Obama condemns holocaust- predictably, National Review disagrees- Page 5

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/5/13 at 3:34pm

This conversation has become wrongly framed. It's not that we should be "grateful" to Nazi scientists.

It's that Operation Paperclip took scientists who were being used to devise ways to destroy people and had them devise ways to help people.

And to be clear, most of the Nazi doctors were tried and convicted at Nuremberg. The Nazi scientists were the ones given amnesty in Operation Paperclip.

Nazi doctors did things like submerge inmates in ice-cold water or give them nothing but salt water to drink, to see how long it would take them to die, or they would inflict gangrene on inmates so that they could test antibiotics. (Allied doctors were studying the same antibiotics under humane condition.)

Nazi scientists, on the other hand, were doing things like perfecting the electron microscope.

It's important to be clear about the distinctions. Nuremberg was for the war criminals; Operation Paperclip was for the science.


U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: NAZI MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

Updated On: 2/5/13 at 03:34 PM

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 2/5/13 at 3:35pm

Unless those scientists were responsible for building/designing the camps, exploiting slave labor, or actually committed war crimes, I have less of a problem with them being sought out as an asset after the war. The intellectual assets of the defeated are almost seen as the "spoils of war".

But allowing safe passage to those who committed war crimes (which did happen in the US) - well, they should have been sent to Nuremberg and tried.

But, I think the post-war frenzy with the Soviets put what was right behind what was considered in our national security interests. The CIA was heavily involved, and was intent on preventing the Soviets from having access to these scientists.

There was an interest play on the issue called


Apollo

[suestorm]

Posted: 2/5/13 at 3:41pm

i had to read a book for school which was very interesting on this very subject...
The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors (Stanford Security Studies)
Gordon Barrass

tells the story of Operation Paperclip and is pretty split down the middle on who was at fault.

[Kad]

Posted: 2/5/13 at 3:41pm

Nazi scientists were still complicit in the actions. Von Braun, for instance, was a distinguished member of the SS. They knew what their research was being used for, who they were working for. They were men whose scientific drive very often rendered them amoral- which, when working under the Nazi banner, could be equated with being immoral. It's a very murky realm of morality. In fact, quite a few of the scientists gained by Operation Paperclip came under intense scrutiny- several were aided by US authorities in fleeing the country to places like Argentina.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/5/13 at 3:53pm

Also, don't forget Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil. You get a spin-tingling plot, a fairly nuanced portrayal of good vs. evil, an Oscar or Laurence Olivier, a Golden Globe for Gregory Peck, and performances by James Mason, Uta Hagen, Rosemary Harris, John Rubinstein, Steve Guttenberg, Ann Meara, Denholm Elliott and Prunella Scales.

Posted: 2/5/13 at 4:02pm

Thanks PJ I had decided to yield to you and not get into this kettle of Herring and you presented it very well.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/2/13 at 2:46pm

The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.

The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington.

“The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data.

“We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”

The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.




NY Times: The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking

Updated On: 3/3/13 at 02:46 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/2/13 at 6:09pm

I hated learning about the Holocaust in school. I hated studying it and having to write about it. Not because I was in denial that these things happened...but because it un-nerved me...depressed me and made me intensely sad that that people were capable of this level of atrocity. I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I felt the same way when studying slavery in the U.S.

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/2/13 at 8:33pm

Can you wrap your head around domestic violence?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 1:10am

Drawing a moral equivalence is a logical fallacy.

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 7:02am

only in the minds of those who want to deny the reality of human behaviors

Updated On: 3/3/13 at 07:02 AM

[Kad]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 8:48am

At what point does playing devil's advocate become being devil's advocate?

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 8:49am

Yawper, you continue to misunderstand paljoey's position and now you insult him and all of us who feel likewise with that remark. It is about isolating the atrocities and holding them up to the world individually so that we can even more powerfully reinforce the idea that we as a culture cannot let this happen again.

Sure, you can play the depressed social scientist who smugly wishes to relate all negative aspects and actions of human behavior but I see zero productivity to that path. Nothing positive or worthwhile is to be gained from anything you have said in this thread.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 9:05am

What Pal Joey and Beedle said.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 11:07am

Wholly False Equivalences Batman.

SMH.

What Pal Joey and Beedle said.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 11:35am

Drawing a moral equivalence diminishes not only the millions of victims of mass atrocities, it also diminishes the single victim of domestic abuse you claim to be defending.

By comparing the violence committed against her to the violence committed against millions of people, you are actually putting her in a position of feeling that what was done to her was "not as bad."

Thus, without realizing that you are excusing violence and evil, your false moral equivalence dehumanizes all of the victims and exonerates both the perpetrators of the death camps and the husband of the battered woman.

Only when you stop equating one evil to another evil can you truly understand how humans become inhuman.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 12:17pm

The Banality of Yawper.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 12:50pm

There is a benefit to reminding ourselves that evil happens frequently and in various ways. That evil is, as Hannah Arendt called it, banal:

That unless we acknowledge it's pervasiveness we risk not being able to recognize it and prevent it. We may be less likely to resist it when we ourselves confront it and are potentially swept up in its power to corrupt ordinary people and enlist them in its perpetration.

This is not to take away from the significance of the distinctive qualities of each and every atrocity.

History demands recognition of both the commonality and the specificity of oppression.

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 7:03pm

Recognizing reality does not pass moral judgments. Morals are social constructs, not events. Moral judgments about events create social stigma and/or perpetuation of violence aside from any "justice" meted out.






but some people enjoy being seen as victims...
Updated On: 3/3/13 at 07:03 PM

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 8:17pm

It is about isolating the atrocities and holding them up to the world individually so that we can even more powerfully reinforce the idea that we as a culture cannot let this happen again.

Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur...all since...so much for your theory

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 8:30pm

Yeah! How DARE people pass moral judgments on the Nazis? They weren't the first bad people.

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 9:55pm

Yeah Yawper, I guess you're right. It can still happen. Why even bother trying to combat it?

Its not a theory you sad sack of poop. Its a technique to try to improve/save the lives of those who are and those who will be oppressed. We have to keep fighting.

What the hell, exactly, are your arguing here?

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 10:27pm

That the dead are the dead are the dead. And no one holds high ground.


Updated On: 3/3/13 at 10:27 PM

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 3/4/13 at 1:02am

Well that's quite poetic. And I agree with you. But I am very much alive and I choose to place my stakes behind ideology that tries to do some good.

I'm sorry I called you a sack of poop. That was uncalled for.

[~tiny~]

Posted: 3/4/13 at 4:42am

@ yawper: you actually agree with PJ's statements.
It is about isolating the atrocities and holding them up to the world individually so that we can even more powerfully reinforce the idea that we as a culture cannot let this happen again.

so much for your theory,

Not "so much for your theory. This IS the theory:

Rwanda should be held up separately, Kosovo should be held up separately, Darfur should be held up separately, Rwanda should be held up separatly Kosovo should be held up separately, a man who hits his wife should be held up separatly, a boy who slaughters an animal should be held up separately, Oscar Pistorius should be held up separately, Pick the atrocity of your choice, and document it and hold it up separately for the world to learn from.

so much for your theory