Posted on 08/20/2005 12:32:27 PM PDT by ajolympian2004
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 20,12:24 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation's most deadly military accidents.
Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across the South Pacific.
Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.
But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.
"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.
Feinstein called it a "very petty decision."
"This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in and was born in," Feinstein said.
San Francisco's maritime museum already has one military vessel — the USS Pampanito, an attack submarine that sank six Japanese ships during World War II and has about 110,000 visitors a year.
Officials in Stockton couldn't be happier. They've offered a dock on the river, a 90,000-square-foot waterfront building and a parking area, and hope to attract at least 125,000 annual visitors.
After the Korean war, the Iowa was decommissioned and placed in reserve in a Philadelphia shipyard for three decades. In 1988, it was recalled to duty escorting oil supply ships safely in and out danger in the Persian Gulf. In 1989, 47 sailors were killed in an explosion that tore through a gun turret during a training exercise.
The warship, decommissioned by the Navy in 1990, is currently anchored with a mothballed fleet in Suisun Bay, near the mouth of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.
San Francisco's rejection of such a storied battleship is a slap in the nation's face, said Douglass Wilhoit, head of Stockton's Chamber of Commerce.
"We're lucky our men and women have sacrificed their lives ... to protect our freedom," Wilhoit said. "Wherever you stand on the war in Iraq ... you shouldn't make a decision based on philosophy."
Rep. Richard W. Pombo, R-Calif., has sponsored legislation authorizing the ship's permanent move to Stockton. Feinstein has countered with a bill to open bidding to any California city.
The two versions will have to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference committee considering the Pentagon spending bill.
This AWESOME news for Stockton. I am so glad the fags in SF didn't get it.
#10: Village People.
#29: Village Idiots.
These revisionist idiots have no idea of what battleships like the Iowa have done for them.
I vote we send them on their very own Bataan death march.
Sometimes more than anything else, I would love to see these leftists forced to live in some of these countries they are convinced are so lovely. Shame we can't send them to live in prewar Iraq.
Is San Francisco going to declare seceding from the United States and decide to join Canada? In that case they would have to become monarchists LOL!
Where is the Wisconsin docked?
Farking ingrates. No doubt they would refer to the Pacific War as the Racist War of Aggression Against the Peaceful Japanese People.
A plan:
We hunt up one of those ultra-nationalist Japanese groups; you know, like the gang that whack-job writer dude had back in the 70s. He committed hara-kiri as the cops were closing in on him for something or other. He made it the full production: One of his followers finished the job by cutting his head off with a sword.
We open secret negotiations with them, extend diplomatic recognition, and conclude a treaty giving them sovereignty over the Moonbat areas of SF.
We fly them across the Pacific en masse to take possession of their new domain, the Greater East Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere. They can stop off at Midway Island on the way to pick up suitable weapons and NBC gear*. We don't announce this until they have surrounded City Hall and started to clean up the streets.
We can call it Operation Karma (different part of Asia, I know, but it works).
* A necessary precaution: undisciplined moonbats, San Francisco, samurai swords....you get the idea.
The Chinese in San Francisco will have killed these moonbats in the first place if they say "Racist War of Aggression Against the Peaceful Japanese People".
Chinese areas of SF would remain under US control. The new rulers would receive a warning to stay out of Chinatown or we will nuke them. I think they would probably believe us.
Figured on going back again sometime ... But not now ...
We'll spend our tourist $$ elsewhere. Maybe a visit to Stockton if the USS Iowa winds up there ...
A good one. I read somewhere that most of the Bush voters in the San Francisco Bay Area last year were Chinese. Still it doesn't stop the current Chinese in America voting Democrats at 60/40.
She's in Norfolk, VA, accross the river from the Navy Yard there.
I'm sure Haliburton could figure out some way to get it there.
"Still it doesn't stop the current Chinese in America voting Democrats at 60/40."
It is worse for me, I am Jewish. Our community still votes something like 70/30 Democrat. I am aware of the reasons for this (urban concentration, liberal traditions as an antidote to antisemitism, etc.) but there has been more than enough time for people to wake up and realize that times have changed. Some of the changes, increasing Islamic infiltration of liberal institutions and open antisemitism on the left, are potentially fatal to American Jews if not resisted. The Dems haven't been on our side since JFK at least and possibly not since Harry Truman.
The sad thing is things seem to go in the other way for us. Once upon a time, perhaps because most Chinese were direct exiles escaping from Communist takeover in China (they went from China to Hong Kong or Taiwan in 1949, then in 1960s went to the US) and because of Anna Chan Chennault (yes she was the Chinese wife of General Claire Chennault, leader of the legendary Flying Tigers), most Chinese in the US voted for conservative Republicans.
When China embarked on facelifting reforms in 1979, coupled with the end of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the rise of a younger less anti-Communist generation, Chinese in America now think the PRC is reforming and therefore can be trusted. Democrats support "engegements" with mainland China and so they now get the Chinese votes. Sad, but I think anyone choosing to vote Republicans today would be either of the old retired 1949 generation, or young Chinese dissidents and Falun Gong activists, and perhspa some small number of evangelical Christians.
I would love to take the nephews there before the public schools and PBS ruin their minds.
Most Baby boomer Chinese and their children are now fans of the multi cultural movement and they are brainwashed by so much of the leftist clap trap. Bill felt their pain.
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