But NATO (aka the United States) can take satisfaction in the fact that the Germans have put their silly pacifism aside and acted like real men, trained military killers; although prior to this incident the Germans had engaged in some aerial and ground combat, there hadn’t been such a dramatic and publicized taking of civilian lives. Deutschland now has more than 4,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent in the country after the US and Britain, and at home they’ve just finished building a monument to fallen members of the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces), founded in 1955; 38 members (so far) have surrendered their young lives in Afghanistan.

In January 2007 I wrote in this report about how the US was pushing Germany in this direction; that circumstances at that time indicated that Washington might be losing patience with the pace of Germany’s submission to the empire’s needs. Germany declined to send troops to Iraq and sent only non-combat forces to Afghanistan, not quite good enough for the Pentagon warriors and their NATO allies. Germany’s leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, reported the following:

At a meeting in Washington, Bush administration officials, speaking in the context of Afghanistan, berated Karsten Voigt, German government representative for German-American relations: “You concentrate on rebuilding and peacekeeping, but the unpleasant things you leave to us.” … “The Germans have to learn to kill.”

A German officer at NATO headquarters was told by a British officer: “Every weekend we send home two metal coffins, while you Germans distribute crayons and woollen blankets.” Bruce George, the head of the British Defence Committee, said “some drink tea and beer and others risk their lives.”

A NATO colleague from Canada remarked that it was about time that “the Germans left their sleeping quarters and learned how to kill the Taliban.”

And in Quebec, a Canadian official told a German official: “We have the dead, you drink beer.”¹

Ironically, in many other contexts since the end of World War II the Germans have been unable to disassociate themselves from the image of Nazi murderers and monsters.

Will there come the day when the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents will be mocked by “the Free World” for living in peace?

The United States has also engaged in a decades-long effort to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path of again being a military power, only this time acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs.

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. — Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 1947, words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people.

In the triumphalism of the end of the Second World War, the American occupation of Japan, in the person of General Douglas MacArthur, played a major role in the creation of this constitution. But after the communists came to power in China in 1949, the United States opted for a strong Japan safely ensconced in the anti-communist camp. It’s been all downhill since then. Step by step … MacArthur himself ordered the creation of a “national police reserve”, which became the embryo of the future Japanese military … Visiting Tokyo in 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Japanese officials: “In the past, Japan had demonstrated her superiority over the Russians and over China. It was time for Japan to think again of being and acting like a Great Power.”² … various US-Japanese security and defense cooperation treaties, which, for example, called on Japan to integrate its military technology with that of the US and NATO … the US supplying new sophisticated military aircraft and destroyers … all manner of Japanese logistical assistance to the US in its frequent military operations in Asia … repeated US pressure on Japan to increase its military budget and the size of its armed forces … more than a hundred US military bases in Japan, protected by Japanese armed forces … US-Japanese joint military exercises and joint research on a missile defense system … the US Ambassador to Japan, 2001: “I think the reality of circumstances in the world is going to suggest to the Japanese that they reinterpret or redefine Article 9.”³ … under pressure from Washington, Japan sent several naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to refuel US and British warships as part of the Afghanistan campaign in 2002, then sent non-combat forces to Iraq to assist the American war as well as to East Timor, another made-in-America war scenario … Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2004: “If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light.”⁴ …

One outcome or symptom of all this can perhaps be seen in the 2005 case of Kimiko Nezu, a 54-year-old Japanese teacher, who was punished by being transferred from school to school, by suspensions, salary cuts, and threats of dismissal because of her refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem, a World War II song chosen as the anthem in 1999. She opposed the song because it was the same one sung as the Imperial Army set forth from Japan calling for an “eternal reign” of the emperor. At graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand for the song. After a series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers were the only protesters the following year. Nezu was then allowed to teach only when another teacher was present.⁵

Which brings us to Italy, the remaining member of the World War Two Tripartite, or Axis. Article 11 of the 1948 Italian Constitution says in part: “Italy rejects war as a means for settling international controversies and as an instrument of aggression against the freedoms of others peoples.”⁶

But Washington laid claim early to Italy’s post-war soul. In 1948 the United States all but took over the Italian election campaign to insure the Christian Democrats (CD) defeat of the Communist-Socialist candidate. (And the US remained an electoral force in Italy for the next three decades maintaining the CD in power. The Christian Democrats, in turn, were loyal Cold-War partners.)⁷ In 1949, the US saw to it that Italy became a founding member of NATO. This was not seen as a threat to Article 11 because NATO has always painted itself as a “defensive” organization, even in 1999 when it carried out a 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia as both Italy and Germany supplied military aircraft and a NATO air base at Aviano, Italy served as the main hub for the daily bombing runs. For decades, Italy has been the home of US military bases and airfields used by Washington in one military adventure after another from Europe to Asia.

There are now some 3,000 Italian soldiers in Afghanistan performing a variety of services which enables the United States and NATO to engage in their bloody warfare. And 15 Italian soldiers have also lost their lives in that woeful land. The pressure on Italy, as on Germany, to become full-fledged combatants in Afghanistan and elsewhere is unrelenting from their NATO comrades.⁸

The Berlin Wall — Another Cold War Myth

Within a few weeks many of the Western media can be expected to turn on their propaganda machines to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989. All the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny will be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wall came to be will be repeated: In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don’t like people to be free, to learn the “truth”. What other reason could there have been?

First of all, before the wall went up thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returned to the East in the evening. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will. The wall was built primarily for two reasons:

   1. The West was bedeviling the East with a vigorous campaign of recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East. As one indication of this, the New York Times reported in 1963: “West Berlin suffered economically from the wall by the loss of about 60,000 skilled workmen who had commuted daily from their homes in East Berlin to their places of work in West Berlin.”⁹

   2. During the 1950s, American coldwarriors in West Germany instituted a crude campaign of sabotage and subversion against East Germany designed to throw that country’s economic and administrative machinery out of gear. The CIA and other US intelligence and military services recruited, equipped, trained and financed German activist groups and individuals, of West and East, to carry out actions which ran the spectrum from terrorism to juvenile delinquency; anything to make life difficult for the East German people and weaken their support of the government; anything to make the commies look bad.

It was a remarkable undertaking. The United States and its agents used explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods to damage power stations, shipyards, canals, docks, public buildings, gas stations, public transportation, bridges, etc; they derailed freight trains, seriously injuring workers; burned 12 cars of a freight train and destroyed air pressure hoses of others; used acids to damage vital factory machinery; put sand in the turbine of a factory, bringing it to a standstill; set fire to a tile-producing factory; promoted work slow-downs in factories; killed 7,000 cows of a co-operative dairy through poisoning; added soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools; were in possession, when arrested, of a large quantity of the poison cantharidin with which it was planned to produce poisoned cigarettes to kill leading East Germans; set off stink bombs to disrupt political meetings; attempted to disrupt the World Youth Festival in East Berlin by sending out forged invitations, false promises of free bed and board, false notices of cancellations, etc.; carried out attacks on participants with explosives, firebombs, and tire-puncturing equipment; forged and distributed large quantities of food ration cards to cause confusion, shortages and resentment; sent out forged tax notices and other government directives and documents to foster disorganization and inefficiency within industry and unions … all this and much more.¹⁰

Throughout the 1950s, the East Germans and the Soviet Union repeatedly lodged complaints with the Soviets’ erstwhile allies in the West and with the United Nations about specific sabotage and espionage activities and called for the closure of the offices in West Germany they claimed were responsible, and for which they provided names and addresses. Their complaints fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, the East Germans began to tighten up entry into the country from the West.

Let’s not forget that Eastern Europe became communist because Hitler, with the approval of the West, used it as a highway to reach the Soviet Union and wipe out Bolshevism forever. After the war, the Soviets were determined to close down the highway.

In 1999, USA Today reported: “When the Berlin Wall crumbled, East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism.”¹¹

About the same time a new Russian proverb was born: “Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth.”

Health care: ignoring the huge red elephant in the room

In the frenzied search of recent months for a better way of delivering health care to the American people, the American media has often discussed health-care systems in other countries, particularly Europe. Usually, little, if anything, is mentioned about Cuba’s system, where everyone is covered, for everything, where pre-existing conditions do not matter, and no patient pays for anything; i.e., nothing at all. The reason the Cuban system is seldom mentioned in the mass media is probably that it’s kind of embarrassing that this otherwise poor country, laboring under the awful yoke of (choke, gasp) socialism, can deliver health care that most Americans can only dream of.

Now we have a new book by T.R. Reid, former correspondent for the Washington Post and commentator for National Public Radio. It’s called “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.” Reid does not avoid giving some credit to the Cuban system, but he makes sure that the reader knows that he’s not taken in by any commie propaganda. He refers to the Cuban government as “a totalitarian Communist fiefdom”, and adds: “In every country (except, perhaps, a police state like Cuba) there is one group of citizens who are not bound by the unified health care system: the rich.”¹² Thus, the fact that Cuba has an egalitarian health care system is made to seem like something negative, something one could expect to find only in a police state.

In discussing the World Health Organization’s giving Cuba high marks for fairness in its system, Reid points out: “Of course, fairness and equal treatment extend only so far; when Fidel Castro himself fell ill in 2007, medical experts were flown in from Europe to treat him.”¹³ Aha! I knew it! Americans, and not just the right-wing crazies, would never accept a medical system where everyone got completely free care for all ailments if the president ever got any kind of special treatment. Would they? We could at least ask them.

Speaking of the right-wing crazies, there was a report in the New York Times which said: “Tomorrow night, getting right into the thick of the battle,” the president will “carry his message to the people in a nationwide television and radio speech” fighting for enactment of his health reform bill, which opponents tagged as “socialized medicine” and “an entering wedge for the takeover of private medicine by the federal government.” The president was John F. Kennedy, the program was Medicare, the Times story was published on May 20, 1962. Despite the speech, the effort failed until passage in 1964.¹⁴

And speaking of the totalitarian communist socialist fascist Cuban police-state dictatorship, Mr. Reid and others might be interested in an article I wrote which demonstrates that during the period of its revolution, Cuba has enjoyed one of the very best human-rights records in all of Latin America.

But how to get past a lifetime of conditioning and reach the American mind with that message? At the recent convention of the AFL-CIO, the country’s leading labor organization, there was a very progressive resolution put forth calling for the right of all Americans to travel to Cuba and for an end to the US embargo against the island nation. But at the end of the resolution the authors reminded us that they’re Americans, calling upon Cuba “to release all political prisoners.”¹⁵

To appreciate what’s wrong with that resolution one must understand the following: The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government officials, particularly in Havana through the United States Interests Section. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from al Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the American government has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents’ ties to the United States, evidence gathered by Cuban double agents. Virtually all of Cuba’s “political prisoners” are such dissidents.

1. Der Spiegel (Germany), November 20, 2006, p.24
2. Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1994
3. Washington Post, July 18, 2001
4. BBC, August 14, 2004
5. Washington Post, August 30, 2005
6. Wikipedia: “Article 11 of Italian Constitution“
7. William Blum, Killing Hope, chapters 2 and 18
8. For further discussion of US opposition to Post-WW2 Axis pacifism, see “Former Axis Nations Abandon Post-World War II Military Restrictions“
9. New York Times, June 27, 1963, p.12
10. See Killing Hope, p.400, note 8, for a list of sources for the details of the sabotage and subversion
11. USA Today, October 11, 1999, p.1
12. p.234 of Reid’s book
13. Ibid., p.150-1
14. Washington Post, September 9, 2009
15. PDF of resolution

Iran says it looks forward to the talks and promises to be forthcoming. But judging by the stance of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany last week at the UN conferences in New York and the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, draconian sanctions may be enacted against Iran in a few months. This would result in yet another crisis that the world doesn’t need just now.

Russia and China — which hold veto power in the Security Council that can weaken or prevent additional sanctions — have up to now resisted the Obama Administration’s drive for tough new UN punishments. President Barack Obama met separately during the week with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao in an effort to obtain their agreement to threaten more stringent sanctions should Iran procrastinate during the talks.

The White House later suggested to the press that Medvedev may be coming around to Obama’s point of view, but this seems to be based on very skimpy evidence — a remark that “in some cases sanctions are inevitable.” Hu evidently didn’t even go that far. China opposes sanctions in principle as a means of resolving international disputes.

Moscow and Beijing do not subscribe to the negative depiction of Iran promoted by Washington, Tel Aviv, London, Paris and Bonn. They understand the situation to be far more complex than the U.S. and its allies publicly acknowledge.

The Iran question suddenly took center stage Sept. 25 during a week of hectic political activity. The White house set up a hastily arranged and theatrically produced press conference at the start of the G20 meeting in order to detonate a political bombshell intended to destroy Tehran’s contention that it is only interested in nuclear power, not nuclear weapons.

The conference opened with Obama standing at the microphone with French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown positioned solemnly to his left and right. It was explained that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would have joined the trio but was delayed.

Obama then declared that Iran had for several years been secretly building an underground plant in mountainous terrain to manufacture nuclear fuel near the city of Qom about 100 miles from Tehran, in addition to the plant and facilities in Natanz already known to the world. He suggested the new plant was intended to produce weapons without the world’s knowledge, though that was not proven.

Obama then charged that “Iran’s decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime … Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow … and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world.” Refusal to “come clean,” he said, “is going to lead to confrontation.”

Sarkozy and Brown followed Obama and seemed to go even further than the American leader in denouncing Iran, explicitly demanding harder sanctions. Said Brown: “The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community.”

The New York Times reported that “after months of talking about the need for engagement, Mr. Obama appears to have made a leap toward viewing tough new sanctions against Iran as an inevitability … American officials said that they expected the announcement to make it easier to build a case for international sanctions.”

The majority of House and Senate members have long been critical of Iran’s government and the new allegations have only fanned the flames of their hostility. Right wing Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the leading Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declared: “The U.S. and other countries must immediately impose crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime, including cutting off Iran’s imports of gasoline. The world cannot stand by and watch the nightmare of a nuclear-armed Iran become reality.” Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated “now is the time to supplement engagement with more robust international sanctions.”

As intended, the hyped disclosure created headlines around the world. It probably convinced many Americans, already primed to detest Iran, that Tehran is building nuclear bombs to obliterate the U.S. and Israel. This is not an unlikely conclusion for many people to accept after 30 years of Washington’s incessant campaign to demonize the government that overthrew and replaced America’s puppet, the dreaded Shah of Iran. The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Iran after this act of lèse majesté and the subsequent “hostage crisis,” and has nourished a grudge to this day.

If push does come to shove with Iran it is important to remember how effortless it was to hoodwink the majority of American politicians and the masses of people into backing a completely unnecessary war against Iraq. As in the buildup to the unjust invasion of Iraq, today’s U.S. corporate mass media is playing its principal part to perfection — uncritically echoing government distortions about the danger of Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons. The Iran situation is different, but yet similar in terms of mass public manipulation and the possibility of a future confrontation getting out of hand.

Can this be, once again, a situation of high-stakes geopolitics where things are rarely as they seem? We think so. Let’s look at the immediate charge against Iran, based on the “revelations” of the last week, then take on the bigger picture in Parts 2 and 3.

The “shocking” news may have been delivered with a sense of surprise and high urgency, but U.S. intelligence agencies, joined by their counterparts in some allied countries, were aware since 2006 that Iran was constructing a second uranium processing plant that still remains under construction and is not operational. According to a Sept. 26 article circulated by the McClatchy newspaper group quoting a U.S. intelligence official, “There was dialogue with allies from a very early point.”

Bush Administration Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnel first informed Obama about the facility soon after he won election. He has been kept up to date since then. Before going public with the information last week, the president saw to it that several other governments were told in advance, as was the IAEA and others.

Washington officials claimed Iran became aware “in late spring” that the U.S. was spying on the “secret” facility. They said Iran then informed the International Atomic Energy Agency Sept. 21 about the existence of its project, implying Tehran did so because its cover was blown. In a statement Sept. 24 the IAEA acknowledged that Tehran had informed them that a “pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country,” and that it “also understands from Iran that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility.”

Iran insisted to the Vienna-based IAEA and the world that the enrichment plant under construction is designed only for fueling nuclear power installations. Soon after Obama’s G20 speech, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization declared the new “semi-industrial enrichment fuel facility” was “within the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency’s regulations.” Press reports said “The head of Iran’s nuclear program suggested UN inspectors would be allowed to visit the site.” The invitation was extended before Washington’s demand that it do so.

A quite unruffled Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared at a press conference in New York after Obama’s disclosures. He seemed to regard the American president’s allegations, and the staged manner in which they were delivered, not only the making of a mountain out of a molehill but an act of bad faith just before the talks are to begin, suggesting non-threateningly that Obama will come to regret his confrontational demeanor.

Ahmadinejad told the press that the plant in question wouldn’t be operational for 18 more months and that it did not violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He went further and said nuclear weapons “are against humanity [and] they are inhumane,” comments in keeping with his recent calls for eliminating all nuclear weapons. The Iranian leader also said that Iran informed the IAEA about the plant only a few days ago instead of when ground was broken because construction had reached the stage where it should be reported, not because it found out that a U.S. spy agency was watching.

What are we to make of this? First it must be understood there is a dispute over the IAEA’s safeguard provisions governing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran considers itself to be in total compliance with the NPT, and this appears to be true. Inter-Press Service reporter Jim Lobe wrote Sept. 25 that “Under the basic Safeguards Agreement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory, member states are required to declare their nuclear facilities and designs at least 180 days before introducing nuclear materials there.”

According to an article in the Sept. 26 New York Times by Neil MacFarquhar, “Tehran’s stance hinges on different interpretations of the agency’s regulations, said Graham Allison, the director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center and an Iran nuclear expert.

“For two decades, the agency required Iran to report only when nuclear material [for uranium enrichment] was introduced to a facility. By 2003 it rescinded that, in line with the guidelines for most [but not all] countries, demanding reporting when construction began, Mr. Allison said. But the agency never declared Iran out of compliance when Tehran claimed the old agreement was still in place.”

In talking to the press after Obama’s speech, Ahmadinejad said that the new facility would be completed in 18 months, so under Iran’s understanding of its responsibilities, the notification was a year in advance. The U.S. maintains that Iran informed the IAEA when it learned U.S. spy agencies had become aware of the plant, but if that were so, why did Tehran wait three months before contacting the nuclear agency? Had they acted out of fear of being exposed as non-compliant wouldn’t they have contacted IAEA immediately?

“What we did was completely legal, according to the law,” the Iranian president said. “We have informed the agency, the agency will come and take a look and produce a report and it’s nothing new.” According to the Associated Press Tehran’s notice to the IAEA specified that the enrichment level would be up to 5%, suitable only for peaceful purposes. Weapons-grade material is more than 90% enriched.”

The AP also noted that the IAEA now “says Iran is obliged to make such a notification when it begins design of such facilities” and that “a government cannot unilaterally abandon such an agreement.” This is confusing, of course. But since Iran was never designated as non-compliant and was allowed to proceed under the previous rules for years after it registered its rejection of the new terms, the thunderous criticism emanating from the U.S., Britain and France appears to have no serious merit.

The phrase from Tacitus comes to mind with only a slight modification. “They make desolation,” he wrote, “and call it peace.” In Afghanistan, they make desolation and call it freedom. Enduring freedom. This is the lesson the Afghans must learn. When you are the occupied, the native, the wog, you are subject to the occupier’s definitions. He will kill your wives and children and call it pacification. He will choose your leaders, tell you to vote and call it democracy. He will kick in the doors to your home, arrest you and your sons, and call you insurgents. Of course, it is this very practice which turns many of your men into said insurgents.

If the leaders he chooses for you oppose the more murderous of the occupier’s actions, that leader will be subverted. Some, like Mr. Diem in Vietnam and Patrick Lumumba in the Congo, will be murdered outright. Others, like those that came before al-Maliki in Iraq, will merely disappear from the scene, often with a newly expanded bank account. Mr. Karzai of Afghanistan may or may not make it through the show election he is currently fixing. If he does, Washington will install a newly-created executive in Kabul whose role will be to undermine any attempts by Mr. Karzai to actually rule in the interests of his nation as he sees it instead of how Washington prefers. If he doesn’t win, he will retire somewhere where deposed friends of Washington go.

The citizenry on the US homefront are quiet. Allowing themselves to be fooled by the myth of a new day, the old order continues. Now they wait for the new strategy to unfold. A strategy that is no newer than the last war to be sure and probably as old as the first, but the citizens’ historical memory is intentionally short. If the civilized nations of the world can finally pacify the restless occupied, then the world can truly move to the next new frontier. A new frontier with energy capturing and transporting facilities located wherever the corporate executives of the frontier believe them to be useful and defensible by the cavalry. If the citizenry at home continue to receive the fuel necessary for their lifestyle, those dead and maimed children have even less meaning in their lives. It is, after all, the price they pay so we can (in the words of an earlier president), “recreate however we want.”

Recreating has become a challenge for may citizens who wonder where their money went while they cheer the wars that provide the answer. One trillion plus for the wars and occupations and children live in shelters in the land of plenty. Still, the believers in their vote for change refuse to see the change for what it is. Nothing changed here, only the family in the Great White House. While the right wing leads its unthinking nincompoops towards fascism, the rest of the mainstream political populace refuses to examine the cause of their problems–modern day capitalism–and continues to bet their lives on it despite the ever-diminishing returns.

We’ve been told there is no alternative for so long that those who suggest that there might be are excluded from the conversation. Their opinion is not only unimportant, it is a non-opinion because it doesn’t fit into the box designed by capital. So, like those who are dying in the non-wars of capital, those who oppose them are non-existent. Is there a solution to this enforced irrelevance? Yes, but it doesn’t lie in being polite. Indeed, it doesn’t exist within the rules of the game. Are those of us who oppose capital and its wars willing to take the risk required to turn the aforementioned box upside down and thereby empty the world of capital’s illusions? Or will we settle for standing outside it and wishing it away?

       All these nations and city-state societies listed here over the past twenty-five centuries enjoyed obvious hegemonic status or were in direct competition with others that did. They were all in possession of major urban epicenters, a distinctive culture of their own, and–with the exception of Italy during the Renaissance–the military capacity to expand their authority well beyond their borders in order to obtain favorable markets and adequate resources from abroad.  Moreover, as in the case of Rome described by Gibbon, they were all susceptible to decline, and their collapse resulted more from reckless expansionism than the success of their enemies.  In historical terms it can be blamed as much as anything on their bad judgment, their mistaken policies, and, most of all, their obsessive commitment to military and financial aggrandizement.  Again with the exception of renaissance Italy, all of them ceased being hegemonic states when their enlargement could no longer feed on itself.
 
2. American Civilization
 
This brings us to the United States, the latest hegemonic society in the history of Western Civilization.  We became a nation during the Revolutionary War by defeating Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. Before Yorktown, British troops were more than holding their own; afterward they ceased to be much of a military threat.  At the time, however, we were hardly a world power, and in fact our decisive victory at Yorktown was planned, financed, and mostly carried out by the French.  The 1787 Constitution was also largely inspired by the French Enlightenment, and several of our top leadership–Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Monroe, among others–spent a lot of time in France.  Moreover, the 1803 Louisiana Purchase was essentially a gift from Napoleon. In effect our nation was a byproduct of the French effort to defeat England in the New World, thereby contributing to its defeat in Europe.  The French failed in their effort, but the U.S. carried on as a relic of their effort in the western hemisphere.
 
              Our primary collective task over most of the rest of the nineteenth century was the forcible transfer of Indian lands to the possession of settlers from Europe. This effort began as early as King Philip’s War in 1675-76, when most of the Indians in New England were killed, driven away, or sold into slavery.  But it went into high gear during Jackson’s presidency and persisted throughout the nineteenth century.  The Mexican War [more accurately: war against Mexico] was obviously a “grab” of territory from Mexico. The Civil War intervened as a regional war in which slavery provided the excuse for giving northern financial interests dominant economic power at the expense of southern plantations dependent on slave labor. This was followed by the Spanish-American War, which was no less a “grab” than the Mexican War, this time with the capture of the Philippines setting the stage for a more “ambitious” policy with China, Japan, and other Asiatic states.
 
              It was the First World War that first gave our nation its hegemonic advantage on a truly international scale.  The creation of the Federal Reserve Board in 1913-14 under the ownership of New York banks (and thus of those who owned the banks) effectively centralized our nation’s collective financial wealth, among other things providing the funds sufficient for American allies to conduct massive warfare in Europe during World War I.  It was the belated involvement of U.S. troops starting in 1917 that tipped war’s balance to the allies. As a result of the war, European nations inclusive of Germany became heavily indebted to American banks, giving our nation de facto control of the world’s economy.  This reality was confirmed by negotiations at Bretton Woods in 1944, just before victory in World War II, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created and the dollar became the world’s reserve currency.
 
              Hitler’s most useful discovery during the thirties was the value of military expenditures in helping to buttress aggregate demand sufficient to keep factories running, thereby preventing a full-scale depression. Demand levels had plummeted below productive capacity, so military expenditures were used to augment demand as justified by the supposed threat of enemies abroad.  This so-called military Keynesian expedient also helped the United States during World War II, and it helped carry on what seemed an endless Cold War against the Soviet Union.  The beauty of this strategy was that Russians impoverished by combat with Germany were unable to restore their non-military industries because of the heavy military production needed to match American production committed to the struggle against them.  In effect, the United States was suffering from severe over-production and the Soviet Union from severe under-production, so we doubled our advantage by using relentless military competition to augment our economic growth while hurting theirs. As a result our society thrived, theirs suffered. Two costly “wars of choice” can also be mentioned, in Korea and Vietnam, as well as the U.S. subsidization of the Afghan rebellion against the Soviet Union before its tattered economy finally collapsed in the late eighties because of its inability to match the latest U.S. escalation with a star wars strategy devised under President Reagan.
 
With Russia no longer a military threat, some kind of an alternative was needed to supplant the Cold War in stretching aggregate demand.  The first President Bush rose to the challenge by conducting limited wars of choice against both Panama and Iraq in the Persian Gulf, but these ventures were insufficient to prevent a recession just preceding the 1992 election. Bush’s successor, President Clinton, limited military conflict to relatively modest operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia and Sudan. His principal effort, however, was to sustain our economy by means of economic globalization under the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other such trade organizations that would presumably benefit both advanced and developing nations on a win-win basis.  U.S. corporate profits would increase resulting from the export of production (in effect factories) to such countries as Mexico and China in order to benefit from their reduced labor costs and environmental constraints, and no less profitable would be the opportunity for U.S. investors to extract natural resources in other non-western nations restricted by treaty from imposing heavy taxes and export duties. Meanwhile, non-western nations would benefit from sufficient growth subsidized by western investment to provide “takeoff” into truly competitive economies as had been proposed several decades earlier by the American economist Walt Rostow.
 
 However, it soon became obvious that globalization was far more lucrative for Wall Street investors than for the indigenous population of non-western states, and moreover that the pursuit of economic ties in and of itself was insufficient to prevent a major depression in the near future in the United States. At this point deregulation must have seemed a perfectly reasonable means of augmenting our nation’s GDP.  Burdened with the threat of impeachment, President Clinton cooperated with Republicans and Wall Street in deregulating the financial markets first with the 1999 Financial Services Act and then the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, effectively rescinding the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act for bringing Wall Street financial markets under control.  As a neo-liberal, Clinton was willing to loosen up the markets, but not to the extent that was permitted by this legislation.  If he had more time to study it in depth, he would undoubtedly have tightened its application.
 
              A depression nevertheless began to gather momentum soon after the second (and less talented) President Bush came to office.  As to be expected, he resorted to every possible expedient that might help in diminishing its impact. His effort included going to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq as justified by the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center (one excuse sufficing to justify two wars), along with a sharp reduction in taxation, especially for the wealthiest Americans. This was the very first time in U.S. history that full-scale military Keynesianism and large tax reductions were combined to stimulate our economy.  For good measure, Bush also helped to pump up the economy by letting the housing and oil bubbles supplant the defunct dot-com bubble, and he encouraged the further deregulation of industry, banks, and Wall Street speculation.  Not surprisingly, the 2001 depression soon abated, and an artificial surge of prosperity followed until mid-September, 2008, just two months before the election and four months before Bush’s departure from office. This was when Wall Street imploded and Bush’s desperate economic legerdemain was finally over. Extravagant funding provided by the  federal bailout legislation saved the biggest Wall Street banks and brokerages, leaving the rest of our nation to cope what now amounts to a serious depression whose effects can be expected to persist for at least another couple of years.
 
              Barack Obama was elected president mostly because of the economic crisis, but as far as can be determined at this point, his measures for dealing with this crisis will probably be insufficient as predicted by the Nobel prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.  Obama has also retained an essentially conservative staff to deal with both the domestic economy and U.S. military policy in Asia. Unfortunately, too many key figures he has brought into his administration are either what might be described as constituency choices or seasoned experts who had themselves played major roles in creating the problems we now confront.  Apropos of talented but relatively ineffectual constituency choices would be the selection of Kathleen Sebelius instead of Howard Dean as the Secretary of Health and Human Services despite Dean’s superior qualifications as a doctor, author, politician and the former governor of Vermont who led the effort to initiate its successful health care program for children and pregnant women. One suspects the principal reason for Dean’s rejection was his hostile relationship with Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff regarding campaign funding, Dean having emphasized a 50-state strategy as opposed to Emanuel’s effort to target the swing states.  However, if true, this feud is insufficient reason for rejecting Dean’s appointment.  One of Obama’s most appealing promises during his campaign was his intention to bring individuals who aggressively disagree with each other into his inner circle in order to benefit from their dialogue.  Having been deprived of Kennedy in the current health reform struggle, it would be a pity if Obama falls short of his goal in health care reform because of the absence of Dean as well from his inner circle. 
 
                Apropos of the economic crisis, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and Ben Bernanke` played central roles in events leading up to the September crash, yet they have been put in charge of the current recovery effort.  As in the case of Dean, it seems unfortunate that Obama skipped over both Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman from his inner team for dealing with the current economic crisis, apparently because Summers has taken a dislike to them, especially Stiglitz. The collapse of our nation’s economy has been severe enough that all of these economists should be able and willing to work together in the interactive manner earlier suggested by Obama.

And finally, apropos of the transfer of combat from Iraq to Afghanistan, Henry Gates and the two Generals Petraeus and McChrystal played central roles in the misbegotten occupation of Iraq, yet have been put in charge of operations in Afghanistan. True, they can be identified with the apparently successful “surge,” but it remains to be seen if it was truly a success. What seems most needed in Afghanistan right now is an effective occupation force rather than combat troops, and McChrystal in particular seems a dubious choice for this task.  His leadership of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Iraq from 2003 to 2008 featured heavy combat, excessive interrogation techniques, and other such dubious responsibilities that necessarily antagonize the host population under occupation.
 
              It can also be mentioned that Obama has gone along with too many precedents established by Bush.  For example, he has continued Bush’s practice of adding his own “signing statements” to legislation passed by Congress, if not to the same extent, and his first official act as president was to issue an Executive order banning the release of presidential records just as Cheney had done eight years ago to prevent the disclosure of oil corporation executives with whom he had negotiated an energy policy in Iraq.  Obama’s cap and trade legislation also seems as much as anything a capitulation to Republican lobbyists. And why can’t Obama nudge public radio’s Democracy Now into at least balanced reportage if not a liberal bias equivalent to its pro-administration bias during Bush’s term in office.  And why can’t Obama put a stop to the incessant airport orange alerts that blare over the loudspeaker every half hour or so, apparently intended as much as anything to keep air travelers scared, therefore more willing to acquiesce to personal searches. And why is Obama willing to retain too many of Bush’s oppressive policies, especially in homeland security and the imprisonment and mistreatment of prisoners labeled as terrorists into the indefinite future. Despite his election promises, the Guantanamo prison camp continues to hold prisoners who die under suspicious circumstances, for example the individual al-Hashani as reported by Naomi Klein after her recent visit there.  All of this should be stopped.
 
              Admittedly, the multiple tasks that now confront Obama’s administration seem almost insurmountable after the collapse of an economic policy equivalent to the use of steroids for almost seventy years now. Severe deterioration set in well before Obama’s presidency, and he is stuck with cleaning up the mess, so he can and should be given slack in performing his mission.  But when does slack become free rein to abandon most of his campaign promises?  For the current situation requires the best effort from the very best experts and leaders in dealing with it.  It also requires genuine integrity on the part of these individuals rather than the greed and power-hungry gamesmanship that have dominated Washington politics for too many decades now.  Everything is beginning to fall apart, and the question remains whether it is possible to obtain some kind of a “soft landing” least harmful to the American people. 
 
3. The American Economy
 
              Numbers alone are daunting as an indication of our current financial crisis.  Our total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), including all goods and services produced in a single year, is now $14 trillion, almost exactly a quarter of the world’s total GDP.  However, our government’s annual deficit this year will be in the range of $1.75 trillion, having exceeded more than a trillion dollars for the first time; our gross national debt (specifically the total debt of our government alone) is now somewhere between $9 and $12 trillion; and our nation’s total debt including all household, business, financial, and government debt is now in the range of $57 trillion, about a trillion dollars more than the world’s total GDP inclusive of our own. As estimated by our nation’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), $2 trillion is now in the process of being spent to cover the cost of our present economic crisis, and it is estimated that the total cost will eventually amount to $23 trillion.  Incredibly, the total debt of derivatives traded on Wall Street before the September crash was between $600 and $650 trillion dollars–well beyond anybody’s ability to pay.  Moreover, our nation now owes at least a trillion dollars apiece to China and Japan as well as many hundreds of billion dollars to the sovereign wealth funds (SWF) for such nations as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and Russia.
 
              Whether intended or not, the dollar has dropped 40 percent of its value compared to the euro over the past five years, effectively reducing our national debt to foreign borrowers by means of inflation just as happened with the collapse of the German mark during the twenties. This likelihood can only be intensified by the Federal Reserve Board having circulated more than a trillion dollars in order to maximize “liquidity” in order to combat depression. The dollar can accordingly be expected to continue its decline, probably setting the stage for its wholesale abandonment as the world’s reserve currency in the relatively near future.  This in turn would result in further and more dramatic losses for our economy as a whole.
 
              Meanwhile, our nation’s unemployment rate is 9.4 percent pushing 10 percent, underemployment is 16 percent, and the country has lost 6.7 million jobs since December, 2007, many of which will probably not be restored by “improved” productivity levels as well as a permanent decline in our nation’s affluence.  Not surprisingly, income disparities have considerably widened between the rich and the poor.  In 2006, two years before the current depression, the top one percent of U.S. households received 22.9 percent of all pre-tax income, more than double the ratio in the 1970s and by far the biggest concentration of wealth among the most prosperous Americans since 1928.  As reported recently by the Wall Street Journal, corporate executives now account for more than one-third of all salary compensation earned in the U.S.  On the other hand, there was only a 24 percent pay increase for the average worker from 2002 to 2007, less than 5 percent per annum, half of the 48 percent increase for highly paid individuals and less than double the official rate of inflation.  In sum, the income gap has steadily widened between the wealthiest Americans and average and poor Americans, and this is not a healthy trend for the nation as a whole. For this kind of plutocracy does not work in the long run.  Such an imbalance is like being fifty pounds overweight with a pulse of 120, a blood pressure of 180-125, a 300 mg/dL cholesterol level, a PSA of 12 going on 15, and a robust 9 on the Gleason cancer scale. These might seem impressive numbers, but they are anything but healthy.
 
              It should also be of major concern, as explained by Kevin Phillips in his 2008 book, Bad Money, published before September’s financial meltdown, that our economy has shifted in emphasis over the past century from agriculture to manufacturing and to the financial sector led by Wall Street.  Farm production has been brought almost entirely under corporate control, and far too many of our factories have been exported to non-western nations in order to minimize both wages and environmental costs.  Just as junk has become the Port of New York’s principal export, debt as wealth owed by one party to another has become our nation’s principal commodity. According to Phillips, the so-called credit market debt roughly quadrupled from nearly $11 trillion to $48 trillion between 1987 and 2007  (p viii).  As a result, financial services amounted to 20 percent of the GDP in 2005, as compared to manufacturing’s 12 percent of the GDP (Phillips, p. 5).  In effect, the two-to-one ratio favorable to manufacturing as our nation’s principal source of income just three decades ago has almost completely reversed itself.  It should therefore be no surprise that our major banks now wield extraordinary influence unprecedented in the previous history of our nation. As Senator Durbin of Illinois recently explained, banks currently “own” Washington, and this is not a healthy development. According to Phillips, this shift in power from manufacturing to the banking sector often sets the stage for the collapse of modern hegemonic powers just as happened for Spain and England when they ceased to play a dominant role (p. 36).
 
              As to be expected, our current depression resulted from a major breakdown on Wall Street.  Virtually all its major investment banks went bankrupt simultaneously last September.  They were only saved by an enormous federal bailout effort that entailed $700 billion in promised loans by the federal government. Of the funds received so far, the top nine of these banks have as yet paid back only $50 billion while awarding their top executives almost $33 billion in bonuses for the year 2009.  It seems they are confident that the crisis has been eliminated and our economy is on the brink of recovery as indicated by several variables. The Index of Leading Indicators, for example, has risen for the third month in a row with seven of the ten leading indicators having risen in June.  Bank and corporate stocks have improved, and the stock market has shot up, surging 725 points or 8.6% in July.  Even the oil bubble is beginning to expand once again, suggesting that oil speculation has resumed on Wall Street.  On August 22 at Jackson Hole Wyoming, Bernanke has boasted, “The prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good,” as demonstrated by a 7.2 percent jump in home sales in July and a stock market leap of 156 points the same day (perhaps in part because of his announcement).  But he conceded that “cautious confidence” is still appropriate, given unexpectedly weak sales last week, increased unemployment claims, and the likelihood that hundreds more American banks would fail in the next year. And indeed there are many additional problems preventing full recovery in the near future.  In fact, it still seems probable that our nation will undergo what has been described as a “double dip” depression (what might also be described as a “W” depression rather than a “V” or “L” depression). 
 
              As explained by Jack Rasmus in his informative article, “Green Shoots or Stinkweeds?” published in the July 2009 issue of Z Magazine, economic dislocations have been too pronounced for anybody to be too hopeful about an economic reversal.  The job market is worse than it has been in decades, and with every possibility that as many as 22 million workers will go jobless before economic recovery fully happens. Even then, however, it seems unemployment could remain high because of improved productivity levels as well as the transfer of labor costs abroad. Similarly, the foreclosure rate on homes can be expected to rise to 8 million and housing prices to fall another 20 percent in the near future. Pension plans have already dropped a third and will continue to fall, and the simmering credit card crisis will expand even further than the $406 billion losses incurred so far in 2009.  Similarly, auto and student loans are likely to crash the same way sub-prime loans did.  Business expenditures can also be expected to drop at least a quarter more in the near future, and global exports that have fallen by 50 percent in early 2009 cannot be expected to recover soon.  Likewise, state and local budgets deprived of adequate revenue sharing in the May omnibus package will also reach crisis proportions. Last but not least, the 27 percent increase in corporate bankruptcies in 2008 can be expected to be exceeded by the end of 2009 by as much as 35 percent.  Many of these statistics can be reversed with a general rise in the economy, but it is difficult to believe that all of them will, and any three or four in combination just might be sufficient to produce the double-dip depression that worries Obama’s chief economists right now.
 
              Nor can much help be expected toward an effective solution from our government in Washington, D.C.  Congressmen, for example, are almost entirely in the pockets of industries opposed to economic reform that might bear a negative impact on their profits. These elected officials are amazingly unprincipled in their acceptance of hefty campaign contributions in exchange for services rendered, and indeed big business, big banks, big agriculture, big labor, and inclusively anything “big” engages in the practice of paying them off. The amount of these contributions might seem large, but it turns out to be nominal compared to the yield, often more than 100-1 in federal subsidies obtained through earmark legislation and comparable services provided by these congressmen. The few Congressmen unwilling to go along with this arrangement quickly disappear from politics because of inadequate campaign funding. When others more willing to depend on corporate donations finally retire, most find the means to transfer their remaining campaign funds to their own bank accounts and often join the ranks of lobbyists who, like themselves, had first learned the ropes as congressmen. The situation is strictly plutocratic verging on klepto-plutocracy when the law is broken to make it happen. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens have little if any influence except to the extent that they belong to issues-related public constituencies represented by their own variety of lobbyists.

Although it is difficult to separate the RAF’s theory from their actions–actions which included murder–if one does so they find an application of left theory that perceived the anti-imperialist resistance in the advanced industrial nations (First World, if you will) as just another part of the worldwide anti-imperialist movement. It was this conclusion that the RAF used to rationalize their attacks on US military installations in 1972 during their anti-imperialist offensive.. They did not believe the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to be in a revolutionary situation, but justified their attacks via the argument that the US and other imperial forces (German and British) should be attacked wherever they were, not just in Vietnam or another country where they were engaged in overt warfare. This approach echoed the slogan popularized by the Weatherman organization in the US-Bring the War Home.

I lived in Frankfurt am Main, Germany during the period described in this book. I attended protests against the Vietnam War, in support of the burgeoning squatters movement (and against property speculation) in Frankfurt, against the Shah of Iran, in support of Gastarbeiter rights and against the repressive regimes in Turkey and Greece. I also attended concerts and street festivals where the German counterculture mingled flamboyantly with the US servicemen and adolescents that abounded in the country then. When the IG Farben building and Officer’s Club in Frankfurt am Main were attacked by the RAF, a serious security effort became part of our daily lives. School buses taking us to the American High School in Frankfurt were boarded by military police who checked our bags while other GIs used long-handled mirrors to check underneath the buses for explosive devices. German police and military set up shop at airports and train stations, holding automatic weapons. Autobahn exits were the site of roadblocks. Wanted posters featuring the faces of the RAF members appeared everywhere. The Goethe University in Frankfurt came under increased police surveillance, especially after the playing of a tape-recorded message from RAF member Ulrike Meinhof at a national conference there. A protest held against the US mining of northern Vietnamese harbors and intensified bombing of the Vietnamese people was patrolled by police armed with automatic weapons. Nonetheless, many of the protesters chanted “Für den Sieg des VietCong, Bomben auf das Pentagon!” (For the victory of the NLF, bomb the Pentagon). The following day, the Pentagon was bombed by the Weather Underground.

Recently, PM Press in California published the book The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles For The People. This voluminous work includes virtually all of the communiques and theoretical pamphlets published by the RAF from 1970 to 1977. This period is considered the first period of the RAF–an organization that saw its original leadership imprisoned after the aforementioned bombing offensive against US military installations in Germany. These members were followed by another set of individuals drawn to the RAF mostly through support organizations that developed to protest the conditions of the RAF’s imprisonment and their eventual deaths that many still believe were state-sanctioned murders. Over the next two decades , hundreds of others would join the organization to replace those imprisoned and killed. Besides the text written by the RAF, the editors have written an accompanying text that provides a take on the history of post World War Two West Germany that has been mostly unavailable to English readers.

The RAF was an intensely sectarian organization. They saw most of the rest of the German Left as revisionist or opportunist, unwilling to make the commitment armed struggle required. Besides invalidating the gains won by the autonomist squatters’ movement and other independent groupings, this analysis ignored the fact that other approaches might have been more effective in the long term. By positioning itself to the left of all other leftist groups in Germany, the RAF insured its limited effectiveness. Once the State was able to capture its primary membership and literally isolate them in prisons, the RAF’s purpose moved away from challenging the imperialists to one of staying alive inside a draconian and psychologically debilitating prison environment.

Indeed, as this book clearly demarcates, the bulk of the work of the RAF in the 1970s centered around the nature of their existence in prison. In what would become a harbinger of the future we live in, the German prison authority and its departmental ally the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) developed an architecture and series of mechanisms designed to destroy the minds of the RAF prisoners. Isolation cells painted completely in white where the neon light never went off. No contact with any human for months at a time. The use of informers and ultimately a trial held in a specially designed prison courthouse that took place without the defendants or their attorneys. In addition, laws were passed that criminalized not only the act taken by the attorneys to defend their clients but also the acts of any individuals who opposed the actions taken by the State against the RAF prisoners. Of course, this enabled the RAF to point out the unity of purpose between the right wing CDU-CSU West German government and the SPD (with obvious comparisons to the role played by the German Social Democrats after World War I when they used the right-wing militia known as the Freikorps to kill members of the revolutionary Spartacists). The special laws enacted against the RAF and its supporters contained many elements of laws now in existence in the US, realized most fully in the Patriot Act.

While the RAF was certainly successful in exposing the fundamental authoritarianism of the modern capitalist state through their hunger strikes and other actions, they did nothing towards rebuilding the anti-imperialist movement that the 1972 actions were conceived in. This created a situation where their developing analysis of imperialism and the struggle against it became essentially moribund. In other words, the repression by the German government and its allies was successful.

The editors of this work, J. Smith and André Moncourt, have created an intelligently political work that honestly discusses the politics of the Red Army Fraktion during its early years. Their commentary explains the theoretical writings of the RAF from a left perspective and puts their politics and actions in the context of the situation present in Germany and the world at the time. It is an extended work that is worth the commitment required to read and digest it. More than a historical document, The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles For The People provides us with the ability to comprehend the phenomenon that was the RAF in ways not possible thirty years ago.

In his Slate column, Rosenbaum attacked the “essential metaphorical thrust” of the film, which he said aimed “to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution.” Rosenbaum decried the notion of honoring “a film that asks us to empathize with an unrepentant mass murderer and intimates that ‘ordinary Germans’ were ignorant of the extermination until after the war…”

Rosenbaum indicted “the Kate Winslet character’s ‘illiteracy’: She’s a stand-in for the German people and their supposed inability to ‘read’ the signs that mass murder was being done in their name, by their fellow citizens. To which one can only say: What a crock!”

In fact it is a crock, a willful misreading of The Reader to lump it in with a genre of films which exploit the Holocaust (e.g., Life is Beautiful, winner of several Academy Awards). Bernard Schlink, author of the novel on which the film The Reader is based, told an interviewer in December: “It’s definitely not a movie about the Holocaust. It’s about a generation trying to come to terms with what they had to learn about their parents’ generation.”

But Rosenbaum’s Shoah sensitivities are Manichean. He concedes nothing to the moral and emotional complexities within or between the characters, especially in the film’s central relationship between Michael and Hanna.

Michael’s passionate affair with the much-older Hanna at first uplifts his adolescence. But when, as a law student, he witnesses her murder trial, along with other former Nazi concentration camp guards, he is devastated. Michael believes that Hanna has admitted to writing a report about the death of 300 Jewish prisoners, trapped in a burning church, in order to avoid revealing her illiteracy.

Michael tells his law professor (Bruno Ganz) that he has knowledge relevant to the trial, perhaps in the defendant’s favor. The older professor urges Michael to speak up: You don’t want to be like us and do nothing do you? Here Ganz is referring to his own silent wartime generation. But Michael cannot bring himself to visit Hanna during her trial, even though he knows her illiteracy has probably condemned her to a far greater penalty than her equally — or perhaps surpassingly — guilty comrades.

The other guards have no moral sense. But they are rewarded for their lies and stonewalling, receiving much lighter sentences than Hanna, who simply blurts out the truth, takes the rap and ends up sentenced to life in prison. She admits to having no moral sense, and therefore must be the more strongly condemned. Does this really create undue sympathy for Hanna, as Rosenbaum suggests? At the end of the film, an escaped victim (Lena Olin) explicitly asks the adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) if he thinks Hanna’s illiteracy mitigates her guilt. And he says no.

As one of the law students in the film declares, the question is not who knew about the extermination of the Jews. There were hundreds of camps all over Europe. Everybody knew. “My parents, my teachers, everyone.” The question is, what did they do about it? The answer is: Nothing. As the student says to the bemused Ganz: “The only question is why you didn’t all just kill yourselves?”

Rosenbaum incorrectly accuses The Reader of claiming that most Germans were ignorant of the the Holocaust. The film’s underlying assumption is far more damning: everybody knew, but nobody acted on that knowledge. Of course, as Samantha Power recounts in her Pulitzer-Prize winning study of genocide, A Problem From Hell, the United States was also well aware of Hitler’s extermination of European Jewry before and during World War Two and also chose to do nothing.

Power’s book is a shocking indictment of American neutrality in the face of evil, during the Holocaust and other systematic programs of genocide all around the world — in Turkey, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and elsewhere — over the past hundred years. “The key question” writes Power, after presenting hundreds of pages of documented evidence, “… is: Why does the United States stand so idly by? The most common response is, ‘We didn’t know.’ This is not true.”

“Because the savagery of genocide so defies our everyday experience, many of us failed to wrap our minds around it,” Power says. “Bystanders were thus able to retreat to the ‘twilight between knowing and not knowing.’” It was easier not to probe for certainty because uncertainty did not demand any action. Power concludes that America failed to act against genocide not because the country lacked knowledge or influence but because it did not have the will to act. U.S. officials “were not prepared to invest the military, financial, diplomatic, or domestic political capital needed to stop it.”

Now the United States faces a new moral crisis, the subversion of our own legal and moral values by high officials of our own government. We are, in this moment, as awash in complicity and willful denial as the principled middle-class denizens of the Third Reich. We are the Good Germans of the new millennium in Bush America because we knew about the illegal kidnappings and tortures, the self-serving legalisms that subverted the Geneva accords and papered over Constitutional lapses, the lies that led us into conquest and occupation. Starting well before the invasion of Iraq — which millions around the globe protested in unprecedented numbers before it occurred — we knew the “weapons of mass destruction” and Saddam’s connections to al-Qaeda were bullshit excuses. But many millions of us tried to pretend that we really weren’t sure.

In his Sunday column entitled: “What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us,” Frank Rich remarked upon this “American reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. We are plugged into more information sources than anyone could have imagined even 15 years ago… Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable.” Or as Bob Dylan put it, in the context of race relations a generation ago, “How many times must a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”

We know, deep inside us we know, as the Germans who kept their heads down and tried to lead ‘normal’ lives while genocide exploded all around them, in their name, by their own government, knew, that our government has committed terrible atrocities at home and abroad. If we do nothing to bring these crimes to light and their perpetrators to justice, then we are as guilty and worthy of moral condemnation as the war generation of silent Germans whom Ron Rosenbaum rightly abhors.

For Bernard Schlink, this knowledge, that his parents’ generation denied, “makes me aware how thin the ice is on which we live.” Schlink believed that German culture and institutions like courts, universities, churches, unions and political parties “all seemed so solid.” And yet it all broke down, “relatively easily.” In America too. Somehow we allowed our government to invade a country that had committed no aggression toward the United States. We allowed our government to declare an emergency in order to violate human rights of many thousands of individuals, to commit torture, to incarcerate people for years without trial or hearings of any kind. And today we continue the violence in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan. We continue to jail and abuse individuals without charges. And we all know it’s wrong. And it’s time to deal with it before our “land of the free” is irreparably compromised.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy has laid out The Case for a Truth Commission (Time, Feb 20). As Leahy says: “For much of this decade, we have read about and witnessed such abuses as the scandal at Abu Ghraib, the disclosure of torture memos and the revelations about the warrantless surveillance of Americans. We need to get to the bottom of what happened — and why — to make sure it never happens again… to find the truth….

“But to repair the damage of the past eight years and restore America’s reputation and standing in the world, we should not simply turn the page without being able first to read it…. We need to get to the bottom of what went wrong after a dangerous and disastrous diversion from American law and values. The American people have a right to know what their government has done in their names.”

It’s not just our right. It’s a fundamental need. German society is still — and may always be — in recovery, not just from the atrocities committed in its name, by its leaders, but from the silent acquiescence of the millions who lacked the will to speak up against what they knew was wrong. To sweep the crimes and excesses of the Bush-Cheney years under the rug would destroy the American soul. The world needs the American sense of justice now more than ever. But we forfeit our moral authority if we do not take responsibility for the crimes of the Bush-Cheney years. Samantha Power is now an adviser to Barack Obama. Nobody knows better than she does the moral imperative for admitting and redressing the moral lapses of government. We must hope that she wields her influence to make the machinery of government responsive to the deepest needs of our culture. Karl Rove continues to flaunt congressional subpoenas to testify. He figures he can stonewall indefinitely, that there will be no day of reckoning for lawless U.S. officials. We must do everything in our power to prove him wrong.

According to a Wikileaks press release, “the spy chief claims to have already engaged the BND’s legal machinery.”

Threats against the journalists were triggered, according to Wikileaks, by the publication of my article, “The End of the Affair? The BND, CIA and Kosovo’s Deep State,” (Antifascist Calling, December 7, 2008) on their website.

I did not seek to become part of the story; nevertheless Uhrlau’s threats cannot go unchallenged. The censorship and prior restraint he demands are toxic to a free society.

In addition to my piece, the “files or reports” which the German spook insists they remove is a 2005, 25-page BND dossier on corrupt senior Kosovo politicians as well as unredacted pages from the Bundestag’s 2006 Schaefer Report pertaining to illegal BND domestic operations targeting journalists and left-wing political organizations in Germany.

In denouncing this unwarranted provocation, Wikileaks said: “The BND, like the CIA, is forbidden by law to engage in domestic activities. Yet the threats, which were made in German as well as in English, hold no legal power outside of Germany. They must be assumed to be an attempt to engage Wikileaks via its German component–or does Mr. Uhrlau suggest it is now BND policy to kidnap foreign journalists and try them before German courts?”

My article explored the parapolitical connections to a recent scandal in which three BND officers working under deep cover, were arrested and deported from Kosovo. What sparked the scandal was the arrest of one of the operatives when he was caught photographing the headquarters of the European Union Special Representative in Pristina, bombed under mysterious circumstances November 14.

The affair exposed the agency’s extensive covert operations in Kosovo through a cut-out, the “private security firm” Logistics-Coordination & Assessment Services (LCAS). Information on LCAS was in the public domain after exposure by German investigative reporters writing in Spiegel International. Compromising notebooks and electronic files were subsequently seized by Kosovan authorities.

While the “evidence” presented linking the agents to the blast was slim at best, one cannot rule out that Thaci’s intelligence service, with prompting by some “other government agency (OGA),” a foreign service with close ties to the corrupt statelet perhaps, exploited the agents’ poor tradecraft to roll-up their operation because of fears of what they might have discovered.

I speculated whether the operatives were convenient foils of a plot hatched by the Kosovan government in cahoots with the CIA over BND disclosure of extensive links amongst Thaci and his henchmen to international criminal syndicates involved in the global drugs, arms and sordid trade in human beings. Revelations which Thaci and the CIA would prefer never come to light. I speculated that one motive for rolling-up the BND’s operation may have been that the seized operative’s notebook contained information that Camp Bondsteel continues to serve as a CIA “black site” where prisoners are illegally detained and tortured.

Additionally, I cited Wikileaks documents that revealed the BND’s illegal manipulation of the media to influence domestic coverage of the spy agency through the infiltration of Focus Magazine as well as intelligence operations that sought to gain knowledge of journalists’ confidential sources.

Wikileaks German correspondent Daniel Schmitt and Investigative Editor Julian Assange, said that the Schaefer Report “in general shows the extent to which the collaboration of journalists with intelligence agencies has become common and to what dimensions consent is manufactured in the interests of those involved.”

Following Schmitt and Assange’s reporting, one must now add the criminal lengths that unaccountable spy agencies will go to prevent journalists from exposing their dirty and illegal operations.

Wikileaks also disclosed and posted a document that revealed the IP addresses “of an internally distributed mail from German telecommunications company T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom)” containing over two dozen IP “address ranges” used by the BND.

I cited this document in relation to a Berlin internet prostitution service (Belle-Escort.de) and said the following: “While the document does not spell out who was running the sex-for-hire website, one can’t help but wonder whether Balkan-linked organized crime syndicates, including Kosovan and Albanian sex traffickers, are working in tandem with the BND in return for that agency turning a blind eye to the sordid trade in kidnapped women.”

That question, as well as many others, is still unanswered.

My article cited open-source media reports from Spiegel International, the World Socialist Website, Mother Jones Magazine, as well as the work of scholars and investigative journalists Misha Glenny, Christopher Deliso, Michel Chossudovsky and Peter Dale Scott. Are journalists and researchers now expected to submit copy to spooky censors for appropriate redactions before publishing their findings? I think not.

I stand by my conclusions and denounce Uhrlau’s threats as an attack on the rights of investigative- and citizen journalists to reveal information that agencies such as the BND would rather never see the light of day.

Wikileaks should be commended, not attacked, for their brave documentary project and supported by everyone who upholds the rule of law, a free press and an open, democratic society.

As the heroic Israeli journalist Amira Hass told The Independent’s Robert Fisk “our job is to monitor the centers of power,” not shill for them.

On November 14, a bomb planted at the office of the European Union Special Representative was detonated in downtown Pristina. While damage was light and there were no injuries, U.N. “peacekeepers” detained one of the BND officers hours after the blast when he was observed taking photos of the damaged building. Two of his colleagues waited in a car and acted as lookouts. The officer named these two colleagues as witnesses that he was in his office at the time of the attack.

That office, identified by the press as the “private security firm” Logistics-Coordination & Assessment Service or LCAS, in reality was a front company for BND operations. Its premises were searched three days later and the trio were subsequently arrested and accused by Kosovan authorities of responsibility for bombing the EU building. As a result of the arrests, the BND was forced to admit the real identities of their agents and the true nature of LCAS.

A scandal erupted leading to a diplomatic row between Berlin and Pristina. The German government labeled the accusations “absurd” and threatened a cut-off of funds to the Kosovo government. A circus atmosphere prevailed as photos of the trio were shown on Kosovan TV and splashed across the front pages of the press. Rumors and dark tales abounded, based on leaks believed by observers to have emanated from the office of Kosovo’s Prime Minister, the “former” warlord Hashim Thaci, nominal leader of the statelet’s organized crime-tainted government.

When seized by authorities one of the BND officers, Andreas J., demonstrated very poor tradecraft indeed. Among the items recovered by police, the operative’s passport along with a notebook containing confidential and highly incriminating information on the situation in Kosovo were examined. According to media reports, the notebook contained the names of well-placed BND informants in the Prime Minister’s entourage. According to this reading, the arrests were an act of revenge by Thaci meant to embarrass the German government.

But things aren’t always as they seem.

On November 29, the trio–Robert Z., Andreas J. and Andreas D.–departed Kosovo on a special flight bound for Berlin where they “will face a committee of German parliamentarians who have taken an interest in their case,” according to an account in Spiegel Online.

More curious than a violent attack on the streets of Pristina, a city wracked by gangland killings, car hijackings, kidnappings and assaults is the provenance of the bomb itself. In other words, why would German intelligence agents attack their own? But before attempting to answer this question, a grim backstory to the affair rears its ugly head.

An Agency Mired in Scandal

This latest scandal comes as yet another blow to the BND considering August’s revelations by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks that Germany’s external intelligence agency had extensively spied on journalists. Like their counterparts at the CIA, the BND is forbidden by law from carrying out domestic operations.

According to Wikileaks documents, journalists working for Focus Magazine and Der Spiegel were collaborators in a scheme by the agency to learn their sources as well as obtaining information on left-wing politicians, including Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) leaders Gregor Gysi and Andreas Lederer.

Indeed Focus Magazine journalist Josef Hufelschulte, code name ‘Jerez, wrote articles based on reports provided by the BND “intended to produce favorable coverage.” Wikileaks correspondent Daniel Schmitt and investigations editor Julian Assange comment that, “The document in general shows the extent to which the collaboration of journalists with intelligence agencies has become common and to what dimensions consent is manufactured in the interests of those involved.”

In November, Wikileaks published a subsequent document obtained from the telecommunications giant T-Systems. In addition to revealing two dozen secret IP addresses used by the BND for surveillance operations, the document provides “Evidence of a secret out of control BND robot scanning selected web-sites. In 2006 system administrators had to ban the “BVOE” IP addresses to prevent servers from being destroyed.” Additionally, Wikileaks revealed the “activity on a Berlin prostitution service website–evidence that intelligence seductions, the famed cold-war ‘honeytrap’, is alive and well?”

While the document does not spell out who was running the sex-for-hire website, one can’t help but wonder whether Balkan-linked organized crime syndicates, including Kosovan and Albanian sex traffickers are working in tandem with the BND in return for that agency turning a blind eye to the sordid trade in kidnapped women.

Kosovo: A European Narco State

When Kosovo proclaimed its “independence” in February, the Western media hailed the provocative dismemberment of Serbia, a move that completed the destruction of Yugoslavia by the United States, the European Union and NATO, as an exemplary means to bring “peace and stability” to the region.

If by “peace” one means impunity for rampaging crime syndicates or by “stability,” the freedom of action with no questions asked by U.S. and NATO military and intelligence agencies, not to mention economic looting on a grand scale by freewheeling multinational corporations, then Kosovo has it all!

From its inception, the breakaway Serb province has served as a militarized outpost for Western capitalist powers intent on spreading their tentacles East, encircling Russia and penetrating the former spheres of influence of the ex-Soviet Union. As a template for contemporary CIA destabilization operations in Georgia and Ukraine, prospective EU members and NATO “partners,” Kosovo should serve as a warning for those foolish enough to believe American clichés about “freedom” or the dubious benefits of “globalization.”

Camp Bondsteel, located on rolling hills and farmland near the city of Ferizaj/Urosevac, is the largest U.S. military installation on the European continent. Visible from space, in addition to serving as an NSA listening post pointed at Russia and as the CIA’s operational hub in the Balkans and beyond, some observers believe that Andreas J.’s notebook may have contained information that Camp Bondsteel continues to serve as a CIA “black site.” One motive for rolling up the BND intelligence operation may have been U.S. fears that this toxic information would become public, putting paid U.S. claims that it no longer kidnaps and tortures suspected “terrorists.”

When NATO partners Germany and the U.S. decided to drive a stake through Yugoslavia’s heart in the early 1990s during the heady days of post-Cold War triumphalism, their geopolitical strategy could not have achieved “success” without the connivance, indeed active partnership amongst Yugoslavia’s nationalist rivals. As investigative journalist Misha Glenny documented,

Most shocking of all, however, is how the gangsters and politicians fueling war between their peoples were in private cooperating as friends and close business partners. The Croat, Bosnian, Albanian, Macedonian, and Serb moneymen and mobsters were truly thick as thieves. They bought, sold, and exchanged all manner of commodities, knowing that the high levels of personal trust between them were much stronger than the transitory bonds of hysterical nationalism. They fomented this ideology among ordinary folk in essence to mask their own venality. As one commentator described it, the new republics were ruled by “a parastate Cartel which had emerged from political institutions, the ruling Communist Party and its satellites, the military, a variety of police forces, the Mafia, court intellectuals and with the president of the Republic at the center of the spider web…Tribal nationalism was indispensable for the cartel as a means to pacify its subordinates and as a cover for the uninterrupted privatization of the state apparatus. (McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 27)

Glenny’s description of the 1990s convergence of political, economic and security elites with organized crime syndicates in Western intelligence operations is the quintessential definition of the capitalist deep state.

In Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Peter Dale Scott describes how the deep state can be characterized by “the symbiosis between governments (and in particular their intelligence agencies) and criminal associations, particularly drug traffickers, in the stabilization of right-wing terror in Vietnam, Italy, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other parts of the world.” Indeed, “revelations in the 1970s and 1980s about the ’strategy of tension,’ whereby government intelligence agencies, working in international conjunction, strengthened the case for their survival by actually fomenting violence, recurringly in alliance with drug-trafficking elements.”

Scott’s analysis is perhaps even more relevant today as “failed states” such as Kosovo, characterized by economic looting on an industrial scale, the absence of the rule of law, reliance on far-right terrorists (of both the “religious” and “secular” varieties) to achieve policy goals, organized crime syndicates, as both assets and executors of Western policy, and comprador elites are Washington’s preferred international partners.

For the ruling elites of the former Yugoslavia and their Western allies, Kosovo is a veritable goldmine. Situated in the heart of the Balkans, Kosovo’s government is deeply tied to organized crime structures: narcotrafficking, arms smuggling, car theft rings and human trafficking that feeds the sex slave “industry.” These operations are intimately linked to American destabilization campaigns and their cosy ties to on-again, off-again intelligence assets that include al-Qaeda and other far-right terror gangs. As investigative journalist Peter Klebnikov documented in 2000,

The Kosovar traffickers ship heroin exclusively from Asia’s Golden Crescent. It’s an apparently inexhaustible source. At one end of the crescent lies Afghanistan, which in 1999 surpassed Burma as the world’s largest producer of opium poppies. From there, the heroin base passes through Iran to Turkey, where it is refined, and then into the hands of the 15 Families, which operate out of the lawless border towns linking Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia. Not surprisingly, the KLA has also flourished there. According to the State Department, four to six tons of heroin move through Turkey every month. “Not very much is stopped,” says one official. “We get just a fraction of the total.” (”Heroin Heroes,” Mother Jones, January-February 2000)

Not much has changed since then. Indeed, the CIA’s intelligence model for covert destabilization operations is a continuing formula for “success.” Beginning in the 1940s, when the Corsican Mafia was pegged by the Agency to smash the French Communist Party, down to today’s bloody headlines coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, global drug lords and intelligence operators go hand in hand. It is hardly surprising then, that according to a report by the Berlin Institute for European Policy, organized crime is the only profitable sector of the Kosovan economy. Nearly a quarter of the country’s economic output, some €550 million, is derived from criminal activities.

Though the role of the United States and their NATO partners are central to the drama unfolding today, the BND affair also reveals that beneath the carefully-constructed façade of Western “unity” in “Freedom Land,” deep inter-imperialist rivalries simmer. As the socialist journalist Peter Schwarz reports,

Speculation has since been rife about the background to the case, but it is doubtful whether it will ever be clarified. Kosovo is a jungle of rival secret services. In this regard, it resembles Berlin before the fall of the Wall. The US, Germany, Britain, Italy and France all have considerable intelligence operations in the country, which work both with and against one another. Moreover, in this country of just 2.1 million inhabitants, some 15,000 NATO soldiers and 1,500 UN police officers are stationed, as well as 400 judges, police officers and security officers belonging to the UN’s EULEX mission. (Peter Schwarz, “Kosovo’s Dirty Secret: The Background to Germany’s Secret Service Affair,” World Socialist Web Site, December 1, 2008)

Into this jungle of conflicting loyalties and interests, international crime syndicates in close proximity–and fleeting alliance–with this or that security service rule the roost. It is all the more ironic that the Thaci government has targeted the BND considering, as Balkan analyst Christopher Deliso revealed:

In 1996, Germany’s BND established a major station in Tirana…and another in Rome to select and train future KLA fighters. According to Le Monde Diplomatique, “special forces in Berlin provided the operational training and supplied arms and transmission equipment from ex-East German Stasi stocks as well as Black uniforms.” The Italian headquarters recruited Albanian immigrants passing through ports such as Brindisi and Trieste, while German military intelligence, the Militaramschirmdienst, and the Kommando Spezialkräfte Special Forces (KSK), offered military training and provisions to the KLA in the remote Mirdita Mountains of northern Albania controlled by the deposed president, Sali Berisha. (The Coming Balkan Caliphate, Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 37)

But as Schwarz observed, why would the Thaci government risk alienating the German state, given the fact that after the U.S., Germany “is the second largest financial backer of Kosovo and ranks among the most important advocates of its independence.” Why indeed?

According to Balkan Analysis, the International Crisis Group (ICG) funded by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) and closely aligned with “liberal interventionists” in the United States, were instrumental in arguing that the United States and Germany, should guarantee “future stability,” by building up the Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK), the KLA’s successor organization, into a well-equipped army. Towards this end, the U.S. and Germany, in addition to arming the organized crime-linked statelet, have provided funds and equipment for a sophisticated military communications center in the capital.

Speculation is rife and conflicting accounts proliferate like mushrooms after a warm rain. One theory has it that senior Kosovan politicians were angered by BND criticisms linking KLA functionaries, including personal associates of Thaci and the Prime Minister himself, with organized crime. Tellingly, Schwarz reports, this “is contrary to the position taken by the CIA.”

Is the affair then, merely a falling-out among thieves on how the spoils will be divided?

The CIA: Drugs & Thugs International

As noted above, U.S. destabilization programs and covert operations rely on far-flung networks of far-right provocateurs and drug lords (often interchangeable players) to facilitate the dirty work for U.S. policy elites and American multinational corporations. Throughout its Balkan adventure the CIA made liberal use of these preexisting narcotics networks to arm the KLA and provide them with targets. In their public pronouncements and analyses however, nary a harsh word is spoken.

According to the CIA, by any standard Kosovo’s economy is a disaster, but that doesn’t prevent the Agency from seeing “significant progress”!

Over the past few years Kosovo’s economy has shown significant progress in transitioning to a market-based system, but it is still highly dependent on the international community and the diaspora for financial and technical assistance. Remittances from the diaspora–located mainly in Germany and Switzerland–account for about 30% of GDP. Kosovo’s citizens are the poorest in Europe with an average annual per capita income of only $1800–about one-third the level of neighboring Albania. Unemployment–at more than 40% of the population–is a severe problem that encourages outward migration. (Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, November 20, 2008)

Needless to say, one unmentionable “fact” disappeared from the CIA’s country profile is the statelet’s overwhelming dependence on the black economy. I suppose this is what the Agency means when it lauds Kosovo’s transition to a “market-based system”! But as former DEA investigator and whistleblower Michael Levine, author of The Big White Lie, told B92, one of the wings of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was “linked with every known narco-cartel in the Middle East and the Far East”, and that almost every European intelligence service and police has files on “connections between ethnic Albanian rebels and drug trafficking”. And dare I say by extension, the CIA itself.

One bone of contention which could have led Thaci and his henchmen to seek revenge against his erstwhile German allies was a 67-page BND analysis about organized crime in Kosovo. As Schwarz noted the dossier, produced in February 2005 and subsequently leaked to the press, “accuses Ramush Haradinaj (head of government from December 2004 to March 2005), Hashim Thaci (prime minister since January 2008) and Xhavit Haliti, who sits in the parliament presidium, of being deeply implicated in the drugs trade.”

According to the BND report, “Regarding the key players (e.g., Haliti, Thaci, Haradinaj), there exists the closest ties between politics, business and internationally operating OC [organized crime] structures in Kosovo. The criminal networks behind this are encouraging political instability. They have no interest in building a functioning state, which could impair their flourishing trade.” (WSWS, op. cit.)

Haradinaj, an American protégé, became Prime Minister in 2004. However, he was forced to resign his post in March 2005 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him for crimes against humanity. Among other things, Haradinaj was accused of abducting civilians, unlawful detention, torture, murder and rape. Schwarz notes he was acquitted in April 2008 “for lack of evidence, after nine out of ten prosecution witnesses died violently and the tenth withdrew his statement after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt.” Talk about friends in high places!

Mirroring evidence uncovered by journalists and investigators regarding the control of the drugs trade by 15 Albanian crime families, the Berlin Institute for European Policy laid similar charges against Thaci, stating that real power in Kosovo is wielded by 15 to 20 family clans who control “almost all substantial key social positions” and are “closely linked to prominent political decision makers.”

According to Spiegel, when the BND operation was run to ground with the possible connivance of the CIA, its secret network of informants, instrumental to gaining insight into the interconnections amongst state actors and organized crime were compromised. The BND’s Department Five, responsible for organized crime wrote a confidential report linking Thaci as “a key figure in a Kosovar-Albanian mafia network.”

Department Two, according to Spiegel, was responsible for telecommunications surveillance. In 1999, the BND launched operation “Mofa99,” a wiretap intercept program that targeted high-ranking members of the KLA–and exposed their links to dodgy criminal syndicates and Islamist allies, al-Qaeda. The program was so successful according to Spiegel that since then, “the BND has maintained an extensive network of informants among high-ranking functionaries of the KLA and the Kosovar administration.”

Functionaries in possession of many dangerous secrets and inconvenient truths!

As researcher and analyst Michel Chossudovsky wrote back in 2001, among the “inconvenient truths” unexplored by Western media is the close proximity of far-right Islamist terror gangs and planetary U.S. destabilization operations.

Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin (”holy warriors”) to fight covert wars on Washington’s behest has become an integral part of US foreign policy. A report of the US Congress has revealed how the US administration–under advice from the National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake–had “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.

The “Bosnian pattern” has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting with the KLA-NLA are Mujahedin from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union as well as “soldiers of fortune” from several NATO countries including Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. (Michel Chossudovsky, “Washington Behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia,” Global Research, September 10, 2001)

Fast forward seven years and one can hypothesize that the BND, stepping on the CIA’s toes and that agency’s cosy intelligence “understanding” with Mafia-linked KLA fighters and al-Qaeda assets, would have every reason to sabotage the BND’s organized crime operations–not that the German military intelligence service’s hands are any cleaner!

While we may never know all the facts surrounding this curious affair, one thing is certain: the role played by powerful Mafia gangs as a source for black funds, intelligence assets and CIA “agents of influence” will continue. Administrations come and go, but like motherhood and apple pie the shadowy workings of America’s deep state is an eternal verity you can count on!

Theodor Herzl, the leading ideologist and organizer of the Zionist movement, wrote in his book Der Judenstaat which was published in 1895: “No nation in history has had to endure such struggles and suffering as ours … because of old prejudices lying deep down in the soul/minds (Gemüt) of all other nations … And the longer it takes before they appear the more ferocious they break out. Our only hope for escaping the persecutors is a state for a Jewish nation.”¹

Herzl’s assertion about the unique suffering of Jews and the prejudices of all other nations cannot be empirically confirmed, but that was not his concern. His interpretation of Jewish history was likely to convince many Jews and encourage them to take part in the struggle for a state. Many others would pay lip service to the ideology because they shared Herzl´s goal. The first task for the movement was to convince Jews that they were a nation and hinder the assimilation that was underway. The leaders of the movement came out strongly for the colonization of Palestine, a beautiful country where the inhabitants were to a considerable extent well-off and could rest their claim to the land on the fact that it had been inhabited by Arabs for more than 1000 years. Herzl and the later leaders of the movement asserted that all or almost all of the indigenous people would have to leave their country.

The likely outlook on life of the Jews who became convinced of this ideology was mistrust, insecurity and fear of non-Jews. Other Jews would just pretend. The foreseeable consequences of this outlook were bleak: Ruthlessness and a stubborn refusal to admit that they had wronged anybody.

The British newspaper The Economist printed a carricature a few years ago which a former mayor of Hamburg, Klaus von Dohnanyi, described as follows: “It shows us Germans ducked down fearfully in a corner in which a strong arm with the star of David is pointing. The reproach for antisemitism shocks, freightens and does not strengthen the democratic self-confidence of the Germans. One should use the word antisemitism with circumspection and good reasons.”²

Zionism in Israel

Israeli leaders have declared themselves for the Zionist ideology and applied it in matters of great importance.

The Eichmann trial: During the trial which was held in Israel in 1961 the prosecutor asserted many times that this case confirmed the eternal hatred of Jews. This interpretation of Eichmann has acquired enormous significance. Previously the political circles and the media in America explained the mass murder in the Third Reich as well as in communist countries as consequences of totalitarianism. In other words: Hostility toward ethnic groups and classes would not have resulted in such cruelty, or would have been extremely unlikely, in an open society. The philosopher Hanna Arendt expressed herself in this way when she wrote: “He was not antisemitic, not even an ideologist, he was a superficial, ambitious henchman of totalitarianism.”³ If the political circles and media had stayed with this interpretation the importance of the holocaust in America and perhaps in Germany would have been quite different from what it has become.

The Yad Vashen museum: According to the council of this museum, it was erected to proclaim that the lives of Jews outside of Israel are built on shifting sand. With this explanation the council ignored the fact that the mass murder which the museum calls to mind occurred under entirely different circumstances. Unfortunately some people were likely to be misled. “You can fool some people all of the time.” (Abraham Lincoln)

Nuclear weapons for Israel: The CIA informed President Kennedy in 1961 that a nuclear power plant was being built in Israel which probably would be suitable for the production of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Israel was already militarily much stronger than the Arab states and once in possession of such weapons would be even tougher toward its neighbors than it had been. The Arabs would probably turn to the Soviet Union. Kennedy spoke with Ben Gurion and asked for insurance that no atomic weapons would be produced. He should also allow the Atomic Energy Commission to inspect the plant. In an emergency, America would intervene on behalf of Israel. Besides that, he should allow some of the Palestinian refugees to return. One could ascertain how many would avail themselves of this opportunity. Ben Gurion promised that the plant would only be used for research. He then asserted that Nasser’s goal was to destroy Israel and do to the Israelis what Hitler did to the 6 million Jews in Europe. “And if the refugees came back our situation would be critical. We are surrounded, they want to kill us.” Later the fact that Israel had acquired the bomb became an open secret. Israel’s atomic energy plant has never been inspected by the Atomic Energy Commission.⁴

The Six Day War (June 1967): It began with the bombing and destruction of the entire Egyptian air force while it was still on the ground. The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations justified the attack saying that it was a matter of life or death. The “final solution” confronted us. Before the attack Israel and Egypt had been disputing about the passage of Israeli and other ships through the straits of Tiran. The US and England were mediating when the attack occurred. The Israeli forces occupied East Jerusalem, West Jordan, the Golan heights and the Sinai peninsula. 250,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians were driven out from their homes and lands. Later four members of the Israeli general staff admitted that they knew that Nasser had no intention to attack Israel. Readers of serious newspapers who read the accounts of journalists in the Middle East and not just the commentaries would in all likelihood have come to the same conclusion.⁵

The war in Lebanon in 1982: Israel´s prime minister Begin wrote President Reagan that he was marching to Beirut “to liquidate Hitler”, i.e. Arafat. Israel began the war. Its ambassador to the U.N. asserted that the PLO, which at that time was in exile in Lebanon, had repeatedly violated the cease-fire which had been agreed upon eleven months earlier. The U.N. observers reported, however, that the PLO had exercised restraint while Israel violated the truce hundreds of times from the air and the sea. The Palestinian refugee camps, Beirut and other Lebanese cities were extensively bombed. According to hospital reports the bombing resulted in at least 18,000 deaths, 90% of them civilians. About 30,000 were wounded.⁶

The comparisons between between Hitler on the one hand and Nasser and Arafat on the other were ridiculous and base. The accusers gave the impression that the Arab leaders had no legitimate reason for opposing Israel, that they were motivated by prejudices against the Jews and hoped to kill vast numbers of them and even had the power to do so. In this way they attempted to justify wars of aggression, conquest and the expulsion of their victims.

Supplements to the ideology: Successors of Herzl have employed supplements to his ideology. They are in some respects similar to the antisemitism reproach and serve the same ends. One of them is the assertion that Israel´s foes have bad characteristics. Chaim Weizman who led the movement at the beginning of the colonization said at a meeting of Zionist leaders in 1920: “They (the Palestinians, KL) are a corrupt race with which one cannot possibly negotiate. The Arabs are treasonable and fickle, they lack moral values, one cannot expect that they will stick to principles.”⁷ In the 1930s, writers of Hebrew novels and children’s books explained the Palestinian resistance to the colonization of their land in the same way. In line with this explanation the violence of the Jewish colonists was always characterized as reprisals.⁸ After the Camp David talks, Barak was criticized for having given a false impression of the talks. He replied: “The Palestinians come out of a culture in which lying does not result in much disapproval. In contrast to Christians and Jews they are not burdened with a bad conscience.”⁹ Like the accusation of antisemitism this is an ad hominem argument and not a factual one about the issue at stake. It is a prejudice against a whole ethnic group, like antisemitism. It is used to explain the behavior of the other group and to exonerate the Israeli side from guilt. This is also one of several Zionist dogmas/political doctrines that detract from the actual circumstances in specific cases.

The assertion that Israel’s existence is at stake is another Zionist supplement to Herzl’s ideology. It too is calculated to cause fear among Israeli citizens and to elicit sympathy from outsiders. It provides an excuse for atrocities committed by the Israel army. It is used where an unbiased person would not agree with the claim. This assertion is also ambiguous: It may refer to a specific conflict between Israelis and Palestinians or to the conflict as a whole. The Zionists have had much success in winning over American and German leaders to the characterization of the whole conflict as a struggle for Israel’s security rather Palestinian resistance to an illegal and unjustifiable occupation.

The last Palestinian uprising: It began in September 2000 after Sharon, accompanied by 1000 soldiers on the Temple Mount, asserted in his speech that all of Jerusalem belonged to Israel. That was an obvious blow below the belt of the Palestinians. The demonstration that followed was to be expected. Seven Palestinians were killed. During the spiral of violence that followed, the Israeli strikes with tanks and bombers were out of all proportion to those of the Palestinian fighters. That holds for attacks on civilians, i.e., terror from both sides. Yet Sharon asserted that he used force only in retaliation, Israel had no choice, it was fighting for its survival. Arafat had called on Sharon to join him in an appeal for a cease fire. He was ignored. Sharon said that he was willing to make a generous settlement but had no partner for negotiations as long as Arafat failed to disarm the terrorists. But the truth is that he did not want any negotiations. It is not unusual that negotiations take place while fighting goes on. It was unlikely that Fatah would defeat Hamas and would dare to try. Hamas’ fighters were well trained and Arafat had lost the confidence of most of the Palestinians and they would have supported Hamas. Sharon’s troops themselves were not able to silence them. Furthermore, Sharon weakened Arafat by means of attacks on his headquarters and his security forces. Arafat requested the Security Council of the U.N. to send troops to stop the fighting. Sharon was opposed. A draft resolution for the sending of troops was vetoed by Bush. In the meantime the colonization of the occupied territories continued.¹⁰

Lebanon 2006:The justification for the tremendous destruction in Lebanon and the killing of more than 1000 of its civilians by Israel’s armed forces in response to the capture of two of its soldiers was the same: Shimon Peres, who at that time was Israel’s vice-premier said: “It was a matter of life or death.”¹¹ The Israelis met with stiff resistance from the Hisbullah fighters, but they had a free hand to bomb and destroy.

In view of the fact that Israel attacks when and where it wishes with reckless disregard for lives and property and has never had to compensate its victims, it is no wonder that other states in the region attempt to acquire nuclear weapons as the best possible defense.

The Palestinian election (January 2006): The Olmert government responded to the election of Hamas by the majority of Palestinians in January 2006 by refusing to recognize and deal with Hamas as their representative. Besides that millions of dollars from taxes and duties which belonged to the already impoverished Palestinians were withheld — a punishment for not having chosen Israel’s favorite, Abbas and Al Fatah. This reaction was justified on the ground that Hamas had not recognized Israel’s right to exist and had not renounced violence. In this connection, let us recall that Israel’s leaders and supporters had characterized Hamas as a terrorist organization and emphasized the fact that Hamas’ Charter in 1988 called for the destruction of the state of Israel. In other words: the dogma (political doctrine) that Israel’s existence is endangered served here, too, as justification for refusing to negotiate.

It is remarkable that Israel was able to determine the terms for negotiations concerning the occupied territories and indeed with the approval and support of the United States and the European Union: 1. Israel occupies the territories in violation of international law. 2. Israel has never recognized the right of Palestinians to any part of their homeland. 3. Israel’s violence, including attacks on civilians (terror) has been out of all proportion to that of the Palestinians. 4. The election of Hamas was entirely free. That should have warmed the hearts of our leaders who send young men to fight in foreign countries so that other nations can enjoy the fruits of democracy.

Let us suppose that our leaders in America and Western Europe had successfully urged the Israeli government to recognize the right of the Palestinians to the parts of Palestine which Israel conquered during the Six Day War and to withdraw its troops and settlers. Would Hamas have reaffirmed its Charter? The portrayal of Hamas by Olmert and his supporters surely gives that impression, but it is false and Israel’s secret service and its political leaders know that.

The characterization of Hamas by Israel and the EU as a terror organization is unjustified. Hamas was responsible for many suicide attacks on civilians between 1994 and 1997 and 2003 and 2004. But during the first seven years after it was founded it fought Israel’s military forces. The first series of its suicide attacks was in response to the massacre of Muslims who were praying in a mosque by a Jewish settler. The second series began during the intifada after the Israeli forces killed numerous Palestinian civilians. It is also noteworthy here that Hamas observed a cease-fire for 18 months between January 2005 and mid-2006. The Israeli side ignored that, although a fundamental change in Hamas’ goals was underway. It was expressed in the campaign speeches of Haniya and other leaders of the party and in their program for the election. Hamas sought a political solution and was willing to recognise Israel, but in contrast to the PLO under Arafat, who recognized Israel without getting anything of significance in return,¹² Hamas demanded an advance concession: Israel must withdraw completely from the occupied territories and allow the Palestinians to build a state there. The Palestinian state and Israel would then recognize one another. For the time in between Hamas suggested a truce.¹³

Israel’s leaders have always managed to avoid negotiations that might have led to a withdrawal from the territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. They put the blame on the Palestinians for the lack of a solution or claimed that more time was needed. At the present time (October 2007) it seems that the much heralded peace conference in November will turn out to be another futile gathering. According to the latest reports the disputed issues — borders, Jerusalem and refugees — will not be discussed for the purpose of reaching a solution. This is the Israeli view and Foreign Minister Rice apparently agrees. Putting off such decisions enables Israel to confiscate more land and bring in more settlers. Furthermore, there is no indication that Hamas will be invited or that the people in Gaza will, be represented.

A map of the UN shows the present extent of the Zionist colonization. 40 % of West Jordan is exclusively for Israeli citizens and military. The rest is divided into cantons/bantustans. Movement between them is severely restricted by road blocks and check points. Jews are now settling in Hebron and Palestinians are leaving. The Jordan valley is also becoming Jewish. A leading member of Sharon´s cabinet has admitted that the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza was not intended to be the first step in a significant withdrawal from the territories. It was done to get Bush’s consent to Israel keeping the large Jewish settlements in West Jordan. Bush generously agreed.¹⁴ It seems likely that Gaza will become another bantustan. In view of the miserable living conditions for the Palestinians considerable emigration is to be expected. The Zionist dream may soon come true.

Zionism in America and Germany

Three topics will be dealt with in this section: 1. The so-called wave of antisemitism during the recent Palestine uprising. 2. The obsession with the mass murder of Jews during the Third Reich and the question whether it was unique. 3. The Zionist goals in America and Germany.

1. The “wave of antisemitism”

The assertion that antisemitism was widespread began in April 2002 when the bombing of Palestine cities and refugee camps reached its peak and was followed by severe criticism in Europe and elsewhere. Thus 59% of the Europeans expressed the opinion in a poll that the greatest danger to world peace came from the state of Israel. What do these findings have to do with antisemitism? In ordinary and scholarly usage it is a prejudice against the Jews as a whole. A prejudice is an attitude which is not factually based. A negative statement about Israel or its leaders, even if it is a prejudice against them, is not about “the Jews.”

The reproach of antisemitism during the intifada was propagated by the large Jewish organizations in America, by the Council of Jews in Germany and some Jewish journalists and academicians. Because of their close affiliation with Israel it is appropriate to refer to them as Zionists. Here are some examples: The editor of the Commentary, one of the leading Jewish journals in America, wrote: “We are past the Kristallnacht in America and well on the way to the final solution … Jews in the United States are being targeted for murder.” The leader of the Anti Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, asserted that “the survival of the Jewish people might once again be at risk.” Elie Wiesel, a prominent stimulator for high-lighting the holocaust, spoke at a conference on antisemitism in Berlin and at the United Nations. In Berlin he said: “There are too many cities in the world plagued by vocal and violent hatred toward the Jewish people … extreme left-wing banners unashamedly slandering Israel…mass incitement to hysterical violence disguised as anti-Israel propaganda.” In New York: “Sixty years after the worst tragedy in human history Jew — hatred is once again in the rise.”¹⁵

The response of Jewish leaders in Germany to the criticism of Israel was the same. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung printed an article by Salomon Korn, a member of the Council of Jews in Germany, in which he wrote: “All Jews are held responsible for every offense of Israel against the Palestinians. The debate about the Middle East conflict exposes the prevailing antisemitism. That old question hangs over the heads of the Jews like the sword of Damocles: ‘Was it right to stay in Germany?’” It is noteworthy that the German foreign minister Josef Fischer, endorsed Salomon’s assertion shortly thereafter in the FAZ: “Why is Israel being so sharply criticized? Why this one-sidedness? In these months many German Jews feel themselves abandoned.” Michel Friedman, a former member of the Council, said in a television interview while soliciting donations for Israel: “Antisemitism is the greatest problem of the Western World. It is quite acceptable in all circles to run down the Jews.” In answer to the question whether philosemitism existed in Germany he said: “The philosemites are worse than the antisemites. They always expect thanks from us.”¹⁶ The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Shimon Stein: “Antisemitism in Germany is obviously a chronic illness. Now it is concentrated on Israel as the collective Jew.”¹⁷

This accusation was also made against individuals. The chairman of the Council of Jews in Germany, Paul Spiegel, spoke in June 2002 at a meeting of the Christian Democratic Party. He warned the party against participating in a coalition government with the Free Democrats. He said that “a leader of the FDP” — he meant Jürgen Möllemann — had made antisemitic remarks. “Antisemitism would probably be part of official politics again.” None of the politicians who were present asked which remarks were meant or what Spiegel considered antisemitic. Möllemann, a former minister of education and president of the German — Arab society had accused the Israeli government of committing state terrorism. The word terror in our cultural area means attacks on unarmed civilians. That certainly includes attacks with helicopters on individuals who have not been tried by a court and found guilty, whereby other persons too are hit. This happened more than 100 times during the intifada. Möllemann also said: “the aggressive — arrogant treatment of Sharon’s critics by Michel Friedman is unfortunately likely to lead to anti-Israeli and antisemitic responses.” None of these statements is a derogatory statement about “the Jews.” Another former minister, Norbert Blüm, got similar treatment after he said the charge of antisemitism “was being used as a club to sweep criticism of Israel’s disregard for human rights under the carpet.”Spiegel responded with the remark that Blüm’s statement was ”racism.”¹⁸

The comments of leaders of the most important parties in the German parliament are remarkable. Chancellor Schröder, the leader of the Social Democratic party, accused Möllemann’s party of “playing with antisemitism.” His vice chairman said: The FDP wants to win over “antisemitic currents” in Germany for their purposes. A speaker for the Green Party which was in the coalition government, said that Möllemann was a “mean antisemite.” Another speaker for the Greens said: “Anyone who holds the Jews responsible for antisemitism legitimizes antisemitism.” The chairman of the Christian Social Party (CSU) added: “The FDP provoked leading Jewish representatives to win votes from the die-hard reactionaries.” A speaker for the Christian Democratic Party: “Blüm’s remark is ‘useful for the die–hard reactionaries.’”¹⁹ None of these parlamentarians breached the question what was meant by the word “antisemitism.” In this respect too, they resembled the Zionist spokesmen.

So the Zionist leaders have performed a stunt across the stages in America and Germany which reached a peak in the antisemitism conferences in New York and Berlin: Criticism of Israel or, as some of them say, sharp critique, is symptomatic of antisemitism. This is another political dogma which the chorus of leaders preach one after the other without offering evidence. One ardent promoter of this dogma, Alan Dershowitz, professor of criminal law at Harvard, wrote in 1991. “It is impossible to understand why Israel receives the attention — most particularly the criticism — it does receive without recognizing that Israel is ‘the Jew’ among nations.”²⁰ There are, however, other possible explanations. Since the beginning of the colonization of Palestine in 1920, it has been the center of an earthquake area, and that concerns all of us. Furthermore, millions of people are appalled by the deplorable way Israel has behaved toward the Palestinians and other neighbors. Perhaps many critics of Israel have developed hostile attitudes toward Jews generally while observing Israel and its unconditional support by Jewish leaders in America, Germany and elsewhere who purport to represent Jews. That would be unjust, but it is unfortunately a fact that wrongs done by some individuals in a nation often result in prejudices against the whole nation. But here another Zionist dogma turns up: Jews can never be responsible for anti-Semitism.²¹

2. The obsession with the holocaust

Americans and Germans look back repeatedly on one great atrocity while the other ones remain in the shadow. In America the obsession with the Jewish tragedy is the work of large Jewish organizations and Jews (by no means all Jews) in key positions in newspapers, journals, television, book publishing, in Hollywood and in the academic world.²² Here is a brief sampling of what they have accomplished: There are holocaust museums not only at a prominent place in Washington but also in every big city. In some of them other victims of the Third Reich are remembered but only marginally. At the place in New England which is dedicated to the heroes of the American Revolution there is also a monument for the Jewish victims of the Third Reich. In many American states, teachers are obliged to instruct students about the holocaust. For this topic, there are professorial chairs at colleges. The nine hour film Holocaust was viewed entirely or for the greater part by 110 million viewers. Jewish organizations published Schindler’s List with 110 million copies of a 16-page brochure and worked over the most important newspapers to persuade them to print the book in series. The National Council of Churches named the first day of the showing Holocaust Sunday. Yellow stars of David were distributed. Between the years 1996 and 2000 the New York Times printed 3,500 articles with references to the holocaust. Politicians find it useful to have themselves photographed in Yad Vashem.²³

The holocaust was not brought into prominence in America until the 1960s. After World War II, the cold war was under way, it lasted until the end of the 1950s. Political circles and media were fighting communism, comparisons between the crimes under communism and the National Socialists were commonplace and not frowned upon. But with the end of the cold war the interest in emphasizing communist crimes died out. The explanation of the Eichmann case by the prosecutor gave a powerful stimulus for the change. When the trial began many Jewish leaders doubted whether it was good for Jews. Objections were made to it in some of the media, because Jews were both prosecutors and judges and because it was a show trial. The leaders of two of the most important Jewish organizations explained the Eichmann case as a consequence of totalitarianism. But during the trial which lasted for four months the viewers saw terrible pictures and heard horrid stories and the criticism died out. The path for the holocaust as a long-standing success was levelled.²⁴

In Germany, the struggle against communism did not interfere with the emphasis on the Jewish victims of National Socialism. Already in the early 1950s the government, the parliament, media and educators made considerable efforts to throw light on the Third Reich. Prominent persons often urged the public not to forget what had happened, especially the suffering of Jews. This development was furthered by the trial of persons accused of war crimes, the stage adaption of The diary of Anne Frank (there were 1420 performances) and the sale in 1957 of 700,000 copies of the pocket book edition. In 1959 some young men devastated a synagogue in Cologne. There were numerous expressions of sympathy for the congregation and the culprits were punished. But the media in Germany played up the event and Jewish organizations in America and England claimed that the crimes during the Third Reich were being played down, Hitler’s ideas were still lurking in German minds. Public opinion polls and sundry investigations resulted in an entirely different portrayal. Nevertheless, this event and the Eichmann trial, which was treated for two years in German media, were the immediate causes of the obsession with the holocaust in Germany.²⁵ The “remembrance” is kept fresh in the public mind with memorials, commemorative speeches, often by Israelis, reviews of books by or about Jewish victims, American and German films and so forth. Characteristic of the attitude of the Council of Jews in Germany is the statement of the recently elected chairwoman, Charlotte Knobloch, that one of her main tasks was to ensure that the “remembrance” continues. Certain political parties have frequently accussed other parties of suppressing the history of the Third Reich, especially the persecution of Jews.

In this connection, two recent events concerning the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem are noteworthy. First: Germany has contributed more than two million euro for the identification and copying of a documentation of the museum about the persecution of Jews. The German minister of justice, Brigitte Zypries, gave the director a check in 2005 and said: “Our duty as Germans is to keep the remembrance of the crimes of the Nazi regime alive because this is necessary to prevent such crimes ever occurring again.²⁶ The minister simply parroted a reason which many Jewish leaders have used over and over again in spite of the many mass murders that have occurred meanwhile. The minister might well have mentioned one of the purposes for which the remembrance actually is used. Second: The museum offers seminars on “Education after the holocaust” for teachers. German teachers take part with support from German provinces. In 2006 the German ambassador to Israel, Rudolf Dressler, invited the German teaches who participated to a reception. He said in his speech: Sixty years after Auschwitz there can never be enough teaching about the holocaust. Even after forty years of diplomatic relations there cannot be normal relations between Germany and Israel.”²⁷

Was the holocaust unique? When the “remembrance” is insisted upon, it is often said that it was “unique.” The statement that an event is unique is, of course, ambiguous. It can mean that it has characteristics that cannot be found with other events, which is true of all events. But those who advocate the uniqueness of the holocaust aim to convince others that it was the worst crime in human history. This intention becomes clear where comparisons with other major crimes are said to be playing down the holocaust. The statement that some crime was the worst in history is not empirically verifiable, it is neither true nor false, it is a matter of opinion. To clarify this point it is worthwhile to examine the most frequent reasons that have been given for the uniqueness of the holocaust.

First: The killing was done by organized factory-like gassing. But killing by other means, e.g., by torture or burning, could be regarded as just as bad or worse. Furthermore, the Roma and others in extermination camps were killed in the same way as Jews were.²⁸

Second: It is often asserted that Hitler intended to kill all the Jews and, indeed, for ideological reasons. The evidence for that is lacking. According to his ideology, the Aryans, above all others, had the mission to develop their capacities in matters of culture and statecraft. For that purpose, opposing forces were necessary to resist and stimulate the Aryans. (This is in line with social Darwinism). The Jews were, he claimed, the opposing party, they were destructive and must be resisted.²⁹ In light of his further statement that “something bad must exist to stimulate what is good,” one may conclude that the interaction with Jews would always be necessary for the self-realization of the Aryans. In January 1939, he said in a speech: “If the Jews in international financial circles again succeed in plunging the nations of the world in a world war, the result will be the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.” In January 1941, he said: “If America is forced into a general war by the Jews, all of the Jews in Europe will have played out their role in Europe.” These were sharp and unjustifiable warnings but not an unconditional statement of intent and did not refer to all Jews. The agreement between the Hitler government and the Zionist leadership which lasted from 1933 until 1938 “to further the emigration of German Jews to Palestine” is evidence that the intention was to force Jews to leave Germany. According to Ludwig Pinner, whose study was published by the Leo Baeck Institute in Berlin, the implementation of the agreement brought about the rapid advance of the Jewish economy in Palestine to an industrial economy.³⁰

But even if the killing of all Jews was intended, the claim of uniqueness does not hold water. The wiping out of whole peoples has been intended and the intention has been carried out.³¹ Whether such cases are the worst of all is also a matter of opinion. Finally, it can be argued that the number of innocent persons actually killed is decisive. That would presumably mean that the worst crime was committed in communist China.³² But here, too, the standard of ascertaining the worst — or second worst — is a matter of opinion. Nota bene: Whether the holocaust was the worst of all crimes is a matter of opinion. But this finding is not meant to belittle its enormity.

3. Zionist goals in America and Germany

First: Like Herzl, their primary goal is to convince Jews that they belong to the Jewish nation and that Israel is their “mother country.” Katzav said in a speech in the German parliament that he spoke in the name of the Jewish nation. This remark may have led some people to believe all Jews or Jews in general profess loyalty to Israel. That is not so, even in America where Zionism has its strongest base outside of Israel. Numerous Jews reject Israel’s claim and oppose it vigorously. No doubt Katzav’s intimation holds with rare exceptions for the leaders of the major Jewish organizations in America and the Council of Jews in Germany. Their attitude may well have been expressed in Michel Friedman’s remark “Israel gives us our identity and our self-image.”

Like Herzl his successors strive to keep Jews together and separate from others by spreading fear and mistrust among them. Alarms have been sounded in America like these: “If you know history at all, you have to presume not that it could happen again, but that it will. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” “A holocaust-consciousness is necessary, so that the Jews are ready to leave America.” But these assertions were deliberate deceptions. Peter Novick, professor of history at the university of Chicago has shown that the panic-mongers were trying to stop mixed-marriages and assimilation. In the 1960s, 40% of the Jewish men and 30% of the Jewish women married non-Jews. That led to these counter measures. There was talk about a “bloodless holocaust.” But anti-Semitism was of no significance in America, and Jews held influential positions in the media, in politics and on universities. A distinguishing feature of Jews as a group was their extraordinary wealth.³³

In this connection, the account of a German diplomat who over many years in Washington and New York tried to improve Germany’s image and the German-Jewish relations is of considerable importance. Dr. Wolf Calebow, having come to the conviction that the portrayal of the holocaust in America was conveying the impression that Germany today was dangerous for Jews held numerous conversations with the largest Jewish organizations, editors of Jewish newspapers and others, whereby he asked them to supplement their depiction of the holocaust with information about the German resistance, the compensation paid to the victims and their families, support for Israel and an accurate portrayal of Germany as it is today. His requests were turned down in almost every instance. The Council of the holocaust memorial in Washington even refused to discuss the topic.His efforts were not entirely in vain, however. Together with the Amonk Institute, which also was dedicated to improving German-Jewish relations, he brought about some changes in the teaching of the holocaust in some of the states where it is obligatory. Calebow’s conclusion was that the frightful impression of Germany which the holocaust portrayals gave was not accidental, it was intended. It was aimed at strengthening Jewish consciousness and ties to Israel. This in turn facilitated efforts to keep the holocaust in the limelight. He underlined his opinion with numerous details. For example: The Journal of the Anti Defamation League referred to a study “by a German partner” as follows: “New anti-Semitism: Alarming report from Germany.”³⁴ The ADL gave no information about the partner. It was very likely the institute at the Technical University of Berlin which specializes in research on anti-Semitism. Like the Zionists it ignores the ordinary definition of anti-Semitism and purports to find an abundance of it.³⁵
In my treatment of the so-called wave of anti-Semitism I have shown that Zionist leaders in Germany, too, sounded fearful alarms for Jews which were unfounded. If the Council really believed that the Germans constituted a threat to Jews, it certainly would not have lobbied for the immigration of 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union. The frightening sounds they make are not intended to cause a flight to Israel, but to strengthen Jewish national consciousness and ties to Israel. This task gives the leaders a purpose in life and material rewards, too. More about that below.

It is remarkable that this Zionist goal is supported financially by the German state. A so-called “international treaty” between the German government and the Council has recently become a law. The government promises to pay the Council three million euro yearly. These payments are apart from the financial support which Jewish religious communities receive. The preamble to the “treaty” contains this statement: “The German nation has a historical responsibility for Jewish life in Germany.” The money is to be used for “common interests of the Federal Republic and the Council”, namely for the development of the Jewish community and the “integration tasks” of the Council. Besides that it is to be used for tasks “which go beyond the region” and for administration costs. The Ministry of the Interior refers to the Jews from the former Soviet Union as “contingent refugees.” But in one passage, it states: The admission of an applicant depends upon his being of Jewish descent. “Persecution or discrimination are not criteria for the admission.” This agreement is only ostensibly a contract, it is in fact a gift. No quid pro quo is required. The flabby description of the tasks of the Council means in plain English that the Council should use the funds for purposes it wishes to pursue. The “integration” task is not understood by the Council to mean that Jewish immigrants should be assimilated in the German nation. Friedman has said that he plans a Jewish lobby in Europe like the one in America. The great majority of the German population wants the various ethnic and religious groups to strive primarily for common ends and not for what keeps them apart. During the last Ramadan the German president expressed the wish that the Muslims regard Germany as their homeland. Should this be addressed only to Muslims?

A second goal: Support for Israel. Its image and financial, diplomatic and backing from outside are enormously important for its success. The Zionist leaders in America and Germany occupy wide fields in the public eye where they can make their view about Middle East affairs known and exert considerable influence. They assert obstinately that Israel is only defending itself and fighting for its existence. Dershowitz, for example: “The great moral issue facing the world at the dawn of the millennium is whether Israel’s attempt to protect itself against terrorism will result in a massive increase of world-wide antisemitism.”³⁶ Paul Spiegel expressed himself along the same line after a helicopter attack on Hamas’ headquarters, where eight civilians, including some children, were killed: “They are declaredly terrorists … self-defense — a matter of life or death.”³⁷ Criticism of Israeli actions by Zionist leaders is a rarity. When a member of the Council of Jews in Germany, Professor Paul Verleger, criticized Israel’s practice of assassinations without any judicial hearing and the ruthless destruction of large parts of Lebanese cities, the Council leadership accused him of using anti-Israeli “clichés” and expelled him from the Council.

Besides protestations of innocence Israel’s image is varnished in America and Germany by unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism against its critics and by repeatedly calling the holocaust to mind. During the recent intifada the wave of anti-Semitism accusations, including the conferences in New York and Berlin, served to divert the public from the deaths and destruction the Israeli army was causing. The reproaches against individuals were clearly aimed at disparaging them and their critique and deterring others, especially public figures, from speaking frankly about Israel´s atrocities. That holds also for the attacks on the German minister for development aid Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul after she referred to the danger from the numerous blind shells that still lay around in Lebanon after the war. Knobloch reproached her for having spoken “one-sidedly to the detriment of Israel and thereby supported antisemitic attitudes.” Apparently no other political leader who was a member of the government during the intifada or the recent war in Lebanon risked criticizing Israel. More recently several Catholic bishops visited the occupied territories and made frank statements about what they experienced. One bishop apparently spoke of a “Ghetto in Ramallah.” Mrs. Knobloch said that this was a comparison with the ghettos during the Third Reich and accused him of “moving close to the border of antisemitism.”³⁸ But a ghetto in ordinary usage is a quarter in which Jews are compelled to live and from which they are not allowed to go out at night. Furthermore, instead of getting to the factual issue — comparisons can throw light on events — she resorted to an ad hominem argument. The accusation of being on the verge of anti-Semitism may not ruin ones reputation in Germany and America, but it throws a shadow on the person attacked. If the presidents or some other prominent persons in America and Germany had clarified what is meant by prejudices against ethnic groups, including anti-Semitism, they would have done a good deed for their countries.

The constant calling to mind of the holocaust in connection with Israel is likely to give the impression that, in spite of all appearances, Israel is the victim or at least that critics should allow for extenuating circumstances. After the Israeli army conquered the rest of Palestine in the Six Day War and then “for reasons of security” began settling Jews there, Israel’s image became tarnished world-wide. The idea then turned up among Israel supporters in America that this was due to a lack of holocaust-consciousness. Various remedies were used. Holocaust novels were sent to all members of Congress. In films and novels Palestinians and the Nazis planned the destruction of Israel. The director of the ADL wrote: “The Palestinians, or many of them, were Hitler’s little helpers.”³⁹ During the last intifada the president of the Council of Jews in Germany, Paul Spiegel, and Israel’s ambassador, Shimon Stein, demanded better holocaust-instruction in the schools ostensibly for the purpose of fighting anti-Semitism. Spiegel also recommended that the ministers of culture in the German states turn to Yad Vashem for advice on holocaust-instruction.

The Zionist leaders justify the claims they make against America and Germany in favor of Israel in quite different ways. Support from America is said to be in America’s interest, whereas support from Germany is characterized as part performance of a moral obligation of the German people. For an elaboration of the US-Israel relation I confine myself here to recommending the recent study by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the Israel lobby and some critical and affirmative reviews of the book.⁴⁰

Zionist and German political leaders assert again and again that the Germans are morally obliged to secure Israel´s existence and that the state must fulfill this obligation. Thus, Israel’s president Katzov said last year in a speech before the German parliament: “There can never be forgiveness or pardon for the shoa.” This hard remark was clearly meant to burden the consciences of all Germans, even the unborn, although in our cultural area and not only here only those who have done wrong have need for forgiveness. Michel Friedman said: “The heirs of the Jew-killing state have no choice but to accept this historical obligation.” At the beginning of the recent intifada Israel’s prime minister Barak said to Chancellor Schmidt who was visiting Israel: “Because of the shadows of the past, Germany has a special obligation to Israel.” While the Israeli army was employing force out of all proportion to that of the Palestinian fighters, Germany’s foreign minister, Josef Fischer, declared that the Islamic terrorists wanted to destroy Israel. Israel had a right to exist. “We are obliged to use all means available to prevent the destruction of Israel.”⁴¹ The employment of the German marine to patrol the Lebanese coast during and after the Lebanese war was explained by the speaker of the government as follows: “First, there is the historical obligation to secure the existence of the state of Israel and second the interest in stability in the Middle East.” In this connection Angela Merkel declared: “Our reason of state is above all to secure Israel’s existence.”⁴²

These statements are objectionable for at least three reasons. 1. If one has swallowed enough of Zionist ideology, one can talk without any compunctions as if Israel’s existence and not that of the Palestinians and the Lebanese state was at stake. 2. Let’s turn the tables: If all Jews were held to be morally responsible for the past wrongs of some Jews, we would rightly call this a prejudice against the Jews, anti-Semitism and a defamation. It is noteworthy that leading German politicians persist in defaming their own nation. 3. When the head of a state declares that “our reason of state” is to defend some other country and no public figure objects, it is high time to think about emigrating.

Even if we assume that all of the Germans are responsible for wrongs done to individual victims by some of the Germans during the Third Reich, the question would still remain whether the obligation would extend to the state of Israel. A former German ambassador to Israel, Klaus Schütz, has argued that the Germans are responsible to secure Israel’s existence because the holocaust was the spark for the establishment of Israel. He did not clarify what was meant by “spark” or why it should be decisive. His assumption, however, that the obligation must be grounded in a causal relationship is worth examining. The all-important cause for the establishment of Israel was doubtless the alliance between the government of England and the Zionist leaders and what they did in Palestine. England held the key to Palestine. Beginning in 1920, the government supported the Zionist colonization for 17 years. The British army suppressed the first Palestinian Uprising (1936-1939). It is has been estimated that about 3000 rebels were killed, 100 were hanged and the leaders were exiled. The Zionists were allowed to build an army which with Jewish terror organizations expelled 750,000 Palestinians. (Half of the Arab population of mandatory Palestine became refugees). The expulsions began while Britain was still responsible for law and order. The only (relatively small) causal connection between Germany and the establishment of Israel was the fulfillment of the agreement which the Hitler government made with the Zionist leaders. Were the British people obliged to secure Israel’s existence? The answer is obviously “No,” and there are two reasons for that. First, only individuals are guilty and responsible for wrongs committed. Second, England did not harm Israel, it enabled the Zionists to get what they wanted. The Palestinians were harmed. The members of the English government, the Zionist leaders and their supporters were guilty and responsible for the harm they caused the Palestinians.

Israel’s only possible claim against Germany was for compensation for the costs it might have incurred by integrating Jewish victims. But a very substantial part of these costs were covered by the Palestinians whose lands and homes were given to Jewish settlers. These consequences were pointed out by Arab embassies but Chancellor Adenauer said he had no right to take a stand on the relation between Jews and Arabs. This statement contradicted the almost unanimous opinion among philosophers of ethics — and our common sense — that the probable consequences must be taken into consideration in judging whether an agreement is morally good. Israel claimed compensation for integrating 500,000 Jews and the German government paid it.

Since then the German governments along with other Western governments have aided and abetted the Israeli wars of aggression, expulsion and exploitation. Some of the deliveries of weapons have been kept secret, some were paid entirely or in part by Germany, i.e. by the taxpayers. Thus, Germany paid 80% of the costs of three submarines which could be equipped with nuclear weapons.⁴³ It is noteworthy that the last delivery was made soon after the brutal suppression of the last Palestinian uprising. The fact that there is a causal relation between Germany’s support for Israel and the hard fate of the Palestinians and other Arabs is never mentioned. This reality — and the guilt and moral responsibility of the countries’ leaders — is glossed over with the dogma that the Germans are obliged to secure Israel’s existence.

The dire consequences of what Israel has done in the Middle East with the support of western governments goes against the grain of the majority of the European people. I have already referred to the results of the public opinion poll that was taken during the intifada. During the war in Lebanon, two questions were asked in a poll in Germany. The first: “Israel is attempting to stop attacks by the radical Islamic Hisbullah. Do you regard the Israeli attacks on Lebanon as justified as a defense measure, or does Israel have no right to do that? 22% answered with “Yes,” 63% with “No,” and 15% had no opinion. The second question: “Should Israel forgo attacks on big cities to avoid causing civilian victims, even when Hisbullah also attacks cities in Israel with missiles?” 72% answered with “Yes,” 18% with “No,” and 10% had no opinion.⁴⁴ The majority of the population called a spade a spade and showed its sympathy for the victims.

It is hard to believe that the German leaders themselves are convinced that their nation is morally responsible to secure Israel’s existence. Suppose the Zionists had not conquered a part of Arabia which was unable to defend itself but some part of America and driven out its inhabitants. Would they have supported the Zionists or the Americans? It is also noteworthy that one rarely hears about the murder of non-Jews, Roma, and others in the concentration camps, and the assertion of an obligation to them is hard to find. The most recent example of the indifference to non-Jewish victims is the new memorial at a prominent place in Berlin which is dedicated only to the Jewish victims. Finally, the treaty between Adenauer and Ben Gurion, whereby Germany was to provide Israel with goods and services in the value of 3 billion German marks during the following 12 years, had been made after America, England, and France suggested that Germany give Israel economic support. At that time, Germany was eager to join the western alliance, have its debts limited and obtain support in its dispute with East Germany over Berlin. Adenauer wrote in his memoirs that his success at the London Claims Conference depended upon his satisfying Jewish banking circles in regard to the terms of his treaty with Ben Gurion.

3. The third goal of Zionists in America and Germany is to maintain a privileged position for the remembrance of the Jewish tragedy. There are other ethnic groups who want the past sufferings of their groups to be recognized. A draft resolution in Congress for the erection of a museum in remembrance of what black slaves had to endure from Americans was rejected. Blacks have never received compensation. Just recently, however, the state of Virginia did express its regrets. A draft resolution in Congress in remembrance of the extermination of a large part of the Indian population fell through.

A draft resolution for the recognition of the Armenian tragedy was fought successfully by Israel and Jewish organizations.⁴⁵ They argued that the Jewish tragedy was unique because there was no rational reason for it. This statement is ambiguous. It can mean that there was no just reason for the murder of the Jews, but that holds for the killing of the Armenians, too. It can mean that the act was done for no reason at all which in the case of Hitler is unproved. He might have been moved by the belief that “Jews in international financial circles” plunged America into the war, as he said in 1939. Whether his reason was right or wrong is not the issue here.

The holocaust memorial in Washington was originally intended to be built in remembrance of all the victims of the Third Reich. At that time, President Carter’s party feared that his sympathy for the Palestinians would cause the loss of Jewish campaign funds and some important electoral districts. Elie Wiesel, who spoke for interested Jewish groups, objected to Carter’s plan. He insisted that only Jewish victims should be remembered, because their suffering was unique. If it were dedicated to other groups, too, the Jews would not support it. Carter gave in.⁴⁶ The Council of the holocaust museum in Washington explained its purpose as follows: “The memorial belongs at the center of American life, because America, as a democratic civilization, is the enemy of racism and the most radical form of genocide”. The Nazis have violated the deepest belief of the American people in word and deed. There are some ethnic groups in America who surely are not convinced of this interpretation of American history. The privileged position of Jews in America has led to much tension between them and weaker minorities, especially the blacks.

The huge monument in Berlin which is dedicated only to the Jewish victims of the Third Reich was advocated in public by two Germans who were not Jewish, but Paul Spiegel spoke at the dedication ceremony. The fact that other victims were overlooked was justified by the two advocates with the following assertions:

1. The mass murder of the Jews was unique.
2. “According to some sources,” the number of Roma killed was much smaller than what the Roma have claimed. But the number of Jews who were killed has also been disputed.
3. The Roma were killed in different ways and for different reasons. But Roma were also gassed in the concentration camps, and why should the killing of innocent people for one reason be less deplorable than the killing for some other reason.
4. A fourth goal: It is in the very own interest of thousands of people to spread the Zionist ideology and dogmas. They can be awarded with money, prestige and influence. Among them are the largest Jewish organizations in America, the Council of Jews in Germany, the Jewish Claims Commission against Germany, Councils and employees of holocaust museums, film producers, publishers of Jewish newspapers and journals, journalists, writers, lawyers and others.⁴⁷

Conclusion

The distinguishing feature of Zionist ideology and its dogmas is fear and insecurity. They give distorted pictures of reality. Like some other ideologies its employment has brought the promoters a great deal of success but also tragedy for the Palestinians and other Arabs and suffering for many Jews, too. The dogmas are:

   1. Jews can only be secure when they live in a Jewish state, because anti-Semitism is anchored in the minds/souls of all other nations and will never end.
   2. Dishonesty, fickleness and dangerousness are characteristics of the Arabs.
   3. Israel merely defends itself, it is fighting for its existence. Israel´s security is the crucial issue in the Middle East conflict.
   4. Criticism of Israel is proof of anti-Semitism. For some Zionists this is only true when the criticism is sharp.
   5. Jews are never responsible for anti-Semitism.
   6. The holocaust was purely and simply a consequence of anti-Semitism, totalitarianism could not have been a necessary condition. In this connection, two more dogmas: The holocaust was the worst crime in human history. And all Germans, even the unborn, are morally obliged to do what is necessary to secure Israel’s existence.

All of this speaks for the abolition of the lurid and narrow–minded Zionist ideology and its dogmas. It would be good for all concerned if it were replaced with a guideline which is closer to reality and open to the spirit of respect and reconciliation. My wife recommends the words of Zarastro in The Magic Flute: “Life begins where fear ceases.” This can also be said about pretenses of fear and insecurity. Such a change will not be easy, but “The world is not a stinking pond. It is a river. What isn’t now, may well still be.” (Ole Bienkopp, Erwin Strittmatter).

1. Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat (1895), quoted in Julius Schoeps, Zionism (Wiesbaden 1983, p. 87. Schoeps gives a portrayal of the Zionist movement and its historical background. For a very different version see Allan Taylor, The Zionist Mind (Beirut 1974).
2. Klaus von Dohnanyi, Zivilcourage contra Political Correctness (Munich 2003) pp. 12, 32/33.
3. Hannah Arendt, Report on the Banality of Evil, quoted in Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston, New York 1999) p. 134.
4. Avi Slaim, The Iron Wall (London 2000) pp. 208-216.
5. See eg., Kenneth Lewan, Der Nahostkrieg in der westdeutschen Presse (Cologne 1970).
6. Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle (London 1999) p. 227.
7. Simha Flapan, Zionism and the Palestinians (New York 1979) p. 82.
8. Lewan, Ist Israel Südafrika? (Tossens 1993) p.71.
9. New York Review of Books (2005).
10. Lewan, Die Zweite Intifada – Zwiespalt in der Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt November 2002) pp. 23-43.
11. Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 26, 2006.
12. The Oslo negotiations dealt with increases in the autonomy of cities in the occupied territories but not with the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the territories. This matter is explained in detail in Ludwig Watzal, Feinde des Friedens (Berlin 2001), p. 75 ff. Robert Malley, a close advisor of President Clinton at Camp David, remarked later that Barak had carefully avoided making any offer. New York Review of Books, 2006. There was no written record of the proceedings. A former member of the German Foreign Office, Joachim Koch, has informed me that during the 25 years in which he engaged in international negotiations serious offers were always made in writing.
13. For detailed accounts of Hamas’ development see Helga Baumgarten, “Hamas,” Materialien der Gesellschaft für österreichisch – arabische Beziehungen, January 2007, pp. 5-15 and Khalid Hroub, “A ‘New Hamas’ Through its Documents,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Summer 2006, pp. 6-27.
14. Henry Siegman, “The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam,” London Review of Books, August 16, 2007.
15. Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah (Berkeley 2005) pp. 39, 33 and 81.
16. “Israel ist unser Rückgrat,” Interview with Michel Friedman on SAT 1, quoted in Tacheles, January 4, 2005.
17. Tribüne, March 5, 2005.
18. Lewan, Die zweite Intifada, pp. 126-134.
19. Ibid., p. 130.
20. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, p. 33.
21. Finkelstein, Ibid., p. 78-81.
22. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, pp. 208-210.
23. Novick, Ibid., pp. 207, 208; Juncker, “Die Amerikanisierung des Holocausts,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 9, 2000.
24. Novick, Ibid., pp. 85-102, 127-125.
25. Manfred Kittel, Die Legende von der Zweiten Schuld (Berlin 1999) passim.
26. Press Release of the German Ministry of Justice, May 23, 2005.
27. Newsletter of the Israeli embassy in Berlin, in www.Jüdische, August 31, 2005.
28. Guenter Lewy, Rückkehr nicht erwünscht (Berlin 2001) pp. 372-378).
29. Frank Kroll, Utopie als Ideologie (Paderborn 1988) pp. 44-46.
30. Ludwig Pinner, “Die Bedeutung der Einwanderung aus Deutschland” in: Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaeli and Ludwig Pinner, Havara-Transfer nach Palästina (Tübingen 1972) pp. 89-106.
31. Immanuel Geis, Geschichte griffbereit (Gütersloh 2002) vol. 4, p. 1009.
32. Stéphane Courtois and others, Communist Crimes, Terror and Repression (Paris 1997) p. 16. The publication of this book in Germany led to several reviews in newspapers, whereby stands were taken on the question whether the crimes in the Soviet Union were comparable to the holocaust. These reviews along with articles by French authors were published in Der Rote Holocaust, edited by Horst Möller, the director of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich. But this matter has not been debated by the parties in the parliament. In the mean time the last two chancellors have said what is politically wise in Germany namely that the holocaust was unique.
33. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, pp. 170-188.
34. Wolf Calebow, Auf dem Wege zur Normalisierung (Berlin 1999).
35. The director of the institute has asserted that the distinguishing feature of anti-Semitism is different from the definition of other prejudices against ethnic groups. He did not explain why that is the case or wherein the distinction lies. See Newsletter, Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, March 2005. During the intifada a study of this institute about anti-Semitism in Europe was commissioned by the European Monitoring Commission on Racism and Xenophobia. It was rejected, however, on the ground that it was “biased” and “lacking in empirical evidence”. For further details see Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, pp. 35-38.
36. Finkelstein, Ibid., p. 46.
37. Lewan, Die zweite Intifada, p. 132.
38. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 10, 2007.
39. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, p.156ff.
40. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby (New York 2007). Short versions of the book have appeared in London Review of Books, March 10, 2006, and Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 2006. The JPS added several reviews.
41. The remarks of Barak, Friedman and Fischer are quoted in Lewan, Die zweite Intifada, pp. 112-120.
42. Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 7, 2006.
43. Christopher Steinmetz, German-Israeli Armaments–Cooperation, Berlin Information Center for Security, November/December 2002.
44. TNS Infratest for the magazine Spiegel, July 18-20, 2006.
45. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, pp. 178, 179.
46. Novick, Ibid., 16-22.
47. Finkelstein gives numerous examples of the use of the holocaust-remembrance for profit in The Holocaust Industry (London, New York 2000).

“If it’s Sarkozy on May 6th, it will be war,”¹ a youth from the suburbs is quoted as saying in reaction to Sarkozy’s strong showing in the first round of the presidential election, and many commentators are expecting a violent explosion throughout the country if he does indeed win the second round two weeks from now. But surprisingly, the reaction of the left abroad (especially in the United States) to the Sarkozy phenomenon has been mostly negative but rather blasé, certainly nothing like the international horror produced by the popularity of LePen in 2002.²

For example, in CounterPunch, Diana Johnstone and Jean Bricmont have written: the Sarkozy conversion, if it happens, will be only a surface event on a highly unstable and volatile social reality. The rebellious nature of the population makes it unlikely that any president will be able to impose his will, short of establishing a real dictatorship.³

So why is a large portion of the population here so worried? I think something can be learned from observing the images that have spontaneously arisen from the French consciousness, even the most hateful and spiteful among them. The violence of the characterizations of Sarkozy and their grave implications are by no means the result of a mass hysteria, or exaggerations made lightly by young and mischievous vandals, but rather arise from the bitterness created by Sarkozy’s actions in the past, and from a defiance in the face of the real dangers posed by his candidacy. I try to illustrate below how a reasonable evaluation of Sarkozy’s record leads to some very troublesome conclusions, which in no way contradict the various images of vilification that have accrued, in the hope that an international cry of outrage against a demagogue who opposes democratic principles might be raised, as it was in 2002. After all, if the result for LePen was much lower this time (11%, as opposed to 16.86% in 2002), it is because Sarkozy stole his rhetoric, and with it his votes; and if Sarkozy is elected, it will be thanks to the fact that 75% of LePen voters are expected to vote for him in the second round (so much for “the party of the working class”)⁴.

LePen posed a serious threat in 2002: the banalization of xenophobic, nationalistic, extreme-right rhetoric. Sarkozy poses a far greater danger today: the legitimization of this same rhetoric, and its execution in law. If the cry of shock from the French suburbs at Sarkozy’s 30+% receives no echo in the world, Sarkozy has already succeeded in the first goal.

Image 1: Authoritarian, “facho,” violent, capable of anything, out-of-control; a divider

The graphics: Two graffiti images of Sarkozy posters: the Hitler moustache (a long-time favorite for LePen) and dripping blood (i.e. red paint)

The anecdote: Sarkozy screams at a fellow minister, “I’m going to break your face, asshole!”⁵ (The fact that it was the former Minister of “l’Égalité des chances” [Equal opportunities], Azouz Begag, who had criticized Sarkozy’s immigration proposals and his infamous statements about the “scum” of the suburbs, is not insignificant.)

The reality: The American left finds the label “fascist” unsophisticated, and seems to want to keep it in reserve for some unspoken evil yet to come. But if one wants to know why Sarkozy is so often called a fascist, rather than attacking those who use the term, one might begin by looking at what criteria might be in play. To begin with, if a fascist needs to have an ideology of an elite or superior race or class, Sarkozy has made no secret of his: genetic predestination of character traits, such as pedophilia and propensity for suicide.⁶ If some people are born with such genetic “weaknesses,” it doesn’t take a huge logical leap to assume that others are innately superior. In practical terms, this has led to proposals by Sarkozy — as Minister of the Interior — to detect supposed criminal tendencies in the form of “behavioral problems” in young children, starting with nursery school (the maternelle, where children start at about 3 years old).⁷

Sarkozy’s campaign promise to create a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity doesn’t seem inconsistent with a fascist ideology either. As far as propaganda and demagoguery, there are ample examples to his credit (discussed further in the section below). Furthermore, a fascist would also necessarily show disrespect for the rule of law, an authoritarian approach to power as opposed to a democratic, participative model. There is evidence that Sarkozy’s authoritarianism is not limited to a personal lifestyle, and that he is not squeamish about breaking state and international law. He began his law-breaking as mayor of Neuilly, by refusing to conform to state regulations for low-income housing, earning the rich suburbs a mandatory fine. (LCR [Ligue communiste révolutionnaire] candidate Olivier Besancenot has made the reasonable suggestion that politicians who break these regulations should be banned from running for office in the future, starting with M. Sarkozy.)

But his greater crimes have gone unpunished: as Minister of the Interior, he showed complete disregard for international law against the arbitrary treatment of immigrants by engaging in expulsion quotas and charter flights. On a national level, Sarkozy’s tenuous relation with the rule of law has put him into conflict on numerous occasions with legal associations and judges. In terms of the European Union and participatory democracy, Sarkozy would be likely to push through the passage of a constitution similar to that rejected by referendum in several member countries, including France.⁸

Image 2: The opportunist, propagandist, manipulator; more clever than intelligent

The graphics: More graffiti: devil’s horns and tail, the word “liar”; cartoon images as a moustache-twirling villain

The anecdotes: Sarkozy is reputed to have made his political career through calculation and sheer unbridled ambition, despite lacking the prestigious political education shared by most of his colleagues (he failed the Sciences Po — Institute for Political Studies — entry exam due to his sub-standard performance in English). He made nice to Chirac in order to insure his rise to power, and even dated his daughter, then betrayed him by supporting another candidate against him and eventually rallied support to take over the UMP party from the Gaullists (Chirac, of course, among them). When Paris Match published a photo of Sarkozy’s (then-estranged) wife Cécilia with her lover of the moment, Sarkozy allegedly called the owner — his friend Arnaud Lagardère — and had the editor fired.

The reality: For Sarkozy, the dissemination of information consists largely of manipulation, disinformation, and intimidation. The numerous allegations that he has prevented this or that book or article from being published may be difficult to prove (the latest controversy is over Serge Portelli’s recent book on Sarkozy, Ruptures, made available on the internet when a pre-election publication was refused), but his bullying of the press is public and in the open: according to Sarkozy, the very mainstream newspaper Libération contributes to criminality by criticizing him. This charge was made after the events in the in the Gare du Nord last month, when protests against the police and Sarkozy (crowds shouted “CRS [French riot police], SS” and other anti-Sarkozy chants) were followed by incidents of looting and destruction of property. Sarkozy prefers his own approach to informing the public about the facts of the case: he joined the new Minister of the Interior, François Baroin, in spreading misleading, grossly exaggerated, and simply false information about the criminal record and immigration status of the passenger whose brutal arrest sparked the protests.

Sarkozy’s information manipulation is intimately linked to policy and, as shown by the Gare du Nord case, the desire to crush all possible dissent in regard to it. Leftists who think that it would be relatively easy to resist oppressive measures under a Sarkozy presidency should look at the example of how Sarkozy managed to undermine the solidarity movement of parents, teachers, and school administrators against the deportation of immigrant children enrolled in French schools. As this popular resistance movement gained public support, both out of sympathy for plight of the children, admiration for those who fought to defend them, and notes of resemblance to the resistance under Nazi occupation, Sarkozy cynically proposed a regularization of status for the families of these children, supposedly according to objective criteria.

Sarkozy carefully orchestrated the regularization process to run smoothly at first in critical areas of resistance, such as Paris, while families in less strategically important regions often faced a bureaucratic nightmare when applying. Once the publicity stunt worked, and the solidarity movement’s cause seemed to have been appropriated by Sarkozy himself, an arbitrary cut-off quota for regularizations was fixed behind the scenes, applications meeting the criteria began to be massively rejected, and the hunt for immigrant children resumed. The resistance has continued, as it must, but it is important to note that Sarkozy would not be likely to follow the same route of arrogant, intransigent inactivity that led Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to his humiliating defeat at the hands of the labor-law protesters.

Image 3: The little dictator, security freak surrounded by cops, future head of a police state

The graphic: A favorite photo of the anti-Sarko movement: a seemingly endless line of riot police in front of the UMP headquarters, just under the Sarkozy campaign slogan, “Imaginons la France d’après” [Let's imagine the France of the future]

The anecdotes: Sarkozy’s campaign has been dogged by tales about hordes of police who accompany him, sometimes nearly outnumbering the people in the audiences he addresses.

The reality: Proving that the respect of the police for the public deteriorated during Sarkozy’s term as Minister of the Interior is like proving that water is wet while you are drowning: the evidence is all around you. You can watch a plethora of cell-phone videos showing a wide range of maltreatment at the hands of the police, mostly of young men in poor urban suburbs. The abuses range from the disrespectful use of the “tu” form of address to death threats (specifically, offers to share the fate of the two young men electrocuted when they hid from police in a transporter), while the latest example of physical abuse — filmed near Rouen in April — shows two young men in handcuffs being beaten and strangled.

When one considers that this is only the tip of the iceberg, that most of the humiliation and abuse meted out by the police goes undocumented, one can easily understand how this society has become so polarized, to the point that some ordinary, law abiding citizens (particularly those living in areas where ID checks by the police constantly create tensions) hesitate to call the police because they are afraid of an overreaction, or have simply lost confidence in the enforcement of the law.

It is important to stress this latter point: law enforcement became more brutal but less efficient under Sarkozy, and violent crime in certain categories has significantly increased.⁹ The Gare du Nord example is a stunning case in point: the police reaction to the original spontaneous, non-violent protests was enormous in terms of numbers, but at no point did the police try to close down the public entrance to the station, nor did they issue any warning to the passengers entering the station that something was going on, even once the violence began later in the day. Evidently mixing it up with the protesters is more important (or maybe more fun) than assuring the safety of passengers in a busy station with international train service. This is why largely disproportional numbers of riot police have been employed against such major threats to public safety as students sitting-in at the Sorbonne during the labor-law protests.

Image 4: The extreme-right revisionist, nationalist, xenophobe — in a word: LePen II

The graphics: Posters from the anti-Sarko campaign: the classic “Votez LePen” (with a picture of Sarkozy) of Act Up-Paris and the 9ème collectif des Sans-Papiers¹⁰; a variation on the same theme, Sarkozy’s picture with the text “Votez Berlusconi”¹¹; and recently seen in the subway, pictures of Sarkozy and LePen with the Sarkozy campaign slogan, “Ensemble tout devient possible!” (Together, everything becomes possible!)

The anecdote: I start a conversation with a middle-aged man of North-African descent in a park in Strasbourg. He asks me if I would help him to write a letter to his wife at home: “Of course we speak in Arabic, but I can only write in French, and not very well.” A letter full of hope and promises that she and the children will soon join him in France. But in reality, he is depressed, nearly desperate. “I spend all day in their offices, for nothing.”

The reality: Sarkozy is a historical revisionist, denying any crimes against humanity committed against indigenous peoples in the course of French colonialism. While campaigning in the South, trying to gain votes from LePen supporters, he stated that only harkis and their dependents and the French who were forced to repatriate are owed apologies for France’s colonial past. “By what right does one ask the sons to repent for faults that often weren’t committed by their fathers other than in the imagination of those who profess repentance”, Sarkozy blasted (not LePen, in case you lost track for a moment).¹² Too bad that doesn’t fall under France’s laws against revisionist denial of crimes against humanity.

Sarkozy didn’t just begin to espouse racist ideology for his campaign in the last few weeks or months. One year ago, in April 2006, Sarkozy claimed that one of the origins of the Fall 2005 riots was the regroupement familial (laws allowing immigrant workers to be joined by their spouse and children), especially when there are “five, six, seven” children. It is apparently also the cause of the housing crisis, “squats, ghettos”, etc; he thus implies that the tragic deaths which occurred in 2005-6 in state-owned housing units were in fact the fault of the victims, because they shouldn’t have been there (i.e., in France) in the first place.

Considering all of the problems that they cause, he feels that immigrants should at least take on certain “responsibilities”, such as learning French. Here he adds a special list of what Muslims (although they are not named, it is perfectly clear) must “accept”: cartoons will criticize their religion, women must appear without a veil in identity cards, and women should not have the choice to consult a female physician, because “It is not up to France to adapt to other cultures and other laws.” What else is the fault of immigrants? Racism itself: in a stunning inversion of logic, he blames the imagined leniency of French immigration law (and by implication, supposedly unchecked immigration) for the rise of the extreme right (and thus for the success of his campaign… should he maybe be thanking immigrants?) and racial hate crimes.¹³

The connection between Sarkozy’s denial of the crimes of colonialism and his attacks on immigration crystallizes in his repeated targeting of the regroupement familial. These laws were a response to an example of domestic colonialism: the massive immigration of North African men to provide cheap labor during the waning post-WWII era of French colonialism. When young people in urban suburbs refer to systematic police harassment combined with a denial of access to opportunities in education and employment as colonialism at home, this is a reasonable assessment with a historical basis. Now Sarkozy — already responsible for toughening immigration law two times in the space of three years — wants to make proficiency in written French (with a test a little bit easier at least than the one in English he failed) a requirement for those — including children — who want to join family members living and working in France. This latest monstrosity evokes the shameful memory of indigenous peoples who were forced to learn to read and write French at the risk of remaining illiterate in their own languages — part of the colonial history that Sarkozy denies.

Which is why I was surprised to see Johnstone and Bricmont calling for the left to “overcom[e]… its own tendency to ‘hate France’ for its bad moments in history: colonialism and Pétain in particular.” There are times in history when it is not appropriate to say, “I love America”, or “I love Germany”; since Sarkozy has joined LePen in saying that immigrants must “love or leave” France, it is no longer an ethical act to say “I love France” because the implication is that there may be an implicit “And you, immigrant, or son of immigrants, do you love the country that occupied your homeland, that tortured your countrymen? Yes or no?” tacked at the end, with grave consequences. As for the ideals that “set France apart”, I’ll believe that France is as secular as, for instance, Spain once it recognizes gay marriage and not just a watered-down civil union [PACS], and as committed to equality as the rest of Western Europe when it has as many female members of parliament as any of its neighboring countries. Of course the left should value secularism (when it respects the religious practice of minority populations, which is not the case currently in France) and equality, but not as particularly French ideals, as French identification with these principles has serves both apologists of French colonialism (”We brought them Enlightenment ideals”, etc.) and current anti-Muslim sentiment. An example of the latter can be found in Sarkozy’s program, which has this sentence in bold under the title dealing with immigration, “I want to be President of a France proud of its values and of its identity”: “I will be intransigent concerning the respect of our fundamental principles, in particular equality between men and women, secularism, and free choice [of religion].”¹⁴

This might sound perfectly reasonable — although one wonders what all this has to do with immigration — were it not an only slightly veiled reference to the extreme-right theory of the “Islamification” of France, in which French people of all religions are well on the way to being forced to adhere to a conservative interpretation of Islam. This sounds like a paranoid fantasy, and it certainly is one, but it was also the backbone of the campaign waged by the Mouvement Pour la France candidate Philippe de Villiers, who placed sixth in the first round, thus ahead of both the Communist Party and the Greens.

Leftists abroad who do not recognize the dangers posed by Sarkozy’s candidacy, the extreme fringe elements that he represents, the violence of his discourse, and the real damage that he has already achieved in France, are guilty of looking away while racist, anti-democratic ideology becomes legitimized and carried out on a national and European level. The international left could, on the other hand, play a very useful role: remind French voters, especially Bayrou supporters who may be seduced by Sarkozy’s liberalism, that a Sarkozy victory on May 6 will be a giant step to realizing at least one of LePen’s dreams: the total isolation of France from the world. All the better for Sarkozy, who will have his hands full with dismantling the social system and waging permanent war against the urban suburbs.

* See also a petition receiving strong international support asking French voters to reject Sarkozy in the May 6th Presidential Election

1. Libération, April 22, 2007
2. I would site a “pro-reform” apology for Sarkozy from the April 23 edition of the New Yorker, “Round One” by Jane Kramer, but it’s hard to say that a piece which seems to have been ghost-written by Paul Wolfowitz is coming from the left.
3. “A Coming Political Tsunami: The Elections in France,” Counterpunch, April 17, 2007
4. Ibid.
5. “Je vais te casser la gueule, connard!” Azouz Begag recounts Sarkozy’s abuse in his recent book “Un mouton dans la bagnoire” (”A sheep in the bathtub”, a reference to Sarkozy’s televised comments suggesting that Muslims slaughter sheep in their bathrooms) published by Fayard.
6. Views expressed in an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray for Philosophie Magazine
7. Sarkozy quoted in the Parisien, November 11, 2005: “Il faut agir plus tôt, détecter chez les plus jeunes les problèmes de violence. Dès la maternelle, dès le primaire, il faut mettre des équipes pour prendre en charge ces problèmes. Dès la maternelle ? Oui.” (”One has to take action earlier, to detect problems of violence among the very youngest [members of society]. From nursery school on, teams must be put in place to take care of these problems. From nursery school on? Yes”)
8. See the Reuters article of April 19, 2007 by Paul Taylor, European Affairs Editor, “EU hopes for Sarkozy but fears his nationalism”
9. Increases in violent crime have been largely reported in the French press; a thorough investigation of these statistics, as well as an account of attacks on civil liberties and the degradation of relations between the public and the police during Sarkozy’s term as Minister of the Interior, is given in the aforementioned Ruptures by Serge Portelli, expert on the French justice system.
10. The latter is an immigrant advocacy group. You can see the poster here
11. You can see it here, as one of the top-five posters of an anti-Sarko contest
12. “…de quel droit demandez-vous aux fils de se repentir des fautes que souvent leurs pères n’ont commises que dans l’imagination des professeurs de la repentance!“, cited in “Sarkozy flirts with those nostalgic for ‘French Algeria,’” l’Humanite, February 2007
13. In an interview on the station TF1 on April 27th, 2006
14. “Je serai intransigeant avec le respect de nos principes fondamentaux en particulier l’égalité entre la femme et l’homme, la laïcité, la liberté de conscience.” from the official program mailed to all French voters.