Sunday, December 31, 2006

A Shameful Ending to a Violent Year


The Hanging Gardens of Babylon


The view from India is the same as the view from the Moon:

HYDERABAD (Times of India, Dec 31) Deposed Iraq president Saddam Hussein's execution in Baghdad by the Iraq government on Saturday was received with shock and condemnation in the city.

Political parties, including left-wing parties and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, took out rallies and burnt effigies of US president George W Bush, while religious institutions condemned the execution.

MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi said, "The trial was a farce. The US showed its total insensitivity by executing Saddam Hussein on a holy day. These days are holy for the Muslims. They are busy in prayers and celebrating Id."

Hundreds of left activists took out a rally from L B Stadium to Basheerbagh crossroads and later burnt Bush's effigy. They also raised slogans against the US government.

"Saddam's hanging is hanging of justice," they shouted.

JI president for AP and Orissa Abdul Basith Anwar, in a statement, expressed regret and said the execution was carried out when Muslims were preparing for Fajar (morning) prayer.

"If execution is the punishment for Saddam Hussein for what he had done to his people and the country, then president Bush and his ally British prime minister Tony Blair deserve worse treatment for what they are doing in Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq," he added.

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Free at Last!

BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 31, 2006 (AP)— At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday as they prepared to celebrate Islam's biggest holiday, their first without Saddam Hussein.
The military reported the deaths of six more American troops, making December the deadliest month this year for U.S. forces in Iraq. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

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History Repeats Itself

"In about 762 A.D., the Abbasid dynasty took over rule of the vast Muslim world and moved the capital to the newly-founded city of Baghdad. Over the next five centuries, the city would become the world's center of education and culture. This period of glory has become known as the "Golden Age" of Islamic civilization, when scholars of the Muslim world made important contributions in both the sciences and humanities: medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, literature, and more. Under Abbasid rule, Baghdad became a city of museums, hospitals, libraries, and mosques.

"The city of Baghdad was finally trashed by the Mongols in 1258 A.D., effectively ending the era of the Abbasids. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers reportedly ran red, with the blood of thousands of scholars (a reported 100,000 of Baghdad's million residents were massacred). Many of the libraries, irrigation canals, and great historical treasures were looted and forever ruined. The city began a long period of decline, and became host to numerous wars and battles that continue to this day." (Read "United States" for "Mongols".) About: Islam


Saturday, December 30, 2006

Another Benefit of "Regime Change"

BAGHDAD NYT Dec. 29 — Along with its many other desperate problems, Iraq is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day.
It began right after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when many landlords took advantage of the removal of his economic controls and raised rents substantially, forcing out thousands of families who took shelter in abandoned government buildings and military bases. As the chaos in Iraq grew and the ranks of the jobless swelled, even more Iraqis migrated to squalid squatter encampments. Still others constructed crude shantytowns on empty plots where conditions were even worse.
Now, after more than 10 months of brutal sectarian reprisals, many more Iraqis have fled their neighborhoods, only to wind up often in places that are just as wretched in other ways. While 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country, 1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began. Since February, about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.
Shelter is their most pressing need, aid organizations say. Some have been able to occupy homes left by members of the opposing sect or group; others have not been so fortunate. The longer the violence persists, the more Iraqis are running out of money and options.
Shatha Talib, 30, her husband and five children, are among about a thousand struggling Iraqi families that have taken up residence in the bombed-out remains of the former Iraqi Air Defense headquarters and air force club in the center of Baghdad. “Nobody should live in such a place,” she said. “But we don’t have any other option.”

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Even the Associated Press admitted that Hussein, murdered this morning by the U.S. and its toadies, "built Iraq into a one of the Arab world's most modern societies." "Iraqis, once among the region's most prosperous, were impoverished" by U.S. imposed sanctions and war making.

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But a U.S. soldier in Iraq fully appreciates the situation: "First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"

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A sneaky bit of propaganda by the AP: "VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI received a letter Wednesday from Iran's hard-line president about the recent U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against Tehran for refusing to compromise on its nuclear program." "HARD-LINE president"? Is that part of the news or a beat of the war drums?

Friday, December 29, 2006

Relics of Power

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

OZYMANDIAS was the first poem a college English teacher assigned to my class. It somehow seemed appropriate to publish it today.

Let us apply it not only to him whose statue was overthrown, but also to the invaders who overthrew it.

Having written that, I was reminded that Shelley wrote OZYMANDIAS in a writing competition. The other competitor who wrote on the same theme described the broken statue in the desert and ended with a thought similar to mine above. I would substitute "Washington" for "London".


We wonder, – and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Horace Smith.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Murdering Saddam Hussein

The following are from news sources dated December 27th and 28th:

China: “The death sentence against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is just a political show put on by the United States, Chinese analysts said.”

UK (NOT Tony Blair): “The rapid confirmation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein is a long step backwards for Iraq. It is a brutal, if inevitable, display of victor’s justice that offends the principles that the US said it sought to uphold in toppling Iraq’s dictator.”

Rome: “A top Vatican official condemned the death sentence against Saddam Hussein in a newspaper interview published Thursday.”
“Italy's Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said the death sentence against toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may destabilize Iraq.”
“Italy's premier condemned Wednesday the death sentence against Saddam Hussein.”
Germany: “German Government Rejects Death Sentence For Saddam Hussein”

New Delhi: “India's response to the confirmation of the death sentence on the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, on Tuesday contrasts with the position taken by the United States. Interestingly, the Indian view is quite close to that of the European Union.”
“Contrary to the White House statement that Mr. Hussein had ‘received due process and legal rights,’ External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on November 5 that such life and death decisions require credible due process of law, which does not appear to be victor's justice and is acceptable to the people of Iraq as well as the international community."


But of course, “U.S. Hails Saddam Hussein Death Penalty Ruling”. The White House has also been described as “saluting” the ruling but at the same time predicting serious retaliations and worsening violence in Iraq as a result of it. So what is the point of Washington’s approval? Why approve something that is almost universally disapproved and which admittedly will make things worse?

In the first place, Washington devised the entire judicial farce in which the Iraqi president’s conviction and execution were foregone conclusions. The process was never anything but a kangaroo court manipulated by the U.S.

What did Saddam do to deserve hanging which dozens of other national leaders have not done? Nothing. The case against him is so feeble that this is the best the Associated Press could do: “He put suspected foes to death without trial, oppressed Kurds and Shiites, waged war on Iran and twice fought U.S.-led armies. He left an impoverished nation now gripped by sectarian bloodshed and an insurgency against the U.S. presence.” Absolutely ridiculous! It is the UNITED STATES (or more accurately the White House and Pentagon) which, by invading Iraq, left an impoverished nation gripped by sectarian bloodshed and an insurgency against the U.S. presence. The President of Iraq had nothing to do with that. Additionally, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Iraq for years before George II invaded it, with deadly results, including impoverishment. Before interference from the U.S., Saddam Hussein had created a relatively prosperous country with an excellent food distribution system upon which most Iraqis look back now with longing. The deaths of thousands of Iraqi children because of the American sanctions dwarf any oppression of Kurds and Shiites – as does the oppression of occupied Palestine by the Israel/U.S. axis. As for Iraq waging war on Iran, the U.S. is now seeking to do the same, with no rational justification, and it vigorously supported Iraq’s war against Iran. The president of Iraq “twice fought U.S.-led armies” because his country was attacked by U.S.-led armies. As for Saddam Hussein putting suspected foes to death without trial, what of the secret CIA prisons around the world into which people disappear and never reappear? What about the torture and murders at Abu Ghraib prison? What about “justice” and “suicides” at Guantanamo? What about the many, many people in Iraq who have died in U.S. captivity from beatings and other violent causes, often just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? And what of all those innocents in Iraq and Lebanon who have been killed without trial by American bombs and missiles? Assuming that the President of Iraq ordered certain individuals put to death without trial, was that worse than putting many more individuals to death with bombs and bullets without trial?

The second reason for U.S. approval of the sentence against the Iraqi president is that the U.S., and particularly neocons, monsterized Hussein into such a evil figure that nothing but the death penalty would seem sufficient punishment. Simpleminded people like G.W. Bush tend to become trapped by their own propaganda.

Third, there may have been an American concern that a living Saddam Hussein would attract loyalty and someday become a center of power – even get out of prison and become a public leader again. He is, after all, the only person alive who has demonstrated that he can govern Iraq as a modern state. The thought occurs to me that the White House should have thought twice, assuming it thought at all: Saddam’s Iraq was not a religious state like Iran and Israel, and Iraq’s sectarian government was a strong barrier against Islamic fundamentalists and Al Qaeda and oppression of women. Hussein’s sectarian government would seem to have matched Washington’s preferred standards. Too bad Israel’s interests overrode all others.
Fourth, since the end of World War II the U.S. has established a tradition of murdering the leaders of defeated countries – a barbarity once associated with ancient history. The U.S. did so both in Germany and Japan, relying on ex post facto laws, false evidence, selective prosecution, and double standards. I use the word “murder” advisedly because I am not going to call a murder something else just because it is ordered by someone who got hold of a black robe. Saddam Hussein – whose fatal crime was being the president of a country Israel wanted destroyed and a public figure whose continued existence the Bush family felt was an affront to them personally – is another defeated leader whose personality and ideas must be eradicated to suit American propaganda. The “justice” being meted out to Saddam Hussein would have been the same if the first American soldier who took him prisoner had simply shot him in the head with a pistol.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Wrestling Lessons, Part II

Today I’m going to apply yesterday’s wrestling lessons to international conflicts.

There is always a Good Guy and a Bad Guy. With rare exceptions, people identify with the Good Guy and see his victories as theirs.

Can you remember the United States ever fighting a war in which there was no Bad Guy, or in which America was not the Good Guy?

What makes the Good Guy good and the Bad Guy bad?

First, appearance. The Good Guy is usually good looking, or at least pleasant looking, and the Bad Guy looks unpleasant, if not outright ugly. It helps if the villain appears foreign in some way, or of an unpopular race.

In international propaganda, “we” look better than “they” do. Our facial features are familiar, while theirs are depicted as alien, or distorted into unpleasant expressions in the case of people, like the Germans, who may actually look better than we do. Our soldiers are handsome and familiar-looking, while theirs are, for example, short, yellow, and buck-toothed, with slanty eyes behind thick glasses – or swarthy, big-nosed, and bearded. Our clothing is “normal” while they are “towel heads”. If “they” are from the Arab World (other than Israel), they are usually shown in U.S. photos as poorly dressed in un-American robes, squatting in the dirt next to ruins – not shown in the modern western dress in a well-furnished home one would actually see if one visited middle class and professional people in Arab countries. How many photographs have you seen of an Arab in a business suit, carrying a Gucci briefcase?

Appearance is related to the first aim of war propaganda -- to “dehumanize” the enemy so as to make the Good Guys willing to see the enemy killed, or even willing to help kill him. We must never be allowed to identify with the people our leaders want to destroy. Showing the enemy looking “different from us” is an important step toward dehumanization.

Second, reputation. The Good Guy is good primarily by designation, and not because he has done anything in particular to earn the title. In international politics, unlike wrestling, there is the additional arbitrary factor of where one is born. For most people, where they happen to be born determines where their patriotism lies. Loyalty goes with birthplace, which designates where the “Good Guys” come from . . . whether it’s California, Tokyo, Shanghai, Moscow, Berlin, or Marseilles. Few Americans would ask, “Why should I fight for America instead of North Korea?” It’s just a given.

(Wrestlers know how to use the “patriotism” factor. Some deck themselves out like the star spangled banner for a kind of “Captain America” effect, while some deliberately appeal to the denizens of a certain region, as by wearing cowboy boots and a Western hat. Wait a minute now; I could be talking about politicians!)

Third, demeanor. The hero may be confident and even cocky, but he is not as outrageously vain and boastful as his opposite number. Boasting is less important on the international front than in wrestling, but what Americans cheer as admirable in the shouting bravado of a U.S. Marine would be seen as threatening bluster in an armed Al Qaeda trainee. Foreign leaders we are meant to dislike are almost always portrayed as bombastic boasters.

Fourth, courage. The Good Guy is always brave, even when he is in serious trouble, but the Bad Guy exhibits bravery only as long as he’s on top. When the Bad Guy gets into trouble, he cringes, cowers, kneels and begs, retreats, and even tries to jump out of the ring and run away from the fight.

Yes, “our” people are courageous by nature, by virtue of being born where we were, while the enemy appears brave (if ever) only because of insane fanaticism or outlandish religious beliefs, or drugs, or brainwashing, or some other factor which explains the apparent bravery away. When an American “celebrity” opined that the men in the planes which brought down the twin towers were brave, he was promptly ostracized. The enemy can never be brave. His attacks, no matter how courageous and self-sacrificing, are “cowardly”. Professional military men may acknowledge the bravery of enemy troops, but that remains a private matter.

Fifth, fair fighting and abiding by the rules differentiate a Good Guy from a Bad Guy . . . but only to a point. What the audience wants, and often gets, is a Good Guy who is driven over the edge by a cheating, dirty-fighting villain, so that the Good Guy gives back worse than the Bad Guy gave in the first place. Whereas rule-breaking, sneaky tactics, and torture were booed by the audience when they are used by the villain, they are cheered when used by the hero. The very things which most marked the Bad Guy as a villain are now approved for the Good Guy. Here we see also the holy power of “retaliation” as compared to villainous “aggression”. "Isn't it terrible? But we have to do it."

We Americans were always told – until the past few years when the truth became too obvious to hide – that American soldiers fought cleaner than their enemies, abided by the rules of war and the Geneva Convention, and were in particular distinguished from the enemy because the enemy used torture and Americans didn’t. Atrocity and torture tales – true and untrue – are the staple of war propaganda. Why was Saddam Hussein so bad? Mainly because he tortured people. (How many times before and during the invasion of Iraq did I see that photograph of an empty chair in the middle of an empty room with some kind of line hanging above it, supposedly going to prove Saddam Hussein’s use of torture. It could have been in Minnesota.) Why were Nazis so bad? Because they tortured people. Many a Hollywood “war movie” told us so. And what was the main Nazi evidence that the Soviet Bolsheviks were so horrible? The Bolsheviks tortured people.

What is now the main evidence before the world that Americans are bad? They torture people. While the president of the U.S. says (in ludicrous contradiction of hundreds of photographs and documented reports) that “Americans don’t torture people”, he seeks and obtains laws which make torture legal. Has torture become respectable – as torture by the Good Wrestler is okay under certain circumstances – or has America become a Bad Guy? It sometimes happens, even in wrestling, that a Good Guy turns bad.

(I’ll remind myself, in a future blog entry, that the U.S. was not such a Good Guy in previous wars either.)

To wrap this up, when I read the daily propaganda and the results of opinion polls and man-in-the-street interviews, I often think of that evening of wrestling in West Palm Beach. It was truly illuminating.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Wrestling Lessons

The most instructive four hours I ever spent, as far as mass psychology and mob mentality are concerned, were at an evening of professional wrestling matches in West Palm Beach.

Why was I there? I knew professional wrestling was phony and I had no interest in wrestling generally. As it happened, a young law clerk at the appellate court where I worked was a wrestling addict who illustrated that the word “fan” came from “fanatic”. He had ringside seats for the entire season, a girlfriend who apparently shared his enthusiasm, and a generosity that resulted in my being asked to come along for an evening.

If the night’s display was surreal, no less surreal was the fact that this particular young lawyer had ringside seats there. Law clerks (research and case analysis aides to judges) have an often deserved reputation for timidity. With a few exceptions they have chosen to avoid the hurly burly of practicing law competitively in favor of spending as many years of their lives as possible in a quiet courthouse cranny wrapped in Westlaw and Microsoft Word.

The wrestling fan was no exception. He embodied the cliché of the shy appellate court gnome who would not have lasted a month as what the gnomes themselves jokingly called a “real lawyer”. He was thin, awkward, meek, and hesitant. I thought it was amazing that he had even managed to get a girlfriend. I will leave the psychological analysis to you.

We arrived at the coliseum as part of a huge, noisy crowd which rose up the sides of the building in layer after layer of baseball caps, bulging jeans and T-shirts, and skirts and blouses overflowing with the results of high carbohydrate diets rich in beer.

When the announcer introduced the first wrestler, and the giant came striding toward the ring, resplendent in flowing red-white-and-blue cape and shining red boots, the audience – and in particular women – went into a frenzy of screaming and applause. Many had home made signs which they raised and waved. Some tried to throw themselves as living offerings into the path of the behemoth.

Obviously, this was a Good Guy. That was the first thing I learned: There is always a Good Guy and a Bad Guy, if not at the beginning of a match, by the end.

The contrast between good and evil was evident when a murderous roar of rage assailed the second competitor, who would presumably have been killed except for the intervention of security guards and a few wild lunges of his own at threatening fans. It was clear that one of the roles in this pretend world was that of macho audience member who physically attacks wrestler in the aisle – knowing that both parties will be kept from harm by the guards. He would never try such a thing alone with the wrestler in the parking lot, even plentifully lubricated by Budweiser.

It’s easy to see wrestling on TV, and so I don’t need to describe the well-rehearsed moves and throws and leaps and fake moans of pain. It is essentially a gymnastic display by stereotyped actors who earn their money not only for their thespian ability and charismatic qualities, but also for putting up with some rough treatment.

My education came from the audience’s reaction to the set piece they knew would occur in and around the ring. Because only the most severely retarded could have believed that the wrestling and the wrestler's personalities were real, most of the audience must enjoy not only the wrestlers' role-playing but also their own. They loved being caught up in, and becoming an active part of, this makebelieve world of supercharged drama.

As I said, there is always a Good Guy and a Bad Guy, just as there is in the White House propaganda of international relations. You even hear generals refer to “the bad guys”. Very profound.

In professional wrestling, what makes the Good Guy good and the Bad Guy bad?

First, appearance. The Good Guy is good looking and the Bad Guy usually looks bad, if not really ugly. A handsome or pleasant face marks a hero, while a homely, scowling face designates a villain. It helps if the villain appears foreign in some way, or of an unpopular race.

Second, reputation. The Good Guy is good primarily by designation. Also, the Good Guy often comes to the ring after fighting fairly in a previous match and being victimized by a sneaky villain. If he was victimized by the particular villain he's wrestling tonight, the element of revenge drives the crowd's expectations to tornadic proportions.

Third, demeanor. The hero will be confident and even cocky, but he is not as outrageously vain and boastful as his opposite number, who is likely to point repeatedly at himself to invite applause and then howl at the audience for not giving it. He is the embodiment of hubris. As far as the audience is concerned, the worst possible thing that can happen is that the villain is not brought down because of his pride and actually wins the match. He will be hated all the more next time.

At this point our moral training might lead us to expect that the hero abides by the rules and fights fair, while the villain breaks the rules and fights dirty. To a point that is true, but only to a point.

The most interesting thing I learned beyond the awesome effect of “good” and “bad” was that the Good Guy always starts out fighting fair but often gets hurt, and almost defeated, because the Bad Guy breaks the rules, ignores the referee, attacks unexpectedly from behind, uses illegal holds, and even resorts to furniture as a weapon. At the last moment – unless the Good Guy is scheduled for defeat that night – the hero gathers his strength and turns on the villain with even greater disrespect for the rules than the villain showed. Now it is the berserk Good Guy who cheats, ignores the referee, and dishes out unlawful punishment. The things he does would have marked the Bad Guy as the very personification of sadism, but torture is fine if the Good Guy does it.

Does this mean that the Good Guy has become the Bad Guy? No! That’s the fascinating point. The more the hero rains illegal violence on the villain, the louder the audience cheers. The Good Guy becomes a virtual whirlwind of venom, ignoring all laws and ethical standards, doing more outrageous things to the Bad Guy than were done to him, and the audience loves the Good Guy for it.

It is during this stage that a fourth characteristic shows itself:
Courage. The hero was brave even during agonizing setbacks, refusing to retreat or ask for mercy, staggering forward for more punishment even when he could hardly stand. Now that the tables have turned, we see that the boastful villain is a wretched coward. He cowers, begs, even tries to escape from the ring. Even now, though, he is treacherous: He may kneel and plead for mercy, only to put the hero off guard and attack him with an illegal blow from behind.

Good appearance, good reputation, an attractive and moderate demeanor, fair fighting until provoked, and courage. How are those reflected outside the wrestling arena, in the mob’s reaction to propaganda in international affairs?

(To be continued.)

Monday, December 25, 2006

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Because many of us feel an increase in benevolence and friendliness and unselfishness at Christmas, it must be within the realm of possibility for us to feel the same throughout the year.

If that possibility became reality, the dreadful events which make this blog necessary would begin to withdraw like an ebbing tide, VIEW FROM THE MOON might be put out of business, and only my FLIGHTS OF PEGASUS would remain.

Based on spiritual lessons that I believe are true, I do not think that any amount of praying or argument is going to change people like G. W. Bush or his Vice President or the neocons and others whose souls are dedicated to egoism, anger, revenge, violence, ambitions of power, or simply the welfare of one group at the expense of all others . . . but I do have hope that by individually freeing ourselves from such qualities and retaining the Christmas spirit of benevolence we can contribute to “raising the consciousness” of humanity in general.

The good work is done through ourselves and the examples we set in our lives, not through praying for -- or killing – others.

Watching “Merry Christmas” (“Joyeux Noel”), an outstanding film, will set the right tone.

Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

View from the Moon




Looks peaceful from the Moon, doesn't it? A beautiful place to live!

Let's enjoy that thought.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Democracy

What’s this about no democracy in Iran?
“TEHRAN, Dec. 18 — Partial returns from Friday’s Iranian elections suggested today that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had experienced a major setback barely over a year after his own election. The victory of a pragmatic politician, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, over a hard-line candidate associated with Mr. Ahmadinejad gave one strong indication that voters favored more moderate policies. Mr. Rafsanjani won almost twice as many votes as the hard-liner, Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, for a position in the 86-member Assembly of Experts. The Assembly has the power to replace the supreme religious leader.”

I keep reading such reports and seeing video of Iranians voting, which means to me that democracy is alive in Persia although it may not be the same brand as what we call democracy. When Bush & Co. tell us that certain “evil” countries in the Middle East (not to be confused with “moderate” countries which Washington approves even though they are not democratic at all) are not democracies, they must often mean – if they mean anything – that those governments are not “democratic enough”.

Well, in the first place, when did God announce that democracy was the ideal form of government? For a very long time the word was that God had given kings the divine right to rule. And even if God has changed His mind, who has proved that democracy will be beneficial everywhere in the world, or even that it will work at all in every state?

Based on what the American people got for their votes in recent years, I would say that democracy has failed in the United States except to the extent it is seen as “the least bad choice”. When one gets into an argument about democracy, the rock bottom clincher on the pro-democracy side is, “You can at least get rid of bad leaders by voting them out, which you can’t do in a monarchy or dictatorship.” There is a lot to be said for that point, but it is still a “least bad choice” plea rather than an affirmative argument for the virtues of what democracy gives to the voters.

Also, people sometimes forget that bad dictators and monarchs have often been deposed by coup or revolution, if not milder means, and that a dictator may therefore be more aware of and responsive to majority public opinion than the average U.S. politician who begins taking a calculating interest in his constituents a few weeks before election time.

It is not democracy which protects the rights of minorities and majorities, but rather the rule of law within a sufficiently orderly and stable society. The worst form of government might be a powerful, greedy tyrant whose whim is law, but I would argue that the best and most efficient form of government would be a dictatorship by a benevolent leader who has the people’s welfare at heart and recognizes the restraint of rational laws and a functional legal system. I think that in spite of the praise of ancient Athenian democracy, the prevailing view among the finest thinkers of the time was that rule by the best was superior to rule by the most. Nothing has happened to change that principle.

A passing thought: Would you rather have a democracy with torture (as we have now in America), or an authoritarian government without torture? “Democracy” simply means, in theory, “rulership by the majority through free elections”. It does not necessarily come with a package of other good things.

The big flaw in arguments for democracy or something approaching it is the failure to recognize the shortcomings in the judgment of the voters and their susceptibility to demagoguery and the present information plague, managed news. While most people are relatively unintelligent, I believe that most have sound instincts about what is good for them and bad for the group with which they identify. But when it comes to the details, especially economic matters and foreign policy, they are easily misled by obfuscation, obscurantism, specious arguments, and outright lies. Public opinion can be no better than the published opinion which forms it.

Be all that as it may, for the United States to launch aggressive wars and threats of wars in the name of “bringing democracy” to this or that foreign state is insupportable by any ethical or logical standard. Democracy is no cure-all and is not even suitable for many populations. Most likely it is knowingly exported as a placebo, the actual purpose being to replace the native method of rulership with elections whose outcome can decided by the management of “news” and other organs of propaganda. Add the that the greater ease of “managing” politicians than a strong individual leaders, and a “free people” in terms of right to vote may actually be less free than a people living under a benevolent authoritarian form of government.

I wonder how many Iraqis would vote for the horror they now endure with American-imposed “democracy”, in preference to what they had during their years of order and prosperity under the Baathists?

Friday, December 22, 2006

More on “Democracy” in Palestine

The following news excerpts expand yesterday’s discussion. First, by way of introduction, a recent UN report demonstrates the effects of Israeli occupation and recent American and Israeli obstruction of democracy in Palestine: 65% of Palestinians are living in poverty, 29% are unemployed, healthcare is on the verge of collapse and 50% of Palestinians do not have reliable access to food. With increasing malnutrition in some parts of the Jewish-occupied Palestinian territories, and the severe restrictions on movement imposed by Israel, Palestinians have to negotiate their way through 500 checkpoints and deal with Israel’s “separation” wall. All this on their own native land. Of course the U.S. strangling of normal funding because it did not like the outcome of the January elections is playing a large part in this genocidal picture now.

Al Jazeera (Dec. 22) “Four more people have been killed in violence and revenge killings in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since President Mahmoud Abbas called for early presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday.

“Hamas won a majority in January 2006 parliamentary elections and Fatah has resisted surrendering positions it dominated for decades.

“Some Palestinians say US-led opposition to the Hamas-led government is drawing battle lines for the entire region.

“’The US administration wants to create a new Middle East,’ acting parliament speaker Hassan Khreisheh told Aljazeera.net. ‘This new Middle East demands that countries allied to the US - Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf countries - are pit against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.’

[But somebody is happy:] “’I am pleased a moderate* axis of countries in the Arab world has been created that wants to take part in blocking Iran's influence on the region,’ Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Elmer said in an October policy speech.

“Regional banks have also stepped into the foray as mounting concern about US anti-terrorism statutes has coerced them to bar transfer of monies to the Palestinian government."



*(“Moderate: One who, while nominally disagreeing with U.S. and Zionist policies, nevertheless does nothing to oppose them.” BUSH DICTIONARY ANNOTATED.)

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Tony Blair's "Democracy" (Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge)

My remarks about the U.S. and Britain ostensibly pressing for democracy in selected Middle East countries (not including “moderates” like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Jordan) while thwarting the results of elections if they don’t like them, find new focus today in yelpings of Robopup Tony Blair.

(“Moderate: One who, while nominally disagreeing with U.S. and Zionist policies, nevertheless does nothing to oppose them.” BUSH DICTIONARY ANNOTATED.)

“DUBAI (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Middle Eastern states on Wednesday to help rein in the "forces of extremism" in Iran and to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

(“Extremist” as defined in my BUSH DICTIONARY ANNOTATED: “3. Any person who resists or speaks out against U.S. or Zionist invasion and occupation of any country, or who openly opposes U.S. or Zionist interference in the internal affairs of any country.”)

“Blair, who will leave office next year and whose popularity has been eroded by the Iraq war, rejected suggestions American or British action in the Middle East was fuelling terrorism. . . . He called on moderate leaders across the Middle East to join a ‘monumental struggle’ between democracy and extremism. . . .

“Blair plans to hold talks with world leaders in early 2007 on delivering a package of aid for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has called for early elections after failing to form a unity administration with Hamas, which won elections in January but is being boycotted by the West because of its refusal to recognize the state of Israel.”

So, Blair, who backed a democratic election in Palestine, now ignores the results of that election and works to deliver “aid” to the losing party instead of the lawfully elected party. It will be interesting to find out which “world leaders” go along with him in ignoring the democratic process he and Bush instigated. Isn’t it amazing that the thrust of Blair’s statements is that IRAN is improperly interfering in the Middle East? As a friend of mine said, “Democracy” is just the flag under which the pirates are sailing.)

(What if a second election is held and Hamas wins again in spite of the payoffs to the opposing party? Or is that being “taken care of”?)

As usual, there is no logical consistency in the Blair/Bush duet (they sing in unison, a cappella). As usual, what is good for Israel and bad for the oppressed Palestinians defines “good”.

Awhile back I asked if Robopup Blair might be straining at his leash to set himself free, but the answer is “no”. I think he was just excited by a fire hydrant.


And this just in:

“(Reuters) - Israel is considering handing over millions of dollars in withheld Palestinian tax funds to President Mahmoud Abbas in a move that could bolster him ahead of elections over his Hamas rivals, sources said on Wednesday. Western diplomats and Palestinian sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the proposal under consideration calls for releasing the tax money to Abbas in stages on condition it will bypass the Hamas-led government. Transferring the funds would mark a shift in Israeli policy, and could allow the moderate Abbas to make payments to Palestinian civil servants, who have not received their full salaries since Hamas came to power in March. “

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

BUSH DICTIONARY Republished

A BUSH DICTIONARY ANNOTATED

With Definitions According to the G.W. Bush, Jr. Presidency
and
The Communications Media of the United States

2006 Edition

Compiled by Fleming Lee

Dedicated to G.W. Bush, Jr. for his distinguished contributions to world peace, linguistics, and general improvement of the Amurrican language.





ANTI-SEMITISM 1. Any criticism of Jews, Zionism, or Israel.

2. A fact or statement depicting Jews, Zionists, or Israel as anything but weak and powerless. E.g., the following statements are demonstrably true but “anti-semitic”: “Jews dominate Hollywood.” “Jews have the power to destroy the careers of actors or television personalities accused of anti-semitism.” “Jews have tremendous economic power and can, for example, put even Japanese magazines out of business.” “Zionist lobbying organizations are able to get virtually anything they want from the U.S. Congress.”

3. Any fact or statement implying or demonstrating that Jews are not the most victimized people in history, or that their persecution has not been greater than all other persecutions combined, or that the degree if their suffering is not unique in world history. Such statements as the following have been called anti-semitic because they “diluted” Jewish suffering: “Stalin’s massacres were greater in scale than Nazi massacres.” “Other peoples have suffered as much as the Jews.” A film about the American Revolution was criticized by Jewish “watchdog groups” for depicting British atrocities against the colonists which might be interpreted as resembling alleged Nazi atrocities against Jews.


AXIS A straight line about which a body rotates, as a wheel rotates on an axle.


AXIS OF EVIL A geometrical figure considered impossible until G.W. Bush, Jr. invented a straight line with three ends. Bush stated that the three ends of the straight line were Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Like all nations in the same neighborhood with Israel, Iran and Iraq were “sponsors of terrorism” and inherently evil because of their geographic location. Bush promoted North Korea from “rogue state” to “evil” in order to distract attention from the odd coincidence that all the evil countries of the world were clustered around Israel. Bush is working to develop a straight line with enough ends to accommodate all Arab countries.


COALITION 1. The United States.

2. The United States and Britain.

3. A term used to mislead people into believing that the U.S. has allies.


COALITION FORCES A largely fictional handful of representatives of such world powers as Tonga, Estonia, Latvia, Nicaragua, Moldova, and Macedonia, whose names are invoked by the U.S. for the purpose of lending an appearance of group-approval to U.S. military aggression against other countries.


COLLATERAL DAMAGE Deliberate targeting by U.S. and Zionist bombs and missiles of civilians and non-military facilities, in particular journalists and television facilities which might report the truth.


DEMOCRACY 1. Theoretically a system in which a group elects its leaders by majority vote based on accurate information.

2. In the United States, a system in which a population reacts in puppet fashion to carefully managed news and then votes on candidates all of whom will behave in exactly the same way on important issues if elected.

3. A condition of violent anarchy which follows U.S. invasion and occupation of any country.

4. A meaningless term with Utopian connotations used to explain the goal of U.S. and Zionist invasions or bombings of other countries and to justify U.S. and Zionist massacres referred to by the U.S. Secretary of State in 2006 as “birth pangs ”.


DEMOCRAT See “Republican”.


DIPLOMACY 1. Insincere play-acting by American representatives which takes place between the time the U.S. has scheduled a violent action such as an invasion, and the time the U.S. carries out the violent action. The purpose of the farcical theatrics is to make it appear that “diplomacy is being given a chance” to resolve an international issue peacefully when in fact the outcome is already decided.


ELECTIONS, FREE (See “Democracy”.) 1. In the U.S., elections limited to the two parties which are controlled in all significant respects by Zionists, armaments manufacturers, and international oil companies. (See “Third Party”.)

2. In “emerging democracies”, free elections whose results will be nullified by U.S. and Zionist economic and military force if the outcome of the elections does not suit their purposes – as in the free Palestinian election of Hamas party leadership in 2006, which was quickly followed by a U.S. economic stranglehold and Zionist kidnapping of elected members of the legitimate Hamas government.


EVIL An adjective applied to any nation, or to any person, which does not support U.S. and Zionist policies.


EVILDOER 1. Anyone who attacks the United States or Israel.

2. A meaningless pejorative term used by G.W. Bush, Jr. to avoid mentioning the real motivation for Muslim attacks on the United States, e.g., U.S. political, financial, and military support of Zionism and Israel.


EXPERT Any Jew who is interviewed on U.S. television or quoted in a magazine article. (See also “Genius”.)


EXTREMIST 1. A patriot.

2. Any person who does not passively accept U.S. or Zionist invasion and occupation of his country.

3. Any person who resists or speaks out against U.S. or Zionist invasion and occupation of any country, or who openly opposes U.S. or Zionist interference in the internal affairs of any country.


FREEDOM 1. An indefinably vague term of positive connotation used

(a) to describe the condition of violent anarchy and repression which follows U.S. overthrow of a government; (See also “Democracy”.)

(b) to describe the goal of any U.S. or Zionist military aggression (e.g. bringing freedom to Lebanon by killing most of the Lebanese, or bringing freedom to Iraq by destroying the country and imposing a military dictatorship decorated with a puppet government);

(c) in the United States to describe the uniquely blissful condition of the people of the United States as contrasted with the peoples of the rest of the world;

(d) in countries other than the United States to describe the uniquely blissful condition of the peoples of those countries.


FREEDOM OF SPEECH Freedom to say or publish anything as long as it is within a narrow range of opinion approved by Jewish “watchdog” groups. The illusion of actual freedom of speech is enhanced by the allowance of “free for all” topics which have no particular effect on the Jews – e.g. abortion, health care, women’s clothing, pollution, hair styles, global warming, homosexuality, and endangered species (other than Palestinians). The qualified U.S. approval of “freedom of speech” does not extend to Arab media such as Al Jazeera or any other media not controlled by Zionists.


GENIUS Any Jew of average intelligence. (See also “Expert”)


HOLOCAUST 1. In general, the fiction that six million Jews were systematically killed in “death camps” by the National Socialists in the most lamentable tragedy the world has ever seen. Originally conceived by wartime propagandists as a way to distract attention from wholesale American and British and Russian slaughter of the civilian populations of German cities, the later named “Holocaust” was then expanded and promoted by the Zionists, particularly through Hollywood, as justification for the theft and colonization of Palestine by European and American Jews. Photographs of large piles of German civilians killed in bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and other cities are still misrepresented to be pictures of Jews killed in concentration camps.

2. In particular, the myth that six million Jews were gassed to death and burned in “ovens”, primarily at Auschwitz, Poland. Originally the gassing of Jews was said to have occurred at numerous concentration camps all over Germany – as at Dachau, where for years the internees’ shower room was shown to tourists as a “gas chamber” -- but as the impossibility of such occurrences was proved in camp after camp, the myth sought final refuge at Auschwitz despite American aerial photographs proving that no such activities were occurring even at the times when the gassing and burning of Jews was said by “eye witnesses” to have darkened the sky over Auschwitz with the smoke of burning bodies.


INSURGENT (See also “Militant”.) 1. A freedom fighter.

2. One who resists U.S. or Zionist aggression and occupation of his or her country.


INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY 1. A fantasy kingdom conjured up by U.S. presidents to create the illusion that there is an international consensus in favor of U.S. or Zionist interference in the affairs of other countries. E.g., “The international community is outraged by Iran’s development of peaceful uses of atomic energy,” or “The international community fully supports Israel’s fight against terrorism.”


INTERROGATION Torture.


MAVERICK STATE See “Rogue State”.


MILITANT A term of negative connotation to describe one who is aggressively active in opposing U.S. or Zionist invasion and occupation of his land.


MODERATE One who, while nominally disagreeing with U.S. and Zionist policies, nevertheless does nothing to oppose them. Generally used in reference to politicians, monarchs, or dictators. E.g., “Moderate Arab leaders” refers to Arab leaders in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Libya who are paid or otherwise rewarded by the United States for not taking action against Israel and not harboring anti-Zionist activists.


PEACE PROCESS 1. Indefinitely prolonged Zionist genocide against Palestinians.

2. A term used by the U.S. and Israel to create the false impression that those entities are doing something to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians and neighboring states. The inclusion of the word “process” is intended to allow the fictitious “peace process” to last forever without peace ever being achieved.


REPUBLICAN (U.S.) See “Democrat”.


RETALIATION Any destructive action taken by Israel against Arabs or Arab property under any circumstances.


ROGUE STATE Any nation which refuses to kowtow to the United States. Such nations are not included in the “international community”.

SELF-HATING JEW A label applied by certain influential Jews to any Jew who does not support Zionism and Israel, or who questions the “Holocaust”, or who otherwise refuses to cooperate with “mainstream” Jewish leadership and policies.


SETTLER (Israel) A Zionist who occupies and lives on property belonging to Palestinians or other rightful owners. The term is chosen for Zionist propaganda purposes in the U.S. because in American usage the word “settler” has favorable nostalgic connotations related to the Old West frontier as depicted in cowboy movies.


SURVIVOR Any living Jew who was anywhere in Europe at any time between 1933 and 1946.


TERRORISM Acts of violence carried out by persons who do not have airplanes, tanks, warships, submarines, or other advanced weapons. Conversely, acts of violence carried out with the use of airplanes, tanks, warships, submarines, and other advanced weapons are “national defense”, or “war on terror” or “a fight for freedom and democracy”.


TERRORIST One who must use relatively low grade and ineffective weapons in combat against a power which possesses warplanes, tanks, and other advanced weapons. E.g., a Palestinian with a hoe who defends his orchard from Zionist invaders (see “Settler”) is a “terrorist”, while a Zionist dropping American bombs on the farmer and his wife and children from an U.S.-supplied plane is conducting “a counter-terrorism operation”.



THIRD PARTY In the U.S., a political party which puts up candidates (particularly presidential candidates) to run against Republicans and Democrats. The candidates of any third party are routinely subjected to ridicule and allegations of mental instability by the American (i.e. Zionist) press. If a third party presidential candidate shows a chance of actually winning and the public cannot be persuaded that he is a clown or crazy, he risks assassination. Only closely controlled candidates within the two controlled parties may be safely elected.



UNITED NATIONS A powerless international entity whose resolutions are habitually ignored by the United States and Israel but whose name is occasionally invoked by the U.S. as window dressing, or as justification for taking violent action through deliberately misinterpreting a United Nations resolution.


WAR ON TERROR In the name of “making Americans safe”, a planet-wide campaign of bombings, invasions, kidnappings, torture, unlawful imprisonment, and illegal interference in banking operations conducted by the United States against Muslims as an ineffective substitute for making Americans safe by simply withdrawing U.S. support for Israel.


ZIONISM 1. A word not used by G.W. Bush, Jr. because he does not know what it means even though he supports the concept.

2. The theory originated by certain Jews in the 19th and 20th Centuries that because Jews do not wish to be assimilated by their host nations and can never live among non-Jews without arousing anti-semitism, and because the Jews of the world constitute a nation without a territory, all Jews should move to a state of their own. The most commonly proposed location of the Jewish state was Palestine, which inconveniently has been almost entirely owned by the Palestinians for two thousand years and more.

3. Support for “Israel”, the Zionist entity established by force and violence in Palestine on real estate stolen from its owners, many of whom still live in refugee camps while Jewish colonists occupy their homes and farms.


ZIONIST 1. A word not known to G.W. Bush, Jr. even though he is one.

2. One who advocates Zionism and supports the establishment and maintenance of “Israel” on land belonging to Palestinians. Not all Jews are Zionists, but those who oppose Zionism or condemn Zionist actions in the Middle East are likely to be shunned as “self-hating Jews”.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Hamas, Fatah, and "Terrorist Organizations"

My alien correspondent on the Moon has several more senses than we humans do. He (his name is a kind of musical chord which I can’t notate here) is able, among other things, to “smell” hypocrisy.

What he has reported is a thick fog of hypocrisy emanating from Washington, D.C. and the general area of Palestine. Unaccustomed to our ways, he has asked me to explain what is going on:

“What do I not understand? President Bush wants to bring democracy to the Arab world. He insisted on democratic elections in the parts of Palestine not occupied by Israel. He was very pleased that the Palestinian elections were held earlier this year. But then he was angry when the most popular party won. I had observed that Hamas did much more for the people than the opposition, and was much less corrupt, and so it is no surprise that Hamas won. Democracy worked as it is supposed to! But because Bush and Israel did not like the people’s choice, Bush and his “allies” cut off funds from the Palestinian government, causing great economic hardship. Salaries of public servants such as teachers could not be paid. Even when a leader of Hamas went abroad and came back carrying money for Palestine, Israel blocked him from returning to his country. Mr. Bush made no objection. If he supports democracy, should he not support the results of democracy? Mr. Abbas of the Fatah party, which lost the election, began attacking Hamas, and now announces that new elections will be held. Abbas has no legal right to call for new elections. There were legitimate elections just a few months ago. Abbas must be “in cahoots” (as your cowboy movies say) with Bush and Israel, and is trying to hijack the governmental process. His announcement has precipitated civil war between Hamas and Fatah. Is this what democracy means to Americans? Give people the right to vote in free elections but then starve them and provoke violence if they don’t vote as you would like? Please explain quickly. I have a sick headache, and my head is extremely large.”

My friend on the Moon, before trying to answer your question in another blog entry, I am sending you information about the U.S. official list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations”, which as of 1997 designated Hamas a “terrorist organization”.

Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) was formed in 1987. It receives funding from Palestinian expatriates, Iran, and private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other moderate Arab states. The reason it was listed by Washington as a “terrorist organization” is that it did a good job of resisting Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory, and performed valuable services for Palestinian society – whereas the opposing Fatah party, in favor with the U.S., was corrupt and much less helpful and took a "moderate" view of Israel. (See "moderate" in my BUSH DICTIONARY ANNOTATED, which I will republish tomorrow.) If you aren’t interested in reading about the terrorist organization law in detail now, skip down to my comments at the end.

“The Secretary of State designates Foreign Terrorist Organizations in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury.
1. It must be a foreign organization.
2. The organization must engage in terrorist activity, as defined in section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the INA (8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)), or terrorism, as defined in section 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 (22 U.S.C. § 2656f(d)(2)), or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.
3. The organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States. [Comment: Hamas has never acted in the U.S.]
“The Immigration and Nationality Act defines terrorist activity to mean: any activity which is unlawful under the laws of the place where it is committed (or which, if committed in the United States, would be unlawful under the laws of the United States or any State) and which involves any of the following:
(I) The highjacking or sabotage of any conveyance (including an aircraft, vessel, or vehicle).
(II) The seizing or detaining, and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain, another individual in order to compel a third person (including a governmental organization) to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the individual seized or detained. [Comment: Israel has often kidnapped Palestinian government officials in order to force compliance with Israeli demands.]
(III) A violent attack upon an internationally protected person (as defined in section 1116(b)(4) of title 18, United States Code) or upon the liberty of such a person.
(IV) An assassination. [Comment: Israel has an official policy of assassination of Palestinian leaders which it has frequently put into practice.]
(V) The use of any--
(a) biological agent, chemical agent, or nuclear weapon or device, or
(b) explosive, firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device (other than for mere personal monetary gain), with intent to endanger, directly or indirectly, the safety of one or more individuals or to cause substantial damage to property. [Comment: Both Israel and the United States qualify here as “terrorist organizations”.]
(VI) A threat, attempt, or conspiracy to do any of the foregoing."
Other pertinent portions of section 212(a)(3)(B) are set forth below:
“(iv) Engage in Terrorist Activity Defined
As used in this chapter [chapter 8 of the INA], the term ‘engage in terrorist activity’ means in an individual capacity or as a member of an organization–
1. to commit or to incite to commit, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily injury, a terrorist activity;
2. to prepare or plan a terrorist activity;
3. to gather information on potential targets for terrorist activity;
4. to solicit funds or other things of value for–
(aa) a terrorist activity;
(bb) a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(I) or (vi)(II); or
(cc) a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III), unless the solicitor can demonstrate that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the solicitation would further the organization’s terrorist activity;
II. to solicit any individual–
(aa) to engage in conduce otherwise described in this clause;
(bb) for membership in terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(I) or
(vi)(II); or
(cc) for membership in a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III), unless the solicitor can demonstrate that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the solicitation would further the organization’s terrorist activity; or
III. to commit an act that the actor knows, or reasonably should know, affords material support, including a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, transfer of funds or other material financial benefit, false documentation or identification, weapons (including chemical, biological, or radiological weapons), explosives, or training–
(aa) for the commission of a terrorist activity;
(bb) to any individual who the actor knows, or reasonably should know, has committed or plans to commit a terrorist activity;
(cc) to a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(I) or (vi)(II); or
(dd) to a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III), unless the actor can demonstrate that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the act would further the organization’s terrorist activity.
i. Terrorist Organization Defined
As used in clause (i)(VI) and clause (iv), the term ‘terrorist organization’ means an organization--
I. designated under section 219 [8 U.S.C. § 1189];
II. otherwise designated, upon publication in the Federal Register, by the Secretary of State in consultation with or upon the request of the Attorney General, as a terrorist organization, after finding that the organization engages in the activities described in subclause (I), (II), or (III) of clause (iv), or that the organization provides material support to further terrorist activity; or
III. that is a group of two or more individuals, whether organized or not, which engages in the activities described in subclause (I), (II), or (III) of clause (iv).”
----


I will conclude today’s blog entry by emphasizing that the highly selective (i.e. unfair) listing of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” is worse than just a political propaganda device. It is being used to strangle the elected government in Palestine, and the consequences of “terrorist organization” designation can have devastating personal consequences, as shown by this legal document filed in the recent prosecution of an American citizen in Rome, Georgia:

“On Oct. 8, 1997, the United States formally designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization. After that date, and continuing until Dec. 4, 2001, Shorbagi [the accused] provided financial support to Hamas and conspired with unnamed others to provide such material support. He did so knowing that Hamas had been designated as a foreign terrorist organization and that Hamas engaged in terrorist activity. Shorbagi provided the support through donations to the ‘Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF),’ knowing that some or all of the money was, in fact, destined for Hamas. Shorbagi knew that money provided to HLF was actually funneled to Hamas in part because he was a Georgia representative for HLF and he had attended HLF meetings at which high-level Hamas officials made presentations condemning Israel. Shorbagi also had hosted high-level Hamas officials at the Rome, Ga. mosque at which he served as Imam.
Shorbagi was charged in a Criminal Information on Aug. 28, 2006, with one count of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. That charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Shorbagi has entered a plea agreement in which he agrees that, under the federal sentencing guidelines, he would be sentenced to the statutory maximum of 15 years in prison.”

Meanwhile, the United States gives special tax breaks instead of prison sentences to citizens who transfer funds to Israel even though Israel is the unlawful occupying power and Hamas is the defender.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Gas Chamber Lies: Auschwitz

The second thing in my personal experience (after my visit to Dachau) which convinced me that the “holocaust” was a myth, was research I did in Washington, D.C. using U.S. Air Force aerial photographs taken at low altitudes over Auschwitz by bombers tuning up their cameras before daylight bombing runs over certain German cities.

As we all know, once the claims of “extermination camps” with gas chambers all over Germany and Europe were admitted to be false, the huge prison camp and industrial complex at Auschwitz, Poland,(so large that it absorbed several towns) became the final bastion of the “holocaust” gas chamber myth. It has been defended desperately because when it is gone, the holocausters have nowhere left to fall back. In the process, many a contradictory story has been told about it.

I studied the American Air Force photographs at a government archive in Washington around 1978. They were very large original photographs, with dates and times. They covered a period of months in 1944 (and, as I recall, 1945) when “eyewitnesses” said that the concentration camp at Auschwitz had been gassing and burning Jews in great numbers.

As a lawyer taking part in litigation, I had read affidavits of persons who claimed to have been inmates at Auschwitz during that time. They described smoke billowing from the crematoria day and night, blackening the sky -- especially during May, June, and early July 1944 when a large “shipment” of Hungarian Jews was allegedly exterminated around the clock.

What I saw in the aerial photographs can be described quickly and simply: Not one picture showed the slightest sign of the alleged extermination activities. There was no smoke at all over Auschwitz on any occasion. The crematoria chimneys were quiescent and cool. The nearest and only smoke I ever saw in the sunny landscape was outside the camp in a farmer’s field – a small fire burning brush.

(In any city or complex of towns the size of Auschwitz, disposal of dead bodies would require significant facilities. Cremation was the method at Auschwitz, in part because (I've been told) the complex was situated on terrain which did not lend itself to graveyards. Early in the evolution of the Auschwitz legends there were stories of huge mass burial pits which apparently were never found. It was the crematoria which became the focus of the gas chamber lies.)

Furthermore, not a single photograph showed the often described lines of prisoners waiting to enter the “gas chambers”. The only queue was a short one in an open area far from the crematoria, in which a few inmates appeared to be nonchalantly lined up in front of a shelter to receive food or drink or some other handout.

As you can tell, the Air Force photographs were taken relatively close to the ground and showed much detail. If there had been people in a particular area they would have been clearly discernible. If smoke had been coming out of a chimney (or a pit), it would have been unmistakable.

I have absolutely no doubt that those pictures completely destroy the Auschwitz myth and lay bare the lies of the many “witnesses” who contributed to creating that myth.

At least one “eyewitness” claimed that when he arrived at Auschwitz and got off his train, from where he stood he could see lines of prisoners filing into “gas chamber” buildings. One of the advantages of the aerial photographs is that they provide live “maps” of the huge Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. A look at the layout of the camp around the railway lines and reception areas showed that the “eyewitness” could not possibly have seen the areas he claimed to have seen. . . unless he had the ability to look through buildings, walls, and hedges. He was simply lying. There is no way around it.

I could give other striking examples of “holocaust” witnesses fabricating stories, and I will, but for now I will just remark, based on many examples I saw in documents and photos related to legal actions and elsewhere, that the degree of dishonesty among those promoting the “holocaust” tales is astonishing. We can't believe anything they say. Pictures which might have been taken anywhere are captioned as showing things they don’t show -- as where piles of corpses of German civilians killed in Allied bombings are labeled “concentration camp victims”, or a photograph of an SS officer has been altered so that his shadow falls TOWARD the light source. A photographic view of the tops of Auschwitz buildings is said to show “ports for introducing gas”, when there is absolutely no evidence that the features of the buildings were used for any such thing. In fact detailed studies of the “gas chamber” buildings have proved that they could not possibly have been used as gas chambers and never were.

False captions, false labels, rigged and retouched photographs, transparently false “eyewitness” reports, and plain old-fashioned conclusory lies which continue to be told long after completely discredited – these and many more examples of blatant chicanery are found throughout the “evidence” of the holocaust myth supporters. I know of no better single antidote to the poison of untruth than the aerial photographs of Auschwitz.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Gas Chamber Lies: Dachau

I want to make a few preliminary comments on the “holocaust” based entirely on my own experience. Please remember that this is an informal personal blog which bounces where it will and makes no pretense of being the equivalent of a thoroughly researched book on any subject. If someone challenges me I will do the research necessary to respond, but until then I will enjoy presenting my views and experiences in a sometimes impressionistic way – staying ahead of the holocausters by always trying to be honest and accurate and never publishing any alleged fact which I think is questionable.

As a university instructor in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s I was blessed with full summer vacations with pay. Presumably that was not just to help make up for the low salaries but also to allow experiences which would broaden the academic mind, and so I dutifully traveled in Europe for two whole summers. The first trip was so few years after the end of the war in 1945 that I saw many bombed buildings and much rubble in German cities.

In Munich we happened to meet an American man and his German wife. They kindly showed us around, and we attended a musical and comedy show in a Munich theater – replete with Spatenbrau and Munich delicacies. The program was quite different from the heavily Jewish-influenced vaudeville-type stage shows in America. It was more along the lines of Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion”: Country comedians, slap dancers, yodelers, bell ringers, singers, glockenspiel artists, Alpenhorn players . . .

Among the performing groups was a small, old-fashioned German band from the town of Dachau, about 20 kilometers from Munich. Our hostess whispered, “They’re very ashamed of what happened in their town.”

Of course I had heard of Dachau. It was the site of one of the “death camps” or "extermination camps" the public had been told were situated all over Germany, whose main business was the gassing of Jews. Its most distinctive, and undoubtedly most photographed feature, was the “Arbeit Macht Frei” (literally “Work Makes Free”) gate. The motto was accurate because Dachau was in fact a labor camp.

Taking a tour of the concentration camp at Dachau, we were led, along with many other visitors, into a huge shower room whose ceiling was covered with pipes and dozens of shower heads. I shuddered as we were told that crowds of Jews would be herded in for showers, the door would be locked, and then instead of water, poison gas would pour from the shower heads and asphyxiate all the prisoners, whose bodies would then be hauled out to the crematoria.

There was no doubt at all expressed in the guide’s lecture: We had seen a gas chamber, and Dachau was prominently listed for years a one of as number of concentration camps in Germany with a gas chamber kept busy exterminating Jews.

Well, it turns out that what we saw at Dachau was just what it looked like – a big shower room built for purposes of hygiene, not murder. Thoughtful inspection would have revealed, in fact, that the shower room could not have been used as a gas chamber, and bodies hauled from it, without killing people all over the neighborhood.

No one was ever gassed at Dachau.

It is an odd phenomenon that as the holocaust myth burgeoned after World War II into a full-fledged money-making industry and an argument for the Jewish colonization of Palestine, the number of concentration camps in Germany which were supposed to have had gas chambers shrank. At what point Dachau was removed from the “gas chamber” list I don’t know, but after awhile not ONE camp in Germany was seriously alleged to have used gas chambers to kill Jews.

The story told to me in the Dachau shower room was a bald faced lie. So were the stories about the other “gas chambers” in camps in Germany . “Simon Wiesenthal re-confirmed that "there were no extermination camps on German soil" during the Second World War.”

“What the ‘Nazi hunter’ now says contrasts sharply with what was authoritatively claimed in the decades following the Second World War. At the great Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-1946, for example, Allied government officials presented apparently conclusive evidence to prove that camps ‘on German soil’ -- such as Dachau and Buchenwald -- were ‘extermination’ centers. Sir Hartley Shawcross, chief British prosecutor at the main Nuremberg trial, accordingly declared in his closing address on July 26, 1946, that ‘murder [was] conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens’ of Buchenwald, Dachau, Oranienburg -- all 'on German soil' -- as well as at other German-run camps [such as Bergen-Belsen]. Abundant 'proof' that inmates were gassed at Dachau has been provided over the years, most notably at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946. Former inmate Dr. Franz Blaha, for example, provided eyewitness testimony at Nuremberg about gas chamber killings there of 'many prisoners.'"

Nobody "made a mistake". The gas chamber stories were deliberately manufactured for propaganda purposes – in particular to make Germans look guilty (and falsely justify their executions) and to increase sympathy for the Jews.

There are excellent sources which expose concentration camp and gas chamber legends. For now I will end with just this thought:

If someone tells you a dozen lies about something, and then admits reluctantly and gradually that every lie was a lie, would you believe the liar if he clung to a last remaining similar story and said, “But this one really IS true?”

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Bre'er Bush and the Tar Baby

From the “New York Times” online:

“Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing American forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more. The request indicates that the option of a major ‘surge’ in troop strength is gaining ground as part of a White House strategy review.”

The “surge” will be aimed at “reversing the deteriorating security situation in Baghdad,” which implies, to me, that the Bush government has given up on establishing “security” in the rest of Iraq and is concentrating on a parting show of success in Baghdad.

By any standard, the U.S. has lost its Iraq war. It was a war which never had a constructive aim. Its purpose was entirely destructive: To liquidate Iraq’s leader and government, to destroy Iraq’s military capacity, to reduce Iraq from a major power in “Israel’s part of the world” to a feeble noncompetitor. That has been achieved. The only problem is that Br’er Bush, like Br’er Rabbit in the Uncle Remus tales, cannot let go of the Tar Baby now that he is wrestling with it. Br’er Bush is (believe it or not) human, and his main concern is probably (as with the departing Donald Rumsfeld) to be seen as something better than a complete loser.

I don’t know about you, but I think that the idea of sending a “surge” of American troops into Iraq to precede a withdrawal is entirely a face-saving measure. Its purpose is no more than to generate some positive headlines to cover a retreat.

What could be more despicable than to murder more Iraqis, put more American men and women into the meat grinder and run up military casualties, only in order for a few politicians to be able to lie, “We were succeeding when we turned things over to the Iraqis”?

When does a war end whose only aim is destruction?

Rome ended its long conflict with Carthage by eliminating Carthage completely and rendering the city's site uninhabitable by sowing salt in the fields. The end of that war was clear to all. The Morgenthau Plan for Germany after the Second World War sought a similar result but fortunately was thwarted to some extent. (Link here to a comprehensive history of the Morgenthau Plan. It was a history professor's suggestion that I write a term paper on the Morgenthau Plan which first awakened my interest in Jewish influences.) The main reason that Morgenthau's desire to reduce Germany permanently to a primitive condition was blocked was the realization that in the closely intertwined world of nation states and international trade, a vacuum will be filled. The same consideration will apply to Iraq.

Were the invaders of Iraq so naïve as to really believe that with the defeat of Iraq's military that complex land would settle quietly into the status of a tidy U.S. puppet "democracy" from which the U.S. could milk profits and which would contribute to the campaign to legitimize Israel?

Iraq fought back, and there is no sign that it will not continue fighting back. The working unity which Saddam Hussein achieved shows no sign of being re-established. Civil war and ethnic/religious/regional fragmentation seem more likely. Such a situation suits Israel fine, but then there is the question of Iraq’s neighbors. Without a strong Iraq next door, what does the future hold as far as Iran and Syria are concerned?

Israel wants an impotent Iran and Syria almost as much as it wanted an impotent Iraq. Will Israel’s pressure groups once again push the U.S. into fighting new wars for "the Jewish state" – at a time when almost any reference to the U.S. military is accompanied by the word “overstretched”.

Who is going to manage the situation in Iraq after the Americans have shrunk into a few military bases and Iran and Syria and Turkey assert themselves as evolving circumstances permit?

We don’t yet know the answers, but the situation supports the conclusion suggested by Abu Nicola al Yunani in his Tehran speech, and which is often on my mind, that we are watching a tipping point in U.S. fortunes which will be seen by future historians as hastening the end of American domination of the world. There is not going to be any happy end to this story as far as the United States is concerned. I predict that the American Empire is going to come out of its current misadventures and their complications as the British Empire came out of the aftermath of the Second World War.

Friday, December 15, 2006

The speech I published yesterday is so interesting, and so lengthy, that it will serve well for two days' posts.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

A Speech from the Tehran International Conference on the Holocaust

This is the first copy I’ve seen of any talk presented at the recent international conference on the “holocaust” in Tehran. I am very grateful to the friend who obtained it and sent it to me. We can now contrast some of the actual content of the conference with the hysterical American headlines.



THE GEOPOLITICAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE HOLOCAUST MYTH

Abu Nicola al Yunani


As you all know, attempts to organize a conference
like this one have been made in the past. Those
attempts however, did not come to fruition, due to
interference by the governments of the countries
concerned. And this was in spite of the fact that some
of the countries in question were outside the direct
sphere of influence of the United States, and its
local policeman, the Zionist state. In contrast here,
not only have we not had negative interference by the
government, but in the contrary the authorities of the
Islamic Republic of Iran have organized and
facilitated this conference. For this reason, I feel I
must begin by thanking and commending the Iranian
authorities for allowing and helping this conference
to take place.

Other members of this conference, and many revisionist
historians who are not present here, some of them
languishing in jails all over the “free world”, have
undertaken the tremendous task of knocking down the
holocaust myth. They have managed, using hard science,
to demonstrate that it is nothing more than that: a
myth. They have proved that the famous gas chambers,
used to exterminate Jews by the millions, have never
existed, and could not have existed. I will not
attempt to present, or even summarise their work.
Other participants of this conference can do this much
better than me.

My focus will be to examine the geopolitical
environment in which the holocaust myth was created
and took roots. To explain, in other words, how what
is arguably the biggest lie of modern history, could
be so successful. And I will also try to briefly
outline the geopolitical environment of the struggle
against the holocaust myth. To examine, that is, what
the specific political meaning of the struggle for the
truth is, and how this struggle can be more effective.

The prehistory of the holocaust myth: the Zionist
project

Zionism is often erroneously regarded – and wants to
present itself – as the expression of national
aspirations of Jews, mainly European ones. But this
fails to take into account historical reality. And the
historical truth is that the Zionist project was born
decades before the birth of the modern Zionist
movement – and by actors who couldn’t care less about
the sentiments and interests of Jews.

In the 19th century, Africa and Asia were regarded by
the great European colonial powers as their
playfields. Large parts of these continents were under
direct colonial occupation. Others were targeted for
such occupation. The so-called Near East was under
ottoman rule. But the Ottoman Empire was collapsing,
and European colonial powers wanted to inherit its
lands. The Ottoman Empire was thus their enemy, but so
were the indigenous liberation movements. Faced with
those two enemies, they followed a policy which would
today be called “dual containment”. When the Balkan
peoples revolted in what is generally known as the
Greek Revolution of 1821, the powers waited for the
Ottomans (with the help of the Egyptian Army) to crush
the revolution. Then, and only then, they intervened
in its help. Later on, when Muhammad Ali of Egypt
sought to unite the African and Asian wings of the
Arab world, they intervened against him and restored
Syria to Ottoman rule. They understood well that if
the Arab world was liberated from Ottoman rule and
united, it would become a formidable power in itself.

It was at this period that Viscount Palmerston (at the
time serving as British foreign secretary), proposed
the transfer of Jews to Palestine, in order to create
there “an alien demographic barrier” which would
prevent the unification of the Arab world. Palestine
is the place where the Asian and African wings of the
Arab world meet. By establishing there an alien
population, Palmerston sought to preclude the
possibility for unification. In a letter to the
British Ambassador to Istanbul, he wrote: "The return
of the Jewish people to Palestine, represents a
bulwark against any evil designs prepared by Muhammad
Ali or whoever succeeds him".

These lines were written around 50 years before the
first Zionist congress. Even before that, Napoleon,
when embarking on the Egypt expedition, had called on
the Jews to meet him in Palestine. And long after
that, in WW I, when the British state was
duplicitously calling on the Arab people to help it in
its war effort against the central powers, and
promised in exchange to help them achieve their
freedom – while at the same time signing agreements
with the French distributing with them the Arab world
– a new promise was made to the Jews (the Balfour
declaration), with the same as always intention. The
creation of an alien demographic barrier which would
prevent the realization of the national aspirations of
the Arab nation, and would assure that it would remain
forever divided and weak, controlled by the western
colonial powers. This was then, and remains to this
day, the raison d’ être of the Zionist state.

The Zionist movement

The Zionist project, therefore, far from being a
product of Jewish nationalism, was conceived by
western colonialism as a means for enabling and
perpetuating colonial control of the so-called “Near
East”. But what about the Zionist movement? Was it
aligned with the colonial project of the western
powers, or did it have a different content altogether?

Even a cursory examination of the founding documents
of the Zionist movement, shows that it was 100%
aligned with the colonial project. Zionists planned to
invade Palestine backed by the military strength of a
great power, stay there as policemen of that power,
assuring the continued slavery of Arabs, and reap the
benefits. And they didn’t have many qualms about the
power which they would be representing. Legatees of a
culture of usury, they would be content to go with the
highest bidder. In the Vienna congress of 1896,
Theodor Herzl proposed acting in the name of “his
majesty the Sultan”. In the 1905 seventh Zionist
congress, Max Nordau made the same proposal, even more
concretely:
“The movement which has taken hold of a great part of
the Arab people may easily take a direction which may
cause harm in Palestine. ...The Turkish government may
feel itself compelled to defend its reign in Palestine
and Syria with armed force. ...In these circumstances,
Turkey can be convinced that it will be important for
her to have in Palestine and Syria a strong and
well-organized group which ... will resist any attack
on the authority of the Sultan and defend his
authority with all its might.”
Chaim Weizmann made virtually the same proposal to the
British crown (in 1914): “We can reasonably say that
should Palestine fall within the British sphere of
influence, and should Britain encourage Jewish
settlement there, as a British dependency, we could
have in twenty to thirty years a million Jews out
there, perhaps more; they would develop the country,
bring back civilization to it and form a very
effective guard for the Suez Canal.”
Theodor Herzl also approached the Russian count von
Plehve, and had a very good understanding with him.
Among other things, he promised to safeguard the
Czar’s interests in Palestine, and to rid Eastern
Europe and Russia of the "noxious and subversive
Anarcho-Bolshevik Jews".

Later on, during WWII, Zionists again tried to strike
alliances with both sides in the conflict. Menachem
Begin started his political career as leader of the
fascist Zionist youth of Italy. He was an ardent
admirer of Hitler. The Zionist Federation of Germany
worked closely with the Nazis. The Haganah extended an
invitation to Adolf Eichman to visit Palestine. At the
same time, David Ben Gurion was working with the
allies. Both flavors of Zionists, shared the same aim:
Colonising Palestine with the military aid of a
western power, in order to secure its interests there,
and reap some profits for themselves.

It is therefore clear that there was no discrepancy
between the Zionist project as conceived by European
colonialists, and the Zionist movement which sought to
bring to fruition this project and reap the benefits
from it. And it should be noted that both Soviet
Russia and the Communist International, which regarded
support for the right to self-determination as one of
the pillars of their policies, were in their early
years strenuously opposing Zionism on exactly those
grounds. For them, the solution to the “jewish
question” was to be found in the assimilation of Jews
in the countries were they lived. The Zionist project,
in their eyes, was a colonialist project and should be
combated as such.

The creation of the Zionist state

In the years leading up to WWII, both camps – the
Anglo-French and the Axis – were actively promoting
Zionism. This may seem absurd, but it is not. In fact,
both the Anglo-French camp AND the Axis, sought the
same aims: colonial domination over Africa and Asia.
Their only difference was over who was to dominate
them. But as the aim of domination itself was not
questioned, so wasn’t support for Zionism.

During the war, a new factor entered the scene: the
United States. The U.S. had originally abstained from
the war – but only in order to see which side the
balance of forces was leaning toward. Eventually it
intervened on the side of the allies, not in order to
“liberate” Europe, as is claimed, but in order to
subjugate it, just as Europe had before subjugated the
rest of the world. It is not by coincidence that their
first operation in Europe was called “Operation
Overlord”.

When the war ended, the victorious European powers -
primarily the U.K. - were too weak to implement their
plans for the creation of a Jewish state in the heart
of the Arab world. The U.K. found that the only thing
which was still within its power, was to attempt to
keep its influence in the region through the Arab
client regimes it had created and nurtured. The U.S.
hijacked the Zionist project, and used it to wrest
control of the Arab world from the European powers.
The U.K. attempted to block the implementation of the
plan which it had originally conceived, and which was
now being used against it – but it only did so half
heartedly.

The Zionist gangs, strengthened with shiploads of Jews
newly freed from concentration camps, and with others
who sought to flee a Europe destroyed by the war,
under the tutelage of the United States, armed to the
teeth by the allied forces, with a savagery that
equaled and surpassed that of their mentors – the
Nazis, the Americans, the British – fell upon a
population which had been kept unarmed by the British
occupiers of Palestine, and which had only minimal
help from the Arab states – weak and subjugated
themselves. The outcome was predictable: a large part
of Palestine was occupied by the Zionists, and a state
was proclaimed there – to be recognized immediately by
the victors of WWII.


The birth of the Holocaust myth

It was in that historic period, the war and immediate
post-war period, that the holocaust myth was created.
As in all wars, the enemy had to be demonized, in
order to better mobilize the friendly forces against
him, to justify the crimes that would be committed
during the war by friendly forces, and to chill any
opposition to the war. The crimes which were committed
in this war were arguably greater than those of any
previous war, and the demonisation needed to be
accordingly greater. This is especially true of the
crimes committed by British and American imperialism
at the end of the war: The bombings of Hiroshima,
Nagasaki and Dresden. The Holocaust myth was designed
to misrepresent the war – which was in actual fact a
criminal endeavor of gigantic scale from both sides –
as a battle between the forces of civilization on one
side, and those of darkness on the other. For this
representation to become plausible, the very real
crimes of the Nazis and their allies were not
sufficient. They had to be elevated above their
historic context, inflated out of any proportion with
reality, and represented as something completely
unprecedented in the history of humanity. This was the
raison d’être of the “six million Jews killed in the
gas chambers”.

In order for the myth to be believable, it needed to
be firmly rooted on reality, to tie in with what
people knew to be true. And indeed, the foundations of
the myth were rooted in historical truth. The Nazis
did build concentration camps, people did die there in
large numbers, and many of them were indeed Jewish.
Aside from that, the people of Europe at least, did
know from their first-hand experience that the Nazis
would commit atrocities without blinking an eye.
Needless to say, this is a common trait of occupying
powers. Current-day Palestinians and Iraqis, Algerians
and Vietnamese of the previous generation, can attest
to this from personal experience.

But the Holocaust myth was designed to serve more than
one purpose. Aside from absolving the Allies of any
responsibility for their war-time crimes, it was to
serve as a justification for the post-war crime. The
entire planet was to be treated as war spoils, and
shared between the victorious powers in a card game in
Yalta. Nations newly liberated from the yoke of the
Axis powers, were to be subjugated again to a new
yoke, which in many cases was just as cruel, or worse.
And in this framework, of course, the case of
Palestine stands out. Under the lame excuse that the
persecution of Jews by the nazi regime proved once and
for all that Jews needed a national home where they
would be forever safe, an entirely innocent people –
the Palestinians – was to be expropriated of its
ancestral lands. Worse still, the entire Arab nation
would be prevented from achieving its
self-determination. Lame as it was, the only excuse
for this was the myth of the Holocaust.

The corollary to the Holocaust myth: the myth of
western anti-fascism

It wouldn’t be out of place here to note that the
holocaust myth has a “collateral myth”, so to speak:
The myth of western anti-fascism. According to this
myth, fascism was an abomination specific to the Axis
powers, especially Germany. The great western
democracies (meaning, by definition, the United
States, the United Kingdom and France), so goes the
myth, are intrinsically inimical to fascism. Unlike
fascism, whose main attribute is barbarity, the
western democracies are intrinsically civilized and
moral. When they do commit crimes, these crimes are
aberrations, not the rule.

The truth is very different, of course.

First of all, it is a known fact that Hitler had
prominent admirers both in the British and U.S. ruling
elites. As for France, it was in the verge of civil
war before the nazi invasion, and it is exactly for
this reason that the ruling elite opted to capitulate
without firing a single shot, seeing in Hitler the
guarantor of stability.

Second, it is well known – at least outside the United
States – that the U.S. and its allies have supported
all sorts of dictatorships all over the world. It is
well known that the most barbaric regimes enjoyed and
enjoy the support of the U.S. and its allies. And that
every single one of the worst crimes in the last 60
years, was committed either by the U.S., or with its
active support.

Third, in their lack of imagination, the U.S. ruling
elites, especially their more senile factions, like
the currently ruling clique, are copying not only the
strategic plans and the modus operandi of old-time
fascism, but even their formulations: the “new world
order”, the “desert fox” etc.

Fourth, it is also a well-known fact that the U.S. and
their allies, after reconquering Europe, became the
new employers of the worst Nazi criminals. They hired
them to learn from their expertise, used them to
organize their clandestine networks, even to run the
states they “liberated” from German occupation. In
occupied Palestine, at least two former nazi admirers
and collaborators (Begin and Shamir) became prime
ministers. My own country, Greece was for decades
ruled by the forces that had collaborated with
Germans, and those who had fought against them were
persecuted, exiled, tortured, exterminated.

The Soviet paradox…

Monstrous as it is, then, the creation of the
Holocaust myth had natural and obvious advantages for
the western colonial powers. Less obvious is why the
Soviet Union would support such a charade. And it is
crucial to understand how such a thing could have
happened, because the Holocaust myth couldn’t have
survived for a day without the endorsement of the
Soviet Union. The Soviet Union came out of the war
with enormous advantages. It won control over a large
part of Europe. But, just as importantly, it won an
enormous moral capital – a capital which,
unfortunately, it spent in a rather unwise way. Had it
contested the Holocaust myth, it would have easily
reduced it to a joke.

The Soviet Union presented itself as the protector of
the oppressed worldwide. It was, after the war, the
deadly enemy of the United States. Yet it supported a
myth that was conceived in order to continue the
oppression of peoples under colonial and semi-colonial
rule, to justify the occupation of the defeated Axis
states, to ensure imperialist domination over the
strategically important Arab World, thus strengthening
the anti-Soviet block. Isn’t this absurd?

In a way it is. But this absurdity was inherent in the
politics of the Soviet Union after its early years –
and it is this absurdity that eventually led to its
demise.

…and its explanation

The Soviet Union, and with it the Comintern, was built
on the premises of revolutionary communism – which is
generally, and correctly, identified with the legacy
of Marx and Lenin. While Marxism and Leninism remained
the official ideology of the Soviet Union to the end,
the underlying content gradually changed.

After the initial difficulties faced by the young
revolutionary state – the civil war, foreign
intervention, famine – the revolutionary camp in
Russia had lost its strength. As was the case in the
French revolution, one and a half century earlier, the
defeat didn’t come from outside, in the form of a
restoration, but from inside, in a “thermidorean”
reversal. The state apparatus rose above those who
would have destroyed it, and the entire old guard of
the revolution was exterminated, politically, morally
and physically. In France, the Directoire and then
Napoleon marched under the banners of the revolution –
but in the opposite direction. The same, more or less,
happened with Soviet Russia. This development brought
a sharp turn in the policies, both internal and
foreign, of the Soviet government. The program of
world revolution was abandoned in favor of an alliance
with one or another of the imperialist camps – and in
fact, Soviet Russia vacillated for a long time between
the two camps, changing direction more than one time.
Eventually it was Hitler who decided its course, when
he broke the Ribbentropp-Molotov pact and attacked the
Soviet Union. From that time on, both the Soviet Union
and the communist parties it controlled, entered the
struggle against the Axis, and in many cases rose to
its leadership. In Europe, this was the case, most
notably, in Yugoslavia and Greece – the two countries,
beside the Soviet Union, where there was a serious
resistance to nazi occupation. In the so-called Third
world, the cases of China and Vietnam could be noted.

Having decided to cooperate with imperialist powers,
the Soviet Government gradually toned down its
criticism of, and opposition to, Zionism. In doing so,
it was sending a clear signal to imperialist powers,
especially England, that they didn’t have to treat the
Soviet Union as an enemy – they could very well work
with it.

Immediately after the war, the Soviet leadership built
a belt of satellite “buffer” states in Eastern Europe
as an insurance against the possibility of an attack
against it. At the same time, it initially strove to
achieve “peaceful coexistence” with its imperialist
“allies”. In this period, the economy of the buffer
states was left alone. In China, Mao and Chiang were
negotiating with the aim of arriving at a formula for
sharing of power. In Vietnam, Ho had arrived at a
short-lived agreement with France. In Greece, the
communist party attempted to participate in a
“national unity” government. And in Palestine, the
Soviet Union and the communist parties supported the
partition plan. But around 1947, the Soviet leadership
began to see that peaceful coexistence was not
possible. To borrow a phrase from current-day
zionists, they saw that they had no partners for
peace. Churchill, among others, clearly saw that a
strong Soviet Union, regardless of Stalin's good
intentions, posed a potentially great risk to the
future of imperialism. He was thus campaigning for a
cold war (while a "hot" one was preferred by the
cowboy Truman).

Eventually, having exhausted its arsenal of goodwill
gestures, the Soviet leadership had to wake up to the
fact that, instead of killing revolutionary
opportunities in the hope of winning the grace of
imperialism, it should take practical measures to
shore up its defenses and undermine the positions of
the enemy. It is in that period that they began the
drive toward "sovietisation" of Eastern Europe. It is
also in that period that Mao scuttled all negotiation
efforts and began in earnest the struggle to take
power. And it is in that period that the Viet Minh
began the guerrilla war against the French.

Before that, however, the Soviet Union had recognized
the Zionist state. Worse still, it had armed (via
Czechoslovakia) the Zionist gangs. And of course, the
Nuremberg trials had taken place during this period,
where the holocaust myth was consolidated and elevated
to the level of historical dogma.

Later on, the Soviet position in the Arab-zionist
conflict was reversed. From arming Zionists, it
switched to supporting the Arab side. But, as was
common with Soviet policy, the switch was only
half-hearted. They never retracted the recognition of
the Zionist state. And they never repudiated the
holocaust myth. Doing so would necessitate a
revolutionary regime, and the regime in power in
Moscow had long ago ceased to be revolutionary. While
building its defenses, the Soviet Union continued to
the end to seek peaceful coexistence. And in order to
show its sincerity, it continued to support, to some
extent, Zionism.

A changed geopolitical environment

As we saw, the holocaust myth was born and grew up in
an epoch when the proponents of this myth were
all-powerful. For this reason, the myth itself was
all-powerful. Up to 20 years ago, few people, in
Europe or elsewhere, even knew that there are
historians who dispute the official version of the
holocaust. And even those who had remotely heard that
so-called “holocaust deniers” even existed, were
inclined to regard them as “conspiracy theorists of
the most bizarre nature” (to quote a friend’s
expression).

But times are changing. The Soviet Union, one of the
main bulwarks of the holocaust myth, collapsed. The
authority of the United States, just as it grew by
leaps and bounds over Eastern Europe, diminished over
a Western Europe which, no longer threatened by a
formidable enemy, had less reason to kowtow to every
demand from across the Atlantic. The Zionist state
itself, having lost steam after several decades of
constant war with its neighbors, began to realize that
it would have to readjust its vision of militarily
conquering the land “from the brook of Egypt to the
Euphrates”. Instead, they aimed to control it by
proxy, via impotent Arab regimes. This was the essence
of the so-called “peace process” in Palestine.

And this was the geopolitical environment under which
the main body revisionist historians’ research took
place. To be sure, an environment still very hostile.
The enemy was still strong, but not all-powerful.
There were leaks here and there. And this gradual
weakening of the enemy, made it necessary for him to
become more ruthless. It was no longer enough to
ignore revisionist historians. The pretensions of
“freedom of speech”, the façade of a Western Europe
which is the legatee of the values of the
Enlightenment, were brushed aside and laws were passed
in one country after another which reinstated – in
some cases for the first time since the Inquisition,
the notion of crimes of thought. Several of the more
prominent revisionist historians were jailed or
sentenced to heavy fines. Their works were relegated
to the index of forbidden books. And, of course,
alongside the legal witch-hunters acted gangs of
Zionist thugs.

Strangely enough - at least for those who look at the
world through colonialist eyeglasses - the only places
where the freedom of revisionist historians to think,
speak and write was respected, was way outside the
domain of “European enlightenment values”. In the Arab
world, the book of Roger Garaudy was not only legally
published, but there were newspapers that published it
in instalments (exp?). This is the same book that was
forbidden in democratic France, and whose author had
to pay an exorbitant fine. A well-known revisionist
historian found political asylum in the Islamic
Republic of Iran - which, we are told, is governed by
intolerant religious fanatics - rather than be
imprisoned in his native Switzerland, with its long
standing traditions of freedom and neutrality.

This was the general picture up to a couple of years
ago. And in this general picture, historical
revisionism made what will certainly in the future be
regarded as its first real steps. On a purely
scientific level, revisionism is very strong. Yet if
we examine the penetration of revisionist research
into mass consciousness – at least outside the Islamic
world – we must admit that it is still at the
beginning.

The current period…

But times keep changing, and this conference is but an
indication of these changes.

During the last half-decade, the so-called
peace-process has been abandoned by Zionists, in favor
of yet another attempt at a brute-force approach. Yet,
instead of crushing the Palestinian resistance, this
attempt has brought to power Hamas, the larger
organization that continues to reject the Oslo process
and the recognition of the Zionist state. Eventually
it became once again obvious that the Palestinian
resistance cannot be rooted out by brute force, and
now attempts are being made to entice the Hamas
government into a new version of Oslo. But if the
Zionist state cannot survive by war, and it cannot
survive by peace either, it seems that the only way
ahead for it is not to survive. And it is becoming
more obvious by the day that the prediction by Iranian
president Ahmadinejad that “this disgraceful stain
will be eliminated from the Islamic world” is very
accurate.

In Lebanon, Zionists attempted to eliminate the
Lebanese resistance as a prelude to attacks against
Syria and Iran. Instead of this, they suffered a
humiliating defeat, and had to rush their American
patrons to the Security Council in order to demand an
immediate cease-fire. The myth of the invincibility of
the Zionist army, which had already suffered a serious
blow when it was first forced to leave Lebanon under
the blows of Hizbullah, was shattered forever. And of
course, the humiliating defeat of Zionists also
humiliated those pro-western Arab heads of state who
rushed to condemn the “irresponsible” attack of
Hizbullah against their Zionist friends.

And of course, the glorious victory of the Lebanese
resistance itself, took place under the shadow of the
defeat of the United States by the glorious Iraqi
resistance. This defeat is something that even U.S.
officials are admitting nowadays. The only reason they
are still occupying Iraq is that they can not afford
to leave. Just as the defeat of the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan opened the way to its collapse, the defeat
of the U.S. in Iraq will open the way to its eventual
collapse.

It is just a year ago, that the U.S. president, under
the pretext of the Iranian nuclear program, was
threatening Iran. During the previous summer, there
were very persistent rumors about an impending
provocation – a “dirty bomb” attack against U.S. soil
– which would be the pretext for an attack against
Iran, just as the 9/11 provocation was a pretext for
the attack against, and the temporary occupation of,
Afghanistan and Iraq. At around the same time, another
U.S. provocation, the assassination of Syrian Prime
Minister Hariri, was used as a pretext in order to
exert enormous pressure on Syria and threaten it with
unspecified sanctions. And let’s not forget that a
couple of years back, the current U.S. president was
threatening with attacks with tactical nuclear weapons
against so-called rogue nations.

Under the repeated blows suffered in Afghanistan, Iraq
and Lebanon, the current U.S. president lost the
majority in both houses of the U.S. congress. This
electoral defeat, which took place in the framework of
a military defeat, is much more than a change of
persons – regardless of the incontestable fact that
the U.S. democratic party is in no way better than the
republican, and no less pro-zionist. This defeat is a
sign that the current belligerent policy can not be
sustained – and it just so happens that there is no
other policy to replace it. In a very real sense, we
are witnessing the last days of the U.S. empire, and
the empire’s rulers are as aware of that as anyone
else – perhaps even more so.

Here in Iran too, in the last elections the previous
president (who has reportedly declared that “the
holocaust is a historic fact”), was replaced by a
president who helped organize this conference.

So instead of threatening Iran and Syria, nowadays the
U.S. policymakers (and their happy lap-dog in the
United Kingdom) are floating the idea of inviting them
to stabilize Iran. In other words, they are asking the
so-called “axis of evil” to take over control in its
former member!

We should also not forget that the U.S. military and
political might is to a large extent based on the
strength of the U.S. economy. But this strength is now
no more than a ghost of the past. The U.S. has been,
for several decades, a net importer of goods. In
essence, it imports goods in exchange for dollars. As
long as the rest of the world keeps taking pieces of
paper in exchange for its products, this is not a
problem. But during the past year or two, it is
becoming more and more apparent that there is
increasing reluctance toward the dollar, a reluctance
which is mirrored in the falling price of the dollar
(or if you wish, the rising price of oil, gold and
other commodities).

… and the future.

It should be clear that the coming period will be the
period of collapse of the last remaining bulwarks of
the holocaust myth: the United States and the Zionist
state. This will not automatically and miraculously
cause holocaust revisionism to triumph, but it will
create the necessary conditions for this triumph. As
people see their points of reference collapsing around
them, they will be forced to reconsider their formerly
unshakeable beliefs. The electoral result in the U.S.
is just a step in this process. As the United States
become weaker and weaker, they will be less and less
able to strong-arm their allies into persecuting
revisionist historians. The recent electoral results
in Latin America are also an indication of where
things are heading. As one imperial dogma after
another comes into question, the dogma of the
holocaust will inevitably also become questioned. And
then the scientific groundwork done by revisionist
historians, those who are attending this conference as
well as those who have been prevented from doing so,
will bear fruits.

Where do we go from here?

For this to happen, the forces of change all over the
world must forge alliances, draw from each other’s
strength, in order to hasten the defeat of the enemy.
We must learn from the recent victory of the Lebanese
resistance. The victory would of course have been
impossible without the heroism of the thousands of
fighters of the resistance. It would be impossible had
it not been for the systematic organizational work
done by Hizbullah over the last 25 years. But for all
the heroism of the fighters, and for all the brilliant
organizational work of their leadership, it would have
been very difficult, if not impossible, to defeat the
Zionist army if the Lebanese resistance had been left
to its own means - as the Palestinian resistance is
left, to a large extent. Fortunately, over a course of
many years, Iran and Syria, instead of normalizing
relations with Zionists, as most Arab states are
doing, followed a different course. They sided with
their brothers in Lebanon, and offered their support –
political, moral, spiritual and material – to the
Lebanese resistance movement.

This alliance made the victory possible. And this
alliance, with its fortunate result, must serve as a
lighthouse, it must be “al manar” showing the path:
Every single state and movement opposing the empire
must be supported. From North Korea to Latin America,
and of course in the Arab and Islamic world, the
forces fighting against the common enemy must
coordinate and draw from each other’s strengths. The
Hamas government, strangled as it is from western
powers, must be supported in every way possible. It
must be armed, funded, recognized. Those who put
pressure on it to recognize the Zionist state and
renounce the struggle for liberation, should be
vehemently denounced and ostracized.

The heroic Iraqi resistance against the occupation,
this force that has brought the American empire to its
knees, must be wholeheartedly supported. The so-called
Iraqi government, which was brought to power by the
novelty of “free” elections held under foreign
occupation, must be denounced as a puppet of the
occupation forces, in no way representative of the
Iraqi people and its aspirations.

The work of revisionist historians must be supported
in every way possible. In every international forum,
representatives of states like the Islamic Republic of
Iran should grab every available chance to denounce
the hypocrisy of the west which at the same time that
it is shedding crocodile tears about the lack of
freedom and democracy in the parts of the world it
doesn’t control, at the same time persecutes and
imprisons historians because of their researches.
Revisionist works must be published and distributed as
widely as possible, in as many languages as possible.
Leaders of other states who are in the same camp – for
example Venezuela, should be pressured to take a
public stand on this issue.

Revisionist Historians, and their supporters, should
also study the work of another group of
“revisionists”, who are also slandered and ridiculed
like them: those who have researched and challenged
the official version of the September 11 events. Those
“revisionists” in turn – people like Thierry Meyssan,
for example, should be approached and pressured to
take a very serious look at the work of “holocaust”
revisionists. Many of those people have an important
audience, one which is ready to examine critically the
official version of major historic events.

And the states that oppose the empire should also
attack the empire where it hurts most: in its
currency. Several years ago, Mahathir Muhammad, then
prime minister of Malaysia, proposed an “Islamic
dinar” system, which would eventually lead to a common
currency among Islamic states. A currency which would
be based on gold reserves, instead of reserves in U.S.
dollars, as is the norm nowadays. Beside being a very
sound course from an economic point of view, such a
move would hit the empire in its soft underbelly: its
ailing economy. This proposal must be resurrected and
pushed forward. Aside from that, every single state
that fights against U.S. imperialism should stop
subsidizing it, and switch its foreign reserves away
from the dollar – a first step, if you wish, toward a
future monetary unification.

The Islamic Republic of Iran had declared in the past
that it would open a new oil exchange, where oil would
be traded in Euros, instead of dollars. Little is
known, at least outside Iran, about the progress of
this plan. Whatever the case, it must be accelerated
because to a large extent, the dollar is based on its
oil convertibility.

****

I sincerely hope that, by the next time we meet, many
of the things I have talked about will have been
accomplished. The course of history is moving in that
direction, and it cannot be stopped. Insa’ allah,
revisionist historians will benefit from these
historic changes, in order to give a fatal blow to the
monstrous lie that their research seeks to expose.

Thank you.
Abu Nicola al Yunani

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