Friday, August 17, 2007

Lest we Forget

1. Lest we Forget:
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2007/08/lest-we-forget.html


2. Jihadis allied with Conspiracy Nuts:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E3E12C47-9FB7-47B8-9AB7-8DDD98B05B92


3. About that JNF Land:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7343


4. New Miracle on 34st Street - Jihad on Fifth Avenue:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=CA2E5C41-AD9A-4A79-8C35-54C4A34D73FA


5. August 17, 2007
REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Shoot to Kill
August 17, 2007; Page A12
Estimates vary, but up to 780 people were killed by East German border
guards for trying to flee to the West during the Cold War. Yet Saturday's
revelation of an official 1973 order that Stasi secret-police agents "stop
or liquidate" anyone trying to escape the socialist paradise has stunned
Germany. The story preoccupies the media and politicians alike.
Granted, the order is unique in its explicit inhumanity. "Do not hesitate
to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company
of women and children, which the traitors have often used to their
advantage," the document reads. Like other totalitarian regimes, East
Germany's apparatchiks usually referred to state-sanctioned murder in more
ambiguous terms.
The document, published days before the 46th anniversary of the
construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, may help silence
former East German officials and their apologists who deny that an order
to shoot ever existed. Technically they are right: A public law
authorizing it never passed. But a plethora of documents, the testimonies
of former soldiers and, not least, the killings along the former
German-German border all prove that such a policy was in effect.
So why did the current document -- which actually appeared 10 years ago in
an obscure publication without gaining much attention -- so shock the
country this week? In part it reflects a romanticized view of the past. It
is still popular in Germany -- and some other Western countries -- to see
communism as basically a good idea, just an imperfectly executed one. In a
survey two years ago, a clear majority of Germans polled agreed with this
view.
This benign interpretation of communism has paved the way for Ostalgie, a
German term referring to nostalgia for life in the former East Germany.
It's manifested in a revival of symbols, products and brands of the
now-defunct "Worker and Farmer State." It has also helped the successor of
the East German Communist Party make a comeback in German politics.
Rebranded as The Left Party, it sits in the national parliament and shares
governing power with Social Democrats in the city of Berlin. Its leaders
are regular and respected guests on TV talk shows. The shoot-to-kill
document is, however, far better evidence of the true nature of communism.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118729864318700120.html






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