Target Centermass

Category: History

  • Dying for Another Tet in Iraq

    The Islamists and the Saddamites wanted another Mogadishu, hoping to bloody the American nose and move in after the subsequent withdrawal. They failed. Badly.

    And so, they turned to an earlier model of American failure — Viet Nam. And the American Left and the media were so glad to help, as calls of quagmire and failure rang out, intertwined with moaning for an “exit strategy” and plantings of draft rumors.

    Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam

    —Sen. Edward Kennedy (source)

    Unfortunately for them, things haven’t been going the way of the terrorists. The terrorists, despite vows to the contrary, had to watch an Iraqi citizenry give the finger to fear and vote for their own future. The attacks against U.S. troops have repeatedly failed and casualties are declining. It is time for the terrorists to turn back to the Viet Nam playbook — they need another Tet.

    And what better place than Abu Ghraib, a prison tragically more known internationally for a handful of rogue American atrocities (prosecuted or being prosecuted) than for countless thousands of murders and horrors committed previously by the Saddam regime (blank check in the global community from prosecution or even reputation). The terrorist movement had learned they couldn’t really hurt the American military effort. The Iraqis’ disgust with their victimization by the foreign Islamists, criminals and Saddamists was growing fast. Luckily for the murderous bastards, the American and international media remained fascinated with all things Abu Ghraib. Well, all things post-conflict.

    The scene was set for another Tet-like defeat of the Americans — make statement-type attacks and let the media take it from there. Target: Abu Ghraib.

    I didn’t have time Saturday to do anything other than post the link to the initial attack on the prison. Mark that, failed attack, as there were no American deaths and no prisoners freed. There were headlines, though.

    And believe me, the Islamist bastards tried to milk it for all it was worth.

    Al-Qaeda in Iraq, meanwhile, posted a second internet statement boasting that its fighters carried out the bold attempt on Saturday to force their way into the prison. The statement, posted late on Sunday, said two fighters were injured and 10 more were killed in battle, including seven suicide bombers.

    It said a group of about 20 militants scaled the prison’s walls, and that one reached a prison tower and yelled: “God is great!”

    Today, the scumbags continued in their efforts for another Tet.

    Another attack around Abu Ghraib

    A suicide bomber driving a tractor blew himself up Monday in the second attack in three days near the Abu Ghraib prison.

    I argue that the operative word in that lead paragraph is “near,” signifying that the terrorists get ink and a gold star from the press just for trying.

    Are they making a dent with this latest rush of bloody sacrifice? No, but unfortunately that may only be a matter of timing. I have no doubt that editors across America and around the globe would salivate over the headlines they could trumpet about the attempts by the terrorists to right all of the American wrongs at Abu Ghraib.

    What’s stopping them? Simply and sadly, probably only timing.

    Minor skirmishes that achieve nothing cannot help but be overshadowed by the passing of Pope John Paul II.

    Maybe the pope’s last great accomplishment will be to stop another Tet-like failure, just as progress is taking hold in a region thirsting for it.

  • Daylight Savings Tonight

    Don’t forget to set your clocks forward, at least that goes for most of you. Here’s an interesting look at the history of the clock-switching.

    But shifting 60 little minutes — forward or back — can have unexpected consequences in a world where trains, ball games and even terrorist attacks go by the clock.

    In September 1999, for instance, the Palestinian West Bank was still on daylight-saving time and Israel had just returned to standard time when terrorists smuggled two car bombs across the border, planning to detonate them alongside Israeli buses at precisely 6:30 p.m.

    The buses, however, were running on standard time. The timers were on daylight time. When the bombs went off, the buses were nowhere in sight and three terrorists died in their own cars.

    Ahhh, finally some sunshine when I leave the office.

    Still, I’ll probably manage to forget to change the clocks anyway.

  • Revolutionary War Remnant Washes Ashore

    Here’s an interesting little treat for the military history buff: an underwater portion of a bridge crossing Lake Champlain to the famed Fort Ticonderoga has floated to the surface and been recovered.

    For more than two centuries, the waters of Lake Champlain have hidden the remains of a marvel of 18th-century engineering — a bridge built by 2,500 sick and hungry Continental soldiers.

    Now a piece of that bridge sits in the preservation laboratory at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, destined to give visitors a portal into revolutionary times.

    “When you look at what they wanted to do, it connects you right to the American Revolution,” said the museum’s executive director, Art Cohn.

    Historians say the bridge was constructed in March and April 1777. Thousands of huge pine logs were skidded onto the ice and notched together. Weighed down with rocks, these caissons sunk to the lake bottom through holes the soldiers cut in the ice.

    By spring 22 caissons, some up to 50 feet tall, reached the lake’s surface. They were joined by a 16-foot-wide deck that linked Fort Ticonderoga in New York and Mount Independence in Vermont.

    […]

    If the part of the bridge above the water was destroyed, the part under the surface was not. The caissons were set so deep that they did not interfere with boats on the lake.

    The bridge was largely forgotten until 1983, until divers discovered the caissons, still largely intact, laid out in an arc between the two shores.

    Cohn and others began to study the bridge more intensely in 1992, mapping the locations of the caissons and recovered thousands of Revolutionary War artifacts believed dumped in the lake when the British abandoned the fortifications in late 1777. Some of those artifacts are now on display at the Mount Independence Visitor Center in Orwell.

    Then, last year, a 26-foot beam estimated to weigh between 1,500 and 1,800 pounds surfaced and was pulled to shore near Fort Ticonderoga.

    The story gives a little more information on the roles that the bridge and the fort played in the war. It goes on to discuss the preservation efforts and plans for display. Go read and enjoy if you find these types of things as intriguing as I do.

  • We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

    JohnL over at TexasBestGrok has a regular installment he calls Aircraft Cheesecake in which he focuses on an particular airplane from days gone by. The latest is a look at an interesting Soviet bomber prototype from the ’30s.

    Now, Varifrank has posted some seacraft cheesecake about a couple of massive Japanese WWII submarines, the wreckage of one of which was just confirmed today. Perhaps most interesting about these two subs was that, with the fall of Japan, they were ordered to surrender while en route to attack North America … from the air. Go read about these fascinating submarines that were also submersible carriers.

  • Vietnamese Agent Orange Claim Dismissed

    If the 2004 presidential election proved anything, it’s that the controversial legacy of the Viet Nam War ain’t going away anytime soon. Well, maybe one lawsuit spawned by the conflict will finally be laid to rest.

    A U.S. federal judge has ruled American chemical companies are not liable for damages caused by the spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

    Judge Jack Weinstein Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that accused the companies of committing war crimes by producing the highly toxic chemical.

    The suit was filed on behalf of Vietnamese citizens who have blamed Agent Orange for health problems including cancer and birth defects.

    U.S. forces sprayed some 80 million liters of the chemical during the war to kill jungle foliage that communist forces were using as cover.

    Judge Weinstein said the plaintiffs’ claims have no basis under any national or international laws. He also said the plaintiffs had failed to prove a clear link between Agent Orange and their illnesses.

    There was no immediate reaction from plaintiffs or the Vietnamese government.

    So many aspects of that war against communist aggression, one of the key hot theaters of the Cold War, have long since become indelibly and unfairly cemented into the public mind — the tales of American atrocities, images of a summary execution or a naked child running in fear, the anguished stereotypical veteran, the phrase “We had to destroy the village in order to save it” (which I plan to blog about at a later date), and the lingering horrors of the defoliant Agent Orange.

    What is the truth behind the actual health effects of exposure to Agent Orange? Well, despite today’s decision, the scientific jury is still out decades later. However, as the Mackenzie Institute noted in a paper on the controversy surrounding depleted uranium rounds, the evidence to date is not looking too good for those who continue to trumpet the evils of the defoliant.

    Anyone remember Agent Orange?

    Starting in 1969 and continuing through until the early 1990s, hundreds of Vietnam veterans blamed health problems, tumors and even psychological conditions on purported exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The Agent Orange scare was strongly encouraged by the environmental lobby, the Peace Movement, and the Hanoi government. Fabricating or distorting evidence is quick and simple, while a truth that depends on scientific evidence can take a long time to show up. Naturally, as the scientists were dragging their heels, the media turned to the sensationalists and the Agent Orange Myth took on a life of its own.

    Dioxin, the accused killer in Agent Orange can be dangerous and in large dosages is very lethal … to laboratory rats. Exposures humans receive are another matter. However, the thousands of Italians who were exposed to heavy doses of dioxin in a 1976 industrial accident did not develop excessive birth defects or reproductive failures. A 1984 Journal of the American Medical Association article on workers who had been exposed to a heavy dose of dioxins in a 1949 accident indicated these men did not have higher rates of cancer, heart or liver damage, nerve problems, kidney damage, reproductive problems or birth defects than was the average for men of their age group. They did have slightly higher rates of chloracne and digestive tract ulcers — both of which are quite treatable.

    If any Vietnam Veterans had come down with problems related to Agent Orange, it would have been the high living “cowboys” of the Ranch Hand project — the US Airmen who actually sprayed the stuff. Flying at near-stall speeds about 50m above ground level, these servicemen took a lot of ground-fire. Indeed, one of their aircraft — known as “Patches” — is in the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio. Often, they ended up coated in Agent Orange when they sprayed it or had it sluicing around their ankles after being shot-up again. Moreover, at initiations for new members of their Squadron, both the newcomers and the older veterans would drink a glass of the defoliant.

    Over 1,174 of the 1,206 veterans of this squadron have participated in a careful 20-year study of the results of their exposure to Agent Orange. Net result? The Ranch Hand group continues to have the same mortality rate as their control group of 1,293 similar men — and both have a lower mortality rate than the average American Male population. The only real difference in rates of those ailments associated with dioxin, despite massive exposure to Agent Orange, was that the Ranch Hand vets had a slightly higher tendency to display problems related to heavy drinking — something many of them engaged in as young servicemen on a nerve-wracking duty.

    Otherwise, after $400 million in real research, the great Agent Orange scare turned out to be a bust. Real — verifiable and accurate — scientific research does not indict the material. However, it remains an article of faith among environmentalists and peace-movement members that the stuff is deadly. They believe and that is enough.

    Too bad the verdict has already been rendered in the court of public opinion, but that’s true of so much about the Viet Nam War.

  • Remembering the Horror: Auschwitz

    Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I’ll bow to Guy at Snugg Harbor to honor the date and examine the horror here and here. WARNING: Guy posts that images in the second link are not safe for work, though I disagree. I put it at PG-13, and a must-see and a must-remember for all older.

  • Italy To Return Ethiopian Obelisk

    In post-9/11 America, much has been made of the appeasement that preceded World War II, especially the case of the Sudetenland and the Munich Agreement. Somewhat lost in the sands of time are the military conflicts in the years leading up to the outbreak of the war. Chief among these are the Sino-Japanese War, with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and a wealth of atrocities that make Abu Graib look like a four-year-old’s birthday party, and the Spanish Civil War, the proving ground for the troops, equipment and tactics of the Soviets, Germans and Italians. Even more obscure is the invasion of Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) by Benito Mussolini’s Italy in 1935. That aggression may finally be finding a closure.

    An Ethiopian national treasure, the ancient Axum Obelisk that was plundered by Italian fascist invaders in 1937, will be returned by Rome in April, Italy’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

    The 24-meter obelisk, believed to be at least 1,700 years old, was split in three and hauled off when Italy under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1937.

    Italy promised in 1947 to return the 200-tongranite column, a symbol of the dawn of Ethiopian civilization, but arguments and logistical problems delayed it until November last year when the two countries finally agreed to fly it home.

    […]

    Returning the segments of the monument and the machinery to put it back together is a gargantuan logistical task.

    Landlocked Ethiopia has had to build a special runway for the only aircraft big enough to carry the pieces, the U.S.-built C-5 Galaxy and Russian-made Antonov 124. The Antonov was the plane finally chosen to bring the obelisk home.

    It’s surprising that the massive artifact took around a year to remove and over a half-century to return. For no reason at all, I blame the recent resurgence of trucker hats.

  • Hitler ‘Ordered Pope Kidnapped’

    Interesting.

    Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler gave one of his generals a direct order to kidnap Pope Pius XII during World War II but the officer did not obey, Italy’s leading Roman Catholic newspaper reported.

    Avvenire, which is owned by the Italian Conference of Roman Catholic bishops, said new details of the plot had emerged in documents presented to the Vatican in favor of putting the controversial wartime Pontiff on the road to sainthood.

    Elements of alleged plots to abduct the pope during Germany’s occupation of Italy have already emerged in the past from some historians, but Avvenire’s full-page report said its details were new.

    Avvenire said Hitler feared the pope would be an obstacle to his plans for global domination and because the dictator wanted to eventually abolish Christianity and impose National Socialism as a sort of new global religion.

    ….

    It said that in 1944, shortly before the Germans retreated from Rome, SS General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, a senior occupation officer in Italy, had been ordered by Hitler to kidnap the pope.

    According to the newspaper, Wolff returned to Rome from his meeting with Hitler in Germany and arranged for a secret meeting with the pope. Wolff went to the Vatican in civilian clothes at night with the help of a priest.

    The newspaper said Wolff told the pope of Hitler’s orders and assured him he had no intention of carrying them out himself, but warned the pontiff to be careful “because the situation (in Rome) was confused and full of risks.”

    ….

    Avvenire said the details of the plot are in testimony Wolff gave before he died in Germany to Church officials accumulating evidence to back efforts to have Pius eventually made a saint.

    But the reports of Hitler’s contempt for Pius have contrasted with other versions by historians and authors who have depicted Pius as being pro-German and have accused him of intentionally turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.

    The Vatican’s procedures to put Pius on the road to sainthood have not been slowed or shelved despite concerns from Jews, and they will enter a new phase in March when Vatican historians will begin discussing many volumes of documentation.

    The Vatican maintains that Pius did not speak out more strongly because he feared it would worsen the fate of Catholics and Jews, and that he worked behind the scenes to save Jews.

    Pius’s pontificate has been one of the trickiest problems in post-war Catholic-Jewish relations.

    In 1998, there was widespread Jewish discontent with a Vatican document called “We Remember, a Reflection on the Shoah,” which effectively absolved Pius of accusations that he facilitated the Holocaust by remaining silent.

    But the current pontiff, Pope John Paul, has strongly defended Pius and once called him “a great pope.”

    Not sure I believe much of it, but it is interesting.

  • French Pol: Nazi Occupation Not Brutal

    An anti-Semite politician has France in a stir.

    The Nazi occupation of France was not particularly brutal, French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was quoted as saying.

    The comments by the National Front leader were published in the small extreme-right newspaper Rivarol.

    “In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhuman, even if there were a few blunders,” he was quoted as saying. Such things were “inevitable” in a country of 220,000 square miles, he said.

    Le Pen’s office confirmed the interview had taken place but said it could not verify the exact comments, as no one had checked them against a recording. The remarks were published in the paper’s Jan. 7 edition but did not come to wider attention until Wednesday.

    French Justice Minister Dominique Perben said he was outraged and immediately asked for a preliminary inquiry into Le Pen’s remarks.

    “He will have to explain himself before the justice system,” Perben said.

    CRIF, an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, said it was “particularly shocked” by the comments. During the war, some 76,000 Jews, including 12,000 children, were deported from France, many to Auschwitz. Only 2,500 survived.

    “These comments taint the memory of all victims of Nazism — deportees and the Resistance, and the entire French population, which was subjected for more than four years to the most atrocious of occupations and humiliations,” CRIF said in a statement.

    Le Pen, 76, has a history of making such remarks, and he has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times. He once called the Nazi gas chambers “a detail of the history of the Second World War.”

    Sickening? Inaccurate? Pathetic? Yes. But should it be criminal? I don’t think so.

  • Mbeki Attacks ‘Racist’ Churchill

    It seems the South African president is embracing the long-held Arab tradition of placing blame on outsiders in an attempt to shrug off local shortcomings, in this case those of Sudan.

    President Thabo Mbeki has made a withering attack on Winston Churchill and other historic British figures, calling them racists who ravaged Africa and blighted its post-colonial development.

    The South African president was addressing the Sudanese assembly, and he was criticised for not dealing with the government’s human rights violations in Darfur.

    He said British imperialists in the 19th and 20th centuries had treated Africans as savages and left a “terrible legacy” of countries divided by race, colour, culture and religion.

    He singled out Churchill as a progenitor of vicious prejudice who justified British atrocities by depicting the continent’s inhabitants as inferior races who needed to be subdued, and pointed out that Kitchener and Wolseley had waged ruthless campaigns in Sudan and South Africa.

    “To some extent we can say that when these eminent representatives of British colonialism were not in Sudan, they were in South Africa, and vice versa, doing terrible things wherever they went, justifying what they did by defining the native peoples of Africa as savages that had to be civilised, even against their will.”

    The speech was made on New Year’s Day but the full text was made available in South Africa only this week.

    As an exile in Britain in the 1960s Mr Mbeki was educated at Sussex University and worked in the London office of the African National Congress.

    Once considered an Anglophile, his admiration for South Africa’s former colonial power seems to have been cooled by spats over the Iraq war and strife in Zimbabwe.

    ….

    Mr Mbeki said this attitude [exhibited by Churchill] conditioned the behaviour of British empire-building in South Africa, including the crushing of the Zulu people and the scorched earth policy and concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer war.

    He was in Sudan after attending last week’s signing in Kenya of a peace accord between the Khartoum government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement .

    He visited Darfur, where Khartoum is accused of massacres and ethnic cleansing.

    Mr Mbeki said he had seen the “challenges” in the region, and he thanked the government for cooperating with the African Union and moving towards peace and reconciliation.

    South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said the speech was a missed opportunity to press Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed militias.

    “Mollycoddling the Sudanese government is hardly appropriate in the face of its failure to put a stop to the Janjaweed terrorism,” he said.

    Douglas Gibson, a party spokesman, said: “It amazes me that President Mbeki feels that he should insult the memory of the greatest Briton by associating him with British colonial policy of 120 years ago.

    “All this in order to create some superficial similarity between Sudan and South Africa.

    “There is no similarity at all. South Africa has a liberal democratic constitution … Sudan is a country which is hardly governed and where the Arab north dominates the African south and west.”

    And just what was Mbeki’s beef with ol’ Winston? Simply this:

    As a young man Churchill served in Africa as an army officer, he was colonial secretary in 1921-22, and wrote articles and books about the continent.

    Mr Mbeki quoted a passage from The River War, Churchill’s account of Kitchener’s campaign in Sudan, which described shortcomings in “Mohammedanism” – Islam.

    It said: “Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

    “The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

    “A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.”

    Winston Churchill — though not perfect, right so many times in history about so many things. And as right today as he was then about the state of the Islamic world.