Yes We Can. Germany Did. German Unemployment at 18 Year Low

Remember German Chancellor Angela Merkel getting in Obama's face at the G20 and refusing to try to "spend their way out of the economic crises?" Whatever she is doing, it's working. Unemployment in Germany has not been lower since 1992. Consumer confidence is high. Make no mistake, this is humiliating for Barack Obama. Take a look at the headlines below and think about what Europe thinks about this "elegant, articulate and clean" President, now that Merkel is proven right. Our President casts a long, dark shadow over the White House.

At the time of G20, Merkel's position was called "Merkel's austerity."  At the same time, the head of the European Central Bank said: "...the idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect," and Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said: "Governments should not become addicted to borrowing as a quick fix to stimulate demand...." So, yes we can bring back jobs and confidence. Germany did.

Headlines earlier this year reveal Obama's folly:

Pres. Obama Rejected at G-20 

U.S. isolated on spending at G-20 

G-20 Leaders ignore Obama's advice, pledge to cut deficits 

Europe spurns Obama's Plea for More Spending

From CNBC:

German unemployment fell slightly in October, dropping to its lowest level in 18 years as the impact of persistently strong growth in Europe's top economy continued to filter through to the jobs market.

The number of jobless fell by 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.153 million, figures from the Labor Office showed on Thursday, while the headline level dipped to 2.945 million, confirming figures announced a day earlier.

The headline reading fell below the 3 million mark — a key political threshold — for the first time since November 2008, to its lowest point since October 1992.

Data on Europe's biggest economy over the past week has been bullish, signalling its unexpectedly strong recovery could hold up in the face of signs of fragility in the global economy.

Yes, we can do it also. Germany did. November 2nd is the day we begin bringing jobs and confidence back to the U.S.

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Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook
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Angela Merkel: Multiculturalism Failed in Germany: We Thought They'd Be Gone but...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says "immigrants should learn to speak German," acknowledging that the "multikulti" concept has failed..."utterly." While Muslims are not specifically accused, it becomes clear as you read on. See an intriguing video of Muslims in Germany below and see what they really want.

Muslim Girls in Germany

Merkel is advising immigrants to do more to integrate, as an "anti-immigration feeling" rises in the country. Germans believe their country, suffering from high unemployment is "overrun by foreigners."

She added: "We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality."

Hear it in the video below. Can you imagine that statement being made in the U.S.? 'Yeah, we thought they would leave after awhile but it isn't happening.' But the Chancellor made it clear that foreigners are welcome in Germany, just please speak our language and become one of us [my interpretation].

She specifically referred to recent comments by German President Christian Wulff who said that Islam was "part of Germany," like Christianity and Judaism.

In May 2010, the Central council of Muslims, pulled out of a German government-sponsored effort to "foster Muslim integration." Family Security Matters has the story.

See, the real problem in Germany, as with elsewhere across the globe are contentious Muslims. Most of the contentious believe in jihad against non-believers - that would be us." You can champion Muslim rights in the West all you want, but there is no such thing as a Muslim's infidel friend after you are no longer of use to the jihadist mission. You are next on the list.

Another long-range problem: Many Muslims in Germany and the U.S. refuse to let their school children integrate. We must think about what that means, and it isn't simple or pleasant. Children world-wide are the future. Put that in a post-it note in a place where you see it often.

In 2009, there were 4.3 million Muslims in Germany, 5.4% of the population. Some 2.5 million are Turkish immigrants or migrants. The U.S. has a Muslim population of  about 2.5 million. Many assimilate. Those who do not are the problem.

The debate first heated up in August when Thilo Sarrazin, a senior official at Germany's central bank, said that "no immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime". Mr Sarrazin has since resigned.

Four thousand Germans converted between July 2004 and June 2005" - mainly women who married a Muslim," but also many university graduates.

Two videos below. The first includes Merkel's statements. The second shows the violence at a school and the everyday problems with young Muslims. The second has subtitles in English. It moves quickly. Just hit pause with each one for easier reading.





Muslims in Germany - The Failure of Multikulti (video) Muslim Problems in German Schools(video)
Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook

Angela Merkel: Multiculturalism Failed in Germany: We Thought They'd Be Gone but...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says "immigrants should learn to speak German," acknowledging that the "multikulti" concept has failed..."utterly." While Muslims are not specifically accused, it becomes clear as you read on. See an intriguing video of Muslims in Germany below and see what they really want.

Muslim Girls in Germany

Merkel is advising immigrants to do more to integrate, as an "anti-immigration feeling" rises in the country. Germans believe their country, suffering from high unemployment is "overrun by foreigners."

She added: "We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality."

Hear it in the video below. Can you imagine that statement being made in the U.S.? 'Yeah, we thought they would leave after awhile but it isn't happening.' But the Chancellor made it clear that foreigners are welcome in Germany, just please speak our language and become one of us [my interpretation].

She specifically referred to recent comments by German President Christian Wulff who said that Islam was "part of Germany," like Christianity and Judaism.

In May 2010, the Central council of Muslims, pulled out of a German government-sponsored effort to "foster Muslim integration." Family Security Matters has the story.

See, the real problem in Germany, as with elsewhere across the globe are contentious Muslims. Most of the contentious believe in jihad against non-believers - that would be us and the other "thems." You can champion Muslim rights in the West all you want, but there is no such thing as an infidel friend after you are no longer of use to the mission. You are next on the list.

Another long-range problem: Many Muslims in Germany and the U.S. refuse to let their school children integrate. We must think about what that means, and it isn't simple or pleasant. Children world-wide are the future. Put that in a post-it note in a place where you see it often.

In 2009, there were 4.3 million Muslims in Germany, 5.4% of the population. Some 2.5 million are Turkish immigrants or migrants. The U.S. has a Muslim population of  about 2.5 million. Many assimilate. Those who do not are the problem.

The debate first heated up in August when Thilo Sarrazin, a senior official at Germany's central bank, said that "no immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime". Mr Sarrazin has since resigned.

Four thousand Germans converted between July 2004 and June 2005" - mainly women who married a Muslim," but also many university graduates.

Two videos below. The first includes Merkel's statements. The second shows the violence at a school and the everyday problems with young Muslims. The second has subtitles in English. It moves quickly. Just hit pause with each one for easier reading.


Muslims in Germany - The Failure of Multikulti (video) Muslim Problems in German Schools(video)
Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook

Ilyas Kashmiri MI5 Target: Ilyas Kashmiri Terror Cells Targeted by MI5

After a warning from the U.S., Britain's MI5 counter-intelligence is going after Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri's terror cells believed to have already been dispatched to the U.K. Kashmiri is reportedly acting under orders from Osama Bin Laden, and has sent terror cells to the West to make Mumbai-style attacks in Europe.

Ilyas Kashmiri (perhaps in disguise)

Kashmiri claims to be an accomplice, and involved in the the murderer of Daniel Pearl by Omar Saeed Sheikh.

Some senior Al Qaeda members who were associated with Kashmiri were killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan on September 8, including a Briton named as Adbul Jabbar, who had been tasked with leading an Al Qaeda group in the UK.

Kashmiri had more than a few contacts with American David Coleman Headley and Canadian Tahawwar Hussein Rana, both of Chicago. Headley was arrested in October 2009 and held on charges of conspirace to commit terrorist acts and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorist groups. Testimony from Headley stated that he was planning to meet Kashiri in Pakistan in October 2009. He was arrested at O'Hare Airport preparing to board a flight.

Tahawwar Hussein Rana owns several businesses, including First World Immigration Services in Chicago, New York and Toronto, a halal meat plant and a grocery store. He is charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism groups. Both Headley and Rana were born in Pakistan.

In January 2010, the FBI said Headley also worked as an agent for First World Immigration Services. The U.S. Attorney General's office was "working to determine the immigration status of people who entered the U.S. with the agency's help, with false documents. In an Internet search, First World Immigration Services appears to still be operating.

The photo above of Headley and Rana comes courtesy of Cao's Blog who has the details on these two men and their operation, including the immigration scam wrought by First World Immigration Services.

France and Germany have also elevated their terror watch, with the U.K. set at 'severe.'

Mohammed Ilyas Kashiri was believed in a U.S. drone strike in 2009, but gave an interview to a Pakistani reporter in early to mid-2009. He was charged in abstentia in the U.S. in January 2010 and of plotting international attacks. Read an in-depth report about the Osama Bin Laden and Ilyas Kashmiri connection at Long War Journal.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook


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Dove Koran Burning Back On: Koran Burning Protestor Dead in Afghanistan

Dove's Pastor Jones says his Koran-burning event is back on. A Muslim man in Afghanistan was shot dead by Nato troops during a protest of the U.S. Koran-burning, which has not yet happened.

 Terry Jones - Koran-Burning Back On

Thousands poured into the streets from mosques, after prayers, with as many as many as 10,000, hurling rocks. Yeah, well, we haven't burned any Korans so far, but these moderate, mosque-going Muslims got off their knees after prayer and attacked anyway. Were any of them praying for peace? Were any of them praying for peace for the U.S.? Were any of them praying for a peaceful countenance for their fellow extremists? Were any of them praying for the attraction of jihad to leave the Muslim communities world-wide? Were any of them praying for those who died on September 11, 2001? I don't think so.

In London thousands of people gathered at the Ahmadiyya Muslim mosque, in Morden, to hear Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the world head of the community, denounce the US pastor.

"Religious extremism, be it Christian extremism, Muslim extremism, or any other kind is never a true reflection of the religion" he said.

Demonstrations against the desecration of Islam's holy book prompted threats of attacks on US bases elsewhere in Afghanistan. Protests were held in Kabul and near the Pakistan border.

"If they do this, we will attack American bases and close the highway used by convoys supplying American troops," a cleric called Zahidullah told the Reuters news agency.

Pastor Terry Jones said yesterday he has cancelled the book burning, believing the Ground Zero mosque developers promised they would move the mosque. That turned out to be untrue, so now Jones, who apparently has protested the funerals of our Military with the vile Westboro Baptist Church, says he is rethinking the situation and for now, the burning is back on his calendar.

Speaking outside his Dove World Outreach Centre church in Gainesville, Jones said: "As of right now, we are not cancelling the event, but we are suspending it." 

By the way, Jones has been dismissed from the board of a church he founded in Germany, not for the threat of burning Korans, but for "mistreating his followers." And they want no part of the Koran burning. This reminds me of Jim Jones of the People's Temple in Guyana who convinced more than 900 members of his church in exile to drink poisoned Kool-Aid, which they did, and they all died.

Der Spiegel World Bids Farewell to Obama: End of Hope Quote of the Day: World to Obama - Bye Bye

German paper, der Spiegel, has a pithy headline: The World Bids Farewell to Obama - the End of Hope.

The article quotes several German newspapers as a basis for their analysis. Citing all the failures and outrages we have discussed so many times, here are a few snippets:

The Financial Times Deutschland:

For everyone else in the world, this means that they will have to bid farewell to a candidate for whom the hopes were so high. They will have to say goodbye to the charisma they fell in love with. Obama will be staying home after all.

Center-left daily Suddeutsche Zeitung:

His reform agenda, in its current form, is highly suspect to Americans. And they have the impression that, if he continues piling up debt, he will be gambling away the country's future."

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung:

It will become even more difficult in the future for the president to push projects through successfully. Not just because Republicans now have a means of preventing it, but also because the Democratic camp is deeply divided.

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

To save what there is to be saved, Obama will have to be prepared to fashion a bipartisan compromise on health care -- a compromise with a Republican Party which has tasted blood and can now dream once again about a return to power."

Munich Airport Terminal 2 shut down: Munich Passenger flees Laptop checked for explosives

Munich international airport, Terminal 2 is shut down as authorities search for a man who fled from a security check into a "closed-off area" of the airport. Authorities confiscated his laptop, which some reports say showed traces of explosives.  Numerous flights have been held. A search for the man is underway. More as details are available. Source: News24. Update 1-20-10: Correction to the above report. Both the man and the laptop are still missing. The exact wording is: "...when a passenger whose laptop tested positive for explosives moved past security and could not be stopped." Terminal 2 has reopened. 

Police say they have a security video showing the man.

At around 3:30 p.m., an airport security device alerted officials to possible explosives in the laptop, but the man then proceeded through security control with his laptop before officials could take a second look.

The airport's police director Edgar Dommermuth said in a press conference it was not immediately clear whether the laptop indeed contained explosives or if it was a false alarm.

German police are calling for a complete investigation into security procedures at all German airports.

Obama Lost Stature, Relatively Unsuccessful, A Lot Like Jimmy Carter, Ain't No Pacific President

The First Pacific President who isn't, Barack Obama, has been deemed "nowhere on the world stage" by our German friends.

David Axelrod whined to the press that the "public's expectations had been too high." "Expectations too high" - echos throughout the world. Damage control for Barack Obama: Expectations too high - December 2008!,Expectations too high - January 2009!  Expectations too high - February 2009!  Expectations so high - March 2009! Expectations too high - June 2009! Expectations too high - October 2009! This list could go on an on, and just for the record, most of us red-blooded Americans out here are getting exactly what we expected out of Barack Obama. See a Charles Krauthammer video below explaining the "first Pacific President," and why Obama is not "it."

The following from der Spiegel Online:

The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.

 "Lost Some Stature:"

Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik.

 "Relatively Unsuccessful:"

When former President Bill Clinton went to China in June 1998, Beijing wanted to impress the Americans. A press conference in the Great Hall of the People, broadcast on television as a 70-minute live discussion, became a sensation the world over. 

America should clean up its government finances, and the weak dollar is unacceptable, the head of the Chinese banking authority said, just as Obama's plane was about to land.

Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians. "We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion."

 Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring, with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being changed. "We're searching for an exit strategy," said a staff member with the National Security Council on the sidelines of the Asia trip.

"A Lot Like Jimmy Carter:"

An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world that its nuclear power is peaceful....This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers....

Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy

The world is beginning to get it.


Charles Krauthammer: Obama not the first Pacific President(video)

Angela Merkel FDP Win: Germany Votes "Center Right"

After 11 years, Germans gave took power away from the Socialist Democrat Party. At a time when President Barack Obama and his minions are yearning for collectivism, socialism and depths of liberalism that Americans have never known or wanted, Germany heads in a new direction with plans to lower taxes and speed-up free market investment.

Angela Merkel

Since 2004, Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and sister-party, the conservative Bavarian Christian Socialist Union (CSU) shared power with the Social Democrats, in a coalition known as the "Grand Coalition." It was not so "grand." This time, Merkel actually moved her agenda slightly to the left to attract both pro-business and worker interest.

We have achieved something great," Mrs Merkel told supporters on Sunday night. "We have managed to achieve our election aim of a stable majority in Germany for a new government."

It is believed Merkel's new coalition with small government The Free Democrat Party (FDP) has made some promises that may be difficult to keep:

...protect the country's "social market economy" with its mix of capitalism, regulation and a strong social safety net.

Nevertheless, the FDP received about 14.6 percent of the vote - the highest in it's history. Guido Westerwelle, the FDB leader may be pegged as Vice Chancellor: The FDP is also expected to win the post of foreign minister, which would likely continue a strong relationship with the U.S. and push for a key economic position, such as finance minister or economy minister, in order to push its tax-cutting agenda.

On Sunday night, Mr. Westerwelle told cheering supporters at a rally in Berlin that he would push for "a fair tax system," with radically simpler tax laws as well as lower income-tax rates.

In the meantime, Social Democratic Party (SDP) supporters are in a state of shock with their worst parliamentary showing since the WWII:

...its lowest result in a national election since the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933, highlighting the decline of one of Europe's oldest parties and a longtime pillar of German democracy. "There's no getting around it. This is a bitter day for Germany's Social Democrats," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD's heavily defeated candidate for chancellor.

Ironically, it seems the SDP took a few bold, decidedly non-socialist and unpopular steps before Merkel came into office:

Under Chancellor Schröder, an SPD-Green government tried to modernize Germany's stagnating economy with major overhauls including slashing long-term jobless benefits. The changes helped to bring down German unemployment to around 3.5 million today from five million in 2005, but they also undermined the SPD's popularity.

It's a sticky venture - that of trying to promote capitalism yet keep socialism alive. By God's grace, may we never go there. Read this blog post from geeeeeZ! who speaks from some inside information.

Abu Adam is German al-Qaeda in Pakistan (Video)

German Muslim converts are making a life in Pakistan for themselves and their families. It takes a village, dont ya know, and this one in Waziristan specializes in hitting Nato forces in Afghanistan. See videos below. The village of "white" al Qaeda forces boasts schools, hospitals, pharmacies and day care centers. It's a great life there and 24 year old German, Abu Adam, "warmly" invites you to join him and others like him, including small children surrounded by German burkha'ed mothers .

According to German foreign ministry officials a growing number of German families, many of North African descent, have taken up the offer and travelled to Waziristan where supporters say converts make up some of the insurgents' most dedicated fighters. The Europeans are there [in Waziristan]. The most dedicated people there are from Europe. They will do anything for Islam. They are not there because their father's are Muslim, but by choice," he said.

Reports are that Abu Adam's real name is Mounir Chouka and he was born in Bonn Germany. The first video below seems to be a recruitment video. The title indicates Abu Adam and his "brother," are featured. Is the speaker Abu Adam? He is identified as Abu Ibraheem., so I think not. The video is worth watching. It presents a Hollywood-style view of terrorists. Watch toward the end as numerous jihadists are profiled individually. These guys are rock stars. Take a look at Ausbilder Ishaq at about 4:05 minutes in, and "Idris" right after Ishaq. It's striking to see a succession of jihadists actually smiling and posing for the camera. The second video features Abu Adam.

Abu Adam and "Brother"

Klaus Scharioth is U.S. German Ambassador: al-Qaida Widespread Threats: Terrorists Dispatched

Klaus Scharioth - German Ambassador to U.S.

WTOP.com, federal news radio says that the U.S. and Germany agree that there is danger of widespread threats of al-Qaida attacks emulating the bombings in Bali in 2002 and Madrid 2004. "Groups of terrorists may have been dispatched from training bases in Pakistan to launch crippling attacks."

A minimum of 12 al-Qaida-trained terrorists are believed to have left training camps and dispatched to their home countries, of which Germany, France, Italy, the U.K. and Egypt are included. Turkish Airlines is believed to be targeted for attacks - especially flights from Istanbul to the U.S. and the U.K. to Israel. On flights over the July 4th holiday, passengers were "segregated" and screened "multiple times." In the U.S., Turkish Airlines flies to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Tampa and Chicago. Anticipated attacks on Germany are believed to try to force Germany out of Afghanistan. Following the usual terrorism tactics, intelligence believes the plan is to "plant multiple explosive devices in several locations and detonate them either in a simultaneous or sequential fashion. "

The idea is to draw in first responders to the scene after the first explosion, and then the subsequent explosions are set off in the same location to inflict maximum casualties.

German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth speaks of his country's involvement in Afghanistan:

We are the third biggest troop contributor in Afghanistan, and we are also the fourth biggest contributor of civilian efforts, training and reconstruction and also trying to help the country to redo the education system, give more girls a chance to get an education and all those things - that's one thing," Scharioth says.

Read the entire article at WTOP.com.

Germany Admits it Bankrolled Anti-Semitic Conference

Would you believe that Germany is, today, pursing the extermination of the Jews? Read this and weep, my friends.

Follow the two links - they are an important confirmation.

Posted by Monkey in the Middle, July 6, 2008

Last month Germany's foreign and economics ministries hosted a conference that became a mouthpiece for anti-Semitic Iranian propaganda and a call for Israel's destruction. I have never seen a buck passed from one agency to another as fast as I did watching German agencies trying to pass the blame for this latest bit of anti-Semitism to come from the nation of Germany.

Now it emerges that the German government bankrolled the hatefest.

The German government has admitted it was deeply involved in funding last month's conference here on the Middle East, and reports indicate it suggested inviting former Iranian deputy foreign minister Muhammad Javad Ardashir Larijani to speak at the gathering, where he called for the destruction of Israel.

At the Third Transatlantic Conference - whose stated purpose was to address "common solutions" in the Middle East - Larijani said the "Zionist project" should be "canceled" and argued that Israel "has failed miserably and has only caused terrible damage to the region."

Jens Plötner, a spokesman for German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that the Foreign, Economics and Research ministries and Chancellor Angela Merkel's office transferred funds to the Hesse Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research, which he said had proposed inviting Larijani. The grant was made from a fund for "civil society projects."

To include any Muslim nation in the terms "civil society" is indecent to say the least. When just one of the 57 Muslim nations start to show any form of civil rights and religious freedom in their lands then you may start to call them civil. Until then they have to be termed barbaric and depraved.

Bernd W. Kubbig of the Hesse Foundation, the principal organizer of the conference, refused to provide the Post with a transcript of the event in which Larijani said, "Denial of the Holocaust in the Muslim world has nothing to with anti-Semitism. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has never denied the Holocaust."

However, Ahmadinejad has consistently questioned the authenticity of the Holocaust, and he invited well-know Holocaust deniers to the "World without Zionism" conference held in Teheran in 2005.

See how they lie. Ahmadinejad not only denied that the Holocaust ever happened, but said so openly:

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report on Wednesday from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets," he said. "(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet."

This was just one example. There are many more.

Why would Germany invite an Iranian to such a conference? What would be in it for Germany other than oil?

A weeklong investigation by the Post indicates that the German government has been intensifying its business and political relations with Iran in 2008. With the exception of 2007, Germany has remained Iran's No. 1 European Union trade partner over the years. Economists attributed the decline in 2007 to private-sector complications in Iran, and not to German political policy.

In the first quarter of 2008, Iranian-German business mushroomed to €1.35 billion, an 18% increase when compared with the first four months of 2007. Germany supplies a technology-starved Iran with sophisticated equipment for its energy sector and growing infrastructure. Total German export trade to Iran has consistently hovered around €4b. each year.

Siemens, the electrical giant, maintains a robust yearly trade of between $500m. and $1b. with Iran. The German company Wirth, according to Emanuele Ottolenghi, director of the Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, "sold tunnel-boring equipment to Iran for its Ghomroud water project." While such heavy earth-moving machines can be used to build underground nuclear weapons facilities, the German government approved the deal for the machines, which critics consider to be a telling example of "dual-use" equipment.

It's good business for the Germans to give into Iranian sentiments. They stand to make a fortune. But they also made a fortune stealing the homes, businesses and eventually the lives of the Jews of Europe. Maybe they are just longing for the good old days.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Iraq, Germany, Anti-Semitism, Israel, Jews, War on Terror

Pat Buchanan's Nazi and Islamist Appeasement

Pat Buchanan, promoting another book, accuses President Bush of making "a hash of history," as Bush warned of negotiating with Iran or Hamas, comparing it to negotiating with Adolf Hitler.

While Buchanan saturates the Leftist media with his message, insisting that there would have been no WWII had the world listened to Neville Chamberlain and curtailed Winston Churchill, Sultan Knish, reporting from NY to Israel, addresses Buchanan's "appeasement," in detail.

"The Sultan" is among the very best blogging for liberty and freedom for Israel, America and humanity, in general. He is a "blogger, columnist and freelance photographer born in Israel and currently living in New York City." His columns appear at IsraeleNews and Canada Free Press, he is an author at IsraPundit, and his blog is "Named one of the Jewish Press' Most Worthwhile Blogs, 2006, 2007 and 2008."

"The Sultan" may not have the air-time Buchanan has, but he is huge in the blogosphere, and this piece rebutting Buchanan's tendency to blame the WWII allies for causing the war, needs to be read and talked and blogged about.

Sultan Knish on Pat Buchanan's Nazi Appeasement
"whether it's Nazi Germany or Islamist Iran."

Can you hear the echo?

Iran has nothing to gain by war... No, it is not Iran that wants a war with the United States. It is the United States that has reasons to want a short, sharp war with Iran.

Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.

That echo is the sound of appeasement at the heart of Buchanan's rhetoric, 1939-2008.

Pat Buchanan has spent a lot of his career dancing around the Nazi question, from throwing in his lot with Holocaust deniers, defending Nazi War Criminals and badgering Reagan to lay a wreath at an SS memorial. Lately though Pat Buchanan has stopped dancing and begun to seriously lay down a revisionist history that seeks to blame Nazi crimes on England and America as an anti-war argument against the United States taking military action against the Hitlers of today and tomorrow.

Buchanan opened the hellgates back in 2005 by arguing that WW2 wasn't worth it since much of Eastern Europe wound up in Soviet hands anyway. Despite the backlash it would begin laying out one of Buchanan's key thesis that WW2 was a mistake, that Churchill and FDR had been wrong, and using the fall of Eastern Europe as a key plank in his argument.

The quote from Buchanan's 2005 article is typical of his disingenuous position

In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain refused. In 1939, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Poland. Chamberlain agreed. At the end of the war Churchill wanted and got, Czechoslovakia and Poland were in Stalin's empire. How, then, can men proclaim Churchill "Man of the Century"?

True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland.

The pattern inherent in Pat Buchanan's Nazi apologetic, is the same one used today by defenders of Islamofascism-- it's to argue that any Nazi action was actually a reaction to the actions of England or Poland or America. This can be called Pat Buchanan's "But the Nazis Weren't Bothering Anyone" argument. It's a kissing cousin of the modern day anti-war "But Muslim Terrorists Weren't Bothering Anyone" argument that Buchanan himself has championed.

The logical fallacy at the heart of it is that it expects us to believe that Hitler had no ambitions on Western Europe and would not have acted against Western Europe. We know of course that he did. In Buchahan's universe, England and France should have let Hitler have Eastern Europe and waited until Nazi troops were actually attacking them. Considering that most of Western Europe was overrun even when Churchill did enter the war, letting Hitler and Stalin carve up Eastern Europe and giving Germany access to Volksdeutsche recruits and slave labor and allowing it to move against the Allies at its leisure-- would have course have been far more destructive, something Buchanan knows quite well.

Even in 2005 Buchanan had set the pattern for sneaking in small Nazi apologetics in between the lines, e.g

At least the Sudenten Germans wanted to be with Germany.

Just as he continues to do so to the present day.

If he (Hitler) wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?

Like most revisionist historians though, he's careful about tipping his hand. This is typical Buchanan and it's a typical apologetic for Western defenders of tyrannies that they sneakily support. Buchanan has avoided an outright defense of Nazi Germany, like Lindbergh and many of the WW2 era anti-war groups, his thesis has been to heap the blame on England, on Churchill and on the Allies.

So to fit the pattern Buchanan avoids actively justifying the Holocaust in his latest column, Was the Holocaust Inevitable? Instead he blames England and America winning the war for the Holocaust.

That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table. That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.

The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.

Never mind of course that the Nazis had been killing Jews long before the Wannsee conference. One million Jews had been murdered before the Conference. The concentration camps were being built in 1940. The first gassings at Auschwitz began in 1941. Buchanan's cynical attempt at historical revisionism attempts to treat the Holocaust as a consequence of the Allies War on Hitler. Yet it's quite clear that the Holocaust had been in the offing well before then.

Buchanan himself can't make any credible connection for his claim that the Holocaust was a consenquence of the war. His primary argument that Hitler's conquests were a response to Western aggression fails to apply to the Holocaust. But Buchanan is recycling Linbergh's old argument that Britain and the Jews would have the most to lose from American intervention in WW2. That the Holocaust itself proved Linbergh wrong, has not deterred Buchahan in the least.

The ultimate thrust of Buchanan's arguments however is to discredit WW2's premise of military intervention against foreign tyrannies. It is the ultimate agenda behind Buchanan's book Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. In penning his Nazi apologetics, Pat Buchahan is actually conducting a Jihad on behalf of the Fuhrer, but not merely Hitler, but the Hitlers of the present and the future. By attacking Churchill, Buchanan is trying to restore Appeasement to a position of honor and respect.

In Munich 1938, Buchanan makes that ultimate agenda increasingly clear

When President Bush, before the Knesset, used the word "appeasement" to label those who would negotiate with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he invoked the most powerful analogy in any debate over war and peace.

No man wishes to be regarded as an "appeaser."

Chamberlain believed not -- and, after three trips to Germany that September, he effected the transfer of the Sudeten Germans to Berlin's rule, where they wished to be. He came home in triumph to be hailed as the greatest peacemaker of all time.

Why, then, are "Munich" and "appeasement" terms of obloquy?

Of course as Buchanan will tell us it was actually all the fault of those stubborn Poles. Appeasement it turns out is a good thing. It is those who refuse to appease tyrants who are to blame for what the tyrants do next.

Hitler did not want war with Poland. Indeed, he wanted the kind of alliance with Poland he had with Italy. But, first, Danzig must be resolved... The problem was the Poles, who refused to discuss Danzig... Then, in March, Czechoslovakia suddenly began to fall apart... Hitler intervened to guarantee the independence of Slovakia...

Chamberlain, now humiliated, mocked by Tory back-benchers, panicking over wild false rumors of German attacks on Romania and Poland, made the greatest blunder in British history. Unasked, he issued a war guarantee to Poland...

The final conclusion of course is that Poland brought the War on itself, by refusing perfectly reasonable demands from Germany. Hitler of course had no interest in invading Poland, he only wanted an alliance. In a minor variation of the same column titled "Bush Plays the Hitler Card", Buchanan spews out the same vile justification for laying the Nazi murder of millions at the feet of those countries that refused to surrender to Hitler.

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

Thus all of Hitler's crimes are actually laid at the doorstep of those who refused to submit to him-- in Pat Buchanan's foully twisted moral universe. It is classic appeasement and it explains why Buchanan today heads up the faux conservative branch of the anti-war movement via the American Conservative, a magazine bankrolled by Taki, a convicted cokehead and features such as its editor, Scott McConnell, who had been fired from the New York Post. It's these dregs who continue to promote Buchanan's vision-- the question is, when all the dancing stops, what is that vision really?

While Buchanan is overtly arguing for appeasing tyrants, he's no peacenik. Outside of pacificists, those who argue for appeasing tyrants-- only do so to appease the tyrants that they favor. Buchanan was no fan of appeasing the USSR. Behind his defense of Chamberlain and his indictment of Churchill and Poland lurks a darker truth, which is that Buchanan favors Hitler's victory. Buchanan may not entirely embrace the Third Reich, from his standpoint the Nazis ventured too far into secularism, but as his arguments tellingly show, he believes that Nazi Germany was preferable to not only the USSR-- but to the rise of a Secularist Europe and America. The former is an argument Buchanan makes mostly by implication, the latter is one that slowly peeks out around the fringes of his rhetoric.

Many are asking why Fox News and other major Conservative outlets are giving Buchahan airtime. Part of the answer is his connections. Part of it is his limited supply of charm and TV ready personality. Much of it is because Pat Buchanan has mastered the art of talking around conservatives, leaving too many hosts and pundits missing the point.

Buchanan subtly introduces his real agendas, he doesn't use them as premises. He leaves the reader to draw the right conclusion with a few obvious prompts. Take Buchanan's The Lost Tribes of Israel column, which he begins by seemingly praising Israel for its achievements, then neatly digressing into a demographic discussion, that takes a sideswipe by blaming American Jews for abortion, progresses to arguing that Israel must appease the Arabs, concluding by subtly stating that Israel is doomed and it's time for America to embrace the Arab victors.

Those who do not like the Saudi monarchy should consider what is likely to rise in its place, should the House of Saud fall. The same is true of the Jordanian and Moroccan monarchies, and the sheikdoms, emirates and sultanates of the Persian Gulf.

In any struggle of generations, the critical question is often: Whose side is time on? As President Bush celebrates Israel's 60th birthday, and is celebrated in turn as Israel's best friend ever, it is a fair question to ask.

Of course Buchanan has already answered the question with reams of statistics that seem impressive, until you realize they're nothing more than projections and that they reflect a demographic reality that Israel has already survived. But it's typical of Buchanan's minuets that he dances around his real point, which is that it's time to toss Israel overboard and appease the Saudis. A conclusion that he buries in so many rhetorical questions and convoluted statements that it takes a discerning reader to get his point.

As the Prophet of Appeasement to Conservatives, Buchanan knows he has a difficult task, to pull the wool over the eyes of mainstream conservatives while remaining tight with the anti-war flank he's come to head. So Buchanan plays the academic, focuses on WW2, inserts occasional formal condemnations of Nazism, dances from spot to spot but the conclusion is always the same and it falls on the side of appeasing tyranny.

When Iran murders US soldiers, Buchanan argues that Iran is justified because they're only defending themselves.

How? Gen. David Petraeus explained. The Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are arming, training and directing the Shia militia fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Basra and firing rockets into the Green Zone. Said Petraeus, the Quds Force is responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers.

Why, then, would Iran bloody it up? Why, when things are going Iran's way in Iraq, would it risk war with the United States over Iraq?

The April 16 Los Angeles Times offers an answer. Iran's proxy war against us in Iraq may be Tehran's response to a U.S. proxy war being waged against Iran. Ahmadinejad may be exacting blood for blood.

If you've read this entire post, Buchanan's rhetoric here should seem early familiar. It's the very same rhetoric Buchanan used to defend Hitler's invasions up above.

If he (Hitler) wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?

Why, then, would Iran bloody it up? Why, when things are going Iran's way in Iraq, would it risk war with the United States over Iraq?

Buchanan is repeating himself and his thesis remains one and the same, to defend tyrannies and to blame their crimes on the democracies who resist them. Whether it's Nazi Germany or Islamist Iran. Can you hear the echo?

Iran has nothing to gain by war... No, it is not Iran that wants a war with the United States. It is the United States that has reasons to want a short, sharp war with Iran.

Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.

That echo is the sound of appeasement at the heart of Buchanan's rhetoric, whether it is focused on 1939 or 2008.

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Technorati Tags: Pat Buchanan, Nazis, Nazi Appeaser, Islamist Appeaser, Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, WWII, World War II, World War II Allies, War on Terror, Adolph Hitler, Iran, Sultan Knish President George Bush

Treading in Presidential Shoes: Who Would Obama or Clinton Ally With?

Barack Obama suggests that Australia should add to the 1400 Australian troops already in Iraq. This in response to Australian Prime Minister, John Howard's, opposition of Obama's plan to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by Spring 2008.

Obama's cheeky response smacks of the typical Left no-substance retort, ignoring the fact that Australia is an ally who has stepped-up to protect the backside of the likes of all the American Obama's in the world. If Obama has illusions of taking the Presidency, withdrawing U.S. troops and serving his term in a country void of Islamic conflict, then he lives in a fantasy world.

However, if he believes he may be Commander and Chief of a country under siege, he needs to review recent history, because it is likely, once again, that the UK and Australia will be the only countries to come to our aid, and even that is a doubtful scenario, given the lack of support some Americans have shown.

As Obama and both Democrat and Republican Presidential candidates lay-out their ideas, they will do well to put themselves in the current President’s shoes because chances are they will be forced to walk more than a mile in them. The question is: how will they walk?...toward freedom and liberty and being a force for good in the world, or....

And, what happens when France has their 9/11 moment, or Germany or Russia. As the next American President, who will Obama or Clinton choose to ally with? Prime Minister Howard had this to say: "You either rat on the ally or you stay with the ally.” Well, isn’t that the truth, and it brings to mind why the U.S. is today, fighting for our very way of life, without our once-upon-a-time ally, France, and we won’t even mention that was when they desperately needed us.

Here are a few reminders of the corrupt motivations and deeds of the French as they stalled any measures in the U.N. that would bring about productive actions against Saddam Hussein, and in support of the Iraqi people:

1) France wanted Iraqi oil, needed Iraqi oil - sold the soul of their country for Iraqi oil.

2) France was one of two countries most implicit in the Oil-for-Food scandal, receiving huge kickbacks, and consequently, supporting Saddam's abuse of the Iraqi people. Oil-for-Food money was also used to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, taking the lives of countless Israelis - abuses spanned the world.

This Washington Times Editorial, dated February 11, 2003, lays down the bones:

“...there was never a serious possibility of getting Security Council support from for military action because influential people in Russia and France were getting paid off by Saddam. After the fall of Baghdad..., France and Russia tried to delay the lifting of sanctions against Iraq and continue the Oil for Food program. That's because France and Russia profited from it:

The Times of London calculated that French and Russian companies received $11 billion worth of business from Oil for Food between 1996 and 2003.

Most disturbing are Iraqi records that suggest Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Oil for Food office, received a voucher for 11.5 million barrels of oil from Saddam's manipulation of the program — enough to yield a profit of between $575,000 and $3.5 million.

The beneficiary list (found in the archives of the Iraqi Oil Ministry and translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute) should be deeply embarrassing to many prominent people.

In the United States, those listed include Iraqi American businessman Shaker Al-Khaffaji, who put up $400,000 to produce a film by ex-U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, which aimed to discredit weapons inspections in Iraq.

Also, British Labor MP George Galloway, a strident foe of taking action against Saddam, is listed as a recipient or co-recipient of 19.5 million barrels.

Other recipients include: former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (12 million barrels); Patrick Maugein, CEO of the oil company Soco International and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac (25 million); former French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean-Bernard Merimee (11 million); Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri (10 million); and Syrian businessman Farras Mustafa Tlass, the son of longtime Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass (6 million). Leith Shbeilat, chairman of the anti-corruption committee of the Jordanian Parliament, received 15.5 million.

Note: Some paragraphing of the above Washington Times Editorial is mine to make for easier reading.

3) France had a decade-old program for selling large stockpiles of conventional weapons to Saddam and it is speculated that some of these weapons could be converted to biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction.

4) Iraq was shooting at U.S. pilots over the no-fly zone. The world didn't care. As we protected the borders of others, to keep Saddam out of the places of others (where he wasn't wanted), Iraq put our pilots at risk, with foreign-made missiles (some thought to be French-made).

5) France got lucky. America didn't have the stomach to push forward with accusations of their illicit behaviors because of their status as a UN Security Council member

6) France has an unsettled Muslim community to deal with. I gave up my Boursin, Brie and my favorite French jug wine years ago. It was a pleasure to do so.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will both do well to realize that any presidential shoes they don will tread among the unscrupulous, the lying and cheating and the evilly devious. 

An American Response to a Jihadist Islam

As controversy spirals around our handling of Iraq, Iran and a Jihadist-Islamic response to the free world, Robert S. Kraft, attorney and writer, posting at The New Media Journal.us, offers background on the world's attempts to appease Hitler, why it didn't work then and why it won't work now. "Groveling for peace, the national leaders of America and Israel seem to be begging their enemies for what should be the obvious, that "peace in our time" can only be secured by maintaining - and asserting - both the ability and the will to inflict a decisive and devastating defeat on any enemy." On "...peace in our time,..." Mr. Kraft says: "Now, it is up to the people of Islam...." "...a decision that will be made, overtly or implicitly, by choice or by conduct,.... "And they, and we, will have to live with the consequences." While Islam may or may not be at a crossroads, America certainly is. No matter what the Islamic world decides, the American mindset must be that America is the "decider," and that we have decided to maintain freedom from the open Jihad on this country, and other free countries, as well. To read Mr. Kraft's entire article with the countdown to Hitler's advance, beginning with the Munich Pact ("The meeting was a futile attempt to preserve the dignity of France and Britain, while allowing Hitler to seize the Czech borer regions.") and his full take on "...peace in our time...," go here. Technorati Tags: Jihad Iran Iraq Islam War on Terror Hitler Germany France Peace in our Time