The American press did not side with the Nazis in WW II and afterwards. But parts of it are siding with the Ba’athists in the Iraqi War, now. Witness this lede from the Lexington Herald-Leader, in Kentucky, online version, today (Friday):
An Iraqi court has ruled that some of the most prominent Sunni Muslims who were elected to parliament last week won't be allowed to serve because officials suspect that they were high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Knight Ridder has obtained a copy of the court ruling, which has yet to be circulated to the public.
The ruling is likely to dampen Bush administration hopes that the election would bring more of the disaffected Sunni minority into Iraq's political process and undermine Sunni support for the insurgency. Instead, the decision is likely to stoke fears of widening sectarian divisions in a nation already in danger of descending into civil war.
Source: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/world/13476408.htm
Substitute "Nazi" for "Ba'athist" and "1945" for "2005" and "Germany" for "Iraq." The rest of this article would stand as written. After all, preventing Nazis from participating in German elections between 1945 and 1949 (when the first national German elections were held) certainly contributed to "disaffection" and "sectarian divisions."
The difference is that no American newspaper after WW II would have considered for a minute attacking anyone for excluding Nazis from the election lists in Germany at that time. So what are the differences, then to now?
Did the Ba'athists not murder men, women and children? Did the Ba’athists not conduct wars against their neighbors? Did the Ba'athists not lie, cheat and steal? Were the Ba'athists not blood-thirsty dictators?
No, the difference then to now is that some elements of the American press are looking for any opportunities to embarrass and hobble the Bush Administration in the aftermath of this war. Very few of the American media were wont to do that against the Truman Administration in the aftermath of WW II. There was, of course, the legendary feature article in Life Magazine by John Dos Passos, saying that America was “losing the peace” in Germany, published about a year before the democratic government in Germany was elected under Konrad Adenaur, during the Allies’ occupation of West Germany.
For those who do not know about him, Adenaur was one of the few elected officials in Germany at the time who was not a former Nazi and who had not been assassinated by the werewolves who were active for two years after the German surrender. Adenaur had previously been a Mayor.
To those unfamiliar with it, the “deNazification” effort post WW II was very similar to the “deBa’athification” program in Iraq today. There is one glaring exception. No major American media (or politicians) were rooting for the Nazis, then.
Once again, failure of the American press to crack a history book infects its reporting, and reveals its anti-American bias in derogation of that history.
John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
