New evidence suggests the USA covered up the massacre of 22k Polish. What do you

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   Joe Cookposted 12 years ago

   New evidence suggests the USA covered up the massacre of 22k Polish. What do you think about this?
   
   The Associated Press has today revealed that the US was complicit in covering up the massacre of 22 thousand Polish people in 1940 so not to offend its wartime ally Joseph Stalin.  What are your immediate thoughts on this?

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   AlexK2009posted 12 years ago

   Hitler invaded Russia in 1941. Prior to that the Russians were not Allies of the US, they were semi-allies of Germany (non-aggression pact) so had the US known of the massacre they would have had no reason to cover it up. 
   
   If they covered it up during the war I am surprised they did not reveal it once the cold war started. Unless of course the Russians had more dirt on the US  than the US had on them.

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   Becky Katzposted 12 years ago

   I read about this yesterday. I cannot say that I am shocked. I can see the reasoning behind this at the time. The Allies did need Russia's help to stop the Germans. I do not know if they would have been able to stop them. Trying to decide what to do at the time must have been extremely difficult for our President and his cabinet. I do think that after the war, something might have been done, but would that have started another World War? Possibly that would have been WWIII and we were already weakened by WWII so much. Would we have had a chance to win it? I do not think so. Very hard to try to decide what to do.

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      AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      A balanced answer but Why has it taken till NOW to come out?

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      Becky Katzposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Because the government made the papers classified. They have a certain time period after they are classified to stay that way. The time period has now ended and they are releasing the papers with the documentation.

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   Attikosposted 12 years ago

   Roosevelt knew as early as 1943, when the British sent a report on it based on evidence from their contacts with the Polish government in exile. The odds are good it was known earlier. Suppression of the information clearly was due to the war and the alliance with the Soviets.
   
   Congress held hearings on the issue in 1951. Its report was released in 1952. It held the Soviets responsible, but the details were redacted by the Truman administration. By then the American public had been so well trained to accept Washington's decisions without serious question, and to think of the national state's assumed wartime powers as normal, that the matter was merely a ripple amid the waves of the Cold War. Historians noted it, but not many others considered it anything more than one of many tragedies of war. The government buried the matter, and it was largely forgotten.
   
   It has come up now only because documents containing some of the details known to Roosevelt and Truman have been at long last declassified. The government's burial of the crime is being slowly exhumed. More will be made available in the future, but probably at a trickle, not at a pace that would support widespread public outrage. The federal government's interests would not be served by that.

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   Billrrrrposted 12 years ago

   Just another excuse to throw mud at the "horrible" United States.  The USA has been a new start for, and a new home to millions of immigrants - including many from Poland.  What are your immediate thoughts on this?
   
   Sorry if I sound angry, but as a second generation citizen of the U.S., I know that the country is not perfect, but I believe it to be the best nation on earth.  I am sick of the U.S. constantly being cast in a bad light. 
   
   By the way, I am writing this on September 11 - one of the saddest days in the history of the U.S.; a day when animalistic terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers in New York and killed 3,000 innocent civilians.  My thoughts today are not happy ones.  NEVER FORGET THE WORLD TRADE CENTER!!!!!

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      Joe Cookposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Have to say though Bill, your country as mine, does have a very shady history.  Especially recently. On another note, when you say USA is the 'best nation on earth' what you are saying is everyone else is beneath you and of less value - Be friendly!

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      AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      The US constantly casts itself in a bad light. Please read some history and see the US from the viewpoint of other countries.

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      ChristinSposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Just because we don't put blinders on doesn't mean we don't love the US. Blind patriotism with question is dangerous - read a history book

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      john000posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think it is terrible that we have not heard more about The Jedwabne pogrom (or Jedwabne massacre). was a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the town of Jedwabne in Poland that took place in July 1941 during World War II. The official inve

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      Billrrrrposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Joe.  I love the UK and think of her as the Mother of the U.S.  I am pretty sure that  everyone considers their home country the best.  The UK has perhaps the greatest history of any nation.  I would certainly be proud if I were British.

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      Joe Cookposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Bill, I'd consider a spot of brushing up on imperialism, colonialism, slave trading, introduction of concentration camps, and the purging of the third worlds resources. Britain has perhaps the darkest, most shadiest history of any nation on earth.

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      S Leretsehposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Bill, if you google ' 9-11 Mossad/CIA' you can get a better understanding as to who pulled off the "terrorist" attack on 9-11. HINT: It wasn't unemployed 20-something Arabs. 
      I do agree with your first paragraph

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   johnwindbellposted 12 years ago

   No surprise, that's synonymous with government! They did it then and they continue to do it today. And who's to stop them. We'll just put another 'one' in office and then wonder again, and then ask this question again. History repeats itself, and yet we still never learn. "Beam me up Scotty, there's still too many cavemen here!"

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   breathe2travelposted 12 years ago

   I am unfamiliar with this and will have to research further.
   
   However, my first thoughts are - what? Why?  Another opportunity to make America look bad? 
   
   I am Polish, and my grandfather came to the states about that time -- and I find it difficult to reconcile his willingness to come to a country if that country had truly just slaughtered his countrymen.
   
   I hope it's not true. If it is, how has it remained hidden so long?

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      Joe Cookposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Here's a link to the article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19552745

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      AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It was the Russians killed the Poles at KAtyn as I understand, not the US,  but the US covered  the killings up

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   James-wolveposted 12 years ago

   The US deliberately helped Russia cover up one of its most infamous Second World War atrocities to gain favour with Stalin.President  Roosevelt did not want to anger Russian leader Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during the war.
   It wasn't until the waning days of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe that reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev publicly admitted to Soviet guilt at Katyn, a key step in Polish-Russian reconciliation.
   The silence by the U.S. government has been a source of deep frustration for many Polish-Americans. One is Franciszek Herzog, 81, a Connecticut man whose father and uncle died in the massacre. After Gorbachev's 1990 admission, he was hoping for more openness from the U.S. as well and made three attempts to obtain an apology from President George H.W. Bush.
   "It will not resurrect the men," he wrote to Bush. "But will give moral satisfaction to the widows and orphans of the victims."
   A reply he got in 1992, from the State Department, did not satisfy him. His correspondence with the government is also among the newly released documents and was obtained early by the AP from the George Bush Presidential Library.
   The letter, dated Aug. 12, 1992, and signed by Thomas Gerth, then deputy director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs, shows the government stating that it lacked irrefutable evidence until Gorbachev's admission:
   "The U.S. government never accepted the Soviet Government's claim that it was not responsible for the massacre. However, at the time of the Congressional hearings in 1951-1952, the U.S. did not possess the facts that could clearly refute the Soviets' allegations that these crimes were committed by the Third Reich. These facts, as you know, were not revealed until 1990, when the Russians officially apologized to Poland."
   Herzog expressed frustration at that reply.
   "There's a big difference between not knowing and not wanting to know," Herzog said. "I believe the U.S. government didn't want to know because it was inconvenient to them."
   and we won t know what exactly happened in 11 sep untill  after 50  or 100 years

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   whonunuwhoposted 12 years ago

   Sometimes in the human condition there are things under heaven and earth that are atrocious and horrible, yet, in this particularly terrible and regrettable occurrence in history, this may have been "the enemy of my enemy, is my friend." This may have been true for a specific time from the past WWII era, and has changed to read.."My enemy once, now my friend, and over time, as the thoughts of mice and men, may change, once again." It is in great sadness that we mourn the deaths of so many in a terrible time from our past and in hopes that these atrocities will never occur in such great numbers. There have been accounts in Africa and in the middle East of such events in recent years and it seems that mankind will never change as long as he is ruled by greed and the power that it brings.

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    annerivendellposted 12 years ago

    Show me the evidence is my immediate thought.

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    S Leretsehposted 12 years ago

    As Russian troops were moving into Poland virtually unopposed, Stalin deliberately haunted his army to give the Nazis the time they needed to destroy Warsaw...and also kill many more Poles. Many atrocities in WWII. Fact is, the US DID need Russia's support, and had no choice but to look the other way when Russian troops committed atrocities. Russia was NOT (is not) a Western Civilization country... A certain understanding of this reality needs to considered.  When Russia did enter Poland, they gathered up thousands (some say more than 10,000), who were members of the recent Polish resistance and uprising, and were busy forming a new [democratic] gov't, they were taken to a remote area and gunned down. Then there was reported massive rape incidences when Russian troops entered Germany. Lots of atrocities in this war.  Again tho, Russia is not a Western Civilization country. Accepting anomalies for human rights violations for non-Western Civil. countries has been the historic norm.
    
    Incidentally, outside of Western Civilization countries, who even brings up - or cares about any incident regarding -WWII ?

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    Mr. Happyposted 12 years ago

    I studied American History in university - such news do not surprise me.
    
    Many people who do not know the shady history of the United States, may be surprised by stories of this nature. I tend to think that they would also be surprised if they knew that George Bush's grandfather was found guilty under the Trading with the Enemy Act (http://www.mbpolitics.com/Bush2000/VestingDetail.htm) - he was doing business with the Nazis ...
    
    Or that after WWII the CIA employed Nazi scientists for all sorts of experiments and programs ("Edgewood Arsenal", Run by U.S. Army Chemical Corps, had acquired 8 Nazi scientists.)
    
    There is much the American public does not know about its own history. Sorry it's Classified - matters of National Security. Good excuse to keep people uninformed, would You not agree?

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       S Leretsehposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       And your user name is "Mr. Happy"?  I suppose you intend your user-name to be irony(?)

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       Mr. Happyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I am happy to know facts and to have studied history. : )

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    BobMongerposted 12 years ago

    At the time we weren't sure it wasn't Nazi propaganda-they had a reputation you know. One must remember, also, that these massacres occurred while Hitler and Stalin were still on speaking terms so no one had clean hands. Stalin is credited with causing the deaths of over 20 million of his own people before the war even started and Hitler was even then putting the finishing touches on his "final solution." As for what was reported in the US there were a lot of things that went on we never heard about until near the end of the war for a variety of reasons. In many cases the information was kept from the public to protect our intelligence assets Both the Germans and Russians are famous for their counter intelligence capabilities and getting caught by either party would be very unpleasant. In other cases newspaper editors wouldn't run a story like this without more information and what was coming out of Poland was pretty sketchy at best.
    I am curious, though, why this is just now coming out some 72 years after the fact. Anyone who had any connection with these events is surely dead by now. Perhaps I'll go looking in the "who's who" obituaries to see who isn't here anymore. I think there's more to this than meets the eye.

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       Attikosposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       It isn't just now coming out. It's been out for sixty years. What's new is some of the detail. The media are emphasizing it to sensationalize the matter, not because it's especially newsworthy.

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