Sunday, May 18, 2008
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Sunday Mail

Letters to SP's Editors

Iraq is Poland

 
In Stephanie Ramage’s latest column, “Iraq: It’s West Berlin, not Vietnam” (News & Views, May 11), she compared the occupation of Germany at the end of World War II with our occupation of Iraq. In the comparison, she restates her support for the war. Other than her flippant comments about the yearning for the Vietnam War or that Vietnam is “cool,” her comments were cogent and heartfelt. I have read her articles for some time, and while I disagree with her on Iraq, I greatly respect her passion and steadfast support for her cause.

However, since she restated her position, I feel obligated to restate mine. I do not see the world through the rose-colored glasses of philosophy or ideology. I see the world through the stark clear lens of history: Iraq isn’t the West Berlin of the Middle East—it is the Poland of the ancient world. It was Poland before there was a Poland. The land that we now call Iraq has been conquered by kings, nations and empires that now exist only in memory or dust-encrusted scrolls. Yet each conqueror has one thing in common: The people of Iraq rise up each time and drive those occupiers out. No matter how benign or well-meaning the occupiers, the Iraqis fought them until the conquerors exhausted themselves and eventually gave up and left.

This has not just happened once or twice, but many times. The Iraqi people, the Arab people, have become masters at irregular warfare. Sometime it has taken centuries, but inevitably the Iraqis drive their enemies out. We are but the latest, and if we continue down our present course, we will suffer the same fate. We will spend innumerable lives and expend our treasure until we are bankrupt. Then, when gas prices are so high our economy collapses and the people of this country have grown tired and disgusted, they will rise up and force our government to pull out of Iraq, and we will leave. In the end, what will we have gained?
    
Germany, Ramage fails to understand, had fought two world wars in less than 50 years. It was utterly defeated in the first, suffering economic collapse and political chaos. And in the second, it was almost totally destroyed. It had neither the ability, the desire nor the people capable of mounting a resistance. Adolf Hitler, as chancellor of Germany, declared War on the United States, attacked U. S. property and killed U. S. civilians and military personnel. The United States not only had the justification, but the obligation to fight, defeat and occupy Germany. The President and the U.S. Congress formally declared war on Germany. To compare these two separate events and conclude that they are alike is not only wrong but silly.
 
—Richard E. Creek, Atlanta

The blockade was a joke

Stephanie Ramage (“Iraq: It’s West Berlin, not Vietnam,” News & Views, May 11) seems to believe we are occupying Iraq, like we did Germany and Japan after WWII. To occupy a country you must control it, and we definitely do not control Iraq. We destroyed Germany and Japan totally, and they surrendered unconditionally. Their governments were run by our military, not by some unresponsive puppet government, as it is in Iraq. The Berlin blockade was a joke. If we really wanted to drive our tanks through the Russians, they could not stop us. They had no fuel (that we did not supply), their army was no match for us and their air force was nonexistent.

—Fred Budin, Atlanta

Ramage responds: Hitler and Germany did not attack American property, thus justifying America’s role in the European theatre of World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first incurred Hitler’s wrath by single-handedly authorizing shipments of arms to Britain (for which he was almost impeached by an anti-war Congress). In fact, the German declaration of war against the United States, made two days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, charges that the “Government of the United States, having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever-increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany … provoked by the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, has finally resorted to open military acts of aggression. On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel..”

That’s Hitler’s view of it. But, though Japan attacked us first, Germany did not. And no, the U.S. certainly did not run the government of post-WWII Germany. Germany was run by the Allied Control Council, made up of one voting (or vetoing) representative for each of the four occupiers: Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the U.S.

The blockade was no joke. When the hostile Soviets pulled out of the Allied Control Council and announced the blockade, they had the largest military in the world and had already assumed control of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and they meant to have Germany as well. For more information, peruse the original military and state department documents archived at the Truman Library at www.trumanlibrary.org.
HED: Fact vs. fantasy

(In response to “If the Facts Don’t Work, Just Make Them Up,” Sunday Mail, May 11):

Dr. Robert Soloway is very fond of throwing out fiction disguised as fact to back up his arguments. The Saudi military and police have proven time after time that they are very capable of keeping the peace within Saudi Arabia. Therefore, his erroneous contention that the Saudi “ruling class” needs the U.S. military to protect them from Saudi citizens is complete fantasy. This fantasy is further exposed by the fact that all operational U.S. troops left the country in 2003.

Then he goes on to write that we “gave away” our bargaining power with the Saudis and OPEC after 9/11. What bargaining power? Osama Bin Laden comes from a wealthy Saudi family. Bin Laden was covertly receiving funds from the same wealthy sheiks Dr. Soloway claims Bin Laden was trying to free the Saudi people from.

Bin Laden has stated very clearly on a number of occasions why he was enraged about U.S. troops being on Saudi soil. It had nothing to do with his fictitious desire to make “changes in the condition of his people” and everything to do with his extreme fundamentalist views of Islam: that any non-Muslim troops allowed on Saudi soil were “infidels” and therefore an affront to Islam and the teachings of the Prophet in the Quran. Never once has Bin Laden been quoted as saying that he wanted foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia in order to facilitate changes for his fellow Saudis.

The reasons why oil prices have increased so much over the past seven years are multiple. Oil is a worldwide commodity subject to the same supply and demand dynamics as any other commodity. And thanks to China’s huge economic growth over the last 10 years, the Chinese thirst for oil has become massive and continues to grow in epic proportions. Because the Chinese know that if they want to continue to grow their manufacturing-based economy at the same rate it’s been growing, it must have all the oil it needs to sustain that growth.

At the same time, Russia has been hoarding its very large oil reserves for its own internal needs, both now and in the future. This further exacerbates the supply-versus-demand problem: As Russia has significantly reduced the amount of oil it exports, we have ever-growing world demand facing an ever-dwindling world oil supply.

Which brings us back to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi oil reserves are not infinite. They are actually finite. Many of the leading experts believe that the Saudis are running out of oil. And at the very least, the oil the Saudis do have left has become more expensive to remove from the ground. They make the comparison to a tube of toothpaste: As the amount of toothpaste left in a tube decreases, it becomes much harder to extract what’s left inside.

So from a purely economic viewpoint, why would the Saudis want to apply pressure to the other OPEC members to increase their output and reduce the price of oil? They know their supply is finite and will eventually run out. So the all-time high they’re currently getting for their limited product is just what they need at this point in time.

But as with anything to do with the free market, there is a silver lining in this current scenario. It forces all of the largest world economies to seriously start progressing toward other forms of energy. Higher oil prices are already slowing down China’s overheated economic growth. From a world economic viewpoint, that’s a good and necessary development, because as China's economic expansion slows down, so will its demand for oil.

I don't know what kind of Ph.D you have, Dr. Soloway, but your propensity to throw out fictional claims as if they’re fact reminds me of a third grader trying to fudge a book report because he didn't actually read the book.

—“Anonymous User,” as posted on www.sundaypaper.com

Correction: In our Sunday Best Readers’ Choice issue last week, we incorrectly listed only one address for Dog Days, winner of “Best Pet Spa” and “Best Place to Board Your Pet.” In addition to its Buckhead location, Dog Days also has a location at 3571 Broad St. in Chamblee. 770-451-0461. www.dogdaysatlanta.com.

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