Fun In Hell

This week, the United States National Holocaust Museum in Washington released 116 photographs from the World War II era, including this one:

German officers and women's auxiliary having a day of fun during World War II is not that unusual; fun does happen in wartime. But what's made this and the other photos so remarkable, and such a comment on the human psyche, is that they are of the people who ran the Auschwitz death camp.

People like this:

That's Auschwitz camp commandant Richard Baer and the notorious doctor of death Josef Mengele on the left, having a pleasant little chat with the commandant of the Birkenau camp, Josef Kramer (obscured) and its former commandant, Rudolf Höss, in the foreground.

Look at the comradely smiles, the casual postures, as if they had not a care in the world -- as the souls of those they killed pile higher and higher on their shoulders.

Then, back to the fun:

And, come Christmas, business as usual between the operators of the death camps and their God, as this SS officer lights the candles on a Christmas tree:

What a lovely big tree -- but not big enough to cover the massive guilt of these brutal cogs in the evil Nazi machine.

A retired U.S. Army intelligence officer found the photos in an album in Frankfurt and gave them to the museum. The album originally belonged to Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the final camp commandant at Auschwitz.

You can read about the response these photos have had in Germany here, at Spiegel.

Mitt Who? Devil's Spawn Who?

In today's U.N. press briefing, there was a classic exchange exemplifying the snobby, eurocentric attitude so prevalent at the U.N. This one probably had the folks in the Romney camp shaking their heads.

Question: Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President, has written a press release that he has written a letter to Ban Ki-moon having to do with President of Iran’s attendance at the General Assembly session. So I guess I just wanted to know: has such a letter been received and if the Secretary-General has any response to it?

Spokesperson: The letter would be from whom?

(Gateway Pundit has more on Romney's request here, including this little gem from the letter: "If President Ahmadinejad sets foot in the United States, he should be handed an indictment under the Genocide Convention." The Convention defines genocide, among other things, as the "direct and public incitement to commit genocide," so Mitt's got a point. My only question is why we need to wait till the Devil's Spawn drops by our way.)

The spokesperson finally got around to saying he was aware of no such letter, nor did he have anything to say about Elie Weisel's similar request: That nations calling for the extermination of other nations should not be permitted to maintain their U.N. membership.

Question: The Mitt Romney letter comes on the heels of other people such as Elie Wiesel and so on asking to ban Iran from membership at the UN because of its violation of the UN Charter by threatening a Member State. The question is: does the Secretary-General have anything to add to that angle?

Spokesperson: Well, any questions about the membership of a Member State – it has to go through the General Assembly. It cannot go through any other body.

Question: But does the Secretary-General have anything to say about that?

Spokesperson: No.

How can the Sec-Gen of the U.N. not have anything to add to the question of Iran's membership in an organization that (in theory at least) is opposed to genocide, especially when Mah- I'm in the - moud - for lox and bagles Ahmadinejad (rhymes with "I want to debate that Bush cad) is coming to New York soon? The drawn-out question is rhetorical, of course.

U.N. rule #1: Never expect an answer from the Sec-Gen on a controversial subject.

U.N. rule #2: Unless, of course, it's an opportunity to criticize the United States.

Totally cool art: Culture War

A Darfur In Myanmar

"I have never seen peace. My life was an unending disaster, a life of torture and hunger. We were just slaves. Do you understand? We are damned."

That's Tha Lei Paw, a 32-year-old Burmese woman describing her former life, before she fled Myanmar for the relative safety of a refugee camp in Thailand.

Calling the situation in Myanmar a Darfur is not a stretch; the only thing that's different is the murdering genocidal maniacs are Buddhists. The victims in both genocides are Christians.

Myanmar's Christian Karen tribe represents approximately seven percent of the population. The Bhuddist Burman tribe makes up 70 percent of the population and 100 percent of the national power base.

Spiegel gives us the background lesson:

When the Union of Burma, a former British colony, gained its independence in 1948 it was Southeast Asia's wealthiest country. The government in the capital Rangoon awarded the country's dozens of minorities -- like the Shan, Kachin, Rohanis and Karen -- autonomous status. Some were even given the right to leave the federation after 10 years, a promise that was quickly forgotten.

Burma's democratic institutions quickly crumbled, leaving a group of kleptomaniac generals in charge. They plundered the country's natural resources, including teakwood, precious stones, oil and natural gas. Their opponents, dozens of small guerilla armies, soon began waging a losing war to gain self-determination for their ethnic groups.

The army of the Shan State in the northeast Myanmar's Golden Triangle region was led by Khun Sa, a drug baron sought by international authorities. The Wa Army of former headhunters was under the command of the Pao brothers, two former Red Guards who had fled China after the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. As far back as 1950, the Karen rebels went into hiding in the jungle in response to countrywide massacres perpetrated against their ethnic minority. Human rights organizations estimate that Myanmar's ethnic conflicts have claimed more than 600,000 human lives since independence.

Since that 600,000 equates to just under 10,000 a year, I'm guessing the estimate is low and the kleptomaniac generals, drug-dealing war lords and jungle-dwelling Commies have actually killed far more innocents.

The government, not unlike the government in Khartoum, says it's not their fault, it's the Karens' fault for mounting an armed opposition to the suppression and abuse of the Burmans. But the rape, murder and forced slavery imposed by the Burmans goes far beyond mere suppression of an uprising.

The UN, as usual, is way on top of the situation, focusing not on the genocide, but on the regimes repression of recent demonstrations against hiked-up gas prices. Sez the UN's special envoy on Myanmar matters:

“[The Myanmar government is] all the more disappointing as they not only have the effect of calling into question the stated commitment to democratization and national reconciliation by the authorities, but also make it more difficult to maintain support, international support, for engagement with Myanmar at a time when we believe strongly that the country needs international assistance in addressing the many pressing challenges, from political and human rights issues to humanitarian and socio-economic problems.”

As long as the UN takes genocidal militarists at their word and thinks there's any legitimacy to their "commitment to democratization," it will get nowhere, and the Christians of Karen will continue to suffer.