Monday afternoon, sitting in the back of Johnny's car on our way back from Mount Washington, I was finishing up my second read of "Is Paris Burning?" (original 1965 edition, no less!), and I couldn't help but wonder about the similarities (or rather, lack thereof) between the occupation of Paris by the Germans in WW2 and the "liberation" of Baghdad in 2003.
The Germans occupied Paris from 1940 to 1944. Living standards decreased sharply, and the lack of fuel meant that pretty much everyone was riding bicycles. There was an underground resistance brewing, but it didn't reach a critical mass with the ability to mount an insurrection (mostly communist-led) against the germans until August of 1944. However, such an insurrection would bring with it fierce street fighting that would leave many dead and much of Paris destroyed. Many (mainly Gaullists) inside Paris knew this, and therefore tried repeatedly to persuade the Allies to march to Paris to "liberate" it, rather than continue past Paris as was their original plan.
Around the same time, Hitler assigned a new general to Paris: General Dietrich Von Choltitz. The General had lead the assault on the fortress of Sevastopol, effectively reducing it to rubble. He thus acquired a reputation as a "Smasher of Cities". Hitlers' intentions were clear: Paris must be held at all cost, but if the allies did manage to take it, they must find nothing there but a pile of ashes. Hitler wanted to raze Paris if its loss seemed imminent, and Von Choltitz was just the man for the job.
Mines and explosives were placed at all of Paris' key locations: Bridges crossing the Seine, Palaces and Museums, and even the Eiffel Tower. Slowly, Von Choltitz began to realize that Hitler was, in fact, becoming mad. Paris is the most beautiful city in the world; how could he be expected to destroy it? History, he knew, would never forgive him. He would be remembered as the man who destroyed the most beautiful city in the world.
Von Choltitz, in the end, disobeyed several direct orders from Hitler to begin the destruction of Paris. He stalled and stalled, until the French 2nd Armored Corps, followed by the Americans, entered Paris. He had his men put up a symbolic resistance, and then ordered surrender. He had refused or diverted reinforcements, because he knew that he had stalled long enough and would be forced to carry out the planned destruction of Paris unless he surrendered. He didn't order a single demolition.
If the Communist-led insurrection would have continued unchecked, it would have destroyed Paris piece by piece. If the Nazis would have set up a brutal defense at Paris, the allies would have been drawn into a door-to-door urban firefight, lasting very long and also destroying Paris. Von Choltitz prevented a complete uprising of the city's inhabitants and direct battles within the city by a mix of active contacts with his enemies, negotiations with the Resistance and demonstrations of power. Therefore, he prevented any larger damages to the famous city. It was this German General of the Infantry, Dietrich Von Choltitz - and not the allies, nor the resistance - who was the savior of Paris.
Fast-forward 60 years. After a bombing campaign many times more destructive than that of the Germans on Paris, the United States army occupies Baghdad. Without any understanding of municipal structure or city planning, the Americans are unable to contain the fierce resistance present in the capital. Whereas less than 10 Germans soldiers were killed by insurgents in Paris during the first year of its occupation, close to 300 Americans were killed in the same timespan in Baghdad.
So where are the similarities? Well, they are few and far apart. In this case, they can only be called "uneven equivalencies":
- The resistance in Baghdad isn't "clandestine" at all. Infused by Muslim values, lack of fear of death and sheer anger, anyone walking through Baghdad can see the resistance plainly evident on the cityscape. AK-47s and other weapons are still easy to find at flea markets.
- "Allies"? Baghdad, and Iraq, has no allies. The proud people, betrayed for years by their Arab neighbors, have no illusions about any of them coming to their aid. Why should they? Not in 820 years, since the Kurd Saladin united Egypt, Syria and the Abassids to devastate the European Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin and repel the invaders, has any Arab leader successfully overcome the inherent tribalism and division omnipresent in the Middle East to help defend it against exploitation and injustice. Considering the importance of the natural resources in the Arab world, the area should logically be a superpower today if it were united and well-administered. However, the joke that is the Saudi Royal Family - and the greed and selfishness of all the other Arab leaders who have risen to power - are determined to make sure that the Arab population will live destitute and in poverty for a long time to come. So the resistance in Baghdad knows that there is no external help coming.
- There was no "Von Choltitz" in Baghdad. The military governor of Iraq, Mr. Bremer, had no qualms about destroying any part of the city he felt could be troublesome. His mandate was to implement the sweeping economic reforms that his NeoCon superiors demanded, and he did so very succesfully. Except... that these very reforms that sought to sell-off the state assets of Iraq to private [American] companies and turn the most isolated economy in the world into its largest most dynamic free market, were total failures. The factory owners and workers were the ones who stood to lose the most. So the workers trickle into the resistance (after getting laid off from his $3 a week job at the factory, $10,000 a pop for killing an American soldier begins to sound alot more interesting to a 25 year old unemployed Iraqi), while the factory owners now have a vested interest in keeping the resistance strong to prevent them from losing their factories, so they invest their money in the only place that seems logical: the resistance. In other words, the very reforms that the Bush Regime wanted to impose on Iraq are the same ones that are keeping the resistance equipped with AK-47s and RPGs. In another bitter twist of irony, Bushs' economic policies in Iraq are directly responsible for the American lives (now 1,006 and counting) lost in Iraq.
Baghdad is burning, and it will burn for a long time... because nobody is there to stop it.