media should be presumed truthful absent hard scientific proof.

Much of the mythology surrounding WW2 has already been debunked, such as the soap and lampshade stories. Even the "Big Lie" attributed to Hitler was spun. Those who have actually read "Mein Kampf" know that Hitler was not advocating the use of the "Big Lie" but warning against its use by others.

Documents declassified in 1994 confirm that Franklin Roosevelt did know the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor, but presented the attack to the American people as a surprise, to anger them into war. Hence, it is reasonable to question all other aspects of WW2 as possibly being propaganda as well.

Real history, true history, need never fear re-examination. The facts will always withstand closer and closer looks. All that may change are the fine details. As an example, the finding of the RMS Titanic revealed that the ship had indeed split in two as it sank, but the reality of the sinking itself never changed, despite a fleet of submersibles visiting the wreck.

Likewise, the real story of history may be refined by closer examination, but is never substantially changed. Only lies foisted on the public for political gain need fear the light on re-examination.

History is laced with instances of extreme cruelty by one group against the other. In almost every instance, the victims of that cruelty long for closer examination of their persecutors, hope for it, lobby for it, demand it. Only in the case of what happened in Germany's slave labor camps in WW2 do the purported victims work so hard to PREVENT any examination of what happened. Is this not a strange dichotomy?

There is no question that the Nazis were evil people as anyone who marches armed into another's lands to steal them are evil, whether it be Iraq or Palestine. And there is no question that Germany had slave labor camps. And there is no question than a great many people died in those camps.

What begs examination is whether the inmates at those camps died of the typhoid epidemics that swept across Germany towards the end of the war, or whether there was a deliberate program of extermination.

The modern nation of Israel owes its very existence to the latter version of events. Here you had the entire world sacrificing much blood and treasure on the principle that one nation did not have the right to simply grab the land belonging to another people, and you had the founders of Israel seeking the world's permission to do exactly that in Palestine. Without a propaganda device to persuade the world that Israel be allowed to do to Palestine what Germany could not be allowed to do to France, Israel would not exist. So there is no question that motive existed to amplify the events of WW2 in a way that supported the creation of Israel.

Well, Israel exists, and nobody seriously thinks it will go away any time soon, nor should it because the people living there today had nothing to do with the events of WW2.

But as WW2 is now history from the middle of the last century it is time to go back and shed the politically expedient lies that colored our perceptions and establish once and for all the facts of what really happened.

~ Michael Rivero

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Britons to attend Iran's Holocaust conference

Robert Tait in Tehran

Wednesday December 6th 2006

The Guardian

· Gathering will consider whether deaths took place

· Event 'will not be a forum for anti-semites'

Iran announced yesterday details of a conference questioning whether the Holocaust really happened, prompted by an international outcry a year ago when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis as "myth" fabricated to justify Israel.

The foreign ministry said "intellectuals and researchers" from 30 countries - including Britain - would attend Studying the Holocaust: An international view, in Tehran on Monday and Tuesday.

The idea for the gathering was dismissed earlier this year as "shocking, ridiculous and stupid" by Tony Blair. Iran responded by inviting him to attend.

A Foreign Office spokesman said it had no record of who was going. "I think the government's views on Iran's comments regarding the Holocaust are well known but it is not up to us who travels to Iran.

Participants will consider documentary, pictorial, physical and demographic evidence in what Iranian officials depict as an academic investigation to establish the Holocaust's authenticity and whether the reported number of victims was exaggerated. Organisers say it will include submissions for and against. It will also focus on the plight of the Palestinians.

The conference will have six panel discussions and an open forum. It will discuss the capacity of Nazi death camps and the impact of the second world war on other national and ethnic groups. Iranian officials say Jewish suffering is played up at the expense of other victims. Manouchehr Mohammadi, the foreign ministry's research and education officer, said the conference was intended as a platform for open discussion of the Holocaust, which Iran claims is denied in the west.

"Our aim is to scientifically study the Holocaust and listen to both sides before reaching a conclusion," Mr Mohammadi said. "This issue has a crucial role regarding the west's policies towards the countries of the Middle East, especially the Palestinians. Iran isn't against or for. We weren't involved in this event so we can be a neutral judge. It is important for us to know the answer so that we can process our stances to issues in this region. If we conclude that the Holocaust happened, we will admit it but we are still going to ask why Palestinians have to pay." He said it would not be a forum for anti-semites or neo-Nazis, and rabbis would attend. "Our policy doesn't mean we want to defend the crimes of Hitler."

Mr Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and has said its inhabitants should go to Europe or Alaska.

Michael Rosen, of the Community Security Trust, which works to safeguard Jews in Britain, said he was aware of the event but that it was not clear who was planning to attend from the UK. Karen Pollock, of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "To hold a state-sponsored conference questioning the truth of the Holocaust is not only deeply disturbing but a huge insult to Holocaust survivors and the families of Holocaust victims."