Dialog International

German Left Embraces 9/11 Conspiracy Theories (and Amadinejad)

When he was in Europe this spring, President Obama made the following comment at a town hall-style meeting with German and French students in Strassbourg:

“In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive. But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad. On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.”

One blog I often read and learn from is NachDenkSeiten, which has been critical of Germany's participation in NATO's mission in Afghanistan.  Now, I am all for constructive criticism of NATO's and the US war in Afghanistan, but NachDenkSeiten links approvingly to a highly critical piece in a German/Swiss blog Alles Schall und Rauch (loosely translated as "It's All Smoke and Mirrors"). Here we find a number of arguments for why the Bundeswehr should withdraw from Afghanistan immediately, including:

Deshalb ist die Ausrede, "Wir müssen uns vor Terror hier bei uns schützen, indem wir ihn in Afghanistan bekämpfen" eine glatte Lüge. Die Taliban wehren sich nur gegen die Invasoren, zuerst gegen die sowjetischen Eroberer und jetzt gegen die westlichen NATO-Truppen. Dieser Abwehrkampf ist völlig verständlich und berechtigt, denn jedes Volk würde sich gegen fremde Besatzer wehren und hat das Recht dazu. (Thus the excuse "We have to prevent terrorist attacks here (in Germany), so we need to fight terror in Afghanistan" is a complete lie.  The Taliba are only defending themselves against invaders - at first against the Soviens and now against NATO troops.  This defensive war is understandable and just, since any people would defend themselves against foreign occupiers and has the right to do so.)

Der Hauptgrund den die Amerikaner für die Invasion und Krieg in Afghanistan angeben, die Taliban hätten Osam Bin Laden mit seiner Al-Kaida beherbergt, der angeblich die Anschläge vom 11. September 2001 geleitet und Amerika damit angegriffen hat, stimmt nicht und ist auch gelogen, denn die Amerikaner haben Bin Laden bis heute deswegen weder angeklagt, noch suchen sie ihn wegen 9/11. Warum? Weil sie zugeben müssen, dass sie keinen einzigen Beweise gegen ihn haben. Wenn sie keine Beweise für seine Führungsrolle und Tat haben, wie können sie dann einen Krieg damit begründen? (The principal reason cited by the Americans for the invasion and war in Afghanistan is that the Taliban had been harboring Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda; bin Laden allegedly organized and ordered the attacks of Sept. 11, 2oo1 and therefore had attacked America. But this is a complete lie, for the Americans have never charged bin Laden for these acts, nor is he even being sought in connection with 9/11. Why not? Because they (the Americans) have to admit that they don't have a single piece of evidence against him.  If they don't have any evidence of his leadership or actions, how can they use this argument to justify a war?)

It turns out that Alles Schall und Rauch is just one of many left-wing blogs dedicated to the "9/11 Truth Movement", that is, those who believe that 9/11 was the result of a conspiracy of the CIA and the Bush administration:

Die absurdeste 9/11 Verschwörungstheorie von allen, ist die offizielle Story der US-Regierung, dass ein kranker Bin Laden aus einer Höhle in Afghanistan mit seinen 19 Amateuren, die beste und teuerste Luftwaffe der Welt ausschaltete und Amerika angegriffen hat. (The most absurd 9/11 conspiracy theory of all is the official story of the US government, that a sick bin Laden from a cave in Afghanistan was able to circumvent the best and most expensive air force in the world and attack America.)

So great is the anti-American hate of these bloggers that they now side with Mullahs and Amadinejad against the protesters on the street in Iran seeking freer, more democratic society.  The protests, they write, are funded by the CIA.

This admiration for the repressive regime of the ayatollahs in Iran is widespread among German left-wing groups, according to Reinhard Mohr in Der Spiegel: Ein Slibowitz auf Ahmadinedschad.

German Hate Blogs Erupt Over Obama's Cairo Speech

President Obama's tour de force address to the Muslim world in Cairo was generally praised by the press around the world as a balanced effort to begin a new relationship with the over 1 billion followers of Islam alienated by the US foreign policy over the past eight years. 

But for the anti-Muslim hate blogs in Germany, the president's speech was yet another example of "Hussein's" treachery and secret affinity with terrorists. Leading the pack, of course, was Politically Incorrect, which accused President Obama of lying Warum lügt Barack Hussein?  In his speech, President Obama praised the contributions of American Muslims:

And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch.”

For the hate-bloggers, this is unacceptable, since Muslims are incapable of any positive contributions; ergo President Obama was lying. In fact, he was lying because he himself is a Musel (derogatory term for Muslim) Ist doch ganz klar: weil museln lügen, sobald sie ihr maul aufmachen…(It's quite simple: Musels lie whenever they open their mouths.) Of course, a simple search reveals that the President was NOT lying. In lauding the achievements of American Muslims, he singled out those who excelled in our sports arenas (Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jababr, Ahmad Rashad, and many others), won Nobel Prizes (reference to, among others, Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian-American who won the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry), built our tallest building (Fazlur Rahman Khan, Bangladeshi-American structural engineer, considered “the greatest structural engineer of the second half of the 20th century” for his constructions of the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center), and lit the Olympic Torch (again, Muhammad Ali).

Then there is the well-known hate-blogger who blogs anonomously under the name Kewil at Fakten-Fiktionen, who wrote a review of the speech - Obama ist ein armseliger Naivling (Obama is a pitiful naivling)  - even though he admits he refused to watch or read it:

Da ich keine Minute Obama angeguckt habe, weder im Morgen-, noch im Abendland, weder im Frühstücksfernsehen, noch bei Kerner, und auch zu faul bin, seine Kairoer Unterwerfungsrede unter den Islam zu lesen, lasse ich andere sprechen.

What really bothers Kewil and the others is that President Obama enjoys enormous popularity In Germany - as he does in America.

Finally, there is what passes for "intellectual heft" on the far-right, the blog of Gudrun Eussner, who has a detailed "analysis" of President Obama's Cairo address and comes to a conclusion that reads like the worst kind of parody that we hear from Fox News:

Die Präsidentschaft Barack Hussein Obamas ist eine einzige Lüge, angefangen bei seiner bis heute nicht im Original veröffentlichten Geburtsurkunde über Ergebnisse seiner Studienzeit, seine politischen und privaten Freundschaften bis zur Zusicherung, er werde sich immer dafür einsetzen, daß Ostjerusalem zu Israel gehöre und Jerusalem ungeteilt bleiben solle. (The presidency of Barack Hussein Obama is one big lie, beginning with the lack of an original birth certificate to his work as a student, to his political and private friendships to his guarantee that he would always ensure that East Jerusalem remains part of Israel and Jerusalem would remain undivided.) 

The New York Times struck exactly the right tone in its editorial on President Obama's Cairo speech:

When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.

Frau Eussner and her friends on the extreme right were much more comfortable with President Bush's "us versus them" world vision.  In their constant hate-mongering against our new president they are displaying a profound anti-Americanism.

This blog is dangerous for children

German parents who want to protect their children from dangerous Web sites as they surf online can download the Jusprog filter software which automatically blocks offensive sites.  But, as blogger Jens Berger pointed out in Der Spiegelfechter, the filter seems to have a special aversion to left-leaning political content.  For example, not only is Berger's blog blocked, but also such well known blogs as NachDenkSeiten, Telepolis, and Der Schockwellenreiter = all linked from from this blog. Further, the filter protects the youth of Germany from such dangerous sites as that of the Berlin daily Der Tageszeitung and the main portal of the German Green Party.   The TAZ asked in an article Verdirbt die taz.de unsere Jugend? ( Is taz.de ruining our youth?).  Of course, most German school children learn English, so there is a great danger that some may find their way to offensive content in English.  Consequently, politically progressive Web sites such as The American Prospect and Toms Dispatch are blocked from viewing.

German parents can also rest easy knowing that if their children should want to access Dialog International they will get this message:

Die Seite dialoginternational.com ist bereits in unserem Filter enthalten und wird als 'Standard gesperrt' eingestuft. (The Web page dialoginternational.com has been vetted in our filter and is ranked as "Standard Blocked").

Ironically, as Jens Berger points out in Telepolis, the folks behind Jugendschutzprogramm.de also run Fundorado GmbH, a major operator of Internet porno sites.

10 Things Wrong with German Blogs

The SZ Magazin published a piece by an American blogger, Felix Salmon, about problems with German blogs: "Ten Reasons why German blogs are dysfunctional" Zehn Gründe, warum Blogs in Deutschland nicht funktionieren.  Unfortunately, the author does not appear to know much about the blog-scene in Germany.  For example, Salmon writes:

Die Deutschen sind methodisch und systematisch und umfassend in dem, was sie tun. Die Blogger lieben Schnellschüsse, sie machen Dinge ad hoc, es ist schwer, sie festzunageln. (The German way of doing things tends to be methodical and systematic and comprehensive, while the bloggy way of doing things tends to be scattershot and ad hoc and hard to pin down.)

Certainly, there are methodical and systematic bloggers like Jens Berger, who writes long, well-reasoned and well-researched posts in Der Spiegelfechter - and who, by the way, has a large following. But there are equally other bloggers - like Der Schockwellenreiter - who use the "scattershot" approach of many short postings on a variety of subjects. 

Other "problems" cited by Salmon are simply silly:

Die Deutschen nehmen ihre Ferien extrem ernst. Der Blogger kennt keine Ferien. (Germans take their vacations extremely seriously, and it’s hard to take a vacation from blogging.)

It's true that some blogs take vacation and holiday breaks - that is a blogger's perogative, especially if he/she is not getting paid to blog.  But others - especially group blogs - have postings every day. 

Actually, it appears that SZ-Magazin deliberately mistranslated Felix Salmon, since his original piece on Reuters was a critique of German "econonobloggers" , rather than a blanket commentary of the German blogosphere.  But Salmon is even wrong about the German econobloggers: NachDenkSeiten and Weissgarnix (both are included in my blogroll) are just two outstanding German econoblogs.

In fact, the biggest difference between the German and American blog scene remains money. Influential blogs like Huffington Post have raised $millions, and a highly interactive blog like DailyKos, which attracts more than half a million visitors each day and wields enormous power, has fulltime editors, server support and Web developmers, all paid for by advertisers.  There are some interesting experiments, however, in this direction in Germany.  Recently, der Freitag, has changed its format from being just a weekly magazine to a community-driven Web portal for blogger-journalists. Let's see if the money follows....

Battle of the (right-wing) blogs

There is an ongoing dust-up in the blogosphere as a prominent right-wing American blog has gone after Germany's most extremist right-wing hate blog - Politically Incorrect. Charles Johnson, the owner of Little Green Footballs (LGF) has recently infuriated many US ultra-conservatives by attacking them for their bigotry and embrace of junk science. Some background on the controversy and conflict can be found here. But Johnson turned his attention to Germany and the activities of the hate-blog Politically Incorrect. PI has been active in supporting the extremist anti-Muslim "citizens initiative" Pro-Cologne. Pro Cologne is planning an "anti-Islam" conference (Anti-Islamisierungskongress) in May, and proudly announced that two prominent American right-wing extemists - the blogger Pamela Geller and the "journalist" Robert Spencer - would be speaking at the event. LGF and Charles Johnson went to work and uncovered neo-Nazi connections with the organizers of Pro-Cologne. The blog Harry's Place has a summary:

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has been reporting on an ‘anti-Islamisation’ conference organised by Pro Köln, which is the successor to the neo-fascist “Deutsche Liga für Volk und Heimat“.

We expect fascists to use anti-Muslim bigotry to advance their hateful politics. The British National Party are following precisely the same agenda in the United Kingdom.

If you are no longer capable of distinguishing between specific jihadist and Islamist parties - Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami - and ordinary Muslim citizens of your country, then you have crossed over the line. If you attend a conference organised by fascists, then you have also crossed over the line. You have become an anti-Muslim bigot.

Speaking at the “anti-Islamisation” conference are Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch.

Johnson unmasked Geller as the "Poster Girl of Eurofascism: and skewered Spencer for his bigotry.  Johnson now calls PI a "pro-fascist German website" - couldn't have said it better myself! Most importantly, Johnson has won the battle, since both Spencer and Geller have cancelled their appearances at the Pro-Cologne conference.  The news was a setback to PI, who today wrote bitterly about Charles Johnson's influence:

Wir sind jetzt von Charles Johnson als “pro-facist German website” bezeichnet worden. Weiß Charles Johnson eigentlich noch was er schreibt? Seine Verbalattacken gegen renommierte Islamkritiker wie Pamella Geller, Robert Spencer und Lars Hedegaard haben diese mittlerweile dazu bewogen, ihre Teilnahme am Kölner Kongress abzusagen. Zu groß, zu schwer wiegt auch unter uns Islamkritikern die faschistische Moralkeule.(Now we have been called a "pro-facist (sic) German website" by Charles Johnson. Does Charles Johnson even know what he's writing?  His verbal attacks against renowned critics of Islam, like Pamela Geller, Robert Spence and Lars Hedegaard have now forced them to cancel their participation in the Cologne Convention. The fascist label simply weighs too heavily among us critics of Islam.) 

But Charles Johnson knows all too well what he is writing about. Congratulations to Charles for disrupting the hate-fest in Cologne.  Many thanks to Dr. Dagmar Schatz for keeping me informed of the situation.  And thanks as well to Dietmar Näher for all the hard work he does each day to keep track of hate groups like PI and Pro-Cologne in Politisch Korrekt.

In eigener Sache

The good folks at tapmag have posted a short piece on this blog which includes an interview with yours truly.

Success (In eigener Sache)

A while ago I wrote a review of Giles MacDonogh's book After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation. Unfortunately, two Holocaust Denial sites linked to the post as they twisted the words to support their hateful ideology.  I was forced to add the following sentences to my post:

Always report hate sites to the SImon Wiesenthal Center, which keeps an extensive data base of Holocaust Deniers and other deranged lunatics from around the world.  Send the link to iReport@wiesenthal.com.

Well, I followed my own advice and got into a good correspondence with the Simon Wiesenthal Center.  I also contacted the Canadian ISP for one of the hate sites, but clearly the intervention by the Wiesenthal Center was more persuasive:

            A quick responding Canadian Internet Service Provider (ISP) has closed down an Internet site promoting anti-Semitic hate after being alerted by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC).        

                   

            When FSWC reported "realjewnews.com" to its Canadian ISP, its content was reviewed and determined to violate the master service agreement as well as Canadian values. Although the Canadian ISP swiftly and decisively removed the offending site, within days, it reappeared on another server, this time in another country.        

           

            The Internet has become a prime tool for extremist and terrorist activity worldwide. Nevertheless, Canadian legislation and its provision for dealing with Internet offenders is a model for international governance.        

           

            Comments Leo Adler, director of National Affairs, FSWC, "Our Canadian system strikes the perfect balance between two intrinsically Canadian ideals, namely, freedom of speech and abhorrence for hate and intolerance."

While I support free speech - even hate speech - unconditionally, I see no reason why service providers need to profit from the distribution of hateful content.  I salute the Canadian ISP and the good work of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in exposing hate on the Internet.

German Blogosphere Stuck in Beta

Der Spiegel has come out with a piece comparing the current blog scene in Germany with the bogosphere in America.  German bloggers are strictly small-time operators, Spiegel complains, and no blog has achieved anywhere near the readership - and corresponding advertising revenue - as the American mega-blogs, such as Huffington Post:

Während die Szene in den USA mittlerweile gutbezahlte Stars hervorgebracht hat, die im Wahlkampf mitmischen und als echte Davids die Goliaths der etablierten Medien ins Grübeln bringen, bleibt Deutschland Blog-Entwicklungsland. Hier regieren allenfalls Beta-Blogger statt massenmediale Alphatiere. ( While the blog scene in the US has produced some well-paid stars, who get involved in the election campaign and as genuine Davids have demoralized the Goliaths of the established media, Germany remains a backward blog-nation. The beta-bloggers are in charge here instead of the mass-media alpha-operators.)

The blogs featured in the article include Bildblog, NachDenkSeiten and  Spiegelfechter.

It is unfair to compare the political blog scene in the US with that in Germany.  For one thing, blogs in English attract readers from all over the world, while German-language blogs have a fraction of the global audience.  Political blogs in America grew in response to the success of right-wing talk radio; progressive voices needed a platform and were pretty much shut out of the traditional media. Then the US press failed miserably during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq: they became mouthpieces for the Bush administration and the Pentagon. Blogs offered the only forum for dissenting views, and they soon became a vehicle for political organizing, giving rise to the NetRoots phenomenon. Today there are mega-blogs in the US that have their own ecosystem of secondary blogs.  Some of the more successful blogs such as TalkingPointsMemo now have the resources for getting hard-hitting news stories out to the public faster than even the newspaper Web sites and also provide original reporting.

Germany is not nearly as politically polarized as the US - there is not the same "debate culture" as we have here - so blogs don't need to play the same role.  The blogosphere is more fragmented, with individual contributors rather than large group blogs. Some bloggers view the German blogosphere as "more authentic" than the scene in America, since there is not the same temptation to rake in the big bucks. "Gut, dass es keine deutsche Huffington Post gibt" (It's a good thing there isn't a German Huffington Post) writes German blogger Don Alphonso. They wear their "Beta status" as a badge of honor.

Free Speech / Hate Speech

Anthony Lewis recently published a wonderful book on the history of the First Amendment: Freedom for the Thought We Hate.  The First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression in the United States, and is the cornerstone of the Free Press.  The text of the First Amendment is brief, but its implications are huge:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
(„Der Kongress darf kein Gesetz erlassen, das die Einführung einer Staatsreligion zum Gegenstand hat, die freie Religionsausübung verbietet, die Rede- oder Pressefreiheit oder das Recht des Volkes einschränkt, sich friedlich zu versammeln und die Regierung durch Petition um Abstellung von Missständen zu ersuchen.“)

The protection extends to "hate speech" as well: anyone can make racist or morally repugnant statements and not have to worry about legal consequences. Here the United States is unique among nations: Canada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. The British historian David Irving could travel around the US and make speeches denying the holocaust, but in Austria he was thrown in prison for making the argument.

In Germany the situation surrounding free speech is clouded by laws banning hate speech and also by the rather lax libel laws. It's fairly simple to bring a lawsuit against someone who you feel might have defamed you. So I can understand the frustration of of the journalist CIGDEM AKYOL, who complained in an article in the Tageszeitung (Die Meinungsterroristen - The Opinion Terrorists) about the proliferation of hate-blogs in Germany.  I've already written about the hate-blog Politically Incorrect which consistently publishes lies about Senator Barack Obama and his candidacy. But Akyol has many more equally repulsive examples. One of these hate-blogs- Die Grüne Pest - recently attacked Dialog International. 

Feel the Hate. German Blog Attacks Barack Obama

One of the more popular right-wing blogs in Germany is Politically Incorrect with about 25,000 daily visitors.  It has the image of the American flag as part of its banner, and it proudly proclaims that it is "pro-amerikanisch" - pro-American.  But if an American happens to be black with the name Barack Obama then the blog and its numerous commenters become very hostile indeed.  In fact, "PI" -as it is commonly called - has become a forum for anti-Obama hate in Germany.  Here we can read the misinformation about Senator Obama and his campaign in German that we find on racist blogs in the US such as Michelle Malkin and LittleGreenFootballs. In a typical PI post we learn that "Obama verachtet Amerika, er hat seinen Anti-Amerikanismus mit der Muttermilch aufgesogen." (Obama hates America, he suckled anti-Americanism at his mother's breast). It goes without saying that PI tells its readers that Obama is Muslim, who grew up in a mosque, and whose secret agenda is the Islamicization of America. Here is a typical comment on the blog (Senator Obama is usually identified as "Hussein"):

Na vielleicht wird sie täglich stolzer, wenn ihr Hussein die Islamisierung der USA vorantreibt, wenn er bald dem iranischen Mullahhitlerrregime in den Hintern kriecht, sich die USA aus den Terrorstatten verkriechen, auf dass dort die Koranschulen sprießen, wenn ihr Mann das bekannte Kenedy-Zitat in “Isch bin ein Mohammedaner” umgewandelt hat und Zuwanderung aus der bildungsfernen Unterschicht gepaart mit alten kommunistischen Ideen dem Land seine Identität rauben. (Maybe she (Michelle Obama) will be so proud when Hussein advances the Islamicization of the US, as he sucks up to the Hitler-Mullahs in Iran and takes the US out of the places that breed terror so that Koran schools can flourish, after her husband has changed the famous Kennedy quote to "Ich bin ein Mohammdeaner"and destroyed his country's identity by permitting the immigration of an uneducated underclass while implementing communism.)

Each day brings more hate-filled gems such as this. Incidentally, the blog and its numerous fans often call Obama and Muslims in general  "Musel" or "Muselmänner" - an extremely derogatory term for Muslims, also used by the Nazis to mock the emaciated condition of prisoners in concentration camps. 

A Green Party member of the Bundestag, Fritz Kuhn,  recently responded to a question concerning PI by the blogger Dietmar Naeher (whose blog Politisch Korrekt I recommend):

vor dem Internet-Weblog "Politically Incorrect" kann aus meiner Sicht nur gewarnt werden, dieser Blog behauptet, proisraelisch und proamerikanisch zu sein und lehnt doch mit jedem neuen Beitrag genau die Werte ab, für die diese pluralistischen Demokratien stehen. Behauptet wird, angeblich unterdrückte Nachrichten über die Islamisierung Europas zu verbreiten, in Wahrheit wird Hass gegen alle Moslems geschürt. Dem Islam und allen Moslems wird unterstellt, nichts als Hass und Intoleranz zu verkörpern, dabei ist es dieser Blog, der nur aus Hass und Rassismus besteht und das perverserweise als Kampf gegen Intoleranz ausgibt. Der Blog versucht nichts anderes, als den Islam und die Muslime im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes zu verteufeln. (I can only issue a strong warning concerning the blog Poliitically Incorrect. This blog claims to be pro-American and pro-Israeli but with each post rejects the values of these pluralistic democracies. They say that they are only publishing news about the Islamicization of Europe that supposedly has been suppressed, but in fact they are only spreading hate against all Muslims. They imply that Islam and all Muslims harbor only hate and intolerance, but it is in fact this blog that consists of nothing but hate and racism, even as it perversely presents itself as fighting against intolerance.  The goal of this blog is nothing less than the demonization of Islam and Muslims.)

Will the owners of the blog Politically Incorrect remove the US flag from its banner once President Obama has moved into the White House?

UPDATE: The Bundesverfassungsschutz (Federal Office for Protection of the Consitution) investigates Politically Incorrect.