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The mythology of World War II in western Europe and the USA is increasingly like a blend of two Steven Spielberg films, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. In short, "Heroic US soldiers rescue Holocaust victims and bring democracy". The idea that the US Army 'liberated Auschwitz' is mythology - in the sense of being 100% false. But not all the historical references are incorrect. The wider version of the World War II mythology serves as a foundational mythology for liberal market democracy. And liberal-democratic states did fight in World War II, with political and geopolitical goals. But, to accept their foundational mythology is to accept the purposes for which it is used. To sacralise their war effort, their war dead, is equivalent to sacralising their ideology. And that is almost a definition of the goal of a foundational mythology. The comparison with Kosovo is the best analogy for judging World War II. The 'mythology' of Kosovo was created within weeks, while the war was still under way. Tony Blair declared it to be "a war for values", a selfless moral crusade of good against evil. (The expression "first war for values" apparently comes from Vaclav Havel, in The New York Review of Books, 10 June 1999). And here is the moral crusade, as an explicit NATO strategy - from a 1998 Report by the Atlantic Assembly, on the future of NATO http://www.senate.gov/~roth/press/nato.html "A vision for NATO: NATO in the 21st century should be an enduring political/military alliance among sovereign states whose purpose is to apply power and diplomacy to the collective defense and promotion of Allied security, democratic values, the rule of law, and peace. NATO's purpose is to defend values and interests, not just territory: The Allies at the Washington Summit in April 1999 must strongly reaffirm that the North Atlantic Treaty provides an unequivocal mandate for the collective defense of common values and interests as well as the defense of territory." So in this vision there is no moral responsibility for NATO pilots to consider, as they bomb Belgrade. They would be simply the force of good, applied against evil. "...the west did not intervene in Kosovo for selfish reasons – though peace in the Balkans is tremendously valuable to us - or to deliver independence for Kosovo. We intervened in support of absolute moral and humanitarian standards which we saw being flagrantly breached." British Secretary of State for Defence, to the Royal United Services Institute, 14 March 2000. http://www.mod.uk/news/speeches/sofs/00-03-14.htm That sense of moral immunity and absolute rightness characterises the mythology of World War II also. This is why there was so much outrage at the desecration of the Cenotaph war memorial. The soldiers of the Western allies are the unquestioned Good Guys of history, in the foundational mythology. But in reality, World War II was no different from the Kosovo air war of 1999: a geopolitical war fought by nation states. It was certainly not a crusade to rescue the Jews of Europe. The Holocaust played no role in the geostrategy of World War II: its impact was not realised, until western and Soviet troops were already in Germany, in the last year of the war. So what are the elements of the foundational myth of liberalism? Like all such myths, it was formulated 'after the event'. Liberalism, democracy and the free market, all existed before World War II. The core elements are these: 1. "The supporters of liberal market democracy form a selfless crusade, to bring a gift to the world - their political and social system. The military actions of the democracies are part of this crusade for values. No selfish interest is involved." 2. "Their actions are unquestionably good. They can not logically be rejected, since they are not an imposition, and not a harm." US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott told NATO foreign ministers, in December 1999: http://www.nato.int/usa/state/s991215a.htm "Democracy, by definition, can never be imposed. In any country under any circumstances, it's dictatorship that is, by definition, an imposition, while democracy is, and can only be, a choice." 3. "Freedom means living in a free-market liberal democracy. Those who participate in the crusade for liberal market democracy fight for freedom." The London Cenotaph incident was highly symbolic. During a May Day demonstration, described as anti-capitalist and eco-radical, the national war monument was desecrated. Conservative leader William Hague linked it to previous 'anti-capitalist' rioting in The City (the financial district). http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/politics/story/0,3604,216975,00.html "Mr Hague said that perpetrators were the same groups which wrecked the City on June 18 last year. 'On Monday the same groups defaced the Cenotaph and dishonoured our war dead.'" British interior minister Jack Straw commented: http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk%5Fpolitics/newsid%5F733000/733601.stm "Without the sacrifice of millions who gave their lives to defend our freedoms, no one yesterday would have been enjoying any right to protest at all." This neatly integrates ideas of collective national sacrifice and national memory (represented by the national war monument) with the idea of a crusade for liberal democracy. The soldiers of the western democratic allies fought for the political system of their own nation states: this at least is accurate. There was no NATO in 1939, but there was a perception of the unity of the democracies, against the dictatorships. Even before World War II there were proposals for a Union of Democracies, proposals which influenced the post-war formation of NATO. The western allies did not simply form an ad-hoc coalition in World War II, but had pre-existing 'common values': liberal democracy and the free market. 4. "Liberal market democracy forms the historical and moral negation of the Holocaust. At the very least, it is the only possible Holocaust-preventing strategy on a global scale and in the long term. The Holocaust has generated a moral obligation on all societies to become liberal market democracies, even if only as a preventative measure." 5. "A free-market liberal democracy is self-evidently better than the Holocaust." This last element is the most obviously false in the mythology. The free market has killed far more people than were murdered by the Nazi regime. One private enterprise alone, the Belgian Congo Company, probably killed more people than the Holocaust total. But... a foundational mythology seeks to create a version of history which simultaneously glorifies and justifies a nation, or a political system or ideology. Its purpose is not to bring truth or show guilt. -- Paul Treanor http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/ reserve: http://www.diagonal.demon.nl %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%