He reads about him, and when he was a young man--even before he attained any measure of power--he used to wander around the offices of the Ba'ath Party telling people 'wait until I take over this country. I will make a Stalin state out of it yet.' People used to laugh him off. They shouldn't have. It was a very serious proposition indeed

[GePap]

Look Static23: I am like my father, I know what my father acted like, but I am not my father, now am I? No matter how much saddam studies stalin, he has motivations and ideas that are different, an one will not know or even make an educated guess about what Saddam would do by studying the hitory of the USSR from 1905 to 1953, now would they?

If you want to argue about what Saddam might do, for God's sake, study the 30 years the man has been in power. 30! Thats more then twice Hitler's stay in power, longer than Mussolinis' longer than Stalin's.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by GePap
Look Static23: I am like my father, I know what my father acted like, but I am not my father, now am I? No matter how much saddam studies stalin, he has motivations and ideas that are different, an one will not know or even make an educated guess about what Saddam would do by studying the hitory of the USSR from 1905 to 1953, now would they?

If you want to argue about what Saddam might do, for God's sake, study the 30 years the man has been in power. 30! Thats more then twice Hitler's stay in power, longer than Mussolinis' longer than Stalin's.

Saddam has studied Stalin's life for decades. He greatly admires Stalin. His methods are derived directly from Stalin, even to this day.

I agree one must study Saddam' life to understand Saddam , but one must also study Stalin's life to understand Saddam.

[DuncanK]

I think to believe that Saddam will act like Stalin is to underestimate Saddam. Gepap has a point. There is a reason he's been in power for thirty years. He's very good. Probably better than Stalin.

[Chris 62]

History teaches us that some people will never believe in acting no matter what the cause, and as such, don't be detered by their foolishness, or suffer disaster.

[Velociryx]

I disagree, GePap, for the reasons I have already stated.

If there were no lessons to be learned from the study of the patterns of history, then there would be scant need for those folks, say, in law enforcement, who profile serial killers, when in fact, their views are exceedingly insightful and often pivotal in catching those killers.

If I am understanding your post correctly, you would hold that such activities are an utter waste of time, and contribute nothing. The evidence, however, is not on your side.

As to the timeframe immediately following WWII, didn't it lead to war? Perhaps not an armed invasion of Western Europe, but was it not called the cold....war?

My history is a bit rusty where US-Japanese relations pre WWII are concerned, but my impression is that the US largely *ignored* Japanese aggression. This is a very different beast from appeasing. No less foolish, no less dangerous, but hardly the same as giving into demands.

All of international politics is a mirror image of a schoolyard playground.

The stakes are higher, certainly. The dynamics are a shade more complex, but the patterns are quite the same.

There are lessons there, as there are lessons in history.

-=Vel=-

[TheStinger]

At least teh French and British had an excuse for the appeasment of the 1930's i'e WW1.

There is no such excuse now, if people agree(which they seem to) that Saddam is an power mad dictator who if he had the chance would take whatever he wanted, then something more than sending in some inspectors needs to be done

[Sava]

hahah sorry guys
[whiny kid rant]
he called me a dickhead
[/whiny kid rant]

[GePap]

All of international politics is a mirror image of a schoolyard playground.

Is that right? What is the equivelant of conquest? Rape? Maybe becoming some sort of spirit and inhabiting their body, or maybe mind control? That statement above is exactly what I am so utterly against. You say the "shades' are abit more complex...
That complexity is what matters, that complexity is what makes the situtation what it is. Ignoring the complexity, ahem, the facts, is the surest, easiest way to make a huge mistake.

International politics is not a playground writ large, never was, and never will be. Your history is rusty. Maybe from 1931-1940 the Us ginored Japanese actions, in terms of not taking actions, but come mid 1941 the US ebgun to take tough actions: it "did not appease" and that still elad to war. Japan went to war with the US in 1941 for dozens of reasons, and to ignorer any of them, or as you seem to think valid, all fo them and just paint some "picture" of the world as a playground is foolish.

As to the timeframe immediately following WWII, didn't it lead to war? Perhaps not an armed invasion of Western Europe, but was it not called the cold....war?

And we are still, after 20 years, fighting the WAR on drugs. Your point? Would calling it the 40 year struggle be any less accurate? No, it would be the same, so don't think playing silly wordgames is the same as a valid argument.

You keep going back to Munich. WHY? There have been 5000 years of human hisotry. Perhaps, if your idea is correct, the best possible answer to this question we can think of does not come from the 20th century at all: maybe the Hisotry of the Assyrians, or the Han dynasty, maybe the story of the 21st dynasty of Egypt, or the history of the Spanish empire is where the lesson lies. But I have a good idea why you, and so many others, always go back to Munich. Because it has become a "historical truism" valid at any time anyone wants to use force and justify why military actions is better than not. I am sure many militant Hindus in India can give you a damn good argument why, because of Munich, India must invade Pakistan and start a possibly nuclear war. Would they be wrong, given the "lesson of Munich"? Would they, Vel?

No, History gives no lessons, only examples for us to warp and justify our current ideologies.

[Static Universe]

I find it interesting that the same people who are arguing against the use of history in the decision making process are also for some reason inexplicably anti-metaphor as well. A lesson to be learned here, I'm sure.

Regardless,

I think many in this thread do not have an accurate understanding of the history of U.S.-Japanese relations prior to World War II. Far from appeasing the Japanese, the U.S. was quite antagonistic toward them for many years.

The conflict really began brewing in the early twenties, possibly earlier, when it was realized that Japanese were a growing power in the region that might one day be a powerful threat to U.S. interests in the region.

With the annexation of Hawaii in 1898, and the capture of the Philippines and Guam during the Spanish-American war (same year), U.S. military and economic interests had been firmly established in the Pacific region. By the twenties, this presence had grown considerably, and began to turn its eyes to the Chinese mainland as a possible source of new markets.

Meanwhile, Japan had played a vital role in securing the Pacific and Indian Oceans for the Allied powers. However, the Western powers weren't exactly pleased with the brutal way the Japanese dealt with their "inferiors". They had also taken some notice of the Japanese conquest and ongoing occupation of Korea, so the Rape of Nanking years later probably didn't come as a big surprise to them. They'd already seen it happen.

Japan, on the other hand, wasn't too happy with the fact that their valuable help had been so quickly forgotten. Although the Treaty of Versailles had given the Japanese control over the German Pacific Islands and the German colonies in Shantung province on the Chinese mainland, the Japanese were quickly compelled by the West to give control of Shantung back to the Chinese and return home in 1922.

The true start of WW2 in the Pacific theater was the U.S Immigration Act of 1924, which specifically precluded Japanese emigration into the United States. This was a notable period of racist activity in the U.S, and the Immigration Act was largely intended to keep out "undesirables", such Catholics, Jews, Italians and particularly Asians. (This time period was also the peak of power of the Ku Klux Klan, who were more powerful in these years than most Americans like to remember.)

This act was a huge slap in the face to the Japanese, because it undid Teddy Roosevelt's Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, in which the Japanese agreed not to allow farm laborers to emigrate to the U.S. and the U.S. agreed that it would not completely bar Japanese immigration and that it would work to end anti-Japanese descrimination in the U.S.

The Japanese faithfully upheld their end of the Agreement. The U.S. did not. This only fueled the Japanese miltarists anti-American propoganda. The Japanese ambassador of the time warned of "grave consequences."

The flames only grew higher when the U.S. and other Western nations placed high tariffs on goods imported from Japan. The Japanese were left with only one option: expansion.

The period between 1924 and Roosevelt's outright embargoes of 1941 were marked by considerable manuevering on the part of both countries, as they jostled for position. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria is at least partly a reaction to the growing U.S. influence on the Chinese mainland, as they were one of the principal backers of Chiang Kai-shek and Kuomintang in the Chinese civil war against the Communists.

There were minor incidents between the two power, such as the Japanese sinking of the U.S.S Panay on the Yangtze River and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her Itaska (they had suspicions), both in 1937, but the U.S. was not prepared to engage the Japanese militarily. It's army had grown soft in the years following WW1 and it's industrial base had been to weakened by the Great Depression to leap into war.

But the U.S. knew that war was inevitable by the early thirties. By the mid thirties, they'd even guessed the most likely target: Pearl Harbor.

You all know the rest on that subject.

Gepap: You can call Yalta whatever you like. Sure it kept the USSR and the Western powers from fighting each other. They just moved the conflict to SE Asia and Central and South America and let others do their fighting for them. Much cleaner that way. A lesson to be learned from that history, as well.

[Velociryx]

GePap: You are, of course, free to believe any way you like. You disagree....cool. I have no problem with that. But, I can see patterns in history, and those patterns have value.

If you cannot, or choose not to see them....that's okay with me. I'm not trying to convince you or change your mind.

But to get all huffy and deny their existance, is, IMO, rather silly.

Why would anybody study history if there was nothing to be gained by doing so? Your own post is replete with historical knowledge. If there were no lessons there, why do you bother with the subject? Theories on that?

As to the cold war, I was not playing a game of semantics with you...war WAS fought during the cold war period, on many fronts, and in a variety of places. The only thing giving the Russians their "Iron Curtain" prevented was a war in Europe....but I think that is hardly the same thing as preventing war.

As to your murder and rape questions, and how they are reflected on the schoolyard playground, I would say two things:

First (and sadly), rape and murder are not completely unheard of on the schoolyard playground these days.

Second, taken in the broader context of what those two events ARE (ie - they are expressions of power, one person over another), yes. You see that kind of lording over, "I have power over you" on the playground every day. Every single day.

You can watch a bully on the playground, see how he behaves, and see an almost mirror image of that behavior in Saddam and Kim.

To deny that is to simply close your eyes to the reality.

You may not like it, and you may not like the metaphore, but your distaste of it makes it no less true.

'bout the only significant difference between Saddam and your garden variety schoolyard bully is that Saddam has more and better toys to torment his opponents with (nerve gas vs. a baseball bat). Their behaviors, however, are *really* similar. Too similar, in my opinion, to casually dismiss as happenstance.

-=Vel=-