...dear Sarah.....!

I will try to work on this posting a bit more when I have a chance ...for now, just a few comments on what I think about the recent efforts by the Republican Party to run Alaska Governor Sarah as future V.P. of the ticket.

No question about it, she comes across as a wonderful down to earth, beautiful lady and she was obviously picked by the party to capture or convert the Hillary votes when it became clear that Mr.Obama had made up his mind not to ask Senator Clinton to be his V.P.

BUT:

To run for high office, president or vice, in the United States today,one should have a basic minimum of qualifications to be prepared for a job like this. A background in political science, history,geography and human relations should be an absolute base or minimum requirement...imagine the comment of D.Q. a few years ago I better brush up on my Latin so I can talk to people on my upcoming trip to Latin America..or something like that.Governor Sarah was under the impression that they speak African in Africa, she was not sure..is Africa a country or a continent.Incredible really....I will add more to this post soon...

...and the beat goes on:-

...events are rapidly taking shape...I look forward to the new Obama administration in the States, hopefully the end of the Bush regime will be a positive one, with some resolve or solution to the auto industry in North America and a positive bailout to this important sector of our economy...

Two groupes of three Canadian Soldiers blown up in Afganistan within the last few days make our participation in this troubled area of the world rather difficult. As well, our recently elected PC government is on shaky grounds and could soon be out of office, not a good time to plan or impliment drastic changes to our infrastructure or large capital projects which need the support of all parties and all Canadians.

Internet Fraud..indeed antivirus2008

...further to my last post,below, a friend now retired but for many years with IBM tells me that this horrible antivirus thing is a fraud sceme by what he calls the Russian mafia...figures...
Lots of information available on these horrible fraud artists if you take a few minutes to google for it... here is another typical complaint by a lady about this nonexisting fraudulent software...:
It appears that this lady somehow is under the impression that she is dealing with a normal business in Northamerica,....live and learn...I made the same mistake.
On May 18, 2008, while reading my e-mail, a popup from what I thought was my Windows Antivirus detactor indicated that my computer was infected with 41 different dangerous viruses, torjans and etc. I closed out my e-mail, and went back to the Windows Antivirus window, only to discover it had expired. Assuming that the popup was from Windows, I open the link to the Software-payment website, still thinking it was coming from Windows, I proceeded to purchase the Antivirus 2008 Software @$49.95, the AlphaWipe Tracks Cleaner 2008 @$34.95 and the Premium Support @$24.95. The purchase was done throught Software-payment.com with my Debt/Credit Card for a total of $110.24. If one does the math, the company also charged a $2.00 processing fee, of which was not mentioned in their Product Information Package. After I filled out the Software's online invoice, which included Name, Phone Number, E-Mail Address and Debit/Credit Card Number, a notation at the bottom of the invoice instructed that I would receive all download information through my e-mail address, of which they did do. The following is their portion of the e-mail I received: (My personal information is omitted)We appreciate you making your order.Product: Antivirus 2008 - 49.95 USDAlphaWipe Tracks Cleaner 2008 - 34.95 USDPremium support - 24.95 USD Site: www.software-payment.com Order Billed As: billinternet.com 8778717412 Order Number: 7164809 Your code for Antivirus 2008 is: a long list of complaint follows here...not needed to repeat ...these circumstance I have only been contacted once, by you, SO I AM MAKING THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS:I WANT MY SUBSCRIPTION CANCELLED AND THE PAYMENT OF $110.24 REIMBURSED TO MY DEBT CARD IMMEDIATELY. YOUR BILLING DEPARTMENT HAS ALL MY INFORMATION ON RECORD, SO THERE SHOULD BE NO NEED FOR ME TO DO ANYTHING FURTHER. Please be assured that I will not recommend that anyone purchase this companies products. Disgruntly Customer,Today is July 10th and I have yet to receive a reply from Robert.Thank you, I hope you can help me ......, Missouri U.S.A.
Antivirus2008 is a corrupt anti-virus tool that is widely promoted as a legitimate security application. In truth, it is nothing more than another scam of the countless army of malware parasites attacking computers via internet, daily. Antivirus2008 (also known as Antivirus 2008) is distributed through malicious websites that sell other fake anti spyware tools as well. Antivirus 2008 presents itself as VistaAntivirus2008 and System Antivirus 2008 as well. All these names hide the same fraud. The most common fabricated report displayed by these malwares is "Halt! Critical System Warning".Antivirus2008 is an unreliable program that displays exaggerated scan results in order to gain a purchase. DO NOT trust this scam and remove Antivirus2008 ASAP if you've been infected.

Canadian Federal Scene

Finance Minister Flaherty has already acknowledged that the government is considering the sale of assets in an attempt to reduce or eliminate any deficits. I agree that deficits must be strictly controlled and provide demonstrable direct benefits.
However, the presence in the Harper cabinet of Harrisites; Baird, Clement and Flaherty, all ideologues to the core, raises a large red flag if they are involved in the sale of government assets. Or....for that matter approve the sale of crytical privately owned assets sold into foreign control...
As a group, these men strongly endorsed the privatization Ontario Hydro. The problems Hydro faced at the time were mainly two fold;
1. A lack of transparency as demonstrated by the governments of all three political parties over decades. It was most evident by their interference with the setting of electricity rates and in the building of nuclear generating facilities.
2. Poor management practices in the running of Ontario Hydro. It was broken up and was sold at bargain prices, while leaving the public with a huge “stranded debt” and the new companies being managed by executives who are over-paid and have guaranteed golden-parachutes should all not go as planned.
This trio also endorsed the sale of the bargain priced 407 highway mainly to avert a deficit.
I can not understand or condone the sale of our public highway ( now a toll road) sold to a so called Spanish Consortium. The result was a momentary relief from a deficit while leaving Ontario drivers totally at the mercy of the private sector for longer than any driver at the
time would be driving.
This same group is in a position of influence in the evaluation of the possible sale of Canada’s assets. Potential candidates likely include:- Atomic Energy of Canada, just when nuclear power is about to become the main source for “green” power for years to come; the CN tower, a major communication hub in southern Ontario; Canada Post, surely a significant requirement in any nation; the CBC, for years an essential part of the life of the rural areas of the country. Based on their Ontario track record, I have doubts there will be any sustainable benefits for Canada.

INTERNET FRAUD ,from Russia

You have got to be kidding.....like a bat out of hell your antivirus promotion appeared on my computer...almost impossible to get rid of nagging efforts to sign me up...your software claimed to have found x number of viruses...after briefly installing your ware ( it was the only way to get rid of your promotion) this was to have been removed..Fraud, these virus items never existed in the first place.
...soonafter I received the same forced ads on my computer...again..this time called antivirus2009 instead of 2008...same or similar viruscomponent detected, fraud I figured and cancelled the thing.
I am not using your software, I have no idea what you want from me at this time and unless there is some kind of copycat outfit I consider what you are doing and your methods as clear fraud I want to expose...phonebusters.com will be sent a copy of this and I hope they will assist in stopping this kind of nonsense.I am using legitimate, purchased antivirus software, not your stuff and in order to clean up my computer I was forced to upgrade to xp professional, after dumping your software the machine never worked properly with the original xp.
This, above, was my response to an e mail just received....

This is the e mail, six months after the incident:-
>From: "support" <administrator1@antivirus2008y.com>>To: "F...L..." <xxxxxxx>>Subject: For user of the program «Antivirus 2008».>Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 07:23:18 +0100>>>>>>>>>>Esteemed F....L.... user of the program «Antivirus 2008».>>>>>On 2008-06-17 your have used the website http://www.antivirus2008y.com/ to purchase the copyrighted software «Antivirus 2008», which is our private property.>As the owners of the product we haven’t received the funds you paid for it yet. Your actions are in the nature of theft and fraud. We are preparing papers for the police and the courts to bring you to criminal liability to recover the monetary damages you brought.>For a complete clarification of the incident and to resolve the arisen conflict by a peace settlement, we need your cooperation. To do this you have to send us a written confirmation of purchasing our software. (the text of the letter you have to send is attached, please print it and fill in the fields «from ______», indicating your name, address, phone number, e-mail and other data identifying your person and sign the letter). Attaching the copy of a bank payment document confirming the payment for the purchased software (check, receipt, money orders, bank statements or other) to your letter is obligatory.>You must send good quality scan of your filled letter and bank payment document within 3 days after receiving this warning to e-mail support@antivirus2008y.com>In case no response from you is received we reserve the right to go to court and the police for your action are illegal to recover the monetary damage you brought.>>>Thank you for your understanding and look forward to a peaceful resolution of the conflict arisen.>>>Sincerely http://www.antivirus2008y.com/ site Administration.>>
><<>>

The rest of the story:-
Some six months ago my computer was molested with an ad message...for free...no charge ...a certain programme would scan my confuser and tell me if there were any virus components of any sort on my machine...
Impossible to get rid of this message, I took the FREE test and indeed..apparently 50 some odd serious virus related items were found by this outfit...free up to this point...but for a relatively small amount of money, they would instantly dispose of these nagging uglies on my machine.
I was stupid enough to give this outfit my visa info...and found later that I was billed not only for the antivirus program but also for two other items, a scan thing to use daily and a years free advise or something like that.
Aside from that....with my virus crap all cleaned up, supposedly, a new ad appeared on my machine....this time it was called the same as the last one,except instead of 2008...they used 2009...
Curious I took the test...and sure enough..the program detected 50 some odd virus related component on my machine. Guess I'm a little slow, but I suspected a scam, called my Visa/ Bank people and cancelled the payment.
A third party billing company apologised and eventually processed the refund....well.
I should have taken other actions, reported this to the Internet police or something but I'm getting too old to fight idiotic scams and let it go, unfortunately.
Now, six months later, it looks like this outfit, scam artists, is coming out of the woodwork, threatening me with police action and trying to collect money from me.

interesting times...

..the economy-the American scene--Canadian political troubles--housing market--wars and related terror aspects--failure by governments to act on urgent needs, infrastructure,trouble preparedness--Internet related happenings--world hunger--aids--china--India--Russia--Somalia--,

these are all topics we should have an opinion on. write about whether capability or talents as a writer are adequate or not, at least one should voice opinions and with some conviction stick with and promote new ideas...

CANADIANA CONFERENCE...

I recall clearly, as if it happened only recently, being sent to a conference as the local delegate from Scarborough East, to a happening labelled Canadiana Conference, some 40 or more years ago. At the long ago torn down hotel, 401 & Kennedy road somewhere in East Toronto a small liberal party delegation was appointed to look at future planning and related aspects...suggestions to the then Liberal Government in Ottawa.
It was in the days of creating a land bank in the east end of Toronto,Pickering area for the purpose of building a future new large airport replacing Malton/Pearson airport which had sort of outgrown itself.
There was also talk about a new similar project in Montreal, the feds were assembling land to construct what eventually ended up as the white elephant named Mirabel.

My suggestion to the planning group...chairman Colin Vaughan, broadcaster-architect, was to forget about a new airport for Toronto or Montreal but instead consider a new site, in or near Kingston Ontario for a now east-central region facility to serve Toronto-Montreal and Ottawas needs for long distance international flights. To bring passengers to the new facility, rapid-train links from the three areas to Kingston could be built, all of it probably at a far lesser cost with plenty of land available. After some discussion about the pros and cons, a working paper was to be submitted to the federal government.
..and that was the last I've heard of it.
C.V. commented " the french will never go for it".
The Pickering Seaton land thing is still unresolved an airport there will probably never be . The Mirabel airport has been built at great expense but did not work out very well, this multimillion dollar facility has been mothballed.
Times have changed much in the nearly two generations since I had the opportunity to participate in this planning conference. Many airlines have come and gone and the once existing Transcanada/TCA/Aircanada and CP Air are long history or have been sold.

The two Railways CN and CP are in foreign hands, little has been done to put new track where it should be, rail cars, many with dangerous cargo are rumbling through small towns, when new lines away from populated areas should have been built long ago.

Greetings..now read this America (USA)...

Thanksgiving and ...happy November, December,Christmas,new-year, and mostly, happy commencement of the new team in Washington in January..

This is part my laundry list of the
most serious troubles to solve, and to solve soon or at least get started on it
or it may be too late,chaos may ensue whatever that means.

*Financial mess and appropriate actions to
provide support where needed

*Get out of Iraq,just get out...provide
some support using NATO & UN

*Get a proper and useful health coverage
situation going, Federal directed,State administered

*Repair the infrastructure, highways,
railways, waterworks,bridges,dams,hurricane sensitive areas, forest regions,ship
passages,ports

*Proper border control and points of entry
support for immigration and customs related
needs

*Fix the increasing unemployment situation
(some of the implementation of above items will help considerably)

*Fight crime,gangs in ghetto areas, drug
cart ells, mafia

Other topics of some urgent attention may include improvement of education, less emphasis on sport stars and more attention to scholastic improvement, graduate more doctors, less lawyers, more nurses, less financial promoters, consider reviving the peace corps for a few years.

If short of ideas on how to solve some of these problems, look elsewhere to find some guidance. Canada too has serious problems, but at least our health care system appears to function without putting people into bankruptcy because they happen to have a hearth attack. This is no joke.

One day, returning from a trip to New Orleans in January to Orlando I became ill, pneumonia. One afternoon in the hospital, breathing some oxygen ended up costing me $2,500. This is not unusual, more typical than you think, surely a rich country like the USA should be able to do better than that.

America North...

Looks like things have settled down o bit. The Canadian elections long over, the new same old government is in place, still a minority situation in this country.

It is hoped that this new, government will last a bit, while the Liberals attempt to find their feet and a new leader. Anybody but this washed up NDP Rae I hope. clothesline watercolour by permission of the artist Diana Holditch,copywright

Too bad about S.Dion, he may have been OK but to talk about new tax ideas during an election especially something like a carbon tax... is deadly.

New Government, this time the Democrats rapidly getting their stuff together to commence governing early in the new year, probably not a moment too soon. Bush2, the shrub, had a meeting in Washington with 20 heads of state...the G 7 and sympathisers..supposedly all about the money fix bailout. Not sure how much the decider can decide these days. Can this guy do any more damage than he has caused already. Time for change.

USA

• Since we are closely linked to the USA economy we should pay close attention as to whats happening there. The actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are having a terribly negative effect on the economy.Usually, during times of war or conflict by the shear nature of an upturn in production capacity,will effect the economy..upturn in employment,support for the troops and the government in power are usually seen as a result of focusing on whatever war activity the country finds itself in. Not this time.
  Whatever it takes to change the mind set of Americans, time,effort, the appropriate philosophy and substantial funds( borrowing from the future) must be directed to accomplishing the tasks desperately needing attention in this country.
  * End the conflict in Iraq
  * Restructure the failure of large industries ( Auto, Steel, Agriculture, Petrol)
  * Create a Health Insurance system that works, look at the Canadian model
  * Immigration issues and border control
  * Hurricane and other natural disaster prone items,Forest fires, Earthquake readiness
  * Refocus on international relations that make sense,start with the Americas.

These are a few of the main problem areas as I see it. Changes in employment or unemployment numbers will follow the efforts. Perhaps another limited term peace corps group could be created, this would be far more beneficial to America and the world than new bomb delivery systems or star war creations.

USA

This is an important day in history.
Hopefully Mr.Obama will be elected as the future President of the USA and along with the Democratic Congress some long needed changes will soon be in the works:


Just to name a few:
Ending the nonsense in Iraq, I find it hard to call it a war
Health care affordable for every citizen, a right of citizenship in most civilised countries
Cleaning up the financial mess, extremely serious present condition
Immigration, not Even in the news these days, mayor topic just a year ago
Federal input to repair the infrastructure, bridges, highways, hurricane damage
Relations with long neglected regions of the world, particularly the Americas

USA

EMMA MAERSK

This monstership, a miracle of modern technology operates strictly as a transpacific containercarrier.At207 ft width and 1300 ft long it is too large to navigate Suez or Panama canals.

A crew of 13 ( similar size aircraftcarriers may have a crew of 5,000).

11 cranes can operate simulaneously. Cost to build about $150 Million.Speed 31 knots, can make to trip in 4 days.Commandbridge is the hight of a 10 story building. Cargo capacity 123,000 tons.

Operated by the Maersk Line Emma Maersk has been operating between China and Califirnia USA since Sept.06.

The returntrip to China is usually made with empty containers...

Europe

....one of my trick questions at parties....:now that east and west Germany are once more combined ...what is the second largest country in Europe...realising of course that Russia, or the new name The Russian Federation is by far the largest country in Europe as well as the World.
Usually, the answer to my trick question is..Germany. Or England..France...Spain..
All wrong actually.
The second largest European Country is the Ukraine, former component of the Soviet Union.

the ugly American 10

Little Boy and Fat Man
Little Boy was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. It exploded approximately 1,800 feet over Hiroshima, Japan, on the morning of August 6, 1945, with a force equal to 13,000 tons of TNT. Immediate deaths were between 70,000 to 130,000.

Little Boy was dropped from a B-29 bomber piloted by U.S. Army Air Force Col. Paul W. Tibbets. Tibbets had named the plane Enola Gay after his mother the night before the atomic attack.

Fat Man was the second nuclear weapon used in warfare. Dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, Fat Man devastated more than two square miles of the city and caused approximately 45,000 immediate deaths.

Major Charles W. Sweeney piloted the B-29, #77 that dropped Fat Man. After the nuclear mission, #77 was christened Bockscar after its regular Command Pilot, Fred Bock.

While Little Boy was a uranium gun-type device, Fat Man was a more complicated and powerful plutonium implosion weapon that exploded with a force equal to 20 kilotons of TNT.

world

I've been somewhat intrigued by this strange place called Easter Island. A dutch ship one day found this little spot in the middle of the Pacific, on Easter Sunday and so they called it Easter Island.

politics...USA

time for change

hopefully...we will get there soon...

The new king and his team must concentrate on this hemisphere...north America and south/central America and bring this outrageously expensive middle east adventure to an end.

The financial mess caused by the stupidity and greed of the ruling class must be dealt with. The infrastructure has to be repaired and in the gulf region extensive changes should be made to avoid or at lest reduce the impact of another disaster.

An added concern is the re-emergence of a new and powerful Russia..not that the numbers matter much but we must remember that this nation has an incredible number of nuclear warheads at its disposal. (8000 or so as compared to our 2500).

politics...Canada

...new government..same party in power...a few more seats..the opposition party badly hammered. The ruling PC party now has 144 seats in the house ( of commons) as we call it, the opposition Liberal party is down to 77 seats, the strange phenomenon the Quebec bloc party got 50 seats and the NDP gained a few all at the liberal expense.

A clear majority would have called for 155 seats I believe, it did not happen and so, Mr. Harper will have to work with what he's got or risk another election in the near future.

Another problem the PCs are struggling with is the seats in the Senate. Because it is not an elected body the new PCs ( remember these are not the Torie's of old) had in mind to do away with the Senate....but to do that they need a clear majority. Now they may even be forced to appoint a few members to keep the liberals in check who at this point are able to slow down any new legislation.

And so, I've been musing....who was the last Tory? It is astounding to realise that this PC party is in reality a new party, grown out of the western reform party ( Manning) and has relatively little to do with the Progressive Conservatives from the days of Diefenbaker or Mulroney.

So, who is or was the last Tory?

Mulroney? Joe Clark? The Quebec Guy who turned Liberal to run the Province of Quebec? The Magnamans Daughter Stonachs old boyfriend with his dog?

Actually...I believe the last Tory in power was Kim Campbell, and in the election that followed her appointment she even lost her own seat...hard to believe that after two successive majority governments the party was reduced to two seats...

Or does it really matter. In any case after having been a supporter of the liberal party most of my life I've decided to vote PC the last two elections..

state of the world...

Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the ninth most populous urban area in the European Union. Located in northeastern Germany, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan area, comprising 5 million people from over 190 nations. First documented in the thirteenth century, Berlin was successively the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1918), the German Empire (1871-1918), the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) and the Third Reich (1933-1945). After World War II, the city was divided; East Berlin became the capital of East Germany while West Berlin became a Western enclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall from 1961-1989. Following German reunification in 1990, the city regained its status as the capital of all Germany. Berlin is a major center in European culture, politics, media, and science. Its economy is primarily based on the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, media corporations, environmental services, congress and convention venues; it also serves as a continental hub for air and rail transport. Berlin is the third most-visited tourist destination in the EU. Other industries include traffic engineering, optoelectronics, information technology, vehicle manufacturing, health care, biomedical engineering, and biotechnology. The metropolis is home to world-renowned universities, research institutes, sporting events, orchestras, museums and personalities. Berlin's urban landscape and historical legacy has made it a popular setting for international film productions. The city is recognized for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a high quality of living. Berlin has evolved into a global focal point for young individuals and artists attracted by a liberal lifestyle and modern zeitgeist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin

America...

...time for change...changes...a change...

state of the world...

Fall...winter 2008 fashion,frankly this picture tells me just how screwed up this world is at the moment. This must be just about the goofiest getup I've seen in a while..

America...

...the big bail out failed, nobody knows or can even remotely guess where this will take us.
The USA, still the most powerful nation on earth is in deep trouble, caused by the ignorance of the ruling class, the billionaires supporting this group often referred to as the internationals...bla..bla...
What happens next is any ones guess. The British Empire is gone, Das German Reich is long history,the French have never been the same since the last of the Napoleonic wars, the Russian bear is about to flex it's muscles, fed up wit the sniping by uncle SAM, and despite it's considerable problems it looks like China is rapidly emerging as the new world power..not sure exactly where to fit Japan into this.

politics...Canada

An election has been called and sometime next month Canada will have a new Government.
I suspect that the Progressive Conservatives will have a slight majority or at the very least be back with a minority government.
For many years I've supported the Liberal Party, but I think it would be premature to have them back to run this country.
Canada is a very difficult country to govern ( what country isn't?).
The west feels detached from the rest of the land. Oil rich Alberta is in a boom state and has the attitude "let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark".
Saskatchewan and Manitoba don't appear to matter much. Liberal Ontario with the loss of manufacturing jobs claims to be a have not province no longer willing to support the other regions. Quebec with the separatist party making up the opposition as well as being elected federally is a joke. The eastern Provinces are still in have not mode, and, finally, Newfoundland with the offshore oil development would like to keep it all, never mind the many years of substantial support by Canada..
At this time I believe our best hope is a slight majority government of the PC Party. My choice, Steven Harper.

About the clover

....Diana keeps finding 4 leaf and sometime 5 leafclovers in the backyard...I've never found one in my lifetime.....

politics...USA

With the financial meltdown, (Fanny May & Freddy Mac)...Banks in troubles and failures, the departure of large brokerage firms etc., the USA has reached a point which at least in some ways reminds me of the great depression.
A quick fix appears almost impossible a few weeks prior to the election and unless the two parties get together to seriously bail out the country with workable solutions, the next few years spell serious trouble.
It was only the involvement in WWII that got the the states out of the depression and into a whole new world scene .
This will be a turning point in history and it is almost impossible to guess what the next few months will bring us.
It is truly unfortunate that we ended up with an individual in the White house who is clueless, has no sense of history, does not have the brains or talent to deal with either the American or World problems. A president who started this quagmire scene in the middle east, lost touch with the Americas and Europe and totally lost touch with the domestic scene. His go shopping attitude in the face of the 9/11 disaster has dragged us down to where we are today.
Yes...I have some solutions:-

World Scene; Georgia

....it's been much in the news lately and it could well be the spark to a new world crisis, no kidding..We are talking about Georgia..former component of the Soviet Union, of late under the influence of the USA..

It must be noted here that the USA should be extremely careful as to how to approach this scene, the movers and shakers of the Russian Federation have found their backbone thanks to the oil billions and the improved standard of living of their people.

At this time they appear to be firmly in control of the country.
While they admit that their controlled satellite states are gone from their direct influence to days Russians are having another look at the Soviet union components which have split off to become separate republics or countries if you will.
(Satellite states would be Poland, East Germany, Tchekoslovakia, Hungary,Yugoslavia and a host of others Romania-Albania, including the three Baltic states).

The two former components of the Soviet Union the Russians want to get back under their control would be The Ukraine and Georgia.

We must remember that the last foreign minister of the Soviets was a fellow named Edvard Shevardnadze born and educated in Georgia. The most Super soviet ever, Josef Stalin was a Georgian...in fact he refused to speak his native language and because his son never learned to speak Russian, Stalin refused to communicate with him.
It will be interesting how this flash point scene develops in the next few weeks but the point is that the Russians
have taken a stand and are in no way willing to bend to efforts of American Imperialism.

Two provinces of the Geogian Republic attempted to separate...

August 8/08 after Georgian troops tried to reclaim the breakaway province and launched an offensive involving heavy bombing of Tskhinvali,( wik link) Russian troops entered South Ossetia. Russian Troops also entered into Abkhazia. On August 10th, 2008 Russia entered Georgian territorial waters. Russia also entered into Georgian cities, and captured the main east west highway, effectively cutting the country in two. Both sides agreed to a cease-fire on August 12th, 2008, but on August 13th, 2008 Russia "violated " that cease-fire and sent troops and paramilitaries into the Georgian city of Gori.

art

Recently I created another blog to show off my somewhat limited talents as a painter...no, not walls or houses but art..picturs, scenes, birds, girlybums,portraits, you name it.

Whenever I get a little carried away thinking that I have some ability to express myself in art, I quickly view a couple of pictures by Panini..Italian painter, architect and stage manager.Just looking at this mans incredible productions rapidly brings me back to reality.

In any case, my art blog is:

http://fredsart.blogspot.com/

and you may want to have a look at it.

In the year 9, the Germans,....then...

And now, something totally different:

the 2000 year anniversary

of what many years later would become the country of Germany...we would refer to the date today as the

year 0009

...that is 9 years after the birth of Christ. Die Schlacht im Teuteburger Wald.

It was in the area, near the former east German border and close to Wolfsburg, the city famous for being the birthplace of the Volkswagen that history was made.

Varus, commander of 3 legions of roman soldiers (a total of about 20,000 men),somehow or other encountered incredible resistance and in fact lost his legions. I learned in school as a kid that Hermann der Cerusker managed to assemble enough men trained in bows and arrows to totally defeat the Romans.

This took place at a time when Rom and it's Cesar's were masters of Europe and the middle east. They had enslaved most of central Europe( Gallia,Britain,Central Europe).. as well as Egypt, Syria, Babylon and were about to move east as well..

Hermann stopped all that...;( actually, his name was Arminius, no idea where Hermann came from...).

after the loss of the roman troupes Rom was no longer interested in these regions, they called it the land of the barbarians.This area was never part of ancient Rom and it only became component of the so called Holy Roman Empire of German Nations hundreds of years later..which oddly enough did not include Rom.

AMERICA

...this picture is made up of 21,ooo soldiers..

American Presidents, world rulers, Kings...
Woodrow Wilson should probably be considered as one of the most intelligent of the American "Rulers".

AMERICA

Some useless comments on this idiotic gun law....is it not time that we get rid of this right to bear arms thing? How can we want to be an example to the rest of the world, export democracy, preach to the people of the world what's right and wrong and at the same time insist on an old amendment to the constitution called the right to bear arms...surely we can't be that stupid.

we...humanity keep on butchering one another, it's amazing that there are 6.7 billion of us on this earth. The picture depicts a decisive battle of the 1800's French and Germanic troupes...this one was won by the Prussians,soon after famous Bismarck managed to piece together what became DasDeutsche Reich...with the Kaiser at the top...

AMERICA

...happy 4th. of July America...and may the next year or two solve some of your many troubles.

...about the stupid picture....found it somewhere and just had to copy it...

it's kind of silly really

...but there you are....

AMERICA

Astonishing how time flies, another 2 weeks gone by since my last visit here..so much to do, and say, so little time.

Looks like Mrs.Clinton is done, the new up front Democratic Party winner is firmly in place and I hope he will soon be the new President of the United States. It will be a matter of " The King is gone...long live the new King". I never really realised just how much power the US President really has once in place. If Woodrow Wilson would have acted even slightly somewhat optional than he did, we would have a totally different World today. The fact of the matter is because of his lack of understanding the world today is not at all what it might have been.

If not for the slave trade, horrible as it was...none of the black/ colored/ somewhat racially mixed Americans obviously would be alive today.

It is good to reflect on these matters occasionally we might even learn a thing or two and avoid horrible costly mistakes in the future.

Vietnam....a complete screw up. There was no need for us to be there. What a joke, "to stop Communism". The Vietnamese simply did not want to be ruled by the Japanese, the French or the Americans, or for that matter by the Chinese.

Iraq, what a horrible mess we've created there and by the looks of it there's no way out. Was it bad information ( can't call it intelligence ) or how did we end up in this quagmire?

*7*

It's been a busy month and a lousy cold dragged me down as well. There's much in my head about worldconcerns, it comes and goes...question is who cares?

...about time...

So I figured that I should at least post one more blogpost this month..now that my machine has been fixed...no big deal, powersupply replaced, almost cost me as much as a new on sale puter...

in any case, can't say much more about the political scene but hope that Hillary or Obama end up in the Washington...we desperatly need a change..more than ever.

We Americans are about as lost as the girl in the picture...all dressed up,high heels,and looking at a scene that needs fixing. Our infrastructure is a mess, we face more and more disasters at home and around the world but in spite of it all we continue this total nonsense in Iraq.

Dear Hillary:

...my machine screwed up...powersupply blown out...new powersupply, more ram..the beat goes on...

I have not constructed anything new or worth-while to publish...so, for my readers this is just a sign of life...more soon...

Dear Hillary:

...just an idea...big deal decision time..why not make a deal with Obama...you run and be president for one term...he will be the Vice...and in 4 years you will not run...might work.

...by the way...I do not like this line of Truman's : " if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen"...good line but Truman was a war criminal in my view...or war crimes criminal, whatever. No matter how badly the Japs acted at the start and during the war, to let lose the two atomic bombs on a large population at a time when the Japanese were ready to capitulate is in my opinion a dastardly crime...about as bad a Churchill's bombing of Dresden or Stalin's mass killings of his own population or in fact Hitlers mass extermination of the Jews and Gypsies.

Leave Truman's wise ass sayings in the history books, don't quote him as if he was someone to be honored or revered as a good human being...he was not.

*7*

I've been using the little word "normal" recently, probably more than I should..What's normal? The norm, a standard to measure by ? now hear this...:these comments are not mine, excuse the spellies but I found the comments interesting.

So we were talking today about normality, and i thought it was so true. i want what isn't normal. i want something different, i want something i have thought about, something that resonates with me, has personal meaning, a journey shaped into a life shaped into the creases of lines on my face from sun and wind and laughter shaking down the days.we were talking about relationships, about lifestyles, about dreams and movements in our lives. about trying to find the spark to let the art out, to give ourselves the freedom to live as we dream to.and i was thinking of him, of how he told me he was normal, but how to me he is intriguing and mysterious. how i told him i was boring and he said i was anything but. whose measuring stick are we using? how can we be all these things and yet truly be nothing all at once?

interesting, si?

Dear Hillary:

The ...last blog entry for the month...and it has nottn to do with nottn.

Like this King fellow said in La. after the riots and senseless destruction...why can't we all get along...or something like that.


I keep finding pictures or caricatures of the Spanish nobleman Don Quijote ( Don Quixote, really; pronounce the x somewhat like in the German ch for Bach, or the Scottish Loch.. like Loch Ness).

It is indeed like fighting windmills. Every day is a waste as far as this Iraq scene is concerned. The sooner we focus on the real problems in the world, the better. We've totally lost our aims, aspirations and if this nonsense keeps up we will face another catastrophic 20s style depression. All our efforts should be channeled into improving out life's and the life's of those around us, near and far. Instead we are fighting windmills and not the real enemy, like: starvation, a totally neglected infrastructure, loss of faith in us by most American states and friends in Europe.

...about time...

Remember Carvilles line?
"it's the economy,stupid"....
Bush 1 had an approval rating of 90% when the economy started to fall apart a bit. J.Carville, Clinton promoter used this simple line and it caught on. Bush lost. Clinton won, not one but two terms.

*7*

Earthday..


...what a picture..what a gifted artist..

...end of the month,March 31.. sybling retired (shrink ) 65th..

hopefully the end of a lousy winter and promise of a nice spring.
That just about sums it up for me this month.
Another unwelcome dream about having passed away and the trouble the fellows had to get my frame down the stairs of the old villa.






Friend Debra sent me this picture a little while back, it is part of 200 Million Dollars recovered from a raid on a Druglord ( Mexico). You'll notice the pile of Canadian Currency as part of it.

marching on...

By J. Friedrich ...writer for Die Welt ( the world).
about...war criminals, Hitler, Stalin,Truman and Churchill....this is my comment not the writers.
"The train tracks crossing the city," states the US governmental report on the effect of the Hiroshima bomb, "were back in working order by August 8, two days after the attack." Only then did the gamma waves and neutrons manifest themselves in human bone marrow and start taking deadly effect. Even thin cement slabs near Ground Zero had stopped the radiation. The majority of the 80,000 deaths were caused by heat radiation, shock waves and flying debris.40 year old Shugita Chiyoko, searching for her husband among the body parts strewn under the Shosoji Temple on August 7th, only recognised him by his feet. "My husband had a very high arch." The neighbours were amazed. "'We've been married for 20 years,' I said. 'I can tell by his feet that it's him.' Around his ankles were the leggings he'd worn when he left that morning. The rest was cut off."Only in 1950 did American physicists start researching nuclear heat waves, measured in calories per square centimetre (cal/cm2). President Truman had had the thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb built in January. Its destructive potential, measured during the first test in November, was the equivalent of ten million tonnes of TNT, compared with twenty thousand tonnes for the Hiroshima bomb. But the real advantage of the new weapon lay in its thermal effect. Since the heat waves outstripped the shock waves, the data from the 1945 explosions were reviewed.

The fire storm that enveloped the area around Hiroshima had a radius of 1.5 km and a thermal output of roughly 10 cal/cm2. A one million tonne bomb would achieve 22 cal/cm2. But fire damage was hard to predict, as too many other variables are involved. What role is played by wind, temperature, humidity and the individual incendiary properties of each city?Data to answer such questions had only existed for ten years. The Luftwaffe had pioneered bombing raids over Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coventry. But it was only since 1943 that the incineration of cities from the air had amounted to deliberate mass killing. The fire bombing of Hamburg killed 45,000 people overnight, more than the Luftwaffe had achieved in nine months of dropping bombs on England. Only eight weeks earlier,the fire in Wuppertal had resulted in 3,000 deaths, an unprecedented figure until then.The fire in Wuppertal burnt in the air circulation pattern particular to enclosed river valleys. In Hamburg it was the dry summer heat; in Heilbronn, Dresden and Pforzheim it was winter snow. Tokyo was built almost entirely of wood and paper, Darmstadt of sandstone, Munster of brick. Hildesheim and Halberstadt were criss-crossed by narrow streets lined with half-timbered houses, Mannheim was divided into classic quadrants, Dortmund and Duisburg were made up of sprawling 19th century blocks. The thermonuclear planners delved into the fund of knowledge left by the area bombing of the Axis powers. This was the only way to understand how individual cities burn.The historic fires in San Francisco, Hamburg and London had nothing in common with the procedure whereby in only 17 minutes (Würzburg) or 21 minutes (Dresden), cities were showered with hundreds of thousands of incendiary bombs. These sparked thousands of fires, which within three hours became a flaming sea, several square kilometres wide. Large natural fires normally have a single source, and are driven for days by the wind. But war statistics showed that such winds played a minor role in fires caused by bombs. The real destructive power was not in the wind that drives the fire, but in the fire itself, which unleashes its own hurricane on the ground.

Neither buildings nor people can escape the logic of the elements of fire and air. A fire starts, it sets the air in motion, fire and air form a vortex extinguishing life and all that belongs to it: books, altars, hospitals, asylums, jails and jailers, the block warden and his child, the armourers, the people's court and all the people in it, the slave's barracks and the Jew's hideout, the strangler as well as the strangled. Hiroshima and Dresden, Tokyo and Kassel were transformed from cities into destructive systems. The agent of change is the bomb war, and the bomb war is its construction site. Work continues to this day, it’s a work in progress. There is hardly a nation not working at it, and the numbers are growing.When 40 years ago, a handful of atomic scientists studied the complex chemistry and mechanics which the war generation had used to raze cities, they were seeking what no one had experienced since the war: military mass destruction in real time, the laboured route from Warsaw to Hamburg to Nagasaki.The effectiveness of the methods – a carpet of bombs dropped from a thousand choreographed planes on holy Cologne in 1942, the flash of energy in 1945, brighter than a thousand suns, deadlier than 200,000 tonnes of TNT – sent a message: it works! And that which works, anyone can do. And if everyone can do it, it is highly unlikely that nobody will. This 'if' is purely a matter of belief and luck; it is actually the realm of hope and prayers. The 'how' on the other hand is a practical occupation. Since Hiroshima and Dresden, this 'how' has been worked on feverishly. How could similar death zones be made to be safer, more manageable, more cost-effective and larger?The downfall of the two cities also tells an ugly story about the 'if' of the weapon of mass destruction. With the know-how in place, the grounds for deployment practically took care of themselves. In 1939, a few weeks after Otto Hahn's splitting of uranium had brought him closer to the laws of matter, research was launched into whether something like this could be used in a bomb. To describe this new source of energy, physicists Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Siegfried Flügge used an image: that the chain reaction in a cubic meter of uranium oxide would be sufficient to catapult Berlin's Wannsee lake into the stratosphere.


The Wehrmacht understood immediately saw that this image was on its head. Far more practical would be to drop a force like the Wannsee onto a city like Berlin. Either way this was a practical application of Einstein's formula E = mc2. Einstein, who fled to the USA to escape the Nazis, understood better than anyone the identity between understanding the world and destroying it. After Hahn's uranium experiments, phenomenal capacities for energy and destruction were available to all. In his day, immense resources, a monstrous character and access to uranium were required. Everything is much simpler today; you can just buy it.When the monster Hitler battered France in May 1940, taking Belgium on the way, he also gained access to the world's uranium chamber: the Belgian Congo. This prompted Einstein to write President Roosevelt, advising him to counter the destructive potential in his formula. America should build an atom bomb as a preventive measure. To stop the annihilator Hitler from possessing it first, the free world must have a monopoly on it. Their bomb would arrive before his - to some extent, the weapon expression of his character: a machine of hell to overthrow the prince of hell. The only problem was that the bomb had to be built before the war was decided.While the industrial giant USA embarked on the most formidable development project of all time, the military giants Germany and Russia competed for victory. Germany seemed to have the advantage in the autumn of 1942 as it stood at the heights of Caucasus and the banks of the Volga. Just next door lay Kazakhstan and Iran. Aside from these two front lines, thousands of kilometres apart, the Germans had another front about four kilometres over their heads. In the sky above Germany, the men of Prime Minister Churchill and Air Marshall Harris were fighting doggedly and with heavy losses. Since 1942 they had stopped bombing key military targets and started burning cities.Because Germany had more factories than England had bombers, precision strikes on steel and hydrogenation plants were less painful than precision strikes on sparse aircraft. At the beginning of 1942, the 400 or so bombers did not present an insurmountable force for Germany's anti-aircraft guns and fighter pilots. Understandably, the bombers took refuge in the darkness of the night sky where they were more difficult to see. But they couldn't see much either, at most the vague outlines of a city.A city like Hamburg, with 1.5 million inhabitants, cannot be bombed in 30 minutes with 3,000 tonnes of bombs. More time and more tonnage are needed. The British had to learn to burn cities. As one of their foremost fire strategists, Horatio Bond, explained, the navigational problem of "hit or not hit" could be solved by dropping 600,000 incendiary bombs on Dresden. The detonation bomb intended for the Krupp factory in Essen which lands instead on the Krupp hospital is a waste in military terms. Not so the incendiary bomb, because the hospital spreads the fire. All of the bombs pay off, because the city itself multiplies their effect. But the city fights them too, by extinguishing and choking the flames. The Royal Air Force and the US bombing fleet took three years to halfway master the technique of airborne fire bombing: the preparation of an inextinguishable inner city fire.

Between February and August 1945, in Dresden, Pforzheim, Würzburg, Halberstadt, Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Tokyo etc., a total of 330,000 people died in conventional incendiary attacks, 120,000 in nuclear ones. Four fifths of Japanese victims were buried without being identified. Dr. Shigenori, military air defence commander, wrote: "Countless bodies, clothed and naked, black as coal, were floating in the dark waters of the Sumida River. It was unreal. They were dead people, but you couldn't tell if they were men or women. You couldn't even tell if the objects floating past were arms, legs or burnt wood." Before they died, they had jumped into the water to escape the fiery air which braised their lungs and set their clothes alight. People ran from the burning zones with their belongings strapped to their backs, failing to notice when these caught fire. One mother slung her baby over her shoulder and only noticed when she stopped to catch her breath that the child was engulfed in flames. Those who jumped into the water were no better off. The liquid was bubbling like the air, and the swimmers cooked in it.Had the Hiroshima bomb hit Tokyo instead, there would have been four times the number of dead. Theoretically, 1,000 bombers each loaded with 10 tonnes of conventional munition could also have achieved 300,000 dead, but it would have been more laborious and far less certain of success. In Germany in 1945, death rates in the tens of thousands were only achieved three times: in Dresden, Pforzheim and Swinemünde. The difference between the methods of destruction is, put simply, that nuclear weapons themselves produce the pressure and heat energy that pulverises buildings, sears people and generates fire. The combination of burning and explosion in conventional operations takes a less direct path via the materials of the city. These must react to the various impulses of the finely tuned munition: roofs are torn up, windows shatter. Otherwise, the houses wouldn’t become ovens, nor the cellars crematoriums; fire requires draught. The stone facades must channel the heat down to the foundations where the people are cowering.There were cities like Berlin that did not work right. The width of the streets, the firewalls, the abundance of greenery and canals opposed the fire-injections and responded wrong. But Dresden's narrow streets, decorative old town and wooden buildings fed the fires according to plan. The carefully selected triangle between the Ostragehege park and the main railway station functioned as a "fire-raiser". The old cities, bent with age, testimonies to the distant past, were best suited to such attacks. Freiburg, Heilbronn, Trier, Mainz, Nuremberg, Paderborn, Hildesheim, Halberstadt, Würzburg: this avenue of German history shared the lot of Dresden in these months. For the allied fire bomb strategists, the study of their material composition was a science in itself.In Watford, England, as well as in Eglin Field, Florida, and Dugway Ground, Utah, dummy towns were built complete with German and Japanese materials and inventories. This sort of thing requires thoroughness. Only real Japanese floor matting can be used, only the right number of real German toys in the German house. More woollen coats are stored in Germany than in Japan, in solid cupboards of oak, pine and beech. How many books, which curtains, what type of cushions? The German roof beams provide the crowning touch. Then the practise can start.
The practise is a success when the right combustibles meet the right materials. That is the most difficult part, because it has to be carried out from four kilometres up in the night sky. Red and green lights mark the death zone as if drawn with a coloured pen. To drop all the munition into this lit frame, a new flight technique was developed in August 1944 over Königsberg, known as "the fan". The oncoming squadron crosses a designated point, in Dresden a sports field. That is the hinge. When the point is crossed, the aeroplanes fan out from each other, to the north-east and the south-east. Each plane breaks off at its own angle, and knows a distance measured in seconds from the hinge, called the overshoot. Each pilot is allotted a different overshoot. When it shows on the display, the bomb bay opens.The fan flies at three altitudes. With exact wind calculation, the munition from all three altitudes fall in parabolic trajectories over the target segment, equally distributed. Then it’s saturated. When an air force has achieved such a feat, it does not ask too probingly whether mass destruction is worthwhile from military perspective. There's nothing wrong in showing what you can do. What does not count now will count later, and then it should be done well. One can only rehearse for future wars in current ones. That hardens people in a different way. When soldier Jack Couffer walked among the houses of the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah in 1943, which, according to the Air Force "correspond to the type of housing in which 80 percent of the German industrial population lives", he started imagining things. "I looked in the empty windows and imagined with terrible clarity that the houses were inhabited, bursting with life, with people walking through the narrow alleys on their way to and from the factories, street traders, shoppers, children playing. It is easier to set a sterile place like that on fire if you whisk such fantasies away". The coming air war was no longer to be won with scruples. Five years later Curtis Le May, warhorse in the campaigns over Germany and Japan and then head of the US Strategic Air Command, comforted himself with the thought that as there were no longer any civilians, there was no longer anyone to protect. Otherwise he could not have run the office that developed the "Reaper" and "Trojan" plans in 1949 – 1950, in which 100 atom bombs were to be dropped on 70 Russian cities causing 2.7 million deaths. The plan was based on assessments General Le May had brought home from Japan. "We knew when we burned a city back then, that we would kill many women and children. The aim of the strategy is to destroy the enemy's war-making potential. All that had to be obliterated." The Japanese had a complex and broad-based manufacturing system. "You only needed to walk through one of our roasted targets and take a look at the ruins of the countless tiny houses. Some kind of drill press stuck out of every pile of rubble. The entire population was involved in building aeroplanes or war munition. Men, women and children." That’s why they were slaughtered in the Second World War. "There are no innocent civilians. Nowadays you fight a people, not armed forces." When whole populations have to be exterminated, it is no wonder that 10,000 US nuclear warheads were amassed at the time of the Berlin and Cuba crises. Four hundred would have been enough to wipe out a third of the Russian population, which was 200 million in 1960. Defence Secretary Robert McNamara wanted to keep US casualties below 20 percent in the event of a skirmish. More would not be acceptable. As a result, 10 percent – a loss of 18 million – would be accepted.
Einstein had long lived in horror of his bomb, which was supposed to erase evil from the planet. It was evil itself and the evil was his creation. The special weapon against Hitler lost its addressee before it was ready. And already in November 1944, secret service intelligence suggested that it was a false alarm. Hitler's weapon of mass destruction didn’t exist. The Germans were lagging way behind in these arts and would not achieve much more in this last of their foreseeable wars. General Eisenhower was already in Aachen, and Marshall Zhukov was on the Vistula. Both the same distance from Berlin.While the armies raced against each other to take Hitler's last bastions – the economic one in the Ruhr region and the political in Berlin - the atomic physicists were racing against the end of the war. It looked as though the military campaigns would be over before the bomb was ready. If Hitler – the bomb’s cause and intended object - was no longer a viable target, Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed that, under certain circumstances, Japan might serve the purpose. But these circumstances were being taken care of, one after another. Like the Third Reich, the Empire of the Sun was militarily and economically knocked out, cut off from the sea and without a supply of oil, metal and foodstuffs. It was defenceless against Le May's fire attacks. Moreover, the US de-coding service, which had broken the diplomatic code to the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, reported breathlessly that Tokyo was imploring Stalin to intercede for peace.The uranium bomb was also non-essential because the fire hurricanes were capable of equally respectable damage. Moreover, it had just been established in Germany that surgical strikes on oil lines and transport routes caused far more military damage. With the German fighters grounded for lack of fuel, attacks could be carried out with practically no losses. This also made conventional mass destruction unnecessary. The relatively ineffective emergency stopgap would not, thankfully, be necessary; now there was something better. It was clear that the Allies would be victorious, Hitler and Albert Speer knew it as well. On January 30th, Speer, the Minister for Armaments and War Production, announced to Hitler that the country's economy would be demolished in four to eight weeks. "After this collapse, the war can not be continued, also from a military perspective." An accurate calculation.But none of the war lords were clear on what kind of a political circumstance was to be established after these eight weeks on the shattered continent. At least Stalin knew what he wanted. Hitler knew things were out of his hands. All he could do was drag as many people as possible with him into death and leave all that remained standing in Germany to be decimated. Hitler's instructions to Speer and the regional Nazi leaders dovetailed with those of the two remaining war leaders; Churchill and Roosevelt unleashed with their 3,000 aeroplanes an "around-the-clock-bombing", which Basil Liddell Hart, the greatest British military historian of his day, termed "the Mongol devastations". Two thirds of the bomb tonnage of the five year air war fell in February, March and April of 1945, most of it on militarily insignificant targets. The tiniest part of this tonnage, the precision strikes on the 16 major train routes connecting the Ruhr region with the rest of Germany, had the greatest effect. The Western Allies had assigned most of their resources to building up their strategic air forces. Their future empire was to be based on this weapon, even better when combined with a nuclear load. Even if there was no suitable recipient for the nearly complete super bomb other than the mortally wounded Japan, War Secretary Henry Stimson, the bomb's greatest advocate, already saw himself in possession of the "most terrible weapon ever known in human history". The bomb had cost two billion dollars. A huge amount of money at the time, but little compared with the sums invested in the worst, or possibly second worst, despot in human history. The lord of the Gulag received ten billion dollars in war goods and supplies to conquer the lord of Auschwitz. The investment paid off.At the price of over 20 million dead, Stalin had defeated the strongest army ever assembled, which in four years had put a total of eight million men on a breadth of front spanning a maximum of 2,500 km. No other military leader was capable of such a defence. But it was only possible thanks to 17 million tonnes of supplies from his Western partners. For them, the postwar balance sheet looked as follows:On the assets side were the two billion dollars invested in the military trump card, the atom bomb. On the other side were liabilities of 10 billion dollars, which had promoted the monster Stalin to ruler of the continent. The way the war had progressed, the downfall of Hitler’s Germany could only lead to the hegemony of the Soviet Union over Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. And how the impoverished peoples of Southern and Western Europe – Italy, Greece, France – would situate themselves with respect to the political ideology of the invincible Soviet Union was uncertain. The outcome, unavoidable as it was, was not what the two leaders wanted. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt could come to terms with this disaster.
At the Crimea conference of the big three in Yalta, Churchill recalled why his country had marched against Hitler. "Great Britain entered the war to defend Poland against German aggression. We stand beside Poland because it is a question of honour. Great Britain will never accept a decision which does not give Poland the security of ruling on its own territory."Stalin, whose forces had now been in Polish territory for three weeks, responded that he understood Churchill's code of honour. "For Russians, however, the Polish question is not only one of honour, but also of security." Russia had previously sinned against Poland, he said, and the Soviet government was keen to make good. "But the core of the problem lies significantly deeper. In the course of the last 30 years, the Germans have marched twice through Poland to attack our country. Why could the enemy march so easily through Poland until now? Above all because Poland was weak." Stalin had by then installed his own followers to form a government that would make the Polish strong, free and independent."The British government", said Churchill, "believes that this government does not represent even one third of Polish people." Stalin responded that he would like to speak in his capacity as a military man. "As a soldier, what do I demand from the government of a country liberated by the Red Army? I demand that this government guarantee peace and order in the hinterland of the Red Army, prevent a civil war behind our front, and not stab us in the back." In his view, neither the men of the government who had fled to London in 1939 nor their underground fighters had done that. They had attacked Russian weapons depots, had already murdered 212 Red Army soldiers, and violated his orders concerning the operation of radio broadcasts. When they are arrested, they complain. "If these forces continue attacking our soldiers, we will shoot them." Because these forces were already acquainted with Stalin when he and his partner Hitler divided Poland and liquidated its officer corps, they blamed the Russians for the annexation of their territory in 1939. East Poland had now been re-conquered; it was and remained White Russia. Stalin did not want his current partners to steal from him what Hitler had given him in the past. He offered the Poles one third of Germany as compensation. To keep this territory in the long run, they should get used to being protected by him. "The Polish question has given the world headaches for five hundred years," sighed Roosevelt. In Churchill's view, it was necessary to ensure this would not continue. "Absolutely!" agreed Stalin. His headaches had diminished somewhat. All the ground in the East and South-East that Hitler had once subjugated was under Soviet control within a short period of time. And there was no one in sight to challenge him for it. Since advancing onto German territory in September, his Western allies were making extremely slow progress.When the Germans started a counter-offensive from the Eiffel into the Ardennes killing 76,000 men, the nerves of the Western chiefs of staff were frayed. In Italy, their troops had been crawling for a year and a half up the boot and had hardly made it past Ravenna. Churchill wrote Stalin inquiring "whether we can count on a major Russian offensive on the Vistula front, or elsewhere, during January. I see the situation as urgent." The Red Army, which had beaten the Wehrmacht colossus from the Volga back to Warsaw with incomparable martyrdom, had to quickly relieve the pressure on the inexperienced troops on the allied Western front.
Four weeks later in Yalta, Churchill expressed his admiration for the power of the operation which had begun on January 12. "The winter offensive was the fulfilment of our duty of comradeship," said Stalin, adding that he had recognised "that the Allies needed them desperately." They got a lot:In 18 days, according to deputy chief of staff Aleksei Antonov, the Soviets had advanced up to 500 kilometres in the general thrust of the attack. "On average, we advanced 25-30 km in 24 hours." 400,000 Germans had been killed or taken prisoner.The Western powers remained where they had stood for the last four months, on a line roughly between Aachen and Saarbrücken. The respective distances of the Allied and Soviet troops from Berlin, more or less equal until the second week of January, had now changed dramatically. Marshal Zhukov was poised on the Oder near Küstrin, 70 kilometres from the German Reichskanzlei. "How Poland was freed, and how the Red Army drove its enemy from the country," said Churchill cryptically to Roosevelt, "is a development of major importance". In Roosevelt's cabinet it had been discussed for some time. At the end of October 1944, Averell Harriman, the US ambassador in Moscow, reported to War Secretary Stimson "how the Russians are attempting to force their rule on the countries they have 'liberated', and the use they make of their secret police in doing so." For Harriman there was no difference between the Gestapo and the GPU, the Soviet secret police. US liaison officers had reported similarly on the cold contempt of Poland's liberators, their plundering, murders and rapes. Churchill wrote to Roosevelt in April that it was necessary to get as far east as possible to curtail Stalin's excesses.From autumn to the following spring, the Western Allies came to see that their "war comrade", who had won the liberation campaign, had his own way of reading the events. Making him see things differently was impossible. In late March and early April, the other Allies were just warming up their military muscles with the encirclement of the Ruhr region. No wonder; they outweighed the German forces 12 to 1. The German Western Army stopped fighting. Their tanks stopped moving. Petrol and the will to fight ran out at the same time. But in the military twilight of February – March, the West took a nervous look at the Soviet military steamroller, rolling forward with no regard for casualties, and loaded the bombs. The occidental Mongol devastations could begin.
Stalin had nothing comparable to this airborne might. While his men could walk 30 kilometres a day, Churchill's bombers could fly at 300 kilometres per hour. The Russian army took 18 days to get from the Vistula to the Oder. But the British planes reached Dresden from the British Midlands in just five hours! After a 40 minute operation, the city is a heap of rubble, strewn with 35,000 dead. At a distance of 110 kilometres from the first lines of Marshall Konyev's troops which were in the process of liberating Upper Silesia, this is, to put it mildly, the demonstration of a capacity. If not a military capacity, then at least the capacity of a military. Konyev, the conqueror on the ground, did not profit militarily from the attack and took no notice. Zhukov would later castigate the barbarianism of his allies in Dresden; from that point on, they were his arch enemies. But what were they in February 1945? And what was Zhukov for them in September 1939? An ally of Hitler's in the subjugation of Poland. In one and the same war, enemies became partners, partners rivals and then partial enemies once more. The Cold War fronts replaced those of the World War as if by an invisible hand. The interfaces are Dresden in Europe and Hiroshima in Asia. In these theatres of slaughter, it is no longer possible to distinguish between partnership and enmity. In Yalta, where bluffs were camouflaged in rhetoric and threats wrapped in hugs, Russia requested the help of its Western comrades in the storming of Berlin. Perhaps a final courageous ground initiative in the Rhine valley or Italy to join and engage the German troops. Or an air attack on the rail systems in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden that would disrupt the transfer of Wehrmacht forces from the Western to the Eastern front. There was more courtship than need in the request and it didn’t cost anything to ask. The Western colleagues promised air support, although this was the last thing they were interested in providing. Yes, they smashed every railway station and train wagon they could find. But to stop troops that were taking off for the East before their eyes? Why, to let themselves be shot by them?The British documents on Dresden give troop transports as the target of the attack. But this was not the objective of the night attack. At noon the next day, the Americans superficially bombed the railway installations, which were the first to be repaired. But they did not start a fire storm. The British flew a perfect fire storm attack, not at all interested in the important shunting areas and bridges. The paltry weapons parts produced in Dresden appear nowhere in the otherwise very detailed RAF inventories. They were irrelevant when compared with what Zhukov possessed: five times as many tanks, seven times as much artillery an 17 times the number of aeroplanes. The local military barracks remained unscathed by all these waves of attacks.Like the bombing of Hiroshima, Dresden's destruction has ever since been bound up with the question: "Why?" Two attacks with maximum overkill, each on a hopelessly defeated people! In the final spurt between the German and the imminent Japanese capitulations, the atomic physicists perfected their work with a test explosion whose lightning a blind woman claimed to have seen. Some of them started to grumble: "Why?" What had begun as an attempt to stop Hitler's world domination was being directed at the last convulsions of a checkmated aspiring power. Certainly, the last Samurais would have prepared a bloody welcome for the invading forces. But what was forcing the marines onto the treacherous beaches? America could rely on the strangling grip of its sea blockade, its airborne superiority and its precision bombing. Time was on its side. Perhaps, said the sceptics, we could simply demonstrate the omnipotence of the wonder weapon, without using it on people. We could drop it over the ocean! Scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer, in contrast, saw through the logic of mass destruction: "It needs the impression". Threats don't impress, willingness does. If you don't kill 100,000 defenceless people, nobody will believe you. Technical know-how must be accompanied by an iron will. A nation must act with a clear conscience, the proof will suffice for a generation.The puzzle of who President Truman wanted to impress has been solved by the records. He was hoping the test explosion would coincide with the opening of the Potsdam Conference in July. Oppenheimer named the test after the godhead: Trinity. But the three gods disagreed on many points, such as Russia's entry in the Japanese War. At Yalta, in a moment of weakness, Stalin had promised to attack the Japanese protectorate in Manchuria, the industrial paradise just north of Beijing. The strongest defence troops were stationed there.But after all that had happened with Stalin in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, his comradeship was turning into something sinister. The two Atlantic empires now wanted less of it, but couldn't rid themselves of their Eurasian third, the devourer of continents. What was stopping Bolshevism from taking over China, and then Korea? Russia had always had its eye on Japan; invasion losses were of no importance to it. The only thing that could keep the giant in check were the apocalyptic 'Little Boy' – the slim uranium bomb – and 'Fat Man', the pot-bellied plutonium bomb. Decisive was not Japan’s capitulation; that was already decided. But it had to capitulate as quickly as possible, and exclusively to the USA. The sequence of events speaks louder than words: August 6: 'Little Boy' on Hiroshima. August 8: the Soviets invade Manchuria. August 9: 'Fat Man' on Nagasaki. August 14: Japan capitulates to the USA. August 21: Japan capitulates to Russia. August 28: Japan capitulates to Mao Tse-Tung. The war ends.But the principle of mass destruction has no natural end. After killing 100,000 random souls, no command prohibits the killing of ten million. It is not a matter of principle, but of what you can accept. Mao Tse-Tung, who forged Red China in 1949 out of the collapse of Japan, said he could easily replace 300 million losses. In a population of one billion, that’s 30 percent. One would take the Maos and McNamaras for blusterers, were it not for the fact that the tools for putting their words into practise do indeed exist.In figures, Dresden and Hiroshima were short steps in the war of mass destruction. They lie just one generation back, and have deterred repetition, because they were seriously realised. Not that there was no other way out. From a military perspective, both cities burned to cinders needlessly. When Churchill gave the order to set Dresden alight, he thought of the hordes of refugees from Breslau and Silesia: "Tan the Germans' hide as they retreat from Breslau", "create panic and confusion on the administrative and evacuation routes", "terror with military pretence", as he wrote six weeks later. In this way the Royal Air Force was somehow a player in the collapse and reconstruction of the architecture of power in Central Europe. It gave the signal, even it could not control the ensuing events.The forced partnership with Stalin's fractious rogue state also made necessary the spectacle of the two atomic mushrooms. The liberators of East and South-East Asia curbed the oppressor at their side, to prevent him from gaining ground in this hemisphere as well. Yet another signal that had little effect. China was lost, and so was North Korea, over which the next war would have to be fought. Tiny, specious advantages, acquired with the curse of a weapon of mass destruction that will never go away, but is set to grow. Its first deployment went without a hitch. The know-how was there, and there was no alternative. Some people are probably still saying that.from hereThe article originally appeared in German in Die Welt, on 10 February, 2005. Jörg Friedrich was born in 1944. Since the 70s he has written extensively on the legal history of the Second World War, and the NS war crimes.