How Many People Did Adolf Hitler Really Kill?
February 26, 2007
If you were to ask that question of 1 million randomly selected people around the world many of them would surely answer “millions.” But that’s not reality is it? Did Hitler actually kill even just 1 person? The reality, as opposed to the fantasy as it exists in most people’s minds, is that Hitler killed no one; not a single, solitary soul. He relied upon and convinced 73,000,000 Germans to participate in the war and they did so without even so much as a gun to their head. They killed willingly and voluntarily.
They rounded up Jews, homosexuals, radicals, leftists, pacifists, the violent opposition, Catholics, liberals, people of color and every other “undesirable” human being that they could find and systematically destroyed them. And the sad irony is that it all could have been prevented had they just had the courage to consider the questioning of the authority that demanded this violence of them. Had their society allowed for and fundamentally welcomed dissension, the killing of 62 million brothers, fathers, sons, sisters, mothers and daughters could have been prevented. If only they had asked perspective changing questions and had the courage to face the answers. If only the history books relayed this as the fundamentally important lesson to be learned from these mistakes, maybe we wouldn’t so readily repeat them.
For more information on how many deaths (casualties) occurred as a result of World War II, click here: Statistics of World War II
Letter to Future President: True Al-Qaeda Threat
February 24, 2007
President of the United States
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing to you because I am convinced that current American policy toward the greatest instigator of jihad around the world, Al-Qaeda, is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a more serious threat in the Middle East than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. I urge you to enunciate a strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim at not further emboldening terrorists at the expense of our military and the taxpayers by waging counter-productive conventional wars, especially against nations that do not support, train or have any relations with Al-Qaeda. It is my fear that this administration may replicate the same missteps of previous administrations by falling into the trap laid by this crafty non-state actor that often acts on the world stage.
Please do NOT underestimate the potential calamity that awaits us if we fail to understand the importance of this reality. Al-Qaeda’s goal is to manipulate the U.S. into confronting them as if they were a state and convincing us to meet their terrorist acts with conventional warfare. The risk that this tragic misunderstanding presents is the effect of radicalizing more and more moderate Muslims throughout not only the Middle East but the entire world. Make no mistake about it, this is NOT a cultural war, this is a war amongst extremists concerning our past and present policies. Our fear should be of replicating past actions leading to an even greater violent blowback than the acts we’re attempting to mitigate. Al-Qaeda’s truest threat lies in convincing our great nation to destroy itself from within by alienating us from our allies and the rest of the world while strengthening support for the extremists. Mr. President, the bad news is they’re winning; the good news is that our ignorance is allowing it to happen.
The policy of the ill-defined, directionless and now irrelevant “war on terror” must be strangled until it can be drowned in the bathtub by reason and reality. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend upon the policies of past administrations as they have proven to be an even greater threat to our security than Al-Qaeda. These policies have increased worldwide suspicion about the motivations of the United States, have alienated us from the allies whose support we require and have further aggravated an already serious situation leading to a fourfold increase in worldwide terrorism since the beginning of these futile policies. They have also been instrumental in creating an environment whereby support and sympathies for Al-Qaeda have dramatically increased the world over. While it is almost assured that Al-Qaeda will have an extremely difficult to nearly impossible time manufacturing weapons that are truly capable of mass destruction and it is also highly unlikely that rogue states would risk national obliteration attempting to work with Al-Qaeda on this front, please don’t underestimate the true nature of the threat. Al-Qaeda was founded and has grown in strength due in large part to the uninformed and dangerously inept Middle Eastern policies of the past 30 years. The “war on terror” will only be won when Al-Qaeda is defeated not on a battlefield but in the hearts and minds of the more moderate Muslims that Al-Qaeda is hoping to radicalize. It is imperative that we do not allow them to succeed.
It will take great courage and a much different perspective to confront Al-Qaeda but the first place we can begin is by completely reevaluating our policies in the Middle East. Additionally, Al-Qaeda presents a threat in part because of their ability to coordinate attacks using many highly educated and recently radicalized Muslims. Continuing the policies of the past will only lead to an increase in the number of radicalized Muslims and a further destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how you handle this threat.
As we have already observed the only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility of undertaking military action as diplomacy has proven time and time again to clearly be the only way to succeed in the long term. In part this means assuring countries throughout the world that our actions demonstrate that we are not a threat to their security. The dozens of nations around the world that champion freedom and have a similar way of life yet have avoided violent conflict with Al-Qaeda and other related terrorist organizations are examples of how the U.S. can marginalize those radical fundamentalist Muslims that seek to destroy us and are by far the most extreme of minorities. As Michael Scheuer, former 22 year CIA veteran who headed the group responsible for tracking Osama Bin Laden has stated, “If our policies stay the same, no one is going to listen to our diplomacy” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/interviews/scheuer.html) which will leave us only with the military option, which is hopelessly creating a cycle whereby the more we kill the greater the growth in the number of “terrorists” who want to kill us.
Thank you
(Some language excerpted from the 1998 PNAC letter to President Clinton)
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