Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Nazi Guerillas

Caught part of a show on the History Channel called "Nazi Guerillas" on Friday night. I was half asleep and fighting a cold so I did not take detailed notes. But a couple of points were directly applicable to the current situation in Iraq.

First, just because a bunch of psychopaths are willing to kill soldiers and civilians, that doesn't mean their cause has popular support. In the case of Germany, the werewolves were active in areas where the populace was eager to see an end to the war even if that meant American occupation.

Second, the U.S. Army put out the word that guerillas caught fighting out of uniform would be subject to summary execution. That threat was sometimes carried out.

Third, the U. S. Army censored all mention of guerilla attacks from press reports because they believed it encouraged the Nazi bitter-enders and provided useful intelligence to the guerilla cells.

War is messy business. It is never as clean as we might hope. Not even WWII ended as cleanly as the MSM thinks it should. This is from Murray and Millett's A War to be Won:
In the wake of liberation, French and Italian partisans-- both rich in dedicated Communists-- murdered as many as 8,000 suspected collaborators, often with Allied troops nearby
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