Saturday, August 25, 2007

Historian Quoted by Bush Calls Analogy "Propaganda"

"They do not use not use history for illumination. They use it to support propaganda."


This is what MIT prof John Dower wrote in 2002:
John Dower on Iraq - Lessons From Japan About War's Aftermath

(NYT) Now, with the Bush administration itself promoting the virtue of pre-emptive strikes, Japan has emerged as possibly offering a very different sort of historical precedent. Does America's successful occupation of Japan after World War II provide a model for a constructive American role in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq?

The short answer is no. (...)

Contrary to what self-anointed "realists" seem to be suggesting today ... most of the factors that contributed to the success of nation-building in occupied Japan would be absent in an Iraq militarily defeated by the United States. ...

More from Thinkprogress: Historian quoted by Bush ‘angrily distances’ himself.
"MIT professor John Dower, called Bush’s use of his work “perverse“ "
Update: Jon Stewart has more about Bush's historical revisionism. LMAO!