Operation Pastorius… When Terrorism was Called Sabotage

Prior to what we now call terrorism, enemies of America engaged in what was called sabotage. In a case coded named Operation Pastorius, German Saboteurs were given a quick course in sabotage techniques, given nearly $175,000 in American money and put aboard two submarines to land on the east coast of the United States. Their mission was to stage sabotage attacks on American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee and New York; locks on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky; a cryolite plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey.

Sounds eerily like several of the terrorist plots of today.

On June 13, 1942, the German submarine, U-202, the Innsbruck, carrying George John Dasch as the head of a team of three other saboteurs, landed in Amagansett, New York about 115 miles east of New York City on Long Island. A Coast Guardsman, John C. Cullen, spotted the Germans coming ashore, and one of them tried to bribe him. Cullen, however, returned to his station and reported the encounter to his superiors; but by that time the Germans, weary from their transatlantic trip, had taken a train into New York City.

The second submarine, U-584, with another four-member team headed by Edward Kerling, landed at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, south of Jacksonville on June 16, 1942. Without any incident, this second group of Germans started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago and Cincinnati.

Two of the Germans in New York, Dasch and Ernest Burger, decided to back out of the mission. Dasch went Washington, D.C., and turned himself in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. None of the other saboteurs knew of the betrayal. Over the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested, and all eight were put on trial before a seven-member military commission on specific instructions from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were charged with 1) violating the law of war; 2) violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy; 3) violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and 4) conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

Lawyers for the accused attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court, but were rebuffed by the Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin. The trial began July 8 in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington.

All eight defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life and Dasch's to 30 years. The others were executed on August 8, in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field called Blue Plains in the Anacostia area of Washington. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman granted executive clemency to Dasch and Burger on the condition that they be deported to the American Zone of occupied Germany.

Talk about justice! They landed in the U.S. on June 13, 1942; there trial began on July8, and 6 of the 8 defendants were executed on August 8.

Either we are at War, or we are not. Terrorism is just the 21st Century name for what the 1940’s vernacular called a spy or saboteur. FDR had it right in 1942, but unfortunately in 2006 President Bush has bought into trying to fighting what John Kerry called “more sensitive war on terror.”

Maybe I should start looking for some Urdu language lesson CD-ROMs.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110042353577&category=3788.

I Guess I’m Not American…

Watching, listening and reading this week about the illegal immigration debate in the Senate, I was struck by one phrase spoken by all parties and usually taken as a given “These illegal workers are doing jobs American’s don’t want to do..”

This was said by President Bush, Senator McCain, Senator Kennedy, generally anyone speaking is saying this sentence (in one form or another). But how did I reconcile these facts with there statement?

• My Father worked as a bartender.
• My Mother worked doing low-end data entry (in the 1970s that meant she “took in typing jobs”).
• My Brother worked in a factory making (of all things) blocks which lined the interior of Nuclear Reactors.
• This same Brother also worked (with my Cousin) as dishwashers. (On a side note, I always picture them working at this job as ripe material for a Sitcom episode).
• My Sister worked as a housekeeper, cooking and cleaning for several priests in a Catholic Rectory (before you Catholic bashers go there, nothing happened to her).
• And I, worked for nearly 4 years doing landscaping. Something worth repeating, LANDSCAPING!

So am I lying about the jobs my family members and I held? I guess it could be faulty recollection.

Although my brother did bring home a “reject” Reactor Core block which he used as a doorstop. I also am haunted by the memory of the first time I got a good whiff of decomposing grass clippings and lost my breakfast over the side of the dump truck. I think my Mom still has her Royal typewriter.

So with physical evidence to prove we held these jobs, this must mean we are not American Citizens. So what country do we belong to? My Birth Certificate says I was born in the United States, but we held jobs which we have been told (incessantly for the last two weeks) which no American wants to hold.

Could it be that the politicians and “talking heads” have it all wrong?

Probably not.

Maybe we are Canadian? My brother loves Hockey, I have never passed up an opportunity to eat Canadian Bacon, and my Grandmother is from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (so she says).

Maybe I can find out if Canadians would lower themselves to hold the jobs we did?

Go Dobbs Go

This was recently posted on Lou Dobbs' website.

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

--Theodore Roosevelt, 1919

Nothing to add, this speaks for itself.

Imagine This…

With recent news a rallies held last weekend I thought I would throw out a hypothetical.

Let’s imagine that there was a group of individuals in America who embezzled from their places of business. They were shrewd enough to not take enough money to cause significant hardship for the company, but still found a way to take sums of money they did not earn through legal means.

It became such a wide spread practice that a name was given to identify this group. They settled on Illegal Compensationists.

The Illegal Compensationists (other than the fact they were stealing) were generally seen as law abiding citizens. They worked (for some of their income), went to Church, and used their ill-gotten cash as consumers, which helped drive the economy.

Efforts to curb the activities of the Illegal Compensationists were met with political disagreement on both sides of the aisle.

On one hand the Illegal Compensationists were breaking the law.

On the other hand, it was a victimless crime. Did most Americans care if Wal-Mart made 5 zillion or 6 zillion dollars last year? How many Penthouse Suites are enough for Donald Trump? Besides, the Illegal Compensationists weren’t taking the money to purchase frivolous things. In general, the Illegal Compensationists were hard working people who were not being paid a “living wage” and needed to make up the difference with their “technically” criminal embezzlement activities. They were only looking to make a better life for themselves and achieve the “American Dream.”

However, resentment began to grow among those who saw the Illegal Compensationists as an affront. With the ranks of the Illegal Compensationists growing (by some estimates) to 11 Million, weren’t law abiding citizens who did not steal from their employers being punished? These activities had to have an effect on not only society, but suppressing the wages of those who played by the rules (since companies had to make up for the staggering loses being siphoned off by the embezzlement of the Illegal Compensationists). If someone had a moral compass which would not allow them to join the ranks of Illegal Compensationists, they were seeing their country torn apart by tolerance for the criminal activities of the Illegal Compensationists.

In the end what was the Government to do? Enforce laws on the books that already made embezzlement illegal? Could they really put 11 million people in jail? One idea which was thrown out was to pardon all Illegal Compensationists to bring them out of hiding. The thought went, if you stop embezzling, and promise never to do it again, you will not be prosecuted and as a bonus, you will get to keep all of your ill gotten money.


Now that this horse has been beat to death, I hope my feelings are clear. Whether your are an Illegal Compensationists or an Illegal Immigrant, the first part of your descriptor if ILLEGAL. This nation should not tolerate the breaking of law, ANY law. If the people don’t like the law, they should change it. Open the border to individuals from any country, not just or latin american neighbors to the south.

However, I think my first effort must be to get the term “Illegal Interloper” into the vernacular.

il·le·gal Definition: Prohibited by law.

in·ter·lop·er Definition: One that intrudes in a place, situation, or activity:

Illegal Interloper more accurately frames the nature of the offense, someone who intrudes into the United States in a manner prohibited by law.

The world immigrant adds the connotation of a legal activity for a wholly illegal act (kind of like calling someone a legal rapist or legal murder). Other than James Bond, 007 License to kill, most would agree Legal Murder is an oxymoron in the same way Illegal Immigrant is.

Get your bumper stickers now…

Protect our Borders…. Stop Illegal Interlopers

It’s a Double Standard World After All…

Some random musings about the double standards which I wonder if I am alone in perceiving:

Denigration is in the Eye of the Beholder (if the Beholder is a Lunatic)
Twelve forbidden cartoons published in an obscure Danish Newspaper and all hell breaks loose. Leading State Department spokesman Sean McCormack to issue the following statement: "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

Let’s contrast that with American photographer Andres Serrano work “Piss Christ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ or Chris Ofili http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Ofili who’s Black Madonna with Elephant dung created quite a stir in 1999. Apparently if Mayor Giuliani had demolished the Brooklyn Museum (don’t put it past a Big City Mayor, Chicago’s mayor bulldozed an Airport in the middle of the night) the state department would have been calling these works unacceptable images and while not justifying Rudy’s actions, they would have explained that the artists needed to be more responsible.

Hey, and make sure you run out to see “The DaVinci Code” on May 19. We know there is nothing unacceptable about saying that the basis of an entire religion is a fraud, protected by a century long murderous cabal. Who would find this concept offensive or unacceptable?

Fat Tony Returns
With the imminent return of the Sopranos I am once again forced to point out that Hollywood does not have a double standard with the consistent negative stereotype of Italians.

I just wonder why HBO or Showtime has never responded to multiple requests to meet regarding my dramatic series treatise. Maybe I should try FX. The working title is “The Schnitzels.” It’s a period piece about the homelife trials and tribulations of the head of a Concentration Camp on World War II Germany. For the Hollywood types think “Diary of Anne Frank” and “Schindler’s List” meet “The Sopranos.” Sure his job is abhorrent to the viewers, but look at his problems. Should Heinrich Schnitzel send his daughter, Wiese, to Bremen University or allow her to spend a year in her own in Austria? How upset will Henreich’s wife Heidi be when a clog in one of the gas nozzles causes him to stay late at work and miss a romantic dinner? Let’s not forget Heinrich’s cantankerous old mother Ingaborge. How can he be willing to stand up to the SS, but be afraid of little old Ingaborge? Witness the human drama as Heinrich and the boys unwind after a long day of working on “The Final Solution” at the Weihenstephan Bräustüberl Beer Hall. Talk about bada bing! For romantic intrigue, Heinrich becomes enamored with a Polish Jew, bargaining with her that while she continues to “amuse” him, she lives. What if the Gestapo finds out? More importantly, what if Heidi finds out?

Most importantly, how much of the details of his life will he reveal to his Psychiatrist, Dr. Jarvia Mallory? Can Dr. Mallory help Heinrich come to terms with his angst about balancing work and home life?

I am sure Hollywood would have no objections to this portrayal of an isolated segment of society with a historical context which does not try to cast aspersions on all Germans (to say nothing of Holocaust victims).

Good Night and Good Luck… and Thank God It Didn’t Win…

One bright spot from the Oscars is that “Good Night, and Good Luck” was shut out from the podium.

George Clooney won for Supporting Actor in “Syriana,” but his revisionist opus "Good Night, and Good Luck" was not rewarded with recognition it does not deserve.

For the uninitiated, be sure to pick up a copy of Allen Weinstein’s thought provoking work "The Haunted Wood." It provides details that my 1970s – 80s education never decided to delve into.
The hero of Clooney’s misguided homage is Edward R. Murrow, CBS News legend. Clooney (and all my history books) omit the fact that Murrow’s good friend Lawrence Duggan was a Soviet Spy. I guess Clooney’s movie would have been a little watered down if he let it slip that the brilliant and perceptive journalist Murrow, was not only unaware (or would not acknowledge) that hundreds of Soviet spies were running loose in the U.S. government but the more amusing part is that he was also unaware that his own dear friend Duggan was himself a spy.

Clooney and the unhinged Secular Left, push the mythos that McCarthy’s tactics led to careers being ruined. I can agree with them in Duggan’s case. After being questioned by the FBI, Duggan leapt from a window committing suicide. It is hard for your career to make a recovery once take such a final action as suicide.

After his death, Murrow angrily denounced the idea that Duggan could possibly have been disloyal to America. How could a friend of the master intellectual of our parent’s time be wrong? It was the evil anti-communist sentiment that did in Murrow’s friend. Apparently some things never change, the truth apparently never stand in the way of a CBS Anchorman forming a conclusion.

Thank to President Reagan and the fall of the Evil Empire, we now know the truth from decrypted Soviet cables and mountains of documents from Soviet archives. They prove beyond doubt that Lawrence Duggan was one of Stalin's most important spies. I don’t remember Clooney mentioning that "McCarthyism" didn't kill Duggan; his guilt did.

During the height of the Soviet purges in the mid-'30s, as millions of innocents were being tortured, exiled and killed on Stalin's orders, Murrow's friend Duggan was using his position at the State Department to pass important documents to the Soviets. The documents were so sensitive that Duggan had to return the originals to the State Department before the end of the day. Some were considered so important, they were sent directly to Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov.

On at least one occasion, Duggan sat with his Soviet handler for an hour as the handler photographed 60 documents for the motherland. Do you think these documents were also created using Microsoft Word and used proportional typefaces?

All this time, people Duggan knew personally were being falsely accused and executed back in the Soviet Union. Duggan expressed concern about Stalin's purges with his Soviet handler, but he didn't stop spying, apparently Duggan was mostly concerned about being falsely accused by Stalin himself someday.

Georgy Boy also omitted the fact that as a direct result of Murrow's good buddy Duggan’s actions, innocent people were killed. Specifically, one man was murdered solely to protect Duggan's identity as a Soviet spy.

Ignatz Reiss had been the head of Soviet secret police in Europe. As such, he was aware of Soviet agents in the U.S., including Duggan. Reiss was stunned by Stalin's bloody purges and in 1937; Reiss defected from the Soviet Union, threatening to expose Duggan if they came after him. What Reiss must have thought was a sound plan to allow him to end his life as a spy ended up being his death warrant.

Two months later, Soviet secret police tracked Reiss to a restaurant in Switzerland. According to the official declassified Soviet memo describing Reiss' murder, Soviet agents dragged Reiss out of the restaurant, shoved him in a car, shot him and dumped his body by the side of the road.

Soviet officials later informed Duggan's handler in America: "(Reiss) is liquidated, (but) not yet his wife. ... Now the danger that (Duggan) will be exposed because of (Reiss) is considerably decreased." I guess it was bad story telling for Clooney to include that part about how Murrow's good friend Duggan was an accomplice to murder.

After reading this account, I am wondering if anyone has the rights to turn “The Haunted Wood” into a film? Maybe I can get David Strathairn to reprise the role of Murrow? There are worse things for Strathairn, as I recall Edward Herrmann made a good living playing FDR in numerous films.

So let’s recap, we have the makings of a film with spies, suicide, murder and intrigue. The only thing we don’t have is the money to produce it. Hollywood will be spending its money next year on the Che Guevara biopic. For those unlearned, Che Guevara is most famous for leading Fidel Castro's forces in Cuba. If Clooney has his way, he will be releasing “Not All Snakes Hiss” his film extolling the innocence or Alger Hiss, to be followed by the Holiday release of “Gross Injustice” his long anticipated work extolling the innocence of the Rosenbergs.

Do you think Pat Sajak might have some of his "Wheel of Fortune" money saved to bankroll the film? Maybe Bo Derek?

My McCain Man

I have been hesitant to jump on the John McCain bandwagon, and as of this posting my feet are still firmly on the ground.

However, with responses like this letter to Wunderkind Barack Obama, I might be taking a first stride toward the steps of the “Straight Talk Express” bandwagon.

http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsCenter.ViewPressRelease&Content_id=1654

It is refreshing for someone other than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid to call someone out, in person, by name without the veiled references to “my opponent.”

I understand why President Bush is hesitant to “name names,” he is trying to remain above the fray, act “Presidential.” However, this does not give a pass to everyone else who is part of Hillary’s vast right wing conspiracy.

If McCain keeps this up, he will earn friends among those of us who have been hesitant to throw our support toward him.

Keep up the good work Senator McCain, you have nothing to lose and everything to win by sticking to your principals and calling them like you see them.