No Bush, we have not forgotten Poland

[Bjorn Against]

Here is a little reminder of a bit of history that involves Poland:

Having become Chancellor, Hitler foiled all attempts to gain a majority in parliament and on that basis persuaded President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again. Elections were scheduled for early March, but on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire.<27> Since a Dutch independent communist was found in the building, the fire was blamed on a Communist plot to which the government reacted with the Reichstag Fire Decree of February 28, which suspended basic rights, including habeas corpus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Reichstag_Fire_and_the_March_elections

Treachery, lies and murder -- those were the hallmarks of Adolf Hitler's launching of World War II. The German Wehrmacht had its orders to invade Poland at dawn of Sept. 1, 1939, but the first killings actually occurred the night before near a border town called Gleiwitz. There German SS troops took twelve prisoners from the Oranienburg concentration camp outside Berlin, ordered them to dress in Polish army uniforms, then injected them with poison and shot them. The twelve "Polish casualties" were dumped in a forest near the village of Hochlinde to be exhibited later to the foreign press.

The SS killers took along one more Oranienburg prisoner when they burst in on the Gleiwitz radio station, knocking a Mozart symphony off the air and firing pistols in all directions. The intruders shouted in Polish over the open microphones that they and their comrades were invading Germany. Then they ran off, leaving the corpse of the prisoner as one more "Polish casualty."

At 10 a.m. the next day in Berlin, in the ornate Kroll Opera, where the Reichstag had met ever since a mysterious outbreak of arson gutted its traditional headquarters in 1933, Chancellor Hitler arrived wearing the "sacred coat" of the German infantryman and used the crudely faked fracas in Gleiwitz to justify his invasion of Poland. "For the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our own territory," he told the brown-shirted deputies. "Since 5:45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met with bombs."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958453-1,00.html

The decision of Adolf Hitler to invade Poland was a gamble. The Wehrmacht (the German Army) was not yet at full strength and the German economy was still locked into peacetime production. As such, the invasion alarmed Hitler's generals and raised opposition to his command - and leaks of his war plans to Britain and France.

Hitler's generals urged caution and asked for more time to complete the defences of the 'West Wall', in order to stem any British and French counter-offensive in the west while the bulk of the Wehrmacht was engaged in the east. Their leader dismissed their concerns, however, and demanded instead their total loyalty.

Hitler was confident that the invasion of Poland would result in a short, victorious war for two important reasons. First, he was convinced that the deployment of the world's first armoured corps would swiftly defeat the Polish armed forces in a blitzkrieg offensive.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/invasion_poland_01.shtml

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

<snip>

The most tantalising part of the story remains shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.

Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical company.

Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave labour from the concentration camps in Poland. According to a New York Times article published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds of CSSC while "American interests" held the rest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

No Bush, we have not forgotten Poland. We have not forgotten that Poland was invaded based on lies, we will not forget that it was invaded by a man who suspended habeas corpus and clamped down on civil liberties, and we will never forget that it was invaded by a man who your grandfather supported financially.

We will never forget.

[LBJDemocrat]

1. Hate to defend Bush, but

He shouldn't be held accountable for his grandfather's crimes.

[LynnTheDem]

2. He's not being held accountable for his grandpoppa's Hitler connections.

It's just showing the family fascist trend.

And George W. bUsh is a fascist that should be held accountable for his own crimes, starting with his illegal war of aggression against the people of Iraq. The preemptive war the Nurenburg Tribunal deemed "the supreme crime".

[Bjorn Against]

3. What has he done to denounce his Grandfather's crimes?

If you look at the Bush family they don't only refuse to denounce his past, but they put him on a pedestal. If they had actively sought to distance themselves from Prescott I could see where you are coming from, but instead of distancing themselves they have embraced his legacy and tried to hide the Nazi ties from the public.

And when they start a war based on lies that kills hundreds of thousands and suspend habeas corpus, well lets just say they are not distancing themselves from the ideology that their father financed either.

[donsu]

4. yes, Hitler treated Poland like trash. so how come the Polish

are becoming like the neo cons?

I'm really surprised and disappointed to see Poland join the neo cons.

[Bjorn Against]

5. The Polish people are not neo-cons, just a few of their leaders

In July 2005, 59% of Poles surveyed by PBS Sopot said all Polish troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible. Nearly a third (30%) said some troops should be withdrawn, and only 6% said Poland's entire contingent in Iraq should remain. This followed Poland's announcement in April 2005 that it would withdraw its contingent of 1,500 troops from Iraq at the end of 2005.

In March 2005, the Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS) offered the two options of removing troops as soon as possible or having "the soldiers carry on with their mission. In this case an even higher majority—70%—called for withdrawal, while 26% favored continuing. These findings were statistically unchanged from when the question was asked in November and December of 2004.

Asked by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in May 2005 whether Poland had made the right decision or wrong decision in using military force against Iraq, 67% said it was the wrong decision.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/breuropera/74.php?nid=&id=&pnt=74&lb=breu

Only 6% of the Polish people wanted all of their troops to stay in Iraq in 2005, and I would guess that support for the war over there has not increased much since then.

Let us be clear, America opposes this war and so does Poland. It is only a few crazies who happen to have a lot of power that still support it.

[donsu]

6. glad you told me this. I couldn't understand why they seemed,

from media reporting, to go for the neo cons. after the hell of WWII I coun't figure them becoming neo cons.

so they are fighting to get rid of their neo cons too - right on.