Little Green Footballs

Saturday, July 01, 2006

What's a blitzkrieg between friends?

Seems Chuckles the Clown is a tad miffed that AFP are using 'Nazi' terminology to describe the aerial bombardment of Gaza by the Israel military.

Agence France Presse uses Nazi terminology to describe IsraelĂ‚’s air attacks against Hamas targets: Israeli jets blitz Gaza, Hamas vows it wonĂ‚’t be crushed.
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israeli fighter jets blitzed Gaza overnight, setting the interior ministry ablaze and striking militant targets in the latest assault aimed at securing the release of a captured soldier.
Well done genius. Blitzkrieg is a German term, but rather than a "Nazi" term as you claim, it was actually coined by an American Magazine. The modern meaning of course is any attack that is quick and intense, and not even bare faced liars like Charles could deny that the Israeli military mobilized and attacked at great speed.

Of course what Charles seeks to prove is that AFP are subtly making correlations between the Israeli response and 'Nazi' tactics. Of course clumsily he only proves one thing. Charles Johnson is heads and shoulders above everyone else when it comes to cheapening the accusation of anti-Semitism.
Though "blitzkrieg" is a German word (literally "lightning war", meaning "a war as fast as a lightning"), the word did not originate from within the German military. It was first used by a journalist in the American newsmagazine TIME describing the 1939 German invasion of Poland.

[...]

"Blitzkrieg" has since expanded into multiple meanings in more popular usage. From its original military definition, "blitzkrieg" may be applied to any military operation emphasizing the surprise, speed, or concentration stressed in accounts of the Polish September Campaign. During the war, the Luftwaffe terror bombings of London came to be known as The Blitz. Similarly, blitz has come to describe the "blitz" (rush) tactic of American football, and the blitz form of chess in which players are allotted very little time. Blitz or blitzkrieg is used in many other non-military contexts.

Via Wikipedia

3 comments:

Ayatollah Ghilmeini said...

Blitz is a verb that describes any mechanized mobile assualt, from Patton 's blast through france in '44 to Schwartzkopf in '91.

Whiel I think Charles made more of the anlogy than was worthwhile; I've been watching the watch for a while and ahve decided you very opinionated and equally ignorant about Israel and the Middle East.

While I do find some comments at LGF offensive, I am quite comfortable putting LGF watch in the same company of any of the few at LGF whom I would ban if it were my blog. That said, level of discussion and the number of stories that have broken on lGF make it the place to be, its discussions are among the most thoughful you will find anywhere.

Go read a couple of books on the Eastern Front in WWII before you amke any comparisons to anything the US or Israel has done because when you you, you realize hitler slaughtered 10,000 civilians a DAY through direct targeting. I take no joy in the 30-40000 civilians in the current war but the fact the number is that low is becuase the war being fought humanely; if you knew anything about warfare you would know that.

Bobby Dazzler said...

That said, level of discussion and the number of stories that have broken on lGF make it the place to be, its discussions are among the most thoughful you will find anywhere.

As the Lizards would say...LOL

PS point out where LGFW has made comparisons between Nazism and US/Israel....go on. I dare you.

Ivan Geotsky said...

Hello Ghilmeini, long time no talk.

I have been reading Ghilmeini's stuff for a while and have decided that he tends to rely on two rhetorical tactics:

1) Determining a war's value by quantifying its casualties relative to that of other wars; in other words, it's okay for Americans to be responsible for 40,000 or so civilian deaths, since the Germans killed even more.

2) Accusing others of ignorance of a subject (esp. Nazi Germany and current Middle-Eastern affairs) while neither presenting his own credentials nor offering specific counter-arguments.