Month: May 2004

Canelos to Kerry: Exploit Vietnam Vets Now, Not Later

Peter S. Canelos must have missed reading the news yesterday, which can be the only explanation for his column in the Boston Globe this morning. Canelos wonders what happened to John Kerry’s “band of brothers,” a tiresome phrase that has gone from Shakespearean to sappy in the space of a few months. The BoB haven’t made an appearance since Kerry clinched the nomination, and Canelos exhorts Kerry to bring them back now:

The mute testimony of the veterans ennobled Kerry, shining more light on his character than the loyal gazes of Nancy Reagan or Laura Bush could ever confer on their men. Kerry seemed to grow more formidable, and his sudden surge to the nomination coincided with the veterans’ arrival at his side.
Now, Kerry mostly campaigns alone, with aides, local politicians, and a cranky, sleep-deprived press corps as his entourage. His much-decorated service in the Vietnam War has become a dry fact on his rsum, something to be parsed and debated. The mystical bond with others who’ve seen combat is no longer palpable. It’s vanished into the political haze.
The Band of Brothers aren’t gone for good, of course. Expect to see them at the Democratic convention and, for sure, in the last few weeks of the campaign. In all of his toughest campaigns — 1984, 1996, and this year’s primaries — Kerry has brought the veterans in for a closing rush, like the New York Yankees turning the ball over to Mariano Rivera. And late surges pushed Kerry over the top in all those races.
But this time, he needs their help sooner _ a fact at least partly reflected in his campaign’s decision, announced yesterday, to run new ads stressing Kerry’s life story, and drawing in part on the accounts of his crewmates.

Canelos somehow missed the story yesterday where not just a mere band of Kerry’s brothers in arms, but an entire fleet of them have “banded” together to declare Kerry unfit for the presidency. What’s particularly striking about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is the composition of the group — 19 of 23 officers with whom Kerry served, and every commanding officer under which he served, are signatories to their declaration, which will be released today at a press conference:

Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is “unfit to be commander-in-chief.” They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.
“What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension,” John O’Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Canelos fails to mention this in his strategic advice for the Kerry campaign, making one wonder whether he simply missed this story or whether he ignored it. Either way, his description of veteran appearances at Kerry rallies, including the tiresome Max Cleland and the lie about besmirching his patriotism that every left-leaning columnist must regurgitate, should resonate in stories about the SBVT press conference today:

At each campaign stop, they were joined by other Vietnam veterans, including hundreds from Massachusetts, their faces etched with wisdom culled from battlefield horrors and the special pain of having suffered in a war that divided the country.

As John O’Neill and his band of brothers intend on reminding people today, John Kerry personally caused a great deal of that “special pain” himself by launching his political career on their reputations. John Kerry’s testimony encapsulates the type of activity that divided the nation, not so much about the politics of the war, but about the easy, breezy way the radical left painted the servicemen as evil war criminals and the US government as war profiteers. In fact, you can hear strong echoes in war protests today, from the incessant allegations from Kerry himself in lies about Dick Cheney’s alleged war profiteering to Ted Rall’s despicable cartoons calling the late Pat Tillman a sap, a dupe, and implying that he also was a war criminal.
Peter Canelos invokes the pain while never acknowledging the agent of that pain, and encourages John Kerry to exploit the Vietnam veterans that he once broadly slandered as murderers, rapists, and drug addicts, all in order to win the presidency for the Democrats. In the same breath, Canelos ignores those veterans who refuse to stand by while the man who unfairly fouled their reputations for a generation attempts to use them once again as a stepping-stone for his political career. Canelos’ cynicism and hypocrisy unfortunately only find their match in the Kerry presidential campaign.
Addendum: John O’Neill writes his own column in today’s OpinionJournal.com.

A Marine’s Plea

Hugh Hewitt posted this at his site, and I think it’s required reading for anyone who thinks that the overwrought oracles of doom about Iraq that dominate the mainstream news media have no effect on the troops they claim to support. Pass this around, and make sure people understand it. Yes, it’s just one Marine’s opinion, but he’s the one that’s out there on the line. We shouldn’t let him down.
Hello Everyone,
I am taking time to ask you all for your help.
First off, I’d like to say that this is not a political message. I’m not concerned about domestic politics right now. We have much bigger things to deal with, and we need your help.
It seems that despite the tremendous and heroic efforts of the men and women serving here in Iraq to bring much needed peace and stability to this region, we are losing the war of perception with the media and American people. Our enemy has learned that the key to defeating the mighty American military is by swaying public opinion at home and abroad. We are a people that cherish the democratic system of government and therefore hold the will of the people in the highest regard. We love to criticize ourselves almost to an endless degree, because we care what others think. Our enemies see this as a weakness and are trying to exploit it.
When we ask ourselves questions like, “Why do they hate us?” or “What did we do wrong?” we are playing into our enemies’ hands. Our natural tendency to question ourselves is being used against us to undermine our effort to do good in the world. How far would we have gotten if after the surprise attacks on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, we would have asked, “Why do the Japanese hate us so much?” or “How can we change ourselves so that they won’t do that again?” Here in Iraq the enemy is trying very hard to portray our efforts as failing and fruitless. They kill innocents and desecrate their bodies in hopes that the people back home will lose the will to fight for liberty. They are betting on our perceived weakness as a thoughtful, considerate people. Unfortunately our media only serves to further their cause.
In an industry that feeds on ratings and bad news, a failure in Iraq would be a goldmine. When our so-called “trusted” American media takes a quote from an Iraqi doctor as the gospel truth over that of the men and women that are daily fighting to protect the right to freedom of press, you know something is wrong. That doctor claimed that out of 600 Iraqis, that were casualties of the fighting, the vast majority of them were women, children and the elderly. This is totally absurd. In the history of man, no one has spent more time and effort, often to the detriment of our own mission, to be more discriminate in our targeting of the enemy than the American military. The Marines and Soldiers serving in Iraq have gone through extensive training in order to limit the amount of innocent casualties and collateral damage.
Yet, despite all of this, our media consistently sides with those who openly lie and directly challenge the honor of our brave heroes fighting for liberty and peace. What we have to remember is that peace is not defined as an absence of war. It is the presence of liberty, stability, and prosperity. In the face of the horrendous tyranny of the former Iraqi regime, the only way true peace was able to come to this region was through force. That is what the American Revolution was all about. Have we forgotten? Freedom is not free and “peace” without principle is not peace. The peace that so-called “peace advocates” support can only be brought to Iraq through the military. And we are doing it, if only the world will let us! If the American people believe we are failing, even if we are not, then we will ultimately fail.
That is why I am asking for your support. Become a voice of truth in your community. Wherever you are fight the lies of the enemy. Don’t buy into the pessimism and apathy that says, “It’s hopeless,” “They hate us too much,” “That part of the world is just too messed up,” “It’s our fault anyway,” “We’re to blame,” and so forth. Whether you’re in middle school, working at a 9-5 job, retired, or a stay-at-home mom you can make a huge difference! There is nothing more powerful than the truth. So, when you watch the news and see doomsday predictions and spiteful opinions on our efforts over here, you can refute them by knowing that we are doing a tremendous amount of good. Spread the word. No one is poised to make such an amazing contribution to the everyday lives of Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world than the American Armed Forces. By making this a place where liberty can finally grow, we are making the whole world safer. Your efforts at home are directly tied to our success. You are the soldiers at home fighting the war of perception. So I’m asking you as a fellow fighting man: Do your duty. Stop the attempts of the enemy wherever you are. You are a mighty force for good, because truth is on your side. Together we will win this fight and ensure a better world for the future.
God Bless and Semper Fidelis,
1st Lt. Robert L. Nofsinger USMC
Ramadi, Iraq

Kerrey’s Lame Excuse

Bob Kerrey ignited a firestorm of controversy when he walked out of the 9/11 Commission’s meeting with President Bush in order to speak with Senator Pete Domenici. Now he tells National Review Online that he regrets leaving and considers it a mistake:

Kerrey had scheduled a meeting at noon Thursday with New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, a member of the Appropriations Committee, at Domenici’s office in the Hart Senate Office Building (the two were to discuss an issue related to the New School, of which Kerrey is president). To make the meeting, Kerry left the White House at about 11:40 A.M., missing the last hour of the commission’s questioning of Bush and Cheney.
But when Kerrey arrived at the Hart Building, he was told that Domenici was busy on the Senate floor, voting on a series of amendments. Noon came and went. Instead of meeting in the office, Kerrey went to an area just off the Senate floor, where, at about 12:30 P.M., he was finally able to have a quick word with Domenici.
In the end, Kerrey says, he would have done things differently. “If I had known that there were votes in the Senate at the time, and Sen. Domenici was not in his office, and I would not be able to see him until later, and I would only get 30 seconds or a minute with him, then yes, I would have stayed at the White House,” Kerrey told NRO.

So, the meeting with George Bush that the 9/11 Commission had publicly griped to get for months, with no time restrictions, on the supposed administration failures that caused the deaths of 3,000 Americans, still wouldn’t have been as important as meeting with Senator Domenici about the New School — a meeting that could have taken place at any time? That Senator and Commissioner Kerrey may consider the fact that Domenici could only give him a few minutes to be the determining factor that made his early exit a mistake only emphasizes what a waste of time the 9/11 Commission has become. The Bush ‘conversation’ appears to be all about publicity and not about any substantive purpose. If it had any such purpose, then how could Kerrey render any sort of informed judgement on his own without hearing Bush out?
If Bob Kerrey still cannot explain why Domenici’s input on the New School had more importance than the long-sought-after 9/11 Commission meeting with the President, then I take back what I said earlier: he’s the perfect VP candidate for John Kerry. He makes Kerry look positively Churchillian in comparison.

Brownstein Clueless on VP Candidates — Or Kerry Is

The LA Times’ Ron Brownstein, who normally has good connections to the Democrats, comes up with two laughable candidates for the VP slot: Bob Kerrey and Wesley Clark. Not that these two wouldn’t have their supporters — but based on recent experience, they would only add to John Kerry’s liabilities instead of balancing the ticket. Brownstein sees it differently:

Conspicuously missing from that list are candidates who could reinforce Kerry’s national security credentials.
But two might deserve more attention than they have received. Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who won a Medal of Honor in Vietnam, was an early hawk on Al Qaeda and Hussein and has reemerged through the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks as a powerful voice for a comprehensive assault on terrorism.
Even more intriguing is a name that has attracted even less attention: former NATO Supreme Commander and 2004 Democratic presidential contender Wesley K. Clark. The irony is that Clark probably would be generating more buzz as a potential vice president if he hadn’t sought his party’s nomination. The consensus in Democratic circles is that the retired Army general dimmed his prospects through an uneven performance on the campaign trail.

Brownstein bases his recommendation for Clark on his defense of Kerry on the medals flap last week, which amounted to “if you didn’t serve, you can’t criticize,” which is just flat-out wrong. So far, Kerry’s entire message has been “Vote for me, I got medals for my Vietnam service,” which convinced Democrats that he could stand up to Bush on the war. Unfortunately, when he did stand up, all he’s proposed to change is the man in the Oval Office. If he wants to keep putting his Vietnam Service as his chief qualification for the Presidency, then he’d better quit griping when his opponents mention that those medals still remain in his office despite his showy act of throwing them over the White House fence in 1971.
Besides, Clark’s performance wasn’t merely “uneven”, it bordered on the unbalanced. Expect any Clark VP bid to be met with Clark’s views on abortion, which he insisted should be legal until the moment of birth, an extremist viewpoint from which he incoherently backed away a few days later. Clark will also need to answer for his own policy flip-flops, which threatened to overtake Kerry’s reversals earlier in the campaign, on his support for Bush as late as spring 2003 in editorial columns. Not a good choice at all.
As for the other Kerrey, the former Senator has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts with the 9/11 Commission, but with the grandstanding of the public hearings, that may not play as well as hoped on the general-election stage. First off, Kerrey has tried to make an argument for pre-emptive action in Afghanistan pre-9/11, which makes hay of any argument that war in Iraq was ill-advised. (Which threat needed to be taken more seriously in January 2001 — the one that pinned down tens of thousands of American military personnel, where missiles were fired at American patrols, or the one that had shelter from an extremist Islamic government in a remote region, surrounded by nations hostile to the US? Tough call to differentiate.) His fumbling of Condoleezza Rice’s name, over and over again, does not lend a sense of intellectual skill to Kerrey; how hard is it to distinguish between an old white guy and a younger black woman, anyway?
Brownstein also makes the mistake of thinking that a focus on economy helps Kerry, a mistake the Democrats will recognize as the economy grows stronger and more jobs continue to appear, but that’s another post for another day. Either Brownstein has lost the story line at the Kerry campaign by focusing on these two poor choices, or the Kerry VP selection committee has really had the wheels come off. I suspect we’ll be seeing either Bill Richardson or John Edwards at the bottom of the ticket in July.
UPDATE: Okay, McQ, you’re on … He puts it so well, and so succinctly, at QandO:

Clark is a loose cannon in political terms. He doesn’t have the temperment nor the experience to weather a campaign well … especially as the second fiddle.
With the Kerry campaign already adrift, Clark would be the spark in the powder magazine to sink it completely (and you may quote me on that Capn’ Ed.)

Done!

Pakistan: Let’s All Just Get Along

The BBC reports that the American military commander in Afghanistan is worried that the Pakistanis have gone somewhat wobbly in the war on terror, especially against al-Qaeda. The Pakistanis appear reluctant to actually capture “militants”, as the BBC calls them, instead asking for pledges to renounce terrorism:

The commander of US forces in Afghanistan has expressed concern at Pakistan’s strategy against foreign al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters.
Lieutenant-General David Barno said Pakistan must eliminate a “significant number” of militants along the border.
“There are foreign fighters in those tribal areas who will have to be killed or captured,” he said.
Pakistan says foreign fighters can stay in the region if they renounce terrorism and live peacefully. … On Friday, Pakistan extended a deadline for foreign militants to give themselves up to authorities after no one surrendered.

Even apart from the war on terror, when a sovereign state tolerates the existence of foreigners on its soil that intend to fight against secular governments — which is what Pakistan is in the eyes of the fanatics — it indicates perhaps a fatal weakness, a corrosion in the state itself. To tolerate such a thing is to invite more foreigners to join them. At its base, it is a craven attempt to pander to those who would commit violence in an effort to direct their violence elsewhere. In fact, it comes close to the description of a nation which harbors terrorists, which we warned against following 9/11 and the launching of the war on Islamofascist terrorism.
Unfortunately, Pakistan is no Afghanistan; it’s a certified nuclear power, which would make direct military action by the US in Pakistani territory extremely dangerous for the entire region. Moreover, Musharraf has risked his life in aligning with the US, even if he may wind up an unreliable partner. Any opposition towards Musharraf at this point would only signal undecided states that we won’t maintain support for allies in this war, making converts in the war (Libya) less likely.
We need to stress to Musharraf that this policy of amnesty for foreign fighters only means that more of them will flock to the mountains of northwest Pakistan to train and plot — and that their next assassination attempt may be more successful for it. Perhaps that will outweigh his reluctance to clean out the tribal areas of Waziristan.

For A Guy Who Doesn’t Fall Down …

… John Kerry spends a lot of time suddenly appearing in the horizontal. This time, the SOB appears to be sand:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry took a spill from his bicycle after hitting a patch of sand during a ride Sunday afternoon, but he was uninjured, campaign officials said.
Kerry was riding south on a two-lane road at about 1:00 p.m. in the direction of Walden Pond State Reservation in Concord, a quiet, suburban town about 18 miles northwest of Boston.
He was approaching a stop light at the intersection with Route 2 and was slowing down when he veered left into the oncoming lane and fell, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed him fall. Secret Service agents and local police immediately stopped traffic while Kerry and a handful of bicycling companions moved to the shoulder.

The Secret Service detail apparently stayed off the bicycles, which meant that Kerry couldn’t blame them for falling off of his customized bicycle — which Tim Blair notes has to run somewhere in the $5K range. The Boston Herald, in a prescient moment, ran an analysis on this very subject on Friday:

How much would you pay for a bicycle? Is seven grand too much?
Not as much as John Kerry [related, bio], I daresay, now that we know, thanks to a front-page story about his butler in The New York Times, that he owns a Serotta bike. The Serotta, see, is custom-made, with the “holistic (whole-cyclist) approach to bicycle fitting.”
Translation: It’s very expensive. How expensive, you ask. Serotta’s “price points” are between $1,800 and $5,000 – just for the frame, mind you, if you want extras, like gears and titanium spokes, tack on another $2,000 – which raises the question: what do you suppose Kerry’s point is?
Consider that Kerry’s second wife owns a Gulfstream V jet, the Flying Squirrel, worth $35 million, and also bought him a personal powerboat, the Scaramouche, worth at least $800,000. So do you think Liveshot’s wife’s first husband’s trust fund bought a bike on the low end, or the high end?
I’ll go out on a limb and say Liveshot’s bike is worth five large. And that it actually belongs, not to the solon himself, but to his “family.”

The man of the people, indeed. Next time, maybe the Secret Service should insist on training wheels, custom-made, of course. (via Just About Everybody In The Damn Blogosphere While I Was Watching The Sopranos)

Sharon Plan Defeated By Own Party

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may face the end of his career now that his high-stakes gamble on withdrawal from Gaza has apparently backfired:

TV polls indicated Sunday that the ruling Likud Party overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements. … The telephone polls, conducted by Israel’s three main TV stations, gave opponents a large lead of between 12 and 24 percentage points.
A survey by Channel 2 had the smallest lead for opponents, with 56 percent against the plan and 44 percent in favor. On Channel 10, the poll indicated 58 had voted against and 42 percent in favor. The greatest gap was given by Channel 1, with 62 percent against and 38 percent in favor.

In a stunning defeat, Sharon could not even secure a bare majority of his own party for his policy of disengagement in Gaza, putting into question his ability to lead the government. Sharon himself said as much earlier this week when he told Likud members that they could not both support him and vote against the proposed disengagement plan. Referendums have a nasty habit of blowing up in one’s face, a subject on which his British counterpart, Tony Blair, has acquired recent experience as well.
Sharon’s plan likely faced defeat anyway, but the killing of a pregnant settler in Gaza and four of her children earlier in the day settled the issue for Likud members:

Also Sunday, gunmen killed a pregnant Jewish settler and four of her children in Gaza, and Israel responded with a missile attack on a Hamas radio station. The woman was apparently on her way into Israel to help campaign against the Gaza withdrawal plan.

All this leaves open the question of what the next steps will be. If Israelis insist on remaining in Gaza, at least until final negotiations, then they will need to identify honest negotiation partners as soon as possible. Otherwise, Likud just voted to continue the violence indefinitely without any strategy to bring it to a close.

Another Rubberdove Bites The Dust

I’m not even going to comment on this, as Michele Catalano does far too good a job on it. However, the gist of this is that a leftie anti-war blogger has apparently lied for years about his military experience. He did it to argue his props for his anti-war position. He did it to ridicule those who opposed him. He did it to gain notoriety, coming in the form of mainstream media interviews and the like.
And once found out, blamed everyone else for not figuring it out earlier.
I’ve decided that this species of human effluvia needs a name: rubberdove sounds about right. What do you think? (via Instapundit)
UPDATE: Greyhawk has a great and (especially under the circumstances) reasoned post about Micah Wright at the always-terrific Mudville Gazette. More also at Jim Treacher’s blog. Kurt Vonnegut, who has to be one of the most overrated authors of the twentieth century, reveals his amorality in his response to the revelation that Wright lied about his background:

“The romance of his military background rang a bell with me and made me like him a lot,” Vonnegut told us Friday. “You almost want to say, ‘So what else is new?’ Human beings are terrible liars. I still like what he did. He’s a liar, but I still like his pictures.”

Vonnegut wrote the introduction to Wright’s book of re-worked war propaganda posters. I guess it’s all OK as long as you’re a lefty, eh, Kurt?

Kofi Annan Fumbles on OFF on Meet the Press

Kofi Annan appeared today on Meet the Press and wilted under Tim Russert’s questioning on the Oil-For-Food program. The transcript tells the story:

MR. RUSSERT: Someone also very close to you has alleged involvement in this scandal. This is how The San Diego Union Tribune wrote about it. “What particularly troubles are revelations that several hundred individuals, political entities and companies from more than 45 countries profited from doing illicit business with Saddam, accepting his oil contracts and paying the murderous dictator secret kick-backs. That included, according to Iraqi Oil Minister records, U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon Sevan, executive director of the oil-for-food program, who received a vouch for 11.5 million barrels of oil through the program, enough to turn a profit as much as $3.5 million.”
Now, Mr. Sevan has denied that allegation.
SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. RUSSERT: But NBC News has obtained this letter that was sent on his stationery on April 14. This is just two weeks ago. “I refer to your e-mail … regarding a request by `a Governmental Authority’ for reports … relating to the Oil-for-Food Programme. … While we understand Saybolt’s”–that’s a company–“desire to be cooperative with bodies looking into the Programme … we would ask that Saybolt address any further requests for documentation or information concerning these matters to us …”
So Mr. Sevan, who’s being investigated, is telling a company that’s also being investigated, “Don’t cooperate with government authorities unless you clear it with me.” Why is he still involved in the investigation?
SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: Right. No, I wasn’t aware of this confess for–Benon has worked with the U.N. for several decades, and I will be surprised if he’s guilty of these accusations.

I suspect that what escapes Annan’s awareness about UNSCAM could fill volumes. Annan’s lack of awareness of Sevan’s correspondence — which should have been available to Annan, had he bothered to check — has not kept Annan from loudly announcing Sevan’s innocence of corruption allegations and labeling them as politically motivated. Russert also managed to note Annan’s lack of awareness on the OFF office failing to turn over crucial contracts and other documentatiuon to the CPA, as ordered by the UNSC:

MR. RUSSERT: The U.S. Government Accounting Office, the GAO, testified before Congress on Wednesday and said this: that “U.N. Resolution 1483 requested the Secretary General…to transfer to the”–“[Coalition Provisional Authority]”–in Iraq–“all relevant documentation.”
And that only 20 percent of the contracts had been transferred to them. Why?
SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: First of all, let me say that the GAO, in preparation of this report, had very solid support from the United Nations. We cooperated with them very effectively. I do not know what percentage of documentation we gave them, but we’ve been quite open with our documentation. In fact, after the war, since the ministries were destroyed, we sent copies of all these documents to the Iraqi Governing Council. And so I cannot get–I don’t have the details of what the GAO is talking about. But we are open. We are transparent. Of course, as of now, all these documents are transferred to the group headed by Mr. Volker. And therefore we–to protect the integrity of it and any request for future documentation will have to go to him for them to decide whether they release it or not or it will impede their own investigation.

So on one hand, Annan says the OFF office gave the CPA all relevant documentation, while almost in the same breath he says that they gave it to the IGC — and then says he’s giving it to Paul Volcker’s investigation … all the while admitting that he doesn’t know what “percentage” of documentation was actually transmitted.
John Kerry wants to entrust American security to the organization that Annan leads, while Annan continually demonstrates the UN’s lack of fitness to even run its humanitarian programs. Kerry better hope that Annan stays off the television for the next six months and that Volcker takes a very long time in investigating UNSCAM, because a few more appearances like this will convince Americans to not only discount UN assistance in Iraq but to question our continued membership in the organization itself. Even if it isn’t corrupt from head to toe, as UNSCAM revelations make more and more evident, it clearly lacks any sort of managerial competency.

Telegraph: The Nazi Eisenhower Assassination Plot

Today’s London Telegraph relates one of the untold stories of World War II, nearly sixty years after it happened. The few survivors of uber-commando leader Otto Skorzeny’s final secret mission have decided to tell the story of how they were recruited to impersonate American soldiers, go deep behind enemy lines, and capture or assassinate the Supreme Head of the Allied Expeditionary Force — Gen. Dwight Eisenhower:

They were the decisive days of the Second World War and the Nazis faced defeat. Allied troops were on French soil and Hitler, desperate to prevent an invasion of Germany, hatched a final extraordinary plan: infiltrate the US army and take Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, dead or alive. The German leader entrusted Operation Greif to the Austrian SS Obersturmbahnfuhrer Otto Skorzeny, who had rescued Mussolini from imprisonment by the Italian government in 1943, flying him off a mountaintop in a tiny aircraft.
Skorzeny assembled a “crack unit” which would pose as GIs to launch their attack on Eisenhower at Fontainebleu, the Allied headquarters near Paris.
Yet, as one of the mission’s survivors has now revealed, Operation Greif rapidly descended into farce. Of the 600 men who were to masquerade as Americans, only 10 could speak fluent English. Scores were caught by the Americans, exposed as Germans, and shot.

For amateur historians of WWII such as myself, this intriguing story fits right into the pattern of Nazi delusional patterns that came to the surface during the latter half of 1944, after the successful invasion of Fortress Europe by Eisenhower and the Allies. By the time this operation went into effect (October 1944), the Germans had been pushed back almost all the way out of France and the Low Countries and faced the prospect of fighting on German soil for the first time since Napoleonic times. (Germany collapsed in WWI before any ground fighting occurred there.) Operation Greif was launched in tandem with the preparations for the secret Winter Offensive, which was to culminate in the Battle of the Bulge, an equally audacious but unavoidably suicidal strategic mistake of catastrophic proportions.
The Greif commandos were trained on American speech, American military dress and drill, and even American smoking habits. However, as the few survivors of Greif now admit, their training was hopelessly inadequate and their fallback strategies laughable:

According to Fritz Christ, then a 21-year-old Luftwaffe lance-corporal, many of his comrades were hopelessly ill-equipped.
“Those with no English were instructed to exclaim, ‘Sorry’, if they were approached by Americans, and then to open their trousers and hurry off feigning an attack of diarrhoea,” he told The Sunday Telegraph last week.
Mr Christ was transformed into “Lieutenant Charles Smith” from Detroit. The troops were trained to salute, shoot and even smoke like GIs, but there were fatal gaps in their coaching.
Many turned up at US army supply depots and asked for “petrol” instead of “gas”. They mistakenly rode four to a Jeep instead of two, as was standard US army practice.

As Germans out of uniform and mostly wearing American ones, they were quickly apprehended and summarily shot as spies. Christ, fortunately and ironically, survived because he managed to convince his own Luftwaffe that he was American:

L/Cpl Christ survived only because he was attacked by his own side. His lorry, marked with white US army stars, was strafed by Luftwaffe fighter planes shortly after it set out from Belgium towards American army lines on December 16, 1944.
“I jumped off the lorry and hid in a ditch before the vehicle exploded in a ball of fire,” Mr Christ said. “Nobody had told the Luftwaffe what was going on.”

Those familiar with Third Reich history would know why the Luftwaffe had been left out of the planning, even if you discount the need for secrecy. By October 1944, Luftwaffe Air Marshal Hermann Goering had collapsed into a hedonistic, disinterested, and defeated drug addict, more interested in his stolen art, jewelry, and various playthings stolen from all over Europe rather than face the systematic destruction of his storied air force.
Hitler himself, having barely avoided assassination himself less than three months earlier, had allowed his megalomania to overwhelm him, believing that he alone could command the armies of Germany to victory over both the Eastern and Western fronts. In fact, Hitler implemented his Western winter offensive by stripping the Eastern front of its reinforcements and reserve units, and thought that by giving the Allies a bloody nose on the frontiers of Germany, he could force them to a negotiated peace — and then ally with them to push the Russians back into Russia.
Small wonder that such thinking generated the “strategy” of capturing Eisenhower as a means to halt the Allied advance. Unlike the hidebound Nazi command structure, Eisenhower’s loss would simply have meant another American general would have taken his place — probably Walter Bedell Smith or Omar Bradley — and strategy recalculated for the possibility of Eisenhower’s knowledge falling prey to Gestapo interrogation techniques. Eisenhower, while brilliant, was not the only key to victory, which he himself would acknowledge freely.
In fact, one of the great questions of the fall and winter of 1944 is why Eisenhower held up his lightning offensive and switched to defense, making the Allies much more susceptible to the Nazi Winter Offensive than they otherwise might have been. Had the Nazis been successful in their ludicrous mission, they may have wound up hastening the Nazi collapse by another four months. But in the fantasy world of Nazi leadership in 1944, the notion of pulling 600 men off the already too-thin battle lines to participate in a playground-mentality mission must have made more sense than reaching political solutions, as German generals had been urging since July of that year.
Read the whole article, and if you haven’t yet read the lengthy but fascinating account of Nazi Germany, William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, be sure to do so soon.