Nasty Double Standards on Man-made Catastrophes and Crimes against Humanity

Myanmar has been hit devastated by Cyclone Nargis and tens of thousands are dead, tens of thousands more require food and medical aid.In this fluid situation, there are reports of 78,000 dead, 56,000 missing, and an estimated 2.5 million survivors. The Red Cross reported that the total cyclone death toll may be as high as 127,990, and that up to 2.5 million people are in urgent need of food, water and shelter.AP, “Red Cross: Myanmar death toll as high as 128,000,” newsday.com, 15 May 2008. The Myanmar regime is accused of blocking and delaying aid to its people.

The Myanmar regime is not a regime that I will defend. It is a militaristic clique that has seized power and rules by force. Nevertheless, much the same can be said about the US regime. Unlike the US regime, however, the Myanmar regime, basically, confines its perfidy to within its own borders.

Of course, whenever humans are in trouble, a responsible government will see to it that those humans are attended to, fed, and cared for.

The Myanmar government is accused by western governments and western media of negligence and worse towards its own citizens.

UK prime minister Gordon Brown declared: “It is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do.”

“Man-made catastrophe.” Isn’t that what the UK engineered in Iraq as junior partner (poodle) to the US? Over a million excess Iraqi civilian mortalities estimated since March 2003 (and there is no reason to ignore the US-UK supported UN sanctions that killed another million or so Iraqi civilians after 1991).Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts, “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,” Lancet, 368: 21 October 2006: 1421-1428. Gideon Polya, “Two Million Iraq Deaths, Eight Million Bush Asian Holocaust Deaths And Media Holocaust Denial,” Countercurrents.org, 7 October, 2007. That is genocide, and genocides are always man-made.

Brown added, “The responsibility lies with the Burmese regime and they must be held accountable.”

Fine, and to be fair and honest, at the same time, Brown and erstwhile prime minister Tony Blair must be held accountable for their role in the murderous carnage in Iraq.

If being accountable is to have any meaning, then Britain must, at long last, also be judged and do penance for its crimes, among others, in the Chagos archipelago, on the Indian subcontinent, against the Indigenous peoples in the western hemisphere and Oceania, throughout the Middle East, particularly its complicity in wiping of Palestine off the map.

The Plank Stuck in the Western Eye

The Europeans are calling for a forced intervention, and some US members of the House of Representatives are imploring president George Bush to intervene in Myanmar.

The Europeans, US, and Canada are complicit with Zionists in the starvation of Palestinians. This is in addition to demolishing homes, carrying out assassinations, withholding money transfers, destroying vital utilities, etc. in Gaza,Saleh Al-Naami, “Darkness, starvation and imminent death,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 24-30 January 2008. and yet they are calling for an intervention elsewhere.

French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert called for immediate action in Myanmar: “We are shifting from a situation of non-assistance to people in need to a situation that could lead to a true crime against humanity if we go on like that.”

One might wonder why the British and French “leaders” wail and moan about disaster-stricken Myanmar but are silent about disaster-stricken New Orleans. Almost three years after Hurricane Katrina struck the coast of Louisiana, people in New Orleans are waiting on assistance.Bill Quigley, “Half New Orleans Poor Permanently Displaced: Failure or Success?Dissident Voice, 4 March 2008.

The 43 US representatives calling for intervention in Myanmar are apparently unaware of the tardy US response to the victims of KatrinaJulian Borger and Duncan Campbell, “Why did help take so long to arrive?Guardian, 3 September 2005. or that the US regime rejected aid from certain countries, such as Cuba. Hector Carreon, “Bush accepts aid from Mexico, silent on Venezuela but rejects help from Cuba,” La Voz de Aztlan, 8 September 2005.

Venezuela, which contributed generously to the victims of Katrina, was reportedly rebuffed initially by the Bush administration.Duncan Campbell, “Bush rejects Chávez aid,” Guardian, 7 September 2005. An excuse proffered by a senior State Department official, according to the Washington Post, was that “unsolicited offers can be ‘counterproductive.’”Cited in Cleto Sojo, “Venezuela Offers $1M, Oil, Food and Equipment for U.S. Victims of Hurricane Katrina,” Venezuelanalysis.com, 1 September 2005.

And, where are the voices of British and French government figures about the genocide Israel perpetrates against Palestinians? Obviously, these western government figures are selectively speaking out on man-made catstrophes and crimes against humanity.

Corporate Media Deluge on Myanmar vs. Silence on Palestine

A sampling of corporate media headlines reveals an animus toward the Myanmar government:

Aid stymied off Myanmar shores and borders,” International Herald Tribune
Myanmar Neighbors Seek Ways To Press Country on Cyclone Aid,” Wall Street Journal
International Pressure on Myanmar Junta Is Building,” New York Times
Diplomats tour cyclone zone, but Myanmar still refuses aid,” Euronews.net

That the corporate media would go into a frenzy over Myanmar while ignoring the man-made catastrophes in Palestine and in Iraq is telling.

In the case of Myanmar, the western corporate media is behaving as it should: criticizing a non-democratic regime and, supposedly, putting the interests of the Myanmarese people front and center.

But one must ask: why is this same media falling over itself to celebrate 60 years in power by Jewish segregationists who contrived and meted out a catastrophe (al-Nakba) to the Palestinians? Why has this same media remained so quiescent over the travails that still bedevil the citizenry of New Orleans? Why does the same media collaborate in the ultimate international crime of aggression-occupation against Iraq?

The contrasting response to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar with other contemporary disasters — whether man-made or acts of nature — scathingly exposes the nasty double standards of western governments and their corporate media.

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.

55 comments on this article so far ...

Comments RSS feed

  1. Susan Rosenthal said on May 19th, 2008 at 7:28am #

    Thank you for exposing these outrageous hypocrisies.

    Our rulers focus on the injustice over there, so we won’t hold them accountable for the injustice right here.
    They try to bind us to them with their feigned concern for others, hoping we will overlook their daily crimes against us.

    These are the lies that bind us to their rotten system and will keep us bound until we organize an alternative.

  2. sk said on May 19th, 2008 at 8:23am #

    It is curious how natural disasters–as opposed to political struggles involving human agency–can be turned into sites for “a resurrection of humanism” by the “International community”.

  3. hp said on May 19th, 2008 at 10:01am #

    911 was a man made catastrophe and a crime against humanity. A premeditated excuse to unleash even larger catastrophes and crimes against humanity of which they’ve only just begun.

  4. John Wilkinson said on May 19th, 2008 at 11:28am #

    I pretty much agree with all of the above. there’s a lot of hypocrisy to gto around. but you’re letting the british off the hook way too easily. everywhere they’ve been, they’ve left a catastrophe in their wake — india vs. pakistan, palestine/israel, aborigines in oz, iraq (even b4 the latest wars), slave ships from africa, colonization of others, etc., etc. it is downright ridiculous when our “friends” to the north turn up their noses and pretend that they are better than us (while we pay an arm and a leg for our wasteful military to defend them, as well), while they kiss the ass of the british queen and stand for all that the british have done over the centuries (see the above), while also having a not so complimentary history of their own vis a vis their own indigenous populations. the same with the so-called humanitarian europeans.

  5. Michael Kenny said on May 19th, 2008 at 12:13pm #

    The problem with this kind of “ya-boo-to-you-too” article is that its underlying thesis is not that the people being criticised are different from those being praised, but that they are merely no better. Saying that this or that leader is as nasty as the Burmese generals admits tacitly that said generals are nasty. If they’re nasty, it matters not a whit that the person calling them such is no better than they! Does a murderer cease to be a murderer merely because his crime is denounced by people who are themselves murderers? In plain English, this is a classic example of taking an excellent subject and killing it with a silly article!

    By the way, the European media seems to have completely missed the “Europeans … calling for a forced intervention”. Is this some dastardly conspiracy?

  6. sk said on May 19th, 2008 at 1:36pm #

    An interesting interview on the “Neither, nor” position that has resulted in much sterile moralizing and political paralysis of the last 10 years.

  7. brian said on May 19th, 2008 at 4:34pm #

    FYI

    ‘Myanmar Cyclone. U.S. hostility hampers relief

    by Sara Flounders

    Global Research, May 16, 2008
    Workers World

    Email this article to a friend
    Print this article

    Missing from the media’s lecturing is mention of the disastrous U.S. record in Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

    Is the Bush administration really trying to help the people of Myanmar recover from the natural disaster that struck there? Then why is it insisting that the Pentagon be in charge of its aid? And why did it impose SANCTIONS on the country when it knew the cyclone was about to hit?

    One of the severest storms of the century slammed into the low-lying, densely farmed Irrawaddy Delta of Myanmar on the Gulf of Bengal on May 2. It is a fertile but underdeveloped region, especially susceptible to flooding. The Delta is home to one fourth of Myanmar’s 57 million people. The last tropical cyclone to make coastal landfall was 40 years ago.

    Meteorologists had been following Tropical Cyclone Nargis for a week. But when the cyclone hit land it brought with it an unpredicted tidal wave of epic proportions. A wall of water 12 feet high surged seven miles inland.

    Over a million people have been left homeless and tens of thousands are missing. The estimates of deaths range from 20,000 to 100,000. Yangon, the former capital and major commercial port city, was left in shambles.

    The U.S. corporate media are full of stories on the scale of the disaster and the inability of the government to cope with the relief effort. Completely omitted is any mention of the U.S. government’s own abysmal track record in providing disaster relief.

    Each news article repeats the demand that Washington be given full military access to Myanmar to deliver emergency supplies. There is outrage and shock that Myanmar will not permit U.S. military planes to land or Navy ships to dock. The charge that the Myanmar government cannot possibly be trusted to deliver the supplies is repeated again and again.

    What is not reported is that the Bush administration, with criminal calculation and planning, consciously made the relief efforts far more difficult. The day before Cyclone Nargis actually hit Myanmar, but when the approach of the monster storm had already being announced and tracked for a week, President George W. Bush signed a harsh new level of economic sanctions on Myanmar. Sanctions are an act of aggression, a form of economic warfare that specifically targets the poorest and most desperate.

    Sanctions imposed as cyclone hit

    With all its spy satellites, Washington was far more aware than the people of Myanmar of what was coming. The sanctions made direct U.S. and international donations of emergency funds and aid almost impossible. Xinhua News on May 2 reported that Bush’s executive order was worded to “block all property and interests in property of designated individuals and entities determined to be owned or controlled by the government of Burma (Myanmar).”

    This criminal executive order decreeing expanded sanctions was followed within days by expressions of deep concern for the devastated population. The cynicism and hypocrisy could not be greater.

    The new sanctions prevent U.S. humanitarian organizations and individuals from donating money directly to causes within impoverished Myanmar. U.S. aid organizations, such as the American Red Cross, found they could provide only supplies—not personnel or money—to the relief effort under the sanctions rules. While the U.S. corporate media have carried hundreds of reports arrogantly lecturing Myanmar on what is not being done, they are not even mentioning the impact of the new U.S. sanctions that were imposed as the storm barreled toward the country.

    Based on weather satellite monitoring, many scientists had tracked the storm as it gained momentum. Nearly a week before it struck land, the Indian Meteorology Department was releasing detailed warnings of route, speed and locations. The Myanmar government, while it received text messages of warning from India starting on April 26, and announced storm warnings on state radio, does not have coastal radars to detect a cyclone’s path, nor did this impoverished country have an evacuation plan.

    The U.S. government has been insisting that the Pentagon be given the right to deliver assistance with its own personnel and equipment. Evidently, this rich imperialist country has no other way to deliver humanitarian relief except at the end of a bayonet.

    Many other countries, however, have found non-military ways to provide immediate assistance. The Myanmar state radio has reported that international humanitarian aid has poured in from China, India, Japan, Singapore, Italy, Bangladesh, Laos and Thailand. Arriving at the Yangon International Airport with their respective aircraft were tents, mosquito nets, power generators, medicines, water purifiers, dry potato and pork, instant noodles, biscuits, cloth, zinc sheets, hammers and nails, and candles.
    etc
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9003

  8. brian said on May 19th, 2008 at 4:37pm #

    Little known is the delta was first opened for farming by the british in 19th century. Since then, the humans have encroached until the mangrove buffers have been largely destroyed:

    ‘Mangrove destruction raised Burma toll
    Wednesday, 7 May 2008
    ABC/AFP

    Related Stories
    Bay of Bengal risks tsunami too, Science Online, 06 Sep 2007
    Mangroves no barrier to tsunamis
    Cyclones? Don’t blame climate change
    The destruction of mangrove forests that served as a buffer from the sea is partly to blame for the death toll from Burma’s cyclone, says the head of ASEAN.

    “The impact is so severe because of the increase of the population,” says Dr Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which Burma belongs.

    “[This has led to an] encroachment into the mangrove forests which used to serve as buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and the residential area,” he says.

    “All those lands have been destroyed. Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces.”

    At the weekend, tropical cyclone Nargis barrelled into the southwest coast of Burma, one of the poorest nations on earth, killing at least 22,500 people, with another 41,000 missing.

    etc
    http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/05/07/2237802.htm

  9. Shabnam said on May 19th, 2008 at 5:36pm #

    The US and “international community” consists of colonial and imperial countries don’t have a credible history to be trusted otherwise the UN is a good place to be used for mobilization of resources and workers to be used in assisting other people in time of needs like people of Myanmar. Since we know UN is the US and UN chairman’s primary function is to act as an agent to protect the interest of the empire no one thrust this organization and are fearful of their “humanitarian” mission where has been used in other places for regime change and partition through destabilization such as Sudan under Clinton administration.
    They don’t have a credible history regarding “assistance” to countries under their occupation. Afghani people have repeatedly complained that the “aid” does not reach the intended population. The governor of Herat on Voice of America complained that the decision taken regarding aid is made outside of Afghanistan in the western countries without consulting with people or their representatives to know what are their priorities. Another example is Iraq that you, Mr. Petersen, have mentioned. People of Iraq view the past, under Saddam, as the golden era regarding access to resources and security.
    British definitely are not interested in helping people of Myanmar rather it is an opportunity for “regime change” that American and the British think should be taken advantage of since Myanmar is practically a GATE to China. British as an occupying military force during the WWI are responsible for 8-10 million Iranians deaths since they diverted the Iranian crops to feed their own military and left Iranian to die.
    Why Bush administration insisting that the Pentagon be in charge of its aid? Few analysts claim that not every country can carry out this mission since they don’t have the capability to do so. Myanmar is not against aid per say. They are fearful of military action against them and they have welcome aid from other countries such as china, India, Thailand, Singapore and others. Why the US does not want to cooperate with other Asian countries. All these countries must be held responsible for aid to these people and make sure that this aid continues to prevent diseases and other disasters after shock. American should stop shedding crocodile tears and remove the sanction immediately which has made every single country poor and vulnerable to “regime change.” As a result of the sanction, devastated people are less equip to face this kind of disaster at this magnitude.

  10. Kim Petersen said on May 19th, 2008 at 7:27pm #

    Mr Kenny, you obviously misread the article. There is a fundamental principle of elementary morality — or biblical morality — that should be easy to grasp: you clean up your own act first before you criticize the actions of others.

    Europeans call for forced intervention
    Globe and Mail, Canada – 14 May 2008
    BRUSSELS — France, Britain and Germany called yesterday for the world to deliver aid to cyclone victims in Myanmar if necessary without the military junta’s …

  11. Lloyd Rowsey said on May 19th, 2008 at 8:12pm #

    Dead center again, John Wilkinson. Thank you. I got to long-distance- know a lady who lived in London when I was participating in the New York Times political forums about five years ago, and we’ve continued emailing occasionally since then. But over the last two years, she’s almost gone incommunicado, and she leaves England, it seems like to me, whenever she can get away from her job — and goes to Scotland or Ireland or Europe. She lives with the fact that the fucking English are such a piece of work, and it tears her apart.

  12. Kim Petersen said on May 20th, 2008 at 2:47pm #

    May 20, 2008
    Katrina survivors struggle years after hurricane

    http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=1508&updaterx=2008-05-20+16%3A53%3A47

  13. Edwin Pell said on May 20th, 2008 at 6:17pm #

    Yes, yes! And yes again for the many comments.

    On Iraq let us not forget the more than one million Iraqis killed by U.S. sanctions in the decade before the war and occupation.

  14. Bob said on May 20th, 2008 at 7:08pm #

    I am beginning to believe that most of the writers and readers of Dissident Voice have at best a tenuous grip on reality. Is everything a plot against humanity? Is evil all around you? Is the CIA or NSA watching you? If you answered yes to one or more of the questions, please seek psychiatric help. Your nation and your families need sane, rational adults to help defeat real evil, and the enemies of freedom. Not the imaginary evil you seek to confront.

  15. mary said on May 20th, 2008 at 11:38pm #

    Thanks for the insult Lloyd Rowsey (I am English) and Bob, just to say that the writers and readers on DV are not dead from the neckup. Can we leave insults and slurs out of it. There seems to be a lot of anti- British sentiment being expressed – yes we had an evil exploitative empire but that has been acknowledged and we are sorry. ‘The Blood never Dried’ by John Newsinger who is a Professor at Bath University tells us of some of the horror. http://ellissharp.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-newsinger-blood-never-dried.html
    But where are the apologists for Bush’s present evil empire and for the ones that preceded it? You too have left a trail of death around the world viz. Vietnam, Korea, South America, the Balkans etc, leaving aside the extermination of your native American population. None of us have clean hands.

  16. Hue Longer said on May 21st, 2008 at 12:01am #

    WendyBob, what is real evil? Is it a plot against humanity? Is it all around you?

  17. Bob said on May 21st, 2008 at 5:38am #

    Hi Hue:

    Why do you call me Wendy?

    I don’t have time right now to play with you, maybe some other time.
    Bob.

  18. denk said on May 21st, 2008 at 8:56am #

    denk

    darfur is OUR responsiility

    tibet is OUR responsiility

    burma is OUR responsiility

    funny, nobody is claiming responsibility for this

  19. Edwin Pell said on May 21st, 2008 at 3:52pm #

    In deed no one talks about the American holocaust of the 100,000,000 natives before Columbus only about 2,000,000 remained after the Europeans arrived in numbers. A far larger number than the European holocaust and a far higher percentage than the European holocaust.

    Way don’t the presidential candidates have to come and kiss the ass of the Native American victims of holocaust?

  20. hp said on May 21st, 2008 at 4:00pm #

    Because they don’t hold their mortgages?

  21. Bob said on May 21st, 2008 at 4:05pm #

    Denk:

    The link you provided to another site is interesting but is rather disingenuous. For example, “There have been more than 200,000 aerial sorties over Iraq since the end of the Gulf war. Iraq is bombed on average three times a week by US and UK planes.” I don’t know when this was published, but I don’t see anything being referenced after 1999. But assuming it was written in early 2003, lets do the math.

    200,000 sorties in 12 years(1991-2003).
    200,000/ 12 = 16,666.66 sorties per year.
    16,666/ 365= 45.6 sorties per day.
    So roughly 46 sorties a day every day for 12 years.

    That would require a awful lot of aircraft and infrastructure. In fact it would really strain the Air Forces resources.

    May be I shouldn’t confuse you with facts!

    Here is a fact. “War is Hell” – William Tecumseh Sherman 1879.

    Unfortunately many civilians become casualties of war, in fact many times as many civilians as soldiers become casualties.

    Do we target civilians intensionally? No, but they do end up in the cross fire.

    I along with many others wish we could change that!

    Bob

  22. Kim Petersen said on May 21st, 2008 at 4:44pm #

    Your point about holocausts is well taken, Edwin. I wrote about this several times (e.g., see “The Struggle Against Colonialism in Canada.” However, it is not an American holocaust, it is a European holocaust perpetrated against the Original Peoples of the western hemisphere. Also, many of these Original Peoples would eschew the label of being “native American” since they consider themselves independent nations and since “American” is a label imposed on them by colonialists.

  23. hp said on May 21st, 2008 at 6:50pm #

    Of course the ‘other Indians,’ the ones Columbus was looking for when he made a wrong term, don’t fuss much at all about this.
    Neither do they, or anyone else talk much, well…talk at all, actually, about the estimated 60,000,000 Hindus (another imposed name) who were deposed during 1,000 years of sword of Islam aggression.

  24. Kim Petersen said on May 21st, 2008 at 7:10pm #

    I must, respectfully and forcefully, disagree with you hp. To merely make a blanket assertion that “the ‘other Indians,’ the ones Columbus was looking for when he made a wrong term, don’t fuss much at all about this” is wholly unconvincing. Imagine saying “other Negroes” or “other Gypsies.”

    Of course, some Original Peoples may not care much about what they are called. They are not a monolith. I take my language cues from the Original Peoples. It was Dacajeweiah (Splitting the Sky), a Mohawk activist, who told me the correct designation for the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island is “Original Peoples.” I have spoken with many other Original peoples who agree with this designation. There is plenty of information online about disrespectful designations of “Injuns,” “Iroquois,” “Huron,” Sioux,” that people use knowingly or unknowingly.

    As a matter of common courtesy, I refer to people as they wish to be called, and I avoid labels imposed upon them by others, unless they so desire to be called that.

    So, unless you claim to be an Indigenous person from Turtle Island, I am afraid that your statement carries zero weight.

  25. Bob said on May 21st, 2008 at 7:50pm #

    Edwin:

    What is the source of the claim you make regarding the population of native Americans?

    I suspect you made it up! The best estimate I’ve ever read was no more than 3.5 million natives at the time of Columbus. Which stands to reason, at the time the Native Americans where a stone age people. At any rate there are not any records, so it is all guess work.

    Mary:
    I apologize if you feel insulted, I must reiterate your (along with many others)grasp on reality may be tenuous. It is amazing to me how a Brit can talk about the “trail of death around the world” the US has left. Your own freedom was paid for with American blood and capital. Some was even Native American blood! Great Britain would not have been able to go it alone against Nazi Germany! Does that make me anti-Brit, not in the least bit. I’ve personally visited the UK, and spent some time in North Ireland. And I look forward to visiting again. As far as Anti-Brit sentiment on this website, just get used to it. Listen as far as I’ve been able to discern, about half the writers are Anti-Semites.

    You see most of the writers and readers on Dissident Voice are cowards!

    It’s easy to attack the US, President Bush, VP Cheney, Israel, etc as evil conspirators . Truly powerful men and countries, aren’t going to come after the writers and do them harm, there is no real risk involved!
    But confronting real evil, now thats a different story. It requires commitment to action, which could lead to great personal harm, or even death. It requires the one who accepts the responsibility to have the courage to see it through to the end. We(US , UK, etc.) are the only ones that stands between freedom and tyranny. I can think of a lot of places that are free today, because free men from English speaking world were willing to put themselves at risk for another mans’ freedom. The places that aren’t, are the places we either failed, or haven’t tackled yet.
    Was and is the UK perfect? Of course not. Have men always followed the rule of law? No. But overall the existence of the UK has been a positive force. The same can be said of the US.
    Bob

  26. denk said on May 21st, 2008 at 9:01pm #

    bob
    **
    Denk:
    Here is a fact. “War is Hell” – William Tecumseh Sherman 1879.**

    then how do you explain this….
    “Pick almost any date on the calendar and it’ll turn out that the US either started a war, ended a war, perpetrated a massacre or sent its UN Ambassador into the Security Council to declare to issue an ultimatum”
    counterpunch.org/cockburn03242007.html

    btw, lets call a spade a spade, kosovo, afghan, iraq were naked aggressions………….the other sides didnt ask for it.

    **Unfortunately many civilians become casualties of war, in fact many times as many civilians as soldiers become casualties.

    Do we target civilians intensionally? **

    absolutely, right outta horse mouth..
    swans.com/library/art7/gowans11.html

    **I along with many others wish we could change that!**

    apparently you and your peers havent been trying hard enough,
    dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/somalia-hidden-catastrophe-hidden-agenda/

    perhaps its like kim peterson said, you guys have been too busy trying to clean out others acts. ??

    [p.s.] are my posts being “moderated” ?

  27. Bob said on May 21st, 2008 at 9:54pm #

    Denk:

    Try answering my assertion, you have linked to a bogus website. Anybody can claim anything they want. But back up the math with reality, I’ll bet you can’t. As far as your statement pick out a date on the calender. Check out the History Channel’s website, you can click on the today in history icon. I’ve also seen in the past a website which catalogs by date World War 2. I guess you could call the bombings in Japan with nuclear weapons a massacre of civilians, but that would be a real stretch.
    Most conspiracy theory’s start with a crumb of truth and then lots of wild speculation is added to the mix. A mature experienced mind learns to see through the fog.
    Bob

  28. Kim Petersen said on May 21st, 2008 at 10:19pm #

    That someone would deny “the bombings in Japan with nuclear weapons [is] a massacre of civilians” reveals just how “mature experienced mind” such a person has.

  29. denk said on May 21st, 2008 at 11:37pm #

    Bob
    **Denk:

    Try answering my assertion, you have linked to a bogus website. Anybody can claim anything they want. But back up the math with reality, I’ll bet you can’t**

    are u suggesting that those photos of “collateral damages” are bogus ?

    from 1991-2003, the us bombed at least 4 countries.. somalia, iraq, afghanistan, ex yugoslavia….
    the bombings of iraq and yugo were so ferocious , i heard the bombs dropped were comparable to the entire tonnage dropped during wwii !!
    when stretched over these four countries, that figure doesnt look so far fetched after all.
    and this is assuming that the article was dated 2003 !!

    **. As far as your statement pick out a date on the calender. Check out the History Channel’s website, you can click on the today in history icon. I’ve also seen in the past a website which catalogs by date World War 2. **

    take a look , its well doucmented.
    krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html

    **I guess you could call the bombings in Japan with nuclear weapons a massacre of civilians, but that would be a real stretch.**

    i refer you to kim .

    BTW
    I SEE THAT YOU STUDIOUSLY AVOID ADDRESSING THE EVIDENCE I POSTED, WHICH PROVED BEYOND DOUBT THAT YOU HAVE BEEN TARGETING CIVILIANS DELIBERATLEY.

  30. evie said on May 22nd, 2008 at 5:01am #

    I would call the Clinton Shake and Bake at Waco a massacre of civilians.

    I do enjoy watching white folk argue their atrocities.

  31. Bob said on May 22nd, 2008 at 6:39am #

    Evie:
    If you were to cover yourself and your family with gasoline, and then light it, all in the presence of the authorities . I wouldn’t call it a massacre, I’d call that a murder suicide. That’s exactly what happened at Waco, and trust me I was not a fan of either President Clinton or Attorney General Reno.

    Denk:

    “are u suggesting that those photos of “collateral damages” are bogus ?”
    You answered your own question, collateral damages are the key words. Unfortunate, and unintended damage and death.

    “BTW
    I SEE THAT YOU STUDIOUSLY AVOID ADDRESSING THE EVIDENCE I POSTED, WHICH PROVED BEYOND DOUBT THAT YOU HAVE BEEN TARGETING CIVILIANS DELIBERATLEY.”

    What you posted isn’t evidence, but an accusation. Not well thought out by the way. The website you listed- krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html. I see a couple of fabrications just in a cursory look.

    Kim:

    Think don’t emote!
    Ending the war sooner rather than later by using the two atomic weapons, was a brilliant , courageous , compassionate, and very risky decision . The invasion of Japan “Operation Downfall” was scheduled to begin in early November 1945. The War Department told President Truman to expect the war to last 2-4 more years, cost 2 million American casualties, and as much as 25% of the Japanese population dead.
    What would you have done?
    It’s easy to sit back 60 plus years later and critique, it is a lot harder to accept the actual responsibility. I thank God almost every day for giving us President Truman. And I’m a Republican!

  32. evie said on May 22nd, 2008 at 7:01am #

    Glug glug glug glug. Ahhh, good koolaid.

  33. denk said on May 22nd, 2008 at 8:53am #

    bob,

    trying to look the other way ?
    i am talking about THESE “collacteral damage”
    swans.com/library/art7/gowans11.html

    **What you posted isn’t evidence, but an accusation. Not well thought out by the way. The website you listed- krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html. I see a couple of fabrications just in a cursory look.**

    what fabrications , mind enlighten us on it ?
    u told me “war is hell”
    the krystal site documented more than a century of hell ….courtesy of usa.
    reflect on it, bob.

  34. hp said on May 22nd, 2008 at 10:10am #

    Kim, you missed my whole point (Columbus’s wrong turn) with your mad rush to defend the Original People.
    The point is the almost complete absence of not only history but the barest realization of an event(s) which remains active to this very day involving a billion people, an entire sub-continent and has political and religious connotations which are very pertinent to current world events.

    By the way, I am part ‘Indian’ and also part ‘Jew’ and also part ‘Dutch.’
    Quite a conundrum. Except to me.

  35. Bob said on May 22nd, 2008 at 1:11pm #

    Denk:
    Alright here you are;
    1)
    “1979
    Cambodia (Fall of Pol Pot)
    In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot is toppled by Vietnam. After four years of terror, over 2,500,000 people have died under the regime.

    The USA ensures that the Khmer Rouge keeps Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations even though it is longer in power. This is partially for revenge on Vietnam (who defeated the USA militarily), and partially to please the USA’s new ally China (who are the principal supporters of the Khmer Rouge and are opposed to Vietnam).

    The USA turns a blind eye as China supplies the Khmer Rouge with arms via Thailand. In 1981, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the USA president’s security adviser would admit:

    “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot.”

    The USA and Thailand supplied the Khmer Rouge under the cover of humanitarian aid. Two USA relief aid workers, Linda Mason and Roger Brown, later wrote:

    “The US Government insisted that the Khmer Rouge be fed … the US preferred that the Khmer Rouge operation benefit from the credibility of an internationally known relief operation.” ”

    2)
    “1980
    USA and Cambodia
    Under USA pressure, the World Food Program hands over food worth $12 million to the army of Thailand. This food aid is passed on to the Khmer Rouge, the previous government of Cambodia, responsible for killing over 2,500,000 of its own citizens.

    Richard Holbrooke, a USA minister stated that “20,000 to 40 000 Pol Pot guerrillas benefited.”

    This aid helped restore the Khmer Rouge to a fighting force, based in Thailand, from which it would destabilise Cambodia for more than a decade.

    Weapons made in (West) Germany, the USA, and Sweden are supplied to the Khmer Rouge via dealers in Singapore. The Singapore owned company Chartered Industries makes some of the weapons.”

    Neither of these I have highlighted ever happened! They are fabrications. As typical conspiracies they have a grain of truth within and then are embellished with distortion.
    Bob

  36. hp said on May 22nd, 2008 at 2:16pm #

    Reminds me of a certain other WW2 event.

  37. sk said on May 22nd, 2008 at 3:30pm #

    I wonder if the 400+ people on Death Row in a jail which I drove past recently (and outside which I spotted a sign for a museum that houses “Old Sparky”) could get their sentence lowered by drawing up laundry lists of crimes committed by others, the logic of their plea based on the logic of Tu quoque.

  38. evie said on May 22nd, 2008 at 4:43pm #

    Bob … uh what reference to Jones Town? And frankly, Bobbie, with your self-important inflated ego, I don’t really give a spit whether I get along with you or not.

  39. hp said on May 22nd, 2008 at 5:04pm #

    Bob, maybe your buddy was one of the Waffen SS who shot holes in my dad. He had several in incredible assignments, one of which was with the 25th cavalry recon.

    My dad was called to be a witness at Nuremberg though he never did testify. Patton, threatening to tell the truth had already had his ‘accident’ the day before he was to come back to the US.

    I remember when the whole holocaust business really got rolling in the 60’s. Up until then it was looked at pretty much the same as the six million Jews who also supposedly died in WWI. (total bullshit not even taken seriously) The usual Jewish exaggeration and scheming/jockeying for position. My father would just shake his head when it all became daily, weekly, monthly propaganda for the next fifty years.

    I’ll give you just one instance where I can eliminate three million of that six million right off the top, Bob. A ten year old could do it.
    Right now, as you are sitting there reading this, the plaque at Auschwitz says “one million died here.” After the war and until five or ten years ago it said “four million died here.” Math doesn’t lie. That’s three million right off the top. Very very very quietly.
    Now comes the shrill screaming (to even say this is against the law in most countries of Europe) that even one million is too many, a crime etc. True, but that’s not the point. The point is why is it illegal in Europe or a semi-crime here to even suggest the six million figure, repeated as a mantra, is NOT TRUE. Like I said, a ten year old can subtract 6-3=3.
    Except in Europe where 6-3=3 is illegal to say. See something wrong with that scenario, Bob? How long before it’s the law here?

    P.S. Is your friend in the Waffen SS a German? Most weren’t you know.
    The vast majority of Waffen SS were other Europeans. Volunteers from every country in Europe who felt they had to fight against the true enemies of their home countries; the Jewish Bolsheviks. My father and Patton and many others said they were the finest soldiers of all. They inflicted on my dad two purple hearts and he didn’t hate them. He admired them. Incredible as that may sound.
    Most educated college graduates don’t have a clue about those men. They just know knee jerk fifty years of propaganda B.S. about a lot of things. Like that fictional six million, fictional human lamp shades, fictional soap from fat and fictional other things.

    I miss my dad and his friends.. They weren’t liars, thieves or cowardly scoundrels.

  40. denk said on May 22nd, 2008 at 6:34pm #

    bob,

    i have no way of verifying, but even IF some of the details were inaccurate as you claim,
    the overall picture — one century of naked aggressions , is an unrefutable fact.

    more to reflect on, bob….
    krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa.html

  41. Bob said on May 22nd, 2008 at 8:24pm #

    Evie;
    “Bob … uh what reference to Jones Town?”
    Apparently to young to know the history of, or you’ve forgotten.
    November 1978, a mass suicide took place in Guyana. It was at the compound known as Jones Town(or some spell it Jonestown), around 900 people died, most by suicide, some were murdered. Most of those who died drank cyanide laced Koolaid. Hence the cliche “drink the Koolaid”. Google it, you’ll get a glimpse into the real world. Oh and Bobbie is spelled Bobby, not the feminine Bobbie.

    HP;
    I wasn’t my friend who was in the SS, but his father. And he was a full blooded German. Towards the end of the war, even the SS started recruiting, and conscripting from outside Germany. I’m glad to read that you admit your Antisemitism. Now just deal with it

    Denk;
    Some of the details were inaccurate? How about 99% inaccurate.
    If you want to learn about history, read books written by legitimate Historians, I’d recommend Bill Bennett’s
    “America: The Last Best Hope” as a starting point.
    Stop reading trash on the internet. Most of it is written by pure haters, pushing their own agenda.
    Bob

  42. denk said on May 22nd, 2008 at 8:34pm #

    bob,

    john pilger once said tha yanks are like mushrooms, “kept in the dark and fed bushit all day”

    seems that he is right and you rather prefer it that way too.
    have a nice day.

  43. mary said on May 23rd, 2008 at 3:16am #

    Is Bob a reincarnaton of the troll ‘Jaime’ who used to inhabit these columns?

  44. Kim Petersen said on May 23rd, 2008 at 3:54am #

    hp,
    You are quite right. Sorry. I misread your comment.

  45. evie said on May 23rd, 2008 at 5:03am #

    Bob –
    I made no direct reference to Jones Town, that was the question. Drink the koolaid has come to signify anyone who swallows the propaganda their fed. You seem to take things quite literally, bob.

    But yes, I’m very young.

  46. hp said on May 23rd, 2008 at 8:14am #

    Bob, you need to get your history facts right and deal with that.
    The Waffen SS was 80% European nationals other than Germans. In other words, eight of ten were volunteers from other European countries. Holland, Finland, Czecho, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, France, Belgium and even England. The “first pan-European army.” Fighting a common enemy. The Jewish Bolshevik communists. The very same who went on to achieve new heights in the annals of mass murder beyond anything the world had ever seen.

    Obviously in the latter stages of the war, at the end, all that was left were German kids who were conscripted.
    Most of the Waffen SS were killed because as Eisenhauer himself often said, as the Allies moved towards Germany; “the Waffen SS died to the last man, as usual.”

    As far as addressing my math with name calling, well, that doesn’t add up, does it?
    Perhaps one day a law will be passed making math anti-semitic and illegal.
    Until then, you can do 6-3=3, can’t you?
    For starters.

  47. hp said on May 23rd, 2008 at 8:32am #

    Kim, thank you for taking the time to re-read my comment.
    This is an incredibly obscure subject which seems to be stuck in some phantom zone due to its inherent nature of being truly ‘foreign’ in the deepest sense.
    I’m sure we will be hearing more of this in the future, what with India’s rapidly growing influence.
    As a Chinese ambassador to India once quipped; “India conquered China culturally for twenty centuries, without ever sending a single soldier across the border.”

  48. Bob said on May 24th, 2008 at 5:13am #

    HP;
    “The Waffen SS was 80% European nationals other than Germans. In other words, eight of ten were volunteers from other European countries.”

    That assertion is flat wrong!
    Here is a quote from a real Historian:

    “By 1943, the strict recruiting requirements of the Waffen-SS were too cumbersome. With the mounting losses in the war, the reduced number of potential recruits, and escalation of the war onto multiple fronts, the Waffen-SS was forced to lower the requirements necessary to join. This permitted the Waffen-SS to muster 31 Divisions, of which consist of 7 Panzer Divisions by 1945. However, about a third of these Divisions were classified as “non-Germanic,” (composed primarily of non-Germanic personnel), and rarely had enough soldiers to deserve the classification of “Division” (see Organization for details). At the end of the war, ethnic Germans, or Volkdeutsch, actually outnumbered Germans in the Waffen-SS. The 11.SS-Freiwilligen-Panzer-Grenadier-Division “Nordland” , composed of both Germans and non-Germans, fought to the bitter end in Berlin, defending the Reichschancellory and the Führerbunker.”

    Ethnic Germans considered themselves to be Germans. Just as Hitler believed himself German and not Austrian.
    HP, the holocaust happened, to deny that borders on lunacy.
    Bob

  49. hp said on May 24th, 2008 at 11:55am #

    “The Waffen SS were ideological and military shock troops of Europe. The Germans, numbering 400,000, were actually in the minority.”

    “The one million-strong Waffen SS represented the first truly European army to ever exist.”

    Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe is a book of 559 pages; the six volumes of Churchill’s Second World War total 4,448 pages; and de Gaulle’s three-volume Memoires de guerre is 2,054 pages. In this mass of writing, which altogether totals 7,061 pages (not including the introductory parts), published from 1948 to 1959, one will find no mention either of Nazi “gas chambers,” a “genocide” of the Jews, or of “six million” Jewish victims of the war. –Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus, University of Ulster – http://www.rlynn.co.uk

    By the way, bob, what about that plaque?
    6-3=3 Three million gone. Poof.
    Why can’t you admit, say, 6 million did not die?
    Are you that compromised?

  50. Bob said on May 25th, 2008 at 7:16am #

    Hp;

    Your either ignorant of the history, or your willfully misrepresenting the truth!
    I don’t know the source of your information on the Waffen SS, but it almost completely erroneous.

    You site Richard Lynn, lets see if I can describe him properly. Racist, sexist, Jew-hater. Lets see now can I find anything else to describe him?
    Oh yes silly me, he is a man who has endorsed genocide, although he has not included himself in those who should be eliminated!

    Ok now let’s talk about the plaques. The first plaque was place by Polish and Soviet Communist authorities , it showed 4 million(not 6 million) killed without specifying the ethnicities of victims( Soviet Communists weren’t known for their accuracy) . While under interrogation Rudolf Hoss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940 to 1943, said that two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers and about half a million died “naturally”. Later he wrote “I regard two and a half million far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities”. Later scholarly work has place the death toll at Auschwitz at somewhere between 1.1 ans 1.6 million roughly 90% were Jews. No one knows certain, the Germans destroyed their records.
    And the current plaque reads as follows, “Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe – Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945.”

    Why can’t you admit that somewhere around 6 million Jews and others were murdered?

    Bob

  51. hp said on May 25th, 2008 at 9:34am #

    “While under interrogation.” Do you mean torture, Bob?

    You say lets talk about the plaque.
    Well?
    You just quoted some figures and yada yada without explaining where those 3 million disappeared to, Bob.
    That’s a lot of folks to just vanish. Unless they never existed, which they didn’t.

    Why are so many holocaust stories being exposed as frauds?
    I wonder if Oprah isn’t having doubts now. Privately, of course. Like many many others.

    “when Jackson took leave from the US Supreme Court to head to Nuremberg, his own chief justice, Harlan Stone, was the cynic. Stone claimed that: “Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg. I don’t mind what he does to the Nazis but I hate to see the pretence that he is running a court and proceeding
    according to the common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas.”

    Fraud is a perfect word.

    Lamp shades, soap, gas chambers, fountains of blood, Anne Franks diary finished in ball point pen by her father, six million in WWI, fake novels, Red Cross data suppressed, no mention by Churchill and Eisenhauer. Lies and more lies.
    No business like Shoah business, eh Bob?
    All lies.

  52. Bob said on May 25th, 2008 at 8:19pm #

    HP;
    The point about the plaque is obvious, it never read 6 million it read 4 million. Nobody disappeared!

  53. hp said on May 26th, 2008 at 9:42am #

    C’mon Bob, pull your head out.
    I never said it read 6 at Auschwitz.
    I said it read 4 and now it reads 1.
    4-1= 3 3 million missing. Poof.

    The 6 part is the ‘official,’ mandated by law total number, which if one subtracts the missing 3, from Auschwitz, would then be 3 total. (illegal to say in Germany)
    You know, illegal third grade math.
    “By way of deception, thou shall do math,” Bob.

    “Evidence linking these Israelis to 911 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified.”

  54. Bob said on May 26th, 2008 at 6:16pm #

    HP;

    “Evidence linking these Israelis to 911 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified.”

    Bob

  55. Bob said on May 27th, 2008 at 5:49am #

    Hi; I’m now addressing the administrator of this website. Please either post my comments , or not. Please don’t edit them, you really don’t do a very good job of it anyway.

    HP; Hey it’s been fun but time to move on, I wish you the best.
    Bob