Posts Tagged ‘SS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 1, 2026 at 12:17 am
Now, fast-forward 85 years—from 1941 to 2026. Substitute President Donald Trump for Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Mojtaba Khamenei for Joseph Stalin—and Iran for the Soviet Union.
Just as Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union without warning, so did Trump launch his on Iran—on February 28.
Hitler—and numerous members of the Wehrmacht—believed that Germany’s mechanized panzers would quickly subdue Soviet armies.
“We were fast,” recalled Panzer Lieutenant Hans-Erdmann Schonbeck. “And our tank forces could cover huge distances. And once we broke through the enemy’s defenses, our orders were not to worry about threats to our right or left but to keep going, deep into Russian territory.”
Panzer tank
But the tanks soon faced unexpected difficulties. Most roads in Russia were unpaved, so the tanks raised huge dust clouds almost everywhere they went. The dust clogged their engines and brought many tanks to a halt. Repair crews worked themselves to exhaustion so that the lightning-fast advance could continue.
Another drawback not evident at the outset of the invasion: Summer uniforms. For a war that began on June 22, 1941, these were entirely appropriate. But as the months quickly passed, the notorious Russian winter season loomed ever closer.
Germans in summer uniforms
The German command underestimated the campaign’s duration, expecting a victory by autumn 1941, and prioritized ammunition and fuel over winter equipment. Although winter gear existed, it was stuck in supply depots in the West, and transport lines were too strained by the Soviets’ “scorched earth” tactics to move it to the front.
Without proper greatcoats or insulated boots, soldiers suffered from extreme cold, with temperatures dropping far below zero. Many resorted to stealing blankets from civilians or using blankets as makeshift clothing.
In its war with Iran, American’s air force completely dominated the skies. But then both American planes and ground forces faced an unexpected enemy: Mass-produced drones.
The same weapons—some of them supplied by Iran to Russia—have been used since 2022 in Ukraine. Unmanned and remotely-controlled, Ukrainian and Russian drones have transformed the battlefield. They’re estimated to inflict around 80% of combat casualties on both sides.
The technology—like that forged in Germany’s Blitzkrieg tactics—is revolutionizing warfare and evolving rapidly. To adapt to the new era, the U.S. military is learning lessons from Ukraine.
Iranian drone
Student News Agency, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
Not only are American military forces being targeted, so are those Gulf nations that have allied themselves with the United States: The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.
Primarily targeted: Energy infrastructure, airports and sites hosting American military personnel.
For Iran, the drones are relatively cheap. For the United States, the costs of countering this threat are steadily mounting. A typical Shahed-136 costs Tehran roughly $20,000 to $50,000, while interceptor missiles, such as the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), cost millions.
On August 22, 1939—the eve of his invasion of Poland, which would ignite World War II—Adolf Hitler delivered a secret address to his supreme commanders and generals. Its climax:
“Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness.”
Hitler urged his generals to act similarly toward the Russians, whom he regarded as subhumans.
The results of this policy soon became obvious when the Wehrmacht invaded Ukraine. Ukrainians, long suffering under the yoke of Stalin, greeted the invaders with bread and salt, the traditional greeting of comrades.
Within a month, they realized that the tyranny of Stalin had been replaced by an all-out extermination campaign of Hitler. For every Ukrainian the Germans killed, 10 more emerged to seek revenge.
Eighty-five years later, Donald Trump and officials of his administration are celebrating the indiscriminate slaughter of Iranians, whether civilian or military.
“We totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun,” Trump said on NBC News.
On March 22, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.
“Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Pete Hegseth
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
Former House speaker and Trump advisor Newt Gingrich posted on X: “Instead of fighting over a 21-mile-wide bottleneck [Strait of Hormuz] forever, we [could] cut a new channel through friendly territory. A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you’ve got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attacks.”
This would produce countless numbers of casualties and cover the Middle East with radioactive fallout.
It remains to be seen if such exhortations will lead American soldiers to act as barbarically as those of the Wehrmacht and SS—and inspire similar barbarism in return.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2026 at 12:48 am
The city: Berlin.
The date: November 12–13, 1940.
The event: A meeting between German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
The purposes: To discuss:
- Soviet expansion and control over Finland, Bulgaria, and the Turkish Straits; and
- Germany’s desire for the USSR to attack British interests in India and Iran.
Hitler wanted the USSR to join the Axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and expand “southward” toward the Indian Ocean to avoid conflict in Europe.
Adolf Hitler
Molotov ignored the talk of India and instead demanded control over Finland, Bulgaria, and the Turkish Straits.
Hitler adamantly opposed Soviet control over Finland, which he considered a strategic ally. He feared a Soviet expansion into Scandinavia would threaten German iron ore supplies from Sweden and northern interests.
And he deeply feared that the Soviet Union would cut off Germany’s vital Romanian oil supplies. Romania provided roughly 75% of German oil in 1941. A late 1940 Soviet attack on the Ploiești oil fields would render Germany helpless and force an end to the war.
On a personal level, Molotov and Hitler grated on each other’s nerves. Molotov was blunt in his remarks and didn’t spare Hitler at all. He seldom smiled and refused to compromises on Russia’s demands for control of Finland, Bulgaria, and the Turkish Straits.
At one point, Molotov asked: “Is last year’s agreement [between Germany and Russia] still valid?”
Hitler replied that it was.
“I asked this question,” said Molotov, “because of the Finns. You are on very friendly relations with the Finns. You invite people from Finland to Germany and you send missions there. And the Finns are very dangerous people. They undermine our security and we’ll have to do something about that and we are going to do something about that.”
Vyacheslav Molotov
“I understand you very well,” exploded Hitler. “You want to wage war against Finland and that is quite out of the question. Do you hear me? It’s impossible because my supplies of iron, nickel and other important raw materials would be cut.”
During the talks, British Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers appeared overhead, forcing the leaders to move to an air raid shelter.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop had been trying to convince Molotov that Great Britain was “beaten” and that the British Empire was a “gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy” ready for partition.
Molotov sarcastically replied: “If England is beaten, why are we in this shelter and whose are the bombs that are falling?”
Even while Molotov was still in Berlin, Hitler ordered his generals to attack the Soviet Union on May 15, 1941.
Within a month they responded with a detailed plan code-named “Operation Barbarossa.”
Less than one year later—on June 22, 1941—with 134 divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Now the two most ruthless dictators on earth—Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin—were locked in a fight to the death.
At the outset, the odds clearly favored the Germans.
The invasion caught the Soviet Union by surprise. Joseph Stalin had received Intelligence reports from Great Britain that Germany was preparing to attack. But Stalin, who believed the British were trying to drive a wedge between him and Hitler, put his faith in Hitler, whose guarantees had long proved worthless.
German army units
From June to September, the Wehrmacht captured vast territories and encircled hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops. German forces quickly advanced toward Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev, inflicting massive casualties.
The Luftwaffe destroyed much of the Soviet air force on the ground.
In June and July, German panzers quickly advanced, capturing over 300,000 Soviet prisoners in the Minsk-Bialystok pocket. By late September, Army Group South captured Kiev, resulting in the largest encirclement in history, with roughly 600,000 Soviet soldiers trapped.
By the end of 1941, more than three million Soviet soldiers were captured or killed. Still, the Soviet Union did not collapse and continued to commit new field armies to the conflict.
By December, the Wehrmacht, besieging Moscow, were literally freezing to death in their summer uniforms. Then, on December 5-6, the Soviets launched their decisive counter-offensive before Moscow, forcing German forces into a retreat.
It marked the first major land defeat for the Wehrmacht since its September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland, which ignited World War II.
Now, fast-forward 85 years. Substitute President Donald Trump for Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Mojtaba Khamenei for Joseph Stalin—and Iran for the Soviet Union.
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler
Just as Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union without warning, so did Trump launch his on Iran—on February 28.
Hitler’s attack didn’t kill Joseph Stalin, the all-powerful dictator of the Soviet Union. But Trump’s airstrikes killed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who had ruled Iran as its supreme leader from 1989.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Still, the Iranians quickly elevated his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, to the same position—and went on fighting.
Hitler—and numerous members of the Wehrmacht—believed that Germany’s mechanized panzers would succeed where Napoleon Bonaparte had failed in 1812. And that they could conquer the Soviet Union in only three months.
They were wrong.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 21, 2026 at 12:13 am
Threats of violence have become common among Republicans since 2015, when Donald Trump first ran for President.
On March 16, 2016, Trump warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
Almost five years later, on January 6, 2021, then-President Trump incited a deadly riot against the United States Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the electoral victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Upon taking office again as President on January 20, 2025, Trump issued a blanket pardon to about 1,500 of his supporters who carried out the attack. This sent a clear message to his future opponents: “I will similarly pardon anyone who assaults you.”
In 2025, a re-elected Trump launched a sweeping deportation effort. Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] have brutalized migrants and American citizens.
In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, for example, protesters blow whistles, yell or honk horns. Immigration officers break vehicle windows, use pepper spray on protesters and warn observers not to follow them through public spaces. Immigrants and citizens alike are forcibly pulled from cars, stores or homes and detained for hours, days or longer.
On January 7, 2026, an ICE agent shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a writer and poet, as she legally observed federal agents arresting suspected illegal aliens.
The Third Reich similarly relied on violence—or the threat of it—to preserve its dictatorial control over Germany.
A key representative of that violence was Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich.
A tall, blond-haired former naval officer, Heydrich was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.
In 1934, he oversaw the “Night of the Long Knives” purge of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted S.A., or Stormtroopers.
Reinhard Heycrich
In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.
Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.
In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders in Wannsee, Germany, to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.
Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.
Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague.
On May 27, 1942, they waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun—which jammed.
Rising in his seat, Heydrich aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.
Scene of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination
Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38.
The assassination sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Third Reich. No one had dared assault—much less assassinate—a high-ranking Nazi official.
Nazis had slaughtered tens of thousands without hesitation. Suddenly they realized that the fury they had aroused could be turned against themselves.
Which brings us to the leaders of America’s own Right-wing.
The names of infamous Nazis were widely known:
- Fuhrer Adolf Hitler
- Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
- Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels
- Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess
- Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl
- SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler
- “Hanging Judge” Roland Freisler
- Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop
- SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich
Members of the Nazi government
And so are the names of the infamous leaders of the American Right:
- President Donald Trump
- House Majority Leader Mike Johnson
- White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller
- Texas Senator Ted Cruz
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
- Attorney General Pam Bondi
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio
- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
- U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino
The difference between these two infamous groups is this:
In Nazi Germany, ordinary Germans could not learn about the personal lives of their dictators—including their home addresses—and to conspire against them.
In the United States, ordinary citizens have an array of means to do this. They can turn to newspapers, TV and magazines. And if that isn’t enough, “people finder” websites, for a modest price, provide addresses and names of relatives of potential targets.
In Nazi Germany, firearms were tightly controlled.
In the United States, the Right’s National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied to put lethal firepower into the hands of virtually anyone who wants it.
Almost 84 years ago, Reinhard Heydrich believed himself invulnerable from the hatred of the enemies he had made. That arrogance cost him his life.
The day may soon come when America’s own Right-wingers start learning that same lesson.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 31, 2025 at 12:10 am
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, with a time bomb.
Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
While a war conference was in session, he placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
“Wolf’s Lair”
But after Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, who stood next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, thus unknowingly shielding Hitler from the full blast.
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer. Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Mass arrests quickly followed. Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
Claus von Stauffenberg
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.
If the conspiracy had succeeded and Germany had surrendered in July or August, 1944, World War II would have ended eight to nine months earlier. This would have meant:
- The Russians—who didn’t reach Germany until April, 1945—could not have occupied the Eastern part of the country.
- Millions of East Germans would have been spared the misery of living under Communist rule for 44 years.
- Many of the future conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union over access to West Berlin and/or West Germany would have been prevented.
- Untold numbers of Holocaust victims would have survived because the concentration camps would have been shut down far earlier.
Yet history notes other tyrants whose evil reigns ended prematurely—such as that of Gaius Caligula.
Caligula became Emperor of Rome in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle.
For three years, he held—and exercised—life-or-death power over the citizens of Italy and beyond. His attitude toward humanity was best summed up by his remark: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
- He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health. He invited another to dinner immediately after witnessing the execution, and trying to rouse him to gaiety by a great show of affability.
- He watched for several successive days as the manager of his gladiatorial shows was beaten with chains, and ordered him killed only when he was disgusted at the stench of his putrefied brain.
- He appeared at the temple of Castor and Pollux to be worshiped as Jupiter Latiaris.
- He lived in incest with all his three sisters. At a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above.
- He intended to promote his favorite racehorse, Incitatus (“Swift”), to consul.
Like all Roman emperors, Caligula was constantly protected by the Praetorian Guard, an elite unit of the Roman army comprised of tough legionnaires—especially German ones.
There had not been an assassination of a Roman emperor since the death of Julius Caesar almost 100 years earlier.
The assassins in that case had been motivated by a mixture of
- Personal animosity toward Caesar’s increasing arrogance and
- Genuine fears that he intended to abolish the Roman Republic and set himself up as a dictator.
And Caligula intended to keep a similar fate from overtaking him.
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
Among those he taunted was Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard.
Two different historians give two different motives for his decision to assassinate Caligula.
The Jewish historian Josephus claimed that Chaerea was a “noble idealist” deeply committed to “Republican liberties.”
But Suetonius wrote that Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and gave him such mocking watchwords as “Priapus” and “Venus.” Whenever Caligula had Chaerea kiss his ring, the emperor would “hold out his hand to kiss, forming and moving it in an obscene fashion.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
The assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler and the successful assassination of Gaius Caligula demonstrate that the greatest danger facing a tyrant is people who:
- Are in frequent and highly personal contact with him; and
- Keep their animosity toward him a secret—until the moment they wish to strike.
Had Secret Service agent Kerry O’Grady kept her revulsion toward Donald Trump to herself, she might now be hailed as an American traitor—or as democracy’s savior.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 30, 2025 at 12:10 am
Where does loyalty leave off and conscience begin?
Specifically: If you’re a bodyguard for a man you know represents a genuine threat to democracy, what are your obligations to defend him? Should you be as willing to “take a bullet” for him as for someone you truly admire?
Members of Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard faced no such qualms. Right up to the bitter end, with Russian forces only blocks from the Fuhrerbunker, they manned their posts, ready to die for the man who had led them—and Germany—into the ultimate catastrophe.
They made Hitler a closely-guarded target.
He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.
Adolf Hitler
It wasn’t Hitler’s bodyguards who posed a threat to his life. It was the colonels and generals of the German General Staff.
On August 20, 1934, members of the German army, navy and air force were required to swear the “Law On The Allegiance of Civil Servants and Soldiers of the Armed Forces.”
Whereas members of the armed forces had previously sworn loyalty to Germany, the new law required them to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler personally.
In coming years, this would prove a deadly trap for many German officers—forcing them to choose between betraying a sacred oath and remaining loyal to a man who was clearly driving Germany to ruin.
For those officers who could not abide Germany’s coming destruction, the choice was simple: Hitler had to go.
A series of assassination attempts were made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.
Hitler came closest to death on July 20, 1944.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the driving force in a plot to assassinate Hitler with a time bomb.
Claus von Stauffenberg
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941). While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
For most of his fellow officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst.
This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
The Wehrmacht in Russia
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans—knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell. Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany. Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave. After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans. With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. They would inform the British and Americans of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 29, 2025 at 12:10 am
In the classic 1969 Western, The Wild Bunch, the outlaw gang is pursued by a posse led by Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), one of its own former members.
This triggers a furious exchange between the gang’s two leaders:
DUTCH ENGSTROM (Ernest Borgnine): Damn that Deke Thornton to hell!
PIKE BISHOP (William Holden): What would you do in his place? He gave his word.
DUTCH ENGSTROM: He gave his word to a railroad!
PIKE BISHOP: It’s his word!
DUTCH ENGSTROM: That’s not what counts! It’s who you give it to!
Where does loyalty leave off and conscience begin?
Specifically: If you’re a bodyguard for a man you know represents a genuine threat to democracy, what are your obligations to defend him? Should you be as willing to “take a bullet” for him as for someone you truly admire?
In October, 2016, Kerry O’Grady, a senior agent in the Denver field office of the United States Secret Service, found herself facing such a quandary.
She had made a series of now-deleted postings on Facebook during the 2016 Presidential campaign saying that she supported Democrat Hillary Clinton and that she would not honor a federal law that prevents agents like her from publicly airing their political beliefs.
Kerry O’Grady
“As a public servant for nearly 23 years, I struggle not to violate the Hatch Act. So I keep quiet and skirt the median,” she wrote in one Facebook post. “To do otherwise can be a criminal offense for those in my position. Despite the fact that I am expected to take a bullet for both sides.”
She had also suggested on Facebook that she would not defend President Donald Trump should someone try to shoot him.
“But this world has changed and I have changed. And I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country and the strong and amazing women and minorities who reside here. Hatch Act be damned. I am with Her [Hillary Clinton],” she wrote.
The Secret Service said in a statement that it could not comment on a specific personnel matter but that it was “aware of the postings and the agency is taking quick and appropriate action.
“All Secret Service agents and employees are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct. Any allegations of misconduct are taken seriously and swiftly investigated.”
Secret Service agents
O’Grady was placed on administrative leave on January 28, 2017 and suspended with pay in February. The disciplinary action took months because of her high rank.
In March, 2019, she retired from the Secret Service.
During the next four years—2017 to 2021—Donald Trump came perilously close to becoming an absolute dictator.
Among his infamies and crimes:
- Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press as “the enemy of the American people” for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters.
- Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Attacking and alienating America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
Donald Trump
- Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his useless “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay for 35 days.
- Allowing the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
- Repeatedly lying—while still in office and afterward—that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him by massive voter fraud.
- Illegally trying to pressure state legislatures and governors to stop the certification of the vote that had made Joe Biden the president-elect.
- Inciting his followers to attack the Capitol Building where Senators and Representatives were meeting to count the Electoral Votes won by himself and Joseph Biden. His objective: Stop the count, which he knew would prove him the loser.
In the classic 1981 crime drama, Prince of the City, Danny Ciello (Treat Williams) turns federal witness against his fellow crime-committing police officers.
His mobbed-up cousin, Nick, warns him that the Mafia wants him dead—but that his greatest danger might come from the bodyguards now surrounding him: “Anyone can be hit. You know that. All a guard has to do is look the wrong way for a second.”
Had that happened while Trump occupied the White House, American democracy would not now be imperiled by a second Trump administration.
Bodyguards for Adolf Hitler faced no such qualms. Right up to the bitter end, with Russian forces only blocks from the Fuhrerbunker, they manned their posts, ready to die for the man who had led them, Germany and the world into the ultimate catastrophe.
Within six years, Hitler had:
- Ignited World War II in 1939 through his invasion of Poland.
- Directly or indirectly caused the deaths of 50 million people worldwide.
- Exterminated six million Jews throughout Eastern Europe and Russia through mass shootings or gassings in a vast system of concentration camps.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2025 at 12:10 am
On July 11, Federal Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ordered the Trump administration to halt its indiscriminate immigration arrests across California.
Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of policy and homeland security advisor, was outraged.
Miller has been called one of the most powerful officials in the second Trump administration. According to the Wall Street Journal, he “has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed.”
Miller now acts as the driving force behind Trump’s effort to arrest at least 3,000 Hispanics every day.
On July 12, he responded on X:
“The ruling has just been issued. A communist judge in LA has ordered ICE to report directly to her and radical left NGOs — not the president. This is another act of insurrection against the United States and its sovereign people.”
Stephen Miller
And that led California Governor Gavin Newsom to respond to Miller on X:
“This fascist cuck in DC continues his assault on democracy and the Constitution, and his attempt to replace the sovereignty of the people with autocracy. Sorry the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen. Cry harder.”
Newsom defended his language at a later news conference: “I don’t think they understand any other kind of language, so I have no apologies for standing tall and firm and pushing back against their cruelty.”
Mainstream liberals were stunned.
On July 20, the Los Angeles Times mourned: “Forger the high road: Newsom Takes the Fight to Trump and his allies.”
And the story noted: “The MAGA-embraced epithet from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s official press office in response, however, was hardly typical for a Democratic politician.
“Popular among the far right and the gutters of social media, the term is used to insult liberals as weak and is also short for ‘cuckold,’ which refers to the husband of an unfaithful wife.
“The low blow sanctioned by a potential 2028 presidential candidate set a new paradigm for the political left that has long embraced Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” motto to rise above the callousness of Trump and his acolytes.”
Gavin Newsom
Following that mantra had cost Democrats the 2016 election and that of 2024—as well as the United States Senate and House of Representatives.
But some Democrats have decided it’s time to fight fire with fire.
Questioned on the use of “Politically Incorrect” language by the governor, Newsom’s Director of Communications Izzy Gardon, said: “We were inspired by the White House’s use of the term.”
In June, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, had called Newsom “the biggest cuck in politics.” And President Trump has repeatedly referred to the governor as “Gavin Newscum.”
Bob Salladay, Newson’s top communications advisor, added: “Sometimes the best way to challenge a bully is to punch them in the metaphorical face.
“These tactics may seem extreme to some and they are, but there’s a significant difference here: We’re targeting powerful forces that are ripping apart this country, using their own words and tactics. Trump and Stephen Miller are attacking the powerless like every fascist bully before them.”
By calling Miller a “fascist cuck,” Newsom was stealing a page from the Right-wing’s playbook.
In this case, “cuck” clearly refers to unsubstantiated online rumors that Miller’s wife, Katie, became romantically involved with Elon Musk after he set up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk selected her as a DOGE official. And when the billionaire left DOGE in May, Katie Miller left with him—to take a job at xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company.
Katie Miller
The Democratic party’s official X account posted a “cuck chair” meme, representing a hotel room chair where a husband or wife would sit while watching a partner have sex with someone else.
Political blogger Peter Sage had mixed feelings about Newsom’s foray into Trump-style rhetoric:
“I am not a big fan of Newsom adopting the Trump tactic of trolling and name-calling. There is a me-too quality to it. But my instincts here may be out of date for this media environment.
“Maybe trolling the other party needs to be everybody’s brand in a world where people get news via social media.
“Policy discussion bores most people. Many people think they want serious political discussion of the issues, but people at the margin who decide elections respond to quick shots that position a politician in the political universe. One defines oneself by one’s fights.”
In April, a Pew Research Center study found that a majority of Democrats believe in pushing back against Trump rather than finding common ground with him.
This division was demonstrated on July 29 by New Jersey United States Senator Cory Booker, who screamed at his Democratic colleagues that they needed “a wake-up call!”
He angrily blocked the passage of several bills—popular with Democrats and Republicans—to fund police programs. His reason: The Trump’s administration had withheld law enforcement money from Democratic states.
“This is the problem with Democrats in America right now,” Booker yelled, “we’re willing to be complicit with Donald Trump!”
Only the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections—and, more importantly, that of the 2028 Presidential one—will decide which was a better tactic for Democrats: Attempted conciliation with Trump—or brutal confrontation.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 5, 2025 at 12:13 am
Cuck: 1. a weak or servile man (often used as a contemptuous term for a man with moderate or progressive political views); 2. a man whose wife is sexually unfaithful; a cuckold.
It’s a term often used by Right-wingers to attack the masculinity of their enemies.
So imagine how Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of policy and homeland security advisor, felt when the term was trained on him.
And by no less a major political figure than California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Miller has been called one of the most powerful officials in the second administration of President Donald Trump. According to the Wall Street Journal, he “has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed.”
And as Reinhard Heydrich, second-in-command of Adolf Hitler’s Schutzstaffel, or SS, acted as the architect of the Holocaust, Miller now acts as the driving force behind Trump’s wholesale effort to arrest at least 3,000 Hispanics every day.
Stephen Miller
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Miller claimed that illegal aliens were a “clear and present danger” to national security, and charged that federal judges were “telling President Trump he can’t deport these threats from our community.
“This is the choice facing every American: Either we all side and get behind President Trump to remove these terrorists from our communities, or we let a rogue, radical-left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus.”
Miller orchestrated the June 6 raids on Los Angeles by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
On July 2, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agency, ICE. Its introduction reads:
“Since early June, this District [Los Angeles] has been under siege.
“Masked federal agents, sometimes dressed in military-style clothing, have conducted indiscriminate immigration operations, flooding street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites, day laborer corners, and other places, setting up checkpoints, and entering businesses, interrogating residents as they are working, looking for work, or otherwise trying to go about their daily lives, and taking people away.
“The raids in this District follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from.
“If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind.
“Those who have borne the brunt of Defendants’ heavy-handed pattern of unlawful conduct include day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, caregivers and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California.
“Over a thousand residents in [Los Angeles] have already been impacted, including a shocking (though hardly surprising) number of U.S. citizens and individuals lawfully present in the country.”
ICE agents in Los Angeles
The ACLU lawsuit specifically blamed Miller for these outrages:
“Federal immigration enforcement is constrained by law. But since the federal government began its mass immigration enforcement operations in [Los Angeles] on June 6, 2025, all of these legal requirements have given way to one overriding consideration: numbers, pure numbers. Quantity over quality.
”In late May, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security imposed a quota of 3,000 immigration-related arrests per day—with ‘consequences for not hitting arrest targets.’ In order to reach this target, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller directed high-level officials to change their approach to stops and arrests in the field.
“Agents and officers, according to him, should no longer conduct targeted operations based on investigations. Instead, they should ‘just go out there and arrest [unauthorized noncitizens] by rounding up people in public spaces like ‘Home Depot’ and ‘7-Eleven’ convenience stores.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom immediately protested the raids. They charged that Trump’s dispatching 4,700 federal troops to Los Angeles—4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines—was both unnecessary and inflammatory.
Karen Bass
On June 9, Newsom sued the Trump administration for what he called an illegal federalization of the California National Guard. But a three-judge appeals court panel allowed Trump to maintain the Guard in Los Angeles.
On July 11, Federal Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ordered the Trump administration to halt its indiscriminate immigration raids across California.
Concluding there was a “mountain of evidence” to prove that ICE was systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California, she issued temporary orders which:
- Prohibited immigration agents from arresting people without reasonable suspicion that they were in the country illegally;
- Restricted ICE from relying on factors like race, language, or occupation when determining reasonable suspicion; and
- Required agents to allow detainees immediate access to legal counsel.
On July 12, Miller responded on X: “The ruling has just been issued. A communist judge in LA has ordered ICE to report directly to her and radical left NGOs — not the president. This is another act of insurrection against the United States and its sovereign people.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 26, 2025 at 12:22 am
On October 4, 1943, SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler addressed SS officers stationed in Posen, Poland, about the ongoing campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
He gave a similar speech two days later to an audience of Reichsleiters (national leaders) and Gauleiters (governors), as well as other government representatives.
Himmler intended to alert Reich officials of the extermination campaign the Schutzstaffel (“Protective Squads”)—otherwise known as the SS—and Wehrmacht (German army) had been waging since June, 1941.
The purpose: To make his listeners accessories to his monumental crimes—and to warn them there was no turning back.
Heinrich Himmler
Either Nazi Germany won the war that its Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, had unintentionally unleashed on September 1, 1939—or its topmost officials would themselves face extinction as war criminals.
Said Himmler:
“I want to also mention a very difficult subject before you, with complete candor. It should be discussed amongst us, yet nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people.
“It is one of those things that is easily said: ‘The Jewish people is being exterminated.’…Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 are there or when there are 1,000. And to have seen this through and—with the exception of human weakness—to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned….”
Fast forward 81 years—to July, 2024.
On July 15, 2024, the Republican National Convention met in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to nominate former President Donald Trump for President of the United States and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance for Vice President.
Most of the attendees of Himmler’s speech at Posen hadn’t known the full details of the systematic extermination of the Jews. But everyone at the Republican convention knew Trump’s history:
- Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
- Praising brutal Communist dictators Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Openly lusting for his daughter, Ivanka.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his useless “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. About 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were forced to work without pay for 35 days.
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance
- Allowing the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
- Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves against the deadly COVID-19 virus.
- Repeatedly lying—while still in office and afterward—that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him by massive voter fraud.
- Illegally trying to pressure state legislatures and governors to stop the certification of the vote that had made Joe Biden the President-elect.
- Inciting his followers on January 6, 2021, to attack the Capitol Building where Senators and Representatives were counting the Electoral College votes won by himself and Joe Biden. His objective: Stop the count, which he knew would prove him the loser.
At the time of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt, even Republicans admitted Trump’s responsibility for it.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy frantically phoned Trump, insisting that the rioters—who were breaking into his office through the windows—were the President’s supporters. He begged Trump to call them off.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said.
But on January 28, “My Kevin” groveled before Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, while they discussed how to win a House majority in the 2022 midterm elections
And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on January 12: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
But when the Senate met to try Trump for inciting an insurrection, McConnell voted to acquit him—and successfully urged his fellow Republicans to do the same.
At the 2024 Republican convention, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared: “We in the Republican Party are the law and order team.”
But he ignored Trump’s past conviction for raping advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and his 34 felony convictions for scheming to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn “star” after the two had sex.
Heinrich Himmler diabolically entangled his fellow Nazis in his own crimes.
Attendees at the Republican convention could not plead ignorance of Trump’s crimes. They were knowingly, enthusiastically championing a proven criminal for the highest office in the nation.
History has brutally condemned those Germans who, knowing the full extent of Adolf Hitler’s crimes, nevertheless signed on to perpetuate them.
History will render the same damning verdict against those Republicans who provided similar support for Donald Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2025 at 12:12 am
This December 2 will mark the 24th anniversary of the collapse of Enron Corporation.
Based in Houston, Texas, Enron had employed 22,000 staffers and was one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas, communications and paper companies.
In 2000, it claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion. Fortune had named Enron “America’s Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years.
But then the truth emerged in 2001: Enron’s reported profitability was based not on brilliance and innovation but on systematic and creative accounting fraud.
And, on December 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.
Enron’s $63.4 billion in assets made it the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history—until WorldCom’s bankruptcy in 2002.
The California electricity crisis (2000-2001) was caused by market manipulations and illegal shutdowns of pipelines by Texas energy companies.
The state suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts. Pacific Gas & Electric, one of the state’s largest energy companies, collapsed, and the economic fall-out greatly harmed Governor Gray Davis’ standing.
The crisis was made possible by Governor Pete Wilson, who had forced the passage of partial de-regulation legislation in 1996.
Enron seized its opportunity to inflate prices and manipulate energy output in California’s spot markets. The crisis cost the state $40 to $45 billion.
The true scandal of Enron was not that it was eventually destroyed by its own greed.
The true scandal was that its leaders were never Federally prosecuted for almost driving California—and the entire Western United States—into bankruptcy.
And the crisis occurred during the “liberal” administration of President Bill Clinton.
Once the news broke that Enron had filed for bankruptcy, commentators almost universally oozed compassion for its thousands of employees who would lose their salaries and pensions.
No one, however, condemned the “profits at any cost” dedication of those same employees for pushing California to the brink of ruin.
To put this in historical perspective:
- Imagine a historian writing about the destruction of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (Guard Detachment), or SS, as a human interest tragedy.
- Imagine its Reichsfuhrer, Heinrich Himmler, being blamed for failing to prevent its collapse—as CEO Kenneth Lay was blamed for Enron’s demise.
- Imagine that same historian completely ignoring the horrific role the SS had played throughout Nazi-occupied countries—and its primary role in slaughtering six million Jews during the Holocaust.
Heinrich Himmler
Nor did the media urge the United States Department of Justice to end the extortion via RICO—the Federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
Passed by Congress in 1970, this was originally aimed at the kingpins of the Mafia. Since the mid-1980s, however, RICO has been successfully applied against both terrorist groups and legitimate businesses engaged in criminal activity.
Under RICO, people financially injured by a pattern of criminal activity can bring a claim in State or Federal court, and obtain damages at three times the amount of their actual claim, plus reimbursement for their attorneys’ fees and costs.
Such prosecutions would have pitted energy-extortionists against the full investigative might of the FBI and the sweeping legal authority of the Justice Department.
Consider this selection from the opening of the Act:
(1) “racketeering activity” means (A) any act or threat involving…extortion; (B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: sections 891-894 (relating to extortionate credit transactions), section 1343 (relating to wire fraud)Section 1344 (relating to financial institution fraud), section 1951 (relating to interference with commerce, robbery, or extortion), section 1952 (relating to racketeering)….
Today, two powerful social media companies—Facebook and X—play pivotal and potentially dangerous roles in the lives of millions of men, women and children.
Facebook has invaded its users’ privacy (such as via the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), manipulated elections (such as the 2016 Presidential one) and subjected its users to mass surveillance.
X has allowed trolls to abuse its followers and spread dangerous lies to millions. For five years, its chief troll was Donald Trump, who libeled hundreds while falsely claiming that COVID-19 was a hoax and that he won re-election in 2020 but was cheated by fraud.
Such lies resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans from COVID—and poisoned the American electoral system for future races.
Yet in both cases, the Federal Government has stood by and allowed such abuses to continue unpunished. Yet it commands a wide range of agencies capable of addressing such abuses—such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and—not least importantly, the Justice Department.
Powerful, life-altering companies require powerful oversight—through the prism of the warning given by Niccolo Machiavelli more than 500 years ago:
All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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THE DICTATORS’ DANCE–PAST AND PRESENT: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 1, 2026 at 12:17 amNow, fast-forward 85 years—from 1941 to 2026. Substitute President Donald Trump for Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Mojtaba Khamenei for Joseph Stalin—and Iran for the Soviet Union.
Just as Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union without warning, so did Trump launch his on Iran—on February 28.
Hitler—and numerous members of the Wehrmacht—believed that Germany’s mechanized panzers would quickly subdue Soviet armies.
“We were fast,” recalled Panzer Lieutenant Hans-Erdmann Schonbeck. “And our tank forces could cover huge distances. And once we broke through the enemy’s defenses, our orders were not to worry about threats to our right or left but to keep going, deep into Russian territory.”
Panzer tank
But the tanks soon faced unexpected difficulties. Most roads in Russia were unpaved, so the tanks raised huge dust clouds almost everywhere they went. The dust clogged their engines and brought many tanks to a halt. Repair crews worked themselves to exhaustion so that the lightning-fast advance could continue.
Another drawback not evident at the outset of the invasion: Summer uniforms. For a war that began on June 22, 1941, these were entirely appropriate. But as the months quickly passed, the notorious Russian winter season loomed ever closer.
Germans in summer uniforms
The German command underestimated the campaign’s duration, expecting a victory by autumn 1941, and prioritized ammunition and fuel over winter equipment. Although winter gear existed, it was stuck in supply depots in the West, and transport lines were too strained by the Soviets’ “scorched earth” tactics to move it to the front.
Without proper greatcoats or insulated boots, soldiers suffered from extreme cold, with temperatures dropping far below zero. Many resorted to stealing blankets from civilians or using blankets as makeshift clothing.
In its war with Iran, American’s air force completely dominated the skies. But then both American planes and ground forces faced an unexpected enemy: Mass-produced drones.
The same weapons—some of them supplied by Iran to Russia—have been used since 2022 in Ukraine. Unmanned and remotely-controlled, Ukrainian and Russian drones have transformed the battlefield. They’re estimated to inflict around 80% of combat casualties on both sides.
The technology—like that forged in Germany’s Blitzkrieg tactics—is revolutionizing warfare and evolving rapidly. To adapt to the new era, the U.S. military is learning lessons from Ukraine.
Iranian drone
Student News Agency, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
Not only are American military forces being targeted, so are those Gulf nations that have allied themselves with the United States: The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.
Primarily targeted: Energy infrastructure, airports and sites hosting American military personnel.
For Iran, the drones are relatively cheap. For the United States, the costs of countering this threat are steadily mounting. A typical Shahed-136 costs Tehran roughly $20,000 to $50,000, while interceptor missiles, such as the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), cost millions.
On August 22, 1939—the eve of his invasion of Poland, which would ignite World War II—Adolf Hitler delivered a secret address to his supreme commanders and generals. Its climax:
“Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness.”
Hitler urged his generals to act similarly toward the Russians, whom he regarded as subhumans.
The results of this policy soon became obvious when the Wehrmacht invaded Ukraine. Ukrainians, long suffering under the yoke of Stalin, greeted the invaders with bread and salt, the traditional greeting of comrades.
Within a month, they realized that the tyranny of Stalin had been replaced by an all-out extermination campaign of Hitler. For every Ukrainian the Germans killed, 10 more emerged to seek revenge.
Eighty-five years later, Donald Trump and officials of his administration are celebrating the indiscriminate slaughter of Iranians, whether civilian or military.
“We totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun,” Trump said on NBC News.
On March 22, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.
“Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Pete Hegseth
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
Former House speaker and Trump advisor Newt Gingrich posted on X: “Instead of fighting over a 21-mile-wide bottleneck [Strait of Hormuz] forever, we [could] cut a new channel through friendly territory. A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you’ve got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attacks.”
This would produce countless numbers of casualties and cover the Middle East with radioactive fallout.
It remains to be seen if such exhortations will lead American soldiers to act as barbarically as those of the Wehrmacht and SS—and inspire similar barbarism in return.
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