Is Europe the new pre-Hitler Germany, a world gone mad from the absurdities of its own political contradictions as its economy spirals downwards? Otto Dix, Georg Grosz, Erwin Schulhoff, of blessed memory, Marlene Dietrich, and Sally Bowers would have felt right at home in the New Weimar Europe of today, as American and British troops complete their well-executed task of preconstruction site cleanup for the building of the new democracy of Iraq. Jews once again walk in fear for their property and lives there, wondering from which faction the bullets and the Selektionen shall come. Today?s Berlin and Paris (but not Warsaw and Poland, who back the Allies. Nostrovia!) lack but a ragged streetcorner organ grinder singing ?Der Ballade vom Mecke Messer? to the passing crowds. The only difference between then and now is that in the 1920?s and 1930?s Germans screeched, ?Jews go to Palestine!? Now they howl, ?Jews out of Palestine!?
For France, I can but say that in a poll taken last week, 53% of the French public support ?la victoire? of the Allies in Iraq, better numbers than England; as ever, the eternal farmers of the Dordogne and Provence spit on the ground at the mention of the words ?les fascistes.?Vive la France libre.
The Angel of Death?s comedy does not end there. The absurdities now observed are not limited to the European scene. Canada is torn by strife between pro- and anti-U.S. demonstrations, while Jews there confront travel warnings in their own land. American Jews to the south are assaulted on college campuses, and even at the very anti-war demonstrations many leftist Jews worked so diligently to organize. In the April 4th issue of the New York Post, no one put it better than Sale Johnson, New York socialite, who, in suave Dorothy Parker manner, stated : "You know the world's gone nuts when the best rapper is a white guy, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance and Germany doesn't want to go to war."
And what of the common foot-soldier?s lot in this monkey-cage food fight of conflicting public opinion? Tons of ink-stained pulp has been wasted on overblown press reportage excreted by ?embedded? reporters, to whose imaginations this disappointingly - to them - efficient, well-administered and low-cost (in terms of casualties sustained, collateral damage and taxpayer dollars expended) military operation is Waterloo, Passchendaele and Normandy combined. Few acknowledge the astounding progress made since Viet Nam and the Suez crisis in making of both American and British forces genuinely ?maximum results for least damage? tools for fighting the wars of the present and immediate future. Any military historian worth their library card would be hard pressed to find a precedent for such a low ?body count? involving confrontations between 200,000 troops operating in ?vertical envelopement? mode on one side and eight divisions in ground-only mode on the opposition?s side, with all prime objectives met on schedule on the victors? side in under two weeks (except, of course, in battles involving the IDF). One visualizes a retired British colonel at his private club turning to his colleagues over claret and barking, ?Iraq II? Bit of a yawner, actually. And Saddam a Sandhurst graduate. They should tear up his commission, ? with a wink, to the sound of laughter. Yet, it is a profoundly significant battle in terms of its being a preview of coming events.
For the common Allied warrior in this fight, they will not return to the scorn nor the indifference prior veterans yet endure with bitter and well-tested calm. While the economies to which they return are moribund, the caring public?s gratitude is not. The trooper coming home to the family and loved ones knows he and she have created a turnaround of unprecedented significance. The long line of betrayals of fledgling democracies to socialist totalitarianism by the Allies, starting with Viet Nam and leading to murderous coups in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Malaysia, Indonesia, Libya, and Egypt, has come to an end, all due to the determination of three states where democracy is not an expendable commodity: the U.S.A., Britain, and Israel.
It is the example of this latter state, still asked to do the absurdly impossible even by its allies, which has stung us all into shame and action in the defense of liberty and freedom everywhere. This example to the world, tiny Eretz Israel, is the column of fire leading all the world?s people out of Egypt this Pesach season. In this instance, the waves descending to destroy Pharaoh?s armies shall not be the waters of the Red Sea, but the sharp points of the very best Sheffield, Pittsburgh and Ashkelon steel.
In Europe, the organ grinder?s tune continues eerily into the fog of night. May the dawn arise before it is too late. Am Yisroel Chai. And, as they say in New Jersey, ?Here?s your road map.? Give the PA Oslo, Norway, and Brussels, Belgium, as their homelands. They have a better legal claim to those places under anyone?s international law than they do to Greater Israel.
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Walter James O?Brien is a powerplant construction manager based in Everett, Washington.
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.
For France, I can but say that in a poll taken last week, 53% of the French public support ?la victoire? of the Allies in Iraq, better numbers than England; as ever, the eternal farmers of the Dordogne and Provence spit on the ground at the mention of the words ?les fascistes.?Vive la France libre.
The Angel of Death?s comedy does not end there. The absurdities now observed are not limited to the European scene. Canada is torn by strife between pro- and anti-U.S. demonstrations, while Jews there confront travel warnings in their own land. American Jews to the south are assaulted on college campuses, and even at the very anti-war demonstrations many leftist Jews worked so diligently to organize. In the April 4th issue of the New York Post, no one put it better than Sale Johnson, New York socialite, who, in suave Dorothy Parker manner, stated : "You know the world's gone nuts when the best rapper is a white guy, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance and Germany doesn't want to go to war."
And what of the common foot-soldier?s lot in this monkey-cage food fight of conflicting public opinion? Tons of ink-stained pulp has been wasted on overblown press reportage excreted by ?embedded? reporters, to whose imaginations this disappointingly - to them - efficient, well-administered and low-cost (in terms of casualties sustained, collateral damage and taxpayer dollars expended) military operation is Waterloo, Passchendaele and Normandy combined. Few acknowledge the astounding progress made since Viet Nam and the Suez crisis in making of both American and British forces genuinely ?maximum results for least damage? tools for fighting the wars of the present and immediate future. Any military historian worth their library card would be hard pressed to find a precedent for such a low ?body count? involving confrontations between 200,000 troops operating in ?vertical envelopement? mode on one side and eight divisions in ground-only mode on the opposition?s side, with all prime objectives met on schedule on the victors? side in under two weeks (except, of course, in battles involving the IDF). One visualizes a retired British colonel at his private club turning to his colleagues over claret and barking, ?Iraq II? Bit of a yawner, actually. And Saddam a Sandhurst graduate. They should tear up his commission, ? with a wink, to the sound of laughter. Yet, it is a profoundly significant battle in terms of its being a preview of coming events.
For the common Allied warrior in this fight, they will not return to the scorn nor the indifference prior veterans yet endure with bitter and well-tested calm. While the economies to which they return are moribund, the caring public?s gratitude is not. The trooper coming home to the family and loved ones knows he and she have created a turnaround of unprecedented significance. The long line of betrayals of fledgling democracies to socialist totalitarianism by the Allies, starting with Viet Nam and leading to murderous coups in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Malaysia, Indonesia, Libya, and Egypt, has come to an end, all due to the determination of three states where democracy is not an expendable commodity: the U.S.A., Britain, and Israel.
It is the example of this latter state, still asked to do the absurdly impossible even by its allies, which has stung us all into shame and action in the defense of liberty and freedom everywhere. This example to the world, tiny Eretz Israel, is the column of fire leading all the world?s people out of Egypt this Pesach season. In this instance, the waves descending to destroy Pharaoh?s armies shall not be the waters of the Red Sea, but the sharp points of the very best Sheffield, Pittsburgh and Ashkelon steel.
In Europe, the organ grinder?s tune continues eerily into the fog of night. May the dawn arise before it is too late. Am Yisroel Chai. And, as they say in New Jersey, ?Here?s your road map.? Give the PA Oslo, Norway, and Brussels, Belgium, as their homelands. They have a better legal claim to those places under anyone?s international law than they do to Greater Israel.
--------------------------------------------------------
Walter James O?Brien is a powerplant construction manager based in Everett, Washington.
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.