Hmm... John F. Kerry had Vietnam, George W. Bush now has the Chilean Dinner Incident.

What a man. Willing to reach across a couple of people to make sure his bodyguard stays with him.

Of course, Bush had good reason to want a secret service agent close by at the dinner. He heard they were serving pretzels.

Maybe it is politically incorrect to say this, but I will do it anyway: Is there ever going to be a time when we can stop pretending that mere presence in the nation of Vietnam between the years of 1959 and 1975 automatically trumps the valor and decency of every other deed known to man?

Kerry went to Vietnam for four whole months and then came back and trashed his fellow soldiers. Very admirable.

No, it's just overboard to suggest that grabbing an SS agent out of a squabble is some kind of notable act of valor (decency, I'll give you).

Karol:

In what capacity have you sacrificed for and served your country? (Working on political campaigns doesn't count.)

She blogs.

Again, it's a mark of his character. Bush didn't start whining 'where is my Secret Service agent', he just went and got him. Kerry couldn't even get his phone charger.

Well, I don't think anybody is suggesting that grabbing a Secret Service agent out of a squabble is worthy of a Purple Heart. But it shows character. That's obvious. Few men have held that office who would go back and rescue one of their own Secret Service agents.

Karol, do you deny that atrocities were committed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, or simply feel that men like Kerry had no right to speak out about such things?

Geez Karol, you just don't get it. John Kerry served in Vietnam and you didn't. He's allowed to be as arrogant as he wants and you have no right to say anything about it.

Really, why are we still talking about this guy anyway? He's nothing more than a historical footnote.

I'm pretty sure Karol's never been to Vietnam, but I have seen her pull her hairbrush out of her purse without whining like a 5 year old about having to do it herself.

No, Peter, I'm not saying that Karol has no right to say anything about Kerry's service. I am saying that belittling that service by suggesting that four months is too short a time to be counted as worthwhile is astoundingly presumptuous, coming from someone who has not herself put her life in danger for her country.

It's also interesting that in the comments re: the Marine who shot the wounded Iraqi, the suggestion is that only soldiers are qualified to make the call as to what's appropriate in wartime. Here, Karol tells us that soldiers who speak up about inappropriate wartime action are somehow less than admirable.

So, to recap, people who have served don't get to trash the military, unless they agree with Karol. People who haven't served don't get to trash the military unless they are Karol. Is that about right?

haahahahahahaha, I think that about sums it up, pearatty. You're either with Karol or you're against her. Everyone knows where I stand.

While we're talking about simple gestures that bring insight into a man's character, let's all take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

Rick--

So, essetially, the best thing you could come up with was President Bush wiping his glasses on somebody's sweater? Because of that man, 50 million people are free and your criticism is that he wiped his glasses, once, on somebody's sweater?

Let me guess Dorian, Bush voter? Or Fox News watcher? Or both?

Dawn, you have to get some new material :) But, yes. I am both.

If I may wax philosophical, how come Bush's intervention on the behalf of his Secret Service man is such a big story? Shouldn't such acts be the norm for all folks and not just the President?

Kerry gives billionaires a bad name.

Dorian, I'm not the one who has posted TWICE about what a wonderful man Bush is because he kept his bodyguard with him.

If Karol had posted about what a hero Bush is because 50 million people are free, I might have pointed out that those people are not exactly free at the moment, due to catastrophically poor planning.

But she did not. The wiping of the glasses is as indicative of Bush's character as the bodyguard thing.

Rick--

I assume that you consider the planning of the post-war occupations of Germany and Japan to be catastophically poor as well. I mean, I assume you do. After all, both faced almost the identical problems we are facting in Iraq. Including insurgents. So I assume you consider those to be disasters as well.

Dorian.

Germany as i have said either on here on ramblings journal was a completely different kettle of fish to iraq today.

1. The German people as a whole did not object to the Allied occupation. They had seen their country devastated in a war IT started and the collapse of a regime many had supported but could see the negative aspects of. They could also see the justice of the Allied cause.

2. They had experienced Democracy before. The Weimar Republic was THE MOST democratic country in the world including the USA. The country had a democratic tradition and due to the afore mentioned devastation and shock it was easy to return to it.

3. Germany was surrounded by democracies to her west. France, Britain and the Benelux nations were democracies and important trading partners pre 1939. Scandinavia to the north was the same. Iraq is an attempt at a starting point of democritisation. Iraq is surrounded by theocracies hostile to it and our system of government. It was NOT the same in Germany in 1945. Yes the Soviet Union was in the process of taking over the nations east of Germany by the people there had a democratic tradition of sorts as well.

4. When we arrived in Germany and after General Jodl had signed the surrender, the Allied nations and especially the USA poured money into the country to help the citizens. Berlin airlift for example. What we did NOT do was only guard Germany's industry and strategic assests and allow looting and violence. These are things the coalition has done in Iraq. If Fox says otherwise then go on some Iraqi weblogs.

Er, I was all set to make a comment about hairbrushes but I guess I got here too late.

Shawn - yes. Also, not cheating on your wife should be the norm for all men, not just Pre... oh, yeah.

I seem to remember the Kerry campaign making a big hullabaloo over the promise that in "his" America, every teenage girl would have a homecoming dress. And I seem to remember our own Dawn summers, among others, arguing that it wasn't about the dress but the character of a man that he would have sympathy even for the little struggles in our lives.

But I guess it only applies when it's your guy. Who ever said actions speak louder than words? Obviously, the liberals weren't yelling loud enough when that one happened.

Dear "Young, White, and Liberal"--

It was my job, for several months time, to dig up comparisons between post-war Germany and Japan and Iraq today...Do we really have to take the time for me to obliterate you on this, or can we just admit Iraq is not all doom and gloom and hurricanes and have a happy Thanksgiving?

I am a uni student studying history at degree level. at this very moment i am studying Germany between the 2 world wars and just after.

At A-Level i received an A grade including 100% on a Nazi Germany paper. 100% at A-Level on an essay exam doesnt happen often.

my maternal grandfather was german, fought in ww2 and i still have family in germany. none of them or my germ,an friends at uni disagree with my earlier post.

read for my own amusement material on Germany from 1871 to 1990.

not american so usually don't give a monkeys about thanksgiving but i hope you americans all enjoy it.

incidentally provide some verifiable sources and i would LOVE (seriously) to read them.

Firstly, I think fabulous that you're of German origin, but that has absolutely nothing to do with comparing post-war Germany to post-war Iraq.....But just for your own enrichment, you should investigate the assassination of the Mayor of Aachen by German insurgents after it was liberated by the United States in 1945. In fact, you should research the Werewolf unit established by Himmler to fight Allied powers after the fall of Hitler. In fact, while you're at it, you should investigate the number of U.S. deaths (more than 1,000) that occured at the hands of Germans who were not in fact members of the offical German Army in immediate aftermath of the fall of Nazi Germany. In fact, while you're at it, you should go back and check out headlines from the New York Times from 1945 which quite frequently declared things like "Germans Reveal Hate of Americans."

Have done some research on the werewolf (wehrwolf) units you mentioned.

NEVER heard of this group before in 7 years of studying the subject at school, A-Level and university. Have not seen it in ANY text book or reference book on the subject.

A google search done came up with agreement on several things.
1. The total number of US casualties in postwar Germany was less than 100. Not 1000 as you claim. The majority of those 100 were accidents.

2. The Wehrwolf groups were 2 fold. one was an SS created unit but it was disbanded just after the war ended. what you are referring to is a group of mainly teenagers who called themselves wehrwolves. the assasination of the mayor of aachen remained the ONLY major instance of insurgency.

3. As i said earlier on the German people accepted their defeat and did not engage in armed resistance.

No historian of any repute accepts the comparisons made by Bush, Rice et al. the reason for this is a rather simple one. THEY ARE BULLSHIT!!!!!!!

what are your sources? books, websites, what???

Firstly, if you have not heard of the Werewolf brigade, then you have not thoroughly studied the history of Germany. You should check out Golo Mann's "History of Germany Since 1789," and our own military's account of the occupation, "The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany." You will also note that I did not claim post-war deaths amounted to more than 1,000 in Germany. I said that deaths at the hands of non-military insurgents as we entered the occupation topped 1,000. They did. If you do more entensive research on the Werewolf brigade you will also note they sabotaged factories and railways and blew up police stations. That sounds familiar, huh? While you are at it, I suggest you look into those New York Times headlines from the era of the occupation for more information...One article, from October 31, 1945, noted that German hate of Americans was playing out in "a rapid increase in the number of attacks on American soldiers."

last night i asked one of my flatmates from last year, A german from Bavaria, about the werewolf brigade.

he had heard of it but made the following points.

1. It was not made up of military service age people. from may 1945 to 1947 there were no military service males in germany. they were dead or POWs. Of 8 Million men known to have been in Russia for instance only 2 million are recorded as returning between 1947 and 1972.
The Western Allies also captured the surviving soldiers oppopsing them. My Grandfather was captured in 1944 and did not get released from American captivity until 1946 and then british until 1948. Read Hans Peter Marlands memoirs "The Last Train to Berlin".

2. The Werewolf Brigades were made up entirely of largely terrified teenagers who had almost NO impact. The SS Brigade was disbanded and the one responsible for the assasination in Aachen was the teenage one.

3. Germany was in no position to offer any resistance to occupying soldiers. From own research i have come across the anti fraternization movement in southern germany and austria. This however was a campaign directed against German women who fraternized with American soldiers who were themselves rarely if ever targeted.

Found this online.

from http://homepages.ius.edu/RVEST/SkorzenyDr2.htm

Knowing, like many other Nazi leaders, that the war was lost, Skorzeny spent most of his time preparing for the future. Until March of 1945 he helped train several recruits for the underground resistance group known as the "Werewolves," who were to make occupation by the Allies difficult, if not impossible. Skorzeny soon discovered that the number of Werewolf cells had been greatly exaggerated, and would be rather ineffective as a fighting force. Instead, the Werewolves would be used as part of a Nazi "underground railroad," facilitating travel along escape routes called "ratlines" that allowed thousands of SS officers and other Nazis to flee Germany after the fall of the Third Reich.

At this point, I don't understand what I'm supposed to be responding to from your answers. Your original point seemed to be that the occupation of Iraq was all doom and gloom and hurricanes. I have provided specific, obvious, unimpeachable evidence that its hardships and portrayal in the media are actually quite similar to what happened in both Germany and Japan in the aftermath of World War Two....Now it seems that you want me to somehow prove the German insurgency was on par with the one in Iraq. Basically, your standard of proof keeps increasing. Of course the Iraqi insurgency is more complicated. It's 59 years later. It is a completely different world. But to pretend our occupation of Germany was wine and roses and Iraq is Vietnam only demonstrates a complete abdication of historical knowledge.

Dorian:

I think we can refine your last comment to one word: "uncle." Yes?

If you think that my last comment, a complete and utter obliteration of this person's argument, is synonymous with the word "uncle" then I think it's pretty obvious why your side lost the election.

my origional point was that it is irresponsible of Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney to compare postwar iraq to Germany immediately after ww2.

What unimpeacheable evidence? every time i research this topic i find site after site and book after book that disagrees sharply with the assertion of a comparison.

I agree with you that there was an insurgency of sorts. a couple of my points that seem to have confused you were evidence of that. The point about attacks on women who fraternized with American servicemen was to illustrate that much of what insugency there was was not directed at Allied troops. however from own research and trying to follow up points you have made i cannot see how a comparison can possibly be made much less taken seriously.

1. This werewolf brigade of yours existed yes but it's size and effectiveness were greatly exagerated at the time and afterwards. the SS formation you origionally mentioned was ineffective and disbanded before the war even ended. The group that assasinated the mayor of aachen was not SS. The vast majority of germans were unable to resist the allied soldiers either through acceptance of their presence or the inability to fight anymore.

2. What little insugency there was did not compare to what the coalition is experiencing today. a sizeable majority or at the very least a huge minority of the iraqi populace is prepared to attack the coalition on a large scale. nothing of a similar level occured in germany.

Rice etc are doing and have done what every politician of whatever ilk before them has done. whenever someone or group comes along they want to oppose and want the public to oppose they invoke hitler and ww2.

Saddam was nothing like the threat hitler was in 1939. He lacked the economic power, military power to try to be. he had no ambitions to completely dominate the world at large and was to be honest no worse than the many dictators America and sadly britain has tolerated nay supported over the last 50 years. The situation in iraq is nothing like Germany post 1945. If you want to make comparions then why not England after the Norman invasion. then there was a significant resistance to William the Bastard (his actual and admittedly derogatory title) across the country. or how about the really obvious resistance in Russia and Yugoslavia to HITLER. That is a comparable resistance.

note have found golo mann in the brookes library and will be interested to read it.

Dorian.

You suggested reading The History of Germany since 1789 by Golo Mann in support of your assertions.

Have the book in front of me now.

Page 495. "The readiness to work with the victors, to carry out their orders, to accept their help and advice, was genuine; of the resistance which the Allies had expected in the way of 'werewolf' units and nocturnal guerilla activities there was no sign" G.Mann, The History of Germany Since 1789, (Chatto and Widnus), (London, 1972), p. 495

Page 496. "Docile, orderly and anxious for peace, the occupied country created no difficulties for the victors. It was they themselves who created them" G. Mann, The History of Germany Since 1789, (Chatto and Widnus), (London, 1972), p. 496

Could you perhaps explain to me how it is that you asserted this book as evidence of german insurgency in the vein of iraq today and yet having perused the book for 5 minutes i have found two pages which contradict you completely?

i am getting the book out of the library in order to fully read it at my leisure. If i come across anything else to contradict you i will so inform you. if however i come across proper evidence to the contrary then i will post it on here along with an apology.

Actually, if you look back at my post, I didn't cite Golo Mann as a source to back my hypothesis. I cited him as a source of more information. Golo Mann's book, along with the U.S. Army's own account of the occupation, sharply minimize the impact of the insurgency in Germany after WW2. By contrast, the media, in particular the NYTimes, play the insurgency as if it were the end of civilization and we were about to lose Germany. I pointed out this source material because it shows primarily that there was an insurgent element in Germany after WW2, but also that, as it turned out, it wasn't doom and gloom and hurricanes in the way the media presented it at the time. Much like present day Iraq.

On a personal note, this discussion has ended. Your argument, by the way, has evolved about 3 times. First, there was no comparison between Iraq and post-war Germany. Then you conceded there was a small compariosn. Then you fell back on your previous statement that there was no insurgency to speak of, but it was played up by the media. Frankly, I don't have time to argue every evolution of your argument from here to eternity.

It's been swell!