Obama's Speech in Berlin

[Demetrious]

Well thats what the newspapers wrote, but Berlin is basically the German capital of punks, unemployed left wing graduates, the German anti globalization movement, hippies ... liberals, hell even our major is gay (and is famous for crashing every party ) .... Well basically the whole coffee grounds of the European Anti Americanism.

Because all America ever did for Berlin was keep half the city from being starved to death by the Soviets.

Sometimes, I wonder why we bothered.

 

[RonPerlman]

Well thats what the newspapers wrote, but Berlin is basically the German capital of punks, unemployed left wing graduates, the German anti globalization movement, hippies ... liberals, hell even our major is gay (and is famous for crashing every party ) .... Well basically the whole coffee grounds of the European Anti Americanism.

Because all America ever did for Berlin was keep half the city from being starved to death by the Soviets.

Sometimes, I wonder why we bothered.

YEAH, WHY DIDN'T THEY SEE OUR OCCUPATION AS BENEVOLENT AND RACIALLY PURE

CHRIST

 

[Demetrious]

YEAH, WHY DIDN'T THEY SEE OUR OCCUPATION AS BENEVOLENT AND RACIALLY PURE

CHRIST

I know, right? You'd figure that saving their lives with the biggest, most amazing logistical feat of the century- the Berlin Airlift- would have convinced them that our goals were benevolent.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

You mean after we bombed them into the stone age and millions of German POWs starved in American captivity, right?

 

[Demetrious]

You mean after we bombed them into the stone age

Which is precisely why you'd expect us turning around and saving their lives to be rather memorable, no?

In fact, the Berlin Airlift is often credited as the reason that modern German-American relations even exist.

and millions of German POWs starved in American captivity, right?

I literally cannot fucking believe that you could be such an absolute fucking moron. Somebody stupid enough to type that sentence and believe it wouldn't be able to take a piss without a nurse helping them, much less turn on a computer and use a keyboard. You have to be trolling.

 

[Loxley]

YEAH, WHY DIDN'T THEY SEE OUR OCCUPATION AS BENEVOLENT AND RACIALLY PURE

CHRIST

I know, right? You'd figure that saving their lives with the biggest, most amazing logistical feat of the century- the Berlin Airlift- would have convinced them that our goals were benevolent.

Your goals? Or the goals of alot of long dead politicians and some retired by now americans. How many of the peoples in berlin do you still think remembers the airlift? Fact is that the airlift were done by different people for different people. And somehow they should have gratitude to the grandsons of those that helped them?

 

[Demetrious]

YEAH, WHY DIDN'T THEY SEE OUR OCCUPATION AS BENEVOLENT AND RACIALLY PURE

CHRIST

I know, right? You'd figure that saving their lives with the biggest, most amazing logistical feat of the century- the Berlin Airlift- would have convinced them that our goals were benevolent.

Your goals? Or the goals of alot of long dead politicians and some retired by now americans. How many of the peoples in berlin do you still think remembers the airlift? Fact is that the airlift were done by different people for different people. And somehow they should have gratitude to the grandsons of those that helped them?

The geopolitical situation that made America an ally of Germany- namely, the presence of the Soviet Union- is barely fifteen years dead. That really isn't all that long- my own parents, who are not exactly old-timers, remember the days when they were sure the Berlin Wall would never fall in their lifetime.

Now, one of my good friends on a particular IRC channel is a German, and he's told me that much of this anti-American sentiment actually stems from the results of the Soviet occupation of East Berlin- apparently, there are people who still argue about trotskyism. Seriously. In addition, a lot of people miss the "good old days" when the Soviet Union took care of everything- which is apparently regarded as a combination of resistance to change and Stockholm syndrome.

Still, I find it amazing that an entire nation can so swiftly turn their backs on the country that did so much to preserve them from a variety of would-be crimes on the part of the Soviet Union.

 

[RonPerlman]

Yeah, why did they turn their backs on us by not aiding us in the glorious purification of Iraq

THOSE BASTARDS

 

[Jebus]

and millions of German POWs starved in American captivity, right?

I literally cannot fucking believe that you could be such an absolute fucking moron. Somebody stupid enough to type that sentence and believe it wouldn't be able to take a piss without a nurse helping them, much less turn on a computer and use a keyboard. You have to be trolling.

I suggest you pick up a quality history book. German POW deaths in American hands were actually higher than the other way around.
Millions might be overstating the case, but it is hard to deny that the US army was responsible for the senseless killing of innumerable German POW's.

It's that whole 'take no prisoners' mentality American generals were (are) so proud about.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

You mean after we bombed them into the stone age

Which is precisely why you'd expect us turning around and saving their lives to be rather memorable, no?

In fact, the Berlin Airlift is often credited as the reason that modern German-American relations even exist.

and millions of German POWs starved in American captivity, right?

I literally cannot fucking believe that you could be such an absolute fucking moron. Somebody stupid enough to type that sentence and believe it wouldn't be able to take a piss without a nurse helping them, much less turn on a computer and use a keyboard. You have to be trolling.

Ad hominem attacks are so :yawn:
edit: I was hasty to say millions, but some estimates crack the 7 digit mark. Still I couldn't find a counter-argument in what you said, just insults against my character.

 

[Ah-Teen]

The speech was good, not as moving as those of the past... Christ that guy recited the entire thing from memory?!

I am puzzled as to why 200 000 Germans showed up for that speech in the first place.

I mean, I get the fact that Europe is indirectly influenced by the way the US is run - but seriously, 200 000 people? When was the last time a European politician managed to get such crouds?
1942?

Don't you just love politicians who can speak well? They do sooo much good for their country.

Actions don't speak louder than words. But they speak more truly.

You mean after we bombed them into the stone age and millions of German POWs starved in American captivity, right?

It was a different culture then. It was not only accepted but often expected. Even though things were already in motion to stop such acts.

Kill the Nazi's? Every German is a Nazi? I still that kind of talk, its powerful talk that was designed to make us absolutely hate the nazis and anyone who supported them. When someone becomes less than human you can treat them any way you want. Questioning that suddenly made you a Nazi sympathizer. Draft dodging or being a consciences objector labeled you as a Nazi for no other reason than you weren't fighting them.

All that pent up anger and suddenly you have a chance to kill a few without them fighting back?

There isn't an excuse for it, but it was going to happen. Both sides told of horror stories of how you'd get treated if you were captured. It wasn't a horrific notion that so many died in camps.

NOR was it a horrific idea that they'd get bombed to the ground. That was how war was. Thats what they did, thats what we did. Nobody liked it, but they accepted it.

What wasn't expected was that their former enemies would do so much to build them up and feed them. In the past, If you were conquered, the winner would steal EVERYTHING of value and not concern themselves with the losers well being. Now these conquerers are sitting here, helping you rebuild, they are feeding you at their own cost, and are not raping your country of value.

But memory fades. We forget things we should not forget. And look back on things with values that are not compatible with the values of that time and we think, what the fuck were they thinking. I'd be fucking pissed if that happened to my soldiers. To them many times, it just was the way it was.

 

[RonPerlman]

Now it's much more profitable to make a country your bitch

 

[Ah-Teen]

Now it's much more profitable to make a country your bitch

Yeah, they don't turn on you as much. I"M LOOKING AT YOU SPAIN!

 

[Demetrious]

Ad hominem attacks are so :yawn:
edit: I was hasty to say millions, but some estimates crack the 7 digit mark. Still I couldn't find a counter-argument in what you said, just insults against my character.

Of course I am disparaging your character: that's because the only other place I have seen such outlandish claims leveled against America in the context of World War II is the one time I browsed the forums of stormfront.org, which is the major neo-nazi group in North America. The claim that Americans killed "millions" of German POWs is right up there with claims that Zyklon-B merely tickled the nose and that the Holocaust is a big flim-flam.

Yes. It's that crazy. Your wiki link is a start; but all I got out of it is that all the claims seem to center on a novel by a single Canadian novelist, and Stephen Ambrose, who was one of the best respected WWII historians, shot them down:

Mr. Bacque is wrong on every major charge and nearly all his minor ones. Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was a severe food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about the "disarmed enemy forces" designation or about the column "other losses." Mr. Bacque's "missing million" were old men and young boys in the Volkssturm (People's Militia) released without formal discharge and transfers of POWs to other allies control areas. Maj. Ruediger Overmans of the German Office of Military History in Freiburg who wrote the final volume of the official German history of the war estimated that the total death by all causes of German prisoners in American hands could not have been greater than 56,000 approximately 1% of the over 5,000,000 German POWs in Allied hands exclusive of the Soviets. Eisenhower's calculations as to how many people he would be required to feed in occupied Germany in 1945-46 were too low and he had been asking for more food shipments since February 1945. He had badly underestimated the number of German soldiers surrendering to the Western Allies; more than five million, instead of the anticipated three million as German soldiers crossed the Elbe River to escape the Russians. So too with German civilians - about 13 million altogether crossing the Elbe to escape the Russians, and the number of slave laborers and displaced persons liberated was almost 8 million instead of the 5 million expected. In short, Eisenhower faced shortages even before he learned that there were at least 17 million more people to feed in Germany than he had expected not to mention all of the other countries in war ravaged Europe, the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. All Europe went on rations for the next three years, including Britain, until the food crisis was over. [38]

Academic review of this single Canadian's claims all seem to acknowledge that German POW's were treated like dirt, but that there is no way in HELL that they were murdered by the millions. From the wiki page:

Writing in the Canadian Historical Review, David Stafford called the book "a classic example of a worthwhile investigation marred by polemic and overstatement."[2] R.J. Rummell, a scholar of 20th-century atrocities, has written that "Bacque misread, misinterpreted, or ignored the relevant documents and that his mortality statistics are simply impossible."[3]. More recently, writing in the Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment, S.P. MacKenzie states, "That German prisoners were treated very badly in the months immediately after the war...is beyond dispute. All in all, however, Bacque's thesis and mortality figures cannot be taken as accurate".[4]

There's your refutation- from the mouths of academics. Actual academics, as opposed to some Canadian fiction writer who decided to try his hand at research and outright lies.

The actual substance from that wiki article is to be found in the claims that the Allies didn't do enough, fast enough, to alleviate starvation among German civilians, but that's only to be expected in the utter chaos following the end of the war. Many bad things happened in that period of a few months, and there was just no way to keep track of the cascading disasters.

 

[Jebus]

Demetrious, most German POW's tended to be murdered before they were taken prisoner - hence it is impossible to chart their number or ratios.




Exerpt from "The War of the World", by Niall Ferguson:



[...] When American met German in the battlefields of Western Europe after the invasion of Italy, both had experience of lawless racial war, even if the scale of the German experience was vastly greater. Not surpisingly, prisoner killing was caried over [by the Americans] into the new European theaters. [...] On July 14, 1943, for example, troops of the American 45th Infantry Division killed seveny German and Italian PoWs at Biscari in Sicily. Sergeant William C. Bradley recalled how one of his comrades killed a group of German prisoners captured in France. On Jule 7,1944, an American officer admitted that US airborne forces did not take prisoners but 'kill them as they hold up their hands coming out. They are apt in going along a road with prisoners and seeing one of their own men killed, to run around and shoot a prisoner to make up for it. They are tough people.' [...]

As one British diplomat noted:

American troops are not showing any great disposition to take prisoners unless the enemy come over in batches of twenty or more. When smaller groups than this appear with their hands up, the American soldiers ... are apt to interpret this as a menacing gesture ... and to take liquidating action accordingly ... There is quite a proportion of 'tough guys', who have experienced the normal peace-time life of Chicago, and other great American cities, and who are applying the lessons they learned tere.

[...]Prisoner killing continued to be overtly encouraged by some American officers. General George Patton's adress to the 45th Infantry Division [NOTE FROM JEBUS: the same division that killed those pow's in sicily mentioned supra] before the invasion of Sicily could not have been more explicit:

When we land against the enemy ... we will show him no mercy ... If you company officers in leading your men against the enemy find him shooting at you and, when you get within two hundred yards of him, and he wishes to surrender, oh no! That bastard will die! You must kill him. Stick him between the third and forth ribs. You will tell your men that. They must have the killer instinct. Tell them to stick it in. He can do no good then. Stick them in the liver.

 

[Ah-Teen]

Demetrious, most German POW's tended to be murdered before they were taken prisoner - hence it is impossible to chart their number or ratios.




Exerpt from "The War of the World", by Niall Ferguson:



[...] When American met German in the battlefields of Western Europe after the invasion of Italy, both had experience of lawless racial war, even if the scale of the German experience was vastly greater. Not surpisingly, prisoner killing was caried over [by the Americans] into the new European theaters. [...] On July 14, 1943, for example, troops of the American 45th Infantry Division killed seveny German and Italian PoWs at Biscari in Sicily. Sergeant William C. Bradley recalled how one of his comrades killed a group of German prisoners captured in France. On Jule 7,1944, an American officer admitted that US airborne forces did not take prisoners but 'kill them as they hold up their hands coming out. They are apt in going along a road with prisoners and seeing one of their own men killed, to run around and shoot a prisoner to make up for it. They are tough people.' [...]

As one British diplomat noted:

American troops are not showing any great disposition to take prisoners unless the enemy come over in batches of twenty or more. When smaller groups than this appear with their hands up, the American soldiers ... are apt to interpret this as a menacing gesture ... and to take liquidating action accordingly ... There is quite a proportion of 'tough guys', who have experienced the normal peace-time life of Chicago, and other great American cities, and who are applying the lessons they learned tere.

[...]Prisoner killing continued to be overtly encouraged by some American officers. General George Patton's adress to the 45th Infantry Division [NOTE FROM JEBUS: the same division that killed those pow's in sicily mentioned supra] before the invasion of Sicily could not have been more explicit:

When we land against the enemy ... we will show him no mercy ... If you company officers in leading your men against the enemy find him shooting at you and, when you get within two hundred yards of him, and he wishes to surrender, oh no! That bastard will die! You must kill him. Stick him between the third and forth ribs. You will tell your men that. They must have the killer instinct. Tell them to stick it in. He can do no good then. Stick them in the liver.

Kill the Nazi's? Every German is a Nazi? I still that kind of talk, its powerful talk that was designed to make us absolutely hate the nazis and anyone who supported them. When someone becomes less than human you can treat them any way you want. Questioning that suddenly made you a Nazi sympathizer. Draft dodging or being a consciences objector labeled you as a Nazi for no other reason than you weren't fighting them.

All that pent up anger and suddenly you have a chance to kill a few without them fighting back?

Also, keep in mind. We were a highly unprofessional force, and were until the end of vietnam and the end of the draft.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

Of course I am disparaging your character: that's because the only other place I have seen such outlandish claims leveled against America in the context of World War II is the one time I browsed the forums of stormfront.org, which is the major neo-nazi group in North America.

Attacking me personally and invoking Godwin's Law doesn't bolster your point. But whatever.

and Stephen Ambrose, who was one of the best respected WWII historians, shot them down:

I like Ambrose, I've read most of his books, but to call him a romantic American-chauvanist (especially on the subject of WWII GIs) would be a gross understatement. The word is jingoistic I beleive, and it demeans the contributions of America's allies in WWII. Besides which, he writes "bubblegum" history for an American audience.

You seem to suffer from the same patriotic malaise, that America only acts out of altruism and are dumbfounded why countries don't swear fealty to us?

By this same logic, shouldn't we be bowing in deference to France since we never would've gained our independence without their intervention 200 years ago?

 

[Ah-Teen]

You seem to suffer from the same patriotic malaise, that America only acts out of altruism and are dumbfounded why countries don't swear fealty to us?

By this same logic, shouldn't we be bowing in deference to France since we never would've gained our independence without their intervention 200 years ago?

French revolution 1789–1799
American revolution 1776-1783

Fallacy of your argument is that it is not the same government that helped us. Besides, it was the snobby French nobles who hated the English we got help from. We really didn't have too much reason to fight in Europe besides Hitler being a fascist bastard out for world domination. We had more reason to fight the soviets than we did fighting the Nazis.

BUT we shouldn't expect Europe to bend over any time we want you to do something.

However America is picked on more than it deserves. We do no worse than many European countries.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

What wasn't expected was that their former enemies would do so much to build them up and feed them. In the past, If you were conquered, the winner would steal EVERYTHING of value and not concern themselves with the losers well being. Now these conquerers are sitting here, helping you rebuild, they are feeding you at their own cost, and are not raping your country of value.

The First World War kind of taught the world how things ended if you punish a country after a war but not do it absolutely perfectly right. They basically left Germany too strong not to be a threat but weakened it too much not to be felt by the people and used by the politicians of their times. The end of the First World War pretty much sowed the seeds for the Second World War.

Fun thing to research by the way: the impact of the American Revolution on the French Revolution. There were quite some important French officers in the American Revolution, and quite a lot of the ideas making their rounds in France were inspired by the American Revolution. And vice versa of course, as in, the American Revolution did use a happy lot of French political writing, like Montesquieu's 'De l'esprit des lois'. There's always the problem of how much influence books can have on real world political happenings though. Food for thought.

 

[alec]

I was at the pub, sipping Bionade, reading the newspaper and whadayaknow: Obama is changing his course (we didn't see that one coming, did we?). Seems that all of a sudden he is willing to use America's oil reserves to satisfy the common people. My self-respect for more votes, peh-lease.

What a wanker. Someone should ch-ch-ch-change and rearrange his fugly face for doing that 180 flipflop.

Not that I give a shit since it should be clear to all of you by now that the world is already doomed, but dawgunnit: the devil in me wishes one thing only and that is that McCain wins the elections. It's what the world deserves. It's what those mongrels in the New World deserve. It's skinny politicians like that Obama tool that wake up the Sweeney Todd in me: "Everyone deserves to die, yes, even I."

Pump up your remaining "fortunes", dickwads, and when future generations, trying to make ends meet with sticks and stones, drag your bodies to the guillotine, know that good ol' wishy-washy alec will be pleased. And laughing. From his favourite mini-volcano in Hell.

This shit angers me so much, I have no words for it. I hope his kids drown in the floods that are a-coming.