The New York Times has gone gaga. There is a terrible, ignorant editorial in there today about Obama's speech to school children:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/opinion/05sat2.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
The editorial defends Obama, and rightly points out that this is not socialism, but then goes on an insane tear against socialism and its evil history. For someone educated in Britain, and a historian knowledgeable about the history of socialism, this is an incredibly ignorant mistake for the NYT. They meant, I assume, communism or Stalinism, not socialism--unless they are now the Washington Times. I wrote a letter which was a shortened version of the following:
To the Editor,
In your editorial today “Respect Your Children” you state, correctly, that there is “nothing socialist in any of Mr. Obama’s policies”, but then add “as anyone with a passing knowledge of socialism and its evil history knows”. You continue: “But in this country, unlike actual socialist countries, nobody can be compelled to listen to the president.” To quote Repesentative Barney Frank, what planet are you on? Socialism as a philosophy and political movement, represented by parties such as the Labour Party in Britain, has been responsible for most of the progressive changes in Western political systems in the twentieth century, including universal suffrage. Liberals and conservatives might challenge the effectiveness of socialism to “deliver the goods” when it comes to wealth creation, but “evil history”? Was Léon Blum “evil”? Was Clement Atlee “evil”? Olaf Palme? Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt? Yet they were all socialists. Is universal health care, an achievement mainly of socialist parties in Europe “evil”? No, they were the leaders of peaceful social change through the ballot box towards a fairer, more just society, which they thought best achieved by increased state intervention in the economy (nationalization) and civil society, because the state was, after all, run by the people in a democracy. Current socialist parties in Europe have backed away from this and adopted a “social market” approach, but the socialist heritage is anything but “evil”.
And what “actual socialist countries” do you mean? There are none. Sweden comes close, but even that country never gave up the basic profit incentive of capitalism (and did very well despite its near-socialism). The socialist parties never really attempted a complete socialization of any country. If you mean North Korea, or the Soviet Union and its satellites, or perhaps Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, then I would put it to you that you are making an elementary mistake, confusing socialism with either communism or totalitarian personality cults, and have been reading far too much Hayek for your own intellectual good. Unless, of course, you are no longer the New York Times, but have morphed overnight into the northern edition of the Washington Times?
Next time, do not let someone with a “passing knowledge” of anything write editorials, if you want to preserve your newspaper’s estimable reputation as publishing all that is fit to print. This editorial was not.
Steven Beller, Washington DC
Here are three thoughts that came up in a debate over healthcare on Facebook. My interlocutor was concerned about the fact that European countries might have more universal healthcare systems, but they also had much higher rates of income tax, and so introducing a similar health care system here would result in similarly high income tax rates, seemd to be the argument. Partly because of this he wanted to go slow in implementing change. There is only an indirect link betwen high income tax rates and universal health care in many of the countries cited, because many of those countries have systems based on PRIVATE insurance and PRIVATE medical systems, but, regardless, here are my three cobbled-together thoughts:
First, forget about the income tax rate, concentrate instead on how much the health care sector costs us, the American people as a society. The cost is roughly TWICE that of what Europeans have to pay, as a proportion of their GDP, yet Europeans have the same or a better standard of health care than what Americans receive. Talk about inefficient! It is not so much what happens to our tax dollars, as what happens to our health care dollars, public--and even more to the point--private. it is like having an 18% tax on everything we do, when the Europeans get away with less than 10% for the same service.
Second, if you look at the proposed legislation there are ALREADY long delays and a lengthy time frame for the implementation of the changes, which are, compared to single-payer or the like, actually quite conservative. This "we need more time" is just a way to delay and frustrate those who want to bring some real, positive change to US health care.
Third thought: guaranteeing universal health care provision should not be seen as a way of limiting individual freedom, as is implied by those stressing the impact on income taxes. Instead, in a country such as Britain or Canada, with "socialized medicine", individuals are free to move from job to job without constantly having to worry about whether their health insurance will end with their leaving one employer, or whether it will be adversely affected due to their new employer's policy. There is none of this neo-feudal relationship, with individual dependency on the boss, because health care is guaranteed regardless of your employer. Isn't that sort of freedom and labor mobility what a freedom loving country such as the USA should want?
How do you look at the conflict where almost all countrys denys to receive any prisoners from Guantanamo Bay
The map, based on 18 months’ worth of satellite data, shows very high levels of NO2 above major European and North American cities and across much of north-east China. South-east Asia and Africa also have raised concentrations of the gas due to their burning of vegetation. “Ship tracks are visible in some locations,” says Steffen Beirle, one of the research team at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. “Look at the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean between the southern tip of India and Indonesia.” Although NO2 is formed naturally by lightning and by microbes in the ground, it is also released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels by power plants, heavy industry and vehicles. Large quantities of the gas can cause respiratory problems and lung damage, and can also contribute to harmful ozone forming near ground level.
Obama has commented on helping poor nations to develop clean technologies but as you can see, it is not the poor countries that harm the planet the most. It is the rich large countries doing all of the damage. We first need to look at home and prevent the devastation that has been ongoing. United States, China, and Europe need to change the way they live first before they can start criticizing other poorer nations that only amount to about 11% of emissions around the world. Our polar ice caps have lost nearly a third of its size from 1981 to 2003(NASA Data). Your plan is to reduce amounts of emissions by the year 2050. By your logic, we won’t have a polar ice cap left. There won’t be anything to save. The climates around the world are already beginning to shift. Melting glacial water changes the composition of the ocean and changes the weather patterns around the world. Yearly Warming Temperatures from NASA
http://politicalpete.com/
Adolf Hitler / Nazis hated Arabs as an inferior “race”, yet praised Islam in its ‘war like’ TOTALITARIAN ideology He saw them as a great disposable tool to be used against the Jews, the mufti fell for it.
SPLCenter.org: The Swastika and the Crescent, Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped“), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals, British and the Jews… http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=242
ESSAY - May 2002 By Martin A. Lee …Ahmed Huber: Neo-Nazi, Islamic convert… The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood and, in many ways, the Nazi-Muslim axis go back to the organisation’s formation in Egypt in 1928. Marking the start of modern political “Islamic fundamentalism,” the Brotherhood from the outset envisioned a time when an Islamic state would prevail in Egypt and other Arab countries.
The growth of the Muslim Brotherhood coincided with the rise of fascist movements in Europe - a parallel noted by Muhammad Sa’id al-’Ashmawy, former chief justice of Egypt’s High Criminal Court, who decried “the perversion of Islam” and “the fascistic ideology” that infuses the world view of the Brothers. Youssef Nada, current board chairman of Al Taqwa, had joined the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as a young man in Egypt during World War II. Nada and several of his cohorts in the Sunni Muslim fraternity were recruited by German military intelligence. Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood, also collaborated with spies of the Third Reich. Advocating a pan-Islamic insurgency in British-controlled Palestine, the Brotherhood proclaimed their support for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, in the late 1930s.
The Grand Mufti, the preeminent religious figure among Palestinian Muslims, was the most notable Arab leader to seek an alliance with Nazi Germany. Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals - the British, the Jews and the Communists. They met in Berlin, where the Mufti lived in exile during the war. The Mufti agreed to help organise a special Muslim division of the Waffen SS. Powerful radio transmitters were put at the Mufti’s disposal so that his pro-Axis propaganda could be heard throughout the Arab world. http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2002/275/essay275.html
War aims in the second world war: the war aims of the major belligerents … - by Victor Rothwell - History - 2005 - 244 pages (Page 41) However, the Nazis were clear in their minds that the Arabs were racially inferior, and there would, therefore, be no pleasure to be had from helping them in anything except for the extermination of Jews in their region. http://books.google.com/books?id=XfgLbSc94MEC&pg=PA41
Islam, Nazism, and Totalitarianism
During an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychiatry, was asked “…had he any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?” Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future. Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, wrote a contrite memoir of his World War II experiences while serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg tribunal.
Speer’s narrative includes this discussion, which captures Hitler’s racist views of Arabs on the one hand, and his effusive praise for Islam on the other:
Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/61/55/
The roots of Arab Anti-Semitism - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine Oct 31, 2001 … As he notes, anti-Semitism in Arab countries (and non-Arab Islamic states such as Iran) …. East—they were eager to make common cause with Hitler, despite Nazi belief that they, like the Jews, were inferior to Aryans. … http://www.slate.com/id/2057949/
The third Reich & the Palestine question - Francis R. Nicosia - 2000 - History - 319 pages (Page 85) Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis would consider them racially inferior as well and that Germany had no intention of undermining British authority in … http://books.google.com/books?id=xh4m-OMrhJUC&pg=PA85
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj … Chuck Morse - 2003 - History - 188 pages (page 53) … as Hitler was known to have described the Arabs as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped,” to a lower race … http://books.google.com/books?id=HGkthBwbNg8C&pg=PA53
Despite Hitler’s personal antipathy towards Arabs, who he once described as lacquered half apes who ought to be whipped, he nevertheless was prepared to … http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/An%20unholy%20alliance%201801%20original.doc
The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters …Martin A. Lee - 1999 - Political Science - 560 pages (page 122) Even though he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler was nonetheless the idol of the paramilitary … http://books.google.com/books?id=SX4B7pNG3W8C&pg=PA122
Islamists threaten terror attacks in Germany (For betraying 'Granddad Hitler' / Islamo-nazism)adnkronos ^ | 04,22,09
Terrorism: Islamists threaten terror attacks in Germany
Berlin, 22 April (AKI) - The Al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on Wednesday released a video threatening the "criminal" German government and citizens of the Jewish faith, according to German media.
In the video, the third released this year, shows a man identified as "Commander Mohammad", who criticises the presence of German troops in Afghanistan.
The man accuses "the sons of Germany of being in the service of the Jews" unlike "Granddad Hitler".
Investigators believe the video's release may be linked to a major Islamist terrorism trial which opened on Wednesday at a high-security court in the northwestern German city of Duesseldorf .
In the trial, three Germans and one Turkish national are accused of planning a series of simultaneous bomb attacks against discos and pubs and the United States airbase in Ramstein and against Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office.
Two of the German suspects are converts to Islam while the third is a German citizen of Turkish descent. They face charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, plotting murder, and conspiracy to conduct a bomb attack.
The trial is expected to last one to two years. If the defendants are found guilty, they could face prison terms of up to 15 years.
Prosecutors claimed the men were planning to use about 10 times as much explosives as were used in the deadly July 2005 attacks on London transport that killed 56 people and injured thousands.
The plot was at an advanced stage and the attacks could have killed over 50 people, according to police.
Around 300 German federal agents were involved in monitoring the cell for several months, before police swooped in on the group in what was one of Germany's biggest anti-terror operations to date.
Three of the defendants were arrested in the Germany's western Sauerland region and the fourth was arrested in Turkey and extradited to Germany in November last year.
Prosecutors say the four men belong to a little-known group called the Islamic Jihad Union with roots in Uzbekistan and ties to Al-Qaeda.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.0.3239023359
Nuremberg Trials
America, as all countries today, is undergoing a vast amount of change; however there exists a hopefully small number of individuals within our country who in essence mistakenly subscribe to the notion “the Bush doctrine on terror” was correct and righteous, which includes the use of torture to obtain supposed Intel information.
I believe our President is taking the right steps, as he promised during his campaign to “right the wrongs” of our country’s past eight years of injustice regarding our treatment of combative detainees. First by releasing the Bush Administration’s memos condoning torture (listed here and here also here), which he followed up by insuring his release would not produce a witch hunt (as some want) by traveling to CIA’s Headquarters and assuring employees individual prosecution would not be presumed and finally, most importantly turned the entire matter over to our Justice Department and directly to Eric Holder, the Attorney General.
On this past Wednesday (22 Apr 09) an article in the Washington Post, authored by Craig Whitlock, of Washington Post’s Foreign Service Department and entitled: “European Nations May Investigate Bush Officials Over Prisoner Treatment” confirms my beliefs by the following excerpt:
On Tuesday, Obama for the first time raised the possibility of creating a bipartisan commission to examine the Bush administration’s handling of terrorism suspects. He also said he would leave it up to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to determine whether to prosecute senior officials who approved waterboarding and other tactics.
This was further confirmed in a statement published by the American Civil Liberties Union, entitled: “Attorney General Holder Says He Will “Follow The Law” And Investigate Torture” where the following excerpt stated:
Attorney General Eric Holder said today that the Justice Department will “follow the law wherever it takes us” in investigating the U.S. officials behind the CIA torture policies under the Bush administration.
Europe, you have every obligation and right to legally pursue whatever action you feel is appropriate, but please let our present administration do what they can to correct these past “wrongs”; in our way of first and let America reestablish itself under the “Rule of Law”.
A.G. Holder: Investigate Torture
The people who authorized Bush’s torture program shouldn’t get off scot-free. It’s time for Attorney General Holder to appoint an independent special prosecutor.
Update 23 Apr 09:
Clinton Questions Cheney’s Credibility: “I Don’t Consider Him A Particularly Reliable Source Of Information” Huffington Post | Nicholas Graham
The sensitive topic of the release of the torture memos came to the forefront when Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacker asked Clinton if she agreed with Dick Cheney’s request that documents ostensibly showing the efficacy of the torture programs should be declassified. Clinton ultimately replied that she believes “we ought to get to the bottom of this entire matter” and that it “is in the best interest of our country” to do so, but not before she took a shot at Cheney’s credibility, saying “I don’t consider him to be a particularly reliable source of information.”
Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:
In a post last week I sited excerpts from an article regarding how China is shopping for American businesses at bargain prices within a time piece entitled “Things go Better with Coke”. Well it seems I was a bit far sighted, since I see in the Washington Post today the European countries are coming to the States too.
Not necessarily for business “buy outs”, but instead to start lobbying activities for our $787 billion dollar Economic Stimulus Recovery package. Foreign nations and companies are stepping up their lobbying efforts in Washington and in state capitals, hoping to gain vital business in hard times. Hundreds of foreign-owned companies, many of them with significant operations in the United States, are selling their expertise in clean energy, high-speed transit and other technologies that undergird key aspects of President Obama’s stimulus efforts.
The following is an excerpt from the Post article, entitled: “Foreign Firms May Cash In on Stimulus Act With Expertise U.S. Companies Lack”, authored by Dan Eggen.
Telecoms such as Alcatel-Lucent of France, for example, and its New Jersey-based research arm, Bell Labs, are eligible to seek part of $7.2 billion in stimulus money set aside for upgrading broadband networks. Most global companies specializing in the transit and high-speed rail projects envisioned under the stimulus act are based in other countries — Canada’s Bombardier and France’s Alstom, for example. Transurban Group of Australia, which is helping develop high-speed toll lanes along the Capital Beltway, is a world leader in developing toll roads. Sanyo North America, an arm of the Japanese technology giant, has already broken ground on a new solar-panel plant in Oregon and is readying strategies to tap into stimulus-related business, according to company officials. The firm recently registered as a lobbying organization in Washington for the first time since 2001, Senate records show.
Telecoms such as Alcatel-Lucent of France, for example, and its New Jersey-based research arm, Bell Labs, are eligible to seek part of $7.2 billion in stimulus money set aside for upgrading broadband networks. Most global companies specializing in the transit and high-speed rail projects envisioned under the stimulus act are based in other countries — Canada’s Bombardier and France’s Alstom, for example. Transurban Group of Australia, which is helping develop high-speed toll lanes along the Capital Beltway, is a world leader in developing toll roads.
Sanyo North America, an arm of the Japanese technology giant, has already broken ground on a new solar-panel plant in Oregon and is readying strategies to tap into stimulus-related business, according to company officials. The firm recently registered as a lobbying organization in Washington for the first time since 2001, Senate records show.
I’m not for our government to establish policies of “protectionism”, but as we all know when there’s money to be had and lobbyists are involved, congressional votes are many times purchased at the tax payer’s expense, in this case “jobs”.
Earnestly it’s our civil duty to become politically involved, perhaps more so than we ever have before, to insure our politicians subscribe to a stick code of ethics and we vote our choice by moral character instead of political party in the election two years from now.
Here could be the type of jobs other countries are perhaps attempting to take from us:
Made In America
Hear the story of Troy Galloway, an American whose job and neighborhood have been revitalized by wind turbine manufacturing.
Europe’s biggest agricultural producers are taking up new incentives for solar power to supplement farm incomes as well as help meet renewable energy targets.
The solar panels installations that are called integrated because they are built into the roof rather than superimposed, is booming in France thanks to legislation creating 20-year contracts with strong incentives to sell electricity to the grid. Government guarantees of long-term electricity contracts at an inflation-linked “feed-in” tariff, helped win the scheme bank support. The investment means constructing five enormous sheds covered by 36,000 square meters of solar panels with a capacity to generate 4.5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 4,000 homes. At 0.55 Euros per kWh, integrated solar photovoltaic panels generate nearly twice the revenue of ground-mounted and superimposed solar panels. Another example is a group of 77 cattle breeders in the Aveyron region of south-west France, who formed a company, SAS Adder, to manage the construction of 33,0000 square meters of integrated roof panels on their farms.France whose goal is to have renewable energy make up 23 percent of its energy consumption by 2023 is imitating Germany, Europe’s leader in solar and wind power. The built-in technology is encouraged by the authorities as aesthetically acceptable, in a country where wind farms have been sharply criticized as eyesores.
With US know how, ingenuity, and innovation this could be applied by not only US farmers but by large commercial buildings also.
Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090224.wsolar0224/BNStory/Science/?cid=al_gam_nletter_newsUp
In an article authored by Hari Sud for UPI Asia, I found out what has happened to my country of America the past thirty years and especially the last ten years.
I have reprinted the article in its entirety, since I strongly belief it should be read and considered by all; the article is entitled: “What’s next for globalization?” I have taken the liberty of high-lighting sections and phrases, which I deem most important to our current financial burden.
What’s next for globalization?
By Hari Sud Column: Abroad View Published: February 20, 2009
Toronto, ON, Canada, — As the U.S. financial meltdown continues in 2009, attention is now directed toward the wider and long-range impact of globalization. In theory, globalization is increasing the mobility of goods, services and capital throughout the world by removing the barriers to free trade and increasing closer integration and the inter-connectedness of national economies.
For the West, that has translated into relocating labor-intensive and smokestack industries to countries where costs are lower. Europe and the United States have envisioned themselves as the world’s bankers, financial masters and influence peddlers – which was great in theory, if only the crooks in the U.S. financial sector had been kept away from the proceeds of globalization.
Since 2001, the United States has been awash with cash. It came from oil-producing Arabs and from the export proceeds of China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India. That cash found a home in the subprime mortgages that have started the financial meltdown that is pulling the world down.
Europe and the United States were winning the globalization race until 2008, as master bankers handling the export earnings of other states. On the sidelines, China, Asia’s Tiger economies, Brazil and India began generating some cash and technology and building their own economies, leading to rapid increases in their gross national products. However, the benefits did not extend to the rest of Asia, Africa and other less-developed countries.
If You watch TV, You have probably seen Obamas speech in Berlin, with thousands of thousands supports to the candidate. There were only a few negative voices in Germany, the most important was Josef Joffe, Editor of the very influential liberal weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT. There has been also some leftwing bloggers who shared his position. They wanted a more conservative president as they could continuing volley reproches to the states.
We will have a closer look to europe in the next months, read about the answers and behaviour to Obamas politics. I swear, it will be exciting for You!
Hi everyone!
This is my initial blog post. I'm from Germany and track Barack Obamas presidency with European eyes and yes I support the change by Obama as good as it gets. I'm 26 y.o. and student of "Economic and Organizational Science" in Munich. Yes, the same Munich vice president Biden visited :-) and also the same Munich known from the Oktoberfest.
Okay here we go! In my blog http://obama-videos.blogspot.com (opens in a new window) I collect videos by and about Barack Obama and his politics. For me it is very interesting and exciting to experience the change that just has begun. Take part on my journey through U.S. politics and write me comments on my videos and even write video/transcript requests or advocacies for new or old videos.
I try to offer the European and esp. the German reactions on the new kind of politics in the United States.
Thanks so far and support my "political journey" by visiting my blog Click here to open the blog in a new window
There is growing social consciousness among peoples' movements and world leaders that the process of economic globalization needs to be regulated and changed. Issues like e.g. Economy, Energy and Environment are topics which need a close worldwide cooperation. But also independent information is necessary to evaluate the facts and possible solutions. We want to inform in our Blog and bring in background information to support a change in the US and in the world.
I am a proud US naturalized citizen born and raised in India. I am glad to be born in the largest democracy and settled in the second largest democracy in the world. In the last five years I voted in national/state/local elections and I am proud of that.
Now I am looking forward to Obama's oath ceremony! It is indeed a historic moment!! I wish Obama good luck and extend my full support. He has a huge task in front of him and I hope he lives to the expectations of the millions who supported him for "change"
So far Obama has shown that he is a shrewd politician with his cabinet selection, not a real change! However, it is too early to judege his decisions.
I hope he brings in long lasting peace in Middle east, do damage control with Europe and extend a friendly hand to India.
Good Luck Mr. Obama!
I’ve also posted this blog entry on my blog: http://www.theparadigmshiftshere.com
I'm sure you're all familiar with the sensational 'war' declared by the wealthy and the mighty on the pirates (mostly) from 'Somalia'...if you're not, view THIS article for the big 'spin' served to you courtesy of massive sponsorship by some very wealthy 'special-interest' groups...
Now for 'a' truth about the matter...
Dear American Friends,
Wish you all a very happy New Year! I am now officially a candidate for the European Elections.
Please look at www.unicovankooten.eu . You can leave a message at 'gastenboek' if you want.
I would like to write a blog about the importance of the American-European relationship and would be
greatful if you would share your views with me on that.
Best regards, Unico
In honor of military pigeons throughout history, I post on this Christmas Eve, information produced by Otto Meyer, U.S. Army (Ret), and supplied by the ARPU, on the American Hero “G.I. JOE” -
“G.I. JOE”American Hero
“G.I. JOE” is the most outstanding military pigeon in history and is credited with saving the lives of at least 100 British troops during World War II. The British 56th Brigade was scheduled to attack the city of Colvi Vecchia, Italy, at 10 a.m., October 18, 1943.
The U.S. Air Support Command was scheduled to bomb the city to soften the entrance for the British Brigade. The Germans retreated leaving only a small rear guard and as a result the British troops entered the city with little resistance and occupied it ahead of schedule.
All attempts to cancel the bombings of the city, made by radio and other means of communication, had failed. Little “G.I. JOE” was released with the important message to cancel the bombing. He flew 20 miles back to the U.S. Air Support Command base in 20 minutes and arrived just as our planes were warming up to take off. If he had arrived a few minutes later, it might have been a different story.
Gen. Mark Clark, Commanding the U.S. Fifth Army, estimated that “G.I. JOE” saved the lives of at least 100 of our British allies. In November 1946, “G.I. JOE” was shipped from Fort Monmouth, N.J. to London, England, where he was cited and awarded the Dickin Medal for Gallantry by the Lord Mayor of London. “G.I. JOE” is the only bird or animal in the United States to receive this high award.
“G.I. JOE,” a dark checker pied white flight cock, was hatched March 24, 1943, at the Pigeon Section in Algiers, Algeria, North Africa. Later he was taken to the Tunisian front, then to Bizerte, and from there to the Italian front.
After World War II, “G.I. JOE” was housed in the Churchill Loft, U.S. Army’s “Hall of Fame” at Ft. Monmouth, N.J., along with 24 other pigeon heroes. In March of 1957, the remaining pigeon heroes were placed with different zoological gardens throughout the U.S.A.
“G.I. JOE” was placed with the Detroit Zoological Gardens where he died June 3, 1961, at the age of 18. “G.I. JOE” was returned, mounted, and placed in the Historical Center, Meyer Hall, at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
--- Otto Meyer, U.S. Army (Retired)--- Former Commander of the U.S. Army Pigeon Service
I dedicate this inspiring story of courage and determination of the pigeon named “G.I. JOE” to the generations of troops that will secure the success of the 44th President of the United States.
May the message of peace come to The White House and spread throughout the land.
Merry Christmas Everyone,
David Apperson, Life Cloud Discussions
American Legion - memberARPU - lifetime memberVFW - life member
Source: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/post/president/gGxKt3
