(no subject)

[novapsyche]

I don't understand why the media is incapable of juggling news items.

Before January, all we heard during the last two weeks of the year was about Pakistan. When's the last time we heard about that?

Or the CIA tapes? Where's the buzz on that?

Just because primary season is here doesn't mean that the rest of the world folds up and goes home.

In other news: Bush: US should have bombed Auschwitz -- What?! *blinks* *shakes head* How about saying, "The US should have done all it could to liberate the camp." I do not need someone who has his finger near the big button saying things like this.

Comments

[jdoggiedogg.livejournal.com]

It's campaign time. People care more about the candidates then about the country we want them to lead.

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

Bombing the rails lines in the area probably would have been a good idea, though, and it wouldn't have been possible to liberate the camp much earlier.

Still, I don't think anyone really believe the scope of what was going on until invading troops arrived to see for themselves.

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

Rail lines can be quickly repaired. Bombing the crematoria would have slowed the murder rate there, as in fact happened when inmates stole explosives and destroyed one crematorium in August 1944. After that the remaining crematoria were insufficient slowing the gassing and cremation from say 5000 a day to maybe 4500 a day. The 80 or so inmates who participated in the plot were all caught and shot but saved many times their number. A bombing mission capable of taking out all the crematoria would have also killed thousands of inmates, but considering the death rate of the murder factory it would have saved many more lives.

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

A bombing mission capable of taking out all the crematoria would have also killed thousands of inmates, but considering the death rate of the murder factory it would have saved many more lives.
Yeah, I was thinking along those lines later. It would be an awful thing for the crews to have to do, though, to knowingly bomb people you're trying to save.

Something like occasional rocket attacks from Mosquitoes might have worked. They'd still need to know the basic nature of the camp and what was where, though.

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

The camp inmates odds of surviving until liberation were not favorable. Nor was that the reason the missions were not undertaken. The camps were not considered targets vital to Germany's war effort, and unfortunately that was the only criterion on which missions were approved.

The allies did have maps of the area, and successfully bombed a nearby military target (maybe a fuel facility). Precision bombing did not exist during WWII. Even today's "smart bombs" are not always 100% accurate, and even when they are the intelligence upon which targets are selected is often mistaken.

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

I was thinking rockets because it ought to be possible to at least hit a good sized building more often than not from only a couple hundred feet up when the ordinance is going forward and not down. And Mosquitoes (or maybe B-25s or B-26s) because regular fighters couldn't reach that far and heavy bombers don't do that sort of attack. Still, 5-inch rockets might not be big enough to do much.

I realize there would still be innocent casualties, but a traditional B-17 and B-24 or Lancaster bombing raid could be expected to kill pretty much everyone there.

[entheo.livejournal.com]