In recent years prominent American politicians and other influential public figures have spoken repeatedly of the alleged danger of Iran’s nuclear program, and have again and again threatened war against this Middle East nation of 75 million ... How real is this “threat”? How dangerous is Iran? What’s behind the campaign for war? And what does all this mean for Americans? In fact, the so-called Iran “crisis” is artificial ... Often ignored amid the clamor for war are the sober warnings of informed scholars, historians, specialists, analysts, and military leaders, who point out some basic, key facts: Iran is not building nuclear weapons, Iran is not a threat to the US ... War is not the answer. What’s needed instead is a bold new reality-based approach toward Iran.
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IHR NEWS AND VIEWS
At an IHR meeting in southern California, three seasoned speakers provided informed perspective on Iran and Iranian society, the threats of war by Israel and the US, the impact of the US-organized sanctions campaign against the Islamic Republic, and the prospects for military conflict. Paul Sheldon Foote, a California professor with years of experience in the Middle East, and Art Olivier, a filmmaker and former mayor in southern California, joined IHR director Mark Weber at the spirited gathering.
Writers, filmmakers and scholars from the US, France, Italy and other countries, together with Iranian cinema specialists, journalists, officials and others, gathered in north Tehran for a four-day “Hollywoodism” conference to critically examine the often harmful social-political impact of the US film industry, and to discuss how to counter it ... During this visit I gained a greater understanding of this ancient but vibrant nation of 75 million, which Israel and its allies in the US have demonized and threatened with military attack.
This past year has been one of our most productive and influential ever. It included talks to audiences in Canada, the US and Iran ... My nine-day visit to Iran also included a guest appearance on an influential prime-time public affairs television show, a meeting with the country’s president ... We produced, distributed and posted more than 30 podcasts by me on a range of historical topics and current affairs issues ... In April we launched a re-designed IHR website, with a “cleaner” and more modern look.
Mark Weber explains why the work of the IHR in countering the forces of historical deceit, bigotry and cultural distortion is vitally important. An awareness of factual history is essential to an understanding of ourselves and the great issues of our age, says the IHR director in this five-minute presentation. Unless and until the interests that have gripped our nation are clearly identified and discredited, he says, there will be no change in basic policies or direction.
... Even many of those who readily acknowledge the tremendous influence of American film and television seem not to fully comprehend the formidable scope of the power behind Hollywood, or the outlook and agenda of those who wield that power ... Hollywood, together with the rest of the Jewish-Zionist dominated US media, sensationalizes and distorts current events, systematically falsifies history, promotes debased “entertainment” and perverse cultural standards, and makes possible the Jewish-Zionist hold on American political life ...
American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? ... The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere -- among those who support Israel but don't really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel - and Zionism - often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.
Among the highlights of my nine-day visit to Iran was a guest appearance on an influential prime-time public affairs television show, a memorable meeting with the nation’s President, and a well-received lecture of more than two hours on “The Zionist Lobby in America," given to a gathering of several hundred university students.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, based in Los Angeles, is one of the most influential Jewish organizations in the world ... Although it claims to promote "tolerance," and makes a pretense of concern for humanity, the Center's real agenda is a narrowly Jewish-Zionist one. The Wiesenthal Center is a staunch supporter of Israel and its Jewish supremacist regime. It fervently defends Israel’s policies of oppression, occupation, dispossession, and institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews.
... In Andernach about 50,000 [German] prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement ... I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked, "Why?," he mumbled, "Target practice," and fired until his pistol was empty.
Many Americans think of Abraham Lincoln, above all, as the president who freed the slaves. Immortalized as the "Great Emancipator," he is widely regarded as a champion of black freedom who supported social equality of the races, and who fought the American Civil War to free the slaves. While it is true that Lincoln regarded slavery as an evil and harmful institution, it also true, as this paper will show, that he shared the conviction of most Americans of his time, and of many prominent statesmen before and after him, that blacks could not be assimilated into white society. He rejected the notion of social equality of the races, and held to the view that blacks should be resettled abroad.
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... I’m going to try to extract from my experience certain basic sort of tactics that I think the Jewish lobby has used over the years pertaining to my particular situation ... The first and major tactic that I discovered in their attack on me was their reliance on lies -- just straight-up lies. There’s no other way to describe it, just telling lies. Many of the categories that I will enumerate overlap, and many of them could also come under this general rubric of telling lies. But I think that if one had to isolate a single tactic, it was a tactic of telling lies. I think they’ve elevated telling lies to a very high artistic form.
... How did America come to war against Germany, the heart of Europe? Could not Roosevelt have acted as a great peacemaker by mediating the Danzig conflict in 1939, instead of instigating the Poles against Germany? ... The American President could very possibly have saved the peace in 1939. Instead, he fed the American people inventions about a hypothetical German plot to take over the United States and the whole world.
How accurate is this hallowed portrayal of America's role in World War II? As we shall see, it does not hold up under close examination ... The three Allied leaders accomplished what they accused the Axis leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan of conspiring to achieve: world domination ... Presidential deception to justify war did not start with George W. Bush. Americans who express admiration for the US role in World War II, and for Franklin Roosevelt's presidential leadership, have little moral right to complain when presidents follow his example and lead the country into war by breaking the law, subverting the Constitution, and lying to the people.
... Because the myth of Israel's birth was so closely linked to the horrors of the Holocaust, to question its truth was for years as unthinkable as doubting the truth of the Holocaust itself. But today a new breed of historians is challenging much of that myth. Palestinian and other Arab scholars, Western Middle East specialists, and non-Zionist Jews such as Elmer Berger, Alfred Lilienthal, and Norman Finkelstein have already published well-documented refutations of the official version of Israel's history. The current debunking process, however, is being carried out for the first time by Israeli Jews a younger generation of historians with impeccable credentials as Zionists, patriotic Israelis and scholars.
Revisionism as applied to World War II and its origins (as also for previous wars) has the general function of bringing historical truth to an American and a world public that had been drugged by wartime lies and propaganda ... Revisionism brings to the artificial frenzy of daily events and day-to-day propaganda, the cool but in the last analysis glorious light of historical truth. Such truth is almost desperately needed in today's world.
… That atrocities were committed by the Allies against Germans and non-combatant civilians on both the Eastern and Western fronts is not often acknowledged. In large measure this reflects the fact that "victors write the history." … POWs, whether Germans or Axis allies, were often shot out of hand, or shortly after they had been questioned ... When the Red Army invaded German territory in late 1944, civilians who had been unable to flee before their advance were condemned to undergo a regime of ferocious brutality. At such towns as Goldap, Gumbinnen, and Nemmersdorf, even children were raped before being murdered by Russian soldiers.
... Fascism was touted by Mussolini as a unique combination of thought and action, yet fascism was still seeking an ideology after the Second World War was over. The roots of fascism are many and complex. The fascist leadership, notably Mussolini, admitted the multi-faceted influences of liberalism, marxism, syndicalism, risorgimento, socialism, catholicism and nationalism on their ideology.
To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression, both the US and German governments launched innovative and ambitious programs. Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” measures helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive policies proved remarkably effective. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was flourishing. And while Roosevelt’s record in dealing with the Depression is pretty well known, the remarkable story of how Hitler tackled the crisis is not widely understood or appreciated.
... During his lifetime he made a mark not only as a pioneering global aviator, but also as a prize-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.
... 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.
… In August 1941 Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the camp for Soviet POWs in Hammerstadt. It is these contacts that resulted in an appeal to the Soviet government, requesting that it should send food parcels for our officers and men. We are prepared to fulfill and comply with the norms of the Geneva convention, Moscow said in its reply, but sending food in the given situation and under fascist control is the same as making presents to the enemy … How great was Stalin's hatred for those who had found themselves behind enemy lines. It made no difference: who, where, how and why? Even the dead were considered to be criminals.
Nine-Eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the 9/11 catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president in recent decades had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people.
"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.
Audio recordings of dozens of "Mark Weber Report" broadcasts. Information, analysis and commentary on current affairs and historical issues by the IHR director.
Joseph Goebbels, Third Reich Germany's chief publicist and spokesman, 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.
... America today is a society in denial. The country's political, cultural and intellectual leadership -- both liberal and conservative -- denies social reality and ignores the historical record, and therefore inevitably betrays the interests of the people, leading America down a path that means ever greater anxiety and ever more rapid decline ... The crying need in our nation today is candor, courage and truthfulness -- not childish slogans, simplistic nostrums, or wishful thinking about a mythologized past or a utopian future -- presented by media personalities who are little more than entertainers.
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 Nazis held similar views. Here's a look at a few of the many remarks falsely attributed to Hitler and other top Nazis.
At one of the most spirited and successful IHR meetings in many months, Paul Fromm and Mark Weber delivered informed, well-received talks about social-political decline in America and Canada, and the factors behind this trend ... Canada is undergoing rapid and profound ethnic-cultural transformation, Fromm said. Parallel to what's also happening in the US, non-whites are replacing Canada's traditional, European-origin population ... In his address, Mark Weber spoke about how America has changed drastically over the past 60 years, as reflected in the country's high school history textbooks.
Websense company, a major US supplier of web content filtering software, says that the Institute for Historical Review promotes "racism and hate," and blocks access to the IHR website, on the basis of an unfair standard that deceives the public and its own customers. In a letter to the IHR, Websense Senior Legal Counsel Eric Proul makes clear that the company has no objective basis for its claim that the IHR promotes "racism and hate."
... 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.
The IHR's recently launched campaign against internet censorship is making headway. In letters, by telephone, and in face-to-face meetings, the Institute has been contacting businesses and other institutions that block access to the IHR website to explain why this practice is unfair, defamatory and harmful, and to call on them to stop it.
... In 1940, an obscure cypher clerk at the American Embassy in London came across documents which, in his judgment and that of many reputable historians subsequently, proved conclusively that Roosevelt both directly and through his agents was engaged in activities designed to foment a war and eventually to compel American participation in it. I was that cypher clerk ... The new basic law of nations requires only one clause, very simply: "It pays to be on the winning side."
This essay focuses on Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. It deals particularly with his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939. Franklin Roosevelt not only criminally involved America in a war that had already engulfed Europe, he bears a grave responsibility for the outbreak of the most destructive war of all time. This paper relies heavily on a little-known collection of secret Polish documents that fell into German hands when Warsaw was captured in September 1939. These revealing documents also confirm the crucial role of Jewish power and influence on US foreign policy during these years.
... If I'm known for anything as a historian, apart from being a pain in the neck, it's because I uncover things. And uncovering things does not necessarily mean you go into the archives and see something and say: "Look at this, this is something quite extraordinary." If you go into the archives long enough, ten or twenty years, you become what I would call a "gap-ologist" ... Now what a scandalous statement that is! Here's the one country, Germany, trying to prevent anwar and the other country -- Roosevelt, neutral -- trying to fan the flames of anti-German feeling to fuel the war. Yet it is the Germans who are called the criminals, and the Americans who do the prosecuting.
Video based on interview with Mark Weber by Daniel Davis, host of the "Beyond 50" radio show. The United States, says Weber, has changed from a republic focused on its own prosperity and well-being to a globally intrusive military power. This worldwide military presence reflects an entrenched American view that the US is a social-political model for all nations, and therefore has a right, based on perceived moral superiority, to intervene everywhere. He traces the evolution of this outlook from the fateful Spanish-American War of 1898, and the false pretexts and promises used since then to justify wars. Going to war to fight "evil" or "terrorism," says Weber, is a recipe for endless strife and conflict.
... We hear a lot about terrible crimes committed by Germans during World War II, but we hear very little about crimes committed against Germans. Germany's defeat in May 1945, and the end of World War II in Europe, did not bring an end to death and suffering for the vanquished German people. Instead the victorious Allies ushered in a horrible new era of destruction, looting, starvation, rape, "ethnic cleansing," and mass killing.
The news that I would be addressing the Institute of Historical Review came to some people as, well, news. It was mentioned in the Jewish newspaper Forward and on the Zionist Wall Street Journal OnLine. The editors of two conservative magazines called and wrote me to express their concern that I might damage my reputation, such as it is, by speaking to "Holocaust deniers." ... In short, the Holocaust has become a device for exempting Jews from normal human obligations. It has authorized them to bully and blackmail, to extort and oppress. This is all quite irrational, because even if six million Jews were murdered during World War II, the survivors are not entitled to commit the slightest injustice.
... A Zionist Jew, by definition, owes his primary loyalty to the Jewish community and to Israel. Zionism is not compatible with patriotism to any country or entity other than Israel and the world Jewish community ... Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish supporters embrace a blatant double standard. Jewish-Zionist organizations, along with their non-Jewish allies, support one social-political ideology for Israel and the world Jewish community, and a completely different one for the United States and other non-Jewish countries. They insist that ethnic nationalism is evil and bad for non-Jews, while at the same time they vigorously support ethnic nationalism -- that is, Zionism -- for Jews.
Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years ... With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews ... The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: "The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution."
... The Six Million figure is hammered into the public consciousness, not only in newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, and television, but also routinely in our schools ... An information sheet issued by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council describes the grand Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, as a "living memorial to the six million Jews and millions of other victims of Nazi fanaticism who perished in the Holocaust." Just what is the basis for this familiar figure?
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."
.. By supporting Israel and its policies, the United States betrays not only its own national interests, but the principles it claims to embody and defend. The only country in the world that has a nuclear weapons arsenal, that occupies territory of its neighbors, and which is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions - is Israel. In fact, if the United States were to hold Israel to the same standards that it has applied to Iraq, Serbia, and other countries, American bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and American troops would seize Israel's leaders and punish them for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A little-known chapter of history is the wide-ranging collaboration between Zionism and Hitler's Third Reich. During the 1930s, Jewish Zionists and German National Socialists shared similar views on how to deal with the "Jewish Question." They agreed that Jews and Germans were distinctly different nationalities, and that Jews did not belong in Germany.
By Tomislav Sunic
So if the official reasons given for the war were untrue, why did the United States attack? Whatever the secondary reasons for the Iraq war, the crucial factor in President Bush's decision to attack was to help Israel. With support from Israel and America's Jewish-Zionist lobby, and prodded by Jewish "neo-conservatives" holding high-level positions in his administration, President Bush -- who was already fervently committed to Israel -- resolved to invade and subdue one of Israel's chief regional enemies.
NEWS AND COMMENT
At a Jewish American Heritage Month reception last night in Washington, D.C., Vice President Joe Biden talked about Jews, power, and influence. ... “No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you ... I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said ... “Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good,” he said.
… It’s permissible to discuss the power of every other group, from the Black Muslims to the Christian Right, but the much greater power of the Jewish Establishment is off-limits. That, in fact, is the chief measure of its power … Explicitly “Jewish” organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League enforce a dual standard. What is permitted to Israel is forbidden to America. This is not just thoughtless inconsistency. These organizations consciously support one set of principles here — equal rights for all, ethnic neutrality, separation of church and state — and their precise opposites in Israel, where Jewish ancestry and religion enjoy privilege.
Up to 20 percent of children in the United States suffer from a mental disorder, and the number of kids diagnosed with one has been rising for more than a decade, according to a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In the agency's first-ever study of mental disorders among children aged 3 to 17, researchers found childhood mental illnesses affect up to one in five kids and cost $247 billion per year in medical bills, special education and juvenile justice.
Not even a year ago, German intelligence predicted Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad's regime would soon collapse. Now, the agency instead believes the rebels are in trouble. Government troops are set to make significant advances, it predicts. / Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has fundamentally changed its view of the ongoing civil war in Syria. Spiegel Online has learned that the BND now believes the Syrian military of autocrat Bashar Assad is more stable than it has been in a long time and is capable of undertaking successful operations against rebel units at will.
The Spanish Interior Minister has justified an awards ceremony earlier this month to honour Francoist volunteers who fought for Hitler's 'Blue Division' in World War II. Jorge Fernández Díaz, Spain's Interior Minister, responded to critics by stating that tribute ceremonies like the one held on May 11th to honour ex-combatants of Hitler's Blue Division "have taken place since 2003."
Once upon a time, animal sacrifice was an important part of Hindu life, Catholic priests weren't celibate and visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad were part of Islamic art. And soon some churches in the UK may be marrying gay couples. How do religions manage to change their mind? ... Similarly, at the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the ulama there said that birth control was haraam, but now the use of condoms is encouraged, with state-supported condom factories and pre-marital family planning lessons.
The State Department has appointed a special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism as a new report documents a global increase in incidents of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Ira Forman, former CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was chosen as special envoy as the State Department released its annual report on religious freedom around the world ... The 2012 report said expressions of anti-Semitism by government officials, religious leaders and the media were of great concern, particularly in Venezuela, Egypt and Iran. At times such statements led to desecration and violence, the report said.
Visitors to a Second World War-themed event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Dambuster have turned out in Nazi uniforms despite a ban on the costumes. Organisers of the 1940s weekend in Haworth, West Yorkshire, faced complaints last year ... But again the event - which attracts 25,000 visitors a year and raises thousands of pounds for charity - saw visitors dressing up in Nazi uniform. Emma Cox, one of the organisers of the celebrations, said those involved were getting more stubborn about flaunting their regalia every year.
Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins. Danish National Museum spokesman Jens Christian Moesgaard says the coins have a distinctive cross motif attributed to Norse King Harald Bluetooth, who is believed to have brought Christianity to Norway and Denmark. Sixteen-year-old Michael Stokbro Larsen found the coins and other items with a metal detector in a field in northern Denmark.
Vice President Joe Biden is praising Jewish leaders for helping change American attitudes about gay marriage and other issues. Biden says culture and arts change people's attitudes. He cites social media and the old NBC TV series "Will and Grace" as examples of what helped changed attitudes on gay marriage. Biden says, quote, "Think — behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it's in Hollywood or social media, are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry." Biden says the influence is immense and that those changes have been for the good. Biden was speaking Tuesday night at a Jewish American Heritage Month reception hosted by the Democratic National Committee. He says Jewish values are an essential part of who Americans are.
The world is celebrating 200 years since the birth of Richard Wagner – but not Israel, where his music is taboo. Is it fair that Wagner’s works are tainted by his anti-Semitism and the Nazis’ enthusiasm for them? / ... Certainly there are few cultural figures as divisive as the composer, polemicist, dramatist and conductor born in Leipzig on 22 May 1813. Yet nobody, whatever their thoughts on the man, can overstate Wagner’s significance to music ... A Jewish prohibition on playing Wagner only came into effect later due to what Barenboim describes as the “use, misuse and abuse” of his music by Hitler, who had related in Mein Kampf the experience of seeing Lohengrin as a 12-year-old: “In one instant I was addicted. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth Master knew no bounds.”
Katharina Wagner, who co-runs the legendary Bayreuth Festival dedicated to the works of her great-grandfather Richard Wagner, dampened hopes Sunday that letters between Adolf Hitler and the Wagner family could be published ... Katharina reiterated her pledge to hand over the private papers of her father, Wolfgang Wagner, to the Bavarian State Archive, with the aim of shedding new light on the festival's history ... But she gave little hope that the potentially more explosive private correspondence between the Wagner family and Hitler would similarly be made available to the public anytime soon.
A far-right French historian shot himself in the head beside the altar of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris ... Dominique Venner, 78, a former member of the nationalist terrorist movement, OAS, placed a pistol in his mouth and shot himself dead in front of scores of tourists inside the most visited building in France. Mr Venner, a presenter on a Catholic-traditionalist radio station and controversial historian and essayist, posted an essay on his website earlier in the day calling for "new, spectacular and symbolic actions to shake us out of our sleep, to jolt anaesthetized minds and to reawaken memory of our origins".
The historian Dominique Venner committed suicide in Notre Dame de Paris cathedral by shooting himself in the head in protest against the destruction of Europe. His suicide note: ... “In the evening of my life, facing immense dangers to my French and European homeland, I feel the duty to act as long as I still have strength. I believe it necessary to sacrifice myself to break the lethargy that plagues us. I give up what life remains to me in order to protest and to found ... While I defend the identity of all peoples in their homes, I also rebel against the crime of the replacement of our people.”
Schoolchildren in the northern Spanish region of Asturias will no longer be able to call Christmas by its name now that a new law passed by the local education ministry prohibits the use of “religious” terms in the classroom when referring to the December and spring holidays. Teachers and pupils in Asturias classrooms will now have to refer to Christmas as “winter holidays” and Easter as “second term holidays”. The region’s socialist-led government has decided to introduce the new terminology in a bid to restrict religious references in the next school year.
Los Angeles has elected its first Jewish mayor, Eric Garcetti, a three-term city councilman. Mr Garcetti received 54% of the vote to City Controller Wendy Greuel's 46%. The 42-year-old takes office in America's second-most populous city in July, when he will also become its second-consecutive Latino mayor. The campaign was the most expensive in city history at $30 million overall, but only about one in four Los Angelenos voted on Tuesday. A tight election on 5 March had resulted in a run-off between the two city officials.
... After nearly 27 months of turmoil, the public opinion pendulum is markedly shifting back in support of the current regime ... Many among Syria’s 23 million citizens, who initially supported the uprising following government reaction to event in Deraa in March 2011, now have serious second thoughts about who exactly would replace the current government. Events in Syria are also making plain that the army is still loyal to the Assad government, and according to Jane’s Defense Weekly, is actually gaining experience and strength ...
Israeli settlers on their morning commute got quite the eyeful Monday morning when they saw a swastika-emblazoned red flag flying near a mosque in Beit Omar, a Palestinian village outside of Hebron. Thousands of residents of Jewish settlements near Hebron and Bethlehem in Judea (the southern [Zionist- occupied] West Bank) drive to and from work on the road from which the flag was visible. The Tazpit News Agency, which photographed the flying Nazi flag, reports residents "were astounded" to see the symbol ...
... Prior to 1863, the year of the Gettysburg Address, American foreign policy was based mostly on the Washington/ Jefferson ideology of commercial relations with all nations, entangling alliances with none. It was considered to be a virtue to remain neutral in disputes between two other countries ... Obama repeated the continuing revolution theme in his inaugural address. “What makes us exceptional,” he intoned, is “our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago ...” He then promised “a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.” Never-ending military aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere, in other words.
Sixteen striking photographs, eleven of them in color, taken during World War II in rural Russia in the German-occupied region of Kaluga. They were taken by Asmus Remmer, a German soldier, in 1943-43, and show day-to-day life of seemingly friendly village Russians. Several have German-language captions.
Twenty-three rare color photographs taken during World War II by German photographer Franz Grasser. They show ordinary rural Russians, or perhaps Ukrainians, in day-to-day life.
... Even though the Germans were the foe, more often than not, they treated us better than Stalin’s Reds. My dad was picked up by the Germans after being left for dead by Stalin’s troops, and was taken to one of their field hospitals. When he felt strong enough he left with the help of peasants and made his way home ... For many in the West it may seem hard to believe, but Nazi occupation, despite reprisals, was better than being under Stalin. Because, for the first time, farmers could work the land free of the disastrous Bolshevik collective system, bumper crops were harvested. The Germans organized efficient food distribution. At last there was no starvation in the land.
Is anti-Semitism at the root of German national identity? ... At the behest of an editor from the German newspaper Die Zeit, Tenenbom spent six months interviewing hundreds of Germans, from artists to lawyers to politicians. Anti-Semitism came up in almost every interview; some Germans blamed Jews for controlling the global economy, and some actually wished Jews dead ... “I never expected it to be a book about Jews,” Tenenbom told The Jewish Week. “But it turned out that Germans have a huge obsession with Jews — and usually in negative ways.”
Barack Obama has been accused of reneging on his disarmament pledges after it emerged the administration was planning to spend billions on upgrading nuclear bombs stored in Europe to make the weapons more reliable and accurate. Under the plan, nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs stockpiled in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers. "This will be a significant upgrade of the US nuclear capability in Europe," said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert ...
... The claim that Iran has called for another Holocaust is sheer lie. With its 25,000 Jews Iran has the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel. Iranian Jews have been free to practice their religion. There are 18 synagogues active in Tehran alone, whereas the government has not allowed Iranian Sunnis, which represent ten percent of the population, to have a single mosque in Tehran. The Ahmadinejad administration provided extra funds to the Jewish hospital in Tehran ... And, the Iranian Jews have their own representative to the Iranian parliament, set aside for them by Iran’s Constitution, a practice going back decades.
The Arab world has given birth to many thinkers and many inventions - among them the three-course meal, alcohol and coffee. The best coffee bean is still known as Arabica, but it's come a long way from the Muslim mystics who treasured it centuries ago, to the chains that line our high streets ... At first, coffee had been viewed with suspicion in Europe as a Muslim drink, but around 1600 Pope Clement VIII is reported to have so enjoyed a cup that he said it would be wrong to permit Muslims to monopolise it, and that it should therefore be baptised.
Americans of all political stripes have embraced the promotion of democracy as a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. But this American democracy crusade has caused huge, and largely overlooked, collateral damage since the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks against the United States in 2001. The fall of authoritarian regimes throughout the greater Middle East has fueled growing persecution of minority Christian communities ... In the aftermath of 9/11 and the “Arab Spring,” Christian communities throughout the greater Middle East find themselves increasingly besieged.
... In fact, the conflict in Syria and the American invasion of Iraq are linked by a common thread: the failure of the U.S. to consider the effect of its foreign policy on vulnerable religious communities, especially Middle Eastern Christians ... The Obama administration, bewilderingly, has chosen to support Syria’s rebel groups without any apparent thought of the consequences ... Democracy in the Middle East is proving less tolerant than the regimes it has succeeded. Unless swift action is taken, these democracies will evolve into bastions of intolerance and violence beyond our comprehension.
... Syria is the latest example of Henry Kissinger’s famous quip, “being a US ally is often more dangerous than being its enemy.” ... After two years of vicious fighting, the Syrian civil war appears stalemated. The cautious US President Obama seems reluctant to get US forces involved in a Mideast ground war – and for good reason ... What is clear: Syria is being ground up and pulverized. Like Iraq, it is being severely punished for a defiant, independent policy and refusing to comply with western plans for the Mideast. Syria is also serving as a whipping boy in the place of Iran – a graphic message to Tehran of what can happen if its nuclear program is not switched off.
The tempo of events in Syria has accelerated in recent weeks. The government forces have scored significant battlefield victories over the rebels, and this has provoked a mixture of war provocations and peace offers from the U.S. and its anti-Assad allies ... Similarly bad news about the U.S.-backed rebels committing large scale ethnic/ religious cleansing and numerous human rights violations didn’t manage to make it on to the front pages either ... The U.S. position is weakened further by the fact that the majority of the rebel fighters are Islamic extremists, who are fighting for jihad and sharia law, not democracy.
The United Nations general assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear programme for inspection. The resolution, approved [Dec. 3, 2012] by a vote of 174 to six with six abstentions, calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) "without further delay" and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting against were Israel, the US, Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Resolutions adopted by the 193-member general assembly are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion and carry moral and political weight.
The European Union is the new sick man of Europe. The effort over the past half century to create a more united Europe is now the principal casualty of the euro crisis. The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe. Support for European economic integration – the 1957 raison d’etre for creating the European Economic Community, the European Union’s predecessor – is down over last year in five of the eight European Union countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2013. Positive views of the European Union are at or near their low point in most EU nations, even among the young, the hope for the EU’s future.
A statue honoring Confederate soldiers that has stood for more than 100 years outside a Leesburg, Va., courthouse is now at the center of a battle between an attorney and residents. The statue, which reads “In memory of the Confederate Soldiers of Loudoun County, Va. Erected May 28, 1908,” shows a soldier standing guard with his rifle, WTOP reports. John Flannery, an attorney who regularly hears cases inside the courthouse, said the statue intimidates clients and should be moved into a museum or graveyard. "It deters people. It chills them from believing they can get a fair shake in court," Flannery told WTOP.
The first German settlers arrived in Texas over 150 years ago and successfully passed on their native language throughout the generations - until now. German was the main language used in schools, churches and businesses around the hill country between Austin and San Antonio. But two world wars and the resulting drop in the standing of German meant that the fifth and sixth generation of immigrants did not pass it on to their children. Still the biggest ancestry group in the US, according to Census data, a large majority of German-Americans never learned the language of their ancestors.
One of my clearest memories from childhood is peeking around the doorway from the kitchen to the den as my mother ironed and watched “Days of Our Lives.” ... A genre whose very existence could be credited to a Jewish woman. Irna Phillips was the youngest of ten children; her father died when she was young, and her mother raised Irna and her siblings alone. Strong female matriarchs were a staple of many of the soap operas that Phillips helped create, which included not only “Days” but also “Guiding Light,” “As the World Turns” and “Another World.”
It's hardly news that the US instituted and for years maintained a systematic torture regime, but the success of the Obama administration in blocking all judicial proceedings has meant there has been no official decree that this is so. A comprehensive report just issued by a truly bipartisan group of former high-level Washington officials (including military officials) is as close as we are likely to get to such an official proclamation. ... It concludes - in unblinking and definitive fashion - that "it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture"; this finding is "offered without reservation" ...
While campaigning for the presidency, Barack Obama tells an audience that his uncle was among the first US troops to liberate the Auschwitz camp during World War II. What Obama said was not true, first, because he had no uncle who served in the US armed forces, and second, because Soviet troops, not US forces, took control of the Auschwitz camp complex.
Since the end of World War II, authoritative claims about the character and scope of killings at the Auschwitz concentration camp have changed drastically. One particularly striking change concerns the various “official” estimates of the number of victims — a number that since 1945 has been steadily declining … Aumeier’s testimony, which Meyer accepts as valid, suggests that Jews were killed at Auschwitz not as part of an comprehensive extermination program systematically to kill all European Jews, but rather as an exceptional measure to curb the horrific epidemics that were ravaging the Auschwitz I and Birkenau camps … Compared to the recently “authoritative” figure of approximately one million Auschwitz deaths, Meyer has reduced the number of Jewish victims there by at least 450,000.
… The Russians released on September 21 [1989] the Auschwitz death books. That was an ugly blow for the battleship Auschwitz and its crew ... By releasing the 46 death books of Auschwitz -- which cover the years 1942 completely, 1943 almost completely, and 1944 incompletely -- the Russians have revealed that the set of Auschwitz death books, which they have released, now show a total of 74,000 deaths. 74,000 deaths by all causes … An admission, ladies and gentlemen, that in Auschwitz I [main camp], der Stammlager Auschwitz, the crematorium and the gas chambers that are shown to tourists from all over the world, is a post-war dummy, put up for the benefit of the tourists!
Tens of thousands of Palestinians marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel's 1948 creation, marching in the streets and in some parts of the West Bank clashing with Israeli security forces. Every May 15, Palestinians hold rallies to commemorate the "nakba," or "catastrophe" — the term they use to describe the displacement, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the fighting. The dispute over the fate of those Palestinians and their descendants, now numbering several million people, remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
American Muslims for Palestine launched an ad campaign this week on San Francisco buses condemning Israeli apartheid. Predictably, local branches of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, as well as the Jewish Community Relations Council, immediately issued a statement in effect calling the ad hate speech for using the word ‘apartheid’.
Still plugging away with more bus ads, Washington state activists rolled out a creative bus advertising campaign this week in Seattle and several other cities: "Equal Rights for Palestinians: The Way to Peace." The ads are sponsored by Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign and will be running in Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland, as well as on buses in Port Angeles and Clallam County-- in addition to Seattle, of course.
One of the last remaining Lancaster Bombers has taken part in a flypast to pay tribute to the 70th anniversary of the legendary Dambusters raid. The veteran aircraft flew over the Derwent reservoir dam in Derbyshire where the original crews practiced for the World War II attack ... The Dambusters raid was meant to strike right at the heart of the Nazi industrial war machine by taking out three dams in the Ruhr valley, flooding the area. A new type of weapon, the bouncing bomb, was designed and tested by Barnes Wallis specifically for the mission. Two of the dams were breached while another sustained only minor damage. In the valley, 1,600 people drowned.
The most savage and devastating conflict in modern European history was the 1941-45 German-Soviet War. The struggle, however, did not merely pit German soldiers against their Soviet counterparts. Over twenty European countries and national groups sent contingents of troops to assist the German Wehrmacht in its attempt to destroy the communist state. This "crusade against Bolshevism" drew in a minimum of 3,962,000 men from across Europe, organized in both large national armies from states allied to Germany as well as in volunteer contingents integrated directly into the Wehrmacht -- both army and Waffen-SS – itself.
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.
... One could say quite reasonably that this is the pure expression of the crux of US political discourse on such matters: they must abide by rules from which we're immune, because we're superior. So much of the pseudo-high-minded theorizing emanating from DC think thanks and US media outlets boils down to this adolescent, self-praising, tribalistic license: we have the right to do X, but they do not. Indeed, the entire debate over whether there should be a war with Iran over its nuclear enrichment activities, as Israel sits on a massive pile of nuclear weapons while refusing UN demands to permit any international inspection of it, is also a perfect expression of this mentality.
It is nearly impossible to dig into any chapter of Jewish history without uncovering lessons for our own age. Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries is a particularly striking example. Even today, our view of this period, and particularly of the Spanish Inquisition, colors our attitudes regarding relations between Jews and non-Jews. The Inquisition is considered one of Jewish history's darkest chapters -- and one of Christian history's most shameful.
An MP for the ultra-right Golden Dawn party, Panayiotis Iliopoulos, was ejected from a session in Parliament on Friday after the deputy used derogatory language to revile fellow MPs and cries of "Heil Hitler" were heard in the House. Originally assumed to have been uttered by far-right MPs, Parliament's minutes revealed that it was actually leftist Syriza MP Christos Pantzas who first cried 'Heil Hitler' in the House, not the far-right MPs.
A British lawyer who said she “cannot stand Jewish people” during an office rant was found guilty of discrimination by a disciplinary panel. In a ruling published last week, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in London fined Danielle Morris, 34, some $3,840 and ordered her to pay $8,060 in costs for the 2009 remarks, according to a report by the Lancashire Telegraph daily newspaper. Her comments came after a Jewish man cut in line at a medical center before Morris, an assistant solicitor at Mulderiggs Solicitors in Rawtenstall near Manchester and mother of two.
... It is leading Jewish organizations and their in-the-pocket politicians that have quite plausibly been the sine qua non in unleashing a series of actual and impending wars against the Muslim world ... The shaping of the narrative to minimize the role of organizations that are demonstrably Jewish – albeit unrepresentative of Jewish opinion in America - has also been very effective in some media circles ... The reality is that if progressives (and the rest of us) really want to stop a proxy war against Syria followed by a catastrophic conflict with Iran we have to take the blinkers off and be willing to confront Jewish groups like AIPAC and the ADL directly and persistently.
White Britons are 'retreating' from areas dominated by ethnic minorities, a study has revealed. Analysis of census figures shows that white Britons are leaving areas where they are in a minority and are being replaced by immigrants and other ethnic minorities. As a result, nearly half of ethnic minorities – four million people – live in communities where whites make up less than half the population, the study by the Demos think-tank found. Demos said the survey showed a 'spiral of white British demographic decline' as white Britons choose to leave minority-dominated areas.
... Like those before him, Luhrmann needed to decide how to portray the minor but essential character of Meyer Wolfsheim, the Jewish gangster and bootlegger who is Gatsby’s mentor, the Svengali figure responsible for the transformation of the modest Midwestern ex-soldier James Gatz into the wealthy, reclusive socialite Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, on his way toward trying to win back the heart of his beloved Daisy (played this time by Carey Mulligan). The 1974 version watered down some of the more vulgar, offensive stereotypical aspects that Fitzgerald gave Wolfsheim.
... Angry Americans wanted to know why their Pacific fleet was caught by surprise, and who was responsible for the woeful lack of preparedness ... As its title indicates, Scapegoats was written with the goal of exonerating Kimmel and Short. Author Edward Beach tries to show why the Pearl Harbor naval base was unprepared for the Japanese attack, and who was to blame for the Pacific Fleet's lack of readiness. More specifically, Beach presents strong evidence to show that Kimmel and Short were unjustly blamed for the misdeeds of Roosevelt, Marshall and other higher-ups in the US military command.
It may have been a surprise to the U.S. people, but it certainly was not a surprise to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the select few persons who surrounded him or the U.S. Army intelligence officer working under his direct orders. I previously worked in a civilian capacity for LTC Clifford M. Andrew, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, who temporarily was assistant chief of Staff, military intelligence, general staff, United States Army. ... Upon at least three occasions in his home in Tigard [Oregon] he related to me the history of his military life and personal involvement in the actions of Roosevelt and other officials surrounding the Pearl Harbor attack.
... Jewish American Heritage Month was established by presidential decree in 2006, after lobbying efforts by the Jewish Museum of Florida, the South Florida Jewish community, Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter ... The Library of Congress, the National Archives, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Gallery of Art, the National Park Service, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have partnered to create a website for JAHM, featuring selections from their digital collections on Jewish American history, oral histories and online exhibits.
Two organizations bearing Anne Frank’s name are in a bitter dispute over the possession of the Frank family archive, in an echo of a court battle they fought in the 1990s over which one had the right to trademark the Holocaust victim’s name. The conflict between the Basel, Switzerland-based Anne Frank Fund and the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Anne Frank Foundation is in part a struggle to control the late Jewish teen’s legacy. But, with one side even comparing the other to Nazi Germany, it also threatens to damage both institutions’ reputations.
A decision by world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking not to attend a conference in Israel in support of an academic boycott of the country has sparked controversy in Israel and a vitriolic debate online ... His decision to boycott the conference, hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate, has prompted a "Twitterstorm." Some tweeters accuse him of anti-Semitism or comment on his physical disabilities, while others applaud his support for the Palestinian academics. One tweeter, Ali Abunimah, observes: "Amazing how many Israelis on Facebook want Stephen Hawking dead, electrocuted or made to suffer in other nasty ways."
President Obama's foreign policy team might want to think up some new compliments for global allies. A Danish broadcaster has found that Obama uses versions of a particular boxing phrase -- punching above one's weight -- with an awful lot of leaders from smaller countries ... On Danish television, Thomas Buch-Andersen broadcast clips of Obama using the same or nearly the same phrase with the leaders of Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Philippines.
Last month, an article by Jen Graves in Seattle’s weekly paper The Stranger exposed the artist Charles Krafft as a white nationalist and Holocaust denier, and former admirers of his work are now stripping it from their walls. Krafft, who is sixty-five, has been a respected figure in the Seattle art world for decades; his work has been shown in galleries around the world and featured in Harper’s, Artforum, and The New Yorker ... The revelations about Krafft’s repugnant personal opinions have cast his work in a new light, and brought up knotty questions about how an artist’s intent should influence our evaluation of his work.
A militant Zionist underground organization, the Irgun, carried out the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946. This was the deadliest attack directed at the British authorities in Palestine during the Mandate era (1920-1948). It was harshly condemned as an act of despicable terrorism by the British government, leading academics, and major international periodicals, including The New York Times. As this British documentary film makes clear, Zionist Jews “invented” modern terrorism. The 1946 Irgun attack established the model of modern terrorism.
If anyone had doubts that Syria's gruesome civil war is already spinning into a wider Middle East conflict, the events of the past few days should have laid them to rest. Most ominous was Israel’s string of aerial attacks on Syrian military installations near Damascus, reportedly killing more than 100. The bombing raids, unprovoked and illegal, were of course immediately supported by the US and British governments ... The irony of the US and other western governments – let alone Israel – once again making common cause with al-Qaida, after a decade of a "war on terror" aimed at destroying it, is one factor holding Obama back.
Slide show with photos and short texts explaining how life in these seven states is bad and is getting worse.
Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said ... Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian ... who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years ...
As a child growing up in rural China, Dali Yang, Assistant Professor in Political Science, heard the stories of his parents and others about the horrors of the Great Leap Forward, a time of suffering for China that came soon after the Communist revolution in 1949 ... In pursuit of its goals, the government executed people who did not agree with the pace of radical change. The crackdown led to the deaths of 550,000 people by 1958 ... Scholars have estimated that somewhere between 16.5 million and 40 million people died before the experiment came to an end in 1961, making the Great Leap famine the largest in world history.
... Historians have known for some time that the Great Leap Forward resulted in one of the world’s worst famines ... In all, the records I studied suggest that the Great Leap Forward was responsible for at least 45 million deaths. Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction. People accused of not working hard enough were hung and beaten; sometimes they were bound and thrown into ponds. Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement.
... Ancient Rome was a curious mixture of civilisation and barbarism. As the sculpture of Pan and the goat attests, sex pervaded Roman culture as much as violence ... A bronze bust of a Roman banker is so creased and lifelike that we believe we can grasp his character. A bone vessel still contains pink pigment that a Roman matriarch probably used to rouge her cheeks. But then a sculpture such as that of Pan making love to a goat plunges us back into darkness and uncertainty, and makes the chasm of two millennia feel as abyss-like as ever.
“Nazi chic” is a term that describes the use of Nazi imagery, paraphernalia or fashion either for the exhilaration of breaking taboos or for sensational shock value, but not for the express purpose of sympathizing with the ideology of Nazism. Cosplay is a popular phenomenon in Asia where practitioners dress up as characters from their favorite manga, video games and anime ... This recent interest in Nazi cosplay is likely inspired by such Nazi-themed anime and manga ...
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Director of National Intelligence reaffirmed what the U.S. intelligence community has been saying for years: Iran has no nuclear weapons program, is not building a nuclear weapon and has not even made a decision to do so. The annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment,” which compiles the collective conclusions of all American intelligence agencies, has long held that Iran maintains defensive capabilities and has a military doctrine of deterrence and retaliation, but is not an aggressive state actor and has no intention of beginning a conflict, let alone triggering a nuclear apocalypse.