IN IRAQ, SUNNIS ARE A MENACE STILL Much has been said about the Baath Party-Nazi Party similarity. Starting with anti-Semitism, secret police, propaganda machine and so on. I thought it might be instructive to look at the differences between the Baath Party now and the Nazi Party in Germany after WWII. There is no way they are the same.

My mother was a teenager and her dad, my grandfather, was a high ranking officer in Germany from 1945 through 1950 and I asked her about her recollections. She said it was very simple. Germany was completely destroyed. The Nazis had been bombed stupid. They had nothing. No Munich, no Nurenberg, no Berlin, in short none of the symbolic rallying points existed except as ruins. There wasn't a person in Germany who would admit to ever being a Nazi, this despite ample newsreel footage showing millions saluting Hitler. In addition the German army fought to the last man standing. She said it was a rare sight to see a German male younger than fifty or older than twelve or thirteen. Hitler had placed kids as yong as fourteen in combat. They had all been killed. All the Nazi leaders stood trial at Nurenberg or had been killed as well.

She pointed out the difference with Iraq, as she understands it. "The Nurenbergs and Munichs of Iraq (the Baath Party strongholds) haven't been touched. Their army didn't even fight. That army still out there. This is different."

I think it might be well to think about this. The Sunnis were the Baath Party. They alone benefited from the terror of the regime. They may have "cut and run" when it came to fighting but they are the most likely to take the sniper role in the north. We are faced with a run-away army of almost 100,000 men who are armed to the teeth. These are hard core Baathists. These are the people shooting from crowds at our troops. They have plenty to fear from a Democratic Iraq that most probably will put them on trial. Who knows how much weaponry and money they are sitting on?

This is the situation. There is still the Iraqi Army out there, armed and dangerous. Not at all like Nazi Germany after WWII.

Addendum An email from a woman who says she went to Berlin High (U.S. Army Dependents High School) in 1947/49 points out that the Army was still looking for a "secret" Panzer division as late as July of 1947 that they thought was hidden somewhere. She remembers also that there simply were zero young German men anywhere. She agrees that the situation now bears no similarity to Germany after the war. That it is a "hughmongous" mistake to think that it is the same.