Sunday, February 04, 2007

"Fools' Crusade" Chapter Four [2]

CHAPTER FOUR: THE MAKING OF EMPIRES


1. GERMANY IS BORN AGAIN

Not much time to post at the moment, and at any rate it wouldn't hurt to allow another day for anyone who reads this blog from time to time to really soak in that last quote.

Just to wrap up this short, one-page opening to part one:

Johnstone, having laid her cards on the table regarding Germany, elaborates her theory that Germany embarked on a superficial crusade of humanitarian interventionism in the Balkans ostensibly to atone for its Nazi past but actually to continue traditional German--and, yes, Nazi--policies of expansionism in the East and military aggression against Balkan nations. The presence of Green politician Joschka Fischer as foreign minister gave the new crusade a facade of progressive respectability.

Which is where she closes this rather startling opening. In the next post, we will see that the Nazi smear isn't her usual throwing-mass-innuendo-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks strategy; she is going to run as far as she can with this theme.

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