We’ve always understood that our work promoting historical awareness and unmasking the enemies of peace and understanding enrages powerful groups that smear us, and keep trying to take us down. We’re not discouraged by the hate campaign against us. We regard it as a badge of honor. They target us because we’re effective. Now we’re up against what may be the greatest threat we’ve ever faced … In spite of such difficulties, we continued throughout the past year to reach a large, global audience … Now, during this time of rampant media bias, new assaults against free speech, routine historical distortion, stifling “political correctness,” and social and racial discord, the need for a vital and effective IHR has never been greater.
IHR NEWS AND VIEWS
Secretive and unlawful collusion by an American leader with a foreign power that subverts the US political process is not new. The most far-reaching and flagrant case was by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940-41. In the months before the US formally entered the war in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt did everything he could to get America into the global conflict without actually declaring war. The cooperation with British intelligence by the President and other high-ranking US officials during that period was quite illegal. Such collusion by the nominally neutral US to further the war aims of a foreign government was contrary to both US law and universally accepted international norms.
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.
... Unless and until we can break through the historical blackout, now supported even by public policy, and enable the peoples of the world to know the facts concerning international relations during the last quarter of a century, there can be no real hope for the peace, security and prosperity which the present triumphs of science and technology could make possible. The well-being of the human race, if not its very survival, is very literally dependent on the triumph of revisionism.
… 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 Jewish-Zionist grip on the US political system and the American media, the Zionist oppression of Palestinians, and the Israeli threat to peace.
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 video 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.
In a remarkable but under-reported address, one of America’s most prominent and influential political figures has acknowledged the “immense” and “outsized” Jewish role in the US mass media and cultural life. Joe Biden – now President of the U.S. – said that this has been the single most important factor in shaping American attitudes over the past century, and in driving major cultural-political changes. “Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us – as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact,” Biden told a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington, DC.
In an age when vast amounts of information from a wide range of sources are instantly available online, it can be difficult to sort out what’s reliable, useful, and trustworthy. In response to many inquiries over the years, here are recommended books on five important historical topics: The Second World War, American History, International Relations, Communism, Marxism and the Soviet Union, and, Zionism, US-Israel Relations, and the ‘Jewish Question.’ This listing is neither exhaustive nor final. Additional subject categories and titles are planned, and descriptions may be revised or updated.
On Nov. 27, 2020, Facebook removed the Institute for Historical Review from its popular social media platform. No reason was given for the abrupt measure, but it was hardly a surprise. It came right after the publication of three widely distributed media items that complained that Facebook had still not dropped the IHR. These articles were in line with a decade-old campaign by Jewish-Zionist groups to get social media platforms to remove the IHR and other organizations they regard as harmful to their interests and agenda … People who care about accuracy and fairness in the media should understand the methods used by those who, in the name of “fighting hate,” work to silence voices they don’t like.
Mark Weber, an American historian and director of the Institute for Historical Review, was banned from Britain in April 2015 by order of Theresa May, who later became the country’s Prime Minister. The decision to ban him was “taken personally” by May while she was serving as Home Secretary ... The Home Office finally ... accepted that the reasons for the 2015 exclusion order were insufficient, but cited new justifications to support a continued ban ... Weber explained in some detail just why the new examples of allegedly “unacceptable behavior” presented by the agency to justify a continued ban against him “lack any reasonable basis in fact,” are “weak, unconvincing or irrelevant,” and are “applied in an arbitrary way.” ... May has been one of the most ardently pro-Zionist political figures in modern British history.
… The development of a working philosophy of history is the most urgent, as well as the most difficult, task of Twentieth Century thought … The future will always resemble the past because human nature does not change; men will always be actuated by the same basic desires and motives … The social and political questions of our day are all primarily historical problems. To think about them rationally, we must begin by consulting the record of human experience in the past. And we soon realize that if only we knew enough about history – and understood it – we should have the answers to all our questions.
Several times each week we distribute by e-mail a timely “IHR News and Comment” roundup of news, analysis and commentary items. To subscribe, enter your email below:
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.
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."
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.
In this five-minute video presentation, IHR director Mark Weber explains the Institute’s mission and record. “We strive to provide factual information and sound perspective on US foreign policy, World War Two, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Middle East history, the Jewish-Zionist role in cultural and political life, the ‘Holocaust’ remembrance campaign, war propaganda, and much more.” The IHR, is also explains, is an “independent educational center and publisher that works to promote peace, understanding and justice through greater public awareness of the past, and especially socially-politically relevant aspects of modern history.”
The most widely anticipated speech ever given by Adolf Hitler was his address of April 28, 1939. It’s also widely regarded, even by his most vehement critics, as perhaps his most impressive address ever. It was a response to a much-publicized message from US President Franklin Roosevelt, who had called on the Chancellor to promise not to attack 31 countries. Broadcast on radio stations around the world, Hitler’s two-hour Reichstag speech was heard by millions. In the US, major radio networks broadcast it live. The next day, it was the leading news item on the front page of every major US daily newspaper. In his address, Hitler laid out his view of Germany’s place in the world, lucidly reviewed his government’s foreign policy objectives and achievements in recent years, and concluded with an eloquent, imposing retort to the US President.
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.
... While it’s an artistic achievement and grand entertainment, “Darkest Hour” is badly flawed history ... “Darkest Hour” reinforces the widespread belief that Churchill’s speeches played a crucial role in sustaining British morale. A scholar who has carefully looked into the matter has found that this view is largely a myth ... “Darkest Hour” reinforces the widely held impression, which Churchill himself encouraged, that an honorable or lasting peace with Hitler was simply not possible. But as he himself later acknowledged, that’s simply not true ... The British leader’s famous “We shall never surrender” speech was little more than “sublime nonsense,” says British historian John Charmley.
A public service ad by the Institute for Historical Review at San Francisco transit stations has generated wide media attention. The electronic display board, which proclaims “History Matters!,” went up on Sept. 3 at two downtown stations, where it’s scheduled to remain until the end of the month. The Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority (BART) has come under criticism for accepting the billboard, but the agency explains that it has no legal basis for rejecting it. The ad has prompted considerable media coverage, including reports by several California daily newspapers, local television stations, Fox News, Jewish community outlets, and other US based media, as well as by three major British newspapers. The “History Matters!” message is very much in keeping with the Institute’s work and purpose, says the IHR director.
We’re looking for a suitable person to join our team here in southern California, on a part-time or full-time basis. He or she will work on publishing and outreach, including social media, and will handle some website formatting, and office tasks. He or she must be able to write and edit with skill and discernment. He or she must have good communication skills, a responsible attitude, initiative, and regard for the ideals and goals of the IHR.
As dawn was breaking on Sunday morning, June 22, 1941, military forces of Germany, Finland and Romania suddenly struck against the Soviet Union. The stunning news of this attack was announced to the world by German radio at 5:30 that Sunday morning, when Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels broadcast the text of a proclamation by Adolf Hitler to the German people that laid out his reasons for the historic offensive. Following that was the broadcast of Germany's declaration of war against the Soviet Union. This was in the form of a diplomatic note to the Soviet government. Because Hitler's proclamation and the German Foreign Office declaration explain at some length the reasons and motives for the fateful decision to strike against the USSR, these are documents of historic importance. With a foreword by Mark Weber.
In line with a recent crackdown policy, YouTube has “restricted” a number of independently produced videos of IHR talks and presentations. To watch a “restricted” video, the viewer must first click through a warning screen. Also, comments on the video are not allowed, and the number of views is not given. Even worse, YouTube will never “suggest” a “restricted” video to viewers, which is how many people find our videos. While YouTube claims that its “restriction” policy is aimed at videos with “inflammatory religious or supremacist content,” applying it to IHR videos is absurd. YouTube restricts our voice not because we have violated any objective standards, or because we have done anything wrong or illegal -- but because it doesn’t like what we say.
... 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.
… 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.
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.
The German soldiers of World War II have often been portrayed, both during the war and in the decades since, as simple-minded, unimaginative and brutish ... As specialists of military history who have looked into the matter agree, the men of Germany’s armed forces -- the Wehrmacht -- performed with unmatched ability and resourcefulness throughout the nearly six years of conflict ... High-ranking British military figures were similarly impressed with the skill, tenacity and daring of their adversaries. “Unfortunately we are fighting the best soldiers in the world – what men!,” exclaimed Lt. Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the 15th Army Group in Italy, in a March 1944 report to London.
… Little as we know about the events of the future, one thing is certain: the moving forces of the futures will be none other than those of the past – the will of the stronger, healthy instincts, race, will to property, and power.; Society is based on the inequality of men. This is a fact of nature.; Who would have thought that history lessons and the political education of the people are one and the same?; The great man lives in such a way that his existence is a sacrifice to his idea.; This is our task: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us, this reality with which fate has surrounded us; to live in such a way that we be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.; The essence of religion is perhaps most clearly recognized in what it does not tolerate.
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.
The grim fate of the 15 million German civilians who found themselves trapped in the path of the Red Army in the closing months of World War II, or on the wrong side of the re-drawn postwar borders, is not a topic that has tended to excite the interest of historians. And the general public, which is subjected to constant reminders about wartime Nazi brutality, is certainly not aware that at least two million Germans lost their lives in the course of flight and mass expulsion from their ancestral homes in Eastern Europe. Alfred de Zayas, a graduate of Harvard Law School who earned a doctorate in history at the University of Göttingen in Germany, has devoted much of his professional career to setting the record straight.
... I learned that the Office of State Security [in Poland] ran 227 prisons for German civilians like Lola's. It also ran 1,255 concentration camps, and I interviewed four of the commandants. They were also Jews ... He picked up a wooden stool and he started beating the Germans to death. For this one camp, I found the death certificates for 1,583 Germans. In other camps and other prisons, thousands of German civilians died. German men, women, children, babies. At one camp there was a barracks for fifty babies.
… The American public has long thought of the Allied effort in World War II as a “great crusade” that pitted good and decency against Nazi evil. Even after all these years, it is likely that the last thing the public wants to learn is that vast and unspeakable wrongs were committed by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union during the war and its aftermath. It flies in the face of that reluctance for MacDonogh to tell “the brutal history” at great length [in his book, After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation]. That willingness is commendable for its intellectual bravery.
... 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 ...
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.
... 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.
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.
... 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.
NEWS AND COMMENT
Few Americans are aware of the fact that no U.S. government official, to include congressmen, can in any way mention or discuss Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is estimated by some observers to consist of as many as 200 tactical nuclear weapons which can be delivered on target by air, land or sea. The prohibition is spelled out in a Department of Energy “classification bulletin” graded Secret, which was issued on September 6, 2012, and bears the file number WPN-136. The subject line reads “Guidance on Release of Information Relating to the Potential for an Israeli Nuclear Capability.” … The memo is basically a gag order … Israel, as is so often the case, gets a free pass on what is for others criminal behavior. Its nuclear program was created by stealing American uranium and weapons technology.
… Much has happened in the decades since President Richard Nixon first promised Israeli Prime Minster Golda Meier never to publicly discuss Israel’s nuclear weapons. US Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn learned that Israel (with help from some proxies in the US) in the 1960s diverted enough US weapons grade uranium from the government contractor NUMEC to build a dozen bombs … In 2012 the Obama administration passed a gag regulation forbidding any US federal agency employee or contractor from discussing Israel’s nuclear weapons … Since Symington and Glenn became law, the US has transferred nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in publicly known foreign assistance to Israel, and additional billions in covert assistance.
On July 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy sent the new Prime Minister of Israel Levi Eshkol a three page letter ... Kennedy told Eshkol that the American commitment and support of Israel 'could be seriously jeopardized' if Israel did not let the United States obtain 'reliable information' about Israel's efforts in the nuclear field. In the letter Kennedy presented specific demands on how the American inspection visits to Dimona should be executed. Since the United States had not been involved in the building of Dimona and no international law or agreement had been violated, Kennedy demands were indeed unprecedented. They amounted, in effect, to American ultimatum.
... Today, alongside the European Union, the United States has adopted the position that its mission is to promote democracy worldwide. Leaders in Washington regularly argue that if they fail to take up this mission, authoritarian governments will exploit American restraint and join forces — not just to undermine American power, but to destroy democracy itself, depriving the United States of its cherished freedoms … At the heart of this approach is the presupposition that democracy is inherently superior to other forms of government, both morally and in terms of its ability to deliver prosperity and security … Yet Democracy does not have a stellar record throughout history .... Contrary to America’s democratic triumphalism, there is no iron law in history that dictates that democracies will always prevail over their autocratic opponents.
… The real explanation for the Taliban’s “surprise” success is that western publics were being duped all along. The United States’ longest war was doomed from the start … According to Forbes magazine, as much as $2 trillion was poured into Afghanistan over the past 20 years – or $300 million a day. The truth is that western politicians and the media intentionally colluded in a fiction, selling yet another imperial “war” in a far-off land as a humanitarian intervention welcomed by the local population … A good part of the reason the Pentagon can keep recycling its lies is because neither Congress or the media is holding it to account. The US media have performed no better.
After the Taliban captured Kabul far faster than anyone in Washington forecast, secretary of state Tony Blinken went on Sunday morning talk shows and announced that the US mission in Afghanistan had been “successful.” Unfortunately, there will be plenty of robotic civil servants and political appointees who recite that deranged verdict in the coming years. There is no reason to expect the twenty-year US debacle in Afghanistan to humble Washington policymakers … Foreign policy makers will likely remain arrogant and myopic regardless of how many more nations they despoil. On a winter hike almost a decade ago, I witnessed firsthand both the haughtiness of officialdom and its human cost.
In Afghanistan, the mission failure appears complete. The trillion-dollar project to plant Western democracy in a Muslim nation historically fabled for driving out imperial intruders has crashed and burned after 20 years, and the Taliban are suddenly back in power. After investing scores of billions in training and arming a force of 350,000 Afghani troops, the U.S. could not stand up an army and a government that could survive our departure … Nor is the failure ours alone … The leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party and possibly the next chancellor of Germany, Armin Laschet, calls the withdrawal “the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding.” … As for the damage done to Joe Biden’s presidency, it is significant and permanent.
… Through April of this year, this is the death toll of America’s fiasco in Afghanistan: 2,448 American soldiers, 3,846 American military contractors, 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police, 1,144 allied soldiers (mostly from NATO countries), 47,245 Afghan civilians, 51,191 Taliban and other opposition fighters, 444 aid workers and 72 journalists … No wonder military vet suicide rate is so high. They knew they’d been had, with many figuring out, even way before they were discharged, that they didn’t serve their beloved country but help to destroy its treasury, credibility and even soul.
This copy of the Eighth Grade Exam for Bullitt County Schools in 1912 was donated to the museum. We thought you might like to see what the test looked like a hundred years ago. Obviously it tested some things that were more relevant at that time than now ... Bullitt County Schools were mostly one-room schools in those days, scattered around the rural county. Students came together at the county courthouse once or twice a year to take this "Common Exam." It was apparently a big deal. The local newspaper urged students to do well, even urging seventh graders that it was not too early to start preparing. Some scholarships were provided to those who passed to go on to high school, which was also a big deal back then.
The Anti-Defamation League has inserted itself into American politics in variety of ways over the decades, primarily in the guise of a non-partisan, civil rights organization. Currently it has been allowed to have great influence nationally on bullying, diversity, equity and inclusivity issues in K-12 education systems in particular. This note does not analyze ADL in depth, but only critiques specific sections of the [ADL’s “No Place For Hate”] NPFH Handbook, and provides excerpts from 59 linked articles about ADL’s politics and activities. These materials should give pause to organizations or institutions, especially public ones, that partner with ADL in any enterprise … ADL has long engaged in smear attacks and hate-mongering against organizations and politicians who push for enforcement of immigration laws …
This weekend the US experienced another “Saigon moment,” this time in Afghanistan. After a 20-year war that drained trillions from Americans’ pockets, the capital of Afghanistan fell without a fight. The corrupt Potemkin regime that the US had been propping up for two decades and the Afghan military that we had spent billions training just melted away. The rush is on now to find somebody to blame for the chaos in Afghanistan. Many of the “experts” doing the finger-pointing are the ones most to blame … The US war on Afghanistan was not lost yesterday in Kabul. It was lost the moment it shifted from a limited mission to apprehend those who planned the attack on 9/11 to an exercise in regime change and nation-building.
After 20 years of B-52 carpet bombing of Afghanistan, murderous drone strikes, 350,000 puppet soldiers, 20,000 mercenaries, nearly two trillion dollars in US spending, destruction of countless Afghan villages, the killing up to one million Afghans, spreading the opium trade around southeast Asia and Europe, abetting wide scale torture…. after all this the US-run Afghan’s puppet `president’ and his drug-dealing cronies have fled embattled Kabul like thieves in the night … The fathers of these Pashtun fighters were the men who formed the anti-Soviet ‘mujahidin’ (holy warriors) that defeated the mighty Soviet Red Army with the secret help of US, British and most of all Pakistani intelligence … What we are so far seeing is the liberation of this war-ravaged land from four decades of first Soviet, then US occupation.
… Afghanistan’s implosion is a tragedy. And blame falls on those who misled the American people while constructing castles in the Afghan sky ... As usual, the War Party defined honor and heroism as making other people risk their lives thousands of miles from home in conflicts that long ago lost their original purpose … The Trump administration did its best to hide the ongoing deterioration by classifying figures on the performance of Afghan security forces … Afghanistan is both disaster and tragedy. US forces went in for the right reasons and almost immediately achieved their objectives. Then they stayed for the wrong reasons and failed spectacularly … Washington policymakers must better absorb the meaning of Afghanistan, lest they again tragically repeat history.
Built and trained at a two-decade cost of $83 billion, Afghan security forces collapsed so quickly and completely — in some cases without a shot fired — that the ultimate beneficiary of the American investment turned out to be the Taliban. They grabbed not only political power but also U.S.-supplied firepower — guns, ammunition, helicopters and more. The Taliban captured an array of modern military equipment when they overran Afghan forces who failed to defend district centers. Bigger gains followed, including combat aircraft … A U.S. defense official on Monday confirmed the Taliban's sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous … The reversal is an embarrassing consequence of misjudging the viability of Afghan government forces — by the U.S. military as well as intelligence agencies …
Do the ethno-nationalistic ideologies of today’s “right wing” parties and movements resemble those of the “Nazis” who gained broad support in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s. Yes, says this video presentation of a German government media outlet. This presentation, which is very critical of the nationalist movements that have been growing across Europe, claims that Germany’s “far-right” or “neo-Nazi” scene is now bigger than at any time since the end of World War II. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has become a factor in both national and state parliaments, allegedly shares the nationalist and often “racist’ outlook of nationalists during the 1930s. Runtime: 42 mins.
The German government said Wednesday it will strengthen its battle against the quickly growing antisemitism in the country by investing 35 million euros ($41.5 million) into research and educational projects focused on understanding its causes and effectively fighting hatred of Jews … Karliczek said the government wants to invest millions into researching the causes of antisemitism “because we need deep knowledge in order to be able to efficiently fight” it. She said millions would be given to universities to examine the different facets of hatred against Jews and to develop strategies on what to best do against it. Various projects will focus on antisemitism in schools, in the German justice system or on the internet and social media.
At a time of rising antisemitism, the Australia/ Israel & Jewish Affairs Council’s latest webinar guest was Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the U.K’s Community Security Trust. The CST advises and represents the UK Jewish community on matters relating to antisemitism, terrorism and extremism … To counter antisemitism, he said, it’s crucial there’s a cost, whether criminal prosecution, bans from social media or ostracism. …“So”, he concluded, “those are the forms of leadership we need in society … to basically make sure antisemitism is socially unacceptable and that there is … a cost, even if it’s an informal cost, that people suffer for expressing these views.” We also need proper regulation of social media to stop hate online, he added.
Over the centuries, rage and hostility against Jews has repeatedly erupted in terrible violence. Again and again, Jews have been driven out of countries where they’d been living. Why does anti-Semitism exist? And why has furious hostility toward Jews broken out, again and again, in the most varied nations, eras and cultures? ... Anti-Semitism is not a mysterious “disease.” As Herzl and Weizmann suggested, and as history shows, what is often called anti-Semitism is the natural and understandable attitude of people toward a minority with particularist loyalties that wields greatly disproportionate power for its own interests, rather than for the common good.
My name is Mary Phagan-Kean and I am the great-niece and namesake of “Little Mary Phagan,” the thirteen-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by Leo Max Frank, the president of Atlanta’s B’nai B’rith Lodge No. 144, on April 26, 1913 … In fact, the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming, and on August 25, 1913, after a month-long trial in the Fulton County Superior Court, Leo Frank was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and on the next day, he was sentenced to hang for the murder of Mary Phagan. What followed was an unprecedented effort by Leo Frank and his legal team and supporters to pin this horrific crime on everyone but himself. It is an effort that continues to this very day … Driven by the need to exonerate a Jewish leader, they intend to convict an innocent African American man, James Conley …
The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume Three: The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man is a 536-page study referenced with thousands of footnotes and illustrated with maps, diagrams, and graphics that touch on every aspect of this controversial case. Here are a few of The Secret Relationship’s documented findings … Anti-Semitism was virtually absent from the case, but anti-Black racism was brutally present: Leo Frank, as leader of B’nai B’rith, publicly and openly referred to Blacks as “niggers.” … Both private detective agencies hired by Frank concluded that Leo Frank was the murderer of Mary Phagan ... After Frank’s conviction powerful Jewish leaders rallied to his defense, but in private documents they admitted that they could not stand Frank’s personality and that he probably was guilty.
“The Taliban regime is coming to an end,” announced President George W. Bush at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on December 12, 2001 — almost twenty years ago today … For two decades, the message Americans heard from their political and military leaders about the country’s longest war was the same. America is winning. The Taliban is on the verge of permanent obliteration … Just as they did for the war in Afghanistan, U.S. political and military leaders lied for years to the American public about the prospects for winning in Vietnam … It is vital not just to take note of how easily and frequently U.S. leaders lie to the public about its wars once those lies are revealed at the end of those wars, but also to remember this vital lesson the next time U.S. leaders propose a new war using the same tactics of manipulation, lies, and deceit.
If, after the horrors of this week in Afghanistan, the 4-Starry-eyed generals responsible for this 20-year March of Folly are not held accountable, there will be still worse to come. None were held accountable for the disasters of Vietnam or Iraq, and now the allegedly smart 4-Star Generals and Admirals are – get this – preparing for war with China and Russia … Many old hands in intelligence and the military were also highly skeptical, but Congress and the mainstream media remained bedazzled by the medals and merit badges of Petraeus and other generals, some of whom looked forward to another star and kept their mouths shut … This time there must be accountability for Afghanistan. The more so since generals and admirals, active duty and retired, are going off half-cocked.
California's Asian population grew by 25% in the past decade, making it the fastest growing ethnic group in the nation's most populous state, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday. California’s white population plummeted by 24% between 2010 and 2020, confirming California is one of three states — along with New Mexico and Hawaii — where whites are not the largest ethnic group. Hispanics surpassed whites as California's largest ethnic group in 2014. The Census data show California's Hispanic population grew by 11% to 15.5 million people, making up just shy of 40% of the state's nearly 40 million residents.
Poland on Monday recalled its ambassador to Israel two days after Jerusalem did the same, over a Polish law curbing World War II-era property claims, which the Israelis have slammed as “antisemitic.” President Andrzej Duda on Saturday approved legislation that will severely restrict claims on properties seized by the state after World War II. Warsaw says it will bolster legal certainty in the property market, but opponents say that it is unjust to people with legitimate claims, including Holocaust survivors and their families … The move came, it said, in response to the “recent unjustified actions of the State of Israel, including the unfounded decision to lower the level of diplomatic relations” and “unacceptable statements” by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, among others.
Poland and Israel have all-but severed diplomatic ties after Poland ratified a new law anning Holocaust-era property restitutions … Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki complained of "growing hatred towards Poland and Polish citizens in Israel", while promising to "safely bring back home the children of Poland's ambassador to Israel". Israel's Lapid also criticised Poland in strident terms. "The days of Poles harming Jews without consequence have passed and will not return,” Lapid said. The new law was "antisemitic and unethical" and Poland had become "an anti-democratic and illiberal country," he added … Israel was "exploiting this tragedy [WW2] for party-political reasons" in an "irresponsible way", Poland's Morawiecki also said.
Poland on Monday said it was examining the option of suspending annual Israeli youth trips to Holocaust memorial sites in the country, amid a major diplomatic crisis between the nations. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski claimed in a Monday radio interview that “the trips do not take place in a proper manner. They sometimes instill hatred for Poland in the heads of young Israelis.” “We are dealing with anti-Polish sentiment in Israel, and one of the reasons for this is the way in which Israeli youth are educated and raised,” Jablonski charged. “This propaganda, based on hatred of Poland, seeps into the heads of young people from an early age in school,” he claimed.
… The reassessment of Lee’s position in American history has almost everything to do with a shift in the way we talk about race … Whereas earlier Americans understood slavery primarily as a problem of liberty, today’s Americans understand it primarily as a problem of race. It seemed for several generations that the end of slavery had removed the only obstacle to honoring both sides of the Civil War. But in the newest generation, the persistence of American racial prejudice can be a reason to honor neither.
With host James Edwards and co-host Keith Alexander, Mark Weber talks about the drastic rewriting of American history in recent years, pushed by the “politically correct” mass media, politicians and educators. Perhaps the most striking expression of this campaign has been the tearing down of statues of Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate commander. For more than a century, Weber notes, Lee was widely esteemed as a man of exemplary honor, courage and character. “A nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul,” wrote President Eisenhower in a 1960 letter explaining why “I proudly display a picture of this great American in on my office wall.” All healthy and enduring nations have regarded the traits that Lee personified as important virtues. That’s not at all the case in today’s America.
If you get to Spain this summer, watch your tongue. A careless word that could be construed as sympathetic to General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from his victory in the country’s civil war (1936-9) until his death in 1975, could land you with a hefty fine. The proposed democratic memory bill, which will honour people who suffered under Spain’s fascist dictatorship, also has sanctions for those who remember it fondly. Penalties range from €200 [$237], for a casual expression of admiration for the dictator … This is the latest in a series of moves by European states to outlaw the expression of inconvenient or unpalatable historical views … But would a judge necessarily look kindly on anyone who might point out that the Spanish economy grew under Franco or that many Poles were happy to see their Jewish neighbours removed?
Israel recalled its envoy to Warsaw for consultations on Saturday, in a fierce response to Poland’s passage of a law that severely restricts World War II-era restitution claims. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that “Poland, not for the first time, passed an antisemitic and immoral law,” in a Hebrew-language statement released on Saturday. “Today Poland turned into an anti-democratic, illiberal country that doesn’t respect the greatest tragedy in human history,” he charged … Lapid’s statement came after Poland’s President Andrej Duda approved the law, defying strong opposition from Israel and the United States. Lapid said on Saturday that Israel was in touch with the US on how to respond … Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the approval of the legislation is “a shameful decision and disgraceful contempt for the memory of the Holocaust.”
… Who is responsible for the colossal U.S. failure in Afghanistan? Who is responsible for America's impending defeat in her longest war? Over the last 20 years, the U.S. lost 2,500 troops with 20,000 wounded and invested $1 trillion to create an Afghan army, only to see that army crumble and disintegrate as soon as we departed … We are facing in Afghanistan a wipeout of the investment of a generation to convert Afghanistan into a democracy with the ability to hold the allegiance of its people and to defend itself … How many U.S. generals knew what was going on but declined to risk their careers by telling Congress or the country that the Afghan army and regime we had stood up would likely collapse like a house of cards once the Americans departed and they had to face the Taliban alone?
… In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or occupied the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Despite the US record, Western corporate media overwhelmingly reserve the word “aggression” for official enemy nations — whether or not it’s warranted. In contrast, US behavior is almost never categorized as aggressive, thereby giving readers a misleading picture of the world … For months, media had been awash with stories, based on US officials’ proclamations, that Iranian aggression was just around the corner … Corporate media even present the Taliban’s actions in their own country against Western occupation troops as “aggression” …
… There have been various estimates of just exactly how many elections the United States has interfered in since the Second World War, the numbers usually falling somewhere between 80 and 100 … As a CIA officer stationed in Europe and the Middle East in and 1970s through the early 1990s, I can assure him that I personally know about nearly continuous interference in elections in places like France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, all of which had prominent communist parties, some of which were on the verge of government entry. Bags of money went to conservative parties, politicians were bribed and journalists bought. In fact, during that time period I would dare to say there was hardly an election that the United States did not somehow get involved in.
… The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile … The U.S. hasn’t been the only one trying to interfere in other countries’ elections, according to Levin’s data. Russia attempted to sway 36 foreign elections from the end of World War II to the turn of the century – meaning that, in total, at least one of the two great powers of the 20th century intervened in about one of every nine competitive, national-level executive elections in that time period.
Austrian media report that a town in the west of the country is planning to remove a memorial to three soldiers who were members of the Waffen SS during World War II. Public broadcaster ORF reported Friday that the mayor of Imst, Stefan Weirather, confirmed that the municipal workers will dismantle the site. The memorial was built in the 1970s for three men who were portrayed as having been executed by American troops on May 19, 1945 — more than a week after Nazi Germany had capitulated to the Allies.
A Belgian town is removing from a local square most of its references to a group of Latvian soldiers who were part of Nazi Germany’s SS forces, following allegations that the square honored them. Briviba Square in Zedelgem, a small town 70 miles west of Antwerp, contained a statue of and a plaque about the “Latvian Beehive,” hundreds of Latvian prisoners of war who were interred briefly at a POW camp in the village following World War II. They were part of the 15th and 19th Waffen SS Grenadier Divisions, which were under the administration of the Nazis … Many Latvians admire the “Beehive” for their efforts in fighting Russia. Latvia’s capital Riga has its own Briviba Square, and veterans of the local former SS units hold annuals marches through the city.
For seven months in 1944, Estonian, Latvian and German Waffen SS troops fiercely defended the strategically important Narva Isthmus against Soviet forces. This wartime newsreel shows Estonian and Latvian infantrymen in combat, artillery and rocket launchers in action, flaks guns firing at Soviet aircraft, tanks moving up for deployment, and captured Soviet prisoners. (Latvian-language narration. Runtime: 3:18 mins.) Some 124,000 Waffen SS men fought against 200,000 Soviet troops in this northern sector of the Eastern Front. The Soviets had about 100 tanks, against 32 for the defenders, and 800 combat aircraft, against 137 for the defenders. Casualties were heavy, with 68,000 for the defenders (including 14,000 dead or missing), and 480,000 on the Soviet side (including 100,000 dead or missing).
A gripping first-person memoir of soldierly sacrifice, heroism and fierce combat against numerically superior Soviet forces during World War II, by a charismatic Belgian writer and politician turned front-line infantryman. New, revised IHR edition, with index and photos. Here is the epic story of the Walloon Legion, a volunteer Belgian unit of the World War II pan-European SS force, as told - in absorbing prose -- by the legendary Degrelle. Captures the grit, terror and glory of Europe's crusade against Communism.
… Not once in this century has the U.S. decisively won one of the wars it launched — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Libya. And the sole superpower status we enjoyed as the 21st century began is gone with the wind … Police, under attack and abuse from the elites and people they protect, are resigning and retiring in record numbers … America is unable to win the wars she chooses to fight. She cannot or will not control and defend her borders from a mass migrant invasion. She cannot halt an outbreak of criminality and killing in her great cities. She has not run a trade surplus in four decades. Her dependency upon foreign producers is unprecedented. And her budget deficits continue to break records every year — as does her soaring national debt. Is that not the description of a failed or failing state?
The state of Oregon will no longer require its students to demonstrate proficiency in math, reading and writing in order to earn a high school diploma in a bid to bolster minority students. Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill late last month suspending the state's 'essential skills' requirement for graduation for the next three years while its Department of Education seeks alternative graduation requirements … Charles Boyle, a spokesman for Brown, said the suspension will benefit 'Oregon’s black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color' … In fact, only eleven states in the country require passing a test for high school students to graduate, according to Education Week. And some states that do, such as New York, have proposed removing testing requirements for graduation, according to Chalk Beat.
The U.S. became more diverse and more urban over the past decade, and the non-Hispanic white population dropped for the first time on record, the Census Bureau reported Thursday as it released a trove of demographic data that will be used to redraw the nation’s political maps. The new figures offered the most detailed portrait yet of how the country has changed since 2010 … The share of the white population fell from 63.7% in 2010 to 57.8% in 2020, the lowest on record, driven by falling birthrates among white women compared with Hispanic and Asian women. The number of non-Hispanic white people shrank from 196 million in 2010 to 191 million. White people continue to be the most prevalent racial or ethnic group, though that changed in California, where Hispanics became the largest racial or ethnic group …
… Many once widely accepted "facts" about the Dachau camp are now discredited. It wasn't long ago, however, when it was seriously and authoritatively claimed that people were killed in a gas chamber there. Eyewitness testimony was cited to "prove" that as many as 250,000 people were put to death in this gas chamber … No reputable historian still contends that anyone was ever killed in a Dachau "gas chamber." … The German troops had surrendered; they were not killed in battle but were executed while prisoners of war. Germans were put on trial and executed for similar acts, but, then, the victors were the prosecutors, judges and executioners, and they write the official history … Of all the atrocities committed at Dachau (by either the Germans or the Allies) the liberation day massacre of German prisoners was probably the worst.
Israel’s Ambassador to the US and UN Gilad Erdan said that Jerusalem would ultimately like to see Iran’s ayatollahs overthrown, in one of the most far-reaching comments by an Israeli official in favor of regime change in Tehran. “In the end, we would ultimately like to see [the government] overthrown and [for there to be] regime change and Iran,” Erdan told Army Radio on Thursday [Aug. 5], when asked about Israel’s strategy vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic … Until now, Israel has avoided publicly calling for regime change in Iran … Israel has also at times carried out military and espionage operations designed to curtail Tehran’s atomic drive and targeted Iranian military personnel and proxies throughout the region.
… The Anti-Defamation League is using its standing as an authority on hate to try to shut down speech they deem to be unworthy of protection. The group, which has transitioned from being the apolitical defender of the Jewish community to a partisan outfit allied to the "progressive" movement, is working with some of the same Big Tech oligarchs to engage in an even more sophisticated form of censorship … By acting as a willing accomplice to what seems to be the latest episode in an ongoing corporate assault on free expression it is, ironically, becoming one of the chief enablers of those undermining the democratic values it claims to be defending … The ADL began promoting internet censorship in 2019, ostensibly to stop Holocaust denial on social media. This helped create a slippery slope …
The British and Russian ambassadors to Iran have angered the country by recreating a World War Two image of Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, when Iran was under Allied occupation. The Russian embassy posted a photo of the two diplomats recalling a famous picture of the wartime leaders in 1943. Iran's foreign minister described the image as "extremely inappropriate". The Russians say no harm was intended, and they only meant to pay tribute to the Allied fight against Nazi Germany … Russian embassy posting the picture received thousands of angry replies. "The ambassadors are insulting all Iranians," said Tehran English literature professor Seyed Marandi. “The Tehran conference was a violation of Iranian sovereignty and symbolic of the historic crimes committed by the US, Russia and the UK against Iranians.”
... Though the Shah remained neutral when World War II broke out, London remained suspicious of his cordial relations with Berlin ... Not only did the United Kingdom rely upon the eight million barrels of oil annually that the Abadan oil refinery produced ... In July and August 1941, London issued ultimatums demanding the Shah expel the Germans. He refused ... Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin had agreed to secure Iran by force. Though the United States was not yet a belligerent in World War II, Churchill green-lit the invasion with Pres. Franklin Roosevelt ... Finally on Aug. 29 [1941] the Shah agreed to a ceasefire ... The British and Soviets commandeered much of Iran’s grain supplies for their own troops, causing hyperinflation and some starvation ... The Allies invaded a neutral country to secure vital oil fields and supply lines.
A German court has set a trial date for a 100-year-old man who is charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin during World War II … The suspect is alleged to have worked at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing … Sachsenhausen was liberated in April 1945 by the Soviets, who turned it into a brutal camp of their own … Her case and the charges against the 100-year-old suspect both rely on recent legal precedent in Germany establishing that anyone who helped a Nazi camp function can be prosecuted for accessory to the murders committed there.
Iranian cartoonist Masud Shojaei-Tabatabai has said that Serbia has refused to give him a visa allegedly over his Holocaust denial exhibitions … He had been invited to preside on the jury of the 21st Kragujevac Salon of Antiwar Cartoon in Serbia. He also said that the organizers had sent him a plane ticket to Serbia and made all arrangements for his attendance at the event, however, the embassy said that he had no chance to get a visa to enter the country … “Since we started running international cartoon contests about Palestine and the Holocaust, the Israeli media has stated that we are denying the Holocaust. However, we have never denied it. We simply have asked why the Palestinian people should be made to pay the price for the Holocaust,” he said at that time.
… With America leaving Afghanistan and U.S. troops in Iraq transiting out of any “combat” role, now is not the time to get us ensnared in a new war with Iran. Lest we forget. It was in an August, 57 years ago, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred, which led America to plunge into an eight-year war in Vietnam … Whoever launched the drone strike sought to ensure that no new U.S.-Iran deal is consummated, that U.S. sanctions remain in place, and that a U.S. war with Iran remain a possibility. But, again, why would Tehran carry out such a drone attack and kill crewmen on an Israeli-owned vessel — then loudly deny it? … Those behind this attack on the Israeli-owned vessel do not want to reduce the possibility of war between the United States and Iran. They want to make it a reality. We ought not accommodate them.
Several US senators have called on the Biden administration to declassify and make available key documents related to Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the 9/11 attacks … Saudi Arabia has long denied involvement in the attacks, in which almost 3,000 people died as hijacked jetliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi - as was Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader at the time. Families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks are party to a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, and have accused the country of being involved. They have been seeking US government documents related to Riyadh's alleged role in aiding or financing any of the 19 individuals who carried out the devastating attacks.
… While ‘hysteria culture’ in the US is rampant, not least when it comes to the appropriation of the government’s foreign policy priorities … the China challenge is unique, because it is projecting genuine insecurity into America’s collective sense of esteem concerning its own place and status in the world. This phenomenon is not so much grounded in a direct fear of imminent attack, as it is the perception that a country that may overtake it and outgrow it, ending a default perception that America always ought to dominate the world and shape it to its own direction … Slogans such as ‘Make America Great Again!’ and ‘America is Back!’ reflect the innate thinking that the US has lost something and has to regain its place in the world. China is perceived to be the primary reason for this …
… The degree of this national suffering may be seen in the fact that between 1840 and 1949 almost 100 million Chinese people died in wars, which directly resulted from foreign intervention, or were victims of civil wars and famines related to those interventions. China had suffered the longest Second World War, from 1937 to 1945 (with a civil war following that lasted until 1949); the death toll was at least 14 million … From 1978, with the introduction of “reform and opening up,” China achieved the fastest economic growth ever calculated by a major country in recorded history. From 1978 to 2020, China’s annual average GDP growth was 9.2 percent. Since 1978, China’s household consumption has increased by 1,800 percent, twice that of any major country.
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."
The world changed forever when a US bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 70 years ago. The Americans said they took the drastic step to put an early end to World War II and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, but this official narrative is now being overturned ... Many historians say the bombings did not lead to the Japanese surrender, and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan two days later was a bigger shock .... America believed the shock and awe of the devastating power of the new bombs would force Japan into surrender, but experts say inside Japan it was viewed differently. The Americans had already destroyed 66 Japanese cities with a massive fire bombing campaign. In just one night, 100,000 civilians were killed in Tokyo.
… We need to remember some of the earliest opponents of presidential overreach, Sens. Morse and Ernest Gruening, the only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 … When Gruening, a Democrat from Alaska, and [Wayne] Morse [of Oregon] cast their dissenting votes in the lopsided 88-2 roll call, they did not know the extent to which President Johnson had lied to Congress and the public about the supposed incident in the Gulf of Tonkin … Morse and Gruening appealed to the national interest, moral conscience, and constitutional and international law in their opposition to the resolution and the ensuing war. They were overwhelmingly outnumbered at first, but within just a few years they were vindicated. Their example should be an inspiration to advocates of peace and restraint today.
Sen. Wayne Morse was one of only two members of Congress to vote against the fateful Gulf of Tonkin resolution of August 1964, which gave President Lyndon Johnson blank check authority to wage war against North Vietnam. This authorization, warned Sen. Morse, was unconstitutional. Moreover, it was later established that the alleged North Vietnamese attack against US warships, which the White House cited to justify the sweeping resolution, either never took place, or had been greatly exaggerated.
The opening and closing ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. This footage captures some of the imposing grandeur of the international sports event that deeply impressed the many visitors from around the world who converged on the German capital. Excerpts from the film documentary “Olympia,” by Leni Riefenstahl, the German actress and film maker who was perhaps the greatest woman film artist of the twentieth century. Runtime: 7:20 mins.