re: "America's Soul"

Jens David Ohlin at Lieber Code read this book that you might want to read too.

Money quote(s):

"Gregory Wallance has just published a fascinating – and contrarian – new book. Titled America’s Soul in the Balance: The Holocaust, FDR’s State Department, and the Moral Disgrace of an American Aristocracy, the book shines an uncomfortable spotlight on a rather unsavory moment in American history during World War II. Lawyers for the U.S. State Department became aware of the Nazi’s growing extermination of Jews, and rather than actively publicizing this fact, actually conspired to cover it up. At around the same time, the State Department blocked the rescue of 70,000 Romanian Jews on a death march in the Ukraine.

Wallance’s book paints a devastating portrait of the State Department at this crucial moment in time. In so doing, it adds much to the historical record regarding U.S. governmental conduct during the time period. In particular, it avoids the quick and facile reduction of a state’s government into a single agent with a unified approach to a complex situation. Instead, it provides a micro-analysis of how different departments -- and different lawyers all presumably serving the same organizational client -- were responding to the increasingly disturbing reports of Nazi atrocities. "

CAA is currently reading Erik Larsen's In the Garden of Beasts, which provides a similar perspective on American diplomatic impotence in the face of evil.

5/8

re: "Pearl Harbor Considered"

Victor Davis Hanson at Private Papers looked at the Pearl Harbor attack, on its 70th anniversary.

Money quote(s):

"Why did Japan attack us 70 years ago today, other than the usually cited existential reasons and the fact that they thought they could and get away with it?"

Mostly because they thought they could get away with it.

Herman Wouk, in one of his Winds of War books, had a character (a U.S. naval aviator aboard one of our aircraft carriers, IIRC) explain, pre-Pearl Harbor, that peace (i.e., restraining Japanese aggression) in the Pacific was maintained by three "legs." Those were Russia, Britain, and the U.S.

With Russia and Britain preoccupied fighting Nazi Germany, the peace that had been resting on this three-legged stool was about to fall on its ass.

"(U)ntil August 1945, it was the United States, not Japan, that had a traditional two-front war. We rarely talk of Stalin’s duplicity in this regard: While we were suffering terrible casualties from the Japanese, supplying Russia, conducting bloody campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and over the skies of Europe, and being hectored by the Soviets to open a second front in Europe, the Soviets honored their non-aggression pact with Japan, freeing up hundreds of thousands of veteran troops to be used against us on the islands. I never understood why history books focus on Stalin’s exasperation with our supposedly tardy invasion of Normandy, when he was completely unwilling to open a second front against Japan — until it was utterly wrecked in August 1945 and there were easy pickings to be had in the region."

Remember, that to a Leftists, "There are no enemies on the Left." Therefore, niggling details like the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact, the artificial famines, the show trials, the gulag, and the Venona Papers, aren't to be mentioned.

"One final thought. The growth of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s and the alarm that it caused in the Pacific, its increasingly illiberality and nationalism, the enormous industrial and military progress that it had made in emulating European economies and Western armed forces, the concurrent impressions that a Depression-era America was a sinking rather than a rising power, and a general sense that the Japanese model was superior to the alternatives offersome general parallels to the current comparative status of China and America in the Pacific. Let us hope that we learn the lessons of Pearl Harbor, namely that anything is possible at any time, that deterrence ultimately keeps the peace, and that deterrence is a combination of known superior military strength and a certainty among concerned parties that such overwhelming power will be used in defense, and thereby will assure the aggressor that its attack will prove suicidal." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

12/15

re: "Liberal Idiots Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Obvious Historical Reference"

Emperor Misha I at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") noted another instance of media nerds beclowning themselves.

Money quote(s):

"Which is what happens, we suppose, when you concentrate the entirety of your scholastic pursuits on such subjects as gender studies, basket weaving, social justice and comparative folk dancing."

This is just embarrassing.

To think that any ostensably educated American lacks a the full and rich historical appreciation for "Nuts!" as a timely and succinct response to an unwelcome request.

For shame!

"It’s interesting that they bleat about how muslims “shouldn’t have to defend their rights to worship freely or participate in the governing of our society” when they, at the same time, feel it quite appropriate for them to insist that Colonel West waive his right to freedom of association. Interesting as in “the irony here is so bloody dense it has its own gravitational field.”

Also, did we miss the point where islam became illegal?"

Islam has only become illegal in American as part of the MacGuffin in certain dystopian novels.

"Follow the historical precedent of the answer and go on to utter defeat and destruction. Please."

&

"Now far be it from us to suggest that Colonel West was comparing an unindicted islamic terrorist front organization to Nazis, it’s more likely that he was just seeing another bunch of blustering fools issuing ridiculous demands that no man of honor could ever accept and saw the obvious parallel, but if you really must go down that road, let’s enlighten you a bit vis-a-vis muslim ties to Nazism."

8/20

re: "The last professional"

The Phibian at Cdr Salamander ("Proactively “From the Sea”; leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.") let his inner history-geek out for a reflective moment.

Money quote(s):

"It was often said that in most nations, the nation has a military. In the case of Prussia - the seed of the modern German state - a military had a nation.....

The post-Franco-Prussian War Germany took that Prussian professionalism with them. To this day, those who have worked with the rump-German military can speak of their professionalism - though they are firmly under their nation now days."

This was still true as of my last interactions with Bundeswehr folks, just a coupla short years ago.

What's key to remember, though, about the post-WW2 German is how thoroughly their professional ethic has been infused with the U.S. sort of civil-military dynamic.

(Let's chalk that one up as a success.)

"In their mid-century descent in to madness, there was one branch of the German military that held its honor the longest - some would say they never lost it; that was the German Navy.The fact they had the last Jewish officers is one point, they were also the service that held out the longest with the traditional military salute, though with time that faded as more and more officers saw the personal-professional gain by "joining the club" with the fascist salute. Many stuck with it throughout.

There are all sorts of pictures out there where some are saluting normal, and others the fascist salute."

Military, and naval, officers are a conservative lot. Not in their politics per se necessarily (although that's often true as well), but in their habits, both of thought and of custom.

Getting an old soldier to change how he salutes (or marches)? Good luck with that. It just goes to show how thoroughly transformative National Socialism was in Germany.

"(W)hen I see that picture all I can think of is sadness. Sadness for the last professional before his nation descended in to suicidal madness."

7/27

re: "Playing word games with the Holocaust"

sjostrom at Atlantic Blog ("thoughts on politics, economics and the culture by.... an American economist living and working in Ireland") remarks on recent idiocy in The Irish Independent.

Money quote(s):

"The six million number was not merely some "round-estimate"; it was Adolph Eichmann's estimate. Myers's claim that there is no documentary basis for this is simply false, and both Myers and the Indo ought to be ashamed of themselves for printing such rot."

As I recall, the estimate of six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust was about half of the twelve million murdered, the remainder being others deemed undesirable under Hitler's NSDAP regime such as Gypsies (i.e., Sinti and Roma), the disabled, communists, troublesome priests, as well as others from within Germany and her conquered or allied neighbors.

I don't bring that up to minimize the destruction wrought on European Jewry, just to put it into the context that six million Jews murdered isn't unbelievable when you look at the fact that over twelve million civilians were murdered by the Nazi death apparatus. Given that about half of that total were Jews should indicate the high priority given to their destruction.

Possibly I'm being too broad in using the Hebrew term Holocaust to include all of the Nazi's civilian genocides; I mean no offense by it.

"Myers's attempt to mock the precision of 6 million - "not a Jew more, or not a Jew less" - is just stupid."

&

"Myers seems to be saying that Holocaust denial is a crime only if the government is not afraid of you. That is sadly hard to dispute. It is too bad Myers had to cover that point in idiocy and falsehoods."

TA - Bound for the US? Best take a number

The Australian

Bound for the US? Best take a number


Steve Creedy January 08, 2009


Article from: The Australian


NAZIS need not apply, terrorists can forget about it and spies can turn around now.

Drug traffickers are out and people who have been convicted of moral turpitude should not even bother getting a cab to the airport.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"From Monday, US-bound Australians will be required to declare that they have not been involved in acts of sabotage, genocide and Nazi persecutions before they leave the country.

A new system that allows US authorities to perform police checks before passengers arrive on American soil requires passengers to obtain an Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) number prior to checking in at the airport."

"The soon-to-be compulsory system has been operating on a voluntary basis since August and requires travellers to fill out and submit an online form. Required information includes address, passport details, phone numbers and email address as well as those uniquely American questions optimistically asking passengers to declare any past evil-doings.

The information is checked against law enforcement databases to determine eligibility to travel but does not guarantee admission to the US."

&

"Those who applied for an ESTA number and were told they were not eligible to travel would need to go to the consulate."

WT - OPINION: Whitewashing the Islamist threat. More fallout from Koran sniper story.

From my archive of press clippings:

Washington Times

OPINION: Whitewashing the Islamist threat. More fallout from Koran sniper story.

Diana West

Monday, June 2, 2008

What interested me most about the official reaction to this month's Koran Sniper story - apologies galore, a kissed Koran for probable former insurgents, a punished soldier - was what it made vivid about our society: American deference to Islam, from the sacralization of Islam's book to the ideology of anti-infidelism, supremacism and totalitarian conquest within it. After all, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond called the sniper's action "criminal behavior." But the only law broken was Islamic law.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Had a mid-century GI used "Mein Kampf" for target practice, I noted, Gen. George S. Patton would hardly have kissed one to appease a band of former Nazis.

Suffice to say, I've received considerable comment, both positive and negative, about this analogy."