Historical comparison for the War on Iraq

Great Debates
1

I wish I knew more about these things…

I was thinking about how the world will view this war, historically. I just now heard a report that said “This is the US President’s first war under the new US ‘Homeland Security’ Policy, which asserts the right of the United States to pre-emptively attack countries” which pose a threat. And I had a flashback to German soldiers marching into Czechoslovakia, unopposed by the international community. But I figured that wasn’t a great analogy, and I didn’t want to compare the US government to the Nazis… that’s no way to start a debate.

But then I thought about World War I. Before it began, there were all sorts of tensions between nations in Europe, and the system of alliances that had been built up didn’t help things. The way I understand it, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was pretty much looking for an excuse to march into the Balkans, and plenty of countries had expansionist designs.

Then, one day, through a twist of misfortune, a major public figure, crown prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary is shot by a Serbian national after making a wrong turn down a street in Sarajevo.

The Serbian government denies having anything to do with it, but Austria-Hungary presses, and extrapolates it into a pretext to invade Serbia. Diplomacy between countries in Europe fails to prevent the escalation of hostilities, and war breaks out weeks after the shooting. (Other countries are dragged in mainly by alliance pacts.) The War to End all Wars begins. Europe is forever changed. And we all know how well Serbia’s successor, Jugoslavia, turned out. In fact, a lot of other countries in Europe were destabilised, too. Who’s ever heard of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman Empires? And Germany didn’t fare very well either.

How good a model is this for what’s happening in the Middle East today? (And how good are my ‘facts’ on the opening of the Great War?) The comparison:

The Sept 11 2001 hijackings fill the role of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. President Bush is using them as an excuse to attack, pre-emptively, a much weaker country which may have had little or nothing to do with it.

Was Serbia about to attack anybody with what military might it had? Is Iraq? Was Serbia a threat to Austria-Hungary? Is Iraq a threat to the US?

Is the US war on Iraq a modern-day invasion of Serbia?

2

No, we already took care of Serbia and the rest of the Balkans. :wink:

3

The best I can come up with is Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, claiming that he was acting pre-emptively in self-defense. His claim seems about as ludicrous as the claim we are hearing from GWB right now. I know this comparison sounds extreme, but that is how wrong I think what we are about to do.

4

Well, but- the Serbian government didn’t “have anything to do with it” in the sense they very likely had no idea of the assasination. However, they tacitly supported the Black Hand (i think that was the name of the org that the assasin belonged to), and it certainly wasn’t a “lone nut” assassination.

Myself, I agree that the links of Saddam to Bin Laden are tenuous at best. (There does maybe seem to be some sort of "enemy of my enemy thing, but…) However, that does not mean that SH does not support terrorism in general. He most certainly does. It SEEMS, however, that the terrorism he supports is more geared against Isreal than the USA.

I don’t know if this is a good reason for an invasion- but there have been worse ones. Still, as of this moment, I am still anti-invasion. This does not mean I’d rule out any military action, however. A few well placed smart bombs…

5

Well, initially the Crown Prince of Serbia had supported the Black Hand, but eventually he grew disgusted with them and wanted to destroy the organization.