President Johnson, Robert McNamara, Adm. McCain (John McCain's dad) and others covered up Israel's attack on the USS Liberty, quashing any subsequent investigation. Please be sure and read all this so you'll know the facts of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty and subsequent activities..................r o n
Dear All,
Let's show some support to Eric (a personal friend of mine) for writing this fine book-- but it will be money well spent, believe me. It is a very enjoyable read and on every page you learn about ten to twenty new things you did not know about geopolitics. There may be a few interpretations that can be quibbled with, but overall he presents such a thorough and original synthesis of information that it never gets off track in any one direction.
BUY THIS BOOK DON'T BURN IT!
Thanks, Rw
Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games by Eric Walberg
http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Imperialism-Geopolitics-Great-Games/dp/098335393X
Since the time I wrote my review of Eric's book, I noticed that I should not have panned the second chapter as I did because I learned a lot
of neat new stuff.
* For example, I did not know the extent that reactionary fundamentalist Islam was created by the US foreign policy through the CIA
in conjunction with the Saudis. Reactionary/radical/fundamentalist Islam was nurtured and created as a temporary bulwark against "communism" and used as a weapon against any independent development (outside US hegemony). Everyone had heard that the CIA created Usama bin Ladin and Al Queda, but the roots of this operation go back to the 1950s. The cynicism with which this was carried out and the present day bald faced hypocrisy for the US to now blame all the world's troubles on Muslims is so far beyond the pale that you might as well go to another galaxy.
* His book also answered a question I had always had about why there was so much killing in Iraq after the 2003 invasion and occupation. In a nutshell, the US set up death-squads to insure the population would not support the resistance. So, a great deal of the post invasion chaos was directly due to covert US/Israeli involvement.
* Color Revolutions: There has been a debate as to whether the "Arab Spring" is genuine or engineered by the CIA/Soros color revolution play book. Eric's review of this topic is very educational and he claims that in the case of Egypt, although there may have been a hand or two in manipulating the event, overall it is a genuine revolution that has surprised the West and Israel. As my journalist friend Jeff Blankfort wrote to me on the topic:
As for the uprising being a Zionist operation, I say no way. Israel has spent a lot of energy keeping Egypt in line and while Israel always needs enemies it doesn't need that one any more than it needs Turkey to turn its back. Israel is being run by an Israeli version of the T Party and is on the path of self-destruction. The idea that it would be able to initiate uprisings anywhere is ludicrous, particularly when it had nothing to benefit from doing so.
~~~
My review of
Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics And The Great Games by Eric Walberg
Dissident Voice
http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/08/might-makes-wrong/
Al Jazeerah
http://www.ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2011/August/9%20o/Postmodern%20Imperialism,%20Geopolitics%20And%20The%20Great%20Games%20By%20Eric%20Walberg,%20a%20Book%20Review%20By%20Richard%20Wilcox.htm
----
http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Imperialism-Geopolitics-Great-Games/dp/098335393X
A Great Book on the Great Game!, July 21, 2011
By Kevin J. Barrett (deep in the Wisconsin woods) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games (Paperback)
Walberg's Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games is the best introduction to geopolitics that I have seen. Walberg begins by citing such classic theoreticians as Mackinder, Haushofer and Ratzel in his description of how the imperial center drains the resources of its periphery, and how the earth's geography has dictated a struggle between Eurasian land powers (Russia, China, Germany, Islamdom ) and maritime rimlands (US, Britain, Japan) in which the latter are generally the aggressors -- though you wouldn't know that from their propaganda, which is probably all you ever see if you live in the West.
Walberg traces the evolution of Great Game I (pre-Russian revolution) into Great Game II (the Cold War era) and finally Great Game III (today's US-British-Israeli war for world conquest). Unlike the functional psychopaths who dominate in Political Science departments and policy-making positions, Walberg never loses sight of the almost unimaginable depravity of the whole enterprise, and the tidal wave of human suffering in which imperialism has nearly drowned the world.
What makes Walberg's book a real stand-out -- and what probably made it unpublishable by the major corporate houses -- is his honest analysis of the way the hardline Likudnik Zionists have seized power and dominated Great Game III. Though Walberg does not come right out and say that 9/11 was staged by the Mossad as a Zionist coup d'état, that is the unstated implication of the picture he paints, in which Zionist interests in destabilization and sheer mindless destruction of their Islamic enemies have trumped US interests in stabilizing and exploiting the Islamic rimlands. He hints at this in his introduction when he describes watching 9/11 on TV from Tashkent: "My immediate reaction was that their (the Twin Towers') collapse simply could not be the work of a band of poorly-trained Muslims orchestrated by someone in a cave in neighboring Afghanistan. Subsequent study has confirmed to me that the events of 2001 had far more to do with US imperialism --and Israel--than Islam." (p. 16)
Walberg's exemplary honesty extends to his discussion of the role of Jewish financiers in the creation of the British-American empires, in which the real power resides with bankers, not governments, and the way those same financial powers have established the "postmodern imperialism" of Great Game III: "The importance of the financial world and its use as parapolitics to the game strategy in Great Game III...like the importance of the Rothschilds to the strategies of Great Games I and II, cannot be overestimated. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was initially viewed and continues to be seen by many as the program of an emancipated nineteenth century Jewish financial elite using Freemasonry as a vehicle to achieve world power. The worth of the Protocols is not assessed here. It is enough to trace the development of the politics of Zionism from attributable sources and to observe the moves it gives rise to." (p. 178). While the usual suspects will undoubted call him names, I think Walberg considerably understates the case. If, in fact, the Protocols were real, the actual, documented psychopathic viciousness and mendacity of Zionism would make their authors seem relatively benign by comparison.
Along the way, Walberg bravely voices the obvious but taboo answer to the question: Why in the world did the British, the world's greatest empire, give away Palestine to the Zionists? What was the quid-pro-quo? The answer, as everyone knows but as very few are brave enough to say out loud, is as follows:
"The promise of a Jewish state in Palestine was a direct result of Zionist lobbying of both the British and Germans as World War I dragged on. Jewish bankers were financing both sides in World War I. Rothschild and the Jewish Conjoint Foreign Committee (JCFC) lobbied the British government intensely during World War I to push for a commitment to a post-war Jewish state. As British fortunes ebbed, the JCFC assured Lord Robert Cecil that American Zionists would lobby for US entry into the war if the British were to promise a Jewish state in Palestine after the war."
In other words, the Zionists were responsible for the slaughter of the 117,465 Americans killed, and the 205,690 Americans wounded, in that utterly meaningless (for the US) war. Compared to the Zionist slaughter of Americans in World War I, the 1967 USS Liberty incident (34 killed, 170 wounded) and the Israeli-Zionist attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11/2001 (2,977 killed immediately, untold thousands wounded and killed by toxic dust, and more than 7,500 dead in the 9/11 wars) were small stuff.
Another potentially controversial bit of truth-telling is Walberg's discussion of the does-the-tail-wag-the-dog debates (p. 214 - 219). His conclusion is that yes, the Israeli tail does wag the American imperial dog, and more and more people are figuring this out. Walberg cites Anatole Lieven's argument that Israel offered the US strategic advantages during the Cold War, but has since become "a very serious strategic liability...This is not a case of the tail wagging the dog, but of the tail wagging the unfortunate dog around the room and banging its head against the ceiling." (p.218).
One of my favorite publishers, Margo Baldwin of Chelsea Green, told me during our radio interview that the biggest taboo in American publishing is criticism of Israel. I hope that the brave folks at Clarity Press continue to bust that taboo, and that Walberg's brilliant Postmodern Imperialism follows the path blazed by James Petras's The Power of Israel in the United States (which has now gone through seven printings) to become an underground bestseller.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-911-files/911-in-plane-site.html
+++
Fun stuff to read, tell and watch:
Now FREE to watch all 91 minutes: "Defamation," from Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. LINK: http://tinyurl.com/3rvhdvc
Some of His Best Friends Are Jewish: The Saga of a Holocaust Revisionist By Nathaniel Popper. Link: http://tinyurl.com/3v6m88c
...an Israeli lawyer has filed a class-action lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter, seeking $5 million in damages because his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" allegedly defamed Israel. Link: http://tinyurl.com/3pltqg2
"...when you have laws against questioning the Holocaust narrative, you are screaming at the other person to stop thinking!!!" ---Mike Santomauro. *Anthony Lawson's Holocaust Video "were the Germans so stupid"... Link: http://tinyurl.com/44nsrco
An anti-Semite condemns people for being Jews, I am not an anti-Semite.--Mike Santomauro. Link: http://tinyurl.com/42z9p8o
Start reading DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST in under a minute: http://tinyurl.com/3f8h874
Peace.
Mike Santomauro
Editorial Director
ReporterNotebook@gmail.com
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
| Lessons of Nine Eleven Mark Weber  ... The perpetrators of the Nine Eleven attacks meant to harm the United States. But the response to those attacks by President George W. Bush and other American political leaders has proven to be even more harmful. The U.S. response has weakened this country's security, undermined its economy, degraded its standing and credibility, and violated the principles it claims to uphold ... The calamity of September 11 was a consequence, above all, of the Jewish-Zionist grip on American political life and the U.S. media. Enduring security will therefore remain elusive as long as U.S. policy, especially in the Middle East, is set by a small but very influential minority with its own agenda and strong ethno-religious ties to a key protagonist in the region. A Ten-Year Reckoning Philip Giraldi This weekend will mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the day that changed the United States forever ... The U.S. imperial project of the past ten years has killed as many as one million people while displacing millions of others, has nearly bankrupted the United States with major costs still to come, has rendered the world even more unstable than it was in 2001, and has made Washington hated by nearly everyone nearly everywhere. It is difficult to find a plus side to all the activity unless one is a defense contractor or a government employee, because all the fun has also grown the government into a Leviathan ... Everything has gone wrong, and it all started with 9/11. Charles Lindbergh: A Courageous American's Prophetic Voice Mark Weber  ... During his lifetime he made a mark not only as a pioneering global aviator, but also as an award-winning author, environmentalist and anti-war activist. Given the scarcity of truly heroic Americans during the past century, he towers as a man of exemplary accomplishment and courage. He deserves to be remembered today not only as an authentic American hero, but also because much of what he wrote and said is relevant in our own age. Indeed, some of his remarks have proven to be prophetic. Former US Government Scientist Admits Spying for Israel BBC News  A former government scientist charged with attempting to sell technology secrets to Israel has confessed to one count of attempted espionage. Stewart Nozette is expected to serve a sentence of 13 years in prison after making a plea deal with prosecutors. He has been in jail since his arrest in 2009 after a sting operation by an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer. Nozette, 54, was accused of seeking millions of dollars to sell secrets ... The former scientist's top-secret knowledge reportedly covers America's nuclear missile programme. Christian Zionism Mark Weber - Podcast  The fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant Christians in the US who fervently embrace Israel are the single most important block of non-Jewish American supporters of the Zionist state and its policies. But few of these "Christian Zionists" realize just what an odd minority they are among the world's Christians, and how out of step their views are with traditional Christian principles. Christian Zionists reject the ethical values of Jesus as laid out in the Gospels, and betray fellow Christians in Palestine who are victims of Israeli dispossession and oppression. New Revelations Prompt US-Israeli Diplomatic Storm The Independent (Britain)  A court case against a translator who leaked US government secrets was conducted in secret because it centred on the revelation that the FBI had eavesdropped on Israeli embassy phone calls, it was revealed yesterday ... Leibowitz passed him about 200 pages of verbatim records of phone calls and conversations between embassy officials, saying that he believed the documents revealed Israeli officials trying unlawfully to influence US policy and edging towards military action against Iran ... In addition to the prosecutions, the Obama administration classified more than 77 million government documents last year, a one-year increase of 40 per cent. US Eavesdropping on Israeli Embassy in Washington Revealed The New York Times When Shamai K. Leibowitz, an F.B.I. translator, was sentenced to 20 months in prison last year for leaking classified information to a blogger, prosecutors revealed little about the case ... The reason for the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the Obama administration's first prosecution for leaking information to the news media seems clear: Mr. Leibowitz, a contract Hebrew translator, passed on secret transcripts of conversations caught on F.B.I. wiretaps of the Israeli Embassy in Washington ... Former counterintelligence officials describe Israeli intelligence operations in the United States as quite extensive, ranking just below those of China and Russia, and F.B.I. counterintelligence agents have long kept an eye on Israeli spying. Comparing Economic Output of US States With Countries The Economist (Britain)  Which countries match the GDP and population of America's states? / It has long been true that California on its own would rank as one of the biggest economies of the world. These days, it would rank eighth, falling between Italy and Brazil on a nominal exchange-rate basis. But how do other American states compare with other countries? Taking the nearest equivalent country from 2009 data reveals some surprises. Who would have thought that, despite years of auto-industry hardship, the economy of Michigan is still the same size as Taiwan's? Europe's Rights Chief Decries EU Complicity With US War Crimes The Associated Press  Europe's human rights chief launched a blistering attack Thursday on European governments' counterterrorism actions, accusing them of helping the United States commit "countless" crimes in the past ten years. The ten-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is an occasion to analyze whether the official responses have been proper and effective, said Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's rights commissioner. "In attempting to combat crimes attributed to terrorists, countless further crimes have been committed in the course of the US-led 'global war on terror,'" he said in a statement. Some 9/11 Charities Failed Miserably The Associated Press Americans eager to give after the 9/11 terrorist attacks poured $1.5 billion into hundreds of charities established to serve the victims, their families and their memories. But a decade later, an Associated Press investigation shows that many of those nonprofits have failed miserably. There are those that spent huge sums on themselves, those that cannot account for the money they received, those that have few results to show for their spending and those that have yet to file required income tax returns. Yet many of the charities continue to raise money in the name of Sept. 11. Secret of the Lusitania: World War I Deceit Revealed Daily Mail (Britain)  Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War. But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915. Munitions they found in the hold suggest that the Germans had been right all along in claiming the ship was carrying war materials and was a legitimate military target ... Winston Churchill, who was first Lord of the Admiralty and has long been suspected of knowing more about the circumstances of the attack than he let on in public, wrote in a confidential letter shortly before the sinking that some German submarine attacks were to be welcomed. He said: "It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the U.S. with Germany." Polish-Jewish Sociologist Compares West Bank Separation Fence to Warsaw Ghetto Walls Haaretz (Israel)  Sygmunt Bauman, the Jewish sociologist and one of the greatest philosophers of our time, castigated Israel harshly this week, saying it did not want peace and was afraid of it. Bauman said Israel was "taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts," and compared the separation fence to the walls surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the Holocaust. In a long interview to the important Polish weekly "Politika," Bauman said Israel was not interested in peace. You Know Harry: The Third Man Joseph Sobran  For my money, the greatest movie ever made is The Third Man ... There really are people like Harry in this world. He may remind you of a certain politician of similar personality: charming, cunning, ruthless, knowing all the angles, profoundly self-centered and treacherous, yet somehow able to retain the loyalty even of people he has deceived and betrayed. Evil doesn't usually appear with horns and cleft hooves. Often it comes with a winning smile, an exaggerated warmth, an offhand joke, and an offer that's hard to refuse. Robert Gates Says Israel Is an Ungrateful Ally Jeffrey Goldberg - Bloomberg  ... It was Robert M. Gates, the now-retired secretary of defense, who seemed most upset with Netanyahu. In a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee held not long before his retirement this summer, Gates coldly laid out the many steps the administration has taken to guarantee Israel's security -- access to top- quality weapons, assistance developing missile-defense systems, high-level intelligence sharing -- and then stated bluntly that the U.S. has received nothing in return, particularly with regard to the peace process ... Gates argued to the president directly that Netanyahu is not only ungrateful, but also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel's growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank. Whose Congress and State Department? Phillip Giraldi ... America will someday have to figure what its genuine interests might be and act accordingly after the soldiers and money run out. Then it will be lights out for international regime-change, democracy-promotion, nation-building, and peace-processing. Two recent news stories relate to the United States government and how it has been corrupted by its deference to Israel and wasted tax dollars pandering to the Lobby, almost as if it cannot help itself ... Thanks to Hillary Clinton, it [MEMRI] is now being funded by the United States government to begin a hunt for anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers worldwide. It will certainly find them, even if it has to be inventive to do so. London No Longer An English City, Says John Cleese Daily Mail (Britain)  Mass immigration has turned London into a city that is 'no longer English', John Cleese claims. The former Monty Python star says he now feels like a foreigner walking through the capital's streets. ... "I'm not sure what's going on in Britain. Or, let me say this - I don't know what's going on in London, because London is no longer an English city. That's how we got the Olympics. They said we were the most cosmopolitan city on Earth. But it doesn't feel English." Hitler's `Eagles Nest' Café Is Surprise Tourist Attraction Daily Mail (Britain)  The dark allure of Adolf Hitler has turned his tea house at the top of a Bavarian mountain into one of the most visited sites in Germany. Tourism authorities announced that over 300,000 people visited the retreat on the peak of the Kehlstein mountain which was built for him as a 50th birthday gift by Nazi party secretary Martin Bormann in 1939. This is nearly 30,000 up on last year. Although Hitler's Berghof home on the mountain was destroyed by the Allies in bombing raids and after WW2, the tea house survived to become a tourism magnet in peacetime. Officials said that most visitors to the mountain are Americans followed by Britons. Turkey Expels Israeli Ambassador Over Gaza Flotilla Row BBC News Turkey has expelled Israel's ambassador and suspended all military agreements over its refusal to apologize for last year's raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. This came as the UN published a report saying that Israeli commandos used excessive force when they boarded an aid ship. Nine Turkish activists died. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was "time Israel pays a price for its illegal actions". Israel has refused to apologize and said its troops acted in self-defence. Turkey Does the Right Thing Prof. Lawrence Davidson ... The Israelis define all acts of resistance to their aggression as attacks which require their defending themselves. The Mavi Marmara action fits neatly into this Zionist world of peculiar logic. In this sense, they turn the world upside down ... Not only do the Israelis disregard international law, be on the high seas, in the maintenance of the obscene ghetto of Gaza, or through their colonial impositions in the West Bank, but they assiduously seduce others to support their criminal behavior anywhere and everywhere they have lobby influence. Everywhere they go they are the poor victims who need carte blanche to protect themselves. They are the victims who victimize others in the name of self-defense. Likelihood of War in Middle East Is Growing, Says Israeli General Ynet News (Israel)  Recent revolutions in the Arab world and the deteriorating ties with Turkey are raising the likelihood of a regional war in the Middle East, IDF Home Front Command Chief, Major General Eyal Eisenberg warned Monday. "It looks like the Arab Spring, but it can also be a radical Islamic winter," he said in a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "This leads us to the conclusion that through a long-term process, the likelihood of an all-out war is increasingly growing," the IDF general said. ... Referring to what he characterized as the possibility of a "radical Islamic winter," Major-General Eisenberg said: "This raises the likelihood of an all-out, total war, with the possibility of weapons of mass destruction being used." The Vast and Expansive US Secret Army The Washington Post The CIA's armed drones and paramilitary forces have killed dozens of al-Qaeda leaders and thousands of its foot soldiers. But there is another mysterious organization that has killed even more of America's enemies in the decade since the 9/11 attacks. CIA operatives have imprisoned and interrogated nearly 100 suspected terrorists in their former secret prisons around the world, but troops from this other secret organization have imprisoned and interrogated ten times as many, holding them in jails that it alone controls in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, this secretive group of men (and a few women) has grown tenfold while sustaining a level of obscurity that not even the CIA managed. The CIA Rendition Flight Network The Guardian (Britain) Global map shows extent to which US intelligence was able to pick up and transport suspects with ease and send them to 'black sites' where many of them faced torture. Gaddafi Regime's US-Britain Spy Links Revealed BBC News US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi's former spy chief. The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli. The UK's MI6 also apparently gave the Gaddafi regime details of dissidents. China's High Speed Rail System CNN  As our train raced through the familiar scenery of rural and small-town China on this sunny Monday morning -- alternating between green farmland and red tiled-roofs, my Chinese seatmate proudly pointed to a coffee cup on the tray table. "Look, it's not moving at all," he said. "Impressive, isn't it?" An amazingly smooth ride indeed -- considering we were traveling at 300 kilometers (186 miles) an hour, more than double the average speed of America's fastest train. The shiny CRH380 model we rode serves the new 1,318-kilometer (819-mile) Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway -- completed in just three years ... Did Jefferson Father His Slave's Son? New Study Shows Father Was Actually the President's Brother Daily Mail (Britain)  One of America's most famous historical figures who wrote the Declaration of Independence might not have fathered his slave's children after all. It had been believed for more than a decade that former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson fathered his slave Sally Hemings's youngest son, Eston. But DNA evidence that showed a Jefferson male fathered the boy actually suggests Mr Jefferson's brother Randolph was the dad, a new book says. It's an important debate because of America's history of slavery and race - and Mr Jefferson's controversial ownership of slaves. The scholars' book also disputes beliefs that Ms Hemings's children received special treatment from the president, which suggested a special bond with the president. Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Hemings Myth Mark Weber Probably the most notorious accusation against Thomas Jefferson is the persistent allegation that he secretly took a mulatto slave named Sally Hemings (or Hemmings) as a mistress, and fathered several children by her.... To those who knew Jefferson, his high moral standards and his deep devotion to his dead wife's memory, the entire story was absurd and contemptible. Nevertheless, it soon gained widespread circulation and many believers. US Medical Experiments in 1940s Guatemala Killed 83 The Telegraph (Britain)  At least 83 people died in US medical experiments in Guatemala during the 1940s involving sexually transmitted diseases, a commission investigating the program concluded on Monday. Nearly 5,500 people were subjected to diagnostic testing, and more than 1,300 were exposed to venereal diseases by contact or inoculations, the commission found. Within that group, "we believe that there were 83 deaths," said commission member Stephen Hauser. Among the 1,300 exposed to STDs, "under 700 received some form of treatment as best as could be documented," Hauser added. Ministry of Illusion?: Film in the Third Reich Lyle Burkheard  ... I can only conclude that the Third Reich was almost the opposite of what everybody thinks it was. That's the only way to make sense of these movies. ... These movies are a window into Nazi Germany as the Germans themselves experienced it. They gave me a rare opportunity to see beyond the stereotypes and get a look at life is it was lived at that time. The Nazi Germany of our imagination has very little to do with the Nazi Germany that actually existed. I have been laboring under the same misconceptions as everybody else. Deceit, Propaganda and Journalism in the World Wars Mark Weber -- Podcast  A look at lies and deceit in the two world wars. Fantastic stories about German atrocities in World War I were promoted to mobilize public opinion in the US, Britain and France. In World War II, the disastrous British evacuation of Dunkirk was portrayed as a great success. Another durable propaganda myth is the story of "merciless" German bombing of Coventry. Actually, it was the British who first began indiscriminate bombing of civilians. As historian Phillip Knightley points out, German news reports about the war were generally more accurate and reliable than those of the Allies. Leaked US Documents Confirm Dangers of Israeli Organized Crime Ali Abunimah  Known Israeli organized crime bosses are able to travel feely to the United States, unlike counterparts from Italy, China and Central America, because the State Department has failed to apply US law to them ... This revelation comes in a May 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv titled "Israel: A Promised Land for Organized Crime?" The cable, which was released by Wikileaks on August 26, details the growing alarm of American officials that "Organized crime in Israel now has global reach, with direct impact inside the United States." Israel, according to the cable, is a world center of money laundering, drug trafficking, and trafficking in women for prostitution; and Israeli crime families operate international criminal syndicates involved in gambling, credit card and technology fraud spanning the globe. Famous London Wax Museum Puts Guard Next to Hitler Figure The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  The British capital's famous waxwork museum Madame Tussauds has been forced to employ a guard to stop visitors making Nazi salutes next to a waxwork of Hitler. It comes after the museum was forced to apologize to an Israeli family who contacted them last month to express their dismay after seeing visitors performing Nazi salutes for photos with the wax model. First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions in Secret Bailouts Inter Press Service  The first-ever audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve has revealed 16 trillion dollars in secret bank bailouts and has raised more questions about the quasi-private agency's opaque operations. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else," U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said in a statement ... In recent days, 'Bloomberg News' obtained 29,346 pages of documentation from the Federal Reserve about some of these secret loans, after months of fighting in court for access to the records under the Freedom of Information Act. Unpopular 'No Child' Law Leaves Many Students Behind Star Tribune (Minneapolis)  Nearly a decade after Congress enacted the No Child Left Behind Act, a sweeping mandate to ramp up standards and accountability in the nation's public schools, more than a third of black, Latino and Native American students in Minneapolis public schools don't graduate, records show. On state test scores, the district hasn't budged the needle on No Child Left Behind's central goals, which target the achievement gap that separates white and nonwhite students and disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. In fact, the chasm on state test scores has widened as Minneapolis' white students continue to outperform their peers around the state. Life Magazine Prepares Americans for War Life magazine (1938)  Ten months before the outbreak of war in Europe, the most influential US illustrated weekly magazine was psychologically preparing Americans for war with alarmist claims that Germany threatened the United States. This major article in the October 31, 1938, issue of Life magazine, headlined "America Gets Ready to Fight Germany, Italy, Japan," told readers that Germany and Italy "covet ... the rich resources of South America," and warned that "fascist fleets and legions may swarm across the Atlantic." In fact, at the time Hitler and all other high-level German officials fervently sought to avoid any conflict with the US, Britain or France. But President Franklin Roosevelt was secretly pushing for war. In September 1939 Britain and France -- encouraged by the US -- declared war against Germany. Melbourne, Vienna, Vancouver Top List of Most Livable Cities BBC News  The Australian city of Melbourne has beaten Canada's Vancouver to the title of world's most liveable city for the first time in almost a decade. Vancouver has topped the annual Global Liveability Survey since 2002, but this year fell to third behind Vienna. Overall, Australian and Canadian cities did well, capturing seven of the top ten spots. Harare, Port Moresby and Dhaka occupied the bottom of the table. The cities were assessed in five categories - stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. From Motown to Ghost Town: Detroit's Long, Slow Road to Ruin Peter Hitchens -- Daily Mail (Britain)  This was once the capital city of capitalism, the great roaring furnace at the very centre of America's rise to world power and greatness ... Most of the great buildings are ghosts: hotels that haven't seen a guest in years, department stores where the last customer left decades ago, abandoned dentists' surgeries where the elaborate Forties chairs moulder in echoing solitude. Where there was optimism, there is now nothing but melancholy ... For more than two centuries, America balanced on top of a wave of growth and power like a triumphant surf rider. Now she wallows in decline and the rest of us wait to see what that will bring. American Hellholes The Economic Collapse The US economy is dying and we are heading for the next Great Depression. The talking heads in the mainstream media love to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn't take a genius to see what is happening to the US economic system. All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the "rust belt" and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes. Britain's MI5 Agency Told Blair Iraq Was No Threat to UK The Telegraph (Britain)  Britain faced no threat from Iraq when Tony Blair decided to take the country to war, the head of MI5 at the time of the invasion has declared / Baroness Manningham-Buller disclosed that she had warned the then Labour Prime Minister that the UK would be at greater risk of terrorist attacks if he pursued military action against Saddam Hussein's regime. The former director general of the domestic security service, who retired in 2007, described the Iraq conflict as a "distraction" from efforts to tackle al Qaida and warned that more terrorist attacks on British soil seemed likely. Obama's Race-Based Spoils System Patrick J. Buchanan ... A racial spoils system in federal hiring and promotions has been imposed by Democratic presidents, unresisted by Republicans who rarely exhibit the courage to stand up for their principles when the subject is race. A week ago, an item buried in The Washington Post reported that Obama had "issued an executive order requiring government agencies to develop plans for improving federal workforce diversity." Obama, wrote Isaac Arnsdorf, is targeting "a problem that has been on the administration's radar. Whites still hold more than 81 percent of senior pay-level positions." Did Spielberg Get Megan Fox Fired For Hitler Comment? MSNBC  Megan Fox should have stuck to the script. When the actress said director Michael Bay "wants to be like Adolf Hitler" in an interview, she may have angered someone other than the Transformers auteur. Like Steven Spielberg. Bay says it was Spielberg -- the Schindler's List director and founder of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute -- who objected the most strenuously to the insult, according to an inteview with The Daily Mail. Rick Perry and the Neocons Philip Giraldi The only change anyone can believe in in Washington is that nothing ever changes. The choice between Republican and Democrat in 2012 will likely boil down to who will be making what kind of cuts in social programs to support continuous warfare overseas ... The fact is, apart from Paul, all of the Republican candidates, like President Barack Obama, support a strong and assertive U.S. military and intelligence presence worldwide. Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up Alison Weir  ... No other lobby on behalf of a foreign country comes anywhere near controlling such wealth or taking so many of America's elected representatives on a propaganda trip to its favorite country ... The staffer said that the Israel Lobby is far too powerful to ignore and that American voters have no knowledge of what's going on. It's no surprise that voters are unaware that their representatives are being propagandized and pressured by a foreign lobby. Their news media almost never tells them. Another Big Lincoln Lie Exposed Thomas Di Lorenzo  ... These are the words of the real Lincoln, who was as much a white supremacist as any man of his time. In fact, he was a much more extreme white supremacist than most, for he advocated "colonization" or the deportation of black people from America for his entire adult life ... Based on newly-rediscovered documents in the American and British National Archives, including letters signed by Lincoln himself, these researchers have established that Lincoln continued to pursue colonization right up to the days before his assassination, when he discussed plans with General Benjamin Butler to deport the freed slaves. Shattering Lincoln's Dream Joseph Sobran ... Lincoln, we should also remember, was a passionate segregationist, a fact Krannawitter barely touches on, though it might interest our new President to know that the Great Emancipator's preferred solution was to abolish slavery and to remove all "free colored persons" from the United States. In 1862 he proposed an amendment that would authorize Congress to pay for this huge project. True Cost of Afghan, Iraq Wars Is Anyone's Guess McClatchy Newspapers  ... There's also a more fundamental problem: It's almost impossible to pin down just what the U.S. military spends on war. To be sure, the costs are staggering. According to Defense Department figures, by the end of April the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- including everything from personnel and equipment to training Iraqi and Afghan security forces and deploying intelligence-gathering drones -- had cost an average of $9.7 billion a month, with roughly two-thirds going to Afghanistan. That total is roughly the entire annual budget for the Environmental Protection Agency. Growing US National Debt Burden US Debt Clock A sobering overview of the US financial crisis. US Becoming a `Food Stamp Nation' Reuters ... Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses. At the same time, the cost doubled to reach $68 billion in 2010 - more than a third of the amount the U.S. government received in corporate income tax last year - which means the program has started to attract the attention of some Republican lawmakers looking for ways to cut the nation's budget deficit. The 'Knockout Game': Racial Violence and Media Silence John T. Bennett -- American Thinker ... Most Americans have heard of recent violent "flash mobs," which are the bands of black teens that attack mostly white victims and white businesses, as even The New York Times once noted. But the flash mobs, which are more accurately called "race riots" or "racial mob violence," are not the only interesting topic to cover in our national conversation about race. There is also the "knockout game," which is stunning in its brutal simplicity and stark racial significance. ... Local media outlets have failed to report on the racial aspect of the attacks. At best, the media will allow the race of attackers to be revealed by mugshots, or quotations from police or victims. This follows a conscious policy of self-censorship that has been openly admitted by major newspapers. Second-Largest US Indian Tribe Expels Slave Descendents Reuters  The nation's second-largest Indian tribe formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners. The Cherokee nation voted after the Civil War to admit the slave descendants to the tribe. But on Monday, the Cherokee nation Supreme Court ruled that a 2007 tribal decision to kick the so-called "Freedmen" out of the tribe was proper ... The move to exclude the Freedmen has rankled some African American members of Congress, which has jurisdiction over all Native American tribes in the country. Something Rotten This Way Comes Philip Giraldi The issue of Israel is of critical importance to the antiwar movement, as frequenters of this website are surely aware ... I really don't care what America's hypocritical evangelicals do except insofar as they waste my tax money on their divinely sanctioned wars and demand my grandson for cannon fodder. The fact that they ignore Christian teachings of love and forgiveness and seem to gravitate instead towards Old Testament bloodshed because of their skewed and ridiculous interpretation of what they think it says in the bible is a symptom of their ignorance and hubris. British Minister Backs Down After Accusing Israelis of `Land Grab' The Telegraph (Britain)  The international development minister, Alan Duncan, has been forced to remove a video from a government website in which he accused Israelis of a "land grab" in the middle-east, after protests from Jewish leaders. Mr Duncan, Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, also accused Israeli settlers of "deliberately" taking water away from the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Board of Deputies of British Jews criticised Mr Duncan for his remarks about Israel's controversial security wall while the Israeli Embassy appeared to question whether the minister was suitable as a spokesman for the UK government. Racist Comments on Internet Could Become illegal TV One News (New Zealand) Denying there was a holocaust and posting racist comments online could become illegal if New Zealand signs up to an international treaty. Adopting the Europe Cybercrime Convention is up for consideration in Police Minister Judith Collins' three-year plan to stamp out organised crime. The convention criminalises "the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material" on the internet. Archaeologists Discover Roman Port in Wales The Guardian (Britain) Archaeologists have discovered only the second known port of Roman Britain, where soldiers would have arrived in numbers from the Mediterranean to aid in the fight against some of the most stubborn and hostile of all the tribes they had to face. Over the last year, archaeologists have been digging near the Roman fortress of Caerleon, just north of Newport, south Wales, and have made some remarkable discoveries. On Tuesday, the site was declared the only known Roman British port outside London. Guam Could `Tip Over and Capsize,' Says US Congressman The Hill - The Washington Scene  Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is afraid that the U.S. Territory of Guam is going to "tip over and capsize" due to overpopulation. Johnson expressed his worries during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the defense budget Thursday. Addressing Adm. Robert Willard, who commands the Navy's Pacific Fleet, Johnson made a tippy motion with his hands and said sternly, "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize." Willard paused and said: "We don't anticipate that." Israeli Rabbinical Court Orders Woman Jailed For Refusing to Accept Divorce Haaretz (Israel) In a rare move, the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court ordered a 59-year-old woman jailed this week for refusing for 15 years to accept a ritual divorce from her husband and release him from their marriage. Disputes over refusals to grant a get, or Jewish religious separation, are common, but usually involve a husband holding back the bill of divorce, making this a rare case. The woman, who lives in the center of the country, is refusing to accept the divorce from her husband because of an ongoing property dispute between the two. Holocaust Is `Big Lie' To Justify Israel, Says Iran President Ahmadinejad DPA Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that the Holocaust was a "big lie" used to justify establishment of the state of Israel. "The Zionist regime's establishment was based on numerous deceptions and lies and one of the biggest lies was the Holocaust," Ahmadinejad said in a speech after an anti-Israeli rally in Tehran and other Iranian cities ... The international isolation of the Islamic republic escalated after Ahmadinejad held a Holocaust conference in 2006 in which he questioned whether the killing of six million Jews in Europe during World War II actually happened. Is Democracy as We Know It on Its Way Out? Frank Viviano -- New America Media  Is Western democracy coming apart at the seams? A decade ago, only paranoid alarmists would have posed that question. Today, it may be an expression of cold, brutal realism. On both sides of the Atlantic -- from the fires that raged in large stretches of London, to the political chicanery that brought the U.S. economy to its knees in early August -- the institutional framework that came to define modern democracy in the 19th century is in deep trouble ... Faith in elected leaders and legislatures, the central and defining institutions of democracy, has never been lower. According to the Pew Research Center, the proportion of the U.S. public expressing trust in the federal government has fallen from just under 80 per cent in the late 1960s to barely 20 per cent today. Texas Gov. Perry Abuses His Office for Israel Philip Giraldi  ... Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has yet to declare his candidacy but who is seen by many as a potential front-runner, is apparently also sharpening his foreign policy credentials. And he is doing it in the traditional way by cozying up to the Israel Lobby ... When a government believes itself to be empowered to go after its own people on trumped-up charges, watch out. When it does so on behalf of a foreign government, all kinds of warning flags should be going up. That no one in the media or punditry seems to care is a tribute to the grip that Israel and its friends have over politics in the United States. Ads Calling For End To US Aid to Israel Now on San Francisco Cable Cars Henry Norr - Mondoweiss  A new series of ads calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel now greets commuters, tourists, students, and shoppers traveling on the San Francisco Bay Area's public transit systems. The ads, part of a growing national campaign, went up this week on the Powell Street cable car, a popular tourist attraction in downtown San Francisco; in three of the busiest stations on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) - San Francisco's Civic Center, 12th St. Oakland, and Downtown Berkeley; and on the Muni level of the Embarcadero station in San Francisco. Next week the same ad will be posted in the 16th St./ Mission station in San Francisco. Australia Prosecutor Says Greens' Israel Boycott is `Anti-Semitic' The Australian NSW [state] Attorney-General Greg Smith has accused the Greens of echoing the worst aspects of historical anti-Semitism in Europe in their bid to ban economic, sporting and cultural contacts with Israel. In a speech at Sydney University today, Mr Smith will argue the party's support for the BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions] campaign reveals "an ugly underbelly of the Australian Greens' agenda" ... Nationals senator Ron Boswell yesterday accused the Greens of trying to justify a "blatantly anti-Semitic boycott" of Max Brenner stores as part of a global protest aimed at Israel. Munich Still Haunted by Nazi-Era Buildings The Telegraph (Britain)  ... Near the information board on Arcistrasse is the Munich Conservatoire, which I have driven by many times looking for a parking place, not knowing it was previously the Führerbau, the building housing Hitler's offices, built by the architect Paul Ludwig Troost between 1933 and 1937 ... I then turned left into Karlstrasse, where the buildings that housed the offices of the Hitler Youth remain intact. The building housing the Reich's Press Office remains too, now premises of the Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Further on, modern offices stand where other Nazi institutions once stood. Turning north to Karolinenplatz, I saw the former offices of the Nazis' supreme court, today the administration building of the Bavarian State Lottery. IKEA Founder's Nazi Ties Highlighted in New Book BBC News  The founder of the Ikea furniture chain, Ingvar Kamprad, is facing further questions about his Nazi past following claims in a new book. Author Elisabeth Asbrink says Mr Kamprad was an active recruiter for a Swedish Nazi group, and stayed close to sympathisers well after World War II. The details go beyond what Mr Kamprad has previously admitted. The Swedish billionaire has said his involvement was youthful "stupidity", and the "greatest mistake" of his life. In her book, Ms Asbrink says Mr Kamprad actively recruited people to the fascist Sweden's Socialist Union (SSS). She says the activity prompted security police to set up a file on him in 1943 when he was 17 - the same year that he founded Ikea. 'Jewish Indiana Jones' Charged In Torah Fraud Case The Associated Press  A Jewish charity co-founder who claimed he crisscrossed the globe rescuing Torahs as a "Jewish Indiana Jones" surrendered Wednesday to face mail and wire fraud charges after authorities said he duped benefactors by fabricating dramatic stories about sometimes dangerous trips, including to concentration camp sites in Poland and Germany ... Ghiozzi wrote that his investigation of Youlus' globe-trotting found no facts to support claims that Youlus rescued the "Auschwitz Torah" in Poland from inside a metal box that he located and unearthed in 2004 using a metal detector. There was also no evidence that he discovered a Torah in 2002 that had been hidden during World War II under the floor of a barracks at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany ... First Stanza 'Nazi' German Anthem Played at Championship Eurosport  The Germany canoeing team were left 'appalled' after organisers at the Canoe Sprint World Championships in Hungary played the banned 'Nazi anthem' at a medal ceremony. Anne Knorr and Debora Nich won gold for Germany in the 1000 meters K2 women's final race but after receiving their medals they were shocked to hear the Germany anthem played with the [first] verse "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles / Über alles in der Welt," ("Germany, Germany above all / Above everything in the world,") The music for the German national anthem was composed in 1797 by Joseph Haydn with lyrics written by Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841. More Details of Failed `Bay of Pigs' Invasion of Cuba Revealed Epoch Times (New York)  Friendly fire, bad, scaled-back strategy, and a decision to go ahead after secrecy was lost, all contributed to the failure of America's 1961 invasion of Cuba, according to new information released Monday. The National Archives just published the fifth and final volume of CIA files about the Bay of Pigs ... The goal was to overthrow Fidel Castro and establish a non-communist government friendly to the United States, with the support of the Cuban people and the Cuban military. President Kennedy authorized the plan. He was determined to disguise America's support and the landing point at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast. Egyptians Allege Israeli Scheme to Destroy Fertility Ynet News (Israel) Israeli citizen Ofir Harrari, recently accused by Egypt of spying for Israel, was allegedly involved in a complicated scheme intended to harm Egyptian reproduction abilities. Egypt's offical state paper Al-Ahram has claimed. Harrari, accused by Egypt of being an agent of the Mossad, is set to be tried in absentia on charges of "spying for a foreign country with the purpose of harming Egyptian national interests," news agency MENA reported on Sunday. ... "Mossad agent Ofir Harrari instructed Jordanian [telecom engineer] Ibrahim abu-Zaid to set up a company in Egypt which would exclusively import an Israeli hair product, for both men and women, which causes infertility. This in order to completely destroy Egyptian reproduction abilities," al-Ahram states. The Greatest Elected Body That Money Can Buy Stephen M. Walt -- Foreign Policy  Just when you think your contempt for Congress could not get any higher, our elected representatives manage to do something to ratchet it up another notch ... They are off on junkets to Israel, paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, an AIPAC spinoff that has been funding such trips for years. That's right: during the August recess nearly a fifth of the U.S. Congress will visit a single country whose entire population is less than that of New York City ... Why do Congresspersons do this, especially at a moment when it is obvious that they ought to be worrying about coditions here at home? Mostly because such junkets burnish a legislator's 'pro-Israel' credentials and facilitate campaign fundraising. Madame Tussauds Under Fire For Allowing Hitler Salutes Daily Mail (Britain)  Their arms raised in a Nazi salute, two young tourists pose alongside a waxwork of Adolf Hitler. This was the sight which greeted an Israeli couple on a visit to Madame Tussauds in London. The couple, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, photographed the incident and complained about the tourists' behavior, which they described as "an unequivocal demonstration of anti-Semitism and bigotry." But while Tussauds apologized for any offence caused, it insisted: "We proactively encourage our visitors to interact with the waxworks should they so choose." ... Its comments were described as appalling and insensitive by Lord Janner, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust. Ian Kershaw's Life of Writing: Enduring Fascination With Hitler Stephen Moss -- The Guardian (Britain)  Ian Kershaw's latest book is called The End -- and it's the end in more than one sense. Kershaw, biographer of Hitler and anatomist of the Nazi regime, has documented the last nine months of the Third Reich ... Even on the brink of collapse, some aspects of normal life in Germany continued: Bayern Munich were still playing football matches a week before Hitler's suicide; the Berlin Philharmonic gave a concert just four days before the war ended; and the bureaucrats were being paid until the very end ... He [Kershaw] had perhaps reckoned without the enduring popular fascination with the figure of Hitler, who dominates the history sections of bookshops and is covered in so many documentaries on the History Channel that it is sometimes referred to as the "Hitler channel". The Thing About Hitler Ian Kershaw -- The Guardian (Britain) - 2003 ... It seems as if scarcely a day goes by without Hitler and the Nazis in one way or another - in newspapers, films, books, on radio and television - entering into our public consciousness. This is so not just in Germany itself, where Hitler might be expected to have cast a long shadow, but in this country, in other parts of Europe, in the US, and elsewhere ... However great its historical significance, it will at some future point be possible to view it with detachment, much as we now look back at the French revolution. But this day is still far off. Probably in ten years' time, on the 80th anniversary of Hitler's takeover of power, we shall still be asking: is there no end to Hitler? Hitler as 'Enlightenment Intellectual' Mark Weber  A specter is haunting the world -- the specter of Hitlerism. That, in short, is the stern warning of this provocative book, Hitler as Philosophe: Remnants of the Enlightenment in National Socialism, by Lawrence Birken... In spite of decades of vehement vilification, says author Birken, Hitler's views have enduring and dangerous appeal -- not because they are bizarre and alien, but precisely because they are rational and well grounded in Western thought. Is The Media Treating Ron Paul Unfairly? Joe Pompeo -- The Outline  The Republican congressman and 2012 presidential candidate was shut out of the Sunday public affairs shows this past weekend despite his neck-and-neck second place finish to tea party favorite Michele Bachmann in Saturday's Ames, Iowa straw poll. He was likewise excluded from most of the second-day newspaper headlines about the preliminary political contest, leaving some news watchers to question whether Paul is receiving unfair treatment from the mainstream press. "Ron Paul just got shafted," Politico's Roger Simon wrote ... Why Arabs Attacked Israeli Solders Riding on a Public Bus Charles E. Carlson On August 18, high noon, Arabs operating from Egyptian territory attacked, killed and wounded an unknown number of Israeli soldiers on a bus that the world was made to believe carried only civilians. ... Why do Palestinian human bombs so often pick "public buses" as targets? Not one news report I had ever read told the simple truth: every Israeli bus is a military transport; therefore, for any Palestinian who considers himself to be at war with the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces], every Israeli bus is a legitimate military target. London Riots: When Multiculturalists Tolerate Gang Culture Damian Thompson -- The Telegraph (Britain) The roots of these appalling events are many and tangled, but for the moment let's just focus on one: the way Britain's educational establishment has cringed helplessly in the face of a gang culture that rejects every tenet of liberal society. It's violent, it's sexist, it's homophobic and it's racist. But it is broadly tolerated by many people in the black community, which has lost control of its teenage youths ... We should and must blame those schools and education authorities that have made extra space for gang culture in children's lives because they believe it is an authentic expression of Afro-Caribbean and Asian identity. Riots Stoke British Ethnic Tensions The Wall Street Journal Three Birmingham men died early Wednesday as they sought to protect local businesses from rioters, showing how the violence that began four days ago in London and spread to the U.K.'s other big cities has stoked long-simmering ethnic tensions in some of the country's most racially diverse communities. ... In Birmingham, the deaths led to an outpouring of anger from the city's large population of Asians. "People are saying it's a race issue now -- blacks against Asians," said Mykel Douglas, a black youth worker and resident of Winson Green, the working-class district northwest of Birmingham city center where the incident occurred. "It's like the ethnic groups are at war with each other." They Died in Vain: Deal With It Ray McGovern  Many of those preaching at American church services Sunday extolled as "heroes" the 30 American and eight Afghan troops killed Saturday west of Kabul, when a helicopter on a night mission crashed, apparently after taking fire from Taliban forces. This week, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) can be expected to beat a steady drumbeat of "they shall not have died in vain." But they did. I know it is a hard truth, but they did die in vain. As in the past, churches across the country will keep praising the fallen troops for protecting "our way of life," and few can demur, given the tragic circumstances. But, sadly, such accolades are, at best, misguided -- at worst, dishonest. In England, Iron Age Road Link to Iceni Tribe BBC News  A suspected Iron Age road, made of timber and preserved in peat for 2,000 years, has been uncovered by archaeologists in East Anglia. The site, excavated in June, may have been part of a route across the River Waveney and surrounding wetland at Geldeston in Norfolk, say experts. Causeways were first found in the area in 2006, during flood defence work at the nearby Suffolk town of Beccles. It is thought the road is pre-Roman, built by the local Iceni tribe. Exact dating has yet to be carried out but tree-ring evidence suggests a date of 75 BC. British Teachers Undergo Holocaust Training in Israel The Jerusalem Post (Israel) Twenty high-school teachers brought to Israel by the UK-based Holocaust Education Trust will complete on Sunday a ten-day education training seminar at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem ... Now in its sixth year, the 10-day course at Yad Vashem is part of a three-week Holocaust Education Trust program involving a week-long introductory course in the UK, the visit to Israel, and a final week back in Britain to integrate the knowledge and skills acquired during the entire course. Neocons Trade Medicare for War Robert Parry For decades now, America's neoconservatives have pushed for higher military spending and baited their political opponents as being "soft" on whatever the enemy-of-the-day was: Moscow, Nicaragua, Cuba in the 1980s; al-Qaeda, Iraq, Iran, Libya in recent years. The neocons happily smeared Americans who opposed the huge Pentagon budgets, tagging them as anti-American or disloyal ... Today, however, as those deficits reach a crisis point, hard choices are finally being forced on the American political system. Yet, the neocons retain their place of extraordinary influence in Washington and are determined to keep military spending "skyward." A Generation of Amoral, Uneducated, Brutalized Youth Max Hastings - Daily Mail (Britain)  ... They are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline -- tough love -- which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live. Only education -- together with politicians, judges, policemen and teachers with the courage to force feral humans to obey rules the rest of us have accepted all our lives -- can provide a way forward and a way out for these people ... Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters ... Social Breakdown; Breaker Morant and the Boer War Mark Weber -- Podcast  Social breakdown in the western world, manifest in the recent orgy of rioting in Britain, is the inevitable consequences of a society based on an ideology of individualism, consumerism and the "pursuit of happiness." Weber cites the analysis of British journalist and historian Max Hastings. Weber also talks about "Breaker Morant," a memorable 1980 Australian film about a shameful episode of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. British imperialists and businessmen, together with Jewish financiers and "gold bugs," conspired to launch the rapacious and unnecessary conflict. Waging the war with "methods of barbarism," the British established "concentration camps" in which some 28,000 people, most of them infants and children, perished. Media Ignores Racial Element of British Riots Diana West - Breitbart  I've been keeping watch on the fiery vortex of British rioting at "View from the Right," where Lawrence Auster is tracking events with a close and critical eye on the reportorial blind spot on race that has marked most if not all of the news coverage. (He has also been noting similar blind spots in Stateside reporting on this summer's spate of "flash mobs," in which the unifying theme of the flash-mobbers' race is omitted as a matter of course. The stories themselves, even the widespread black-on-white violence at last week's Wisconsin State Fair, have failed to penetrate the national MSM.) Such omissions, seemingly designed not-to-make-things-worse, are an affront to reality. China Tells US 'Good Old Days' of Borrowing Are Over Reuters  China bluntly criticized the United States on Saturday one day after the superpower's credit rating was downgraded, saying the "good old days" of borrowing were over. Standard & Poor's cut the US long-term credit rating from top-tier AAA by a notch to AA-plus on Friday over concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden. China -- the United States' biggest creditor -- said Washington only had itself to blame for its plight and called for a new stable global reserve currency. "The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary. US 'Democratization' Initiative in the Middle East is Insincere Mark Weber  ... In countries where popular sentiment has been able to express itself politically, the government is usually more anti-American. This is true not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe, Asia and Latin America ...To suppose that the United States, or any outside power, can impose its own notion of democracy or freedom on another country is both arrogant and stupid. Every nation naturally has its own concept of a just and free society. In the short run, the prospects for democratization in the Middle East are poor, because the U.S. will continue to carry out policies in the region that are motivated primarily by concern for Israel. Once Upon a Time in the West Jakob Augstein -- Der Spiegel (Germany) ... By any definition, America is no longer a Western nation. The US is a country where the system of government has fallen firmly into the hands of the elite. An unruly and aggressive militarism set in motion two costly wars in the past ten years. Society is not only divided socially and politically -- in its ideological blindness the nation is moving even farther away from the core of democracy. It is losing its ability to compromise. America has changed. It has drifted away from the West. Economic Crisis Won't Affect US Aid To Israel, Says Rep. Hoyer The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  The current economic crisis in the US will have no impact at all on US financial assistance to Israel, US Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said Thursday. However, the Democratic Whip, is leading the delegation of 26 US congressmen on a one week visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. At a press conference in Jerusalem, Hoyer said he wanted to make it "very clear" that no financial challenges faced in the US "will have any adverse effect on American determination to meet its promise to Israel in the form of aid for its qualitative [military] superiority, or for its economic security." A Zionist Guided Visit to Israel for 81 US Congress Members The Jerusalem Post (Israel) Eighty-one congressmen, or about 20 percent of the US House of Representatives, will visit Israel over the next three weeks during Congress's summer recess, with the first group of 26 Democrats scheduled to arrive on Monday ... For many of them, this will be their first trip to Israel. The week-long trips are sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which brings large delegations of congressmen here every other August. Crisis, Shmisis: 81 Congressmen Head to Israel Mya Guarnieri -- Huffington Post The American economy is in a crisis. Suburbs are falling into poverty. Schools are struggling. Cities teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. And 81 U.S. Congressmen are off in Israel when they should be here, dealing with the mountain of problems facing the American people -- you know, the men and women who elected them. ... They're on a junket funded by the American Israel Education Foundation, a supporting organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) ... This trip isn't shocking. It's just one more outrageous example of American politicians putting special interest groups ahead of the dire needs of the American people. It's Still Occupied Territory Philip Giraldi That twenty per cent of the House of Representatives will be spending its recess holiday on American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) paid tours of Israel does not seem to have made the mainstream news. ... Americans who really like Israel and everything that pertains to it are certainly free to express their views, but there is something unseemly and even grotesque about the continuous promotion of foreign and ethnic group interests ahead of those of the United States and other American citizens. AIPAC is a lobby dedicated to maintaining uncritical US government support for a foreign country and it can be argued that Washington entered into at least one foreign war because of it. Coco Chanel Was a Nazi Spy, Says New Biography Reuters  A new book about the life of Coco Chanel published in the United States on Tuesday aims to strengthen claims the French designer collaborated with the Nazis during World War II as a spy code-named "Westminster." The book, "Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War," by Paris-based American journalist Hal Vaughan, claims that not only was the designer the lover of a German officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage, which has been well-documented, but they were spies who went on missions to Madrid and Berlin. In addition, the book claims Chanel was deeply anti-Semitic ... But a representative for the Chanel fashion house on Tuesday poured doubt on the book's allegations. Fashion Icon Coco Chanel `Worked For Nazis,' Says Author Daily Mail (Britain) Coco Chanel spent World War II collaborating with the Nazis, says a new book that outlines her life. According to US journalist Hal Vaughn, author of 'Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War' the fashion icon was: 'Fiercely anti-Semitic long before it became a question of pleasing the Germans, she became rich by catering to the very rich, and shared their dislike of Jews, trade unions, socialism, Freemasons, and communism.' ... She joins reams of esteemed French artists who collaborated with the murderous Nazis - including Maurice Chevalier, Jean Cocteau, Sacha Guitry, Serge Lifar, and Edith Piaf. Staff and owners of many great French businesses like Cartier are also reported to have been enablers and sympathisers. US Government Funding To `Monitor' Anti-Semitism and `Holocaust Denial The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  The US State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has announced a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI]. According to a statement issued by the office of Hannah Rosenthal, the State Department's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, the funds will be used "to conduct a project that documents anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification in the Middle East." ... Rosenthal, who was named President Obama's anti-Semitism czar in 2009, is responsible for combating and monitoring US-based and global anti-Semitism. Special US Official Works to `Combat Anti-Semitism' Worldwide Voice of America Hannah Rosenthal is the United States' Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. In this role, said Ms. Rosenthal, "I have been tracking anti-Semitism around the world, and have witnessed its alarming presence and growth." ... "One of my primary goals this year," said Ms. Rosenthal, is to address the issue of intolerance in textbooks and in the media in the Middle East." It is critical to educate youth about the Holocaust - the systematic murder of six million Jews during World War Two. Most national curricula in Middle East Countries unfortunately do not teach about the Holocaust. The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition New Dawn Magazine (1994) .. Since the end of the Second World War we have been bombarded from all sides with references to the Western world's "Judeo-Christian religion," and "our Judeo-Christian heritage." We are told by both church leaders and scholars that our society is based on a supposed "Judeo-Christian tradition." ... Yet such a decidedly Christian Zionist outlook is to say the least, wildly simplistic and profoundly ahistoriccal ... "Judeo-Christianity" should be seen for what it is - another secular twentieth century fraud, manufactured for narrow political ends, that is supremely disrespectful to all true believers. Our Commando War in 120 Countries: Secret US Military Operations Nick Turse -- Alternet and TomDispatch  ... Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world's countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now ... U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. World War I Propaganda Deceit: A Journalist Recalls George Seldes  Of the first war years I will say just this: I made a total fool of myself when I accepted as true the news reports from New York and Europe which by their volume and repetition overwhelmed what little objective intelligence I had... There was the Lusitania. All the Allied reports told of a "dastardly" and "heinous" crime against civilians, but the German news bureau said the ship carried munitions. Today the sworn statement of the former Collector of the Port of New York, Dudley Field Malone, gives the exact character and tonnage of these munitions, but in 1915 I played the Allied side ... In short, in common with about ninety per cent of the American press, I had become a blind but willing agent of the powerful and finally victorious Allied propaganda machine. Can Obama Beat The Israel Lobby? Henry Siegman  ... I served on the executive committee of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] for nearly thirty years -- from 1965 to 1994 -- while heading the Synagogue Council of America and then the American Jewish Congress. ... Today, AIPAC gives full and unqualified support to an Israeli government most of whose members deeply oppose a two-state solution. The lip service that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, pay to such an accord is a cover for their government's overriding goal of foiling one. In fact, it is a goal that Israeli governments have pursued since 1967, when the Palestinian territories came under Israel's control. Rioting in Britain, and the Hiroshima Bombing Mark Weber -- Podcast  The recent orgy of looting and destruction in London and other British cities is a stern indictment of a failed social-political system. It's also an predictable consequence of large-scale non-European immigration. In a prophetic speech given in 1968, Enoch Powell, a prominent British political figure, warned that the "mad" policy of non-European immigration would have terrible long-term consequences. If the history of the twentieth century teaches anything, says Weber, it's the falsehood of the ideology of multiculturalism, egalitarianism and "diversity." Weber also takes a critical look at the atomic bombing of Japan in August 1945, and shows that this mass killing of civilians was not necessary to end the war. Too Many Immigrants, Say Most Britons Daily Mail (Britain)  Nearly three quarters of Britons think there are too many immigrants in the country, a survey revealed yesterday. The international poll, by IPSOS Mori, put the UK third highest in a league table of 23 countries according to concerns about migrant numbers. And it showed Britain topped the table of countries according to concerns over the impact of migrants on public services. Some 76 per cent of those questioned said immigration had put too much pressure on hospitals, transport services and schools. The poll exposes the huge on-going scale of public worry over migration levels in recent years. Under Labour's open door immigration policy, the population was boosted by more than 3.2 million arrivals from overseas. U.S. Debt Crisis Sidelines an Emergency Attack on Iran Haaretz (Israel) The American trigger finger is itchy. Itchy, but flinching ... Under the current economic and political circumstances, the Obama administration will not be in any hurry to do Israel a favor and pull the nuclear chestnuts out the Iranian fire by means of a preemptive strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities, material storage locations and missile sites. America's national debt crisis and Pentagon budget cuts are pushing to the margins emergency plans for an operation against Iran. Swedish Queen Says Father Is Hero, Not Nazi JTA  Sweden's Queen Silvia says an investigation into her father's links to the Nazis show that he is a hero. A report commissioned by the queen determined that Walter Sommerlath helped at least one Jewish man escape the Nazis. The 34-page report was released on Tuesday. Sommerlath exchanged his coffee plantation in Brazil for the Berlin factory of Efim Wechsler in 1939, which allowed Wechsler to immigrate to Brazil and escape the Nazis, according to the report. The report also found that Sommerlath was a member of the Nazi Party, but apparently inactive. Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, called the report "self-serving and lacking in credibility," and said that Holocaust survivors reject it. US Holocaust Survivors to Receive Federal Funds: `Preferred Treatment' The Jerusalem Post (Israel) Holocaust survivors in the US will receive federal funds designed to help them age at home, rather than having to move to an institution, according to a new congressional bill drafted by Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). The bipartisan proposal calls for survivors to be added to a list of elderly citizens receiving preferred treatment under the Older Americans Act, to designate an individual within the Administration on Aging to overlook programs offered to survivors and create a grant program helping them with their transportation needs. In Iran, Tehran Street Named For Rachel Corrie The Associated Press  Tehran's municipal council has named a street after an American activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003, local newspaper reported on Thursday. The report in Hamshahri, a daily affiliated with Tehran municipality, said the council decided to name the street Rachel Aliene Corrie. It said the street would be in central Tehran, but did not specify when the sign bearing the new name would be hung. Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist from Washington state, was trying to prevent what she and other activists believed was an Israeli military push to demolish nearby Palestinian homes. She was 23 at the time of her death. Schools To Get `No Child' Testing Waivers The Associated Press State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break. The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said. The goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to have every student proficient in math and reading by 2014. Eighteen Signs The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating Michael Snyder - Hawaii News Daily  As the U.S. economy collapses, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is going to begin to disappear. In fact, there are already an increasing number of signs that the collapse of society is accelerating. In cities such as Chicago, roving packs of young people are "mob robbing" local businesses, randomly assaulting tourists and shoppers and are even pulling people out of vehicles ... During this past Memorial Day weekend, cities all over the United States experienced a stunning wave of mass violence. We are supposed to be an "example" for the rest of the world, but as our economic wealth crumbles we are witnessing the collapse of society all around us. How Washington's Politicians Downgraded America Mark Mardell -- BBC News The downgrading of America is a humiliation for a nation constantly fretting about its potential decline. It reinforces a very common belief here [in the US], that the squabbling politicians in Washington are to blame for many of the country's ills. It was indeed a major theme of candidate Obama that "business as usual" couldn't continue and, by an effort of will, America had to come together. The decision by Standard & Poor's to push America into the second division, when it comes to trustworthiness about paying its bills, puts the USA below the UK, Germany, France, Singapore, Finland and 14 other countries. The reason it gives is what all America has been saying: Washington doesn't work. Jewish Group Protests Dictionary Definition of `Anti-Semitic' Word The Associated Press A prominent Jewish group urged the Romanian Academy on Monday to change its dictionary definition of an anti-Semitic slur to make it clear it is pejorative. Maximilian Katz, director of the Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday that the commonly used Romanian word is offensive, but that is not explained in the official DEX dictionary ... Usage of the word is illegal in Romania because it falls under a law banning symbols with a fascist, racist or xenophobic character. Breaking the law is punishable by fines and prison ... The word is the most offensive that exists in the Romanian language for a Jew ... Hitler's Stealth Bomber Daily Mail (Britain)  With its smooth and elegant lines, this could be a prototype for some future successor to the stealth bomber. But this flying wing was actually designed by the Nazis 30 years before the Americans successfully developed radar-invisible technology. Now an engineering team has reconstructed the Horten Ho 2-29 from blueprints, with startling results. It was faster and more efficient than any other plane of the period and its stealth powers did work against radar. Hitler's Stealth Fighter Recreated National Geographic News Top stealth-plane experts have re-created a radical, nearly forgotten Nazi aircraft: the Horten 2-29, a retro-futuristic fighter that arrived too late in World War II to make it into mass production. The engineers' goal was to determine whether the so-called stealth fighter was truly radar resistant. In the process, they've uncovered new clues to just how close Nazi engineers were to unleashing a jet that some say could have changed the course of the war. To replicate the Ho 2-29 late last year for a documentary premiering Sunday, a team from the Northrop Grumman defense-contracting corporation used original Nazi blueprints and the only surviving Ho 2-29, which has been stored in a U.S. government facility for more than 50 years. Perspective on World War II, an IHR Update, and More Mark Weber -- Podcast Defying protests by Russia and Jewish groups, Estonians honor the memory of SS troops who fought and died for their nation's freedom during World War II. This small Baltic country's wartime fate discredits the simplistic view of the conflict that prevails in the US. Citing new insights on the Pantheon in Rome, Weber also talks about social-cultural achievements of the ancient Greco-Roman world, and stresses that awareness of past helps to better understand our own age, society and culture. Recent news items re-confirm America's accelerating social-cultural decline. On the Sixty-Sixth Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima Gar Alperovitz  Today [August 6] is the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Nor was this the judgment of "liberals," as is sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the years following World War II. Misreading History: Lessons of the Great Depression Robert S. McElvaine  ... There is a genuine danger that the already weak economy could turn into a second coming of the hard times of the 1930s. The focus of many politicians today on cutting spending and avoiding tax increases on the wealthy is based on a misunderstanding of what led to and extended the Great Depression -- and it is setting us up for a new collapse ... It is plain that the reason the New Deal failed to end the Depression is not that Roosevelt and Congress overspent, but that they underspent. The New Deal was not too reckless in its spending; it was too cautious. The war ended the Depression precisely because it obliged Roosevelt and Congress to spend greater and greater amounts without worrying about where the money was coming from. Moscow Outraged by Estonia's 'Glorification of Fascists' RT (Russia) A sports and military competition called Erna Rekt 2011 is underway in Tallinn. The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the event as an "act glorifying fascists." Erna Rekt is named after a Nazi international subversive group in Hitler's Abwehr intelligence service, which operated in the rear of the Soviet army in 1941 ... Thirty teams from Estonia, Denmark, Lithuania, Belgium, Finland, Switzerland and Georgia are taking part in the event ... The three-day Erna Rekt competition, Moscow says, "serves as yet more proof" of the "dangerous trend" of Nazi revivalism. British Riots Spread on Third Night of Violence Reuters  Rioting and looting spread across London on Monday as hooded youths set buildings and cars ablaze, smashed shop windows and hurled bottles and stones at police in a third night of violence in Britain's worst unrest in decades. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his holiday to fly home to tackle the violence, which appeared to be led by youths alienated by years of underemployment which left them feeling marginalized even before the economic downturn. The Decline and Fall of the American Empire Paul Craig Roberts  ... Every country in the world now worries about the judgment and sanity of the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world ... Why is the economy not rising? It is not rising, because it has been off-shored ... The other destroyer of American economic prospects was the deregulation of the financial sector. Economists theorized that markets were self-regulating and created the illusion that greed was never a problem ... What in the world is a country facing bankruptcy and default doing conducting military exercises in Mongolia and Central Asia? In Britain, Controversy Over Training College Teacher Daily Mail (Britain) The head of studies at the Royal Air Force pilot training college is a convert to Islam who has criticised Nato air strikes on Libya in a Muslim magazine. Dr Joel Hayward is dean of the college at Cranwell, the RAF's equivalent of Sandhurst, and has taught many of the pilots spearheading the military operation against Colonel Gaddafi. But, to the dismay of defence chiefs, he has cast doubt on the widely held belief that the Nato actions averted the mass killing of civilians in Benghazi. He also warned against the RAF becoming 'the air corps of a rebel army'. Dr Hayward has previously expressed remorse after appearing to claim that far fewer Jews were killed by the Nazis than generally thought and that the gas chambers of the Holocaust were British propaganda. Signs That American Society Is Coming Apart The American Dream  There is wild disagreement about what is causing it, but what most people can agree on is that there is something fundamentally wrong with America. The fabric of American society just does not seem to be as strong as it used to. In fact, many would argue that society is coming apart at the seams. Corruption and decay seem to be everywhere ... The truth is that those who are leading us are a reflection of what we have become as a nation. If you got rid of all of our corrupt leaders that would not suddenly "fix" this country. Millions of ordinary Americans have become deeply corrupt as well. Number One? Twenty Not So Good Categories That The US Leads The World In The Economic Collapse Is the United States "number one"? ... We are number one in divorce, drug addiction, debt, obesity, car thefts, murders and total crimes. We have become a slothful, greedy, decadent nation that is exhibiting signs of advanced decay. Until we understand just how bad our problems really are, we won't be able to come up with the solutions that we need ... America is like an aging, bloated rock star that has become addicted to a dozen different drugs. America is a shadow of its former self and it desperately needs to wake up before it plunges into oblivion. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the U.S. Terror State Anthony Gregory  ... The propaganda that the atomic bombings saved lives was nothing but a public relations pitch contrived in retrospect. These were just gratuitous acts of mass terrorism. By August 1945, the Japanese were completely defeated, blockaded, starving. They were desperate to surrender. All they wanted was to keep their emperor, which was ultimately allowed anyway. The U.S. was insisting upon unconditional surrender, a purely despotic demand. Given what the Allies had done to the Central Powers, especially Germany, after the conditional surrender of World War I, it's understandable that the Japanese resisted the totalitarian demand for unconditional surrender. A 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey determined the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nukings were not decisive in ending the war. 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." U.S. Debt Impasse: Fake and Real Gary North  ... The political impasse has to do with voters' expectations. The politicians ever since 1965 have made promises that cannot be met: stable prices, Medicare benefits, and a solvent government. This is true throughout the West, including Japan. The bills are now coming due. The voters demand that the promises be fulfilled by the government at pain-free tax rates. This cannot be done if Treasury interest rates rise. Ultimately, it cannot be done even at low rates. Social Security and Medicare are both in negative cash flow conditions. The voters think deals can be worked out to deliver on the promises at low prices. At some point, reality will set in. Then the real political battles will begin. Jewish Group Urges Uruguay To Expel Iran Envoy for `Holocaust Denial' AFP-EJP  The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Uruguay Wednesday to expel an Iranian diplomat over his alleged denial of the Nazi Holocaust, the US-based Jewish group said in a statement. The group accused the diplomat, Hojjatollah Soltani, of denying that six million Jews were killed in the Nazi genocide during World War II, in a statement issued from the Jewish group's regional office in Buenos Aires. It quoted Soltani as saying during a public conference: "The Nazis killed two million, four, six... There are different figures. They call it Holocaust... Maybe thousands of Jews were killed, but millions... That is a lie." The Strange Life of Ilya Ehrenburg Mark Weber  Ilya Ehrenburg, the leading Soviet propagandist of the Second World War, was a contradictory figure... During the War, he was a leading member of the Soviet-sponsored Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee ... Ehrenburg's incendiary writings certainly contributed in no small measure to the orgy of murder and rape by Soviet soldiers against German civilians ... This new revelation about one of the most influential figures of the Stalinist regime shows that, whatever he may have said for public consumption, Ehrenburg never privately disavowed Zionism or forgot his ancestry. Nine-Eleven Attack Not An `Inside Job,' Says Russia's Putin RT (Russia)  Claims that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 were orchestrated by US intelligence agencies are "complete nonsense," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told attendees of a youth forum. "This is complete nonsense, it is impossible," Putin said on Monday, responding to a question posed by an attendee of the Seliger 2011 youth forum. "To imagine that US intelligence services did it deliberately, with their own hands, is complete nonsense," the prime minister said. "Only people who do not understand the workings of security agencies can say that. It would be impossible to conceal it." Dynamic, Divided Korea Eric Margolis  ... Dynamic, optimistic, high-tech South Korea is flying at Mach 9: it reminds me of Japan 25 years ago. Over 85% of Koreans are online ... In spite of US warnings about North Korea's nuclear weapons, many South Korean analysts believe these arms are entirely defensive, designed only to deter any possible US nuclear attack. This strategy is working: the US has refrained from military action against North Korea. The fact that Iraq and Libya did not have nuclear weapons has not been lost on the North Koreans ... South Koreans worry that having to feed and build a liberated North Korea will bankrupt them. In Germany, Police Raid Homes of `Far-Right Extremists' Deutsche Welle (Germany) Police in southern Germany raided 21 homes and properties on Wednesday, seizing weapons in an investigation against right-wing extremists. Around 140 police officers took part in the search in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, confiscating ammunition, a gun, computers, knives and neo-Nazi propaganda from 18 members of a group known as "Standarte Württemberg." The suspects, aged 17 to 49 years, were all known to investigators for previous far-right links, state prosecutors said in Stuttgart In Canada, New Calls To Counter `Anti-Semitism' The Canadian Times A new Parliamentary report is urging the government to take immediate action on the unprecedented increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Canada, especially on university campuses. The report by the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism, which held two years of hearings, concluded that legislators and others need "a clear and concise definition of what anti-Semitism entails." Just last month, Statistics Canada released a study documenting a 42 per cent increase in hate crimes in 2009 compared to 2008, with 71 per cent of the crimes motivated by religion targeting the Jewish community. Rome's Pantheon May Have Been Built As Massive Sundial, Researchers Say The Telegraph (Britain)  It is one of the best preserved buildings from the Roman world, a 2,000-year-old testament to the immense power and wealth of the empire. But mystery has always surrounded what lies behind the unusual design of the Pantheon, a giant temple in the heart of Rome that was built by the Emperor Hadrian. Now experts have come up with an intriguing theory that the temple acted as a colossal sun dial, with a beam of light illuminating its enormous entrance at the precise moment that the emperor entered the building. New Calls for Judicial Inquiry Into Execution of `Breaker' Morant The Telegraph (Britain)  Immortalised by Edward Woodward on the silver screen, the fate of 'Breaker' Morant and his two cohorts is widely known - sentenced to death by firing squad by the British military. Now descendants of the executed Boer War soldier and his co-accused have added their voices to growing calls for a judicial inquiry in Australia into the trial of the men 109 years ago. For several years campaigners have been calling for an independent review into the convictions of Harry Morant and fellow soldiers Peter Handcock and George Witton. The men were convicted in 1902 of shooting 12 Boer prisoners of war. They claimed that they were following orders from British officials, a claim that Britain denies. The Boer War Remembered Mark Weber The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was more than the first major military clash of the 20th century. Pitting as it did the might of the globe-girdling British Empire, backed by international finance, against a small pioneering nation of independent-minded farmers, ranchers and merchants in southern Africa who lived by the Bible and the rifle, its legacy continues to resonate today. The Boers' recourse to irregular warfare, and Britain's response in herding a hundred thousand women and children into concentration camps foreshadowed the horrors of guerilla warfare and mass detention of innocents that have become emblematic of the 20th century. US Wastes $34 Billion in Afghan and Iraq Contracting Reuters The United States has wasted some $34 billion on service contracts with the private sector in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a study being finalized for Congress. The findings by a bipartisan congressional commission were confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with the draft of the study, which is due to be completed in coming weeks ... The report blames a lack of oversight by federal agencies for misuse of funds and warns of further waste when the programs are transferred to Iraqi or Afghan control as the United States withdraws its troops. Estonia Bars 'Anti-Fascists' From Disrupting SS Veterans' Reunion RT (Russia)  A convention of Estonian SS Division veterans has found its guardian angel in the form of the Estonian authorities, who are protecting it from any unpleasant meddling by the international anti-fascist movement .. .. The traditional get-together of the former 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) servicemen is being held at Sinimae village where in 1944 Nazi troops, including the Estonian SS division, made a fierce stand against the advancing Red Army. The casualties on both sides reached 200,000 servicemen and 17,000 Red Army soldiers are buried in Sinimae. During WWII, 80,000 Estonians joined the Nazi forces and 3,000 fought against the USSR in the Finnish Army. Downtown LA: A Nightmare On Every Street Mike Armstrong -- Los Angeles Times I've lived in big cities before: Boston, New York, Toronto. I've been mugged, and I've seen things on subway platforms at night that I'm still trying to forget. But downtown Los Angeles exists in its own separate category. It's the low-grade horror movie of American cities. At night it's an odyssey of sirens, police helicopters and, if you're unfortunate enough to find yourself out on the sidewalk, a particular class of zombie-like human being seemingly so devastated by drugs or mental illness or both that he or she can't even form the words to ask for money. Broke! Financial Condition Of American Families Michael Snyder -- The Economic Collapse The crumbling U.S. economy is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on American families. For many Americans, "flat broke" has become a permanent condition. Today, over half of all American families live paycheck to paycheck. Unemployment is rampant and those that do actually have jobs are finding that their wages are rising much more slowly than prices are. The financial condition of average American families continues to decline and this is showing up in all of the recent surveys ... The following are ten facts about the financial condition of American families that will blow your mind. Wealth Gap in US Widens Between Whites and Non-Whites The Associated Press The wealth gaps between whites and minorities have grown to their widest levels since the U.S. government began tabulating them a quarter-century ago. The recession and uneven recovery have erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, according to an analysis of new Census data. The analysis shows the racial and ethnic impact of the recent economic meltdown, which ravaged housing values and sent unemployment soaring. Identity, Individualism and Ideology in America Tom Sunic and Mark Weber -- Voice of Reason Radio -- Podcast  Sunic and Weber talk about national identity, ideology and individualism in the US, as well as important long-term trends, some encouraging developments, and prospects for the future. The American form of individualism, Weber says, has been an important factor in promoting this country's rapid growth and spectacular development. But it's also hastening America's ever more obvious decline. In this broadcast of March 23, 2010, Sunic and Weber agree that, as history shows, a shared and vital cultural-ethnic heritage is a hallmark of a healthy and enduring society. In Germany, Authorities Worried About `Neo-Nazi' Summer Camps Daily Mail (Britain) The children of German neo-Nazis could soon be removed from their families and taken into care - in a bid to beat a rise in the glorification of Hitler and the Third Reich. German authorities are becoming increasingly concerned with the number of summer camps and special schools brainwashing youngsters into worshipping a movement that killed six million Jews in the Holocaust ... "Volk und Vaterland' - people and fatherland - camps have sprung up all over Germany in recent years to 'educate' the impressionable children of these extremists. The rise of neo-Nazism is a worrying trend in Germany, which also involves 'circling the wagons' where supporters move in with in-laws and grandparents into areas where all support one another. Mengele's Diaries Bought For $300,000 AFP The diaries of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, the so-called "Angel of Death" who tortured prisoners at Auschwitz death camp, were bought Thursday by an Orthodox Jew for almost $300,000. Connecticut-based Alexander Autographs, which organized the auction, said the journals were sold to a private collector who is planning to open a museum. The diaries, written after World War II once Mengele had fled from the Allies' clutches to Latin America, contain his philosophical reflections, autobiographical stories and poems penned between 1960 to 1975. Long-Missing Portraits of Hitler's Parents Up For Auction KTLA Fox (Los Angeles)  Missing since the end of World War II, the original portraits of Adolf Hitler's parents have surfaced and will soon be put up for auction in Solana Beach. The portraits of Alois and Klara Hitler could go for $100,000 or more, according to Craig Gottlieb, a WWII memorabilia expert and the man helping to put the set up for auction. Fight Against `Holocaust Denial' is `Far From Over,' Says US Congresswoman The Washington Times  The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday denounced Iran's "genocidal threats" against Israel and warned that the fight against Holocaust deniers "is far from over." Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican, said the United States must confront anti-Semitism, especially from those who claim the Nazis never killed millions of Jews during World War II. "The fight against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial is far from over," she said. Facebook Rejects Plea To Remove `Holocaust Denial' Pages JTA Facebook, citing free speech, has rejected a request by Holocaust survivors to remove some pages that espouse Holocaust denial. "We think it's important to maintain consistency in our policies, which don't generally prohibit people from making statements about historical events, no matter how ignorant the statement or how awful the event," the popular social networking site said in response to a letter from Holocaust survivors dated July 8. Israel's Grumpy Diplomats Ilan Pappe ... The last one [Israeli ambassador] from Spain topped them all. Like his colleagues in Dublin and in London he blamed his dismal time on local and ancient anti-Semitism. His two friends in the other capitals were very vague about the source of the new anti-Semitism as both in British and Irish history it is difficult to single out, after medieval times, a particular period of anti-Semitism. But the ambassador in Madrid without any hesitation laid the blame for his trials and tribulations on the fifteenth century Spanish Inquisition. Thus the people of Spain are anti-Israeli because they are either unable to accept their responsibility for the Inquisition or they still endorse it by other means in our times. Section of Hitler's `Atlantic Wall' Sent to World War II Museum The Associated Press  The gray, concrete, heavily scarred slabs that arrived at the National World War II Museum this week are more than just chunks of an old wall to historians. The slabs are part of Nazi Germany's Atlantic Wall, a string of defenses ordered by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in 1940. The defenses, also known as "Hitler's wall," stretched 3,200 miles from France to Norway and were designed to stop, or at least slow, the Allies from advancing inland during an invasion. Israelis Debate on the Web: Did Norway Get What It Deserved? J.J. Goldberg -- Forward (New York)  The Norway massacre has touched off a nasty war of words on the Israeli Internet over the meaning of the event and its implications for Israel. And I do mean nasty: Judging by the comments sections on the main Hebrew websites, the main questions under debate seem to be whether Norwegians deserve any sympathy from Israelis given the country's pro-Palestinian policies ... The overwhelming response is schadenfreude, pleasure at Norway's pain. As I'll show below, that judgment seems pretty accurate. He goes on to blame the Netanyahu government, which he accuses of whipping up a constant mood of "the whole world is against us." The Enduring Legacy of Rudolf Hess Mark Weber -- Podcast  The gravesite of Hitler's deputy had become such a popular shrine that authorities recently had the dead man's bones dug up and cremated, with the ashes then strewn at sea. In this review of Rudolf Hess' life and legacy, Weber explains why so many still honor his memory. In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied powers condemned Hess to life imprisonment for "crimes against peace," even though he had risked his life in a daring attempt to end war between Britain and Germany. His treatment also underscores the injustice and hypocrisy of the inter-Allied Nuremberg Tribunal. In the final portion of this broadcast, Weber looks at a new book, "Why Leaders Lie," which explains why leaders in the US and other democracies so often deceive and mislead the public. Mearsh eimer's Important New Book: `Why Leaders Lie' Carlos Lozada -- The Washington Post  ... The University of Chicago political scientist argues that the leaders most likely to lie are precisely those in Western democracies, those whose traditions of democracy perversely push them to mislead the very public that elected them. In fact, Mearsheimer says, leaders tend to lie to their own citizens more often than they lie to each other. In his disheartening yet fascinating book, "Why Leaders Lie," Mearsheimer offers a treatise on the biggest of big fat lies ... Mearsheimer worries that there will be more lying -- and more mistrust -- to come. Washington has proved adventurous in its foreign policy in recent years, willing to police the globe and use military force freely. Americans 'Disgusted' as Politicians Fail to Compromise on Debt Bloomberg The inability of Congress and President Barack Obama to reach a deal on raising the national debt ceiling leaves retired Air Force pilot Phil Pignataro filled with feelings, none of them good. "All the negative emotions you can think of I pretty much have when I see that there's no compromise and they're willing to ruin the economy," said Pignataro, a 65-year-old who lives in Algonquin, Illinois. "For better or for worse, my retirement is all tied up in the government." Polls and interviews conducted over the past two days show Pignataro is among Americans growing disenchanted by and disconnected from congressional leaders. The Charge of The New York Times Uri Avnery ... It would be no exaggeration to say that the Greek navy was acting under orders from the Israeli Chief of Staff ... The Jewish State - as Zionists like to call us - can order around Greek naval authorities, get Turkey to climb down, instruct half a dozen European states to stop passengers at their airports. How do we do it? There is a simple answer, consisting of three letters: USA. Israel has become a kind of Kafkaesque doorkeeper to the world's sole remaining superpower. Through its immense influence on the American political system, and especially on the Congress, Israel can levy a political tax on anyone who needs something from the US. Greece is bankrupt and desperately needs American and European help. Turkey is a partner of the US in NATO. No European country wants to quarrel with the US. Ergo: they all need to give us a little political baksheesh. Israeli Musicians Play Wagner's Music In Bayreuth Performance AFP  An Israeli orchestra made history Tuesday by performing a concert in Bayreuth, the spiritual home of Hitler's favourite composer Richard Wagner, and received a standing ovation ... The music and the composer have since been widely associated with the Holocaust, and Wagner's work has been off-limits in Israel ... "The music is so divine, and so great. And it is also a very important part of music history," a relieved Zucker told AFP. Turning your back on Wagner "is like ignoring Shakespeare," she said. Hitler and Wagner The Telegraph (Britain) Hitler wrote in his first volume of his book Mein Kampf: "At the age of twelve, I saw ... the first opera of my life, Lohengrin. In one instant I was addicted. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth Master knew no bounds." ... ; A recent documentary, The Wagner Family, alleged that the Wagner family knowingly aligned itself with Hitler's movement from the beginning. Historic Document Theft Probe Expands to National Archives The Washington Post Investigators are probing whether a prominent historian and an associate accused of stealing valuable documents from the Maryland Historical Society also took papers from the National Archives and a handful of other libraries, a prosecutor said in court Tuesday. The revelation came as a Baltimore City Circuit Judge set bail for Barry H. Landau, 63, at $500,000 and Jason Savedoff, 24, at $750,000. The pair were charged earlier this month with taking 60 historic documents. The papers included some signed by Abraham Lincoln, inaugural ball invitations and a commemoration of the Washington Monument, according to court documents. US House Committee Saves Israeli Aid in Foreign Aid Cut Globes (Israel) The US House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday cut the Obama administration's $51 billion 2012 budget request for the State Department and foreign aid by $6.4 billion, but kept unchanged the $3 billion in military aid for Israel. Norway Killer Held Pro-Israel, Anti-Muslim Views The Jerusalem Post ( Israel )  Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who killed nearly 100 people in a combined terror attack Friday that included car bombings in Oslo and a shooting rampage at an island summer camp, held fiercely anti-Islamic and pro-Israel views, according to a 1,500 page manifesto he uploaded before his killing spree Friday. In the 1,500-page tome, which mentions Israel 359 times and "Jews" 324 times, Breivik lays out his worldview, which includes an extreme, bizarre and rambling screed of Islamophobia, far-right Zionism and venomous attacks on Marxism and multi-culturalism. Exploiting a Tragedy Stephen M. Walt -- Foreign Policy As soon as the shocking and tragic news from Norway hit the airwaves, it was entirely predictable that various right-wing Islamophobes would type first and think later. They were so eager to exploit the tragedy to peddle their pre-existing policy preferences that they blindly assumed the acts had to have been perpetrated by al Qaeda, by its various clones, or by some other radical Muslim group. The Omnipotence of Al Qaeda and Meaninglessness of `Terrorism' Glenn Greenwald -- Salon For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo ; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible ... But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn't from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs .. Tales Of German Abuse in World War One Battle Exaggerated, Says Historian The Australian  As the relatives of Australian casualties gather in France today for the 95th anniversary of the battle of Fromelles, a German historian has called for a re-evaluation of the common perception that the Diggers suffered a wave of atrocities at the hands of their enemies ... Dr Weber said the commonly held perception of the atrocities during and after the battle was based almost entirely on Australian evidence. He found one report by the 1st Battalion of the List Regiment that agreed the laws of "civilised" warfare had been broken, but the villains of the report were Australian ... "Acts of decency in the aftermath of battle were more common than acts of brutality. Australian and English soldiers who were taken prisoner later recorded that, on arrest, they were not treated at all brutally." Geography Report Card Finds US Students Lagging The New York Times  Even as schools aim to better prepare students for a global work force, fewer than one in three American students are proficient in geography, with most eighth graders unable to explain what causes earthquakes or accurately describe the American Southwest, according to a report released Tuesday morning. Over all, high school seniors demonstrated the least proficiency on a 2010 test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's geography report card ... A History of College Grade Inflation The New York Times  ... The authors don't attribute steep grade inflation to higher-quality or harder-working students. In fact, one recent study found that students spend significantly less time studying today than they did in the past. Rather, the researchers argue that grade inflation began picking in the 1960s and 1970s probably because professors were reluctant to give students D's and F's ... Grading standards may become even looser in the coming years, making it increasingly more difficult for graduate schools and employers to distinguish between excellent, good and mediocre students. Behind The Campaign Against `Nazi War Criminals' / Sobering Message of an Important European Best Seller Mark Weber - Podcast  What's behind the seemingly endless campaign to prosecute and punish "Nazi war criminals"? Weber cites specific cases to show that the decades-long effort to punish those who killed or mistreated Jews during World War II is motivated not by honest regard for justice, but to further Jewish-Zionist group interests. He also examines the widely repeated claim that "Diversity is our strength." In the second half of this broadcast, Weber takes a closer look at the message and impact of one of the most important books of recent years, "Germany Does Away With Itself," a work by German writer Thilo Sarrazin that has sold more than a million copies. Jewish Groups Seek To Overturn Holland Law Against Ritual Slaughter European Jewish Press The European Jewish Congress (EJC) has convened a meeting of several Jewish organizations to launch the political and legal battle against the legislation to ban shechita or kosher slaughter in Holland . The law banning the slaughter of livestock without stunning was passed last month by the lower house of the Dutch Parliament and now needs to pass the Senate for ratification before the end of the year. Participants at the meeting included Shechita UK , prominent members of the Dutch community and the European Conference of Rabbis, all of which are active in the fight to maintain the right to shechita. Remains of Hitler's Deputy Hess Exhumed From `Pilgrimage' Grave BBC News  The grave holding the remains of Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess has been destroyed to stop it being used as a pilgrimage site by neo-Nazis. Hess's bones were exhumed at the graveyard in the town of Wunsiedel, southern Germany, early on Wednesday. The remains were later cremated and are to be scattered at sea ... The local Lutheran church which supervises the cemetery gave its permission for the burial at the time, ruling that the wishes of the deceased could not be ignored. But they and local people have since become concerned by the number of far-right groups visiting the grave. Each year on the anniversary of his death, neo-Nazis have attempted to stage a march to the cemetery, saluting the grave with its epitaph "I dared", and laying floral wreaths. The Legacy of Rudolf Hess Mark Weber  .... He spent 46 years -- half his life -- behind bars, a victim of a cruel victor's justice. More than any other man, Rudolf Hess symbolizes the vindictiveness and hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Tribunal ... Known as the "conscience of the party," he often used what power and influence he had to intervene on behalf of victims of persecution by extremists in the National Socialist party. In his detailed study, Justice at Nuremberg, which is generally very critical of the German defendants, historian Robert E. Conot called Hess a "decent and honest" man and "a pacifist at heart." ... Rudolf Hess was a prisoner of peace and a victim of a vindictive age. The Life and Death of My Father, Rudolf Hess Wolf Hess - Audio CD two disc set, available from IHR  The son of Hitler's faithful Deputy talks about the dramatic life and mysterious death of his father. Rudolf Hess' bold 1941 flight to Scotland seeking to end World War II resulted in 46 years of imprisonment, until his death in 1987. His fate as the 20th century's `Prisoner of Peace' points up the vindictiveness and hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Here his son presents evidence to show that Hess was murdered at the hands of his British captors. Bastille Day in France: La Fête Nationale Eric Margolis  ... Only a man with a heart of stone could fail to be moved by this splendid hymn to the majesty, triumph and tragedies of France: "citizens, form your battalions," we sang, "the day of glory has arrived." ... Though they won't say so publicly, French military planners are increasingly worried that they may get stuck in a long-lasting, confused struggle in Libya that will bleed their budgets and wear out equipment ... To end this memorable Bastille Day, the massed heavy cavalry of the Republican Guard, their shiny helmets with long horsehair plumes, thundered down the Champs Elysee. Their mounted drummers and buglers produced a splendid fanfare of military music. It was magnificent. Amid Murdoch Scandal, Israel Backers Worry About Muting of Pro-Israel Media Jewish Telegraph Agency:  Pro-Israel leaders in the United States, Britain and Australia are warily watching the unfolding of the phone-hacking scandal that is threatening to engulf the media empire of Rupert Murdoch, founder of News Corp. Murdoch's sudden massive reversal of fortune -- with ten top former staffers and executives under arrest in Britain for hacking into the phones of public figures and a murdered schoolgirl, and paying off the police and journalists -- has supporters of Israel worried that a diminished Murdoch presence may mute the strongly pro-Israel voice of many of the publications he owns. Pentagon Budget Is `Loaded With Fat' CNN Money For lawmakers on the hunt for budget savings, the Pentagon's $500 billion budget is a great place to start. That's the message from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, which argues that the United States spends far too much money on fancy military toys, and not enough on the soft power of diplomacy. ... Since 2001, total defense spending has just about doubled and now represents about 20% of the entire federal budget. Korb, who worked on the report, said defense spending has increased in real terms every single year since 1998. When London Hosted a Nazi Funeral Daily Mail (London)  Were it not for the Grenadier Guardsmen, the extraordinary photograph might have been taken after Hitler's plans to dominate Britain and Europe came to fruition in London. But this was 1936, three years before the start of the Second World War, and the event was the funeral of the German ambassador, Leopold von Hoesch. It was a spectacular tribute with crowds lining the roadside as the coffin was transferred to a gun carriage for its journey down The Mall. It was accompanied by bearskin-clad British bandsmen playing solemn music. A Nazi Funeral in London British Newsreel 1936 - Video Remarkable film footage from an April 1936 British "Gaumont" newsreel of the funeral ceremony in London honoring German ambassador Leopold von Hoesch. With high-ranking British officials attending, British Grenadier Guards escort the swastika-draped coffin of the diplomat, who had died in the British capital. New California Law Requires Gay-Lesbian History in Schools The Associated Press Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill making California the first state in the nation to add lessons about gays and lesbians to social studies classes in public schools. Brown, a Democrat, signed the landmark bill requiring public schools to include the contributions of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender in social studies curriculum ... California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor. The Legislature over the years also has prescribed specific lessons about the Irish potato famine and the Holocaust, among other topics. Systematic Cheating Is Found in Atlanta's School System The New York Times A state investigation released Tuesday showed rampant, systematic cheating on test scores in this city's long-troubled public schools, ending two years of increasing skepticism over remarkable improvements touted by school leaders. The results of the investigation, made public by Gov. Nathan Deal, showed that the cheating occurred at 44 schools and involved at least 178 teachers and principals, almost half of whom have confessed, the governor said. A culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation existed in the district, which led to a conspiracy of silence, he said in a prepared statement. "There will be consequences," Mr. Deal said. Israel Likely To Attack Iran in September, Says Ex-CIA Officer The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  Israel will probably attack Iran in September, a former CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Syria, has told a Los Angeles radio show. While Robert Baer didn't reveal the sources behind his prediction, he referred to former Mossad chief Meir Dagan's warnings of an Israeli attack on Iran as "no bluff." Baer told the KPFK Radio on Tuesday recent comments made by Dagan that an Israeli attack on Iran could lead to a regional war, "tell us with near certainty that [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu is planning an attack... " Netanyahu is "also hoping to draw the United States into the conflict - and in fact, there's a warning order inside the Pentagon to prepare for conflict with Iran," Baer said. Charles Lindbergh: An Authentic American Hero Mark Weber - Podcast  Charles Lindbergh became an instant world celebrity at the age of 25 when he made a grueling 33-hour flight from New York to Paris. His daring flight, and his aviation pioneering afterwards, made him, for some time, the most admired man in America. He was also a prolific, prize-winning author, inventor, explorer, and social activist. But his greatest act of courage was in speaking out -- eloquently and frankly -- against the deceitful campaign to push the United States into war. Lindbergh deserves to be remembered and honored today, not only as an authentic American hero, but also because much of what he wrote and said is instructive and relevant in our own age. Why I Had to Leave The Times Robert Fisk -- The Independent (Britain)  ... The "Hitler Diaries" were [Rupert] Murdoch's own mistake, after refusing to countenance his own "expert's" change of heart over the documents hours before The Times and The Sunday Times began printing them. Months later, I was passing by the paper's London office ... In all this time, Murdoch had expressed exclusively pro-Israeli views, and had accepted a "Man of the Year" award from a prominent Jewish-American organisation. The Times editorials became more and more pro-Israeli, their use of the word "terrorist" ever more promiscuous ... I don't believe Murdoch personally interfered in any of the above events. He didn't need to. He had turned The Times into a tame, pro-Tory, pro-Israeli paper shorn of all editorial independence. Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People Ted Galen Carpenter  Professor John Mearsheimer's latest book, Why Leaders Lie, provides a number of intriguing insights and surprising conclusions. Perhaps his most unexpected conclusion is that leaders lie to foreign leaders far less frequently than is generally assumed. Indeed, he contends that leaders lie to their own people more than they do to foreign counterparts ... Officials in democratic political ystems are more likely to deceive their own people -- even engaging in outright lies -- than officials in autocratic systems ... Americans must face the troubling realization that U.S. leaders will be unusually prone to engage in lying as well as milder forms of deception to gull their own populations. In Hungary, 97-Year-Old `Nazi War Crimes' Suspect Is Acquitted BBC News  A Hungarian man has been acquitted by a Budapest court of committing war crimes during a 1942 raid. Ex-police captain Sandor Kepiro, 97, was found not guilty of ordering the rounding up and execution of more than 30 Jews and Serbs in Serbia in 1942. The prosecution had demanded at least a prison sentence for Mr Kepiro, but he insisted he had not killed. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which listed him as its most wanted Nazi, said the verdict was "outrageous". The group's chairman, Efraim Zuroff, said they would appeal against it. Many of the dozens of people attending the court session cheered and clapped after Judge Bela Varga read out the verdict of the three-judge tribunal ... Jewish Settlers Are Terrorizing Palestinians, Says Israeli General The Independent (Britain) A senior Israeli army commander has warned that unchecked "Jewish terror" against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank threatens to plunge the territory into another conflict. In unusually outspoken comments, Major General Avi Mizrahi took aim at extremist Israeli settlers, and said the yeshiva, or religious seminary, in Yitzhar, one of the most radical Jewish strongholds in the West Bank, should be closed, calling it a source of terror against Palestinians. The general's comments are likely to put him at odds with Israel's pro-settler government, which has resisted US-led efforts to curb settlement expansion in a bid to revive stalled peace talks. Israel's Yo-Yos in the US Congress Uri Avnery (Israel) It was all rather disgusting. There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world's only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu. It was worse than the Syrian parliament during a speech by Bashar Assad, where anyone not applauding could find himself in prison. Or Stalin's Supreme Soviet, when showing less than sufficient respect could have meant death. What the American Senators and Congressmen feared was a fate worse than death. Anyone remaining seated or not applauding wildly enough could have been caught on camera - and that amounts to political suicide. Dutch Parliament Rules Against Ritual Animal Slaughter The Associated Press The Netherlands' parliament has passed a bill banning any slaughter of livestock without stunning, removing an exemption that has long allowed orthodox Dutch Jews and Muslims to butcher animals according to their centuries-old dietary rules However, the bill must still pass the senate and the government says it may be unenforceable in its current form. The threat of a ban led to outcry from Jewish and Muslim groups who say it infringes on their right to freedom of religion. They argue ritual slaughter -- done by swiftly cutting animals' throats with a razor-sharp knife -- is no worse than stunning. How The New York Times Concealed Ukrainian Genocide Video  The most influential US newspaper misled Americans about the mass deaths of millions of Ukrainians by starvation as a result of Soviet leader Stalin's program of forced collectivization during the early 1930s. The inaccurate reports in America's "newspaper of record" were written by Walter Duranty, who reported from Moscow. He was later honored with the most prestigious US award for journalism, the Pulitzer Prize. Runtime: 3:32 mins. Was the `Holodomor' Genocide? Alexander J. Motyl  ... The Holodomor, in which some 3 to 6 million Ukrainian peasants were starved to death during a massive crackdown on the Ukrainian cultural, religious, and political elites, was genocide ... The famine's status as a non-event at best or an émigré fantasy at worst has changed by 180 degrees. No one, anywhere, today disputes that millions of Ukrainians were starved to death in1932-1933. No one disputes that the famine was avoidable, and almost no one disputes that it was a crime ... The shift is remarkable and it is here to stay. But will the view of the Holodomor as genocide gain the upper hand? Nationalism and Genocide: Origin of the Artificial Famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine Valentyn Moroz -- Institute for Historical Review ... These elementary analogies are enough to show that the murder of seven million Ukrainians in 1933 could not have been motivated by socio-economic or "class" reasons alone. Conflicts claim millions of victims only in struggles between nations, as in wars, colonial struggles, and so forth, when the national question is paramount. Moscow needed a holocaust. The imposed famine of 1933 and the whole range of repressive mass killings during the 1930s were an expression of the empire's struggle for self-preservation. It was this instinct, and not the economic doctrine of collectivization, that impelled the Kremlin to carry out the horrors of the 1930s. Leaving Afghanistan Gwynne Dyer  ... Now the Taliban are back in force, and the war is all but lost. The US may think it is about "terrorism" and al-Qaeda, but for Afghans it is just a continuation of the civil war that had already been raging for almost a decade before the US invasion. The Taliban, almost entirely drawn from the Pashtun ethnic group, captured Kabul in 1996, but they never managed to conquer the other, smaller ethnic groups in northern Afghanistan. The United States stumbled into this civil war under the delusion that it was fighting Islamist terrorists, but in fact it has simply ended up on the side of the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Something Rotten This Way Comes Philip Giraldi The issue of Israel is of critical importance to the antiwar movement, as frequenters of this website are surely aware. This is because Israel and its lobby in the United States have succeeded in so intertwining their interests with those of the United States that whenever Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sneezes four hundred congressmen say "Gesundheit!" What Israel does has consequences for every American citizen, and not only because Tel Aviv is the largest recipient of US economic and military assistance. German Court Upholds Conviction of Bishop for `Holocaust Denial' The Associated Press  An appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction of a British bishop who denied the Holocaust in an interview with a Swedish TV station that was rebroadcast over the Internet in Germany. The Regensburg court on Monday confirmed last year's incitement conviction of Bishop Richard Williamson, though it lowered his punishment to a fine of 6,500 euros ($9,136) from the original 10,000 euros ... Israel Bans Boycotts Against the State The New York Times The Israeli Parliament on Monday passed contentious legislation that effectively bans any public call for a boycott against the state of Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense. Critics and civil rights groups denounced the new law as antidemocratic and a flagrant assault on the freedom of expression and protest. The law's defenders said it was a necessary tool in Israel's fight against what they called its global delegitimization. Passage of the law followed a string of efforts in the rightist-dominated Parliament to promote legislation that is seen by the more liberal Israelis as an erosion of democratic values. Bachmann, Staunchly Pro-Zionist, Lived on Israeli Kibbutz Newsmax  For Rep. Michele Bachmann, staunch support for Israel is a personal matter: Teenage Bachmann spent a summer working on a kibbutz in Israel. The 55-year-old Minnesota Republican, founder of the House Tea Party Caucus and a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, went to Israel in 1974, immediately after graduating from high school. Her mission was sponsored by Young Life, a Christian ministry ... Today, Bachmann is a member of "Christians United for Israel" and one of Israel's strongest supporters in Congress. She has visited the Jewish state several times since taking office. In Britain, One in Four Primary School Children Are From An Ethnic Minority The Daily Mail (Britain)  More than a quarter of primary school children are from an ethnic minority -- an increase of almost half a million since 1997, it emerged yesterday. The government's annual school census painted a picture of a changing Britain where schools are under mounting pressure from mass immigration. In some areas, only eight percent of primary pupils are from a white British background. Nearly one million children aged five to 16 - 957,490 - speak English as a second language, up from almost 800,000 five years ago. And 26.5 per cent of primary pupils - 862,735 - are from an ethnic minority. Non-Whites Now Make Up Majority of Babies in USA The Associated Press For the first time, more than half of the children under age two in the U.S. are [non-white] minorities, part of a sweeping race change and a growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and fast-growing younger ethnic populations that could reshape government policies. Preliminary census estimates also show the share of African-American households headed by women -- mostly single mothers -- now exceeds African-American households with married couples, reflecting the trend of declining U.S. marriages overall. Naked Nazis: Book Reveals Extent of Third Reich Body Worship Der Spiegel (Germany) Science fiction, jokes and forbidden love: The book market in Nazi Germany was surprisingly varied. But perhaps the most bizarre bestseller to make it past the censors was an unabashed collection of nudist photography. ... / What did Germans read during the Nazi era? In search of the answer, author Christian Adam surveyed a total of 350 bestsellers from the twelve years of the Third Reich's existence -- making striking discoveries in the process. In addition to well-known propaganda books like Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Alfred Rosenberg's "The Myth of the Twentieth Century," there were schmaltzy regional novels, science fiction, mysteries, love stories, joke books and cross-media marketed accompaniments to radio programs and films. Military Conscription Around the World The Economist (Britain) ... Germany [has] suspended military conscription and its civilian counterpart, community service ... Where compulsory military service is enforced in Europe it ranges from 260 days (in Switzerland), to 26 months (in Cyprus). As the map shows, conscription is most popular in Asia and Africa. Hitler's Birth Town Revokes Dictator's Honorary Citizenship DPA -- Haaretz (Israel) Adolf Hitler's Austrian birth town of Braunau confirmed Friday that it had removed the German dictator from its list of honorary citizens, in a symbolic step that came as a reaction to increasing media pressure. The town council's decision on Thursday evening followed recent similar moves in several other Austrian communities. Although Hitler had never been stripped of his citizenship, his honorary status expired with his death in 1945, Green party councilman Manfred Hackl told the German Press Agency DPA ... Himmler's Daughter, Now 81, Upholds Her Father's Memory Daily Mail (Britain)  Waving goodbye to her grandchildren, Gudrun Burwitz has the look of a woman ready to live the rest of her days in peace and quiet. Instead, the 81-year-old daughter of Heinrich Himmler still works at a ruthless pace to keep the Nazi flame alive. Mrs Burwitz has always nurtured the memory of her father, believing the man who ran the Gestapo, the SS and the extermination programme which murdered six million Jews, to be good and worthy. And despite her advanced years, she continues to help the ageing remnants of the Nazi regime to evade justice. The Reichstag Fire: A Nazi `False Flag' Operation? Mark Weber - Podcast  One of the most enduring myths of our age is the story that the Nazis set the Reichstag building on fire as a "false flag" operation to generate popular support for measures of the Hitler government to suppress dissent and consolidate power. Even some prominent historians have accepted the often repeated smear, which was invented and vigorously promoted by Communists, that Goering and other Nazi officials set the German parliament building ablaze on Feb. 27, 1933, and then cynically blamed the crime on enemies. Palestinians Report Dramatic Rise in Settler Attacks AFP  Attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian farmland and crops increased "dramatically" in June, a report released by the Palestinian Authority has shown. "Since the beginning of June, the settlers attacks escalated dramatically, especially against the land and the trees. In the first week of June, settlers burnt 350 trees Deir al-Hatab village near Nablus, 20 grape vines in Hebron and uprooted 40 grape vines in Beit Ummar village," said a statement from the government released on Wednesday. Settlers also burned dozens of acres of farmland and more than 1,000 olive trees, the report said. "These attacks are part of a campaign to terrorise Palestinian farmers and their families. ..." Pre sident Roosevelt's Record of Lies and Lawlessness in the `Good War' Mark Weber - Podcast  Citing little-known reports and remarks of Polish, British and French officials, and other evidence, Weber traces President Franklin Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. By pressing Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany, the US President bears at least some responsibility for World War II. Weber also discusses the role of Jewish power and in fluence on US foreign policy during those years. Roosevelt's record of deceit, lies and lawlessness is routinely suppressed by those who control the US media and American cultural life. The Influence and Origins of FDR Ralph Raico ... Roosevelt stands for the national government as we know it today: a vast, unfathomable bureaucratic apparatus that recognizes no limits whatsoever to its power, either at home or abroad. Internationally, it gives every evidence of intending to run the whole world, of extending its hegemony - now that the Soviet Union is no more - to every corner of the globe. .. ... More than anyone else, Franklin Roosevelt is responsible for creating the Leviathan state that confronts us today. Roosevelt's 'Secret Map' Speech Mark Weber ... Roosevelt was not the first or the last American president to lie to the people. But rarely has a major American political figure given a speech as loaded with brazen falsehood as Franklin Roosevelt did in his Navy Day address of October 27, 1941 ... Roosevelt went on to reveal that he also had in his possession "another document made in Germany by Hitler's government. It is a detailed plan to abolish all existing religions -- Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike" which Germany will impose "on a dominated world, if Hitler wins." Down on the Fourth of July: The United States of Gloom Toby Harnden -- The Telegraph (Britain)  ... A country whose hallmark has always been a sense of irrepressible optimism is in the grip of unprecedented uncertainty and self-doubt. With the United States mired in three foreign wars, beaten down by an economy that shows few signs of emerging from deep recession and deeply disillusioned with President Barack Obama, his Republican challengers and Congress, the mood is dark ... Americans do not just blame Obama; and the national malaise is to do with far more than one president. "Every institution in America has gone through a collapse," says Luntz. "The Church is not what it was, thanks to all those religious scandals, the media is much less trusted today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Big business does not have credibility." Turkey: The Mideast's Real Revolution Eric Margolis  The revolutions and uprising that have been sweeping across the Mideast are widely believed to have begun in Tunisia. In fact, the first seeds of revolution were planted in 2002 in Turkey, as its Justice and Development Party began the long, arduous battle against disguised military dictatorship ... Turkey's popular prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, backed by a majority of voters, has turned Turkey into the Mideast's role model for successful democracy, and unleashed the latent economic power of this nation of 75 million ... The Wall Street Journal, the North American mouthpiece of Israel's hard right, has led the attacks against Turkey. Claims by the right that Erdogn is turning Turkey into an Islamic dictatorship are false. Israeli Lawmaker Wants Africans Sent to Australia The Jerusalem Post (Israel) MK Danny Danon (Likud) [member of Israel's parliament] asked Australian MP Michael Danby on Wednesday to propose, in parliament in Canberra, sending African migrants from Israel to Australia. Danon and Danby discussed the issue during the Australian politician's visit to Israel for the World Jewish Congress's International Conference of Jewish Parliamentarians. "The arrival of thousands of Muslim infiltrators to Israeli territory is a clear threat to the state's Jewish identity," Danon told The Jerusalem Post. Mexico's Challenge: Aversion to Competition, Lack of Respect for The Law Jorge Castañeda - Los Angeles Times  ... A willingness to make deals with criminals attests to another deeply ingrained Mexican trait that I deal with in my new book, "Mañana Forever? Mexico and the Mexicans": an extreme disregard and lack of respect for the law. A recent poll carried out by Banamex and Fundación Este País asked respondents whether they thought citizens of Mexico respected its laws. About 49% said rarely or never, and only 6% replied always. The rule of law does not really exist in Mexico today, in big and small matters alike. What Happens When the Band Stops Playing? Standpoint (Britain)  Like a condemned man on a guillotine that jams in mid-fall, the symphony orchestra appears to survive on a whim and a prayer. The past year has been a testing one, the most parlous in memory, and few orchestras go into the summer festival whirl feeling entirely secure about what lies beyond ... Other US orchestras are wrestling with long legacies of stasis. In the 1970s American orchestras lost the thirty-somethings to rampant rock, an art that refused to grow old. Audiences who would once have gravitated in midlife from the Stones to the symphony stuck with the Jagger tours. The symphony lost its Middle America hinterland. Fourth of July Lies June Terpstra ... The obedient folks in the U.S.A. are exposed to hundreds of Hollywood films, after-school specials and school projects that prioritize USA dominance, rabid consumption at the cost of the planet, and the repeated story of "The Jewish Holocaust" with a capital "H" as opposed to the "always forget" truths of indigenous holocausts of North America, Africa, Palestine, Iraq, and soon to be Libya promoting the take-over of as many countries as possible by a very real axis of evil, real dictators, and real gangsters -- the corporate-government elites of the USA, Britain and Israel. Holocaust Is A `Lie,' Says Egypt Party Leader The Washington Times  A leader of Egypt's top secular party says the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were "made in the USA," the Holocaust is "a lie" and Anne Frank's memoir is "a fake" -- comments sure to roil the post-revolution political debate in the Arab world's most populous country. Ahmed Ezz El-Arab, a vice chairman of Egypt's Wafd Party, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with The Washington Times last week while in the Hungarian capital attending the Conference on Democracy and Human Rights. He denied that the Nazis killed six million Jews during World War II. "The Holocaust is a lie" Mr. Ezz El-Arab said. The Dumbing-Down of America Patrick J. Buchanan  ... On history tests given to 31,000 pupils by the National Assessment of Education Progress, the "Nation's Report Card," most fourth-graders could not identify a picture of Abraham Lincoln or a reason why he was important ... "We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," historian David McCullough told The Wall Street Journal. "History textbooks," added McCullough, "are "badly written." Many texts have been made "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence" -- such as inventor Thomas Edison -- "are given very little space or none at all." Anti-Defamation League Demagoguery and Islamophobia Stephen Lendman  ... Abraham Foxman, its national director, uses high-mindedness and unfounded anti-semitism hysteria as cover for backing Jewish supremacy and the right of Israelis over Arabs, including by occupation and belligerently enforced apartheid ... Like all Jewish supremacists, they're for Israeli lawlessness, violence, aggressive wars, isolation, home demolitions, land theft, dispossessions, mass imprisonments, torture, targeted assassinations, and continued slow-motion genocide against millions of Palestinians, including besieged Gazans. 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. The Divisive Waste That Was World War One Glenn C. Altschuler -- The Oregonian (Portland)  ... In "To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918," Adam Hochschild uses these civil -- and uncivil -- wars in a compelling account of World War I in England. Along with virtually all historians, he sees the conflict as unnecessary, as an appalling waste of human life and as the principal cause of World War II. If we could roll back history and undo one -- and only one -- event in the 20th century, he has no doubt that it should be the war that became the world's first "total war." A gifted storyteller, with an eye for the telling detail, Hochschild effectively and eloquently brings to life the senselessness of the war. Outrage In Egypt Over Israeli Atrocities During 1967 War Time magazine (1995)  Despite a historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the heritage of two wars in two decades still leaves unexpected and bitter traces. Last week new disclosures that Israeli soldiers massacred Egyptian pows during the 1967 war added to a growing wave of anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt. The sequence of events leading to the unearthing of two mass graves outside the Sinai city of El Arish last week began a month ago with admissions by Israeli war veterans that unarmed Egyptian civilians and PoWs were murdered in the 1956 and 1967 wars. Jewish Groups Want Polish Priest Punished For Allegedly Anti-Jewish Remarks The Associated Press  International Jewish groups have called on the Vatican to sanction a prominent Polish priest who they say uses his media empire to foment anti-Semitism. They acted after the Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk caused uproar in Poland by calling his country a totalitarian state that "hasn't been ruled by Poles since 1939." Though he did not mention Jews by name, his language echoed that of anti-Semites who claim that Jews hold excessive power in Poland and that Polish Jews are not "real Poles" with Polish interests at heart ... The World Jewish Congress called on the Vatican Tuesday to expel Rydzyk from his order of priests. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said he should be excommunicated. Appeal Begins for `Holocaust Denying' Bishop Williamson Deutsche Welle (Germany)  A bishop convicted of denying the Holocaust has skipped the start of his own appeal in a German court. Richard Williamson was convicted of sedition and fined for denying the Holocaust. British bishop Richard Williamson was not present at the opening of his appeal on Monday in Germany. Williamson, a member of the ultra-conservative Saint Pius X Society, was fined 10,000 euros ($14,000) last year by a Regensburg court for statements he made to a Swedish TV station denying the Holocaust. Dutch Court Clears Geert Wilders of Hate Charges BBC News  Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, who described Islam as "fascist", has been acquitted of inciting hatred against Muslims. Amsterdam judge Marcel van Oosten accepted the Freedom Party leader's statements were directed at Islam and not at Muslim believers. They were, the judge ruled, "acceptable within the context of public debate". It is believed the plaintiffs may attempt to make their case before a European court or the UN. Their lawyer, Ties Prakken, was quoted by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf as saying they were "deeply disappointed" and believed the right of minorities to be protected against hate speech had been violated. Mr Wilders has compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Plans for Museum of Hitler's Wartime HQ in Ukraine Stirs Controversy BBC News  Plans in Ukraine to open a museum at the ruins of a bunker used by Hitler during World War II have provoked concerns it could become a shrine for neo-Nazis. The decision by local authorities in the central city of Vinnitsa to turn the site of the Wehrwolf bunker into a tourist attraction has caused so much controversy that President Viktor Yanukovych requested on a recent visit to Vinnitsa that the matter be settled in a local referendum ... Communist and socialist party activists opposed the idea, arguing that the creation of such a museum would be tantamount to spreading Nazi propaganda. Many Jamaicans Say Their Country Would Have Better Off As British Colony BBC News  A survey for a Jamaican newspaper suggests most islanders believe the country would have been better off if it had remained a British colony. The poll, commissioned by The Gleaner, found that 60 percent of respondents backed this view. But 17 percent disagreed. A thousand people took part in the survey, out of a population of 2.7 million ... The Gleaner has interpreted the results as suggesting "six in every 10 Jamaicans...long for 'the good old days'". Romania's President Justifies 1941 `Barbarossa' Attack on USSR The Associated Press  Russia on Thursday expressed outrage at Romanian President Traian Basescu's recent remarks in support of a 1941 wartime attack on Soviet troops -- an assault that was coordinated with the Nazis. Basescu said in an interview last week that Romania's war against the Soviet Union was justified because it wanted to regain a territory -- Moldova -- taken by the Soviets in 1940. He said: "I probably would have done the same." The order to attack Soviet troops was given by the pro-fascist dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu and led to the slaughter of thousands. Stalin Was Ready To Go to War Against Germany In 1939, Along With Britain and France RT (Russia) - Video  Newly declassified documents show that Stalin was ready in 1939, in collaboration with Britain, to deploy more than a million Soviet troops against Germany to pre-empt potential German aggression. Runtime: 3:58 mins. Examining Stalin's 1941 Plan to Attack Germany Daniel Michaels - Institute for Historical Review Strauss affirms the view of German historian Ernst Nolte that Hitler's militant anti-Communism was an understandable reaction to the looming Soviet threat to Europe and humanity. Put another way, the militancy of the "fascist" movements that arose in Germany, Spain, Italy and other European countries in the 1920s and 1930s was, in essence, a response to the undisguised Bolshevik goal of dominating Europe. This view, Strauss contends, has now largely been embraced by Russian revisionists and the French historian François Furet. It is basically irrelevant whether one regards the war that broke out in June 1941 between Germany and Soviet Russia as a war of aggression, a preventive war or a counterattack. 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. US Wars Are Costing $4 Trillion, A New Study Finds Liz Goodwin -- The Lookout A new report out of Brown University estimates that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- together with the counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan -- will, all told, cost $4 trillion and leave 225,000 dead, both civilians and soldiers. The group of economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists involved in the project estimated that the cost of caring for the veterans injured in the wars will reach $1 trillion in 30 or 40 years. In estimating the $4 trillion total, they did not take into account the $5.3 billion in reconstruction spending the government has promised Afghanistan, state and local contributions to veteran care, interest payments on war debt, or the costs of Medicare for veterans when they reach 65. Libya: A Deafening Silence Jody McIntyre -- The Independent (Britain)  ... Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, which provoked huge outcries across the world, the reaction to Libya has been relatively muted. We have been sold on a false premise, and, as Noam Chomsky would say, have allowed the manufacture of our consent ... This is nothing to do with protecting civilians, and everything to do with re-establishing a waning military and economic domination in the region. When you consider a list of the few countries in the world that do not have US military bases on their soil, it becomes a lot clearer why our "enemies" are who we are taught they are. Strange Definitions of War and Peace Rep. Ron Paul ... I joined six Republican and three Democrat colleagues to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its illegal war against Libya. Now that more than 90 days have passed since the president began bombing Libya, no one can seriously claim that the administration has complied with the clear requirements of the 1973 War Powers Resolution ... The American people increasingly favor a truly conservative foreign policy: one that rejects the leftist, utopian doctrines of nation building and preemptive war, and one that is NOT funded by debt. Forcing the Obama administration to obey the clear letter of the law is one step towards restoring a traditional, patriotic foreign policy that serves American interests. Conflict in Libya Drags On George Will America's intervention in Libya's civil war, the most protracted and least surreptitious assassination attempt in history, was supposed to last "days, not weeks," but is in its fourth month and has revealed NATO to be an increasingly fictitious military organization. Although this war has no discernible connection with U.S. national security, it serves the national interest, in three ways ... Disgust with this debacle has been darkly described as a recrudescence of "isolationism," as though people opposing this absurdly disproportionate and patently illegal war are akin to those who, after 1938, opposed resisting Germany and Japan. Such slovenly thinking is a byproduct of shabby behavior. Dr. Mengele's Writings To Be Auctioned PR Newswire  Sixty-six years after the notorious Nazi death camp at Auschwitz was liberated and the horrific crimes of Dr. Josef Mengele were first revealed, Alexander Historic Auctions of Stamford, Connecticut, has obtained for auction all of the war criminal's writings, including his autobiography describing his escape from Germany and life in South America, diaries, philosophical tracts, racial and political commentary, poetry, short stories, and travelogues. The archive is composed of over 3,300 pages of handwritten text, some illustrated, largely in bound journals, written while Mengele was in hiding in Paraguay and Brazil between 1960 and 1975. Lessons of the Mengele Affair Mark Weber With the possible exceptions of Hitler and Himmler, no man has been so vilified in recent years as the personification of Nazi evil as Dr. Josef Mengele. The Mengele legend was the basis for two novels that Hollywood turned into popular movies ... While no sane person would excuse or whitewash atrocities, no matter who commits them, a basic regard for truth and decency compels another, more thoughtful look at the Mengele legend. How much truth is there to the fantastic accusations? The stock allegation that Mengele "sent 400,000 Jews to the Auschwitz gas chambers" is a falsehood based in part on misrepresentation. Housing Collapse Steeper Than During Great Depression Fox News  The author of a study claiming the U.S. housing collapse is now worse than during the Great Depression warned Wednesday that the market likely will continue to fall for the rest of the year before going stagnant. Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist for Capital Economics, predicted home prices would fall another three percent over the rest of 2011 before potentially hitting bottom. "Even when that happens, I don't think we're going to see any significant or sustained rises," he told FoxNews.com Wednesday, predicting "a couple years of pretty much no recovery whatsoever." Actually, That's Not In the Bible CNN  ... The Bible may be the most revered book in America, but it's also one of the most misquoted. Politicians, motivational speakers, coaches - all types of people - quote passages that actually have no place in the Bible, religious scholars say. Palestinians in Israel: There May Be Trouble Ahead The Economist (Britain) ... The 160,000 Palestinians who survived the 1948 war and stayed in what became Israel in order to remain close to their ancestral homes now number 1.3 million. Long marginalised as a rather stranded little community, they have seldom received much international attention compared with the 4.1 million Palestinians who live in the occupied territories. Now two books about them have appeared simultaneously, complementing one another ... The rift between Jewish and Arab Israelis, always wide, is growing dangerous. Though there is no evidence that the general Palestinian mood is becoming violent, they discern a distinct rise in radicalism. Bergen-Belsen Camp: The Suppressed Story Mark Weber ... On April 15, 1945, British troops liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The anniversary was widely remembered in official ceremonies and in newspaper articles that, as the following essay shows, distort the camp's true history ... Ghastly images recorded by Allied photographers at Belsen in mid-April 1945 and widely reproduced ever since have greatly contributed to the camp's reputation as a notorious extermination center. In fact, the dead of Bergen-Belsen were, above all, unfortunate victims of war and its turmoil, not deliberate policy. Germans Must Accept High Crime Rate of Immigrants, Says Chancellor Video  "We must accept a particularly high crime rate among immigrant youth," says German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Runtime: 1:12 mins. My Life as a Revisionist (1983-1987) Robert Faurisson ... For several years I had realized that as soon as the press made public my opinions about Revisionism I would encounter a storm of opposition. By its very nature Revisionism can only disturb the public order; where certitudes quietly reign, the spirit of free inquiry is an intrusion and shocks the public ... For a long time to come it will be the lot of the Revisionists to work in obscurity and danger. Their adventure is similar to that of the Renaissance, in which certain individuals, in varying degrees throughout Europe, simultaneously and spontaneously took it upon themselves to struggle against obscurantism. Why Michele Bachmann Is Wrong About Israel and America Mark Weber -- Podcast  Michele Bachmann, who calls herself a "constitutional conservative," is a US congressional representative who recently announced that she's a presidential candidate. In a new video presentation, she stresses her "love" for Israel, and says that US support for the Zionist state is "critical" for America. Her views on Israel, American "exceptionalism" and US foreign policy are shared by many Americans, especially those who call themselves conservative. In this broadcast, Weber explains why her views grossly distort historical reality, are dangerously misleading, and betray the very principles she claims to uphold. Did Michele Bachmann Just Reject American Exceptionalism? Justin Elliott -- Salon.com ... Watch this video on the U.S.-Israel relationship recently released by presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann. "Most Americans recognize that Israelis and Americans are two sides of the same coin because we share the same values and the same aspirations," Bachmann says. "We even share the same exceptional mission -- to be a light to the nations." But how can America truly be unique -- be exceptional -- if Israel shares our "same exceptional mission"? Doesn't that undermine the one-of-a-kind character of America the Exceptional? Economically, World War II Was Stimulus on Steroids Paul Abrams -- Huffington Post  The next time someone argues that the New Deal failed, and only the Second World War ended the Depression, as 'proof' that government spending does not work, one can respond with the details of economic growth and unemployment reduction up to 1940, or one can ignore the claim and thank them for making your case for massive government spending in a deep, broad recession. Right wing politicians are loathe to credit the New Deal with any success in hoisting the United States out of the Great Depression, but credit World War II for that achievement, believing that that somehow disproves Keynesian economic theory. That claim, however, undermines their entire premise. Bias and the Beholder: Stephen Jay Gould Editorial -- The New York Times  Stephen Jay Gould, a prominent evolutionary biologist, gained broad public attention for exposing how scientists' biases can skew their research. ... The team expressed admiration for Dr. Gould's body of work in staunch opposition to racism, but, in this case, it accused him of various errors and manipulations that supported his own hypothesis. "Ironically, Gould's own analysis of Morton is likely the stronger example of a bias influencing results," the team said. We wish Dr. Gould were here to defend himself. Right now it looks as though he proved his point, just not as he intended. World War One Underground: Unearthing the Hidden Tunnel War Peter Jackson - BBC News  Archaeologists are beginning the most detailed ever study of a Western Front battlefield, an untouched site where 28 British tunnellers lie entombed after dying during brutal underground warfare ... One of the most notable episodes was at the Battle of Messines in 1917 where 455 tons of explosive placed in 21 tunnels that had taken more than a year to prepare created a huge explosion that killed an estimated 10,000 Germans. ... When the British launched the bloody Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, La Boisselle stood on the main axis of the attack. Of the 1.5 million total casualties in the four-month campaign, 420,000 British soldiers were killed, wounded or missing having gained just two miles - a loss of two men per centimetre. Sterilization: North Carolina Grapples With Legacy BBC News More than 60,000 Americans were sterilised, many against their will, as part of a eugenics movement that finished in 1979, aimed at keeping the poor and mentally ill from having children. Now, decades on, one state is considering... America's sterilisation movement was part of a broad effort to cleanse the country's population of characteristics and social groups deemed unwanted, an effort that included anti-race mixing and strict immigration quotas aimed at Eastern Europeans, Jews and Italians. Beginning with Indiana in 1907, 32 states eventually passed laws allowing authorities to order the sterilisation of people deemed unfit to breed. The Magna Carta and the Jews Jewish Currents (New York)  The Magna Carta ("Great Charter"), a breakthrough document in the evolution of democracy, was signed under duress by King John of England on this date [June 15] in 1215, five days after the barons of the land had seized the city of London. The document, which placed some limits on the king's power, contained two provisions about Jews and money-lending. Donor Bread (Money) and Congressional Circuses: Jews and Politics Lawrence Davidson According to a May 19 report by The Wall Street Journal, the American Zionists are starting to turn the screws on President Obama and the Democratic Party ... If you doubt that this tactic can work just watch the video of Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to Congress. Those 20 plus "sustained and standing ovations" did not come from mere true believers. They came from the throughly bought and bullied. The Zionists have a strikingly successful and very long standing vote buying operation and they are, of course, applying it to the president and his reelection campaigners ... It is about money. It is estimated by multiple mainstream sources that approximately 60 percent of Democratic campaign funds come from Jewish sources of all kinds. Elie Wiesel and the Catholics David O'Connell -- Culture Wars (2004)  ... Over the course of his career, Wiesel has told many tall tales about his alleged experiences during World War II. They can be called "true lies," since they are meant to edify and are told with supposedly good intentions, even though they are not true. In the following pages, I shall examine closely one of these "true lies." ... Elie Wiesel, so admired by many U. S. Catholic leaders, is in fact a con man who has enriched himself with his tall tales. Although courted by various misguided Church representatives, he is actually an outspoken enemy of traditional Catholicism, and should play no role whatsoever in Catholic life in this country. A Prominent False Witness: Elie Wiesel Incites Hate Robert Faurisson ... Wiesel claims to be full of love for humanity. However, he does not refrain from an appeal to hatred. In his opinion: "Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead." Can We Afford the Military Budget? Bruce Bartlett  .. The latest NATO data shows that in 2010, the United States spent 5.4 percent of its gross domestic product on its military -- twice as much as spent by Britain and three to four times as much as most of our NATO allies ... A crucial reason for this gap is that the United States spends almost as much today as it did during the Cold War. Every other NATO country spends substantially less ... Russia spent 4.3 percent of its G.D.P. on military outlays in 2009, down from 15.8 percent in 1988; China spent just 2.2 percent of its G.D.P. on the military budget, about the same as it has been since 1989. The institute notes that the United States accounted for virtually all of the increase in world military spending in 2010. Whites Believe They Are Victims of Racism More Often Than Blacks Tufts University ( Massachusetts )  Whites believe that they have replaced blacks as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America , according to a new study from researchers at Tufts University 's School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School . The findings, say the authors, show that America has not achieved the "post-racial" society that some predicted in the wake of Barack Obama's election. Both whites and blacks agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, according to the study. However, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased and is now a bigger problem than anti-black racism. Afghanistan: The War No One Wants Amanda Terkel  The war in Afghanistan is increasingly becoming the war no one wants. Opposition to the conflict is now mainstream, with the vast majority of the American public favoring a substantial drawdown of US troops. With the death of bin Laden, the growing cost of operations and frustrated constituents, an increasing group of congressional lawmakers is also voicing concerns. Even within the Obama administration, there are reports of some aides pushing for a strong drawdown." Ninety Percent of Petraeus' Captured `Taliban' Were Civilians Gareth Porter - Inter Press Service  During his intensive initial round of media interviews as commander in Afghanistan in August 2010, Gen. David Petraeus released figures to the news media that claimed spectacular success for raids by Special Operations Forces ... But it turns out that more than 80 percent of those called captured Taliban fighters were released within days of having been picked up, because they were found to have been innocent civilians, according to official U.S. military data. Even more were later released from the main U.S. detention facility at Bagram airbase called the Detention Facility in Parwan after having their files reviewed by a panel of military officers. Color Photos Of Austria's 1938 Union With German Reich Life magazine  This series of Life magazine color photos provides a vivid glimpse into the mood of Austrians when they joined the German Reich in 1938. These photos reflect something of the fervor of popular support for Hitler and union (Anschluss) with National Socialist Germany. These images also help to discredit the often-repeated lie that the Anschluss was "aggression" or "rape." Expellee 'Provocation': Prague Refuses Apology to Sudeten Germans Der Spiegel ( Germany ) An annual meeting of post-World War II expellees was marred this weekend by bad blood with Prague . The Czech president was outraged after an expellee leader suggested that an apology for their expulsion was in order. The row threatens the fragile process of reconciliation between the two sides. The Czech Republic and a group representing those Germans who were expelled from then-Czechoslovakia after World War II -- the Sudeten Germans -- have been working for decades to reconcile their uncomfortable past. But over the Pentecost holiday weekend, the process suffered a serious blow after the two sides exchanged barbs. An Unknown Holocaust: Mass Killing, `Ethnic Cleansing' and Brutal Mistreatment of Germans by the Victorious Allies Mark Weber -- Worldwatch (Audio MP3 file) Weber reviews the little-known story of misery and death imposed by the victors on defeated Germany in the aftermath of World War II. The Allied powers imposed an "unknown holocaust" of destruction, looting, starvation, rape, "ethnic cleansing," and mass killing. More than 14 million Germans were expelled or forced to flee from eastern and central Europe . Some three million Germans died needlessly -- about two million civilians, mostly women, children and elderly, and one million prisoners of war. Weber also highlights the Allied double standard in putting German leaders to death for policies that the Allies themselves were carrying out, sometimes on a far greater scale. Pimping the Holocaust's Memory Meir Stieglitz Never was the memory of the Holocaust's victims subjected to such an abhorrent use and moral abuses as in Israel today. And no one is more proficient in submitting the abysmal sufferings of the European Jews to the highest bidder than Israel 's current Prime Minster, Netanyahu ... The stench is a poisonous one. The whole scene at the Knesset is part of the "Victimhood" national project. The project is intended to legitimize the unmitigated use of Israel 's near global-projected strategic power ... Quite simply, the orchestrated campaign of Holocaust-guilt and Anti-Semites-hunt is cowing every major media organ attached to Israel . The Secular Religion of `The Holocaust' Robert Faurisson  The religion of "the Holocaust" is a secular one: it belongs to the lay world; it is profane; in actuality, it has at its disposal the secular arm, that is a temporal authority with dreaded power. It has its dogma, its commandments, its decrees, its prophets and its high priests. As one revisionist has observed, it has its circle of saints, male and female, amongst whom, for example, Saint Anne (Frank), Saint Simon (Wiesenthal) and Saint Elie (Wiesel). It has its holy places, its rituals and its pilgrimages. It has its sacred (and macabre) buildings and its relics ... Paying Off Israel's Military Bills: US Should Cut Off Aid Philip Giraldi -- Council for National Interest  "The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States ." That was the conclusion of a Pentagon administrative judge in 2006. One very good reason why Israel should not receive billions of dollars in military assistance annually is its espionage against the United States ... I agree with Congressman Ron Paul when he says "We cannot afford to have 'business as usual' when we are bankrupt." The US-Israel military aid entanglement -- what we give, sell, and especially what is stolen -- is unaffordable and unjustifiable. Israeli Spying on US is Dangerous, Says Former CIA Officer Press TV ( Iran ) Former CIA counterterrorism officer Philip Giraldi says Israel conducts more espionage against the United States than any other US ally. The former CIA officer explained to a Press TV reporter in Washington how Israel steals both technologies and secrets from the US and sells them to other countries. ... "It should almost be seen as an act of war," Giraldi emphasized. He also made a reference to the strong influence the Israeli lobby is allowed to exercise in Washington . The ex-CIA officer, who is currently the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest Foundation, has authored the report The Spy Who Loves Us. U.S. Students Remain Poor at History, Tests Show The New York Times  American students are less proficient in their nation's history than in any other subject, according to results of a nationwide test released on Tuesday, with most fourth graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought American troops during the Korean War. Over all, 20 percent of fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency on the exam, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. War Crimes and Misdemeanors Stephen M. Walt ... Sounds laudable, except the report is almost completely silent on whether the United States also needs to do a much better job of investigating and prosecuting U.S. officials who might be guilty of war crimes themselves. After all, a more-than-plausible case can be made that the Bush administration violated international law when it invaded Iraq in 2003, that top officials engaged in war crimes when they ordered the torture of prisoners, and that U.S. reliance on "targeted killings" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan is also a violation of the laws of war ... This is the sort of pious moralizing that drives lots of people in other countries crazy. The issue isn't just our reluctance to put former top officials in the dock, it is also our relentless eagerness to preach to others about how they ought to behave, even when we are manifestly unwilling to live up to the same standards ourselves. Iran and the Issue of Nuclear Weapons Lawrence Davidson ... Israeli politicians are addicted to the Iran threat. Iran serves, alongside the Palestinians, as the latter day ruthless anti-Semite who would destroy the Jews. Zionists seem to need this kind of "existentialist" enemy. This is the equivalent of the Islamic fundamentalist taking the place of the hateful communist as the great enemy that the United States also seems to need. The Israeli lobby is more influential in formulating U.S. foreign policy toward Iran than all of the nation's intelligence services put together. Hence our politicians from the president on down, chase shadows. Not just verbally, mind you, but in terms of definable policy (like sanctions against Iran ). Israeli Stealth Ships in Raids on Iran The Times ( Britain ) A shipping company accused of breaking sanctions was really ferrying commandos for operations inside Iran . / Cargo vessels owned by Israel 's richest man, who died on Friday, had been used to ferry elite Israeli forces for operations inside Iran , according to defence sources. The death in Tel Aviv of Sammy Ofer, 89, came just days after the United States accused his company of breaching sanctions by selling an oil tanker to Iran . It has mystified Israelis why a company with close links to the government was allegedly breaching sanctions. Military experts suggested the cargo ships had carried Black Hawk helicopters, hidden in modified containers, for use by commando teams in reconnaissance missions against Iran 's secret nuclear sites. Israel is conducting a massive intelligence operation to monitor Iran 's nuclear weapons programme. Jewish Conspiracy Theory, the Eichmann Testimony and the Holocaust: Lipstadt's Contribution to Revisionism Paul Grubach  Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University ... points out that world famous "Nazi Hunter" Simon Wiesenthal (1908-2005) exaggerated his role in the Eichmann capture. However, she is even more disturbed about Wiesenthal's lies about Holocaust history, which others have also brought to the public's attention. ... The influential Simon Wiesenthal invented a historical fantasy, and the most powerful man on the planet, the president of the United States, ends up repeating it -- a tribute to the ability of a Jewish-Zionist to propagate a myth! German Wartime File on Death of Stalin's Son in POW Camp Mohawk Arms  A New York auction house is selling a German wartime dossier, kept secret for decades, on the death in April 1943 of Stalin's son, Yakov Djugashvili, while he was a prisoner in a German PoW camp. Stalin's son "was shot during an escape attempt at the Special Prison Camp A in Sachsenhausen near Oranienburg." It reports on tension between Stalin's son and another Russian named Kokodin and British prisoners. It also notes Djugashvili's irregular behavior prior to his death. Soviet POW Lt. Kokozyn describes conflicts regarding matters of hygiene and demeaning treatment by British POW's. Allegations of Fake Holocaust Claims Just Keep Growing Forward ( New York )  New arrests, fresh guilty pleas and a growing number of witnesses co-operating with the FBI have bolstered an investigation into a multimillion dollar fraud at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Many in the Russian-speaking community were stunned when 17 of their members -- six Claims Conference employees in a New York processing office and 11 accomplices -- were arrested last November on charges relating to a fraud that siphoned an estimated $42.5 million from Holocaust funds. At the time, five of the accused pleaded guilty. Russia's Winter Olympics Slips Into Controversy Over 'Nazi Images' The Guardian ( Britain ) Billboard adverts for elite housing complex at Sochi 2014 games uses 'neo-Hitlerite' imagery from infamous design agency, say critics. / A promotional campaign linked to the 2014 Winter Olympics is stirring debate in Russia because of its use of allegedly "fascist" imagery. The campaign employs images of blue-eyed, blond sportsmen and women which have been described by critics as "neo-Hitlerite" and "like something from a Leni Riefenstahl film". Obama Attack on Libya is Illegal Rep. Ron Paul  Last week, more than 70 days after President Obama sent our military to attack Libya without a congressional declaration of war, the House of Representatives finally voted on two resolutions attempting to rein in the president. This debate was long overdue, as polls show Americans increasingly are frustrated by congressional inaction ... All of these votes demonstrate that members of Congress increasingly understand that our foreign wars are deeply unpopular with their constituents. We are broke, and the American people know it ... The president's attack on Libya was unconstitutional and thus unlawful. This policy must be reversed. The Storm of War: Roberts' New History of World War II Review by Piers Brendon -- The Sunday Times (Britain)  "New History" is usually old history in disguise and Andrew Roberts's latest work is no exception. His account of the second world war is a vast recapitulation of a familiar story. It is based largely on secondary sources, including recent articles in the press and guided battlefield tours, which provide a tripper's view of the conflict. His interpretation is unoriginal ... Roberts understandably sees the titanic struggle from a western viewpoint. He acknowledges that the allied cause was morally vitiated by the adherence of Stalin, but he almost invariably justifies the actions of the democracies. Landmark Hitler Letter on Jews Unveiled in New York BBC News  A letter by Adolf Hitler - said to be the earliest expression of his ideas on anti-Semitism - has been shown publicly for the first time in New York. The four-page typed letter, written in 1919, calls for the "uncompromising removal" of Jews from society. It was acquired by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, where it is due to go on display. The statement by the then 30-year-old soldier is regarded as a key historical document from the period ... Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said that the organisation bought the letter for $150,000 from a private dealer last month. Text of Hitler's 1919 Letter on `Removal' of Jews H-Net - Humanities & Social Sciences Online ... Hitler's rhetoric here is quite tame, stressing the need for a "rational" and "scientific" antisemitism. Some historians have interpreted the letter's call for the "irrevocable removal [Entfernung]" of the Jews from German life as a prefiguring of the Holocaust. But it is clear from the context and from later statements that, at this point, Hitler meant segregation or expulsion rather than systematic liquidation. He wrote the letter in answer to an inquiry at the request of Captain Karl Mayr, who had hired him in the army's program of indoctrination of returning POWs and observation of political groups. Just four days before writing this letter, Hitler had attended for the first time a meeting of the DAP, which he would later rename NSDAP. Sarah Palin Stands By Her Misstatement About Paul Revere Ride The Associated Press  Sarah Palin insisted Sunday that history was on her side when she claimed that Paul Revere's famous ride was intended to warn both British soldiers and his fellow colonists ... But Revere's own writing and other historical accounts leave little doubt that secrecy was vital to his mission ... And while he made bells, Revere would never have rung any on that famous night because the Redcoats were under orders to round up people just like him. "He was riding off as quickly and as quietly as possible," Miller said. "Paul Revere did not want the Redcoats to know of his mission at all." Smurfs Accused of Anti-Semitism, Stalinism, and Racism The Guardian (Britain)  A little blue army of fans has mobilised to defend the Smurfs against accusations of antisemitism, racism and communism. Antoine Buéno, a lecturer at Sciences Po university in Paris, makes the claims in his new book Le Petit Livre Bleu, in which he points out that the Smurfs live in a world where private initiative is rarely rewarded, where meals are all taken together in a communal room, where there is one leader and where the Smurfs rarely leave their small country. "Does that not remind you of anything? A political dictatorship, for example?" asks Buéno, going on to compare the Smurfs' world to a totalitarian utopia reminiscent of Stalinist communism ... Weiner's Downfall A Reminder of Perils of Jewish Pride Alex Weisler - JTA (New York)  He was supposed to be one of Congress' rising stars, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn with great ambition and promise. A truculent Democrat with a penchant for media attention, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) was an unabashed liberal on domestic affairs and a hard-liner on foreign policy, particularly Israel ... In the Jewish community, which long had regarded him with pride, Weiner's spectacularly public downfall was a reminder of the perils of associating a particular person's successes or failures with his Jewishness. Weiner's perennial prefixes -- "Jewish congressman, from New York, staunch supporter of Israel" -- clearly identified him in the public mind. Dam Busters Dog Renamed For Movie Remake BBC News  The Dam Busters' dog will be renamed for a new version of the classic war movie, it has emerged. Stephen Fry, who is writing the film's screenplay, said there was "no question in America that you could ever have a dog called the N-word".In the remake, the dog will be called "Digger" instead of "Nigger." The black Labrador was the mascot for RAF 617 squadron, which during World War II destroyed dams in Germany with Barnes Wallis's famous bouncing bomb. US House Price Fall 'Beats Great Depression Slide' The Independent (Britain) The ailing US housing market passed a grim milestone in the first quarter of this year, posting a further deterioration that means the fall in house prices is now greater than that suffered during the Great Depression. The brief recovery in prices in 2009, spurred by government aid to first-time buyers, has now been entirely snuffed out, and the average American home now costs 33 per cent less than it did at the peak of the housing bubble in 2007 ... The latest Case-Shiller house price index was just one of a slew of disappointing economic data from the US yesterday, which suggested ebbing confidence in the recovery of the world's largest economy. Hail Caesar Paul Craig Roberts ... Why does anyone think that the President, who does not obey the War Powers Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US and international laws against torture, or any of the laws and procedures that guard civil liberty, is going to feel compelled to obey the debt ceiling? As long as the US is at war, the American President is a Caesar. He is above the law. The US Justice (sic) Department has ruled this, and Congress and the Courts have accepted it. Irving Lecture in Amsterdam Cancelled Under Jewish Pressure Folia (Amsterdam) The Amsterdam student magazine Folia has published a report on the last-minute banning of David Irving's May 26, 2011, talk to students at the university, under Jewish pressure. Here is the Dutch text of the article. Israeli Jew Turned Catholic Priest Named Head of Papal Court Haaretz (Israel) David Maria Jaeger, a Catholic priest who converted from Judaism, will be installed this morning as a prelate auditor of the Roman Rota, a papal law court that serves as the chief appellate court of the Catholic Church. Jaeger has come a long way from his youth in downtown Tel Aviv ... Jaeger's appointment to the Holy See's highest judicial body - comprising 20 auditors hand-picked by the pope and headed by Dean of the Rota Antoni Stankiewicz - is considered a personal sign of appreciation by the pope for Jaeger's years as legal adviser to the delegation that negotiated the Vatican's Fundamental Agreement with Israel. This pact, signed in 1993, enabled the establishment of diplomatic relations between the parties the following year. Crypto-Judaism in the Catholic Church Kevin MacDonald An article in Haaretz describes one David Maria Jaeger who "converted" from Judaism to Catholicism and will now become a member of the highest court in the Vatican. The word 'converted' is in quotes because it's apparent that Jaeger has in no sense ceased being a Jew. Jaeger was born in Tel Aviv and had a Jewish religious education before assuming his high position in the Church ... It is stunning that a very prominent Catholic has a deep Jewish identity and thinks of the Church as just another non-governmental international organization. Jewish Groups Blast `Anti-Semitic' Comic Book on Circumcision Daily News (New York)  A politically motivated comic book pitting a blond superhero called "Foreskin Man" against a sinister-looking "Monster Mohel" is causing a serious flap in California. The colorful series was created by the "intactivist" group MGMBill.org as part of its campaign to ban circumcision through ballot initiatives. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is blasting it as overtly anti-Semitic ... The online series portrays a menacing-looking mohel - someone specially trained to perform the traditional Jewish circumcision ceremony - waving bloody scissors over a screaming baby laid out on a pool table. Anti-Semitism Turns Off Supporters of Circumcision Bans The Atlantic Wire Jena Troutman, the primary subject of last weekend's New York Times report about the growing "momentum" of circumcision bans, has dropped her bid to outlaw the practice in the seaside city of Santa Monica, California. Troutman, the Jewish Journal first learned, is saying her campaign against circumcision has been misrepresented as an attack on religious freedom. "It shouldn't have been about religion in the first place," she said. She is the latest opponent of circumcision to drop her support because of anti-Semitic undertones of the pro-ban movement. Pope Benedict XVI Praises Wartime Croatian Cardinal AFP  Pope Benedict XVI honoured Sunday Croatia's late controversial World War II Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac as a "defender of Jews, the Orthodox and of all the persecuted." Stepinac, who headed Croatia's Catholic Church during World War II, is accused by critics of not standing against the persecution of Serbs and Jews by the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime. He was later jailed by the post-war communist Yugoslav authorities for collaboration with the Ustasha, which he denied ... The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants labelled the cardinal in a statement as an "avid supporter of the Ustasha." Spain's High Court Overturns Conviction For Nazi Writings JTA Spain's Jewish community has slammed a ruling by the country's Supreme Court that overturns the conviction of four people connected to a Barcelona bookstore that sold Nazi literature. The four connected to the now defunct bookshop, Kalki, had been found guilty by a lower court of fostering xenophobia and anti-Semitism through the selling of Nazi literature. The acquittals include a publisher in the nearby town of Molins de Rei. In 2009, the four were each sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being found guilty of selling publications that justified the Holocaust and praised the Nazi regime. In the Supreme Court's ruling, Justice Miguel Colmenero wrote that the selling of Nazi propaganda that promotes genocide is only a crime when there exists a danger that it could create a climate of hostility that would incite violence. In Spain, Pedro Varela In Prison In Free Speech Case Libertad Pedro Varela  ... A Spanish court has sentenced Barcelona bookshop owner Pedro Varela to two years and nine months in prison for "spreading racist propaganda." The court ruled that Varela spread ideas "favorable to genocide." In fact none of the books Varela sold were favorable in any way to genocide. Varela has always condemned all human rights violations against peoples. He was charged with "racism" for simply selling a book in his bookstore by a leading British scientist on racial differences. A book which advocated no repression or harm against anyone. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 2,880 euros (3,945 dollars). Albert Einstein: `Person of the Century' Stephen J. Sniegoski  ... Einstein parroted views that were dominant among left-wing intellectuals and Jews; he was an intellectual conformist rather than an independent thinker. His acclaimed "humanitarianism" was of a very selective variety, focusing largely on the specific interests of Jews and Communists. His displayed little or no concern for the opponents of Jews and Communists: the suffering of the millions of gentiles slaughtered by Soviet Communism; postwar Germans who suffered from Allied policies of starvation and territorial expulsion; or the murdered, expelled, and expropriated Palestinians. Ancient City In Amazonian Rainforest Linked to Ancient White-Skinned People of Peru Daily Mail (Britain)  A lost city discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest could unlock the secrets of a legendary tribe. Little is known about the Cloud People of Peru, an ancient, white-skinned civilisation wiped out by disease and war in the 16th century. But now archaeologists have uncovered a fortified citadel in a remote mountainous area of Peru known for its isolated natural beauty. It is thought this settlement may finally help historians unlock the secrets of the 'white warriors of the clouds'. The tribe had white skin and blonde hair - features which intrigue historians, as there is no known European ancestry in the region, where most inhabitants are darker skinned. The Simon Wiesenthal Center: A Zionist `Enforcer' Daniel Luban  Amid the array of hysterical reactions to President Obama's Middle East speech -- notable examples include Benjamin Netanyahu and Mitt Romney -- one under-reported response came from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which blasted Obama for calling for Israel to return to the 1967 "Auschwitz borders" ... Given this record, one is forced to ask what purpose these Jewish civil rights groups are serving in this day and age. Both the Wiesenthal Center and the ADL seem to think that their mission is first and foremost to serve as enforcers of the Likud line in the international arena. If this is all they have to offer the world, perhaps they have outlived their usefulness. Nazis Tried To Train Dogs To Talk, Read and Spell The Telegraph (Britain)  The Nazis tried to train dogs to talk, read and spell to help them win World War II, it has been revealed. The Germans viewed canines as being almost as intelligent as humans and attempted to build an army of fearsome 'speaking' dogs, extraordinary new research shows ... "Part of the Nazi philosophy was that there was a strong bond between humans and nature - they believed a good Nazi should be an animal friend." Rep. Anthony Weiner: Ultra-Hawkish Backer of Israel Alex Pareene -- Salon  Rep. Anthony Weiner's completely non-measured, non-conciliatory remarks on the Israeli attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla are proof that he'd rather be a successful New York politician than a prominent national liberal ... Will the liberals who only know Weiner from his feisty MSNBC appearances and his staunch support of the president's domestic initiatives be put off when they hear him taking the "Israel can do no wrong" side in the debate over Israel's botched raid, in international waters, of a humanitarian aid flotilla? ... "Even if we are the only country on earth that sees the facts here," Weiner says, "the United States should stand up for Israel." That's the statement of a man with whom there can be no reasoning. The Illegal War in Libya Glenn Greenwald ... This war, without Congressional authorization, is illegal in every relevant sense: Constitutionally and statutorily. That was true from its start but is especially true now. If one wants to take the position that it's not particularly important or damaging for a President to illegally start and sustain protracted wars on his own, then it's hard to see what would be important. That is the ultimate expression of a lawless empire. College Grads Face Dwindling Jobs and Mounting Loans Sarah Jaffe -- AlterNet  Today's graduates face miserable job prospects, and experts say the student loan crisis could be worse than the credit card or housing bubbles./ ... Young people between the ages of 16 and 24 face an unemployment rate nearly twice that of the rest of the population, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. 2010's 18.4 percent rate for youth was the worst in the 60 years that economists have collected such data ...The cost of a college degree is up some 3,400 percent since 1972, but as we all know too well, household incomes haven't increased by anything close to that number -- not for the bottom 99 percent of us, anyway. Israel Government `Reckless and Irresponsible,' Says Ex-Mossad Chief The Guardian (Britain)  The former head of Israel's spy service has launched an unprecedented attack on the country's current government, describing it as "irresponsible and reckless", and has praised Arab attempts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Meir Dagan stepped down as the head of Mossad six months ago but has gone on the offensive in a series of briefings with journalists and public appearances because he feels that Israel's security is being mismanaged by Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister. Netanyahu and Stalin: Addressing Rapturous Audiences Video The rapturous applause given to Israeli leader Netanyahu by American politicians in the US Congress recalls the stormy ovations given to Soviet leader Stalin by obsequious Russians. With commentary by Mark Weber. Sarah Palin Wears Star of David Necklace NBC New York  You couldn't miss it, the big Star of David hanging around Sarah Palin's neck as she toured the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on Wednesday. NBC New York asked Palin about the significance just as she boarded her bus outside Fox Newschannel to head off to Boston. "Today is the 44th anniversary of Jerusalem being reunited," she said. "We want to call attention to that." The pendant is in every photo she took with fans and supporters and can be seen in every sound-bite captured by television crews. Israeli Soldiers Shoot Protesters on Syrian Border The New York Times  Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday [June 5] as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks. Wave after wave of protesters, mainly Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria, approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire on those who crossed a new trench ... Even so, it was the worst bloodshed in the Golan Heights since Israel and Syria fought a war there in 1973. No Evidence Iran Is Building Nuclear Weapons, Says Ex-Head of IAEA Sherwood Ross  The former Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a new published report that he had not seen "a shred of evidence" that Iran was "building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials." Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who spent 12 years at the IAEA, told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh: "I don't believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran." Netherlands Weighs Banning Kosher, Halal Slaughter Daily Mail (Britain) The slaughter of animals by halal or kosher methods could be banned in Holland. The Muslim and Jewish practices inflict unacceptable suffering on animals, campaigners say. ... As in most western countries, Dutch law dictates that butchers must stun livestock -- render it unconscious -- before slaughter, to minimize pain and fear. But an exception is made for meat prepared under ancient Jewish and Muslim dietary laws. These demand that animals be slaughtered while still awake, by swiftly cutting the main neck arteries with razor-sharp knives. Most Dutch favor a ban. The procedures are already banned in New Zealand, Scandinavian and Baltic countries. The Most Dangerous Cities in America 24/7 Wall St. - Yahoo 24/7 Wall St. looked at the ten most crime-plagued cities in the U.S. with populations of more than 100,000. We used a measurement of crimes per thousand people which is part of the new FBI database to determine the order. We compared these figures to unemployment rates and median income. The recession may have ended, but crime has not eased in these troubled cities nor will it anytime soon. Our list is dominated by towns like Detroit, New Haven, and Baltimore. Parts of these cities are fortresses of crime. Changing Face of America: A Majority Non-White County By 2040 Daily Mail (Britain) By the year 2040, the majority of Americans will be people of colour - the minorities will have become the majority. A fascinating new time-lapse map shows the increase in the non-white population across the decades. It starts with 1990 and then predicts up to 2020, 2030 and 2040. How it was: In 1990 the vast majority of counties were 'less than 40 per cent people of colour' Measures Banning Circumcision Up for Vote in California Daily News ( New York) A group out to ban circumcision of boys under 18 in San Francisco wants to snip the practice in other parts of California. The private-parts advocacy group, MGM Bill, successfully petitioned this month to have the ban put up for a ballot vote in San Francisco next November. It now hopes to push a similar initiative in Santa Monica. The proposed ballot measure would allow the procedure once males are 18 years old and make it a misdemeanor if it was done before then. MGM Bill spokeswoman Jena Troutman says its a similar protection that girls already receive. AIPAC Congress Delegates: Denial and Ignorance Max Blumenthal -- Video On May 22, thousands of supporters of America's most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, converged on Washington for the group's annual conference. ... I interviewed several AIPAC delegates in the streets outside the conference. While few, if any, were able to demonstrate any degree of sophistication in the understanding of the Israel-Palestine crisis, they had been briefed inside on how to respond to critics. No one I spoke to would concede that Israel occupied any part of Palestinian territory; none would concede that Israel had committed acts of indiscriminate violence or that it had transferred Palestinians by force; one interviewee could not distinguish Palestine from Pakistan. Remembering the Fallen: Lies and Deceit in America's Wars Mark Weber -- Podcast  On Memorial Day we remember all those who have suffered, sacrificed and died while serving in our country's armed forces. But time and again, American political leaders, supported by much of the media, have sent young people to their deaths, and have ruined the lives of many more, in foreign wars that were promoted and justified on the basis of deceit and lies. A good example is the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, which has cost more than four thousand American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, and has brought death to many tens of thousands of Iraqis. What Must America Defend? Patrick J. Buchanan ... What is the necessity now for a U.S. troop presence in Europe? Retrenchment is rarely attractive. But what is apparent today to almost all is that this country is now and has been for at least a decade living far beyond her means. We borrow hundreds of billions annually from allies, to defend those allies. We borrow hundreds of billions annually from our children's future to maintain our present lifestyle. Our leaders have yet to show the toughness and maturity the new times demand. Fraudulent Nazi Quotations Mark Weber Fraudulent quotations attributed to Hitler and other Third Reich leaders have been widely circulated for years. Such quotes are often used by polemicists -- of both the left and the right -- to discredit their ideological adversaries by showing that Nazi held similar views. This tactic works because people have been educated to believe that anything Hitler and other Nazi leaders thought or said was malevolent, wrong-headed or evil, and that no reasonable or ethical person could hold similar views. Here's a look at a few of the many remarks falsely attributed to Hitler and other top Nazis. Hitler and the Chinese Internet Generation Richard Komaiko - Asia Times  ... There is a growing trend in the Chinese blogosphere to vocalize praises and expressions of support for Hitler ... As the rumor spreads throughout the Chinese social web, admiration for Hitler is growing stronger and stronger. Blog posts with titles like "Why I like Hitler" are popping up every day, and an increasingly greater share of young Chinese are choosing to express their nationalism by voicing support for Hitler ... According to several Beijing college students interviewed for this article, the word "Hitler" does not evoke images of anti-Semitism or genocide, but rather, strong leadership and nationalism. They say that they admire Hitler for his ability to unify his country and restore it to a position of respect in the international arena. Iran and the Bomb: How Real is the Nuclear Threat? Seymour M. Hersh -- The New Yorker  ... Is Iran actively trying to develop nuclear weapons? Members of the Obama Administration often talk as if this were a foregone conclusion, as did their predecessors under George W. Bush. There's a large body of evidence, however, including some of America's most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein's Iraq eight years ago -- allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state's military capacities and intentions. Hitler Approved Hess Peace Flight To Britain, Document Suggests The Telegraph (Britain)  Rudolf Hess's doomed flight to Britain in 1941 was approved by Adolf Hitler and was an attempt to bring the British into the war against the Soviet Union, according to a recently discovered document. A historian studying the Russian archives in Moscow found a letter written by Karlheinz Pintsch, Hess's adjutant, that claims Hitler knew of the leading Nazi's plans to make the dangerous, solo night flight from Germany to Britain. In the 28-page statement discovered by Matthias Uhl, Pintsch writes that Hess's mission was to "use all means at his disposal to achieve, if not a German military alliance with England against Russia, at least the neutralisation of England". It also states Hitler was fully aware of the mission. Rudolf Hess' 1941 Peace Mission: Hitler's `Unspoken Wish' The Guardian (Britain) - 1955 The story of the flight to Britain in 1941 of Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, was told by his former adjutant, Karl Heinz Pintsch, on his arrival here today from captivity in the Soviet Union ... Though Hitler was not informed of Hess's plan, Pitsch said, his "unspoken wish" was to achieve "reconciliation and peace with Britain," and this was Hess's object ... Pintsch said that as far as he was concerned, Hess was "the sincerest and most upright man I met during the Third Reich." The Tie that Binds Philip Giraldi The recent visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a personal triumph for him and a disaster for the United States. Since the 1960s, if not before, Israel has sought to bind the United States to her by maintaining that the two countries have identical interests worldwide. In reality, this has never been true, even during the cold war when the Soviets were actively engaged in a number of Arab states, but it is a lie that has been assiduously promoted by Israel's friends in Washington ... The Obama Administration has no leverage whatsoever against Netanyahu. It has de facto accepted that there will be no peace process in the Middle East because Israel does not want there to be one. Imperial Secrecy Stephen M. Walt ... Foreign animosity to the United States is largely a reaction to things that the United States does. In other words, they don't hate us for our freedoms, or for our values, or even our supposedly decadent TV shows. Rather, people who are angry at the United States -- and this includes most anti-American terrorists -- are opposed to different aspects of U.S. policy. Whether those U.S. policies are the right ones can be debated, of course, but the key point is that anti-Americanism doesn't come out of nowhere. Should Lord Haw-Haw Really Have Been Hanged? Daily Express (Britain)  ... An 82-year-old widow, Heather Iandolo, the daughter of William Joyce, the man nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw by the Daily Express, is making an appeal to the British authorities to have her father's guilty verdict for high treason, for which he was executed in 1946, overturned. Aged just 17 at his death, she has just put her name to an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which asserts that not only was her father not technically British, and therefore unable to be a traitor, but he was also a double agent for MI5 throughout the war ... Even at the time of his hanging at Wandsworth Prison on January 3, 1946, Joyce's conviction was controversial, owing to the serious doubts about his nationality. In Norway, Growing Awareness of Jewish Power in USA Israelwhat  On Saturday, Aftenposten [a leading daily newspaper in Oslo] published an article by Alf Ole Ask, its foreign correspondent to the USA, titled "Rich Jews threaten Obama." On Sunday, Stavangeravisen [newspaper] published a letter from a reader under the title "Is it the Jews or the president who controls the USA?" As in answer, Vårt Land [another daily] publishes the op-ed "USA - Who shall govern the country" by former college teacher Elias Per Vågnes, who claims (last sentence above): "It is becoming increasingly evident that it is the Jewish lobby in the USA which rules the country..." That's all in two days and of course it's not all. Jewish Donors Warn Obama On Israel The Wall Street Journal Jewish donors and fund-raisers are warning the Obama re-election campaign that the president is at risk of losing financial support because of concerns about his handling of Israel. The complaints began early in President Barack Obama's term, centered on a perception that Mr. Obama has been too tough on Israel. Some Jewish donors say Mr. Obama has pushed Israeli leaders too hard to halt construction of housing settlements in disputed territory, a longstanding element of U.S. policy. Some also worry that Mr. Obama is putting more pressure on the Israelis than the Palestinians to enter peace negotiations, and say they are disappointed Mr. Obama has not visited Israel yet. Jews Do Wield Immense Power and Influence Sentletse Diakanyo - Mail & Guardian (South Africa)  In 2002 Mark Weber, a director of The Institute for Historical Review wrote an article about the powerful Jewish Lobby in the United States (US). What Weber articulates in his article is very relevant to the current brouhaha about the alleged comments made by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fatima Hajaig. As a result of those alleged comments, the Deputy Minister has now been vilified and accused of anti-Semitism, hate speech, bigotry and all manner of things that are intended to whip up the emotions of the Jewish community and social activists and inflate her comments beyond what they truly represented. In his article Weber beautifully outlines how Jewish money influences and controls the US Congress. Under Pressure, Irving Lecture in Amsterdam Is Canceled Searchlight (Britain)  An invitation from a Dutch social-democratic student to the British Holocaust denier David Irving to address students in Amsterdam on 26 May was cancelled after united protests from anti-fascists and the Jewish community in the city. Irving had intended to speak on "Hitler, Himmler and the Final Solution", a subject that guaranteed controversy. The University of Amsterdam had apparently been unaware of the planned meeting but was forced by the protests to deny Irving access to university buildings. Should the British Have Sunk the Bismarck? Daily Mail (Britain)  ... The son of one of the British sailors who saw Bismarck's end 70 years ago today has come forward to claim that the battle might have ended very differently - because the German crew tried to surrender at the height of the bombardment ... Royal Navy officers were made aware of the signs but were determined to follow Winston Churchill's order to 'sink the Bismarck'. The Prime Minister wanted to avenge the Hood, on which all but three of its 1,418 crew had died. Had the Bismarck been captured, the lives of hundreds of Germans could have been saved. The ship would also have been a prized catch, giving Navy engineers an insight into the design of Bismarck's mighty sistership, Tirpitz. The Strauss-Kahn Affair and France's Jews Haaretz (Israel)  The 600,000 strong Jewish community in France fear charges against the former IMF chief will play into negative stereotypes of Jews, but also that Marine Le Pen's National Front will benefit from the affair. / ... There is some unease among the 600,000-strong Jewish community here [in France] -- the largest number outside of Israel and the U.S.- who fear they could be caught in the negative spotlight and that the affair will play into negative stereotypes of Jews and even inflame anti-Semitism. Indicted on seven criminal charges for allegedly assaulting a maid in a New York hotel last Saturday, Strauss-Kahn, an identified Jew and an outspoken supporter of Israel has gone, overnight, from being one of the great prides of the Jewish community here -- to being something of a liability. Netanyahu in DC: Shameful Spectacle Affirms Zionist Hold on Congress Mark Weber - Podcast  Nothing more vividly underscores the Jewish-Zionist grip on US political life than the stormy, fervent approval given by American politicians to Israeli premier Netanyahu as he addressed a joint session of the US Congress. For every American who cares about our long term welfare as a country, as well as basic justice, the performance of these politicians was a shameful spectacle. Their behavior highlights the entrenched corruption and lack of principle of the American political system. It's an expression of a society, and of a political system, that has become terminally craven and unprincipled. Ne tanyahu's Speech to Congress Shows America Will Buy Anything Gideon Levy -- Haaretz (Israel) It was an address with no destination, filled with lies on top of lies and illusions heaped on illusions. Only rarely is a foreign head of state invited to speak before Congress. It's unlikely that any other has attempted to sell them such a pile of propaganda and prevarication, such hypocrisy and sanctimony as Benjamin Netanyahu did yesterday. The fact that the Congress rose to its feet multiple times to applaud him says more about the ignorance of its members than the quality of their guest's speech. An Israeli presence on the Jordan River - cheering. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel - applause. Did American's elected representatives know that they were cheering for the death of possibility? If America loved it, we're in big trouble ... Last night we saw that the Americans will buy anything, or at least their applauding legislators will. Applause Heard in White House, Around World The Jerusalem Post Netanyahu could only dream of such a reception in Israel. Even his wife, Sara, received a standing ovation when she entered the hall. The prime minister was applauded some 30 times, many of those accompanied by standing ovations. The nearly four-minute ovation he received when he entered the historic chamber - including a brief period of rhythmic clapping that sounded more like the Mann Auditorium than Congress - was not only heard by Netanyahu, but also by US President Barack Obama, the Palestinians and the world at large. Lenin's Jewish Roots on Display in Moscow Museum The Associated Press  For the first time ever, ordinary Russians can now see documents that appear to confirm long-standing rumors that Vladimir Lenin had Jewish heritage. In a country long plagued by anti-Semitism, such heritage can be a significant taint, especially for the founder of the Soviet Union who is still revered by many elderly Russians. Among dozens of newly released documents on display at the State History Museum is a letter written by Lenin's eldest sister, Anna Ulyanova, saying that their maternal grandfather was a Ukrainian Jew who converted to Christianity to escape the Pale of Settlement and gain access to higher education. Bitter Truths About World War Two Eric Margolis  ... The Red Army destroyed 507 Axis divisions. On the Western Front after D-Day, the Allies destroyed 176 badly under-strength German divisions. When the Allies landed in Normandy, they met battered German forces with no air cover, crippled by lack of fuel and supplies, unable to move in daytime. Even so, the Germans fought like tigers ... World War II was not a good and evil struggle between "western democracies" and "totalitarian powers," as we are still wrongly taught. It was a world conflict over land and resources ... German Railway Company Pulls Out of Israel Project The Financial Times (Britain)  Deutsche Bahn, the German railway operator, has pulled out of an Israeli project that cuts through the occupied Palestinian West Bank, after pressure from activists and Berlin. The move marks a victory for pro-Palestinian groups and their so-called boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, which tries to use economic pressure on Israel to help the Palestinian cause ... Opponents said the project was illegal [under international law] because it used occupied Palestinian territory for a project that would be used primarily, or solely, by Israeli citizens. Allied Diplomats Wanted Pius XII to Stay Silent About Nazi Deportations Catholic Herald (Britain)  US and British diplomats discussed exerting pressure on Pope Pius XII to be silent about the Nazi deportations of Hungarian Jews, according to newly discovered documentation. The British feared that the wartime pope might make a "radio appeal on behalf of the Jews in Hungary" and that in the course of his broadcast would "also criticise what the Russians are doing in occupied territory". Sir Francis D'Arcy Osborne, the British ambassador to the Vatican, told an American diplomat that "something should be done to prevail upon the pope not to do this as it will have very serious political repercussions". The Crash and Burn of Old Regimes: Endless US Wars William Astore The killing of Osama bin Laden, "a testament to the greatness of our country" accoding to President Obama, should not be allowed to obscure a central reality of our post-9/11 world. Our conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya remain instances of undeclared war, a fact that contributes to their remoteness from our American world ... Spanish-American War of 1898 was a naked war of expansion vigorously denounced by American anti-imperialists. Yet in those conflicts there was at least genuine national debate, as well as formal declarations of war by Congress. Today's ruling class in Washington no longer bothers to make a pretense of following the letter of our Constitution ... The Impossibility of American Empire William Pfaff ... The Empire of the United States was launched in 1898, and has since traversed a mere century, experiencing increasing ambition, and suffering increasing difficulties. Could it too last 406 years? The current evidence is not reassuring ... This is what the War on Terror has come to mean. It is an attempt to create a universal empire that exists only in the American imagination, by an effort that, because its aim is impossible to achieve, is unlimited in the damage it could do to Americans and others. The US Becomes an Imperial Power: 1898 and the Great Debate Over Overseas Expansion John Ries and Mark Weber - Institute for Historical Review  Until the 1890s, America followed its traditional foreign policy of non-interventionism. The year 1898 was a landmark in the transition of the United States from a republic to an imperial power. Today, as Americans debate the merits of new military intervention in foreign lands, many of the arguments for and against such actions echo those made nearly a century ago, but with some interesting differences. The Anti-Imperialist League and the Battle Against Empire Thomas E. Woods In April 1898 the United States went to war with Spain for the stated purpose of liberating Cuba from Spanish control. Several months later, when the war had ended, Cuba had been transformed into an American protectorate, and Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines had become American possessions... That American forces were engaged in a colonial war to suppress another people's independence led to a great deal of soul-searching among important American thinkers, writers, and journalists. What eventually became the American Anti-Imperialist League began at a June 1898 meeting at Boston's Faneuil Hall... The Conquest of the United States by Spain William Graham Sumner (1899)  ... The war with Spain [1898] was precipitated upon us headlong, without reflection or deliberation, and without any due formulation of public opinion ... We assume that what we like and practice, and what we think better, must come as a welcome blessing to Spanish-Americans and Filipinos. This is grossly and obviously untrue ... It will be established as a rule that, whenever political ascendancy is threatened, it can be established again by a little war, filling the minds of the people with glory and diverting their attention from their own interests. Soldiers of Anti-Soviet `Russian Liberation Army,' 1945 Video  Former Soviet General Andrei Vlasov takes command of new units of volunteers of the German-sponsored, anti-Stalinist "Russian Liberation Army." Portion of German weekly newsreel, "Deutsche Wochenschau," Feb. 1945. With English subtitles. Document s On Winston Churchill's Relative's Support for Nazism Daily Mail (Britain)  A 'highly significant' collection of unseen documents exposing the Nazi-sympathiser cousin of Sir Winston Churchill's wife have been unearthed in a loft. The never-before-seen letters and photographs revealing the extent of George Pitt-Rivers' views and his descent into Nazism were discovered in Dorset. Pitt-Rivers, the cousin of Clementine Churchill, earned fame as a respected anthropologist after fighting as a captain in World War I. However, during the 1930s, the scientist - described as a perplexing, contradictory and disturbing figure - became a vocal supporter of National Socialism and eugenics, which advocates the use of practices to produce improved offspring. Obama: Doomed to Disappoint John J Mearsheimer  ... The remarkably powerful Israel lobby makes it virtually impossible for him [President Obama] to put meaningful pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is committed to creating a Greater Israel in which the Palestinians are restricted to a handful of disconnected and impoverished enclaves. And Obama is certainly not going to buck the lobby -- with the 2012 presidential election looming larger every day ... The bottom line is that the US is in deep trouble in the Middle East and needs new policies for that region. But regrettably there is little prospect of that happening anytime soon. All of this is to say that there was no way that Obama could do anything but disappoint with Thursday's speech, because he is trapped in an iron cage. Israel in a Post-American Era Patrick J. Buchanan ... Strategically, too, the United States seems in retreat, nowhere more so than in that region that was the focus of George W. Bush's "global democratic revolution." And no nation reflects more the relative loss of U.S. power and influence than does Israel, whose isolation is today unprecedented ... The likelihood is that the overwhelming majority, including many of America's allies, will vote to recognize Palestine and seat it in the General Assembly, where it can make demands on Israel, backed by U.N. sanctions, to terminate its occupation and vacate its national territory. The General Assembly resolution will set as the borders of Palestine those that existed between 1948 and 1967. American Armageddon: Time Has Already Run Out For The US Terrence Aym 2011 may be remembered by historians as the year that America died. Many political, economic and market pundits have been warning of an approaching "tipping point" for several years. They warn that once America tips over that cliff there'll be no avoiding certain disaster. Well, that proverbial tipping point has already occurred. The debt has reached such stratospheric heights that - under the current system - it will never be able to be repaid. And still Washington adds more debt. Now, the death of America didn't happen overnight. Its demise played out as a slow train wreck eight decades in the making. Fake `Nazi' Quotations Randall Bytwerk A few of the many widely cited but maliciously fabricated quotations attributed to Hitler and other important Third Reich figures. These include the often cited remark, supposedly by Joseph Goebbels, that "truth is the greatest enemy of the state." Rauschning's Phony `Conversations' With Hitler' Mark Weber  One of the most widely quoted sources of information about Hitler's personality and secret intentions is the supposed memoir of Hermann Rauschning, the National Socialist President of the Danzig Senate in 1933-1934 who was ousted from the Hitler movement a short time later and then made a new life for himself as a professional anti-Nazi ...Haenel was able to conclusively establish that Rausching's claim to have met with Hitler "more than a hundred times is a lie. The two actually met only four times, and never alone. The words attributed to Hitler, he showed, were simply invented or lifted from many different sources, including writings by Juenger and Nietzsche. No Satisfaction in Demjanjuk Case Peter Worthington -- Toronto Sun (Canada)  ... Guilt was mostly assumed, not proven. There is nothing about the Demjanjuk case that invokes either pride or satisfaction. He is being called "the littlest of little fish" -- the lowest ranked prison guard ever convicted of war crimes. Superiors were acquitted. ... The Demjanjuk case is significant because it highlights one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the United States -- exacerbated because the justice system knew it was doing wrong, but continued on a course it hoped would result in Demjanjuk being executed. ... The OSI justified its stand by saying that if Demjanjuk was wrongly accused of being a guard at one camp, he was certainly a guard at another camp, so his guilt was undeniable. Except that there's no evidence that Demjanjuk ever abused anyone. Former Israeli Soldiers Break Silence On Military Violations The Guardian (Britain) Testimonies posted on YouTube by campaign group describe routine harassment and humiliation of Palestinian civilians / Transgressions by the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories will be disclosed by a group of former soldiers in an internet campaign aimed at raising public awareness of military violations. Video testimonies by around two dozen ex-soldiers -- some of whom are identifying themselves for the first time - will be posted on YouTube. The campaign by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former soldiers committed to speaking out on military practices, launches with English subtitles on Monday. Review of John Glad's `Jewish Eugenics' Kevin MacDonald - The Occidental Observer John Glad begins Jewish Eugenics by noting that "much of what might be termed 'accepted eugenics narrative' is in crass discordance with the historical facts." In other words, we are about to enter one of those academic minefields where "truth" is rigorously cleansed to make sure it is compatible with ethnic interests. Indeed, "writing books about Jews used to be a far easier undertaking than it is today, with Jewish anxieties over 'anti-Semitism' having been so elevated as to render dispassionate scholarly discourse nearly impossible" ... In recent decades, eugenics has been reconstructed as an anti-Jewish ideology -- indeed, as the ideology of the Holocaust. Therefore, all Jewish involvement in eugenics must be expunged from the historical record. Israel's Strategic Dead End: Palestinian Protests Signal The Future Jonathan Cook They are extraordinary scenes. Film shot on mobile phones captured the moment on Sunday when at least 1,000 Palestinian refugees marched across no-man's land to one of the most heavily protected borders in the world, the one separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Waving Palestinian flags, the marchers braved a minefield, then tore down a series of fences, allowing more than 100 to run into Israeli-controlled territory ... The scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel's borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere to start thinking the impossible - just as the Tahrir Square protests galvanised Egyptians into believing they could remove their dictator. Israel is in a diplomatic and strategic dead-end. Obama's Promised Foreign Policy `Change' Will Be 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. Maryland Governor Signs French Railway Holocaust Bill BBC News A US governor has signed a bill requiring a French railway company to disclose its role in the Holocaust if it is to win state contracts. Martin O'Malley of Maryland signed a bill aimed at Keolis, a Paris company owned by French national railways SNCF. The company had bid to operate commuter trains in the state of Maryland. Historians say SNCF moved 76,000 Jews to Nazi camps during the Holocaust. The laws' supporters say it will force disclosure of war records. The Holocaust Denier Next Door Our Town (New York) A group of irate protestors squared off May 15 against Michael Santomauro, an Upper East Side man they claim is a neo-Nazi. Led by the Jewish Defense Organization, the group consisted of 20 people at the height of an hour-long rally against Santomauro. Holding signs and shouting derogatory names, the protestors taunted Santomauro from behind a blue police barricade while their target sat calmly on his stoop on East 85th Street, at times filming the protest with his iPad ... "The next step is the landlord campaign," said Klein, who has been encouraging people to call Santomauro's landlord (as well as his wife, a psychologist, and her colleagues and family members) and push for his eviction. Google Ordered To Stop Recommending Anti-Semitic Sites JTA  A court in Buenos Aires has ordered Google to stop recommending anti-Semitic and racist websites to users. The injunction issued May 17 comes following a complaint filed by several Jewish organizations. The decision came on the World Day of the Internet. The court ordered Google to drop some 76 websites described in the complaint as "highly discriminatory," including some that deny the Holocaust. Judge Carlos Molina Portela also ordered that advertisements be removed from those sites. Republican Leaders Accuse Obama of Betraying Israel AFP  Top Republican contenders for the White House in 2012 accused President Barack Obama on Thursday of betraying staunch US ally Israel in his new long-shot push for Middle East peace. "President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus," thundered former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, generally viewed as the frontrunner in the race for the party's presidential nomination. "He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace. He has also violated a first principle of American foreign policy, which is to stand firm by our friends," Romney said in a statement. Amazon Says Now Selling More E-Books Than Print Books Forbes Amazon.com this morning says the company is now selling more e-Books than print books. The crossover comes less than four years after the debut of the Kindle e-reader in November 2007; Amazon notes that it has been selling hardcover and paperback books over the Web since July 1995. "Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books," CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. "We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly - we've been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years." How the Zionist AIPAC Lobby Group Controls Washington Video - Anthony Lawson:  Explains how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington maintains its grip on the US Congress and American political life. Written and presented by Anthony Lawson: Runtime: 9:39 mins. Citizens Coalition Protests Pro-Israel AIPAC Conference Move Over AIPAC The "Move Over AIPAC" campaign -- a broad coalition of more than a hundred pro-peace and social justice organizations, with endorsements from a range of prominent individuals -- seeks a more just US policy on the Middle East, and especially the Israel-Palestine issue. It is bringing activists and concerned citizens from across the country to Washington, DC, May 21-24, to protest the forthcoming conference of AIPAC -- American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- the pro-Zionist lobby group which is legendary for its formidable grip on the US Congress. Former U.S. Senator: The Trouble with AIPAC James G. Abourezk  ... The problem here is that AIPAC is a group of American citizens who have bonded together to influence the American government to work for the interests of a foreign government -- Israel ... In all, the United States can do without AIPAC, even though Israel most likely cannot. Should AIPAC somehow disappear, which is unlikely, U.S. Middle East policy would be more directed toward America's interests rather than toward Israel's. Israel Has To Choose: Mideast Peace Or Apartheid Saeb Erekat The choice is not between Hamas and Israel; the choice is between settlement-colonies or states: between accepting two states with the 1967 border or maintaining an apartheid regime ... Palestinians are looking forward now. We will continue to work hard on gaining international recognition for the State of Palestine in the 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital ... Today, we have received such recognition from 112 countries. The latest vote in the UN Security Council calling for an end to settlement expansion ?(14 countries voting in favor and the United States against?) shows unprecedented support for the Palestinian position: The Israeli occupation of Palestinian land must end. The Long Overdue Palestinian State Mahmoud Abbas  ... We call on all friendly, peace-loving nations to join us in realizing our national aspirations by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and by supporting its admission to the United Nations. Only if the international community keeps the promise it made to us six decades ago, and ensures that a just resolution for Palestinian refugees is put into effect, can there be a future of hope and dignity for our people. Israel's New Laws Promote Repression Neve Gordon ... As Arab citizens across the region struggle against tyranny, in Israel there appears to be an opposite trend, whereby large parts of the citizenry are not only acquiescent but have been supportive of Knesset members who are drafting new legislation to silence public criticism and to delegitimize political rivals, human rights organizations, and the Palestinian minority. The idea is to legally restrict individuals and groups that hold positions at odds with the government's right-wing agenda by presenting them as enemies of the State. The War That Didn't End War and Its Unending Successors Adam Hochschild  .... As the First World War made painfully clear, when politicians and generals lead nations into war, they almost invariably assume swift victory, and have a remarkably enduring tendency not to foresee problems that, in hindsight, seem obvious ... As World War I reminds us, however understandable the motives of those who enter the fight, the definition of war is "unplanned consequences." ... Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today's wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium -- and tens of millions of Americans will feel a similar revulsion for the politicians and generals who were so spendthrift with others' lives. But here's the question that haunts me: What will it take to bring us to that point? Pakistan in the Hot Seat: Osama Bin Laden's Vow Eric Margolis ... The Americans dancing with joy in the streets at the news of bin Laden's assassination seem unaware their almost decade-long jihad against him cost a staggering $1,283 trillion and left the US stuck in 2.5 wars. Bin Laden's vow in the 1990's to bankrupt the US has been partly achieved. His goal: overthrow the Muslim world's western-backed dictatorships and drive the US from the region. ... The US Congress is threatening to end this bonanza. However, the US can't wage war in Afghanistan without Pakistan's cooperation. So most of the money will keep flowing. The unhappy US-Pakistani shotgun marriage will continue, at least for a while longer. White America's Collapsing Birth Rate Is Changing The Country The Economist (Britain) Among America's three-year-olds, a revolution is afoot. Children of that age are turning the country's demographics on its head. According to a recent study from the Census Bureau, the majority of them are now from groups normally considered minorities, chiefly Hispanics and blacks. The latest release of data from last year's decennial census confirms that whites still constitute a slender majority, 54%, of those under 18, and a larger one, 64%, of the population as a whole. But America's transformation into a much browner, more suburban, more southern and western place is rapid and relentless. Jewish Leaders Demand Dismissal Of Belgian Minister Over Amnesty Remarks The Telegraph (Britain)  Jewish Nazi hunters have called for Belgium's justice minister to be sacked after he backed an amnesty for thousands of Second World War Belgian collaborators. Stefan De Clerck, a Flemish Christian Democrat, has polarised Belgium, fuelling the country's one year political crisis, by supporting a blanket amnesty for the 56,000 Belgians who were convicted of collaborating with the Nazis after the war. "Perhaps we should be willing to forget, because it is the past. At some point one has to be adult and be willing to talk about. perhaps to forget, because this is the past," he said at the weekend. China: The New Bin Laden Paul Craig Roberts ... Hillary, in an unprecedented act of hypocrisy, denounced China for "human rights violations." This from a country that has violated the human rights of millions of victims in our own time in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, secret CIA prisons dotted all over the planet, in US courts of law, and in the arrests and seizure of documents of American war protestors. There is no worst violator of human rights on the planet than the US government, and the world knows it. The hubris and arrogance of US policymakers, and the lies that they inculcate in the American public, have exposed Washington to war with the most populous country on earth ... European Volunteers In the Struggle Against Bolshevism Video - 1941  Right after the June 1941 attack against the Soviet Union. young men across Europe volunteer to join in the World War II struggle against Soviet Bolshevism. The first battalion of the Danish volunteer corps "Danmark" departs for training. Spanish volunteers of the famed "Blue Division" depart from Madrid. Italian troops prepare for combat on the eastern front. From the German weekly newsreel "Deutsche Wochenschau" of July 30, 1941. With English subtitles (not entirely accurate). Runtime: 1:11 minutes. Britain 'Masterminded' Wartime French `Resistance' The Telegraph (Britain) France is only belatedly accepting the extent to which Britain masterminded its wartime resistance operations, according to one of Winston Churchill's last remaining French secret agents. Captain Robert (Bob) Maloubier was an agent of the French section of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE. Churchill's "secret army" was created to "set Europe ablaze" by encouraging and facilitating espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines during the Second World War ... France has in recent years been reassessing the role of its citizens during the war, amid claims post-war historians exaggerated the number of French who joined the resistance. The Persecution of John Demjanjuk Patrick J. Buchanan  "John Demjanjuk Guilty of Nazi Death Camp Murders," ran the headline on the BBC. The lede began: "A German court has found John Demjanjuk guilty of helping to murder more than 28,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in Poland." Not until paragraph 17 does one find this jolting fact: "No evidence was produced that he committed a specific crime." That is correct. No evidence was produced, no witness came forward to testify he ever saw Demjanjuk injure anyone. And the critical evidence that put Demjanjuk at Sobibor came -- from the KGB. Demjanjuk's Son Calls His Father's Conviction `Shameful' Video - The Associated Press  The son of retired U.S. autoworker John Demjnajuk speaks about the recent German court conviction of his father. He calls the ruling "shameful," and points out that not one bit of evidence was presented to show that his father had personally killed or injured anyone. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of being an accessory to murder of thousands at a German camp during World War II. Runtime: 1:47 mins. My Campaign for Justice for John Demjanjuk Jerome A. Brentar -- Institute for Historical Review  ... John Demjanjuk has been a victim of an unprecedented travesty of justice. The US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, working with the Soviet government, and those who might be called "Holocaustians" have carried on a campaign to portray this innocent man as "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka. How `The Sound of Music' Distorts History Mark Weber  "The Sound of Music" is perhaps the most popular American musical picture ever produced. But whatever its merits as entertainment, the film's presentation of history is deceitful. In particular, its portrayal of the 1938 union or Anschluss of Austria with the German Reich is a gross distortion of historical reality. Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family Joan Gearin -- Prologue (US National Archives) I first saw the movie The Sound of Music as a young child, probably in the late 1960s. I liked the singing, and Maria was so pretty and kind! As I grew older, more aware of world history, and saturated by viewing the movie at least once yearly, I was struck and annoyed by the somewhat sanitized story of the von Trapp family it told ... The family did not secretly escape over the Alps to freedom in Switzerland, carrying their suitcases and musical instruments. As daughter Maria said in a 2003 interview printed in Opera News, "We did tell people that we were going to America to sing. And we did not climb over mountains with all our heavy suitcases and instruments. We left by train, pretending nothing." ...The von Trapps traveled to Italy, not Switzerland. When And Why Did The Von Trapp Family Leave Austria? Yahoo Answers ... Austria was annexed (Anschluss) by Nazi Germany in March 1938. As a naval officer, Georg von Trapp would have been commissioned into the Nazi Kriegsmarine. He applied for exemption on the basis of his age of 58, and was excused service. Remember that Austria has no coastline, so German officers regarded Austrian naval officers as a joke. Austria Joins the German Reich Video  This portrayal of the 1938 union ("Anschluss") of Austria with the German Reich, includes contemporary film footage with recent English-language voiceover commentary. Runtime: 4:14 mins. For decades American officials and historians, along with the US media, have portrayed the union of Austria with the Reich as an act of "aggression" or "rape." The truth is exactly the opposite. Rarely in history has a historical event taken place with broader and more joyful popular approval. Upending French Politics Eric S. Margolis  The arrest in New York City on Sunday of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn upends France's political structure. Strauss-Kahn is charged with the attempted rape and confinement of a maid at the Sofitel Hotel, and is currently being held in prison ... Marine and father Jean-Marie [Le Pen] are often accused of being fascists. They are not. I spent much time with LePen senior, exploring his views. They are of France's traditional ultra conservative Catholic right that found voice in the World War II Vichy government. ... If the race boiled down to Sarkozy and DSK, it would pit two Frenchmen with Jewish blood against one another - to the dismay of the far right's anti-Semites. Zionist JDO Activists Protest `Neo-Nazi' in New York City Epoch Times Drawing the attention of passersby and inciting sidewalk debates, a group from the Jewish Defense Organization (JDO) staged a protest on East 85th Street [Manhattan, New York City] on Sunday against a man they claim to be a Neo-Nazi. The JDO shouted accusations at Michael Santomauro while he calmly looked on, sitting in a chair behind an informational display with posters that called for Israel to get out of the West Bank ... Several members of the protest group declined to be interviewed. Inside a barricaded protest area, Mordechai Levy stated that Michael Santomauro is "the top Neo-Nazi in Manhattan." JDO Thugs Beat Up Pro-Palestinian Activist The Washington Times (1993) ... Jewish militants beat up a Palestinian supporter who protested the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum ... David R. Wilcox, founder of American friends of Palestine, was returning from the dedication yesterday when he was assaulted by three men he said are members of the militant Jewish Defense Organization ... Michael Schneider, who called himself a coordinator for the JDO, said members of he group assaulted Mr. Wilcox and four or five others who protested the museum. A Russian Professor's View of the `Jewish Question': Burovsky's Empire of the Intellect Dan Michaels -- Occidental Observer ... American readers might be somewhat uneasy about the bluntness of Burovsky's critical comments concerning Jewish activities that in much of the West remain taboo under penalty of law. American writers, for the most part establishment writers, tend to approach the Jewish question with great caution, fear of offending, fear of retaliation, and therefore in many cases they defer to the Jewish point of view. But not Burovsky. Whether Burovsky is a loose cannon or a sharpshooter is argued, but all agree that Jews are -- for whatever reason -- one of his favorite topics. A Final Interview With the Last Survivor of Hitler's Staff The Express (Britain)  Former SS officer Rochus Misch, the last surviving member of Hitler's inner circle is terminally ill. Misch, the Fuhrer's bodyguard gives his final interview ... The man who worked as Hitler's bodyguard between 1940 and 1945. He is the last living witness of the dictator's suicide and the only surviving member of the bunker's staff ... Misch was Adolf Hitler's telephonist, courier and bodyguard for five years. ... In the SS he was in Adolf Hitler's personal Bodyguard Regiment. When Misch married his wife Gerda in 1942, Hitler sent the couple a case of wine. Jewish Candidate's Campaign Ad Promotes `Minority' Interests The Ticket - Yahoo News  In a television advertisement titled "Stick Together: Send a Mensch to Congress," candidate Dan Adler pointedly appeals for "minority" (non-white) voter support. In the ad, which Adler "definitely" approves, a Korean woman explains that "we minorities should stick together," by which he means Jews like himself, Koreans and other non-Europeans. Dan Adler is a Los Angeles business executive who is running for US Congress in southern California. US Reaches $14 Trillion Debt Limit and Cuts Investments BBC News The US has reached its debt limit of $14.3 trillion and is taking measures to cut spending to avoid breaching it. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that he will suspend investing into two large government pension funds. This delays any breaching of the limit to August 2. Congress is currently negotiating an increase to the limit, without which the US risks defaulting on its debt. Defying Threats, Irving and Weber Address California Meeting Institute for Historical Review  In spite of efforts by local bigots to disrupt the event, best-selling British author David Irving and American historian Mark Weber addressed a meeting in Orange County, California, on April 23. They gave talks on two of wartime Germany's most prominent leaders: Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels. Bin Laden is Dead: Let's Bring The Troops Home Ron Paul  ... It is good that bin Laden is dead and justice is served. The way in which he was finally captured and killed shows that targeted retribution is far superior to wars of aggression and nation-building ... The elimination of Osama bin Laden should now prompt us to declare victory and bring our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Al Qaeda was never in Iraq and we were supposedly in Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden. With bin Laden gone, there is no reason for our presence in the region - unless it was all about oil, nation-building, and remaking the Middle East and Central Asia. Hopefully bin Laden does not get the last laugh. Bin Laden's Death: `Rejoice Not...' Uri Avnery ... The American Empire always needs an antagonist to keep it together and to focus its energies. This has to be a worldwide enemy, a sinister advocate of an evil philosophy. Such were the Nazis and Imperial Japan, but they did not last long. Fortunately, there was then the Communist Empire, which filled the role admirably ... The Arab Spring embodies a new set of ideals, a new enthusiasm, one that does not glorify and hanker after a distant past but looks boldly to the future. The young men and women of Tahrir Square, with their longing for freedom, have consigned bin Laden to history, months before his physical death. His philosophy has a future only if the Arab Awakening fails completely and leaves behind a profound sense of disappointment and despair. Cow Most Sacred: Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable Andrew J. Bacevich  ... Until Americans accept these facts, until they come to a more nuanced view of World War II that takes fully into account the political and moral implications of the U.S. alliance with the Soviet Union and the U.S. campaign of obliteration bombing directed against Germany and Japan, the mythic version of "the Good War" will continue to provide glib justifications for continuing to dodge that perennial question: How much is enough? Like concentric security barriers arrayed around the Pentagon, these four factors -- institutional self-interest, strategic inertia, cultural dissonance, and misremembered history -- insulate the military budget from serious scrutiny. Goebbels and World War II Propaganda Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  Apart from Hitler himself, perhaps the most fascinating figure of Third Reich Germany is the regime's chief publicist and spokesman, Joseph Goebbels. He is widely portrayed as a master of lies and deceitful propaganda. But this familiar image, which is particularly entrenched in the United States, is itself a propaganda falsehood. Goebbels' `Total War' Speech Video Dr. Goebbels' addresses a mass rally in Berlin on Feb. 18, 1943, just a few weeks after the catastrophic defeat of German and allied forces in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Reich Minister frankly explains the mortal danger that threatens all of Europe. Germany could lose the war, he solemnly warns. To counter the formidable Soviet threat from the East, he goes on, the nation must adopt stern and radical "total war" measures With English narration and subtitles. Runtime: 2:42 minutes. Did Obama's Election Mean the End of the Anti-War Movement? Bernie DeGroat Since 2003, the antiwar movement in the United States has had much to protest with Americans fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, but the movement -- which has dropped off sharply the past two years -- may be more anti-Republican than antiwar, says a University of Michigan researcher ... "The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated. The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the antiwar movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions." The Phony Anti-War Movement Glen Ford ... In other words, much of the anti-war movement was phony, a cynical gathering of partisan Democrats who were really never all that concerned for the victims of U.S. imperial warfare, or for the huge dislocations that the national security state places on the U.S. economy. No, they just wanted their guy, the Democrat, to win. Once Obama was safely in the White House, the anti-war movement was all but dismantled, having served its partisan political purpose. For the phony anti-warrior, imperialism with a Democratic face, is just fine. Class of 2011, Most Indebted Ever The Wall Street Journal  $22,900: Average student debt of newly minted college graduates. The Class of 2011 will graduate this spring from America's colleges and universities with a dubious distinction: the most indebted ever ... Together with loans parents take on to finance their children's college educations -- loans that the students often pay themselves -- the estimate comes to about $22,900. That's 8% more than last year and, in inflation-adjusted terms, 47% more than a decade ago. Food Stamp Usage Up 11.6 Percent Dirk van Dijk As of February, there were 39.589 million Americans on Food Stamps. That is up 11.6 percent from a year ago. It works out to be about one in seven citizens, or more than the combined populations of ... 23 states. The increase over the last year is almost equal to the population of Colorado. Jewish Paper Edits Hillary Clinton Our Of White House photo The Associated Press An Orthodox Jewish newspaper on Monday apologized for digitally deleting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from a photo of President Barack Obama and his staff watching Navy SEALs move in on Osama bin Laden. The Brooklyn weekly Di Tzeitung, which says it doesn't publish images of women, printed the doctored photo Friday. It issued a statement saying its photo editor hadn't read the "fine print" accompanying the White House photo that forbade any changes. The newspaper said it has sent its "regrets and apologies" to the White House and the Department of State. American Hellholes The Economic Collapse  ... All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the "rust belt" and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes ... Incredibly, 60 percent of all the students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches ... Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over one million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country. Egypt and Israel Relations Heading for Crisis Jonathan Cook  Israeli officials have expressed alarm at a succession of moves by the interim Egyptian government that they fear signal an impending crisis in relations with Cairo. The widening rift was underscored yesterday when leaders of the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation pact in the Egyptian capital. Egypt's secret role in brokering the agreement last week caught both Israel and the United States by surprise ... The interim Egyptian government, under popular pressure, is consciously distancing itself from some of the main policies towards Israel and the Palestinians pursued by Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president overthrown by a popular uprising in February. Israel Finalizes Purchase of Sixth German-Made Submarine Reuters  Israel has finalized the purchase of a sixth submarine from Germany, with payment to be spread over several years, an Israeli official said on Thursday. The proposed expansion of the diesel-powered Dolphin submarine fleet, considered Israel's vanguard against foes like Iran, had been held up by wrangling with Berlin over the $500 million to $700 million price tag. Israel currently operates three Dolphins and has two more on order from Germany with delivery expected in the next two years. Dedicated to the security of the Jewish state founded in the wake of the Holocaust, Germany had sold those submarines at deep discounts. Special Relationship: US Tried To Hide Israeli War Crimes Colum Lynch -- Foreign Policy In the aftermath of Israel's 2008-2009 intervention into the Gaza Strip, Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, led a vigorous campaign to stymie an independent U.N. investigation into possible war crimes, while using the prospect of such a probe as leverage to pressure Israel to participate in a U.S.-backed Middle East peace process, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables provided by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a rare glimpse behind the scenes at the U.N. as American diplomats sought to shield Israel's military from outside scrutiny of its conduct during Operation Cast Lead. What's In It for Us, Mr. Obama? Philip Giraldi ... As is frequently the case, the United States and its citizens will pay the price in terms of America's approval rating sinking even lower worldwide. Defending Israel from criticism does not appear either in the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights and sacrificing American interests for those of a foreign power is just not acceptable, but Congress has long since abandoned any attempt to mandate minimal standards of accountability, either for itself or for the state of Israel. University Blocks Honor For Kushner Over Israel Remarks The New York Times  In a rare move, the trustees of the City University of New York have voted to shelve an honorary degree that one of its campuses, John Jay College, planned to award to Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwriter of "Angels in America." The vote on Monday evening came after a CUNY trustee said that Mr. Kushner had disparaged the State of Israel in past comments, a characterization that the writer attacked on Wednesday. Amid calls from CUNY faculty and staff members for the board to reverse its decision, Mr. Kushner said in an interview that he believed the trustees had slandered him and owed him an apology. Even if the board was to reconsider and approve the degree, Mr. Kushner said, he would not accept it. Hitler's Plans For Large-Scale, Affordable Holiday Resorts Daily Mail (Britain) Secret Nazi files have been found that reveal how Hitler wanted his party to become the world's largest tour operator with holiday camps modelled on the British 'Butlins' chain. The long-lost plans for a chain of 'super-resorts' accommodating 20,000 holidaying Nazis at a time were found in the state archive of Greifswald in north-east Germany. One of the papers revealed how the Nazis envisioned 'British holiday camps designed to provide affordable holidays for the average worker'. The bundle of 62-pages, which were found last week, outlined plans from Dr Robert Ley, the Nazi head of the German Labour Front, for the sprawling Prora resort. 24 Signs Of Economic Decline In America The Economic Collapse  The United States is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. I have done this in order to make an overwhelming case that the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is dying a little bit more every single day. Until we understand exactly how bad our problems are we will never be willing to accept the solutions. The truth is that our leaders have absolutely wrecked the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. US Government Warns of Violence on US-Mexico Border Department of State (Washington, DC) You should be especially aware of safety and security concerns when visiting the northern border states of Northern Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. Much of the country's narcotics-related violence has occurred in the border region. More than a third of all U.S. citizens killed in Mexico in 2010 whose deaths were reported to the U.S. government were killed in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana ... Carjacking and highway robbery are serious problems in many parts of the border region. You are urged to defer travel to those areas mentioned in this Travel Warning and to exercise extreme caution when traveling throughout the northern border region. Israel Launches New Bid For Holocaust-Era Assets Reuters Israel on Sunday launched a commission to track down property taken from Holocaust victims across Europe and get compensation for wartime losses. The Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Task Force or "HEART" is the first official Israeli effort in decades to reclaim assets of Jews killed by the Nazis. Germany has paid reparations to many survivors since the 1950s. But Israel says many claims have not been settled. "Most East European countries have yet to restore the property and rights plundered from the Jews during the Holocaust," Leah Ness, a deputy cabinet minister in charge of the project told journalists. Osama Bin Laden: More Dangerous Dead Than Alive Eric Margolis  ... The specter of al-Qaida provided a handy pretext to invade Afghanistan to secure strategic territory next to Central Asian oil, keep China out of that region, and double spending on arms. The invasion of oil-rich Iraq was also justified by patently false White House claims Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden over 9/11 ... Today, the nearly bankrupt United States is spending hundreds of billions annually waging small wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and the Sahara. Grotesquely overblown military spending and debt addiction are crippling United States. That is why the ghost of bin Laden may be smiling.An Empire's Shocking Decline And Fall Matthew Norman -- The Independent (Britain)  The three interconnected forces that destroy empires - military over-reach, lack of money, and the catastrophic loss of self-confidence that stems from the other two - have coalesced with astonishing speed since the Twin Towers fell ... The real biggest issue that faces America today is that America, despite a recovering economy, is broke, dispirited, bamboozled and petrified. It is terrified by the suddenly bleak middle-class future faced even by graduates, by the prospect of losing its supplies of cheap oil from rebellious client kingdoms in the Middle East, and by the staggering speed with which China threatens to supplant it.Bravo!: Palestinian Reconciliation And What It Means Uri Avnery ... The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians - and for us ... The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be. The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo! ElBaradei Suggests War Crimes Probe of Bush Team The Associated Press  Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the "shame of a needless war" in Iraq. Freer to speak now than he was as an international civil servant, the Nobel-winning Egyptian accuses U.S. leaders of "grotesque distortion" in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, when then-President George W. Bush and his lieutenants claimed Iraq possessed doomsday weapons despite contrary evidence collected by ElBaradei's and other arms inspectors inside the country. The Iraq war taught him that "deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators," ElBaradei writes in "The Age of Deception," being published Tuesday by Henry Holt and Comp Washington on the Rocks Alfred W. McCoy and Brett Reilly ... In Egypt (and elsewhere in the Middle East), Washington was funding both the autocrats and the young activists who opposed them and who, in Egypt, would be crucial players in the Tahrir Square movement that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak ... Across the Greater Middle East from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain and Yemen, democratic protests are threatening to sweep away subordinate elites crucial to the wielding of American power. Of course, all modern empires have relied on dependable surrogates to translate their global power into local control -- and for most of them, the moment when those elites began to stir, talk back, and set their own agendas was also the moment when it became clear that imperial collapse was in the cards. Egypt To Open Gaza Border Crossing Permanently BBC News Egypt says it will open its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on a permanent basis. The interim Foreign Minister, Nabil al-Arabi, said the blockade would be eased over the next few days. He described the support of the previous Egyptian government for the blockade as disgraceful ... Under Mr Mubarak Egypt strongly upheld its unpopular peace treaty with Israel, and opposed Hamas in the internal Palestinian power-struggle. The new government, though, has already helped broker a reconciliation agreement between the two Palestinian factions. The Rafah crossing is the only entry and exit point into Gaza that bypasses Israel. This decision will alarm Israel, which has already condemned the deal with Hamas ... New Tension Roils Israel The Wall Street Journal ... Egypt's new foreign-policy forays show how the country is adjusting policies to reflect popular opinion more closely in the wake of President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, while at the same time threatening to profoundly alter relations with the Jewish state ... It follows a series of Egyptian initiatives that have raised anxieties in Israel. Almost immediately after Mr. Mubarak's resignation, the new government legalized the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, which has launched its own political wing. Meanwhile, Egypt recently announced it will re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran. What the World Sees in America Peggy Noonan -- The Wall Street Journal  I want to talk a little more this holiday week about what I suppose is a growing theme in this column, and that is an increased skepticism toward U.S. military intervention, including nation building. Our republic is not now in a historical adventure period -- that is not what is needed. We are or should be in a self-strengthening one. Our focus should not be on outward involvement but inner repair ... We have much to be proud of. And we know it. But take a look around us. Don't we have some reasons for pause, for self-questioning? Don't we have a lot of cultural repair that needs doing? Hollywood is Owned by Jews, Says Marlon Brando Video  "... I am very angry with some of the Jews. I am very goddamned angry ... at some of the Jews," said famed film actor Marlon Brando in an April 1996 interview on "Larry King Live. "... Hollywood is run by Jews," he went on. "It is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of -- of people who are suffering.." He went on to say "Because they've exploited -- we have seen the -- we have seen the Nigger and Greaseball; we've seen the Chink. We've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap. We have seen the wily Filipino. We've seen everything, but we never saw the Kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the wagons around." A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby Mark Weber ... Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The "Jewish lobby" is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. As long as the "very powerful" Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace. Jewish Group Worried Over Results of Survey of European Attitudes on Israel and Jews European Jewish Press Results of a poll conducted by a German think-tank on European attitudes towards Jews and Israel are "deeply disturbing," said the European Jewish Congress (EJC). The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think-tank associated with Germany's Social Democratic Party, found extremely worrying attitudes amongst a host of Europeans ... When asked to respond to the statement that "Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians," 63% of the study's participants in Poland agreed with the statement, while in Germany 47.7 percent expressed agreement. Our Veto in the Security Council Carl Coon - Progressive Humanism When we vetoed the resolution on Israeli settlements in the UN Security Council [on Feb. 18], something that had been pretty clear before became crystal clear, at least to the rest of the world. No more fig leaf, no more excuses, we now stand naked before the eyes of the rest of humanity. It is now commonly understood that at all times, under all imaginable circumstances, when little Israel cracks the whip, the American colossus obeys. Most Americans probably won't be aware of the extent to which our nation has humiliated itself in the eyes of the rest of humanity, for our press will play the event down. Prof. Nolte Tackles Taboos of Third Reich History Mark Weber  Decades after its dramatic demise, the Third Reich continues to fascinate millions and provoke heated discussion ... Consistent with the author's strong plea for a more thoughtful and objective look at the phenomenon of Hitler and National Socialism, Nolte presents his often highly unorthodox views without polemics, indeed with a certain reserve and tentativeness. Unlike those who incessantly insist that "we" must "never forget" the "lessons of the Holocaust," Nolte calls for an evaluation of the Hitler era as free as possible of strident, emotion-laden polemics and self-serving purposes. In France, Court Orders Mayor to Remove Portrait of Petain The Telegraph (Britain)  A court on Tuesday ordered a French mayor to take down a portrait of Philippe Petain, leader of France's wartime Vichy regime, from the wall of a town hall. The portrait of Petain, branded an anti-semitic Nazi collaborator, hung in a municipal marriage chamber in Gonneville-sur-Mer, near the Normandy landing beaches used in World War II by Allied forces. The court overruled a decision by Bernard Hoye, the town's independent mayor, to keep the portrait which he said had been hanging there for years. It had nevertheless been taken down pending Tuesday's decision. Large Crowds Cheer Marshal Pétain in Paris, April 1944 France-Actualités (1944) - newsreel Large crowds cheer French Head of State Pétain during his visit to Paris in April 1944. Parisians cry out "Vive Pétain" and sing the national anthem, "La Marseillaise." Pétain also attends a memorial service in the Notre Dame Cathedral for victims of Allied bombing. This visit, is just a few weeks before the D-Day landing of British and American troops at Normandy. Newsreel narration in French. Runtime: 7:28 mins. Philippe Petain, who was a revered military commander during the First World War, was named French Head of State in 1940 by overwhelming vote of the National Assembly. Virginia's Black Confederates Walter E. Williams  One tragedy of war is that its victors write its history and often do so with bias and dishonesty. That's true about our War of 1861, erroneously called a civil war. Civil wars, by the way, are when two or more parties attempt to take over the central government. Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington, in 1776, wanted to take over London. Both wars were wars of independence. Ferocious Battle of the Volga Lives In Russian Memory National Public Radio  Nowhere is the Volga River more hallowed than in the city named after it: Volgograd, better known to history as Stalingrad. During World War II, perhaps the bloodiest battle in history took place there. A total of two million people were lost on both sides in the fighting from the summer of 1942 to February 1943. Hitler's army, fighting to reach the Volga and seize the country's energy resources to the south in the oil-rich Caucasus, was met by the tenacious Soviet Red Army and a city that would not yield. The Relentless Cult of Novelty Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1987)  ... This relentless cult of novelty, with its assertion that art need not be good or pure, just so long as it is new, newer, and newer still, conceals an unyielding and long-sustained attempt to undermine, ridicule and uproot all moral precepts ... To decorate public spaces we put up sculptures that aestheticize pure ugliness -- but we no longer register surprise. And if visitors from outer space were to pick up our music over the airwaves, how could they ever guess that earthlings once had a Bach, a Beethoven and a Schubert, now abandoned as out of date and obsolete? US Pro-Israel Group Claims Election Victory Foreign Policy  One prominent pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington is already praising the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives as a net benefit for Israel. "While Democrats are likely to keep control of the U.S. Senate, Republicans will take over the U.S. House of Representatives following Tuesday's elections. This is likely to have implications for Israel-related issues such as Israel's relationship with the United States and the push for sanctions against Iran," said an e-mail blasted out by The Israel Project only minutes after news stations called the turnover of House control a certainty. You Want War? Pay For It Eric Margolis ... The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been ignored during the election race. After nine years of combat, 5,000 US dead and 35,000 seriously wounded soldiers, and expenditure of over $1 trillion - silence. These longest and second most expensive wars in US history have dropped off the radar. Not even the latest WikiLeaks shocker, which revealed the US condoning death squads, torture and mass human rights violations in Iraq, became a campaign issue ... Right-wing Republicans will press for more war, in more places - financed, of course, by the magic of credit. Few stop to think that this manic borrowing it wrecking America. The Phantom Left Chris Hedges  ... The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don't be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. A German Soldier's Photos of the Devastation of Dunkirk Daily Mail (Britain)  Rare photos taken by a German soldier of the devastated beaches of Dunkirk after the evacuation have been found 70 years on by the family of a British war veteran. The pictures were taken a few hours after 330,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from the beaches by an armada of little ships having been defeated by the Nazis. The remarkable album was later taken from a German house as a memento by British serviceman Corporal Frank Smith. It includes shots of the Germans surveying the wreckage of downed aircraft and scores of damaged trucks and tanks on the battle-scarred shores of Dunkirk. 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 ... Israel Protests British 'Universal Jurisdiction' Law JTA Israel reportedly postponed a strategic dialogue with Britain to protest a law that allows for the prosecution of Israeli officials for alleged war crimes. Strategic dialogue between Israel and Britain on defense and security issues occurs annually. This year's strategic dialogue meeting, scheduled for last month in Britain, did not take place, the French news agency AFP reported. The British law provides the country's courts with "universal jurisdiction" to issue arrest warrants for alleged war crimes, including to visiting foreign politicians. Israel Ranks Among Western World's Most Corrupt Countries Haaretz (Israel) and Reuters  Israel ranks among the most corrupt countries in the Western world, according to a study released by the International Transparency Organization on Tuesday ... The least corrupt countries were listed as Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore ... The United States, meanwhile, has dropped out of the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics. The U.S. fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5. This was the lowest score awarded to the U.S. in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20. German Police Swoop on Neo-Nazi Internet Radio Station AFP German police staged dawn raids today against right-wing extremists accused of operating a neo-Nazi Internet radio station to whip up anti-foreigner sentiment among young supporters. Authorities swooped in 10 of Germany's 16 states on 22 homes with alleged links to "Radio Resistance", which features "racist and National Socialist" commentary and music from skinhead bands, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said. "The 23 suspects aged between 20 and 37 from across the country are believed to have acted as administrators and hosts" of programs on the station, the BKA said in a statement. Anger As Germany Cuts Funding to Orthodox Jews The Telegraph (Britain)  The German government has ignited a row with the country's Orthodox Jews after it stopped funding the training of Orthodox rabbis. The authorities have been subsidising the training of rabbis for several years, but the interior ministry recently announced that it would only fund Liberal rabbis from now on. Thomas de Maziere, the interior minister, blamed "the budget situation" for the decision, the Times reports. However, the move has upset the Jewish community ... Since the Second World War, Germany has been trying to re-establish a Jewish presence in the country. There are now some 120,000 Jews living in Germany, and many are Orthodox. Dutch Authorities Recall Auto License Plates With `Nazi' Initials The Telegraph (Britain)  The Dutch authorities have urgently recalled "Nazi" number plates issued to drivers after a computer error. Over 100 car owners received licence plates with the letters "NSB" on them, a Dutch equivalent of the word Nazi. NSB is the notorious abbreviation for the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, the Dutch fascist party which collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. Number plates displaying the offending letters were recalled by the Dutch Vehicle Authority on Monday after the first angry complaints by drivers. The Holocaust and the Myth of the Past as History Howard F. Stein  For the Jews, the term "Holocaust" does not simply denote a single catastrophic era in history, but is a grim metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history. The "Holocaust" lies at the heart of the Jewish experience of time itself. One is either anxiously awaiting persecution, experiencing persecution, recovering from it, or living in a period that is a temporary reprieve from it ... Thus the "reality" of the Holocaust is inextricably part of the myth in which it is woven -- and for which myth it serves as further confirmatory evidence for the timeless Jewish theme that the world is in conspiracy to annihilate them, one way or another, at least eventually. The Shaming of America Robert Fisk: -- The Independent (Britain)  As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims. Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general - the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind - to ring-fence us with lies. The Ten Smartest and Dumbest U.S. Cities Daily Beast -- Alternet  The second annual list of the nation's smartest and dumbest cities. What makes a city "smart" or "dumb," per this list? The education level of the city's citizens, for one, and also its "intellectual environment," as measured by nonfiction book sales and the prevalence of colleges and libraries. Draw your own conclusions about what the list means in terms of a city's desirability. But one thing that seems to be objectively true is that there's an economic element to the rankings: The continuing economic malaise just reinforces a perennial fact: A city's potential lies mostly with the ingenuity and brainpower of its citizens. Regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back; those without risk a stupor. British Legion's 1935 Visit to Third Reich Shown In Archive Photos BBC News  A delegation from the British Legion met Adolf Hitler in July 1935, recently uncovered photographs show. The 148 images were in a swastika-embossed album found by an employee. They show British veterans of World War I being saluted by Germans, and delegation leader Maj Francis Fetherston-Godley shaking hands with Hitler's deputy Rudolph Hess ... The five members of the Legion (now known as the Royal British Legion) met Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. There were photos of German ex-servicemen in wheelchairs giving Nazi salutes as the delegation parade passed with the Union flag, and pictures of the delegation at Commonwealth war graves in Germany. In Russia, One of `World's Worst' History Textbooks Foreign Policy  Lesson plan: Buddy Stalin Subject matter: It can't be easy to put a positive spin on Stalin, under whose leadership more than 20 million Russians lost their lives. But that's what's being attempted in Russia today ... Aleksandr Filippov, the author of a new Kremlin-approved textbook told the Times, "It is wrong to write a textbook that will fill the children who learn from it with horror and disgust about their past and their people." His book devotes 83 pages to Joseph Stalin's industrialization plans, but only one paragraph to the Great Famine of 1932 to 1933 in which millions starved as a result of deeply flawed agricultural policy. In Germany, Berlin Police Fear Entering Immigrant `No Go' Areas ZDF Heute Journal (Germany) - Television video  German television news report on "no go" areas in Berlin, populated by immigrants from outside Europe. These areas are so crime-ridden and disorderly that even police sometimes cannot patrol them without being insulted, spit upon or physically attacked. Runtime: 4:07 mins. Dr. Siddique Stands By Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist Statements The Philadelphia Inquirer A Lincoln University professor who drew criticism this week for anti-Israel statements he made at a recent rally said Thursday that he stood by those words and would not back down from detractors he said are out to "threaten academic freedom." Kaukab Siddique, 67, an associate professor of English and literature, said that he had the support of his faculty and students and that he would continue to speak his mind, despite pressure from those who have referred to him as an "anti-Semite." Sex Trafficking In Israel CNN  ... Over the past decade, about 10,000 women have been trafficked into Israel in what Keidar calls "modern slavery." The women are locked, beaten, raped, starved and forced to receive 15-30 men a day 365 days a year, according to the attorney. About three years ago, Israeli police greatly reduced women trafficking by pouring resources into the problem. Israel Sees Double Standard in Response to Wikileaks' Iraq Files The Christian Science Monitor The Wikileaks release of US military field reports from Iraq that detail tens of thousands of civilian casualties in seven years of fighting is being used by some Israels to argue that their country is a victim of an international double standard on human rights ... On Monday, Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari said he filed a formal complaint with the UN, calling for war crimes investigations of senior American politicians and "international arrest warrants for US government leaders." In a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, he wrote: "I call on the UN to condemn the behavior of the US and especially its attempts to hide the facts... We need to expose the hypocrisy of the West." Jewish Groups Launch New, Well-Funded Pro-Israel PR Campaign JTA The Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs are launching a multimillion-dollar joint initiative to combat anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. The JFNA and the rest of the Jewish federation system have agreed to invest $6 million over the next three years in the new initiative, which is being called the Israel Action Network ... The network is expected to serve as a rapid-response team charged with countering the growing campaign to isolate Israel as a rogue state akin to apartheid-era South Africa - a campaign that the Israeli government and Jewish groups see as an existential threat to the Jewish state. Muslim Sect Sees Struggle Through Christian Lens: A Little-Known Jewish Massacre The New York Times Among the ruins on the edge of this ancient oasis city are deep trenches littered with bones. That, local people say, is all that remains of one of the great atrocities of antiquity, when thousands of Christians were herded into pits here and burned to death by a Jewish tyrant after they refused to renounce their faith. The massacre, which took place in about A.D. 523, is partly shadowed by myth and largely unknown to the outside world. But it has become central to the identity of the people now living here, who mostly belong to the minority Ismaili sect of Islam. Jews in US Sue Hungary Over World War II Railroad Role Haaretz (Israel) Hungarian survivors of the Holocaust and families of the victims sued the Republic of Hungary and its two rail companies in U.S. court on Thursday, accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis to exterminate Jews during World War Two. The lawsuit accused the Hungarian government and rail companies of confiscating property of Jews and transporting them to ghettos and concentration camps where hundreds of thousands perished in Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine. A New Book `Rehabilitates' Lindbergh, Says Salon Salon  The influential conservative publishing house Regnery has just released a book that argues, contrary to popular belief, that aviator and political leader Charles Lindbergh was neither anti-semitic nor pro-German, but rather was the victim of an unfounded smear campaign by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to promotional material, the book, "Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt: The Rivalry That Divided America" by James Duffy, argues that Lindbergh was the target of a "vicious personal vendetta by President Roosevelt" that "blighted his reputation forever." US Foreclosure Crisis Becomes More Widespread BBC News The foreclosure crisis in the US has spread across a wider area of the country, according to RealtyTrac, which monitors repossession activity. The organisation said foreclosure notices increased across a majority of large metropolitan areas, including Chicago and Seattle. Previously, these cities had seen relatively low levels of activity ... The trend is the latest sign that the US foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners -- facing high unemployment, slow job growth and uncertainty about house prices -- continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments ... Earlier in the week, data from rating agency Standard and Poor's showed that US house prices also began falling again in August, mainly in response to the expired tax credit. 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. 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