Maskirovka and the Moon Landing 'Hoax'

03.07.09 One of the most enduring and outrageous conspiracies in circulation remains the one about the moon landing in the 1960s and 70s as a giant hoax, complete with Hollywood sets and production values. The really intriguing question about the moon-hoax conspiracy isn’t so much why it persists, but rather where it originated. I strongly suspect the story originate in the USSR, probably as part of a KGB or GRU black-propaganda operation intended to discredit their ideological opponent, the United States. The Soviet Union had everything to gain from this kind of smear campaign, particularly because they weren't able to beat the Americans to the Moon.

The Soviets have a long and documented history of producing calculated forgeries and conspiracy stories that were politically motivated propaganda. The story that AIDS began as a germ-warfare weapon created by the CIA has been traced back to propaganda sources in the USSR. The moon landing hoax and the AIDS story have all the same hallmarks.

The Russians call it maskirovka  -- calculated deception and disinformation. Russian history is full of examples; remember Prince Grigoriy Aleksandrovich (1739-91) and his fake ‘Potemkin’ villages. Tsarist Russia produced the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document portraying Jews around the world in a conspiracy for world domination. Communist Russia also produced other widely believed fakes and propaganda. Even the Holocaust legend is substantially a Soviet fabrication. Not surprisingly, the Nazi 'extermination camps' are located on territory controlled by the USSR through their Eastern European proxy states, like Poland and East Germany.  And again, the USSR had everything to gain by perpetuating a story that vilified an ideology they hated. The Soviet political hierarchy, particularly under Stalin, was staffed top to bottom with Jews.

The Soviets had the world convinced for decades that the Nazis killed over 4,000 Poles in the Katyn Forest massacre, when in fact it was the Soviet NKVD that did the killing. It wasn't until 1992 that Russian government documents were revealed, proving the Germans weren't to blame. Thousands, maybe even millions, of German soldiers and civilians, along with anyone that was a German collaborator (real or imagined), were slaughtered by the Soviet Union as they advanced towards Berlin during World War II. It's exceedingly convenient to blame these deaths on the Nazis, especially after the war when people started asking questions about the disappeared and the Nazis weren't around to defend their case.

Later, during the Cold War many aspects of the Soviet war machine turned out to be elaborate maskirovka, lies that frequently fooled the CIA and Pentagon, such as the number of ballistic missiles that the USSR had. Not only were most of the missiles parading in Red Square fakes in the early 1960s, but even some of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces units weren’t even getting real missiles.

One unwritten rule of any state-sponsored deception campaign is to never admit it was an intentional lie, even long after it ceases to be credible or of any political value, because to do so erodes the legitimacy needed for the next lie. So, although we may never know for certain about the truth behind many of these maskirovka campaigns, we do know that the USSR had the motive, the resources, and the reputation -- enough to build substantial cases for reconsidering some historical events.

* * *

Successful large-scale hoaxes and politically-motivated propaganda campaigns can have unintended consequences. If the Soviets formed the opportunity for Holocaust exaggerations, other groups and individuals were quick to exploit the favorable opportunity. One of those is opportunists is Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank and her famous diary of dubious legitimacy. Parts of the diary were written in ink from a ballpoint pen, a writing device that wouldn’t have been available to a girl trapped in an attic in the Netherlands during World War II. The ballpoint pen was patented in 1943 in Argentina, and wasn't commercially available until 1945, and the handwriting in the book is a much closer match to that of Anne’s father that a young girl. [1]

Historical analysis has shown that mythological progression in simplified form goes from popular personality to hero, historical legend, then to mystical hero and eventually as time blurs the definition and fades the sharp colors, into a god. At each step the individual is less real and factual and more mythical and supernatural just as their power increases with each progression.

23.09.06 Many myths form the popular conception of what America is. One of the most enduring myths about America’s history is the necessity of dropping not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan in World War II. No other country to this day has used a nuclear weapon in war, a distinction that remains the sole domain of the United States.

“They [Japanese] were trying to surrender all that summer [1945], but Truman wouldn’t listen, because Truman wanted to drop the bombs. [Why?] To show off, to frighten Stalin. To change the balance of power in the world. To declare war on Communism."“ – Gore Vidal, Historian.

Holocausts by the Numbers

11.08.05 & 03.07.09 Although holocaust narratives are interesting studies on their own, the element that intrigues me now is the mechanical aspects of death on a mass scale. Genocidal holocausts are much more difficult than the average person is led to believe – it’s no simple task to make millions of people disappear. How do despotic regimes do it? What logistics elements are really necessary for a mass-extermination campaign?

Two examples of holocausts worth comparing are that of Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia. The Cambodian holocaust is very useful from a historical perspective because it's a recent event and a well documented one as well, but even more importantly it is replete with the physical evidence necessary to validate the numbers attached to the event, namely mountains of bones left behind by the victims of execution. The killing methods employed by the Khmer Rouge were brutally simple consisting of nothing more than rope and plastic bags or an iron bar to the back of the head, and of course starvation by default. Examples of Khmer Rouge killing methods can be found in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, and even though it's not a documentary it still does an apt job of depicting life and death under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. Actual interviews of KR prison guards can be found in the documentary film S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003).

The tools used by the KR thugs may seem primitive and inefficient for mass killing when compared to Nazi gas chambers and crematoria, but actually the opposite is true. Mass killings other than war are nearly always done in a very crude fashion. Hutu and Tutsi killed each other in Rwanda using nothing more than machetes during the mass-slaughter of up to one million in 1994.

The simplest and most effective way to kill thousands or even millions of people is, and always has been, famine. Stalin was responsible for a mass starvation that killed a roughly estimated eight million Ukrainians from 1932-1933. Mao Zedong was responsible for several famines that killed millions in China as a direct result of the implementation of his foolish and self-defeating policies, such as the ‘Great Leap Forward’ that starved to death an estimated 30 million. [3] Many of the one million Armenians killed by the Turks from 1915-1917 in the Armenian Holocaust died from starvation.

The events of the Holocaust of Nazi Germany have been repeated so many times it need not be rehashed in detail.  Jews, criminals and other portions of the German population deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime, such as homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses, were methodically executed by poison gas and then the bodies cremated leaving no traces. In comparison to other historical examples, the Nazi extermination program seems to be the most elaborate mass execution system devised. Nonetheless, just as the KR left mountains of bones, so should the Germans have left behind mountains of ashes from the cremated bodies, and piles of bones from the one that weren't incinerated. In any case the volume of physical evidence has to be commensurate with the number of people that died at the extermination sites. Paper evidence and written documentation concerning the Nazi government's plans and procedures for executing millions has also been troublesome for historians because so much of it is either bogus, misleading, or simply non-existent. The orders for mass execution are considered to be either hidden or suggested by vague phrases, such as solving the 'Jewish problem'.

It seems that the historians that toil to corroborate the Nazi holocaust using period specific documentation are left to assume that little or no legitimate written record was left by intent in order to cover up the crime. This would not be without precedent as Stalin was notorious for using verbal orders to liquidate opponents rather than written records that could be traced back to him personally.

So as far as Nazi Germany is concerned events imply that Hitler spoke about the ‘Jewish Problem’ and his deputies took it up on their own to interpret a solution to that ‘problem’, i.e. mass execution by poison gas in special extermination camps. It must also be added here that much of the evidence to support the Nazi Holocaust comes from dubious and highly suspect sources. The Soviets ‘discovered’ and concocted bogus evidence on numerous Nazi crimes because they had a strong ideological motivation to make the Germans look as evil and inhuman as possible. Anything that made Hitler seem more ghastly only made Stalin look less insidious himself in comparison. The Katyn Forest Massacre is a classic example of this Soviet policy, they blamed their killings on the Nazis and lied about their own crime all the way up to 1990. But the point here is that regardless of the validity of documents and stories, take them or leave them, certain numerical facts remain and that is where we really begin.

Now for some mathematical comparisons. The Khmer Rouges officially took power in Cambodia on April 17, 1975 and their regime lasted three years eight months and 22 days. The Khmer Rouge killed around 1.5 million Cambodians during their reign. Starting with the basic assumption that the Khmer Rouge could only be killing while they were in power, this gives us a fixed time period with which to calculate the rate of killing. Here’s the math: 

In actuality most of the 1.5 million killed by the KR were the result of starvation not intentional execution. True executions by the KR may be as few as 50,000. [4] Recalculating based on this lower limit generates a significantly less dramatic result:

So, we can see that although the KR were busy killing Cambodians the numbers are what we would expect to be practical and possible given the methods used and the established time frame.

Since Germany was an open country and since the extermination camps were a factor of wartime, the mass killings associated with Nazi Germany occurred during the war years of WWII, in this case the fall of 1939 until spring of 1945 or about five and a half years. The total number killed in Nazi extermination camps varies widely. The most common number thrown about is six million, but that only refers to the number of Jews killed. Including everyone else Nazi Germany supposedly executed in the Holocaust bumps the number up to somewhere between 11 million and an incredible 26 million. [1] This vast discrepancy makes calculations more difficult, so we'll run two examples, one for the lowest number of six million and one for the highest number of 26.

Establishing the time frame in this case is a choice between greater accuracy according to the given set of events and providing an intentionally exaggerated allowance to cover every possible act. An exaggerated allowance would use the fall of 1939 until the spring of 1945, the entire length of the war, as the time frame. However, this time frame would be misleading because the killing of the millions in the Holocaust occurred at the Nazi execution camps that only operated from around early 1942 until mid 1944. For greater accuracy I’ll use the time frame from the beginning of 1942 until the middle of 1944, or 30 months. Here’s the math:

Clearly the Nazis were killing people at a frenetic rate, a speed that the Khmer Rouge could only have aspired towards. Even on the smallest total number the Nazis out-killed the KR by eleven times on the daily average! This is especially peculiar because it occurred during the largest and most expensive (and expansive) hot war in human history. So, even though the KR had only internal issues to deal with and no external war to fight at the same time, the Nazis managed to fight a two front war against the rest of the world and still exterminate several hundred people every day for nearly three years, and that's just an average!

Another aspect of the Nazi liquidation machine that demands further investigation is that of cremation. Complete cremation of bodies is a very energy intensive operation and even so it still leaves a few pounds of ash and bone fragments per person, 5% of the body. [2] So multiply that five pounds minimum (100lb body*.05 = 5 lbs) by the number of people cremated:

That’s a hell of a lot of ash. So where is it all? Since the Nazi extermination camps are in Poland, the first place to look for these massive quantities of human ash is, logically, at one of these camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka, but more on that in a moment. It should also be mentioned here that these extermination camps were discovered and controlled by the Communist Russian Soviet forces as they rolled west towards Berlin during the final phase of World War II.

Another technical problem also exists, the time limit, for it takes at least two hours to cremate one body in a special, modern oven at a constant temperature between 760 to 1150 °C (1400 to 2100 °F). [2] Old cremation ovens would have taken longer, five to ten hours per body, especially if they were fueled by less efficient means than a gas like propane.

These cremation ovens would have to be running constantly for nearly three years in order to destroy the bodies of the number of people Nazi Germany is supposed to have liquidated. However, this assumes that only one body was cremated at a time. If you build a bigger oven then you can logically burn up more bodies in any given time period. A Wikipedia photo of the Majdanek crematorium reveals that it's not designed for more than one body at a time in a given section but it does have what appear to be five chambers. Mathausen appears to only have one oven with two single body chambers. Other sites were destroyed but it is reasonable to expect the cremation ovens would be of similar sizes. It's also important to point out that any wartime camp is going to have people dying from disease and other normal factors, and would need crematoria for sanitation, regardless of any nefarious plans for mass-extermination.

Another technical problem is fuel for the ovens. Could wartime Germany afford the fuel needed to constantly run 2,380 cremation ovens for nearly three years? Cremation ovens need very high temperatures to operate and this requires a constant, energetic fuel supply like natural gas. These fuels were in very short supply because of the war effort. If the Nazis used coal, as is assumed, they would have needed mountains of the stuff and an entire army to continually shovel it into the furnaces.

Even more waste product would have been produced from the consumed coal in the form of ash. Given the scale of the purported operation, the burned coal fuel for the crematoria would have been piled into giant heaps something like the waste from a simple coal-fired power plant.

The Execution Camps

Now let's attempt to break it down by extermination camp to see if the figures make more sense that way. A more specific study of each site reveals the approximate dates of  actual operation, a significantly shorter window than the entire war period, meaning that the executions must have occurred at a much more rapid pace than calculated above. It also reveals that most of the dead were not cremated!

Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

“Large-scale extermination started in Spring 1942. ... Between May and July 1944, about 438,000 Jews from Hungary were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the majority were killed there.” [10] Like Birkenau, Majdanek was also overrun by the Soviets. 

Belzec

“The installation was finished by early March 1942. … by December 1942, the last shipment of Jews arrived in Belzec. ... 434,508 Jews were killed in Belzec ... [T]he corpses were buried in pits covered with only a narrow layer of earth.” [5] Thus since none of the victims at Belzec were cremated (according to this story) it should be a straightforward, even if time consuming, matter to exhume the bones and officially number the dead.

Chelmno

“The death camp operated from December 8, 1941 until April 1943 when it was closed down and its crematorium blown up, ... It is estimated that 200,000 people were killed in the camp” [9]

Majdanek

Majdanek is the showcase operation because it contains all the primary elements of the execution machinery and is considered to be the best preserved execution camp. “Between April 1942 and July 1944, extermination took place in Majdanek using gas chambers and crematoria. ... It is estimated that over 235,000 human lives were lost in Majdanek,” [8] Majdanek has a monument with ashes that are claimed to be human and there’s a convincing amount. It should also be noted that Majdanek was discovered, liberated, acquired, however you want to put it, by the Soviets. So, if Majdanek was a crime scene then the Soviets are about the least reputable investigator that could possibly be put in control of it.

Maly Trostenets

Maly Trostenets near Minsk. “No survivors of the camp are known to exist, and estimates of the number of people killed there range from 200,000 to more than half a million. ... the camp became a Vernichtungslager, or extermination camp, on May 10, 1942 when the first transport of Jews arrived there.” [11] Maly Trostenets ended in June 1944 when the advancing Soviet forces took over. Crematoria are not mentioned, implying yet another simple dump-the-bodies-in-a-grave execution operation.

Sobibór

“At least 180,000 people were killed in Sobibór.” [6] Cremation is not mentioned so it is possible to count the bones to determine the number of dead.

Treblinka

“It was operated from July 1942 until October 1943 … approximately 310,000 Jews were transported in freight trains from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka during the period from July 22, 1942 to October 3, 1942." [7] Yet the total is always shown as being much more. Nearly every source gives a different total number killed from 700,000 to 1,400,000 at Treblinka because the records are either non-existent or were destroyed. The story of Treblinka has the bodies being buried in mass graves. So to determine the number dead at Treblinka one should look to count bones not ash volume.

Total killed for each execution camp are as follows: Auschwitz II: 1,100,000; Belzec: 436,000; Chelmno: 340,000; Majdanek: 300,000 to 350,000; Sobibór: 260,000; Treblinka: at least 700,000, possibly over 1,000,000; Maly Trostenets: at least 200,000, possibly over 500,000. [12] Giving a maximum total of 3,986,000 and that includes Jews and everyone else.

The estimated total dead for these major execution camps is still significantly less than total of six million Jews and not even close to the upper limit of 26 million. What about the rest? “Before Operation Reinhard, over a million Jews were killed by the Einsatzgruppen, mobile SS units whose sole purpose was to murder Jews and commissars in territories conquered by the German army.” [7] So someone in some capacity at some point roughly estimated that another one million were killed and their bodies left scattered around Europe. 4,986,000.

The point I’m trying to make is that there’s no way to fit any of these numbers together into a credible event within the given parameters  of the Nazi Holocaust narrative; it’s a classic example of atrocity inflation. And until an objective, professional, and complete forensic examination is conducted it will never be anything more than a claim based on speculation, rumor, interrogations under duress, ridiculously biased sources, and estimations of estimated estimates. How difficult is it to forge a document? How difficult is it to get the public to believe the validity of that document if it lends support to the execution stories in the Nazi Holocaust? No, the majority of the real definitive proof hasn’t even been cremated, it’s still in the ground.

What really happened?

The logistics requirements for the Nazi extermination machine would make it impossible to keep the operation a secret, or even moderately covert, simply given the energy and manpower requirements needed to maintain and operate it. The smoke and fumes alone would have been an indicator for miles around.

So what are we left with? If we take the given numbers executed by the Nazis and factor in the absolute limitations of time and make plenty of allowance for resources that they likely didn't even have, then something just does not compute. The physical infrastructure is simply not present to support a mass execution on the purported scale and within the purported means. The truth must be much less insidious than the myth, at least on a numerical scale anyway. Just ask yourself, can the known events be explained without the application of the elaborate Nazi Holocaust story? Yes they can!

Tolerance for dissent is always at a nadir during a war in any society and the Germans were no exception. The Nazi government rounded up dissenters, troublemakers, and potential problems, most of them non-Germans, and shipped them off to labor and concentration camps. But it made no sense to simply setup a massive mechanism to exterminate millions of these people. To do so would place an enormous drain on manpower and resources, and the Germans could instead turn the imprisoned into a cheap labor force that would actually aid the war effort instead of making it more difficult. And that’s what they did. Germany was very pressed for resources even when the war was going in their favor, but especially so towards the end. The Nazi government, typically German in efficiency, ranked and allocated their limited resources according to the needs of the German nation. Germans came first and non-Germans last. So while the German cities and factories were being bombed into rubble by the British and Americans and the German people were running low on food and everything else, the people in the concentration camps were only getting the barest minimum of food and supplies, if even that. Hence the emaciated and diseased victims found at the end of the war and widely filmed for propaganda value.

The “gas chambers” in the “extermination camps” were exactly what they looked like, and were originally designed to fumigate and sterilize clothing and other articles to prevent the spread of insects and disease, always a problem in any cramped quarters but especially so in a concentration camp. Just looking at the pictures of these crematoria, claims of 6, 11 or even 26 million bodies burned up in these ovens is nothing short of outrageous.

This does not mean that people were not executed, but claims of millions killed by the Nazis in extermination camps are wildly inflated, far beyond the level of absurdity. In fact these claims are so fantastic that very few people are willing to question them precisely because they are so incredible but at the same time supported by the apparent credibility of time and authority!

Which version makes more sense?

Even if people were missing this does not prove, or even imply, that they were murdered. The years before, during, and after World War II featured a massive demographic turmoil caused by multiple factors. Indeed it was the largest movement of people in world history! If contact with a relative or friend was lost during this upheaval it should hardly be surprising. Yet practically every Jew who experienced this loss assumes by default that their loss was due to a Nazi murder. Think about it, if one million Haim, Hannah, and Hershel’s all lost contact with each other then we have an instant ‘Holocaust’ of six million Jews. Not only that, but after the war half of Europe was cut off from the rest behind the "iron curtain" of strict Soviet control. Separated friends and relatives lived and died on opposite sides of Cold War Europe without ever reconnecting.

Another way of putting it is to always choose the solution that requires the least amount of credulousness. So which one do you choose?

A) Many Jews lost contact with many of their friends and relatives and assumed they died amongst the greatest turmoil and movement of persons in world history. 

- or -

B) Jews from all over Europe were systematically identified, arrested, and packed onto trains by a country that was being attacked from all sides during the largest war in human history. These people were sent to half a dozen camps in Poland that were constructed for no other purpose than to execute the inhabitants, yet still carefully disguised so that no one would figure out what was really going on. These Jews were abused, tortured, enslaved and executed, waves of them lured into shower rooms then poisoned with a gas that the German guards bought at their local hardware store. Other Jews hauled out the dead bodies to be burned in pits, buried in shallow graves or incinerated to the sum total of somewhere between 6 and 26 million. Then, after the war was over and the execution system was discovered by the sworn enemies of the Nazi party, the key evidential elements necessary for confirmation were found to be either missing or destroyed.

So which version do you swallow?

Can the truth be found?

No effort was ever made to verify personal claims of the numbers executed with the physical remains after the execution camps were liberated, and that is exactly why the crematoria entered the story because it is the only way to rectify the purported numbers executed with the totally inadequate volume of physical evidence present in the form of human ash and bones.

So, if the given numbers are wildly inflated then is there really any way to definitively gauge the true number of people executed by the Nazis in extermination camps? The number killed? Yes. The number executed? Only to the extent that it cannot be more than the number of dead. Assuming that all the remains from the people executed did not leave the site of the camp, or if they did, that we know where they went to, then determining the cause of death is still a problematic endeavor but determining number of deaths is not. Where there is ash we can estimate number of people that died based on the volume and chemical composition. Where there are bones we can count the number of bodies, one skull means one person, and often determine the cause of death such as disease or violence.

Exactly this necessary verification process is conducted today in the case of a massacre, genocide or war crime. One reason is because the victim group, race, or tribe will exaggerate the numbers killed. Another reason is that in order to build a valid case, and one that is legally prosecutable, the facts have to be established beyond a reasonable doubt. This means exhuming the bodies and human remains and carefully cataloging what is found, where it’s found and the approximate date the bodies were buried. This process has to be openly documented and conducted by impartial professionals.

For an example of this procedure simply travel a few hundred miles south of Poland, where fifty years after the end of World War II, up to 8,000 Bosnian males were killed in what is referred to as the Srebrenica massacre. This mass killing has been called genocide because of the ethnic motivation behind it. Forensic investigators are currently excavating the human remains from multiple sites in order to catalog the executions and prosecute those responsible.

Do the total murder numbers really matter?

Imagine what would happen if authorities claimed for 50 years that Serbs had killed six million Bosnian Muslims, never having conducted any objective forensic investigation, when the Serbs really didn’t kill more than 8,000? And not only that but the authorities making the exaggerated allegations were all enemies or opponents of the accused Serbs, having every reason to lie about the facts, obscure the truth and prevent a fair investigation? Yes, the numbers definitely do matter.

Comparative Analysis

Despite the variation in time and geography, mass-killings all have certain core similarities that make comparison and analysis a fairly straightforward, even if macabre, study. There’s no fundamental ambiguity about the event, no lingering questions about the main cause of death and the numbers have a fixed range that is capable of being linked back to physical evidence. But in the case of the Nazi Holocaust there’s something very peculiar. No other mass killing is as clouded by contradictory statements and startlingly different narratives while being as intensely polarized. The Nazi Holocaust has more layers than an onion and stings the eyes even worse.

Mass killings are ugly but straightforward affairs and the cause of death is rarely in dispute, whether it be an artificial famine, thousands of angry machetes, or a metal bar to the skull. But not with the Nazi Holocaust. In some cases it's poison gas, in another it's a bullet, in another it's torture, in another it's dynamite, just about every form of killing imaginable has been ascribed to a Nazi execution. Nor are the total numbers killed so violently dispersed across the spectrum in other mass killings because they always leave behind human remains that can be used to measure the scale of the atrocity. Yet in the case of the Nazi Holocaust the story continually grows to exclude the possibility of verification. So when bones are needed they become ash from an incinerator, and where the ash should be found it has been obliterated. Where a gas chamber or cremation oven should be found it has been bombed or dismantled. Where objective, independent analysis should be employed to determine fact from fiction, we have personal attacks and a paucity of forensic studies.

The Nazi Holocaust is unique in the immunity to questions and criticism that is has acquired, a remarkable allowance that has never been granted to any other recorded event of mass killing. As the ‘Shoah’ it has achieved a level of mythical, mystical sanctity that cannot be questioned, critiqued or evaluated in any objective or critical context as one would with any other historical event. This is something so profoundly unnatural and antithetic to modern, progressive thought it can only be described as a contemporary taboo or religious dogma. Even the law of gravity is open to debate and criticism from anyone that can come up with an explanation that better describes it than the one we have now. No one feels insulted or attacked if traditional concepts of gravity are challenged because, in any open debate, ideas and theories are allowed to stand or fall based on their own internal merit. Yet this is, curiously, not the case with the Nazi Holocaust story, and many insecure and fearful European countries actually imprison people that question it!

Indeed the historical and personal obsession with Nazi crimes borders on the irrational; any library will have shelves full of books written on Hitler, the Nazis, and especially the (Nazi) Holocaust. How many books fill a typical library on the Armenian Holocaust or the Ukrainian ‘Holodomor’? In any objective context the 20^th century was a violent, brutal and bloody century but the Nazis had no monopoly on killing in practice, desire, or even methodology. Even the purported numbers exterminated by the Nazis remain smaller than the crimes of Mao and Stalin, both Communists, interestingly enough.

Mass killings have occurred before the Nazi era and they have occurred after it, it’s not an impossibility. Regardless of what I know some readers are going to assume, I don’t have a stake in this issue one way or the other and I’m not trying to force one set of facts to fit a predetermined bias. If you know of something I'm missing then document it, list the reference, and send it to me. If the Nazis really did liquidate 26 million people in execution camps then let's see the evidence, because an event on that scale will present it unambiguously. But if the Nazis really only killed a few hundred thousand and the lie of millions is still being perpetuated over fifty years later, then something is seriously wrong here.

We should remember that truth is the first casualty in war. Not only that but the winners write the history books, and making Nazi Germany look as evil as possible was of critical importance to the Soviets, the Americans and the British too. Not only because they needed to justify their war in the minds of the public but also to deflect against outrageous wartime atrocities of their own. The British and Americans intentionally targeted civilian population centers in Germany and Japan with massive fire-bombing attacks that killed thousands upon thousands of innocent people, cremated you might even say, as a direct result.

Risking It All For Total War

12.12.02 The era from the Great Depression to the conclusion of World War II was the age of the larger-than-life high-stakes gamblers. Not only did these personalities, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, gamble their own lives on the outcome of a horrific worldwide conflict but also the very lives of millions of people, and even their own ideologies in some case. There's no better example of this risk-it-all attitude than 'Total War' and the fall of the British Empire.

The concept of 'Total War' as modern military doctrine goes back at least to Union General Sherman in the American Civil War who deliberately extended the conflict to civilians and non-combat infrastructure, like agriculture and industry. The US Civil War was really the first war of the industrial age and demonstrated the unprecedented mass-carnage that only mechanized combat could wreak. The Europeans studied it closely, deducing tactics and techniques magnified for later use in World War One. And all of the major players in World War Two learned what they knew in politics and military conflict from the first one.

Although Winston Churchill was the first to propose 'total war' in Europe in 1940, Dr. Goebbels did belatedly follow suit in 1943 with the famous speech, Germany, "do you want total war?" Despite the propaganda minister's exhortation, Germany never had a total war, instead of Rosie the riveter building B-29s in Detroit, Helga the Heroine was busy frying eggs on the stove and stitching clothes while middle class workers were enjoying vacations on 'strength through joy' cruise ships, and taking in the opera between allied bombing raids in Berlin.

Total War, Total Injustice

Despite a very different view on warfare and public mobilization it's worth mention that America suffered virtually no civilian casualties. And the very few that did fall into that category probably came from the desperate, but mostly ineffectual, bomb- carrying balloons the Japanese lofted towards America via the jet stream. This insulation from the nightmare of world war was drastically opposed by European suffering on an unfathomable scale, that even the given number of about 19 million civilians can't do justice. The Japanese people didn't fare too well either losing about 400,000 civilians. But indeed if America and Britain were the only democracies during that era of conflict - after all Hitler and Stalin ran dictatorships, right? Then the people of America and Britain cannot claim any innocence in the outcome or process of the war because they were directly responsible for choosing their leaders and ultimately the actions of both; true Hitler was elected once but not during a war. Conversely. the Germans and Russians who paid the heaviest price, in lives anyway, were innocent, pawns in a bloody game of dictators for ultimate power. America suffered around 400,000 war deaths; Russia 13 million war and 7 million civilian dead; Germany 3.5 million soldiers and 3.8 civilian; British Empire 450,000 soldiers and 60,000 civilians.

Besides, I have to question the 'justice' behind any cause that so cynically and deliberately drives tens of millions of people to violent deaths like only the deceptive machinery of state and demagogue can. But regardless of the reasons, that's exactly what happened. Millions of people did die in the Second World War, about 55,000,000 to be exact. Many of them were noncombatants - innocent people that had no desire for war, total war or indeed any war.

End of an Empire

Even with its entire globe straddling empire England didn't have a chance in the fight against Germany. Only the eventual inclusion of America and its massive resources could tip the balance. Until December 1941 the United States was not an active participant in the conflict (covert operations aside). The British clearly needed massive assistance and this was the reasoning behind the 'Lend-lease' program where Britain was able to buy the material they needed from America. But America was in the midst of a seemingly bottomless economic depression and Roosevelt was not in a position to be running a charity operation.

The cost to the British was staggering. It is said that by 1940 England was bankrupt and their gold reserves had already been shipped off to America as collateral for the mountains of debts racked up to continue Churchill's war against Germany, ironically an enemy that did not have any direct interest in attacking England! Hitler's focus always was, from the very beginning, land for the German people, meaning Eastern Europe and Russia. If it wasn't for Churchill's monomaniacal obsession with defeating Hitler, his direct competitive rival really as they did share many attributes in common such as their skill for public oratory, America would not have become the world empire that it is today. This is pause for thought given the present heated atmosphere of warmongering and belligerency promoted by Washington DC.

It's clear that Churchill and a complicit English populace pissed away their empire in order to fight, with the intent of winning, W.W.II. Even colonial India had to be promised independence just to keep them on board for a fight they had no interest in to begin with. In the end, despite bellicose monologues to the contrary, England was left broke and without the worldwide empire it had before the start of the war. All of that wealth and grandeur accumulated over decades if not centuries of blood and toil by millions of its citizens, was literally packed up and shipped to the Americans - even the brain-power of the scientists that built the first atomic bomb! The irony is that although both lost and neither gained anything tangible, the British praise their W.W.II leadership while the Germans curse theirs. Ultimately when rating the losers for World War Two, England, largely due to Churchill's direction, easily ranks at the top three if not an actual tie for first. And if you're unsure then just ask yourself, where is England today?

But such is the fate of all compulsive gamblers. Hitler risked it all for ideology, but Churchill risked it all for the eternal magnification of himself. Yet only Churchill got what he wanted, although that outcome certainly was not evident in 1939. Today Churchill is a hero to most of the British - and that is what I call one hell of a con-artist. This one's for Winston, next bottle is on me.

Partners in Freedom

November 2004

Fighting To Lose

28.07.01 The mainstream American media, and especially the Bush administration, want to portray the cause and culpability of the September 11th terrorist attacks as a singular top-down web of Osama's thugs and his trained network of recruits. But this is both a mistake and a cultural misinterpretation demonstrating a fundamental disconnect, a distinct inability to even understand the religion. It's not a westernized terrorist cell system so much as a pandemic of shared goals and beliefs. The structure is a natural outgrowth of the collective theological goals, not the other way around. Radical Islam is much, much bigger than Bush or for that matter the American public can even imagine. Indeed it only serves to obfuscate a much more critical issue in need of resolution for as even bin Laden says "Islam does not allow killing of innocent people, men, women and children even in the event of war." These groups have repeatedly stated the enemy is not the American people but American policy. "We are against the American system but not the American people." Ibid. So either this group views all Americans as complicit by virtue of a representative government, or perhaps America is after the wrong man and the wrong organization.

Regardless, to paint it as just a terror clique is woefully misguided, and to target it with military force as such is even more stupid. We are also finding that violent rhetoric is just as dangerous. Indeed it's playing into their hands and will only lead to greater violence and the worldwide spread of that same targeted militant theology. History has shown the more a religion is suppressed the more martyrs are created, and the greater the appeal for oppressed people that religion has. The American government is sowing the seeds of its own destruction by creating situations that it cannot control. It's a very fine line delineating severe incompetence from treachery.

A man thinks that he is more intelligent than his wife because he can add up a column of figures more accurately, and because he understands the imbecile jargon of the stock market, and because he is able to distinguish between the ideas of rival politicians, and because he is privy to the minutiae of some sordid and degrading business or profession, say soap-selling or the law. But these empty talents, of course, are not really signs of a profound intelligence; they are, in fact, merely superficial accomplishments, and their acquirement puts little more strain on the mental powers than a chimpanzee suffers in learning how to catch a penny or scratch a match. H.L. Mencken

So who consistently serves us this steaming tripe on the plate of plastic policy? Elitist overeducated under-intelligent true-believers disconnected from reality and nearly, if not all of which, are male. History repeats, and it's truly remarkable the magnitude of social and political problems directly generated by masculine arrogance, ego and the concomitant range of 'justified', self-righteous aggression. Indeed everything western civilization claims to detest descends from one sex: violence, despotism, rape, war, torture, mass murder, exploitation, etc. and you know which one I'm referring to. Here's your "sexual revolution", the masculine mentality is an outmoded anachronism, it's obsolete given technology and communications, and hazardous within the modern world of critical interconnections. In other words everything is too small and propinquus to fight with war as solution. We've clearly seen the myth of a fortress America crumble to powder and twisted metal amid the flames of revenge, what more will it take to realize the world is too small to glibly entertain superpower fantasies, that one country can crush world opinion and expect to remain insulated from the effects? It's a very crowded and unfriendly place already, to stir it up, to incite anger, to destabilize through military and assassination, ostracism for wayward political visions or whatever the plan of expediency, only serves as the recipe for counter-productivity.

Arrogance and ignorance are an imperative threat not a luxury to revel in anymore. The masculine ideologues and the proponents behind them need to be deposed imminently lest they bury us all. Women on average are more likely to have an understanding of this situation, and also have a more reasonable sense of proper reaction and prudent procedures not just in words but in thoughts and deeds as well. They see through things that are immediately costly and regrettable and are less prone to rash judgment and reactionary conflict, they will much more often think before they act and intuitively weigh the imbalance effect against the equilibrium of life.

The severity of circumstance dictates severity of actions, it may be necessary to use force to subdue a violent milieu, but I don't think so. We can attempt to arrest the process before it implodes upon everyone, or we can let it run its course and rebuild in the aftermath. The only option that appears reasonable is the second one unfortunately. Because what's so indicative of the situation is the fact that so few realize anything is wrong, or the necessity of altering the factors in a historical equation as trite as it is foolish. When people are pushed, they push back, but almost invariably a mindless reaction only perpetuates the original anguish. Let's stop fighting a game with only losers.

A Redolent Responsibility

Brinkmanship means no one wins

January 2005

Product Over Process

11.07.01 You know just because Thomas Jefferson had slaves that doesn't make him a poor politician or flawed leader, and just because Richard Wagner had racist views that doesn't make him a bad musician. Should we now condemn the smoking majority of fifty years ago for crimes against group health as well? And if so where does it end? Everyone alive today is guilty of future crimes! Perhaps we should all just preemptively grovel on the ground and beg forgiveness for our future indictments in hopes of having a slightly reduced sentence?

The flawed concept isn't relative morals it's absolute morals, because values simply can't be divorced from their chronological era without dragging everyone into a totalitarian nebulae condemning past and future, contradictory reason and heterodox ideas, while placing contemporary values on a protected pedestal of erroneously sacrosanct righteousness.

Instead of judging the morality of rules and methods, of individuals and groups according to the transient values of the present, it's wiser to judge the outcome generated. If there's one thing history teaches it's that there's many, many ways to do things the 'right' way! It's far more meaningful to judge the product of society instead of the process because values, in order to have meaning, must be placed within a matrix of the third and fourth dimensions of time and geography. By that measure our present era looks especially lackluster.

Marx's Folly

15.03.01 Whatever one has for an opinion of Karl Marx, he was definitely an intelligent man. He spent his time in the library in London reading and writing, reading and writing. But nobody cared and nobody wanted to read any of it, they were all too busy working or getting rich from the industrial revolution. Marx quickly descended into abject poverty, his family was starving yet he still lived at the library. Fortunately for Marx, Engels came along and solved his monetary problems. Yet Marx never was able to solve his own. Despite immense practice writing he remained an unpublishable bore to the end. His ideas were flawed because he never spent any time doing things, he never experienced life - the ultimate teacher for learning the difference between the book interpretation and what really happens. If he had, the world would be a very different place today.

Lindbergh's & WWII

"Participation in the war against Hitler remains almost wholly sacrosanct, nearly in the realm of theology." - Bruce M. Russett

17.12.00 I would agree but without the 'nearly'. How else could historians justify the most devastating war in human history unless converting it into the mystical realm of theology?!

War Within and Without diaries and letters 1939-1944, ©1980 by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, HBJ publishers. An interesting book with a slightly different viewpoint. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is the wife of Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator who was also a proponent of staying out of W.W.II, although not for the subversive aspirations his critics have claimed. Not because he wanted to see Germany win but because he didn't think a European conflict was worth American lives. In fact, during 1936 Charles Lindbergh was the only one that could get into Germany to spy for the American military on the status of German air power. The book has a fairly wide scope, much of it personal topics. Anne is an educated and literate author who also writes about war-news of the era, attempting to cut through the fog of propaganda.

I wish I could feel as almost everyone does that this war is all due to Hitler, that terrible scourge of humanity. A terrible and completely accidental scourge unconnected to other world events - alone responsible for all. And that if the scourge were wiped out all would be finished. I cannot feel that he, as an individual, is that important. Nazism seems to me the wave of the future. I agree with people's condemnation of Nazi methods but I do not think they are the wave. They happen to be riding on it. - AML

Taking it in collectively one thing that stands out is the almost fatalistic tone of the war. In many ways Germany was doomed from day one, the British had radar and the German code for example. Even from the start of the war the Allies discussed carving up Europe and the nature of post-war power which could be attributed to either evil machinations or public displays of confidence. Cynical minds have to ask, was it all a setup?

President FDR: "Your sons are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

World War II was without doubt a monumental event, and I would suggest for more than just the purposes of debate, that it was the greatest mistake in world history. For Russia? Yeah. For Germany? Yes. For England and America? Yeah, and for every party that fought in that fratricidal conflict too. And we can talk about it in several ways. How about numbers? Number killed: 55 million total, 20 million for Russia, over 7 million for Germany... and for what? What the hell was the point? To torture, rape, murder and shred millions of civilians and soldiers with high explosives? To flatten the entire European continent and hand half of it over to a brutal authoritarian regime?

Herein we see glimpses of the truth, the truth that the entire premise of that conflict was, and still remains, deeply flawed. England declared war on Germany to protect Poland, yet by the end of the war the Poles ended up under a soviet regime with millions dead. What the hell good did England do for Poland?

Was the idea to preserve a 'democratic' way of life for the world? We already know that half of relatively free Europe was handed over to the Communists, Germany has, to this day, a freedom-depriving occupational government. China fell to the Communists. Americans died to gain a few islands in the pacific, most of which were relinquished a few years later, as well as an unlimited military commitment to the protection of western Europe that meant the imminent threat of global thermonuclear devastation for 50 years.

Was the idea to prevent dictators from taking over Europe? Mussolini and Hitler never had any machinations to conquer the world except as oblique references in hollow public rhetoric. Look at the record: Hitler never seriously wanted to even attack England, let alone America - they were racial allies! The Axis powers knew a fight with America would mean defeat. The dictators were kicked out to make room for another more brutal one... Stalin.

Was it to prevent mass murder? Hmm, odd that Stalin killed more than Hitler is even accused of killing. Not only that but the whole story of gassings and Jewish genocide did not come about until after the war; it was never a premise for the war. Ruminate on that one.

Ultimately when one descends beneath the propaganda and the myths, beneath the speeches and the emotion, it becomes increasingly clear that preserving freedoms had nothing to do with World War II except as boiler plate for placating the public. Roosevelt and Churchill could not possibly have been so deluded as to think that Stalin was a benevolent ally. Stalin was no one's friend except his own. The real plan was agreed upon from day one, to carve up Europe between the two postwar powers. This was a marriage of convenience and all that mattered was getting the Fascists out of the picture because they were the uninvited, the uncouth contrarians crashing the party with their ideological heterodoxy. Those German dastards had the audacity to attempt to create the ultimate taboo, a self sufficient and prosperous national economy that wasn't dependent on international banking and finance. In other words, a country that cannot be manipulated from afar yet has a clear collective sense of purpose and a domestically responsive leadership.

The biggest mistake made by the European Axis powers is likely their allegiance with Japan, a primitive imperialist war machine that had no ideological relations yet was ultimately used as the excuse to get a very reluctant majority of Americans (83% against war before Pearl Harbor) into bleeding for yet another World War in Europe.

He would not be killed under Communism because he had a manicure but because he had a better manicure than someone else. Because he had a better mind, or because he was a better diplomat. It is not as simple as class. That is where people get confused. That is what the Russians say. But what actually happens is not that class but that quality is killed. - AML

Headaches for Political Historians

10.11.00 [If you just read the above article it unfortunately only adds to the confusion here.] During May 20-21,1927 a Ryan NYP single engine plane piloted by Charles Lindbergh made the first solo, non-stop transatlantic flight. Lindbergh became a world famous mega-celebrity. In the Smithsonian Air and Space museum is the nose cap for the propeller from his plane. When I saw it on display it was perplexing to say the least. Painted inside it is a canted swastika and signatures all around it (the swastika). The swastika almost positively must have been painted first because the signatures are carefully written around it. By 1927 the NSDAP was still a minor party having only legally re-formed in Nov. 1926 and was a German (Bavarian) thing at that.

Was Charles Lindbergh that politically aware to admire some obscure group in central Europe even as he was a world hero? I was scratching my head on that one especially since the exhibit offered no explanation. I'm sure a lot of visitors must have wondered what was going on too, I guess the museum was too lazy to concoct some revisionist story to fit a hero into the modern political history, or more wisely figured it better left untouched. But I kid the NASM. Either way Lindbergh's attachment to Hitler's party was apparently no idle fancy, but long-standing and sincere. Definitely a curious portion of history worthy of clarification, especially considering Lindbergh's WWII period anti-German speeches.

When Change Was Bad

Tsarist Russia is a study in obscenely ostentatious living and a dichotomy of wealth that makes the current economical distorted Russia look like a communist utopia. Today with the Russian orthodox Church reliving faded glories and granting sainthoods again it's much easier to shed a tear for the blood-soaked deaths of the royal families, but then again not really, especially if you're Russian. The fact that the aristocracy was largely German doesn't help endear them to the Russian collective heart either.

Still the Bolsheviks were butchers without doubt, but truth be told the Tsars did everything but beg to be butchered themselves. They sailed past queues of starving peasants on gold and jewel encrusted sleighs without a second thought that their status as gods was not wholly divine in purpose and justification. For example Empress Elizabeth traveled with no less than 24,000 servants and noble-people just to travel between residences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Some 15,000 dresses clogged her closet by the time she expired in 1761. Somewhat more farseeing, although never intended for public display, Catherine the Great bought entire art collections from Rembrandt to Rubens. And then Peter the Great, now there's a fun guy.

It wasn't that they didn't care so much as it was a glib belief that things were supposed to be as they were - that extreme social and economic inequity was acceptable. Much of this ideology was based on myths regarding the abilities of the peasants themselves, for instance, that they were too stupid and irresponsible to ever be anything but lowly serfs groveling over grungy potatoes and maintaining a near perpetual state of vodka induced intoxication.

This is a lesson, an oft forgotten one anymore, but one still worth heeding today. Beware the hazards of the status quo and societal ossification caused by complacency on the part of both aristocracy and the working classes. A very enlightening sociological study was conducted about 100 years ago by a very admirable and pioneering young Russian woman, titled Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia, by Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia. I say pioneering because her immersed study of the lifestyles of the peasantry was an unusual idea on the part of the educated semi-aristocratic class that she came from. The common attitude was 'who cares about the peasants?'

Honest, and in some ways her analysis is mildly condescending, or more accurately dismayed and appalled by what she discovers! Ignorance and superstition were rampant. which was bad enough, but even worse they seemed to revel in it. This simpleton lifestyle was in many ways a comfort and a reassurance to the peasant class in the heavily proscribed, stupefying realm of hunger, poverty, and mindless rituals that characterized serfdom.

By the time the author finished her study it was pretty clear that some serious efforts at social improvement needed to occur, indeed should have started long before 1900. Much of what was needed was basic education, sanitation training, personal hygiene and simple medical care. But because the peasant class lacked these things, and because the aristocracy was so completely oblivious to their needs that the serf class became an open opportunity for exploitation by dissenters and revolutionaries. And used they were, like a beast of burden, again and again and again.

Back to the Tsars whereby about the time of Alexander II in the mid 1800s the aristocracy started to figure out that they were sitting on a time bomb of dissatisfied serfs. But Alex II's legal reforms were too little too late, and then Alexander III took them away and went back to plain no-nonsense despotism. Stupid wars, Nicholas II grudgingly allows tentative elected leadership, more wars, and as we all know by 1917 the fate of the [Tsarist] aristocrats was sealed, time to make way for the Bolshevik aristocrats.

The Soviet Empire improved the lots of the average Russian, providing much of the basics, like education and healthcare, which they needed to become citizens and not just slaves. But that's not saying a lot because the Russians could have had much, much more. Not necessarily a capitalist Republic as in America, but a system that combined national interests with a concern for the productivity and individual well-being of the average Russian.

The Soviet system was one step forward and two backwards. At least the Tsars had a wealthy empire, even if it wasn't fair the Russians had an ethnic claim to that wealth and grandeur. And if the peasantry had any cash it would have been valuable since the Tsarist Ruble was one of the strongest currencies in the world before 1917. Today the Russians have nothing, their wealth has been pried up, shipped out, squandered and expropriated with the profits going to Jewish gangsters with names like 'Berezovsky', Abramovich, Soros and Gusinsky as well as useful idiots like Ukraine's President Kuchma (may their names be obliterated).

The real tragedy is not the deaths of a few selfish despots with impeccable sense of esthetics, but that their failure, combined with the apathy of the common Russian, have resulted in over 500 years of collected wealth, extracted like blood from the serf turnips, vanishing forever. Except for the rocks left in the ground and the paintings in the Hermitage, Russia has no wealth reserves. The long term investments needed to support an industrialized country are all either rusting or leaking radioactive wastes. The infrastructure is corroding and no one has the money or resolve to rebuild it so the Russian quality of life, the quality of life they basked in like a warm summer day in the 70s under the semi-benevolent Brezhnev, is completely a thing of the past; now it's smooth sailing down the river.

Russians are very un-ideological as well as pessimistic. On an individual basis Russians, especially in leadership positions, have a tendency to acquiesce to powerful forces of corruption and the lure of personal gain over the collective good. The individual political efficacy of 'grass-roots' policymaking and social activism, so common in the west as a legitimate means of resolving institutional problems, is something very anathema to the Russian conscious because they see it as a task reserved for the leadership caste. Here we see the crux of Russia's crisis, that being the need for honest and forthright government willing and able to make sacrifices and avoid corruption. Because the Russian people have no historical experience in representative government or 'liberty', in the near future at least, without leadership nothing is really going to change.

When one looks at Russia today with any knowledge of Russian history you have to just shake your head and sigh because, well, so little changes. Their geographical and military prowess waxes and wanes but they consistently fail to invest in the strategic physical and legal infrastructure needed for long term stability.

Russia was a backward land that stood outside the political affairs of Europe. Superstition, distrust of foreigners, and conservatism characterized most of the society. The economy was based on primitive agriculture and the military organization was sorely out of date.

Now add this to the beginning of that quote and you get the picture: "At the end of the 17th century," ¹ Ahh, time for vodka...

1. "Russia," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

How Cold Was The Cold War?

15.11.99 Communism was the bogeyman of American's for nearly 50 years, and the Soviet Union was the sun in the center of that evil solar system. The myth was that the all-powerful communists were taking over the world and through the ‘domino effect’ were going to gradually control every country right into Mexico.

The importance of enemies is vastly understated in the history of modern politics. Today we can easily see the difficulties that are encountered in a mono-polar world made up of just one super-power. Indeed the world was not only simpler back in the ‘good old days’ of the Cold War, but politics, war, and rhetoric were better rehearsed and choreographed than a pro-wrestling match. Orwell’s 1984 was more like 1954.

Nearly everything about the Cold War was a lie. The bomber gap was a lie, the missile gap was untrue, the health of the Russian economy and culture was a total fantasy, and such fear merely the concoctions of paranoid western capitalist zealots. The truth is the Soviet Union was an invalid, a cripple that couldn’t have survived a month without western aid. The Soviet leadership knew this; it was a long running joke that one could buy the same rope from the western capitalist later used to hang him. Example: the USSR accumulated over $100 billion dollars in foreign loans, primarily from western banks, yet the country had a non-convertible currency and a closed, centrally-planned economy that was about as effective as a solar powered flashlight. This is as economically sound as loaning the Taliban militia $100 billion! Yet the banks had no problems with it, probably because the loans were secured by government backing, like most ‘development aid’.

Another example is the notorious inefficiency of Soviet collective farms. Yes, when the Russian peasants weren’t starving it was because they had grain shipments from the U$A or Canada. Huge transfers of wheat were regularly sent to the USSR, so regularly in fact that it literally kept the entire Soviet system going when they had nothing else to rely on. America fed the same enemy that threatened them with total nuclear annihilation for 45 years.

The beauty of the Cold War was that any time someone wanted to start a conflict they had a ready-made excuse: communism or capitalist imperialism as the case warranted. You didn’t have to trump up complicated war crimes, manufacture ethnic genocide campaigns or trick gullible dictators into invading their neighbors to justify an armed conflict. This made thinning-out certain unwanted sectors of the population much easier, and also created a huge military-industrial complex employing millions awhile generating billions in revenues for their respective economies. A chronic state of war also made governance a breeze; anyone that was politically incorrect was a ‘commie’ or a capitalist and didn’t even warrant a trial: enjoy Siberia.

Enter the early 90s and it just stops - like our collective ride at the county fair is over. Gorbachev decides the Berlin wall is unnecessary and the whole sham has outlived its usefulness. Reagan, Bush and Gorby walk away ‘heroes’ and instantly life changes like it could not have been better planned from day one. That and too many people were questioning or protesting the whole Cold War bi-polar ideology, it had definitely reached the end of its useful lifespan.

Russia was intended to be the loser from the start, mostly due to its sheer size and vastness of barely-tapped natural resources; it was really just a convenient postponing of the inevitable. Today Russia’s debt payments are scheduled at some $15 billion a year on an annual national budget of $25 billion. Needless to say everything that isn’t bolted down is being parceled out like an estate auction with the Russian taxpayer stuck paying the check for 80 years of centrally planned economic ineptitude. Divide and conquer was never simpler. Now the half of the world that wasn’t under the economic thumb of bankers in New York and London certainly is today, thereby creating a neat and holistic global ‘new’ economic order and it seems no one is the wiser. Those famous words have never rang more clear - Americans are useful idiots.

Napoleon once said: "History is a collection of lies statesmen have agreed upon." But one wonders, is any part of history capable of being proved? This is no idle argument, I mean really, does history have significance? If the rules are the same then as now, we can use past examples to better judge current events.

Past and future seem so fungible, amorphous. mythology is really just interpreting archaic events. Modern archaeology and science has been able to form logical and repeatable reconstructions of those past events largely supplanting the cultural need for myth to explain history.

Ironically, science has created a new myth, that being that history is an absolute chronological sequence that can both be divorced from contemporary prejudice and completely catalogued from beginning to end. The truth is that if an event is not recorded then generally speaking it's lost forever; and how many times has the wheel been reinvented?

National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism...under USSR law active anti-Semites are liable to the death penalty. (Stalin, Collected Works, vol. 13, p. 30).

Joe Stalin a confused writer? Never! But what time period is defined as the age of cannibalism anyway?