In October of 1944, as Hitler was planning his breakout to Antwerp--his last ditch effort to defeat the allied forces--his main problem was how to secure the bridges between Ardennes and Antwerp. To this end, he called upon one of the most dangerous men in Europe, SS Lt Col Otto Skorzeny. Hitler told Skorzeny that he wanted to paralyze the allies long enough to finish developing his terrible weapons that he planned to use against the Allies and therefore win the war.

Hitler ordered Skorzeny to organize and train 3000 loyal brave men to infiltrate the Allied lines and, dressed in American Army uniforms, disrupt the Allied reaction to the German push through the Ardennes. These men would act as spies, saboteurs and spreaders of demoralization. They were to seize and hold the bridges over the Meuse for the main body to cross.

Within two months, Skorzeny’s men were ready. He had taught them how to act American, how to open a pack of cigarettes the American way, how to swear, and how to act “un-militarily”—no heel clicking when coming to attention. They then brazenly entered the American lines with stolen American jeeps and began their secret operation to disrupt and destroy.

There is enough recorded history to show that these men were successful in their operation, directing convoys the wrong way, spreading rumors and lies to demoralize the American GI, even causing Eisenhower’s staff to seclude him for ten days against the possibility of assassination. 

In the end, however, the whole operation became known to American leadership and the Americans searched everyone they were suspicious of. Some of Skorzeny’s men were killed in battle and some were captured. It is not know how many were killed in battle but we do know what happened to 130 of them that were captured and imprisoned. On Dec 22, 1944, all 130 were brought before First Army tribunal and found guilty of “violating the laws of war in wearing the enemy’s uniform behind his lines to deceive and commit espionage and sabotage.” All 130 were executed by firing squad after the trial.

That’s how you deal with the enemy within your borders.

For politicians and other editorialists to continually refer to  9/11 as a "tragedy"  is to relegate the incident to the annals of history like the Johnstown Flood, hurricane Andrew, earthquakes etc.

It is important to understand that words have as much subtle meaning as they do definition.  The definition of a tragedy is “a disaster, either nature caused or human caused."  I submit that I am not arguing that the results of the attack on the twin towers were not disastrous, but I am saying that the term “tragedy” evokes more than that.  It emphasizes the "unfortunate-ness" of the incident.  The word "tragedy" evokes sympathy for the victims, rather than outrage at this attack upon our soil. The picture evoked when a speaker uses the word tragedy is one of “we are so sorry that this happened,” or “ This was so unfortunate”.  For example, I don't think the american public saw the attack on Pearl Harbor as a tragedy.

The twin tower attack was an attack by our enemies on American soil and we act like it is a tragedy. We should act like we were attacked. Even to this day, people speak with sorrow and unhappiness that this happened. Where is the rage and the anger at our enemies. They declared war on us and we cowered down and talked about memorials to the victims.

How pathetic is that.

I was wrong in my previous post when I said that the Woodstock Nation had all cut their hair off.  I just returned from visiting the Woodstock Nation website and they still have long hair, beads, handkerchiefs for headwear and those stupid ugly tie-died pullover shirts.  They even still use words like "hippie" and "love" and "peace".

 

In the 70’s I taught a unit within my Social Studies classes called “Ethics and Morals”. The object was to present to students true real-life ethical dilemmas so that lively discussions of right and wrong could take place. The primary purpose was to help young adults discover their own ethics and morals by arguing with others and defending their opinions. For example, one of the cases we studied was the Kitty Genovese murder.

However, one particular story within the unit that has always stayed with me over the years was the true story of the killing of an immigrant that took place on the streets of Chicago in the 1960s. The story involved the brother of a woman who had been wronged by her fiancé back in the “old country”. The brother followed the fiancé to the Chicago immigrant ghetto and shot him as he got off the subway. In the story, the neighborhood old folks called it an “honor” killing, and said it was completely acceptable. That’s the way we do it back in the “old country”, they said.

This story has always stayed with me because as I moved out of the classroom and into college administration, I ran into the Diversity, Multiculturalism and Political Correctness forces. These forces were passionate that everyone’s culture be respected by everyone else. Upon first hearing a dean say that everyone who is from a different culture deserves to have that culture respected, I asked the dean if we were to respect the cultures that believe in the sanctity of “honor” killings. Are we to respect the cultures that enslave women, I asked. The answer was always the same—any actions in violation of our own laws would not be tolerated. Therefore, the dean said, anyone doing an “honor” killing in this country should be arrested and brought to trial for murder. (There was, however, no discussion on whether I should respect “honor” killings that take place back in the home country)

Obviously that did not answer my question—that being “Must we respect a culture that goes against all human decency—cultures that promote honor killings, the stoning of women, human slavery, easy divorce for men (saying I Divorce You three times)and no divorce for women, child abuse and female circumcision?” To me, the answer is No, we do not have to respect that culture, not now, not ever. And the forces of Multiculturalism and Diversity be damned for telling me to.

Over the years I have tried to understand how a freedom loving nation such as ours can maintain political correctness attitudes towards those who practice such inhumane rituals. I have decided that the reason is that the Woodstock Nation that is generally responsible for all our “feel good” rules, has never grown up—they have lived in Never Never Land for much too long. The hippies of Woodstock may have cut their hair and changed their clothes, but their view of the world has not changed—As Ray Stevens wrote and sang--“Everybody’s beautiful, in their own way”. And since everybody’s beautiful in their own way, then everyone must be respected. 

Poppycock!!

On June 13, 1942, Coastguardsman John Cullen stumbled upon one of the most outrageous acts of war that, until 9/11, had ever taken place on American soil. During a routine midnight beach patrol along a dark and foggy beach on Long Island, he came across a group of men dragging their boat from the surf up onto the beach. Their responses to his questions, and their subsequent attempt to bribe him with a fistful of money, led him to suspect something dire and dangerous. Without any weapons save a flashlight, he wisely backed away into the fog and ran back to the Coast Guard station for assistance. By the time he and his mates had returned with weapons at ready, the group of men were gone.

John Cullen reported the situation to his commander and subsequently to the FBI. Acting on this information and working quickly and efficiently all the men in “Operation Pastorious”, the code name of the German invasion of America designed to disrupt our industrial capabilities, were captured.

FDR ordered that a military commission hear the case. This was the first such tribunal to be convened since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and was conducted in the strictest secrecy. The prosecution team was headed by Attorney General Francis Biddle and the Army’s Judge Advocate General Myron Cramer. 

The trial took one month and all men were found guilty. Two were sentenced to prison, one for thirty years, and one for life. The other 6 were sentenced to the electric chair, a sentence that was carried out at noon the day of their sentencing.

When the nation is at war, the capture of enemy combatants must be dealt with swiftly and judiciously. Anyone found attempting acts of war within our borders must be dealt with exactly as FDR did.

 

It was the winter from hell. Temperatures below zero, snow up to the men’s knees and blinding snow storm blizzards. It was, by all accounts, the worst winter in Europe in centuries. To make matters worse, January 1945, had been one of the worst months of fighting that the European Theater had seen. The Allied Army, after being caught by surprise and losing ground to Hitler’s forces in the Battle of the Bulge had fought back to regain all the ground that had been lost. Slowly, yard by freezing yard, they had taken back land that had already been won, two months ago, and then lost. Finally at the end of January they stood on the edge of Germany, right up against the Siegfried line.

It had been horrifyingly hard work--sleepless 20 below zero nights with inadequate protection from the cold, exhausting assaults through knee-deep crusted snow against massive light arms and armored resistance, hand to hand combat in many cases, and then the impossible task of digging into the frozen ground to hunker down for another sleepless night before doing it all again the next day.

It was an offensive strategy that Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton all believed in so strongly that against all human reasonableness, they pressured the men beyond belief to perform acts of extreme heroism, courage, commitment, that lesser men would have given up on long ago. Why Eisenhower did this is a lesson to us today that we must understand.

There is no doubt that Eisenhower could have stopped his offensive assaults when he hit the Siegfried Line. A massive protective barrier, it gave the Germans the cover they needed to regroup. No reasonable military person would have thought it wrong to stop the offense, rebuild the lines, replace the tired, hungry and freezing veterans with new blood, and strengthen the weak spots in preparation for a spring final assault upon Germany. But Eisenhower had played football and everyone that has ever played the game knows the one hard and fast rule…The best defense is a good offense!!  And so, with exhausted men, in icy cold conditions, he ordered the offensive assault on the Siegfried Line.

It was Patton that said it best—“In war, the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.”  And so the American army slogged forward, bone tired, famished, battle weary and frozen, and eventually pushed the Germans all the way back to Berlin.

Today, in the war on terror, it would be good to know that our commander-in-chief and our military leaders all know and understand this principle. It would be even better for our safety and security if the American public knew this and believed in it. If they don’t, we are in for failure after failure in our attempts to defeat the terrorists until such time as someone comes along who does believe in it and crushes the terrorists in an overwhelming offense. 

So instead of chanting “Defense, Defense” as the fans do at football and basketball games, we need to start chanting—“Offense, Offense!!!  If we don't, prepare to lose ground to the terrorists....

Anyone reading my blog by now realizes how strongly I feel that intelligence gathering procedures are the most important part of any battle or war. As poor as our American intelligence has been in the present war, poor intelligence is not new to warfare in North America.

In 1758, British and Colonial provincials made a major error in their first assault upon Fort Carillon (later renamed Ticonderoga by the British), a French held fort on the waterway entrance from New York to Canada.  Although the British forces greatly outnumbered the French forces 16,000 to 4,000, the French forces won the battle that day.  General Sun Tzu would have loved the battle because one of the major reasons that the British lost was one of Sun Tzu’s favorite principals. 

Sun Tzu, if you do not already know, was a Chinese general that lived 2,500 years ago and wrote the manual—“The Art of War”—a manual read around the world by military organizations.  In it Sun Tzu outlines several principals that are generally recognized as necessary to win a war.  One of those states, “All warfare is based upon deception”. 

If only the British commander, General James Abercrombie, had read the manual before the battle, he might have been more successful.  But apparently he had never heard of Sun Tzu.  However, the French commander, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, whether he had read Sun Tzu or not, applied the principal of deception with wondrous results.

Knowing the British would send scouts (spies) to watch the fort preparations, Montcalm skillfully hid the main fortifications from view and created what looked like to the British scouts to be a flimsy half hearted weak fortress. With the British scouts looking down on the busy French forces, Montcalm ordered all his men to look busy building the weak fortress.

The scouts brought the word back that the fortress was weak and vulnerable. Abercrombie sent more spies to check it out and they reported back with the same information. Acting on this information, and unaware that there was not only a strong impenetrable fortress hidden in the woods, but also a horrible array of fallen timbers with sharpened points hidden in front of the deception, Abercrombie ordered the assault. 

Historians note that Abercrombie lost the battle because he lost control of his forces and the attack was badly managed. However, the real reason he lost was his poor intelligence reports.

Let’s hope that American military experts have heard of Sun Tzu and are fully aware that the enemy has heard of him also.

I think Charles Krauthammer and Mort Zuckerman are two of the most, if not the most, intelligent thinkers and pundits writing today. I think they are dead-on correct in almost everything they write.

All right, since you asked, my opinion on what persons in the past should have been elected president.  Ed Muskie and Bill Bradley.  And why?  They were smart, skilled, and did not obsess over being president.  The presidency should not be given to anyone whose every move has been designed with the presidency in mind.  Tell me Corzine is not aiming for the presidency.

Political cartoons are my favorite form of commentary.  Succinct and cutting, they usually hammer the point home with one swing of the hammer. 

The three best political cartoonists ever:

1.  Jeff McNelly (sadly passed away)

2. Michael Ramirez

3.  Steve Breen

Yes, there are lots of good ones, and many that I enjoy, but these three combine tremendous wit, power of the visual, and great drawings.

 

America has one major weakness. This weakness goes beyond the commander in chief and the military leadership. Every single one of us in the western world has this weakness and it may be the downfall of our civilization as we know it.

To understand what this weakness is, go back 64 years to early December 1944.  The Allies, poised on the German border, were re-supplying themselves, resting from some horrible battles, and generally leaving the Germans alone for the winter. 

Early one frosty morning Ike invited Omar Bradley to his headquarters to discuss the allied situation along the front. Between the two of them, two of the best logical military minds our country has ever produced…between the two of them, they decided, after reviewing the whole situation and much discussion, that even though the Americans were weak at the Ardennes Forest section of the front, Hitler would never mount a counterattack through the Ardennes because the forest presented almost impossible conditions.   

Eisenhower knew that the Germans could not supply and support a major offensive on the winter roads in the Ardennes. Additionally, Eisenhower and Bradley felt that the newly formed Volksgrenadier divisions were not capable of offensive action in the winter. And thirdly, they knew, as military commanders, that the German military leadership knew how risky an offensive through the Ardennes would be. They knew that it would open the German army up for complete annihilation from the sides. So, at the end of the day, they both agreed that it would be a strategic mistake for the Germans to counter attack through the Ardennes.

Both Eisenhower and Bradley were absolutely correct. Their thinking was militarily sound. And every German officer on the other side of the Ardennes agreed with them. There was only one problem. Hitler did not agree with them. Eisenhower’s major error, which cost the Allies thousands of casualties, was that he did not take into account that the leader of Germany was a crazy, desperate lunatic. If he had looked at the situation from Hitler’s point of view, he would have come to a different conclusion.

What is the lesson in this 64 year old story? It is that we cannot make any conclusions about the enemies plans without understanding that they are crazy. Crazy with desperation, crazy with commitment to our destruction, crazy with hate…. If we do not begin to get inside the insanity of those that are trying to kill us, we will never be able to defend ourselves from their attacks.

I hope our military leadership knows this. I hope there are defensive plans out there built on the premise that our enemies are lunatics.  I hope Israel understands this point.  I hope there are agencies getting inside the heads of the leaders of Iran, North Korea, China, Hezbollah...well, you get the picture.  If not, well...Silence of the Lambs on a global scale….

God Help Us.