NPR’s All Things Considered today featured an interview with Annie Jacobsen, author of the new book Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists To America. There was much talk especially about Wernher von Braun and his Nazi past. He designed rockets that took man to the moon and killed innocent civilians in London. The book no doubt shows in detail the deceit and hypocrisy of the U.S. government. Some Americans will certainly be upset about these Nazi scientists. I have no argument with them. But hey, weren’t they just following orders? That is always said to be a good thing when Americans do it. I do want to point out that there is rarely any outrage over American scientists who developed the atomic bomb that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Japan. Just like there is little outrage over the bombing itself. Actually, there is little outrage or concern over anything that U.S. troops did in World War II since it was the “good war” and we were the “good” guys fighting against the “bad” Nazis (even though we allied with the mass murderer Stalin, who killed more than Hitler).

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