Thursday, December 08, 2005
REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR: Submitted by Eli Blake
Editor's note
When I logged in this morning I discovered that we had a new member named Eli who had submitted the following comment on another post. From time to time the members on this blog will select a comment which we then offer as a post in its own right.. This is one of those comments. Eli's remarks are a stunning condemnation of the Bush War in Iraq, In addition, they also turn the GOP arguments back on themselves in a way that I had not imagined possible.
Eli, we have not been properly introduced. Suffice it to say for now that I am Brandon's half brother and a co-founder of the new and improved Coalition for a Republican-Free America. I hope you don't mind the fact that I used your material, but rest assured that your effort is highly appreciated.
Thanks much,
Kyle Alexander James Kilpatrick
REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR
Submitted by Eli Blake
A very interesting letter today in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune from a retired career Naval Officer:
Remembering Pearl Harbor seems doubly -- or even triply -- important today. With that memory comes also the voice (rebroadcast almost every year) of President Franklin D. Roosevelt declaring to Congress and the nation, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked ..."
My 31 years of service as an officer in the U.S. Navy were richly satisfying -- in large measure because of the men and women with whom I served. But even more, my satisfaction came from an appreciation for living in and serving a nation dedicated to the principles of freedom and opportunity and justice for all, and of nobody being above the law.
But now, we are living in a country whose administration both declares and acts upon the belief that preemptive strikes are wise foreign policy, are a legitimate use of our military. Was the attack on Pearl Harbor anything other than a preemptive strike?
I ask President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- are we now to view Pearl Harbor as the product of a sound foreign policy by a nation with a strong military? Or would we instead be wise to remember that December 7, 1941, is still a date which will live in infamy?
ALAN YOUEL, RICHFIELD
In other words, if we use the Bush policy on pre-emptive war as a standard, then the Pearl Harbor attack was justified (since there is no question that the U.S. military in 1941 was a far greater threat to Japan than Saddam Hussein was to us in 2003.
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12 comments:
Just in case you guys missed it, here's my rebuttal from the other post.
Eli, i just heard decorated war veteran and former congressman bob kerrey on imus this morning, he still thinks we did the right thing going into iraq. so i'll see your war hero, and raise you a war hero senator who sat on the 9/11 commission and saw all the intelligence. we can go back and forth on whether or not the iraq invasion was the right thing to do, the truth is, only time will tell. but i beleive that with the info we had at the time, with the backdrop of 9/11, and with the history of sadamm using wmd, we had to do what we did. once again i say, if sadamm had complied with the U.N. resolutions, we wouldn't be there right now. Don't lose sight of who is at fault here.
Of course Saddam was using WMDs during the Reagen-Bush1 era, and the last we knew neither Reagen nor Bush 1 complained too loudly about the pracgtice at the time.
But we shall repeat the point.
Since our invasion
NO WMDS HAVE BEEN FOUND.
What part about No don't you understand?
that should read practice
Of course during the Reagan/Bush era we didn't have muslims flying airplanes into buildings in manhattan either. You guys want to just try to seperate everything, but i won't. You want to believe that Bush lied, karl rove somehow made the entire congress believe the lies, and they doctored the intelligence not only of the U.S. but many other countries. You want to believe that Clinton did the right thing bombing Iraq because sadamm had wmd, but that Bush lied. You want to believe a known and admitted liar joe wilson and not your president. I choose to believe him. I ask you this, if our intelligence community knew before hand that japan was planning to attack pearl harbor, should we have waited until they did it before we did anything about it? 7:32 AM
Kyle:
Not a problem. I was honored to be asked by Brandon. As I told him though, I don't know how often I will post since I also have a personal blog and am a member of another team, over at Night Bird's Fountain.
Harking back to the original post from Eli and Kyle. I remembered this interesting similarity this morning.
"Although Hitler's military leaders had first been apalled by the thought of invading Russia, they now almost universally shared his conviction that victory would come quickly. The consensus was that the campaign would be successfully completed within three months and Field Marshall von Brauchitsch had drastically reduced the estimate. After "up to four weeks" of major battle, he predicted, the war would degenerate into a mopping up operation against "minor resistance." The hard-headed Jodl concurred and curtly silenced Warlimont who questioned the categorical statement that the "Russian colossus will be proved to be a pig's bladder; prick it and it will burst."
The Fuhrer, according to General Guderian, "had succeeded in infecting his immediate military entourage with his own baseless optimism. The OKW and OKH were so serenly confident of victory before winter set in that winter clothing had only been prepared for every fifth man in the army. There were, of course, a few dissidents in high places. From the beginning Ribbentrop and Admiral Raeder openly opposed Barbarossa. Keitel, too, had serious reservations but he had learned to keep his opposition to himself...."
Jeeze. Where have we seen THIS similarity before. And underestimated enemy. Military leaders silenced by a would be war lord. Limitted supplies--read body armor instead of winter clothing. JEEEEEEZE
From John Toland's ADOLF HITLER,
Chapter 23, pahes 658-659
Doubleday 1976
Sorry. pahes should = pages I'm really rushed for time today.
Catch you guys tomorrow.
Rhinoculous:
Of course during the Reagan/Bush era, we didn't have muslims flying planes into buildings in manhattan either. You guys want to just try to separate everything, but I won't.
OK, then, then you'll have to swallow this:
When we went into Iraq, part of the justification that was made was, as you seem to imply, that there was some connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. And, separately, the right made (and is still trying to make) a case that torture is acceptable for extracting information from suspects. Well, today it turns out that yes, there is a 'connection'torture led to bad information about a supposed connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda which in turn was part of what led us to invade Iraq.
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and al-Qaida on statements gathered from the controversial U.S. policy of turning suspects over to foreign authorities for interrogation, according to current and former government officials.
An interrogated prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and al-Qaida in a process known as rendition.
Libi, handed over to Egyptian custody in January 2002, later said he had fabricated the accounts to escape harsh treatment, according to those officials...
The Bush administration used Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and al-Qaida included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
OK, so the guy said what they wanted him to say in order to evade torture. And based on your post, you seem to think (since you can't refute Kyle's point that WMD were an used excuse to attack Iraq fifteen years after they were used, but not when they were used) that it is because of al-Qaeda that we went to war. So then, you have to defend a war based on a lie that was created by a guy presumably being beaten, shocked or otherwise tortured in some hellhole in Egypt, motivated by getting out of the torture chamber.
The only logic more twisted than yours, is that of the Bush administration which is still defending in light of this (which they certainly knew a long time ago) the 'right' to use torture on prisoners.
kelli your conclusions are ludicrous. We helped the enemy of our enemy so we should rebuild their country when they win? The soviet union never had control over afghanistan, so who left the power void? And if that's the case, then why didn't we step in and take over eastern europe and russia too after we defeated the communists? don't you see how stupid you sound? I'm sorry to be so harsh, but that is just really stupid. You're just searching for ANY reason to blame everything on the republican party. you are politically blind and it shows up so clearly. Lets follow your logic all the way to the beginning. If it wasn't for FDR allowing "uncle joe" stalin to spread his regime around the world uncontested, then Reagan wouldn't have had to help out in afghanistan, which means (according to your logic) we wouldn't be in iraq right now. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this, FDR lied, people died.
And, Rhino,
I take it from the language in your post ('muslims' rather than 'al-Qaeda' or 'terrorists') that part of your justification that we should invade Iraq was because they are a muslim country? I hope you aren't suggesting that we are in a war against muslims, because if you are, then you are suggesting we are at war with one fifth of the population of the world.
No i'm not suggesting anything. I'm just stating fact. Maybe you didn't hear, all the terrorists that attacked your country on 9/11 were muslim. It is a religion that preaches violence against it's enemy. Oh and in case you didn't know, ALL "non believers" are the enemy. that means every man woman and child. Or to use your math, 4 fifths of the population of the world. So unless you're a muslim, that means you too.
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