Bush: US should have bombed Auschwitz

[onehandle]

Source: AP

JERUSALEM - President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial Friday and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memorial's chairman said.

snip...

At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said.

The Allies had detailed reports about Auschwitz during the war from Polish partisans and escaped prisoners. But they chose not to bomb the camp, the rail lines leading to it, or any of the other Nazi death camps, preferring instead to focus all resources on the broader military effort, a decision that became the subject of intense controversy years later.

Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people were killed at the camp. "We should have bombed it," Bush said, according to Shalev.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/bush_israel_holocaust

---

Bush. Is. Insane.

He's a child that thinks that everything is fixable if you apply action movie theory.

[Demeter]

1. Yes. He IS. But Unimpeachable, for all that

[Amerigo Vespucci]

33. It's off the table!

"I've got your back, Mr. President..."

[Zhade]

120. Thanks to traitors in Congress.

NT!

[TheWraith]

150. Find 17 Republicans who'll vote to impeach Bush, then we can talk.

Until then, it's wheel spinning.

[acmavm]

2. Bombed Auschwitz? Well, that would have been so helpful to the living

Jew, gypsies, etc. that were interned there, wouldn't it?

What is with this fuckwit and bombing people????

[iamjoy]

35. A Lot Of Jews Were For It (Then)

Those prisoners were being tortured and murdered. But, the thing is, it was really the rail lines they wanted bombed. Without the trains, it would have been a lot harder to get more victims to the death camp.

[JPZenger]

48. Allies Were Asked to Destroy Rail Lines Leading to Death Camps

The allies were asked to destroy the rail lines leading to the death camps. In the process, some inmates would have been killed (such as on trains on the tracks and bombs that missed the targets). However, it would have delayed the deaths of hundreds of thousands. A tremendous number of the deaths in the Nazi camps (including political prisoners and Jews) occurred in the last year of the war.

[acmavm]

63. Okay. Got it. And again, the rail lines are one thing. The death

camp, which no doubt the Idiot-in-Chief meant, is another.

[TheWraith]

151. The catch is, bombing the rail lines wouldn't have helped much.

Railways can be rebuilt fairly quickly, and they probably would have been using slave labor from Auschwitz itself to do so. In fact, one bombing raid on Auschwitz did cut the rail line as I recall, but it was up and working again fairly fast.

The only thing that would have significantly set back the operations there would have been bombing of the gas chambers themselves. There was a documentary on this awhile back, about why the Allies didn't go all out to bomb Auschwitz. One of the explanations put forward was that with the limited accuracy available with unguided bombs, and how near the gas chambers were to the barracks, they didn't think they could destroy the chambers without killing everyone else in the camp.

[acmavm]

61. Rail lines is a hell of a cry from actually bombing the death camp.

[humbled_opinion]

77. They all died anyway...

I guess bombing them early on may have made a difference regardless of the collateral damage... IMHO... :think:

[Lorien]

84. No, they didn't

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4214079.stm

[RebelOne]

105. No, they didn't because I knew one woman, who was my next-door

neighbor, who was born in a concentration camp. She was Polish, but grew up in Russia. Sadly, she died a few years ago.

[acmavm]

95. Good grief, that was cold blooded not to mention not very bright,

[humbled_opinion]

110. I didn't say obliterate the camp...

You have to look at the numbers of Jews exterminated in 1944 in early spring of 1944 we were fully capable of bombing the facilities at Auschwitz from our bases in Italy but we did not.... had we taken out the gas chambers only potentially thousands of Jews would have been spared... Read on it one objective book is The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? By: Michael J. Neufeld..... Don't judge this on pure emotion apply some logic we were in fact bombing railroads and other factories and camps within striking range of Auschwitz imagine if you were behind that fence with a number waiting your ultimate demise in the gas chamber and you were hearing allied planes overhead but they did nothing to help you as you marched to your death....

Not pretty no matter how you slice it but don't judge me read about it...

[Frisbee]

124. had we taken out the gas chambers only

I hate to break this to you, but in the 1940's (and 50's through the early 80's) we didn't have the technology to "take out the gas chambers only". It would have required massive bombing that would have obliterated not only the gas chambers, but everything around them.

Taking out the rails on the other hand would have been a sensible move.

[TankLV]

128. Hate to break it to you - but we STILL don't have the technology to be selective in our bombing NOW.

All the hype from the "war" is just that - HYPE - and LIES.

The "smart" bombs AREN'T...

NONE of them worked as touted.

NONE...

[Jamastiene]

149. Bombing those would still have killed victims

Bush sure does love to bomb people. Hasn't he got enough bombs going of in the present time? Does he have to go through history and dream of bombing in the past too? I'd hate to think what he has in store for us in the future. :scared:

[Ian David]

73. Barbara Bush would have done it. Because they were underprivileged to begin with. n/t

[JBoy]

78. That's right

Bombing would have really worked out well for them.

[Ian David]

80. The prisoners would have all escaped through the tunnels...

[onehandle]

98. No. She wouldn't have wasted her "beautiful mind" on something like that. nt

[Ignis]

116. But would she trouble her "beautiful mind" with such thoughts?

Probably not.

[ikojo]

143. Nor would her father in law (Prescott Bush)

have troubled his aristocratic Aryan mind with bombing Auschwitz. After all what was taking place there was the will of the Fatherland.

The ghost of Prescott Bush is probably none too happy with his descendant now, is he?

What many in the US do not want to acknowledge is that in the 1930s and 40s antisemitism in the US was pretty high. Jews were kept out of many professions and universities based on a quota system. Jews couldn't stay or move into certain areas of town.

From the New York Times in June 1940 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40C12F6345D10728DDDAF0894DF405B8088F1D3

Wendell L. Willkie, Republican Presidential nominee, in a special interview published in today's issue of The Day, Jewish daily newspaper, characterized anti-Semitism as "a possible criminal movement" and held that any growth of such a movement would be a "calamity" for the United States.


From the New York Times in 1948 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F0081FF83954177A93C3A9178CD85F4C8485F9

MONTREUX, Switzerland, June 30 (UP) -- Dr. Alex Easterman, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, said today that "democracy in the United States is at present being swept by unprecedented currents of anti-Semitism."




It was only after the liberation of the death camps that American attitudes toward Jews began to change when they saw what that hate could lead to.

[MissHoneychurch]

3. Sure.

Bomb the camp and kill them all together. What does he think??? That the bombs would have only hit the Nazis???? :eyes:

[RC]

4. Think? bu$h? Yeah, right.

[MissHoneychurch]

14. Ooops

my bad .... I forgot that he is unable to think :hide:

[Mira]

32. They don't call them smartbombs for nuthin' N/T

[momster]

68. US Bombs Are Magic Bombs

according to George's story books. They only kill the bad guys and you can tell they are bad guy 'cause they wear black hats and look mean.

[Thor_MN]

81. After the bombs hit them, anything they are wearing is blackened

THAT's how georgie knows they are evilduers.

In Iraq, if you are killed by US action, you are an insurgent by definition.

[Zywiec]

5. They could have bombed the train tracks leading to the camps n/t

[ChazII]

9. But that would

have caused damage to the environment. (sarcasm) Human life takes priority - you made a good point -imho.

[onehandle]

11. Dangerous precision bombing in the heart of the most air protected part of German territory?

Wouldn't have been effective.

[tibbiit]

17. there was no such thing as precision bombing back then.

nt
tib

[Catch22Dem]

22. They could be VERY precise back then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave

[Catch22Dem]

20. Sure there was. Had nothing to do with ability.

The ability existed, anyone knows the story of The Dam Busters knows there were ways to be very precise. Also, by the summer of 1944, the allies dominated the skies. They were already bombing targets very near the camps, but the camps were not considered military targets and were not seen as a means of meeting a military objective. Didn't have anything to do with their ability to carry out the task.

[happyslug]

135. The Dam busters? Lancaster going low and slow?

In fact, while the Dam busters did do their job, it was never tried again. Since they were flown OVER the lake behind the dam they could determine their height by the use of two set of lights. When both hit the water, they were at the precise height. Without a huge set of water that was impossible to do (We do it now by radar, and laser height finders but Laser were 10 years in the Future in 1943 AND radar was NOT yet good enough, and would not be for another 20 years).

Basically to destroy those Railroads you have to fly a four engine bomber, during daylight, over the tracks. avoiding trees, curves tunnels and other thing that separate the plane from the tracks and laying down a string of bombs. And remember anyone with a Rifle will be shooting at you, and the height you will be traveling at will make you a large, slow target for them.

Except for large rail yards, the only time trains were attacked by Planes during WWII, was by Dive Bomber, Fighters with guns and Rockets or Attack Planes with guns and Rockets. Given where the Death Camps were, none of these types of planes then in the hands of the Allies had to range to reach the death camps. Thus the allies had a technology problem. The planes that could hit the train lines, did not have the range to reach the train lines. The planes that could reach the Train lines could NOT hit the train lines. Thus the allies did NOT have the means to attack the train lines going to the camps.

As to the Camps themselves, while large enough to be hit, most of the people being killed in the camps, died the day their arrived. The standard German WWII train had 55 cars, each capable of carrying 20 people or 1100 people per day, which each death camp could kill and "process" in a day and be ready for the next shipment of people the next day. Most of the camps could take two or three trains a day but lets assume just one train per day. Given 300 days of execution that would be 330,000 killed per camp per year. For the three years in actual operation that could be 990,000 per camp (Remember assuming just one train load per camp per day and then only 200 days per year). Thus it is clear each camp was capable of killing over 1 million lives over the life of the camp (and more if you had more than one train per day, and most camps did). There were Six death camps AND MANY JEWS DIES IN THE GHETTOS before even shipped to the Death Camp OR by "Special Execution Units" of the SS. Thus if only one train hit each camp each day it was possible to kill 6 million people in three years. If you had 2-3 trains the 13 million people number is also possible. I first saw this calculation done by an Orthodox Jew, to counter any claims that it was impossible for Hitler to kill so many, if you look at the number it was fairly easy with the technology of the time period.

A few of the people sent to the camps were kept alive to burn or bury the bodies and otherwise keep up the camp. No one in the camp knew where they were in Eastern Europe, and the Guards made sure every horror story about the Polish Resistance reached them (i.e. every time a Pole killed a Jew for any reason, true or false, it was told to the Jews so they would remain more afraid of the Enemy they did not know, the Polish Resistance, then the enemy they did know the Camp guards).

Given what most of the Survivors had good through by 1943, I do not think that if the camps were bombed most of the Survivors in the camp would have left. Some would have, willing to take the chance, but most would be wondering were they were going to get that day's rations? Remember these people were STARVED both physically and Psychologically, and when you are starved physically you want to keep up any string of food, and that was from the camp guards. Thus the line of food supplies to the camp were part of the psychological prison for the survivors, and in many ways more effective than the electrified fence around the camp. Thus my point the survivors, while in the camps, were to starved both physically and Psychologically to break free even if the plant was bombed.

Side Comment on Sobibor. The revolt in Sobibor were lead by the small group of Russian Jewish Prisoners of War assigned to the Camp to do heavy work that was needed. Being soldiers they knew how to take care of each other and accept losses (Something the other prisoners were NOT Psychologically capable of doing). The Soldiers being only recently arrived in the Camp had not yet been Psychologically starved to think of escape as impossible. Thus they started the revolt and lead the break out from the camp. Only 60 of the people in the camp survived the war, the rest were killed, but most broke out UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF PEOPLE NOT YET BROKEN Psychologically. While those Soldiers were in Sobibor, if it had been bombed, they would have left and the rest would have followed them, but in the other camps you had no such corp of people to lead the rest out of the camp. Bombing would have useless UNLESS you also provided some sort of ground support to help the prisoners out of the camp. This adds to the complexities of attacking the camps, for you have to get people in, you also have to be able to get your people out. In Sobilbor you had the people on the ground willing to lead the people out, at the rest of the Camps the Germans NEVER mixed POWs and Death Campers again after Sobibor, thus no one on the ground, no way to get people on the ground, no way to get your people OFF the ground once the mission is complete. Solibor shows what was needed and the allies were NOT capable of that till 1945 as both the Western Allies and the Red Army moved onto German soil and freed most of the camps.

[boricua79]

26. it's not like they had precision bombing back then

Our planes weren't much more advanced than the Germans (in fact, the Germans had Jet planes before us). And we couldn't evade their anti-aircraft guns to make such a pinpoint strike.

If we could get away with it, it probably would have been worth it, but I don't think it was feasible back then.

[Zywiec]

37. So during all of World War II we never blew up any train tracks?

I find that hard to believe. I know we were able to bomb bridges, so why not train tracks?

While I'm sure it took many more bombs than it would today, I would say it was very possible.

Also, there were many camps spread throughout all of Europe, not just deep into Southern Poland.

[Solon]

47. The whole point is about the amount of bombs dropped...

They could have targeted the tracks leading to Auschwitz, by dropping tons of bombs around the train tracks and praying that they actually knocked them out. That's how they knocked out bridges, back in the day. Its not like today, where it takes ONE bomb to knock out a bridge, back then, it was 100 bombs.

Imagine the same thing occurring, but they targeted the camp itself. They would hit the camp, no problem, but those bombs wouldn't have distinguished between prisoner and guard.

[boricua79]

59. we did...but usually out of carpet bombing campaigns and runs

which were very costly, materiel and lives-wise. We lost a lot of Flying Fortresses in attempts to destroy the German infrastructure.

Like it or not, we were in a fight for the future of the world. The outcome was not certain. The war could have gone the other way if Hitler wouldn't have made some mistakes (engaging Russia AND Britain at the same time, two front war). And in that scenario, when military planners were deciding what was worthwhile to risk material and soldiers on, they had to pick infrastructure targets that would deprive the German Army of the ability fight. Attrition and war exhaustion was the name of the game.

As immoral as it may sound, bombing a train track which led to concentration camps was not a target that was more important than bombing a bridge of train track that led to steel plants, or plane assembly yards, or airports, etc.

I don't blame the Allies for it. They had more important targets to worry about, and they (Correctly) had thought that they didn't have an accurate ability to bomb the camps or assure that we wouldn't kill the people we were trying to save.

Another thing to consider is that, if push came to shove, the Germans were always willing and capable of dispatching their prisoners in alternative ways. If the camp had been bombed and they were faced with the problem of not being able to hold their prisoners in a stable fashion, German officers could follow up with ordering the mass execution of a larger portion or the entire camp population. And they wouldn't have to waste precious ammo to do it. They could have tied up prisoners and led them out to fields in small groups and bayonet them near a mass grave.

bombing the camps could have led to an emergency mass slaughter of the prisoners, and since there was no way to assure that we could eliminate the Germans in the camps, that would have been a worse outcome.

[onehandle]

96. Exactly.

Those bombing runs would have been costly band-aids.

Sad, but true.

[JPZenger]

50. Most of the death camps were not in heart of Germany

Most of the death camps were not in the heart of Germany. Many were in occupied territories, such as Poland. The distances for bomber crews would have been much longer, but the air defenses would have been less than the normal targets at German factories.

[Yupster]

82. Why are you saying

that Auschwitz was in the most air protected part of Germany?

Wouldn't Schweinfurt be way more protected? The Ruhr? Even Berlin?

Heck - Auschwitz wasn't even in Germany. It was in occupied Poland.

[onehandle]

93. I said German territory. Not Germany.

And it was heavily protected. The Russians were on their way.

And American bombers would have to get past a heavily protected front on any side of the territory.

We may have controlled the skies, but there were intense anti-aircraft units for hundreds of miles to the targets.

We were carpet bombing from high altitudes. Precision bombing would have been difficult after that long of a trip to the target.

[Cobalt-60]

27. there were reasons for things going down as they did

First was priority.
A bomb on a factory damages the Germans more than a bomb on the camps.
A Bomb on the camps does Himmler's work for him.
And the camps weren't easily accessible.
They were far across Germany, at or beyond the range limit of our bombers for much of the war.
And the picture we have of this nastiness now is a damned sight sharper than the one they
had in '43 and '44.
It's a grave insult to the memories Eisenhower, Marshall, FDR and all the others for this semi literate drunk to second guess their decisions.

[atreides1]

67. The Nazis were desperate

Even if the rail lines had been bombed, they would have found a way to carry out their "Final Solution". Besides, Auschwitz wasn't the only death camp in operation, there was Bergen-Belsen, Chelmo, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek, and other smaller camps that were in operation.


Bombing the rail lines would have postponed not stopped what was going on, and by taking resources away from the effort to bring the war to an end, more people would have died and the Nazis would have been given even more time to carry out their plans for genocide.

There was no good or bad decision, what was done was done for the greater good.

[happyslug]

134. With what bomber? the B-17 and B-24 were NOT capable of that accurate bombing.

Both the British RAF and the US Army Air Force (Using its WWII designation) had concentrated on LARGE bombers from WWI onward. These were design to hit Cities or at least LARGE Factories. NOT railheads. Even with the Norton Bomb Sight (A huge improvement over previous bomb sites) hitting anything like a railroad line with a B-17 or B-24 was nearly impossible. The Germans realized this early and opt for Dive bombers to be able to hit such targets, but dive bombers MUST be solidly constructed do to the stress dive bombing puts on the plane. Once you go from the size of the Stuka Ju-87, the Douglas SBD Dauntless and the Japanese dive bomber of the same period, the increase size makes it harder and harder to design a good Dive bomber (For example the larger, faster, more powerful Curtiss Helldiver was viewed by most Dive Bomber Pilots as INFERIOR to the much slower Dauntless do to the Helldiver's inferior dive bombing ability).

There were many reason for this drop in success as the plane became bigger, the biggest problem was the need for even more internal support for the plane airframe as the plane became larger. Do to the problem that as you make anything larger in Area, the VOLUME covered by the larger frame is squared, this if you double the size, the volume is Squared and the stress is SQUARED not doubled, i.e. add 3 inches, the stress is NOT increased by 3 but by 3x3 or 9, please note this is for example only NOT any actual calculation).

In flat flying planes stress was NOT that big an issue, but in Dive Bombers, already pushing the limits of stress in the late 1930s, larger dive bombers had to have to much weight added to take the stress as the planes became bigger as WWII went on. The Germans wanted planes to give them close in fire support so stayed with the Stuka till the end of WWII. The US and Japanese Navies also stayed with the Dive bombers, for no other bomber could hit a ship, with a bomb, when the ship was at speed other than a dive bomber.

Please note, fighter planes could hit small targets like Trains and ships with their guns, Rockets were also used for this purpose (The Russians were very good at this with both their own attack planes IL-2 and American made P-39s in this role, but relied on their guns more than the Rockets)., but none could hit a target with a large a weapon as could a Dive Bomber. This remained true till the perfection of "Smart Bombs" during the Vietnam War (in many ways the push to perfect the "Smart Bomb" was to find something to replace the Dive bombers, even 20 years after the last Dive Bomber left the service).

Anyway, back to the Death Camps. The problem with most Fighters, Dive Bombers and Attack Planes of WWII was their inferior range compared to the large bombers. Even the P-51 had to be stripped of everything BUT its internal ammunition AND strapped with extra belly tanks to be able to escort the bombers to Berlin (And then its flight was DIRECT to the target while the bombers flew in circles till all the bombers were up). Please remember most of Death Camps were in Poland which meant flying BY BERLIN. The Russian did have some long range Fighters (The Yak-9s, but again stripped to the bone to get maximum range) but nothing that could do real damage to the trains or the tracks.

My point is, given the technology of the time period, bombing the trains and tracks to the Death Camps was near impossible. The only planes that could do it, did not have the range to get to the area where bombing was needed and the planes that had the range could NOT hit such a small target. With today's "Smart bombs" and ground reading missiles (and GPS systems) we can hit such targets (We did so during the Air Attacks on Serbia in the 1990s for example) but not in the 1940s.

More on the IL-2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-2

The P-39 Airacorba:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-39_Airacobra

Douglas Dauntless:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBD_Dauntless

Helldiver:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SB2C_Helldiver

Stuka:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87

Dive bombers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dive_bomber

[woodsprite]

6. No, he was looking at the size of Auschwitz and thinking

if the US had bombed it, good ole' Grand Pappy would have gotten the contract to rebuild PLUS gotten a great boost on the eugenics movement.

[AzDar]

7. 'Heh, I'll bet a submarine could take this place out'. *Smirk, smirk.*

Oh. Dear God.

[susu369]

8. And how did Condi reply?

That's what I want to know.....

:crazy:

[area51]

157. Rice

Completely Sleazy Rice has been busy doing her usual damage control, as she's told the papers that GW Hoover meant bomb the railroad lines, not the camps themselves.

[teach1st]

10. Wikipedia: Auschwitz bombing debate

Auschwitz bombing debate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_bombing_debate

[boricua79]

28. from that page: a rationale from Winston Churchill

"The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, did not see bombing as a solution, given that bombers were inaccurate and would also kill prisoners on the ground. The land war would have to be won first. Bombers were used against German cities and to carpet-bomb the front lines."

As has been posted, the bombers were not perfectly accurate and prisoners would most likely be killed.

[Zywiec]

38. "Bombers were used against German cities"

Luckily no civilians were killed during these raids...

:sarcasm:

[boricua79]

60. they felt

that the German people were more "guilty" than innocent Jews. They felt Germans were indirect AND direct supporters of the regime.

Who do you think was standing in all that war footage at Nazi rallies, lifting their hands in the air? People from China? A lot of Germany was complicit in what occured. They weren't innocent bystanders.

Just like many in the U.S. are complicit and supporters of the horrors we have unleased in Iraq, and Afghanistan...and the horrors that will continue for eternity as a result of Depleted Uranium and its slow death/disease on the Iraqi and Afghani people.

[geardaddy]

112. Wikipedia already updated the article

with Dim Son's comment.

[liberal N proud]

12. This man is seriously ill

He needs to be hospitalized and treated for his mental illness.

What the f#$@$ does he think, bombs are the answer to everything?

[The Wizard]

90. When your only tool is a hammer

everything looks like a nail. Bush is very limited. Remember when the media was saying there wasn't much difference between Bush and Gore? Guess what, they got that one wrong too. Why anyone still pays attention to America's versions of TAAS, Pravda, and Izvestia is beyond reason.

[lebkuchen]

156. He's drunk.

I hope for the Chimp's last year in office his daughters videotape him in a drunken binge, per David Hasselhoff, trying to stuff a pretzel in his mouth. Then turn the tape over to Rawstory.

[AzDar]

13. I say we bomb Gitmo.

[Lucinda]

15. Could someone PLEASE fast forward time

It can't be 2009 soon enough.

[madrchsod]

16. there`s another year of this

[lebkuchen]

154. Don't those of us on overseas bases know it.

[Gman]

18. The idiot has a one-track mind

[lebkuchen]

155. "one-crack mind" is more like it

He's been drinking again, and by appearances, heavily.

[Catch22Dem]

19. I believe he's right

And the debate has waged for 60+ years. I'm not talking about carpet bombing the place (or the other camps) but a more precise strike on the gas chambers or furnaces would have disabled the camps. A strike on the rail lines would have made the cattle cars used bring the prisoners in would not be able to make the trip. Destroy the roads leading in so that they couldn't truck the prisoners to the camps. You can render the camp useless if you use some strategy.

That's my argument.

The other argument is that you could level the place. You'd kill a few thousand prisoners, true, but they're dying by the thousands each hour. How many would be saved?

I'm just saying it's a decision I'm glad I wasn't forced to make.

I hate the fucker, but there's nothing wrong with asking this question.

[xultar]

29. I don't think we had the capability to do precise strikes back in the day.

[Catch22Dem]

34. Sure we did

The reasons were not about ability. They were strategic and political.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave

[Solon]

44. You are frankly nuts...

Operation Chastise was practically a suicide mission, the bombs dropped from a low angle, low altitude flight. Hence the reason they "bounced" they were designed to skip across water. Over a third of the people involved in this mission either died or were captured as POWs.

The second one was to hit oil refineries, which, if you actually LOOKED at the pictures of the damned facilities, were fucking huge. Not to mention it was one of the most costly air raids taken by the allies at that point in time.

Neither could properly be called "precision" bombings, the dams weren't bombed from thousands of feet up, the bombs were dropped from hundreds of feet, that's how they were able to hit the dams in the first place. At that time, there was no technically feasible way to have low risk bombings that were accurate within kilometers, much less meters, as would be needed to bomb prison camps. The only feasible thing would have been to bomb the tracks, simply because you could blanket those with bombs, and there is a good chance you would knock them out for at least a little while.

The only other alternative would have been to send fighters to shoot up the camps, but then you are more likely to hit prisoners, rather than guards, and there is a good chance the pilots wouldn't be coming back.

[TankLV]

131. Complete and utter BULLSHIT. We had no such capability. Period.

Study your history.

Do your homework.

No such thing existed...

No such thing exists TODAY - any such report of TODAY are all HYPE and LIES...

NONE of the so-called "precision" bombs in either Iraq war were "precise" - most missed their target ENTIRELY or did a lot of collateral damage adjacent to the target...

[boricua79]

65. disagree

"And the debate has waged for 60+ years. I'm not talking about carpet bombing the place (or the other camps) but a more precise strike on the gas chambers or furnaces would have disabled the camps."

It would have forced the Germans to enact the Final Solution plan faster. They could always drag the prisoners in small groups, tied up and heavily escorted, to mass graves, and bayonet them to death. They wouldn't even had to waste bullets on the job.

Our bombing the camps would probably result in more deaths than we're prevented by simply just finishing the war. Some of the survivors might have not survived an emergency implementation of the Final Solution due to disabling the gas chambers and furnaces.

Plenty of ways to kill people.

[Yupster]

83. I agree with you Catch22Dem

Even if half the prisoners were killed, maybe thousands could have escaped and the camp would have been unavailable to the next trainloads. Leaving them there to be murdered in line day after day sure doesn't seem like a better solution to me.

I think a lot of people just react against everything Bush says.

[Amonester]

126. They would have escaped... where?

Where (and HOW) do you think they would have escaped?

By foot? Where? In the forests there? How many miles away?

Do you really think no Nazy patrols would have found them?

And even if a few of them would have made it to the forest, what was there to eat?

Get real...

[Yupster]

148. Maybe you're right

Better to just march into the gas chamber, take your clothes off, sort them into nice piles and point out your silver and gold fillings in your teeth for easier extraction after death.

Where would they go? What would they eat?

Kind of besides the point when you're in an extermination camp isn't it?

You escape into the forests, into the towns and farmlands and mountains. You keep moving, you get hidden by people who will hide you. You meet Soviet partisans, Polish partisans, or you get turned in. You get caught or you don't get caught. But you have a chance and a life.

And no, the Germans would not have necessarily swept you up. There were very few Germans around the camps at all, and in 1944 both the eastern and western fronts were calamities. It's not like there were divisions of German troops looking for something to do at that stage of the war.

[Amonester]

158. Ok. You're right.

You win.

So let's all stop the time-clock right now, get it back to those years, and do it the way it should have been done THIS time!

What a waste of time. Let's bomb Gitmo instead.

[Lorien]

89. Our family friend Henry wouldn't be alive today if they had bombed the camp

He was nine years old when he was rescued from that place. The rest of his family was murdered, but he still survives today. He has spent most of his life working as a geologist and contributing greatly to our understanding of climate change. Hundreds of people survived the death camps, and their lives were worth saving. Yes, bomb the rail lines and roads, but not the innocent who had suffered so much already.

[Yupster]

160. Prisoners didn't live in Auschwitz for years

Especially children.

They were pretty much killed when it was there turn in line to be killed. The gas chambers had a limited capacity.

It's just as likely that if the camp was bombed, then your family friend would have never gotten to Auschwitz at all. Likely he would have finished the war in the ghetto where he lived before the train ride to Auschwitz.

[onehandle]

97. My brother's wife would have never been born.

Her father showed me the numbers on his arm.

Chilling.

[FREEWILL56]

21. HUH??????????

This so called man is wondering why we didn't bomb the camps. Simply, do you think it could've killed those prisoners in the camps? Keep in mind that this guy's grandfather was pro nazi and the tears I question if they are for the victims of those camps or for the nazis that failed to realize his grandaddy's dreams.
bush=nazi re:puke:
If this was said before, I appologize as I did not read all of the replies here.
edit after reading replies:
They could not bomb the furnaces with enough precision and not kill those in the camps. The tracks could've been taken out, but it doesn't take long to put tracks back down or just make the prisoners walk like the Japanese did. We just could not have stopped them from doing what they did and the full scope of what was going on didn't fully materialize until the end of the war there.

[flordehinojos]

23. didn't his grandfather prescott somehow assist hitler in hitler's insane policy against the jews and

the countries he invaded?

why does me think that jr.'s tears are another case of crocodile tears. i mean, the man grew up listening to, incorporating, and now resurrecting all of the nazified/fascist policies of the third reich himself.

should we bomb guantánamo, abu ghraib, and other bush gulags?

who the hell does he think he is fooling?

[Jacobin]

24. I believe we have a winner

Hey Bush, you forking idiot. Your granddaddy was a big Hitler fan

[boricua79]

64. exactly

Crocodile tears about Jews...when he's never made a statement disapproving of his grandfather's activities.

At least coming out and saying, "my grandfather aided the very people that committed this crime, and I disapprove of it, despite being his grandson", would go a long way.

But he won't, because the entire bush family will turn around and tell him, "you profitted from the accumulated and inherited capital that Grandpa Prescott acquired, nitwit!"

Then he'd have to shut up and go back to being the fake cowboy he is.

[flordehinojos]

114. they don't have to tell him didly squat. he knows where and how the family's fortunes were made.

he is a country club boy who likes his good whiskey, his servants (including the disappearing middle class which he is submitting into servitude) and he knows the history of his grandpa' ... he is a good pretender ... pretend-a-president. pretend-a-christian. pretend his sorry ass. he is not fooling anyone!

[FREEWILL56]

125. He probably does wish the prisoners died. I really wonder about

what's going through the Israeli's heads with him there knowing he's a grandchild of a powerfull nazi enabler that had killed many jews and is actively engaged in the same types of practices hitler and his party engaged in prior to gaining full power in Germany. I don't like the bush family and they had to have been biting their tongues over there too.

[flordehinojos]

138. the man is a psychopathic sadist ...

he enjoys inflicting pain and watching others' suffering.

[Amonester]

130. "who the hell does he think he is fooling?"

Sorry to report that he is fooling a very large portion of "ordinary" people who never care to learn anything about "History."

Britney and Paris are so much more "interesting." :puke:

Whenever I mention these facts about how the chimp's grand-popy :puke: :puke:

helped and made huge profits with the Nazis, you should see the "look" in their ignoramus faces...

[flordehinojos]

139. i know, i've seen some of those looks up-close myself.

as a matter of fact, on christmas day, in a family reunion, while in conversation about global warming and the chimp, i was told, "you can come here to be positive, or ..." -- suffice it to say, that very shortly thereafter i gathered my belongings, my husband, and with (the kiss of judas?) blown out to everyone in the living room, i said, "merry christmas to all, our dog is waiting for us," and to everyone's shocked faces, we simply just left ... (my poor husband didn't even realize what'd happened and why i was choosing to leave so abruptly until we were outside in the car ... and when he asked, "what happened" i refreshed his memory ... ) }(

[boricua79]

25. bombing Auschwitz

you would have killed 10% German Guards, and 90% inmates.

Destroy the village to save it mentality

Classic chickenhawk thought process.

Oy! What a moron!

[Thothmes]

40. By 1944

Most of the guards at the camps were not Germans, they were Poles, Lithuanians etc. Other than Senior camp administration and senior guard supervisors,
the people watching the prisoners were not Germans.

[boricua79]

58. even worse

we wouldn't have done much damage to the German war machine, but we would have killed innocent Jews and other "undesirables" in the camps.

[chknltl]

30. Sounds to me like bush bombed in Aushwitz. eom

[Roland99]

31. Or maybe if his grandpappy hadn't been helping the Germans.....

[flamingpie2500]

36. Let's get an aerial photo of Auschwitz and see if we can pick out what to bomb.

Did anyone really KNOW what was going on there until we set foot on the grounds? You can't tell me that you would be able to pick out a target from the air--the gas chambers?, the sleeping quarters? the crematories? the medical experimental facilities? which of these did not house the innocent?

[Zywiec]

39. Which German cities that we carpet bombed not house innocents? n/t

[flamingpie2500]

45. None. So you agree then that we should have bombed a prison camp?

[Zywiec]

53. No, I would have tried to knock out the tracks if possible

but a quick victory on the ground was the main ally objective.

[WittyUsername]

117. I don't think such precision strikes would be so easy back then...

While a lot more precise these days, we still can't do it 100% 'correctly'... Imagine trying to do it back in those days.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

57. They knew.

Prisoners who had escaped provided the military with detailed information on the lay out of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II and Auschwitz III.

It's a very complex issue. However, decisions were made not to attempt to slow down the 70-80,000 people a week who were being exterminated there at that time. And yes, it was believed they could slow down the deaths w/o causing extensive civilian deaths of their own.

Study up on the issue and I'm sure you'll see just how complex it was. It was a horrific situation and looking back we can see things differently knowing full well the impact of the decisions that were made. That's the tragedy of hindsight.

[Oak2004]

113. Yes, and this sort of thing is what drives me crazy about the A bomb debate, too

Real history is much messier than 20/20 hindsight. And real warfare is a bloodbath, with every decision ending in unspeakable horror for someone.

I wince every time the A-bomb debate comes up. It's easy to say, with perfect knowledge and a bit of speculation, that it was "wrong" to drop the bomb.

I myself think that if I was president, and had complete knowledge of everything -- the A-bomb's effects, the state of the Japanese economy, the strength of the peace faction within the government, etc. etc., I would have opted for a different strategy (the Navy's plans for a blockade, rather than invasion, coupled with secret negotiations with the peace element). But a blockade, too, would have killed many civilians, perhaps even millions, through disease and starvation. My choice -- lets call it "Plan A"-- would have led to unspeakable horror for many Japanese families.

Roosevelt, Truman and their military advisors knew far less about the situation at the time than I do now, and given what they knew, they felt such an approach was unlikely to succeed. They chose to prepare for the other alternative, invasion. Invasion would indeed have been a bloodbath, worse in fact than the Army was projecting at the time (we now know the disposition of the Japanese defenders, and they were much better prepared on the invasion beaches than we had thought). Plan B, too, ends in unspeakable horror.

At the time, few if any of the people in power understood the A-bomb was qualitatively different from other bombs, and not just a bigger bomb (many of the scientists knew it, but General Groves obstructed their efforts to communicate to decisionmakers). No one had ever seen the consequences of a nuclear attack on a city. Given what they knew about the alternatives and did not know about the bomb, they chose to use it. And so a different nightmare unfolded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

War is nightmare. War is horror. And in the middle of a war, those involved know much less of what they need to know to make the best decisions than historians know after the fact. To learn a little bit of history, and then argue, from a few factoids, the morality of particular strategic and tactical decisions is (with rare exceptions) a pretty lame exercise. People would have died in horrible ways regardless of the options chosen, and the people making the decisions were all missing important information which would have influenced their choices.

The best way to prevent another Hiroshima (or Hiroshima-like event with a yet-to-be-invented weapon) is to prevent war. In fact, it's the only real way.

[Ian David]

75. Prescott Bush and the executive officers of IBM had a pretty good idea what was going on. n/t

[OzarkDem]

41. He's criminally insane

a Neanderthal whose all purpose solution for any problem is violence.

[tanyev]

42. Where are his tears for the deaths and suffering in Iraq since 2003?

[boricua79]

69. No tears there...

he's the Hitler that caused them this time.

And no tears for the Iraqis tortured in Abu Ghraib

And no tears for those abused in Guantanamo that were later deemed to be innocent

And no tears for those wiretapped without protection of the laws

And no tears for destroying our environment in favor of his oil buddies


This is a political ploy to curry favor with Israelis.

If he really meant it, he'd admit his own grandpa helped the Nazis and disavow his actions.

[Samurai_Writer]

43. I'm sure the survivors of Auschwitz would have appreciated that.

Not.

Bush is a madman. He can't be kicked out of office soon enough.

[potone]

71. Yes, once again he comes up with the wrong solution.

One that would have aided the "Final Solution."
On a happier note, what a gorgeous cat you have! Is it a silver Persian?

[Samurai_Writer]

91. Yes, it is!

His name is Sterling and he'll be 13 in May. Right now he is at the vet for his annual checkup and lion cut shave. Vet says he has a slight heart murmur, but other than that, is in great health for his age.

By the way, Sterling is a real DU kitty. I adopted him from a pet rescue that Lorien fosters for. Lorien was his foster mommy before I adopted him!

[potone]

119. how lucky you are!

I had a beautiful silver Persian, but he had been bred by someone who didn't know what she was doing, and he had many health problems and a short life. He died five years ago and I still miss him; he was the sweetest, most loving cat I have ever seem. Good luck with Sterling--he sounds much healthier and certainly longer-lived.

[Ganja Ninja]

46. Maybe if his granddad Prescott Bush hadn't been Hitlers banker

just saying.

[ProgressIn2008]

118. Exactly. It's astounding. Or, considering the source, I guess it isn't. eom

[Lone_Star_Dem]

49. Now he thinks he's George McGovern?

Before everyone here reacts I suggest they study this very complex issue.

It really isn't as black and white as many here are portraying it to be.

No matter what decisions those here come to, I will assure you that there are many, many people who also believe the US and Briton should have bombed Auschwitz. I've heard it speculated that at the very least they could have bombed the crematoriums in Auschwitz.

It's history and can't be changed now, but that doesn't mean that all the decisions made were the right ones at the time.

If you want a glimpse of the anger that exists over these decisions read, The Abandonment Of The Jews and A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust, both by David S. Wyman.

[Amonester]

132. Hey! Nobody's perfect. And even more so, in those difficult years.

That war was almost lost, remember?

So please, don't help the sicko media give any credence to what the grand$on of prescott ever says. :puke:

Thank you, not perfect one.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

141. I'm saying that there have been far more brilliant men than bush who have made this issue

their lifework over the past 60 years. They've pointed out that there are intelligent and viable arguments for both sides.

To knee-jerk and say "that's so wrong" just because it was our dimwit leader who made the statement doesn't make sense to me. Too many good people have wrestled with this issue for too long to be that out of hand dismissive.

However, to argue that he's an idiot who has no grasp of the complexities of the situation I could understand. To say that McGovern would destroy our dimwit leader in a debate on the subject I would also understand.

[onager]

136. Not even close. George McGovern was a combat pilot in the B-24

:-)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

142. Yeah, no kidding

McGovern is also a good man with a heart, mind and a conscious capable of feeling empathy. All things that our dimwitted current leader lack.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

51. We should have bombed Prescott Bush.

[onehandle]

70. Or at least neutered him. nt

[flordehinojos]

140. would that have been considered torture?--o, the bushes don't believe in torture, i forgot!

so i guess, even if it would've been ... it wouldn'tve counted as torture.

[rodeodance]

52. SO---I assume that Bush would NOT have listened to his Military commanders back then?

[Highway61]

54. The folks who write Bushisms

can't keep up with this guy

[MessiahRp]

55. Is there any thing Bush wouldn't want to bomb?

Auschwitz was one of the most horrible tragedies of all time but it just seems to me that Bush's answer to everything is to bomb it.

For some reason I see Bush looking at WW II and wishing he would get to play war like that.

Rp

[Ian David]

76. Bush wouldn't bomb the Creationist Museum. n/t

[ashandaurynsgramma]

56. maybe he just wanted to hide the evidence

of his grandfathers participationx(

[Ian David]

74. I was thinking that also. n/t

[BulletproofLandshark]

62. Good God.

If this fool was running the country during WWII, we would still be fighting it today. No amount of death and destruction is too much for him.

[grytpype]

66. ?????

I thought I had heard everything, but this boggles my mind.

[Ian David]

72. And everything would have been re-built with Jewish slave labor. Under fire from U.S. bombs. n/t

[rocktivity]

79. Before of after it was liberated, George?

:eyes:
rocknation

[truthisfreedom]

85. Once again, the boy-king words things so EVERYONE is offended.

Is there a word that combines smirk and schmuck? Schmurk.

[tabasco]

86. So shit-for-brains thinks he's smarter than Ike and FDR.

Sweet Jesus, imagine if Bush was President and we had a crisis like WWII.

[live love laugh]

87. "...tears in his eyes.."???????? GMAFB. -eom-

[Arugula Latte]

88. This is from "The Onion," right?

Please tell me this is a joke. Please tell me a person with the emotional maturity and intelligence of an aggressive monkey isn't our sitting president.

[onehandle]

94. That was my first thought!

I was wondering why an Onion piece was was the top story at Yahoo News.

[Paula Sims]

92. And destroyed what Prescott worked so hard to help build??

Perhaps just to destroy the evidentiary link.

[KaptBunnyPants]

99. Yes, we should have bombed the death camps.

He's right on this one. It would have saved many lives.

[boricua79]

100. read up on the thread

1) it was not perfectly feasible to do so
2) Even if it were, resources were tight. They had to be prioritized for attrition and national infrastructure destroying missions...to aid the ground war.
3)If the camps were bombed or disabled, the Germans would have most likely implemented their Final Solution plan in an emergency and either executed the majority or ALL of the remaining prisoners (those that survived the bombing to "save them") by taking in small groups, heavily escorted, to killing fields and mass graves, and bayonet them at the graves' side. Bullets wouldn't even had to be expended.

The Germans were not able to kill ALL the camps prisoners because the ground war forced their hasty retreat and they were not able to complete their killing (they tried to kill as many as they could, but in the rush, some survived). In the absence of a ground war pressure and approaching enemy line, the Germans would have reacted to the bombing of their camps by enacting this emergency massacre program.

Then there would be NO survivors.

[Hawkeye-X]

101. When then fuck you, Chimp.

My grandfather is an Auschwitz survivor, and Chimp is a grandson of a Nazi sympatheizer.

Worst. President. Ever.

I'm sure after we Jews pump out the article, that his remaining 29% drops to 19%.

Hawkeye-X

[tom_paine]

102. What audacious hypocrisy, considering Grandpa Prescott was the Nazis' staunchest ally

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

and the Bush Family fortune is made, at least partially, from Nazi money stolen from Jewsih victims.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0306/S00055.htm

and that Poppy HW Augustus has known Nazis on his campaign staff in 1988

http://www.tenc.net/articles/randy/swas5.htm

[onwardupward]

103. Poor poor stupid bushies...

So he wondered why the Allies didn't bomb the camps?
Ever heard of the internet? Or does that not connect to the Bushhouse?


If they did a quick google search they would that George McGovern (Yes- that George McGovern. Turns he was a real vet, not a Reserve wannabe ) dealt with this issue back in 2005..

http://citybeat.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A94824

They might even have found out...
"many Jewish organizations were against bombing the camps"

also:
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/21928/edition_id/444/format/html/displaystory.html

Think someone needs to walk Bush over the basics of using the internet?

[dflprincess]

104. Wouldn't bombing the death camps have put a serious dent in the Bush family fortunes?

n/t

[Botany]

106. ?????????

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

***************

Prescott delt with I.G. Farben the company that made Zyklon-B the gas that was used to kill all those people.

[MilesColtrane]

107. "Hey Condi Bar, find out where Darfur is 'n send a couple of stealths with napalm there."

[sutz12]

108. When your only tool is a hammer....all of your problems start to look like nails. nt

[onwardupward]

109. Violence is the fool's first tool

So most of the guards weren't even German.
At this point in WWII maybe diplomacy was an option.

In fact, a lot of Hitler's own people were against him.
Maybe a little negotiating ( and not relying on the so called "unconditional surrender")
could have saved a lot of lives.

[focusfan]

111. i guess he could masterbate to other people being killed

he has alligator tears he is not moved at all.the sick bastard

[Fredda Weinberg]

115. You.Are.Too.Partisan

If you can't see the humanity in the moment, there's something wrong w/you. I know he blew up frogs, but it was a moving scene for someone who grieves the event personally.

[fshrink]

121. Would have been helpful not to finance Hitler.

Or some other dictator that comes to mind. That's typical religious atonement: foster killing and cry for the dead.

[Chovexani]

122. Dimson logic

Kill the Jews so the Nazis don't have to. Brilliant.

IS IT JANUARY YET?! :banghead:

[minnesota_liberal]

147. January, yes. 2009, not yet.

1 year and 9 more days.

[draymond]

123. Running out of things to bomb during his last months in office

Running out of things to bomb during his last months in office, Bush is using his lame-duck year to recount missed bombing opportunities from previous administrations.

[alfredo]

144. I'm sure Fox News could find a rationale.

[TankLV]

127. One Note Foreign Policy in a nutshell...

What an ass...

He's just a meglomaniac...

Won't even bother going into the merits of the topic of Auschwitz...

[NFL80]

129. The Ultimate Optical Illusion

It's hard to imagine anything more important than learning from life's lessons. And, as you can see, it's so unsophisticated, it's misunderstood.

[Charlie Brown]

133. and Bush stumbles aimlessly into a controversy he can't possibly fathom

Scholars spend their whole careers researching this stuff and trying to deduce if there were credible alternatives to what happened. It's a little frustrating when laypersons like Bush barge in with a knee-jerk reaction that's based on nothing but photographs and the benefit of hindsight.

There are many arguments against bombing Auschwitz that were considered sound at the time, ie that the NAZIs might use it as propaganda to inflict greater harm on the Jews, or an attack would deflect resources from more viable military targets, like factories, bases, and supply-depots. And, of course, the Eastern Front was considered the Russian's "show," and not open to interference by the Western Allies, which greatly limited any military action which was possible(the "death camps" that specialized in murdering were located exclusively in the East).

Of course, there are equally viable arguments for bombing Auschwitz, in the interest of saving victims (who may have died regardless), or providing a moral victory for civilian prisoners in the interest of hope. However, a credible answer to the question "could it have made a difference?" requires a careful examination of the arguments both pro and con and serious research to boot. Bush's instinctive "we should have bombed it" with stage-tears and pageantry for the cameras makes a mockery of the whole process of historical debate, from a person with a BA in history, ironically.

[southerncross48]

137. Bush Traitors

Remember that Grandpa Bush helped bankroll the Nazis. I wonder what a holocaust survivor would thing of Bush the Chimp!!!

[marbleann]

145. Armageddon at Auschwitz

The mistake a lot of you folks are making is that you think Bush said that because he thought it was a sound strategic military move. You give that moron too much credit. There were no guided missiles that could hone in on gas chambers or blow up specific buildings that might stop the exterminations. Back n the 40's they were lucky to hit a town no less a specific building.

Bush said he would of bombed Auschwitz because he and his fellow neo Cons are so obsessed in blowing up and killing Jewish people. This all goes back to that Armageddon foolishness the neo cons adhere to. The only reason they support Jewish people and Israel is because they believe Armageddon will occur in Israel. Most of the Jewish people will be killed. Shortly afterward the second coming of Christ will happen and the remaining Jews will accept Christ as the son of God. Therefore no more Jewish people. One of the many things Hitler and the Neo Cons have in common. The problem with Bush is that he forgot that the Armageddon theory only happens if it takes place in a certain area in Israel and blowing up Jewish people in Auschwitz doesn't count in that matter.

[minnesota_liberal]

146. Want change? Just drop some bombs!

In retrospect, it's kind of surprising that Dubyah went through all that campaigning crap to get into the White House in 2000.

[lebkuchen]

152. Better question: Why was the US immigration policy so strict in the '30s

and 40's, starting in 1933, when 500,000 German Jews were trying to get out of Germany? Granted, the U.S. took in a large number of German Jews, but it did not fill its quotas and often sent ships full of escaping Jews back to Germany or to other countries, such as Bolivia. The US required Jews to have two sponsors in the US to enter the country, resigning desperate Jews to search US telephone books for possible relatives with the same last name who might sponsor them.

In light of the plight of Jews fleeing concentration camps like Auschwitz, I ask Bush, why are immigration laws for the Iraqi people so strict in light of the US having killed over 100,000 Iraqis in the US's initial attack, sending 2 million Iraqis fleeing to surrounding countries? Why not open America's doors to any Iraqi who wishes to immigrate to the U.S. to find freedom?

[pipoman]

153. I don't claim to know all of the logistics

around the bombing. I do know that there have been decades of controversy and speculation as to why the allies didn't bomb.

I always find it humorous how many people who have absolutely no grasp of history, haven't spent one second trying to gain understanding about what was going on at the time, and make judgments based on their little 21st century world. It is apparent who in this thread has studied the period and who doesn't have a scintilla of knowledge of WW2 nor a desire to look into it...:eyes:

[PittPoliSci]

159. can someone seriously just impeach him already?

i feel like the residual stupidity is really starting to affect me in a negative way. me dumber for proximity doing feeler bush explosion wooo!