Posts Tagged ‘NATO’
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, BARACK OBAMA, BERNIE SANDERS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOSEPH STALIN, KGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, NATO, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI-SOVIET "NON-AGGRESSION PACT", NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, POLAND, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WEHRMACHT, WIKILEAKS
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2017 at 10:29 am
The love-fest between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump certainly got off to a great start.
No doubt well-informed on Trump’s notorious egomania, Putin called a press conference to announce: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Vladimir Putin
That was on December 17, 2015.
Trump didn’t lose any time responding. On the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he said: “Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant,’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia.
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country”–yet another insult at President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump
Both Putin and Trump are well-known for their authoritarian characteristics. But more than one dictator’s admiration for another might explain their continuing “bromance.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more.
He has also said that, if Russia attacked NATO members, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after determining whether those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.”
If he believed that they had not done so, he would tell them: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”
For Putin, this clearly signaled a reason to prefer Trump over his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. Trump’s statement marked the first time that a major Presidential candidate placed conditions on the United States’ coming to the defense of its major allies.
The withdrawal of the United States from NATO would instantly render that alliance kaput. Its European members that have long hurled insults at the United States would suddenly face extinction.
Even if their armed forces proved a match for Russia’s–which they wouldn’t–their governments would cower before the threat of Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal.
Trump’s motives for his “bromance” with Putin are more difficult to decipher.
Some believe that Trump–a notorious egomaniac–is simply responding to an overdoses of Putin flattery.
Others think that, while visiting Moscow, Trump made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
There are unconfirmed Intelligence reports that he paid–and watched–several Russian prostitutes urinate on a bed once slept on by President Obama and his wife at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The alleged incident was reportedly captured by hidden microphones and cameras operated by the FSB, the successor to the KGB.
A recent “Saturday Night Live” sketch featured a Putin lookalike intimidating Alec Baldwin’s Trump at a press conference–by holding up a video tape marked “Pee-Pee Tape.”
Still others believe that Trump–who has refused to release his tax returns–is deeply in dept to Russian oligarchs.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the DNC. And they clearly revealed a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her competitor, Bernie Sanders.
The leak badly embarrassed Clinton. About to receive the Democratic Presidential nomination, she found herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Cyber-security experts believed the hacking originated from Russia–and that Putin had authorized it.
Even so, Putin is not the first Communist dictator to find common cause with an avowed Right-winger.
On August 23, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin signed a “non-aggression pact” with Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
Joseph Stalin
The reason: Hitler intended to invade Poland–but feared going to war with the neighboring Soviet Union if he did so. By signing a non-aggression pact with Stalin, he avoided this danger–and gained “rights” to the western half of Poland.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
In addition, Nazi Germany began receiving huge shipments of raw materials from the Soviet Union–as part of Stalin’s effort to placate Hitler and avoid a Nazi-Soviet clash.
And Stalin got something, too: The eastern half of Poland, which would be occupied by the Red Army.
But the Hitler-Stalin alliance lasted less than two years. It ended without warning–on June 22, 1941.
With 134 divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more for deployment behind the front–a total of three million men–the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Hitler had long intended to obtain “living space” for Germany–in Russia. By 1941, having conquered most of Europe, he felt strong enough to embark on his great crusade.
There are three ways Putin may come to regret his “bromance” with Trump.
First: Trump may be not be able to lift the sanctions imposed on Russia by President Obama for interfering in the 2016 election.
Second: Increasing political pressure on Trump by Democrats and even Republicans for that interference may result in even tougher action against Russia.
And third: Trump is known for his egomania, not his loyalty. He may take offense at some future perceived Putin slight. In such case, he may well decide he doesn’t owe anything to the man he once called “a leader.”
ABC NEWS, AMERICAN NAZI PARTY, ANTI-SEMITISIM, BARACK OBAMA, BLACKS, BREITBART NEWS, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DONALD TRUMP, EGOMANIA, ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN, EXTORTION, EXXONMOBIL, FACE THE NATION, FACEBOOK, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, GOLDEN SHOWERS REPORT, HILLARY CLINTON, HOWARD BAKER, IVANKA TRUMP, JAMES R. CLAPPER, KU KLUX KLAN, MEIN KAMPF, MEXICANS, MORNING JOE, MOSCOW RITZ-CARLTON, MUSLIMS, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NATO, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, P.O.W.’S, PAM BONDI, PAUL MANAFORT, POLITICO, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REX TILLERSON, RICHARD NIXON, ROGER AILES, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SOVIET UNION, STEVEN BANNON, TAX RETURNS, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THREATS, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WATERGATE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 18, 2017 at 3:31 pm
Long before Donald Trump was accused of being sexually compromised by the Russians, Americans knew enough about him to decide: “You are unfit for the Oval Office.”
Almost immediately after entering the Presidential race on June 16, 2015, he began attacking one group of Americans after another:
- Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He’s also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
- Blacks: Trump retweeted an image of a masked, dark-skinned man with a handgun and a series of alleged crime statistics, including: “Blacks killed by whites – 2%”; “Whites killed by blacks – 81%.” The image cites the “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco”–an agency that doesn’t exist.
- Muslims: Trump has boasted he would ban them from entering the United States–and revive waterboarding of terrorist suspects. He would require Muslims to register with the Federal Government. And he would close “some mosques” if he felt they were being used by Islamic terrorists.
- POWs: Speaking of Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Donald Trump
The number of people, places and things Trump has insulted is so extensive The New York Times compiled a list of 273 of them.
- One of those persons was Tarla Makaeff, who spent more than $60,000 on Trump University classes. In 2010, she filed a fraud lawsuit against (now-defunct) Trump University.
- Trump retaliated by filing a defamation suit against her. The case was dismissed by a judge.
- But Trump continued to attack her during his Presidential candidacy. During a campaign rally he assailed her as a “horrible, horrible witness,” and then posted on Twitter that she was “Disgraceful!”
- Makaeff ultimately persuaded the judge presiding over the Trump University case to let her remove her name as a plaintiff.
As an authoritarian who demands the right to craft his own image. Trump furiously denies others the right to dissent from it:
- Counter-suits, threats and personal insults against outsiders; and
- Stringent confidentiality agreements against employees, business partners, his former spouses and now his campaign staffers.
- In February, 2016, Trump said that he was “gonna open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”
Two of Trump’s most vicious threats were aimed at Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
- The first occurred on October 9, during their second Presidential debate: “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation–there has never been so many lies and so much deception.”
- The second occurred on October 10, three days after The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women (“I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”).
- Rather than accept responsibility for his actions, Trump blamed the Clintons–who had nothing to do with the release.Speaking before a rally in Pennsylvania on October 10, Trump threatened: “If they wanna release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks.”
Hillary Clinton
Trump’s rampant egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them–52%–bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”
Among the references he’s made to himself:
- “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
- “My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest–and you all know it.”
Trump publicly admitted that his egomania would play a major role in his approach to consulting advisers:
- Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, he replied: “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
Trump has never been charged with incest, but he’s repeatedly made disturbing, sexually inappropriate comments about his daughter, Ivanka:
- When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, posed for Playboy, Trump replied: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
On October 7, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women (“You can grab them by the pussy”).
- Within a week, no fewer than 12 had come forward to accuse him of sexually inappropriate behavior.
- Although he threatened to sue the New York Times if it reported the women’s claims, he has so far refused to do so.
* * * * *
Those Americans who voted for Donald Trump knew the character of the man they were supporting.
They enthusiastically followed him because he gave voice to their hatreds and prejudices. And because they believed he would humiliate and destroy those they wanted to see humiliated and destroyed.
The next four years will unveil how many of their wishes are fulfilled.
ABC NEWS, AMERICAN NAZI PARTY, ANTI-SEMITISIM, BARACK OBAMA, BLACKS, BREITBART NEWS, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DONALD TRUMP, EGOMANIA, ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN, EXTORTION, EXXONMOBIL, FACE THE NATION, FACEBOOK, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, GOLDEN SHOWERS REPORT, HILLARY CLINTON, HOWARD BAKER, IVANKA TRUMP, JAMES R. CLAPPER, KU KLUX KLAN, MEIN KAMPF, MEXICANS, MORNING JOE, MOSCOW RITZ-CARLTON, MUSLIMS, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NATO, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, P.O.W.’S, PAM BONDI, PAUL MANAFORT, POLITICO, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REX TILLERSON, RICHARD NIXON, ROGER AILES, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SOVIET UNION, STEVEN BANNON, TAX RETURNS, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THREATS, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WATERGATE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 17, 2017 at 12:01 am
“What did the President know and when did he know it?”
It was the famous question asked by Tennessee U.S. Senator Howard Baker during the 1973 Watergate hearings.
Howard Baker
The question cut to the core of President Richard Nixon’s litany of crimes. And the fact that it was posed by a Republican gave it added power.
More than a year later, Americans learned its answers:
- Nixon had learned that his own White House “Plumbers” had carried out the Watergate Hotel burglary; and
- Only days afterward, he ordered a cover-up.
With those revelations, his Presidency was finished.
America now stands only days away from swearing in Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States.
And, once again, Howard Baker’s slightly altered question resonates with force: “What did the American people know, and when did they know it?”
And the subject of that question is not Richard Nixon but President-elect Donald Trump.
Since January 10, Americans have been obsessed with the unproven allegation that, during a visit to Russia several years ago, Trump paid prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept in by the Obamas at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton.
The charge was published by Buzzfeed, and given weight by reports that both Trump and President Barack Obama had been briefed by Intelligence officials about the alleged incident.
Perhaps even worse for Trump, it’s made him the butt of countless “golden shower” jokes. Saturday Night Live featured a skit with Vladimir Putin appearing at a press conference to blackmail Trump (Alec Baldwin) with a video tape labeled: “PEE PEE TAPE.”
Trump has denied the charge as “fake news.”
But long before this disturbing claim, Americans had more than enough knowledge about Donald Trump to judge him unfit for the Oval Office.
- He unknowingly admitted to being a sexual predator of women: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful–I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Donald Trump
- He refused to release his tax returns–unlike every other Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
- He said he was prepared to withdraw from NATO, the American-European alliance that held the Soviet Union at bay for a half-century.
- He often and publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, the absolute dictator of a foreign power hostile to the United States.
- He publicly invited “Russia”–i.e., Putin–to interfere directly in an American Presidential election: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Vladimir Putin
- He surrounded himself with men who have close ties to Putin. One of these is Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager. His longstanding ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine lead directly to Putin.
- Another–his pick for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson–is the CEO of ExxonMobil, which has worked on major oil projects with Russia. In 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship, one of the highest honors the nation bestows on foreign citizens.
- Yet another Trump advisor, Roger Ailes, is a known sexual predator. Hired to prepare Trump for the fall debates with Clinton, he was fired in July as CEO of Fox News on multiple charges of sexual harassment.
- During the 2016 campaign, Trump received the enthusiastic support of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
Ku Klux Klan enblem
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a check $25,000 for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- On November 18, Trump–rather than face trial–settled the case out of court for $25 million. “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.
- Throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly used threats of violence to intimidate his Republican and Democratic opponents. On March 16, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.
- On August 9, Trump issued a veiled solicitation for the assassination of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- After slandering President Barack Obama for five years as “the President from Kenya,” he blatantly lied: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ALEKSANDR LITVINENKO, ASSASSINATION, BARACK OBAMA, BENNET IFEAKANDU OMALU, BERNIE SANDERS, BORIS NEMTSOV, BRAIN CANCER, CBS NEWS, CHRONIC TRAUMATIC ENCEPHALOPATHY (CTE), CNN, CONCUSSON, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FOOTBALL, FOX & FRIENDS, FOX AND FRIENDS, FOX NEWS, HANNITY, HILLARY CLINTON, ILLNESS, INFOWARS, KGB, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, NATIONAL ENQUIRER, NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NATO, NBC NEWS, NFL, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), PARKINSON’S DISEASE, PAUL MANAFORT, PENTAGON, POISONING, POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME, REPUBLICAN PARTY, Ronald Reagan, RUSSIA, SEAN HANNITY, STROKE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE SOVIET UNION, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIM KAINE, TWITTER, UKRAINE, VICTOR YUSHCHENKO, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics on September 15, 2016 at 12:10 am
Right-wing websites and networks are gleefully buzzing with theories about the state of Hillary Clinton’s health.
The former First Lady, New York U.S. Senator and Secretary of State collapsed after briefly attending a memorial ceremony on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The unsubstantiated theories include stroke, brain damage, Multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
But there’s one theory Right-wingers scrupulously refuse to offer: That Clinton might be a victim of poisoning by Donald Trump’s well-known admirer, Vladimir Putin.
It’s a theory that has been offered by no less than Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu, the Nigerian-American physician, forensic pathologist and neuropathologist who was the first to discover and publish findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players.
Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu
His struggle to alert the National Football League to that danger met with hostility and derision. Finally, amid growing scrutiny from Congress, the NFL was forced to take the concussion issue more seriously.
NFL owners banned players from striking opponents with the crowns of their helmets. Meanwhile, the NFL is facing concussion lawsuits from nearly 4,000 former players.
On September 11, a Clinton rep stated that she was suffering from pneumonia–and Omalu warned on Twitter: “I must advice the Clinton campaign to perform toxicologic analysis of Mrs. Clinton’s blood. It is possible she is being poisoned.”
And he followed this up with a second tweet: “I do not trust Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump. With those two all things are possible.”
At this point, there is no evidence that Hillary Clinton is the victim of KGB “wet” methods. And it would take lengthy, sophisticated toxicology tests to hopefully learn the truth.
But there is plenty of evidence that Vladimir Putin has used murder–especially poison–to eliminate his opponents.
Vladimir Putin
Putin came to power in 2000. Since then, at least 34 journalists have been murdered in Russia, according to the Moscow-based Glasnost Defense Foundation. Many of the suspected killers are military officials, government officials or political groups.
Being a political opponent of Vladimir Putin can also be dangerous. Among the casualties:
Viktor Yushchenko: In 2004, he was running for president of the Ukraine against Putin’s chosen candidate, Victor Yanukovych.
As the campaign neared its climax, Yushchenko suddenly fell ill–with dioxin poisoning. Flown to Vienna’s Rudolfinerhaus clinic for treatment, he survived, but his face was left greatly disfigured. He went on to win the election, serving as Ukraine’s president from 2005 to 2010.
Aleksandr Litvinenko: A former KGB officer, he had accused Putin of wholesale corruption. Even worse, he charged that–as a pretext for a second war with Chechnya–Putin ordered the bombings of Moscow apartment buildings, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people.
Aleksandr Litvinenko
Litvinenko died on November 23, 2006 in London from a dose of Polonium-210 in his tea. At the time, he was meeting with two Moscow agents, one of whom is now a member of the State Duma.
Boris Nemtsov: An official with a liberal opposition group, he had been arrested several times for speaking against Putin’s government.
Nemtsov had been scheduled to lead an opposition rally in Moscow. But on February 27, 2015, two days before the event, he was shot dead as he walked home from dinner. The killing happened a short distance from the Kremlin.
If Hillary Clinton proved to have a serious medical condition such as Parkinson’s or Multiple sclerosis, the results would be tragic but strictly national.
Mounting pressure within and outside the Democratic party would force her to drop out of the race.
There would be a brief, furious struggle within the Democratic party for the nomination–most likely between Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Tim Kaine, Clinton’s choice for Vice President. The winner would face Donald Trump in the coming debates and fall election.
And the Clintons–a force in American politics since 1992–would finally leave the national stage.
But if Hillary is a victim of a KGB assassination attempt, as Dr. Bennet Omalu suspects, then the consequences would be national and international.
Hillary Clinton
Nationally, such a discovery would almost certainly generate huge sympathy for Clinton–a woman singularly unable to arouse sympathy among voters. That alone could ensure her election as President.
And even Americans who hate Clinton would never forgive Russia for daring to interfere with an American Presidential election. They would demand severe retaliation–even all-out war.
For Trump, it would prove a nightmare. He’s made too many admiring statements about Putin to disavow them now and be believed.
National outrage followed in July when Trump invited Putin to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing” on the private server that Clinton used as Secretary of State.
If Clinton died–or was simply injured–because of a KGB plot, few would believe Trump wasn’t a party to it.
And several of Trump’s closest associates have had ties to Putin, such as his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Even many Republicans have already declared they can’t support Trump in abandoning NATO–much less his clear admiration for Putin, a dictator who got his start as a KGB agent.
At his first press conference upon becoming President, Ronald Reagan harshly denounced Soviet leaders: “They reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
A KGB plot against Hillary Clinton would convince many Americans that Republican leaders have become as corrupt as those in the Kremlin.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ALEKSANDR LITVINENKO, ASSASSINATION, BARACK OBAMA, BENNET IFEAKANDU OMALU, BERNIE SANDERS, BORIS NEMTSOV, BRAIN CANCER, CBS NEWS, CHRONIC TRAUMATIC ENCEPHALOPATHY (CTE), CNN, CONCUSSON, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FOOTBALL, FOX & FRIENDS, FOX AND FRIENDS, FOX NEWS, HANNITY, HILLARY CLINTON, ILLNESS, INFOWARS, KGB, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, NATIONAL ENQUIRER, NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NATO, NBC NEWS, NFL, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), PARKINSON’S DISEASE, PAUL MANAFORT, PENTAGON, POISONING, POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME, REPUBLICAN PARTY, Ronald Reagan, RUSSIA, SEAN HANNITY, STROKE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE SOVIET UNION, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIM KAINE, TWITTER, UKRAINE, VICTOR YUSHCHENKO, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics on September 14, 2016 at 12:09 am
September 11 marked the 15th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history.
The date when, in 2001, two highjacked, fuel-laden jetliners slammed into the “twin towers” of the World Trade Center in New York City and a third crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
A fourth, intended for the White House or Capitol Building, was prevented from doing so by the heroic resistance of its passengers. The highjackers crashed it into a field in Pennsylvania.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
For Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and Secretary of State, and now the Democratic party’s Presidential nominee, this was to be a day of memorial events.
Instead, it turned out to be her worst nightmare as a Presidential candidate.
Scheduled to attend a 9/11 ceremony in New York City, she cut short her appearance around 9:30 a.m. because she felt “overheated,” according to campaign spokesman Nick Merrill.
Amateur video captured Clinton struggling to stand and needing help to enter her Secret Service van. A woman held Clinton’s left arm as the van approached. Then two men grabbed both of her arms as her knees buckled.
Hillary Clinton being helped into her van
Shortly before noon, Clinton left the apartment of her daughter, Chelsea. Wearing sunglasses, she waved to diners at a nearby restaurant.
“I’m feeling great, it’s a beautiful day in New York,” she said. Then she headed to her home in Chappaqua.
The official statement given by her campaign went:
“Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremony for just an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respects and greet some of the families of the fallen. During the ceremony, she felt overheated so departed to go to her daughter’s apartment, and is feeling much better.”
Several hours later, her doctor announced that Clinton was suffering from pneumonia.
Throughout the campaign, Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has attacked her mental and physical and fitness to be President.
Donald Trump
The 9/11 incident has hugely amplified those questions–and concerns. She not only abruptly left the ceremony, but nobody in her campaign told reporters traveling with her about her condition or whereabouts for 90 minutes after she left the ceremony.
In 2015, Clinton, then 67, released a two-page letter from her doctor stating that she was in good health despite a blood clot and a 2012 concussion.
But that hasn’t prevented conspiracy theorists from flooding the Internet that she is stricken with a vast array of unsubstantiated ailments, such as:
-
Multiple sclerosis
-
Parkinson’s disease
-
Brain damage
-
Stroke
-
Brain cancer
-
Post-Concussion Syndrome
The Right has salivated over the prospect of its longtime rival being yanked off the political stage, as it were, by a shepherd’s crook of deteriorating health.
Among these celebrations:
The National Enquirer: “Failing health and a deadly thirst for power are driving Hillary Clinton to an early grave.” The article–dated September 30, 2015–claimed she would be dead in six months.
Fox & Friends: Hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy claimed that Clinton’s glasses proved “a sign of brain damage and other things.”
InfoWars: “Coughing can be a symptom of so many different illnesses…it is interesting to note that it happens to be one of the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.”
Hannity: Fox News Medical Correspondent Dr. Marc Siegel said that a video showing Clinton laughing with reporters suggested that she might be having a “mini-seizure.” Siegel added that Clinton might still suffer from “post-concussion syndrome”–after a 2012 concussion–which could affect balance, impair memory and cause dizziness.
Yet there is one conspiracy theory that is conspicuously absent from Right-wing websites and networks.
And this is because it points to a connection that Republicans–and especially Donald Trump–want to ignore.
The ties between Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
Putin’s admiration for Trump is no secret.
“He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.
“He is saying that he wants to move to a different level of relations with Russia, to a closer, deeper one. How can we not welcome that? Of course, we welcome that.”
Nor is Trump’s admiration for Putin.
“It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”
Appearing on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump said of Putin: “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.”
When Trump praised Putin as a leader–“unlike what we have in this country”–he meant President Barack Obama.
But Putin may have serious reasons for flattering Trump.
Trump believes the United States is paying too much of the money needed to maintain the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. He wants other members to contribute far more. He has said that, unless they do, under a Trump Presidency, they would be on their own if attacked by Russia.
The withdrawal of the United States from NATO would instantly render that alliance kaput.
For Putin, this clearly signals a reason to prefer Trump to Clinton.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, CBS NEWS, CNN, FACEBOOK, FBI, GENOCIDE, HITLER-STALIN NONAGGRESSION PACT, HOLOCAUST, HOLOCAUST MUSEUM, JAMES COMEY, JEWS, JOSEPH STALIN, NATO, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, POLAND, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 2, 2016 at 1:07 am
Everybody, it seems, hates genocide. But not everybody owns up to it.
FBI Director James Comey found this out firsthand.
On April 16, 2015, he published an Opinion piece in The Washington Post, entitled: “Why I Require FBI agents to Visit the Holocaust Museum.”
Comey wants them to see the horrors that result when those who are entrusted with using the law to protect instead turn it into an instrument of evil.
FBI Director James Comey
And he wants agents to “see humanity and what we are capable of.”
“Good people helped murder millions,” he wrote.
“And that’s the most frightening lesson of all–that our very humanity made us capable of, even susceptible to, surrendering our individual moral authority to the group, where it can be hijacked by evil.
“Of being so cowed by those in power. Of convincing ourselves of nearly anything.
“In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil.
“They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That’s what people do. And that should truly frighten us.”
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
It was these paragraphs that landed Comey in diplomatic hot water.
Click here: Why I require FBI agents to visit the Holocaust Museum – The Washington Post
On April 19–three days after the editorial appeared–Poland’s Foreign Ministry urgently summoned Stephen Mull, the U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw, to “protest and demand an apology.”
The reason: The FBI director had dared to say that Poles were accomplices in the Holocaust!
Poland’s ambassador to the United States said in a statement the remarks were “unacceptable.”
And he added that he had sent a letter to Comey “protesting the falsification of history, especially …accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of.”
Shortly after Poland’s announcement, Stephen Mull, the U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw, told reporters he would contact the FBI about the situation.
“Suggestions that Poland, or any other country apart from the Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust are wrong, harmful and offensive,” he said, speaking in Polish.
And he emphasized that Comey’s remarks didn’t reflect the views of the Obama administration.
In fact, Comey’s remarks were dead-on accurate.
And Mull’s were a craven act of Political Correctness.
But at least one Polish citizen was not offended by Comey’s editorial.
Jan Grabowski
Jan Grabowski, 50, is a graduate of Warsaw University and is currently a history professor at University of Ottawa. He is also the son of a Holocaust survivor.
He has suffered death threats, is boycotted in the Canadian Polish community where he lives today, and is not always welcome even in his homeland.
But he will not be intimidated from speaking and writing the truth about those in Poland who enthusiastically collaborated with Nazis to slaughter Jews during World War II.
Over the years, he has published several books on this subject. And his latest one is certain to outrage many of his countrymen. His new book, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, was published in October, 2014.
“I tried to understand how only very few of those Jews who decided to hide were able to stay alive until 1945,” said Grabowski in an interview with The Times of Israel.
“The purpose of my research was to discover the condition of the Jews who managed to avoid being sent to death camps and chose to live in hiding. My research brought me to the level of individual cases of people who chose to hide.”
It took Grabowski more than three years to research and write his book. He interviewed Holocaust survivors and local residents, primarily in Poland, Israel and Germany.
“It is more complicated than just blaming the Poles for betraying their Jewish neighbors,” said Grabowski.
“On the one hand there were extraordinarily brave Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and on the other hand there was no great love between Poles and Jews before World War II.
“During the war these relationships became even more hostile. A large segment of the Polish population was displeased with their neighbors’ help to the Jews during the war, and for many it seemed even as an unpatriotic step.
“Therefore, some segments of the Polish population took an active part in the hunt for the Jews, and that is what the new book deals with.”
Many Poles still refuse to acknowledge the the collaboration of so many of their countrymen with the perpetrators of the Holocaust. It’s a role often played by nations that don’t want to acknowledge their past criminality.
During the Nuremberg war crimes trials, Russian judges representing the Soviet Union successfully lobbied to conceal a vital historical truth.
In late August, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had negotiated a “non-aggression pact” with Adolf Hitler. That was known.
But a secret protocol of that agreement dictated that Germany could conquer only the western half of Poland. The eastern half of that country would be occupied by the Red Army.
As long as politicians’ fragile egos are at stake, genocide will continue to be a matter of state policy–and a disowned one.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BERNIE SANDERS, CBS NEWS, CNN, DEBBIE WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ, DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, HILLARY CLINTON, JOSEPH STALIN, NATO, NAZI-SOVIET "NON-AGGRESSION PACT", NBC NEWS, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SOVIET UNION, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 27, 2016 at 12:10 am
As Melania Trump might “write” it: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”–for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The Best: For Trump, becoming the anointed Presidential choice of the Republican party marked the climax of a life studded with fame and riches.
The Worst: The televised proceedings showed Right-wingers luxuriating in hated, chanting “Lock her up!” at the mention of Hillary Clinton’s name. Trump’s speech was straight out of a Fascist playbook: “Everything’s terrible, so give me total power and I’ll make everything perfect.”
Donald Trump
The Best: For Clinton, being anointed as the Presidential choice of her party marked the highest achievement in a life already filled with them: Former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
The Worst: On the eve of what amounted to her coronation ceremony, Wikileaks released nearly 20,000 emails hacked from computers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). These clearly revealed a bias for Clinton and against her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Hillary Clinton
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters have long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign. Now thousands of them have descended on the Democratic convention as furious protesters.
The convention opened on July 25 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and will last until the 28th.
For Clinton, the release of the Wikileaks files could not have come at a worse time.
And it’s widely suspected that this is no accident. Cyber-security experts believe the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may well have authorized it.
Why?
Putin has infamously voiced his admiration for Trump: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.
“He is saying that he wants to move to a different level of relations with Russia, to a closer, deeper one. How can we not welcome that? Of course, we welcome that.”
Vladimir Putin
But more than one dictator’s admiration for another potential dictator-President may be at work here.
Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more.
He has also said that, if Russia attacked NATO members, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after determining whether those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.” If he believed that they had not done so, he would inform them: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”
For Putin, this clearly signals a reason to prefer Trump to Clinton. Trump’s statement marked the first time that a major Presidential candidate placed conditions on the United States’ coming to the defense of its major allies.
The withdrawal of the United States from NATO would instantly render that alliance kaput. Its European members that have smugly hurled insults at the United States for decades would suddenly face extinction.
Even if their armed forces proved a match for Russia’s–which they would not–their governments would cower before the threat of Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal.
If, in fact, Putin lies behind the capture and leaking of highly embarrassing DNC files, he is not the first Communist dictator to find common cause with an avowed Right-winger.
In late August, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin negotiated a “non-aggression pact” with Nazi Germany’s Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler.
Joseph Stalin
The reason: Hitler intended to invade Poland–but feared going to war with the neighboring Soviet Union if he did so. By signing a non-aggression pact with Stalin, he avoided this danger–and gained “rights” to the western half of Poland.
Adolf Hitler
In addition, Nazi Germany began receiving huge shipments of raw materials from the Soviet Union, as Stalin’s effort to placate Hitler and avoid a Nazi-Soviet clash.
As for Stalin, he got something, too: The eastern half of Poland, which would be occupied by the Red Army.
But the Hitler-Stalin alliance lasted less than two years. Signed on August 23, 1939, it ended without warning on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front–a total of three million men–the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
If Putin did authorize the leak to discredit Clinton and enable Trump to become President, there are two ways he may yet come to regret it.
The first is if a vengeance-seeking Hillary Clinton becomes President–and inherits the resources to impose sanctions on Russia.
And the second is if Donald Trump becomes President–and decides, like Hitler, that he doesn’t owe his onetime benefactor anything.
ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, AIRBUS A321, AL QAEDA, BARACK OBAMA, BASHAR AL-ASSAD, CBS NEWS, CNN, FACEBOOK, IRAQ, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA, JOHN F. KENNEDY, MALAYSIA FLIGHT 17, MUSLIMS, NATO, NBC NEWS, ROBERT FROST, RUSSIA, SOVIET UNION, STINGER MISSILES, SYRIA, TERRORISM, THE CHICAGO TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TURKEY, TWITTER, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on November 25, 2015 at 12:17 pm
Russian President Vladimir Putin is no admirer of President John F. Kennedy.
Yet he would no doubt agree with the spirit of the poem that Robert Frost intended to read at Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural.
Entitled “Dedication,” the poem went unread because the sunlight reflecting off snow blinded the elderly poet. So Frost relied on memory to recite an earlier creation: “The Gift Outright.”
“Dedication,” however, was far more in keeping with the upcoming aggressive hubris of the Kennedy years:
It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young ambition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay
In any game the nations want to play.
On September 30, Putin embarked on a game of big-power politics. He started launching airstrikes against Syria.
The objective: To bolster the dictatorship of Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is now caught up in civil war.
This began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of al-Assad. More than 310,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
The Obama administration is worried about Russian intentions. And Republicans are furious, demanding that American military forces directly confront those of Russia.
Yet despite Right-wing fears about Russia, there is no reason for alarm–by Americans.
Putin’s intervention in Syria’s civil war offers three possible outcomes for the United States. And they’re all positive.
Vladimir Putin
First, the Russians will kill thousands of America’s sworn enemies.
Russians are well-known for their disregard for human life. During their invasion of Germany in 1945, Russian soldiers literally nailed civilians to barn doors, squashed them under their tanks, and raped countless women of all ages.
In Syria, they will slaughter everyone who gets in their way. Thus, they will kill far more of America’s Islamic enemies than even our own military–hamstrung by do-gooder “rules of engagement”–could possibly eliminate.
Second, Russia will replace the United States as “The Great Satan” in the eyes of most Islamics.
The Soviet Union waged a ruthless war against Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Out of that war grew Al-Qaeda. Millions of Islamics still hate Russians for their brutalities.
From 1999 to 2009, Russia fought a brutal war against Islamics in Chechnya. Chechens responded with terrorism across Russia.
Russia’s intervention in Syria will only harden its image as an enemy of Islam–even if it’s supporting one group of Islamics (the Assad regime) against others.
If Islamic terrorism starts raging throughout Russia, Putin may be forced to back down from his military moves against Syria and Ukraine.
Third, if Russian planes get shot down or Russian soldiers killed, Russia will suffer the casualties–not the United States.
The Soviet Union never fully recovered from its losses in Afghanistan–13,310 soldiers killed, 35,478 wounded.
If Russia starts taking heavy losses in Syria or at home through terrorism, this could lead to widespread unrest. Even Vladimir Putin could find himself in danger of being replaced.
And for Russia, the chicken Kiev has already come home to roost.
On October 31, Airbus A321, a Russian airliner, broke up in mid-air, then crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.
The plane was carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg when it crashed into a mountainous area of central Sinai.
In Egypt, a militant group affiliated to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed that it had brought down the plane “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.”
On November 19, ISIS published an online photo of a soft drink can and two components–a detonator and a switch–that it claimed brought down the plane.
The crash has proved emotionally wrenching for Russians.
Flags across Russia flew at half-staff and Russian Orthodox priests conducted services to pray for the victims.
President Putin declared a nationwide day of mourning. In St. Petersburg, home to most of the victims, authorities ordered the mourning to last for three days.
Flag of ISIS
And, on November 24, another such loss occurred: A Russian fighter was shot down on the Turkish-Syrian border by two Turkish F-16s.
Turkish officials claimed that it had violated Turkish airspace 10 times within a five-minute period.
This marked the first time in a half-century that a member of NATO–in this case, Turkey–has downed a Russian plane.
Vladimir Putin quickly called the shootdown a “stab in the back committed by accomplices of terrorists.”
And he warned: “The tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.”
With the armed forces of so many Great Powers–France, Russia, Britain and America–now crowding into Syria, such an outcome was probably inevitable.
It was exactly that scenario–Great Powers going to war over conflicts involving their small-state allies/clients–that triggered World War I.
A conflict between Russia and Turkey–a member of NATO–could easily trigger World War III.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ARMENIA, CBS NEWS, CNN, FACEBOOK, FBI, GENOCIDE, HITLER-STALIN NONAGGRESSION PACT, HOLOCAUST, HOLOCAUST MUSEUM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), JAMES COMEY, JEWS, JOSEPH STALIN, KATYN MASSACRE, LAVRENTI BERIA, NATO, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NKVD, POLAND, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PENTAGON, THE WASHINGTON POST, TURKEY, TWITTER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2015 at 12:04 am
Everybody, it seems, hates genocide. But not everybody owns up to it.
FBI Director James Comey recently found this out firsthand.
On April 16, he published an Opinion piece in the Washington Post: “Why I Require FBI Agents to Visit the Holocaust Museum.”
It was the following paragraphs that touched off an international uproar:
“In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil.
“They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That’s what people do. And that should truly frighten us.”
On April 19–three days after the editorial appeared–Poland’s Foreign Ministry urgently summoned Stephen Mull, the U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw, to “protest and demand an apology.”
The reason: The FBI director had dared to say that Poles were accomplices in the Holocaust!
Poland’s ambassador to the United States said in a statement the remarks were “unacceptable.”
And he added that he had sent a letter to Comey “protesting the falsification of history, especially…accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of.”
But at least one Polish citizen was not offended by Comey’s editorial.
Jan Grabowski 50, is a graduate of Warsaw University and is currently a history professor at University of Ottawa. He is also the son of a Holocaust survivor.
Jan Grabowski
He has suffered death threats, is boycotted in the Canadian Polish community where he lives today, and is not always welcome even in his homeland.
But he will not be intimidated from speaking and writing the truth about those in Poland who enthusiastically collaborated with Nazis to slaughter Jews during World War II.
Over the years, he has published several books on this subject. And his latest one is certain to outrage many of his countrymen.
His new book, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, was published in October, 2014.
“I tried to understand how only very few of those Jews who decided to hide were able to stay alive until 1945,” said Grabowski in an interview with The Times of Israel.
“The purpose of my research was to discover the condition of the Jews who managed to avoid being sent to death camps and chose to live in hiding. My research brought me to the level of individual cases of people who chose to hide.
It took Grabowski more than three years to research and write his book. He interviewed Holocaust survivors and local residents, primarily in Poland, Israel and Germany.
“It is more complicated than just blaming the Poles for betraying their Jewish neighbors,” Grabowski.
“On the one hand there were extraordinarily brave Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and on the other hand there was no great love between Poles and Jews before World War II.
“During the war these relationships became even more hostile. A large segment of the Polish population was displeased with their neighbors’ help to the Jews during the war, and for many it seemed even as an unpatriotic step.
“Therefore, some segments of the Polish population took an active part in the hunt for the Jews, and that is what the new book deals with.”
Click here: Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland: Jan Grabowski: 9780253010742: Amazon.com: Books
Ironically, even as many Poles aided the Germans in shipping Jews to extermination camps, the Nazis were turning Poland into a graveyard for non-Jewish Poles.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library:
“Of the 11 million people killed during the Holocaust, six million were Polish citizens. Three million were Polish Jews and another three million were Polish Christians.”
Many Poles still refuse to face up to the ugly truth about the collaboration of so many of their countrymen with the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
It’s a role often played by nations that don’t want to acknowledge their past criminality.
During the Nuremberg war crimes trials, Russian judges representing the Soviet Union successfully lobbied to conceal a vital historical truth.
While they readily charged Nazi Germany with aggressively invading Poland on September 1, 1939, they balked at admitting the role the Soviet Union had played in this.
In late August, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had negotiated a “non-aggression pact” with Adolf Hitler.
But a secret protocol of that agreement dictated that Germany could conquer only the western half of Poland. The eastern half of that country would be occupied by the Red Army.
Similarly, the Katyn massacre remained–until recently–one of the great mysteries of World War II.
The Nazis announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest of Poland in 1943. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000.
Of these, about 8,000 were officers taken prisoner after the Soviet invasion. Another 6,000 were police officers, and the rest were members of the intelligentsia.
NKVD secret police
The USSR blamed the Nazis, and denied responsibility for the massacres until 1990.
The executioners belonged to the NKVD, the Soviet secret police (later renamed the KGB).
Its chief, Lavrenty Beria, urged the execution of all captive members of the Polish Officer Corps. And Stalin had approved.
As long as politicians’ fragile egos are at stake, genocide will continue to be a matter of state policy–and a disowned one.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ARMENIA, CBS NEWS, CNN, FACEBOOK, FBI, GENOCIDE, HITLER-STALIN NONAGGRESSION PACT, HOLOCAUST, HOLOCAUST MUSEUM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), JAMES COMEY, JEWS, JOSEPH STALIN, KATYN MASSACRE, LAVRENTI BERIA, NATO, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NKVD, POLAND, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PENTAGON, THE WASHINGTON POST, TURKEY, TWITTER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 27, 2015 at 6:57 am
“Genocide” is defined by the Merriman-Webster Dictionary as “the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group.”
And the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines it as “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.”
While dictionaries have no trouble agreeing on what “genocide” means, nations do.
Consider these two examples:
Example 1: Turkey
One hundred years ago, in what’s been called the first genocide of modern times, up to 1.5 million Armenians died at Turkish hands in massacres and deportations.
But don’t tell that to the Turks.
Turkey has long insisted that the wartime killings were not genocide.
According to the Turks, those killed–mostly Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks–were victims of civil war and unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed during World War I.
“The Armenian claims on the 1915 events, and especially the numbers put forward, are all baseless and groundless,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “Our ancestors did not persecute.”
Naturally, Armenians see it differently, viewing Turkey’s denial as an affront to their national identity.
“There is a question of political recognition of the genocide, but ultimately, it’s about the Armenian story and history being incorporated into the collective memory of the countries where we live,” said Nicolas Tavitian, director of the Armenian General Benevolent Union.
Armenians protesting Turkish genocide
The United States has long recognized the genocide of the Holocaust–and even opened a U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. But its position on the Armenian slaughter remains one of–silence.
As a U.S. senator, Barack Obama pledged to use the term “genocide” to describe the mass killings of Armenians. As president, he’s avoided the word.
Why?
Because Turkey remains a member of NATO–and one of America’s few reliable allies in the Islamic world.
Both the Pentagon and State Department have argued that Turkey plays a vital role in fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. And the safety of American diplomats and troops in Turkey would be compromised.
Example 2: Poland
On April 16, the Washington Post published an Opinion piece by James Comey, director of the FBI, entitled: “Why I Require FBI agents to Visit the Holocaust Museum.”
FBI Director James Comey
Click here: Why I require FBI agents to visit the Holocaust Museum – The Washington Post
Comey wants them to see the horrors that result when those who are entrusted with using the law to protect instead turn it into an instrument of evil.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
And he wants agents to “see humanity and what we are capable of.”
“Good people helped murder millions.
“And that’s the most frightening lesson of all–that our very humanity made us capable of, even susceptible to, surrendering our individual moral authority to the group, where it can be hijacked by evil.
“Of being so cowed by those in power. Of convincing ourselves of nearly anything.
“In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil.
“They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That’s what people do. And that should truly frighten us.”
It was these paragraphs that landed Comey in diplomatic hot water.
On April 19–three days after the editorial appeared–Poland’s Foreign Ministry urgently summoned Stephen Mull, the U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw, to “protest and demand an apology.”
The reason: The FBI director had dared to say that Poles were accomplices in the Holocaust!
Poland’s ambassador to the United States said in a statement the remarks were “unacceptable.”
And he added that he had sent a letter to Comey “protesting the falsification of history, especially … accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of.”
Shortly after Poland’s announcement, Stephen Mull, the U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw, told reporters he would contact the FBI about the situation.
“Suggestions that Poland, or any other country apart from the Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust are wrong, harmful and offensive,” he said, speaking in Polish.
And he emphasized that Comey’s remarks didn’t reflect the views of the Obama administration.
In fact, Comey’s remarks were dead-on accurate. And Mull’s were a craven act of Political Correctness.
But at least one Polish citizen was not offended by Comey’s editorial.
Jan Grabowski 50, is a graduate of Warsaw University and is currently a history professor at University of Ottawa. He is also the son of a Holocaust survivor.
He has suffered death threats, is boycotted in the Canadian Polish community where he lives today, and is not always welcome even in his homeland.
But he will not be intimidated from speaking and writing the truth about those in Poland who enthusiastically collaborated with Nazis to slaughter Jews during World War II.
.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3ADonald_Trump_August_19%2C_2015_(cropped).jpg&docid=Dff45V_1eqDRRM&tbnid=vjNU906xBiejUM%3A&vet=1&w=1500&h=2000&bih=469&biw=819&ved=0ahUKEwi65N2HoKjSAhVCzmMKHbddDTIQMwg9KAwwDA&iact=c&ictx=1)
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, BARACK OBAMA, BERNIE SANDERS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOSEPH STALIN, KGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, NATO, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI-SOVIET "NON-AGGRESSION PACT", NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, POLAND, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WEHRMACHT, WIKILEAKS
WILL TRUMP-PUTIN GO THE WAY OF HITLER-STALIN?
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2017 at 10:29 amThe love-fest between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump certainly got off to a great start.
No doubt well-informed on Trump’s notorious egomania, Putin called a press conference to announce: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Vladimir Putin
That was on December 17, 2015.
Trump didn’t lose any time responding. On the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he said: “Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant,’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia.
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country”–yet another insult at President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump
Both Putin and Trump are well-known for their authoritarian characteristics. But more than one dictator’s admiration for another might explain their continuing “bromance.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more.
He has also said that, if Russia attacked NATO members, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after determining whether those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.”
If he believed that they had not done so, he would tell them: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”
For Putin, this clearly signaled a reason to prefer Trump over his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. Trump’s statement marked the first time that a major Presidential candidate placed conditions on the United States’ coming to the defense of its major allies.
The withdrawal of the United States from NATO would instantly render that alliance kaput. Its European members that have long hurled insults at the United States would suddenly face extinction.
Even if their armed forces proved a match for Russia’s–which they wouldn’t–their governments would cower before the threat of Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal.
Trump’s motives for his “bromance” with Putin are more difficult to decipher.
Some believe that Trump–a notorious egomaniac–is simply responding to an overdoses of Putin flattery.
Others think that, while visiting Moscow, Trump made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
There are unconfirmed Intelligence reports that he paid–and watched–several Russian prostitutes urinate on a bed once slept on by President Obama and his wife at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The alleged incident was reportedly captured by hidden microphones and cameras operated by the FSB, the successor to the KGB.
A recent “Saturday Night Live” sketch featured a Putin lookalike intimidating Alec Baldwin’s Trump at a press conference–by holding up a video tape marked “Pee-Pee Tape.”
Still others believe that Trump–who has refused to release his tax returns–is deeply in dept to Russian oligarchs.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the DNC. And they clearly revealed a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her competitor, Bernie Sanders.
The leak badly embarrassed Clinton. About to receive the Democratic Presidential nomination, she found herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Cyber-security experts believed the hacking originated from Russia–and that Putin had authorized it.
Even so, Putin is not the first Communist dictator to find common cause with an avowed Right-winger.
On August 23, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin signed a “non-aggression pact” with Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
Joseph Stalin
The reason: Hitler intended to invade Poland–but feared going to war with the neighboring Soviet Union if he did so. By signing a non-aggression pact with Stalin, he avoided this danger–and gained “rights” to the western half of Poland.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
In addition, Nazi Germany began receiving huge shipments of raw materials from the Soviet Union–as part of Stalin’s effort to placate Hitler and avoid a Nazi-Soviet clash.
And Stalin got something, too: The eastern half of Poland, which would be occupied by the Red Army.
But the Hitler-Stalin alliance lasted less than two years. It ended without warning–on June 22, 1941.
With 134 divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more for deployment behind the front–a total of three million men–the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Hitler had long intended to obtain “living space” for Germany–in Russia. By 1941, having conquered most of Europe, he felt strong enough to embark on his great crusade.
There are three ways Putin may come to regret his “bromance” with Trump.
First: Trump may be not be able to lift the sanctions imposed on Russia by President Obama for interfering in the 2016 election.
Second: Increasing political pressure on Trump by Democrats and even Republicans for that interference may result in even tougher action against Russia.
And third: Trump is known for his egomania, not his loyalty. He may take offense at some future perceived Putin slight. In such case, he may well decide he doesn’t owe anything to the man he once called “a leader.”
Share this: