Defying The Legacy of Western Fascism in Libya.

[plarq]

You could say that its origins are western at least but I wouldn't say it's inherently western any more than democracy. I really just object to the idea that everything western is bad which seems like the OP is really favoring.

Well fascism is like democracy, or electricity for this matter, developed first in the western countries.

It really doesn't prove anything.

 

[mghani]

You could say that its origins are western at least but I wouldn't say it's inherently western any more than democracy. I really just object to the idea that everything western is bad which seems like the OP is really favoring.

You have every right to "really just object to the idea that everything western is bad". It sounds like quite a sensible thing to do. But my Op is quite particular. It is an argument against a horriffic war begun my Western Institutions like Nato and that warmongering Villian, Barak Dronemaster Obama. It is not an argument against Western Civilization as a whole.

B]Can someone at least move this thing out of the history subforum?[/B] And I'm asking this as someone who opposed the Libyan war. It's ongoing politics, not history, and badly done politics at that. There are ways to rationally oppose these "interventions", as war is euphemistically called nowadays, this kind of confused discourse is not one.

Are you kidding me? One of the most popular threads here on the history forum is started by one of the moderators. Its called History Questions not worth their own thread? I advise you to vent your displeasure over there: History Questions not worth their own thread--copy and paste the title of my OP, and post. Please have my thread remain where it is. And the whole point of my idea in the OP is providing evidence of continuity--- continuity of Western Imperialism exemplified by Fascist Germany with Western Imperialism today within the context of the Libyan war. An idea quite apt for the History Forum.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I'm doing my best not to get involved in this mess (as ideological fueled debates get vexing quickly), however there is one point that I must bring up after reading both threads. You commit what I consider a cardinal sin in history debates, and that is using nazisim and fascism as interchangeable synonyms. They are two different terms to describe different governmental types. While nazisim is fascist, fascist is not nazisim. This ranks right up there with people who use decimated incorrectly.

 

[Lone Wolf]

While nazisim is fascist, fascist is not nazisim. This ranks right up there with people who use decimated incorrectly.

Technically true, but these words are often used interchangeably anyway. This is sort of irrelevant.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Technically true, but these words are often used interchangeably anyway. This is sort of irrelevant.

I'm sorry, but no. The "but everyone else was doing it" defense doesn't work in court any more than in history debates. Proper use of terms is something everybody should strive for.

 

[innonimatu]

Are you kidding me? One of the most popular threads here on the history forum is started by one of the moderators. Its called History Questions not worth their own thread? I advise you to vent your displeasure over there: History Questions not worth their own thread--copy and paste the title of my OP, and post. Please have my thread remain where it is. And the whole point of my idea in the OP is providing evidence of continuity--- continuity of Western Imperialism exemplified by Fascist Germany with Western Imperialism today within the context of the Libyan war. An idea quite apt for the History Forum.

Well, you delivery of that idea was less than apt, I'm afraid. Starting with your example: Germany was a failure at outright imperialist, though it did try.

Was the war of the nazis for "lebensraum" comparable, in the damage it caused to its targets, to other imperial wars. Yes, in many instances it was. That is correct. Shocking as it may seem, there are many examples of massacres and even some of genocidal intentions among other "western" imperial adventures, both before and after WW2. The nazis were far from unique! If this was the message you wanted to transmit, I'll repeat that the delivery could have been better, but the idea is fair.

You see, the problem was your insistence on a continuity to "western imperialism". To start with I dislike that term: Imperialism has never been an exclusive of the west. And it has never been continuous: there are episodes, imperial adventures, depending on the rise and fall of the power of each state. At the bottom every military imperialism is similar: violence applied until the goal is achieved (or it fails). The goals, however, have no continuity: sometimes the goal is to exterminate or expel another people and take their land. Sometimes the goal is to enslave or simply annex other people as subjects (fell out of fashion after the rise of nationalism). Sometimes there are much more limited goals. And the methods are also variable: sometimes the use of force is economical, carefully planned and graded, sometimes it is wildly excessive, to a point where the interests of the imperial power may even be harmed. The use of violence and terrorism is the only continuity to this military imperialism. A serious analysis of it must be made on a case-by-case basis. It is very bad history to generalize.

And then there's also the economical imperialism, which may or may not involve violence.

 

[LightSpectra]

The problem with your thread is that your thesis is appallingly stupid. In less words, what you are saying is that: NATO is intervening in the Libyan civil war because it has stakes in one of the factions. Therefore they are following the continuum of Nazism.

Please.

 

[Lone Wolf]

In less words, what you are saying is that: NATO is intervening in the Libyan civil war because it has stakes in one of the factions. Therefore they are following the continuum of Nazism.

Well, it's more like

Nato and Nato-supported forces are committing atrocities in the war, some of which are racially motivated.
The Nazis also committed racially-motivated atrocities.
Therefore, Nazi continuum.

Inno is doing a fine job with saving this thread anyway.

 

[Ice_Tyrant]

Barak Dronemaster Obama.

This made my day. Yea. I think I only got 2 or 3 lines into your post before I gave up, lol.

 

[mghani]

Well, you delivery of that idea was less than apt, I'm afraid. Starting with your example: Germany was a failure at outright imperialist, though it did try.

Was the war of the nazis for "lebensraum" comparable, in the damage it caused to its targets, to other imperial wars. Yes, in many instances it was. That is correct. Shocking as it may seem, there are many examples of massacres and even some of genocidal intentions among other "western" imperial adventures, both before and after WW2. The nazis were far from unique! If this was the message you wanted to transmit, I'll repeat that the delivery could have been better, but the idea is fair.

my delivery may very well be less than apt, I grant. However whether or not Germany was successful in its attempt at Imperialism ( or rather as successful as the British or French had been historically) is quite irrelevant. The bottom line is that Germany actually aspired to be like its Imperialist Western European counterparts. The horror of Nazi Germany was the culmination of racist and imperialist attitudes exemplified by the Berlin conference which carved up Africa, among Western European nations. Nazi Germany did not invent Imperialism. They simply showed the world the truly ghoulish nature of the criminally racist and inhuman values which inspires Western Imperialism. In particular because this racism was directed not at inferior negroes or asians but rather other europeans. The racist legacy of the British and the French are not so prominent in the collective Western imagination, because these were crimes committed against lesser races. An attitude which remains prominent among Westerners;hence why a man like Niall Ferguson could have such a wicked amount of fun boasting about the advantages of British Imperialism, while German Historians can simply sit in grave and guilt-ridden silence.

You see, the problem was your insistence on a continuity to "western imperialism". To start with I dislike that term: Imperialism has never been an exclusive of the west. And it has never been continuous: there are episodes, imperial adventures, depending on the rise and fall of the power of each state. At the bottom every military imperialism is similar: violence applied until the goal is achieved (or it fails). The goals, however, have no continuity: sometimes the goal is to exterminate or expel another people and take their land. Sometimes the goal is to enslave or simply annex other people as subjects (fell out of fashion after the rise of nationalism). Sometimes there are much more limited goals. And the methods are also variable: sometimes the use of force is economical, carefully planned and graded, sometimes it is wildly excessive, to a point where the interests of the imperial power may even be harmed. The use of violence and terrorism is the only continuity to this military imperialism. A serious analysis of it must be made on a case-by-case basis. It is very bad history to generalize.

And then there's also the economical imperialism, which may or may not involve violence.

Where did i ever say that Imperialism was something exclusive of the West?

I donot speak of continuity of exact method; rather I speak of continuity of purpose. And that purpose is the Strategic control of Wealth and resources. In other words economic imperialism, which is the only imperialism, everything else being subordinate or subservient to it. And in the case of Libya we see the indiscriminate violence against civilians. Nato even as we speak is deliberately starving out entire cities like Sirte and Baniwalid. And they also deliberately drop bombs on civilian populations which pose no military threat simply to intimidate others to not support Gadafi. All this you should have read in the article by Patrick Cockburn. And even if Nato is not on the ground directly participating in the systematic rape murder and torture of black migrants and black Libyans; they have enabled it. All these features which are defined by a racist disregard of the value of human life which is not white or European or Western is suffient to be labelled as fascist.

However I must add the most prominent parallel with German fascism is the propaganda. The black mercenary myth being the quintessential example: accussing blacks of being rapists and murderers when blacks were the one being raped and murdered. The Corporate Western media on this point behaved like an organization being run personally by Goebbels. Even now we still have reporters who keep referring to these massacres being carried out by Nato as humanitarian. And also here is an article, an op-ed piece written in the UK Guardian by an Alqaeda affiliate, Abdel Hakim Belhaj:The Eloquent Terrorist:, the butcher now in charge of Tripoli and responsible most likely for many of the human rights abuses. If you donot recognise the "mortal enemy of western civilization" being allowed to write an oped in a prominent Western Newspaper as something worthy of the evil & genius mind of Goebbels, then maybe there really is no such thing as fascism not now nor in the past.

 

[Plotinus]

Moderator Action: Not History. Moved to OT.

 

[Yeekim]

Hmm...

NATO picked a side in Libyan civil war, but they sure didn't start this.
Similarly, Western press may have published stories invented by the rebels without reviewing them critically, still they didn't invent them by themselves.

So why is this Western Fascism and not Libyan Fascism?

 

[Virote_Considon]

So why is this Western Fascism and not Libyan Fascism?

Because that is the White Man's Burden, of course.

 

[Winner]

If the White Man's Burder (TM) consists solely of being the one to take blame for faults of other people all around the world, then it sucks. I liked it more when it was all about civilizing savages.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Well you should of thought of that before you were born white.

 

[chad187]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15334088

uhhh ohhhh......

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Barack Obama