What's good for the Nazi works for a jihadi

[cnorman18]

Op-ed in today's Washington Times

What's good for the Nazi works for a jihadi

President Obama was right when he declared after convening the post mortem on the Detroit debacle that "we have to do better." The simple fact is that $42 billion later, Americans do not feel much safer getting on an airplane than they did eight years ago. Despite the post- Sept. 11 upgrades in security, despite the long lines, the inconveniences of removing shoes and belts and coming soon to an airport near you - full body scans - we are not reassured that the next disaster is not lurking just around the corner. People are concerned we aren't doing enough to fight the enemy and we're still not sure we've fully identified the enemy.

The administration and its Republican critics are still arguing whether Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's Ft. Hood massacre constitutes an act of terrorism. That dispute is reflected in a larger debate of whether we are still in a "war against terror" and whether individuals like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should be treated as enemy combatants or read their Miranda Rights as common criminals.

But however that debate shakes out, there is an important move, that would cost little but could strike a blow against extremism and make our skies a little safer: The president admitted that the current watch list is inadequate. But America needs to immediately expand its terrorist watch list. Consider this fact: While the United States has a database of 500,000 individuals implicated in criminal activity, only 1,700 of those names are on the terrorist watch list banning entry into the United States. Compare that to the watch list developed by the U.S. Justice Department of suspected Nazi war criminals. Developed in the 1980s, 40,000 individuals were initially listed, but later the list expanded beyond 70,000 when the Office of Special Investigations on Nazi War Crimes (OSI) included the entire roster of the Nazi SS - and all others who belonged to groups that abetted genocide.

Most of those aging genociders are in their 80s or 90s today and the hunt for Nazi war criminals will soon reach its biological solution. But not so Islamist terrorism - only in its genesis - which is the scourge of all humanity at the dawn of the new decade. It is inconceivable that in fighting the existential threat of terrorism, that we can be operating with a list of only 1,700 people to bar from entering the United States. To better protect the flying public and to strike a blow against extremists who today regularly indescriminantly slaughter fellow Muslims, the Department of Homeland Security should take a page from the Nazi watch list and immediately add those who openly support and abet terrorism. In practical terms, it means immediately listing the many thousands of names of all known members and enablers of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Indonesia's Jemmah Islamiyah and other terror groups listed by the State Department and the European Union.

And there are others who never fired a bullet, or strapped themselves to a ticking bomb, who nevertheless deserve to be publicly placed on America's terror watch list. They include Al Jazeera's Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, whose online fatwa insists that Palestinian women have the right to attain martyrdom by blowing themselves up amidst Israelis. There is Omar Bakri Muhammad, who once claimed to be a recruiter for al Qaeda and organized the "Magnificent 19" (Sept. 11 bombers) in London. Jordan's Dr. Ibrahim Zayd Al-Kilani, who said this: "killing a transgressing American soldier" is an obligation and a kind of jihad. There are the followers of Indonesia's notorious Abu Bakar Bashir, Jamaica's Abdullah el-Faisel, and Libyan-born Abu Yaha al- Libi, who defends the "legitimacy" of violent jihad as a "religious obligation." And of course, Yemen's favorite American Anwar al-Awlaki who served as spiritual mentor and validator to Ft. Hood's Maj. Hasan and the Northwest Airlines terrorist.

We have no doubts that a simple e-mail to all U.S. embassies by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would flush out many more terror enablers. To be sure, errors will be made and anyone who stands accused of such activity must be given recourse to clear their names. It may also be true that not everyone who belongs to a terrorist group will become a suicide bomber, but let them suffer the consequences - why should Americans have to take that risk?

By compiling a true terror watch list, the United States and allies will reassure the shaken flying public that no one committed to terrorism against innocent civilians is aboard their flight. Such a policy will also help strengthen the hand of moderates across the Arab and Muslim world struggling against these extremists. And by providing the guardians of our borders with accurate and timely information about all those who promote and deploy terrorism against our nation, we can help co-opt the need to turn to blanket racial and ethnic profiling.

The time to act is now.

Rabbi Marvin Hier is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Center.

It's hard to see how anyone of any religion or any political persuasion could disagree with this.

[DeBunkem]

Socialism and Nazism

Nazism and socialism refers to a polemical, and political claim that Nazism, or the "German National Socialism" of the 1930s to mid 1940s is comparable in some way to the ideology of socialism. Political figures —in the US, Britain, and elsewhere —may at times employ the comparison as a rhetorical device aimed at discrediting pro-labor and otherwise socially liberal platforms, by implying a guilt by association between socialist economic philosophy and the tyrannical rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
While the claim has little meaning among educated scholars, the argument has some social resonance among "layman majorities" who tend to be less able to discern (or have less access to) factual claims and materials related to history and economics —easy to sway with polemic rhetoric, even if the claim has little substance or merit.

The definition of Nazism
The name "National Socialist German Workers Party," was a misnomer, much like the "Peoples Republic of China," the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," the "German Democratic Republic" and the "Liberal Democratic Party of Russia."

<CUT>

It's polemical use within Western capitalist societies, is designed to evoke the twin demons of Naziism and (Soviet) "socialism," perhaps generating a Pavlovian response to the common "enemy", in this case . The accusation of political liberals as "socialists," (and hence by implication "Nazis" and "Soviets Communists") is a rather typical and well-documented cornerstone of conservative rhetoric in the United States and other capitalist democracies. (See smear campaign, Red scare, McCarthyism)

The Nazi party-appropriated-term "socialism," like "democracy" in the cases above, was used to appeal to German workers for political support during the tentative early years of Hitler's ascent to power. Apart from the occasional use of empty pro-worker political rhetoric, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party had no inclination towards true socialism, in the sense (democratic socialism) that it's used today.

<CUT>

The claim that socialism and nazism are one in the same are an example of the ignatoriao ilenchi fallacy —for example, the same could be said of the United States military industrial complex, which operates with socialist/communist-like safeguards and protections, though its a part of a capitalist system. . . .

Throughout its rise to power and rule, the Nazis were strongly opposed by left-wing and socialist parties, and Nazi rhetoric was virulently anti-Marxist, attacking both communists and social democrats. A central appeal of Nazism was its opposition to Marxism and other forms of socialism and its claim to be a bulwark against Bolshevism and this is why they recieved so much material and political support from industrialists and conservatives. . .

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclo ... nd_Nazism/

I would contend that "Islamofascism" is an even greater example of "ignatoriao ilenchi fallacy" which involves the word "ignorance."

[East of Eden]

Socialism and Nazism

Nazism and socialism refers to a polemical, and political claim that Nazism, or the "German National Socialism" of the 1930s to mid 1940s is comparable in some way to the ideology of socialism. Political figures —in the US, Britain, and elsewhere —may at times employ the comparison as a rhetorical device aimed at discrediting pro-labor and otherwise socially liberal platforms, by implying a guilt by association between socialist economic philosophy and the tyrannical rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
While the claim has little meaning among educated scholars, the argument has some social resonance among "layman majorities" who tend to be less able to discern (or have less access to) factual claims and materials related to history and economics —easy to sway with polemic rhetoric, even if the claim has little substance or merit.

The definition of Nazism
The name "National Socialist German Workers Party," was a misnomer, much like the "Peoples Republic of China," the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," the "German Democratic Republic" and the "Liberal Democratic Party of Russia."

<CUT>

It's polemical use within Western capitalist societies, is designed to evoke the twin demons of Naziism and (Soviet) "socialism," perhaps generating a Pavlovian response to the common "enemy", in this case . The accusation of political liberals as "socialists," (and hence by implication "Nazis" and "Soviets Communists") is a rather typical and well-documented cornerstone of conservative rhetoric in the United States and other capitalist democracies. (See smear campaign, Red scare, McCarthyism)

The Nazi party-appropriated-term "socialism," like "democracy" in the cases above, was used to appeal to German workers for political support during the tentative early years of Hitler's ascent to power. Apart from the occasional use of empty pro-worker political rhetoric, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party had no inclination towards true socialism, in the sense (democratic socialism) that it's used today.

<CUT>

The claim that socialism and nazism are one in the same are an example of the ignatoriao ilenchi fallacy —for example, the same could be said of the United States military industrial complex, which operates with socialist/communist-like safeguards and protections, though its a part of a capitalist system. . . .

Throughout its rise to power and rule, the Nazis were strongly opposed by left-wing and socialist parties, and Nazi rhetoric was virulently anti-Marxist, attacking both communists and social democrats. A central appeal of Nazism was its opposition to Marxism and other forms of socialism and its claim to be a bulwark against Bolshevism and this is why they recieved so much material and political support from industrialists and conservatives. . .

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclo ... nd_Nazism/

From your link:

Reasons Nazism is considered socialist

Self-depiction: the German Nazi Party called itself the "National Socialist Worker's Party", and in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."

The Left Wing (examples include Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm), and working class brownshirts (or Sturmabteilung) within the Nazi Party supported socialist programs.

One writer, Lew Rockwell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, suggests that the chief difference beween Nazism and (as he puts it) others forms of socialism is that the Hitler's socialism was nationalistic while other forms (such as Communism) were internationalist. [3]

I would contend that "Islamofascism" is an even greater example of "ignatoriao ilenchi fallacy" which involves the word "ignorance."

From Wikipedia again:

Paxton wrote that fascism is:

a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.[30]


That fits radical Islam pretty well, with the possible exception of the nationalist part. To deny that is ignorant.

[r~]

Muslim and Nazi and Socialist are Names. Names mean different things to different people. You two argue in circles and waste time attacking each other when we are all hostage to a common enemy.

Muslims that serve in the spirit of alah do not murder innocents. Muslims in Name only are no different that any others that condone murder and torture.

I am
ItS
r~

[MagusYanam]

Reasons Nazism is considered socialist

Self-depiction: the German Nazi Party called itself the "National Socialist Worker's Party", and in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."

The Left Wing (examples include Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm), and working class brownshirts (or Sturmabteilung) within the Nazi Party supported socialist programs.

One writer, Lew Rockwell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, suggests that the chief difference beween Nazism and (as he puts it) others forms of socialism is that the Hitler's socialism was nationalistic while other forms (such as Communism) were internationalist.

So in other words, you are buying hook, line and sinker Nazi propaganda to the effect that they were leftist. Their rhetoric may have been socialist, but it was mostly to appeal to the lower classes; their policies were most definitely corporatist in nature, where the government collaborated with large businesses to increase military production.

Also, calling the SA 'socialist' is laughable, given that their earliest targets of mob violence were - um, unions.

And Lew Rockwell is wrong. Not only are communism and socialism not the same thing, but conflating socialism with Nazism in such a crude way completely ignores the racist and anti-Semitic aspect of Nazi politics. The (real) socialists of the time were generally very heavily involved in the early Zionist and internationalist movements, and decried racism as an ideological tool of economic exploitation.

[East of Eden]

Reasons Nazism is considered socialist

Self-depiction: the German Nazi Party called itself the "National Socialist Worker's Party", and in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."

The Left Wing (examples include Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm), and working class brownshirts (or Sturmabteilung) within the Nazi Party supported socialist programs.

One writer, Lew Rockwell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, suggests that the chief difference beween Nazism and (as he puts it) others forms of socialism is that the Hitler's socialism was nationalistic while other forms (such as Communism) were internationalist.

So in other words, you are buying hook, line and sinker Nazi propaganda to the effect that they were leftist. Their rhetoric may have been socialist, but it was mostly to appeal to the lower classes; their policies were most definitely corporatist in nature, where the government collaborated with large businesses to increase military production.

Also, calling the SA 'socialist' is laughable, given that their earliest targets of mob violence were - um, unions.

So what? Lech Walesa and the Polish unions fighting for freedom from Communist tyranny were the targets of the communists/socialists.

And Lew Rockwell is wrong. Not only are communism and socialism not the same thing, but conflating socialism with Nazism in such a crude way completely ignores the racist and anti-Semitic aspect of Nazi politics. The (real) socialists of the time were generally very heavily involved in the early Zionist and internationalist movements, and decried racism as an ideological tool of economic exploitation.

The Nazis targeted for vilification the 'wrong' races, while Communists/Socialists did the exact same thing to the 'wrong' social classes. Not much difference there, except for the much higher Communist/Socialist body count.

[Abraxas]

Reasons Nazism is considered socialist

Self-depiction: the German Nazi Party called itself the "National Socialist Worker's Party", and in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."

The Left Wing (examples include Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm), and working class brownshirts (or Sturmabteilung) within the Nazi Party supported socialist programs.

One writer, Lew Rockwell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, suggests that the chief difference beween Nazism and (as he puts it) others forms of socialism is that the Hitler's socialism was nationalistic while other forms (such as Communism) were internationalist.

So in other words, you are buying hook, line and sinker Nazi propaganda to the effect that they were leftist. Their rhetoric may have been socialist, but it was mostly to appeal to the lower classes; their policies were most definitely corporatist in nature, where the government collaborated with large businesses to increase military production.

Also, calling the SA 'socialist' is laughable, given that their earliest targets of mob violence were - um, unions.

So what? Lech Walesa and the Polish unions fighting for freedom from Communist tyranny were the targets of the communists/socialists.

And Lew Rockwell is wrong. Not only are communism and socialism not the same thing, but conflating socialism with Nazism in such a crude way completely ignores the racist and anti-Semitic aspect of Nazi politics. The (real) socialists of the time were generally very heavily involved in the early Zionist and internationalist movements, and decried racism as an ideological tool of economic exploitation.

The Nazis targeted for vilification the 'wrong' races, while Communists/Socialists did the exact same thing to the 'wrong' social classes. Not much difference there, except for the much higher Communist/Socialist body count.

Not even close to accurate. Firstly, the higher body count idea is a myth, in particular if you are referring to direct deaths. The only way you begin to approach Hitler's death toll is when you start building in famine. Secondly, neither the Soviet Union nor the Chinese employed death camps of any sort. Yes, the Gulags were nasty, yes they executed political prisoners, however, nothing the Soviets or Chinese did was on scale or even to the purpose of places like Buchenwald or Auschwitz under the Nazis.

I don't condone what the Soviets or the Chinese did, however, imprisoning people for opposition to the state and stripping certain classes of people of their property is a lot different from rounding up millions because of their heritage and sexual orientation and putting them to death.

[Cathar1950]

[Paxton wrote that fascism is:

a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.[30]


That fits radical Islam pretty well, with the possible exception of the nationalist part. To deny that is ignorant.

I think that pretty much sums up many of the elements of radical religions and the Abrahamic religions with their pious actions against others. It also seems to be what goes on in wars and revolutions where the end justifies the means.
A good enough reason to prevent wars just because they cause us to do inhuman things.

[East of Eden]

Reasons Nazism is considered socialist

Self-depiction: the German Nazi Party called itself the "National Socialist Worker's Party", and in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."

The Left Wing (examples include Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm), and working class brownshirts (or Sturmabteilung) within the Nazi Party supported socialist programs.

One writer, Lew Rockwell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, suggests that the chief difference beween Nazism and (as he puts it) others forms of socialism is that the Hitler's socialism was nationalistic while other forms (such as Communism) were internationalist.

So in other words, you are buying hook, line and sinker Nazi propaganda to the effect that they were leftist. Their rhetoric may have been socialist, but it was mostly to appeal to the lower classes; their policies were most definitely corporatist in nature, where the government collaborated with large businesses to increase military production.

Also, calling the SA 'socialist' is laughable, given that their earliest targets of mob violence were - um, unions.

So what? Lech Walesa and the Polish unions fighting for freedom from Communist tyranny were the targets of the communists/socialists.

And Lew Rockwell is wrong. Not only are communism and socialism not the same thing, but conflating socialism with Nazism in such a crude way completely ignores the racist and anti-Semitic aspect of Nazi politics. The (real) socialists of the time were generally very heavily involved in the early Zionist and internationalist movements, and decried racism as an ideological tool of economic exploitation.

The Nazis targeted for vilification the 'wrong' races, while Communists/Socialists did the exact same thing to the 'wrong' social classes. Not much difference there, except for the much higher Communist/Socialist body count.

Not even close to accurate. Firstly, the higher body count idea is a myth, in particular if you are referring to direct deaths. The only way you begin to approach Hitler's death toll is when you start building in famine. Secondly, neither the Soviet Union nor the Chinese employed death camps of any sort. Yes, the Gulags were nasty, yes they executed political prisoners, however, nothing the Soviets or Chinese did was on scale or even to the purpose of places like Buchenwald or Auschwitz under the Nazis.

I don't condone what the Soviets or the Chinese did, however, imprisoning people for opposition to the state and stripping certain classes of people of their property is a lot different from rounding up millions because of their heritage and sexual orientation and putting them to death.

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a book which describes a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and artificial famines. The book was originally published in 1997 in France under the title, Le Livre noir du communisme : Crimes, terreur, répression. In the United States it is published by Harvard University Press[1]. The book was authored by several European academics and edited by Stéphane Courtois.[2]

The introduction, by editor Stéphane Courtois, asserts that "...Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". He cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the "excess deaths" (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:

65 million in the People's Republic of China
20 million in the Soviet Union[3]
2 million in Cambodia
2 million in North Korea
1.7 million in Africa
1.5 million in Afghanistan
1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
1 million in Vietnam[4]
150,000 in Latin America
10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power."(p. 4)
Courtois claims that Communist regimes are responsible for a greater number of deaths than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism. The statistics of victims includes executions, intentional destruction of population by starvation, and deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor.

[edit] Soviet repressions
Repressions and famines occurring in the Soviet Union under the regimes of Lenin and Stalin described in the book include:

the executions of tens of thousands of hostages and prisoners, and the murder of hundreds of thousands of rebellious workers and peasants from 1918 to 1922 (See also: Red Terror)
the Russian famine of 1921, which caused the death of 5 million people
the extermination and deportation of the Don Cossacks in 1920
the murder of tens of thousands in concentration camps in the period between 1918 and 1930
the Great Purge which killed almost 690,000 people
the deportation of 2 million so-called "kulaks" from 1930 to 1932
the deaths of 4 million Ukrainians (Holodomor) and 2 million others during the famine of 1932 and 1933
the deportations of Poles, Ukrainians, Moldavians and people from the Baltic Republics from 1939 to 1941 and from 1944 to 1945
the deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941
the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1943
the deportation of the Chechens in 1944
the deportation of the Ingush in 1944.(p. 9-10) (See also: Population transfer in the Soviet Union)
[edit] Comparison of Communism and Nazism
Courtois compared Communism and Nazism as slightly different totalitarian systems. He claims that Communist regimes have killed "approximately 100 million people in contrast to the approximately 25 million victims of Nazis" [5]. Courtois claims that Nazi Germany's methods of mass extermination were adopted from Soviet methods. As an example, he cites Nazi state official Rudolf Höss who organized the infamous death camp in Auschwitz. According to Höss[5],

"The Reich Security Head Office issued to the commandants a full collection of reports concerning the Russian concentration camps. These described in great detail the conditions in, and organization of, the Russian camps, as supplied by former prisoners who had managed to escape. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that the Russians, by their massive employment of forced labor, had destroyed whole peoples".
Courtois argues that the Soviet genocides of peoples living in the Caucasus and exterminations of large social groups in Russia were not very much different from similar policies by Nazis. Both Communist and Nazi systems deemed "a part of humanity unworthy of existence. The difference is that the Communist model is based on the class system, the Nazi model on race and territory." [5]. Courtois stated that [6]

"The "genocide of a "class" may well be tantamount to the genocide of a "race" - the deliberate starvation of a child of a Ukrainian kulak as a result of the famine caused by Stalin's regime "is equal to" the starvation of a Jewish child in the Warsaw ghetto as a result of the famine caused by the Nazi regime".

He also added that "after 1945 the Jewish genocide became a byword for modern barbarism, the epitome of twentieth-century mass terror... more recently, a single-minded focus on the Jewish genocide in an attempt to characterize the Holocaust as a unique atrocity has also prevented the assessment of other episodes of comparable magnitude in the Communist world. After all, it seems scarcely plausible that the victors who had helped bring about the destruction of a genocidal apparatus might themselves have put the very same methods into practice. When faced with this paradox, people generally preferred to bury their heads in sand."

[MagusYanam]

So what? Lech Walesa and the Polish unions fighting for freedom from Communist tyranny were the targets of the communists/socialists.

Um - no. Lech Walesa and the Solidarnosc movement adhered to distributivism, a moderate form of guild-socialist economics which upheld direct state intervention in the economy without full-scale state control.

And they were targeted by communists, not socialists. There is a distinct difference. The term 'communism' almost always refers to violent, non-democratic one-party political regimes (often but not always Marxist) which enforce a very stringent economic system in which the single party controls all means of production. 'Socialism' generally refers to nonviolent reform movements within democratic systems - hence, 'social democrat' or 'democratic socialist', or the more moderate 'Christian socialist' movements in Europe and Latin America. As far as I'm aware, the 'body count' of socialism as its own political philosophy is negligible.

East of Eden, your use of language here is incredibly sloppy, and I'm beginning to think your crude conflations of fascism, socialism, communism and Islam are deliberate, despite all of them being separate and distinct concepts.

[East of Eden]

So what? Lech Walesa and the Polish unions fighting for freedom from Communist tyranny were the targets of the communists/socialists.

Um - no. Lech Walesa and the Solidarnosc movement adhered to distributivism, a moderate form of guild-socialist economics which upheld direct state intervention in the economy without full-scale state control.

And they were targeted by communists, not socialists. There is a distinct difference. The term 'communism' almost always refers to violent, non-democratic one-party political regimes (often but not always Marxist) which enforce a very stringent economic system in which the single party controls all means of production. 'Socialism' generally refers to nonviolent reform movements within democratic systems - hence, 'social democrat' or 'democratic socialist', or the more moderate 'Christian socialist' movements in Europe and Latin America. As far as I'm aware, the 'body count' of socialism as its own political philosophy is negligible.

East of Eden, your use of language here is incredibly sloppy, and I'm beginning to think your crude conflations of fascism, socialism, communism and Islam are deliberate, despite all of them being separate and distinct concepts.

If Nazis and Communists weren't really socialists despite calling themselves that, when past historical Christian misdeeds are brought up here can I say they weren't really Christians?