October 2007 Headlines

When Reel Tales Rewrite Real History: Rethinking World War II
Leon Hadar

In his new revisionist study, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe , 1939-1945, renowned British historian Norman Davies challenges the "very superficial and Americanocentric view" of World War II reflected in the popular war histories. For instance, the American author Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers and American director Steven Spielberg's movie Saving Private Ryan show World War II as a struggle between freedom, represented by the Anglo-American powers, and the forces of fascism and totalitarianism that climaxed with the Normandy invasion.
Cost of ‘War on Terror’ Could Rise to $2.4 Trillion
AFP

The total cost, including debt servicing, of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach 2.4 trillion dollars by 2017, a report by the Congressional Budget Office found Wednesday. The report, by the body which provides non-partisan budget analysis for Congress, said higher estimates for spending for the wars could top out at 1.7 trillion dollars by the end of the next ten year period. Under the most intense scenarios of US military activity, a further 705 billion dollars could be added to the cost by interest payments, assuming the wars continue to be largely financed by government borrowing, the report said.
'Closer to Reality': VP’s Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Strike
Der Spiegel (Germany)

US Vice President Dick Cheney -- the power behind the throne, the eminence grise, the man with the (very) occasional grandfatherly smile -- is notorious for his propensity for secretiveness and behind-the-scenes manipulation. He's capable of anything, say friends as well as enemies … In the scenario concocted by Cheney's strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran. This information was leaked by an official close to the vice president.
Putin Honors Stalin Victims 70 Years After Terror
Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid his respects on Tuesday to millions of people killed under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and called for the country to unite to prevent a repeat of its tragic past. Putin, a former KGB spy, marked Russia's annual day of remembrance for the victims of Stalin's purges with a visit to Butovo, a military training ground near Moscow where tens of thousands of people were executed by firing squads. Millions of people were executed under Stalin and many more perished from abuse and disease in a vast network of prison camps, known as the Gulags.
Polish Senator Who Doubted Holocaust Gets Top Role
Reuters

A Polish senator who questioned the Nazi Holocaust has been given a top ceremonial role in parliament, drawing anger from the party that won Sunday's parliamentary election. Senator Ryszard Bender was named by President Lech Kaczynski as "speaker senior", a post that will give him ceremonial duties at the re-opening of parliament on Nov. 5. The president's office said Bender was named because he was the oldest senator. Bender has said in the past that the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz was "not a death camp, it was a labor camp".
In Britain, Revised Focus in A-Level History Course
The Telegraph (Britain)

A new history A-level will see lessons focus on 'concepts' rather than on periods in time such as the World Wars, the Victorians and the Tudors, it emerged yesterday. The alternative A-level, developed by the exam board OCR and heading for English secondary schools next year, breaks the convention of teaching history based on events in a particular era … Historical controversies will be a key topic and for the first time, the OCR includes the issue of Holocaust denial and will teach pupils how to defend against the claims. According to the OCR's guidance, this will include looking at the trial of David Irving, the British historian …

Jews Control US Foreign Policy, Says Prof. Dawkins
Israel NN

Professor Richard Dawkins, a senior British evolutionary scientist and outspoken atheist, drew fire on Monday for saying that Jews “more or less monopolize American foreign policy.” Religious Jews are a small group, Dawkins said, but are “fantastically successful” in lobbying the US government. Dawkins, who is currently in the US in an attempt to promote atheism and fight religious influence, expressed hope that atheists would be similarly successful in determining government policy. A number of Jewish leaders responded immediately, with ADL head Abe Foxman calling Dawkin’s remarks “classic anti-Semitism.” 

Hillary Clinton Rakes in Cash From US Weapons Industry
The Independent (Britain)

The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months … Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans…

The Empire is Over
Charley Reese

… We are like all empires in their final stages. We have grown soft. We like our comforts. We don't wish to be inconvenienced. We like poor Mexicans to do our stoop work and poor Americans to do our fighting, provided they do it far away so we won't be disturbed by explosions and screams. We enjoy our decadence, and there are always people in the media who can rationalize anything, no matter how sick and revolting it is … The only way to avoid a bad end is to find some realists and put them in public office … Otherwise, we will join the other third-rate countries, once empires, on history's discard pile.

World War II Mass Graves Open a Wound in Slovenia
Reuters

… The Lancovo grave is one target of a Slovenian government program to help people come to terms with a hidden legacy of unprecedented slaughter during the war. So far, 540 such sites have been registered across Slovenia. They are believed to hold up to 100,000 bodies … Those killed in Slovenia were mostly soldiers who collaborated with the Nazis. Most were slain in the woods without trial. They were victims of a vengeful killing spree by partisans of the Yugoslav leader after British-led Allied troops turned them back from Austria and handed them over.
US Mismanaged $1.2 Billion for Iraqi Police
 USA Today

The State Department so badly managed a $1.2 billion contract for Iraqi police training that it can’t tell what it got for the money spent, a new report says. Because of disarray in invoices and records on the project — and because the government is trying to recoup money paid inappropriately to contractor DynCorp International, LLC — auditors have temporarily suspended their effort to review the contract’s implementation, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen Jr.
American Kids: Dumber Than Dirt?
SF Gate

… We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon … But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.
The Iraqi Genocide
Paul Craig Roberts

…The indisputable facts are that the US and Israel have attacked four Middle East countries and are determined to attack a fifth. Yet, it is peaceful Iran, at war with no one, that Bush and Israel blame for causing instability in the Middle East … International polls show that the rest of the world regard the US and Israel as the greatest dangers to world peace. Americans claim that they are fighting wars against terrorism, but it is US and Israeli terrorism that worries everyone else. The rest of the world knows that the wars are about US and Israeli hegemony and that the US and Israel are prepared to engage in whatever acts of terror are necessary to achieve hegemony. That is the bare fact.
Sun Sets Early on the American Century
Philip S. Golub -- Toronto Star

The disastrous outcome of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused a crisis in the power elite of the United States deeper than that resulting from defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago … The signs of slippage are apparent everywhere … Transnational opinion surveys show a consistent and nearly global pattern of defiance of U.S. foreign policy as well as a more fundamental erosion in the attractiveness of the United States: The narrative of the American dream has been submerged by images of a military leviathan disregarding world opinion and breaking the rules … History is moving on and the world is slipping, slowly but inexorably, out of U.S. hands. 
US Army Lures Foreigners with Promise of Citizenship
Der Spiegel (Germany)

… More than 30,000 foreign troops are enlisted in the US Army, many of them serving in Iraq. Their reward for risking their lives for their adopted country is US citizenship … Without its foreign soldiers, the United States would have trouble coming up with enough troops to meet the demand in Iraq … Since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has granted US citizenship to 32,500 foreign soldiers … The foreigners already represent five percent of all recruits. They even make up the majority of soldiers from some New York and Los Angeles neighborhoods. 
Canadian Ban on 'Right-Wing' Conference Raises Free Speech Issue
Canadian Press

A vote by MPs to bar two right-wing extremists -- Alexan Kulbashian and Paul Fromm -- be denied from holding a news conference in a Parliament Hill press theatre has raised concerns about freedom of speech. Wayne Sumner, a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, said the decision smacks of prior restraint - of banning people for what they might say. … They claim human rights legislation is being used to stifle political dissent. Fromm and Kulbashian have been the subject of commission investigations. They are also associated with a long list of far-right groups.
President Bush Has 'Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
Seymour Hersh (interview) – Der Spiegel (Germany)

… We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. … The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it … This guy believes he's doing God's work … The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not.
Nixon's Jew Count: the Whole Story
Timothy Noah – Slate

It was the last recorded act of official anti-Semitism by the United States government … On Sept. 24, the presidential recordings program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs released transcripts of Nixon White House tapes concerning the unauthorized publication in the New York Times and the Washington Post of the Pentagon Papers … Nixon: “The government is full of Jews. Second, most Jews are disloyal. You know what I mean? … But Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?”
Bush Cites Israel to Warn of 'World War Three' Danger
The Telegraph (Britain)

President George W. Bush today warned that world leaders risk helping bring about “World War Three” unless they do more to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons. In remarks timed to coincide with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran, Mr Bush said the Islamic republic must remain isolated until it drops its nuclear ambitions. “We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," Mr Bush told a White House press conference. “So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran
John H. Richardson -- Esquire

In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize.
Maternal Death Rate Higher in US Than in Europe
Reuters

The United States has a sharply higher rate of women dying during or just after pregnancy than European countries, even some relatively poor countries such as Macedonia and Bosnia, according to the first estimates in five years on maternal deaths worldwide. The report released by various United Nations agencies and the World Bank on Friday shows that Ireland has the lowest rate of deaths, while several African countries have the worst. The United States has a far higher death rate than the European average …
Israel Seeks Worldwide ‘Holocaust Education’
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)

More than 60 years after the Holocaust, the [Israel] Foreign Ministry is working to keep the Nazi genocide at the forefront of international consciousness.  The ministry submitted a resolution to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization this week calling for the creation of a UNESCO-sponsored curriculum to teach students around the world about the Holocaust and its role in history. The Holocaust Remembrance resolution, proposed by the ministry's Division of International Organizations, aims to preserve the memory of the Holocaust while preventing its denial.

The Strange Life of Ilya Ehrenburg
Mark Weber

Ilya Ehrenburg, the leading Soviet propagandist of the Second World War, was a contradictory figure… During the War, he was a leading member of the Soviet-sponsored Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee … Ehrenburg's incendiary writings certainly contributed in no small measure to the orgy of murder and rape by Soviet soldiers against German civilians … This new revelation about one of the most influential figures of the Stalinist regime shows that, whatever he may have said for public consumption, Ehrenburg never privately disavowed Zionism or forgot his ancestry.
US Too Often Follows Israel's Lead
Paul Findley

There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation of course is Israel … It is time to call politicians to account for their undying allegiance to a foreign state. Let the Mearsheimer-Walt book be a clarion that bestirs the American people to political action and finally brings fundamental change to both Capitol Hill and the White House.
Dissenting At Your Own Risk
Cecilie Surasky -- Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

Last year, I agreed to speak to a Jewish youth group about my organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, and our opposition to Israel's occupation. My talk was to follow one from a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America's pro-Israel Lobby." A week before, a shaken program leader said the AIPAC staffer had threatened to get the entire youth program's funding canceled if I was allowed in the door. The threat worked, and in disgust, they canceled the whole talk … Unless this atmosphere of intimidation is confronted, Americans will continue to lack access to information and perspectives necessary to formulate effective Middle East policies …

… Once omnipresent, World War II transformed how members of an earlier generation understood their world. But for the generation coming of age in the new millennium, the war that defined the second half of the 20th century has receded into the dust of history - and the pages of social studies textbooks. The state Board of Education is explicit about what students should be taught about World War II. But kids' knowledge of their grandparents' war - and increasingly their great-grandparents' war - often depends on what they learn on their own.

Russia has set a record birth rate over the past 15 years. Since January until August, 2007 more than one million children were born in Russia. This is the highest birth rate over the past 15 years, First Vice-premier Dmitry Medvedev declared … The measures taken on the initiative of the president and in line with the federal program on the improvement of the demographic situation have yielded positive results, Medvedev said. The rates of the population growth in central areas of Russia are approximately nine percent up, he said. 

In baby-starved Germany, the hip eastern Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg appears to be nothing short of a miracle … Although the German government has begun to address the issue, it was particularly slow out of the blocks in dealing with its low birthrate … Almost no debate can proceed unencumbered by the country's Nazi past. Hitler's government gave medals to mothers of large families, gold for those with eight or more children. Uneasiness over the parallels kept the subject of encouraging reproduction on the back burner in Germany for years, unlike in France, where promoting childbearing has long been government policy.

A senior American cardinal has asked Jews to reconsider descriptions of Jesus as a "bastard" in exchange for a softening of traditional Catholic prayers calling for Jews to be converted to Christianity. The controversial comments, by Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago, concern a prayer said during Easter celebrations by the small number of parishes or priests who celebrate a particular [Tridentine Latin] form of Good Friday mass. That version of Good Friday prayers calls for the congregation to pray for Jews to be converted to Christianity.

"Mom and Dad" as well as "husband and wife" have been banned from California schools under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who with his signature also ordered public schools to allow boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, if they choose … The bills signed by Schwarzenegger include SB777, which bans anything in public schools that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices. There are no similar protections for students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs, however.

The Big Lie: ‘Iran Is A Threat’
Scott Ritter

Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security … On every point, the case made against Iran collapses upon closer scrutiny … A careful fact-based assessment of Iran clearly demonstrates that it poses no threat to the legitimate national security interests of the United States. However, if the United States chooses to implement its own unilateral national security objectives concerning regime change in Iran, there will most likely be a reaction from Iran which produces an exceedingly detrimental impact on the national security interests of the United States, including military, political and economic. 

Neocon 'Godfather' Podhoretz Urges Bush to Bomb Iran
The Times (Britain)

One of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W. Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nuclear weapons. Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile casualties in the past year.

Neoconservatives are great observers of war and warriors, though they are sometimes not in complete agreement about the numbering of the conflicts that they send other people's sons and daughters to fight. Norman Podhoretz, the patriarch of the neocons, believes that the Cold War was World War III and that the U.S. is now fighting World War IV against "Islamofascism" … It might be useful to imagine just how war with Iran could play out if the Iranians don't roll over and surrender at the first whiff of grapeshot. It might start with a minor incident, possibly involving an American Marine patrol operating out of the new base at Badrah near the Iranian border.

America's Armageddonites
Jon Basil Utley

Utopian fantasies have long transfixed the human race. Yet today a much rarer fantasy has become popular in the United States. Millions of Americans, the richest people in history, have a death wish. They are the new "Armageddonites," fundamentalist evangelicals who have moved from forecasting Armageddon to actually trying to bring it about … American fundamentalists strongly supported the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. They consistently support Israel's hard-line policies. And they are beating the drums for war against Iran. Thanks to these end-timers, American foreign policy has turned much of the world against us, including most Muslims, nearly a quarter of the human race.

There are books that change people's consciousness and change history … It may well turn out that the book by the two professors, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy", is just such a book … The pro-Israel lobby has grown out of all proportion. It has unparalleled political power. It can silence all criticism of Israel in Congress and the media, bring about the political demise of anyone who dares to break the taboo, prevent any action that does not conform to the will of the Israeli government … Most of these disclosures are nothing new for those in Israel who deal with these matters. I myself could add to the book a whole chapter from personal experience.
Weber and Rense Set for Tuesday Broadcast on the Israel Lobby

The pro-Israel lobby and Jewish-Zionist power will be the topic during an hour-long appearance by historian Mark Weber on Tuesday evening, October 16, on the Jeff Rense radio program, 8:00 to 9:00 p.m., Pacific coast time. This popular radio show is broadcast each weeknight, nationwide and globally as well as online. A best-selling new book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, by two leading scholars of international affairs, details how US support for Israel is dangerously harmful to American interests, and how unquestioning backing for the Zionist state is due mainly to the intimidating power of the Israel lobby.
US Army Lowers Its Recruiting Standards
Chicago Tribune

The U.S. Army met its recruiting goals for the last year but enlisted thousands of new soldiers with criminal records and fewer who have earned high school diplomas, according to figures released Wednesday. The spike of new enlistees given "character" waivers for fiscal 2007 continues a steady upward trend in the number of recruits with past arrests and convictions allowed into the Army since the start of the war in Iraq. More than 11 percent of the Army recruits needed waivers for problems with the law -- up from 7.9 percent the previous year and more than double the percentage in 2003, the year the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Land of the Free?: Pre-Emptive Censorship in the US
Richard Silverstein – The Guardian (Britain)

I've noticed what may be a new phenomenon in the Israel-Palestine debate as it plays out in the US. I call it pre-emptive censorship. A number of non-Jewish organisations have denied supposedly controversial speakers or organisations the right to speak or perform due to the anticipated reaction of the local Jewish community … The Israel lobby has so conditioned American organisations to its wrath that the latter won't even touch certain speakers for fear of stirring it once again … Liberal Jewish bloggers who report on these outrages understand that the Israel lobby retains enormous reach in its ability to pre-empt speech and manipulate the public debate.

Jewish leaders condemned conservative commentator Ann Coulter on Friday for her comments this week that Jews need to be "perfected," denouncing her remarks as the rationale behind two millenniums of anti-Semitism. The assertion by the controversial pundit that Jews are inferior unless they convert to Christianity alarmed Jewish organizations and put the television networks that give Coulter a platform in an awkward position.

It's a list of "the world's most powerful people," 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of billions. It's an exclusive, insular club, one whose influence stretches around the globe but is concentrated strategically in the highest corridors of power. More than half its members, at least by one count, are Jewish. It's a list, in other words, that would have made earlier generations of Jews jump out of their skins, calling attention, as it does, to their disproportionate influence in finance and the media.

How large a role does the "Israeli Lobby" play in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East? Some answers may be contained in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt … and in Rulers and Ruled in the U.S. Empire, by James Petras, just published by Clarity Press… According to Petras, a sociologist at Binghamton University, New York, the pro-Zionist "power configuration" is not just the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The Zionist lobby is so powerful, Petras argues, it "calls the shots" and "supports the escalation of the Iraq war and the savaging of Palestine, Somalia and Afghanistan ."

The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday. Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency … He called current strategies -- including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year – a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
Abolishing the Dollar?: 'Amero' Plan is Real, Says Columnist
World Net Daily

The U.S. dollar might be destined to disappear, replaced by a regional currency called the amero, reports the Tokyo correspondent for the Singapore Business Times today … The commentary follows what appeared to be confirmation of the common North American currency plan by former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who told CNN's Larry King this week that he and President Bush had agreed on a regional currency for the Americas.

Income-Inequality Gap Widens in US
The Wall Street Journal

The richest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers. The wealthiest one percent of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004… The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran … Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

… Do Bush, Cheney & Co. indeed intend to attack Iran? I don't know, but my suspicion that they might is getting stronger … If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now with the Iraqi adventure), some will surely put the blame on Israel. It is no secret that the Pro-Israel lobby and its allies - the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the Christian Zionists - are pushing America into this war, just as they pushed it into Iraq. For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant losses - not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.

… The claims that Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and has called for the destruction of Israel are false … As for blood, American politicians have far more Iranian blood on their hands. We overthrew Iran's democratic government and installed the Shah and his secret police. We sided with and assisted Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran. Tens of thousands of Iranians are dead because of America's foreign policy. We truly have a corrupt and incompetent government in Washington.

A public access television station in Aspen (Colorado), which boasts of being the first such station in the nation, for the first time in remembrance has decided to squash a movie — at least for now — targeting an Australian production that denies the Holocaust happened and affirms the gas chambers saved lives by disinfecting prisoners … It was proposed for airing by Steve Campbell, a resident of nearby Glenwood Springs … "There's tons of information on this that shows that the story we have been told in the movies just is not true," Campbell told the newspaper.

Israel has ordered the confiscation of Arab land outside east Jerusalem, a newspaper and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday, reviving fears that the occupied West Bank could be split in two. Issued late September, the order covers 110 hectares (272 acres) in four Palestinian villages between east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, said Hassan Abed Rabbo, a senior official at the Palestinian local government ministry. The land could create a bloc of settlements incorporating Maale Adumim and nearby Mishor Adumim and Kedar, and "prevent Palestinian territorial continuity" between the West Bank and Jordan Valley, he said.

The American air force is working with military leaders from the Gulf to train and prepare Arab air forces for a possible war with Iran region, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. An air warfare conference in Washington last week was told how American air chiefs have helped to co-ordinate intelligence-sharing with Gulf Arab nations and organise combined exercises designed to make it easier to fight together. Gen Michael Mosley, the US Air Force chief of staff, used the conference to seek closer links with allies whose support America region might need if President George W. Bush chooses to bomb Iran.

Austrian “Holocaust denier” Gerd Honsik has been extradited from Spain to Austria 15 years after he fled his homeland to evade a prison sentence, Austria's justice ministry said on Thursday … Honsik was sentenced by an Austrian court in 1992 to 18 months in prison after he published a book called "Acquittal for Hitler,” but he fled to Spain during an appeal. The 65-year-old was convicted under a law banning people from re-engaging in activities in support of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party or its ideas … 

Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano. The remains of the 15-year-old girl known as the “Llullaillaco Maiden” and the seven-year-old “Llullaillaco Boy” revealed that their diets changed markedly in the 12 months up to their deaths, shedding new light on the rituals of the ancient Andean civilisation. The research, by a British-led team, suggests that the children were fed a ceremonial diet before being marched to a shrine 82 feet from the top of the 22,110 foot volcano Llullaillaco, where they were suffocated or left to die from exposure. 

The amount of fan mail sent to Adolf Hitler rivalled that of The Beatles and included not only fawning pledges of allegiance and declarations of love but bizarre requests from ordinary Germans for permission to bake cakes named after the Nazi leader. The contents of many of the up to 1,000 letters a month written to Hitler during the course of his political career have been published in a new book by Henrik Eberle, a German historian who unearthed a rich source of hitherto unseen Nazi fan mail in historical archives in Moscow … Although they were written only early in Hitler's career, shortly after he was released from jail in 1923, they show that he was already being deluged with fan mail.
Weber to Address Meeting in Eugene, Nov. 2

Mark Weber will be speaking on “The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it?,” at a meeting of the Pacifica Forum in Eugene, Oregon. The event is set for Friday evening, November 2, at 7:00 p.m., at McKenzie Hall, Room 129, near East Eleventh Avenue and Kincaid Street, at the University of Oregon. The meeting is open to the public, and admission is free. The Pacifica Forum is dedicated to providing information and perspective on the issues of war and peace, militarism and pacifism, violence and non-violence. Founded by Orval Etter, emeritus associate professor of public affairs and administration, the Pacifica Forum firmly supports freedom of speech.
Banning Tutu: University Bars Cleric After Jewish Complaints
City Pages (Minneapolis-St. Paul)

Back in April, when University of St. Thomas staffer Mike Klein informed his colleagues in the Justice and Peace Studies program that he'd succeeded in booking Archbishop Desmond Tutu for a campus appearance, the faculty buzzed in anticipation. For a program dedicated to fostering social change and nonviolence, there were few figures who embodied that vision more aptly than the world-renowned civil rights activist and Nobel Laureate … But in a move that still has faculty members shaking their heads in disbelief, St. Thomas administrators — concerned that Tutu's appearance might offend local Jews — told organizers that a visit from the archbishop was out of the question.

After hitting Europe earlier this month, “The Israel Lobby” is preparing for a frontal assault on the Muslim world. The controversial book by American academics Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who accuse the pro-Israel lobby of hijacking American policy, hit bookstores in Europe in September and soon will be published across the Arab world and in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world … In an indication of the strong interest the book is attracting in Europe, it is being translated into German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish and even Catalan … The authors are embarking on a European visit next month …

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt  (Introduction excerpts)

…Now that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public, or even raise the possibility. There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's uncritical and uncompromising relationship with Israel … The real reason why American politicians are so deferential is the political power of the Israel lobby … Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance of becoming president … The Israel lobby has successfully convinced many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical. In fact, they are not.

Costly diseases, many of them related to obesity and smoking, are more prevalent among aging Americans than their European peers, and add as much as $100 billion to $150 billion a year in treatment costs to the U.S. healthcare tab, a new study says … For example, heart disease was diagnosed in nearly twice as many Americans as Europeans 50 and older. … The study published on the web by the journal Health Affairs found that Americans were nearly twice as likely as Europeans to be obese (33.1% versus 17.1%), and they also were more likely to be current or former smokers (53% versus 43%).
See No Evil: The Teflon Alliance With Israel
Kathleen and Bill Christison  

Two recent offhand comments, both widely publicized, have seriously undermined whatever progress might have been made in exposing the fact that the Iraq war was initiated at least in large part to guarantee Israel's safety and regional dominance in the Middle East … In fact, the Wilkerson report does not refute the notion of an Israeli link; he addresses only Israeli-U.S. contacts in early 2002, whereas by later in 2002 and 2003 the evidence is overwhelming that Israel and particularly the Israel lobby were pushing hard for the war. But this is the way myths are born.
US Prosecutor at Nuremberg Was 'Disturbed' by Jewish Role
The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)

… Consider these Sept. 25, 1945, observations from Tom Dodd, who would emerge as second in command on the American prosecution team [at Nuremberg ]: “… You will understand when I tell you that this staff [here] is about seventy-five percent Jewish… The too large percentage of Jewish men and women here will be cited as proof of this charge. Sometimes it seems that the Jews will never learn about these things. They seem intent on bringing new difficulties down on their own heads. … I am disturbed about it. They are pushing and crowding and competing with each other and with everyone else.”

British MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America 's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians."  And she also accused Britain of "dismantling" the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon. The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month … The MPs say that at one point she said: "In any case, I hate all Iranians." … Another MP said: "I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran . It was very alarming."

The Israel Air Force warplanes and Israel Navy warships that attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, at the height of the Six-Day War, were aware that the vessel was an American spy ship, according to new testimony published Thursday in the Chicago Tribune. The report stated that the U.S. National Security Agency - to which the intelligence gathering ship belonged - was able to intercept IAF communications according to which, at some stage, the pilots identified the ship as American but were nonetheless instructed to push ahead with the attack.

… Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War … The declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel ... strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position … When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said, McNamara retorted that "President [Lyndon] Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors."
David Irving’s Revised Revisionism
Forward (New York)

A famed Holocaust denier is revising his revisionist thinking -- and the move is opening up a rift among his fellow travelers. David Irving, who was released from prison last December in Austria after being convicted of Holocaust denial, recently announced that he is rethinking his position on the fate of European Jews during World War II. Irving now concedes that a mass slaughter of Jews may have occurred … “Those people who are disappointed that Irving has switched [sides] shouldn’t be, because he’s always been ambivalent,” [Mark] Weber said, adding that Irving’s current stance marks a return to the way he was thinking when he published “Hitler’s War” in 1976.
Iraq Will Have to Wait: The Iran War Danger
Scott Ritter

…If the headlines from this month tell us anything, it is that war with Iran is very much a possibility. The Bush administration has been actively planning war with Iran since the fall of 2004 … A war with Iran would make the current conflict in Iraq pale by comparison, and would detrimentally impact the whole of America, not just certain demographics.  As such, it is critical that we all put aside our ideological and political differences and focus on the one issue which, if left unheeded, will have devastating consequences for the immediate future of us all: Prevent a future war with Iran.
Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
The New York Times

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture 'abhorrent' in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Approximately 72 percent of Israelis support the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, according to a Canadian survey released recently … Israel also had the highest percentage in favor of the country using its "power and influence in a way that serves its own interests" - approximately 55% - as opposed to "coordinat[ing] with other countries to do what's best for the world as a whole." Nearly 72% also agreed that "nuclear weapons place Israel in a unique position, so it is not in our interest to participate in treaties that would reduce or eliminate our purported nuclear arsenal."

… The treatment of civilian ethnic Germans -- or Volksdeutsche -- in Yugoslavia may be regarded as a classic case of "ethnic cleansing" on a grand scale … In addition to the “ethnic cleansing” of Danube German civilians and soldiers, some 70,000 Germans who had served in regular Wehrmacht forces perished in Yugoslav captivity … The total number of German losses in Yugoslav captivity after the end of the war -- including ethnic “Danube German” civilians and soldiers, as well as “Reich” Germans -- may therefore be conservatively estimated at 120,000 killed, starved, worked to death, or missing.
Mass Killings and Mistreatment of Germans in Postwar Yugoslavia
Tom Sunic – CD available from Noontide Press

Author and one-time US professor of political science, Sunic provides a detailed look at the little-known mistreatment and mass killings of German prisoners of war and ethnic German civilians in the former Yugoslavia, 1945-1953. Dr. Sunic refers to the network of prison camps in Communist-ruled postwar Yugoslavia, in which many thousands perished. 

David Irving Plans Comeback: 'Crystallized' Holocaust Views
The Guardian (Britain)

… This week David Irving, the discredited British historian who was described by a high court judge as a Holocaust denier and a racist, says he is launching a comeback with a speaking tour of British cities and a series of new books … Drinking tea on the sofa of a 10-bedroom house he has begun renting near Windsor, Mr Irving says that his views on the Holocaust have crystallised rather than changed … "In my opinion now the real killing operations took place at the Reinhardt camps west of the Bug river. In the three camps here [Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka] Heinrich Himmler's men (mostly Ukrainian mercenaries) killed possibly as many as 2.4 million in the two years up to October 1943.”
Why Did Israel Attack Syria?
Jonathan Cook

Israel's air strike on northern Syria earlier this month should be understood in the context of events unfolding since its assault last summer on neighboring Lebanon … In attacking Syria, Israel committed a blatant act of aggression against its northern neighbor of the kind denounced as the "supreme international crime" by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. Also, no one pointed out the obvious double standard applied to Israel's attack on Syria compared to the far less significant violation of Israeli sovereignty by Hizbullah a year earlier, when the Shia militia captured two Israel soldiers at a border post and killed three more. 

US Is Top Arms Seller to Developing World
The New York Times

The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers. The global arms market is highly competitive, with manufacturing nations seeking both to increase profits and to expand political influence through weapons sales to developing nations, which reached nearly $28.8 billion in 2006.

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