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From: matthews@harvard.ARPA (Jim Matthews)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The Shame of the President
Message-ID: <57@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 21-Apr-85 00:06:33 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.57
Posted: Sun Apr 21 00:06:33 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Apr-85 07:32:47 EST
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Distribution: net
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
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> For the record,  here is the explanation given by
> the President of the United States, as to why he
> intends to visit the cemetery of 47 members of the
> Nazi SS and 2000 other Nazi soldiers:
> 
> "I think there is nothing wrong with visiting
> that cemetery where those young men are victims
> of Nazism also, even though they were fighting
> in the German uniform. They were victims just as surely
> as the victims in the concentration camps."
>           -President Reagan, NYTimes 4/19/85
> -------------------------------------------------
> 
>          If a Contra in Nicaragua can be a "freedom fighter",
> then why can't the Nazis be "victims"?  Welcome to the
> logic of the President of the United States!
>                        Andy Berman

	According to the 4/19/85 Wall Street Journal, many of
those "Nazi" soldiers are 14 year olds drafted in the last effort
to repel the Allied and Red armies.  Mr. Berman, it would seem,
has trouble acknowledging them as victims.  As for the SS men,
it is obvious that Reagan didn't know they were there until after
planning the visit.
	It is simply too easy to write off anyone with the most
remote connection to one of history's greatest butchers.  The
fact that we still live with the other contender for that title
presents a somewhat greater moral challenge.

Jim Matthews
matthews@harvard