The Next Holocaust Will be Different
Jules Crittenden
Truly great essay by Benny Morris in the Jerusalem Post.
The second holocaust will not be like the first. The Nazis, of course, industrialized mass murder. But still, the perpetrators had one-on-one contact with the victims. They may have dehumanized them over months and years of appalling debasement and in their minds, before the actual killing. But, still, they were in eye and ear contact, sometimes in tactile contact, with their victims. ...
The second holocaust will be quite different. One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran’s acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead.
Something for Congress to consider as it contemplates childish partisan games. My Sunday column, elaborates on issues raised in a couple of this week’s posts, crossposted from the Boston Herald: ...
I'm still optimistic personally that George Bush will do what's necessary to keep the above scenario from becoming reality. Jules apparently is too, judging from his column:
President follows war precedent
Jules Crittenden
As Congress prepares its attempt to hamstring a president in a time of war, there are certain issues of law and history the Democratic majority may want to consider.
Let’s start with the Constitution. Section 2, Clause 1: “The President shall be the commander in chief.”
Presidents have been challenged before on taking military action without explicit approval by Congress. Thus far, notably in 1850 and 1863, the Supreme Court has upheld their right to do so, particularly when the United States is under attack.
Congress is preparing a resolution to undercut the president’s plan to bring stability to Iraq. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has warned George Bush must seek congressional approval before attacking Iran.
That prospect is raised by Bush’s threat to interdict Iran’s support for Iraq’s Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents, and by the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier group to the Persian Gulf. Congress of course approved regime change and the invasion of Iraq, a venture now jeopardized by Iranian interference. Our hostilities with Iran date to the 1979 hostage crisis and continued through the Iranian-sponsored murder of 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983 to the Iranian-sponsored murder of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq today.
Iran now seeks to dominate the world’s richest oil-producing region with terrorism, nuclear weapons and the manipulation of puppet states. An overt declaration of war against Iran could be warranted. ...
