Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir " A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka ." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN. (CNN) Last weekend, the United States deported Friedrich Karl Berger, an ex-Nazi concentration camp guard. The deportation was seen as a triumph of justice. When commenting on the case, Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson lauded the efforts of law enforcement involved in the process, while affirming America isn't "a safe haven for those who participated in Nazi crimes." Except that it has been. Lev Golinkin The US, of course, played a crucial role in defeating Nazi Germany. Over 400,000 Americans lost their lives in the war against Adolf Hitler. But there's also a dark postscript to this story, one that began when World War II ended and one that we need to address now. America's been a haven for thousands of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who served in concentration camps and death squads and SS units. Several were even leaders of Nazi-allied governments. And we didn't merely take them in -- in some cases, we welcomed and protected them; we kept them safe from justice. It's far past time we acknowledged it. Besides the obvious ethical reasons for historical honesty, there are also social ones. We're in the middle of a heated national conversation fueled by a hunger for racial justice. But how can we hope to acknowledge the impact of centuries-old institutions like slavery and Jim Crow when we can't be honest about coddling perpetrators of the Holocaust, which still has living eyewitnesses, victims and veterans? We can't get to 1619 if we can't get past 1945. Read More The rare occasion when the American government does acknowledge working with Nazis is Operation Paperclip , which brought over some 120 Third Reich rocket scientists, such as ...
Nazi
Stabbings In Sacramento as Neo-Nazis, ‘Anti-Fascists’ Clash at Capitol
Seven people were sent to the hospital with stab wounds, two with life-threatening injuries, on Sunday afternoon as Black Bloc anarchists attacked and fought with white supremacist groups outside the state Capitol in Sacramento. Several other demonstrators who managed to avoid the hospital suffered bruises after the groups engaged in a chaotic melee. The Black Bloc activists were part of a militant leftist “anti-fascist” group,”Antifa Sacramento.” The right-wing extremists were members of the Traditionalist Worker Party and the Golden State Skinheads, and were holding a permitted rally. The black-clad anarchists, carrying signs reading “Nazi scum,” outnumbered the Traditionalist Workers Party / skinhead group, which was oringally slated to include members of other groups, including “Blood & Honor,” the National Socialist Movement, and the Ku Klux Klan. The “anti-facist” protestors carried signs reading “Nazi scum.” Shortly before noon, emergency responders were called to the scene as the demonstrations turned violent. Insane video. Crowd sees any signs of “Nazis” and they run&attack. A lot of people bleeding/getting maced. @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/PoFhILfZ95 — Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) June 26, 2016 Police, anti-fascists and traditionalist workers party clashing pic.twitter.com/IsOGIUd6uS — Ellen Garrison (@EllenGarrison) June 26, 2016 Nice try Nazi’s/KKK. #Sacramento : @DaveId pic.twitter.com/GbriBKPFOB — #FreeJalilMuntaqim (@BlakeDontCrack) June 26, 2016 Horrifying…Blood spatters all over the ground. Police trying to control crowds. @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/aPtjTAO6pj — Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) June 26, 2016 The Los Angeles Times also reported: Some protesters came dressed for battle, several seen carrying wooden batons and some wearing plastic shields. “They came ready to fight,” said Cooper. One local television crew was accosted by the protesters that showed up to confront the white ...
WATCH: Democrat Uses ‘Fine People Hoax’ in Hearing, Gets Fact-checked on the Spot
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) attempted to use the Charlottesville “fine people hoax” to attack former President Donald Trump in a hearing on Wednesday — and was fact-checked on the spot by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). Lee repeated the false claim, repeated for years by Democrats and the media, that Trump had referred to violent neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 as “very fine people.” In fact, Trump said that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists should be “condemned totally.” (In referring to “very fine people on both sides,” he had been referring to non-violent demonstrators on either side of the issue of whether a Confederate statue should be removed from a local public park. President Joe Biden made the hoax a core part of his presidential campaign — despite being informed it was untrue: Joel B. Pollak The hoax has been publicly debunked several times — notably by then-Vice President Mike Pence during his debate with Kamala Harris in the 2020 election, and by Trump’s lawyers in the second Senate impeachment trial earlier this month. U.S. Senate Lee, who chairs the U.S. House Judiciary Committe’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, tried to use the hoax in a hearing titled “The Rise of Domestic Terrorism in America.” She cited Charlottesville in attempting to attack what she called “attempts to equate white supremacy to anarchists, activists, and other groups who are opposed to white nationalism and other domestic terror.” She added, referring to Charlottesville: “No, there are not good people on both sides.” Biggs, who is the ranking member of the Republican minority, then rolled the tape. House Judiciary Committee He then concluded: “The point is, the previous president, the former president, Trump, called out neo-Nazis and white nationalists and said they should condemned. I think there’s no one in this room that would disagree with that statement.” Joel B. Pollak ...
Khan Statue Adviser Who Screamed at Queen Resigns over Antisemitism Claims
A member of Sadiq Khan’s statues commission who screamed at the Queen in church has resigned over antisemitism allegations. Toyin Agbetu was likely the most controversial member of the London mayor’s so-called Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, set up to review statues, place names, and other memorials to historic figures after Black Lives Matter supporters began targeting British monuments in 2020. In 2007, the British-Nigerian activist had disrupted a service in Westminster Abbey commemorating Britain’s abolition of the slave trade, shouting at the Queen and alleging that “the British are the Nazis”, and later threatening to “punch out” a black security guard as he was removed from the building. Mayor Khan backed Agbetu after his past activities drew criticism, with a spokesman praising him “for his significant expertise, knowledge and experience as a social rights activist” and insisting that “His vast experience will provide a valuable contribution to the commission”. His office has changed its tune after blog posts by Agbetu emerged praising the author of a book titled The Jewish Onslaught , which says that “Jews control the media” and played “an integral role in the slave trade”, however. “Toyin Agbetu has today resigned from the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm and the Mayor believes this is the right course of action,” said a spokesman for Mayor Khan in comments reported by the Jewish Chronicle . Toyin Agbetu’s racist past, record of anti-Semitic comments and anti-vaccine lies were a risk to the safety of all Londoners. I have no idea why @SadiqKhan hired him to join his statue commission. But I welcome the news of his resignation. https://t.co/eIygiliou2 — Shaun Bailey (@ShaunBaileyUK) February 24, 2021 Agbetu’s posts were originally uncovered by Shaun Bailey, who is standing against Sadiq Khan in London’s delayed mayoral elections for the Conservative party. “Toyin Agbetu’s racist past, record ...
What Biden should do about China’s atrocities against the Uyghurs
Amed Khan is a human rights advocate, political activist and philanthropist whose board memberships include the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). He held leadership positions in the 1992 and 1996 Clinton presidential campaigns and was a member of the International Advisory Council for the International Crisis Group. The opinions expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN. (CNN) For too long, the world has ignored reports of China's mass detention and forced labor of Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities in the northwest region of Xinjiang. Now, both CNN and the BBC have published deeply reported and horrifying accounts of rape, abuse, and torture detailed by Uyghur women who'd been held in China's internment camps. Amed Khan China has since banned BBC World News from airing in the country and denied the abuse, telling CNN that "it is strictly forbidden to insult and abuse trainees in any way." But the women's accounts add to a record that includes reports of forced abortions and sterilizations , high-tech surveillance , and Uyghur children being separated from their parents . This genocide -- that's what it is -- poses an urgent test for President Joe Biden's new administration and for the international community. Either the United States and the world will finally go beyond tepid criticism and respond with real action, or we can forget about values, universal rights, and international law. Read More The term genocide should not be used casually. But it's correct to use it to describe China's treatment of the Uyghurs. The UN's Genocide Convention and US domestic law make it clear that genocide does not necessarily entail the group's immediate destruction by mass killing, but rather that destruction of the group in whole or in part must be the intended result. Disagreements amongst lawyers and pundits create a ...
