ALL THROUGH the Clinton administration and into the 2000 election, some said we had run out of history. It had been tapped out, like an overused resource. It had run dry, like a well. Then came September 11, and history came flooding back with a vengeance, swamping us all in a torrent of crisis and incident. We have so much history now that we have nowhere to put it. We have a history glut. Elected in peace, George W. Bush has become a war president, fighting hot wars and covert wars on terror, while trying to rebuild the Atlantic alliance and bring peace and order to the Middle East. He is making history more than he ever imagined, but he is also reliving it, in an unusual fusion of incidents. We are reliving not one but four past crises. And the years our present situation resembles are these:
1938
IN 1938, the League of Nations, having failed to check Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1931, Italian aggression in Ethiopia in 1935, and German aggression in the Rhineland in 1936, lapsed at last into utter inconsequence when it failed to prevent the partition of Czechoslovakia, a sellout that Britain and France hailed as "peace in our time." Peace in our time lasted just one year, before pumped up German forces rolled into Poland, setting off a world war that raged on five continents, killed 40 million people, and lasted six years. In the end, aggression was rolled back and order restored by a military
alliance led by the United States and Great Britain, with Russia acting at times as an out-and-out foe, and at times as a critical ally.
In 2003, the United Nations, having failed to stop numerous incursions and massacres from Bosnia to Rwanda, once more proved its futility when its Security Council split bitterly on the issue of whether or not to enforce its own resolutions against Saddam Hussein. Once again, France helped the aggressor, aided in this instance by Russia and Germany. As the U.N. tossed itself into the dustbin of history, it became clearer and clearer that aggression would be halted and order restored by a military alliance led by the United States and Great Britain (with Russia in an on-and-off supporting role). "History keeps coming back, sometimes like a bad dinner," wrote columnist Paul Greenberg. And so it did, what with hapless attempts to disarm an aggressor, and endless French pleas for more talk. "Among the 18 European countries that now have signed on with America's latest crusade . . . was the Czech Republic," noted Greenberg. "Of course. The Czechs remember. Specifically, they remember being sold out." For the Czechs, the events of the year 1938 led to 50 years of enslavement. For the United States (which was not a member of the League), they led to attack and disaster. Which brings us to year number two.
1941
ON DECEMBER 7, 1941, the American fleet at Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese Empire. U.S. losses were 19 ships sunk, 265 airplanes struck, and 2,403 dead. It was the first attack on U.S. soil since the British burned the White House in 1814. On September 11, 2001, three jetliners hijacked by Islamic terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in suburban Virginia and killed over 3,000 people. A fourth plane, brought down by a heroic passenger uprising, was headed for either the White House or the Capitol. It was the first attack by a foreign power on the American mainland since the British burned the White House in 1814. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to rally his countrymen, and prepare a hot war to be fought on five continents, against the armed forces of the three Axis powers. President George W. Bush had to rally the country, and prepare for a hot war to be fought on five continents, against the worldwide terrorist network, as well as its supporters. Roosevelt's enemies were nation-states, with formidable armies and large stores of conventional weapons. Bush's enemy is an all-but-invisible shadowy being, with no land or army, but access to multiple weapons of terror. Roosevelt's aim was to liberate territory and force the surrender of enemies. Bush's aim is to surgically extract the terrorists from the nations where they nest, a different and new kind of war. Roosevelt's enemies claimed he had advance knowledge of the strike at Pearl Harbor and allowed it to happen to gratify his desire to make war on Hitler. Bush's enemies claimed he had advance knowledge of the attacks in New York and Virginia, and allowed them to happen to gratify his desire to make war on Saddam. Roosevelt and Bush were both accused of being pushed into war by Jews.
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