It’s a busy week; there hasn’t been much time for blogging lately. I was considering posting something about it that read, “light posting ahead, sorry folks.” Then I remembered I don’t post that often in the first place, so I won’t be making any apologies. Ha! There’s a quality/quantity tradeoff, especially when it comes to unpaid blogging. For a while I was working on a post about the standards for treason, but Glenn Greenwald has basically covered it too well for me to have much to say that would add to it. Suffice it to say that the constitution says “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”

Why They Fight

Lots of people have been talking about the Zogby poll of U.S. troops in Iraq. Mostly, the buzz is about the 72% of troops who thin we should leave Iraq within the next year:

The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq “immediately,” while another 22% said they should leave in the next six months. Another 21% said troops should be out between six and 12 months, while 23% said they should stay “as long as they are needed.”

These are people who are on the ground and know (far better than the stateside pundits) what the effect of their presence is on the Iraqi civilians. Interestingly, a large majority of the troops agreed that we would need to double the number of soldiers and bombing raids in Iraq to be able to ‘control the insurgency;’ failing that, they seem to be saying (and we all know we don’t have the resources to commit), we should get out of the whole thing ASAP.

There are lots of interesting tidbits in the study (you should go read Zogby’s press relelase for yourself), but I think the most important one (and I see Bob Harris agrees) is that 90% of the troops believe they are there to retaliate against Saddam for his role in the 9/11 attacks. That’s an incredible coincidence, woudln’t you think? A percentage that high doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. How does something like that happen? Did the military censor the news reports of our government’s admission that Saddam didn’t have a hand in Al-Qaeda’s terrorism? Are they privy to some secret intelligence the White House doesn’t claim to have? Do their drill sergeants recite the false testimony of al-Libi during basic training? Or is there just something in the MRE’s? It’s bad enough that 42% of the troops claim their mission in Iraq is unclear; it seems the other 58% don’t quite understand it, either. It’s as if 90% of the armed forces are trapped in 2002 amber, nevermind that no serious political analyst who knew the Middle East could have vetted this outrageous claim.

There’s a lot more to this study, and I’m sure I’ll be quoting it again soon.

Nazis, Nazis, Everywhere

From Prussian Blue to David Irving, Nazi sympathizers are all over the news lately. But what about actual Nazis? You know, the ones who didn’t wear the uniform as some vaguely ironic countercultural statement?

Over at Majikthise, I responded to a post about the excitement over the arrival of Trader Joe’s to New York. While most commenters where gushing about the chain, I wondered,

Doesn’t it bother anyone here that Trader Joe’s is owned by the 20th richest person in the world (and a former soldier in the Nazi army), Theo Albrecht?

To which someone replied:

Um, there were quite a few of those. They were — what’s the word? — ‘Germans’.

Which is true; lots of Germans were in the Third Reich’s army. But you have to wonder (speaking of soldiers), if you were willing to take up arms, not to mention possibly giving your life in defense of Nazi Germany, wouldn’t you then be just as capable of taking up arms against Nazi Germany? (In a related note, Sophie Scholl – Die Letzten Tage is up for an Oscar Sunday night.)

Whether you felt “coerced,” or genuinely believed in Nazi ideology, joining the Nazi army is, in my view, unforgivable. The Holocaust would not have been possible but for the participation or indifference of the ordinary citizens. Now, I have no way of knowing exactly what the Albrechts, or any other soldiers actually did as part of Hitler’s army, but if they committed some real atrocities, you can pretty much assume they won’t be forthcoming about it–and why would they be?

It is true that standing up to Hitler, as an Aryan citizen, would have required courage and a real sense of morality. An awful lot of it, manifestly more than most people have. I mean, you’d have to be some kind of saint, or maybe the Pope… oh, wait. Scratch that last example.

Speaking of “mild fascists,” I think there’s a delicious irony in David Irving’s imprisonment by Austria, of all places, for Holocaust denial, even after he publically recanted his revisionism. There’s a lot of injustice in the world, but somehow this example bothers me less than others.

Some of you may be thinking, “D. J., you’re too harsh on Nazis.” If you’re one of those people, I just hope that someday, somewhere, in the name of peace and tolerance and understanding, storm troopers kill your whole family.

Snowbunnies and Catcalls

Speaking of racism, I have a funny story to tell you. Iwas walking down the street in Fort Greene tonight, minding my own business, and up the block I hear two young gangsta-wannabes shouting, “Hey snowbunny, hey snowflake” at a white woman who was passing by. I have a friend who used to live in the neighborhood who had to endure this often–sexual harrassment flavored with racism, wrapped in a crunchy taco shell of proffered rape.

Anyway, as I was walking towards these guys on the opposite side of the street I heard,

“Hey snowbu–”

I looked around and saw I was alone on my side of the block. I mean, my hair’s getting kind of long in the back, but then again, I have a beard.

One of the guys quickly recovered, “Uh, uh, snowboy… snowboy’s like, a homosexual.”

I started laughing as I walked up the block. I was reminded of the Bush administration more than anything else.