I am taking a stand right here and now that we completely ban history from elementary schools right up to university. No American, European, Middle-Eastern or Canadian history anywhere. It’s long, tedious, kinda complicated, and basically irrelevant in our day-to-day lives. Well, consider it gone.
You may think this is impossible, but the work is already underway. As us right-wing hawks know, we’re on our way to success. Take, for instance, our war plan in Iraq. We wanted to go in fighting for quite some time, and now we have. But anyone who knows his or her history has been standing in our way. That’s where the blissful ignorance comes in. We make a few vague references to appeasement, Hitler, and the inevitable danger that he poses, and public opinion turns our way.
But those darn historians keep getting in our way; luckily their voice doesn’t get into the mainstream media too often. If they did, they would start pointing out that Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement was actually something completely different than the current situation in Iraq. Back in the ’30s, suffering from the effects of a depression and a long bloody war, England decided to let Hitler get away with the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Basically, the Brits sold out the Czechs while hoping that Hitler’s appetite for power would be filled after this takeover.
In Iraq right now, there’s been two attempts to invade other countries. Iran (but Hussein was there on our side–and let me say that keeping this secret lately, has been one of our movement’s proudest accomplishments) and Kuwait, where Hussein was not allowed to take over another country. Quite different from the 1930s, wouldn’t you say?
But in our tireless work to ignore history, there have been a few more roadblocks. One of these is the seemingly obvious fact that Hitler was not being scrutinized by the international community, and certainly did not have inspection teams looking for weapons while the world watched. Luckily, when we make our comparisons between Hitler and Hussein, people seem to forget this fact too.
Finally, the sanctions on Iraq. Now, you could make an argument that they resemble the infamous Treaty of Versailles, but that doesn’t help our cause now, does it?
After the First World War, the Allies stacked the deck against the Germans and made them pay through their noses. Sanctions were imposed, blame was placed squarely on their shoulders, and military build-up was strictly prohibited. The results were hyper-inflation, resentment, and the continuing construction of weapons. But that was then–today is much different. At least, that’s what we like to think.
Now, as you can plainly see, it becomes pretty hard to sell our war if we think too much about the historical lessons that should have been learned. So, back to the beginning, no more history. It is getting in our way, but we can continue to ignore it.