Forgive the glibness of the title–it was irresistible. Perverse sense of humor and all. Heh. 
I started to make a similar post to the Pit thread about this, but it sounded too GDish and I didn’t feel like cursing. I am, however, in the mood for discussing.
Obligatory link to article referenced in Pit thread.
The gist is that Bush compared aspects of the War on Terror to aspects of WWII. FTR, I haven’t yet read the speech in its entirety, and the article makes specific reference to a Pearl Harbor/September 11th, 2001 analogy, but says there were others analogies drawn. I don’t think it is necessary to read the speech before this discussion, because this thread is intended simply to explore whether or not there are analogous circumstances between WWII & the WOT, and whether or not invoking WWII could mean plans on the scale of WWII are in the making, thus resulting in the terrifying prospect of WWIII.
All that said, I’m troubled by two topics for thought on this subject. One thought is: it’s quite troubling that our President is making analogies between what’s happening now to WWII. Does that portend this could turn into WWIII? Like, is that the plan?!?
Second is this: what if there are some analogous circumstances between “our present conflict” and WWII? Let me explain. Terrorism has been a problem for other parts of the world for some time. Many nations, including several European countries, have been the subjects of terrorist attacks. This might be analogous to the war in Europe as WWII began in 1938/9. The obvious problem with this analogy is that war was actually declared between several nations, while before our present circumstance, only the nationless terrorists had declared war.
The events of September 11th, 2001 might be analogous to what happened in Pearl Harbor because a) it was a surprise attack, and b) a similar number of people died. One might be tempted to say that most of those who died in PH were soldiers while most of those who died on September 11th, 2001 were civilians, but the difference is a mute point, IM(initial)O. People died and whether they were soldiers or civilians, it was unexpected and unfair, even unjust. Both civilians and soldiers were in locations where they had every expectation of (relative) safety, that is, on home soil. A more appropriate place to question this analogy is in the comparison of Japanese soldiers carrying out their attacks and the terrorists carrying out theirs. The former were agents of the state–a state we could retaliate against–while the latter were agents of terrorism–a global network embedded within other countries, making it quite difficult to retaliate in kind.
While not a perfect analogy, worth considering is that of getting involved with Iraq in the middle of a retaliatory engagement in Afghanistan and with Nazi Germany in the middle of a retaliatory engagement with Japan (note the differing prepositions in and with, thus the imperfection in the analogy). (That said) if I am remembering my history correctly, there was a (admittedly smaller than the current) group of people in the States who opposed getting involved in Germany, though few objected to going after Japan. I do not know if Hitler’s atrocities with regard to the murder, violence toward, and exploitation of Jewish people were well-known outside of Germany (or even within Germany) at the time the US got involved, and if someone knows, I’d be grateful for the information.
That said, where this particular analogy is weakest is that (I believe) Hitler was a real danger to the region, one that could not be contained as nation after nation fell to Germany and more were viciously attacked–in other words, our actions were justifiable in the end. It’s probably too early to tell, though I lean toward the belief that our actions will not be justifiable in the end in the current case. Certainly I think that Hussein was not a threat to the region and was not engaged in conflict with other nations. Iraq had apparently, given current information, been effectively neutralized as a military threat. Our actions may not be justifiable, which calls into question just what side we’re actually on and who we mirror in the analogy.
Still, I think this has the potential to sort of mutate into WWIII, and I find Bush’s statements frighteningly ominous.
To conclude, these are just my initial thoughts on the subject. I’m not particularly convinced of any of it, and I’m happy to entertain conflicting ideas.