Comments on: George Will Surveys The Scene

By: dmac

dmac — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 23:50:58 +0000

The Werewolves were a functioning unit for a few years – I believe they finally petered out at the end of the decade – ’48 or ’49.

There were also bands of raiders from the Confederate side during the Civil War that did not unilaterally disarm after the offical hostilities had ended. Many were in action during the Reconstruction period, and fled south to Mexico when Federal troops tried to capture them.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:37:36 +0000

True, I make no claim for equivalency – however, if they had the capacity to make IEDs that the current insurgency has, they might not have been reduced to the petty acts described…

By: peter

peter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:23:52 +0000

Interesting, thanks — I never knew that — although the implication in the article (that the Iraqi and German occupations are somehow similar) is belied later in the article:

“The truth was that Werwolf attacks were largely ineffectual. Typical operations included pouring sand into the gas tanks of allied vehicles, poisoning food and water, petty vandalism and stringing decapitation wires across the roads. The latter was terrifying, but not incredibly effective. While individual operations were reported as late as 1947, by several months after the Nazi surrender on May 7 1945, Werwolf was rendered largely impotent.”

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:46:37 +0000

Here’s a link on the German insurgency (they were called ‘Werewolves’):

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/rubin082005.htm

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:34:21 +0000

There actually was an insurgency in post-war Germany…

By: peter

peter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:29:18 +0000

Not to mention that our troops weren’t being bombed and shot at during the Marshall Plan.

By: peter

peter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:28:42 +0000

The defeat of the Iraqi army did not mean the end of the war – we’ve lost roughly two thousand soldiers since then, with thousands more wounded. Most peoples’ idea of a “short, short conflict” isn’t three years.

Cheney’s prediction about being greeted as liberators is clearly about the occupation.

By: mtl

mtl — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:50:57 +0000

Were the statements about the war or the occcupation?

They are two sepereate events.

Unless you’d like to include the Marshall plan as part of WWII, most historians don’t, but if you are desperate-have at it.

By: peter

peter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:19:22 +0000

sorry, slam dunk

By: peter

peter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:18:23 +0000

Money quotes?

General Myers: it will be “a short, short conflict” against an Iraqi force that was “much weaker” than it was in the 1991 Gulf War

Dick Cheney, on NBC’s Meet the Press: “I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months.” He predicted that regular Iraqi soldiers would not “put up such a struggle” and that even “significant elements of the Republican Guard . . . are likely to step aside.”

Ken Adelman: “a cakewalk.” George Tenet: “lam-dunk. ” Mission Accomplished.