Castro condemns Iran for being anti-semitic

Fidel is also not enthusiastic about current US-Israeli-Middle Eastern relations either. There can be no legitimate purpose for nuclear weapons.

Viva la revolucion!

What is surprising is that Castro gave an interview to Goldberg who is neo-con, war monger, and outed liar.  Whoa! Wait a minute ... maybe he didn't! Maybe Goldberg is making it all up.

Good for Castro!

This is Part II of a report by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic regarding his recent meetings with Fidel Castro.  Interesting self-reflection by Castro and a delightful story about dolphins.

Ahmedinejad never denied the holocaust, so it's kinda mute.

I don't believe a word that ignorant, putrid, lying sack of shit Goldberg has to say either.

So, what was Goldberg lying about in the pieces from The Atlantic?

For my edification when and where was Goldberg "outed" as a liar? As for Fidel, he seems to accept that Ahmadinijad questions the Holocaust and for good reason http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykd-syzZ4ZY In my view, those who question the Holocaust have an agenda that creeps right into denial...just ask David Irving.

It seems to me that when someone comes to babble "to discuss" gay marriage babblers generally know what that really means.  I should hope that a similar "disscussion" of the Holocaust would ring the same bells.  Particularly when this "discussion" includes a former Grand Wizard of the KKK.

Grand Wizard of KKK?

And now its Chavez's turn to be nice to the Jews...what is going on here? http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/chavez/62693/

Actually, he didn't question the Holocaust, as in the killing of Jews. He questioned the place that this particular killing of one ethnic group takes precedence over other ethnic groups killed in WWII. He asked why, out of the 60 million people killed in WWII, the Holocaust is considered by many to be more significant. He asked, why people who raise such questions are condemned, for raising questions such as this, and he asked that why it was Palestinians who needed to be ethnically cleansed in order to create a homeland who were killed by Europeans.

I suggest that those who have the benefit of a western education, such as people like David Irving, and who have had plenty of opportunity to study and learn about the Holocaust, and those who are brought up in societies where the Holocaust, the war, are basically footnotes in history, should be judged from an entirely different standard. Indeed to willy-nilly apply western constructions of what constitutes "anti-semitism" by failure to believe wholeheartedly the narrative of the war as constructed in the west, is substantially Eurocentric.

Would it be too mcuh to note that the most important feature of WWII, as far as Iranians are concerned is not German occupation and atrocity, but the British and Soviet sponsored coup of neutral Persia, and occupation by the Allies 1941? To me, that would likely be a more well known part of the narrative of WWII, rather than one that you and I understand.

Dollars to donuts, I suspect that Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine out of a thousand Canadians or Americans, have no idea that neutral Persia was attacked and divided up between two of the most important allied powers during WW2, and might even question you if told them that. We were the good guys, were we not? Would you suggest that such question about the coup in Persia and the invasion by Britian and the USSR indicated some kind of specific hidden "agenda"?

Would you say that the BJP of India should be suspected of having an antisemitic intent because they allowed for the publication of a text book for children that noted that Hitler biggest achievement was making the "trains run on time", while not mentioning the Holocaust at all? I would be more likely to think that has more to do with basic ignorance of the facts of something that happened a long way away, far in the past. Would you suggest that Congress party of India was pro-fascist and anti-Semitic, because they allowed the erection of thousands of status of Chandra Bose, an Indian Nationalist ally of the Japanese, who raised an army in the fascist cause, and even spent the early years of WWII as the honoured guest of the Nazi regime in Berlin?

These status exist. India has the bomb. Does this not require immediate actions by the international community, and regular condemnations by the western press, and interviews with India's leadership asking telling questions about the glorification of Hitlers friends and allies?

Likewise, would you suggest that someone from Bejing who asked questions about the Holocaust was necessarily anti-Semitic, because they exhibited blind ignorance of the Holocaust, and asked questions about it, and found the Japanese occupation, the implementation of the "Three Alls" policy and the "Rape of Nanking" more relevant?

I am sure the phrase "Rape of Nanking" would draw more than a few blank stares from people on the streets of Toronto, and in many cases the first reaction would be: "What was that?"

You automatically assume that people of the world should blindly accept the western narrative without question. This seems especially odd when you consider that for many of these people the chief enemy of their liberty was not Germany but the British Empire, and the Soviet Union. You then go on to assert that their understanding of history, and the questions they raise have the same implied agenda as westerners such as David Irving.

How do you justify that conclusion, about their "agenda". Maybe the agenda is simply to point out that whatever Europeans did to the Jews of Europe was done by Europeans, not by Arabs or Palestinians, and that such does not justify delivering up Arab land to European settlement for the victims of European Christianity.

You seem to genuinely believe that Ahmedinejad was just honestly asking questions, in good faith. I'm not sure how to respond to that.

Babble has a number of spaces (some say all of babble) where certain things aren't discussed from first principles, no matter how "curious" or "interested" a newbie might be in, say, debating whether feminism destroyed the nuclear family. You get why, yes? But at the same time, you believe that Ahmedinejad is just a scholar on a quest... and also presumably that Iran has neither libraries nor the Internet with which to educate himself, so he did the next best thing and invited David Duke.

David Duke.

Inviting him to a "discussion" of the Holocaust is like inviting Larry Flynt and Howard Stern to a "discussion" of the status of women.

Chandra Bose chatting with Erwin Rommel.

Chandra Bose, a modern day Indian Cultural hero.

Officially recognized as a hero by the authorities!

Where is the outrage?

Ok India is an ally of Israel and an enemy of Pakistan, so we can let by-gones be by-gones, can't we?

I think one can be fiercely critical of Israel and oppoose anti-Semitism...I'm no fan of Castro, but good on him.

The problem is that when you criticize Iran or Ahmedinejad, you're doing Hillary Clinton's work for her, and bringing aid and succour to the Imperialist enemy.

I am new to this board though I have been lurking unasamedly for a long time. My only submission to this discussion is to remind many that the Holocaust devestated the world population of Jews. Perhaps 2/3rds of the Jewish population was wiped out and it has never fully recovered.

Ahmedinejad is no idiot. I find it impossible to believe that he has to question the impact of the Holocaust on history. From where I sit his tactic seems clear to me; to provoke and diminish Jews. My wife's family, though Catholic suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis. They have told me much of what they witnessed and how Jews were treated. Questioning their singular tragtedy seems more than cruel to me.

I am so pleased you asked. Yippee!

Glenn Greenwald: How propagandists function: Exhibit A

[emphasis added]

I don't mean to jump all over someone's first time post, but please, "singular" is a particularly inappropriate adjective to be using. Whether it be the Roma, gay men, the Slavs, members of the various European Communist Parties... the Nazi extermination policies were hardly "singular". FTR - writing this as a gay man whose family tree was truncated because of Communist Party affiliation.

Apologies if this constitutes drift from the topic at hand.

Well, well, well.

[Mr Burns hand gesture]       Ken Style. We meet again.       [/Mr Burns hand gesture]

I'm just going to savour this moment for a bit.

Thanks to the tremendous sleuthing skills of an anonymous tip (unless the person would like the full credit, which they deserve) it's come to the attention of the mods that you are a previously banned babbler. 

We know who you are. 

You're banned again. Don't come back.

For Style...

Do mods ever revisit cases of banning and allow Babblers to return?

Anyone who's banned may make a case to Catchfire and myself to be reinstated.

....

Back to the thread topic please.

I would like to mention Cueball's incredible post at #11.

Despite all my understandings of the Eurocentrism of Canada's view of national and world history, I was shocked at my own ignorance of both historical happenings and the non-Western-centric political underpinnings of WW2.

Many thanks to Cueball. You rock, dude.

No kidding, Maysie, what a post. History, eh? It's out there.

And not too bad yourself, for flair at least, with #19. Too bad oldgoat doesn't hand marks out for obsession--then Mr. "Style" could get his own perfect score.

That is very interesting Cueball. I was aware of former PM Vajpayee and his party's admiration for the Nazis, but I was not aware of Hitler's fostering of India's Independence movement (though like Louis's support of the American revolution, it makes perfect strategic sense).

I did find this:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/100609/bollywood-india-hitler

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/montymunford1/100043723/new-bollywood-... [27]

Interesting that these pictures aren't on the front pages of U.S. newspapers.

I disagree with Snert 's comment #15. I think if one has a valid criticism one should not hold back from making it simply because it might be misinterpreted. On the other hand, to make a criticism (bogus or not) against Iran and say nothing about similar sentiments in India is a double standard.

Perhaps I should put this elsewhere and kindly feel free to move it if you wish. Seems to me that whoever this Ken Style may be, he feels he has something to contribute.

I understand why some are banned (I assume they must engage in hateful speech or the like) but unless Style has violated standards he agreed to abide by, this should be reconsidered. This is a private board so you make your rules. I like to opt for as much free speech as possible unless and until agreements have been broken.

That would be true if it were the case that it is clear that there is a concerted effort by the Iranian authorities to deny that the Holocaust happened, or to rewrite the history of WWII to put Adolph Hitler in a positive light, however, there really doesn't seem to be that kind of movement afoot in Iran to make Hitler look like a good guy. In fact, the main thrust of media themes on this issue is that events in Europe do not justify the imposition of an European settler state on Arab land.

While it is the case that some outright Holocaust deniers are given air time in Iran, it is not like the other side of the story is not presented from official sources as well. Indeed, the idea that the Holocaust conference sponsored by the Iranian government was a "Holocaust Denial" conference is based on the particularly western idea of legality imposed by European states; any questioning of the historical record amounts to "Holocaust Denial" and is therefore anti-semitic, but the fact is that numerous people were invited to the event who vehemently argue that the Holocaust happened.

Even Iranian state TV went so far as to create a TV series called "Zero Degree Turn [30]", "the most expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic's state-owned television", where Iranian diplomats in Paris are seen to be saving Jews in Europe from persecution by the German authorities.

It's a real stretch to assert that denial of the Holocaust is the official line of the Iranian state, and it is seriously debatable that the movement to restore the legacy of Hitler is more active in Iran than it is in India.

From the Iranian reports I read at the time, the intent of the conference was to examine how the Holocaust has been used by Zionists as a club with which to beat the Palestinians.  Predictably, the usual suspects blew it all out of proportion, calling it a "Holocaust Deniers" conference.

Castro says he was misinterpreted on Cuban economy

That's the problem with propagandists, when you hear the inside voice saying, "that can't be true!", it probably ain't.

Great posts, Cue and AlQ.  Thanks.

@ Cueball #27

Yes, I understand that (which is why I said "bogus or not"). My disagreement with Snert was on the general principle that one should not criticize simply because someone else might exploit the situation. I know that when you get into a real world situation like this there are a lot of other factors to be considered.

Further to the unreliability/Socratic irony/general vainglory of Goldberg:

Jeffrey Goldberg's Fabrication [36]