Evil FDR Admin
FDR admin engaged in black site detentions.
Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions.
Shame on evil FDR admin! On top of the concentration camps for Japanese Americans. I thought that was a good war!
The illegal detention bit is buried, however, and the thrust of WaPo article about “the veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret installation in Fairfax County that went only by its postal code name,” is that the old interrogators of Fort Hunt look down their noses at today’s “torture.” They got everything they wanted by playing chess and taking Nazis out to steak dinners.
Interrogator: “Ah, you got me. So, what’s it like out there on the high seas?”
Heinrich: “Ha ha, silly American. You are just giving me your queen like that? Well, I’ll tell you, machine gunning survivors is never a pleasant task.”
Interrogator: “How’s your steak?”
Siegfried: “Bloody, just the way I like it. Reminds me of happier times, in the Warsaw ghetto …”
The article is short on details about exactly what they were looking for, what they got, who their subjects were, so its hard to make any direct comparison to today’s scenarios. I’d suggest interrogating German scientists, submariners and generals, many of whom recognized the war wasn’t going their way and many of whom had no great love for Hitler or the Nazis, might be somewhat different from interrogating suicidal Islamic terrorists. However, I’d also suggest the apparently genteel program at Fort Hood doesn’t represent the totality of Allied practices re captured enemies in World War II, which though famously a “good war” also included summary executions of Japanese prisoners. After they and/or their comrades were found to have tortured Americans to death.
Given the intense interest in criminalizing and prosecuting all transgressions committed in our name in George’s War on Transnationalism, it may be time to consider hauling some of these geezers into the dock to answer for their crimes against humanity.
UPDATE: Reader Chap points us to an article that includes considerably more detail about who was being interrogated, about what in FDR’s black site. U-boat crews during the war, and toward the end of the war and after, scientists, somewhat different subjects in somewhat different circumstances than today’s interrogators are dealing with. Article’s primary source is a comedian after my own heart, only delivering one-liners for the other team:
He called his most recent offering, which went out July 27, a “Special Patriotic Newsletter,” with the sub headline “4 God and Country and Cold Cash.”
“Mr. George W. Bush has just announced a brand new set of rules for the interrogation of men who have been captured alive and put in prison. The CIA is not to torture them in the future. That would be wrong. They may be coaxed, tricked, threatened, frightened, manipulated and forced to answer questions (even if they may not know the answers, and must make one up) but keep it secret. And the taking of photographs of any prisoners being made ‘uncomfortable’ is strictly forbidden.”
He had this to write in the aftermath of media reports this spring about the British sailors captured by the Iranians: “We do not know what prompted Iran’s restraint. Whether it comes from that county’s strong religious beliefs, their strict moral codes, their civil laws or their culture. But it appears that the Evil Axis Iranians did not have anyone urinating on their Christian Bible, have them strip and wear a dog leash or have any of them ‘water-boarded.’”
That’s true. Based on what we know about the strict moral code Iran normally applies to its treatment of political prisoners, it looks like the Iranians understood this was a different game … Ixnay on the ectrodes-elay to the enitals-gay! They wished to humiliate Great Britain and the United States, not get attacked by them. In keeping with their strong religious beliefs and strict moral codes, they did make the female sailor wear a tablecloth on her head, though. Also, kept everyone in isolation. Repeated middle of the night interrogations. Told the woman the others had been released and she was alone. Told the lot of them to admit to false crimes or face seven years imprisonment. The phrase “coaxed, tricked, threatened, frightened, manipulated and forced to answer questions (even if they may not know the answers, and must make one up) ” comes to mind. Then, there were the mock executions. No urinating on bibles, though … hey, that sounds a lot like that Koran-flushing GWOT myth.
Here’s something else the old guy had to say:
“I have a bias about certain things,” he says. “One is flag waving.”
No kidding!
Welcome, Punditeers! Always so good to see you. Come on in. Here’s a question. How do you define an atrocity lost? There’s a history here. Speaking of history, I’m cocking an eye at this one. No eyeing anything jokes please. Sheesh, what pinheads pols can be. I’ll take lesser primates any day but sadly, this one won’t be down for bananas. Just think about the happier times, you know, visualizing your nasal passages, the monkey urine.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:06 am on Saturday, October 6, 2007
12 Responses to “Evil FDR Admin”
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October 6th, 2007 at 11:32 am
We also have the (relatively) well-known case of baseball player Moe Berg who, among other actions, was involved during WW II in kidnapping Italian physicists and scientists (taken to the US for questioning) as well as a mission to shoot scientist Werner Heisenberg if he (Berg) had determined that the Germans were close to developing a “bomb”.
It is absurd to think that anything done today by the Bush Administration wasn’t undertaken by previous administrations during wartime.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:50 am
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October 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
[…] the lunatic Boston Herald editor, Jules Crittendon comes up with something so fantastically twisted that even spoiled White Southern Chicks can’t begin to approach it […]
October 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
George’s War on Transnationalism
Good one, Jules! A perfect description of how some people see it.
Let’s face it, war is a nasty business. But the only choice is fight it to win or bare your neck for the knife.
October 6th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
[…] that wart on the buttocks of humanity known as Jules Crittendon doesn’t even bother making excuses. He just goes right into ridicule mode. But adds — […]
October 6th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
My father and his brothers were in that war. My Dad was in Nagasaki within days of the bomb being dropped on that city. One of my uncles was wounded in northern Africa and spent the rest of his life in pain from the bullet fragments that were never removed. My other uncle was in the south Pacific and had to take medication for malaria for the rest of his life.
Nothing we see today can begin to compare with the kinds of things that happened on a daily basis in that war.
FDR shot spies without giving them an opportunity to defend themselves in a court room and he monitored long distance phone calls without a warrant.
U.S. soldiers shot unarmed German soldiers at Dachau because they were so outraged by what they saw.
To make a comparison between Gitmo and WW2 is absurd on its face.
October 6th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
A lunatic wart on the butt of humanity. My friend.
Anti-Americans will pick and choose what happened in WWII to suit, just as they’ve done with everything else in our history.
October 7th, 2007 at 1:57 am
[…] 7th, 2007 · No Comments The history of the Second World War has its dark spots, […]
October 7th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
A month or two ago this story was in an alt.weekly in Monterey, California. Link is here. It has some details and such that the WaPo might have missed.
Funnily enough, the interrogators I’ve worked alongside seem to also think they have a need to be ethical…
October 7th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
The German submariners who were captured, from U-505 in June 1944, were held incommunacado for an important reason. Their sub had been captured, not sunk. American codebreakers feared they would reveal that the sub was taken intact along with the crypto gear through the Red Cross or other prisoners.
The irony was that the British and Americans were aready reading the Enigma codes and the sub’s capture only complicated the situation.
But the issue of revealing our crypto successes to our enemies in wartime lives on. One wonders what would have happened if the 8 saboteurs inserted into the US in 1942 by German subs had beeen detected through our code breaking efforts (they weren’t). Would a judge have demanded we reveal the sources that led to their apprehension? Fortunately FDR didn’t see it that way. He appointed a Military Tribunal that tried, convicted and executed 6 of the 8 in less than two months after they landed. The other two were given lesser sentences of 30 years for cooperating with the FBI. The saboteurs were not considered POWs as they did not wear military uniforms. The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the legaity of the Military Tribunal in their case.
Yet today forces within the US are demanding POW status and/or the revealing of all intelligence information used for the detention of terrorists held by the US. How would the Battle of the Atlantic have turned out if we were forced to reveal our crypto successes then?
October 8th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I’ve said all along that the Democrat’s real objection to the GWOT is not that they are pacifists, it is that they aren’t running it. Given their track record since 1917 of leading this country to war, how can it be seen any other way? The new revelations about FDR’s black site detentions coupled with his military tribunals for spies, his commitment of Japanese Americans to concentration camps and his invasion of French Morocco (a distraction from the real war) after Pearl Harbor make Bush’s responses to our current suicidal fanatical enemies look pretty mild.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
[…] of FDR’s administration who operated illegal black detention sites during World War II “into the dock” to answer for their crimes. That actually might be a good idea, but it totally misses the […]