Special Dispatch - Egypt
March 23, 2003
No. 485

Former Egyptian Minister of War Compares President Bush and His Policies to
Hitler and Nazism

In an article titled "Nazism Threatens the World Anew" published in the
Egyptian opposition daily Al-Ahali, former Egyptian Minister of War, Amin
Huweidi, compares U.S. President George W. Bush's policy to Adolf Hitler's
Nazism. Following are excerpts from the article:(1)

"Our generation has known days when the banners of Nazism, with the
swastikas, waved in Germany, in the 1930s. We thought that after Adolf
Hitler's defeat the term 'Nazism' had disappeared from the dictionaries of
statesmanship... But for many weeks now this term has again echoed, [first]
from the lips of German Justice Minister [Herta] Daeubler-Gmelin, who said
that 'President Bush's policy resembles the policy of the Nazi leader
Hitler...'"

President Bush's Actions are like Hitler's

"If we look at what President Bush is doing these days with regard to
President Saddam and if we compare it to what Hitler did to one of his great
commanders - Field Marshal [Erwin] Rommel - perhaps some of us will support
the words of the German minister."

"Before the cannons of the world war fell silent, a horrifying event
happened to the German leader [Rommel]. One day two officers knocked on his
door, and when he opened it, they saluted in the Nazi fashion,... handed him
a loaded pistol and shouted, 'Heil Hitler... The Fuhrer orders you to commit
suicide.' The man took the pistol without hesitation, held its barrel to his
temple, and squeezed the trigger...' Hitler had suspected that the commander
was conspiring against him and therefore ordered him removed in this
terrible fashion. The Field Marshal did not commit suicide - rather, he was
'forced to commit suicide'... an act that only a Nazi leader [Hitler] would
dare to do..."

"Today, on the threshold of the 21st century, the same scenario is unfolding
before our eyes, with obvious differences. The U.S. president is demanding
that the Iraqi president, in the name of democracy and freedom, will destroy
his military arsenal, including his weapons of mass destruction - and if he
does not Bush will surround him with his forces and will destroy the shrine
on the heads of those within; men, women, and children."

"President Bush gives the pistol loaded with bullets to President Saddam for
him to commit suicide, because carrying out what is demanded of the Iraqi
president - despite his emphasis that he has no weapons of this kind - is an
act of suicide. Moreover, this is a forced suicide that replicates Rommel's
tragedy with Hitler 60 years ago..."

"Furthermore, the tragedy of our time is undoubtedly more horrible, as it is
not forcing the suicide of one person but the suicide of a people."

Attacking Saddam will not Stop WMD Production

"What does President Bush want? Does he want the head of President Saddam
Hussein? This is a naïve request since he does not realize that Iraq is full
of heads similar to the head of 'Abu Uday' [i.e. Saddam]. Does he want the
nuclear warheads... [that are] threatening the security of the U.S.? This
[too] is a naïve request, because even if he gets them the problem will not
be solved. The side effects [of these weapons] will remain, and are even
more dangerous - as knowledge of the technology to manufacture these weapons
will remain in the heads of the scientists and the minds of their
manufacturers."

"Some scientists say that in order to prevent the proliferation of these
weapons we must gather all the scientists working in this area and behead
them... Is it possible?"

Guantanamo is like Auschwitz

"To the eyes of the entire world, and under the protection of the
international organizations, the American administration banishes Afghans
and others who are suspected [of involvement] in the events of September 11,
chained and with their eyes covered, to the detention camps at Guantanamo,
Cuba, to live in cages surrounded by a barbed-wire fence."

"Whatever these people's crimes - this treatment is not fitting for a
civilized government, as it is a return to the deeds of Hitler when he
ordered Himmler to establish the detention camps at Auschwitz, in Poland,
and at Mauthausen, in Austria, so as to gather thousands of people in them.
It was this wicked matter that was later brought to the courts of
Nuremberg."

"Thus acted the Nazis, and we hated them and inscribed these things in the
black pages of history. If, after that, the Americans act in a similar way,
then there is nothing more shameful than this. It tarnishes... their name as
a country, as an administration, and as a people..."

President Bush's Ideas Resemble Hitler's "Mein Kampf"

"Hitler demanded Lebensraum [living space] for the Germans, as Germany had
no living space. This space was flexible, and nothing defined it except for
the [German] willpower [Willensbildung]... 'Only by means of taking over a
broad piece of land can a people ensure its survival and its existence. Our
vital space is in the east. Nature gives ownership of the land only to the
people possessing sufficient power to take it over.'"

"This can be implemented only by applying the law of war of survival, as
Hitler wrote in his book Mein Kampf: 'The world is a jungle in which only
the fittest can live and only the powerful can rule... Providence has given
the right of mastery to the Aryan people, since it is entitled to the credit
for all humanity's achievements...'"(2)

"The words are clear: The hegemony that Hitler wanted to [achieve] in Europe
was the key to hegemony in the world, and in order to impose this hegemony,
[Germany] needed power - something that was possible [to obtain] only by
removing the restrictions placed upon it in the Treaty of Versailles, then
by quitting the League of Nations and not attending the disarmament
conferences."

"Seventy years later, President Bush wants to increase the [U.S.] defense
budget to $355 billion. His intention is that in 2005, defense expenditures
will be equal to the budgets of all the countries in the world put together,
in order to rule the world in accordance with the principles he stated in
September 2002, under the title 'The U.S's National Security Strategy' -
according to which the U.S. has the right to declare a preemptive war
against anyone threatening its national security, and to prevent any country
or group of countries from challenging its military superiority, [i.e.]
'anyone who is not with us is against us.'"

"This gives the U.S. the freedom to act independently, even [disregarding]
international legitimacy... As we see, what Hitler wrote in his book Mein
Kampf is much less grave than what is done by the American administration,
both within and outside the U.S...."

Endnotes:
(1) Al-Ahali (Egypt), February 3, 2003.
(2) Translation from the Arabic.

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