LoBiondo Proved His Ignorance
Regarding the July 16 story, "LoBiondo apologizes for Hitler comparison":Rep. Frank LoBiondo's suggestion that the people being held at Guantanamo Bay are worse than Adolf Hitler because Hitler "sort of had a political rationale about what he was doing" is offensive on many levels. LoBiondo's comments bespeak his vast ignorance of world history and of current foreign policy alike.First, Hitler had no political rationale at all to kill millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and others, although he benefited personally and politically. Religious and racial hatred, megalomania and madness drove Hitler. Secondly, LoBiondo, R-2nd, condemns all prisoners at Guantanamo as "Muslim terrorists." He paints each man with a broad brush.At every turn, President Bush, with LoBiondo's political support, has opposed hearings for these individuals. Many men held for up to three years were eventually released without charges. Surely, if the Guantanamo prisoners are "the worst of the worst" and dedicated to harming the United States, as LoBiondo contends, there must be some proof. Why is our administration afraid of due process? Finally, LoBiondo voted against an independent panel to review allegations of prisoner abuse at the base despite the fact that our government has already substantiated abuses and torture at Gitmo. Personnel employed many of the same tactics that were later "exported" to Iraq.LoBiondo apologized for saying that Hitler "never went to the level that these people are going to," but not until after a caller objected to the remark. The wise person, however, thinks before he speaks and has an understanding of history such that this ugly thought would never have crossed his mind in the first place. In the long run, LoBiondo should lose his seat in 2006. Immediately, he should resign from the House Armed Services Committee. He is not qualified to be there.
JANET L. FAYTER
Egg Harbor Township, NJ
Letter Printed in the Atlantic City Press, July 23, 2005
posted by Citizens for Progressive Representation | 7:41 AM
2 Comments:
I agree that LoBiondo's comments show he is a dangerous menace to democracy. However, he is right on one point which you misunderstand: Hitler had a profound political reason for targeting Jews and others he viewed as racial degenerates: they were associated, both in his mind and to a significant extent in reality, with
international Communism. In Mein Kampf, for instance, Hitler often uses "Jews" and "leaders of Marxism" interchangeably.
This is why, as you put it, he "benefited personally and politically" from measures which you, inexplicably, claim had "no political rationale."
Keeping this in mind, I think one has a better understanding of the motivation of Lobiondo, as well as Bennett's recent genocidal ramblings on aborting the black race. Faced with populations who do not feel like going along with "the plan" - total US control of the Middle East, a "free market" solution to the Katrina disaster - the Republican Party is increasingly fantasizing about mass murder and genocide.
But is there no distinction between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" political purpose? Hitler definitely had his polititcal theories, but whether there was a basis in reality is another issue. It is not unlike Rove and Libby "outing" Valerie Plame to destroy a political enemy, Joe Wilson. Politics as usual, they say. But there has got to be a line. Hitler's genocide and Plamegate are incomparable of course, but Fox News dismisses the pursuit of these White House insiders as "the criminalization of politics." Is there something wrong with that when the politics are criminal?
As for Bennett, I do not believe that he seriously suggested aborting all black children, though how that idea could be voiced even as a straw dog argument astounds me. It is the fact that he equates African Americans with crime and promulgates the racist lie that "all Black people are dangerous" that makes Republican talk radio propaganda so dangerous.
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