The American Spectator

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Bolton Out of the Blue

1.23.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 5)

Additionally, having those "social conservatives" (who would joyfully outlaw the Morning After pill) ceaselessly tell our daughters what they may/may not do with their bodies -- that's pretty damned presumptuous.

One more time -- clean up your own houses first, so much of the hypocrisy I've seen/heard (especially from the thoroughly ignorant Huckabee backers) recently is appalling!

Stop looking through our bedroom windows and get the priorities in a better sequence, 'ay? We need a STRONG president, not just a bunch of supercilious platitudes -- we have to survive the terrorists and illegal alien threats to our very existence first.
-- Jack Frost

Is it a coincidence that the number of abortions over the past 30 years is roughly equivalent to the number of illegal aliens who entered the U.S. during the same period? I think not.
-- David Govett
Davis, California

BOMBING AUSCHWITZ
Re: Jay D. Homnick's The Cost of Hollow Words:

I understand the point: Recognize disasters while they are happening and try to do something effective to stop them. Any normal person who goes to a Holocaust exhibit has an emotional reaction of horror and disgust that our fellow humans are capable of such atrocities. President Bush had that reaction. However, the article presumes that the U.S. fought WWII in order to save the Jews from genocide. When held to that premise, the failure to bomb the camps, or the railroads leading to the camps, is to share in the guilt. But the U.S. did not fight the war to prevent the genocide of the Jews. Instead, the U.S. fought the war to defeat Japan and Germany. This defeat also stopped the genocide of the Jews. I reject the notion that the U.S. "enabled" the atrocity by "our apathy." The hundreds of thousands of U.S. war dead were not "apathetic."
-- C.J. Small
Winston-Salem, North Carolina

I fear you understate the problem re: the Holocaust and Israel, and Bush's comments, which though they may reflect W's attitudes, do not reflect the direction of his administration, which is toward accommodating Islamofascism. To connect a few dots, that perhaps shouldn't be connected, I would call your attention to the article on "Forever War" in the latest issue of The American Conservative, which has a picture of Rudi Giuliani on the cover in brown shirt. The edition has several articles on Rudi and calls him a fascist. The article on "Forever War" is by Michael Desch, a realist, recently ensconced in the Robert Gates Chair at the Bush School in College Station, Texas, at Texas A&M University. As you are well aware, Robert Gates recently left the Presidency of the University to assume the Secretary of Defense position, where he has done little except make some rather unusual comments here and there. He has no clear cut ideological position, but seems to be a place holder with Realist credentials possibly sent in by the Elder Bush, or his advisors such as Scowcroft, ostensibly "Realists" all, to keep Bush 2nd from going too far off the tracks with his "Democracy" thing (too late for Bhutto and Pakistan, where chaos reigns following her unfortunately all-too-predictable assassination). Mr. Desch, on the other hand, reputedly a scholar, in this recent article, seems to be nothing more than a partisan hack for the Realist school labeling Giuliani a fascist. And why does he do that? Apparently because Giuliani has a cadre of Jewish advisors who happen to be strong on anti-terrorism, particularly of the Islamic variety. The American Conservative is Pat Buchanan's magazine. Pat Buchanan has always evinced a certain degree of anti-Semitism. Imagine Pat Buchanan calling Giuliani fascist because he hires Jewish advisors (neocons, all, supposedly). And because he is strongly anti-Islamofascism???!!!

Combine the above with the fact that Mr. Coughlin, the Pentagon's top expert on Islamic law, was just fired, ostensibly for being too recalcitrantly hard on Islamofascism!

Combine that with George Bush's attempt to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of his term. When Bill Clinton was trying to broker peace, and achieve his "legacy," he ignored Islamic terrorist attacks across the board and built a wall between intelligence services to apparently avoid offending Arab and Islamic sensibilities while he brokered peace, which of course was rejected after virtually complete capitulation to Arafat's demands. It seems that the Bush administration is going out of its way to avoid offending Jihadists while it tries to broker an impossible Israeli/Palestinian peace (most notably this effort may at least rid Israel of the Olmert administration, with a likely collapse of his government and a return of Benjamin Netanyahu and the conservatives to power in Israel -- not exactly George Bush's goal, but he seems to be falling a lot short of his goals lately). It appears that Bush is softening his position on Islamic terrorism to facilitate peace negotiations a la Clinton. Although Bush has been strong on support of Israel to this point, he seems to be shifting, trending more in the direction of the "Realists" toward appeasing Islamic terrorism. And Bush doesn't seem to mind having surrogates at his father's school do the dirty work.

Imagine bashing Rudy because he is the strongest by far on Islamofascism. Why would Bush seem to want to bury Rudy in his presidential bid? Do the Bush's think Rudy is too strong on terrorism? What is the game here? Why has Bush said so many nice things about Hillary, and how well she would do as President? Is this all money from Dubai, Abu-Dhabi, and the Arab world that is behind both the Bushes and the Clintons? (Bill has certainly received a lot of money from Arab interests, incredible amounts for speeches, and including a coming 20 million dollar payout from Burkle's company for which Clinton is an "advisor" in bed with Dubai princes.) I sense a potential betrayal in the making vis-a-vis Israel, a cashiering of Israeli interests even though Israel is by far our best ally. I think this administration is going to not just go wobbly on Islamofascism, including Iran (note the recent NIE taking Iran off the hot seat), but actually act to traduce Israeli interests in the name of "Realism" and "American interest" or W's legacy, as Clinton tried to do. This of course would be completely shameful and extremely short-sighted. Nevertheless, the administration tilt seems to be back toward the Arab states, away from Israel, as was more characteristic of George H.W. Bush's administration, even as we are treated to ever more efforts within the country to promote Wahhabism and advance a Jihadi agenda through our courts. Not a pleasant picture, from my standpoint. And not in America's short or long-term interests, although I think it would be helpful to get Olmert out. That might even result in Israel taking unilateral action to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, which obviously the U.S. is not going to do (and so of course no one else is).
-- Kent Lyon
College Station, Texas

Jay Homnick writes that "The official reasons for not bombing the crematoria [at Auschwitz-Birkenau] were shifting and flimsy at best." While I can't speak for the "official reasons," there are several reasons to question the retrospective judgment that the Allies should have struck Auschwitz from the air.

(1) Auschwitz received its first prisoners in May 1940 but was not in range of Allied bombers until the capture of Foggia airfield in October 1943. The last prisoners were killed in November 1944. Thus, even if a raid had been launched at the earliest possible date and been entirely successful, it would have done nothing for those killed before late 1943, and would have shortened the camp's operations by only one year out of four and a half. (Realistically a raid would have required photo reconnaissance and other preparations: the later the raid took place, the fewer lives it could arguably have saved.)

(2) Strategic bombing in the Second World War was notoriously inaccurate. Allied bombers could easily have killed large numbers of prisoners yet not damaged the gas chambers and crematoria, which were relatively small targets. Gas chambers and crematoria are also not complex facilities: and if damaged or destroyed, they could have been easily and quickly repaired or rebuilt.

(3) Bombing Auschwitz would have required diverting resources from operations that were (or at least were perceived to be) critical to ending the war quickly. Thus bombing Auschwitz would have prolonged the war, extended the duration of the Nazi regime, and probably produced a net increase in the number of Holocaust victims (along with the risk that prisoners in the camps would be killed by the bombing itself).

(4) Even if Auschwitz had been destroyed from the air, the Nazi regime was fully capable of killing elsewhere or by other means. Auschwitz accounts for only about a quarter of the Holocaust, and gas chambers (including those at other locations) for about half. Even after the largest camps shut down in the winter of 1944-45, the murder continued through death marches, forced labor, starvation and execution. The Nazis' goal was extermination: gas chambers were only a means to that end, and if those were not available (e.g. if they had been destroyed by bombing), they could and did use others.

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