The Axis of Powers; Nazi Tactics by Israel and America in the Phony War
On Terror
by joel fischer

As a Jew who witnessed the loss of 6,000,000 of my fellow Jews, most
likely including members of my own extended family who were still in
Europe, in the brutal Nazi slaughter of the Holocaust, I believe I know
Nazi tactics when I see them. Because of this deeply personal history,
I am sickened by the Nazi-like tactics being used by the Israelis in
Gaza and Lebanon. These tactics are fully supported by the Bush
administration as legitimate attempts at "self defense" against the
alleged incursions by Palestinian and Hezbollah guerillas. This
collusion between the US and the Israelis is so similar to the Axis
Powers of World War II that I believe they constitute a new "Axis OF
Powers" for the 21st Century. This Axis links Israel, the most
militaristic country in the Middle East, with the United States, the
most militaristic country in the world, in a quest to dominate,
intimidate and develop their hegemony over other countries.

So, what are these Nazi-like tactics being used by the new Axis of
Powers?

TERROR BOMBINGS; CONDUCTING A BRUTAL WAR AGAINST CIVILIANS.

The "shock and awe" bombing strategy used by the US and Israel are
simply another name for the brutal bombings of civilian populations
used by the Nazis in World War II. The current horrific wars against
innocent men, women and children are geared toward intimidation, terror
and fear among the civilian population in a depraved attempt to get
them to pressure their own regime to submit, abdicate or surrender. The
Axis even goes so far as to deliberately and brutally target
infrastructure such as power plants and even supply routes bringing
food and medicine to civilians, in an effort to make life indescribably
more horrible for innocent civilians. In fact, Amnesty International
has accused Israel of war crimes stating that Israel broke
international law by deliberately destroying LEBANON'S (not
Hezbollah's) civilian infrastructure! These are the war strategies the
US used in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel is using in Palestine and
Lebanon. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine by these Nazi-like tactics by Israel
and America.

The US and Israel don't stop with terror bombings. Invading other
countries illegally, they then continue to intimidate the civilian
populations by illegal and unethical searches of peoples' homes,
dragging men and sometimes women into the street hooded and trussed up
like animals. Nothing can be more humiliating to these people then
these intrusive home invasions at all hours of the night where
civilians are trussed up and thrown out into the street in full view of
the neighbors as a warning to any one who might even express an opinion
about the illegal occupation of foreign troops in their own country.

The US-Israeli war against civilians has produced deaths and
humiliation but not submission. In fact, the stupidity of this Nazi
strategy in World War II and its results in HARDENING opposition, not
WEAKENING IT, seems lost on the leaders of the Axis of Powers.

As I write this, news is reported that the Israelis fired missiles into
a village killing 15 civilians, mainly women and children, while
another missile was fired at a CONVOY OF CIVILIANS FLEEING THE
VIOLENCE, killing seven and wounding 22! Are these not exactly the same
actions that the Nazis carried out against civilian targets?

TRUMPED UP EXCUSES FOR INVASIONS

Afghanistan "harbored terrorists." Iraq has "weapons of mass
destruction" and "threatened the US." Palestinians elected the "wrong
government" and also may have kidnapped one Israeli soldier. Hezbollah
� BUT NOT LEBANON- allegedly kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. In
all cases, including those where the reason for invasion was shown to
be lies, the results were the deaths of thousands of innocent people,
most sadly because of PRETEXTS by the US and Israeli governments.

Because of American propaganda, a little known fact is that Hezbollah
is not even considered to be a terrorist organization by most of the
world! Indeed, only the US and its puppet governments of Israel, Canada
and Britain consider Hezbollah as a terrorist organization! In fact,
Hezbollah and Hamas have exchanged prisoners many times with Israel who
now has decided to use the Hamas and Hezbollah "kidnappings" as their
latest pretext to invade and slaughter their neighbors.

Israel and the US have violated not only the United Nations Charter,
but numerous UN resolutions in their murderous wars of hegemony and
imperialism. Thus, the Axis of Powers becomes the real terrorists in
the Middle East, not the Palestinian, Iraq, Afghan and Lebanese forces
who really are engaging in legitimate self defense against the
invaders/occupying forces.

Now compare the pretexts used by the Axis of Powers with those used by
the Nazis in World War II. Fake border incidents. Falsified cases of
discrimination against Germans in the countries targeted for invasion.
The need for "LIVINGSPACE." Aggressor nations always develop huge
propaganda machines to try to justify their actions. And when one lie
is exposed �there WERE no weapons of mass destruction- another is
concocted to take its place, e.g., the need to bring "democracy" to
other nations. Yet, how hypocritical is it that the US invaders are
allies of many other anti-democratic nations, in that very same Middle
East region, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt? How even more
hypocritical is it that Israel, with US support, in their quest to
"democratize," invade two of the only states in the Middle East with
actual democracies, Palestine and Lebanon? There is no end to the lies
and hypocrisy when Nazi tactics are employed by aggressor nations.

In fact, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published an article in
the August 21 issue of "The New Yorker," that confirms, based on
information leaked from current and former Bush administration
officials, that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had nothing to do with
the kidnappings of two Israeli soldiers. The invasion was planned by US
and Israeli officials as preparation and a trial run for an invasion of
Iran in 2007! Hersh wrote that "...according to a former senior
intelligence official, the Israeli plan for Lebanon was the 'mirror
image of what the United States has been planning for Iran.'" George
Bush never denied the substance of this article, calling it only, "wild
speculation!"

A new book, "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawai'i
to Iraq,"
(Stephen Kinzer; 2006) provides the clearest possible evidence that
"regime change" has been a strategy of American foreign policy for at
least 110 years. The phony excuses and US government lies may change
with the situation, but the strategy stays the same.

DEHUMANIZATION OF THE ENEMY

As the Nazis viewed Jews, Slav, Gypsies and virtually all other
nationalities as inferior to their "master race" so that their soldiers
would not experience guilt over their genocidal slaughters, so do the
Israelis and Bush administration actually view Muslims as inferior. The
Axis sees "the other," the "enemy," as inferior, so that deaths of tens
of thousands of "the other" seems justified while deaths on "our" side
�or kidnappings of a few in this case- are viewed by the Axis of
Powers as horrendous and unforgivable. This dehumanization occurs
officially and unofficially. It occurs officially, e.g., when Bush
responds to a question about how many Iraqis have been killed by
casually replying "oh, about 30,000," as though he were counting the
cattle on his ranch. (As of August 2006, there are between 45,000 and
50,000 Iraqi dead according to US estimates!) It occurs unofficially,
e.g., when troops on the ground dehumanize their enemy by calling them
"towel heads" in the same way the US military in Vietnam called the
Vietnamese "gooks." Even the media are co-opted in this dehumanization
process as witness the daily reports of total American deaths, but
virtually no reports of the overall death tolls among "the enemy."

Use of terms by US and Israeli propagandists like "Muslim Terrorists,"
"Muslim Extremists," and the latest demeaning term by Bush, "Muslim
Fascists," is an attempt to taint all of Islamic religion and culture.
Bush knows that the vast majority of his constituency in the US only
hears the word "Muslim." Contrast that with the number of times we hear
terms like "Christian Crusaders," "Christian or Jewish Extremists,"
"Christian or Jewish Neo-Nazis." These epithets are strictly off limits
in the US, no matter how accurate they may be in depicting our
government. The anti-Muslim insults are all part of the dehumanization
process against people who are not only NOT terrorists or extremists,
but defending their countries against illegal invasion and occupation
by the Christian/Jewish Axis of Power.

Even more telling of this dehumanization is that the ratio of "enemy"
killed to Americans and Israelis killed or kidnapped approaches
hundreds to one. This is reminiscent of the same strategy used by the
Nazis in WWII: slaughter of tens to hundreds of civilians when the
Resistance killed even one German. Sadly, the US-Israeli ratio of our
dead to their dead even exceeds the kill ratio of the Nazis! Can there
be any clearer evidence of the view that "they," the "enemy," are seen
as less worthy of life and dignity than "us?"


UNETHICAL AND ILLEGAL ENTRIES, SEARCHES AND DETENTIONS; USE OF TORTURE

There seems to be little disagreement, even from many US sources, that
the Axis has violated international law and basic human decency by its
violent repression of civilian populations. Both the US and Israel have
deemed it their right to break in to any home in occupied territory
that they wish in the search for "the enemy." Television news displays
almost nightly present the images of Iraqi civilians screaming and
crying in protest and desperation as occupation troops break into their
homes, search any where they want, and then place hoods over the men,
tie their hands behind their backs and roughly shove them to their
knees. TO THEIR KNEES!

The US and Israel also hold THOUSANDS of prisoners from the lands they
have invaded and occupied with basic human rights denied to many if not
most of those prisoners. Even the puppet government of Britain has
called for the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, hundreds of
whom have been held incommunicado FOR YEARS, with no contacts with
family or legal representatives allowed. Meanwhile, the media have
uncovered reports of secret prisons around the world where CIA victims
are spirited to and never heard from again.

The visual reports from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq show the widespread
use of torture there, and many international organizations �from
the United Nations to the Red Cross to Amnesty International- have
provided evidence and protested the widespread use of torture by
Americans and their allies, approved AS POLICY by the Bush
administration!

All of these tactics are EXACTLY the same as the ones used by the Nazis
in WWII. Are these prisons �those that are known and the many that
are secret- not American concentration camps?

Of course, I want Israel to survive and flourish as a state, but
alongside the equally flourishing Palestinian and Lebanese states whose
autonomy and actual statehood Israel continues to deny, financially,
militarily, and economically. As an American and as a Jew, my heart is
broken; I cringe in disbelief and horror at the terror my own people
have spread.

Terror bombing, illegal invasion of other countries using trumped up
excuses, dehumanization of the enemy as inferior, widespread use of
torture; these are exactly the same tactics the Nazis used. But these
tactics will NEVER produce either the peace or victory the Axis of
Powers claim they want. Remember WWII. The Nazis lost!


Professor University of Hawai'i School of Social Work Honolulu, HI