LETTER: Hitler comparisons to Bush hit the mark

Editor,

German politician Herta DÑubler-Gmelin hit the nail on the head when she compared Bush's warfare policies to tactics used by Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler. Spokesman Ari Fleischer finds the comparison "outrageous and unconceivable."

I understand his outrage. No one likes to be associated with a murderous villain. But I find it unconceivable that he doesn't see the parallels. After all, Ms. DÑubler-Gmelin explained what she meant. So far Bush's so-called presidency has been a failure domestically and internationally: rise of poverty, of unemployment, of the number of uninsured, of the national debt, of pollution etc.

His international isolation is self-inflicted. He repeatedly rejected international treaties for arms-control, disarmament, global environmental protection, an International Criminal Court, and so forth. In the face of such a miserable record Osama Bin Laden is a God-sent gift that enables him to pose - what a comic - as goodness in person, as the saviour ready to purge the world of its villains, even against the wish of the world, if it must be so. Congress just underwent the perverse process of "democratically" decapitating democracy.

The people of this country are against the war resolution. Why would any serious representative give up the right and duty to control the most fateful decision this country is about to make? Why would any representative vote for his and her own political impotence to elevate a dangerous incompetent fool to the dictatorial position of emperor of the United States? The illusion of democracy has become more transparent than ever. Senators and representatives received phone calls and letters a thousand to one against the war. The Senate and the House are betraying their people. What recourse do people have, but to go to the streets and protest?

UNM can and must do its part and voice its opposition. The student body, faculty and staff need to find ways to resist the course of war. The question of national guilt is one that will affect this country most intimately with the bloodbath Bush is about to unleash in violation of international law. The strategy of pre-emptive strikes is a policy not even Hitler openly (!) dared to make his own, although he practiced it to excess. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter says Iraq is 95 percent disarmed of weapons the United States accuses it of possessing.

To wage a war against a defenseless country unprovoked is a crime the Nazis were accused of, too. And if this country goes to war against Iraq, Bush will prove Ms. DÑubler-Gmelin right again.

Joachim L. Oberst

UNM staff