Posted on 01/11/2008 5:54:03 AM PST by SolidWood
JERUSALEM — President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial Friday and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memorial's chairman said.
Bush emerged from a tour of the Yad Vashem memorial calling it a "sobering reminder" that evil must be resisted, and praising victims for not losing their faith.
...(snip)
Bush was visibly moved as he toured the site, said Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev.
"Twice, I saw tears well up in his eyes," Shalev said.
At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said.
The Allies had detailed reports about Auschwitz during the war from Polish partisans and escaped prisoners. But they chose not to bomb the camp, the rail lines leading to it, or any of the other Nazi death camps, preferring instead to focus all resources on the broader military effort, a decision that became the subject of intense controversy years later.
...(snip)
"We should have bombed it," Bush said, according to Shalev.
In the memorial's visitors' book, the president wrote simply, "God bless Israel, George Bush."
...
"I was most impressed that people in the face of horror and evil would not forsake their God. In the face of unspeakable crimes against humanity, brave souls — young and old — stood strong for what they believe," Bush said.
"I wish as many people as possible would come to this place. It is a sobering reminder that evil exists, and a call that when evil exists we must resist it," he said.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Dear Mr. President,
It is time to bomb Iran, so 70 years from now,another President does not have to make the same comment you did.
Sincerely,
exit82
Reagan should have bombed Iran after we got our embassy employees back. He didn’t do it.
What did Huck say to Paul? I boycotted the debate last night because they didn’t have Hunter.
Amen to that. It's always easier to evaluate intelligence in hindsight.
I'm disappointed the President would take the stance he did -- it takes the U.S. political and military leadership to task for things they didn't necessarily know. His own administration serves as an ironic example of the same.
In addition, the strategic bombing effort was focussed on certain tasks, trying to win the war first and foremost. It's difficult to see how bombing Auschwitz would've contributed to that objective.
I don’t get this disappointment. He’s not berating anyone for screwing up. He’s just expressing remorse that maybe we should have done it different.
It was heartfelt.
It was real.
It wasn’t a statement of military policy or a condemnation of the allied strategy.
Paul was rambling about how we treat Israel as a “step child” and we should stay out of their affairs and let them stand on their own.
Huck let him know what a great ally we had in Israel and one of the very few if not the only ally we have in that area of the world.
I’m not a Huck supporter but Huck let him have it. Ron Paul is an easy target though.
Meanwhile Bush you want to sell these very same people out to arabs that want nothing more than to kill them.
Nice words ... now back it up with action.
The best thing we could have done is to win the war as quickly as possible. And I’m not sure that bombing the camps would have helped in that sense.
I suspect even if the camps were bombed, where were the survivors to go? And who was to say the Germans wouldn’t have just gone back to mass exterminations by firing squad, just as before they had the death camps?
I agree, the decision to win the war was the correct one that never get any credit because no one makes money on that one.
I’m disappointed the President would take the stance he did — it takes the U.S. political and military leadership to task for things they didn’t necessarily know. His own administration serves as an ironic example of the same.
The President has disappointed me more often that not since his second Inaugural...this is relatively minor compared to other issues like border security and Amnesty.
Should connotes that the political & military leadership made a mistake and they should've known that bombing Auschwitz was a better choice (than bombing Schweinfurt, e.g.). I'd contend that, even knowing what we know today, that may not be the case.
Moreover, expressing remorse doesn't necessarily require one to question the decisions that FDR/Ike had to make in the context of their knowledge in 1944.
It's not a big deal. But it is unfortunate -- in the same way that people criticize Jefferson for being a slaveholder is unfortunate.
Glad to see Huck let him have it.
You and I just disagree. You can certainly criticize Jefferson for holding slaves, yet fully respect him for all the good that he did.
He wasn’t perfect.
The world HAS turned upside down.
Long live Israel and God bless them!
If Bush had been in charge during WWII as he now is for WWIII, we wouldn’t have won that war, either.
Well, we didn’t, thanks to FDR the lertist Icon and his advisors. We could also have blow up the railroad lines that were supplying prisoners to the death camps and we didn;t do that either.
FDR’s administration was filled with commies and anti-semites.
These were death camps, the inmates weren't expected to survive. The arguement is that by bombing the camps, some might have escaped, and that by bombing the rails, the trains would have been stopped, leaving the Germans with the less desireable option of doing the killing in a less efficient, more public manner. It's an interesting historical arguement, but pure speculation, and I don't think conclusions can be drawn from either decision.
my thanks to the both of you. i use to love to read and watch anything i could when i was a lot younger about WWII. i appreciate learning anything i can about this subject.
The more rational proponents of the arguement generally view the camps and rails as secondary rather than primary targets. The idea that the camps should have been bombed at the expense of true military targets is silly.
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