The Hussein-Gaddafi nexus
http://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2011/10/hussein-gaddafi-nexus.html
Supporters of the Iraq war continue to argue that the invasion of that country paved the way for the Arab Spring. Over the weekend, former presidential envoy L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer wrote in this newspaper of certain similarities he saw between the two countries in the post-dictator world.
First, Moammar Gaddafi's death "came eight months after the start of military operations there," Bremer writes, "the same length of time it took us to track down Saddam Hussein after U.S. forces liberated Baghdad in 2003."
This reminds us of the old urban legend about coincidences in the assassinations of John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. (They were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson, etc.)
But Bremer insists “the parallels are striking,” noting quite correctly that both dictators “had brutally oppressed” their citizens — which is something dictators tend to do. And “Gaddafi was found in a sewer pipe; Hussein was captured in a spider hole,” Bremer writes.
There are, of course, some slight differences, such as: some 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq vs. none in Libya; a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites; millions of refugees; Iranian meddling; and ethnic cleansing.
In contrast, Libya, which has tribal and regional schisms, is 97 percent Sunni with a population of 6.6 million — compared with Iraq’s 32 million people. And Gaddafi was a much better dresser.
Still, as Condoleezza Rice and Don Rumsfeld pointed out, Iraq was really “just like Germany” as Allied armies drove toward Berlin. So maybe Libya’s like Germany?
Come to think of it, sometimes at sunset, Benghazi and Heidelberg do look very much . . .
Speaking of Germany
Perhaps it was inevitable. A popular Internet meme, in which jokesters slap their own subtitles over a German-language movie of Adolf Hitler’s last days, has a new target: the federal bureaucracy.
The Internet parodies, which go back several years, feature a scene in which Der Fuehrer explodes upon receiving grim news from the battlefield. Clever YouTubers have added subtitles: Hitler giving the iPad a bad review; Hitler learning of Michael Jackson’s death; and, in one particularly popular version, Hitler learning that his beloved Dallas Cowboys have lost to the Giants.
In that one, Hitler rants about Jessica Simpson, calling her a “jinx” for distracting quarterback Tony Romo, and bemoans the fate of his $70 Terrell Owens jersey he had planned to wear to the Super Bowl. (It’s sheer genius.)
But the gag might have jumped the shark of late with an anonymous insider posting a video of the scene in which Hitler appears to be ranting about the inner workings of the Department of Justice. In one recent (and way over-the-top) video, Hitler is identified as Fraulein Christine (for Christine Varney, the former head of the department’s antitrust division), and the clip is filled with insidery references to morale problems said to plague the division.
Der Fraulein screams at subordinates as she details efforts to shut down investigative field offices that might uncover waste — or worse — in administration stimulus programs and alludes to a “magic website” (the government’s Recovery.gov) and ignored red flags on Solyndra, the energy company whose government loan has caused controversy for the department.
First, Moammar Gaddafi's death "came eight months after the start of military operations there," Bremer writes, "the same length of time it took us to track down Saddam Hussein after U.S. forces liberated Baghdad in 2003."
This reminds us of the old urban legend about coincidences in the assassinations of John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. (They were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson, etc.)
But Bremer insists “the parallels are striking,” noting quite correctly that both dictators “had brutally oppressed” their citizens — which is something dictators tend to do. And “Gaddafi was found in a sewer pipe; Hussein was captured in a spider hole,” Bremer writes.
There are, of course, some slight differences, such as: some 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq vs. none in Libya; a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites; millions of refugees; Iranian meddling; and ethnic cleansing.
In contrast, Libya, which has tribal and regional schisms, is 97 percent Sunni with a population of 6.6 million — compared with Iraq’s 32 million people. And Gaddafi was a much better dresser.
Still, as Condoleezza Rice and Don Rumsfeld pointed out, Iraq was really “just like Germany” as Allied armies drove toward Berlin. So maybe Libya’s like Germany?
Come to think of it, sometimes at sunset, Benghazi and Heidelberg do look very much . . .
Speaking of Germany
Perhaps it was inevitable. A popular Internet meme, in which jokesters slap their own subtitles over a German-language movie of Adolf Hitler’s last days, has a new target: the federal bureaucracy.
The Internet parodies, which go back several years, feature a scene in which Der Fuehrer explodes upon receiving grim news from the battlefield. Clever YouTubers have added subtitles: Hitler giving the iPad a bad review; Hitler learning of Michael Jackson’s death; and, in one particularly popular version, Hitler learning that his beloved Dallas Cowboys have lost to the Giants.
In that one, Hitler rants about Jessica Simpson, calling her a “jinx” for distracting quarterback Tony Romo, and bemoans the fate of his $70 Terrell Owens jersey he had planned to wear to the Super Bowl. (It’s sheer genius.)
But the gag might have jumped the shark of late with an anonymous insider posting a video of the scene in which Hitler appears to be ranting about the inner workings of the Department of Justice. In one recent (and way over-the-top) video, Hitler is identified as Fraulein Christine (for Christine Varney, the former head of the department’s antitrust division), and the clip is filled with insidery references to morale problems said to plague the division.
Der Fraulein screams at subordinates as she details efforts to shut down investigative field offices that might uncover waste — or worse — in administration stimulus programs and alludes to a “magic website” (the government’s Recovery.gov) and ignored red flags on Solyndra, the energy company whose government loan has caused controversy for the department.
