The Bush Administration and Godwin's Law

By Ken Silverstein
Harper's Magazine

Thursday 31 August 2006

Yesterday the Associated Press ran a story headlined "The new G.O.P. buzzword: Fascism." According to the story, President Bush and G.O.P. strategists said the use of the word "fascism" is "an attempt to more clearly identify the ideology that motivates many organized terrorist groups, representing a shift in emphasis from the general to the specific." The story quoted G.O.P. pollster Ed Goeas as saying, "I think it's an appropriate definition of the war that we're in. I think it's effective in that it definitively defines the enemy in a way that we can't because they're not in uniforms." Forgive me if I don't get it just right, but what I think Goeas is saying is: "We have no real idea what fascism is; hell, we're too lazy even to look it up on Wikipedia. But we've used up the word 'evil' and we need new red meat. Let's roll!"

Today, the Washington Post's lead headline is "Bush team casts foes as defeatist: Blunt rhetoric signals a new thrust." The accompanying story says, "President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield."

According to the newspaper, Bush will begin today to deliver a series of speeches - leading up to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks-that will attack critics of the war. The Post also quoted Vice President Dick Cheney as saying that critics of the war "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." The article also referred to recent comments by Donald Rumsfeld, who cited passivity toward the Nazis prior to World War II and said that "many have still not learned history's lessons ... [and] believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."

On the Internet, there is a dictum known as "Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies," coined in 1990 by a man named Mike Godwin. This law holds that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Anyone who has spent time on political discussion boards can see that it's true; in any charged debate (abortion, Iraq, Israel, foreign policy), it's only a matter of time before someone compares his opponent to Hitler.

It's commonly understood that once Godwin's Law is invoked, a conversation is dead-and that any person who invokes Nazis almost definitely has failed to make his point. It's what philosopher Leo Strauss, the great inspiration to neoconservatives like Rumsfeld, called Reductio ad Hitlerum - the absurd smearing of any opposing line of thought as "Hitleresque." He may not have been contributing to an online bulletin board, but Rumsfeld's invocation of Nazis and the G.O.P.'s sudden interest in fascism seem to be a perfect illustration of how deep this war's supporters must dig in order to justify a deadly folly.

Perhaps, with Godwin's Law in mind, you'll allow me to indulge in a little bit of Nazi-analogizing. The following comes from a post-World War II interview between Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was allowed by the Allies to speak with Nazi POWs, and Hermann Goering, the Nazi Reichsmarshall. Their conversation took place on April 18, 1946, during a break in the Nuremberg trials, and was recounted in Gilbert's book, Nuremberg Diary:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the 'people' don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

A few days ago, defending the Iraq war, Donald Rumsfeld quoted World War I-era French leader Georges Clemenceau, who said: "War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory." Maybe there is victory at the end of Iraq. But the cost of the catastrophes is more than anyone, save for a few increasingly isolated members of the Bush Administration, is willing to bear.