Posted on 05/20/2006 8:33:39 PM PDT by tbird5
So you say it is a duty to risk your life under oppression. Dear Eastbound, have you ever lived in a dictatorship? Even as a foreign citizen under diplomatic immunity in Iran you can imagine how it is like to live in fear.
From what do you conclude that Hitler enforced the will of the German majority? He never got a majority for his party in a free parliamentary vote. He was appointed Chancellor by the President and built a coalition. There was never a vote "Do you want war with Poland". In fact, the mood was anxious and full of fear when WW2 started - and I take that from first-hand-reports. The people were still fed up with war 14 years after WW1. But that´s not what you get from the movies - the propaganda was excellent in persuading the foreign that Hitler was popular. He wasn´t. There were more than 40 known attempts to kill him - starting in the 20´s. Most Germans didn´t make "his choice" to live "as aggressors". The Nazis did so, sure. But the majority of Germans didn´t want the mass murder of Jews. Read reports of that time, from Jews and non-Jewish Germans. You will find out that many Jews say that their neighbours had too much fear to help them. It´s not that they didn´t want to. It´s that fear was stronger. I have understanding for people under fear. It´s not cowardly not to help them, but it´s heroic to do so. I have no understanding for cowards who deport or kill unarmed, hungry and depressed humans.
You really are reaching to quantify the US with Nazi Germany aren't you.
Yes, abortion is still practiced in this country and it is an abomination. Yet if this country was like Nazi Germany we would see the police storming into houses and rounding up pregnant women to be shipped off to abortion clinics agains their will. But nothing even close to that has ever occurred here, has it?
People here may revere sick individuals like Margaret Sanger, but just because lunatics like this exist here doesn't in any way mean that this country is akin to the Nazis. For one thing, in a free country, unlike Nazi Germany, people can think whatever they want no matter how unpopular or twisted they may be. The fact that those people's sick ideas are relatively obscure and largely rejected by the American people and government destroys your sick comparison. Let me know when her psychotic ideas concerning eugenics become government policy, then we will talk.
As for your ridiculous statements about the companies you mentioned, what exactly is your point? The Volkswagen beetle was a creation of the Nazis, does that mean that that company is run by Nazi goose steppers today?
Your blatant anti-Americanism is truly pathetic. I suggest that you do a little more research on just how truly awful Hitler and the Nazis, and the Soviets, were before spouting off insanely stupid statements like this. Good day.
Victors are not charged with War Crimes.
Perfectly simple.
But, as FDR said, 'We have nothing to fear except fear itself.'
I'm not picking on Germans. I'm German too. What I said goes for any majority that allows its nation to choose aggression. You can't tell me that of all of the thousands upon thousands of armed troops and armed civilians in Germany that there was not one who didn't have the opportunity to blow Hitler's head off at close range. Didn't happen. Because of fear, or agreement and loyalty to the goals of aggression?
Ergo . . . .
Oh, we have several attempts to assassinate Hitler. In 1938, Generals planned to stop the upcoming war by revolting before the troops marched to Prague. But unfortunately, the Munich treaty prevented a success. And then, the leader of the revolt resigned.
In 1944, a bomb exploded in the headquarters where Hitler had a meeting. Unfortunately, Hitler was just wounded and survived the attack. Col. Stauffenberg and his supporters, who planned the assassination in 1943, didn´t think of a suicide mission. (This would be today´s favouritie solution to make sure someone dies.) He and his closest supporters were shot the same day at the building which is now the German Federal Ministry of Defense. Hundreds of alleged or factual supporters were convicted and killed during the following months. Even Rommel was forced to committ suicide because of that.
Hitler didn't intend to destroy London,he wanted to capture it intact.He only wanted Paris destroyed as he was forced to relinquish his prize.Fortunately,Von Cholitz disobeyed orders!!
No it's not. The very article does so.
Should read: In an age of the modern, totally mobilized fascist industrialized warfare state, when it is urgent to demolish a military machine which employs virtually every citizen, it is hard to overstate the importance of decisive and unconditional victory.
And French and Dutch and English and Norwegian cities.....
When the Missouri steamed into Tokyo bay to accept the Jap surrender, there were so many people and so many troops in Tokyo that the entire Pacific US Air Corps was airborne, and fully loaded for bear, and ready to carpet bomb the city in case of a surprise attack by the Japanese army. Not exactly a burned out depopulated hulk of a civilian city.
"Remember, the very survival of the free world was in serious jeopardy."
As it is today.
The firebomb raid on Tokyo burned down 16 square miles of the heart of the city and that areas was said to have at least 100,000 people per square mile. Anybody caught up in that **** would have not have even known which way to run; there'd have been an even chance he'd be running INTO it. You do the arithematic....
...I'll bet this is a lecture topic on many college campuses...
sad, huh?
Fine with me. Contrary to conventional BS, Hiroshima was a military and industrial target. I know there are revisionist liars who will tell you otherwise. As for Tokyo, it was the belly of the Beast and needed to get whatever we could deliver. If we took out a million, which I seriously don't buy, it's still OK with me.
(the Japanese had developed a simple bubonic plague bio weapon using aerial spreading of infected fleas...they tested them in China to nasty effect)
On the balloon bombs a decision was made at the time on our side never to report any so the Japanese would not know if they were reaching the North American mainland
There was also the were Japanese submarine aircraft carries(biggest sub in the world at that time, three attack bomber aircraft per sub)
http://www.subart.net/final_act.htm
They were intended to take out the Panama Canal locks... but could be use for other North American mainland targets
The Japanese has some other advanced weapon in the work at the end of interest... See
http://www.j-aircraft.org/xplanes/index.html
Another way to look at the whole thing is that if the Japanese hadn't surendered when they did, the **** they'd have been looking at two months later would have been worse than the two A bombs. LeMay would have been resupplied with incindiaries which he'd run out of in July, he'd have been operating from Okinawa instead of the Marianas, which would have had the same effect as tripling the number of his planes,all American carriers would have been freed for action against the mainland and those carriers were only vulnerable to kamikazes while protecting and covering an invasion; in their normal attack/assault mode the damage was done and they were gone before you could stage a kamikaze raid on them. There would have been new Midway class carriers with armored flight decks and compliments of F7s and F8s, i mean, it just doesn't get much worse than all that.
The point is, I think, that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a government sanctioned event, by troops under a defined hierarchy, wearing visible uniforms.
It was an act of war, not terrorism.
Unless towels on the head is a definable uniform that separates the perpetrators into an easily definable sanctioned military organization, then the attack on the USS Cole was an act of terrorism. Just my opinion.
I think he just slipped up on that one. Everyone makes those mistakes on occasion...
Yes, I remember. Also saw the documentary on it a year or so ago, but I forgot about Rommel. Today's weaponry has changed the playing field and the risk. Regarding Iran, it would not surprise me if we see a state funeral over there pretty soon if anyone in the know there is certain the crazy man is really going to launch. I think cooler heads will prevail.
"The Germans bombed British civilians long before German cities were bombed. Besides, German manufacturing took place in urban areas."
I was just at an air museum and saw a quick movie on the "Battle of Britain". In the beginning Germany was doing a good job at taking out airfields and radar sites and keeping the Brits on the run. The Brits sent a few bombers into Germany (Berlin?). Their bombs destroyed a shed and two people were injured. Hitler was so furious that they had attacked one of his cities that he diverted his bombers from the airfields and military targets to attack London (and other cites?).
This gave the RAF some breathing room to train, rebuild airfields, radar installions, planes, etc. And the rest is History.
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