Berlin July 1945 in color
An evening pause: For Memorial Day, on which we not only honor the war dead but we are supposed to refresh our memories about why we fought in the first place. This color footage of occupied Berlin shortly after surrender shows the devastation after World War II. Though it is tragic to see, I will be honest and admit that I feel little sorrow. The Germans brought this upon themselves by plunging the world into two world wars, and in the second used it as an excuse to commit unspeakable genocide. In order to make sure they would never do it again, and would instead become a part of the civilized world, it was necessary to hit them as hard as these images show. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin all understood this. So did the entire populations of all three allies.
If only we had the courage today to do the same to the petty dictators and Islamic fanatics in the Middle East. They are as brutal, as violent, and as bigoted as the Nazis were, and will soon have atomic weapons at their disposal to use as they wish. To really bring them to heel they need to be given the same harsh lessons we gave the Germans.
I fear however we will not have the courage to do so until after they drop some nuclear bombs on a few cities.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
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Your confusion between the right of individual human being to live her life as she pleases as long as she does not hurt anyone else, and a collectivistic governmental murdering machine makes me very sorry. The US murdered innocent children, and then paid millions for hiring prominent nazis! The bipartisan policy of the US today, which since decades have been to pay billions of tax dollars to rick greedy psychopathic dictators, and to simultaneously murder as many as possible of the innocent citizens in any country far away without any kind of relevance to US security, is the key to explaining why US foreign policy has collapsed completely. It is important for you to try to understand why you are failing catastrophically. It is very dangerous to you.
And all your weapons do nothing to help you, because you don’t know how to use them. That is the explanation of the historically unique total failure of the US military. You spent a million dollar for every dollar that AQ/IS whatever CNN baptises this myth to next, and still you lost so humiliatingly totally! Doesn’t it annoy you that you inherited the title “The worst soldiers in the world” from the arabs!!!
How hard is it to face the fact that you have failed, after the fact that you have failed?
That was an amazing video. Thanks.
One of the greatest qualities about American society, bestowed by the Constitution, is the right of free speech, particularly political speech. Thus, you are free to spout anything you wish regardless of its lack of logic, intelligence or common sense. And based on your comment, I gather that English is not your first language. Or, you are truly as uneducated as you seem. In any event, my friend, you are seriously misguided. Whatever flaws this country has displayed over its history, no other society has ever contributed so much to the peace and prosperity of the entire world.
Local said,
“… since decades have been to pay billions of tax dollars to rick greedy psychopathic dictators, and to simultaneously murder as many as possible of the innocent citizens in any country far away without any kind of relevance to US security, is the key to explaining why US foreign policy has collapsed completely. ”
No, Local. The reason US foreign policy has collapsed is that US cultural institutions were actively undermined, leading to a refusal to fight for industrial freedoms, first in academia, and then among those government hierarchies academia contributed personnel to, or training. By 1980 this success of a “gramscian strategy” of ‘the long march through the institutions’ had gone so far that within our own Congress there was strong abhorrence to resisting “the socialist camp”, even as it was being beaten in the field, and in the development labs.
This was observed by others, who had begun their own influence buying inside western academia no later than 1972, when Bin Sultan became Saudi Ambassador to the US, heading their own program here. By the time, 30 years later, when, in March of 2002, the President ordered the US State Department to prepare an Iraqi Government in Exile, that department dithered for 10 months before opening the first conference on that task. By April of 2003, they could then say no Iraqi group was ready to govern. This let them use the Saudi-preferred alternative of a colonial administration.
This lack of Shia Iraqi democratic rule was far preferred by a Saudi government whose oil sits underneath a population who in majority are an oppressed Shia coastal grouping, conquered in 1913. The State Department betrayal of Iraqi democrats gave Al Zarqawii his opening to whip Sunni Iraqi insurgency to a boil for 4 years. Only after Iraqi Sunnis became tired of Al Zaraqawii’s calpihate revivalists raping their daughters was the “Surge” in Iraq successful, till Obama ended that as well.
Since 2009, the academic/elite refusal to fight for freedom any harder than needed to keep from openly abandoning US victories/allies has led to the 6 years of decline in US policy success that has been headed into complete collapse, since just before the 2012 election.
I cant help but feel sympathy for the people you see in the Soviet sector. I find myself saying “Get out while you can!”
So…
Apparently your point is that the United States is the cause of all the manure filling the shitholes around the world? How do you explain that the current deprivations and oppression are virtually identical to the situations that were commonplace BEFORE the existence of the United States?
Or is it just easier to blame someone else (anyone else) for your own failings than to take an honest look at your own societies?
There is a common perception among informed people that Muslims in general and Arabs in particular prefer to blame others for their failures rather than put in the effort to better themselves.
*Doesn’t it annoy you that you inherited the title “The worst soldiers in the world” from the arabs!!!*
On the contrary. The brief resurgence you enjoy at present is entirely due to the election of an islamist to the presidency of the United States. The United States Military and the IDF have experienced first-hand what incredibly ineffective fighters the Arabs suffering under your oppressive governments make, all too ready to melt away and hide when faced with a firefight. Rather than consolidate your gains under the gift given you by an incompetent U.S. Commander in Chief, you will keep poking a sleeping giant. Barrack Hussein Obama will not be president much longer.
You seem to not have learned anything from the swift destruction that Saddam Hussein suffered not once but TWICE. We DO know how to defeat you but have not been allowed to because of certain elements currently in ascendance in our society.
“We do not despise you for killing our children, We despise you for forcing us to kill YOUR children.”
Who said the quote in the last line of your comment?
LocalFluff,
You are wrong on several counts, and the reasons why you are wrong are “the key to explaining why US foreign policy has collapsed completely.” It is important for you to try to understand why America is failing catastrophically. It is very dangerous to you, too, as wars and violence are spreading worldwide because of it. The behavior you decry kept you safe; the behavior you advocate resulted in the degradation that you complain about.
1) Decisive, yet “brutal,” victories have resulted in lasting peace — so long as no Neville Chamberlains give the peace away. When enemies have been treated with “kid gloves,” as Chamberlain did just before WWII, they have turned on their victors. This occurred in Vietnam, when the North Vietnamese broke their peace treaty and reinvaded South Vietnam, and in Iraq, when Al Quida reinvaded under the name “Islamic State,” a body that governs captured populations as though it were a government. Both of these invasions were a result of “soft” victories over the vanquished. All three of these are examples of “losing the peace.” It does no good to win the war if you are just going to lose the peace.
You complain that innocent children were murdered, but how many would have starved to death if the Allied Forces had not employ people who could run the infrastructure that carried food to the cities and carried away the waste products of the cities? When you make such statements, please complete the sentence; there is so much more that you failed to say.
Wars are messy, and innocent people get killed in them. That all sides executed failed strategies of wars of terror shows that such a thing was not seen as unacceptable, back then, and that much of the world learned that lesson. To judge people of the past by modern ethics is to risk being judged, yourself, by future ethics. You would likely not measure up very well, either.
Some populations have learned the lesson that peace is preferable. Others continue to wreak terror throughout the world, yet ironically claim to be peaceful.
2) Those dictators you complain about were kind, when compared to those who replaced them when the US did as you desired and allowed them to be overthrown.
Egypt, Syria, and Libya were all ruled by dictators, but the replacement governments have proved to be far more brutal in the past few years than those “greedy psychopathic dictators” were when they accepted American money to be kinder, gentler rulers. Indeed, Egypt chose to overthrow their own replacement government, suddenly feeling nostalgic for the “psychopathic” Mubarak.
Even Islamic State rules its captured people with an iron fist, freely murdering anyone it chooses.
3) For America to temper those dictators by overthrowing them would be to “nation build.” Would you advocate that America choose how other countries rule themselves? Do you recommend that as the solution to “psychopathic dictators,” or would you prefer that these dictators be left on their own to freely murder their people without complaint or interference by America?
Clearly, you do not appreciate the methods that actually were employed by America to keep those dictators from their tendency to be violent toward their peoples, so there must be some alternative that you prefer. What would that alternative be?
You claimed that America murders “as many as possible of the innocent citizens in any country far away without any kind of relevance to US security.” You will have to present an example of America doing such a thing. I continually hear this complaint, but whenever I ask for examples, those making the complaint fail to present them. Please enlighten me of such wanton mass murder done by America.
You asked, “How hard is it to face the fact that you have failed, after the fact that you have failed?”
Several of us who comment on this blog understand perfectly well that our current president is leading us into complete disaster in every way possible: militarily, socially, financially, politically, religiously, and constitutionally; with our healthcare, with our police, with our work ethic, even with our liberty.* The very complaint that you have, the supporting of “greedy psychopathic dictators,” kept the world free, for decades, from the violence that the current US president now allows to spread. The forsaking of this policy and of our leadership has resulted in this violence. Other nations, some respectful of their peoples and some not so much, are turning to tyrannical governments, such as Russia, China, and Iran for the protections once provided by America.
Is tyranny really what you desire for the world’s governments? Tyrannies are usually at least as bad as those “greedy psychopathic dictators” that you complain about, and they are most likely to lead their vassal nations in the direction of tyranny, not liberty.
It *is* hard to face the fact that our president is failing a free world that had so long relied upon our leadership and our military to keep it free and safe. There is a reason why the world called upon us to end two world wars and to be its police force, and why the United Nations and other countries called upon us on several occasions. We only hope that our next president has the courage to go against your preferred policies in order to clean up the increasing mess our current president is making and to restore order and safety in the world.
Treating bad people with kindness and fluff, instead of with force or instead of handing out money as incentive to temper their homicidal ways, results in those bad people carrying out their homicidal ways, as Islamic State does today, or as the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt. It even happens locally, as with Baltimore, Maryland, where the murder rate is skyrocketing and the arrest rate is declining, after the president and “social justice” groups insisted that the police treat suspects kindly and not investigate suspicious behavior. The results are increased violence and reduced safety in that city.
It is increasingly difficult to distinguish our current president from one of your “greedy psychopathic dictators,” as he ignores the lessons of the past and raises taxes for the sake of raising taxes, loves himself more than his subjects, and rules through regulation and unconstitutional edicts (one of which was judged unconstitutional just today) rather than through legislation and laws.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” We Americans were not vigilant enough, this past quarter century, and we Americans — as well as the whole wide world — are losing our liberty and reaping the tyranny sewed by people who think like you, LocalFluff.
* A question for all who read this: what other tyranny in all of history has had the temerity to direct its population as to how to spend its own money? This is not rhetorical, I really, truly want to know.
You have obviously missed the whole point of Americas war actions in the middle east.
The first rule of a good general is to make the enemy fight on his land and not yours.
Thus your infrastructure and economy are safe to produce more war materials.
Its also nice for your citizens because they are safe and productive.
I also notice that not once has any of those middle east generals or rulers even thought about stopping the flow of oil. Even ISIS has taken over oil fields and they have NEVER stopped the flow. They just sold it to some else who in turn sells it to anyone in the world.
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-airstrikes-syria-target-lucrative-isis-oil-operations-1694658
ISIS is just like all the other petty little dictators all over the middle east. The only difference is they are religious fanatics using religion as a tool to gain fighters and control civilians. Its faster but dirtier.
American strategy has not failed. We are just letting those dictators kill each other civilians so that the civilians will finally get tired of it and happily ask for America to come back and re-establish the peace. We will then instill a new set of peaceful leaders and try it again. It will eventually take.
As long as the war is in the middle east and not my backyard I don’t care how long it takes.
This was actually a paraphrase of a quote by Golda Meir. The actual quote is:
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
― Golda Meir