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… Thousands of Germans passed through the unit that became known as the London Cage, where they were beaten, deprived of sleep and forced to assume stress positions for days at a time. Some were told they were to be murdered and their bodies quietly buried. Others were threatened with unnecessary surgery carried out by people with no medical qualifications. Guards boasted that they were ‘the English Gestapo’. The London Cage was part of a network of nine ‘cages’ around Britain run by the Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (PWIS), which came under the jurisdiction of the Directorate of Military Intelligence.

… The “London Cage” was a secret torture centre where German prisoners who had been concealed from the Red Cross were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with execution or with unnecessary surgery. As horrific as conditions were at the London Cage, Bad Nenndorf was far worse … Prisoners were systematically beaten and exposed to extreme cold, where some were starved to death and, allegedly, tortured with instruments that his fellow countrymen had recovered from a Gestapo prison in Hamburg.

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey said Thursday that he did not want to be “complicit” if Israel chose to strike Iran’s nuclear program, positing that a premature attack would dissolve the international pressure on the Islamic Republic, The Guardian reported. Speaking to journalists in London, Dempsey said an attack would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” but added that the “international coalition” pressuring Iran “could be undone if it was attacked prematurely”. “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it,” he added.

… First of all, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. and Israeli intelligence service are all agreed on that. A “threshold nuclear weapons capability” (but no nuclear weapons) is still not illegal … So what are these sanctions really about? Overthrowing the Iranian regime, of course. American sanctions against Iran long predate any concerns about Iranian nuclear weapons, and would not be ended even if Iran stopped all work on uranium enrichment tomorrow. The U.S. legislation that imposes the sanctions makes that very clear. Since stopping the enrichment program would not end the sanctions, why would the Iranian government even consider doing so?

David Irving, the British author, won his fight Friday to overturn an entry ban for Germany, imposed for his questioning of the Holocaust. Irving, 74, has written a series of books about the Third Reich denying the historical evidence for the Holocaust. A Munich court convicted and fined him in 1993 on a charge of insulting the memory of the dead after he disputed that the gas chambers at Auschwitz killed hundreds of thousands of Jews. It also imposed the entry ban. Irving applied last year for re-entry, but German authorities replied that he remained banned until 2022. The administrative tribunal rejected this, ruling that this ban could not be upheld under European Union rules of free movement.

… Over four years, the Luftwaffe showed the world air power unexcelled. The essense of its strategy was air superiority. Without superiority in the air, troops could not be easily transported, motorized ground units could not move rapidly, enemy troop concentrations could not he disrupted, and enemy fortifications and communications could not be destroyed. When the Luftwaffe failed to attain air superiority, as at Dunkirk, it failed to win. The lessons learned in Spain, and enlarged and elaborated in the succeeding European campaigns, were faithfully though not always correctly applied.

The historic find could total 60 of Britain’s most iconic fighter plane, the largest number of Spitfires left anywhere in the world. The deal comes after the personal intervention of David Cameron, who discussed bringing the planes home to the UK when he met Burma’s President Thein Sein in April. Revered as the plane that won the Battle of Britain in 1940, there are only 35 Spitfires still flying around the world. With a price tag of 1.5 million pounds or more each, Mr Cundall struck the aviation equivalent of a gold mine when he located the planes in February this year, almost 70 years after they were carefully greased and wrapped to preserve them, before being buried in crates.

Twitter has blocked the account of a neo-Nazi group accused of inciting hatred towards foreigners. In what amounts to an unprecedented move for the company, Twitter announced it had complied with a request by German authorities who have been monitoring the activities of the banned far-right group Besseres Hannover (Better Hanover) for some time. The San Francisco-based company said it had used a device developed earlier this year to monitor content.

Twitter has agreed to remove a flood of anti-Semitic tweets circulating on its service in France. The offensive messages are circulating labelled with the #unbonjuif (#agoodjew) hashtag. The tweets are being removed following the threat of legal action by a Jewish student group. The Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) was planning to get a court injunction to make Twitter remove the offensive tweets. The decision to remove the tweets emerged from a meeting between Twitter’s senior management, the UEJF president Jonathan Hayoun and the group’s legal representatives.

Members of Hungary’s Jobbik ultra-nationalist party have burned an Israeli flag in front of a major synagogue in the capital Budapest, calling on the government to cut diplomatic and economic ties with the Tel Aviv regime. The protesters gathered outside the Dohany Street Synagogue, which is regarded as the largest synagogue in Europe, on Tuesday, when the country marked the 56th anniversary of the anti-Communist revolution in 1956. Jobbik leader Gabor Vona denounced Hungary’s cooperation with the Israeli regime and said any “agreement between Hungary and Israel should be canceled.”

… In the spring of 1981, Mel Mermelstein, a southern California businessman and self-described Holocaust survivor, claimed that reward, and then sued the Institute for $17 million … Encouraged by this success, Mermelstein later brought yet another suit for $11 million against the Institute charging malicious prosecution, defamation, conspiracy to inflict emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Yet on Thursday, Sept. 19, 1991, in the Superior Court at Los Angeles, Mermelstein voluntarily dismissed most of his complaints. (Earlier that day, Judge Stephen Lachs had dismissed Mermelstein’s complaint of “malicious prosecution.”) This victory not only saved the Institute for Historical Review, but also substantially overturned the negative effects of the both the 1981 judicial notice and the 1985 settlement.

The Institute for Historical Review has won a resounding victory in its ten-year-old legal battle with California businessman and Holocaust personality Mel Mermelstein … Victory in the case (No. C629224) caps an acrimonious legal clash that has attracted nationwide media attention. Mermelstein’s long-standing campaign to shut down the IHR was sensationalized, for example, in a made-for-television movie, “Never Forget,” broadcast nationwide last April 8 on the TNT cable television network. Veteran actor Leonard Nimoy played the former Auschwitz and Buchenwald camp inmate, who was portrayed as a man of courage, rectitude and integrity.

The persistent myth of the Vatican’s indifference to the fate of Europe’s Jews during the Second World War had its origin in the 1960s … Responding to these accusations, Pope Paul VI opened the wartime records in the Vatican archives to study by four Jesuit historians, permitting them to select documents for publication. The American among them, Robert A. Graham, sorted out a great number that were eventually published in a series of volumes. These weighty documents clearly show that well before the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Secretary of State Pacelli, the future Pope, was deeply involved in promoting the welfare of Europe’s Jews.

Almost two-thirds of Democrats and a majority of Republicans agree that the United States should be less involved in Middle Eastern politics / … Four years into President Obama’s tenure, the average American believes that the United States should be less involved in the Middle East’s political changes. The Pew Research Center has the data … The Republican candidate’s advocacy for greater U.S. involvement is a loser even among the Republicans surveyed. And the incumbent’s chosen level of involvement strikes 65 percent of Democrats as excessive. Put another way, there is a clear bipartisan failure to satisfy voter preferences on this subject.

… Polls show that after a decade of two wars and a brutal recession, most Americans have grown deeply skeptical of the benefits of the global leadership role that the president and the Republican challenger, backed by the foreign policy establishment, insist is the nation’s wisest course and destiny. Though few Americans want to turn their backs on global crises, they are increasingly doubtful that an America that’s always in the lead benefits them or the rest of the world, the polls show.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the third and final presidential debate of the 2012 campaign was the similarity between the two candidates on many basic foreign policy issues … Neither candidate mentioned the shared assessment of U.S. and Israeli intelligence that the Iranians have not actually begun building a nuclear weapon, or even decided to build one … Despite Israel’s violation of scores of UN Security Council resolutions, ongoing gross and systematic human rights violations, and unprecedented intransigence in the peace process, Obama bragged during the debate that “we have created the strongest military and intelligence cooperation between our two countries in history.”

… Both candidates repeatedly recited their allegiance to the non-voting state of Israel. I think I counted six pledges by Obama and five by Romney before the moderator improperly raised the subject of Israel by asking, “Do you consider an attack on Israel to be an attack on America.” Both men answered with a resounding “yes,” an attack on Israel is an attack on America! … Our task is to expose Christian Zionism to those who are caught up in it or influenced by it. Christian Zionists who read this letter are invited to introduce themselves to us. We do not think they are aliens from some other world. They include our closest friends, loved ones and associates.

… What is the grave threat that justifies a war? While Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent, it has not enriched to weapons grade. Should they do so, we would know it. Ayatollah Khamenei has called nuclear weapons anti-Islamic, and the U.S. intelligence community says Iran has no nuclear bomb program. America’s position as of today is: We do not want war with Iran, but will tolerate no Iranian bomb. Iran’s official position is: We want no bomb, and we are willing to negotiate, but we have a right to have a peaceful nuclear program. Can we find no common ground here? Gates and Burns are right. Before we go to war, let us find out, in face-to-face talks if need be, if we really have to go to war.

Israeli and US troops were on Sunday beginning a vast missile defence exercise called Austere Challenge 12, in what was hailed as their largest-ever joint military operation, officials said. The exercise, which involves 3,500 personnel from the US European Command (US EUCOM) and 1,000 Israeli troops and is expected to last three weeks, is likely to send a clear signal to Tehran over its disputed nuclear drive, which most of the West believes is a weapons drive. “Austere Challenge 12 is the largest aerial defence exercise to take place between the two militaries,” an Israeli military statement said. The long-planned operation comes as the world grapples with the standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme …

Federal welfare spending has grown by 32 percent over the past four years, fattened by President Obama’s stimulus spending and swelled by a growing number of Americans whose recession-depleted incomes now qualify them for public assistance, according to numbers released Thursday. Federal spending on more than 80 low-income assistance programs reached $746 billion in 2011, and state spending on those programs brought the total to $1.03 trillion, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service and the Senate Budget Committee. That makes welfare the single biggest chunk of federal spending — topping Social Security and basic defense spending.

Detroit was once the industrial capital of the nation. But decades of economic decline and a ruinous recession have turned the Motor City into America’s crime capital. For the fourth years in a row, Forbes.com has rated Detroit, Michigan, as the most dangerous city in the country — with a violent crime rate of 2,137 per 100,000 residents. Many of the other places on the list are also declining industrial powerhouse cities that have been left ravaged by dwindling blue-collar jobs and rising unemployment. Baltimore, Maryland, ranked number seven; Cleveland, Ohio, number nine; and Buffalo, New York, number ten; all share Detroit’s fate to one degree or another.

Greece’s main opposition Syriza and the far-right Golden Dawn parties are surging in popularity among voters angry at a new wave of wage and pension cuts demanded by foreign lenders, a poll showed on Friday … Backing for the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn, which has been linked to a rise in attacks against migrants in recent months, stood at 14 percent, double their take in June elections that gave the party a foothold in parliament. That would make the group the country’s third largest party.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Monday said the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had reached a crisis point and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was not pursuing a two-state solution. “That policy of promoting a two-state solution seems to be abandoned now and we are deeply concerned about this move towards this catastrophic so-called one-state choice … this is a major concern,” Carter told a news conference. Carter helped forge Israel’s peace deal with Egypt in 1979, the first between the Jewish state and an Arab country but has been a strong critic of Israeli settlement policy in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law. The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly.

Russia will scuttle any UN Security Council resolution that could be interpreted as allowing military action against Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned. “As the Libyan experience has shown, sadly, a military scenario is possible,” he said in an interview with the daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta when asked whether Israel or the United States could start military operations in Iran … There is “absolutely no evidence” that Iran has decided to include a military component in its nuclear program, Lavrov said.

… The Southern Poverty Law Center is a wealthy, well-connected, organized attack machine of the extreme political Left. It shares strategies, goals, and tactics with other similar organizations and colludes with them in campaigns of defamation, disinformation and legal threats to silence and/or criminalize political opponents. The SPLC has unjustifiably secured itself a position of influence within our government and society. Its very presence threatens our freedoms and First Amendment rights. It abuses our system of justice, while hiding behind a Constitution for which it has little respect.

In September 1991 the Institute for Historical Review prevailed in a lawsuit brought by Mel Mermelstein, a southern California businessman and self-professed eyewitness to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. This victory closed more than ten years of wrangling in two legal cases … In the second case, Mermelstein brought an $11 million suit for defamation (libel) because of an IHR Newsletter item by Bradley Smith that called him a “demonstrable fraud,” a “vainglorious prevaricator,” and a “false-tale spinner.” On Sept. 19, 1991, Mermelstein was obliged to drop what remained of his suit after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed a substantial portion of it.

… Here are some other statistics that may surprise you: 41 percent of Americans believe China is the world’s leading economic power … ; 73 percent of Americans could not identify communism as America’s main concern during the Cold War, according to Newsweek … ; Nearly 25 percent of Americans don’t know that the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, according to a 2011 Marist poll; 71 percent of Americans believe Iran already has nuclear weapons, according to a 2010 CNN/ Opinion Research Corporation poll … ; The average American thinks that the United States spends 27 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid … ; 88 percent of young Americans couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map, 75 percent couldn’t locate Iran or Israel, and 63 percent couldn’t identify Iraq …

Much of what’s written about the role of Christianity in Third Reich Germany, and about Hitler’s views on religion, is grossly distorted or just plain wrong. The official program of Hitler’s National Socialist Party expressed support for “positive Christianity, and nearly all NS Party members were either Evangelical Lutherans or Roman Catholics. Although Christianity had a favored status in the Third Reich, Germans were free to profess any religious outlook, or none. In many public statements Hitler affirmed a religious and spiritual outlook, and expressed admiration for Christian ethics and traditions. But privately he grew steadily more critical of the Christian worldview. Runtime: 50:44 mins.

Christianity had a favored status in World War II Germany. For example, Christian crosses were displayed in many public school classrooms and other public buildings, especially in largely Catholic regions. German army soldiers’ belt buckles bore the words “God With Us,” and churches in wartime Germany were packed. In spite of some tensions between religious and political leaders, the vast majority of Germans (including the clergy) remained loyal to Hitler and his regime to the bitter end. America’s most important military ally during World War II was the Soviet Union, a belligerently atheist state that ruthlessly suppressed religion. Runtime: 50:28 mins.

… And yet the more dominant the U.S. military becomes in its ability to destroy and the more its forces are spread across the globe, the more the defeats and semi-defeats pile up, the more the missteps and mistakes grow, the more the strains show, the more the suicides rise, the more the nation’s treasure disappears down a black hole — and in response to all of this, the more moves the Pentagon makes … A deeply militarized mindset and the global maneuvers that go with it are by now just part of the way of life of a Washington eternally “at war.” They are the tics of a great power with the equivalent of Tourette’s Syndrome.

… The remarkable colour images were taken by the Führer’s personal photographer, a loyal follower given unprecedented access to the Third Reich’s elite. Hugo Jaeger was allowed to travel with Hitler to record his appearances at rallies, intimate parties and in private moments … After so many years, it is impossible to know for certain why so many people in the photographs are smiling. None appears to have been forced to pose, none seems to display any fear. The trilby-hatted man in the coat with a fur collar, for example, seems quite comfortable in the company of German officers.

Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony … Other Western nations routinely bar forms of speech considered hateful. Britain prohibits any “abusive or insulting words” meant “to stir up racial hatred.” Canada outlaws “any writing, sign or visible representation” that “incites hatred against any identifiable group.” These laws ban speech based not only on its content but on the reaction of others.

Around 80 percent of respondents in a survey of both Israelis and Palestinians say that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would ignite a major regional war … Public opinion in both Israel and Palestine falls in line with the general consensus in the US military and intelligence community. As a recent report by former government officials, national security experts and retired military officers concluded last month prompt large-scale Iranian retaliation that would spark an uncontrollable regional war.

A majority of the U.S public believes that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be harmful to Washington’s military and strategic position in the Middle East, according to a new poll released yesterday by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) … Twenty-nine percent said the Washington should discourage Israel from carrying out an attack. That was down from 34% who took that position in March. Twelve percent said Washington should encourage an attack; that was also down from last March when 14 percent took that position. Finally, 53 percent said Washington should take a neutral stance; that was up by seven points from earlier this year.

… But if the question is put another way, and Americans are asked if they would support the US launching military action against Iran if there were evidence that Tehran is building nuclear weapons, a clear majority – 56 percent – say they would, according to a poll released Tuesday by Reuters and the Ipsos polling group. What looks like contradictory responses is most likely explained by the differing wording: One poll asks about bombing Iran’s “nuclear program,” while the other asks specifically about military action in the event that “evidence” shows Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

The number of violent crimes rose by 18 percent in the United States last year while property crimes went up by eleven percent, the government reported Wednesday. It was the first year-to-year increase for violent crime since 1993, marking the end of a long string of declines. Violent crime fell by 65 percent since 1993, from 16.8 million to 5.8 million last year. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ annual national crime victimization survey, the size of the percentage increases in both violent crime and property crime for last year was driven in large part by the historically low levels seen in 2010.

Fifteen leaders of U.S. churches and other faith-based organizations have asked Congress to reevaluate U.S. military aid to Israel. The religious leaders sent a letter to Congress members on Monday, calling for an investigation into possible violations by Israel of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, which would make Israel ineligible for U.S. military aid.

… Further, the Israeli government is a rogue regime by most international standards, engaging as it does in torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and continued occupation of territories seized by its military. Worse still, it has successfully manipulated my country, the United States, and has done terrible damage both to our political system and to the American people, a crime that I just cannot forgive, condone, or explain away … Tel Aviv has also played a key role in Washington’s going to war against Iraq, in promulgating a U.S.-led global war on terror against the Muslim world, and in crying wolf over Iran, all of which have served no U.S. interest. Through it all, Congress and the media are oblivious to what is taking place.

Ten years ago, on October 10, 2002, the US House of Representatives made one of the most calamitous mistakes of a generation. Congress, with willful blindness, voted to attack, invade and occupy a sovereign, oil-rich nation in the Middle East that did not attack us and did not pose a threat to the American people … Those repeating the myth that America was duped are perpetuating one of the biggest lies in American history. Iraq did not pose a threat to the United States. Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. We were not duped. We were not fooled. It was obvious at the time. The evidence was in publicly available reports for anyone who cared to look.

… Aircrew who anticipated a Gestapo-style battering were in for a surprise when they encountered Obergefreiter Hanns Scharff, who had acquired fluent English when working as a businessman in pre-war South Africa … He was a self-taught interrogator who used persuasion rather than punishment as a strategy for getting Allied prisoners of war to disclose more than the customary name, rank and number, permitted by the Geneva Convention. Scharff always began by doing his homework thoroughly … Much of what he had to relate reflected Scharff’s firm conviction that interrogation could succeed without treating prisoners in an inhumane manner.

So we have two election campaigns in the next three months – one in the USA and one in Israel. I don’t know which of them is more important for our lives. … The US elections are far more corrupt than ours. Inevitably so. Since the advent of TV, they have become hugely expensive. TV ads cost a lot of money. Enough money can come only from big corporations and billionaires. Both candidates are heavily mortgaged to pressure groups and commercial interests, which they will have to serve from Day One in office. The immense power of the pro-Israel lobby in the US derives from this fact. It’s not so much about Jewish votes. It’s about Jewish money.

France’s highest legal authority ruled on Tuesday that a new law that would have made it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was unconstitutional, a move quickly welcomed by Turkey. The decision by France’s Constitutional Council invalidates the law, which President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to ratify by the end of February … French law already considers denial of Europe’s Holocaust illegal. Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was famously found guilty of Holocaust denial for saying, in 1987, that the gas chambers of Nazi Germany had been a “point of detail” in the history of World War Two.

A German court is making a fresh attempt to punish a British ultraconservative Catholic bishop for denying the Holocaust in a television interview. The regional court in the southern city of Regensburg has issued an order of punishment against Richard Williamson after an earlier conviction was overturned on a legal technicality last year. Court spokesman Thomas Rauscher said Thursday that if Williamson accepts the order of punishment he will be required to pay an unspecified fine. If he objects, the case will go to trial again. The 72-year-old Williamson told a Swedish TV station in 2008 that he did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.

The furor over the “Holocaust denial” remarks of Bishop Richard Williamson is not a controversy about historical truth, the role of history in society, anti-Semitism or “hate.” This affair is really about power — about those who really wield it in our culture, as well as about how and why that power is used … A society’s real hierarchy of values, and of power, is shown by what it prohibits. The Williamson affair underscores a well-entrenched Jewish-Zionist bias in the cultural life of modern Western society, and reminds us, once again, of the power behind that bias.

The New York Times has a long-standing history of pro-Israeli bias. An earlier “If Americans Knew” report explained “highly disturbing patterns” of distorted, one-sided coverage. Over time, little changed … Times Ochs and Sulzberger controlling families are Jewish. In 1992, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. succeeded his father as publisher and board chairman. Whether or not Jews alone get Jerusalem assignments, expect pro-Israeli bias to continue.

Chinese views on US-China relations have declined sharply in the last two years, a new study has found. Only 39% of people said they would call the relationship co-operative, down from 68% in 2010, a Pew report said. The number of people who described US-China ties as hostile was up to 26% from 8% two years earlier. Many Chinese people, especially the young, urban and well-educated, said they admired elements of US soft power, such as science and technology. But respondents were split on their preferences for American music, films and television.

Vienna’s municipal officials say the city has settled on a downtown site in front of the Austrian chancellor’s office as the place for a memorial honouring those who deserted from Hitler’s army. The decision to put up such a monument was made months ago but organizations involved in its realization could not settle on a location. The choice of the Ballhausplatz square was announced Friday by officials of Vienna’s Socialist-Green coalition government. It will be the first such memorial in Austria, which was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938 — a move supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens back then.

… The war in Iraq was sold to Congress and the American people with easily disproved lies. We must learn from this dark period in American history to ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes. And we must hold accountable those who misled the American public … Even the most trusted newspapers around the country blindly repeated as fact grossly incorrect assertions by leaders of both parties … Ten years ago Congress voted to wage war on a nation that did not attack us. That decision undermined our fiscal and national security. To this day we are suffering from the blowback.

When a prominent American political figure speaks boldly about Jewish-Zionist power, that’s news. So the remarks by South Carolina’s senior Senator that Iraq was invaded “to secure Israel,” and that “everybody” in Washington knows it, are indeed remarkable … Bush’s motive in going to war for Israeli interests, charged Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, was to get Jewish support in election campaigns.
 

 
An interview-debate on the motives and forces behind the US invasion of Iraq. Opposing views are presented by Mark Weber, director of the IHR, and by Stephen Zunes, professor at the University of San Francisco. Brother Nathanael Kapner arranged the exchange.

For the first time ever, the US no longer has a majority of Protestants as the number of people with no religious affiliation rises, a study has found. The Pew report found only 48% of adults identified themselves as Protestants, down from 53% five years ago. The long-expected decline was pinned to a rise in those claiming no religion – about 20% of Americans, the study said. There are no Protestants on the Republican presidential ticket for the first time this year. Nor are there any Protestant Supreme Court justices.

In this scene from the HBO television show “The Newsroom,” news anchor Will McAvoy, played by veteran actor Jeff Daniels, surprises an audience by saying that America is not the “greatest country in the world,” and explains why. The US, he goes on, was once was “the greatest,” and could be again. Runtime: 3:27 mins.
 

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said not long ago that in ten years there would be no more Israel. What foolishness, right? … The more these trends persist – and there is nothing on the horizon to stop them – in three, seven or ten years, Israel will become more religious Zionist, zealous, insular and unrestrained. It will be at constant war with the surrounding countries, with many nations boycotting its products. Its economy, in which inequality will grow, will weaken, and the best of its secular-liberal young men and women will leave it for Canada or Kamchatka. Can a country like this continue to exist over time?

A look at the life and death of Alex Odeh, an Arab-American community activist who was killed in 1985 with a bomb that went off as he opened the door of his office in Santa Ana, California. The best available evidence is that the murder was carried out by three members of the Jewish Defense League, a militant Zionist group with a long record of terrorist crimes. Runtime: 15:59 mins.
 

This booklet documents the background and criminal activities of Jewish Zionist terrorist groups, and especially the Jewish Defense League. Particular emphasis is given here to terror — including murder — against “thought criminals” who question the Holocaust story that six million Jews were systematically killed during the Second World War … This terror campaign culminated in a devastating arson attack on the Institute’s offices and warehouse in Torrance on July 4, 1984 — the 209th anniversary of American independence. Damage in the attack, carried out in the early morning hours of the 4th, was estimated at $400,000.

… You’d never know from their “coverage” that top military and intelligence figures in the United States and Israel say that Iran’s leaders are “rational actors,” that is, open to reason and not suicidal. The mainstream media have shamefully ill-served the American public, whose interests would be gravely harmed by a war with Iran … Twice America’s intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran scrapped its suspected nuclear program in 2003, after the U.S. military ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Moreover, Iran, unlike Israel, has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is subject to inspections by permanently stationed International Atomic Energy Agency personnel. The Iranian “threat” is another manufactured crisis.

Any attack against Iran will precipitate a harsh retaliation, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised on Tuesday, in a rare acknowledgment that an American military strike on his country, amid mounting international concern regarding its nuclear program, was a realistic possibility. “The possibility of attack against Iran cannot be ignored, but it can be said that Iran’s response to any aggression will be crushing,” he said, according to the Iranian state-sponsored Fars news agency. ”Iranians have never start[ed] any war but they have always been good defenders and have always defended their territories in a memorable and historical form [sic].”

Although it produced “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the War of 1812 does not get much attention in the United States. In Canada, however, the federal government is devoting surprising attention to the bicentennial of the conflict, which it describes bluntly in a new television commercial as an act of American aggression against Canada. Much about the war is fiercely debated by historians but one thing is clear: Canada was not yet a country at the time of the war, which pitted the United States against the British.

Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party is increasingly assuming the role of law enforcement officers on the streets of the bankrupt country, with mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to seek help from the neo-Nazi group, analysts, activists and lawyers say. In return, a growing number of Greek crime victims have come to see the party, whose symbol bears an uncanny resemblance to the swastika, as a “protector.”

America’s longest war entered its twelfth year Sunday, with the anniversary marked by a Taliban statement claiming that NATO forces are “fleeing Afghanistan” in “humiliation and disgrace”. The US led the invasion on October 7, 2001, to topple the Taliban government for harbouring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks … The troops have now begun pulling out and all foreign combat forces will be gone by the end of 2014 according to a withdrawal schedule agreed by the US and NATO.

… California’s public higher education system is, in other words, dying a slow death. The promise of a cheap, quality education is slipping away for the working and middle classes, for immigrants, for the very people whom the University of California’s creators held in mind when they began their grand experiment 144 years ago. And don’t think the slow rot of public education is unique to California: that state’s woes are the nation’s.

In recent weeks, as they do about this time each year, several publications have attempted to crown the best university in America. So what is the best university in the country? The answer’s not quite so simple. In fact, just about the only thing these rankings agree on is that they really don’t agree what America’s best university is. U.S. News and World Report picked Harvard University and Princeton University to tie in the number one place, while the Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed the California Institute of Technology in the number one spot, sticking Harvard at number four and Princeton down at number six.

A group of rabbis is clashing with New York City health officials over the safety of an ancient circumcision ritual. Three rabbis and three Jewish groups asked a federal court Thursday to block enforcement of a new regulation requiring written parental consent for a rite called “metzitzah b’peh,” in Hebrew, which city health experts said can spread infection and has killed two children since 2004. During the ritual, the person performing the circumcision attempts to cleanse the wound by sucking blood from the cut and spitting it aside.

The German government has backed new legislation aimed at ending a legal dispute over the religious tradition of circumcision. The cabinet has announced support for proposals that would explicitly allow the practice. Earlier this year, a regional court ruled that circumcision of newborn boys amounted to assault, prompting protests from Jewish and Muslim organisations. It also raised fears among some of a resurgence in anti-Semitism in Germany. The new law will make circumcision explicitly legal, as long as it is carried out by trained experts, and parents are informed of any medical risks.

He’s headed off to the Temple of Doom! A nebbishy rabbi who called himself the “Jewish Indiana Jones” was sentenced yesterday to four-plus years in the slammer for peddling Torahs he falsely claimed to have “rescued” after they were lost during the Holocaust. Menachem Youlus shut his eyes and winced as Manhattan federal Judge Colleen McMahon ripped into him for swindling $1.2 million through the Maryland-based Save a Torah charity he co-founded. Youlus, 51, was ordered to pay back more than $990,000 to his victims. McMahon said Youlus’ exploitation of his “co-religionists” was “frankly a crime that turns my stomach.’’

… Nearly 400,000 Britons died [in World War II]. Millions more were scarred by the experience, physically and mentally. But was it worth it? Her answer – and the answer of many of her contemporaries, now in their 80s and 90s — is a resounding No. They despise what has become of the Britain they once fought to save. It’s not our country any more, they say, in sorrow and anger … The feelings of Sarah and others from this most selfless generation about the modern world have been recorded by a Tyneside writer, 33-year-old Nicholas Pringle … What is extraordinary about the 150 replies he received, which he has now published as a book, is their vehement insistence that those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war would now be turning in their graves.

Of the approximately half-million titles issued by mainline American publishers in the 1980s, Wartime by Professor Paul Fussell is one of a small selection which a revisionist might profit from reading … It used to be a conviction generations ago that the only certainty upon the outbreak of war was that one side would not win. Modern wars are mainly lost by both sides, though it takes awhile for this to be realized … All times are disorderly. The notion that human affairs move in the direction of something called “normalcy” is a hallucination.

Israel and the United States are considering a joint “surgical strike” targeting Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, a former Clinton administration official who is close to the Obama administration said. David Rothkopf, an international relations expert writing in Foreign Policy, cited a source close to the discussions between Israel and the Obama administration, as saying the strike would take a couple of hours in the best case and a day or two overall. The source said the strike would be conducted by air, using primarily bombers and drone support.

… So what, then, is the real reason that so many people in both the US and Israeli governments are so desperate to stop Iranian proliferation? Every now and then, they reveal the real reason: Iranian nuclear weapons would prevent the US from attacking Iran at will, and that is what is intolerable. The latest person to unwittingly reveal the real reason for viewing an Iranian nuclear capacity as unacceptable was GOP Senator Lindsey Graham … Graham’s answer is consistent with what various American policy elites have said over the years about America’s enemies generally and Iran specifically: the true threat of nuclear proliferation is that it can deter American aggression.

My first reaction to Binyamin Netanyahu’s exhibition of comics at the UN General Assembly was shame. Shame that the supreme elected representative of my country would stoop to such a primitive rhetorical device, bordering on the childish … As I have said before (excuse me for quoting myself again), a military attack on Iran is out of the question. The price is intolerably high. The geographic, economic and military facts all conspire to prevent it. The Strait of Hormuz would be shut, the world economy would collapse, a long and devastating war would ensue … Jews have a huge influence – up to a point. This point is extremely significant.

… Tehran seems to be signaling it is ready for a deal. According to the United Nations’ watchdog agency, Iran recently converted more than one-third of its 20% enriched uranium into U308, or uranium oxide, a powder for its medical research reactor … So a new question is now on the table. If Iran advances ideas to demonstrate convincingly that it has no weapons program, but insists on what President Obama said he supports — Iran having a peaceful nuclear program under U.N. inspection — will America accept that? Or will we, seeing the economic crisis deepening, make demands so humiliating no Iranian government can accept them, because our true goal is and has always been regime change?

… In my view, Simon Wiesenthal was a liar and a fraud. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he was one of the biggest conmen of the 20th century. I spent four years working on a history of Nazi-hunting that was published last year, and the material I gathered on Wiesenthal was enough to make me scream out loud. When I started my book, I too believed that the great man was just that — great. But when I looked at all his memoirs, biographies and original archive material, I realised that, like so many others, the image I had built up of Simon Wiesenthal was hopelessly incorrect.

… Wiesenthal’s reputation as a moral authority is undeserved. The man whom The Washington Post has called the “Holocaust’s Avenging Angel” has a little known but well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. He has lied about his own wartime experiences, misrepresented his postwar “Nazi-hunting” achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities.

In this 75-minute address at an IHR meeting in southern California on Sept. 29, 2012, Weber tells what he learned and accomplished during a recent visit to Iran. Among the highlights of his nine-day stay was a guest appearance on a prime-time public affairs television show, a meeting with the nation’s President, and a well-received two-hour lecture to a gathering of 800 students. Weber also speaks about how Iranians live and work, and the country’s social, cultural and political life. He also takes a look at the history of US-Iran relations, and the prospects for war against the country by Israel or the US.

Wednesday night’s debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney underscored a core truth about America’s presidential election season: the vast majority of the most consequential policy questions are completely excluded from the process. This fact is squarely at odds with a primary claim made about the two parties – that they represent radically different political philosophies – and illustrates how narrow the range of acceptable mainstream political debate is in the country … On still other vital issues, such as America’s steadfastly loyal support for Israel and its belligerence towards Iran, the two candidates will do little other than compete over who is most aggressively embracing the same absolutist position.

… Islamic governments, angered by an anti-Muslim video that provoked protests and riots in their countries, are demanding to know why insulting the Prophet Mohammed is free speech but vilifying Jews and denying the Holocaust isn’t. And we don’t have a good answer. If we’re going to preach freedom of expression around the world, we have to practice it. We have to scrap our hate-speech laws … We’re hypocrites. From Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Nigeria to the United Kingdom, Muslims scoff at our rhetoric about free speech. They point to European laws against questioning the Holocaust.

Painting a picture of internal political dysfunction in a dangerous world, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Wednesday night that a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences. Neither the United States nor Israel is capable of wiping out Iran’s nuclear capability, he said, and “such an attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert.” Iran could respond by disrupting world oil traffic and launching a wave of terrorism across the region, Gates said. “The results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could, in my view, prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”

In an interview with The Washington Post, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that any decision to go to war with Iran must be an American one, and not subcontracted to Israel. Kissinger emphasized: “We cannot subcontract the right to go to war. That is an American decision.” Discussing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly calling on the world to draw red lines on the Iranian nuclear threat, Kissinger commented: “Should we make a public announcement [on red lines] that can be used by Israel as a justification for its going to war? That we cannot do.”

New numbers that have just been released show that things are getting worse for American families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income declined to $50,054 in 2011. That is a 1.5 percent decline from the previous year, and median household income has now fallen for four years in a row. In fact, after adjusting for inflation median household income has not been this low since 1995. These new numbers once again confirm what so many of us have been talking about for so long – American families are steadily getting poorer.

The rest of the world can stop worrying about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s supposed threat to bomb Iran. Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week appears to mark the end of his long campaign to convince the world that he might launch a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear programme. The reason for Netanyahu’s retreat is the demonstration of unexpectedly strong pushback against Netanyahu’s antics by President Barack Obama … Although Netanyahu has been generally perceived as deadly serious about the threat of war against Iran, there is good reason to doubt that Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak ever intended to attack Iran.

Israel and the United States have waged a campaign of cyberwarfare and covert operations against Iran for the past several years. If Iran had taken similar actions toward Israel or the United States, we would have considered it a declaration of open war … The United States has already suffered two decade-long wars that brought this country to financial catastrophe and military exhaustion. We cannot afford another war. A U.S. or Israeli war on Iran could spark a regional conflagration that would cause untold suffering across the Muslim world and spark deadly blowback for decades to come.

… Netanyahu’s fixation with Iran’s nuclear programme has had one positive side-effect — for the Israeli prime minister, at least. While Iran occupies centre-stage, fewer people badger him about the long-stalled Israel-Palestine peace process. Meanwhile, more homes are being built in Israeli settlements deep within the Palestinian West Bank, placed there deliberately to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution. This hard-nosed observation is one reason why Patrick Tyler’s readable and informative new history of Israel is so timely. Mr Tyler, a respected American journalist, sets out to document Israeli intransigence about peacemaking all the way back to the earliest days of the Jewish state.

It is hard to overestimate the risks that Benjamin Netanyahu poses to the future of his own country. As Prime Minister, he has done more than any other political figure to embolden and elevate the reactionary forces in Israel, to eliminate the dwindling possibility of a just settlement with the Palestinians, and to isolate his country on the world diplomatic stage … Adding to the outrage is the fact that Netanyahu is performing not just for his allies on the Israeli right but for those he perceives as his allies on the American right, including those in the Jewish community.

A call for war by the US against Iran prompts childish laughter by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her frivolous, unfeeling behavior in this June 2012 appearance with James Baker and Charlie Rose is all too typical of the arrogant, cynical mindset of many influential US political personalities. America’s highest-ranking foreign affairs official goes on to endorse the policy of her boss, President Obama: for the US government “all options are on the table” – including use of nuclear weapons — in the US effort to force Iran to halt its nuclear energy program. Runtime: 1:02 mins.

Pressure is mounting on an Australian man to prove that his remarkable Holocaust survival story is true. Alex Kurzem’s story has been told in a bestselling book and an award-winning documentary — both titled The Mascot — but it was the feature that was screened on America’s 60 Minutes in 2009 that roused the suspicions of Dr Barry Resnick, a Californian college professor who lost relatives in the Holocaust. Uldis (Alex) Kurzem claimed he witnessed the massacre of his Jewish mother, sister and brother in the Belorussian village of Koidanov as a five-year-old boy in 1941.

Israel is planning to permanently station a submarine carrying nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf, the [London] Times reported on Sunday [in May 2012]. Israeli submarines have visited the Gulf before, but the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels. The paper claims that the government has decided to station at least one of three submarines armed with nuclear missiles permanently within striking distance of Iran in the Persian Gulf … The diesel powered submarines are Dolphin class and were built in Germany to Israeli specifications.

Few Americans know that some 20-25,000 Jews live peacefully in Iran. There are at least ten synagogues in Tehran, capital of the Islamic Republic. “Anti-semitism has never been the general policy of the Iranian government,” explains Maurice Mottamed, a prominent Jewish community leader who also holds a seat in Iran’s parliament. Runtime: 5:39 mins.

… This is Friday night, Shabbat – Iranian style, and the synagogue in an affluent neighborhood of North Tehran is filled to capacity with more than 400 worshipers.
It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran that this most virulent anti-Israeli country supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country. While Jewish communities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria have all but vanished, Iran is home to 25,000 — some here say 35,000 – Jews … Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues, many of them with Hebrew schools. It has two kosher restaurants, and a Jewish hospital, an old-age home and a cemetery. There is a Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament.

In an apparent reference to the public spat between the United States and Israel, former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told the [business daily] Calcalist conference [in Tel Aviv] on Tuesday that preserving strong ties with the United States is an Israeli necessity. “We must preserve ties with the United States. I believe this is a security necessity,” he said. In the past three years, he noted, US taxpayers have contributed more to the Israeli defense budget than Israeli taxpayers. Since 2009, that amount is more than $11 billion.

A convicted TSA security officer says he was part of a “culture” of indifference that allowed corrupt employees to prey on passengers’ luggage and personal belongings with impunity, thanks to lax oversight and tip-offs from TSA [federal Transportation Security Agency] colleagues. “It was very commonplace, very,” said Pythias Brown, a former TSA officer at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey who admits he stole more than $800,000 worth of items from luggage and security checkpoints over a four-year period. “It was very convenient to steal,” he said.

… Today the president said this in his speech to the UN General Assembly: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.” As Ronald Reagan once said, there he goes again. Islam has a prophet; Christianity has a savior, but Judaism has …. the Holocaust … Mr. Obama and his speechwriters should get over their equation of Judaism and Israel with the Holocaust. It is dispiriting to see the 2009 error repeated again three years later.

… In the last few months, sanctions began hitting the Iranian population in an unparalleled manner. Unlike economic hardship that endured for decades, which many blamed on regime mismanagement and corruption, recent pain visited on Iranians can safely be laid at the U.S.’s doorstep … To make matters worse, the United States made it abundantly clear during the recent negotiations that sanctions relief was simply not on the table; even if Iran had accepted the requested curbs on its nuclear program, sanctions would not have been lifted.

Iran is reducing its dependence on oil by developing an “economy of resistance” to circumvent international sanctions over its nuclear programme, according to a senior regime adviser. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Expediency Council – which drafts the country’s macro economic, political and cultural policies — told the Financial Times that the country would focus on developing self-reliance. Imports would be replaced by locally produced goods and Tehran would push for barter deals with other countries, said Mr Rezaei, who commanded the elite revolutionary guards for 16 years. He added that the Iran would also increase investment abroad and reduce taxes in an attempt to encourage domestic industry.

With college enrollment growing, student debt has stretched to a record number of U.S. households — nearly one in five — with the biggest burdens falling on the young and poor. The analysis by the Pew Research Center found that 22.4 million households, or 19 percent, had college debt in 2010. That is double the share in 1989, and up from 15 percent in 2007, just prior to the recession – representing the biggest three-year increase in student debt in more than two decades. The increase was driven by higher tuition costs as well as rising college enrollment during the economic downturn. The biggest jumps occurred in households at the two extremes of the income distribution.

… Like Obama’s speech (and because of similarly unchallenged statements by politicians), many media reports are awash in misleading narratives, incomplete histories, and outright fiction about Iran and its nuclear program. Given how easily the American public and media were manipulated into believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, this moment should give us some pause … The only way to rebuff and dismantle propaganda is to be aware of the truth on which it claims to comment. Lesson #1: Iran is not building nuclear weapons … Lesson #2: Iran is not a threat to the US … Lesson #3: Iran is not an existential threat to Israel … Lesson #4: Iran’s leadership is not fanatical or suicidal …

… Netanyahu overplayed his hand at the UN, using a silly cartoon bomb and a red marker to press his demand the US attack Iran. Even many Israelis thought his bluffing went too far, carrying signs reading, “not now, not alone.” There is growing anger in the Pentagon, State Department and CIA over Netanyahu’s effort to provoke a US-Iranian War … There was no mention that Israel’s threats to attack Iran, and its demands the US blitz Iran, clearly violate the UN Charter and international law. Iran’s claims the West and Israel were waging economic and computer war against it and murdering its scientists were shrugged off.

U.S. officials confirmed today [Feb. 10, 2012] that Israel has been funding and training Iranian dissidents to assassinate nuclear scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program. The claim has already been levelled by the Iranian government who believed that Mossad, Israel’s secret service, have been arming dissidents with the terrorist organisation the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK). Last month Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, 32, a chemistry expert, was killed in a brazen daylight assassination when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car in Tehran.

A Swedish-Algerian journalist speaks about the persecution of “Holocaust deniers” during a television interview broadcast in Lebanon. Yahya Abu Zakariya speaks about the work and travails of Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf, David Irving, Roger Garaudy, and others, who have been imprisoned, fined and/or physically attacked for expressing dissident views on “the Holocaust.” Non-conformist views on this subject are prohibited by law in Germany, Israel, Belgium, Austria and some other countries. Runtime: 3:50 mins.

Roger Garaudy – French scholar, author and “Holocaust denier” — is honored in Lebanon at a ceremony for outstanding students organized by “Al-Manar” television, which is run by the Islamist movement Hezbollah. The director of “Al-Manar” explains why he admires the French intellectual. “In addition to his intellectual convictions,” he says, Garaudy “had exceptional courage in facing political taboos, especially regarding Israel and Zionism. He paid a heavy price for confronting Zionism, and for questioning the Holocaust, its figures, and so on.” Garaudy, who died in June 2012, is today perhaps best known for his book The Founding Myths of Modern Israel.

A close, critical look at the campaign against “Holocaust denial,” including the bizarre laws in some countries that punish dissidents as “thought criminals.” The IHR director reviews the outrageous treatment of Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, and many others who have been imprisoned, fined and forced into exile for non-conformist views on this politicized chapter of history. This well-organized global campaign, explains Weber, underscores a well-entrenched Jewish-Zionist bias in the cultural life of modern Western society, and points up the power behind that bias.

… In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and several other European countries, as well as in Israel, it is a crime publicly to dispute the official version of Holocaust history … “Holocaust denial” laws violate ancient and universal standards of justice. They criminalize even factual or truthful statements that “play down” or “whitewash” the Holocaust. They are selective and one-sided. In countries where they are on the books, the Holocaust is the only chapter of history that cannot be freely discussed. They inhibit historical inquiry and restrict free speech. They are a disgrace, and should be repealed.

… Mr. Diamant’s descendants are among a handful of children and grandchildren of Auschwitz survivors here who have taken the step of memorializing the darkest days of history on their own bodies. With the number of survivors here dropping to about 200,000 from 400,000 a decade ago, institutions and individuals are grappling with how best to remember the Holocaust — so integral to Israel’s founding and identity — after those who lived it are gone. Rite-of-passage trips to the death camps, like the one Ms. Sagir took, are now standard for high school students.

… The delisting of MEK is merely a technicality to make more overt arming and funding for the group possible. In reality, and despite being long recognized as a dangerous, extremist organization with both innocent Iranian and American blood on their hands, the US has been arming, training, and funding MEK for years, beginning under the Bush administration and continuing unabated under Obama.

… The starkly differing perceptions of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) or People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) could be a case study in the power of image management – of what can be achieved not with guns but by the way information is disseminated … Not only was the MEK heavily armed and designated as terrorist by the US government, it also had some very striking internal social policies. For example, it required its members in Iraq to divorce. Why? Because love was distracting them from their struggle against the mullahs in Iran. And the trouble is that people love their children too. So the MEK leadership asked its members to send their children away to foster families in Europe.