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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 02:53 PM
Original message
For those who feel uncomfortable comparing * regime with Hitler's
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:32 PM by Gabi Hayes
EDITING for ''Clarity:''

this thread was begun NOT to bring in the holocaust, or any other end results of the Nazi regime. sorry if it gave anybody that impression.

What I DO intend to do is to get those out there who are so dismissive of what's going on before our eyes: constant propaganda/outright lies, rewriting of history, changing of the government record, usurpation of constitutional power, serial abridgement of civil liberties, stifling of dissent, political prosecutions/incarceration, just for STARTERS, to think about it, and, I hope, do something about it

the USA PATRIOT Act is the apotheosis of that this junta is hoping to accomplish on many fronts: make the illegal legal, the unconstitutional constitutional

what's more frightening than the apparent wholesale acceptance by a large majority of Americans the widespread domestic spying being perpetrated by the NSA, FBI, and god knows what other agencies?

Is it too late to do anything about it?



http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nazi+enabling+act+usa+patriot+act+similarities&btnG=Google+Search

The Patriot Act compared to The Enabling ActEverthing you need to know about how the USA Patriot Act.. ... To soften resistance to the passing of the Enabling Act, the Nazis secretly caused confusion ...
www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm - 42k - Cached - Similar pages


Buffalo Examiner /// Examining Buffalo and then some!USA PATRIOT Act. That’s damned clever. And from the arch-conservative point of ... One last similarity between the Enabling Act and the Patriot Act: most ...
www.buffaloexaminer.com/archives.cfm?id=167&sec=5 - 30k - Cached - Similar pages


How the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler's Enabling Act » Shoutwire.comThis sin't something knew that USa is acting like Nazi's. ... It shouldn't be a surprise to see similarities between the patriot act and the enabling act ...
www.shoutwire.com/comments/7182/How_ the_Patriot_Act_Compares_to_Hitler_s_Enabling_Act - 160k - Mar 26, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


Enabling Act and the Reichstag Fire Decree in Nazi Germany - No ...Re: Enabling Act and the Reichstag Fire Decree in Nazi Germany. Thu, November 25, 2004 - 3:00 PM. The Patriot Act has very similiar provisions and I'm sure ...
nogeorgewbush.tribe.net/thread/ 86afe89e-9984-4b1d-825e-6a8ad802effd - 52k - Cached - Similar pages


Office of Homeland SecurityUSA PATRIOT ACT · Martial Law through EO · Arms Sales Monitoring Project ... This "Enabling Act" centralized all power in the Executive Branch. ...
groups.msn.com/ OfficeofHomelandSecurity/similarities.msnw - 37k - Cached - Similar pages


WW3 - World War 2 Compared to Recent World EventsWe'll see who applauds when America overnight becomes a mirror image of Nazi Germany. See an expose of what Patriot Act II means to the average American. ...
www.threeworldwars.com/world-war-2/ww2-ww3-compared.htm - 67k - Cached - Similar pages


Bush Granted 'Absolute Power' By US Federal Court(The more one compares the Nazi Germany "Enabling Act" with the USA "Patriot Act," the more they appear to be Siamese twins.)" ...
www.apfn.net/messageboard/ 07-21-05/discussion.cgi.12.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages


jonas_015... of prisoners held at Gitmo bears many similarities to the situation in Nazi ... Durbin should have been focusing on the powers the Patriot Act gave the ...
www.oldamericancentury.org/jonas_015.htm - 70k - Cached - Similar pages


Plum Crazy: Parallel Lanes... Patriot Act. On the night of the vote of the Enabling Act, Nazi troopers were ... The Enabling Act also gave Hitler equal powers to pass legislation as ...
www.houseofplum.com/plumcrazy/archives/000614.html - 21k - Cached - Similar pages


George W. Bush - Terrorist in the White HouseHow the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler's Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) PDF ... BUSH-NAZI LINK CONFIRMED Documents in National Archives Prove George W. ...
www.nogw.com/nazibush.html - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 02:54 PM
Response to Original message
1. Thanks for the links!
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. yr wlcm....only 33, 790 more
I'm starting to feel nauseous
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 02:56 PM
Response to Original message
2. this is really sad and frightening, cause we all know what happened
from the first link, a plea for support to get the word out about just how bad this is:

''First, forward this email to everyone you know. Second, send an email to the Center for Public Integrity and to the producers of NOW thanking them for breaking this story. Here's a sample message that you can use or modify:

I am writing to express my heartfelt thanks and admiration to the Center for Public Integrity, to Bill Moyers, to the producers of NOW, and especially to the brave unnamed patriot who valued the Bill of Rights over his or her own personal well-being and, at great personal risk, leaked a draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 out of the Justice Department.

Sincerely,(Your name, city, and state.)''
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Fredda Weinberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:01 PM
Response to Original message
4. Stuff it
You're not going to convince this Holocaust survivor's child that we've gone down that far. My father warned me that Germans considered themselves as cultured as Americans do today - but the comparison ends there.

There's been no Crystalnacht - no Brown Shirts grabbing people out of bed and beating them in the streets. There are no trainloads of American citizens headed for concentrations camps or crematoria.

Frankly, this attempt to vilify our political opposition reeks or their own tactics - and I want no part of it.
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SaveElmer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. I agree...
And to compare it to what is happening now will reduce the horror of the holocaust for future generations..

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Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #5
71. It's happening NOW by proxy.
The U.S. MIC is EXTERMINATING the population of Iraq. I.JUST.DON'T.GET how folks can remain in such denial. Never again means NEVER AGAIN to ANYONE. While I type this it's happening again as folks twitch and argue about the sacred superiority of their personal victimization. WHY DO AMERICANS REFUSE TO LEARN FROM HISTORY??? This is NOT a contest.

The mechanisms of a fascist state are in place and the U.S. gub'mint is committing G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E in Iraq. After all the bombs, water and power shortages, depleted uranium, trashed infrastructure, U.S. trained death squads, there will not likely be a healthy, untraumatized soul left in Iraq in a decade. Just cause it's not happening to you (although it is in much subtler ways... See: NOLA and Medicare Plan D for starters) or happening in the exact same way it happened to "yours," does not mean it isn't happening. IT IS.
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:42 PM
Response to Reply #71
103. Exaggeration

Consider

a) the highest claims of the death count as a result of the Iraq war (in the hundreds of thousands)

b) the likely value of the above (very contentious, but the BBC, who I regard as probably the most respectable source, give it as 30,000 if I recall correctly, although there are more estimates higher than lower than that, I think).

c) the population of Iraq - about 25 million, again if I recall correctly.

That's a massive crime against humanity, but it's not "exterminating the population of Iraq" or "genocide". Exterminating many of the populace of Iraq, yes, but that's not the same thing. "Comparable" is a dodgy word, but any comparison between America now and Nazi Germany has to reach the conclusion "they have relatively little in common, except - very differently - militaristic governments".

And the current direction of the US is very, very different to fascism - diametrically so, in fact. The problem is that the power of the state has been rolled back too far, not that it has been extended too far.

The fact that Bush and Hitler would both be categorised as "right wing" only serves to demonstrate how crude a categorisation left/right is.
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Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:00 PM
Response to Reply #103
114. "the likely value of the above..."
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 06:02 PM by Karenina
:eyes: Enjoy your kool-aid.
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 05:17 AM
Response to Reply #114
129. Ah, the kind of closely-argued rebuttal that always makes me doubt...
Edited on Wed Mar-29-06 05:31 AM by Donald Ian Rankin
The BBC and Iraq Body Count are not exactly notorious distributors of conservative propaganda, you know.

To give your post a more detailed rebuttal than it deserves, if I recall correctly, which I freely admit I may not do, the former estimate the number of something (civilian casualties, I think) at 30,000, although I can't find a link. That was the figure I was quoting. As corroboration, I've just found that the latter at http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ give 3X,000 "confirmed" casualties, although they say there may well be more.

Neither of those is a source with a vested interest in making the total seem lower than it is - quite the reverse. Conversely, most of the higher estimates come from sources with a vested interest in high estimates. That doesn't inherently invalidate them, but it's cause for suspicion, especially because body counts nearly always get overestimated until the dust has settled. The figure may easily be higher - possibly even very much higher - than in the 30,000s, but I think that it's more likely not to be (although admittedly that's not an informed opinion; it's based on 15 minutes of internet research).

And even if we take the 300,000 odd that's the highest estimate I've seen, *and multiply it by 10 just for the hell of it*, to give three million, that still wouldn't justify the terms "exterminating the populace of Iraq" or "genocide". They're just ludicrous hyperbole.
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Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 08:21 AM
Response to Reply #129
131. And THEY'RE just getting started...
Would that after "only 30,000" Jews were viciously murdered a coalition of Menschen had had enough power to put a STOP to it. Regretfully they did not. Americans still MAY, however "only 300,000" deaths aren't something to get alarmed about. Thanks for the reminder.

This is NOT a contest of numbers.
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:08 PM
Original message
Not yet. Have you read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel?
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:29 PM by fooj
Peace.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:14 PM
Response to Original message
10. with all due respect, I mention ONLY the enabling act and the USA PATRIOT
act

did I mention anything about the holocaust?

anything at all?

as one of the posts here so aptly links, we're going through a period that certainly bears comparison, which is the WORD I USED in the header, to what happened in the 30s

feel free to ignore the analogy, especially by bringing up false ones
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:16 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Are you talking to me?
Hey, I'm backing what you've said, Gabi.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. sorry, I should have said the response was to all three that I
thought were saying that there's no reasonable comparison to the OP and the holocaust, which I never made

btw, I haven't read the Weisel book. can you tell me what the premise is?

thx

sorry about the infelicitous/confusing response
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. Your header compares the Bush
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:23 PM by TallahasseeGrannie
and Hitler regime. I think when anyone thinks of Hitler they think of the Holocaust. I know I do. I can't separate them out.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:29 PM
Response to Reply #14
19. There were steps that could have been taken by the people of Germany
to have prevented the Holocaust. There were people in Germany who tried to stop Hitler. There are people here who are trying to stop Bush and his cronies. To say that Bush is moving along the same path as Hitler did in Germany during the 1930's is NOT saying that we are currently in the midst of a Holocaust. But should we wait until we ARE in the midst of one to take action?
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:26 PM
Response to Reply #10
17. No worries...
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/night/

I teach this to my Sophomores...
Powerful read. Warns against the evils of silence and indifference. I cry every time I read it. It's a short read...I recommend it. That's why I pointed out Moshe the Beadle. Just click on the notes and it'll give you a good overview.

Peace.
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Fredda Weinberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:17 PM
Response to Original message
47. Yeah, have you heard your father shrieking terror in the night?
Until you've seen horror first hand, you don't know it - reading it ain't close, bud.

Peace to you too - my father found his eventually, but I had to survive the funeral first.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:24 PM
Response to Reply #47
54. actually I HAVE
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 04:25 PM by Gabi Hayes
my father had his ass literally BLOWN OFF on a bridge in Belgium in 1944

he spent a year in the hospital recovering

can you guess why he was there?

I did reword the header, btw.

hope you'll read it, cause I tried to correct any comparison with * and the holocaust

peace to you and your family

may both our fathers rest

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Fredda Weinberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 11:40 PM
Response to Reply #54
126. My father was liberated by Russians
And I grew up hearing Roosevelt cursed for letting the Holocaust continue when the US could have bombed the railroads.

That said, I respect what your father endured - but when I think of America back then, I remember the St Louis and how it was turned back.

I know you mean well, but I think America is getting what we've always deserved - and we may not yet learn the lessons that empires before us have had to face.

You asked if it's too late - hell no! If we keep our wits about us, there's no limit to the progress we can make, even in our lifetime. That's why I continue this dialog despite the painful memories.

There are strategies to make the effort less onerous - pick up where others have left off. Despite my disagreement with its origins, I helped Pacifica stations when their board was infested with those who wanted to destroy it. They've played an important role keeping dissent alive when the overwhelming majority of Americans supporting the invasion of Iraq.

The board has changed and I can focus elsewhere - there are many challenges that lie ahead and action is the remedy to despair. I'm busy, but I don't like to discuss what I'm doing these days in public. Find a cause and others and get involved - you'll find the solution because you *will be* part of it.

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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:11 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. what are you doing here?
get lost

your game isn't playing here, sis
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Fredda Weinberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:19 PM
Response to Reply #7
50. I've done more for progressive causes than most here
Do an Internet search on my real name, Gabi, before you accuse me of playing games.

You're playing with fire ... and watch out, the backlash may consume you.

As far as I'm concerned, you're a left-hand version of the opposition.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:26 PM
Response to Reply #50
56. fredda...you know me from TAP/TAPA, and I apologize for overreacting
OK?

let's just leave it at that
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:09 PM
Response to Reply #7
83. Self-delete unnecessary insult
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 05:35 PM by rinsd
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:31 PM
Response to Reply #83
96. Huh
Once again I'm feeling like I walked in on a party that was in full swing cuz I don't know what you are talking about. You all KNOW each other or something? Man, I do believe I am out of my league.

Where's my knitting?

Grannie...rocking quickly
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:35 PM
Response to Reply #96
99. No worries grannie, it heat spilling over from later in the thread (nt)
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:24 PM
Response to Reply #99
118. sorry here, too....we're on the same side, basically yes?
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:11 PM
Response to Reply #4
9. Ever hear of Martin Niemoller?
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:11 PM by BrklynLiberal
"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:46 PM
Response to Reply #9
24. My point is that I haven't seen them
"come for" anyone yet. Have you? (I'm talking extermination now)
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:53 PM
Response to Reply #24
31. There has been people flown to other countries to meet death,
there have been people flown to other prisons in the world so that they may be tortured and killed. There won't ever be an accurate head count on the people that were flown out post 9/11.
I was taught about the Holocaust so that it would not happen again.
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #31
44. Well said.
Peace.
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Fredda Weinberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:26 PM
Response to Reply #31
55. You weren't taught well
We can resort to the courts and Congress to end special renditions - the victims of the Holocaust had no one to turn to ...

As for sending suspects to countries with less genteel methods than ours (yeah, it's sarcasm), the previous administration did it as well. So much for comparing the current regime to the Nazis.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:32 PM
Response to Reply #55
58. the point of this thread is exactly THIS:
the courts, the legislature are being rendered vestigial by the unitary president, not to mention the obvious fact that the packed court STOLE the election from us five years ago

there are many who feel we've had Democracy INO ever since

I wonder how many of those who disagree have read any of the links provided

we obviously aren't there yet, but the distance we've travelled between the Clinton administration and the illegal Bush junta is a far far space
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #55
72. Since you're being blunt I will too.
You are trying to drown out people's awareness with chest-thumping.
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:57 PM
Response to Reply #72
112. As will I:
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 05:59 PM by Donald Ian Rankin
She's a lone voice of reason opposing something that can, I think, legitimately be characterised as mass hysteria.

The problem with the Bush regime is exactly the opposite of the vice of the Nazis - Bush wants to roll back the state too far, and return to the law of the jungle, whereas *the* key mark of fascism is the cult of the state, and its extension into every aspect of private life.

Comparing Bush to the Nazis is fun, because it makes us feel important, but it's silly, and its very harmful to the cause of left-wing politics in America because it makes it easier for the right to tar all leftwingers as silly and hysterical - accusations which in this specific case are at least somewhat legitimate.

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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:12 PM
Response to Reply #112
115. roll back the state too far?
funniest thing I've heard in a long time

seriously

they're rolling back the state in areas MOST deleterious to the public weal; can't get much more obvious than that

otherwise, welcome to 1984
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 08:30 AM
Response to Reply #112
132. You missed the rise in nationalism, jingoism.
You missed the programs for spying on one another.
You missed the rollbacks on the Bill of Rights.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #24
43. How far away are we? This could happen to you or anyoneyou know.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

FBI admits fingerprint error, clearing Portland attorney

By David Heath and Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporters

A federal judge yesterday cleared Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield of ties to the Madrid train bombings after the FBI made the stunning admission that it erred when analyzing a copy of fingerprints.

Portland's FBI Special Agent in Charge, Robert Jordan, said the error, based on a "substandard" copy of the prints, will prompt the agency to review its guidelines for making identifications and ask an international panel of experts to analyze what went wrong.

He also apologized to Mayfield, a former Army officer and Muslim convert who was mistakenly arrested earlier this month as a material witness in the March 11 terrorist attack that killed 191 and wounded some 2,000.

"The FBI regrets the hardships that this has placed on Mr. Mayfield and his family," Jordan said.

Mayfield, 37, who appeared at a news conference with his family and his federal public defenders, said he was angry but was trying to "decompress."

"I am just two or three days out of the detention facility, and I'm just starting not to shake," said Mayfield, who was released Thursday. He was speaking about the case for the first time because U.S. District Judge Robert Jones lifted a gag order.

<snip>

The flawed case against Mayfield raises new concerns about the reliability of FBI procedures used in fingerprint forensic science. In making the link between Mayfield and a blue plastic bag containing detonators found near a Madrid train station, FBI officials relied on a digital copy of prints that Jordan said was of "substandard quality."

Only last weekend did two agents fly to Madrid to take a look at the original print that Spanish officials eventually linked to an Algerian with a criminal record.

"Why was a substandard image used to make a positive identification?" asked fingerprint expert Pat Wertheim, based in Arizona. "I'm sure the FBI will be doing a lot of soul-searching. A lot of us in the fingerprint profession will be waiting for the answer so that we can adopt measures to prevent a repeat of this tragic arrest."

The collapse of the Mayfield case also is providing ammunition to critics of the Bush administration's homefront handling of the war on terror. Mayfield was never charged with a crime but was arrested as a material witness with possible information about the Madrid bombing. The use of the material-witness statute has emerged as a controversial legal tactic in the war on terrorism, and Mayfield added his voice to the critics.

"There are other material witnesses languishing away," he said. "In my estimation, it's an abuse of the judicial process."


<snip>

"We think it is very troubling that that kind of innuendo and guilt by association was used," said Wax. "It is a terrible thing to do."

Mayfield said his case also raises questions about the Patriot Act, which the Bush administration has hailed as a key tool in terrorism investigations.

Mayfield said he suspected authorities had him under surveillance and entered his home in the days before his arrest under the "sneak and peek" search warrants allowed by the Patriot Act. Mayfield said he and his wife noticed that a deadbolt lock they don't use had been locked and found other signs that someone had been in their home.

Even as the FBI homed in on Mayfield, Spanish authorities were disputing the FBI's fingerprint analysis on the Madrid bag. The blue plastic bag containing detonators was found in a van parked near a train station.

<snip>


"We don't know whether the second or third level of examination was done blind or done with knowledge of who he was," Wax said yesterday.

The Portland lawyer was not under federal investigation before March 18, records show. But after the identification, Portland FBI agents investigated him, searching news articles, travel records and telephone records.

In the search warrant seeking probable cause, federal agents noted the nationality of his wife, the former Mona Mohamed, and his representation of Jeffrey Battle, as well as his honorable discharge from active duty at Fort Lewis and his work as a second lieutenant in the ROTC.

The documents also show federal authorities learned that Mayfield had not left the country traveling under his own name and that his passport had expired in October 2003. The FBI did not find any aliases used by Mayfield, records show.

"People should wake up," Mayfield said yesterday. "You can't trade freedom for security, because if you do, you're going to lose both."
http://newsmine.org/archive/cabal-elite/european-union/madrid-attack-march-2004/portland-attorney-house-searched-without-notice.txt
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:37 PM
Response to Reply #43
101. But does not the fact
that this was discovered, admitted, written about and publicized and repudiated illustrate that we are nowhere near the horrors of pure fascism?
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Fredda Weinberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:22 PM
Response to Reply #9
53. You don't know what you're quoting
They came for us, all right - and put my family in showers that spewed poison gas.

While we still have the right of free speech - don't abuse it by comparing the current regime to one that contemplated the elimination of every non-Aryan race. We ain't even close to that kind of madness.
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lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #53
66. And how do you know what they have planned for the future?
I believe they planned 9/11 and a bushitler is a bushitler.
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:53 PM
Response to Reply #53
73. As long as you say it, then it is so.
Peace.
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:17 PM
Original message
Thank you
I have been saying the same thing for months but I just keep getting flamed.

There is no doubt that BushCo is pushing the envelope with regards to civil rights, but it appears to stop there.

My fear is that when we scream "the sky is falling" too stridently, no one will listen because they think we're a bunch of idiots. I, too, have relatives who survived Nazi Germany. And this propensity by the left doesn't disturb them. It makes them laugh. And it convinces them that the left has nothing to offer them but hysterical exaggerations.

Hitler and Stalin were entities unto themselves. Unique.

Bush is another stripe of animal all together. I don't like him, but I wouldn't cheapen the horror these folks lived through by comparing them.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:23 PM
Response to Original message
15. you're right, and I apologize for not being more specific in the opening
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:26 PM by Gabi Hayes
line. should have mentioned the premise more specifically, and I'll change it in the body

the links provided, as well as the google page made it pretty obvious, I thought

he's gone so far beyond abridging our civil liberties (remember that little bit of PNAC inspired anschlussing that's happening right now?) that it's hard to respond to such dismissiveness

this is EDITED after reading your response more carefully

sorry
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:32 PM
Response to Reply #15
20. I'll go this far.
There is much to be concerned about. There is much to be vigilant about.

Your changes help focus your argument.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:33 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. thanks...see new header. I should have made it clearer from the start
cheers
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:28 PM
Response to Original message
18. I see it as the evils of indifference.
Peace.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #4
16. Explain the difference between detention centers and concentration camps
Detention Centers

Plus, there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs," KBR said.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022306C.shtml

also in

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/022106a.html
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:45 PM
Response to Reply #16
23. I see a big difference between detention centers
and concentration camps. First and foremost, the ovens.

Look, I'm not saying it is all hunky-dory. We have a problem. But semantics are important. We say Bush is Hitler we look stupid, like we have no understanding of history.

It is tempting to give in to the drama because drama is interesting and exciting, but to what purpose? It turns people away from us.

Rather than say he is Hitler, we should just state the facts. We don't like the direction he is taking the country. Hitler was Hitler.

I raise chickens. When a hawk flies over the henhouse and makes a shadow, they all squawk and go nuts. All day long. They do it for a buzzard, too, which is no threat to them. The baby chicks get so used to it that when a hawk really approaches and swoops down to do the deed, the chicks just keep right out in the open and peck away.

I'm not counseling apathy. Just prudence in the way we use our language, and caution at the power of metaphor to hinder our cause.
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:48 PM
Response to Reply #23
25. You are aware that the US has a network of prisons around the world?
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #25
29. I am aware that that claim has been made
but I don't know it personally. And I don't like it, nor do I condone torturing or "rendering" for torture. And I agree it is a slippery slope.

And we should say that. We should learn from the past and be vigilant about the future.

But language is powerful. Bush is not Hitler.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:53 PM
Response to Reply #29
30. Yet.
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:56 PM
Response to Reply #30
33. Yet.
That's correct. That says it all.

Therefore, let us be prudent in the language we use.

I'm saying this, actually, with love..believe it or not. Because I see how this over-the-top talk is perceived out there in the rest of the country and it hurts us. It really hurts us. We are not taken seriously because of it.

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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:04 PM
Response to Reply #33
39. Who are you worried about?
The rest of the world sees it.
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #39
70. Touche'!
But I'm more worried about potential voters. People who are looking to make a change and looking for where to go. If they perceive us as shrill alarmists they won't see us as worthy of governing.

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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:54 PM
Response to Reply #70
74. If it's the middle of the road voters, there's not enough of them
to matter. :)
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:57 PM
Response to Reply #74
76. actually, I think you might be wrong there
and the MOR voting block, IIRC, is one in which * is losing support rapidly

I could be wrong, but the creature may be bleeding from the middle even faster than he is from his base
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:10 PM
Response to Reply #76
85. I should have finished it.
Those that have traditionally been in the Democratic base(and could be again...) would far outnumber the
fickle if they would vote. Just my 2. :)
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #85
88. thanks...btw, check your PMs
you're right about that, and the thing that kills me the most is the conundrum of the single woman, something that I started several threads on here during the election

nobody was much interest then, but the VERY low turnout of that demographic was a key ingredient in the 'loss' of both of the last two presidential elections
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:28 PM
Response to Reply #74
94. I don't understand when you say that
with both elections going by such narrow margins. It wasn't the extreme RW that brought it over to GWB. It was the swing voters. The group that voted for Clinton in the 90's. The RW was his base but they didn't give him the election. And I don't think they can give it to him (or his ilk) next time.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:33 PM
Response to Reply #94
98. sorry, but most "experts" think you're wrong on the RW religio fanatics
Rove's stated goal was to get four MILLION more trogs to the polling places, and his mininons did their job

check it out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32793-2004Nov7.html

take your pick

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=rove+religious+right+turnout+election+2004&btnG=Search
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #98
108. Okay, I read them and I hear a lot of
self-congratulation by the RW but the articles weren't heavy on figures and I do remember the number 30% in regards to Fund. voters (sorry, no link...just the brain) and while that is formidable, I don't think it is unbeatable. That is a very fluid population. The turnover in these churches are enormous, with people having conversions and only lasting a few years in "the faith." I think the megachurches are "flashes in the pan" if you will. There are three here in town that have sold to developers and been turned into stores.

I could be wishful thinking, but this is what I see around me.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:57 PM
Response to Reply #108
111. that was one article, but the clear evidence, including accepted
figures, shows that several million more evangelicals came to the polls than did in 2000.

they got what they wanted

I hope you're right about the evanescence of some true believers' faith, but.....
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #70
79. Truth is our most powerful weapon, Grannie!
Keep hammering away at the truth and we'll be fine.

Peace.
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:58 PM
Original message
Making apt comparisons *is* being vigilant about the future.
by the time you know it personally it is too late.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1237589,00.html
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:57 PM
Response to Original message
77. Indifference is the enemy.
Peace.
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coalition_unwilling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #23
36. Bush is to Iraq as Hitler was to Poland
Can we forget about the Holocaust comparison for a moment. There are plenty of parallels between the Nazi's seizure of state power and the Repukes\BFEE consolidation of state power.

True, we haven't had brownshirts marching in the streets yet (altho I still get nasty goosebumps when I remember the sports stadia filled with crowds chanting 'USA, USA' as images of bombing of Afghanistan flashed on the big-screen displays). We haven't had the emergence of 'death camps' yet, either. But please remember that Hitler's Final Solution did not begin with death camps. Those came about mostly after the invasion of Poland and most were located in Poland. So when you remember the sweeps of Muslims that took place after 9/11, don't you get some cold chills?
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EOTE Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:49 PM
Response to Reply #4
26. No, we're not that far now...
But are we heading there? Is it inappropriate to make the comparisons if being aware of our situation can prevent us from repeating history? We have no Crystalnacht, but many have compared (and I think appropriately so), the burning of the Reichstag to our 9/11. Hitler didn't just stand before a podium and announce: "Exterminate the Jews!". It took time and a lot of smart and evil people preparing the public for a totalitarian regime. "Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it." Those words seem more important every passing day.
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:21 PM
Response to Reply #26
91. But the burning of the Reichstag
happened after a destructive and humiliating war that destroyed German national pride and eliminated a generation of men. The people were yearning for a savior. There are some parallels to 9/11, but in my personal opinion not enough to produce the anomaly of the Holocaust.

I have learned much on DU and shared much, but this issue is the great chasm between my politics and what appear to be the views of most here. I see our country as having a system that is flawed but muddling through. Just today Mississippi lawmakers denied the RW their abortion ban. I see a country where THIS dialog is possible. I see a country where we are howling rightfully about torture and war and rendition and we are NOT getting pulled off the street and executed. I see a country where we have a chance to change leadership in 2+ years. I don't buy the "both elections were stolen" meme completely. Was I disappointed that the SCOTUS stopped the voting? Of course. But I was also impressed that we weathered the Constitutional crisis without bloodshed. And given the makeup of the court, I wasn't surprised. I believe there were irregularities in '04, but in my research I've read of problems on both sides. Which is why I support paper ballots. I think a fair election is possible in 06 and 08 but I fear we might not win. Why? Because in our passion, our fervor, we go too far. I know others disagree, and I am okay with that and you'll have to be okay with me because at the moment, I have not read or heard anything to make me feel differently.

I guess this is just me. I want change, but I don't think we are standing on the slippery black precipice of genocide. I just don't. I wish I could join hubbub more effectively, but I'd be dishonest if I said things I don't believe. So I hope you can put up with my moderation because I won't be going anywhere anytime and I've rarely been accused of political correctness.
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Doctor_J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:41 PM
Response to Reply #4
119. The death trains didn't start until the late 30's
after Hitler had been in power for many years. I am re-reading They Thought They Were Free, and while there aren't as yet mass graves or death camps, the similarities to pre-09/01/1939 Germany are breathtaking. I will not deny your right to view the Holocaust through a victim's eyes, but the GOP and the Nazis are almost identical in their ideology and their tactics. They took over the media, broke the unions, created a stratified, military-heavy economy, painted all dissenters as traitors, denied jobs to non-party members (think the K-Street project), brainwashed young people, and on and on.

Anyone who thinks we won't be living under fascism until the tanks rool down the streets is sadly mistaken.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:45 PM
Response to Reply #119
121. great post! very succinctly put, covers most of the major elements
watch out!
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Doctor_J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #121
133. Most of the arguments AGAINST GOP = Nazis boil down to that
Edited on Wed Mar-29-06 10:27 AM by TOJ
- "They aren't killing people en masse". But the truth is that the "Final Solution" - the decision to exterminate them - wasn't approved or begun until 1941. Before that they were encouraging the Jews to emigrate, and then just confining them.

This argument also assumes that everything the Nazis did before the Final Solution was OK. I also would protest that point.

No, the GOP has not started mass extermination of Muslims, and they won't. But that doesn't mean they don't bear striking similarities to the Nazis.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 04:11 AM
Response to Reply #4
127. It's obviously not WW2 yet
(in spite of the Iraq war)

The sitution is more like the days shortly before Hitler actually came to power and changed the law to make himself absolute ruler.


Altough bypassing Congress and Senate in signing the new budget cut law as W did yesterday certainly smells a lot like 1933.

There's no holocaust yet, but the camps that would be needed for it have already been build.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:08 PM
Response to Original message
6. "They Thought They Were Free"You don't see it so you think it's not real?
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:10 PM by BrklynLiberal
An excerpt from
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer

But Then It Was Too Late

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider.You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.
And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

<snip>

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

<snip>


More...


http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:11 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Like I said...NIGHT by Elie Wiesel...
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 03:29 PM by fooj
Moche the Beadle...

Peace.
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Doctor_J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:42 PM
Response to Reply #6
120. A great book
I reference it in my oter post in this topic. Ch 13 and 14 are especially depressing when compared to the current climate here.
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stepnw1f Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:17 PM
Response to Original message
12. Thank You.....
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bryant69 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:40 PM
Response to Original message
22. The analogy may be apt
However it also automatically ends discussion and begins shouting.

Some are more concerned with their own gratification than they are with actually convincing others.

Of course everybody is entitled to live their life as they see best.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:49 PM
Response to Reply #22
27. I realize that, so I changed the header to try to reflect that this might
only be the possible Rise (and Fall) of the Fourth Reich, apologies to William Shirer, who was there

unfortunately, we're here now, perhaps frogs immersed in slowly heating pot of water
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:55 PM
Response to Reply #27
32. You are absolutely right about that.
Like I suggested...check out the link I supplied in my post.

Peace.:hi:
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #32
42. thanks....I opened the link. it's for a class you teach, yes?
haven't clicked any farther; I'm assuming it has to do w/Weisel's book

I'm in quite the ADHD mode today.....trying to ease myself away from the computer for some quotidia, but it's proving very difficult
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:12 PM
Response to Reply #42
45. LOL!!! Just cheat notes, yet it'll give you an idea of what I'm saying...
Take care.

Peace.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #45
57. funniest thing...I'm going to library to pick up Jules Archer's book
on Smedley Butler/FDR Coup, and will get the Weisel book... calling them now to reserve

need to get away from computer
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #57
62. Let me know what you think.
Peace.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:45 PM
Response to Reply #62
63. they're checking the shelves as I type
going over there soon
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Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:52 PM
Response to Original message
28. The NAZIfication of America
Hermes Press does a bang-up job of explaining things:

http://www.hermes-press.com/nazification_step4.htm

ConsortiumNews.com spells out the history:



CIA's Worst-Kept Secret

By Martin A. Lee
May 16, 2001

"Honest and idealist ... enjoys good food and wine ... unprejudiced mind..."

That's how a 1952 Central Intelligence Agency assessment described Nazi ideologue Emil Augsburg, an officer at the infamous Wannsee Institute, the SS think tank involved in planning the Final Solution. Augsburg's SS unit performed "special duties," a euphemism for exterminating Jews and other "undesirables" during the Second World War.

Although he was wanted in Poland for war crimes, Augsburg managed to ingratiate himself with the U.S. CIA, which employed him in the late 1940s as an expert on Soviet affairs.

Recently released CIA records indicate that Augsburg was among a rogue's gallery of Nazi war criminals recruited by U.S. intelligence shortly after Germany surrendered to the Allies.

Pried loose by Congress, which passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act three years ago, a long-hidden trove of once-classified CIA documents confirms one of the worst-kept secrets of the Cold War – the CIA's use of an extensive Nazi spy network to wage a clandestine campaign against the Soviet Union.

The CIA reports show that U.S. officials knew they were subsidizing numerous Third Reich veterans who had committed horrible crimes against humanity, but these atrocities were overlooked as the anti-Communist crusade acquired its own momentum. For Nazis who would otherwise have been charged with war crimes, signing on with American intelligence enabled them to avoid a prison term.

"The real winners of the Cold War were Nazi war criminals, many of whom were able to escape justice because the East and West became so rapidly focused after the war on challenging each other," says Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations and America's chief Nazi hunter.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/051601a.html



Unfortunately, there's more -- as in much, much more:

NAZI Echo Archive

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/nazi.html

People need to know what is happening. Bush and his neo-confederate crew are just like NAZIs -- they invade innocent countries, they kill thousands and care not, they penure the middle class and laugh.

Thanks for shedding some light on the subjects, Gabi Hayes.
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:56 PM
Response to Reply #28
34. Hi Octafish...have you read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel?
It's all laid out...short read and very powerful.

Peace.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:16 PM
Response to Reply #28
46. what a welcome and pleasant surprise! as always, you provide
cogent and apt contribution to the anti-fascist dialogue

a big kudos from me and your myriad supporters

and.....everybody check this thread of Octafish, cause the media are going to let this whole story die, where it could be (like so many others) a key element in finally tipping the scale

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=757860

and this companion thread, which is almost two years old

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1429777&mesg_id=1429777&listing_type=
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 03:58 PM
Response to Original message
35. Because America = Nazi is a non-starter and is plain lazy.
You want the provocative reaction but its too hard to explain what a fascist is and why this country is sliding toward fascism which is unlikely to be a carbon copy of the Nazi or Franco's regime or Mussolini's or Tito's or Pinochet's.

So you go for the cheap soundbite that ends up alienating most of your target audience. Bravo....
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:04 PM
Response to Reply #35
38. Here's an example of a question that I pose to my students...
I use it when I teach NIGHT by Elie Wiesel...

How were the propaganda techniques of scapegoating and stereotyping used by the Third Reich to condone and even encourage behavior that most German citizens would have considered abhorrent?

Not a CHEAP soundbite, IMO. Unless I'm mistaken...that's happening NOW!

The similarities are frightening. If that alienates people...so be it.

Peace.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:18 PM
Response to Reply #38
48. Those are KKKarl Rove's strongest suits. His best tools.
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 04:19 PM by BrklynLiberal
Scapegoating and stereotyping are his first choices of weapons.
If it did not sound so farfetched and tinfoil-hattish I would say he was some sort of Nazi mole, a Manchurian Candidate, "Boys from Brazil" type of character and * is his puppet.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:22 PM
Response to Reply #48
52. no need for tin foil.....they don't have to go that far to "brainwash"
the willing

that's the key

as fooj says, there are millions who have bought into the fear, the straw-man campaign tactics, the constant barrage of a Public Relations Presidency

they're LINING up to get their place on the pyramind, the farther up the better
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:18 PM
Response to Reply #35
49. learn to read
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 04:19 PM by Gabi Hayes
or did you even bother?

I'll send a hundred bucks to your favorite charity if you read ONE link I provided
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:35 PM
Response to Reply #49
59. Send it to DU....
My point stands even if it was a bit impolite.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:37 PM
Response to Reply #59
60. which link did you read?
care to provide a summary?
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:46 PM
Response to Reply #60
65. Bush = HItler and for some of them the Zionists/Mossad did 9/11.
Great links :eyes:



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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:50 PM
Response to Reply #65
69. fill me in....I haven't read it
thx
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:05 PM
Response to Reply #69
82. Plum crazy wasn't bad, tried to keep the discussion focused.
Your last link is not so good, check the home page

http://www.nogw.com/

They're clever in that they use Zionist instead of Jew, right up until you scroll down to the Holocaust denial.

http://www.nogw.com/dark_history.html#holohoax


Very clever though, they've gloomed onto quite a few causes near and dear to many lefty hearts.

So I am sure DU will be happy with your $100.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:13 PM
Response to Reply #82
86. lefty hearts? did you peruse 19,900 of those links to make your point?
lefties, like Bob Barr?

methinks you hadn't read any of these links beforehand, as I surmised



and I just love the use of the strawman; one of the preferred tactics of the, well, you know

doesn't do much for your presentation, if I must say

I will, however, begin paying off, honorable lefty that I am

installments OK?
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rinsd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:18 PM
Response to Reply #86
89. An attitude change would be preferable....
...save your money.

You're the one who linked to a site that dabbles in holocaust denial, the Illumminati and the Jews (oh sorry Zionists) control everything.

I mentioned the lefty cause thing because they also have links to various heros of the left like Chsvez and Sehehan and they have stuff about election fraud. It's anti-semiticism wrapped in an attractive bow targeted at those of the left wing persuasion.

Again, my original point is that Bush =Hitler is lazy and self defeating. You're better off explaining fascism and why this country is sliding towards it.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:21 PM
Response to Reply #89
90. I provide a link to THOUSANDS of articles
pick and choose all you want. there are FAR more sites with respectable provenance. that's a pretty lame approach you're taking by focusing on the sort of site that's the antithesis of what this thread was intended to expose

project much?

and speaking of attituds

puhhhlease
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:58 PM
Response to Reply #86
113. In the spirit of dialogue, Gabi,
I'll send $25 tomorrow.

Because this is a conversation that needs to happen. I promise I read the links as well. They were gutsy to post, even though our interpretation of them is different. And I agree the last one was rather weak.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:18 PM
Response to Reply #113
117. love you, grannie! I learn things every day, including
my latest lesson in expressing myself more clearly, as my inital (and myriad other) posts here indicate

isn't that why we're here? to learn, expand our horizons?

I've learned much today, and have become quite a bit more empathic to the concerns of those who've suffered intimately as a result of the third reich, but I'm not buying the POVs of those who scoff at the possibility that something VERY VERY wrong is happening here

those in charge are following a playbook. it's very obvious. heard about their "leadership" institutes? the 'classes' they offer for those who hope to become part of the media herd, classes designed to get them to put out the same message, never to respond to direct questions, etc., cast aspersions on the honesty of their opponents, use straw men and fearmongering as their stock in trade?

but, I digress

sorry
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TallahasseeGrannie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:53 PM
Response to Reply #35
109. Thank you for your eloquence
and saying what I can't quite express about this topic, which I feel passionate about.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 04:14 AM
Response to Reply #35
128. Neocons = Nazis is much less of a stretch.
It doesn't have to be a carbon copy to be nazism/fascism.

At any rate, the record shows these comparisons do not alienate most of the audience.
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ourbluenation Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:00 PM
Response to Original message
37. Nothing wrong with feeling a little uncomfortable from time to time.
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Cleita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:06 PM
Response to Original message
40. Good post. I hope everyone bothers to read your links.
They are very important for an understanding of what is going on today.
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:08 PM
Response to Reply #40
41. Exactly.
Indifference is the enemy.

Peace.
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skygazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:21 PM
Response to Original message
51. People mistakenly relate Hitler solely with the Holocaust
Not hard to see why - it was an event of ghastly and epic proportions. But well prior to a shot being fired in WWII, there were events going on that were eerily similar to what is happening in our country today. The use of fear as a tactic to manipulate the masses. The use of false propaganda. The speeches to handpicked audiences. The manipulation of science to serve the ideology of the Nazis. The labeling of any dissent as "unpatriotic". The gradual increase in executive power. All of these (and more) are what made the Holocause possible.

Exterminating an entire segment of the population does not seem to be on the neo-cons agenda (at least, not yet). But wiping out the Jews was only part of Hitler's plans, too.

What irritates me the most about those who say you cannot use this comparison is that Bush himself compares his actions to those of the Allies in WWII. That sickens me since I see far greater parallels between him and the Nazis.
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Texaroo Donating Member (155 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:41 PM
Response to Original message
61. In the words of Joseph Goebbels:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

and:

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”

Now somebody tell me THAT attitude is not applicable in the US today. You even have the right making it's own propaganda films. For the underinformed, my man Joe was Dolph's Propaganda Minister. These are quotes form the Nuremburg trials. "Those who fail to learn history...," and all that.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:49 PM
Response to Reply #61
68. dig this....I knew about Bernays/Goebbels, etc, but this is a great
article

http://www.americanidealism.com/articles/karl-rove-and-the-spectre-of-freuds-nephew.html

the herd and the turd {blossom}

The Triumph of “Turd Blossom”
Karl Rove—given the above nickname by our jocular President—is an extraordinarily keen student of American psychology and history. He is well aware of the back story to contemporary political fixtures like the focus group—a technique innovated by Edward Bernays. Consequently, it doesn’t take too much effort to discern the afterimage of Bernays’s teachings in Bush’s rhetoric.

In Crystallizing Public Opinion, Bernays related how governments and advertisers can “regiment the mind like the military regiments the body.” This discipline can be imposed because of “the natural inherent flexibility of individual human nature.” He also instructed that the “average citizen is the world’s most efficient censor. His own mind is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own ‘logic proof compartments,’ his own absolutism are the obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of group reaction.”

In addition to what Bernays saw as a widespread individual resistance to reason in public affairs, he contended “physical loneliness is a real terror to the gregarious animal, and that association with the herd causes a feeling of security. In man this fear of loneliness creates a desire for identification with the herd in matters of opinion.”

Once within the “herd,” the “gregarious animal” still wishes to express his or her opinion. Therefore, the public relations counsel must “appeal to individualism goes closely in hand with other instincts, such as self-display.”
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Spinoza Donating Member (766 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:46 PM
Response to Original message
64. Sorry, but all the links in the world
don't even come close to Hitler's actual Germany.

One story (not even close to the worst): My mother, aged 13, in 1938 was one of the last three jewish children in her school in Hamburg. All the other jewish parents had pulled their children out to protect them from the other school children and (especially) from the teachers. But my grandfather, a completely assimilated Jew who loved German culture and had won the Iron Cross in WWI as an officer fighting for Germany--just couldn't believe what was happening around him.

So one day, the school principle and several teachers organized the students to THROW ROCKS at the last Jewish children still in the school. They were stoned by their own teachers. My mother ran home crying with blood pouring down her face and with teachers and other students running after her screaming anti-semitic epithets. Again she was 13. My grandfather went to the police wearing his Iron Cross. (Remember, this is still more than a year before the onset of WWII and years before the 'Final Solution'.) The police beat him bloody and warned him not to make any more 'trouble'.

My mother eventually went to Dachau. This is one of the mildest stories I know.

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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #64
67. I think this is about similarities...
Peace.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:58 PM
Response to Reply #67
78. there you go, doing insidious things like, uh, reading!
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 04:59 PM by Gabi Hayes
'Night' is at the library, contained with two other stories/essays, btw

how bummed am I going to be?
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:00 PM
Response to Reply #78
81. Very. It's a disturbing yet necessary read.
You'll see what I mean soon enough.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #64
75. I/m very sorry to hear that, believe me
here's a very sad story that didn't take from 1933 to 1938 for such an atmospher to develop

Balbir Singh Sodhi was gunned down on Sept. 15, 2001 in Mesa, Arizona. The turban-wearing Sikh was killed outside his gas station. Sodhi's killer spent the hours before the murder in a bar, bragging of his intention to "kill the ragheads responsible for September 11." He has been convicted and sits on death row.


another

Waqar Hasan of Dallas, Texas was also murdered on Sept. 15, 2001. The 46-year-old Pakistani, was shot to death in a convenience store he owned. Hasan was murdered by Mark Stroman, who was convicted of also murdering Vasudev Patel days later in nearby Mesquite, Texas.

want more? it can't happen here, can it?

http://www.hanania.com/hatevictims.html

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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:00 PM
Response to Reply #75
80. But the people who murdered those victims were prosecuted, right? NT
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:09 PM
Response to Reply #80
84. tell that to the victims
and their families

I'm sure that makes them feel swell

and, while we're at it, how many "arabs" do we still have in detention?

how many other 'persons of interest' are being detained, rendered, etc., US citizen or not?

I don't think anybody knows the answer
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #84
87. We've had hate crimes long before Bush got into office, and we will
continue to have them long after he's gone.

The comparison is not apt — and trivializes Spinoza's hair-raising story.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:24 PM
Response to Reply #87
92. come ON!
you can't be serious

if that's the approach you're going to take, what's the point?

these people were MURDERED (pretty trivial to you, perhaps) because of who they are; directly as a result of the sort of fear/hate mongering that keeps these monsters in power

the only 'pleasant' irony in this is that the Dubai ports fiasco exposed just how effective this campaign has been, and MIGHT serve to unseat these monsters, assuming, of course, that our vote means anything anymore
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:26 PM
Response to Reply #92
93. No, murder isn't trivial to me.
I lost an entire generation of my family in Auschwitz. I am as serious as a heart attack.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #93
95. again, I'm sorry for your loss, as for all those who suffered under them
my own father was almost killed...maimed for life, fighting in Belgium, against those people

we can disagree on the degree of triviality with which comparisons with this junta and the Third Reich apply



I want to make sure it doesn't happen here
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #95
97. Even though I think your rhetoric does more harm than good, we have
the same goal. And it's an admirable one.
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:36 PM
Response to Reply #97
100. thanks, but rhetoric implies some sort of disingenuous motivation
I realize what you mean, but if you mean I'm trying to hoodwink people into agreeing with my POV, I have to disagree

I stated pretty clearly my thoughts in the header, and provided links for anybody to follow up on

am I missing something here?

is the mere mention of the possible parallels between the two regimes not a bona fide subject for discussion?
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:38 PM
Response to Reply #100
102. Didn't mean to imply anything of the sort. NT
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:43 PM
Response to Reply #102
104. ok
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 05:43 PM by Gabi Hayes
said one frog to the other: 'this water gettin' WARM!'

rhetoric alet
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Spinoza Donating Member (766 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 07:05 PM
Response to Reply #75
123. Are you saying that 2 individual murders--
where both killers have been prosecuted and jailed--is somehow similar to the Holocaust under Hitler?
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 07:07 PM
Response to Reply #123
124. nice try, sophist
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 07:13 PM by Gabi Hayes
you know exactly what I mean

is this you, or the other guy:

''A beggar gains entrance to the house of a rich man and to get his help expounds his troubles: he lost his job his wife is very ill, his son has had a serious accident etc. After a while the rich man rings for the butler and says 'Throw him out, he is breaking my heart.'''
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Hubert Flottz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:43 PM
Response to Original message
105. They have done everything but gas people!
And they'll get around to that after the election in November, if the can rig it and win again. The Final Solution to the Neocon's "Democratic Problem" is just around the corner now!
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:47 PM
Response to Reply #105
107. hope yer kiddin', right?
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 06:20 PM by Gabi Hayes
don't need any more fuel added to the fire

the rigged election bit is obviously problematic, and the easy key to their maintaining power in perpetuity

lord knows who their next puppet's going to be
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Hubert Flottz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:12 PM
Response to Reply #107
116. No I'm not kidding!
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 06:14 PM by Hubert Flottz
The poor people in America are to the neocons, as the Jews once were to Hitler.(Untermench)(The Have Nots) IMO! Think about New Orleans for a minute! Think about the people Bush offed on death row in Texas. Think of the killing in Iraq now by the "Death Squads". The Neocon's Einsatzgruppen("Death Squads")are honing their skills in Iraq, NOW and the new World Order's GESTAPO,(NSA/CIA) is chomping at the bit for the order to cut loose on the US too!

Building concentration camps...FOR WHAT? Spying on their neighbors...FOR What? Teaching the troops to torture and murder...FOR WHAT? Demanding unchecked Power...FOR What?

TRUST BUSH...at your own peril!
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Hubert Flottz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 06:57 PM
Response to Reply #116
122. MOVING TARGETS
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 06:57 PM by Hubert Flottz
MOVING TARGETS

Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/031215fa_fact





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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:45 PM
Response to Original message
106. gee, does this sound familiar?
watch out, though, it's from a dirty commie link (russian, anyway, so it has to be commie, right?)

from last year

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/07-21-05/discussion.cgi.12.html

"A federal appeals court put the Bush administration’s military commissions for terrorist suspects back on track Friday, saying a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison who once was Osama bin Laden’s driver can stand trial. A three-judge panel ruled 3-0 against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose case was halted by a federal judge on grounds that commission procedures were unlawful. “Congress authorized the military commission that will try Hamdan,” said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

"The protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention do not apply to al-Qaida and its members, so Hamdan does not have a right to enforce its provisions in court, the appeals judges said. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled last year that Hamdan could not be tried by a military commission until a competent tribunal determined that he was not a prisoner of war.

“We believe the military commission is such a tribunal,” said the appeals court. President Bush created the military commissions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, opening a legal channel for alleged al-Qaida terrorists and their associates to be tried for war crimes. Hamdan’s lawyers said Bush violated the separation of powers in the Constitution when he established military commissions. The court disagreed, saying Bush relied on Congress’s joint resolution authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as two congressionally enacted laws. “We think it no answer to say, as Hamdan does, that this case is different because Congress did not formally declare war,” said the decision by appeals court judge A. Raymond Randolph.

"Congress authorized the president to use all necessary and appropriate force in the war on terrorism." Two lawyers representing Hamdan, Neal Katyal and Navy Lt. Commander Charles D. Swift, said the appeals court ruling “is contrary to 200 years of constitutional law.” Katyal said Hamdan will seek further appeals. “Today’s ruling places absolute trust in the president, unchecked by the Constitution, statutes of Congress, and longstanding treaties ratified by the Senate of the United States,” the two defense lawyers said in a statement.

Also repeating history is the fact that the only institution in the United States that have fought against these new dictatorial powers has been the United States Military, and who like their German counterparts during the rise of Hitler have also attempted to keep an American Dictatorship from forming. As the American Navy Lt. Commander Charles D. Swift has been quoted by the Associated Press, “ is contrary to 200 years of constitutional law. Today’s ruling places absolute trust in the president, unchecked by the Constitution, statutes of Congress, and longstanding treaties ratified by the Senate of the United States.”
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 05:53 PM
Response to Original message
110. here's a parallel I really like
Edited on Tue Mar-28-06 05:54 PM by Gabi Hayes
they had their own AAR!



those damned, dirty communist artists

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/heartfield/
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Swamp Rat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-28-06 08:48 PM
Response to Original message
125. A kinder and gentler, more compassionate 'Hitler':
"Leave no Iraqi behind."


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file83 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-29-06 05:30 AM
Response to Reply #125
130. LOL!!!
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 03:45 PM
Response to Reply #130
134. my favorite, which was a difficult decision
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Gabi Hayes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-02-06 06:48 PM
Response to Original message
135. excellent new thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=818363&mesg_id=818363

<snip>3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people, and colonization for our surplus population.

4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.

5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners.

6. The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen. Therefore we demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county or municipality, be filled only by citizens. We combat the corrupting parliamentary economy, office-holding only according to party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities.

7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since the 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.

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