Re: Columnist Calls for Boycott of German Cars

Richard Schulman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

> The following op ed gives one something to think about.

Yes.  And that thought is "Why does Ralph Peters have a job?".

> From today's
> NY Post:
> 
> CANNED KRAUT
> By RALPH PETERS

Nothing like including the German equivalent of "nigger" in your headline 
to garner instant credibility.

> November 6, 2003 -- GEN. Reinhard Guenzel, the head of Germany's
> Special Forces Command (KSK), got the hobnailed boot on Tuesday. His
> mistake? He expressed a bit too publicly the sort of Jew-hating
> sentiment tens of millions of Germans harbor privately.

Mr. Peters doesn't name any of the "tens of millions of Germans" whom 
either he interviewed or whose minds he can apparently read.

> In a letter to a vicious right-wing extremist who sits in Germany's
> parliament

Whom Mr. Peters can apparently not identify.

> Next, we'll hear from Berlin how Jews planned the Holocaust all along.
> Just as we hear that Israel is the only terrorist state in the Middle
> East and that Palestinian suicide bombers who butcher women and
> children are freedom fighters.

Whose land have Palestinians kept under military occupation for the last 
thirty six years?

> Of course, there are good Germans. Plenty of them. But they live in
> Philadelphia, not Frankfurt. They or their ancestors all left Germany
> by 1938. Those who stayed didn't just support Hitler - they loved him
> and fought for him to the bitter end.

Anyone who was twenty-one years old in 1938 is eighty-six now.  Hardly the 
most populous or influential demographic.

> The whopping difference between the Allied occupation of Germany and
> our occupation of Iraq is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis
> welcomed their liberation.

Especially the ones who shoot down our helicopters, in Mr. Peters' 
worldview.

> We had to force freedom and democracy on
> the Germans at gunpoint.

And I suppose our soldiers in Iraq are handing out daisies?

> They'll never forgive us - no more than they'll forgive Jews for
> surviving the Holocaust, making a success of Israel against all odds

$100,000,000,000.00 in American taxpayer money can hardly be described as 
"against all odds".

> And Germany? In the 19th and early 20th century, German-speaking
> countries led the world in culture and science. Then they killed or
> drove away their Jews. The result? Germany's greatest contributions to
> world culture since 1945 have been Milli Vanilli and Gummi Bears.

Yeah, SAP and Mercedes haven't done a thing.

> What about the charge that the terror in the wake of the Russian
> Revolution was the work of Jews? Like so many of the Big Lies "made in
> Germany," there's a tiny grain of truth in it. Yes, Jewish subjects of
> the Czar played a prominent role in the Russian Revolution. Had I
> suffered as horribly as Jews suffered under the Romanovs, I'd like to
> think that I would have been a revolutionary, too.

But Palestinian suffering under Israel is no justification for revolution, 
I guess.

> Tell it to the ghosts of Auschwitz. And Babi Yar. And Warsaw. And, for
> that matter, Malmedy.

Come back when you can discuss something from the last half-century, pal.

> The German resistance? Almost as big a lie as the denial of the
> Holocaust. Count von Stauffenberg and his fellow aristocrats, whose
> inept attempt to kill Hitler with a bomb in 1944 is forever cited as
> an example of German courage, never lifted a finger against the Nazi
> regime

And how much Iraqi resistance was there against Saddam?

> The only thing most Germans regretted was that they lost.
> 
> And now we hear that it's high time for an end to German guilt, that
> the present generation had nothing to do with the Holocaust, that
> Germany paid its dues for its misdeed and, anyway, it was all a long
> time ago.

True, true and true.

> Sorry, Fritz.

Imagine someone writing "Sorry, Schlomo" (or with a nod to Jesse 
Jackson, "Sorry, Hymie") in an OpEd.  They'd be fired faster than you can 
say "Al Campanis".

> Oh, sure, making anti-Semitic remarks is a crime in today's Germany.
> But anti-Israeli remarks are just fine. 

So speaking out against a thirty-six year long military occupation is 
verboten?  Such a nice sentiment coming from an alleged "journalist".

> For a start, don't buy German products. The boycott of French wine
> sent a strong message,

That message being, "Many Americans are simplistic jingoistic lemmings 
whose enthusiasm for political expression wanes when they can't figure out 
how to make their Dixie Chicks CDs catch fire."

> Anyway, German cars of recent vintage have become a lot like the
> Germans themselves - grossly overrated and unreliable. Let Gen.
> Guenzel buy one.

Can't resist another moronic blanket ad homimen, can he?

> Ralph Peters' latest book is "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and
> Peace."

Wherein he states:

"Islamic terrorism is the violence of extreme desperation, symptomatic of 
the startling failure of Middle Eastern Islamic culture to compete with 
"the West" on a single productive front. Their failure is not our fault, 
but it is our problem."

If this is true, why aren't other such "cultures of jealousy" engaged in 
terrorism against the US?  And why aren't more terrorist attacks directed 
at the other industrialized nations, such as Japan?  Could it be that 
Japan hasn't dedicated $100,000,000,000.00 to the subsidy of a thirty-six 
year long military occupation?