Condi's Phony History

Slate ^ | 8/29/03 | Daniel Benjamin

[RightWhale]

Right, there are always some who won't let go. Sometimes it gets surrealistic, like with Elvis or the Apollo moon landings. There's probably somebody somewhere still quietly wearing his Death's Head ring.

[Prodigal Son]

hey ...germany is still at war with us!

Yeah, in your infantile little world.

[dalebert]

I think Iraq has done plenty to feed terrorism against the USA. I agree that Afghanistan should have more attention but support the war in Iraq also. I also know that the Press is not reporting all that is going right in both countries.

[lizma]

I've written the Library of Congress for an exact number but haven't received a reply yet.

Sorry to join the conversation 4 months post facto and bug you but I just got back from visiting my left wing college professor father-in-law who was a kid in Nazi Germany. (His dad was a rich industrialist who was on the bottom ground of Nazism. Unfortunately he met the Russians on the Front.)
We just get there and and his hand ringing starts, concerned that we are still occupying Iraq. I got a nasty look when I replied we are still in Germany. Then he started on the post war deaths in Iraq. When I mentioned post war deaths in WW II, he told me he was there, there were none and I was an idiot, (to be fair, "idiot" was just implied). I guess if I believed the nightly news for German teens in the 40's was the MTV of yesteryear and he was glued to the radio on a daily basis, I would be.

Anyway, did you ever hear from the Library of Congress? I can't stand loosing to a liberal.
I found some interesting NYT articles from the 40's here.

[Peach]

I heard back from the Library of Congress and they said they did not have any numbers on my request, which I find difficult to believe.

I was listening to Neil Boortz last week and he discussed this very matter with a caller. He said that there were thousands of post-war deaths in Germany. Our soldiers were being killed by Hitler sympathizers.

The show on the History Channel said the same thing, but I don't remember the numbers.

Good luck! THanks for the links; I'll check them out.

[verity]

Good Dog! Good Dog! Bite him again! :~)

[aruanan]

There's a lot more to the Werewolf story than this guy from Slate would have us believe.

[lizma]

Yikes! Your quick. I need to learn to type!

I just can't believe the Nazi movement didn't have fanatics that continued. So much of it was based in emotionalism and victimism. Perfect combination and cause to continue after a defeat.

I'm gonna due some internet research and email the History Channel. Don't know if I'll find anything but if I do, I'll let you know.

[Peach]

Thanks. The History Channel show said that Hitler supporters were stringing wire across the road and decapitating our soldiers, until we started putting a large wooden cross in the front of jeeps which saved their lives from these wires. There were other favorite methods the Hitler sympathizers used as well, but I don't recall what they were.

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

The comparison of the occupation of Iraq to our occupation of Germany after WWII is almost as idiotic as Rummy comparing Iraq to America after our revolution. Your general startment is both true and false and I think we are better of looking at the "German occupation" in two separate lights.

First, it was not an overnight success. When the pundits on the left try to complain about the "length" of our occupation in Iraq, they need to remember that more times than not, Rome is not built in a day. It takes time and dedication to exact great changes in a society, politically and militarily.

Then again, Germany was protected by faithful Germans. We're dealing with several rogue elements in Iraq as Islam continues to do battle against the great Satan. In that respect, the two wars are very different and the "strongholds" of the enemy will have to be breached in different manners.

[MissAmericanPie]

"The war on terror is a test of our strength. It is a test of our perseverance, our patience, and our will," President Bush told an American Legion convention"

I agree with Bush and Condi on this. This is a different kind of war and must be fought in a different manner than wars in the past. For having to learn as we go, the military is doing one fantastic job of being a quick study. In a war on terror the casualties will naturally mount after the territory is taken. We took Iraq in less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the missing White Water Papers, almost in less time than it took Ted Kennedy to notify the police that there was a drowning victim at the bottom of a marsh. We have lost less soldiers than victims of 9-11. I think things are going very well in Iraq. The administration deserves alot of praise for their lightening success's.

[Burkeman1]

I have looked into it rather extensively. I could not find the name of one American or even allied soldier killed by enemy action after the formal surrender. Lots of death due to traffic accidents and drunk driving and misfiring and handling of small arms and ordinance- but no combat deaths. Before the formal surrender their was some "werewolf" activity and they managed to assassinate an American appointed mayor and stage some small sabotage attacks. But nothing even approaching the 10 to 50 attacks that occur daily all throughout Iraq but primarily the Sunni Triangle. The Russian author, Antony Beevor, examined the much touted "werewolf" movement in his recent book, "The Fall of Berlin" and found it was a total failure with almost no attacks being carried out behind enemy lines by the designated "werewolf" groups who often turned over their weapons caches immediately or sold them on the black market to criminals.

[Burkeman1]

There is so much contradictory reporting on what is going on in Iraq that frankly I don't know what to believe. I hope for the best but my gut as a conservative all my life tells me that trying to set up "democracy" in a land of people who still identify themselves by their "tribe" and identify with a religion that is immature at best and barborous at worst is a mistake and pure folly.

It ain't Vietnam- but it is costly in terms of what we must spend and political capital abroad.

I hope it all ends up well. But - if I had to give odds on our chances of succeeding in Iraq? I would give us only one in ten.

[MissAmericanPie]

Freedom will only work in Iraq, if at least some of the populace is ready to fight for it. Even if they have to fight their own to hold it. I too, don't know how that is going to go.

I do know this, we are drawing the enemy into our killing field instead of having to hunt them down and peek into every cave and hole in the ground. This is a good thing, especially since we are winning on that endeavor. The more enemy we capture and kill the less will come up behind them.

The Arab mindset is different from ours. If our troops or nation is in trouble, everyone joins in. It's the opposite with Islamics, whip their tail and they are happy to hunker down for a few hundred years until they build strength again.

[34512a]

The Germans had just engaged in an all out war that very well if they had won, would have changed the face of Europe immediately and presented a direct and present threat to these United States.

And instead they lost, the face of Europe was changed, and Russia presented a direct and present threat to the USA.

[Burkeman1]

Story I read in "Time" magazine:

One Sunni tribe that had many of their sons fighting against us threatened to send a neighboring tribe a woman's dress because they had offered up no one from their tribal villages to fight against the "infidels". The sending of a "woman's dress" to another tribe is considered the ultimate sign of disepect and shame. Thus- even the threat of a woman's dress being sent to this tribe convinced them launch a few half hearted attacks against our troops.

This is not a rational people.

Some of the populace fight for it? If that were the case they would have before we came.

"No American son should die in Viet Nam when a boy from Viet Nam should be the one who does the dying for their freedom!"

Wasn't that Johnsons and then Nixons words (Dem - GOP- didn't matter then and doesn't matter now)?

[billbears]

What's your point? The victory in Iraq will not prevent any major power coming to the world stage, unlike WWII where the Germans would have controlled Europe.

[MissAmericanPie]

Hey, as far as I am concerned every Iraqi can go spit. The only reason that it matters is purely for our own national interest and security.

The Islamic will must be broken. I am a little put out because to my mind we hamstring our guys with all this nation building stuff, I think all that risks hampering the proper message. Their own annihilation and the annihilation of all they know is all that should be on the terrorists mind. We lose more of our son's attempting to endear ourselves to the populace.

War should be brutal, cruel, and quick. The populace of the nation shouldn't be griping about their electricty and water, they should be fleeing the cities. It remains to be seen if this winning hearts and minds stuff has any kind of payoff. If it doesn't we should level the place, making such an impression on the psyche of the enemy, that he will flee under a rock at the mention of America. But that's just me.

If winning hearts and minds fails, I won't be for sending our boys in harms way anywhere on earth again ever, unless our own coasts are being invaded. It's not right to put them in harms way with both hands tied behind their backs.

[Burkeman1]

War should be brutal, cruel, and quick. The populace of the nation shouldn't be griping about their electricty and water, they should be fleeing the cities. It remains to be seen if this winning hearts and minds stuff has any kind of payoff. If it doesn't we should level the place, making such an impression on the psyche of the enemy, that he will flee under a rock at the mention of America. But that's just me.

I don't think you mean that. America is not that. Sadaam would be better for the Iraqi people if we did what you suggest in that last post. Are you serious? You would have the populace of Iraqi cities flee to the country like the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia? Again,- I don't think you are serious and are just venting frustration? You would never advocate such measures yourself.

[MissAmericanPie]

Yeah, I get flustrated. I don't want to see another Viet Nam where our guys were not really allowed to fight to win, not allowed take and keep territory.

I hope the winning hearts and minds works, but if not, what then? Leave with the job unfinished again like in 91? Have more of our innocents slaughtered over here? Give up the secure lifestyle we have enjoyed, expose our population to slaughter, just so we look like nice guys to the international community, that already hates us and sees our winning hearts and minds as forcing American values on the noble, backward, violent third world savage? Leave with a good self image because we are unwilling to do whatever is called for to win, tempting more attacks because that is seen as weakness on the part of our enemy to whom brutality is a lifestyle and a matter of pride?

There are no easy answers, and no past experience to draw from as to what works in this war on terror. I know I'm not for leaving over there until we get it figgured out. I do know that what ever part of the population over there is supporting terrorists needs to be delt with as if they are the terrorists.