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Now to today's ZGram:
There is a lot more happening today than is reflected in the ZGram below in the situation around Austria where Joerg Haider has found out just exactly how "democracy" works. However, since I wrote it this morning before all the breaking additional news, I am shipping it "as is", hoping there can be a follow-up tomorrow.
For now, I am commenting on an Associated Press article by George Jahn, dated yesterday and filed in Vienna:
AP:
Outspoken populist Joerg Haider has negotiated a deal to allow his far-right party to share power in Austria's government - despite warnings from the United States and the European Union that such a move could lead to Austria's diplomatic isolation.
Haider, leader of the rightist Freedom Party, and Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel reached the agreement late this evening on a proposed coalition government between Haider's Freedom Party and the conservative People's Party.
The deal can still be rejected by President Thomas Klestil, who could call new elections or propose other alternatives. But he is unlikely to do so, even though he fears the foreign backlash that would result from the Freedom Party's inclusion in the government.
Zundelsite:
Klestil knows that there is ***already*** a backlash going on in Austria in favor of Haider, and that Haider could obtain the majority of seats if an election were called now.
AP: (subhead titled "U.S. Issues Warning")
Earlier, while talks were still under way, the Clinton administration warned that the United States would carefully examine its relations with Austria if Haider's party moved into a leadership position.
State Department spokesman James Foley said the United States is "continuing to keep the situation under review" and added that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had called Schuessel today. He offered no details.
Zundelsite:
Amazing! How about "self-determination" or "the will of the majority"? Democracy? In other words, outsiders want to impose their will on whom Austrians can choose as leaders?
Would the US let China dictate who could be president of the USA?
AP:
Suspicion of Haider's party stems in part from his past hostility to the EU, his opposition to immigration and remarks sympathetic to aspects of Adolf Hitler's regime. The EU's 14 other members have threatened to isolate Austria politically if Haider's party gains power.
Zundelsite:
Austria should be so lucky - to be free of the disastrous tentacles of these corrupt and decrepit regimes and their oligarchies.
AP: (subtitled Praising Hitler)
Haider gained international notoriety about 10 years ago by praising Hitler's "orderly" employment policies and lauding veterans of the murderous Waffen SS as "men of honor." He has since apologized for those comments.
Zundelsite:
Always Hitler! Where would these creatures be they couldn't cough up the specter of Hitler? 55 years after Hitler's defeat, his ghost still determines Haider's and Austria's fate? Hitler, long dead and gone, still determines if Pat Buchanan can become president of the US? The memory of Adolf Hitler must scare the dickens out of the so-called elites of today!
AP:
Haider has also spoken out against EU expansion, saying it would threaten jobs in Austria. Haider has predicted that the new government would impose a nearly complete ban on immigration.
Zundelsite:
Maybe that is why he is so popular at home? He puts Austrians first, and Austrians notice.
AP:
In Brussels, the European Commission, the European Union's executive branch, said it would continue a "working relation" with the new government as long as it abides by the EU treaty.
Zundelsite:
That's nice! That election of corrupt political hacks, which is involved in one outrageous financial disaster and scandal after another, is hardly a body to give morality lectures to Austria.
AP: (subtitled European Values)
But individual EU countries, including Britain, Germany and France, have warned that they would reduce ties to any government coalition with Freedom Party participation.
Zundelsite:
European values my foot! These Euro-crats would not recognize true European values if they stared them in the face.
AP:
"Europe has certain criteria and values that unite it," Italy's left-wing prime minister, Massimo D'Alema, told Italian radio today. "If these are thrown into question, Europe has a right to speak its mind."
Zundelsite:
The Italian leadership folks are the last who should talk - what with their P2 Lodge murders, hit squads, mafia connections and financial crookedness. Italy has been the "sick man" of Europe for half a century.
AP:
The EU action was a shock to this small alpine country of 7.8 million people, which is only now recovering from the diplomatic isolation brought about when former U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim was elected president in 1986 after trying to conceal his role as an intelligence officer in the Nazi army.
Zundelsite:
The bullies in power today always pick on little countries to terrorize them by displaying their thuggery - from Switzerland to Kosovo, from Austria to Iraq and Somalia. And now what else is new?
AP: (subtitled Israeli Protest)
In Israel, 30 lawmakers signed a petition today asking Austria's president to keep Haider out of the government. The petition, which was to be presented to the Austrian ambassador to Israel on Wednesday, said Haider's party "recalls the dark days of persecution against minorities" and that "the rule of the Nazi regime also began with democratic elections."
In an effort to contain the diplomatic damage, Klestil met separately today with Schuessel and caretaker Chancellor Viktor Klima.
Zundelsite
Israel is a fine one to speak. Israel has been founded and governed by convicted terrorists, cutthroats and war criminals for 50 years. Daily, Israel practices nasty persecution of its Palestinian minority.
AP:
Klestil asked the other EU member countries to "continue to treat Austria as an equal partner in the international community of states."
Schuessel said the EU threat without prior consultations was "not fair and not in concord with the spirit of the European treaties."
Nevertheless, the EU action stunned the political establishment.
Zundelsite:
The political elite were stunned by the brutality of the Austrian response because they betrayed neutral Austria and enmeshed them in the Babylonian experiment in Brussels.
AP:
Austria has been without a stable government since inconclusive parliamentary elections Oct. 3 propelled Haider's party into second place ahead of the People's Party.
Negotiations between Klima's first-place Social Democrats and the People's Party to renew their 13-year coalition collapsed last month, paving the way for talks with Haider's group.
In a statement Monday, the EU said it would curtail bilateral contacts with Austria, oppose appointments of Austrian candidates to international organizations and limit contacts with Vienna's ambassadors in EU capitals if Haider's party shares power.
Zundelsite:
Let's see if they have the nerve and the will to do that - or if they will blink first. Haider will soar in the opinion polls with every nasty statement made about him - for the people of Austria feel betrayed and lied to by their current leaders. That stuff is in the air.
<end of AP excerpts and commentary>
Now you will want to know just exactly why Haider is the Numero Uno Villain in Europe today, and how he transgressed in the eyes of the Almighty Lobby. Here is what Haider said, according to the above-mentioned AP report:
* OCTOBER 1990, while addressing an annual meeting of World War II war veterans at Ulrichsberg, known to attract former SS officers: "Our soldiers were not criminals; at most they were victims."
* JUNE 1991: "In the Third Reich they had an orderly employment policy." (That comment cost him the governorship of Carinthia!)
* FEBRUARY 1995 (during a parliamentary debate) ". . . the punishment camps of National Socialism. . . (Later on he admitted that he misspoke himself and really meant to say "concentration camps.")
* SEPTEMBER 1995 (again in an address to World War II veterans, including former members of the Waffen SS: "There are still decent people of good character who also stick to their convictions, despite the greatest opposition, and have remained true to their convictions until today."
* DECEMBER 1995 (during a TV interview): " The Waffen SS was a part of the Wehrmacht and hence it deserves all the honor and respect of the army in public life."
So there you have it - an interesting and instructive lesson of what kind of a mind set rules Europe and America today.
When I asked Ernst Zundel for a comment, he said: "Jörg Haider, like David Irving, is going to find out that no admissions, retractions or concessions will mollify these people. Only abject surrender will - surrender before their power and to their agenda."
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Thought for the Day:
"The entry into government in a European country of a far-right party whose leader has made alarming statements about the Nazi regime is bound to be a source of revulsion for every citizen of the free world. We must not let a single day pass without remembering the lessons of the Holocaust and learning from the terrible events of the 1930s and 1940s."
(Statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office, dated today)