This one calls for an apology from Jeff, with no further explanation on my part
required.
William
Mandel
Jeffrey Blankfort wrote:
> As I recall, the totals for WW were 60 million with one-third of those
> being Russian. The actual estimated figure for Jewish deaths, according
> to Raul Hilberg, the acknowledged expert in the field, was 5.1 million.
> A million and a half Pole were also supposed to have been killed by
> Hitler but any mention by Poles of the subject invariably elicits
> accusations of "anti-Semitism." The number of dead as a result of wars
> since end of World War 2 must have passed the 30 million mark since 10
> years ago the total was already 26 million and the number of deadly
> conflicts has only escalated. We do not even know how many Laotians died
> under the deadly US bombing raids because US criminality in that country
> has been obscured by the reference to the war as the Vietnam War, when
> the actual tonnage exceeded that dropped on Vietnam and was greater than
> that dropped on all of Europe in World War Two. If there had been the
> equivalent of Nuremberg trials after the war, would the US presidents
> and US generals, etc., who were responsible for that war which we know
> took the lives of two million Vietnamese, been any less guilty than the
> Nazis because the death totals didn't match up? What degree of
> culpability does the US and its officialdom have for openly supporting
> with weapons, money, and political cover the murder of hundreds of
> thousands in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Of abetting the
> Pinochet coup in Chile? Of indirectly supporting Pol Pot? Does the
> difference in the numbers dead make their crimes any less worse?
>
> One does not need to be a Nazi apologist to make an argument that
> Germany had been unfairly treated by the Western powers after World War
> I, and that Germany had suffered severely economically. What excuses for
> their behavior can be made for the US decision-makers, presiding as they
> were, over a mineral rich and agriculturally rich country, untouched by
> war, who were either directly or indirectly responsible for the heinous
> crimes and murders that have been committed in Southeast Asia and Latin America?
>
> Mandel's reference to democracy reminds me of Eisenhower's statement
> that the world had only two choices, US-style democracy or communism, an
> attitude infrequently echoed by know-nothing editorial writers. But
> Mandel's bitter disillusionment over the collapse of the USSR and it
> satellites and what incorrectly passed as socialism along with it,
> blinds him to the fact that the US has less political democracy than any
> other developed country and we didn't need this latest presidential
> ballot flap to prove it, although it helps. In no other developed
> country with a nominally democratic system do the corporations so
> control every aspect of society and its body politic as in the US. In
> sum, Mandel's defense of the system reminds me, sad to say, of the
> position of David Horowitz, sans the hyperbole.
>
> Jeff Blankfort
>
> William Mandel wrote:
>
> > Evidence presented at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial documented about 50,000,000
> > deaths due to World War II, for which I would argue Hitler was unequivocally
> > responsible, despite the role of imperialist rivalries. Incidentally half of
> > those deaths, according to the evidence, consisted of civilians, almost entirely
> > in Europe. One-quarter of those civilians were Jews, the rest Russians and other
> > peoples of the USSR, Gypsies, gays, the mentally and physically disabled, and
> > civilians of western and southern Europe.
> > The Cold War powers of the West, of which the U.S. is the most important,
> > are responsible for many millions of deaths, both in unending local wars, in
> > civil wars stimulated and/or prolonged by American and NATO policy, hunger in
> > Iraq and elsewhere, the genocidal drop in population of the former Soviet
> > countries (consequent upon idiotic adoption of economic policies promoted by the
> > U.S., but not the result of American military action or blockade as of Iraq and
> > Cuba). Take all these together, and they do not approach the holocaust (small
> > "c": not the Zionist appropriation of that word) for which Hitler was
> > responsible.
> > Democracy is an easier way for capitalism to rule because it is better (or,
> > if you wish, a great deal less worse) than fascism. If you reject democracy, the
> > alternative is, at "best" a patriarchal form of rule under an absolute monarch
> > or one or another form of dictatorship, of which fascism is the worst. Is that
> > really what you prefer?
> >
> > Bill Mandel
> >
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