Re: OT:added for playthingRe: Canada's Iranian Shame

While I will always have trouble believing that civilized men (and now
women) sit around and conspire to allow innocent people to die because of
their financial goals or their political ones, I do appreciate your
informative and intelligent post. It gives one a moment's pause.

It's also always good to see that there are some left who at least try to
present factual background info and don't try to "win" an argument by
name-calling and/or projection of their own beliefs into out-of-context
quotes. Thanks.

"playtown" <playtown@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:15av825rms4ua2tj4dk8b240a2imurtb73@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:56:35 -0400, "Carl" <crothman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

His point might lie in your statement that "the Lusitania was ALLOWED to
be
torpedoed".

Did the Germans call up President Wilson and ask permission to torpedo the
ship or did he call them and ask them to do him the favor?

The Germans were following their policy of sinking any ship that they
believed was bringing war supplies to Britain. They were not at war with
the US, and in fact Germany ran newspaper ads in America warning
passengers
of the risk of sailing on the Lusitania a week before -- however these ads
were supressed and only were printed in a couple of papers nationwide.

It had everything to do with Winston Churchill and J.P. Morgan. The big
money boys on wall street (Morgan and others) were holding millions of $
worth of war bonds on France and England. Germany was starting to whip
ass
on the French and the British, and the money guys realized that they could
lose their entire investment -- if Germany wasn't defeated, these huge
loans would never be repaid, possibly bankrupting Morgan and others. In
addition they were making money both ways -- off the interest on the loans
and by selling the weapons that they loaned the Allies the money for.
They
badly needed the US to enter the war to stop a German victory, however US
public opinion was strongly against this... Wilson even ran on the
platform
of staying out of the war.

The lost of the Lusitania with its American passengers (who were unaware
the ship was carrying armaments) provoked great outrage in the United
States and helped create the climate of public opinion that would later
allow America to join the war. The Lusitania was loaded with explosives,
was proceeding slowly through what were known to be U-Boat infested
waters,
and her destroyer escort was taken away, on the orders of Winston
Churchill, at the time Lord of the British Admiralty. The British
government suppressed a fact-finding inquest following the sinking.

Here's a little essay:

Like most members of my generation, I was indoctrinated in high school
with
the belief that the United States entered World War One because the evil
Germans had sunk an innocent ship carrying nothing but neutral American
passengers. Although I, as well as a few others in my history class,
questioned the teacher on the sheer illogic of this action, we eventually
accepted the argument that the Lusitania was sunk unfairly. Of course, we
did soon learn that the ship was carrying weapons for the British,
supplied
by American businessmen, but even then, we didn't know the whole truth:
Winston Churchill was directly responsible for sinking the ship.
Christopher Hitchens, who wrote a brilliant book on the history of
Anglo-American relations entitled Blood, Class, and Nostalgia talks about
is the sinking of the Lusitania, which he solidly proves is the
responsibility of the British head of naval intelligence, Sir Winston
Churchill.

Churchill played a strong part in both the sinking of the ship and the
controversy that ensued later. That there was such a large cache of arms
on
the ship (over 1,248 cases of shells) that it sunk after being hit by only
one torpedo was not a surprise, nor was it uncommon; there was a sizable
number of American citizens who supported the British war effort,
supplying
arms on almost every cruise ship between the nations. (The Lusitania sunk
in 18 minutes due to a huge secondary explosinon). What was a surprise was
the lack of protection given to the warship. Churchill had been warned
that
there were German submarines in the area (which had, in fact, already sunk
several other British ships), and failed either to warn the ship or send
any escort ships into the area.

Tempting as it is to simply attribute this to negligence on Churchill's
part (warning the ships was solidly his responsibility), the odds of
Churchill failing to do his duty were astronomically low. It would have
taken a period of over ten days of negligence, according to Hitchens, for
the sinking to occur. Churchill, one of the most efficient people in
British government, could not reasonably have been so negligent; he could,
however, have suppressed the information without effort. Had he wanted
intelligence suppressed, the King himself could not have found anything
out.

Churchill didn't stop there, however. After letting the ship (and most of
the civilians on board) go down, he started an insidious publicity
campaign
and ran the investigation that "discovered" that there had been more than
one torpedo, and he was responsible for the spread of a rumor that the
Germans had created a Lusitania medal honoring soldiers who killed
civilians. These propaganda moves helped shift public opinion in the
United
States to the British side (granted, there was already a growing tendency
for Americans to be Anglophiles, but they were also fence-sitters).

I'm not a post-Kennedy conspiracy theorist. I don't think it was wrong for
America to get involved in the War. I don't think Churchill was evil
(although his cold pragmatism is frightening). I don't think we can even
realistically attribute the American involvement in the War to one ship
(there would have been something else to shift public opinion). Still, it
is hard not to look at the actions of Churchill and not feel that the
British man of American descent that we revere as our greatest British
ally
caused the deaths of so many innocent American and British citizens.
Worse,
the sheer callousness of his actions, as well as the total disregard for
the truth (an abstract that even some sociopaths would claim allegiance
to)
make his part in the history of World War I truly disturbing.




"playun" <playun@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uf5u82dhobg1thrdakbqjbd6gu51vpr9df@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:39:26 GMT, "Green/Pace" <1wise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Watch PBS????
Lusitania was carrying weapons & is forbidden to be dived to or
salvaged.
OFF LIMITS PERIOD!

So??? They were carrying weapons and civilian passengers. Your point?


"playun" <playun@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fepr82le79gh3t0b82e8c7jv2o8on3if4q@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:57:12 GMT, Rick N. Backer
<ken.wilson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On 12 Jun 2006 09:32:31 -0700, "The Librarian" <zootwoman@xxxxxxxxx>
did courageously avow:


Carl wrote:
"unlike your Amercican govt who let thousands die at the World
Trade Center on 911"

Hey, that was an unprecedented, unpredictable and extremely tragic
event.

THAT Carl is the million dollar question. There is evidense that he
did
know about it. We certainly could have stopped the planes after the
first one hit the tower. It all begs the question as to why no
investigation is desired and the White House got so busy
reclassifying
old documents.

Was it unpredictable? I believe it was predicted and allowed to
happen.

There are those who believe the same chain of events surrounded Pear
Harbour as well. FDR needed a culminating incident to justify going
to war to the American people.

The pattern for this was set in WWI. It's a matter of historical
record
that the Lusitania was allowed to be torpedoed with 192 American
citizens
on board, in order to favorable mold US public opionion towards the US
entering WWI.






.

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