The Jews of Venezuela

By Alan Caruba

A few days ago a friend linked me to a video about the Jews of Venezuela which I posted on my blog because, as a student of history, I know that whatever first happens to Jews anywhere eventually happens in a similar fashion to people everywhere. They lose their freedom and then they lose their lives.

Then, the same day, I received an email which said, “If you’ve never read ‘The Protocols of The Elders of Zion’, find it attached along with a current article that connects these protocols with what is happening today. The sooner we learn who our real enemy is, the sooner we can successfully fight battles.” It was signed, “Blessings, Loretta.”

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic screed cooked up by the state police under the Russian Czar, Nicholas II. One of the first things the Bolsheviks did was assassinate him. Life in the Soviet Union did not improve for its Jews. When the opportunity arose many of them immigrated to Israel.

Despite the fact that it is an ugly piece of propaganda the Protocols remain popular, particularly in translated editions throughout the Middle East. The sole purpose is to further the gross libel that Jews secretly control the banks, the media, and the world

This is so absurd it defies logic. The worldwide Jewish population is 13.3 million. Jewish population growth worldwide is close to zero percent. Some six million live in Israel and another six million in the United States. After Hugo Chavez took control of Venezuela, many among its small Jewish population fled.

If American Jews are so smart, why did they vote in large numbers for Barack Obama in the last election? Throughout his formative years, Obama hung out with some of the worst anti-Semites in Chicago that included Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Not since Jimmy Carter has the United States had a more anti-Semitic president. Not surprisingly it was ex-President Carter who helped Chavez gain control by certifying election results that were widely regarded as rigged.

In Venezuela, synagogues in Caracas, private Jewish schools, and other identifiable Jewish community centers have been vandalized and then covered with graffiti saying, “Jews get out” and similar statements; all of which remind those with any historical recall of Nazi Germany.

It’s an old game called scapegoating as Chavez tries to distract Venezuela’s population from his gangster regime.

Anti-Semitism as government policy is a threat not just to Venezuelan Jews, but has global ramifications, not the least of which is Iran’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map.”

Israel has twice destroyed nuclear facilities, in Iraq and in Syria. Israel must attack Iran’s facilities. This may occur while the most anti-Semitic American administration in the modern era has demonstrated its antipathy to Israel. It is a dramatic policy break with all previous U.S. administrations dating back to Truman’s.

I have often written that the Jews are the world’s canary in the global coal mine. What happens to them always precedes what will happen on a larger scale to others. For now, though, Venezuela’s Jewish population needs to find sanctuary elsewhere.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Chavez Transforming Venezuela into a Nazi State

Venezuela is being transformed into a Nazi state and the first sure signs of it are the attacks on that nation's Jews.

Why can't we find any news of this in the U.S. mainstream press? Why is this not addressed at the highest level of our government?

Communism Kills

By Alan Caruba

On June 16, a reception will be held to celebrate the launch of the Global Museum on Communism at the Romanian Ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C. Other events have preceded the effort to ensure that the millions of victims of Communism in the last century are not forgotten.

I have no doubt that an invitation was extended to President Obama, though I doubt that he will be among the guests. After all, the man who has appointed some fifteen “czars” to run the affairs of his administration seems to have an affinity for direct rule over accountability to the Congress or the Constitution.

In an excellent, recently published book, “United in Hate”, by Jamie Glazov, the author notes in his preface that, “Throughout the twentieth century, the Western Left supported one totalitarian killing machine after another. Prominent intellectuals from George Bernard Shaw to Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag venerated mass murderers such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh, habitually excusing their atrocities while blaming America and even the victims of the crimes.”

Glazov noted that, after 9/11 leftists like “Jimmy Carter, Noam Chromsky, Michael Moore, and Tom Hayden, once again reached out to bloodthirsty tyrants bent on human destruction.” Who can forget Sean Penn’s globetrotting to defend the likes of Saddam Hussein or Hugo Chavez? Inherent in the Leftist view of the world is the embrace of despots.

If you ask people how many have died from communism oppression they tend to have either no idea or a vague notion that it’s been a lot. “The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression” is a chilling recounting of the toll that communism has taken.

Here are estimates of the numbers of victims:

65 million in the People’s Republic of China
20 million in the former Soviet Union
2 million in Cambodia
2 million in North Korea
1.7 million in Africa
1.5 million in Afghanistan
1 million in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe
1 million in Vietnam
150,000 in Latin America

These grim statistics include executions, intentional destruction of population by starvation, and deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor.

Leftists tend to find reasons to excuse or ignore these atrocities. A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Walter Durante of The New York Times during the rise of Stalin managed to overlook his deliberate starvation policy imposed on the Ukraine. Jane Fonda famously lent herself to the propaganda of the North Vietnamese during the U.S. war to defeat a communist takeover.

A lot of Americans, mostly the younger ones that have passed through our government schools, think that there are no more communist regimes in the world and do not make a connection between them and the repression of the people under their control even as fairly new dictators like Venezuela’s Chavez emerge.

Efforts to rescind restrictions on a communist dictatorship 90 miles from the U.S. border, Cuba, have been initiated by the Obama administration. The response to one of the worst Communist nations, North Korea, has been mostly temporizing and downplaying of the threat they represent to major allies.

It is understandable that the nation’s attention has been focused on the Middle East and the rise of the threat of Islamism, but Communism is still alive and a force in the world even as it tries to present a less threatening face to it. It is a deception.

Since October 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution has spawned the deadliest ideology in all of human history. In less than 100 years, Communism has claimed more than 100 million lives and it continues to enslave one-fifth of the world’s population.

Conservatives understand the threat. They oppose Barack Obama because his life has been filled with Leftists and his calls for the redistribution of wealth, his support for labor unions, his attacks on Wall Street and efforts to secure government control of the nation’s banking system, and to impose a nationalized healthcare system come right out of the Communist handbook for the control of our lives.

A memorial to commemorate the victims of Communism stands just two blocks from the U.S. Capitol building. A museum, much like the Holocaust Museum, is in the works. We must never cease to oppose Communism. We must not forget those who gave their lives in Korea and Vietnam during the Cold War to oppose its spread.

We must not allow our government to yield or fall to its siren call.

For more information about the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, go here:
http://www.victimsofcommunism,org.

America's Enemies

By Alan Caruba

Listening to President Obama one might think that America doesn’t have a single enemy that could not be turned into a friend if only he was given the opportunity to just talk to them. He is a great believer in diplomacy even though diplomacy has rarely stopped a war if one party was determined to wage it. War doesn’t need the consent of both.

Perhaps because I was born just prior to the outbreak of World War II and grew up aware of terrible things happening in both Europe and Asia, followed by having an older brother who served during the Korean War, plus my own service in the U.S. Army, my attitude about wars has been shaped by a lifetime in which I cannot recall a minute when America wasn’t at war, engaged in a war, or threatened by a war.

To this day I have considerable antipathy for “peaceniks” and war protesters even though, as the ill-fated Vietnam War dragged on, I joined a march or two. If ever there was a wrong war in the wrong place, Vietnam was it. For those unfamiliar with it, it was essentially a civil war into which the U.S. inserted itself due to a “domino theory” that, if Vietnam fell to communism, all the other Asian nations would as well. At the time, the Cold War was still raging since the end of WWII and Chairman Mao was still in charge of China.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t plotting against you, so it’s always a good idea to take a very general survey of those nations who wish us ill.

After a slow start, the U.S. is contemplating putting North Korea back on its list of terror-sponsoring nations. I suspect many Americans with no memory of the Korean War during the 1950s dismiss North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile capability. Not only will this thugocracy sell its WMDs to anyone, but the renewal of the Korean War is never more than 24 hours away. The U.S. is committed to intervene.

Iran, despite being on the other side of the globe, is working toward having its own nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems. As far as the Middle East is concerned, that’s a war just waiting to happen.

Americans seem to have forgotten that Saddam Hussein fought a war with Iran for eight years, settled for a stalemate, and then invaded Kuwait. If ever there was a good reason to fight a war to rid the region of this troublemaker, I cannot think of one. Now the problem has shifted to Pakistan, under attack from an enemy of its own making, the Taliban. Since Pakistan has nukes, it cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of fanatical Islamofascists.

Right next door India keeps a wary eye on Pakistan. Bordering Pakistan to the north is Afghanistan, a nation of tribes that, though occupied over and over again, has resisted all invaders for centuries. Just because 9/11 was planned there doesn’t mean the U.S. needs to maintain a military presence there. The prospect of an effective central government is quite distant despite the money, military manpower, and other efforts the U.S. is making.

So the enemies we can identify include any and all Muslims who support the view that Islam must rule the entire world. There are more than a billion of them.

Russia is no friend to the United States, but Russia is no friend to Europe or China either. Almost entirely dependent on the export of oil and natural gas, its fate rises and falls with the cost of a barrel or cubic foot of both. The fall of the Soviet government and the loss of its satellite nations in Eastern Europe have not significantly brought about a change of attitude in the Kremlin although much of the population would be more than happy to embrace the free market capitalism of the United States.

China is no friend either even though it is highly dependent on its ability to manufacture and export its goods to the United States. Our current economic woes worry the Chinese who own billions in U.S. treasury bills along with the fact that Americans aren’t buying as much of their stuff lately. China has perhaps the largest espionage effort regarding the U.S. of any other nation in the world.

Americans have been slow to respond to yet another enemy, Mexico. The U.S. has been literally invaded by Mexicans though they came looking for jobs and a better life. The result, however, has been enormous financial burdens on all aspects of our society from schools to hospitals to welfare and to crime. There are an estimated 12 million illegal Mexicans and others from south of the border and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leaders, wants to push through another amnesty bill.

The last amnesties only resulted in a greater rush to enter the U.S. Only a handful in public office will address the fact that the Mexican government has openly encouraged this invasion because the money sent home is a significant part of its economy. It is a major trading partner, but it looks to become totally controlled by the narco lords.

We have been slow to say or do anything about Venezuela, led by the dictator, Hugo Chavez. This likely has much to do with the oil that nation exports to the U.S. Chavez, however, is closely allied with Hezbollah which, in turn, is allied and controlled by Iran. Chavez has been buying up a lot of weapons of late and it has nothing to do with defense and everything to do with his bad intensions. Once a democracy, Venezuelans are now totally under the control of their government.

The U.S. just got around to arresting two former members of the State Department who had allegedly been spying for Cuba for thirty years. President Obama wants to lift restrictions on that dictatorship that have been in place for at least 50 years. Since the Soviet Union fell in the 1990s, Cuba has fallen on hard times, but it is still an enemy.

Africa is fairly dormant though Somalia has fallen to the Islamofascists. The U.S. has conspicuously done little to relieve the horrors in Darfur, inflicted by the Muslim Sudanese government. Overall, there is little likelihood that the U.S. will become embroiled in a war in Africa. It too is a significant source of oil.

If there is a common theme to our present threat levels, it is oil and, more precisely, the failure since the 1970s of the U.S. to access the abundant reserves of our own oil in the interior of the nation and from its offshore continental shelf. Since the Obama administration is hell bent on covering the U.S. with wind turbines and solar panels, we shall remain hostage to oil-producing nations.

The enemy that is only beginning to make himself known to Americans is President Barack Obama who has swiftly created an administration that ignores its many cabinet departments in favor of “czars” that have been ceded power over all elements of our nation. They rarely hold any press conferences, nor do they seem responsive to the inquiries of Congress. The only function of the cabinet secretaries appears to be to stand behind the President when he makes various announcements. No wonder he greeted Hugo Chavez with a big smile.

Taking control of automobile companies is unconstitutional. Giving bailouts to them is unconstitutional. Permitting the Federal Reserve to print money without regard to the inflationary impact this will have is reckless. Voting for a “stimulus” bill without reading or even debating it is reckless. Running up the national debt is reckless. Putting the value of the U.S. dollar in doubt is criminal negligence.

Trying to take over the nation’s health systems and to require all Americans to purchase health insurance flies in the face of free market capitalism and cedes control over the most intimate aspects of our lives to the government.

We now have a Homeland Security Department that identifies any American who disagrees with the Obama administration as an “extremist.” This includes people who oppose abortions, oppose illegal immigration, support the Second Amendment right to own and bear weapons, and veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorism is no longer part of its vocabulary, but “man-caused disasters” is.

If Americans don’t besiege and change Congress to reverse these assaults on the economy and the Constitution, this nation will fail and our liberties will be memories.

Welcome to the New Meek, Weak USA

By Alan Caruba

We are now embarked on a new philosophy for America. It is a gentler, kinder one, but it is not George H.W. Bush’s which culminated in the first successful invasion of Iraq that his son, George W, finished off along with one of the worst despots of modern times, Saddam Hussein.

No, this is the new Obama era in which the United States accepts the blame for the current financial crisis, accepts the blame that it is the real reason why Mexican drug cartels are endangering that nation and ours, and accepts the view that the only reason Arabs in the Middle East hate us is because of our former bellicose ways.

It is a humbler America prepared to listen, prepared to talk with Iran, the Taliban, and anyone else who hates us.

It is, in other words, the world’s new weak sister, unwilling to defend herself by word or deed, and surely to be targeted for real punishment as this message is interpreted by our enemies. The weak responses to previous al Qaeda attacks on our embassies were just a prelude to 9/11.

If 9/11 triggered retaliatory attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan and later led to ridding Iraq of a despot who not only killed his own people with impunity, but had attacked both Iran and Kuwait, than the new America will surely want to avoid hostilities and to break bread with tyrants in order to find common ground.

Only there is no common ground between traditional American values, of Western values, of Judeo-Christian values with the enemies of America and of our allies.

The peoples of the world did not come to the United States to build an echo of their failed nations, but to be part of a robust, muscular, and successful new one.

In fact, there is no guarantor of peace in the world other than an American superpower with military assets in nations throughout the world.

There is a reason Europe was not attacked by the former Soviet Union. It was American forces in Europe.

There is a reason Taiwan has not been attacked by Red China. It is the American promise of retaliation.

It is not so much the exercise of power that deters aggression, but the belief that it will be used if provoked.

America was not at war with al Qaeda in 2001, but al Qaeda had already announced it was at war with us.

America was not at war with Iran in 1979 when our diplomats were seized, but Iran declared itself at war with America and daily evokes shouts of “death to America.”

It doesn’t matter that the oppressed Iranian people harbor no ill will toward us. It is what the ayatollahs have in mind for America and our ally Israel.

America is not at war with Venezuela, but that doesn’t stop Hugo Chavez from forging alliances with the Soviets and Iranian top brass.

In the real world, America has real enemies and all the conciliatory gestures and statements will make no difference at all. Indeed, they tempt our enemies to attack because they perceive softness, weakness.

The Romans knew this. “Si vis pacem, para bellum.”

If you want peace, plan for war.