Rosenthals notion of an controversy is centred around the idea that the visit to Dresden was Obamas idea. He even suggests that the Visit to Buchenwald was Obamas main goal and Buchenwald merely an “Alibi”.

Apart from the obvious problem that there seems to be no earthly benefit for Obama to choose Dresden while he has every (family) reason to visit Buchenwald, this allegation does not mesh with the information known in Germany.

As far as can be determined, Obama intended only to visit Buchenwald and Landstuhl . However Mrs. Merkel, who is up for re-election in September insisted on an photo op with the President who is immensely popular in Germany. It seems much more likely that Dresden was chosen as the nearest city of any importance (a mere 40 miles from Buchenwald). Additionally, the rebuilding of Dresden is seen as one of the few “pan-German” success stories of the reunification period making it even more desirable as a backdrop.

[quote]The Germans would like nothing better…[/quote]

This seems to be a rather far-fetched allegation. While the far right would (obviously) latch on to it, the qualitative difference of the two occurrences is blatantly obvious and a comparison between is patently ridiculous even to those who oppose to the Desden bombings on ethical grounds. Even if an apology would be forthcoming (extremely unlikely) this would in no way shape or form diminish German guilt or responsability.

As to Rosenthals articels, I would advise caution there too. While (as far as a cursory browsing could tell) pointing out important German deficiencies like the glacial pace of NS investigations, they seem to suffer from a serious outsiders perspective, often misunderstanding German contexts. They also contain some extremely bad translations from the German, resulting in some rather distorted takes on German matters and moods.

As far as appearing in Dresden well I suppose the point of Allied bombing must be addressed since the President’s audience will have victims’ family members in attendance. I look forward to his address esp reading the transcript. I do not like watching the speech on television. The cheering and demonstrations are distraction.

Also, America’s chief adversaries or potential adversaries are Russia and China. Resolving the Israeli=Palestinian conflict does nothing to address the threats posed by these two countries and their allies.

With that said perhaps the good General might be correct IF a settlement leads to a stronger Israel. If the settlement leads to a weaker Israel, then Aemrica’s adversaries will be strengthened and America’s security situation will be much more precarious than it already is. Israel acts as a very important buffer between America and ots Middle Eastern adversaries. Any settlement that weakens Israel would weaken this buffer and would make it much more costly and difficult to defend America.

Unfortunately the current “peace plans” being considered would very likely result in a weaker Israel. As such, these are not plans that a supporter of America or Israel should support. For any peace plan to work, Hamas would have to be destroyed or at least neutralized. The same things applies to Fatah as well. It needs to be destroyed or at least neutralized as well.

While I can certainly get behind the notin that Mr. Reynolds proposes if you mess with us you get your cities burned down, this may not be a viable option for the early 21st century. At no time since the end of WWII has America been weaker relative to its enemies and potential enemies than it is now. In other words, many of them are fully capable of burning our cities down as well. Also due to the declining economic situation and the massive national debt that was started under President Bush and has continued unabated under President Obama, the United States will likely have to make steep budget cuts in future years. The first programs to be cut are likely those pertaining to national defense and intellegence gathering.

As such, the American military is likely to be only a shell of what it is now within the next five years. This comes at a time when potential adversaries are making major upgrades to their militaries. Given this situation we may not have a viable military action to deal with some adversaries in the coming years.

Our best option would be to: 1.)withdraw all men and military equipment from the middle east as soon as they can be withdraw, 2.)these forces should be redeployed to the borders, 3.)open up all domestic oil and gas sources for extraction, 4.)build more refineries, 5.)cloesly monitor the mosques, and 6.)place a moratorium on all immigration for a minimum of ten years. This moratorium would be indefinite for immigration from Islamic countries. Some type of Visa for foreign workers might be acceptabel but they would need to be closely monitored. I think other countries do this. Doing this would have greater utility for our national security interests than burning anyone’s cities down would and it would give us some space to develop the so called “green” alternatives for our energy needs that are all the rage these days.

I don’t entirely agree with him, but there’s nothing naive or foolish about saying, “You should do X, but we won’t force you to do X.” We’ll just burn your cities down if you mess with us.

Burn your cities down… This is an approach I can totally get behind.

I would work the Dresden-Buchenwald speech around to point out that while we were burning Germans at Dresden, Germans were burning Germans at Buchenwald. German Jews were, after all, Germans. Of course many other nationalities were murdered as well, but the mass-slaughter of Germans was begun by Germany. WW2 was as much an act of suicide as it was murder and a nation that shows no respect for the lives of its own people can hardly expect us to live up to a higher standard.

Of course I’d say it all in that charming Obama way as opposed to the thuggish Reynolds way.

This is pure doublespeak - appearing to take his predecessor to task for “imposing” concepts like democracy and the rule of law on Iraq while chiding other nations for not embracing those same values.

I don’t see the problem. He’s saying Democracy is a great thing, you folks ought to try it, but we were wrong to try and ram it down your throat.

I don’t entirely agree with him, but there’s nothing naive or foolish about saying, “You should do X, but we won’t force you to do X.”

We’ll just burn your cities down if you mess with us.

The Dresden visit is interesting. Odds are good that Obama and team will navigate it fine but there is always the possibility of some genuine gaffe or miscalculation. My amateur reading is that Dresden would have been in violation of the 1949 Geneva conventions, but the applicable 1907 Hague conventions were considerably vaguer about targeting of civilian areas.