Woodrow Wilson’s War, Redux: Will November Defeats Make Obama Hawkish on Iran?
He was a progressive, Ivy League president, with that calm and lofty style of lecturing to his audiences. He had a fixed and unshakable conviction of his own rightness about the blessings of bigger and bigger government. The media fawned on him in the most nauseating fashion, and professors everywhere shouted Hosannas. He was dedicated to global peace under the benign governance of a transnational elite. And yes, he believed in a “progressive” race policy.
He was Woodrow Wilson, of course.
Sound familiar?
Yes, Obama is the return of Woodrow Wilson.
Now follow me closely. Wilson ran a peace campaign for the presidency as World War I was breaking out in Europe. Then he flipped and entered the war on the side of Britain and France.
Talk about a “war of choice.” The United States could have let Europe be conquered by the kaiser and just picked up the pieces afterward. He could have allowed the combatants to exhaust each other. There was a whole Atlantic Ocean to keep us secure from aggression. The Bolshevik Revolution (which was kicked off by the Germans when they smuggled Lenin into Russia) could have been bottled up, with a militant Austro-Hungarian Empire next door. World War II and the Cold War might have been avoided. Who knows?
Wilson could have stayed out of World War I, which ended European dominance in the world.
He didn’t do that, because Wilson desperately wanted to fashion a new world. To get his chance he needed a place at the victors’ table. The United States entered the war, our soldiers fought and suffered in the trenches, and we helped to beat the kaiser. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson got suckered by the French and the Brits, because innocents abroad are easy marks for political con artists like Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George.
In the upshot, the punitive Versailles Treaty that Wilson signed destabilized Germany and brought Hitler to power less than two decades later. Versailles carved up the Middle East in ways that have left it teetering to this day. After Hitler, the Soviet empire arose as the greatest threat to world peace. The U.S. was sucked into the European power vacuum for a whole century and ended up being the much-abused protector of the old world order.
In the upshot, Woodrow Wilson gambled with a house of cards, and it collapsed.
So much for designing a new world order from scratch.
Obama has that same unlimited arrogance and disdain for incredibly complex problems that he doesn’t understand at all. He has no conception of his own limitations, which are plain enough for the rest of the world to see. His chance to fashion a new world order is coming with the rise of a nuclear Iran. Obama has already signaled his intention to unilaterally push for a Wilsonian division between Israel and a Palestinian state. The only thing standing in his way is Iran, which is refusing to stop its rush to nuclear weapons, a move that will collapse the stability of the Middle East.
Israel is being openly threatened by Ahmadinejad and the mullahs, but in fact the Saudis, the Gulf States, and Iraq are even more threatened because they don’t have their own nukes and missiles to pit against Iranian weapons. Israel can retaliate against an Iranian attack, and it will do so if it sees no other way.
This is a fascinating essay but it leaves a very troubling question. If things play out in parallel as the other suggests, we go to war and defeat Iran and impose a Versailles-esque treaty on them, then what do the following 20 years portend?
Iran, global Islamo-fascism and the resurgent leftists/communists are already on the move. I can’t imagine anything worse than what we are dealing with right now.
Barack Obama lacks the maturity to stick it out to the end. I expect him to resign before the end of his term. He has been a marginalized individual for roughly the last eighteen months. His sole major accomplishment was the health was the care bill—which barely passed by a few votes. This would not occur today. Many of these legislators feel like complete fools. On a practical level, they were played for suckers. Democratic Party politicians are increasingly distancing themselves from Obama. He is the political kiss of death for even a number of blue state elected officials. Obama is losing his grip on reality. We should be afraid, very afraid.
David,
Just a word to let you know I have long followed your commentary here and your repeated prediction that Obama will not last out his first term. It is a prognostication that I find myself on my knees praying to my deity to come true.
We may be seeing the seedlings sprout here what with his unwillingness and inability to deal with the Gulf oil spill and the nascent Sestak controversy which should — by all rights — be fanned into a roaring inferno in the upcoming election. Of course, the irony will be too delicious for words: a POTUS incapable of adequately dealing with a disaster in the Gulf and threatened with impeachment over a Watergate-like cover-up.
Dream, dream, dream – I wish it were so; but, I am of the opinion that with Obama it is EGO über alle.
It’s Obama’s ego that I am counting on. He will resign for “health reasons”. This is a very immature man. Obama is president only because of white guilt. The man is way over his head. At the most, he should still be a mere Illinois state senator.
I should also add that I am glad to see James Lewis criticizing Woodrow Wilson. He was perhaps the worst president in American history. Wilson was a convinced racist. And yet, the Progressives adored him. That is because they mostly shared his racist views—and also he provided them with enormous power. Wilson was truly an evil man.
In the final analysis, perhaps the adults in the Pentagon will force Obama to act. I imagine that many in the American military are feeling dismay (to put it mildly) at the incompetence & stupidity of the radical college sophomore in the White House.
Mr. Lewis:
You are wrong on the left supporting the Progressive President no matter what. The left supported Stalin’s alliance with Hitler from August 1939 through late June of 1941. It was only after Hitler double-crossed their hero did they stop singing that “we wont fight in FDR’s war.” Progressives supported Stalin and his surroage Kim Il Sung in Korea and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. Progressives fight for [red] Fascism and not America. They only become patriotic when the interests of [red]Fascism and America coincide.
The article fails to understand the peculiar form of paralysis that is gripping
Obama. MultiCulturalism believes in nothing and its commitment to that abyss
is total. He will compulsively search for the path that requires the least
energy, the least commitment, the least conviction. If he strikes Iran it will
be with the least force possible. Every one of his actions will be apologetic,
and half way..and this will feed exactly into the Iranian/Muslim/Arab genius
for grievance, revenge and long drawn out campaigns of terrorism. Think of
Saddam and his boundless energy for evasion and deceit mixed with terror. How
long did that last? 25 years? Now throw in pure Islamic religious fanaticism of the Mullahs. In the upside down world of the Middle East..Obama provides what they
really want..someone to persecute them..and keep the hatred going and going.
I don’t buy it. Obama just doesn’t have the fortitude to embark on a new protracted military campaign. He’s a wimp and everyone involved knows it – allies and enemies.
I also don’t think the Iranians are stupid enough to sink a cruise ship or otherwise provoke an American response with hostile actions. They know they are close and while they will talk crazy, they will tread lightly until that first successful test detonation.
It is an interesting thesis here but, alas, it rests on an unsound foundation. Mr. Lewis assumes that The Pantload is strategic in thought. I contend he is not. In fact, I contend he is probably the densest and least strategic person we have had in the office of president. (In fairness, though I reviled Carter, he is nowhere near the bottom of the list that this clown anchors, having been an accomplished Naval officer, a submarine commander, a state governor, and at least cared about the country first.)
Not to react, but I can envision the “dumb like a fox” retorts being formulated as I write.
But I submit that his arrogance and desperate need for love and adulation in concert with our pathetic politically correct, affirmative action state of affairs, and happenstance of a perfect storm of dissatisfaction with status quo government propelled him into the office of POTUS.
For the 492 days of his presidency, he has been ad hoc, living day-to-day, and being manipulated by the likes of Emanuel, Axelrod, and possibly mysterious others who pull the strings of this terminally vapid individual. I don’t even thinks he believes there will be massive setbacks to his party in November. Witness his inattention to the festering problem in the Gulf. In a cheap, shameless plug for my site, I juxtaposed two time lines — one of the events surrounding the BP oil spill and the other an hour-by-hour chronology of the POTUS’s activities during the same thirty-five days. It is amazing how his daily schedule evinces a clueless, carefree individual with no thought of strategy nor one iota of managerial or leadership skills aside from just screeching at an aide to “just plug the damn hole”.
He just plays on, content to enjoy the trappings of the office: Air force One, hosting receptions, giving speeches that require applause, and always, always the limelight.
There was post on PJM by a Psychologists describing Obama as having Narcissist Personality Disorder
Classic
EXACTLY!
The only thing that can now save Obama’s presidency is a big war. Which is why I think the war is coming. Check out my blog – I predicted this more than a year ago.
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2010/05/obama-is-getting-close-very-close.html
A big war would “save” Obama just like it “saved” LBJ. It would destroy him. He manages those wars just as ineptly as LBJ did. Plus, we have no capacity to fight a big war right now. We don’t even have the troops & equipment to adequately fight the two small wars we’re currently in. If we fought Iran right now, we would lose all three wars and Iran would take control of the entire theater, because we can’t put enough boots on the ground to control it. “Shock & Awe” will only take you so far.
Even if we had the capability, Obama would never willingly attack Iran. His deference to Islamic leaders and insults to Netanyahu have made it clear that his sympathies are with Islam. In an Arab-Israeli showdown, Obama will support the Arabs. Iran would have to do something extremely stupid (far worse than when Germany sunk the Lusitania – something on the level of Pearl Harbor) to force Obama into a war.
Media ” in the tank” for Obama?
Understatement of the year. They’ve developed ****ing gills.
The Versailles Settlement of 1918 was a failure. Every border defined by that agreement has had to be renegotiated, usually after a war. It happened in Europe in the 40s with a do over in the early 90s. SE Asia was redefined in the 60s. The Middle East border redefinition is next (I vote for Kurdish independence). Africa is next on the list. We will live in interesting times.
A very interesting comparison between Obama and Wilson, two intellectual “disaster Presidents” who had zero tolerance for domestic dissent.
As James Crick memorably opined: “How It Will All Turn Out Remains to be Seen.”
“HIWATORTBS!”
How was Woodrow Wilson “progressive” on race? He was the fellow who turned an integrated Washington D.C. into a Jim Crow town. He praised Birth of A Nation as history.
Progressives were generally racists in the early part of the 20th Century. Woodrow Wilson represented the consensus opinion! It’s ironic that few people know about the history of that era. The vast majority of secularist lefties were unabashed racists. They were adamant believers in the concept of the hierarchy of races. Margaret Sanger desired less “inferior” black people in the world and strongly urged them to use various birth control methods.
I’m not being critical here……………..but I feel that I just walked on to the set of the Glenn Beck Show. Anyone else?
I think you are partially correct, but the timing is wrong. I think if Obama sees, in the months / weeks preceding November that the Democrats are in for a shellacking, then he will attack Iran for the obvious reason of solidifying the country behind a President at war.
At this very moment 5 Aircraft Carrier groups are coalescing in and around the Persian Gulf. They will be in place by July 5th. That’s one hell of a lot of firepower. It’s difficult for a country to bring together that many men and that much equipment without a “natural” momentum building to use them. That is just a natural “law” of human nature, and of economics. It’s similar to the old days of “mobilizing” an army — once that was done, from the late 19th century onward, the mobilization itself always “meant war.”
TANSTAAFL … yes, Glenn Beck has been saying this for some time. And it’s true, the parallel between Obama and Wilson is creepy, and the similarity of those times to ours.
The Germans were not the only the only ones guilty for the bolshevik revolution.
Certain NY bankers, certain ethnic groups in Russia were much more responsible for that revolution.
It was always my opinion, 40 years at least, that the US involvement in WW1 screwed things up bigtime. It panicked the Germans to ignite the Russian revolution, to free assets for a knock out punch in the West (the march 1918 offensive) before the US could mobilize/deploy. Without this the antagonists would have had a negotiated Armistace. Then when the US did show up the British got the formula right and with the Battle Of Amiens succeeded in defeating the Germans—without US involvement. Much like the US entry into WW2 invocked the “unconditional surrender” policy, which IMHO just prolonged the war.
Frumious Falafel
For what it is worth, I really must agree in principle.
It is cripe like this that makes me wonder whether to laugh or cry.
Firstly, WWI was a war of choice for the Kaiserreich and its allies and for the Serbian Black Hand/Unification or Death and not for anybody else. It frankly sickens me how many people on the right talk candidly about abandoning all of Europe to the tender mercies of the OHL that had already killed millions directly or indirectly in campaigns of ethnic cleansing directed against “troublesome minorities” both before and after the war, as though the German Empire would simply stop expanding at the Atlantic and leave us in peace.
Would anybody be STUPID enough to claim the same for Hitler? No, unless they didn’t mind getting laughed out of the room. And RIGHTFULLY so.
But what most people do not talk about is that like Hitler, the Kaiserreich had already begun to wage war on the US far before anybody in the US realized it. Indeed, nearly two decades before Germany was at war with any other nation in Europe.
Don’t believe me?
Look up “Die Kuba Memorandum” if you care. It was effectively an internal memo that declared the German Empire’s hostility to the US and its interests as a cornerston of Imperial policy, declaring that the Monroe Doctrine- one of the greatest principles of American foreign policy for over a century at the time and one of the guarentees of our continued independence and liberty- was to be regarded as an impediment to be weakened and then completley destroyed, with American military power to follow shortly thereafter.
All of this was part and parcel of the Kaiser’s diplomatic aims as far back as 1898. Let me rephrase that: EIGHTEEN NIGHTY EIGHT. As in a full SIXTEEN YEARS before the onset of WWI. In effect, Germany had openly begun to slate the American Republic for destruction over FOURTEEN YEARS before Wilson EVER ENTERED THE PICTURE.
Now, I am no fan of Wilson, but that should tell you some very important things about the reasons for our intervention in WWI, least of all that it had little to do with who lived in the White House in 1917.
By the time WWI had actually started, the Germans had been arming Latin America’s tinpot thugs, half-cocked revolutionaries, and nationalist irredentalists against us for 16 years. The first American soldiers to fight and die in WWI died not in the trenches of France or Belgium or Italy or even in the cold depths of the Atlantic, but in Mexico and the Panama canal zone and in Santo Domingo. Long before the US even considered intervening against the Central war machine, the German military had already armed groups as diverse as Diaz, Carranza, Villa, Colombian militarists hankering for Panama, Haitian and Dominican criminal cartels, Liberian and Filippino rebels, and- of course- temselves with all the munitions they could care to have on the singular condition that they used them to attack American interests throughout Latin America. To this day, we still do not know the US death toll, but it is safe to say that it probably exceeds 50,000 in Latin America alone. Think about that for a second: we went after the Taliban for hosting a terrorist group that has to this day killed- what- a good 10,000- 20,000 of us tops? And here we had an aggressive imperial power that had killed over THREE TIMES that number overall. Before we even considered lifting a FINGER against them!
Do you REALLY want to wager even more lives that the Germans would suddenly abandon a twenty-year old cornerston of their foreign policy and decide to simply carve out their Empire in the East? If you do think so, please do the honorable thing and relinquish all titles of potential importance and let those who are responsible defend the Republic. For if the Kaiser crushed the Western Allies, there would have been effectively NOTHING and I mean NOTHING preventing him from breaking out across the Atlantic over HERE (no Royal Navy, No French Navy, no Regia Marina, no revitalized USN, and the single largest and most powerful surface fleet Germany has EVER possessed.).
If anything, Wilson’s greatest flaw was in encouraging the Germans to continue pushing and pushing and pushing him to the point where they were more or less convinced they could get away with anything. Wilson did not keep the US out of war as he claimed in 1916, he prevented it from realizing the war it was ALREADY in. By the time of our declaration of war, we had let German aggression go unchecked for under one year shy of two decades. What message do you think THAT sent to Berlin?
And Wilson was not screwed over by Clemenceau and Lloyd George at Versailles, if anything they were screwed over by HIM. PARTICULARLY in making sure that Germany was weak enough to be reformed and thus avoid little problems like crackpot strongment rising to power and igniting a new conflict.
And finally, some of these other complaints are beyond belief. The US’ intervention in the war “pushing” the pwoor outnumbwered Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Turks to support the Bolsheviks? Um, HELLO! The Bolsheviks were already GETTING German aid as far back as ninteen SIXTEEN and by the time the US had actually ENTERED the war the Soviets were already in the streets well on the way to toppling the Provisional government. The idea that the Germans were pushed into supporting Lenin by the threat of US intervention simply DOES. NOT. MESH. WITH. THE. TIMELINE.
And honestly, does anyone here REALLY think a negotiated armistace would have HELPED matters any?
If you do, please do humanity a favor and research what the Bismarckean Empire and those who ran it were actually LIKE. Keep in mind these people helped mastermined the two greatest modern genocides in history up to that point in the Ottoman Empire and the African colonies and were well on their way to doing the same with Belgium, Luxembourg, Serbia, Montenegro, and Eastern Europe in 1916. These were the people who pressured Vienna to reject Serbia’s capitulation in 1914 in favor of demanding total subservience- which is what directly CAUSED the war in the first place- simply because they decided that it would be better to have a war that they might come out on top of rather than have peace but be overshadowed by a recovering Russias by (the estimated date of) 1916. These were the people whose putrid racial ideology helped inspire the NSDAP (don’t believe me? Double check Ludendorff’s and Hitler’s comments about Slavs and how they should be dealt with and get back to me). These are the people who had already murdered 75,000 Americans in terrorist attacks and piracy without a declaration of war. These are the people who openly boasted of their plans to liberate Europe from (and I REALLY wish I was making this up) “the scourge of rule by the parliaments and the masses” (Hindenburg).
And you think unconditional surrender only delayed the end of the war? Do you not REALIZE why we wanted unconditional surrender? So we could have a carte blanche to forcibly occupy and reform Germany by tearing out the poisonous roots of the Bismarckean nightmare and the National Socialist heel that had together plunged Europe into its two bloodiest wars. Do you REALLY think there is no connection as to the time we settled for less than an unconditional surrender and let those responsible for the war walk (as we did in 1918) and the resumption of war by one of their acolytes (albiet a Left-wing one) OPENLY USING the “Stab in the back myth” to justify to the Germans themselves an even bloodier war, whereas the time we DID demand and recieve the unconditional surrender of Germany, Germany was transformed under our tulage into a free and democratic if imperfect republic? And even if you do not, what do you suppose happens twenty years or so after when Germany has sufficiently regained its strength under a leadership that has been taught by example time and time again since 1848 that armed aggression PAYS, particularly since unlike historically, THEY HAVE NO EASTERN FRONT TO WORRY ABOUT given the near-certain wave of German colonization and ethnic cleansing that would occur in their conquests to the East? Do you REALLY want to bet millions of lives on the war-weariness and/or mercy of the same people who defacto started WWI who are now stronger than they were in 1914?
I really, REALLY cannot stress this enough: I am NO fan of Wilson’s, but let’s be very clear here: we did not choose to get involved in WWI. The Germans took that choice away from us before we even knew we HAD a choice. And while my disdain for Wilson’s progressive disregard for the Constituion and statism will probably match those of any one of you here, let’s at least be fair: at least Wilson finally chose to punish the Germans for their aggression. Only time will tell if Obama will finally do so with Iran, Russia, China, and the countless other thugs waging war on us as we speak.
I am sorry for the rant, but this is REALLY one of my pet peeves. Regardless of whether we like Wilson or not (and I think I can safely speak for most when I say I don’t), we should realize that there are far greater threats to our freedom than Wilson or even the vastly more dangerous Obama, and the Second Reich -like the Third Reich and the USSR after it- was one such threat that had to be countered regardless of which party was in power. After all, the Kaiser’s men waged war on the Center-Right McKinley, the Right-Wing Roosevelt, the centrist Taft, and the Left-wing Wilson without a whiff of discrimination. Like the Jihadists and the Soviets and the Nazis, we were all Americans to them, worthy only of slavery or slaughter.
The sooner we realize the truth nature of WWI, the sooner we can muster the will to teach the next generation that our liberties continue to be worth the sacrifices in blood and treasure to continue. To do anything less, is nothing less than an insult to those who have died for those liberties throughout history, whether they be a Belgian who fell at Antwerp in 1914 or an American who fell in Kandahar today.
Let me see if I have this straight.
Germany viewed the US as a competitor.
Therefore we were justified in joining WWI?
“Germany viewed the US as a competitor.”
Yes. Violently so.
“Therefore we were justified in joining WWI?”
No. We were justified in joining WWI because Germany insisted upon waging such competition as war via arming Latin America against us, murdering our citizens both at home and on the high seas, and in sum behaving as an aggressor towards us for nearly TWO DECADES before we joined WWI.
turtler:
Please document where Imperial Germany “murdered” millions outside of the rather dull witted and unimaginative tactics used by all parties on the World War I battlefield.
Certainly not in colonies where Imperial Germany was far more civilized then even the Brits. Not in its [failed] attempts to prevent the Armenian Genocide by Germany’s Ottoman ally or its [successful] efforts to prevent the same thing from happening to the Jews.
Certainly not in its internal policies toward ethnic and religious minorities with in Germany or in occupied Eastern Europe. (The orders from OHL were to treat Polish and Russian Jews as if they were Germans since Germans of the time considered Yiddish speakers to be ethnically German.)
So please tell me where are the concentration camps where all these millions of people were murdered?
This article breaches the critical topic of whether the extraordinary damages caused by this administration are the result of just ordinary incompetence or factually authentic malevolence. The hypothesis presented here is the case for malevolence, which must come under critical scrutiny, however disconcerting its contemplation might be. What if the incompetence came from the electorate capacity of stupidly propping up a bad actor with a charming smile? Can the blame be attributed entirely to a complacent press? How can a nation become blinded enough to elect a man who only wants to rule them instead of protecting and promoting the republic, as mandated, and believe a the “analysis” of a corrupted press and a partisan academia? Have we not learned that the best con artists are the most charming of the lot and that journalists can hardly be expected to behave like diligent scientists?
Maybe self-education by the school of hard knocks is an attribute of the American mind, and the current awakening reflects this? Education is expensive, but can it be qis it as costly as ignorance?
This article breaches the critical topic of whether the extraordinary damages caused by this administration are the result of just ordinary incompetence or factually authentic malevolence. The hypothesis presented here is the case for malevolence, which must come under critical scrutiny, however disconcerting its contemplation might be.
What if the incompetence was in fact the contribution of a delirious electorate stupidly propping up a bad actor with a charming smile? Can the blame be attributed entirely to a complacent press? How can a nation become blinded enough to elect a man who only wants to rule them instead of protecting and promoting the republic, as mandated? How can we be naive enough to take our cues from the “professional analysis” of a corrupted press and a partisan academia? Have we not learned that the best con artists are the most charming of the lot, and that professional talking heads and hot air blowers can hardly be expected to behave like honest and diligent scientists?
Maybe self-education by the school of hard knocks is an attribute of the American mind (Ben Franklin?), and the current awakening reflects this? As W.F. Buckley once suggested, there may be more wisdom among “ordinary folks” than in the formal custody of Harvard University’s faculty. We only need to look at history to learn that variations on the scenario of subversion from the top (Are these less likely than subversion from underneath, as the word suggests?) have unfolded before, with painful consequences. We may be entering a tough period in which one’s spiritual resources will be more critical than their financial counterparts.
One commenter derisively noted than reading this article made him feel like accidentally blundering on Glenn Beck’s TV stage. Who is afraid of learning history from a self-taught, concerned, courageous and talented citizen, and why?
Whoops! Must have misclicked. The unfinished comment appeared before it was ready to go!
For all his faults, Wilson never kissed the a–, er, bowed to foreign tyrants. You can’t expect The One to make all-out war against the Islamists. Wilson was not in debt to the Chinese, but Barry (yes, I know, it’s not all his fault) is, so there won’t be a war against the Norks unless they go totally bat-crap crazy and send their starving millions right up against Souel.
So unless you have some other scenario in mind, I don’t think our first ACORN president is going to launch a grand military campaign. For one thing, nobody in his administration can even summon the pretense of patriotism enough to design a compelling recruitment poster.
Wilson and Soetoro are empty suits.
Where’s “Colonel” House, or should I say, Philip Dru, Administrator? Rahm? Mabus?
Note: Only people outside the loop is worried about Iran!!!
The current administration is not worried about Iran. Neither was the Bush administration in 2007-2008. And they probably have reasons for that. I suspect the administration and high profile military officials know something, they are not sharing with the public. I suspect something happened in the last part of the Bush presidency in regards to Iran. Notice it was recently revealed that a Iranian nuclear physicist had defected to the US and that he had revealed everything he knew about the program. New York Times recently wrote an article saying that Petraeus had ordered covert intelligence gathering operations in the middle east. Why are all of Bush’s former cabinet members turned talking heads completely silent on the issue and seemingly not worried at all? And the strangest one: Why are Iraqi officials not worried either? Combine this with Obamas strange behavior during the Green movement uprising, where he overly emphasized how the US is not meddling in Iran’s internal affairs. Could it be that that there is some kind of covert program going on, we don’t hear about? And that it’s successful?
“Please document where Imperial Germany “murdered” millions outside of the rather dull witted and unimaginative tactics used by all parties on the World War I battlefield.”
Certainly.
Firstly, WWI tactics were not dull-witted and CERTAINLY were not unimaginative, even on the stalemate that was WWI. Or did you somehow think our modern combined arms appeared in WWII magically?
Secondly, Look up Isabella Hull’s “Absolute Destruction”, Hans Niemoller’s (to translate) “Dark Shadows: The Ominous Behavior of the Kaiser’s Empire in WWI.” There are plenty more, but I’ll wait for you to get back. That shcould give you an idea of how they behaved as a matter of policy.
“Certainly not in colonies where Imperial Germany was far more civilized then even the Brits.”
Hah, are you KIDDING me? Google the Herero and Naquama genocide and Lothar Von Trotha. And their behavior in response to the Maji-Maji uprising. And this lovely behavior extended WELL into WWI. There was a DAMN good reason why Von-Lettow was viewed by pretty much everyone as being several cuts above the standard for German colonial officers even when he did things like use human shields and scorched earth: in the former he actually limited himself to volunteers and in the latter he was known to give those displaced enough to make it to an alternative home. Suffice it to say his contemporaries were not so generous.
The only other force that can even be compared to Imperial Germany’s behavior in the colonies was Leopold’s hellish “Congo Free State,” and even Leopold had to do things under the table to try and avoid his home constituency from finding out (and when they did, they pretty much gave him the choice of “Give up the Congo or Give up your throne and probably your life.”). The German colonial governors were under no such strain, for their actions had been approved beforehand by the Imperial cabinet: they were untouchable.
“Not in its [failed] attempts to prevent the Armenian Genocide by Germany’s Ottoman ally”
You REALLY need to research the Armenian genocide. At the very BEST Berlin can be claimed to have been un uneager accomplice that did not have the clout to stop the Turks and so avoided confrontation with the Porte and the Young Turks over this. And suffice it to say there is not inconsiderable evidence to the effect that Germany’s interference there was far less benign than that. Germany only condemned the Turks after it became increasingly unable to deny it, and after that did jack all to prevent it. For one, they were known to transfer home, strip of rank, and interrogate their own men who actually DID look into the genocide and/or tried to stop it (Armin Wegner is but the most famous victim of that), and for two they had an active technical role in the genocide as can be seen by what are likely amongst the world’s first proper gas chambers in Batum, designed to eliminate the regional Armenians (you can still see the German insignea on the unpacked boxes and you can even read reports by the German adjundent to the installation about “progress”).
“or its [successful] efforts to prevent the same thing from happening to the Jews.”
Which were very easy to do because (as you can read in the Young Turks’ various records seized by the British for the Malta tribunals), the Young Turks were not really INTERESTED in killing the Jews. They were trying to TURKify the Ottoman Empire, and as thus their overriding priority was against ethnic minorities rather than religious ones. The Pontic Greeks and Assyrians would know.
“Certainly not in its internal policies toward ethnic and religious minorities with in Germany or in occupied Eastern Europe.”
Remind me again what happened in Belgium, the Balkans, and pretty much all of Eastern Europe? Oh, that’s right, a combination of wanton executions in “reprisals”, defacto slave labor, “requisitioning” the local populace into starvation, and general plans to Germanify large swaths of the occupied territories.
“(The orders from OHL were to treat Polish and Russian Jews as if they were Germans since Germans of the time considered Yiddish speakers to be ethnically German.)”
Which either indicates that they didn’t mean it or says something VERY disturbing about the German military’s valuation of the lives of their countrymen. And given what happened in the German Civil War after 1918, I’m going to go with the latter. Take a look at the burning of Kalisz and the widespread depopulation of large sections of the previous “Jewish pale” under German occupation. And the conscious use of famine to drive out non-Germans from the border areas so that they could be resettled by Germans (which the OHL ALSO supported).
“So please tell me where are the concentration camps where all these millions of people were murdered?”
Simple: outside of Shark Island in Africa and some of the camps in the Ottoman Empire, they didn’t exist. And what is more, they didn’t NEED to exist, unless one is unimaginative enough to believe death camps are and always have been the only way to commit genocide. Simply put, the German genocides of WWI were vastly less centralized than their bigger brothers twenty years latter or even the Ottoman ones running concurrent to them, but they were no less real for their ad-hoc manner, and no less approved by the organs of power in Berlin.
The US will not be going to war with Iran, at least not while Zippy is in office. It’s not just that he’s a feckless coward; he is also virulently pro-muslim and anti-semitic and has no interest whatsoever in protecting America from its enemies, whom he sees as potential allies.
It is true that Iran may spin out of control, along with the rest of the Middle East, and that war will become inevitable. But while Obama’s “policies” will be responsible for that, he will be gone by then.