by Kevin Barrett, http://barrettforcongress.us
Let me admit this upfront: My favorite newspaper is run by a bunch of holocaust deniers.
I'm not talking about the American Free Press or any other alternative publication. I'm talking about my favorite mainstream newspaper, the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin.
The Cap Times regularly informs its readers that the estimated number of Iraqi civilian deaths due to the US invasion and occupation is under 100,000. As of the most recent print edition, the number listed was 89,900. The sources listed are the Defense Department, iraqbodycount.org, and nationalpriorities.org.
The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, says the real number was over 650,000 back in 2006. That means that the real number, as of mid-2008, is well over a million. Combining that estimate with Australian physician Gideon Polya's historical study, we find that a total of 8.6 million Iraqis have been murdered by Anglo-American wars, interventions and sanctions since 1950.
Asked to explain the discrepancy between one million (The Lancet) and 89,900 (The Capital Times), editor Dave Zweifel said: "We've had this problem ever since we started running the damn thing. People keep calling us to tell us it isn't accurate...But it's the only one that is actually published on a regular basis. We understand that it isn't accurate, but I'm not sure the other estimates are accurate either. We're definitely not trying to downplay the casualty figures." (Interview with author, 7/24/08)
So why is downplaying the ongoing Iraq holocaust by 90% socially acceptable, even in a publication that editorially opposes the war...while mildly questioning the received account of the Nazi holocaust (ancient history by now) is not? As a Arabic speaker and a Muslim, I am aware -- as most Americans are not -- that in the Arab and Muslim worlds, a great many thoughtful, cultivated, and apparently well-informed people take a skeptical position regarding the standard Western version of the Holocaust narrative. For example, Mohamed Heikal, the widely-respected former Egyptian foreign minister, claims to have studied the question and concluded that fewer than one million Jews died in the Nazi holocaust.
Whatever the merits of Heikal's claim, the only reason people argue so passionately about the topic is the rarely-examined equation "holocaust justifies Israel." But obviously the holocaust does NOT justify Israel. Palestinians had nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust! What happened in Europe cannot possibly justify the theft of even one square inch of Palestinian land.
Personally, I am as willing to accept the Western historians' 6 million figure as I am to accept the Lancet's estimate of over one million Iraqi deaths due to the Anglo-American invasion. But I certainly am not about to try to drum the Capital Times and Mohamed Heikal out of polite society because they accept low-end estimates in disputed body counts. The only thing everyone should be able to agree on is that ALL body counts are politicized -- and that free and open debate is the only way to eventually arrive at an approximation of the truth. Since those who support low-end figures for the Nazi holocaust alone, of all of the many holocausts and genocides, are silenced or imprisoned in most Western countries, it is reasonable to ask whether there has yet been any free and open debate on the subject.
Speaking of a lack of free and open debate...I am dismayed that one of my favorite websites, 911blogger.com, has continued its recent policy of silencing and expelling Muslims and those with views approximating those of the global Muslim mainstream, by suddenly banning all users who are also registered at the excellent website http://www.wtcdemolition.com. The reason given was that somebody at WTCdemolition.com linked to David Cole, a Jewish historian who has questioned the standard Western holocaust narrative.
Sara Lamadrid, a veteran 9/11 truth organizer, suggests that 911blogger's guilt-by-association smear of WTCdemolition.com (based on one obscure link!) is really motivated by Islamophobia. Sadly, I have to wonder whether she might be right. A few months ago, the only two Muslim regular posters at 911blogger, myself and John Leonard of Progressive Press, were banned from 911blogger, and the excuses for the banning in both cases were transparently ridiculous. (Allan Giles, who is now the sole Decider at 911blogger, claimed he was banning me because I had invited John Lear, a highly qualified pilot with some odd views, on my radio show. But Lear had already been on other 9/11-oriented shows run by non-Muslims, such as Rob Balsamo's, without any complaints from Allan.)
Meanwhile those who promote the ridiculous LIHOP "blame Pakistan" and "blame the Saudis" Islamophobic hang-outs have been endlessly promoted at Giles' new version of 911blogger; evidence implicating Israel and Zionists is off-limits; and people like Elias Davidsson, the son of Nazi holocaust survivors who proves there were no Muslim hijackers, and Jay Kolar, whose work supports Davidsson, are downplayed or ignored...while Muslim account-holders and those who share their perspectives are expelled. It is as if Giles and company are desperately trying to save the "blame the Muslims" core of the 9/11 psy-op, even after the official story has unraveled.
American society is so permeated with double-standards, so drenched in an ideology of Jewish superiority and Muslim inferiority, that people like Allan Giles of 911blogger can effectively ban all Muslims and Muslim-friendly perspectives and not only get away with it, but perhaps not even fully understand what they're doing. Islamophobia has become like the air we breathe -- toxic, omnipresent, and unremarked-on.
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