FDR and Bush 43

[WalterM140]

Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?

Three years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR has the Germans and Japanese
by the throat.

Three years after 9/11, Bush 43 allows Al Qaeda to murder American civilians
at will.

Walt

[JDupre5762]

>Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?
>
>Three years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR has the Germans and
>Japanese
>by the throat.
>
>Three years after 9/11, Bush 43 allows Al Qaeda to murder American civilians
>at will.
>
>Walt

Let's continue the comparison. FDR had an almost unaminous support in the
Congress. Bush clearly does not. FDR had almost unaminous support in the
American Press. Today Bush faces a majority of media outlets that wish his
presidency to fail regardless of the threat to the country.

FDR could jail American citizens with no proof of any crime or criminal intent.
Bush cannot bring himself to increase surveillance of our porous borders and
potential enemy aliens lest he arouse firestorm of protest in Congress and the
Media.

FDR already had selective service conscription in place and could increase the
size of the military to levels never dreamt of before or since. Bush finds
himself caught up in the backwash of the Peace Dividend recklessy squandered by
his predecessor.

FDR had two genuine allies and one nation coincidentally fighting one of the
same enemies and therefore worthy of support. Dozens of other countries
contributed tiny amounts of troops in order to gain some advantage in the
postwar redistribution of influence. Bush finds himself with only one genuine
ally and that one under the same internal and external assaults that he is
subject too. Dozens of countries are contributing tiny amounts and several
major countries are actually waiting out the results or actively conspiring
against him to suit thier own advantage in the post war world.

FDR allowed the Germans and Japanese to murder and torture American POWs at
will from 1941 to 1945 and the American Press never called him on it.

John Dupre'

[Eunometic]

"JDupre5762" > wrote in message
...
> >Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?
> >

> FDR allowed the Germans and Japanese to murder and torture American
POWs at
> will from 1941 to 1945 and the American Press never called him on
it.

No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly with
the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
survived the war.


>
> John Dupre'
>

[Cub Driver]

On 20 Jun 2004 04:38:58 GMT, (JDupre5762) wrote:

> FDR had an almost unaminous support in the
>Congress.

That would have come as a great surprise to FDR!

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Cub Driver]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:58:16 GMT, "Eunometic" >
wrote:

>No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly with
>the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
>survived the war.

That didn't help the ones sent to Auschwitz.

A 5 percent casualty rate is pretty high, especially if you're not
fighting, and most especially if you're one of the victims.

75 percent of American PWs of the Japanese survived the war. That
doesn't mean they weren't ill-treated.

To be sure, the German military (and more particularly the air force)
were meticulous with respect to their rules for treating western PWs.
(They deliberately let Russian prisoners die by the hundreds of
thousands.) But the system didn't work if you got caught by the
Gestapo, as happened to most airmen on the run; it didn't work very
well if you were a Jew; and it didn't work at all toward the end, when
the PWs were sent on a lunatic death march to keep them from being
liberated by the Russians on the east or the Americans on the west.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[WalterM140]

>No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly with
>the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
>survived the war.

There was just recently on the History Channel a story about the 101st airborne
in Normandy. The Germans murdered 32 wounded paratroopers in cold blood along
with a number of French civilians, including two priests.

The Germans also murdered after torture, @ six of the "Cockelshell" crews that
wrecked several merchant ships by using Limpet mines. They were all in uniform
and engaged on legitimate military operations.

The commander of 12th SS PzDiv had 20 Canadian prisoners murdered in cold blood
also.

The Germans did not -strictly- go by the GC, although they generally did
against the Western Allies.

Walt

[Eunometic]

"WalterM140" > wrote in message
...
> >No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly
with
> >the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
> >survived the war.
>
> There was just recently on the History Channel a story about the
101st airborne
> in Normandy. The Germans murdered 32 wounded paratroopers in cold
blood along
> with a number of French civilians, including two priests.
>
> The Germans also murdered after torture, @ six of the "Cockelshell"
crews that
> wrecked several merchant ships by using Limpet mines. They were all
in uniform
> and engaged on legitimate military operations.

British Commandos themseves did not take prisoners and were found with
orders not to do so as this presumably might imperil their mission.
This was the basis of Hitlers commando Order. Depite being in a
uniform I do not think that men who themselves never take prisoners
and kill those trying to surrender to them have an automatic right to
protection under the convention?

I do not know of the Cockshell crews opperated as Commandos but this
may the the basis of the executions. I have been unable to find any
details of the raids on the internet. Only something about a
novell/movie called the Cockellshell heroes.

On the whole the Germans stuck to the conventions and prosecuted those
German officers who broke them. The same can not always be said for
the Americans.

>
> The commander of 12th SS PzDiv had 20 Canadian prisoners murdered in
cold blood
> also.

Then he was a war criminal and would have been court martialed. I
presume he had expedient reasons such as no facilities such as no
abillity to transport them.

I am somewhat cynical of these claims, initialy, as they may be a beat
up like the Malmedy massacre and so many other crimes that turn out
to be mainly either escape attemps, accidents and mistakes.

Even this pro US piece reveals serious anomalies:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/MalmedyMassacre02.html

(Note the Malmedy 'massacre' confessions was obtained by severe
torture of the German POWs it was only the intervention of Taligunner
Jo McCarthy that assured justice. One German officer commited
suicide rather than "confess" against his collegues.)

In fact one should ALWAYS be extremely cyncial of 'war crimes' or
'massacres' they are often agitation porpaganda. In the first world
war in order to get the British (and Americans) into WW1 British
intelligence claimed that German troops were throwing Belgium babies
in the air and impaling them on bayonets, turning bodies into soap and
raping whole villages of women at a time. They even appologised after
the war for this!

These stories, like the baby incubator scandal, serve to promote war
agitation and they also excuse ones own people from their own
barabarity.

They always precede war and seem to excuse ones own attrocities.

War crimes should always be prosecuted but so should those who invent
war crimes. The consequences are just as severe.

>
> The Germans did not -strictly- go by the GC, although they
generally did
> against the Western Allies.

The Soviets were not signatories to the Geneva Convention: they were
already too busy murdering for their 'crimes' Latvians, Lethuanians,
Ukranians etc in real death camps the really were intended to murder
people to consider it worthwhile signing up to a treaty like that.


>
> Walt
>

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Eunometic" > wrote in message
...
>
> Then he was a war criminal and would have been court martialed. I
> presume he had expedient reasons such as no facilities such as no
> abillity to transport them.
>
> I am somewhat cynical of these claims, initialy, as they may be a beat
> up like the Malmedy massacre and so many other crimes that turn out
> to be mainly either escape attemps, accidents and mistakes.
>
> Even this pro US piece reveals serious anomalies:
>
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/MalmedyMassacre02.html
>
> (Note the Malmedy 'massacre' confessions was obtained by severe
> torture of the German POWs it was only the intervention of Taligunner
> Jo McCarthy that assured justice. One German officer commited
> suicide rather than "confess" against his collegues.)
>

What "Taligunner Jo McCarthy" was that?

[Eunometic]

"Cub Driver" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:58:16 GMT, "Eunometic"
>
> wrote:
>
> >No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly
with
> >the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
> >survived the war.
>
> That didn't help the ones sent to Auschwitz.


Were those men killed? Do you have any proof? I'm aware that
Germans sometimes refused to negotiate with Jewish officers in POW
camps as they wished to give them no power but that is the extent of
it. I am vaguely aware of some American POWs that ended up there and
they survived (becuase I saw them interviewed I think)

Auschwitz as a term should means nothing for the purposes of this
discusion and you are close to invoking Godwins law, becuase its
rhetorical effect is so massive and emotive and you'll have to explain
what that means.

Auschwitz was a series of 3 camps that supplied labour to the
sorounding factories or included factories. Not all of these were
death camps indeed possibly non of them were. The death rate is
officialy down to 800,000 not the 4,000,000 once noted. Official
hopes to find the gas chambers now mostly rest on a converted but
demolished farm house outside the camp complex. There is a recent
attempt to analyse concrete remains as well.

Most people that went there for this those 800,000 that died either
were killed away from the 3 camps and some died of the diseases and
food shortages that occured in the closing months of the war.

I do not argue that Auswitz was not a death camp, I merely point out
that a trip to Auschwitz was NOT necesarily a death sentence.

>
> A 5 percent casualty rate is pretty high, especially if you're not
> fighting, and most especially if you're one of the victims

It includes those dying from 'escaping' and natural causes and the
wounds many naturaly have upon capture (EG downed airmen).
Treatment was offered, including surgery, for those wounded and it is
only proper that their care not be excluded from statistics. Once in
a camp the allied prisoners generally organised their own health care.

Conditions were harsh. These are some reports of the toughest of the
camps here:
http://darbysrangers.tripod.com/id64.htm

Escaping prisoners caused the Germans lots of problems both
ecoomically and personally. Some individual guards who has lost a son
or family to Allied bombing, and had leave cancelled that could be
spent with family could be very resentfull and harsh. Naturaly this
depended on the individual with some more philoshophical over this.

>
> 75 percent of American PWs of the Japanese survived the war. That
> doesn't mean they weren't ill-treated.

OK if I get caputured I'll go with the Germans and you go with the
Japanese.


>
> To be sure, the German military (and more particularly the air
force)
> were meticulous with respect to their rules for treating western
PWs.
> (They deliberately let Russian prisoners die by the hundreds of
> thousands.) But the system didn't work if you got caught by the
> Gestapo,

I don't regard that as correct. The huge numbers of prisoners taken
at the begining of the war overwhelmed the German facilities to take
care of them. It was the same with German prisoners at Stalingrad.
It takes the captors days even weeks to even work out how many
prisoners they have.

Argentinians died on the Malvinas due to malnutrition and exposure
only recently.

> as happened to most airmen on the run; it didn't work very
> well if you were a Jew;

I have to be harsh here: I suppose you get many of your ideas out of
watching crap Hollywood war films which are known for their technical,
military and historical inaccuracy. In fact it is hard to beat an
American film in this area for their vile agitprop, sterotypes and
slanders and more irritatingly for converting heroes that were
British, Canadian or Australian into Americans.

At the same time they turn the enemy, usualy Germans into wooden
idiots who have 2/3rds of their bodies hanging out of tank turrets,
don't post sentries, can aim or are always commiting atrocities.

If you read "Robert J Stove's" 'The Unsleeping Eye' a 'brief history
of Secret Police' you will note most arrests of Jews by the Gestapo
(basically the equivalent of FBI) were for protective custody with
most of the Jews released several days latter. Strange but true.

Some of the Gestapo interogrators were brutal whereas others prefered
to rely on their intellectual skills.

There were plenty of American war criminals in the second world war
and they most got away with it from the small shootings of prisoners
in camps or at the time of capture to: Eisenhowers Rhine Death Camps.


> and it didn't work at all toward the end, when
> the PWs were sent on a lunatic death march to keep them from being
> liberated by the Russians on the east or the Americans on the west.

The trafic loss of life (1200 men I think) was not an intentional
Death march and it was not standard practice: it was no worse than
American treatment of POWs but emergent from the rapidly deteriorating
conditions in the last days of the war that was killing civilians and
military alike. That is what happens when the enemy isn't offered
terms of surrender: they fight on and they know they may have no
choice but to fight to the death. The Brutal rapes and massacres
that the Russians were commiting meant that surrender was unthinkable.
Women having their legs torn apart with trucks. The Germans were
perpared to surrender to the Allies.

100,000 Germans died in the Rhine death camps. Many could have been
released much earlier and been better treated. That is only the
'official' number and many sources put the numbers much higher.

The Malmedy massacre was most certainly also not a massacre yet this
non attrocity was used as an excuse to murder surrendered Waffen SS
men, it was used to smash to a pulp the testicles of 22 year old
soldiers to extract confessions often of men who were no where near
the area and simply in a related company.

Americans are capable of Atrocity, Abu Graib showed that. I don't
hold that against them but I don't hold them as superior as they hold
and i don't hold the Germans anywhere near as villainous as they are
made out.

If this war goes on get used to being viewed as and American as being
as ghoulish as the Hollywood stereotype of a German soldier.


>
> all the best -- Dan Ford
> email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)
>
> The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
> The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
> Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[WalterM140]

>> The Germans also murdered after torture, @ six of the "Cockelshell"
>crews that
>> wrecked several merchant ships by using Limpet mines. They were all
>in uniform
>> and engaged on legitimate military operations.
>
>British Commandos themseves did not take prisoners and were found with
>orders not to do so as this presumably might imperil their mission.
>This was the basis of Hitlers commando Order.

So you are excusing Hitler?

Depite being in a
>uniform I do not think that men who themselves never take prisoners
>and kill those trying to surrender to them have an automatic right to
>protection under the convention
>
>I do not know of the Cockshell crews opperated as Commandos but this
>may the the basis of the executions. I have been unable to find any
>details of the raids on the internet. Only something about a
>novell/movie called the Cockellshell heroes.
>

It took me about ten seconds to find this:

"Marine Bill Sparks, who has died aged 80, was the last of the two surviving
“Cockleshell Heroes” responsible for paddling a canoe 85 miles through
enemy defences to cripple German merchant ships at Bordeaux.

During the night of December 11 1942, 10 Royal Marines set out in five craft;
but eight of them were shot or drowned. Sparks and Major “Blondie” Hasler
found themselves pursued through France and Spain by vengeful Germans for three
months before they reached safety.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/799434/posts


If British commandos did not take prisoners, that would be in accord with their
typical mission. I would not have expected the Cockelshell crews to take
prisoners either. But the Germans who captured these Royal Marines certainly
had the facilities to take prisoners. They were clearly in uniform and carrying
clandestine, but clear military operations.

>On the whole the Germans stuck to the conventions and prosecuted those
>German officers who broke them. The same can not always be said for
>the Americans.

Details?

>
>>
>> The commander of 12th SS PzDiv had 20 Canadian prisoners murdered in
>cold blood
>> also.
>
>Then he was a war criminal and would have been court martialed.

Here's some detail on that:

"The atrocities continued. Other Canadians were captured and taken to the
Abbaye d'Ardenne, the headquarters of the German division where Meyer had
watched the battle unfold. In the abbey garden eleven Canadians were
interrogated and then killed on 7 June, each Canadian prisoner shaking hands
with his comrades before being executed. At noon the next day seven more
Canadians were shot at the Abbaye; their murders coincided with the execution
of Canadian POWs on the Caen-Fountenay Road. The following evening Canadian
prisoners were taken to the 12th SS's 2nd Battalion headquarters to meet their
death. On the now tranquil grounds of the Chateau d'Audrieu, Canadian POWs were
interrogated and duly executed, first in threes and later in more efficient
larger numbers. These large-scale incidents represent 120 of 156 murders
committed by the Hitlerjugend during the first ten days of the Normandy
Campaign. Other murders took place on a smaller scale at locations like
Bretteville d'Orgueuise, Norrey and le Mesnil-Patry. News of the murders began
to filter back to the Canadian ranks in Normandy, but there was little
immediate proof of the atrocities.[8] "

http://grad.usask.ca/gateway/archive9.html


I
>presume he had expedient reasons such as no facilities such as no
>abillity to transport them.

No. You don't seem very qualifed to comment, as these murders of the Canadian
POW's is fairly well known.

>
>I am somewhat cynical of these claims, initialy, as they may be a beat
>up like the Malmedy massacre and so many other crimes that turn out
>to be mainly either escape attemps, accidents and mistakes.

If you can show that Americans did anything like the above, get back to me.

<snip>

>
>>
>> The Germans did not -strictly- go by the GC, although they
>generally did
>> against the Western Allies.
>

As I said, the Germans did not -strictly- go by the GC although they generally
did against the Western Allies.

Walt

[Chris Mark]

>From: jdupre5762@

>Let's continue the comparison.

Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens of
thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.


Chris Mark

[George Z. Bush]

Chris Mark wrote:
>> From: jdupre5762@
>
>> Let's continue the comparison.
>
> Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens of
> thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.

Roosevelt was wrong in his day, and our Congress not too long ago acknowledged
precisely that.

If 43 gets reelected, we may not have to do very much imagining. We presently
have an undisclosed number of Muslims in detention who have not yet been
charged with any crimes against the state, nor have they been allowed access to
legal counsel and they've been subjected to a lot of other things made possible
by the Patriot's Act. The numbers may burgeon in time.

I don't know where we're going with this comparison. Throwing people into
concentration camps because you fear something they might possibly do some day
in the future without a shred of evidence is no more conscionable (sp?) today
than it was when Roosevelt did it in 1942.

George Z.

[WalterM140]

>>> Let's continue the comparison.
>>
>> Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens of
>> thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.
>
>Roosevelt was wrong in his day, and our Congress not too long ago
>acknowledged
>precisely that.
>
>If 43 gets reelected, we may not have to do very much imagining. We
>presently
>have an undisclosed number of Muslims in detention who have not yet been
>charged with any crimes against the state, nor have they been allowed access
>to
>legal counsel and they've been subjected to a lot of other things made
>possible
>by the Patriot's Act. The numbers may burgeon in time.
>
>I don't know where we're going with this comparison. Throwing people into
>concentration camps because you fear something they might possibly do some
>day
>in the future without a shred of evidence is no more conscionable (sp?) today
>than it was when Roosevelt did it in 1942.
>
>George Z.
>

President Roosevelt's incarerating American citizens of Japanese ancestry
without due process was very bad. There's no doubt about. But no one had
dreamed the Japanese could attack PH. It seemed prudent to take all precautions
on the West Coast. To condemn FDR now is to make a generational judgment on
him, however.

I will say I might be more forgiving of Bush 43 playing fast and loose with
executive power -- if-he-had-anything to-show-for-it.

I had not posted much in this NG around the time of the invasion, but I did
support it. MUCH to my surprise the Bush administration had only the vaguest
notion of how post-war Iraq would look. They then made every operational and
strategic mistake they possibly could.

I've posted them before. These include:

Not involving the UN in the war. Basically, as events have shown, without UN
involvement (i.e. more troops), we can't subdue the country.

Misreading (unless he just lied) the intelligence on Iraqi complicity/duplicity
in Al Quaida's attacks on the US.

Ditto on weapons of mass destruction supposedly held by Saddam.

Dismissing the Iraqi army. We could have paid them $200,000,000 for three
months (vice 5,000,000,000,000 a month that we are spending now) and not had
hundreds of thousands of military trained men hanging around unemployed.

Dismissing Ba'ath party officials. It's now suggested that at least some
Ba'athists be brought back.

Ignoring the estimate of the Army Chief of Staff in Feb, 2003. Gen.
Shinseki said "several hundred thousand" US troops would be needed. The
Bushies just ignored that -- it didn't fit the plan.

Focusing on Iraq when Al Quaida is in Afghanistan. Afghan countryside is now
run by the warlords.


Again, look at where FDR was after three years, and look where Bush is. I was
watching "Meet the Press" today. Lehrman, the former Reagan era SecNav was
saying, "we still don't have this, that and the other thing." And Tim Russert
said: "After three years?" All Lehrman could do was hem and haw.

That's what I am saying -- after three years?

Let's take a moment to think about another war time president, Abraham Lincoln.

When Lincoln took office, seven states were in active rebellion. The US army
was only 17,000 strong. The armory at Pensacola (for instance) was manned by
an ordance sergeant and his wife. Most of the army was in the west. That was
March 1861. Lincoln made a ton of mstakes. He fired generals probably too
quickly. He consistenly over estimated Union sentiment in the south, he
meddled in operations (until Grant took over). Of course Lincoln did a lot of
good things too.

Three years later, Union armies totaling over a million men were poised to
crush the rebellion, which they shortly did.

How close are we to crushing Al Qaeda?

It was reported a couple of nights ago that Al Qaeda training camps are
operating RIGHT NOW in the afghan/Pakistani border area. And did anyone see
the report that Taliban fighters had occupied a provincial capital in
Afghanistan this last week? They've since been ejected, but I guess someone
will now make a parallel to that occupation and the Battle of the Bulge.

Bush and his sorry crew need to go --not because he ducked his military
obligations, --not because he stole enough votes in Florida to steal the
election (aided and abetted by the Supreme Court), but because he is a
blithering idiot with blithering idiot staffers who have fouled up the war on
terror.

Walt

[B2431]

>
>"JDupre5762" > wrote in message
...
>> >Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?
>> >
>
>> FDR allowed the Germans and Japanese to murder and torture American
>POWs at
>> will from 1941 to 1945 and the American Press never called him on
>it.
>
>No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly with
>the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
>survived the war.

>>
>> John Dupre'

They did? Not towards the Soviets or occupied territories nor towards the 12
million murdered in the camps.

Want to keep it just to POWS? Ever heard of The Great Escape? 50 escapees were
murdered in groups of 2 or 3 AFTER being captured. Ok, let's keep discussing
POWS. Ever heard of the "Commando Order" issued by Hitler? How many allied air
crews were murdered before becoming POWs? I'm talking here about murders by
military people not civilians as in Hamburg where British aircrewen who
parachuted into the city were bound and thrown alive into the burning
buildings.

On the other hand FDR didn't "allow" Axis atrocities. He just couldn't stop
them.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[B2431]

>From: "Eunometic"
>
>British Commandos themseves did not take prisoners and were found with
>orders not to do so as this presumably might imperil their mission.
>This was the basis of Hitlers commando Order.

OK, we have another revisionist here. I snipped the rest of his garbage.

The British commandos were found with orders on their persons? That is an out
and out lie. This fool even blames the Brits for Hitler's Commando Order.


Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[B2431]

>From: (Chris Mark)
>Date: 6/20/2004 10:58 AM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: >
>
>>From: jdupre5762@
>
>>Let's continue the comparison.
>
>Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens of
>thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.
>
>
>Chris Mark

Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even became a
detention camp.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[Thomas Schoene]

B2431 wrote:

> Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even
> became a detention camp.

German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were not
interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were. Not just alien
residents, mind you, but American citizens, some going back several
generations, were locked up in camps without the slightest hint of due
process. They were even forbidden to move out of the prohibited areas
voluntarily; only internment was acceptable.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872

[B2431]

>From: "Thomas Schoene"
>Date: 6/20/2004 4:36 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: . net>
>
>B2431 wrote:
>
>> Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even
>> became a detention camp.
>
>German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were not
>interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were. Not just alien
>residents, mind you, but American citizens, some going back several
>generations, were locked up in camps without the slightest hint of due
>process. They were even forbidden to move out of the prohibited areas
>voluntarily; only internment was acceptable.
>
>--
>Tom Schoene

I never said otherwise. Most Americans are totally unaware that entire German
and Italian families were also interned. Most European internees were just as
innocent as the Japanese. Bear in mind who was making the arrests: the FBI
under J. Edgar "like my dress?" Hoover.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[Chris Mark]

>From: "George Z. Bush"

>> Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens of
>> thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.
>
>Roosevelt was wrong in his day, and our Congress not too long ago
>acknowledged
>precisely that.

Interesting that Earl Warren was a strong proponent of interning the Japanese
while J.Edgar Hoover opposed it.

>I don't know where we're going with this comparison.

Probably nowhere. The situation in WW2 is not comparable to the situation
today. And some of the things Roosevelt did couldn't even be contemplated
today. For example, he pushed Attorney General Francis Biddle to try his more
outspoken congressional critics for sedition, in particular Martin Dies, Burton
Wheeler and Hamilton Fish. Under pressure from FDR William Powell Maloney was
named "Special Assistant" with broad investigative powers to unearth links
between Roosevelt's war policy critics and German propaganda and intelligence
networks. During the investigation Maloney leaked hints that he was about to
indict Rep. Fish and Clare Hoffman, though he never did. He also targeted
Father Coughlin, the "radio priest," but shied away from issuing an indictment.
He did, however, indict 28 "extremest" antiwar types from various walks of
life. Eventually 30 people were tried but with no convictions.
Today that would be like Bush pushing Ashcroft to have Michael Moore, Noam
Chomsky, the Dixie Chicks, et al, tried for sedition, with threats of charging
Ted Kennedy with treason. Not even conceivable, so much have times changed.

>Throwing people into
>concentration camps because you fear something they might possibly do some
>day
>in the future without a shred of evidence is no more conscionable (sp?) today
>than it was when Roosevelt did it in 1942.

The old saying is that after every war there is less freedom to protect. But
the US generally has learned from the extreme actions taken during previous
national emergencies and behaves with more restraint each time. Bush can't do
what Roosevelt did, Roosevelt couldn't do what Wilson did and Wilson couldn't
do what Lincoln did.

And again, this war isn't like WW2, where we had clear nation-state enemies and
harnessed the full power of the economy to crushing them without mercy and with
total disregard for "collateral damage." Today's war, whether we are for it,
against it, or sitting on the fence, we have to admit is a pretty low-intensity
affair, not even close to the intensity of Vietnam, let alone World War II.
The closest comparisons I can come up with--and they aren't all that close--are
the post-civil war Indian campaigns, the Philippines Insurrection and various
Carribean/Central American adventures, with the Philippines business being the
closest. Difficult, costly, not a lot of casualties but militarily challenging
and with general success, even some amazing accomplishments, but not
unambiguously leading somewhere, while divisive among citizens, with many
wondering not only what the point of it all was, but actively opposed to an
effort that seemed to be against the basic principles of the country: We should
not be going around invading other countries to impose democracy on them. And
the cynics said it was really about making money not democracy. The equivalent
of Haliburton then was, I suppose, Del Monte or Dole.

Same song, different lyrics.


Chris Mark

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

> On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:58:16 GMT, "Eunometic" >
> wrote:
>
> >No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly with
> >the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
> >survived the war.
>
> That didn't help the ones sent to Auschwitz.

Not to mention Russian POWs.

[Chris Mark]

>From:

>Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even became a
>detention camp.

Right. Not much attention is paid to it, but it was pretty serious business.
Many Italian fishermen, for example, people who had emigrated to the US decades
before Pearl Harbor, lost their livelihoods because they weren't allowed near
ports.


Chris Mark

[Chris Mark]

>From:

>Bear in mind who was making the arrests: the FBI
>under J. Edgar "like my dress?" Hoover.

To be fair to J. Edgar, he insisted that the majority of Issei, Nisei and Kibei
would prove to be loyal in the fight with Japan. If there were spies and
sabateurs among them, the FBI could ferret them out through normal
investigations.
The biggest advocates of the mass round-up of Japanese was Earl Warren, then
California state attorney general who went around making inflamatory speeches
charging that the Japanese residents of California were a nest of saboteurs
and traitors. He used the hysteria he whipped up to ride into the governorship
in the 1942 election.


Chris Mark

[David E. Powell]

"WalterM140" > wrote in message
...
> Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?
>
> Three years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR has the Germans and
Japanese
> by the throat.
>
> Three years after 9/11, Bush 43 allows Al Qaeda to murder American
civilians
> at will.
>
> Walt

In 1944, sir, how many Americans died? I would suppose that for Normandy
alone, it is far higher. When Kamikazes hit US ships, and when Nazis shot US
POWs, was that FDR allowing them to do it at will for kicks? Stop trolling.

DEP

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Chris Mark" > wrote in message
...
>
> Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens
of
> thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.
>

Japanese residents? He interned Japanese, Italian and German foreign
nationals. Which is fine, every nation does that. But he also detained
American citizens of Japanese, Italian, and German descent.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Thomas Schoene" > wrote in message
link.net...
>
> German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were
not
> interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were.
>

Not true. While it was not as wide spread and is not nearly as well known
as
the incarceration of Japanese-Americans, there were Americans of Italian and
German descent that received similar treatment.

[Cub Driver]

>> That didn't help the ones sent to Auschwitz.>
>
>Were those men killed?

Some died there. Many were rescued by the German air force. Some were
rescued by the German air force only to die later on the death marches
of April 1945.

The case I know of was not a Jew. He was caught by the Gestapo while
on the run in France (not an escapee but a downed airman) and was sent
by the usual cattle car to the east. He didn't specify whether any of
the Americans he fell in with at Auswitz were Jews, but then he
wouldn't have; that was the least important thing about them at that
point.

You don't have to die to be brutalized beyond imagination, as any
survivor of Auschwitz (and there were many) can testify, or any
survivor of a Japanese camp.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Cub Driver]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 21:36:31 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
> wrote:

>German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were not
>interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were.

If you are the person interned, it makes very little difference if you
were singled out or interned en masse. Indeed, it's probably worse if
you were singled out.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Cub Driver]

On 21 Jun 2004 01:02:25 GMT, (Chris Mark) wrote:

>To be fair to J. Edgar, he insisted that the majority of Issei, Nisei and Kibei
>would prove to be loyal in the fight with Japan. If there were spies and
>sabateurs among them, the FBI could ferret them out through normal
>investigations.

Yes, this appears to be the case. It's told in Persico's Roosevelt's
Secret War, a sober and interesting book..

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Cub Driver]

>Right. Not much attention is paid to it, but it was pretty serious business.
>Many Italian fishermen, for example, people who had emigrated to the US decades
>before Pearl Harbor, lost their livelihoods because they weren't allowed near
>ports.

I lived in Concord MA during the war. In the 1940s it was a
truck-farming town, not a yuppie bedroom community. Many of the
farmers were Italian. One was so Italian that the boys were named
Primo, Secondo, and Tercero, if I spell them correctly. In the way of
boys, however, we were totally unaware that there was anything unusual
in this, and I don't recall that I ever associated them with the evil
Germans, Italians, and Japanese with whom the nation was at war.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[WalterM140]

> The situation in WW2 is not comparable to the situation
>today.

It's comparable in that both FDR and Bush 43 faced one day events that
fundamentally changed the course of the country.

FDR mastered his challenge, Bush 43 is foundering.

This is from today's NY Times:

"Mr. Lehman also predicted that the commission's final report would include
unanimous recommendations for change in the intelligence services, which he
said could not distinguish "between a bicycle crash and a train wreck."

"It is dysfunctional," he said. "It needs fundamental change, not just tweaking
and moving the deck chairs or the organization boxes around."


I don't know if we can stand four more years of spinning our wheels in the war
on Terror.

Bush 43 is an incompetent arrogant elistist *******. It is time for him to go.

Walt

[George Z. Bush]

"Chris Mark" > wrote in message
...
> >From:
>
> >Bear in mind who was making the arrests: the FBI
> >under J. Edgar "like my dress?" Hoover.
>
> To be fair to J. Edgar, he insisted that the majority of Issei, Nisei and
Kibei

Kibei? Issei is first generation, Nisei is second generation, but the last time
I looked, Ki was not a number anywhere in the first ten (ichi, ni, san, shi, go,
roku, shichi, hachi, ku, ju), so what does Kibei mean?

> would prove to be loyal in the fight with Japan. If there were spies and
> sabateurs among them, the FBI could ferret them out through normal
> investigations.

[Denyav]

>It's comparable in that both FDR and Bush 43 faced one day events that
>fundamentally changed the course of the country.
>
>FDR mastered his challenge, Bush 43 is foundering.

Comparable? They are the same,because PSYOPs aganist its own people is the only
thing that some elements inside US gov't understands.

1)
"FDR stated that we are likely to be attacked perhaps as soon as next
Monday..The question was how we maneuver into the position of firing the first
shot without too much danger to ourselves.In spite of risk
involved,however,inletting Japanase fire the first shot,we realized that in
order to have the full support of the American People it was desirable to make
sure that the Japanase be the ones to do this so that there should remain no
doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors"
Henry Stimson,Journal entry dated Nov.25,1941

2)
"..as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society ,it may find it
more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues,except in the
circumstances of a truly massive and direct widely perceived direct external
threat"

Zbigniew Brzezinski,Grand Chessboard,1997

3)...the process of transformation....is likely be a long one,absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event -like a NEW PEARL HARBOR"

Rebuilding Americas Defenses,Sep.2000

4)
"The other day the reporter friend told me that one of the highest ranking CIA
officials said to him,off the record,that when the dust finally
clears,Americans will see that September 11 was a triumph for the intelligence
community,not a failure"

CIA agent Baer,See no Evil,2002

We see the same movie for 150 years.

[Chris Mark]

>From: "George Z. Bush"

>what does Kibei mean?

Kibei were Japanese born in the US but who went to Japan for their education,
then returned to the US.


Chris Mark

[Chris Mark]

>From: "Steven P. McNicoll"

>Japanese residents?

Not the best wording. I meant with the prhase to include Issei, who could not
by law become US citizens at the time, as well as native-born Americans of
Japanese ancestry (Nisei). I should have just said that.


Chris Mark

[George Z. Bush]

Chris Mark wrote:
>> From: "George Z. Bush"
>
>> what does Kibei mean?
>
> Kibei were Japanese born in the US but who went to Japan for their education,
> then returned to the US.

Thank you. I guess that makes them Japanese educated Nisei or perhaps Sansei.

George Z.

[Chris Mark]

>From: Cub Driver

>Persico's Roosevelt's
>Secret War, a sober and interesting book..

For anyone interested in delving a bit deeper into the details, the below
website gives a straightforward rundown of what happened, with original
documents.

http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/j/ja/japanese_american
_internment.html#Documents of Interest


Chris Mark

[Marc Reeve]

Steven P. McNicoll > wrote:
> "Thomas Schoene" > wrote in message
> link.net...
> >
> > German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were
> > not interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were.
> >
>
> Not true. While it was not as wide spread and is not nearly as well known
> as the incarceration of Japanese-Americans, there were Americans of
> Italian and German descent that received similar treatment.

Here in Santa Cruz, the Italian-Americans were not interned, but were
restricted from going within a mile of the shoreline.

Since most of them were fishermen, that pretty much killed their
livelihoods. (Not to mention that in Santa Cruz, there were very few
places that weren't within a mile of the shoreline in 1942.)

I believe the restrictions were relaxed after the Italian surrender in
1943.

-Marc
--
Marc Reeve
actual email address after removal of 4s & spaces is
c4m4r4a4m4a4n a4t c4r4u4z4i4o d4o4t c4o4m

[Chris Mark]

>From: "Emmanuel Gustin"

>Another big difference is that FDR made a big effort to build
>alliances,

FDR also called Europe an incubator of wars, and it was one of his major
postwar policy goals to see that Europe was permanently disarmed.
Roosevelt’s vision was of a Europe that had been rendered strategically
irrelevant. As historian John Lamberton Harper has put it, he wanted “to
bring about a radical reduction in the weight of Europe” and thereby make
possible “the retirement of Europe from world politics.” This would enable
the US to go back to being left alone to pursue its own destiny in peace.
Of course, he died too soon to see his vision to full fruition. Truman turned
away from Roosevelt's vision, listening to George Kennan, who wanted to restore
Europe (really mostly Britain) to something like its pre-WWOne role in the
world with the US going back to its of the same. But Truman ultimately relied
on Dean Acheson's interventionist policies, which could be described as
Roosevelt's with teeth. These established the United States as a permanent
power in Europe at the behest of European and American interests. Acheson's
idea was that if the US provides military security for the European states, and
sees to it that none attack the other, their desire for military power will
wane over time and a demilitarized Europe will no longer pose a threat to the
US. And that is pretty much what has happened, despite the complication of the
Cold War and other distractions.


Chris Mark

[Cub Driver]

On 21 Jun 2004 18:34:24 GMT, (Chris Mark) wrote:

>FDR also called Europe an incubator of wars, and it was one of his major
>postwar policy goals to see that Europe was permanently disarmed.

He bore a particular animus toward France. Sometimes it seems that his
principal object in a postwar Asia was to ensure that France would
never return to Indochina. (Too bad he didn't succeed!)

Britain was a tougher nut, given that it was in reality America's only
friend in the world with any potential for carrying a load (rather
like today). Roosevelt was equally skeptical about the British
empire, but he choked it down for the sake of Churchill.

As for Roosevelt's genius at coalition building, recall that it was
the cause of the Cold War that bedevilled the administrations of
Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and
Reagan ... did I leve anyone out? Roosevelt was so afraid that Russia
would make a separate peace with Germany that he handed over half of
Europe to Stalin.

It is easy to romanticize the leaders of the past, now that their
blunderings have been frozen into history.

I happen to be reading William Manchester's account of Tarawa atoll.
When the marines went ashore at Betio, it was a typical battalion that
lost half its men. Altogether, for that bit of coral, America gave up
more than three thousand of its sons.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Eunometic]

"B2431" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> >
> >"JDupre5762" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> >Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?
> >> >
> >
> >> FDR allowed the Germans and Japanese to murder and torture
American
> >POWs at
> >> will from 1941 to 1945 and the American Press never called him on
> >it.
> >
> >No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly
with
> >the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
> >survived the war.
>
> >>
> >> John Dupre'
>
> They did? Not towards the Soviets or occupied territories

Halve those figures: the Communist took the opportunity to attribute
their own genocides to the Germans.

> nor towards the 12 million murdered in the camps.

I doubt the size of those figures. I'd say the Bull**** factor in
them is just under 50%. If revisionist weren't jailed and harassed
and
were free to carry out their investigations we could get to the truth
sooner.

>
> Want to keep it just to POWS? Ever heard of The Great Escape? 50
> escapees were
> murdered in groups of 2 or 3 AFTER being captured.

These men were not in uniform I believe and were thus treated as
illegal combatents. If they had on a uniform then this was clearly a
violation of the convention. Violations of the convention in terms
of illgeal executions, over work, inadaquete food were however still
rare.

Should Otto Skorneys Commandos that opperated in American uniform with
German ones beneath have been spared execution?

The US incidently has a habbit of of declaring prisoners illegal
combatents and non POWs

> Ok, let's keep discussing
> POWS. Ever heard of the "Commando Order" issued by Hitler?

Seems to have started when German prisoners with bound hands were
shot.

Collectively extending the punishment is of course also a violation of
the convention. It wasn't always applied. The legendary paratrooper
Oberstleutnant Walter Koch for instance refused to be iexecute the
order and ofcourse many of the paratroops were Nazi party members as
well. (It was not abnormal most of the parties affairs were quite
pedestrian) http://www.eagle19.freeserve.co.uk/koch.htm

> How many allied air crews were murdered before becoming POWs?

You tell me. I'd say very very few. Perhaps they were upset at the
strafing of civilians and children walking along country roads?
There were plenty of pilots engaged in this evil act and children and
old people walking the roads between villages had a terrible fear of
tieffliger.

Or the shooting down of the Parachutes of downed pilots that was
particularly common towards then end of the war.

I'm not saying this was the norm, most airmen were decent, Art Kramer
for instance says he stopped strafing when a woman ran in front of his
gun.

> I'm talking here about murders by
> military people not civilians as in Hamburg where British aircrewen
who
> parachuted into the city were bound and thrown alive into the
burning
> buildings.

That was a problem in Japan as well where aircrew had to avoid
civilians in order to surrender to the IJN becuase the civilians were
likely to avenge themselves upon them.

If you had seen your children, niece nephews or grandchildren die in
repeated and apparently indiscriminant bombings on suburb you might in
the rage of the momment do the same. I can totaly understand that.

You should read "On the Natural History of Destruction" by W.G.
Sebald. One of the things the allies did is destroy the extensive
documentation the Germans had of the effects of fire bombing and the
wounds and deathes it created.

I've spoken to people that had to clean out flats with the body of a
mother scorched to death by fire huddled over he baby. When touched
these bodies often just crumpled into a pile of dust leaving nothing
but a wedding ring or other jewelery.


>
> On the other hand FDR didn't "allow" Axis atrocities. He just
couldn't stop
> them.


FDR was sick and a sham.

His toast was a salute to shooting them, "as fast as we can, all of
them." Churchill was horrified. Quick as a flash, he was on his feet;
his face and neck were red, says Elliott Roosevelt, who was present.
He announced that British conceptions of law and justice would never
tolerate such butchery. Into this breach stepped President Roosevelt.
He had a compromise to suggest. Instead of executing fifty thousand,
perhaps "we should settle on a smaller number. Shall we say 49,500?"
All the Russians at the table roared with laughter. So did the
Americans, who were obliged to show proper appreciation for their
chief's "humor." Churchill left the table." (1)

Undoubtedly, the President's little grim "joke" was a source of great
amusement for the Soviets, who were still laughing over the 14,000
Polish officers they had slain at Katyn, Miedjoye, and Kharkov Forest.
Later, one of President Roosevelt's interpreters said of his
emaciated, crippled chief: "He looked sick, he acted sick, and he
talked sick." (2)

Lest anyone think that the President's remark was made in jest,
consider that less than one year later he was willing to ratify the
notorious "Morgenthau Plan" , had it not been for the adamant
objections of his Secretary of War, Henry Stimson.

In order to fully appreciate the attitude of the allies in regard to
the treatment meted out to the defeated Germans, a brief review of
events would be in order. To those who might object that the allies
were too "civilized" to employ third degree methods on captured German
officers to extract damning "confessions", I believe that certain
criteria should first be investigated , presented, and addressed,
namely:

1. How did the allies treat non-combatants? How were Germans treated
who had nothing to do with the waging of the war? What was the allies
policy in regard to women, the elderly, and in particular, German
children?

2. How were German prisoners of war treated? Specifically, members of
the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, etc. against whom no criminal charges had
been preferred?

If the allies treated the defeated Germans with justice and equity,
and can be proven so by documentation and the actual historical
record, then the allegation that German POW's were tortured and
mistreated falls flat on it's face.

Let us now examine the record: Germany's civilian population received
a foretaste of allied policy in 1940, when British pilots bombed a
Berlin schoolhouse, killing a number of children. The air strikes
increased in severity over the course of the war, culminating in the
destruction of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Nuremberg, Munich, and other
cities at a loss of probably half a million lives. It was a common
occurrence for allied pilots to bomb and strafe columns of refugees
and the homeless. For this reason, American and British pilots earned
the infamous sobriquet "terror-pilots" and were often treated as such
when caught by German civilians. Parachuting pilots were often killed
upon capture by German civilians who had often lost beloved family
members to the attacks of terror-bombers. The allies made it a point
to trace down the civilians responsible for these acts of righteous
retribution and summarily hanged them all, whenever and wherever they
were found.

The allies were particularly sensitive concerning the shooting of 50
allied fliers who had escaped from the Sagan POW camp in 1944. From
the German point of view, many of these fliers were warned that should
they attempt any more escapes, they would be shot. Aside from that,
many of the escapees were caught in civilian clothes or else in German
uniforms, thus leading the German authorities to conclude that they
were spies. When one reflects on the fact that members of Otto
Skorzeny's commando group, which infiltrated American lines during the
battle of the Bulge, were also shot upon capture even though they were
wearing German uniforms under the American gear, then the shooting of
the 50 terror fliers loses some of it's punch. Nevertheless, German
officers were executed for this "crime" while the allied crime of
shooting the German "spies" went unpunished.

The shooting of Americans at Malmedy was given the widest publicity,
and those German units which participated in this battle were all
brought before the allied inquisition, notwithstanding the fact that
the allies had, in one incident shot down members of the Waffen SS in
France in cold blood, and not one of the responsible parties was ever
brought to justice.

At Dachau, American soldiers lined German guards up against a wall and
shot them down without mercy. The Americans also allowed crazed
inmates of the camp to savagely murder other guards who were stationed
there. Often these victims were simply Wehrmacht officers who were
left to guard the camp after the SS personnel absconded.

When the allied armies first entered German territory, did the
victorious "champions of democracy" comport themselves with dignity
and honor? Let the reader be the judge. What follows is just an
excerpt from volumes of documents relating to the rampaging allied
troops as they plundered, raped, and stole from the defenseless German
population. The one crime most often committed by allied forces
against German civilians in all sectors was forcible, violent rape,
which is evidenced by a selection of the following reports. Few of the
offenders were ever punished for this crime against women and
children.

According to the publication "The U.S. Army in the Occupation of
Germany":

"Of all the crimes committed by U.S. troops, the best....documented
was rape, and it showed a "spiral increase" in the closing months of
the war. Between July 1942 and October 1945, 904 rape cases were
charged in the European theater, 552 of them in Germany. All told, 487
soldiers were tried for rapes committed in the months of March and
April, 1945.(!)....By no means all the incidents were reported or, of
those reported, brought to trial, and the conviction rate was
relatively low."(3)

"Reports of rape and robbery by U.S. troops piled up on the public
safety officer's desk.."(4)

"The tension was greatest in areas where Negro troops were stationed,
since they....frequently interpreted efforts to curb prostitution as
another form of discrimination. In Kuenzelsau, Wuerttemberg, Negro
soldiers of the 350th Field Artillery Battalion beat up the local
jailer when he refused to release prostitutes being held for venereal
disease treatment. Later the whole police in Kuenzelsau tried to
resign after being threatened that they would be killed if they
interfered with the prostitutes."(5)

"Nearly all incidents involved liquor or women, often both. The
population of vagrant women-which the Army inadvertently increased
after November when it released penicillin for treating venereal
diseases in German women, thereby shortening for some the "turn around
time" from jail or hospital and attracting others who had been
deterred by the fear of infection-was often at the root of soldier
attacks on German officials and police....In one instance an American
officer took an Austrian girl from Linz to Stuttgart, raped her three
times, and then transported her to Ulm, where he turned her over to
the military police on a charge of having improper papers." (6)

"...the Negroes, believing they were not getting an equal share of the
women, nursed grudges against both the Germans and the white
Americans." (7)

Take note that these are cases which have been confirmed by the Allied
Occupation Authorities. Other reports may be offered to substantiate
the above in greater detail:

"From the east came the Bolshevized Mongolian and Slavic hordes,
repeatedly raping every captured woman and girl, contaminating them
with venereal diseases and impregnating them with a future race of
Russo-German *******s.

In the west the British used colonial troops, the French Sengalese and
Moroccans, the Americans an excessively high percentage of Negroes.
Our own method was not so direct as the Russian: ....we compelled
women to yield their virtue in order to live-to get food to eat, beds
to sleep in, soap to bathe with, roofs to shelter them." (8)

The following was related by a catholic priest concerning a letter
which was smuggled out of Breslau, Germany, September 3, 1945: "In
unending succession were girls, women and nuns violated....Not merely
in secret, in hidden corners, but in the sight of everybody, even in
churches, in the streets and in public places were nuns, women and
even eight year old girls attacked again and again. Mothers were
violated before the eyes of their children; girls in the presence of
their brothers; nuns in the sight of pupils, were outraged again and
again to their very death even as corpses." (9)


>
> Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

If anyone was to become a war criminal I suspect you would be the most
likely. You are so utterly without doubt convinced of the villany of
the enemy.

I've often wandered how many Iraqi's were shown no mercy because they
were accused of removing babies from baby incubators.

[Chris Mark]

>From: Cub Driver warbird@m

>He bore a particular animus toward France.

Yes. And he bluntly told DeGaulle that once Germany was disarmed, France would
have no need for more than a token armed force.

> Sometimes it seems that his
>principal object in a postwar Asia was to >ensure that France would
>never return to Indochina. (Too bad he >didn't succeed!)

Amen. There's no reason that the French couldn't have been booted out of
Indochina in the same time-frame that the Dutch were drop-kicked out of
Indonesia. It's a safe bet that FDR's toe was itching to do just that.

>Britain was a tougher nut, given that it was in reality America's only
>friend in the world with any potential for carrying a load (rather
>like today). Roosevelt was equally skeptical about the British
>empire, but he choked it down for the sake of Churchill.

He was, however, cautious about making it appear that the US was fighting the
war to preserve the British Empire--which we were not.

>As for Roosevelt's genius at coalition building, recall that it was
>the cause of the Cold War that bedevilled the administrations of
>Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and
>Reagan ... did I leve anyone out? Roosevelt was so afraid that Russia
>would make a separate peace with Germany that he handed over half
>of
>Europe to Stalin.

From some point in 1944 Roosevelt really was a very sick man. He certainly
should not have run again in 1944. Had he been fully in control of his
faculties, we probably would not have seen the war's denoument play out the way
it did. Certainly if FDR had remained vigorous throughout his tenure and until
stepping down (presumably) in 1949, we would probably have seen a very
different world, if only because Roosevelt had a very clear vision of how he
wanted to shape it and position America, whereas Truman did not. Truman grew
into the job. But that took years, just those critical years that were to
shape the decades to come.
But, in any case, short of full-scale war, there was no way to pry the Soviet
Union loose from the territory it had conquered by force of arms. Poland, East
Germany, et al, were fated to endure what they did as long as the Soviet Union
existed.
As far as Roosevelt's ability to build coalitions, during the war, the allies
were allied because they all had common enemies that had attacked them
militarily. After that enemy was vanquished, the alliance could be expected to
melt away. Only the development of the Cold War kept a semblance of it alive
in the West for a further half century.
The worry about the SU dropping out of the war on Germany was of course caused
by Russia dropping out of WWOne, allowing Germany to shift nearly a million
troops to the Western front just as the US was getting its troops onto the
continent. In the spring of 1918 von Ludendorff was able to attack and advance
40 miles in 10 days, inflicting some 300,000 casualties, bringing the British
5th Army to the edge of disaster and opening up a gap between the French and
British. Only the most fearful fighting stopped that German offensive.
Roosevelt did everything he could to ensure that such a thing didn't happen
again, and, of course, Stalin played on that fear.

>It is easy to romanticize the leaders of the past, now that their
>blunderings have been frozen into history.

True. And easy to forget how contentious were eras that now are depicted as
times of harmony and unified national purpose. FDR's true genius at building
alliances was not demonstrated among foreign leaders, but at home with domestic
political rivals and, especially, industry leaders, many of whom hated him with
a passion for all sorts of New Deal endeavors, not least among them the Wagner
Act. The fact that he turned many of them into dollar-a-year men and got them
to cooperate in building our massive war machine was one of his most impressive
accomplishments. It's taken for granted, but delving into the details of how
it was done reveals astonishing legerdemain by the Roosevelt Administration.

>I happen to be reading William Manchester's account of Tarawa atoll.
>When the marines went ashore at Betio, it was a typical battalion that
>lost half its men. Altogether, for that bit of coral, America gave up
>more than three thousand of its sons.

Another oddity of history: MacArthur's masterful, low casualty (after Buna)
New Guinea campaign is neglected or disdained while King's murderously bloody
Central Pacific campaign is hallowed in popular memory. But not for nothing
did Manchester rate MacArthur the greatest soldier in American history.


Chris Mark

[Cub Driver]

>There were plenty of pilots engaged in this evil act and children and
>old people walking the roads between villages had a terrible fear of
>tieffliger.

A policy made famous by the German air force in Poland, Holland,
Belgium, France.

One of the harder things about war is that you tend to turn into the
people you are fighting.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Cub Driver]

>That was a problem in Japan as well where aircrew had to avoid
>civilians in order to surrender to the IJN becuase the civilians were
>likely to avenge themselves upon them.

Well, clearly you know nothing of what you are saying. Aircrew avoided
civilians in order to surrender to the NAVY?

And how exactly did they avoid civilians?

U.S. aircrews knew very well that if they had to bail out over the
Empire, they would be tortured, starved, generally maltreated, and
very possibly have their heads chopped off, regardless of who
performed the formalities of arrest.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

[Denyav]

>A policy made famous by the German air force in Poland, Holland,
>Belgium, France.

Actually they only tried to imitate what a British officer named Harris (Later
Bomber Harris) had done in Iraq in 20s.

Thats just for record.

[B2431]

>From: "Eunometic"

>
>"B2431" > wrote in message
...
>>
>>
>> >
>> >"JDupre5762" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> >> >Let's compare and contrast here, shall we?
>> >> >
>> >
>> >> FDR allowed the Germans and Japanese to murder and torture
>American
>> >POWs at
>> >> will from 1941 to 1945 and the American Press never called him on
>> >it.
>> >
>> >No proof of that for the Germans at all: they complied strictly
>with
>> >the Geneva Convention. Over 95% of American POWs of the Germans
>> >survived the war.
>>
>> >>
>> >> John Dupre'
>>
>> They did? Not towards the Soviets or occupied territories
>
>Halve those figures: the Communist took the opportunity to attribute
>their own genocides to the Germans.
>
>> nor towards the 12 million murdered in the camps.
>
>I doubt the size of those figures. I'd say the Bull**** factor in
>them is just under 50%. If revisionist weren't jailed and harassed
>and
>were free to carry out their investigations we could get to the truth
>sooner.

The 12 million comes fromactual German documents and allied intercepts.
Remember the Germans had a fetish for documentation. 12 million was the number
given at the Nuremberg trials.

>>
>> Want to keep it just to POWS? Ever heard of The Great Escape? 50
>> escapees were
>> murdered in groups of 2 or 3 AFTER being captured.
>
>These men were not in uniform I believe and were thus treated as
>illegal combatents.

Read the Geneva Convention in effect at the time. As POWS they were not to be
executed for escaping. The Nazis knew they were POWs and were murdered to make
an example and because the Nazis felt impotent. Most of the POWs if not all had
their ID discs on their persons when captured.

If they had on a uniform then this was clearly a
>violation of the convention. Violations of the convention in terms
>of illgeal executions, over work, inadaquete food were however still
>rare.

Tell that to the families of suspected underground members who were sent to
concentration camps simply for being related to the suspects. Tell that to the
men, women and children "deported" to the camps from occupied territories. They
had a concentration camp for children which name escapes me now. Ravensbruck
was for women.

>
>Should Otto Skorneys Commandos that opperated in American uniform with
>German ones beneath have been spared execution?

Nope, because their actions specifically violated Geneva.

>The US incidently has a habbit of of declaring prisoners illegal
>combatents and non POWs

As does every nation.

>> Ok, let's keep discussing
>> POWS. Ever heard of the "Commando Order" issued by Hitler?
>
>Seems to have started when German prisoners with bound hands were
>shot.

Really? When and where? The order was signed 18 October 1942. There were no
Allied forces on the continent.
>
>Collectively extending the punishment is of course also a violation of
>the convention. It wasn't always applied. The legendary paratrooper
>Oberstleutnant Walter Koch for instance refused to be iexecute the
>order and ofcourse many of the paratroops were Nazi party members as
>well. (It was not abnormal most of the parties affairs were quite
>pedestrian) http://www.eagle19.freeserve.co.uk/koch.htm
>

And this lessens the effect of the Commander Order how? Most Nazis obeyed the
order.

>> How many allied air crews were murdered before becoming POWs?
>
>You tell me. I'd say very very few. Perhaps they were upset at the
>strafing of civilians and children walking along country roads?
>There were plenty of pilots engaged in this evil act and children and
>old people walking the roads between villages had a terrible fear of
>tieffliger.
>
>Or the shooting down of the Parachutes of downed pilots that was
>particularly common towards then end of the war.
>
>I'm not saying this was the norm, most airmen were decent, Art Kramer
>for instance says he stopped strafing when a woman ran in front of his
>gun.
>
>> I'm talking here about murders by
>> military people not civilians as in Hamburg where British aircrewen
>who
>> parachuted into the city were bound and thrown alive into the
>burning
>> buildings.
>
>That was a problem in Japan as well where aircrew had to avoid
>civilians in order to surrender to the IJN becuase the civilians were
>likely to avenge themselves upon them.
>
>If you had seen your children, niece nephews or grandchildren die in
>repeated and apparently indiscriminant bombings on suburb you might in
>the rage of the momment do the same. I can totaly understand that.
>
>You should read "On the Natural History of Destruction" by W.G.
>Sebald. One of the things the allies did is destroy the extensive
>documentation the Germans had of the effects of fire bombing and the
>wounds and deathes it created.
>
>I've spoken to people that had to clean out flats with the body of a
>mother scorched to death by fire huddled over he baby. When touched
>these bodies often just crumpled into a pile of dust leaving nothing
>but a wedding ring or other jewelery.
>
>
>>
>> On the other hand FDR didn't "allow" Axis atrocities. He just
>couldn't stop
>> them.
>
>
>FDR was sick and a sham.
>
>His toast was a salute to shooting them, "as fast as we can, all of
>them." Churchill was horrified. Quick as a flash, he was on his feet;
>his face and neck were red, says Elliott Roosevelt, who was present.
>He announced that British conceptions of law and justice would never
>tolerate such butchery. Into this breach stepped President Roosevelt.
>He had a compromise to suggest. Instead of executing fifty thousand,
>perhaps "we should settle on a smaller number. Shall we say 49,500?"
>All the Russians at the table roared with laughter. So did the
>Americans, who were obliged to show proper appreciation for their
>chief's "humor." Churchill left the table." (1)
>
>Undoubtedly, the President's little grim "joke" was a source of great
>amusement for the Soviets, who were still laughing over the 14,000
>Polish officers they had slain at Katyn, Miedjoye, and Kharkov Forest.
>Later, one of President Roosevelt's interpreters said of his
>emaciated, crippled chief: "He looked sick, he acted sick, and he
>talked sick." (2)
>
>Lest anyone think that the President's remark was made in jest,
>consider that less than one year later he was willing to ratify the
>notorious "Morgenthau Plan" , had it not been for the adamant
>objections of his Secretary of War, Henry Stimson.
>
>In order to fully appreciate the attitude of the allies in regard to
>the treatment meted out to the defeated Germans, a brief review of
>events would be in order. To those who might object that the allies
>were too "civilized" to employ third degree methods on captured German
>officers to extract damning "confessions", I believe that certain
>criteria should first be investigated , presented, and addressed,
>namely:
>
>1. How did the allies treat non-combatants? How were Germans treated
>who had nothing to do with the waging of the war? What was the allies
>policy in regard to women, the elderly, and in particular, German
>children?
>
>2. How were German prisoners of war treated? Specifically, members of
>the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, etc. against whom no criminal charges had
>been preferred?
>
>If the allies treated the defeated Germans with justice and equity,
>and can be proven so by documentation and the actual historical
>record, then the allegation that German POW's were tortured and
>mistreated falls flat on it's face.
>
>Let us now examine the record: Germany's civilian population received
>a foretaste of allied policy in 1940, when British pilots bombed a
>Berlin schoolhouse, killing a number of children. The air strikes
>increased in severity over the course of the war, culminating in the
>destruction of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Nuremberg, Munich, and other
>cities at a loss of probably half a million lives. It was a common
>occurrence for allied pilots to bomb and strafe columns of refugees
>and the homeless. For this reason, American and British pilots earned
>the infamous sobriquet "terror-pilots" and were often treated as such
>when caught by German civilians. Parachuting pilots were often killed
>upon capture by German civilians who had often lost beloved family
>members to the attacks of terror-bombers. The allies made it a point
>to trace down the civilians responsible for these acts of righteous
>retribution and summarily hanged them all, whenever and wherever they
>were found.
>
>The allies were particularly sensitive concerning the shooting of 50
>allied fliers who had escaped from the Sagan POW camp in 1944. From
>the German point of view, many of these fliers were warned that should
>they attempt any more escapes, they would be shot.

The threat alone was a violation of Geneva.

Aside from that,
>many of the escapees were caught in civilian clothes or else in German
>uniforms, thus leading the German authorities to conclude that they
>were spies. When one reflects on the fact that members of Otto
>Skorzeny's commando group, which infiltrated American lines during the
>battle of the Bulge, were also shot upon capture even though they were
>wearing German uniforms under the American gear, then the shooting of
>the 50 terror fliers loses some of it's punch. Nevertheless, German
>officers were executed for this "crime" while the allied crime of
>shooting the German "spies" went unpunished.
>
>The shooting of Americans at Malmedy was given the widest publicity,
>and those German units which participated in this battle were all
>brought before the allied inquisition, notwithstanding the fact that
>the allies had, in one incident shot down members of the Waffen SS in
>France in cold blood, and not one of the responsible parties was ever
>brought to justice.
>
>At Dachau, American soldiers lined German guards up against a wall and
>shot them down without mercy.

Prove it.

The Americans also allowed crazed
>inmates of the camp to savagely murder other guards who were stationed
>there.

Prove it.

Often these victims were simply Wehrmacht officers who were
>left to guard the camp after the SS personnel absconded.

They were still guards and every single picture of a dead Nazi and those caught
alive taken at Dachau that I have seen shows SS uniforms.

>
>When the allied armies first entered German territory, did the
>victorious "champions of democracy" comport themselves with dignity
>and honor? Let the reader be the judge. What follows is just an
>excerpt from volumes of documents relating to the rampaging allied
>troops as they plundered, raped, and stole from the defenseless German
>population. The one crime most often committed by allied forces
>against German civilians in all sectors was forcible, violent rape,
>which is evidenced by a selection of the following reports. Few of the
>offenders were ever punished for this crime against women and
>children.
>
>According to the publication "The U.S. Army in the Occupation of
>Germany":
>
>"Of all the crimes committed by U.S. troops, the best....documented
>was rape, and it showed a "spiral increase" in the closing months of
>the war. Between July 1942 and October 1945, 904 rape cases were
>charged in the European theater, 552 of them in Germany. All told, 487
>soldiers were tried for rapes committed in the months of March and
>April, 1945.(!)....By no means all the incidents were reported or, of
>those reported, brought to trial, and the conviction rate was
>relatively low."(3)
>
>"Reports of rape and robbery by U.S. troops piled up on the public
>safety officer's desk.."(4)
>
>"The tension was greatest in areas where Negro troops were stationed,
>since they....frequently interpreted efforts to curb prostitution as
>another form of discrimination. In Kuenzelsau, Wuerttemberg, Negro
>soldiers of the 350th Field Artillery Battalion beat up the local
>jailer when he refused to release prostitutes being held for venereal
>disease treatment. Later the whole police in Kuenzelsau tried to
>resign after being threatened that they would be killed if they
>interfered with the prostitutes."(5)
>
>"Nearly all incidents involved liquor or women, often both. The
>population of vagrant women-which the Army inadvertently increased
>after November when it released penicillin for treating venereal
>diseases in German women, thereby shortening for some the "turn around
>time" from jail or hospital and attracting others who had been
>deterred by the fear of infection-was often at the root of soldier
>attacks on German officials and police....In one instance an American
>officer took an Austrian girl from Linz to Stuttgart, raped her three
>times, and then transported her to Ulm, where he turned her over to
>the military police on a charge of having improper papers." (6)
>
>"...the Negroes, believing they were not getting an equal share of the
>women, nursed grudges against both the Germans and the white
>Americans." (7)
>
>Take note that these are cases which have been confirmed by the Allied
>Occupation Authorities. Other reports may be offered to substantiate
>the above in greater detail:
>
>"From the east came the Bolshevized Mongolian and Slavic hordes,
>repeatedly raping every captured woman and girl, contaminating them
>with venereal diseases and impregnating them with a future race of
>Russo-German *******s.
>
>In the west the British used colonial troops, the French Sengalese and
>Moroccans, the Americans an excessively high percentage of Negroes.
>Our own method was not so direct as the Russian: ....we compelled
>women to yield their virtue in order to live-to get food to eat, beds
>to sleep in, soap to bathe with, roofs to shelter them." (8)
>
>The following was related by a catholic priest concerning a letter
>which was smuggled out of Breslau, Germany, September 3, 1945: "In
>unending succession were girls, women and nuns violated....Not merely
>in secret, in hidden corners, but in the sight of everybody, even in
>churches, in the streets and in public places were nuns, women and
>even eight year old girls attacked again and again. Mothers were
>violated before the eyes of their children; girls in the presence of
>their brothers; nuns in the sight of pupils, were outraged again and
>again to their very death even as corpses." (9)
>

And this justifies or excuses the Nazis being criminals how?

>
>>
>> Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired
>
>If anyone was to become a war criminal I suspect you would be the most
>likely.

Based on you steadfast denial of Nazi crimes the same could be said about you.

>You are so utterly without doubt convinced of the villany of
>the enemy.

I have never claimed the U.S. has never violated Geneva. The Nazi swine
documented most of their crimes since they considered them to be legal.

>I've often wandered how many Iraqi's were shown no mercy because they
>were accused of removing babies from baby incubators.

Every one of the animals who did such a thing needs be shown no mercy. Put them
on trial and execute them if found guilty.

I was staioned in West Germany. I have seen some of the sites where the crimes
were comitted. You mentioned Dachau. Go to that camp some day and visit the
museum. The Germans are harder on themselves that most of the rest of the world
is now.

In the final analysis the Germans STARTED the war and thus must be held
ultimately responsibility for all war related suffering. I don't excuse Allied
violations, but they wouldn't have happened at all if the Nazi pigs hadn't
started the war.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired