Good
vs. Evil:
If
Only It Were So Simple
by Ron Briley
As a history teacher the
semester exam season brings appreciation for students’ effort but
disappointment at their naiveté. In
fairness to my students, however, their lack of critical analysis
certainly
reflects a culture in which Americans receive most of their information
from
such television media sources as Fox News and CNN, where the emphasis
is upon
the superficial, and alleged journalists serve as cheerleaders for
American
foreign policy.
Students in my
university Western Civilization course were asked to write about the
Holocaust
of World War II in which six to nine
million Jews, along with such other targeted groups as Slavs, gypsies,
Jehovah
Witnesses, and homosexuals, perished at the hands of the Nazis. Students were asked to comment upon whether
the Jewish Holocaust was unique in human history and whether such an
event
might again occur. What struck me about
the conclusions reached by many students is how well they coincided
with
clichés and opinions offered by the media regarding the U. S. military
occupation of Iraq.
Echoing the Bush
administration’s success in employing such World War II rhetoric as the
Axis of
Evil, students were quick to equate Saddam Hussein with Adolph Hitler;
assigning individual responsibility and guilt for complex historical
events. Thus, Hitler is ascribed blame
for the Holocaust; ignoring the historical context of the Depression
and
Versailles Treaty which led to the Nazi seizure of power.
Emphasizing the role of Hitler, of course,
downplays the historical context of European anti-Semitism as well as
gets what
one historian terms “Hitler’s willing executioners” off the hook.
In a similar vein,
interpreting the complexities of Middle Eastern politics and
international
terrorism through the evil intentions of one man allows Americans to
ignore
complicity in what President Bush has labeled “the face of evil.” A public trial for Saddam may prove
embarrassing for American policymakers. This
“evil” man’s rise to power was supported by the United States as a buffer against Iranian expansionism. While Saddam is no doubt guilty of many
crimes against humanity, President Bush has continued to imply that the
terrorist attacks of 9-11 were instigated by Saddam, an allegation for
which no
proof exists. But those who get their
information from Fox News continue to believe this falsehood.
Also, the widely
reported story that Iraqi soldiers stormed Kuwaiti hospitals and tossed
babies
out of incubators, leaving them to die, has proven to be false. The facts that Iraqi has historical claims
upon Kuwait and that modern day Iraq is an artificial creation of Western
imperialism in
the region are essentially unknown to the American public.
One may also argue that the Bush
preoccupation with Saddam has made Americans less safe by ignoring the
real
threat posed by Al Qaeda.
Moreover, by focusing upon the evil nature of
one man, it is easier to overlook how American support for Israel and
the House
of Saud has contributed to the political
instability
of the Middle East.
For those who persist in
believing that Saddam is the moral equivalent of Hitler and that the United States would never allow another holocaust, it is
worth
pointing out that when the Iraqi dictator was using poison gas against
the
Kurds and Shi’ites of southern Iraq, the administrations of Ronald Reagan and
George Bush
the elder failed to take action. Despite
its crusades against fascism in World War II and communism in the Cold
War,
American has not always been the shining knight riding forth to combat
international injustice and evil. The United States did little to aid Jewish victims of the
Holocaust. Besides sending boatloads of
Jews back to Nazi Germany, reflecting concerns about the Depression and
the
anti-Semitism of bureaucrats such as Breckenridge Long, the United States was reluctant to undertake a bombing
campaign against
Nazi concentration camps. In more recent
years, the United States
failed to intervene against policies of genocide in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. History does
not necessarily support the assumption that another holocaust cannot
occur
because a benevolent America will not allow it. Nor
does the “liberation” of Iraq indicate that the United States has assumed the mantle of international
human rights
enforcer. Authoritarian regimes who
espouse anti-terrorism enjoy American support, similar to the
right-wing
anticommunist dictatorships of the Cold War era. Perhaps
the American intervention in Iraq was
more about economic issues that humanitarian concerns.
There is much to praise
in the history and ideas of the United States, but simplistic notions of good and evil
shed little
light on the complexities and ambiguities of the world.
Meanwhile, those of us in the classroom will
do what we can to challenge the unsophisticated type of thinking
encouraged by
American media empires.