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Ben Norton
@BenjaminNorton
, 12 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
.@AOC is correct that the US government is running (privatized, for-profit) concentration camps for refugees and immigrants.

What is not being emphasized though is this barbaric policy is *bipartisan*. It was going on under Obama, and expanded under Trump
latimes.com/nation/la-na-i…
In this article from 2016 (under Obama), a Japanese-American who as a child during WWII was held in a US gov. concentration camp drew direct comparisons to the (for-profit) internment camps for immigrants today.

The US has a long, horrific history of this
latimes.com/nation/la-na-i…
Hitler and the Nazi party were big admirers of the US government's institutional racism and apartheid. They borrowed tactics from the US, in fact: The concentration camps were partially inspired by the colonial reservation system against Native Americans
newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…
Historian: "Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and US history."

"He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west"
newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…
"The genocidal mentality and actions of the US policy makers [against Indigenous peoples] would find similar expression years later when the Nazis, under Hitler, studied the [US gov's] plans of Bosque Redondo to design the concentration camps for Jews."
jewishjournal.com/mobile_2011121…
How American Racism Influenced Hitler: newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…

The book "Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law" details how US genocide against the Indigenous and Jim Crow policies provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany
amazon.com/Hitlers-Americ…
Spanish colonialists ran concentration camps in Cuba—which the US made its own colony, with camps

British colonialists ran concentration camps in South Africa

German colonialists ran concentration camps in South West Africa

This is how colonialism works
smithsonianmag.com/history/concen…
In Discourse on Colonialism, revolutionary Aimé Césaire famously posited fascism was application of European colonialism *internally*:

The Nazis "applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for" the Global South
monthlyreview.org/product/discou…
For people who doubt the US government is running concentration camps, the Trump administration is literally using an Army base — which was used as an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II — to intern refugee and migrant children
time.com/5605120/trump-…
The Obama administration, like Trump, also dumped thousands of refugee and immigrant children into military bases.

These refugees are fleeing US-fueled violence and US-backed right-wing regimes in Central America.

Once again, this barbarism is bipartisan
military.com/daily-news/201…
France also used concentration camps to inter Algerians who resisted the murderous French colonial regime.

In fact France's largest concentration camp was used for refugees of the Spanish Civil War, then for Jews during the Holocaust, then for Algerians
france24.com/en/20171110-vi…
But history is written by the colonial victors, and the US, Britain, and France have done a very good job at whitewashing and erasing their long and continued history of using concentration camps to intern "illegals" who break their arbitrary colonial laws
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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Ben Norton
@BenjaminNorton
Let's be clear: The Trump admin sent a drone into what Iran says was its sovereign airspace. The US knew Iran would shoot it down in self-defense—but the US gov also knew the corporate media would obediently portray this as Iranian "escalation," helping justify Trump's aggression
The Trump admin's strategy toward Iran is blatantly aggressive and illegal provocation — but the corporate media is dutifully going along with this, helping to whitewash US aggression, portray Iran as the aggressor, and sell a new war.

The corporate media is a handmaiden to war.
Case study in propaganda: NBC's Today show obediently regurgitates the US military's narrative, with no skepticism.

Iran says the US drone was in its airspace; US military says otherwise. Whose claims make the headline? US of course.

This is state media.
today.com/video/iran-sho…
Read 13 tweets
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Ben Norton
@BenjaminNorton
The Trump admin is recycling the same playbook Bush used for Iraq, trying to falsely link Iran to al-Qaeda to justify a war of aggression.

The reality is Iran has led the fight *against* AQ — while the US and its allies supported AQ in Syria, Yemen, etc.
nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/…
Back in 2017 I reported at The @GrayzoneProject how the Trump administration was working with the neoconservative pro-war think tank FDD to try to falsely link Iran to al-Qaeda (even though, again, Shia-majority Iran has been leading the fight against AQ!)
thegrayzone.com/2017/11/10/tru…
At The @GrayzoneProject in 2017, I also wrote about how Trump was blaming Iran for attacks carried out by al-Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden (who had in fact been a longtime CIA ally, fighting in alliance with the US in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union)
thegrayzone.com/2017/11/14/tru…
Read 3 tweets
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Ben Norton
@BenjaminNorton
A mainstream media outlet finally acknowledged the leaked OPCW report that challenges the claim that the Syrian gov used chemical weapons in Douma

AFP published this on June 13, *a month after* the report leaked: france24.com/en/20190613-ch…

Leaked on May 13: syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers…
This AFP news wire shows that the OPCW leadership is apparently much more concerned about controlling internal leaks than about its reputation completely falling apart after a dubious, politically compromised investigation in Douma
france24.com/en/20190613-ch…
Award-winning scientist and MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol analyzed the leaked OPCW report on Douma and said "The evidence is overwhelming that the gas attacks were staged"
thegrayzone.com/2019/05/25/opc…
via @GrayzoneProject
Read 3 tweets

Related threads

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JMHendersonSr❌
@JMHendersonSr
In response to @AOC’s #idiotic assertion that #US operated #detention facilities are #concentrationcamps, @Liz_Wheller posted a comment that @PPFA abortion businesses are the #concentration #camps we have to worry about.
@EmmaBella212 took exception to her observation. I replied, observing that #blastocysts, #embryos, and #fetuses are #human #beings.
@EricBrown1982 takes exception to my assertion that #science defines the offspring of #human #parents as #human and/or my assertion that #science confirms that the #blastocyst, the #embryo, and the #fetus are all #living #beings.
Read 37 tweets
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Ajay Singh Chaudhary
@materialist_jew
Oh hey, what's up Twitter? I've been away on work trips. Oh, we're having a semantic fight about "concentration camps" instead of actually addressing the rolling horror of daily life in 21st century capitalism. Ok, let's start. /1
First, literally nothing that @AOC said about concentration camps is "insensitive" or "inaccurate." It is historically accurate (as about a billion historians and Jewish studies scholars have already pointed out on here, including my colleague @suzy_schneider) /2
@AOC @suzy_schneider whether "never again" refers only to Jews (a right-wing, nationalist position) or as an kind of grounding historical ethic is a political debate largely among Jews (and others) that has _nothing_ to do with antisemitism. It is only about politics, right and center vs. left. /3
Read 14 tweets
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Matt Blair
@mjblair
I'll say again that I don't think conservatives are stupid. Yes, there are stupid conservatives, but stupidity isn't what the conservative movement has surrendered itself to. It's surrendered itself to resentment and fear.
Conservative policies don't tend to be popular among the public, because they tend to screw the public. The powerful people who aim to implement such policies have tended to depend on aspirational voting and bullshit like trickle-down economics to get into power.
In America, there was a certain innocence to this as recently as Romney in 2012. The politics were divisive and the catering to white resentment was palpable, but there were still certainly cards you simply didn't play in polite company.
Read 26 tweets
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Linda KWS
@LindaKWS1
UN Human Rights commissioner regarding US immigration policies:

"The thought that any State would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable."

🇺🇸👇
The @UNHumanRights spoke out early last year about Session, republican GOP and Trump's inhumane policy of separating families..
The Trump administration stopped cooperating with UN investigations into human rights violations in America theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/0…
Read 39 tweets
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Sally Hayden
@sallyhayd
For the last 24 hours I've been texting & calling with refugees in Libya. 500 are apparently stuck in a Tripoli prison w/o food & water after heavy fighting broke out two days ago. They say their guards ran away, leaving them alone.
These refugees are men, women & children. They tried to cross the Mediterranean earlier this year, but were found by Italian boats, who turned them over to the EU-backed Libyan coastguard, who put them in prison. The conditions were already terrible before the fighting started.
Oh the phone earlier I could hear children crying & what sounded like bombing in the distance. The refugees say everyone's incredibly frightened. "We hear machine guns, tanks, big bombs, last night from the roof it was all fire."
Read 293 tweets
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Friend or Foe?
@starknightz
1. QAnon June 21 2018:

Organized riots being planned.
Counter measures in
place.

#QAnon @POTUS #News #Trump #TrumpTrain #Patriots #Pray #Fight #PainComing #EVIL #Immigrants #Children #BewareOfPlannedRiots
2. Rush: Border Separation 'Entirely Manufactured Crisis'.
"This has been going on for years. It happened during the Obama admin. Nobody said a word.. newsmax.com/politics/borde…

#QAnon @POTUS #News #Trump #Patriots #Pray #Fight #EVIL #FakeNews #Immigrants #BewareOfPlannedRiots
3. Liberal Hacks Attack Gov Mike Huckabee for Denouncing MS-13 Killers and Rapists thegatewaypundit.com/2018/06/figure…

#QAnon @POTUS #News #Trump #TrumpTrain #Patriots #Pray #Fight #Parents #Immigrants #Illegals #Children #BewareOfPlannedRiots #EVIL
Read 48 tweets

Trending hashtags

#giant #UK #CASE #UN #employment #France #HangTough #HystericallyDismissive #History #dehumanization #Obama #prisonreform #Immigrants #lesbos #Deaths #ElHiblu1 #home #mentalhealth #drink #Lifeline #ImmigrationReform #WhatDidCongressKnowAndWhenDidTheyKnowIt #immigrants #USA #Fight
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