Cedarford digs up a few rotting chunks of horse meat long ago ground into hamburger, slaps them together and shouts “look at my pretty pony!”
“I say that major sabotage and spying could have significantly impaired the war effort and cost the Allies many more lives.”
And you’re hopelessly wrong. Speak to any military expert, officer or historian, they’ll quickly set you straight with regards to the inability of sabotage to significantly impair ANY historical war effort, much less the American effort in WWII. But unlike Malkin and Powerline, Cedarford at least has the wits to avoid trying to defend the invasion and spot raid idiocies. But in any event, the sabotage and spying argument was dealt with and dismissed months ago. Go to the September archives on the right and you can learn all about logistics and the inefficacy of massive attempts to inhibit production.
As I’ve demonstrated, the production delta was such that no amount of sabotage and spying could have impaired the war effort for a single day, much less “severely crippled” it as Malkin would have us believe. From my letter to Michelle Malkin posted her on September 6th in response to her own post that day:
Shipping Tonnage Produced, 1942 to 1945
—————-1942———-1943————1944———-1945
USA—–6,252,300—15,153,000—14,580,000—8,804,900
Japan——511,100—-1,023,000——1,929,200—–626,300
delta——-1223%——–1481%————757%——-1406%
Because you appear to be unfamiliar with both military history and logistics, I note that the bulk of the shipping production for every belligerent power was not warships, but merchant shipping, 72.92 percent to be precise. And considering your interesting opinion that aircraft carriers are the only basis upon which threats to the two American coasts should be assessed, please be advised that Japan was only able to build nine carriers over the course of the war, some of which were never launched, while the US launched 120, many of which were surplus to requirements.
Aircraft produced, 1942 to 1945
———–1942——-1943——-1944——-1945
USA—-47,800—–85,900—–96,300—–46,000
Japan—8,900—–16,700—–28,200—–11,100
delta—–537%——-514%——-342%——-414%
I note here that even if every West Coast aircraft production facility had been destroyed in 1942 by “attack, invasion, spot raids, sabotage, and surveillance”, the USA would have still had essentially the same advantage over Japan that year that it did in 1945, when the war was all but over, 403 percent compared to 414 percent.
In the event that you find yourself inclined to argue that a significant percentage of American production was required for the European war in 1942, I recommend that you first examine the production statistics for Great Britain, the Soviet Union and Germany, then read Winston Churchill’s excellent six-volume History of the Second World War. You will find that the Allied leaders were well aware of the implications of their significant advantage in industrial capacity even before America’s entry into the war.
All the signs strongly indicate that Malkin was foolish enough to base her case on military necessity despite never bothering reading any of the relevant Army or Navy warplans or strategic planning documents and never checking to see if the historical data supported her assumptions in any way. She so clueless that she even asserted that there were NO carriers based on the East Coast at a time when FIVE of America’s nine carriers were operating out of Norfolk – and three of the four based on the West Coast were in Samoa.
Furthermore, no amount of spying could possibly have been as dangerous as the media leaks that led to two of our most important warplans, containing detailed production information, being printed in major Chicago and Washington newspapers. German spies ensured that the publishing of AWPD-1 led directly to one of Hitler’s rare Fuhrerbefehl, moving German AA batteries to protect all of the 113 (if I recall correctly) production targets specified within days, and yet the Senator who leaked the information was not even investigated, much less interned. Nor was the British national who published detailed reports in the Chicago Herald about the status and disposition of US naval forces in the Pacific immediately after Midway arrested… but over 100,000 innocent ethnic Japanese lost their homes and property thanks to this “necessity”.
If there was any sort of reasonable case for military necessity, Malkin would have been willing to debate it as she debated other aspects of internment. She refused to even try making a case because she knows that she didn’t do any research on it and has since learned that there is no case to be made. I have more respect for Michael Moore than I have for Malkin, the quintessential conservative media whore. Far from being “obsessed” with Malkin as some have claimed, I haven’t read her for months… if I’m in the mood for implausible, poorly researched historical fiction, there’s always Christian Jacq.