#german military advisor

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Above in (1) to shown the area where Bolivian and Paraguayan troops are waging bitter combat in the dispute over the Gran Chaco territory. Latest reports are that each side has lost about 2,000 men in the Bolivian attack on Fort Nanawa, held by the Paraguayans. The marshland surrounding the fort is a sea of mud making military operations difficult. In (2) is shown General Hans Kundt, veteran German army officer, who is directing the Bolivian attack and calling into operation military tactics used during the Great War. A Paraguayan anti-aircraft gun is seen in (1) indicating the combatants have at their service the necessary attributes of modern warfare.”

- from the Kingston Whig-Standard. January 30, 1933. Page 3.

[dailyhistoryposts]

A Rundown of Henry Kissinger's Life

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

--Anthony Bourdain (2018)

It's difficult to be precise, but all told Henry Kissinger killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in pursuit of American business interests.

EARLY LIFE

Henry Kissinger was born in 1923 as Heinz Kissinger in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, to a German-Jewish family. Throughout his youth, he was relentlessly and violently harassed and discriminated against by members of the Hitler Youth and authorities. At the age of 15, Kissinger and his family fled Nazi Germany, settling in New York City. He finished high school at George Washington High School in NYC and began studying accounting at the City College of New York, but his undergraduate studies were interrupted in 1943 when he was drafted into the US army.

In the army, fluent German speakers were in short supply, so Kissinger was quickly assigned to military intelligence. During the American invasion of Germany, he worked to set up civilian administration of conquered cities and tracked down Gestapo officers as a Special Agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps. He received the Bronze Star Medal

After his time in the army, Kissinger returned to his studies. He graduated summa cum laude in political science from Harvard College, as well as his Masters and PhD. He taught at Harvard, and his studies focused on international 'legitimacy', when an international order is widely accepted by international leaders, without regard to public opinion or morality.

POLITICS

Beginning in the 1950s, Kissinger began to be more active on the political stage. He was a consultant for the National Security Council and a study director for the Council of Foreign Relations. He notably was against Eisenhower's massive retaliation nuclear doctrine, where the United States would respond to a nuclear attack with a much, much greater nuclear attack. Instead, Kissinger advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis in more wars.

In the 1960s, Kissinger began working with Republicans running for office as an advisor in foreign affairs. He contributed to the Nixon campaign, and when Nixon took office in 1969, Kissinger was appointed as National Security Advisor, and later Secretary of State. As a diplomat, Kissinger heavily used Realpolitik, the in-fashion Cold War approach focusing on pragmatism and realistic outcomes rather than ideological or moral purity. In international politics, it largely has to do with obtaining and maintaining power on the world stage.

Kissinger focused on relaxing US tensions with the USSR and China, leading an American foreign policy that supported Taiwan on the face but in the shadows removed all support for Taiwan and essentially waited for it to fall apart.

In 1974, he directed the National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200), sometimes called the "Kissinger Report" the official United States policy for many years, though it remained classified until the 1990s. The Kissinger Report advocated for population control in undeveloped nations to ensure easy resource extraction and protect American business interests abroad. Projects were designed to reduce fertility while keeping up the appearance of improving quality of life--the plan specifically attempted to avoid an appearance of "economic or racial imperialism". Birth rate was particularly noted due to concerns about an adequate global food supply and because young people more readily fight back against corruption and imperialism. The Report also brought up increasing abortion rates as a method of obtaining this goal.

In 1975, policies based on the Report went into affect. The National Security Council would recommend withholding food and using military force to prevent population growth, prioritizing aid for small families, and even paying people to get sterilized. Thirteen countries were named as particularly problematic to US interests. Of note, Nigeria lost development and the United States took control of Nigerian resources, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was responsible for some of the 300,000 forced sterilizations in Peru--largely impoverished or indigenous women--during the Fujimori administration. The Fujimori government has been accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for these abuses, and today the Peruvian economy suffers due to the low population resulting from these sterilizations.

ACTIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The Vietnam War had started back in 1955. Kissinger had originally supported it, but as time dragged on began to view it as harming American prestige. Kissinger leaked information about peace talks to get into power at Nixon's side, and then failed to end the war in 1972, leading to the Christmas bombings. A very similar agreement was signed the next month, leading to a ceasefire (that would collapse) and the withdrawal of American troops--bitterly seen as a betrayal by South Vietnam. When Kissinger and Vietnamese diplomat Lê Đức Thọ were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this, Thọ declined to accept it and two members of the Nobel Committee left it in protest.

It was in the middle of the Vietnam War, and during the Cambodian Civil War, that Operation Menu and Operational Freedom Deal went into play. From March 1969 to May 1970, the United States Strategic Air Command carried out a series of first tactical and then carpet bombings in eastern Cambodia. Then, from May 1970 to August 1973, the United States provided close air support and widespread bombing. Part of a 'secret' war to support the Kingdom of Cambodia/Khmer Republic against communist rebels, it ultimately failed and the communists would take power in 1975.

In the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Nixon and Kissinger supported the Pakistani president Yahya Khan. It was in this that the strongest dissent in the history of the U.S. Foreign Service, the Blood Telegram (named after sender Archer Blood), was sent. It reports the US was about to lose, describes systemic abuses, and uses the word 'genocide' to describe the actions by US-supported Pakistan. It said the US government was morally bankrupt. Blood was recalled early from Bangladesh, and US interests were lost when Bangladeshi Independence was secured within the year.

MIDDLE EASTERN POLICY

Kissinger was originally excluded from any policy-making on Israel, as part of Nixon's orders to exclude all Jewish-Americans from such work. Still, in 1973, when Kissinger became Secretary of State, he was included in all US Middle Eastern policy. This means he was largely responsible for the handling of the Yom Kippur War--this handling included not noticing precipitating factors leading up to it (he was so engrossed in Paris peace talks he didn't notice the Egyptian President Sadat ready to move on Sinai), delaying telling Nixon about and stalled negotiating a ceasefire, hoping Israel would push across and fully obtain the Suez Canal.

Kissinger's diplomacy included giving equipment to Israel, but not as much as he'd promised, and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia at the same time, in exchange for access to Saudi Arabian oil. By largely handling to event and not involving France or the United Kingdom, and by minimizing the power of the Soviet Union, Kissinger took large steps in giving US power over much of the Middle East.

It should be noted that this was done purely to protect US interests rather than any form of Jewish security. When questioned about the persecution of Soviet Jews at the same time, Kissinger said

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

-Henry Kissinger (1973)

Also in the region., Kissinger supported Iran against Iraq.

TURKISH INVASION OF CYPRUS

In 1974, the Greek military regime and Turkiye invaded the island of Cyprus. The military regime had been supported by Kissinger, and anti-Kissinger sentiment was strong among young people. Cyprus is now an independent island country, though its northeast portion is de facto separate, making up the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Kissinger considers his own handling of the Cyprus Issue unfavorably.

LATIN AMERICA

With Kissinger's influence, the United States maintained relations with non-left-wing governments regardless of commitment to democracy. It was with Kissinger's input that the CIA encouraged a military coup against Chilean president-elect Salvador Allende due to his socialist ideals.

Operation Condor, a US-backed program of political repression by right-wing dictatorships of southern South America, was also Kissinger's work. It included assassinations, the Dirty War in Argentina, and supporting Brazil's nuclear weapons program because it would benefit the U.S. private nuclear industry.

SOME OTHER STUFF

Kissinger's policy on post-WWII decolonization was mixed, based on what would benefit the U.S. He helped transition Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) away from White minority rule, expressed moderate support for the Portuguese Colonial Empire, and helped Indonesia occupy East Timor.

After Watergate forced Nixon to resign, Kissinger stayed on under President Ford but left office when Democrat Jimmy Carter came into power. He was offered an endowed chair at Columbia University, which was canceled due to student opposition, but was appointed to Georgetown University instead. He ran a consulting firm, supported the Chinese government in the Tiananmen Square massacre, and served on the 2000 Commission of the International Olympic Committee. He was supposed to help President Bush respond to the 9/11 attacks but stepped down because he refused to reveal if he had a business conflict of interest.

In 2010, he took a strong stance urging world governments to destroy all nuclear weapons. In the 2014 Ukrainian crisis, he said that Crimea should remain under Ukrainian sovereignty, but in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine said that Crimea and Donbas should be given to Russia.

Kissinger was a board member of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes' biotech scam.

In response to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and seeing pro-Palestinian protestors in Germany, Kissinger called Muslim immigration into Germany "a grave mistake".

DEATH

Kissinger died peacefully in his home in Connecticut on November 29th, 2023,

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Princess Alice

Amazing story! Princess Alice was an unconventional royal who prioritized helping others over wealth and privilege. She devoted her life to good deeds and spiritual growth, and was notable among European royalty for taking Jews into her home during the Holocaust.

Princess Alice stood out for another reason: she was deaf from birth.

Born in 1885 at Windsor Castle, Alice was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She learned to lip read at a young age, and could speak several languages. Alice was widely regarded as the most beautiful princess in Europe.

At age 17, Alice fell in love with dashing Prince Andrew of Greece and they were married in 1903. Alice and Andrew had four daughters and a son. Their son Philip would later be married to Queen Elizabeth II. Alice communicated with her children mainly in sign language.

Political turmoil in Greece forced the royal family into exile. They settled in a sleepy suburb of Paris, where Alice threw herself into charitable work helping Greek refugees. Her husband left her for a life of gambling and debauchery in Monte Carlo.

Relying on the charity of wealthy relatives, Alice found strength in her Greek Orthodox faith. She became increasingly religious, and believed that she was receiving divine messages and had healing powers. She yearned to share her faith and mystical experiences with others, but instead was dismissed as mentally unhinged.

Alice had a nervous breakdown in 1930. She was committed against her will to a mental institution in Switzerland, with a dubious diagnosis of schizophrenia. Alice did not even get a chance to say goodbye to her children. Her youngest, 9 year old Philip, returned from a picnic to find his mother gone.

Alice tried desperately to leave the asylum, but was kept prisoner in Switzerland for 2 1/2 years. During that time, her beloved son Philip was sent to live with relatives, and her four daughters married German princes. Alice was not allowed to attend any of their weddings.

Finally, in 1932, Alice was released. She became a wanderer, traveling through Europe by herself, staying with relatives or at bed & breakfast inns. In 1935, Alice returned to Greece, where she lived alone in a modest two bedroom apartment and worked with the poor.

The Germans occupied Athens in April 1941. Alice devoted herself to relieving the tremendous suffering in her country. She worked for the Red Cross, organizing soup kitchens and creating shelters for orphaned children. Alice also started a nursing service to provide health care to the poorest Athenians.

In 1943, the Germans started deporting the Jews of Athens to concentration camps. Alice hid a Jewish widow, Rachel Cohen, and her children in her own apartment for over a year. Rachel’s late husband, Haimaki Cohen, was an advisor to King George I of Greece, and Alice considered it her solemn duty to save the remaining Cohen family.

Alice lived yards from Gestapo headquarters. When the Germans became suspicious of her and started asking questions, she used her deafness as an excuse not to answer them. Alice kept the Cohen family safe until Greece was liberated in 1944.

After the war, Alice founded her own religious order, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, and became a nun. She built a convent and orphanage in a poverty-stricken part of Athens. Alice dressed in a nun’s habit consisting of a drab gray robe, white wimple, cord and rosary beads – but still enjoyed smoking and playing cards.

In 1967, after a Greek military coup, Alice finally returned to Great Britain. She lived at Buckingham Palace with her son Philip and daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II.

Alice died in 1969. She owned no possessions, having given everything to the poor. Before she died, Alice expressed a desire to be buried at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, but instead was laid to rest in the Royal Crypt in Windsor Castle.

In 1988, almost 20 years after she died, Alice’s dying wish was finally granted. Her remains were sent to Jerusalem, where she was buried on the Mount of Olives.

In 1994, Alice was honored by the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem (Yad Vashem) as Righteous Among The Nations. Her son Prince Philip said of his mother’s wartime heroism, “I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress.”

Video

[thisisabernieblog]

International Court of Justice Rules That Israel Must Stop Killing Palestinians

World BEYOND War

The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must cease its warmaking in Gaza — cease committing and inciting genocidal acts — and that the case charging Israel with genocide must proceed.

DETAILS OF THE RULING:

By 15-2: Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent all acts within the scope of Genocide Convention article 2

15-2: Israel must immediately ensure that its military does not commit acts within the scope of GC.2

16-1: Direct and punish all members of the public who engage in the incitement of genocide against Palestinians

16-1: Ensure provision of urgently needed basic services, humanitarian aid

15-2: Prevent the destruction of and ensure the preservation of evidence to allegation of acts of GC.2

15-2: Israel will submit report as to how they’re adhering to these orders to the ICJ within 1 month

This is Article 2 of the Genocide Convention:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Therefore, Israel must cease killing Palestinians.

This was a make or break moment for international law, or rather a break or make-a-first-step moment. There is hope for the idea and reality of international law, but this is only a beginning.

The president of the International Court of Justice, who read the ruling, is Judge Joan Donoghue, former top legal advisor under Hillary Clinton at the U.S. State Department during the Obama Administration. She previously was the lawyer for the United States in its unsuccessful defense before the ICJ against charges by Nicaragua of minining its harbor.

The court voted for portions of this decision by 15-2 and 16-1. The “No” votes came from Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda and Ad Hoc Judge Aharon Barak of Israel.

The case presented by South Africa was overwhelming (read it or watch a key part of it), and Israel’s defense paper-thin. And the case just grew more overwhelming during the bizarre delay (yes, courts are slow, but this genocide is swift).

People all over the world built the pressure to move South Africa to act and other nations to add their support. Over 1,500 organizations signed a statement. Individuals signed a petition by CODEPINK, and sent almost 500,000 emails to key governments’ United Nations consulates through World BEYOND War and RootsAction.org. Click those links because more emails are needed now. While several nations have made public statements in support of South Africa’s case, we need them to file papers officially with the International Court of Justice. To reach out to additional national governments, go here.

Governments that have made statement in support of the case against genocide include Malaysia, Turkey, Jordan, Bolivia, the 57 nations of the Organization of Islamic Countries, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Maldives, Namibia, and Pakistan, Colombia, Brazil, and Cuba.

Germany has backed Israel’s defense against the charge of genocide, which has been denounced by Namibia, victimn of a German genocide. Prominent Jews have denounced Germany’s shameful action.

Mass demonstrations in the streets of the world have continued in support of peace and justice, and to a far greater extent than major media outlets have reported.

Here’s a discussion of this campaign for justice with Sam Husseini on Talk World Radio.

Prior to today’s ruling from the International Court of Justice, the U.S. government pointedly refused to say whether it would comply with ruling, despite insisting that other nations comply with rulings by the ICJ.

Hamas said that it would cease fire if Israel does, and release all prisoners if Israel does

Germany, to its credit, reportedly said that it would comply.

Arming a genocide is complicity in genocide. While Israel gets most of its weapons from the United States, other weaponry comes from Germany, Italy, the UK, and Canada — at least some of which nations also provide parts to U.S. weaponsmakers that provide weapons to Israel. Italian opposition demanded an end to it. And then the Foreign Minister claimed Italy had stopped shipments on Oct 7. Meanwhile, Canada is coming under pressure to cease shipments and prevarications. In Canada, Members of Parliament are among over 250 people hunger striking for an arms embargo on Israel.

People in the United States can tell Congress to stop arming Israel here or here.

President Joe Biden already faces a lawsuit for aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza. In November 2023, Palestinian human rights organizations, along with Gaza- and U.S.-based Palestinians, filed suit in a U.S. federal court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the Biden Administration for failing to prevent genocide, and for aiding and abetting genocide. The plaintiffs seek an order to end U.S. military and diplomatic support to Israel. A hearing to address the government’s motion to dismiss will be held at 9 a.m. PT / 12 noon ET today, Friday. The hearing will be webstreamed to the public. You are encouraged to tune in and witness the U.S. government’s attempts at avoiding accountability and justify its support for the genocide that is happening in Gaza.

Handed down on Invasion Day (26th Jan in Australia)

How fitting ❤️ 🇵🇸 ❤️ 🇵🇸 ❤️

[er1chartmann]

These are some facts and curiosities about Ernst Kalternbrunner, Heydrich's successor:

He was born on 4 October 1903 in Austria.

After attending the University of Graz, he obtained his qualification as a lawyer in 1926; profession which he practiced first in Linz, then in Salzburg and again in Linz from 1928

He joined the Nazi Party and the Austrian SS in 1932, first as Gauredner (district speaker) and later Rechtsberater (legal advisor) of the 8th SS Division.

From mid-1935 Kaltenbrunner was the leader of the Austrian SS. He assisted in the Anschluss and Hitler promoted him to SS-Brigadeführer on the day the Anschluss was completed.

In July 1940, he was commissioned as a SS-Untersturmführer in the Waffen-SS Reserve.Later in April 1941, he was promoted to major general (Generalleutnant) of the Police. On 30 January 1943 Kaltenbrunner was appointed Chief of the RSHA. He held this position until the end of the war.

Toward the end of the war, Kaltenbrunner's power increased greatly, especially after the attack on Hitler of 20 July 1944, upon which he gained direct access to the Führer. He was also responsible for conducting "kangaroo trials" and calling for the execution of all the people who were accused of plotting against Hitler. 

 It was often said that even Heinrich Himmler feared him and he managed to be an intimidating figure with his height, facial scars and volatile temper.

He was long-time friends with Otto Skorzeny and recommended him for many secret missions, allowing Skorzeny to become one of Hitler's valued agents.

It was rumored that he was responsible for Adolf Eichmann's failure to attain the rank of SS-colonel.

In December 1944, Kaltenbrunner was granted the rank of General of the Waffen-SS.

On 18 April 1945, Himmler named Kaltenbrunner Commander-in-Chief of those remaining German forces in Southern Europe. 

On 12 May 1945 he was captured by a U.S. patrol and arrested.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Kaltenbrunner was charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war-crimes and crimes against humanity. The most notable witness in this trial was Rudolf Höss, the camp commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

During the initial stages of the Nuremberg trials, He was absent because of two episodes of subarachnoid hemorrhage. He was senteced to death.

  He was executed by hanging at around 1:40 a.m. on 16 October 1946.

He married  Elisabeth Eder and they had three children. In addition to the children from his marriage, Kaltenbrunner had twins, Ursula and Wolfgang, (b. 1945) with his long-time mistress Gisela Gräfin von Westarp (née Wolf). All of his children survived the war.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Military Wiki: Ernst Kaltenbrunner

❗❗I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM,FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST❗❗

[grumfield]

Indulge me—what is maiden rose about? What makes it good?

OKAYY IM GONNA USE THIS ASK AS AN EXCUSE TO GUSH. I am seasoned yaoi reader so it cannot be overstated how good this yaoi is for it to be my favorite of all time, and it’s my favorite because it takes all the tropes associated with the genre and then goes all in exploring them in the most interesting way possible. It also has my favorite ever weirdass power dynamic in anything ever, which is very high praise from someone like me!

Maiden Rose is a secondary world historical war manga that takes place right before and during a WWI/WWII inspired conflict between Fantasy Japan and Fantasy Germany + Russia. Fantasy Japan never got rid of its feudal system in this world so is very spiritualist, and has major emphasis on religious tradition, most notably a position called the Maiden Rose which is a sort of familial-inherited ‘hand of the emperor’ role, military position, and religious ordinance that is invoked during wartime. The Maiden Rose is believed to be blessed by the gods to bring Fantasy Japan to victory so long as they remain completely pure and unsullied, (ie celibate, isolated, nonviolent, emotionally distant, etc), or risk breaking the god’s blessing and thus losing the faith and support of the soldiers they lead. Personhood is basically abandoned to be a vessel for the desires of the country and war.

Taki is a twenty-year-old and at the start of the manga has recently been invoked as the Maiden Rose. Everyone respects him and adheres to his orders and he’s good at his job. Only hiccup to his advisors is the random big beefy weird blond guy who follows him around who everyone hates.

Enter other guy in this yaoi. The Ultimate Top. Seme Supreme. Klaus is a Fantasy German ex-school friend of Taki’s who basically abandoned and gave up his nationality, identity, and personhood to be Taki’s personal servant. Literally his legal delineation is just “guy who belongs to the Maiden Rose”. That’s all anyone knows, they’re suspicious of him because of this and think he might be a spy. The only additional thing the reader is privy to about him at the start is that he basically is constantly, violently raping Taki without anyone else knowing but them. And it’s played really straight, it’s a very uncomfortable read.

This is just kind of the setup for this manga because it’s told nonlinearly, switching between when Taki and Klaus were schoolmates together to the current war conflict to kind of breadcrumb the reader into how they got to this very unpleasant point in their relationship.

And man their relationship is absolutely APESHIT. I cannot emphasize how apeshit it is. Literally the manga is all about dehumanization and fuckywucky power dynamics and objectification and they’re trying to negotiate love with each other when literally they both have all the power over each other, none of the power over each other, and no freedom at all, because power and freedom are for people, and both their choices and the war have made them no longer people, so they can’t have anything they want ever forever and always and are just conduits for violence. It’s crazy, I love it, it’s good. Klaus is one of my favorite fictional characters ever.

[grammar-antifascist]

In his tell-all book from 2021, former Trump military advisor General Mark Milley repeatedly compared Trump’s tactics and opinions to Nazism.

He called the January 6 insurrection attempt Trump’s “Reichstag” moment, referring to the burning of the Reichstag in 1933, where Hitler used an attack on the German parliament to gain public and political support for the removal of various democratic rights. (Read more about it at the Holocaust Museum)

The Nazis blamed the fire on Communists, Hitler’s biggest political opponents in his early reign, and there has long been speculation that the Reichstag Fire was a false-flag operation by the Nazis themselves to eliminate and discredit those enemies. Hitler used false-flags during the Gleiwitz Incident, so we know he used the tactic. But false-flags are famously hard to prove - it’s the military version of “he said/she said”

Flash forward to the assassination attempt on Trump’s life July 14, 2024

I’m reluctant to call the attack on Trump a false-flag orchestrated by his party to make Trump seem more impressive, because it would be hard to prove one way or another - such a scenario would be covered up, and Trump is well-practiced in cover-ups. But even if it was not a false-flag, and the shooting was indeed a legitimate attempt on his life, Trump and his entourage are known students of Hitler’s rise to power and propaganda techniques. They know that deadly attacks are not just tragedies - they’re opportunities.

I see spin everywhere in the Republican response. Trump’s post-shooting statement that “God alone” saved his life builds himself up as a hero, blessed by Literally God — but it’s also a dig at the Secret Service, who he immediately blamed for not doing more to protect him. The Secret Service is taking a reputation nose-dive right now, with demands about how they could let this happen - but the first voice I heard criticize the Secret Service was Trump. And I’m not quite sure that’s fair.

I don’t like the Secret Service particularly, but I think they are being set up to take the fall for an attack that resulted from Trump’s disregard for his own safety. During COVID, Secret Service agents attached to Trump (who was then-president) expressed their frustrations with Trump for not cooperating with them on pandemic security. In 2022, Trump said that on January 6, he wanted to go down to the riots, into danger, and was stopped by the Secret Service, who openly defied his demands to go down into an active riot zone. Trump has historically repeatedly and deliberately attempted to put himself - and therefore his agents, and followers - in danger, in a country with a gun problem and a temper that he himself exacerbates.

And if it was that hard to keep him secure while he was actually president, it stands to reason he would be harder to secure with fewer agency resources devoted to him.

So, did the Secret Service not do their jobs well, or did they do the best they could with a client who flat out sucks?

I wonder if Trump’s spin doctors developed protocols specifically for assassination attempts. Attempts have happened before. Probably, right? Sorry, got sidetracked

Anyway, the shooter was a registered Republican but his motive and intentions are as yet unknown - and now that he’s dead, we will never really know why he did it. The issue with motive is there’s too many options - was he a disgruntled Republican, a false-flag Republican, a Democrat plant, a troll? Any evidence could be spun any way Trump wants. And the issue with intention is, even with a credible manifesto or evidence, there will be ambiguity in interpretation because the shooter can’t be interrogated to fill in the gaps. So we will never know why.

Regardless of the shooter’s intentions, Trump and his team are going to use this attack to further their political goals. They will use this to pretend he is a hero. He did nothing heroic. He made himself an open target because he knew other people were being paid to jump in front of the bullet for him. He’s a coward; being shot doesn’t change that. Just because someone survived a dangerous situation doesn’t mean they are a worthwhile leader

General Mark Milley said January 6 was Trump’s Reichstag moment - but no one ever said you can’t burn the Reichstag twice

This is a time for leftist resistance to Trump’s narrative propaganda

Trump is myth making and you can prevent it. When someone tries to spin this attempt as Trump being some kind of hero, RESIST.

If they say “Trump is a hero!”

You say: It’s not inherently brave to get shot at. If it was, then every kindergarten who got shot at Sandy Hook was a hero - but they weren’t, were they. They were victims, and so was Trump. Victims of a violence-centric system with no automatic gun regulations that Trump and his supporters built and support

If they say “The Secret Service failed!”

You say: This assassination attempt is not necessarily a sign that the Secret Service agency failed. Trump routinely defies security protocols for his own interests and makes their job harder - maybe he did that here, too. Hell, maybe he orchestrated it - politicians have done so before him - there’s not enough evidence yet to suggest a conspiracy but there’s not enough to suggest anything yet. Maybe Secret Security dropped the ball, maybe they saved his life - but likely it’s both, and until they’re done investigating, it’s premature to form an opinion. Trump already formed one, but we don’t have to

You can stop Trump’s propaganda campaign from spreading by voicing opposition

It’s not much but it’s not nothing. Trump is fighting this hard because he’s lost popularity - don’t let him and his followers control this narrative

[eretzyisrael]

by Dov Fischer

Warning: This is much harsher than the last Dov Fischer piece we ran. Compared to the Hamas massacre however, it is just words.

Let us be clear: If the Government of Israel were trying to murder civilians wantonly, just to inflict terror and to horrify them into submission, I would condemn that. No Jew can accept or refrain from criticizing organized institutional efforts to harm civilians wantonly. If Israel were deliberately bombing residential structures just to leave a population homeless and bombing hospitals just to inflict suffering on the ill, I would be outspoken in these pages criticizing them. But that is not the Israel I know, nor the Jewish people I know. We have our ethic, and the Arab Muslims have theirs. We have our religious guidelines and theological authorities, and they have theirs. Israel will not target civilians knowingly. They destroy known military targets: rocket launchers, land mines, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), military drones, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and their launchers, anti-tank missiles, and other military battlefield materiel — and the people storing and launching them. If such terrorists are operating from specific residential buildings — say, running a rocket factory or storing attack drones in an 8th-floor apartment — then Israel may well bomb the entire building. But they won’t bomb the building next door. They attack with whatever precision is humanly possible. And if the day comes that they make a mistake, they will apologize, perhaps even compensate. That is what America does. By now, we all know that Hamas men and their weapons hide in and behind women, children, residential apartment buildings, hospitals, mosques, schools, and ambulances. When any or all of these are identified positively for their military threat, Israel will destroy them. And if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) cannot avoid killing civilians alongside, then Dresden entails collateral casualties, and Israel now must Dresden Gaza. (READ MORE: Arab Muslim Foreigners and Illegals Stoke Campus Anti-Semitism) Importantly, Israel has had to fight five previous Gaza wars started by Hamas these past 16 years. Each time, Israel stopped its winning responses, forced by international pressure to cease fire. Each time, Hamas used the ceasefire to re-arm, build more tunnels, and militarize more of the population. They now have 40,000 terrorists in 300 miles of those tunnels. This time, upon having experienced the terror attacks of Shabbat Shmini Atzeret on October 7, Israel has learned the price of stopping halfway through a war. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now is political “toast” because he adopted his advisors’ recommendations (known in Israel now as “The Concept”) that Hamas could be controlled with measured responsive wars, and then hoping that new money pouring in would persuade them to stop attacking. But that Concept simply left behind the weeds to grow back and fight an even more destructive next war. This time Israel must uproot even the weeds. Netanyahu will be replaced politically soon after. When the Washington Post and others present their empathy for the “poor innocent Gaza civilians,” I don’t care. They are poor only because Hamas has used the billions of dollars they have received from Qatar and European — and American — taxpayers to build an underground tunnel system as expansive as the New York City subway system instead of allocating the money to the public by building a beautiful country. Believe it or not, with all that money that has poured in — more than $8 billion — they have not even built a water or electricity infrastructure in their 16 years.

[blueiscoool]

The Rise and Fall of The Praetorian Guard

THE PRAETORIAN GUARD WERE AN ELITE UNIT WITHIN THE IMPERIAL ARMY, SERVING PRIMARILY AS PERSONAL PROTECTORS AND INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES FOR THE ROMAN EMPERORS.

The roots of the guard can be found during the Roman Republic, when soldiers served as protectors for Roman generals and important figures, or as elite guards for military praetors.

High-ranked generals with imperium held public office by serving as a magistrate or promagistrate. They were assigned a civil servant, lictors, to serve as an attendant and bodyguard. Where no personal bodyguard was assigned, senior field officers safeguarded themselves with temporary bodyguard units of selected soldiers.

Around 40 BC, Octavian, who would later become Emperor Caesar Augustus, installed praetorians within the pomerium (a religious boundary around the city of Rome), the first example of troops being permanently garrisoned in Rome proper.

Members of the guard accompanied Augustus on active campaigns, protecting the civic administrations and rule of law. At camp, the cohors praetoria (a cohort of praetorians guarding the commander), were posted near the praetorium, the tent of the commander, which the guard is believed to be named after.

After the construction of Rome’s Praetorian camp known as the Castra Praetoria around 23 BC, their role extended to escorting the emperor and the members of the imperial family, and to serve as a policing force during times of riot.

According to the Roman historian and politician, Tacitus, the guard around this time numbered nine Praetorian cohorts (4500 men, the equivalent of a legion), however, an inscription from near the end of Augustus’s rule suggests that their numbers were briefly increased to twelve.

The Praetorian Guard, like all legionaries, shared similar insignia, mainly on their shields. Praetorian Guard shields included wings and thunderbolts, referring to Jupiter, and also uniquely included scorpions, stars and crescents.

The first military engagement of the Praetorian Guard took place during the mutinies of Pannonia and the mutinies of Germania. Drusus Julius Caesar, son of Tiberius, accompanied by two Praetorian cohorts, the Praetorian Cavalry, and Imperial German Bodyguards, suppressed the mutinies of Pannonia. Germanicus, later known as Germanicus Julius Caesar, led a force of legions and detachments of the Praetorian Guard in a two-year campaign in Germania against the uprising.

In the three centuries that followed, the guard influenced imperial politics by overthrowing emperors and proclaiming the successor. Members of the guard were also directly involved in the assassination of emperors, such as: Aurelian, Balbinus, Caligula, Caracalla, Commodus, Elagabalus, Galba, Pupienus, Pertinax, Philip II, and Probus.

In AD 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, and the former Caesares, Constantius and Galerius became Augusti. Although two sons of emperors, Constantine I and Maxentius were eligible, they were passed over for a new tetrarchy, and Valerius Severus and Maximinus Daza were appointed Caesars.

Severus planned to disband the Praetorian Guard on the orders of Galerius, resulting in the guard giving their allegiance to Maxentius and proclaiming him emperor. By AD 312, Constantine I marched on Rome with a force of 40,000 soldiers to eliminate Maxentius, facing off against an army that encompassed the bulk of the Praetorian Guard garrisoned in Rome at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the River Tiber.

Contemporary accounts record Maxentius’s forces being pushed back against the river and retreating across the bridge. The weight of soldiers fleeing caused the bridge to collapse, stranding elements of the guard on the northern bank of the river who were either killed or taken prisoner.

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, a Christian author and advisor to Constantine recorded the events: “The bridge in his rear was broken down. At sight of that the battle grew hotter. The hand of the Lord prevailed, and the forces of Maxentius were routed. He fled towards the broken bridge; but the multitude pressing on him, he was driven headlong into the Tiber [drowned].”

Maxentius’ body was fished out of the Tiber and decapitated, and his head was paraded through the streets of Rome. Supporters of Maxentius were eliminated and the Praetorian Guard and Imperial Horse Guard were disbanded. The remaining guard were sent in exile to the corners of the empire, and the Castra Praetoria was dismantled in a grand gesture that marked the end of the Praetorians.

[lightofraye]

Full credit of the image and text goes to the Accidental Talmudist.

Princess Alice was an unconventional royal who prioritized helping others over wealth and privilege. She devoted her life to good deeds and spiritual growth, and was notable among European royalty for taking Jews into her home during the Holocaust.

Princess Alice stood out for another reason: she was deaf from birth.

Born in 1885 at Windsor Castle, Alice was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She learned to lip read at a young age, and could speak several languages. Alice was widely regarded as the most beautiful princess in Europe.

At age 17, Alice fell in love with dashing Prince Andrew of Greece and they were married in 1903. Alice and Andrew had four daughters and a son. Their son Philip would later be married to Queen Elizabeth II. Alice communicated with her children mainly in sign language.

Political turmoil in Greece forced the royal family into exile. They settled in a sleepy suburb of Paris, where Alice threw herself into charitable work helping Greek refugees. Her husband left her for a life of gambling and debauchery in Monte Carlo.

Relying on the charity of wealthy relatives, Alice found strength in her Greek Orthodox faith. She became increasingly religious, and believed that she was receiving divine messages and had healing powers. She yearned to share her faith and mystical experiences with others, but instead was dismissed as mentally unhinged.

Alice had a nervous breakdown in 1930. She was committed against her will to a mental institution in Switzerland, with a dubious diagnosis of schizophrenia. Alice did not even get a chance to say goodbye to her children. Her youngest, 9 year old Philip, returned from a picnic to find his mother gone.

Alice tried desperately to leave the asylum, but was kept prisoner in Switzerland for 2 1/2 years. During that time, her beloved son Philip was sent to live with relatives, and her four daughters married German princes. Alice was not allowed to attend any of their weddings.

Finally, in 1932, Alice was released. She became a wanderer, traveling through Europe by herself, staying with relatives or at bed & breakfast inns. In 1935, Alice returned to Greece, where she lived alone in a modest two bedroom apartment and worked with the poor.

The Germans occupied Athens in April 1941. Alice devoted herself to relieving the tremendous suffering in her country. She worked for the Red Cross, organizing soup kitchens and creating shelters for orphaned children. Alice also started a nursing service to provide health care to the poorest Athenians.

In 1943, the Germans started deporting the Jews of Athens to concentration camps. Alice hid a Jewish widow, Rachel Cohen, and her children in her own apartment for over a year. Rachel’s late husband, Haimaki Cohen, was an advisor to King George I of Greece, and Alice considered it her solemn duty to save the remaining Cohen family.

Alice lived yards from Gestapo headquarters. When the Germans became suspicious of her and started asking questions, she used her deafness as an excuse not to answer them. Alice kept the Cohen family safe until Greece was liberated in 1944.

After the war, Alice founded her own religious order, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, and became a nun. She built a convent and orphanage in a poverty-stricken part of Athens. Alice dressed in a nun’s habit consisting of a drab gray robe, white wimple, cord and rosary beads - but still enjoyed smoking and playing cards.

In 1967, after a Greek military coup, Alice finally returned to Great Britain. She lived at Buckingham Palace with her son Philip and daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II.

Alice died in 1969. She owned no possessions, having given everything to the poor. Before she died, Alice expressed a desire to be buried at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, but instead was laid to rest in the Royal Crypt in Windsor Castle.

In 1988, almost 20 years after she died, Alice’s dying wish was finally granted. Her remains were sent to Jerusalem, where she was buried on the Mount of Olives.

In 1994, Alice was honored by the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem (Yad Vashem) as Righteous Among The Nations. Her son Prince Philip said of his mother’s wartime heroism, "I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress.”

For her devotion to helping others despite her own challenges, we honor Princess Alice of Greece as this week’s Thursday Hero at Accidental Talmudist.

[mariacallous]

As a devastating crisis continues to unfold with the horrific bombardment of Gaza, there is little sense of how it will end. As a lifelong student of Israel-Palestine, I found my mind racing through many historical dates to find parallels, meaning, and direction.

Perhaps the date that comes to mind for most people is Oct. 6, 1973, the start of an Arab war effort to regain land taken by Israel in 1967. The 1973 surprise attack, which was 50 years and a day from the Oct. 7 Hamas assault, caught a recalcitrant and hubristic Israel off guard and fundamentally changed the way it thought about its policies toward Egypt in the years that followed, paving the way for a historic peace agreement a few years later.

I thought about the 1968 Battle of Karameh. This battle, little known in Western narratives of the conflict but hugely consequential in Palestinian ones, came after the 1967 war, when Israel enjoyed an aura of invincibility. PLO fighters alongside Jordanian soldiers fought the Israeli military, destroyed some military equipment, and captured more. The battle sent the message that Israeli power was not what it seemed, and it helped swell the ranks of militant factions across the region.

But a more important date stands out: Sept. 6, 1972. The day prior, Palestinian guerrillas had killed an Israeli coach and athlete and taken nine other members of the Israeli team hostage at the Munich Olympic Village, where all the cameras of the world had assembled, and by the time a botched rescue attempt by the German police had concluded, all the hostages and most of the Palestinian guerrillas were dead.

The world watched this all play out on live TV. Before that moment, and perhaps since, no set of events has had a more consequential impact on the emergence of what I call the terrorism framework: a set of policies and practices that defines how such moments should be understood, responded to, and prevented.

At the time, the Nixon White House was scrambling to figure out how to respond. Its foreign policy at the time was focused on detente with Moscow in an effort to manipulate Soviet and Chinese relations as the U.S. war on Vietnam raged. The Middle East, a massive arena of U.S.-Soviet competition, could easily derail all of this. President Richard Nixon’s now infamous tape recorder gives us insight into the thinking at the time.

On Sept. 6, Secretary of State William Rogers had a conversation with Nixon in the Oval Office in the presence of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and other officials. Rogers’s message to Nixon was straightforward: What happened in Munich was a symptom. “Say Israel retaliates and blows up something in Lebanon, that doesn’t help anyone,” Rogers told Nixon. “What this does indicate to the world is that we’ve got to solve the problem. It’s a hell of a thing to have 11 Israelis killed, and it’s a hell of a thing to have millions of people homeless all these years. So the problem has to be solved.” Nixon was receptive to Rogers’s argument, but Kissinger sat quietly and was alarmed.

Kissinger left the Oval Office and telephoned the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, to tell him about the meeting. Kissinger had his calls taped and transcribed as well. After hearing about the Oval office meeting, Rabin feared “that those who carried out the action in Munich succeeded beyond their expectations.” Kissinger urged Rabin to go to the U.N. Security Council to try to build a global consensus around fighting terrorism even if the United States and Israel would be isolated there.

Kissinger told him going to the Security Council would “not lead to any practical results but it will focus the problem on an issue on which we can talk jointly while the great danger that I see is that in a few days people will say—as was said at the meeting this morning—we must remove the cause of this.” He urged him that they should do it “before people start thinking about the problem.”

Kissinger was concerned that if the global debate about Munich was not immediately redirected toward uniform condemnation of the Palestinian guerrillas, the more people might think about the root causes and Palestinian grievances.

Herein lies the trap of the terrorism framework. It ostensibly aims to counter political violence, but it does so in a way that ensures political violence persists—by exceptionalizing it as a form of violence that comes from a vacuum. Unlike most forms of political violence—such as interstate conflicts and civil wars, insurgencies, rebellions, or political repression—terrorism is not something we are encouraged to understand the causes of; at best, reductionist explanations chalk up motivations to ideology, which, in the Palestinian case, is transparently flawed since Palestinian political violence has always transcended ideological divides.

By adopting this framework, opponents of this violence position themselves as standing with the victims of it and condemning the perpetrators. But in reality, they are merely condemning them all to continued and more horrific rounds of carnage.

It is a framework that allows leaders with the greatest capacity to prevent such violence—in this case, the leaders of the United States and Israel—a way to absolve themselves of responsibility at the expense of the very people whom they have a responsibility to protect. At the end of the day, it is always ordinary people, not states or policymakers or the media outfits that amplify them, who pay the highest price for this commitment to not thinking.

Israel, of course, would go on to blow up many things in Lebanon after 1972, and its invasion of southern Lebanon 10 years later led to a nearly two-decade occupation and the birth and strengthening of Hezbollah into a force that now requires U.S. aircraft carriers to help Israel deter.

It is easy to react to this by claiming that understanding the causes amounts to justification. That is precisely what this dangerous framework encourages us to do: It flattens political violence into a question of good and evil—to which impulse, not thought, is the only fitting response.

The reality is that political violence is part of the human condition and always has been, long before Zionism and long before Palestine. When humans commit to study pathology, it is not out of some desire to justify the diseases that plague us but rather to try to eliminate them; to the extent that there is any evil in this equation, it is in the ideological commitment to refuse to examine the cause of the disease. Without a genuine understanding of why this is happening—one that does not exceptionalize the problem or the perpetrators of violence on any side—it becomes impossible to heal what ails Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The terrorism framework absolves leaders of responsibility to address root causes, but it can also be manipulated in ways that magnify its harm. There is no better example of this than Israel’s policy toward Gaza over the last decade and a half. It was precisely because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew he could rely on the terrorism framework absolving him of any responsibility for Gaza that he preferred to keep Hamas in power there so he could prevent any diplomatic progress toward ending the occupation.

This logic has been explained by multiple Israeli officials over the years. In 2005, when then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to remove Israeli ground forces and settlers from Gaza, it was billed by many as a concession toward achieving peace, but, as his advisor Dov Weisglass explained in a 2004 interview, it was a move designed to do the exact opposite.

By keeping Gaza separate from the West Bank and ensuring Palestinian political fragmentation and a failed statelet in Gaza, Israel was creating an excuse to never make peace that it knew would be accepted. This “no-one-to-talk-to certificate,” which Weisglass said would be approved by Washington, says: “(1) There is no one to talk to. (2) As long as there is no one to talk to, the geographic status quo remains intact. (3) The certificate will be revoked only when this-and-this happens—when Palestine becomes Finland. (4) See you then, and shalom.” This approach, Weisglass added, “supplies the amount of formaldehyde that’s necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” Netanyahu, according to the Jerusalem Post, told his associates in 2019 that propping up Hamas in Gaza would keep Palestinians divided and that “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” it.

The PLO had renounced terrorism and recognized Israel (even though Israel never recognized Palestine’s right to exist), and those shifts in PLO positions brought it out of the terrorism framework and into the peace process. But Hamas didn’t follow the same path, in part because the group saw how that path had failed to produce any results for the PLO. Netanyahu, who was always opposed to Palestinian statehood, understood that Hamas represented a get-out-of-talks-free card, just as Weisglass had envisioned.

The costs of the failure to think about the problem have never been higher. More Israelis were killed on Oct. 7 than at any time in the country’s history. More Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in three weeks than in all of Israel’s previous military operations in Gaza combined. Save the Children has said that the “number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” The horrific and ever growing bloodshed underscores the failure of military solutions.

How many Israelis and Palestinians would still be with us had we committed to thinking about the problem—rather than avoiding it—in 1972?

Breaking from this continued pattern of violence requires an understanding of the difference between justice and vengeance. The lesson that the Greek playwright Aeschylus taught so many years ago is as easily forgotten as vital to remember: The difference between the two concepts is law, which exists only to the extent that there is faith in the equal application of it.

When illegal violence, including war crimes, committed by one side is routinely condemned and the perpetrators held accountable and illegal violence by the other side, including war crimes, is never condemned and the perpetrators are instead excused and enabled to continue perpetrating such violence to ever greater extents, law exists not as an instrument of justice but an instrument of oppression; vengeance reigns; and we lock countless more innocents into lives of horror.

This is precisely where the terrorism framework has led us.

[nanshe-of-nina]

Women’s History Meme || Virtually Unknown Women (7/10) ↬ Maria Aleksandrovna Spiridonova (1884 – 1941)

While the act is generally considered politically motivated, the true impetus behind the much-discussed January 1906 murder of Gavrila Luzhenovskii, chief advisor to the governor of Tambov, by Mariia Spiridonova, may have been something other than revolutionary sentiments. This assassination is particularly noteworthy because it was widely publicized and caused a great outcry in liberal society. According to antigovemment publications, Spiridonova, then a nineteen-year-old schoolgirl, killed Luzhenovskii to avenge his cruel treatment of peasants during the suppression of agrarian disorders in the Tambov province. According to a recent hypothesis, however, she was in fact originally motivated exclusively by personal considerations, and only subsequently couched her defense in revolutionary language on the advice of her liberal lawyer, in order to transform her case from a criminal matter to a political one. … Many mysteries still surround Spiridonova’s act and its motives, but whatever hypothesis is considered closest to the truth, much of what was stated about this case in the antigovernment press and by Spiridonova herself was deliberate misrepresentation of reality. For example, she admitted that she “could have been, but was not” raped by Cossack officers after her arrest, as was asserted by many liberal and left-wing newspapers. These newspapers also published letters allegedly written by Spiridonova that she later renounced as forgeries. — Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894–1917 by Anna Geifman Two days later he was assassinated. This act of terror was supposed to disrupt the peace by provoking Germany to attack Russia. Like the terrorists’ bombs of the nineteenth century, it was also meant to spark a popular uprising against the regime. The decision to assassinate Mirbach had been taken by the Left SRs on the evening of the 4th, after the first session of the Congress, when it became clear that they could not win the majority they needed to bring about a change in the government’s pro-German and anti-peasant policies. A Left SR motion of no-confidence in the Bolsheviks—designed to win the support of the Left Communists—had been defeated, and the Left SRs had walked out. Spiridonova who despite her genteel appearance had never wanted for terrorist verve — masterminded Mirbach’s murder. She recruited Yakov Bliumkin, a Left SR Chekist suitably placed in charge of counter-espionage against the Germans, and his photographer, Nikolai Andreyev, to do the bloody deed. … But the Left SRs showed no inclination to press home their military advantage. They were much less interested in seizing power themselves than they were in calling for a popular uprising to force the Bolsheviks to change their policies. The Left SRs had no idea where this uprising would end up: they were happy to leave that to the ‘revolutionary creativity of the masses’. They were the ‘poets of the revolution’ and, like all poets, were anarchists at heart. At every stage of their relationship with the Bolsheviks, the Left SRs had been outsmarted by them; and even now, when they had them at their mercy, they soon lost the upper hand. Instead of marching on the Kremlin, the Left SR leaders went to the Bolshoi Theatre, where the Soviet Congress was in session. Spiridonova gave a long and characteristically hysterical speech denouncing the Bolshevik regime. Yet while she spoke the guards in charge of security at the congress surrounded the building and sealed off all the exits. The Bolshevik delegates were allowed to leave but all the others were arrested. The Left SRs had walked into a trap. — A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes

[the-light-of-stars]

US advisor: "Have not given Israel a hard deadline for Gaza mission"

"According to their own statements the US government has not given Israel a hard deadline for an end of the military missions against Hamas in the Gaza strip. 'If the war ends now, Hamas would still be a threat to Israel', said John Finer, advisor for national security in the president's office, at the Aspen Security Forum. In the South of the Gaza strip there are still numerous/plenty targets for israeli attacks."

This is my personal interpretation of this statement so take it with a grain of salt but the fact that the US states that it hasn't given Israel a deadline for its attacks to me clearly implies that the US very much has the power to set a deadline and tell Israel to stop its attacks, but is simply not making use of it.

The US is Israel's most important military partner, having sent 200 freight planes with 10.000 tons of military equipment, including tanks, ammunition, bombs etc. since the beginning of Israel's current attacks on Gaza. A stop of these weapon deals and sanctions would hinder the israeli military from continuing its attacks, at the very least it would hinder them from continuing them in the current magnitude.

These weapon deliveries and the fact that the US, a whole other country, apparently can set deadlines for the israeli military, means that the government is directly responsible for - and approves of - the continuation of the current attacks and the resulting death of civilians, as well as their suffering due to starvation, lack of medical aid and illnesses.

Similarly the handwaiving appeals for Israel to "reduce the number of civilian casualties" are a farce: If the US apparently, according to the implications of its own statements, has the ability to set deadlines and to keep Israel from stocking up on more ammunition, then any appeal to reduce casualties must necessarily ring hollow, as they could simply enact sanctions and call for an immediate stop of attacks and thus directly reduce the number of potential civilian deaths themselves. Since they do not do this, and don't even consider doing this, though it is clear that civilian deaths in Palestine are not something they care about, handwaiving or not, as long as their government and weapons industry can profit from a prolonged siege. As even Pope Francis himself said "the only ones profiting from war are weapon manufacturers".

And this is just in regards to the US, it's not even considering the German government's response to the attacks, which is statements of respect for Israel's military actions, the claim that "Israel has a right to victory" , as well as a 3.6 billion $ arms deal for the purchase of an israeli rocket system (which has been co-produced and approved by the US) as well as calling the bombings of civilians in Gaza "israeli resistance" and stating that criticism of them is "inacceptable". Unlike the US government the German government isn't even calling for Israel to "reduce civilian casualties" , which as stated before is already not even the bare minimum, but instead says that "Israel has the obligation to alleviate civilian suffering" , which implicitly takes away responsibility for this suffering from the israeli government and military, instead implicitly portraying them as a third party who is neither truly responsible for nor capable of stopping civilian deaths in Gaza but instead can at most soothe or ease a suffering with an undefined cause, like an international aid organisation or a paramedic might.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"How did the Canadian government see the war after the first, German conquests in  Western Europe? On April 30, 1940, O.D. Skelton wrote a document called The Present Outlook. Skelton was [Prime Minister Mackenzie] King’s under-secretary of Foreign Affairs, thus King’s deputy  minister, his most trusted advisor, one of the leading public servants in Ottawa. Skelton’s document was remarkable for its lack of foresight. For example, it suggested that Japan represented no danger to the allies. It also linked as one force the two, bitter enemies, communism and fascism, as rival forms of totalitarianism, which now united. Skelton  described the horrifying possibility of a victory of the associated Germans, Italians, and  Soviets as if Canada were in an undeclared war with the Soviet Union, now allied with the Nazis. Writing about U.S. neutrality, Skelton wrote that, in the recent past, probable victory for England and France against Germany meant that the American people rightly saw no need to fight against totalitarianism. With the possibility of a victory of a German-Italian-Russian coalition, American public opinion would now change. All this nonsense from one of the most powerful men in Ottawa, a man who had the ear and respect of King about Canada’s war policy. In actual fact, Skelton probably believed the government’s own propaganda about the nature of the war as being a war upon totalitarianism and, therefore, an undeclared war against the U.S.S.R. The nature of anti-Soviet manipulations in Europe during the phoney war was clarified eventually when Swedish diplomatic archives revealed that a week before the German blitzkrieg was launched upon the French, the French government and military had been preparing to  send 50,000 troops to wage war against the U.S.S.R. in Finland, rather than preparing to  defend France against Germany.

After France and the Low Countries fell to the Germans in the Spring of 1940, the character of the war changed for Canada. A general panic among the public ensued. Canada was now the most important ally of the British, isolated and beleaguered in Europe. Canadians rushed to volunteer for the military. The King government insisted upon the voluntary aspect of Canada’s contribution in military manpower. In October, 1939, Duplessis had sought re-election in Quebec by using the threat of conscription, against which Duplessis was to be the bulwark. Federal Liberals, led by Justice minister Ernest Lapointe, promised there would be no conscription, and pledged their seats in Quebec towards this commitment. Duplessis was defeated when Quebeckers voted for the provincial Liberals, led by Adélard Godbout.

What then was to be Canada’s contribution to the defence of Britain? King prepared Canada for a war of limited liability in terms of its contribution to the war effort. The priorities were to be economic aid, which would help Canadian capitalists make profits, re-launch the economy, and create jobs; national unity, especially the unity of King’s Liberal Party, powerful in Quebec; and defending Canada’s borders and infrastructure but even more importantly, Canada’s internal social order. In the immediate flush of pro-British enthusiasm after the start of proceedings, King had sent an army division of 20,000 troops to Britain. He soon regretted this decision when negotiations were held between Britain and Canada to train aviators in Canada as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. During the acrimonious negotiations with Britain, King fought and scrapped about the costs of the plan, $600 million per year, of which  Canada was to assume $350 million, in order to train 20,000 airmen per year for use by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. King insisted that Canada’s contribution to the plan would be its most effective contribution to the war effort. Emphasis on the plan also permitted King to envisage a reduced loss of military lives, which might also ease pressure for conscription.

Many English-Canadians felt that King’s proposed contribution to the war was too calculated, too timid. They wanted Canada to do more than help Britain financially, guard borders and infrastructure, and train aviators. They wanted Canadians to fight alongside Britain, this in spite of the Phoney War early in WWII that precluded immediate, actual combat. In Ontario, the provincial Liberal government of Mitchell Hepburn said so in a resolution, adopted on January 18, 1940, which criticized King’s lack of vigorous execution of the war. King used this occasion to call elections, which were coming due as King was now in the fifth year of government. King manoeuvred the leader of the Tories, Robert Manion, into approving the no-conscription pledge to Quebeckers. On March 26, King won an overwhelming majority, 181 seats out of 245 in the House of Commons. The Liberals were now free to conduct a war of limited liability according to their priorities. King’s priorities for this war of limited liability illuminate the real reason why Canada went to war. Writes Jack Granatstein: “Canada went to war in September, 1939 because Britain had gone to war, and for no other reason. It was not a war for Poland; it was not a war against anti-semitism; it was not even a war against Naziism,” even though the horrible atrocity of the Nazi genocides against Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and  political opponents did provide post facto moral justification for World War II and  Canada’s participation therein."

- Michael Martin, The Red Patch: Political imprisonment in Hull, Quebec during World War 2. Self-published, 2007. p. 59-62

[succiducus]

{uraz kaygılaroğlu, 34, agender, he/they/she} We are so glad to see you safe, ADVISOR ABDULLAH MACKENZIE of SCOTLAND! It’s dangerous out in the world these days, but I hear that you are CALCULATIVE and DEDICATED enough to handle it. Just don’t let your RECKLESSNESS bring you down! Stay on your guard, because with your secret being at risk for exposure, you wouldn’t want everyone to find out after the reckoning your heart is no longer in the rebellion.

b a s i c s //

birth name: murat abdullah mackenzie

nickname: abby

birthday: march 31st (aries)

occupation: royal advisor to the stuarts

orientation: demi-romantic / pansexual

status: single-ish

languages: english, scottish gaelic (native). persian, hindi, japanese (fluent). german, amharic, sanskrit (conversational).

character influences: brian kinney (queer as folk), link & ganondorf (tloz), aragorn (lotr), indra (the 100), uchiha madara (naruto).

tarot card: strength

p r o l o g u e //

crooked by nature, they have always had a knack for manipulation and persuasion - nurture worsened it. selfish; power-hungry; proud; a perfect canvas for the pursuits of the family that they'd been adopted into and admittedly for their own gain. freedom granted them invisibility and they remain clutched onto that to this day. they've slipped into and out of many empires, left impacts, bought loyalties but as chaotic as they are, they're not simpleminded. they make calculative decisions and take well thought out actions for the gain of themselves and the mackenzies. prepared, intuitive, controlled - sometimes they seem outwardly unapproachable, they led their army with a strong hand, charm their way through awkward situations, and work hard regardless of their reasonings for doing so. they have two faces and only those loyal to the mackenzies know which one is real. they will stop at nothing to attain what they want.

a c t i : l a l q i l a //

The Mughal Empire had always been, to him, a means to an end. After his discharge from the Scottish military, being reassigned to a new empire to help aid the rebellion in any way that he could, he thought that settling in Delhi was temporary, that he would not grow attached to the people, sights, and sounds that surrounded him on a daily basis, however, that was far from the case. Assuming a new identity, working his way through the ranks of their military, making connections and friendships (even if surface level), and getting acquainted with a culture that his birth parents had fallen in love with after leaving Scotland wasn't supposed to leave a mark on him, but it did. The Grand Memoriam; reconnecting with Cailean and his sisters; hearing the loud accents of the Scottish court in the dining hall; followed shortly by invasions, political fights, chaos, and watching his heart face death once more pushed Abdullah from a state of clarity into one of complete and utter exhaustion. He decided to resign from his position as commander, swear fealty to Claire Stuart, and return home. The Reckoning shook him far beyond exhaustion; it cemented his love for the empire in his heart.

t i m e s k i p //

Grief was not new to Abdullah. He had been mourning Scotland and his place within it for years before The Reckoning took the rulers of the Mughal Empire from him. However, the loss struck him harder than he thought it might. Grown accustomed to serving them, to his every thought encompassing their safety and safety of their empire, suddenly being without all of it made guilt trickle into the space between his ribs. He struggled with this for the majority of their journey home, tried his best to smile when he was supposed to smile; one might say that his years of pretending came in handy when asked if he was glad to be home by fellow clansmen and their family friends. It was interesting, he supposed, how being back on the moors of Scotland didn't remove the sting of having to leave India behind. With news of it's descent into chaos reaching him, the guilt of leaving it defenceless when he did, lingered. But, somewhere between training with his mother in the halls of Castle Stuart and sliding into bed next to the youngest Fergusson, his grief disappeared and was replaced by a warmth that was often threatened by the thought of what those he cared about most were doing behind the scenes. You see, even with the new reign among them, the rebels that he had once proudly stood with were strong, perhaps, even stronger than ever, and in the land under Stuart reign, whether by one monarch or by four, rebels careless enough to get caught were hung. Once a thought that made him chuckle, the reality of losing those he cared about to something they could choose to refrain from started to make him weary.

p r e s e n t d a y //

Exhausted by his days in the military and the monotony of daily life now that he's back home, when the opportunity to put his mind to use once more approached him, he took it. From Mughal Commander to Royal Advisor, Abdullah is settling into his position comfortably while still training under his mother's guidances to become Duke after her retirement - the most prominent issue? He's starting to see each Stuart as people and not monarchs, an issue for the once rebel still lurking under the surface. For now, he's keeping up appearances for the sake of his parents and lover, however, he's come to the realization that the exhaustion from years of pretending is finally catching up with him and if he had to be honest? He simply wished to wake up to the sun illuminating red hair, the loud purr of Mor, and the smell of grass fluttering in through the open window of their bedroom. He supposed, being so close to love and it's beauty had made him soft - he could no longer stomach the rebellion and what it had the potential to take from him.

c o n n e c t i o n s //

cordelia mackenzie (sister) - to be written

karolina mackenzie (sister) - to be written

cailean fergusson (soul-mate) - they have been caught in a dance of cat and mouse for decades, unable to shed their emotional attachment to one another. they fall apart, put distance between themselves, however the universe brings them back together, often stronger than the last time their souls tangled. once on the same side of the coin, they now faced the unique challenge of being on opposites. its led to countless arguments and skirting around the topic of the scottish monarchy yet underneath all of the anger and frustration, they make moves toward one another and for each other out of love, even if they cannot admit aloud quite yet.

[er1chartmann]

These are some facts and curiosities about Karl Hanke, the last Reichsfuhrer-SS:

He was born on August 24, 1903 in Lauban.

 His older brother was killed in World War I. 

He obtained an education as a milling engineer by attending the German Milling School at Dippoldiswalde. He then decided to obtain a year's practical experience as a railway workshop apprentice before returning to milling.

He joined the Nazi Party on  1 November 1928.

In 1932, Hanke was made chief Gau organizational director and on 1 April 1932, personal adjutant and Referent (advisor) to Goebbels in his capacity as propaganda director of the NSDAP-

He was the first official party to establish contact with the young architect Albert Speer. Hanke contracted Speer to convert a villa in the western suburbs into an office for the local party organization in 1932. Hanke and Speer became close friends.

Adolf Hitler took an early liking to outspoken and handsome young Hanke, and in April 1932, Hanke became a NSDAP delegate to Prussian State Parliament 

In 1938, he was promoted to State Secretary (Deputy Minister) in the Propaganda Ministry.

Skillfully solidifying his position within the party and with Hitler, Hanke joined the "General SS" (Allgemeine-SS) on 25 February 1934.

Hanke's seemingly unstoppable ascent on the coattails of Goebbels came to a sudden, albeit temporary, halt when he was drawn into the marital affairs of Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda.

In 1939, Hanke volunteered for military service, having previously obtained a reserve officer's commission. From September to October 1939, he served with the 3rd Panzer Division in Poland.

In Breslau, Hitler appointed Hanke to the position of Gauleiter of Lower Silesia. One year later, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler promoted him to the rank of SS general (SS-Gruppenführer).

He was a fanatical enforcer of Nazi policy: during his rule in Breslau more than 1000 people were executed on his orders, earning him the moniker "Hangman of Breslau".

He also had a long affair with Baroness Freda von Fircks in Breslau, the daughter of a wealthy landowner and University of Berlin lecturer.

 They were finally married on 25 November 1944, after she bore him his only child, a daughter, in December 1943

During the waning months of World War II, as the Soviet army advanced into Silesia and encircled Fortress (Festung) Breslau, Hanke was named by Hitler to be the city's "Battle Commander" 

Hanke's fanaticism and unconditional obedience to Hitler's orders also impressed Hitler, who in his final will appointed him to be the last Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police, replacing Heinrich Himmler 

He died on June 8, 1945.

Sources:

Military Wiki: Karl Hanke

Wikipedia: Karl Hanke

❗❗I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM,FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST❗❗