... While it’s an artistic achievement and grand entertainment, “Darkest Hour” is badly flawed history ... “Darkest Hour” reinforces the widespread belief that Churchill’s speeches played a crucial role in sustaining British morale. A scholar who has carefully looked into the matter has found that this view is largely a myth ... “Darkest Hour” reinforces the widely held impression, which Churchill himself encouraged, that an honorable or lasting peace with Hitler was simply not possible. But as he himself later acknowledged, that’s simply not true ... The British leader’s famous “We shall never surrender” speech was little more than “sublime nonsense,” says British historian John Charmley.
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IHR NEWS AND VIEWS
We’re looking for a suitable person to join our team here in southern California, on a part-time or full-time basis. He or she will work on publishing and outreach, including social media, and will handle some website formatting, and office tasks. He or she must be able to write and edit with skill and discernment. He or she must have good communication skills, a responsible attitude, initiative, and regard for the ideals and goals of the IHR.
In line with a recent crackdown policy, YouTube has “restricted” a number of independently produced videos of IHR talks and presentations. To watch a “restricted” video, the viewer must first click through a warning screen. Also, comments on the video are not allowed, and the number of views is not given. Even worse, YouTube will never “suggest” a “restricted” video to viewers, which is how many people find our videos. While YouTube claims that its “restriction” policy is aimed at videos with “inflammatory religious or supremacist content,” applying it to IHR videos is absurd. YouTube restricts our voice not because we have violated any objective standards, or because we have done anything wrong or illegal -- but because it doesn’t like what we say.
Mark Weber, an American historian and director of the Institute for Historical Review, was banned from Britain in April 2015 by order of Theresa May, who is now the country’s Prime Minister. The decision to ban him was “taken personally” by May while she was serving as Home Secretary ... As justification for the ban, her order cites three statements allegedly made by Weber, as reported in a sensational article in Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper. After the exclusion order was issued, the paper publicly acknowledged that the first of the three statements attributed to Weber was never made by him, and that a portion of the second statement was likewise not by him. ... “The decision to ban me from the UK,” says Weber, “was based on inaccurate, untrue or distorted claims from a sensational and hostile second-hand report.”
... Unless and until we can break through the historical blackout, now supported even by public policy, and enable the peoples of the world to know the facts concerning international relations during the last quarter of a century, there can be no real hope for the peace, security and prosperity which the present triumphs of science and technology could make possible. The well-being of the human race, if not its very survival, is very literally dependent on the triumph of revisionism.
Over the years many malicious and untrue things have been said about me by people who don’t like my views. Perhaps the most widely circulated example is the lie that I said or wrote the following: “The Holocaust is a religion. Its underpinnings in the realm of historical fact are non-existent -- no Hitler order, no plan, no budget, no gas chambers, no autopsies of gassed victims, no bones, no ashes, no skulls, no nothing.” In fact, I never wrote or uttered those words. They do not represent what I think or believe ... This quote was first attributed to me by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an influential Jewish-Zionist organization ... Over the years several newspapers, including Israel’s daily Jerusalem Post, and some websites, including Wikipedia, have likewise tied this quote, or some version of it, to me.
This past year has been another busy and productive one for us. But we’ve also had to deal with new problems caused by bigoted groups that want to shut us down ... In 2017 we organized five meetings here in southern California. Over the years these educational gatherings have helped make the IHR an important networking center for like-minded people in the region ... Over the past year I’ve conducted numerous broadcast interviews with US and overseas media, appearing as a guest on radio and television broadcasts to talk about topical and historical issues. Most of these were with global television broadcasters that reach vast numbers of viewers.
The Washington, D.C., transit system has rejected an innocuous IHR advertisement that simply proclaims “History Matters!,” absurdly claiming it violates guidelines that prohibit ads “intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions,” and that “are intended to influence public policy.” ... “By any rational standard,” says IHR director Mark Weber, “the guidelines cited by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority [WMATA] do not reasonably apply to this ad. If Washington Metro sees fit to ban a 'History Matters!' display, it can justify banning anything.”
In this 45-minute talk, given at an IHR meeting, Weber reviews Donald Trump’s foreign policy record. Trump’s actual policies as president, Weber shows, have been a drastic betrayal of pledges he made before taking office. For example, Trump repeatedly spoke against US military involvement in the Syria conflict, especially without specific Congressional authorization. But as President he has stepped up the US role in the war, even ordering a missile strike against a Syria air base – a violation of both US law and international law. For President Trump, Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies. Consistent with that, he threatens war against Iran. Weber recalls President Eisenhower’s foreign policy record and outlook during the 1950s, and shows how they contrast sharply with those of President Trump.
Several times each week we distribute by e-mail a timely “IHR News and Comment” roundup of news, analysis and commentary items. To subscribe, enter your email below:
American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? ... The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere -- among those who support Israel but don't really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel - and Zionism - often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.
At a special IHR meeting on Oct. 1, 2016, three seasoned specialists provide informed perspective, each from a different angle, on aspects of Jewish-Zionist power. Kevin MacDonald, a retired professor who has written extensively on the Jewish role in history and contemporary life, takes a close look at Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election campaign. Gilad Atzmon, who was born in Israel and now lives in Britain, reviews the Jewish role in Capitalism, Marxism, Communism, and other major intellectual-political trends in modern history. Mark Weber reviews the lives and careers of both MacDonald and Atzmon in his introductions of those two speakers. In his own address Weber provides an overview of Jewish-Zionist power and its enormous impact on American society and the world.
The German soldiers of World War II have often been portrayed, both during the war and in the decades since, as simple-minded, unimaginative and brutish ... As specialists of military history who have looked into the matter agree, the men of Germany’s armed forces -- the Wehrmacht -- performed with unmatched ability and resourcefulness throughout the nearly six years of conflict ... High-ranking British military figures were similarly impressed with the skill, tenacity and daring of their adversaries. “Unfortunately we are fighting the best soldiers in the world – what men!,” exclaimed Lt. Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the 15th Army Group in Italy, in a March 1944 report to London.
... What’s crucial in determining the really important policies and long-term trends of a nation are rarely individual politicians, whatever they may promise, or whatever their fans may hope or believe -- but rather the goals and agenda of those who hold real power. Serious politics is about power ... During this year’s election campaign, the two major presidential candidates, along with all other prominent U.S. politicians, have made very clear, time and again, their loyalty and devotion to Jewish-Zionist power. And that means that, no matter who wins on election day, there will not be -- and there cannot be -- any substantive shift in this country’s power alignment, and therefore no real change in basic direction or policy.
These days everyone is talking about Donald Trump, the clear Republican Party front-runner in this year’s presidential election campaign ... At our March 19 IHR meeting, the Trump phenomenon, and what it means for our future, was the focus of well-presented talks by several speakers, and a lively exchange of views during an open discussion session. This gathering – the first IHR event of the new year – brought together 40-50 men and women who also enjoyed food, drink and good fellowship. ... As we’ve reported, 2015 was an exceptionally active year for us, with productive visits to Britain, Sweden, Turkey and Mexico ... During 2015 I conducted dozens of broadcast interviews with US and overseas media, appearing as a guest on radio and television broadcasts to talk about topical and historical issues.
… Roosevelt was not the first or the last American president to lie to the people. But rarely has a major American political figure given a speech as loaded with brazen falsehood as Franklin Roosevelt did in his Navy Day address of October 27, 1941 … Roosevelt went on to reveal that he also had in his possession "another document made in Germany by Hitler's government. It is a detailed plan to abolish all existing religions -- Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike" which Germany will impose "on a dominated world, if Hitler wins."
In a remarkable but under-reported address, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged that the “immense” and “outsized” Jewish role in the US mass media and cultural life has been the single most important factor in shaping American attitudes over the past century, and in driving major cultural- political changes. “Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us - as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact," Biden told a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington, DC.
Nine-Eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the 9/11 catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president in recent decades had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people.
The Balfour Declaration may be the most extraordinary document produced by any government in world history. It took the form of a letter from the government of the largest empire the world has even known to an international financier of the banking house of Rothschild who had been made a peer of the realm … Malcolm's belief in the Balfour Declaration as a means of bringing the United States into the war was confirmed by Samuel Landman, secretary to the Zionist leaders Weizmann and Sokolow, and later secretary of the World Zionist Organization.
How accurate is this hallowed portrayal of America's role in World War II? As we shall see, it does not hold up under close examination ... The three Allied leaders accomplished what they accused the Axis leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan of conspiring to achieve: world domination ... Presidential deception to justify war did not start with George W. Bush. Americans who express admiration for the US role in World War II, and for Franklin Roosevelt's presidential leadership, have little moral right to complain when presidents follow his example and lead the country into war by breaking the law, subverting the Constitution, and lying to the people.
This recorded address by Adolf Hitler was distributed on 50,000 phonograph discs during Germany’s fiercely contested national parliament election campaign of July 1932, in which his National Socialist movement emerged as the country’s largest party. This “Appeal to the Nation” is similar in content and tone to many other speeches he gave in 1932, which for Germans was a year of mass unemployment, economic paralysis, and a broken, unresponsive political system. Translation of the complete text, with a foreword by Mark Weber. This historic address is particularly interesting during this 2016 US presidential election campaign, with media commentators claiming that Donald Trump’s appeal and campaign style is similar to that of the German leader.
... Even many of those who readily acknowledge the tremendous influence of American film and television seem not to fully comprehend the formidable scope of the power behind Hollywood, or the outlook and agenda of those who wield that power ... Hollywood, together with the rest of the Jewish-Zionist dominated US media, sensationalizes and distorts current events, systematically falsifies history, promotes debased “entertainment” and perverse cultural standards, and makes possible the Jewish-Zionist hold on American political life ...
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, based in Los Angeles, is one of the most influential Jewish organizations in the world ... Although it claims to promote "tolerance," and makes a pretense of concern for humanity, the Center's real agenda is a narrowly Jewish-Zionist one. The Wiesenthal Center is a staunch supporter of Israel and its Jewish supremacist regime. It fervently defends Israel’s policies of oppression, occupation, dispossession, and institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews.
... In Andernach about 50,000 [German] prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement ... I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked, "Why?," he mumbled, "Target practice," and fired until his pistol was empty.
... I’m going to try to extract from my experience certain basic sort of tactics that I think the Jewish lobby has used over the years pertaining to my particular situation ... The first and major tactic that I discovered in their attack on me was their reliance on lies -- just straight-up lies. There’s no other way to describe it, just telling lies. Many of the categories that I will enumerate overlap, and many of them could also come under this general rubric of telling lies. But I think that if one had to isolate a single tactic, it was a tactic of telling lies. I think they’ve elevated telling lies to a very high artistic form.
Revisionism as applied to World War II and its origins (as also for previous wars) has the general function of bringing historical truth to an American and a world public that had been drugged by wartime lies and propaganda ... Revisionism brings to the artificial frenzy of daily events and day-to-day propaganda, the cool but in the last analysis glorious light of historical truth. Such truth is almost desperately needed in today's world.
... As long as the power of what Desmond Tutu calls “the very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system and the American media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace. That’s why no task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.
... Fascism was touted by Mussolini as a unique combination of thought and action, yet fascism was still seeking an ideology after the Second World War was over. The roots of fascism are many and complex. The fascist leadership, notably Mussolini, admitted the multi-faceted influences of liberalism, marxism, syndicalism, risorgimento, socialism, catholicism and nationalism on their ideology.
To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression, both the US and German governments launched innovative and ambitious programs. Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” measures helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive policies proved remarkably effective. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was flourishing. And while Roosevelt’s record in dealing with the Depression is pretty well known, the remarkable story of how Hitler tackled the crisis is not widely understood or appreciated.
… In August 1941 Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the camp for Soviet POWs in Hammerstadt. It is these contacts that resulted in an appeal to the Soviet government, requesting that it should send food parcels for our officers and men. We are prepared to fulfill and comply with the norms of the Geneva convention, Moscow said in its reply, but sending food in the given situation and under fascist control is the same as making presents to the enemy … How great was Stalin's hatred for those who had found themselves behind enemy lines. It made no difference: who, where, how and why? Even the dead were considered to be criminals.
... America today is a society in denial. The country's political, cultural and intellectual leadership -- both liberal and conservative -- denies social reality and ignores the historical record, and therefore inevitably betrays the interests of the people, leading America down a path that means ever greater anxiety and ever more rapid decline ... The crying need in our nation today is candor, courage and truthfulness -- not childish slogans, simplistic nostrums, or wishful thinking about a mythologized past or a utopian future -- presented by media personalities who are little more than entertainers.
Fraudulent quotations attributed to Hitler and other Third Reich leaders have been widely circulated for years. Such quotes are often used by polemicists -- of both the left and the right -- to discredit their ideological adversaries by showing that Nazis held similar views. Here's a look at a few of the many remarks falsely attributed to Hitler and other top Nazis.
Websense company, a major US supplier of web content filtering software, says that the Institute for Historical Review promotes "racism and hate," and blocks access to the IHR website, on the basis of an unfair standard that deceives the public and its own customers. In a letter to the IHR, Websense Senior Legal Counsel Eric Proul makes clear that the company has no objective basis for its claim that the IHR promotes "racism and hate."
This essay focuses on Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. It deals particularly with his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939. Franklin Roosevelt not only criminally involved America in a war that had already engulfed Europe, he bears a grave responsibility for the outbreak of the most destructive war of all time. This paper relies heavily on a little-known collection of secret Polish documents that fell into German hands when Warsaw was captured in September 1939. These revealing documents also confirm the crucial role of Jewish power and influence on US foreign policy during these years.
... If I'm known for anything as a historian, apart from being a pain in the neck, it's because I uncover things. And uncovering things does not necessarily mean you go into the archives and see something and say: "Look at this, this is something quite extraordinary." If you go into the archives long enough, ten or twenty years, you become what I would call a "gap-ologist" ... Now what a scandalous statement that is! Here's the one country, Germany, trying to prevent anwar and the other country -- Roosevelt, neutral -- trying to fan the flames of anti-German feeling to fuel the war. Yet it is the Germans who are called the criminals, and the Americans who do the prosecuting.
Germany's enemies maintain today [1940] that Adolf Hitler is the greatest disturber of peace known to history, that he threatens every nation with sudden attack and oppression, that he has created a terrible war machine in order to bring misery and devastation everywhere. At the same time they intentionally conceal an all-important fact: they themselves drove the leader of the German people finally to draw the sword. They themselves compelled him to seek to obtain at last by the use of force that which he had been striving to gain by persuasion from the beginning: the security of his country ... A quick look at the most important events provides incontrovertible proof of this.
The news that I would be addressing the Institute of Historical Review came to some people as, well, news. It was mentioned in the Jewish newspaper Forward and on the Zionist Wall Street Journal OnLine. The editors of two conservative magazines called and wrote me to express their concern that I might damage my reputation, such as it is, by speaking to "Holocaust deniers." ... In short, the Holocaust has become a device for exempting Jews from normal human obligations. It has authorized them to bully and blackmail, to extort and oppress. This is all quite irrational, because even if six million Jews were murdered during World War II, the survivors are not entitled to commit the slightest injustice.
... A Zionist Jew, by definition, owes his primary loyalty to the Jewish community and to Israel. Zionism is not compatible with patriotism to any country or entity other than Israel and the world Jewish community ... Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish supporters embrace a blatant double standard. Jewish-Zionist organizations, along with their non-Jewish allies, support one social-political ideology for Israel and the world Jewish community, and a completely different one for the United States and other non-Jewish countries. They insist that ethnic nationalism is evil and bad for non-Jews, while at the same time they vigorously support ethnic nationalism -- that is, Zionism -- for Jews.
Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years ... With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews ... The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: "The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution."
America's leaders understood Japan's desperate position: the Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was not molested. If the US leadership had not insisted on unconditional surrender -- that is, if they had made clear a willingness to permit the Emperor to remain in place -- the Japanese very likely would have surrendered immediately, thus saving many thousands of lives ... General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war."
.. By supporting Israel and its policies, the United States betrays not only its own national interests, but the principles it claims to embody and defend. The only country in the world that has a nuclear weapons arsenal, that occupies territory of its neighbors, and which is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions - is Israel. In fact, if the United States were to hold Israel to the same standards that it has applied to Iraq, Serbia, and other countries, American bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and American troops would seize Israel's leaders and punish them for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
So if the official reasons given for the war were untrue, why did the United States attack? Whatever the secondary reasons for the Iraq war, the crucial factor in President Bush's decision to attack was to help Israel. With support from Israel and America's Jewish-Zionist lobby, and prodded by Jewish "neo-conservatives" holding high-level positions in his administration, President Bush -- who was already fervently committed to Israel -- resolved to invade and subdue one of Israel's chief regional enemies.
NEWS AND COMMENT
Opioids could kill nearly half a million people across America over the next decade as the crisis of addiction and overdose accelerates. Deaths from opioids have been rising sharply for years, and drug overdoses already kill more Americans under age 50 than anything else. Stat asked leading public health experts at ten universities to forecast the arc of the epidemic over the next decade. The consensus: It will get worse before it gets better. There are now nearly 100 deaths a day from opioids, a swath of destruction that runs from tony New England suburbs to the farm country of California, from the beach towns of Florida to the Appalachian foothills.
Almost a third of Americans believe the news media is “the enemy of the American people,” according to a survey of over 1,000 people with various political affiliations. A poll by Ipsos, a survey-based research organization, asked 323 Democrats, 363 Republicans and 207 Independents over the age of 18 what they thought of news media. Twenty-nine percent of respondents said they agreed with President Donald Trump that media is the "enemy of the people," while 13 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed that the president should have the authority to shut down news outlets engaged in "bad behavior." Eighty-five percent of respondents, however, said they believed freedom of the press was "essential for American democracy.”
An AfD local leader was lambasted on social media – and by his own party – after calling Claus von Stauffenberg, a man who lead a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler a “coward” and a “traitor.” ... In modern Germany, many regard von Stauffenberg, one of the central figures of the German Resistance, as a hero. Yet Lars Steinke, the head of the youth wing of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Lower Saxony, countered that view in a blunt statement, saying for him the officer was “an enemy of the German nation” ... Steinke suggested that von Stauffenberg’s actions actually represented “a shameful attempt of a coward” ... “Stauffenberg was a traitor who was ready to sacrifice millions of lives without any notable benefit for the German nation.”
Sky News Australia aired a widely criticized interview with Blair Cottrell, known anti-semitic and anti-Islamic activist. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry criticized Sky News Australia for giving a platform to a far-right racist who once advocated for the display of images of Hitler in schools. Blair Cottrell, the former leader of anti-immigration group United Patriots Front, was interviewed by a former chief minister of the Northern territory, Adam Giles. Cottrell was convicted last year of inciting contempt against Muslims after staging a mock beheading to protest the building of a mosque. The interview was widely criticized by the Australian media ... In response, news director Greg Byrnes posted a tweet that said Cottrell’s appearance was “wrong.” He announced the interview was removed from repeat time slots and online platforms.
Facebook has shut down InfoWars’ page saying the conservative news outlet used hate speech. An editor at the website says the social media giant failed to tell it what the offending posts were. InfoWars Editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson said in a tweet that the account has been “permanently banned” for “unspecified” hate speech. Visitors to InfoWars page are now greeted with a message saying: “Sorry, this content isn't available right now”. Describing the development as a “chilling precedent for free speech,” Watson said that Facebook did not tell the media organization what the offending posts were. “To all other conservative news outlets – you are next. The great censorship purge has truly begun,” he wrote.
A Holocaust revisionist who narrowly avoided jail after publishing “grossly offensive” songs mocking Jews is being investigated by police again after she called Shoah [Holocaust] "a gargantuan accumulation of nonsense". Alison Chabloz, of Charlesworth, near Glossop, Derbyshire, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence on June 14, after being convicted of charges relating to three songs she posted to social media sites. Chabloz, 54, performed her songs in YouTube videos, titled Nemo’s Antisemitic Universe, I Like It How It Is, performed at the right-wing London Forum in 2016, and a third, titled (((survivors))). In the latter, Chabloz mocked Jewish figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, as well as Anne and Otto Frank, to the tune of Hava Nagila.
... While Iranian democracy has been openly mocked in the United States as a sham, the fact is that democratic processes have shaped the Islamic Republic of Iran since its founding ... The Iranian people would support its government refusing to bend a knee in the face of American threats; they would not support a government that surrendered their hard-won gains on the nuclear front, which the Iranian people suffered greatly to achieve ... The danger here is that Trump doesn’t realize he is playing a losing hand. His bluff will be called by Iran (indeed, based upon Rouhani’s words, it has been called), but Trump will continue to throw chips into the pot until compelled to either reverse course and rejoin the JCPOA (unlikely), or force the issue and watch the United States enter a war with Iran it will not lose — but cannot win.
If the US was hoping renewed sanctions on Iran would cause immediate economic turmoil and mass anti-government protests, it may be disappointed, though real pain could still be on the horizon. US President Donald Trump described the embargoes that returned on Tuesday as “the most biting sanctions ever imposed.” That was already an exaggeration since they only reimposed measures that were in place before the 2015 nuclear deal which he abandoned in May ... Analysts said the idea that economic pain could lead to a full-blown revolution was far-fetched ... China alone accounted for 25.6 percent of Iran’s imports and 19.7 percent of its exports since March – more than all European countries combined. China, India and Turkey have already said that they will not significantly cut their oil purchases from Iran.
At least 74 people were shot in one of the most violent weekends of the year in Chicago, spurred by a 7-hour period early Sunday morning when 41 people were shot. Between 3 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday morning, twelve people were killed and 62 were wounded, according to Tribune data. Their ages spanned from 11 to 62 years old, and most of those shot were attacked on the South and West sides ... As of Friday, at least 1,700 people have been shot in the city this year, fewer than the last two years at this time when violence hit record levels in the city but well above other recent years. There have been at least 300 homicides, according to Tribune data. Six of the shootings this weekend injured four or more people in a single attack, racking up 31 victims early Sunday.
President Donald Trump says he will fully enforce the sanctions being re-imposed on Iran as a result of the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal ... The UK, France and Germany - which were also parties to the 2015 accord along with Russia and China - have expressed "deep regret" at the US move. They have pledged to abide by their commitments under the deal. Iran has said it will also do so if it continues to receive the economic benefits ... The British, French and German foreign ministers issued a joint statement with the EU’s foreign policy chief saying the nuclear deal was working and was "crucial" for global security. They also unveiled a "blocking statute" that will seek to protect European firms doing business with Iran against the impact of US sanctions.
The European Union vowed on Monday to counter US President Donald Trump's renewal of sanctions on Iran, in a test of the EU's ability to preserve a deal that saw Iran limit its nuclear ambitions in exchange for removing strict curbs on its economy. As Washington's so-called "snapback" sanctions are reinstated on Tuesday, a new EU law to shield European companies will also take effect to try to mitigate what EU officials say is their "unlawful" reach beyond US borders. Despite protests from European allies, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would fully enforce the sanctions ... The EU and other parties to the 2015 deal, China and Russia, are working to maintain trade with Iran ...
It is no surprise that Iranian leaders have no interest in responding to President Donald Trump’s offer to hold a meeting. What would there be to talk about, especially that there appears to be no normal working-level U.S.-Iranian diplomacy going on? Trump’s credibility with the Iranians is near zero after trashing the one significant international agreement that both countries had signed in recent years. The Iranian leaders have no reason to play to Trump’s theater in which he would portray a supplicant Iran as responding to his campaign of pressure ... The best outcome — and it isn’t good at all -- that one can hope for from the administration’s current course on Iran is endless tension, more antagonizing of Iranian citizens who see the United States as hostile to their own interests, and a constant risk of escalation to open warfare.
... We thus appear to be steering into a head-on collision ... The correlation of political forces is heavily weighted in favor of driving Tehran to the wall. In the U.S., Iran has countless adversaries and almost no advocates. In the Middle East, Israelis, Saudis and the UAE would relish having us smash Iran ... Any shooting war in the Persian Gulf could see insurance rates for tankers soar, a constriction of oil exports, and surging prices, plunging us into a worldwide recession for which one man would be held responsible: Donald Trump. How good would that be for the GOP or President Trump in 2020? ... If we start a war with Iran, on top of the five in which we are engaged still, then the party that offers to extricate us will be listened to, as Trump was listened to, when he promised to extricate us from the forever wars of the Middle East.
Israel is, in many ways, an anomaly among nations. While it considers itself a democracy, it is actually a national-security state. Its military-intelligence apparatus is ubiquitous in the everyday affairs of its citizens ... In the past two decades or so, Israel has greatly expanded use of these technologies. Veterans of these spy shops have transferred their knowledge into the commercial sphere and marketed themselves as agents of repression for clients around the globe. This is a dark, dirty secret that lies behind the hype of the “start-up nation.” Two Israeli companies are at the forefront of this commercialization of dirty ops: NSO Group and Black Cube ... Black Cube was the cyber-surveillance firm that Weinstein’s lawyer, David Boies, hired ... It should be troubling to Americans that an Israeli dirty-ops firm may have been working to sabotage US foreign policy.
Populist Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini made a veiled reference to the late fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on Sunday. Salvini tweeted "tanti nemici, tanto onore," meaning "so many enemies, so much honor," a variation on Mussolini's famous "molti nemici, molto onore," or "many enemies, much honor." He tweeted the comments on the anniversary of Mussolini's birth [July 29]. Salvini's tweet came in response to a magazine article about Salvini's critics, including the Catholic Church and leading left-wing intellectuals, and his coinciding rise in popularity. Separately, in an interview with the UK's Sunday Times newspaper, Salvini, from the right-wing League party, said Italy's low birth rate is being used as an excuse to "import immigrants."
Fascism is one of the most often misused and widely misunderstood political terms. Publicists of both the left and right use the term "fascist" not to describe but to discredit and smear adversaries. "Fascism" is often inaccurately used as a synonym for tyranny, militarism, Nazism, racism, or capitalism. During the first 13 years of Fascist rule in Italy, the regime and its leader ("Duce"), Benito Mussolini, were widely admired in the US and other countries. Attitudes in the US changed after the Italian subjugation of Ethiopia in 1935-36, and as Mussolini aligned Italy ever more closely with Hitler's Germany.
Leaders of Lithuania’s Jewish community have asked authorities in Vilnius to remove a plaque honoring an anti-Soviet fighter whose granddaughter said killed Jews. The Lithuanian Jewish Community last week posted on its website a statement calling for the removal of the plaque for Jonas Noreika that is displayed prominently on a central wall of the library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in central Vilnius ... He has enjoyed a hero status in Lithuania, where a school has been named for him and where then-President Vytautas Landsbergis attended his funeral in 2000.
... A provocative account of the erosion of humanities and the rise of intolerance ... America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture ... The Diversity Delusion argues that the root of this problem is the belief in America’s endemic racism and sexism, a belief that has engendered a metastasizing diversity bureaucracy in society and academia. Diversity commissars denounce meritocratic standards as discriminatory, enforce hiring quotas, and teach students and adults alike to think of themselves as perpetual victims ... Heather Mac Donald argues that we are creating a nation of narrowed minds, primed for grievance, and that we are putting our competitive edge at risk.
... Hawaii is the only American state that was once a kingdom. The royal family was overthrown in 1893 with decisive help from President Benjamin Harrison and US Marines. Soon afterward a new president, Grover Cleveland, condemned the overthrow as “an act of war” and asked Congress to return the royal family to power. Congress refused. Instead, in 1898, it voted to annex Hawaii. In 1959 Hawaii was admitted to the Union as our 50th state ... Visiting these islands makes clear that while Hawaii is in the United States, it is not of the United States ... Hawaii’s unique history, including our evidently illegal annexation, qualifies it for some form of special status within the United States.
The Virginia-Israel Advisory Board VIAB has one key difference with scores of privately funded state chambers of commerce created to foster closer economic integration between the United States and Israel while supporting the Israeli government’s policy agenda. Originally created by an uncodified act in 2001, VIAB has been funded by Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers. Its charter is to “advise the Governor on ways to improve economic and cultural links between the Commonwealth and the State of Israel, with a focus on the areas of commerce and trade, art and education, and general government.” VIAB is a pilot for how Israel can quietly obtain taxpayer funding and official status for networked entities that advance Israel from within key state governments.
Britain’s Labour Party prepares to split; the Israel-Palestine issue breaks up the party after 100 years -- to the relief of Prime Minister Theresa May. At least that’s the proximate cause of the rapidly approaching schism in the opposition Labour Party. Attempts to effectively outlaw existential criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel have foundered on the rocks of the obduracy of the veteran Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn whose commitment to the Palestinian cause has been a leitmotif of his 40 years in left-wing politics. Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Israel has grown massively in recent decades in Britain and throughout the Western world ... The full might of the Israel lobby has been mobilized to first stop Corbyn winning the leadership, to depose him once he had won it, and above all to stop him becoming prime minister.
Hiroshima marked the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing on Monday, with its mayor making a fresh call for a world without nuclear weapons through dialogue but stopping short of explicitly urging Japan to join a global nuclear weapons ban treaty. Despite some expectations of progress toward nuclear disarmament in recent years, Mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of the re-emergence of tensions over nuclear weapons seen during the Cold War and sought rational actions by global leaders ... At the Peace Memorial Park, a moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m., when the "Little Boy" uranium-core atomic bomb dropped by a U.S. bomber exploded above Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. It killed an estimated 140,000 people by the end of that year.
The U.S. public has been kept in the dark or misled about foreign policy for much of our history. For example, as we commemorate the 71st anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let’s re-examine the myth of necessity of those barbaric acts. The myth that just won’t die and is believed by most Americans is that these bombings saved millions of lives and were necessary to end WWII in the Pacific. However, excellent work by Gar Alperovitz in his books and other writing, by Mark Weber in The Journal of Historical Review as well as by numerous other historians, strongly debunk this myth.
The U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II has long been a subject of emotional debate ... The fact that Japan had 68 cities destroyed in the summer of 1945 poses a serious challenge for people who want to make the bombing of Hiroshima the cause of Japan’s surrender. The question is: If they surrendered because a city was destroyed, why didn’t they surrender when those other 66 cities were destroyed? ... The Soviet invasion invalidated the military’s decisive battle strategy, just as it invalidated the diplomatic strategy. At a single stroke, all of Japan’s options evaporated. The Soviet invasion was strategically decisive – it foreclosed both of Japan’s options – while the bombing of Hiroshima (which foreclosed neither) was not.
The most spectacular episode of Truman’s presidency will never be forgotten, but will be forever linked to his name: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and of Nagasaki three days later. Probably around two hundred thousand persons were killed in the attacks and through radiation poisoning; the vast majority were civilians … By early summer 1945, the Japanese fully realized that they were beaten. Why did they nonetheless fight on? As Anscombe wrote: "It was the insistence on unconditional surrender that was the root of all evil." That mad formula was coined by Roosevelt at the Casablanca conference, and, with Churchill’s enthusiastic concurrence, it became the Allied shibboleth.
As a result of an unprecedented debt binge by Congress over the past year, the national debt is about to roar back to life as a pressing issue after years of hibernation ... The recent GOP tax cuts and bipartisan spending increases together will add $2.3 trillion to the national debt in the next ten years ... These sums accelerate a coming fiscal freefall and will push the nation over a psychological barrier as soon as next year: trillion-dollar annual deficits ... In 2022, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of full funding. In 2026, the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund follows. In 2032, the Social Security trust fund surpluses run dry, and all beneficiaries regardless of age or income level will face a 21 percent across-the-board benefit cut ... By 2023, we'll spend more on interest payments than Medicaid or defense.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the ruling African National Congress must initiate a parliamentary process to enshrine in the constitution a proposed amendment, paving the way for land grabs without compensation. Ramaphosa, who vowed to return the lands owned by the white farmers since the 1600s to the country's black population after he assumed office in February this year, said on Tuesday that the ANC would introduce a constitutional amendment in parliament ... Many of the Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, do not take the government's promises at face value, instead seeking asylum abroad from what they say is a surge in violence and government-fueled hostility against them ... Boers have also appealed to Russia, seeking to resettle farmers who no longer feel at home in South Africa.
The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was more than the first major military clash of the 20th century. Pitting as it did the might of the globe-girdling British Empire, backed by international finance, against a small pioneering nation of independent-minded farmers, ranchers and merchants in southern Africa who lived by the Bible and the rifle, its legacy continues to resonate today. The Boers' recourse to irregular warfare, and Britain's response in herding a hundred thousand women and children into concentration camps foreshadowed the horrors of guerilla warfare and mass detention of innocents that have become emblematic of the 20th century.
It is a letter that throws fresh light on one of the darkest periods in Britain’s history. A note which has remained in private hands for a century details a previously undocumented meeting between George V and his Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, on the eve of the First World War ... In the newly-disclosed meeting, the King informed Sir Edward it was "absolutely essential" Britain go to war in order to prevent Germany from achieving “complete domination of this country”. When Sir Edward said the Cabinet had yet to find a justifiable reason to enter the conflict, the King replied: “You have got to find a reason, Grey.”
My anthology Revisions and Dissents deal critically with Hoover Institute fellow and frequent contributor to the American Greatness website Victor Davis Hanson. A Fox-news superstar in addition to his other claims to fame, Hanson specializes in totally unexamined assertions about modern history that as a professor I would never have tolerated even in a college freshman. Hanson has done well expressing these half-truths and fictions because they obviously please his neoconservative benefactors who have raised him to media prominence ... Hanson’s latest syndicated column illustrates perfectly his anti-German fixation. Thus he opines: “Germany started and lost two world wars ...”
No matter what high-blown claims the politicians make each year on Remembrance Day, The Great War [World War One] was essentially a fight between two branches of a single royal family over the balance of power on the continent of Europe ... It was also a war between the world’s greatest existing imperial power, Britain, and another state, Germany, which aspired to become a greater imperial power than it was ... The First World War was not a war to end all wars, as a slogan of the time claimed. If anything, it was a precursor for a great many wars to follow, and, most importantly, it was a powerful and important cause of World War II. It also was not a war about democracy ...
Christopher Clark's book on the outbreak of World War I, "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914," has been called a masterpiece" by "The New York Times" and become a best-seller in several European countries ... “This is what's so disturbing about 1914 for today [says Clark], that we are in a world which is very like the world of 1914, more and more so ... I suppose one of the lessons of the book is that bad stuff can happen very fast and we need to be extremely vigilant and we need to focus not so much on recognizing that a war is coming in advance, but even before those signs appear, on building structures that can avoid naked, armed conflict.”
A century ago [April 1917] Congress declared war on Imperial Germany. It was a bizarre decision: the secure New World voluntarily joined the Old World slaughterhouse, consigning more than 117,000 Americans to death for no intelligible reason ... The only sensible decision was for America to stay out. There was no conceivable threat to the U.S ... There was perhaps no president more sanctimonious and certain of his own righteousness [than Woodrow Wilson] ... Good intentions are never enough to justify government action, especially foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson’s nominal idealism proved to be deadly. Americans should ponder the lessons of his fateful course a century ago. It’s time for U.S. presidents to work hard for peace rather than take what has become the far easier path to war.
An Amnesty International employee has been targeted with Israeli-made surveillance software, the human rights group said Wednesday, adding to a growing number of examples of Israeli technology being used to spy on human rights workers and opposition figures in the Middle East and beyond. In a 20-page report, Amnesty outlined how it believes a hacker tried to break into an unidentified staff member's smartphone in early June by baiting the employee with a WhatsApp message about a protest in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington. The London-based human rights organization said it traced the malicious link in the message to a network of sites tied to the NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company implicated in a series of digital break-in attempts ...
The US Senate easily passed a $716.3 billion defense authorization bill Wednesday that includes funding for Israel to defend itself against Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as ramping up military spending and bolstering America’s posture against Russia while avoiding policy changes that would have antagonized US President Donald Trump. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed 87 to 10 in the Senate a week after clearing the House of Representatives, and now heads to the White House for Trump’s signature ... American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) praised the bill ... thanking the Senate for helping to “protect Israel against mounting security threats.”
A Senate panel approved a bill on Tuesday [July 11] endorsing a decade-long aid package to Israel brokered by the Obama administration. The US-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018 authorizes a memorandum of understanding negotiated in 2016 between the two governments which will provide Israel with $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028. A bipartisan majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the legislation, allowing it to proceed to the full Senate floor ... The American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC], which pioneered the legislation, applauded its progress in a statement.
The claim made by many neoconservatives that Israel and the United States are partners in the Middle East because their strategic interests are identical is belied by the fact that the Israelis are more than willing to ignore Washington when its suits them to do so. The claim of identical interests has always been false, promoted by the Zionist media and an intensively lobbied Congress to make the lopsided relationship with an essentially racist and apartheid regime more palatable to the American public ... The Israelis have found the new administration in Washington to be what Lenin once described as a “useful idiot” ...
... In proportion to their numbers, Jews are the most successful and powerful group in the United States today. They have both raw power, political and economic, and enormous intellectual influence, shaping America's self-understanding ... The Jews don't really “run” America; but they haunt it in a peculiar way that makes it seem as if they run it, and gives them a leverage out of all proportion to their numbers, and even to their raw power. They have a certain moral authority, which isn’t altogether specious, but is certainly lopsided, since they are exempted from the kind of public criticism they are free to dish out.
An independently made video based on a talk by historian Mark Weber, "A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby." “As long as the 'very powerful' Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace." Runtime: 17:28 mins.
Reform Party Deputy Chairman and MEP Urmas Paet, and Jaak Madison, a member of the board of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), have condemned a critical statement issued by the Russian Embassy in Tallinn on Monday regarding an event held in Northeastern Estonia last Saturday to commemorate the Battle of Tannenberg Line fought in World War II ... A statement published by the Russian Embassy on Monday found that the commemoration of those who died in the Battle of Tannenberg Line in 1944 is the glorification of Waffen SS veterans. “We resent that the unfortunate custom of glorifying Waffen SS veterans continues in Estonia," the embassy said ...
This 16-minutes video presentation, with English-language narration, reviews the “Battle of the Tannenberg Line” – a major World War II battle in Estonia for the strategically important Narva Isthmus. A pan-European Waffen SS force of 22,250 men, including Germans, Estonians, Danes, Norwegians, Dutch and Belgians (Flemish and Walloons), fought July 25 to August 10, 1944, against vastly larger Soviet forces. About half of the Waffen SS infantrymen were Estonians. Known in Estonia as the “Battle of the Blue Hills,” it is regarded as a tactical victory for the European forces. The greatly outnumbered and outgunned defenders suffered about 10,000 casualties, while Soviet losses were 170,000 dead, missing or wounded.
Veteran activist Noam Chomsky has accused Israel of “brazenly” interfering in US electoral politics in a way that vastly outweighs any efforts that may have been carried out by Russia. In comments in which he accused much of the media of concentrating on stories he considered marginal, and ignoring issues such as the “existential threat” of climate change, the 89-year-old linguist said in much of the world, the US media’s focus with Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 was "a joke" ... “Whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support,” he said. Speaking to Democracy Now, Mr Chomsky added: “Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done ...”
Illiberal “Christian democracy” will replace multiculturalism after the European Parliament vote in 2019, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has predicted, adding that the EU elite have failed the people and should step down ... It’s time for the current Western leadership of the EU to go, as it has failed to protect the bloc from immigration, he said. “Their big goal is to transform Europe, to ship it into a post-Christian era and into an era when nations disappear ...,” the PM said. The liberal values and multiculturalism promoted by Brussels will crumble in the face of what he called “Christian democracy.” According to Orban, “Christian democracy is not liberal ... It is illiberal, if you like.” This ideology rejects not only immigration and multiculturalism, but Communist values as well, he explained.
... In Paris, I had coffee with Alex Soros, who is 32 and the second-youngest of George’s five children ... Alex told me that for many years, his father had not been eager to advertise his Judaism because “this was something he was almost killed for.” But he had always “identified firstly as a Jew,” and his philanthropy was ultimately an expression of his Jewish identity, in that he felt a solidarity with other minority groups and also because he recognized that a Jew could only truly be safe in a world in which all minorities were protected. Explaining his father’s motives, he said, “The reason you fight for an open society is because that’s the only society that you can live in, as a Jew — unless you become a nationalist and only fight for your own rights in your own state.”
... Here in America, we, too, appear to be in an endless quarrel about who we are. Is America a different kind of nation, a propositional nation, an ideological nation, defined by a common consent to the ideas and ideals of our iconic documents like the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address? Or are we like other nations, a unique people with our own history, heroes, holidays, religion, language, literature, art, music, customs and culture, recognizable all over the world as “the Americans”? ... Today, a large share of the American people loathe who we were from the time of the explorers and settlers, up until the end of segregation in the 1960s. They want to apologize for our past, rewrite our history, erase our memories and eradicate the monuments of those centuries.
... Those who have never been to the US, however, still harbor many fantasies about it, for American movies and music videos are hypnotically seductive. Even as it kills and commits suicide, the US tirelessly projects images of boundless wealth, virility and sexiness. Producing next to nothing, it sells dreams .. A people can endure any travails if they still have a common culture and history. With these snuffed out, there’s no nation left to save. Just ask yourself, Who have the means and desire to hollow out America? What are their final aims?
The Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem on Monday issued a statement slamming the newly passed nation-state law, which it called discriminatory, and said it violated both Israeli and international law. The Patriarchate, which represents the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, called on all Christians in Israel to protest the law that reserves the right to national-self determination exclusively for Israel’s Jewish citizens. “The law fails to provide any constitutional guarantees for the rights of the indigenous and other minorities living in the country,” a Patriarchate statement said. “Palestinian citizens of Israel, constituting 20 percent are flagrantly excluded from the law.”
Whether or not to expand NATO is a question that deserves debate. Would it help or hurt U.S. national security? Does adding countries such as Albania and Montenegro increase our security or ensnare us in possible regional disputes? Are we willing to risk war with Russia by including countries that already are mired in military conflict with Russia? ... There was a time when many cautioned against reckless expansion. Perhaps the most famous diplomat of the last century, George Kennan, wrote that NATO expansion would be a “fateful error” that would “inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion” and “restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.”
George F. Kennan, an outstanding twentieth-century American diplomat and scholar, played an important role in implementing and shaping US foreign policy, and earned well-deserved praise as a historian. He was a consistent advocate of a "realist" US foreign policy -- laid down by Washington, Jefferson, and other founders -- based on a prudent regard for US interests, and especially the long-term interests of the American people. In 1947-48, Kennan joined with State Department chief George C. Marshall and other high-ranking US officials in opposing US support for the Zionist takeover of Palestine.
The tradition of thought with which George Kennan (1904-2005) is most often identified is that of political realism. That tradition appears to most Americans to be rather foreign, incompatible with new world enlightenment and morality ... A prudent foreign policy was one that accepted the realities of power and interest and strove to keep the inevitable conflicts between nations within tolerable limits. Such a policy could be successful only if it took as its guiding principle the national interest ... Realism meant something else as well: a rejection of any idea of American “exceptionalism” or messianism, any claim that superior virtue placed upon Americans a redemptive burden on a global scale.
... Instead of relying on realism, both Republicans and Democrats tend to view foreign policy through the lens of liberal idealism. Rather than see world politics as an arena where security is scarce and major powers are forced to contend whether they wish to or not, America’s foreign-policy mavens are quick to divide the world into virtuous allies (usually democracies) and evil adversaries (always some sort of dictatorship) and to assume that when things go badly, it is because a wicked foreign leader (Saddam Hussein, Ali Khamenei, Vladimir Putin, Muammar al-Qaddafi, etc.) is greedy, aggressive, or irrational. When friendly states object to something the (virtuous) United States is doing, U.S. leaders tend to assume that critics just don’t understand their noble aims or are jealous of America’s success.
... Trump thinks he can achieve this by sanctioning Iran until the rulers in Tehran beg for mercy. But if history is a guide, there will be no such capitulation by Iran: With the Iranians, one of the most costly things to do, both culturally and politically, would be to show Trump the respect and deference he desires after his aggressive string of insults. So I am skeptical about Trump’s ability to pivot to diplomacy with Iran, but that is not to say that a better deal cannot be achieved. Indeed, better deals have often been on the table — but the United States rejected them at the time ... If Trump wants to explore realistic changes in Iran’s regional policies, missile defense or tougher restrictions on its nuclear program, he must first be willing to contemplate changes in U.S. policy.
... We are by now used to blood and thunder rhetoric between Washington and Tehran. But this time White House policy is clearly being directed by pro-Israel American neocons who want the US military to crush Iran as it did Iraq. Crushing Iran will leave Israel with unfettered control of the Mideast and its oil – unless Russia or Turkey intervene against Israel, which is most unlikely ... The Pentagon has planned a high-intensity air war against Iran that Israel and the Saudis might very well join. The plan calls for over 2,300 air strikes against Iranian strategic targets ... Direct western intervention in a major ground campaign seems unlikely.
I have frequently described Trump’s hostility to Iran as his Iran obsession, but after tonight’s unhinged tweet we might have to start calling it his Iran derangement ... Trump and his allies have already made sure that tensions with Iran are high and getting worse daily, and the president’s latest outburst will makes things even worse than they were. Talking about inflicting consequences “the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered” strongly suggests a willingness to cause massive death and destruction in Iran. It is imperative that Congress make clear that the president has no authority to order an attack on Iran, which would be a flagrant act of aggression, a violation of the U.N. Charter, and a breach of his oath of office.
Trump and Pompeo are squeezing Iran where it hurts. They are trying to prevent Iran from selling oil internationally. They are applying maximum pressure upon Iran. This is overt. It is announced policy ... The U.S. is threatening China and India if they buy Iranian oil ... In essence, the U.S. policy is an act of war. Trump is seeding war clouds over Iran. He wants Iranians to overturn their government. Failing that, he appears to want Iran to attack American assets or engage in some other act of retaliation, perhaps in Europe or the Persian Gulf, that can be made into a cause of war so that the U.S. and its allies (NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia) can attack Iran in force. At least, that is what he is risking ... The U.S. long-term aim is to have this entire region be under the wing of America.
Mark is devoted to Fox News. Polly is a loyal viewer of MSNBC. Their viewing habits reflect a deeply polarised nation and shape how they see the world. As part of the Ask America project, the BBC visited their hometown of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to find out how that's impacting the national conversation.
... From Europe's villages to the grand capitals of London, Paris and Rome, there has been an explosion in the number of Chinese tourists — the most visible sign of China's expanding economic presence in Europe, one both welcomed and feared. In 2017, more than six million Chinese citizens visited European countries, according to a report by the China Tourism Academy and the Chinese online travel agency Ctrip. European authorities estimate the numbers are higher — more like ten million. Tourism from China to European Union countries has tripled in the past ten years, and has risen more than from any other major non-EU countries, such as the United States, Russia or Brazil, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency ... The numbers are expected to continue to surge in 2018 ...
Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi left prison Sunday and was greeted by crowds of supporters after serving eight months for slapping Israeli soldiers, an episode that made her a symbol of resistance for Palestinians. Tamimi, 17, and her mother Nariman, who was also jailed over the incident, arrived in their village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank, where they were mobbed by journalists. Easily recognisable by her shock of reddish hair, Tamimi wore a Palestinian-style keffiyeh around her neck, at times appearing relaxed but at other moments overwhelmed as television cameras followed her. “The resistance continues until the fall of the occupation, and of course the (female) prisoners in jail are all strong," Ahed Tamimi said, her voice barely audible above the crowd.
Sifting through the cacophony of commentary from the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, here are four key points missed, ignored or glossed over by the Washington establishment and mainstream news coverage — and they require a good airing ... Big Media totally ignored the trillion dollar gorilla in room: Why does anyone have to spend so much on NATO in the first place? ... The Trump administration and Big Media, for all their noise, mainly argue that more spending is good. There is no debate about the reasons why. Meanwhile Russia is cutting its military spending. Washington is so dominated by our military-industrial-congressional complex that spending money is a major intent.