Sunday June 3, 2012, 5:37 pm
This should be submitted to the German equivalent of the Ministry of Justice for investigation.

In the meantime, I am not surprised by this. It is known (although not taught) that Hitler was close friends with Husseini, also the Mufti of Jerusalem. There were Arab units in the SS. For the anti-Semites http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/ with photos and videos proving this.

Sunday June 3, 2012, 5:38 pm
Hardly a surprise in view of Iran's bitter hatred of anything Jewish/Israeli. I wonder if their Netura Kartei pals are going to continue to visit these psycho mullahs.
Thanks Esteban.

Sunday June 3, 2012, 5:41 pm
I should add that the website leads to the current anti-Israel/anti-Semitism that we suffer from today. Evil lives on.

Sunday June 3, 2012, 10:05 pm
To be exact the word "Iran" means nothing else than Aryan in Farsi, with the name change taking place in 1943 under the Nazi influence. Some things just don't change.

Sunday June 3, 2012, 10:29 pm
"Iranian leaders believe their own “Final Solution” — the destruction of Israel — will bring on the last imam, an Islamic messiah who will rule the world."

I had been wondering about Iran's maniacal hatred for Israel/Jews. I think the Iranian leaders are related to Haman, who was a descendant of Amalek. The Amalekites attacked the fledgling Israelite nation from behind, killing the elderly and children, after the Israelites left Egypt. Amalek is noted for their fanatical hatred of the Jewish people, and it sounds like the Islamic messiah is the mortal enemy of the Jewish messiah.

Sunday June 3, 2012, 10:30 pm
That's a really interesting point, Bob.

Thanks for posting, Esteban.

Sunday June 3, 2012, 10:45 pm
well said DB

Sunday June 3, 2012, 11:45 pm
Thanks Esteban for posting. Very interesting points Bob and Beth, thanks for sharing ..!

Their "final solution" will NEVER succeed, Jews and Israel will live on in spite of her enemies threatening her destruction.

Monday June 4, 2012, 1:08 am
Not hard to believe at all!!! I hope somebody is on top of this!!!!

Monday June 4, 2012, 2:11 am
Carol, I hope somebody is on top of the following too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jar-2Iu-Ko&feature=em-share_video_user

Monday June 4, 2012, 2:54 am
We have Nazis here in the U.S. too. They're pathetic.

And the paranoid lunatics who want us to live in fear of these Nazi morons are even more pathetic.

Fear rots the brain.

Monday June 4, 2012, 3:13 am
But Charles- Nazis are not endorsed by the US government- that is the difference.

Don't forget, the original Nazi party was formed by a bunch of drunks grumbling in a Bavarian beer keller- within 12 years they were in charge of the whole of Germany.

You don't have to be a 'paranoid lunatic' to find the parallels with today's growing army of malcontents and extremists disturbing.

Monday June 4, 2012, 3:52 am
An Iranian site like this hosted in Germany – gosh oh golly what a surprise! In my opinion banning this and other rubbish is a waste of time. I dislike censorship as I believe it is both self-perpetuating by its very nature and can become a double-edged sword very easily. When there is a bad smell around I would prefer to know from whence it emanates as in this case. I would avoid visiting this site without “wearing” adequate protection. Just the outward appearance suggests a relative shortage of intellect in its creation and the increased possibility of visitors leaving with more than a harmless cookie or two in their PCs!

Monday June 4, 2012, 4:11 am
I am surprised the site is there. Iran's leaders think they can get away with anything, one day they will find out they can't, many lives will be lost and much blood spilt to show them they can't!

Monday June 4, 2012, 5:59 am
Like everyone else....I'm UNDERwhelmed by surprise!

Monday June 4, 2012, 6:22 am
NEVER AGAIN

Monday June 4, 2012, 6:27 am
Charles, the reason that Nazis (& previous "societies") manged to unite a country was to blame someone for all of their ills. It has always been the Jews.

y blaming the Jews for the reparations forced upon Germany by America (the other allies did not wish to be so punitive) you can immediately justify the abusing of a minority group. Because of the Depression, the US demanded an immediate repayment of the loans that Germany had been forced to take so, to a large extent, America was responsible for WWII, no surprise there! Even if Jews had not been involved it would still have been their fault for breathing.

And, Charles, who is obviously uneducated and with no knowledge of history in either Europe or America, the fascists kept America out of WWII by lobbying and bribery. Many American ships were sunk by U-boats which should have had the public up in arms but they were not interested. The refusal of America to receive over 1,000 women and children as refugees who were sent back to die is indicative of the right wing strength of the time.

Instead of sneering, you should look at and understand the strength and beliefs of a minority and how strong it is over the majority of the people who are apathetic. These minorities controlled the majority and still do. At the moment the fascists are growing in Germany and the Muslims in America. As they support each other America is in danger.

Monday June 4, 2012, 7:10 am
Hi David...Well said DB?...Why has my comment been removed from this thread?

Monday June 4, 2012, 7:22 am
Why have my 'friends been removed?

Monday June 4, 2012, 7:29 am
The comment was along the lines of...Censorship is not required, or should be allowed in any free society and if people are not allowed to read anything they want to, democracy is not in action...Further...If anyone seriously believes that these neo-nazi idiots are a threat to anyone then they should perhaps put their thinking caps back on?

Monday June 4, 2012, 7:35 am
What's next Charles?...Care2 censorship in action all over again?...So long, its been great to know you.........

Monday June 4, 2012, 8:32 am
Thank you for the forward Alex. Shocking!

Monday June 4, 2012, 9:11 am
Phyllis B. writes:

> You don't have to be a 'paranoid lunatic' to find the parallels with today's growing army of malcontents and extremists disturbing

Hello, Phyllis. I do find it disturbing. And unfortunately the Zionists have squandered all of the moral capital accumulated in the 1940s. These boys have cried "Anti-Semitism!" so often that they have turned the word into a joke.

If "Anti-Semitism" is defined to mean "behavior that harms Semitic people", then Zionists are the worst anti-Semites on the planet. So, for the last seventy years, the wolf has been crying "Wolf! Wolf!" while pointing at the shepherd. The stupid frightened sheep attack the shepherd, and the wolf then gets to feast.

Fascists pose as "Protectors" but it is just a pose. The Hitlerites did not "Protect" Germany: They destroyed Germany. They do not understand the most basic spiritual law: We reap what we sow. The more we make war on others, the more others learn how to resist and fight back. There's no such thing as a free war.

When you rely on the Zionists for "Protection", you too will end up destroyed. Zionists have been making war for sixty-four years. They won a tiny piece of territory but lost their humanity. Now they will lose the territory too, because their war-making has turned the world against them.

Monday June 4, 2012, 9:24 am
Bernard C. writes:

> An Iranian site like this hosted in Germany – gosh oh golly what a surprise! In my opinion banning this and other rubbish is a waste of time. I dislike censorship as I believe it is both self-perpetuating by its very nature and can become a double-edged sword very easily. When there is a bad smell around I would prefer to know from whence it emanates as in this case. I would avoid visiting this site without “wearing” adequate protection. Just the outward appearance suggests a relative shortage of intellect in its creation and the increased possibility of visitors leaving with more than a harmless cookie or two in their PCs!

. .

For the first time, Bernard, I find myself in agreement with you.

Disreputable people discredit themselves. There is no need for the rest of us to discredit ourselves as well! If we're losing, it's because we have been told that it is necessary to emulate the thugs. That's disastrous advice.

Victory belong to the country that holds the high moral ground. -- e.g., the country that has not attacked anyone in 300 years. When Israel makes war, it simply digs its hole deeper. The Zionists were as wrong as wrong can be. Safety lies in assimilation and virtue.

Many Jews have made an idol out of the State. That Golden Calf is useless! Turn away from it! Return to the cosmopolitan tradition.

Monday June 4, 2012, 9:55 am
Wow! What a surprise. And it's no surprise that people like Charles poo-poo the threat of this mindset, only this Nazism is combined with fanatical religious ideas with a 'god' and a 'prophet' who commanded Muslims to kill all Jews or the Islamic Day of Resurrection couldn't happen.

Liberals like these said the same thing about Hitler and his Nazis in the 1930s- even when they said they would conquer the world and began doing so and killing people in their extermination camps - Jews, gays, communists, socialists, gypsies etc etc etc. All the people Islam hates. And 100,000 Balkan Muslims volunteered to fight for the Nazis to help do just that. Get your head out of the sand.

'[T]he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

'“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”' (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim - Bukhari:V4B52N177 )

"Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you. "
-- Hajj Amin al Husseini, Grand Mufti of Muslim occupied Jerusalem and co-founder of the Nazi based Muslim Brotherhood, on German Nazi radio (Hitler loved Islam)

"Israel must be wiped off the map."
-- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, 2005 and at other times. Recently the main Mullah of the Islamic Dictatorship of Iran said the same thing.

Mohammed, the 'perfect man' to Muslims, and their role model, had hundreds of Jews murdered and drove the rest out of the area, then stealing all their property, including taking their women as sex slaves and selling others into slavery. Only a truly braindead goof would think this thinking isn't serious.

If it were the Jews/Israelis saying this kind of evil about Muslims you blind leftists would be howling with outrage. Hypocrites.

'There are none so blind as he who will not see.'

Monday June 4, 2012, 10:10 am
Charles, I am in total agreement with on this "Disreputable people discredit themselves" as I assume that you are talking about yourself.

This story has nothing to do with Zionists, Zionism or Israel but programmed hatred but you always have to bring up the same old, same old garbage as you obviously have nothing else to do and know nothing else apart from bigotry, as clearly demonstrated above.

Monday June 4, 2012, 10:12 am
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Islamic organization that openly calls for restoration of the caliphate -- that is, the political union of Muslims worldwide in a single Sharia state ruled by the caliph. This means that the group is dedicated to subverting and destroying all governments not ruled by Islamic law, and as such it is banned in many countries.

Monday June 4, 2012, 10:18 am
Not at all surprising since it goes with everything these tyrants spew. 'Mein Kampf' has remained a best seller in many Muslim countries for decades. But it is interesting to note that the Islamic holy trilogy (Qur'an, hadith and sira) contain more passages of hate toward Jews than does Hitler's 'Mein Kampf').

So Margaret you're back again! Cute avatar and no name? Your usual hate will come rolling out and give you away anyway.

Where are all the rest of the haters anyway? Guess the C2 telegraph hasn't caught them all yet, but they'll all show up to spout their bigoted hate toward Israel and Jews, and just like Charles O, they'll soft pedal the genocidal hate from the Islamist despots in Iran. Sick. Get to work MM and Charles, bring on your own circle of neo-Nazis. Can't wait. They're always amusing.

Monday June 4, 2012, 10:34 am
noted..sorry to say..no surprise here...it has become frighteningly common

Monday June 4, 2012, 10:35 am
I think you're right, Carola on all points.

The Nazi-Iran link is also 2/3s of the convergence into the alliance of the Far-Right, Far-Left and Islamic fundamentalism. All are evil and wacko and hold maniacally anti-Semitic beliefs, especially scapegoating the Jews for most ills in the world.

Of course the Iranian revolution saw the annihilation of some 10,000 Leftists who supported it. Extremists groups have a way of turning on each other when the opportunity seems available, like Hitler and Stalin.

The Far Left, Far Right and Islam is politics coming full circle, the meeting of which is at the nadir in hell.

Monday June 4, 2012, 1:00 pm
not at all surprising, but still frightening to know they are out there with such hatred in their hearts. thank you. carolina.

Monday June 4, 2012, 2:27 pm
Change the record Charlie boy. You are becoming even more boring. Only you could try to cloud the issue by linking Zionism to the appearance and acceptance of Nazis in Iran.

Monday June 4, 2012, 2:43 pm
Not surprising, some people will do anything to promote extremism. Thanks for posting this, Esteban..

Monday June 4, 2012, 3:27 pm
Gillian M. writes:

> This story has nothing to do with Zionists,

Actually, it does, Gillian, because these ridiculous stories are posted and promoted by Israel's Hasbara Brotherhood -- while the Houla Hoax story and other major stories that determine whether we have war or peace, get buried.

We see that all of the "Outrage" over Houla was MANUFACTURED, because it is forgotten already, as we "MOVE ON" to beat ourselves into a Fearful Frenzy over a handful of dead-enders in Iran.

We keep coming back to Israel, because Israel is the country that's trying to blow up all of the other countries in the region. All roads lead us back to the main aggressor.

Monday June 4, 2012, 3:30 pm
This is the type of thing that will eventually destroy Iran either from within or from an over reach internationally.
The biggest danger we, in America or the west face, is allowing these immigrants to settle in their own little enclaves within our borders.
Anyone can understand wanting to be among people who share your experience. At the same time, they moved to a western country for it's stability and free political system. A significant effort has to be made by US to help these people assimilate in to western culture. France has learned her lesson and is taking steps insure their immigrants begin to become French. Holland is pro-active in telling future immigrants that they will become Dutch not the other way around. Don't like it; don't COME.
My Great Grandparents were Germans. Their children had to learn English and become part of the community. In their eyes, the parents felt they were making future Americans. They did.

Monday June 4, 2012, 3:34 pm
Read Ron and Jay B. for an intelligent view of this issue.

Monday June 4, 2012, 3:57 pm
No, Charles, the Golden Calf is not useless. It wins even over the purest Shia minds and corrupts them with the taste of freedom, holding hands and kisses, making money together with people of different ethnic origin and without relying on taxes imposed on infidels.

The Great Satan and The Small Satan overdid Iran in anything except for indoctrination of hate, and the results are appealing to the world. The Little Satan invents drugs and technologies, it is ready to share its limited resources with its neighbors and the hand of friendship was extended to Iran after the earthquake in secrecy, because Zionists of Iranian origin still wanted to help their former compatriots.

The Great Satan also sponsors those who hate him.

The clever mullahs don't sponsor anyone except for Hesbola and spread terrorism and death all over the world. They may look strong to some, but deserving pity to others.

This Nazi web site allowed by Iranian "Moral Police" and other Islamist forces is just another nail to a coffin of the Great Persian nation.

Monday June 4, 2012, 5:00 pm
they are Persian, it would make no sense to have a pro-white website there :s

Monday June 4, 2012, 6:00 pm
If these bully boys were not pretending to be nazis they would just be the thugs they are...I believe Hitler died many years ago and is no longer around to mentor them which is probably a good thing...Thugs will be thugs whatever they call themselves...Ignorance is bliss?

Monday June 4, 2012, 6:02 pm
Why do educated people take these idiots seriously?

Monday June 4, 2012, 8:11 pm
Rob and Jay B. writes:

> If it were the Jews/Israelis saying this kind of evil about Muslims you blind leftists would be howling with outrage. Hypocrites.

. .

Sorry to disappoint you. I have no "outrage".

I'm not interested in proving the moral superiority of this or that tribe.

I'm interested in surviving.

I look at what people actually DO, not so much at what they say.

The Zionists make war. They keep millions of people under perpetual occupation and bombardment. They lie. They steal. They practice idolatry. They suck billions of dollars out of the U.S. each year. They destroy our First Amendment freedom. They drag my country into war.

For all of these reasons, they constitute a threat to my survival. An "Existential Threat", if you will.

They are a threat to me, a threat to non-Jews, and a threat to Jews. They give me no choice but to resist.

Monday June 4, 2012, 8:31 pm
Margaret M. writes:

> This leads to the conclusion that the whole purpose of this is not to have an intelligent conversation about the existence and perhaps rise in Nazism in general, but to again demonize a population. These are the same people who support and defend known hate sites such as Front Page Magazine, Atlas Shrugged, Jihad Watch, and Palwatch.

. .

That's exactly it, Margaret.

I am very critical of some Islamic sects. I see the Wahhabis, for example, as little more than thugs. That's my impression -- somebody correct me if I'm wrong. But some of the people here go way beyond constructive criticism. They are obsessed. Islam is their Demon and Israel is their God.

That kind of IDOLATRY deprives us of our humanity. Hatred for Islam -- or whatever other ethnic group or religion Israel designates as the Great Satan -- becomes more important than life itself, for the idolators. Hatred, viciousness and denigration is all they know.

I'm trying to get people interested in SURVIVAL. Survival involves compromise, acceptance, tolerance, dialogue -- which is the main reason why I try to dialogue with Zionists and convince them to rejoin the human race.

I do NOT hate the Zionists: If anything, pity them. I am not obsessed with Israel. I devote a lot of time and energy to the dialogue, because I care about survival. I care about justice, I care about freedom, I care about truth, I care about peace, and I care about people.

Where the idolators promote war, I promote peace -- a peace based on justice, equal rights, and compromise. Where they choose death, I choose life.

Monday June 4, 2012, 9:56 pm
Our "nameless" poster wrote:"Why do educated people take these idiots seriously? "

+++++++++++ "Educated" doesn't mean intelligent...or knowledgeable....or even wise. One could, for example, be "educated" in the hatred of Islamic schools and grow up to bomb buildings, kill Christians, hate all Jews and still consider oneself a "moral" man.

It's all in the conditioning, isn't it?

Remember...."religious" men can convince themselves of their own morality and justify their hatred/murder/hypocrisy easily. They do it all the time.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 5:03 am
Yes Pam and also remember non-religious men (and women) can convince themselves of their own morality and justify their hatred/hypocrisy easily. They do it all the time.
So your point is? Meaningless.
Well at least I see Margaret's posts are here and if they disappear there will be something very amiss.

Carola May, you accuse Marg of hate? ROTFL. Your attack dog clique is pathetic.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 8:11 am

"religious" men can convince themselves of their own morality and justify their hatred/murder/hypocrisy easily. They do it all the time.

HOW VERY TRUE!

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 10:32 am
Well now I know there is something amiss here since Margaret Mayer's two posts that were on this thread previously are both gone now. There wasn't a single thing wrong with them. Somebody needs to answer regarding this. Not OK.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 12:15 pm
It is truly pathetic when people who seem so concerned with the constitution ensures to silence the voice of those who disagree with them.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 1:41 pm
Kenneth L. writes:

> Well now I know there is something amiss here since Margaret Mayer's two posts that were on this thread previously are both gone now. There wasn't a single thing wrong with them. Somebody needs to answer regarding this. Not OK.

. .

Margaret herself has been deleted, yet again. Why are the most articulate critics of Israel being targeted and singled out for abuse, again and again? Care2 owes Margaret an explanation and apologies, and owes us an explanation too.

This cannot be dismissed as a problem with a spam filter. A filter does not target people on the basis of their political concerns. This can only be the work of malicious Hasbara aparatchiks whose task is to silence those who deviate from the Zionist party line. The malicious people who misuse and abuse the "flag" option are the members who should have their id's revoked, not Margaret!

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 1:48 pm
Charles, all your "dialog" starts and ends with blaming Israel for all Arab sins. Your reasoning implies that Arabs are hapless kids, who are being fooled around by the sect of Zionists operating from abroad, while you and a few other clever folks discovered the source of the problem.

Charles, if I were Arab I would be greatly upset at you for these assumptions.

As for other comments, that you know that Arab and Islamic nations suck much more money from US than Israel does, and being different from Israel, give nothing in return. They even do not support US in UN.

And speaking of Threats: when TSA asks me to take off my shoes before flying - it is not because of Zionists, Charles. It is because of Islamists of Al-Queda Sunni style. And because the current administration wants to be politically correct to a point that they won't search those who are likely to commit acts of terror, but ALL people, wasting time and resources and blurring the attention from real potential culprits.

I don't know which country you represent, but Islamists started a war with US long time ago. Shia Islamists - right after the Islamic revolution in Iran, and are still plotting and ready to bite.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 2:20 pm
Hello Bob A. --

I'll let George Washington try to reason with you:

> Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all ... The Nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

-- George Washington, "Farewell Address", 17 Sep 1796

. .

The U.S. is not "observing good faith" when it is occupying other countries and reducing them to rubble -- countries that have not attacked or threatened us. What's sickening is that the Ziosphere is not willing to take responsibility for its own actions. Instead, it tries to shift blame onto the victims of its relentless war-making. It expects the Arabs to agree to be plundered and then die quietly.

George Washington has it exactly right: Our adoration for the fascist regime in Israel, combined with our maniacal hatred for people in the countries Israel wants us to destroy reduces us to slavery.

. .

I'll let Pat Buchanan address your complaint about the TSA:

> Evil though they may be, Islamic killers are over here because we are over there .... Terror on American soil is the price of American empire.

-- Pat Buchanan

. .

The bogus "War on Terror" is really a war on our liberty. Michael Chertoff, former head of Homeland Security, has gone into business making x-ray scanners. A sweetheart deal between Chertoff's company and the TSA explains why you have to take off your shoes.

See Jane Hamsher, Investigate the TSA, Not Tyner, *FDL*, 16 Nov 2010

If the U.S. is serious about the "War on Terror", then why is it supporting terrorists in Syria? Why did Reagan spend an entire decade -- and $6,000,000,000 -- supporting Mujahedin terrorists in Afghanistan? Why did Clinton spend another $5,000,000,000 waging war against Yugoslavia in behalf of the KLA narcoterrorists? If terrorists were a real threat, the U.S. would seal its borders and inspect cargo containers.

I'll let General MacArthur explain the "War on Terror" to you:

> It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

-- General Douglas MacArthur

The war racket is extracting about a trillion dollars out of our economy every year. To keep those dollars fflowing, the racketeers need to keep us Americans blind with fear. For decades, they held the fictitious "Soviet Threat" over our heads. But then, much to their dismay, the Soviet Union disappeared, so they had to manufacture a new "Treat". So suddenly they discovered Islam.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 2:50 pm
Actually, not deleted it seems, but most of the people on this thread that are Americans, especially those who stand with the T-Party speak about freedom and the Constitution constantly. When one challenges their ideology or corrects their misrepresentation of fact, suddenly all concern for the Constitution goes out the window. The majority of people on Care2 learn very quickly that the removal of comments is based on the number of flags rather than the content of the post. To abuse this in order to silence a voice contrary to their own beliefs is un-American, unconstitutional and certainly has nothing to do with democracy or liberty.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 3:35 pm
Marg has been a fine, stellar example of fair and objective reasoning. She is a fine woman and has been a long-time member of Care2. She is a professional, talented, and genius secretary at a major world university. That's right. So much more than any of you useless wankers can boast. And it is always the genius who is hated upon by idiots.
Screw you Carola and the rest of you filthy coprophagic swine. This is not a public toilet for Marg to be defecated upon. Step back and pay attention to the FACTS that Marg graces upon the comment boards with her unmatchable compassion, equity, integrity, with the eloquent wisdom that flies from those glorious fingertips with each and every keystroke. Step back and pay attention to the brilliant responses from a true genius against you rot-brained disease-infested scum. You filthy Jewish cockroaches. Stay away from this site.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 3:44 pm
Marg has been a fine, stellar example of fair and objective reasoning. She is a fine woman and has been a long-time member of Care2. She is a professional, talented, and genius secretary at a major world university. That's right. So much more than any of you useless wankers can boast. And it is always the genius who is hated upon by idiots.
Screw you Carola and the rest of you filthy coprophagic swine. This is not a public toilet for Marg to be defecated upon. Step back and pay attention to the FACTS that Marg graces upon the comment boards with her unmatchable compassion, equity, integrity, with the eloquent wisdom that flies from those glorious fingertips with each and every keystroke. Step back and pay attention to the brilliant responses from a true genius against you rot-brained disease-infested scum. You filthy cockroaches. Stay away from this site.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 8:45 pm
Margaret M. writes:

> Actually, not deleted it seems, but most of the people on this thread that are Americans, especially those who stand with the T-Party speak about freedom and the Constitution constantly. When one challenges their ideology or corrects their misrepresentation of fact, suddenly all concern for the Constitution goes out the window. The majority of people on Care2 learn very quickly that the removal of comments is based on the number of flags rather than the content of the post. To abuse this in order to silence a voice contrary to their own beliefs is un-American, unconstitutional and certainly has nothing to do with democracy or liberty.

. .

Freedom is not something nice to have. It's life and death. Let me illustrate.

The message I read just before yours begins "Don't accuse me of being a Jew, an Israeli, or a Zionist." The member then argues that Palestinians are subhuman, and all of her arguments come straight out of the Zionist catechism of lies. This is what happens when people are NOT free.

Here in the U.S., most Americans get only one "side" of the story. If people in our media try to tell the truth, they are fired. What we're told can't even be called a "side", because the story actually inverts the truth and blames the victim and projects the crimes of the aggressor onto the victim. But this story is all we are told, so it's all we know. Because we are NOT free to get FIRST-HAND information from the victims, we have no way of knowing that the criminals have fed us a monstrous lie.

Lacking freedom, we have no way to keep the system honest. The system then eats us alive. We end up making war on behalf of a criminal regime, unwittingly sacrificing the blood of our sons and daughters for a cause that is vile, throwing away our treasure and our reputation. If we were free, we would soon discover that we are being used and lied to.

Iraq is the classic example. Way back in 2002, I said that the "Iraqi WMD" show was a scam. Many others were saying the same thing, but we did not have access to the big media, so we were not heard. Most Americans heard only one message over and over: Saddam is going to turn your cities into Mushroom Clouds! In a free society, that lie could have been countered in timely fashion. But we do not have a free society. We have controlled media that publish mainly what the Zionists want us to believe. So we attacked Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of people, and only then did we learn that the pretext was a lie.

Too many Americans think that freedom is the right of self-expression, nothing more. By that low standard, even prisoners are free: They can "express themselves" by pounding on the bars. We need more than that, if we are going to SURVIVE! We need to be free to HEAR one another, free to LISTEN, free to COMMUNICATE, free to make information available, even when the information directly contradicts the ideology or intellectual fashion.

Without this kind of freedom, we're dead. And this is the freedom that the censors are trying to kill -- every last trace. They think that we will all become True Believers then. We will all worship the Israeli regime, as our Lord and Savior. No, what actually happens is that reality has the final say. When we cut ourselves off from other perspectives, we blind ourselves. What happens next is that we march over a cliff. We march into another lunatic war, and another, and another, till we run out of blood to pour down the drain.

Thank you, Margaret, for inspiring this rant. You are way too good for this place, but I hope you find a way to forgive the abuse and persevere.

Tuesday June 5, 2012, 9:37 pm
Janet Z. writes --

> Marg has been a fine, stellar example of fair and objective reasoning. She is a fine woman and has been a long-time member of Care2. She is a professional, talented, and genius secretary at a major world university. That's right. So much more than any of you useless wankers can boast. And it is always the genius who is hated upon by idiots. .... Step back and pay attention to the FACTS that Marg graces upon the comment boards with her unmatchable compassion, equity, integrity, with the eloquent wisdom that flies from those glorious fingertips with each and every keystroke. Step back and pay attention to the brilliant responses from a true genius ....

. .

Hello Janet. This part of your message, I wholeheartedly agree with. I think the Hasbara aparatchiks target Marget precisely because she is extremely well-informed and articulate.

But I cannot go along with the rest of your message.

I wouldn't want the idiots to stay away. They challenge us and serve as a foil for our arguments. When they become nasty, they discredit themselves further.

The disease that infests the Israel-firsters and rots their brains is fascism. This need not be an incurable disease. Some of the strongest critics of Israel started out as Zionists. I'm thinking of Israel Shahak and Uri Avnery. And even Charlie Reese, the Orlando Sentinel reporter who had a "Road to Damascus" conversion when a reader sent him an information packet about the regime in Israel.

I have to be optimistic. I have to believe that there is hope for these people. Someday -- hopefully soon -- they will see that they have been worshipping a monster. If I could change, way back in 1985, they can change.

I invite Israel's adoring slaves to rejoin the human race and return to the high road. They can switch from DEhumanization to REhumanization. They will then start to feel much better about themselves.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 12:37 am
I would like to thank everyone who noted this and those who made respectful comments that stayed on subject. Somewhere in the middle, the subjects shifted, as usual.
I do not condone censorship. The Iranian government heavily censors or prohibits whatever it disagrees with, and severely prosecutes offenders. But of course, I know there will be those who argue that it isn't being censored/prohibited/condemned, not because the Iranian government approves, but because Iran gives its citizens freedom of speech. Really? Whatever. Iran obviously doesn't find this site too offensive.
I guess I expect so much more critical, cognitive thinking from the human race. This optimistic hope never fails to disappoint me, one way or another, especially when I see the subjects get changed to Judeophobic rants.
So as usual, again and again, time after time, the comment board subject degenerates into a downward spiral of insults and delusional ridiculous Judeophobic conspiracy theories (don't you just love those?) that read like a pamphlet from the Third Reich. It never fails how any and every problem in the world is somehow something the Jews did in order to destroy the human race, from global warming to UFOs, the invention of AIDS or whatever someone can pull out of the hat. For whatever reason or no reason at all. It never fails that someone has to sugar-coat their own personal prejudices and dress it up as a "human rights cause".
That being said, Janet, when I felt nothing surprises me anymore, lord have mercy.
No, I take that back, not surprised, just disgusted at such blatant bigotry. Like I am not really surprised about the article I posted. It only confirms what I already knew and what I already felt.
I must say your post had to be one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen on a comment board. I really don't know what to say or how to feel. I nearly fell over in my chair reading your hilarious ignorance, your shameless prejudice, and your truly bizarre language.
"is a professional, talented, and genius secretary at a major world university. That's right. So much more than any of you useless wankers can boast", "graces upon the comment boards with her unmatchable compassion, equity, integrity, with the eloquent wisdom that flies from those glorious fingertips with each and every keystroke. Step back and pay attention to the brilliant responses from a true genius against you rot-brained disease-infested scum"
How in the world do you expect anyone in their right mind to take you seriously? Is this some kind of a joke? Do you really think like this? What in the???? All those insults and all that crazy talk in such a short space... thanks for keeping it brief. Janet, I don't think that linguists and psychologists have invented a word for you. I am truly blown away. I can't help but worry about your head after reading such. I want to laugh at your stupidity but I find it highly disturbing and sad. I have absolutely no doubt and no care as to what you may think of me, but if for any reason, you feel the urge to speak in my defense, please don't.
And you do not say who can and cannot comment on an article that I posted. And you need to learn respect. You should be ashamed, but I wouldn't be surprised if you also consider yourself a "genius".

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 12:50 am
Hi all :)

I'm not exactly going to go around calling Iran a paragon of freedom of speech, nor am I going to call the censorship there anywhere close to benign, but let's stick to solid facts. There are enough of those from the responses to the recent protests alone to properly indict its government anyways.

The Daily Caller is not a reliable source without independent confirmation. The site is definitely in Farsi, but when I went there it had a "Powered by Kleeja" note at the bottom: http://www.nazicenter.ir/
Kleeja is Saudi-owned: http://whois.domaintools.com/kleeja.com
and apparently the server is there too: http://site-connect.net/info/www.kleeja.com
Don't trust a location beginning with punctuation. Follow the IP address through
http://whoisthisip.com/46.151.211.104

It doesn't really change all that many substantive issues, but the site is Saudi-hosted, not under the Iranian government's jurisdiction.

Hi Charles,

I think you should probably read what you write. You speak endlessly about how Zionists supposedly consider others subhuman ... and then you end a post with "I invite Israel's adoring slaves to rejoin the human race and return to the high road. They can switch from DEhumanization to REhumanization. They will then start to feel much better about themselves." Yup, no explicit hypocrisy there.

I should probably also point out where your comments about freedom collapse: Americans are totally free to get the information first-hand from both sides in the conflicts under discussion, and they do, often. The claims that there were no WMDs in Iraq in 2002 were in the big media. I saw them there. All that suppression you described just doesn't exist. The same goes for "censorship" here. You are not suppressed. Your account has not been deleted, nor have your posts.

"Why are the most articulate critics of Israel being targeted and singled out for abuse, again and again?" Margaret is far from that. In fact, I think you are the most articulate hardcore anti-Zionist on this site. Margaret has just mastered the arts of pulling things out of context, putting words in other people's mouths and shameless self-contradiction. She has also developed a total blindness to her own logical fallacies, pretending that people can only prove her wrong by challenging her data on terms she makes up. Your troubles, on that scale at least, are just a failure to apply Occam's Razer and, sometimes (like here) the use of omissions to construct imaginary patterns which form the core of your arguments.

Stop pretending to understand how other people think. If you want real dialog, you can have it. Just ask people how they reached their conclusions and challenge their logic, data, and metadata. If you cannot find trouble in the metadata, then accept the data and interpretations. If the data fully supports their conclusions, then accept it. If you cannot find inconsistency or holes in the logic, then accept at least that they believe as they say. Stop pretending to know other people's minds better than they do.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 3:10 am
Pobrecito Esteban,
too imbecilic to comprehend
when you and your friends censor Marg's comments
it is because you cannot understand, you do not understand, you will not understand
the disappointing, painful red-hot atomic truth that you deny. Let her wisdom blast into your brain so you'll be aware of the truth when Israel decides to blast its nuclear Armageddon.
You have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason. Now SHUT UP, LISTEN, and LEARN you dumfux!

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 5:13 am
'Janet Z', you're an idiot. Whoever you are crawl back under your rock. Marg doesn't need your insane 'help'. When you go back and forth from rational to irrational and can spew 'filthy jewish cockroaches' in the same breath as 'glorious fingertips' 'eloquent wisdom' 'genius secretary' 'unmatchable compassion, integrity' there's one word for you---loony.
The anti-muslim clique may be multiple flagging Marg which is wrong, but again, you're just plain loony.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 6:07 am
And the hate keeps growing.... Janet, you are part of the problem, and need to become part of the solution. Vicious attacks never change anyone's mind, they just harden it.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 6:34 am
Oh Janet, that's really nice. Posts like that just makes my "imbecilic"-self all the more anxious to join your NeoNazi network. I don't know who you are and I wonder if you even know. But from what I gather, certainly you must be no stranger here, despite having 0 friends and a bogus profile that was created yesterday. That just makes you an anonymous coward. A troll. Get help.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:06 am
Janet, there is no "painful red-hot atomic truth" in Margaret's words - she has an opinion, often biased and ignorant, like many of us do. Sometimes she comes up with good numbers, sometimes with bad numbers.

But no Armageddon either way, everyone can sleep well.

Stephen, I am not the Internet guru, please tell me: can't Iran cancel domain name ending with .ir if they wanted to?

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:24 am
Stephen Brian writes:

> I should probably also point out where your comments about freedom collapse: Americans are totally free to get the information first-hand from both sides in the conflicts under discussion, and they do, often. The claims that there were no WMDs in Iraq in 2002 were in the big media. I saw them there. All that suppression you described just doesn't exist. The same goes for "censorship" here. You are not suppressed. Your account has not been deleted, nor have your posts.

. .

In fact, numerous posts HAVE been deleted, Stephen. I reposted the comments and I myself saw them deleted a second time and a third time.

Worse, some people here have had their accounts deleted, again and again. Margaret was deleted twice in one day. The most likely explanation is that she is being targeted by the fascistic Hasbara Brotherhood. Because she is a non-Zionist Jew, the fascists see her as a "Race Traitor".

. .

Yes, information about the non-existence of WMDs WAS available -- to politically savvy folks willing to search for it. I managed to find it, and that is what led me to conclude correctly that we were being scammed by Bush and Blair -- just as we are being scammed today by the anti-Syria gang.

Most Americans, however, do not have time or the ability to search. They rely on the stories that are featured prominently in the corporate media. So they come to believe that "Iraq is loaded with WMDs", Assad is "killing his own people", and Iran is about to turn NYC into a "Mushroom Cloud". The truth-tellers can still be found, but they are marginalized. If they work for the corporate media, they are fired.

. .

I think you missed my main point -- that freedom is measured by the outcome. A truly free society does not plunge headlong into suicidal wars, because one finds a vibrant political discourse in a free society, a mainstream discourse in which the truth-tellers get to participate.

Such a vibrant discourse is not what we have here in the U.S.. Look at the dearth of intelligent substantive political discussion we have here on Care2, for example. How many people here know that Houla was perpetrated by the rebels? How many know that the rebels are getting heavy weapons from the Ziosphere and Al Qaeda? How many know that NATO special forces are already operating in Syria? How many know of Iran's call for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East?

We might as well be living in North Korea. What's the difference? People there are kept in the dark, and we are kept in the dark. Sure, we are free to "express ourselves" and indulge our emotions, but since nobody hears us, we are just banging on the bars of our cage, something that North Koreans are also free to do.

We do not have the power to stop the war-makers. We do not have the power to hold the criminals at the top accountable. We cannot stop them from plundering us and sending us to our doom. So our "freedom" is ineffectual, and thus meaningless.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:39 am
Stephen Brian writes:

> I think you should probably read what you write. You speak endlessly about how Zionists supposedly consider others subhuman ... and then you end a post with "I invite Israel's adoring slaves to rejoin the human race and return to the high road. They can switch from DEhumanization to REhumanization. They will then start to feel much better about themselves." Yup, no explicit hypocrisy there.

I don't see the hypocrisy. I don't regard Israel's sycophants as subhuman; I see these cultists as human beings who are wasting their potential to do good in this world. These people are venerating a fascist regime and acting like slaves. They are blinded by their idolatry.

The fascist exalts himself by denigrating and dehumanizing others, and that is exactly what we see the "Israel Uber Alles" cultists doing. When we denigrate other ethnic groups, we cut ourselves off from part of the human race. When I encourage the cultists to "rejoin the human race", I mean that they should stop trying to divide people along ethnic lines. They should put humanity above ethnicity. Instead of trying to dehumanize people in other ethnic groups, they should rehumanize: They should look for common ground.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:49 am
"Charles, the reason that Nazis (& previous "societies") manged to unite a country was to blame someone for all of their ills. It has always been the Jews. "

Nope. But It has always been a convenient minority group. Yes, often Jews. Blacks, and other ethnic and racial groups, different language users, particular religions, political ideologies, and more. The common threads are the use of hatred and generalizing an entire population with negatives that pertain to a few...... And there are always the few in any population that are mean, greedy, criminal immoral and more.

A closer look shows that it is the mean, greedy, criminal and immoral that are behind the demonizing, marginalizing and dehumanizing. It validates them. It empowers them. They are the ones that benefit the most from the hatred, using that hatred to coerce, manipulate and control their dupes. And they use that hatred to discredit those that resist them.

Are we to be prey to this? Are we going to be complicit in creating victims of the target population? Continuing the endless cycle of violence hate and counter hate? Raising generation after generation that lives in fear because another speaks differently, dresses differently, has a different skin color, likes different food, has a different religion or whatever.

Reject it. Do not succumb. Choose another path.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 9:00 am
Janet Z, rants about Margaret's freedom of speech etc then says this incredibly bigoted, hateful remark: "You filthy Jewish cockroaches. Stay away from this site. " Or else what?

"Filthy Jewish Cockroaches"? I think this disgusting comment brands you as a 'Filthy bigoted Cockroach'!

You are a foul-mouthed bigot. What did I say that was not correct? That Margaret had reappeared again with yet another profile? How many does she have now - 2? 3? I note she now pretends to be from the US.

"Janet" you sound an awfully lot like John D. And since you just appeared on C2 you have to be one of the anti-Semite hate group since you seem to know so much about Margaret. You must be at least related to John D, if not the same twisted, hateful, hypocritical person. Let's hear you condemn the corruption and oppression of the Palestani 'government'.

You actually say Margaret is a 'compassionate' person? Well, where is her (or any of the rest of you Israelophobes and Islamists) compassion for the women and gay people that are tortured and persecuted in the Palestani occupied lands? Gays, along with women, have had to flee for their safety and lives, and many have found safe refuge and compassion in Israel - certainly NOT from you bigots. And you defend this fascist Palestani bunch of thugs? Compassion? Willfull blindness, more like it.

Let's hear you Israel haters and defenders of Palestani torturers and bigots condemn this gay man's writing about the suffering of gay people at the hands of the Muslim/Arab Palestani tyrants and how many have been able to escape to freedom in Israel, the only light in a region that is a cesspool of hate, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, oppression and 7th century tribal/religious darkness:

ON GAYS' TREATMENT IN PALESTINE & ISRAEL:(This is especially directed toward John D who this article challenges)
" Israel, Palestine, and Gays"
A short but thought provoking piece by Paul Varnell.

' Whilst persecuted homosexuals are running out of Palestine and into the safe arms of Israel in fear for their lives, many homosexuals in the West are pushing aside this despicable treatment of gays in order to conform with, and further, certain political positions. One example we are given of the suffering many homosexuals have to face in Arab countries, is of a 17-year-old youth who spent months in a Palestinian prison, where interrogators cut him with glass and poured toilet cleaner into his wounds. In Paul Varnell's own words:

"Keep 'Queers for Palestine' in mind next time some gay left advocate says that because you are gay you have to support some approved 'gay' position. And remember the pit, the sewer water, the bag of faeces and the toilet bowl cleaner."

COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE with the whole story of the persecution/torture of gay people in the Palestani occupied lands: : http://igfculturewatch.com/2002/08/28/israel-palestine-and-gays/ CONTRASTS WITH GOOD TREATMENT IN ISRAEL

Let's hear all of you poo-poo this and defend this appalling hate and torture. Of course, you will all just ignore it, as usual, like you do all the facts about the horrors of Palestinian corruption, hate and human rights abuses.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 9:12 am
Charles, I don't remember seeing this type of respect for the freedom of speech when pro-Israeli posters accounts were deleted. Now, when your own buddy got the same treatment you decide to show indignation and hurt feelings.

Sorry, I am not buying this "freedom of speech" from you. That would be only the "freedom of speech YOU like" and I won't be supporting this. Other people are no less humans than you, Charles, and they also get upset.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 10:09 am
"Janet Z" No profile...no friends (no suprise, either) has obviously joined to TROLL for one brief, glorious moment before being banned.

Outrageously nasty....and, by the way, demonstrating the peaceful acceptance and love that so many of the friends of Islam like to show us. Those posts are just indicative of "her" intelligence...or lack of it.

Kenneth L (in a frenzy to attack me for no valid reason other than I'm me....) "Yes Pam and also remember non-religious men (and women) can convince themselves of their own morality and justify their hatred/hypocrisy easily. They do it all the time. So your point is? Meaningless."

+++++++++++ I wasn't speaking OF you or TO you, Kenneth. I was answering a question from the nameless poster in the grad. hat. Calm down and save your spleen-venting for someone who's actually addressing you. My point is not "meaningless"....it's my opinion and it's as valid as yours.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 10:17 am
Jim Steve, stars to you. Nice to see some sanity.
Charles "Margaret was deleted twice in one day. The most likely explanation is that she is being targeted by the fascistic Hasbara Brotherhood. Because she is a non-Zionist Jew, the fascists see her as a "Race Traitor".
Now how can you state 'the most likely explanation s...?" You can't actually think that someone goes around variously deleting posts or profiles in C2 from some outside (or inside) source on the C2 website . If that was the case anyone who sees views opposite to theirs would be deleting animal rights posts, anti-psychiatry posts, anti-political leader posts etc. It's ludicrous. I do know if someone threatens or just lips off very distastefully or continually to C2 management they'll probably get the boot. And then watched because of it. Nothing more ominous than that.
As for your posts 'being deleted' you must know about C2 latency or glitches where anyone's post can appear, disappear, take multiple attempts to post, etc. I've seen it myself with my own posts. It's technical, not nefarious. (unless you're a bad member in C2's eyes possibly).

I'm sure there's lots of anti-homo stuff going on in Palestine Carola May, but let's hear it for the Christians too. How much oppression, beatings, and mental and emotional oppression, do they engage in against homosexuals? And how many commit suicide etc because of it? So it's not just all from muslims now is it, which is the impression I get from you.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 10:23 am
Pam W., I'm in no 'frenzy' lol! You continually attack others religiously because you're 'protected' (you hope) by being an agnostic. As I've said before, just a lily-white saint convinced of her own morality and non-prejudice or bias or bigotry. LOL!

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 10:28 am
Janet Z. writes:

> It is because you cannot understand, you do not understand, you will not understand the disappointing, painful red-hot atomic truth that you deny. Let her wisdom blast into your brain so you'll be aware of the truth when Israel decides to blast its nuclear Armageddon.

. .

I have often said that Israel, with its 200-400 nukes, will emulate the biblical Samson and become the worst suicide-bomber in history: Armageddon, if it comes, will most likely come from Israel.

I'm not sure what you mean by "red-hot atomic truth", though. The truth is not atomic, so much as it is obvious. It is obvious that several million people have been under occupation and bombardment for the last 44 years. It is obvious that the Zionist attempt to eradicate an entire people is wrong, evil and insane. And it's obvious that the Israel-first idolators deny the holocaust that their war-making idol is perpetrating.

Though I greatly admire Margaret, I wouldn't say that wisdom is her strength. One doesn't have to be terribly wise to understand that Zionism -- forcibly dividing Jews and non-Jews -- is a stupid idea. All one needs is a little common sense and decency. Margaret does have that, but where she excels is in her research, her knowledge, her courage and her perseverance. One has to be brave to stand up to the fascists, when one belongs to the ethnic group that the fascists pretend to "Protect". How many Germans had the courage to stand up to the Hitlerites?

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 10:31 am
Send a Green Star to pam w.





Sending a Green Star is a simple way to say "Thank you"

You cannot currently send a star to pam because you have done so within the last week.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 10:42 am
Kenneth...are you pretending to be Janet Z? Looks as if THAT was a false identity which didn't last.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 11:45 am
Kenneth L. writes --

> As for your posts 'being deleted' you must know about C2 latency or glitches where anyone's post can appear, disappear, take multiple attempts to post, etc. I've seen it myself with my own posts. It's technical, not nefarious. (unless you're a bad member in C2's eyes possibly).

I'd like to believe that you're right, Kenneth. But my experience on other sites makes me suspicious. Latency does not explain why comments that post successfully subsequently disappear. And spam filters are not normally designed to delete people on the basis of their political concerns. So that's why I say that the Hasbara gang is behind the vendetta against Margaret.

. .

Carola M. writes:

> Janet Z. rants about Margaret's freedom of speech etc then says this incredibly bigoted, hateful remark: "You filthy Jewish cockroaches. Stay away from this site. " Or else what? "Filthy Jewish Cockroaches"? I think this disgusting comment brands you as a 'Filthy bigoted Cockroach'!

This is one of the few occasions when I find myself in agreement with you, Carola. Janet Z. here is just as bigoted as the Zionists who refer to Palestinians as "cockroaches". Maybe she is trying to fight fire with fire, hate with hate. I'd like to see how she explains that obscene remark.

But "freedom of speech etc." is not something that belongs to Margaret. It belongs to all of us. It exists so that we can express ourselves, but, more importantly, so that we can HEAR what OTHERS have to contribute and then COMMUNICATE with others. We do not live in a vacuum here! We are not simply howling at the moon! Freedom entails COMMUNICATION, an EXCHANGE of information and perspective. So freedom belongs to all of us: Irt's a GROUP thing, a PUBLIC thing.

. .

Jim S. writes:

> Are we to be prey to this? Are we going to be complicit in creating victims of the target population? Continuing the endless cycle of violence hate and counter hate? Raising generation after generation that lives in fear because another speaks differently, dresses differently, has a different skin color, likes different food, has a different religion or whatever. Reject it. Do not succumb. Choose another path.

Well said! What matters is our behavior, not our alleged affiliation with some Old Testament tribe. A Jewish bigot is no better than a non-Jewish bigot. All bigots are disgusting, and, as Jim says, one doesn't have to be Jewish to be a victim of bigotry: Nobody has a monopoly on Victim Status, and those who see themselves as Infinite Victims are sick. No self-respecting person wraps himself up in Perpetual Victimhood.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 12:32 pm
charles, which world/universe do you live on? The only aggressive nations in the Middle East are the Muslim controlled ones and that is historical fact. Of course, someone as blinkered as yourself cannot understand the difference and just like to blame Israel and Jews for all of the world ills. But then Israel has not attacked any Western country, only Muslim terrorists have. They are responsible for ongoing abuses in non-Muslims in the Middle East, Indonesia, Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherland.......

In fact, the FBI have these figures for racism but even thought the Muslims yell the loudest, they do not suffer

Jews remain the faith group most likely to be targeted in hate crimes. There were 887 anti-Jewish incidents in 2010, comprising 67.1% of those linked to religion. This is 5.5 times the number of anti-Islamic incidents, despite the fact that the Jewish population is no more than two and a half times as large as the Muslim population in the U.S.

Then charles, you may hate all things Jewish and Israeli but you are using their inventions on a daily basis including your computer and mobile phone, your health and your family's health owes much to Jews/Israelies. I won't say friends. You owe nothing to Muslims, they are far too inbred or too busy rioting to do anything (other than the few I have met who are devoted to wildlife & conservation or being Westernised).

You are a real bigoted hypocrite.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 1:42 pm
Gillian Miller. "The only aggressive nations in the Middle East are the Muslim controlled ones and that is historical fact."

How far do you want to go back Gillian? Do you know that Islamic countries gave refuge to the Jews when Christians sought to exterminate them? Do you know that the Jews fought along side with Muslims against the Crusaders and the blood of Jews and Muslims mingled ankle deep in the streets of Jerusalem when both were slaughtered by the Christian invaders?

And the "only aggressive nations" are Muslim? Did you forget the US assault on Iraq on pretext? The hundreds of thousands Muslims that died as a result? Or the terrorist MKO murders in Iran? Who did that? Two guesses. Or the recent attack on Libya by NATO resulting in the deaths of 30,000 Libyans? Or the overthrow of various governments such as the Coup in Iran in 1953. All that seems aggressive to me. And it has lead to blowback.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 1:47 pm
"How the Turks Saved the Jews from Genocide

by Shelomo Alfassa

Israel Insider Magazine / October 10, 2007

In the fall of 1921 a Turkish steam ship sailed into New York harbor named the SS Gul Djemal, the name of the ship meant "Beautiful Rose." On that ship, was my great-grandmother Rosa and her brother Eli; their father Isaac had arrived sometime earlier, all were Spanish speakers, all set sail from Turkey.

My family spoke the Spanish language because their ancestors had fled Spain in the late 15th century when the Spanish government committed one of the most heinous acts in history, the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population of Spain through near-total displacement of its Jews. Although the Jews had existed in Spain prior to the invention of the Spanish language or even the arrival of Christianity, in 1492 they were subject to mass violations of human rights and were forced to flee--or as the Spanish government put it, they would "incur the penalty of death."

In the end, hundreds of thousands of Jews fled Spain, leaving behind what would amount in today's monetary system as billions of dollars in assets. These assets included private property such as homes, furnishings, jewelry, books, family objects, clothing, etc; and communal property such as businesses, real estate, synagogues, etc.

The only reason why I am able to sit here in 2007 and write this essay is because at the time when the Spanish government advised the Jews they would have to flee their homeland or face death, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire--the leader of the state that existed before the modern Republic of Turkey--allowed my family and our people to seek refugee in his lands, this includes what is today Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Israel, the Balkans, and other places. Not only were the Jews allowed to go freely, but the Ottoman Empire sent ships to the west to assist the Spanish refugees in their terrible plight.

Sultan Mehemet stated: "Who among you of all my people that is with me, may his God he with him, let him ascend to Constantinople, the site of my royal throne. Let him dwell in the best of the land, each beneath his vine and fig tree, with silver and with gold, with wealth and cattle. Let him dwell in the land, trade in it, and take possession of it."

When the most powerful nation in the world, 15th century Spain, openly and publicly threatened genocide against the Jewish people for the stated crime of practicing their own religion-Judaism, it was a Muslim government, the Ottoman Empire, which stepped in and saved the Jewish people from destruction. It was the Ottoman Empire that saved the Jews of Spain and to a great extent, Portugal, from certain death which the goverment threatened them with.

Unlike the Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, the Ottoman Empire never had a system of government-sponsored hatred against the Jewish people. Even though Jews were dhimmis, the government of the Ottoman Empire never set in place specific targeted anti-Jewish policies such as those that existed in Christian Europe. It is a sad reality that today many people only remember the Ottoman Turks for alleged bad treatment of minorities, when clearly, they have done many positive things that we today hundreds of years later should continue to praise." from http://alfassa.com/no_genocide.html

It doesn't have to be hate Gillian. Really.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 2:07 pm
Jim...it's useless to talk about what Muslims did 400 years ago or what the Christians did 500 years ago.

I don't know what Gillian meant, but I'll bet she was talking about how the Muslims are killing everyone they disagree with throughout their OWN countries. If that's what she meant....I'll agree with her.

The fact that this NAZI organization is welcomed into a Muslim country is no surprise...anything to hate/blame Jews.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 3:40 pm
Pam: "Muslims are killing everyone they disagree with throughout their OWN countries."

You don't say "some people in Muslim countries are...." You condemn an entire people, an entire religion for the actions of some.

We've heard this sentiment before throughout history.

The results in DEATHS by atrocity, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Armenians 1.2 million
Ottoman Greeks 800,000
Assyrians 500,000
The Nazi genocide:
(10.5 million Slavs
5.3 million Jews
258,000 Romani
220,000 Homosexuals )
Post WW 2 over 1.5 million Germans were killed in ethnic clensing mostly in Poland and Czechoslovakia
East Timor 200,000
Rwanda 800,000
Darfur 400,000
Cambodia 1.7 million
The Congo. 12 million and counting
China and Tibet over 50 million under Mao
China under Japan 5 million
North Korea Post WW 2 1.7 million
Ethiopia 1.5 million
Biafra 1 million
Afghanistan (USSR) 900,000
Iraq Kurds and Iranians ( Hussein) 600,000
Yugoslavia (Tito) 550,000
Sukarno Indonesia 500,000
Angola 400,000
Afghanistan (Taliban) 400,000
Iraq civil War and earlier sanctions (USA) 300,000 to 1.3 million.

You focus on Jews and Muslims, but the problem is MUCH deeper. It begins with stereotyping others. "Muslims are killing everyone they disagree with..."

"If you search for good, you will find favor; but if you search for evil, it will find you!"

Hatred is like a disease. It ruins it's victims and devours its hosts.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 3:56 pm
Gillian writes:

> charles, which world/universe do you live on? The only aggressive nations in the Middle East are the Muslim controlled ones and that is historical fact. Of course, someone as blinkered as yourself cannot understand the difference and just like to blame Israel and Jews for all of the world ills. But then Israel has not attacked any Western country, only Muslim terrorists have.

Which universe? I would ask you the same question, Gillian. Do you know nothing about:

* Israel's "War of Independence", where it tried to massacre the native people?
* Israel's 1946 war, where it tried to steal the Suez Canal
* Israel's 1967 war, where it stole the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai
* Israel's 1978 war against Lebanon, where it stole a piece of Lebanon
* Israel's 1982 war against Lebanon, where it stole half of Lebanon and killed 18,000
* Israel's 1996 war against Lebanon, where it massacred refugees at the U.N.'s Qana Refugee Camp
* Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon, where it killed another 1,200 and leveled much of Beirut
* Israel's 2008 war against Gaza, where it killed 1,400 and bombed even the U.N. headquarters
* All of the massacres the Zionists have perpetrated, starting with Deir Yassin
* The 2003 war against Iraq, engineered by Israel-firsters
* Israel's pressure on the U.S. to attack Iran
* Israel's nuclear blackmail
* Israel's 08 Jun 1967 attempt to massacre the seamen on the U.S.S. Liberty
* Israel's stranglehold on the U.S. government
* The three billion Israel sucks out of American taxpayers each year
* Israel's Plan Dalet, which called for the eradication of the native population
* Ariel Sharon's 1981 proposal for overthrowing governments in the Middle East
* Israel's 1982 Oded Yinon plan for carving the Middle East up into feuding cantons
* Israel's 1996 Clean Break plan for getting the U.S. to destabilize and reshape the Middle East

Read the Jim S. comment -- the excerpt from the article about Jews being befriended by the Ottoman Empire. Arab rulers continued to befriend Jews right up till 1919. They welcomed Jews as "blood brothers". The welcome ended only when the Arabs found out that the "Jews" being welcomed from Europe were actually fascists hell-bent on eradicating the native people and stealing all of the land "from the Nile to the Euphrates".

So Palestinians befriended Jews, and then Zionists stabbed Palestinians in the back.

Another friend of the Jews stabbed in the back by Zionists was Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish diplomat who rescued several thousand Jews during WW II. Zionists rewarded him with a bullet on 17 Sep 1948. The terrorists who performed the assassination were led byt Yitzhak Shamir, who went on to become an Israeli Prime Minister.

We Americans have also been stabbed in the back, over and over again. Look up the Lavon Affair. Look up the 08 Jun 1967 attempt to sink the U.S.S. Liberty and kill everyone onboard. Look up the major unsolved crimes -- 1963 JFK assassination and the 2001 9/11 attack. I wonder why Bush and Cheney blocked attempts to investigate that attack. Could it be because the only party to gain was Israel? And who gained when Bush sent another 4,500 to their deaths in Iraq? Israel. No one else.

No, Gillian, I do not blame Jews for the atrocities perpetrated by the fascist Nazi-like regime that you have made your IDOL. You are the one blaming Jews, when you deliberately try to conflate Jews with fascists. And indeed, pro-Semitism and anti-Semitism are two sides of a single coin, inasmuch as they both single out Jews for special treatment.

. .

> That most Jews have never examined the founding principles of this ideology to which they cleave is unfortunate. For if they were to do so, they might be shocked at how anti-Jewish Zionism really is. Time and again, Zionists have even collaborated with open Jew-haters for the sake of political power.

-- Tim Wise, "Reflections on Zionism From a Dissident Jew", *ZNet*, 05 Sep 2001

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 3:56 pm
You never, EVER saw me say ALL Muslims are killing people they don't agree with...don't try to slap me with the "Islamophobe" label and stop accusing me of stereotyping. Obviously, not EVERY Muslim is killing their own people....or they'd all be gone, wouldn't they?

Are you denying the war Islam has against its own people, let alone Jews? What about apostates? What about the denial of rights for women?

I am talking about today....now....not Sukarno...not Angola....not China/Japan/Borneo.....today.

I see you're familiar with the rules for defending Islam....

1. Deny deny deny
2. Accuse others of Islamophobia, stereotyping, insult them, insult their sources, etc.
3. When all else fails....blame Jews.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 4:18 pm
Thanks pam w.. You've given me a great idea.

I think I will rob a bank. If the police apprehend me, I will tell them I am "Jewish".

They will then be forced to let me go.

If they don't let me go, then I will use your argument: I will accuse them of "Blaming the Jews".

What can they possibly say to that?

If they say "We don't care about your ethnicity; we just care about your behavior.", I will tell them that ethnicity is all that matters: Behavior is irrelevant.

The police are blaming me, and I claim to be Jewish: Therefore, they are Blaming The Jews, which is just what Hitler did. The police will then be forced to release me -- unless they want to be compared with Hitler.

. .

How does your argument differ from the bank robber's?

We list the atrocities the Zionists have committed, and you tell us we are "Blaming the Jews".

We tell you that ethnicity is irrelevant: We are concerned with behavior, behavior that is likely to lead to another World War. And you continue to insist that we are "Blaming The Jews" -- as if behavior matters not at all -- and you accuse us of seeking genocide, just like Hitler.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 4:44 pm
Charles...I've come to see that you really are fixated on blaming Jews and unable to see ANY other issue.

Do you not see (JUST THIS ONCE...ADMIT IT) that Iran allowing a Nazi-like hate site in their "space" is morally wrong?

You must be really, REALLY busy in your life.....connecting every social problem to Jews.

Feral cats in the neighborhood? Must be JEWS releasing them!

Republicans trying to restrict access to contraceptives? Must be JEWS behind it!

Global climate change? Yup....JEWISH plot to float all those Palestinians off the coast!

Charles....there are other issues. Get some balance in life...you'll be happier. You might even have some friends.

You're far too intelligent to stretch the Jewish bank robber nonsense....you and I both know it's ridiculous.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 6:37 pm
‘Charles O your sentiments are noble and mostly correct. If you are really seeking truth, justice. peace and freedom for all you could look further into the Palestinian problem instead of blindly accepting the currently popular narrative that obscures the reality of the scam being pulled on well meaning people and groups around the world as well as the Palestinians themselves.

And before anyone starts accusing me of being a Jew, an Israeli or a Zionist, I am none of these, just a fair minded person who looked beyond the headlines and propaganda and came to my own conclusions.

Facts are that Israel is a recognized state since 1947 and Syria and Jordan took 70% of the land designated as Palestine and nothing is ever mentioned of the million plus Jews expelled from both countries without compensation- then the Arab countries told the remaining Arabs in Israel to evacuate while they made war on Israel in 1948- and they lost. So here we have the former inhabitants fighting over real estate- pure and simple.

They can whinge and whine about settlers and point to 5 million Palestinians- but they aren't all squeezed into the West Bank and Gaza- they are scattered around the world. What is not told or widely known (I only found out myself recently) is that being a 'Palestinian refugee' is an inherited title in perpetuity. This means that unlimited generations born and bred and full citizens of a new country are still 'Palestinians' in the eyes of the UN (which even has a special branch for Palestinians alone). This flies in the face of fairness to genuine refugees who are fleeing war and turmoil and who live in horrible conditions because governments and NGOs are currently stretched beyond capacity.

Lastly - they point to the Wall as proof of 'apartheid'- what is never mentioned is the 60 (and escalating) suicide bombings in the months leading up to its construction. It's there as self defense- a basic human right.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 7:21 pm
Yes Pam, I'm pretending to be Janet Z. (or anyone else you want me to be LOL).
And you're barking again.

Just because you call yourself 'agnostic' you hope it protects you from all the bad religious people around you, whether muslim or any other religion. You hate too many of your fellow human beings too much. Stop being so lily-white.

Regarding heinous acts there's criticism and then there's fanaticism. Thankfully most stay away from these threads which is why there's a usual mere 40 or so noteds on these stories. People know swarming and a clique when they see it.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:00 pm
Pam W. writes:

> Charles...I've come to see that you really are fixated on blaming Jews and unable to see ANY other issue.

. .

The irony, Pam, is that you're the one who mentions Jews, not me.

I say "Israel", and YOU say "Jews!".

I say "This fascist regime is killing us!" and you say "Jews!"

I say "We need to bring these war-makers to justice!" and you say "Jews!"

Like the police, I keep trying to talk about BEHAVIOR, and you keep trying to hide behind ethnicity.

I see a fascist regime that has kept millions of people under occupation for the last 44 years, a regime that is threatening to turn the entire Middle East into an inferno. And you see "Jews!".

. .

My "fixation on blaming Jews" is no more real than "Iraqi WMDS" or "Iranian Nukes".

I think people must be projecting their own dark side onto me and onto others. They are not seeing me -- or Iraq, or Iran or Palestinians or Arabs or Muslims. They are seeing THEIR OWN SHADOW, their OWN dark side.

I'm the one here who's trying to SURVIVE. My motive here is very simple: to SURVIVE and see the human race to SURVIVE. Is that a motive you can relate to?

We cannot survive if we waste our resources on making war against things that don't exist.

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:28 pm
"Sometimes she comes up with good numbers, sometimes with bad numbers. "

Bob - you haven't posted anything that holds up in the past two years. Further, when have you ever been able to refute any numbers I have posted. Are you still claiming that Pakistan receives $10 billion dollars per annum from the United States?

Wednesday June 6, 2012, 9:26 pm
Charles...you've tossed a lot of smoke around.....can you JUST THIS ONCE admit that allowing a Nazi-type site to exist within it's area is an immoral thing?

Thursday June 7, 2012, 12:46 am
pam w. writes:

> can you JUST THIS ONCE admit that allowing a Nazi-type site to exist within it's area is an immoral thing?

. .

I judge people by what they DO, not by what they SAY or by what Old Testament tribe they pretend to be related to. If this site DOES something that harms others, then allowing the site to exist is immoral.

If the "Nazis" wave their flags and march around in a circle and look stupid, then no, there is nothing immoral about letting them make fools of themselves. The Nazis that concern me are the ones who make war, kill hundreds of thousands of people, divide people along ethnic lines, keep millions of people under occupation, scorn the Geneva Conventions, corrupt our politicians, torpedo our ships, and sell our military secrets to our enemies.

Stephen B. tracked the IP address of the "Iranian" Nazi site and found that it is actually located in Saudi Arabia. So perhaps this site is a Saudi dirty trick: Make Americans think that Iran supports Nazis, so that the attack on Iran can be sold to stupid Americans as a replay of World War II.

I don't know Iran's position, but I do know the Hamas position, as indicated by its Charter. The Charter repeatedly condemns the invaders as "Nazis" and calls for Palestinians to resist the "Nazi-like behavior" of the invaders. This tells us that Hamas has a very low opinion of Nazis.

Israel has a neo-Nazi movement. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6985808.stm

Thursday June 7, 2012, 12:58 am
Dear Charles....obviously, you are so obsessed with your ZIONIST agenda that you can't even for ONE MOMENT admit that something is wrong in a Muslim country.

Don't worry...I won't bother you again. You're just DIFFUSING.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 1:35 am
Hi Charles,

I didn't mean that nobody's posts were deleted. Just looking at a few comment-threads I can see the holes. However, the kind of censorship you described would not have stopped at that. It would have deleted all of your posts too. Something else is going on. I suspect Care2 just doesn't like people who start blogs where the first post calls its discussions a sham and thus effectively seeks to undermine this site's business-model. Her account was first deleted, after all, shortly after that blog started.

The news about Assad killing his own people comes from Syrian sources, not only American. Now find me a few sources with wide readership/viewership which says that Iran would nuke NYC. I haven't even seen that from Fox, though I haven't been looking terribly hard for it.

Freedom cannot be measured by the behaviour of the free society. That is the nature of freedom: The result cannot be predicted a priori. You may consider a decision stupid, but freedom includes the freedom to be stupid. Perhaps more importantly, what use is the outcome as a criterion? Would not going to war suddenly make a country freer? Even if the behaviour of the U.S. on the international stage were a result of a lack of freedom, you would have conflated cause and effect. More importantly than any of that, you go ahead and declare that the U.S. is not free because you think some act is suicidal, or you disagree with it without ever, even once, considering the possibility that you might just be wrong. Imagine if several million people thought like that: We would get a whole army of fascists who equate freedom with agreement with their policy-prescription doing their best to "free" the U.S.

Regarding your explanation of your invitation to "rejoin the human race", you have repeatedly demonstrated that you are far too articulate to regularly make such an incredible blunder of diction. Everybody misspeaks once in a while. Your dehumanization of Zionists, however, is apparent far beyond that statement. You treat Zionists as objects to be studied, not people with whom you may converse. You develop theories about what they think and how they act rather than just asking them, as would normally be done with any other person. Your dehumanization appears in nearly every single time you refer to Zionists. That is why it would take a whole lot more convincing for you to credibly claim that your comment was just misunderstood.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 5:31 am
pam w. writes:

> Dear Charles....obviously, you are so obsessed with your ZIONIST agenda that you can't even for ONE MOMENT admit that something is wrong in a Muslim country.

There are MANY things wrong with "Muslim countries" -- e.g., tyranny, repression, religious intolerance, sexual discrimination, judicial backwardness and corruption, stagnation, literalism, the rigid link between governance and religion.

I don't have a "ZIONIST agenda" so much as I have a SURVIVAL agenda. Zionism is a form of fascism, and fascism is the ideology of national suicide. Israel's addiction to war is ultimately suicidal. It will destroy Israel, but first, it will destroy US. Do I have a right to care about surviving?

I focus on Israel because it is the PRIMARY threat, the EXISTENTIAL threat. I'd love to be able to address backwardness and repression in Islamic countries, but the first priority is to EXIST, and the addiction to war puts our EXISTENCE in jeopardy.

The U.S. is now making war against Syria. This war, like all of our other wars, is based on lies. All of these lies have a hugely corrupting effect on our own government. So we end up with much more blood on our hands, blood up to our necks, while our sons and daughters come home to us in body bags and our treasure flows down the drain, billions of dollars at a time, and our rights are taken away under the guise of "National Security".

And you really have no problem with this? Well, I do have a problem with it.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 6:12 am
Now that Charles O. has stated: "There are MANY things wrong with "Muslim countries" -- e.g., tyranny, repression, religious intolerance, sexual discrimination, judicial backwardness and corruption, stagnation, literalism, the rigid link between governance and religion."
I hope that airheads like Pam W. will never attack him again (or any other of her attack dog clique) for never 'admitting' or some such crap that there's anything wrong with Muslim-controlled countries. Done. Ended. Unless you're an airhead.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 6:33 am
Hello Stephen --

Point by point. You write:

. .

> However, the kind of censorship you described would not have stopped at that.

You do this kind of psychologizing frequently. Can you read the mind of the censor? If not, your inferences based on mind reading are invalid. The censor, in reality, can stop wherever he pleases. He can target particular individuals, for example, picking us off one at a time, the aim here being intimidation.

. .

> The news about Assad killing his own people comes from Syrian sources

Yes, it comes from the "rebels" who are trying to overthrow the government and murder Assad and slaughter the Alewites and the Christians. These "sources" have every incentive to lie, distort and exaggerate, and they have been caught in a number of blatant lies.

It's obvious that the government of Syria is trying to put down an armed Islamist rebellion -- a rebellion fomented by the U.S. and armed by the Wahhabi Gulf States and Al Qaeda. The government admits that mistakes were made and innocent lives were lost. But killing off the Syrian people is certainly NOT the government's aim.

The horrific deaths publicized by our corporate media are, most likely, the work of terrorists and rebel death squads. This was true in Houla, for example. The rebels seek to discredit the government, so they kill families that refuse to go along with the rebellion, then they tell our pro-war media that the victims were killed by Assad, and our media eat it up because it fits into their pro-war agenda and their fairy-tale narrative.

. .

> Now find me a few sources with wide readership/viewership which says that Iran would nuke NYC.

It's implied in the hysterical "Iranian Nukes" charade. The manufactured hysteria leads people to conclude that Iran is threatening to start a nuclear war, when, in reality, Iran has no nukes, repudiates nukes, and calls for the Middle East to become a nuclear-FREE zone. It is the U.S. that threatens to start a nuclear war, when it declares that "all options" are "on the table" -- "all" includes bunker-busting "tactical" nukes.

What supreme insanity! To prevent Iran from having nukes that it does not have and does not want, our rulers are prepared to nuke Iran and proceed to WW III. The real reason for destroying Iran -- that Israel wants to maintain its stranglehold on the U.S. and the region -- cannot be spoken, so our rulers hide behind the fiction of "Iranian Nukes".

. .

> Freedom cannot be measured by the behaviour of the free society.

I don't understand your arguments here. Apparently, you do not require freedom to be EFFECTUAL or MEANINGFUL. By your weak standard, the citizen in North Korea is free: As long as nobody hears what he is saying, he has unlimited freedom to express himself.

That kind of "freedom" is not good enough for me. But to clarify my argument, I can, if you wish, insert the qualifiers "effectual" and "meaningful" -- e.g.,

"Effectual meaningful freedom is measured by the outcome. A country that makes war is, self-evidently, not free in a meaningful sense, because war-making is contrary to the self-interest of most citizens and would thus be rejected if citizens were free to reject it."

. .

> You treat Zionists as objects to be studied, not people with whom you may converse.

When I invite Zionists to "rejoin the human race", I AM conversing with them! I am asking them to abandon their ideological belief in a fundamental separation between Jews and non-Jews. It is they who dehumanize themselves -- when they dehumanize others and when they separate themselves from the human race.

It's the difference between "join" and "rejoin". Zionists might tell their victims to "JOIN the human race". Some Zionists, for example, see Palestinians as members of an insect species, not as fellow human beings. But that species reference is absent in the word "rejoin". "REJOIN" suggests that Zionists were initially a part of a larger group, but then distanced themselves from this group. It asks them to recover their humanity and return to that larger group -- i.e., to the human race.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 6:48 am
I'm amazed at the continual self-composure of Charles O. Despite being swarmed endlessly he keeps great self-control and reasoning ability in his conversations. That's a very great ability. He almost always views things from the bigger picture of the human race as a whole which of course trumps any smaller picture of sub-divisions of the human race. That again is rare in many people. Kudos to you Charles!

Thursday June 7, 2012, 6:56 am
My last comment was deleted. It contained no hyperlinks, no offensive language, no attacks on a person, race, religion or ethnicity.

I continued to question the basis of some of the opinions stated here. I used historical references which Pam had objected to as I think that we must learn from mistakes made in the past.

I believe the "flag as inappropriate" is being used by some to suppress the comments of others. A member on another site on Care2 confirmed/admitted to doing this.

I have seen a lot of this on both "left" and "right" sites. Including the Huffington Post. . There are a number of common themes. Basically the suppression of dissenting views are by those that have a vested interest in continuing US domestic and foreign policy.

I do not currently think that this is a government effort. That may happen given the rash of anti Constitutional legislation passed. I suspect that many will welcome that suppression.

Methods being used by the media and supporters of an increasingly powerful State have alarming similarities to Germany in the early 30's. The claimed "threats" are different, but an examination reveals uncomfortable similarities. They include pretexts for further State controls over the economy, news and information and increasing domestic surveillance. To, "protect" us from the "threat". Like the Nazi criminal regime claimed to be "protecting" the German people from the "threat" of communists, then Jews, Gypsy's, homosexuals and political dissenters.

What is most alarming are those that are embracing the State and effectively are working toward goals that are not in the traditions of freedom and liberty. Pulling back the curtain, reveals massive deception by the media. That media has become, in essence, a appendage of the Corporate State. Those that point this out are often shouted down by those that have a vested interest in further empowering the State. There were many in Germany in the '30's that did the same.

Much of this in the USA is economic in nature as well as political The results are disturbing. Google: "The Vampire Economy and the Market - Ben O'Neill '

Thursday June 7, 2012, 7:17 am
hope that airheads like Pam W. will never attack him again (or any other of her attack dog clique) for never 'admitting' or some such crap that there's anything wrong with Muslim-controlled countries. Done. Ended. Unless you're an airhead.

++++++++++ When all else fails....deny, attack, insult, blame someone else. You're a good little minion, Kenneth. A good boy.

Jim....I've no idea what happened to your last comment. I certainly didn't flag it because I didn't read it.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 8:03 am
I didn't accuse anyone in particular, Pam. I do find it odd that the deleted comments seem to come only from those critical of a particular world view. There does seem to be a randomness. Either a real Care2 glitch, or someones just pulls the "flag as inappropriate" trigger from a fit of chagrin.

BTW, didn't you just do to Ken what you accused him of? You did much the same with me earlier with a ad hominem argument? IMO that is a waste of energy.

Is there is different standard at play here?

Thursday June 7, 2012, 8:55 am
Pam, you use the same stupid cliche that was originally used and applied to something years ago. Let's apply it to you since anything workable has to be usable by anyone, not just to their personal little advantage.
"pam is an airhead'
When all else fails, Pam will lie, lie, lie that she isn't.
She will deny, deny, deny that she isn't.
And she will insult and blame anyone who says she is. ('you're a good little minion Kenneth, a good boy').

LOL

I notice you totally ignore Charles statement where he says there are lots of thing wrong in muslim countries.

So in the end, you are like a paperbag full of air. Nobody there to talk to.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 9:00 am
Jim, regarding disappearing posts, I do believe that if enough people flag someone's comment it may trigger an automatic deletion response from the system. An old trick used by a pack mob to control a thread or kill the opposition. Might be something different though.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 9:48 am
Thank you for the compliments, Kenneth L.. But the same could be said of you and Jim and many of the others here who are struggling valiantly against the tide of fascism.

With the future of our world and our country at stake, this is not the time to indulge the ego. The large purpose inspires me and uplifts me. I pity those who are stuck on narrow personal issues, and I have no desire to join them. My desire is to show them the larger view and share with them the joy and clarity that comes with this great struggle for truth and justice, peace and freedom.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 11:29 am
Pam w. writes:

> I certainly didn't flag it because I didn't read it.

. .

This may explain why your impression of me is so inaccurate: You aren't actually reading my comments!

Your pastor or your local Hasbara captain tells you to denigrate me, and that is what you do. But you are at a disadvantage, because you don't know exactly what you are supposed to attack.

I DO read all of your messages, from start to finish, so that gives me an advantage.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 12:35 pm
Hi Charles,

I cannot read the mind of a censor. I can, however, read your descriptions of them. If those descriptions were correct, then they would go much, much further.

The Syrian rebellion is not fomented by any non-Islamic power. It is a fight between Sunnis and Shiites. The Arab Spring is essentially tribal politics in a time of large-scale economic trouble. No outside power could drive that. They may contribute, but the U.S. does not actually contribute to either side. Also, in tribal conflict, the destruction of the civilian population from which the enemy recruits is a very common objective. It is particularly common in family-oriented Arab culture where the loss of one family-member in a conflict spurs others to join for revenge (so the logical, if repugnant, course of action is to annihilate or punish whole families).

No, the implication of nuking NYC is not in the discussion of the Iranian nuclear program. It is only in your perceptions and those of people who share your positions. The implication is actually that it would use the loophole in deterrence, its ideologically allied militia on its opponent's border, Hezbollah, to deliver a nuke to Israel. Also, nobody cares enough about Iran to start WWIII, nor can its allies project power sufficiently to do so even if they did.

My argument that measuring freedom by its consequences is very simple: Such measurement is the hallmark of fascism and can lead to nothing else. Freedom includes the freedom to disagree with you, whether you are right or wrong. Declaring people to be free only if they agree with you amounts to supporting the position that they are only free to agree with you, and not to take any position which opposes yours, nor to doubt the beliefs which underlie your positions. More than that, it demands that they all willingly back your beliefs and endorse your policy-prescriptions (making it fascism rather than support of any other kind of authoritarianism). For example, many people believe that fighting a war is often not against the interests of the majority of citizens. Should such people get a voice? According to your logic, allowing them to speak would oppose "freedom".

No, Charles, when you tell people to rejoin the human race, you are not conversing. You share information (correct or incorrect), but you do not seek information. You miss half of the conversing. The half of the conversation which you have, you could have with a dog, saying "Fetch!", but only studying behaviour rather than asking questions when seeking information. This is exactly how you "converse" with Zionists.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 1:20 pm
Stephen B..... :" ... but the U.S. does not actually contribute to either side." ??????

Of course the US is sending aid to the FSA in Syria. Officially and unofficially:

April 2, 2012 (AP) ISTANBUL - "A coalition of more than 70 partners, including the United States, pledged Sunday to send millions of dollars and communications equipment to Syria's opposition groups, signaling deeper involvement in the conflict amid a growing belief that diplomacy and sanctions alone cannot end the Damascus regime's repression."

It is also sending weapons, training to the FSA. That is widely known. In addition, there are reports that US special forces are in Syria. We saw this in Libya and the government first denied it then confirmed.

Syria is one of the countries that is targeted for destabilization. The thought behind this appears to be that if the Sunni and Shia are killing each other, then they will not be targeting Israel. I think they are mistaken. Destabilizing these countries will eventually lead to more terrorism.

You are somewhat correct that this involves a conflict between Shia and Sunni. It is much more complicated. There are a lot of factions and shifting alliances.

US intervention will cause the deaths of 10's of thousands of innocent people. . That estimate is probably low by a factor of 10.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 3:05 pm
WARNING: The following contains historical references and may not be suitable for all audiences.
( Especially Pam W. )

Yes Stephen B. We understand that" "many people believe that fighting a war is often not against the interests of the majority of citizens."

Charles was not suggesting that their voices be silenced. I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion. But it begs a larger question: What if the majority are being manipulated into thinking that the war is in their interests? If the sourced of information are compromised by those that have a particular agenda? ...... Since this thread invokes the Nazi regime, I give an example:

"Hitler’s war on terrorism"

"One of the most searing events in German history occurred soon after Hitler took office. On February 27, 1933, in what easily could be termed the 9/11 terrorist attack of that time, German terrorists fire-bombed the German parliament building. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Adolf Hitler, one of the strongest political leaders in history, would declare war on terrorism and ask the German parliament (the Reichstag) to give him temporary emergency powers to fight the terrorists. Passionately claiming that such powers were necessary to protect the freedom and well-being of the German people, Hitler persuaded the German legislators to give him the emergency powers he needed to confront the terrorist crisis. What became known as the Enabling Act allowed Hitler to suspend civil liberties “temporarily,” that is, until the crisis had passed. Not surprisingly, however, the threat of terrorism never subsided and Hitler’s “temporary” emergency powers, which were periodically renewed by the Reichstag, were still in effect when he took his own life some 12 years later."

"Is it so surprising that ordinary German citizens were willing to support their government’s suspension of civil liberties in response to the threat of terrorism, especially after the terrorist strike on the Reichstag?"

This is from: "Why Germans Supported Hitler," Part 1
by Jacob G. Hornberger, Posted July 16, 2007 http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0703a.asp an

Particularly telling is the story of the White Rose. Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl who early on had joined the Hitler Youth and later resisted the German State. They were a distinct minority because of the events of the time: economic calamity , Communism and terrorism, provided overwhelming support for the Nazi regime.

Suggest reading the above in it's entirety. The parallels are chilling. Link provided.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 3:33 pm
Hello Stephen. You write:

SB: > I cannot read the mind of a censor. I can, however, read your descriptions of them. If those descriptions were correct, then they would go much, much further.

My descriptions? A censor is a "someone who censors" -- end of description. Without reading that person's mind, you can't know what form the censorship will take. Sometimes he may try to drown out certain information, sometimes he may try to delete the information or make it inaccessible, and sometimes he may try to intimidate or otherwise silence the information source.

. .

SB: > The Syrian rebellion is not fomented by any non-Islamic power.

Actually, it was fomented by the U.S., if the Washington Post is to be believed.

> The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

> The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad.

-- "U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show", Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 17 Apr 2011

Most Sunnis have been reluctant to join the rebellion. I'd guess that the rebels are under Wahhabi influence, since they are working with Al Qaeda and get their arms from Saudi Arabia.

. .

SB: > The implication is actually that it would use the loophole in deterrence, its ideologically allied militia on its opponent's border, Hezbollah, to deliver a nuke to Israel. Also, nobody cares enough about Iran to start WWIII, nor can its allies project power sufficiently to do so even if they did.

Well, Pentagon war games show WW III as the likely result. When you attack Iran, you are attacking China's oil supply and you are destroying Russia's main buffer state. As I've said again and again, Russia would rather fight you "over there", in Tehran, then "over here", in Irkutsk. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

ANY country that opposes Israeli fascism could give Hezbollah a nuke. The nuke could come from Pakistan, China, Russia, or North Korea -- or even from rogue elements in the Ziosphere. So your argument would require us to annihilate ALL of these countries.

The real threat to Israel comes from Israel itself. The Zionists are not willing to live WITH other countries and peoples. No matter how many concessions Israel's victims make, it can never be enough: The ZIonists will always find a way to make war. In recent years, Israel has begun to lose these wars. If it attacks Iran, Israel could lose big, because it obliterates international law and opens the gates of hell. It is literally playing with fire and gambling with the future of the human race.

. .

SB:> According to your logic, allowing them to speak would oppose "freedom".

I'm arguing that the interests of the majority should prevail, subject to limitations imposed by the Bill of Rights. If the will of the people is not reflected in the outcome, then something is wrong. Freedom has been rendered inoperative. People may still have the right to speak, but they are speaking from within one of the new "Freedom Pens". Their messages are being channeled to oblivion. Your definition trivalizes freedom, because you treat pro forma "freedom" as real freedom.

. .

SB: > The half of the conversation which you have, you could have with a dog, saying "Fetch!", but only studying behaviour rather than asking questions when seeking send green star | flag as inappropriate
information. This is exactly how you "converse" with Zionists.

I converse with Zionists in the same way that I converse with any other ideologue, cultist, or fascist. I start with the realization that the ideologue is totally closed. Like the religious zealot, he has created a little air-tight self-justifying universe. Once I enter into that universe and start arguing on his terms, there is no escape. So I hold firm to my own experience, and then I apply the battering ram to his walls.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 5:01 pm
Calling people names like 'airhead' and 'Zionist' does not add to the conversation. It is childish. As soon as I see epithets like that in a post I stop reading- I'm sure many others feel the same. Lift your game guys if you want to be heard and/or taken seriously.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 5:33 pm
Censorship seems to be a one-way street here. I was just about to reply to Charles re his unfair, untrue and inaccurate accusation that my post described Palestinians as 'sub human' - NOT TRUE - it did nothing of the sort- it was totally dispassionate and objective- no side was favored- and his direct reference naming me 'disappeared' as I was composing a rebuttal. Hmmmm? ?

What's going on?

Thursday June 7, 2012, 7:33 pm
"My last comment was deleted. It contained no hyperlinks, no offensive language, no attacks on a person, race, religion or ethnicity.

I continued to question the basis of some of the opinions stated here. I used historical references which Pam had objected to as I think that we must learn from mistakes made in the past. "

Jim - that is how is works. If you post historical fact and actually provide support for what you are posting from credible, verifiable sources and you call others on their nonsense, you will be continually flagged continually and have your comments disappear. When you bring this to the attention to Care2 and challenge them on the arbitrary manner they apply their Code of Conduct, you will be suspended, as they do not like to be questioned whatsoever. In addition, if you continue to question their method of kicking people off who have posted nothing offensive for a very minor infraction in comparison to some of the nonsense which has been posted on Care2, you will be finally kicked off. That is how it works Jim. Historical recollection does not seem to be wanted on Care2.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 9:00 pm
Jim S. writes:

> http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0703a.asp

. .

What a terrific essay, Jim! I read both parts 1 and 2, then went on to read about the White Rose in wikipedia. I can certainly identify with these people, since they were anti-fascist and I am anti-fascist, though I doubt that I have one-tenth the courage that they had.

The essay does a superb job of putting us Americans in the place of the Germans. We see how hard it is to struggle against an evil but pervasive system. As Sophie Scholl said to Roland Freisler, the head judge, during the trial, "You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won't admit it?" Freisler then sentenced Scholl to death by beheading, Notice the parallel with Bradley Manning, today? -- the war is madness, but instead of stopping the war, the judges kill the messenger.

The FFF article addresses the support Hitler had from Britain. Historian John Toland writes that Hitler was admired even by Churchill:

> Churchill had once paid a grudging compliment to the Führer in a letter to the Times: “I have always said that I hoped if Great Britain were beaten in a war we should find a Hitler who would lead us back to our rightful place among nations.”

I'm convinced that the appeasement policies of the British Conservatives helped to build Hitler up in the eyes of the German people. Hitler did NOT have to resort to violence in the 'thirties. He got everything he wanted, just by asking for it. That must have impressed the German people.

Britain hoped for a war to the death between Germany and the U.S.S.R., with the British Empire then reaping the spoils. Hitler's virulent anti-communism led the British to expect such a war. I believe that the appeasers saw a kindred spirit in Hitler and abetted him intentionally, hoping he would attack eastwards. To me, that theory makes more sense than the claim that Chamberlain and the Conservatives naively believed in "Peace in Our Time".

The article tells us that the Germans thought that their 1939 aggression was a legitimate response to a Polish attack. The article mentions the false-flag terrorist operation at the Gleiwitz radio station -- where the "Polish Terrorists" were actually expendable German indigents dressed in Polish uniforms. But the German media had already paved the way, according to William L. Shirer in *The Rise And Fall of The Third Reich*:

Here are headlines from the German headlines from 1939:

"WARSAW THREATENS BOMBARDMENT OF DANZIG" -- Der Fuehrer, August 10, 1939

"POLISH SOLDIERS PUSH TO EDGE OF GERMAN BORDER!" -- Berliner Zeitung, August 26, 1939

"WHOLE OF POLAND IN WAR FEVER! 1,500,000 MEN MOBILIZED! UNINTERRUPTED TROOP TRANSPORT TOWARD THE FRONTIER!" -- Voelkischer Beobachter, August 27, 1939

. .

> Whereas all the rest of the world considers that the peace is about to be broken by Germany, that it is Germany that is threatening to attack Poland . . . here in Germany, in the world the local newspapers create, the very reverse is maintained . . . What the Nazi papers are proclaiming is this: that it is Poland which is disturbing the peace of Europe; Poland which is threatening Germany with armed invasion. . .

-- William L. Shirer, CBS correspondent, diary, August 10, 1939

. .

> You ask: But the German people can't possibly believe these lies? Then you talk to them. So many do.

-- William L. Shirer, *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich*

The parallel between then and now could hardly be more obvious!

I'm a fan of FFF (Future of Freedom Foundation). Thanks for recalling the story of the White Rose!

Thursday June 7, 2012, 9:32 pm
Phyllis B. writes:

> I was just about to reply to Charles re his unfair, untrue and inaccurate accusation that my post described Palestinians as 'sub human' - NOT TRUE - it did nothing of the sort- it was totally dispassionate and objective- no side was favored- and his direct reference naming me 'disappeared' as I was composing a rebuttal. Hmmmm? ?

Hello Phyllis. I checked and found your message still there, at "June 6, 2012, 6:37 pm". Then I found my response -- at "June 5, 2012, 8:45 pm"! So I replied to your message before you even posted it? What's wrong with that picture?! Hmmmmmmmmm? ?

In your post, you didn't use the word "subhuman" explicitly. But you recited a litany of false accusations that would lead an average person to conclude that Palestinians are the most evil people who ever lived. I used the word "subhuman" to as a summary for this litany. What word would you use to summarize your accusations? -- vile? degenerate? criminal? diabolical? satanic? monstrous? What word would you use to characterize Israel's victims?

You ask us to avoid using the word "Zionist". But "Zionist" is what the Zionists themselves use, when referring to themselves. Zionism is an ideology -- like Communism or Stalinism of fascism. It grew out of Theodor Herzl's 1895 manifesto, "The Jewish State". It's a 115-year-old POLITICAL movement that tries to masquerade as a 3,500-year-old mainstream religion.

We need to strip away that mask, so that we can distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. That's why we use two different words. One word -- "Jewish" -- refers to the ancient religion and culture. The other word, "Zionist", refers to the fascist political movement that grew out of Theodor Herzl's manifesto.

How do I know that the Zionist accusations are false? Because I've seen both sides. Like most Americans, I grew up believing in Israel. All of my information came from Leon Uris's *Exodus*. The country was "making the desert bloom". Then, in the mid-1980s, I gained access to first-hand information, and I found out that Israel's image is a blood-soaked lie.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 11:43 pm
Hi Charles,

"Without reading that person's mind, you can't know what form the censorship will take." This was pretty close to my point about the censorship. Your description was this:
"The majority of people on Care2 learn very quickly that the removal of comments is based on the number of flags rather than the content of the post. To abuse this in order to silence a voice contrary to their own beliefs is un-American, unconstitutional and certainly has nothing to do with democracy or liberty. "

You very clearly described the (effective) censors as people who abuse the reporting-process to silence those with whom they disagree. If they could put together enough flags to wipe Margaret's comments, why not yours? Your theory makes a prediction which contradicts observations. Something is wrong with it.

Like I said, outside powers could contribute to the conflict, but they could not foment it. The rebellion would exist with or without Western support. It just might have been smaller. I believe you are correct regarding the identities of the rebels, or at least the foreign fighters who side with them. On the other side, there are likewise foreign Shiites, members of Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard.

Can you point to a source about those war games? I suspect the WWIII-aspect was a parameter, not a prediction, of the war-game. Also, once again, Russia has every incentive to let Iran fall and drew its line elsewhere. Iran competes with Russia for oil-sales. In fact, if Russia could leave the entire Middle East in chaos, it would practically control Europe's oil-supply. Even with the idiocy of the EU, Europe remains a much bigger prize than Iran. Russia stands to gain massively from letting the U.S. bomb Iran. China now has an alternative oil-supply, the Albertan tar-sands. China has interests in Iran, but cannot project power sufficiently to do much in case of war. You've said it would cause WWIII repeatedly and gone into detail. You've been wrong repeatedly.

The people have formally expressed their will in the manner upon which they had previously agreed. This was the vote. You may believe their interests are not being served, but they expressed their disagreement with you in their selection of leaders at the primary stages of the election in 2008. Their will is reflected in the outcome. You have falsely equated two very different things in your explanation, the policies which you and those who agree with you believe to be in their best interests, and their will. This false equation, if you can convince the masses to make it too, is the core of fascism.

You should reread your last paragraph in your latest response to me: You begin by "realizing" that you cannot discuss matters on another person's terms so you just stick to your own experience and apply a battering ram. What exactly do you think that says about you? You have just confirmed your engagement in dehumanization. I regularly go and discuss things on other people's terms. Then I either learn something, demonstrate my point on their terms, demonstrate why their terms are inconsistent or otherwise flawed, or engage in some combination of the three. Your failure, though, goes well beyond an inability to operate on other people's terms: You never even bothered to find out what those terms are, let alone the reasoning used within them. You "realize" that others work with a paradigm with which you cannot operate ... without ever finding out what that paradigm is. You are the closed one. You have just confirmed that you are the dehumanizer here.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 11:48 pm
Hi again Charles,

You got everything from Exodus??? You have obviously not seen both sides.

Exodus is a novel. It is certainly one that applied research, but it is still a novel. Of course it wasn't accurate. You only saw one side, and you saw it in the 1980s. You really have zero "I know both sides of the story" cred.

Thursday June 7, 2012, 11:53 pm
To further Jim Steve's post, it's also well known that a number of early psychiatrists wrote influential books regarding eugenics and the purity of the German race which enabled and emboldened Hitler to carry out his holocaust. So while there are a lot of 'isms' that can be blamed for this and that, there are underlying causes to even them. Especially a field like psychiatry that dictates regarding thought and behavior control and uses drugs, shocks, imprisons etc.to control the common man. Szasz---"It is politics. It is not medicine. Psychiatry does not commit human rights abuse. It IS human rights abuse.
There are jewish psychiatrists and muslim psychiatrists.

Friday June 8, 2012, 7:05 am
Stephen B. writes:

> You got everything from Exodus??? You have obviously not seen both sides.

The book was my starting point -- i.e., I started with a favorable, romantic view of Israel. I've been getting the Zionist side ever side, through the U.S. media and the Hasbara aparatchiks on these forums. The Zionist side is the only side most Americans get.

I am one of the fortunate few who also got to see the situation from the side of the victims. Where Zionists see "Hate" as the Explanation for Everything -- e.g., "Everyone Everywhere Always Hates The Jews" -- I see the role of fascism, colonialism, narcissism, ideology, ethnic supremacy, corruption, geopolitics, betrayal and deceit. Where the Zionists project their own crimes onto their victims and blame their victims and dehumanize their victims, I see the victims as human beings and I wish I knew how to show the victimizers what they are missing.

Friday June 8, 2012, 8:00 am
Stephen B. writes:

> If they could put together enough flags to wipe Margaret's comments, why not yours? Your theory makes a prediction which contradicts observations.

Actually, my theory makes no prediction. The censor can target one person one day and another person the next. The only thing we really know is that some people are targeted repeatedly while others are not targeted at all. Whether this is due to censorship or software malfunction, the result is the same: Some contributors are persecuted and suppressed.

. .

> Like I said, outside powers could contribute to the conflict, but they could not foment it.

Your statement is unsupported. Incitement most often takes the form of communication, and the foreign powers certainly have the ability to communicate. When communication is not enough, they can use special forces to blow up a mosque or create a massacre.

. .

> Can you point to a source about those war games?

Google "war games Iran" and "war games Iran Russia". Here's the first article that appears:

> WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials. .... The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.

-- Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker, "U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran", *New York Times*, 19 Mar 2012

. .

Google "war games Iran Russia" and you find this article:

> Russia will block any further sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday, because it believes rising tensions could trigger a conflict that would destabilize the wider region. Last week Russian deputy prime minister and former ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned that any Western attack on Iran would constitute "a direct threat to [Russian] national security."

> The independent Moscow daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Monday that this year's annual military exercises in Russia's south, Kavkaz 2012, will be much larger than usual and organized around the premise of a war that begins with an attack on Iran but spreads to neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan, and draws Russia into a regional maelstrom. ....

> "Russia would consider any use of force against the territory of Iran unacceptable. That would make the situation even more critical.... Unfortunately, many [Western] government leaders are not restraining themselves and are speaking openly about a military strike against Iran," Mr. Gatilov added.

-- Fred Weir, "Why Russia is planning Iran war games", *Christian Science Monitor*, 17 Jan 2012

. .

> China now has an alternative oil-supply, the Albertan tar-sands.

Yes, but the Albertan tar sands are under U.S. domination, so the destruction of Iran would give the U.S. a stranglehold on China's oil supply. Since the U.S. is already targeting China, that's not a situation that China finds acceptable. The elimination of Iran would also cause oil prices to skyrocket.

. .

> You may believe their interests are not being served, but they expressed their disagreement with you in their selection of leaders at the primary stages of the election in 2008. Their will is reflected in the outcome.

Hardly. Here in America, most of us vote for the "Lesser Evil". That means that we are actually voting AGAINST the candidates put before us by the political Establishment. Referenda and polls show that the rulers are often at odds with the will of the people. The corporate media are used to "educate" -- i.e., indoctrinate -- the people, using fear of non-existent "Threats" to stampede people into accepting war and force the people into alignment with the rulers. That's not democracy: That's the opposite of democracy.

. .

> You begin by "realizing" that you cannot discuss matters on another person's terms so you just stick to your own experience and apply a battering ram. What exactly do you think that says about you?

It says that I oppose closedness and insularity. The battering ram does not dehumanize you: It opens you up, so that you can learn to appreciate the humanity that you have tried to wall off.

Friday June 8, 2012, 8:17 am
You notice how the Israel/Jew haters here (they're obvious) didn't condemn Janet Z/past member/John Duqesa's hate-filled 'filthy Jewish cockroaches' comment? Only proving what hateful bigots they truly are, though there are still a couple missing, but then who knows which ones of them lurk behind all the phony names and avatars?

Friday June 8, 2012, 9:18 am
Stephen B. "Like I said, outside powers could contribute to the conflict, but they could not foment it."

If a match is lit and gasoline is poured on it, is the person who lit the match the arsonist, or the person who poured the gasoline? Regardless of the intention, and while both may share responsibility for the fire, the real damage is caused by the gasoline. And it is even questionable who lit the match. There is evidence of agents provocateur.

Friday June 8, 2012, 9:58 am
Carola May.... I guess it didn't occur to you that some don't bother to reply to those that make contemptible statements? Best to ignore such. It often only encourages and gives recognition to those people.

Failure to respond doesn't make one a bigot. Agreeing would.

Drawing inferences about others and calling them "hateful bigots"? Based on your perceived "Israel/Jew haters"? Apparently simply because they disagree with others here? You paint with a broad brush Carola.

Criticism of the guilty party is fair play, your extending that to others IMO is attempting to marginalize and demonize those that disagree with your opinion.

Actually I shouldn't have responded to you either.

Friday June 8, 2012, 5:41 pm
Psychopaths in power

Friday June 8, 2012, 8:30 pm
Damn f*********g NAZI'S, where ever they are and as long as they exist!!....May Hitler's "spawn " follow his lead, in the last breath Hitler took.....It is 2012, WE are a "Global Society", that cares about LIFE and HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL, THAT ARE NOT TRYING TO DESTROY THAT!!...NAZIS = DEATH FOR SELF, IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION AND HATRED,(no brain-cells...!) WELL LOGICAL, LOVING PEOPLE...WE OUT NIMBER THE "NAZI SPEW!"...BUT WE MUST STAY INFORMED, AND CONNECTED AND COMMUNICATING!!!..AS TASUNKA SAID, "..NEVER AGAIN!!"...AND we are all of different beliefs and faiths, but THE ONE THING WE ALL AGREE ON , WE HATE EVIL=NAZI'S!....AND WE WILL FIGHT THEM AND WE WILL WIN!!

Saturday June 9, 2012, 5:03 am
Unfortunately there are always people who will blindly follow the most obscene and vilest propoganda. Like zombies they allow themselves to be indoctrinated with the hatred and evil that Naziism spawns. Evil is darkness and the absence of light means it will wither away. Just like some on this post who live to spout out bile- it is their life essence, so to speak.

Saturday June 9, 2012, 12:38 pm
Hi Charles,

No, you haven't been getting the Zionist side of things from the U.S. media ever since. For the most part, American news-agencies have little to none of the necessary understanding or context for their stories. No, you haven't been getting the Zionist side of things from posters here or elsewhere: It has certainly been posted, but your conviction that Zionists operate in a totally different world or paradigm has effectively kept you from listening. You read the words, but as your constant recycling of the same failed attempts at analysis indicates, they do not enter into your thought-process. You just keep going with that battering-ram you mentioned rather than listen and deal with things on their own terms.

Given your claims regarding the motive behind the censorship and statements regarding the nature of the people who would have those motives, your theory predicts a total and relentless campaign of censorship. As a major poster opposing those whom you claim to be behind the censorship, you would be targeted fairly often. that has not occurred.

The two articles you pointed out, from NYT and CSMonitor, do not actually say anything about a Russian response to an attack on Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/middleeast/united-states-war-game-sees-dire-results-of-an-israeli-attack-on-iran.html?pagewanted=all
The first says that the U.S. could be drawn into a fight between Israel and Iran, leaving hundreds of Americans dead. Hundreds of deaths, while certainly a problem, do not even count for academic purposes as a war, let alone the WWIII you keep talking about.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/0117/Why-Russia-is-planning-Iran-war-games/%28page%29/2
The second says Russia would draw the line, just like I said, between itself and Iran, and also supports my statement that it would benefit from destruction of Iranian infrastructure. It said that Russia intended to respond only to spillover into the Caucasus region, not to an attack on Iran itself.
The articles are there, but they do not support your claims.

No, the Albertan tar sands are under Canadian control. While Canada and the U.S. may be the world's two closest allies, there is a difference. Canada's current foreign policy is to get its economy as independent from that of the U.S. as possible by opening up trade with other regions. The U.S. objects, but that will not stop Canada from going ahead with trade. Besides, despite all the rivalry between the U.S. and China, their economies are intertwined and the U.S. makes for a much stabler trading-partner than Iran.

Democracy is not perfect, but what you described definitely is democratic. Yes, U.S. candidates tend to be very poor choices. Yes, the free press is more in it for sensationalism than truth because sensationalism sells. However, the choice not only between candidates but of candidates (in the primaries and before those) are the choices of the masses, and the masses choose to go for sensationalism over accuracy. That is a problem of culture, but not of democracy. The choices are far from perfect, but in the end they are those of the majority and they are accepted and effectively backed by the entire country once they are made. That is democracy.

To dehumanize people is not to change them, but to establish a view of people in which they lack attributes necessary for them to be considered people. Your "battering ram" does not encourage Zionists to stop dehumanizing people for a few reasons. First, in the vast majority of cases, Zionists do not dehumanize anyone to begin with so it is impossible to stop. Second, for people who do dehumanize, failure to engage them on their terms will do nothing but get you dehumanized as well. If a Zionist were to just keep telling you over and over that Israel is saintly and great, would that open you up to the possibility? I didn't think so. Now imagine this in reverse.

Hi Jim,
Are those rebels Syrians or U.S. forces? The "fire" is not from fuel put there by the U.S. The U.S. may have helped the rebels organize and may have even helped them to acquire arms (though I doubt the second after the current administration's experience with Fast & Furious), but just as responsibility for killing lies ultimately in the guys who go out and pull the triggers, the rebellion is ultimately Syrian. They chose to fight and were not taken by the hand and led to it by anyone else.

Sunday June 10, 2012, 1:25 am
why would the iranian government do anything? nazism is wooly in harmony with their belief system as well as their style of government.

Sunday June 10, 2012, 10:12 am
Hi Charles,

There are a few problems with your analysis above:
First, Israel was definitely not the aggressor in most of those wars. It engaged in them defensively, similarly to how Iran engaged defensively in its declared conventional wars. The Iranian government engages in international war against both non-Islamic governments in the region (Lebanon, which by law has a Christian holding top office, and Israel) by proxy and violent repression of mass-protests. It also has an active rebel group.

Second, the Israeli military budget tends to be severely overstated because the country runs a lot of social programs, including some for health care, through its armed forces.

Third, how do you define "weapons held"? There aren't 15,000,000 in Israel to hold weapons. Are you including expendable munitions? If so, which ones?

Fourth, the IAEA recently got access to the explosives-testing site that they wanted to visit for a long time. Between getting that permission and going, a building next door was demolished and the soil around it was replaced. That's certainly not damning, but it doesn't exactly support the idea of a good-faith call for a nuclear-free Middle East either, nor does it support the idea that the permisssion for inspections is granted in good faith either.

Fifth, while this is technically not a problem with your analysis, it does not seem to support your point: Israel has violated lots of U.N. resolutions. Given what comes out of the U.N., I count that as a point in its favour.

Sixth, regarding the Geneva Conventions, Israel does not violate them. It violates the 1st Additional Protocol, a monstrous document which it never signed. (Article 51, paragraph 6 forbids the enforcement of the 4th Geneva Convention in general. Article 20 eliminates the prohibition against abuse of "protected" symbols for medical centers and vehicles, thus eliminating their protection. Article 1 paragraph 4 was designed to set specifically Palestinian militias above the laws of war, given U.N. resolutions of the time. A large part of the document is committed to dragging neutral parties into wars and legitimizing direct military intervention in support of rebels. I hear there are other problems. I only skimmed it.) I hope to see it start violating the 3rd additional protocol as well. That should save a whole lot of lives next time it goes into Gaza. (Three guesses whether establishing control over territory by siege or by storm normally gets more people killed in modern warfare Three guesses which one is forbidden under that additional protocol.) I'm quite happy to see those additional protocols thoroughly violated. The second additional protocol seems mostly harmless, though there may be issues with that as well.

I should probably also point out that a lot of Zionists examine Israel most carefully, and are displeased with issues of corruption, poor regulation, and other stuff that arises when the only issue for every election is "how do we deal with the neighbors", and not even the economy. You really have no idea what you are talking about.

Sunday June 10, 2012, 1:03 pm
Brian:

"A large part of the document is committed to dragging neutral parties into wars and legitimizing direct military intervention in support of rebels.' .......Gee, that's exactly what the USA is doing.

"The "fire" is not from fuel put there by the U.S. The U.S. may have helped the rebels organize and may have even helped them to acquire arms "

The fuel is hatred, but the incendiary is being provided by the USA to the rebels as money and media propaganda and yes weapons.

Fast and furious didn't stop the government from supplying arms to the Libyan rebels.

Sunday June 10, 2012, 1:19 pm
There a profound difference here between the two sides (pro intervention and anti intervention) on this issue. One side wishes to impose it's agenda to intervene. . The other side is resisting. There is clearly an initiation of force here as one side is imposing it's will using government as an agent to force others to pay.

In addition, while one side points out the failures of the interventionist policies, the other side is unable to show any real success. Even when using their own criteria.

Disingenuously, the "will of the majority" argument is invoked is invoked and when the majority has abandoned supporting the policy, Then it becomes "we can't stop now", or "we broke it, so we have to stay and fix it" or whatever. So the "will of the majority" somehow becomes irrelevant.

Not that I agree with with the "will of the majority" argument anyway. Madison in the 'Federalist Papers" thought that "democracy" was a real bad idea because the majority was too easy to manipulate. If he had knowm about the use of "Propaganda " a la Bernays and Lippmann, he probably would have been more vocal in his dismissal of "democracy" as "mob rule".

BTW, the sediments about "democracy" were shared by the rest of the founders, which is why the word is not in the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution. The Republic was set up with checks and balances to prevent the abuses and infringements of human rights by any group, including a majority. Democratic institutions should be recognized for what they are: another check on the power of government. In theory anyway. As I said, Madison and the rest of the founders didn't anticipate the effect of propaganda and the media on the population. In fact, the Nazi's picked up a lot of the techniques and ideas form the USA;: the Wilson administration and FDR. Including eugenics which was a progressive idea given legitimacy .by such as Oliver Wendell Holmes (SCOTUS).

As Americans, we should all understand that the idea of property was very important to the founders. It goes hand in hand with the role of government and it's limitations. Defense was considered to be a necessary function of government. For good reason. Having an invader come and take your property was obviously a attack on your fundamental rights. So, the Federal government was empowered to defend the nation.

Likewise, taking other peoples property (as in money and taxes) without it DIRECTLY being used to protect a persons rights or falling within the strictly limited enumerated Powers is essentially theft. Theft is force. Regardless of"the "majority". Preemptive wars and foreign aid are examples of this. Regardless of the rationals used.

Those that advocate intervention in the internal affairs of other nations that pose no imminent threat to this nation are stealing from other Americans that do not agree. Ditto with any foreign aid.

If some here wish to use their own money to support the causes of another nation, have at it. If you wish to force me to pay for your agenda, you are stealing from me and others that disagree.

Sunday June 10, 2012, 4:00 pm
Hi Jim,

The U.S. government, if I recall correctly, was pretty open and thoroughly overt about assisting the Libyan rebels. The danger of bringing up Fast & Furious right before the election only applies during the campaign and if the supply is not publicly declared and supported.

The U.S. definitely does support rebels in multiple cases. Sometimes it can be justified, and sometimes not. the reason I consider it wrong in the 1st Additional Protocols is that they demand that it always be done and that it always involve large-scale deployment of ground-forces. The fact is that nobody outside of the rebels and suppliers, and probably not even any individual among them (given their lack of unity), knows exactly how the Syrian rebels are being supplied. However, we can see that the people pulling shooting and dying are not U.S. forces.

Honestly, in my own ruthless way, I kinda hope that the U.S. is heavily assisting the rebels so if they start to win, it can scale back that assistance to keep the war long and bloody. If it can be made to suck in Assad's allies and those of the rebels from all over the region, get them killed, and keep doing that, I generally have little problem with the prospect. It would suck a lot for the civilians caught in the middle, who I believe are mostly at least half-decent people upon whom I would normally wish no harm, but in the long-run getting those forces out of the way even temporarily could be made to do a whole lot of good. Drawing Hezbollah's forces out of Lebanon and getting them stuck or dead in Syria would allow a repeat of the 2007 move against it, but without Hezbollah being able to threaten a coup to protect its independence from the government. With Syria tied up as well, I could see that leading to peace between Lebanon and Israel, as well as a great deal of stability within Lebanon (which I otherwise expect to have another civil war in a few years). If the Revolutionary Guard can be pulled into Syria much more that it has been, that could leave the way open for a bloodless, or near-bloodless, coup in Iran, both preventing the bloody revolution that I expect there otherwise and diffusing the nuclear tensions without foreign attacks. If Syrians come out hating both groups of would-be theocrats, that could weaken the dangerous element within the country. Unfortunately, I don't see Obama goading Iran, questioning why its allies side with it if it cannot protect one when it is threatened. I expect the U.S. to keep aiding the rebels without even taking a shot at the full potential benefits of the conflict.

Also, I'm fairly confident that people at the time of the U.S. founding knew about the dangers of propaganda. It has a very, very long history in Western culture: The Aeneid was intended as a propaganda-piece to tie the then-current Caesar to the gods (by bloodline) to legitimize his rule and prevent rebellion.

Sunday June 10, 2012, 5:12 pm
The idea that the founders could have envisioned the effects of the media and Propaganda as shown in Bernays; "Propaganda" or Lippmann's: "Public Opinion ", Wilson's Creel Commission and Committee on Public Information lack merit. Note that Lippmann described his and Bernays concepts as being applied to a Industrial society. England was only a few decades into the Industrial revolution.

Yes Brian, I understand that you favor manipulation of the political and military events in the region using US as a tool to further the interests of Israel. Essentially a Neo-Conservative agenda. And you have no problem imposing that agenda on the rest of us. I cannot stop you. But you might want to think about what happens when the wheel turns.

Your above comment is a good example of a dangerous conceit. It is also full of twisted logic that I believe will end with a sub optimal result for both the USA and Israel. Examples of the failure of the US policy on Iraq and other countries are obvious. That country is now a unofficial ally of Iran. Libya is now reportedly open to terrorist training camps. Egypt is increasingly influenced by the Muslim brotherhood. US client states are increasingly unstable. It's falling apart Brian. Suggest changing course before it is too late.

What you and others see as being "anti Israel" or "anti Jewish" in most cases is not that. It is a growing resentment of US foreign policy being so heavily influenced by those that see the interests of Israel as being paramount over the interests of this country. IMO, this is a grave mistake. For all of us.

Monday June 11, 2012, 10:02 am
Hi Jim,

Yes, the behaviour which I consider to be in the U.S.'s best interests would also serve Israeli interests. The fact is that the two are fairly closely aligned. When the off-shore natural gas production, just off the coast of Israel and Lebanon, rises, do you want energy-prices to get volatile if Israel and Lebanon get into a fight? The U.S. benefits from peace over there. Have you checked Iranian attitudes towards the U.S. lately, from the masses and from the regime? The U.S. would benefit from regime-change there as well. Diffusing nuclear tensions without a U.S. invasion of Iran would work in everyone's interests (except Russia's). How about getting a whole lot of would-be al-Qaeda recruits killed? Do you think that would not serve U.S. interests? I promote U.S. action to serve its own interests. Yes, that will also serve the interests of its allies including both Israel and the Saudi government, but that is not a problem. Frankly, I believe the course of action I advocate would also serve Lebanese interests and those of the Iranian masses, not to mentioned those of Palestinians living in Lebanon. Aside from the Russians and the Syrian civilians caught in the middle, this would be a massive win-win, and on a regional scale it would do more good than harm. Do you have a problem with win-wins if Israel gets included?

Hi Charles,
"Every aggressor tells itself that it is not the aggressor." Yes, that is generally correct ... in regions where aggression is frowned upon by the local cultures. If you look at the rhetoric before Israel's wars, in most cases you will find Arabs saying very clearly that they intended aggression.

Wars by proxy are not conventional wars, but they are wars nonetheless. Here is a direct death-toll from the protests: http://www.aina.org/news/20090621034515.htm
It came from a protest-group, but it is still probably an underestimate as there were enormous numbers of arrests made and Iran has the world's highest acknowledged rate of capital punishment.

The budget can easily be overstated by a factor of two. The purchasing-power parity GDP per capita of Israel is over double that of Iran. salaries would be much, much higher. Social services for most of the country are included. That may not account for a full factor of 20, but it would go a fair way in that direction.

I looked for weapons held under NationMaster under both "military" and "crime". I couldn't find it. Where on the site did you get the number?

Monday June 11, 2012, 12:28 pm
Brian....."Yes, the behaviour which I consider to be in the U.S.'s best interests would also serve Israeli interests. The fact is that the two are fairly closely aligned"

Again, the Neo- Conservative .agenda/conceit and Israel-is-the-same-as-US-interests. The rest of your post is, pretty much, rationalization. .What hubris. You might want to re read what I have written. Neo-Conservatives and their progressive brethren and interventionist collaborators are bringing this country down. And, as I have stated earlier, you are stealing from me and others to support your agenda.

You and the Neo-Cons are overplaying your hand Brian. A huge mistake,

Monday June 11, 2012, 6:02 pm
Hi Jim,

First, I should probably point out that I am not a U.S. citizen. I pay taxes here, but do not get a vote. I am not stealing from you. Can you actually find a flaw in my argument, or will you just keep repeating yourself and pretending that somehow makes you right?

Hi Charles,

The Iranian masses hold a much more favorable view of the U.S. than does their government. In case you hadn't noticed, the Ayatollah and Council of Guardians vets all potential election-candidates, and reject even incumbents who do not meet its criteria (which demand the maintenance of the religious state). This is not democracy. Also, the method by which I advocate encouraging regime-change does not include U.S. bombs falling on Iran. It involves only drawing the executive force (Revolutionary Guard), which is currently positioned to nip any military coup in the bud, out of the country to leave the way open for another Iranian revolution As for whether the U.S. would benefit, it just seems to me that the Iranian masses, who are generally decent people, would be nicer than the regime that coined the term "Great American Satan".

What protected the U.S. was the fact that it was a relatively minor player in the region at the time. Look at Arabs' views of the British and the French before 1947. When the U.S. rose to prominence and replaced them in holding interests in the region, things changed. Yes, support for Israel did not play well with Islamic Arabs. On the other hand, Israel was not even mentioned in al-Qaeda's original mission-statement, to force the removal of American forces from Saudi Arabia (where they were deployed upon request from the Saudi royal family to deter any attack from Saddam). I guess one of the big differences between us is that after looking at the anti-Western militias' recruitment-calls and seeing that Israel does not dominate them all, and that where it does dominate, playing word-replacement with the U.S. produces rhetoric used elsewhere, I am convinced that the U.S. would be attacked with or without Zionism and that Israel acts as a decoy (as used in the "flypaper" strategy), taking a lot of heat off the U.S. I doubt that I will ever be able to convince you of that, nor that you will really look at those recruitment-calls and rhetoric with a fresh eye.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 2:26 am
Off-topic. What is the general opinion of the Dome of the Rock? Yeah I know, like many want to deny the Holocaust, many also want to deny the existence of a Jewish temple. People don't understand. This is exactly the type of "Zionist" that I am. The Jews have every right, from a humanely point of view, to re-claim the Temple Mount; the Muslims already have Mecca and Medina and Alexandria and Cairo and Tehran and everything else in the Middle East,, but obviously them and the rest of the world is not satisfied until there is a complete extermination of Jews and Israel. I do not condone killing or exile, but it is only right that the Jews be restored what was once rightfully theirs. Just because Muslims invaded Jerusalem and built a mosquee on top of where the original Jewish Temple once stood, you think they have an indigenous right to it? Eat crow, Noam Chomskky

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 6:14 am
Brian, I repeated because you don't get the underlying point. Those that advocate the use of taxpayer money and the use of force on nations that do not pose a threat to US are taking property from those that do not agree. This is not "defense". We are not attacked.

The US constitution is a limitation on government. Any expansion on the enumerated powers is an infringement on the rights of the people. Taking property from Americans to support an agenda of force overseas is theft. . It isn't authorized by our legal system.

Those Americans OR foreign nationals that take foreign aid are taking it from me and others that do not agree that the government has that right. This is especially odious if the receiving nation launders the foreign aid and returns it to the US to influence our political process. As this undermines the rule of law under the US Constitution it is essentially a act of subversion. It can also be viewed as a act by a hostile nation. It certainly is viewed that way by the dissidents of those countries that are current US allies when US money is used to distort their political process and their government.

Your rational of there being energy sources at stake is meaningless. If a corporation wishes to secure those resources in some way, that is their own affair, As long as taxpayer money is not used.

Your claim that the the interventions and such are somehow helping balance the region lacks merit. Likewise that the constant threats and active interference as per Iran are serving to dissuade that nation from developing nuclear weapons is ridiculous It makes them more likely to try. Although there is no evidence that a active weapons program exists. Verbose and actively hostile actions are allowing those in power in Iran to remain so. A common threat is often used to manipulate the people of a nation.

Sorry you don't understand this Brian. Based on what you have previously written, I'm not surprised. We Americans are going down the path of empires. We have reached the point of diminishing marginal returns. We Americans can continue to accept the failing attempts at world hegemony, or not.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 6:19 am
What really puzzles me is why so many people of Jewish backgrounds have accepted and embraced a ideology that is clearly related to National Socialism .

It is really disturbing.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 9:18 am
"Killing is EXACTLY what you advocate, Esteban, when you call for rolling the Middle East back about 3,000 years. Your desire to restore a long-dead past is one of the characteristics of fascism" -
Have it your way Charles. You always monopolize on articles/comment boards - I'm not going to stop you and your hilarious Zionist conspiracy theories. Did someone say somewhere that people get paid $2,000 to spread Zionist propaganda on Facebook? You think I work for Mossad? You think? Tell me where I can redeem this cash, please.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 9:28 am
You tell me what I do and do not advocate - like you know. Take a hike. Take it up with Michael Moore

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 9:31 am
your posts are delusional and characteristic of a paranoid schizo. They were funny at first but now they're just tedious, monotonous, boring, and just plain crazy. That's why many peoplee just don't read your ramblings anymore.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 9:40 am
a year from now, there will be over 1,000 comments on this article, still coming from one person who just loves to re-read what he writes and think of himself as victorious because he's the only one commenting on it. I have better things to do, like condoning murder and getting money for it and being a spy

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 9:44 am
Charles: "Indeed it is. But one might just as well ask why so many Germans were seduced by the same fatal ideology in the 1930s. "

Yes, that's the point. The slaughter of millions of Jews by the collectivist and authoritarian psychopaths of the Third Reich should have eliminated any association with those that advocate a similar ideology. Instead the opposite seems to have occurred for many.

Not to say that some of the most knowledge and articulate champions of the rule of law liberty and human rights happen to be Jewish. But is it possible, even likely that the Jews as a people have been psychologically or psychically damaged by the millenniums of persecution?

Given the disproportionate positive contributions made by Jews to the world, it would be distressing to see some of them succumb to the evil s we are seeing.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 10:06 am
"Killing is EXACTLY what you advocate, Esteban" - dude, you are so "out there." P.S. I am a carnivore. Watch out!

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 12:49 pm
Looks like Charles' comment got removed. Wow. I DID NOT flag it. So here, I will post exactly what he wrote from my email notice so he won't whine.
"Esteban D writes: > obviously them and the rest of the world is not satisfied until there is a complete extermination of Jews and Israel. I do not condone killing or exile, but it is only right that the Jews be restored what was once rightfully theirs . . Killing is EXACTLY what you advocate, Esteban, when you call for rolling the Middle East back about 3,000 years. Your desire to restore a long-dead past is one of the characteristics of fascism -- a disregard for the present and the glorification of an ancient tribal "Golden Age". Why should people living in the present sacrifice everything to satisfy somebody's desire to revive a genocidal Old Testament tribe? It seems like Zionists will use any excuse they can find, however inane, to satisfy their insatiable lust for war. That lust for death and destruction explains WHY the world has turned against these madmen. I have no quarrel with Jews. My quarrel is with Zionists -- Jewish FASCISTS. I do not want them exterminated: I want them brought to justice, so that the slaughter in the Middle East can end and we can return to the time when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in Palestine in peace."

There now. Must have been the Zionist censors, or the Zionists who run Care2. It's time for you to go to the doctor. Please discuss with your doctor everything that you have said here, the whole plot, the whole scheme. Just do your research well, make sure the doctor you go to isn't Jewish or in any way affiliated with Zionism/Israel. And you'll be a lot safer if you make sure he doesn't use equipment or medicine invented by Israelis. Because, you do know, they've been working on this chemical for years, when they give it to you, you will become a Zionist-zombie. Did you see that camera-toting bird at your window this morning? Beware!
Furthermore, say what you want, ramble on all you want, but please leave my name out of it. I know where I am and I know where you are and there is no reason for you to discuss anything with me or towards me. I ask you nicely, keep my name out of your posts, please.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 3:56 pm
Estaban, I think you are being overly harsh or dramatic about Charles. He is very passionate, but I think his heart is in the right place, He, like many of us, are appalled by the deaths of so many. We also see this as having no purpose and continuing the cycle of violence.

We are struck by the serpent. Our veins run with venom,.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 6:37 pm
Jim, it's just all this nonstop censorship fuss, I get accused, friends of mine get accused, I get accused of a lot of things, as many more people here are doing, circular arguments, double-standards, hypocrisy. I mean give me a break. I don't comment a whole lot because of just how nasty people can be and twisting my words and my ethics. But when I do see outrageous comments, accusations, nastiness, oxymorons, or just blatant hypocrisy, I will often call it out. When I am told I condone murder when I have clearly stated that I do not condone violence, I feel pretty offended. My stance on the issue is quite clear. I don't feel there is a need to elaborate or explain it any further. I get tired of having to repeat quotes, copy and paste, analyzing every word, take in context, take out, whatever. It is exhausting to have to constantly defend your own quotes against others' twists. It's crap. OK Jim, I, I can drop it now. I will shut up then.

Tuesday June 12, 2012, 9:15 pm
Hi Jim,

I do see what you are talking about. You just seem to have missed the point when I explained why you are wrong.

There will never be consensus on a course of action in a country of hundreds of millions of people. Some say that the bailouts constitute theft while others say the same of some welfare-programs. Others say that socialized medical coverage of abortion is theft so long as there is significant opposition to it. Still others call the funding of the U.S. armed forces theft because they don't see a use in maintaining anything beyond the necessary forces to address conventional attacks on the U.S. mainland. then there are those who consider tax breaks to the rich effectively theft and yet more who call the funding of every single program of which they do not approve theft. The effective functioning of a democracy depends upon each side's willingness to pay their taxes and abide by the law even if they do not agree with policies put in place by their opponents, and then maintenance of of stability of policy when they rise to power. The criterion for justifying an expense put in place by your political opponents hen cannot be whether or not you happen to agree with it. Otherwise the whole system breaks down.

Of course, there must be some criteria. The big one I use is whether a reasonable argument can be made that the policy serves the interest of the country a a unit. I don't have to agree that it is worth the cost, but if I cannot disprove the argument or demonstrate its absurdity, I don't call it theft. Here are three such arguments for the support of Israel:

First, it is a very useful trading-partner. A lot of technology comes out of there. I laugh at all the online anti-Israel BDS-campaigns because if they use modern computers, they use Israeli products. An Israeli company originally developed the temperature-independent semiconductor, which is necessary for all modern computers. The new cleaner hydro-fracking process, the huge number of medical advances, the low-pressure irrigation, the original instant-messaging software, etc. would probably mostly be here anyways, but they would be slower to arise without Israel. the U.S. takes advantage of a lot of Israeli products.

Second, have you heard of the "flypaper strategy"? The idea is to protect the country by presenting battlegrounds which anti-Western forces can more easily access away from U.S. soil. This was a major (though at least theoretically secondary) goal of both the occupation in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. As much as the West paid for those wars, anti-Western forces paid a much higher price, at least in blood. Now look at costs of those wars. Wouldn't it make more sense to support an ally that naturally acts as flypaper, but does not require direct U.S. deployment? Look at the costs: Would you prefer to pay $3 billion (minus the Israeli government's budget for supporting settlements) to U.S. arms-manufacturers per year, or the annual cost of the war in Iraq? Something tells me Israel is very, very cost-effective flypaper for the U.S.

Third, like I mentioned before, the U.S. and Israel have shared enemies, and not entirely as a result of their alliance. The guys yelling "Death to America" really don't like the U.S., with or without its support for Israel. Independently of both other reasons, Israel falls fully into the "enemy of my enemy" category. That doesn't make it a friend (shared culture does that) but it does imply that the support may reasonably be considered to be in U.S. national interests.

Hi Charles,

Can you define fascism? I have noticed that a lot of people seem to use the word very differently.

Regarding your question to Esteban, I should probably point out that there was a plan to do things peacefully. Then war broke out. We could discuss all day about who is to blame. Your definition of Zionists as "invaders" tells me you define them to be the aggressors, regardless of the facts of the case, and therefore no discussion of the facts could ever change your conclusion. Basing my analysis on the facts of the case, I come to the opposite conclusion. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one. However, the fact remains that this was how people planned to move large numbers of others without killing anybody. Why should they have gone along with it before and why should they roll over now? This is how wars are avoided, or end. The weaker side goes along with the demands of the stronger or strikes a compromise acceptable to both. Might doesn't make right, but going along with might makes healthy. I don't actually expect that to actually happen any time soon, but that does not mean I cannot reasonably demand it.

Wednesday June 13, 2012, 6:03 am
".....Of course, there must be some criteria. The big one I use is whether a reasonable argument can be made that the policy serves the interest of the country a a unit.IMO, "

No, you still don't get the point Brian. You argue that the limits on the State are decided by a majority of the people. Disingenuous as when the majority disagrees, then your side comes up with another rational. Regardless, my view is that the State is not allowed to exceed the limits placed upon it regardless of a majority or consensus or coalition.

The Powers vested in the government of the US are not elastic. They are not subject to a whim or more persuasive argument. This is true both with foreign policy and domestic affairs. Going down this road has led to the destruction of the American Republic. It weakens the nation morally, financially and has done grave damage to the legitimacy of the government. All this is, and will have grave consequences.

Your version of strategy and tactics are also deeply flawed and have failed. An example is your concept of the "flypaper". tactic. This has been proven to be useless in many conflicts. It neglects both regeneration and cause and effect. The idea that the regeneration of opponents will not exceed those neutralized in a conflict is false. But the effect of INCREASING recruitment is valid. There is a cycle. Future opponents are being created in the children. Obviously.

Suggest you read some of the non politically compromised military theorists and historians on this subject. Neo-Conservative doctrine and overall ideology is both failing and destructive to the USA, Israel and the world.





I have pointed this out a number of times.

Wednesday June 13, 2012, 3:01 pm
Hi Jim,

It's not that the limits on the State are determined by a majority of the people. The policies, within the legal limits which have previously been determined, however, are. That is democracy.

Your argument that military assistance to a trading-partner/military ally (in relatively low-intensity conflict, but still) goes constitutes overreach is new here. That I did not see before. However, if one considers the second and third reasons I mentioned recently, Israeli forces are treated as effective auxiliaries to U.S. forces (non-U.S. forces serving U.S. interests) in a standing conflict. In that case, Article 2, Section 2 , Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution empowers the president, as CiC, to direct funds from the U.S. military to assist in arming auxiliary forces. If one considers the first reason I mentioned, Clause 2 of the same section applies, assuming a formal treaty of assistance is approved by senate.

Regarding the flypaper strategy, the idea that an enemy will lose more than it recruits over the long-term is obviously false. If it doesn't have the people, it can't send them to die. However, that is not exactly the point of the strategy: It is not a matter of killing them all, but of redirecting their attacks away from U.S. soil. Yes, it adds to total enemy recruitment, but less than it adds to enemy losses, and, more importantly, much less than it adds to deployment to the flypaper-theater of operations.

Unfortunately, without seeing the inner workings of militias, nobody can really get hard numbers on this. However, whether or not the argument is convincing is not the point. What matters is whether or not it is reasonable. Can you point to some non-politically biased military theorists? I know one who consistently backs up his stuff with verifiable facts and figures, and in whose arguments I have never been able to find a flaw, but I strongly doubt you would ever consider him unbiased. (He scares most neo-cons.)

Wednesday June 13, 2012, 9:27 pm
The USA is not a Democracy Brian. It is a Constitutional Republic. Sadly, people have forgotten. It is one of the major reasons that the USA is in decline.

And no: Article 2 Section 2 of the US Constitution reads: " The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

There is no authority here to arm foreign nationals, or to pay them . Exceptions would require a legal treaty, giving such status which doesn't exist. The idea that Israeli forces are "."auxiliaries" of the US armed forces is ludicrous. Among other things, that would require them to be under US command. I also checked the Federalist Papers and the authority isn't mentioned there either. That means that Madison, Hamilton and Jay didn't intend a distortion such as you suggest. When I see things like this, a red flag goes up. Those that believe or rationalize such are essentially subversives.

The "flypaper" concept was used in Viet Nam. Both in individual battles as a tactic and as a strategy. It didn't work at Khe Sang as a tactic, and it didn't work in Viet Nam as a strategy either. It didn't work earlier for the French at Dein Bien Phu. There are many other historical examples.

The idea the perpetual war in the Middle East is keeping the war away from the US is also absurd. It is self serving and unprovable.

Unbiased military strategists? Off the top of my head, Col. Douglas MacGregor would probably be the best , also General Paul Van Ripper, Also Col Andrew Bacevich. All are retired, The best US commanders do not make it past colonel That requires political connections, and the Neo- Conservatives control the process.

Regardless, Brian. The USA is being hurt by this effort. Those that make lame claims that somehow it is to the USA's advantage to fight endless wars that are sapping this nation are no friends to this nation. IMO, your loyalty is not with the USA, and an increasing number of Americans are agreeing.

Thursday June 14, 2012, 9:09 am
Hi Jim,

As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, he can order large-scale projects of those armed forces. That includes the arming of auxiliary forces and assistance to allies in any conflict.

No, auxiliaries do not have to be under the formal command of the U.S. They just have to be allied.

The proxy-war strategy of the Cold War, using much of the rest of the world as "flypaper", actually seems to have worked quite well. The U.S. just lost the one in Vietnam. The Soviets lost the one in Afghanistan. It allowed the U.S. and Soviets to have their wars without the escalation of direct strikes upon each other. Their proxy-wars in the Middle East did the same, as did their stuff in Central America and the conflict over Cuba (though that one got more than a little scary). You're right: There are lots of historical examples. However, when looking at any one of them, you have to look at the whole conflict for which it was used, not just individual external battlegrounds, to see the strategy as a whole and judge its success or failure.

You keep calling stuff "absurd" without actually explaining why they are so. Also, like I said before, the point does not have to be proved to the satisfaction of its opponents. Your "Your assumptions don't match my assumptions so you hate the U.S." BS wore thin a long time ago. To prove something unreasonable, you have to demonstrate that the assumptions under which all arguments for it are made are self-contradictory, contradict facts, or do not logically prescribe the policy. You have so far failed to show any way in which it is unreasonable.

It is not my opinion, nor that of just about anyone else I've ever met that the U.S. gains by getting caught in endless wars. However, anyone who looks closely at relations between other countries can see that the wars are inevitable. ind me a major player in any region of the world that does not make violent enemies. As long as the U.S. is powerful and has interests everywhere, it will be major player everywhere. There will be violent conflict, and there will be threats to its interests. Of course, the U.S. does engage in war beyond its immediate interests: Are you saying it should not have sent anyone to Bosnia and Rwanda, and should not have protected Kurds after the Gulf War? I totally understand that it may not be in the U.S.' best interests to ever uphold its obligations in the Convention on genocide, but frankly I'm not about to support abandoning it like you seem to do.

Read my last paragraph from June 7, XX:43 (hour depends on your timezone) and the one starting with "What protected the U.S." Regarding your last paragraph (at least), read the last one from my first post here.

Hi Charles,

I don't really care about your assumptions regarding what is moral. I am deliberately avoiding issues of morality in my discussion with Jim because I know that we believe opposite courses of action to be moral, and direct "You're bad. I'm good. Nyanyanyanyanya!" childish BS lie yours gets nowhere.

Collier's encyclopedia gave the conclusions of a school of fascist philosophy and the behaviour of a particular regime. It did not go into the underlying definitive aspects of fascism. Fascism is the support of a non-democratic authority which claims legitimacy from the strength which it grants its constituents by uniting them. (It is important to note here that "constituents" and "subjects" are not the same thing when there are multiple classes of citizens or some of those under its rule are not citizens.) Because the unity among constituents must be voluntary, they must at least believe that they freely give unconditional support to the leader. Loyalty to the leader must trump loyalty to ideals. The usual method by which this is done is to have society deem those who do not support the leader to be coerced, deceived, insane, or otherwise not effectively free, or traitors.

Yes, this leads to media-control because the leaders depend upon controlling the attitudes of the people. Yes, to unite people one generally has to unite them against something or some other group, often other subjects of the same leaders. Yes, culturally-driven unity generally demands practically ritualistic unity, vastly limiting individual freedoms. Yes, authoritarian regimes in general have little reason to value individual lives. What you need to watch, though, is not the end-result. You need to keep your eye on which road leads there.

The difference between this and classic dictatorship is that the source of legitimacy is the unity rather than the might of supporters (allowing for a much broader base of support). The difference between fascism and democracy is that there is no effective process by which the constituents could potentially change leaders for reasons of principle. Your attempt to convince people "They're only free if they do what I like" and "The other guys hate everyone else and only look out for themselves" together exactly match the mechanism by which fascism arises (which I described two paragraphs up).

Thursday June 14, 2012, 10:17 am
Stephen B. writes:

> The proxy-war strategy of the Cold War, using much of the rest of the world as "flypaper", actually seems to have worked quite well.

According to whom? Not according to the 23 million people who were killed as a result of all of these needless proxy wars.

And look at what this half century of pointless war-making has done to America!

* It has cost us several hundred thousand American lives
* It has transformed a small government into a totalitarian monster
* It has cost us much of our freedom
* It has cost us our reputation and our opportunity to do good in the world

If this is working quite well, I'd hate to see working badly!

Your wars do not come free, Stephen! There's no such thing as a free war.

With each new war, you dig yourself deeper into the hole.

Thursday June 14, 2012, 10:40 am
Stephen B writes:

> I don't really care about your assumptions regarding what is moral. I am deliberately avoiding issues of morality in my discussion with Jim because I know that we believe opposite courses of action to be moral, and direct "You're bad. I'm good. Nyanyanyanyanya!" childish BS lie yours gets nowhere.

Not assumptions: convictions. I believe that murder is wrong, deceit is wrong, theft is wrong, war is wrong, violence is wrong. You are right when you say that "we believe opposite courses of action to be moral". This is what I mean when I write that fascism inverts the moral order -- so that war is regarded as glorious and peace despicable. We start the discussion with morality, because morality is fundamental. If the discussion then "goes nowhere", so be it.

I don't find your erudite definition of "fascism" helpful. Your definition doesn't help us to prevent a world war.

I look at the countries that caused WW II and I ask what features they had in common. I find ethnic supremacy, war worship, dehumanization, extreme ruthlessness, contempt for the rule of law, etc... We see the same features in Israel today. Shouldn't that concern us?

Friday June 15, 2012, 5:11 pm
Hi Charles,

No, I imagine the roughly 15 million (using upper estimates) people caught in those battlegrounds were quite a bit less than pleased with the Cold War great powers' proxy-wars coming down on them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
They are not the ones the strategy is meant to protect. It was meant to protect civilians of the great powers. It is not the duty of the U.S. government to be heroic. It is the duty of the U.S. government to serve the U.S. Besides, without those wars acting as a pressure valve for the Cold War, do you think nuclear escalation would have been less likely? How many would have died had the nukes started flying?

Now, regarding the costs which you listed. I would really like to see some sources on that. I just checked, and it looks like roughly 100,000 died, not your "several hundred thousand". I don't think the wars were what turned the government big. Yes, the U.S. department of defense is enormous, but it is very unintrusive in U.S. citizens' daily lives. As for freedom, it is usually not war that costs freedom, at least in the West. It is war that forces people to face harsh realities, and dealing with difficulty effectively costs freedom. the demands for freedom remind me of someone who insists that society cannot force him to do anything. Of course, if he doesn't hold a job or seek assistance, he won't have the money with which to buy food, but never mind that detail. As for reputation and opportunity to do good in the world, the U.S. reputation has not substantially changed as a result of its wars. The people who hate it over its unilateral action in Iraq hated it before, and those who hate it over other wars are roughly the same. What really pisses people off about the U.S. is their dependence on the help it offers. I understand Pakistanis see the U.S. as a symbol of their inability to handle themselves.

You would hate to see the flypaper strategy work badly, especially because you are American. Consider this: I am considered "poor" under many metrics in the U.S. I personally have the resources and much of the know-how to manufacture and deliver city-destroying WMDs. I have access to what has been described, by the people whose job it is to stop something like this, as a free online manual for crippling the United States of America in ways they cannot stop (though I have no read the thing myself, yet). (The Achilles' Heel is the food-transportation to the cities. It relies on a functioning rail-system which can apparently be disabled long enough by simultaneously bombing multiple junctions.) If the U.S. mainland were the battleground, what do you think would happen if as many as thirty people (roughly the number required by the plan in the manual) decided to attack?

There is obviously no such thing as a free war. Of course, it can cost a whole lot more to leave an enemy or tyrant active.

I get that you have convictions, "firmly held beliefs or opinions" (according to Google). What do you think those opinions are based upon? We all start from some axioms and work from there. I just try to keep them from getting contradictory. I disagree with you on a couple of your listed points: While I don't glorify aggressive war, I don't necessarily consider it immoral either. I generally prefer peace, but sometimes war means trading an indefinite period of degenerating trouble for short-term horror followed by something much better. Other times there is no way to avoid war, and one is better off going to war before those who make it inevitable are ready to strike. As for violence, all law-enforcement relies upon it. Condemning it in general would only affect those who care that much about right and wrong, not the criminals against whom violence, or at least the credible threat thereof, must be used to prevent even greater trouble. I do not consider morality to be fundamental: My moral guides regarding an act include its reasonably expectable consequences relative to those of alternative courses of action or inaction. Therefore even before morality, we must consider objectives (preservation of human life, protection of the environment, promotion of social progress, prosperity, etc.), reality and practicality (determining what alternatives exist), and specific circumstances and their underlying dynamics (which help to give reasonably expectable consequences).

My definition of fascism gives its underlying dynamics and methods of rising. That is the most helpful thing possible because that lets us recognize it before it gains power. Just looking at the behaviour of fascist regimes falls into two traps: First, it gives no information at any stage early enough to prevent its rise to power. Second, those forms of behaviour can be have many different causes. Extreme ruthlessness can be caused by any conflict seen as existential. Seeing an enemy as implacable can lead to an appearance of war-worship as people give up hope for a peaceful resolution, no matter how much they want it. Any protracted conflict can lead to dehumanization, as can any situation involving enemy non-uniformed combatants as all civilians become suspect. Contempt for the rule of law can arise when the law is ridiculous, or can appear to arise when others fail to comprehend it.

Here's an example of a ridiculous law: The First Additional Protocols of the 4th Geneva Convention, the one which Israel is constantly accused of violating. Before understanding just how horrible and evil this one is, you need to understand the nature of reciprocal international law:

It's contract-law. The enforcement-mechanism, like any other contract is "If you don't meet your obligations, I am released from mine". "If you don't do your work, your boss doesn't have to pay you." This is given, for example, in Article 2, Paragraph 3 of each of the Geneva Conventions as it omits actions relative to non-parties to the convention which do not abide by its terms. (Any actor which does not abide by the terms of a contract may be deemed a non-party to it.) The main objection to this, particularly for the Geneva Conventions, is that the moment one side deems that the other broke the law, the whole thing flies out the window, so it is totally unenforceable. Fortunately, there is a way around the problem, a tit-for-tat system of violations and responses permitted by resulting release from obligations. The legal term for those responses is "reprisals". Without the system of reprisals, the Geneva Conventions can only be "enforced" by total abandonment.

Additional Protocols to the Fourth Geneva Convention (1977), Article 51, Clause 6:
"Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited."
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/470?opendocument

Attacks against civilian targets are used as reprisals when civilian infrastructure is used for military purposes, as prohibited under the Conventions. Failure to permit such reprisals renders military targets legally untouchable. Purely defensive wars (as would result from abiding by laws which forbid any effective aggression) are defeat waiting to happen, as has been demonstrated many times over and even visible just from theory. This is why attacks on civilian targets must be the appropriate reprisal for misuse of civilian infrastructure and attacks from within civilian-populated regions. Thus a country is forced to chose between surrender in war and abandonment of the law. Three guesses which of those will happen every single time.

Another way of looking at this is by considering what happens to a law when its enforcement is declared illegal. Fortunately, neither Israel nor the U.S. signed the additional protocols, which also, given the U.N. resolutions not rescinded at the time, formally declared Palestinian militias above the law (leading to the same result for Israel in every way regarding them) and that third parties must send forces into conflicts to protect civilians (which, combined with the effective destruction of the law against attacks on civilians, would draw more countries into wars).

I know about Article 52 of the Additional Protocols, but how do you hit a hospital being used for munitions-storage without attacking civilians? How do you strike at militias within cities without harming civilians? Apparently Berlin was taken in WW2 without massive bombing, but after scaling it down to the size of Gaza, I found that the number of troops required to do the same thing was larger than the entire Israeli army.

We could also say that countries were run by humans before WW2, and that we see the same today. The problem is that the behaviors are not nearly specific enough for us to conclude that the cause must be fascism. To me, it looks like the appearance of the traits you described comes from holding an actor to ridiculous standards which were formed without giving any thought to the consequences of actually trying to follow them (or, as I suspect, given the politics of the USSR which proposed the relevant Additional Protocol, were formed with the intent of getting those who care about the law killed). Of course war and conflict should concern us, but jumping to conclusions about the correct response is normally even worse than a lack of concern.

Friday June 15, 2012, 6:53 pm
Charles - This is too, too rich. Stephen will take law, history and distort it to use as support for his erroneous points of argument. They certainly are convictions not assumptions. It seems that Stephen's morality includes justification for killing as long as the Israelis are doing the killing. As for his creative interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, I believe he makes it up, as he goes along. There is no serious look into the conflict by Stephen B. beyond the usual hasbaric nonsense.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 10:58 am
Oh dear. A thread of hatred which has attracted the usual vampires from the Zionist and neo-con coffins. So, Iran has a website which supports the Nazis. So does the USI, which has hundreds of them. Not only does the USI have websites, it has real groups of Nazis, bearing arms, giving the Hitler salute, glorifying the Nazi regime and its ideals, taking "action" against Jews and other religious minorities. And they are allowed to exist! It's meant to be free speech. But the haters here crawl out from under their stones and try to tell Iran that it should DENY free speech to its population. Why do they do this? It's part of the Zionist demonisation of Islam and the Islamic Republic, which requires hatred and war to keep their system going. Iran has a clear and correct view on Zionism and USI Imperialism. For that it must be destroyed, as Syria is being destroyed, Libya was destroyed, Iraq was destroyed. And here, it's part of the world-view of the loathsome haters who have posted here in support of self-acknowledged drug addict Esteban's racism and Islamophobia.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 1:31 pm
LOL John D. This should be right up your alley, you being a Neo--Nazi. You just had to bring my name into it didn't you? Because you are a drama queen!

Saturday June 16, 2012, 1:38 pm
Hey John/Janet.... you are a Judeophobe obviously. Drug addict? Does everyone who has ever done drugs an addict? Also, that has nothing to do with this. You're changing subjects and going into ad hominem attacks. You are clearly a hater of Jews and Israel so don't even go into that crap. Racist? Please. You want to point fingers and call names? You're a Nazi.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 1:43 pm
you think being called "racist", "islamophobe", "drug addict" scares me? embarrasses me? You're a coward, a jerk, a bone-head Nazi. Your false accusations and petty attempts at insults mean nothing.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 3:47 pm
Stephen B

"You very clearly described the (effective) censors as people who abuse the reporting-process to silence those with whom they disagree. If they could put together enough flags to wipe Margaret's comments, why not yours? "

As usual, Stephen, you ignore facts to try to make a case. Many, many of Charles O's posts HAVE been deleted, both on this thread and others. The difference between him and Margaret M is that she was banned for objecting to the deletions.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 5:14 pm
Esteban d

"LOL John D. [....] You just had to bring my name into it didn't you?"

As you are the initiator of this pile of crap allegations (that IS your name at the top of the thread, isn't it?) why on earth would you object to your name appearing in a post? Something seems to have addled your brain. I wonder what.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 5:19 pm
Esteban d

"LOL John D. [....] You just had to bring my name into it didn't you?"

As you are the initiator of this pile of crap allegations (that IS your name at the top of the thread, isn't it?) why on earth would you object to your name appearing in a post? Something seems to have addled your brain. I wonder what.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 5:20 pm
Bob Algeron

"To be exact the word "Iran" means nothing else than Aryan in Farsi, with the name change taking place in 1943 under the Nazi influence. Some things just don't change. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

The name of Iran (ایران) is the Modern Persian derivative from the Proto-Iranian term Aryānā,, meaning "Land of the Aryans", first attested in Zoroastrianism's Avesta tradition.[32][33][34][35] The term Ērān is found to refer to Iran in a 3rd century Sassanid inscription, and the Parthian inscription that accompanies it uses the Parthian term "aryān" in reference to Iranians.[36] However historically Iran has been referred to as Persia or similar (La Perse, Persien, Perzië, etc.) by the Western world, mainly due to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis (Περσίς), meaning land of the Persians. In 1935 Rezā Shāh requested that the international community should refer to the country as Iran. Opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and in 1959 both names were to be used interchangeably.[37] Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 the official name of the country has been the "Islamic Republic of Iran."

Well, there's not anything about "Nazi influence" here, Bob, is there? And you even got the date wrong.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 5:48 pm
Yeah, John. You only mention my name to sling insults and bogus accusations. Like anyone really pays attention to you.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 9:05 pm
Esteban. Your name is public property as far as this thread is concerned, because you put your name to it. It's also public property inasmuch as you have blogged publicly elsewhere and on different themes, which I'll touch on in a moment.

Saturday June 16, 2012, 9:07 pm
Esteban d

"Drug addict? Does everyone who has ever done drugs an addict? Also, that has nothing to do with this. You're changing subjects and going into ad hominem attacks."

I think that people who blog about their illegal drug experiences, the effects and relative strengths and (dis)advantages of what's on the black market and advise others on what drugs to take, as you do and have done, have a serious problem which is not limited to your own addiction. You have chosen to put this in the public domain and what I'm doing is not an ad hominem attack, it's an indication to the board that your views might be unbalanced due to your taking of illicit and dangerous substances and the effects they have and have had on your mind, sanity and reasoning powers. Clearly you have an unreasoning hatred of Islam and Muslims with non obvious reason for your racism and Islamophobia. I am simply postulating that you are not seeing things as clearly as you might otherwise because you are out of your skull a lot of the time and when you are not, the lingering effects of the extremely dangerous substances you have been taking are affecting your mental health.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:29 am
Well, Esteban, you've hit the John D/Janet Z nail right on the head. All his Islamist, pro-Iranian Islamist Dictator, anti-'Zionist' hate that he spews while defending/denying every atrocity Islamists have ever committed is so sick, now we see why. He takes the oppostion depending on whatever site he happens to be slinking on.

We've seen his anti-Moroccan comments on his gay Morocco site too, the opposite of what he spouts here. We're going to copy all this great info you've found so we can bring it up every time this twit appears.

Let's see Margaret, (3), or (1) or whatever name/number she's using today, come in and defend this lowlife. Come on Charles O and all the rest of you Israelophobes, Islamists and their apologists - come defend and embrace one of your very own. (But frist be sure to read the websites Esteban has so carefully assembled on John D/Janet Z).

Esteban, you just don't understand - all of these negative John D sites are all Zionist plots to destroy him and his radical left, Islamist credentials. Just ask Charles and the rest of these loonies - the Zionists are under every bed and control the whole world.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:42 am
I think that anyone should google Esteban, bath salts, drug usage, drug addiction and see what comes up then.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:44 am
LOL

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:49 am
All THIS from the man who constantly used the term "vile" to describe a woman who wrote a book about her life? (She wrote about trying to escape a life of misery under Islam...John called her a "vile traitor.'')

VILE seems to be something about which he knows a great deal!

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:52 am
Shall I do the honors? Yeah the person who wrote this shares my name. Did I write it? Maybe. Is it a true story? Maybe. It was a rather enjoyable read, wasn't it? http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=89244

BTW, I do find this particularly interesting too:
http://cyberbullyingreport.com/bully/margaret-mayer-mcknight-posts-anti-semitic-rants-and-insults-380.aspx

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:53 am
Rob/Jay - One reads through what John posted and then what you and Esteban post and let's see who is the nutbar. You post nothing but hateful commentary. People like you are actually detrimental to the LGBT community. Your whole agenda is geared to only things that affect you, no empathy or care for anyone else.

Where, prior to your comment, above did I defend John? No where. Are you incapable of reading? Do you just spout off what is at the top of your head. You are just as intolerant as the T-baggers. People bring up on this thread that while you are castigating Iran regarding this website, you fail to acknowledge that this is much more prevalent in the United States and you call them names. What a lowly little troll you are Esteban. Why don't you go blog more about your drug usage and you licking every surface to get every last morsel which you actually wrote about.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:54 am
I love you too Margaret

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:56 am
"Drug addict? Does everyone who has ever done drugs an addict?"

In your own words Esteban "This is Really Addictive, Annoying and Scary:"

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:57 am
LOL R U mad?

Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:58 am
Hi Charles,

There is a difference between wars of aggression (as the judges used the term) and aggressive waging of war. War is a large-scale manoeuvre applied within a larger conflict. In the cases I described, one may morally initiate a war as a defensive measure in a conflict, in defence against tyranny or a later, more dangerous, war.

The Golden Rule only applies when both groups share a common culture, and one which promotes reciprocity. If the other group will take offence to acts or conditions which one would find acceptable, or has no cultural imperative to reciprocate, the Golden Rule fails miserably.

No, Charles, allowing emotions to cloud your judgement may win arguments among your friends, but it will sway neither me nor reality. Your developed your ethics and empathy to apply to your daily life, as I can see from your comment about the Golden Rule being the root of morality. The situations and scales we discuss do not fit into that mold. Your ethics were not developed for this and predictably fail here. The starting point of an argument, the end-result which one seeks (whether it be peace, social progress, protection of the environment, or whatever), may be based in morality, but beyond that, logic and logic alone must be used. As you reject the primacy of logic, it is no wonder that you will not be inspired nor persuaded by unpleasant truths.

Whatever Margaret may pretend, there is justification for killing in reprisal. Tell me, given the choice, would you be willing to kill an innocent man if you have very, very good reason to believe that failure to do so would lead others to kill 100 innocent men? Responsibility for those 100 deaths would not be yours, but how many people would you be willing to sacrifice to keep your hands clean? I believe this is a major point where we differ. Would you call somebody monstrous for answering "yes" to that first question?

Try reading my comment above about the first additional protocol to the Fourth Geneva Convention. It will offend your sensibilities and by as emotionally dissatisfying as anything you can find. Still, it is logical and has been demonstrated to be correct repeatedly. You won't like it, but I can easily point to a case where thousands of people have died as others, who could have prevented needless bloodshed, failed to do so for the sake of avoiding offence to such sensibilities. You can give yourself a pat on the back for being the "good guy" and refusing to compromise your fine-sounding principles as they suffer and die as long as you care more about your emotions and peace of mind than saving lives.

Hi John,

At the time when I posted that, I could find no evidence on this thread of Charles' posts being removed. If you look below that point, you will find that Charles did not say mention any such posts, and that it was some time before any of his posts were taken down.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 9:04 am
Pam W, John D has never condemned any atrocity committed by Muslims. It doesn't matter the evidence, he'll deny it and always defend the dictators and Islamist terrorists. He never gives a hoot for their victims. He attacked an article about the Islamist Iranian Dictatorship killing another round of gays, he attacked an article about modern Islamist sex slave stealing. To him the victims mean nothing - promoting and praising Islam and all its cruelty is all that matters.

We suspect John is being paid to be on here full time by some Islamist group that has paid several others of his ilk to troll these pages. He certainly doesn't have time to work for a living, so he is paid or is far older than his photo shows and is living on a pension - so Esteban looks to have hit the truth on that too.

And Margaret M/(3) we've seen your own hate site so don't try to pretend to innocence there.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 9:10 am
And Margaret, you're 'detrimental' to the radical left and Jews. And your hate toward all things 'Zionist' and Israel is what? Good? We hate the hate of Islam which you defend, along with John Boy. You've never condemned any of its atrocities either, especially in your beloved radical left 'cause' of corrupt, intolerant, hateful, brutal, homophobic, anti-woman Palestinian dictators. Talk about hate.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 9:12 am
Exactly.
Sending a Green Star is a simple way to say "Thank you"

You cannot currently send a star to Rob and Jay because you have done so within the last week

Sunday June 17, 2012, 9:20 am
Poor Esteban.

Well, no, I don't run the gay Morocco yahoo group. So think again. Here's what it says at the top of the page:--

laduqesa · laduqesa@xxxxxxxxx | Group Member - Edit Membership

And no, I don't do crystal meth. You are on record with your own admission for doing multiple drugs and furthermore, very dangerous, mind-addling ones. You have admitted that the drugs you take are addictive.

http://gaymuslims.org/2006/05/01/qj-hookups-and-cluelessness/

Oh good. Usually I am accused of being a Muslim or an "Islamist". Now that you have dug this up, perhaps people will believe me when I say that I'm not and am an atheist.

http://www.arab-gay.com/forums/showthread.php?t=393&page=2

Yes and? Perhaps you could tell the board why I was banned instead of using innuendo.

"And I seriously doubt that your screenname on hookup sites such as adam4adam, manhunt, gay.com,"

So, no actual proof that I'm a member, which I'm not. "Seriously doubt" doesn't cut it.

"Treasure Island Media (Chad Brock and Clay Towers)."

Right. Now I know that it's you who has been stalking me on FaceBook under the name of Julie Dennis. Jeez, you're sick. Just so people know, Esteban has been posting comments on threads I have commenting on using the most foul language and loathsome allegations.

"And you DARE to raise the issue of drugs with me? Why don't you try talking to your friends? "

Ah yes, Esteban. But they are not making racist and anti-Muslim posts and threads on Care2, are they? They are not obsessing about a whole culture and religion for no reason in bubbling hatred as you are, are they?

You're so shallow. What's your drug cocktail going to be tonight then?

Sunday June 17, 2012, 9:29 am
Janet/John, lets talk about your drug cocktails. You bark a little too loud. Just like you to accuse me of "stalking" when I pointed it out first about your bizarre obsession with me. Just like Margaret to tell Rob&Jay and me they we a shame to the gay community after the embarrassing things I posted about you. You accuse me of trolling and you come in here as "Janet Z." spewing the most disgusting language.
"Ah yes, Esteban. But they are not making racist and anti-Muslim posts and threads on Care2, are they? They are not obsessing about a whole culture and religion for no reason in bubbling hatred as you are, are they? " So as long as they don't insult Islam, they can do all the drugs they want and pozz all the guys they want and you're OK with it, heh?
You are sick. How many victims did you pozz this week, John?

Sunday June 17, 2012, 9:31 am
The perverted pillow tries to condemn a good man. The pornography that you promote is beyond disgusting then you have the absolute appalling nerve to come onto this site! No wonder you hide your face in shame.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 10:32 am
For you and your pals John D : Wild Bill for America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_iK_eeBdLQ&feature=em-share_video_user

Sunday June 17, 2012, 5:12 pm
Gillian Miller

"The pornography that you promote is beyond disgusting then you have the absolute appalling nerve to come onto this site! No wonder you hide your face in shame. "

As usual, Gillian, that foul excuse for a human being, twists and lies - and does it deliberately. Not even your junkie mate Esteban alleged that I was "promoting" porn, just that links to porn were on a site that I belong to. Do you know what an unmoderated Yahoo Group is Gillian? I'm sure you do, but just so there's no mistake, it's a group where people can post what they like. Now try looking at the last time I participated in that group. I'm sure you'll notice that it was several years ago.

Anyway, it's all moot. These are distraction tactics from the Islamophobes and haters on this thread who have crawled into the light and have found that the truth is too much for them and that the bandwagon of this thread they thought to jump onto to sow their litany of hate is a hollow shell with no substance. They cannot explain, the Gillians and Rob and Jays and Estebans how come it's ok for the USI to allow such websites, indeed, allow actual groups of real people to follow Nazi doctrines and organise against minorities, but it's somehow wrong that there is just ONE such group apparently allowed in Iran and only on the web, moreover. Indeed, I say apparently, because the IP address associated with this group originates in the KSA. In any case, the illusory bandwagon Gillian and her racist mates are jumping onto is, as always, that of Islamophobia, hatred and war. To try to cover this up, they attack others falsely the better they think, to advance the cause of the Zionist Entity, whose slaves they are.

How glad I am that I am not you, any of you.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 5:18 pm
Stephen Brian.

Please don't try to alter the historical record or the timeline:--

Charles O

"Wednesday June 6, 2012, 8:24 am
Stephen Brian writes:

> I should probably also point out where your comments about freedom collapse: Americans are totally free to get the information first-hand from both sides in the conflicts under discussion, and they do, often. The claims that there were no WMDs in Iraq in 2002 were in the big media. I saw them there. All that suppression you described just doesn't exist. The same goes for "censorship" here. You are not suppressed. Your account has not been deleted, nor have your posts.

. .

In fact, numerous posts HAVE been deleted, Stephen. I reposted the comments and I myself saw them deleted a second time and a third time. "



Then you write in reponse to my post which follows:--

John Duqesa (5)
Saturday June 16, 2012, 3:47 pm
Stephen B

""You very clearly described the (effective) censors as people who abuse the reporting-process to silence those with whom they disagree. If they could put together enough flags to wipe Margaret's comments, why not yours? "

As usual, Stephen, you ignore facts to try to make a case. Many, many of Charles O's posts HAVE been deleted, both on this thread and others. The difference between him and Margaret M is that she was banned for objecting to the deletions".

Your answer is this:--


Stephen Brian (15)
Sunday June 17, 2012, 8:58 am


"Hi John,

At the time when I posted that, I could find no evidence on this thread of Charles' posts being removed. If you look below that point, you will find that Charles did not say mention any such posts, and that it was some time before any of his posts were taken down".




I do hope you will apologise for attempting to mislead the board. Charles addressed you regarding his posts being deleted a full 10 days before your incorrect reply to me that you didn't know anything about their disappearance.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 5:29 pm
Rob/Jay - when have I made any anti-zionist claim EVER. I don't categorize people into little packages. Just like everything else, there are different kinds of Zionism, so I tend to base my comments on behaviour not little stereotypical packages. If the behaviour is inhumane then I am going to say something about it, not because of any group.

Condemn a good man? Really Gillian, considering you are condemning everyone who has an issue with the Israeli occupation or are too busy crying to some cyberbully website reporting people for behaviour you, yourself are guilty of. On top of it, when I have a beef, I actually provide both narratives (mine included) not just cherry pick out what you find offensive without including any of your vile ad hominem attacks.

From where I am sitting, I see a group of people who are not supporting any type of neo-nazism, but pointing out how hypocritical it is to castigate another nation when we see plenty of it ourselves on this side of the pond be slurred, called names and accused of all kinds of things that aren't true. This could have been a good conversation, exchanging ideas, but it seems impossible for any of you to debate anything. It has to be a free for all. When others finally get tired of it and respond in kind, they are considered the instigators. If we don't show up on a thread, you are all complaining often before even commenting on the article. Admit it, your whole purpose, for the most of you, is not to debate an issue, but to stand on your self righteous soap box at cut anyone that dares to challenge your ridiculousness down to their knees.

I think for most part I see people taking care to not demonize any group based on race, culture or faith, yet I see the Esteban's of Care2 and Rob/Jay regurgitating material from known hate sites (yes, Jihadwatch is considered a hate website even by Abe Foxman, as is Atlas Shrugged) verbatim. There is no outside investigation of these claims, just the use of a very, very broad brush.

As for defending Islam, I am not defending any religion over another. I am though going to correct your inane commentary Rob/Jay which I gather you found it the superior intellectual community within Spain. What a sad sack to actually write something that you left the US because it lacked in intellectual rigor. What a joke.

Sunday June 17, 2012, 7:55 pm
Hi John,

wrong again. Try reading posts before you reply to them. I said that at the time of my original post regarding the deletions, Charles had not had any deletions. That was on June 6. At THAT time, when I originally posted why Charles' claims regarding censorship were obviously false, I obviously didn't know about any of his stuff getting deleted because it hadn't been.

Hi Charles,

Such is the nature of preemption, and of all other logical action too. When acting reasonably, we always respond to our expectations which are in turn based upon the past. It's true that none of us know the future. Next time you push someone in front of a bus because you don't know that bus will hurt him, let me know whether or not that holds up in court. Better yet, the next time you decide to stop eating because you don't know that anorexia will cause you problems, because you don't know the future, let me know whether that saves you from trouble.

Following the Golden Rule is contagious only when reciprocity is the norm. Reciprocity itself is not contagious because those who don't already engage in it ... will not reciprocate. Therefore where reciprocity is not the norm, neither is the Golden Rule.

If you behave badly, it is usually a given that others will behave badly towards you (though there are many, many exceptions to this). However, it is not a given that if you behave well, others will do the same towards you. Dealings with non-reciprocal cultures are among the exceptions to that. For them, reciprocity is not even optional: It's just alien.

Empathy is definitely among the things that has no place mixing with logic. Conscience should be there, but only in its principles, not in its normal demands for behaviour because we are not discussing normal circumstances. Likewise, love for justice has its place, but the nature of justice must be well-understood, and it cannot be applied as it normally is. Reverence for life has a place in setting the initial values, but not beyond that, and the same goes for self-respect. Like you said, when it comes to logic, garbage in gives garbage out. However, once we have the initial inputs, those that inform the desired outcome, logic is the tool to be used, not emotions. Of course, it must be used properly, and that includes limits like the doubt regarding whether we actually know what we are doing, and the understanding that there may be a better value-distribution for aspects of outcomes. However, those limits must be set logically, and not emotionally.

If the people in the Gaza Strip were primarily Jews, and they supported militias which worked through a strategy which involved every possible violation of the Geneva Conventions possible then yes, yes I would support reprisals against them. If, however, they behaved in manners remotely similar to modern Israel, then obviously the situation would be entirely different.

Monday June 18, 2012, 5:19 am
Sunday June 17, 2012, 5:12 pm
Gillian Miller

"The pornography that you promote is beyond disgusting then you have the absolute appalling nerve to come onto this site! No wonder you hide your face in shame. "

As usual, Gillian, that foul excuse for a human being, twists and lies - and does it deliberately. Not even your junkie mate Esteban alleged that I was "promoting" porn, just that links to porn were on a site that I belong to. Do you know what an unmoderated Yahoo Group is Gillian? I'm sure you do, but just so there's no mistake, it's a group where people can post what they like.

as usual, out neo=nazi religious people screw it up. Oh, the ideal for the Moroccan is to pay some money? Your sexual escpades ar

Monday June 18, 2012, 8:45 am
Well, Margaret, or whatever number you're using today - how bizarre that you rant over Israel's real or imagined atrocities toward the Palestinians, yet when anyone opposes the hatred preached and practiced by Islam you call those people 'haters'!

What have we ever said about Islam that is wrong? What hate sites have we ever used? The Qur'an, hadith and sira?? Then we agree, they ARE hate sites and we oppose their ugly, hateful teachings to kill those who criticize or leave Islam, all Jews before the Muslim Day of Resurrection can come, all 'disbelievers' and gay people, let alone the demeaning of women and condoning of 'marrying' little girls to filthy old pedophiles to use and sexually abuse.

And you defend this filth and call us who oppose it 'haters'?? You defend such perversion and hate - you, John D/JanetZ, Charles, Kenneth and all the rest of you twisted Jew hating Israelophobes? How sick. You certainly don't think it's hateful to criticize Israel, Zionists, Republicans, the USA. That must make you a 'hater' then, by your bizarre 'logic'.

You certainly have never condemned Islam's invasion, conquest and occupation of Jerusalem, its destruction of holy sites to others and its desecration of the Jews' holiest site, the Temple Mount, with the blasphemy of the Dome of the Rock (where Mohammed rode a white horse to heaven to have a chat, without a space suit no less, with Jesus, Abraham and Moses, as if) and the al-Aqsa mosque and won't even allow Jews, whose site it is, to stand on it and pray. Not a peep from any of you great humanitarians who care so deeply about the wronged Palestinian, corrupt, brutal, murderous dictatorship that brutalizes women who don't veil, persecutes all non-Muslims and non-Sunnis, imprisons and tortures gay people, condones polygamy and child sexual abuse. Yet Israel does none of these things and you bunch of haters shout nonstop hate at it, dreaming of the day the Palestinian dictators take over Israel and Jerusalem and turn out all the lights, taking it back to the 7th century. And you wonder why people who care about human rights and modern values are repelled by you all?

You all have such a small list of constant yappings, like calling people 'haters' and saying 'you quote from hate sites' - Well PROVE IT! You never do, any of you. Prove any quotes from 'hate' sites, other than the hate site of Islam, itself. Prove anything we say is wrong with appropriate quotes. You can't, so quite wasting valuable time. None of you has ever proven one thing wrong we've ever said about the hateful, sick, perverted, violent, bigoted, anti-semitic, homophobic, women-hating, pedophilic teachings of the demonic Allah, the moon god, and his imaginary 'profit' (spelling meant as is).

You all would undoubtedly be calling us all 'haters' for criticizing the hate, violence and bigotry of Soviet Communism. There are actually people just like you who do defend Stalinism and rant against those who condemn it, just like you and your irrational defense of Islam.

We've challenged your buddies Abdessalem and Mary P to condemn the 1400 years of Muslim invasions, conquests, destruction of cultures, mass murders, forced conversions, murder or tax, the desecration of the Temple Mount by Islam, the teachings of murder of those mentioned above. And just like all of you who apparently don't care about any of this too, they have never, after many times being asked to, condemned Islam's evils, apologized for any of its atrocities or its agenda and commands to conquer the whole world under Sharia law Muslims are commanded to do. They have refused to renounce Mohammed's satanic commands to kill all those people. And you don't give a damn, yet you claim to be for gay, women's, children's human rights? How odd.

If them, and any of you Islamist apologists really cared about 'occupation', invasions, murder, rape, abuse of human rights etc etc etc, you would jump at the chance to condemn these things. But, nothing but silence. And John D/Janet Z of morocco takes the cake.

Lots of denial and name calling but never once any proof of your silly claims. Either put up or shut up. All of you. And John D/Janet Z how can you even show your face (or whomever's it is) around here again after you've been exposed?

Monday June 18, 2012, 3:42 pm
"But the monomaniacal Islam haters here are worse than Islam, by far."

++++++++++ And how IS that, exactly, Charles? Do we fight for female genital mutilation? Do we announce that Jews are vile? Do we prohibit free speech and free exercise of/from religion? Do we treat animals badly? Do we insist on a particular garment for women? One which restricts identity, movement, comfort and freedom? Do we murder those who choose to leave Christianity? Do we censor what is "acceptable" in areas of art, press and opinion? Do we argue in favor of a STATE religion which takes over every portion of life for those of us within its sway?

How exactly are we "worse?"

Monday June 18, 2012, 7:05 pm
What number I am? Well Rob, it seems that no matter how many times you guys flag away and get me kicked off, people still send me friendship links. I see though that you seem to have been stuck at 96 for quite some time. Is it that you are picky or perhaps people don't think as well of you as you think of yourself?

You have threads upon threads of demonizing 1.2 billion people and now you are claiming you have not said anything wrong about Islam. It is called stereotyping Rob, something you should be familiar with. I doubt it when whole groups of people castigated and demonized you, including the spreading of myths and false accusations. We just had a thread no so long ago when Gillian posted something about homosexuality in which the quote she provided actually linked it to paedophelia. Do you recall that thread Rob/Jay? I would have no problem finding it for you. This kind of nonsense comes from stereotyping and generalizing about a whole population whether it be a population of the gay community or a population of 1.2 billion Muslims. I also recall that I called the quote Gillian posted for what it was, patent nonsense. This is someone who is allegedly your friend, but actually didn't think twice posting such rubbish. I think that maybe you need to rethink who your friends are.

You are now condemning me because you feel that I didn't scream from the rooftops about the siege of Jerusalem which occurred 1,375 years ago. Are you out of your gourd? In addition when Jerusalem was conquered by Sassanid in 614 it was the Christians who were massacred . History also suggests the Jews aided the Persians as they had been persecuted under the Romans.

In 636 AD, when the siege of Jerusalem took place, Jerusalem was not under Jewish control, but was under the control of the Byzantine empire (not Jewish, Rob/Jay). Also when the city was surrendered to Caliph Umar (a condition of the surrender was that it would only be surrendered in person) the Jews were allowed to worship for the first time in 500 years. The siege of Jerusalem is believed to be bloodless. In addition while Caliph Umar was in Jerusalem, he was asked if he wished to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which had been rebuilt) and refused as he felt that it would endanger the Church's status. He feared that the Muslims would take it as a signal to turn the Church into a mosque. In addition, the Umariyya Covenant provided religious and liberty in exchange for a tax levied on the non Muslim population.

As for your claims that I am not railing against who gets to prayer where, I really don't care. I am not religious and have never been so. I think that Jerusalem should have been under international control to assure access by all three groups which considered Jerusalem to be a holy land. How many Muslims were denied return to their homes after 1948 Rob? I am a little more concerned about people's houses being demolished to make room for Abby Liechtman, born and bred in New Jersey who has decided to rediscover her Jewish roots than I am about places of worship. I am a little more concerned about the people who were exiled to Gaza to be jammed in like sardines in a tin can who wear their keys to their homes in Israel around their neck than I am about who cannot cross onto Palestinian land to visit some religious site. How many Palestinians are denied entry into Israel Rob? How many are within the West Bank; which is Palestinian land under International law, have been dispossessed because of people like Abby Liechman? While she was writing quaint little pieces in the Bergen Daily wondering about who is going to style her hair when she begins her little middle aged crisis adventure, people were being arbitrarily arrested, evicted from their ancestral homes, humiliated in front of their children by the IDF and shot at for sport. If they are lucky enough to be in Hebron they can have urine and garbage thrown down on them from the settlements above.

You know what I make a peep about Rob? I make a peep when one group of people perpetuate violence on another group of people whether they practice Islam, Judaism or Christianity. I no longer dare to even go on any articles any of you put up because first of all, they are already from some trashy source and secondly I just get castigated for opening my mouth. Either my condemnation is not strong enough, my sadness is not sorrowful enough or since you all are such great mind readers, you seem to tell me what I am thinking or feeling in spite of what I say (which tends to be the polar opposite of what I have actually posted). For posting the historical record as per Israeli Jewish historians, I get called an anti-semite and told to take my children to Pakistan to be raped and have their throats slit. When I finally have enough of this crap and meter out 1/100th of the nastiness perpetuated by your little club, you all get the mob mentality going and start flagging away. This is democracy to you this is the freedom you all are screaming about? The only voices you want to hear are your own.

I haven't ever directed a comment to any group, including the Jewish people (as it would be counter productive) based on faith, race, gender, sexual orientation, age or colour. I direct my comments on what people actually do, not the Robert Spencer Quranic interpretation.

What is so incredibly sad is that those very pro-Israel will post statements from people who practice Islam and have criticized Islam by pulling out one comment made supporting their arguments, but disregards everything else said. There is a whole thread on that one too, where Alexandra quoted an Imam whom she heaped praise on. Do you think that she paid any heed to any of the multiple statements he made that contradicted the Qurantic interpretations you and your friends continually make? Nope and when this was actually brought up, it was completely ignored like it didn't exist. I think Pam would remember that thread as in that one she was claiming to be a Middle Eastern expert due to her extensive vacations to the Middle East. Are these the intellectual challenges you found lacking in American culture? Unsubstantiated accusations, distortions and demonization of a population of 1.2 billion people?

It seems that you and your friends attribute tactics you employ unto others. I think the violent ad hominem attacks are a direct result of looking foolish. It isn't a matter of me not being able to tolerate other people's point of view, it is the complete lack of empathy and blindness shown when it comes to the conflict. I debated with Stephen B. for months, including numerous extremely friendly emails back and forth between the two of us. The problem was that there was no compassion for anyone if it was contradictory to the image of Israel he held. I could no longer continue these conversations because they made me feel slimy. It was like shaking the hand of a dishonest used car salesman. There was a time before the name calling when Stephen emailed me friendly emails about how much he enjoyed these conversations and how he was learning so much. It gave him practice, he stated. If he wants to deny this, I certainly can find those emails. As soon as I gave him the heave-ho, I went from someone whose company he enjoyed to a moron. This is my point.

Your over the top responses are similar in nature. Rather than address the subject at hand, which I believe is a Nazi website in Iran which the government hasn't shut down, we are now having conversations about what happened over 1300 years ago, slinging of mud with accusations of John being some kind of sexual deviant, all which have nothing to do with the topic at hand. To stoop to such levels is appalling.

Not one person here supported Nazism or neo-Nazism, yet we find ourselves at a point where the conversations have degraded into a free for all with accusations like "Get to work MM and Charles, bring on your own circle of neo-Nazis" or "LOL John D. This should be right up your alley, you being a Neo--Nazi"? You think that this is appropriate? You have no problem with Carola telling a Jew to "bring on her own circle of Neo--Nazi"? How offensive and antisemitic is that statement? How about this one "You're a coward, a jerk, a bone-head Nazi"? You think that is how a grown up is to behave on a public forum. These are the intellectual giants you couldn't find in America?

To call me an Israelophobe, is also another claim of yours. The problem I have with Israel is what the government and the IDF do to justify land theft. In fact, your position is what guarantees the loss of Israel, not the threat of the enemies surrounding them, "throwing them in the sea", nor it is it my criticism of a nation that is clearly moving towards a very undemocratic society, is a violator of human rights and a breaker of international law. My criticism of Israel is not because I hate Israel, but that I can see beyond the inflamed rhetoric and know that this situation cannot continue on much longer. It i far to late in the day to go back to before 1948, but a just peace has to be made. The is unsustainable. Unless Israel is prepared to be a pariah within the International community, they better start thinking before acting and learning how to make friends rather than declare war on everyone. What do you think is going to happen without a two state solution? You think that Israel can keep the Palestinian people under their thumb for eternity? Or have you ever considered that for the state of Israel to continue down this merry path, what are they going to do with the indigenous population? I don't think that they are going to set them up with a condo in Florida. They know that in order to maintain a Jewish state which is what they want, they cannot annex the West Bank nor Gaza as the state won't be Jewish for very long.

I also note that your style of debate seems to be that when you are faced with fact, you personally attack people. You don't provide anything to prop up the caca you are smearing all over the place, you just go and call people names who you think are beneath you. I see Charles carefully respond to people's posts to provide information and instead is called a Nazi supporter or a looney. It seems that the whole argument, thread after thread is about character assassination, not about discussion.

You are also right out front bringing us into threads we haven't even visited nor posted on. How many threads start out with discussion on what we would say rather than any intelligent discourse regarding the article posted? It seems your whole intent is to belittle rather than discuss. Usually people whose sole purpose is to cut down others basically has a whole array of issues themselves.

Pam - How come when it is subscribed to Islam it never is looked at as a distortion of religion, but when Jews do crazy, horrid things to others it is one of those "bad apples". Also, a lot of what you are posting is cultural, not Quranic and further this is definitely utilization of the red herring style of debate. When in doubt, just throw out another shiny object. Where did Charles show any support for genital mutilation Pam? When did criticism of one political group (yes, that;s right Pam, Zionism is political in nature, it isn't about Judaism) mean that one is condoning the behaviour of another? To bring up the hypocritical nature of this article, where it castigates a country which certainly is not the poster child of good governance by the country who actually has the same problem, only in bigger numbers. That is holding the country which isn't so great up to standards the "great, democratic nation" doesn't hold up. That is essentially what everyone's point was, but of course it turned into calling people Nazis. Great tactics.

Monday June 18, 2012, 7:09 pm
Hi Charles,

What I argued regarding the morality of war is that when one deems it highly probable that war is coming regardless of one's desires, preemption may be moral, and that it may be moral to prevent or stop tyranny. In most normal cases, you are correct that war is improbable. However, there do exist many cases where it seems inevitable for clear and verifiable reasons, and where it follows clear patterns. For example, the Second Intifada served as the Palestinian election-campaign before their second vote and during it, Hamas rose from a minor player to a major party. Its primary claim to legitimacy is its ability to violently support Palestinian nationalism. Do you really consider it highly improbable that it would refuse to commit political suicide by renouncing violence? The Palestinian militias' entire defensive strategy is built around violating the Geneva Conventions and maintaining political pressure for Israel not to reprise appropriately. Do you really think it's highly improbable that they will continue to use the same strategy that has worked for decades if it is permitted to continue to work?

I didn't overturn the Golden Rule for the sake of Zionism. I simply understand its limits, when to apply it, and when it is inappropriate. The Israeli/Arab conflict is far from the only case beyond its scope.

Comprehension of an opponent is a matter of cold logic. Yes, recognizing it as a collection of humans and not just monsters is a part of that. So is applying one's understanding of psychology to understand its motives and behaviour. However, empathy as normally applied at the personal level will often mislead you if you try to use it. Not only that, but if there is an unfortunate case where the innocent must suffer, empathy may paralyze one who could minimize it and lead to greater suffering by that person's inaction.

I did not just say "if [I] found their behavior not to [my] satisfaction". I said if they engaged in behaviour which demanded reprisals, I would support the appropriate reprisals. I should probably add another caveat to that: I would also require that there were no reasonable way to convince them to stop without those reprisals before supporting them. Such is the blindness of justice.

You might want to get the name of your source correct next time. Here it is:
http://vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres/LBzad.pdf
After looking through the sections near the pages you mentioned, I can see the context.
Here is the heading for the section: 'It was a Painful Distinction for Zionism to be Singled out for Favors'
Yeah, Zionists did not like Nazis. How about the last paragraph of that section, with "Hitler's theories on Zionism, including the Jews' alleged inability to create a state, had all been there, in plain Gemman [misspelling in the original], since 1926". He "supported" Zionism partly because he believed it was doomed to failure. The other part is in the preceding paragraph, with "If the Jews went to far-away America, he might never be able to get at them and they would always remain the foes of the German Empire in Europe. But if they went to Palestine instead? 'There,, as a Gestapo agent told a Jewish leader, 'we will catch up with you’."

Zionists hated Nazis. Nazis hated Jews, including Zionists, but thought they could use Zionism to keep more within striking-range. Forget your attempts to call the two groups friends.

Monday June 18, 2012, 9:39 pm
I can't remember where I got this from, so I can't attribute it, but it goes to Margaret's point:--

In international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, as are the parts of the West Bank that Israel unilaterally annexed to its district of Jerusalem. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 forbid occupying powers to alter the life ways of civilians who are occupied, and forbid the settling of people from the occupiers’ country in the occupied territory. Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, its usurpation of Palestinian property there, and its settling of Israelis on Palestinian land are all gross violations of international law. Israeli claims that they are not occupying Palestinians because the Palestinians have no state are cruel and tautological. Israeli claims that they are building on empty territory are laughable. My back yard is empty, but that does not give Netanyahu the right to put up an apartment complex on it.

2. Israeli governments have not in fact been united or consistent about what to do with East Jerusalem and the West Bank, contrary to what Netanyahu says. The Galili Plan for settlements in the West Bank was adopted only in 1973. Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin gave undertakings as part of the Oslo Peace Process to withdraw from Palestinian territory and grant Palestinians a state, promises for which he was assassinated by the Israeli far right (elements of which are now supporting Netanyahu’s government). As late as 2000, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak claims that he gave oral assurances that Palestinians could have almost all of the West Bank and could have some arrangement by which East Jerusalem could be its capital. Netanyahu tried to give the impression that far rightwing Likud policy on East Jerusalem and the West Bank has been shared by all previous Israeli governments, but this is simply not true.

3. Romantic nationalism imagines a “people” as eternal and as having an eternal connection with a specific piece of land. This way of thinking is fantastic and mythological. Peoples are formed and change and sometimes cease to be, though they might have descendants who abandoned that religion or ethnicity or language. Human beings have moved all around and are not directly tied to any territory in an exclusive way, since many groups have lived on most pieces of land. Jerusalem was not founded by Jews, i.e. adherents of the Jewish religion. It was founded between 3000 BCE and 2600 BCE by a West Semitic people or possibly the Canaanites, the common ancestors of Palestinians, Lebanese, many Syrians and Jordanians, and many Jews. But when it was founded Jews did not exist.

4. Jerusalem was founded in honor of the ancient god Shalem. It does not mean City of Peace but rather ‘built-up place of Shalem.”

5. The “Jewish people” were not building Jerusalem 3000 years ago, i.e. 1000 BCE. First of all, it is not clear when exactly Judaism as a religion centered on the worship of the one God took firm form. It appears to have been a late development since no evidence of worship of anything but ordinary Canaanite deities has been found in archeological sites through 1000 BCE. There was no invasion of geographical Palestine from Egypt by former slaves in the 1200s BCE. The pyramids had been built much earlier and had not used slave labor. The chronicle of the events of the reign of Ramses II on the wall in Luxor does not know about any major slave revolts or flights by same into the Sinai peninsula. Egyptian sources never heard of Moses or the 10 plagues & etc. Jews and Judaism emerged from a certain social class of Canaanites over a period of centuries inside Palestine. See Daniel Lazare’s Harper’s article on the archeological disproof of the Bible, preserved at this website (I am not endorsing the web site).

6. Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then non-existent “Jewish people” in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was not even inhabited at that point in history. Jerusalem appears to have been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates for the united kingdom under David and Solomon. So Jerusalem was not ‘the city of David,’ since there was no city when he is said to have lived. No sign of magnificent palaces or great states has been found in the archeology of this period, and the Assyrian tablets, which recorded even minor events throughout the Middle East, such as the actions of Arab queens, don’t know about any great kingdom of David and Solomon in geographical Palestine.

7. Since archeology does not show the existence of a Jewish kingdom or kingdoms in the so-called First Temple Period, it is not clear when exactly the Jewish people would have ruled Jerusalem except for the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Assyrians conquered Jerusalem in 722. The Babylonians took it in 597 and ruled it until they were themselves conquered in 539 BCE by the Achaemenids of ancient Iran, who ruled Jerusalem until Alexander the Great took the Levant in the 330s BCE. Alexander’s descendants, the Ptolemies ruled Jerusalem until 198 when Alexander’s other descendants, the Seleucids, took the city. With the Maccabean Revolt in 168 BCE, the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom did rule Jerusalem until 37 BCE, though Antigonus II Mattathias, the last Hasmonean, only took over Jerusalem with the help of the Parthian dynasty in 40 BCE. Herod ruled 37 BCE until the Romans conquered what they called Palestine in 6 CE (CE= ‘Common Era’ or what Christians call AD). The Romans and then the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium ruled Jerusalem from 6 CE until 614 CE when the Iranian Sasanian Empire Conquered it, ruling until 629 CE when the Byzantines took it back.

The Muslims conquered Jerusalem in 638 and ruled it until 1099 when the Crusaders conquered it. The Crusaders killed or expelled Jews and Muslims from the city. The Muslims under Saladin took it back in 1187 CE and allowed Jews to return, and Muslims ruled it until the end of World War I, or altogether for about 1192 years.

Adherents of Judaism did not found Jerusalem. It existed for perhaps 2700 years before anything we might recognize as Judaism arose. Jewish rule may have been no longer than 170 years or so, i.e., the kingdom of the Hasmoneans.

8. Therefore if historical building of Jerusalem and historical connection with Jerusalem establishes sovereignty over it as Netanyahu claims, here are the groups that have the greatest claim to the city:

A. The Muslims, who ruled it and built it over 1191 years.

B. The Egyptians, who ruled it as a vassal state for several hundred years in the second millennium BCE.

C. The Italians, who ruled it about 444 years until the fall of the Roman Empire in 450 CE.

D. The Iranians, who ruled it for 205 years under the Achaemenids, for three years under the Parthians (insofar as the last Hasmonean was actually their vassal), and for 15 years under the Sasanids.

E. The Greeks, who ruled it for over 160 years if we count the Ptolemys and Seleucids as Greek. If we count them as Egyptians and Syrians, that would increase the Egyptian claim and introduce a Syrian one.

F. The successor states to the Byzantines, which could be either Greece or Turkey, who ruled it 188 years, though if we consider the heir to be Greece and add in the time the Hellenistic Greek dynasties ruled it, that would give Greece nearly 350 years as ruler of Jerusalem.

G. There is an Iraqi claim to Jerusalem based on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, as well as perhaps the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin’s dynasty), who were Kurds from Iraq.

9. Of course, Jews are historically connected to Jerusalem by the Temple, whenever that connection is dated to. But that link mostly was pursued when Jews were not in political control of the city, under Iranian, Greek and Roman rule. It cannot therefore be deployed to make a demand for political control of the whole city.

10. The Jews of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine did not for the most part leave after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans in 136 CE. They continued to live there and to farm in Palestine under Roman rule and then Byzantine. They gradually converted to Christianity. After 638 CE all but 10 percent gradually converted to Islam. The present-day Palestinians are the descendants of the ancient Jews and have every right to live where their ancestors have lived for centuries.

Wednesday June 20, 2012, 4:35 am
Thank you Charles!

Wednesday June 20, 2012, 9:32 am
Hi John,

1. Fully annexed land is no longer considered occupied territory. I know the UN did not recognize the annex, but it legally does not require UN recognition. I might as well say "I did not recognize your purchase of a house so it's illegal." The UN has no power of arbitration there. Also, the whole legal framework of "occupied territory" ceases to function at the end of the war in which it is occupied. The land is now under Israeli jurisdiction, given by Jordan on the understanding that there would be further work with the objective of producing a Palestinian homeland. There has been such work, but also major delays.

2. Barak's plan was to give Palestinians extraterritorial sovereignty over land in Jerusalem, as is given to embassies. He said arrangements could be made so that Palestinian leaders could govern their country from that land.

3. The identity of the founders of Jerusalem is irrelevant. Judaism (and Islam) developed in an age of theocracy, when religion, ethnicity, and nationality were the same. If you moved somewhere, you worshiped the local gods. Judaism was declared only a religion in the Paris Sanhedrin, but the attempts to shift it into that failed.

4. Irrelevant ... and also wrong. Semitic languages are consonant-based. "Shalem" and "Shalom" (which translates as "peace") could easily have been interchangeable before mass-literacy and the standardization of spelling. Almost more interestingly, in writing the same letter is used for "S" and "Sh".

5. False. I have personally seen dig-sites and artifacts which contradict your statement. Besides, the whole "slaves built the pyramids" thing is not actually a part of the Jewish narrative. Slaves built two cities (one of which was a major grain transit-hub).

6. Your #3 and #6 contradict each other. Jerusalem was originally an Egyptian outpost from ~ 3000 BCE. I would like to see a source on the "abandonment" between 1000 and 900 BCE. Also, the campaigns of conquest started around 1000 BCE, and Jerusalem was a very, very late conquest. I suspect you even have your timing wrong. I suspect the place was pretty much leveled in the conquest then and rebuilt, though, leading to signs similar to those of abandonment.

7. False. Artifacts exist from the First Temple period. Some recovered artifacts are believed to have come from the first temple (or been intended for use there).

8. What establishes Israeli sovereignty is not historical connection, but the fact of the IDF.

9. See #8.

10. Again, religion, nationality and ethnicity were the same. Those who converted to Islam declared themselves to be of the Caliphate, not Israel. The issue is one of national continuity, not bloodlines. Yes, it sucks to be displaced. That is part of what it can mean to lose a war.

Wednesday June 20, 2012, 4:14 pm
Stephen Brian - No one recognizes the annexed East Jerusalem, not one country. I think that I am going to declare Windsor, Ontario to be the capital of Canada. That is basically the same thing. No one, not one country. So Israel can call it all it wants. Every other country doesn't recognize it.

"The identity of the founders of Jerusalem is irrelevant. Judaism (and Islam) developed in an age of theocracy, when religion, ethnicity, and nationality were the same." It seems in the State o fIsrael, this hasn't changed one bit now, has it?

Yes, I am sure you have seen a whole bunch of artifacts, just like it seems that you were at the UN when they called the war of 1967, a war of self defense. I am sure that they say "Oh Stephen Amsel is coming here, let's get all of the artifacts out so that he can win an argument with Charles".

So here we have Stephen Amsel (usually wrong) challenging Charles (who is usually right on the money) about the historical record. This is just too, too much.

Thursday June 21, 2012, 3:11 am
Yes Charles, I am certainly aware how extremely tiring this can be. I encountered the same thing with Stephen. It is a game based on semantics and the manipulation of the historical record international law in order to win an argument with no regard to the suffering perpetuated upon a whole population. He will first tell you that you are wrong based usually on a non existant law, resolution, etc. When this bears no fruit, he will justify Israel's behaviour, usually ending up with something trite, like "war is hell".

Thursday June 21, 2012, 4:48 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/kristof-in-iran-they-want-fun-fun-fun.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212_20120621





June 20, 2012
In Iran, They Want Fun, Fun, Fun

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

ALONG THE CASPIAN SEA, Iran

One of the most pernicious misunderstandings in the West about Iranians is that they are dour religious fanatics.

About half of Iranians are under the age of 25, and Iran has done a solid job of raising their education levels. I was struck on my 1,700-mile road trip across Iran by how many of them share American values, seeking fun rather than fanaticism. They seem less interested in the mosques than in amusement parks (which are ubiquitous in Iran).

“Young people don’t really go to the mosques,” said a 23-year-old man in eastern Iran, cheerfully exaggerating. “We want more ways to have fun.” He said he drinks — alcohol is illegal but everywhere — and, until recently, used drugs. Iranian officials have suggested that perhaps 10 percent of the population uses illegal drugs, traditionally opium and heroin but increasingly methamphetamines as well.

This man had joined the 2009 democracy protests, but then, he said, he was detained and beaten for several days, losing a tooth in the process. That soured him on political activism, and, like many others, he now just wants to go abroad.

In the northwest, that sense of hopelessness has led some young Iranians of ethnic Turkish origin to favor seceding and joining Azerbaijan. In soccer games in Tabriz, fans sometimes outrage the authorities by roaring secessionist slogans.

You wouldn’t think a New Yorker could be made to blush in Tehran, but I was taken aback by the hookup scene of one-night stands: young men with flashy cars troll for women, chat them up and then drive off with them. There is also prostitution, and Tehran’s former police chief was arrested in 2008 in a brothel together with six prostitutes.

Remember that Iran is the homeland not only of stern ayatollahs but also of the romantic hedonism of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” In Richard Le Gallienne’s verse translation: “Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think,/And at the same time make it sin to drink?”

In the 1970s, disgruntled young Iranians rebelled against a corrupt secular regime by embracing an ascetic form of Islam. Now they’re rebelling against a corrupt religious regime by embracing personal freedom — in some cases, even sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

They often also look warmly on the United States, which is quite dizzying. In Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt, we Americans hand out billions of dollars in aid and are often hated. I come to Iran, and people hand me gifts!

This youth culture of Iran is nurtured by the Internet — two-thirds of Iranian households have computers — and by satellite television, which is banned but widespread. A BBG/Gallup phone survey conducted in March found that one-third of Iranians acknowledged watching satellite television in the previous week, and the real number may be much higher.

“The effect of satellite TV is very big,” said one young woman who said that she was initially aghast when she saw fellow Muslim women in Turkey wearing bikinis but gradually decided that there was more than one way to live.

Police stage raids to confiscate satellite dishes and can fine homeowners as much as $400 for having them, but they’re not very efficient.

“You recognize that it’s the police taking the dishes away, and you just don’t answer the door,” said a shop owner in Gorgan. “So they take the dish and just go away,” without imposing the fine.

Pirated music, videos and video games are widespread. One popular — but banned — game now is Battlefield 3, in which American military forces storm Tehran. In one home I visited, the kids were playing Grand Theft Auto.

These young people are Iran’s future, and they can be our allies. But while we have a strategy in nuclear negotiations, I’m not sure we in the West have a strategy for Iran itself.

Western policy makers see Iran as fanatical, the same way they saw China in the 1960s. There was talk back then of a military option against China, and if we had taken that route, Beijing might still be ruled by Maoists — a larger version of North Korea.

My road trip across Iran leaves me convinced that change will come here, too, if we just have the patience not to disrupt the subterranean forces at work: rising education, an expanding middle class, growing economic frustration, erosion of the government monopoly on information. My hunch is that if there is no war between Iran and the West — which would probably strengthen the regime — hard-liners will go the way of Mao, and Iran will end up looking something like Turkey.

I think of a young man I met who said wistfully: “It’s normal for a boy and a girl to want to hang out together. What’s wrong with that?” The romantics are on our side and far outnumber the fanatics. We should bet on them, not bombs, as agents of change.

Thursday June 21, 2012, 1:25 pm
Hi Margaret,

You can declare Windsor to be the capital of Canada, and, like you said, that means nothing. Now, if the Canadian government, with the full backing of Parliament, did that and implemented the move so that the facts on the ground changed, that would mean something. A better parallel to the situation there would be if you declared that Ottawa was not the capital and that half of it was U.S. territory. Again, only the facts on the ground and the acts of directly interested parties make a difference.

Last I checked, there were non-Jewish citizens of Israel. Has this changed?

They were on display at a museum a while back. No, don't ask me which one and when. I don't remember. This was years ago. Where were you at 7:12 pm, July 8th, 1999? I can't answer that question either.

Hi Charles,
No, I think of the three of you, Margaret, and John, John is the least knowledgeable. Margaret seems able to dig up information, but fails miserably regarding context and actually understanding what she is looking at. I really do think you are by far the smartest of the three, though I do see you fundamental bits of logic regularly (specifically those derived from Occam's Razer). If you want some idea of how far out there Margaret is, just look at her response to me: She seems to believe that non-Jews cannot be full citizens of Israel because she found that only Jews get "Israeli" marked as their demographic sub-group on Israeli identity-cards without bothering to check what the (lack of) legal or other implications of that identification are. She also regularly makes up stuff about international law, apparently convinced that boycotts and economic sanctions are somehow an implied enforcement-measure for everything, even when others are written into the relevant treaties.

Friday June 22, 2012, 9:32 am
I see up-thread that the "wipe the Zionist Entity off the map" and "holocaust denial" lies have been repeated here. Once and for all, here's the authoritative refutation:--

Lost in translation
Jonathan Steele
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 June 2006 12.49 BST

Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.


Jonathan Steele
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 June 2006 12.49 BST
Article history
My recent comment piece explaining how Iran's president was badly misquoted when he allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has caused a welcome little storm. The phrase has been seized on by western and Israeli hawks to re-double suspicions of the Iranian government's intentions, so it is important to get the truth of what he really said.

I took my translation - "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - from the indefatigable Professor Juan Cole's website where it has been for several weeks.

But it seems to be mainly thanks to the Guardian giving it prominence that the New York Times, which was one of the first papers to misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out on Sunday with a defensive piece attempting to justify its reporter's original "wiped off the map" translation. (By the way, for Farsi speakers the original version is available here.)

Joining the "off the map" crowd is David Aaronovitch, a columnist on the Times (of London), who attacked my analysis yesterday. I won't waste time on him since his knowledge of Farsi is as minimal as that of his Latin. The poor man thinks the plural of casus belli is casi belli, unaware that casus is fourth declension with the plural casus (long u).

The New York Times's Ethan Bronner and Nazila Fathi, one of the paper's Tehran staff, make a more serious case. They consulted several sources in Tehran. "Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say 'wipe off' or 'wipe away' is more accurate than 'vanish' because the Persian verb is active and transitive," Bronner writes.

The New York Times goes on: "The second translation issue concerns the word 'map'. Khomeini's words were abstract: 'Sahneh roozgar.' Sahneh means scene or stage, and roozgar means time. The phrase was widely interpreted as 'map', and for years, no one objected. In October, when Mr Ahmadinejad quoted Khomeini, he actually misquoted him, saying not 'Sahneh roozgar' but 'Safheh roozgar', meaning pages of time or history. No one noticed the change, and news agencies used the word 'map' again."

This, in my view, is the crucial point and I'm glad the NYT accepts that the word "map" was not used by Ahmadinejad. (By the way, the Wikipedia entry on the controversy gets the NYT wrong, claiming falsely that Ethan Bronner "concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map".)

If the Iranian president made a mistake and used "safheh" rather than "sahneh", that is of little moment. A native English speaker could equally confuse "stage of history" with "page of history". The significant issue is that both phrases refer to time rather than place. As I wrote in my original post, the Iranian president was expressing a vague wish for the future. He was not threatening an Iranian-initiated war to remove Israeli control over Jerusalem.

Two other well-established translation sources confirm that Ahmadinejad was referring to time, not place. The version of the October 26 2005 speech put out by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based on the Farsi text released by the official Iranian Students News Agency, says: "This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history." (NB: not "wiped". I accept that "eliminated" is almost the same, indeed some might argue it is more sinister than "wiped", though it is a bit more of a mouthful if you are trying to find four catchy and easily memorable words with which to incite anger against Iran.)

MEMRI (its text of the speech is available here) is headed by a former Isareli military intelligence officer and has sometimes been attacked for alleged distortion of Farsi and Arabic quotations for the benefit of Israeli foreign policy. On this occasion they supported the doveish view of what Ahmadinejad said.

Finally we come to the BBC monitoring service which every day puts out hundreds of highly respected English translations of broadcasts from all round the globe to their subscribers - mainly governments, intelligence services, thinktanks and other specialists. I approached them this week about the controversy and a spokesperson for the monitoring service's marketing unit, who did not want his name used, told me their original version of the Ahmadinejad quote was "eliminated from the map of the world".

As a result of my inquiry and the controversy generated, they had gone back to the native Farsi-speakers who had translated the speech from a voice recording made available by Iranian TV on October 29 2005. Here is what the spokesman told me about the "off the map" section: "The monitor has checked again. It's a difficult expression to translate. They're under time pressure to produce a translation quickly and they were searching for the right phrase. With more time to reflect they would say the translation should be "eliminated from the page of history".

Would the BBC put out a correction, given that the issue had become so controversial, I asked. "It would be a long time after the original version", came the reply. I interpret that as "probably not", but let's see.

Finally, I approached Iradj Bagherzade, the Iranian-born founder and chairman of the renowned publishing house, IB Tauris. He thought hard about the word "roozgar". "History" was not the right word, he said, but he could not decide between several better alternatives "this day and age", "these times", "our times", "time".

So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.

A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favour Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out.

The same with regard to Israel. The Iranian president is undeniably an opponent of Zionism or, if you prefer the phrase, the Zionist regime. But so are substantial numbers of Israeli citizens, Jews as well as Arabs. The anti-Zionist and non-Zionist traditions in Israel are not insignificant. So we should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone.

Does this quibbling over phrases matter? Yes, of course. Within days of the Ahmadinejad speech the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was calling for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations. Other foreign leaders have quoted the map phrase. The United States is piling pressure on its allies to be tough with Iran.

Let me give the last word to Juan Cole, with whom I began. "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."

Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map - Does He Deny The Holocaust?
By Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann
Translation to English: Erik Appleby

04/19/06 "Kein Krieg!" -- -- - "But now that I'm on Iran, the threat to Iran, of course -- (applause) -- the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel, and -- (applause.)" George W. Bush, US-President, 2006-03-20 in Cleveland (Ohio) in an off-the-cuff speech (source: www.whitehouse.gov) But why does Bush speak of Iran's objective to destroy Israel?

Does Iran's President wants Israel wiped off the map?

To raze Israel to the ground, to batter down, to destroy, to annihilate, to liquidate, to erase Israel, to wipe it off the map - this is what Iran's President demanded - at least this is what we read about or heard of at the end of October 2005. Spreading the news was very effective. This is a declaration of war they said. Obviously government and media were at one with their indignation. It goes around the world.

But let's take a closer look at what Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. It is a merit of the 'New York Times' that they placed the complete speech at our disposal. Here's an excerpt from the publication dated 2005-10-30:

"They say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan. Let's take a step back. [[[We had a hostile regime in this country which was undemocratic, armed to the teeth and, with SAVAK, its security apparatus of SAVAK [the intelligence bureau of the Shah of Iran's government] watched everyone. An environment of terror existed.]]] When our dear Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian revolution] said that the regime must be removed, many of those who claimed to be politically well-informed said it was not possible. All the corrupt governments were in support of the regime when Imam Khomeini started his movement. [[[All the Western and Eastern countries supported the regime even after the massacre of September 7 [1978] ]]] and said the removal of the regime was not possible. But our people resisted and it is 27 years now that we have survived without a regime dependent on the United States. The tyranny of the East and the West over the world should have to end, but weak people who can see only what lies in front of them cannot believe this. Who would believe that one day we could witness the collapse of the Eastern Empire? But we could watch its fall in our lifetime. And it collapsed in a way that we have to refer to libraries because no trace of it is left. Imam [Khomeini] said Saddam must go and he said he would grow weaker than anyone could imagine. Now you see the man who spoke with such arrogance ten years ago that one would have thought he was immortal, is being tried in his own country in handcuffs and shackles [[[by those who he believed supported him and with whose backing he committed his crimes]]]. Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world."
(source: www.nytimes.com, based on a publication of 'Iranian Students News Agency' (ISNA) -- insertions by the New York Times in squared brackets -- passages in triple squared brackets will be left blank in the MEMRI version printed below)
It's becoming clear. The statements of the Iranian President have been reflected by the media in a manipulated way. Iran's President betokens the removal of the regimes, that are in power in Israel and in the USA, to be possible aim for the future. This is correct. But he never demands the elimination or annihilation of Israel. He reveals that changes are potential. The Shah-Regime being supported by the USA in its own country has been vanquished. The eastern governance of the Soviet Union collapsed. Saddam Hussein's dominion drew to a close. Referring to this he voices his aspiration that changes will also be feasible in Israel respectively in Palestine. He adduces Ayatollah Khomeini referring to the Shah-Regime who in this context said that the regime (meaning the Shah-Regime) should be removed.

Certainly, Ahmadinejad translates this quotation about a change of regime into the occupied Palestine. This has to be legitimate. To long for modified political conditions in a country is a world-wide day-to-day business by all means. But to commute a demand for removal of a 'regime' into a demand for removal of a state is serious deception and dangerous demagogy.

This is one chapter of the war against Iran that has already begun with the words of Georg Meggle, professor of philosophy at the university of Leipzig - namely with the probably most important phase, the phase of propaganda.

Marginally we want to mention that it was the former US Vice-Minister of Defence and current President of the World Bank, Paul D. Wolfowitz, who in Sept. 2001 talked about ending states in public and without any kind of awe. And it was the father of George W. Bush who started the discussion about a winnable nuclear war if only the survival of an elite is assured.

Let's pick an example: the German online-news-magazine tagesschau.de writes the following about Iran's president on 2005-10-27: "There is no doubt: the new wave of assaults in Palestine will erase the stigma in countenance of the Islamic world." Instead of using the original word 'wave' they write 'wave of assaults'. This replacement of the original text is what we call disinformation. E.g. it would be correct to say: "The new movement in Palestine will erase the stain of disgrace from the Islamic world." Additionally this statement refers to the occupation regime mentioned in the previous sentence.

As a precaution we will examine a different translation of the speech - a version prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), located in Washington:

"They [ask]: 'Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?' But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved. [[[...]]] "'When the dear Imam [Khomeini] said that [the Shah's] regime must go, and that we demand a world without dependent governments, many people who claimed to have political and other knowledge [asked], 'Is it possible [that the Shah's regime can be toppled]?' That day, when Imam [Khomeini] began his movement, all the powers supported [the Shah's] corrupt regime [[[...]]] and said it was not possible. However, our nation stood firm, and by now we have, for 27 years, been living without a government dependent on America. Imam [Khomeni] said: 'The rule of the East [U.S.S.R.] and of the West [U.S.] should be ended.' But the weak people who saw only the tiny world near them did not believe it. Nobody believed that we would one day witness the collapse of the Eastern Imperialism [i.e. the U.S.S.R], and said it was an iron regime. But in our short lifetime we have witnessed how this regime collapsed in such a way that we must look for it in libraries, and we can find no literature about it. Imam [Khomeini] said that Saddam [Hussein] must go, and that he would be humiliated in a way that was unprecedented. And what do you see today? A man who, 10 years ago, spoke as proudly as if he would live for eternity is today chained by the feet, and is now being tried in his own country [[[...]]] Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise. Is it possible that an [Islamic] front allows another front [i.e. country] to arise in its [own] heart? This means defeat, and he who accepts the existence of this regime [i.e. Israel] in fact signs the defeat of the Islamic world. In his battle against the World of Arrogance, our dear Imam [Khomeini] set the regime occupying Qods [Jerusalem] as the target of his fight. I do not doubt that the new wave which has begun in our dear Palestine and which today we are also witnessing in the Islamic world is a wave of morality which has spread all over the Islamic world. Very soon, this stain of disgrace [i.e. Israel] will vanish from the center of the Islamic world - and this is attainable."

(source: http://memri.org, based on the publication of 'Iranian Students News Agency' (ISNA) -- insertions by MEMRI in squared brackets -- missing passages compared to the 'New York Times' in triple squared brackets)

The term 'map' to which the media refer at length does not even appear. Whereas the 'New York Times' said: "Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map" the version by MEMRI is: "Imam [Khomeini] said: This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history."

MEMRI added the following prefixed formulation to their translation as a kind of title: "Very Soon, This Stain of Disgrace [i.e. Israel] Will Be Purged From the Center of the Islamic World - and This is Attainable". Thereby they take it out of context by using the insertion 'i.e. Israel' they distort the meaning on purpose. The temporal tapering 'very soon' does not appear in the NY-Times-translation either. Besides it is striking that MEMRI deleted all passages in their translation which characterize the US-supported Shah-Regime as a regime of terror and at the same time show the true character of US-American policy.

An independent translation of the original (like the version published by ISNA) yields that Ahmadinejad does not use the term 'map'. He quotes Ayatollah Khomeini's assertion that the occupation regime must vanish from this world - literally translated: from the arena of times. Correspondingly: there is no space for an occupation regime in this world respectively in this time. The formulation 'wipe off the map' used by the 'New York Times' is a very free and aggravating interpretation which is equivalent to 'razing something to the ground' or 'annihilating something'. The downwelling translation, first into English ('wipe off the map'), then from English to German - and all literally ('von der Landkarte löschen') - makes us stride away from the original more and more. The perfidious thing about this translation is that the expression 'map' can only be used in one (intentional) way: a state can be removed from a map but not a regime, about which Ahmadinejad is actually speaking.

Again following the independent translation: "I have no doubt that the new movement taking place in our dear Palestine is a spiritual movement which is spanning the entire Islamic world and which will soon remove this stain of disgrace from the Islamic world".

It must be allowed to ask how it is possible that 'spirtual movement' resp. 'wave of morality' (as translated by MEMRI) and 'wave of assaults' can be equated and translated (like e.g tagesschau.de published it).

Does Iran's President deny the Holocaust?

"The German government condemned the repetitive offending anti-Israel statements by Ahmadinejad to be shocking. Such behaviour is not tolerable, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated. [...] Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed Ahmadinejad's statements to be 'inconceivable'" (published by tagesschau.de 2005-12-14.

But not only the German Foreign Minister Steinmeier and the Federal Chancellor Merkel allege this, but the Bild-Zeitung, tagesschau.de, parts of the peace movement, US-President George W. Bush, the 'Papers for German and international politics', CNN, the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, almost the entire world does so, too: Iran's President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust.

What is this assertion based on? In substance it is based on dispatches of 2 days - 2005-12-14 and 2006-02-11.

"The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stepped up his verbal attacks against Israel and the Western states and has denied the Holocaust. Instead of making Israel's attacks against Palestine a subject of discussion 'the Western states devote their energy to the fairy-tale of the massacre against the Jews', Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday in a speech at Zahedan in the south-east of Iran which was broadcasted directly by the news-channel Khabar. That day he stated that if the Western states really believe in the assassination of six million Jews in W.W. II they should put a piece of land in Europe, in the USA, Canada or Alaska at Israel's disposal." - dispatch of the German press agency DPA, 2005-12-14.

The German TV-station n24 spreads the following on 2006-12-14 using the title 'Iran's President calls the Holocaust a myth': "The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stepped up his verbal attacks against Israel and called the Holocaust a 'myth' used as a pretext by the Europeans to found a Jewish state in the center of the Islamic world . 'In the name of the Holocaust they have created a myth and regard it to be worthier than God, religion and the prophets' the Iranian head of state said."

The Iranian press agency IRNA renders Ahmadinejad on 2005-12-14 as follows: "'If the Europeans are telling the truth in their claim that they have killed six million Jews in the Holocaust during the World War II - which seems they are right in their claim because they insist on it and arrest and imprison those who oppose it, why the Palestinian nation should pay for the crime. Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions.' [...] 'If you have committed the crimes so give a piece of your land somewhere in Europe or America and Canada or Alaska to them to set up their own state there.' [...] Ahmadinejad said some have created a myth on holocaust and hold it even higher than the very belief in religion and prophets [...] The president further said, 'If your civilization consists of aggression, displacing the oppressed nations, suppressing justice-seeking voices and spreading injustice and poverty for the majority of people on the earth, then we say it out loud that we despise your hollow civilization.'"

There again we find the quotation already rendered by n24: "In the name of the Holocaust they created a myth." We can see that this is completely different from what is published by e.g. the DPA - the massacre against the Jews is a fairy-tale. What Ahmadinejad does is not denying the Holocaust. No! It is dealing out criticism against the mendacity of the imperialistic powers who use the Holocaust to muzzle critical voices and to achieve advantages concerning the legitimization of a planned war. This is criticism against the exploitation of the Holocaust.

CNN (2005-12-15) renders as follows: "If you have burned the Jews why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel. Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

The Washingtonian ''Middle East Media Research Institute' (MEMRI) renders Ahmadinejad's statements from 2005-12-14 as follows: "...we ask you: if you indeed committed this great crime, why should the oppressed people of Palestine be punished for it? * [...] If you committed a crime, you yourselves should pay for it. Our offer was and remains as follows: If you committed a crime, it is only appropriate that you place a piece of your land at their disposal - a piece of Europe, of America, of Canada, or of Alaska - so they can establish their own state. Rest assured that if you do so, the Iranian people will voice no objection."

The MEMRI-rendering uses the relieving translation 'great crime' and misappropriates the following sentence at the * marked passage: "Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions." This sentence has obviously been left out deliberately because it would intimate why the Israeli state could have forfeited the right to establish itself in Palestine - videlicet because of its aggressive expansionist policy against the people of Palestine, ignoring any law of nations and disobeying all UN-resolutions.

In spite of the variability referring to the rendering of the statements of Iran's President we should nevertheless note down: the reproach of denying the Holocaust cannot be sustained if Ahmadinejad speaks of a great and huge crime that has been done to the Jews.

In another IRNA-dispatch (2005-12-14) the Arabian author Ghazi Abu Daqa writes about Ahmadinejad: "The Iranian president has nothing against the followers of Judaism [...] Ahmadinejad is against Zionism as well as its expansionist and occupying policy. That is why he managed to declare to the world with courage that there is no place for the Zionist regime in the world civilized community."

It's no wonder that such opinions do not go down particularly well with the ideas of the centers of power in the Western world. But for this reason they are not wrong right away. Dealing out criticism against the aggressive policy of the Western world, to which Israel belongs as well, is not yet anti-Semitism. We should at least to give audience to this kind of criticism - even if it is a problematic field for us.

Friday June 22, 2012, 5:01 pm
Hi John,

We've talked about this before: The phrase "vanish from the page of time" translates idiomatically as "be wiped off the map". It was not supposed to be a literal translation because the phrase is a Farsi idiom. Unless the guy is a whole lot crazier than I thought, he does not believe there is a literal "page of time".

As for the comparison to the removal of the Shah, the article you copied misses multiple important points: Looking at the context which you helpfully provided, he described a military victory under the faction which became the current Iranian regime, the destruction of a country so thorough that there is no trace remaining, and afterwards he said explicitly that another "front" (a non-Islamic country) cannot be permitted to exist within a Muslim-dominated region. That's right: He never said "wiped off the map". His statement, though, is most succinctly and effectively summed up in English using that phrase.

Also, nobody is using the Holocaust to muzzle anyone. It is used as a historical reference fairly often to demonstrate that certain things are possible and cannot, even today, be predicted well enough in advance to prevent. Tell me, what principle can be extracted from the preceding events and conditions which could be used to identify warning-signs of a future Holocaust without turning up so many false-positives as to be useless? If you can answer that question accurately and fully support your answer, then you are probably the only one in the world who can. We can't prevent Nazi-like groups from arising. In fact, I suspect it may only be a few years before Muslims have to start thinking about running from the current Eurozone countries. All we can do is make sure there is a reliable refuge for each group that may be targeted. That is the primary argument in which references to the Holocaust are used by supporters of Israel. That argument is does not demand that anyone be silenced.

Friday June 22, 2012, 6:04 pm
Hello Stephen. So you, a non-Persian speaker, know that "wiped off the map" is the correct translation or "idiomatic" translation. All the eminent grammarians and translators who say "page of time" are wrong and you are right. Is that it? The Zionist translation site MEMRI is wrong too? The native Farsi speakers at the BBC who revised their translation are wrong? In addition, the President was quoting the "dear Imam", not making a threat.

As for the Jewish holocaust, it's been turned into a racket by the Zionist Entity and its supporters, just as the accusation of anti-semitism has been. Of course it's used to stifle debate and criticism. How can you claim otherwise? Unfortunately the real danger of this tactic is that the Zionist usage of the holocaust of European Jews and the anti-semite canard is to devalue both and reduce their effectiveness against true Jew-haters and holocaust deniers.

Saturday June 23, 2012, 8:22 am
Of course it is the right translation John. Everything Stephen says is accurate like the Un recognition of the annexation of East Jerusalem, the UN resolution claiming that the War of 1967 was self defense, along with the complete re-interpretation of the 4th Geneva Convention where Stephen, boy genius, found an item right in the preamble which gets Israel off the hook while Israeli lawyers who have spent their lives' work on defending Israel haven't found the true intent of the 4th Convention. Don't you know we are mere humans, unable to achieve the understanding of EVERYTHING as Stephen does.

Just want to note that this wasn't even Ahmadinejad words, he was quoting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and it seems that no matter how many times they specifically defend themselves against this accusation, it won't be believed. Considering the US gov't deceive everyone about their intentions (even their own citizens), I find it pretty funny that the pot is calling the kettle black. As for Stephen, it is completely impossible to discuss anything with him. He will weasel out of every false statement he makes, distort and manipulate anything said, all while he is jumping up and down screaming "look at me, look at me". That would be fine, the only problem is this completely distracts from the true issues which is the continued dispossession of a population in order to gain more and more land. Hopefully he will be at his "let's play UN" camp this summer and we won't have to listen to his bs.