…the left will try use Haditha as it used My Lai thirty years ago: as a political tool to take apart America’s support for the war and to shatter the legitimacy of our cause and the morale of our troops.
More below the fold.
First, it’s hard to shatter the “legitimacy” of a “cause” that had none to begin with. Wars that are started based on politicians’ chicanery tend to lack that element of legitimacy. We can do away with that assumption from the get-go. One might certainly note that a war of the sort that the US is fighting in Iraq, as was the case with Vietnam, is one in which there is a great deal of civilian casualties. It may be all but inevitable that there will be innocent victims when such wars are fought. It is however, equally notable that the casualties in this war were quite preventable, as the war itself needn’t to have been fought – true believers in the “cause” won’t hear of such a thing, but then again, as we’ve seen time and time again there would be no way to discuss the matter with them period. Bu$hCo wanted the war, and if Bu$hCo wanted it, that’s good enough for them.
Not only is the assumption upon which that quote is based bogus, but the technique behind the quote is equally suspect. I’ve written about The Dolchstoßlegende technique before, as it’s one that the GOP and its Vichy Dem collaborators have been quite fond of using. Perhaps a quick refresher is in order:
The Dolchstoßlegende or Dolchstosslegende, (German “dagger-thrust legend”, often translated in English as “stab-in-the-back legend”) refers to a social mythos and persecution–propaganda and belief among bitter post-World War I German nationalists, that lay blame for the loss of the war upon non-Germans and non-nationalists.
Many Germans who supported, fought in, or had otherwise known people lost in the enormously costly war, believed the causes for the German/Austrian involvement in the war were justified. They had hoped it would bring a restoration of past glory and a unified German nation-state. Instead, the war caused the deaths of 1,770,000 German soldiers and 760,000 German civilians, devastated the economy, and brought losses in both territory and national sovereignty.
Conservatives, nationalists and ex-military leaders sought others to blame. The common scapegoats were Weimar Republic politicians, socialists, communists, and “international Jewry” — a term referring to Jews with a perceived excess of wealth and influence. These “November criminals”, nationalists alleged, had “stabbed them in the back” on the “home front,” by either criticizing the cause of German nationalism, or by simply not being zealous-enough supporters of it. In essence the accusation was that the accused committed treason against the benevolent and righteous common cause.
[…]
Nevertheless, this social mythos of domestic betrayal resonated among its audience, and its claims would codify the basis for public support for the emerging Nazi Party, under a severely racialist-based form of nationalism. The anti-Semitism latent in Germany society was intensified by the Bavarian Soviet Republic, a Communist government which ruled the city of Munich for two weeks before being crushed by the Freikorps militia. Most of the Bavarian Soviet Republic’s leaders were Jewish, a fact exploited by anti-Semitic propagandists to tar all Jews with the brush of Communist treason.
[…]
Due to the highly potent imagery of a “stab in the back”, and the common perception amongst political conservatives that politically hostile homefronts defeat otherwise winnable wars, the stab in the back legend is a common legend in a number of modern societies. In particular, the stab in the back legend is often used by conservatives to explain the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam war. In the context of the US involvement in the Vietnam War the stab in the back legend is part of the Vietnam Syndrome complex.
As I mentioned last November, when Murtha was being pilloried by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and various other right-wing extremists for daring to suggest so much as a set date to bring US troops home:
Not only did the Nazis utilize the “stab in the back” legend to its advantage during its rise to power and of course in maintaining its grip on power, but our own right-wingers have been relying on the same basic approach since the Vietnam war ended. I’m sure if I had a nickel for every GOP politician who has used that strategy since the early 1970s, I could retire in style. The “stab in the back” legend has been most recently utilized by our own hardline nationalists in order to silence dissent regarding the Iraq debacle. These folks are bound and determined to spread the myth that shining a light on Bu$hCo’s lies to get our military sucked into what is now Mess o’Potamia as well as shining a light on the debacle that the war has truly become is somehow a “stab in the back” to those unfortunate souls who got shipped over there. The true stab in the back to these men and women was committed by the very White House and Congress critters who had that jones comin’ down for a war in the first place.
The Dolchstoßlegende is alive and well in 2006. My suggestion is to be wary of those who feel the need to rely on it as a means of trying to silence Iraq war critics. Its a technique worthy of fascists, not of citizens in an enlightened democratic republic.
Cross-posted at The Left End of the Dial and My Left Wing.
