Why They Hate US(a)

George W Bush om/on Propaganda (video)

2007-10-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

För att motverka den rådande incestuösa förstärkningen (se video för förklaring) så måste FAKTA upprepas minst lika många gånger som de propagandistiska lögnerna. Boken The Best War Ever och videon nedan är viktiga bidrag till motpropagandan. Detta är inte minst viktigt nu när Bushadministrationen använder samma knep för att sälja Kriget Mot Iran.

To counteract the prevailing Incestuous Amplification (watch video below for explanation) facts have to be repeated as many times as the propagandistic lies. The book The Best War Ever and the video here (via Youtube) are important step in effective Counter-Propaganda. This is of course most important now when the Bush administration are using the same tricks to sell the War On Iran.

Andra bloggar om: propaganda, video, böcker, Youtube, USA, Iran, Irak, Irakkriget, Kriget Mot Terrorismen, Bush, George W Bush, media, politik - Intressant

Technorati: The Best War Ever, Propaganda, Video, Books, Youtube, Iraq, War On Iraq, Iran, War On Iran, War On Terrorism, Media, Bush, George W Bush, Sweden, USA, Politics

Christocracy High Priestess Ann Coulter on Perfecting Jews

2007-10-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

Swedish: Kristokratin är i grunden antisemitisk (och antihinduisk, antibuddhistisk o.s.v.) eftersom fundamentalister inte tillåter att andra religioner existerar som fullvärdiga alternativ till den egna tron. Mycket av den religiösa ivern ägnas åt att omvända andra. Ann Coulter är en fullblodskristokrat. Hon är också en av de mer högljudda hatpredikanterna i USA (se länkar nedan).

Christocracy is basically and profoundly Anti-Semitic (and Anti-Hinduic, Anti-Buddhistic etc.) since fundamentalists are incapable of allowing other religions to exist as equal alternatives to their own faith. Much of the religious frenzy is directed into proselyting. Ann Coulter is a Blue Blood Christocrat. She is also the Goddess of Hate Preaching in the USA:

Coulter: "[P]rofiling Muslims is more like profiling the Klan"
Coulter lauded discrimination against Arab, Middle Eastern
Coulter: Islam is "a car-burning cult"
Coulter: "If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president"

Coulter: "I don't think there's anything offensive about any variation of faggy, faggotry, faggot, fag
President Coulter? Right-wing pundit proposed "carpet-bomb[ing]" Iran when asked -- again -- by a Fox host what she would do as president

More from Media Matters on Coutler's Anti-Semitic remarks (O'Reilly to Coulter: "I don't even care, to tell you the truth" about Coulter's controversial comments): O'Reilly did not note that several Jewish organizations have denounced her comments, including the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

About her book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism":

Andra bloggar om: Ann Coulter, Coulter, antisemitism, fascism, liberalism, USA, religion, fundamentalism, islam, islamism, islamofascism, islamofobi, kristendom, kristokrati, kristnazism, media, US media, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Ann Coulter, Coulter, Anti-Semitism, Antisemitism, Liberalism, US Media, Media, Fascism, Sweden, USA, Islamism, Islamofascism, Religion, Fundamentalism, Christ, Christianity, Christocracy, Islam, Politics

SvD kristokratins nya språkrör i Sverige?

2007-10-25T03:01:00.000-07:00

English further down

Nyligen meddelade Per Gudmundson att han blivit erbjuden fast anställning: Jag gratulerar mig själv. Varför inte samtidigt passa på att gratulera läsarna av denna tidning till att man snart kan få öppna SvD, Kristokratins Språkrör i Sverige, till frukosten. Steget från antytt islamhat i SvD: Svenskarna som vill dö för islam till dagens öppet islamofobiska inlägg på Gudmundsons privata blogg och vidare i den renodlade kristnazismen är mycket kort om man skrapar på ytan.

Hitchens om islamofascism
I USA pågår Islamo-fascism awareness week, nyttan av vilken man kan diskutera. Det har föranlett Christopher Hitchens att reda ut varifrån begreppet kommer.

Taget helt ur sitt sammanhang kan det ju vara bra med en vecka som gör USA medvetet om de fascistiska dragen i den militanta islamismen (som om något annat hördes där). Det borde dock förvåna att Gudmundson låter två militanta f.d. vänsterextremister som (ex)leninisten David Horowitz , initiativtagare till "awareness week", och (ex)trotskisten Hitchens bli språkrör för denna "upplysningskampanj". Det finns inget som tyder på att dessa neokonservativa herrar lämnat det totalitära bakom sig.

Som framgick i Target Iran: Robertson and Podhoretz on Antisemitism så ser vi idag en ohelig allians mellan den ogudaktiga neokonservatismen och den gudsfruktande kristokratin. Vad som inte framgick där är dels de rötter som neokonservatismen har i det som idag kallas extremvänstern, särskilt trotskismen, och i vilken utsträckning den kristokratiska rörelsen lånat metoder från kommunistisk infiltration, cellbildning, maktövertagande genom att dölja sin ideologi o.s.v. Neokonservatismen är inget annat än samma mentalitet som präglade (präglar?) trotskisternas "ständiga revolution", fast med andra förtecken.

Det auktoritära draget kommer tydligt fram i den här tidigare publicerade videon Pat Robertson Nazi Moment med ett helt samtal mellan Robertson och Horowitz om The 101 Most Dangerous Professors in America på The Christian Broadcasting Network, d.v.s. Robertsons gigantiska medieföretag.

Personen som syns t.v. en kort stund i början är David Horowitz. Det är alltså inget problem för en person som påstår sig kämpa mot extremism - den islamistiska varianten - att lovordas av en av de mer extrema kristokraterna i världen. Det går att fylla spaltmeter med allt Robertson ägnat sig åt från att skylla 9/11 på synden i USA till homofobiska utfall. Detta är lite mer konkreta och väldokumenterade beröringspunkter än när Gudmundson försökte smutskasta bl.a. Noam Chomsky för att Usama bin Ladin nämnt honom.

När kommer Gudmundson och svenskans ledarredaktion att överhuvudtaget nämna den militanta kristna högern som ett hot värt att ta på lika stort allvar som islamismen?

Ett litet, litet avsteg från det rena kristokratiska argumenten (mot islamism, demonisering av islam i största allmänhet o.s.v.) kan möjligen skönjas i

Fortsatt stopp för kreationism på biologin

men det är långt ifrån entydigt vad Gudmundson och SvD egentligen vill ha sagt. "Regelverk är bra", men sen då?

Will Svenska Dagbladet become The Voice of Christocracy in Sweden?

A short summary in English: Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) is the second most important daily newspaper in Sweden. Per Gudmundson has been a very controversial blogger on the far right here in Sweden. Since a few days back, Gudmunson will be a permanent member of the editorial team on SvD. There he will continue to spread anti-Islam opinions and be a voice for extremists like David Horowitz and his Islamo-fascism awareness week (still only on the blogg). There is no Christo-Fascism-Awarenes to be seen in SvD or on the blogg. Not a single word about the continuing take-over by the Christocracy movement in the US. Not a single word about the more neutral concept The Christian Right, apart from denouncing its mere existence. Period.

Andra bloggar om: Per Gudmundson, Gudmundson, Svenska Dagbladet, SvD, fascism, USA, religion, fundamentalism, kommunism, islam, islamism, islamofascism, islamofobi, kristendom, kristokrati, media, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Per Gudmundson, Gudmundson, Svenska Dagbladet, SvD, Swedish Media, Media, Fascism, Sweden, USA, Islamism, Islamofascism, Religion, Fundamentalism, Christ, Christianity, Christocracy, Islam, Politics

Amerikanska Fascister: Den kristna högern och kriget mot Amerika

2007-10-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

English version below

Swedish: Är inte fascism ett alldeles för starkt ord när det gäller den mest militanta kristna högern (som är en väldigt stor grupp i USA)? Chris Hedges, en veteran inom amerikansk journalistik (krigsreporter och NYT byråchef m.m.), tycker inte det utan skriver en bok för att varna. Robert D. Steele, en veteran inom amerikansk underrättelseverksamhet, håller med och klämmer till med Christo-Fascism, en etikett som nu också spetsats till ytterligare på Bloggar.se sedan en tid tillbaka: kristnazism.

Det är också mycket motiverat att varna för islamofascism och islamism idag, men om det bara stannar där...... Typiskt exempel i Svenska Dagbladet: Svenskarna som vill dö för islam. När ägnar sig t.ex. SvDs ledarsida någon gång åt att titta på den infytelserika kristna högern? Den finns ju knappt, enligt dessa ensidiga ideologer. Islamister är oftast utanför samhället. Kristokrater sitter i ledande postioner över hela USA. En liten pik slinker också med i form av Ingen undgick väl sommarens ”läkare utan gränser” i Storbritannien, och den stora förekomsten av ingenjörer i terroristgrupper är väl belagd.

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America

The Swedish introduction got a bit too long again. There is really no genuine Christocratic Movement here in Sweden. But don't worry. The creeping global fascism will simply take another route here. National Socialism with a distinct racism profile, propaganda against islam - above once again on the editorial page of Svenska Dagbladet - and a general attack on pluralism and tolerance. This will make it easy for the government to install a surveillance regime. 'We must protect our citizens'.

American readers need no longer introduction to Chris Hedges, one of the more famous journalists and authors among the literati population. But just in case: here is a long interview with Hedges on Truthdig.com where he also talk about one of his other books “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” - Below is an article where Hedges himself summarizes the ideas behind the book American Fascists.

The Rise of Christian Fascism and Its Threat to American Democracy

Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told his students that when we were his age -- he was then close to 80 -- we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."
The warning, given 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and television evangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts toward taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global Christian empire. This call for fundamentalists and evangelicals to take political power was a radical and ominous mutation of traditional Christianity. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

He was not a man to use the word fascist lightly. He had been in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and worked with the underground anti-Nazi church, known as the Confessing Church, led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Adams was eventually detained and interrogated by the Gestapo, who suggested he might want to consider returning to the United States. It was a suggestion he followed. He left on a night train with framed portraits of Adolf Hitler placed over the contents of his suitcases to hide the rolls of home-movie film he had taken of the so-called German Christian Church, which was pro-Nazi, and the few individuals who defied the Nazis, including the theologians Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer. The ruse worked when the border police lifted the tops of the suitcases, saw the portraits of the Führer and closed them up again. I watched hours of the grainy black-and-white films as he narrated in his apartment in Cambridge.

Adams understood that totalitarian movements are built out of deep personal and economic despair. He warned that the flight of manufacturing jobs, the impoverishment of the American working class, the physical obliteration of communities in the vast, soulless exurbs and decaying Rust Belt, were swiftly deforming our society. The current assault on the middle class, which now lives in a world in which anything that can be put on software can be outsourced, would have terrified him. The stories that many in this movement told me over the past two years as I worked on "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" were stories of this failure -- personal, communal and often economic. This despair, Adams said, would empower dangerous dreamers -- those who today bombard the airwaves with an idealistic and religious utopianism that promises, through violent apocalyptic purification, to eradicate the old, sinful world that has failed many Americans.

Robert D Steele, on the other hand might benefit from a short introduction. He is simply one of the most knowledgeable persons in the USA when it comes to intelligence/espionage, war on terror, the current state in the USA, and you name it. A short biography on The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College offers a few hints of his background:

Mr. Robert D. Steele

Position: External Researcher

ROBERT D. STEELE is a retired Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer. He is the founder and president of Open Source Solutions, Inc., and is an acknowledged expert on computer and information vulnerabilities. Mr. Steele holds graduate degrees in International Relations and Public Administration from Leigh University and the University of Oklahoma. He has also earned certificates in Intelligence Policy from Harvard University and in Defense Studies from the Naval War College.

To this you can add some info from the Steele Bio from wikipedia:

Robert David Steele Vivas (b. July 16, 1952 New York City), is a former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and was the second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992. Steele is a former clandestine services case officer Central Intelligence Agency. He is the founder and CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. as well as the Golden Candle Society. Steele also was a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University in the mid-1990's.

The reason why Steele is mentioned here is that he is one of the most productive reviewers at Amazon.com, today as the number 41 review on the Amazon list of reviewers. He is simply a superior reviewer, so why bother to re-invent the wheel when we have Steele?

Robert D Steele review at Amazon.com:

Last Call for Sanity in Face of Christo-Fascism,
March 14, 2007

By Robert D. Steele

Of all the books I have read, inclusive of a good number on religion, on knowledge, and on the pathologies of power, this book is perhaps the single clearest, most up to date, and most compelling definition of the extreme right in America as the world's new fascists.
I created the image that I am uploading with the review several years back, when Condi Rice and others had the temerity to call General Tony Zinni a traitor when Zinni, the most recently retired Command-in-Chief of the US Central Command, made a clear public case for NOT invading Iraq. Collin Powell was more subdued, saying "if you break it, you own it," but Bush-Cheney do not compute nuances, and were not listening. They both reflected this book's basic premise, that when dissent is considered treason, one is dealing with a neo-fascist regime.

The author is uniquely qualified as both a graduate of a top-level divinity school, and a world-class investigative journalist, to make this case.
He opens the book with an annotated list of fourteen features of fascism that set the stage, and I list them here because of their importance--buy the book to get the whole picture:
1. Cult of Tradition
2. Rejection of Modernism
3. Action for Action's Sake
4. Critics are Modernists
5. Dissent is Treason
6. Fueled by Frustration
7. Lacking Identity, Contrives Birthright
8. Humiliated and Delusional vis a vis external enemies
9. Pacifism is evil
10. Elitist contempt for weak (similar to poorest of whites contempt for hard-working blacks)
11. Cult of Hero, Cult of Death
12. War as Sexual Sublimation
13. Selective Populism (generally White versus All, but Colored can "Become" White)
14. Newsspeak, Hijacking of Language

This very educated and quietly balanced author cites Karl Popper's seminal work on Open Society and its Enemies on the pathological outcomes from faith in excess, faith that is intolerant of others. It is clear throughout this book that America is under siege from two faiths in excess--the external far enemy of violent intolerant Islam, and the more subversive internal danger of neo-Nazi fascists in waiting, mobilizing the dispossessed whites who do not read a lot, and get "all they need to know" from Pat Robertson's 700 Club and other similar self-serving channels whose primary role is to raise cash for the Hitler's in Waiting.

Continued here

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Technorati: Chris Hedges, Robert Steele, Books, Amazon.com, Fascism, Sweden, USA, Islamism, Islamofascism, Religion, Fundamentalism, Christ, Christianity, Christocracy, Islam, Politics

Christocracy and Islamism as Fiction

2007-10-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

Swedish: Kristokrati och islamism som skönlitteratur

(English text further down)

Fanatism, intolerans och sexfientlighet skiljer sig ytterst lite mellan kristen och islamsk fundamentalism. I USA står avhållsamhet högt på Bushadministrationens kristokratiska agenda och i den islamska världen skall kvinnor gömmas undan. Samma mentalitet, men olika uttryck.

I helgens New York Times Book Review recenseras “The Abstinence Teacher” av Tom Perrotta som utspelar sig i Stonewood Heights, a “well-to-do Northeastern suburb, not liberal by any means, but not especially conservative, either”. Detta kan jämföras med Snö av förra årets Nobelpristagare Orhan Pamuk:

Snö är en politisk roman med stor giltighet i dagens Turkiet. Romanen utspelas vintern -92 i staden Kars, längst öster ut, nära gränsen till Armenien. Hit kommer Ka, poet med tolv år i exil i Tyskland i bagaget. Egentligen har han kommit för att slå sig ner i barndomsstaden Istanbul men det som lockar med resan till Kars är dels förhoppningen att återse en tidigare flickvän, dels ett uppdrag att för en tidning skildra den våg av självmord som begåtts av unga kvinnor i staden. Tar de livet av sig av politiska skäl? Har det med islamisternas framväxt att göra? Kars drabbas under hans besök av ett våldsamt snöfall och staden skärs av från omvärlden. Under tiden i staden kommer Ka i kontakt med alla de viktigaste politiska grupperingarna och institutionerna i dagens Turkiet: regeringsorganen, militären, islamisterna, kurderna, gammal och ny vänster.

Nordsteds förlag

Since the Nobel Prize (in Literature as well as other less interesting areas) is a Swedish institution, I had to indulge a bit extra in our language. This year's prize to Doris Lessing is also worth noting. Excellent choice.

Fanatism, intolerance, and sex aversion/fear in not very different when you compare Christian and Muslim fundamentalism. Abstinence education is high on the Bush administration's Christocracy agenda. Too vast a field to go into here, but a couple of links can get you started. Heritage Foundation: The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth and the US Department of Health with an entire Abstinence Education Division.

No, this is not Saudi Arabia or the Talibans with their Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It's the U.S.A. 2007 according to the George W Bush vision of One Nation Under God.

This rather lengthy discussion was a result of this Sunday's New York Times Book Review where “The Abstinence Teacher” by Tom Perrotta is reviewed, a book taking place in i Stonewood Heights, a “well-to-do Northeastern suburb, not liberal by any means, but not especially conservative, either”.

This time, however, he sets his cast of flawed parents and un-airbrushed kids against the stained-glass background of muscular Christianity on the march. A new church, the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth, has come to town, bent on ridding the community of “all manner of godlessness and moral decay,” and the first weed their scythe of righteousness mows down is Ruth Ramsey’s ninth-grade sex-ed class. After a churchgoing snitch reports her teacher’s blasé endorsement of oral sex to her parents, the school forces Ruth to push an abstinence agenda, something she regards as “a farce, an attack on sexuality itself, nothing more than officially sanctioned ignorance.” Other secular-minded townspeople are slow to catch on, but to Ruth, who is on the crusade’s firing line, watching the Tabernacle’s influence spread feels like “living in a horror movie. ... ‘The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ or something. You never knew who they were going to get to next.”

For the purposes of the narrative, Christ’s spokesman takes the form of a divorced dad named Tim Mason, a Tabernacle congregant who was booted out of his marriage after an “epic coke binge” that “ultimately brought him face-to-face with his Savior.” Mason clings to his newfound belief as if it were a life preserver. (His mother accuses him of “using Jesus like a substitute for drugs, like methadone.”) To keep close to his daughter, Abby, who lives with her remarried, irreligious mother, Mason coaches fifth-grade girls’ soccer; Ruth’s daughter Maggie is his star player. After an emotional match, in a transport of spiritual fervor, Mason leads his team in prayer — enraging his ex-wife and Ruth, and setting off a holy war among the soccer moms and dads of Stonewood Heights.

The conflicts Perrotta invents here feel both instantly recognizable and queerly portentous, calling to mind dystopic science fictions from “Body Snatchers,” to Ira Levin’s “Stepford Wives,” to Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles.” As in the Bradbury story “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed,” in which an Earth family, resettled on Mars, slowly acquires alien customs and language, the characters in “The Abstinence Teacher” shift uneasily between two tongues: the unscripted cadences of ordinary speech and the exalted language of sin, salvation and belief.

Stonewood Heights could perhaps be compared with the Turkish city Kars, the scene of “Snow” by last year's Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, also review by New York Times (in 2004):

As the novel opens, Ka has been in political exile in Frankfurt, but has returned to Istanbul after 12 years for his mother's funeral. He's making his way to Kars, an impoverished city in Anatolia, just as a severe snowstorm begins. (Kar is ''snow'' in Turkish, so we have already been given an envelope inside an envelope inside an envelope.) Ka claims to be a journalist interested in the recent murder of the city's mayor and the suicides of a number of young girls forced by their schools to remove their headscarves, but this is only one of his motives. He also wants to see Ipek, a beautiful woman he'd known as a student. Divorced from a onetime friend of Ka's turned Islamist politician, she lives in the shabby Snow Palace Hotel, where Ka is staying.
Cut off from escape by the snow, Ka wanders through a decaying city haunted by its glorious former selves: there are architectural remnants of the once vast Ottoman Empire; the grand Armenian church stands empty, testifying to the massacre of its worshipers; there are ghosts of Russian rulers and their lavish celebrations, and pictures of Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic and instigator of a ruthless ''modernization'' campaign, which included -- not incidentally -- a ban on headscarves.

Ka's pose as a journalist allows Pamuk to put on display a wide variety of opinions. Those not living in the shrunken remains of former empires may find it hard to imagine the mix of resentful entitlement (We ought to be powerful!), shame (What did we do wrong?), blame (Whose fault is it?) and anxiety about identity (Who are we really?) that takes up a great deal of headroom in such places, and thus in ''Snow.''
Ka tries to find out more about the dead girls but encounters resistance: he's from a bourgeois background in cosmopolitan Istanbul, he's been in exile in the West, he has a snazzy overcoat. Believers accuse him of atheism; the secular government doesn't want him writing about the suicides -- a blot on its reputation -- so he's dogged by police spies; common people are suspicious of him. He's present in a pastry shop when a tiny fundamentalist gunman murders the director of the institute that has expelled the headscarf girls. He gets mixed up with his beloved's former husband, the two of them are arrested and he witnesses the brutality of the secularist regime. He manages to duck his shadowers long enough to meet with an Islamist extremist in hiding, the persuasive Blue, said to be behind the director's murder. And so he goes, floundering from encounter to encounter.

In ''Snow,'' translated by Maureen Freely, the line between playful farce and gruesome tragedy is very fine. For instance, the town's newspaper publisher, Serdar Bey, prints an article describing Ka's public performance of his poem ''Snow.'' When Ka protests that he hasn't written a poem called ''Snow'' and is not going to perform it in the theater, Serdar Bey replies: ''Don't be so sure. There are those who despise us for writing the news before it happens. . . . Quite a few things do happen only because we've written them up first. This is what modern journalism is all about.'' And sure enough, inspired by the love affair he begins with Ipek and happier than he's been in years, Ka begins to write poems, the first of them being ''Snow.'' Before you know it, there he is in the theater, but the evening also includes a ridiculous performance of an Ataturk-era play called ''My Fatherland or My Head Scarf.'' As the religious school teenagers jeer, the secularists decide to enforce their rule by firing rifles into the audience.

As it happens Mr Parmuk has been involved in another international controvercy covered on this blog in Holocaust Competition? and Robert Fisk: The forgotten holocaust. Once again from the New York Times:

Nationalist Turks have not forgiven Mr. Pamuk for an interview with a Swiss magazine in 2005 in which he denounced the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the killing of Kurds by Turkey in the 1980’s. The remarks were deemed anti-Turkish, and a group of nationalists initiated a criminal case against him. The charges were dropped on a technicality in January. Accepting a literary award in Germany in 2005, Mr. Pamuk said: “The fueling of anti-Turkish sentiment in Europe is resulting in an anti-European, indiscriminate nationalism in Turkey.”

Mr. Pamuk’s work speaks to Europe’s growing skittishness about its Muslim population and to the preoccupation with the question of whether Islam is by nature compatible with secular European values on issues like criminal justice and women’s rights. Turkey is edging closer to becoming part of the European Union. On Thursday, though, the lower house of French Parliament passed a bill that would make it a crime to deny that the Turkish killing of Armenians from 1915 to 1917 constituted genocide — a law that contradicts Turkey’s view.
In remarks sure to further annoy Turkey, the Armenian foreign minister, Vartan Oskanian, weighed in with a message of congratulations for Mr. Pamuk. “We welcome this decision and only wish that this kind of intellectual sincerity and candor will lead the way to acknowledging and transcending this painful, difficult period of our peoples’ and our countries’ history,” Mr. Oskanian said in an e-mail message to The New York Times.

Turkish Writer Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

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Technorati: Orhan Pamuk, Books, Armenia, Turkey, Genocide, Bush, George W Bush, Abstinence, Sex Education, Sex, USA, Taliban, Saudi Arabia, New York Times, Religion, Fundamentalism, Christ, Christianity, Christocracy, Islam, Islamism, Politics

Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq - Etnisk rensning i Iraq

2007-10-17T00:54:00.000-07:00

Why may it look like there is a more stable Iraq with less violence today? Because the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites have moved from neighborhoods to a large-scale conflict.

Seymour Hersh: Bush 'Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing' in Iraq

Spiegel Online: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?
Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.
Spiegel Online: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?
Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.
Spiegel Online: So what are the lessons of the Surge?
Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.
Spiegel Online: So the US is over four years into a war that is likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with Vietnam?
Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it but they don't care.

There is also some talk about Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad worth reading:

Spiegel Online: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?
Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what [IAEA head Mohamed] ElBaradei and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
Spiegel Online: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to the Iraq War?
Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.

Times: Iraqi police ‘linked to ethnic cleansing’

THE soulful sound of koranic recitals for the dead reverberated from 22 homes lining a narrow, dimly lit street in the old Baghdad neighbourhood of Iskan in the early hours of yesterday morning.
In one house after another, the soothing voices mingled with the sobs of wives, mothers and sisters over a hum of visitors’ murmured condolences.
The walls of a small nearby mosque were draped with 22 black cloths on which the names of the husbands, sons and brothers being mourned will be inscribed in white paint, as is the custom in Iraq.
The grieving families in this predominantly Shi’ite district had collected their dead — all Sunnis — on Friday amid fury at the execution-style murders of the men and terror at the spread of sectarian killings in the run-up to this Saturday’s referendum on a new constitution.
Many believe the killers’ aim is to drive them out in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that is polarising communities, casting suspicion on the Iraqi police and undermining confidence in the ability of the Baghdad government to maintain security.

Some relatives of Iskan’s dead have already packed up and moved to Sunni areas where they feel safer.
The murdered men’s bodies were shrivelled beyond recognition when they were found where they had lain for a month in the desert more than 70 miles away, near the town of Badra.
But the blindfolds wrapped around their heads were intact, along with the cuffs of metal, plastic and rope used to bind their hands. One or two shots fired into each man had ended their lives.
“Why were they killed? What did they do?” shrieked one mourner as he prepared for a street procession of coffins to their place of burial on Friday.
The answer is difficult to discern. What is known is that all the Sunni victims were married to Shi’ite women. However, this is not uncommon in Iraq and is thought unlikely to be the motive for their murder.
One clue may lie in the alleged presence of Iraqi police officers when the men’s killers came to take them away. According to witnesses, about 40 police vehicles and four-wheel drives from the interior ministry stormed the district in the early hours of August 8.
Iraqi police ‘linked to ethnic cleansing’

This is really not news. Note the date on the article below.

Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold

Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.

By Patrick Cockburn in Khanaqin, North-East Iraq

Published: 20 May 2006

The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.

Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: " They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin.

The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.

In Baquba, with a population of 350,000, gunmen last week ordered people off a bus, separated the men from the women and shot dead 11 of them. Not far away police found the mutilated body of a kidnapped six-year-old boy for whom a ransom had already been paid.

The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. "Whoever is in a minority runs," he said. "If forces are more equal they fight it out."

It was impossible to travel to Baquba, the capital of Diyala, from Baghdad without extreme danger of being killed on the road. But I thought that if I took the road from Kurdistan leading south, kept close to the Iranian border and stayed in Kurdish-controlled territory I could reach Khanaqin, a town of 75,000 people in eastern Diyala. If what the army captain said about the killings and mass flight was true then there were bound to be refugees who had reached there.

I thought it was too dangerous to go beyond the town into the Arab part of Diyala province, once famous for its fruit, since it is largely under insurgent control. But, as I had hoped, it was possible to talk to Kurds who had sought refuge in Khanaqin over the past month.

Andra bloggar om: etnisk rensning, Irak, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, USA, media, Seymour Hersh, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Ethnic Cleansing, Iraq, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Media, Seymour Hersh, USA, Politics

Robert Fisk: The forgotten holocaust

2007-10-12T03:13:00.000-07:00

Holocaust Competition? - Förnekad förintelse

There we could learn about the US House of Representatives' Armenian Genocide Resolution [30KB PDF, BBC] and how the President of the United States of America objected to this.

The Independent gives more details today:

Robert Fisk: A reign of terror which history has chosen to neglect

Published: 12 October 2007

The story of the last century's first Holocaust – Winston Churchill used this very word about the Armenian genocide years before the Nazi murder of six million Jews – is well known, despite the refusal of modern-day Turkey to acknowledge the facts. Nor are the parallels with Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews idle ones.

Turkey's reign of terror against the Armenian people was an attempt to destroy the Armenian race. While the Turks spoke publicly of the need to "resettle" their Armenian population – as the Germans were to speak later of the Jews of Europe – the true intentions of Enver Pasha's Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople were quite clear.

On 15 September 1915, for example (and a carbon of this document exists), Talaat Pasha, the Turkish Interior minister, cabled an instruction to his prefect in Aleppo about what he should do with the tens of thousands of Armenians in his city. "You have already been informed that the government... has decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons living in Turkey... Their existence must be terminated, however tragic the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to any scruples of conscience."

These words are almost identical to those used by Himmler to his SS killers in 1941.
Continued at Robert Fisk: A reign of terror

Here you will find even more in-depth coverage:

Robert Fisk: The forgotten holocaust

The killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War remains one of the bloodiest and most contentious episodes of the 20th century. Robert Fisk visits Yerevan, and unearths hitherto unpublished images of the first modern genocide

Published: 28 August 2007

The photographs, never before published, capture the horrors of the first Holocaust of the 20th century. They show a frightened people on the move – men, women and children, some with animals, others on foot, walking over open ground outside the city of Erzerum in 1915, at the beginning of their death march. We know that none of the Armenians sent from Erzerum – in what is today north-eastern Turkey – survived. Most of the men were shot, the children – including, no doubt, the young boy or girl with a headscarf in the close-up photograph – died of starvation or disease. The young women were almost all raped, the older women beaten to death, the sick and babies left by the road to die.

The unique photographs are a stunning witness to one of the most terrible events of our times. Their poor quality – the failure of the camera to cope with the swirl and movement of the Armenian deportees in the close-up picture, the fingerprint on the top of the second – lend them an undeniable authenticity. They come from the archives of the German Deutsche Bank, which was in 1915 providing finance for the maintenance and extension of the Turkish railway system. One incredible photograph – so far published in only two specialist magazines, in Germany and in modern-day Armenia – actually shows dozens of doomed Armenians, including children, crammed into cattle trucks for their deportation. The Turks stuffed 90 Armenians into each of these wagons – the same average the Nazis achieved in their transports to the death camps of Eastern Europe during the Jewish Holocaust.

Hayk Demoyan, director of the grey-stone Museum of the Armenian Genocide in the foothills just outside Yerevan, the capital of present-day Armenia, stares at the photographs on his computer screen in bleak silence. A university lecturer in modern Turkish history, he is one of the most dynamic Armenian genocide researchers inside the remains of Armenia, which is all that was left after the Turkish slaughter; it suffered a further 70 years of terror as part of the Soviet Union. "Yes, you can have these pictures, he says. "We are still discovering more. The Germans took photographs and these pictures even survived the Second World War. Today, we want our museum to be a place of collective memory, a memorisation of trauma. Our museum is for Turks as well as Armenians. This is also [the Turks'] history."

The story of the last century's first Holocaust – Winston Churchill used this very word about the Armenian genocide years before the Nazi murder of six million Jews – is well known, despite the refusal of modern-day Turkey to acknowledge the facts. Nor are the parallels with Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews idle ones. Turkey's reign of terror against the Armenian people was an attempt to destroy the Armenian race. While the Turks spoke publicly of the need to "resettle" their Armenian population – as the Germans were to speak later of the Jews of Europe – the true intentions of Enver Pasha's Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople were quite

clear. On 15 September 1915, for example (and a carbon of this document exists) Talaat Pasha, the Turkish Interior minister, cabled an instruction to his prefect in Aleppo about what he should do with the tens of thousands of Armenians in his city. "You have already been informed that the government... has decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons living in Turkey... Their existence must be terminated, however tragic the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to any scruples of conscience." These words are almost identical to those used by Himmler to his SS killers in 1941.

Taner Akcam, a prominent – and extremely brave – Turkish scholar who has visited the Yerevan museum, has used original Ottoman Turkish documents to authenticate the act of genocide. Now under fierce attack for doing so from his own government, he discovered in Turkish archives that individual Turkish officers often wrote "doubles" of their mass death-sentence orders, telegrams sent at precisely the same time that asked their subordinates to ensure there was sufficient protection and food for the Armenians during their "resettlement". This weirdly parallels the bureaucracy of Nazi Germany, where officials were dispatching hundreds of thousands of Jews to the gas chambers while assuring International Red Cross officials in Geneva that they were being well cared for and well fed.
Continued at Robert Fisk: The forgotten holocaust

Andra bloggar om: Robert Fisk, Turkiet, Armenien, USA, Bush, Israel, ADL, antisemitism, folkmord, förintelsen, media, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Robert Fisk, Anti-Defamation League, ADL, Anti-Defamation League, Antisemitism, Armenia, Israel, Turkey, Genocide, Holocaust, Bush, George W Bush, Congress, USA, Politics

Holocaust Competition? - Förnekad förintelse

2007-10-12T01:32:00.000-07:00

Bör en förintelse överskugga ett annat försök till total utplåning av ett folk? Var går gränsen i så fall? Räcker 500,000 för att det skall få kallas folkmord (genocide)? 1,000,000?

US House of Representatives' Armenian Genocide Resolution [30KB PDF, BBC]

RESOLUTION
Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide , and for other purposes. Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This resolution may be cited as the `Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The House of Representatives finds the following:
(1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.
(2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing `a crime against humanity'.
(3) This joint statement stated `the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres'.

More at [30KB PDF, BBC]

BBC reports in Turkey recalls ambassador to US:

US President George W Bush had argued against the resolution, saying its passage would do "great harm" to relations with "a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror".

Turkey is a regional operational hub for the US military, and some suggest access to Incirlik airbase or other supply lines crucial to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be affected by the row.
The US also fears Turkey may make a military incursion into northern Iraq to neutralise Kurdish separatist guerrillas there, who continue to cross the border to ambush Turkish troops.

AP - Israel worried by Turk-Armenian debate:

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 11, 5:39 PM ET

JERUSALEM - Israel's government expressed concern Thursday over the U.S. congressional debate on the mass killings of ethnic Armenians in Turkey 90 years ago, but tried to deflect pressure from Turkey to take its side in the dispute.

During a visit to Israel this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan pressed Israel to use its influence in Washington to help kill a congressional effort to label the bloodshed as genocide.

Babacan warned that Turkey's friendly relations with Israel and the United States could suffer if the genocide resolution was approved. President Bush is urging Congress to defeat it, pointing to the importance of Turkey as an ally in the Middle East.

Armenian groups say hundreds of thousands of Armenians were slain during 1915-17 in what they argue was a genocide campaign by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey contends the killings were not genocide, but the result of widespread chaos and political upheaval as the 600-year-old empire collapsed.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev confirmed on Thursday that Babacan raised the issue during talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

"We take the Turkish concerns very seriously. We have an excellent relationship with Turkey," Regev said.

He declined to discuss Israel's response or say whether Israel would ask its allies in Washington to intervene. In recent months a leading Jewish group, the Anti-Defamation League, changed its policy and declared the Armenian killings "tantamount to genocide," angering Turks.

The debate in Washington puts Israel in an uncomfortable position. Turkey is one of the Jewish state's few friends in the Muslim world, but genocide is an extremely sensitive topic in Israel, which was built in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust.

Alon Liel, a former director of Israel's foreign ministry and an expert in Israel-Turkey relations, said the U.S. debate could hurt ties between the two countries.

"We tried all these years not to get into it," he said. But because of the Anti-Defamation League's new position, "Turkey will blame the Jewish organizations, and then this could bounce back to us."

Israel's government has said previously that massacres were perpetrated against Armenians and expressed sympathy for their suffering. But it stopped short of calling it genocide.

Regev said Thursday that "there is no change" in Israel's policy.

Fortunately the Anti-Defamation League changed its position, but not after some infighting, as reported in Boston Globe:

ADL local leader fired on Armenian issue

Genocide question sparked bitter debate
Andrew H. Tarsy's firing sparked a backlash

By Keith O'Brien, Globe Staff | August 18, 2007

The national Anti-Defamation League fired its New England regional director yesterday, one day after he broke ranks with national ADL leadership and said the human rights organization should acknowledge the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.
The firing of Andrew H. Tarsy, who had served as regional director for about two years and as civil rights counsel for about five years before that, prompted an immediate backlash among prominent local Jewish leaders against the ADL's national leadership and its national director, Abraham H. Foxman.
"My reaction is that this was a vindictive, intolerant, and destructive act, ironically by an organization and leader whose mission -- fundamental mission -- is to promote tolerance," Newton businessman Steve Grossman, a former ADL regional board member, said yesterday.

The semi-happy ending is covered below, but it should be noted that ADL did not walk the line all the way to GENOCIDE, but stopped at "tantamount to genocide":

Jewish groups pressure the ADL

Urge recognition of genocide

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | August 21, 2007

Local Jewish groups rushed yesterday to sign a letter urging the Anti-Defamation League to acknowledge the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide, increasing pressure on the ADL after it fired its New England director for endorsing the emotionally charged position.
Nancy K. Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, e-mailed a letter yesterday to some 40 prominent Jewish leaders in Massachusetts, asking them to support the ousted director and to recognize the genocide against Armenians.
"We must never forget the Armenian genocide and maintain our guard against those who deny its occurrence," the letter said.

Anti-Defamation League reverses course, recognizes Armenian genocide

By Keith O'Brien, Globe Staff

The national office of the Anti-Defamation League reversed its long-held position today and acknowledged the Armenian genocide of 1915, saying in a statement that the mass killings of that era at the hands of the Ottoman Turks "were indeed tantamount to genocide."

However, the statement reaffirms the national ADL's belief that the legislation pending in Congress to recognize the genocide is "a counterproductive diversion."
The ADL's statement, released to the Globe and on the group's website this afternoon, came "in light of the heated controversy," which began weeks ago in suburban Watertown, where more than 8,000 Armenian-Americans call home. Days earlier, the ADL's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, fired the regional director of the New England ADL for making a similar statement.

Andra bloggar om: Turkiet, Armenien, USA, Israel, ADL, antisemitism, folkmord, förintelsen, media, politik - Intressant

Technorati: ADL, Anti-Defamation League, Antisemitism, Armenia, Israel, Turkey, Genocide, Holocaust, Bush, George W Bush, Congress, USA, Politics

War Plan IRAN moves ahead smoothely

2007-10-11T03:17:00.000-07:00

The tricks and lies used by the Bush administration to get support for the War on Iraq, the Occupation of Iraq, the Plundering of Iraq has been covered in shocking detail. Even before the attack it was very, very obvious to literate individuals what was going on. Here is a review of "War Plan Iraq," by Milan Rai, published on December 18, 2002. That was three months before the attack, so the book must have been written much earlier.

Video from Robert Greenwald, director of Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (Google copy: move mouse pointer here to watch the full movie)

FOX ATTACKS IRAN

Sign the Open Letter

Tell the networks not to follow FOX down the road to war

Andra bloggar om: video, FOX News, media, böcker, War Plan Iraq, Irak, Iran, kriget mot Iran, film, Iraq for Sale, Robert Greenwald, USA, Bush, politik - Intressant

Technorati: FOX News, Media, Books, Video, USA, Iran, Iraq, War Plan Iraq, War On Iran, Robert Greenwald, Iraq for Sale, Film, Politics

Target Iran: Robertson and Podhoretz on Antisemitism (not a problem)

2007-10-10T01:29:00.000-07:00

Swedish Intro: Det kan vid första anblicken verka förbryllande att man idag inte ser och hör så många entydigt antisemitiska attacker från kristokratin. Svaret på detta är enkelt: en ny syndabock skapades den 11/9, 2001 i form av Islam och Islamism. Varför krångla till det med traditionell antisemitism när muslimhatet är så utspritt? Se även Blackwater Army of God and Pat Robertson.

At first sight it might be a bit confusing to not find much overt antisemitism coming from Christocracy advocates today. The reason for this is very, very simple: a much more convenient scapegoat was created on 9.11, 2001: Islam, Islamism and the Archenemy Islamofascism. Why complicate things whit traditional Anti-Semitism when their already is so much hate towards muslims to exploit? See previous entry Blackwater Army of God and Pat Robertson for more on this.

Video clip from the "Left Behind" (first movie), Part 2:

Left Behind, the Movie, Part 1 is here.

You don't have to go very far back in time to find the ex-president candidate Pat Robertson deep into the traditional right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories:

New World Order, 1991:

The New World Order

Robertson's books have been both successful and controversial. The Secret Kingdom, Answers to 100 of Life's Most Probing Questions, and The New World Order were each in their respective year of publication the number one religious book in America.

Robertson's tome The New World Order was described as a 'catch all for conspiracy theories' by Christian academic Don Wilkey:

Pat Robertson’s work, NEW WORLD ORDER, is a catch all for conspiracy theories. It combines the paranoia of the Old Right with modern versions. A summary of Robertson’s book is found on page 177 in which Pat says a conspiracy has existed in the world working through Freemasonry and a secret Order of the Illuminati, a group combining Masons and Jewish Bankers.^[12]

Ephraim Radner also accuses Robertson of espousing anti-semitic beliefs in the same book:

In his published writings, especially his 1991 book The New World Order, Pat Robertson has propagated theories about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Michael Land raised the issue in February in the New York Times Book Review, and in April Jacob Heilbrun, writing in the New York Review of Books, cited chapter and verse of Robertson's borrowings from well-known anti-Semitic works.^[13]

(Swedish: Liknande idéer kan hittas hos svenska kristokater: Flammor.com om hur "En ny världsordning planeras".)

So why don't those Neoconservatives pretending to be Friends of Israel care about Antisemites like Pat Robertson? Or even defend them, like Norman Podhoretz did with Pat Robertson?

Norman Podhoretz, Commentary, 1995: In the Matter of Pat Robertson (archive only)

An Interview with Norman Podhoretz, 2003

Conservative Christians as Friends

"This is why I defend the conservative Christians who have taken such a strong stand in favor of Israel. True, one of their leaders, Pat Robertson, has bought into hoary anti-Semitic fantasies about the alleged conspiracy of Jews and Masons in the eighteenth century, but bad as this is, it seems to me trivial - or academic - as compared with his support of Israel in the living present.
"Many liberal Jews don't want the fundamentalist Christians as friends, which is absurd. Israel needs all the allies it can get. Again, it is true that the support of some Christian fundamentalists derives from a belief that the second coming of their Messiah must be preceded by Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land, followed by a mass conversion of the Jews to Christianity. But as Irving Kristol has quipped, at the end of days we'll find out whether these fundamentalists are right, and in the meantime we can embrace them as the friends and allies they now are.
"In political life one survives by the ability to tell who are one's friends and who are one's enemies. Many American Jews seem amazingly deficient in this elementary ability. In the past, as I indicated earlier, it was the parties of the left that favored civil liberties, civil rights, and emancipation for the Jews, while the parties of the right resisted such measures. But in the last thirty-five years - beginning with the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967 - we have seen more and more evidence of a historic reversal where Israel is concerned. On the left there has been increasing hostility toward Israel, while on the right there has been increasing friendliness.
"Many Jews resolutely refuse to accept this. They are blinded by an atavistic anxiety which takes the form of the belief that these Christians want to convert their children and turn America into a place where Jews would be less than fully at home. This anxiety has no connection with contemporary realities. Another quip of Irving Kristol is that the main danger to Jews from Christians nowadays is not that they wish to persecute or convert the Jews, but that they want to marry their daughters."

So why this odd symbiosis between Christocracy and Neoconservatism (extending far beyond Robertson and Podhoretz? A common enemy, albeit for different reasons:

Norman Podhoretz, Commentary: The Case for Bombing Iran

Robertson: Iran "now has atomic weapons" (video)

From the May 2 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: It's shocking what's happening. And I got home over the weekend and read the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, once again, to see a war that is forecast where a nation identified as Russia and possibly some of the Caucasian states, maybe Turkey, but some of those states in that region, join with Iran, Libya, and the Sudan to move against Israel. A great horde of people to come against Israel, re-gathered from the nations in the latter days.

It's amazing that Iran has come to the fore as it has with a president who says Israel should be wiped off the map, who -- it now has atomic weapons. And a year ago, the Lord told me, as I was praying, that Israel was entering into the most dangerous time in its existence as a nation. He confirmed this again in January, and lo and behold, the events in the -- in the current affairs just keep tumbling, tumbling, tumbling upon us. And I look in disbelief.

Just like is the case with George W. Bush, Pat Robertson can hear the Voice of God. FOX News is always a willing channel for prophesies:

Religious Broadcaster Pat Robertson Predicts Horrific Terrorist Attack on U.S. in 2007

Andra bloggar om: Left Behind, antisemitism, religion, islam, islamism, islamofobi, kristendom, kristokrati, den kristna högern, Pat Robertson, video, film, Iran, Israel, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Left Behind, Antisemitism, Anti-Semitism, Film, Pat Robertson, Books, Podhoretz, USA, Iran, Israel, Christocracy, Film, Religion, Islamophobia, Christo Fascism, Christofascism, Christocracy, Religion, Video, Politics

Left Behind Books/Films/Game - Just Plain Armaggedon or Good Old Antisemitism

2007-10-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Left Behind Series (Official Site) of books have sold some 70 million copies. - In Swedish: 70 millioner ex.! - There are three movies based on the books. Quote from below: "Besides LaHaye (one of the authors), evangelists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are among the most well-known believers in these doctrines."

Video clip from the "Left Behind" (first movie), Part 1:

And who is the main Enemy in the opening scenes of film?

Israel Insider writes about the game (under Anti-semitism):

And then there are the books. The first volume in the "Left Behind" series was published in 1995. Since then, over 70 million copies have been sold, and several of the books have made it onto the New York Times bestseller list.
The series has been described as "Tom Clancy or Steven King meets Jesus": action-adventure with heavy Christian overtones. Spin-offs include a children's edition, comic books, postcards, board games, three movies and more.
Critics are particularly incensed by the identity of the series' authors: Dr. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. LaHaye heads several American conservative organizations, including the Council for National Policy, which leftwing journalists accuse of having undue influence on American policymakers.
Good for the Jews?
Where do we fit into all this? Jews and Israelis will find the series' plotline extremely troubling, to say the least.
In the first book, seven years of fighting between the forces of good and evil begin with a Russian attack on Israel, which survives to enable Jesus to return. While many Jews "see the light" and convert to Christianity, some liberal Israelis support the evil nonbelievers. In other words, "Left Behind" supports Israel but portrays Judaism as a mistaken religion.
The game has been attacked from both the left and the right. On The Daily Show, Rob Cordry showed a clip of the game's developer explaining that if a player "kills" an innocent bystander, he or she loses a point. However, if the player recruits and converts the bystander, he or she gains two points.
"Now I understand," Corddry quips. "The difference between murder and the soul's eternal salvation is three points."
Moderates view the implied connection between Christianity and violence with misgiving and caution that Islamists may use the game and the books as proof of American anti-Muslim intolerance.

Michael Standaert has written the book Skipping Toward Armageddon - The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire

Just what are "Incomplete Jews?"

by Michael Standaert

[ politics - june 06 ]

One of the deepest antipathies ardent Christians have had toward Jews through the ages derives from Jewish denial of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, a denial that has long fueled much of the anti-Semitism among Christian cultures. Most enlightened Christians, especially the non-proselytizing kind, don't obsess over this anymore. It's simply a non-issue. Furthermore, in an active sense, mainline Christian denominations have gone out of their way in the past half-century to rid their cultures of slurs referring to Jews as "deniers" or at its most virulent, as "Christ killers." For most it was the realization that fuel like this embedded in the minds of pre-secular Christian Europeans, helped ignite everything from pogroms in Russia to holocausts in lands under Nazi rule.

There were other aspects anti-Semitism, the more secular class and race based notions (as opposed to the simply religious), that also aided in turning people from everyday bigots and haters to exceptional purveyors of genocide. For many Jews in Europe at the time were hardly religious at all. Being a "denier" wasn't really much of an issue, apart from the total denial of religious life in any way. Being bourgeoisie was an issue, as was, paradoxically, being a Marxist champion of the proletariat. Hitler, with his Germanic version of nationalism, attacked both Jewish bourgeoisie (shopkeepers, bankers, businessmen) and socialist intellectual upstarts alike. Stalin's anti-Semitism feasted more of the flavors of ousting the bourgeoisie and later their minor remnants in the dekulakization campaigns, playing off popular anti-Semitic notions leftover from Czarist days.

What united both ideologies, Nazism and Stalinism, in their anti-Semitism was that Jews played central roles in their dramas. Secondly, was the fact that these ideologies based the Jewish threat to their nations on wild conspiracy theories, namely the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Under these lenses, Jews were seen as the Number One scapegoats, as purveyors of secrecy and conspiracy, as intellectual troublemakers, as anti-national internationalists, as unpatriotic, as outsiders, and as the ultimate "others." Today these same conspiracy theories are widely propagated throughout the Middle East by both Islamic fundamentalists and secular totalitarian regimes to use as propaganda against the state of Israel.
Considering what we know about how past uses of anti-Semitism in popular culture have later supported popular feeling against Jewish peoples, it is somewhat amazing how little has been said about these narratives within American culture. They are no more apparent today than in the hugely popular and successful series of Christian apocalyptic thrillers, the Left Behind novels.

Over the past decade, the Left Behind novels, have sold around 70 million copies and have become the most successful Christian publishing phenomenon ever in the United States outside the Bible. Written by Jerry B Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, a prominent Evangelical minister and political activist, series will culminate with the final and 15th book, The Rapture, appropriately enough, on June 6, 2006 (6/6/06). Three movies have been made based on the books, with the third movie, Left Behind: World at War, released last October 25th on DVD, skipping theatres altogether. It didn't skip churches, however. Over 3,000 churches signed up for a pre-release viewing the weekend before the official release.

For these books, LaHaye provides Jenkins with a detailed outline of prophecy based on the beliefs of dispensational premillennialism, a previously minor Protestant belief system that proposes a "Rapture" of "true believers" to Heaven prior to a seven-year period of tribulation culminating in the return of Jesus Christ and the Battle of Armageddon between the true believers and Satan. These beliefs came into being only 150 years ago when Scottish preacher John Darby formulated the ideas, ideas later disseminated in popular bibles such as the Scofield Reference Bible. They found a home in Protestant fundamentalism in the US and were propagated throughout academic systems, mainly through the Dallas Theological Seminary. The beliefs of dispensational premillennialism are then converted into a fictional narrative set in the present day and hung on the scaffolding of premillennialist prophecy interpretation, mostly based on the interpretation of the Book of Revelations. Besides LaHaye, evangelists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are among the most well-known believers in these doctrines.

Read the entire article here

Andra bloggar om: Left Behind, antisemitism, religion, mission, islam, islamism, islamofobi, kristendom, kristokrati, den kristna högern, Pat Robertson, video, film, Israel, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Left Behind, Antisemitism, Anti-Semitism, Film, Games, Books, USA, Christocracy, Politics, Religion, Islamophobia, Christo Fascism, Christofascism, Christocracy, Religion, Video, USA, Politics

Blackwater Army of God and Pat Robertson

2007-10-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

Den svenska högern gör alltså allt för att minimera betydelsen av den kristna högern - kristokratiska missionärer - i USA, trots en överväldigande dokumentation om motsatsen. Ett litet antal exempel nedan.

The Swedish right is extremely eager to minimize the impact of the so called Christian Right, i.e. Christocracy Missionaries. One tiny example below. This is also a classical - historical - example of how the prosecutor puts on the cloak of a prosecuted. Powerful interests always need scapegoats to cover up their real intents and motives.

Blackwater Army of God >

Christian Freedom International (CFI) Founder and President Jim Jacobson >

Pat Robertson (Jacobson interviewed - VIDEO)

This is the same (or a totally different) parallel universe as we encountered in the previous entry. Jim Jacobson has Eric Prince on the board of CFI. Eric Prince is founder and CEO of Blackwater. Blackwater is part of the occupation forces in Iraq, killing civilians most recently. Iraq was a secular country ruled by an oppressive regime before the Army of Good invaded the country on March 19, 2003.

The majority of Iraq is still dominated by secular Iraqis or moderate muslims caught in a religious (and political) war between USA, Sunni and Shiite extremists. Of course they are not happy to let Christocrats like Robertson, Jacobson and their missionaries on the ground in Iraq add fuel to the flames.

Jacobson: "Thank God for CBN" (Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network) telling the truth about how Christians are prosecuted by evil muslim Jihadists. "People just don't understand how barbaric the Jihadists really are. How much they hate us. How much they hate Christians. If they could attack us they would. " Thus a big thank you to Eric Prince's Blackwater teaching them Evil-Doing ayrabs a lesson or two. (This blog has no sympathy whatsoever to Talibans, other Muslim Jihadists, Christian Jihadists or any other extremist group.)

So what about Robertson? Some videos via Youtube (and as usual you merely put your mouse pointer over the links below to watch the clips here - click takes you to Youtube.com in case you prefer that):

Pat Robertson calls for an Assassination of Hugo Chavez

Pat Robertson Nazi Moment (about 30-40000 Dangerous Academics brainwashing, beating up students and you name it. "Some of them are killers."

Excuse Us, Pat Robertson. (Threating any Israeli Prime Minister dividing God's Land the same fate as Ariel Sharon: Death.)

Christianity's Greatest Menace is Islam (from Robertson's CBN, on Christian Martyrs)

These are just some tiny drops of the Christian Jihadist mentality oozing into the American living rooms.

Andra bloggar om: Eric Prince, Blackwater, religion, mission, islam, islamism, islamofobi, kristendom, kristokrati, den kristna högern, Pat Robertson, video, Irak, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Eric Prince, Blackwater, War Profiteers, Video, Army of God, USA, Christocracy, Politics, Religion, Mercenaries, Missionaries, Islam, Islamism, Islamofascism, Islamophobia, Christo Fascism, Christofascism, Christocracy, Religion, Video, USA, Sweden, Politics,Ted Nugent

American Dreams of Holocaust (Nugent fan)

2007-10-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

(Just imagine: A muslim posting a picture of a gun!)

The Swedish right is just as obsessed with Islam and Islamism as the US original. (Per Gudmundson is not considered as a right-wing fringe individual, as one might suspect, but is writing on the editorial page of Svenska Dagbladet, the second most important daily newspaper in Sweden.) Of course it's a valuable contribution to document militant Islamism, but why at the same time downplaying Christian extremism? Why not be honest and accept the fact that militant Islamism - islamofascism - is still a minority business in the Islamic world while Christo-Fascism has the might of the US Army, the Republican Party and the White house as avid supporters?

(Kommentar om tags nedan: Amerikansk kristokrati har som främsta mål en ny förintelse. Utan utplånandet av alla icke-kristna kan inte Guds Plan och Kristi Återkomst förverkligas. Det sista slaget kommer naturligtvis att utspelas precis där staten Israel ligger. Hur många överlevande kan vi räkna med den här gången? - Det här behöver inte ens översättas till engelska eftersom alla eventuella besökare från USA är medvetna om detta faktum.)

Is this a Right-Wing Nut or a member of the US Mainstream Right?

Video: Ted Nugent is thermo-nuclear weapon of all mankind. Once that bomb blows up, he wipes out the anti-s, he wipes out the liberalism .... Ted is the Number One American ....

Video courtesy "Don't Burn the Flag. Wash it!", who comments:

What is one of the bigger problems facing the USA today?

Watch this short video and then answer that question.

This man is not to be made fun, he is to be pitied. He is a product of people like Ted Nugent, and Ted Nugent is a product of other Ted Nugent’s, and they are all the byproduct of years and years of the (1) dumbing down of the American education system, particularly K through 12, (2) which includes the educators. They are a product as well of (3) the lack of any worthy historical perspectives and of (4) the growing divide and disconnect between the rich and the middleclass/poor.

Another video clip from a totally alien universe where up is down and down is up, truth is lies, and lies are truth: "Hannity: I want to know. Barack Obama accused our troops of killing civilians and air-raiding villages. What is more offensive to you, which statement? - From a collection of Hannity clips at FOXATTACKS.

Sean Hannity on FOX News defending Ted Nugent (video)

NUGENT [video clip]: I was in Chicago. I said, "Hey, Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk!"

Obama, he's a piece of [bleep]. And I told him to suck on my machine gun. Let's hear it for it.

And I was in New York. I said, "Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless [bleep]!"

HANNITY: That was friend and frequent guest on the program Ted Nugent expressing his feelings towards Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Joining us now, Democratic strategist Bob Beckel and Republican strategist Karen Hanretty.

You know, Bob, we may actually agree here. Here is Ted Nugent. He's saying, you know, the "Wang Dang" song, "Cat Scratch Fever," wears a loincloth on stage, fires, you know, an arrow at targets on stage. I see you liberals more upset about that, but I don't hear anybody criticizing Barack Obama for accusing our troops of killing civilians, air-raiding villages, et cetera, et cetera. What's more shocking to you? What's more offensive to you? Is it Barack Obama's statement about our troops or Ted Nugent?

BECKEL: You know, only you could figure out a way to ask a question like that. First of all, Nugent, this is a boy who's missing a couple dogs from under his front porch. This guy has been pimping for Republicans for years now. They want him to run for Senate against Obama. I can't believe -- when the Dixie Chicks said something about George Bush, which was mild compared to this jerk, and the religious right, the Dobsons and the Robertsons, rose up in fury. You rose up in fury.

[crosstalk]

HANNITY: You know, typical Bob Beckel. But you can't answer the question. I didn't ask you that.

BECKEL: I want to see --

[crosstalk]

BECKEL: Are you prepared now, Sean -- are you prepared to disavow this lowlife or not?

HANNITY: No, I like Ted Nugent. He's a friend of mine.

BECKEL: You do, after did he that? After he did that?

HANNITY: But he's a rock star. Yes, here's my point. If you don't like it, don't go to the concert, don't buy his new albums.

[crosstalk]

BECKEL: I can't believe you're defending this lowlife.

HANNITY: Here's my question again, and hopefully your liberal brain can absorb it.

[crosstalk]

BECKEL: The question is not even a close call. I think Nugent was far over the line and Obama was not.

HANNITY: I want to know. Barack Obama accused our troops of killing civilians and air-raiding villages. What is more offensive to you, which statement?

BECKEL: Because I know the context in which Obama said it. This Nugent is more offensive. This guy ought to be knocked off the air. He ought to never come on your show again, and if you have him on, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. He's a bum!

HANNITY: Not at all. We have you on.

Andra bloggar om: islamism, islamofobi, religion, hårdrock, musik, kristokrati, förintelsen, Gudmundson, video, FOX News, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Islamism, Islamofascism, Islamophobia, Christo Fascism, Christofascism, Christocracy, Holocaust, Religion, Video, FOX News, Hannity, USA, Sweden, Politics,Music, Ted Nugent

Cruising and Crusading with Norman

2007-10-08T03:18:00.000-07:00

Mer om korståg mot Evil-Doers. "Ship of Fools" nedan är lång, men ger en unik bild av hur den välartikulerade amerikanska högern låter i avspända sammanhang. Islamhat. Islamhat. Islamhat.

From The Sunday Times September 30, 2007

Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran

Sarah Baxter, Washington
ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nuclear weapons.
Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile casualties in the past year.
Karl Rove, who was still serving in the White House as Bush’s deputy chief of staff, took notes. But the meeting, which lasted 45 minutes, was not logged on the president’s schedule.

Hold mouse pointer over link below to watch Podhoretz talking about how he is the one and only person in the USA supporting the Bush Doctine (endless Crusade):

Norman Podhoretz on His New Book (World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism) - Video

Meet Norman Podhoretz, William Buckley (founder of National Review and Conservative Icon of the past), Bernard Lewis (essential in forming Bush's War on Islamic Countries) and other right wing luminaries aboard on

Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons

The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

By Johann Hari

Published: 13 July 2007

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

I am getting used to these moments – when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into... what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

I am travelling on a bright white cruise ship with two restaurants, five bars, a casino – and 500 readers of the National Review. Here, the Iraq war has been "an amazing success". Global warming is not happening. The solitary black person claims, "If the Ku Klux Klan supports equal rights, then God bless them." And I have nowhere to run.

From time to time, National Review – the bible of American conservatism – organises a cruise for its readers. I paid $1,200 to join them. The rules I imposed on myself were simple: If any of the conservative cruisers asked who I was, I answered honestly, telling them I was a journalist. Mostly, I just tried to blend in – and find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren't listening.

II. "We're doing an excellent job killing them."

The Vista Lounge is a Vegas-style showroom, with glistening gold edges and the desperate optimism of an ageing Cha-Cha girl. Today, the scenery has been cleared away – "I always sit at the front in these shows to see if the girls are really pretty and on this ship they are ug-lee," I hear a Reviewer mutter – and our performers are the assorted purveyors of conservative show tunes, from Podhoretz to Steyn. The first of the trip's seminars is a discussion intended to exhume the conservative corpse and discover its cause of death on the black, black night of 7 November, 2006, when the treacherous Democrats took control of the US Congress.

There is something strange about this discussion, and it takes me a few moments to realise exactly what it is. All the tropes that conservatives usually deny in public – that Iraq is another Vietnam, that Bush is fighting a class war on behalf of the rich – are embraced on this shining ship in the middle of the ocean. Yes, they concede, we are fighting another Vietnam; and this time we won't let the weak-kneed liberals lose it. "It's customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who's 'we'?" the writer Dinesh D'Souza asks angrily. "The left won by demanding America's humiliation." On this ship, there are no Viet Cong, no three million dead. There is only liberal treachery. Yes, D'Souza says, in a swift shift to domestic politics, "of course" Republican politics is "about class. Republicans are the party of winners, Democrats are the party of losers."

The panel nods, but it doesn't want to stray from Iraq. Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's one-time nominee to the Supreme Court, mumbles from beneath low-hanging jowls: "The coverage of this war is unbelievable. Even Fox News is unbelievable. You'd think we're the only ones dying. Enemy casualties aren't covered. We're doing an excellent job killing them."

....

A fracture-line in the lumbering certainty of American conservatism is opening right before my eyes. Following the break, Norman Podhoretz and William Buckley – two of the grand old men of the Grand Old Party – begin to feud. Podhoretz will not stop speaking – "I have lots of ex-friends on the left; it looks like I'm going to have some ex-friends on the right, too," he rants –and Buckley says to the chair, " Just take the mike, there's no other way." He says it with a smile, but with heavy eyes.

Podhoretz and Buckley now inhabit opposite poles of post-September 11 American conservatism, and they stare at wholly different Iraqs. Podhoretz is the Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid who travelled through a long phase of left-liberalism to a pugilistic belief in America's power to redeem the world, one bomb at a time. Today, he is a bristling grey ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been "an amazing success." He waves his fist and declaims: "There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria ... This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." He wants more wars, and fast. He is "certain" Bush will bomb Iran, and " thank God" for that.

Buckley is an urbane old reactionary, drunk on doubts. He founded the National Review in 1955 – when conservatism was viewed in polite society as a mental affliction – and he has always been sceptical of appeals to " the people," preferring the eternal top-down certainties of Catholicism. He united with Podhoretz in mutual hatred of Godless Communism, but, slouching into his eighties, he possesses a world view that is ill-suited for the fight to bring democracy to the Muslim world. He was a ghostly presence on the cruise at first, appearing only briefly to shake a few hands. But now he has emerged, and he is fighting.

"Aren't you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?" Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. "No," Podhoretz replies. "As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf War I, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran." He says he is "heartbroken" by this " rise of defeatism on the right." He adds, apropos of nothing, "There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we're winning." The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn't he sound like the liberal media? Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley "a coward". His wife nods and says, " Buckley's an old man," tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

I decide to track down Buckley and Podhoretz separately and ask them for interviews. Buckley is sitting forlornly in his cabin, scribbling in a notebook. In 2005, at an event celebrating National Review's 50th birthday, President Bush described today's American conservatives as "Bill's children". I ask him if he feels like a parent whose kids grew up to be serial killers. He smiles slightly, and his blue eyes appear to twinkle. Then he sighs, "The answer is no. Because what animated the conservative core for 40 years was the Soviet menace, plus the rise of dogmatic socialism. That's pretty well gone."

This does not feel like an optimistic defence of his brood, but it's a theme he returns to repeatedly: the great battles of his life are already won. Still, he ruminates over what his old friend Ronald Reagan would have made of Iraq. "I think the prudent Reagan would have figured here, and the prudent Reagan would have shunned a commitment of the kind that we are now engaged in... I think he would have attempted to find some sort of assurance that any exposure by the United States would be exposure to a challenge the dimensions of which we could predict." Lest liberals be too eager to adopt the Gipper as one of their own, Buckley agrees approvingly that Reagan's approach would have been to "find a local strongman" to rule Iraq.

A few floors away, Podhoretz tells me he is losing his voice, "which will make some people very happy". Then he croaks out the standard-issue Wolfowitz line about how, after September 11, the United States had to introduce democracy to the Middle East in order to change the political culture that produced the mass murderers. For somebody who declares democracy to be his goal, he is remarkably blasé about the fact that 80 per cent of Iraqis want US troops to leave their country, according to the latest polls. "I don't much care," he says, batting the question away. He goes on to insist that "nobody was tortured in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo" and that Bush is "a hero". He is, like most people on this cruise, certain the administration will attack Iran.

Podhoretz excitedly talks himself into a beautiful web of words, vindicating his every position. He fumes at Buckley, George Will and the other apostate conservatives who refuse to see sense. He announces victory. And for a moment, here in the Mexican breeze, it is as though a thousand miles away Baghdad is not bleeding. He starts hacking and coughing painfully. I offer to go to the ship infirmary and get him some throat sweets, and – locked in eternal fighter-mode – he looks thrown, as though this is an especially cunning punch. Is this random act of kindness designed to imbalance him? " I'm fine," he says, glancing contemptuously at the Bill Buckley book I am carrying. "I'll keep on shouting through the soreness."

This was a short excerpt. The full article here

Andra bloggar om: Bush, Iran, korståg, Podhoretz, Irak, Neokonservatism, islamofobi, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Bush, Iran, Podhoretz, Iraq, Religion, National Review, USA, Islamophobia, Politics, Religion, Neoconservativism, War

Associated Press: Bush Says Strikes on Iran Begin

2007-10-08T01:11:00.000-07:00

Bush, 2001: This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.

Swedish: Crusade = korståg, d.v.s. ett kristet JIHAD

Breaking news!

washingtonpost.com
Bush Says Strikes on Iran Begin

Associated Press Sunday, October 7, 2007; 10:29 PM

U.S. forces launched a strike against "targets of military opportunity" in Iran, President Bush said Sunday night. He described the action as the opening salvo in an operation to "disarm Iran and to free its people."

Bush spoke after the U.S. military struck with cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs against a site near Teheran, where Iranian leaders were thought to be, U.S. government officials said. There was no indication whether the attack was successful.

The strikes used Tomahawk cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs dropped from F-117 Nighthawks, the Air Force's stealth fighter-bombers, military officials said.

Bush addressed the nation about two hours after his 8 p.m. EST ultimatum for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give up power.

"Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force," Bush said in his address to the nation. "We will accept no outcome but victory."

He spoke as a U.S-led force of 100,000 troops ringed Iran, ready to launch a ferocious assault to topple the Iranian dictator and capture any weapons of mass destruction.

"On my order, coalition forces have begun targeting selected targets of military importance to undermine Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ability to wage war," the president said. "These are the opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."

As he has many times in the run-up to war, Bush declared that the United States has "no ambition in Iran except to remove a threat. Our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino had announced Bush's plans to speak on short notice.
© 2007 The Associated Press

So what was it worth to watch President Bush on Arabian television?

Bush denies plans to attack Iran

Fri Oct 5, 5:19 PM ET
WASHINGTON - President Bush denied in an interview with Arab television that the U.S. is gearing up to attack Iran and said he remains committed to working diplomatically to resolve the standoff with Tehran over its nuclear program.

The president, in an hour-long interview with Al-Arabiya TV, also reiterated his pledge to negotiate with Iran if it gives up its nuclear program.

"I have said that if they suspend their nuclear program, we will be at the table," Bush said, according to a transcript of the interview the White House released on Friday. "But they have so far refused to do that."

Bush brushed off as "gossip" reports in the Arab press that he has issued orders to senior U.S. military officials to prepare for an attack on Iran at the end of January or in February.

"I would call that empty propaganda," Bush said. "Evidently, there's a lot of gossip in the parts of the country — world that try to scare people about me personally or my country or what we stand for. And that kind of gossip is just what it is. It's gossip. It's baseless gossip."

In the hour-long interview, Bush acknowledged that some people in the Middle East think he is against Islam and is a man or war. The interview was conducted on Thursday in the Oval Office and two other areas of the White House by the Saudi-owned satellite news broadcaster.

"I understand the images of my country have been distorted," Bush said. "And I understand people say things about me personally that simply aren't true. And so I appreciate the chance to come and talk to you directly and to talk to your viewers directly about what's in my heart and about the fact that my country is a country of peace."

From the White House archives, September, 2001:

Remarks by the President Upon Arrival

Our nation was horrified, but it's not going to be terrorized. We're a great nation. We're a nation of resolve. We're a nation that can't be cowed by evil-doers. I've got great faith in the American people. If the American people had seen what I had seen in New York City, you'd have great faith, too. You'd have faith in the hard work of the rescuers; you'd have great faith because of the desire for people to do what's right for America; you'd have great faith because of the compassion and love that our fellow Americans are showing each other in times of need.

I also have faith in our military. And we have got a job to do - just like the farmers and ranchers and business owners and factory workers have a job to do. My administration has a job to do, and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers. We will call together freedom loving people to fight terrorism.

And on on this day of - on the Lord's Day, I say to my fellow Americans, thank you for your prayers, thank you for your compassion, thank you for your love for one another. And tomorrow when you get back to work, work hard like you always have. But we've been warned. We've been warned there are evil people in this world. We've been warned so vividly - and we'll be alert. Your government is alert. The governors and mayors are alert that evil folks still lurk out there.

As I said yesterday, people have declared war on America, and they have made a terrible mistake, because this is a fabulous country. Our economy will come back. We'll still be the best farmers and ranchers in the world. We're still the most innovative entrepreneurs in the world. On this day of faith, I've never had more faith in America than I have right now.

We need to go back to work tomorrow and we will. But we need to be alert to the fact that these evil-doers still exist. We haven't seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time. No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft - fly U.S. aircraft into buildings full of innocent people - and show no remorse. This is a new kind of -- a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I'm going to be patient.

But I can assure the American people I am determined, I'm not going to be distracted, I will keep my focus to make sure that not only are these brought to justice, but anybody who's been associated will be brought to justice. Those who harbor terrorists will be brought to justice. It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century.

And the Crusade goes on and on. One budding theocracy and its Army of God to attack a theocracy in full bloom. The correct date for the Breaking News item above was of course

washingtonpost.com
Bush Says Strikes on Iraq Begin
Associated Press Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 10:29 PM

And Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Baghdad etc. had been updated to the current situation. Associated Press and Washington Post might as well use the article when Iranian Evil-Doers are bombed.

Andra bloggar om: Bush, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Irak, krig, religion, korståg, fundamentalism, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Bush, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Iraq, Religion, Army of God, USA, Christocracy, Politics, Religion, Theocracy, War,

Tighter leash on Blackwater Army of God?

2007-10-06T01:46:00.000-07:00

Är Blackwater (som granskas i filmen Iraq For Sale nedan) ett säkerhetsföretag? Svenska Dagbladet: "Dödsskjutningarna den 16 september har rört upp starka känslor i Irak, där Blackwater av vissa ses som en privat armé som åtnjuter straffrihet."

Army of God? More Swedish .... Förutom att vara f.d. marinkårssoldat är Blackwaters grundare Eric Prince en missionerande kristen fundamentalist. - Link to Christian Freedom International, Board Members: Blackwater's founder Eric Prince.

Swedish media is referring to Blackwater as a Security Firm. To quote the quote above: "certain people in Iraq sees Blackwater as a private army...." A lot of people in the USA sees Blackwater as a war profiteering mercenary army, that is "en krigsprofiterande armé av legosoldater" in Swedish.

Just Another Blog (from L.A) seems to have the same view of Blackwater as this blog (but contains much more info on Blackwater's Mission Statement and so on):

Private Army of God

How long until these Christo-fascists decide that the so-called "War on Christmas" is a real, shooting, war & decide to take out a few Target stores w/ their "counter-insurgency aircraft" because Target employees are forced to say "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas?"

Though before that we'll probably see Blackwater overthrowing (for the sake of "security and peace," of course) governments where Christians are being "persecuted," as Christian Freedom International would have you believe. Eritrea seems like a good bet, as India, Egypt, & Pakistan might be too big for Blackwater to take on. Funny how the "majority rights" of the people in those countries aren't that important.

Robert Greenwald, Huffington Post:Erik Prince, Blackwater War Profiteer, Attacks Iraq for Sale

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (Google copy: move mouse pointer here to watch the full movie) tells the story of Erik Prince (video clip: The Tale of Prince - A War Profiteer) and Blackwater, and their consistent profiting from the war. As the film is seen across the United States, it is having a powerful effect on audiences. People are responding strongly to the emotional and gut wrenching story of Prince choosing profit over patriotism as he cuts corners at Blackwater in his relentless pursuit of money. The film tells the story of two young men who are killed as a result of Blackwater focusing on profits, and their grieving and enraged mothers. These mothers are taking the fight to Blackwater and when they see the film, audiences are also activated to take steps to stop Blackwater.

Sadly, rather than working to help and heal the mothers who have suffered this loss, Prince and his profiteering co-horts, have gone into attack mode. And in this case, ironically so with a company who sent out an email after the '04 election saying, "Bush Wins Four More Years!! Hooyah!" attacking Iraq for Sale for being "election year left wing politics."

New York Times: State Dept. Plans Tighter Control of Security Firm

In outlining the measures announced Friday, a State Department spokesman said they had been approved by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice based on the initial recommendations of Patrick F. Kennedy, the department’s director of management policy. Mr. Kennedy is the leader of a team Ms. Rice appointed to look at the way Blackwater and other private security contractors operate in Iraq.
Mr. Kennedy had originally selected Blackwater to provide security for top American civilian officials in Baghdad, when he served as chief of staff to L. Paul Bremer III, the administrator of the United States occupation authority in 2003 and 2004, Mr. Bremer said in an interview on Friday. That mission grew into a $1.2 billion multiyear security contract with the State Department for the company.

New York Times: Blackwater USA

Founded in 1998 by former Navy Seals, Blackwater USA says it has prepared tens of thousands of security personnel to work in hot spots around the world. At its complex in North Carolina, it has shooting ranges for high-powered weapons, buildings for simulating hostage rescue missions and a bunkhouse for trainees.
The Blackwater installation is so modern and well-equipped that Navy Seals stationed at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, Va., routinely use it, military officials said. So do police units from around the country, who come to Blackwater for specialized training.

MOYOCK, N.C. - Today's after-lunch lesson: How to break a man's arm with your bare hands.
The students pay close attention. On a patch of grass under a powder-blue sky, they pair off to practice the moves - like the steps to some merciless dance:
Hold here. Pivot there. Trap arm. Bend. And snap.

Slavko Ilic circles the grappling forms, darting in to shout encouragement or correct a technique. He's an extra-large martial arts expert. He sports a shaved head, chiseled arms and the look of a man who does not back down.
"Again!" Ilic barks. "Do it again!"

Getting it right in class now could be the difference between life and death later. Graduates are, most likely, headed to the messy battlefields of the war on terrorism - a fitful conflict with no front lines.

These men are not soldiers, at least not anymore. All have military experience, but in order to join a new breed of warriors - private security contractors - they must pass this eight-week, $20,000 course.

Opposition to Blackwater USA's Plans for New Private Military Base Near Potrero a Tiny Rural Town East of San Diego Heats Up...

SAN DIEGO, CA – - The controversial private security firm Blackwater USA is planning to build a new private military training base on an 824-acre ranch near Potrero, a tiny rural town east of San Diego near the US-Mexico border. The project, known as "Blackwater West," is coming under increasing fire by a growing coalition of local residents, environmentalists, peace activists, and recently joined by their Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA). Raymond Lutz, President of the East County Democratic Club, will submit a resolution to the California Democratic Party State Convention to make private military bases, such as Blackwater West, illegal in California and more generally, to make any paramilitary, mercenary or similar boot camps illegal unless they are placed in safer, government-controlled locations.

Andra bloggar om: Eric Prince, Blackwater, religion, mission, frälsningsarmén, kristokrati, Iraq for Sale, video, film, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Eric Prince, Blackwater, War Profiteers, Iraq for Sale, Video, Army of God, USA, Christocracy, Politics, Religion, Mercenaries, Missionaries,

John McCain on the Christocracy train

2007-10-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

John McCain: Constitution Established a 'Christian Nation'

Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator John McCain discusses the country's Judeo-Christian roots, explains why the prospect of a Muslim in the White House makes him uncomfortable, and reveals that he wouldn't undergo a full-immersion baptism until his presidential campaign is over.

Watch segments of the video interview. Or read a transcript below.

Seems like the election 2008 will see even more Focus On Christ than was obvious during the Bush campaigns.

Jews On First! (defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind)

Comment in Swedish: Det amerikanska presidentvalet 2008 kommer i hög grad att handla om vem som kommer att få mest stöd från kristna fundamentalister. John McCain vill inte missa det kristokratiska tåget.

Andra bloggar om: presidentvalet 2008, religion, islamofobi, kristokrati, judisk liberalism, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: John McCain, election 2008, Bush, White House, USA, Christocracy, Theocracy, Politics Islam Islamophobia

Video Conference With God

2007-10-05T04:21:00.000-07:00

En videokonferens i tre akter. Som framgår av akt ett nedan hade Ted Haggard kontinuerlig tillgång till Vita Huset och president Bush.

A video conference in three acts. As made clear below, and here in TIME, Ted Haggard had continous access to the White House and president Bush.

Move mouse over links below to watch the videos here or click for Youtube pages

Video Conference With God, Act 1 Ted Haggard Bashing Gays - from JESUS CAMP the Movie

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In Act 2 we meet Reverend Haggard's secret boy friend via MSNBC: Family Values: Ted Haggard, his Male Prostitute and Meth

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In the final act we see James Dobson, the number one Christocrat in the USA, being treated as an elderly statesman on CNN

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More about James Dobson on Jews On First

Andra bloggar om: sex, droger,religion, kristokrati, USA, politik - Intressant

Technorati: Ted Haggard, SEX, Drugs, Bush, White House, USA, James Dobson, Focus on the Family, Christocracy, Theocracy, Politics

Judisk liberalism i Sverige?

2007-10-04T23:20:00.001-07:00

Judar är idag åter i kläm mellan extrema ideologier. Toleranta - liberala - judiska röster dränks av extremister i alla läger, kristen fundamentalism, islamism och judisk fundamentalism. Som ett resultat av detta sätter många likhetstecken mellan Israel/judar och bosättningarna i de ockuperade områdena.

Den första bok, Lords of the Land, The Settlers and the State of Israel, 1967-2004, som dokumenterar bosättningarna och hela historien visar att en liten klick judiska extremister, 'zeolots' - uppskattningsvis 2% av Israels befolkning - kidnappat varumärket Jude för fundamentalistiskt religiösa syften (d.v.s. att återerövra det land som Gud gav åt judarna för att på så sätt få personlig frälsning). Symptomatisk är att denna bok gavs ut i Israel på hebreiska. Läsvärd.

Om nu extremism och fundamentalism är ett växande problem för tre av världsreligionerna med rötter i Mellanöstern, varför då fokusera på USA och kristen fundamentalism? Det finns flera skäl som gör detta angeläget. Det som i USA bl.a. kallas kristokrati - Christocracy - dominerar helt den globala arenan utan att det uppmärksammas i motsvarande grad.

En röst som bör uppmärksammas är Jews On First! (defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind) som ger många exempel på hur den amerikanska kristokratin utgör ett snabbt växande hot mot alla moderata/liberala judar, kristna och muslimer, d.v.s. individer som väljer att stå emot extremism i alla former.

Under president Bush har kristen extremism fått i stort sett fria händer på alla områden. Det mest skrämmande är nog hur stora delar av den amerikanska militärmakten tagit till sig kristen tro som ett vapen, kalla det en kristen variant av jihad. Detta är dokumenterat i skrämmande detalj i det vakna skiktet av amerikansk media, men denna promotional video from the Christian Embassy hör till de mer oroande exemplen.

Detta första inlägg är också det sista av sitt slag. I fortsättningen får källorna tala sitt eget språk, möjligtvis med mycket korta sammanfattningar på svenska.

Always important link: Not in My Name

Andra bloggar om: fundamentalism, religion, kristokrati, judisk liberalism, Israel, USA, politik - Intressant