As soon as the name of the shooter at Fort Hood who killed 13 people and wounded 38—Nidal Malik Hasan—was known, reporters and bloggers began jumping to conclusions about his heritage and his motive.

Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith said “the name tells us a lot,” and an op-ed column on FoxNews.com suggested the shooting spree was “the largest terror act since 9/11.”  Later, Fox and Friends hosts suggested that the military should conduct "special debriefings" for all Muslim officers.

Commentators at the Jihad Watch blog immediately labeled Hasan a “jihadi” and called for a “war on Islam.”

World Net Daily’s headline trumpeted “Fort Hood triggerman: Muslim, shrink, officer,” implying that Hasan’s religion was his most relevant attribute.

CBSNews.com decried an immediate “anti-Muslim backlash” that included at least one threatening call to the Arab-American Institute. However, the news website then poured fuel on the fire itself with its title for a videotaped interview with Ft. Hood Base Commander Lt. Gen Bob Cone: although Cone repeatedly emphasized the bravery and rapid response of the soldiers at the scene and made only a passing reference to “unconfirmed reports” that Hasan said “Allah Akbar” while shooting, CBS titled the video “Fort Hood Suspect: ‘Allahu Akbar’.”

Fearful of reprisals, local mosques have stepped up security, and relatives of Hasan issued a statement of their love for America; also, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference denouncing the violence as unjustified by any religious ideology.

Lest you think that given Hasan’s name and religion, the backlash against Arabs and Muslims is only natural, recall that when Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in 1995, no one raised alarms about his Catholic upbringing or his Irish heritage. And when it was discovered that Seung-hui Cho had compared himself to Jesus Christ before killing 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech in 2007, no one called for a “war" on either Christians or Korean-Americans.

Come to think of it, Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hasan went to Virginia Tech himself…so why isn’t anyone inciting a “war on Virginia Tech”?

Of the overwhelming evidence which contradicted the official explanation that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who murdered President John F Kennedy in 1963, Noam Chomsky said:

"I mean, who knows? And who cares? I mean plenty of people get killed all the time. Why does it matter that one of them happened to be John F Kennedy?" (See YouTube broadcast "The Shame of Noam Chomsky & left gatekeepers")

  Chomsky insists that Oswald, acting alone, murdered President John F Kennedy, but also says that even if it was not the case, and he was, indeed, murdered by people within the US administration, why should it matter?

The answer should have been obvious. If it was purely bad luck that Kennedy was murdered, then other political figures, opposed to the establishment, would have little to fear. People such as Barack Obama who were (once) thought to pose a threat to the US corporate elites would have had little reason to fear that those corporate elites would be so ruthless and so unconscionable as to conspire to have him killed, contrary to what many of his supporters openly feared would happen. Strangely, even people such as Australia's Phillip Adams, who refuses to consider JFK and 9/11 'conspiracy theories', expressed this fear for Barack Obama before he was elected.

If, on the other hand, there was a conspiracy to murder JFK as many credible people argue, because he posed a threat to powerful vested interests who wanted to escalate the Vietnam War, then surely others, who stand opposed to those vested interests, should also fear assassination.

Clearly it must matter whether or not a gunman acting alone murdered JFK and Chomsky could not possibly have been so stupid as to not have understood that. The only possible reason why Chomsky would choose to insist that it does not is to allow him to avoid having to openly defend the lone crazed gunman theory, which has happily peddled on other occasions.

In fact, in the same decade, three of the other most charismatic and effective leaders opposed to the US establishment also met violent deaths in suspicious circumstances that were never properly investigated - Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy.

In all cases, Noam Chomsky insisted that there was nothing suspicious. Almost certainly, because of the influence he wielded amongst progressive circles, many who would have otherwise followed the trail that would have led to the killers of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK were dissuaded from doing so.

Thus the left of the 1960's was decapitated and those responsible were never unmasked and brought to justice.

Shortly after the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 Chomsky pronounced that Al Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden had indeed master-minded the attacks, just as George Bush had insisted. Those who questioned the official account and pointed to the glaring contradictions and absurdities of the official account of 9/11 were dismissed by Chomsky as conspiracy theorists.

Once again, many, who held Chomsky in high regard, were dissuaded from questioning the official 9/11 fiction, thus leaving unchallenged the huge propaganda advantage that made it possible for the US rulers to overcome public opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and numerous attacks on civil liberties and democratic freedoms in the West.

During my participation in the protest movement against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I never personally doubted the official 9/11 explanation nor was I aware of anyone else who questioned it, such was the influence of the likes of Chomsky on the anti-war movement in Australia.

Barrie Zwicker has shown₁ how Noam Chomsky is a practitioner of the 'bait and switch' technique. The 'bait' is his many scholarly works which show up many of the crimes of the US rulers (although rarely accompanied by practical suggestions as to how to prevent these crimes). The 'switch' are ideas that serve the interests of the US rulers. These include acceptance of the lone crazed gunman explanation of the JFK assassination and the dismissal of the overwhelming evidence pointing to senior figures within the administration as the perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity.

Postscript: (19 July) In spite of the damning critique of Noam Chomsky by Zwicker, and Chomsky's failure to acknowledge, let alone respond to that critique, many progressives, even amongst those aware of the truth of 'false flag' attacks such as 9/11, still accord Chomsky credibility that he clearly does not deserve. One of many possible examples is the publication of the article "The Grim Picture of Obama's Middle East" also republished by Information Clearing House. Whatever may be the merit of that article, the fact remains that Chomsky has done enormous harm to the causes he claims to support and will continue to harm those causes until more people are able to see him for what he is.

Appendix: Online forum discussion about influence of Noam Chomsky in Australia

So, far, on two occasions, when I have participated in online forums, my detractors have referred to my low regard for Noam Chomsky as expressed in this article in attempts to discredit the views I had put to those forums. The following are recent posts to a Larvatus Prodeo discussion about 9/11:

More..........................

by Michael Werbowski / November 7th, 2009

20 years after the fall of communism , American style capitalism has also fallen. But the downfall was silent, without any visible walls toppling or crumbling. The 9/11 like collapse of the financial firms of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers left no piles of rubble or slabs of fractured concrete on the ground, just lots of laid off traders and deal makers. But the brokerage and investment banks’ end signalled the death knell of market capitalism as we knew it; another misbegotten ideology born out of the musings of Adam Smith, Ricardo and Milton Friedman was laid to rest unceremoniously. The troika which presumed that man’s most bestial instincts can be curbed in the pursuit of profit and happiness were wrong. Unfortunately these great men just like Marx, Engles and Lenin underestimated man’s penchant for larceny and venality. In theory, the quest for individual gain — i.e., greed — should trickle down to the less fortunate and serve the greater common good. As we now see with the “banksters” in pin striped suits, this is not the case. The craven financiers- who recklessly gambled away the hard earned saving of pensioners and members of the now defunct middle class continue to “roll in dough”.

That is thanks to the cash handouts generously given out to them by the Goldman Sachs run administration in Washington. The Wall Street regime continues to make monetary policy over the heads of the electorate, devaluing the dollar purposely (in the name of ‘carry trade’ transactions) while bringing the erstwhile American economic powerhouse to its knees. An ailing economy, whose financial system has imploded like the twin towers, is now headed for an Argentinean style default and/or Weimar like hyper inflation. Casino not entrepreneurial capitalism still rules over us but the ideology is morally bankrupt. So gentlemen place your bets “rien n’est va plus” as the croupiers would say on Wall Street.

1989-2009: From the dislocation of Soviet Empire to today’s American decline

What brought down the Soviet was economic morass and industrial paralysis. Along with colonial aveveturim in places like Angola and Afghanistan which drained the national treasury. A bloated bureaucracy and an inefficient gargantuan military industrial complex which also bled the federation’s resources. America today is in a symmetrical situation to the Soviet Union’s predicament in the late 1980s. Hence, 2009 maybe to the U.S what 1989 was to the late and somewhat great U.S.S.R. The U.S is entangled in two endless war of occupation one in the Middle East the other in central Asia.

These costly conflicts at a time of great economic distress which recalls the deprivations of the great depression era, have led to historic budget deficits. During the Bush neo con years ( the neo cons being a ruthless clique driving foreign policy in the White House equivalent to the KGB apparatchiks who were influencing the Kremlin’s actions abroad) the federal government’s spent like there was no tomorrow and big government grew to monstrous proportions. Huge increases in the military spending added to this horrid fiscal nightmare. Barack Obama, the man of the moment or the “Gorbi” of our times, like the last Soviet leader, has inherited a huge mess which requires Herculean, if not superhuman capacity to clean up. And like the last leader of the Soviet empire, Obama enjoys huge popularity aboard, while being practically loathed, ridiculed and derided at home (especially on the radio airwaves). And now after the recent electoral gains of the Republicans in some key states, he’s wounded (perhaps fatally) politically.

Obama: The post modern “sun king” and absolutism American style

Obama’s pseudo or simulated “Glasnost” or the apparent policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions has led ironically to many Americans placing an absolute blind trust in the man who embodies “change”. There is an abdication of reason in the name of “yes we can”. A kind of collective hypnosis hangs over the nation. Meanwhile, there are some “hard core” pockets of dissent, made up of tea party patriots, who are denouncing his “socialist style” health care project. For its part, the zombie like mass media appears to be either asleep at the wheel to all this, or is willingly (in an insidious and complicit manner) allowing a Soviet style personality cult to take shape-mold the minds of millions and enthrall the masses.

The Obama Factor

The president’s inverted version of “perestroika” (that is the restructuring or retooling of the economy) has been fine tuned to meet the need of the oligarchs and corporate barons who support him and prompt him behind the curtains. Obama and his czar –commissars (and his adoring minions of PR spin operatives) have deftly in a brilliant slight of hand in one swift jest, effectively expropriating the entire financial and industrial sectors in America by means of massive taxpayer funded “bail outs”. These ploys have turned the essence of capitalism upside down, by rewarding cronyism and criminal behavior to the point where “crime pays” very handsomely indeed, and enables billionaires, fraudsters and financiers to obtain great gain almost without almost any pain or punishment. These perverse policies are likely to fail. In the end, Gorbachev’s policies although ostensibly well meaning, actually hastened the demise of the Soviet state. This later led to its fragmentation and disintegration of the communist superpower and its Eastern Empire. America’s current plight may lead to a similar outcome.

Michael Werbowski is a graduate of post communist studies from the University of Leeds, UK. Read other articles by Michael, or visit Michael's website.

Killer’s pre-rampage behavior is completely at odds with the idea of him preparing to massacre more than a dozen of his colleagues.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 6, 2009

The Empire strikes back – right when when public support for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan sinks to all time lows, an anti-war Islamic extremist with links to suicide bombers goes on a shooting rampage at a U.S. army base, reinvigorating support for the war on terror and demonizing opposition to it as anti-American extremism. The scam would be believable if it wasn’t so perfectly staged.

Without getting into convoluted conspiracy theories about mind control and whatever else, not that they aren’t without merit, the facts we already know about Hasan and his behavior prior to the deadly shootings just screams out “patsy” and “set-up” and almost exactly mirrors other terror scams the Empire has run in the past.

Just like the would-be liquid bombers that were supposedly planning on bringing down multiple airliners in August 2006, who were caught on CCTV buying bulk supplies of cake in the very hours before the plot, Hasan’s pre-shooting behavior contradicts completely the idea that he was preparing for a deadly rampage.

Shortly before the massacre, Hasan was caught on camera shopping at the convenience store located on the army base – laughing and joking. Is this the behavior of a man psychologically readying himself for the high-intensity horror of gunning down dozens of his colleagues, or someone unaware of what was to follow?

We learn that Hasan “Showed no signs of worry or stress when he stopped at 7-Eleven for his daily breakfast of hash browns, said Jeannie Strickland, the store’s manager.” ” He came in (Thursday) morning just like normal,” she said, “nothing weird, nothing out of the ordinary.”

CNN feverishly seized upon the CCTV footage and began broadcasting it relentlessly because Hasan is seen wearing Arab garb and Muslim headdress, fitting the carefully pre-arranged stereotype perfectly.                More........................

Arthur Silber

November 4, 2009

Hey, relax. It's not going to be the end of the world -- but as my headline says, in time it may be the end of the internet as you know it.

Cory Doctorow:

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

Look folks, if this copyright treaty means protecting Mickey Mouse from unauthorized reproductions, then it's a small price to pay to forever risk losing access to civic participation, health information, education, registration and renewal of government documents, global communication, access to government, weather and traffic, emergency service information, freedom of speech and assembly....

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEOPLE!!!

Just open your wireless port, call it parasite.net, and then set yourself up as an 'ISP' with an FTP, web server, torrent tracker, etc. If you can convince enough people in your area to create access points and mirrors of the content we'll eventually cut out the telecoms and have a truly distributed data and communications network. Isn't that right Cory?

criminalisewar

How the "most moral army in the world" wages war on students (Part 2)

Stuart Littlewood

Berlanty Azzam, November 4, 2009 The Israeli embassy in London has finally made its excuses for the "senseless outrage" of preventing Berlanty Azzam, a fourth-year student of Bethlehem University, from continuing her studies and robbing her of her degree. She was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint and deported to Gaza blindfolded and handcuffed, and dumped there in the dark late at night. Re: Ms Berlanty Azzam (I.D. 801158791) Ms Azzam is a Gaza resident who is staying in the West Bank illegally. Ms Azzam held a permit to stay in the West Bank for 4 days in 2005 and since the permit has expired has been residing in the West Bank illegally. As you probably know, every Gaza resident who stays in the West Bank requires a permit, failing to do so is a breach of the law. As Ms Azzam has failed to provide a valid permit she was deported back to Gaza. If Ms Azzam wishes to complete her studies in Bethlehem University, she will need to submit her application to the relevant authorities (COGAT) in Gaza where they will be processed. Sincerely yours, Ms Ma'ayan, Israeli Public Affairs Department Embassy of Israel 2 Palace Green London W8 4QB Tel: +44-(0)207-957-9541 Fax: +44-(0)207-957-9555 Email: Public@london.mfa.gov.il Berlanty was resident in the West Bank since 2005 and all that time resisted the temptation to return home to Gaza to see her folks. If her permit expired in 2005 why did the Israelis wait to 'discover’ this fact just 2 months before she was due to graduate? What the embassy tells me does not tally with what the University has been told. In an update issued today Bethlehem University management reports: On Tuesday, 3 November 2009 the lawyers at Gisha were informed that the state of Israel claims that Berlanty has no right to be at Bethlehem University - to be in the West Bank. However, Berlanty did not need a permit to remain in the West Bank after entering, and no such kind of permit existed in 2005, so she couldn't have requested one. Berlanty only needed the Israeli permit to cross through Israel from Gaza to the West Bank, which she received. The Israeli High Court of Justice will hold another court hearing on Berlanty's case next Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 9:00am to have the Israeli military to further explain why Berlanty was removed from Bethlehem to Gaza. In their response to the court, the Israeli state admits that a "mistake" was made in removing Berlanty on the night of Wednesday, 28 October 2009. Orders were given by the legal adviser's office not to do it. It was done anyway and still they refuse to return her to her studies at Bethlehem University. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are internationally recognized as one integral territory. The embassy’s explanation is at odds with the contention by Birzeit (another West Bank university) that similar action by Israel against a number of Birzeit students from Gaza was "in clear violation of the fundamental human right to education, the right to freedom of movement and the right to choose one’s place of residence within a single territory, in accordance with internationally accepted standards of human rights law". I’m not a lawyer, but it would be nice to hear a legal expert explain what authority Israel has for its bloody-minded and cruel conduct towards hard-working students. 　 Stuart Littlewood 4 November 2009

Never Before Campaign

Malcom Lagauche

November 5, 2009 On August 22, 2007, Jonathan Schwarz wrote a column for his website, www.tinyrevolution.com, called "Advancing the Debate on My Faith in Saddam Hussein." In it, he related to a recent dialogue he had with Michael Cohen, a former speechwriter for the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. during the Clinton administration. Evidently, Cohen had written a few false statements about Iraq and Schwarz pointed out his errors. For instance, Cohen said that Saddam Hussein kicked out U.N. inspectors from Iraq in 1998. Also, he stated that Iraq never publicly admitted it was free of WMD. From reading Schwarz’ account, he is knowledgeable of these subjects as well as other information concerning the lies about Iraq and Saddam. During the dialogue, Cohen stated, "Why you put so much faith in the words and deeds of Saddam Hussein is beyond me." Cohen’s response is identical to those of many who, when confronted with facts, immediately dismiss them because they concern Saddam Hussein. When these people become cornered with reality, they can only rely on the trump card of denigrating Saddam. One thing about this article stood out: the title. Rarely does a Western scribe admit that Saddam told the truth and the U.S. lied. Logically, with a track record of lies vs. truth, Saddam should come out on top in the information war. But, it is so simple that people do not want to believe the truth. For years, I have been writing and speaking about the lies put forth about Saddam Hussein that were thrust upon him and his regime by the U.S. government and media. Don’t think for one minute that I have had a smooth and positive experience in defending truth vs. deceit, a much more comprehensive and accurate description than solely defending Saddam Hussein. In the buildup to Desert Storm, I read or heard about so many preposterous atrocities attributed to Saddam that I discounted them. Hindsight shows I was right. Only a duped individual could believe that Saddam enjoyed watching people boil in acid, or that Iraq’s soldiers threw babies from incubators in Kuwait and they died on the hospital floor. I did not realize that the general public would be sucked into such fables. But, in reality, there were millions of duped individuals; more than there were people with clear thinking who use logic. In 1992, I decided to write a book on the buildup to and the execution of Operation Desert Storm. The book, The Sledgehammer and the Ant was published in early 1993. This was my first book and I had to gain publicity, so I arranged various speaking engagements at bookstores and universities as well as presentations to various social groups. The fun was about to begin. One of my first engagements was to speak to a Humanist group in San Diego. The event drew more than 100 people. After my presentation, I took questions and answers. The first person said, "You’re a paid agent of Saddam Hussein," and he left the building. The next one said, "George Bush should have nuked Iraq," and he left the building. I was 0 for 2, but I kept calling on people who wanted to make a statement or ask a question. The third person’s message was a surprise. He stood up, looked at the crowd, and said: You people pride yourself on wanting to know the truth. You always whine that the government is lying to you. This guy comes and shows real reason to doubt the government, and you make such stupid statements. You’re a bunch of assholes. He did not leave the room. Then, a few people began to ask legitimate questions. I realized that speaking to groups would entail sticking up for the Iraqi government in the subject of truth vs. lies. This was my first experience in seeing that the public still had not understood the reality of the U.S. propaganda against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Shortly after, I held a booksigning at a San Diego bookstore. The place was packed. When I was done, I announced the question and answer segment and did not know what would happen. The first person I called on, a woman who stated that she was Jewish, said, "I can’t think of anything more scary than Saddam Hussein with an atomic weapon." I quickly remarked, "I can." She then asked, "What?" My immediate response was, "Israel with 600." Everybody in the room, except the Jewish woman, cheered. After a few engagements, I began to be comfortable in my presentations. I also realized that I had to have my facts in order so I could rebut any ludicrous statement about Saddam’s lust for human flesh. I had to have a comprehensive knowledge of the lies and the debunking of them. There was no room for factual error. Over the years, I gained a reputation of being a Saddam sympathizer. But, not all the people who listened to me took that as a negative. Every time I spoke, a few people would approach me and tell me that they held similar views but were afraid to publicly mention them. I told them that it was not my style to be in the closet. Most thanked me and said I gave them the courage to speak out. During the 1990s, El Cajon, CA, a city of 100,000 people, was the home of several Iraqi-American clubs and organizations. If I entered an anti-Saddam club with an Iraqi friend, people would whisper and point at me. I was known to them as a "pro-Saddam" agent. On the other hand, when I entered a pro-Saddam club, people ran up to me and invited me to their tables and offered me food. Instead of people at tables pointing at me, these Iraqi-Americans waved to me and gave me a thumbs-up. My initial response in 1990 to ignore the ridiculous allegations against Saddam Hussein were prompted by common sense, not research. Today, I can say that I have put in thousands of hours of research on Iraq and its struggle against U.S. imperialism and that my sixth sense in 1990 has been corroborated by my scrutiny. Many journalists who opposed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq have written about the excellent Iraqi education system prior to the bombing of the country in 1991. But, there is always a disclaimer. A standard statement is, "Iraq had a fine education system. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sticking up for Saddam Hussein." This illogic is a main reason why Iraq was destroyed by the U.S. One cannot speak of the former education system of Iraq without attributing it to the legacy of Saddam Hussein. The education system was outstanding because of, not despite, Saddam Hussein. Not everybody denigrated Saddam. The late Jude Wanniski, former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, wrote tens of thousands of words defending Saddam Hussein. He did his research and debunked every lie put out against the Iraqi president. The truth about Iraq and Saddam was a passion for Wanniski. Wanniski challenged each and every politician who made preposterous statements about Saddam. Not one could refute Wanniski other than accusing him of being a "Saddam dupe." The automatic denigration of someone who says anything good about Saddam Hussein has led to the atrocities occurring in Iraq today. All one has to say is "Saddam did it" and the subject then is closed. With no opposition, the myths become facts. I interviewed Captain Eric May, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer about the deception put forth by the U.S. government about Iraq. Here is a question I asked him and his reply: ML: In your opinion, did the U.S. do anything positive in removing Saddam Hussein and his government? CM: You remember the first year of the war, the commentators were saying to the naysayers, "Well, what do you mean? Are you saying they’d be better off if Saddam was still in charge?" That was something that shut everybody up because, one year into this, everybody was still believing the myth that we freed the Iraqis. At this point, the reason why nobody asks if they’d be better off with Saddam in power is that it has been so transparent to anybody, except a Republican clone, that they were much better off when Saddam was in power. Captain May hit the nail right on the head. To this day, if one wants to shut up a war critic, all he/she has to do is say, "Well, at least Saddam is gone," and the discussion ends. It is precisely because Saddam is gone that Iraq is in such a diabolical state: a condition that may be irreversible. To some Iraqis, the country of Iraq no longer exists. There is sound reasoning and evidence to justify this theory. Recently, Eric Margolis, an internationally-known foreign correspondent, was interviewed about Iraq. He made the point of truth vs. lies as he stated that President Saddam Hussein told the truth about WMD and President Bush and Vice President Cheney lied. He pulled no punches. Then, he added the most important aspect of the argument; an aspect that is not even considered a possibility with today’s U.S. government. Margolis said that there is much speculation and jockeying for position among the newly-converted anti-war Democrats as to who is more anti-war. But, not one has said, "The war was wrong." This has been my point since March 2003. Not one U.S. politician has said "The war was wrong." They only criticize the war strategy, not the concept of the war. Those of us who have researched the subject of Iraq in detail must repeatedly state "The war was wrong." We must do it in an unapologetic manner. When speaking of the positive aspects of Iraq prior to its destruction by the U.S., we must not use qualifying statements such as, "I’m not sticking up for Saddam." The facts must be put forth without an apology. Most importantly, we must say, "Iraq was better off under Saddam," over and over again. If the truth about Iraq is not allowed to be heard without qualifying statements, the truth will be lost. If the truth is lost, there will be more horrendous U.S. attacks against innocent countries in the future. The script is the same each time: demonize a leader and the public will think the U.S. has launched an epic battle against the most diabolical person in history. It worked with Ghadaffi; it worked with Noriega; it worked with Aidid; it worked with Milosevic; and it certainly worked, and still is working, with Saddam Hussein. My conscience is clear. In all my writing about Iraq, I never qualified a statement or apologized for my words. If telling the truth and exposing the lies about Iraq and its government earns me the moniker "Saddam defender," "Saddam apologist," "Saddam dupe," so be it. At least I did not sell out or succumb to the lies or find myself in a position of assisting the pro-war and imperialist agenda of the U.S., all the time being an opponent to the war. (Note to Einar: I have received some e-mail messages from you, yet when I try to return a reply, I get an "undeliverable" message. For some reason, although I had no problem in the past, my e-mail server won’t send messages to your address even though I receive them from you.)

by Gilad Atzmon / November 5th, 2009

“Why would any writer make up stories about the Holocaust?” asks Melissa Katsoulis on mainstream British media outlet The Independent.

Katsoulis has recently published a book about the history of literary hoaxes. She is interested in particular in a unique fictional genre; namely ‘the Holocaust hoaxers’.

On the one hand, she confesses that “special privilege must be given to those increasingly few witness-writers who survived the Second World War in Europe.” She is even willing to accept Elie Wiesel’s peculiar take on ‘truth and fiction’, that “some stories are true that never happened.”

On the other hand she says, “those memoirists who think that they can pretend they were there when they weren’t ought to remember that hijacking the experiences of others for selfish ends will only end in ignominy.”

Katsoulis suggests that perhaps what “readers seek in trauma stories is akin to what people look for in pornography: something edgy they have never seen before, followed by a spectacular resolution”. Very much like the case of pornography, the dedicated audience of Jewish pain “want to identify (safely) with what they are reading; to try on someone else’s crisis for a while and see how it compares to their own.”

Katsoulis’ reference to ‘pornography’ is indeed interesting bearing in mind that, at the time of the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem (1960’s), a new genre of S&M pornography namely Stalagemerged in Israel. It was a short-lived, highly sexualised fictional magazine that drew its imagery from Nazi exploitation of inmates in prisoner camps.

However, Katsoulis’ reference to ‘pornography’ may raise some questions. While pornography consumption can be realised as an attempt to seek libidinal pleasure through the imagery of others celebrating their symptoms, one may wonder, what kind of satisfaction anyone might seek from the repetition of a holocaust memory? Do we look for satisfaction? And if we do, what kind of satisfaction are we after exactly? What are the symptoms that are celebrated by the story tellers, and what are our symptoms consuming them?

Instead of a culture hooked on recycled images of degradation and suffering, I would actually expect a moral lesson to surface from the Shoa. I would hope for a genuine search for mercy and compassion. Evidently, this has never happened. Putting aside Israeli barbarism in Palestine, the West and the English speaking empire have never stopped igniting wars in the name of fake values driven by the Holocaust (democracy, liberalism, ‘universal’ human rights and so on).

Katsoulis stresses that the ‘hoaxers’ “had difficult childhoods but, feeling that their truth was shamefully small, they sought the grand signifier of the Holocaust to attract the compassion that they desired.” I urge you to read Katsoulis and if you have a spare moment, check out the comments that are no less revealing.

I myself saw recently saw two short videos that left me puzzled.

The first was an ABC News televised interview with Herman Rosenblat.

“The twinkly-eyed American pensioner who came forward with a story so magical that it lifted the heart of every cynic in New York,” was nothing but that of a compulsive liar. Once Rosenblat was confronted as a hoaxer he told the camera.

“It wasn’t a lie. It was my imagination. I believed my imagination, I believe my mind, I believe it now”

“But you know it wasn’t true” he is challenged by the ABC interviewer. “Yes”, he answers, “But in my imagination it was true”.

I guess that no one can argue with such an advanced post modernist argument.

In another video clip; Irene Weisberg Zisblatt, whose testimony is showcased in Steven Spielberg’s documentary film The Last Days, is caught lying to the camera at least twice.

I am not judging Zisblatt’s dishonesty or her tendency to exaggerate. It is more than likely that this woman went through hell on earth. But I do challenge Stephen Spielberg who, for some reason decided to exploit this woman in his Holywoodian attempt to archive and depict what he calls the ‘truth’ of the holocaust.

The question we are left with is why. Why does she lie? Why does he lie? Why does anyone lie? And if they lie and are entitled to believe in their figment of imagination, where can we learn about the truth? What can we learn about the truth? What is truth? Is there any truth? And if we can ever be lucky enough to find the truth or even just ‘a truth’, can we announce it without being at risk of social exclusion or even losing our freedom?

Katsoulis exposes a perverse tendency in the midst of our Western discourse. It is proved beyond doubt that our freedom to speak, and even to think, is under severe assault. I would take it one step further and argue that the Holocaust religion is the biggest current assault against humanity and humanism. First, it stops us from revisiting and revising our own living memory. Second, it stops us from drawing a universal ethical lesson from history and third, it leads to more and more genocidal crimes.

Instead of a revenge-driven doctrine, what we really want is grace and compassion.

Rather than a singular monolithic belief system promoting a deceptive notion of freedom centred on Jewish pain, what we really want is real pluralism and tolerance that would accept more than just one truth and encourage belief systems to respect each other.

In fact, the Jews, should have been the first to grasp it all. As Emmanuel Levinas suggested after WWII, Jews should have located themselves at the forefront of the battle against evil and racism. Despite there being a handful of Jewish ‘self haters’ who are committed to the exposure of the Zionist crime, this never happened. Not only did it not happen, the Jewish state is the ultimate example of a racist nationalist terrorist state.

Katsoulis is far from being a Holocaust denier. She believes that the Holocaust happened, yet she writes about the robbery of its memory. “When a writer stands before other survivors and gives as scripture what is stolen from the memories of real witnesses, they can expect little sympathy.” Katsoulis offers some criticism of the “unregulated Holocaust “industry”, where victimhood is rewarded by money and fame.”

However, I would like to extend Katsoulis’ quest. I would maintain that in fact we are the witnesses of an ongoing holocaust in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We also witness Israel preparing itself to nuke Iran in the name of Jewish history and the Holocaust in particular. In front of our eyes we see the emergence of evil on a colossal magnitude, and we are somehow paralyzed by a historical chapter that, in comparison to contemporary Israeli crimes, has less and less significance or relevance.

Rather than being subject to an idolatry of an untouchable past, we better start to be concerned with the HERE and NOW, with the genocides that are committed in our names and under our nose by Israel and its supporters around the world.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London, and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.

by William Blum / November 5th, 2009

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

— Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He’s holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn’t expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington’s apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire’s needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves “Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution,” and remembering just enough of their country’s more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation’s High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to.¹

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its “extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry.”² War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.”³

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — “Oh What a Lovely” — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: “Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

    “If any question why we died,
    Tell them, because our fathers lied.”

“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America’s Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama’s campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.                                                    More.........................

GILAD ATZMON

November 2, 2009 Gordon brown urged European Socialist leaders this week to appoint Tony Blair as the European President. "Get real", he told them, "This is a unique opportunity to get a strong progressive politician to be the president." Brown is obviously correct, nothing could be more refreshing, innovative 'real’ and 'progressive’ than assigning the job to a man who has more blood on his hands than any other person in Europe. It may also be right to argue that there is just one living person on this planet with more blood on his hands than Blair. That man dwells in Texas, his name is George and actually unlike our Bonaparte figure, he keeps relatively quiet. Unlike George, our Boney is craving for recognition, he cannot live without a crown or an official title. Someone should remind Boney that he already made it into history, he can really take a break. With more than one million fatalities in Iraq, he is not far behind Hitler and Stalin. Murderers are, no doubt, a unique bunch of people, some criminologists insists that they are no less than psychopaths for psychopaths are people who disregard ethical principles. Psychopaths also lack any sense of conscience or compassion. Mass murderers are even more special, for they manage to evade, not just a couple of eyes, but rather very many. They even mange to turn deaf to public criticism and resentment towards their acts. Our Boney, is extraordinary by every possible means. Not only does he dismiss the pain he brought on millions, not only did he fail to show regret, he actually constantly demands our recognition of his imaginary greatness. He seems to lack any awareness or self-consciousness whatsoever. While the majority of Europeans would prefer to see Boney schlepped to The Hague, face justice and hopefully locked up for life, he himself must be convinced that he possesses the necessary qualities for the European Presidency. From a united European perspective he was a light disaster. He managed to keep Britain out of the Euro, he also didn’t follow the Schengen open borders agreement. From a British perspective Boney was a total disaster. Together with his 'best Treasurer ever’ he succeeded in ruining the Britain economy. He smashed the last pockets of British industry to infinitesimal pieces and on top of all that, he has managed to get all of us implicated in a war crime of a colossal magnitude. This was probably enough to make European leaders think again, They have now decided to restrain Boney’s self centric enthusiasm and relentless will to power.. However, Blair is not alone. As much as recent polls suggest that the vast majority of Brits find him unsuitable to the European presidency, in his rapidly disintegrating Nuevo Labour, he actually has some dedicated followers supporters and allies. More........................

Stephen Lendman

Yes, I am a survivor, for I have managed to survive all the scary accounts of the Holocaust: the one about the soap,¹ the one about the lamp shades, the one about the camps, the mass shooting, the one about the gas,² and the one about the death march.³ I just managed to survive them all.

In spite of all these fear inflicting stories, that were purposely installed in my soul since I opened my eyes for the first time, I have become a functional and even a successful human being. I somehow survived the horror against all odds. I even manage to love my neighbour. In spite of all these fearful, traumatic indoctrination I miraculously managed to master my cheering alto saxophone rather than the sobbing violin.

In fact, I have already decided that in case the Queen, or any other member of the Royal Family should ever consider to make me into a ‘Sir’ for my bebop achievements, or even for facing Zionist barbarism with my bare pen, I will immediately change my surname from Atzmon to Vive, just to become the first and only Sir Vive.

I am also totally against Holocaust denial

I clearly resent those who deny the genocides that are taking place in the name of the Holocaust. Palestine is one example, Iraq is another, and the one that is set for Iran, is probably too scary to contemplate.

The Holocaust is a relatively new religion.⁴ It lacks mercy or compassion, instead it promises revenge through retribution. For its followers, it is somehow liberating because it allows them to punish whoever they like as long they gain some pleasure. This may explain why the Israelis ended up punishing the Palestinians for crimes that were committed by Europeans. It is rather clear that the newly emerging religion is not just about ‘eye for an eye’; it is actually an eye for thousands and thousands of eyes.

A month ago, while visiting in Auschwitz, Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak left a note in the official visitors book: ‘a strong Israel is both the comfort and the revenge.’ No one could summarise the aspiration of the religion any better. The Holocaust religion doesn’t offer redemption. It is a crude violent manifestation of sheer collective brutality. It cannot resolve anything, for aggression can only lead to more and more aggression. In the Holocaust religion there is neither room for peace or grace. Take it from Barak, revenge is where they find comfort.

To deny the danger posed by the Holocaust religion and its followers is to be complicit in a growing crime against humanity and against every possible human value.

I am also in total support of the Jewish National Project

Some believe that after 2000 years, the ‘phantasmic Diaspora’ Jews are indeed entitled to an imaginary ‘national home land of their own.’ The Zionists apparently meant it sincerely. The Jewish state is now realistic enough to have turned the entire Middle East into a ticking bomb.

Reviewing the Israeli record of crimes against humanity in the last six decades doesn’t leave much room for speculation. We are dealing here with a pathological sinister society. Hence, as much as some of us may agree that Jews should enjoy a hypothetical right for a land of their own, planet Earth is certainly not the ideal location for such an affair.

Hence, I would urge NASA to join in and to make a special effort to find a suitable alternative planet for the Zionist homeland in outer space or even in another galaxy. The Galactic Zionist project would signify the immediate move from ‘promised land’ to ‘promised planet.’ I would enthusiastically stress that rather than searching for ‘a land with no people for a people with no land’, what we really want is a ‘lonely planet.’ It can even be a ‘desert,’ for they claim to know how to make the desert bloom. In a planet of their own, the galactic Zionists wouldn’t need to oppress anyone, they wouldn’t ethnically cleanse either, they wouldn’t have to lock the indigenous people in concentration camps for there won’t be any indigenous people around to abuse, starve, murder, and cleanse. They wouldn’t have to pour white phosphorous over their neighbours for there won’t be any neighbours. I would highly recommend NASA to search for a planet with very low gravity just to make it light for people to wander around. After all, we want the new galactic Zionists to enjoy their futuristic project as much as the Palestinians and many others may enjoy their absence.

So here I am, a proper Jew after all: I am a survivor, I oppose Holocaust denial, I support the Jewish national aspiration. Even the chief Rabbi of Britain cannot ask for more than that.

1. Acknowledged recently to be a ‘myth’ by the Israeli holocaust museum Yad Vashem. [↩]
2. A historical fact protected by European Law. [↩]
3. A slightly confusing narrative. If the Nazis were interested in annihilating the entire European Jewish population as suggested by the orthodox Zionist holocaust narrative, then it is rather ambiguous as to just what led them to march what was left of European Jewry, into their crumbling Nazi fatherland at a time when it was clear that they were losing the war. The two narratives, i.e., ‘annihilation’ and ‘death march’, seem to oppose each other. The issue deserves further elaboration. I would just suggest that the reasonable answers I have come across may severely damage the Zionist holocaust narrative. [↩]
4. The Israeli Philosophy professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz was probably the first to define the holocaust as the ‘new Jewish religion.’ [↩]

William Pfaff

October 29, 2009 There has always been in American foreign policy circles a virus called arrogance, caused by the hereditary assumption that Americans know better than others. Surprisingly, this does not always prove the case, but the condition seems highly resistant to treatment, even by experience. There seems a high probability that the disease has struck Obama administration policy circles dealing with Pakistan. (We will leave aside the case of American relations with Afghanistan.) This administration came to office with a conviction that the Afghanistan problem is a problem because it actually is a Pakistan problem, Pakistan being a large country possessing nuclear weapons and a great many Pashtuns, who are the people from whom Taliban are recruited. Afghanistan is a country with one-sixth Pakistan’s population, with a great many Pashtuns, too, harboring only a 100 or so members of al-Qaeda (if we are to believe the American national security adviser, Gen. James Jones), whereas popular opinion in Washington is that Pakistan is rife with them, and the country is on its way to becoming a "breeding ground" for terrorists who wish to invade the West, blow it up with nuclear weapons obtained from Pakistani stocks, and establish a new global terrorist caliphate amidst the ruins. It is unknown whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Pakistan this week, shares so alarmed a view, but she will hear a lot about the damage American pressures are doing to Pakistan and how fearful the Pakistani populace is, not of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but of the United States. According to a New York Times article this week, from Jane Perlez in Islamabad, the new fighting there against Islamists "has pleased the Americans, but it left large parts of Pakistan under siege, as militants once sequestered in the country’s tribal areas take their war to Pakistan’s cities. Many Pakistanis blame the United States for the country’s rising instability." A recent and serious poll found that 11 percent of the Pakistani respondents said that al-Qaeda is the greatest threat to Pakistan today, 18 percent said India, and 59 percent said the United States. This was in August, before the most recent offensives of the Pakistani army against the Islamists in Waziristan and the Swat Valley, and the retaliatory city bombings that subsequently have taken place. A vocal part of the Pakistani population clearly doesn’t want the United States in their country, and it doesn’t even want the aid the United States is sending. A notorious fact in the past has been that civilian and popular opposition to the U.S. was based on the assumption that American aid was meant to keep military governments in place and buy military cooperation with American policy. This time, it’s the army that doesn’t want the $7.5 billion aid package that the Obama administration has put together; the aid is denounced as meant to interfere in the country’s internal affairs – as indeed it is. The civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, generally thought put in place by Washington, "is seen as slavishly pro-American [as well] as unable to cope" with the current situation (I am again quoting Jane Perlez). The country’s interior minister was hit with stones by students when he visited the International Islamic University last week, and in retaliation the government closed all the schools and universities in Punjab, the most populous province (supposed to reopen Monday, Oct. 26), "a move that affected Pakistani families like never before." To judge from the public statements of Obama counselors, Pakistan is seen as the great danger in the region, with erratic politics and nuclear weapons – and an active Islamist revolt thereby having the potential to create (according to Obama’s adviser Bruce Riedel) "the most serious threat to the United States since the end of the Cold War." This would seem why the U.S. wants a government under its thumb to compel the army to fight the Islamists on their home territory even if this alienates the army and sows hatred of America. Is it not possible to allow Pakistan, which has a solid civil service and an excellent army, to act in defense of its own security rather than let the U.S. impose its own ideas? Is it not imaginable that they know better than the Americans? Would Americans appreciate a Pakistani army installed in Washington, instructing the United States in how to conduct its own foreign policy in ways that suit Pakistan’s national interests? (c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

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