When the Jews were driven out of Iraq in 1950, Iraq lost its symphony orchestra. Most of Iraq’s musicians were Jews. 1/4 of Baghdad’s population was Jewish.

It’s the pro-war crowd that’s pocketing all the defense money.

show me the liberal who sold his neighbor to foreign murderer. Otherwise, just shut up, Stalinist

I hope much of it is out ignorance because morally it’s as if these “liberals” were having a picnic in Auschwitz during 1942 complaining about the soot without realizing the cause. Not even the America First Committee was that clueless in 1942.

That’s how obscene it is sashal. Now please open your eyes and help those who are fighting for the freedom of muslims, they deserve it just as much as you and I do.

And why is it that western “liberals” don’t listen to middle eastern liberals and communists who all seem to favour the US and Coalition?

Readers of Neoneocon’s journey know that it’s not a trivial task but it’s not too late for members of the “anti-war” movement to revise their stance and start supporting the liberal ideals they claim to have.

Freedom for all.

And Alpo has the nerve to question the people and groups we’ve allied with in Iraq. This guy’s on your side, Alpo…

It would make about as much sense as invading Iraq to combat “Islamofascism.”

I don’t know if something similar stands for the Jewish Museum (this one being the big one in Berlin; there are lots of smaller ones scattered about the country), but I’ve been told by German friends here that all German schoolchildren are required to make a trip to Dachau (near Munich) and usually do so with their classes. I’m not sure if this is true nationwide, or if they all have to go to Dachau specifically or to one of the camps in Germany in general (the people I heard this from all grew up in various parts of southern Germany, so Dachau would be the closest, I believe), but the fact that it’s a requirement in at least some states is interesting.

To say we’re fighting “terrorism” would be like saying WWII was fought against “global blitzkrieg” and the “kamikaze”. To end it, we had to go to the sources. And not just the nations, but the religious ideals they represented. In one case, we had to prove The Emperor was just a man, not a god. The kamikaze went away.
The Nazis went away, but the ideal still continues, as sashal can tell you. That one’s been a little harder. That whole ‘Hitler’s new view of life” kinda crap, his ‘Aryan Utopia’ so to speak, still “creates SS”, to put it in the modern vernacular. But it’s pretty much been driven underground because in theory(Mein Kampf), and practice(Nazi Germany), it sucks. Like Communism. Obey the State. There is no god. The State is God. (Hitler, “The State” Communism)

Before we can fight “Islamofacists”, we have to adress the “Islam” which creates the “facists”, but we don’t.

Millions will die if we don’t, Alph.

We invaded North Africa, Italy, France, the Low Countries, and Germany to combat anti-semitism, Alphie.

That’s why religions that promise an afterlife will always be around.

And yeah, some of us are willing to die a little early to make sure that happens whenever it’s feasible.

The disagreement comes over the definition of “free.”

Free from what, exactly?

That’s it. Glib remarks and snappy comebacks don’t wash for truth, anymore. Don’t you get it? You’re not “that” stupid, are you? I just put you(you) next to a nazi(sashal) and said to the blogosphere world: “It’s amazing who will align themselves with whom in order to make “hate Bush” polls go up to prove a point”.
And all you can do is glibly ask if nations should be invaded because of a “bad idea” like sashal’s?

So what do you think, Alpo?…
Should nations be invaded because they spread “bad ideas”?

Was that what sashal was saying?

I couldn’t really follow him.

Shame on you, sashal.

As for invations, I think a country being invaded is always justified in defending itself.

As for invading countries, few are justified, maybe one in twenty.

I just wrote a small post on the French invasion of Germany in 1923, turned out a lot like Iraq.

Probably gave the world Hitler and the Holocaust as an unintended consequence.

All because of a missing shipment of telephone poles.

Invasions are a very tricky business.

They’re both just anecdotes, of course, but Neo’s story about what happened to Poles who harbored Jews reminds me a lot of the story Yon reported about al Qaeda feeding children to their parents. Neither of them are proof positive, completely documented evidence, but beyond the fact that there is probably at least some truth in both of them (Gentiles who harbored Jews were certainly killed by Nazi governments; al Qaeda has no qualms about ensuring people’s cooperations through various sorts of killings or tortures), the stories are important because they show what the people living under those governments believe happens–and could happen to them.

And that’s the sort of constant, twitching terror that everyone deserves to be free from.

Lots of people didn’t believe the Nazis really did such things to Jews and Jew-friendly Gentiles alike at the time, but we have more than enough proof now that they did–and the only people who argue that that wasn’t one of your “one in twenty” justified invasions are…

Oh wait, let me think…

Islamic states and Muslim jihadists.

Maybe if the French had made more sure they actually finished the job in 1923, we wouldn’t have had Hitler.

So many little details influence history. It’s not like the French invasion was the sole cause of World War II, either. Nobody’s ever said this wasn’t tricky.

Which is why it’s all the more important we do it right and see it through to the end.

So tell me, Alpo, why do all you nazis call yourselves “libertarians” today?

I was going to write something about the German nostalgia for Jewish culture in Berlin, but now I’m feeling crabby, so I won’t.

Neo writes interesting posts, but her threads are almost always hijacked by Alfie. He’s the class clown.

Sashal:
There were about 2 million Jews in Russia originally. I hear that the number now is around 700,000. Your description of ongoing antisemitism in Russia may well be accurate, but it doesn’t gainsay Neo-neocon’s point, which is that it’s a mixed picture in Poland and Russia. You have a strong strain of antisemitism there with deep roots, but you also have a strain of philosemitism. It’s not all black and white. It’s a mix.

Lee:
The US did not invade North Africa, Italy, France, the Low Countries, and Germany to combat anti-semitism. Sorry, but that’s rank nonsense.

Saving the Jews was not even on the American and British radar. Remember about the Bahamas conference and the one in Evian? No country wanted to take in Jews, including Britain and the USA. During the war, the British and Americans never bombed the camps to slow down their operations, even though the camps were easy targets. And when they “liberated” the camps, that was only when our soldiers came across them as they pushed the Nazis back. The camps were not the goal, they were just there.

We went to war because we were attacked by Japan. Roosevelt may have wanted war, but it wasn’t to save the Jews, it was to save Britain and roll back the Nazi presence in Western Europe. Only with the intercession of Henry Morgenthau did Roosevelt reluctantly save some 200,000 Jews.

So…the USA invaded France and North Africa (North Africa!) to save the Jews? Nahhhhh.

I think you guys misunderstood *sashal at least in one aspect; he probably meant the anti-semitism didn’t go anywhere in post-Soviet Russia and continue along same old lines. As someone who used to live in both Russia and in Western Ukraine (which in happier times used to belong to Poland), I am familiar with both country’s attitude towards Jews.
Neoneo is right in that it’s always easier to be affectionate towards someone extinct (especially if first you had worked real hard at extinction). However, I’m not inclined to agree with NYTimes’ conclusions that Poles today are very fond of Jews and Jewish culture. I think there exist even funnier phenomenon: Jews are no more, but the hatred lives on.

From last fall’ ADL report (after the election of the new government):

Anti-Semitic content broadcast on Radio Maryja includes ugly stereotyping, conspiracy theories, claims that Jews were responsible for communist-era repression and accusations that Jews are using the Holocaust to leverage compensation payments from Poland. In March 2006, the commentator Stanislaw Michalkiewicz declared on air: “Jews have humiliated Poland internationally by demanding money…Kikes sneak up behind us to try to oblige our government to pay them money on the pretext of these demands”. Such statements are very much in keeping with the views of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the power behind the station, who has stated on-air that Judaism is a “trade, not a religion.”
Note the same stance re: communists=Jews as by *alphie* above.

So it’s probably a good thing we didn’t declare war on “anti-semitism”, Joanne. It had to be seen to be believed.

Our “cold war” against Communism included frank, open discussions on the “merits” of communism based on it’s own “scriptures”(Manifesto, Das Kapital, Engles, etc) in addition to real-life examples of it in practice(Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc.). We won, but many think the gulags, the purges, etc. never happened.

Today, muslims and “lefties” like Alpo tell us “The Jews brought down the Twin Towers and hit the Pentagon. See, the Protocals ARE real. See, Hitler and Allah are right. The Jews are evil.”

To repeat myself:
Before we can fight “Islamofacism”, we have to address the “Islam” which creates the “facists”.

Free from what, exactly?
————————–

Oops, cat’s out of the bag. “Freedom from …” is the negative formation, which presupposes oppressors. When you’re not allowed to name an oppressor, you must consider yourself free.

But our Constitutional rights are Freedoms of, not Freedoms from.

Bit of a difference there.

Jeez, sometimes things won’t go right for the left even if they paid it to. For an example of sas walked into a minefield and thought himself beloved, go to this link about neanderthals. Real neanderthals btw.

Knowledge; something the Left has gone without for quite some time now.

It has long been known that Neanderthal’s show much evidence of treating their companions with compassion and care. Klein (1989, p. 334) writes:

“However, the same skeletal pathologies and injuries that show that the Neanderthals lived risky lives and aged early also reveal a strikingly ‘human’ feature of their social life. The La Chapelle-aux-Saints and Shanidar 1 individuals, for example, must have been severely incapacitated and would have died even earlier without substantial help and care from their comrades. This implicit group concern for the old and sick may have permitted Neanderthals to live longer than any of their predecessors, and it is the most recognizably human, nonmaterial aspect of their behavior that can be directly inferred from the archeological record.”

The commenters should be pleased by sas’s praise of them.

I suggest bringing up notepad and then writing your reply to Neo’s post, right after you finish reading her post without reading the comments. This way, your mind is not polluted by the negative vibes being produced.

It’s a quick fix that is surprisingly effective for unbiased inspiration.

It would make about as much sense as invading Iraq to combat “Islamofascism.”

When extreme anti-semitic groups sponsored and supported and given safe haven by Russia and Poland attack us and kill thousands and cause billions in damage, hell yeah we should attack them. Since Islamofascists did just that, we attack them where they are, and in Iraq, attack those who would consider using them as proxies, and who we had legal status to invade.

But you keep those bumpersticker slogans coming, alph.

Does anyone take a step back and truly question why? From a Judeo-Christian standpoint, it’s as simple as those who hate God hate his people.

But take this from a secular standpoint. No nation has ever been so hated, or been such a catalyzing influence in world politics. Nazis came and went, and while they are not the only ones of their kind to exist, they don’t create near the tension and hate that a simple ethnicity has, simply by being good with their finances!

America once chose to help the Jews, cum end of WWII. America flourished afterward, creating what everyone likes to think rosily of as America’s golden age, the good ol’ 1950’s with Mom and Pop, a green yard and a white picket fence.

Imagine, if you will, that America had helped an Arab nation return to land currently occupied by another country, forcing them out and providing the invaders with our advanced technology. Does anyone have the illusion that Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or any of the others would give a rat’s ______ that a smaller country couldn’t keep its own land? They wouldn’t care. They hate each other so much, what’s another Arab land?

But they hate the Jews, unequivocally. I don’t know what to tell you outside of my own Judeo-Christian reasons as to why. But why would you think that is - from a secular standpoint? Because they get rich so well and quickly? That’s hardly a reason to hate them so much.

So what do you think?

I think in short and in essence it is because if you kill a Jew, the Jews won’t slaughter and annihilate your people as payback. For Americans, that’s not so true, not historically, but perhaps now a days things have changed. Or not.

The difference between the American response and the Jewish-israeli response is the fundamental reason why the Nazis and all our various previous enemies, with the exception of the Soviet useful idiots in the world, have stopped bothering the US.

When you squash an enemy flat and break his soul and feelings, they don’t tend to come back from that. Israelis have never done that because they have never wanted to do that. And thus is why their success is no shield, for they don’t use their success to ruthlessly crush their enemies.

The American philosophy of Total War is not present in Jewish beliefs or tradition.

Humanity is a hierarchical structure, so people will tend to take a crap out on the weakest member. Nerds in high school vs jocks is another one of those cliche stereotypes that is based upon a fundamental truth. If you are weak yet apparently successful or having something a physically stronger person wants, then the bullies will come. And they will keep coming until you slaughter enough of them that their blood fills the Hudson Bay.

Just saying.

Why is America not even letting her defend herself

Israel doesn’t want any American on Israeli soil, helping them fight, or dying in/around Israel. America does not decide Israel’s foreign policy, the Israelis voted Olmert’s party in. Not us.

You should ask Olmert and the Israelis why they are making deals with terrorists and not defending themselves.

when our stated foreign policy is to “protect” Iserael?

You can’t protect someone when they don’t want you to.

Irony: You are engaging in the very activity you imagine yourselves to be criticizing.

You are talking *about* Poles and Poland, sounding very authoritative, and yet no one here, unless I missed it, is either Polish or is living in Poland, or has any insight at all into Poles or Poland, or Poles’ or Poland’s relationship to Poland’s Jewish heritage.

And no one had the humility to admit that lack, or the curiosity or intellectual integrity to fix it — to say, Hey, we are talking about Poles and Poland, going so far as to discuss invading Poland, here, let’s get a real, live Polish person and *interact with respect* with him or her. Start a dialogue, say.

but, maybe if you did that you would discover that your reduction of Polish-Jewish relations to the lyrics of a Joni Mitchell song wouldn’t seem so insightful.

One article from the NYT article is not reality; it is one publication’s one time take on reality.

In other words — you are all doing what you are accusing others of doing.

In an environment in which there are no Poles, you are denying Poles any flesh and blood reality, or voice, and animating, out of your own prejudices and imaginings, your version of a what a real, live Pole is — and talking about whether or not you should invade that person’s country.

Maybe next you’d like to give us the lowdown on Africa and Africans, after you read one article in the Daily News about Darfur, or the inside scoop on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture, after you flip through a National Geographic article in your dentist’s office.

No, really, why not read one article about Iraq and talk about invading that sovereign nation … ooops, sorry. Late on that one.

…