Back in my long-ago youth I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Edward Teller when he spoke at my alma mater. Among many other interesting things he talked about, Teller recalled how he had recommended that instead of dropping atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki one should instead be exploded harmlessly over Tokyo. This, he argued, would have had the same effect as destroying two Japanese cities. An estimated 100,000 – mostly civilians – lost their lives in Hiroshima alone. The death toll in Nagasaki seems to be less agreed-upon, but perhaps another 20,000 died – again, mostly civilians.
In 1945 the Allies launched the firebombing of Dresden. Accurate estimates of the death toll are hard to come by, but perhaps as many as 30,000 to 100,000 people lost their lives – once again, mostly civilians.

I am not arguing that Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “war crimes” in the politically-loaded meaning of today. Both Germany and Japan had declared war on the US and had slaughtered civilians and soldiers alike. It has been argued that all three attacks helped to shorten the length of the war – and saved lives in the process. The worst that could be said of these decisions is that they were bad military and political decisions. I lean towards this view, although not with a lot of conviction. Roosevelt and Truman made a number of blunders in WWII – not the least of which was allowing Stalin to dominate Eastern Europe that I think was far worse. And any criticism of the war effort must be tempered against the knowledge that Germany and Japan were bent upon world domination. No one can seriously argue that would have been a plus for humanity.

This leads to my point: World War II was not the squeaky-clean conflict that the MSM and these vets would like for you to believe it was. For one thing, one of our “allies” was Stalin – arguably history’s most prolific mass-murderer. Had he been in office at the time, the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have earned President Bush a one-way ticket to impeachment and a “war crimes” tribunal in today’s climate of hard-Left hysteria.

Incidentally, are not these vets and the Washington Post denigrating the patriotism of the soldiers in our army?

“The prisoners stayed at Fort Hunt for as little as two or three weeks and as long as nine months. They were held incommunicado; when they had told everything they knew, they were transferred to regular POW camps elsewhere in the United States, and the Red Cross was then notified of their capture.” My emphasis

“Where am I?”
“In the village.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“That would be telling.”

Obviously, different techniques are required to interrogate different people.

“What do you want?”
“We want information.”

To get information from some, you buy them a steak; to get information from others, you use methods less pleasant.

“You won’t get it.”
“By hook or by crook we will.”

Not being an expert in this field, I’ll leave it to those who are to figure out what the best practices are in any given case.

“Who are you?”
“I am the new number 2.”
“Who is number 1?”
“You are number 6.”

Anyway, the important thing is to get the information.

“I am not a number–I am a free man!”
“Bwaaa haaaa haaaa.”

Back in WW2 they would have already shot the men at Gitmo by now probably. They fire bombed Tokyo, Hamburg and Dresden. They nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did not take prisoners at Iwo Jima.

And we are supposed to believe that back in the days when FDR could and did track every long distance call into out and out of the US that these people were taking Nazis and Japanese fanatics out for steak?

I ain’t buying it.

I usually ask them if they have kids, they say yes and then I say “Well pretend that your child is dying of a disease and has twenty four hours to live. There’s a guy sitting in the other room who knows where the cure is, but he’s refusing to tell anybody. What would you do, to get that information out of him to save your child’s life?”
You can imagine the responses I get, but most of them sound like “That’s different!”, “That’s not the same thing!”

What they really mean is “I’d do anything to save my child’s life.” and even a few admit it.

Unfortunately, you have to put everything into perspective for people like this. They don’t care if it’s someone else’s wife, husband, mother, or child who dies, but when it’s THEIR family, it’s a different story. That is the age we live in now. The “What’s in it for me?” generation.

It’s just surprising to me that these WW II veterans don’t seem to understand what we’re up against and that playing ping pong with a terrorist will not get you information. If anyone should understand the dangers of appeasing aggression it’s these brave men.