[CS-FSLUG] NI: Oh......this is good!

[David Aikema]

Just finished the last of my final exams for this semester, so now
it's time to catch up on some of the email that have been sitting
around for a few days.

On 8/8/05, Fred A. Miller <fmiller at lightlink.com> wrote:
> What if WWII was like today?
> By Mike Cochrane
> White Plains
> (Original Publication: August 6, 2005)
> 
> Imagine for a moment if the same sensibilities being shown today by our media,
> as well as certain politicians and pop-culture types, was applied to our
> struggles during in World War II. Here are six news blotters I believe we'd
> see:
> 
> 1. London mayor takes time out from shoveling rubble after another nightly
> blitzkrieg to say, "It's our own fault. If our policies weren't so harsh on
> Germany at the Treaty of Versailles, then we wouldn't be in this position
> today."

Interesting that you note this one, as just such as many did see the
Treaty of Versailles as being unfair to Germany.  Could a different
treaty have prevented Hitler's rise?  That's one thing that can't
really be determined, as we can't go back and repeat history, but it's
entirely possible.

(BTW, and so I don't get accused too heavily of US-bashing, one could
argue that in the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Versailles,
it was such things as the principle of self-determination advocated by
the US president which wasn't well represented in the resulting treaty
that might have provoked a harsh response on the part of Germany).

Saying that it is your own policies that are at fault is a difficult
position to assert (in the face of public opinion) does not imply that
your own policies are blameless.

> 2. An anonymous tip revealing nuclear work at a remote New Mexican lab has set
> off a string of protests, with people chanting, "Monkey see, monkey do! Just
> because Hitler and the Japanese are trying to develop a nuclear weapon does
> that mean we also have to?"

And what present day event is this supposed to parallel?

> 3. College protesters against the Allied occupation of West Germany, call for
> Allied troops to leave. Said one protester, "If America and its allies brought
> their troops home, I have no doubt that the foreign insurgents presently
> infiltrating West Germany will also simply leave and go home as well."

(ah, this would be the cold war and not WW2 - although that doesn't
really make much of a difference).

Perhaps to a limited extent, some of those insurgents are there as a
response to an "allied" presence (the quotes are there as the USSR did
eventually fight Nazi Germany sustaining 45 times as many military
casualties as the USA, and an additional 19 million civilian deaths).

At the same time that I make that point, I do agree that they could
not readily be removed.  Ditto Iraq - although in these circumstances
I think that the reason for this would be the creation of a power
vacuum.

> 4. Dozens Die in Allied Strike and Nazi Attack! Allied forces killed 24
> alleged Nazi insurgents yesterday after coming under attack.

Innocent before proven guilty? (collateral damage?)

Things aren't always as they appear, as is evident in examples of
casualties killed by "friendly" fire.

And, to conclude, just how much propoganda do you want to see when you
read the news?

David