Saturday, December 31, 2005

Iranian Head Plans 'Holocaust ' Commission


Iranian Head Plans 'Holocaust' Commission

West shamed by Islamic leader

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is apparently preparing a government commission to investigate the ultimate taboo: Jewish "Holocaust" orthodoxy.

Ahmadinejad survived a recent assassination attempt soon after making remarks about world Zionism's psychological use of the supposed planned genocide of the Jewish people in the Second World War, a contention that has surprisingly little evidence supporting it.

Ahmadinejad also pointed out that the West, whose misleaders lecture nations such as Iran about human rights, imprisons many of those who dare to question the supposedly established historical fact of the "Holocaust."

According to the anti-Iranian site Iran focus Ahmadinejad wants the planned commission, which would be the first of its kind anywhere, to finally establish what happened around the Jewish issue in World War Two, since Western scholars are not permitted to freely research, publish or discuss the "Holocaust."

Ahmadinejad and Iran are under intense Israeli-instigated American pressure in regards to the Iranian civilian nuclear energy program. Israel cynically claims the program "could" one day be used for an Iranian nuclear weapon. Israel is the only regional power in the Middle East with nukes.

Read on . . . .

Friday, December 30, 2005

Holocaust - real or myth?


This is a topic that is, to say the least, highly controversial. To even question the accuracy of how many Jews died in the German Fascist/Nazi death camps during WW2 is asking to be lambasted by some, and be labeled "anti Semitic" and worse.

For many years now, I've wondered why we hear so much and so often about the "gassing of the Jews" and other atrocities, but almost never of others in the same camps, namely Gypsies and homos and perhaps others. I have never made it a deep study, but I have read a fair amount over the years and lately as well some articles giving a different account. I have no strong feelings or alliances except that I am against unfair and inhumane treatment of anybody by anyone regardless of name, nationality, religion or any other "reason".

Of course, I never heard of anyone questioning the accuracy of the stories of the holocaust for many years. I just assumed that it was true, seeing as how it was so prominently and frequently told. But then, why not the others under Hitler? Why not the Russians, of whom many more died? Or the Chinese? Or the Native Americans in what is now the U.S.?

True, we have been hearing a little of the Native Americans, but still nothing about the other groups I've mentioned, and then still others around the world, such as Africa or Indonesia.

Why do we hear so much about the Jews then?

I'm asking this honestly. Anyone who knows me also knows I am not biased toward any group of any kind, and this has been a real struggle for me, because I was born and raised with a lot of harsh discrimation toward blacks in America. I still have corners of my mind where discrimination towards them resides, but much of the original is gone. But I digress....

The last couple of years, I've run into more and more information from seemingly good sources that contradict the holocaust stories. Mind you, no one is denying large numbers of Jews were sent to the "concentration camps" in Germany, or that large numbers of them were mistreated and died. But the gas chambers stories and the total number of Jews dying do not add up. The concentration camps were mainly forced labor camps and many did die there, but not of gassing. Typhus was a big culprit, but also hard labor, poor nutrition and lack of food, and lack of medical care.

My own father died of Typhus (unrelated story), so did Anne Frank, whose house I've been through at least 5 times. Jews have had, and still have, influence in Amsterdam, where I live. Heck, our mayor - quite popular by the way - is Job Cohen. I've stood on the platform at Central Station here where many Jews boarded the trains.... The average Jew has never been a problem, just as the average person of any nationality or religion.

It is when politics, driven and controlled be a few elite, and some extremists, get into the picture that we have problems. I see the extremeists as tools of the few elite.

But I am now seeing that this history was written not as it really happened, which is also true of much other history. I am treating this newer material as any other topic I am confronted with that does not agree with what I learned earlier: Continue to read and ponder. I do not change my opinion on anything quickly, and I need a lot of evidence to do that. But over time, and with enough evidence, I have and will change my view. And that's where I am at the present: Considering material coming to light, doubting some things, questioning others, looking for not only the facts, but also motives. I've been doing this for several years now regarding the holocaust. I still have no firm opinion, but my view is not the same as years ago when I simply 'believed', and find I am leaning to doubting some significant "facts" of the holocaust.

I also have posted little about this here, seeing the volitility and misunderstandings of this subject. Nor have I saved any material or links. Just read and pondered and dropped the matter, only to repeat that many times.

But now I have seen enough to know that what I had learned in the past is not the way it happened. While I do not seek out this subject, I do run across it regularly in my hours of reading every day. And so I have been "letting it happen" instead of trying make it happen.

In no way would I deny the mistreatment and death of a large number of Jews during that time, and other times, in history. But the 'holocaust' story that has been so prominently served to me is also doubtful. And I still continue to wonder why we don't hear much about other, often larger, groups that we know for certain were mistreated and killed.

One question I can ask is this: Who profits by this?

So...that's about where I sit at the moment. Questioning, doubting some significant parts of the holocaust story, but not denying parts we know happened. I do the same with the Native Americans. But I have not even begun with the Russians, Africans, Chinese, Indonesians.....

This is a struggle for me. The struggle is to learn the truth insofar as that is possible. I have been doing this for many years in other areas, particularly my religious and political background. And that is also still not conclusive.

One final thought here: Some Jews are Zionists, but the vast majority are not. Just as in the U.S., some Americans are neocons, but the vast majority are not. And by the way, many of the neocons in influencial positions in the U.S. are Zionists as well, look at Bush's advisors. It is the Zionists that are the problem, just as the neocons are.

What I'm doing here is kind of putting my thoughts on 'paper', not taking a hard position on this volitile subject. But I also have a tag line in my emails that says: "Watch what is done, not what is said." I try to live by that.

For now, I have tagged this subject "Opinion". But I may well tag parts of it in the future as "Deception, disinformation, cover-up" as I already have done with other topics.

The following article is interesting, if not controversial. I do not know about some statements in it, nor do I know if those are accurate, nor is the source a well known one to me. But they are interesting. This article, taken together with many others, must be weighed and compared. Therefore I would label it "interesting". I will not form an opinion on such, just weigh it against many others. Oh yes, I have not read any material by neo nazis or any other anti Jewish or biased group.


This is the article; there are many more....

Thursday, December 29, 2005

New Orleans police gun down mentally ill man


From the mainstream media story below, we get one account. Here is another account, giving more information and perspective. The photo above/right is of Robert Davis, the retired school teacher, who was badly beaten by the police earlier, and is mentioned in the report below.

A New Orleans man, described by relatives as mentally ill, was gunned down by police on Monday. Anthony Hayes, 38, was killed after allegedly lunging at police with a three-inch blade. Three bystanders videotaped part of Hayes’s confrontation with some 18 police officers, three of whom fired nine shots at the man. Eyewitnesses expressed anger over the fatal use of force given the victim’s apparent illness. They said that Hayes was a familiar, but solitary, figure in the neighborhood. Michelle Dawson, a Burger King employee, said that Hayes would spend hours at a table in the restaurant talking to himself without bothering other customers.

New Orleans police gun down mentally ill man

Both post-Hurricane Katrina cases of police violence in New Orleans would have received scant attention by the media had they not been captured on videotape. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana revealed that it is investigating at least 10 brutality complaints filed in the past month or so.

A mentally ill man, who by all accounts posed no threat, is gunned down in cold blood, and this execution is justified on the basis of the “shoot-to-kill” mandate given to police agencies. Such a state of affairs is indicative of the growing brutalization of American society and its underlying social polarization.

Read on . . . .


Doomsday for the Greenback


I've read and followed William Clark's first essay from just before the Iraq invasion, and this has been updated by him, and here by Mike Whitney. And I agree as well that this is the kernel of truth that lies behind, and explains, U.S. policy, and especially lately. A must read.

A preemptive attack on Iran would “provoke other industrial nations to strategically abandon the dollar en masse”… “in an effort to thwart the neoconservatives from pursuing their desperate strategy of dominating the world’s hydrocarbon energy supply.” William R. Clark “Petrodollar Warfare; Dollars, Euros and the upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse”,

The Federal Reserve is the financial headquarters for the cartel of multinational banking establishments. The confederation of banks in the Fed underwrites the exploitative activities of the world’s main industries and sets rates in a manner that best serves their objectives. This is how the bankers perpetuate the system of economic hegemony and apply the shackle of debt and dependence to the planet’s most destitute countries. The Federal Reserve is every bit as critical to the maintenance of the empire as its political counterparts in Washington or its blood-brothers in the US Military. It is the largest of the empire’s three gears; economic, political and military, which mobilize the mighty wheel of state terror.

Read on. . . .

New Orleans police: Shooting unavoidable


Normally I don't comment on such incidents here, but this is too often the case in such incidents in the U.S., and of which the world is well aware.

I live in a city not too unlike New Orleans, save the poverty, (Amsterdam), but the number of times police must shoot someone can easily be counted on the fingers of one hand in a year's time. And....there will be one or two shots fired, aimed at disabling the person and only as a last resort. Not the 10 shots reported here, which are not meant at disabling, but "taking him out". If this report is accurate, the police behavior would not at all be acceptable here.

This highlights one of the differences between police methods in the U.S. and western Europe, and also contrasts the traditional cultures and the methods allowed by these cultures and governments. While the governments here also often wield too much power, it is more subtle and much less violent and intimidating.


The New Orleans Police Department was quick to distinguish Monday's fatal shooting of a knife-wielding man by police officers from the string of incidents that has battered the department's reputation since Hurricane Katrina.

"This officer's life was in imminent danger, and they did what they had to do," spokesman David Adams said in an interview Tuesday. The officers involved have been reassigned, and the incident is under investigation, he said.

"They ordered him to drop the knife, and he just kept backpedaling," Adams said. "Then he lunged at an officer, who had to step back to avoid being stabbed in the chest." That's when police fired. The man suffered multiple wounds, and 10 shell casings were recovered at the scene, Adams said.

Read further....

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Spys like us.


With the recent revelations of spy activity on its own citizens, the spying of UN members just before the US invasion of Iraq is getting attention again. This was all but not reported in U.S. mainstream news then, although it was to be seen on internet.

And then to think that we haven't even talked about commercial or industrial spying yet, which the U.S. has been engaged in for many years. Eschelon, a system in place for years, and other methods were used to monitor all forms of communication as well, and the internet is being monitored, of course.

It would appear that there is little that the U.S. has >not< monitored. This does not speak well of a country who trumpets its "freedoms" and "free trade" so loudly.

For many years, I've been saying that the louder and more often such things are proclaimed, the less of them there actually are.


NSA Spied on U.N. Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq.

Despite all the news accounts and punditry since the New York Times published its Dec. 16 bombshell about the National Security Agency's domestic spying, the media coverage has made virtually no mention of the fact that the Bush administration used the NSA to spy on U.N. diplomats in New York before the invasion of Iraq. That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack. The entire purpose of the NSA surveillance was to help the White House gain leverage, by whatever means possible, for a resolution in the U.N. Security Council to green light an invasion. When that surveillance was exposed nearly three years ago, the mainstream U.S. media winked at Bush's illegal use of the NSA for his Iraq invasion agenda.

Back then, after news of the NSA's targeted spying at the United Nations broke in the British press, major U.S. media outlets gave it only perfunctory coverage -- or, in the case of the New York Times, no coverage at all. Now, while the NSA is in the news spotlight with plenty of retrospective facts, the NSA's spying at the U.N. goes unmentioned: buried in an Orwellian memory hole. A rare exception was a paragraph in a Dec. 20 piece by Patrick Radden Keefe in the online magazine Slate -- which pointedly noted that "the eavesdropping took place in Manhattan and violated the General Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the Headquarters Agreement for the United Nations, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, all of which the United States has signed."

Read on ....

Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council in run-up to war....

Mercenaries guard Green Zone and more



Latin American mercenaries guarding Baghdad’s Green Zone

Since the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, about 20,000 mercenaries have been hired to work as private security contractors. This figure represents one mercenary for every seven uniformed American soldiers in these regions. With $30 billion spent by the US Government on private security contractors in 2004—its largest expenditure in Iraq after oil and construction—the contractors have found a gold mine in the Latin American market. War is big money and, like any other business today, security contractors are scouring the globe looking for the cheapest labor so as to maximize their war profiteering.

Unemployed young men from Peru—most of them former soldiers—are paid only $1,000 a month—less than a tenth the salary paid to American mercenaries. For $5.75 an hour—a figure that is roughly equivalent to the US minimum wage—the recruits put themselves “in the line of fire” protecting US and British interests in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forbes magazine reports that the US Government “pays private firms between $500 and $1,500 a day for the experienced military personnel they supply in Iraq. That works out to mercenaries who often earn between $150,000 and $250,000 a year.”

Read on . . . .

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

DU - Weapons of Mass Distruction


United States Is Actively Engaged In War Crimes And Polluting With Nuclear Materials

Today, I am going to address a subject that it as touchy as anti-Semitism and over time is going to be a very painful realization that the citizens of this Republic will have to face. Americans do not like to have to come to grips with the fact that this nation is not always right, our policies are not always honorable, and our actions in war are not always defending Liberty and Freedom. Sometimes what is done in our name is so horrible they do not want you to know about it.

Imagine that, coming from a person that is not anti-war, but does see wrong for what it is. No amount of spin can convert a wrong act into something decent and honorable.

The media has failed to report that we have left behind deadly radiation that is exposing people in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and our soldiers to very high levels of deadly radiation and nuclear molecules.

Read on. . . .

DU linked to Gulf War 1 Syndrome

The Anglo-American War of Terror: An Overview



A must read.

This essay is one of the best I've seen, giving a good overview of what is, and has been, going on. It is rather lengthy, of necessity, but is a fascinating read. Instead of unconnected bits and pieces, this ties together a lot of stuff.


An understanding of the underlying historical background is crucial. This war agenda is not the product of a distinct neo-conservative project. From the outset of the Cold War Era, there is a consistent thread, a continuum in US military doctrine, from the "Truman doctrine" to Bush's "war on terrorism". Foreign Policy adviser George F. Kennan had outlined in a 1948 State Department brief what was later described as the "'Truman doctrine."

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. In the largest display of military might since the Second World War, the United States and its indefectible British ally have embarked upon a military adventure, which threatens the future of humanity.

What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from "Containment" to "Pre-emptive" War. In this regard, the Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a post World War II foreign policy framework. The latter has been marked by a succession of US sponsored wars and military interventions in all major regions of the World. From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman Doctrine" at the outset of the Cold War.

Read on. . . .

9/11 Index-Many Links


Because of the massive amount of information involved, I have placed the many links I have all on one page. This will simplify reading of the large amounts of information.

Many of these links will have further links, thus there is more here than meets the eye. The links are found on my main politics page, Politics International; the permanent link can be found at right.


Much info, many links all on one page.

Monday, December 26, 2005

U.S. offensives target civilians not fighters


More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, have died in Iraq since the war was launched in March 2003, mostly as a result of airstrikes by the occupation forces, according Iraqi and U.S. public health experts.

And recently Iraqi townspeople and the U.S. military stated that innocent civilians are being targeted by the U.S. airstrikes in Iraqi residential neighborhoods along the Euphrates River in far western Iraq, and not what the U.S. Army claims to be “insurgents, an editorial on the Washington Post stated.

he exact number of civilians killed in those strikes is strongly disputed by the Marines, the article stated, but townspeople, tribal leaders, as well as medical officials and witnesses’ accounts assert that scores of noncombatants were killed in the U.S. military’s last month operations, including airstrikes carried out ahead of the U.S. 17-day offensive in Anbar province.

"These people died silently, complaining to God of a guilt they did not commit," said Zahid Mohammed Rawi, a physician in the town of Husaybah, said.

Read on ....

'They' Destroyed New Orleans



The wounds of Katrina are not healing, despite the passing of some time and lack of media attention. Here is a report, albeit one that waffles a bit, but seeing it is the first published report of this individual, he seems to be trying to bring "balance" to it. It needs no balance, just facts and context. I do, however, object to the negative tint he ascribes to 'conspiracy theories'. Conspiracy theories Conspiracy theories are real, and many are based on enough fact to be - at the least - worthy of consideration, if not serious attention.

When it comes to explaining why the levees broke, many otherwise reasonable New Orleanians are quick to believe in conspiracy theories.

My little cousin, Kenneth, sits across from me smoking a cigarette in the driver's seat of his car. Like everyone else in my family, he lost everything when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Now he sits in my driveway on a Saturday night in LaPlace trying to understand why."Them people blew them levees," he says, looking at me, puffing on his cigarette. "They wanted to save the white people Uptown, but they ain't know it was gonna be this bad."

I just look at him when he says this. He's sincere, not a trace of doubt in his voice. Some people might call him crazy for believing a theory like that. But truth is, he's not alone, far from it. Last month I went to Arlington and visited some of my in-laws, who evacuated there. When the subject of Katrina and the levees came up, all of them went to talking the exact same way.

Read on ....

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas, Vrolijk Kerstfeest


Today is Christmas Day. It needs no explaining in western cultures, in which the Christian belief plays an influential role.

I wish you and yours a Blessed Christmas, Happy Holidays and a time of socialness or togetherness, but also reflection.

May you enjoy this time of celebration in your own way. And perhaps in a time of quiet and reflection, ponder on just what part our own cultures and countries play in world peace and well being. Or the lack of it.