George W. Bush: Another Adoph Hitler?

I was comfortably seated on a Mexicana flight from Mexico City to Caracas a few years ago, when the attendant passed out the morning newspapers. However, before the plane had left the runway, I was suddenly uncomfortable with what I saw on one of its pages.
On the one hand, I didn’t want others to see the headline of the editorial I was reading. On the other, I wished that all of my friends in the U.S. were sitting alongside me and looking at it. Somewhere in my pile of newspaper clippings I still have the lengthy editorial. Its theme was simple: there were many similarities between the actions of George W. Bush and Adolph Hitler.
It is not my purpose here to defend or rebut the idea. But I think it is important to share it. I don’t think U.S. citizens realize what is being said about the government of the U.S. and its international policies.
Today the Portuguese owner of a bakery asked me a rhetorical question: Did I think there was only one Osama Bin Ladin in the world? He quickly replied: Maybe there once was only one. Today there are thousands. Then he added, “And if a U.S. soldier should kill a member of my family, I will be another.”
A few days ago, Donald Rumsfeld compared President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to Hitler saying: “He’s a person who was elected legally – just as Adolph Hitler was elected legally – and then consolidated power….” (It would not be easy to make a similar statement about President Bush since it was the Supreme Court that elected him in 2000 and many question the validity of his election in 2004.)
It is understandable that the Bush administration would turn to name calling, even though I learned in high school that it is the lowest form of argument. There must be a great hatred within their camp for Chávez who was able to gather over 40,000 people on a rainy day in Argentina when Bush was only able to provoke anti-U.S. demonstrators in the streets. It must be aggravating that Venezuela maintains good relations with almost every other country in the world, with the exception of the U.S. And the political thrust throughout Latin America must hurt. It is not so much that it is to the left as it is simply a turn against the righteous and rightist attitude of the United States.
Rumsfeld’s name calling, coming from an official voice of the U.S. government, brings to mind our childhood response when someone called us a name: it takes one to know one.
Face it: to compare Chávez to Hitler is ridiculous. Has Venezuela invaded any other country? Are military expenses keeping the Venezuelan government from providing better health, education and housing opportunities for its people? Is Venezuela one of the nations of the world that has nuclear armaments that can destroy a civilization if so desired?
Ask those same questions about the government of President Bush and the answers will be totally different. This statement about the Bush administration, however, is an oversimplification of the reality because it covers up a question that some people around the world are beginning to ask: what is the responsibility of the ordinary U.S. citizens in the decisions of their government?
For years I have heard foreigners say that they do not hold the citizens of the United States responsible for the decisions of their government. That is beginning to change and some are starting to ask why we shouldn’t be held accountable for what our government does.
An article in the January-February 2006 issue of Resumen Latinoamericano by Gilberto Lopez Rivas asks that precise question. Having invaded through the years Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Granada, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and other countries; and, having supported bloody military dictators and coup d’etats, must we finally be seen as enemies of humanity?
In recent days, the government of Denmark has been assaulted because of what a newspaper in that country printed. One can question the logic in such actions but a government does have some responsibility for what happens within it. Vice-versa should not the media (and by extension, the people) of a country be held partly responsible for what their government does? Even if one questions how President Bush was elected, he was elected according to the strange rules that the United States people have accepted and have done very little to change. Were Lincoln’s words about the government of the United States being “of the people, by the people and for the people” a lie? If so, it is time we faced up to that deception. If they are true, then U. S. citizens have to be held accountable for the actions of their government.
As I wrote before, at this moment I do not want to express my opinion on the question of the similarities between the U.S. government and that of Nazi Germany. But I think it is important that U.S. citizens begin to ask these questions: 1) Are we an imperialist nation?; 2) If so, is this evil?; and, 3) Is the ordinary citizen guilty?
Almost two hundred years ago (5 August 1829), Simon Bolivar wrote from Guayaquil, Ecuador, to Colonel Patricio Campbell, “The United States appears to be destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom.” If he were alive today, what would he write?
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Other essays by Charles Hardy can be found on his personal blog Cowboyincaracas.com . You may write him at cowboyincaracas@yahoo.com.