Om å planlegge folkemord i fullt dagslys

Lawrence Kadish

Men ingen - selv ikke nazis­ter - kunne fore­stille seg End­lösung. Vi lever med den bitre kunn­ska­pen om at alt er mulig.

Hvilke føl­ger får det for våre valg og vurderinger?

Det iranske preste­ska­pet har ved flere anled­nin­ger sagt at Israel burde slet­tes fra kar­tet. Nå bekref­tes det at atom­vå­pen­pro­gram­met fortsetter.

Hvilke kon­klu­sjo­ner bør man trekke av det?

Hvilke ansvar har vi for å se tin­gene ut fra Isra­els perspektiv?

Norsk presse frem­stil­ler Israel som bry­somme, som ikke viser res­ten av ver­den hen­syn. Selv USA er for krigs­his­sersk ifølge vår egen utenriksminister.

Per Kris­tian Hau­gen i Aften­pos­ten skrev tors­dag 26. januar:

Det er også vik­tig å tenke seg hvor­dan stri­den rundt atom­pro­gram­met tar seg ut fra iransk side. Det hol­der ikke å si at preste­sty­ret er domi­nert av fana­ti­kere uten evne til rasjo­nell tenk­ning. Å bygge opp et slikt fiende­bilde kan være direkte krigsfremmende.

Vir­ke­lig? Hau­gen skri­ver om Israel, men glem­mer å se ver­den fra isra­elsk syns­vin­kel. Men han vil gjerne se den fra iransk, fra preste­sty­rets vel og merke, ikke det iranske fol­kets, og han mener pres­tene er rasjo­nelle. Javel, hvil­ken rasjo­na­li­tet? Hit­ler var også rasjo­nell, innen­for sitt sys­tem. Pres­tene er også rasjo­nelle. Men er det vår rasjo­na­li­tet, eller deres egen, og kan den ha noe til fel­les med Hitlers?

Skal israe­lerne ta sjan­sen på at Hau­gen har rett?

Plan­ning Geno­cide in Plain Sight

by Lawrence Kadish

When a group of high-ranking Nazi bure­au­crats sat down 70 years ago (Jan. 20, 1942), they didn’t plot the death of 6 mil­lion Jews; they aimed at 11 million.

Dub­bed the Wann­see Con­fe­rence, after its loca­tion, it was chai­red by SS Ober­grup­pen­fuh­rer Rein­hard Heydrich, who brought toget­her some of the most effi­ci­ent mana­gers of mass mur­der his­tory has ever seen.

The 90-minute agenda was direct, having been trans­mit­ted by Hit­ler to his deputy, Reich Mar­shal Her­man Goe­ring, and then onto Heydrich: “Make all neces­sary pre­pa­ra­tions” for a “total solu­tion of the Jewish ques­tion” in all ter­ri­to­ries under Ger­man influ­ence, coor­di­nate the role of all govern­ment orga­niza­tions in accom­plish­ing that goal — and then sub­mit a “com­pre­hen­sive draft” for the “final solu­tion of the Jewish question.”

In other words, for the first time, the admi­ni­stra­tive, indu­strial and trans­por­ta­tion resources of an entire nation would be deployed for the pur­pose of genocide.

While his­tory records that a stag­gering 6 mil­lion Jews would ulti­mately be destroyed as a result, one of the more chil­ling docu­ments retrie­ved from the mas­sive archi­ves of the Nazi regime is a simple list of all Euro­pean nations with Jewish popu­la­tions as small as 200. Pre­pared for the Wann­see meeting by Heydrich’s noto­rious SS assi­stant, Adolf Eich­mann, it assu­med that at some point soon the Nazis would con­trol countries from Ire­land to Turkey.

The geno­ci­dal cen­sus was desig­ned to anti­ci­pate the orga­niza­tio­nal struc­ture requi­red to retrieve and ship those 11 mil­lion Jews to the Nazi mur­der facto­ries, regard­less of how dis­tant they were from Aus­chwitz or Tre­blinka. The Wann­see con­ferees met to ensure that all par­ti­ci­pants would meet their quo­tas (under Heydrich’s cen­tra­lized aut­hority) to com­p­lete “the final solution.”

It would take untold blood, trea­sure and sacri­fice from the Uni­ted Sta­tes, Bri­tain and the Soviet Union to bring the Third Reich to an end. Seventy years later, the ruth­less, bru­tal and unre­len­ting struggle against one of the dar­kest regi­mes ever to pla­gue mank­ind ser­ves as an eter­nal remin­der that there remain for­ces that would destroy humanity.

Much the way the Nazis assig­ned their stra­te­gic natio­nal assets to the destruc­tion of a people, the rulers of Iran are focu­sing their con­si­de­rable natio­nal resources on crea­ting and fiel­ding nuclear weapons. They do so while pub­licly emb­racing time and again a for­eign policy that calls for lite­rally wiping Israel off the map.

Elsewhere, the racial hatred prac­ticed by the Third Reich is echoed in the Tali­ban revul­sion of our Western democ­racies — and in poli­cies in areas it con­trols that include bur­ning to death young girls for the high crime of atten­ding school.

On this grim 70th anni­ver­sary of Wann­see, let us con­temp­late how a dis­be­lie­ving world can stand idly by as evil regi­mes coolly harness their bure­au­c­racies to met­ho­di­cally achieve hor­ren­dous goals. Whate­ver the double speak (as the Wann­see crowd used the phrase “final solu­tion” to mask its pro­gram of mass exter­mi­na­tion), the out­come is clear to all who wish to see it. Had they been invited, the Ira­nian regime and the Tali­ban would have been ent­hus­i­a­s­tic par­ti­ci­pants in the Wann­see Conference.

This Third Reich mile­stone should serve as a cau­tio­nary tale for every 21st-century democracy. Middle East expert Ber­nard Lewis has observed that Isla­mist lea­ders like Ira­nian Pre­si­dent Mah­moud Ahma­dine­jad are little con­cerned with the mutual-destruction stra­te­gies that kept the Cold War from becoming hot. Instead, they wel­come the mar­tyr­dom of their subjects.

His­tory con­sis­tently reminds us that indif­fe­rence in the face of an impla­ca­ble enemy inva­ri­ably leads to disas­ter. Furt­her, more often than not, our ene­mies tell us exactly what they mean to do before they do it. Acting on their war­ning requi­res our col­lective insight, per­so­nal courage and natio­nal will.

Lawrence Kadish is chair­man of the advi­sory board of the Ame­ri­can Air­power Museum in Far­ming­dale, L.I. Ori­gi­nally pub­lis­hed bY the New York Post, January 20, 2012, and reprinted by gracious per­mis­sion of the author.

Opp­rin­ne­lig:

January 24, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2779/planning-genocide


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