I, Hans.

lethal words, Italy's Lega Nord major creator of

Informed Comment: Wertheim: Wilders’ Lethal Words:

Elihu Richter from Israel met a group of older Moroccan Amsterdammers in Auschwitz. They wanted to understand how it all could have happened. When one of them said whoever did the selecting and gassing were monsters and not human beings, Richter replied that they had been nursed by their mothers and played with other children just like anyone else. They had been turned into monsters by “lethal words.” The conversation also included other mass murders like the one in Ruanda. And Richter summed up the lethal words: garbage, monkeys, rotting corpses, rats, typhus, cancerous tumors, cockroaches, worms and parasites (Auschwitz Bulletin 2008/3).

Mass massacres all across the globe are frequently referred to as spontaneous. We all wonder in despair why no one saw them coming. It later turns out that the omens, the lethal words, had been around for years. But freedom of speech is sacrosanct and calling it racism is ridiculous. Someone simply started killing someone else and that set off the sinister circle of revenge, fear of revenge, seeing the killing, the fear of death, and more revenge.

People do not simply pick up their rifle or machete and go out on the street with it. There has to be hatred all around, and even more importantly, there has to be fear. It is not uncommon for fear to be the real reason for killing. Richter’s lethal words might all seem similar, but they aren’t. Garbage, monkeys, worms and cockroaches are dirty or inferior. Thus automatically making the speaker superior. Typhus, rats, rotting corpses, cancerous tumours and parasites have to do with disease and invasion. They transform the speaker into a potential victim. Degradation and branding as dangerous all mixed together makes for a very toxic brew.

The qualifying (lethal) words aren't the problem. The "the Jews", "the Muslim" word is the problem. "Jews", "Muslim" do not exist as such, the summing up of persons to an entity allows for deadly qualifying. Every single one of us is part of many identifying groups.Amartya Sen has written extensively about it.Just try to imagine how stupid a term like baby boomer is when qualified further.

Do yourself a favor, read it all.

Petraeus's surge isn't the only successful one in Iraq.

Global Voices Online » Iraq: Organised ‘crackdown’ on homosexuals:
According to IraqiLGBT, over 400 homosexual men have been killed since 2003. The incidents against homosexuals appear to be increasing in frequency, with over 25 men killed in the last month, due to an increase in the proliferation of death squads and militia groups, some of which, according to IraqiLGBT, appear to have the backing not only of religious figures but also the Iraqi authorities.