Thinking over Obama’s speech from yesterday, I want to revisit something I posted at the beginning of the month. It was an excerpt from page 427 of General Heinz Guderian’s classic book Panzer Leader, discussing matters in March 1945 when Nazi Germany was facing imminent collapse:
During this difficult month of March many conversations took place which are sufficiently interesting to be worth preserving. Thus one evening Hitler lost his temper at the high prisoner-of-war claims that were being issued by the Western Allies. He said: ‘The soldiers on the Eastern Front fight far better. The reason they give in so easily in the West is simply the fault of that stupid Geneva convention which promises them good treatment as prisoners. We must scrap the idiotic thing.’ [General Alfred] Jodl contradicted this wild and senseless proposal with great energy and, with my support, succeeded in persuading Hitler to postpone taking any such step. Jodl also prevented Hitler from appointing as commander of an army group a general who had recently been punished for gross irregularity of conduct and dismissed [from] the Service.
Now, consider this excerpt from Obama’s speech.
I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.
I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset — in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.
Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.
It’s the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they’d receive better treatment from America’s Armed Forces than from their own government.
Hitler recognized exactly this point. His soldiers fought to the death on the Eastern Front where they were facing a remorseless Russian enemy. But, on the Western Front, they felt safe in surrendering to American or British troops. And they did so in large numbers. A lot of us wouldn’t even be here today if those Germans had killed our grandfathers instead of surrendering to them.
Hitler wanted to jettison the Geneva conventions because our adherence to them was costing him dearly. It seems like quite a small step for someone who was operating death camps at the time. But he was talked out of it. Even Hitler didn’t revoke the Geneva Conventions. But Cheney and Bush did. And they’re proud of it. And they stupidly think it made us safer.