John's Blog: March 2003

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Saddam as Hitler

Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Analogy is a very powerful rhetorical technique. It works by asking us to compare two situations in order to highlight the similarities between them. Indeed, it works so well, that often the mind jumps unnoticed from agreeing to the similarity of the circumstances, to agreeing to similar conclusions, and therein lies the danger. By so powerfully focussing on similarities, crucial differences that may make a difference to the outcome are minimized. For this reason, it is very important that analogies not be taken at face value.

One popular analogy to the current Iraqi situation is that of Hitler's Germany in the 1930's. If the leading powers of the time had taken a firmer stand against Hitler sooner, so the reasoning goes, World War II may not have happened. Now, even apart from the impossibility of knowing for sure if this is really true, there is also one important difference. The League of Nations in the 1930's was not sending weapons inspectors into Germany. (Germany would probably not have even allowed that!) The United Nations in the last 5 months WAS sending them into Iraq, until they were recently ordered out. (Not by Saddam Hussein, but by the U.S.) It may be that this effort would have proved insufficient in the end, but now we'll never know, because we have prevented them from finishing. (Were we afraid of the results?) The presence of the weapons inspectors is an important difference from Germany in the 1930's, and our cutting off their work is a strike against our decision to go to war now.

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