Piers Morgan recently said on his program of Russian President Vladimir Putin, “I do think he’s the nearest thing to a modern day Hitler…”
Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton had something to say about that.
“You know what?” Horton said. “Noriega’s Hitler and Saddam’s Hitler and Milosevic’s Hitler and Putin’s Hitler. It sounds to me like Adolf was just another Hitler.”
“And apparently, any country that America doesn’t like, we can just start an aggressive war against them because they’re all the same as that one guy that one time,” he exclaimed.
Horton is right: There is a broad consensus that the supremely evil, mid-twentieth century German National Socialist dictator, responsible for the Holocaust and other horrors, deserved death and defeat for his crimes. Which is why so many war advocates ever since have tried to cast whoever they want to go to war against as being on par with Hitler. But just like Satan, there can only be one—unless you crave war.
I could not possibly list every would-be Hitler that American leaders have wanted to take out. Scott listed off a few examples of enemies, real and imagined, going back to Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega of the Reagan-era ‘80s and Slobadan Milosevic in the Bill Clinton ‘90s, and then Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in this century.
In the post 9/11 era alone, the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned that if Muammar Gaddafi wasn’t taken out in 2011, the Libyan dictator would strike European cities.
Like Hitler, of course.
“He actually means it,” Graham said of Gaddafi fifteen years ago. “Hitler meant it. He means it.” Graham would also later compare Syria’s head Bashar al Assad to Hitler. Graham also assured us over a decade ago that the Iranian regime were Nazis, and of course that Putin was also Hitler.
Everybody’s Hitler!
Graham had plenty of company. For starters, he certainly wasn’t the only person to do this with Gaddafi.
The same goes for Assad. Secretary of State John Kerry said in 2013 that “Bashar al-Assad now joins the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein who have used these weapons in time of war,” referring to certain claims about the use of chemical weapons. Two decades ago, it was all the rage for some leaders to claim Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Hitler. Trump even said this year at the beginning of his war with Iran that its leaders are the worst people since Hitler.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared over a decade ago that “appeasing” Iran was another “Munich moment” like when England negotiated with Germany in 1938. The late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) did the same in 2013 when he said of President Barack Obama shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro, “Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler.”
How did all this let’s-get-the-next-Hitler war drooling turn out?
America’s role in deposing Libya’s Gaddafi created an instability in the region that created a vacuum for ISIS, a foreign policy decision Obama would eventually call the “worst mistake” of his presidency.
The United States would end up arming al-Qaeda members against Syria’s Assad, and now a former member of the terrorist group that carried out the 9/11 attacks is that country’s president.
“Never Forget.”
How has going after the allegedly Hitlerian Iranian government gone so far? That disaster is still in progress. But its authors have also teased regime change against Cuban Nazis too.
Surely Cuban regime change would be an unparalleled success!
It’s probably worth noting that the Ukrainian forces U.S. war advocates support have within their ranks actual neo-Nazis (something Horton also noted to Piers Morgan).
Also, doesn’t equating everything with Hitler undermine the unique severity of the Holocaust tragedy and ultimately disrespect its victims?
Also, for Republicans who constantly invoke this, how many times have political opponents of Donald Trump compared the president to Germany’s Fuhrer? Many things can be said about Trump, including exhibiting authoritarian behavior. But Hitler?’That’s not remotely serious. About as serious as Republicans comparing Barack Obama to Hitler.
Just stop.
It’s not that so many of these foreign actors aren’t horrific. Of course they are. But the United States can’t go to war with every country on earth to solve every wrong or ill. That’s not America’s mission, or shouldn’t be.
But the reason to compare every potential war to World War II and every foreign foe to Hitler is because most people find it impossible to argue against a war with Hitler.
That’s key. Whether it’s true, not so much.
Everyone we don’t like is not Hitler. It’s dumb and dishonest to say so.
