The Ghosts Of Auschwitz

in the Middle East:

At the beginning of the decade, Muslim Brotherhood godfather Sayyid Qutb had written his own Mein Kampf titled, “Our Struggle against the Jews” in which he claimed that Allah had sent Hitler. The claim has more recently been repeated by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Al Jazeera in ’09.

“The last punishment was carried out by Hitler… Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers,” he said. Today everyone agrees that the Nazis were evil. By the fifties, even Eichmann’s fellow Nazis were looking to jettison the Holocaust and improve their brand. But the Nazis back then were often treated the way that Muslims are today.

Media coverage emphasized distinctions between the radical and moderate Nazis. (Hitler was, of course, a moderate.) Nazi grievances were treated as legitimate. Their crimes were lied about and covered up.

In 1933, the Associated Press’ wire report claimed that the persecution of Jews had already ended. Another wire story headlined “Jew Persecution Over Says Envoy” cited Secretary of State Hull’s relief that the Hitler regime was doing its best to curb further persecution of the Jews.

Hull would later apologize when the Republican Mayor of New York City referred to the Fuhrer as a “man without honor”. Mayor LaGuardia might have been suffering from Fuhrerphobia.

Jewish protests were treated as shrill and baseless alarmism.

“U.S. Investigation Shows No Cause for Protest,” the AP headlined its coverage.

“Notwithstanding assurances given by German government leaders and by Hull that the Nazi excesses against the Jewish race had ceased in Germany, Jewish leaders went ahead with plans for mass protest meetings,” another wire story read. “All requests that these meetings be canceled fell on deaf ears.”

A week before the story, the first official Nazi concentration camp of Dachau had opened.

The media coverage should sound familiar. It’s how Iran’s nuclear buildup is being covered. It’s how Muslim violence against Jews is covered. It’s discussed reluctantly and immediately dismissed. Jews are written off as pests who refuse to listen when Kerry, like Hull, tells them there’s nothing to worry about.

That is how the Holocaust really happened.

I could be polite, and say their heads are in the sand. But really, they’re up their fundaments.

[Afternoon update]

The Islamic State is raising an army of child soldiers, and we’ll be dealing with them for decades.

But, but…CRUSADES!

Obama The Aloof Heart

This says it all:

I’ll make a deal with Obama. If he finds the people responsible for the Crusades, the Inquisition, or American slavery still alive and malicious, we’ll bomb them too. In the meantime, how about we start telling the truth about the Islamist terrorists who are right now literally enslaving young girls as sex objects, slaughtering anyone who doesn’t think like them, acquiring territory in the Middle East, and threatening attacks on the US and Europe? History professors can blather on ad nauseam about events 1,000 years ago, but Presidents are supposed to focus on the here and now. Skip the ignorant and hypocritical lectures, and do your job.

He doesn’t seem to know what his job is.

Obama The Aloof Heart

[Sunday-morning update]

[Bumped]

[Sunday-afternoon update]

[Mid-afternoon update]

Some history of the Crusades for those who (like Obama) are historically ignorant, from Claire Berlinski.

Sid Caesar

RIP.

Most people are probably too young to know who he was, but he was a comedy genius, of my parents’ time.

[Update Saturday morning]

OK, so I was a year late with the announcement. I was on an airplane just following Twitter links, and didn’t check the date. Worth remembering anyway.

The Hugo Wars

On the sad state of science fiction:

Wherever they emerge, social-justice warriors claim to be champions of diversity. But they always reveal themselves to be relentlessly hostile to it: they applaud people of different genders, races, and cultures just so long as those people all think the same way. Theirs is a diversity of the trivial; a diversity of skin-deep, ephemeral affiliations.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t read as much as I did when I was younger. And sadly, the situation is similar on many college campuses.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!