A brilliant performance by the new president, I'd have to say. But troubling on the same old issues. "I just laughed when Obama said that a nuclear Iran 'might set off a nuclear arms race in the region,'" F.E. Felson says. "I wonder what effect he thinks Israel's 300 nukes have on the region, and on Iranian ambitions." Well Helen Thomas asked him that very question. Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons? Obama said he didn't care to "speculate." The imperative is to stop a nuclear arms race. When will American politicans stop lying to the American people and themselves on this essential question?
Though Obama was pretty good on George Mitchell. He said that the appointment of Mitchell and his choice to be interviewed by Al-Arabiya sent the signal to the Muslim world that things were going to be "different" under this administration. Prove it.
(Phil Weiss)
'Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons? Obama said he didn't care to "speculate."'
What a lawyer, shucking and jiving. A regular Johny Cochran. And therein lies why Obama won't accomplish squat. He's a gamer, and always has been. "Change." Good jive talk, zero substance. What a hustler, just like all those Jewish Zionists he's gaming with. Their games have already gotten a lot of innocent Palestinians and Afghanis killed; to pimps like them, that's funny.
It is really discouraging that Obama is so much under the sway of the Israel lobby that he can't even acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons. Even Ehud Olmert publicly admitted that Israel had nuclear weapons. Seymour Hersh wrote a whole book about Israel's nuclear strategy ("The Sampson Option"). It's just crazy that the US president can't say what the whole world knows–Israel has been a nuclear power for more than 40 years.
Tonight the artful dodger Obama was at it again. Remember how often he vowed that passing the stimulus plan would "create" three to 4 million jobs? But now the wily wordsmith slipped in "save or create." And not without reason. How exactly will anyone know which jobs how many will be "saved" and how many "created?" And he doesn't "speculate"?
Glad to see that your candidate won the election.
"troubling", eh? It's "really troubling" that Obama is the same genocidal imperialist as before? get ready to face a war crimes trial of your own, for criminal hypocrisy, Phil.
This is good step for more detail please view the url
http://hollywood.mywebdunia.com/2009/02/10/1234241230579.html
Phil, once and for all, you have to grasp that this USA you claim to love so much, whatever its past may have been, is nowadays based solely on trash, lies and mass murder. Either you admit that, and start to write accordingly, or you are a collaborator with it.
Also, let's just get this clear: it is completely delusory to imagine that, if Israel were to withdraw to the 67 lines, you could then go back to supporting it, with a sixties-style, 'liberal', 'progressive' good conscience.
This is one of many areas where (if you were honest) you would react, well, we own all the mass media, we can sell any fantasy we like, no matter how delusory. However, though this would be honest, it is no longer true.
Either you admit that, and start to write accordingly, or you are a collaborator with it.
So Phil either is for us or he's against us?
By not declaring itself to be nuclear-armed, Israel skirts a U.S. ban on funding countries that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. It can thus enjoy some $3 billion in annual military aid from Washington.
SOURCE – link to wire.antiwar.com
This issuing of ultimatums to Phil is really bizarre. Phil should write whatever he wants and anyone who doesn't like it is always free never to visit Phil's site again.
Incidentally, Arendt is also wrong about the cause of genocide. She treats it as an alarming potential defection of principle from what she is pleased to regard as 'liberalism', 'the West', etcetera. More or less continuous mass killing of civilian populations is however intrinsic to imperialism as such, even when it calls itself 'liberal'.
Prove it.
… and hurry up about it.
Rowan, give people some room. You are a smart guy. Don't start sounding like those idiot Zionists (Chris Berel/SoG/Thom/etc etc)
Rowan, calm down. For starters, don't visit the site if you don't like it. And as long as Phil tackles these issues in such an honest way, I could care less if he's a neverending optimist etc.
I don't think Obama dodged the question. I think he said: "we have to start reducing our own stockpile before lecturing others."
And in my view that was a brilliant answer. He roped Israel in, without being confrontational.
What would he have achieved by saying "Israel" has them and we gave it to them?
What disappointed me, was his repetition of a MYTH that Iran is pursuing nukes! There he didn't bother to comment on the speculative nature of his statement.
However, he redeemed his qualities with the way he dodged Helen's question! That woman is such a little lioness; it seems you have to have reached the age of 'nothing to lose' to dare questioning the Israeli atrocities …
Seems you know nothing, yet assume everything. It would seem that after the Iraq debacle, the US would not make such announcements without much clearer evidence. That the US will not put out their evidence to someone as insignificant as you has no bearing on its existance.
As for Israel, what do you care if Israel has managed, over the last 40 years, to maintain whatever it has and not used it unwisely? Never stopped Egypt from attacking.
Huffington has an article about this. The comment section has been temporarily disabled. The gist of the article is that Obama dodged the question, and that we have to put pressure on him to be more honest on Israel's nukes since it goes to the issue of proliferation:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-v-santore/obama-dodges-question-on_b_165451.html
Seems to me merely acknowledging Israel has nukes (as Carter did)
would reality would give Iran a good hole card would make it harder
to justify the current double standard in the Public eye. It would reduce the argument against Iran having even peaceful nuclear capability, which is its legal right currently, to "Well, some governments can be trusted with nukes, and some can't."
The rejoinder is suggested: "You mean like Pakistan?"
Naj:
"What would he have achieved by saying "Israel" has them and we gave it to them?"
He would have spoken the truth. In some circles, that's still worth something.
Obama gives a better speech than Bush, but I wouldn't say he came off as well-spoken, convincing, intellectual, sincere or particularly knowledgable on any of the subjects he spoke on. Too often, it was obvious that the wheels were turning slowly.
What did he really say other than "I was handed a bad situation, and our problems are not my fault," or "you are welcome to agree with me, otherwise we can't work together." He seems like he's still in campaign mode, except with a different set of talking points.
I also noticed that the Obama administration is supporting the Bush administrations extraordinary rendition policies. What a shock that is!
I just don't understand how anyone could believe that anyone coming out of the American political system would take an honest approach to issues in the Middle East, or anywhere else, for that matter.
"What would he have achieved by saying "Israel" has them and we gave it to them?"
I don't konw what would have been achieved by admitting that Israel has nuclear weapons, since that statement has never slipped from the lips of a U.S. president. What harm could it do be honest when we are threatening to bomb Iran over the possibility that it is developing nuclear weapons? We keep bringing up Israel's security, so I think it makes sense to mention the security concerns of Iran in an honest negotiation. Do we risk honesty by mentioning the truth?
Phil, once and for all, you have to grasp that this USA you claim to love so much, whatever its past may have been, is nowadays based solely on trash, lies and mass murder. Either you admit that, and start to write accordingly, or you are a collaborator with it.
Rowan, this is essentially the same argument as the good versus evil scenario of the Bush warriors.
I am highly suspicious of the argument or equation of Anti-Americanism = antisemitism, as it seems to serve political ends. But as with many things there is a grain of truth to it. Otherwise it couldn't be exploited. The grain being prejudice and projection.
on this article written by ex-cia philip giraldi, the washingtonnote gets an honorable mention as being the tool of the israeli and jewish zionist who used the blog to help justify the recent masacre against palestine…
link to antiwar.com
the sharp exchange between israeli president shimon peres and turkish prime minister recep tayyip erdogan at davos on jan. 29 exemplifies israel's public relations problem and also casts light upon what steps the israeli government and its friends in the united states are taking to counteract the negative press. media reports suggest that israel preceded its attack on gaza by alerting a network of supporters to post comments on blogs, saturating the web with the israeli government's justification for its action. this was evident on a number of blogs, including huffington post and the washington note. many of the posters were israelis, and it is believed that a number of them were active-duty military personnel selected for their fluency in english and other european languages as well as their familiarity with the internet.
of a MYTH that Iran is pursuing nukes!
Would you be surprised if they did? After Iraq, and the collective war cries of people like Mr. Faster Please? (Who by the way had another conversation with the late James Jesus Angleton via his antique ouija board. His way of ridiculing the tin-foil-crowd, which I assume is much larger than this term suggests.)
Prove it, 99? Prove the 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis.
Of course, Israel could always allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. You know, like we're demanding of Iran. That would settle the issue once and for all.
Or are you advocating double standards?
Are you addressing me? George.
I did not say they did, all I said was, there seems to be a strong pressure to drive them towards such decisions.
The better question I think would be: What would make their nukes more dangerous than e.g. Israeli, American, Russian, …
Prove it, 99? Prove the 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis.
This is the whole point: this holo cult.
I saw Helen ask Obama that question..Obama reacted like he had been kicked in the balls.
His eyes went down and his head twiched to the right and he did a few er..er's before mumbling on.
He knew he was being called out on Israel's nukes and so did everyone watching who knows anything about I-P.
Nothing else we need to know about Obama…he's just another "politican" and with nazi Israel in full bloom and the US in full bankruptcy the ending is only a matter of time.
Obama's constituents are the same security state people that W. Bush ruled the state for. Obama knows that he will not suffer electorally for his support of Israeli nukes and his opposition to Iranian self-determination.
This is the whole point: this holo cult.
What number would you accept Rowan, zero?
The Nazis, if you believe it or not had a pretty well functioning bureaucracy at that point? That left traces. Would you question the number of other Nazi target groups e.g. ethnic Poles, Freemasons, gays, gypsies, witnesses of Jehova, dissenting priests …? Or just the biggest the Jews. Actually in Poland the number of civilian WWII victims are not that far from the Jewish.
There are indeed a couple of cases were the ultimate place of dead can not be established. But that doesn't mean the estimate can be questioned altogether.
Concerning Germany, the town were my mother was born started to collect the data really early. As things are, it initially was the project of a single person who started collecting the data, and writing two books about the destiny of the Jews of Karlsruhe.
Here are four with the family name Weiss, born in Kolbuszowa/Galicia, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe, that died in Auschwitz or Mauthausen.
Leander,
I've read that te actual number of Jews by the Nazis killed was estimated at around 4 million after the war, and that the 6 million figure is arbitrary. There is much more to the story on how the figure was settled on, but it's been years since I read the report. Do you know how the figure of 6 million was reached?
I've often heard the claim that upwards of 1 million non-Jewish Germans died in concentration camps for various reasons. Do you have any idea of what the real figure for non-Jewish victims is? Also, were Jews killed at a higher rate than their non-Jewish countrymen if Jewish victims are also separated by nationality?
Regardless of why people were killed, it seems more than possible that the number of non-Jew killed by the Nazis is close to the number of Jews killed. Any thoughts?
Holocaust denial. 911 "truth".
Please continue Rowan it's important that people hear what you have to say.
Where's Martillo? He's also a laugh riot.
Todd, the figure, 6 million, represent about 1/3 of all Jews on the face of the earth at the time, or at least 3/4's of all European Jewry. I do not believe that any other nationality lost a third of their population.
I may be wrong, but if that holds, than no other nationality was murdered at a greater rate.
It certainly i possible that the total number of people who died at the hands of the nazis equalss 11 miliion or so. If you add the number of Germans who were killed as a direct result of the war, I'm sure that would be many more millions. All directly on Nazi Germany's bloddy hands.
berel: "As for Israel, what do you care if Israel has managed, over the last 40 years, to maintain whatever it has. . . "
Which is what?
Todd, I think 4 million is to small an estimate. Wikipedia gives the respective sources for the local estimates.
The most important thing for me in the larger context is, there is absolutely no doubt that for the Nazis the Jews was scapegoat no. one, more so than any other victim group. On the other hand, the use of the Holocaust as a political weapon must produce counter forces with the most complex motivations. I wonder about Zündel's occasionally.
I prefer not to get involved in numbers, they do not change the larger picture on the ground.
You have Roger Garaudy in mind? Or whomever of the deniers, who claim the Holocaust is just a Jewish conspiracy? What about the survivors? What about eye witnesses of the allied or Russian troops, who freed the camps? What about German, Russian or other countries evidence? Concerning the there-were-no-gas-chambers-hoax we have evidence of German inspections among many other things e.g. construction details.
As I probably mentioned many times before, I am not a historian and my interest is more in local studies lately. If you start to look at these microcosms things get slightly more complicated. As is to be expected. From the top of my head: French Jews had a comparatively good chance to survive due to French non-Jews helping and hiding them. Networks the many Jewish emigrants in occupied France did not have. e.g. the Jewish wife of the German non-Jewish artist Max Ernst was on one the last trains to Ausschwitz that left France. How good are the records to distinguish native from non-native Jews. How much has been destroyed. Were some illegal? Or didn't register fearing this could make them traceable?
The French estimate leads us to a historian, who is under attack by Benny Morris. Whom you know by now. Which somehow reminds me of a comment of the late Raul Hilberg in his biography, The politics of Memory. He felt that Israeli gatekeepers were impeding his free access to Israeli archives. This caught my attention too:
There surely is enough controversy among historians already, even without the explicit deniers. And the data is complex. As some victims deads cannot be definitively traced to records. I am assuming there was quite a bit of chaos surrounding the final dead marches. Weak victims,who were simply shot with location and dead remaining unrecorded. Occasionally another mass grave is still discovered over here, as recently. That's the point were historical work starts.
Making things a little more complicated are these matters: You'll find both members of the Nazi party who aren't Germans but support their ideas, as you find Germans who served the Nazis, but helped saving Jews anyway.
What happens. I just replied to you Todd, spending more time on it than I wanted, and it has disappeared. Did I use the wrong open tab? The wrong thread?
Sorry, Dusc, but I am not privy to what Israel does or does not have.
In Poland, the consensus figure is 5.8 million Polish citizen killed. 3 million of those were Polish Jews.
Researching of Jewish deaths is fraught with danger due to impossibility of coming up with figures that differ from "official" figures:
It tars and feathers the researcher as "holocaust denier", and in country like German is actually illegal.
So it is the only area of history where you can have any answer as to the number of dead your research suggests as long as it is same or more than what was decided few decades ago.
It is of course a patently absurd position, totally shocking and incomprehensible to those who do not have emotional link with the European history. (Dr. Ahmadinejad is a good example of it and, predictably, a "holocaust denier")
Due to sensitivity of topic, the custom is that Jewish researchers research Jewish deaths, and non-Jewish researchers research non-Jewish deaths.
Those who cannot get their heads round the utter lack of logic of these positions, it has to be reminded, that such a illiberal attitude to historical research was taken out of real fear that the history of the second world war will be falsified and swept under the carpet.
The noble reason for this exception from the free speech was "never again". As in "never again will a civilized world stand by when people are killed by no fault other than they were born of certain ethnicity"
I've read that te actual number of Jews by the Nazis killed was estimated at around 4 million after the war, and that the 6 million figure is arbitrary.
Whom do you have in mind? Roger Garaudy? A very special case. Or others who not only question numbers but the idea of a planned and executed Holocaust altogether?
The Wikipedia entry gives the source, the scholarship behind the national estimates, differentiating between military, civilian, Jewish casualties. Here the number is 5,752,400. Raul Hilberg's estimate was 5.100.000, if I remember correctly.
The scholar listed for the French estimate is harshly criticized by Benny Morris for estimates of casualties in Israels wars. According to him they are too high. But Morris seems the only one criticizing his numbers, and apparently does not question his Holocaust victims estimates.
Again I am no historian, but obviously the number must be an estimate for several reasons. First it relies on the studies of different national historians over a vast area. They all rely probably on different document systematics and they are all human. In spite of the extensive existing archival material in some cases victims can't be traced to their definitive dead records. At one point traces are lost. If you consider the chaos surrounding e.g. the final dead marches or generally the advance of Russian and Allied troops you can easily see what could have hindered bureaucratic "business as usual". Surely some even have escaped from forced labor outside the camps or on the dead marches. But I doubt these numbers are relevant. The other sides had the guns.
Some of the survivors accounts read like a series of miracles, e.g. one German woman was in several camps with her mother. What saved her life would have usually led to earlier "selection". She had a sore leg from forced labor, she thought this would be the end, when she was brought to the hospital ward. But while she was there her barrack was selected for the gas chamber. Thus she survived.
I am lately more interested in microcosmic views. The studies of special smaller regions or communities under the Nazis.
chris Berel's 1/3 is pretty close to the number of German Jews that died in the Holocaust. A superficial response would be, better don't belong to the lower one third section of society, this won't allow you to flee in difficult times. But the records show a much more complex picture. Polish Jews died to a much higher percentage.
Ah!!!! now I see what might have caused Raul Hilberg's problems with Lucy Dawidowicz.In her statistics 90% of German and Austrian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Ooops, now I understand a couple of peculiar encounters on Wikipedia, concerning Karlsruhe.
Which brings us to a dear "friend of mine" the late Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg, incidentally a defender of Norman Finkelstein. In his auto-biography which is short but a book you read in one go, wrote, that he had the impression in Israel he was prevented by archival gatekeepers from access to the whole archival data. This section, here by a reviewer, caught my attention too: The Politics of Memory. The Journey of a Holocaust Historian.
The Holocaust no doubt is used as a political weapon and that must necessarily produce counter forces. For me the numbers are not a problem, every single victim counts. And I deeply detest the use of the Holocaust and its victims for political advantages. But then, its probably human.
One thing can't be questioned though, and that is, for the Nazis the Jews were the enemy no. One. They were the center of their propaganda, no other victim group got the same level of their attention and propaganda, or were as prominent in both feature films and "documentaries" propaganda.
Destruction
Opposition from Yad Vashem
Raul Hilberg it should be noted started Holocaust studies.
Who is disappearing my comments. This was only an addition. That can't be Phil.
Ah we have experts on the list.
I don't know who made two of my rather lengthy comments disappear and how.
But Eva his is bullshit:
Researching of Jewish deaths is fraught with danger due to impossibility of coming up with figures that differ from "official" figures:
It tars and feathers the researcher as "holocaust denier", and in country like German is actually illegal./i>
It's obviously a big historical field.
LeaNder,
I respectfully disagree.
It is not possible to even gain access to data if you are openly declaring your intention to re-examine the evidence.
Raul Hilberg had to sneak into the archives incognito to get access to the materials he needed!!!
It is not difficult to be branded a holocaust denier: Norman Finkelstein and Jimmy Carter were called that, for pity's sake and they were not even adressing the issue (!!).
Eva, with all due respect. I never heard about sneaking incognito into an archive? How do you fill in the forms to get your material. Incognito would like to have such and such a file?
Raul Hilberg had to sneak into the archives incognito to get access to the materials he needed!!!
Sorry, that feels like Nonsense. Tell me which archives? But only tell me about archives that have no specific rules. I remember I needed a letter of recommendation from a German prof to be able to read in the British museum These rules, only open for scholarship, don't count. I never needed one of these letters over here in any archie. But you usually need to make a date and tell them what you need. If you e.g. want to watch films, they have limited rooms were you can do so.
Fact is: The biggest German archive concerning the victims has been made completely accessible only recently. Before they claimed they had to guard personality rights. These rights were a recurring problem for me, often blocking my more private curiosity. For many it must have been a good cover. It seemed to guard the rights of the perpetrators not the victims. …
Anyway the most important concerning victims is International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. It holds more than 50 million documents concerning 17 million victims. AND it has only been opened completely to the public in 2008. Before they only answered the relatives searching lost family members, who of course had a right to hear on their family members special case, no problem with personality rights there.
Have you read Raul Hilbergs auto-biography? He claims to have been blocked by gatekeepers from Israeli archives, he didn't mention Bad Arolsen or problems elsewhere. Maybe he had access. I read his books long ago. I don't remember which archives he used here.
There is another big archive in the south concerning the military, security, police, which Ruth Bettina Birn who wrote a book with Finkelstein and is an expert in the field knows well. That one I know a little, it's a branch of the Federal Archives. Goldhagen actually learned about the archive's existence from her. In this archive you can find the history of the Sicherheitspolizei SS et al.
The Federal archives I know a lot better than the military section in Ludwigsburg are the ones in Berlin and Koblenz, since history was never my subject.
[/i] "Israel possesses an arsenal of at least 150 nuclear weapons. Why does Obama trot out the discredited policy of "strategic ambiguity" – in which Israeli and U.S. officials officially refuse to confirm or deny the existence Israeli nuclear weapons – at this early moment? For one reason alone: to break the law. 1976 Symington Amendment prohibits most U.S. foreign aid to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside international safeguards. Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If U.S. presidents complied with the Symington Amendment, they would not deliver yearly aid packages to Israel totaling billions of dollars. Presidents make-believe that Israeli nuclear weapons don't exist so Congress can legally continue shoveling the lion's share of the U.S. foreign aid budget to Israel."
SOURCE – link to antiwar.com
Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis elaborated in Olmstead v. United States (1928): "In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
"What happens. I just replied to you Todd, spending more time on it than I wanted, and it has disappeared. Did I use the wrong open tab? The wrong thread?".
I'll check other threads.
I guess this tells us all we need to know about the influence of the Israel Lobby.
Congratulations to Helen Thomas for asking the question.
I have some sympathy for Mr. Obama who, like most, is not able to speak his mind on the matter.
The sooner we or Israelis nuke Iran the better!!!
The sooner the 11 remaining decent Jews in Israel LEAVE, the sooner that Hebraic rodent dump can be leveled with a clean conscience!