President Bush: Is He a Liar?

And what country is Hamas,or Hezbollah,or Al Queda?
The GC is a convention between countries,NOT groups.

Since the terrorists do not represent any country,they are NOT covered by the GC.
BTW,the terrorists are also not signatories of the GC,so it doesnt apply to them for that reason either.

So,are you saying that none of the axis forces held as POW's by the Americans died in captivity?

If you are,you are flat out wrong!!!

I live on what used to be camp Breckenridge,and during WW2 it was a POW camp.
It held German POW's.
There is a cemetary about 6 blocks from my house where there were 7 German POW's buried.
After the war ended,their bodies were returned to Germany,but their headstones still stand.

251 pages later, Bush is still a liar.

I am sorry about your father, Walter. I have no reason to doubt you, as you seem to be an honest man. I grew up with many farmers in Oklahoma that immigrated from Germany at various times. One friend of mine had two grandfathers that had fought against each other in the same battle and of course could have killed each other. One immigrated to the U.S. before WWI and fought on the American side, the other immigrated to the U.S. after WWI, if I have the story straight. Anyway, they turned out to be the best of friends, although stories about other people indicated the existence of grudges because of wars, although in general it was pretty much put in the past.

I will try to summarize things, but in regard to war, my philosophy is we as citizens choose our leaders to make decisions for us, and regardless of country, it is fairly reasonable to fight for our country if we halfway believe in the cause. For any army to function at all, we need to be able to follow orders. So just using WWII as an example, I don't have a huge problem with the Germans, the Japanese, and others that were our enemies. I think however there is a line over which a person should not cross, in which what we are being ordered to do is totally wrong, and these would include Hitler's SS troops, and if I were asked to exterminate people, I should refuse to do it even if it cost my own life.

There is no doubt in my mind that abuse has occurred in every war in regard to prisoners. That does not justify it, but a person that would in no way be a criminal as a civilian can allow himself or herself to commit bad things in the atmosphere of war. Therefore, I think we need to have punishment for soldiers that mistreat prisoners, but it should not be as severe as if one was a civilian, because after all a country has asked that soldier to risk his or her life to do a job, and the job is not pretty, it involves killing enemy, so it isn't so easy to magicly change one's attitude toward an enemy that has suddenly been captured and treat them like royal guests.

To tell you the honest truth, I haven't yet figured out all of what I believe in regard to war, but I am fairly sure of one thing, if countries do not defend themselves in some cases, brutal dictators can and will run roughshod over people and destroy the lives of millions, so I believe that wars are sometimes necessary and that we should participate in them.

And it is not surprising that you consider your opinion to be far superior to mine. I do not claim to have done any research on the matter, however. I am sure its correct to assume that the authors of the books I've read were lying and that my relatives who were in the war and who have extensively studied the war don't know anything. I rather found them credible, however.

And for Parados request for links, these are some of the first that came up on the search. I would say there are also numerous accounts from prisoners who did not consider themselves to be mistreated by the Germans and this should be noted. The historical accounts prove that the abuse was not uniform and was most likely at the hands of hardened Nazis who were cruel and vindictive. No doubt some camps were run by decent Germans who did exercise standards of compassion.

The Battle of the Bulge - While the survivors of Battery B were being assembled in a field immediately adjacent to, and south of, the Caféé Bodarwéé, three trucks from Company B of the 86th Engineer Battalion came up the hill from Malméédy and, after halting behind the ambulances at the rear of Battery B, were fired on by the Germans. Five of the men in these trucks managed to get away, although one of them was wounded and a sixth was captured.
The last four Battery B vehicles under the command of Ksidzek, having dropped off the sick corporal, also approached Baugnez at about this time, but they heard the shooting and realized they were running into trouble. Ksidzek wisely turned around and got back to Malméédy without loss.

By about 1400, 113 Americans had been assembled in the field by the Caféé. They included 90 members of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (all except three from Battery B), 10 men from the five ambulances, the military policeman who had been on traffic duty at Five Points, the 86th Battalion engineer and 11 men who had been captured by KGr. Peiper before reaching Baugnez--eight from the 32nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, two from the 200th Field Artillery Battalion and a sergeant from the 23rd Infantry Regiment.

In addition to these 113 prisoners, a further 26 men were involved in this tragic meeting with KGr. Peiper. The most fortunate were five members of Battery B who managed to escape from the front of the convoy, and another from the last truck who succeeded in hiding until he was able to make a safe getaway. Four more, plus three men from the 32nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, were forced to drive some of the serviceable American vehicles for the Germans and became POWs. However, 11 Battery B men were killed either during the initial clash or in unknown circumstances--their bodies were not found until February and April 1945--and in addition, two men from the 197th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion were killed when their jeep, which was presumably in front of the Battery B convoy, ran into Sternebeck's vehicles just to the east of Five Points. According to a young Belgian boy who witnessed the incident, they were shot in cold blood after being ordered out of the ditch in which they were hiding.

At approximately 1415, soldiers of KGr. Peiper opened fire on the American prisoners in the field next to the Caféé. The entire episode lasted no more than about 15 minutes. While the shooting was taking place, vehicles of the Kampfgruppe continued to drive past on the N-23. By 1500 Baugnez was quiet, and it was shortly after this, and certainly before 1600 hours, that 61 Americans who somehow were still alive in the field of death next to the Caféé attempted their escape. Unfortunately, there were still a few Germans in the vicinity, and they opened fire as the escapees ran to the west and northwest. At least 15 were killed. Three more died later, and one was never seen again.
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/world_war_2/3030591.html?page=2&c=y

From EncartaThe provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1906 and 1929 were largely disregarded by totalitarian regimes, particularly those of Germany and Japan during World War II (1939-1945).
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563989/Prisoners_of_War_(POWs).html

From a UK site which cites substantial abuse but also substantiates that some prisoners were able to get mail and parcels.
http://www.purley.demon.co.uk/1-RBR/G1350pows.htm

And the Yale Avalon project is pretty damning
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/judwarcr.htm

Again, these accounts should not be any indication of what modern day Germany and modern day Germans are like. All of us have to live with our own histories, however.

No, I don't. Sorry if my English isn't so good to lead you again to wrong thoughts.


Of course your relatives are more truthful.

Thanks Walter. I am not in any way discounting your opinion based on research you have done either, and there were certainly incidents of abuse of German POWs by our side too; at least abuse judged by modern standards. As I said, we all have to live with our histories and in all cases, all cannot be judged by the behavior and/or policy of some.

Well, I suppose, during WWI - what is here reported - things were all over worse.

No abuse could be worse than exterminating millions of people, civilians, not soldiers.

Did someone doubt that?

In his new book, Bob Woodward not says that Bush lied us into the war in Iraq, but that he had no plan and conducted the war badly. What else do you need?


Senate Democrats Criticize Bush, Rumsfeld

By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; 1:54 PM

Senate Democrats today seized upon revelations in a new book by Bob Woodward, saying it offers compelling evidence that President Bush has misled the public about the war in Iraq.

"We've got a continuing state of denial in a president," said Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), a reference to the title of the book, "State of Denial."

Woodward's book makes it clear that Bush "took us to war without a plan, conducted war incompetently," Levin said, appearing at a Capitol Hill news conference with other Senate Democrats.

"And now that absolute stubbornness of President Bush is causing deeper and deeper problems for us because it makes it almost impossible for us to change course. The president of the United States thinks that the course that we are on is just fine," Levin said.

Democratic leaders have made such charges before, and they have stepped up attacks of Bush in the weeks before the Nov. 7 mid-term elections, when they hope to gain control of the House and Senate.

The book by Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, alleges deep divisions within the Bush administration over the course of the war and conflicts between what the White House and Pentagon have said publicly and privately about Iraq.

Levin, a longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, said Woodward writes that in November 2003 Bush did not want any members of his cabinet to acknowledge there was an insurgency in Iraq.

"He doesn't want to see the facts," Levin said. "He doesn't want to acknowledge reality. And if we're going to change the course and change the dynamic in Iraq we've got to end this state of denial."

Standing beside Levin today, Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.) noted that Woodward's book portrays Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as being disengaged from the nuts and bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq.

"That disengagement has produced extraordinary and adverse consequences for this country," Reed said. "There was no plan, really, to occupy Iraq successfully. There was no direction in leadership from the top levels -- civilian levels -- of this government to do it."

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), who lost the 2004 presidential election to Bush, today cited Woodward's book in a news release that describes what he calls Bush's "failed" policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Bob Woodward says the Administration is in a state of denial. It's worse than that," the Kerry statement said. "The lying needs to end and the incompetents who gave us a Katrina foreign policy have to go. . . . The only clear thing about the president's policy is that it's clearly not working."

And you can expect 2 or 3 more anti-Bush books to come out in the next few weeks before the election. Of course the timing is purely coincidental.

As is the vote on the Torture/Habeus Corpus bill....

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is true. Bush's stated reason for the invasion was WMD. One nuke or bioweapon can do a lot of damage. I don't believe one can make a logical case that at the moment of invasion, based on the information available, there wasn't a reasonable likelihood that Iraq's WMD programs were continuing secretly. Far better to act and plan for it poorly, than to be too foolish to recognize a non-negligible probability of a deadly threat. Better to have a president who tries to respond to potential threats than one too much in a dreamworld to see them.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
...

If it was paranoia, then everybody in the Bush administration, Clinton administration, the UN, and virtually every head of state in the free world, members of Congress, and the UN had it. Strange huh? And just what were those 12 years of sanctions that contributed to the death of at least 50,000 Iraqi citizens all about then?

I wouldn't be so adamant about your first sentence. As for the second, playfully?

cyclop -- I thought it was interesting that foxfyre responded from personal experience and anecdote. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, particularly when you consider that the starting point for the scientific method is personal experience. But, I laughed to myself because were bernagatto here -- not lurking under his new alias -- he would have yelled and screamed at me for using the same sort of reference. Funny. This is a conversation and not a college research paper.

And always will be. Amen.

I have not read it yet, but I understand that Oliver Stone just unloaded on Bush. It looks like the floodgates are open relative to dumping on Bush. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Brandon, I think that deep down you know that Bush had intelligence before invading that there were no nukes. This has been covered everywhere ad nauseam.