Headlines

In an unprecedented gift of our executive power to Israel, the House has passed for the very first time a law that forces the American president to give Israel a minimum of $3.8 billion per year. We have, in effect, crippled our ability to promote US interests in the Middle East / … The AIPAC sponsored bill that guarantees $38 billion to Israel over the next ten years is a dramatic departure from the deal offered under President Obama’s 2016 Memorandum of Understanding … It looks like the Israeli Prime Minister will obtain everything he sought and more. This is not surprising, since Trump, under extreme political pressure, is increasingly pandering to hardcore Israel supporters like billionaire Sheldon Adelson and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. (Graham is a top recipient of pro-Israel campaign donations.)

… There is another dimension to the story that the international media has largely chosen to ignore. And that is that Israel is now carrying out almost daily air attacks on Syria, over 200 in the past 18 months, a country with which it is not at war and which has not attacked it or threatened it in any way. It justifies the attacks by claiming that they are directed against Iran or Hezbollah, not at Syria itself … There is the other dimension of Israeli interference with its neighbors, the secret wars in which it supports the terrorist groups operating in Syria as well as in Iran. The Netanyahu government has armed the terrorists operating in Syria, and even treated them in Israeli hospitals when they get wounded … It’s the same old story. Israel does risky things like attacking its neighbors because it knows it will pay no price due to Washington’s support.

Although Israel doesn’t officially acknowledge it, it is well understood that the country possesses a nuclear weapon arsenal (although the exact number of warheads are in dispute). It is similarly well understood that the United States opposed Israel’s nuclear weapons program during the John F. Kennedy and, to a lesser extent, Lyndon B. Johnson administrations. One part of the history that is less well known is that much of the funding for Israel’s nuclear weapons program came from private Americans in an effort that was spearheaded by, Abraham Feinberg, a prominent American who served as an unofficial advisor to both President Kennedy and President Johnson. Israel’s interest in nuclear weapons basically dates back to the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.

In cities like New Orleans and Richmond, statues erected to commemorate Confederate soldiers have been torn down. And in Boston, the effort to remove controversial names from iconic buildings and streets is taking hold. Faneuil Hall, along Boston’s Freedom Trail, is named after Peter Faneuil, a colonial-era merchant linked to the slave trade. The New Democracy Coalition, a Boston-based non-profit and non-partisan coalition committed to civic action, is leading a boycott of the famous tourist spot and asking the city to hold a hearing on the feasibility of changing the building’s name … Carl Robert Keyes, a history professor at Assumption College in Worcester, said … “These monuments are not just about our past. They are not reflections of our history, but instead, they represent what we want to commemorate today.”

Officials at California State University, Long Beach, have ended the school’s use of its mascot, Prospector Pete, over concerns that the use of a settler-era mascot for the school was racially insensitive. The school’s president, Jane Close Conoley, announced the end of the mascot’s use on Friday in a letter to students and alumni, citing a 2014 decision to begin moving away from the use of the “49er” and “prospector” imagery on its sports teams. In her statement, Conoley linked the prospector imagery to California’s gold rush, during which indigenous Americans often endured violence from and were enslaved by settlers in order to build Christian missions … Controversy over the use of racially insensitive mascots has drawn greater attention in recent years among college and professional sports teams.

… Hundreds of thousands of foreign troops flocked to Germany to fight under the Swastika in World War Two. Most were ardent nationalists who looked to the Nazis to liberate their homelands from the communists or Western imperialists … Unwilling to openly declare a military alliance with the Nazis, Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco encouraged anti-communists within his country to join the German army’s war against the Soviet Union. More than 40,000 Spaniards, and a number of Portuguese, enlisted … Millions of Soviet citizens openly aided the Nazis during Second World War — from the Ukrainian paramilitaries and various pro-Axis Cossack units to the Hilfswilliger auxiliaries.

A look at the “Russian Liberation Army,” a little-known World War II military force made up of Russian soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and then volunteered to fight the Soviet regime. This ten-minute Russian-language video, with English subtitles, includes wartime footage of a swearing-in ceremony of RLA soldiers. The RLA was commanded by former Soviet General Andrei Vlasov, who also headed the German-backed anti-Stalinist “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,” a provisional “government-in-exile.”

The arrival of Subhas Chandra Bose in Germany in 1941 (during the turbulent period of World War II) and his anti-British activities in that country in co-operation with the German government, culminated in the formation of an Indian legion. This marks perhaps the most significant event in the annals of India’s fight for independence.

… The Waffen SS had a solemn duty, after the defeat of Communism, to focus all their efforts and strength to build a united Europe … All the SS understood that European unity meant the whole of Europe, even Russia … This Europe would be the beacon of the world. It would be a remarkable racial ensemble. An ancient civilization, a spiritual force, and the most advanced technological and scientific complex … Not since the great religious orders of the Middle Ages had there been such selfless idealism and heroism. In this century of materialism, the SS stands out as a shining beacon of spirituality. I have no doubt whatsoever that the sacrifices and incredible feats of the Waffen SS will one day have their own epic poets like Schiller.

… Trump, always exuberant when talking about himself and his putative accomplishments, loves to boast about how well the American economy is chugging along … Irrationality enters the picture because there’s little if any connection between the president’s policies and the outcomes he lauds (since these trends began before he took office). Also, the prosperity that has resulted from this economic expansion has largely been enjoyed by the wealthier sectors of society. Finally, Trump’s economic fever dream is fueled by an enormous and growing amount of debt. When it comes to irrational exuberance, it’s never if there will be a bust but when … Although Trump promised to balance the books if he became president, he’s done the opposite. The deficit for this year will rise to $890 billion (it was about $660 billion when Obama left office).

The US spends far more on its military than any other nation on Earth, but very soon, it will not be the top expenditure of the US government. Rather, rising interest rates and years of mounting debts mean that soon, interest on the debt will overtake that. Interest costs will be $390 billion next year, and more than $900 billion within a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At present, US military budgets are in the $700 billion range, and themselves constantly growing. Somewhere, these two growing lines will intersect, and the runaway military spending is a big reason why. There simply is no way for US to keep pouring substantial portions of a trillion dollars down the well annually for the military without borrowing, and that debt is just growing.

Generally accepted estimates put the population of undocumented immigrants in the United States at approximately 11.3 million. A new study, using mathematical modeling on a range of demographic and immigration operations data, suggests that the actual undocumented immigrant population may be more than 22 million. / Immigration is the focus of fierce political and policy debate in the United States … At the center lies a fairly stable and largely unquestioned number: 11.3 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. But a paper by three Yale-affiliated researchers suggests all the perceptions and arguments based on that number may have a faulty foundation; the actual population of undocumented immigrants residing in the country is much larger than that, perhaps twice as high, and has been underestimated for decades.

Almost three quarters of university students from London will be from ethnic minorities by the end of the next decade, say researchers. The analysis, based on demographic changes and university entry rates, shows 27 percent of students from London will be white – down from 37 percent at present. White students will still be the biggest ethnic group – followed by 21 percent from African backgrounds, up from 17%. The report, from a university access group, forecasts “hyper-diversity” … The prediction is of a future with no ethnic group being a majority. This means about a quarter of students from London will be white, a quarter black, a quarter Asian and a quarter from other groups or from a mix of backgrounds.

… While Germans tend to be content with their own lives, they feel less at ease with the direction the country is taking. In polling Forsa did for the German broadcaster RTL, 81 percent were very happy or happy with their own personal financial situation; asked about the country more broadly, that figure dropped 10 percent. And while 71 percent said they were happy with the German political system as it’s supposed to operate, just 14 percent were happy with how it actually functions … There is also a feeling, even if things are going well right now, that Germany is on the brink of bigger financial and societal problems. In other words, many young Germans might feel they are in a good position now but fear that further down the line that might not be the case.

… Being ever-present, talking — and not to mention listening — was also part of the AfD strategy during federal elections last September. And it worked. The party scored 22.1 percent of the vote here in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, putting it only slightly behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) … The AfD stands for an unprecedented political success, but also for a history of radicalization. Like any new party, breaking taboos is the AfD’s lifeblood, but its shift to the right has continued unabated … For years, politics in Germany had been shaped by the old polarity between left and right. But those days are over. The question of identity now seems to be more important, which seemingly scrambles the party system.

The history of U.S. administrations manipulating the issue of terrorism for purposes unrelated to terrorism predates Donald Trump’s presidency … Now the Trump administration is similarly manipulating the terrorism issue, to stir up as much hatred as possible against Iran rather than to convey an accurate picture of international terrorism today and where and how Americans are most likely to fall victim to it … The administration’s attempt to paint Iran as a major problem in international terrorism is badly misleading … The section about Iran in the portion of the report on state sponsorship of terrorism is unable to name any specific, current or recent, attack that Iran instigated or executed.

Jews and Muslims on this windswept island in the northern Atlantic Ocean find themselves united against a proposal to ban ritual circumcisions — jeopardizing a fundamental tradition in both religions. “It’s a bedrock of the Jewish people and of the Torah,” said Rabbi Avi Feldman, 27, who moved from Brooklyn to Reykjavik with his wife and two daughters this year to become Iceland’s first resident rabbi. The bill aims to outlaw circumcision when not for medical reasons and was introduced by nine lawmakers from four political parties. It claims that any parent allowing the “irreversible” procedure disregards a boy’s right to self-determination. Those found guilty could face up to six years in prison. The proposal won support from around one-third of Iceland’s doctors.

US national security adviser John Bolton warned Iran of “hell to pay” and “serious consequences” if it defies the US, using some of the most aggressive language employed by administration officials in recent decades … The speech, which saw excerpts released before the delivery, features rhetoric that is tough even by the standards of an administration fiercely opposed to Tehran … “The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behavior. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.” Earlier Tuesday, US President Donald Trump urged the international community to isolate Iran, during a combative address before the UN General Assembly in which he accused the Tehran regime of sowing “chaos, death, and destruction.”

… While European governments were not willing to greatly bestir themselves over Washington’s attempts to isolate, say, Cuba and Sudan, Iran is different. America abandoned an international agreement, dismissed European interests, disrupted burgeoning commerce, further destabilized the Middle East, and demanded humiliating obedience. Europeans, used to giving in, now are angrier and less willing to accept the Trump administration’s fait accompli … It doesn’t matter whether the intentions of Washington policymakers are good. The consequences of American policies have been bad, often disastrous. Candidate Trump promised a change in policy. President Trump should turn that change into a reality. He can begin by introducing a touch of humility and prudence into America’s foreign policy.

During the late summer of 1941, an obscure but nonetheless deadly sideshow of the Second World War would play out in the Persian Gulf. The Allies, desperate to halt the Nazi advance in Russia, sought to open a supply route into the U.S.S.R. through the Middle Eastern kingdom of Iran … The British and Soviets cast aside any diplomatic niceties and opted for a joint invasion. The Allies would seize Iran and hold it for the duration of the war … For several days, Iran’s outclassed army and air force tried to stem the onslaught. Tehran even appealed to Washington for help. None was forthcoming … The so-called Persian Corridor was soon open and goods from the British Empire and even the supposedly neutral United States could now make its way into Soviet hands.

Iranian distrust of the United States is rooted in a legacy of arrogant, belligerent US policy. During World War II, British and Soviet military forces invaded neutral Iran. The country’s leader, Reza Shah Pahlavi, trustingly appealed to President Franklin Roosevelt, who had solemnly proclaimed devotion to the principles of freedom and respect for national sovereignty. But Roosevelt rejected the plea and sought to justify the aggression, which he backed to help the Soviet Union against Germany and to support British imperial interests. The Allied invasion and occupation brought destruction, mass death and humiliation to Iran. And twelve years later, US and British officials, acting through the CIA, organized the violent overthrew of Iran’s democratically elected government in a violent coup that cost hundreds of lives.

New crime statistics released by the FBI place Baltimore’s homicide rate last year well above that of any other large U.S. metropolis, making it an anomaly in the national crime landscape when looking at American cities with populations over 500,000 people. The 342 homicides notched last year in Maryland’s biggest city yielded a punishing homicide rate of 56 per 100,000 people, according to the FBI’s annual Crime in the United States report released Monday … Among major U.S. cities, Baltimore was followed in the FBI’s annual tally by Detroit … ; Memphis, Tennessee … ; and Chicago; … But some smaller cities reported a higher homicide rate than Baltimore’s. St. Louis, with a population slightly over 300,000, had a rate of 66 murders per 100,000 people.

Russia nominated a film about the Nazi death camp Sobibor as its entry for the Academy Award for best foreign language film. “Sobibor,” a multimillion-dollar production with state funding, centers on the 1943 escape by Jewish inmates from the camp under the leadership of Russian inmates … The Holocaust and anti-Semitism featured in the submissions of five other European countries: The Netherlands, Austria, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland … Austria’s “The Waldheim Waltz,” by the Austrian-Jewish director Ruth Beckermann, is a biographical drama about former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, and the controversy of his participation and role in the Nazi regime during World War II.

A listing of films, from the 1940s to the present, that deal with the Holocaust in Europe.

… The Jewish denial that Hollywood is controlled by Jews is a great lie which can be attested to by anyone who has ever been associated with the film industry … It is positively insulting for them to deny their influence and power — particularly when they themselves are continually boasting in their own circles about their “overrepresentation” in these fields. And it is absolutely infuriating when this denial reaches the point that non-Jews are attacked by Jewish agitators and Zionist zealots for stating obvious facts and truth.

It’s been a good month for Mark Weber. Mark is the director of the California-based Institute for Historical Review (IHR) … BART had to give in. And it did. The ad ran, and the inevitable media storm followed, led by a piece in The Guardian by San Francisco-based reporter Sam Levin … He turns much of the article over to the SPLC, which he stresses is a nonprofit organization, while ignoring the fact that the IHR is one too. Levin also quotes a BART spokesbeing who whines that they didn’t want to run the ad, but because of that damn pesky Constitution, they had to …The IHR’s BART ad runs until the end of this month. And while it may not change the landscape, it’s certainly raised the blood pressure of social justice leftists.

… Kudos go to the leaders of North and South Korea for de-escalating the tensions between them … As a very long-time observer and friend of Korea, I too am elated by the Moon-Kim friendly summit and wish it success. But I’m also worried by the role of Washington … The Trump administration has convinced itself that a one-way deal with North Korea is possible. Its resident hardliners, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, are believed to be hostile to any US concessions. They want North Korea to unconditionally surrender, not negotiate. Both are neocons who fear North Korea’s nukes might find their way to Israel’s mideast enemies … North Koreans have been eating grass for a generation to acquire nuclear weapons. Would they give them up just for a slap on the back from Washington?

The Israeli government has recently claimed that it can “legislate anywhere in the world”, that it is “entitled to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries”, and that “is allowed to ignore the directives of international law in any field it desires”. This was written in an official response letter to the Supreme Court last month. On the face of it, these are audacious claims. Is it really that bad? I would say that it’s even worse. The background to these statements is a new law from last year, which legalizes outright theft of Palestinian land … You would think that such proclamations by the Israeli government would really hit the mainstream news cycle, yet it seems to have so far gone relatively unnoticed … Israel’s unilateral annexations of the Syrian Golan and East Jerusalem are direct violations of international law …

Venezuelans are living through one of the worst hyperinflation episodes ever recorded since the end of World War Two. Prices have hit a new high in August, peaking at 65,000 percent a year, says Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and one of the world’s leading experts on hyperinflation. Under President Nicolas Maduro, inflation stands at around 150 percent a month … amidst severe shortages of food and medicine, citizens are now forced to pay for everyday basics with stacks of cash. While Venezuela is currently the only country in the world experiencing hyperinflation, there have been at least 58 episodes throughout history – here we examine the five worst cases: Hungary, 1946; Zimbabwe, 2008; Yugoslavia, 1994; Germany, 1923; Greece, 1944.

As Britain’s Labour party begins its annual conference in Liverpool this weekend, many delegates are confident that, by the time they meet again next September, the party will be in government for the first time since 2010. It is a remarkable confidence given the tempestuous six months the party and its leader have experienced. While allegations of anti-Semitism have dogged Jeremy Corbyn since he became Labour leader three years ago this month, the furor has reached a new magnitude since March … But the ongoing row over anti-Semitism in its ranks does not appear to have affected Labour’s popularity … The country is currently experiencing near-unprecedented political turmoil … There is strong evidence that, despite the banner headlines, many Britons simply have not noticed Labour’s anti-Semitism travails.

… Our share of the global economy is much shrunken from Reagan’s time. Our deficit is approaching $1 trillion. Our debt is surging toward 100 percent of GDP. Entitlements are consuming our national wealth. We are committed to containing the two other greatest powers, Russia and China. We are tied down militarily in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, with the War Party beating the drums for another and larger war — with Iran. And we are sanctioning adversaries and allies for not following our leadership of the West and the world. In looking at America’s global commitments, greatly expanded since our Cold War victory, one word come to mind: unsustainable.

Seven million jobs remain unfilled in the United States because employers can’t find Americans with the skills to do them. At the same time, almost six million Americans remain out of work, despite record-low unemployment. In his soon-to-be published book The Once and Future Worker, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Oren Cass points out that the bulk of educational spending at the K-12 level is based on the premise that all children can and should attend college. Yet, despite a massive investment in higher education and financial aid, fewer than half of young adults attain a four-year degree … Our national obsession with college obscures the economic demand for non-college skilled or trained labor.

When Adolf Hitler entered the Reich Chancellery on January 30, 1933, the cheers of the Nazi stormtroopers in Berlin were echoed in Northcliffe House, the home of Britain’s then highest-selling newspaper. The Daily Mail was not the only national daily to adopt an overly tolerant attitude towards Hitler during the 1930s, a position which reflected widespread public support for the government’s appeasement policy. But it went far further than any other newspaper in sympathizing with the Nazis, and it did so at the insistence of its overweening proprietor, Harold Harmsworth, the first Viscount Rothermere … In June 1939, he wrote gushingly to Hitler: “My Dear Führer, I have watched with understanding and interest the progress of your great and superhuman work in regenerating your country.”

A British writer believes he may have uncovered the mystery behind Hitler’s decision to stop German troops advancing on Allied Forces at Dunkirk – despite having them almost surrounded … Hitler’s attempt at a peace treaty with Britain was rejected by the Prime Minister on Oct. 10, 1939 … but Mr Davis claims the dictator may have tried again during the Battle of Dunkirk. He added: “What is known is that on the day Hitler stopped the troops advancing his generals reported in their diaries that he was in very good humour and told them the war would be over within days or weeks. Ten days after the German tanks began to attack France, General Jodl wrote in his diary that the Führer was ‘beside himself with joy,’ adding that he was ‘working on the peace treaty.’ After which he [Hitler] told them he would make a ‘just peace’ settlement with Britain.”

Speaking with colleagues in the White House on July 5, 1971, President Richard Nixon spoke of the role of Jews in espionage. “The Jews are born spies. You notice how many of them are? They’re just in it up to their necks.” While the president expressed unflattering views about Jews in private, he took care never to do so in public. Seven months later, at another White House meeting, Nixon spoke with Christian leader Billy Graham. During their talk, the President expressed agreement with Graham’s remarks about the Jewish “stranglehold” on the American media, and the danger it poses for the future of the country.

Access to Goethe can be arduous; tools to facilitate our approach are always welcome. This year they come in the contrasting formats of a 1,000-page-volume of “essential” translations and a paperback addition to Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series. Together they reduce a prolific life’s work to manageable proportions … This multi-talented individual was active, over a lifespan of eighty-two years, as a poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, librettist, translator, biographer, diarist, conversationalist, critic, theatre director, collector, painter, sculptor and in many other capacities. He was no less committed to the sciences, conducting experiments and extending the frontiers of knowledge in botany, optics, colour theory, climatology and all aspects of human and animal biology.

… Lost amidst the [media] deluge was a Trump administration story that will have deadly, far-reaching consequences long after the Times op-ed is forgotten and Woodward’s book hits the discount pile. That’s because Trump effectively endorsed endless US war in Syria last week, and almost no one in the press noticed … This kind of open-ended commitment and nebulous criteria for withdrawal all but consign the US to Syria forever … Seventeen years after 9/11, the corporate media still finds itself overwhelmingly making the same mistakes when it comes to its war coverage: obsessing over shiny, ephemeral Beltway distractions while the most important, consequential stories get either ignored or buried.

… McCain, who never saw a war or regime change that he didn’t like, was apparently in reality a friend of democracy and freedom worldwide, a judgment that somehow ignores the hundreds of thousands of presumed foreign devils who have died as a consequence of the policies he enthusiastically promoted in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya … Remarkably, not a single one of the wars initiated over that time period has actually ended with either victory or some return to normalcy. Whole countries lie in ruins and millions of people have been driven from their homes, creating an unsustainable refugee crisis, while the United States wallows in unsustainable debt … I rather suspect that the test is little more than a word game that empowered Jews like Goldberg use to underline their special status with the ambitious and gullible like Senator John McCain.

High school textbooks in Texas have blamed the Arab world for its conflict with Israel — and they will continue to do so following a review of the state’s public school curriculum. The Texas State Board of Education voted on Friday to keep a social studies requirement that high school students learn that “Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict” … Also, the board voted to amend the US Government high school curriculum by reinserting references to “Judeo-Christian (especially biblical law)” in the section on “major intellectual, philosophical, political, and religious traditions that informed the American founding … In the high school World History section, the board voted to reinsert a reference to “the Judeo-Christian legal tradition” in the section on “the development of democratic-republican government from its beginnings.”

Captain Kirk never said “Beam me up, Scotty!” Ilsa Laszlow never said, “Play it again, Sam,” and Sherlock Holmes never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” But these misquotes remain firmly lodged in the public consciousness, even though they appear nowhere in the original works. The same is true for things “said” — that is, widely attributed to, but not actually said — by political figures. Sometimes a misquote is cooked up by opponents or parodists as a way of discrediting or mocking the figure. Sometimes a line is attributed to a widely admired person as a way of making it sound more authoritative, like when someone co-signs a loan. And sometimes it’s just a mistake. Here are ten of the most widely believed — but completely bogus — things ever “said” by political figures.

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. This tactic works because people have been educated to believe that anything Hitler and other Nazi leaders thought or said was malevolent, wrong-headed or evil, and that no reasonable or ethical person could hold similar views. Here’s a look at a few of the many remarks falsely attributed to Hitler and other top Nazis.

Maintaining a straight face, United States Secretary of ‘Defense’ James Mattis calls Iran “the primary state sponsor of terrorism”. This from the man whose country is bombing at least six nations. A week ago, I had the opportunity of travelling to Iran … so perhaps my impressions may be of some value … Let us be reminded that Iran has not invaded another nation in over 200 years. The U.S. has been at war for at least 220 of its 241 year history … The answer has been stated before, but I will not hesitate to state it again: the U.S. does not want any country in the Middle East to be powerful except apartheid Israel. Iran is a power broker in that part of the world, so the U.S. must reduce it to ruins, if it possibly can, as it did with Iraq. However, Iran is not Iraq: it is far bigger, more heavily populated, and more powerful than Iraq ever was.

… In my 30 years of service for the Iranian government since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, I have consistently witnessed that the U.S. policy of insulting, belittling, bullying, and coercing Iran has backfired. It has only created a harder line within Iran, which will nullify any further negotiations with Washington. Although Iran’s relationship with the Eastern bloc improves as Iran’s relations with the Western bloc weakens, Trump and the United States — as well the JCPOA — will still play critical roles in Iran’s future. The current trajectory of Trump’s policies will undermine the U.S.-led global order. U.S. sanctions against Russia, Iran, and Turkey will further increase the alignment of these countries as well as cooperation with eastern bloc powers such as China and India. Such a trend can lead to the end of the six-decade-long US hegemony in the region.

Good work Mr. President! You have now managed to lay the groundwork for a grand Chinese-Russian alliance. The objective of intelligent diplomacy is to divide one’s foes, not to unite them. This epic blunder comes at a time when the US appears to be getting ready for overt military action in Syria against Russian and Syrian forces operating there … On a grander scale, Beijing and Moscow were signaling their new ‘entente cordiale’ designed to counter-balance the reckless military ambitions of the Trump administration … The message from eastern Siberia was clear: Washington’s reckless hostility and bellicosity is causing its foes to band together. A full third of the Russian Army just moved from Europe to the Far East for the war games. The Chinese dragon of which Napoleon warned is awakening.

… The bitter reality is that U.S. foreign policy has no definable objective other than blocking the initiatives of others because they stand in the way of the further expansion of U.S. global interests. This impoverished strategy reflects Washington’s refusal to accept the passing of its relatively brief post–Cold War moment of unipolar power … The crisis of U.S. foreign policy — a series of radical missteps — are systemic. Having little to do with personalities, they pass from one administration to the next with little variance other than at the margins … It began with that hubristic triumphalism so evident in the decade after the Cold War’s end. What ensued had various names. There was the “end of history” thesis. American liberalism was humanity’s highest achievement, and nothing would supersede it.

… It is nothing new for the US to try to escalate tensions so as to exploit more gains at the negotiating table. The unilateral and hegemonic moves by the US will meet firm countermeasures from China. Against the backdrop of successive US offensives in the trade war, China will not just play defense. Nowadays economic and trade relations between China and the US are so closely connected that they will not be easily broken by unilateral hegemony … The US still wants to shape Sino-US relations with its strength and consolidate its hegemony. However, today’s world will not be easily manipulated by hegemony. China will not passively be subject to the US maneuverings, nor will it allow any super power to achieve its end by peremptory means. It’s no longer the time when a country can achieve hegemonic dividends through coercion.

… The uncomfortable truth is that from the very beginning, it was Britain which sought a conflict with Germany, not Germany with Britain … The sad truth is that this country deliberately sought a war in the vain hope of preserving a Great Power status our rulers knew in their hearts it had already lost. The resulting war turned us into a second-rate power … The general impression is that the end of hostilities brought a new sunlit era of optimism in a ravaged continent. Yet victory led swiftly to an appeasement of Stalin at least as bad as our appeasement of Hitler in 1938, with nations handed over bound and gagged to the Kremlin’s secret police regime. And the following months and years brought death on a colossal scale, of which we nowadays know almost nothing.

… Nearly 400,000 Britons died. 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 … They feel, in a word that leaps out time and time again, ‘betrayed’ … “Those comrades of mine who never made it back would be appalled if they could see the world as it is today.” … “Our British culture is draining away at an ever increasing pace,” wrote an ex-Durham Light Infantryman, “and we are almost forbidden to make any comment.”

World War II is widely considered one of the most morally unambiguous military conflicts in history — the quintessential “Good War,” as journalist Studs Terkel once described it … At the same time, 60 years of research and reflection have gradually brought to light numerous aspects of this conflict that do not fit a straightforward pattern of black-and- white moral clarity… Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo — entire cities, tens of thousands of noncombatant civilians at a time, incinerated or blasted to bits under a steady torrent of British and American bombs. The large-scale killing of children, women and old people had now become routine facets of Allied warfare.

… 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” I can spot gaps in archives and they’re much more difficult to spot, because they’ve been papered over, and the files have been closed … Now what a scandalous statement that is! Here’s the one country, Germany, trying to prevent a war 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.

… Not only the passage of time but also the Israeli colonization project in the West Bank have made a viable Palestinian state increasingly unfeasible. Israeli leaders — including ministers in Netanyahu’s government and, when he is talking to Israeli audiences, Netanyahu himself — have become quite open and frank that they will never agree to a Palestinian state … Amid the years of claims and counterclaims about which side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is most responsible for the ostensible goal of Camp David and Oslo never being realized, the question of who most wants to negotiate is rather simple. Look for the side that, in addition to having the power to change things on the ground by itself, has grown comfortable with indefinite perpetuation of a supposedly temporary status quo. That’s the side that doesn’t want to negotiate.

The Trump administration is changing how the Education Department investigates allegations of discrimination against Jewish students, backing an approach that is favored by pro-Israel groups but that critics worry will stifle free speech and criticism of Israel on campus … The adoption of the anti-Semitism definition at the Education Department, headed by Secretary Betsy DeVos, comes as Congress has debated the issue over the past several years … Several pro-Israel groups, meanwhile, including the American Jewish Committee, praised the Trump administration’s move. The Zionist Organization of America, which filed the original complaint against Rutgers and appealed, praised the Education Department’s “landmark” decision to adopt the definition.

Amid a week of attention-grabbing drama about the dysfunction of Donald Trump’s presidency, it almost escaped notice that his administration is putting U.S. troops in harm’s way in a foreign war for a new purpose — a purpose that does not entail countering a threat to the United States. Newly appointed special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey stated that under a “new policy” on Syria, the United States is “no longer pulling out by the end of the year.” This policy goes against what Trump had been saying not only in the presidential campaign about wanting less U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern wars but also, more recently and more specifically, about wanting to withdraw the 2,200 U.S. soldiers now in Syria … U.S. troops are to stay in Syria indefinitely with the objective of ejecting from the country all troops of Syria’s ally Iran.

… To date, no senior US government, military or intelligence officials have been held accountable for these and other incidents that, if committed by America’s enemies, would inarguably be considered — and prosecuted as — war crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC) was created two decades ago to address the general impunity enjoyed by many war criminals … It has in recent years announced that it would begin investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan, as well as Israeli crimes against Palestine … The United States and Israel are very afraid of the ICC. The murder of unarmed civilians is a war crime. So is torture. Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of densely-populated civilian areas, its half-century occupation of Palestinian territory and its construction and expansion of Jews-only settler colonies on Palestinian land are all also illegal under international law.

… Israel’s core ideology, political Zionism, is premised on the idea of tribal and sectarian exclusivity – the “ingathering of exiles” to create a Jewish state. In Israel, the Holocaust supplies a different lesson. It teaches that Jews are under permanent threat from non-Jews, and that their only defence is to seek collective protection in a highly militarised state, armed with nuclear weapons … The lobby and its supporters are not just seeking to silence Corbyn. They also intend to silence the Palestinians and the growing ranks of people who choose to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. But while the lobby may be winning on its own limited terms in harming Corbyn in mainstream discourse, deeper processes are exposing and weakening the lobby. It is overplaying its hand.

These kinds of atrocities, and particularly the scale of the repression, did not spring full-blown out of some terrorist provocations by Palestinians. These atrocities grew out of a political philosophy that says whatever advances the interests of Jews is acceptable as policy. This is a racist philosophy. What Israel is doing to the Palestinians is not genocide, it is not a holocaust, but it is, unmistakably, ethnicide. It is, unmistakably, racism.

… Americans of Jewish faith cannot visualize the extent to which their rabbis and secular leadership, operating through Organized Jewry, have totally deceived them into confusing humanitarianism with nation-building, religion and nationalism. A home could have been found in 1947 for the 285,000 survivors of Hitler’s concentration camps without ever establishing a state; just as today security for the Jews of Israel can be obtained without the continued expansionism wrought by the West Bank settlements policy or the ruthless repression of the rights of the Palestinian people.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Wednesday that “Europe belongs to the Europeans,” and that refugees should return to their native countries to rebuild them. Speaking at a conference in Sweden’s third-largest city of Malmo, home to a large immigrant population, the Dalai Lama — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 — said Europe was “morally responsible” for helping “a refugee really facing danger against their life”. “Receive them, help them, educate them … but ultimately they should develop their own country,” said the 83-year-old Tibetan who fled the capital Lhasa in fear of his life after China poured troops into the region to crush an uprising … [He is] revered by millions of Buddhists around the world, and regarded by his many supporters as a visionary in the vein of Mahatma Gandhi …

… We remain confounded and slightly scandalized by the mainstream media’s routine reliance on this outfit [the Southern Poverty Law Center], and the propensity of reporters to present the “hate map” and assorted blacklists as sources of objective findings. Don’t expect the legacy media to accept this polite warning from 47 conservatives, but the general public should know: The Southern Poverty Law Center is a private, wealthy, activist law firm with a far-left political agenda. By labeling opponents as monsters, the law firm foments hate.

A page on a popular Russian social media network devoted to Adolf Hitler was suspended Thursday for hosting an online beauty pageant dubbed “Miss Hitler.” The competition, hosted by the Adolf Hitler page on VKontakte (also known as VK), Europe’s largest social media network with half a billion users — a Russian equivalent of Facebook — drew contestants from Germany, Italy, Russia, and the US, Hadashot television news reported … The group had encouraged women to enter the competition by posting sexy Nazi-themed selfies together with an entry explaining why they “love and revere the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler”. Hundreds of users voted in an online poll while thousands viewed the competition’s pages. Entrants used their full names and unabashedly wrote of their neo-Nazi values and the organizations to which they belonged.

… Virtually any artist who plans to perform in Israel these days can expect to come under pressure on social media to cancel. A growing list of performers, including Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman and singer Lorde, have canceled appearances in Israel in recent months out of concern over Israeli policies. Del Rey joined that list on Aug. 31 when she announced that she was withdrawing from the Meteor Festival after an intense BDS lobbying campaign … The movement’s inroads have raised alarm in Israel. Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs spends millions of dollars fighting BDS and has banned some activists from entering the country. Israel and its supporters also run outreach programs on U.S. college campuses in the battle for hearts and minds.

… In recent days, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, has left no doubt that he is the mascot of American exceptionalism. Its corollary is Washington’s “right” to send its forces, uninvited, into countries like Syria … Last week Trump warned Russian and Syria not to attack Idlib. Trump faces perhaps his biggest test as president: whether he can resist his neocon advisers and not massively attack Syria, as Obama chose not to, or risk the wider war he accused his Republican opponents of fomenting.

… The early Zionists promised to save the Jews from the Jew and to liberate the Jew from the Jews … They believed that they could make the ‘international cosmopolitan’ into a nationalist patriot … They promised to make Jews into people like all other people while failing to realize that no other people really want to resemble others. Zionism has been successful on many fronts. It managed to form a Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous people of Palestine … Although Zionism was an apparatus invented to fix the Jews, to make them ordinary, it had the opposite effect. It made it impossible for its followers to integrate into the rest of the nations as a people amongst people. While Zionism was born to obliterate choseness, as it was practiced it was hijacked by the most problematic form of Jewish exceptionalism.

… All that helps to explain why immigration and crime figured so heavily in Sunday’s election — and why the far-right Sweden Democrats made their best showing yet. The Sweden Democrats are reviled and rejected by many Swedes for their neo-Nazi roots. But now they have become the party for many rural and working-class voters … Sweden’s economy is strong. But the fractured results of this election — with mainstream parties losing votes to a proliferation of smaller parties — show that people have lost faith in the old established parties that have endured so long … Despite the strong economy, a whopping 73 per cent of Swedes think the country is going in the wrong direction, according to one poll.

… Where is the scientific, historic or empirical evidence that the greater the racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of a nation, the stronger it becomes? From recent decades, it seems more true to say the reverse: The more diverse a nation, the greater the danger of its disintegration … Even as we proclaim diversity to be our greatest strength, nations everywhere are recoiling from it. … America has always been more than an idea, an ideology or a propositional nation. It is a country that belongs to a separate and identifiable people with its own history, heroes, holidays, symbols, songs, myths, mores — its own culture. Again, where is the evidence that the more Americans who can trace their roots to the Third World, and not to Europe, the stronger we will be?

… The SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] is so effective because it exercises power through multiple levels, each building on the other … The SPLC’s influence within law enforcement is magnified by how the organization’s reports of “hate groups” are dutifully reprinted by national outlets every year, despite the fact that many of these groups are either innocuous (such as the Family Research Council) or practically nonexistent. Many local papers also easily generate copy by simply referring to what “hate groups” exist in their area, thus inspiring local watchdog groups and Antifa to begin organizing against a threat which may not even exist. … The SPLC serves not just as an activist group, but as an authority determining who is and who is not permitted to operate a group or business.

… The swastika became the official symbol of the Finnish Air Force, and remained so until Finland and the Soviet Union – which had just fought a successful war with the United States to eradicate Nazidom – signed a postwar armistice … The swastika can still be found in the emblem of the FAF and at least one Finnish army unit today … Many Western countries used it as a symbol of good luck during the beginning of the 20th century. It was for that reason that von Rosen, who many consider the godfather of the Finnish Air Force, decided to paint the swastika on the plane he gave to the Finns. (While von Rosen’s introduction of the swastika to Finland had no relation to National Socialism, van Rosen himself in later years did. In 1923, his sister married Hermann Göring, and he had ties to Swedish national socialist parties in the 1930s.)

… Israel’s unconditional defenders themselves are guilty of applying a double standard. If any national group treated another group the way the Zionists and Israelis have treated the Palestinians, they would have been condemned by liberal-minded Jewish Americans along with most other Americans. Second, where is the double standard in the criticism of Israel? Name another country that occupies other people’s land, recognizes no rights in the occupied population, systematically discriminates against 25 percent of its “citizens,” gets billion in military aid every year from American taxpayers, has a highly influential lobby ready to smear any critic, claims to be the most moral military in world, and insists it’s the only democracy in its region?

British government officials were repeatedly warned of a rising tide of anti-Semitism on the home front during World War II, but took no action to counter it, newly released documents have revealed. Instead, they said Jews themselves were to blame for any increase in prejudice, and belittled reports of it … The file, “Anti-Semitism in Great Britain,” contains internal documents from the wartime Ministry of Information, which was charged with monitoring public opinion, pumping out propaganda to maintain morale, and censoring news and information … In a May 1943 report … the ministry’s top civil servant suggested that “there had been a considerable increase in anti-Semitic feeling” since the outbreak of the conflict nearly four years prior.

On July 26, 2016, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report “Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported”. The report indicates that for fiscal year 2015 the Army failed to provide adequate support for $6.5 trillion in journal voucher adjustments … The report indicates that just 170 transactions accounted for $2.1 trillion in year-end unsupported adjustments. No information is given about these 170 transactions … While the documents are incomplete, original government sources indicate $21 trillion in unsupported adjustments have been reported for the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015 … Taken together these reports point to a failure to comply with basic Constitutional and legislative requirements for spending and disclosure.

One of the great goals of education is to initiate the young into the conversation of their ancestors; to enable them to understand the language of that conversation, in all its subtlety, and maybe even, in their maturity, to add to it some wisdom of their own. The modern American educational system no longer teaches us the political language of our ancestors. In fact our schooling helps widen the gulf of time between our ancestors and ourselves, because much of what we are taught in the name of civics, political science, or American history is really modern liberal propaganda.

If you take BART at the Powell or Montgomery Street stations in San Francisco and look quickly, you may see an ad that reads “History Matters.” “There’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’s better than ads for merchandise, says a Pleasanton woman who only gave the name Christine … Taking a closer look at the ad you can see it’s from a group called Institute For Historical Review or IHR … According to the nonprofit legal advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center, the IHR was founded by an anti-Semitic group, who at that time said the Holocaust didn’t happen … Mike [sic] Weber the director of The IHR says the history matters slogan is in line with the group’s work and purpose.

It’s another case of signage at BART causing controversy after billboards with messages linked to hate groups are spotted at a pair of BART stations. The age-old debate of free speech versus hate speech has been reignited as BART says its hands in this matter are tied. It is an electronic billboard in the Montgomery BART Station that simply reads “History Matters.” It is a statement that is generally accepted by most people. However, the group responsible for the ad, the Institute for Historical Review, is considered anti-Semitic by organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

France is famously America’s oldest ally, but more than half of French people no longer consider the United States a reliable partner, according to a survey released Wednesday. Just 44 percent said the US was a “trusted ally” under US President Donald Trump — a 33 point plunge since the same survey was done in May 2014, when Barack Obama was in the White House. Only 17 percent said they had a positive opinion of Trump in the Ifop poll, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee advocacy group, France’s Foundation for Political Innovation and the Sursaut think-tank collective. Some 54 percent said they had a “very bad opinion” of the Republican leader.

… Is war coming? This is the traditional season of the year for plunges into war by British governments which mislead themselves and the country about the extent and nature of what is proposed … In September 1939 we went to war supposedly to save Poland from Hitler, though we then did precisely nothing to help Poland and watched from afar off while it was wiped from the map. In the war that followed we fell out of the first rank of nations and became, as we have been ever since, a pensioner and servant of the United States … There are many straws in the wind which suggest that we are being prepared for war. War is hell. At the very least, a decision which could have such far-reaching consequences, which could reach into every life and home, and embroil us for years, should be considered properly.

Is President Donald Trump about to intervene militarily in the Syrian civil war? For that is what he and his advisers seem to be signaling … Yet the massing of the Syrian army near Idlib and the Russian and Syrian bombing now begun suggest that the Assad-Putin- Rouhani coalition has decided to accept the risk of a clash with the Americans in order to bring an end to the rebellion. If so, this puts the ball in America’s court. Words and warnings aside, is Trump prepared to take us into the Syrian civil war against the forces who, absent our intervention, will have won the war? … Many in this Russophobic city would welcome a confrontation with Putin’s Russia, even more a U.S. war on Iran. But that is the opposite of what candidate Trump promised.

An investigative documentary by Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera scheduled for broadcast earlier this year was expected to cause a sensation. Its four 50-minute episodes centered on the young and personable James Anthony Kleinfeld … The documentary showed Kleinfeld being enthusiastically recruited for his skills by The Israel Project (TIP), which defends Israel’s image in the media … Kleinfeld’s contacts told him they were spying on US citizens with the help of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, founded in 2006, which reports directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu … To discredit the messenger, as the documentary reveals, the pro-Israel lobby has built up a spy network over the last few years to gather information on opponents’ private lives, careers, and political convictions …

Last week, I urged the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to stop protecting al-Qaeda in Syria by demanding that the Syrian government leave Idlib under al-Qaeda control. While it may seem hard to believe that the US government is helping al-Qaeda in Syria, it’s not as strange as it may seem: our interventionist foreign policy increasingly requires Washington to partner up with “bad guys” in pursuit of its dangerous and aggressive foreign policy goals. Does the Trump Administration actually support al-Qaeda and ISIS? Of course not. But the “experts” who run Trump’s foreign policy have determined that a de facto alliance with these two extremist groups is for the time being necessary to facilitate the more long-term goals in the Middle East. And what are those goals? Regime change for Iran.

Israel secretly armed and funded at least twelve rebel groups in southern Syria that helped prevent Iran-backed fighters and militants of the Islamic State from taking up positions near the Israeli border in recent years, according to more than two dozen commanders and rank-and-file members of these groups. The military transfers, which ended in July of this year, included assault rifles, machine guns, mortar launchers and transport vehicles … Israel also provided salaries to rebel fighters, paying each one about $75 a month, and supplied additional money the groups used to buy arms on the Syrian black market, according to the rebels and local journalists … Israel began arming rebel groups aligned with the Free Syrian Army in 2013, including factions in Quneitra, Daraa, and the southern areas of the Damascus countryside.

Children differ widely in how well they do at school. In recent years, researchers have shown that around two-thirds of differences in school achievement can be explained by differences in children’s genes. Genes have been shown to influence how well children do at primary school, at the end of compulsory education, and even in different subjects … We found that about 70 percent of the stability in achievement is explained by genetic factors, while 25 percent is accounted for by the twins’ shared environment, such as growing up in the same family and attending the same school … We found the influence of genes remained substantial – at 60 percent – even after accounting for intelligence, which was measured using several verbal and nonverbal tests taken by the twins over the course of childhood and adolescence.

The United States on Monday warned the International Criminal Court against prosecution of US or Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in the Middle East. White House National Security Adviser John Bolton called the Hague-based rights body “unaccountable” and “outright dangerous” to the United States, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be “an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation.” In the same speech, Bolton confirmed that the US is closing the PLO’s office in Washington, DC … He also cited a recent move by Palestinian leaders to have Israeli officials prosecuted at the ICC for human rights violations.

… This longest war in U.S. history has become another no-win war … The 17th anniversary of 9/11, now imminent, appears a proper time to take inventory of our successes and failures in the forever wars of the Middle East into which America was plunged in this new century. In Afghanistan, the Taliban presence is more pervasive in more provinces than at any time since the regime was overthrown in 2001 … When one adds up the U.S. dead and wounded from the wars we have launched since 2001 with the Arab and Muslim wounded, killed, orphaned, widowed, uprooted and turned into refugees, as well as the trillions of dollars lost, what benefits are there on the other side of the ledger?

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, an FBI bulletin … was issued with regard to three suspicious men who that morning were seen leaving the New Jersey waterfront minutes after the first plane hit World Trade Center 1 … “Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion” … It was New York’s venerable Jewish weekly The Forward that broke this story in the spring of 2002, after months of footwork. The Forward reported that the FBI had finally concluded that at least two of the men were agents working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that Urban Moving Systems, the ostensible employer of the five Israelis, was a front operation.

I’m very pleased to announce that our [Unz Review] selection of HTML Books now contains works by renowned World War II historian David Irving, including his magisterial Hitler’s War, named by famed military historian Sir John Keegan as one of the most crucial volumes for properly understanding that conflict. With many millions of his books in print, including a string of best-sellers translated into numerous languages, it’s quite possible that the eighty-year-old Irving today ranks as the most internationally-successful British historian of the last one hundred years … With Irving regularly deploying his remarkable command of the primary source documentary evidence to totally demolish my naïve History 101 understanding of major historical events.

British historian David Irving and IHR director Mark Weber tackle the emotion-laden topic of Hitler’s place in history in two talks at an IHR meeting. A balanced or objective portrayal of Hitler is nearly impossible in today’s America, says Weber in his 45-minute address. The portrayal of Hitler and his regime is grotesquely unbalanced, not only in the US mass media, but even in supposedly authoritative history books and reference works. Nonetheless, worldwide fascination with Hitler shows no sign of diminishing, Weber goes on, noting the seemingly endless stream of books, articles, television broadcasts and motion pictures devoted to this extraordinary man.

At an IHR meeting, British historian David Irving, speaking on “The Faking of Adolf Hitler for History,” identifies some of the many fraudulent historical documents that have been cited over the years by “conformist” historians. Runtime: One hour and eight minutes.

David Irving, the controversial British historian, is the author of numerous books on military history and World War II, including several international bestsellers … Irving has a track record of uncovering startling new facts about supposedly well-known episodes of history. Much of his effectiveness has been due to his extensive reliance on primary source materials, such as diaries, original documents and so forth, from both official archives and private sources. He is disdainful of scholars who engage in what he calls inter-historian incest, and who thereby help to keep alive myths left over from Second World War propaganda … This fiercely independent and iconoclastic historian is widely acknowledged – even by adversaries – as an eminent authority on World War II, Hitler and Third Reich Germany.

This week, news of an attempt to remove the works of the historian David Irving from the shelves of Manchester University’s library emerged. Irving is a biographer of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich but is politely labelled ‘controversial’ by the media because he openly admires the Nazi regime. His many books on the subject, most notably Hitler’s War, can be found in most British universities and many bookshops … Let me be clear in that I am defending Irving’s right for his books to be freely available, and not his character or views … More conventional students of the period, such as Ian Kershaw, regularly cite Irving in their work … It is vital that the campus remains open to all ideas, no matter how ‘controversial.’

On March 15, 2000, British historian David Irving rose before the High Court of Justice in London to deliver his Closing Statement in a dramatic legal battle that had generated enormous media attention. At the center of the case is a 278-page book by Jewish- American scholar Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, a detailed polemic against Irving and other revisionists who dispute familiar Holocaust claims … Irving’s final address provides astonishing details of the concerted global campaign by Jewish organizations to destroy his career and silence him. He traces the secretive activities of this widely feared but little-understood international cabal.

… The Amish are another US-based religious denomination. In 1920 there were roughly five thousand in number. Today, estimates put the Amish population at more than 300,000 … They get married, stay married and have lots of children. Furthermore, most of those children choose, as young adults, to stay with the Amish church (and, therefore, the community) … All of this translates into a rapid rate of population growth. The rule-of-thumb is that Amish numbers double every generation. Because they prefer to live in smaller communities of about 30 families, population growth requires the founding of new settlements. When your way of life doesn’t depend on close connections with the global economy (quite the opposite, in fact) this isn’t so difficult. There is plenty of cheap farmland to be had for from America’s big cities.

There is no accountability in U.S. foreign policy. Policymakers commit horrendous blunders and crimes, and they go on to suffer no meaningful consequences for what they have done. Virtually nothing is learned, and U.S. foreign policy carries on much as it did before. Foreign policy pundits routinely advocate for the most destructive and reckless actions, and their advocacy contributes to enormous and costly disasters, and yet they keep their positions and reputation. When the next crisis or conflict appears on the horizon, the same people that cheered on the last disaster are still there to urge us on to the next one … The public pays scant attention to foreign policy and most voters don’t base their votes on these issues.

… A key component in the Israeli penetration of the U. S. government has been President George W. Bush’s 2004 signing off on the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI) within the Department of the Treasury … All of the heads of OTFI have therefore been Jewish and Zionist. All work closely with the Israeli government, all travel to Israel frequently on “official business” and they all are in close liaison with the Jewish groups most often described as part of the Israel Lobby … The OTFI story is outrageous, but it is far from unique. There is a history of American Jews closely attached to Israel being promoted by powerful and cash rich domestic lobbies to act on behalf of the Jewish state.

In the spring of 1945, Winston Churchill asked his military chiefs to prepare a secret plan. That was nothing new. The hyper-energetic Churchill was always coming up with plans, some clever and some crazy. But this plan was beyond all that. Winston Churchill wanted a plan for Britain to invade the Soviet Union … Thus British planners devised “Operation Unthinkable,” an apt name for what would have been World War III … The attack would begin on July 1, 1945, to allow operations before the winter weather arrived. They assumed that Soviet intelligence would detect Allied preparations and thus make an Operation Barbarossa–style surprise offensive impossible. Thus the Allies would have a tough fight right from the start.

Winston Churchill urged the United States to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to win the Cold War, a newly released document reveals. The previously unseen memorandum from the FBI archives details how Britain’s wartime leader made his views known to a visiting American politician in 1947 … Churchill urged right-wing Republican Senator Styles Bridges to persuade President Harry Truman to launch a nuclear attack which would ‘wipe out’ the Kremlin and make the Soviet Union a ‘very easy problem’ to deal with … The FBI document shows Churchill’s belligerence towards Britain’s former wartime ally ran so deep that he was prepared to tolerate the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Soviet civilians in a nuclear strike.

At the beginning of World War I, Britain set up a blockade designed, according to one of its architects, Winston Churchill, to “starve the whole population of Germany — men, women and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission.” … Not until five months after the armistice did the Allies allow Germany to import food — not out of concern for the ongoing death and suffering, but out of fear that desperate Germans would follow the Russians into Bolshevism. By the time it was lifted, the peacetime blockade had killed about a quarter of a million people, including many children who either starved or died from diseases associated with malnutrition.

A foundational tenet of academic feminism holds that alleged differences between males and females are socially constructed. This credo usually maximizes the opportunities for charging sexism … It turns out, however, that males and females differentially respond to stress, environmental risk factors, drugs, and disease, as an initiative called Women’s Health Research at Yale devotes itself to documenting … Such discoveries should be the death knell for social constructivism. Along with many others like them, they buttress the possibility that uneven sex ratios in various fields are in part the result of males and females’ different average dispositions toward competition, risk, and abstract rather than people-centered work …

Israel’s public broadcaster has apologized for playing the music of 19th-century composer Richard Wagner, a renowned anti-Semite. The classical radio station Kol Hamusica broadcast the third act of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung) … A few minutes later, the piece was cut short by a 40-second pause, which the station said was a technical glitch … Wagner, who wrote pamphlets on the “Jewish problem” in German music, and was a strong opponent of inter-racial marriage, was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. There is no law prohibiting the playing of Wagner, but orchestras and venues in Israel typically boycott his music … The station said in a statement that the work of Wagner “will not be played on ‘Kan Kol Hamusica.’

We are building a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to Parliament to make sure we never forget the persecution and murder of the Jewish people of Europe and all other victims of Nazi persecution. We’ve got to be brave at times like these, when it’s clear that our British values of tolerance and equality are coming under threat … The proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre is the key to building a new generation who will fight against fascism, intolerance and the subversion of democracy, wherever and whenever it occurs.

… The great tragedy of McCain’s life was his advocacy of war and military intervention at almost every turn. He backed the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya wars. He urged military strikes on North Korea and Iran. He visited Syrian insurgents to push U.S. intervention. He supported the Saudis’ brutal war against Yemen … Lauded for his foreign policy expertise, his real talent was limited to proclaiming “bomb them” at strategic political moments … Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of foreigners died in John McCain’s wars. Millions of people were displaced. Corrupt and ruthless rulers prospered. Religious minorities were slaughtered and expelled. Enemy states were empowered. Jihadists seized control of cities. Terrorists flourished. Civilians were targeted.

The United States collectively speaking lost its mind last week during a multi-day orgy of smug self-satisfaction centered on the obsequies culminating in the state funeral of Senator John McCain … McCain subsequently embraced every war that came his way while also promoting regime change and doing his best to start new wars in places where America had no interests. Think Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Somalia and Syria just for starters … Hanging the human decency label on McCain is the ultimate travesty as he is a man who actively promoted the policies that have killed millions around the world, to include thousands of his own countrymen … McCain is perhaps best known for his recent efforts to increase US involvement in Syria and also instigate war with Russia and Iran.

President Donald Trump, who just five months ago said he wanted “to get out” of Syria and bring U.S. troops home soon, has approved a new strategy for an indefinitely extended military, diplomatic and economic effort there, according to senior State Department officials. Although the military campaign against the Islamic State has been nearly completed, the administration has redefined its goals to include the exit of all Iranian military and proxy forces from Syria, and establishment of a stable, non- threatening government acceptable to all Syrians and the international community.

Assad was supposed to be gone already. President Obama thought it would be just another “regime change” operation … Remember Aleppo, where the US claimed Assad was planning mass slaughter once he regained control? As usual the neocons and the media were completely wrong. Even the UN has admitted that with Aleppo back in the hands of the Syrian government hundreds of thousands of Syrians have actually moved back … Assad is hardly a saint, but does anyone really think al-Qaeda and ISIS are preferable? After all, how many Syrians fled the country when Assad was in charge versus when the US-backed “rebels” started taking over? … It’s time for the neocons to admit they lost. It is time to give Syria back to the Syrians. It is time to pull the US troops from Syria. It is time to just leave Syria alone!

The Israeli army has admitted, for the first time, that it provided large amounts of cash, weapons and ammunition to Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights. While the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] maintains that it was not intervening in Syria’s civil war, on Monday it confirmed that as part of Operation Good Neighbor Israel had been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with light weapons and ammunition in order to defend themselves from attacks and a substantial amount of cash to buy additional arms … Reports first surfaced of Israel providing arms and cash to rebel groups several years ago, with the regime of Bashar Assad claiming that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups, and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has forced the Jerusalem Post to remove its explosive report on the Israeli military giving weapons to the Syrian rebels, the newspaper’s managing editor confirmed to RT. “We were told by the army’s military censor to remove that part of the story,” David Brinn, the managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, told RT as he replied to a request for comment. The report, ‘IDF confirms: Israel provided light weapons to Syrian rebels’, which claimed that the Israeli military acknowledged for the first time that it had provided money, weapons, and ammunition to the Syrian militants, was removed just hours after being published without any explanation. According to Brinn, the story was removed “for security reasons evidently.”

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has described his complex relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his tenure under president Barack Obama, in his memoir, “Every Day Is Extra” … Kerry notes that Netanyahu rejected a regional security plan drafted by US Gen. John Allen that would have required a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank … Netanyahu rejected the plan, insisting that Israel needed to maintain a long-term military presence in the West Bank. “It was now clear to all of us that Bibi was not interested in actually addressing the security questions in a way that could allow for the eventual withdrawal of the IDF,” Kerry recalls … “At the same time, the Israelis had shown themselves to be completely disdainful of our policy by starting a process of formally legalizing outposts.”

Ben Rhodes’s memoir of serving as a top foreign policy aide to President Obama, titled The World As It Is, came out in June … The memoir documents that at almost every turn, Barack Obama was painted into a corner by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the engaged support of the organized Jewish community … “In Washington, where support for Israel is an imperative for members of Congress, there was a natural deference to the views of the Israeli government on issues related to Iran, and Netanyahu was unfailingly confrontational, casting himself as an Israeli Churchill … AIPAC and other organizations exist to make sure that the views of the Israeli government are effectively disseminated and opposing views discredited in Washington, and this dynamic was a permanent part of the landscape of the Obama presidency.”

A recently released tape revealing Binyamin Netanyahu’s contempt for both the Palestinian and US administrations has caused far less of a diplomatic storm than his opponents hoped it might. For all that Netanyahu’s innate arrogance and self-aggrandisement was laid bare by the contents of the nine-year-old recording, the collective shrugging of shoulders implies that few expected anything else … Secretly taped during a 2001 meeting with terror victims in the settlement of Ofra, Netanyahu’s words display a hostility and venom towards Israel’s peace partners entirely consistent with his approach to negotiations with the Palestinians over the years. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get their way”, he said …

Progressives praise California as the harbinger of the political future, the home of a new, enlightened, multicultural America … Its political leaders and a credulous national media present California as the “woke” state, creating an economically just, post-racial reality. Yet in terms of opportunity, California is evolving into something more like apartheid South Africa or the pre-civil rights South. California simply does not measure up in delivering educational attainment, income growth, homeownership, and social mobility for traditionally disadvantaged minorities. All this bodes ill for a state already three-fifths non-white and trending further in that direction in the years ahead. In the past decade, the state has added 1.8 million Latinos, who will account by 2060 for almost half the state’s population.

During the weekend of Aug. 4-5 (and the preceding Friday night), 12 Chicagoans were shot dead, and 62 others were shot and wounded, the Chicago Tribune reported. Before last week’s mayhem, 1,718 Chicagoans had been shot since the beginning of the year, and 306 had been murdered. Adding to this tragedy is the fact that Chicago’s clearance rate is less than 15 percent. That means that in more than 85 percent of Chicago’s homicides, no suspect is charged. Chicago is by no means unique in this lawlessness. Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis and some other major cities share high rates of homicides.

For decades the Battle of Kursk has been widely believed to be the largest tank battle in history. In particular the fighting at Prokhorovka on the 12th July [1943] is often reported to have involved anywhere from 1200 to 2000 tanks clashing at point blank range … It’s now generally accepted that these numbers have been greatly exaggerated, and that Prokhorovka wasn’t the largest tank battle … So if Kursk wasn’t the largest tank battle in history, what was? It’s now generally accepted that it was the fighting around Brody and Dubno between the 26th and 29th July 1941, rather than Kursk. This was part of the border battles fought at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It involved up to 3500 Soviet and 750 German tanks. The battle was a heavy Soviet defeat, they lost hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers.

A new documentary shedding light on the darkest secrets of the Social Democrats, Sweden’s largest party, that has dominated the country’s politics for the most part of the 20th century and still continues at the nation’s helm, presents it with insurmountable difficulties ahead of the upcoming general election, experts suggest. The right-wing Sweden Democrats, whom Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven previously accused of being a “Nazi, racist party” have given Social Democrats leader a taste of his own medicine by releasing a documentary about the party’s Nazi past … The film claims to tell the story of the Social Democrats “as it has been never been told before.” … The authors dwell on such issues as state-sponsored anti-Semitism, forced sterilization and white supremacy, all of which doesn’t sit well with Sweden’s current image.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech Wednesday at the Dimona nuclear plant, the site and symbol of Israel’s nuclear weapon capacity, and warned Iran and other regional rivals against taking Israel on. “The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong … But our enemies know very well what Israel is capable of doing. They are familiar with our policy. Whoever tries to hurt us — we hurt them.” … Netanyahu’s comments were widely derided on twitter as fascistic … Whose fault is it if Netanyahu sounds like Hitler?”

… Before we get into high dudgeon over this, let’s remember that many Israeli presidents and prime ministers have blood on their hands – terrorist blood. Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi all ordered the murders, bombings and assassinations of both British and Palestinian civilians … These men are lionized by the Israeli state and its citizens. They are heroes of the nation … Why shouldn’t we condemn Netanyahu as roundly as others condemn Corbyn? Corbyn has never ordered anyone assassinated. He’s never ordered an invasion of any foreign country. All of which Netanyahu has done again and again.

… “The Impostor,” a work of nonfiction, is the history of an ugly and wildly successful lie. For three decades, Enric Marco, a Catalan mechanic, was a prominent public face of Spanish survivors of the Holocaust — president of a survivors’ association, the recipient of a number of awards and distinctions. He spoke at Parliament and frequently visited schools, well into his 80s, to tearfully recall his time at the Flossenbürg concentration camp; the torture and killings he witnessed; his eight months of solitary confinement. In 2005, the story was revealed to be a hoax … Cercas was appropriately scandalized, calling Marco “this shameless con artist, this out-and-out liar, this utter scoundrel.”

A Holocaust survivor memoir that has received prestigious literary awards and lavish praise has been exposed as a hoax. In Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood, Binjamin Wilkomirski describes his ordeal as an infant in the Jewish ghetto of Riga (Latvia), where his earliest memory is of seeing his father being killed. Wilkomirski also tells how he survived the terrible rigors of wartime internment, at the age of three or four, in the German-run concentration camps of Majdanek and Auschwitz.

Each year many thousands of tourists visit the site of the notorious Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany, not far from Munich. They see the crematory, the memorial shrines, and the museum. And in recent years, as an almost daily fixture, they see Martin Zaidenstadt. This elderly Jewish man lectures visitors to Dachau on his experiences as a wartime prisoner there. He is particularly passionate about the horrors of the camp’s gas chamber where, he explains, many prisoners were put to death with poison gas … His story of Dachau internment is a fraud. He probably never visited the camp until the 1990s, says Ryback, and his tales of gas chamber killings are untrue.

President Donald Trump is back on the stump, trumpeting his alleged triumphs since the 2016 elections. Somehow, he never mentions Afghanistan. For years, Trump has denounced endless foreign wars, including Afghanistan. He tweeted in 2012, for example, that Afghanistan is “a complete waste …Time to come home!” Once in power, however, Trump filled top advisor and cabinet positions with generals and neocons who advocate permanent occupation of Afghanistan … To date 2,372 US troops have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded. An estimated total of 110,000 Afghans have died in the conflict. US taxpayers have spent over a trillion dollars on the war so far … It’s little wonder that the people of Afghanistan want the US and its corrupt government partners to leave.

… The empowered presidents of the United States and China are now pursuing bold, intensely personal visions of new global orders that could potentially reshape the trajectory of the twenty-first century — or bring it all down. The countries, like their leaders, are a study in contrasts. China is an ascending superpower, riding a wave of rapid economic expansion with a burgeoning industrial and technological infrastructure, a growing share of world trade, and surging self-confidence. The United States is a declining hegemon, with a crumbling infrastructure, a failing educational system, a shrinking slice of the global economy, and a deeply polarized, divided citizenry.

“Throughout his congressional career Senator McCain stood with Israel because throughout his life he stood up for America’s allies and our shared democratic values,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said in a statement on the passing away of the 81-year-old Republican Senate Member of Arizona, a former prisoner of war of war in Vietnam who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008. … “The pro-Israel community has lost a stalwart friend …” … American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris remembered McCain as a “statesman and a national treasure — and an avid supporter of Israel, an ally he first visited nearly 40 years ago.” … The World Jewish Congress mourns the death of Senator John McCain …

Around 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world. Those forces utilize several hundred military installations. Africa is no exemption. On August 2, Maj. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier took command of US Army Africa, promising to “hit the ground running.” The US is not waging any wars in Africa but it has a significant presence on the continent. Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and other special ops are currently conducting nearly 100 missions across 20 African countries at any given time, waging secret, limited-scale operations. According to the magazine Vice, US troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises and military engagements throughout Africa per year, an average of ten per day — an astounding 1,900% increase since the command rolled out ten years ago.

… Using countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the first line of defense against this nation’s perceived threats runs counter to US national- security interests, and worse, contrary to American values … And so the self-fulfilling prophecy carries on: The United States provides arms, holds honor cordons, and offers unquestioning fealty to Gulf governments — all in the name of security — while making itself complicit in abuses that fuel the security challenges it says it seeks to address. The groupthink has become so corrosive to Washington’s foreign policy-making apparatus that nothing seems to shock or sway it into a deep rethinking of whom to consider allies or how the US engages with the world.

… And in that fight, al-Qaida militants are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition — and, by extension, the United States. “Elements of the U.S. military are clearly aware that much of what the U.S. is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] and there is much angst about that,” said Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. analysis group that tracks terrorism. “However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the U.S. views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen,” Horton said.

As both the Alternative for Sweden (AfS) and the Sweden Democrats (SD)are expected to punch above their weight in the upcoming elections, the deliberate removal of their content has been seen as tampering with its outcome. The mass removal of video content by two of Sweden’s most right-wing parties by Google-owned YouTube has prompted politicians and ordinary Swedes alike into accusations of censorship and election meddling. The newly-founded Alternative for Sweden (AfS) party, who’s had its channel deleted and restored by YouTube, has had numerous videos of election meetings with voters made unavailable for viewing in Sweden … The Sweden Democrats themselves are also not strangers to YouTube removing their content.

More than 20,000 Israelis have obtained Polish citizenship in the years 2010-2017 — an increase of more than 250 percent over the previous seven years. The data, released last month by the embassy of Poland in Israel, on the approval of naturalization applications by Israelis to the Polish embassy in Israel show that 10,820 Israelis became Poles during the years 2015-2017 alone — slightly more than in the years 2002-2010 combined … In total, in the years 2002-2017 the embassy issued 28,736 passports to Israeli applicants. Poland is a member state of the European Union and its citizens may work and settle anywhere in that union’s 28 member states.

It is ironic that the Robert Mueller investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and the Donald Trump campaign continues to turn up nothing while the evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. political system continues to surface without any outrage being expressed by either the media or American politicians … Together the Papadopoulos and Flynn tales suggest that it was Israel, not Russia, that sought to both collude with and even spy on the Trump Administration, which should surprise no one. Unfortunately, in spite of the evidence, the possibility that the “interference” will ever be subject to any Congressional investigation remains extremely unlikely.

… I always considered Avnery as the wisest voice in the Mideast, and Israel’s last prophet. His voice was always rich in wisdom, morality and common sense. Few Israelis and even fewer Arabs attained his level of clarity and logic … There would never be peace in the region, warned prophet Avnery, until Israel returned at least some land taken from Palestinians, and created a viable Palestinian state with full democratic rights and freedoms. Instead, Uri watched as Israel’s US-backed far right government arrested ever more Palestinians, grabbed more Arab lands, and prepared to create a full-fledged South African-style apartheid state … His icy skepticism and clear thinking was a godsend in the overheated emotional hothouse of the Mideast. Israel’s last prophet is gone.

… Israel is re-Judaizing itself at a rapid pace. The Jewish religion is making a huge comeback. Very soon, religious children of various communities will be the majority in Israeli Jewish schools … One of the basic convictions of Diaspora Jewry was that “the whole world is against us”. Jews have been persecuted throughout the ages in many countries, up to the Holocaust. In the Seder ceremony on Passover eve, which unites all the Jews around the world, the holy text says that “in every generation they arise to annihilate us”. The official aim of Zionism was to turn us into “a people like all peoples”. Does a normal people believe that everybody is out to annihilate it at all times? It is a basic conviction of almost every Jewish Israeli that “the whole world is against us” …

… One has just to mention the Holocaust (or Shoah in Hebrew) and fear oozes from every pore of the national body. Stoking Holocaust memories is a national industry. Children are sent to visit Auschwitz, their first trip abroad. The last Minister of Education decreed the introduction of Holocaust studies in kindergarten (seriously). There is a Holocaust Day – in addition to many other Jewish holidays, most of which commemorate some past conspiracy to kill the Jews. The historical picture created in the mind of every Jewish child, in Israel as well as abroad, is, in the words of the Passover prayer read aloud every year in every Jewish family: “In every generation they arise against us to annihilate us, but God saves us from their hands!”

… History has traditionally been written by the political winners, and this was especially true in the days before the growth of the Internet weakened the total monopoly of our establishment media … Indeed, [John T.] Flynn alleges that by late 1937, FDR had turned towards an aggressive foreign policy aimed at involving the country in a major foreign war, primarily because he believed that this was the only route out of his desperate economic and political box … Another major contributor to the [Harry Elmer] Barnes volume was William Henry Chamberlin, who for decades had been ranked among America’s leading foreign policy journalists, with more than 15 books to his credit, most of them widely and favorably reviewed.

… Chamberlin opens America’s Second Crusade with the words: “Americans, more than any other people, have been inclined to interpret their involvement in the two great wars of the twentieth century in terms of crusades for righteousness.” In the pages that follow, Chamberlin deftly and devastatingly tears apart the folly of such arrogance. He exposes the mendacity of American leaders such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, the fraud of the Nuremberg trials, and the hypocrisy and bad faith of the Allied leaders in their Second World War “crusade.”

… Failure to foresee the aggressive and disintegrating role which a victorious Soviet Union might be expected to play in a smashed and ruined Europe and Asia was the principal blunder of America’s crusading interventionists … It was an illusion that the United States was at any time in danger of invasion by Nazi Germany. It was an illusion that Hitler was bent on the destruction of the British Empire. It was an illusion that China was capable of becoming a strong, friendly, western-oriented power in the Far East. It was an illusion that a powerful Soviet Union in a weakened and impoverished Eurasia would be a force for peace, conciliation, stability, and international co-operation.

… The quantity and scope of his productive output would alone stamp Harry Elmer Barnes as a memorable scholar, but this alone barely begins to scratch the surface of how remarkable a man he was. For he was that rarity among scholars: a passionately committed man. It was not enough for Harry to discover and set forth the truth; he must also work actively and whole-heartedly in the world on behalf of that truth … Like Beard and Flynn, Barnes found himself hounded by former friends and colleagues and denounced as a “Nazi” merely for cleaving to the liberal and pro-peace principles which all alike had shared a few short months before.