🚀 go-pugleaf

[lost in outbox for two months]

On Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:30:53 +0000 (UTC), Merlin Dorfman 

<dorfman@green.rahul.net> wrote:

>In ba.general Hugo S. Cunningham <checkwebsite@cyberussr.com> wrote:
>
>
>> On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:32:26 +0000 (UTC), Merlin Dorfman
>> <dorfman@green.rahul.net> wrote:

[...]

>> No serious scholar argues that Harris's carpet-bombing shortened the
>> war.  There was more to be said, however, for the USAAF's targeted
>> bombing in the final months of the war -- knocking out fuel supplies,
>> delaying the deployment of V-1s until it was too late,  and destroying
>> Germany's rail network.
>
>     Strategic bombing didn't affect a large portion of the fuel
>supplies except in the ability to move them as rapidly as the
>Germans would have liked.

Logistics is a key element of war-making.

Also, lack of fuel seriously degraded the Luftwaffe in the last year
of the war, not only in direct operational ways, but also preventing
adequate training of pilots.

>  Damage to roads and railroads was
>quickly repaired, but the time required did make some difference,
>just as the labor and materials did.  The question is how much
>difference, and the answer is: usually not much.

until the final months of the war, where it made a big difference.  Of
course by that time, there were other obvious factors, notably the
loss of economic and population centers to advancing armies.

>     BTW it's been stated that, by the end of the war, British
>night bombing using Oboe and Pathfinders was as accurate as
>American daylight bombing.

I didn't know that, but of course American daylight bombing (as
distinct from strafing trains, etc.), was not very accurate.

[...]

>     (BTW the Rolls Royce engine [the Merlin!] gave the Mustangs
>great high-altitude performance, but weren't a big part of their
>increased range.  That was due to the use of drop tanks, not to
>mention forward bases after the invasion.)
>     The ME-262 jet fighters would not have been a factor,
>strategic bombing or no, because of lack of fuel.  And strategic
>bombing was only a small contributor to the lack of fuel.  
>(Russian capture of Romania was a much bigger factor.) 

Once the Romanian oil was lost, coal conversion became indispensable.
(But there was also some natural production in Hungary, a reason why
Hitler fought so tenaciously for it even while leaving Poland
virtually open.)

> And
>RAF Meteors were in production by 1945--they were not deployed to
>the front because they weren't needed, so why risk the loss of one
>over enemy territory; but they could have been if needed.

My impression is that the German models were significantly ahead of
the Western models, and for that reason were extensively plagiarized
after the war, both by the West and by the Soviets.

>
>>>Don't get me started on the Allies not doing anything to stop or slow
>>>the Holocaust (although a very good case can be made that the
>>>Holocaust was essentially over before the Allies were in any position
>>>to do anything militarily;
[...]

>>> and also note that they did
>>>nothing to stop the genocide of Hungarian Jews in 1944, when they
>>>could easily have done something militarily).
>
>> Even then, Hungary was under firm German control.  Publicity and
>> explicit threats of postwar retribution might have worked; immediate
>> threats of terror-bombing reprisals against German civilians might
>> have worked, except that Harris was already doing that anyways. 
>
>     Military action could have interfered with the transport of
>the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. 

But they could have been put on death marches, as happened in Poland
in the final months of the war.
And how would the trains have been stopped?  Strafing?  (That was a
favored, effective tactic over Germany in the last few months of the
war.)

> And the leaflets could have made
>it clear that those who participated in or collaborated in the
>transport would be held accountable after the war.  As far as I
>know, nothing like that was ever done.

A couple  hundred thousand Hungarian Jews were saved, quite likely
because post-war attitudes were made known to Hungarians who could
make a difference.

 I was impressed with this book:
Rosen, Robert N.
<i> Saving the Jews : Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust</i>
New York : Thunder's Mouth Press, c2006.

While many American officials and politicians were indifferent or
hostile to European Jews, Rosen makes the point that FDR was not one
of them.  He did what he could with a bad hand. 
 
 [...]


>>>> Don't get me wrong.  I am an admirer of FDR,  ranking him "great" with
>>>> Lincoln and Washington.
>>>
>>>> My point was that, in prosecuting a vast and necessary war, he did
>>>> worse things than G.W. Bush is accused of.
>>>
>>>     I still disagree; there is not the excuse for w that what he
>>>is doing could be claimed to make any positive contribution towards
>>>winning the war (whatever "winning" means).
>
>> List his crimes as you understand them, so that I can compare them to
>> FDR's record.
>
>     How about "making aggressive war," to quote the Nuremberg
>charges?

If GWB had carried out his implicit promise to secure a decent and
stable society, I would allow Iraq's majority of 60% Shi'a and 20%
Kurds to acquit him of that charge.  (But, because GWB treated his
promise to the people of Iraq with the same breezy contempt as his own
service obligations in the Texas ANG, the "aggressive war" charge
stands.)

Incidentally, FDR countenanced Anglo-Soviet aggression against neutral
Iran, and directly joined Churchill in occupying neutral Iceland.

>     I'm sure I could formulate something on the lines of failing
>to implement proper accountability for Abu Ghraib, or to preclude
>such problems in the future.

Compare with Roosevelt's and Truman's Rheinwiesenlager:
http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/for/us-germany-pow.html
The death toll there was *much* higher than at Abu Ghraib.

>     Formulation of charges related to Guantanamo

a *much* larger proportion of the Guantanamo detainees deserve to be
locked up than the 70,000 people FDR rounded up solely because of
their Japanese ancestry.


> or "extraordinary
>rendition"


How about FDR and Truman's "Operation Keelhaul"?

> will have to wait for more complete disclosure of the
>relevant facts.


>>>>>> Executing 8 suspected Nazi saboteurs after a farcical, mostly secret
>>>>>> "trial."  Bush talks about it, but he hasn't done it.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Failure to appoint lawyers for all detainees
>>>>>
>>>>>     There is a bit of historicism here.  Neither the Geneva 
>>>>>Conventions nor anything else called for that kind of treatment of
>>>>>spies, which is what they were: enemies behind the lines and out 
>>>>>of uniform.  If the Germans had been in uniform they would have
>>>>>been treated as POWs.  Out of uniform they were spies and lucky
>>>>>not to be just shot out of hand.
>>>
>>>> That tends to be true of Bush's "unlawful combatants" as well, but his
>>>> NGO critics don't buy it.
>>>
>>>     What, the "unlawful combatants" are spies?  I think that can hardly
>>>be supported. 
>
>> Al-Qa'ida operatives posing as non-combatant civilians in foreign (eg
>> Western) countries qualify as spies.
>
>     I'm not sure I agree.  They may plan to be saboteurs, but I
>find no evidence that they are seeking classified information that
>they want to transmit to foreign governments or citizens.  The
>established justice system seems more appropriate to handle these
>cases.

No.  The same summary laws of war that apply to out-of-uniform spies
also apply to out-of-uniform saboteurs, even more so  ones conspiring
to murder non-combatants.

There are numerous problems with putting enemy captives on trial in
wartime which I can enumerate if you want me to.  Some of them were
known in the late 1700s, which is why Article I Section 9 of the US
Constitution allows for suspension of habeas corpus "when in case of
invasion or rebellion the public safety may require it."

>> In Afghanistan, I understand that we gave Taliban fighters PoW
>> treatment as "levee en masse" in their own country.  
>
>     And properly so; but weren't there exceptions?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here.

Are you asking if there are some Taliban Afghan detainees we are
giving less than PoW status to?

--Hugo S. Cunningham

>>>And many of them were in whatever passes for a uniform
>>>in that war.  The hypocrisy is that we claim we treat them in 
>>>accordance with the Geneva Convention even though we claim they are not
>>>entitled to it.
>
>> The ones in "whatever passes for a uniform" are not the ones we claim
>> are not entitled to PoW status.
>
>     I'm not sure that's true.  Many were captured on the battlefield,
>not behind the lines or in raids.
>
>>>  They probably are entitled, but we don't treat them
>>>that way.
>
>> Al Qa'ida operatives posing as non-combatant civilians in foreign
>> countries?
>
>     See above.
>