Video: Mass Grave of Syrian Soldiers at Jisr Al Shughour

This video is pretty nasty. It shows Syrian troops in Jisr Al Shughour uncovering a mass grave of some of the 120 Syrian troops killed in that city a week ago.

Nobody quite knows what happened in that city. The opposition says that the Syrian troops were executed by their own troops when they refused to fire on protesters. The government says they were killed in an ambush by anti-regime forces. It's going to take a long time, if ever, to find out what really happened here.

This video is pretty gross. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. The dead bodies pulled out of the grave are pretty gross and mangled up.

Video: Syrian Troops Open Fire on Protesters

A very exciting video from Syria. It was shot on Friday, June 10, 2011. It is said to take place in the Qaboun District of Damascus, Syria. As you can see, the protesters are not exactly peaceful as the supporters of this video say. They are harassing, hounding and chasing the armed Syrian troops through the city. Periodically, the troops turn around and aim at the protesters, but they keep on coming anyway.

The protesters are basically chasing the troops through the city, and the troops are beating a hasty retreat from the protesters. Finally, the troops kneel down and aim at the protesters. The idiot protesters keep rushing the troops anyway like a bunch of morons. Of course, the troops open fire. What do you expect? And a number of the protesters get injured or killed of course.

I don't know what to make of this video. It's pretty moronic of protesters to charge, chase and hound armed, retreating troops through a city. What are the troops supposed to do? Allow their position to be overrun?

Anyway, it's a really shocking video!

Video: Syrian Soldier Hanged in Hama

This is a very nasty video. Extreme viewer discretion advised. During the riots in Hama, Syria on Saturday, a Syrian soldier was captured and then apparently hung from a post in front of cheering mobs. The mobs also abused his body and beat it with sticks. They also threw shoes at it.

The video is short, but then it seems to repeat a few times. The last 2 thirds of the video seem useless.

This video has been making the rounds in Syria, and it has stirred up a lot of regime supporters. The rebels are claiming it's fake, but I don't think so.

Video: Syrian Soldiers Massacre Civilians in Deraa

This is a very nasty video. Extreme viewer discretion is advised. It shows Syrian forces on a rooftop in Der'a in the South of Syria, where the rebellion began. They are standing among a group of civilians, who have all been killed by the soldiers. Many of them have head shots, and the footage is very gruesome (Ever seen half a guy's head blown off?).

The soldiers are apparently all Allawi from a special brigade led by the President's brother, sent because the regime was not sure whether or not the regular army was down for the job. But this special brigade is all Allawi and very loyal to the regime, so they are down for about anything. The soldiers do have Allawi accents. The soldiers are joking about the dead bodies, posing with them, etc.

The men were bringing food to the city or the fighters in the city after the city was blocked off. Apparently the food was mistaken for weapons and this is why the men were killed. However, the head shots suggest execution at close range. If they were only bringing food, why execute them? This is a pretty serious crime on the part of the regime.

Exciting video, you can hear the sounds of battle - gunfire, etc. in the background.

Islamists Publically Lash Woman for Wearing Trousers in Sudan

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German. Email me if you are interested.

Terrible case out of Sudan. Recently, a woman was publically flogged by laughing policemen for the crime of wearing trousers. Sudan has Islamic Law, or Sharia, and the wearing of trousers was said to violate Sudan's Sharia Code.

The video is very disturbing. The woman wails as she is whipped in front of a crowd. The policeman keeps on whipping her, and even seems to get into it as he laughs and ups the ante.

The woman's wails and screams are horrible. The lashes must have been very painful. She seems to be begging for mercy after the lashing has gone on for a bit.

Everyone in the video is Black, as even Northern Sudan is a Black region. Even though they are Black, North Sudanese consider themselves to be Arabs and are said to be part of the Arab World. There are definitely Black Arabs!

Webcam Stripper Has Fatal Accident Live on the Net

A girl is doing some sort of a striptease on the Net. It is not known who she is doing it for, but she may be an Arab. The dance she is doing looks like an Arab dance, she has an Arabic appearance, and the music in the background sounds Arabic. She gets up from her seat, turns her back to the camera, and begins her dance.

She is dancing with her face to a large cabinet and seems to have the front part of her body pushed up against the cabinet. As she rubs up against the cabinet, she somehow dislodges it, and it collapses on her. The story goes that she was pinned under the cabinet and could not get out, suffocated, and died. However, fortunately, this is not what happened. Not only did she not die, but she also did not get pinned under the cabinet. However, she did almost break her PC as a result of this crazy incident.

Enterrement de Saddam

The video is no longer available.

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Finnish, Russian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). Spanish translation (en Español ).

This is the French translation of the Video of Saddam's Funeral post by super translator Natalie from France.

Voici encore une vidéo divulguée, celle des funérailles et de l'enterrement de Saddam Hussein à Al Awja. Al Awja est une petite ville près de Tikrit, qui a donné naissance à Saddam. La vidéo dure 10 minutes, donc si vous êtes impatient, il vaut mieux renoncer. La qualité de la majeure partie de ces images est assez bonne, je soupçonne qu'elles aient pu être tournées par un téléphone portable dernière génération.

La cérémonie et l'enterrement ont eu lieu au coeur de la nuit, et l'on ne voie aucune femme. Même si vous ne comprenez pas l'Arabe, il est impossible de ne pas reconnaître les cris continus de « Allah Akbar » qui frappent l'air du désert.

La scène, comme celle de l'exécution, était un chaos de rage, de menaces et de vengeance. Mais c'est une autre sorte de vengeance qui se prepare.

Mentre l'esecuzione di Saddam è stata una gioiosa, settaria festa di vendetta per gli Sciiti Iracheni del partito DAWA (e in misura minore del Partito Sciita e dell'Armata Mahdi), il suo funerale è stato una 'danse macabre' notturna, un crescendo rabbioso di invettive Sunnite.

C'è un'atmosfera carica di odio e la rabbia è palpabile, ci sono molti uomini a viso coperto pronti sicuramente ad immolarsi nella lotta, mi ha fatto venire i brividi alla schiena.

Alors que l'exécution de Saddam était une victoire pleine de joie, une fête pour le parti DAWA des chiites irakiens (et dans une moindre mesure du parti chiite de l'armée Mahdi), son enterrement était une danse macabre nocturne, un crescendo enragé d'insultes. L'atmosphère est chargée de haine et de rage, il y a beaucoup d'hommes prêts à lutter, cela m'a glacé jusque dans les os.

À présent le problème le plus important en Irak est de savoir comment contenir cette vague de haine sectaire. Les vidéos de l'exécution et de l'enterrement n'ont fait qu'attiser le feu, son exécution n'a pas été une chose positive.

Je ne sais pas qui sont ces sunnites irakiens dans les images. Ce sont probablement des sunnites de la zone de Tikrit, longtemps foyer de soutient à Saddam Hussein. Est-ce que ce sont des membres du parti Baath? Soutiennent-ils le sick, sont-ils des intégristes qui déchirent l’Irak comme les hyènes dépècent un cadavre? Moi je ne sais pas, mais peut-être quelqu'un pourra répondre à ces questions.

Je sais seulement que ce sont les images d'une bande d'exaltés irakiens sortis pour avoir du sang et de la vengeance. Dans le contexte actuel de l'Irak, c'est une chose terrifiante.

El Funeral de Saddam

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Finnish, Russian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). French translation (en Français ).

This is the Spanish translation of the Video of Saddam's Funeral post.

Aquí hay otro vídeo filtrado, este es del funeral y el entierro de Saddam en Al Awja, cerca de Tikrit. Al Awja es el pequeño pueblo donde nació Saddam. El vídeo dura más de 10 minutos, así que si eres impaciente será mejor que lo olvides. La calidad de gran parte de este vídeo es bastante buena, aunque sospecho que fue tomado con un telefono móvil.

El funeral y el entierro tuvieron lugar durante la noche, y no había ni una sola mujer. Aunque no entiendas una palabra de árabe, es imposible no oír los gritos contínuos, "Allahu Akbar", atravesando el aire del desierto.

La escena, como la de la ejecución, refleja alboroto, caos, rabia, peligro y venganza. Pero la venganza que se avencia es algo diferente.

Mientras que, por una parte, la ejecución de Saddam fue una venganza victoriosa y jubilosa por parte del partido de venganza sectario iraquí Shia y el Partido Dawa (y en menor medida, por parte el partido SCIRI y el ejército Mahdi), su funeral fue una sesión de rabia y profunda tristeza para los suníes iraquíes. La amenaza que se respira en el aire (por no mencionar los insurgentes enmascarados) es lo suficientemente palpable como para hacer que se te pongan los pelos de punta.

El problema principal de Iraq ahora mismo es cómo reducir el frenesí de sectarios locos que se está comiento vivo a Iraq. Los vídeos de la ejecución y ahora el del funeral son prueba de que la ejecución de Saddam sólo avivará la hoguera de los asesinos, y por lo tanto no fue algo positivo.

Realmente no sé quién son estos suníes iraquíes. Seguramente sean suníes del área de Tikrit, desde hace mucho el caldo de cultivo del soporte a Saddam Hussein. ¿Son miembros del partido Baath? ¿Son los que apoyan a los integristas suníes trastornados y inhumanos que están despedazando Iraq como harían las hienas con un cadáver? No puedo responder esas preguntas; tal vez alguien pueda.

Yo sólo sé que este es un vídeo de un montón de hombres iraquíes que buscan la revancha y sangre. Y en el contexto actual de Iraq, eso es algo terrible.

Video of Saddam's Funeral

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Finnish, Russian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation (en Español ). Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). French translation (en Français ).

Here is another leaked video, this one of Saddam's funeral and burial in Al Awja, near Tikrit. Al Awja is the small town near Tikrit where Saddam was born. It's over 10 minutes long, so if you are impatient, you may wish to forgo it. The quality of most of this video is actually quite good, although I suspect it was also shot with a cellphone.

The funeral and burial took place in the dead of night, and there was not a woman to be seen. Even if you can't understand a word of Arabic, it's impossible to not hear the continuous cries of "Allahu Akbar" punching the desert air.

The scene, like the one at the execution, was one of pandemonium, chaos, rage, menace and vengeance. But this is a different kind of revenge gathering.

While Saddam's execution was a victorious, joyful, sectarian Iraqi Shia revenge party for the Dawa Party (and to a lesser extent the SCIRI Party and Mahdi Army) his funeral was a mournful rage-session for Iraq's Sunnis. The menace in the air here, not to mention the masked insurgents or insurgent supporters, is palpable enough to send shivers down your spine.

The main question in Iraq right now is how to tamp down the mad sectarian frenzy that is eating Iraq alive. The videos of the execution and now of the funeral are evidence that Saddam's execution will only feed the murderous bonfire, and therefore it was not a positive thing.

I really don't know who these Iraqi Sunnis in the video are. They are probably Sunnis from the Tikrit area, long a hotbed of support for Saddam Hussein. Are they Baath Party members? Are they supporters of the sick, deranged Sunni fundamentalists now ripping Iraq apart like hyenas on a corpse? I can't answer those questions; maybe someone else can.

I only know that this is a video of a bunch of really pissed-off Iraqi men out for payback and blood. And in the context of today's Iraq, that is a terrifying thing.

Unedited Video of Saddam Hussein's Hanging

Video is no longer working, but the write-up should be interesting anyway. Hat tip to the blog The Reaction for a link to the video, which I then embedded.

This is a video of the actual hanging of Saddam Hussein at a two-story building the Shia Khadamiya District in Baghdad at 6:10 AM on December 30, 2006, as shot surreptitiously by a cellphone camera held by one of those in attendance.

This is not the more tame video that is being shown on US TV but is instead the more gruesome video being shown on Arabic websites and now spreading virally around the web and the world.

In the video, Saddam was taunting and being taunted by some of those who were getting ready to hang him. As he was getting ready to be hung, he recited the Muslim prayer a couple of times. Saddam refused to wear a hood over his head and carried a Koran in his hand. His team of three black-hooded executioners (called a mashmawi) had noticeable Shia Southern Iraqi accents.

All of his executioners were members of the SCIRI political party, and they and his guards tormented Saddam in the six hours before his execution, refusing to let him sleep much by waking him up every half an hour to taunt him. One of the taunting executioners had the Shia sectarian name of "Ali The Butcher". Saddam reportedly refused a last meal of chicken the night before and asked only for a Koran.

At 5 AM, he was offered breakfast, but he refused and asked for a cigarette instead. The request for a cigarette was refused and he was taken to an execution cell where a judge read the details of the sentence to him and asked Saddam if he wanted to make a last statement.

While the judge was reading the verdict, Saddam periodically shouted out slogans, at one point yelling, "Long live Iraq! Long live the people! Long live the Palestinians!" He declined to make a final statement and was taken to the execution chamber.

The building where he was killed in Khadamiya was formerly used as a torture chamber by a special branch of Saddam's security forces that focused on the Shia fundamentalist Dawa political party. Indeed, some of the men present had been tortured by Saddam's thugs in this very building.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, was a prominent member of Dawa and was himself sentenced to death in absentia by Saddam's regime in 1980 before he fled the country to Iran. Presently, Maliki is the head of the Dawa Party. Ibrahim Al-Jaafari is number 2 man in the party.

Dawa was even involved in the case for which Saddam was sentenced to death - the assassination attempt on Saddam in Dujail was carried out by Dawa. There are suggestions that Jaafari made the relatively minor Dujail case the focus of Saddam's trial as part of the Dawa versus Baath feud.

As you can see, this execution had strong elements of a revenge party attack on the Baath Party by the Dawa Party. Adding weight to this theory, the first tape showing Saddam's dead body in a coffin was leaked to the Dawa Party TV station.

Just before Saddam was killed, a Shia observer in attendance shouted, "Praise to Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr!" The uncle of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr was tortured to death by Saddam along with his sister in 1980.

One version says that Baqir was executed by first having a nail hammered into his head and then being set on fire. Another version, in Robert Pelton Young's World's Most Dangerous Places, has Saddam's henchman Chemical Ali personally strangling Baqir to death.

When you read the gruesome accounts of how Saddam's men killed Baqir, you can begin to see how the execution of Saddam was a nasty act of revenge by Baqir's followers for the gory killing of Baqir.

Baqir founded the Dawa Party and is revered by all the main Shia factions in Iraq - the SCIRI and Dawa political parties and the Mahdi Army. Baqir's son-in-law, Muqtada al-Sadr, is the young radical cleric whose forces, called the Mahdi Army, have repeatedly battled the US in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr's father and two of his brothers were assassinated by Saddam in 1999.

One of the Shia executioners shouted, "You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution." Saddam said, "I saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Americans and the Persians." The guard then said, "God damn you." Saddam responded, "God damn you."

According to Munir Haddad, the judge at his trial who was witnessing the execution, "[Saddam] said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians."

As they put the noose around his neck, Saddam yelled out, "Ya Allah!", or "Hear me God!".

Those in the audience then started chanting, "Those who pray for God and the family of Mohammad have won", and "God bless Mohammad and his family".

These are both Shia sayings, because the Shia revere Ali and Hussein, the actual members of Mohammad's family, as opposed to the unrelated Umayyads, rivals in the early succession struggle for the leadership of Islam. The first saying is highly sectarian, meaning, "In the battle between the Shia and the Sunnis, the Shia have won."

Then Sadr's supporters chanted, "And may the Mahdi return soon! And the Hell with his enemies! And victory to his son! Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" Saddam looked down dimly at the hecklers and smiled caustically, mocking their taunts by asking, "Moqtada al-Sadr? Is this how you act like a man?"

This is probably a reference to rumors that Muqtada's wife left him, saying that he was gay. So what Saddam is asking here is, "This is how you show you're a man - by chanting the name of this fag Muqtada al-Sadr?"

Then, in a barely audible retort, Saddam muttered, "Gallows of shame..." but he was drowned out by voices yelling, "Go to Hell!"

Saddam responded, implying that his Shia executioners and their US allies had ruined Iraq, "The Hell that is Iraq?" As the rope was put around Saddam's neck somebody shouted, "Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr!" Onlookers then yelled more insults at Saddam.

Some of his last words before reciting the Shahada were "Down with the traitors, the spies, the Americans and the Persians." Traitors means everyone who supports the pro-US regime. Persians refers to anti-Baathist Shia Iraqis. One onlooker, Haddad, then tried to stop those shouting insults at Saddam, yelling, "I beg you, I beg you - the man is being executed!"

Saddam then said the Muslim shahada prayer, "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his witness", that all Muslims are required to say before they die. He said it once, then said it again, but they didn't let him finish.

When he got to the "Mohammad", the trap door fell in the gallows, and immediately he was swinging. It took him a full minute to die, and the scarf around his neck (placed there to keep his neck from being cut open) had not prevented the rope from cutting a gash in his neck.

As Saddam fell through the door, an onlooker shouted, "The tyrant has fallen! God damn him!" Others yelled triumphant Shia slogans. An onlooker tried to remove the rope from Saddam's neck, but a voice said, "No, wait for three minutes." They let him swing for 10 minutes, chanting Muslim slogans praising Mohammad the whole time, and then they cut him down.

I would like to point out that at least some of the sectarian Shia chanting at this execution is not dignified or acceptable in this setting. To some extent, it is like a crowd of Whites hanging a Black man while dancing around, grinning and yelling, "Hang, nigger, hang!" The analogy with a US Southern lynching is intentional.

The Arab nationalist and Sunni chauvinist Internet publication Islam Online reported that the "Safavids", meaning the Iraqi Shia, burned Saddam's Koran after he was hung. Safavids is a very insulting term for Arab Shia.

It refers to the Persians that conquered and ruled part of Iraq from 1508-1534 and again from 1623-1638, periods that Sunni Arabs in the region still smart over. The purple bars on this map show the part of Iraq that was conquered.

The Safavids were also the dynasty that first cemented Shiism as the state religion of Persia in the early 1500's. By the mid-1600's, majority-Sunni Iran was now majority-Shia.

This was accomplished by aggressive proselytism of Shiism, in part by converting huge numbers of Persian Sunnis by the sword. Those who would not convert were put to death. Doubtless this is another source of Sunni anger at the Safavids.

Calling the Arab Shia "Safavids" is common amongst Sunni Arab Muslims in places like Iraq and Lebanon and is the equivalent of calling Jews "kikes".

The site also said that Saddam was denied a Sunni imam's last rites; that Iraqi Shia Ayatollah Sistani blessed the execution (this is true); that Saddam's body was abused after death; that Saddam shouted, "Palestine is Arab" before reciting the shahada; and that Saddam exchanged insults with audience members and said, "God damn you, you Persian midget!" to one of them.

All of these claims except for the body being abused (evidence shows it was not - the bruises on his face were just from the hanging) and the shout about Palestine (he shouted about Palestine in the judge's chambers next door, not in the execution chamber, and there is no evidence of him shouting this on the tape) are possibly true.

Saddam was hung on the first morning of the Muslim holiday Eid, which is the equivalent of a Christian being hung on Easter morning. That is likely to outrage many Muslims, and could at least be considered poor taste. What is worse is that he was hung on the first day of the Sunni Muslim Eid, December 30. The Shia Muslim Eid did not start until the next day, December 31.

That is a direct slap in the face to Sunnis everywhere. As an analogy, try this: It would be as if Protestants and Catholics were fighting, and celebrated Easter one day apart. Catholics captured one of the Protestants' top leaders and deliberately hung him on the Protestant Easter, and then made a party of his hanging.

According to the Iraqi Constitution, you cannot kill someone on Eid. The Shia government simply avoided that by declaring that December 31, not December 30, was the first day of Eid. This declaration effectively made Iraq a de facto Shia country.

The Saudi regime, no friend of Saddam's, called the timing of the execution an affront to Islam. The Libyan regime, no friend of Saddam's either, called for three days of mourning. Furthermore, the fact that he was dropped through the chamber midway through the Shahada is considered by Sunnis to be another sectarian insult.

Although in many ways he was a terrible person, Saddam's behavior prior to being hanged was dignified and proper. No matter how he would have behaved, his enemies would have spun it to make Saddam look malevolent, humiliated or weak.

Despite propaganda from Iraq's National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaie that Saddam was "weak and frightened", he did not appear that way in the video at all (check for yourself). Nor did he seem especially defiant, except when taunted. At any rate, to those gloating that Saddam seemed a wee bit frightened, I would like to see how they hold up to being hung by a rope.

This execution could have been conducted with solemnity and professionalism, in which case you could argue that it was an act of justice. Instead it was turned into a squalid act of sectarian revenge. Saddam, a mass murderer, took the moral high ground and went to his death with class, composure and pride, while his hooded Shia executioners looked like little more than street thugs.

Saddam surely deserved this fate but I cannot see any good come of this. Surely this will only fan the flames of sectarianism in Iraq (and there are already signs that it is doing just that), in which case, what good did it do but sink the Iraqis deeper into this flaming Hell?

The fact that praise for Sadr was being shouted implies that some of those in attendance were supporters of the Mahdi Army, who are rightly referred to as sectarian militiamen.

When you hear about X number of bodies, tortured, blindfolded and handcuffed, found in Baghdad on a given day, it is the Shia Mahdi Army, not the Sunni guerrillas, who are generally responsible for all, or almost all, of those killings. This fact is conveniently almost never explained by the US media. The media simply says that X bodies were discovered, describes their state, and says "militias" killed them.

The Mahdi Army is supported by the US-supported Iraqi government. At first, most of those killed by the Mahdi Army were at least Salafist Sunni religious radicals. It could be argued that many were either guerrillas or sympathized with them.

Now, outrageously, the Mahdi Army is targeting any and all Sunnis Arabs, especially the men, and in particular the young men, merely because they are Sunni Arabs! They are also killing middle aged and old Sunni Arab men and even some of the women.

These death squads were set up by the US Government, specifically by US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, who set up and ran similar death squads in Honduras in the 1980's when he was ambassador there. More on that theory here, here, here and here.

This is a case of the Frankenstein monster created by the US coming back to bite the US on the ass, as has happened so many times in the past.

All the talk of Iran and Syria "interfering in Iraq" is dubious.

Let us deal with Iran first.

First, Iran does not support the Mahdi Army; they do not even like it. Iran doesn't give Sadr any money; probably the only thing Iran wants to give Sadr is a bullet in the head. It's true that Iran used to support Sadr a bit, but that was a while ago.

Instead, the Mahdi Army is supported almost totally by funds gathered inside of Iraq. For their part, the Mahdi Army is well-known for being an anti-Iranian, Iraqi nationalist or even Arab nationalist group.

For a long time, I could not understand why the Mahdi Army was behind so many death squad killing in Iraq these days. A ready explanation is now at hand but first an understanding of Shiism is in order.

The Shia of Iraq and 80% of the Shia in the world are Twelvers, since they follow what they see as the first 12 imams after Mohammad. Sunnis believe in a different path of succession, the Umayyads, who were not related to Mohammad but instead were just leaders of various parts of the Arab World who assumed the role of caliph.

There are other schools of Shiism called Seveners or Fivers, who split after either five or seven imams in who they consider to be the correct fifth or seventh imam. The 12th imam is said to be Muhammad al-Mahdi.

After his father, the 11th imam, died, his 5-year-old son was said to lead the prayers after his death. At that time, the boy disappeared and went into a state called occultation.

The Askariya Mosque that was blown up by Iraqi Al Qaeda in February, 2006, is said to be where the boy disappeared. A shrine was then built on the scene of his disappearance. Twelvers believe that he is coming back some day and that is he going to bring absolute justice to the world (like the belief in the return of Jesus).

Most Twelvers probably believe in this to some extent but do not make a virtual cult out of it (sort of like the way that many Christians only halfheartedly believe in Jesus' return and others become passionate about it.

The Mahdi Army has almost made a cult out of belief in the Mahdi, to the point where some of them may think that Muqtada al-Sadr himself is the either the son of the Mahdi or perhaps even the Mahdi himself. Sadr himself has made illusive comments that added weight to these beliefs. At any rate, the Mahdi Army is a millenarian movement that believes that the Mahdi will reveal himself at any time.

While the destruction of the the Askariya Mosque was no doubt painful to most Twelvers, it simply drove the Mahdi Army insane due to their cult-like belief in the Mahdi. It is after that attack that the Mahdi Army went on their wild mass murdering spree against Sunnis in general.

Iran supports SCIRI, which has an armed wing called the Badr Brigades. Lately SCIRI is hardly involved in sectarian killings at all, although that is controversial. SCIRI is also part of the Iraqi government. You certainly could argue that the Iraqi government, dominated by SCIRI and Dawa, could be doing more to stop the killings.

For some time now, SCIRI and apparently also Iranian intelligence has taken advantage of the chaos in Iraq to carry out sporadic assassinations of former high-ranking members of Saddam's regime. For SCIRI, this is vengeance, as SCIRI was formerly fighting an insurgency against the Baathist regime.

For Iran, similarly, it is a case of revenge - revenge for the Iraq-Iran War that Saddam started with considerable encouragement from the US. At any rate, SCIRI are simply Shia Iraqis, fired by the history of the Shia in Iraq - they are no Iranian puppets.

When they kill former top Baathists, they are doing it for their own reasons, not in service to the Iranian regime. The sporadic assassinations of former top Baathists in Iraq form a very small part of the Civil War and insurgency in the country. Hence, any suggestion that Iran or Iran-allied movements are tearing Iraq apart is nonsense.

For a long time, the Sunni guerrillas agenda, aside from attacking US forces, has been "kill the Shia". The Sunnis who did not actually kill the Shia themselves were disgustingly silent when the racists did.

For years, the Shia were shockingly quiescent in the face of this regular terror. Iran was supporting SCIRI and Dawa while they were refusing to retaliate against the Sunni killers. Now that SCIRI and Dawa are not doing much to protect Sunnis against Shia killers of the Mahdi Army, Iran still supports them.

Iran will support SCIRI and Dawa practically whatever they do, just as the US supports Israel no matter what it does. But neither party is an agent of Iran anymore than Israel is an agent of the US. The Iraqi Shia have their own reasons for doing whatever they do. The notion that they are operating under orders from Tehran all this time is preposterous.

Fact is, it is not in Iran's interest at all to have an insane Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq, a war that threatens to spread sectarian horror across the whole region, including their own country.

What Iran wants is simple: they want a peaceful, stable situation in Iraq, hopefully with a friendly, pro-Iranian regime in charge. Iran receives no benefit at all from the Inferno raging in Iraq, and the mess causes a lot of problems for Iran.

Iran also wants the US military out of Iraq, since by our presence there, we are threatening both Syria and Iran (this is one of the reasons the neocons plotted to have a large US troop presence in Iraq - to menace those two countries).

Second, isn't the one country "interfering in Iraq" more than any other called the US?

Talk of Iran interfering in Iraq is coming from three different sources.

The first is US imperialism, which hates Iran for a variety of reasons.

These reasons date back to Khomeini's revolution, the seizure of the hostages at the US embassy in Tehran immediately afterward, and then the attacks on US targets in Lebanon in the 1980's and Saudi Arabia in the 1990's by Shia radicals.

These attacks in Lebanon included a car bomb attack on the US embassy, a suicide truck bomb attack on a Marine barracks that killed 100's of Marines, kidnappings of various Americans and the capture and execution of a US CIA agent.

The kidnappings and killing of the CIA agent were done by Hezbollah, but it is not clear at all that Hezbollah attacked the barracks or bombed the embassy. For one thing, Hezbollah may not even have been formed yet when those attacks occurred. The barracks attack was claimed by a separate group that is not Hezbollah. However, it seems clear that Iran was involved in all of the above attacks.

The attacks in Saudi Arabia included the car bombing of the US military barracks at the Khobar Towers which killed two dozen US soldiers and wounded hundreds more. That attack is being pinned on an obscure organization called Saudi Hezbollah, not on the Lebanese Hezbollah as the US press often ignorantly states.

Saudi Hezbollah is one of maybe 50 small, shadowy armed Shia groups in Arabia, where the Shia are fired up about the outrageous racism they experience at the hand of Wahhabi Sunnis, who contemptuously regard them as infidels. The suggestion is that Iran was behind that bombing too.

The second source of anti-Iranian talk is coming from the KKK-Jews (Zionists) in Israel, who also have it in for Iran right now. They got rid of Iraq; now Syria and Iran are next on their list as they go for broke trying to wipe out all resistance in the region to their racist regime.

As Israel is now virtually a state of the US, Israel's interests are US interests. The fact that the US media is dominated by Zionists (both Jewish and Gentile) helps matters. Congress is completely controlled by a heavily Jewish Israeli Lobby, which also includes fundamentalist Christian elements.

The third source of anti-Iran sentiment is coming from Sunni Arabs, and Sunnis in general, who often hate Iran for various reasons, none of which are reasonable, and all of which are simply based on virulent racism.

An essential introduction to the tragic legacy of vicious anti-Iranian racism via Arab nationalism is Kaveh Farrokh's Arab Nationalism's Legacy of Confrontation With Iran.

The fact that US imperialism and World Jewry is in alliance with these ferocious, Nazi-like Sunni Muslim ultraracists is sickening and revolting.

The Jews of all people.

Yet Zionism has turned the Jews into a nation of killers, liars and thieves; those who cheer them on from the sidelines; and those who hide the criminals from justice or acquit them in court. Astute readers will note the analogy with the Jim Crow South. That is intentional.

As anti-Semitism hates Jews for what they are, not for what they do, there is nothing anti-Semitic in that statement. As the racists in the Antebellum South could cut it out any time they like, so can the KKK-Jews. Just say no to racism. It's not hard at all.

Along similar lines, neither is Syria supporting the Sunni guerrillas much. The Syrian regime is run by Alawi Shia, who are not even considered Muslims by many or most Sunni Muslims, due to the extreme heterodox nature of their sect.

To the fundamentalist Sunni guerrillas in Iraq, the Alawi are hated first for being Shia, and second and even worse for not even being real Shia. To too many Sunnis, Alawis are simply infidels.

The Alawi regime is threatened by the majority-Sunnis of Syria, many of whom support the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Hafez Assad waged war on these fundies in 1982, when they took over the city of Hama and declared an Islamic state in Syria.

The Syrian army invaded, destroyed the city and killed 10,000 people, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was effectively destroyed. It remains in ruins in Syria to this day, where membership in the group is punishable by death.

The membership scattered to the far winds, especially to Saudi Arabia, where they joined the exiled Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt (exiled in another crackdown, this time by Gamel Nasser, President of Egypt). Both exiled Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) groups became religious teachers in Saudi Arabia around the time a number of religious schools were being set up there.

Wahhabi Islam in Arabia has not always been vicious, deranged and terroristic. Prior to the 1970's, it was largely quietist (a Muslim religious term for Muslims who are not active in politics, especially in armed politics).

The infusion of radicalized Ikhwan exiles with Saudi Wahhabi Islam (still ultra-radical, even if quietist) metastasized to create a savage, militant fundamentalist Islam in Saudi Arabia by the 1980's.

With the added boost of the Iranian revolution (which radicalized both Sunni and Shia Muslims around the world) of 1979 and the ensuing radical turmoil in Arabia (armed radicals captured the Kaaba, took hostages, and were routed in an armed counterattack that left hundreds dead) and the injection of the Afghan jihad of the 1980's, the result was we call the Al Qaeda type groupings of today.

To this day, all Al Qaeda groupings are still significantly associated with the Ikhwan. One could even say that when it comes to Al Qaeda-like groups, "All roads lead to the Ikhwan".

Based on that history, the notion that the super-secular Alawis of Syria would be supporting their most murderous enemies, the Sunni ultra-radical Salafist guerrillas in Iraq, is comical and pitiful.

Instead, my understanding is that Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and even more so, wealthy Saudis, and probably wealthy Arabs from other Gulf States, are supplying the Sunni Iraqi guerrillas. The dominant Arabian Sunnis are as frightened of Shia political power as White racists in the US South were mortified by the threat of Black political enfranchisement.

The dominant theme here is, "Shia is the nigger of (Muslim) World".

As you can see by the blatantly bigoted and murderously racist behavior of the Iraqi Shia militias described above, the Iraqi Shia are becoming "Niggaz with an attitude." Which only proves that, barring intervention, the abused will become abusers as surely as day follows night.

The accusations against Syria are coming from US imperialism and the KKK-Jews. Imperialism hates Syria, probably just because it is not an ally. Syria is not an ally because it is an Arab nationalist regime still locked in conflict with Israel. As the US wildly supports Israel, Syria is not happy with the US.

But Syria really has no interest in the US per se. Their main problem is with Israel, which is still illegally occupying Syrian land, in violation of all international law, and in defiance of 98% of the nations on Earth.

Due to this Occupation, Syria and Israel are legally still at war. Syria's interest is not to wipe out Israel, or kill all Jews or any of the crap that Zionists will tell you. Syrians just want the Golan back. To get it back, I am sure they will sell out Arab nationalism, the Palestinians, and the whole nine yards.

As a consequence of Israel's theft of the Syrian Golan Heights, Syria retaliates by funding and supporting various Palestinian armed groups. Due to this ongoing conflict, Syria is on Israel's list for regime change, along with Iran. The US simply has no real beneficial national interest in supporting Israel in this fight, other than that Israel is the 51st state of America.

Whenever you hear a US neoconservative commentator ranting about "Iran and Syria", the ghost of Ariel Sharon may as well be pulling the puppet strings in back of them while they speak.

In my opinion, the KKK-Jews, who were part of the plot to get us into this insane Iraq War, also hoped to drag Syria and possibly Iran in too. With US troops in Iraq, hardline Zionism worked to use US forces to taunt Syria. Only the Iraqi resistance stopped US forces from attacking Syria, and probably also Iran. Terrible as the Sunni guerrillas are, the world does owe them something.

A huge US army in Iraq de facto menacing Syria is a taunt to the Syrians, in order to provoke them into supporting the Iraqi resistance to keep the US at bay. But once they start supporting Iraqi guerrillas, the US has cause to attack Syria.

Yet if Syria cooperates in crushing the Sunni guerrillas and pacifying Iraq, the US will then be free to evacuate most troops from Iraq and invade Syria. Yet the mad civil war in Iraq tears the region asunder and actually threatens Syria in many ways, mostly that the jihad of their radical Sunni Islamist enemies can spread to Syria.

What does Syria want? Same as Iran. A peaceful and stable Iraq that is friendly to Syria. Like Iran, they also want all US troops out of Iraq, since those troops are threatening Syria by their very presence.

Syria is in a poignant spider's web; damned if she does; damned if she doesn't. This is the trap Zionism-imperialism has set for her, with the only way out being abject surrender to imperialism-Zionism in the region, as almost all of the other Arab states have already done.

Yes, Zionism actually wants to provoke Syria into conflict with the US. Incredible, no? As if the world did not have enough problems as it is, the cancer of World Zionism adds another huge dollop of instability to the quivering mess as it pumps the black poison of its influence, menace and power through the veins of a cringing and suffering world.

Truth is that Syria has cracked down ferociously on those who have gone to fight in Iraq. Many jihadis have been imprisoned, beaten and tortured. Their relatives have also been harassed. Supporters of the jihadis inside Syria have actually set up organizations to protest this crackdown. The blog Syria Comment has been covering this story for some time now.

The Sunni guerrillas are being supplied mostly from inside Iraq itself but also by neighboring Sunnis, as noted above. The Sunni guerrillas' external support is from US allies. The Shia militias are being funded from inside Iraq and are part of the US-allied Iraqi government.

Both sides of the Iraqi civil war are being funded and supported by US allies, not Syria and Iran. This is the lugubrious truth.

Many have wondered about the controversial study showing that 655,000 Iraqis had been killed by the US invasion of Iraq. Though the media has predictably poo-pooed the study, I studied it in depth and it is apparently a valid study. The same authors previously conducted a study in 2004 that found 100,000 deaths. That study was also very controversial.

The author of both studies, Les Roberts, wrote a piece in February 2006, prior to the latest study, in which he estimated 300,000 deaths. He lays out his reasons in the piece.

On July 12, 2005, an Iraqi group called Iraqiyun working with the Iraqi government counted 128,000 dead. These dead were lined up with actual names and records of the deceased based on door-to-door interviews throughout Iraq. Only dead confirmed by relatives were included, and the many who have vanished without a trace were not.

A study including infant mortality and looking at raw death rates has found an excess mortality of 900,000 deaths in Iraq since the US invasion, including 400,000 by infant mortality and 500,000 by other excess mortality. Note that the 500,000 figure includes excess deaths due to all causes related to the invasion - crime, stress, disease, dirty water, suicide, poor medical care, etc.

The same study, using raw death rate figures once again, found excess mortality of 2.9 million Iraqis from 1990-2003, almost all attributed to US and British sanctions, which were deliberately written to kill as many innocent Iraqis as possible. That figure includes 1.6 million via infant mortality and 1.3 million via other excess mortality, respectively. The study uses raw death rates, so the figures should be pretty good.

Those figures are from Gideon Polya, an Australian scientist who works, at least in part, in the field of excess mortality. He is the founder of the "Theory of Excess Mortality".

The US and Britain killed 2.9 million Iraqis via sanctions, then started a war that killed another 900,000 Iraqis. That adds up to 3.8 million dead Iraqis. Either way you cut the cake, the US and Britain killed far more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein, whose number of victims is estimated at 300,000 and who also started a war with Iran that killed another 875,000, for a total of 1.175 million dead.

In reality, the mad Iraqi racist war against completely innocent Iran was fully egged on by and coordinated by the US and later many other nations all over the world. We even gave Iraq detailed maps of Iranian front line military positions before he attacked. Later, with the war on, we supplied him with the chemical weapons he fired at Iranian troops.

So in reality, perhaps Saddam and the US should share the guilt for the Iran-Iraq war dead. Even granting (dubiously) Saddam full culpability for the Iran-Iraq war toll, the US and Britain still killed over three times as many Iraqis as Saddam Hussein.

In a just world, would any other leaders deserve to be swinging from the end of a rope, due to mass murder of Iraqis? Something to think about...

For those who are interested, I authored an 80+ page dossier on the state Iraqi guerrilla groups as of April 15, 2005. It was published in 3 parts, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The report is now pretty much out of date but still holds historical interest on the state of the Iraqi resistance at a certain point in time. In that report, I believe I identified over 120 separate groups fighting the US Coalition.

Video: Danse Macabre! Il Funerale di Saddam

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Finnish, Russian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

This is an Italian translation of my post Video of Saddam's Funeral. Translator: Paolo from Trieste.

Spanish translation (en Español ). French translation (en Français ).

Eccovi il terzo documento filmato su Saddam Hussein. E' il video del funerale svoltosi a Al Awaja, città natale di Saddam, vicino a Tikrit. Il video dura più di 10 minuti, ed è pesante, snervante, a volte fastidioso. Ma è un documento storico. Se non avete pazienza di vederlo tutto, leggete il commento e cambiate canale...La qualità è buona, il videofonino utlizzato era sicuramente di ultima generazione...

Il funerale e la sepoltura si sono svolti in piena notte. Non si vede in giro nemmena una donna (ma...dov'erano mogli, figli/e, i parenti di Saddam?).

Il sonoro ha un leit-motiv, due parole, Allah Akbar - Dio è grande - cantilena incessante, snervante per tutta la prima parte del video.

Non c'è il nostro silenzio davanti al grande Mistero della Morte, la ricerca del silenzio, il raccoglimento in preghiera.

Sembra di assistere ad un'esecuzione anzichè ad un funerale.

La scena è un pandemonio di urla, minaccie, rabbia, voglia di vendetta, un caos insomma. Questo è stato un funerale un pò diverso dagli altri, c'era una frustrata assemblea che chiedeva Vendetta!

Mentre l'esecuzione di Saddam è stata una gioiosa, settaria festa di vendetta per gli Sciiti Iracheni del partito DAWA (e in misura minore del Partito Sciita e dell'Armata Mahdi), il suo funerale è stato una 'danse macabre' notturna, un crescendo rabbioso di invettive Sunnite.

C'è un'atmosfera carica di odio e la rabbia è palpabile, ci sono molti uomini a viso coperto pronti sicuramente ad immolarsi nella lotta, mi ha fatto venire i brividi alla schiena.

Di più, a volte mi è sembrato di vedere il volto del Saddam vivo confuso tra la folla, come dei flashback, come se fosse stato presente ad incitare quei fanatici, a chiamarli a vendicare la sua morte.

L'Iraq ha davvero un grosso problema: come arginare in qualche modo questa ondata di odio settario. I filmati dell'impiccagione, della Morgue, del funerale, non hanno fatto che gettare benzina sul fuoco, purtroppo l'esecuzione di Saddam non ha portato benefici...

Non mi è noto come sia arrivata la salma e chi potevano essere i partecipanti al funerale. Sunniti della zona, di Tikrit, da sempre fedeli adepti del Rais? Forse membri del partito Baath? Fondamentalisti Sunniti che con le loro azioni contribuiscono a lacerare sempre di più un paese così devastato?

Non lo so, forse qualcuno di voi mi può rispondere.

Dopo aver posto una bandiera sopra il feretro (una bara pentagonale, interessante) un religioso prega e finalmente c'è un pò di silenzio...solo qualche secondo e poi ritorna il clamore, siamo in un'altro mondo che si chiama Iraq.

Passano delle immagini del volto tumefatto di Saddam avvolto nel sudario. Scoperchiano la bara ed inizia il rito della sepoltura.

La preghiera funebre calma l'uditorio, ma l'atmosfera non è mistica...no, non c'è alcun senso di trascendenza...è solo una piccola parentesi...per uomini bramosi di versare sangue umano.

E' un funerale terrificante, foriero di nuove violenze ed orrori.

Posso solo dire che in questo video ho visto un branco di esaltati, di fanatici assetati di sangue e vendetta, ed ho sempre in testa quelle urla incessanti...Allah Akhbar...Allah Akhbar...Allah Akhbar.

Saudis and US: Dog and Tail

Excellent commenter Lafayette Sennacherib suggests that the Saudis are in fact clients of the US. I disagree.

LS:

You talk about 'the Saudis' as if they were independent operators; they're not - they wouldn't last a minute without US support, same too with the elites in Egypt and Jordan.

And most accounts suggest that Wahabbism is quite separate from the Saudi royal families; it's something they've made an accommodation with - they let them have their way in 'moral matters' to keep them quiet. I don't have the answers, but for 'Saudis' ultimately read ' US' elites - they have to do what they're told in the end. To what end, I don't know.

To which I respond:

Right, but what you mean when you say that they would not last a minute without US support is that the US for all intents and purposes is propping up an unpopular regime. It is unpopular because it is so pro-US! If it goes, you get radical Islam bigtime. Hamas X 10. You get more or less Al Qaeda in power in Arabia.

LS, you don't understand. You're like those Leftists who argue that the US dog wags the Israeli tail. Forget that. It's the Israeli dog wagging the US tail. The Israelis don't necessarily do what we want them to at all. But do we do what the Israelis want us to? You bet your sweet bippies.

If Israel is a colony of the US, then it is a very strange case of a colony actually controlling its colonizer in some important ways. That would surely go down in the annals of colonialism as a most strange transformation of colonial theory.

You don't understand. US power is what is keeping moderate regimes in power over there. That's good for the US, good for Israel and good for the War on Terror. In Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen - none of those places have free elections. Nor does Algeria or Mauritania.

There are scarcely free elections anywhere in Arabia. Truth is that no one in Arabia wants a pro-US regime. When you have free elections, you usually get of a radical anti-American regime of one sort or another. That's the bottom line. Hence, after the Hamas fiasco, the US is not in any hurry to promote free elections in the Arab World.

The Saudis do not have to dance to any kind of US tune. The US tells them to clean up their education system which is fomenting radical Salafist terror, the Saudis do little or nothing, then say they made good progress, and the US commends them in a fake report. That's how it goes.

The regime itself does not really promote terrorism per se, but they do in a roundabout way through their education system, state preachers and worldwide Wahhabi mosque funding.

The Saudis have us by the balls. By the oil balls. Furthermore, there is a complex alliance involved that the US elite is getting rich off of, and that alliance is not going to do anything to attack the Saudis.

The truth is that as long as Saudi Arabia, or any of the Gulf regimes, is a staunch US ally, the notion that the US is fighting any sort of a War on Terror is risible. How can we be fighting a Terror War when we are allied with those who are causing all the terrorism?

The people of the Kingdom are Wahhabi because this is what the people want. True, the people tire of Wahhabism, but they really don't know much else. The Royals are split. Some are pro-Wahhabi, and others are reformist. It's very complicated.

The game the regime has been playing since 1979 or so is Take Your Terrorism Elsewhere - Don't Target the Kingdom. Some even think that the royals support Sunni terrorism outside the Kingdom in order to kill off the young men who might make war on the Royals. That was the deal that the Family cut with bin Laden - Keep Your Terrorism Out of Arabia and We Will Not Bother You.

A secular culture like Syria or Lebanon or Libya does negligible damage to world's fabric, yet they are ferociously attacked in Washington and Jerusalem as the Terror Masters.

They are only demonized in that they are strongly anti-Israel and that those are the last countries in the region who have failed to become US allies. The lesson in Arabia is that you will become a US ally, or the US will try to destroy you in one way or another.

Further, the Iranian regime hardly sponsors terrorism anywhere other than in Palestine. They do support Hamas, it is true. They do want us out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan, because we are using those nations as bases to threaten Iran with.

But if you look elsewhere in the world of terrorism for the hand of Iran, it is not to be found. In the world of Muslim terrorism, all hands tend to point in one way or another back to the Gulf. Not just Saudi Arabia, but the entire Gulf. The staunch US allies in the Gulf. The money, the ideology, the troops, the mosques - they all come from the Gulf. From private oil money in the Gulf.

And that has almost nothing to do with the US, except that we are willing to overlook it in favor of our alliances with all of the Gulf regimes.

Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.

On Immigration

We have quite a few folks coming to this blog who are opposed to immigration. To be honest, almost everyone in the US who is opposed to immigration is White, and to some extent, it's associated with White nationalism.

There are also anti-immigrant sites out there like Vdare, but they are almost always on the crazy end of the spectrum. Vdare is not White nationalist, but they do want to end all immigration altogether. On the far moderate end of White nationalism, we have American Renaissance. I do like to hang out there because it's nice to hear real, honest talk on race for once.

In general, the White nationalists on Amren want to end non-White immigration altogether.

I'd like to point out that this is a crazy and extremist point of view. Furthermore, Whites are only 65% of the US in 2006 according to this chart, and possibly less. 2% of the US is Muslim, and the overwhelming majority are not Europeans. Another .5% of the population are Indian-Americans. 1% of the population are Arabs, mostly Christians. Let us reduce the Euro-White population to 61.5%.

I suppose with a White population declining like this, we would expect to see wild and crazy proposals like this. It's really just a sign of desperation.

Few non-Whites want to limit immigration this strictly, and even many Caucasians don't. Keep in mind that most White nationalists call only Europeans White. Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Indians - none of them count.

So almost everyone who is not a European White in the US has recent immigrant roots and does not want to end immigration. We should feel lucky if they want to limit it at all.

Arabs, Turks, Kurds, North Africans, Africans, Hispanics of all types (even White Hispanics), Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, SE Asians, Filipinos, Polynesians, East Indians, Central Americans, Caribbeans, Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis - none of these folks are on board for an immigration moratorium.

That leaves us the 61.5% Euro-Whites? Now, we would need over 80% of European Whites to get on board for an immigration moratorium. Not going to happen. They would be very lucky to get even 50%.

Looking around the world, we would be very hard-pressed to find even one country that has banned all immigration. Someone find me one, please!

Japan and Korea are always being brought up, but there are plenty of immigrants in both places. What may be a lot more difficult there is getting citizenship.

But that's not unusual, nor is it the point here. Germany had race-based citizenship until recently, and may still have it. Syria and probably other Arab nations has race-based citizenship (The Kurds have not even been allowed to be citizens, because they are not Arabs!)

So White nationalists are really changing the subject here. We ask them to show us some countries who have been so crazy as to ban all immigration, and they point to Japan and Korea, who have merely made it difficult to be a citizen, while immigrants are fairly common (indeed, Jared Taylor, head of Amren, was an immigrant in Japan for years).

So the truth is that there are almost no nations that have banned immigration altogether. Why are White nationalists promoting this then? Because they are nuts.

At this point, this project isn't going anywhere, like every White nationalist project.

So I would say it's time for those of us on the anti-immigrant spectrum to cut our losses and do some damage control. As immigration isn't going to be ended, sensible folks ought to focus on limiting it. Negative Population Growth advocates an end to illegal immigration to the extent possible, a removal of all illegal immigrants, and a reduction in legal immigration to 200,000. This is reasonable, and I support that organization.

Here is a good example of the White nationalist mindset from my comments section:

Why do Whites oppose massive non-White immigration?

Because non-White immigration causes higher crime, declining standards in education and morality, more drugs, more economic degradation and economic inequality, more strife/suspicion/competition between ethnic groups, more welfare and big government, more overpopulation and pollution, and so on.

ALL countries and empires have eventually fallen or balkanized after being swamped by millions of 'immigrant' invaders, even the non-White empires and countries -- and the same is now happening in America.

Those opposing massive non-White immigration to America are more opposed to the decline of America than they are against other races and ethnicities. If they are against other races or ethnicities it is because their presence hastens and is an obvious sign of this decline.

You will find this mindset all over Amren, and probably deep down inside Vdare, too.

The problem with this is that it is in large part false. The notion that immigration leads to inevitable strife, group competition, environmental degradation in an already crowded nation, etc. is going to be true with any group of immigrants.

However, White nationalists are pro-natalists who cheer stories about White women having 18 kids, so they really shouldn't talk about overpopulation leading to environmental degradation. Furthermore, your average White nationalist is a hard rightwinger, and at least their voting patterns suggest that they are quite hostile to environmentalism.

All of the other points are not true for non-White immigration in toto. There is no problem with "non-White" immigration per se, but there are problems, sometimes major problems, with select groups.

As a good rule, less restricted immigration from US colonies, of refugees and illegal immigration is problematic because of a lack of a rigorous selection process that winnows out many applicants. Legal immigration with a rigorous selection process has been associated with few problems, except in the odd case of Dominicans from the Dominican Republic.

Let us look at the "non-White" immigrant groups in the US:



South Americans: No problems here. They are very well-screened, and with the exception of some Colombians in New York City, pretty well behaved. It's not a large group. There are small Peruvian, Ecuadorian and Argentine enclaves in Los Angeles, and there are Venezuelan enclaves in Florida and Texas.


Japanese: Always one of the best immigrant groups. There are enclaves in San Francisco and Gardena, California. The enclaves are safe as far as the Japanese go, but Gardena now has many Blacks. When I taught school in Los Angeles, the non-PC teachers used to joke, "Gimme a class full of Japs and Jews and I'll never complain."

A teacher friend of mine was asked to fill out a form that idiotically said, "Ethnic preference". He was White, but he put, "Japanese". The principal called him in and asked, "What do you think you're doing? You're not Japanese." He answered, "It said ethnic preference. I prefer to teach Japanese students." I was amazed that Japanese students got a little squirrelly in 8th grade.

All humans are horrible at age 13, but I thought maybe the Japanese transcended that. They didn't, but they were the breeziest 8th graders I've ever taught. By 9th grade, they were back to normal, and by 7th grade, they were still ok. If all kids were like this, parenting could be done with your eyes closed.


Chinese: See Japanese. There are many new immigrants with poor English who are are adding to already existing Chinatown enclaves in many large cities, but this problem will sort itself out. There is poverty in Chinatowns, but there is little crime. For some reason, poverty in Chinatowns is not a serious societal problem.

There are also quite a few exploited Chinese illegal immigrants, but almost all are working in Chinatowns and speaking Chinese on the job. They are taking few, if any, jobs from Americans. Very low crime rate. Chinatowns are safe places in the daytime at least and generally pleasant at night.


Koreans: More or less the same as Chinese. They are probably better assimilated than Chinese. There is a vast enclave in Los Angeles (Koreatown) and a large enclave in Garden Grove, California. The enclaves are safe both night and day. Very low crime rate.


Vietnamese: Most came as refugees and got off to a rocky start. There are some gangs, but overall it appears that their crime rate is far below Whites. Their criminals generally prey on their own.

Young Vietnamese in Orange County, California are becoming a new high-achieving elite. This is the highest scoring group in the CA school system and US Irvine is full of Vietnamese students. They have formed some ethnic enclaves, but the young ones are assimilating, and even their enclaves are pleasant, non-dangerous places in both night and day. One large ethnic enclave is in Garden Grove, California.

There is an enclave in Richmond, California that has a high crime rate and is not doing well, but this seems to be anomalous.


Khmer: Not a large group, but there are some enclaves, especially in Long Beach and Santa Ana, California. There is still heavy welfare use, but a new generation is coming up. There are some youth gangs, but overall, the crime rate seems low. Khmer enclaves are pleasant and not dangerous at least in daytime.


Hmong: This group of refugees still has very heavy welfare use. There are also gangs, but the overall crime rate seems much lower than the White rate, at least here in Fresno. There are enclaves in California's Central Valley and in Minnesota.

The new generation is coming of age, going to school and doing well. Highly intelligent; they resemble Chinese. Their enclaves are not that pleasant and tend to be poor and rundown, but don't seem to be all that dangerous. Their criminals generally prey on their own.


Mien: There are enclaves in Northern California in Davis and Merced in the Central Valley. They are refugees that came in with the Hmong. In appearance and behavior, they are very Chinese like the Hmong.

A friend of mine worked in Social Services in Davis and said she would go to these poverty-stricken, blighted, rundown, hellhole apartment complexes and visit the Mien welfare families. The parents would be sitting on the floor eating out of a rice bowl and did not speak a word of English. They seemed like they were fresh out of the jungle of SE Asia. The walls would be covered with the kids' report cards - all A's. Think about it.

On balance, seems to be a good group. High welfare use is balanced by a crime rate probably way lower than Whites, and the kids seem to have a good future.


Lao: This group of refugees still has high welfare use, and there are youth gangs. The young people seem to be doing well, going to school, graduating, moving on. Despite the gangs, the crime rate seems to be much lower than the White rate, at least in Fresno. There are enclaves in Fresno and Santa Ana, California. Their enclaves are poor and run-down, but not that dangerous for non-SE Asians.

They are part of the high-crime, poorly-performing Asian enclave in Richmond, California that is so far pretty anomalous.


Khmu: Khmu from Laos are part of the poorly-performing, high-crime Asian enclave in Richmond, California, along with Vietnamese, Lao and Samoans. So far, this situation is pretty anomalous. This seems to be a case of very poor Asian refugees moving into a horrible Black ghetto and aping the worst Black behaviors.

I don't have any data on Khmu other than the Richmond report, and on that basis, I'm inclined to mark them as a problem ethnic group, but to tell the truth, I lack good data on them, and they really are a miniscule group anyway.


Thai: Not a large group, but there are some enclaves in Los Angeles. They seem to be doing well and are out of poverty. Little or no gangs or crime. Professionals, owners of shops and restaurants.


Burmese: A tiny group that seems to be doing quite well, at least those I met.


Tibetans: A very small group that is active politically. No known problems. Behaviorally resemble Chinese.


Filipinos: A much-vilified group, even by other Asians. There are youth gangs. They form large enclaves in California in Carson, Wilmington, north of downtown Los Angeles and in San Fransisco. There are also a number in the Central Valley.

I have no idea what the crime rate is, but their enclaves in the Harbor area are pleasant enough at daytime. I taught them in school for a long time and felt they were well-behaved and pleasant students. Some are quite intelligent. Filipinos may undergo high selection pressure by US immigration, because they are said to be one of the highest performing immigrant groups of all, and the highest performing of the Asian groups.


Indonesians, Aborigines, Melanesians, Papuans, Malays, Mongolians, Nepalese: For all intents and purposes, these groups don't even exist as immigrant communities in the US. I've never met an immigrant from most of these groups. I have met a few Indonesian and Malay students who were very well-behaved.


Micronesians (Marshall Islands): There are a few of them in the US, but not many. Some have serious diseases, because the islands are a disease haven. As immigrants, they are totally unscreened, as the islands are still pretty much US territory. Overall, little problem. Warm, friendly, pleasant, easy-going people. I do recommend completely cutting these islands off from US colonization.


Polynesians (Hawaiians, Tongans and Samoans): Samoa is still a colony of the US, so they get to come here totally unscreened. I taught them for years in LA, and I really don't mind them too much, but some can be violent.

Easy-going, warm, friendly, pleasant people who like to laugh and party. There are gangs, but Samoans are not a large community, so it's dubious how much of a problem they are. They are reportedly causing major problems in Salt Lake City.

There appear to be some problems with Tongan gangs, but it doesn't seem to be serious because there are just not that many of them.

This is one immigrant group that may on balance be a problem, albeit a small one. They are an issue purely because they are unscreened. Hawaiians are not immigrants in Hawaii, but they are a serious problem there, where they form a vast and teeming underclass. They are not violent so much as thieving. This is not an immigrant issue because Hawaiians are native to the US.


Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans: This group more or less does not exist in the US. Never met one.


East Indians: This is a fairly large immigrant group here in California. H-1B scab guest workers are a problem, but they are not immigrants, so they are best dealt with elsewhere. Here in this part of California, this group is mostly Punjabis.

Punjabis are a very high-functioning ethnic group in the US who cause almost no problems at all. Punjabis in the US have a surprisingly high intelligence, work extremely hard and commit almost no crime. Other Indians are not so common, but they tend to be very high-functioning also, and are often professionals. Mass immigration of this group would be a bad idea, but it's not happening yet.


Afghans: A very small group of very high-functioning immigrants. I have met some. Many professionals. Those here tend to be quite secular and even progressive or even Leftist. There is a small enclave in Fremont, California.


Pakistanis: We have some here in California. Here again, a very high-functioning group with few to no problems. Many professionals, some shopkeepers and a few students. Tend to be seculars or even Christians.


Iranians: This group is doing very well in the US. There is an enclave in Beverly Hills, California. The ones who are here are often the rich and secular supporters of the Shah. This group causes almost no problems at all. High education attainment and professional involvement.


Kurds: A very small group that appears to cause minimal problems, but some in Tennessee have formed street gangs for some reason. Little known.


Iraqis: Those here tend to be Chaldean Christians who cause almost no problems at all. We have a few in California. There is an enclave in Michigan. A very traditional group who do not mingle much with outsiders.


Palestinians: We have some in my area. They run small stores, gas stations, bakeries, and cause no problems at all. A very high-functioning group. Most around my place seem to be pretty apolitical. Quite a few are Christians. Warm, easy-going, happy, talkative and very hard-working. A few are militant in a quiet way.


Syrians: Mostly secular, often secular Muslims or Christians. Often well-educated. A small group.


Lebanese: A small group that does quite well. A very large number are Christians. Often run small stores. An enclave in Michigan. Many have been in the US for a long time.


Yemenis: There is a small group around me who run markets. They do very well, are extremely hard-working and cause no problems at all. Tend to be apolitical religious Muslims who are very conservative and traditional.


Turks: A small group in the US who often run stores, dry cleaners, etc. Very well-behaved. Tend to be secular.


Kuwaitis: There are some students here. Tend to be very, very religious Muslims. I'm not aware of any problems though. They seem to go home after school. This is a tiny group.


Jordanians: Secular, often Palestinian, mostly students. I only met one, and she was a militant but secular Palestinian-Jordanian and was very well-to-do. A tiny group.


North Africans: Honestly, I have never met one other than Egyptians. This must be a very tiny group.

The US is not having problems with Kurds, Iraqis, Turks and North Africans like the Europeans are. Mass immigration of Turks, North Africans, Kurds and Arabs as the Europeans did would probably be a disaster - this entire whole group is extremely well-screened, and that needs to continue.


Egyptians: Run gas stations or work in the professions. Many are Coptic Christians. Absolutely zero problems at all. Most here are apolitical, secular and divorced from Middle Eastern issues altogether. Often traditional, even the Copts. Often surprisingly intelligent and educated, as is the case with many Arabs in the US.


Ethiopians: There are enclaves in California's Central Valley and in Los Angeles down around the airport (LAX). This group seems to cause few to no problems. Many are students and are quite intelligent. They very much keep to themselves. Many are Christians. The women are often quite beautiful.


Somalis: Apparently a disaster. They are also causing terrible problems in Europe, especially Norway and Finland. Almost all are coming to the US as refugees, and refugees are typically a more or less unscreened population. In other words, almost anyone gets in. Probably 99% of these Somalis would be rejected if they applied for ordinary legal immigration, but with refugees, they pretty much all get in.

There are not many of them here, but the few that are have quickly descended into an Underclass of chaos, crime, poverty, unemployment and heavy welfare use. These refugees are not appropriate for America.

They come from Africa, and are not the sort of Africans who do well here (see the next listing). They can easily go to other African nations. It won't be ideal, but I assume that in general, they won't starve. There's no reason to bring an African refugee all the way to the US.


Sub-Saharan Black Africans: There are few in the country. There are some Nigerians, but they are often extremely high-functioning professionals. There are reportedly some Nigerian criminals in the US, but the number is not large.

This group undergoes extreme screening (99.5% minimum of Nigerians trying to get in to the US are rejected), which is appropriate. As such, they are surprisingly the highest-performing immigrant group of all. I have only met Nigerians and one Cameroonian, all professionals. Mass immigration of this group would be a nightmare.


Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz: Virtually nonexistent.


Armenians: Some White nationalists say they are not White, so we include them. A very high-functioning group. There are some street gangs in Los Angeles around Hollywood and Glendale, and there is some organized crime also, but overall, they appear to not be much a problem.

There are enclaves in California in Los Angeles (East Hollywood), Glendale and vicinity and around Fresno in the Central Valley. The enclaves are quite safe. Most Armenian crime involves fighting amongst and preying on their own kind.

Here in the Valley this is a very high-performing, intelligent group that is still quite traditional and often still keeps to themselves somewhat. They are farmers and run retail stores, restaurants and repair outfits, work in sales and the professions, and in general, do all sorts of things. Can be very warm and friendly. They have actually formed an elite in this area.


Georgians, Azeris, people of the Caucasus: They barely exist in the US.


Europeans: White nationalists seem to think this group is not a problem, and indeed they are not. Some formed highly criminal and impoverished Underclasses in the US for decades in the past, but they have moved out of that now. In my area, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, etc. (Mediterraneans) form a White elite and do very well, despite some White nationalists who insist they are not White.


Gypsies: Disaster. Fortunately, there are few of them in the US, and it needs to stay that way. They have adopted crime as a way of life. Very few should be allowed to enter the US. A small number are assimilated, out of crime and doing very well, but it's not typical.


Cubans: Hard to say. They have taken over Miami and turned it into a part of Latin America and virtually torn it off from the US. Many are arrogant and refuse to learn English. Miami as a city has virtually done away with the English language. They have formed a Latin American style White reactionary elite that has seriously corrupted Miami.

Miami has one of the most extreme wealth differentials in the US, as the reactionary Cubans have transplanted semi-feudal Latin American economics to their pet city. The wet foot - dry foot policy needs to end, and this group needs to be well-screened at least. I feel that on balance this group is not positive, mostly because they are arrogantly refusing to assimilate and are recreating Batista's Cuba in the US.


Dominicans: Reports indicate that this group is on balance a nightmare. Some are educated and intelligent and doing very well - I know one who is a clinical psychologist. Many others have transformed New York City neighborhoods into crime-ridden Underclass hellholes.

My understanding is that the vast majority of them in Washington Heights in New York came to the US as illegal aliens pretending to be Puerto Ricans, starting in the 1970's. They gave birth to anchor babies who are now all US citizens.

This group needs to be much better screened at the very least. This group formed an Underclass quickly after they came here post-1965, and in general this scenario has continued or even gotten worse.


Puerto Ricans: Same as Dominicans - a nightmare. A colony of the US. As such, they get to immigrate unscreened. Some are highly intelligent, are doing very well and are even in the professions. I know one who is a university professor.

Back East, they have formed crime-ridden, gang-infested Underclass hellholes, especially in New York City. We need to cut this colony loose and let them go their own way. Like Dominicans, they have formed long-lasting Underclass wrecked zones that have lingered or even gotten worse. This is one group that is not climbing out of the Underclass.

Future immigrants need much better screening, but that will never happen as long as Puerto Rico is a US colony. As long as Puerto Rico is a colony, Puerto Ricans can go to the US the same way I can move from California to Nevada.


Jamaicans: Tough call. There are supposed to be some drug gangs around, but I'm not sure how serious of a problem this is. I've met a few who were very warm, pleasant, friendly, hard-working and honest. It does not seem to be a large group. Mass immigration would be a mistake.


Haitians: Although we turn most of them away, there are quite a few in the US anyway. One might think they would form Underclass hellholes, but that does not seem to be the case. I don't know much about them. There are quite a few in New York and Florida.


Other Caribbeans (Virgin Islands, Grenada, etc.): There are not many here. Those who are here are often professionals. I met two who were schoolteachers and were doing very well.


Panamanians: Few, doing well. Very small group.


Costa Ricans: Small group that is doing well in the US.


Nicaraguans: On balance, seems to be a positive group, but little is known about them. Those that I have met were functioning well. Seems to be a small group. There is an enclave in Florida.


Hondurans: This group seems to be a problem. Many are illegals, and are caught up in the usual Mesoamerican illegal immigrant scenario. Doesn't appear to be a really large group. Needs much better screening and needs more research to be done on them - poorly known.


Salvadorans: Disaster. Many came here in the war as refugees and eventually got legalized. Many are in street gangs, selling dope, living in barrios and ghettos, and not doing well.

They have a vast enclave near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles that is probably quite dangerous at night. I have been there in the daytime, and even then it seems run-down, teeming, Third-Worldish, horribly overcrowded, impoverished, chaotic and somewhat Hellish, but I used to walk around there anyway, and nothing ever happened to me. The English language does not exist in this part of Los Angeles.

This group is not working out at all. Needs much better screening at the least.


Guatemalans: Nightmare. Huge numbers are illegal immigrants. Others are caught up in the gangsta thing. Many do not speak English well. This group is doing very poorly. Seem to have very high rates of criminality and gang membership. Needs much better screening at an absolute minimum.


Mexicans: A very complex group that makes up the huge majority of Hispanic immigrants to the US. A vast number of Mexicans are illegal immigrants who have destroyed towns all up and down California and all over Arizona and Texas. They are now fanning out across the US, causing crime and chaos everywhere they go.

Typically, cities with large numbers of Mexicans become run-down, dirty, trash-ridden (they don't believe in trash cans), graffiti-covered, crime-ridden, drug-drenched, gang-infested, noisy, chaotic, dangerous, overcrowded, wrecks. Sex crimes in particular seem to escalate. Petty thievery becomes epidemic. Spanish appears to be the native language and English is sidelined.

Services are quickly overrun, hospitals close and schools are overwhelmed. Very political, and many harbor irredentist and revanchist (in particular) aims on the US Southwest, which many claim as a part of Mexico. This treasonous mindset has also been adopted by the Left and is highly disturbing.

Cities with many Mexicans may quickly become very corrupt. Mexican farm labor contractors utilize employer-employee relations out of the Third World. Cities taken over by Mexicans come to more resemble Tijuana than American cities. Many are hostile towards the US and especially towards Whites. This group, viewed as a whole, is a total catastrophe, and is the main source of immigration problems in the US today.

At the same time, many older Mexican illegals are hard-working, pleasant, polite, generous, family-oriented, religious and very well-behaved, but their children are typically a horror.

There is also a large group of Mexicans who have been here a while, in some cases for over 100 years as the original residents of the US Southwest. In most cases, they are assimilated and doing very well.

Another group came more recently and has assimilated well, though they continue to speak Spanish a lot. Their English is also often fine, and many are light-skinned. This group could be classed as the White Mexicans, and they tend to form a bit of an elite in these Mexican communities, although the extreme racial stratification of Mexico seems to be breaking down in the US. They are often very well-behaved and so are their children.

There is another group that are not necessarily White Mexicans, but are also also assimilating and doing very well.

As you can see, this is a very complex group that is split in two huge classes, one a good-functioning and assimilating group that causes few to no problems and the other a vast Underclass that is a total clusterfuck. There are also probably many that are floating somewhere in between these two vast sets in a transition zone, or into one set and out of another, or back and forth into the transition zone.

At the very least, illegals need to be tossed out or encouraged to leave, Mexican legal immigration must be lowered, and we urgently need to do a lot of research on which Mexican immigrants are likely to join the positive assimilating group and which are going to augment our Mexican Underclass horror.

Continued mass immigration of this group will cause a continuation and vast deepening of the gang and Underclass horrorshow in the US, along with an increasingly radical and militant Mexican politics in the US. As they get into power in some states, Mexicans will tend to promote Open Borders with Mexico.

If they ever get into power, expect to see Spanish made into an official language at the state level at least. If they get into power at the national level, expect Spanish as an official language in the US and an open border with Mexico.

Abortion may be made illegal. Women's rights may nosedive. We may develop a much more corrupt society. Human rights and basic liberties may go out the window in favor of the usual Latin American authoritarianism and lack of respect for the individual.

We may get a politics of either the Hard Left or Hard Right, as in Latin America. Gay rights will take a nosedive. The result of open borders with Mexico would quickly be 1/2 of Mexico in the US, and the US would be transformed just another Latin American country.

This endgame must be resisted at all costs and with all of our might. This is an issue that transcends Left, Right and Center and needs to be put front and center by US patriots of all ethnicities across the spectrum.


Conclusion: There is an urgent need for more research on the immigrant groups that are performing poorly, or at least those have large sections that are performing poorly. Some of these groups, such as Mexicans, have large groups that are doing well, large groups that are doing horribly, and probably a large group drifting in between or in and out of the two main groups.

It is essential to determine the characteristics of those sections of Caribbean and Mesoamerican immigrants that are causing so many problems for our society. This research will be difficult to do because the usual suspects will scream racism at the very mention of it.

No one is talking about keeping certain ethnicities off of the immigration rolls altogether. We are only trying to determine a set of characteristics that winnows the successful from the unsuccessful and then hopefully proceed to a saner immigration policy from there.

Problems with native citizens are bad enough, but you can hardly keep them out of the country - you are more or less stuck with them. Immigrants are guests at best; they are here at our whim and can be expelled or denied entry in the first place as we see fit.

It is sheer madness to import large numbers of persons who are bad for the nation. By that definition, America has been an insane nation for many years now. It's time for some treatment. Time is of the essence and we have little time to wait.

We also need to seriously reconsider family reunification immigration.

Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.