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EIR: Now, moving ahead to the 20th Century, the types of arguments that are made?which have been made in the context of the current, so-called "war on terrorism," there are echoes of that, also, in the Nazi period, or going into World War II.
Horton: No doubt about that! I think if you look at the Nazi climb to power, starting from 1933, that climb to power was driven by fear-mongering on what might be an historically unprecedented scale.
Fear-mongering was used as the tool to change the law, to undermine civil liberties. So, where the constitution was changed, the code of criminal procedure was changed in this period, and extraordinary powers were vested in the Executive, including police powers; the powers of an independent judiciary were destroyed. And, this was all done based on a "terrorist menace." And exactly what the menace was, shifted from time to time during the Nazi period. It was a matter of opportunism, or convenience.
But clearly, 1933, at the beginning, if you look at the campaign speeches in the elections to the Reichstag, probably the number-one target is the "international Bolshevik conspiracy." So, it's multi-ethnic, rooted in ideology, it's all around us, you never know if your next-door neighbor isn't a member of this conspiracy?but it is also tied to a local political party. And they're definitely labeled as a terrorist conspiracy.
The seminal event for the Nazification of Germany, the so-called Gleichschaltung, was, then, the burning of the Reichstag building?1933. And, again, that event occurred a matter of months after the new government was formed. It was seized upon immediately by the Nazi leadership, as a pretext for strengthening their control of the state and rooting out the liberal democratic protections of the Weimar Constitution and of German law.
EIR: On the specific military questions that have come up?on treatment of captives, prisoners of war, enemy combatants, and so forth?what kind of parallels are there in that respect?
Horton: Let's just start at the threshold question: Do the Geneva Conventions apply to the conflict? From the outset Nazi leaders talked dismissively of the Geneva Conventions and looked for ways to avoid them.
They looked for technical exceptions. And the arguments that were advanced, are essentially identical to the arguments that are made in Judge Gonzales's memorandum of Jan. 25, 2002: First, the adversary didn't sign the Convention, and therefore the adversary is not entitled to its protections. And in this case, you have the Soviet Union, which, of course, was not a state party to the Geneva Convention.
And then, secondly, all the demonization of the Russians as "Bolshevik terrorists" was trotted out: That these people, they are terrorists, and therefore, in the language of the Geneva Convention, "they don't abide by the rules of war." And therefore, you can not fight a modern war against terrorists, under the rules of this Convention. And we see a specific argument being trotted out, about the "obsolescence" of the Convention; it's being described and denigrated as the "product of a notion of chivalry of a bygone era."
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