Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald examines the implications of Germany's release of the killer of Robert Stethem, and larger questions regarding Germany:
Why did the Germans free the torturer and killer of Robert Stethem?Germans do not understand how the educated world, the world of those with memories, regards them still, and will for a very long time to come. They may have misinterpreted the indulgence of the American government (needing or thinking it needed to put all sorts of things behind it because no sooner was World War II over than the Cold War loomed) with what many intelligent people, many of them born after the war, in America, in France, in Italy, in Russia, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Denmark, in Norway, and in England, naturally think of when they hear the word "Germany." The Germans may think that by now they are home free, and they appear all too ready to regard themselves and expect others to regard their country, their history, and their manner of dealing with that history, as "normal." Many of them are "tired," as the writer Martin Walzer wrote -- not in these precise words -- of "being beaten over the head about the Holocaust." Too bad. There is no sell-by date on learning in great detail about that atrocity, and realizing there is no transcending of it, no "getting beyond or over it." It is there, in the air, permanently.
Young backpack-and-water-bottled Germans travel complacently about the world, completely oblivious to what comes to mind to those who either lived through the war, or who have learned about it in detail, when they hear the word "German" or see those faces that cannot but remind one of Hitlerjugend sun-worshippers tramping the heather in groups. And one repeatedly hears about the behavior of German high-school students, as they make their dutiful tours as high school students to Auschwitz -- chewing gum, cracking jokes, laughing their heads off, having a great time.
The Germans were always enthusiasts for the Project of Europe, a ghastly business which started small, as merely the European Coal and Steel Community, and has grown and grown and metastasized so that now, corrupt and unrepresentative officials in Brussels and regulations that efface more and more what makes Italy Italy, or France France, continue to build up the idea of homo economicus as the basis for the ideal. And that European Ideal is nothing more than the Expanded Big Market, where "Europeans" can compete using economies of scale. Economic gigantism also involves effacing, little by little, the local products (so that Italian chocolate, Italian parmigiano, or those who make caerphilly or bleu de Bresse, will have to conform to all-Europe standards). Eventually, the sense of the nation-state will dissolve, and with it national languages and national literatures, and national self-consciousnesses, all sacrificed for the Big Market. The monstrous E.U. bureaucracy with its regulations owes its development in part, as one British observer noted in "Encounter" long ago, to the psychological need of Germans in the 1960s to identify themselves not as "Germans" but as "Europeans." "Yes, ve are all Europeans now, aren't ve? The old days do not matter. Ve haf put the past behind us. It is the only vay ve Europeans can stand up to the American hegemony, ja?"For those whose memories are long (and memories should for certain matters go on forever) Germans are permanently on probation. And Germany owes the United States everything -- for the absurdly generous treatment it received (compare what the Soviet Union did in the part of Germany it took over) after the war, for the Marshall Plan's tens of billions lavished upon that country, for the Berlin Air Lift, for the decades of protection offered by NATO, which is to say by the United States -- for the United States was the organizer and paid most of NATO's bills. And certainly the Germans, the chief beneficiaries of NATO's preventing a Red Army advance further into Europe, have never paid anything like what its economic condition -- ordinary Germans live far better than do Americans -- should have required of it.
For Cold War purposes much was overlooked. The Cold War is over. A lot that was overlooked need not be. The unseemly rapidity with which a nation that had engaged in mass-murder all of a sudden passed, as virtually its first act, a law banning capital punishment, so as to spare the lives of Nazi war criminals, should not be overlooked. Nor should the continued presence of Nazis in the German judiciary, in the Deutsche Bank, and in politics. See T. H. Tetens, "The New Germany and the Old Nazis," which came out in the early 1960s. Only a handful of war criminals -- out of hundreds of thousands directly involved in the mass murders of Jews, gypsies, and others -- were punished, with ridiculously short jail terms.
It is intolerable that the German government believed it had the right to free a murderer of an American serviceman in order to get back a German convert to Islam, who had lived in Iraq for years, married (and divorced) an Iraqi, and apparently had gone as islamically native as one possibly could. Just because she had been involved -- so the German story goes -- in arranging or attempting to arrange a meeting with Zarqawi or his group, hardly makes her more than a one-time ad-hoc informant.
There are three possible versions of the Osthoff story. One is that she was not involved in any intelligence work, and that the German government, stung by American criticism, is now pretending that she was some kind of intelligence agent to justify their pusillanimity. The second is that she had gone native, married a Muslim, became a Muslim, and identified with Islam, but was willing to arrange a meeting in order to help the Sunni Muslims obtain a hearing for their supposed demands from others who were working for German intelligence. But the third version of the tale is one that the Germans have not yet given, perhaps because it is false, or perhaps because it is true (and one hopes, for their sake, and to justify their action, that it is true): that Osthoff was not simply being asked to arrange this meeting given her obvious sympathies and identification with the locals, but rather was, and had always been, an intelligence agent for the Germans in Iraq.
Were that to have been the case, then obtaining her release by freeing Hamadi, the torturer and killer of Robert Stethem, might have been explicable and, for some, perhaps even justifiable. But only in that case.
"There is something terribly wrong with Germany and the German Volk. The German soul is a deep abyss, a fetid, stinking morass that befouls the community of nations."
http://www.rightwingnews.com/reader/eternal.php
Hugh,
In an age where most everybody gets lost in the the loud rah rah of "me too"isms, it is an honour and a benefit to read your more thoughtful, subtle and insightful analyses.
Gotta see a publication down the road.
I’m not with you on this one, Hugh. I believe the current Germans have proven their commitment to a liberal democracy (or what passes for a liberal democracy in Europe today.) I have many criticisms of Germany (and France and Norway) but Germany’s sustained commitment to civilization and to our common core values are worthy of respect.
It’s good to have an image of what real change looks like and remember how much it cost, as we hear about the fantasies of easy change in the Islamic world.
Hugh, I second the motion. I'll also buy your book when it comes out! Good essay and spot on, although it must be painful for Germans--especially young ones--to take in your points. One thing always in my crawl vis-a-vis the Germans is that after the Munich killings of the Israelis, the Germans put the three living Black September terrorists in jail. They were released in a secret deal with the 'arabs.' and Germany has been off limits to terror 'operations' since. Let's see . . . you kill 6 million jews, countless gypsies and gays and mental defectives . . . your rebuilt by billions of dollars postwar . . . then 27 years later after yet more jewish blood stains your land -- you release their killers in a 'midnite operation' to Libyia. What gets my crawl going(as if the above is not enough)is that the Germans are almost reflexively anti-Bush, anti-American in their orientation. The phrase 'thank you, sir, may I have another.' comes to mind.
Well, I'm not supporting this site any more. You Americans angels don't need the support of TEH EVIL GERMAN NAZIS in fighting the muslims.
"I’m not with you on this one..."
-- from a posting above
Does this mean that you approve, without knowing whether or not Osthoff was a full-time intelligence agent, of the payment by the German government of a large ransom and even more disgusting, the freeing of Hamadi?
Or do you mean that, in the context of discussing the release of Hamadi, my discussion of the whole matter of how generously the United States after the war, and long after the war, and even until now, has treated Germany and the Germans, in ways justifiable -- Berlin Airlift, Marshall Plan, NATO protection -- and entirely unjustifiable (ending prematurely what turned out to be the farce of de-nazification, making deals with the likes of Gehlen, even appearing to help war criminals escape to South America, Operation Paperclip and the "resurrection" of the Peenemunde Nazis, and in a thousand other ways letting many individual murderers, and the country as a whole, either get away with it without the kind of punishment that was deserved, or never make it feel -- despite all the talk of how aware young Germans are today of what was done, and what a sense of responsibility they have about it (nonsense, double nonsense)-- all because, it was believed by those at the mental and moral level of John Foster Dulles, that the Cold War demanded it.
I didn't denounce Germany or all Germans. I don't believe in collective guilt. But widespread guilt is another thing. I wrote that history is not to be overlooked or trifled with for politicla ends, and that the Instant Makeover of Germany, in the ten or fifteen years following World War II, was not something all of us were prepared to quite believe in, or accept as justification for letting the Germans off so lightly -- in every respect. I noted that among the reasons why Germans were so very enthusiastic about the E.U. (which I regard with distaste sometimes grading into horror, as one more example of the total triumph of Homo economicus, that is Man defined purely in terms of his GDP and GNP, and everything that makes life more interesting comes a distant second), was that it would help them to be "Europeans" and the pain or embarrasssment of German nationalism can somehow be limitied, and Germany can "spread its eagle wings again" (see "Conversation Piece, 1945") disguised as part of the E.U. And European youth can, all distinctions effaced, backpack through "Europe" together, or even sun themselves naked, in true Nazi sun-worshipping style (for that's what it smacks of, and not merely of the mild nudists romping in some Butlins camp in England), smack in the middle of Munich, at the Englischer Garten, by a brook, far from the Pagoda.
Memories do not need to be recovered -- they need never to be lost in the first place. The passage of time for the kinds of atrocities, on a mass scale, participated in by millions, and known and approved of, by many millions more -- the Cold War does not efface that. Nothing does.
As for those gum-chewing, joking, laughing German high school students making their dutiful way through Auschwitz, or the other students who appear never to have heard of anything about the Nazi murders (I don't like that word "Holocaust" and won't use it) -- well, what do you make of that? Anything? Nothing? Just the way teenagers everywhere behave? I've seen much-maligned American high school students behaving with great respect on similar trips. And I do not think American high-school students, were they to visit, say, My Lai (the only real atrocity committed by Americans that I can think of, and of course what happened there was not the product not of a deliberate policy of hatred and industrial-strength extermination, but rather a collective lapsus, in the middle of a hideous war, by a group of soldiers simply crazed by the whole thing, and out of control), would chew gum and laugh their heads off.
You know Hugh, there's a difference between the German government and the German people. By posting stuff like this, you're not exactly helping your cause. It's not like we voted to release that guy.
A poster above has decided he doesn't like the article, which offends him, and will no longer be coming to this site. Since that poster is one who in the past frequently commented on how fond and proud he is of Germany (possibly this "Frederick" is the result of "Friedrich" undergoiing one of those World-War-I-hysteria-induced changes, such as "Reichenbacker" becoming "Rickenbacher"), a little fellow-feeling entirely unshared by most Americans who have some distant familial connection to Germany (many of the German immigrants who came after 1848,like Carl Schurz, were fleeing German reactionaries, not endorsing them), including such people as General of the Armies Dwight Eisenhower, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He has also in the past made comments about Muslims, asking at one memorable point "where are the camps when you need them" or sentiments to that effect about Muslims. These postings were deleted as fast as we could find them, but possibly some remain -- we can't possibly monitor everything, and are responsible, when it comes to postings, for nothing. This is not a site for those who, for whatever reason (and a few come to mind) apparently harbor a certain nostalgia not for Germany (that's fine -- if Germany is defined as the best of Germany, and not the worst -- Alexander von Humboldt, say, and not Goebbels or Himmler. Most of us are able to distinguish between the two categories),for the way things were done in the good old days in good old Germany. Why must one endorse the worst of Germany, or appear to be doing so, instead of the best -- which of course was crushed, as much as possible, by the worst. Alexander von Humboldt would have left Germany in 1933, and so would his brother the philologist.
The word "islamofascism" is redundant. Islam, at its core, if fully understood and fully practiced, as it has not been practiced by innocent and illiterate villagers, but is certainly being urged upon those same villagers today, is fascism. It provides a Total Explanation of the Universe, one in which the division between Believer and Infidel is what matters the most -- possibly the only thing that really matters. It offers as well a Total Regulation of Life -- not always observed, but in posse, and that too is part of Fascism.
The best article on this subject, the similarity of Islam and classic Fascism, can be found in an essay by Ibn Warraq.
So, we are told, if we are trying to alert people to the nature and menace of Islam, we are to do so by ignoring other fascisms, of quite recent vintage, including that responsible for the greatest atrocity of all time.
Sorry.
No can do.
There are plenty of White-Power and neo-Nazi websites available for that. Unfortunately, however, those websites tend not to be full of people showing an awareness, as this site does, of the fascistic nature of Islam and the menace it popses. Quite the contrary. Those websites tend to exhibit a sneaky fondness for Islam, a sympathetic understanding, which, given the nature of the True Believer in Islam, and the True Believer in any kind of Totalitarian Regulation, is hardly surprising.
the mild nudists romping in some Butlins camp in England
I never saw any nudists, mild or otherwise, romping at Butlins. It was all good clean fun. Perhaps they romped in the privacy of their own chalet.
The worst thing about the EU in my opinion is not the economic aspect - if it were just an "economic community" that would be fine by me - it's the way it takes away our sovereignty. The Germans, and, worse still, the French make stupid laws, which the French and Italians shamelessly flout, and which we, stupidly, obey.
I can't stand the EU and would dearly love us to come out of it, but UKIP seems like a lost cause.
I agree with most of what you said but it seemed as if you went too far in implying a perpetual collective guilt passed on to each generation. You now clarify that you don’t mean that.
I agree there’s much to complain about but without going into the specifics, I hold that the current generation (most Nazis are dead or retired) has inherited a changed culture—including all the flaws inherent in Europe today—but not far from the standards of other nations on the continent. Let me temper that by saying I have particular worries about the East Germans who lag behind in that change.
I agree with your deep suspicion of simple and easy change. Indeed, I often point to the fact that German culture didn’t change after WWI and the experiment in democracy only led to a relapse, far worse than the first time. I point to that when it comes to my skepticism of nations-building in Iraq (which you have argued quite forcefully.)
Robert,
Any idea if the U.S. will get the Mosad involved?
Wishing and hoping for justice.
By "Butlins" I didn't mean the very "Butlins" --I meant the kind of camp, in Cornwall or Devon or somewhere, where gentle English-style nudists, the slightly daft people who might eat only at Krank's, and who, for all I know, think that learning Esperanto is the key to world peace, take their clothes off and play volleyball. They may run around with their clothes off -- like some people on Martha's Vineyard, at Squibnocket Beach. But the unpleasant hint of something else, something connected to a kind of Hitlerjugend sun-worship of the kind on display, and to be detected as the unrecognized subtext, in the English Garden in Munich, is entirely absent from whatever colonies of middle-aged nudists may exist in England, or Scotland, or Wales.
It was all good clean fun
What good is clean fun?
One wants Brighton for that sort of caper.
The worst thing about the EU, in my opinion, is how they have founded the Human Rights industry. Which was meant to stop torture and the sort of thing that dhimmitude answers the description of. Instead it has resulted in so many people who meet something not to their liking complaining that their human rights have been breached.
Email President Bush-
president@whitehouse.gov
-and every member of the media you can get an address for- to protest about Germany's outrageous release of a terrorist murderer ...back to his fellow killers among Hezbollah in Lebanon. I'm sure Zarqawi and Omar are already on a conference call with Mohammad Ali Hammadi working out ways to slaughter more Coalition personnel in the region.
Chancellor Merkel should be given nothing more on her visit to Washington than a free pass to visit the Holocaust museum, and a copy of the Koran translated by an early German scholar (before the p.c. revisionism struck). And maybe a private meeting (with cruelly torured and callously murdered) Navy Diver Robert Stethem's surviving family members.
Thanks Deutscheland!
Uber Allah?
Not this time.
An excellent essay - one of many on this site.
Many years ago, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Germans began discussing reunification - I was thrilled, the end of the Cold War - the beginning of the enlightened age. A friend of mine who had emigrated from Germany was much less hopeful. He explained to me that there was something in the German psyche that made it a bad idea, a dangerous idea, to ever let it be reunified. He predicted they would revert to form, exonerating themselves of any wrong-doing, anxious to reassert their Germanic rights, and blaming Jews. He knew more than I.
I don't believe she is anymore a spy than I am. Her act is all Islam. She loves the stuff, can't get enough. Perhaps she was acting as a contact for arranging some meeting. Big deal. She surely did not think she was harming the Muslim ummah by arranging it.
The painful and bloody history of mans inhumanity to man (and most everything else as well), includes the Germanic people, but they are not alone. There should be collective shame.
Instead, there is a consistant drive to commit more attrocities in the name of this or that.
"Thou shall not kill", means nothing to most people, certainly not muslims.
It meant nothing to Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Trotsky, numerous Ceasars, Mohammad, Mullahs, Kings, other Royals, Emperors or any government/officials at any time. Killers and murderers all. It's a wonder there is anyone left alive. The Germans are not responsible for all of that. But they must accept the responsibility for what they actually did. Being wary of them for a long time should not be unexpected. If you rise up once, you might just rise up again, which is exactly the boat we are in with Islam...Muslims cant be trusted in the short or long term. Lets hope Germany can do a little better than that...
Oh, Hugh and those images. Frankly, one must be of a certain age and education to associate Nazism with nude sun worshippers. Not that younger folks can't learn, but it's not an instinctive connection.
Now, a nude beach named Squibnocket, that's an image that won't be scrubbed from my mind soon.
Hugh, switch to decafe'. The only thing that the article above told was the truth. Thanks to Hitler and those that followed him, Germany, unfortunately, is forever labelled. But that's not to say that all is lost. Hitler was originally from Austria. But here in the United States, California elected an Austrian born governer. Arnold Schwarzennegger!!! So be of good cheer. No one is against you personally. It's your government that we from the United States are upset with. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps at the time of this torture/murder/terrorist incident. As a former serviceman, I do take it personally that your government freed a known terrorist that murdered a fellow service member. It a slap in the face to all American citizens. Especially those , who like myself, served this counrty, and were stationed in Germany. We sacrificed our time with our families and friends to defend not only this land that I love, but your counrty as well. I don't see German troops helping to protect our borders. Your country refused to extridite Hamadi to our country because we're in favor of capital punishment. The Death Sentence. your government, that's against capital punishment, released a murderous terrorist, Islamofeces in to the world to do it all over again. A man that if given the oportunity, would wipeout untold numbers with just the click of a button. Be it by cell phone, remote control, or homicide bombers vest. If there are any more of your fellow citizens that feel that Hamadi should never have been released, protest. Let Chancellor Merkel and the rest of the German Parliment know how you feel. During the 80s, the Germans had no problem with protesting when the Pershing II rockets were being placed in Germany. To protect Germany and the rest of Europe from the Russians.
"one must be of a certain age and education to associate Nazism with nude sun worshippers..."
-- from a posting above
What would that "certain age" be? I wasn't born before, or during, World War II, but after. I study history. Anyone can do the same, at any age -- at the age of 18, 28, 38, 48, 58, or 98, or 108. What age must one be to begin to study history, so as to be able to sink below the surface of things, and thereby to better comprehend?
Ferderick, switch to decafe'. The only thing that the article above told was the truth. Thanks to Hitler and those that followed him, Germany, unfortunately, is forever labelled. But that's not to say that all is lost. Hitler was originally from Austria. But here in the United States, California elected an Austrian born governer. Arnold Schwarzennegger!!! So be of good cheer. No one is against you personally. It's your government that we from the United States are upset with. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps at the time of this torture/murder/terrorist incident. As a former serviceman, I do take it personally that your government freed a known terrorist that murdered a fellow service member. It a slap in the face to all American citizens. Especially those , who like myself, served this counrty, and were stationed in Germany. We sacrificed our time with our families and friends to defend not only this land that I love, but your counrty as well. I don't see German troops helping to protect our borders. Your country refused to extridite Hamadi to our country because we're in favor of capital punishment. The Death Sentence. Your government, that's against capital punishment, released a murderous, terrorist, Islamofeces in to the world to do it all over again. A man that if given the oportunity, would wipeout untold numbers with just the click of a button. Be it by cell phone, remote control, or homicide bombers vest. If there are any more of your fellow citizens that feel that Hamadi should never have been released, protest. Let Chancellor Merkel and the rest of the German Parliment know how you feel. During the 80s, the Germans had no problem with protesting when the Pershing II rockets were being placed in Germany. To protect Germany and the rest of Europe from the Russians.
(Sorry Hugh, I haven't had my coffee yet. Got the names mixed up. Loved the article.)
"Got the names mixed up."
-- from a posting above, identical -- except for one proper name -- in all respects to a previous one by the same poster.
I was wondering.
Squibnocket? That really is a name to conjure with.
Yes, Hugh, I know exactly what you mean. The German seem to approach "fun" with a deadly earnestness. When you see old footage of young, blond Germans exercising together, it really makes your flesh creep.
There is a magazine which some may have heard of. Though British, it had the creepily Teutonic-sounding title "Health and Efficiency", now "H&E Naturist". However, a quick google reveals it to be harmless and eccentric:
What this fails to mention - something that may explain the Brits' less than wholehearted embrace of naturism - is that it's just too bloody cold here most of the time for that kind of caper.
The Germans always have and perhaps always will have a special place in the Anglo-Saxon psyche.
Scorned during the 19th century as an upstart, newly federated polity, the energy of the new nation rudely surprised French in the Franco-Prussian war. The English took anxious note of this during the latter part of the 19th century to the extent that they buried their long time rivalry with both the French and the Russians to outflank the new Germany’s Imperial intentions. The Triple Entente became the allies. On the eve of World War I, Great Britain nearly pre-empted Germany in declaring war, thus bestowing upon itself the distinction of starting that bloodbath that was the Great War. Instead, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Queen Victoria’s grandson and George V’s cousin, bears that distinction.
One need not dig very far into the literature of that time to realize how the Germans were vilified in the British press. Lurid headlines such as “Huns Bayoneting Babies in Flanders” graced British papers of the day, only later to be found groundless. Of the belligerents, the British Army went to war with the largest cadre of professional soldiers, pulled from all over the Empire and Dominion, only to find themselves rudely handled by forces that were not the simple tribesmen that they had become accustomed to bashing around. The British Tommies fought like lions, but one German Marshal noted further that unfortunately for the Tommies “…they are led by donkeys.” The Great War was a disaster for all of European Christendom, but particularly for the British plutocracy which pulled out all the stops to place the blame where they thought the blame could be placed to greatest effect: Germany. Germany had scared the crap out of the British moneyed interests and just had to be stopped, fair means or foul. America had to be brought in.
America may have managed to stay out of the war had it not been for the Zimmernmann Letter, intercepted by British intelligence and passed on to the US State Department. This communication from the German government to Mexico offered Mexico the lost territories of the US Southwest if it would join with Germany in a War against America. Such an egregious insult to the honor of the US had to be answered. But is should also be noted that American war involvement also happened to suit the American investors who had loaned money to the losing Allied cause and would have scant chance of collecting it in the event of a German victory. Even so, had Wilson’s 14 points been seriously entertained by the British and French, a more just basis for World peace and order might have been established. Read it sometime.
We all know the story of the Versailles Treaty, how Germany was singled-out as the sole villain in the story of the Great War. In reality, Germany’ role was only as villainous as that of France and Great Britain. Nevertheless, it pleased the Anglo-Saxon establishment to believe that they had made the world safe for democracy when in effect they had only eliminated a rival for colonies in Africa and elsewhere. The German people went on to suffer inflation and resentment and to become susceptible to very arguable suggestions that they had been unfairly treated.
Pay attention everybody: A feeling of victimhood makes potential fascists of us all –Germans, Muslims, Americans, Brits, anybody. The Germans fell down big time with their embrace of National Socialism, their willingness to cut off civil liberties for those they felt less deserving of it or whose very humanity was called into question. And later for their Final Solution, a euphemism for an abomination that still boggles the imagination. But the Germans are not “those Germans.” They are “our Germans.” They are us, or our Shadow selves. Indeed, in America at least 25% of the population can call themselves German-American (in Lake Woebegone, Minnesota, the percentage is closer to 50%). Thousands and thousands of German-Americans did the right thing in resisting Naziism, even though some may argue that they had the most to benefit from it. Nobody benefits from oppression, however, and these young people fought and all too frequently paid the ultimate price, fighting their own kith and kin, for freedom and justice for all. Visit Omaha Beach sometime. Many of the names on the cenotaph are the same as names in the nearby German cemetery. This is the logic and fruit of war. If there are any other doubts, visit the Lincoln Memorial sometime. Read his second inaugural address. Lincoln makes poignant observation of how the Civil War may be a way of expiating the sin of slavery through the blood sacrifice of its citizens. This is similar in nature, if not degree, to the sins of Nazi Germany.
And if the German nation had a sickness in its soul, remember the boatloads of Jewish refugees that were turned away from British and North American ports, only to return to Europe and their doom. The public was silent. So let’s not be so smug, simply because it’s nice to think of ourselves as nice. Inaction can make one every bit as culpable as action. If one misdoubts present German intentions on the basis of their collective burden, do so but don’t reduce the scrutiny to stereotypes originally designed to maneuver public opinion to serve the interests of Colonialists now long gone (I think). Democracy is audience participation, folks. We’re here to get informed in order to act upon the information. We’re here to address the problems presented by the latest cultural clash between Islam and the West, a problem with as many facets as there are humans on the planet. If any of us has a question concerning the actions of a country or group, history may very well factor into matters, but we’re obliged to make sure that it’s history that serves the truth.
Once again, I'll say that the people had nothing to do with the terrorist being release. It's not like Merkel was running on the "Release the terrorists " platform. And do remember that the government is half SDP. It's not going to become right-wing overnight, it'll take 15 years of successive CDU victories to do that.
And why aren't our troops defending your borders? What troops? We barely have enough to defend OUR borders.
I am often disgusted at the actions of the German government, and the release of this terrorist is a hateful act against America... But I am deeply disturbed by Mr. Fitzgerald's unbalanced post. He betrays an almost rabid seeming desire to "afflict unto the several generations", and I find his view of history to be both simplistic and determined to burden the decendants of Germany with an insurmountable guilt... How many generations must atone for the sins of their fathers, Mr. Fitzgerald? Who is the arbiter of this span?
This unfair interpretation of history is part and parcel of the disease of self loathing which permeates the consciousness of many in the Western World. It is a form of emotional puritanism which undermines our sense of self, and destroys our ability to defend our respective cultures against our Islamic foe.
The Muslim has no similar burdens of guilt about himself or his religion's gargantuan crimes. Islam excels in the erasure of guilt, the erasure of accurate memories, and the supplanting of the self with a sense of collective victimology. This collective sense of victimhood invites retribution -- is eager for vengeance. It also provides for a splendid sense of guiltlessness after the fact for retaliating against the perceived victimizer (almost always the "infidel"...) This is the mechanism which has ensnared more than 1 billion to Islam's grotesque cause... This is the mode of our mortal enemy -- the guiltless eating machine which righteously destroys its enemies...
It is no exaggeration to state that Islam's sins collectively FAR exceed those of Germany, Napoleon, Pol Pot, Stalin, or Mao... We know the Muslim umma calls daily for our annihilation without any pang of doubt or sense of guilt. If he could accomplish this precious goal, we also know the Muslim would not spend a single moment in doubt about his divine act of genocide against us. He can only conceive of our destruction in terms of righteous self defense, and righteous retribution for our crimes of rejecting Islam...
Remembering the crimes of Germany should result in "NEVER AGAIN!" The motivation to remember their crimes should NOT be a vengeful desire to crucify the German race in perpetuity, nor should the remembrance be a wellspring of victimology and entitlement! (This is another deadly disease which infests Western consciousness, and appears to be a similar species to the victimology pathology which permeates Islam...)
To conclude, these ugly Western modes of 'thought' (which are really reactionary appeals to emotionality at the expense of thought) have gravely hampered our ability to form a sense of self which can fight and prevail against the murderous Muslim ameoba... And, I am sad to say, Mr. Fitzgerald's perpetual guilt trip may be one side of the coin whose verso is the perpetual Muslim victimhood trip...
So the Muslim would like to eat us alive, and Mr. Fitzgerald apparently would like to see the Germans eat themselves alive... Both seem like ugly options... and both seem likely to help the Muslim side more than ours...
I couldn't disagree more with this article. First of all, it implies that current-day Germans are guilty of something that they did not do. That goes against the most basic tenets of Roman Law (which is that you can't be convicted for someone else's crime). Should all present day Americans be considered guilty for the ethnic cleansing inflicted upon native Americans? Obviously not. They should however - like present-day Germans - be taught about what happened. The post-colonial/post-WWII "guilt" indoctrination is what ruined Europe, and to Hugh the massive level of indoctrination that the Germans have endured for decades on end has not been massive enough (can anyone forget John Cleese's "Don't mention the war!" episode in the brilliant "Fawlty Towers").
Just yesterday I saw the 1930s British film "Captain Blood" starring Errol Flynn. There is a time when the Spaniards attack the English peaceful city of Port Royal (which was historically a depraved centre of venereal diseases and cut-throat pirates). When they do capture the city, there is a subtitle that reads "And the Spaniards celebrated in Spanish style" (after which we see several soldiers grabbing women). This was in 1930s England, and that film still is a respectable film DESPITE the obvious racist content of that and other scenes. Just pick any film from that age where there are Spanish galleons and English pirates, and you will undoubtedly see how "evil" and "depraved" the Spaniards were and how "decent" and "gentlemanlike" the pirates were. This is curious, particularly for those that know anything about the siege and capture of the Spanish city of Badajoz by Wellington's troops (apparently Errol Flynn wasn't there to defend the civilians from three days of murder, rape and loot).
Off topic? Perhaps. What I tried to state was that the German people has paid his price a long time ago for the extermination of all those millions (which wasn't the first genocide nor will it be the last, unfortunately). The British army invented the concentration camp during the Boer Wars. Are the British school children guilty for all the ten of thousands of Boer men women and children that were starved to death in those camps? Obviously not. But do they learn about the first genocide of the XX century? Somehow, in a country where Elizabeth I, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh are heroes, for some reason I doubt it.
Furthermore, Hugh makes another unbelievable statement: that the Germans couldn't have freed the murderer of the American to free a German Muslim "who had lived in Iraq and had been married to an Iraqi" (as if that fact had any relevance over the issue that the German State had the duty to do everything possible to free that woman).
Hugh mentioned the Peenemunde Nazis. Does he know about a certain German called Werner Von Braun? Of course he does. That German was responsible for the American Space program. He could have been prosecuted and convicted - like many other Nazi engineers were, Albert Speer's name comes to mind - but he wasn't because he was USEFUL TO AMERICA.
Maybe the German woman was more useful to the German State than the murderer of the American.
No, Germans have paid their price. Germany is one of the few countries where Holocaust revisionism can be taken to the courts. In America, Jews don't have that level of protection against anti-semitism.
A German poster complained that he didn't vote for the release of the murderer. Is he guilty? Of course not. The only guilty party is Hugh for accusing a whole people for all eternity.
Excellent post, JSLA
Hugh and Ironman:
The Germans apparently have a history of this type of perfidy. CBC Newsworld recently showed the documentary of the Munich massacre "One Day in September". The lone terrorist captured by the Germans was freed shortly after the terrorist attack when Palestinian terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa 727. The terrorist was exchanged for the passengers and crew. The film's producer made the claim (supported by German officials interviewed on camera) that this hijacking was a set up so the terrorist could be let go in exchange for German immunity from further terrorist attacks. Supporting evidence included the fact the jet only contained 13 crew and passengers with no women and children on board.
Old habits die hard it appears.
Hugh, I'm sure you noticed my observation that younger folks, such as yourself, can learn, too, if of the proper temperament and inclination.
As for making the flesh creep, it's not the blond-haired teutonic goddesses tossing medicine balls and striking Artemis poses an dem Nordsee that chills me, however regimented and deadly earnest. No, it's the fat old biedermeier of either sex (or indeterminate sometimes) on the shores of the Adriatic that makes my flesh creep. Still, better there than here, and perhaps they may frighten the occasional muj away.
And people like US_infidel are why the West will fall. Because arrogant Americans are unable or unwilling to accept the help of others. Divide and conquer. With this attitude, the US will crash and burn.
P.S. Members of my family were nearly arrested for being anti-Nazi during WWII. So much for your "sons-of-Nazis" comment.
"We don't really need the sons-of-Nazis to help us in our war on "terror."
The US government made extensive use - during the Cold War - of German scientists, engineers and even members of an organization called Geheime Statz Polizei (which you may know by the name GESTAPO).
If I were you, I would keep my mouth shut.
"For those whose memories are long, Germans are permanently on probation" from the above article.
Individuals, as well as societies, should be responsible for their own behavior, and not that of their forefathers. For those elderly Germans who are still alive, I hold them responsible for the Nazi experience. For those Germans who came of age after WWII, I do not.
I myself would not wish to be judged by the actions of those I am descended from. If my grandfather were a horsethief, I would not wish to be judged a horsethief.
Should all the German people forever be held responsible for WWI and the holocaust? If so, then what about the countless other societies through out history as well. Should present day Italians be held responsible for the atrocities of the Roman empire? Should the Scandanavians be held responsible for the Viking plunder? Should African Americans receive reparations because they are descended from slaves? I think not. This could go on and on adinfinitum. Only a cast system determines the status of people by the status of their ancestors.
Lets judge the present day Germany for its present day transgressions, of which there are many. But lets not fight yesterday's battles.
Excellent posts, JSLA, Cruzado.
"For those elderly Germans who are still alive, I hold them responsible for the Nazi experience. For those Germans who came of age after WWII, I do not."
*clears throat*
Family anti-Nazi, nearly got arrested by Nazis (and you know what that meant), etc.
"Family anti-Nazi, nearly got arrested by Nazis (and you know what that meant), etc."
Good for them. Unfortunately, that is irrelevant to some of the resident "sheep" who don't think for themselves (they are happy enough to follow the wagon train).
When I think of Germans, I think of Nazis and when I think of "bad-ass Nazis" I think of Sophie Scholl and her brother. You know, those two university students who were shot in 1943 for being "bad-ass Nazis" like all Germans were, are and will be?
Now let us wait for the sheep's use of Google.
I'm all pissed to hell about them freeing
Stethem's murderer, and the Osthoff affair,
and I don't think denazification went far enough,
with them banning capital punishment, and I think
they are a lame ally right now (like France!), but
I have to hope, as in the case of France, that
there is some core of people and culture there
worth preserving, which will not just lay down and
die. I intensely dislike the German government,
and it's people and their media are largely anti
American (see http://medienkritik.typepad.com/)
but I do not agree with collective guilt either.
So I disagree with the notion that Germans are
held accountable for all time.
No A.G. Frederick III, I do not think we Americans
are angels, far from it. It is funny though, that
I read the result of some poll which said that
something like 75% of Germans said their family was anti Nazi during the war. Denial is a river in
Egypt, baby! No, I don't mean that you are guilty of the acts of your ancestors, but as Hugh said, since there was not a true denazification, I
may wonder about what side Germany plays on, given
that you start from a not so clean house.
Of course, Iraq is even worse, since we haven't
even tried a deislamization.
can anyone forget John Cleese's "Don't mention the war!" episode in the brilliant "Fawlty Towers"
How could anyone forget any episode of Fawlty Towers? That isn't the funniest one, though. The funniest is the one with the psychiatrist. And there's the one with the Americans and the Waldorf salad.
Just pick any film from that age where there are Spanish galleons and English pirates, and you will undoubtedly see how "evil" and "depraved" the Spaniards were and how "decent" and "gentlemanlike" the pirates were.
Well obviously. Mind you, there's bias, and there's self-delusion. Here's the French account of the Battle of Trafalgar. Apparently they won.
Hugh,
America’s shame of slavery and segregation is born from the same ideology that Nazism was born from.
In short, with this unbalanced article you have exposed yourself as a fool and a racist.
"Well obviously. Mind you, there's bias, and there's self-delusion. Here's the French account of the Battle of Trafalgar. Apparently they won"
That is war-time propaganda to appease the French audience. I presented you with anti-Spanish (racist) sentences taken from a 1930s English or Hollywood film.
American pioneers used to make tobacco pouches from the scrotum of the Indians. Is Hugh, Robert and every single American guilty of torture, murder and mutilation of Indian corpses? Obviously not!
The only places where colective guilt would hold would be those in Saudi Arabia and Iran (where infidels will always be guilty for the drought, the rain, for the dog that farted and for the dog that didn't).
"When I or Hugh make generalizations about "Germans," it goes without saying that we exclude individuals like your family who were anti-Nazi."
So what you are trying to say is that the only people that can be accused of Nazism were those that actually were Nazis, right?
Thank you for shooting yourself in the foot.
I think the bigger issue with this release is this...why didn't the Germans extradite this scum-bag to the US in the first place?
We would have made sure he got a fair trial and hanging.
Problem solved.
Of course I am kidding about the hanging, he would been sentenced to die in the electric chair a fate much more unpleasant.
Cruzado - I hope you don't pollute your mind by watching "Blackadder", in which stereotypes of the French and Germans abound and are used to hilarious effect.
So many charges are being made and so many attitudes being struck, including the usual hint that someone here at JW is a tin-pot svengali and those who agree with him are merely his baa-baaing "sheep" (the notion that they may agree with that "svengali" out of deep conviction, never seems to occur to them), that I will repeat a few home truths:
1) Germany and the Germans owe a great deal to the United States. For the Berlin Airlift. For the Marshall Plan. For protecting Germany from the Red Army. For dealing so generously with Germany in every way. That is what Germans should think about whenever they make a noise on the world stage -- that, and what happened between 1933 and 1945, and why it happened, and how it happened.
2) There is no such thing as collective guilt. There is such a thing as widespread individual guilt. And if that guilt is very widespread indeed, and if it is insufficiently recognized, or recognized only in part, for the briefest of periods, one has both a right and a duty not to participate in what can exist collectively -- collective amnesia -- but to remind. The duty of memory.
3) There seems to be a belief by some that at some point we are all supposed to forget the German atrocities. Why should we? The comment by Martin Walser about how he was -- I don't have it verbatim -- "sick and tired" of hearing about the German crimes, is itself nauseating.
For years after the war, American and British visitors to Germany were struck by one thing: the self-pity of many of its inhabitants, who seemed to have no sense about what Germany had done. They saw only their own ruins, only their own rationing. Edmund Wilson, in "Europe Without Baedeker," was particularly struck by this. Many of these writers simply couldn't get over this display. And these were not "anti-Germans" but people well-versed in German literature, but also people quite capable of distinguishing what was good from what was bad. There is no reason why others should not be similarly capable, no matter from what vantage point they write.
Perhaps the most withering discussion of Hitler and company during the Nazi period was that provided by some of the old aristocrats who despised the Nazi abble. Old Reck-Maleczewen comes to mind, and that was why I mentioned him. The business of this post-war self-pity by Germans -- "we were victims too" and then, followed by an unseemly eagerness to pretend that it somehow all happened in the ether, the product of a distant madman, and had little to do with anyone,or with Germany itself, is captured in the figure of Professor Hagen, of the Department of German at Waindell College, in Nabokov's "Pnin."
Time passes. The generation of people who lived through the war is passing. The generation of European refugees who lived through the war -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- and who could never bring themselves to revisit Germany, is also passing. But that is a matter having to do with the human life-span, and not with the attitude anyone is free, upon examination of history, including the history collected in T. H. Tetens's "The Old Germany and the New Nazis" -- or even in the remarkable display of venom demonstrated just a few years ago when Marlene Dietrich died, and many Germans objected to honoring her because of her crime -- the crime of "deserting the Fatherland" and supporting the American troops.
The article, incidentally, was originally a posting and then Robert chose to put it up, without any discussion with me (so much for the fond hopes of those who believe that there is Hugh the Bad, and Robert the Good, and if only Robert the Good would get rid of that Hugh the Bad). The article's reflections were prompted by the Osthoff-Hamadi-Stethem affair, was intended to remind that not when it comes to Germany, and the official actions of its government or the attitudes of some of its people, it is never quite so simply a matter of blandly "let's put it all behind us" or, as the various executives like to say after they are released from federal captivity, "I'm ready to get on with the rest of my life" and "let's put the past behind us."
The Nazi past can't be "put behind us." 1945 is not 1545, or 1045. There are still war-criminals alive today, who went completely unpunished. The past isn't even past. The ignorance of many young Germans gives the lie to all those stories about how wonderfully Germany has "confronted its past" and how thoroughly it has extinguished any trace of sympathy for, defensiveness about, the Nazi period.
Ask any of the morally aware Germans who now live and work or teach in this country about what they think. Or ask yourself againi: what would Thomas Mann (who returned after the war not to Germany, but to Switzerland), what would Joseph Schacht (the celebrated scholar of Islamic law, who left Germany not because he had to (he was not Jewish) but because he could not bear to remain, after 1933. Or ask all the others who are now known as "conservatives" but who would not give the Nazi rabble the time of day. As it happens, I am acquainted with more than a few people who left Germany in recent decades. Their reasons were varied, but among them was a certain unease, or moral distate, for how the whole business of the Nazi past had been, and was being, handled, being taken in and thoroughly grasped -- or not. I'm not talking about the kind of academic careerist who is quick to demonstrate his bona fides by listing, in his Acknowledgements to his thesis-into-book, colleagues whom he is eager to cling to, colleagues with easily identifiable Jewish last names, who provide that transparent transparent protection, not needing to be stated, of the "some-of-my-best-friends" variety. I'm talking about higher-level awareness. I'm talking about people who know what is best in Germany, from Alexander von Humboldt to Otto Loewi, whose fathers may even have served in the Wehrmacht, and who themselves would have no problem at all with the kind of issues I raised. They understand perfectly (by the way, this morning I checked with two of them, just to be sure) what I am expressing when I evoke the distaste felt by the spectacle of the naked complacent bodies in the Englischer Garten (as compared to a nudist colony in England, devoid of certain overtones), and they even found acute and deadly my analysis of German eagerness for the "Europe Project" as a means, in the early 1960s, to get away from the word "German" (which in many small towns in Italy and France, and certainly in England, is a word that still disturbs) and to become "European." I welcome, but do not need, their endorsement or agreement.
Hugh,
I agree with the general notion of German disloyalty, however, "after all I've done for you" has never been a successful relationship policy (either personally or geopolitically).
I must also note that while the Nazi genodice was in many respects unique, Americans, too, have participated widely in atrocities far worse than My Lai. We did, you may recall, provide small pox to native americans, uproot them from their homes, ethnically cleans them from lands which we expropriated, forced them to march halfway across the continent and watched them perish as they did so. This used to be a continent inhabited by natives, and now it is not. The change had nothing to do with a failure in their birth rate. It did have to do with an impulse to expropriation and murder among our forebears, whose every succeeding generation drove west to find their fortune in the frontier--a place where, in every case, some tribe of "sub-humans" was already making their livelihood.
And of course, our early economic success was assisted immeasurably by a ready supply of chattled slaves, who were bought and sold like animals, beaten, raped, and even, when they expressed that irrepressable desire for freedom and automony, tortured and killed.
Others would hasten to add the fireboming of dresden or the nuclear detonations in Japan, though these are complicated points for obvious reasons.
In any event, while your points may be valid with respect to German denial, your mention of My Lai as the only American atrocity is either a silly overreach, or a staggering example of how denial of one's own nation's turpitude can be found far, far west of the black forest.
Or perhaps you merely need to limit Germany's perpetual probation to something more akin to our own--apparently about 100 years.
"Cruzado - I hope you don't pollute your mind by watching "Blackadder", in which stereotypes of the French and Germans abound and are used to hilarious effect."
Comedy does not bother me (and yes, I watched Blackadder and even bought the DVD). What bothers me is the lack of self-criticism from those that are so keen in accusing others.
There isn't a country in the world with a completely clean sheet. Not even the most recent country in the world (East-Timor). And certainly not the US (most of the accusers seem to be Americans).
Dear Hugh the Bad:
I confess, it's true. I put it up without checking with you. I thought it was jolly good, and still do.
If you want me to take it down, however, just say the word, and I will.
Cordially,
Robert the Good
If the Germans of this generation do not learn from the mistakes of their history they will surely repeat them.
"the usual hint that someone here at JW is a tin-pot svengali and those who agree with him are merely his baa-baaing "sheep" (the notion that they may agree with that "svengali" out of deep conviction, never seems to occur to them)"
Agreeing with someone out of conviction is one thing. The amount of "shoe-shining" in this article's comments section is astonishing.
"Germany and the Germans owe a great deal to the United States"
Unquestioned, but keep in mind that governments aren't into charity, they are into business (and that includes EVERY government, including the US government). All the things Germany owes the US, were done by America for the benefit of America namely in the fight against Communism (including the Berlin air lift), and they also opened European markets to American products.
"collective amnesia -- but to remind. The duty of memory."
I have never met a German youth that didn't feel ashamed of his country for the Nazi period. Remember the past, but don't build your whole life around it.
"There seems to be a belief by some that at some point we are all supposed to forget the German atrocities. Why should we?"
Because - for the most part - the Germans responsible for the atrocities are dead and burried.
"Hugh the Bad, and Robert the Good"
You tend to write more "opinion" articles that are more prone to criticism. As far as I am concerned, that is all.
Incidentally, one member of my family was responsible for saving hundreds of Jews during war (endangering himself and his family), and another fought in the resistance - two things I am very proud of, and which give me the moral ground to say "Enough is enough!". Move on.
Hugh,
As Basil Fawlty said, don't mention the war.
And we won't mention the bombings of Cambodia and Laos and the persistent effects of defoliants there. And a few dozen other extroardinary moments in your history.
I used to like this site. But your attack on a country that is a strong ally makes me ill. Now you've jumped on the worst american 'my way or the highway' bandwagon.
/Rolle
No American equivalent of Martin Walser has said, to great applause, "I'm sick and tired of hearing about slavery or the mistreatment of the Indians or anything else reprehensible that Americans have done in the past." Do you know any Americans who are unaware of slavery? Do you know any who would laugh and have a high old time visiting a fortress used by slavers in Ghana? Do you think the English are completely indifferent to the ills -- the real and imaginary ills -- of colonialism? Or the French, or the Dutch, or the Spanish? Isn't it true, in fact, that while the reality of the Nazis far exceeeds what most people know, when it comes to this word "colonialism" too often European countries have been bamboozled into accepting responsibility for crimes they did not commit, and required to ignore what good they did. The Nazis, per contra, did no good, ever. And no one has exaggerated their evil; it is impossible to exaggerate it.
While a past may never be past, there is a difference between a past that is 500, or 200, or 150 years old, and one that is scarcely fifty years old, so that many are still alive who were alive then. Memories should not be distorted or lost, victimizers or those who voluntarily choose in some way to identify with them, to act as their defenders, should not be allowed to exhibit any self-pity, or to engage in acts of apologetics of the predictable, "we-all-share-in-Germany's-guilt" variety. No we don't.
Most people, in most countries, most of the time, are exceedingly primitive. That is why the choice of their belief-system matters. If it is one that is, in principle,a good one -- Christianity fits the bill -- then that will help matters. If it is Nazism, Fascism, Islam -- then it will lead to all kinds of horrors, quickly or slowly. One cannot expect everyone in Germany, or in the United States, or France or China or anywhere else, to behave beautifully. It doesn't happen. But the degree of un-beautfiul behavior, ugly behavior, is a matter of degree, and in that matter of degree, which is what much of our lives is about, is the key to what amount of mental penance, what observance of the crime and its victims is due, due not only from the regime, or state, or people in whose name those crimes were committed, but especially by those who do not expressly distance themselves from these crimes, and no failing to do so, link themselves to them, when they are committed not by common criminals but sanctioned by a state, a regime, a large number of eager participants or approvers.
Had Martin Walser, and others, not said thatthe Germans had "paid" enough (How, exactly? How many mass-murderers have even been tried? How many have been put to death? In what way has Germany been made to suffer? And look at how trivial the sums of what was given in "blood-money" -- a few thousand dollars for a year of hellish slave labor, a few tens of thousands for murdering someone, all ridiculously trivial sums compared to the sums involved in the greatest mass looting in history) -- and that it was time to close the books, to "put paid" to that past, and had that sentiment not been echoed by others, or perhaps Walser himself was echoing others, one would not feel the need to raise the matter, and to take issue.
When I wrote that Germany is "permanently on probation" I meant only this: that the nature of the crime was unique in its scope and intent, and that it was commmitted not by savages but by people in the middle of what had been civilized Europe, not in the heat of battle but calculatedly, deliberately, with incident after incident, hundreds of thousands and millions of incidents, of fantastic cruelty, and that this stands for all time, and should, as a special case. And those who have a duty to instruct about this, in Germany (and, one would think, a duty to make sure that this is also taught in the new "Europe" of which Germany is now such a proud part) have that duty not just now, but permanently, to make sure that young Germans were made keenly aware of that past. At the moment many of them are not only not keenly aware, but hardly give the matter a thought. And judging by a few of the reactions here, there are others who don't like to be reminded. Apparently indignation over a totalitarian belief-system, and when the instruments are available, its inevitable fruits, is for some a highly selective affair.
"don't mention the war.
And we won't mention the bombings of Cambodia and Laos and the persistent effects of defoliants there. And a few dozen other extroardinary moments in your history."
-- from a posting above
To compare the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail, a military target used by the enemy, in the middle of a war, with the systematic mass murder of entirely inoffensive civilians, plucked from wherever they may have lived, seized from all over Europe, and then deliberately put to death, is the kind of thing that one would have to be a moral idiot to suggest.
You are apparently equal to the task.
"which give me the moral ground to say "Enough is enough!". Move on."
-- from a posting above
Why does something some relative of yours is said to have done give you the "moral ground" to procalim "Enough is enough!" On what theory? Did that give you some right to pull down the curtain at a certain point, or suggest that we should no longer discuss or think about certain things? Now we have not an invocation of collective guilt, but purity of heart transferred from one family member to another, and the saving of some lives by a relative as endowing someone with historical judgment and wisdom.
A fascinating theory.
The involvement of Russia and China in arming Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran with nuclear weapons, as well as the signing of an anti-American Pact between Russia and China in 1991, would indicate that the Cold War is NOT over-- it has merely mutated into a somewhat different form.
Russia and China knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they armed Islamic and Communist rogue regimes. But don't expect them to admit it.
Incidentally the governments of France and Germany are complicit in the continuation of the Cold War, I would add. Note that Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder have been leaders of their countries' Communist parties in the past and have never really renounced Communist ideology. Personally, I suspect Jacques Chirac of having been involved in 9/11. I wouldn't put it past him. Orianni Fallacci herself has stated publicly that France and Germany are actual enemies of America behind its back when it is least able to defend itself. France, I have read, owns most of Venezuela's petroleum reserves and note that Venezuela now has an anti-American Communist dictator. Conincidence? Not possible, we say. Note how Schroder now works for Vladimir Putin. Birds of a feather flock together.
It looks increasingly like the world would have been better off if the United States had permitted Hitler and the Nazis to destroy western Europe. The article above neglects to mention western Europe's murder of gypsies (several million, it is estimated) AFTER the second world war. It is possible that funds from the Marshall Plan were embezzled by western European governments in order to facilitate the killing of the gypsies and cover it up.
Jihad in western Europe may turn out to be poetic justice. What goes around comes around.
As for Americans: Know thine enemy.
Hugh, the bombings of Cambodia and Laos went way beyond just strategic operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail. And the results of the defoliants are an ongoing tragedy today. But if you don't want to find out the truth, there's no point in me arguing.
But you have just confirmed to me that this site is not the place I once thought it was. You have just lost a reader.
Don't bother responding.
I’m not with you on this one, Hugh. I believe the current Germans have proven their commitment to a liberal democracy (or what passes for a liberal democracy in Europe
what ever you fools agee with Hugh or not, a US service man was killed, his killer let out of jail! give me a break! does not matter wheter Germans still feel guilt, or not feel guilt.. the Germans owe a huge amount of debt to those feed them! to let out any killer is wrong, but even more so the U.S. service man who put his life on the line for those Germans!!
chickaloon writes:
"We did, you may recall, provide small pox to native americans,"
As I recall, this canard is false. Can you provide a
non moonbat reference that backs it up.
" uproot them from their homes, ethnically cleans
them from lands which we expropriated, forced them
to march halfway across the continent and watched
them perish as they did so. "
Certainly our treatment of American Indians is a
stain on the nation, but not as bad as you are
making it out to be. Lots of tribes survived, some
even provide volunteers for combat in the US
military.
I'll not excuse behavior that by our standards is
barbaric, but there was a conflict with the many
of the Indian tribes here, it wasn't as though
all of them were living lives as peaceful civilians and then plucked from their homes and
savagely murdered, or used for medical
experiments. Even the attempts to Christianize
Indian children (which were heinous, OK?) were
nothing compared to the Nazis. Get real!
One of the great features of this venue is the ability of discussing an article with the author. I’m satisfied. And, thanks for the extensive extended exposition. Exceptional, all!
Hugh,
Don't get me wrong: I love the mention of the topic in general, but I stand by the point that it is, in fact, rather Walserian of you to say, in the context of a well-deserved condemnation of Germany's remarkable shame deficit, that My Lai is the greatest American atrocity you could think of.
Sure, everyone is aware of slavery and native american genocide, but Americans--as your post so well attests--don't seem to think these things should be counted against us. We don't like to dwell on these things--sure, sure, sure, we say, but that is over long ago. Germans want to talk about something else as well.
But did we really put the evil of slavery behind us any more recently than fifty years ago, at which point, in large parts of America, most descendants of African Slaves were systematically denied the vote?
In other words, I doubt a African American would ever have the lapse of memory that afflicted you, or would ever think the Germans unique in wanting to escape moral responsibility for the nation's past atrocities. You have to acknowledge this as true if only for the same reason of proximity you cite above: Black Americans still remember their own oppresion, still have parents and grandparents who were kept in positions of effective servitude, and still themselves suffer the lingering effects of our past and still passing bigotries.
It looks increasingly like the world would have been better off if the United States had permitted Hitler and the Nazis to destroy western Europe.
*Cough*
"No American equivalent of Martin Walser has said, to great applause, "I'm sick and tired of hearing about slavery or the mistreatment of the Indians or anything else reprehensible that Americans have done in the past." "
No American has had to endure 50 years of media persistently portaying the German as the Nazi. Schindler's List was inovative not in showing the horror of the Holocaust, but for presenting - for the first time - a "good" German. I already mentioned Sophie Scholl, and there are countless others many of whom ended up in concentration camps.
"when it comes to this word "colonialism" too often European countries have been bamboozled into accepting responsibility for crimes they did not commit, and required to ignore what good they did. The Nazis, per contra, did no good, ever."
Well, there were Nazis and Nazis. The German ambassador in China (was it in Xanghai?) tried to stop the Japanese from butchering Chinese civilians. And then there's Oskar Schindler. And that Austrian soldier who smuggled food to Auschwitz prisoners (and who ended up being shot for that), and surely many others. You really should not generalize.
"blood-money"
If the US paid the Lakota Indians their long due "blood-money", not to mention their "stolen-land money", your country would go bankrupt. And as far as I know, thus far they have received zilch.
This said, I wouldn't want to leave the impression that I am somehow trying to excuse the Holocaust. The Holocaust was brutal in so many ways, and particularly astonishing is that it was caused by a people that listened to Mozart and read Goethe. Remember to prevent it from happening ever again, but don't morgage the future and self-esteem of generations that had nothing to do with it.
"To compare the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail, a military target used by the enemy, in the middle of a war, with the systematic mass murder of entirely inoffensive civilians, plucked from wherever they may have lived, seized from all over Europe, and then deliberately put to death, is the kind of thing that one would have to be a moral idiot to suggest."
To this day, thousands of children in Laos are either killed or maimed for life when they "play" with mines from the Vietnam war. Those mines are very cute, they are orange and resemble tangerines. Talking about moral idiocy, think about it for a while.
Here are some of the milder comments:
1. "with this unbalanced article you have exposed yourself as a fool and a racist."
In what way have I shown myself to be a "racist"? Last I looked, Nazism, and those who think attention to it can be "undue" and the need to instruct others in its history, and instill its lessons in a monitory fashion, did not belong to a particular race. Or are you suggesting that the identification of some Germans -- not Thomas Mann, not Marian Domhoff, not Reck-Maleczewen, not millions of others -- constitutes "racism."
2. "The only guilty party is Hugh for accusing a whole people for all eternity."
This is flatly untrue. I did not "accuse a whole people" of anything, and certainly not for "all eternity." I insisted that the ways in which the German past, in the view of some, is an embarrassment that they should be relieved of, and that the attitude of Martin Walser and those who praised him for suggesting that it was simply a matter now of "getting it all behind us" and that those who persisted in mentioning such things were reprehensible -- were themselves reprehensible. Then I went on to make remarks on the bland indifference, or ignorance, or worse (those high school students at Aushcwitz), of young Germans, and how in the United States we have all been led to believe that in what was formerly West Germany, at least, a splendid and relentless pedagogic effort has gone into making all young Germans supremely aware of the Nazi crimes -- but it just isn't true.
Some seem to suggest that it is intolerable to point out the unique natue of the Nazi atrocities -- so defenders, like defenders of Jihad in the exercise of Tu Quoque, bring up "colonialism" and the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (apparently as great a crime as Auschwitz) and anything else they can think of. As I said, neither the United States nor the countries that possessed colonies seem to be trying to "get that past" behind them but are more than willing to study, to own up, to make amends. Indeed those who write about colonialism have, some of them, failed to note the good that also resulted frm the period of European colonization, including the reducing of local languages to written form, the introduction of rudimentary schooling, or in India, the retrieval of India's Hindu past that had been deliberately suppressed by the Mughal rulers. And the spreading of both French and English, and the rule of law (particularly important in the former British colonies) and much else -- that is all part of the good. But there is no good side to the Nazis. There is nothing to be said in extenuation. Nothing. They engaged in mass murder. They helped to permanently wound, perhaps even helped to render Europe more unsure of itself, more open to the opportunistic infection of Islam. The damage done to the level of European culture, to its science, to its literature, to its systems of education, has been great, and largely still only dimly apprehended.
I have hardly been "a racist" for Nazism and its defenders or pooh-poohers belong to no race, and I have not, despite the "my relative was inovlved in the rescue of Jews, ergo I am the final moral authority here" poster above, have not accused "a whole people for all eternity."
The hysterical level of these two responses makes one wonder, sets one to thinking.
American,
I said, if you read the post, that My Lai is hardly the worst american atrocity and that, as you agreed, our treatment of the native american was reprehensible.
Where did I make a moral comparison to the holocaust? Or rather, didn't I say that it was "unique."
You should read more carefully.
As for your other concern, the claim seems to be documented here with reference to primary sources contemporary to the Amherst even, though note that I have not referred to these primary sources myself to see if they check out.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/smallpox1.html
But thanks for buttressing my larger argument that we Americans have a similar disdain for discussing our own past evils as the people of other nations.
Comparing the release of Hamadi to the release of Von Bruin is not an accurate assessment. Von Bruin was not released with the expectancy that he would continue to wreak Nazi havoc upon society. Quite the contrary, as he was only released to enhance his former enemy's military abilities. There is no question that Hamadi is not reformed and that he will continue to commit jihad throughout the remainder of his life rather than assist the Westerners fight against the Islamofacists.
"Why does something some relative of yours is said to have done give you the "moral ground" to proclaim "Enough is enough!" "
Basically because it shows were I stand. And your "is said to have done" is amusing.
"On what theory? Did that give you some right to pull down the curtain at a certain point, or suggest that we should no longer discuss or think about certain things?"
No, but the revolution of 1974 (which brought democracy to my country) gives me the right to give my free opinion about whatever I want and pull any curtains I wish to pull.
"Now we have not an invocation of collective guilt, but purity of heart transferred from one family member to another, and the saving of some lives by a relative as endowing someone with historical judgment and wisdom."
Well, you are the one claiming the "purity of heart transplant", not I. I said what I said to show where my family stood and stands regarding the Holocaust. The fact that one close ancestor of mine did something right at a time when so many people were looking the other way, gives me great pride, particularly considering the personal risks he took.
Speaking of judgement and wisdom, I am still trying to figure out what you meant when you mentioned that the German spy was a Muslim and had been married to an Iraqi, but I am sure that you didn't say that to imply that she was less worthy of being saved. Right?
Excuse me, I meant Von Braun (can't read my own handwritten, notes, I suppose!)
And, let's not compare the Holocaust with the American Indians, that is also not comparable. The Indians had their established ways of making war. The Jews had nothing, no weapons to defend themselves. The most barbaric weapon used against them was their belief in a civil and humane society.
chickaloon,
My apologies for not hanging on your every word.
Might I suggest that you read the source you
just presented again. Where is the American involvement? Looks like British, in the
French-Indian war.
Yes, I'm well aware of the atrocities
perpetrated by Americans, and of slavery. The
entire world (and many American blacks) still look
at America through that prism, and I don't
complain, they should look.
I don't see how Hiroshima and Nagasaki should even
be mentioned at all as an atrocity. That was war,
and IMO the right decision was made.
The most barbaric weapon used against them was their belief in a civil and humane society.
And German Jews were part of that society. Germans slaughtered their own. Of course they claimed that Jews were not real Germans but they were. The nearest comparison I can think of to the Nazis is the Khmer Rouge, which killed about a fifth of Cambodians in just a few years. But Cambodia was not an advanced, civilised country like Germany.
The Khmer Rouge seem to have got away with it. But this is off the point.
"despite the "my relative was inovlved in the rescue of Jews, ergo I am the final moral authority here" "
I apologise Hugh, you are the final moral authority here and everywhere, but do notice that you are placing words in my mouth. I never said that I was the final authority anywhere, I only mentioned my ancestor's deeds to show where I stood. Basically, given the level of hysteria going on in here, I wouldn't want any of you to think I was a German... (whoops, I meant a Nazi!).
"The hysterical level of these two responses makes one wonder, sets one to thinking."
Well, this latest treat of yours reminded me of Peter Ustinov singing in "Quo Vadis" while Rome burned. Where is Petronius when you need him...
And neither can you compare slavery in the United States with the Holocaust. It was not an outside country that intervened to stop slavery. It was abolished by Americans, by it's own civil society, eliminated by the country's own social progress.
Kay, you make good points (particularly about Von Braun) but keep in mind that I mentioned America's attitude with a useful Nazi scientist that indirectly had blood on his hands (Von Braun) and compared with the American attitude to a German engineer who was useless and also had blood on his hands (Albert Speer).
This is particularly useful information because Hugh mentioned that there were still Nazis walking unpunished (as if that was Germany's fault that they managed to flee the country). Well, one of those Nazis fled and worked for the American military and for the space agency.
I disagree with you regarding the Amerindian genocide. I don't think the two are that diferent (with the exception of the use of industrialization in the death factories by the Nazis), but that is my personal opinion.
An interesting sidenote to the above debate:
'New Year's orgy' at Holocaust memorial
New Year’s Eve celebrations held last Saturday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate pour into nearby Holocaust memorial. Wine bottles, empty packs of condoms left on some stones
Ronen Bergman
New Year’s Eve celebrations held last Saturday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate poured into the nearby Holocaust memorial, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
“The riled up masses drank, ate and sent massive amounts of fireworks into the air from in between the graves,” an Israel Air Force pilot who is currently visiting Germany said.
Following the celebrations, wine bottles, decorations and even empty packs of condoms were left on some of the stones.
Cleaning service employees were summoned to the scene, but it seems that clearing the memorial of the filth left behind may take a while.
4 slabs defaced with swastikas
Last November the same memorial was partly defaced with yellow Stars of David. A Berlin police spokesman said at the time that a star had been painted by unknown vandals onto each of six of the 2,711 concrete slabs of varying height that make up the memorial.
Under the Nazis, Jews had to wear yellow stars of David to distinguish themselves from so-called "Aryan" Germans.
A Berlin Police spokesman said that the stars, which were removed, may have been linked to a number of others found sprayed or painted onto buildings and monuments in central Berlin.
The memorial, which was officially unveiled in May in the heart of the German capital, is constantly under surveillance. It covers almost 20,000 square meters, allowing visitors to wander around its tight grid pattern.
Four of the slabs were defaced with swastikas shortly before a visit to Germany by President Moshe Katsav in June.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3194377,00.html
I think Hugh, as he sometimes tends to do, went overboard on this one. I am grateful to have so much insightful commentary from him all the time nevertheless. But there is sometimes a kind of emotionalism or ecstasy about his prose that leads him to flow out of himself into overly long (and convoluted) sentences on the verge of rant. Well, a certain quotient of 'rant' can be an important aspect of rhetorical power and charm, or even an aesthetic value, so I don't mean this entirely as a criticism.
Sure, criticize the Germans to the max about letting the terrorist go and trading for hostages and so on, criticize them about their other flaws, but it is absolutely absurd not to respect the way in which Holocaust memory has become so thoroughly integrated and institutionalized into so many domains of German life. I find that German accomplishment remarkable, admirable, and as moving as anything in the American democratic system (about which I am passionate) and something for which the Germans deserve some credit, even if that capacity for self-criticism had to be shoved down their throats by American tanks to begin with. Sixty years on, the Germans, like few people in history, show themselves still capable of radically self-critical memory of that horrific evil in their past. I'm sorry, but that is heroic, even if many other German behaviors today are not.
There is every sign the Germans will continue to remember, that the institutionalization of Holocaust memory in many aspects of German life --education and government in particular -- is permanent, as it should be. Given that admirable fact, I don't see the value in slamming over the head Germans who either were children or not even born during World War II!! Suppose it is stupid and selfish of today's Germans to be ungrateful to Americans about World War 2. Does that mean we should flog them over the head about the Holocaust?! I think that is benighted.
There is something brilliant and yet not quite sober about Hugh's sometimes logorrhetic prose. Probably I am too ungrateful in this post for what Hugh does, because I am extremely glad that he does it and does it so damn well.
All right, Cruzado, but please keep in mind that due to the particularly grisly nature of fighting the Indians pursued, resulting in deep horror and fear among the settlers, men expedited their war making upon the Indians with great enthusiasm. There were also many dead due to the illnesses they could not fight, especially smallpox. These days, Indians receive compensation for their losses, again, not forced by an outside authority, but by social conscience - progress in the United States by their own people.
"America’s shame of slavery and segregation is born from the same ideology that Nazism was born from.
In short, with this unbalanced article you have exposed yourself as a fool and a racist."
(raven)
Not on that account: America (as in the United States of) did not come into being until 1787, and wasn't on solid ground until after the rematch, the War of 1812.
It was a scant 30 years hence when the movement and demand for Emancipation began gaining momentum, and less than a generation later that Americans put their lives on the line to end, between our shores, an institution that had existed in all corners of the world throughout history.
And yes, of course, I recognize that slavery was not the foremost issue of our Civil War - State's Rights was the impetus that caused Southerners, most of whom were not slaveholders and so had no actual "dog in the fight," to take up arms against the "War of Northern Aggression."
But the point stands: When Yankees stopped being Europeans and became Americans, they changed the rules which had allowed tyranny to go unchecked throughout history.
We don't always get it right, and we've taken the wrong side in any number of skirmishes. But that doesn't detract from the simple truth that we are, still, the only nation which, as a people, really gives a damn about other nations and people, whether there's something in it for us or not.
Have to disagree with you on this one. Multiple European nations packed the Jews in train cars and sent them off.
There were many Germans who died because they wouldn't join the Nazi movement. It wasn't just Jews that paid the price. Any that opposed the Nazis paid the price. All types of entrepreneurs and scholars refused to join and paid with their lives. To not mention this fact is ridiculous.
Also, why wouldn't the current kids of Germany be like any other kids laughing and joking? Are they supposed to feel like the reason for the holocaust? That's absurd. That would be like me feeling like a slave master because I live in the South U.S.
Oh, and Hugh, have you ever taught a high school class? I have been an American high school teacher, and let's face it, occasional disrespect and silliness about everything and anything, however sacred -- sometimes the more sacred the better -- is certainly not uncommon among American teenagers, and is probably a common characteristic of teenagers in almost any advanced Western nation, not to mention many other places. In looking angrily upon the silliness of German teenagers, you are becoming way, way too joyless and humorless, and skirting the edge of ridiculousness. "Silly" is a part of what teenagers do, and shoulddo. Ever get away from your computer terminal and see puppies frisking? Would you grumble and grump and look with severe mien at gamboling puppies? For pete's sake, lighten up.
"All right, Cruzado, but please keep in mind that due to the particularly grisly nature of fighting the Indians pursued, resulting in deep horror and fear among the settlers, men expedited their war making upon the Indians with great enthusiasm. There were also many dead due to the illnesses they could not fight"
Yes, I am aware of that. The Indians were hardly the saints and disease caused way more deaths than gunpowder. However, I am also aware of the endless roll of peace treaties broken by the American government during the XIX century, as the settlers conquered the West.
I tried to find information about an Indian elder whose whole tribe had been exterminated in the late 1890s. His recorded voice (it was recorded around 1916, I believe) is the last record of a whole language. If that is not genocide, I don't know what is. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a site about this event, but I ended up finding information about the battle/massacre of Wounded Knee (with a few pictures).
http://www.nativeamericans.com/WoundedKnee.htm
"we did you may recall provide small pox to the native Americans" post by chickaloon
I have heard some whacky leftist revisionism that claims along this line that the early settlers in America engaged in deliberate germ warfare against the Indians (native Americans). This is so ridiculous, as the knowlege of microbes developed much later in history.
Regretably, most of the native American population declines resulted not from warfare but from death by contageous diseases. The early European settlers had developed extensive immunities from hundreds of years of plagues in Europe. When the native Americans were exposed to these various diseases, the diseases spread very rapidly, with disastrous results.
Since much of this happened before the American revolution, when the US was a mere colony of Europe, we are justified in blaming this on the Europeans. We may even be able to blame ....the Germans, as they were some of the earliest European inhabitants, as well as the English, Irish, Dutch, French etc.
If I am ever judged by the behavior of my two teenage sons I will be in deep doo-doo.
What strikes me as appearent in Hugh's post, is not so much that he is holding this generation of Germans responsible for the crimes of their forebears, but that he is saying that the majority of this generation of Germans have not substantially changed their thinking from that of their forebears. They are still Jew haters. They are cultivating close ties with their fellow Jew haters, the Muslims, and standing in line with the islamic world on nearly every issue. And it is because of their close ties with muslims that they can't be trusted. The new generation of Germans seem all too willing to fall back into the same pit that we drug their parents and grandparents out of.
If Germans want trust and people's good opinon then they should quit stabbing us in the back, they should quit making back room deals to support muslim causes, they should quit electing politicians who treat America as THE enemy (when you choose to align yourselves to "act as a counterweight to American power" instead of Soviet or islamic power, you are saying that we are your enemy), and all the other anti-American things they have done over the past 30 or 40 years that make it seem entirely plausible that another Kristallnacht (against Jews AND Americans this time) could happen at any given time in Germany (although this time Germans would be marauding shoulder to shoulder with their muslim friends.)
Yes I realize the difference between the German government and the German people, but the German people did elect their politicians so they do bear some responsibility for the actions of their politicians - particularly since as one poster noted, there has not been any protest of their government's actions in this case, nor any case, for that matter, where the German government has stabbed America in the back.
American,
Once again, I must ask you to read more carefully.
I did not ask you to hang on my words. Rather, I asked that you respond to what was said, rather than what you imagined was said, or what you wished was said because if it had been, you would have a snappy comeback.
This isn't an extraordinary request, but merely the basics of courtesy in carrying on any kind of discussion or debate.
As for the "Amherst was British" silliness, that's just the kind of ducking of responsibility that, again, makes my point. Why aren't Americans willing to say, "Yes, we have a checkered past as well as every other people on earth." The unabashed moral exceptionalism is not only alienating to the rest of the planet, it is also quite ahistorical. (The British and the "Americans" were only marginally distinct entities during the French and Indian war. Indeed, it was we who named a town after Amherst, not Britain.)
As you seem to acknowledge, whether you want to count Amherst as British (and believe that everyone complicit in the deed was also "British") doesn't change the larger point in the slightest. But this wanting to quibble over jesuitical details in an effort to wiggle America back onto the moral highground is precisely what you and Hugh are decrying in the Germans.
As for the Japanese nuke situation: yes, we seem to agree that it doesn't fall into exactly the same category. But there the agreement ends. It has long been an American just war principle--one of those things we hang our moral hat on--that we do not target civilian populations for destruction. We have been better than most nations in adhering to this principle. (I hope we agree on that.) Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden were all notable exceptions. It would be hard not to describe these departures--from a most noble principle--as moral failures.
"And if the German nation had a sickness in its soul, remember the boatloads of Jewish
refugees that were turned away from British and North American ports, only to return to
Europe and their doom. The public was silent."
Chatillon
Enough to remember the tragic story of the Jewish Polish MP, a representative of Bund in the Polish government in exile, Artur Szmul Zygielbojm. Before his suicide he wrote this memorable bitter confession:
"The Last Letter of Szmul Zygielbojm
To President W. Rackiewicz
To the Chairman of the Council of Ministers - W. Sikorski
I take the liberty of addressing to you my last words and through you to the Polish government and people, to the governments and peoples of the Allied states and to the conscience of the world...
The responsibility for the crime of murdering all the Jewish population in Poland falls, in the first instance, on the perpetrators, but indirectly it also burdens the whole of humanity, upon the peoples and governments of the Allied states that, so far, have made no effort towards a concrete action to put a stop to this crime...
I cannot remain silent. I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland whose representative I am are being exterminated. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto perished with their weapons in their hands in their last heroic battle. It was not my destiny to die as they did, together with them. But I belong to them and in their mass graves.
By my death I wish to make the strongest possible protest against the passivity with which the world is looking on and permitting the extermination of the Jewish people. I know how little human life is worth today, but as I was unable to do anything during my life, perhaps by my death I shall help to break down the indifference of those who have the possibility now, at the last moment to save those Polish Jews still alive, from certain annihilation.
My life belongs to the Jewish people in Poland and, therefore, I give it to them. I wish that the surviving remnants of the several millions of Polish Jews could live to see, with the Polish population, the liberation that it could know in Poland, in a world of freedom and in the justice of socialism. I believe that such a Poland will arise and that such a world will come.
I bid farewell to everybody and everything that was dear to me and that I have loved.
The Life and Death of Szmul Zygielbojm
Born in 1895 in Borowica, Poland, Szmul Zygielbojm was forced by poverty to start work in a factory at the age of 10. Later, when he was married with two children, he worked as a glovemaker. He educated himself intensively and developed a tremendous love for music, art, literature and theatre. Having joined the Bund (Jewish Socialist Party), he proved to be an excellent organiser and public speaker. He rose fast within the party and was elected to its central committee. He became the Secretary of the Metal Workers Union and represented the Jewish trades unions in the Executive of the Federation of all Trades Unions in Poland. In 1927 he was elected to Warsaw Town Council.
In 1936 Zygielbojm moved to Lodz, the most industrial town in Poland and home of its second largest Jewish community, where he was elected to the town council. The whole population took him to their hearts. When war broke out in 1939 he returned to Warsaw and helped to organise the defence of the city. When Warsaw was defeated the Nazis were hunting for Zygielbojm. The Bund's underground committee appointed him as the representative of the Jews under the Nazis, and smuggled him out of Poland so he could obtain help for them from governments outside. After a dangerous journey through Germany, he arrived in Brussels and addressed a conference of European Social Democratic parties. His detailed account of Nazi atrocities against the Jews made a devastating impact. One newspaper wrote: 'For the European people a new world appeared of which they did not know before... Zygielbojm revealed to the world, for the first time, the reality of this war.'
Zygielbojm continued his activities for Polish Jewry in America until 1942 when he became a member of the Polish Parliament-in-Exile, based in London. He urged the Polish government to persuade other governments to take steps to stop the annihilation of the Jews. Every report he received from Poland he sent to President Roosevelt and to other Allied leaders. He spoke on BBC radio. He tabled motions in the Polish Parliament-in-Exile urging the Allies to drop leaflets from planes over Germany telling of the atrocities and issuing strong warnings to the Germans. But all this was to no avail.
On 19 April 1943 the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto broke out. Three weeks later, Zygielbojm committed suicide in protest at the passivity with which the world was permitting the Nazis to destroy the Jews of Europe. In a letter found on his table, addressed to the President of Poland, he wrote: '...I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland, whose representative I am, are being exterminated.'
"Silly" is a part of what teenagers do, and should do. Ever get away from your computer terminal and see puppies frisking? Would you grumble and grump and look with severe mien at gamboling puppies? For pete's sake, lighten up."
-- from a posting above
Good God, I am constantly joking -- I have no need to lighten up, ever. If anything, I need to resist the clench, or any other kind of wordplay that so often beckons. I am constantly holding myself in check, not making a joke I would dearly love to make, for all kinds of reasons.
Silliness is one thing. But the "puppies frisking," as I sit there, fit only to "
grumple and grump and look with severe mien" at these "gamboling puppies" -- what's next as an example of cuteness? Cute little big-eyed Hummel figurines? The "art" of Thomas Kinkade? Entirely too Hallmark-cardish for my tastes.
But I'm not against silliness. I'm all for it. How many times have I batted back and forth over the Inter-net some silliness -- google "Underwood" and "Posted by Robert" and "Posted by Hugh" for one example. If it's Every Man In His Humour then at least 3 1/2 of my allotted four humours consist of different kinds of humor.
But along with silliness, as one variety, there is also such a thing as decorum. In clothes, in fit choice of words, in demeanor, in attitude. Six-year-olds being silly -- anywhere -- is one thing. Sixteen-year-olds being silly, when taken on what should be a solemn trip to Auschwitz, as part of studying the grim subject and coming to grips with it, who instead go and laugh their heads off (presumably in the possible presence of people who may even have had relatives or acquaintances murdered there) is quite another.
I see a difference. I hope you do too.
I too would like to chime in with thanks to the peerless Mr. Fitzgerald -- Pedagogy aside, the anti-Jihad message must compete with myriad other messages out there-- most are far more edifying than any pornographic discussions about the pervert "prophet" fiddling with girls in the bathtub, or observations of the vicious glee which Muslims take in, say, the death of Sharon, the chopping off of hands, feet, and heads, or their fervent yearning for the wholesale slaughter and extermination of "infidels"... So, keep up the good work JW and JW readers and posters! Even if the threads sometime devolve into petty paroxyms... If the true message about Islam gets out, then GOOD GOOD GOOD!
No one is saying America has no 'checkered past'. However we are saying that we self-correct. And, the incidents of slavery and Indian wars do not compare with the Holocaust, where men created huge extermination camps and worked men and women to death for profit.
And yes, we are judged by what our children do. We have a responsibility to raise our children to be excellent citizens of society. That is correct and proper. I am surprised anyone would deny it.
GFB,
I'd like to see some sources for your assertions that America did not commit genocide--or at the very least, ethnic cleansing--against native Americans.
The small pox episode seems to be pretty well documented with original correspondence of the participants. See the url in my original post. I'm certainly open to rebuttals of this evidence if its out there. (I'm not a scholar of this particular domain.)
But more particularly, do you deny that, say, the Trail of Tears ever happened? Do you claim that all of the western tribes, whose battle with Americans came long after the colonial period, simply were not there? That the Dakotas, the plains indians, the Navajo, the northwest tribes did not in fact live throughout regions that are now devoid of them? That these areas are devoid of them primarily because of the superiority of American weaponry and military tactics? Do you deny that tribes were moved repeatedly from reservation to (ever-smaller) reservation?
Or is it just that these things don't seem all that bad to you? Maybe there is a lingering sense of Manifest Destiny in the American psyche. Maybe we haven't change all that much from the people who ethnically cleansed the nation of Natives.
Isn't that basically what Hugh is saying about the Germans?
I don't doubt you are capable of silliness and much wit. But you sometimes seem to get yourself into a bit of a fanatic and humorless clench, as can happen to highly opinionated people with an artistic soul. Your tone now is suddenly light, but in the original post you were, in my view, off balance. It is humorless, extremely dubious and just plain out-of-touch to use the mere fact of teen irreverence as justification for a condemnation of supposedly widespread, damnable, characteristics of German culture.
But I feel a bit like a puny ankle biter here. It is easy for me to criticize and much harder for you to do what you do -- be productive and authoritatively knowledgeable. If I criticize, it is meant to help you do even better what I could never do 1/100th as well.
my last post was addressed to Hugh, though I forgot to say so then
"Individuals, as well as societies, should be responsible for their own behavior, and not
that of their forefathers. For those elderly Germans who are still alive, I hold them
responsible for the Nazi experience. For those Germans who came of age after WWII, I do not."
GFB - I can't agree more. I had the privilege of knowing a very special German girl, a member of Aktion Sühnezeichen Friendensdienste (Akcja Znaku Pokuty) - which means in English Action for Repentance (in the literal translation). She spent a whole year working as a volunteer in Poland, helping disabled people. She was one of the designers and the soul of a project commemorating a little Jewish boy murdered in Majdanek. She collaborated with the famous Teatr NN and Brama Grodzka to stage an event honoring the little boy. Here is her site devoted to Henio:
http://tnn.pl/henio/contact.php
http://tnn.pl/henio/bio.php
http://tnn.pl/henio/main.php
There are Germans like her.
I don't like to be 1) Misquoted and 2) Tu Quoque -- mention of every American misdeed,the kind of things some people are all too ready to do but I never expected it here, as a defense against supposed attacks on "all" Germans for "all" time.
I didn't attack all Germans for all time. I listed quite a number whose names, apparently, mean nothing to any of those who were so quick to find fault with me. Who was Marian Donhoff? Who was Reck-Malekzewen? Do you think I am unaware of the Scholl siblings? Or of Willy Brandt in Norway? Or of all kinds of Germans who ended up in Buchenwald? Or of all the Germans who left Germany out of disgust, such as Thomas Mann and Joseph Schacht? Why do so many people fail to read, and comprehend, what is actually written, and then attack something that hasn't been written, hasn't been thought, and that siimply gets their dander up because -- because why? Are we supposed to pretend that the German history is just like that of, say, the Italians? Well, it isn't, and we all know it, and we know why we think there are special considerations in the case of Germany,and why we react with suspicion when Germans insist that there is a point beyond which all this talk about the past should end, and those who do not are vicious, cruel, or as one absurd commentator put it above, the work only of a "fool and a racist."
There is no scadenza on this matter. Of course there are millions of perfectly acceptable Germans. Including some whose fathers may have been in the Wehrmacht. But that does not mean that in discussing Germany, qua Germany, we are supposed to tip-toe around the one thing that all sensible people cannot help thinking of, when they think of Germany.
And will continue to do so.
I batted back and forth over the Inter-net some silliness ...
I hate to be pedantic, but you can't bat it back and forth, otherwise you'd have to run round the other side. You have to bat it and someone has to bat it back to you.
And what's with the hyphen in 'inter-net'? That's a bit Mary Daly ("dis-cover" etc).
I can't abide silliness, cyber or otherwise, and would like to see a law against it. Give New Labour time.
No one is saying that the Americans settlers didn't conquer the land. However, it was similar to the many, many other conflicts throughout history again and again. Conquered lands is not a singular situation. The Indians had the means to fight back, however unmatched.
There are still not comparable, chickaloon, to the mass and systematic murder of a civilian population done during a modern and progressive society! These people had no means to fight back.
Kay,
As I said many times above: I would never posit moral equivalence between the Holocaust and atrocity(a-n), mostly because such comparison are wrong, but also because they are hopelessly difficult to make in any event.
What I will keep saying here until it gets acknowledged is that Hugh's original post is off the mark in a couple of respects:
1) Germans aren't unique in wanting to shrug off their nation's past moral turpitude.
2) My Lai is as far from being America's worst atrocity as Kristalnacht is from being Germany's.
3) The denial implicit in #2 of the seriousness of other past American wrongs is proof of #1.
Other than that I don't disagree with his more salient points.
Why do I keep yammering on then? Because I think Americans DO have the same problem as the Germans: we never can seem to remember the worst episodes of our history and like to quibble and downplay them when reminded.
Instead, we should respond with an unequivocal shame and a voiced desire to do better in the future. It makes me uncomfortable that I don't hear that--from either Americans or Germans.
Yes, the Holocaust is worse that our sins in various respects, but that is rather orthogonal to the point: people who don't acknowledge their misdeeds and guilt are likely to commit those misdeeds again. (Especially those who think it IMPOSSIBLE that they could commit them again.)
For instance, why doesn't anyone say, Oh yeah, it's true that Slavery and Native genocide are far worse than My Lai and yes we do tend to downplay those things in the national psyche, but the points about Germany still stand. That, at any rate, would be honest and accurate.
Hugh:
I'm not sure what your point is aside perhaps from some face-saving.
I agree heartily with you that the German government's motivations in releasing the murderer of Stethem are unclear, with a range of disturbing interpretations. But when you use terms like "permanent probation," as applied to societies, well I reckon that's just plumb loco, Partner. Are you saying that societies don't change? There's ample evidence that they do. Is there anywhere in the West that has the same society as it had 50 years ago? Is this a rhetorical question?
Politics, however, remain remarkably the same from era to era. Hitler and his bully boys stampeded a weakened, frightened and starved nation into a course of action that offered to restore prosperity and dignity and also determined who the culprits for German misery were. Sound familiar? Well it should. Lenin and his boys used the same technique in Russia, only instead of "Jew" they used the label "class enemy." In either case, it was the psychopaths running the government who were the arbiters of exactly who fit the label. There is a formula 1) provide simple answers to complex problems 2) identify a common enemy to close ranks against 3) shear the sheep.
I don't know about you, but this puts a chill down my spine and not the type that makes me feel all romantic. There is a very real threat from unfettered Islam and yet some of the solutions to this problem that I have heard from time to time smack of resurgent fascism. It doesn't help at all when the President of the United States calls Islam the religion of peace, is seen holding hands with the leader of a hostile power and engages in a military adventure of doubtful usefulness to his nation. It also doesn't reassure one to recall that his grandfather plead no contest to the United States Senate on charges of trading with the enemy during World War II. The specific enemy in that case was Nazi Germany.
The point I make is this: bad things happened in Germany, not because the people there are Germans and somehow, morally deficient and inherently subhuman, fit only for permanent probation, but because the people there allowed themselves to be stampeded and looked for easy answers to complex problems. Germany is a cautionary tale for every country in the world. Govern yourselves accordingly.
#1.
"you sometimes seem to get yourself into a bit of a fanatic and humorless clench
#2.
"Your tone now is suddenly light, but in the original post you were, in my view, off balance. It is humorless..."
#3. [Your original article was] just plain out-of-touch to use the mere fact of teen irreverence as justification for a condemnation of supposedly widespread, damnable, characteristics of German culture.
-- all from a posting above
#1.
A "fanatic"? And why do you borrow the word "clench" and misapply it? It means a "pun" and I had prepared the ghround for its use today by using it in a previous posting about Dryden objecting to Shakespeare's "clenches." One cannot get oneself
"into a clench." One makes clenches just as one makes a pun, or Dryden might say, one commits a clench.
#2.
"off-balanced" and "humorless"? Is that the conclusion a fair-minded reader would come to from reading the original posting-turned-article? That the writer is unhinged, because he dares to tell certain home truths that are impolite to tell, makes certain observations, and is, withal, most indignant? Is becoming outraged at certain things a sign of someone being "off-balanced" and "humorless"? By the way, I think the liveliness of the prose in that article belies your charge of humorlessness. I see the sentences, even a single summing-up phrase like "backpacked-and-water-bottled" as a Keatsian compound epithet is instinct with humor.
#3. "Teen irreverence"? What is this, some television show with Ron Howard and Henry Winkler? "Teen"? High school Jim carrying high school Jane's books home from school, or perhaps a night at the Hop, with the gym so beautifully transformed by streamers into a magical dance-hall, and the chaperones (Mr. Murphy and Miss Feinbaum) checking the punch bowls. Is this 1954? This is where I came in.
You seem to think the comment on the behavior of certain German high school students visiting death-camps leads to a "condemnation of supposedly widespread, damnable, characteristics of German culture."
No, it doesn't, and it didn't. It was an observation, connected to the failure, in my view, to thoroughly and continually instruct young Germans in the Nazi past, on the hopeful assumption -- my hope, my assumption -- that if they had such instruction, of the right, heartfelt kind, they could not possibly behave in such a matter. What "widespread, damnable, characteristics of German culture" was I supposedly condemning? Name one. There were no "characteristics of German culture" I was condemning.
But since the little matter of "German culture" has been raised, those who are such stout defenders of the worst in German history, while I am most interested in the best, should give me their own notion of "German culture." I have the feeling that not one of them knows why I went out of my way to mention both von Humboldts, but especially Alexander von Humboldt, as the summit of German culture, and that many of those enraged with me haven't the faintest idea of what constitutes German culture, or why it matters.
But I'm prepared to be pleasantly disabused of that assumption.
I think, more specifically, a clench is a dirty pun or innuendo...
chickaloon writes:
"As for the "Amherst was British" silliness, that's just the kind of ducking of responsibility that, again, makes my point. Why aren't Americans willing to say, "Yes, we have a checkered past as well as every other people on earth." The unabashed moral exceptionalism is not only alienating to the rest of the planet, it is also quite ahistorical. (The British and the "Americans" were only marginally distinct entities during the French and Indian war. Indeed, it was we who named a town after Amherst, not Britain.)"
Perhaps you're forgetting the context of the
discussion, that being German war crimes?
Americans, as a polity did not vote for
Amherst, or Bouquet, or he French, or either of
their policies. The Germans voted Hitler, who
made his intentions vis-a-vis the Jews, at
least, clear. In that respect, there is no
comparing these two. I'm not holding Germans
responsible for pre-Bismarck human rights
violations, of which there were many.
But let's assume for the sake of discussion that
Amherst, and the French, who commit their share of atrocities, are American. Was there an official
policy, widely acknowledged, of an attempt to
destroy the Indians (regardless of tribe) as a
race? Was My Lai official US policy?
Also, it's a bit hypocritical to call me jesuitical and then go off about "just war theory"
which is, in war, just that, a theory. Yes, it
sounds nice, and as a guideline to adhere to,
it makes sense, but in real wars, I would not
wish to be bound by it. So, yes, we disagree.
"those who are such stout defenders of the worst in German history"
I wasn't aware that anyone in this thread had defended the Holocaust.
"I don't like to be 1) Misquoted"
Neither does anyone.
"2) Tu Quoque"
I like "J'accuse", but unfortunately in this particular case you are no Emile Zola.
Why can't you admit that you got carried away and went too far?
Because I think Americans DO have the same problem as the Germans: we never can seem to remember the worst episodes of our history and like to quibble and downplay them when reminded.
===================
Oh, I don't know about that. I think we remember and deal quite generously with the victims of our past sins through affirmative action, equal opportunity, recompense, and other legislation we have enacted.
However, as long as men continue to covet those things that belong to others, as long as ambition lives among us, as long as there are haves and have-nots, we will have wars.
So, I cannot regret the concept that when Americans are threatened, it will be met with overwhelming force by our government. Not a European idea, I know, but it does make me feel safe
The nazi era lasted only twelve years (1933-1945) The people responsible for the holocaust are either dead or in nursing homes. Why continue to shame the Germans for the holocaust.
Was it terrible? Yes. Should the Germans continue to be taught in school that dictatorships, concentration camps, and genocide are horrible, and that the Germans should do everything in their power to make sure none of the above happen again on German soil. Yes.
>>The monstrous E.U. bureaucracy with its regulations owes its development in part, as one British observer noted in "Encounter" long ago, to the psychological need of Germans in the 1960s to identify themselves not as "Germans" but as "Europeans.">And certainly the Germans, the chief beneficiaries of NATO's preventing a Red Army advance further into Europe, have never paid anything like what its economic condition -- ordinary Germans live far better than do Americans should have required of it.>It is intolerable that the German government believed it had the right to free a murderer of an American serviceman in order to get back a German convert to Islam, who had lived in Iraq for years, married (and divorced) an Iraqi, and apparently had gone as islamically native as one possibly could.>Only a handful of war criminals -- out of hundreds of thousands directly involved in the mass murders of Jews, gypsies, and others -- were punished, with ridiculously short jail terms.
American,
I stopped short of invoking the full "just war theory" precisely because I didn't want to go down a rat hole.
I wanted to focus on an American principle, which we culturally have shared with the academic tradition of the just war theory:namely, do not target civilian populations for destruction; also, do not use massive civilian casualties in order to break the will of your adversary.
This latter proscription is known more widely today as "terrorism."
The fact that you absolve yourself and your nation of any responsibility to abide by these principles means--I can't think of how it can be otherwise--that you believe terrorism is a legitimate means of warfare.
Thus, it seems pointless to discuss Germany's or any other nation's wrongs with you.
Kay,
I don't disagree that we've done many things to be proud of in America, including some of the ways in which we've responded to past wrongs.
But my point remains even now: when confronted with the uncomfortable chapters, Americans--and you are a perfect example of this--immediately start talking about how other countries are worse, or how that was a long time ago, or how we've done other good things, or how we've compensated people well, etc, etc.
All of these things may be true, but they are not the response of a party that is truly penitant for its wrongs.
The Germans can also give you a litany of good things done by the German state--including the laws against holocaust denial, etc, etc. However, I think Hugh is right: the Germans still have what we politely refer to as "issues."
So do we. And ours, while perhaps more modest, are all the more important because of our global power. Look through this site and find the postings advocating the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq/Iran etc and you'll see what I mean.
Annihilation of enemy populations should remain exclusively an Islamic goal. It has no place in a Christian or a civilized non-sectarian state. Thus, it is important to remember that we--even we just Americans--have dehumanized opponents in the past, and in the future may have grave incentive to do it again.
But my point remains even now: when confronted with the uncomfortable chapters, Americans--and you are a perfect example of this--immediately start talking about how other countries are worse, or how that was a long time ago, or how we've done other good things, or how we've compensated people well, etc, etc.
==========
No, actually, we begin by talking about bad behavior of other countries. Then, as a defense, others begin attacking America's past, ie slavery, Vietnam, native Indians. Then, Americans feel compelled to remark upon that these aspersions.
Remember, the original conversation is about Germany's release of a terrible terrorist, who will continue jihad and kill many others. Then, this conversation evolved into "America, you can't complain about it because you are worse..."
Well, that is wrong. We can and will complain when countries release Al Qaeda who should be behind bars. Negotiating with terrorists is reprehensible.
chickaloon writes:
"Thus, it seems pointless to discuss Germany's or any other nation's wrongs with you."
And the same to you to!
All of these things may be true, but they are not the response of a party that is truly penitant for its wrongs.
==================
The reponse of a party that is penitent is to overturn the injustice, provide restitution, and prevent the repetition of their mistakes.
From what I can see, we have done so. There is compensation for all these wrongs and there are no repeats.
We do not fight indigents for their land so that we can increase our borders, we do not enslave anyone, we fight for racial equality, and we continue to compensate the victims of our greed.
That is true penitence.
Maybe the Germans, with their penchant for ground-breaking technological arcana, implanted a nano GPS tracking device in Ali Hammadi before releasing him back to the waiting arms of Hezbollah in Lebanon?
In case they have not, I have already sent a protest to the German embassy and an email to Pres. Bush ...for him to protest this betrayal of an ally when the new Chancellor hits D.C.
For what murdered Navy Diver Robert Stethem's family has to say about this shameful mess check out:
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2006/01/catch-and-release.html
I am fascinated that Hugh's post on Germany has brought so many diverse opinions to bear. I'm kind of agnostic on many of the issues involved here. My father would never set foot in Germany. Too painful for him. I stepped foot into Germany with relish and found the people interesting and friendly. My personal opinion only. I met many young Germans in Israel who I think did some sort of work as volunteers in Israel in their teenage years. They liked it and were well accepted by Israel. Israel and Germany have good relations with one another today. Not perfect, but not bad either. One cannot blame one generation for the sins of their parents. I don't think anybody is saying this. I think the issue of the shoah(holocaust)is a sort of taboo subject in Germany today. Perhaps it is humiliation that the country that brought forth such a high culture also brought forth something entirely different. Then you have heros such as the current pope who I think left his service against the law in WWII? I think this is right. And the last Pope in(at the time antisemetic Poland)risked his life to save the jews. This subject is very personal for me as well, but not for exterior reasons of heritage or the like. One of the first books I read was Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of Europe Jews. As a kid I was fascinated by this topic and stories my dad told me about Europe. Now as an adult. I look at the issue differently. It's easy for me to criticize or praise what somebody did many years ago. But put in their shoes . . . . I'm not so sure. Would I risk life and my families' life to save or hide a minority in my house?(should a holocaust occur here). I'd like to saw yes, but who knows. There was a book about the psychology of people who sheltered Jews during the war. Suprisingly, they were just as much likely to be antisemetic or doctors or teachers or blue colar ect...Bottom line, nobody knows who will act as Oscar Schindler or Himmler until you are put into this situation. I'm getting way off topic and don't want to. I think the Iranian thug in chief is bringing up the holocaust now precisely because he wants to sow seeds of dissention into the forground. Raul Hilberg states the holocaust was simply the final step of christian-jewish relations, but that is such a pessimstic view that history has, I believe, determined that he's dead wrong on this issue. I think that Nazism was and is an abberation of the German's character. The Weimeir republic or the Germany of today is so opposite of what Hitler stood for in his 12 years. I see no historical paralel in German history for Hitler and his ilk. Let us not forget the Germans who gave their life trying to kill Hitler(and died for it) or how Hitler also wasted his own soldiers like cattle on the Eastern front. Indeed, thankfully, the fascist period in Europe's history was fleeting. Having said all that, I'm still disgusted by their coddling to terrorists today, but I feel that this is par for the course . . . from Chirac to Blair(and even W) . . . a bending over backwards to appease terrorists ect.
I'm not gonna bother.
Except, THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE OF THE INDIANS !!
IT WAS WAR. wE DID not try to exterminate them.
They got a hell of a good deal for having lost a war-- look at ALL THE FRICKEN LAND IN THE USA WE LET THEM HAVE.
We won, they lost, such is life.
Regarding Hugh's use of "clench". Maybe you are using a British dictionary or something. My 1999 Random House Webster's Collegiate has, among others, the following definitions for clench: vt. 1: to close (the hands, teeth, etc.) tightly; n. 5: the act of clenching. 6: a tight hold.
Thus to speak of Hugh at times getting into something like a "fanatic clench" may not be the most felicitous phrase, and it may be unfairly exaggerating, but I can't see it as a misuse, as you claim.
I didn't mean to suggest, Hugh, that you were literally insane or unhinged, but merely that sometimes there might be a subtle quality of fanaticism (or let me say, reminiscent of fanaticism) that enters your prose at times and that seems evinced in the way you are carried along by a wave of passion. Specifically, it manifests in the way your prose flows forth like a waterfall falling from a great height. This quality has its virtues, but its disadvantage is that the "falling" part indicates that your thought process is partly driven by a certain quality of ecstasy, a certain dionysian element of "letting yourself go," which is to say your style is not entirely a sober one. (Sobriety need not exclude humor, or course.) The French philosophers have sometimes raised dionysian prose into a high art, though I suspect they have not been entirely conscious of what they were doing. I think this quality of your prose is not uncommon to the eloquent and poetic thinker -- but if it is used, it should be used consciously. That, however, is unlikely as its very essence is that it involves a certain surrender to, and even celebration of, unconsciousness. It is a subtle undertone of linguistic or conceptual ecstasy that has something quite involuntary and nondeliberative about it. There is a "leap before you look" quality in it. It is more like the total giving of himself by an impassioned lover, than it is like the calm circumspection of the scientist.
As for your response to the teen question, well, maybe.
Kentim, you are sadly ignorant.
And by German "culture," Hugh, I did not mean to refer to people like Humboldt or Goethe -- I meant to refer to current German attitudes and behaviors, which seemed in your piece above to be rather generally condemned, insofar as you displayed such a strongly vituperative mood toward Germans throughout the piece. One could be pardoned for getting from the ariticle the impression that you dislike Germans. I am glad you love the good parts of German culture.
As for the word humorless, I didn't mean to apply it to you in general -- your prose is rather awesomely playful and witty -- I was referring to certain aspects of the stances you take.
cruzado,
On a tangent, but in the interest of attention to a loose end (you wrote: "His recorded voice (it was recorded around 1916, I believe) is the last record of a whole language."): perhaps you were referring to Ishi, the subject of the book, "Ishi in Two Worlds" by Theodora Kroeber. Theodora Kroeber was the wife of Alfred Kroeber, a University of California anthropologist (and I think they were the parents of author Ursula K(roeber) LeGuin), and friend of Ishi, the last Yahi. I read the book years ago, but just glanced through it again. Your characterization of "genocide" by America really misses the history of the Yana/Yahi people, and their collision with 19th century America. Perhaps you should read that whole book again. If you were not referring to Ishi, I apologize for the error.
But not all cultural interactions, even when one group disappears, are planned, organized, intentional and ideologically driven genocides, which was the Holocaust by the nazis. And that is not to excuse the myriad acts, over hundreds of years, by other Amerindians, by Europeans, by Mexicans, and by Americans, which resulted in the discovery in 1911, of Ishi by Alfred Kroeber and his colleagues.
Even if all collisions between vastly different cultures were "genocides", that you bring the issue up, in a form of the Tu Quoque (you too) fallacy, is perhaps what irritates Mr. Fitzgerald and others on this thread. His criticisms of nazi behavior, and some current German behavior, stand independent of any criticizable behavior by Americans with respect to the Amerindians. Bringing in such issues as the conflicts between European origin groups and Amerindians obfuscates, rather than clarifies the discussion. That this particular obfuscation is also typical of various muslim apologists and other propagandists, rankles as well. Which is not to say that I view your writing as: in bad faith. It is merely wrong, here, on this thread.
SR,
You are sadly PC-indoctrinated. Oh, yes------ you are.
*scans through topic*
See, this is why I hope that sometime in the near future, Germany is disassembled, piece by piece, into warlord and tribal states (long live Alemannia).
The PC perspective is the "real truth" ABSOLUTELY-FOREVER AND EVER!!!!
not.
"The white man may have taken my land. But he took it like a warrior, fair and square. Yes, he treated my people harshly. But he never denied their bravery, never besmirched their memory as warriors."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1950
EO (but not Eugene Onegin)--
1. "Clench" in Dryden's time meant "pun." As in the phrase, "Dryden is said to have complained of Shakespeare's 'comic wit degenerating into clenches.'" Pun, wordplay, paronomasia, and nothing else, was what was meant. See OED.
2. "Ecstasy"? I would be more ecstatic if I had time even to correct the typos and tame those writhing anacolutha, the result of posting at Mach-3 speed. But the word is welcome; cf. Updike's asymptotic-to-the-truth review-remark: "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically." Company to keep.
3. There is a difference, isn't there, between Alexander von Humboldt (see the review in the TLS earlier this year of a book on A. v. H.) and those who ran Germany, who helped to form Germany, who represented many Germans (no, Hitler was not some lone madman, but a tireless giver of speeches, and everyone knew what he was all about, and many still loved him, were mesmerized with him, still cannot quite forget his old black magic that they knew so well), from 1933-1945, and almost none of the murderers were punished appropriately (a grand total of 11 people, I think, were hung at Nuremberg). About Hitler one wishes to invoke Karl Kraus, who early in the 1930s remarked: "About Hitler I have nothing to say." Those offended and expressing their feelings along the thread have, in many cases, no real interest in, or knowledge of, the products of German culture. More Oktoberfest than the Library of Wolfenbuttel. (I'm still hoping someone will read the memoirs of Reck-Maleczewen as a result -- let's see). But they know what they don't like, and what they don't like is anything reminding anyone about those bad old days, or suggesting that the Germans even now cannot quite so complacently insist that that is all a closed book, Martin-Walser style. No, it isn't. And those whose manner of dealing with my rude remarks, apparently spoiling a few parties, and whose idea of rebuttal is the Tu-Quoque, in which the American Indians and slavery are trotted out to demonstrate that we, those Americans (my, how thin the veneer of friendliness to the United States turns out to be in some cases -- a useful lesson), are just as bad as the beastly Nazis because just look -- just look at the Ho Chi Minh trail. Well, the American government, and most Americans, never say that things are "behind us." We lead the world in tolerating, and indeed encouraging, all kinds of self-criticism. We are on the receiving end of far more than we ever deserved, and much of it comes from people who, as their method of argument demonstrates, have no moral right to criticize us. I don't like anti-Americanism. It makes the fur on my Davey-Crockett coonskin cap stand on end. It makes the smoke from my placid peace-pipe curl into disturbing patterns.
As for your reference to a "certain surrender to, and even celebration of, unconsciousness" --not possible. Problem is, I don't possess an "unconscious." Never have, never will. On the assumption that I'd been missing something, I tried to find it, but nothing turned up. The mental cupboard wasn't exactly bare, but there was no hidden or trap door with a treasure-trove hidden behind or under or within, just waiting to be discovered. So what you see is what you get. You know the old joke. Deep down inside, I'm shallow.
To end on a cheerful note, is the brand-new item from Reuters cut-and-pasted below. If one of those agents mentioned was Osthoff herself, then the third possibility described in the original article above, the one which would possibly have justified the German government's release of Hamadi and paying a ransom be justifiable -- may be the real story. I don't know.
Here's what Reuters offers:
"BERLIN (Reuters) - German spies in Baghdad helped U.S. warplanes strike at least one target during the 2003 Iraq war despite Berlin's statements it was not involved in the conflict, German media reported on Thursday.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and NDR television said two agents of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency remained in Iraq throughout the war, supplying U.S. counterparts with information.
"They gave us direct support. They gave us information for targeting," NDR quoted a former U.S. military official as saying in a preview of a programme to be broadcast later on Thursday."
I naturally hope it's true. And just as naturally, if it is true, this does not require me, or prompt me, to change anything else in what I wrote either in the original piece, or in assorted replies to criticism along the thread. No agenbite of inwit here.
Gosh darn Hugh:
One comes back at night after a morning posting and finds so many prima donnas, all insulted, and threatening to leave and never come back; me suspects that you have been cruel to so many fair maidens, who will leave and abandon JW and one will bereft of so much pulchritude and fair spirits.
Where is the fair Elizabeth and the softer voices ?
Top of your game, brother.
Humour is another quiver for the bow.
That the nerve Hugh has struck here is still so raw clearly serves to underline his point. I cannot bring myself to visit Germany for precisely the reasons he suggests. They're not that different to the reasons why I'd also avoid an islamic country. As individuals they may be no more culpable than me, but as a collective conscience - they're still not one of "us" - the Allies. Not yet. What they failed to achieve militarilly they continue to pursue economically. Even in the south of France, I cannot escape the feelings of being in Collaborator country. As I pass through a town, I wonder how many homes and businesses were appropriated from their hapless Jewish owners never to be returned. There is a custom among some Catholics there, at Christmas, to light a candle hidden inside a cupboard in memory of their lost jewish heritige, their families having converted to save themselves no more than two or three generations ago.
As I pass a group of Sunday huntsmen gathering at a woods edge, old boys in orange caps, shotguns slung over their arms, I can't help but wonder what their fathers and grandfathers were shooting at just over 60 years ago. On reaching a hilltop in the Pyrenees, and finding an old Nazi radio communications station, its concrete walls overgrown but unscathed, or, in a woodland glade, a memorial chapel in honour of the brave Partisans, full to the brim with freshly cut flowers, how can one say these things have passed? "Enough is Enough! Move on" (Cruzado)? Like the man says, "It is there, in the air, permanently - The past isn't even past". Probation Indeed.
My sincerest apologies to anyone this offends, but Hugh is right. Us Allies have as much right to feel wary as the old Axis countries have to feel guilt. The greater offence would be to ignore the reflections of history on current affairs. His points are pertinent, and it is disingenuous to detract from these issues with relativist objections about unrelated wrongs, American, Russian or otherwise.
Some of the bizzare comments above, from posters I otherwise admire, are bewildering. Were it not for this site, and Hugh in particular, I would be wholly ignorant of the close links between Islam and Old Europe, not to mention much else besides.
"They gave us direct support. They gave us information for targeting," NDR quoted a former U.S. military official as saying in a preview of a programme to be broadcast later on Thursday."
I naturally hope it's true. And just as naturally, if it is true, this does not require me, or prompt me, to change anything else in what I wrote either in the original piece, or in assorted replies to criticism along the thread. No agenbite of inwit here.
Hear! Hear! A thorny issue, deftly handled. As always.
Of all the reasons to opposes the EU, Hugh's is one of the most bizarre. Certainly one of the most disturbing.
It's always amusing to see what comes out of the woodwork following a controversial post. Apparently some are still frightened by blonde German children exercising. Eerie stuff indeed.
So, in terms of the struggle to save ourselves from Islam, Germany screwed up. And even insulted America. But golly gosh, Hugh Fitzgerald reads no less than the rise of the Fourth Reich into it.
The Jane Fonda "special" about early Americans having deliberately provided Indians with Smallpox via germ-laden blankets is hogwash.
Prior to the late 19th century, we didn't have a clue about germs and contagion, other than observation of the contagious quality of persons afflicted with Bubonic Plague or some such. Nor, other than a superstitious reluctance to own a dead person's property, that their blankets or garments might be infected.
IF Smallpox was inadvertantly given to some Indians via infected blankets, it would have been not as a malicious act, but essentially one of chairitable impulse combined with a superstition about retaining such items for the settlers' families own use.
As late as the 1870s, Florence Nightingale and her nursing followers were still attempting to persuade doctors to at least wash their hands and cover their dirty clothing before doing surgery.
It was during the Crimean War (1853-56) that Nightingale had observed that injured and post-surgical soldiers left to recuperate near latrine areas and in mud-and-dirt surroundings, had a much, much worse recovery average than similarly wounded soldiers removed to cleaner quarters.
She surmised, correctly, that the dirt itself was an important factor in high mortality rates, but she was unable to convince her superiors -- the doctors in charge -- that it made a difference.
Fitzgerald is a Nazi himself and devaluates Jihadwatch
He has just outed himself as a completely clueless wanna-be Goebbels by delivering a fascinating amount of lies and half-truths which form an interesting piece of German-bashing propaganda that deserves further scrutiny.
A key requirement of Nazism is the stereotyping of people, whole cultures, countries and religions for the purpose of debasing and vilifying them. The aim is to produce prejudices that amalgamate into fixed sets of belief which can be activated if required, without the need for any personal experience with the defamed group whatsoever.
Fitzgerald has obviously felt a urgent desire to do just that in order to curse and despise all Germans. Appropriating the Nazi-concept of "Sippenhaft" (clan liability) even to future generations he managaged to use the blueprint of the 3rd-Reich-German´s "Eternal Jew"-concept and created the "Eternal Nazi-German".
This is really interesting, what are his personal problems?!
He deems this as an appropriate way to show his moral and civilising superiority and lecture "the Germans" on their "eternal" moral deficiency.
Germans, relax! There is no need to feel insulted, by such a boob, be proud of your nation! Let´s have a closer look at his botch.
He constantly praises himself unctuously how the "educated world" (meaning himself) "regards the Germans" while the "educated world" (he) is not even able to spell the name of writer Martin Walser correctly. Fitzgerald falsely takes Walsers´s complaint of "being beaten over the head about the Holocaust" as being representative of Germany´s public opinion instead of what it is: the utterance of a disgruntled 79 year old who will not convince many in his remaining few years.
This is an abominable contrast to a century ago, when the US "educated world", was at least able to spell foreign names correctly, not to speak of appraising the literary scene in foreign countries correctly and mastering at least one foreign language.
A Walzer is something to walz on, Walser is something to read (or not).
Himself the funny guy, Fitzgerald confirms his ineptitude by contriving "German-English"-sentences of the "Walzer" populace like "Yes, ve are all Europeans now, aren't ve? The old days do not matter. Ve haf put the past behind us. It is the only vay ve Europeans can stand up to the American hegemony, ja?" When disability meets prejudice, it is a sight to behold, but this actually the standard of Fitzgerald´s German-language capability. The educated guess is that Fitzgerald is not able to form a coherent sentence in any foreign language - even with strong American accent.
He has arcane warnings in store, how a German dominated Europe threatens to "efface more and more what makes Italy Italy, or France France" and threatens to extinguish non-German products into a big German mess. The funniest thing about that picture is the fact that it is obviously meant as an appeal to non German European readers to join and break into this absurd song. Nice trial balloon.
But the German-contrived Euro-Horror doesn´t stop here: "the sense of the nation-state will dissolve, and with it national languages and national literatures, and national self-consciousnesses, all sacrificed for the Big Market" and presumably a greater Germania."
Sorry Sir, the sense of nation-state is surging in Europe, the people are fed up with a stronger EU and a constitution that forces them into something nobody wants (including the Turkish EU-Membership). The future of the EU is a bond of fatherlands that cultivate and enjoy their cultural differences. Everybody who says otherwise has not the slightest inkling of what is going on.
Though the US once invented the economics of scale (and rightly so) Fitzgerald even abandons this most rational of all economic American tenets, the belief in free economic enterprise and the ensuing economics of scale, in order to present them as a "German" threat against Europe. Free economic competition has to be abandoned if it leads to German success. Oh those Germans, dilligent aren´t they?
While the psychological need to feel European has had some effect on the Germans, the idea that it was the "cause" for the EU is preposterous. The European idea predates WW2 and has many fathers, - a lot of French among them. The French Foreign Minister Schumann was THE crucial person in the construcion the European Community of Coal and Steel in the 1950ies, the predecessor of today´s EU that took up and implemented plans for the unification of the German and French Coal and Steel Industry that went back to the 1920ies - yes, even in those hostile post WW1 1920ies. I am not going to explain to you who Aristide Briand and Coudenhove-Kalergi were, go and do some serious reading before you spoil people´s time with your „educated“ ignorance.
It may be pearls before the swine but let me tell you the main reason why, for all its faults, the EU is here to stay. It solves the strategic dilemmatas of France, Germany and Poland (and even Spain and Italy) whose past has been tormented by the strategic reality of a two-front, multi-enemy-war that always lured behind the horizon. The EU has solved this unsolvable strategic nightmare by adding another unifying organisational layer, that frees the nations with more than one neighbour of the fear of being surrounded and attacked by their neighbours. A World War 1 and its strategic justifications would have been unthinkable with a European Bond of Nations. Though the EU provides the strategic foundation for peace in Europe, it diminishes the chance of the once popular British or US game of „Divide and Rule“ towards continental Europe. This might vex Fitzgerald, but he knows nothing about Europe, as an "expert" on Europe you utterly discredited yourself with this sorry effort. You know nothing about the topic or its history and expect people to let you go away with lies and cluelessness. You can not expect to be taken serious an these topics any more.
But even when you try to make the case for an eternal indeptedness of the Germans towards the US you completely bungle it. The majority of Germans is still thankfull for the US support after WW2 but "the Marshall Plan's tens of billions lavished upon that country" are your invention, it were in fact 3,5 Billion, a lot of money at the time, but in todays currency certainly not much more than what Israel today receives in a few years (they get around 2 Billion anually from the US, so regarding inflation, 12 Billion/6 years should be a fair equvalent).
Regarding "reparations" he withholds the fact, that the US seized not only all patents and and property of alien German companies in WW2 (which she allready did after WW1, without calling this theft theft or „reparations“) worth dozens of Billions of Dollars at that time, but took the top echelons of German scientists like von Braun to the US via Operation Paperclip. If you take into account the contribution of the fled and exiled scientists like von Neumann and Einstein as well, it is no exaggeration to state, that the superior US technological and military clout as we know it could never have materialised through the knowledge of the „native“ American scientists alone. Neither the Jet Enginge nor the Saturn Moon Rocket and or the whole NASA space programme would have materialised without the know how of evil ex-Nazi-Germans. How much is this contribution worth today? Clearly the US benefit of unaccounted technological "reparations" is enormous, even if Fitzgerald is to stupid to acknowledge them.
While there are some circumstantial sentences on the questionable freeing of a murder of an American in Germany, this part serves only as a "proof" that the Germans are dubious people, and can never be trusted, an attempt to establish his prejudiced concept of the „Eternal Nazi Germans“. Just in case you doubted that an Anglo-American can write like Goebbels, here you have the prove. The topic of this schoolboy howler is not the alledged "The Germans and the killer of Robert Stethem" but Fitzgerald´s 3rd rate attempt to show this as the natural outcome of Germany´s proven depravity.
Fitzgerald depicts „impudent“ travelling young Germans who are alledgedly "completely oblivious to what comes to mind to those who either lived through the war, or who have learned about it in detail, when they hear the word "German"".
Fitzmumpitz is wrong again. Regarding the dark side of their countries´ past, young Germans are certainly the most educated youth in the world and to the aggravation of Brits and Americans they are not even offended when the war or the Holocaust is mentioned. Fawlty Towers doesn´t apply, you can mention the war, while average US patridiotic simpleton would certainly crumble or call the Homeland Security if the US ´ 50 or so post WW2 wars were read out him, from China, Greece, Philippines, Korea, Iran 1953, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua... (snore, well you get the picture) to Iraq (twice). While the US fought one just war against Germany, Fitzgerald does think this entitles him of a superior moral smugness. (By the way, the casualties of the post WW2 wars in which the US participated are higher than 6 millions.) Whereas Germany is the only country in the world to have ever effectively compensated large groups of her former victims, a US court has just ruled that the 2 million Vietnamese Agent Orange victims can not file a suit against anybody in the US. They run around handicapped with cancer, without legs, arms and deformed faces and brains and according to the US judiciary system they can rot somewhere. Being the world´s major Gook-Killer and getting away with it. How handy.
Fitzgerals nevertheless appoints himself judge of the German people, or should one say the Freisler of the German people, and he certainly has a natural predisposition for such a post. The problem with his anti-German diatribe is, that he is allmost wrong on anything he writes, but he doesn ´t seem to care, if it serves his propagandist aims.
With this abject botch he unfortunately calls into question everything he writes and subsequently devaluates jihadwatch and dhimmiwatch. Whether Fitzgerald is lying because of incompetence or disingenouosness is not important. He is an Errorist and has a private War On Error to fight, before he could even start to think about aiding the War On Terror.
It is high time Robert Spencer intervenes and puts Fitzgerald in his place. With such a „Vice-President“ jihadwatch is doomed to failure.
And to the Germans on this board: relax and just don ´t stoop to his primitive niveau.
Hugh replies to me:
"Clench" in Dryden's time meant "pun." As in the phrase, "Dryden is said to have complained of Shakespeare's 'comic wit degenerating into clenches.'" Pun, wordplay, paronomasia, and nothing else, was what was meant. See OED.
Hugh, I never questioned your use of the term clench or that you meant "pun". You initially questioned my usage of "clench". In response to your questioning of my usage I explained that I was relying on another definition of the word, and gave you the source. For some reason you seem to have taken my explanation of my usage as a questioning of your usage. But I never doubted your usage and had complete confidence you knew whereof you spoke in that regard, so you needn't have mentioned the OED. As far as word meanings go, your credit is more than good with me. I merely chose to use the word with another of its meanings.
As I said, Random House Webster's Collegiate has, among others, the following definitions for clench: vt. 1: to close (the hands, teeth, etc.) tightly; n. 5: the act of clenching. 6: a tight hold. These are the definitions I intended by my usage of the word above.
You don't have an unconscious, Hugh, alright then, call it a subconscious. Or at any rate, consider that your self-knowledge is as yet incomplete, as is the case with the rest of the human race. You choose to ignore or completely dismiss what I tried to indicate about the relation between ecstasy, passion and intoxication in prose, and how they can run at cross-purposes to sobriety and full consciousness. I confess I don't understand what I take to be your strategy for dealing with constructive criticism. Perhaps it is just a matter of your being too weighed down with work. But in the series of comments here, not just by me but by all others, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems to me you have yielded nothing and admitted to no slightest particle of even a possibility of error or any particular imperfection, however minute, in your argument, nor any incompleteness in your views we might in any smallest way help complete. It sometimes seems to be all or nothing with you. Sometimes it seems that with you it is not dialogue so much as battle, and you cut the dashing figure of an aggressive Zorro. With remarkable eloquence occasionally bordering on glibness you make clear you find no merit whatsoever in any particular suggestions or criticisms made. Full stop. Your sword play is enlightening nevertheless.
Of course, it is possible that you are 100% in the right and that those of us who quibble or disagree are 100% in the wrong, and that not the least uncertainty is called for, nor any genial concession to the effect that you will "think further of it" rather than reject it out of hand. I congratulate you if you are really so strong. I admit to being a fool or worse often enough myself, so I'll be no more than diffident in saying that in my experience, the particular kind of "never any doubt" behavior you display usually signifies bluster and weakness, and some adulteration of real and potential strengths.
You are a great sport to endure all this very imperfect criticism, and I hope all of it doesn't wear you down or get you down. Despite all of it, or precisely because of all of it, it needs to be doubly emphasized how much your work is valued and needed. I'd feel I and the other commenters here had shot ourselves in the foot or some more vital organ if we demoralized you. The point of criticism should be to help, and that's how I intend it, even if the help turns out not to be much help.
Mr. Karl Martells Mischpoche ,
You have revealed your own ignorance and susceptibility to half-truths and propaganda with your mention of "agent orange" and the other wars the USA fought after WW2.
I suspect your explanation/interpretation of those things would mirror the Soviet line of that time and the continued present Communist(or is it "Humanist"(collectivist-anti-individualist)?) line.
You are'nt as smart as you think.
Not that I doubt some of the things you said, or that I agree with everything Hugh said, but I know a leftist indoctrinated or agent-provacateur when I see one.
Oh, by the way, spelling correctly does not necessarily infer intelligence or knowledge, it is helpful though.
I've just glanced down this thread to see if any key words would leap out at me. Here are the ones that did.
Clench
Paronomasia
Fitzmumpitz
Ecstasy
Swordplay
Organ
I don't know what's been going on, but I hope a good time was had by all.
I should have said "not that I doubt *everything* you said"...
This thread has really gotten out of hand. Hugh's his viewpoint is hardly extreme, radical or "Germanophobic" because I don't see him condemning Germans as a whole for being German. I can't remember who it was who said it, but someone characterized Hugh's response as a typically Anglo-American response. That's bullshit. Anglo-Americans are not anti-German. If you want to see Germanophobia, listen to what Greeks and Slavs have to say about the Germans, their opinions are far more offensive than that of the Anglos. I don't think that we should shame Germany for all of eternity, but then again I didn't get that from Hugh's postings either, but this nonsense about forgetting the past and getting on with our lives is ridiculous. I will not forget about the Holocaust. I will not pretend that most Germans opposed Hitler, when he was clearly a popular dictator. I will not pretend that the Germans have learned their lesson during the Cold War. A history professor of mine did most of her post-graduate work in Germany during the Cold War and she was even shocked at how easily the East Germans painted themselves as the victims and completely forgot about the Holocaust. I don't hate the Germans at all, but I cannot deny the reality of the tendency of Germany society to always paint themselves as the victims. I do think they do feel guilty about the Holocaust but at the same time they always have to chime in with "We were vicitims of Hitler too", it's a matter of degree and in comparison to the Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Serbs, and homosexuals, there is no comparison. That is why it's so infuriating to hear Germans and Austrians who protest that they are sick of this Nazi stuff. Germany was not by any means the only nation or people responsible for the Holocaust, many craven and insidious Europeans went along with it and it would not have been as efficient if they had not participated so willingly to get rid of their own "Jewish problem", but to not see Germany as the most responsible party is dishonest. Not every European country can be held accountable to the same degree for the Holocaust.
Personally, I think Germany needs to prove itself in order to be considered an ally to America, as do many countries such as France. We know Russia is not an ally and that they haven't learned their lesson from their failed communism project but we didn't occupy their land for decades and try to de-commify them either. But I just expected more from Germany. I really did. Instead of getting another Japan, we ended up getting another France. We ended up getting a country that was more interested in expanding its influence in the continent than forging a relationship with a country that saved it from its dark abyss. The fact that Germany would forge a partnership with one of its oldest enemies just to spite America and act as a "counterweight" is very telling.
The Germans have sullied their own image of Germany. I don't care what anybody says, but because of Nazism, nobody will ever believe that any form of German nationalism is benign even if it does turn out to be true. And that's Germany's loss moreso than ours because they'll have to settle for the corrupt SDP and communist parties and the occasional emaciated CDU win. It may not be fair, but I think Hugh is generally right that it will take a long time before America and the rest of Europe begin to trust Germany again. German defensiveness/victimization does not really make matters any better either.
This airing of atrocities of both America and Germany is just incessant point scoring. Yes, America has committed many atrocities and unless you belong to the Chomsky school of thought and think that every American military intervention is some sort of atrocity motivated entirely by economic self-interest, then you can be sure that American students know the history of it well and aren't defensive as some might think. American foreign policy is very flawed on so many levels, it's not a secret, but nitpicking is very easy wheras giving viable solutions on the other hand (considering the restrictions placed on policy makers), becomes increasingly difficult. Take one of those courses in those fake departments like "Cultural Studies" and you'll see Americans being blamed for atrocities that we weren't even responsible for! Surely, there has been no other nation in history that has been blamed for so much that it did not do like America has. The difference is that we don't wallow in self-pity (well, most of us anyways) but we set the record straight (sometimes reluctantly) and either correct the accusations or confess to them. America is not bad and neither is Germany. Germany was responsible for the Holocaust and World War II, the most horrific event in modern history but that's does not delegitimize Germany as a nation or the Germans as a people. Germany though, should not be shocked if it is treated with mistrust for a while by other nations who were involved in that war. That was Hugh's point. Germans should realize that there are still some WWII vets around and their sons and daughters who heard all of the first hand accounts of the war all have a different idea of what the word "Germany" and "German" may mean to them. Demanding we "move on" while Nazis still walk the earth seems rather insensitive.
Del
"Your characterization of "genocide" by America really misses the history of the Yana/Yahi people, and their collision with 19th century America. Perhaps you should read that whole book again. If you were not referring to Ishi, I apologize for the error."
Yes, I believe I was talking about Ishi. I didn't read the book, I watched a documentary many years ago. In that documentary, it was clearly stated that Ishi was the last Indian of what had probably been a group of refugees (from a massacre by settlers) and that had been hidden in the mountains away from civilization. After having spent years alone, he probably decided to meet his fate.
In all truth, at that time in history - and this story is a good example - the tragedy of the American indian had already sunk in the American psyche: the individual was studied as the last member of a quasi-extinct species, and on a human level (from what I know) he was well taken cared of until he died from a respiratory illness (probably tb, from what I remember).
You - and others - have mentioned that the genocide of the American Indian is not comparable to the Holocaust. I have ancestors that participated in that same genocide some four centuries ago (in Brazil, not in North America and I mention this so that no one will think that I am trying to single out the modern American) and in my opinion they are basically the same.
I remember one incident when one American museum needed Indian skulls to make measurements. This happened in the XIX century. Instead of pillaging Indian graveyards, guess how the hundreds of skulls needed were obtained... I may be wrong, but I think that the museum in question is the Smithsonian.
kentim:
You don't believe in Agent Orange? My father fought in Vietnam, and it was a very real phenomenon.
igor:
Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted Germany to be another Japan? So you wanted another mindless slave country that adopts your culture throughly (eliminating native culture is a must), and leaves it's entire defence in your hands so your servicemen can commit crimes against the people? No thanks you.
Hi Igor:
Like you, I'm surprised how the discussion has become one of tit for tat, German atrocities versus American atrocities. I think that misses the point. The point should be "What's the problem?" then "What's the solution?" So much of this echos the stupid "left versus right" threads that sometimes erupt here.
A point that I think has merit is that there is a difference between remembering demons of the past as opposed to populating the future with demons of another kind. I was the one who mentioned Anglo-American Teutonophobia (nice word, eh?) and I think I'll stick to my guns on this one. The British took a running jump at demonizing the Germans during the WWI, to the extent that Hitler, writing later in Mein Kampf, expressed admiration at the skill of the British propagandists and vowed he would some day have propagandists of his own to match. Horribly, Hitler with the complicity of the German people, saw to it that fact overtook fiction.
The point? It happened in Germany. We musn't forget. It also happened in Russia. We musn't forget. It happened in Armenia. We musn't forget.
And it can happen here. We musn't forget
Japan is hardly a slave country. And to say that they adopted American culture is ridiculous. It's heavily Japanized. Japan also borrowed quite a bit from German culture and they clearly have no "identity" issues. Don't confuse reforming one's culture (which was happening long before WWII in Japan) with being an "Uncle Tom". The Japanese still see themselves as Japanese eventhough their culture is very different now than during the Meiji period.
As for their "defences", I don't hear many Japanese complaining about being protected by America's nuclear umbrella. I don't really hear them protesting to get the Americans out so they can pay for their own defences. And who's to say the same thing would have happened to Germany? I wanted Germany to be like another Japan because of the loyalty Japan showed America in contrast to the treachery France showed. The same restrictions placed on Japan would have not been placed on Germany for obvious reasons. For one thing, the rest of Europe doesn't hate Germany like how the rest of East Asia hates Japan. This issue of how far Japan could go in developing its defences was a compromise at best. It's not like America left her at the mercy of her Asian "friends" defenceless. Nothing of the sort would have happened to Germany if they tried to forge better relations with America.
"you can even mention the war, while average patridiotic simpleton certainly would crumble...if the US 50 or so post WW2 wars were read out him, from China, Greece, Philippines, Korea... etc." post from Karl Martells Mischoche
Karl, I was thoroughly enjoying your post when I came to this sentence. As you can see from my previous post, I disagreeed with the basic premis of Hugh's article. What are you trying to say? That the US effort of fighting communism during the cold war is the equivalent of the Nazi war machine?
You lost me on this one Karl. After putting forward many thoughtful paragraphs, you have revealed youself to be another typical German/Franco leftist hatemonger (I am assuming you are German), all to often diplayed in Der Spegal (spelling? please don't beat me up) or Le Monde.
Are you equating the Korean War, the war that kept South Korea from becomeing what North Korea is today to the German actions in WWII? Was not the resistence to communism a worthy cause, and aren't you, as a German, a major beneficiary of this effort? When has a German sacraficed his life so that another nation could have liberty and democracy? How dare you call me a patridiotic simpleton, when my tax dollars have kept you from being under the Soviet yoke. You just don't get it. And perhaps that was Hugh's point.
I continue to disagree with Hugh. I am not concerned with Germany's Nazi past. I am troubled by its present day mindset.
"When has a German sacraficed his life so that another nation could have liberty and democracy?"
Don't pretend you're the all high and might defenders of human rights, America. You were there at Yalta.
Hugh aptly, but rather mildly, wrote:
"the American government, and most Americans, never say that things are "behind us." We lead the world in tolerating, and indeed encouraging, all kinds of self-criticism."
What's ironic is that so many Americans and American institutions (academia, media and government) go far beyond healthy self-criticism into the realm of anti-Americanism.
Millions of Americans are, in effect, anti-American.
American Anti-Americanism -- which has itself become as American as mock apple pie -- is a disease of excess self-criticism -- taking the health of self-criticism to a pathologically excessive degree.
"When has a German sacraficed his life so that another nation could have liberty and democracy?"
Afghanistan is a recent example.
"When has a German sacraficed his life so that another nation could have liberty and democracy?"
I have said it many times and I will say it again. Countries do not do charity, they do what is in their best interest. The nations that America freed and gave democracy to, America did it largely (or at least partly) in her own interest. One case dear to me is that of East Timor, where America looked the other way for decades because Indonesia was more useful to her than Timor.
America is not perfect, but then again neither is any country. The American hegemony makes the world a better place in many ways, much better than it would be under the Russians or the Chinese, for instance.
If power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. In America's case, that didn't happen, to the country's credit.
However, the sense many Americans seem to have that they fought in Vietnam to bring democracy, or that they fought in Panama to erradicate the evil Noriega... sorry, but then you live in a dream world. It may be a nice "world" to live in, but it will never be the real thing.
Frederick, It is obvious that you take the issue of the freeing of the Islamofeces Hamadi seriously. I can say for myself that I don't condemn this generation of Germans for the slaughtering of 600 million Europeans (Jews weren't the only ones murdered.) Only the the ones truly responsible. I'm glad that your family members risked their freedom against the Nazi thugs and racial terrorists. You should be proud of your ancestors. But if you are so against the releasing of this terrorist murderer, Islamofeces, I implore you, protest YOUR parliament and Chancellor Merkel. Find some other likeminded people and march. Let your government know that you are not happy with the way that they are doing things as far the relationship with the U.S. is concerned. Let your parliament know that they can't possibly refect your views as far as allowing a known terrorist opportunity to hijack another plane and murder another person or persons. The next time it may not be an U.S. servicemember. Heaven forbid!!! It could be a German.
Read the comments, understand the mindset, of the Karl Martells Michpoche figure above. Think about his claims about Operation Paperclip, almost depicting the Americans as kidnpaping wonderful Arthur Rudolph (who later escaped back to Germany after his full past had been revealed) and Wernher von Braun. Look at how he atteempts to claim credit -- for Germany -- for Einstein, who had done his best work in Switzerland, in that annus mirabilus 1905, who owed nothing to Germany, and also for the Hungarian von Neumann. Both von Neumann and Einstein were, of course, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. And look at how he takes a single remark, about how some Germans were delighted by the possiblity of describing themselves as Europeans -- a remark meant to express a psychological urge, the impulse to hide one's Germanness, for a certain period after the war (and there are small towns in Umbria where I wouldn't go if I were a German, even today). This seems to have particularly smarted. But the notion that I havee forgotten about the Frenchman Jean Monnet (whom he doesn't mention but I did) and the German Robert Schumann (whom he mentions but I did not), and the original European Coal and Steel Community, is nonsense. And the notion that I believe that the EU owes its origins to this German desire not to appear as Germans but as "Europeans" -- well, that too is nonsense, as anyone can see from what I wrote. As for Martin Walser, I mispelled his name the first time I used it -- it's called a typo -- and spelled it correctly the 2-3 succeeding times.
But his nastiness and fury is telling. He is one of those who apparently thinks he can swan around the world, and that the Nazi past, the atrocities committed by Germans in the name of Germany (with help from others) awre all to be forgotten). No, they aren't.
A more perfect display of confused self-pity, meretricious misstatement, and Tu-Quoque (You Americans rival or outdo us, perhaps, in your own terrible crimes, so don't you go talking about us -- we,the Germans who are so put-upon, who have done so much for America with our scientists, and for the world, and yet we are still so misunderstood, and some people still want to live in that past) confirming me - not that I needed it -- in the justice of what I wrote, could not have been expected.
But there it is. Read his missive carefully, and think about the world-view of the person who wrote it -- and of anyone who agrees with him.
Kay,
The conversation went like this:
1) The germans have not come to terms with their past evils.
2) Americans have done nothing worse than My Lai.
You seem never to address my points:
1) #2 is blatantly false
2) Claim #2 is evidence that, while #1 is true, Germany is not alone.
I'm happy to admit Hugh's correct points: Germany has behaved atrociously in this most recent episode and has, indeed, never seemed to come fully clean of their past. Done. On the record.
But why can't you or anyone else admit that we did a very bad thing to native americans, and no, we did not adequately compensate them for taking their lives, their livelihood, their culture and their land. I don't know how we could.
The same is true of African Americans.
Why do we hear nothing but arguments on these points, even to the extreme extent that the whole affair is claimed to be entirely ok: "It was just a war and we won." OF course we won, but it was a war of aggression that we started. Will we be sanguine about Islamists using that kind of rhetoric when they've taken Europe? Ok, I guess they won it fair and square!
Besides, the native american "war" was not merely a victory and occupation. It ended in ethnic cleansing everywhere it went. But people on this site don't seem to care about ethnic cleansing if it was something we did in America.
The litany of americas sins didn't come about because I or anyone else on this topic like to criticize America. THe litany is here because no one seems willing to admit that we have committed large-scale, serious injustices in this country. That's disturbing in the context of a conversation about how other people can't come to terms with their own past. SO the litany grows longer and the denial grows with it. Stop denying and justifying and the litany will evaporate.
SO the question is: Is this site about justice and fairness or is it merely about partisanship?
I've always thought that it was against jihad and islamist ideology because those things are wrong: unjust, unfair, inhumane, and evil. A dark force poised to assume great power. But if jihadwatch exists merely to oppose the other team (regardless of the relative merits of the teams) because it's the other team, then it becomes, well, relatively worthless.
Thus, Hugh should say, oh yes, my mistake, My Lai is not the worst AMerican atrocity. And you should say, yes, perhaps we need to be more cognizant of our own sins as well. How hard is that? Doing it isn't a big deal, but the refusal to do it is weird, and gestures at something unattractive in the corner.
"The litany of americas sins didn't come about because I or anyone else on this topic like to criticize America."
Coulda fooled me... The site is JihadWatch, hon... Not What'swrongwithAmerica?Watch...
But to read posts by blame-America-first partisans such as yourself and others, one wouldn't know it...
And as for: "But if jihadwatch exists merely to oppose the other team (regardless of the relative merits of the teams) because it's the other team, then it becomes, well, relatively worthless...."
Rarely has such stupid inanity been expressed, well, so well--
I find it absurd that in order to talk about who was responsible for the Holocaust and WWII we have to confess to all of our sins. We weren't talking about all of the sins of Germany, just one really big one, one that was quite recent and one that they have difficulty discussing without getting defensive. To dredge up Indians, slavery, witchburning, etc. is like talking about honor killings in Jordan and being obligated to bring up that wife abuse happens in America as well. It's so redundant and diverts attention from the main topic.
After five decades or enjoying American largesse, the Germans have mistakenly concuded that they know what they're doing. But what they're doing is surrendering themselves to the Moslem Man.
It's only natural that Germans would look to others for moral guidance. It's unsurprising that they're looking to a death-hate cult for their future leadership.
GERMAN MOSLEMS TEUTONIC MOSLEMS HUNNISH MOSLEMS SAURKRAUT MOSLEMS
Like all Western nations, the Germans select morons for their leaders. Trouble is, these Teutonic dualist morons seek to set up a bipolar world that features America on one side, but on the other side not the hairy angry aggrieved Moslem Man, but instead the soon-to-be-extincted Liberal Man.
That makes for a half-assed world view. When the largesse stops, look for the Germans and other EUs to come begging to America for help with the millions of hairy angry aggrieved Moslem Men they so stupidly piled up around them.
And what about Eve listening to the serpent? Now that's both a really old event, and truly evil -- going against G-d's explicit commandment..! Until we all agree that man is fundamentally a sinner FROM THE WORD GO... we can't rationally discuss or decide anything! Absurd? Of course it is... But the funny thing is, this is the exact mindset of "chickaloon" -- and the same kind of puritanical irrational mindset I was accusing Mr. Fitzgerald of in his post above... It belies a kind of fundamentalist zealotry -- but "chickaloon's" posts also bear the hallmarks of the fervent secularist zealot -- and Mr. Fitzgerald has elsewhere trumpeted his atheism...
It's interesting to find such fevered zealotry in these (one self declared, the other under suspicion) dedicated secularists... They seem sometimes to have more in common with those they rail against than either would probably want to admit...
Excellent post, chickaloon. That is the whole point I was trying to make: can you accuse someone for a similar thing you can be accused of?
"Coulda fooled me... The site is JihadWatch, hon... Not What'swrongwithAmerica?Watch..."
Well, this site isn't called NaziWatch or GermanWatch either. And people started remembering some of the bad things in America's History only AFTER comments such as "We don't need the help of sons of Nazis" started popping up.
I am not a German, I don't have any German relatives, I have never even bothered to visit the country. I have no direct relation whatsoever with the country or the people. However, it annoys me greatly to have seen the ridiculous amount of unsupported anti-germanism that this thread brought to light.
We Europeans are far from perfect, but so are you Americans. Is that so hard for you to accept, that your country made serious mistakes?
Some of you accused Germans of not having accepted their own past. That may even be true.
Out of all the Americans that post here, only one (ONE!) accepted the less heroic parts of his country's own past. Every country has bad things to remember, including my own but to 95% of you lot you are as pure as mountain water.
In that sense, you are no diferent from the Muslims who gloat about Al-Andaluz, or about Islamic tolerance.
Self-criticism is liberating. Some of you should try it.
I'm confused, Cruzado... After all -- above you state "Excellent post, JSLA" when I criticised Hugh for his hypercritical view of Germany... but when I criticise "chickaloon" for her hypercritical (and juvenile) views of America, you seem to entrench yourself with her anti-American rants...
What does ANY of this stuff have to do with anti-Jihad? Very little, I would suggest... And the thread has mainly been degraded and rendered moot by non-sensical postings by persons such as "chickaloon" and now, sadly yourself...
"After all -- above you state "Excellent post, JSLA" when I criticised Hugh for his hypercritical view of Germany..."
If Germany had tried to "erase" the Holocaust from the national memory, then I would have agreed with Hugh. That is not the case, therefore I agreed with your post (still do).
"but when I criticise "chickaloon" for her hypercritical (and juvenile) views of America, you seem to entrench yourself with her anti-American rants..."
If saying that America's past is not perfect and spotless is "anti-Americanism", than I am not only anti-American but I am also anti-every-country-in-the-world-including-my-own. I hope this was clear enough.
"What does ANY of this stuff have to do with anti-Jihad? Very little, I would suggest... And the thread has mainly been degraded and rendered moot by non-sensical postings by persons such as "chickaloon" and now, sadly yourself..."
I am responsible for my posts and for no one else's. I have maintained the same position from the day Hugh posted the original. Non-sensical? Consistent.
sheik yer'mami said:
Japan is and always will be more Japanese, more, much more than Germany will ever be German´.If you think Japan is a ´slave country´you are clueless about Japan.
---
So pray tell why Japan, despite being barred by their constitution from participating in war, skipped off to help their American friends in Iraq?
This whole conversation isn't just about the terrorist guy that Germany release, it's about the whole of Europe, and the American idea that we owe you something. The French owe you for liberation, the Germans for being "overly generous" after WWII (despite that being obviously for Allied interests only). Well, let me tell you that us Europeans are very grateful for what you did for us, but that was in the past. We're over it. You're obviously not. And we'll continue to do what we want, without running it by America every time.
"Don't pretend you're the all high and mighty defenders of human rights America. You were there at Yalta" post by A.G. Frederick III
I seem to recall one of your earlier posts Frederick when you indicated that your family was opposed to the Nazis. Sorry I did not respond. What I was trying to say earlier was that only those Germans who actually participated should be held accountable. It would appear that your family opposed the regime, undoubtedly at great risk, and they should be commended for their courage. At the present time, Germany needs more people like you and your family.
Sorry, but I was not at Yalta. If I had been, believe me, I would have kicked Stalin's ass.
"but that was in the past. We're over it."
- from a posting above
Who pays for most of NATO? What country's taxpayers have shelled out trillions and fought most of the hot wars (Korea, Vietnam) that were prompted by the desire to contain Communism? Now that the Soviet Union seems -- seems, madam? I know not seems -- to have disappeared, and now that the Americans are continuing to support NATO, and continuing to fight virtually alone (with some British, Australian and other help), and spending another -- $1 trillion will it be --even if in a war that at this point makes no sense because it is based on a misundrstanding both of Islam and Iraq, the Americans are still the ones whom Europe will be counting on.
Let's make sure, shall we, that if there comes a time when certain people feel a need to flee from Europe to the United States, that we take those who have demonstrated sympathy and gratitude to the United States -- and not the other kind.
And should the Europeans, singly or together, need American aid, let's remember sentiments like that expressed above: "We're over it."
Longsuffering Americans have every right to be enraged by such remarks. I am. And I don't make enough to be much of a taxpayer.
"And should the Europeans, singly or together, need American aid, let's remember sentiments like that expressed above: "We're over it." "
Considering the frequent France-bashing that goes on in America (Freedom-fries, anyone?), the Europeans are not the only ones that "are over it". Apparently someone forgot that without French and Spanish military assistance, a certain nation would still be a colony.
You are over it. The Germans are over it.
I am over the fact that Kennedy supported anti-colonial terrorists that managed to murder 3000 Portuguese settlers and natives in one single day, simply because Angolan independence would open the country to American products. That was tough, but I am over it and so are the 800,000 Portuguese affected. It happened 44 years ago, but we are over it.
It enrages you? It enrages me to know that you think that Europe has an eternal debt that will never be able to be pay to America.
This is the exact same arrogance that made Kosovo the most fertile province - in depleted uranium shells - in all of Europe. Now some of you regret it, but hey, shit happens, right? Tomorrow we'll be over it.
I wish I could give chapter and verse on this quote, but I can't. Nevertheless, I recall that one British or perhaps Canadian diplomat explained the purpose of NATO as being a means of "...Keeping the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down," with respect to post-war Europe
I don't recall anything said about who would get stuck with the bill.
errata
Make that 6000 killed (instead of 3000).
No one says Europe has an "eternal debt." But the extraordinary displays of anti-Americanism, the remarkable lack of awareness of what was done after World War II, not only of the size of the Marshall Plan, but the trillions that went into the Cold War, and the grim fact that Americans live, on average, not nearly as well as Europeans (they don't know it, because if they did know it, the amounts we spent, and are spending, that the Europeans do not spend -- would infuriate them). Look at the relative amounts spent on defense budgets. Is there a single country in Europe where the citizens make anything like the financial (and other) sacrifices made by Americans, and by, not the regular army perhaps, but by those Reservists and National Guardsmen who are citizen soldiers, and who are eligible to be called up for 6-8 years. Europeans can't believe it. They should.
Listen, I'm still going to finish, and wish pleasure, Os Lusiadas. I'm still going to listen to Al Bowlly, born in Lourenco Marques. And why do you single out Kennedy for not supporting Salazar in Angola and Mozambique? Did any other world leader support him? Of course not. So isn't this gratuitios mention of Kennedy just a bit too selective in its resentment? Kennedy also was eager to support the FLN in Algeria, and to get the French out, but so was everyone else, so in the end was that two-timer De Gaulle? Still the fault of the Americans? Puh-leeze.
And what about all those nice immigrants from the Azores doing so well -- coming over on the Ernestina and fishing in the untroubled waters off New Bedford and Fairhaven, opening stores in Fall River, with some of the first ones here even getting bit parts in "Moby Dick" or in the Kendall Whaling Museum or their names memorialized on the Seaman's Bethel.
Given your native command of English, are you by any chance related to any of those Souzas and Cabrals in the Azorean Social Clubs where the card-playing is non-stop, and the linguica is spicy, and the Jindungo Africano -- my supply from Moniz & Co., Fall River, Mass. just came to an end (want to send me some, straight from an acquaintance in Maputo?) -- even more so? I've done my bit. I've given Clarice Lispector -- yes, I know she's from Brazil -- a boost here. I've mentioned more than once that Al Bowlly, who died under a German bomb in his London digs, was originally from Lourenco Marques. Perhaps even sending a reader or two to find out just who this "Lourenco Marques" was, and why that name is preferable to the new unimproved "Maputo.". Remember how pleased you were when I wrote that I was reading "Os Lusiadas" and did not immediately denounce, without more, Ferreira Heinz Kerry? What's happened to us? Can this marriage be saved?
If you mind your manners I'll even tell you the name of an alfarrabista in whose dusty back room you can find an old, forgotten manuscript, with the laboriously copied out fabulous Ur-Qur'an, interlineated with Hebrew by the 11th century scribe related, I hear tell, to Ibn Gabirol. You can go in, buy it, and then re-sell it to the Qatari National Museum, or a private Kuwaiti collector, for a cool $150 million.
But only if you treat America nicely. Haven't I made it worth your while? And doesn't America, long-suffering, slings-and-arrows-receiving America, deserve it? I think it does.
"Apparently someone forgot that without French and Spanish military assistance, a certain nation would still be a colony...."
What a laugh... Let me see -- the last time I checked, those above-mentioned "regimes" which "aided" America in her earliest days have been supplanted MANY times by subsequent installments, it is utterly absurd to associate France of the late 18th Century with current day France... So which "France" are you referring to??? The Ancien Regime, or the post-modern agent of degradation, humiliation, and destruction...? As I recall, France, in a bubbling and ebullient mood after "aiding" American Independence (and only at the very end, my sometimes friend, only after calculating France saw which way the wind was blowing...), who then proceeded to slaughter by the 10s of thousands her citizenry, and then proceeded to decapitate Louis Capet, the very embodiment of that particular France, her King, aka Louis XVI, by a heinous and inhuman beheading? Is that the France you're referring to? Is that the France without whose aid "a certain nation would still be a colony" Crusado ? -- It bears NO RESEMBLANCE whatsoever to the current agglomeration of cowards, moral relativists, craven nihilists, leeches, and post-modern malignancies and opportunists which constitute current day France... Or am i missing something?
This is the most absurd and consistent dissimulation put forth by bitter Europeans when they wish to conceal their deplorable track record for the last century... or the last millenium... They trot it out as a lame antidote to counter their own heinous and rapine history -- and it is designed to defame America... Your European record will resound for all time, friend. It consists largely of appeasement, fascism, surrender, wars of aggression, and genocide for the better part of 10 centuries -- You cannot hide from it -- this record will dog you until the end of time... And you dare to compare America's record to that of Europe's? It is ABSURD...
"And why do you single out Kennedy for not supporting Salazar in Angola and Mozambique? Did any other world leader support him? Of course not."
Actually, Richard Nixon supported the Portuguese war effort by selling us weaponry.
What I complain is that a NATO ally (the US) decided that it was ok to fund a rebel movement (read terrorist, and you might want to search the web for the CIA declassified Holden Roberto files concerning JFK's funding). As a direct result, 6000 settlers and natives loyal to the Portuguese presence were killed ("butchered" would be a better word). But we are over it and I mean it. We don't live in the past.
"Given your native command of English"
English is not my native language, I have never been neither to Britain nor to America, and I have no anglo relatives.
"(want to send me some, straight from an acquaintance in Maputo?)"
I do have a Mozambican friend who returns tonight to Lisbon. I'll give her a call.
"But only if you treat America nicely. Haven't I made it worth your while? And doesn't America, long-suffering, slings-and-arrows-receiving America, deserve it? I think it does."
I don't hate America and I have defended America several times, but your country and its past are not perfect. I won't say that they are when they aren't. Not even for 150 million.
The one thing that was exposed from this whole thread was that America DOES have a serious problem confronting her less than perfect past.
I'll give you a hand: my country was heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Vasco da Gama sank a captured ship with 400 Muslim civilians inside. In 1497 thousands of Jewish children were separated from their parents at the Lisbon harbour to be raised as Catholics. We even have our own "My Lai" from our colonial war.
Now, why is it so hard for you to do the same thing? No one is perfect, not even you.
Some of these aren't as melifluous as JihadWatch.org, I know, but why don't various mewling puling posters go and start their own little site, one which comports with their ideas about posting and their whiney little opinions...
HowMyContinentDoesn'tTakePartInHerOwnDefenseButNeverthelessContinuesToAccuseAmericaOfEveryCalumnyImaginableWatch.org is still available...
WhatIHateMostAboutAmericaWatch.org is still available...
HowToDivertTheConversationTwoardsOffTopicPostsandGeneralAllAroundSelfLoathingRatherThanDiscussingTheTopicOfTheSiteWatch.org is still available...
MindlessExpiationWatch.org is still available...
AtonementForOffTopicNonEquivalentAndLargelyUnrelatedGuiltWatch.org is still available... as are GuiltComplexWatch.org, GuiltFestWatch.org...
BeforeWeCanDiscussTheGreatJihadWeHaveToLayOutAllOurFormerSinsLikeNeuroticExhibitionistsWatch.org is still available...
"So which "France" are you referring to??? "
Which America are you refering to? Roosevelt was a Democrat, and Bush is a Republican. If France expects American recognition, she should place a crown on top of the head of the Comte de Paris, is that what you are saying?
"As I recall, France, in a bubbling and ebullient mood after "aiding" American Independence (and only at the very end, my sometimes friend, only after calculating France saw which way the wind was blowing...),"
Well, the French "wind" made all the diference at Yorktown, and without Laffayette... forget about it. It is not my duty to teach American history to Americans.
"who then proceeded to slaughter by the 10s of thousands her citizenry, and then proceeded to decapitate Louis Capet"
Yes, so what? Louis XVI was an idiot, but that is completely irrelevant to the whole argument.
"It consists largely of appeasement, fascism, surrender, wars of aggression, and genocide for the better part of 10 centuries -- You cannot hide from it -- this record will dog you until the end of time... And you dare to compare America's record to that of Europe's? It is ABSURD..."
You country's history starts in 1776. Mine starts in 1143 at a time when the Byzantine Empire was alive and kicking. Can you compare a child to an old man? Be reasonable.
My article and my postings were not about the real, or imaginary, sins of the United States. I can get to them, but I am under no obligation every time I mention something, including the unique, unrivalled, first-in-its-category or rather hors-de-serie Nazi murders of the Jews (don't like that word "Holocaust" and won't use it), to put something in about Wounded Knee, or Simon Legree, or Bad Day at Black Rock (starring Spencer Tracy). This was well-discussed above.
I don't see Americans running around being unfair to anyone in Europe. One of my charges in the original article was that, in the heat of the Cold War, the American government participated in overlooking the pasts of certain people -- Operation Paperclip engineers, for one. I don't see Europeans running around overwhelmed with gratitude to the United States, and I'm not asking them to be so. But the air in Europe is thick with disgusting anti-Americanism. I don't like it. I run into it. It offends me.
Plenty of things offend me. I don't see why I or any American should not -- as a small gesture of gratitude for the entire expense of the Marshall Plan, and the lion's share of NATO expenses over many decades -- at the very least be given the free admission to museums that all residents of the E.U. are given. Should the Uffizi be more expensive for an American, who supported the war effort to free Italy, than for those Germans who have been the subject of much of this post?
A small thing, I know. But for me a telling one -- that no one in the halls of the E.U., or in any of the constituent countries of NATO, has said -- you know, let's do something, even something ridiculously small but highly symbolic, such as allow Americans at the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Rijskmuseum, when they come to the window, be greeted with a sign that says:
"Free to citizens of the Europoean Community and of the United States."
Just little things like that. They add up.
A plaque. A parade. A few reasonable, initelligent, appreciative articles about what is best in this supposedly fundamentalist-maddened country of the supposedly intolerably stupid. It isn't. It's the safe haven to which Panofsky, Mann, von Neumann, von Bekesy, Loewi, Broch, Lotte Lenya, Marlene Dietrich, Fermi, Segre, Toscanini, Salvemini, Duchamp, Ernst, Einstein, Balanchine, Stravinsky, Nabokov, and the very cream of Europe all fled, and in which they lived and worked, happily and gratefully, knowing perfectly well what was wrong with America, but about which they could not stand to hear anything bad being said -- certainly not by those in Europe. They knew better. I'm an imaginary 98 years old, and an imaginary refugee. I'm with them.
JLSA,
Unlike the people who run this site, you and many of your ilk on this thread are mere jingoists who can't read, evidently, and respond to reasoned posts with hyperbole, misrepresentation, and calumny.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Yes, this is JihadWatch, and, I suppose, according to you, it means no dissent may be brooked, even with an assertions as ridiculous as that My Lai is the worst American atrocity. Of course, dissent is something I would have expected the folks here to be a little better at tolerating--especially on topics that are not central to the site's mission, and especially when the dissent involves correcting objectively false statements--given the nature of the mission itself (ie, to spread awareness of a particular totalitarian threat).
You, however, and your aforementioned ilk, seem critically short on irony.
So, given that deficit, if we want to constrain the topic to islamic sins, fine with me. But I did not open the can of worms. Mr Fitzgerald did by broadening the scope first to Germany's sins, and then to our own. I'm merely asking for accuracy in history and fairness in the appraisal of other nations (especially our putative allies).
The fact that you count this as something to shun ("juvenile"? is maturity about relinquishing the desire for honesty and fairness?) shows how truly despicable and intellectually dishonest you are. Your one-note thinking ("me jingoist, me hear bad thing about America, me say, 'you blame-America-firster, you bad man") is an embarrassment. There are plenty of countries I'd blame first (as is obvious from all of my posts), but none of them exclusively. That ascribing of exclusive blame to one particular nation--or, conversely, the total absolution of one's own--is noxious, self-deluding, and pusillanimous in the extreme.
I was, and still am, a big fan of this site, but I'm sad to be associated with such a churlish lot of boors, moral relativists, and outright simpletons--people who can't, or won't, read. I have yet to see someone challenge a specific statement I've actually made. (Other than the smallpox incident, which request for reliable sources I answered quite promptly.)
What a lot of ignorant, illiterate name calling!
And no, I'm not going to give you the pleasure of an "I'll never visit this site again" farewell: the cause is too important. Even the French had to be saved.
Cruzado -- you betray a most naive lack of knowledge and perspicacity, of America, American history, of Europe, and European history if you can't tell the difference between democratic transitions from one US administration and another, and the endless revolutions in Europe --ALL of which were undemocratic, ALL quite bloody and ALL extremely harmful and disastrous...
You have as much right to say your Nation "starts" at 1143 (is this some reference to the breakup of Spain still under the manacles of Islam!?) as you do to say it only started after _____________ was toppled in a bloody coup/war... (Here you insert the last fascist Dictator who ruled over your "nation") -- Most Europeans need go no further back than a century to find the last time they were subject to a non-democratic despot of some flavor or another... How dare you compare this track record with America's? Who was your last local fascist ruler? Hitler? Franco? Or are you still a mere subject to some pompous "King" or "Queen" who's managed to hold onto his/her preposterous claims of "royalty"? Please don't be so glib, my European friend...
As for teaching Americans history... Again what a laugh... just another example of the contemptous European attitudes we are so bone weary of in America from our arrogant self-satisfied cousins in Europe -- You can continue to believe in your absurd cartoon notions about what America is like, and what Americans are like -- but your posts reveal you know little to nothing about us, about our nature, about our history. You seem to be well versed, however, in the vitriolic European pasttime so popular these days -- It's an evil invidious cartoon you've fashioned to denigrate America, and elevate your unworthy selves... Rome is burning, friend... Along with Madrid, Paris, London, Berlin....
I began posting in this thread by politely disagreeing with Mr. Fitzgerald...
I conclude now by excerpting from his post above -- He expresses far better than I a sentiment I couldn't agree with more:
"But the air in Europe is thick with disgusting anti-Americanism. I don't like it. I run into it. It offends me."
Yep... Couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Fitzgerald...
jlsa,
FYI, I am a Roman Catholic, and a pretty medieval one at that. Not sure what exactly you were reading when you pegged me as a secularist, but then you never actually dispute anything I've said, you just call me names.
Oh, wait, I stand corrected (see, you should try that); you did cite this:
>>And as for: "But if jihadwatch exists merely to
>>oppose the other team (regardless of the
>>relative merits of the teams) because it's the
>>other team, then it becomes, well, relatively
>>worthless...."
>Rarely has such stupid inanity been expressed,
>well, so well--
And never has such empty vacuity been expressed so convincingly.
What, exactly, is your complaint? Do you really think it is just fine to be a partisan simply to be a partisan, without any recourse to the notion that our civilization is 'better' than the Mohammedan tradition that is trying to supplant it. Of course, that means you don't think we're any better than they are. Or you don't care one way or the other.
I do. Indeed, it's stunning that you would accuse me of being overly critical of America when you disagree with my notion that our culture is fundamentally BETTER than theirs, and should be defended for that reason--not merely because it's ours.
How many times I have recapitulated my very narrowly constrained dispute with the original post by Mr. Fitzgerald. (A post which, in many respects, I quite enjoyed.)
For the reading impaired, I have even numbered them, to make them especially easy to follow.
I have, for my troubles, been called all sorts of names, been accused of saying all sorts of stupid things that I never did say, and had to contend with witlessness that one is more accustomed to finding on say, the message boards of the AOL teen forum.
And lo these 170 posts later, still no one has seen fit to challenge my actual statements, but rather, prefer their continued performance in the role of ignorant armies clashing by night. Bravo!
But maybe someone would venture to excercise a little more intellectual rigor, something beyond the skills they picked up on the playground? Or is everyone chicken?
"You have as much right to say your Nation "starts" at 1143 (is this some reference to the breakup of Spain still under the manacles of Islam!?)"
Get yourself a map of Europe, then go to that peninsula in the southwest called "Iberian Peninsula". It is actually composed by three countries: Spain, Portugal and Andorra. Spain was born in 1492 with the fusion of the kingdoms of Aragon with that of Castille-León, and completed with the conquest of the Muslim kingdom of Granada. My country - Portugal - is much older. Smaller, but older.
By the way, you end up looking like a complete idiot when you accuse me of ignorance and follow that accusation with a basic question about European geography that you should know the answer to.
As to the rest of your post - which is mostly garbage - I will say the following. I never compared America with my country. I made no generalizations regarding "Americans are stupid" or "Americans are smart". Some Americans are very educated, and I have had the pleasure of arguing with several. Others - like you - are semi-literate brats who can't handle what they don't like.
It really is a pity. Your first post was actually quite good, but you went downhill from then on. Alas, nobody's perfect but some are less perfect than others. Not to mention polite.
Yeah, that's what I figured. Chicken.
The Chickaloon summary:
FITZGERALD: A talented writer. Entertaining piece. Goes astray on a couple of points. One of them a howler. Unfortunately, he wouldn't see fit to make the rather minor admissions that would have gained him more respect and forestalled a lot of needless controversy and acrimony.
CRUZADO: Very well reasoned posts throughout. Didn't start out citicizing America, but was goaded into it by the irrationality of various interlocutors.
CHATILLON: A lot of overlooked wisdom in those posts. My theory: many of the most prolific posters were too dim to understand.
Kettle calling pot black alert!
It was only a reasonable surmise on my part, feisty one -- (and not very far off the mark) -- I freely admit that concentrating overmuch on your arcane hints of nationhood didn't really take up much time, and I utterly fail to see the blunder you seem to feel I made in that supposition...
Anyway, let's review -- the fascist totalitarian dictators YOU were subject to in Portugal while America was trundling along, happily, democratically for the last 2+ centuries would include, but not be limited to: some despotic King or series named Alfonse/Rodrigo/Philippe -- then a despot named Napoleon, then more bloody coups, then various repressive regimes under various repressive despots of the right wing/left wing bent (choose your flavor!) during most of the 20th Century -- Hmm... Despotic Kings, Tyrant Napoleon, various Fascists, various Communist Commandants, -- charming history, Portugal! Charming indeed! Now I see why you crow so... and so violently...
Your attitude, and your fantasist notion of your past (along with far too many of your fellow European fantasists) are debunked. And if you continue to harbor these hatreds, delusions, and false contructs of your own history, of America's history, and especially the Great Jihad which swirls around YOU, then you are DOOMED to seep into another sewer of oppression under your new fascist overlords like you have so often done in the past!
No wonder the Muslims are licking their chops! -- Europeans continue to be so smug about their various deplorable records, (past and present), so deluded about their present predicamnt, and continue to be so hate filled of America's record, and so eager to distort the our record for their false aggrandizement, that I fear we have few real friends with which to fight the Great Jihad...
Posters such as Cruzado convince me, maybe more than the pompous behavior of the Muslim predator in Europe, that Europe's cause is lost, and that her last days are before us...
And as for: "And no, I'm not going to give you the pleasure of an "I'll never visit this site again" farewell..."
Aw -- Hearing that phrase is always my favorite part from babbling posters like you! Won't you please reconsider? It would be such a treat!
For crying out loud...
I actually started typing a structured response to this garbage of a post of yours, but what's the point?
Alphonse? Who the hell is he, a French immigrant you befriended?
Rodrigo? The only Rodrigo I know of in Iberian History was the one that defeated the Muslims at Covadonga.
The rest is an even deeper reflection of your ignorance. If I was into mimes and clowns, maybe I would find you amusing.
Guess what?
Off-topic in a way but I welcome the day when Muslims on the whole show merely a fraction of the capacity for the kind of self-criticism of their own history of imperialism and atrocities that has so characterized recent western dialogue (and that has been amply displayed in this thread). I have seen absolutely NO sign of that capacity or even inclination towards it on the part of Muslims worldwide to date, even though they are the ones most in need of self-reflection and self-criticism right here and now, as their atrocities and imperialism are ongoing, right here and now, in the present. SO very here and now, in fact, that I feel pretty confident in predicting what will appear in tomorrow morning's paper.
I love how the leftist-indoctrinated think others "can't handle the "truth"", and they think they have an objective understanding about such and such event or claim. Heehee.
I used to believe all the CRAP they yap about, then guess what?? I started being sceptical, then guess what?, I found that whoa, this IS NOT THE WHOLE STORY!! So, how come they omitted or expunged certain things that would call into question their CONCLUSIONS??
Duh, IT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE TOTALITARIAN. They use force to get their way, you will submit, because they have had a lock on the information industry,when they withold information or twist it around they are enslaving people-- without choice freedom and FREE-WILL is SUBVERTED. Don't ask me to prove it, prove I'm wrong to yourself, look for information that contradicts your own viewpoint---------------then..... you must have a higher desire for TRUTH, than feeling good.
All that stuff reminds me of the Communist self-critisism sessions everybody was forced to engage in, at least in China. Screw that, I don't need that B.S.
I question too if this is all about making OTHERS feeeel good, you know, NOBODIES BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE. SOUND FAMILIAR????
Yeah, right, the commies ain't behind all this B.S.
Another thing, enough with the pathetic obsession with that gagmebynow word "tolerance". There are things -----------and people who should not be tolerated, alot of them.
You wanna learn some truths about Vietnam??
Start with the book "Stolen Valor" by BG Burkett and Glenna Whitley.
How short your memory must be!
You clearly miss my various points... Does it really matter what absurd names your manifold despotic kings and oppressors held? Or the exact nature of the totalitarian regimes which held sway over Portugal for the last several centuries? What matters most is that your record (along with most of Europe) is greivously short when it comes to freedom of speech, plurality, tolerance, democracy, openness, and progressivism... despite whatever fantasies you've developed since all those Euros began flooding into your backward country to lift if from squalor... (I've visited Portugal, friend -- While beautiful in parts, and though I met friendly people there, I was appalled by the squalor I saw -- in some cases it was worse than Mexico -- and that's saying something...) Your posts are pompous... Your odious notions of your own superiority are clearly illustrated in these posts, while the evidence of Portugal's lack is clearly illustrated and irrefutable in Portugal's history... I didn't even touch on your gargantual greedy colonial record, nor did I dwell on Portugal's deplorable economic record and historical backwardness up until TODAY...
Who are YOU to be casting stones at America? How do you dare do so without recoiling in utter shame for your complete hypocrisy? Criticise all you want, old man, but then don't take such sanctimonious umbrage when someone from AMERICA fires back at your bitter bile... Anti-Americanism is real in Europe... And though you'd like to comfort yourselves, as the Muslims do, by blaming your hatred of us on imagined transgressions by us against you, or by trotting out past American transgressions and then raking us over the coals as if we haven't attempted to make amends... In any case, the American record of generosity and largesse towards Europe is UNIMPEACHABLE... The European record of betrayal and ingratitude is UNIMPEACHABLE... and reprehensible... It is rapidly becoming legendary... You, far more than we, are under the mortal threat of Islamic fascism -- We, far more than you, are waging a muscular fight against it -- we are spending our dollars -- we are shedding our blood...
What are YOU doing? Where is Portugal, Spain, France, Germany in this war? Who is doing ALL of the heavy lifting, old man?
-- so far, our European "allies" have done very little... And spiders like France and Germany continue to lend aid and comfort to the mortal foe --
You take such offense that I neither know, nor care to know the stupid names of your Kings in the 18th Century... I say to you: The article above details a tale wherein Germany has traded a vile beast who murdered a US Serviceman (nabbed in Europe where he was helping to protect your sorry asses) for what? the release of their hostage? We don't know the whole story yet... But I would ask you that while you express such utter contempt for me because I don't know (and don't care) what the names of your damnable kings were 200 years ago... do you know the name of Robert Stethem? Do you know how he died? Or why? This US Serviceman wasTRAMPLED TO DEATH by Muslim pigs -- his body was then dumped from the plane... Do you remember it? Do you care?
Sorry, bub... Not gonna sit by and listen to crap from you or anybody in Europe... It's time for Europeans to stand up and participate in your own goddamned defense...
Does Europe have a credible military method to deal with the Mullahs in Iran, while the US is "tied up" in Iraq? Do you? You DON'T.... and your pathetic "soft power" suasion has yeiled nothing but laughs and scorn from Tehran... Why not? You're weak... You're decadent... You're pathetic in your own defense... Sorry if the truth sucks...!
Both barrels, eh?? Big boom.
"I've visited Portugal, friend -- While beautiful in parts, and though I met friendly people there, I was appalled by the squalor I saw -- in some cases it was worse than Mexico -- and that's saying something...)"
Well, I apologise if the country didn't fit your spring break expectations. Like all countries, it all depends where you chose to go. I have spoken to many (educated) Americans who visited the country and enjoyed it thouroughly.
"do you know the name of Robert Stethem? Do you know how he died? Or why? This US Serviceman wasTRAMPLED TO DEATH by Muslim pigs -- his body was then dumped from the plane... Do you remember it? Do you care?"
Yes, I do care and I do know about the event. I also know that that man showed more dignity dying that you show writing your rants. Like Quatrocchi, he is an example of courage whereas you are one of childish behaviour. Grow up.
I am half German (and Romanian) and have many German relatives and friends, and have traveled to Germany many times. I am familiar with the current German mindset. My Germanic forefathers came from Prussia (modern day Poland) and Saxony and migrated to Transylvania (yes it’s a real place – an astonishingly beautiful place at that) at the request of the then King of Hungary. However, there were many relatives of mine scattered throughout Central Europe. WWII was devastating for my family, and of course so many other families. Obviously, I had no part in the killing of Jews, but I still offer my sincerest apologies to the innocents killed at the hands of butchers. I will always work extra hard to show them my sincerity. It is for this reason also that I give my allegiance to Israel. Germans too by and large are VERY sorry for what they have done and are not as the article portrayed: NAZI sympathizers! How astounding that anyone could believe such a thing! Germany is so utterly changed that it is a crime to even say the things some on this board are implying Germans to be saying.
What you all don't see is how the unrelatenting attacks on Germans have destroyed their country and led to a national psychosis. Germans cannot be allowed to forget their deeds. Reminders are all over the country. Yet life must now go on! Generations have passed since the crimes committed by my ancestors, and cannot expect a nation state to be forever in "probation" as Hugh suggests. While the holocaust was a wicked abomination that must never be forgotten, we must allow Germany to be mentally free to a larger degree, carefully build a REAL and modest military to assist ours and allow it to change its immigration rules without being labeled as racist - as is the case today! This argument is being made so that you all realize that Germany is finding it very hard to change its immigration policies (with respect to Muslim migrants) because of the attacks on it. Moslems are invading Germany. Please stop attacking the Germans and instead, save the Germans from political correctness with respect to their immigration policies.
Fellow readers do not for one minute believe this propaganda. Go to Germany yourselves and see if you see the things mentioned on this sight. The most disturbing thing you are likely to see is hordes of Muslims!!!!
To the Americans here I pose a question, do we Americans condemn all things German when so many, if not most of us, are of German ancestry?
Does Europe have a credible military method to deal with the Mullahs in Iran, while the US is "tied up" in Iraq? Do you? You DON'T.... and your pathetic "soft power" suasion has yielded nothing but laughs and scorn from Tehran... Why not? You're weak... You're decadent... You're pathetic in your own defense... Sorry if the truth sucks...!
--From above
That Europe is weak is true. True, they are powerless to deal with the Mullahs. But then so is Latin America, Africa, India and even (to a lesser extent) China. While Europeans deserve a SEVERE SCOLDING with respect to the appreciation of American liberation, I don't see how European "decadence" has anything to do with power projection globally. By the way, what is this "decadence" that you are referring to anyway? If it’s the tolerance shown to homosexuals such as myself I would like to know how that is "weakening" Europe.
Do you expect Europe to be a superpower? I will never be one; the best we can hope for is a strong chain association of friendly countries. Also, please remember that not all Europeans are the same. In each country there are many that are increasingly less antagonistic towards the US. Islam is opening their eyes and quieting their opposition to US policies. Don't listen to the media, I have friends and family and have my finger on the "European pulse". Merkel is a BIG step forward in Germany. Schroeder was a disaster for Germany.
cruzado,
1) Do you understand what the Tu Quoque logical fallacy is? Please look it up; you have demonstrated it repeatedly. You are quite correct that, "There isn't a country in the world with a completely clean sheet." However, to bring up the actions of country A, when a citizen of country A [citizen A] criticizes country B, is a misleading Tu Quoque argument against the truth of the assertions of citizen A.
2) You seem to define genocide differently than I do. From my viewpoint, the only (almost) comparables to the nazi murder of the Jews, are the nazi murder of the Gypsies, and the Ottoman Turkish murder of Armenians. European attacks in the Americas were standard, brutal, population expansion/war, more similiar, e.g., to the Anglo-saxon conquest of Britain from the Celts; they were not the planned, and centralized, liquidation of a demonized group, previously living peacefully within and among the perpetrators. Or is that what went on in Brazil 400 years ago? If what happened in the Americas had been at all similiar to what the nazis did and planned to do if they won ww2, there would be no Amerindians around now. But there are. Isn't that obvious?
3) If you are going to throw out assertion-bombs, such as your claim about pouches from scrotums, your partial reference to Ishi, and your followup assertion about Smithsonian sanctioned murder, you really should provide some references/citations as sources. Just a thought.
Hehe, they ain't "assertion-bombs" in his neck of the woods, it's "common knowledge". No need to investigate it.
Hell, he'd risk being called crazy for going against the PC Doctrine.
It's very close to that here already.
"Here"= the U.S.A.
"Also, please remember that not all Europeans are the same. In each country there are many that are increasingly less antagonistic towards the US. Islam is opening their eyes and quieting their opposition to US policies."
I have seen some evidence of this, and to the extent that this trend is happening in Europe it is a good thing... My points above are largely aimed at those Europeans (or foolish Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc) who wilfully or stupidly refuse to see, or are congenitally unable to see where their existential menace lies, and what to do about it... Largely readers at this site seem to agree that the menace lies within Islam, and those readers understand that the Muslim Jihad must be stopped. Some posters, many of whom have "contributed" to this thread, are instead inclined to drive into the ditch with their petty and obscure personal greivances, I feel they offer little of value when discussing Islam, the Great Jihad, or how to counter it effectively... Let these posters go elsewhere to rant about their various petty and off topic complaints -- They should not be freely tolerated inserting their pet polemics into these threads...
As for European decadence... It is a HUGE topic...
I would begin to define European "decadence" in terms of her deteriorating ability to tell right from wrong... This is subjective, of course, but as it pertains to Jihad, Islam, fascism, borders, defense, or terms like "evil", Europe today seems to be in an utter state of paralysis -- She no longer comprehends the necessity of national borders or the necessity of defending them...
Europeans have been on a 50 year binge championing all manner of untested and dubious supra-national organizations, and her nations have been zealously and unquestioningly handing over large chunks of their sovereignty to these supra-national institutions... The UN... The so-called "World Court"... The "EU", et al. This seems completely insane to me... These institutions are largely untested, and theoretical for the current problems which confront Europe and the world... In fact, at this very moment in time, the robustness of these dubious instutions is being challenged and they appear to be lacking, appear incompetent, appear to be behind the times, unworkable. Yet the Europeans seem more determined than ever to foist these boondoggles on their citizens, and to chastize us for not following suit... More and more these European projects look like psychotic and delusional fun house mirrors, not world institutions...
Also, Europe has been trumpeting the importance and primacy of these same dubious institutions as panaceas for all the world's woes... But are they? Let's take a look at the "World Court" -- Milosevic's trial has been going on for 4 years with nary an end in site... It is ludicrous.. And didn't Belgium have to craft special laws to prevent the execrable functionaries from attempting to indict the President of the US, The Vice President , the Secretary, and the Secretary of Defense? Now, you must excuse my French, but how fucking out of your minds are you guys over there? What the hell are you thinking? Do you want all out WAR with us? I could go on about other inanities like the UN, the laughable "Kyoto Accords" which Europeans excoriated America with, and are now at such troubles to try and salvage... Or the EU Constitution, that preposterous gargantuan megadisaster... I will say that Europe's continued addiction for these flawed, twisted, and staggeringly BAD institutions is frightening to see...
And European politics are decadent. Despite Europe's pretense of democracy, we learn in examples like the "stunning" defeat of the EU charter in France and later in Belgium that the elite leadership of Europe has for too long failed to listen to the voices of their constituents. Should it have been "stunning". I think not. The entire thing was a fiasco from the beginning, but in typical galling Gaulic fashion, the thing just kept metasticizing until it became an inoperable tumore... European leadership has betrayed democracy fundamentally. They are seen to be driven by absurd misguided elitist social, economic and political flim flam of the lowest order...
And although I could say much more, European decadence is probably best exemplified by her inability and unwillingness to defend herself. She seems incapable of identifying her worst enemies and her best friends, sadly, tragically, infuriatingly confusing one for the other... Welcoming the Muslim hoardes, frolicking and gambolling with the worst Arab regimes while plotting to undermine and harm America and American interests... Europeans commonly believe that Europe's gravest existential threat is from America herself, who is Europe's greatest and sole guarantor and champion... This grates on us terribly -- you must understand --- This treachery and loutishness, in the last 10 years, has almost become too much for America to bear... It is a bitter pill, and the poison that has been inserted into our trans-Atlantic dialogue (and I hold the French mainly at fault for this most recent and most poisonous chapter) will long linger in our American memories... You have not yet felt the full extent of damage you have caused by the folly and treachery of your behavior over the last decade... I think Americans are not likely to endure much more...
This is only a start of what I could say -- and the release of Stethems murderers, or the outrageous "sentence" handed down to Motasadeq, the first conspirator found guilty of abetting the 9/11 atrocity (15 years, overturned by the German Supremem Court because the Americans wouldn't allow this filth to interview our Al Qaida captives held in secret jails) all of it grates... All of it erodes... All of it rightly makes us wonder about you...
I do not think there is a single thing I disagree with you on Jsla, but I do not see how the things you have mentioned have anything to do with "decadence". You mentioned gambling. It is certainly an expensive and idiotic vice to have, but one I will certainly allow in a free society. You mentioned frolicking, I am not sure what that is. If you mean the Western girls "giving some" to Arabs/Muslims, perhaps they are making it too easy for Muslims to go back home and act pure and free of vice after having sown their seeds in the Western world. The West is like a Las Vegas for rich Muslims, don't forget that. So much revenue is made off of them.
I do not see any of this as decadence. I see it as Europe's naivety. You see, if Europe felt threatened, it would not behave as it does. It is incumbent upon us to awaken them. Once they see the threat, they will purge it (or so one hopes). But again, I do not see any "decadence" in insane immigration policies. I see PCness gone array.
Decadence -- sometimes defined as a period of decline or deterioration -- Can anyone doubt that a Europe which has forgotten the importance of self defence, a Europe which consists of nations which have abandoned their sovereignty for an untried and apparently incompetent form of supra-government, or a Europe which identifies its best friend and protector as its worst threat, and which has welcomed hoardes of hate filled enemies into her very bosom is the epitome of decadence...!?!
There! A vast array of things awry, each of which is decadent...
Kafir Nonbeliever,
Good posts. Most of us here do not hate the Germans at all. But we would like to see less anti-Americanism from them and perhaps some gratitude. That is all. Clearly some Americans are more forgiving than others. We can't just move on and downplay the Holocaust, it was so recent afterall, but it would only benefit the Germans if they let their guard down. They have made a lot of progress, far more than Japan has in admitting to its war crimes. But hearing stuff like "We are sick of this Nazi stuff" does not help the situation. It's not the same thing as the Muslims who complain about the Crusades, this is far more recent and more relevant to what might happen soon (i.e. Iran nuking Israel). This guilt will not last forever but it will last for a little while longer whether we like it or not. That's just the reality of the situation. I don't agree that Europe is weak because of its decadence, I think its weak because all of Europe (not just Germany) is losing its identity because GDP is valued moreso than culture, and that is why they are letting all of the Muslims in and considering letting Turkey in, for money. Mulitculturalism only contributes to it but it's still dangerous. The elites and people of Europe have to make a decision, what's more important to them, their identity or being an economic superpower? If they jettison their identity and values then they will be powerless to stop the Muslims because what will be left to defend if everything that makes us unique is torn down by the Big Market and multiculuralism? The German people can fight back without seeming "racist", a good place to start would be to reject the EU.
"Europe which identifies its best friend and protector as its worst threat"
-JSLA
That statement is entirely correct JSLA. I cannot disagree with you one bit. And that IS what this is really about, isn't it?
An appeal has been made on the basis of some supposed genetic loyalty -- something about being of German descent or having "German blood" or something rather disturbing -- to say nothing critical of Germany or Germans today, and how they view, or do not view, and how they speak about, or do not speak about, the past. Why? Because, you see, if Germans are made to feel unsure of themselves, to be less proud of themselves, then of course they are less likely to stand up against Islam.
There is nothing to this. Far from it. Only those Germans with completely clean consciousnesses and consciences, those who can and do readily denounce any sign of Germany taking lightly its own past, or thinking that past can be buried - it can't -- or even wishing it could be, when in fact it has to be owned up to, never dismissed or taken lightly. The best Germans are perfectly willing to accept, and to offer, criticism of Germany's past, and its not-quite-so-wonderful-as-depicted learning and teaching about that past. This has apparently come as a shock to a few people here -- that such thoughts are thought, such matters expressed. They had no idea some people felt that way. Oh yes they do. And what's more, a great many of them fall into the category of people one or two or more of whose ancestors arrived from Germany, but see not the slightest reason why that biographical detail should make the slightest difference in their own view of things -- they are Americans not Germans. Eisenhower, last I looked, had not before the war been prancing around in Fritz Kuhn's Bund. And those American soldiers, of "German" descent, who were captured by the Germans along with others, and absolutely refused to play ball when the Germans wished to separate out the "Jewish" soldiers from the others -- quite the contrary (there was a PBS program about this shown within the past year) -- what were they being? Americans of German descent, or Americans?
I don't see any connection between raising certaiin matters ,and the ability of Germans to withstand Islam. In every country, it is always the most morally and intellectually aware who have been the first to identify the problem of Islam. Pim Fortuyn comes to mind. And such peole, in Germany, would of course be those who felt along their own pulses, however long after the war they had themselves been born, the Nazi atrocities, and would be least tolerant of those who gave any signs locally of feeling sorry for themselves, or insisting in Martin-Walser fashion that "we've had enough." Far from it.
Tout se tient. Everything connects.
Nationalism is most certainly going to be required to deal with Islam, but the problem with nationalism is that nationalist of one country have a hard time dealing with nationalists of other countries.
That's why some sort of "EU" is going to be necessary. And even better, a "nationalism" devoted to defending "Western Civilization".
(We'll even make sure there's no enthusiastic blonde German children doing cartwheels - you know, just in case.)
But the EU bureacracy has been completely in the pocket of the Islamintern International. Look at how Chris Patten, Javier Solana, and the rest of those hideous people hideously see the world, as demonstrated in one pronouncement of theirs after another.
The E.U. has entered the fray in Denmark -- on the side of the Muslim ambassadors, deploring the attitude of the Danish government, and of the Danish newspaper that in the view of the EU bureacrats should have known better, was guilty of not exercising self-censorship.
The E.U. has failed to express any alarm about the threats to the lives of two Dutch parliamentarians, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders (see the excellent article on the Netherlands by Douglas Murray in the latest issue of The New Criterion -- the best issue on the matter of Islam of any magazine in the Western world. One cannot expect any magazine to offer, however, as yet what has been routinely expressed here for the past few years).
The E.U. does not stand for any language, literature, or history. It has no language, but languages (a different thing), no literature but literatures (a different thing). It has no history -- none.
The E.U. was constructed in homage to that worthless idol, economic man. Part of the problem, perhaps much of the problem, is that the hedonism of the age, a reflection of the despair that comes from the Cult of Growth, and underlying it, the old enemy -- Radix malorum cupiditas est -- that has gotten way out of hand.
Del
"Do you understand what the Tu Quoque logical fallacy is? Please look it up; you have demonstrated it repeatedly."
Read the whole thread all over again. Maybe then you will realise why I was forced to resort to the sort of argumentation I used.
"2) You seem to define genocide differently than I do. (...) they were not the planned, and centralized, liquidation of a demonized group, previously living peacefully within and among the perpetrators. Or is that what went on in Brazil 400 years ago? If what happened in the Americas had been at all similiar to what the nazis did and planned to do if they won ww2, there would be no Amerindians around now. But there are. Isn't that obvious?"
Well, what happened in the Americas was in fact systematic. It is actually interesting to notice that in the American psyche (through Hollywood) the Indian was until not long ago portraid as either an imature child or as a worthless savage. The first film to tell a completely diferent story was "Soldier Blue". You should check it out.
By the way, whatever barbarities happened in Brazil, they were infinitely fewer than what happened in North America. And another factor that you are not having into account is the diferent kind of colonization in North America vs South America (Portuguese/Spaniards traveled alone without women, which explains the greater racial mixing and cultural mixing in Latin America vs Anglo-America).
"3) If you are going to throw out assertion-bombs, such as your claim about pouches from scrotums, your partial reference to Ishi, and your followup assertion about Smithsonian sanctioned murder, you really should provide some references/citations as sources. Just a thought."
http://www.incite-national.org/involve/colonialism.html
^^^^ About desecration of Indian bodies.
Forgive me, but not everything is in the Internet. Most of my knowledge was acquired through books or documentaries. You can either believe me or take me for a liar, but don't ask me to back everything I say with evidence. I really have better things to do, and I am pretty sure that you can use Google as successfuly - if not more - than I do.
And and as to the Smithsonian, I was right.
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/guide/_uv.htm
Now you do the reading. Anything else?
"Smithsonian sanctioned murder"
Some posters have the unpleasant habit of putting words in other people's mouths. I never said that the Smithsonian sanctioned murder. I said that the Smithsonian requested the shipment of large quantities of the Indian skulls, and that many (not to say most) of those skulls were obtained through murder of Indian men, women and children, probably without the direct knowledge of the Smithsonian.
Hugh:
Your persistence is, ummm, what's a polite word? Certainly persistent.
Germany is to be on permanent probation, in your view. I have tried to follow your reasons for this, asking questions such as?
1) Is the problem with the German people? Are they genetically predisposed towards such excesses as the Holocaust? Are they, as Winston Churchill declared, a race of carnivorous sheep?
2) Is the problem with the society, the present form of government, the educational system? Did the occupation end too soon? Was the Marshall Plan a mistake? Should the entire country have been handed over to the Reds?
3) Is the land itself tainted. Do telluric forces present in the Harz Mountains compel any human beings within their grasp to become a "German" of the propaganda film kind that, frankly, you seem to be referring to?
4) None of the above?
If the answer is is 1), then Permanent Probabtion is a potential Final Solution to the German Question
If the answer is 2), I can say that the things I've noticed most about Germany in my travels there are the large numbers of women wearing in hijabs lounging about in the parks. Didn't seem to be an Aryan's notion of a 1000-year Reich at all, so somebody's not doing their job. And those blond kids performing their gymnastics...on skateboards. Ja Wohl! Echte deustche Kultur! Look out world.
If the answer is 3), then I think van Helsing should be called in on the case to put a stake through the heart of whatever Undead stalks the land.
Well, I'll opt for 4) with a little bit of 2) for balance. I've already expressed some of my opinions on this in earlier posts. Frankly, I think you're busy fighting the last war when the present war is upon us all.
Out enemy is an ideology that seeks to co-opt the best in our culture and then twist it into a shape that mocks and belittlesit. We must defend ourselves through education and then go on the offensive through co-opting of our own. As yet, there is no effective plan. The problems apparent in the EU show that multiculturism isn't working. The carriers of this ideology don't see anything wrong with their infection. Our leadership in the West, EVERYWHERE in the West, is ineffectual towards addressing this problem, in my view. Democracy has yet to truly roll up its sleeves and get to work.
Cruzado is full of it, he is a poseur, and a "USEFUL IDIOT"* or a agent provocatuer.
*http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/2003/05/20/169948.html
His "documentation", is a joke, and proves none of his claims.
He says most of his "sources" are books and "documentaries", and that "not everything is on the internet"...
Hahahaha. Name a book or documentary---
Or how about one of his links here-- a communistic and/or Islamist website. They're interested in truth, facts,logic and reality right????? They don't have an agenda do they?? No, no. Being a "victim" infers sanctimoniousness-- and ENTITLEMENT-- how about some REVENGE added to the mix?? Or how about being the "white knight" who defends them, hmmm, there's a nice FEEEELING of SUPERIORTY too.
One of his sources makes a "statement" such as:
"INCITE! condemns "Israel's" apartheid racist colonization of indigenous Palestinian land and people. INCITE! condemns the violence directed at Palestinian women and communities, including rape, torture, imprisonment, destruction of homes, and the intentional maiming and murder of children in cold blood. INCITE! condemns the "Israeli" military's direct targeting of pregnant women at checkpoints.
INCITE! condemns these practices because they are part of "Israel's" larger project of ethnic cleansing the Palestinian people. INCITE! also condemns "Israel's" colonial and racist violence because it gives rise to domestic violence and sexual assault within Palestinian communities. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian women's resistance and we support their struggle for a self-determined liberation."
http://www.incite-national.org/issues/warinfo/palestinepoints.html
___
Yes, I can see why you would be reluctant to provide sources Mr. Dupe.
Compare what his source says to this one:
http://www.workers.org/
By the way, jsla kicked yer ass.
"One of his sources makes a "statement" such as:"
Well, I didn't read everything in the site. HOWEVER, Indian corpse mutilation and desecration is well documented. Cutting off of women's breasts - which I believe happened in Wounded Knee -, the use of scrota to make tobacco pouches (I didn't say that it was widespread, but it did happen) and even the scalping of prisoners were all things introduced by Europeans (the later was introduced by the French, I believe, who paid the Indians for every single English scalp).
Now, in case you missed the obvious - which is that you already lost this "war" a long time ago - I really have better things to do. If you don't believe me, get in touch with a Native American organization and pop them the questions.
"By the way, jsla kicked yer ass."
Don't worry, the LSD will wear off in a couple of hours.
Hugh-
If we place the Germans under continued probation, should Americans not likewise be under probation for killing Native Americans and enslaving blacks? Perhaps you believe that America has reformed. Perhaps you are of the opinion that we have moved far enough away from Jim Crow laws and the slaughter of Native Americans that we are now “comfortable” that no further probationary period is necessary. Perhaps yuo rightly noticed that with our military strength, none could enforce such a “probation” on us. Moreover, since we are pointing out blame, are atrocities committed against blacks (or Native Americans) less important than those committed against another group, such that probation is not required?
As for those stupid German teenagers/young people laughing at the movie mentioned infra, as a young person (growing up in America), I remember many young people joking about lynching and how we all "deserved" to own a nigger. How is that for some probationary needs? Are young Americans laughing while watching the movie “Roots”, any less offensive to you? If we are to measure the “reform index" of a country, do we look to the "reverance factor" of idiots in a movie theater watching painful periods in history? Is THAT how we measure reform?
Germany has an enormous amount to atone for, but then again, let us not forget our own wrongs. Germany pays an enormous amount even to this day to Israel, it has memorials everywhere, and it teaches history in a correct manner and has laws preventing the establishment of Neo-nazi groups. It has repeatedly apologized to Britain and other countries for its mistakes. Is the same true of the US with respect to Native Americans and blacks? So Indians get casinos now, a little late I’d say. As for blacks, are you aware that are STILL WAITING FOR AN OFFICIAL APOLOGY for being transported here with numerous casualties and being lynched. After “emancipation”, the love just kept on rolling for them for another hundred years! /sarc We (the US government) dare not that apology it for liability reasons (reparations), did you know that Hugh?
I believe America has changed, and so has Germany. Let us have the Germans join us to defeat the greatest threat to our collective civilization since Hitler himself: Islam.
Chickaloon, I still stand by my original comment that the particularly grisley nature of the way that the Indians fought caused the Americans soldiers at that time to lash out with crushing, overwhelming force and brutality.
It is the American way of fighting and always will be.
President Bush is showing Merkel displeasure over her scandalous behaviour. Not...
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-01-13T181659Z_01_KNE324079_RTRUKOC_0_US-GERMANY-USA.xml&rpc=22
"Also, please remember that not all Europeans are the same. In each country there are many that are increasingly less antagonistic towards the US. Islam is opening their eyes and quieting their opposition to US policies."
___
I worry that if the time comes, it may be too late. Americans may not rise to the occasion, may not be willing to fight to defend the Europeans after all this anti-Americanism. That would be a shame.
Americans do believe that Europe is falling under it's own decadence. I wouldn't define that an anti-homosexual attitudes, my friend, but a marked priority of personal comfort over long term planning and security concerns.
Hugh: "The E.U. does not stand for any language, literature, or history. It has no language, but languages (a different thing), no literature but literatures (a different thing). It has no history -- none."
No, but *Europe* does; oodles of it. At the moment, the current EU monstrosity is certainly not representative of this historic Europe, but I hold that there *can* be a "certain idea" of an EU that is; that truly works for its constituent nations.
The reason such an "EU", or let's just call it "Europe", is necessary is because the need to fight Islam is a matter of civilizational survival, and to fight Islam, the nations of Europe must be sure of themselves *as* European nations, but we also need to prevent ourselves from killing each other - which the last four hundred years of European history teaches can happen with alarming regularity. Thus the individual nationalisms must be subsumed under a greater "European", or "Western Civilization", ideal, but subsumed in such a way that the historic nations are not *subdued* - as they are by the current regime.
It's not really a difficult concept at all. There need be nothing like the fanatical, nation destroying drive for "integration" engineered by EU mandarins. Simply an affirmation that the constituent European peoples belong to a definable European (or Western) civilization that is currently - or rather, once again - imperiled by its ancient enemy, Islam.
A little help in Iraq and with Iran would go a very long way to appease American anger.
European countries that have helped in Iraq:
UK (are still helping)
Poland (are still helping)
Romania (are still helping)
Italy
Spain
Ukraine
Denmark
Holland
Bulgaria
If I missed any, please note them.
And you all seem to forget that numerous countries are helping in Afgahnistan, including ever increasingly, FRANCE!
We have friends in the Europeans, but they are not powerful countries.
Hehehe.
Cruzado sez: oinkaboink a-binka boo, szslifs iy bbyzzzzzzz, jkneerd uyhk, lptha axrde mynuwwqoepjklmnoz!
aFCnnus dAqoulplpipipipi io?? Ua lumonoxian pradorhornen beloque butt wully-bully, LeNiN ACE-NUMERO-UNO, MAOFEDELandCHE, SUPERDUPER HUMANITARIANS. sTALIN BAD, HE NO COMMIE REAL. mE NO COMMIE, ME hUMANIST!!!!!!
mE CARE ABOUT humanity!!! oNBLY us care. Me like beloieving stuff that make me feeel GooD. mE RIGHT nO matter WAT.
Kentim:
Between Man and Ape there is a long road. Apparently you found the shortcut. Incidentally:
"NUMERO-UNO"
UM (not uno).
Heehee.
I found it ESPECIALLY funny when you told jsla to "grow up".
I KNOW I was'nt as stupid as you 25 years ago. Almost maybe. Shame on me.
Do yourself a favor, you're being scammed man, that leftist sh-t is all a big con-game. They are playing you for the fool. I sh-t you not. They are DIRECTING your thoughts, they are playing your emotions and manipulating you, for their benefit. It's what they do.
Yes, I know that some of Europe is 'helping'. Actually, I was thinking of Germany, when I wrote that.
Still, I think the ratio of effort would be calculated close to 90% USA and 10% all the countries you listed combined. Correct me if I am wrong, perhaps it is 95-5%.
And it harms us when countries pull out, like Spain did, so you won't get 'thanks' there.
"I KNOW I was'nt as stupid as you 25 years ago. Almost maybe. Shame on me."
http://www.dekluif.nl/grappigeplaatjes/fuck%20you.JPG
cruzado,
you wrote: "I was forced to resort to the sort of argumentation I used."
That is just ridiculous. Did someone really have a gun to your head as you sat at your keyboard?
you wrote:"Forgive me, but not everything is in the Internet. Most of my knowledge was acquired through books or documentaries. You can either believe me or take me for a liar, but don't ask me to back everything I say with evidence."
That is ridiculous again. Especially the last phrase of your last sentence. But I will try to remember this, whenever I come across your writing in the future. Thank you for your candor. I did not ask you to google after-the-fact. I requested that you provide references or citations for your historical assertions. I would have preferred at least the titles of a few books, read prior to your comments. Instead, you go googling in response to my comment, in order to find some crap which agrees with your previously made assertions. Also, your reliance on movies and documentaries is not commendable. My experience is that both are usually the product of people with expertise in film, rather than history. Further, you can't even remember the title to any of these movies or documentaries, seared, just seared, into your memory.
you wrote: "Some posters have the unpleasant habit of putting words in other people's mouths." in reference to my comment to you.
Here is what you previously wrote, with no ellisions by me: "I remember one incident when one American museum needed Indian skulls to make measurements. This happened in the XIX century. Instead of pillaging Indian graveyards, guess how the hundreds of skulls needed were obtained... I may be wrong, but I think that the museum in question is the Smithsonian."
I easily infer, from your choice of words, responsibility for murder being placed on the Smithsonian.
Piffle and twaddle.
WOW - 217 posts and counting. Is this a JW record? Much of this has been entertaining, but way off topic. After many discussions of a variety of subjects, including early native Americans, Vasco De Gama, the Smithsonian etc I thought I would make a comment about the original article.
The writer listed three possible explanations for the German government releasing the killer of Robert Stetham, the last one being that Osthoff was an intellegence asset. The writer argued that this would be an acceptable policy, if this were the case.
I watched much of the joint press conference yesterday with Bush and German Chancellor Merkel. Although Merkel politely disagreed with the US policy concerning Guantanimo, Bush did not even politely bring up the Osthoff trade. They did not even state that they agreed to disagree. When questioned about US German intelligence cooperation, Bush completely ducked the question.
This leads me to optimistically believe that Osthoff was indeed an intelligence asset. If, years from now we find out that this is not true, then Bush will indeed be regarded as complete dhimmi.
The lack of action on the part of the State Department is mysterious. They have not even requested the return of the Stetham killer from Lebanon. What gives?
Seeing the two hundred plus responses to this essay ( an all time high by my reconing ) I decided to get in on this just to be part of the record.
First off the Germans are complete screw ups for doing the swap. If their girl in Iraq was an intelligence assest, she most likely was a double agent funnelling intel to the fanatics. This the United States found out the hard way with Chalibe in Iraq working for the Iranians. He is now the Minister Of Energy. Wow! We really pulled some strings and showed him not to double cross us huh? Which just goes to show how little control we have over the political situation in Iraq.
As for the broader issue with Germany. The National Socialist Party of Adolf Hitler was an off shoot of a religious order. So one would think that the Germans would be more aware of the political dangers of religious fanaticism than anyone else in Europe. For some reason , when it comes to Islam the lesson is lost on them.
As is lost on the world the need to view Turkey and now Sudan in a similar light that Germany is historially view for their own genocidal efforts.
--Nossy