The Third Reich declared the Hague convention obsolete in 1941:

[marmar]

As is documented in William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Hitler outlined this policy during a meeting with the heads of the three armed services and key army field commanders early in March 1941: "The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful, and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of obsolete ideologies.... German soldiers guilty of breaking international law will be excused. Russia has not participated in the Hague Convention and therefore has no rights under it."

And then in 2002, Alberto "Torture Now, Torture Forever" Gonzales said:

President George W. Bush's counsel, Alberto Gonzales, addressed a memorandum to the President on Jan. 25, 2002, about four months into the "war of terrorism." Gonzales noted that Bush had called the war against terrorism "a new kind of war," which "renders obsolete" and "quaint" some of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. And Gonzales warned the President that he and other officials stood in potential danger of being prosecuted for war crimes; he suggested steps that could be taken by Bush to set up "a solid defense to any future prosecution"—most importantly, to declare that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.


I guess everything old is new again. Did you ever think you'd live to see the day this would happen here?


The complete piece that I took the excerpts from is at: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6396.ht...

[Fridays Child]

1. The comparisons to the Third Reich are absolutely unavoidable...

...and, given Bush's lineage, we shouldn't be surprised. But, no I, for one, never thought I'd see the day....

[hobbit709]

2. And every time I point out

the similarities, some joker gets upset about comparing shrub to Hitler. The only real difference between the two is that Hitler had a good grasp of his native language.

[Fridays Child]

9. Right wing nuts love to howl about how Bush-Hitler...

...comparisons are bad, wrong, blah, blah, blah. But, personally, I don't take marching orders from my opponent and I wish other liberals would be more careful about that, too. The right wing's mantra about "liberal bias in the media," for example, has, over the years, effectively intimidated otherwise reasonable journalists into manufacturing an artificial right-left balance in stories where it simply is not called for.

[Fridays Child]

7. Self-delete

[Richard D]

3. I'd be willing to bet . . .

That this would not be disagreed with in most neo-con circles:

"The war against Islamic Radicals will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and cultural differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful, and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of obsolete ideologies.... Coalition soldiers guilty of breaking international law will be excused. The Islamic Radicals have not participated in the Hague Convention and therefore have no rights under it."

[Cleita]

4. The parallels in that book with this administration are scary.

Since the book was written in the sixties, no one can say that the comparisons to the Bushies is forced.

More scary is Hitler's own book, "Mein Kampf" which seems like the inspiration for Karl Rove's political play book only updated a little.

[marmar]

5. "Mein Kampf" which seems like the inspiration for Karl Rove's political play book"

Yup.

[lordsummerisle]

8. Let's not forget Joseph Goebbels

master of propaganda. PBS did a show on him recently and a lot of the narrative was him in the first person. I couldn't stop thinking of Karl Rove as I watched it.

[Cleita]

16. Goebbels tactics are from "Mein Kampf".

The Nazi regime used it like a Bible. My history teacher said that if the Western powers had read the book and taken it seriously, there would have been no Third Reich, because Hitler and his henchmen did exactly what Der Fuhrer laid out in that book.

[femrap]

11. Karl probably keeps that book under his pillow! nt

[Hubert Flottz]

6. K&R

They may not be Nazi Party members but...they do the same things the same way the Nazis did them. The "Islamofascists," democrats and people of color, are these new BushCoNazi's Jews...

[Tellurian]

10. This entire paragraph is subject to debate:

"President George W. Bush's counsel, Alberto Gonzales, addressed a memorandum to the President on Jan. 25, 2002, about four months into the "war of terrorism." Gonzales noted that Bush had called the war against terrorism "a new kind of war," which "renders obsolete" and "quaint" some of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. And Gonzales warned the President that he and other officials stood in potential danger of being prosecuted for war crimes; he suggested steps that could be taken by Bush to set up "a solid defense to any future prosecution"—most importantly, to declare that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan."

One man's philosophy does not constitute a Rule of Law. Neither does Gonzales recommendation of a "feel good" solid defense to any future prosecution in any way serve as protection from prosecution.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. If it looks just like a rattle snake

and it rattles just like a rattlesnake

and it has big fangs just like a rattlesnake

it's best to treat it just like a rattlesnake

[jimshoes]

13. What blows my mind is

only a very small percentage of Americans actually see this cabal for what it is and what they are doing. What the heck is it going to take to get Joe Sixpack to sit up and say "Hey wait a second, this is Nazi shit they're doin' here and I don't like it".

[valerief]

14. So this is what it felt like to live in Nazi Germany. I wonder who of

America's citizens will get the most irradication.

[Cleita]

17. Nazi Germany, for acceptably Aryan Germans, wasn't that bad.

Hitler made sure everyone was employed and could enjoy cheap vacations. They were free to obtain the property of the disappeared at bargain prices too. Many old Germans that I talked to in the past would secretly confide that things were better under Hitler than under the Weimar Republic, which is why many of them minded their own business and said nothing, even when there were signs that maybe things weren't right.

Our Nazis haven't even done that. They have no concession to the ordinary American whatsoever in keeping them in jobs and economically secure. For this reason they will fall faster, I believe.

[HereSince1628]

15. Totalitarianism requires suppression of ALL opposition int'l law included

And it doesn't take a genius to realize that the twisting of the Republican Party into a totalitarian movement was long the goal of Dick Cheney, Newt, and the PNAC. That effort was implemented by Tom DeLay, the K-Street project, and ultimately Karl Rove, and has now in large part been achieved.

The signing statements and Gonzo's remarks on obsolete treaties aren't warnings, but, rather, evidence that mission has been accomplished. The Totalitarian movement has actually succeeded in grasping the reins of control. At this moment their junta is working hard to consolidate it.