Comrade Kiran's Answers to Journalists During the Press Conference on June 19, 2012

The Nepalese Maoists have been very successful. After waging a long revolutionary war, they hung it up with a peace settlement in an effort to try to obtain power peacefully. In recent elections, they got 4 However, since then, their leaders have been engaged in some major sellout activity, especially Prachandra, their leader. He has aligned himself with the US and India, and has praised unequal treaties signed by Nepal and India in the past in addition to supporting new treaties that India has lined up for its neo-colony called Nepal. India has always treated Nepal like dirt, used and abused it in a neocolonial fashion. The traitor Nepali Congress Party went along with this treason by aligning itself with the establishment India Congress Party. What this really is is Indian imperialism. In addition to being a reactionary state, we need to think long and hard about the extent to which India is also an imperialist power. India’s actions in the Northeast and in Kashmir nearly smack of imperialism. These are arguably occupied territories of Indian imperialism and Indian ultranationalism. As a regional hegemon and a large capitalist state with a huge army, it was only a matter of time before India would start acting as an imperialist power. As Lenin pointed out in his seminal essay, modern capitalism is necessarily imperialist. A large modern capitalist state must be an imperialist state, and modern capitalism must inevitably lead to imperialism. This is where the antiwar Libertarians have it all wrong. They envision a large ultracapitalist US or even world in which all states would be isolationist and noninterventionist. But if modern large state capitalism cannot be anything other than imperialist, this is simply not possible. Large capitalist states will not sit idly by while other nations take actions against corporate capitalist interests and in favor of their peoples. The US has supported repeated coups and coup attempts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, Bolivia and most recently in Paraguay. There were recent imperialist interventions in Libya and now in Syria mostly to secure the interests of Western capital and Zionism. Zionism itself has profound links with imperialism, and some argue that the Israeli state itself, while obviously a s colonial power, is also an imperialist power. I am not certain if Israel is actually a regional imperialist power. I do not know what the BIPPA is, but it sounds like globalist World Bank IMF bullshit designed to privilege corporations and capital at the expense of sovereign nations, people and the Earth itself. It’s mind-boggling to think that Prachandra has gone along with this. This split in Maoist parties is not a bad thing and was a long time coming. Let’s see where it all leads. These questions and answers are from the press conference that was organized on the 19th of June 2012 by the newly formed Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, which finally ruptured from the then Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) after a 2 day long National Convention held in Kathmandu, Nepal. Chairman of the newly formed CPN-M, Comrade Kiran (Mohan Baidya) answered the questions raised by journalists during the press conference. Thanks to Comrade Pooja for taking her time to make this speech available in English. Q: – How do you justify the formation of the new party? How should general people understand this? A: – Communist party is a party for the benefit of the proletariat and the people. In the case of Nepal, the aim of a communist party remains to move forward, raising the issues of safeguarding national sovereignty; people’s democracy and livelihood then ultimately leap towards socialism and communism. This is self-proven. In the process of attaining this aim we went through people’s war, and did considerable amount of work among and with the people. We built our base areas, practiced our newly formed people’s power but then conciliation took place amidst as we moved forward to build a new Nepal. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t compromise, we should, but while compromising, the act of abandoning our entire basis (achievements) has happened. The act of slipping down from our mission and objectives has happened. The dream we carried was of a constitutional assembly, but where is the constitution? How did the constituent assembly function? Talking about people’s livelihood, how has the corruption been mounting-up? That fact is clearer. In the process of making a constitution there was an agreement to move forward institutionalizing the rights of the working class, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, women & Dalits; including the rights of all oppressed class, region and gender but ditching all these primary issues of constitutional thematic committees it is apparent that ex-chairman, Prachanda surrendered everything to Congress & UML by forming a dispute resolution sub-committee under the constitutional committee. In the process of making a constitution the question of ethnic-identity-based federalism is extremely important. Our party takes the decision of an ethnic-identity-based federalism while in process of restructuring the state Prachanda & Baburam joined their necks together with Congress-UML and agreed up on eleven anonymous federal states. The situation was that they were forced to take their decision back, as we and all others in the constituent assembly carried-out a signature collection campaign against their decision. They have failed to institutionalize ethnic-identity, it is important for us to do it. Where are the perquisites for women and Dalits? There have been serious betrayals on these issues. That is why we want to raise all these issues again. Not only that, we are also talking about issues of national sovereignty. Since the bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement (BIPPA) was signed, now the issues of water resources agreement and extradition treaty have come to surface. The main thing is that there has been a wrong tendency to maneuver our party as a puppet of imperialism and expansionism; along with this all the core concept of the party including the guiding principal has been distorted. We are against this. We cannot let our party function as a puppet of imperialism, expansionism and feudalism. We had to revolt in order to safeguard people’s rights, interests and benefit. This is the main justification of the split. Q: – In the past we have witnessed vicious confrontations between two factions after the split of Naxalite struggle in India. How are you cautious about bloodshed happening after the party split? What is your view on the question of the government? A: – You raised the question of possible confrontation between two parties and the question of the Naxalite struggle in India; we are very cautious about this. There won’t be any such confrontation from our side. We won’t go into confrontation. It has been proven even in the course of history of our two-line struggle that we never exerted any physical force anywhere. Instead we have heard many cases of exertion of force by Prachanda’s group in places. During that time we alerted the concerned party to be serious on the matter. Therefore, firstly what I want to assure you is that we will not be exerting any physical force anywhere from our side. Secondly, we have to be extremely aware. There has been talk with Prachanda and other people within his circle that we have to be very serious in these matters after separation of the party. Therefore, how to move forward is primarily dependent on Prachanda’s group. Not to become serious in this matter and exert physical force is against  democratic norms; it is a dictatorship to exert force instead of seeking a solution to the problem through discussions and debates in a communist party. That is fascism. No one accept dictatorship and fascism, including us. In such a situation the masses will resist these acts. There are two things on the issues of how to move forward with other parties. Firstly we have to initiate talks with all the parties and reach an agreement in any issue that can be agreed upon. If anybody raises an issue that is in favor of the nation and the people, we must have to support that. We have been supportive so far, and that will continue. It doesn’t matter whether the Congress-UML or a neo-revisionist camp, if they raise similar issues as we do, we support that, but again the other important thing is that we should neither merge in the coalition of Congress-UML nor in the coalition of Baburam-Prachanda’s coalition of neo-revisionism. We will carry forward an independent revolutionary line of Nepalese politics. Q: – There are allegations that the monarchy assisted you to split the party, and you have close ties with Gyanendra, do you have RIM’s support or not? Who played the role from the international community to split the party? Has the president the right to dismiss the prime-minister, what is your say on this? A: – Firstly, you raised the question of collaboration with Gyanendra, who told you this and where? Reveal the factual basis of this, substantiate and tell me. Secondly, in the process of a two-line struggle, Baburam accused Prachanda as pro-king, and Prachanda had accused Baburam as pro-expansionist. This was documented in writing. Have you studied that written document or not? Did you understand that the pro-king and the pro-expansionist forces united together to attack us in the process of the two-line struggle? Thirdly, each and every political party has to have a capacity. That capacity means capacity of logical argument. When it’s not possible to annihilate someone through the means of factual arguments and debates, then there will be malevolent attempts to label them as corrupt, to denigrate them through the means of conspiracy and deception. Fourthly, if you look at our programs, we ask for establishment of a people’s federal republican state, emphasis on safeguarding the achievements of the ten years of the great people’s war. Let us look at things from a factual basis; when we look from this basis, those baseless allegations bear no truth at all. This isn’t anything but false allegations hatched by the pro-Indian-expansionist elements. Yes, we are in the RIM. There are many different parties in the RIM. You may even know what sort of discussions there are. Do you raise a question with the knowledge or without? We used to be involved in decision making in the RIM. The RIM is actually not operative at this moment. Perhaps you are trying to point to a particular party, but we had fraternal relationships with all the parties involved in RIM, and that continues. Fraternal parties reserve some rights. Our communist party is a proletarian internationalist party. If any party involved in such an umbrella organization slips into the quagmire of opportunism, then the other parties oppose this, and the international community has clearly said that the Prachanda-Baburam gang has slipped into the quagmire of revisionism. Therefore, let’s forget about RIM – any other genuine communist parties do not acknowledge that this gang is Marxist anymore. So, the issue of RIM etc. is total nonsense. Again, power & greed; look at the agenda– the only and one agenda of Congress-UML is that Baburam has to step down from the government. Probably this is a major cause of the dissolution of the constituent assembly without forging any political resolution. On the other hand, the only agenda of Baburam is that he has to retain power. So, these two camps are ready to abandon anything and will abandon everything for power. Therefore, we are not in this controversy. We are not in the row of their greed of power. As a tactic we have forwarded the agenda of multilateral roundtable conference. The so-called top leaders of these parties have become incapable of solving people’s problems. We have put forward the agenda of the United Interim Government, and we have said that the problem can be solved from there. Therefore, we won’t involve ourselves in the corrupt power play of the government. Q: – How will you make the constitution, you have claimed that there has been massive intervention by India, how have you scrutinized the new developments? In the past you formed COMPOSA, will it be continued? A: – In the process of making the constitution the issue of Indian intervention has always been there since B.S 2007 (1951). Firstly, making a people’s constitution is not possible by collaborating and wrangling day and night with feudalists, compradors and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie class. Secondly, making a new constitution involves the participation of all oppressed people. Now this has been clearly proven. Therefore, in such a situation, the constitution cannot be made. So whether the agenda is of reinstating the constituent assembly or yet again another election, this is all incorrect. Now the political outlet has to be forged by conducting discussions and debates through a roundtable conference in a multilateral convention. Even if this process fails to make a new constitution, then those who are in the line of federalism should begin the process of establishing people’s government at a local level. We have to move forward with the concept of establishing a people’s government even at the central level. It is complete nonsense to talk about making a constitution without forming a pro-people government. We are very clear in this issue. We are also very clear about what we should do on the question of Indian intervention. Basically, it won’t be wrong to say Nepal is a neo-colony of India. The act of destroying border-pillars by the Indian side has been talking place on a daily basis, and the border has been encroached in many places including Sustaa, Maheshpur and Kalapanee. Forget the other governments – even Prachanda and Baburam who led the government from our own Maoist party could do nothing to stop it from happening but instead just became hopeless spectators. The intervention of Indian expansionism in all sectors – economic, political, social and strategic has been rapidly gearing up. Indian expansionism is fulfilling its self-interest by providing space to the Indian puppets in Nepal. Indian expansionism has no respect for the Nepalese. We respect Indian people, but the Indian government points its evil eyes on the Nepalese on a regular basis. There have been many unequal treaties with India since 1950. Instead of nullifying these unequal treaties, arrangements are being made to sign even more unequal treaties including Upper-Karnalee and Arun-III. Baburam’s government has signed another water resource agreement with India. Therefore, we have been relentlessly insisting on the nullification of all these unequal treaties. In an interview with The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, Prachanda claimed that we (Nepalese) have an exceptional relationship with India. Those who have exceptional relationship with India are parties like the Nepali Congress. Now, Prachanda has also started to follow Nepali Congress. Therefore, we rigorously oppose all these trends. What we have said is that all the unequal treaties signed so far in this 21st century between India and Nepal have to be nullified, and new arrangements to sign new coequal treaties that benefits Indian and the Nepalese people need to be made. If the intervention doesn’t stop, as we have been saying– we also have principal contradiction with Indian expansionism, we will target our struggle of national sovereignty against the bureaucratic bourgeoisie in Nepal as well as Indian expansionism. Finally, you asked about COMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia), COMPOSA is not something to fear! This is an umbrella organization to struggle in the interest of patriots, leftists and all other pro-people elements in the South-Asian region. This organization has been weakened for sometimes now. We think about the ways to strengthen it again and carry on with it. The main thing is that if the imperialists, expansionists and opportunists conspire to weaken the people of any countries, and then the people and the pro-people forces also have to unite in tactics and form a united front to struggle. Q: – In the process of forming a new party there are allegations that the new party is reminiscent of old alcohol in a new bottle, what do you want to say on this? And, what is the assurance that you will also not deviate from the revolutionary line? What do you think of a unity with Prachanda? Now, what will be your relationship with the existing state, will you divorce with it and begin to declare people’s governments as in the past? A: – You indicted the new party as an old alcohol, on this what I want to say is – please at least look at our decisions carefully. If you examine our decisions carefully, then you will be able to discern whether the new party is old or new alcohol. I think the word alcohol here has been fairly tainted, but it would be better to understand the crux of the matter. We didn’t separate without valid reasons. Many things justify the reasons for this divorce. I have already said a lot about the issue of Indian expansionism– think about it, can patriots and genuine republicans progress work together with those who sign treaties like the bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement (BIPPA) and those who claim an exceptional relationship with India? Can revolutionaries progress together with those who renounced all of the promises that were made to people in the process of the great people’s war and who cremated the constituent assembly by joining their necks together with the reactionaries and opportunists? We have to look at things from this prospective. Talking about unity with Prachanda – unity is not feasible in such a situation. It is not possible at all. We have kept the door open if someone transforms themselves and comes to unite. This is the main thing. Even under this condition we will not go to Prachanda – he has to come to us. On the question of separation with the old state, even a person with a very basic knowledge of Marxism knows that communists want to smash the old reactionary state and replace that with new people’s government. The great people’s war we fought, the agenda of socialism, the journey to communism – all this means smashing the old reactionary state and replacing that with new people’s government. Not just this, beyond here we aim to abolish the existence of the state as a whole to establish a new world of humanism by creating a stateless, classless society that is completely free of all forms of exploitation and oppression. Our politics is fairly farsighted. We won’t stick to the government as a leech like other rulers here do. We will continue to struggle to establish a new state – this is our main goal. In the current situation, we will carefully think about what can be done for the benefit the people and the country by restricting ourselves within the limitations of the current state and the existing law. Proletarians have utilized parliaments and elections in the past. We cannot detach ourselves entirely from the principals of Marxism. We will decide what to do and where by formulating policies through analysis of the concrete situation. Q: – What is the decision of the National Convention on the question of dissolution of the constituent assembly? Now that the party has ruptured, which faction has the majority, the new party or the establishment faction? You have mentioned about united front, who would you unite with in united front? A: – We have already said a lot about the dissolution of the constituent assembly. There is a direct conspiracy of national and foreign reactionaries in dissolving the constituent assembly. The greediness of Baburam and the Nepali Congress to hold on to the power has also played some role here. It is well known to all that the autocratic behavior of those who have been proclaiming themselves as top leaders of the main four political parties has played a vital role in dissolving the constituent assembly. The autocratic behavior of these top leaders which completely mismatched with democratic practices and also bypassed the dignity of the 601 members of the constituent assembly is a major cause of the dissolution of the constituent assembly. While talking about which party is smaller and which is bigger, the world knows who is in the majority and how. Firstly, the issue of majority is transparent, those who came in the party through the unification process, some of the comrades are fine, no argument there, but the majority of them are total rubbish. We would be in the majority in the Maoist Party– in this situation; the fact is that there had been malevolent attempt to change the color of the party through absolute unification. Secondly, talking about which party is larger– we can evidently claim that even though we are in the minority in the central committee we have parallel party committees throughout the nation. If necessary we can demonstrate our strength. Thirdly, the issue of which party is bigger and which is smaller– perhaps this issue is not very significant. Throughout history smaller parties have become bigger, and the big ones have diminished. This is the way we have to understand the dialecticism of party unity. We have come thorough a long history. UCPN (Maoist) was also tiny in the initial phase. The issue of smaller and bigger– the party with correct thought, politics, ideology, which can substantiate politics in practice advancing resolutely in capacity of a genuine revolutionary communist party, acting in the interest of the country, people and proletarians expands. Those who betray the country and the people gradually evaporate. I have already clarified with whom we need to form a united front. A united front has to be formed. And we advance ahead forming a united front including the patriotic republicans, leftists, federalists, women, workers and Dalits. Another thing, the issue of party registration is the issue of conditional necessity. We will think about whether we should register the party and if we deem it is important then, we may register. If not we may not register at all because we are resolutely convinced that through parliamentarianism the people’s problems cannot be put to an end. Therefore, whether to register the party depends upon the situation. On the question of comradeship with Prachanda and Baburam, we came throughout our life in comradeship with them. Now, we did not leave Prachanda and Baburam but they left us. We did not separate from the party as well but they split themselves ditching the political ideological line of the party. Therefore, now the issue of their class categorization is a real bizarre. An independent political line of Prachanda and Baburam has come to an end. What should we label those who are the puppets of foreign reactionaries and expansionism? It is not possible to join neck together with the puppets. We cannot join our necks together with class capitulationists. Our desire and proposal to them is that they have to break all ties with all sort of reactionaries, only then we can go ahead together. As long as they have ties with those reactionaries, we don’t trust them. Q: – As heard, you are ambiguous about whether to go for people’s war or people’s revolt? What is your say on the question of corruption thought have been taken place in cantonments? How will you treat the journalists? A: – We are not ambiguous about whether to go for People’s War or People’s Revolt. Firstly, we will revolt for new democracy against parliamentarianism. We don’t acknowledge parliamentarianism. The democratic republic, the aged-decayed parliamentarianism of which all the parties here sing the retro song of democracy deafeningly, that democracy has completely failed, the Constituent Assembly has also failed. Therefore, as an alternative, in the interest of the country and the people we move ahead to establish New Democratic Republic in Nepal against Feudalism, Imperialism and Neo-Colonialism. This is our key agenda. To attain this goal, if asked how we move ahead, both ways, legal and underground, a revolutionary party can utilize every essential method. We came to the peace negotiation honestly. When we arrived only the Maoists had to make all the compromises but now we don’t compromise up to this excess. So, that is beyond doubt, if necessary – People’s War or People’s Revolt, anything can happen, this is the key issue. And you talk about money and corruption in the cantonments; I’m not here to talk about that. This is not a place to investigate corruption. So lets not talk about these things here. People are finding out where there has been mischief; most definitely the revolutionary members of the people’s liberation army are investigating it. That space is there. On your query about the role of Baburam-Prachanda while our arrest took place in India, but these are not things that only we look into. This can be a case of a serious investigation. This is also something that the masses and you people (journalists) can look at. Our journalist friends are very far-sighted, introspective and detail oriented. I am convinced that you will help us through this. We want to respect the media on how media is being treated. We will continue to fight for the rights of working class journalists; we will fight for the rights of the working class people. What we are worried about is that in the veil of professional journalism, mission journalism happens, and that is not a good thing. Let this not be the main issue, and we will respect you. If any shortcomings on our part we are committed to self-criticism.

Democratic Underground's Censorship Rules on Debating Israel

Repost from the old site. I’ve had a lot of requests for the 149-page directory of hate sites that was referenced in my previous post. The 149-page site is called The Hate Directory, and it is linked below. In general, it lists Holocaust Denial, anti-Semitic, White Supremacist and neo-Nazi sites (A lot of overlap there! Are there any anti-Semites on this Earth who are not also Holocaust Deniers?!) I didn’t go over The Hate Directory with a fine tooth comb, but there were a few problematic sites on there. One of them is The Jewish Tribal Review. The JTR is a very problematic site, but their fantastic critique of the Jews, running to 3,000 pages, When Victims Rule, is often well-worth the read and is not really anti-Semitic at all. In other places, JTR is anti-Semitic. They criticize Jews for various things, but often don’t offer suggestions on what Jews should do instead of the critiqued behaviors. And in the news section, they just seem to go through the news listing any Jew who ever did anything bad and reprinting the article about him. What’s the point of that? Other than sheer bigotry. Alabaster’s Archive is also linked as a hate site. This is an excellent site and 9 The Hamas webpage is also listed. Other than the Hamas charter, what exactly on the Hamas webpage (mostly just a collection of news stories from Palestine about Israeli transgressions and Palestinian resistance actions) is hate propaganda? Here is a mail I received from the original poster describing the rules in DU about Jews and Israel: Here’s an excerpted sample of Democratic Underground Israel/Palestine forum rules: “If you feel great affinity to groups who are promoting hate in the Middle East such as Kahane, or Hamas; feel there is a Jewish conspiracy governing US foreign policy or control of the media; or believe supporters of Islam or Palestinian Nationalism are terrorists, then you are probably likely to be banned. Do not discuss the truthfulness and/or stupidity of various religions. Do not assume you know what someone believes simply because they practice a certain religion. Do not make over-sweeping or stereotypical generalizations of any group or individual. This includes making statements, either overtly or subtly, which are Anti-Semitic or Anti-Muslim. Please avoid posting “information” from overtly racist websites. A good, but not exhaustive, guide is Franklin’s Hate Directory. Posting from Whatreallyhappened, Chronwatch or Debka is specifically not allowed. Please exercise extreme caution and sensitivity when using the words “anti-Semitism” or “Zionism.” There is a wide range of opinion on the meaning of these words. If you must use them, please make sure your intended meaning is clear. Do not use the term “Zionist” to mean “Jew” or “Israeli.” [RL: This is despicable. I remember this from the Internet forums. Whenever we said anything about Jews, Zionist or Israel the disgusting, belligerent militant Jews on there would jump all over the post and demand that we put qualifiers in front of the nouns. Jews? How about “some Jews”? Israelis? How about “some Israelis”? Israel? Do you think that Israelis are monolithic? They are not! So you may not “generalize” about them. At that point, once all “stereotyping” and “generalization” has been banned, all debate on this subject becomes impossible. There’s more crap. Complaining about Israel or Jews? You must be “obsessed” with the Jews or Israel. Well, Hell, we can focus on whatever we want! Anyway, most Jews are “obsessed” with their tribe and their state, so why can’t others be that way too? Complaining about Israel but not about all other myriad shitty little countries (and shitty big countries) all over the world? Bigot! What nonsense. We can talk about whatever we want. We don’t need to juxtapose every anti-Israel comment with a comment slamming Peru, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco or Colombia. Yeah! The world is full of shitty countries! And Israel is one of them!] Do not use the term “Jew” to mean “Israeli”. Do not call Palestinians “terrorists” unless you are actually talking about people who blow up cafes or buses filled with civilians. Do not compare Middle East regional leaders and parties to Hitler or the Nazis. Use of these terms is considered inflammatory and should be avoided. Do not call other members of this message board “terror apologist,” “Palestinian apologist,” “Israeli apologist,” “Nazi,” “Fascist,” “Sharonist,” “Likudnik”, etc.” ______________________________ The DU reporter notes: It’s notable that pro-Israel poster accusations of antisemitism, both overt and thinly-veiled, routinely go untouched. That’s of course fine, but any accusations of pro-Israel bias, blind support for Israel, hyper-sensitivity, or twisting facts to put Israel in the best light, are deleted, and often the author is never heard from again. No announcements that a poster has been banned are offered. They just disappear. Often the “disappeared” are mentioned on Prosemite Undercover, where they boast of their successful efforts in a behind-the-scenes swarm attack to “tombstone” the Israel-critic. They even have a standard tombstone graphic with the legend “Here lies “insert name”. [RL: I have spent some time over at Prosemite Undercover getting nauseous while reading about the nasty militant Jews and their deplorable behaviors. That is really a horrible site.] A sample of the moderator’s (Lithos) views: “Why these two distinctions are important is that there is a form of anti-Semitism where bigots use a stereotypical form of the term Zionist as a way to attack Jews. Zionism carries at some level a notion of struggle in much the same way as the real definition of jihad which is a word which also is abused and often serving as part of a code word for bigots.” ———————————– “The reason why I will disagree with you about equivalencing post 9/11’s bigotry with the multi-millenia of anti-Semitism has to do with the complicated nature of bigotry against Jews versus the highly simplistic one in the mainstream against Muslims. In contrast, Jews have had several thousand years of officially sponsored bigotry aimed at them. [RL: Down with the Jewish Pogrom and Persecution Masochism-Fest!] First there were many official pogroms against the Jewish religion by the Romans, Persians and the Muslims where they were blamed and accused of fomenting rebellion [RL: The Romans “blamed” the Jews for fomenting rebellion because that is exactly what the Jews were doing – fomenting rebellion!] and Deicide. Later with the rise of nation states along ethnic lines, Jews being ubiquitous and for the most part culturally distinct from the host population were accused first of being unpatriotic and seditious to ultimately masterminds of a great cabal a la The International Jew and The Protocols.” ———————————— “I totally agree that 9/11 fueled the spread of many tailored answers designed to provide simple easily to digest answers to an extremely complicated reality and that this included a rise in anti-Muslim fear, but I also think that there are many examples out now where it fueled a rise in anti-Semitism.” ————————————- “One problem that Israel has always had is a lack of resources, this includes political resources to affect policy and opinion. Given that their limited tool set includes a very strong and efficient military, it is not surprising they tend to rely on it when perhaps they shouldn’t.” ———————————— Poster writes: “If Jews, Zionism, and Israel are coming up in 911 over and over it’s sure not the conspiracy theorists that are looking to make connections where there are not.” Lithos responds: “So, if a lie is repeated enough, it becomes true? Isn’t that the issue behind Bush’s claims of WMD? Isn’t this the primary complaint by the 9/11 truth side the government and media are repeating a lie? Your comment is absurd given your basis of assumption.” ———————————— “The focus on AIPAC and Israel has always been interesting in that people place such singular focus on AIPAC as being an influential lobbying group, but make no mention of other groups with far more influence on US foreign policy, namely the energy and defense concerns? Why the focus when the ties, corruption and conspiracies to Iraq, Afghanistan, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Bin Ladin have far more to do with these groups than with Israel or AIPAC? [RL: Chomskian, Western Leftist bullshit. See Jeff Blankfort’s articles on Chomsky and the Israeli Lobby for more. Blankfort is Jewish.] About all Israel seems to be guaranteed by US policy is existence which results not from Jewish influence, but rather that of the Millennial Dispensationalist crowd. [RL: This is a typical lie of those who are trying very hard to avoid the anti-Semite label. There is no Jewish Lobby! The Israeli Lobby is…just a bunch of…Christians! Jeff Blankfort has done a good job of tearing apart this nonsense. The Christian Zionists do very little lobbying for Israel, and that is what really counts, not their inner political views. However, I recently received a mail noting that whenever the US criticizes Israel in the slightest, the White House gets bombarded with mails from the Christian Right telling them to knock it off. So the Christian Zionists do have some influence, but observation shows that the influence of the Jewish aspect of the Israeli Lobby is greater, in particular the Lobby’s power in the US media, which strikes terror into the hearts of US politicians.] Also, you find no issue that the original sources claiming Israeli involvement came from sites and operation well known and heavily associated with holocaust denial activities and the proponents of it?” [RL: Logical fallacy! Holocaust Denier idiots of course blamed Israel for 9-11, therefore…what? Anyone who suggests Israeli 9-11 involvement is a Holocaust Denier? It can’t possibly be true, because the initial purveyors of the theory were a bunch of virulently anti-Semitic White Supremacist morons?] ————————————- “As for sources, most of what is not allowed here for these types of biased thinking such as anti-Semitism sites are usually Paleo-Libertarian and generally Far Right in bent. Of the Libertarian (where most of the anti-Semitic sites seem to be associated), the main reason they’ve garnered any coin among the left is that they are jealous/in competition with the Neocons for control of the Right and leftists are sometimes over-eager to believe “an enemy of my enemy is my ally” without realizing this other group is also an enemy.” Update: I would like to point out that it is not only the Democratic Underground and the Liberal Underground sites that censor the Israel – Palestine issue. The same sort of pro-Israeli thuggery can be seen at the , or at least in the Arizona section anyway. It’s actually often an overt conspiracy: From an old webpage of the disgusting and foul brownshirts at the Jewish Internet Association:

Shut down offensive websites: If you spot an offensive web site — antisemitic, terrorist supporting, anti-Israel, or just hateful — you may be able to shut it down. By following simple procedures, you can determine who owns the site and what web hosting company is giving them access to the Internet.

Often the offensive site is not actually known to the web hosting company and is probably in violation of their rules of conduct. A simple letter of complaint can force the site to move, a considerable inconvenience and possibly the end of them. Haganah B’Internet, an online self-defense force, has prepared a site research How-to/Checklist along with other tools, advice and news on their website.

On the Abuse of the Word “Terrorism”

41 to go on trial for planning attacks on US forces, primarily in Qatar but also in Kuwait. American morons are really brainwashed about this “terrorist” word. I’ve found that almost 10

  1. FARC and ELN in Colombia
  2. Sendero Luminoso in Peru
  3. All armed groups in Palestine
  4. The Taliban in Afghanistan
  5. The NPA and MILF in the Philippines
  6. The Islamist Chechens, Dagestanis and others in the Caucasus
  7. The ETA in Spain
  8. The IRA in Ireland (there’s no such thing as “Northern Ireland”)
  9. The Kurds in Turkey and Iran
  10. The Maoists in India
  11. Various Islamist groups around the world.

Granted, most of these forces utilize terrorism in some cases, and others do in many cases. But by the rules of war and logic, any attack on security forces and in particular military forces anywhere on Earth cannot possibly be a terrorist attack.

I have had many long and exasperating arguments with staunch US liberals that the attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen, the attack on the Marines in Lebanon and the attack on the military barracks in Saudi Arabia simply was not terrorism.

The attempt to assassinate George Bush in Kuwait in the 1990’s and the attempt by the Iraqi rebels to assassinate Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 were not terrorist attacks in any way, shape or form. Wolfowitz was a deep part of the state apparatus that was persecuting the war against the Iraqi people. He’s clearly a military target. The execution of the US CIA agent in Lebanon was not terrorism either. He’s a spy. Spies are military targets, especially in wartime.

Neither was the attack on US troops at the US base by the US military psychiatrist a terrorist attack. Apparently this guy felt he was at war with the US. Operating as a deep agent for some of the enemies of the US (in his case, apparently Yemeni Al Qaeda), Hassan penetrated deeply into US forces, then used his US military uniform and gun to perpetrate an attack on our own soldiers in the waiting room of a hospital at a US base. Hassan was an enemy soldier, an armed man fighting the US for an enemy army. That’s all he was. Nothing terrorist about it.

The attackers of the Marine barracks, the barracks in Saudi Arabia and the Cole all said that they were at war with the US at the time. These were acts of war during wartime by non-state military actors who were at war with the US. Since they were at war with the US, they have a right to attack our troops anywhere they want to by the rules of war. There’s nothing terrorist about attacking US soldiers.

Now, when you get down to attacking embassies, I agree that things get a lot stickier.

The word “terrorism” really got started, I believe, in 1970’s. Guess who dreamed it up? The Israelis! As with so many forms of lying, devious bullshit in our modern world, there was a Jew behind it. Or a bunch of Jews in this case.

There is good evidence that this word was popularized by Israelis as a way to refer to all of the Arab irregular forces who were attacking Israel. Since then, it quickly spread to the Israeli colony known as the US. After that, it was quickly picked up by every state on Earth as a way to refer to all non-state armed actors that they did not approve of. For some reason, non-state armed actors that they approve or are never terrorists. Instead, they are always “revolutionaries.”

Getting back to the link at the top. These guys are members of an enemy army that is at war with the United States. As a consequence of their war on us, they were planning attacks on our military forces in Qatar and possibly in Kuwait. Nothing terrorist about it. It’s just war, plain and simple.

Alt Left: Cairo Mob Burns Israeli Embassy to the Ground

Here.

Good.

Unfortunately, the mob of 40,000 (!) was led by the Islamists of Jama’a al-Islamiya and the Muslim Brotherhood. JAI is the organization that Al Qaeda’s #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri came out of. They’re the guys who assassinated Sadat. Mubarak cracked down hard on them afterwards, thousands were imprisoned, and up to 1,000 were murdered. Typical scenario was to tie you to a post in the desert with no food or water until you talk. Very effective. You don’t talk and you’re dead real quick.

This is also the group that bombed the WTC in New York the first time around. They are led by the so-called Blind Sheik, now in prison. I thought that the mass crackdown wiped them out, but I guess not. Apparently they are back on the streets in huge numbers after the emptying of the prisons by the revolution.

After Mubarak cracked down on them, Zawahiri fled the country with may of his men. He met up with bin Laden in Sudan and ended up radicalizing bin Laden, who was fairly quietist at that point. It was Zawahiri who convinced bin Laden to attack the “far enemy” (the US) instead of the “near enemy” (the pro-US governments in the Middle East.

The embassy attack was pretty hairy. The 8-man Israeli staff hid in a metal room and demonstrators started beating on the walls of the room. A task force of Egyptian intelligence agents dressed up as rioters and mingled with the crowd. They got to the room but could not get in because they did not know the code. They called the head of Israeli Shin Bet to the get the code. They got in and changed the Israelis into Egyptian clothes, then sneaked them out through the mob and put them in armored vehicles to the airport where they were evacuated.

Five security forces were killed and many more were wounded. Security forces pretty much sat back and did not get involved until the crowd attacked a nearby police station, sacked it, and stole its weapons.

In addition, the mob also tried to swarm the Saudi embassy in Cairo, but police and army forces kept them away. This is not being reported by US media sources.

The rightwingers and Israelis were right. This is what was going to happen if you get rid of Mubarak.

Imperialist War Ends in Libya – Imperialists Win

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RW16ly_JzU&feature=channel_video_title]

From Russia Today, an excellent TV station funded by the Russian government that frequently attacks the West and Western imperialism, an interview with Pepe Escobar of Asia Times. Escobar, a journalist who often takes on Western imperialism, says that NATO will want a boots on the ground occupation in order to secure the oil supplies.

Western imperialism, headed by the North Atlantic Terrorist Organization (NATO) has won the war in Libya. The whole war was a joke. There was a no fly zone, which meant that Western aircraft flew over Libya to keep Qaddafi’s aircraft out of the sky. This was supposedly to protect civilians. But it never really was.

For a long time recently, NATO jets have been bombing Qaddafi’s forces where they were not attacking civilians at all. These attacks happened in areas where Libyan forces were only fighting against rebel forces. So the whole protecting civilians things is some kind of a sick joke.

One wonders why the people rose up against Ghaddafi. Libya provides free education anywhere on Earth for any Libyan who wants it. There is a job waiting for any Libyan who wants to work, or even for Libyans who don’t want to work. The unemployment rate is effectively zero, since the only nonworkers are layabouts or the disabled. Basic food supplies are either very cheap or free. Rent is completely free in Libya. All medical care is completely free in Libya. All Libyans get a $500 check every month from the state’s oil supplies.

This was probably one of the main reasons for the NATO assault – to wipe out Libya’s socialist system and privatize the Libyan state.

Ghaddafi tried to move off the US dollar to denominate oil sales – this is probably the main reason why he got attacked by imperialism. He also moved completely outside of the world banking system. As such, he was a threat to the bankster criminals who actually run this entire planet. This is probably another reason why he got attacked – to force him back into the international imperialist banking system.

He was trying to set up a parallel currency and banking system for Africa so Africa could move off the imperialist currency and banking systems of the West. Ghaddafi represented what’s called “the threat of a good example” – this is why he was attacked.

I imagine that all of Libya’s socialist system denominated above will be dismantled by the new NATO imperialist rulers of the NATO colony of Libya. Enjoy the capitalism, Libyans!

Libya had contracts via an Italian oil company with Putin’s Russia. Wikileaks’ documents showed that the US said that these contracts had to be stopped at all costs. This was probably another reason for the war – to end Ghaddafi’s contracts with Russia. This contract is now on hold.

Libya under Ghaddafi paid lower royalties to foreign imperialist oil corporations than any other nation on Earth. That is because as a nationalist, Ghaddafi believed in keeping the maximum amount of oil wealth for his people and the minimum for Western corporate sharks and rapists. This was probably another reason he was attacked – to force negotiation of better terms for Western oil corporations. These contracts will probably all be negotiated on better terms for Western corporations now.

Libya does not recognize the Zionist entity in Israel. This was probably another reason why he was attacked – to force him to recognize Israel.  There are now reports that NATO is demanding that the new regime recognize Israel immediately. I am sure that they will.

Libya was destroyed so that it could be rebuilt. More disaster capitalism. Western corporations, like sharks, are now swarming over Libya to get the rebuilding contracts for rebuild all of the infrastructure that NATO bombed. I think that NATO deliberately destroyed Libya’s infrastructure in order to make money off the rebuilding contracts. The very same thing was done in Iraq. Is that sick or what?

It’s clear, however, that many Libyans hated Ghaddafi. One wonders why. He did so many things for his people. Libya had the highest level of development of any African nation. I think it may have been because he was brutal. He killed so many of his own people. Many others were arrested, tortured, beaten or disappeared. It’s possible that he was so widely hated more on account of his brutality than anything else.

Who Killed Rafik Hariri?

Repost from the old site.

One wonders where to begin with a post like this. Rafik Hariri, of course, was the Prime Minister and self-made billionaire who ruled Lebanon for a time recently. He was assassinated in an expertly planned car bomb attack, but no one really knows who did it. All suspicion fell on Syria, and Syria did have good reason to kill Hariri.

You really need a lot of background in Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics to even begin to understand the twists and turns of this sinuous murder mystery.

Hariri was elected head of Lebanon and proceeded to go on a borrowing spree, mostly with Saudi money, and rebuilt Lebanon after the Civil War destroyed it. He did this by playing all factions off each other. He also instituted a Lebanese version of free market economics, an economic system that, thank God, is largely absent from the Middle East because it contradicts Arab and especially Islamic values.

Hariri is a Sunni, but a fairly secular one. The Sunnis make up maybe 1

The Christians used to be the majority – in fact, Lebanon was originally split off from Syria by the French to give the Christians their own country. Partly for this reason, it’s very existence is resented by a number of Lebanese Muslims, especially Sunnis, who figure that Syria and Lebanon are all one country.

Syria itself has long regarded the severance of Lebanon from Mother Syria as illegitimate, and her behavior in recent years has been motivated in part by these feelings. The Shia were long-downtrodden, especially by the Sunnis. The Sunnis were the Muslims who were pretty much in charge of the place in terms of who was in charge of the Muslims in the country. The Sunni held the reigns, and discrimination against the Shia was rife.

Shia were regularly attacked by Sunni gangs in Beirut up into the 1970’s. The Shia complain that the Sunnis would only allow them to be garbagemen – that was the best job they could get. After the late 1950’s, when a Christian lost the election and Lebanese Christians feared that their power would be constricted, there has been a power-sharing agreement in place.

The Prime Minister must be a Sunni, another high post must be a Christian, etc, etc. As the Christians have gone from majority to minority, this system has become less and less fair. In particular, Muslims, especially the Shia, are dramatically underrepresented. The Christians did not want to give up their power in the late 1950’s, so the US Marines landed to enforce illegitimate Christian rule over Lebanon.

The Civil War began in part once again over demands that Lebanese democracy be derived more on one man one vote and that the excessive power of the Christians be curtailed. Further, the Christians have always run the Lebanese economy, at least in recent years.

I say all of this because in the US there is a strong tendency to side with the Lebanese Christians against the evil Muslims. Further, the Lebanese Maronite Christians (the largest sect) have made an important alliance with the Zionist Jews in Israel, an alliance that helped to drive the Civil War.

So US Zionist propaganda, which floods our media night and day, strongly favors the Maronites once again. As an example of this alliance, one of the highest ranking neoconservatives of all is a Maronite Lebanese lawyer named F. Michael Maloof who is very close to uber-neocons Douglas Feith and Richard Perle. He is up to his eyeballs in the planning of the war on Iraq.

With the Lebanese Civil War and the rise of Hezbollah, the Shia have finally been given a place at the table of Lebanese politics. The Druze are a real wild card. They shift all over the place on the whim of their erratic leader, Walid Jumblatt, from anti-Israel and anti-US to anti-Syrian and pro-US.

The Shia, and Hezbollah along with the more secular Amal Party, are allied with Syria and Iran. Syria keeps Hezbollah armed in Southern Lebanon as a tool to threaten Israel with in order to try to get the Golan Heights back. That’s all Syria gets out of the game. If Hezbollah is disarmed in Lebanon, Syria loses it’s most powerful weapon and may never get its land back.

Hezbollah has since taken up the cause of Lebanese nationalism, agitating for the return of the Shebaa Farms and some nearby hills that they say Israel is occupying. It is probably Lebanese land, but Israel seems to have captured that land from Syria when it grabbed the Golan.

For its purposes, Syria wants to say that the Shebaa is Lebanese for purposes of keeping Hezbollah armed, and to say it’s Syrian as soon as Hezbollah tries to make peace with Israel or vice versa. So Syria must play a double game here, but everyone is in this crazy part of the world.

As a condition of ending the Civil War, Syria was tasked with ruling the place. Syria had actually entered the war to save the Maronite Christians from defeat, but the Christians soon forgot about this and turned on the Syrians. The Taba Agreement, constructed with the help of the US and other powers, put Syria in charge until the Lebanese could figure out how to stop killing each other.

Syria quickly started meddling in Lebanese politics bigtime, and an independence movement arose to get Syria out of Lebanon. This was ignored by the US until George Bush came to office. Now the same US that put Syria in power started demanding that Syria leave. Not only that, but there were increasing demands on Lebanon to “disarm all militias”, code words for disarm Hezbollah.

Now, Syria needs Hezb in Lebanon until it gets the Golan back, so them’s fighting words to the Syrians. At the same time, the US invaded Iraq and threatened Iran, Libya, and Syria, while Israel killed Arafat by poisoning him.

This whole process was set into motion by the neocons who were operating in the interests of the Israeli government. It was an UN Security Council Resolution 1559, calling for Syria to get out of Lebanon and for the disarming of Hezbollah. Note that France is still an imperialist power in the region, defending the interests of the Christians who they put in charge of their former colony.

Also, the US Congress pushed a bill called the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, a bill that may as well have been written by the Israeli Knesset. It’s so pro-Israeli, it’s almost impossible to comprehend that the US Congress wrote it. Apparently, it imposes sanctions on Syria for a variety of mostly-bullshit reasons.

The US is in Iraq, apparently forever, threatening Syria and Iran, for the most part in order to benefit the Israelis, since Syria and Iran have no particular beefs with the US. Iran and Syria clearly want the US out of Iraq and US guns away from their doorstep. They have no interest in keeping the US in Iraq at all.

Anyway, the US status of forces agreement that they are trying to negotiate with the Iraqis is explicitly meant to use Iraq as a base for attacking neighboring countries, mostly Iran but possibly Syria too. So rage at Syria and Iran for not being overjoyed about the US military in Iraq is misplaced. No sane Syrian or Iranian leader would want us there.

Amidst this backdrop, Hariri supported UN Resolution 1559, probably because finally even the Lebanese Sunnis were getting fed up with Syria’s high-handedness. They had supported Syria for a long time, but Syria kept trying to push people to their limits.

It was the Maronite Christians who really hated the Syrians being there. Why is uncertain. The Maronites despise the Shia and Hezbollah and want the Palestinian refugees gone too.

By the way, the reason that the Palestinians have never been allowed to work or become citizens in Lebanon is because of the Maronites. The Maronites fear that allowing the Pallies to become citizens will increase the Muslim population at the expense of the Christians.

So the Hariri crowd was riding the wave of anti-Syrianism. At the same time, he was closely allied with the Saudis. The Saudis’ whole role in the region is to support the Sunnis and screw the Shia, in a word. So the Saudis were backing Hariri solely because he is Sunni, and also to stop Iran and Hezbollah and increasingly Syria, who is allied with Iran and Hezbollah and hence in the enemy camp as far as the Saudis see it.

There really is not much sane reason for the Saudis to fear Iran. All the hate in the region goes from Sunni to Shia, pretty much. Perhaps the Iranians could energize the long-downtrodden Saudi Shia to rebel against the Saudis, but the Saudis ought to give them more rights anyway. Sunni fears of Iran attacking the region are simply insane, kind of like Nazi fears of the USSR overrunning Europe, so the Nazis had to attack first.

Iran has never attacked another state in at least 100 years and possibly longer. The Shia are on the outs in the Arab World, and the Sunnis have all the power. There are no nefarious Shia plots to evangelize Shia Islam and convert all the Sunnis – this is just mad Sunni paranoia. But the Saudis do work hard in Iran to convert the Shia Ahwaz Arabs to Wahhabi Sunnism, and they have had some success at this.

The Shia have been killing a lot of Sunnis in Iraq, but the Sunnis started it. Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, started the war against Iran for no good reason, and received volunteers and money from most of the Sunni states in the region.

Against this backdrop, as Syria was leaving Lebanon (though a spy network remains behind) Hariri was killed in the very professional car bomb attack. An Al Qaeda type radical Salafist Islamist associated with Jund al-Sham (Army of the Levant) was promptly fingered in the attack, though there were a lot of questions about whether or not Syria was actually involved.

The US and France got a UN commission to actually send a law enforcement team to investigate the killing. A couple of teams were sent out there and a couple of reports came back. One team was headed by Detlev Mehlis, a German.

Jürgen Cain Külbel, a journalist in Germany, is an acquaintance. He’s a former member of the STASI and is associated with the former East German government and the political party that came afterwards. Külbel is a Leftist, and for a long time he was pushing theories saying that US imperialism was in back of a lot of the shenanigans in the ME, including I guess the invasion of Iraq.

He showed a profound disinterest in investigating any Israeli or Jewish Lobby involvement in many of the conflicts over there. This is standard Leftist line that absolves Israel of everything and pushes it all off on imperialism.

So it is interesting that Külbel has now come around to the notion that Israel killed Hariri and then tried to pawn it off on Syria. He has also shown links that Mehlis had with the US AIPAC. Mehlis, as it turns out, used to work for WINEP, which is nothing AIPAC as a research arm. So his finding that Syria was involved has been attacked by Külbel.

Külbel was subsequently imprisoned for ten days for violating a court order by printing some East German STASI papers on his website. I’m not sure of their contents, but it may have shown how Mehlis was associated with WINEP. So the Voltaire Network has taken up the cause of Külbel, about which I feel they are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Of interest to our Maronite discussion above, a group called UNIFL, which has interests that are almost precisely in line with the Israeli government, figures in all of this. These are the most hardcore radical rightwing Maronites, who are for all intents and purposes a quasi-fascist movement.

They were deeply involved in the War Against Iraq and other great big messes. They’ve been selling this BS story about how the Christians are so persecuted in Lebanon, and the persecution is being done by evil fundamentalist Islamic Syria (run by ultra-secular Alawis).

It’s mostly just a pack of lies, but there were arrests, tortures and killings under Syrian rule, it is true. That’s all over now, and the Maronites did tons of killing in their own day.

After all, they committed the most and worst massacres of all during the Civil War.

Maloof is in with these guys, so is a guy named David Wurmser (Israeli agent neoconservative with dual citizenship) and his evil witch of the West wife Meyrav (read Hebrew for “Mary”, no? Israeli agent neoconservative with dual citizenship).

So is Richard Pele (Israeli agent neoconservative. Dual citizenship?), and worst of all, Daniel Pipes (Israeli agent neoconservative. Dual citizenship?) of Middle East Watch and Campus Watch and all of that Zionist fascist censorship, harassment and firing crap leaping up all over our land). Nice long sentence.

Pipes, whose father was an evil Cold War maniac and professional liar about the Soviet Union, inherited the evil maniac part, but all he cares about is Israel. Paul Wolfowitz (Israeli agent neoconservative with dual citizenship) is also in deep with these guys.

Harold Rhode (Israeli agent neoconservative. Dual citizenship?) is another one, but no one has ever heard of him, so I will make him famous today for all time. Rhode is a Jewish guy who is religious and was obsessed with attacking Iraq. He was in on the plot to attack Iraq with all the rest of them from the very start.

Afterward, he became obsessed with the Jewish religious relics that the evil anti-Semitic Arab-Nazi government had somehow, through a sudden stroke of anti-Semitism, managed to preserve, despite their genocidal intentions towards all the world’s Jews.

Saddam wanted to kill every Jew on Earth, of course, but damn right he was going to save those Jewish holy books. That proves Saddam was a madman all right, just like the yahoos screamed before the invasion.

Rhode ran over to Iraq as soon as the war was done and got himself a big team put together right away while the museums and archaeological relics of the nation were being devastated. After all, the history of Jews receives precedence of the history of those lowly, dirty Arabs and over the very history of mankind itself, right? Jews take precedence over Arabs. Jews take precedence over humanity. You get the picture.

Well, anyway, a lot of money was spent grabbing every single Jewish relic in Iraq and “storing” it away in the US (in Jewish hands, I guess). Well, that’s sort of illegal. Now that Iraq is more stable, the Iraqi government wants their Jewish stuff back. It belongs to Iraq, not to the world’s Jews. Whoops, I forgot. No nation is allowed to own Jewish relics. Jews take precedence over all real nations on Earth.

Also, it’s funny that the US (Are we the second Jewish state?) bent all over backwards to grab all that old Jewish stuff, while we sat back and watched, first, while the whole non-Jewish history of Iraq was looted and destroyed to Hell, in particular the History of the Ottoman Empire.

Well, screw the Ottomans, they were just evil Muslims who ruled the Arab World and treated the Jews like crap, right? Or they were just scummy Muslims, screw em. Anyway, obviously the Jewish history of Iraq got nabbed by the nimble hands of the Jewish “Americans”, but the non-Jewish history of Iraq was scatted to the Seven Winds and the Seventy Thousand Thieves.

After all, in any country with lots of Jews, only the Jewish history matters ,and the non-Jewish history is just, pshaw! Right? Trash the museums and the libraries and re-burn the Library of Alexandria if the US and Israel are in the book-burning and library-sacking business, which apparently they are.

Funny how the US can’t spare a soldier to save the history of Muslim Ottoman Iraq from being ruined. Those records have been flooded and subjected to all sorts of abuse, and the US can’t spare one sentry to guard that stuff. Wow, gee, why do they hate us anyway?

They must be jealous of all of our stuff, and our freedoms, and you know, our stuff.

Ever notice that the far-Right jingoist dickheads who scream the loudest about “our freedoms” and “they hate us for our freedom” are the first ones to start shutting freedoms down? catch one Mossad agent, and they just sentenced him to death after one of the shortest trials in recent history. If he’s really Mossad, hang him high, go ahead.

And I know that Iran is full of US spies and even US undercover troops (500 total? How many?). Same with British spies. Iran can’t catch these guys? The US guys are running around blowing up stuff up, and the British are giving bombs to Iranian rebels, including Al Qaeda types called Jundallah in Balochistan.

I guess Mossad, the US and probably the UK too, are all trying to get at Iran’s nuclear sites, and yes, I am certain the Iranians are making a nuclear bomb right now. I think they already have one, but it’s just a uranium bomb, and that isn’t good for anything but making one square mile of Earth uninhabitable for 70 years.

Actually, just to be a completely evil and horrible scumbag and make people hate me even more than they already do, I will right now officially support Iran’s efforts to get a nuclear bomb.

Is that an evil position or what?! Not to shoot one, just to get one.

Also to make a whole bunch of evil biological and chemical weapons and WMD-this and WMD-that. Also, just to be even more of an ass and arouse more hatred, I will say that I was deeply sad when North Korea blew up their reactor, because I wanted them to make more nukes to threaten people, namely the US, my country with. Not to shoot at us. Just to even it up.

Why be an ass? Long argument, but it has to do with imperialism’s gross abuse of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement.

I’m not saying this is what happened or anything, Maronites and Mossad killing Hariri. No one on Earth will ever know what happened. Figure it out yourself, I give, and I spent many long hours reading and poring over this mystery until I finally just gave up and don’t want to read about it anymore.

Such are the homicidal intrigues of the Middle East, like vines in a jungle, no beginning, no end, no middle, nothing much to grab, and every new lead carries you off on more red herrings and impossibilities and possibilities, and everything seems possible, but still nothing ever totally adds up. God I love a mystery. To a point.

Sorry this went on, but I never wrote a Hariri post. Now it’s done, and hopefully I won’t need to write any more. Believe it or not, I could have written way more, but I’m not into putting readers to sleep. I’m long-winded enough, as it is.

Try the Angry Arab blog (I’ve talked to this guy; As’ad, a Leftist Arab nationalist professor at a university very close by) if you can’t get enough of this maddening Lebanon stuff.

Or Joshua Landis’ (an acquaintance) great Syria Comment if you want to dip into the Syrian mystery casserole, where nothing makes sense either, and you think you can see the fish in the bowl, but the more you look, the more you can hardly make them out, and plus they always change.

Capitalism Is Murder: Shock Doctrine in the East Bloc Killed 10 Million People

Here.

After the fall of Communism in the East Bloc in the early 1990’s, Westerners pushed something called shock therapy, or rapid privatization. A new study by the Lancet shows that shock therapy actually killed 10 million men and an unknown number of women in the East Bloc.

The study points out that it was not the transtion to capitalism per se that was at fault but how it was done. Rapid privatization or shock therapy was one way, but the other way is more gradual privatization. The study makes clear what we on the Left have been saying forever, that shock therapy kills.

The study also found that the more social connections a person had, the less likely they were to be killed by shock therapy. As radical capitalist neoliberalism has as its purpose the destruction of all bonds between men other than profit-seeking and the complete atomization of all humans, leading to mass insecurity and a Hobbesian war of all against all, it figures that neoliberal capitalism works strongly against social bonds. The more neoliberalism, the weaker the social bonds between humans.

Shock therapy had differential effects in different places. In Poland and the former Yugoslavia, there was little damage. The damage was severe in Russia.

In the US, the entire mass media and both conservative parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, vociferously pushed shock therapy. I read many articles about it at the time, always wondering why this was such a great thing. In the “free press” there was no dissent on the subject of shock therapy. You could not find a single opinion anywhere saying that this might be a bad idea. So much for “freedom of the press” in the USA. It was the way to go. Bill Clinton pushed it as strongly as Newt Gingrich.

Most of the Americans pushing shock therapy were connected with the Chicago School of Economics, and all of the most prominent ones were Jews. Many Jews in Israel also got in on the looting in Russia and the East Bloc. In addition, Russian Jews were very heavily involved in the mass looting and destruction of their great land.

Much of the looted funds was transferred to agents of International Jewry in the US and the UK, in particular Lord Rothschild. A lot of the money ended up in Israel. Richard Perle and other neocons on the right along with George Soros on the Left both gladly looted Slavic lands to benefit the tribe.

One wonders what the motivation for this mass rape of these mostly Slavic people was. Possibly it was revenge for anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and Russia, another chapter in the war of the Slavs and the Jews. The Jews were getting their revenge for the Holocaust and Russian anti-Semitism. All in all, it was shameful behavior on the part of the Jews. The Jews are supposed to be progressive people, but here they were, acting just like the feudal lords and masters who they worked with in Eastern Europe for centuries. Worse, they were raping the East just as the ultimate Amelekite, Hitler, had done.

Every Jew on Earth should hang his head in shame at this grotesque display, if they have any sense of decency at all.

To be fair, a lot of the riches just went to the Western rich, mostly bankers. And many Russian gentiles helped the Russian Jews rape Russia. The Jews couldn’t do it alone.

As one might logically predict, this Jewish-led mass looting led to a huge upsurge in anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe, even in places like Romania (5,000 Jews) and Poland where there were hardly any Jews left.

If Jews hate anti-Semitism so much, why do things to worsen it? I don’t get it. Or do Jews hate anti-Semitism? Maybe they like it?

US and Israel: Two Settler-Colonial States

The American people could turn on Israel anytime they want to, but they won’t do it. Why? Because they don’t want to.

I think it is because there is deep love of Americans for Israel because they are both settler-colonial states.

Despite all of the browbeating about anti-White PC studies coming out of our schools and universities, Americans have never really apologized or felt bad about our settler-colonial past, and we should feel bad about it. Instead, we are still in denial about it, and most White Americans apparently still think our settler-colonial past was a great thing. This is one reason why we identify with Israel.

Jewmerica Threatens Flotilla Participants

The United States of Jewmerica, or, more properly, “USreal,” which is the US and Israel combined into a single nation for all intents and purposes, is threatening USreali citizens with long imprisonment terms if they deliver aid to Gaza via a flotilla. The charges would include proving material aid to a terrorist group, Hamas, which violates a new USraeli law. Alice Walker is on that boat. I dare this punk Obama to throw her in prison, I really do.

The flag of Usrael. Usrael is not yet recognized by the UN, because USrael itself, as an international scofflaw and outlaw state, does not recognize UN sovereignty. USrael does what it wants, always has and always will, the Hell with the rest of the world.

Honestly, USraeli citizens ought to be free to provide material aid, or any other aid, or even to go fight for, any armed group on Earth that is not engaged in hostilities against the US. If some USraeli ally then wants to extradite the USraeli citizen for working for the group, then Usrael has a right to extradite them. But why is it against USraeli law to give money or other aid to, or to train or go fight for, some guerrilla group that has nothing whatsoever to do with USrael in any way, shape or form?

When I was a student at USC in 1983, a professor I knew pointed out one of the other professors in the Education Department. He was a young Hispanic guy. The professor told me that the prof periodically took time off his job to go down to El Salvador, where he actually took up arms and fought alongside the FMLN rebels. And what was wrong with that? It was his life, right? It was between him and the Salvadoran government.

But a recent fascist law would have sentenced this guy to 10 years in prison for fighting for his conscience. What of the US fighters for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against Franco’s fascists? The present fascist USraeli government would obviously call the Republicans (the only Republicans I’ve ever supported besides the IRA) a terrorist group. Obviously, all of the anti-Nazi guerrillas of WW2 were terrorists too. Anyone who takes up arms against any state, except, whoops! Enemies of the US, is automatically a terrorist.

However, for some reason, the KLA, the Syrian rebels, the Libyan rebels, and the Ahwaz, Kurdish and Baloch rebels in Iran are automagically not terrorists, because if they were, the whole US government would have to go down on the fascist law about support for terrorism, because USrael is supporting all of those groups to the hilt.

The truth is that in general, the whole “terrorist group” designation is complete shit. If you’re a guerrilla group fighting a US enemy, you’re a freedom fighter. If you’re a guerrilla group fighting a US ally, you’re a terrorist. The designation is garbage, and it’s pitiful that the vast majority of Moronicans have fallen for this sick lie.

Onto the Gaza flotilla. All of these flotillas have been repeatedly inspected, and I suspect it’s no different with this one. So the idea that the flotilla members are providing material aid to a terrorist group is nothing but a twisted lie.

This shows once again who controls America, and it’s not ordinary Americans.

If we are looking for someone to blame here, let’s not blame the elites. The fault is Americans themselves. Truth is that the vast majority of Americans are perfectly content to turn America into Jewmerica, such is their overwhelming and idiotic Judeophilia. The majority of Americans are overjoyed at the joining of two nations at the hip to form the USrael entity, such is their passionate and fanatical Zionism.

In that case, then USrael surely must reap what it sows then, from endless wars to burning and collapsing towers. Cause and effect is still a law of the natural world, and men are part of that world.

Is this America or Jewmerica? Which will it be?

Is this the US or is Usrael? Which will it be?

Wikipedia Jews Attack James Petras

Repost from the old site.

James Petras is a fine man of the Left who has long been interested in Latin America and especially revolutionary movements down there. He has long supported the FARC revolutionaries in Colombia (as does this blog) and lately he has been supporting the Movement of the Landless in Brazil.

He’s a great labor organizer who goes down to Latin America and works with the people, getting his hands dirty with the workers and peasants themselves. He’s a towering intellect, and has often criticized Left movements from a Far Left perspectives, accusing them of being sellouts. For instance, he has gone after the FMLN in El Salvador lately for pursuing a half-hearted effort at reform.

I believe he was going after Evo Morales in Bolivia lately. He’s great for tearing the masks off these Latin American Leftists who the US press is screaming Commie Bloody Murder about, showing us that many of them are not even very far to the Left and the proposals they are offering are quite moderate and unlikely to seriously shake up socioeconomic relations in these places.

It’s always great to read him on anything having to do with the Latin American Left.

Lately he has sort of gone off on a bender against US Jews and particularly the Israeli Lobby and Israel. He has received some criticism for this from the Left, especially the anarchist Left (see Three Way Fight) and Maoists. Maoists and anarchists (Three Way Fight critique here) are among those on the Left who are particularly sensitive to charges of anti-Semitism and go to great lengths to avoid such.

This despite the recent rightwing Jewish – Zionist rewriting of history that shows the entire 20th Century Left as being anti-Semitic. See Why the Jews? The Reasons for Contemporary Anti-Semitism by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin for more on that – it’s actually an excellent read and I recommend it.

The ADL has recently weighed in against Petras, accusing him of fomenting some kind of “New Anti-Semitism” (this means an anti-Semitism focused mostly on Israel). All of this crap is a rather minor sideshow to Petras’ excellent corpus and career, but as you can see in his Wikipedia entry, most of the entry is given over his tussle with the Jews.

On the discussion page, the Wikipedia Jews have gone nuts, accusing him of being an “anti-Jewish racist” and other bullshit. There’s the usual crap about Israel Shamir on there, straight from the UK Spotlight Trotskyite antifa loonie-tunes accusations – Shamir as a Swedish neo-Nazi living in Norway.

In fact, Israel Shamir, whatever one thinks of him (and he surely has his anti-Semitic moments) is a Russian Jew, son of a famous rabbi, who immigrated to Israel, fought in the Israeli military, wrote for some Israeli papers, moved to Japan where he translated Japanese haiku books, moved back to Russia where he got involved in some dubious anti-Semitic far right Russian publications, moved back to Israel, where he currently resides in Jaffa (in fact, you can probably even visit him there – lots of folks do).

It’s really sad that this “Swedish neo-Nazi” bullshit has been allowed to gain as much traction as it has. Yes, his Wikipedia page says that too. I know what you were thinking. Chip Berlet is one of the leaders of the Israel Shamir Lynch Mob. Berlet, the strange “Marxist” who is in deep with the radical right libertarians that rule Wikipedia.

Looks like the Wikipedia Jews got pretty much thwarted on this one. Maybe someone is finally starting to reign them in over there. Note that “Humus Sapiens” is one of the most notorious Wikipedia Jews, active for years now. Still at it, I guess.

Check out the article history. Real food fight.

Links to some Wikipedia nasties.

Wikipedia Jews: Jayjg, one of the worst Jewish POV-pushers on Wikipedia. Humus Sapiens, a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US. Izak, one of their sidekicks.

Slim Virgin , one of the worst ones of all. I understand that SV is not even Jewish (!); she’s just some Gentile philosemite. She’s obsessed with 1. The Jews, 2. 9-11. SV is one of the most horrible and abusive administrators on Wikipedia. She was so abusive that the Wikipedia Review undertook an investigation of her.

She was very hard to track down as she covers her tracks very well, but they eventually determined that she is a former Cambridge University graduate student named Linda Mack who was hired by investigative reporter Pierre Salinger and John K. Cooley to investigate the Lockerbie bombing.

Two Libyans were eventually convicted of the bombing, and Ghaddafi was ordered to pay a huge fine, but there is good evidence that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing. There is also evidence that UK law enforcement knew this but went after Ghaddafi anyway because they hated him and wanted to wrap up the case.

It is still not known who was behind the bombing, but the Iranian regime was probably the author of the attack. The attack was probably a payback for the US shooting down of an Iranian airliner during the Iran-Iraq War, an act that the US said was accidental. Iran refused to accept the accidental shootdown theory.

Linda Mack was instrumental in steering Salinger and Cooley towards the Libyans. Salinger and Cooley eventually decided that Mack was a spy with the UK’s notorious MI5 intelligence agency (the British CIA). Linda Mack is now reportedly living in Alberta, Canada under the name Sarah McEwan.

Antifascist, who uses the same handle and has the same obsessions as a notorious Jewish Zionist who used to stalk anti-Zionists on Indymedia, often issuing them horrible death threats. He’s obsessed with Wendy Campbell and Gilad Atzmon.

His name is Ketlan Ossowski ( blog here) and he is described as an obsessive Jew who uses Leftism and anti-fascism as a cover to promote Zionism. I strongly suspect that he is the same guy who stalked and threatened Wendy Campbell. Zeq, long-notorious, the lone Wikipedia Jew busted in the CAMERA fiasco, now banned.

Others: Roland Rance, a Jewish Marxist (Jewish first, Marxist far distant second) from London, famous from the wars over Gilad Atzmon and Mary Rizzo’s Peace Palestine blog, apparently active in the Socialist Workers Party and in with the Lenin’s Tomb crowd. I’m not going to comment on this guy much as he’s written me civilly via email.

Just another frothing Trot about sums it up though.

The Cutting Edge: New Internet Publication

Repost from the old site.

This is a new online magazine on the Net. I just noticed it; they’ve only been online for 4 months and they already have high readership of around 45,000 readers a day. Actually, this magazine is pretty scary, and it definitely has big money behind it. A very large number of the authors are extremely hard rightwing Zionist Jews, and some of them have CIA and probably Mossad connections.

Lets take a look at the authors:

Gal Luft is an Israeli or possibly Jewish “American” author who consorts with former CIA director James Woolsey and seems to have deep connections to the Israeli state.

Anne Korin, (photo) Jewish “American” author and pundit, is a hard-Right Zionist. A mysterious woman, she is a co-director with Luft of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS). IAGS seems to have deep ties US and Israeli intelligence. She is also an agent of the weird ultra-rightwing seminal neoconservative group the Committee on the Present Danger.

Part of their agenda (Korin is the director of the weird, neoconservative and far rightwing Set America Free Coalition and editor of Energy Security) is the demonization of Arabs and Iran and concomitantly, urging the US and Israel to get off of oil in order to bankrupt the Arabs and probably also to sever the alliance between the US and Gulf Arab big money.

Cindy Hurst is a US naval commander who has deep ties to International Zionism and the CIA via IAGS. She works for the Foreign Military Studies Office, which is just a research office for US imperialism, armed branch. Quite a few high-ranking naval officers, often Gentiles, have deep connections to International Zionism.

Edwin Black, though the name does not seem to be Jewish, is a hard-rightwing Jewish “American” writer for the New York Times with deep connections to Israel.

Howard Kohr, the Jewish “American” director of the spearhead of the treasonous Jewish Lobby in the US, AIPAC, authors many pieces.

Walid Phares, is a Lebanese “American” scholar. He is a reactionary Lebanese Maronite Phalangist exiled from Lebanon because he is too reactionary for the current political situation there. The remaining Maronites in Lebanon are for the most part the saner ones – the real nutjobs have long left the place.

He is deep with USCFL, the neoconservative Phalangist arm in the US that has deep connections with far right Zionism in Israel and the US. In particular, he is in deep with Daniel Pipes.

Sam Orez is a little known “American” author, but the name is Jewish and he writes for the Israeli press and on AIPAC and American Jewish Committee issues.

Jewish “American” David Harris, another contributor, is the director of the American Jewish Committee.

Benedict Rogers is deeply involved with the Tory Party of the UK. His purpose is to attack the admittedly horrible Burmese regime, not because it is awful, but because US and apparently British imperialism is waging war on the place because the economy is largely state-owned and the regime has not fully opened itself up to multinational corporations yet.

Joe Eskenazi is a hardline Zionist Jew and a reporter for j, a Jewish weekly. He profiles Jewish “American” gazillionaire Larry Ellison of Oracle (probably one of the world’s most arrogant and unpleasant humans) on his trip to Sderot to commiserate with Jews living under largely ineffective rocket fire. Ellison is probably a big bucks money guy in the Jewish Lobby in the US, and it might be useful to investigate this.

Micah Halpern is an extreme rightwing Jew, the usual dual-loyalty type, born in the US and moved to Israel, probably treacherously holding dual citizenship. He frequently writes for far Right Israeli papers.

Ronald Kessler is a big editor at the far rightwing Newsmax website.

Gary Rosenblatt is the Editor in Chief of New York Jewish Week.

Aaron Klein is an “American” Jewish journalist who spends his time working out of the extreme rightwing Worldnetdaily‘s Jerusalem Bureau, often reported wild, insane and ridiculous Israeli propaganda. He did go out and interview the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade though, but he seems to have turned that into a book-length hit piece on armed Palestinians.

Klein is behind the “Obama is a 1960’s Weatherman terrorist radical bomber” bullshit. He’s currently waging jihad against Obama, apparently on the grounds of being soft on Israel and supportive of Palestinian terrorism, which is dubious. Syria and Jordan both refused him entry to their countries, supposedly for being a Jew, but I think it was mostly for being a Zionist agent and an asshole to boot. Good call.

David Brog is the insane Protestant fundamentalist Zionist connection. He’s the Executive Director of Christians United for Israel, chaired by ultra-nutcase Pastor John Hagee.

Armstrong Williams is an ultra-rightwing Black Oreo talk show host and token House Negro serving tea for massa. He was thought to have fallen to infamy recently, but I guess he’s resurfacing on this weird website and his radio station is either back on the air or never left the air. Armstrong peddled himself as an ultra-rightwing Black Christian ranting and raving about liberals and liberal values destroying America.

Truth is that Williams is fucking gay, and he’s been known to have sexually harassed over 100 men to try to get them to fuck him in the ass or let him suck their dicks or whatever. The media properly buried this story, since it involves a far rightwinger, but it’s all true. I don’t mind gay men, but I really hate hypocrites.

He’s still totally closeted and a liar, and if you look on his website, you have to admit he looks awfully queer. Armstrong loves Israel too, by the way, but probably not as much as a big White cock.

James Quinn is a economist and a professor and Senior Director of Strategic Planning, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He certainly doesn’t serve imperialism or the US ruling class. He’s some kind of far rightwing “buy gold and silver” sky is falling nutcase economist type of whom we’ve always had plenty in the US.

Nonie Darwish is some kind of a crazy person, a Palestinian raised in Gaza who moved to the US and decided to shill for Israel! What the Hell? Who’s signing her checks anyway?

Joseph Griebowski is an odd fellow. He’s head of a very strange organization called Institute on Religion and Public Policy.

Does Multilingualism Equal Separatism?

Repost from the old site.

Sorry for the long post, readers, but I have been working on this piece off and on for months now. It’s not something I just banged out. For one thing, this is the only list that I know of on the Net that lists all of the countries of the world and shows how many languages are spoken there in an easy to access format. Not even Wikipedia has that (yet).

Whether or not states have the right to secede is an interesting question. The libertarian Volokh Conspiracy takes that on in this nice set of posts. We will not deal with that here; instead, we will take on the idea that linguistic diversity automatically leads to secession.

There is a notion floating around among fetishists of the state that there can be no linguistic diversity within the nation, as it will lead to inevitable separatism. In this post, I shall disprove that with empirical data. First, we will list the states in the world, along with how many languages are spoken in that state.

States with a significant separatist movement are noted with an asterisk. As you can see if you look down the list, there does not seem to be much of a link between multilingualism and separatism. There does seem to be a trend in that direction in Europe, though.

Afterward, I will discuss the nature of the separatist conflicts in many of these states to try to see if there is any language connection. In most cases, there is little or nothing there.

I fully expect the myth of multilingualism = separatism to persist after the publication of this post, unfortunately.

St Helena                        1
British Indian Ocean Territories 1
Pitcairn Island                  1
Estonia                          1
Maldives                         1
North Korea                      1
South Korea                      1
Cayman Islands                   1
Bermuda                          1
Belarus                          1
Martinique                       2
St Lucia                         2
St Vincent & the Grenadines      2
Barbados                         2
Virgin Islands                   2
British Virgin Islands           2
Gibraltar                        2
Antigua and Barbuda              2
Saint Kitts and Nevis            2
Montserrat                       2
Anguilla                         2
Marshall Islands                 2
Cuba                             2
Turks and Caicos                 2
Guam                             2
Tokelau                          2
Samoa                            2
American Samoa                   2
Niue                             2
Jamaica                          2
Cape Verde Islands               2
Icelandic                        2
Maltese                          2
Maltese                          2
Vatican State                    2
Haiti                            2
Kiribati                         2
Tuvalu                           2
Bahamas                          2
Puerto Rico                      2
Kyrgyzstan                       3
Rwanda                           3
Nauru                            3
Turkmenistan                     3
Luxembourg                       3
Monaco                           3
Burundi                          3
Seychelles                       3
Grenada                          3
Bahrain                          3
Tonga                            3
Qatar                            3
Kuwait                           3
Dominica                         3
Liechtenstein                    3
Andorra                          3
Reunion                          3
Dominican Republic               3
Netherlands Antilles             4
Northern Mariana Islands         4
Palestinian West Bank & Gaza     4
Palau                            4
Mayotte                          4
Cyprus*                          4
Bosnia and Herzegovina*          4
Slovenia and Herzegovina*        4
Swaziland                        4
Sao Tome and Principe            4
Guadalupe                        4
Saudi Arabia                     5
Cook Islands                     5
Latvia                           5
Lesotho                          5
Djibouti                         5
Ireland                          5
Moldova                          5
Armenia                          6
Mauritius                        6
Lebanon                          6
Mauritania                       6
Croatia                          6
Kazakhstan                       7
Kazakhstan                       7
Albania                          7
Portugal                         7
Uzbekistan                       7
Sri Lanka*                       7
United Arab Emirates             7
Comoros                          7
Belize                           8
Tunisia                          8
Denmark                          8
Yemen                            8
Morocco*                         9
Austria                          9
Jordan                           9
Macedonia                        9
Tajikistan                       9
French Polynesia                 9
Gambia                           9
Belgium                          9
Libya                            9
Fiji                             10
Slovakia                         10
Ukraine                          10
Egypt                            11
Bulgaria                         11
Norway                           11
Poland                           11
Serbia and Montenegro            11
Eritrea                          12
Georgia*                         12
Finland*                         12
Switzerland*                     12
Hungary*                         12
United Kingdom*                  12
Mongolia                         13
Spain                            13
Somalia*                         13
Oman                             13
Madagascar                       13
Malawi                           14
Equatorial Guinea                14
Mali                             14
Azerbaijan                       14
Japan                            15
Syria*                           15
Romania*                         15
Sweden*                          15
Netherlands*                     15
Greece                           16
Brunei                           17
Algeria                          18
Micronesia                       18
East Timor                       19
Zimbabwe                         19
Niger                            21
Singapore                        21
Cambodia                         21
Iraq*                            21
Guinea-Bissau                    21
Taiwan                           22
Bhutan                           24
Sierra Leone                     24
South Africa                     24
Germany                          28
Namibia                          28
Botswana                         28
France                           29
Liberia                          30
Israel                           33
Italy                            33
Guinea                           34
Turkey*                          34
Senegal                          36
Bangladesh                       39
New Caledonia                    39
Togo                             39
Angola*                          41
Gabon                            41
Zambia                           41
Mozambique                       43
Uganda                           43
Afghanistan                      47
Guatemala                        54
Benin                            54
Kenya                            61
Congo                            62
Burkina Faso                     68
Central African Republic         69
Solomon Islands                  70
Thailand*                        74
Iran*                            77
Cote D'Ivoire                    78
Ghana                            79
Laos                             82
Ethiopia*                        84
Canada*                          85
Russia*                          101
Vietnam                          102
Myanmar*                         108
Vanuatu                          109
Nepal                            126
Tanzania                         128
Chad                             132
Sudan*                           134
Malaysia                         140
United States*                   162
Philippines*                     171
Pakistan*                        171
Democratic Republic of Congo     214
Australia                        227
China*                           235
Cameroon*                        279
Mexico                           291
India*                           415
Nigeria                          510
Indonesia*                       737
Papua New Guinea*                820

*Starred states have a separatist problem, but most are not about language. Most date back to the very formation of an often-illegitimate state.

Canada definitely has a conflict that is rooted in language, but it is also rooted in differential histories as English and French colonies. The Quebec nightmare is always brought up by state fetishists, ethnic nationalists and other racists and nationalists who hate minorities as the inevitable result of any situation whereby a state has more than one language within its borders.

This post is designed to give the lie to this view.

Cyprus’ problem has to do with two nations, Greeks and Turks, who hate each other. The history for this lies in centuries of conflict between Christianity and Islam, culminating in the genocide of 350,000 Greeks in Turkey from 1916-1923.

Morocco’s conflict has nothing to do with language. Spanish Sahara was a Spanish colony in Africa. After the Spanish left in the early 1950’s, Morocco invaded the country and colonized it, claiming in some irredentist way that the land had always been a part of Morocco. The residents beg to differ and say that they are a separate state.

An idiotic conflict ensued in which Morocco the colonizer has been elevated to one of the most sanctioned nations of all by the UN. Yes, Israel is not the only one; there are other international scofflaws out there. In this conflict, as might be expected, US imperialism has supported Moroccan colonialism.

This Moroccan colonialism has now become settler-colonialism, as colonialism often does. You average Moroccan goes livid if you mention their colony. He hates Israel, but Morocco is nothing but an Arab Muslim Israel. If men had a dollar for every drop of hypocrisy, we would be a world of millionaires.

There are numerous separatist conflicts in Somalia. As Somalians have refused to perform their adult responsibilities and form a state, numerous parts of this exercise in anarchism in praxis (Why are the anarchists not cheering this on?) are walking away from the burning house. Who could blame them?

These splits seem to have little to do with language. One, Somaliland, was a former British colony and has a different culture than the rest of Somalia. Somaliland is now de facto independent, as Somalia, being a glorious exercise in anarchism, of course lacks an army to enforce its borders, or to do anything.

Jubaland has also split, but this has nothing to do with language. Instead, this may be rooted in a 36-year period in which it was a British colony. Soon after this period, they had their own postage stamps as an Italian colony.

There is at least one serious separatist conflict in Ethiopia in the Ogaden region, which is mostly populated by ethnic Somalis. Apparently this region used to be part of Somaliland, and Ethiopia probably has little claim to the region. This conflict has little do with language and more to do with conflicts rooted in colonialism and the illegitimate borders of states.

There is also a conflict in the Oromo region of Ethiopia that is not going very far lately. These people have been fighting colonialism since Ethiopia was a colony and since then have been fighting against independent Ethiopia, something they never went along with. Language has a role here, but the colonization of a people by various imperial states plays a larger one.

There was a war in Southern Sudan that has now ended with the possibility that the area may secede.

There is a genocidal conflict in Darfur that the world is ignoring because it involves Arabs killing Blacks as they have always done in this part of the world, and the world only gets upset when Jews kill Muslims, not when Muslims kill Muslims.

This conflict has to do with the Sudanese Arabs treating the Darfurians with utter contempt – they regard them as slaves, as they have always been to these racist Arabs.

The conflict in Southern Sudan involved a region in rebellion in which many languages were spoken. The South Sudanese are also niggers to the racist Arabs, plus they are Christian and animist infidels to be converted by the sword by Sudanese Arab Muslims. Every time a non-Muslim area has tried to split off from or acted uppity with a Muslim state they were part of, the Muslims have responded with a jihad against and genocide of the infidels.

This conflict has nothing to do with language; instead it is a war of Arab Muslim religious fanatics against Christian and animist infidels.

There is a separatist movement in the South Cameroons in the nation of Cameroon in Africa. This conflict is rooted in colonialism. During the colonial era, South Cameroons was a de facto separate state. Many different languages are spoken here, as is the case in Cameroon itself. They may have a separate culture too, but this is just another case of separatism rooted in colonialism. The movement seems to be unarmed.

There is a separatist conflict in Angola in a region called Cabinda, which was always a separate Portuguese colony from Angola.

As this area holds 6

The Cabindans do claim to have a separate culture, but language does not seem to be playing much role here – instead, oil and colonialism are.

Syria does have a Kurdish separatist movement, as does Iran, Iraq, and Turkey – every state that has a significant number of Kurds. This conflict goes back to the post-World War 1 breakup of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds, with thousands of years of history as a people, nominally independent for much of that time, were denied a state and sold out.

The new fake state called Turkey carved up part of Kurdistan, another part was donated to the British colony in Iraq and another to the French colony in Syria, as the Allies carved up the remains of the Empire like hungry guests at a feast.

This conflict is more about colonialism and extreme discrimination than language, though the Kurds do speak their own tongue. There is also a Kurdish separatist conflict in Iran, but I don’t know much about the history of the Iranian Kurds.

There is also an Assyrian separatist movement in Iraq and possibly in Syria. The movement is unarmed. The Assyrians have been horribly persecuted by Arab nationalist racists in the region, in part because they are Christians. They have been targeted by Islamo-Nazis in Iraq during this Iraq War with a ferocity that can only be described as genocidal.

The Kurds have long persecuted the Assyrians in Iraqi Kurdistan. There have been regular homicides of Assyrians in the north, up around the Mosul region. This is just related to the general way that Muslims treat Christian minorities in many Muslim states – they persecute them and even kill them. There is also a lot of land theft going on.

While the Kurdish struggle is worthwhile, it is becoming infected with the usual nationalist evil that afflicts all ethnic nationalism. This results in everyone who is not a Kurdish Sunni Muslim being subjected to varying degrees of persecution, disenfranchisement and discrimination. It’s a nasty part of the world.

In Syria, the Assyrians live up near the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Arab nationalist racists have been stealing their land for decades now and relocating the Assyrians to model villages, where they languish in poverty. Assad’s regime is not so secular and progressive as one might suspect.

There is a separatist conflict in Bougainville in New Guinea. I am sure that many different tongues are spoken on that island, as there are 800 different tongues spoken in Papua New Guinea. The conflict is rooted in the fact that Bougainville is rich in copper, but almost all of this wealth is stolen by Papua New Guinea and US multinationals, so the Bougainville people see little of it. Language has little or nothing to do with it.

There are separatist movements in the Ahwaz and Balochistan regions of Iran, along with the aforementioned Kurdish movement. It is true that different languages are spoken in these regions, but that has little to do with the conflict.

Arabic is spoken in Khuzestan, the land of the Iranian Arabs. This land has been part of Persia for around 2,000 years as the former land of Elam. The Arabs complain that they are treated poorly by the Persians, and that they get little revenue to their region even though they are sitting on a vast puddle of oil and natural gas.

Iran should not be expected to part with this land, as it is the source of much of their oil and gas wealth. Many or most Iranians speak Arabic anyway, so there is not much of a language issue. Further, Arab culture is promoted by the Islamist regime even at the expense of Iranian culture, much to the chagrin of Iranian nationalists.

The Ahwaz have been and are being exploited by viciously racist Arab nationalists in Iraq, and also by US imperialism, and most particularly lately, British imperialism, as the British never seem to have given up the colonial habit. This conflict is not about language at all. Most Ahwaz don’t even want to separate anyway; they just want to be treated like humans by the Iranians.

Many of Iran’s

There is a separatist movement in Iran to split off Iranian Azerbaijan and merge it with Azerbaijan proper. This movement probably has little to do with language and more to do with just irredentism. The movement is not going to go very far because most Iranian Azeris do not support it.

Iranian Azeris actually form a ruling class in Iran and occupy most of the positions of power in the government. They also control a lot of the business sector and seem to have a higher income than other Iranians. This movement has been co-opted by pan-Turkish fascists for opportunistic reasons, but it’s not really going anywhere. The CIA is now cynically trying to stir it up with little success. The movement is peaceful.

There is a Baloch insurgency in Pakistan, but language has little to do with it. These fiercely independent people sit on top of a very rich land which is ruthlessly exploited by Punjabis from the north. They get little or no return from this natural gas wealth. Further, this region never really consented to being included in the Pakistani state that was carved willy-nilly out of India in 1947.

It is true that there are regions in the Caucasus that are rebelling against Russia. Given the brutal and bloody history of Russian imperial colonization of this region and the near-continuous rebellious state of the Muslims resident there, one wants to say they are rebelling against Imperial Russia.

Chechnya is the worst case, but Tuva reserves the right to split away, but this is rooted in their prior history as an independent state within the USSR (Tell me how that works?) for two decades until 1944, when Stalin reconquered it as a result of the conflict with the Nazis. The Tuvans accepted peacefully.

Yes, the Tuvans speak a different tongue, but so do all of the Siberian nations, and most of those are still with Russia. Language has little to do with the Tuvan matter.

There is also separatism in the Bashkir Republic and Adygea in Russia. These have not really gone anywhere. Only 2 Adygea speak Circassian, and they see themselves as overrun by Russian-speaking immigrants. This conflict may have something to do with language. The Adygean conflict is also peripherally related the pan-Caucasian struggle above.

In the Bashkir Republic, the problem is more one of a different religion – Islam, as most Bashkirs are Muslim. It is not known to what degree language has played in the struggle, but it may be a factor. The Bashkirs also see themselves as overrun by Russian-speaking immigrants. It is dubious that the Bashkirs will be able to split off, as the result will be a separate nation surrounded on all sides by Russia.

The Adygean, Tuvan and Bashkir struggles are all peaceful.

The conflict in Georgia is complex. A province called Abkhazia has split off and formed their own de facto state, which has been supported with extreme cynicism by up and coming imperialist Russia, the same clown state that just threatened to go to war to defend the territorial integrity of their genocidal Serbian buddies. South Ossetia has also split off and wants to join Russia.

Both of these reasonable acts prompted horrible and insane wars as Georgia sought to preserve its territorial integrity, though it has scarcely been a state since 1990, and neither territory ever consented to being part of Georgia.

The Ossetians and Abkhazians do speak separate languages, and I am not certain why they want to break away, but I do not think that language has much to do with it. All parties to these conflicts are nations in rebellion announced that they were not part of the deal.

Bloody rebellions have gone on ever since, and language has little or nothing to do with any of them. They are situated instead on the illegitimacy of not only the borders of the Burmese state, but of the state itself.

Thailand does have a separatist movement, but it is Islamic. They had a separate state down there until the early 1800’s when they were apparently conquered by Thais. I believe they do speak a different language down there, but it is not much different from Thai, and I don’t think language has anything to do with this conflict.

There is a conflict in the Philippines that is much like the one in Thailand. Muslims in Mindanao have never accepted Christian rule from Manila and are in open arms against the state. Yes, they speak different languages down in Mindanao, but they also speak Tagalog, the language of the land.

This just a war of Muslims seceding because they refuse to be ruled by infidels. Besides, this region has a long history of independence, de facto and otherwise, from the state. The Moro insurgency has little to nothing to do with language.

There are separatist conflicts in Indonesia. The one in Aceh seems to have petered out. Aceh never agreed to join the fake state of Indonesia that was carved out of the Dutch East Indies when the Dutch left in 1949.

West Papua is a colony of Indonesia. It was invaded by Indonesia with the full support of US imperialism in 1965. The Indonesians then commenced to murder 100,000 Papuans over the next 40 years. There are many languages spoken in West Papua, but that has nothing to do with the conflict. West Papuans are a racially distinct people divided into vast numbers of tribes, each with a separate culture.

They have no connection racially or culturally with the rest of Indonesia and do not wish to be part of the state. They were not a part of the state when it was declared in 1949 and were only incorporated after an Indonesian invasion of their land in 1965. Subsequently, Indonesia has planted lots of settler-colonists in West Papua.

There is also a conflict in the South Moluccas , but it has more to do with religion than anything else, since there is a large number of Christians in this area. The South Moluccans were always reluctant to become a part of the new fake Indonesian state that emerged after independence anyway, and I believe there was some fighting for a while there. The South Moluccan struggle has generally been peaceful ever since.

Indonesia is the Israel of Southeast Asia, a settler-colonial state. The only difference is that the Indonesians are vastly more murderous and cruel than the Israelis.

There are conflicts in Tibet and East Turkestan in China. In the case of Tibet, this is a colony of China that China has no jurisdiction over. The East Turkestan fight is another case of Muslims rebelling against infidel rule. Yes, different languages are spoken here, but this is the case all over China.

Language is involved in the East Turkestan conflict in that Chinese have seriously repressed the Uighur language, but I don’t think it plays much role in Tibet.

There is also a separatist movement in Inner Mongolia in China. I do not think that language has much to do with this, and I believe that China’s claim to Inner Mongolia may be somewhat dubious. This movement is unarmed and not very organized.

There are conflicts all over India, but they don’t have much to do with language.

The Kashmir conflict is not about language but instead is rooted in the nature of the partition of India after the British left in 1947. 9

The UN quickly ruled that Kashmir had to be granted a vote in its future, but this vote was never allowed by India. As such, India is another world-leading rogue and scofflaw state on a par with Israel and Indonesia. Now the Kashmir mess has been complicated by the larger conflict between India and Pakistan, and until that is all sorted out, there will be no resolution to this mess.

Obviously India has no right whatsoever to rule this area, and the Kashmir cause ought to be taken up by all progressives the same way that the Palestinian one is.

There are many conflicts in the northeast, where most of the people are Asians who are racially, often religiously and certainly culturally distinct from the rest of Indians.

None of these regions agreed to join India when India, the biggest fake state that has ever existed, was carved out of 5,000 separate princely states in 1947. Each of these states had the right to decide its own future to be a part of India or not. As it turned out, India just annexed the vast majority of them and quickly invaded the few that said no.

“Bharat India”, as Indian nationalist fools call it, as a state, is one of the silliest concepts around. India has no jurisdiction over any of those parts of India in separatist rebellion, if you ask me. Language has little to do with these conflicts.

Over 800 languages are spoken in India anyway, each state has its own language, and most regions are not in rebellion over this. Multilingualism with English and Hindi to cement it together has worked just fine in most of India.

Sri Lanka’s conflict does involve language, but more importantly it involves centuries of extreme discrimination by ruling Buddhist Sinhalese against minority Hindu Tamils. Don’t treat your minorities like crap, and maybe they will not take up arms against you.

The rebellion in the Basque country of Spain and France is about language, as is Catalonian nationalism.

IRA Irish nationalism and the Scottish and Welsh independence movements have nothing to do with language, as most of these languages are not in good shape anyway.

The Corsicans are in rebellion against France, and language may play a role. There is an independence movement in Brittany in France also, and language seems to play a role here, or at least the desire to revive the language, which seems to be dying.

There is a possibility that Belgium may split into Flanders and Wallonia, and language does play a huge role in this conflict. One group speaks French and the other Dutch.

There is a movement in Scania, a part of Sweden, to split away from Sweden. Language seems to have nothing to do with it.

There is a Hungarian separatist movement, or actually, a national reunification or pan-Hungarian movement, in Romania. It isn’t going anywhere, and it unlikely to succeed. Hungarians in Romania have not been treated well and are a large segment of the population. This fact probably drives the separatism more than language.

There are many other small conflicts in Europe that I chose not to go into due to limitations on time and the fact that I am getting tired of writing this post! Perhaps I can deal with them at a later time. Language definitely plays a role in almost all of these conflicts. None of them are violent though.

To say that there are separatists in French Polynesia is not correct. This is an anti-colonial movement that deserves the support of anti-colonial activists the world over. The entire world, evidenced by the UN itself, has rejected colonialism. Only France, the UK and the US retain colonies. That right there is notable, as all three are clearly imperialist countries. In this modern age, the value of retaining colonies is dubious.

These days, colonizers pour more money into colonies than they get out of them. France probably keeps Polynesia due to colonial pride and also as a place to test nuclear weapons and maintain military bases. As the era of French imperialism on a grand scale has clearly passed, France needs to renounce its fantasies of being a glorious imperial power along with its anachronistic colonies.

Yes, there is a Mapuche separatist movement in Chile, but it is not going anywhere soon, or ever.

It has little to do with language. The Mapudungan language is not even in very good shape, and the leaders of this movement are a bunch of morons. Microsoft recently unveiled a Mapudungan language version of Microsoft Windows. You would think that the Mapuche would be ecstatic. Not so! They were furious. Why? Oh, I forget. Some Identity Politics madness.

This movement has everything to do with the history of Chile. Like Argentina and Uruguay, Chile was one of the Spanish colonies that was settled en masse late. For centuries, a small colonial bastion battled the brave Mapuche warriors, but were held at bay by this skilled and militaristic tribe.

Finally, in the late 1800’s, a fanatical and genocidal war was waged on the Mapuche in one of those wonderful “national reunification” missions so popular in the 1800’s (recall Italy’s wars of national reunification around this same time). By the 1870’s, the Mapuche were defeated and suffered a devastating loss of life.

Yet all those centuries of only a few Spanish colonists and lots of Indians had made their mark, and at least 7

Because they held out so long and so many of them survived, they are one of the most militant Amerindian groups in the Americas. They are an interesting people, light-skinned and attractive, though a left-wing Chilean I knew used to chortle about how hideously ugly they were.

Hawaiian separatism is another movement that has a lot to do with colonialism and imperialism and little to do with language. The Hawaiian language, despite some notable recent successes, is not in very good shape. The Hawaiian independence movement offers nothing to non-Hawaiians (I guess only native Hawaiians get to be citizens!) and is doomed to fail.

Hawaiians are about 2

There are separatists in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, but I doubt that language has much to do with it. Like the myriad other separatist struggles in the NE of India, these people are ethnically Asians and as such are not the same ethnicity as the Caucasians who make up the vast majority of the population of this wreck of a state.

This is another conflict that is rooted in a newly independent fake state. The Chittagong Hill Tracts were incorporated into Bangladesh after its independence from Pakistan in 1971. As a fake new state, the peoples of Bangladesh had a right to be consulted on whether or not they wished to be a part of it. The CHT peoples immediately said that they wanted no part of this new state.

At partition, the population was 98.

I don’t know much about the separatist struggle of the Moi in Vietnam, but I think it is more a movement for autonomy than anything else. The Moi are Montagnards and have probably suffered discrimination at the hands of the state along with the rest of the Montagnards.

Zanzibar separatism in Tanzania seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with language, but has a lot more to do with geography. Zanzibar is a nice island off the coast of Tanzania which probably wants nothing to do with the mess of a Tanzanian state.

The conflict also has a lot to do with race. Most residents of Zanzibar are either Arabs or descendants of unions between Arabs and Africans. In particular, they deny that they are Black Africans. I bet that is the root of the conflict right there.

There were some Talysh separatists in Azerbaijan a while back, but the movement seems to be over. I am not sure what was driving them, but language doesn’t seem to have been a big part of it. Just another case of new members of a fake new state refusing to go along for the ride.

There were some Gagauz separatists in Moldova a while back, but the movement appears to have died down. Language does seem to have played a role here, as the Gagauz speak a Turkic tongue totally unrelated to the Romance-speaking Moldovans.

Realistically, it’s just another case of a fake new state emerging and some members of the new state saying they don’t want to be a part of it, and the leaders of the fake new state suddenly invoking inviolability of borders in a state with no history!

In summary, as we saw above, once we get into Europe, language does play a greater role in separatist conflict, but most of these European conflicts are not violent. In the rest of the world, language plays little to no role in the vast majority of separatist conflicts.

The paranoid and frankly fascist notion voiced by rightwing nationalists the world over that any linguistic diversity in the world within states must be crushed as it will inevitably lead to separatism at best or armed separatism at worst is not supported by the facts.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda Leader, Killed

On Friday, June 10, 2011, 38 year old Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the head of Al Qaeda in East Africa, has been killed at a roadblock in Mogadishu. His car failed to stop for a military roadblock, so soldiers fired on his vehicle, killing him. It was not the West who got him after all.

In 1992, as a very young man, he had participated in the Black Hawk Down firefight in Somalia that killed 18 US Marines. In 1995, he returned to the Comoro Islands, his birthplace. He settled in the capital of Moroni, married a local girl and worked as a fisherman. Formerly of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which he had joined as a very young man, Fazul was already working for Al Qaeda. He immediately set about planning Al Qaeda attacks.

One of the most famous photos of Fazul Abdullah Mohammad.

One year later, he hijacked Ethiopian Airways Flight 961 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. The plane was forced down near the Comoros, but before it landed, the Al Qaeda force on board executed Leslie Shed, CIA station chief in Addis Ababa, five heads of Israel’s aviation industries, and a deputy commander of the Ukrainian Air Force. They were headed to a meeting in Jerusalem where they were going to discuss a deal whereby Ukraine would supply jets to Ethiopia which would be provided by Israel and would be paid for by the US.

To this day, all three nations have kept a tight lid on the case because they never figured out Fazul obtained the top secret information about who was traveling on the flight.

Soon after the plane landed, the hijackers took off in speedboats that were waiting for them. They sped off to the Comoros. They were never caught.

Two years later, Fazul masterminded the attack on the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 people, the biggest Al Qaeda attack to date.

The FBI figured out that Fazul was involved in the bombing and headed to Moroni. Too late, he was gone, tipped off that the FBI was after him. In 1998, he was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List with a $5 million price tag on his head.

Fazul Abdul Mohammad from the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist poster.

In 2002, Fazul pulled off another attack, this time in Kenya. He attacked Israeli targets, first attacking the Paradise Hotel in Mombassa, favored by Israeli tourists, with a suicide truck bomb. Next he chartered a plane and flew it near an Israeli Arkia passenger jet, firing a missile at the jet and just missing it. They flew the plane over the hotel they had just bombed, and dropped bombs on the hotel from their plane. Then they hightailed it to Somalia where they escaped.

In 2010, he attacked again, this time suicide bombing multiple cafes in Uganda that were filled with crowds watching the World Cup Final in South Africa. This attack was in retaliation for Uganda taking part in the peacekeeping mission in Somalia, where Fazul was leading the Al Qaeda allied Shabaab movement that was trying to topple the barely existing Somalian government.

Fazul was a master terrorist, one of Al Qaeda’s finest commanders and organizers. He hid successfully from the finest forces of the West for 15 years. A master of disguise and forgery, he spoke 5 different languages, used 18 different names and had three different birthplaces. At the time of his death, he had plans on him for attacks against targets in the West.

His death leaves Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa and East Africa high and dry, missing their terrorist leader and superb guerrilla fighter.

The US Army is the Army of the Rich

The truth is that the US military has always been the army of the rich, the army of the imperialist thieves and mass murderers. Look at how many billions America stole from Iraq – estimates are that the US imperialists stole uncounted billions from the Iraqis in the course of running their government for them after the war. The US is now planning to steal Libya’s money to help bomb Libya – that money belongs to the Libyan people, but the Western imperialists have simply stolen the Libyan people’s money to drop bombs on their heads.

The cruel truth is that the US military is the army of the rich and the corporations. The US homeland needs very little defending, and no one ever tries to invade anyway. Instead, the purpose of the Pentagon is to go around the world killing workers and poor people in order to uphold the rule of the rich and the right of US corporations to exploit the Third World.

It is interesting to look at US wars and military engagements to see how many of them really benefited working class people of the US and other countries. The imperialist wars in Cuba and the Philippines? Are you kidding?

The endless list of interventions in Latin America? They were all to benefit the rich and to kill workers and the poor. Even the invasion of Panama was because Noriega would not play ball with the US on the Sandinistas anymore. The drug dealing thing was a joke. The US, the CIA and our buddies in the rightwing governments and militaries down there have been running dope forever. We look the other way or even help them run the drugs.

Grenada? Pull the other one. The various interventions in Haiti and the Dominican Republic? Give it up. The 7 new US bases in Colombia? They are there to help the Colombian state kill the poor and Left of Colombia.

The intervention in Lebanon? To help Israel. The war against Iraq? A Nazi-like war or aggression that resulted in the US colonization of Iraq. The bases scattered all over the Arab World? To control the oil supply, imperialist style, so no one else can get their mitts on it. This benefits US workers how?

The bases in Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus? An imperialist project to surround and threaten Russia. How does surrounding and threatening Russia benefit US workers? Someone?

Bases in South Korea? To threaten North Korea. How does threatening North Korea benefit US workers? Anyone?

I have a question for you. If you are a working class person, why would you join the army of the rich and go around the world killing poor people and workers so that the rich and the corporations can continue to rip them off and exploit them? Why join an anti-worker, anti-poor army? Why go fight for the rich? Why fight for the corporations? Because that’s what you are doing when you join the US military. Why would a working class person do that?  For the money? For the adventure?

What Position To Take on the Syrian Uprising?

I am quite torn here. The US, Western and Jewish media is supporting the rebels 10

When I say that the Jews are supporting the resistance, I mean the Zionists. I have seen many articles by US-based Zionists in the press calling for Assad’s overthrow. Jew Lieberman called for the US to bomb Syria the same way we are bombing Libya. An article in the US press recently appeared authored by a US Jewish community leader calling for Assad’s overthrow. Debka wants Assad overthrown. Many Jewish and Israeli commenters online are 10

I haven’t the faintest idea what the line of the Israeli government is. The US government appears to be supporting the rebels, as is France, but France has a long-term imperialist interest in the region.

So, the rebels are supported by:

US imperialism, French imperialism and the pro-Zionist West in general.

The Jews/Israelis (Jews means Zionists).

Ok, look, anything that US imperialism and Zionism is for, I’m against. That’s all there is to it.

I went over the reasoning for their support for the rebels in a previous piece.

It goes like this:

International Zionism and US imperialism want Assad gone because this will deliver a smashing blow to the resistance wing in the Middle East of Iran – Syria – Hezollah – Hamas.

By taking out Assad, a Shia, we deliver a heavy blow to the Iran-Syria resistance axis. Iran must go it alone. The incoming regime will be Sunni and Iran-hostile.

By taking out Assad, we take out the Syrian wing of the resistance axis. The incoming Sunni regime is not likely to immediately play such a strong role in the resistance.

By taking out Assad, we deal a huge blow to Hezbollah. Hezbollah is supported by Iran, but that support comes by way of Syria. Taking out Syria leaves Hezbollah high and dry, and it will be hard for Iran to deliver weapons to them. The new Sunni regime is likely to be Hezbollah-hostile.

By taking out Assad, we deal a blow to Hamas. Hamas is supported by Iran, but that support goes by way of Syria.

The problem is that down the line, the new Sunni regime wants the Golan back as much as any Syrian does, and the Syrian Sunnis are very Israel-hostile. This could cause a problem with the US-Israel alliance down the road.

However, in international politics, who thinks long-term? No one does. Everything is short term. If USreal (US-Israel alliance) can deliver a heavy blow to Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas, then they are going to go for it. That the end result may be more problems down the road is not something they are going to think about. Their attitude will be, “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

I am also a Christian, and the Christians are 10

Why the US and Israel Support the Syrian Rebels

Researching this Syrian civil war, it’s clear as air that the US and Israel are rooting for the rebels. Indeed, much of the West is. But why? I was mystified at first, but now it all makes sense.

Here’s how it works:

Get rid of Assad.

Assad goes, and you strike a death blow against Iran.

Assad goes, and in particular, you strike a severe death blow against Hezbollah.

Syria is Hezbollah’s patron, via Iran. The Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Axis is one of Israel’s main enemies. Furthermore, Syria, but mostly Iran, supports Hamas.

So, Assad goes, and you strike a major blow against the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas resistance faction.

The minority Alawite Shia regime supports Iran and Hezbollah mostly for nationalist reasons – they want the Golan back. All three are Shia, so it works as an alliance.

The Syrian Arab Sunnis increasingly hate Hezbollah, because they see them as tied in with Assad’s regime. Hezbollah is also supporting the regime in Damascus, because it’s their lifeline. Iran is reportedly helping to put down the rebellion, so they don’t like Iran either. I’m starting to see a lot of Syrian Sunni Arab sectarian comments on the web against the Shia, about how they are the enemies of the Sunnis, etc.

Bottom line, if an opposition regime gets in, it will probably be a relatively Islamist Sunni Arab regime. They will take a dim view of supporting Hezbollah and an equally dim view of an alliance with the eternal enemy Iran.

The problem with this US-Israeli view is that it is short-sighted. The Syrian Sunni Arab Islamists are ferocious Israel-haters, and they want the Golan back as bad as anyone.

Their attitude is that Assad has been too weak to get the Golan back. Get rid of the Alawite regime, put in a Syrian Sunni Arab Islamist regime with deep ties to the Ikhwan, and launch a war on Israel. That’s the explicit goal of the Syrian Islamists.

Now, whether or not they can pull this off is another question. But regardless of what happens to the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran Axis, the new Sunni Arab Islamist regime in Syria will not, repeat not, be friendly to Israel.

It’s one of those be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, things.

An Apologetics For Zionism

Repost from the old site. This comment was left on my site by a fellow who called himself “Apologist for Zionism”. He makes some very interesting points on here. We have dealt with his notion that every ethnic group deserves a state on this blog previously. Non-territorial nations certainly do not deserve a state at all, unless someone wants to donate one to them. These comments are interesting because in many ways they are straight of out of Theodor Herzl himself. Herzl has been accused by anti-Zionists of being a Jewish anti-Semite, and he was a serious critic of the Jews. He felt that Jews and Gentiles could not live together and he felt that the fault was equally divided between the two groups. He originally favored Jewish assimilation, but after the Dreyfus Affair in France in the late 1800’s (this shocked many people because they thought that anti-Semitism in France was history by this time) he changed his mind and figured that the only way forward was for Jews and Gentiles to live in permanent separation. He noted that when Jews did well, they become very successful businessmen and aroused the envy and wrath of the Gentiles, and when they sank into poverty, they bred radicals like rabbits.

When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of all revolutionary parties; and at the same time, when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse. Herzl, Der Judenstaat, 1896, p.91.

The commenter points out that many early Zionists were socialists who felt that one of the problems of the Jew was that he had gotten out of touch with the land itself (however, Jews were forbidden to own land for most of their stay in Europe). To cure this defect, these socialist Zionists supported a sort of back to the land thing that would get Jews’ hands dirty and make them into salt of the Earth again. The question of whether or not nations have carrying capacities for Jews is most interesting, but I don’t even want to go there. The author suggests that the US is presently reaching such a capacity. Another very successful minority similar to Jews is the Overseas Chinese. There have been some pogroms against the Overseas Chinese, but it’s nothing compared to what Jews have been through. Only about Now, no group of people, no matter how kind-hearted or progressive, is going to put up with that kind of bullshit for long, and there is no way that the Overseas Chinese work 23 times harder or are 23 times smarter than Indonesians or Filipinos. At the outside, perhaps they are 3.5 times more intelligent than Indonesians or Filipinos. This would entitle them, with The problem with capitalism is that in amasses such insane fortunes in the hands of small groups who frankly have not earned it due to either their genes or their harder work. In so doing, capitalism virtually guarantees endless racial conflict. There are differences between Jews and Overseas Chinese. The Overseas Chinese tend to keep their heads down, keep out of politics, and are not endlessly meddling in the cultural and political affairs of the nation – they just focus on making money. Jews focus on making money too, but they can’t seem to help trying to change society, a habit that arouses mountains of anti-Semitism. This is an interesting comment:

In fact, some theorists and historians even believe that it was the general emancipation of the Jews in the early-to-mid 19th Century that led to the Industrial Revolution in The West and the consequent rise of modern industrial-capitalism, which Jews also played and still played a large part in.The countries in Europe where Jews had the most political and economic freedom, especially England and Germany, were also the first to industrialize on a large scale…coincidence?

That paragraph is most interesting, and led another commenter to rebut that Jews were never a part of industrialization in Germany and Britain; instead they were associated in Britain anyway with finance capital. The commenter then said he was reading a book by a guy named William Engdahl, A Century of War. Engdahl is no anti-Semite, but he felt that the predominance of finance capital in Britain led to colonial adventures instead of building up domestic industry, to the eventual detriment of Britain. He then noted that in the 1920’s and 1930’s, German products were said to be better than British products. I don’t know about Jewish emancipation leading to the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Germany, but I believe that Jews played an essential role in the development of capitalism itself. I also don’t agree with the “German socialist” viewpoint that Hitler later picked up – along with Israel Shamir – that the Jews are a virus-like people, a race of rootless cosmopolitans without ties to the blood and soil and without loyalty to the nation, as the German capitalists supposedly had. It’s my understanding that in the 1920’s, many top German capitalists, including factory owners, were Jews. Jews are now heavily involved in industry here in the US. Jews do not limit themselves anymore to finance capital, and they are not very big players in it anymore anyway, as it all seems to be taken over by multinational banks in the US, Europe and Asia with few to no Jewish connections. The role of the Jews in finance capital in the past was quite large (they almost controlled European banking from ~1850-1930 or so). The big players in the UK 110 years ago were not Jews but a couple of cabals, one centered around a man named Cecil Rhodes. This cabal also had ties to top UK universities like Oxford and Cambridge. They went to the top boys schools like Eaton. They were active in colonialism and in groups such as the Oriental Society. They actually formed secret societies. It’s true that Lord Rothschild was a member (at the periphery) of one of these secret societies, but he seems to have been the only Jew. I really doubt that the dominance of finance capital (= Jewish money) in the UK 110 years ago is what led to colonial adventures. This group centered around Rhodes was very much into colonialism, and Britain was a huge industrial power in those days, mostly due to her Navy and her colonies. Britain ruled the world from 1588 (the defeat of the Spanish Armada – and also the first stirrings of English nationalism – one of the first manifestations of classic European nationalism) all the way up until about 1935, when air power, notably German, successfully challenged British sea and colonial power. German products have always been better than British products, especially fine machinery. I doubt the superiority of German fine machined products over such British products has much to do with Jewish money. There was plenty of Jewish money floating around Germany around that time too. This cabal around Rhodes, I believe, continues to run The London Times to this very day, or at least they did in the mid 1960’s. At this point, the Jews are in Israel and they are not leaving. Radical Palestinians want to throw out every Jew who came after 1916 (The Balfour Declaration was in 1917). As a settler-colonist myself whose ancestors were still stealing Indian land for our settler-colonial project as late as 1873 in California (see Modoc Wars), this sort of thing makes me really uneasy. Any settlement to the conflict in the Holy Land must take into account the safety of the Jews already there. I would hate to see a situation similar to Iraq where maniacal insurgents are running around slaughtering Jews at will and setting off car bombs and killing 100-200 Jews at a time. Arabs are Arabs, and I don’t think Palestinians and Iraqis are all that different, except one comes from the Levant and the other from Mesopotamia. I’m also not sure that Jewish-led industrialization in Germany (assuming it is a fact) led to the alienation and impoverishment of the rural people and the rise of Nazi blood and soil German ethnic nationalism, but it’s a complicated question to be sure. The followers of the Nazis were mostly petit bourgeois, lower middle class office workers and the like. Rural dwellers were not so supportive. Zionist Apologist writes:

Every ethnic group has a right to a state. It’s a shame that the Jews had to steal Israel, but at least they have a place to call home now. Imperialism is unfortunately a part of humanity’s dark history – and we now have to deal with the dark consequences. A homeland for Jews (whether in Israel or wherever else) is the ONLY WAY to ‘heal’ the Jews, and it’ll take many generations. I’m sure you’ve heard the oft-repeated phrase [paraphrasing]: “Diaspora is the disease, and Israel is the cure.” The Zionists were considering places like Uganda or Argentina early on, and places like those would have been a better choice than Israel in the long run since the Jews would have then been able to develop an agricultural base economy, which is the root of a settled and stable nation-state. However, those places were very rural and undeveloped and hence probably wouldn’t have been successful (as the Jews saw many of their ‘agricultural colony’ experiments in Argentina and Africa and the USA and Canada collapse in dismal failure). I have noticed that Ashkenazi Jews have a definite inability to settle anywhere in any substantial numbers that hasn’t already been fairly heavily settled or where they don’t have access to a nearby network of fellow Jews. It is telling as well that the early Zionist ideals of hard work, agricultural and manual labor, and other mainstays of key Zionist doctrines are now being filled by imported (!) labor (often Asian or Arab) since so many Israelis ‘dislike’ that kind of work and all want to be lawyers and doctors and professors and journalists and bankers (surprise, surprise) rather than just another cog in Israeli society. Israel is even having problems with their military draft now. But, you see, THE WHOLE POINT of the Zionist experiment was for Jews to become cogs in a stable Jewish society instead of always being the perpetual Jewish ‘Other’ in the societies of foreign peoples. The Zionists also noticed that sometimes Jews tended to take advantage of often-times gullible non-Jewish peoples because of their general intelligence and capacity to facilitate commerce, and they wanted to fix that too. In fact, some theorists and historians even believe that it was the general emancipation of the Jews in the early-to-mid 19th Century that led to the Industrial Revolution in The West and the consequent rise of modern industrial-capitalism, which Jews also played and still played a large part in. The countries in Europe where Jews had the most political and economic freedom, especially England and Germany, were also the first to industrialize on a large scale…coincidence? The problem with this, though, is that this Jewish-inspired industrialization tended to slowly choke the lifestyle and economic systems of the rural/agrarian people of those countries who obviously weren’t Jews, thus leading to resentment (antisemitism) – hence the Nazi doctrine of “blood and soil” and their desire to eventually resurrect the German peasantry in the Slavic lands of Eastern Europe. I have also noticed that every nation has a sort of Jewish ‘carrying capacity,’ i.e. it is unable to manage, hold, or absorb Jews in very large numbers until antisemitism starts to break out (for instance, history shows that antisemitism in Germany grew very quickly as more and more Jews from Eastern Europe fled to Germany and Western Europe trying to escape poverty or antisemitism or whatever). And in some ways I think that the saturation point may be close to being reached in North America.I must say that an island nation might actually be best for Jews, as long as it could be mostly self sufficient. As Ezra Pound once said in one of his infamous WWII radio broadcasts: “Sell ’em Australia.”

References

Herzl, Theodore. 1896. The Jewish State. New York: Dover Publications reprint in 1988. Originally published, 1946, New York: American Zionist Emergency Council, edited, original translation by Slyvie d’Avigdor revised by Jacob M. Alkow.

Why Ron Paul is Not Ok

fpy says:

What do people here think of Ron Paul? He’s the only Republican who seems to NOT be an evil, plutocratic, warmongering fuck.

Libertarian. No to Libertarians! Libertarianism will ensure that the plutocrats have complete, total and absolute power. Libertarianism is more or less what holds in the 3rd World. It’s just ultra-capitalism with a minimal to nonexistent state to protect the people from the capitalists. Thing is, real Libertarianism has not only never existed, but it never will exist, and it never can exist. Capitalists need a state like a baby needs its mother. Without a state, the capitalists are nowhere. In particular, they need a very strong army and police to safeguard their wealth. And nowadays, US capitalism anyway is utterly tied in with imperialism to the extent that it can’t exist without it. Have you noticed that most advanced capitalist states are also imperialists? People keep telling me how modern capitalist states can avoid imperialism, but it’s just not possible. A large modern capitalist state must be imperialist. It’s mandatory. If you can’t understand that, then you don’t understand the nature of capitalism at all. Start with Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest State of Capitalism. Lenin is right! There is a group out there on the Internet who are associated with the pure Objectivists of the Ayn Rand school. I forget their name right now. I went over to their website, and it was the usual Libertarian crap. Plus, almost all the writers were Jews. Libertarianism is stacked floor to ceiling with Jews. To my shock, there was article after article supporting US imperialism, especially in defense of Israel and also towards socialist states. They identified Hugo Chavez and Cuba as enemy states and more or less advocated going to war against them. They get it. Modern US capitalism must be imperialist. There is no other way. Imperialism is part of the project. The Project for a New American Century crowd are US imperialists on steroids. They’re also a bunch of Jews too, but forget that for now. Read their papers carefully. The US has no allies, according to them. None, except Israel. All other countries are identified as enemy states (capitalist competitors). Europe is identified as an enemy region and steps are advocated to screw over Europe. Russia is a strong enemy state and is identified as such. Numerous projects are advocated to fuck over Russia. In particular, China is labeled as the worst enemy of the US. Due to capitalist and geopolitical competition, the PNAC crowd figures that the US will have to go to war with China at some point in the next 20 years. Under capitalism, you cannot have any allies. None, zero. An advanced capitalist state is competing with all other capitalist states. There is only so much money on Earth. As one state gets richer, it has to come from someone else. Probably you. Capitalist economic competition frequently results in open warfare, typically over markets. This is what geopolitics, Realpolitik, the Great Game, etc. are all about. And it’s one of the strongest arguments ever against capitalism. Capitalism virtually necessitates war, and war has deep ties to capitalism. Most Americans like capitalism, but few understand that war and imperialism are its essential handmaidens.

Imad Mughniyeh is Dead

Repost from the old site. A bit dated, but should be useful nevertheless.

One of the only known photos of the super-elusive and ultra-mysterious Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah mastermind. He was so slippery he was dubbed Hezbollah’s Carlos, after the famous terrorist Carlos from the 1970’s. This is a great picture of him, suspicious, haunted, looking over his shoulder, as a man on the run should. And he was a man on the run for most of his life. A more recent photo of Mughniyeh in military fatigues, against a camouflage background, issued by Iran after his death. Between the earlier photo and the later, it looks like he hasn’t missed a meal. Some are also saying that the two plastic surgery operations did not alter his appearance much, but I am not at capable of judging that.

I can’t stress the importance of this news. Imad Mughniyeh, Supreme Commander of Hezbollah for the past 25 years, has been killed in a car bomb in Damascus last night, February 12, at 10:45 PM. He was on the CIA’s Most Wanted List with a $25 million bounty on his head. He was the only person killed when a silver Mitsubishi Pajero vehicle (apparently Mughniyeh’s car) exploded in the upscale Kafar Soussa District in the vicinity of a Iranian school that teaches religion to Iranian pupils. Several other cars were damaged and windows of surrounding buildings were blown out. Residents gathered in their pajamas to look at the scene. A single body lay in the street, covered by a white sheet. Kafar Soussa has many apartment buildings constructed in recent years, along with a large shopping center and the main offices of the formidable Syrian Intelligence Services. Mughniyeh was wanted for a number of attacks during the US invasion of Lebanon in 1982, said to be to keep the peace, but actually ending up as usual, supporting the Israelis. Mughniyeh orchestrated the bombing of the US Marine Barracks and French Headquarters in Beirut in 1982 that killed 227 Marines and 58 French troops. He also supervised the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983 that killed 63 and wiped out the entire top tier of US CIA Middle East agents. He also pulled off the bombing of the Israeli command center in Tyre that killed scores of Israeli troops. He was involved in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the execution of US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in 1985. He was involved in the kidnappings of many Americans in Beirut during the 1980’s, including Terry Anderson and CIA officer and US Army Colonel William Buckley, who Hezbollah executed. In 1988, the top US CIA agent in Lebanon, Colonel William Higgins, was kidnapped by Hezbollah and tortured to death. He was also involved in the truck bomb attack on the US military residence facilities at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, targeting US servicemen who were guarding Saudi oil fields. 19 Americans were killed in that blast and 200 more were wounded. There are suggestions that he was involved along with Hezbollah and/or Iran in the dual bombings in Buenos Aires, one at the Israeli Embassy 1992 that killed 29 people, and another at the Jewish Cultural Center in 1994 that killed 95 people. Three Israeli soldiers, Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad were captured along the Lebanon border in 1999, taken POW, and possibly later executed. The border incident that set off the 2006 Lebanon War led to the capture of two more Israeli POW’s, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Mughniyeh was believed to be behind both of these abductions of Israeli soldiers. Debka has long claimed that Mughniyeh was on very close terms with both bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the Iranian leadership. This seems bizarre. Al Qaeda’s project is nothing less than Hitlerian extermination of every Shia Muslim on Earth. Mughniyeh has been described as Hezbollah’s Head of External Operations and it is believed that he stays in contact with cells that Hezbollah has all over the world. He is also described as a senior Hezbollah intelligence official, head of the group’s security wing and the founder of the group. In the event of a US or Israeli attack on Iran, Mughniyeh would have been relied upon to be in charge of any response. Angry Arab feels that Mughniyeh’s role and feat were largely exaggerated, but I am not so sure about that; he also feels that Robert Fisk could not possibly have interviewed the actual Imad Mughniyeh in Lebanon in 1991, but I think he did. The interview is worth reading: Fisk in yet another superb, incisive piece. When it comes to Middle East, few are better than Robert Fisk. I guess that is why International Zionism is on a crusade to crucify him. Mughniyeh was Lebanese, born in Tyre in South Lebanon, not Palestinian as many people are saying. He joined Arafat’s Force 17 elite bodyguard unit in Lebanon at a young age. He joined Amal, and then went to Iran for training, where he excelled. He then conducted daring behind enemy lines operations in the Iran-Iraq War. Most of the operations in Lebanon that he is most famous for were actually conducted by a group called Islamic Jihad. This group later was folded into Hezbollah, which was not formed at any rate until 1988 anyway. Mughniyeh personally executed Stethem during the hijacking in 1985. In 1990, he had plastic surgery done in Iran to change his facial features. Then he went back to Beirut, where he lived underground using a variety of fake passports. At some point, his cover got blown and he returned to Iran again for a second plastic surgery operation that completely changed his appearance. He was said to have been in Basra in early 2006 helping Mahdi Army fighters go to Iran for military training. He then returned to Lebanon, where he took part in the Lebanon War. Lately, he was still living in Beirut, but traveling to the Damascus neighborhood where he was killed for meetings on a brains behind Hezbollah’s military wing.” Hezbollah’s casualties in the 2006 War are not known. Israel claims that 1/3 of its fighters were killed, but that seems excessive. It seems clear that Hezbollah has now completely restocked its missile supplies and has tripled them from 15,000 in the 2006 War to 45,000 now. Further, it now has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. In recent days, Hezbollah teams disguised as reporters were said to be photographing the area on the Israel-Lebanon border. Mughniyeh definitely committed some acts of terrorism – notably the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires – but most of his so-called crimes were simply acts of war, legitimate acts of war I might add. Guerrilla armies lack spy satellites, $500 billion/year defense budgets, smart bombs, cruise missiles, F-16’s and all of the other expensive military hardware that enables advanced states to carry out precision states during war. Guerrilla groups have to make do with what they have. I do consider embassies, especially those swarming with espionage agents, to be legitimate targets for guerrillas in wartime. Surely spies may be executed, but I don’t think enemy troops should be. None of the attacks on US, French or Israeli bases in Lebanon were terrorist attacks. The killings of the three Israelis and the US servicemen were war crimes, but the US and Israel have certainly executed plenty of POW’s and the Israelis continue to do so. The attack that set off the Lebanon War was hardly an act of terrorism. Hence, Mughniyeh’s mantle as the king of terrorism is largely nonsense. Most of his acts were simply very well planned and executed attacks on the enemy in wartime, and within what I consider to be the rules of war. Mughniyeh was one of the most underground people on Earth and no one seemed to know where he was most of the time, and Hezbollah was not talking. He was probably one of the world’s most highly protected and most secretive guerrilla fighters. Whoever killed him by penetrating his multiple circles of Syrian and Iranian intelligence officers and bodyguards surely pulled off a coup de etat. All fingers are pointing to the Israeli Mossad, which is expert at these kind of attacks. However, the Israeli government is matches closely the MO of the Mossad assassination of top Hamas operative Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil. In fact, a book written as fiction by a former Mossad agent, though set in the Shia suburbs of South Beirut, appears to describe the MO used in the killing of Mughniyeh closely. If the book had been translated into Arabic and Mughniyeh had read it, perhaps he could have avoided this. Khalil was a founding member of Hamas and a senior member of the Hamas military wing. Actually, there are probably two Hamases. One is the Hamas that runs the Gaza government. The other Hamas is based out of Syria and could be called Hamas-Khaled Meshal. This could be seen as an arm of Hamas run out of Syria, and probably a more militant one at that. Sheikh Khalil was close to Meshal. However, note that Israel “neither confirmed nor denied” that killing of Khalil. Has there ever been a case of an Israeli assassination that they did not take credit for, indeed that they even said explicitly that they did not do? Also note that retired CIA officers are saying that Israel did it. Other theories suggest that either supporters of the pro-government faction in Lebanon, at odds with Hezbollah and Syria, or Iran themselves, killed Mughniyeh. The Syria and Iran theories hinge on those countries giving up Mughniyeh to the US or Israel in order to get the heat off of them and deliver a wanted militant that had a $5 million US price tag on his head in return for an unspecified US quid pro quo. This theory is called into question because Bush placed new sanctions on Syria the day after the bombing. If this was a quid pro quo to get the US to back off Syria, that would not have happened. Mughniyeh was also wanted by some of the Lebanese Christian factions and the saying that they have settled their account with Mughniyeh. Further analysis of Israel’s denial shows that it may not even be a denial at all – Israel rejects terrorist groups blaming Israel for the killing, but does not deny that Israel committed the act. If Israel indeed killed Mughniyeh, which seems likely, that looks very bad for Syria. It means that Mossad has been able to penetrate into the heart of Hezbollah, and it means that the Mossad can operate apparently with impunity deep in the most secure parts of Damascus. Their next target is surely Nasrallah himself. It also implies that Israel has penetrated Syrian intelligence itself, a tough nut to crack. Hezbollah will now probably undergo purges looking for the Israeli agents in Hezbollah. People will be arrested and executed. Mughniyeh is said to have replaced Hassan Nasrallah as head of the Hezbollah after the 2006 war and he was rumored to have enemies in Lebanon, maybe even inside Hezbollah. Hezbollah TV is reporting his death and blaming Israel. Nasrallah will speak at his funeral in Beirut, which will be very heavily guarded. This does not look good for Damascus. They were supposed to protect this guy, who is after all one of their main assets, but they failed. His death is huge news in the roiling stew pot called the Middle East, and there will surely be counter-responses by Hezbollah, probably against Israel. Nasrallah is already thundering threats in the direction of Israel. The wild conspiracy stories are already spreading like vines. This is the Middle East, where intrigues are as normal as sand and hummus and anything that can happen, probably does happen. We have not see the end of this.

Response to Zionist Apologist

Repost from the old site. Always-excellent commenter James Schipper responds to Zionist Apologist from a previous post. Pretty good stuff here. The notion that the problem with Jews is Judaism itself is similar to the arguments of Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir. However, Kevin MacDonald points out that Jewish ethnocentrism does not go away in the absence of Judaism. A good document that makes that clear is his book review of Yuri Slezkine’s The Jewish Century. I disagree with a lot in that review, but all you have to do is look around at a lot of Jewish radicals, and it’s clear that they have not yet, and never will, make a complete break with their Jewish identity. So pulling the Judaism out of the Jew does not solve the problem. As my physician noted when I told him that according to Jewish law, you never quit being a Jew, “So they get a piece of you, eh?” In an unpublished interview with me, I asked Kevin MacDonald if the Jews would ever become less ethnocentric with time. He said emphatically, “No. The Jews will always be ethnocentric..” Incidentally, I found MacDonald to be a warm, friendly, sane, intelligent and gracious man. I also did not think he was the slightest bit anti-Semitic, but maybe I am mistaken. He seemed to be a Judeophile in a sense; he was totally fascinated with Jews. Jewish dual loyalty has been a problem everywhere there are Jews and is a direct consequence of their extreme ethnocentrism and nothing else, although James’ suggests that Judaism also plays a role. James’ comments: Giving Uganda to the Zionists would have been just as unjust as giving Palestine to them. Uganda wasn’t empty territory either. As to Argentina, it was a sovereign country and at the time of Herzl it had just learned to develop the pampas. Why on earth would they give some of their pampas to outsiders from Europe? The best territory to cede to the Zionists would have been Western Australia. At the time it was sparsely populated — it still is — and unlike Palestine, it could easily have accommodated all the Jews of the world. Granted, Western Australia is mainly arid or semi-arid, but so is Palestine, with the difference that WA is huge. Unfortunately, the stinking British imperialists preferred to be generous with Arab land. A diaspora is simply the result of emigration. Since 1880, there has been an Italian diaspora. Are these diaspora Italians sick? No, and their diaspora will soon disappear through assimilation because Italians do not have a tribal religion which tells them that Italians are God’s chosen people and that Italy is their sacred homeland, to which they should one day return. The problem of Jews can be summed up in one word: Judaism. It is because of their religion that Jews can’t be fully assimilated and will always remain a foreign or semi-foreign body in Gentile societies. Judaism tells Jews that they are a people, not a religious community. Nobody refers to Lutherans. Orthodox, Sikhs, Mormons as a people because those religions are non-tribal. Consider the difference between Presbyterians and Jews. Most Presbyterians in the world have at least some Scottish ancestry, but Presbyterianism is not at all about Scots or Scotland. Nearly all Sikhs are Punjabis or descend from Punjabis, but the Sikh religion is not in the least about Punjabis. By contrast, Judaism is all about Jews and their promised land. If people sincerely believe in Judaism, one can have some sympathy for them, in the way that one can sympathize with a Jehovah’s Witness who sincerely believes that a blood transfusion is against God’s will. It is much harder to have sympathy for atheists who remain proudly Jewish and become Zionists. To stop believing in Judaism while continuing to believe that Jews are a people and that Israel is their sacred soil is like stopping to believe in Catholicism but continue to obey the Pope. In one way, Israel made life more difficult for Jews in Gentile countries because the existence of Israel makes Jews vulnerable to the charge of dual loyalty. This charge is more than a figment of anti-Semitic imagination.

References

MacDonald, Kevin. 2005. Stalin’s Willing Executioners: Jews as a Hostile Elite in the USSR – Review of Yuri Slezkine’s The Jewish Century. The Occidental Quarterly: 5(3), 65-100.

Support For South Ossetian Secession

Repost from the old site. A good progressive principle, but one subject to some exceptions, is the principle of self-determination. This leads naturally to support for most if not all separatist movements. In my case, I do support most, but not all separatist movements. It’s interesting of all the people around the world, that only leftwingers and various seceding nationalities support this principle. It’s also interesting that once nations secede and become their own state, suddenly they do not believe in the right to secede anymore! We on the Left have always upheld this basic principle. The USSR held that all Russian nationalities had the right to secede. Unfortunately, it was not enforced much, but it was this very principle that allowed Gorbachev to permit the various USSR republics the right of secession in 1991. At that time, on at least that one variable, the USSR was the most civilized nation on Earth. Its civilized nature was a direct result of the progressive principles that were embodied in the USSR by the first Bolsheviks in 1917. Later, Czechoslovakia split up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The reason they were able to do this so civilly is, number one, because they are White, and number two, due to the decades of internationalism that had been inculcated into them by Communist rule. I say that being White is important because I am absolutely convinced that only White nations are capable of breaking up civilly and peacefully without slaughtering each other in the process. In a way, breaking up your country without massacring your countrymen is the ultimate civilized act. Even Asians, as civilized as they are, would never be able to break up one of their countries without turning it into a mass slaughter. On this metric, they are not that civilized. What is it about Whites that allows them to break up a country? Is it altruism? Although studies are rare, in the US, Whites have rates of civic participation, volunteerism and donating to charity far above other groups. Now, it is true that Communist China has not done a good job of living up the progressive principles of self-determination. Clearly, Tibet has a right to go free, and I would argue that East Turkestan does too. And Taiwan is a separate country. Mao never was a true internationalist. He was always a Chinese nationalist first and a Communist second. Another reason to support secessionism is that the people who hate it most are the fascists. Idiots are always saying that fascism and Communism and fascism and socialism are the same thing. Let us call them on this one at least. This is a prime difference between fascists and Communists, the Left and the Right. The Left supports self-determination and cultural autonomy for national minorities and the Right has always opposed this, instead choosing to force all national minorities into a single ethnoreligiolinguistic entity. No one opposes separatist movements more than fascists, and no fascist nation has ever given one national minority an inch of cultural autonomy. Even in China, national minorities have considerable cultural autonomy and have the right to education in their national tongue. It’s true that the USSR’s commitment to cultural and linguistic freedom varied throughout the lifetime of the state. Its commitment was highest in the 1920’s, wavered seriously in the 1930’s when Stalin murdered many leaders of national minorities and never attained earlier depths with the subsequent promotion of Russification by Stalin and his successors. The Left nowadays is sleazy and unprincipled on the question of national self-determination. Sadly, the entire world Left refused to support the right of self-determination for the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, all because Yugoslavia was a Communist state. Then they all opposed the right of Kosova to break away from Serbia, I guess because Serbia used to be Communist state! This leads us to the recent fighting in Georgia. First of all, Georgia is pretty much of a fake state. Sure, there have been Georgians living in that area for a very long time, but the Soviet republic called Georgia included not only Georgians but other nationalities as well. Other minorities included Abkhazians, Adjarians and South Ossetians. It is possible that the republic of Georgia was seeded with these minorities as a divide and conquer strategy by the early Soviets, who were not perfect on the national question. Seeding Georgia with non-Georgians would make it more difficult for Georgia to secede from the USSR. Similarly, splitting the poor Ossetians between Russia and Georgia was probably another sleazy divide and conquer game. Anyway, in 1991, this completely fake state called Georgia (really just a republic of the USSR) gained its independence. If we are to support the principle of self-determination, we need to allow national minorities in fake states newly birthed the right to secede. On what basis were Abkhazia, Adjaria and South Ossetia an inherent part of some entity called “Georgia”? On no basis whatsoever! On what basis is some new fake country one day or one month old entitled to the bullshit and fascist principle of “inviolability of borders”? On no basis. So, when the Georgian state (really just a place with lines on the map with a lot of Georgians living in it, but drawn wider than the Georgian nation) got its independence, Abkhazia, Adjaria and South Ossetia surely had the right say, “Screw this, we want no part of this new state. We’re out of here.” Adjaria, a Muslim region in the southwest, seems to have settled its beef without fighting, but Abkhazia and South Ossetia both waged nasty and ugly separatist wars and managed to secede from the new state of Georgia. South Ossetia apparently wants to marry with North Ossetia and become a state in Russia called Ossetia. I’m not sure what Abkhazia wants to do. I think they may wish to join Russia also. Abkhazia is located in the northwest and populated mostly by Orthodox Christians. South Ossetia is located in the north-central part of Georgia and is composed mostly of Ossetians. The Ossetians were formerly called the Alans, an ancient kingdom related ethnically and linguistically to Iranians. They speak a language that is close to Iranian and resemble Iranians physically. Russia is being cynical about this, as befits an imperialist state. While Russia under Putin has fascist tendencies in the nasty repression on national minorities such as the Mari and the people of the Caucasus, Putin is willing, like all sleazy imperialists, do support secessionism when it benefits imperial goals. Russia has it in for Georgia, lately because Georgia has lined up heavily on the side of the US. There are US and Israeli advisors working with the Georgian military right now, and Russia is terrified by Georgian threats to join NATO. We need to note that NATO doesn’t have much right to exist anymore. NATO was set up to deal with the Soviet threat. That’s gone. So why is NATO still there? Apparently to form an imperialist bloc to oppose Russia! The Russians are furious about this, and rightly so. Who can blame them? Sadly, it is also possible that Russia is using this as a payback to the West for supporting the secession of Kosova. The West, including the US in its extreme cynicism, first of all supported the secession of all of the former states of Yugoslavia (apparently on the cynical grounds that since they were seceding from a Communist nation, therefore the right of self-determination was invoked). Then, just to stick it to Russia for the most part, the US and most of Europe supported Kosova and Montenegrin independence, just so long as they were pro-West. I supported it too, on the basis of solid principles called the right of self-determination. It is sad that the entire world Left opposed the independence of Kosova. This made Russia furious. Yet in Abkhazia, in the same sleazy West that championed every micro-state to be cleaved out of the former Yugoslavia, not a single Western state, nor any state anywhere, would support the principled secession of the Abkhazian people from Georgian imperialism. Does fascist Russia under Putin support the right of self-determination, however limited? Of course not. As a capitalist, and in fact fascist and now imperialist state, Russia clearly has no principles whatsoever. As payback to Kosova secession which hurt their pitiful fascist pan-Slavic feelings, the Russians are now supporting secession in Georgia. Principles? Come now! This whole conflict is shot through with imperialism all the way. The US is supporting Georgia not out of any principles, because as an imperialist state, the US has zero principles other than profiteering, plunder and subjection of other states and peoples. The US supports secessionism when it benefits imperialist interests, and opposes it when it hinders imperialist interests! And of course, it never admits this. When it supports secessionism, the US apparently invokes the right of self-determination. When it opposes secessionism, the US invokes the right of inviolability of national borders, as it is doing now in the case of Georgia. Contradictory, no? Sure is! The sleazy and pro-imperialist US media fails to point out this dissonance, and your average educated American will inconsistently invoke, like a moron, either the right of self-determination of the right of inviolability of borders, depending, as they support the imperial projects that they have been inculcated to support. This conflict, like all imperialist bullshit wars, boils down to various imperialist nations waging armed conflict over access to markets and natural resources. As is, oil from Azerbaijan and gas from the Stans goes through Georgia and I believe hooks up with Russian pipelines. The US, Georgia, Israel and Turkey wish to cut Russia out of the deal and cut a new pipeline through Georgia to Turkey. At least some of the oil will then go to Israel and from there, through the Suez and out to the Indian Ocean and various nations in that region, in particular India. Someone suggested to me that the West is cutting this new pipeline because they are afraid that Russia will cut off the flow of oil to the West. Forget it. They will not do any such thing unless pushed to the wall. The US, Israel, Georgia and probably Turkey are all doing this because they are more or less imperialist states. This conflict is also shot through with old Cold War “Beware the bear” bullshit. Even after the fall of Communism and the return of capitalism to Russia, US imperialism and anti-Communists everywhere have continued to see Russia through and Cold War and anti-Communist lens. It is as if the fall of the USSR never occurred. Any analysis of the conflict between the US and the West that leaves out this essential element is lacking. As a socialist, I want to ask the supporters of capitalism on this blog some questions. Show me how advanced capitalism can exist without imperialism. Prove to me that an advanced capitalist state can exist in the modern world without becoming an imperialist power. It seems to me that large capitalist states are typically mandated to become imperialist states and from there to engage in conflict, often armed, with other imperialist states for markets and natural resources. If this is so (and I think it is) how then can one support capitalism as it now exists, since it seems to be impossible to have large capitalist states that are not also imperialist? As you might have guessed, I support the right of South Ossetia to self-determination and to secede from Georgia and the right, however sleazy, of Russia to assist them in this principled endeavor. This conflict is getting real nasty real quick. Russia is threatening Israel and the US over their support for Georgia and the US has incredibly ordered Russia to withdraw its forces from South Ossetia. And the conflict very quickly seems to have expanded to Abkhazia. We have the potential for a really nasty conflict here. I would like to point out that the neoconservative scum who now pretty much run this country are first and foremost ferocious imperialists. They are some of the most voracious backers of US imperialism out there. In this endeavor, neoconservatives have been picking fights with Russia for a long time now. Many Jewish neoconservatives are involved in this imperial conflict with Russia, and unfortunately, in this light, they have supported Chechen independence not out of any decent principles, since neocons have no principles, but just to screw Russia. The fact that elements of imperialism have supported the Chechen separatists rouses Russian nationalism and paranoia and makes Russia all the less likely to give the Chechens and other Caucasian peoples the independence they deserve. It’s not known why the neocons have such a beef with Russia, but they also backed the Russian Jewish oligarchs in their fleecing of Russia. There seems to be an old beef between Jewish nationalists and Russia. We can see the outlines of this conflict in the campaign to “free the Soviet Jews”, which was one of the original catalysts for the formation of the Jewish neocons back in the 1970’s. There may also be a “screw the Russians” mindset dating from the hostile history of Russians and Jews in Russia, a history replete with pogroms of Jews.

Aztlan and Zionism: Dueling Idiocies

Repost from the old site. In this post, we will take a look at two nationalisms, Zionism, the movement to (re)create the ancient Jewish homeland in Palestine, and Aztlan, the Mexican and Chicano movement that says that part of the Western US is actually part of Mexico, and more importantly, was the homeland of the Aztec people. As with most forms of ultra-nationalism, both movements are exercises in lying and nonsense. And both are similar in other ways, too. Both propose that, because the area in question (Western US, Palestine) was the ancient homeland of the people some 2,000-5,000 years ago, that they have a right to move en mass into the region and even to annex it or possibly make their state there (the Aztlan movement is divided on whether Aztlan should be annexed to Mexico or whether it should be its own state). Both are based on some highly questionable claims of ownership. There is serious question whether or not Aztlan (an area covering part of the Western US – map here) is actually the ancient homeland of the Aztecs, as this article claims, supposedly with authoritative sources. Let us examine the article, by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez, a writing team that somehow got UPI to syndicate their ultra-radical Chicano nationalist nonsense for many years. The authors found a map in the National Archives in Washington from 1847 with a notation near the Four Corners Area in the US referring to The Ancient Homeland of the Aztecs. This scribbling on a map somewhere by God knows who purportedly “proves incontrovertibly” that all Mexicans and all Central Americans have a right to move to the USA tomorrow, because the US Four Corners is their “ancient homeland”. The authors also note a tradition of the US Pueblo, Hopi, and Lakota (!?) Indian tribes that Nahuatl speakers were their former relatives. There are major problems with this. How would these tribes describe these “Nahuatl” speaking people, since back then, there is no way that they called their language or themselves by that name? Since they called themselves and their language something else, how did these tribes know that they were “Nahuatl”-speakers? And why the Lakota? They are located far from this fake homeland, way up in South Dakota. Further, as one who worked with an Indian tribe on a government grant doing linguistic and anthropological field work, I assure you that Indian legends and oral history need to be taken with a gigantic grain of salt, to say the least! The authors quote Cecelio Orozco, an education professor at my alma mater, California State University Fresno as saying this lines up with his research also putting the Aztec homeland in southern Utah. Professor Orozco has published two books of apparent pseudoarcheology on this subject. Here is how Orozco discovered this homeland (try not to laugh when reading this):

Orozco said he came upon the site through a process called “archeo-astronomy.” He saw a photograph of four rivers in Utah in 1980, and based on previous research, recognized a mathematical formula in the photo that led him to believe that this was the place of origin of the Mexicas’ ancestors. Subsequent trips and research has confirmed his thesis… 

After reading this fascinating article on archaeoastronomy, I still do not see how that science relates to a photograph of four rivers in Utah. Does anyone have any idea how a photograph of four rivers anywhere on Earth contains some hidden mathematical formula? He also found a painting on a wall in Utah from 500 BC that he says he claims corresponds to the the codec containing the Aztec calendar. Those of us familiar with the field realize that finds all over the world look like other finds, or resemble other peoples, or bear this or that passing resemblance to whatever. None of that usually proves anything; much more work needs to be done. According to the article, because Aztecs have a homeland in Utah dating back 2500 BC, Mexicans and Central Americans are no longer foreigners or aliens or even immigrants in the US, but they are simply in their homeland. By that lunatic thinking, all White Americans get emigrate back to Europe and live there, since that was our homeland at some point in the past. The Europeans have no right to stop us, and we can even call it Euroamland or whatever and carve out our own damn country out of several European countries, make English the official language and even sideline the several non-English European tongues spoken there. Then we can demand to be united with the US across the sea or just up and make our own country, dissolving several European countries in the process. It is this sort of nonsense that makes me wonder just how smart your average Mexican Reconquista type really is. On reflection, they are obviously bright people, it is just that ultranationalism, or even often just nationalism, damages people’s brains and makes them incapable of rational thought. It does this across the board to any ethnic group – there is no reason to single out Mexicans or Chicanos. Let us examine some of the other insane suppositions of the Aztlan crowd. We have already delved into this a bit on this on an earlier post. First of all, the Aztecs (Mexicas) had only taken over the Mexico City area about 200 years previous to the Spanish Conquest. The empire reached its peak only about 40 years before Cortes landed. Further, the Mexicas only lived in the area around Mexico City! That’s it. All of the rest of Mexico was not Mexica territory and the tribes (even those colonized by Mexicas) who lived there cannot be said to be Mexicas! As an analogy, let us consider the Roman Empire. Its headquarters were in Rome. The rest of the empire were just colonies, conquered areas paying tribute to Rome. Can we say that everyone in the Roman Empire was a “Roman” or an “Italian”? By the same logic, do those residing in Rome today have a right to claim all of the former Roman Empire as their land? This is what would happen if we applied “Aztlan”-logic to that situation. Do you see how stupid this Aztlan nonsense-lie is? The Aztecs did conquer quite a bit of land in the center of Mexico (map here), killing lots of folks and enslaving others. As noted below, the homeland of the Nahua, according to prominent Mexican archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma was probably somewhere around Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán* . From this area, 2,000 years ago, various waves of Nahua speakers radiated out through Mexico and even Central America. This is why we have 28 living Aztec (or Nahuatl) languages today. By the way, Wikipedia is wrong that these languages are almost dead. Most are quite vigorously used, and there are 1.5 million speakers of all Nahuatl languages. 27 of these 28 tribes are not, and were not, Mexicas, anymore than everyone speaking a Romance language today is a “Roman”. Follow? A somewhat more rational take on the Aztlan lie can be found on the Reconquista site here. Apparently real anthropologists put the Aztec homeland somewhere around Nayarit on the west coast of Mexico. That’s a lot more reasonable, but it’s probably not true either. This comes from Mexican anthropologist Alfredo Chavero’s theory in 1887. Moctezuma’s locale is probably better. The piece also argues that since Nahuatl is an Uto-Aztecan language and many Uto-Aztecans either lived in or traveled through “Aztlan”, that there is something to the Aztlan notion in that sense. Fair enough. In fact, the homeland of the Uto-Aztecans in my opinion is in southern Arizona or northern Mexico. But all Native Americans traveled through Siberia on their way to the Americas. Does everyone with Indian blood in the Americas get to go back to Russia and take over the place because their ancestors strolled through it sometime in the past 20,000 years? Looking at the linguistic contacts of pre-Nahuatl would be a good way of trying to find an Aztec homeland. We can see that they had contacts with languages spoken around Veracruz, on the east coast of Mexico. As you can see, the situation is complicated. The authors in the first article make an even more ludicrous point. First, as usual, they conflate the “Aztecs” a single tribe called the Mexica, amongst Mexico’s over 200 tribes, that only lived around Mexico City, with all Mexicans. According to idiot Chicano nationalists, all Mexicans with Indian blood are Mexica or part Mexica! That’s nuts. As noted, there were tribes all over the land, and the Mexica were only one of 200 or so. It’s as if one said that every Italian comes from Rome. Next, they say that all of the tribes related to the Mexicas were “Mexicas” because they spoke Nahuatl languages. They certainly were not! It’s nonsense. Are all speakers of Indo-European languages the one and same group because they all came out the Indo-European homeland in Southern Ukraine 8,000 years ago? Even worse, these fools claim that all Central Americans were Aztecs and get to go invade the USA because it’s home sweet home. Ridiculous. There is only one tribe, the Pipil in El Salvador, that still speaks a Nahuatl language, and there are only 20 speakers left. There were a few other Nahuatl languages in Honduras, Panama and Guatemala, but these are long since extinct. They were not “Aztecs” anymore than English-speakers in the US are “Germans”. However, the Pipil did come from the area around Mexico City around 1000 years ago; they were related to Olmecs, but also to the Nahuatl. In general, they were an Olmec grouping. Anyway, at that time, there were no such thing as Mexicas or Aztecs – that group came later. Another group of Pipil had come to Central America 5000 years ago and came under the influence of the Maya. This is around the time when Proto-Uto-Aztecan itself was born in the southwest US. Both of these groups, by 1000 AD, became the Pipil, who came under even more Maya influence. The Pipil are almost extinct culturally and linguistically today, an end result of the Matanza, when 10,000-30,000 Indians were slaughtered in only a few weeks in El Salvador in 1932, while US warships patrolled off the coast in case the victims of the genocide tried to fight back. After that, most Salvadoran Indians took off their Indian clothes and quit speaking Indian languages, especially since Pipil was outlawed. They also intermarried heavily with non-Indians, so that to this day, only The leader of the rebellion that set off the Matanza was Farabundo Marti, head of the Salvadoran Communist Party. The rebels that fought in the Civil War later on took their name, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, from him. The cult surrounding Zionism is much the same as the Aztlan nonsense. True, Jews ruled the area long ago, but only for a brief time, similar to the Aztecs. Further, similar conflations are made about the Judean Empire and the Aztlan Empire, Judean language and religion and actual Jews and Jewish religion and the relevance of ancient Judean religion to the Jewish religion today. Also similar is the outrageous notion that some group has a right to go back to its ancient homeland of 2000-5000 years ago, settle there at will, and even make a state there. Some of the radical Atzlanistas, similar to Zionists, also suggest throwing out the natives (in the case of the Aztlanistas the Whites, who came starting 400 years ago) since they are “invaders squatting on the true homeland”. In this same nonsensical way, Zionists project their own invasion of Palestine and squatting on Palestinian land off onto the victim. The Arabs, who came 1450 years ago, are the “invaders”, who have been squatting on “Jewish land” since then. Never mind that the Jews left 2000 years ago. They owned Palestine in their hearts in the intervening 1900 years, and Zionism claims that that trumps a property deed! Zionism’s proponents are Jews, the smartest folks on Earth, who ought to know better. But ultra-nationalism can easily make a fool of the finest man. See Joachim Martillo’s site, Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel, for more. In particular, his superb Issues and Questions In the Historiography of Pre-State Zionism (90 pp.!), is a piece which deserves much wider reading. Martillo has some tendency towards fanaticism (but this also drives him to produce), can be an ideologue, and is sometimes guilty of trying to make facts fit theory as opposed to otherwise. However, these (especially making the facts fit theory) are chronic problems with most all social scientists, as Kevin MacDonald has observed. At the least, the brilliant Martillo should be more widely read, if only to subject his interesting theories to the critical light of peer review to separate wheat from chaff. And the 90 page link above is just sublime, in particular in the way that it takes apart the primordial nonsense of Zionism in the same way we attacked the similar primordialism of the Atzlanistas in this post. *Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988) 38.

"Soros is no Robin Hood, but a Fellow Oligarch," By Peter Myers

Here is a very long (98 pages) dossier on Khodorovsky, George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and the Jews Who Looted Russia, with a strong emphasis on the Yukos Affair. The Yukos Affair is a complex affair that is best learned about by reading below. Khodorovsky, the richest man in Russia and a Jew, ended up owning Yukos, the former state oil company. He bought it under criminal circumstances and apparently he behaved like a criminal the whole time he owned it. Putin (Three cheers!) went after Khodorovsky and his fellow Jewish criminal oligarchs and put a couple of them in prison. Apparenlty Yukos reverted back to a state corporation? Putin also nabbed much of Khodorovsky’s ill-gotten gains. Some of the other Jewish crooks hightailed it to Israel, where Jewish crooks the world over run when things get hot on their tails. There they are free from all prosecution since Israel holds that any Jewish criminal being pursued anywhere on Earth for whatever reason is a victim of anti-Semitism. One more repulsive thing about Jewish society and Israel. The notion of hiding Jewish criminals goes way back. Jews accused in blood libel cases (many of whom were guilty) were hidden by the Jewish community on the grounds that if they were caught, a pogrom would result. In New York City from 1900-1920, Jewish criminals were typically hidden by the Jewish community on similar grounds. Similarly, in Boston, Irish criminals running from the law can expect to find safe keeping. My mother says that when growing up in Chicago, if a Jew was arrested for a crime, all of the Jewish kids would go around saying, “This is a bad day for the Jews.” Somehow the burdens of Jewish miscreants are placed on the shoulders of the whole tribe. Perhaps the students felt that arrested Jewish crooks would set off anti-Semitism. Before Putin could grab all of Khodorovsky’s money, Khodorovsky transferred it to Lord Rothschild of the UK, who now has a controlling interest in the firm. International Jewry, despicably, has gone to bat for the rat Khodorovsky. The Jewish press portrays him as a model honest businessman in a Russia full of crooked tycoons. The entire weight of the US Jewsmedia has launched an anti-Russia jihad on behalf of their favorite criminal, Khodorovsky. They also call him “progressive.” Disgustingly, Soros has gone to bat for Khodorovsky in a major way. So has the US government, Barack Obanksta and Hillary Clinton.  Whether or not Jews control America, America’s big politicians sure go to bat for Big Jew anywhere and everywhere on Earth. Why they do this is not known. Does Big Jew control these Gentile politicians? Do Gentile politicians have alliances and interlocking interests with Big Jew? Is it all about campaign money, much of which is Jewish? Ultra-Jew Richard Perle almost threatened Russia with war over the arrest of Khodorovsky. You see similar threats below to the Russian economy. If you do not release this slimy Jewish crook, we will destroy your economy. Soros, along with Jeffrey Sachs, was also deeply involved in the destruction of Russia starting in 1991. This project, called Shock Therapy, was masterminded by the Clinton Administration of all people. What it boiled down to was massive looting of Russia and the Russian people by an international wrecking crew, many of whom were Jewish. These Jews were operating out of the US, UK, Israel and Russia. They bled that poor country dry, sucked most of the money out of it, and socked it away in Jewish bank accounts around the globe. Russians are very anti-Semitic people and have been for a long time. Based on Jewish behavior towards Russia since 1991, I can’t say I blame them. One wonders what the motivation was for the Jewish rape of Russia? More and more, it feels like revenge. Revenge for what? Revenge against the USSR, which was seen in recent years as bad for the Jews? Revenge against the Russian people for centuries of anti-Semitism? Khodorovsky and the rest of his Jewish criminal buddies promise a lifetime of litigation against Russia. Thing is, Russia probably won’t abide by these judgments, so these cases are of little value. This piece is very long, but I got through it easily enough as it’s an easy read. You can too.

Soros is no Robin Hood, but a Fellow Oligarch

Oligarch Khodorkovsky conviction exposes links with Soros & Rothschild

By Peter Myers

(1) Khodorkovsky conviction exposes links with Soros & Rothschild. Soros is no Robin Hood, but a fellow Oligarch (2) Khodorkovsky paid $309 m. for Yukos; in 2003 it was worth $45 b. (3) US ‘deeply concerned’ by conviction of Khodorkovsky; Obama has spoken frequently with Medvedev about it (4) White House rebuts Russia over tycoon’s conviction (5) Hillary issues Press Statement protesting conviction of Khodorkovsky (6) George Soros Advocates Rule of Law in Khodorkovsky Trial (7) Soros denounced arrest of Khodorkovsky as “persecution”. Soros Foundation evicted from Russia – at gunpoint (8) Khodorkovsky a friend of Soros; Russia shut Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) a few days after detaining Khodorkovsky (9) Khodorkovsky: Moscow Targets another Russian Jewish Oligarch. Richard Perle & US Ambassador Alexander Vershbow (both Jewish) protest (10) Khodorkovsky’s shares in Yukos pass to Lord Jacob Rothschild (11) Khodorkovksy had known Rothschild for years through his Open Russia Foundation (12) Lord Rothschild defends Khodorkovsky; he & Kissinger founded Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation (13) Rothschild, Kissinger & former U.S. ambassador Arthur Hartman were directors of Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation (14) Former US Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman and Senator Jacob Javits were Jewish too (15) Rothschild links with Abramovich & Khodorkovsky, and ex-MI5 & ex-CIA agents (16) Jews change the world around them. Russians work to preserve it – Pavel Lounguine (17) Dead spy Alexander Litvinenko linked to Yukos break-up (18) Yukos oligarchs promise “A Lifetime of Litigation” against Russia (1) Khodorkovsky conviction exposes links with Soros & Rothschild. Soros is no Robin Hood, but a fellow Oligarch – Peter Myers, December 30, 2010 Around 1990, George Soros brought his Open Society Foundation – and its offspring – to Poland, Russia and other East European Communist countries. He and Jeffrey Sachs (both Jewish) introduced “Shock Therapy” – Free Trade (ie Open Borders, ie imports), Privatization and Deregulation. In more recent years, both Soros and Sachs have turned against the “Washington Consensus”. Soros comes across as a chivalrous knight with a Robin Hood agenda; to the extent that even I have been in two minds about him. What upsets me about Khodorkovsky, the other Oligarchs, and their western backers, is the betrayal of the long-suffering Russian people. We encouraged them to throw off totalitarianism but, when they did, instead of befriending them we sold them into slavery. Unconscionable Oligarchs – nearly all Jewish – had no qualms about seizing the assets of the people and leaving them destitute. Gorbachev, in his rule from 1985 to 1991, removed the tyrannical aspects of Soviet life, leaving the good aspects such as equality and full employment. There was no need to further destroy it. Valdas Anelauskas was a Lithuanian dissident who fled the USSR for the US, but was then shocked to discover that he had been deceived about America being a paradise America – as presented by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. In his book Discovering America As It Is, he favorably compares Soviet life to the American Way: “When I lived in the Soviet Union I thought that the Soviet Communist system was the worst possible social order. Evidently, I was wrong. The more I scrutinize the American reality, the deeper I am shocked by all the evil that I see here. … In America, the rich are truly rich and the poor are hopelessly poor. In my opinion, the United States today has the most advanced system of private tyranny. “Private corporations have enormous power in this country and they take advantage of an apparently legal slave labor, terribly exploiting the working class people. Corporate bosses earn millions while workers struggle to survive without living wages. From my point of view, the majority of jobs here today are still extremely exploitative. The U.S. minimum wage is ridiculous. “Working for $5 an hour is slavery and nothing else…The U.S. government currently spends around $281 billion a year on its military while millions of citizens are forced to live on the streets. “Now, after six years of living here in this country, this society, I understand very well that all those bad things which Soviet propaganda told us about America, in most cases weren’t lies at all. “One can see now how disillusioned the majority of people in the former Soviet countries are today, after they have tried out the reality of “free markets” on their own backs. Most people that I personally know, my close friends, relatives, and acquaintances who live in post-Soviet countries, including my native Lithuania, acknowledge today that even the Soviet system wasn’t so terrible when compared to American-style laissez-faire capitalism.” More here. One wonders then, why Soros and Sachs wanted to dismantle the Soviet economy. Could it be because it was seen as being “bad for the Jews?” A Zionist account of that is Gal Beckerman’s book When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry. Since 1991, Soros and Sachs seem to have changed tack – attacking the extremes of capitalism – but I have never seen them acknowledge their sins for having wrought disaster on the peoples of the former Soviet Union. Soros denounced the conviction of Khodorkovsky, showing where his true loyalties lie. He is no Robin Hood, but a fellow Oligarch, bold and shameless like the rest – who are using Western courts to try to recover the ill-gotten assets they picked up for a song under Yeltsin, and which were later impounded by Putin. Even Condoleezza Rice wrote of “looting of the country’s assets by powerful people” (see item 7). The changes Jews brought to post-Soviet Russia also illustrate how they mold the West. Pavel Lounguine, a Russian Jew, writes (in item 16), “The Jewish intelligentsia always sought to democratize and liberalize Russia, bring it closer to the West. The ethnic Russian intelligentsia always wanted a Russian Orthodox power, an imperium. The Jews always wanted to turn Russia into Europe, or America. To draw it closer to civilization, and thereby away from anti-Semitism.” He seems to think that Jews are idealists. Even Soros thinks the same way (about himself). This notion that they are idealistic is a major motivator of Jewish political action. What passes for debate in the United States might be better termed the perpetuation of various “war psychoses”. During a war, the populace is inculcated with blind hatred of and fear of the enemy; it denies any middle ground, any common humanity. One form has a “Better Dead than Red” mentality, depicting any elevation of the Common Good above individual liberties as creeping Communism. For example, were McDonald’s to be targeted for causing obesity, this would be an infringement of their liberties. These people are followers of Joseph McCarthy. He was not wrong about pro-Stalinist collaborators; but his great sin was his support for Douglas McArthur’s advocacy of nuclear weapons in the Korean War. Another “war psychosis” is inculcated by the Zionist lobby – which includes much of the media. It depicts all who expose, and oppose, Jewish power as Nazis. Thus Larouche, who wants to target Soros, the Rothschilds and the Jewish Lobby, covers his own back by depicting THEM as Nazis too. Similarly, in Israeli politics, all sides depict each other as Nazis. (2) Khodorkovsky paid $309 m. for Yukos; in 2003 it was worth $45 b. Soros and Khodorkovsky Sunday, November 16, 2003 … In an auction run by his own bank, Khodorkovsky paid only $309 million for Yukos — early this year the company was worth $45 billion… Leonid Nevzlin, biggest Yukos shareholder not yet in jail, has been granted Israeli citizenship, raising eyebrows even in Jerusalem over the haste in which it was done. Fact: Nevzlin resigned from Yukos to head the Russian Jewish Congress. Yukos Yukos Oil Company was a petroleum company in Russia which, until 2003, was controlled by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a number of other prominent Russian businessmen… In 2003, following a tax reassessment, the Russian government presented Yukos with a series of tax claims that amounted to $27 billion. As Yukos’s assets were frozen by the government at the same time, the company was not able to pay these tax demands.  On August 1, 2006, a Russian court declared Yukos bankrupt. Most of Yukos’s assets were sold at low prices to oil companies owned by the Russian government.  The Parliamentary Council of Europe has condemned Russia’s campaign against Yukos and its owners as manufactured for political reasons and a violation of human rights. (3) US ‘deeply concerned’ by conviction of Khodorkovsky; Obama has spoken frequently with Medvedev about it US ‘deeply concerned’ by conviction of Putin foe The Associated Press Monday, December 27, 2010; 3:47 PM HONOLULU — The White House says the U.S. is deeply concerned about the conviction of a Russian oil tycoon who once challenged the power of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In a statement, the White House says it is troubled by allegations of due process violations and what appears to be “an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends.” The White House says the ruling undermines Russia’s commitment to deepening the rule of law and hurts its ability to strengthen ties with the U.S. Putin is seen as the driving force behind the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was convicted Monday of stealing from his own company. The White House says President Barack Obama has spoken frequently about the case with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and will closely monitor developments. (4) White House rebuts Russia over tycoon’s conviction Dec 27, 2010 In harsh tones, the White House has accused Russia of abusing its legal system in order to keep its former wealthiest citizen behind bars. A statement issued by press secretary Robert Gibbs this afternoon criticized the second conviction of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate, Platon Lebedev, for embezzlement and money laundering. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued her own critique earlier in the day. Khodorkovsky, 47, was due to be released next year after completing an eight-year sentence for fraud that also was questioned by Western authorities. But a judge convicted the former head of the now-defunct oil giant Yukos on new charges after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin compared Khodorkovsky to Bernard Madoff, who defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. The Russian pair were charged with embezzling 218 million tons of oil from Khodorkovsky’s company between 1998 and 2003 and laundering about $23.5 billion. Here is the White House statement: We are deeply concerned that a Russian judge today has indicated that for a second time Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev will be convicted. We are troubled by the allegations of serious due process violations, and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends. The apparent selective application of the law to these individuals undermines Russia’s reputation as a country committed to deepening the rule of law. The Russian government cannot nurture a modern economy without also developing an independent judiciary that serves as an instrument for furthering economic growth, ensuring equal treatment under the law, and advancing justice in a predictable and fair way. The Obama administration stands in solidarity with the many people in the Russian government, in the legal system, and in civil society who are committed to strengthening the rule of law and deepening the commitment to universal values enshrined in the Russian constitution. Russia’s failure to keep this commitment to universal values, including the rule of law, impedes its own modernization and ability to deepen its ties with the United States. President Obama has spoken frequently with President Medvedev about this case and others as part of their ongoing conversation about President Medvedev’s important campaign to strengthen the rule of law and modernize Russia’s political and economic system. We will continue to monitor closely the next stages in this case, including the fairness of the sentences and the review by higher courts during the appeals process. (5) Hillary issues Press Statement protesting conviction of Khodorkovsky Verdict in the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev Case Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State Washington, DC December 27, 2010 Today’s conviction in the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev on charges of embezzlement and money laundering raises serious questions about selective prosecution — and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations. This and similar cases have a negative impact on Russia’s reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations and improving its investment climate. We welcome President Medvedev’s modernization plans, but their fulfillment requires the development of a climate where due process and judicial independence are respected. We will monitor the appeals process. George Soros Advocates Rule of Law in Khodorkovsky Trial 24 Apr 2009 Peterson Institute for International Economics Famed investor and businessman George Soros commented on the YUKOS cases at a speech by Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC. During the question and answer session, Soros stated that releasing Mikhail Khodorkovsky would send a positive sign that the rule of law in Russia is improving which would in turn help the investment climate and bolster the Russian economy. He said: “I hope that the trial of Khodorkovsky will be a fair one because it’s very important for the rule of law to be more properly observed in Russia. We should respond to these signs from Russia in a very constructive way when it comes to restructuring debts and generally enabling Russia to cope with its own financial crisis. We are talking about re-setting the button and it is now perhaps taking an effective form.” Commenting on the recent release of YUKOS lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, Soros added that he believed this is a positive sign. (7) Soros denounced arrest of Khodorkovsky as “persecution”. Soros Foundation evicted from Russia – at gunpoint Soros and Khodorkovsky Sunday, November 16, 2003 On the eve of what was once Russia’s most sacred holiday – “Revolution Day,” the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution still celebrated as “Day of Accord and Reconciliation” – there was neither accord nor reconciliation at the Moscow offices of the Hungarian born American billionaire George Soros. Instead, there were some 40 large men in camouflage gear with stun guns, hand trucks and moving vans at the Soros Foundation. They ordered the staff out of the building and then loaded documents and computer printouts from the past 15 years, as well as office equipment, onto their vans. The New York-based Soros Foundation that operates under the name “Open Society Institute” had spent more than $1 billion on charitable and educational projects in Russia during the past 15 years. This summer, George Soros said that he was closing out his Russian activities. Dmitry Lovrev, a lawyer for the Soros Foundation, said they had a 10-year lease on the office, that they were up-to-date with the rent. Kantimir Karamzin, speaking on behalf of the building owner claimed that no rent had been paid since 2001, and assured “there was no political motive for moving out George Soros.” Perhaps Mr. Karamzin did not have all the facts. Last July, when Soros decided that he had given enough cash to Moscow, the investigation into the Yukos oil giant moved into top gear. In October, the chairman and CEO of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested. He is still in prison. There was a lot to investigate. In an auction run by his own bank, Khodorkovsky paid only $309 million for Yukos — early this year the company was worth $45 billion. In 1998, Khodorkovsky survived charges by U.S. investigators that he had helped launder $10 billion with his own bank and the Bank of New York. Khodorkovsky, who is just 40 years old, is the richest man in Russia, worth over $15 billion. Share prices of Yukos plunged by 18 percent on his arrest and have only now begun to climb back with Khodorkovsky resigning from Yukos. He is charged with tax evasion, theft, forgery and fraud. And, what we have to remember is that the unfortunate Khodorkovsky is an oligarch – a very rich man who helps control the policies of his country to become richer. Russians don’t like oligarchs, so there is little criticism of President Vladimir Putin when he says, “It just doesn’t work if you support the laws of the state when the prosecutor has got the handcuffs locked on you.” But why should the Russians be bothering America’s very own George Soros? Like the bold oligarch that he is, Soros denounced the arrest of Khodorkovsky as “persecution” that would force business to submit to the Russian state. “I believe that he acted within the constraints of the law in supporting political parties. I am doing the same in the United States.” By this remark, George Soros was reminding us that he had given $10 million to the Democratic National Committee for “regime change” in the 2004 elections. Of course, he is acting within the constraints of the law, in the same way that Khodorkovsky was when he named his charitable organization, the “Open Russia Foundation,” and said that there was no connection with the Soros “Open Society Institute” although they did fund some projects together. Khodorkovsky nabbed Lord Rothschild of London and our own inimitable Henry Kissinger for his board of directors. Gifts to American charities began to flow. Khodorkovsky joined the advisory board of the U.S. Carlyle Group, a super rich private equity fund, where he conferred in Moscow with the former Secretary of State James Baker III and former President George H. W. Bush. While Soros’s largest donation of all time to the Democratic Party is not yet receiving undue attention, the arrest of Russia’s richest man and the Yukos losses continues to be a major story. In less than a month, votes for the State Duma will determine the extent of support for President Putin. Putin’s political party, United Russia, is running only a few points ahead of the Communist Party. Both are trying to shed the image of being fat cat bureaucrats. Of even greater concern to Putin is the large numbers of young people who are now supporting the Communists. Both major blocs could use the votes of the liberal parties that recently rallied in Moscow in support of their own positions and for the freeing of Khodorkovsky who financed both liberal groups. Prosecutors will have no problems in finding charges against many Russian tycoons involved in the “quick and dirty” privatization programs under Boris Yeltsin in the mid- 1990s. The theory, developed by the Clinton administration, was that once private property was established, the new owners would fight for democracy against a strong Communist challenge. When Yeltsin won, by very dubious means, oligarchs were given state jobs and enormous powers. At that time, Condoleezza Rice, who is now national security adviser, wrote that the Clintonistas were overlooking the “looting of the country’s assets by powerful people.” Under Putin, the prosecutors have for four years been building their cases and, again in theory, a rule of law may emerge. Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer. (8) Khodorkovsky a friend of Soros; Russia shut Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) a few days after detaining Khodorkovsky George Soros, speculator and philanthropist 15 JANUARY 2004 George Soros, financier and philanthropist as well as an archetype of the “post-capitalist” speculator and prophet, is flattered and feared at the same time. He is responsible for the “Stock Market crash” and Maecenas in some fifty countries. Today, according to estimates, his fortune accounts for 7 billion dollars. He said he was willing to finance campaigns aimed at preventing George W. Bush’s reelection, in spite of the fact that he himself saved Bush Junior from the 1990 bankruptcy and is still working with his father in the Carlyle Group, a powerful financial organization. He has been equally active in many changes of governments and has been labeled a CIA cover. Publicly committed with the US Presidential campaign to prevent George W. Bush’s reelection, billionaire George Soros has unleashed a storm in Washington. Such personal decision has won the famous speculator the sympathy of all those in the world who fear Bush’s reelection as President of the United States. George Soros was born in Hungary in 1930. As a result of the Second World War, he emigrated to England in 1947. There he met anticommunist philosopher Karl Popper, became his disciple and identified himself with the ideas promoted by this thinker. In 1956 he moved to the United States where he created the “first hedging funds” devoted to meet the demands of the large corporate fortunes. Since 1969, his main company, the Quantum Fund (located in tax haven countries like the Netherlands Antilles first and then Curazao), provides him with a mean income benefit of 34,5 The man who made the Bank of England collapse George Soros has never generated any wealth, but he has enriched himself thanks to his activities in the stock market. With seven billion dollars, his personal wealth would be the 28th most important fortune in the United States, according to a classification made by the Forbes magazine in the year 2003. He has been nicknamed “The man who made the Bank of England collapse”, after an operation based on the Sterling Pound (the British domestic currency) in September 1992, a stock market operation that brought him one billion dollars without batting an eyelash, at the expense and to the detriment of the United Kingdom taxpayers. Soros has become the paradigm of speculators. In spite of the fact that he also had to face great losses during the Stock Market fall in 1987, the crisis in Russia in 1998 and the implosion of the stock market speculations on Internet, Soros has been the great beneficiary of the Asian economic crisis that affected, especially, Thailand, Korea and Indonesia since 1997. President and director in charge of a great number of societies to which he would devote more than 300 million dollars, Soros became one of the greatest philanthropists of modern times. His main foundation, the Open Society Institute, takes its name after the philosophical project of his maestro Karl Popper: to build open societies, meaning an awareness of imperfections and a willingness to advance so as to create a better world. His main programs tend to defend human rights, to fight against drug-dependency, to train political leaders and to develop the freedom of information. These objectives agreed by consensus include controversial campaigns for the defense of homosexual’s rights, the decriminalization of drugs and the establishment of substitution programs for drug addicts. This charitable and progressive activity has wisely contributed to wipe off his financial predator image. Nevertheless, for many years now, many voices have suggested that his philanthropic actions are nothing but a false facade and a cover for the CIA and the State of Israel interventions in the world and that he owes his fortune to financial crimes, not to the magic fingers of “King Midas”. [1] At the beginning, the Quantum Fund was administered by representatives appointed by Lord Jacob Rothschild (Mijail Khodorkovsky’s proxy), Sir James Goldsmith (who was a European deputy) and Edmond Safra (main Israeli negotiator of weapons). Member of the Carlyle Group Recently, the American newspaper The Nation revealed that George Soros, through the Harken Energy and Spectrum 7 societies, was the one who, in 1990 saved George W. Bush from bankruptcy by eliminating and absorbing his debts. When asked about this by the newspaper, Soros stated that he did so in order to buy a “political influence” (sic) Like his friend Khodorkovsky, George Soros joined the Carlyle Group when this company became the “financial shelter” for many in the former Bush father administration in 1992. Today, that company is the most important fortune-administration society (financial portfolio) in the world. It is in charge of administering the billionaire wealth of Bush and Bin Laden families through the societies it controls. The Carlyle Group is the eleventh provider of the Pentagon. On December 20, 2002, George Soros was sentenced to pay a fine of 2.2 million dollars by the Paris Correction Court for the commission of a financial crime, when he tried to attack the Societe Generale, a French company, in the stock market. Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group Aside from the Open Society Institute (OSI), present in almost fifty countries, George Soros has created or financed several very important and prestigious associations and foundations the Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group. Human Rights Watch (HRW) was one of the humanitarian organizations that submitted most of the evidences and documents against the crimes attributed to Slobodan Milosevic, thus justifying NATO intervention in Serbia. A significant part of the accusations made by this association has not yet been confirmed by the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia. The International Crisis Group (ICG) was created in 1994 as a non-governmental (NGO) diplomatic organization, headed by the US Democratic Senator George Mitchell (who, later gave his name to the Report on the Israeli-Palestinian Question). Actively working in Burundi, Nigeria and Sierra Leone (African countries) at the beginning, the ICG was getting closer to NATO on the Yugoslavian crisis. It is currently presided over by Martti Ahtisaari, the former President of Finland who pretended to be negotiating with Milosevic to prevent the war. His Administrative Council gathers the elite of NATO personalities. By his side, former national security advisors like Richard Allen and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Kuwaiti Prince Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia, Louise Arbour, and former NATO Supreme Commander during the Yugoslavian War, General Wesley Clark. We also find some financial links like former President of The Philippines, Fidel Ramos, or the Russian oligarch Mijaíl Khodorkovsky, all of them members of the Carlyle Group. Likewise, some French personalities like Simone Veil, President of the Shoah Memorial, and journalist Christine Ockrent, wife of former Kosovo governor, Bernard Kouchner. In 2001, George Soros created the Democracy Coalition Project (DCP) in charge of encouraging the non-governmental forum beside the summit meetings of the Community of Democracies organized by the United States State Department. His agency includes the most important neoliberal economists. Likewise, he created a Network Media Program that bought the archives of the Radio Free Europe (one of its former leaders, Herbert Okun, forms part of OSI management), the CIA radio station during the Cold War. Besides, he has subsidized several “independent” mass media stations like B92 radio during the Yugoslavian War and today the “free” newspapers in Iraq. He controls the Project Syndicate, a mass media agency publishing editorials on political personalities in 181 international daily papers. These authors include a great number of ICG managers, as well as the cream of neoliberal economists. [3]. He argues manipulation of 9/11 victims In September 2001, shortly after the attacks George Soros participated in a working group of the Council on Foreign Relations, the club of the establishment in Washington, on the role to be played by the mass media in the war on terror. Sessions were presided over by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, who played an important role in the attack launched against Yugoslavia and whose wife, Kati Marton, is the OSI manager. Conclusions reached at that meeting were sent to President Bush for him to use them and convince the rest of the world of the well-founded foreign policy of the United States, mentioning and repeating once and again, the 9/11 attacks, manipulating the civil victims of these attacks to provoke compassion. He insists so as to force foreign governments not only to condemn the attacks, but also to approve his reasoning leading to a war on terror. Besides, he advises on the mass media presence in the world and supports the inclusion of New York Times supplements in large friendly newspapers. Russia expelled the Open Society Institute at the end of 2003 Recently, George Soros played an important role in the change of governments, especially in central and eastern Europe. He was particularly active in Poland, where he was, at the same time, friend of General Jaruselski and of the main official patron of the Solidarnoc (Solidarity) trade union, the Polish Bronislaw Geremek, who is currently member of the ICG administrative council. He was also very active in Hungary, his native country. It is highly probable that he also engaged in the preparation of the “Velvet Revolution” in the Czech Republic, an action that culminated with Vaclav Havel as President. He repeated the same model in Serbia to defeat Slobodan Milosevic and, recently, in Georgia against Edouard Shevardnadze. Every time he has been served and supported by Otpor-style youth organizations. He has been accused of stirring popular disturbances in Ukraine and Belarus. In order to put an end to his intervention in Russia, authorities have resorted to the pretext that the rent was not paid to expel the Open Society Institute some days after Mijaíl Khodorkovsky was detained under complot suspicions. What moves George Soros? Bearing in mind the multiple facets of the man who “made the Bank of England collapse”, it is difficult to understand why he decided to invest 12 million dollars now to prevent de George W. Bush’s reelection. In an interesting article published by the New Statesman [4], journalist Neil Clark affirms that the President and the billionaire, who have collaborated and cooperated for such a long time, agree on a neoliberal Empire but disagree on the way of turning it into a reality. George Soros, who for so many years has tried to humanize financial capitalism, considers that the brutality shown by George W. Bush jeopardizes the acceptance of this system by peoples. Others suggest that Soros campaign is doomed to failure and that it only serves to create a false illusion, the illusion that there is a democratic debate going on in the United States. In 2002, George Soros stated: «In ancient Rome, only the Romans could vote. Under world modern capitalism, only the Americans can vote. Brazilians, they do not vote». [5] Now, you see, this is the future program, things are going to be even better… [1] Mystic character, King Midas transformed everything he touched in gold. [2] Cf. Bush and billionaire : How insider capitalism benefited W. par David Corn, The Nation July 17, 2002. [3] For France, economists Michel Camdessus, Daniel Cohen, Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Jean Pisani-Ferry; and political scientists like François Heisbourg, Pierre Nora or Jacques Rupnik [4] Cf. George Soros, NS Profile par Neil Clark, in New Statesman, 2 June 2003. [5] Public statement by George Soros at Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. (9) Khodorkovsky: Moscow Targets another Russian Jewish Oligarch. Richard Perle & US Ambassador Alexander Vershbow (both Jewish) protest http://www.forward.com/articles/7792/ Moscow Targets Another Russian Jewish Oligarch Case Seen as Test Of Kremlin’s Resolve On Economic Reform By S.A. Greene Jewish Forward Published August 01, 2003, issue of August 01, 2003. MOSCOW – It’s becoming a familiar scenario: Kremlin prosecutors go after a prominent Jewish “oligarch,” and Washington reacts with stern warnings that Russia is risking all the progress it has made during the last decade. Just under three years ago, the target was Vladimir Gusinsky, the press baron and founding president of the Russian Jewish Congress, who was arrested, pushed into exile and has yet to return home. Now in the limelight is billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose Yukos Oil is already the largest oil company in Russia and is set to become No. 4 in the world. With Gusinsky, freedom of speech was at stake and, ultimately, was lost: All of his old newspapers and broadcasters are now either defunct or state-controlled. With Khodorkovsky, the battle is over economic reform. Yukos has set the standard for transparency and good management, and as a result, Khodorkovsky is beholden to no one. That, apparently, makes the Kremlin uncomfortable. “It’s possible already to say that real damage is being done to the prospects for future Russian economic growth and development by what appears to be an arbitrary, capricious and vindictive campaign against a private company,” Defense Department adviser Richard Perle told a conference at the Carnegie Moscow Center recently. American Ambassador Alexander Vershbow has made similar noises. He’s Jewish: U.S. ambassador to Russia hosts seder at official residence LINDA MOREL Jewish News of Greater Phoenix April 22, 2005/Nisan 13 5765, Volume 57, No. 34 Did you know that the United States’ ambassador to the Russian Federation is Jewish? Alexander Vershbow…arrived in Moscow in July 2001. The next spring…the Vershbows planned their first Passover in Russia. —– Indeed, the circumstances are disquieting. A Yukos founding shareholder, Platon Lebedev, was arrested July 2 in connection with a murky 1994 privatization deal. Shortly thereafter, armed investigators spent 17 hours rifling through Yukos archives, confiscating files and computers. Khodorkovsky was called in for questioning, along with his deputy, Leonid Nevzlin, who had served as Gusinsky’s temporary replacement as president of the Russian Jewish Congress. Prosecutors and investigators began dropping hints to the press about possible connections to unsolved murders, while left-wing politicians wondered aloud whether this wasn’t an excellent chance to revisit the Yeltsin-era privatizations as a whole. Russian stock markets – for the last two years among the best performing in the world – deflated. Yukos, until recently the darling of foreign investors, lost nearly a third of its market capitalization. Officially Moscow has so far brushed aside American concerns over Yukos without comment, in sharp contrast to its angry response when it was chastised by the Clinton administration over the Gusinsky affair. Observers say Washington is unlikely to press the issue much further. Putin, said Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Center of Strategic Research in Moscow, “is more important to Washington than Khodorkovsky. With the Gusinsky case, Putin was seen in the West as a former spy to be viewed with suspicion. Now he is seen as an ally, and a very important one, given the problems in Iran, North Korea and so on.” Others see a different trend, however. Not long ago, the oligarchs – a handful of individuals, many of them Jewish, all of them men, who capitalized on the chaos of early reform and privatization to build financial and industrial empires – were emblematic of everything that was wrong with Russia. Nowadays, a handful of them have come to symbolize everything that is right. Thus, while Khodorkovsky once cheated British Petroleum out of its half of a joint venture, the Financial Times recently called him one of Europe’s most transparent businessmen. Roman Abramovich, another oil magnate, was welcomed with open arms as the new owner of London’s Chelsea Football Club. Even Boris Berezovsky, once called “the godfather of the Kremlin‚” has created an image for himself as a dissident politician as he awaits extradition hearings in London. The result is that, much as ordinary Russian Jews once served as a barometer for the state of democracy and human rights in the country, the oligarchs are becoming something of a barometer for the state of economic liberalization. “This is certainly a barometer, and it is stuck very deeply into the soil,” said Tancred Golenpolsky, publisher of the International Jewish Gazette, Russia’s most important Jewish-affairs journal. It’s a point not lost on Khodorkovsky. He was in America at the time of Lebedev’s arrest and took the opportunity to seek support among prominent Western business leaders. And when he returned to Moscow, he came out fighting. “People should understand that the authorities will begin with symbolic gestures,” he said in an interview with the weekly newspaper Moskovskie Novosti. “They take someone who is more or less capable of defending themselves and press them into the ground. And then they won’t have to go after the rest, because the rest will surrender on their own. We are a test run for a huge mass of people in epaulets, who will either stay in their bases or descend on society. If we don’t hold our ground, everyone will drown.” If there’s a problem with the oligarchs as a barometer, however, it’s that the measurements are inexact. If Kremlinologists could once be certain that the policy toward refuseniks represented the consensus of the politburo, Russia today is infinitely more complex. Indeed, the Yukos affair has led a number of analysts to question whether Putin is really in as much control as his image suggests. “This is not Putin going after Yukos,” Piontkovsky said. “This is the old spy network that Putin brought back into power going after Yukos. On the one hand, Putin feels some solidarity with them because he used to be one of them. But he also has to be very careful not to let them get out of control, or else they will take control of him.” Old cadres, meanwhile, bring old habits. Alfred Kokh, who helped the government organize the takeover of Gusinsky’s media empire, volunteered in a recent interview on Russian television that in attacks on oligarchs, “antisemitism is most certainly part of the game.” “The people are being programmed in such a way that I wouldn’t be surprised if some rascal came up and said, ‘Let’s go after the Jews,'” Golenpolsky said. “The people would gladly do it. They want simple explanations, and it’s very easy to replace ‘Beat the oligarchs’ with ‘Beat the Jews.'” Platon Lebedev is the former director of Group MENATEP, the controlling shareholder of YUKOS Oil Company. He was arrested July 2, 2003 on charges of fraud and tax evasion in relation to the privatization of Apatit, a fertilizer business. He was found guilty and is currently serving an 8-year sentence in a maximum security prison in the Polar Ural region of Siberia. March 3: Platon Lebedev’s lawsuit against the Russian Federation has been registered with the European Human Rights Court. The court recently asked the Russian government to provide detailed information about the condition of Mr. Lebedev’s health in prison. Source: The government has arrested ethnic Russians, too – there’s this guy Platon Lebedev-but the Russians have an entirely different character. The Jewish intelligentsia always sought to democratize and liberalize Russia, bring it closer to the West. The ethnic Russian intelligentsia always wanted a Russian Orthodox power, an imperium. The Jews always wanted to turn Russia into Europe, or America. To draw it closer to civilization, and thereby away from anti-Semitism. This desire meets tremendous resistance in Russia, especially from the common people, who have this view that “the kikes have looted Russia.” Source: … On May 31, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev were convicted on six charges of fraud, tax evasion, and embezzlement and sentenced to 9 years in prison after an 11-month trial Source: (10) Khodorkovsky’s shares in Yukos pass to Lord Jacob Rothschild Arrested oil tycoon passed shares to banker Washington Times Washington DC, Sunday, November 2, 2003 Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker [the Rt Hon Lord] Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky’s arrest, the Sunday Times reported. Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. [sic] Rothschild, 67, under a “previously unknown arrangement” designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer “act as a beneficiary” of the shares, it said. Mr. Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Mr. Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest. Mr. Rothschild (left) now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow. Mr. Khodorkovsky owns 4 percent of Yukos directly and 22 percent through a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to Russian analysts. From the figures reported in the Sunday Times, it appeared Mr. Rothschild had received control of all Mr. Khodorkovsky’s shares. The two have known each other for years “through their mutual love of the arts” and their positions as directors of the Open Russia Foundation, Yukos’ philanthropic branch, it said. Russian authorities Thursday froze billions of dollars of shares held by Mr. Khodorkovsky and his top lieutenants in Yukos — throwing control of the country’s largest oil company into limbo and causing frenzied selling on financial markets. Russian prosecutors said owners of the shares are still entitled to dividends and retain voting rights, but can no longer sell their stakes. They said the freeze was necessary as collateral for the $1 billion that Mr. Khodorkovsky and his associates are accused of misappropriating during the 1990s. Mr. Rothschild is the British head of Europe’s wealthy and influential Rothschild family, and runs his own investment empire. (11) Khodorkovksy had known Rothschild for years through his Open Russia Foundation Rothschild is the new power behind Yukos Simon Bell in Moscow, Lucinda Kemeny and Andrew Porter A SENIOR MEMBER of the Rothschild banking family has emerged as the key figure in the battle for control of Yukos, the Russian oil giant. From The Sunday Times November 2, 2003 The Sunday Times can identify Lord (Jacob) Rothschild as the secret holder of the large stake in Yukos that was previously controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil company’s chairman. Khodorkovsky, reputed to be Russia’s richest man, was last week arrested by Russian prosecutors on charges of fraud and tax evasion. His imprisonment has triggered a trustee agreement he put in place with Rothschild a few months ago. Rothschild, 67, now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost £8 billion. This places him at the centre of a dispute with the Russian state. It is widely believed that the charges being brought against Khodorkovsky are a response to his political ambitions to succeed Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president. Russian prosecutors tried to freeze a 4 Khodorkovksy has known Rothschild for years through their mutual love of the arts and their support for Russian development via the Open Russia Foundation. Rothschild is a multi-millionaire in his own right, with a fortune estimated at £400m. He has not been involved with NM Rothschild, the City investment bank, since walking out during a furious row 22 years ago. Rothschild went on to build his own investment empire through firms such as RIT Capital Partners, St James’s Place Capital and J Rothshild Assurance. (12) Lord Rothschild defends Khodorkovsky; he & Kissinger founded Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation Rothschild lined to take over at Yukos By James Rossiter, Evening Standard RUSSIAN tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, under threat of arrest as a result of a widening probe into the country’s flagship oil major Yukos, has named Lord (Jacob) Rothschild as a possible successor at the helm of the company. The fraud and tax investigations could draw in a tranche of top Yukos executives, and in these circumstances the group would approach the London banker, a company official told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. Lord Rothschild, 66, has a host of high-profile international corporate, political and banking contacts in keeping with his position as a member of the influential Rothschild banking dynasty. The obvious successor to Khodorkovsky would be the group’s chief financier Platon Lebedev, but he is in jail facing fraud charges. While refusing to comment on any potential role for him at Yukos, Lord Rothschild defended the oil baron. ‘Khodorkovsky is a progressive businessman who is devoted to Russia,’ his office was quoted as saying. The spokesman said Lord Rothschild had no business relationship with Menatep, a Khodorkovsky company that owns 6 Lord Rothschild still heads J Rothschild Capital Management, the fund management business he set up nearly 20 years ago. That business is now part of the larger St James’s Place Capital wealth management group chaired by Sir Mark Weinberg, a long-time friend and business associate. He is also co-founder with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of Khodorkovsky’s Yukos-financed Open Russia Foundation, established in December 2001 to develop relations between Russia and the West. In March last year Khodorkovsky appointed former British Foreign Secretary Lord (David) Owen as chairman of Yukos  International UK in London. Lord Rothschild split from his cousin Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, chairman of English investment bank NM Rothschild, to set up his own investment bank J Rothschild Assurance in the 1980s. He still runs it from the basement of a house in St James’s. He quickly made a name for himself, joining forces with the late Sir James Goldsmith and Australia’s Kerry Packer for an assault on BAT Industries via Anglo Leasing, one of a number of holdings in financial services companies. His latest high-profile takeover campaign was a failed attempt to take textiles group Coats Viyella private three years ago. The Yukos probe is being closely watched in Washington, which has worked hard at developing an energy relationship with Russia. (13) Rothschild, Kissinger & former U.S. ambassador Arthur Hartman were directors of Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation KHODORKOVSKY GETS SOME BIG-MONEY SUPPORT By Catherine Belton St Petersburg Times Issue #884 (52), Tuesday, July 15, 2003 MOSCOW – Oligarch-under-fire Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Monday got words of support from Lord Jacob Rothschild, a key member of the powerful family whose banking empire spans centuries and continents and who has joined up with the Russian oil baron for philanthropic projects that promote ties between Russia and the West. “Khodorkovsky is a progressive businessman who is devoted to Russia,” Rothschild’s office said on Monday, as Khodorkovsky himself courted members of the U.S. elite in Washington. Rothschild’s office, however, was unable to comment on a Kommersant report Monday that cited high-ranking anonymous sources in Yukos as saying that Rothschild could take over the reins of Group Menatep, the holding company that manages the assets of core Yukos shareholders, if its leading shareholders were incapacitated in any way. The man who is next in line to take over Khodorkovsky’s business empire should anything occur, Platon Lebedev, is in jail on charges that he stole a state-owned stake in a fertilizer producer Apatit in 1994. The next in command after Lebedev is Yukos board member Yury Golubev, and should anything happen to him, Kommersant said, the chain stretches down into other hands, eventually ending with Rothschild. The Rothschilds have been seen as the power behind the throne of many a regime since the family first arrived in Britain in the late 1700s. From small beginnings lending to Europe’s royal families, the empire is said to have spread into new riches in the United States and is thought to have ties to the powerful American Rockefeller dynasty. Khodorkovsky first became acquainted three years ago with Lord Rothschild, who then introduced him as a debutante into the world of leading financiers. At that time, Khodorkovsky was embarking on a big pro-Western PR drive aimed at showing that he had turned his back on the howling corporate governance violations he had committed in the past. Yukos rapidly became the darling of Western investors as it cleaned up its financial accounting, hired top Western managers and said that it was consolidating all profits centers onto the company’s books. Shares in Yukos skyrocketed. His partnership with Rothschild was sealed with the creation in December 2001 of the Open Russia Foundation in London. The foundation, which awards grants to academic institutions and other not-for-profit organizations while promoting Russian art in the West, quickly expanded to the United States, where its glitzy launch in September last year was held in the heart of the U.S. establishment, the Library of Congress. The foundation board includes Rothschild, U.S. foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger and former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Arthur Hartman. Khodorkovsky’s recent efforts to promote energy ties with the West and help boost U.S. energy security – pushing for the construction of a pipeline to the Arctic port of Murmansk for crude shipments to the United States and sending a pioneering tanker of Yukos crude last year – have earned him points with the White House. As the politically charged case that some fear could prompt a new asset carve-up escalates against Yukos, a senior U.S. diplomat last week said he has asked Russian officials for clarification on what was happening. The diplomat said he was “concerned about what political agenda may be behind these steps” which, he said, could have a “certain dampening effect on the energy relationship” that the United States and Russia are building. “Khodorkovsky was one of the initiators of the new very strong energy partnership between Russia and the U.S.,” said Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is very important for the West what happens to him.” Yukos spokesperson Hugo Erikssen said that Khodorkovsky was meeting Monday with business leaders in Washington, after departing from a two-day conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, that was attended by bigwigs such as Warren Buffet, Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Erikssen would not say who exactly Khodorkovsky was seeing. A spokesperson for Menatep, Yury Kotler, confirmed that the group has established an emergency chain of command that leads from Lebedev to Golubev, but he could not say whether it stretched down to Rothschild. “Group Menatep has a lot of very powerful foreign partners. But as to whether they would take over the operative leadership of the company, I honestly don’t know,” he said. He could not say whether the Rothschild family has any direct stake in Khodorkovsky’s companies. Rothschild’s office, however, said, “Lord Rothschild has no business relationship with Menatep.” (14) Former US Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman and Senator Jacob Javits were Jewish too. This Wikipedia page makes no mention of Hartman being Jewish; but it does supply his middle initial: Arthur A. Hartman Arthur Adair Hartman (born March 12, 1926, in New York City) is a retired American career diplomat … In 1974, Hartman was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. From 1977 until 1981 he was the Ambassador to France, and from 1981 until 1987 Ambassador to the Soviet Union. But the following book mentions Hartman’s Jewishness: Jewish claims against East Germany: moral obligations and pragmatic policy By Angelika Timm Central European University Press, 1997 Comprehensive history of Jewish negotiations with East Germany regarding restitution and reparations for Nazi war crimes {p. 100} Republican Senator Jacob Javits … in a letter to Kissinger, urged that {p. 101} recognition of the GDSR “be withheld until there was a satisfactory settlement of the Jewish claims.” His efforts were supported by Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Arthur Hartman. Hartman was Jewish and thus very sensitive to the Jewish claims issue … Senator Javits was Jewish too: He is interred at Linden Hill Jewish Cemetery in Queens, NY. Central European University, publisher of Angelika Timm’s book, was itself founded by George Soros: Central European University CEU has more than 1500 students from 100 countries and 300 faculty members from more than 30 countries. In 2005, university co-founder George Soros announced he was doubling the CEU’s endowment to €400 million… CEU was founded in 1991 in response to the fall of communism. The founding vision was to create a university dedicated to examining the contemporary challenges of open societies and democratization… CEU been a pioneer in many fields: for example, it began the region’s first master’s degree programs in gender studies and environmental sciences. CEU emphasizes the development of open societies in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union … On 14 October 2007 George Soros stepped down as Chairman of CEU Board…George Soros is a Life-CEU Trustee and serves as Honorary Chairman of the Board. (15) Rothschild links with Abramovich & Khodorkovsky, and ex-MI5 & ex-CIA agents Rothschilds Run British Intelligence Operation into Russia through JNR and Diligence March 13, 2010 The main investment vehicle of the Rothschilds into Russia and Eastern Europe is JNR UK Ltd, an investment bank specializing in Eastern Europe and Russia. JNR stands for Jacob and Nathaniel Rothschild. Since Feb. 2003, Nathaniel Rothschild has been director of JNR. JNR has offices in Guernsey and Switzerland. The decision to run JNR out of its Swiss and Guernsey offices was made for tax reasons. Most of the revenues are derived from outside the UK. Through JNR the Rothschilds run their operations inside Russia and Eastern Europe in conjunction with the Russian oligarchy. As previously reported, Nathaniel Rothschild, as director of JNR, is the chief advisor to Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Deripaska’s Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum company, in which Rothschild is also heavily invested. In addition to his relationship to Oleg Deripaska, Nathaniel Rothschild’s best friend is another Russian billionaire oligarch, Roman Abramovich. An earlier operation, the Wellsian, Open Russia Foundation, which was set up by the Rothschilds with Russian oligarch Khodorkovsky, was shut down in 2006 by Russian authorities after Khodorkovsky’s criminal conviction. Just prior to his arrest, Khodorkovsky attempted to hand over control of the Yukos oil company to Jacob Rothschild. Khodorkovsky had a “previously unknown arrangement” with Jacob Rothschild for the latter to take control of the former’s Yukos stock in the event that the former could no longer “act as a beneficiary” of the shares. This effort to give control of Yukos to Rothschild was thwarted when, in 2004, the government of Russia seized and sold Yukos’s largest production unit in compensation for large back tax bills. In 2007, JNR acquired a corporate intelligence firm called Diligence to coordinate its intelligence operations in Russia as well as elsewhere. Diligence was founded in 2000 by Nick Day, a former British special forces and MI5 operative, and ex-CIA agent Mike Baker, who no longer works for the company. Day reportedly saw an opening for a new business when British companies were entering emerging markets, targeting Russia. According to Handelsblatt, more than half of their roughly 100 employees are former members of an intelligence service. Michael Howard, former UK Conservative Party leader sits on Diligence’s advisory board beside Judge William Webster, former director of the CIA and FBI, and Edward Mathias, managing director of Carlyle. Diligence describes itself as an intelligence-gathering and risk-management firm. It now boasts offices in London, Washington, Moscow and Hong Kong. (16) Jews change the world around them. Russians work to preserve it – Pavel Lounguine Mommie Dearest Russia may torment Pavel Lounguine, but the filmmaker can’t help himself. He keeps returning to explore their messy relationship. Born in Moscow in 1949, Pavel Lounguine worked as a screenwriter… Lounguine divides his time between Russia and France; he spoke with Nextbook by telephone from his mother-in-law’s apartment in Moscow. Many of your films pit Slavic defenders of the Russian motherland against Jews they consider despoilers of this sacred patrimony. What’s less obvious is how your Jewish characters view their antagonists. In Tycoon, for example, the oligarch Platon Makovsky never reflects on the reasons for his persecution. Why not? For a Russian Jew, this is self-explanatory. He never asks himself why this is so. Or whether he is liked. He understands perfectly well that he isn’t liked, and why he isn’t liked, as well as the cultural context for this. What is that cultural context? Russia’s greatest sorrow is the Russian nationalist-patriots, who have this deeply felt conviction that they have a right to plunder the country. It’s their property, so it’s their birthright. They have this absolute, proprietary attitude toward their country. Today they weep for it, and tomorrow they plunder it. And what’s truly amazing is how these sentiments exist simultaneously. Then why have many Jews chosen to remain in Russia? I can’t speak for others, but my attitude is: Apparently, I love her. She torments me, worries me. I hate her, so I leave and leave again, but then return and return again. Deep inside, I am very connected to her. It’s very difficult to explain in words. The only way is through art, to make a film about it. Why do unloved children love their mother, or their stepmother? You once said Russian anti-Semitism was like a rain shower. Nothing pleasant, you got wet-but no sort of terror either. Is the weather clearer after 15 years of the democratic experiment? Of course a great deal has changed. I have a special perspective, because I live in France half the time. I come to Russia only to work. And much has changed: Jews are able to become wealthy, hold prestigious positions. This was never the case before. What could a Jew become under the Soviets? A doctor. A screenwriter. Not a director, though, because directing meant being in charge. And people didn’t like Jews in charge. Now, thanks to their skills, quick minds, shrewdness, and an entrepreneurial spirit, Jews can advance economically, hold important positions. Also, thanks to the Chechen war, the onus of Russian xenophobia has shifted from Jews to Muslims and people from southern Russia. Another strange development is that Israel, which the USSR always viewed as a foe, has become an ally of the new Russia, perhaps because of these attacks. Russians who have never set foot outside the country, the first place they go is Israel. Something has drastically changed in what has historically been an antagonistic relationship. Classic, official anti-Semitism is decreasing. It can’t disappear wholly. It survives, masquerading as something else. It’s adopting a new form, in search of new ways of manifesting itself. But look, Putin just picked himself a Jewish prime minister. What do you think motivated Putin to appoint Mikhail Fradkov? It’s still too early to say, but it’s apparent that certain qualities possessed by Fradkov turned out to be more important than his nationality. Nationality in Russia is becoming of secondary importance. This is unprecedented. You once said that, though you are not observant, anti-Semitism makes you feel more Jewish. The improving condition of Russian Jews and recent difficulties in France beg the question: Where do you feel more Jewish? In Russia, of course. In France, I’m Russian, and in Russia, I’m a Jew. In France, a Jew is someone who wears a yarmulke, goes to synagogue. If you don’t do these things, you are some other kind of person. But I’ll tell you: My social circle in France, the people I hang out with, is becoming more and more Jewish. There’s some kind of self-selection going on. You gravitate to your own. And what does “your own” mean? This is difficult to understand. This is a mystery, a mystical thing. Isaac Bashevis Singer, he helps me to answer this question. I am going to make a film from his novel Meshugah. He asks, what does it mean to be a Jew? He didn’t go to synagogue either, wasn’t particularly observant. Nonetheless, there was something unique about being Jewish for him, and all his art was devoted to figuring out what that was. Under the Soviets, Jews sought to assimilate and remain as anonymous as possible. How do Russian Jews see their position in society today? Russia is ready to accept Jews, but as people of the Magen David, as people connected to Israel. Not as individuals who aren’t Russian Orthodox but also don’t go synagogue. In Russia today, you have to identify with a particular group. You’ve got to wear a cross or a Magen David. Either be Russian or Jewish, and if you won’t, then leave. But what is the Jewish perspective? Russian Jews have gotten too big for their britches. They’ve completely forgotten what life was like for Russian Jews before. Now there is this aggressiveness, this triumphant attitude. They’ve grabbed everything possible. It’s a needless provocation. Things can return to the way they were at the drop of a hat… Arresting Khodorkovsky was a way of appealing to the masses. It was a crass, populist move to appease the popular instinct by arresting a rich Jew-a kind of PR action. Two birds with one stone-a billionaire, resented for his wealth while so many starve, and a Jew to boot… The government has arrested ethnic Russians, too-there’s this guy Platon Lebedev-but the Russians have an entirely different character. The Jewish intelligentsia always sought to democratize and liberalize Russia, bring it closer to the West. The ethnic Russian intelligentsia always wanted a Russian Orthodox power, an imperium. The Jews always wanted to turn Russia into Europe, or America. To draw it closer to civilization, and thereby away from anti-Semitism. This desire meets tremendous resistance in Russia, especially from the common people, who have this view that “the kikes have looted Russia.” In your films, Jews are creators: musicians in Luna Park and Taxi Blues, an entrepreneur in Tycoon. Why do you associate Jews first and foremost with the creative impulse? Jews change the world around them. Russians work to preserve it, and Jews to renew and improve it. This is true around the world. It’s no coincidence that every regime invested in preservation rather than reform becomes anti-Semitic. (17) Dead spy Alexander Litvinenko linked to Yukos break-up Dead spy linked to Yukos break-up Daniel McGrory and Tony Halpin The Australian November 28, 2006 A DOSSIER drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin’s takeover of the world’s richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard overnight as police investigate the former KGB spy’s secret dealings with some of Russia’s richest men. It emerged yesterday that Mr Litvinenko traveled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Vladimir Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company. He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $US40 billion ($51 billion) company… (18) Yukos oligarchs promise “A Lifetime of Litigation” against Russia A Lifetime of Litigation Can a dead oil company still hit a gusher? Michael D. Goldhaber Focus Europe July 01, 2010 Seven years have passed since Russia began the campaign against OAO Yukos Oil Company that led to the renationalization of a business controlling more than 3 percent of world oil production, comparable in scale to Chevron Corporation. The dispossessed owners call it the biggest political expropriation in history. The fall of Yukos has generated history’s biggest arbitrations-and by far the biggest human rights claim ever-with stakes as high as $100 billion. The director of the majority shareholder group, Timothy Osborne, vowed a “lifetime of litigation” against those responsible, and he is well on his way. So far, the litigation is going well for the Yukos side. The company’s former management or shareholders have prevailed in jurisdictional fights in four different cases-most recently, with a surprise victory late last year at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Now the real battle begins. In March, in a second case, the main parties finally engaged on the merits at oral hearing before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. That court is expected to render its judgment imminently. While the damages in Strasbourg are unlikely to be substantial, the decision could influence the arbitration in The Hague-where a jackpot judgment is easily imagined. (Collecting such a judgment is another matter.) And the impending human rights ruling in Strasbourg may be crucial to the more realistic hidden strategy of the former Yukos management behind the ECHR claim. To understand how the battlefronts fit together is to see the state of play in international business disputes, fought in multiple venues and requiring litigants to engage in ever more complex strategic calculus. As the Yukos dispute reaches the age of reason, it’s time for a look back and a look forward. The Yukos camp has largely persuaded Western opinion leaders that it was the victim, and its lawyers speak as if they can skip straight from jurisdiction to damages without the intermediary step of proving their claims. “The Russians’ best arguments were all on jurisdiction and they’ve lost all of them,” asserts O. Thomas Johnson, Jr., of Covington & Burling, who represents minority Yukos shareholders. “The only real issue left is deciding how much Yukos was worth.” Agrees Emmanuel Gaillard of Shearman & Sterling, who represents the majority shareholders in the Hague arbitration: “Russia’s strategy is to postpone the inevitable point at which they lose.” But Russia concedes nothing. Russia was fully justified in cracking down on a tax cheat, say its lawyers-speaking for the first time with the press in the hope of starting to reframe the public narrative. “If you begin with the premise that Yukos committed fraud,” argues Michael Goldberg of Baker Botts, who counsels Russia on strategy, “then the government of any country in the world had a right to go after that fraud to the full extent of the law.” Russia has no intention of rolling over on the merits… Who then speaks for the dismantled company? There are three camps: * The Majority Shareholders. Five Khodorkovsky friends owned about three-quarters of Yukos at its demise. Their holding company, GML Ltd. (formerly Group Menatep Ltd.), is managed by Osborne, who is a tax lawyer at London’s Wiggin Osborne Fullerlove. About 70 percent of GML is owned by Leonid Nevzlin, now of Israel, to whom Khodorkovsky’s stake was transferred. GML does not struggle to pay its bills. For starters, the fallen oligarchs own most of $5 billion in Swiss bank funds that Russia failed to freeze, and $850 million from the sale of a Lithuanian refinery. Through offshore entities, GML is pushing claims for expropriation and unfair treatment under the Energy Charter Treaty before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. This case is the main event, as real damages are a distinct possibility. The final curtain is three to five years away. * The Minority Shareholders. Two small European stockholder groups have separate arbitrations before the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. RosInvestCo UK Ltd.-an affiliate of the American distressed-asset investor Elliott Associates-aims to recover up to $200 million, under the U.K.-Russia investment treaty, on an estimated purchase of less than $20 million. A Spanish fund called Renta 4 S.V.S.A. has brought a similar claim-funded by GML-under the Spain-Russia investment treaty. A final award for RosInvestCo is imminent, and for Renta about a year away, with parallel challenges to both proceedings under way in the Swedish courts. These claims are substantial only to the degree that other European investors, accounting for perhaps 5 percent of the company, follow suit. U.S. and Russian investors, representing about 15 and 5 percent of Yukos, respectively, lack the benefit of an investment treaty [see “The Battlefields,” page 21]. * The Former Management. A trio of American managers hired by Khodorkovsky-Steven Theede, Bruce Misamore, and David Godfrey-form a sort of government-in-exile in Houston and Honolulu. Crucially, they have persuaded the Dutch courts to disregard Yukos’s Russian bankruptcy proceedings. (Russia has appealed.) This has enabled the managers to maintain control over two sets of European subsidiaries, including Yukos Finance B.V. Through these entities, the managers can fund litigation-they estimate accessible funds at nearly $200 million-and pursue sizable asset claims. The most prominent claim they are pushing is a petition filed before bankruptcy by Yukos Oil Company at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that Russia violated its right to property, as well as due process. (It is well established that the European Convention protects the rights of companies.) The ECHR claim is the only one that covers 100 percent of the loss.Although a first judgment on the merits is expected in 2010, the appeal to a so-called Grand Chamber of the court is likely to delay the end result another year or two. If Russia’s strongest arguments were on jurisdiction-as Yukos lawyers claim-the adjudicators were unimpressed. Russia was unable to block the claims of the Yukos plaintiffs at either The Hague, at the ECHR in Strasbourg, or in Stockholm. Russia thought it might get off the hook in The Hague because it never ratified the treaty under which the arbitration had been brought, the Energy Charter Treaty. No such luck. The tribunal showed persuasively that Russia routinely follows unratified treaties, while reserving the right to opt out, and that the Energy Charter Treaty contemplates such an arrangement. Nor did it bother the Hague arbitrators that a treaty designed to protect western European investors in the Soviet sphere has enabled Russians to sue Russia through offshore entities. The arbitrators gave a strict textual reading to the treaty’s definition of “investment,” which focuses on the claimant’s place of incorporation. Like it or not, this was in keeping with virtually all arbitral precedent on the nationality of investors. In the Stockholm arbitrations the Russians got two split decisions, and somehow still lost twice. The RosInvestCo panel ruled that the treaty under consideration didn’t apply directly, but the treaty’s “most-favored-nation” clause allowed them to incorporate a broader treaty. The Renta panel concluded the opposite on both points. Either way, the case moved forward. At the ECHR in Strasbourg, Russia correctly observed that the victim and applicant, Yukos Oil Company, is dead. That fact made no difference to the court. “Human rights cases before the court generally also have a moral dimension,” the judges ruled, “which it must take into account when considering whether to continue with the examination of an application after the applicant has ceased to exist.” To bar the claim, the court reasoned, would only encourage countries to kill companies. In March the ECHR heard the case forwarded by Yukos’s former management. The confidentiality requirements of international arbitration mean that the arguments in the arbitrations at The Hague and in Stockholm will largely remain secret. But the story aired in Strasbourg underlies all the claims. The central issue for each tribunal is the legitimacy of Yukos’s massive tax liability. Before its demise, Yukos had set up a series of shell companies to channel profits through Russia’s low-tax regional investment zones. In early 2004, Russia’s tax service ruled these companies invalid. This ruling had two effects… Russia counsel Goldberg tells an altogether different narrative. The real story, he says, is that Khodorkovsky operated a fraudulent company and arrogantly obstructed justice when called to task… Goldberg rejects the basic premise of Yukos’s tale: that the company would have paid the taxes if only Russia had allowed it to. On the contrary, Goldberg says the oligarchs of GML continued to pay themselves billions in dividends, while sitting on billions more…

New BS from Kevin MacDonald

The increasingly anti-Semitic Kevin MacDonald has a new article up about the fascist and Czarist Solzhenitsyn’s new book about Russia and the Jews. The 19th chapter has just been translated. The book is the usual anti-Semitic palaver from Solzhenitsyn. The Jewish neocons and Cold War liberals have always had a tough time with Solzhenitsyn. They loved him for bashing their hated USSR, which they hated mostly because it would not let many Jews emigrate to Israel and because these US Jews were now lined up with the US in the Cold War. So the fascist Solzhenitsyn was their hero, but at the same time, he was an anti-Semite! Oh, how to deal with this condundrum. The Jewish Cold War liberals and neocons simply avoided this difficult question by refusing to discuss their hero’s anti-Semitism. There is also a photo of a “Holodomor victim” in the article. It is probably from the famine of 1921, as that is where most photos of “Holodomor victims” are from. Visitors to the famine region during the famine noted that people were well-dressed and rations were very tight. One visitor noted one obviously malnourished young boy standing in line with his mother to get rations. No one else was obviously malnourished. As noted, most deaths were due to disease anyway. There was no Holodomor. The Holodomor – the deliberate terror famine that murdered 5-10 million Ukrainians – simply never occurred. What occurred was a famine harvest followed by a famine in all of the USSR. Yes, 5 million died, not usually of hunger but of disease epidemics due to weakened immunity, but it was not deliberate. The harvest simply collapsed that year. MacDonald says that Jews were less than The USSR was surely not “the most murderous regime in history” though I suppose you can play around with definitions of the word murder. How about Hitler’s Germany? The “most murderous regime in history” is often used by anti-Semites and pro-Nazis to defend their beloved Hitler. The argument? Stalin was worse than Hitler! MacDonald is surely an anti-Semite, and he also seems to have pro-Nazi sympathies (note his statements for the defense in the trial of Holocaust Denier David Irving). Further, there were no “15 million murdered peasants” in the 1930’s. A lot of people died, but those figures are excessive.

Executions:                800,000
Dekulakization in Ukraine: 390,000
Gulags:                   ~500,000
Totals:                   ~1.7 million

With the famine:

Famine:                    5.3 million
Executions:                800,000
Dekulakization in Ukraine: 390,000
Gulags:                   ~500,000
Totals:                   ~7 million

As this was occurring, life expectancy rose wildly and the death rate collapsed, compared to Czarist Russia. So the deaths and killings were occurring in tandem with the greatest humanitarian life-saving project that the world had ever seen. The comments that follow the article in the Occidental Observer of which MacDonald is an editor are the usual wildly anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi White nationalist nonsense.

US Jewsmedia Completely Corrupted

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kureFeGmoDI&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] As you can see. The Atlantic Monthly is one of the worst ones of them all. Apparently, it’s become little more than an arm of the Jewish Lobby. Might be interesting to see who their owners and editors are? The video tells about a huge effort on the part of the Jewish Lobby in the US, involving $36 million, to plant stories and manipulate US news coverage in favor of Israel. It would not matter so much if the press had not gone along so willingly. The Atlantic Monthly apparently took money from the Jewish Lobby in order to run the Lobby’s stories or twist stories to towards their bias. It’s obvious that the US jewspapers, jewsmagazines, TV jews stations and radio jews is seriously corrupted by and biased in favor of a certain group of people. Whether this has to do with direct ownership and employment of certain ethnics in the various jews outfits, with advertising threats and biases or with the biases of the US public remains to be seen. I think we can rule out the US public’s biases, since the media never cares what Americans think about anything. The US media’s purpose is to propagandize the minds of Americans, not to reflect the views of Americans. It’s a gigantic brainwash machine for the ruling class. One clear example of pro-Israel bias in the US jewsmedia is how the Israeli nuclear arsenal is reported on. Frankly, as far as the media is concerned, the less said about it the better. However, occasionally, Israel’s arsenal is brought up. The sane people all realize that Israel has 200-400 nuclear weapons. However, for Realpolitik reasons, Israel refuses to acknowledge the arsenal that everyone knows it has, therefore it is not subject to the relevant treaties. The disgusting US government goes along with this charade. Republican President Barack Obama recently refused to acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons program. One would think that the Fourth Estate would be above this sort of Realpolitik crap, but think again. A typical article in a major US jewspaper or jewsmagazine follows the US and Israeli government line in refusing to confirm or deny Israel’s nuclear weapons program. As if total ruling class domination of the US media were not bad enough, we have the added Jewish domination element to make things even more sickening.

Alt Left: George Habash, a Revolutionary Life

Repost from the old site.

The following tribute to George Habash, leader of the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was delivered to a meeting organized by the CPGB-ML in Central London on Saturday 10 February 2008. The Communist Party Great Britain Marxist-Leninist, basically a hardline pro-Stalin group, last time I checked. This document is interesting for various reasons.

For one, it shows that hardline Communist rhetoric in the style of the former USSR is still popular. The PFLP are lauded for being a hardline Marxist-Leninist organization. It’s hard to say whether they still are or not, as they seem to be downplaying this in recent years, and no one really knows what Communism even means anymore. It is true that there was a Communist state in South Yemen, but I am not sure if they accomplished much down there. One of the biggest heroes of the Arab Left is Gamel Nasser, leader of Egypt. One great thing that he did do was to initiate a land reform. Most Arab states probably do not have feudal or semi-feudal land relations in the countryside anymore, but Egypt did in the 1950’s. 1 The vast majority of the rural population was reduced to the status of landless laborers or sharecroppers in debt peonage on the land of the landlords. Nasser was able to break up the large estates by buying them up via the government and giving the land to the sharecroppers. It was one of the great progressive events in modern Arab history. Back in the day in Yemen, you would go into the houses of the poor in South Yemen and see Nasser’s picture on the wall – they knew he was a hero to the Arab poor, and mostly for the land reform. Unfortunately, land reform was not enough. Population was exploding and Egypt desperately needed to put more farmland into production. Hence the Aswan Dam, a necessary evil. But even this did not solve the problems, as the rural poor continued to pour into the cities to look for nonexistent work. The landowners were bought off by assuring them a place in industry, which was and is heavily corrupt and tied in with the state. But the Egyptian economy was so shaky that the rich didn’t really feel like investing in it. Socialism was and is a pretty easy sell across the Arab World, in part due to Islam. Islam is a pretty socialist religion, although fundamentalists will argue the point with you and point out that the Koran says that there are those who have more and those who have less and this is ok. Nevertheless, the Koran is hardly a raging individualist tract. Nor are the deserts of the Arab World suited for individualism. In such an environment, the every man for himself libertarian is lost and probably dead quite quickly. One must form alliances or one will be destroyed. One must work cooperatively or the elements will take your life. In a world of perennial scarcity, mass hoarding by a few means death for many more. Hence, in the past century, most independent Arab states have opted for some kind of socialism. Where the states could not do it, the religious or militant groups did. There is no hatred of welfare or government as we have it in the individualist US. Socialism is simply normal and free market libertarianism is seen as a bizarre and cruel aberration. Nevertheless, in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and probably other places, the clergy did resist land reforms on the grounds that they were un-Islamic. Iraq, newly emerging from semi-feudal relations in the 1960’s, saw the Iraqi Communist Party become one of the largest parties in the country. It was particularly popular with poor Shia who flooded in from the countryside and poured into what later became Sadr City. At that time, the Shia clergy were widely regarded as corrupt. They were tied in with large landowners, often involved in money-making scams, and were noted for enticing women into sexual relationships with them. One of the few great things that the Shah of Iran did was to institute a land reform to realign the semi-feudal relations in the Iranian countryside. It went off pretty well, but some ethnic groups opposed it and hence were persecuted. The tone of the Communist Party Great Britain Marxist-Leninist in the statement below is what might be called Stalinist or anti-revisionist. Anti-revisionists hold that the problems with Communist states came from them leaving the path of true Communism and diluting their economies with capitalist relations. I do not know how much there is to that, so I can’t comment on revisionism. But even staunch Marxist sites nowadays post long pieces stating flat out that the Soviet model failed. The North Star Compass is a pretty interesting site. It’s run by former Communists from the East Bloc and the USSR, and it is dedicated to the reestablishing of the Soviet Union as a socialist state. For these folks, Gorbachev was enemy #1. There are quite a few interesting essays there, and for those who think that Putin is a Communist, these guys really hate Putin. For those who think that Russian Communists are all racists and anti-Semites, note that the North Star Compass despises the newly emerging fascist threat in the USSR. There are many Trotskyite sites on the Net. The Trotskyites used to be totally nuts on the question of “Stalinists”. Can you believe that they supported the German attack on the USSR and opposed the Soviet army’s war in Afghanistan? Trotskyites seem to have calmed down a lot lately. Many of them are supporting the Nepalese Maoists and the Colombian FARC. They even support Cuba. Usually this is measured with a tone that these states and movements would be better off if they adopted Trotskyism. Truth is that it is possible that Trotskyism has hardly even be tried anywhere, except possibly in the USSR from 1917-1922. Trotskyites have a reputation as the ultimate splitters, and in the Philippines they have, incredibly, taken up arms alongside the feudal and fascist state against the Maoist NPA. In Defense of Marxism is a good example of a Trotskyite site. It seems that many Communists nowadays in the West are Trotskyites of some sort. No one really knows what to make of them, and many Stalinists just laugh about them and regard them as irrelevant. Western Trotskyites seem to have a lot of money for some reason, and often put up nice websites. Non-Trotskyite Communist sites often have mild critiques of Trotskyism as some sort of irrelevant hairsplitting movement. Western Trotskyites were heavily Jewish in the West until 1967 or possibly earlier. World Trotskyism opposed Israel in the Six Day War and Jewish Trotskyites consequently defected en masse. Many seem to have made their way into the neoconservative movement. There are a variety of reasons for the heavy Jewish presence in Trotskyism, and that Trotsky himself was Jewish cannot be ignored. Trots have tended to oppose both Stalinism and Maoism as horribly brutal ideologies that committed atrocious human rights violations. Trotskyism has been a serious movement only in the West and it has tended to flounder in the rest of the world. One of the Trots’ main points is that a rapid buildup of urban industry is essential for the development of a modern socialist state. Trots are almost the opposite of the Maoists and their emphasis on the peasantry. There are sites that basically uphold the former USSR and even Stalin, but they are often angry at Maoists, whom they accuse of adventurism. In India, Maoists are killing traditional Communists in the state of Bengal, a state that has been run by pro-Soviet Communists for about 30 years now. Marxism-Leninism Today is an example of a pro-USSR, pro-Cuba, anti-Maoist site. They support the CPI-M (Communist Party India-Marxist) in Bengal and are not too happy with the Indian Maoists for killing their comrades. Here is a cool site by a Georgian artist who is the grandson of Joseph Stalin, showing the Stalin family tree among other things. Stalinism.ru is a site run by Russian Stalinists, but if you can’t read Russian, it’s not for you. The National Bolshevik Party is some sort of a bizarre marriage of Stalinism and racial nationalism (I don’t want to say Nazism, but I fear that is what it is). It’s Russian too, but check out the scary party image, complete with Nordic lettering, and the background on the homepage. Lots of related links at the bottom – looks like they have chapters all over the place. Another great site, coming from a somewhat different point of view, a Maoist one, is the Single Spark. Although Maoists are often described as ultra-Stalinists, Maoists and Stalinists are not necessarily the same thing. The Maoists have always been the real bomb-throwers on the Far Left. Despite Cold War rhetoric, pro-Soviet Communists often did not take up armed struggle until all peaceful avenues for change were blocked, and the Left was up against a death squad state. Otherwise, the idea was to try to gain power through parliamentary means, despite Lenin’s denouncements of “parliamentary cretinism”. If the state was reasonably democratic and not killing the Left, the pro-Soviets often argued that “an objectively revolutionary situation did not exist”. On the other hand, Maoists tend to reject all bourgeois democracy as invalid, particularly in very backward societies with mass extreme poverty and accompanying disease, hunger and premature death. Hence, Maoists have launched insurgencies against formally democratic states as Peru, Sri Lanka, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Philippines, Nepal and India in recent years. In most of these cases, the pro-Soviet Left decided to sit out armed struggle, and the Maoists were denounced as adventurists irresponsibly taking up arms in spite of a lack of an objectively revolutionary situation. In Peru, the war launched by the Shining Path led to a state that was less and less democratic and soon became just another Death Squad State. Thus in 1984, the pro-Cuban Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) took a vote and decided that “an objectively revolutionary situation existed” and opted to take up arms. Another difference is that despite Cold War rhetoric, Maoists are often a lot more vicious than the Castroites and pro-Soviet rebels. Maoists have no qualms about killing “class enemies” – anyone prominent advocating rightwing politics or abusive landowners – whereas the Castroites often try to take the high ground in guerrilla war. Examples in Latin America are the Castroite ELN in Colombia, URNG in Guatemala, FSLN in Nicaragua, FMLN in El Salvador, the aforementioned MRTA, and the FARC in Colombia. Despite crap from anti-Communists and the US government, all these groups have tried pretty hard to abide by the rules of war. At any rate, the overwhelming majority of grotesque human rights violations in each of these conflicts were committed by the state. On the other hand, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso was a profoundly savage and cruel guerrilla group, though they almost seized power. Communism doesn’t mean that much anymore. Cuba allows religious believers to join the party, and there are millions of liberation theology Leftist Catholics in Latin America and the Philippines. The Chinese and Vietnamese Communists have introduced major elements of capitalism into their economies, while retaining a great deal of socialism at the same time. Over the course of a few years, from 2003 to 2005 and 2006, the Nepalese Maoists underwent a sea change in politics. They went from hardline Maoists railing against revisionists and opposing anything but the dictatorship of the proletariat, to an embrace of multiparty democracy and a mixed economy and measured critiques of Mao, Lenin and Stalin as outdated for the needs and realities of today. I think this is fantastic. I care nothing about dogma. I just want results, and I don’t really care how you get there – capitalism, socialism, communism or whatever. If Marxism is indeed an ever-evolving science (which, if it is a science, it must be) then there must be no treating its elementary texts as some sort of religious books. The works of Marx, Lenin, Mao and others must be regarded as the works of men, not Gods, positing theories. These theories must be tested in praxis to see how well they test out, as in any empirical investigation. The theories of these mortals will either test out or they will not, and if not, we need to adjust them accordingly. We know what our goals are; all that is at stake is how to get there. Let us listen to top leader Prachanda and other Nepalese Maoist leaders, from the Single Spark site:

Since MLM is a progressive science, the people’s war calls for ideology and leadership that is capable to complete a new People’s War in the 21st century. Our Party’s CC Extended Meeting last September held that the ideologies of Lenin and Mao have become old and inadequate to lead the present international revolution. The political and organizational report passed by the meeting says, ‘The proletariat revolutionaries of the 21st century need to pay their serious attention towards that fact that in today’s ground reality, Lenin and Mao’s analysis of imperialism and various notions relation to proletariat strategies based on it have lagged behind.’ As Marxism was born in an age of competitive capitalism, the strategies and working policy formulated during the times of Marx had become old when they arrived at Lenin’s times of imperialism and proletariat revolution. Similarly, the ideologies developed by Lenin and Mao at the initial phase of international imperialism and proletariat revolution have become inadequate and lagged behind at the present imperialistic phase. Therefore, ‘the main issue is to develop MLM in the 21st century and to determine a new proletariat strategy.1 The second [wrong trend] …is not to concentrate on how revolutionary struggle can be developed in one’s country by developing correct strategy and tactics, but to talk more of world revolution, enjoy classical debate, eulogize strategy and tactic of the past successful revolutions, teach other fraternal parties as if they know everything about the concrete situation in that country and stick to what Lenin and Mao had said before. This trend represents dogmatism.2 What we think is that situation has undergone a considerable change, so the communist revolutionaries must not stick to what Lenin had said about insurrection and what Mao had said on Protracted People’s War.3 Q. You have envisioned a people’s republic, no? Prachanda: Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic cannot fulfill the needs of today’s world. It cannot address today’s political awareness appropriately. Mao said cooperative party theory; we called it competitive party theory. We have said let’s move ahead from the conventional People’s Republic and develop it as per the specialties of the 21st century. Q. You do not follow the old concept of communism? Prachanda: Definitely not. What happened without competition? In the USSR, Stalin gave no place to competition and went ahead in a monolithic way. What was the result?4 Does Communism make sense today? P: It’s a big question, starting with Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong, who wanted to apply the Marxist teachings in semi colonial countries. Now, we still need Marxism, but in accordance to the needs of the 21st century. We have to apply Marxist science in a very new context, understanding social, economic and also technological changes, without dogmatism and without sectarianism. We are trying to develop a completely new concept, different from what happened in the past century. When we are in the government, our experiment will surprise everybody. This will happen only if foreign investors trust a communist government… P: Yes, I know. We cannot ignore the whole process of liberalization in the world. So, we will apply mixed economics to this country. Right now, we are not saying that we plan a total socialist economy, though we will not blindly follow western liberalism. We have some national priorities and we will welcome foreign investors, using capital from abroad for the well being of Nepal.5 Though Mao made some bold experiments to revive and develop socialist democracy, his efforts did not result in any qualitative advance. Why did socialist democracy ultimately fail? Why did it have to bear the stigma of ‘totalitarianism’ from its adversaries? If the revolutionary communists of the 21st century have ‘to win the battle for democracy’, as Marx and Engels had declared in the famous Communist Manifesto, we must dare to question the past practice in socialist democracy and take some bold initiatives.6. All selections from this document7.

CPGB-ML Tribute to Habash

In his 1944 speech, “Serve the People”, Comrade Mao Zedong said these famous words:

All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said: ‘Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.’ To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.

Today, the heroic Palestinian people are continuing to resist, whether in the breaking of the barrier with Egypt to alleviate the genocidal siege of Gaza, or in the martyrdom operation at Dimona, the nuclear site where imperialism and its stooges do not demand inspections, to express a sense of grief at the loss of Al-Hakim, Dr George Habash, one of the greatest leaders of the Palestinian people, and, more importantly, to celebrate his glorious life and give real political vitality and clarity to the essential work of building solidarity with the Palestinian people in the British working class and in the anti-war and other progressive movements.

Nice memorial poster of PFLP leader George Habash. In all of the obits in the US news, few detailed the reason for the radicalization of Habash. At university in Lebanon, he was apolitical and preferred to play guitar. He raced home during the “Israeli War of Independence” to his home in Lydda. Jewish militias attacked the town and forced 9 Most were Palestinian Christians. His sister died of typhoid fever during the siege of the town and Habash buried her in the backyard. He blamed the Jews for blocking access to the hospital that could have saved her. There were some notorious massacres of Palestinians during the attack on Lydda, including the execution of many young men in a mosque. The Jews forced Habash and others to line up and leave their homes and all of their possessions. One man asked if he could return to get the keys to his house and for making this request, he was shot dead in front of Habash’s eyes. From that point on, the apolitical future doctor was transformed into a revolutionary.

Comrade George Habash, who has passed away at the age of 82, gave more than six decades of his life to the revolution. He was born into a prosperous Greek Orthodox family in the Palestinian city of Lydda. At that time, the Palestinian people were under the rule of the British colonial mandate, which was systematically preparing the way for the creation of a Zionist settler colonial state, which, in the words of Sir Roland Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem in the 1920s, would form “for England a ‘little loyal Jewish Ulster’ in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”. In the summer of 1948, whilst studying medicine in Beirut, George went back home to help organise resistance to the Zionist catastrophe that was sweeping over the Palestinian people, driving them from their ancestral homes and lands into exile and dispossession. At this time, he and his whole family, along with 95 percent of the inhabitants of his native city, were forced out at gunpoint by the Zionist terrorists and ethnic cleansers commanded by Yitzhak Rabin. Years later, Habash was to observe:

It is a sight I shall never forget. Thousands of human beings expelled from their homes, running, crying, shouting in terror. After seeing such a thing, you cannot but become a revolutionary.

During al-Nakba, the catastrophe, more than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and lands, made stateless and refugees. Graduating as the first in his class, Dr Habash eschewed the chance to pursue a lucrative career, opting instead to open a people’s clinic offering free treatment and a school for refugees in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Around this same time, he and his comrades founded the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), the first pan-Arab movement to take up armed struggle against colonialism and to win back the lost lands. The significance of the ANM should not be underestimated. Not only was it to be the root of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); from its ranks also came revolutionary forces in many parts of the Arab homeland, including the National Liberation Front in Aden and South Yemen, which not only defeated British imperialism in a revolutionary armed struggle to win national liberation, but, later as the Yemen Socialist Party, leading the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, stood in the vanguard of to date the only real attempt to build an Arab socialist state on the basis of the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the 1960s, Comrade Habash, like many other anti-imperialist fighters then, before and since, came to accept that the liberation struggle of the oppressed people, if it was to be crowned with success and carried through to the end, needed to be based on Marxism-Leninism. Lamis Andoni, an analyst for al-Jazeera, who knew Comrade Habash well, expressed matters this way in his tribute to his friend:

He belonged to a generation influenced by Franz Fanon, Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap and later by Che Guevara. In their views, colonialism epitomised systematic, institutional violence and subjugation of people under its control … In the early 1960s, George Habash, already a paediatrician in Amman known for treating the poor for free, endorsed Marxism as he grew convinced that the national struggle should not be separate from the struggle for social justice.

After the founding of the PFLP in December 1967, following the Arabs’ bitter defeat in the June 1967 war, Habash declared that the struggle was “not merely to free Palestine from the Zionists but also to free the Arab world from remnants” of Western colonial rule. All Arab revolutionaries, he said, “must be Marxist, because Marxism is the expression of the aspirations of the working class”. In a 1969 interview, he declared:

By 1967, we had understood the undeniable truth, that to liberate Palestine we have to follow the Chinese and Vietnamese examples.

Indeed, Comrade Habash paid close attention not only to the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, but to the experience of all the socialist countries and the revolutionary movement in all parts of the world. Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were also two countries close to his heart and with which he and the PFLP forged tight bonds of active solidarity. In the memorial hall for Comrade Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, the Korean comrades proudly display the several awards and medals presented to their great leader by the PFLP over the years. Under Habash’s leadership, the PFLP forged close and active ties of combat solidarity with national liberation movements in all parts of the world – the ANC in South Africa, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the Irish Republican Movement, to name but a few, embracing training, material assistance, joint operations and moral encouragement. In the September 1970 hijackings that gave the PFLP worldwide fame, Leila Khaled was joined by Patrick Arguello Ryan, a militant of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the only martyr of those operations. In 1983, after the Nicaraguan revolution, the Sandinistas commemorated Arguello by renaming the Geothermal Plant at Momotombo in his honour. A poster still available on the PFLP website describes Arguello as the “symbol of common Nicaraguan/Palestinian struggle”. Comrade Habash sought to translate into reality, and himself embodied, these inspiring words of Che Guevara, which go to the very essence of proletarian internationalism:

Let the flag under which we fight be the sacred cause of the liberation of humanity so that to die under the colours of Vietnam, Venezuela, Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil will be equally glorious and desirable for a Latin American, an Asian, an African and even a European.

Comrades, The Palestinian revolution is a complex and difficult one, throwing up many challenges and inevitably differences of view. Equally inevitably, Comrade Habash often found himself embroiled in internal controversy, particularly in terms of the sometimes painful compromises, concessions and retreats that have been forced on the Palestinian people at various times. But what shines out is the fact that he never lost sight of the importance of unity in the national liberation movement. In their own tribute to their leader, the PFLP put matters this way:

In 1987, with the outbreak of the great Intifada, Dr. Habash called for upholding Palestinian national unity, and convening the Palestinian National Congress in Algeria in 1988. Comrade Al-Hakim always understood national unity as a necessary condition for the continuation of the struggle and the national liberation movement, whether in Beirut during internal fighting among Palestinians and after as well, recognising that the internal contradictions among Palestinians could not be solved through military mechanisms, but rather through the democratic processes of the liberation movement.

Lamis Andoni, to whom we have already referred, wrote:

‘His message to the Palestinians was to restore our unity,’ Issam Al Taher, a senior aide, who saw him a day before his death said.‘Unity, unity, unity — that was his only message,’ said Al Taher.

Andoni notes of the relationship between George Habash and Yasser Arafat:

The two men never severed ties and continued a complex relationship of camaraderie and rivalry until the end.

Andoni continued:

Tall and handsome, Habash exuded a certain charisma that disarmed his distracters who admired his persistence but criticised what they saw as rigidity. A stroke that partially paralysed half of his body changed his appearance later but did not affect his ardour for the cause.It was that Habash that I saw and met for the first time in Tunis in 1983. The PLO was expelled from Beirut too and most its leaders moved to this northern Mediterranean capital of Tunisia. Habash moved to Damascus, Syria instead. On that day the PLO was holding a meeting. Most of the leaders had arrived and then there was a stir and silence. Habash entered slowly on crutches, hampered and subdued by his physical disability. The hall, filled with hardened fighters, stood on their feet while Arafat hugged Habash and escorted him to his seat.

Of the final period of Habash’s life, Andoni notes:

He would get so distressed during conversations discussing the events in Palestine and most recently in Iraq, that his wife, and closest friend Hilda, would interfere to stop it.When Israel besieged Arafat in 2002 in his compound in Ramallah, Habash stood by his rival. When Arafat died, amid Palestinian suspicion that Israel may have been involved, Habash deeply mourned him. The few times I was able to see him over the last three years, he never stopped monitoring and learning every detail about Palestinian life. His physical ailment deepened the sense of soulful pain he internalised. Those who were with him during his last days recall how disturbed he was by the rift between Fatah and Hamas. He opposed the strategy of Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian president, of accommodating US and Israeli demands but did not endorse Hamas’ military take over of Gaza. His main concern was the damage brought upon the Palestinians by the most serious internal rift in their history.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the mourning for Comrade Habash has transcended the differences in the Palestinian ranks. President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of national mourning, noting that Habash had dedicated his life to struggling for his people. Hamas leader Ismail Haneya said, “Dr. George Habash spent all his life struggling for the cause of the Palestinian people.” Islamic Jihad described him as a “real leader” and other Palestinian organisations paying their tributes included the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, who said that his path was and is one of liberation for the Palestinian and Arab people. In its December 1967 Founding Statement, the PFLP declared:

The masses are the authority, the guide, and the resistance leadership from which victory will be achieved in the end. It is necessary to recruit the popular masses and mobilise them as active participants and leaders … The only language that the enemy understands is the language of revolutionary violence … The slogan of our masses must be resistance until victory, rooted in the heart with our feet planted on the ground in deep commitment to our land. Today, the Popular Front is hailing our masses with this call. This is the appeal. We must repeat it every day, through every breakthrough bullet and the fall of each martyr, that the land of Palestine today belongs to all the masses. Every area of our land belongs to our masses who have defended it against the presence of the usurper, every piece of land, every rock and stone, our masses will not abandon one inch of them because they belong to the legions of the poor and hungry and displaced persons … The struggle of the Palestinian people is linked with the struggle of the forces of revolution and progress in the world, the format of the coalition that we face requires a corresponding … coalition including all the forces of anti-imperialism in every part of the world.

Much more can be said on the life, work and legacy of Comrade Habash, but in summary these are some of the things he advocated and taught: • That the fundamental way to liberation lies through armed struggle and people’s war based on the masses. • That for the struggle to be successful and carried through to the end it needs to be based on Marxism-Leninism, the scientific world outlook of the working class. • That the oppressed peoples must uphold proletarian internationalism in their struggle for liberation, based on militant unity within and between the three major currents of the world revolutionary process, the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, and the working-class movement in the imperialist heartlands. • That the liberation of the nation necessitated the principled and democratic unity of all the forces of the nation, even though major differences will also exist and must be struggled over. Clearly, all these are not just lessons for the Palestinian people alone. In June 2000, age and ill health led Comrade Habash to step back from the day-to-day leadership of the PFLP. Giving an inspiring speech on that occasion, in many respects he wrote his own epitaph. He told his comrades:

What I have lived through over the course of these militant decades, and the rich experience I have acquired, is not a matter to be taken for granted. It is your right, and the right of coming generations to review the content and lessons of this experience with all of its many successes and failures.

As befits a man who gave all of his own life and strength to the revolution, Comrade Habash said of the martyrs, the prisoners and his comrades, and it is with Comrade Habash’s own words, from his farewell address, Palestine Between Dreams and Reality, that we conclude this tribute:

I remember each of the martyrs, one by one, and without exception – those martyrs to whom we are indebted, for whom we must continue the struggle, holding fast to the dream and holding fast to hope, and protecting the rights of the people for whom they shed their blood. Their children and their families have a right to be honoured and cared for. This is the least we can do for those blazing stars in the skies of our homeland.I also remember now the heroic prisoners in the jails of the occupation and the prisons of the Palestinian Authority – those militants who remind us morning and night of our patriotic duty by the fact that they are still there behind bars and by the fact that the occupation still squats on our chests. Each prisoner deserves the noblest signs of respect … Now permit me to express my gratitude to all the comrades who have worked with me and helped me, whether in the Arab Nationalist Movement or in the Popular Front. They stood beside me during the hardest conditions and the darkest of times, and they were a great help and support for me. Without them I would not have been able to carry out my responsibilities. They have been true comrades, in all that the word implies. Those comrades helped to create a congenial atmosphere, an environment of political, theoretical, and intellectual interaction that enabled me to do all that was required. Those comrades have a big place in my heart and mind. I offer all my thanks and appreciation to each one of them by name. In addition, to the comrades who vigilantly guarded me, looking out for my safety, all these long years, I offer my gratitude … As a last word, I feel it necessary to say that I know well that the goals for which I worked and struggled have not yet been attained. And I cannot say how or when they will be attained. But on the other hand, I know in light of my study of the march of history in general, and of Arab and Palestinian history in particular, that they will be attained. In spite of this bitter truth, I leave my task as General Secretary of the Front with a contented mind and conscience. My conscience is content because I did my duty and worked with the greatest possible effort and with complete and deep sincerity. My mind is content because throughout my working years, I continually based myself on the practice of self-criticism. It is important to say also that I will pay close attention to all your observations and assessments of the course taken by the Popular Front while I was its General Secretary. I must emphasise that with the same close attention, if not with greater attention, I will follow and take to heart the observations and assessments of the Palestinian and Arab people on this course and my role in it. My aim in this closing speech has been to say to you – and not only to you, but to all the detainees, or those who experienced detention, to the families of the martyrs, to the children of the martyrs, to those who were wounded, to all who sacrificed and gave for the cause – that your sacrifice has not been in vain. The just goals and legitimate rights which they have struggled and given their lives for will be attained, sooner or later. I say again that I don’t know when, but they will be attained. And my aim, again and again, is to emphasise the need for you to persist in the struggle to serve our people, for the good of all Palestinians and Arabs – the good that lies in a just and legitimate cause, as it does in the realisation of the good for all those who are oppressed and wronged. You must always be of calm mind, and of contented conscience, with a strong resolve and a steel will, for you have been and still are in the camp of justice and progress, the camp whose just goals will be attained and which will inevitably attain its legitimate rights. For these are the lessons of history and reality, and no right is lost as long as there is someone fighting for it.

Notes

1. Ashok. (May 2006). Our Experiences of Ten Tumultuous Years of People’s War, The Worker#10, pp. 68-73. On Lenin and Mao, p. 71. 2. Basanta. (May 2006). International Dimension of Prachanda Path. The Worker #10, pp. 82-90. 3. Ibid. On Models: Page 87. 4. Kishor Nepal. (June 2006). Prachanda Interview. Maoist Revolution Digest. 5. Alessandro Gilioli. (Early November 2006). Prachanda: Our Revolution Won . L’espresso, Italy. Excerpts. 6. Prachanda. (November 18, 2006). Democracy: The Forbidden Fruit or Nectar for Progress? Speech at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi. 7. MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the U.S. (Dec. 21, 2006). Assessing Recent Developments in Nepal: A Bibliography on the State, a Peaceful Transition to Socialism, Democracy and Dictatorship, Negotiations and Their Relevance to the International Communist Movement in the 21st Century.

Jews Are Black People?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBMxmS9Bh1U] This video is pretty strange. It shows a bunch of Black people marching in the middle of Tel Aviv, Israel. The only conclusion I can draw is that Jews are now Black people? What’s weird is all the Jews I met are actually White. I also so two of these Black Jews holding holds. So not only are Jews Black, but they are also queer now too? I don’t get it. Most of the Jews I met were straight. Are Jews changing?

Obama Sells Out on Israel

After the party was beaten in November, Obama and his idiot buddies took home exactly the wrong message. One of them was that the Dems got creamed because Obama was too liberal. One way he was too liberal, I assume, was in his extremely principled opposition to continuing settlement building in the West Bank. This noble line was pursued for two years. This was one of the hardest US lines against Israel in a very long time, possibly in 30-40 years. Now, after November, Obama announced a new line. The Administration will abandon its opposition to continued Israeli settlement building. Reason: Such opposition was making a peace settlement difficult, and the Administration wants to concentrate on a peace settlement. LOL! The Jewish Lobby, including JStreet, the leftwing of the Jewish Lobby, was beside itself. JStreet confidently told me that the US insistence on Israeli halting settlement building was “getting in the way of a negotiated settlement.” LOL, what is that, some kind of a joke? Another rightwing move by Obama. The tax cut deal will not be a lone compromise. Obama is just getting started. For the next two years, nearly every new day will see a new rightwing outrage by Obama. Brace yourselves.

Dutch Nationalist Right Calls on Israel To Annex the West Bank

This is the nationalist Right, including the White nationalist Right’s hero, Geert Wilders. Yeah, he’s socking it to those scummy Muslims and those dirty immigrants, who, it turns out, are all Muslims too. This is what you get, idiots. When you vote for Islamophobes, you get the worst Zionists of all. I’ve been through all of the anti-Islam sites out there, including all of the blogs. It is axiomatic that if one if an Islamophobic nut, one is also a fanatical Zionist. One goes with the other. Wilders is calling for Israel to annex the West Bank, ramp up settlement building as much as possible, and apparently to send the Palestinians to Jordan (“Jordan is the Palestinian homeland.”) This is even more radical than Avigdor Lieberman. Like I said, this is par for the course with Muslim-haters. If you’re a Muslim hater, you heart Israel. Why? Because the most fanatical Muslim haters of all are in Israel. Because Muslims hate Israel, and therefore, Israel must be good. Because Israel is part of the Judeo-Christian West under assault by Islam. On the other hand, most anti-Semites love Muslims. This makes no sense to me. I’ve been around enough Muslims to figure out that they are not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, they are much worse than that. Confined to their sandboxes, they do a minimum of harm, but we let that cat out of the bag long ago. If you hate Israel, you love Islam. If you hate Jews, you love Muslims. Why? Once again, the biggest and nastiest anti-Semites out there these days are Muslims. They’re the coolest and baddest Jew-haters of all! Yeah! If you hate Israel, well, Islam does too. Of course there’s a sensible line that almost no one takes. It could look something like this: Jews suck. Muslims suck. They both suck. Israel sucks. The Arab World sucks. They both suck. A better line is proposed by the Left in the region, especially the Left in Iran and Afghanistan. The Left in that part of the world is not wild about Islam, after all, Muslims pretty much exterminated the Left in that part of the world, and Islam is behind almost everything reactionary in Central Asia, in particular women’s rights. This is where RAWA, the famous Afghan women’s movement, is coming from. They grew out of the Afghan Maoist Left. The Left in that region also hates Israel of course, in line with the general Left line on Zionism.

Israel Controls US Mideast Foreign Policy

Lock, stock and barrel. At least under George Bush they did. Amazing article. I don’t believe everything there, especially the part about the US planning 9-11, but I believe much of the rest of it. One problem is that Gordon Duff is a first-class nutball, a crazy anti-Semite and conspiratorial anti-Zionist. He’s basically coming from Ziopedia territory. The Jews are behind everything, you know. However, assuming that this is a real source, this highly-placed person certainly has a lot of great information. It’s things like this that make me realize how great Wikileaks is. Wikileaks sheds light on this sickening government of ours and all their disgusting underhanded, lying, cheating, stealing crap.

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