Posted on 05/21/2009 1:43:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
John Rosenthal writing at Pajamas Media informs us that President Obama will probably make a stop at Dresden while on his second European trip that will climax with a speech in Normandy on June 6 marking the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Rosenthal points out a little misdirection from the administration in that they will also probably schedule a stop at Buchenwald, the notorious concentration camp that Obama believes his uncle helped liberate in 1945.
The message Obama intends to send by visiting both sites is clear; while the Germans did bad things during World War II, they were also victims of Allied atrocities:
The symbolic significance of a visit to Dresden by the American president - especially one undertaken in connection with a D-Day commemoration in France - may be missed by some Americans, but it is absolutely unmistakable for the German public. For Germans, Dresden is the symbol bar none of German suffering at the hands of the Allies. The city was heavily bombed by British and American air forces in February 1945, toward the end of the war. According to the most recent estimates of professional historians, anywhere from 18,000 to at most 25,000 persons died in the attacks. These numbers come from a historical commission established by the city of Dresden itself. But far higher numbers - ranging into the hundreds of thousands - have long circulated in Germany and beyond. The bombing of Dresden is commonly described as a "war crime" in German discussions.
Alleged crimes committed by the Allies against Germans and Germany have indeed become a sort of German literary obsession in recent years, with numerous books being devoted to the subject.
The President of the United States may be planning on equating the strategic bombing of a German city with the deliberate murder of millions of innocents.
Indeed, Rosenthal states that it would be impossible for Obama to go to Dresden and not mention the bombing. And what of his stop at Buchenwald?
It is virtually unthinkable that Obama could give a speech in Dresden and not allude to the bombing of the city. Most of the city's historical monuments - which Obama's advance team were apparently inspecting - were severely damaged or destroyed in the bombing and had to be rebuilt. Moreover, for Obama to visit both Dresden and Buchenwald would suggest precisely the sort of outrageous parallels that have become commonplace in Germany at least since the publication of Friedrich's The Fire.
Barack Obama is fulfilling the dreams of liberals who, for more than 40 years have seen the role played of the United States in world affairs since before World War I as having a disasterous effect on mankind. This kind of thinking explains the "Blame America First" mentality that has guided liberal foreign policy since the 1960's, turning the policies practiced by Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson which recognized America's leading role in world affairs into an orgy of self-loathing and a desire to subsume American interests in favor of a squishy internationalism guided by the thugs and fools at the UN.
No doubt Obama will speak strongly against Nazi terror while in Dresden. But what does it say about our president that he may very well equate what happened to the Jews with what happened to German citizens during the war? Is he capable of recognizing the moral difference? Is he capable of recognizing evil at all?
If a big enough stink is made before the itinerary is set, it may be possible to dissuade the president from making a moral idiot of himself. But given the cheerleading he will receive from his leftist friends, that may not be possible.
Americans did a bad thing in electing One Big Assed Mistake, America, and now we're victims too.
well then FRiend, let me say this, FUBO!
FUB0
FUB0
I wonder if he will apologize while he is in Egypt for the Egyptian enslavement of the Israelites?
This is satire! American Thinker and Gateway Pundit pulled it from a satire site and are publishing like it’s real!
IT’S SATIRE!!!!
Acording to people of his (obama’s) ilk, these were only Joooos, capable of changing thier bodies into the form of a pig.
He believes there was no reason to bomb the germans, they were doing alahs work.
He wouldn’t dare.
Dresden was terrible....that said, Oboner apologizing for everything Americans have done for the last 200 years, real or perceived, is getting old.....
Just checked the sites, I see no satire disclaimers.....linky please FRiend.
Wasn’t Dresden a war crime that was spearheaded by the British?
Vonnegut, the author of "Firehouse Five" was a POW in Dresden on the night of the RAF's raid. He was lucky to escape with his life.
Uhhhh, that's gonna be kinda hard to do.
Yep, the British spearheaded it, and we helped a bit. Whether it was a military necessity is still up for debate. Personally, I think it was drastic overkill militarily. Not quite a war crime, but not something we should be proud of either.
I will vehemently point out that,indeed, the bombing of Dresden was an awful event. So was the bombing of London, Rotterdam, Liverpool, Plymouth, Warsaw, Tokyo, Manila and countless other places around the globe, including a thousand villages and cities in Russia.
It was called WAR, and the principal teacher and instructor was the nation of GERMANY, itself. They themselves showed the way, and they were good teachers.
But Obama, and other anti-American followers better damn well be aware of a rather significant difference in the two sides.
In simple English, when it was the Americans, along with most of it allies who WON, the killings stopped. When certain other peoples WON, the real killing started.
Right there, that says it all. You may judge a nation, not by what it needs to win, but its actions AFTER it has won.
I regret I cannot condemn these idiots to exist in the world they appear to prefer.
Dang, dfw, I thought he was still around. GOOGLE says he shuffled off this mortal coil in 2007. My bad. Thanks.
Yeah I would be doing that too if I killed 6 million people and turned a blind eye to it. Now I want to bomb Germany again after reading this.
Good post. In this day in age, where the media cries for every civilian casualty, that the American military inflicts, the slightest research into WWI and WWII would have them puking in their designer shoes.
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