Obama Wants Record $708 Billion for Military Next Year
The Associated Press
President Barack Obama will ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of a record $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned -- a request that could be an especially hard sell to some of the administration's Democratic allies. The extra $33 billion in 2010 would mostly go toward the expansion of the war in Afghanistan. Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops for that war as part of an overhaul of the war strategy late last year.
US Military Spending: $700 Billion a Year, and We're Still Not Safe
David Wood - Politics Daily
On Dec. 19, 2009, President Obama authorized a military budget plan for a record $663 billion to defend the United States, the highest since World War II -- higher, adjusted for inflation, even than during the Korean and Vietnam wars ... Everywhere, it seems, Uncle Sam is struggling to regain its footing -- despite its vast spending on security. Counting outlays for the military, homeland defense, airport security, nuclear weapons, and other facets of defense, the United States will spend well over $700 billion for security this year, more than the rest of the world combined.
America is Losing the Free World
Gideon Rachman -- The Financial Times (Britain)
Ever since 1945, the US has regarded itself as the leader of the "free world". But the Obama administration is facing an unexpected and unwelcome development in global politics. Four of the biggest and most strategically important democracies in the developing world - Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey - are increasingly at odds with American foreign policy. Rather than siding with the US on the big international issues, they are just as likely to line up with authoritarian powers such as China and Iran. The US has been slow to pick up on this development, perhaps because it seems so surprising and unnatural. Most Americans assume that fellow democracies will share their values and opinions on international affairs.
Another God That Failed: `Democratism'
Patrick J. Buchanan
... If democracy, from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, brings to power parties and politicians who, for reasons religious, racial or historic, detest the "white, rich Western world," why are we pushing democracy in these regions? ... If one-person, one-vote democracy in multiethnic countries leads to dispossession and persecution of the market-dominant minority, why would we promote democracy there? Why would we promote a system in an increasingly anti-American world that empowers enemies and imperils friends? Is democratism our salvation -- or an ideology of Western suicide?
Israel's Crisis
Philip Weiss
Just back from Israel/Palestine, the overwhelming sense I carry away is that the present state cannot last. Just how it goes down I have no idea. But conditions are so obviously discriminatory, and the knowledge of these conditions now so widespread- among the Christian pilgrims in my Jerusalem guesthouse, among European leaders, and now too among the Israeli elite and American left - that the situation is reminiscent of the delegitimizing of communism in the 70s and 80s. The period of apartheid struggle that Ehud Olmert warned of two years ago is upon us. So too his warning of possible "national suicide."
Prime Minister Blair's Private Pact with President Bush on Iraq
Guardian News Service (Britain)
Tony Blair privately assured President George Bush in letters written a year before the invasion of Iraq that Britain would "be there" in any US-led attack on the country, it was revealed at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war in London Tuesday ... The inquiry has also heard from senior British diplomats that regime change was being discussed by Mr. Blair in the US in 2002 even though, according to leaked documents, Lord Goldsmith, the then attorney general, warned Mr. Blair that military action aimed at regime change, as opposed to disarmament, would be unlawful.
Recording of German Officers Who Found Hitler's Body is Made Public
The Telegraph (Britain)
A tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found Adolf Hitler's body in his Berlin bunker has been discovered. The recording was made on October 25, 1956, in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden, site of the Fuehrer's mountaintop home in Bavaria. The court was convened to officially declare the former leader of Nazi Germany dead so that his fortune and rights to his book "Mein Kampf" could be seized by the state government. Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun.
The US and China: One Side is Losing, the Other is Winning
James Petras
... China has created scores of millions of manufacturing jobs, reduced poverty faster and for more people in the shortest time span in history. Its banks mostly finance production. China doesn't bomb, invade or ravage other countries. In contrast, US capitalism has been harnessed to a monstrous global military machine that drains the domestic economy and lowers the domestic standard of living in order to fund its never-ending foreign wars ...China's diversified growth is linked to dynamic economic partners; US militarism has tied itself to narco-states, warlord regimes, the overseers of banana republics and the last and worst bona fide racist colonial regime, Israel.
Israeli Brigadier-General Denies Iran is Nuclear Threat
The Times (Britain)
A general who was once in charge of Israel's nuclear weapons has claimed that Iran is a "very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capability". Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, 75, a war hero and pillar of the defence establishment, believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons. The views expressed by the former director-general of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission contradict the assessment of Israel's defence establishment and put him at odds with political leaders ... Eilam, who is thought to be updated by former colleagues on developments in Iran, calls his country's official view hysterical. "The intelligence community are spreading frightening voices about Iran," he said.
Can Oliver Stone Show Us the Human Side of Hitler?
The Independent (Britain)
Oliver Stone has never been one to spot a historical controversy without steaming towards it, but the latest project from the film-maker behind JFK and W threatens to pitch him into more dangerously hot water than ever before. The director is battening down the hatches already, saying he fully expects "ignorant attacks" on a new documentary series in which he is promising to "liberalise" Hitler and to finger US corporations for their role in the rise of National Socialism in Germany ... "I've been able to walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes to understand their point of view. We're going to educate our minds and liberalise them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions ... "
Hitler Had Leadership Potential, Said World War I Military Evaluation
The Associated Press
Adolf Hitler was only a lance corporal during World War I but his commanders saw the future German dictator's leadership potential as "very good". That's according to Bavarian military records added on Tuesday to the genealogy website Ancestry.com's database. The handwritten pages note the future Fuehrer's occupation as "artist" and say he was his regiment's bicycle dispatch rider at one point. He volunteered for service only about two weeks after the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 and fought in several battles before being gassed in 1918 and hospitalised. Hitler received both the Iron Cross 1st Class and 2nd Class for bravery.
In Ukraine, New Move to Honor World War II Nationalist Insurgents
The Washington Post
In World War II, members of the Ukrainian underground fought to make their vision of an independent nation real. They battled Hitler and Stalin. Ultimately they lost, and the Soviets took control of most of Eastern Europe after the war. The Ukrainians finally achieved independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Now many in this fledgling nation would like to formally recognize those earlier nationalists -- the "brave defenders of the Motherland," as President Viktor Yushchenko has called them. ... Many say the underground collaborated with the Nazis, killed thousands of Jews and perpetrated a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Poles.
Cancer: The Deadly Legacy of the Invasion of Iraq
New American Media
Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer. Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment. Here are a few examples. In Falluja, which was heavily bombarded by the US in 2004, as many as 25 percent of new-born infants have serious abnormalities, including congenital anomalies, brain tumors, and neural tube defects in the spinal cord.
In Uganda, Witch Doctors Reveal Extent of Child Sacrifice
BBC News
A BBC investigation into human sacrifice in Uganda has heard first-hand accounts which suggest ritual killings of children may be more common than authorities have acknowledged. One witch-doctor led us to his secret shrine and said he had clients who regularly captured children and brought their blood and body parts to be consumed by spirits. Meanwhile, a former witch-doctor who now campaigns to end child sacrifice confessed for the first time to having murdered about 70 people, including his own son. The Ugandan government told us that human sacrifice is on the increase ...
A Decade Of High Unemployment Is Looming
The Associated Press
Call it the Terrible Teens. The decade ahead could be a brutal one for America's unemployed -- and for people with jobs hoping for pay raises. At best, it could take until the middle of the decade for the nation to generate enough jobs to drive down the unemployment rate to a normal 5 or 6 percent and keep it there. At worst, that won't happen until much later -- perhaps not until the next decade. The deepest and most enduring recession since the 1930s has battered America's work force. The unemployed number 15.4 million. The jobless rate is 10 percent. More than 7 million jobs have vanished. People out of work at least six months number a record 5.9 million. And household income, adjusted for inflation, has shrunk in the past decade.
Nazis Left Dutch Gays Untouched, Says Historian
NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands)
... In fact, very few of those people were persecuted in the Netherlands, says historian Anna Tijsseling, who obtained her doctoral degree at Utrecht University on Wednesday for her thesis Guilty Sex: Homosexual indecency offences around the German occupation. Actually, the legal prosecution of homosexuals was more intense before and immediately after the war, her research shows. Her conclusions counter the generally accepted view of Dutch homosexuals as victims of the Nazis. Tijsseling calls this image "a persistent fiction, created by the gay-emancipation movement in the 1970s."
Iran's President Calls For Compensation For Allies' World War II Invasion
Fox News
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country suffered after invasions during World War II and he will "stand to the end" to get full compensation, the Jerusalem Post reported. Ahmadinejad said he'd write to U.N. secretary General Ban Ki-moon to ask for compensation for damages caused to Iran during the war, and for use of its territory and resources by allied powers, the Post reported. Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran on August 26, 1941, to secure oil fields and supply lines for the Soviets. The Post notes the Iranians suffered when food, fuel, and other essentials were given to the invading powers.
Egypt Tombs Suggest Pyramids Not Built By Slaves
Reuters
New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday. Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts. "These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement. "If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."
China Overtakes US in Car Sales
BBC News
China has said it overtook the United States to become the world's biggest car and van market in 2009. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said 13.6 million vehicles were sold within the country last year. That compares with just over 10 million vehicles in the US, which was previously the world's largest market. Unlike the US, China's figures include heavy trucks, but they added just 650,000 to the total. That meant China was still comfortably ahead in terms of private car sales, which were 53% higher than in 2008.
America's Can't Do List
Orville Schell -- Los Angeles Times
... In China today, you feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air that, believe me, is bittersweet for an American pondering why the regenerative powers of his own country have gone missing. As I've traveled from China's gleaming, efficient airports to our often-chaotic and broken-down versions of the same, or ridden on Europe's high-speed trains that so sharply contrast with our clunky, slowly vanishing passenger rail system, I keep expanding my list of what works here at home and what doesn't ... American prowess and promise, once seemingly as much a permanent part of the global landscape as glaciers, mountains and oceans, seems to be melting away by the day, just like the great Himalayan ice fields.
Japan to Come Clean on Secret Nuke Deals With U.S.
The Associated Press
To the government's critics, it was a long and shocking act of official stonewalling: Agreements long hidden in Foreign Ministry files allowed nuclear-armed U.S. warships to enter Japanese ports, violating a hallowed principle of postwar Japan. Yet their very existence was officially denied. Now, in a clear break from the past, a new prime minister has gone where none of his predecessors dared go: He has ordered a panel of ministry officials and academics to investigate the secret agreements. The findings, due out this month, are part of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's wide-ranging campaign to wrest power from the bureaucracy and make government more open ...
US Playing Al-Qaeda's Game
William Pfaff
... The real reason for attacking Westerners in the West, or in airplanes on the way there, is to provoke the Western governments to send more Western soldiers to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere in the Muslim world to attack Muslim jihadists on the Islamists' own ground, where the latter have tactical and human advantages that Western soldiers can never overcome. Instead, attack by Western soldiers and the building of Western military bases on the soil of Muslim countries radicalize and scandalize ordinary people, and undermine the governments of those countries that choose to align themselves with the invaders -- thereby, in the eyes of Islamic true believers, revealing themselves as traitors to orthodox Muslim belief.
Hitler's Grand Error at Dunkirk: Why?
Virtue magazine
... Why the nonsensical halt order [by Hitler], when the enemy was beaten, and with no chance of stopping the powerful German army? ... But on May 24th, 1940, while the campaign was still in progression, Hitler expressed a deeper, more political motive, to members of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's staff ... "He then astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence, and of the civilization that Britain had brought into the world ... He concluded by saying that his aim was to make peace with Britain on a basis that she would regard as compatible with her honor to accept." An incredible tale, and yet, it fits with the admiration Hitler expressed for Britain in Mein Kampf. Hitler offered peace to the British twice during World War Two ...
Interviews With Some Men Who Knew Hitler
PBS television
Several prominent Germans recall Hitler, including an outstanding World War II fighter pilot. Adolf Galland relates that Hitler emphasized to him, in a private conversation, how much he detested having to fight the English, whom he admired. (Britain declared war against Germany in 1939, and rejected Hitler's repeated offers of peace.) From the PBS television series "How Hitler Lost the War." Runtime: 2:00 mins.
A `Blatantly Anti-Semitic' Exchange on C-Span
Israel National News
A caller on a C-Span [US cable television] interview program Monday complained about "all these Jews" having "way too much power" in America and pushing the U.S. into wars with the Muslim world. He found his comments echoed and expanded upon by the studio guest. Michael Scheuer, the former director of a CIA unit assigned to track down Osama Bin-Laden, calmly expressed the view that American soldiers are now dying in Iraq for the sake of Israelis. He further claimed that any debate of American support for Israel is squelched in the public sphere. The interviewer for C-Span's Washington Journal program did not react to the blatantly anti-Semitic exchange.
Myths of the American Revolution
John Ferling -- Smithsonian Magazine
We think we know the Revolutionary War. After all, the American Revolution and the war that accompanied it not only determined the nation we would become but also continue to define who we are ... Yet much of what we know is not entirely true. Perhaps more than any defining moment in American history, the War of Independence is swathed in beliefs not borne out by the facts. Here, in order to form a more perfect understanding, the most significant myths of the Revolutionary War are reassessed ... In reality, Britain might well have won the war. The battle for New York in 1776 gave England an excellent opportunity for a decisive victory. France had not yet allied with the Americans. Washington and most of his lieutenants were rank amateurs.
Murray Rothbard, 1926-1995
Mark Weber
Uncompromisingly hostile to war and war propaganda, Rothbard was one of the few who remained true to his convictions even during the stifling Cold War era. Along with Garet Garrett, John T. Flynn and Harry Elmer Barnes, he continued steadfastly to oppose the US military-industrial complex and the military adventurism that is an integral part of its "perpetual war for perpetual peace" policy. Rothbard embraced historical revisionism in all its facets, including taboo issues of the Second World War.
Israeli Officers Cancel Visit to Britain for Fear of Arrest
The Associated Press
An Israeli military delegation has canceled an official visit to Britain, officials said Tuesday, the latest in a string of politicians and army officials to put off travel to the U.K. because of fears of war crimes prosecution. Israel complained that the practice, spearheaded by pro-Palestinian activists, is harming relations, and Britain's visiting attorney general said an urgent solution must be found. The Israelis called off their trip because their British army hosts could not guarantee they would not be arrested, the Israeli officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Neither the Israeli military nor the British government would comment.
--
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The author establishes that the arguments and findings of revisionist scholars are substantive, and deserve serious consideration. He points out, for example, that even the eminent Jewish Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg acknowledged that there was no budget, plan or order by Hitler for a World War II program to exterminate Europe's Jews.
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Peace.
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
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