Korsfarare
F. Barker om korsfararens mentalitet Ett utdrag ur Crusades, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1973
Han kunde slakta alla tills han vadade till fotknölarna i blod och därefter falla på knä på kvällen och snyfta av glädje vid Den heliga gravens altare, ty var han inte röd av Herrens vinpress?
Judarna i Rhenlandet fastnade i denna vinpress som nästan malde dem till döds. Dessutom påverkades de själva av en annan typ av masshysteri: en morbid längtan efter martyrskap. Enligt den hebreiske krönikeskrivaren Solomon bar Simon, allmänt ansedd som tillförlitlig, gav Mainz judar, ställda inför valet mellan att döpas eller dö för pöbelns händer, en förebild för andra församlingar genom att besluta sig för kollektivt självmord:
I en efterliknelse i stor skala av Abrahams beredvillighet att offra Isak slaktade fäder sina barn och äkta män sina hustrur. Dessa handlingar av outsäglig fasa och hjältemod utfördes i den rituella slaktformen med offerknivar vässade enligt judisk lag. Det hände att församlingens främsta skriftlärda, som övervakade denna massdöd, var de sista som lämnade livet för egen hand. ... I masshysterin, helgad av det religiösa martyrskapets glans och kompenserad av den förtröstansfulla tron på belöning i himlen, syntes ingenting betyda något utom att sätta punkt för livet innan man föll i de oförsonliga fiendernas händer och måste träffa det ofrånkomliga valet att dö för fiendens hand eller omvända sig till kristendomen.
När vi går från massaker till torr statistik får vi en grov uppfattning om de judiska samhällenas storlek i Tyskland. De hebreiska källorna enas om 800 offer (i massakrer eller självmord) i Worms och skiftar mellan 900 och 1300 i Mainz. Det måste givetvis ha funnits många som föredrog dopet framför döden, och källorna anger inte antalet överlevande.
Källa: Den Trettonde Stammen av Arthur Koestler,
sid 190 OCR-skannad som en test
“It’s a clear thing,” says Iraqi Air Force Colonel Sabri Gaib. “We expect an attack from the Americans at any moment.” Sabri acknowledges that the Americans have a much more powerful arsenal of troops, weapons and technology than Iraq. But still, he repeats what most military men in Iraq say when confronted with this reality:
“The Iraqis will fight. In the 1920s, the British had more manpower, equipment, even technology you could say. We fought them with sticks and we kicked them out of Iraq. We are confident we can do the same to the Americans.”
“THIS IS WHAT Westmoreland was doing in Vietnam,” says a top Special Forces commander, referring to the firepower-heavy tactics favored by the military’s senior commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, who lost sight of America’s essential mission in that lost war: winning the hearts and minds of the people.
One center of private concerns with America’s Iraq strategy is the Defense Policy Board, a collection of outside experts—mostly heavyweight conservatives—who regularly consult with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Disquiet in this quarter is particularly significant, since the DPB pushed from the outset for the invasion of Iraq. Last week one of the more colorful and outspoken members of the group, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, went public with his worries and ideas in an interview with NEWSWEEK. He was careful to say that he does not speak about the board’s deliberations “on or off the record,” but he proceeded to hold forth in his insightful, if mildly bombastic, way about the shortcomings of administration policy in Iraq.
Sitting in his office in downtown Washington, Gingrich searched on his computer for the Web site of the Coalition Provisional Authority, set up in Baghdad to oversee the reconstruction and democratization of Iraq. “I’m told over there that CPA stands for ‘Can’t Produce Anything’,” says Gingrich. “Home page of the New Iraq,” he quotes. Then: “The opening quote is, of course, by [CPA chief Paul] Bremer. Next quote is by Bush. Next quote is by U.S. Ambassador Steve Mann.” He scrolls down. “Now this is a big breakthrough. They do have the new Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. On the front page. That is a breakthrough,” he repeats, adding, sotto voce, “I have been beating the crap out of them for two weeks on this.” His basic point: where are the Iraqi faces in the New Iraq? “Americans can’t win in Iraq,” he says. “Only Iraqis can win in Iraq.”
Gingrich argues that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element. “The real key here is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow,” he says. “And that is a very important metric that they just don’t get.” He contends that the civilian-run CPA is fairly isolated and powerless, hunkered down inside its bunker in Baghdad. The military has the money and the daily contact with the locals. But it’s using the same tactics in a guerrilla struggle that led to defeat in Vietnam.
“The Army’s reaction to Vietnam was not to think about it,” he says. Rather than absorb the lessons of counterinsurgency, Gingrich says, the Army adopted “a deliberate strategy of amnesia because people didn’t want to ever do it again.” The Army rebuilt a superb fighting force for waging a conventional war. “I am very proud of what [Operation Iraqi Freedom commander Gen.] Tommy Franks did—up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then,” said Gingrich, “we go off a cliff.”
In essence, the Americans never did transfer power. They disbanded the Iraqi Army and the government, realized that was a mistake, and quickly tried to cobble together an Iraqi police force and military. But the Iraqis in uniform today are seen by too many Iraqi citizens as American collaborators. Gingrich faults the Americans for not quickly establishing some sort of Iraqi government, however imperfect. “The idea that we are going to have a corruption-free, pristine, League of Women Voters government in Iraq on Tuesday is beyond naivete,” he scoffs. “It is a self-destructive fantasy.” (The White House insists that it is paying close attention to local politics and has speeded up the timetable to turn over power to the Iraqis.)
The rumor mill in the Pentagon suggests that Bush’s “exit strategy” is to get American troops coming home in waves by next November’s election. Obliquely, Gingrich indicates that would be a huge mistake. The guerrillas cannot be allowed to believe that they only have to outlast the Americans to win. “The only exit strategy is victory,” Gingrich says. But not by brute American force. “We are not the enforcers. We are the reinforcers,” says Gingrich. “The distinction between these two words is central to the next year in Iraq.” Gingrich’s voice rang with his customary certainty. Hard to know if Rumsfeld and Bush are listening.
källa: 15 dec. 2003 Newsweek
