| Enough With the Mideast Kabuki; The Farcical `Peace Talks' Eric Margolis  ...For those yearning to see an end to the seven decade Jewish-Palestinian conflict, to see security and tranquility for Israel, and justice for Palestinians, last week's so-called "peace talks" in Washington were a painful farce ... The American dialogue on the Holy Land is almost entirely controlled by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is virtually an arm of the Likud Party. Candidate Obama in fact promised AIPAC never to pressure Israel into a peace deal it did not want, a pledge he is keeping. But no pressure on Israel by Washington to trade land for peace means no real peace, no matter what sweetheart deal Abbas signs. No real peace means more woes for the United States in dealing with the Muslim world. Mexico On Its 200th Birthday: A Grim Balance Sheet The Associated Press  The movie that Mexican director Luis Estrada is putting out for his country's bicentennial is bluntly named "Hell." Like many Mexicans, Estrada says there is little to celebrate in Mexico today, with its violence, corruption and inequity ... A Pew Research Center poll released in August shows 79 percent of Mexicans are dissatisfied with the country's direction. Even U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped into the fray last week, saying that Mexico, plagued with drug-running and violence, is looking more and more how Colombia looked two decades ago. Mexico seems to be slipping behind. US Poverty Level is Highest Since 1960s BBC News  One in seven Americans was living in poverty in 2009 with the level of working-age poor the highest since the 1960s, the US Census Bureau says. The number of people in poverty increased by nearly four million -- to 43.6 million -- between 2008 and 2009, officials said. The bureau defines poverty as any family of four living on less than $21,954 a year. Meanwhile, new figures showed home foreclosures in August hit the highest level since the mortgage crisis began. Banks repossessed 95,364 properties in August, up 3% from July and an increase of 25% from August 2009, said RealtyTrac, a company which charts the national picture. The official US poverty rate in 2009 rose to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008. Historian Blames Churchill For a Million Deaths in India Famine The Telegraph (Britain) Sir Winston Churchill may be one of Britain's greatest wartime leaders, but in India he has been blamed for allowing more than a million people to die of starvation. According to a new book on the famine, Sir Winston ignored pleas for emergency food aid for millions in Bengal left to starve ... Between one and three million died of hunger in 1943 ... The man-made famine and the contrast between the plight of starving Indians and well-fed British officers dining in the city's many colonial clubs has been described as one of the darkest chapters in British rule on the Indian subcontinent. Miss Mukerjee blames Churchill's 'racism' for his refusal to intervene. Netanyahu Said Iran Was 3-5 Years Away From Nuclear Capability - In 1995 Philip Weiss ... So who do you believe? Netanyahu in '95 or Netanyahu today? Shouldn't Goldberg have passed along Netanyahu's 1995 warning to readers and suggested that he's a Bibi who cries wolf? Goldberg said he'd spent years working on the piece. Maybe he should have read Netanyahu's back pages. One has to question Netanyahu's sincerity because Israel uses this alleged threat. It uses it to distract the world from its oppression of Palestinians, and from Obama's pressure on it to stop settlement activities. Netanyahu has never wanted to stop settlement activity. He needs an existential threat to turn attention away. Catholics In England Suffered Centuries of Repression The Associated Press  For nearly three centuries after the Reformation, Catholics in England were outlaws. But in the turmoil and persecution that followed the break between King Henry VIII and Rome, noble families such as the Stonors clung to their faith, "in spite of dungeon, fire and sword," as the Victorian hymn "Faith of our Fathers" put it. "We're just stubborn, really," says Ralph Thomas Campion Stonor, the seventh Lord Camoys, a title bestowed on an ancestor for valor in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Pope Benedict XVI will recall the years of persecution during his upcoming tour of Britain Sept. 16-19. Hitler's Forgotten Library: The Man, His Books, and His Search for God Timothy W. Ryback -- The Atlantic Monthly  ... By the late 1930s Hitler had three separate libraries for his ever-expanding collection. At his apartment he removed a wall between two rooms and installed bookshelves. For the Berghof, his Alpine retreat near Berchtesgaden, Hitler built a second-floor study with handmade bookcases; color photographs of the finished space show an elegant setting with Oriental carpets, two globes, and bookcases fitted with glass doors and brass locks ... By his own admission, Hitler was not a big fan of novels, though he once ranked Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Don Quixote (he had a special affection for the edition illustrated by Gustave Doré) among the world's greatest works of literature. Forty-Two Percent of Israeli Jews Are Non-Religious AFP  Forty-two percent of Israeli Jews identify themselves as secular or non-religious, making them the largest segment of society, according to figures released by the government [of Israel] on Monday. The Central Bureau of Statistics said another 25 percent identify themselves as "not very religious," 13 percent as "traditional," 12 percent as "religious" and eight percent as "ultra-Orthodox." It said 72 percent of respondents had been to a synagogue in the past year, 82 percent celebrated the Passover holiday and 67 percent light candles for Hanukkah. The numbers are the product of polling carried out throughout 2009 on 7,500 Jews over the age of 20, the bureau said. German Police Raid `Neo-Nazi' Group The Associated Press Police on Tuesday [Sept. 7] raided buildings used by Germany's largest neo-Nazi group in an effort to find evidence to support banning it, the Interior Ministry said. The sweep targeted 30 buildings and houses across the country belonging to members of the Aid Organization for National Political Victims and their Relatives, the ministry said in a statement. It declined to say how many officers were taking part in the raids in nine of the country's 16 states. The group, known as HNG by its German acronym, is believed to have some 600 members, making it the country's largest neo-Nazi group, the ministry said. Federal Government Deficit On Track As Second-Highest Ever The Associated Press  The federal government is on track to record the second-highest deficit of all time with one month left in the budget year. The deficit totaled $1.26 trillion through August, the Treasury Department said yesterday. That puts it on pace to total $1.3 trillion when the budget year ends Sept. 30, slightly below last year's record $1.4 trillion deficit ... Deficits of $1 trillion in a single year had never happened until two years ago. The $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 was more than three times the size of the previous record-holder, a $454.8 billion deficit recorded in 2008. Last year's deficit was equal to 9.9 percent of the total economy - the highest percentage in 65 years. Why I Believe Simon Wiesenthal Was a Fraud Guy Walters -- Daily Mail (Britain)  ... In my view, Simon Wiesenthal was a liar and a fraud. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he was one of the biggest conmen of the 20th century. I spent four years working on a history of Nazi-hunting that was published last year, and the material I gathered on Wiesenthal was enough to make me scream out loud. When I started my book, I too believed that the great man was just that -- great. But when I looked at all his memoirs, biographies and original archive material, I realised that, like so many others, the image I had built up of Simon Wiesenthal was hopelessly incorrect. Irving Defends Plans for `Nazi Travel' Tour of Poland Daily Mail (Britain)  Controversial historian David Irving has hit back at claims his guided history tours of Polish death camps are 'sick'. Claiming that it is the Polish authorities who are 'tasteless' for their promotion of Auschwitz as a 'Disney-style' tourist site, Mr Irving defended his own trip which is fully-booked with American and British tourists. Critics have slammed the trip Mr Irving is organising to Hitler's headquarters and the notorious death camp Treblinka, referring to it as 'Nazi Travel'. However, the historian, who was convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria in 2006, has said his critics have clearly not read his books on the Second World War. Tour of Poland May Upset Some Revisionists, Says Irving David Irving In response to recent criticisms of his upcoming visit to several Nazi sites in Poland, including the Treblinka death camp, David Irving says, "I shall be saying nothing anywhere which violates any laws; on the contrary, I am mildly worried I may upset the more revisionist of our guests with my statements." Popular journalistic beliefs notwithstanding, Mr Irving does not deny that many people were murdered in the Operation Reinhardt camps, of which Treblinka is the most notorious. On recent visit to Treblinka in July of 2010, he said "There can be no doubt at all that the Nazis did murder hundreds of thousands of Jews by machine gunning them into pits all along the eastern front and in the Aktion Reinhardt camps, of which this camp, Treblinka, is one." Broke, But Building the Most Expensive School in U.S. History The Wall Street Journal  At $578 million -- or about $140,000 per student -- the 24-acre Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in mid-Wilshire [Los Angeles] is the most expensive school ever constructed in U.S. history. To put the price in context, this city's Staples sports and entertainment center cost $375 million. To put it in a more important context, the school district is currently running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off 3,000 teachers in the last two years. It also has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country and some of the worst test scores. The K-12 complex isn't merely an overwrought paean to the nation's most celebrated liberal political family. It's a jarring reminder that money doesn't guarantee success -- though it certainly beautifies failure. On the Nation's Paper Trail: Large-Scale Theft of Items From US National Archives Los Angeles Times  When Paul Brachfeld took over as inspector general of the National Archives, guardian of the country's most beloved treasures, he discovered the American people were being stolen blind. The Wright brothers' 1903 Flying Machine patent application? Gone. A copy of the Dec. 8, 1941, "Day of Infamy" speech autographed by Franklin Roosevelt and tied with a purple ribbon? Gone. Target maps of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, war telegrams written by Abraham Lincoln, and a scabbard and belt given to Harry Truman? Gone, gone and gone. In Austria, Two Years Added to Prison Sentence of `Thought Criminal' Honsik The Associated Press  A jailed right-wing Austrian author has been found guilty of violating a prohibition on glorifying Nazi ideology and sentenced to an additional two years in prison. Gerd Honsik is already serving a four-year term, which began last year after he was found guilty of "Wiederbetaetigung" -- "re-engaging" in Nazi-era beliefs. The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The previous sentence was for articles Honsik wrote in a right-wing publication praising the Nazi era. The judgment and sentence pronounced Thursday arose from two books by him that contained similar pro-Hitler and anti Jewish sentiments. China to Build Two Billion Dollar Railway for Iran The Telegraph (Britain)  China is poised to sign a $2 billion deal to build a railway line in Iran in the first step of a wider plan to tie the Middle East and Central Asia to Beijing. China's railways minister, Liu Zhijun, is expected to visit Tehran this week to seal the deal, according to his Iranian counterpart, Hamid Behbahani ... China is rapidly expanding its own high-speed rail network and has unveiled plans for lines that will connect Beijing with London, both through Russia and through central Asia. China Railway Group, the largest railway construction company, has also recently revealed it has had "early stage contact" with South African companies about undertaking rail projects in South Africa. Anti-Israel Economic Boycotts Are Gaining Speed Haaretz (Israel)  ... There's another boycott, an international one, that's gaining momentum - an economic boycott. Last week the Chilean parliament decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, which imposed a boycott on such products several months ago. ... The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem. Puberty Age for Some Girls in US May Still be Falling Los Angeles Times Doctors and parents were stunned when research published more than a decade ago found American girls were beginning puberty at much younger ages, some as early as 7. A new study released Sunday suggests the average age at which puberty begins may still be falling for white and Latina girls ... By age eight, 27 percent of the girls had begun puberty: 18.3 percent of whites, 42.9 percent of blacks and 30.9 percent of Latinas ... There are numerous potential explanations for why puberty is starting earlier. Excess body weight, is thought to increase the blood levels of estrogens that promote breast development. But other studies suggest that body fat may not be the only cause. Demjanjuk Health Issues Taking Over Trial The Associated Press John Demjanjuk attends most sessions of his trial in a hospital bed set up in the courtroom, wearing dark sunglasses and a hat pulled down over his face. The case of the retired Ohio autoworker accused of serving as a Nazi death camp guard -- which resumes next week after a monthlong summer break -- broke potentially precedent-setting ground when it opened last year. But it has become increasingly dominated by the 90-year-old defendant's failing health. Nazi hunters have taken keen interest in the Demjanjuk saga because it's the first time German authorities have prosecuted such a low-ranking suspect on the premise that, even without evidence of a specific crime, simply working at a death camp was enough to be an accessory to murder. Israeli Settlement Construction Booms Despite Ban Der Spiegel (Germany)  In Washington, the Israelis and Palestinians are discussing peace, but in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, construction is proceeding at full speed. A legal ban is being ignored and the government is looking away. The thousands of new homes could hinder reconciliation. America's Faltering Search for Peace in the Middle East Amb. Chas. Freeman  ... For more than four decades, Israel has been able to rely on aid from the United States to dominate its region militarily and to sustain its economic prosperity. It has counted on its leverage in American politics to block the application of international law and to protect itself from the political repercussions of its policies and actions. Unquestioning American support has enabled Israel to put the seizure of ever more land ahead of the achievement of a modus vivendi with the Palestinians or other Arabs. Neither violent resistance from the dispossessed nor objections from abroad have brought successive Israeli governments to question, let alone alter, the priority they assign to land over peace. Informed Talks on Wartime Axis Europe Policy Highlights IHR Meeting Institute for Historical Review Two informed lectures on plans for the postwar era by leaders in Germany and other Axis nations during World War II, and their vision of a prosperous European community, highlighted the IHR meeting on July 31, 2010. Adrian Davies, an English attorney and lecturer, and Mark Weber, historian and director of the IHR, presented views on how Europe might have developed if the Soviet Union had been vanquished in 1941 or 1942, and British leaders had made peace with Germany ... An Axis-dominated Pax Europa, Weber suggested, would have been economically prosperous, socially progressive, politically stable, and technologically advanced. David Irving Tour of Wartime Sites in Poland Prompts Criticism The Telegraph (Britain)  David Irving, the controversial historian, has outraged war veterans and survivors' groups with a tour of sites related to the Nazi occupation of Poland. Irving will be shadowed by the Polish secret service as he takes a week-long guided trip round various sites related to the German occupation of Poland, including a trip to the notorious SS-run camp Treblinka, where more than 800,000 Jews died between 1942 and 1943. The 1,500 pound-a-head tour, organised by Irving's Focal Point Publications website, will also visit Heinrich Himmler's bunker in Hochward as well as Adolf Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in Ketrzyn, as well as a series of lectures, and screening of the German film Downfall, about the last days of Hitler, featuring commentary by Irving. European Trade Chief Accused of Anti-Semitism The New York Times  The European Union's chief trade negotiator was accused on Friday of "outrageous anti-Semitism" after comments made in an interview about Israel's role in Middle East peace talks. Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, told a radio station in his native Belgium that the "average Jew" had a belief that they are right, which was "difficult to counter with rational arguments." ... Mr. De Gucht also said the Jewish community wielded its influence in the United States. "Don't underestimate the power of the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill," he added. "That is the best organized lobby; you shouldn't underestimate the grip it has on American politics -- no matter whether it's Republicans or Democrats." German Banker Earns Popular Support for Controversial Book on Immigration AFP  Politicians have rushed to condemn a board member of the German central bank for a new book tackling immigration, but his views have found considerable support among the population at large. Thilo Sarrazin's book "is not convincing, but it has convinced many people," said the influential Spiegel magazine, which this week has the Bundesbank executive on its cover, calling him a "people's hero." His publisher is rushing to print more copies of "Germany Does Itself In" to meet demand ... In the book, Sarrazin says Europe's top economy is being undermined, overwhelmed and made "more stupid" by poorly educated, fast-breeding, badly integrated and unproductive Muslim immigrants and their offspring. Thomas Mann's War-Time Radio Speeches and the Genesis of the Mass Gassing Allegations Thomas Kues - Inconvenient History  ... From 1940 to the end of the war Mann recorded a number of speeches in German which were sent to the BBC and broadcasted from London in order to reach German radio listeners ... As Mann proceeded to declare, the reports on mass killings of Jews were not simply "stories", but history in the making.[30] This is highly ironic, considering that most of the supposedly authentic and reliable reports on mass killings relayed by Mann to his listeners have been quietly thrown down the memory hole. The speeches made by Mann during the war years are actually mythology in the making, and reading them gives us more insight into how and when the mass gassing allegations arose and provides us with leads to follow up in future research into this issue. Dresden Mayor Against Memorial to World War II British Bombers The Telegraph (Britain)  The mayor of the German city of Dresden has flown into London under pressure from fellow politicians to try to get a planned memorial to Second World War bomber crews scrapped. Helma Orosz, 57, is officially in Britain to open an exhibition on the bombing of London, her city and that of its twin, Coventry, during the war. She is under pressure however to get the memorial, which is to recognise the courage of RAF bomber crews, scrapped. The East German city of Dresden was turned into rubble over two days nights in February 1945 by British and American bombers. Some 25,000 people, mostly women and children, died in savage firestorms whipped up by the intense heat of 2,400 tons of high explosive and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs. The raid was controversial because the war was almost over and Dresden had no strategic value as a military target. World War Two Era Mass Grave Discovered in Slovenia The Associated Press The bodies of about 700 people killed in the wake of World War II have been discovered in a mass grave in Slovenia, 65 years after they were herded into the woods and slain by antifascists seeking revenge on Nazi collaborators, an official said Tuesday. Marko Strovs, who heads the government's commission for exhuming mass graves, told The Associated Press that researchers examined a pit in a forest near the town of Prevalje in the country's northeast last week and found the remains. "Based on what we've heard from local people and what we've seen so far, there could be about 700 bodies buried inside," Strovs said. Thousands of Nazi collaborators were executed by communist-backed antifascists after the war; in many cases, victims also included innocent civilians. Orange County is No Longer Nixon Country The New York Times  ... It was the latest sign of the demographic, ethnic and political changes that are transforming the county and challenging long-held views of a region whose colorful -- its detractors might suggest zany -- reputation extends well beyond the borders of this state. At the end of 2009, nearly 45 percent of the county's residents spoke a language other than English at home, according to county officials. Whites now make up only 45 percent of the population; this county is teeming with Hispanics, as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. Its percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970, and visits to some of its corners can feel like a trip to a foreign land. Third World America: 'Fast-Tracking to Anarchy' Janet Tavakoli  ... Among the future consequences of not fixing our national problems will likely be an increase in social unrest and an increase in crime. A look at Chicago's problems may serve as a call to action for America's middle class. Chicago's city budget is in dire straits. That's also true of the state of Illinois, California, New York and other areas. In Chicago, the same mismanagement that deepened our fiscal crisis has caused a crisis in essential city services ... Thugs, gangs and renegade groups run the streets and neighborhoods, intimidating and victimizing the decent citizens of this city. They go mostly unchallenged and unchecked by a totally demoralized police force that is dangerously understaffed and still out-gunned on the streets. America's Little Wars are Draining Us in a Big Way Georgie Anne Geyer  ... In Iraq and Afghanistan, it was the inner group of neocons, originally leftist Trotskyites who then switched to the right, bringing their war propensities with them, when they saw the left turning against Israel. They are still very much around in the right wing of the Republican Party, and they are always the people to watch ... The bigger question we now face is whether the American people really want 800 American bases all over the world "projecting power," and whether we want to invade other countries and bring back body bags instead of rebuilding our bridges and highways and ports. We Owe The Troops An Exit Bob Herbert -- The New York Times ... In addition to the terrible physical toll, the ultimate economic costs of these two wars, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleague Linda Bilmes have pointed out, will run to more than $3 trillion. I get a headache when I hear supporters of this endless warfare complaining about the federal budget deficits. They're like arsonists complaining about the smell of smoke in the neighborhood. There is no silver lining to this nearly decade-old war in Afghanistan. Poll after poll has shown that it no longer has the support of most Americans. And yet we fight on, feeding troops into the meat-grinder year after tragic year -- to what end? 'I Did Nothing Wrong': German Gulag Prisoners Recall Their Postwar Ordeal Der Spiegel (Germany)  Thousands of Germans, including teenagers, were forced to toil in Stalin's labor camps after World War II. When they were finally released, their country had been divided into east and west. Karl Heinz Vogeley and Lothar Scholz recall how no one was interested in their fate when they returned ... Between 15 million and 18 million people were imprisoned in Soviet gulags between the mid 1920s and the beginning of the 1950s. German War Dead Find Final Resting Place in Czech Soil DPA The remains of 5,600 Wehrmacht soldiers and ethnic Germans who died on Czech territory during and shortly after World War II now have a final resting place there. The place is the town of Cheb, known in German as Eger, in the Sudetenland region near the Bavarian border. The new war cemetery, the largest and last burial site for German war dead on Czech territory, will be officially opened on September 11, some 65 years after the war. Hundreds of plain granite crosses mark the graves. The people buried in them include 473 civilians who died either in internment camps or during the expulsion of ethnic Germans after the war. Jewish Moral Deception, Free Speech, and the Israel Lobby Prof. Kevin MacDonald - Video  Dr. MacDonald explains how Jewish intellectuals promote policies to advance Jewish group interests while deceitfully justifying them on the basis of "universal values" and humanitarian principles that appeal to non-Jews. This video presentation, made by James Williams, lasts 4:53 mins. As part of what psychology professor MacDonald calls a "group evolutionary strategy," Jews frame polices that are good for Jews as beneficial for everyone. These policies include: Mass immigration and multiculturalism for the US and Europe, but not for Israel, which are justified on "humanitarian" grounds; and, Wars waged by the US against Israel's enemies, which are justified as promoting "freedom" and "democracy." What's The Difference Between President Ahmadinejad And Rabbi Yosef? Alan Hart  Short answer. Iran's President Ahmadinejad did NOT call for Israeli Jews to be annihilated. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's Shas party, HAS called, more than once, for the Palestinians (and, in fact, all Arabs) to be exterminated. As reported by the mainstream Western media, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". What that meant, it was asserted, was the destruction, the driving into the sea, of Israel's Jews. What Ahmadinejad actually called for was the de-Zionization of Palestine. His actual words were to the effect that he wanted the Zionist state to disappear as the Soviet Union had done. Red and Green: Israel and the World Uri Avnery (Israel) ... But the belief that "the whole world is against us" is rooted deep in our national psyche. It enables us to ignore the world reaction to our behavior. It is very convenient. If the entire world hates us anyhow, the nature of our deeds, good or bad, doesn't really matter. They would hate Israel even if we were angels. The goyim are just anti-Semitic ... One could answer that since Israel demands special treatment in all other matters, we are measured by special standards when it comes to the occupation and the settlements. But logic doesn't matter. It's the national myths that count. London in the Blitz: How Crime Flourished Under Cover of the Blackout The Observer / The Guardian (Britain)  The first people to be liberated by Britain in the Second World War were our own criminals. As the declaration of hostilities was announced in 1939, the gates of the country's prisons swung open for any inmate with less than three months left to serve and all the Borstal boys who had completed six months. Next month sees the 70th anniversary of the start of the blitz and there will be, quite rightly, many celebrations of the courage and stoicism displayed during it. What may receive less publicity are the activities of those who took advantage of the confusion to make their criminal fortunes because, as most of the nation pulled together to help each other, others were very busily helping themselves. A Trillion-Dollar Catastrophe: The Iraq War Simon Jenkins -- The Guardian (Britain)  Today the Iraq war was declared over by Barack Obama. As his troops return home, Iraqis are marginally freer than in 2003, and considerably less secure. Two million remain abroad as refugees from seven years of anarchy, with another two million internally displaced. Ironically, almost all Iraqi Christians have had to flee. Under western rule, production of oil - Iraq's staple product - is still below its pre-invasion level, and homes enjoy fewer hours of electricity. This is dreadful. Some 100,000 civilians are estimated to have lost their lives from occupation-related violence ... The Iraq war will be seen by history as a catastrophe that did more than anything else to alienate Atlantic powers from the rest of the world and disqualify them as global policemen. The Iraq War in Figures BBC News  The US formally ends its combat operations in Iraq at the end of August, marking a new phase in the seven-year conflict which has cost billions of dollars and many thousands of lives ... The respected and non-partisan Congressional Research Service estimates that the US will have spent almost $802 billion on funding the war by the end of fiscal year 2011, with $747.6 billion already appropriated. However, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard's Linda Bilmes put the true cost at $3 trillion once additional impacts on the US budget and economy are taken into account. Making Soldiers Fit to Fight, Without the Situps The New York Times  ... This year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled "Too Fat to Fight." "Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent," the report concluded. Though the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that many of the recruits who reach basic training have less strength and endurance than privates past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by a reduction in gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert. America's Culture of Overwork: Comparing US and German Workers Alex Jung -- Salon.com  ... Compared to our German cousins across the pond, we work 1,804 hours versus their 1,436 hours - the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour workweeks per year. The Protestant work ethic may have begun in Germany, but it has since evolved to become the American way of life ... European social democracy - particularly Germany's - offers some tantalizing solutions to our overworked age. In comparison to the U.S., the Germans live in a socialist idyll. They have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, nursing care, and childcare. Wiesenthal Worked for Israeli Spy Agency, Says Israeli Historian The New York Times  Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who gained worldwide fame for decades as a one-man Nazi-hunting operation, was in fact frequently on the payroll of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, a new biography asserts. The assertion, based on numerous documents and interviews with three people said to be Mr. Wiesenthal's Mossad handlers, punctures not only a widely held belief about how he operated; it also suggests a need to re-evaluate the standard view that the Israeli government took no interest in tracking down Nazis until the 1960 capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, and little thereafter. Simon Wiesenthal: Fraudulent `Nazi Hunter' Mark Weber ... Wiesenthal's reputation as a moral authority is undeserved. The man whom The Washington Post has called the "Holocaust's Avenging Angel" has a little known but well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. He has lied about his own wartime experiences, misrepresented his postwar "Nazi-hunting" achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities French Teacher Suspended For Holocaust `Brain-Washing' AFP  A Jewish French history teacher said Tuesday that she had been suspended for spending too much time teaching her pupils about the Holocaust and for organising trips to former Nazi death camps. A lawyer acting for Catherine Pederzoli, a 58-year-old secondary teacher in the eastern town of Nancy, said her client had been accused by administrators of teaching the World War II massacres with insufficient "neutrality". ... The report, compiled last month, alleged the teacher took up too much time preparing pupils for annual school trips to Poland and the Czech Republic to visit sites like the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A copy of the report, seen by AFP, accuses Pederzoli of "lacking distance, neutrality and secularism" in teaching the Holocaust and of manipulating her charges through a process of "brain-washing". The `Beatification' of Anne Frank Anne Karpf -- The Guardian (Britain)  ... From the spring of 1944 onwards Anne rewrote her diary as she updated it, to turn it into a more eloquent piece of writing. After the war her father, Otto Frank, drew on versions A (the original) and B (Anne's revision) to produce C - the standard edition, until both the critical edition (1989) and the definitive edition (1995) supplemented C with hitherto omitted passages from A and B. ... Her posthumous beatification - the remaining few frames of film of her have almost the status of a relic - rests mostly on those lines in her diary about still believing that people are good at heart. (The ones about people's innate "urge to destroy . . . to kill . . . murder and rage" have curiously never found equal fame.) Samuel Konkin: An Influential Libertarian and Revisionist Revisionists.com  Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947-2004) was an influential libertarian writer, publisher and activist. ... In keeping with his outlook, he fervently opposed US military interventionism in foreign countries, and all forms of state collectivism. He was an ardent defender of free speech and free intellectual inquiry. He was a good friend of the Institute for Historical Review. He addressed the Third IHR conference (1981), contributed to the IHR's Journal of Historical Review, and for years was a member of the IHR Journal's Editorial Advisory Committee. Military Spending: Start Cutting Overseas B. Friedman and C. Preble -- Los Angeles Times  ... The truth is that the U.S. no longer has a "defense" budget. The adjective is wrong. Our military forces' size long ago ceased to have any meaningful attachment to the requirements of protecting Americans ... Our military spending is nearly equal to half the world's, and our allies spend most of the other half. Russia, China, North Korea, Syria and Iran collectively spend about a fourth of what we do on defense, according to statistics compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Even if we cut our military in half, it would still be far bigger than that of any conceivable rival ... Our deficit problem is an opportunity to surrender the pretension that we are the world's indispensable nation, preventing instability, shaping the international system and guiding history. More US Schools `Infested' With Drugs, New Teen Survey Shows Reuters  Millions of U.S. teens attend "drug-infested schools" where students routinely see drugs used, sold or kept on schools grounds, according to a national survey of attitudes on substance abuse released on Thursday. Thirty-one percent of high school students -- more than four million -- see drug dealing, illegal drug use or students high or drunk at least once a week on their school grounds, said the annual survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University ... Since 2002, the proportion of students who attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold soared 39 percent for high school students and 63 percent for those in middle school. Prominent Israeli Rabbi Calls For Death To Palestinians Reuters  An influential Israeli rabbi has said God should strike the Palestinians and their leader with a plague, calling for their death in a fiery sermon before Middle East peace talks set to begin next week. "Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this earth," Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual head of the religious Shas party in Israel's government, said in a sermon late Saturday, using Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' popular name. "God should strike them and these Palestinians -- evil haters of Israel -- with a plague," the 89-year-old rabbi said in his weekly address to the faithful, excerpts of which were broadcast on Israeli radio Sunday. German Banker's Remarks on Jews and Muslims Spark Outrage Daily Mail (Britain)  A leading member of Germany's central bank has caused outrage by claiming that Jews are identified by a particular gene. Thilo Sarrazin, who is on the board of the the Bundesbank in Frankfurt, said in a newspaper interview: 'All Jews share a certain gene. Basques (Spanish separatists) have particular genes, that distinguishes them from others.' ... In the book he claims the country is on the road to ruin because of the influx of immigrants from the Middle East which would overwhelm the indigenous population and create a nation of 'dunces'. In particular he singles out Muslims for failing to integrate and having low IQs. This influx, he claims, has been going on virtually since the war while the birthrate of native Germans has been steadily falling. World War Two West Coast Camps for Japanese-Americans Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many [Americans] expected an immediate attack against the West Coast. Fear gripped the country and a wave of hysterical antipathy against the Japanese engulfed the Pacific Coast ... The Japanese were sent to concentration camps not by a group of West Coast racists seeking economic advantage, but by a popular and powerful government run by democratic liberals. At the top of the list of those responsible for not only authorizing the program, but also for keeping it in operation was President Franklin Roosevelt. On the Way Down: The Erosion of America's Middle Class Der Spiegel (Germany)  While America's super-rich congratulate themselves on donating billions to charity, the rest of the country is worse off than ever. Long-term unemployment is rising and millions of Americans are struggling to survive. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and the middle class is disappearing. ... Even more unsettling is the fact that America, which has always been characterized by its unshakable belief in the American Dream, and in the conviction that anyone, even those at the very bottom, can rise to the top, is beginning to lose its famous optimism. According to recent figures, a significant minority of US citizens now believe that their children will be worse off than they are. Hateful Images of Germans and Japanese in 1950s British Comics Robert Fisk -- The Independent (Britain)  .... Only now, 12 years after her death, have I found the box in my garage, containing dozens of volumes published by the Amalgamated Press (now IPC), in which a generation of schoolboys learned that Germans and Japanese were subhumans, and that we, the Brits - and occasionally Frenchmen and Americans, even Soviets - were fighting courageously against these "hordes" ... At their most racist, the comics cover the Allied-Japanese war. "The Emperor ... has ordered us to show these low-natured curs ... that we are the sons of Japan," a Jap says of the Brits in Malaya. But fear not, a plucky Tommy is there to "mow down the oncoming Japs" while screaming: "Come and get it you grinning little monkeys." Britain Carried Out Cold War Assassinations, Says Former Agent Le Carre AFP  Britain carried out assassinations during the Cold War, novelist and former secret agent John le Carre told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The espionage writer worked for Britain's domestic and external intelligence agencies during the 1950s and 1960s. "Certainly we did very bad things. We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations, at arm's length. Although I was never involved," said the 79-year-old, whose real name is David Cornwell. He drew a distinction between Western spy agencies and their Soviet bloc counterparts in the way they went about it. The novelist, who worked in Berlin in his Cold War days, denied that both sides were as bad each other. French State Rail Company To Open Wartime Files, Bowing to Pressure The Telegraph (Britain)  France's state rail operator, SNCF, has pledged to open its wartime archives to the state of California to prove it has "nothing to hide" over transporting French Jews to Nazi death camps. The pledge came a week after California passed legislation making full disclosure on involvement in taking people to work, concentration, prisoner of war, or extermination camps between January 1942 and December 1944 a requirement for bidding to build a high-speed railway in the state. Under the Holocaust Survivor Responsibility Act details of any reparations paid must also be disclosed. The new legislation is specifically aimed at SNCF, which is making a joint bid with French construction firm Alstom to build a $45 billion high speed link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. British Pilots Relied on German Sea Rescue Service During World War II The Telegraph (Britain)  RAF [British air force] pilots shot down over the Channel during the Battle of Britain had to rely on German search and rescue services to save them from drowning, new research has unveiled. The problem became so severe that British aircraft were ordered to try to avoid travelling over the sea because too many being drowned, it has emerged. Amid the 70th anniversary commemorations this summer it can be disclosed that at least 200 pilots died "needlessly" in 1940 after bailing out over water. Once they hit the water there was very little chance of survival with only the occasional flier being picked up by a passing destroyer or fishing boat. How Much Is Enough?: Runaway Military Spending Lawrence S. Wittner  ... When it comes to military appropriations, the U.S. government already spends about seven times as much as China, thirteen times as much as Russia, and seventy-three times as much as Iran. Is this really necessary? During the Cold War, the United States confronted far more dangerous and numerous military adversaries, including the Soviet Union. And the U.S. government certainly possessed an enormous and devastating military arsenal, as well as the armed forces that used it. But in those years, U.S. military spending accounted for only 26 percent of the world total. America's Biggest Jobs Program: The U.S. Military Robert Reich  ... Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed. It creates jobs we don't need but we keep anyway because there's no honest alternative. We don't have an overt jobs program based on what's really needed ... The Pentagon's budget -- and its giant undercover jobs program -- keeps expanding. The President has asked Congress to hike total defense spending next year 2.2 percent, to $708 billion. That's 6.1 percent higher than peak defense spending during the Bush administration. This sum doesn't even include Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, nuclear weapons management, and intelligence. Add these, and next year's national security budget totals about $950 billion. World War II, the Third Reich and Hitler: A Witness of History Remembers Otto Ernst Remer - Institute for Historical Review  ... The initial successes of our forces against the Soviets were due to the fact that the Russians were not stationed in defense positions, but were instead positioned right at the front for attack, which made it possible for us to quickly encircle large Soviet forces. Thus, in the first weeks of the war, we were able to capture more than three million prisoners of war as well as enormous quantities of war equipment, all of which was on the frontier, positioned for attack. That's the truth of the matter, which can be proven. Boxed Into a Corner on Iran Philip Giraldi  ... To be completely and cold bloodedly serious about the respective positions being staked out by Iran and its chief antagonists in Washington and Tel Aviv, one must first of all remember that Tehran does not currently have a nuclear weapon and there is no real evidence that it even has a program to produce one. It has been basically compliant with the UN inspection regime mandated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory. A New Look at the Ottoman Empire's Last Great Sultan Sami Moubayed -- Asia Times  For the past year, sporadic articles have appeared in the Arabic press debating the life and policies of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the last absolute monarch of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled from 1876 until forced to abdicate in 1909 ... Once seen as the source of all things evil, Abdulhamid is now revealed as a farsighted ruler who suffered his throne because of his defiance of Zionist ambitions in Palestine. The passing of time has enabled scholars to quietly take a long hard look at their history away from emotional bolts of Arab nationalism. The warming of Arab ties under Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a man who very clearly is proud of his Ottoman past, has also contributed to this revisionist history. Turks See Ottoman Legacy in New Light The Associated Press ... For most of the last century, Turks were told to look askance at the Ottoman Empire. Nostalgia for the 1453 conquest of Constantinople and other early triumphs was fine -- but the excesses of the sultans were the stuff of decay, no model for modern Turkey. Today, the legacy of the Ottomans is enjoying a makeover. Turkey is a regional power that no longer sees itself as a junior partner of the West. Its diplomats and entrepreneurs reach out to Iraq, Iran, Syria and other lands once ruled from the Ottoman court. Israel: An Apartheid State Francis A. Boyle  ... If you take a look at the definition of apartheid here found in Article 2, you will see that Israel has inflicted each and every act of apartheid set out in Article 2 on the Palestinians, except an outright ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians. But even there they have barred Palestinians living in occupied Palestine who marry Israeli citizens from moving into Israel, and thus defeat the right of family reunification that of course the world supported when Jews were emigrating from the Soviet Union. Forgotten Christians The American Conservative (2004)  ... A key tenet of Christian Zionism is absolute support for Israel, whose establishment and existence, it is believed, heralds Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. The politically relevant upshot of this is that without Israel's expansion there can be no redemption, and those who subscribe to this interpretation are only too eager to sacrifice their Palestinian fellow Christians on the altar of Zionism. They do not want to hear about coreligionists' suffering at the hands of Israel. John Maynard Keynes' Little-Known Anti-Jewish Views The Telegraph (Britain)  Did you know that John Maynard Keynes was a venomous anti-Semite who could have given Richard Wagner a run for his money? Me neither. Yet the evidence has been out there for decades. Here are a couple of extracts from his writings, courtesy of Chris Dillow via Clive Davis's Spectator blog: "[Jews] have in them deep-rooted instincts that are antagonistic and therefore repulsive to the European, and their presence among us is a living example of the insurmountable difficulties that exist in merging race characteristics, in making cats love dogs. And: "It is not agreeable to see civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and brains." In Australia, School Apologizes for Hitler Costume Prize BBC News A Catholic school in Australia has apologised to parents after teachers awarded a costume prize to a child dressed as Adolf Hitler. The class of nine- and 10-year-olds had been asked to dress up as famous people at the school in Western Australia. Teachers declared the winner to be a boy who dressed as the Nazi leader, who was wearing an outfit featuring the swastika. The principal said in hindsight the school would have done it differently. Becoming a Victorian: Churchill and the British Empire Dan Jones -- Spectator (Britain)  Winston Churchill was a racist. He said things like 'I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails. I don't like the look of them or the smell of them'.... The Churchill we salute as a lover of freedom and hater of tyranny muttered about kaffirs and blackamoors, and bore a lifelong commitment to subjecting swathes of the world to unwelcome British rule. How so? For answers, we may turn to Richard Toye's excellent new book, Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made ... Sadness largely dominated Churchill's views on Empire following the War. Towards the end of his life he told his private secretary Anthony Montague-Brown: 'I have worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal - in the end to achieve nothing.' French Writer Reynouard: A `Prisoner of Conscience'  To sign a petition in defense of Vincent Reynouard's right to free research and expression, please visit the petition site (in French) ... A 41-year-old father of eight is currently in prison for his historical research, because of the Gayssot Act. Vincent Reynouard: A Profile Revisionists.com Vincent Reynouard, born in 1969, is a French historian specializing in the Second World War who has been punished for violating France's controversial "Gayssot" law by expressing dissident views about twentieth century history. How Facts Backfire: A Surprising `Threat to Democracy' Joe Keohane  ... In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we're right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote. The Ecstasy of Empire: How Close Is America's Demise? Paul Craig Roberts  ... If the wars are not immediately stopped and the jobs brought back to America, the US is relegated to the trash bin of history. Obviously, the corporations and Wall Street would use their financial power and campaign contributions to block any legislation that would reduce short-term earnings and bonuses by bringing jobs back to America. Americans have no greater enemies than Wall Street and the corporations and their prostitutes in Congress and the White House. The neocons allied with Israel, who control both parties and much of the media, are strung out on the ecstasy of Empire. The United States and the welfare of its 300 million people cannot be restored unless the neocons, Wall Street, the corporations, and their servile slaves in Congress and the White House can be defeated. Without a revolution, Americans are history. Wilhelm Furtwängler and Music in the Third Reich Antony Charles -- Institute for Historical Review  ... The National Socialists regarded art, and especially music, as an expression of a society's soul, character and ideals. A widespread appreciation of Germany's cultural achievements, they believed, encouraged a joyful national pride and fostered a healthy sense of national unity and mission. Because they regarded themselves as guardians of their nation's cultural heritage, they opposed liberal, modernistic trends in music and the other arts, as degenerate assaults against the cultural-spiritual traditions of Germany and the West. America Cannot Go to War for Israel Ahmed Moor ... Benjamin Netanyahu is a dangerously delusional man. His mind is encumbered by a fixation on the holocaust and Hitler. He zealously reanimates Hitler at every opportunity, thrusting him onto real world objects. Hitler is among us, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is his present day incarnation, or worse ... We have a responsibility to stop this hysterical march to war. Iran does not pose any threat to America. The men pushing this war lied to us about Iraq, and they're lying now about Iran. The warmongers and profiteers must be forced back into their kennels. They must be discredited and shamed. America cannot fight another war built on lies. America cannot afford another war for Israel. Germany's Nuremberg Laws Transferred to US National Archives AFP  The Nuremberg Laws signed by Adolf Hitler that set the legal groundwork for the Holocaust will be transferred from California's Huntington Museum to the Washington-based National Archives, the institutions said Wednesday. The typewritten pages bearing Hitler's signature and dated September 15, 1935, were whisked out of [stolen from] Germany after World War II by US General George Patton, who donated them to the Huntington Museum, in San Marino, near Los Angeles, in 1945. Last Moments of World War II British Pilot's Life Revealed in Letters Daily Mail (Britain) They were arch enemies, fighting each other for their very survival. But five years after bomber pilot William Ross was shot down and killed in the Second World War, it was a German soldier who showed compassion to the fiancee left behind. Gernot Knop had witnessed the 28-year-old RAF sergeant's death in anti-aircraft fire as he attacked a Nazi fuel ship. And writing in English to Dorothy Bird, he told her of Sergeant Ross's heroic last mission and returned to her the few possessions he had with him when he died at a seaport in eastern Libya in 1941. Showing the respect troops on opposing sides had for each other, the letter told how he was buried by his enemies with 'military honours' and was saluted for his bravery by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, leader of the German forces in the North Africa campaign. Blonde Ballerina Spy Helped German Victory in Norway, Newly Released Files Suggest BBC News  A glamorous Nazi spy may have been behind one of the biggest setbacks suffered by Allied forces during World War II, newly released files suggest. The secret government papers suggest that Marina Lee, a blonde ballerina, stole battle plans which led to the fall of Norway to Germany in 1940 ... Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lee was married to a Norwegian communist and had trained as a ballerina before becoming "a highly valued and experienced German agent", according to the files. She is described as "blonde, tall, with a beautiful figure, refined and languid in manner" and reportedly spoke five languages. Tales From the Northwest Frontier Philip Giraldi  ... The false narrative we are hearing in America today is that constant war is both necessary and manageable, not to mention a safeguard of the US Constitution and our way of life. The Founding Fathers would not agree and would be horrified if they returned to America today. They saw clearly that foreign entanglements would bring about the death of the Republic and granted only to Congress the power to declare war. In spite of that, however, the United States has sent its soldiers into combat situations more then seventy times since the defeat of Japan in 1945, all without a declaration of war by Congress, and the president has acquired pretty much a free hand to initiate military action. The Guns of August: Lowering the Flag on the American Century Chalmers Johnson  ... Thirty-five years from now, America's official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face-to-face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy. President Roosevelt's Campaign To Incite War in Europe Mark Weber  A detailed look at President Franklin Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. Highlights his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939. Franklin Roosevelt not only criminally involved America in a war that had already engulfed Europe, he bears a grave responsibility for the outbreak of the most destructive war of all time. This paper relies heavily on secret Polish documents that fell into German hands when Warsaw was captured in 1939. These revealing docu ments also confirm the crucial role of Jewish power and in fluence on US foreign policy during these years. Dismantling America Thomas Sowell  ... To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years, but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of "czars" wielding greater power than Cabinet members', without having to be exposed to public scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members. Now there is leaked news of plans to change the country's immigration laws by administrative fiat rather than congressional legislation ... Bad News on Home Sales Adds to Recession Fears The Associated Press  It's starting to feel like another recession. Businesses are ordering fewer goods. Home sales are the slowest in decades. Jobs are scarce, and unemployment claims are rising. Perhaps most worrisome, manufacturing activity, which had been one of the economy's few bright spots, is faltering. "The odds of a double-dip are rising and uncomfortably high," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, referring to the possibility that the nation will tip back into recession. "Nothing else can go wrong. There is no cushion left." On Wednesday, the government offered the latest dose of grim news about the economic recovery: Companies cut back last month on their investments in equipment and machines. US Existing Home Sales Fall To 15-Year Low, Clouding Recovery Prospects AFP US home sales are plunging despite rock-bottom mortgage rates as high unemployment prevents people from buying houses and threatens to curtail economic recovery. Existing-home sales plunged for the third straight month by a whopping 27.2 percent in July to levels unseen in more than a decade, an industry group said Tuesday. Sales of single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums dropped to 3.83 million units from 5.26 million units in June, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The slide was more than double the 12.1 percent expected by most economists, with sales at the lowest level since 1999. Debating the Dieppe Raid: Recalling a Failed Allied Landing in France Postmedia News (Canada)  A debate still smoulders over one of the most ambitious, and disastrous, military endeavours in Canadian history that took place here [in northern France on Aug. 19, 1942] 68 years ago Thursday. The Dieppe raid, to be marked here by Canadian and local French officials and some veterans with a series of wreath-laying events and an outdoor mass, is still viewed by some as a useless waste of lives. But Antony Beevor, considered by some the most prominent military historian in the world, supports the argument that the Canadians mowed down or blown apart by overwhelming German firepower didn't die in vain. US Military 'Overwhelmed' by Mental Health Problems of Soldiers USA Today  ... About every fourth soldier here, where 48,000 troops and their families are based, has been in counseling during the past year, according to the service's medical statistics. And the number of soldiers seeking help for combat stress, substance abuse, broken marriages or other emotional problems keeps increasing. A common refrain by the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, is that far more soldiers suffer mental health issues than the Army anticipated. Nowhere is this more evident than at Fort Hood, where emotional problems among the soldiers threaten to overwhelm the system in place to help them. Wikipedia Editing Courses Launched by Zionist Groups The Guardian (Britain)  Two Israeli groups set up training courses in Wikipedia editing with aims to 'show the other side' over borders and culture / Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet. Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia, the online reference site. Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My Israel) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site. Don't Scorn Germany and Japan: Learn From Them Steven Hill -- Los Angeles Times  ... Japan's economy has been and remains successful. So is Germany's. They have reached an economic steady state in which they don't need roaring growth rates to provide for their people. But for the economic Cassandras, apparently it doesn't matter if people's needs are being met; what matters is whether their theories and equations balance ... This is not an easy challenge, yet it is the path that Japan, Germany and others have chosen. Americans would be wise to learn from them. None Dare Call It Tyranny Sheldon Richman The national government -- specifically the executive branch -- can do pretty much what it wants. It could bomb Iran tomorrow without a declaration of war from Congress. It can -- and does -- conduct secret wars and covert operations against countries that have done nothing to us. Of course, they are secret only to the ignorant taxpayers who must finance them and perhaps suffer when the provoked retaliation occurs ... Now we are being softened up for the next war, against Iran. As in 2002 with Iraq's phantom WMDs, the empire advance men tell us Iran is building nuclear weapons, and Obama and Secretary of State Clinton say "all options are on the table," which phrase includes hydrogen bombs. Once again a Big Lie is repeated without proof. World War Two: A `Just War'? BBC News  ... The conflict which ensued spread across the world, and by the time it ended in 1945, an estimated 50 million had died. But the way in which the war is remembered varies around the world. In Britain, it's generally seen as a righteous battle against the forces of totalitarianism. In many of Britain's former colonies though, the picture is very different. Professor Richard Overy from the University of Exeter and Prof Tapan RayChaudhuri, an expert on Indian History at Oxford University, discuss the different perspectives. Revisiting the `Good War's' Aftermath Dwight D. Murphey ... The American public has long thought of the Allied effort in World War II as a "great crusade" that pitted good and decency against Nazi evil. Even after all these years, it is likely that the last thing the public wants to learn is that vast and unspeakable wrongs were committed by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union during the war and its aftermath. It flies in the face of that reluctance for MacDonogh to tell "the brutal history" at great length [in his book, After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation]. That willingness is commendable for its intellectual bravery. Secrets in Israel's Archives: Suppressed Evidence of Ethnic Cleansing Jonathan Cook  ... The [Israel] state's chief archivist says many of the documents "are not fit for public viewing" and raise doubts about Israel's "adherence to international law", while the government warns that greater transparency will "damage foreign relations". ... Ethnic cleansing is the common theme of both these Israeli conquests. A deeper probe of the archives will almost certainly reveal in greater detail how and why these "cleansing" campaigns were carried out - which is precisely why Mr Netanyahu and others want the archives to remain locked. Declassified Documents Reveal Secret Israeli Campaign to Steer US Media Institute for Research on Middle Eastern Policy  Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010. The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel's clandestine programs for "cultivation of editors," the "stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines" as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility. Israeli Manipulation of US Media Exposed in Newly Released Documents Russia Today - Video Files declassified in America have revealed covert public relations and lobbying activities of Israel in the U.S. The National Archive made the documents public following a Senate investigation. They suggest Israel has been trying to shape media coverage of issues it regards as important. Runtime: 4:48 mins. Twenty-Five Thousand Jews Live in Iran Mike Whitney  Twenty-five thousand Jews live in Iran. It's the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. Iranian Jews are not persecuted or abused by the state, in fact, they are protected under Iran's constitution. They are free to practice their religion and to vote in elections. They are not stopped and searched at checkpoints, they are not brutalized by an occupying army, and they are not herded into a densely-populated penal colony (Gaza) where they are deprived of the basic means of survival. Iranian Jews live in dignity and enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Attack on Iran Gareth Porter -- Inter Press Service Pro-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg's article in "The Atlantic" magazine was evidently aimed at showing why the Barack Obama administration should worry that it risks an attack by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran in the coming months unless it takes a much more menacing line toward Iran's nuclear programme. But the article provides new evidence that senior figures in the Israeli intelligence and military leadership oppose such a strike against Iran and believe that Netanyahu's apocalyptic rhetoric about an Iranian nuclear threat as an "existential threat" is unnecessary and self-defeating. What Winston Churchill Really Wanted Piers Brendon -- Literary Review  ... Young Winston had vowed to devote his life to the maintenance of the British Empire. As warlord during the struggle against Hitler he fought to preserve it even though that meant testing the Anglo-American alliance, which he also championed. As an old man he lamented that his life had been for nothing: 'The Empire I believed in has gone.' ... Churchill was 'anti-black', hated 'people with slit eyes and pigtails' and damned Hindus as a foul race 'protected by their mere pullulation from the doom that is their due'. He defended 'punitive devastation' against the Pashtuns. In South Africa he justified harsh measures against the Boers, including farm burnings and concentration camps. In Iraq he urged the use of mustard gas against 'uncivilised tribes'. Historians Rethink Key Soviet Role in Japan Defeat The Associated Press  As the United States dropped its atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, 1.6 million Soviet troops launched a surprise attack on the Japanese army occupying eastern Asia. ... But in recent years some historians have argued that the Soviet action served as effectively as -- or possibly more than -- the A-bombs in ending the war. Now a new history by a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara seeks to reinforce that view, arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets. Stalin's War Against His Own Troops Yuri Teplyakov (Russia)  ... In August 1941 Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the camp for Soviet POWs in Hammerstadt. It is these contacts that resulted in an appeal to the Soviet government, requesting that it should send food parcels for our officers and men. We are prepared to fulfill and comply with the norms of the Geneva convention, Moscow said in its reply, but sending food in the given situation and under fascist control is the same as making presents to the enemy ... How great was Stalin's hatred for those who had found themselves behind enemy lines. It made no difference: who, where, how and why? Even the dead were considered to be criminals. American Support for Israel is Decreasing, A New Poll Shows Haaretz (Israel) American support for Israel is waning, a poll presented to senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem last week revealed ... One of the questions that the poll presented was "Does the U.S. need to support Israel?" In August of 2009, 63% of Americans polled said that the U.S. does need to support Israel. In June of this year, 58% of respondents shared the same view; by July only 51% of respondents said the U.S. needed to support Israel. ... The section of the American public where Israel is most rapidly losing support is among Liberal Americans who align themselves with the Democratic Party. Greenberg's data showed similar findings among public opinion in Germany and Sweden. More Americans Believe Obama Is a Muslim BBC News A growing number of Americans incorrectly believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim, research suggests. Some 18 percent said the president was a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009, according to the Pew Research survey of 3,003 Americans. Among Republicans, that number was 34 percent. Just a third of those quizzed correctly identified Mr Obama as Christian. Post-Anti-Americanism: Growing European Disdain For The U.S. Howard Fineman - Newsweek  ... When you read about America in European newspapers, what you are likely to find is a tone bordering on pity. The U.S. is depicted as a fraying empire of obesity, ignorance, debt, gridlock, stagnation, and mindless war. Sure, the iPad is cool, but it is evidence of what America was, not what it will be again. The stories are not angry, accusatory, or even ideological. It's worse: they are condescendingly elegiac ... America is no longer admired, imitated, or feared. We remain -- for now -- a safe haven for dollars (of which there are too many in the world). But we increasingly are seen less as a model or as an empire than as a cautionary tale of national neglect and decline. Will Israel Really Attack Iran Within a Year? Haaretz (Israel)  Israel might attack Iranian nuclear sites within a year, if Iran stays the current course and the U.S. administration doesn't succeed in persuading Israel's leadership that U.S. President Barack Obama is ready to stop Iran by force if necessary, so argues Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine's September cover story ... Based on dozens of interviews the Atlantic correspondent conducted in recent months with Israeli, American and Arab officials, Goldberg came to the conclusion that the likelihood of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 percent mark. And Israel might not even ask for the famous "green light" from the U.S. - or even give couple of false pre-attack alerts, so that Washington won't try to stop the unilateral operation. The Point of No Return Jeffrey Goldberg -- The Atlantic  ... Based on my conversations with Israeli decision-makers, this period of forbearance, in which Netanyahu waits to see if the West's nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December ... In my conversations with former Israeli air-force generals and strategists, the prevalent tone was cautious. Many people I interviewed were ready, on condition of anonymity, to say why an attack on Iran's nuclear sites would be difficult for Israel. And some Israeli generals, like their American colleagues, questioned the very idea of an attack ... Based on months of interviews, I have come to believe that the administration knows it is a near-certainty that Israel will act against Iran soon if nothing or no one else stops the nuclear program ... Color Photos of Rural and Small Town America, 1939-1943 Library of Congress  These images from 1939-1943, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/ Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America's rural and small town populations. Official US Holocaust Agency Rebukes Romania for 'Anti-Semitic' Coin The Associated Press  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says the refusal of Romania's central bank to withdraw a coin bearing the image of a prime minister who stripped Jews of their citizenship before World War II is "insensitive" to the memory of Holocaust victims. The Anti-Defamation League also condemned the decision and urged President Traian Basescu Friday to ensure that information about the anti-Semitic actions of Miron Cristea is included with each coin. The museum in Washington, D.C., said Cristea's tenure as Romania's premier from 1938 to 1939 "marked the opening of a systematic campaign of anti-Semitic persecution by successive Romania governments ..." In Holland, Muslim Group Is Fined Over Holocaust Cartoon Reuters A Dutch Muslim group was fined 2,500 euros ($3,200) for publishing a cartoon which suggested the Holocaust was made up or exaggerated by Jews, a Dutch appeals court ruled on Thursday. The court in the western city of Arnhem overruled an acquittal handed down by a Dutch lower court, saying the cartoon, published on the website of the Arab European League's (AEL) in 2006, was "unnecessarily hurtful." "The court points out that the European Court of Human Rights, which considers freedom of speech of paramount importance and defends it thoroughly, makes an exception for the denial or trivialization of the Holocaust," the court said. The court also imposed a two-year probation period on the AEL. With Arab Opinion Like This, Obama Needs Media Advice Jonathan Steele -- The Guardian (Britain)  ... It is easy to blame Obama, as though he alone had the power to crack down on Israel's political elite. It is easy, too, to blame the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for its lobbying against critical US politicians. Just as important is the pressure that pro-Israel campaigners put on the mainstream US media. They warn people off the very word Zionist as though only antisemites use it and demand Israel be treated as a special country whose politics deserve more sympathy than others. In fact US publishers, editors, and reporters carry the biggest responsibility for the rotten state of US policy in the Middle East. The pro-Israel lobbies are powerful and Obama weak mainly because Americans rarely get an alternative view. California to Press French Rail Company on Holocaust Role The Telegraph (Britain)  Rail companies will be forced to come clean on their role in transporting Nazi victims during the Holocaust when they bid for a multi-billion-pound contract to operate a new bullet train in California. A Democratic politician in the US state is pushing to make it a requirement that any involvement in taking people to work, concentration, prisoner of war, or extermination camps between January 1942 and December 1944 must be disclosed. The proposal is specifically aimed at SNCF, the French national railway operator, which is expected to apply for a contract to run the new $45 billion high speed link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Motherly Love Breeds Confidence BBC News  Being lavished with affection by your mum as a young child makes you better able to cope with the stresses and strains of adult life, say researchers. Hugs, kisses and expressive declarations of love appear to rub off and foster emotional resilience. The results are from nearly 500 people, from the US state of Rhode Island, who were studied as children and adults. A secure mother-child bond may be key, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reports. But experts say it is important to know when to stop. Over-mothering can be intrusive and embarrassing, especially as children grow older. Formalizing Israel's Land Grab Chris Hedges  Time is running out for Israel. And the Israeli government knows it. The Jewish Diaspora, especially the young, has a waning emotional and ideological investment in Israel. The demographic boom means that Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories will soon outnumber Jews. And Israel's increasing status as a pariah nation means that informal and eventually formal state sanctions against the country are probably inevitable. Desperate Israeli politicians, watching opposition to their apartheid state mount, have proposed a perverted form of what they term "the one-state solution." It is the latest tool to thwart a Palestinian state and allow Israel to retain its huge settlement complexes and land seizures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In Hungary, Police Probe Former Official For `Communist Crime Denial' MTI (Hungary)  Police have launched an investigation to see if remarks by Bela Biszku, who had a role in the retributions following Hungary's anti-Soviet 1956 revolution, were in breach of the law, Magyar Nemzet daily reported on Thursday. Biszku, a former interior minister, told public television channel Duna TV in an August 4 interview that the retributions, which included the execution of former prime minister Imre Nagy, among others, had been lawful and that the events of 1956 had not been a revolution. Gyorgy Szilagyi, an MP for the radical nationalist Jobbik party, has asked for an investigation against Biszku on grounds of a new law forbidding the denial of communist crimes. British Mistreatment of India During World War II Joseph C. Goulden -- The Washington Times  ... Now comes the India-born Madhusree Mukerjee with a savage indictment of Churchill's policies towards her homeland - then part of the British Empire - that likens his conduct to that of the genocidal barbarism of the Nazis. Drawing heavily on British Foreign Office documents, she asserts that his conduct, directly or indirectly, led to the deaths of three million Indians during the war, chiefly through starvation. She points out a cruel irony: While Britain and its Allies fought to "free" European nations from "captivity," Churchill and other British leaders strongly opposed the nascent Indian independence movement, imprisoning such leaders as Mahatma Gandhi. The horrific story that Ms. Mukerjee relates [in her new book, Churchill's Secret War] has been largely ignored in the vast volume of Churchillania produced in the last half-century. Putting Our Brains on Hold Bob Herbert - The New York Times  The world leadership qualities of the United States, once so prevalent, are fading faster than the polar ice caps. We once set the standard for industrial might, for the advanced state of our physical infrastructure, and for the quality of our citizens' lives. All are experiencing significant decline. The latest dismal news on the leadership front comes from the College Board, which tells us that the U.S., once the world's leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations ... We've increasingly turned our backs on the very idea of hard-won excellence while flinging open the doors to decadence and decline. No wonder Lady Gaga and Snooki from "Jersey Shore" are cultural heroes. In Arab Countries, Most Now Support a Nuclear Iran The Washington Times  A new poll shows that the percentage of the Arab world that thinks a nuclear-armed Iran would be good for the Middle East has doubled since last year and now makes up the majority. The 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll found that 57 percent of respondents not only believe that Iran's nuclear program aims to build a bomb but also view that goal positively -- nearly double the 29 percent who thought so in 2009. The percentage of those who view an Iranian nuclear bomb negatively fell by more than half, from 46 percent to 21 percent. The survey, conducted by University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami in conjunction with the polling firm Zogby International, also found rapidly diminishing support among Arabs for President Obama ... Jewish Groups Defend Israel's Humiliation of US James Petras  .... When Israel announced a major new Jews-only building project of 1600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem, it was not only "spitting in the face" of visiting Vice President Biden, it was demonstrating its power to humiliate America and Americans. Netanyahu was sending a message to world: Israel backed by its billionaire-financed Presidents of the 51 Major American Jewish Organizations, leads the US by the nose ... The fundamental issue is that the ZPC [Zionist Power Configuration] in the United States is turning our country and its people into defenders of Israel's sordid crimes, casting the American people as accomplices to ethnic cleansing and degrading our moral sensibilities before the whole world. Poles Question Warsaw Legend Global Post  The Warsaw uprising, popularized in the post-communist era, is again a subject of controversy. / ... While the communists denounced the uprising, the memory of the doomed battle was kept alive by Polish exiles in the west. After the end of communism in 1989, the uprising became a central part of democratic Poland's identity. Lech Kaczynski became Poland's president in 2005 in large part because of his success in building a museum to the uprising -- arguably the most innovative and most modern museum in the country. The uprising has also been embraced in modern pop culture. In Croatia, Large Crowds Welcome German Troops, 1941 Video  In Zagreb, the Croatian capital, joyful crowds welcome German troops as liberators, April 12, 1941. Newsreel footage. German narration with Croatian subtitles. Runtime: 1:02 mins. Trotsky: The Ignorance and the Evil Ralph Raico  Leon Trotsky has always had a certain appeal for intellectuals that the other Bolshevik leaders lacked. ...The fact is that Trotsky used his talents to take power in order to impose his willful dream - the abolition of the market, private property, and the bourgeoisie. His actions brought untold misery and death to his country. ... He was a champion of thought-control, prison camps, and the firing squad for his opponents, and of forced labor for ordinary, non-brilliant working people. He openly defended chattel slavery - which, even in our century, must surely put him into a quite select company. Wikipedia: A `Battlefield Over History' Jewish Telegraphic Agency  From January's war in Gaza to Holocaust denial, the world's largest collaborative encyclopedia has become a battlefield over history ... About 200 Israelis are active Wikipedians -- people who contribute and edit entries related to Israel several times a week. Israel has the world's highest per capita amount of Wikipedia users. Israelis use Wikipedia in English in large numbers, in addition to other languages like Russian and French. Israel Deploys Cyber Activists in Global Propaganda Battle Jonathan Cook The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems. Israel's foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel. Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government's line on the Middle East conflict. "To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose," said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project. Israeli May Attack Iran by August 21, Says John Bolton Newsmax  News that Russia will load nuclear fuel rods into an Iranian reactor has touched off a countdown to a point of no return, a deadline by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran's Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively "immune" to any assault, says former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton. Once the fuel rods are loaded, Bolton told Fox News on Friday afternoon, "it makes it essentially immune from attack by Israel. Because once the rods are in the reactor an attack on the reactor risks spreading radiation in the air, and perhaps into the water of the Persian Gulf." ... The developments mean Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon may face a stark choice: Attack the Bushehr reactor in the next eight days, or allow it to become operational despite the certainty it would greatly enhance Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. Attacking Iran: Limited US Options Gwynne Dyer  ... There is no way for the US to win a non-nuclear war with Iran. The US could "win" by dropping hundreds of nuclear weapons on Iran's military bases, nuclear facilities and industrial centres (cities) and killing five to ten million people. But short of that, nothing works. On this we have the word of Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism adviser in the White House under three administrations ... "After a long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favourably for the US," he said. The Pentagon's planners have war-gamed an attack on Iran and they just can't make it come out as a US victory ... The end would be an embarrassing retreat by the US and the definitive establishment of Iran as the dominant power of the Gulf region. The Constitution: How Important Is It? Mark Weber - Beyond 50 Radio (Audio)  The US Constitution is widely revered but little understood, says historian Mark Weber in this hour-long interview. Few Americans realize that the government laid out in the original Constitution was remarkably un-democratic. Many familiar federal government programs are, strictly speaking, not constitutional. What's decisive in any society is not a country's constitution, says Weber, but rather the character, basic values, and customs of its people. Across America, `Unthinkable' Cuts in Basic Services The New York Times  ... Faced with the steepest and longest decline in tax collections on record, state, county and city governments have resorted to major life-changing cuts in core services like education, transportation and public safety that, not too long ago, would have been unthinkable. And services in many areas could get worse before they get better. The length of the downturn means that many places have used up all their budget gimmicks, cut services, raised taxes, spent their stimulus money -- and remained in the hold. Even with Congress set to approve extra stimulus aid, some analysts say states are still facing huge shortfalls. America Is at Risk of Boiling Over Peggy Noonan -- The Wall Street Journal  ... The biggest political change in my lifetime is that Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did. This is a huge break with the past, with assumptions and traditions that shaped us ... When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns -- even from the essential nature -- of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless. Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination. How the Truth Was Hidden About Nagasaki 65 Years Ago Greg Mitchell -- The Nation  ... Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once said in an interview that the "nastiest act by this country, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki." But Nagasaki was "forgotten" from the very start, thanks to a blatant act of press censorship. One of the great mysteries of the Nuclear Age was solved just five years ago: What was in the censored, and then lost to the ages, newspaper articles filed by the first reporter to reach Nagasaki following the atomic attack on that city on Aug. 9, 1945. The reporter was George Weller, the distinguished correspondent for the now-defunct Chicago Daily News. His startling dispatches from Nagasaki, which could have affected public opinion on the future of the bomb, never emerged from General Douglas MacArthur's censorship office in Tokyo. The Lies Of Hiroshima Are The Lies Of Today John Pilger ... The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a criminal act on an epic scale. It was premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. For this reason its apologists have sought refuge in the mythology of the ultimate "good war", whose "ethical bath", as Richard Drayton called it, has allowed the west not only to expiate its bloody imperial past but to promote 60 years of rapacious war, always beneath the shadow of The Bomb. The most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and save lives. Was Hiroshima Necessary? Mark Weber America's leaders understood Japan's desperate position: the Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was not molested. If the US leadership had not insisted on unconditional surrender -- that is, if they had made clear a willingness to permit the Emperor to remain in place -- the Japanese very likely would have surrendered immediately, thus saving many thousands of lives. ... General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war." Germany's Expellee Museum: Charges of Historical Revisionism Der Spiegel (Germany)  Those Germans who were expelled from Eastern Europe following World War II have long sought recognition of their plight. With a museum in sight, however, some associated with the project have been accused of historical revisionism. Germany, says one deputy board member, wasn't solely responsible for starting the war ... Opposition to the pair has been growing in both breadth and volume. Both have been accused of historical revisionism. And German opposition politicians have joined historians in calling for the two to be removed from their new positions. World War II Internment Camp in Wyoming: Dark Period in US History USA Today  A year after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, 16-year-old Takashi Hoshizaki and his family were moved from their home in Southern California by the federal government to Heart Mountain Relocation Center, an internment camp in northwest Wyoming. For the next two years, the family of eight lived in two rooms in a barracks, Hoshizaki says ... Motivated by racial hysteria during World War II, the U.S. government ordered more than 100,000 Japanese and American citizens of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes and live in the camps. Nearly 11,000, including the Hoshizakis, were interned at Heart Mountain from 1942 to 1945. In Iran, A New Cartoon Website to `Undermine Holocaust' DPA Iran has started a website with cartoons on the Holocaust aimed at undermining the historic dimensions of the mass murder of Jews during World War II, Fars news agency reported Thursday. The site - http://holocartoons.com - is financed by a non-governmental cultural foundation and mainly based on a cartoon book on the Holocaust published in 2008 which contained satirical cartoons and texts aimed at questioning the Holocaust and how the issue was allegedly used by Israelis.The website, which opens to the Pink Panther Theme by Henry Mancini, reportedly wants to continue challenging the issue and show that "the killing of 6 million Jews in the Second World War known as the Holocaust was a sheer lie." Food Stamp Use Hits Record 40.8 Million in May Bloomberg News  The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday. Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement on its website. Participation has set records for 18 straight months. Let Them Eat Wedding Cake Paul Craig Roberts ... Today in the American Superpower, one of every six Americans is living on food stamps. The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive. The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain. And the American sheeple remain acquiescent. Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity  We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel's leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens ... Netanyahu believes he holds the high cards, largely because of the strong support he enjoys in our Congress and our strongly pro-Israel media. GOP Blank Check for War? Patrick J. Buchanan ...These Republicans have just given Tel Aviv a blank check for a preemptive war that Israel, unless it uses its nuclear weapons, can start but not finish. Fighting and finishing that war would fall to the armed forces of the United States. Whom do these Republicans represent? The Pentagon has made clear that with two wars of nearly a decade's duration bleeding us, we do not want a third war with Iran. For while easy to predict how such a war begins, with air and missile strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, no one can know how it ends ... The principal purpose and result of an Israeli preemptive war on Iran, bringing retaliation on Israel, would be to drag America in to fight and finish a war Israel had begun. In whose interest is that? Familiar Lies for a New War Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  Now the world is anxiously following the so-called crisis over Iran ... Once again we are told lies so similar to those we heard in 2002 and 2003, and from the same people, that it's amazing that anyone takes them seriously. ... No issue is of greater urgency than breaking the Jewish-Zionist grip on American political, social and cultural life. As long as that power remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish-Zionist distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace. 'Official' Changes in the Auschwitz Story Mark Weber  Since the end of World War II, authoritative claims about the character and scope of killings at the Auschwitz concentration camp have changed drastically. One particularly striking change concerns the various "official" estimates of the number of victims -- a number that since 1945 has been steadily declining ... Aumeier's testimony, which Meyer accepts as valid, suggests that Jews were killed at Auschwitz not as part of an comprehensive extermination program systematically to kill all European Jews, but rather as an exceptional measure to curb the horrific epidemics that were ravaging the Auschwitz I and Birkenau camps ... Compared to the recently "authoritative" figure of approximately one million Auschwitz deaths, Meyer has reduced the number of Jewish victims there by at least 450,000. Jewish Hostility to Christians: The Prejudice No One Ever Writes About Damian Thompson -- The Telegraph (Britain)  ... Christian anti-Semitism, Muslim anti-Semitism, Christian Islamophobia, Muslim persecution of Christians - all of these are acceptable topics of debate. But not Jewish hostility to Christianity ... Until now I've never written a word about Jewish prejudice against Christians, even though I've seen it at close hand, at a series of Jewish-run conferences I attended in America in the 1990s at which evangelical Christian believers were stereotyped as fanatics who needed only the right demagogue to turn them into murderous anti-Semites. Israel Has Crept Into The European Union Without Anyone Noticing Robert Fisk -- The Independent (Britain)  ... What on earth is the EU doing when it cosies up to the Israelis? ... "Israel has developed such strong political and economic ties to the EU over the past decade that it has become a member state of the union in all but name." ... Pardon me? Did we know this? Did we vote for this? Who allowed this to happen?French Historian Reynouard Behind Bars for Dissident Views Vincent Reynouard  ... I want it to be possible to say that in 2010, in France, a father of eight children, aged from 1 to 17, languishes in prison simply for having publicly expressed revisionist arguments. I want it known that in France, in 2010, a father of eight whose only weapon is a pen languishes in prison. ... Whatever the hardships, I will never give in. The cops, judges and prisons will make no difference. The seed has been sown; it will germinate and, some day, it will grow. Obama Reassures Israelis, Stresses Ties to Jews Ynet News (Israel)  US President Barack Obama gave an interview to Channel 2 Wednesday night in which he said his administration had provided Israel with more aid than any other before it ... In an interview aimed at assuring Israelis of the US's support, Obama ventured a guess as to why they were mistrustful of him. "Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion," he said. "Ironically, I've got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the US Senate." Hitler Denounces Oppression of Palestinians Video  From Hitler's speech of April 28, 1939. "... Palestine at present is occupied not by German troops but by the English; and the country is undergoing restriction of its freedom by the most brutal resort to force, is being robbed of its independence, and is suffering the cruelest mistreatment for the benefit of Jewish interlopers ... England is attempting to suppress a people that loves its freedom and is merely defending it ... England is not defending herself against a threatened Arab attack, but as an uninvited interloper, is endeavoring to establish her power in a foreign territory that does not belong to her." Original speech, with English subtitles. Runtime: 1:37 mins. Was Stalin to Blame For World War II? Tom Segev - Haaretz (Israel)  ... The document is in his possession, and now the history of World War II may have to be rewritten: It was Stalin's fault. The document, from October 1939, consists of three pages in English that purportedly reflect a dialogue in Moscow between a delegation from Czechoslovakia and a senior Soviet Foreign Ministry official. The Czechs tried to find out why the U.S.S.R. had signed the non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939. A few days later the Germans invaded Poland, and World War II began. The Soviet official, Alexandrov by name, explained to the Czech delegation that had the Soviet Union signed an agreement with the West, Hitler would not have dared to launch a war, and without that war there would have been no possibility of imposing communism in Europe. He also listed the benefits to the Soviet Union of the pact with Nazi Germany, and of the war. Exposing Stalin's Plan to Conquer Europe Daniel Michaels - Institute for Historical Review ... Thus, when German forces struck [the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941], the bulk of Red ground and air forces were concentrated along the Soviet western borders facing contiguous European countries, especially the German Reich and Romania, in final readiness for an assault on Europe. In his second book on the origins of the war, "M Day" (for "Mobilization Day"), Suvorov details how, between late 1939 and the summer of 1941, Stalin methodically and systematically built up the best armed, most powerful military force in the world -- actually the world's first superpower -- for his planned conquest of Europe. Suvorov explains how Stalin's drastic conversion of the country's economy for war actually made war inevitable. Out Of Afghanistan Ralph Nader  The war in Afghanistan is nearly nine years old -- the longest in American history. After the U.S. quickly toppled the Taliban regime in October 2001, the Taliban, by all accounts, came back stronger and harsher enough to control now at least 30 percent of the country. During this time, U.S. casualties, armaments and expenditures are at record levels. America's overseas wars have different outcomes when they have no constitutional authority, no war tax, no draft, no regular on the ground press coverage, no Congressional oversight, no spending accountability and, importantly, no affirmative consent of the governed who are, apart from the military families, hardly noticing. Wikigate: Pakistan No Obedient Ally Eric Margolis  ... Trying to make Pakistan into a satellite state will result in that enormously important, nuclear-armed nation of 170 million one day exploding with anti-American hatred, as was the case in Iran in 1979. The US-led war in Afghanistan is putting the two nations on a collision course. Over 90% of Pakistanis already say that their nation's primary enemy is the United States, followed by India. Here in Washington, the US Congress just ignored the WikiLeaks scandal and voted yet more billions to fuel the Afghanistan War. Politicians are petrified to oppose this nine-year war lest they be accused of being anti-patriotic, the kiss of death in hyper-patriotic America where flag-wavers root for foreign wars so long as their kids don't have to serve and they don't have to pay taxes to finance them. In Roosevelt Archive, History As He Made It The New York Times  A month after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Joseph P. Kennedy, the American ambassador in London and father of a future president, expressed grave doubts about "this war for idealism" against Hitler. Joseph P. Kennedy, then an ambassador, criticized the war and Thomas E. Dewey in a 1939 letter to Roosevelt's personal secretary. "I can't see any use in everybody in Europe going busted and having communism run riot," Kennedy wrote to Marguerite LeHand, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's personal secretary ... Kennedy's letter is one of nine documents released Wednesday by the National Archives in Washington, part of a coming cache of letters, drafts and notes related to Roosevelt's presidency ... Joseph Kennedy and the Jews Edward Renehan, Jr -- History News Network ... Kennedy always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews' corrupt, malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. "The Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production," Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939, adding confidently that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940. Large Salaries of Top SPLC Staff Members  Large annual salaries of top nine officers of the "Southern Poverty Law Center," as shown on its most recent IRS 990 form. Headed by president and CEO Richard Cohen, these nine SPLC staff members receive six-digit annual salaries, totaling $1,835,541, to fight "Hate," as they define it. None of the leading figures of this prominent "civil rights" outfit is African-American. The Influence: Haim Saban, Pro-Israel Entertainment Media Mogul Connie Bruck -- The New Yorker  ... He [Haim Saban] remains keenly interested in the world of business, but he is most proud of his role as political power broker. His greatest concern, he says, is to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship. At a conference last fall in Israel, Saban described his formula. His "three ways to be influential in American politics," he said, were: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets. In 2002, he contributed seven million dollars toward the cost of a new building for the Democratic National Committee -- one of the largest known donations ever made to an American political party. The Real Aim of Israel's Bomb Iran Campaign Gareth Porter  ... What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into a direct, full-scale war with Iran. That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start. Gerecht openly expresses the hope that any Iranian response to the Israeli attack would trigger full-scale U.S. war against Iran. The Israel Lobby's Campaign for War Mark Weber - Institute for Historical Review ... Right now the foremost international issue is the question of war or peace in Iran ... This crisis is artificial. It is every bit as phony as the one manufactured to provide a pretext for war against Iraq. Once again our leaders prepare Americans for a new war. Once again we are told that another country that Israel regards as an adversary is a grave threat to the peace of the world. Once again we are told lies so similar to those we heard in 2002 and 2003, and from the same people, that it's amazing that anyone takes them seriously. Churchill Wanted to `Drench' Germany With Poison Gas Mark Weber  In a secret wartime memorandum, Winston Churchill told his advisers that he wanted to "drench" Germany with poison gas. Churchill's July 1944 memo to his chief of staff Gen. Hastings Ismay was reproduced in the August-September 1985 issue of American Heritage magazine ... Churchill's directive bluntly stated: "I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay to use poison gas ... One really must not be bound within silly conventions of the mind whether they be those that ruled in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this." Israeli Operatives in the U.S. Jeff Gates -- Veterans Today  Americans know that something fundamental is amiss. They sense -- rightly -- that they are being misled no matter which political party does the leading. A long misinformed public lacks the tools to grasp how they are being deceived ...This much is certain: a Democrat as president offers no real alternative to a Republican on those issues affecting U.S. policy in the Middle East. Today's corruption predates the duplicity in 1948 that induced Harry Truman to extend recognition to this extremist enclave as a legitimate nation state. Our troubles date from then. That fateful decision must be revisited in light of what can now be proven about the "how" of this ongoing duplicity -- unless Americans want to continue to be played for the fool. America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution Angelo M. Codevilla -- The American Spectator  ... In fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class ... Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability? Chas Freeman - The Nixon Center  ... We need to begin by recognizing that our relationship with Israel has never been driven by strategic reasoning. It began with President Truman overruling his strategic and military advisers in deference to personal sentiment and political expediency. We had an arms embargo on Israel until Lyndon Johnson dropped it in 1964 in explicit return for Jewish financial support for his campaign against Barry Goldwater ... It's remarkable that something as fatuous as the notion of Israel as a strategic asset could have become the unchallengeable conventional wisdom in the United States. Perhaps it's just that as someone once said: "people ... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one." Carpet-Bombing Falsehoods About The Little-Understood Korean War Dwight Garner -- The New York Times  ... Bruce Cumings's "Korean War," a powerful revisionist history of America's intervention in Korea. Beneath its bland title, Mr. Cumings's book is a squirm-inducing assault on America's moral behavior during the Korean War, a conflict that he says is misremembered when it is remembered at all. It's a book that puts the reflexive anti-Americanism of North Korea's leaders into sympathetic historical context ... Mr. Cumings likens the indiscriminate American bombing of North Korea to genocide. He writes that American soldiers took part in, or observed, civilian atrocities not dissimilar to those at My Lai. Secrets of the Silk Road Houston Museum of Natural Science (Texas)  Strikingly well-preserved mummies, tall in stature and fair in complexion, have lain in the parched Tarim Basin of western China for 3,800 years. Wearing Western-influenced textiles and possessing surprising technologies and customs, the identity of these extraordinary people is a mystery! This historic exhibition of 150 objects drawn from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum and the Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology in Urumqi, China reveals surprising details about the people who lived along the ancient Silk Road. For the first time ever, two of the more than 100 Caucasian mummies found and preserved in the western China's inhospitable desert sands are being presented in the United States. Bias and Bigotry in Academia Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Comes now a more scientific study from Princeton sociologists Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Radford to confirm that a deep bias against the white conservative and Christian young of America is pervasive at America's elite colleges and Ivy League schools ... The discrimination against white and Asian applicants, because of the color of their skin and where their ancestors came from, is astonishing ... "To have the same chance of gaining admission as a black student with a SAT score of 1100, a Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have 1230, a white student a 1410 and an Asian student a 1550." The End of (Military) History? Andrew Bacevich  ... If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars (and from their Israeli equivalents), it's this: victory is a chimera. Counting on today's enemy to yield in the face of superior force makes about as much sense as buying lottery tickets to pay the mortgage: you better be really lucky. Meanwhile, as the U.S. economy went into a tailspin, Americans contemplated their equivalent of Israel's "demographic bomb" -- a "fiscal bomb." Ingrained habits of profligacy, both individual and collective, held out the prospect of long-term stagnation: no growth, no jobs, no fun. Out-of-control spending on endless wars exacerbated that threat. Israeli Rabbi Preaches `Slaughter' of Gentile Babies Jonathan Cook  A rabbi from one of the most violent settlements in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement last week as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews, including children and babies. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is one of the leading ideologues of the most extreme wing of the religious settler movement. He is known to be a champion of the "price-tag" policy of reprisal attacks on Palestinians, including punishing them for attempts by officials to enforce Israeli law against the settlements. So far the policy has chiefly involved violent harassment of Palestinians, with settlers inflicting beatings, attacking homes, throwing stones, burning fields, killing livestock and poisoning wells. US Government Not Enforcing Immigration Laws, Say Most Americans Fox News Most American voters believe the federal government is failing to enforce the country's immigration laws, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. In addition, voters are more likely to favor than oppose America's new immigration law that was in large part blocked by a federal judge this week. Views on the Arizona law changed little since last month. Israel to Deport Hundreds of Migrant Workers' Children Los Angeles Times Israel moved Sunday to deport the offspring of hundreds of migrant workers, mostly small children who were born in Israel, speak Hebrew and have never seen their parents' native countries. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new policy was intended to stem a flood of illegal immigrants, whose children receive state-funded education and healthcare benefits, and to defend Israel's Jewish identity. The Defamation League Joe Klein - Time  The journey of the (Anti-)Defamation League from beacon of tolerance to slightly potty geyser of toxic foolishness continues apace. Two years ago, Abe Foxman -- the ADL's very much over the hill president -- accused me of anti-semitism for pointing out the Israel-first tendencies of more than a few neoconservatives, especially when it came to plumping for war with Iran (if you don't believe me, read anything -- anything -- that the goofy harridan Jennifer Rubin writes about Israel or President Obama over at the Commentary blog). Then, earlier this year, Foxman accused David Petraeus of being anti-Israel for making the indisputable point the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn't make life any easier for US troops fighting in the region. US Casualties In Afghanistan Rise To Record Highs The Associated Press  In a summer of suffering, America's military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back to back record months for US losses in the grinding conflict. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead, straining the already shaky international support for the war ... The Dutch are due to remove the last of their 1,600 member force at the end of this month, and Canada plans to remove its 2,700 troops next year. One Soldier or Twenty Schools? Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times  The war in Afghanistan will consume more money this year alone than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War -- combined. A recent report from the Congressional Research Service finds that the war on terror, including Afghanistan and Iraq, has been, by far, the costliest war in American history aside from World War II. It adjusted costs of all previous wars for inflation ... It was reflexive for liberals to rail at President George W. Bush for jingoism. But it is President Obama who is now requesting 6.1 percent more in military spending than the peak of military spending under Mr. Bush. And it is Mr. Obama who has tripled the number of American troops in Afghanistan since he took office. Obama's Promised Foreign Policy `Change' Mostly Cosmetic Mark Weber (Dec. 2008) ... The appointments that Obama has made to positions in the new administration, along with his public statements of recent months, show that he is unlikely to make major changes in U.S. foreign policy. The promised "change" will be mostly cosmetic. His foreign policy will be familiar, but conducted more prudently and with more appealing style. During the election campaign, Obama never called into question the basic premise of U.S. military interventionism around the world. His pledge to increase U.S. military forces in Afghanistan shows that he supports the misguided "war on terror," and accepts an American role as a global policeman. Fury Over Remarks By Israel's President That English Are `Anti-Semitic' The Telegraph (Britain)  Israel's president has accused the English of being anti-semitic and claimed that MPs pander to Muslim voters. Shimon Peres said England was "deeply pro-Arab ... and anti-Israeli", adding: "They always worked against us." He added: "There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary." His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had "got it wrong". But other groups backed the former Israeli prime minister and said the number of anti-semitic incidents had risen dramatically in the UK in recent years. Holocaust Survivors Are `Entitled' To Be Irrational, Says ADL Chief Philip Weiss - Mondoweiss  ... Asked why the opposition of the families was so pivotal in the decision, Mr. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, said they were entitled to their emotions. "Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational," he said. ... The statement is curious at a number of levels. First, Foxman is as noted a Holocaust survivor, born in 1940 in Poland, saved by his Catholic nanny, reunited with his parents after the war. So he is rationalizing his own bigotry? And by this logic are Palestinian victims of the Nakba entitled to be anti-Semites? In Germany, Deckert Found Guilty of Helping With `Denial' Book on Auschwitz Mannheimer Morgen (Germany)  A court in Weinheim, Germany, has found Günter Deckert guilty of violating the country's law against "popular incitement" by helping to translate, prepare and distribute a German-language edition of a "Holocaust denial" book, Auschwitz: The First Gassing. Rumors and Reality, by Italian revisionist writer Carlo Mattogno. Deckert was given a suspended sentence of four months in prison. 'Holocaust Denial' Laws are Disgraceful Mark Weber - Institute for Historical Review ... In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and several other European countries, as well as in Israel, it is a crime publicly to dispute the official version of Holocaust history ... "Holocaust denial" laws violate ancient and universal standards of justice. They criminalize even factual or truthful statements that "play down" or "whitewash" the Holocaust. They are selective and one-sided. In countries where they are on the books, the Holocaust is the only chapter of history that cannot be freely discussed. They inhibit historical inquiry and restrict free speech. They are a disgrace, and should be repealed. In Mongolia, Young Nationalists Rally to `White Swastika' Group The Guardian (Britain) Their right hands rise to black-clad chests and flash out in salute to their nation: "Sieg heil!" They praise Hitler's devotion to ethnic purity ... Groups such as Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, portray themselves as patriots standing up for ordinary citizens in the face of foreign crime, rampant inequality, political indifference and corruption ... Though Tsagaan Khass leaders say they do not support violence, they are self-proclaimed Nazis. "Adolf Hitler was someone we respect. He taught us how to preserve national identity," said the 41-year-old co-founder, who calls himself Big Brother. Terrorism: Why They Want to Kill Us Doug Bandow  The horrid attacks of 9/11 led to the cry: Why do they hate us?Most Americans seemed to believe that it was because we are such nice people. But the Times Square bomber reminds us that terrorism is mostly a response to U.S. government policies. After 9/11 President George W. Bush reassured Americans: we were attacked because we are beautiful people, spreading freedom around the world. But often the actions of our government are seen by others as less than beautiful ... Washington no longer can expect to invade, bomb, and intervene in other nations without consequence. Policymakers should consider all the costs, including terrorism, before they casually thrust the U.S. into foreign controversies and conflicts. Stone's Apology Confirms Stone's Argument Gilad Atzmon  There you go, Oliver Stone apologized for suggesting that the Jewish lobby controls Washington's foreign policy and that Hitler's actions should be put into context. In fact, Stone's apology confirms Stone's argument. We are subject to constant assault by Jewish and Israeli gatekeepers who insist on controlling the political and historical discourse and defy any possible criticism of Jewish national affairs. Many Austrians Today See Their Country As Victim of Nazis Austrian Times New research reveals more than three in ten Austrians consider their country the first victim of Nazi Germany. SORA researcher Günther Ogris and historian Oliver Rathkolb said today they found that 36.5 per cent of Austrians claimed that Austria -- which was annexed by the Third Reich in March 1983 - was dictator Adolf Hitler's first victim. Only 25 per cent dismiss this theory, they added. In 1938, Austrians Welcome Union With The German Reich Video  Austrians joyfully welcome the union of their country with the German Reich. From "UFA Ton-Woche" German newsreel, 1938. Runtime: 4:33 mins. Irving on Churchill: Dismantling Churchillian Mythology Theodore J. O'Keefe - Institute for Historical Review  ... Irving went on us describe several sources of secret financial support enjoyed by Churchill. In addition to money supplied by the Czech government, Churchill was financed during the "wilderness years" between 1930 and 1939 by a slush fund emanating from a secret pressure group known as the Focus ... Irving then revealed further details of Churchill's financing by the Czechs, as well as the facts of Churchill's financial rescue by a wealthy banker of Austro-Jewish origins, Sir Henry Strakosch ... Irving then gave a detailed account of the cynical maneuverings of Churchill to escalate the aerial campaign against Germany's civilian population ... Churchill's Great Mistakes Eric Margolis ... In his powerful new book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, veteran politician and author Pat Buchanan challenges many historic taboos by claiming that Winston Churchill plunged Britain and its empire, including Canada, into wars whose outcomes were disastrous for all concerned. Other writers, me included, have made the same point for decades, but Buchanan has marshalled a formidable array of facts and historians to support his case ... Buchanan's book strips away lingering war propaganda and shows the cynicism, lust for power and foolishness of the "saintly" Allied war leaders and their "good" war. A State Afraid of Its Past Haaretz (Israel) - Editorial  About two weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed regulations restricting access to [Israel] government archives ... The information that remains classified deals, among other things, with the expulsions and massacres of Arabs in the War of Independence, Mossad operations in foreign countries ... The state archivist warned that some of the classified materials "has implications over [Israel's] adherence to international law." His words suggest that the state will be seen as an outlaw if the past deeds of the security and intelligence services are made public. Machinations of the Anti-Defamation League Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey, Jr. -- Institute for Historical Review  ... I was in politics for fifteen years, and I think you should start with the assumption: never trust a politician ... When people finally learn the truth, they turn against those who have been lying to them. And I think that if the movement of which you people are the cutting edge can retain dispassion in the face of outrages, setbacks and humiliations, the truth can ultimately prevail. You are doing something worse than criticizing the government of the United States; you're threatening the security of the state of Israel. And the Jewish community is dedicated to preserve that state, and to destroy those who speak against it. Good luck! Too Many Laws, Too Many Prisoners The Economist (Britain)  ... Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3 million and 2.4 million Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under "correctional" supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed. The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. Obama's Afghan War in Perspective Gary Leupp  ... The neocons had demonstrated to their satisfaction what current Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had told a West Bank settler woman in 2001 after she asked if he was afraid of world opinion: "I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction." ... And the fact that the Afghan War is now the longest in our history, with no end in sight as Obama, Joe Biden and the generals all suggest the drawdown next year might not be feasible, should make us both depressed and angry. The Arrogance Of American Power Paul J. Balles  ... Where are all those military bases outside the military zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, and what purpose do they serve? "More than half a century after World War II and the Korean War," wrote Vines, "we still have 268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan, and 87 in South Korea." Are the bases in Germany and Japan there to deter any present or future leaders in those countries from a repeat performance of the events that led to World War II or to the Korean War? .. What is America doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? It's called "nation building". What business is it of America to be building other's nations? It's really none of their business. It's nothing more than the arrogance of power. The Year America Dissolved Paul Craig Roberts  It was 2017. Clans were governing America. The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives' war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable. As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. In Riga, Latvians Welcome German Troops, 1941 Video (Latvia)  In Riga, the capital of Latvia, people welcome German troops as liberators from Soviet oppression, July 1, 1941. Video clip with Latvian narration. Runtime: 38 secs. Who Voted for War With Iran, Mr. Obama? Philip Giraldi -- The American Conservative  House of Representatives resolution 1553, introduced by Congressional Republicans, and currently working its way through the system will endorse an Israeli attack on Iran, which would be going to war by proxy as the US would almost immediately be drawn into the conflict when Tehran retaliates. The resolution provides explicit US backing for Israel to bomb Iran, stating that Congress supports Israel's use of "all means necessary...including the use of military force." The resolution is non-binding, but it is dazzling in its disregard for the possible negative consequences that would ensue for the hundreds of thousands of US military and diplomatic personnel currently serving in the Near East region. Media Tycoon Saban Seeks to Blacklist Stone The Wrap  A furious Haim Saban has mounted a campaign to get Showtime to cancel its planned airing of Oliver Stone's ten-part series, "A Secret History of America," in the wake of anti-Jewish remarks by the outspoken director ... The billionaire and outspoken media mogul told TheWrap he had contacted CBS chief Leslie Moonves to urge him to pull the series. He said that WME chairman Ari Emanuel had also called CBS privately to urge the series be pulled ... Saban, a major stakeholder in Univision and chairman of Saban Capital Group, said he is spreading the word among his Hollywood friends to avoid working with Stone. Steve Wynn's Gloomy Look At America Today CNBC  Steve Wynn, the well-known casino resort owner and real-estate developer, gives a scathing critique of America's political leadership. He speaks of a "confused and foolish government" in Washington, and a "frightening" US business climate. Recent US policies, he says, are "cuckoo," "phony," and "shocking." Across America, he says, there's a "sense of fear" that "the politicians are ruining us." Runtime: 4:40 mins. Hope And Change Fade, But War Endures: Seven Reasons Why We Can't Stop Making War William J. Astore - TomDispatch  ... We wage war because we think we're good at it -- and because, at a gut level, we've come to believe that American wars can bring good to others (hence our feel-good names for them, like Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom). Most Americans are not only convinced we have the best troops, the best training, and the most advanced weapons, but also the purest motives. Unlike the bad guys and the barbarians out there in the global marketplace of death, our warriors and warfighters are seen as gift-givers and freedom-bringers, not as death-dealers and resource-exploiters. Our illusions about the military we "support" serve as catalyst for, and apology for, the persistent war-making we condone. Zionist Group Protests March in Estonia to Honor SS Fighters JTA  The Anti-Defamation League is urging Estonia officials to condemn a march there honoring a division of the Nazi SS. The march in Vaivara, the home of the largest of the 22 concentration and labor camps established in Estonia by the Nazis during World War II, is scheduled for July 31 to honor an Estonian division of the Nazi SS that fought in a 1944 battle against Soviet troops. US Treasury Running on Fumes Paul Craig Roberts  ... Americans can get no help out of Washington, but the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, declared that Washington's commitment to Israel's security is "not negotiable." Washington's commitment to California and to the security of the rest of us is negotiable. War spending has run up the budget deficit, and the deficit precludes any help for Americans. ... On July 12, Niall Ferguson, an historian of empire, warned that the American empire could collapse suddenly from weakness brought on by its massive debts and that such a collapse could be closer than we think. Deaf, dumb, and blind, Washington policymakers prattle on about "thirty more years of war." Bill Kristol's 'Emergency Committee?' Give Me a Break Stephen M. Walt  ... Contrary to his early rhetoric, Obama is proving to be just like most of his predecessors, and for essentially the same reason. Last week was a tactical win for Bibi [Israeli prime minister Netanyahu] but yet another strategic misstep, because, as his predecessor Ehud Olmert and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak have both acknowledged, only a viable two-state solution can prevent Israel from becoming a full-fledged apartheid state. ... The reason Obama couldn't do the right thing was the power of the lobby, and that includes the endless machinations of folks like Kristol and Bauer. They are right to think that Israel is in deep trouble and that it's likely to get worse. What they don't get is that it is to a large extent their fault. In Britain, Ethnic Minority Numbers To Rise To 20 Percent By 2051 BBC News  Ethnic minorities are set to make up a fifth of the UK's population in 40 years, researchers at the University of Leeds have predicted. They say the proportion of black, Asian and other ethnic minorities will rise from 8% of the population, as recorded in the 2001 census, to 20% by 2051 ... In 2051, 79% of British people will be classed as white, compared with 92% now, the research suggests. Yankee Utopians in a Chinese Century Patrick J. Buchanan  ... In 2011, said the Financial Times, China will surpass the United States as first manufacturing power, a title America has held since surpassing Great Britain around 1890. Each year, China passes a new milestone ... For decades, America's leaders have followed the Wall Street Journal ideology. We put a mythical world economy before our own economy. We put "global prosperity" before national interest. We forced our workers to compete, in their own country, against the products of foreign laborers earning a tenth of their pay. And we let in tens of millions of semi-skilled and unskilled immigrants, legal and illegal, to take the jobs of our countrymen. The Death of Paper Money Ambrose Evans-Pritchard -- The Telegraph (Britain)  ... Each big inflation -- whether the early 1920s in Germany, or the Korean and Vietnam wars in the US -- starts with a passive expansion of the quantity money. This sits inert for a surprisingly long time. Asset prices may go up, but latent price inflation is disguised. The effect is much like lighter fuel on a camp fire before the match is struck. People's willingness to hold money can change suddenly for a "psychological and spontaneous reason." causing a spike in the velocity of money. It can occur at lightning speed, over a few weeks. The shift invariably catches economists by surprise. They wait too long to drain the excess money. Jewish Media Control Prevents Free Holocaust Debate, Says Oliver Stone Haaretz (Israel)  Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that the U.S. Jewish lobby was controlling Washington's foreign policy for years. In the Sunday interview, Stone reportedly said U.S. public opinion was focused on the Holocaust as a result of the "Jewish domination of the media," adding that an upcoming film of him aims to put Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin "in context." "There's a major lobby in the United States," Stone said, adding that "they are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington." Stone Apologizes for Remarks on Holocaust, Jewish Media Influence Daily Mail (Britain) Director Oliver Stone has been forced to apologise over a 'Mel Gibson-style' rant against Jews. The double Academy Award winner claimed that the Russians suffered more during the Second World War and that there was a Jewish 'domination of the media'.Stone also claimed that Jews monitor every comment made against them and that they had 'f***** up' US foreign policy for years. In an interview in January he sparked fury when he claimed that Hitler was an 'easy scapegoat'. His latest comments brought swift condemnation Jews in the US and Israel and forced the 63-year-old to make a contrite apology. Countries Sign Pact in Israel to Fight Anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial JTA More than 80 countries signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights signed the agreement at Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry "This agreement is a step that doubles the power of 87 states' cooperation in the fight against the de-legitimization of Israel and anti-Semitism towards Jews around the world," said Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon, who signed the agreement on behalf of Israel. Resolution Green-Lighting Israeli Strikes On Iran Gains Support Huffington Post Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a measure that would green-light an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. The resolution, H. Res. 1553, provides explicit support for military strikes against Iran, stating that Congress supports Israel's use of "all means necessary" against Iran "including the use of military force". US military leaders have warned that strikes could be catastrophic to US national security interests and could engulf the Middle East in a "calamitous" regional war ... Hawkish former Bush Administration official John Bolton recently laid out a plan to prod Israel into attacking Iran, arguing that outsiders can "create broad support" for a strike by framing it as an issue of Israel's right to self defense. Give History a Chance Gilad Atzmon  ... It is hardly surprising that the same people who flattened Hamburg, Pforzheim, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki continued to do the same in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Similarly, the same lobbies that pushed Britain and America to a deadly confrontation with the Muslim world are now pushing us to flatten Iran. To save the world and to bring peace about, we must learn our past and we must be free to so. Revisionism is the means towards a better future. Israel Set To Require All Citizens to Swear Oath to Jewish State The Independent (Britain)  New Israeli citizens may soon be required to swear an oath of loyalty to a "Jewish and democratic" state, a step that has drawn harsh criticism from human rights groups. Israel's Cabinet, which meets Monday, is expected to approve this and extend a raft of existing measures that make it harder for Palestinians to achieve citizenship. The wording of the oath, which would apply to new applicants for citizenship, was slammed by Arab advocacy groups, who accused Israel of "racist" policies that attempt to link citizenship to ideology. "It's another step in the direction of getting the Arabs out of Israel," said Uri Avnery, a former MP and founder of the Israeli Gush Shalom peace movement. "Parliament has become a lynching mob." Top Secret America: A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control The Washington Post  The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work ... Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. US 'Fails to Account' For Iraq Reconstruction Billions BBC News  A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96 percent o the money. Out of just over $9 billion, $8.7 billion is unaccounted for, the inspector says. The US military said the funds were not necessarily missing, but that spending records might have been archived. In a response attached to the report, it said attempting to account for the money might require "significant archival retrieval efforts" Britain Seeks Change in War Crimes Law To Protect Israel Ynet News (Israel) The British government on Thursday submitted a proposal calling to amend its universal jurisdiction law, which will effectively prevent private individuals from filing lawsuits against foreign leaders. If approved, the law will spare Israeli politicians and high-ranking IDF officers war crimes arrest warrants upon their arrival in the UK. Afghanistan War Logs: Revelations From Massive Leak of Secret Files The Guardian (Britain)  A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. In Britain, Judge Faces Anti-Semitism Probe After Speech About Israel Daily Mail (Brtain)  A senior judge was under investigation yesterday after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in court that may have swayed his jury into acquitting a group of protesters. Judge George Bathurst-Norman was said by critics to have persuaded a jury to clear a group of campaigners who smashed up a factory making parts for Israeli warplanes. Summing up in the criminal damage trial, he compared Israel to the Nazi regime and accused the country of ignoring international law. The judge added that 'there may be much to be admired' about the chief protester, and that 'in the last war he would probably have received a George Medal'. Is Democracy Overrated? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Considering the high cost in blood, money and lost leadership and prestige since our victory in the Cold War, the democracy crusade scarcely seems worth it. For while we have been bogged down in two wars, China has become the world's leading manufacturer, steelmaker, auto producer and exporter, and the second largest economy on earth. Nevertheless, we are ever admonished, we must not flag or fail in our pursuit of global democracy, for only when the world is democratic will our providential mission be accomplished. And only then can we be truly secure. In Austria, `Holocaust Denier' Honsik Stands Firm AFP  Convicted Holocaust denier Gerd Honsik reiterated his claim in an Austrian court on Tuesday that there were no gas chambers in Germany during World War II. "There was not a single gas chamber anywhere in the area of Greater Germany, I stand by that," Honsik told a court in Vienna ... Honsik, 68, was in court because prosecutors have appealed a ruling earlier this year that his jail sentence be cut from five to four years. After the hearing Tuesday deteriorated into a shouting match between prosecutors, the judge and the defence, the appeal was adjourned until September 9. Honsik was found guilty in April 2009 of denying the Holocaust and the existence of gas chambers ... American Jewish Congress Suspends Operations Forward (New York)  The American Jewish Congress has suspended its activities after running out of funds. The suspension of the venerable Jewish-American advocacy organization's activities, confirmed to JTA on Sunday by acting co-executive director Marc Stern, comes after months of rumors that the organization was on the verge of collapse after losing most of its endowment in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. As of Sunday afternoon there was no mention of the suspension on the AJCongress website. The Jerusalem Post had reported in April that the AJCongress lost as much as 90 percent of its approximately $24 million endowment in the Madoff scam. Stalin Bust in Virginia Town Sparks Controversy Fox News  The installation of a memorial bust of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Bedford, Virginia, next to Western Allied leaders in World War II has ignited a firestorm of controversy and threatened to tear apart the small town 200 miles south of the nation's capital. Opponents of the bronze sculpture say it has no right to be placed in the National D-Day Memorial next to the busts of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill because Stalin's murderous rule led to the deaths of at least 20 million people ... Home Foreclosures Set to Top 2009 Levels The Associated Press More than one million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year, as lenders work their way through a huge backlog of borrowers who have fallen behind on their loans. Nearly 528,000 homes were taken over by lenders in the first six months of the year, a rate that is on track to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service. "That would be unprecedented," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. By comparison, lenders have historically taken over about 100,000 homes a year, Sharga said. Americans' Credit Scores Sink To New Lows The Associated Press  The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows. Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers -- nearly 43.4 million people -- now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It's unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use. More are likely to join their ranks. Netanyahu Admits on Video He Deceived US to Destroy Oslo Accord Jonathan Cook  The contents of a secretly recorded video threaten to gravely embarrass not only Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister but also the US administration of Barack Obama. The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu's knowledge, nine years ago ... He tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process. He dismisses the US as "easily moved to the right direction" and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel "absurd." Tricky Bibi: The `Real' Netanyahu on Video Gideon Levy -- Haaretz (Israel) ... Everyone will know who leads the government of Israel. Channel 10 [Israel] presented: The real (and deceitful ) face of Binyamin Netanyahu. Broadcast on Friday night on "This Week with Miki Rosenthal," it was filmed secretly in 2001, during a visit by Citizen Netanyahu to the home of a bereaved family in the settlement of Ofra, and astoundingly, it has not created a stir. The scene was both pathetic and outrageous. ... The man in the video betrays himself in his own words as a con artist, and now he is again prime minister of Israel. Don't try to claim that he has changed since then. Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years. The Unchallenged Power of the Israel Lobby James Abourezk  ... To my knowledge, no one, either in politics or the media, pressed the case too hard, lest they discover that those who wanted to invade Iraq had, not America's interest, but Israel's interest in mind ... A great many people believe, myself included, that Israel wanted Saddam out of the way because, while he was not really a military threat to Israel, he was a political threat. He was someone, like Hizbollah, who stood in the way of Israeli hegemony over the entire Middle East ... Does anyone beside a few people in the United States see the danger to our country in being led around by the nose by the Israeli government? Swiss Court Punishes Anne Frank Diary Skeptic Swissinfo / SBC (Switzerland)  A former regional president of the far-right Party of Nationally Oriented Swiss has been fined just over 10,000 Swiss francs ($9,500) for claiming Anne Frank's diary was a fake. In June 2009 the 22-year-old ex-leader of the Basel branch of the extremist party had written an article called "The lies around Anne Frank", in which he branded the diary of the young Jewish girl a "historical lie." The young man has been fined for racial discrimination. German Hotel Owner Taken to Court for Hitler Portrait Der Spiegel (Germany) A German hotel owner was taken to court after a guest spotted a portrait of Adolf Hitler on his wall. The case was dismissed because the man proved it had been hanging in a private area of the building, and that he had not broken a law which bans displaying images of Hitler in public. The portrait has been confiscated. Censorship as `Tolerance' Jacob Mchangama (Denmark) -- National Review  ... There is a pan-European consensus, fertilized by multiculturalism, that tolerance and peaceful coexistence require the restriction rather than the protection of freedom of speech. This has led to the mushrooming of hate-speech and so-called anti-discrimination laws that criminalize expressions characterized as "hateful" or merely "derogatory" toward members of religious, ethnic, national, or racial groups ... The ubiquitous European hate-speech laws represent a clear and present danger to freedom of expression in the Western world. Not only do they interfere with the basic right of the individual to speak his or her mind even if it causes offense, they are inherently arbitrary and prone to abuse. The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime Mark Weber  Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years ... With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews ... The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: "The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution." US Trade Deficit At 18 Month High BBC News  The US trade deficit widened to its highest level in 18 months in May, driven by demand for imported cars, computers and clothing. The deficit increased by 4.8% to $42.3 billion -- the largest since November 2008, Commerce Department data showed. The 2.9% rise in imports outpaced the 2.4% climb in exports. Dollar Tumbles After Gloomy Fed Forecast The Telegarph (Britain)  The euro rocketed to a two-month high of $1.29 and sterling jumped two cents to almost $1.54 after The Fed confessed that the US economy may not recover for five or six years ... The Fed minutes amount to a policy thunderbolt, evidence of how quickly the recovery has lost steam. Just weeks ago the Fed was mapping out withdrawal of stimulus ... The signs of a deep and sudden slowdown in the US are becoming ever clearer as the "sugar rush" from the Obama fiscal stimulus wears off and the inventory boost fades. California, Illinois and other states are cutting spending, tightening US fiscal policy by 0.8 percent of GDP ... The US workforce has shrunk by one million over the past two months as discouraged jobless give up the hunt. In Israel, Arab Found Guilty of Rape After Consensual Sex with Jew The Guardian (Britain) An Israeli man of Arab origin has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew. Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left. When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault. Greek Hotels Kick Out Unruly Israeli Teens Ynet News (Israel)  Three groups of Israeli teens facing IDF [military] enlistment get expelled from various hotels in island of Ios after getting drunk, causing damage to property. Israel's consul in Athens says such cases cause great damage to country's image / Israel continues to lose popularity in overseas vacation resorts. Israeli Consul in Athens Eli Sneh informed the Foreign Ministry that several groups of young Israelis have been expelled from hotels in the Greek island of Ios over the past few weeks for getting drunk and behaving in an unruly manner. ... Sneh said that the hotels which expelled the teens on Sunday have informed they would not be hosting anymore Israeli youths. "These hooligans are causing serious damage to our image." How Franklin Roosevelt Lied America Into War William Henry Chamberlin  ... American involvement in war with Germany was preceded by a long series of steps [by FDR, including] ... the orders to American warships to shoot at sight at German submarines, formally announced on September 11 [1941]. The beginning of actual hostilities may be dated from this time rather than from the German declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor ... The promises to "keep America out of foreign wars" were a deliberate hoax on the American people, perpetrated for the purpose of insuring Roosevelt's re-election and thereby enabling him to proceed with his plan of gradually edging the United States into war. The Southern Poverty Law Center: Profiting From Defamation The Social Contract (Michigan)  This special issue of The Social Contract journal provides detailed, devastating analysis of the influential and misnamed "Southern Poverty Law Center." Contributors to this issue review the hidden record and agenda of this highly profitable engine of defamation. Jews and Russians in 1920s USSR: From Solzhenitsyn's `200 Years Together' Kevin MacDonald -- Occidental Observer  ...This chapter relies on a wide range of academic historical writing to paint his picture of the USSR during the critical decade of the 1920s. His account is therefore based on mainstream scholarship and overall is similar to other accounts .... Solzhenitsyn is emphasizing the ethnic angle to mass murder in the USSR: Russians were disproportionately victims, and non-Russians, and particularly Jews, were disproportionately perpetrators. He also emphasizes that a prime motive for Jews was revenge against the old order .. "Jewish communists participated efficiently and diligently" in collectivization. It was a war against the Russian people -- a war that was carried out with "a certain enthusiasm among Jews." Israel's Nukes Harm US National Interests John Mearsheimer  ... I actually believe the situation is going to get much worse over time. I believe that we're not going to have an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. I believe that talk of a two-state solution and all this talk about moving from "proximity talks" to "direct talks " is a charade ... America's interests and Israel's interests are going to continue to diverge. And the end result of that, back here in the United States, is that the [pro-Israel] lobby is going to have to work overtime to cover that up and make it look like everything is hunky-dory when in fact it's not. And that has all sorts of negative consequences for domestic politics. So I think things are very bad now but I'm sad to say they're only going to get worse. The Truth About Israel's Land Grab In The West Bank The Independent (Britain)  Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 per cent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state, a new report has revealed. The jurisdiction of some 202 settlements, illegal under international law, cover much more of the occupied Palestinian territory than previously thought. And a large section of the land has been seized from private Palestinian landowners in defiance even of an Israeli supreme court ruling, the report said, a finding which sits uncomfortably with Israeli claims that it builds only on state land The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence Nicholas D. Kristof  The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country's image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant ...None of that changes the ugly truth that our ally, Israel, is using American military support to maintain an occupation that is both oppressive and unjust. Israel has eased checkpoints this year -- a real improvement in quality of life -- but the system is intrinsically malignant ... Meanwhile, the settlements continue to grow, seemingly inexorably -- and that may be the most odious aspect of the occupation. Israeli Soldiers Shoot Palestinian Children BBC News - Video  After Israeli soldiers order a Palestinian family out of their home, they open fire with an M16 machine gun. Two children are instantly killed, and one is paralysed. BBC journalist Christian Fraser reports. Runtime: 3:19 mins. Diversity in Ads Not Reflected in Real Life The Associated Press  Somewhere there's an America that's full of neighborhoods where black and white kids play softball together, where biracial families e-mail photos online and where Asians and blacks dance in the same nightclub. And that America is on your television ... Critics say such ads gloss over persistent and complicated racial realities. Though the proportion of ethnic minorities in America is growing, experts say, more than superficial interaction between groups is relatively unusual. Most Americans live and mingle with people from their own racial background. Advertising, meanwhile, is creating a "carefully manufactured racial utopia, a narrative of colorblindness" says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at Georgia State University ... Veterans of Israel's Attack on USS Liberty Want Investigation Russia Today (Russia)  On the anniversary of Israel's 1967 murderous assault on the USS Liberty, survivors call for a impartial US government inquiry into the attack, and the shameful white-washing afterwards by US officials. Runtime: 5:13 mins. Lieberman: A Zionist Foe of Freedom Maidhc Ó Cathail -- Dissident Voice  It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman. Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the "global war on terror" which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it ... How much faith would American voters have in the likes of Lieberman, who claims that the Jewish state is their greatest ally, if they knew that Israeli agents planted firebombs in American installations in Egypt in 1954 in an attempt to undermine relations between Nasser and the United States ... Memoir By Veteran ADL Official Provides Revelations John Cobden - Institute for Historical Review  ... Contrary to what the author intended, this revealing book by a high-ranking ADL official serves as valuable exposé of the moral character of a man who sanctions violence against political opponents, who spits on the First Amendment, uses illegal methods to obtain information about adversaries, and who served as an agent for a foreign spy agency. Over the years, I have read several tracts and articles designed to discredit the Anti-Defamation League. None was able to persuade me of the illicit nature of this organization; it took the memoir of Arnold Forster to do that. Presbyterians Approve Call to End US Aid to Israel The Associated Press  Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal Friday that included a call to end U.S. aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories. But they said the 172-page report, which details their church's approach to issues in the Middle East, was a sincere effort to mend long-standing fractures between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Jewish groups. It earned qualified praise but also criticism from pro-Israel organizations, which have long taken issue with various Presbyterian statements on Middle East peace. Church delegates approved the report by an 82 percent vote during the church's general assembly in Minneapolis. Why West Lost Afghan War Michael Scheuer  Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn't confuse anyone, as the reality of the situation still lies in one simple statement: The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win. 'Winning' in Afghanistan was never anything more than killing Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, as many of their fighters and civilian supporters as possible and then getting out immediately with the full knowledge that -- as Mao said long ago -- insurgencies always rebuild and the process might need to be repeated. Another Failed President? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Obama's "reset" in foreign policy seems to have yielded no more fruit than George W. Bush's crusade to "end tyranny in our world." Three months after Iraqi elections, there is no government in Baghdad. The August deadline for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops will likely be missed ... America is facing a crisis of confidence in government, with the nation unable to win its wars, balance its budgets, control its borders, stop the bleeding of its manufacturing base or plug a hole in the ocean floor. Demjanjuk Trial in Germany Postponed Again The Associated Press  A court session in John Demjanjuk's trial in Germany has been put off after the court's doctor said the 90-year-old was recovering from dehydration. Dr. Albrecht Stein told the court Thursday that Demjanjuk had not been drinking enough during recent hot weather and needed intravenous fluids. The former Ohio autoworker is being tried on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder over allegations he was a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp. He says he is a victim of mistaken identity and never served as a guard at any camp. Demjanjuk suffers from a variety of medical problems, and it was at least the 10th session to be canceled for health reasons since the trial began Nov. 30. The Demjanjuk Trial: An Interim Assessment Prof. Johannes Houwink ten Cate -- The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Israel) ... This trial is a novelty. It marks the first time in German legal history that a non-German national has had to stand trial for the murder of non-German nationals that took place outside of Germany proper - namely, in Poland. ... This trial is also novel in the sense that the mass murder in Sobibor is described as a single process, implicating all those present in Sobibor in the extermination. For the first time, a person who was low in the chain of command has been indicted even though there is no proof of him having committed a specific offense. ... The goal is not to win the trial; it may be unwinnable. Perhaps the goal of informing the world about Sobibor is rhetorical as well, for the Jewish slaves who tried to escape the extermination sites had the same goal. An Evil Campaign to Frame an Innocent Man Lesya Jones (1995) ... Sheftel [in his book] amasses incontrovertible evidence which proves that the Demjanjuk affair was not simply a case of mistaken identity but, rather, a deliberate and cold-blooded conspiracy by superpowers United States and former Soviet Union, as well as Germany, Israel and Poland to withhold exculpatory evidence in their possession and send to the gallows an innocent no man's man. These countries did this in pursuit of their respective agendas. In the United States, the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) at the Department of Justice, which was established to investigate alleged Nazi war criminals residing in the US, was particularly zealous in its efforts to destroy Demjanjuk. Iran 's President Rebukes Western Double Standard on Holocaust DPA (Germany)  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the historic dimensions of the Holocaust but rejected the label of an anti-Semite, the Fars news agency reported Friday. "The West made a claim - about the Holocaust - and urges all the people in the world to accept it or otherwise go to prison," Ahmadinejad told a group of Islamic scholars Thursday in Nigeria, where he attended a summit of the Developing Eight, a group of countries with large Muslim populations. "The West allows everybody to question prophets and even God but not to pose a simple question and open the black box of a historic event," he charged. Martin A. Larson Revisionists.com  Martin A. Larson (1897-1994) was an American scholar and author who specialized in religious history, comparative religion, the origins and evolution of Christianity, the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, and taxation and money issues. He was a free-thinker and a populist, and an ardent defender of individual freedom, both political and religious ... He served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review from its first issues in 1980 until his death. Over the years four articles by Dr. Larson appeared in the Journal . In India, A New Film Underscores Enduring Interest in Hitler The Associated Press  ... In India, Hitler is not viewed as the personification of evil, but with an attitude of morally ambiguous fascination. He is seen as a management guru - akin to Machiavelli or Sun Tzu - by business students, and an object of wonder by people craving order amid the chaos of India ... Mein Kampf, Hitler's semi-autobiographical book outlining his anti-semitic ideology, sells thousands of copies a year. The book, free of copyright in India, is printed by more than half a dozen publishers ... For some, modern India is a country in chaos and, there is a "certain admiration" for Hitler and his extreme authoritarianism. There is also the inheritance of India's independence struggle, when "every enemy of Britain was a friend of India and at least potentially a good person." Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle for Independence Andrew Montgomery - Institute for Historical Review ... Bose was favorably impressed with the discipline and organizational strength of fascism as early as 1930, when he first expressed support for a synthesis of fascism and socialism. During his stays in Europe during the 1930s, he was deeply moved by the dynamism of the two major "fascist" powers, Italy and Germany. After observing these regimes first-hand, he developed a political ideology of his own that, he was convinced, could bring about the liberation of India and the total reconstruction of Indian society along vaguely authoritarian-socialist lines. California on 'Verge of System Failure' The Globe and Mail (Canada)  ... It's a story that's being repeated all across California - and throughout the United States - as cash-strapped state and local governments grapple with collapsed tax revenues and swelling budget gaps. Mass layoffs, slashed health and welfare services, closed parks, crumbling superhighways and ever-larger public school class sizes are all part of the new normal. California's fiscal hole is now so large that the state would have to liberate 168,000 prison inmates and permanently shutter 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Think of California as Greece on the Pacific: bankrupt and desperately needing a bailout. New York: Demise of a State Herbert London -- Newsmax The sound you hear on Wall Street at noon isn't bells chiming, but rather the death knell for New York State. The once proud Empire State that was the engine for capital investment across the country is gasping for breath. Wall Street, that paid the state's bills, is a shell of its former self. ... There is no doubt New York State has extraordinary assets: an educated workforce, potable water, cheap hydro-electric power, magnificent scenery. But these assets have been surpassed by manipulative leadership, profligate spending, and the appeasement of municipal union demands. As I see it the once magnificent Empire State is now the vampire state with the Albany government sucking the blood of working men and women who are trying to eke out a living. Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills, But Can't Stop Digging Hole The New York Times  ... For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession. Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state's bills and refuses to take the painful steps -- cuts and tax increases -- to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state's budget. ... More broadly, Illinois is caught between blue state convictions about social safety nets and a red state aversion to taxes. For years, the Democratic-controlled legislature has passed budgets that are, in effect, in deficit. Lawmakers routinely skip around the state's balanced-budget law, with few consequences. Remembering the Fallen of the Somme BBC News  The Battle of the Somme, which began in early July 1916, has come to symbolise the horror and futility of war, as Fergal Keane reflects on a visit to the battlefield. On the other side of the wood, the fighters soared and looped in a bright blue sky. I was standing in a cornfield and thought of how, in another time, that sound would have sent me running in terror for any cover I could find ... Between July and November 1916, more than a million men became casualties of war in these fields. Gertrude Stein's Complex Worldview: Nobel Peace Prize for Hitler? Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  Scholars of the life of Gertrude Stein were recently startled to learn that in 1938 the prominent Jewish-American writer had spearheaded a campaign urging the Nobel committee to award its Peace Prize to Adolf Hitler ... Stein's seemingly paradoxical views about Hitler and fascism have never been a secret. As early as 1934, she told a reporter that Hitler should be awarded the Nobel peace prize. "I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace ... By suppressing Jews ... he was ending struggle in Germany" US Will Attack Iran `If It Must,' Say Prominent Senators The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  There is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, "through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must," visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Wednesday in Jerusalem. Lieberman, flanked at a Jerusalem press conference by his senate colleagues John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), used very tough language, saying the words "military action" in regards to stopping Iran's nuclear program. Most US officials opt to tiptoe around the subject, saying "no options are off the table." Get Ready for a Binational State Gideon Levy -- Haaretz (Israel) ... The reality is that Israel has again managed to fool not only America, but even its most promising president in years ... More than anything, the meeting proved that the criminal waste of time will go on. A year and a half has passed since the two took office, and almost nothing has changed except lip service to the freeze. A few lifted roadblocks here, a little less blockade of Gaza there - all relatively marginal matters, a bogus substitute for a bold jump over the abyss, without which nothing will move. Israeli Duplicity Comes Ever More Clearly into Focus Jeff Gates With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the White House July 6, it's time to recall how Tel Aviv deceived Washington throughout the entirety of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. U.S. military leaders will be watching this meeting very closely, as will the veterans community. For me, confirmation of Israel's strategic duplicity came in a meeting with Harry McPherson who served as counsel and speechwriter for Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ entered the Senate in 1948 with Louisiana Senator Russell Long for whom I served as counsel and speechwriter. At his law offices in Washington, Harry described his arrival in Tel Aviv the night that the 1967 War began. That war typifies the consistency of this ongoing deceit. Tax-Exempt Funds Aiding West Bank Settlements The New York Times  ... HaYovel is one of many groups in the United States using tax-exempt donations to help Jews establish permanence in the Israeli-occupied territories -- effectively obstructing the creation of a Palestinian state, widely seen as a necessary condition for Middle East peace. The result is a surprising juxtaposition: As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them. A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. Netanyahu Hears No Discouraging Words From Obama Dana Milbank -- The Washington Post  A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, White House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender. Four months ago, the Obama administration made a politically perilous decision to condemn Israel over a controversial new settlement. The Israel lobby reared up, Netanyahu denounced the administration's actions, Republican leaders sided with Netanyahu, and Democrats ran for cover. Israel Has Right to Nuclear Capability for Deterrence Purposes, Obama Pledges Haaretz (Israel) The Obama administration has revealed to the public, during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, a series of understandings between the two countries on Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity" - which to date had been kept under wraps. At the center of these understandings lies an Israeli veto on the holding of an international conference for a nuclear-free Middle East ... According to the announcement, "The president told the prime minister he recognizes that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats, and that only Israel can determine its security needs. The president pledged to continue U.S. efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel." Secret Document Affirms U.S.-Israel Nuclear Partnership Haaretz (Israel) Israel's Army Radio reported on Wednesday that the United States has sent Israel a secret document committing to nuclear cooperation between the two countries. According to Army Radio, the U.S. has reportedly pledged to sell Israel materials used to produce electricity, as well as nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Other countries have refused to cooperate with Israel on nuclear matters because it has not signed the NPT, and there has been increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal. Winston Churchill's Cigar Air-Brushed From Photo The Telegraph (Britain)  A photograph of Winston Churchill giving his victory salute has been airbrushed to remove his signature cigar. In the well-known original image, Churchill makes a "V" shaped symbol with his fingers - while gripping a cigar in the corner of his mouth. But in a reproduction of the picture, hanging over the main entrance to a London museum celebrating the wartime leader, he has been made into a non-smoker through the use of image-altering techniques. William Chamberlin: A Man Ahead of His Time Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  ... Chamberlin opens America's Second Crusade with the words: "Americans, more than any other people, have been inclined to interpret their involvement in the two great wars of the twentieth century in terms of crusades for righteousness." In the pages that follow, Chamberlin deftly and devastatingly tears apart the folly of such arrogance. He exposes the mendacity of American leaders such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, the fraud of the Nuremberg trials, and the hypocrisy and bad faith of the Allied leaders in their Second World War "crusade." Winston Churchill: An Unsettled Legacy Mark Weber The well-entrenched idealization of Churchill is part and parcel of a drastically misleading view of the Second World War that Americans have been fed for decades. One common deceit is to give the impression that Hitler sought war against Britain and France, and that Germany aggressively attacked those two countries ... Churchill's enduringly stellar image is all the more remarkable considering that his views on a range of issues were, by today's standards, hopelessly backward and politically incorrect ... Along with most Britons (and Americans) of his era, he was also an unabashed racist. FBI Expands Probe of Fraud at Holocaust Claims Conference Jewish Week (New York)  The Federal Bureau of Investigation has widened its probe into allegedly fraudulent Holocaust-era claims that could have bilked the German government out of millions of dollars, The Jewish Week has learned. The fraud was discovered in December by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in New York, which processes Holocaust-era claims for survivors in behalf of the German government. It immediately contacted federal authorities, including the FBI. The fraud initially involved claims submitted to the Hardship Fund but has now been broadened to include the Article 2 Fund, a pension program that may have been defrauded out of about $7 million over the last decade. Both investigations are continuing and the Article 2 Fund pensions of more than 200 people were suspended last Thursday. Dariusz Ratajczak: A Courageous Historian Revisionists.com  Dariusz Ratajczak (1962-2010) was a Polish historian who was dismissed from his university teaching post, publicly vilified, and convicted of "Holocaust denial" for having published arguments and evidence that cast doubt on aspects of the familiar Holocaust story. He held a doctoral degree in history, and was the author of several books ... Publication of "Dangerous Themes" set off a storm of fierce criticism, including protests by some prominent scholars. Rethinking Iran-Contra: A Much Darker Story? Robert Parry  ... An accumulating body of evidence suggests that the traditional view of Iran-Contra was mistaken, that this conventional understanding of the scandal was like starting a novel in the middle and assuming you're reading the opening chapter ... In view of the latest evidence - and the crumbling of the long-running October Surprise cover-up -- there appears to have been a single Iran-Contra narrative spanning the entire twelve years of the Reagan and Bush I administration, and representing a much darker story. And it was not simply a tale of Republican electoral skullduggery and treachery, but possibly even more troubling, a story of rogue CIA officers and Israel's Likud hardliners sabotaging a sitting U.S. president, Jimmy Carter. Worse Than a Nightmare Bob Herbert - The New York Times  ... For us to even consider several more years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan -- at a cost of heaven knows how many more billions of American taxpayer dollars -- is demented ... We're like a compulsive gambler plunging ever more deeply into debt in order to wager on a rigged game. There is no victory to be had in Afghanistan, only grief. We're bulldozing Detroit while at the same time trying to establish model metropolises in Kabul and Kandahar. We're spending endless billions on this wretched war but can't extend the unemployment benefits of Americans suffering from the wretched economy here at home. The difference between this and a nightmare is that when you wake up from a nightmare it's over. This is all too tragically real. The Last Post: McChrystal's Bleak Outlook The Independent on Sunday (Britain)  Sacked US General Stanley McChrystal issued a devastatingly critical assessment of the war against a "resilient and growing insurgency" just days before being forced out. Using confidential military documents, copies of which have been seen by the IoS, the "runaway general" briefed defence ministers from Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) earlier this month, and warned them not to expect any progress in the next six months. During his presentation, he raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration. Sinking Ship: Israel and Its Lobby in the US John J. Mearsheimer Israel's botched raid against the Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla on May 31 is the latest sign that Israel is on a disastrous course that it seems incapable of reversing. The attack also highlights the extent to which Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. This situation is likely to get worse over time, which will cause major problems for Americans who have a deep attachment to the Jewish state ... The lobby will remain influential enough over the next decade to protect Israel from meaningful U.S. pressure. Obama Expands Global U.S. 'Secret War' The Washington Post  Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials. Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia ... Obama, one senior military official said, has allowed "things that the previous administration did not." German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler John Ries -- Institute for Historical Review ... The picture of the relationship between German big business and the Nazi party which Turner provides us is one that reveals how little big business had to do with the party's success ... Most of the NSDAP funds were derived from membership dues, interest-free loans, and the gate receipts from the many mass rallies the party held ... In sum, the NSDAP was a prototypical "grass-roots" political organization able to expand and prosper during a period when most of the bourgeois parties suffered a serious loss of support. Archimedes Set Roman Ships Afire With Cannons, Says Engineer Jeremy Hsu -- LiveScience  Greek inventor Archimedes is said to have used mirrors to burn ships of an attacking Roman fleet. But new research suggests he may have used steam cannons and fiery cannonballs instead. A legend begun in the Medieval Ages tells of how Archimedes used mirrors to concentrate sunlight as a defensive weapon during the siege of Syracuse, then a Greek colony on the island of Sicily, from 214 to 212 B.C. No contemporary Roman or Greek accounts tell of such a mirror device, however. Both engineering calculations and historical evidence support use of steam cannons as "much more reasonable than the use of burning mirrors," said Cesare Rossi, a mechanical engineer at the University of Naples ... German Man Facing Jail Over Hitler Ringtone ABC (Australia)  A German man is facing up to six months in jail for having a speech by Adolf Hitler as his mobile phone ringtone. Every time the 54-year-old man's phone rang, it played a speech by Hitler, in which the former dictator pledged the destruction of world Jewry if Germany was dragged into war. Fellow passengers on a train in Hamburg heard the ringtone several times during a journey and reported him to police, who seized the telephone and arrested him when the train stopped. Police found swastika stickers and a photo of Hitler on the telephone with the words "the greatest commander of all time" written over it. The man was charged with violating the German constitution, which expressly forbids public displays of the Nazis and all their works. Why the French Hate Chomsky Diana Johnstone ... It has contributed to the sacralization of the Holocaust, or "Shoah", which has increasingly been regarded less as an historic event than as a sacred dogma. In a secular state where traditional religions are excluded from public schools, only the Shoah demands both the mental and emotional adherence traditionally reserved for religion. Its place in the school curriculum grows as the teaching of history in general shrinks ... This amounts to a reversal of the much-decried Medieval stigmatization of Jews as "Christ-killers". Today, non-Jews are in the uncomfortable position of being the descendants of "Jew-killers" (or perhaps of those who failed to save Jewish children from deportation to Auschwitz). U.S. Pledges $15 Million to Preserve Site of Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp CNN News  The United States will donate $15 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, pending congressional authorization and appropriations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday. Speaking at the Schindler Factory Museum in Krakow, Poland, Clinton said the contribution will go to preserve the site of the concentration camp and "demonstrates America's commitment to Holocaust education, remembrance and research," the State Department said. Methodist Church of Britain Votes to Boycott Israeli Goods The Jerusalem Post (Israel) The Methodist Church of Britain voted on Wednesday to boycott Israeli-produced goods and services from the West Bank because of Israel's "illegal occupation of Palestinian lands." "A majority of governments recognize the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegitimate under international law," the church body said at its annual conference in Portsmouth. The church body will now encourage Methodists across the UK to follow suit. Connecting the Zionist Dots Gilad Atzmon  ... Democracy in its current state, especially within the English-Speaking world, is a political system that specializes in positioning inadequate, unqualified and dubious characters in leading positions. Two democratically elected leaders launched the illegal war in Iraq. Two democratically elected leaders marched the west into a financial disaster ... .As much as our elected leaders are totally clueless, the Sabans, the Lord Levys and the Wolfowitzes know exactly what to do. The Jewish religion, culture and ideology provides its followers with a narrative that saves us of the democratic limbo. The Sabans of this world are far from being amateurs or clueless; they know exactly what to do. They have been doing it for three thousand years. More American Women Not Having Children Reuters  More American women are choosing not to have children than three decades ago, according to a new report. Nearly 20 percent of older women do not have children, compared to 10 percent in the 1970s, the Pew Research Center said. ... Education also is a factor in a woman's choice to be a mother. The more educated women are, the higher the childless rate is. Activist Explains the Gaza Flotilla, Rebuts Israeli Claims Hardtalk - BBC television (Video)  In this interview on the British BBC television program "Hardtalk," an activist describes how Israeli troops stormed the Gaza flotilla vessel. Given here in three parts. The BBC presenter repeatedly tries to justify or excuse Israel's attack on the humanitarian aid ship, as well as the Zionist state's overall policies. Ken O'Keefe, a former US Marine combat soldier, speaks calmly but forcefully about the Israeli attack, the humanitarian flotilla operation, the plight of the Palestinians, and Israel's propaganda lies. Assault on `German Village' Mike Davis -- Der Spiegel  During the Second World War the Americans tested in the desert of Utah the bombardment of Berlin. In accurate detail they had copies of tenement buildings constructed. The architect was the well-known German Jew Erich Mendelsohn / ... The Berlin tenements were erected in May 1943 on the Dugway Proving Grounds, shortly before Winston Churchill had gale-force firestorms ignited in the center of Hamburg. Their intended purpose was to try out the possibilities and to solve the problems that clearly lay beyond any moral limits of target bombardments. The buildings became a trade fair for the growing lobby of fire war. Nearly All Terrorist Attacks in US and Europe Have Been By Non-Muslims Danios - Loonwatch ... Only six percent of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists. The remaining 94 percent were from other groups -- 42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups ... In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2007 to 2009 could be attributed to extremist Muslims. The Zionist Terror Network Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  This booklet documents the background and criminal activities of Jewish Zionist terrorist groups, and especially the Jewish Defense League. Particular emphasis is given here to terror -- including murder -- against "thought criminals" who question the Holocaust story that six million Jews were systematically killed during the Second World War ... This terror campaign culminated in a devastating arson attack on the Institute's offices and warehouse in Torrance on July 4, 1984 -- the 209th anniversary of American independence. Damage in the attack, carried out in the early morning hours of the 4th, was estimated at $400,000. The US is a `Puppet State' of Israel, Says Dr. Roberts Paul Craig Roberts -- Press TV -- Video  The United States is a "puppet state of Israel," says Dr. Roberts, and the US media presents the American public with "Israeli propaganda." "The United States government does not represent the American people," he continues. "It represents the military-security complex, the Israel lobby, Wall Street, the oil companies, the insurance industry, the pharmaceuticals." The US is an "oligarchy of powerful special interests, and they control politics with their campaign contributions." Runtime: 6:37 mins. Jews Hurt Blacks, Says Farrakhan JTA  Minister Louis Farrakhan in a letter addressed to U.S. Jewish organizations accused Jews of hurting blacks and called for dialogue to "repair" the damage. The Nation of Islam leader sent the letter, as well as a two-volume copy of "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" by the Nation of Islam Historical Research Team, which he said proves "an undeniable record of Jewish Anti-Black behavior," the Associated Press reported Tuesday. "We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy," he reportedly wrote in the letter, dated June 24. Zionist Group Criticizes Latvia Over Commemoration of 1941 Liberation Reuters A well-known Nazi hunter criticized a Latvian court Tuesday for allowing a procession to commemorate the day in 1941 when Nazi troops entered the country's capital after ejecting the Soviet Union's Red Army. Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, criticized a Riga district court decision to allow an event to be held at the central Freedom Monument on July 1... The German invasion in 1941 followed a year of Red Army occupation, during which Latvia was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union and tens of thousands of Latvians were shipped to Siberia, leading people to cheer the arrival of German troops in the streets of Riga. California Legislator Demands French Rail Company Disclose Holocaust Role European Jewish Press  French rail operator SNCF is being targeted by a California state lawmaker who has introduced legislation that would force the company to disclose its role in the Holocaust as a condition of a multibillion-dollar high speed rail contract, the Financial Times reported.The move by Democratic Bob Blumenfield could complicate the ambitions of state-owned SNCF, one of the top potential bidders for the contract, which has been estimated to be worth a total of $43 billion (35 billion euros) and represents the largest single tender in California's history. In Georgia, Authorities Pull Down Stalin Monuments The Associated Press  Authorities in Georgia on Sunday tore down another monument to Soviet dictator and native son Josef Stalin. The monument in the town of Tkibuli in western Georgia was taken down two days after authorities tore down a bigger and more famous monument to Stalin in his hometown of Gori. Both statues were brought down in the middle of the night in an apparent bid to avoid protests and media attention. The Genocide Britain Hushed Up Daily Mail (Britain)  A new film tells the terrible story of Stalin's own Final Solution - and Churchill's shameful complicity / … This is the harrowing scene of a devastating new film, Katyn. It takes its name from the village in western Russia where the bodies of more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were dug up in 1943. But these bodies were by no means the only ones to be disinterred. Near the Soviet city of Kalinin, now known as Tver, another 6,000 bodies were unearthed. Near Kharkov in Ukraine there were 4,000. In all, more than 22,000 Poles -- roughly two-thirds of them officers and policemen, the rest political prisoners -- suffered the same appalling fate: to be executed, without trial or even warning, and thrown like carcasses into mass graves. Germar Rudolf Released from Prison in Germany Altermedia  Germar Rudolf, 44, a German chemist and intellectual dissident who had been serving a prison sentence for violating Germany's law against "Holocaust denial," was released from Mannheim prison on July 4 after three years and nine months behind bars. Upon his release, he was met by his American wife and four-year-old US-born daughter. In October 2005 he was arrested in Chicago, and deported to his homeland, where he was tried, sentenced, and imprisoned. David Irving Speaks in 17 US Cities in July  In a tour of the western US, David Irving is addressing meetings in 17 cities, including Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Costa Mesa, and Kansas City. His topic is "Hitler, Himmler and `Enigma': Re-writing World War II history using Nazi messages decoded by the British Secret Service." The best-selling British historian also has available copies of his prison memoir, which tells of his headline-making arrest and harrowing prison ordeal in Austria, 2005-06. Alarm in Baltic as Kremlin Seizes Control of Soviet Past The Independent (Britain)  In Russia it is not only the future that is unpredictable; often the past is equally in doubt … When authorities in Estonia removed a monument to Soviet soldiers from the centre of Tallinn two years ago, riots between police and ethnic Russian citizens of Estonia ensued, and the Kremlin made furious noises. With its new commission and law, Moscow is upping the stakes. Russia accuses the governments of Estonia and Latvia of glorifying partisan regiments which fought on the side of the Nazis. In recent years, relations between Latvia and Russia have normalised in many spheres, but the Second World War is still a thorny issue. Jewish Group Objects to Ukraine 'Great Famine' Case JTA  A Jewish group in Ukraine is objecting to a criminal case brought over the "Great Famine" committed in the 1930s. The nation's security service is pressing the case against a list of former Soviet officials accused of committing the Holodomor, which caused the deaths of millions in Ukraine in 1932-33. Most of the names on the list were Jewish. Holocaust Denial And Uncomfortable Truths Robin Davis  It has always been those few who can see through the political correctness and hypocrisy of popular attitudes who are considered dangerous. "Holocaust denial laws" are now in place in about a dozen countries. Defenders of these laws claim that the expression of unconventional views about the Jewish genocide is "hate speech" and "incitement to violence" and therefore must be suppressed. But history shows the greatest purveyors of lies, hatred and incitement to violence are those with the power to spread their poison by manipulating popular opinion via the control or complicity of the mass media. Jewish Leader: Obama May Be 'Most Hostile President to Israel' Ronald Kessler  President Barack Obama's refusal to take a stand on protests in Iran stands in sharp contrast to demands he has made on Israel, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, says in a Newsmax interview … Klein says leaders of Jewish organizations are rethinking their support of Obama in light of his attitude toward Israel. "There are many leaders in the organized Jewish world who have privately discussed this issue with me, and say they are deeply concerned about Obama's actions and policies toward Israel, and now they're rethinking their support for Obama during the campaign and the election," says Klein … A `Virulent' New Anti-Semitism is Rife in Britain, Says Chief Rabbi The Times (Britain)  Britain is in the grip of a "virulent" new strain of anti-Semitism, according to the Chief Rabbi. Sir Jonathan Sacks told The Times in an interview that in January the number of anti-Semitic incidents reached the highest level since records began. Jews have been physically attacked, schools targeted and cemeteries desecrated … Although the new "mutation" was different from the anti-Semitism promoted by Hitler, it was dangerous because it was international, he said. "The internet means that we no longer have national cultures; we have global cultures and the new anti-Semitism is very much a phenomenon of the global culture." Whereas in the past, hatred was focused against Judaism as a religion or Jews as a race, the focus this time was on Jews as a nation. The Pentagon Spigot is Wide Open: How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense Winslow T. Wheeler  … Not counting money projected for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presidentially approved budget plan would continue increasing the Pentagon's budget: by another $8.1 billion in 2011 (up 1.5 percent), another $9 billion in 2012 (up 1.6 percent), and $10.4 billion in 2013 (up1.8 percent), and so on all the way out to 2019. If we add in the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year - 2009 - exceeds any year since the end of World War II, including the spending peaks for the Korean and Vietnam wars. President Obama's plan is to increase that lead. Obama also will outspend Ronald Reagan on defense. The Language That Absolves Israel Saree Makdisi -- Los Angeles Times  … Reality can be so easily stood on its head when it comes to Israel because the misreading of Israeli declarations is a long-established practice among commentators and journalists in the United States. In fact, a special vocabulary has been developed for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. It filters and structures the way in which developing stories are misread here, making it difficult for readers to fully grasp the nature of those stories -- and maybe even for journalists to think critically about what they write. The ultimate effect of this special vocabulary is to make it possible for Americans to accept and even endorse in Israel what they would reject out of hand in any other country. The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran Paul Craig Roberts  … In Iran's system, election fraud has no purpose, because a small select group of ruling mullahs select the candidates who are put on the ballot. If they don't like an aspiring candidate, they simply don't put him on the ballot. When the liberal reformer Khatami ran for president, he won with 70% of the vote and served from 1997-2005. If the mullahs didn't defraud Khatami of his win, it seems unlikely they would defraud an establishment figure like Mousavi, who was foreign minister in the most conservative government, and is backed by another establishment figure, Rafsanjani. Historian Says He's Found `Real' Reason for Hitler's Hatred of Jews Daily Mail (Britain)  Adolf Hitler's obsessive hatred for Jews was sparked by his experiences after World War One, according to a new book. Respected historian Ralf-George Reuth argues the dictator blamed them for both the Russian revolution and the collapse of the German economy. The claim is a stark contrast to previous theories … At the time almost half of all German private banks were Jewish owned, the stock exchange dominated by Jewish stockbrokers, almost half of the nation's newspapers were Jewish run as were 80 per cent of chain stores. It became fashionable to decry the loss of the war on Jewish financiers. But Hitler, according to Reuth, also blamed Jews for the Russian revolution … The Underworked American The Economist (Britain)  Americans like to think of themselves as martyrs to work. They delight in telling stories about their punishing hours, snatched holidays and ever-intrusive BlackBerrys … But when it comes to the young the situation is reversed. American children have it easier than most other children in the world, including the supposedly lazy Europeans. They have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more. Canadian Politician Sues Jewish Groups JTA  An ex-candidate in Canada is suing the country's leading Jewish advocacy groups, alleging they ruined her political career. Lesley Hughes, who was dumped as a Liberal candidate in a Winnipeg-area electoral district, claims the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith Canada made false and defamatory accusations that she is anti-Semitic. In a lawsuit filed June 16, Hughes alleges that as a result of the actions of the CJC and B'nai Brith, former federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion revoked her candidacy in last September's federal elections. Sharp Drop In US Support for Israel, New Poll Shows Mondoweiss  … The state-run radio station's Washington correspondent, Nathan Guttman, obtained data from a recent unpublished poll, conducted by the Israel Project, an organization that works to improve Israel's image in the United States. The Israel Project has been conducting a periodic running poll, asking American registered voters questions about Israel … There is a steep decline in the percentage of Americans who say that the U.S. should support Israel. That has dropped from 71% in March 2008 (at the time of the Annapolis process) to only 44% now. Israeli 'Settlements': Fictions on the Ground Tony Judt -- The New York Times  … Thus President Obama faces a choice. He can play along with the Israelis, pretending to believe their promises of good intentions and the significance of the distinctions they offer him. Such a pretense would buy him time and favor with Congress. But the Israelis would be playing him for a fool, and he would be seen as one in the Mideast and beyond. Alternatively, the president could break with two decades of American compliance, acknowledge publicly that the emperor is indeed naked, dismiss Mr. Netanyahu for the cynic he is and remind Israelis that all their settlements are hostage to American goodwill. He could also remind Israelis that the illegal communities have nothing to do with Israel's defense, much less its founding ideals of agrarian self-sufficiency and Jewish autonomy. The Risky Provocations of Mr. Netanyahu Leonard Fein -- Forward (New York)  … I sometimes fear there's a genetically inbred survival characteristic of the Jews that predisposes us to try to beat the system, to get away with things, a characteristic that came in very handy for all those many centuries during which the nerve and cleverness to beat the system enabled survival, but that has now become a dysfunctional anachronism. Be that as it may, Netanyahu's stance will likely turn out to be a serious miscalculation of Obama's intentions and abilities. Obama has no intention of endangering Israel, but when it comes to outsmarting a would-be outsmarter, he is not exactly a beginner. Netanyahu's Speech: When He Says Yes, What Does He Mean? Uri Avnery (Israel)  … The idea of the Palestinian state has now become a part of the national consensus, and only a handful of ultra-rightists reject it directly. But this is only the beginning. The main struggle will be about turning the idea into reality. The entire speech was addressed to one single person: Barack Obama. It was not designed to appeal to the Palestinians … Obama is not seeking a frontal collision with the Israeli government. It seems that he wants to exert "soft" pressure, vigorously but quietly. To my mind, that is a wise approach. U.S. Jewish Leaders Deeply Troubled by Obama Haaretz (Israel)  There is growing concern among the American Jewish community over Obama's Mideast initiatives, this according to the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein. "President Obama's strongest supporters among Jewish leaders are deeply troubled by his recent Middle East initiatives, and some are questioning what he really believes," Hoenlein, said in an interview published Monday. Carter Says Palestinians Treated 'Like Animals' AFP Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of Israel's blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated "like animals." Following the talks, Carter called for an end of "all violence" against both Israelis and Palestinians. "This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace ... all of us are children of Abraham," he said at a joint news conference with Haniya, prime minister of the Hamas government in the Palestinian enclave. Holocaust Lawyer Edward Fagan is Disbarred For Misusing Victims' Funds The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)  Only a few years ago, Edward Fagan was a world-renowned lawyer for the underdog, brash and audacious enough to take on Swiss banks and even whole countries to win judgments for Holocaust survivors and victims of South African apartheid. This week, the Supreme Court announced he was barred from practicing law in New Jersey, completing one of the steepest falls from grace in the state's law community. The court found Fagan, 56, misappropriated nearly $400,000 of the money he won for the victims he so effectively championed. |
Michael Santomauro @ 917-974-6367
What sort of Truth is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?
Let's End Thought Crimes in the Twenty-first Century. -- to separate historical fact from propaganda…peace is patriotic!
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